REPORT: State lawmakers want Biden’s name stripped from freeway

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From Fox News: Several Pennsylvania officials, particularly in the Scranton area where President Joe Biden hails from, are calling on the city to undo its 2021 renaming of a freeway spur in his honor.

State Rep. Jamie Walsh, R-Dallas, appeared to lead the charge with a scathing statement highlighting Biden’s recent pardon of a judge convicted in a “kids-for-cash” scandal wherein he received kickbacks for sentencing juveniles to for-profit prisons.

Wilkes-Barre Common Pleas Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella Jr. were convicted in 2008. The former served time in prison, followed by COVID-induced house arrest until Biden’s pardon.

Walsh said some of the children affected had been convicted of minor offenses like jaywalking. The Democratic-majority Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out 4,000 juvenile convictions as a result of the scandal.

The Scranton mayor and city council had unanimously approved a three-quarter of a mile section of the expressway to be renamed as the “President Biden Expressway” in 2021.

Walsh made the push to yank Biden’s name off the freeway in a press release on Wednesday.

The press release reads:

“In light of the recent decision made by the Biden administration to commute former Judge Conahan’s sentence, I implore city officials and Mayor Cognetti to remove President Joe Biden’s name from the expressway sign that leads to the heart of the ‘Electric City’s’ downtown area.

“The children affected by Conahan’s actions of nearly 15 years ago are now adults suffering in their own ‘mental’ prisons due to his deeds of self-fulfillment. Crimes against children are everlasting, and there is no escape from the irreparable damage these predators caused by their actions.

“The commutation of Conahan’s sentence by President Biden exonerates the behavior of people in leadership roles in perpetuity and makes the ‘Kids-for-Cash’ program acceptable in the minds of future predatory agencies and people.

“At a time when local government leaders can show their constituents that they are on the side of the people, there has never been a better opportunity than this current situation. This is not a left versus right issue, it is right versus wrong. Children on both sides of the aisle were damaged by Conahan. I am simply asking elected officials in Scranton to now ‘do the right thing.’”

The former judge and his co-conspirator, Mark Ciavarella, were found guilty in 2010 of conspiring to funnel juveniles to for-profit detention facilities in exchange for $2.8 million in kickbacks. The scheme affected thousands of young people, many of whom were first-time offenders convicted of minor infractions like truancy or jaywalking. Conahan had 20 months remaining in his sentence.

Following the case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned over 4,000 convictions involving more than 2,300 youths. The scandal triggered widespread reforms in the juvenile justice system.

Actor Randy Quaid joked, “Yes! Revert the name of the Biden Expressway in Scranton except for the slow lane.”

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