Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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Dec. 12
The Washington Post says Joe Biden shouldn’t use preemptive pardons
President Joe Biden used his pardon power on Thursday as the Constitution’s framers had intended: as a pre-Christmas act of mercy. He commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people who were released to home confinement during the pandemic and whom the president believes have successfully readjusted into society. He pardoned 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, such as drug offenses, following a case-by-case review of their applications.
This is a stark contrast to Mr. Biden’s ill-considered pardon of his son Hunter and to the misguided notion, still under discussion within the White House, of preemptive pardons for people who might be at risk of vindictive prosecution by President-elect Donald Trump. Though Mr. Biden has the prerogative to confer broad immunity with what are sometimes called safe harbor or protective pardons, doing so now on a large scale would be difficult to achieve, at least with any principled consistency. And it would unavoidably imply that any beneficiary broke the law in zealous pursuit of Mr. Trump. Perhaps most worrying, it would create a precedent that future presidents would use to justify their own misuses of the pardon power.
To be sure, Democratic fears of retribution from Mr. Trump rose when the president-elect announced his intention to install as FBI director Kash Patel, who published a 60-person enemies list in a book last year and has pledged to pursue vengeance against critics of the incoming president. Pam Bondi, Mr. Trump’s pick for attorney general, said on Fox News last year: “The prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones.” Adding a sense of urgency to the debate, Mr. Trump said Sunday on NBC that members of the House committee that investigated Jan. 6, 2021, “committed a major crime” and “should go to jail.” Names reportedly under consideration for preemptive pardons include retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, Anthony S. Fauci and former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming).
And yet one reason not to grant them pardons is that alternative protections remain available to possible targets. Lawmakers such as Ms. Cheney are protected by the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which prohibits the prosecution of a lawmaker for fulfilling their legislative duties. Juries, judges and appellate courts could halt potential miscarriages of justice. The court of public opinion also counts; Republicans will defend their narrow House majority in 2026.
Imagine what might happen if senior administration officials presumed that they would get pardons at the end of every administration. Border Patrol agents could be told they would get away with assaulting migrants. A president could direct an aide to lie under oath to Congress. President Gerald Ford granted his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, a preemptive pardon after Nixon’s resignation. The blanket pardon probably cost Ford the election two years later — but history has looked upon it with kinder eyes because it helped the nation heal after Watergate.
In that sense, Ford’s pardon of Nixon is an exception that proves the rule. With sweeping preemptive pardons, however, Mr. Biden would — in the eyes of roughly half the electorate — be protecting his cronies from accountability. This would deepen the feeling, exacerbated by the Hunter Biden pardon, that there’s a two-tier system of justice.
And for all that, even the broadest presidential pardon couldn’t fully protect someone Mr. Trump was determined to harass. His IRS could engage in selective audits. The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division could scrutinize someone’s business. Without the protection of the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination, congressional Republicans could subpoena beneficiaries of the pardons. The hearings that followed would be perjury traps — and Mr. Biden’s pardons could not cover future crimes. Conservative prosecutors in Republican-run states could try to contrive local charges.
If he follows this course, Mr. Biden will be doing something that Mr. Trump opted not to do when he left office in January 2021 — at a time when few conceived of his return to the presidency four years later. Mr. Trump considered pardoning himself and his adult children. At least half a dozen Republican members of Congress who were involved in the plot to overturn the 2020 election had also sought preemptive pardons, including then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), according to the Jan. 6 committee.
But, on the final Saturday before Mr. Trump left office, White House attorneys convinced him that issuing broad pardons would signal the appearance of guilt, make him more vulnerable to reprisals and increase the odds that Senate Republicans would vote to convict him during his second impeachment trial. This is one case in which Mr. Biden would be well advised to follow Mr. Trump’s example.
ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/12/preemptive-pardons-biden-trump-justice/
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Dec. 16
The Wall Street Journal says Congress should repeal the Corporate Transparency Act
Politicians prattle on endlessly about their love for small business, as opposed to the corporate giants it’s easy to denounce. Yet when they get the chance, they saddle small business with laws like the Corporate Transparency Act. A federal court in Texas has handed Donald Trump and the Republican Party an opportunity by imposing a nationwide injunction on the CTA’s reporting mandate.
