The decision, which was first reported by NBC News, is a reversal for the president, who repeatedly said he would not use his authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence.

Summary

President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, reversing his prior stance against using executive clemency.

The pardon covers Hunter’s federal gun conviction and tax evasion guilty plea, sparking political controversy.

Biden cited political attacks and a “miscarriage of justice” as reasons for his decision, emphasizing his son’s recovery from addiction and the targeting of his family.

Critics argue the move undermines the judicial process, while supporters view it as within Biden’s constitutional powers.

This decision shields Hunter from potential prison time as Biden nears the end of his presidency.

  • GHiLA
    3426·
    5 months ago

    I’ve been a supporter since I was first able to vote for Obama’s first term. Not anymore, guys. You don’t do enough for us but virtue-signal when you have the ability to and you only think about yourselves when you don’t. I just don’t believe in them. They don’t stop fascism, they pause it, and in some cases, contribute to it by their cowardice, and pardoning his son is just taking a shit on all of us right before he leaves.

    I fully intend to do as much for the Democratic party of America going forward, as they have done for me, by ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist.

    then the fascists will win

    What’s this will shit? Buckle up, buttercup. The time for voting has passed. We’re in the endgame now.

    • pachrist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      144·
      5 months ago

      This is how I feel as well.

      The Democratic party has stood by at best and enabled at most. Are they better than Republicans? Yes, in that they don’t actively do some things they allow Republicans to do.

      A friend of mine described it as a dad (Republicans) molesting his kids. Mom (Democrats) know it’s happening, but can’t bring herself to do anything about it. Is mom better than dad? Technically yes?

      Anyone advocating for working inside the system to change the system is hoping the person enabling your absuser finds a conscience. It won’t happen.

      Go no contact. Vote third party. Vote independent.

    • Bwaz@lemmy.world
      102·
      5 months ago

      Well, the majority of the voting public were pretty clear about not giving a shit about using pardon power for family or even former henchmen. If it’s ok to not only pardon your son-in-law’s dad, but to also give him a plum European diplomatic post (!), it’s ok for any other president as well, no?

      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
        47·
        4 months ago

        Less than 1/3 of American voters voted for the orange man. The rest were apathetic or thought virtue abstaining would “send a message”.

        Edit to add actual numbers. 32.1% of eligible voters voted for him. 22.9% of the total US population. We need to stop this all-or-nothing mentality. A tiny fraction of the population voted him in, while the rest tried (31.0%), or did nothing. That 32.1% is only true if the votes were legitimate, which seeing how fragile the voting system is across the US, it may not be, and we also may never know.

          • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            4 months ago

            A subset of America. Life isn’t all or nothing. Electoral College helped a bit, although he barely did win the popular vote this time thanks to the abstainers. By raw population numbers (including those that can’t vote) only 22.9% of the US population voted for him. (32.1% of eligible voters, less than 1/3.)

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
      117·
      5 months ago

      So if you get to vote for president again you’re not going to vote Dem?

      Lmfao talk about fucking stupid…

      • Skates@feddit.nl
        47·
        5 months ago

        So if you get to vote for president again, you’d vote with the cunts who lied that you’ll never vote again?

        Stockholm syndrome is a thing, and democrats have it. I fucking hate Republicans and Trump, but seeing a dem try to pretend the other side is hell incarnate and that Trump is gonna remove elections, and in the same breath try to convince you to vote for them in the future SUPPOSEDLY REMOVED FUCKING ELECTIONS? Jesus fucking christ what a disgusting bag of hypocritical chodes your party can be. Go pardon a criminal just like your political opponent is running from justice, and then come back to the table in 4 years to say you’re not the same.

        Anyone voting for Republicans or democrats is fully fucking retarded.

      • GHiLA
        814·
        5 months ago

        No, I’ll vote for a real party that actually represents the people. The Democrats are fake. The sooner we replace them as our representatives, the better. They’re old hat, old shit.

        Perpetuating this trash fire isn’t any better than ending it.

        They are FALSE hope. Voting for them is a vote for apathy. They’ll only save the planet as far as their pocketbook allows.

        Remember when Bernie dropped out? They control people. They hold blackmail. They do the same shit we condemn Republicans for. Aren’t you tired of lies? Aren’t you tired of corruption just, less of it, being the norm?

        Wtf are we doing, bro?

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      I fully intend to do as much for the Democratic party of America going forward, as they have done for me, by ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist.

      So you are going to set yourself up as a lifetime loser. Got It. A lifetime loser in politics is someone who will either live his entire life never getting what he wants, or if he does get what he wants, it will only be because other people voted differently than he did.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
      65·
      5 months ago

      It goes much further back than Pres. Obama’s first term. Dems have always virtue-signaled for at least the last 30-40 years, and then blamed the repubs when something they promised doesn’t go through, even when they’re a majority. All the while insider-trading themselves to profitability. A handful of them stand up for the party’s purported ideals, which is just enough to make it seem the party might care. It’s all a sham.

      That being said, Pres. Biden’s administration did an admirable job cleaning up the mess left behind by Orange Man 1.0 when entire offices were devoid of employees, paper trails, documentation, state. They took too long to appoint an FCC chair, however, and didn’t even attempt to find a way to fix the DeJoy post office problem (which arguably would have been difficult.)

      But then, now, dems seemingly have been silent about the results of the election. They’re acting like the police did in 2020 after George Floyd’s death and silent-quit. One would like to hope they are attempting to do anything to ensure as little damage to the country takes place in the next 4+ years as possible, but, in a messaging vacuum, Occam’s Razor should apply, and they’re likely doing nothing.

      So many states have questionable voting security, and it’d be comparatively easy for a relatively smart person to inject temporary code patches on tallying machines, provided they could get the necessary signing certs (if the companies even cryptographically sign their code). It would only take a simple binary patch to execute only on a certain day/time to flip arbitrary votes, and otherwise never. Especially if that Starlink at swing locations thing was true, it could reroute DNS requests when the machines are online for updates, send them to some other IP address to download what looks like a valid patch to inject the sleeper code. (Completely speculation here, no actual evidence, and many pieces would be needed to get through a “trusted” system like the web certs as well, but man would I want to play with one of those machines and 100 ballots for a weekend.) It’d ostensibly be a 100% hands-off process and those “secured” locked down machines would do the dirty work themselves.

      If VW can figure out how to cheat emissions tests and otherwise act “normal”, flipping a vote bit is babytown frolics.

      That’s probably the most disappointing thing about all of this, learning that most of those in governance really don’t want to try.