Who else might Biden pardon after he spared Hunter from sentencing?
President Biden pardoned son Hunter Biden Sunday after repeatedly vowing he would not spare him from sentencing in a pair of separate federal court cases. Biden has just under 47 days remaining in the Oval Office before President-elect Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president. As Biden’s term comes to an end, a handful of elected officials and others have called on the president to issue pardons for other Americans, including the suggestion of “preemptive pardons” for Democrats ahead of Trump’s second term. HUNTER BIDEN PARDON WILL UNDERMINE PARTY’S ‘SELF-PROCLAIMED AUTHORITY’ ON RULE OF LAW: DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey claimed after the election he expects Trump to act in a “fascistic way” as president and called on Biden to pardon Democrats who could face prosecution under a second Trump administration. “I think that, without question, Trump is going to try to act in a dictatorial way, in a fascistic way, in a revengeful first year at least of his administration toward individuals who he believes harmed him,” Markey claimed during a local radio interview last month. “If it’s clear by Jan. 19 that that is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people because that’s really what our country is going to need next year.” Trump has long accused Democrats and the Biden administration of employing “lawfare” against him as he battled charges from racketeering to falsifying business records, with supporters such as Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., proclaiming last month that “accountability is coming” for those who targeted Trump. Under Markey’s argument, Biden could preemptively pardon Democrats who directly prosecuted Trump on charges Trump has slammed as “shams” and “witch hunts.” A handful of congressional Democrats — most notably representatives Ayanna Pressley, Mary Gay Scanlon and James Clyburn — called on Biden last month in a letter to issue sweeping pardons to convicts in a bid to “reunite families, address longstanding injustices in our legal system, and set our nation on the path toward ending mass incarceration.” The lawmakers requested the president pardon those who have languished in prison systems for years and rectify “draconian” sentences imposed on criminals. The letter specifically called for the president to consider pardons for the “elderly and chronically ill, those on death row, people with unjustified sentencing disparities, and women who were punished for defending themselves against their abusers.” SPECIAL COUNSEL, IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS SAY DON’T BUY BIDEN’S ‘SPIN’ ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN LEGAL SAGA “Now is the time to use your clemency authority to rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges. The grant of pardons and commutations and the restoration of rights will undoubtedly send a powerful message across the country in support of fundamental fairness and furthering meaningful criminal justice reform,” they wrote in a letter to Biden last month. Outgoing Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a vocal critic of Trump’s, said earlier this year Biden should have pardoned Trump from his indictments. “[Biden] should have fought like crazy to keep this prosecution from going forward,” Romney told MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle in May. “It was a win-win for Donald Trump. “You may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought on indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him,” he said. “I’d have pardoned President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy.” Biden pardoning Trump is unlikely to happen and would only apply to his federal charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Legal cases against Trump have stalled since his win last month. ROMNEY SUGGESTS BIDEN MADE ‘ENORMOUS ERROR’ IN NOT PARDONING TRUMP: ‘IT WAS A WIN-WIN’ Biden has pardoned 26 people during nearly four years in office, a review of DOJ data shows. The majority of those individuals were convicted of drug crimes, such as conspiracy to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine or conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base. In October, seven Senate Judiciary Committee members and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock sent a letter to Biden calling on him to commute sentences for individuals who would have been handed shorter sentences under the 2018 First Step Act. The First Step Act was a criminal justice reform bill Trump signed into law following bipartisan support that reduced mandatory minimum sentences for some drug crimes. “This Administration has the opportunity to deliver justice to incarcerated people who were sentenced under overly harsh mandatory minimums that the bipartisan First Step Act corrected,” Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, who signed the letter, told Politico earlier this year. “President Biden should heed our call and use the power of executive clemency while he has it.” 2 TIMES BIDEN SAID HE WOULD NOT PARDON SON HUNTER BIDEN Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is again earning support from lawmakers and others to be pardoned after years of legal woes over his publication of classified military documents leaked to him by a source in 2010. A bipartisan effort spearheaded by representatives James McGovern, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., called on Biden last week to pardon Assange and “send a clear message” that his administration will not target journalistic activity. REPS MCGOVERN, MASSIE URGE BIDEN TO PARDON JULIAN ASSANGE TO ‘SEND A CLEAR MESSAGE’ ON PRESS FREEDOM “We write, first, to express our appreciation for your administration’s decision last spring to facilitate a resolution of the criminal case against publisher Julian Assange and to withdraw the related extradition request that had been pending in the United Kingdom,” the lawmakers wrote to Biden. “This brought an end to Mr. Assange’s protracted detention and allowed him to reunite with his family and return to his home country of Australia.” Assange reached a deal with the U.S. Justice Department to end his imprisonment in the U.K. over charges related to publishing classified military documents. He had spent years in the U.K. to avoid extradition to the U.S. BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER
Indian Navy’s Power on Display: Odisha hosts Navy Day operational spectacle
This high-profile event will witness the presence of the Hon’ble President of India and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Smt. Droupadi Murmu, as the Chief Guest.
