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Presidential Pardon

After Biden’s Grants Of Clemency, Calls To Commute Leonard Peltier Reignite

December 28, 2024 Darren Thompson, Unicorn Riot. , , , ,
Washington, D.C. — Last week, after President Biden made the historic act of commuting the sentences of 1,499 Americans in a single day, efforts to free Leonard Peltier have reignited. On Thursday, Dec. 12 — the day after Biden announced clemency — dozens of U.S. senators and representatives wrote a letter to the President asking for clemency for Leonard Peltier. Tribal leaders and organizers have praised the act by federal leaders: “We would like to thank Senator [Brian] Schatz and Representative [Raúl] Grijalva for their solidarity as well as the other senators and congresspeople who signed on to the letter,” said NDN Collective CEO Nick Tilsen to Unicorn Riot.

The Problem With Joe And Hunter

December 7, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden was inevitable and inevitably controversial. Hunter Biden is the quintessential nepotism baby, the recipient of privileges such as being appointed to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Burisma paid him $50,000 per month for doing nothing other than existing with the last name Biden. The younger Biden was the butt of jokes for years, a cocaine addict who somehow managed to never have any interaction with the criminal justice system and who achieved nothing without an assist from his father.

Hunter Biden’s Clemency Represents White Privilege In Overdrive

December 6, 2024 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
A Chicano activist in Oakland, California, Al Osorio, said he was appalled but not surprised to hear that President Joe Biden had pardoned his son Hunter Biden on federal tax and gun charges stemming from a period when he was addicted to crack cocaine . “My first thought regarding Biden was: ‘what about Marcellus Williams?’” Osorio told Black Agenda Report in an interview, recalling the African American man executed by the state of Missouri in September despite the absence of forensic evidence linking him to the murder of a St. Louis woman. “What about Leonard Peltier?” he said of the 80-year-old Native American activist who has been imprisoned since 1976 for allegedly murdering two FBI agents.

The Biden Family Of Liars

December 6, 2024 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. , , ,
With his shocking presidential pardon of his son Hunter, announced Thanksgiving weekend, when the maximum number of Americans would be watching football games and consuming potato chips, Joe Biden goes out just as he was the whole of his tatty career as a politician — a self-serving fiddler, indifferent to democratic process, ever going against his word. Peter Baker, that inimitable (thank goodness) clerk The New York Times posts as its chief White House correspondent, tells us in Wednesday’s editions, “We don’t really know how history will remember Joe Biden. It’s too early to say, obviously.” Actually, we really know at this point. Obviously.

Biden Should Commute All Current Death Sentences To Life In Prison

December 5, 2024 Matt Bruenig, People's Policy Project. , , ,
Two days ago, President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden for any federal crimes he committed in the last eleven years. Biden promised multiple times that he would not issue any such pardon. But as he enters the twilight of his presidency and his life, he apparently decided that protecting his family was more important than maintaining a certain kind of abstract legal system legitimacy. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of the Hunter Biden pardon, the act vividly highlights that Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the US constitution gives the President broad authority to unilaterally alter the fates of individuals convicted of federal crimes.

An Open Letter To President Joe Biden: Free Leonard Peltier

December 4, 2024 Stephen Millies, Struggle La Lucha. , , , , ,
Mr. President, If you can pardon your son, why can’t you free the Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier? The 80-year-old man, a leader of the American Indian Movement, has been imprisoned for 48 years. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and a heart condition. The FBI framed Leonard Peltier in retaliation for the historic 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. Three years of violence followed this courageous stand for Indigenous rights, with over 60 AIM members and supporters murdered. Despite a large FBI presence, nothing was done to stop these murders and even more numerous assaults.

On Pardoning Turkeys

November 27, 2021 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , ,
The White House on Friday revealed the names of the recipients of two pardons President Biden plans to issue—Peanut Butter and Jelly. The pardons are, of course, for two Thanksgiving turkeys, part of a stupid annual tradition where the president saves two turkeys from the Thanksgiving table. The tradition began in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln pardoned a turkey, an act that apparently wasn’t even reported in the media until 1865. By the early 20th century, it was common practice to give friends and family members live poultry as an early Christmas gift and to have them “pardon” the turkey or chicken as part of a “poultryless Thursday,” according to the White House Historical Society. How quaint.

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