Pardon who? Hunter Biden case renews ethical debate over use and limits of peculiar presidential power

Trump: Filling his cabinet with conflicted individuals and loyalists, many of whom have had legal troubles and been pardoned by him.
Biden: Pardons a family member who has never held government office for a drug-related offence.
And which story dominates the news cycle? The media is more than complicit in the resurgence of fascism in this country.
- Maybe I'm being inflammatory, but I think this move might have saved his son's life. I wouldn't be surprised if the next administration was planning to make an example of Hunter to show off their newly radicalized DOJ
  
  Agree, due to the politization of the case, its no longer about legality or justice. Its a safety issue now, I dont feel like this is an ethical pardon, but the country voted against ethics, so im not going to be mad at this.
  If Harris had won then it would have been a very different matter, but the upcoming DOJ apointees will likely be 47s attack dogs and the biden family cant afford have any lingering cases for them to exploit.
  
  Could have gotten epstiened I guess.
  
  100%. Allowing Hunter Biden to be in the custody of Trump's doj would be a national security risk.
- The media is more than complicit in the resurgence of fascism in this country.
  YUP.
- Thing that's been dominating the news cycle for weeks is momentarily less dominant than thing that happened just yesterday.
  Must be because people are so unfair to that troubled youth who just needed help, Hunter Biden. Has nothing to do with Joe Biden promising to use presidential powers to pardon the indigent, disproportionately-black group of people who went to jail for possessing weed and instead using the powers specifically for his 54 year old millionaire son.
  
  Biden already pardoned everyone convicted of possessing weed. The only "non-violent" cannabis offenders in federal prison are dealers.
  
  LOL, like any of these papers give a fuck about pardoning weed prisoners. You're right that he should be pardoning more people, but the "debate" and "controversy" is entirely separate from that.
  
  Wow, this reads with so much hatred that it took me a few times to recognize the sarcasm. It's not even nuanced, it's just so angry-sounding and seemingly hate-filled that my emotions were louder than the actual words.
- If a nazi uses the n word...
  No one is surprised.
  When your only other option also uses it, that doesn't make it ok because they didn't mean to say it in public intentionally.
  When you settle for "a slip" and say that's ok, the only thing you're doing is making it easier for people to act like the nazi isn't that bad. Because you've normalized it
  If Biden wants to "take the low road" then fucking take it and do some good for the American people. Don't do it only for purely selfish reasons.
  That is why people are upset with Biden about this
  It's like saying it's ok to steal food for your starving family to justify stealing, then you just eat all the food yourself.
  There's a lot Biden can do to help Americans still, he just doesn't give a fuck.
  
  I don't care about this pardon because it's a crime around bullshit that affects nobody, and has only gone the way it has due to political nonsense. The vast majority of drug offenses are similar.
  I disagree with Trump's pardons because he has literally surrounded himself with career criminals, asked them to do criminal things, and pardoned them when they got in trouble for it.
  Only one of these two is institutionalized corruption.
  
  That's a fair criticism of Biden, but Biden wasn't being criticized by that comment, rather the media coverage was. The media has consistently shrugged their shoulders and acted like nothing was wrong as Trump time and time again utterly violates both conventions and laws, but the moment anyone not in the MAGA-sphere puts even a toe out of line it's treated as a huge scandal. Should Joe have pardoned Hunter? No it undermines the entire message of nobody is above the law, but at the same time it's such a trivial thing in the face of the absolute and complete disregard of both morals and laws shown by Trump and his team daily.
  In the face of such blatant double standards the media's rush to clutch their pearls in this case just rings as exceptionally hollow.
  
  I am honestly completely indifferent to Biden pardoning Hunter. My beef is with the media. This impacts the life of 1 person: Hunter Biden. They're giving it wall to wall coverage because it's drama and they're reality TV calling themselves journalists.
  
