politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Here's the thing. All things considered, I believe it was the right thing to do and probably the best option available given the circumstances, but a part of me still thinks that this just might end up making things worse.
I'm not even convinced that these things will hold. We have already learned that just because it says so in the Constitution doesn't mean this Supreme Court will abide by it, as they've already hand-waived away several Constitutional protections already and have essentially turned the Constitution into a very old piece of paper with guidelines that can be ignored when inconvenient.
Given this President and this Supreme Court, I could easily see the Supreme Court either spinning all new powers of "judicial review" when it comes to pardons all for itself out of thin air, or just saying that pre-emptive pardons aren't a thing and are therefore invalid. And when the precedent of Nixon's pardon is brought up, they could just say that it would have been struck down too had it been challenged. Or at least, they would have struck it down. Easy to say because Nixon's dead and it's moot one way or the other, so it's easy to twist it to their advantage.
And since accepting a pardon comes with the implication of guilt, the right wing conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day showing how this "proves" that Fauci, Milley, etc. are all guilty and should be prosecuted anyway. ("Even though the Biden pardons were all ruled invalid, the fact that these defendants had accepted them comes with the implication of guilt. That implication is not Constitutionally protected and therefore can be used against them in future prosecutions." -- This Supreme Court, probably, in the near future.) This will also lead to a groundswell of support from the rubes who will continue the march to dictatorship with thunderous applause as they start demanding that these people be prosecuted anyway, using their acceptance of the pardons in the first place as "proof" that they were right all along, these people were committing crimes, and they knew it.
Of course, if and when Trump writes his own pardon, the courts will gladly carve out an exception that applies only to Trump. His cronies may go to jail, but we all know what Trump thinks of his cronies once they stop being of use to him.