8mo ago

Pardon who? Hunter Biden case renews ethical debate over use and limits of peculiar presidential power

The decision by President Joe Biden to pardon his son, Hunter, despite previously suggesting he would not do so, has reopened debate over the use of the presidential pardon.

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Trump: Filling his cabinet with conflicted individuals and loyalists, many of whom have had legal troubles and been pardoned by him.
Biden: Pardons a family member who has never held government office for a drug-related offence.
And which story dominates the news cycle? The media is more than complicit in the resurgence of fascism in this country.
- Thing that's been dominating the news cycle for weeks is momentarily less dominant than thing that happened just yesterday.
  Must be because people are so unfair to that troubled youth who just needed help, Hunter Biden. Has nothing to do with Joe Biden promising to use presidential powers to pardon the indigent, disproportionately-black group of people who went to jail for possessing weed and instead using the powers specifically for his 54 year old millionaire son.
  
  Biden already pardoned everyone convicted of possessing weed. The only "non-violent" cannabis offenders in federal prison are dealers.
  
  LOL, like any of these papers give a fuck about pardoning weed prisoners. You're right that he should be pardoning more people, but the "debate" and "controversy" is entirely separate from that.
- The media is more than complicit in the resurgence of fascism in this country.
  YUP.
The time to worry about the limits of presidential power was during the supreme court decision on immunity
Now that cats out of the bag, there's no sense in Biden trying to adhere to standards that no longer exist
- True. Ain't nobody "reopening" debate except corporate news holes.
- Yup. Let him go crazy with those powers. As sour as it tastes, he was given authority to do so by the Federal Supreme Court. If MAGA doesn't like it they can kiss our collective asses and roll that shit back.
  They won't, of course, for a couple reasons:
  It IS another form of power
  They know the left will have plenty of people complaining whenever someone on their side decides to use it, while everyone on the Far Right will rejoice.
  I suggest those of you whining about this take a step back and look at the bigger issues. One of which happens to be rather rotund, orange, and requires us to stop bickering.
- You argument is quite literally "the president should just go ahead and misuse power right now because it was abused before." It's astonishing what you people will let Dems get away with and how little you consider the damage it does to the party's image, chances, conduct and culture.
  
  The damage is already done, why worry about image, chances conduct and culture in a country that's got no future either way
  He might as well do what he can while he can, none of it is going to matter for long
- Honestly, Biden should just go completely off the rails, and do all the shit Trump is threatening to do, including jailing political rivals. Including the red members of the SCOTUS. Give them plenty of warning, and plenty of time to reverse their prior ruling, but start following through if they decline to. Make them respond.
  
  Too bad the Democrats official motto is "when they go low, we sit here and do absofucukinglutly nothing but cry about it and let them tread all over us."
  
  I said months ago that Biden and the larger Democratic party needed to come out swinging. I doubled down after Biden's lackluster debate. When Harris hit the ground sprinting I was actually happy. Then some traditional democratic strategic asshat convinced her to simmer down and take a risky route that would only have worked 25 years ago.
  Step up, Dems. We've gone from cushy NFL offsides to NFL Blitz and you're waaay behind.
- Is going to and already has pardoned worse.
This is what does it? I'm not a fan of the nepotism, but there were plenty of worse cases that should've renewed the debate. Doesn't give me much hope for whatever comes out of this "debate".
- You'd think Trump and Giuliani selling pardons for $2 million a piece would be a much bigger example.
As soon as a democrat does it, everyone suddenly cares? We should do this more often, clearly the magats need to see an example before they'll agree to fix the loopholes.
- It's easy to expect perfection from your opponents while crying about whataboutism when someone points out their side has done the same.
Oh my god, Biden did something vaguely questionable, clutch my fucking pearls.
- vague questionable on a case that was questionable. I still think of how clintons impeachment was due to a lie about a relationship with lewinski in the watergate investigation which they were cleared for but they still impeached due to the lie about the questionable personal relationship and then not having even that for biden they went after his son who at most used his name to make money. But trump was impeached because of withholding money to a foreign leader until they managed to pressure their press to give him a line of attack on his opponent. And the dems never impeached bush or reagan. sad.
I know this is a questionable move, but with a gang of fascist crooks about to take over the USA it's a bit depressing to read headlines that are still stuck at "renews ethical debate". Fascists don't debate ethics or anything else, and particularly fascist autocrats and their enablers don't debate the ethical limits of presidential power. They have other ways of resolving matters, and people need to focus on preparing effective ways to defend themselves.
We want to elect a president who is a convicted fraudster, found to have committed a sexual assault, who incited people to overthrow the government and murder is VP then watched excitedly while it went down, and who has promised to suspend our rights to punish anyone who questions him...
And then, we want to talk about presidential ethics?
Yeah, no. That ship has sailed. Ethics will get much much worse, because that's what voters clearly selected. Lets not pretend anyone gives a shit.
There is no "ethical debate" anymore. You're system is broken to the core and I don't blame Biden at all for saying "fuck it".
Hell, if I were him I'd use my so-called "Presidential Immunity" to do whatever he can to fuck up the MAGA agenda before he leaves.
"I'm putting 6 new judges on the supreme court, all democract. Why? Because fuck you, that's why."
"I'm giving two of our nukes because fuck Putin"
Ethical standards. Don't make me fucking laugh.
Lmao the false equivalence is absolutely deafening
LOL, "debate".
The qons do whatever the hell they want, and dare anyone to push back. If anyone even clears their throat, the right cries about being "cancelled" or whatever.
I'm hoping that this is just a start and won't be a single action. I can unfortunately see the side of everyone's opinion on this, good and bad, which is why it needs to be today's headline only because Trump hasn't put some other loyalist in a position today yet.
Joe Biden is an embarrassment. This is another reason why the US chose trump, democrats have proven to be no different than the GOP. The republicans are honest about how corrupt they are. What a fucking sad state
- Yeah one has pardoned his son, while the other has raped children, been good friends with Epstein, is a felon, lies frequently, and has attempted overthrow the US government. They're totally the same thing!
  
  Epstein’s friend Bill Clinton? But seriously, they are NOT the same, but they are both own by the same people…and neither really care about the average person.

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