  This is very much not a trending story in the media because they want more pardons or more extreme action. It may be why you're upset, but you're interjecting yourself in an entirely less ideological fabricated controversy. It's a "tsk, tsk, the norms" response.
  
  All that Americans have left, on both sides I might add, is the desire to see the other side suffer. Republicans have been doing this for a while. The Trump presidency will disenfranchise the Democrats to the same level, evening the playing field.
  This is where America is at now. Just angry people with nothing left but to hurt some scapegoats.
  The only question is is this a race to the bottom (bottom being a civil war killing millions), or will the public wake the fuck up?

The time to worry about the limits of presidential power was during the supreme court decision on immunity
Now that cats out of the bag, there's no sense in Biden trying to adhere to standards that no longer exist
- True. Ain't nobody "reopening" debate except corporate news holes.
- Yup. Let him go crazy with those powers. As sour as it tastes, he was given authority to do so by the Federal Supreme Court. If MAGA doesn't like it they can kiss our collective asses and roll that shit back.
  They won't, of course, for a couple reasons:
  It IS another form of power
  They know the left will have plenty of people complaining whenever someone on their side decides to use it, while everyone on the Far Right will rejoice.
  I suggest those of you whining about this take a step back and look at the bigger issues. One of which happens to be rather rotund, orange, and requires us to stop bickering.
- You argument is quite literally "the president should just go ahead and misuse power right now because it was abused before." It's astonishing what you people will let Dems get away with and how little you consider the damage it does to the party's image, chances, conduct and culture.
  
  The damage is already done, why worry about image, chances conduct and culture in a country that's got no future either way
  He might as well do what he can while he can, none of it is going to matter for long
- Sooo....
  Why'd he just pardon his own son?
  Why isn't he trying to fix this broken law rather than just pardoning his own son who's in his 50s?
  Like, if the gloves are off shouldn't Biden be doing a bunch of stuff to help a lot of people at once?
  He's fine with his son breaking this gun law for crack, but won't de-regulate cannabis so Americans in states where it's legal won't be breaking the law by owning a gun?
  Drunks and (some special) crackheads can have guns but somebody who smokes a little green at night instead of a beer can't own a gun?
  Edit:
  After four years of political experts outling actions he can take...
  It's really fucking depressing some people honestly believe this is all he can do
  
  The president cannot create laws or change the constitution themselves. That's what the legislative branch does.
  
  Why isn't he trying to fix this broken law rather than just pardoning his own son who's in his 50s?
  Do you not understand what powers the President is given? Executive orders can only do so much, and it's irrelevant when the next administration can simply undo them in a month.
  
  The President doesn't make laws, Congress does. You need to be talking to your representative and Senators and holding them accountable.
  About cannabis specifically, he already pardoned the federal non-violent, non-distribution offenders. And his DOJ has recommended the DEA reschedule it to a Class III drug, they're the department that actually controls drug scheduling.
  State drug laws are not something the President has control of. Again that you be your State reps.
  You seem to either not understand how this works or are purposely ignoring that for whatever reason.

- Honestly, Biden should just go completely off the rails, and do all the shit Trump is threatening to do, including jailing political rivals. Including the red members of the SCOTUS. Give them plenty of warning, and plenty of time to reverse their prior ruling, but start following through if they decline to. Make them respond.
  
  Too bad the Democrats official motto is "when they go low, we sit here and do absofucukinglutly nothing but cry about it and let them tread all over us."
  
  I said months ago that Biden and the larger Democratic party needed to come out swinging. I doubled down after Biden's lackluster debate. When Harris hit the ground sprinting I was actually happy. Then some traditional democratic strategic asshat convinced her to simmer down and take a risky route that would only have worked 25 years ago.
  Step up, Dems. We've gone from cushy NFL offsides to NFL Blitz and you're waaay behind.

- Is going to and already has pardoned worse.

This is what does it? I'm not a fan of the nepotism, but there were plenty of worse cases that should've renewed the debate. Doesn't give me much hope for whatever comes out of this "debate".
- You'd think Trump and Giuliani selling pardons for $2 million a piece would be a much bigger example.
- No this is faux outrage.
  These people get angry at literally anything they are told to get angry at.

