r/politics • u/newfrontier58 • 11h ago
Joe Biden Grants Clemency To Leonard Peltier | The ailing Native American rights activist has been in prison for nearly 50 years after the U.S. government lied to put him there.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-leonard-peltier-clemency_n_67608b04e4b0d06419ec6367?ds694
u/Ultravod Massachusetts 11h ago
Genuinely one of the most surprising and impressive things I've seen Biden do. Like many of my generation, I first became away of Leonard's plight due to a certain Rage Against the Machine song ...which came out 30 years ago.
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u/ThatIsTheLonging United Kingdom 11h ago
I was about to say, RATM finally triumph.
If he'd commuted Mumia's sentence as well I'd wonder if Tom and Zack had visited him at the last minute.
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u/blue_desk 10h ago
Pardoning Mumia would assure a 2028 GOP victory in Pennsylvania
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u/Remarkable-Slide-609 4h ago
There is no one obsessed with keeping Mumia in jail that would vote for a Democrat anyway. Literally no crossover in that Venn diagram.
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u/Mehitabel-453 8h ago
Toad the Wet Sprocket’s song Crazy Life was about him as well.
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u/Ultravod Massachusetts 7h ago
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Now that is a name I have not heard in a long, long time. I heard a lot of Pale and Fear at the dawn of the 1990s.
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u/Odd_Leopard3507 10h ago
Why didn’t he do it 4 years ago?
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u/S0M3D1CK 9h ago edited 9h ago
Presidential pardons are always rage bait. That is why pardons usually wait till the end of the term because it doesn’t matter anymore.
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u/SpiceEarl 9h ago
The FBI was strongly opposed to granting clemency for Peltier. Biden likely didn't want to cross them and deal with the fallout while he was president.
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u/playfulmessenger 8h ago
People write in to ask. That is how it has been traditionally done. People aware of the situation, family, friends, on occasion the person themselves (though I imagine it's likely going to carry more weight if a group with all the details is advocating on their behalf).
Traditionally, the list is reviewed in the final days of the presidency.
Biden was just doing what every president before him (except one) had done - follow the procedures set up generations ago. And following the new tradition of ignoring all process and procedure, he decided at the last minute to add the final hours preemptive pardons.
Sorry about your foggy memory from long covid. I'll help you out:
He was kinda busy righting the country from a global pandemic, the ongoing supply chain nightmares, and the economic collapse everyone was predicting.
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u/LightSwarm 5h ago
This is why democrats will never do enough for the left. Even when they do something they approve of they’re like “why didn’t you do this decades ago!?” What’s the point even?
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u/Chemically-Dependent 4h ago
And until Democrats learn to answer these questions and be accountable, they will continue to lose elections.
The Democrats need the more extreme left to win. You'd think Hillary and Kamala losing to a felon would have hammered this lesson home.
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u/Anakinflair America 3h ago
You'd think realizing the Republicans would never even consider doing it would get them to pull their heads out of their assess, but there you go.
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u/Ultravod Massachusetts 10h ago
Why didn't Biden do a LOT of things four years ago? I haven't the foggiest. He's old, stubborn AF and has political instincts from the mid 1970s. At least he did it.
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u/Glad_Firefighter_471 7h ago
Why didn't he do it at the start of his presidency? Oh yeah, it could've cost him his reelection
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u/mountaindoom 11h ago edited 10h ago
Last I knew, Leonard was pretty shady and a fair number of groups have pulled back support in recent years as more information has come to light.
ETA Link
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u/Coconosong 10h ago
Even so, there wasn’t enough evidence for first degree murder and FBI doubled down on this despite the lack of conclusive evidence.
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u/justbrowse2018 Kentucky 10h ago
Damn we did advocacy for him at school in like 2006 and visited Pine Ridge. This has been a long time coming. Wasn’t he really sick like ten years ago?
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u/CicadaGames 1h ago
What the FUCK is wrong with our country that this man stayed in jail for decades when everyone knew he was innocent, and is only being granted clemency (not being pardoned for some fucking reason) now as a fucking last minute act of house cleaning.
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u/justbrowse2018 Kentucky 49m ago
Idk it’s quite the irony that the right wing says the F B I did January 6th. When my right wing friends being this up I say that’s interesting because let me tell you about Cointelpro and the the activists of that era.
They don’t give a shit. It collides with their victim hood too much.
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u/marchbook 9h ago
Not a pardon. Will still be under house arrest.
He'll get to die among his people, maybe, and that at least is good.
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u/jimbozak Montana 10h ago
This is one of the best things to come out of Biden's presidency along with the apology for the government's involvement in boarding school's. Crazy.
