What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Admiral Yi]

Bad move.

[crazy canuck]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

[Tamas]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

He didn't want to abandon his deadbeat son to his fate, even if it meant destroying his reputation. A move that hurts democracy but understandable on a personal level.

[garbon]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

He didn't want to abandon his deadbeat son to his fate, even if it meant destroying his reputation. A move that hurts democracy but understandable on a personal level.

.
And likely saw Americans now revel in corrupt leadership.

[crazy canuck]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

He didn't want to abandon his deadbeat son to his fate, even if it meant destroying his reputation. A move that hurts democracy but understandable on a personal level.

No, it's not understandable at all unless one excepts that the American system is entirely corrupt.

[crazy canuck]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

He didn't want to abandon his deadbeat son to his fate, even if it meant destroying his reputation. A move that hurts democracy but understandable on a personal level.

.
And likely saw Americans now revel in corrupt leadership.

And he decided what the hell I might as well join the party.

[Valmy]

Joe did it. Hunter pardoned.

Goddamnit

[HVC]

Joe did it. Hunter pardoned.

Goddamnit

That's how the foundation crumbles. Bit by bit, not all at once. 

[Tamas]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

He didn't want to abandon his deadbeat son to his fate, even if it meant destroying his reputation. A move that hurts democracy but understandable on a personal level.

No, it's not understandable at all unless one excepts that the American system is entirely corrupt.

I am not saying that this is not terrible from the point of view of anyone that is not the Hunter Biden or his parents.

I am saying that if I have lost two of my children already, and the third one was facing prosecution and jail time under a Trump presidency, when the electorate just bloody elected Trump and the shitshow around him, I would also prioritise my own child over the so-called health of the American democracy. That would make me destructive from the point of view of American democracy, yes. But I will not pretend I would let my kid be sent to jail just to help out this Trump-electing shitshow that passes for an electorate there.

[crazy canuck]

Biden decided to prove Trump was right about him.  Or maybe Biden has become so addled that he thought he had to try to become the most corrupt president ever.

He didn't want to abandon his deadbeat son to his fate, even if it meant destroying his reputation. A move that hurts democracy but understandable on a personal level.

No, it's not understandable at all unless one excepts that the American system is entirely corrupt.

I am not saying that this is not terrible from the point of view of anyone that is not the Hunter Biden or his parents.

I am saying that if I have lost two of my children already, and the third one was facing prosecution and jail time under a Trump presidency, when the electorate just bloody elected Trump and the shitshow around him, I would also prioritise my own child over the so-called health of the American democracy. That would make me destructive from the point of view of American democracy, yes. But I will not pretend I would let my kid be sent to jail just to help out this Trump-electing shitshow that passes for an electorate there.

You seem to have bought the excuse Biden used for is issuing the pardon.

His son was a screwup who actually did commit criminal offenses.  This shows how far the Democratic Party has fallen.  The voters they are supposed to be appealing to don't have rich daddies who can fix their fuck ups.  Biden exemplified everything that is wrong with privileged kids getting away with things that everybody else get sent to jail for.

[Barrister]

Joe did it. Hunter pardoned.

There is such a bad history of seemingly corrupt Presidential pardons though.

Jimmy Carter pardoned Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary) for molesting a 14 year old girl.
Ronald Reagan pardoned George Steinbrenner (convicted of illegal campaign contributions)
George HW Bush pardoned numerous people from Iran-Contra, plus Armand Hammer (oil company CEO who gave a lot in campaign contributions)
Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, plus Marc Rich (again big campaign contributions)
George W Bush - commuted Scooter Libby
Obama - commuted Chelsea Manning

It would be better if Joe Biden did not pardon Hunter, but I'm hard-pressed to get too outraged over it - certainly not compared to the bad pardons Trump gave (too many to bother trying to summarize)

[crazy canuck]

To turn the conversation in a slightly different direction, a two part question that hopefully people like Grumbler, Valmy and JR will likely know - What was the rationale for giving the president the power to pardon and how did the tradition of granting end of term pardons start?

[The Brain]

A wise man once said "you have to kill the sons of Brutus". As the story goes, at the birth of the Roman republic its main architect Brutus learnt that his sons were conspiring to bring back the King. He had them tried and executed.

Biden is a weak old fool.

[grumbler]

To turn the conversation in a slightly different direction, a two part question that hopefully people like Grumbler, Valmy and JR will likely know - What was the rationale for giving the president the power to pardon and how did the tradition of granting end of term pardons start?

The US President got the power because state governors had the power (because Royal governors had had that power because the king had had that power).  The idea was that it was a safeguard against injustices that the legal system could not address.

I'm not sure when the end-of-term bulk pardons became popular.  I'll look into it.

[grumbler]

I am a bit surprised over the hysteria caused by Biden doing what we knew he would do.  A very strong case could be made in favor of pardoning Hunter Biden even if he was unrelated to the president.  No one had been prosecuted previously solely for making a false statement on a gun permit application.  Biden had already paid all of his back taxes, interest, and penalties, and criminal prosecution is almost unheard-of solely for tax evasion in such cases.  His is a classic case for clemency.  The fact that he would be highly vulnerable to politically-motivated prosecutions by a Trump-directed Justice Department, just of because who he is, is a further argument in favor of a pardon.

Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, and democracy was only infinitesimally utterly destroyed by it.