Joltin' Joe Biden

[GoCubsGo]

[Supsalemgr]

What have they done to need a pardon?

[O Really]

What have they done to need a pardon?

Dunno. Ask Trump - he's the one who thinks they should go to jail.

[Supsalemgr]

What have they done to need a pardon?

Dunno. Ask Trump - he's the one who thinks they should go to jail.

It speaks for itself. Then the pardons for his siblings and their spouses moments before his presidency ends really hurts his legacy. Everybody is legally off the hook.

I am not for this, but congress could still investigate the family's activities.

[Vrede too]

It speaks for itself. Then the pardons for his siblings and their spouses moments before his presidency ends really hurts his legacy. Everybody is legally off the hook.

You cultists' imaginary hook.

I am not for this, but congress could still investigate the family's activities.

Seriously?

... For years, Trump has levelled unproven accusations of corruption at both Biden and his family. In 2023, House Republicans launched a nearly yearlong investigation into the Bidens, examining their business dealings abroad, but found no criminal wrongdoing....

You 'tax and spend' RepuQs are too much!

... Biden's pardons cover all members of the House Select Committee that investigated the 6 January riot, as well as their staff and the officers who testified.

Good, blue-hating MAGA terrorists want to keep assaulting brave cops and other patriots.

As he prepared to leave the White House, Biden also commuted the life sentence of indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who was serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents. Peltier will transition to house arrest, Biden said in a statement....

Support for clemency

Peltier's conviction sparked great controversy and has drawn criticism from a number of prominent figures across a wide range of disciplines. In 1999, Peltier asserted on CNN that he did not commit the murders and does not know who did. Peltier has described himself as a political prisoner. Numerous public and legal appeals have been filed on his behalf; however, because of the consistent objection of the FBI, none of the resulting rulings has been made in his favor. His appeals for clemency received support from world-famous civil rights advocates, including Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and activist Rigoberta Menchú, and Mother Teresa. International and national government entities such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the European Parliament, and the Belgian Parliament, have all passed resolutions in favor of Peltier's clemency. Several human rights groups, including the International Federation for Human Rights and Amnesty International have launched campaigns advocating for Peltier's clemency. In the United States, the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Committee of Concerned Scientists, Inc., the National Lawyers Guild, and the American Association of Jurists are all supporters of clemency for Peltier.


Free Leonard Peltier sign, March 2009

The police officer who arrested Peltier, Bob Newbrook, is convinced that he "was extradited illegally and that he didn't get a fair trial in the United States"

On June 7, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a seventeen-page analysis of Peltier's detention, rendering the opinion that it contravenes "articles 2, 7, and 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 2 (1), 9 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is arbitrary and falls within categories III and V." The Working Group urged a "full and independent investigation" surrounding his detention and requested that the US government remedy his situation "without delay and bring it into conformity with the relevant international norms".

He's 80. Still,

[O Really]

Maybe Supsalemgr or some of his friends could do this if they wanted, but I'd like to hear any specific criminal law broken by the J6 committee or Fauci in the performance of their jobs, or any specific grounds for civil action related to their jobs. And if you're going to be vague like "obstruction of justice", then provide specific evidence to support it, as was done in the Trump charges.

[Supsalemgr]

Maybe Supsalemgr or some of his friends could do this if they wanted, but I'd like to hear any specific criminal law broken by the J6 committee or Fauci in the performance of their jobs, or any specific grounds for civil action related to their jobs. And if you're going to be vague like "obstruction of justice", then provide specific evidence to support it, as was done in the Trump charges.

Exactly the point. Why pardon someone who has not even been charged?

[GoCubsGo]

Maybe Supsalemgr or some of his friends could do this if they wanted, but I'd like to hear any specific criminal law broken by the J6 committee or Fauci in the performance of their jobs, or any specific grounds for civil action related to their jobs. And if you're going to be vague like "obstruction of justice", then provide specific evidence to support it, as was done in the Trump charges.

Exactly the point. Why pardon someone who has not even been charged?

Have you met today's republican party? They'll happily charge someone with no evidence because Trump said so.

Trump wants to charge the Jan 6 committee, what crimes could they possibly have committed?

[GoCubsGo]

BTW Supes, he said in the Oval that the Jan 6 committee should be prosecuted as he was pardoning the Jan 6 rioters.

[GoCubsGo]

Exactly the point. Why pardon someone who has not even been charged?

Gee, I wonder?

I also wonder why they didn't do this two years ago?

Any ideas?

Speaker Johnson forms committee to probe Jan. 6, Democrats’ original investigation

[Whack9]

BTW Supes, he said in the Oval that the Jan 6 committee should be prosecuted as he was pardoning the Jan 6 rioters.

