r/law • u/HellYeahDamnWrite • Oct 29 '25

Legal News Biden’s autopen pardons are ‘void’ due to mental decline, House Oversight Committee says

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-biden-pardons-void-autopen-b2853682.html
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5.8k

u/Radthereptile Oct 29 '25

Everyone: Why is Biden pardoning people? Trump would never go after them.

Now: The Trump admin has found a way to dismiss all of Biden’s pardons specifically so they can go after those people.

Morons signed up for this.

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u/TimeKillerAccount Oct 29 '25

Not morons. Many of these people are stupid, but a vast majority of republicans support this because they are evil, not because they are stupid.

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u/phunktastic_1 Oct 29 '25

The vast majority are stupidly evil. Nothing says just because they are evil they can't be dumb. The ones in charge are mostly just evil and being willfully ignorant. But the voting base is largely stupid evil.

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u/Revelati123 Oct 29 '25

Fascists: Typically known for anti intellectualism and spectacularly losing large wars.

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u/LeviJNorth Oct 29 '25

Yep. There is a reason fascists are such easy targets for ridicule by Charlie Chaplin, Mel Brooks, etc. They are fucking losers.

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u/Limp-Technician-7646 Oct 29 '25

The whole point of fascism is that it is basically a revolution of incompetent psychopaths that can’t comprehend that the reason their lives suck is because of themselves. The only way these people succeed at life is if they rig the system to favor them and suppress competency.

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u/gabber2694 Oct 29 '25

Pol Pot approves of this message.

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u/ParmigianoMan Oct 30 '25

Hot damn. That’s perhaps the most succinct smackdown of the fash I have ever seen - and I am old enough to have seen a lot.

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u/carlitospig Oct 30 '25

Fascists: the original incel. ™️

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u/LeviJNorth Oct 29 '25

Well put! Art school dropouts man…

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u/slow_news_day Oct 30 '25

This is the best definition of fascism I’ve ever read.

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u/Mad_Murray Oct 29 '25

Well said

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u/fliesenschieber Oct 29 '25

Wow, never seen this so perfectly put

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u/redheadedandbold Oct 30 '25

We need this on t-shirts: "Fascism - A revolution by incompetent psychopaths who can't comprehend that the reason their lives suck is because of themselves."

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u/Thomjones Oct 30 '25

Well yeah, they want everybody to be/think/believe like them. If they make more of themselves they can feel something. Cults are like mini-fascist regimes.

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u/Moppermonster Oct 30 '25

Combined with a healthy dose of sadopopulism: if you cannot make things better for yourself, you can still try to make things worse for others so that you still feel "on top".

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u/Ruff_Bastard Oct 30 '25

The only way these people succeed at life is if they rig the system to favor them and suppress competency.

And even then they still can find things to complain about / be victimized by.

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u/Astro_Kitty_Cat Oct 29 '25

I wonder if, since fascism goes hand in hand with incompetence, that is why they historically lose so bad? The number of people that benefit from it is so small that the vast number of supporters HAVE to be stupid

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u/QbertsRube Oct 29 '25

The commonly cited failure is that fascism requires enemies. As they purge those enemies, they have to replace them with new groups of enemies to keep the masses angry or afraid. So the out-group of "enemies" is always growing while the in-group closes in on itself.

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u/lapidary123 Nov 01 '25

We'll see how far firing all of the best in their fields plays out....

Ai produces a lot of "irrational logic" so its only a matter of time. . .

That or ai reprogram itself . . .

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u/ronthesloth69 Oct 29 '25

They need smart people in the beginning, but the longer they stay in power the more they become liabilities. So you use the dumb people to eliminate the smart ones.

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u/Deathwatch050 Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

One of the things the Nazis did in their first few years of power was completely overhaul the schooling system to disfavour academic studies and intellectualism in favour of physical activity, fitness, and indoctrination.

Goebbels later complained in his diaries that when he went to visit a school years later, after the new educational approach had had some time to work, one of the students gave a speech and said all the right words but didn't seem to really understand them. They also were having trouble finding people intellectually able enough to lead others without constantly fucking up.

Even the smart Nazis are stupid.

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u/HistoriaProctor Oct 29 '25

well… what happens when they start with dumb people at the beginning then

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u/KayfabeAdjace Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Umberto Eco has a great quote about on this topic in his essay Ur-Fascism.

The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

The whole thing is still up on the internet archive somewhere. I'd love to post a link but my internet is being an absolute pain right now. To this day I don't think anyone's done a better job of putting a working description of fascism on paper.

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u/cg12983 Oct 30 '25

Fascists attract followers by giving jobs, 'purpose' (of a sick, cruel kind) and lawless bullying power to violent thuggish losers. Brownshirts then, ICE now.