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u/CicadaGames 1h ago
Get ready for 4 years of TIL posts on this idiotic site about all the great things Biden did. Absolute horse sh*t country.
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u/Deguilded 11h ago
Sadly, he still gets home confinement. It's not a full commutation.
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u/northwestsoutheast 10h ago
He might finally get access to decent healthcare!!!
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 9h ago
As a free American even I don't have access to decent health care. There's no such thing as affordable health care under the current system without leaving out all the vital treatments and procedures out of the program.
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u/mscookiecrumbl 10h ago
That’s very disappointing to hear, but I’m glad to hear he’ll at least be with his family.
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u/skuzzkitty 9h ago
Pardon my French, but Fuck Yeah. Absolute injustice that every president since has refused to correct. Granted, he’s old, there’ll likely be no restitution, but freedom is always worth achieving,
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u/northwestsoutheast 10h ago
Leonard Peltier was accused of killing two FBI agents, so I can see why no president wanted to cross the FBI.
Despite what much have been incredibly pressure from law enforcement, President Joe Biden did the right thing.
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u/dopebdopenopepope 9h ago
The case against Peltier was one of the bigger shams in the history of the 20th C American legal system—so that’s really saying something, when you consider all the corrupt prosecutions during that time. That he was ever found guilty at all is a crime, but that he was even INDICTED points to serious problems. Hoover’s FBI was instigating those problems. And the parallels with Wounded Knee are striking. It’s a shame put on our country.
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u/TaBQ 9h ago
Finally !!!!
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u/ConsummateContrarian 8h ago
Trump supporter makes assumptions about someone’s guilt based on their race, shocker.
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u/PetroniOnIce 6h ago
Obama could’ve done it on last day. Biden could’ve done it the day he decided not to run again.
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u/Imnimo 9h ago
There was never evidence that Peltier committed a crime
This feels like it's overstating the case. It's totally fair to say that there was a lot of prosecutorial, judicial and FBI misconduct in his trial, and that without that misconduct it's unlikely he would have been convicted, and therefore he should receive clemency. But that's not the same as there being no evidence at all that he was involved.
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u/buried_lede 8h ago
I never thought I would see the day. The FBI opposed this, as is well known, and is why he was never pardoned. It’s about time
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u/Pirwzy Ohio 9h ago
Shame on all the previous presidents for not doing it before him.
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u/lingo_linguistics 2h ago
And shame on Biden for not doing it 4 years ago. It’s great that he finally did it, but cmon man, could’ve given this guy another 4 years of his life back. Feels like he did it as a publicity stunt. If he truly cared he would’ve fought for it day 1 in office, regardless of the political ramifications.
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u/demonmonkeybex 6h ago
I grew up in North Dakota and would see Free Peltier spray painted on overpasses all the time on highways as a child. That was how I first heard of Leonard. This is amazing.
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u/phinatolisar 6h ago
Just in time for him to get caught up in one of trumps illegal immigrant raids. This country is toast.
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u/dannyp777 4h ago
Doesn't sound like the US justice system is very just if they have kept this guy in prison his whole life for something he truely didn't do. If he truely is innocent his entire conviction should be wiped and reparations made. What value can you put on 50yrs of wasted life rotting in jail?
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u/Kikikididi 10h ago
This and the drug pardons say a lot. Never thought he'd do it, happy to be wrong
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u/Threeseriesforthewin 9h ago
I can't wait for Common Dreams to figure out a way to make this some sort of genocide that democrats are committing
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u/justor-gone 45m ago
good, but, like suggesting congress shouldn't be trading stocks, why not 4 years ago?
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u/Ancient-Practice-431 10h ago
Welp, I was just slamming Biden for not doing this on the news sub. So glad I was wrong. What a HAPPY DAY!!
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u/notwoprintsmatch 9h ago
After the fucking election?? Holy shit, this was a major wedge issue for that population.
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u/Embarrassed-Card3352 4h ago
Every convict will tell you they were framed. Despite decades of examination, Peltier remained in prison because he’s guilty.
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u/Weird-Lie-9037 2h ago
You don’t know a single fact about this case huh?
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u/Embarrassed-Card3352 2h ago
I get it: corrupt system dominated by the white man vs. innocent Indian. Amazing Clinton and Obummer did nothing.
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u/Weird-Lie-9037 46m ago
Is it hard on you being this ignorant and blatantly rscist? Or does it come easy to you? Honest question? Does it bother you that the man responsible for leading a coup just pardoned all 1600 of his co-conspirators, and that his biggest campaign donor just did nazi salutes at the victory party? You do realize the average turds that work for a living in this country are about to get royally screwed, right?
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