Oh my god, Biden did something vaguely questionable, clutch my fucking pearls.
- vague questionable on a case that was questionable. I still think of how clintons impeachment was due to a lie about a relationship with lewinski in the watergate investigation which they were cleared for but they still impeached due to the lie about the questionable personal relationship and then not having even that for biden they went after his son who at most used his name to make money. But trump was impeached because of withholding money to a foreign leader until they managed to pressure their press to give him a line of attack on his opponent. And the dems never impeached bush or reagan. sad.

As soon as a democrat does it, everyone suddenly cares? We should do this more often, clearly the magats need to see an example before they'll agree to fix the loopholes.
- It's easy to expect perfection from your opponents while crying about whataboutism when someone points out their side has done the same.

I know this is a questionable move, but with a gang of fascist crooks about to take over the USA it's a bit depressing to read headlines that are still stuck at "renews ethical debate". Fascists don't debate ethics or anything else, and particularly fascist autocrats and their enablers don't debate the ethical limits of presidential power. They have other ways of resolving matters, and people need to focus on preparing effective ways to defend themselves.

There is no "ethical debate" anymore. You're system is broken to the core and I don't blame Biden at all for saying "fuck it".
Hell, if I were him I'd use my so-called "Presidential Immunity" to do whatever he can to fuck up the MAGA agenda before he leaves.
"I'm putting 6 new judges on the supreme court, all democract. Why? Because fuck you, that's why."
"I'm giving two of our nukes because fuck Putin"

Yes, Biden made a bad decision
However
Trump pardoned all his friends and heavy criminals before, nobody gave a damn. He said he'd pardon all those in the January 6 coup , and he would pardon himself.
Biden did the right thing, not only for his family, because of course, but also to start this debate. Hopefully we can stop presidential pardons before trump gets in. Not that it will matter, trump will just do whatever the fuck he wants
- I'm not sure getting rid of presidential pardons is right either. There are cases of provably innocent people on death row who have been saved from execution by presidential pardon because the justice system otherwise failed them. It's not a perfect system, and it has failed more than it has saved, but until we reform the justice system (and probably ban the death penalty) stopping presidential pardons is a terrible idea.
  
  If innocent people in jail is a problems then pardons are NOT the solution.
  Fix the damn broken justice system. A fair justice system doesn't have as it's main goal to jail criminals, it has as its main goal to keep the innocent out.
  Better have a few criminals who unjustly stay out of jail than having a few innocents in jail

We want to elect a president who is a convicted fraudster, found to have committed a sexual assault, who incited people to overthrow the government and murder is VP then watched excitedly while it went down, and who has promised to suspend our rights to punish anyone who questions him...
And then, we want to talk about presidential ethics?
Yeah, no. That ship has sailed. Ethics will get much much worse, because that's what voters clearly selected. Lets not pretend anyone gives a shit.

Lmao the false equivalence is absolutely deafening

Ethical standards. Don't make me fucking laugh.

I'm hoping that this is just a start and won't be a single action. I can unfortunately see the side of everyone's opinion on this, good and bad, which is why it needs to be today's headline only because Trump hasn't put some other loyalist in a position today yet.

LOL, "debate".
The qons do whatever the hell they want, and dare anyone to push back. If anyone even clears their throat, the right cries about being "cancelled" or whatever.

Joe Biden is an embarrassment. This is another reason why the US chose trump, democrats have proven to be no different than the GOP. The republicans are honest about how corrupt they are. What a fucking sad state
- Yeah one has pardoned his son, while the other has raped children, been good friends with Epstein, is a felon, lies frequently, and has attempted overthrow the US government. They're totally the same thing!
  
  Epstein’s friend Bill Clinton? But seriously, they are NOT the same, but they are both own by the same people…and neither really care about the average person.