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We agree with state Rep. Jamie Flick, R-South Williamsport.
As reported in the Dec. 17 edition of the Sun-Gazette, Flick is troubled by President Joe Biden's decision to grant clemency to Michael Conahan, a disgraced ex-judge of Luzerne County who presided over the "kids for cash" scheme.
Under the "kids for cash" scheme, charges against juvenile defendants were embellished to rationalize sending them to for-profit detention centers. The companies running the centers contributed kickbacks to Conahan and others involved with the scheme.
Flick says the clemency decision "undermines accountability, particularly for those involved in such serious criminal conduct."
He's right.
The anguish of the Conahan pardon strikes especially close to home for the people of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties. State Rep. Brenda Pugh, R-Dallas, according to a Center Square article in the Dec. 19 edition of the Sun-Gazette is pressing to rename that region's Biden Expressway.
"This decision is nothing short of a travesty and his clemency is a miscarriage of justice," Pugh says.
She also is right. Stripping Biden's name from the highway through his birthplace is a step towards acknowledging that the president's actions in this matter are an assault on accountability and a miscarriage of justice.
This particular blemish on Biden's record deserves to follow him for a long time.