• @[email protected]
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    1414 hours ago

    How come ole Joe didn’t pardon all the democrats in America if we wanted to save people from the wrath of Trump? He had the constitutional power to do it after all…

    • @474D
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      1114 hours ago

      He’s been clear that he never wanted to drop out of the race, he probably isn’t too happy with Democrats either

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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      13 hours ago

      Because the pardons have to either, name individuals, or specify a specific group of people, like “Members of the Jan 6 Commitee” or “Any Persons who have avoided the conscription pertaining to the Vietnam War.”

      Something like “All Registered Democrats” would be too broad and this 6-3 conservative supreme court would definite step in and void it.

      • @[email protected]
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        512 hours ago

        Who says a specific group of people can’t be, “All Americans?” There’s nothing in the Constitution that provides limits on the pardon power. In theory, if they wanted to, a president could issue a pardon for every American for every violation of federal law ever committed.

        • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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          12 hours ago

          There’s nothing in the Constitution that provides limits on the pardon power.

          Well, the constitution never explicitly gave the supreme court the power of judicial review, but they just grabbed that power and everyone in government just rolled with it.

          Similarly, the supreme court could rule that if a pardon is “too broad” then its not valid. And then trump just take that ruling and say “hey look, the supreme court says the pardons are invalid, ARREST THE DEMS!”

          Edit: And also, if Biden did that, he could inadvertently free people who are rightfully convicted of violent crimes. Think of all the mass shooters in prison right now. And also it wouldn’t matter anyways. Being LGBT is still on the way of getting outlawed in the future. Political dissent can still be suppressed via a weaponized DoJ. Pardons don’t apply to the future

          • @[email protected]
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            110 hours ago

            Of course there could be rulings on anything. But you’re inventing the “specificity” argument from whole cloth. Historically, there has never been any ruling establishing such limits on presidential pardons. And it’s not even on the radar of potential rulings circulating in right-wing circles. There are a lot of dubious legal theories that right wingers have proposed, such as creative interpretations to get around birthright citizenship. But there aren’t conservative legal scholars out there arguing that the pardoning power should be redefined.

            The court could also just straight-up rule various demographic groups to be illegal and worthy of imprisonment without trial. There’s really no point on worrying about purely hypothetical rulings that have no evidence that they are even being considered.

            The is an invention entirely of your own creation.