Preemptive Pardons

 

On his way out the door of the White House, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. used his Constitutional pardon power to issue a series of "preemptive blanket pardons" to multiple persons who might have had places on Donald Trump's rumored "enemies list" (if such there be).  Can a President do that?  Really??

The Constitutional powers of the President include

...and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Because the wording is so broad, it would seem to allow the President to grant pardons for offenses against the United States even if those offenses have not yet been charged, or even 'known'.  That interpretation, however, has a poison pill hiding within it.

If we allow uncharged offenses to be preemptively pardoned, what's to prevent a President having his underlings commit crimes, assassinations, Constitutional violations, and then simply preemptively pardoning the malefactors?  We have just given that President the powers of a King, exactly what the left has been warning us Donald Trump wants to become.

To avoid that lethal scenario, it must be true that the President may only pardon offenses that have been (at a minimum) charged, although even that is subject to some abuse:  "Harry just assassinated the Speaker of the House on my orders.  Quick, indict him for it so I can pardon him."  That's exactly where "preemptive pardons" have placed us.

We'll need a Supreme Court opinion on this one, and we need it pronto.  Charge Bennie Thompson with obstructing justice by destroying evidence collected by his J6 committee, loser appeals, loser appeals, until it reaches SCOTUS.  The result — I've got my fingers crossed — will be that, no, a President cannot issue a pardon without stating what offense is being pardoned.

...And then platoons of DC denizens will all move to non-extradition countries.

 

The Time Has Come

 

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings."

It's time, also, to consider what the Founders meant by the text of the First Amendment.  Did they, I wonder, mean to include political ideologies bent on world conquest that protect themselves by wrapping a camouflage cloak of 'religion' around them?  Did they really mean that we should clasp such a viper to our breast?

I speak, of course, of Islam, a religion-in-name-only, adherence to which involves a committment to the destruction of the western values upon which the United States was based.  It seems counter-intuitive that the Constitution (which we are assured is not a suicide pact) requires us to harbor within our midst persons who are dedicated to our destruction.

It's time for Congress to assert that Islam and its practice is not a religion as the term is normally understood, and that Islam is not a religion as the term was understood at the passage of the Bill of Rights.  That is: the Bill of Rights was never meant to protect a conquering army merely because it claims a religious exemption.

Why now?  What happened that suddenly makes this "an issue"?

Early this morning as revelers in New Orleans (LA) celebrated the start of a new year, an Islamic terrorist, possibly aided by presently unknown co-conspirators, drove a truck bearing an ISIS (black) flag into the crowd killing 15 and injuring many others.  Some of the deaths were due to the terrorist shooting into the crowd with, some reports say, firearms reported stolen in New Jersey.  A few hours earlier, the same scenario played out in several places in Western Europe.  We are at war.

The practice of Islam must be treated as we treated Communists.  We didn't allow them to enter the country.  If they somehow got in by hiding their Communist bona fides, we revoked their citizenship and deported them.  It was merely a matter of self-protection.

Failure to do this — and soon — means facing eventual dissolution of the United States of America.