The outgoing president’s record should be seen in two parts: the bold, bipartisan moves of his early presidency and the disappointing sluggishness of the last two years.
Editor: Here is a sample Lopez’s Presidential genuflecting, fully in tune with Bloomberg political dreck!
In the twilight of his presidency, Joe Biden has been working at a furious pace to enact policies that would burnish his legacy — apparently determined to wring every drop of potential from his remaining time in office.
Where has that sense of urgency been for the last two years?
Biden’s first two years in office were marked by bold, ambitious, often bipartisan legislation. The American Rescue Plan, with its nearly $2 trillion stimulus and extended unemployment benefits, started the task of righting the nation’s economy. That was followed by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the largest in history; the Inflation Reduction Act; and the CHIPS Act, which boosted domestic semiconductor manufacturing. He passed the first major gun reform in nearly 30 years and he set a record for job creation.
Editor: What is lost/evaded/covered-up in these almost cellbratory paragraphs, laced with faux regret, is Biden/Blinken/Sullivan crimes in Ukaine, and the American surrender to the political/moral toxin of the Zionist Faschist States War Mongering Netanyahu: that has metatisised accross the ‘Middle East’.
Editor: The Lopez melodrama continues, yet the contnuing revelation, of the facts of Biden’s certifiable cognitive decline, are still off-stage! As are the Biden & Sons political opportunism.
Editor: The Reader quickly graps the fact that this is political propaganda!
But at the 2022 midterms, Republicans gained narrow control of the House and Biden lost some of his ability to push legislation through. After deciding in April 2023 to run for reelection, the pressures of campaigning crowded in. When it came to governing, Biden seemed to take his foot off the gas. Immigration reform stalled. It wasn’t until June 2024 — with immigration by then an obvious political millstone — that Biden finally issued the orders that would send border crossings plummeting.
Editor: What remains is 720 words, yet Lopez ends her utterly dubious Biden apologetic, offering this political opportunist as a tragic figure!
Whatever the reason, the two months of cramming-for-the-final action show that Biden remains a complex and somewhat tragic figure — capable of greatness, yet ultimately falling short.
In his speech Wednesday night, Biden told Americans, “We must keep pushing forward, and push faster. There is no time to waste.” If only he had spent more of the last two years taking his own advice.
Can the Just-Pardoned Hunter Biden Claim Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, if Questioned About His Crimes?
Eugene Volokh | 12.2.2024 12:33 PM
A couple of people asked me this; the short answer:
[1.] Because the privilege applies only when a witness reasonably fears prosecution, and the pardon precludes prosecution for any “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024,” a pardon may indeed eliminate the privilege, and allow a court or congressional committee to order Hunter Biden to testify. “[I]f the witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his privilege.” Brown v. Walker (1896). “[A] witness may be compelled to testify concerning his involvement in a crime when he is protected from later prosecution … by the applicable statute of limitations … or by a pardon.” Pillsbury Co. v. Conboy (1983) (Marshall, J., concurring) (citing Brown).
[2.] But the privilege disappears only when there’s no realistic prospect of prosecution by any American government, federal or state. So if a witness is asked about something, and the answer might lead to state prosecution for which the state statute of limitations hasn’t run, the witness can refuse to testify because of that risk of state prosecution, even if a federal prosecution is taken off the table by the federal pardon. (Recall that a Presidential pardon only pardons for federal crimes.) This is relevant because some conduct can violate both state and federal law.
How this would play out as to any particular investigation of Hunter Biden’s behavior, I leave to others.
Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer.
'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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