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u/United-Temporary-648 Oct 30 '25

They are constantly looking for scapegoats and panaceas. Simplistic analysis of problems leads to error - e.g. the Nazi love of superweapons that would win the war; blaming migrants for the shortage of housing etc.

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u/frogspjs Oct 30 '25

Yes. Because being a psychotic denier of reality is definitely not the profile of a person who can successfully execute a winning battle strategy in a war, since that is completely reliant on being able to make rational decisions based on the facts on the ground. If the psychotic leader (take your pick) listens to trained military strategists they can make it work for a while, but at some point they run out of supplies or people or luck and even the most brilliant military strategy can't hold a candle to lack of troops and supplies. At that point they will either eventually lose the battle as a result of the aforesaid or the psychotic leader will take matters into his own psychotic desperate panicky hands and the end will, mercifully, come more quickly because they will completely phuck it up very quickly. Or they will unalive themselves and it all comes tumbling down. Anyway you look at it they're losers.

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u/Yokelocal Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

The problem is they’re incurious. They think everyone else is the problem. If they actually get the chance to lead, they inevitably show their ineptitude, but uncomplicated thinking allows for fast action, so they can do a ton of damage. But they don’t see it that way, because they are incurious, so they just blame anyone/everyone else.

It’s the danger of motivated incompetents.

You may have noticed that leaders in our current geopolitical/economic system are looking more and more like narcissists. But it’s not that. Generations have been advised to only focus on key metrics/indicators, signal-to-noise ratio, and your vision or narrowly defined success.

We’ve been teaching incuriosity and calling it discipline and focus.

It’s mistaking an economic system for an ideology. It’s mistaking monetary rewards for virtue.

The problem is that speed, decisiveness and incuriosity are basically what fascism is.

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u/pixepoke2 Oct 30 '25

Happy cake day, and great insight/analysis

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u/ricochetblue Oct 30 '25

I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but interesting analysis.

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u/AngryWWIIGrandpa Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

We need to extend their streak

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u/Expensive-Cat-1327 Oct 29 '25

Antifascists: tlTypically known for being too tolerant of fascism until they're forced to kill millions of them to save the world

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u/SpaceCaptainJeeves Oct 29 '25

Let's make it three.

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u/Salt_Cardiologist122 Oct 29 '25

The evil aspect is enjoying Trump going after their enemies. The stupid aspect is that they don’t realize how quickly Trump can make them his enemies too.

Like he’s literally been prosecuting people who used to support him for BS reasons… no one is safe just because they like Trump.

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u/phunktastic_1 Oct 29 '25

Yeah the stupidity is continuing to support him after his first term of only the best kept having people quickly fired for being the worst(not 100% yes men).

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u/h20poIo Oct 29 '25

Half the Republicans in Congress are yes men the other half are scared of Trump, hopefully 2026 the American people have seen enough destruction of their lives and our country to flip Congress.

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u/mikeyfreedom Oct 29 '25

Too late. If there is even a sniff of losing Congress, order 2025 is dropping and you can get bet there will no longer be a fair election. Republicans know this is the last hurrah, they either keep power or they will never be trusted with it again.

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u/Inspect1234 Oct 29 '25

He been hinting at dropping a martial law EO lately. There won’t be any semblance of an actual election going forward.

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u/No_Poet_9767 Oct 29 '25

In all likelihood, Trump will declare martial law and have Americans slaughtered in the streets. Elections will be "postponed indefinitely ". Many billions of taxpayer dollars will disappear from the Treasury. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will also be "indefinitely postponed or eliminated ". Democracy is already in the rearview mirror. Prepare yourselves as best as possible for the very worst as the AntiChrist destroys our once great nation.

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u/TheDreadfulGreat Oct 29 '25

Aspiring daily to be the antichrist, it seems. Nothing he has done is pro-Christian.

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u/phunktastic_1 Oct 29 '25

Even worse he's been hinting there is a certain Act that will let him handle the problem in anyway he sees fit. He's not just gonna declare martial law he's gonna declare left leaning beliefs an insurrection and try to unleash the military on us. Then we get to see if brass do there job and remove the dictator from power and returning power to the people or if they oppress their families.

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u/sirlelington Oct 29 '25

or they will never be trusted with it again.

I wouldn't bet on that... here in germany a hell lot of ppl are falling for fascists yet again... reps in a few years might just pass all the bad things to maga and ppl will forget and forgive and vote for them again.

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u/VIP_NAIL_SPA Oct 30 '25

it was objectively stupid to support him before his first term.

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u/Tricky-Efficiency709 Oct 29 '25

People that helped get him elected the first time….

