At Least Biden Made With Some Preemptive Pardons On His Way Out The Door?
He knows better than anybody how bad it's going to get.
In the waning hours of Joe Biden’s presidency, while That Man was preparing to EMERGENCY executive-order 200+ dishes from the Hungarian/South American dictator fusion menu, turn TikTok into state media with a kickback for himself, pump out some meme coins, pardon 1,500 Capitol-rioting yeehaws, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, more TK, sweet, handsome, now dearly departed Old Joe issued some preemptive pardons for people who followed the law and served this country with the most bravery, and also five of his family members.
People who have not even been investigated, that’s a new one. And he granted clemency to Leonard Peltier, a posthumous pardon to Marcus Garvey, and pardons to four more nonviolent offenders: Darryl Chambers, a gun violence prevention advocate who was previously convicted of a nonviolent drug offense; Ravi Ragbir, an advocate for immigrants who was convicted of wire fraud in 2000 and has been facing deportation; Don Scott, a lawyer who served a sentence for a nonviolent drug offense and was elected to the Virginia Legislature in 2019 (and became the first Black speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates last year); and Kemba Smith, a criminal justice advocate and victim of domestic abuse who was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine for her boyfriend’s drug dealing, though she never sold or used drugs herself.
Could preemptive pardons have normalized Dictator Day One to do the same thing, preemptively pardoning his motley crew of little thugs and terrorists? We promise he was going to do that anyway. And pardons do not mean that the new administration will not find new things to charge the pardoned with anyway, or a million and one other ways to harass and terrorize people. It’s their specialty.
Biden’s pardons are a radical move for a man who usually boxes with Marquis of Queensberry rules, but he is also personally familiar with the realities of the beast slouching and farting into office.
The law now means whatever Herr Dictator, the Supreme Court, and Congress says it means, and who will stop him, when nobody could or was willing to for the four years he was not the Holy Executive? Here comes the revenge tour, and then some.
Biden’s pardons
The House January 6 Select Committee: Bennie Thompson, Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy, Jamie Raskin Maryland, Elaine Luria, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kitzinger.
FOR ANY OFFENSES against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in arising from or in any manner related to the activities or subject matter of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Also the “US Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee. The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.” This seemed to come as a surprise to the officers.
But there’s still plenty of other lower-lines on the Ivan Raiklin 200-plus-names enemies list to target, smear, charge with spurious crimes, or worse: people like Eugene Vindman; judges who faithfully tried their best to do their jobs in the face of relentless threats, like Merchan and Engoron; witnesses like Cassidy Hutchinson, Michael Cohen, or Andrew McCabe. Noted Rachel Vindman on BlueSky: “Whatever happens to my family, know this: No pardons were offered or discussed. I cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt I feel.” Yeah, that’s fairly fucked up.
The many other non-pardoned targets in Trump’s crossed asshairs have been gaming out the possibilities. Stay in the country? Leave, if one can? There’s no good choices. One such person, to New York Magazine’s Kerry Howley:
“… when you look at the authoritarian playbook in other countries, it’s not necessarily the people at the top of the list who get selected to go first to the wall.” A softer target offers less resistance. “And if the government starts to prosecute me, nobody knows who I am except for my friends. And so when there’s this sort of page-8 story about this guy getting prosecuted, Well, who knows what he did, and maybe he deserves it.
Also pardoned, Dr. Anthony Fauci:
FOR ANY OFFENSES against the United States which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon arising from or in any manner related to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.
ICY forgot, Trump could have FIRED FAUCI at any point during his term, but he never did. Instead he cast the bespectacled, soft-spoken career public servant as the star of conspiracy-theorist QAnon fantasies that he cooked up the virus in some Chinese kitchen and then denied everyone the horse-paste miracle cure.
Also General Mark Milley, whom Trump had threatened with execution:
FOR ANY OFFENSES against the United States, including but not limited to any offenses under the United States Code or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January l, 2014, through the date of this pardon arising from or in any manner related to his service as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mark Milley, who talked That Man down from making members of the military commit crimes, like bringing in military helicopters to shoot protestors, and instead forced him to settle for gassing everyone and holding up his upside-down Bible instead.
Because the thing about war crimes is that military people who commit them can still face consequences, when (if) a new administration comes in, or at The Hague. Trump can (and surely will) declare an EMERGENCY to take away everybody’s rights, and some kind of Pete Hegseth can command all the extrajudicial shootings he wants, but soldiers could still (theoretically) be accountable if they shoot an abuela for protesting.
But Trump didn’t want to hear it. And worst of all, Milley correctly told Bob Woodward that Trump is “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country,” and a “wannabe dictator.”
How bitter was the short-fingered man about the Milley pardon? He had this portrait yanked off the wall at the Pentagon within hours of his inauguration. Trying to erase history, right out of the wannabe-dictator playbook.
Biden’s pardons also cued up screams from the cult that the people are GUILTY OF MAJOR CRIMES, Trump moangroaning weaves from his pussy indoor inauguration that Biden pardoned “murders,” and chicken-fried chucklefuck James Comer RRR GRRing that Jamie Raskin is for sure guilty of something. But, they were going to complain anyway, pardons or no. Pardons are only for the likes of Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Charles Kushner, the rioters who pepper-sprayed police officers and smeared poop on the Capitol walls, and the Hamburglar, if he is gifting Rudy Giuliani an envelope with $2 million.
Welp, here we are, the first day of fighting against the end of our democracy. Wonkette will be right here with you, however it goes!
[AP/ New York Magazine archive link/ ABC News/ New York Times archive link/ Gothamist]
A hearty fuck off to everyone who said there's no difference between Democrats and republicans.
It's not the screams from the maga cult that bothers me, because they are maga. It's the screams from the MSM, which can't be trusted, but too many still do trust them, and the screams from Dems, blaming Biden for what the Abomination was going to do anyway. Dems and the MSM should know better and be better, but they are either weak or all in for fascism.