The Free and Equal Elections Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a mission to open the electoral process through education and collaborative action. Founded in 2008 by electoral reform and voters' rights leader Christina Tobin, Free & Equal leads national, state and local efforts to transform the electoral system in the United States. Free & Equal hosts open gubernatorial, presidential and senatorial debates. Since 2009, Free & Equal has hosted annual electoral reform symposiums uniting intellectuals and experts to share, debate and offer reforms to the current U.S. electoral system. In 2014, Free & Equal launched United We Stand, an annual nationwide tour uniting the younger generations with musicians, artists, and thought leaders to encourage local civics participation and inspire people to run for office. Free & Equal's latest project is creating a Blockchain Election Assistant App to promote transparency and empower voters with information about all their candidate choices.
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Rioters breach Capitol security Jan. 6
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Presidents can no longer be trusted with pardons
Nov 30, 2025
Ours is a system of “checks and balances.”
The president can do this or that, but the courts and Congress can put a stop to it (depending on the circumstances and relevant rules). When the courts rule that the executive branch can’t do something, Congress can write a new law saying the president can do it. When Congress passes a law the president doesn’t like, the president can veto it. Congress, if it has enough votes, can override the veto. And so on. The whole idea is to deny any one branch or person too much concentrated power.
I’m sorry if I sound a bit condescending given that everyone is supposed to have learned this stuff in grade school. But it seems a lot of people have forgotten how our system is supposed to work, so I thought a quick recap might be helpful.
Anyway, even under our system, each branch has powers that really can’t be checked. Congress, for instance, has sole authority to levy taxes and spend taxpayer money, declare war, etc. Once a court acquits a defendant, the defendant can’t be prosecuted for that crime again.
The president has some unique powers too. Including the sole, final authority to grant pardons, which cannot be reviewed or repealed by Congress or the courts.
It’s time we changed that — and the only way to do so is by amending the Constitution.
There are two reasons for getting rid of the president’s power to pardon. The first is the grotesque abuses of that power by Presidents Trump and Biden. In his first term, Trump issued a series of egregious pardons for, among others, lackeys, war criminals and political allies.
Biden then issued blanket and preemptive pardons for his family and various political allies. Partisan defenders like to say this was necessary to protect the Bidens from persecution by the incoming Trump administration. These defenses tend to overlook the Biden family’s exceedingly shady business dealings. They also ignore a raft of other pardons and commutations Biden allegedly just outsourced to ideologues on his staff.
Back in office in 2025, Trump has outdone Biden (and himself). He launched his second term by granting mass pardons to the goons who beat police with flagpoles and stormed the Capitol on his behalf on Jan. 6, 2021. Since then, he’s pardoned a rogues’ gallery of donors, partisan allies and people with business ties to him or his family, including crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of Binance, a trading platform that allowed terrorists and criminal organizations to finance their operations under the radar.
Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering, but he also worked assiduously to boost the Trump family’s crypto business. It certainly appears that he got a pardon in exchange for services rendered.
The second reason for getting rid of the president’s pardon power involves that earlier stuff about checks and balances. The Founding Fathers believed the only remedy for the corrupt abuse or misuse of pardons was impeachment. James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, was explicit on this point.
At the Virginia ratifying convention, George Mason objected that the pardon power was too great, and that presidents could use pardons to suborn criminal activity on their behalf. Madison responded that, “If the president be connected in any suspicious manner with any (such) persons, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter himself, the house of representatives can impeach him.”
The problem: Congress’ impeachment power has proven to be a dead letter in the modern era of hyper-partisanship. Just as presidents cannot be trusted to use the pardon power responsibly, Congress cannot be trusted with the responsibility to hold presidents accountable. Without checks, there is no balance.
There still should be room for pardons and clemency in our system. But leaving it solely in the power of presidents has led to evermore abuse. Indeed, I think it’s almost a certainty that Trump will use the Biden precedent to preemptively pardon much of his administration, his sons and himself before he leaves office. Given the ongoing weaponization of the justice system — and his abuse of it — he’d almost be a fool not to.