In 2020 Congress tucked the CTA into the National Defense Authorization Act in the last days of the Trump Administration and it passed over Mr. Trump’s veto. The intent was to combat money launderers and drug dealers. But the result, says the National Federation of Independent Business, is a bill that imposes another compliance burden, makes confidential business data less secure, and does little to deter real criminals.
The law took effect last Jan. 1. It requires corporations or limited liability companies of fewer than 20 employees and $5 million or less in revenue to disclose details about their beneficial owners to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Failure to comply can result in up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The law defines a beneficial owner as any person who “directly or indirectly, through any contract, arrangement, understanding, relationship, or otherwise—(i) exercises substantial control over the entity; or (ii) owns or controls not less than 25 percent of the ownership interests of the entity.” FinCEN estimates the law applies to 32.6 million small businesses and associations.
But the Dec. 3 order by federal Judge Amos Mazzant enjoins FinCEN from enforcing the law as well as its implementing regulations. The judge calls the law “unprecedented” as a federal attempt to monitor companies created under state law and because it ends the anonymity many states designed as a feature of their corporate formation. The plaintiffs, he wrote, are likely to succeed on their claim that the law is unconstitutional.
What’s next? The Biden Administration has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay of Judge Mazzant’s injunction. It also wants the appellate court to rule by Dec. 27, so that businesses would still have to meet the reporting deadline of Dec. 31.
The Fifth Circuit could throw out the CTA on grounds Judge Mazzant lays out, but other courts are split. A federal judge in Alabama has ruled the CTA unconstitutional, while federal judges in Oregon and Virginia made preliminary rulings going the other way. The cases could go to the Supreme Court.
But Congress needn’t wait for courts to remove this looming burden from millions of small businesses. This is the kind of unnecessary regulation that Republicans campaigned to stop. A one-year delay is already under consideration as an amendment to the year-end spending bill being debated in Congress. Congress can adopt this amendment, deliver relief to small business, and give the courts the time they need to resolve this mess.
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Dec. 12
The Boston Globe says the U.S. should engage in Syria after fall of Assad
The tyrant is gone. After 13 years of civil war and 50 years under the repressive Assad regimes, Syrians have every reason to celebrate.
Bashar al-Assad is safely ensconced in Russia, which had long supported his prison state with arms, fighter jets, and forces from the mercenary Wagner Group.
Meanwhile the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group, which led a lightning strike into Damascus, leading to the collapse of Assad’s government over the weekend, has taken control of the presidential palace and of the regime’s notorious prisons — freeing prisoners, most of them political prisoners, and exposing what amount to the torture chambers within.
So the joy in the streets as statues of the fallen dictator and his father are pulled down is real. The hopes of some of the thousands of displaced Syrians already flooding across the border to return home are also real. Some 6.2 million Syrians have fled their country during the civil war, according to the United Nations.
But we have seen it all before — more than a decade ago during what came to be known as the Arab Spring, which turned out to be less of a turning point in democratizing the region and more of a reason for autocrats and terrorists to divide and conquer.
Whether Syria can somehow become a functioning nation state is still very much in question. It could yet succumb to chaos or infighting among triumphant rebels. But this moment represents an opportunity for the United States and the international community to reach out, to engage, and to help free Syria from the more cynical ambitions of Assad’s patrons in Iran and Russia.
Ultimately Syria’s future will be in Syria’s hands. But constructive engagement isn’t out of the question.
HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a veteran of Al-Qaeda, have long been on the US terrorist and terrorist organization lists. But upon rolling into Damascus al-Golani dropped that nom de guerre and started using his real name, Ahmad al-Sharaa. Symbolic, yes, but he has, US officials agree, been saying all the right things — a process of “rehabilitation” he embarked on years ago.
HTS, for example, announced an amnesty for members of the rank and file of the Assad government, and a general amnesty for military conscripts, many of whom shed their uniforms as the rebels approached the capital. But al-Sharaa also made clear in the statement that this did not extend to senior officials.
“We will not relent in holding accountable the criminals, murderers, and security and military officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” he said in a statement posted on Telegram.
Coincidentally the Justice Department announced the unsealing of an indictment Monday of two high-ranking members of Assad’s government, charging them with war crimes against American citizens and others. Both military officials, now missing, were accused of leading efforts to detain, torture, and imprison Syrians.
As HTS forces attempt to take over many of the normal functions of government in the areas it controls — patrolling streets and government buildings (including the newly vacated presidential palace), a caretaker government, headed by a HTS loyalist, was named to lead a transitional government until March.