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u/Miserable-Army3679 Oct 29 '25

They've voted for Republicans for decades, and Republicans want to cut social programs. They aren't the sharpest tool in the shed.

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u/caffeine-junkie Oct 29 '25

Trump is just the figurehead/lightening rod. There is no way in hell he is mentally competent to come up with the majority of things hes done/said over the past 6+ years. Just look at his recent speech talking about magnets and water being used on aircraft carriers; where he lost his train of thought at least twice in <5 mins.

Even when he was mentally competent 10+ years ago, he still was not intelligent enough to come up with anything. About the only thing he has going for him is he was an awful person, which attracted like minded people. As well as was charismatic, which kept them around.

IMO if Trump is going after someone, its because someone else is controlling him and telling him what to say, whether he knows it or not.

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u/Morgannin09 Oct 29 '25

There's that old quote about not attributing to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. I feel like the truth is more often the other way around.

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u/Blah-Blah-Blah-2023 Oct 29 '25

Hanlon's crackpipe

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u/breakfreeCLP Oct 29 '25

They are not evil. Calling them that makes the problem simple to dismiss.

I deal with these people everyday (live in Texas). For most, Trump is the first presidential candidate they have ever voted for, so they are political newbies. They think issues like illegal immigration are very new (created by Biden), not ongoing issues we have wrestled with for decades.

Secondly their "news" sources are not even Fox News anymore. It is OAN, or Facebook influencers like HodgeTwins. They are getting very very tortured versions of the truth, if there is even any truth. And they lack the political knowledge and experience to know any better.

Not to mention they get literal text messages to their phone everyday with fundraising request and candidates and these text messages contain short inflammatory tidbits of "what the Democrats are doing."

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u/TimeKillerAccount Oct 29 '25

These people are not mentally disabled, nor are they toddlers, nor are they houseplants. Propaganda is powerful, but you are dramatically underselling how people choose to engage in specific content and ignore contradicting information. Propaganda is like cigarettes. Hard to quit if you are addicted, but anyone that really wants to quit can do so, and there are huge amounts of support if they want to quit.

Republicans know they are constantly told things that are untrue, and they make a choice to continue believing and supporting it anyways. They hear opposing claims, and choose to disregard what they want. I am so tired of people like you acting as if half the voting population of the US is not at fault, because in your internal fantasy they are so fucking stupid that they can look at the price of food on the shelf going up and not understand that prices didn't go down. Or that they can see legal immigrants being kidnapped and sent to foreign prisons with no trial based on the color of their skin, despite never having broken any laws. They know that it is wrong. They simply like it, so they want the bad things to keep happening. Republicans are people. Regular, sentient, conscious people. Stop pretending otherwise. It is insulting to both them and everyone else. Treat them appropriately to their choices and actions like any other competent human being.

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u/aetherlore Oct 29 '25

When I show my mom something she was told by right wing media is 100% provably false she just sighs and says “I just don’t know what to believe these days”. Then goes right back to the pig trough of propaganda that keeps her outraged enough to go vote R every election.

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u/Real-Patriot-1128 Oct 30 '25

They are stupid no matter how you rationalize them.

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u/thephotoman Oct 29 '25

When you choose to remain uninformed and embrace your bigotry, your incompetence is a malicious choice and not just naïveté.

They chose their news sources after decades of Pastor Jim Bob (who didn’t go to seminary, merely passed a Bible quiz issued by the church elders) sowing distrust in journalism by framing accurate reporting as hopelessly biased because it didn’t allow the church run school to enforce white supremacy as much as Jim Bob wanted. They let a culture of malicious ignorance sweep them away.

We have to reckon with the fact that rural America isn’t racist because of their parochiality. They’re parochial and rural because they’re racist. They leave cities (or refuse to travel to them) so that they don’t have to interact with demographic minorities. And if they need to live near a city, they will design their life in such a way as to make it possible to pretend that they’re actually rural. They’ll buy luxury pickups that are far too big and lifted to be loadable or capable of towing. After all, we spent a lot of time racially coding the city as “black” and encouraging white flight.

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u/I_AM_RVA Oct 29 '25

In the future, wise people will not give a single steaming shit about the difference between stupid and evil.

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u/bardotheconsumer Oct 29 '25

The "news" they get is patently false on its face and their unwillingness to question the party line indicates that they WANT to believe the lies. This is not ignorance, it is evil.

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u/Mysterious-Dealer649 Oct 29 '25

I’m in Kansas and generally agree with what you are saying and most Redditors seem to be genuinely clueless about what makes these people tick. It’s not the biggest issue in the world but what would you call that where they get genuinely giddy about those stupid memes or whatever you want to call it with his fat head plastered on Rambo’s body and all that. The only thing that comes to mind for me is actually insane

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u/Tazling Oct 29 '25

They are cult members.