Faith in DOJ plummets as Biden, pardoning Hunter, joins Trump in denouncing the department
Let’s face it, trust in most of our government institutions has utterly collapsed. Many people don’t have faith in the FDA, the DOD, HUD, Homeland Security, the health agencies, and the list goes on. And they don’t trust the media to deliver basic facts about Washington without bias and blunders. These sentiments have basically been growing for the last 60 years, since the lies about Vietnam merged with the lies about Watergate and forced Richard Nixon to resign. BIDEN, TRUMP BOTH RIP DOJ AFTER PRESIDENT PARDONS HUNTER But the most sensitive federal agency, everyone would agree, is the Justice Department, including the FBI. Donald Trump has been attacking these agencies for years (along with the “fake news”), accusing them of politically persecuting him. He campaigned outside courthouses by telling reporters the prosecutors and judges were awful people who were out to get him solely because he was the leading candidate to win back the White House. Joe Biden, by breaking his promise not to pardon his son Hunter, did more than just lie. He ripped his own DOJ for “selectively and unfairly prosecuting” his son. I used to patrol the endless hallways of the J. Edgar Hoover building as the Justice Department beat reporter. On the criminal side, it is supposed to be independent, since Justice often winds up investigating the administration. Back in the day it was filled with fair-minded career prosecutors who pursued legitimate leads regardless of party. In saying that Hunter Biden was singled out for harsh treatment, the outgoing president is making the same argument as the incoming president, that the department is badly biased. Little wonder that so many people don’t trust DOJ. All Biden had to do when repeatedly asked about a pardon or commutation was “I’m not going to discuss hypotheticals.” Then at least he wouldn’t have the lying part. There is no question that Pam Bondi, despite some roughing up, will be the next attorney general, having precisely the experience (Florida AG, career prosecutor) that Matt Gaetz so blatantly lacked. She is not going to blow up the department. But in picking Kash Patel to run the FBI – and ignoring that Chris Wray is not through with his 10-year term – Trump is sending a very different message. And this isn’t some dark secret. It’s in the nominee’s own words. TRUMP HIT FOR HIRING LOYALISTS LIKE PAM BONDI: DOESN’T EVERY PRESIDENT DO THAT? Patel has vowed to shut down the bureau’s Washington headquarters. He said last year on Steve Bannon’s podcast, which we played on “Media Buzz”: “We will go out and find the conspirators…not just in government, but in the media.… Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” In his 2022 book “Government Gangsters,” Patel names 60 people as part of the deep state, “a cabal of unelected tyrants…the most dangerous threat to our democracy.” The press has dubbed this an enemies list. It includes the aforementioned Bill Barr (for blocking his appointment), NSC chairman John Bolton (an “arrogant control freak”), and Defense Secretary Mark Esper (who tried to fire him). Also on the list, as recounted by the New Republic: Joe Biden. Kamala Harris. Hillary Clinton. Merrick Garland. Samantha Power, who now runs the Agency for International Development. Former Obama officials James Clapper; John Brennan; Peter Strzok (who trashed Trump in texts with his FBI girlfriend, Lisa Page), Andrew McCabe (FBI deputy director), Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. A striking number are Donald Trump’s own appointees: Pat Cippolone (his White House counsel). Gina Haspel (his CIA director). Mark Esper. Charles Kupperman (his deputy national security adviser). TRUMP DROPPED MATT GAETZ AFTER COMPLAINING ABOUT HIGH POLITICAL COST OF DEFENDING HIM Cassidy Hutchinson (Mark Meadows’ top aide, who criticized Trump in her testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee). It’s a pretty big list. And having worked for Trump hardly provides immunity. Patel would have his work cut out for him, though he’d have to get a career prosecutor to submit a wiretap request or search warrant to the courts. Meanwhile, many Democratic lawmakers are hitting their party’s president pretty hard for the Hunter pardon, in interviews with the Times. Colorado Congressman Jason Crow: He promised he would not do this. I think it will make it harder for us going forward when we talk about upholding democracy.” Washington Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez: “The president made the wrong decision. No family should be above the law.” Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said the Biden move “put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.” And his late dropout from the race was also “putting his personal interest ahead of his responsibility to the country.” Vermont Sen. Peter Welch: “President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is, as the action of a loving father, understandable — but as the action of our nation’s chief executive, unwise.” Michigan Sen. Gary Peters: “Wrong.” Pretty bracing stuff. Some progressives defended Biden, such as Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett: “Way to go Joe!” She said a 34-count convicted felon is about to walk into the White House, perhaps missing the news that Jack Smith has dropped the charges. On “Morning Joe” yesterday, Mika Brzezinski, while saying she wished Biden hadn’t promised no pardon, took on the coverage: “You look at what has happened on the Trump side, especially if you even parallel pardons that Trump has done himself, it’s just always so — it seems so hysterically imbalanced!” Joe Scarborough spoke of “the frustration that many Democrats are having on the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, a lot of mainstream organizations blowing this up to the size that they believe is really out of proportion, given everything Donald Trump has done in the past and what he’s doing right now.” Still, the two presidents have wound up in the same place in their view of the Justice Department as partisan and politicized. One fascinating tidbit dug up by
Who is Narain Singh Chaura, former Khalistani militant who fired at Sukhbir Singh Badal at Golden Temple?
Badal, who was serving as a volunteer (sewadar) near the shrine, was sitting in a wheelchair when the incident occurred
Democratic challenger Adam Gray flips California’s 13th Congressional District in nation’s final House race
Democrat Adam Gray has won California’s 13th Congressional District race, defeating incumbent Republican Rep. John Duarte, according to The Associated Press. California’s 13th Congressional District was the last seat to be called, with the district being one of the most competitive races in the Golden State. Republicans maintained the majority with 220, with Democrats trailing at 216. Gray, a former state legislator who represented California’s 21st Assembly District from 2012 to 2022, is considered a centrist Democrat who focused on key concerns for farmers in the Central Valley like water shortages. He also campaigned on renewable energy solutions. HOUSE DEM MOVES TO FORCE VOTE ON RELEASING GAETZ ETHICS REPORT In a statement on X, Gray wrote that the long-awaited results were confirmation that residents were ready for “independent and accountable leadership.” “I’m honored to become the Congressman-elect for California’s 13th Congressional District. The final results confirm this district is ready for independent and accountable leadership that always puts the Valley’s people ahead of partisan politics,” he wrote. “But the work has just begun.” SINGLE HOUSE RACE STANDS BETWEEN REPUBLICANS AND 1-SEAT MAJORITY “In Washington, I’ll work everyday to deliver the resources that the Valley needs: clean water, better educational opportunities, stronger infrastructure, and more good-paying jobs,” he wrote. “And you can count on me to build bipartisan relationships to accomplish these goals.” The race has been characterized as one of the tightest in the country. In 2022, Duarte narrowly defeated Gray by just 564 votes. Duarte, a businessman and farmer, focused on issues like inflation, crime and agricultural issues during his campaign.
Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky pleads guilty to two fraud counts
Mashinsky was one of several crypto moguls charged with fraud after a slump in prices in 2022 caused firms to collapse. Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, has pleaded guilty in the United States to two counts of fraud. Mashinsky, 59, was indicted on July 13, 2023, on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and market manipulation charges. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said he misled Celsius customers to persuade them to invest, and artificially inflated the value of his company’s proprietary crypto token. He pleaded not guilty later that day. On Tuesday, during a hearing before US District Judge John Koeltl, Mashinsky said he pleaded guilty to two out of the seven counts he was initially charged with: commodities fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of CEL, Celsius’s in-house token. In court, Mashinsky admitted to giving Celsius customers “false comfort” by giving an interview in 2021 in which he said Celsius had received approval from regulators for its “Earn” programme, which it had not. The Earn programme allowed users to deposit cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether and receive weekly interest payments, offering as much as 18 percent annually. Advertisement He said he also failed to disclose that he had been selling his holdings of CEL. “I know what I did was wrong, and I want to try to do whatever I can to make it right,” Mashinsky said. As part of his plea deal with prosecutors, Mashinsky agreed not to appeal any sentence of 30 years or less – the maximum he faces for the two counts. Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky pleaded guilty to two of seven counts [File: Reuters TV via Reuters] Mashinsky was one of several crypto moguls to be charged with fraud after a slump in crypto prices in 2022 caused a number of companies, including the now-bankrupt exchange FTX, to collapse. Prices for digital assets like Bitcoin have since surged, in part due to optimism about US President-elect Donald Trump’s expected friendly policies towards cryptocurrency. Founded in 2017, Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US – which allows a business to continue operating while it works on a plan to repay its creditors – in July 2022 after customers rushed to withdraw deposits as crypto prices fell. Many were initially unable to access their funds. The company exited bankruptcy on January 31, and has pivoted to Bitcoin mining. Crypto lenders such as Celsius grew rapidly as crypto prices surged during the COVID pandemic. They promised easy loan access and eye-popping interest rates to depositors, then lent out tokens to institutional investors, hoping to profit from the difference. Celsius was among the first in a series of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency sector in 2022 as token prices cratered amid rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation. It filed for bankruptcy shortly after Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and rival crypto lender Voyager Digital did so. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Mashinsky and Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, of manipulating the market for the company’s crypto token. Cohen-Pavon pleaded guilty in September 2023 and agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors’ investigation. Prosecutors have said Mashinsky also personally reaped approximately $42m in proceeds from selling his holdings of the CEL token. Advertisement Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was convicted of stealing roughly $8bn from the exchange’s customers in November 2023 and sentenced in March to 25 years in prison. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,014
These were the key developments on the 1,014th day of the Russia-Ukraine war. Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 4: Fighting Russian drones struck critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s western Ternopil and Rivne regions overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. The attack left part of the city of Ternopil without electricity, the city’s mayor said, a week after Russian strikes cut power to much of the city and the surrounding region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for major reinforcement of eastern sectors in Ukraine’s 1,000-km (600-mile) front line. Zelenskyy said that much depended on Ukraine’s Western allies providing vital weaponry, adding that the “greater our army’s firepower and technological capabilities, the more we can destroy Russia’s offensive potential”. Zelenskyy issued his appeal as Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its troops had captured two new front-line villages – the town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region and the town of Novodarivka in the neighbouring Zaporizhia region. Russia’s air defence units were working to repel a Ukrainian drone attack on Novorossiysk, the mayor of the Russian Black Sea port city said early on Wednesday. Russian Navy frigates tested new generation Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missiles during drills in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry reported. A Russian submarine also launched a Kalibr cruise missile, another weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, while an Onyx antiship missile was also tested. Ukraine has conducted a test on new domestically-made missiles and is ramping up missile production, Zelenskyy said, without providing further details. A Russian Navy frigate fires a Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missile during drills as captured in this still image from a video released on December 3, 2024 [Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via Reuters] Politics and diplomacy NATO will step up intelligence sharing and improve the protection of critical infrastructure in the face of Russia’s “hostile” acts of sabotage, NATO chief Mark Rutte said in advance of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers on Tuesday. Rutte added that the bloc needs to step up military aid to strengthen Kyiv’s position should it enter into peace negotiations with Moscow. While NATO political leaders have agreed “in principle” that Ukraine will join the transatlantic alliance, a number of members are waiting for Donald Trump’s administration to take office in the United States before approving the move, Latvian Minister for Foreign Affairs Baiba Braze told the Reuters news agency at the meeting. Ukraine declared it would not settle for anything less than NATO membership to guarantee its future security, as the alliance sidestepped Kyiv’s call for an immediate membership invitation at Tuesday’s foreign ministers’ meeting. Ukraine needs robust security guarantees and a just peace, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the sidelines of the NATO meeting, adding that Kyiv alone would decide when to start negotiations with Russia. Italy is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine, two sources close to the matter have told the Reuters news agency, in a renewed show of support for Kyiv from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. A Russian presidential aircraft and money were used in a Kremlin-funded programme that took at least 314 children from occupied Ukrainian territories and placed them with Russian families, according to a US State Department-backed report by Yale’s School of Public Health. State-owned Polish insurer PZU wants to finance projects of dual military and civilian use, the company’s president Artur Olech said, as the country ramps up defence spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Olech did not provide details but ruled out purely military projects. The Kremlin said a US decision to send another weapons package to Ukraine worth $725m shows the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden is determined to throw oil on the fire of the war in Ukraine to ensure the conflict keeps going. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
SAD Chief Sukhbir Singh Badal shot at Golden Temple
On Wednesday, gunfire erupted at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, where leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), including party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, were engaged in a religious penance known as ‘seva.’ This act of service was mandated by Sri Akal Takht Sahib as a consequence of their past actions during their governance from 2007 to 2017.