That’s certainly a start. Meanwhile, other rebel factions — ranging from pro-democracy Kurds to the terrorist group Islamic State — continue to jostle for control in other parts of the country. Israel continues to launch bombing raids of Assad’s chemical weapons plants, naval vessels, and Russian-made bombers, which the Israeli government says it is doing to prevent those military assets from falling into the wrong hands amid the chaos. And while Turkey is facilitating the return of Syrian refugees, it’s also keeping a wary eye on the Kurds in Syria’s north, whom President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considers a security threat to his government — although they are allied with and trained by US forces, also in the region.
Yes, it’s complicated.
Those US forces, about 1,000 Special Operations troops, concentrated in the northeastern and central parts of Syria, continue to conduct airstrikes in the wake of Assad’s departure to keep Islamic State forces in check.
“We’re clear-eyed about the fact that ISIS will try to take advantage of any vacuum to re-establish its capability, to create a safe haven,” President Biden said Sunday. “We will not let that happen.”
But Biden’s days are numbered and the message from President-elect Trump last week was hardly encouraging. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED,” he wrote in a social media post.
It’s consistent with his 2019 withdrawal of most American troops from Syria — except for those Special Forces now on the ground.
But Trump might also be wise to relearn the lessons from the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he also initiated — and then roundly criticized Biden for following through on — complete with its disastrous consequences. A US military presence, however small, can make a difference, and American diplomats can help promote stability and democracy in the country while sidelining extremist groups.
Restoring diplomatic ties between the United States and Damascus and possibly removing al-Sharaa from the terrorist list are still a long way off. But that is precisely the kind of constructive engagement that could — if earned by a new Syrian government — change the tide in this particularly fraught region. Conversely, it would hardly be in American interests to “not get involved” if that opens the door for Islamic State to regain a foothold in Syria.
That the rebel victory represents a setback for Assad’s backers, Russia, Iran, and its client Hezbollah makes it good news — at least for now. Under the theory that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” there is far more to be gained by building toward a new relationship than by giving this new government a diplomatic cold shoulder.
ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/12/opinion/syria-rebel-assad-overthrow-us-foreign-policy/
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Dec. 12
The Guardian on drama surrounding a family feud and the media empire built by Rupert Murdoch
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” begins Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina. This is an appropriate lens to view Rupert Murdoch’s semi-public family feud. This week, it emerged that the media mogul had lost the first round in his legal bid to secure his empire for Lachlan, his eldest son and anointed heir, over his other children – James, Elisabeth and Prudence. More than a power play, it was Murdoch’s final push to secure his rightwing media vision, even at the expense of family unity.
The familial strife – driven by blurred lines between business and family, ideological clashes and a patriarch’s weakening grip – exemplifies Tolstoy’s “unique unhappiness”. The Murdochs’ conflicts are shaped by their extraordinary wealth, influence and public scrutiny. The divisions could paralyse corporate decision making, destabilising a media empire with significant repercussions for the culture and politics of the Anglosphere.
The battle to change the terms of the Murdochs’ irrevocable family trust is very much an internal family affair. Rupert Murdoch’s six children share equal stakes in the family trust, but his youngest daughters, Chloe and Grace, lack voting rights. For now, Mr Murdoch holds ultimate control, with voting power split between him and his four eldest children. After his death, it had been assumed that they would each get one vote and would have to work out the division of labour between themselves.
The trust controls the Murdoch empire, split between Fox – home to the TV news network accused of rightwing bias and false reporting as well as its broadcast and cable business – and News Corp, which owns US titles such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post; the Times and the Sun in the UK; and more than half of Australia’s biggest dailies.
At the centre of the struggle is Fox News, a $20bn media behemoth central to US conservative politics and Donald Trump’s rise. Mr Murdoch, and Lachlan, pushed Fox sharply rightward, alienating Lachlan’s siblings and leading to a $790m defamation settlement over election falsehoods. Mr Murdoch’s younger son, James, who had been passed over in favour of Lachlan, takes the hardest line against Fox.
In April 2023, Mr Murdoch’s children began planning for his death, spurred by an episode of HBO’s Succession – a thinly veiled take on their own family – where a patriarch’s death sparks chaos. Alarmed by the parallels, Elisabeth’s team drafted a “Succession memo” to avoid art becoming reality. But Lachlan, and his father, moved to head off the proposals by seeking to amend the trust to cement his primacy. Dubbed, ironically, “Project Family Harmony”, it labelled James as the “troublesome beneficiary”. In a Reno courtroom, a probate commissioner found Mr Murdoch had acted in “ bad faith ”.