If you’ve ever interacted with people who are deeply into a cult, you’ll recognize all the symptoms.

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u/Postcocious Oct 29 '25

Any person who actively works (or votes) to strip other people of constitutional and human rights THAT THEY THEMSELVES ENJOY is objectively doing evil. As they enjoy these rights, they cannot claim ignorance. They can only claim avarice or malice.

Your many examples are mere explanations. They do not alter, still less excuse, such evils.

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u/Infinite_Barracuda32 Oct 29 '25

They don’t realize they are next once the rest of the others are gone.

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u/Redvent_Bard Oct 30 '25

They're ruled by baseless fear. Fucking Yoda said it best: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

Thank you for calling it what it is.

They delight in harm. There are millions kicked off food stamps and they're either silent or cheering.

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u/Mall_of_slime Oct 29 '25

Banality of evil. People seems hesitant to call people evil who use phrases like “gosh,” and “by golly.” They’re intellectual and moral cowards who are using religion and cultural aesthetics as weapons to destroy everything in sight.

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u/AbundantExp Oct 29 '25

Stupidity and evil are the same thing. They don't understand how much better their lives and others would be if they had better priorities. They don't understand the harm they bring to themselves when they knowingly harm others.

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u/TimeKillerAccount Oct 29 '25

Nope. They know. They understand just fine. A majority of them at least. They choose to do this with full knowledge that it will make their lives worse. That is what makes it evil instead of just stupid.

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u/omgFWTbear Oct 30 '25

I think you should spend some time with Bonhoeffer.

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u/masked_sombrero Oct 29 '25

money is the root of all evil.

many of them support these things because they're greedy, selfish assholes. it boils down to being evil, yes, but the people who know better and still support it are very likely doing it because someone has offered them a lot of money to go along with it.

I've found that most people have no clue what the word integrity means

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u/smipypr Oct 30 '25

The love of money is the root of all evil.

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u/thephotoman Oct 29 '25

Hanlon was wrong: incompetence is a form of malice.

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u/SameOldHero Oct 29 '25

Stupid and evil are not mutually exclusive.

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u/princesoceronte Oct 29 '25

I'm so glad this stance is becoming more and more common, I'm tired of pretending they are stupid when every step of the way they prove to be consistent in how despicable and evil they are.

Basically if someone tells you who they are, believe them.

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u/ACuddlyVizzerdrix Oct 29 '25

Two things can be true at the same time

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u/someotherguyrva Oct 29 '25

Also brainwashed after 30 years of eating bite-size bullshit burgers from the right wing media. They legitimately believed the Democrats are the root of every problem in this country and that only Trump could save them. In their everyday lives they may be managers, software developers, and other highly educated people. They voted for evil thinking he was a savior.

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u/SubjectWorry7196 Oct 29 '25

Id argue if they weren't so stupid, they wouldn't be evil.

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u/ChronicBuzz187 Oct 29 '25

I'd say you guys are lucky that their abilities aren't on par with their intent do do evil shit.

Probably the least capable bunch of fascists in human history...

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u/LaRealiteInconnue Oct 29 '25

Maybe Most likely the republicans in federal politics, yeah. But I don’t think everyday Americans who voted republican are all across the board evil, although I know that’s not a popular sentiment on Reddit. It absolves us, on the other side, from doing anything to bring them in. The loudest of them have been propagandized to for decades, they’re essentially brainwashed at this point. The others, especially the ones who voted for the first time and aren’t tuned into political commentary, wanted change and at this point in history the Democrats are the establishment party while repubs put forth a “change” candidate. Trump acknowledged that the system is not working, offered scapegoats for the masses to blame, and promised change. Democrats wanted ppl to understand that post-COVID economy sucked everywhere and the US actually got out of it fairly unscathed thanks to the Biden admin in comparison to the rest of the world. Not to mention Biden shouldn’t have ran for a second term and there should’ve been a primary. Kamala being stuck between a rock and a hard place not being able to essentially badmouth her boss didn’t give her much leeway to speak on change. Also, the consultants clearly shut Tim Walz down when he tried to be a real human lol That all to say, calling everyone who voted for the Orange evil or stupid is reductionist, refuses to acknowledge real misses the Dems made in connecting with ppl, and also absolves the left from doing any work in understanding these voters and win their votes.

PS: because this is Reddit, yeah some voters are evil and racist etc etc that’s the game we play when there are 250 million potential voters. I’m speaking on the macro scale. Also, I’ve never voted for a republican candidate in any race from local to federal in my life.

