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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   36691 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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President Biden has "pre-emptively" pardoned

General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Members of Congress and staff who served on the Select Committee, and the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee

Or at least, he has made a statement to that effect; compare the Hunter pardon, which was fairly detailed, complete with dates. The "pre-emptive" pardon announcement has no details. What are they pardoned for? During what time periods? This appears to be a blanket memo to the future: "these people are immune from prosecution, for whatever, because fuck you that's why." It's not quite at the gobsmackingly presumptuous level of inventing fake Constitutional Amendments, but it seems like yet another example of the Biden administration (and its propaganda arm, the mainstream press) being everything it ever accused Trump of potentially being someday.

I admit: I do not have high hopes for the Trump administration. Mostly I'm hoping that Justices Alito and Thomas have the good sense to step down from SCOTUS before the Democrats are able to take back the Senate. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised? But the outgoing administration is acting like it has been dipping into the till and never expected it might actually be held accountable for that. In particular, the possibility that the January 6th riots were fomented by justice department lackeys, whether as a conspiracy or a prospiracy, is something the Biden administration absolutely does not want anyone looking into.

Biden insists:

The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.

Historically unprecedented, although the Hunter Biden pardon definitely moved things in this direction. Malicious prosecution of political enemies has long been a standard play for Democratic politicians and bureaucrats--the failed prosecution of Trump himself, of course, but also the well known IRS prosecution of conservatives, throwing the book at local conservative officials who defy federal law while winking at local progressive officials who defy federal law, et cetera.

Of course, the famous MAGA "lock her up" chant should not be forgotten, and Trump has indeed suggested on many occasions that certain people should probably be investigated for wrongdoing. But the presumptions on display--"Trump (who has never actually carried through on these threats) is just doing this illegitimately for political gain, but Democrats doing the same thing (and actually doing it) to their political enemies are just rooting out corruption, which is totally legitimate"--seem clear. I don't doubt that corruption is fairly rampant in DC, on both sides of the aisle. Politicians in general make my skin crawl. But I feel like the Democratic Party's catchphrase has very thoroughly become: "It's Different When We Do It."

If Trump doesn't blanket pardon everyone convicted of an offense on January 6, 2021, I will be disappointed in him. And if he does, the propagandists in the news media will cry bloody murder about it. I wish I was in a position to extract shame or embarrassment from them for this, because I feel like the world would be a better place if more journalists paid a heavier price for pretending to be "neutral" when they are actually functioning as shills.

The pardons only absolve the accused from being indicted, right? They don’t restrict Fauci and Milley from being investigated, do they?

Fauci is old enough at this point that sentencing him to a jail term is meaningless. Destroying their legacy and reputation would be much more enduring; no lobbying firm will touch Milley with a ten-foot pole if he’s the subject of a Congressional investigation, even if it doesn’t result in an indictment. Fact finding, getting to the bottom of it, etc. That’s what voters wanted when they pulled the lever for Trump, isn’t it?

I don’t know — Fauci having to spend a large chunk of his limited time left in jail would’ve seemed like justice.

Justice for what, though? If what he's technically being accused of would have been attributed to some faceless administrator whose name didn't come up until the middle of the investigations, few people would care about whether this person technically lied about funding an organization that may or may not have been funding gain of function research into coronaviruses. No, the ire directed at Fauci is almost entirely due to the recommendations he made during the pandemic and the people who didn't like them. These people had no love for Fauci before he was dragged in front of the committee and were looking for an excuse to nail his ass to the wall.

Sure, I'll cop to that. I don't really care whether Fauci did something illegal or not; I want revenge for the lockdowns.

I want Fauci to be subpoena'd and forced to testify until he does something technically illegal and goes to jail. I want the same thing done to the other covid hawks. It was knowable at the time that the lockdowns weren't justified, weren't going to be justified, and would do a lot of harm(after all, I predicted it in March 2020). Execute an admiral to encourage the others. This was an absolutely enormous public policy mistake.

Fauci worked with a major geo-political rival (China) to funnel US tax-payer money into performing bio-weapon gain of function research. Research that Congress had explicitly banned.

This is true. But at the same time it's remarkable that a person who bore some amount of responsibility for the existence of the pandemic in the first place then came out as a major advocate to curtail civil liberties as a response to the pandemic he helped create.

The sheer evil is off the charts.

I agree, being evil isn't a crime. Neither is funding dangerous research. But is it any wonder they want to bury this guy?

In any case, he won't get off scot free. The process is the punishment.

I agree, being evil isn't a crime. Neither is funding dangerous research.

When Congress explicitly banned the dangerous research it kind of is?

Unfortunately the 2014 prohibition didn't include any penalties so if they did go after him it would effectively be for embezzlement/misuse of government funds and property.

That would be OK -- maybe the whole pardon issue could be sidestepped by Trump ordering the DOJ to sue him (as a civil matter) for any and all damages incurred due to COVID?

While i feel like that would be reasonably justified i don't think it will happen.

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Perhaps it should be house arrest.

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