Mr Murdoch will appeal, but the cost is clear: further estrangement from three of his children. Only Lachlan attended his summer wedding to his fifth wife. Mr Murdoch may fail to amend the trust. That would raise the stakes, posthumously. Lachlan might try to buy out his siblings; James and Elisabeth could push to reshape or dismantle Fox News. Selling assets could end tensions but dismantle the legacy Mr Murdoch built – one in which personal ambition and corporate control are entwined.
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Dec. 13
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on a burgeoning industry of untraceable weapons
The murder last week of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan has spotlighted the fury that many Americans feel toward the nation’s dysfunctional health insurance system. It has also tapped a profane undercurrent in national discourse today that makes otherwise rational people think it’s acceptable to express such fury with dehumanizing jokes and memes about the violent taking of a life.
What isn’t getting enough attention, but should, is the alleged instrument of that violence.
Murder suspect Luigi Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania carrying a “ghost gun” that authorities believe was the murder weapon. It’s part of a burgeoning industry of untraceable weapons that Congress should have cracked down on years ago — but that, thanks to congressional paralysis on any issue addressing gun violence, might soon enjoy expanded federal protection.
America’s federal gun laws are woefully inadequate, as proven by our worst-in-the-advanced-world firearms death rates, but there are some current restrictions that help.
Firearms manufacturers are required to stamp each new gun with a serial number. Acquisition and transfer records are required when the weapon is sold and resold. Criminal background checks are required for any gun purchase made through a federally licensed dealer. All of it is designed to both prevent gun violence and to aid police in tracking down perpetrators of violence when it happens.
“Ghost guns” are guns assembled by buyers from mail-order kits and/or 3D-printer plans instead of being sold as fully functioning weapons. The only logical reason for this roundabout process is to make it easier for people who aren’t supposed to have weapons to get them — and to make it harder for police to trace them when they’re used in crimes.
Common sense dictates that, regardless of how a gun came into being, federal requirements regarding serial numbers and the rest should still apply. A gun assembled at home can be used to kill with just as much finality as one bought in a gun shop.
Yet because of the gun lobby’s hold over American politics, the legal status of ghost guns today remains in limbo.
Congress, at the gun lobby’s bidding, has refused to specify in federal law that ghost guns must come under the same restrictions as other guns. The Biden administration responded with administrative rules that require manufacturers of ghost gun components to adhere to the same regulations as firearms manufacturers, including stamping the parts with serial numbers and keeping relevant sales records.
Opponents sued to overturn those restrictions, arguing that gun kits aren’t guns — never mind that they can be assembled by buyers into functioning weapons in as little as 30 minutes. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case (Garland v. VanDerStok) in October; its opinion is pending.
But the incoming Trump administration could render the case moot. During President Donald Trump’s first term, he loosened federal regulations on 3D-printer technology related to ghost guns and sided with the gun lobby on most issues. Trump could summarily rescind the Biden administration’s ghost-gun restrictions upon retaking office.
All indications are that his fellow Republicans who will control both chambers of Congress would back such a move. Congressional Republicans have consistently supported a hands-off approach to an industry that exists for literally no reason but to hamper law enforcement in criminal investigations.
More and more criminals are figuring that out. The number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes has exploded 10-fold in just the past five years, from under 1,800 in 2016 to more than 19,000 in 2021, according to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
While the assassin in last week’s murder could just as easily have killed Thompson with a standard-issue handgun, the fact that it was apparently a ghost gun could conceivably complicate the case against Mangione.
Police say the ghost gun found on Mangione is “consistent” with the type of gun used in the killing. But that doesn’t provide the solid link they might be able to establish if they could work with a serial number, manufacturing records, background checks and other law enforcement tools that are, by intentional design, not available for ghost guns.
In other words, the fact that Mangione allegedly used such a gun to carry out the murder could in theory make it more difficult to prosecute him. If so, will Republicans continue to shield the unrestricted proliferation of this made-for-crime industry from even the minimum firearms standards currently on the books?
It’s not a rhetorical question. By failing to pass commonsense legislation stamping ghost-gun restrictions into federal law, Congress aids the criminals who are aided by this niche of the firearms industry. Remember that the next time some gun-lobby politician waxes on about supporting “law and order.”
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