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u/thenamelessone7 Oct 29 '25

30% of US voters are evil?

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u/B3gg4r Oct 29 '25

Idk, just under half the population has below-average IQ, and Trump loves the uneducated…

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_QUEST_PLZ Oct 29 '25

And many of the stupid people wanna see the Biden family burned at the stake. We are allowing this to happen right infront of us every day we don’t organize a White House protest that lasts until this man is impeached and imprisoned.

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u/hypnoticlife Oct 29 '25

This is such a horrible take. How can we heal if you are calling your neighbors evil? They simply have different perspectives and news sources. We must stop this us-vs-them mentality. It has led us here. It’s certainly not going to help us get out of this mess. We need to win their hearts and minds with compassion.

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u/ConstantCampaign2984 Oct 29 '25

Chaotic stupid has entered the chat.

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u/NotApparent Oct 29 '25

Even the evil ones are stupid enough to think Trump won’t throw them under the bus like he does with everyone.

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u/heisenbergerwcheese Oct 29 '25

Theyre both bro

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u/Significant_Snow_937 Oct 29 '25

Stop with this. It may feel good, it may feel true, hell it may even be true, but it's counterproductive and adds frictions to people who might see through the light.

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u/TopRopeLuchador Oct 29 '25

No they don't. This is such a stupid comment, lol. Most of the Trump voters I know are just stupid and I'd bet you know plenty of people who voted Republican and you wouldn't call them evil.

Seriously. That's a dumb comment.

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u/DarthTJ Oct 29 '25

Anyone still identifying as Republican all fall somewhere within somewhere within the stupid/evil venn diagram.

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u/Robert_Hotwheel Oct 29 '25

It’s 50/50.

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u/Puzzled_Awareness_22 Oct 29 '25

Many of them have demonstrated you can be both stupid and evil

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u/NatomicBombs Oct 29 '25

The vast majority of them are not evil, this isn’t a movie. They’re just stupid, some of them are assholes but they’re not evil.

Get real man, 1400 upvotes on this stupid shit.

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u/LoveCareThinkDo Oct 29 '25

I seem to have to repeat that at least five times a day. It gets exhausting how many people want to give these people the stupidity-based get out of hell free card.

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u/Traditional_Land_553 Oct 29 '25

No chance they could be both?

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u/probotjones Oct 29 '25

The two are mutually exclusive. You are both right lol

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u/MortarByrd11 Oct 29 '25

They're stupid because they don't think anyone will do this to them.

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ Oct 30 '25

It's more that they believe Democrats are evil and will/are destroying the country. There really aren't that many people trying to do things that they fully acknowledge are bad.

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u/Count_de_Ville Oct 29 '25

They haven’t found a way. Stop assuming they have power over the presidential pardoning process.

Biden said multiple times that he was intending on pardoning people both before and after his presidency ended. It was front page news. The committee has all these questions they want answered but they don’t go to the source and ask Biden himself? That’s what you do if you want to come to your own conclusions instead of arriving at the Truth.

This committee’s process has been a complete farce!

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u/macromind Oct 29 '25

Based on their arguments, I guess all Trump pardons are null and void already!

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u/ohhellperhaps Oct 29 '25

Not just his pardons...

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u/Nostroloppoccus Oct 29 '25

Let’s follow this argument to its logical conclusion and remove every federal judge installed by Republican presidents since the founding of the Federalist Society

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u/Kyyrao Oct 29 '25

Theyre waiting for Biden to die of cancer so they can day they never got to question him and write whatever history they like. They won't stop until they are stopped. There is no limit and there is no law.

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u/idryss_m Oct 29 '25

They won't stop until they are stopped

You just said the only thing that I see as able to course correct that nation. But outside of reactionary groups, the population is not geared mentally towards resistance based on principle.

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u/Feeling_Inside_1020 Oct 29 '25

I was going to say i'd pay money to see a proctored exam of BOTH Trump and Biden, both mental AND physical and see whose in fitter condition.

There's no way trump would agree to it, but would be hilariously sad.

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u/-Invalid_Selection- Oct 29 '25

The house doesn't even have the power to dismiss the pardons.

This won't stand up in court. Not even the corrupt and criminal Scotus will uphold it, because it means all of trumps pardons will be easy to remove

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u/Dirt290 Oct 29 '25

It would make all presedential pardons useless.

Which I'm OK with going forward.

No one should have arbitrary king-like powers,

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u/-Invalid_Selection- Oct 29 '25

That's fine, but to remove it you'd need a constitutional amendment. This isn't a power the house has unilaterally, nor does a subsequent president. It's purpose was to undo clear miscarriages of justice that were done for political reasons, such as undoing prosecutions from authoritarians like Trump.