You know how a lot of religions forbid the worshipping of idols because they don't want the idol to supersede the actual teachings and values of said religion?

I think the same can be said of the people who worship Trump and other patriotic symbols as idols as opposed to emphasizing and adhering to values of what the United States and a constitutional Republic is supposed to represent.

That's the only explanation I have for these people supporting some of the actions over the last few days. The capitol riot pardons are very disillusioning. I watched it unfold with my own eyes. I don't understand how one can claim to be both a patriot and a Trump sycophant at this point. Both are mutually exclusive.

[Vrede too]

You know how a lot of religions forbid the worshipping of idols because they don't want the idol to supersede the actual teachings and values of said religion?

I think the same can be said of the people who worship Trump and other patriotic symbols as idols as opposed to emphasizing and adhering to values of what the United States and a constitutional Republic is supposed to represent.

That's the only explanation I have for these people supporting some of the actions over the last few days. The capitol riot pardons are very disillusioning. I watched it unfold with my own eyes. I don't understand how one can claim to be both a patriot and a Trump sycophant at this point. Both are mutually exclusive.

Yep, that's how it works with both cults and fascist autocrats.

What about the worshipers of Fernando Botero (Colombian b. 1932)?

Career

... In 2004, Botero exhibited a series of 27 drawings and 23 paintings dealing with the violence in Colombia from 1999 through 2004. He donated the works to the National Museum of Colombia, where they were first exhibited.

In 2005, Botero gained considerable attention for his Abu Ghraib series, which was exhibited first in Europe. He based the works on reports of United States forces' abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. Beginning with an idea he had had on a plane journey, Botero produced more than 85 paintings and 100 drawings in exploring this concept and "painting out the poison". The series was exhibited at two United States locations in 2007, including Washington, DC. Botero said he would not sell any of the works, but would donate them to museums. In 2009, the Berkeley Art Museum acquired (as a gift from the artist) 56 paintings and drawings from the Abu Ghraib series, which can be seen online. Selections from the series have been regularly included in the museum's annual Art for Human Rights exhibitions.


Abu Ghraib, 2005, oil on canvas. Botero painted the abuses of Abu Ghraib between 2004 and 2005 as a permanent accusation.

In 2006, after having focused exclusively on the Abu Ghraib series for over 14 months, Botero returned to the themes of his early life such as the family and motherhood....

Wow, I may start worshiping him.

[Vrede too]

See Leonard Peltier post above.

Leonard Peltier, Native American activist, is released from prison after Biden commuted his life sentence

Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist who has always maintained his innocence in the killing of two FBI agents 50 years ago, returned to his home Tuesday in North Dakota hours after his release from a federal prison in Florida after then-President Joe Biden commuted his two life sentences.

The act of clemency permits Peltier, who is 80 and has been in declining health for years, to serve his remaining days in home confinement....

Coler, 28, and Williams, 27, were killed in June 1975 while on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where they were attempting to arrest a man on a federal warrant in connection with the theft of a pair of cowboy boots, according to the FBI's investigative files.

I know it's the Res, but FBI agents tracking down an alleged cowboy boot thief???

Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement, a grassroots activist organization that began in Minneapolis in the 1960s to challenge police brutality and the oppression of Indigenous rights. He was at Pine Ridge in the wake of a drawn-out protest two years earlier at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where armed AIM activists and Oglala Sioux tribal members had occupied the town and clashed with federal law enforcement officers. Two activists were killed.

Ah-ha, targeting an activist for false prosecution.

On the day Coler and Williams arrived at Pine Ridge, they radioed that they had come under fire in a shootout that lasted 10 minutes, the FBI said. Both men were fatally shot at close range.

Peltier was identified as the only person on the reservation in possession of an AR-15 rifle that could fire the type of bullet that killed the agents, according to investigators.

But dozens of people had participated in the gunfight; at trial, two co-defendants were acquitted after they claimed self-defense. When Peltier was tried separately in 1977, no witnesses who could identify him as the shooter were presented, and unknown to his defense lawyers at the time, the federal government had withheld a ballistics report indicating the fatal bullets didn't come from his weapon, according to court documents Peltier filed on appeal....

James Reynolds, the U.S. attorney whose office had handled the prosecution and appeal of Peltier's case, later became an advocate for his release, writing to various presidents, including Biden, to grant clemency.

He said he altered his views after taking into account the questionable evidence in such a chaotic setting when the crime occurred, the acquittal of Peltier's co-defendants in their own trial and the historic mistreatment of Native Americans by the federal government.

"The case is just a tremendous miscarriage of justice, in my opinion," Reynolds, who was appointed by Carter, said in a phone interview. "I realized that it wasn't right what they did to Leonard. Enough was enough."...

Should have been released long long ago, but this is racist fascist Amerikkka.