The Constitution was written with men like George Washington in mind. When Washington opted to step down after two terms, it established a two-term tradition that endured until Franklin Roosevelt violated it. Afterward, we amended the Constitution to codify what had been a tradition.
For most of our history, presidents took the solemnity of pardons — and the threat of impeachments — seriously. They no longer do. It’s time to change the Constitution accordingly.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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Rioters breach Capitol security Jan. 6
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Presidents can no longer be trusted with pardons
Nov 30, 2025
Ours is a system of “checks and balances.”
The president can do this or that, but the courts and Congress can put a stop to it (depending on the circumstances and relevant rules). When the courts rule that the executive branch can’t do something, Congress can write a new law saying the president can do it. When Congress passes a law the president doesn’t like, the president can veto it. Congress, if it has enough votes, can override the veto. And so on. The whole idea is to deny any one branch or person too much concentrated power.
I’m sorry if I sound a bit condescending given that everyone is supposed to have learned this stuff in grade school. But it seems a lot of people have forgotten how our system is supposed to work, so I thought a quick recap might be helpful.
Anyway, even under our system, each branch has powers that really can’t be checked. Congress, for instance, has sole authority to levy taxes and spend taxpayer money, declare war, etc. Once a court acquits a defendant, the defendant can’t be prosecuted for that crime again.
The president has some unique powers too. Including the sole, final authority to grant pardons, which cannot be reviewed or repealed by Congress or the courts.
It’s time we changed that — and the only way to do so is by amending the Constitution.
There are two reasons for getting rid of the president’s power to pardon. The first is the grotesque abuses of that power by Presidents Trump and Biden. In his first term, Trump issued a series of egregious pardons for, among others, lackeys, war criminals and political allies.
Biden then issued blanket and preemptive pardons for his family and various political allies. Partisan defenders like to say this was necessary to protect the Bidens from persecution by the incoming Trump administration. These defenses tend to overlook the Biden family’s exceedingly shady business dealings. They also ignore a raft of other pardons and commutations Biden allegedly just outsourced to ideologues on his staff.
Back in office in 2025, Trump has outdone Biden (and himself). He launched his second term by granting mass pardons to the goons who beat police with flagpoles and stormed the Capitol on his behalf on Jan. 6, 2021. Since then, he’s pardoned a rogues’ gallery of donors, partisan allies and people with business ties to him or his family, including crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of Binance, a trading platform that allowed terrorists and criminal organizations to finance their operations under the radar.
Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering, but he also worked assiduously to boost the Trump family’s crypto business. It certainly appears that he got a pardon in exchange for services rendered.
The second reason for getting rid of the president’s pardon power involves that earlier stuff about checks and balances. The Founding Fathers believed the only remedy for the corrupt abuse or misuse of pardons was impeachment. James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, was explicit on this point.
At the Virginia ratifying convention, George Mason objected that the pardon power was too great, and that presidents could use pardons to suborn criminal activity on their behalf. Madison responded that, “If the president be connected in any suspicious manner with any (such) persons, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter himself, the house of representatives can impeach him.”
The problem: Congress’ impeachment power has proven to be a dead letter in the modern era of hyper-partisanship. Just as presidents cannot be trusted to use the pardon power responsibly, Congress cannot be trusted with the responsibility to hold presidents accountable. Without checks, there is no balance.
There still should be room for pardons and clemency in our system. But leaving it solely in the power of presidents has led to evermore abuse. Indeed, I think it’s almost a certainty that Trump will use the Biden precedent to preemptively pardon much of his administration, his sons and himself before he leaves office. Given the ongoing weaponization of the justice system — and his abuse of it — he’d almost be a fool not to.
The Constitution was written with men like George Washington in mind. When Washington opted to step down after two terms, it established a two-term tradition that endured until Franklin Roosevelt violated it. Afterward, we amended the Constitution to codify what had been a tradition.