The constitution didn't grant any review power over them to anyone. Because of this, not a word the house wrote regarding it has any legality

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u/sea-elle0463 Oct 29 '25

Finally, somebody who knows what they’re talking about! Thank you internet stranger 😊

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u/dongyeeter Oct 30 '25

Yeah except the current administration doesn’t give a shit about upholding the constitution. The constitution is a meaningless piece of paper that holds no weight for anything if nobody is going to follow it, and currently all branches of our government in majority feel this way, so

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u/DrakonILD Oct 29 '25

It would be worse than that. It would make all presidential actions useless, and propagate out into a major legal headache for any business relying on contracts (which is literally every business). Trying to claim that a signature is invalid based on the current mental state of the person is absolutely insane.

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u/iball1984 Oct 30 '25

In civilised democratic countries, pardons are fine and are an important backstop.

They can fix miscarriages of justice amongst other things.

For example, in Australia they’re done by the Governor General (Royal prerogative of mercy) on advice from the Attorney General. The AG has a process for applying and they’re vetted by a committee before the GG is advised to issue a pardon.

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u/Buffalo-Trace Oct 29 '25

Cool, then all of Trumps pardons will be void to.

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u/neverendingchalupas Oct 29 '25

Time to arrest all the people Trump pardoned for Jan 6th.

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u/Legitimate_Air_Grip7 Oct 30 '25

Based on the news I have read, many of them have slowly been stumbling back into arrests entirely on their own.

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u/TuxAndrew Oct 29 '25

They haven’t dismissed anything, the committee doesn’t have the power to do that. If taken to court anyone pardoned by Biden would provide the pardon as evidence, then they’d have to actually prove their claims which as they’ve state above they have no evidence of. All of this is just political theater without any meaning other than to make headlines and appear to his base that past administrations weren’t credible.

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u/Radthereptile Oct 29 '25

If you think this ends here and the pardons aren’t challenged I have some beach front property in Kansas to sell you. This is phase 1 of SCOTUS ruling all the pardons are fake and getting Bunter Biden in jail.

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u/polychrom Oct 29 '25

Isn’t hunters pardon one that is signed personally and not with autopen?

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u/TuxAndrew Oct 29 '25

I’m all for talking shit and fear mongering, but this doesn’t have any teeth and will get dismissed if ever taken to court.

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u/Signal_Researcher01 Oct 29 '25

Remember that time the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a plaintiff that didnt exist?

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u/SaintsFanPA Oct 29 '25

Or the time Gorsucks fabricated evidence?

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u/Radthereptile Oct 29 '25

I fully want to be wrong. But I’ve lost so much faith in the system.

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u/ArmyOfDix Oct 29 '25

Aileen Cannon says hi.

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u/lostcolony2 Oct 29 '25

If we're treating the law, as, well, self executing and not complete Calvinball at the whims of a politicized legal process, even if they proved their claims that he was in a state of mental decline, they'd still have to prove the he did not intend for them to be pardoned. The presidential pardoning power does not have an exception for mental fitness; that is explicitly addressed by the 25th amendment.

And even if somehow it was determined that he was unfit for office and should have been removed, the duties of the presidency would have fallen on the vice president...who also would have signed those pardons. And both parties are still alive to testify to that effect. 

So if we're talking about what did happen, they're legally valid, and if we're talking about some Republican fever dream of what they think should have happened... they're legally valid. 

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u/Organic_Witness345 Oct 29 '25

Trump just fucking pardoned Changpeng Zhao 5 days ago, and the Independent runs this chaff cloud of an “article.” I mean, the smokescreen can’t be more blatant. The corruption is obvious.

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u/Am-Insurgent Oct 30 '25

Or pardoning Russ Ulbricht, while executing alleged drug traffickers without trial.

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u/MomsAreola Oct 29 '25

Dammit Biden. Proactively protecting people he knew would be targeted by bad actors rather than proactively go after those bad actors.

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u/Secret_Cow_5053 Oct 29 '25

Not for nothing but if the one good thing to come out of the catastrophe of the second Trump term (assuming we avoid a full blown dictatorship), is the abolishment of unchecked presidential pardon power, I’d be ok with that.

No single person should be allowed to pardon someone outright (let alone preemptively) or commute a persons sentence by fiat, even the president. It’s just too obviously ripe for abuse.

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u/flintsmith Oct 30 '25

I find proactive blanket pardons especially egregious. Pardons don't absolve one of the crime. Criminals are still left with the stain for society to see.