Federal judge accuses President Biden of attempting to ‘rewrite history’ in Hunter Biden pardon
The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case issued a sharp rebuke of President Biden’s claim that his son was unfairly treated as well as the president’s delivery method following the president’s last-minute pardon. U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who is based in the Central District of California and was nominated by President-elect Trump, accused President Biden in a scathing five-page order of “rewriting history” with the pardon and suggested that the breadth of the pardon granted to his son is unconstitutional. “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history,” he wrote. BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER BIDEN AHEAD OF EXIT FROM OVAL OFFICE The judge voiced his displeasure that the president alerted the judicial system of his order to pardon his son via a White House press release. “Rather than providing a true and correct copy of the pardon with the notice, Mr. Biden provided a hyperlink to a White House press release presenting a statement by the President regarding the pardon and the purported text of the pardon,” he wrote. “In short, a press release is not a pardon,” he continued. READ – APP USERS CLICK HERE: Scarsi continued, reacting to the president’s statement on his son’s tax case: “the President asserts that Mr. Biden ‘was treated differently’ from others ‘who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,’ implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction. But he is not.” “According to the President, ‘[n]o reasonable person who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cases can reach any other conclusion than [Mr. Biden] was singled out only because he is [the President’s] son.’ But two federal judges expressly rejected Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President. And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges,” Scarsi wrote. 2 TIMES BIDEN SAID HE WOULD NOT PARDON SON HUNTER BIDEN “In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people,” he said. The judge said he would dispose of the case once he receives the official pardon from “the appropriate executive agency.” He also vacated Hunter Biden’s sentencing, which was scheduled for Dec. 16. The charges carried up to 17 years behind bars, but the first son would likely have faced a much shorter sentence under federal sentencing guidelines. TRUMP PREVIOUSLY PREDICTED BIDEN WOULD PARDON SON HUNTER “Subject to the following discussion, the Court assumes the pardon is effective and will dispose of the case. The Supreme Court long has recognized that, notwithstanding its nearly unlimited nature, the pardon power extends only to past offenses,” he wrote. Hunter Biden, 54, has had a busy year in court, kicking off his first trial in Delaware in June, when he faced three felony firearm offenses, before he pleaded guilty in a separate felony tax case in September. President Biden pardoning his son is a departure from his previous remarks to the media over the summer when he insisted he would not pardon the first son. “Yes,” President Biden told ABC News when asked if he would rule out pardoning Hunter ahead of his guilty verdict in the gun case. Days later, following a jury of Hunter’s peers finding him guilty of three felony firearm offenses, the president again said he would not pardon his son. “I am not going to do anything,” Biden said after Hunter was convicted. “I will abide by the jury’s decision.” Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment. Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
Namibia elects Nandi-Ndaitwah as country’s first woman president
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, won with 57 percent of the vote, flouting predictions that she might be forced into a run-off. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has been elected Namibia’s president and will be the country’s first female leader, results released by the country’s electoral commission show. The 72-year-old won with 57 percent of the vote, according to official results declared on Tuesday by the electoral commission, flouting predictions that she might be forced into a run-off. “The Namibian nation has voted for peace and stability,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said after being declared president-elect. Her win cements her governing South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party’s 34-year hold on power since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 – a contested outcome. Opposition parties have rejected the results after the election was marred by technical problems, including shortages of ballot papers and other issues, causing election officials to extend voting until Saturday. Long queues meant that some voters gave up on the first day of voting after waiting for up to 12 hours. The opposition parties say the extension was illegal and have pledged to challenge the results in court. Advertisement The candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Panduleni Itula, trailed Nandi-Ndaitwah with 25.5 percent of the vote, according to the commission. “The rule of law has been grossly violated and we cannot call these elections by any means or measure as free, fair and legitimate,” Itula said on Saturday. Nandi-Ndaitwah was promoted to vice president in February after President Hage Geingob died while in office. While in power for decades, SWAPO has disenchanted young voters due to high youth unemployment rates and enduring inequalities. She got her start in politics by taking part in the country’s underground independence movement in the 1970s. She returned from the UK to join parliament in 1990 and went on to serve as minister with several portfolios over the years. Adblock test (Why?)