For most of our history, presidents took the solemnity of pardons — and the threat of impeachments — seriously. They no longer do. It’s time to change the Constitution accordingly.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
Donald Trump vs. Marjorie Taylor Green?! Here's What MAGA Really Means
Nov 29, 2025
In an interview on Fox News, President Trump affirmed his support for H-1B visas. He argued that because the US lacks enough talented people, we “have to bring this talent” from abroad. His words sparked outrage among conservatives.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s staunchest loyalists, pushed back against Trump’s narrative. Greene praised US-Americans as “the most talented people in the world.” She even introduced legislation aimed at ending “the mass replacement of American workers” by the H-1B visa program.
Greene is not alone here. Paul Dans, the Project 2025 architect, likewise expressed skepticism, noting that “things are seriously askew.” Despite this, Trump insists that he knows “what MAGA wants better than anybody else, and MAGA wants to see our country thrive.”
But are these actions a betrayal of Trumpian politics? I argue that it’s not. His supporters just never truly grasped what MAGA means for Trump. U.S. Americans – ‘real’ or otherwise – are not the priority of his politics. MAGA politics prioritizes economic growth and, even more so, Trump himself. Ironically, Trump supporters wanted a president who would run the country like a business. They failed to understand, however, that within this corporate metaphor, citizens would be the employees. Employees are always contingent and disposable under capitalism.
In addition to the wealthy, two other broad groups matter within Trumpian politics:
The first group is those in high demand by industry – those with “certain talents,” as Trump put it. This is why he is a proponent of H-1B visas, while also attempting to eliminate the birthright citizenship of people born to undocumented immigrants. H-1B visa holders are in demand, especially by tech companies. For Trump, the children of undocumented immigrants are a riskier investment, so they are expendable.
The second group consists of white, Christian Trump supporters. This is why
Trump is willing to go “guns-a-blazing” into Nigeria to defend Christians, while actively refusing to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the government shutdown. Most SNAP recipients are people of color (though whites do make up the single largest racial group receiving benefits). Moreover, because SNAP recipients rely on a government program, they are not actively contributing to the labor force. As Trump put it, “But people who are able-bodied can do a job — they leave their job because they figure they can pick this [SNAP] up, it’s easier.”
This isn’t simply Christian nationalism. Christians who oppose Trump are also at risk. This includes people like the Rev. Jorge Bautista, Rev. David Black, and the Rev. Hannah Kardon, all of whom were attacked while peacefully protesting ICE. Within MAGA politics, loyalty to Trump is non-negotiable. Greene is currently learning this herself.
While these two groups form the basis of Trump’s politics, they are not equally important to him. Here’s a rough sketch of his priorities from most to least important:
1. Donald J. Trump
2. The wealthy
3. White Christian Trump supporters with “certain talents” that contribute to the economy
4 . White Christian Trump supporters that are not economically productive (e.g., Trump voters receiving SNAP benefits) AND ‘talented’ foreigners (e.g., H-1B visas). At times, he may favor one or the other, but they are largely interchangeable.
5. White Christians who are not Trump supporters
6. Muslims and people of color who are US citizens and voted for Trump
7 . Muslims and people of color who are US citizens and didn’t vote for Trump
8. Undocumented immigrants and all other noncitizens not included in 4
Perhaps you disagree with some of these rankings. The final three are somewhat interchangeable depending on the circumstances. This also overlooks important categories like class, gender, and sexuality. Trumpian identity politics are deeply intersectional after all.
The reality, however, is that none of these rankings is set in stone, aside from the top spot. Trump’s actions consistently demonstrate his lack of Christian faith and values. Christians have simply been loyal to him.
What this incomplete sketch highlights is that Trumpian politics are messy, contingent, and hierarchical. It is not the clear-cut us vs. them “America-only agenda his supporters wanted. That’s what the current rift is ultimately about. Trump supporters thought he was their savior: a successful businessman who would uplift ‘real’ Americans and save the country from the grips of mass immigration and wokeism. What they got was a conman whose values are dictated by capitalism and narcissism.
Yet, this moment represents a shred of hope. Trump supporters are starting to see Trump for who he really is. They are unhappy, and they are not alone. The truth is, no one is happy with the status quo. This presents us with the opportunity to consider a new post-Trump reality.
