I read over Biden's statement, and it makes sense to me. Hunter was singled out for political purposes. It would seem weird if Biden didn't issue the pardon.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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I mean, i can see why. What are a few drugs, tax fraud and gun felony next to being cumplicit in the genocide of an entire people.
I bet Biden is proud of his son, for being a little better than him. Hopefully, Hunter's son will only get speeding tickets.
Not world news. It's an internal matter of the US.
The US is part of the world.
In North American monarchy, dictator uses his powers to pardon his son
The Constitution is set up so that a single representative civilian citizen is elected by all the other citizens to oversee the nation. That person occupies the Executive Office.
Constitutionally speaking, the representative of the people decided that the Justice System was being used punitively. The Constitution grants the Executive Office the power of pardons explicitly in case the Justice System is being used punitively.
This isn't a bug, it's a feature.
Damnit Joe! You could have at least waited for the December 16 sentencing. As a first time offender he might have gotten off with a slap on the wrist (depending on the judge) and you wouldn’t look like such a hypocrite for letting him just be sentenced. By acting preemptively, you’re just sending the signal that it doesn’t matter what crimes were committed, he won’t be held accountable. If you’re going to stand on principle for four years, doing nothing to ensure Trump faces consequences, why throw it away at the very end. What a clusterfuck our political system has become.
So what? Half you all voted for a felon rapist. Don’t pretend you have morals.
What you're exercising here is called whataboutism, and it's a really shitty thing to do.
So is sexual assault, and the next president has done that too
Ok, and? How does that have any bearing on what Biden did?
The author of the crime bill, responsible for the massive incarceration and enslavement of poor people in the US who spoke to congress about not giving a single shit about the circumstances of people who committed crimes, lock em up first ask questions later, just pardoned his son before sentencing because he's a poor widdle misunderstood boi who didn't know any better and his circumstances were so tough, what with having a senator dad with a lot of money.
Fucking blue MAGA I stg
Lame duck don't give a fuck.
They were TRUMPed up charges anyway.
We've spent the last decade seeing repeatedly that the law doesn't mean shit for the red team; is anyone actually surprised that blue is saying 'fuck it' now, too?
...but since we're just openly abusing presidential power now, any chance he'll use it to get something actually useful done, or we stopping at individual favors?
My take is that he thinks his son wouldnt be safe in prison under Trump. And that is a reasonable assumption imo.
All the immigrants will not be safe unter trump also, but nobody cares about them do they?
Apparently not enough cared to vote for them. You know, they can't afford eggs bro
Just wait for the tariffs to kick in, then they will live as kings and there will be no economic problems ever again /s
Are they charged or convicted of a federal crime where a pardon is even relevant? It's not a power to grant citizenships or a genie wish.
Now, the whole 'president can down whatever they like as an official act' that the SCOTUS gave recently is another matter...
That is the bed that Biden made when he decided to massively incarcerate poor people to get some free labor for corporations.
I could give a damn, but you know, it's an overall race to the bottom
Reading this I just realised I can no longer tell if Americans mean could or couldn't when they type could.
I couldn't tell you why
Ah at least couldn't provides the relief of certainty. I won't ask you then
Another banger from the party of checks and balances.
I can't believe a PRESIDENT would LIE like that!
-Fox, probably
In all fairness, I doubt he remembers making that promise in the first place.
Off-topic, ...with almost everybody having a cell phone in hands why do we still elect anybody to represent us? It's because that's how it always been?
Because it's hard for a committee of 334,000,000 to make decisions? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question though. Are you suggesting more of a bottom-up, local-first way of running things? I think there would still have to be representatives at various levels, for the same reason.
We don’t build bridges by committee, why would politics be better?
It’s a specific skill set to understand legalese and the processes
Legislation is still pretty complicated, having professional legislators makes sense just as a technical profession.
We could certainly stand to have more direct input though!
TBF I don't think a system of thousands of referendums would be much better. What I take bigger issue with is the electoral college, but I don't have a good solution in mind. Popular vote wouldn't be much better, especially because of how it would affect campaigning.
I think about this sometimes but the challenges for direct democracy are very hard to overcome. To vote right now, you go to a place and someone verifies your identity and then you vote on a machine that should theoretically have not just your vote but some form of backup to ensure your vote is counted.
Obviously this would get really obnoxious if you were voting constantly. So something like change.org maybe where people can propose things and others can vote on them. But now how do we handle identity verification, and ensuring only one vote per person? On something connected to the Internet, how do we verify security? This needs to be even more secure than a bank, as every hacker and government in the world will want to sway the results.
We could maybe distribute something like a USB key to cryptographically ensure everyone's identity, but then you will need to handle people losing theirs, or theft, and it wouldn't work great with cell phones. There's other identity solutions like scanning documents or facial ID but they have their own security issues and also are a nightmare for privacy.
I dunno. There's probably a solution out there that might work, but it would take a lot of work to make it trustworthy and that work would largely be overseen by people the system is meant to replace so they aren't exactly incentivized to get it right.
My wife read this to me last night.
Wife: So apparently Biden pardoned his son
Me: Cool. Can’t blame him.
Wife: Of course people are say…
Me: Fuck ‘em.
Wife: You know because he promised…
Me: Fuck ‘em.
Honestly, at this point, what do those pledges even matter? Integrity is not worth much in politics nowadays. People will just vote whomever makes the bigger promises.