The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.

These days, multiple people who’ve spoken to him over the last year say, Biden often punctuates conversations with: “You think we can actually come back from this?”

The 83-year-old Biden continues to feel out a post-presidency that may prove to be one of the shortest in history and is already one of the most complicated.

There are days when Biden is heartbroken, indignant or in disbelief about what is happening as President Donald Trump — the man he defeated in 2020 — returned and moved not just to tear down his accomplishments, but to dig in with petty insults like the autopen photograph he put in Biden’s spot in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” installed at the White House.

  • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Dude sat on the Trump/Epstein files for 4 years and did nothing about it because it would have hurt the donor class and Israel.

    Trump won on a (false) pledge to release the files.

    Who deserves the blame for this situation in your mind?

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      Four years when it was still sealed by the courts because it was still an ongoing investigation?

      Also, you really don’t know how the government is supposed to work if you think the president even should have had a hand in the day-to-day operations of the DOJ…

      • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        HE WAS AN INSURECTIONIST, WAS BIDEN NOT AWARE BECAUSE IT WAS SEALED INFORMATION?

        COPE HARDER.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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          2 hours ago

          I never said he wasn’t aware. It would have been a breach of procedure to make documents pertaining to an ongoing case public. Such a breach of procedure can actually allow criminals to walk free.

          It would have been idiotic and unprofessional to release documents pertaining to an ongoing investigation.

          Also, the insurrection case was being put together, it just needed more time. Jack Smith did all he could in the two years he was given, but the Supreme Court decided to punt their decision on whether to allow the case to go through.

          There’s literally nothing more that Biden could have personally done in that regard, and if you think there was then you don’t understand the role of the president, nor do you understand the dangers of forcing or even allowing a president to claim prosecutorial powers.

      • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        You’re correct but apparently this thread is only for hyperbole. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Dude sat on the Trump/Epstein files for 4 years and did nothing

      This just in: investigations take longer in real life than on TV. Investigations of people with lots of lawyers take even more time and - stay with me - strategy.

      Just because you didn’t see something happening, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. That’s like Object Permanence.

      • loutr@sh.itjust.works
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        1 hour ago

        They have testimonies going back decades if they had wanted to look into it they would have by now

      • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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        8 hours ago

        SCOTUS gave the presidency unilateral powers for official acts. Biden could have easily threw the bad Supremes into the slammer, release the PDFiles, have Tulsi shot for being a Russian agent, and more.

        Abusive, yes. But at least it would force all the bullshit into the light.

      • itsamelemmy@piefed.zip
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        1 day ago

        Fucker tried to overthrow the government. If you can’t convict someone for that and prevent him from running again in 4 years that’s a serious failure to your duties as president. If the court system can’t handle it then maybe he should have used his presidential immunity the fucking supreme court ruled to get rid of the threat.

        Edit: also if biden wouldn’t have hopped on taking momentum away from Bernie in the primaries, it probably would have been Trump vs Bernie. And I believe Bernie would have won 2 terms. I think biden did decent as president, but allowing an insurrectionist to run again was a huge error.

          • itsamelemmy@piefed.zip
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            44 minutes ago

            You’re right, thats the DOJ. Now who appoints the head of the DOJ? That’s right, it’s the fucking president. So it was entirely in his power to appoint someone that would do his fucking job.

            But sure, I guess I’m just stupid.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          8 hours ago

          There is NO excuse for allowing Trump and his henchmen to roam free after Biden’s inauguration. He would have been well within his presidential, constitutional, and legal duties to round them all up and detain them in Guantanamo for extensive interrogation.

          Trump had attempted a violent Insurrection only a couple of weeks before. What kind of a NEW national leader takes over, and doesn’t do ANYTHING about a serious, active National Security Threat running actively destroying their nation?

          Easily the worst case of negligence and incompetence by a Democratic president since WWII.

      • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        You’re telling me 4 years was too short a time to build a case against an insurrectionist pedophile who was referenced more than any other individual in the files?

        And your chastising me for object permanence? L O fucking L

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          Or the case put together by Mueller during Trump’s presidency! Where the only impediment to going to trial was that Trump was currently president.

          These people will talk about slow and steady justice until the statute of limitations expires and then praise the prosecution for being cautious. If this was the best our justice system could do, we don’t have one.

          • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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            8 hours ago

            Justice delayed is justice denied. Many girls and now women in the Epstein files can attest to that.