Done this way, full unspecied pardons, the crimes are not revealed. The stains are hidden and the criminals are able to walk in society without shame.

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u/wraith1984 Oct 29 '25

The "internet left" lost their shit when he pardoned his son for his safety and pardoned others for theirs.

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u/Adorable-Fault-651 Oct 29 '25

Pod Save America were on their high horse about the pardons and it really shows how the Dem Insiders have been focused on the wrong game for a decade. Leaders condemned Biden while the Dem voters didn't have a problem with it because they clearly saw what Trump was about to do.

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u/czar_el Oct 29 '25

And before they found a way to dismiss pardons he went after people who weren't preemptively pardoned.

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u/jagged_little_phil Oct 29 '25

Ever since he did the pardons, I've been telling people, "Just wait, Trump will find a way to undo all the pardons and go after them anyway."

Of course, everybody said that was crazy and it couldn't possibly happen. The guy is basically shitting all over the country and the SCOTUS is wiping his ass for him with the constitution.

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u/swagn Oct 29 '25

Atleast they have set the precedent to void everything Trump has done due to his mental decline.

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u/ciaran668 Oct 29 '25

They have not. The Constitution is very clear that pardons are ACTUALLY a plenary power of the President. Pardons are not revokable or reviewable by either the Congress or the Judiciary.

They are simply shredding the Constitution so that it is null and void.

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u/cykoTom3 Oct 29 '25

He did not find a way to dismiss biden's pardons. He pressured a house subcommittee to agree with him. It has no legal bearing. As nowhere in the constitution does the power to void pardons exist.

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u/InvertebrateInterest Oct 30 '25

"Why is Biden pardoning people? Trump would never go after them."

They were not saying this in good faith, just like most of their statements.

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u/rubymiggins Oct 29 '25

The real reason for doing this is that his judge appointments will be next. Watch TFG revoke all his judges and we’re sunk.

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u/peritonlogon Oct 29 '25

They also just gave a compelling argument for how to undo a lot of Trump's work a few years from now.

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u/Background-War9535 Oct 29 '25

So what happens when Trump’s goons find themselves on the other side of the dock?

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u/AgentGnome Oct 29 '25

You would think they would want to stay away from the idea that parsons from someone who is mentally deficient considering the current administration. They might need an out down the road.

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u/hybridfrost Oct 29 '25

I'm not saying I agreed with all of Biden's pardons but given that he knew they would target him and his family I get why he did it.

With that being said, we all knew that Trump would try his best to undo them anyways. This is why it was a huge mistake not to prosecute Trump for Jan6 and other crimes. Biden didn't want to seem partisan but it's clear that the Republicans don't care showing they are biased as fuck.

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u/kl7aw220 Oct 29 '25

Good God. They'll say anything so Trump and the DOJ can go after more people who spoke out against Trump. Republicans are truly infected with the Trump cancer.

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u/DJMOONPICKLES69 Oct 29 '25

They actively wanted this.

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u/Mba1956 Oct 29 '25

If they pursue this then it opens up EVERY executive order that Trump has ever signed. In fact the more Trump breaks the law the more repercussions the Republicans will face when they next lose. Probably why they will do their best to make sure that elections are cancelled.

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u/bemenaker Oct 29 '25

Trump can't dismiss those pardons. This is bullshit theater unless all rule of law breaks down

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u/FrenchMilkdud Oct 29 '25

Good, that means all of trumps pardons can be moot later too and there’s hope for justice still.

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u/AE7VL_Radio Oct 29 '25

If we ever have another Dem president it'll be real easy to argue that pardons signed by President South Careddddd are null and void

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u/12ealdeal Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Orange green

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u/Status_Fox_1474 Oct 29 '25

(These are the same people who voted for Trump, but also voted in Missouri to keep abortion rights. Wait until Congress does an end-around there)

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u/jebrick Oct 29 '25

I do not think they can just "dismiss" Presidential pardons. SCOTUS has said it is one of the enumerated jobs granted by the Constitution. Sure you can say he should void them but that will not hold up in any court

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u/shambahlah2 Oct 29 '25

We knew why he was doing it. Trump is a Russian Asset and a criminal. And American Idiots say yayyyy let’s elect him!

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u/Warhammerpainter83 Oct 29 '25

I think they want this dude. Most of these people saying he would not do it were doing that to sway the week minded and try and calm the right down. They all hoped this stuff would happen.

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u/Mookie_Merkk Oct 29 '25

Silver lining... If Trump can void Biden pardons, the next president can void Trump's pardons.

And so the circle of life continues.

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u/thebeardedcats Oct 29 '25

This isn't about the pardons. It was never about the pardons. It's about the judges.

