I wasn’t planning on having a topic this week but I read an article in Slate by Mark Joseph Stern that I believe actually has meritorious critque of Biden pardoning his son. Rather than tut-tut over the pardon in comparing it to Rump’s numeous odious pardons, Stern looks at from the perspective of who typically gets pardon and how Biden has issued less pardons than any president since Nixon.
“ The Framers envisioned executive clemency as a safety valve to correct overly harsh and inequitable sentences. And that’s how the pardon power operated in early American history: Prosecutors and judges routinely recommended clemency in unjust cases, which presidents granted as a matter of course.” writes Stern. He uses this fact to assert that Biden, and other presidents, should have been issuing more pardons not less in the modern age. Given the way the DOJ dispenses justice depending on the person who is subject of a prosecution plus the fact that many federal innmates have been languishing in prison thanks to mandatory minimums that are onerous in related to the crimes of which they pled guilty or were convicted, more people are deserving of clemency than have been granted it.
Stern notes in the late 1970’s, pardon recommendations were passed to a beaucracy within the DOJ run by federal prosecutors. This reduced the willingness of the pardon office to reccomend clemency for ordindary citizens; this created a two-track system for clemency applications. Ordinary citizens were at the behest of prosecutors who were unlikely to want to grant clemency while the rich and well connected could go above the pardon office straight to the White House and get a faster grant of clemency, As an example, Stern writes, “The pardon attorney has received about 12,000 petitions during Biden’s term, according to the New York Times, yet the president has handed down a mere 157 grants of clemency.”
Obviously, I am all for President Biden pardoning his son considering how likely it will be that a fucknut like Ka$h Patel will atempt to use the FBI to go after Hunter and probably numerous others for purely assholic reasons. All those who are clunching their pearls and falling on their fainting couches can fuck all the way off. While I barely watch MSNBC anymore, I do occasionally get segments recommended to me on YouTube. I was glad to see Rachel Maddow agree with me.
Hope everyone had a wonderful however you celebrate last Thursday. I ate a ton at a buffet overlooking the Great South Bay on Long Island and still mamnged to lose a pound this week. Go me!
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