That should make a great bumper sticker: Vote Biden--He'll Pardon 78,000 Drug Criminals! Seriously, do hyper-partisan liberals believe they're doing Biden any favors with their extremist proposals for what he should do in office? Take Elie Mystal, a Joy Reid regular, on her MSNBC show on Saturday.
Commenting on President Trump's commutation of Roger Stone's sentence, Mystal suggested that to "show Republicans," on his first day in office Biden should pardon all 78,000 "non-violent" federal drug offenders. How many of these "non-violent" offenders in fact have a history of violence? How many would go on to commit violence once released, while stirring misery and addiction in the communities to which they return?
Far from rejecting Mystal's lunatic suggestion, Reid concurred: "I think it's a fair point." Now remember, this is the same Joy Reid who is getting a regular week night program on MSNBC, replacing Chris Matthews and Hardball.
Mystal has a history of making reprehensible remarks on Reid's show. In 2018, we caught him employing violent imagery, gloating that "we have Ivanka . . . in the crosshairs." And this past February, Mystal again employed a violent metaphor, saying "we have to cauterize the wound that is Donald Trump and his supporters."
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
AM Joy
7/11/20
10:07 am EDT
ELIE MYSTAL: Roger Stone knew he was going to get a pardon. That’s why Roger Stone's been walking around with same "my daddy owns your daddy smirk" since 1976, all right? This was a pardon of self-preservation, and everybody knew it was coming.
So the only relevant question is, what are Democrats going to do about it if they ever take power again? Right? And it’s not about Stone or Trump. It’s not about trying to grab Stone out of Mar-a-Lago before he gets the Trump tattoo on his shoulder.
On his last day in office, Barack Obama pardoned 330 non-violent drug offenders. And that was a great work. That was great work by the Obama/Biden administration. But there are 78,000 federal non-violent drug offenders. You want to show Republicans what a fully-operational pardon power looks like? Pardon them all on day one of the Biden administration. What are Republicans going to say? We don’t like the process. No, no, no. Republicans forfeited forever their right to complain about a pardon process. Democrats -- [inaudible ]
JOY REID: Yeah. No, I think it’s a fair point.
