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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Kind of loving the fact that Biden, being old as shit, on his way out, and having been betrayed by his own party is willing to torch anyone and everyone who was counting on him to remain sidelined for the remainder of his term.

Also as usual I love that Twitter is a pretty good archive of public figures' stated positions on issues in the past so they can be dredged up when they blatantly alter said position without cause.

Community Notes is having a field day.

Not under the illusion that this will cause any contrition or self-reflection, but these folks are soon to be out of power for a while so I can take humor from this, rather than annoyance.

And finally, I generally support the Office of the Presidency having unilateral, unquestioned authority to pardon (federal) criminals although for somewhat obvious reasons which I can elucidate if needed, I think the pardons need to be precise and specifically define which crimes are being pardoned. And of course has to actually be retroactive, not prospective.

So Biden's approach to blanket pardoning Hunter's crimes during a broad period of time is raising my eyebrows quite a bit. Not claiming anything specific but if it comes out later that he did something, I dunno, treasonous that would be a HORRIBLE look.

I think the pardons need to be precise and specifically define which crimes are being pardoned

Nope. With the discretion that the prosecutors have and the US penalty code vastness - let's say for Jan 6 participants, anything but a blank pardon will leave further door for prosecution.

Pardoning someone for any Federal crimes they committed specifically on the date of January 6th, 2021 and maybe even narrowing it to crimes that did not involve bodily injury, is not that difficult to do.

Insufficient; clever prosecutors would get them for conspiracy, committed on the date they decided to go to DC.

And that is literally a blank pardon with a small asterisk