For all our political differences, I think many of us want the same things: to see our communities flourish, to achieve our dreams, to uplift our families, and to live happy, peaceful lives. We all genuinely want America to be great. And I think most of us believe it can. But it won’t be if we keep getting distracted.
The rise of Trumpism is largely the byproduct of people’s desperate desire for a new politics – one that prioritizes people. A system that works for us, and not simply the other way around.
Conservatives fell for Trump because he was able to redirect and manipulate their fears and anxieties. He made them genuinely believe that if we could just deport the “illegals” and eliminate “extreme gender ideology,” then America would be great, and their lives would be better. Democrats failed to stop Trump precisely because they failed to listen to the working class. They were more concerned with appealing to centrists, corporate interests, and Israel than offering voters a vision of a better tomorrow.
This needs to be our new starting point. We need to acknowledge the real problems of income inequality, housing and food insecurity, discrimination, and political violence. For America to be great, real change is needed. We need to reject capitalists like Trump, political opportunists like J.D. Vance, and corporate politicians like Kamala Harris.
Fortunately, we don’t need to look far. Zohran Mamdani is this change. New Mexico’s no-cost universal child care is this change. A better tomorrow is possible; we need only to embrace it.
Jordan Liz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University. He specializes in issues of race, immigration and the politics of belonging.
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Cryptocurrency: Debunking Myths, Understanding Realities, and Exploring Economic and Social Impacts
Nov 29, 2025
“In 2020 and 2021, there was a big crypto bubble. You couldn’t turn a corner without seeing another celebrity crypto endorsement," said Mark Hays, the Associate Director for Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology with AFR/AFREF and with Demand Progress during the NFRPP’s October 25th, 2025, panel discussion. Hilary J. Allen, a Professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law, joined Hays. The discussion was moderated by Peter Coy, a freelance journalist covering economics, business, and finance.
Celebrities like Kevin Hart, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Serena Williams, Paris Hilton, and Snoop Dogg jumped to endorse crypto-related companies. The record of these endorsements has been poor (Bloomberg), and some are calling for people who endorse these products without doing due diligence to face legal repercussions (Boston College Law Review). The message from the NFRPP’s panel discussion was one of intense skepticism towards cryptocurrencies in general, with Professor Allen going so far as to call them a “failure as a technology.”
The creation of cryptocurrencies was driven by the belief that the current banking system and government-controlled currencies (“fiat” currencies) pose problems. Hays explained that there was a belief that “central intermediaries like banks or regulators were toying with the monetary system in ways that were cheating other people and making the system unfair. They blamed that, rather than malfeasance, for the lead-up to the global financial crisis. And the premise was, what if we could do away with all of that by simply replacing it with technology?”
The technology is the “blockchain,” which creates a centralized ledger that enables the issuance of a digital currency (a “cryptocurrency”) that can be traded safely and securely and is free from counterfeiting. Hays reminded us, “When you look at the history of financial technology, one of the biggest innovations hundreds of years ago was the creation of a double-entry book ledger, where people could more accurately record money coming in and money coming out. And the key to that was there was one central database with one person minding the store.” And as Allen explained, cryptocurrencies use the blockchain as an evolution to this centralized ledger technology, so “cryptocurrency is a notation on a database [blockchain]. And if there is a recordation on there that you own something associated with that blockchain, then you own a piece of cryptocurrency.”
Peter Coy noted that the concept of an entry in a ledger as the thing that records value is how all modern assets are recorded. “The deed to my house is also on a ledger somewhere. So, being on a ledger doesn't mean it's not a real asset.” The concept of a currency represented by entries in a safe, secure, decentralized ledger is not, by itself, a bad idea. The problems with the idea only become evident when the concept is converted into reality, and the list of those problems was the subject of much of the discussion. “That's the theory. Whether that works in practice is something I think we're skeptical of,” said Allen.
Coy recalled a quote that cryptocurrency is “like a laboratory for money because we are seeing the crypto people rediscover year by year all the lessons that were learned about regular money over centuries.” But as with many new technologies (AI was mentioned several times as being on a similar path), advocates argue that regulation will stifle the new industry; therefore, it should be left as unregulated as possible. In crypto, the people involved want companies to act like banks, but without the regulations traditional banks must follow.
