Aloha, Decency

 I know all the drags. 

He was old. He wasn't tough enough. He could have...

He should have...

Joe Biden pardoned Leonard Peltier. After serving fifty years in prison, the Indigenous Activist who was sentenced to two life terms for killing two FBI agents, Mister Peltier will now be under home confinement. So, it wasn't actually a pardon so much as a change of venue. Now that Leonard Peltier is eighty years old and in declining health, he doesn't appear to be much of a threat. Two other members of the American Indian Movement who were also tried for the shootings were acquitted, leaving Leonard to serve his time, his life, in prison for defending the village of Wounded Knee from federal agents sent to serve warrants on those involved in the occupation. 

History is written by the victors, and so Leonard Peltier was viewed as a criminal, not a freedom fighter. On his way out of office, Joe Biden made a gesture to restore some of the natural order of things. 

Does this make Joe Biden a hero? He was not a victor in this past flurry of an election. He was a non-participant. He was the guy who was saddled with the ugly mess left him by (checks notes) the guy who is going to replace him. COVID. Supply chains. Ballooning deficits. In 2020, we handed the mop to Joe and he set to work putting our country back together. His administration created more than sixteen million new jobs. He was responsible for what Forbes magazine called "the strongest, healthiest, most resilient job market in American history."

This was the loser. This was the guy who spent his adult life in public service. He spent four years in the White House attempting to heal a nation that seems more interested in pulling out their IV and running out into the street to pick a fight with the pretzel vendor. Pardoning those closest to him in addition to those he felt were being unfairly held up for persecution by the Second Trumpreich was Joe's way of increasing the peace while he still had a chance. 

Over the next several weeks, we will bear witness to all the ways that the Broligarchy can tip things back into their favor, including renaming the Gulf of Mexico, acquiring other sovereign nations as American possessions and orchestrating the largest deportation of immigrants since Eisenhower. 

I'm not going to wait. I already miss having a decent human being in the Oval Office.