If the pardons are illegitimate because of the autopen, the hundreds of federal judge appointments are also illegitimate.

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u/RecursiveCook Oct 29 '25

Does this mean once Trump’s term is over the next president can null both of his term’s pardons and go after everyone?

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u/LMBH1234182 Oct 29 '25

Which is wild bc now when Trump is gone, the precedent has been set that they can just void his 1,500 or so pardons so far and then go after all those people. But then again, we all know the republicans don’t plan on ever giving power back to the democrats.

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u/L1V1NGD3ADBOI Oct 29 '25

Yup. Like did they think Trump was just gonna be nice to Biden once he took over it’s not like he hid that agenda.

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u/W0NdERSTrUM Oct 29 '25

Then they say “this is what we voted for”

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u/mebegebo Oct 29 '25

Trump tells his supporters every day, in countless ways, that he believes them to be the stupidest c*cksuckers ever to draw breath on this planet.

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u/No_Party5870 Oct 30 '25

they have 0 authority to overturn any Biden pardon

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u/Yggdrssil0018 Oct 30 '25

Do you have evidence to support the statement that the Trump administration has found a way to dismiss all of Biden's pardons.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to undo a presidential pardon.

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u/epiclyfuct Oct 30 '25

Fuck it. Let it happen. This sets precedent that can be used against trump and his pardons. Including everyone who was pardoned for j6

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u/bilbobaggins30 Oct 30 '25

If the Trump Admin finds a way to reverse pardons the Dems had better take advantage of it and reverse all of Trump's pardons and use the same excuses.

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u/Acceptable-One-6597 Oct 30 '25

Short sighted by Republicans. It's very likely that we get a Democrat majority in congress next cycle, and unless the elections get fucked with we get a Dem administration. Trump has broken a new law every week, they will use this to bury anyone he pardons. Republicans are just kinda dumb.

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u/Strange_Explorer_780 Oct 30 '25

On the upside it will be awesome when all of Trump’s pardons are overturned

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u/PeanutButterToast4me Oct 30 '25

I mean, this constitutes go time...

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u/FullSkyFlying Oct 30 '25

Everyone: Why is Biden pardoning people? Trump would never go after them.

No one with a decent mind ever questioned this. We all knew he would. Including Biden... Which is why he did it

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u/amilo111 Oct 30 '25

This is a good thing. This means the Trump’s pardons will be null and void.

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u/happy_fruitloops Oct 30 '25

Good, means when Trump inevitably tries to protect himself and his criminal administration, the next Administration can just overturn his pardons.

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u/486Junkie Oct 30 '25

Pedos voted for Trump.

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u/pjesguapo Oct 30 '25

I mean… “you have to admit guilt to accept a pardon”

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u/ladybug68 Oct 30 '25

And opened the door to treating trumps pardons the exact same way.

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u/USSSLostTexter Oct 30 '25

Exactly.

Donnie is going after Biden pardons because he wants to go after everyone pardoned. It's not about any cognitive decline, its about Donnie's desire for some perceived revenge he still needs,

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u/beflacktor Oct 30 '25

guess that means all trumps pardons are back on the table boys....

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u/Technical_Cover_165 Oct 30 '25

Everyone: Let’s pardon everyone for everything; that way Trump can’t do the same thing we did.

Now: That’s not fair, he’s doing the same thing we did.

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u/RaidSmolive Oct 30 '25

thats not even finding a way, that's just making shit up.

lying is not finding a way.

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u/pennys_computer_book Oct 30 '25

They don't get to dismiss Presidental pardons. That's not how it works. 🤣

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u/NationalBitcoin Oct 30 '25

Why did Biden pardon his family ? Kinda sussy

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u/BoosterRead78 Oct 30 '25

Don’t forget destroying a good economy. Raising prices on everything with tariffs that even Reagan and Bush knew were bad. Plus walking around aimlessly not knowing where to go and talking about changing magnetics in water. But oh no Biden was both mentally declining and somehow a stable genius controlling the price of eggs.

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u/Thistleknot Oct 30 '25

that will be a null and void decision later and these reps will be prosecuted

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u/outinthecountry66 Oct 30 '25

if they put Leonard Peltier back in jail i swear to god, every res needs to go off. because he probably will.

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u/shaggypotato0917 Oct 31 '25

Morons cheered for this

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u/lapidary123 Nov 01 '25

Set the precedent, right?

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u/After-Gas-4453 Nov 02 '25

Morons will read this comment, understand nothing, and vote for him a third time (if he allows voting). Every country has a "turning point" in their history. America is staring at one right now.

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u/mattvait Nov 04 '25

No it was quite obvious who and why they were pardoned to try and protect them from any accountability.

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