So, does cryptocurrency work well as an alternate form of money? The answer appears to be mostly “no”. Allen noted that, because a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin has (in principle) only a fixed number of coins, it is, by design, deflationary. “Assuming that the fixed supply does remain fixed…think about it. If you know that your money will always buy more tomorrow than it will today, then that's encouragement not to spend it. And deflation is worse for economic conditions than inflation … that this is a deflationary currency … is a terrible idea.” Cryptocurrencies were shown not to be great as payment systems; they ended up being primarily (when used for legal purposes) an investment.
Cryptocurrencies aim to be both money (a form of payment) and investments (something expected to increase in value). Allen explained that it’s not possible to be both. Once it became “clear that this wasn't going to work very well as a money or a payment… what it became was something that people bet on the value. So that's where the investment part of it came in. But you can't be both money and an investment, because with money, you need the price to stay stable, with an investment, you need it to increase. So, you must pick one, or as I like to say, pick neither.”
How about the rationale for crypto that creates a “trustless” currency, in which you can replace your “faith” in a central bank with technology (the blockchain). Does that argument hold up in real life? As Allen describes, “I understand a lot of the distrust that motivated the creation of crypto, but the fact of the matter is, it just means you're trusting someone else. You're trusting whole other individuals, a place without transparency into who is running the show. No regulation would protect people's identity. So, you're not eliminating trust. You're just putting your trust in an unregulated system, and for so many reasons, including this privacy reason, I think that's a little bit of a scary thing to do.”
“Will it ever replace fiat currency? I kind of hope not. And the reason is, I think this is a broader governance question. The origin story of crypto and Bitcoin is built around the idea that we can never trust central banks, and there's certainly a lot of critique one can have about the central bank system. In hundreds of years of history, we learned the hard way … we decided to privatize aspects of monetary policy, and that doesn't work out well for a lot of people. In our country today, many of the sovereign rights associated with currency are held by governments. That's because governments, as flawed as they are for now, are democratically elected and controlled. And we can inform how money works through those government-issued currencies. The idea of having some global currency or some decentralized currency sounds attractive until you think about the reality of how crypto works, which is today, and likely in the future, it is not truly decentralized, and therefore it is just as subject to the same kinds of controlled wealthy interests that we see in our current financial system. You are essentially replacing one set of masters with another,” added Hays.
Does anyone use crypto as a payment mechanism? Apparently, yes. Professor Allen noted that “crypto is being used to fund half of the North Korean nuclear program. The goal of all ransomware attacks is to target infrastructure. We're starting to see gruesome crimes. There was a spate of them in France, where people were having their fingers dismembered in kidnappings, trying to get access to crypto cold storage wallets. There are consequences when you operate in a space without laws.”
If cryptocurrencies are not particularly useful as payment systems, it’s worth asking why interest in them remains so high. The reason is that deep-pocketed investors inject funds into the companies, advertising, and lobbying to create the regulatory environment they want. Hays explained that “because crypto entities can find money from wealthy venture capital firms, which are often the seed funders for a lot of their platforms, …they can sort of literally print their own money. They spent a tremendous amount of money in the 2024 election cycle, targeting many different political figures, and soon found rapport with the Trump family and campaign. They have been very successful in that regard. They spent more money than pretty much any other corporate entity in the 2024 elections.”
Allen believes “we desperately need campaign finance reform” to address the threats posed by cryptocurrencies to the financial system. Short of that, talking about the issue, like we do on the NFRPP, is the next best thing. With this information, as Hays says, it is then “up to people who are being asked to sign up for this new version of finance without really being told what's under the hood to call their policymakers to say, ‘Hey, I didn't sign up for this. ‘” Are we sure this is the right direction to go?’"
The complete program can be viewed at https://youtu.be/4z0ym5kTdaY?si=YUAkGtQHAsGsXOkX
Leigh M. Chinitz, Ph.D. is a trustee of The Network for Responsible Public Policy.
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