Summary

In his final hours as president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the Jan. 6 Committee, aiming to shield them from potential retaliation by the incoming Trump administration.

Trump has hinted at targeting those who opposed him or investigated his actions.

Biden stressed that the pardons do not imply wrongdoing but protect reputations and finances from politically motivated investigations.

This unprecedented move reflects concerns about threats to democracy under Trump’s return to power.

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 hours ago

    The fact that they recognize this is necessary, yet still just willingly handed over power…

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      9 hours ago

      That’s how democracy works. You accept the results even if you don’t like them. Otherwise, they’d be no better than the Jan 6 trash from this time 4 years ago.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 hours ago

        I agree. Unless those results are fascism.

        We have learned why it’s important to have an exception for fascism.

        Looks like South Korea understands that better than we do.

        • Skvlp@lemm.ee
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          9 hours ago

          South Korea acted swiftly. The US has been sitting on its ass for four whole years. They should have acted before the fascist was re-elected.

        • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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          9 hours ago

          No, no we shouldn’t.

          1. The word “Fascism” gets thrown around for goddamned everything (same as Nazi) just like how “terrorism” has a sliding definition.
          2. There was no evidence of fraud in the election; the people spoke and this is the turd we got. I’m not going to finger-point and blame (though I could), but suffice it to say we failed our civic duties.

          This is just a case of you not liking the results (I don’t like them either). Again, the people spoke, and this is what we got. It sucks, but it’s on the up and up.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            9 hours ago

            This is literal fascism. Read a history book to figure out how fascism always turns out and why it’s vital for any “free” society to do literally anything it can to prevent it from taking root.

            Elections aren’t the be-all, end-all. People made the objectively wrong decision.

            • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              They made the decision. Either to vote for the insurrectionist rapist, or to sit it out because of ONE issue happening across the world. Yet none of them own up to it, choosing instead to blame the politicians for not giving them an ideal choice.

              • Grimy@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                Imagine if you heard this from a republican. He only raped ONE girl, he only gave ONE box of highly sensitive documents to the Saudis, he only tried to overthrow ONE election.

                That issue is fucking genocide and it was being enabled by our goverment. I understood the importance of holding the line leading up to the election and supporting the dems but now that it is over? They are corrupt and decided to placate their patrons because they thought they had an easy win and could ignore voters. They ran on apathy. They caused this directly.

                The democrats need to change. We can’t normalize genocide, even if it’s only ONE genocide. Stop blaming voters, it’s the dems job to listen to them and they alienated half their base instead.

                • Azteh@lemmy.world
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                  7 hours ago

                  It’s more or less the fact that Trump isn’t going to do any better down there, so for this particular issue, whomever you vote for, you get the same result. Why not look at the bigger picture then?

                  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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                    7 hours ago

                    I understand that and it’s why I was very vocal before the election about the importance of voting for her anyways. But can we hold them accountable now that it is over? They completely shit the bed.

                    I don’t want to find myself voting for whatever atrocity their donors come up with again in 4 years. They won’t change if we keep patting them on the back and telling them it’s the voters that are stupid.

                    Dead children, status quo and fracking is a terrible platform to run on. They deserved to lose. We didn’t deserve for them to lose, but they did it to themselves and I don’t want them to do it a second time, for our sake.

                • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  I think if the US isn’t involved at all, there’s still genocide in that region, one way or another. Maybe it takes longer.

                  I’d still rather we didn’t directly support it. I think it’s partly because we have too much AIPAC in our politics. I just don’t think we’re the cause.

            • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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              8 hours ago

              Be that as it may, that’s what the country voted for and got. There was a free and fair election, and we fucked up royally.

      • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Funny how the other side just reverts to threats and intimidation when they don’t get what they want.

      • Ragdoll X@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Well according to the supreme court he could just order Seal Team Six to kill Trump as long as he called it an “official act”.

        But Dark Brandon never came…

        • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 hours ago

          Supreme court said if Biden tried to give such orders, he cannot be prosecuted for it.

          But Supreme court never gave the president the authority to do it.

          Basically it favors republicans because the military and law enforcement leans right wing.

          Biden: “Kill donald trump for his treason against the United States”

          Military: “Sorry Mr.President, we’re unable to do that”

          Biden cannot be prosecuted for the attempt, but the attempt won’t suceed either

          trump: “Kill these dEMs, they very bigly bad for 'murica”

          Military, after trump’s purges: “Yes sir”

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            I think he should have started jailing congressmen until they agreed to make a law overturning the immunity decision.

            But that can “make things worse” in the same way these pardons did. And they were extremely aware of that.

            There’s no winning in this scenario. The people voted against the rule of law. It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize, but what are they supposed to do about it? Perform a coup against the will of the people? It’s doing the same damn thing we were just trying to stop.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 hours ago

        I don’t fucking know what he was supposed to do, I’m not a lawyer, general or constitutional scholar.