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Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov

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Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#111

Post by WalterBright »

It's important to note the reason the President has the power to pardon anyone for any reason is it's one of the checks and balances, the Constitution is full of them. It's meant as a check to blunt overzealous prosecutions.

Note that the President does not have the corresponding power to convict anyone.

An interesting set of pardons was when Andrew Johnson pardoned all the rebels in the Confederacy, including Jefferson Davis.

As far as I know, the only Confederate officers convicted and hanged were the ones running the POW camps. The crime was the brutal way they ran them, not rebellion.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#112

Post by tsimionescu »

kenneth wrote: post #86

Seems the comments here are mostly negative — saying his pardon is an example of corruption and that he should be in jail. Personally, I think that the ability for gigantic corporations' ability to not only sue their former employees or influence justice to get them thrown in jail by the government is a much bigger problem. And generally I feel like prison sentences for white-collar and non-violent crime is in almost…

In general you may be right, but stealing code from one employer to give to your next, and explicitly being paid for this and advancing your career, is not a good example. His actions were clearly wrong, and this is just an example of the way white collar crime, even when it causes massive damages, is not practically punished as badly as blue collar crime.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#113

Post by Udik »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #87
kenneth wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ok" hand sign isn't a white power sign just because some people have decided it to be. It's meant ok since as long as anyone can remember. I'm not willing to accept I can't say okay now because some liberal thinkers have decided that that's now become racist. People need to lighten up a bit and not make everything an affront.

The white supremacy sign is a white power sign because white supremacists use it to signal each other. It is called a "dog whistle" because people like you cannot hear it accurately.

My issue with the term "dog whistle" is that it's being abused to attribute nefarious meaning to just anything you want irrespectively of the actual content of the message- by definition the "dog whistle" is something that the message doesn't obviously contain. It's a free interpretation license card.

I think out-of-context interpretation is the major issue of our times: we got used to the idea that it's perfectly fine to report the most damning combination of words in a sentence as if it were the original full sentence; that a joke made on twitter is the same as a political manifesto sent to the press; and that a hand gesture can get the meaning it would have in its worst possible case. This has to stop.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#114

Post by slg »

kazinator wrote: post #90
spacemanmatt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The white supremacy sign is a white power sign because white supremacists use it to signal each other. It is called a "dog whistle" because people like you cannot hear it accurately.

Whoa there, Roofus; have a Milk-Bone of information: "In 2017, users on the message-board site 4chan[40][41][42] aimed to convince the media and other people that the OK gesture was being used as a white power symbol. According to The Boston Globe, users on 4chan's /pol/ ("Politically Incorrect") board were instructed in February 2017 to "flood Twitter and other social media websites...claiming that the OK hand sign…

These are such weird arguments. The origins are irrelevant because it wasn't just a trick pulled on normies; white supremacists also fell for the joke. Once they started genuinely using the gesture it did become a symbol of hate. The Wikipedia article you linked says exactly that a few paragraphs below the paragraph you quoted.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#115

Post by [deleted] »

kazinator wrote: post #90
spacemanmatt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The white supremacy sign is a white power sign because white supremacists use it to signal each other. It is called a "dog whistle" because people like you cannot hear it accurately.

Whoa there, Roofus; have a Milk-Bone of information: "In 2017, users on the message-board site 4chan[40][41][42] aimed to convince the media and other people that the OK gesture was being used as a white power symbol. According to The Boston Globe, users on 4chan's /pol/ ("Politically Incorrect") board were instructed in February 2017 to "flood Twitter and other social media websites...claiming that the OK hand sign…

[deleted]

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#116

Post by FriedrichN »

secondcoming wrote: post #97
FriedrichN wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a US citizen, but to me it seems to be ridiculous to give one person the ability to unilaterally make decisions on the lives of individuals. Not just these pardons, but also the barbaric rushed executions Trump performed. It appears to me to be antithetical to a democracy that claims to have a separation of power.

> barbaric rushed executions Source?

I shouldn't have assumed everyone knew about this. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/15/trump-admini...

This story is especially sad. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/lisa-montgomer...

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#117

Post by bobsil1 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #101
kenneth wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ok" hand sign isn't a white power sign just because some people have decided it to be. It's meant ok since as long as anyone can remember. I'm not willing to accept I can't say okay now because some liberal thinkers have decided that that's now become racist. People need to lighten up a bit and not make everything an affront.

The ok hand sign can be a perfectly innocuous hand sign in some circumstances, or a white supremacist dog whistle in others. The very purpose why it was adopted by white supremacists is this confusion - this has been explicitly researched by human rights groups. Of course, the symbol itself carries no white supremacist overtones, just like the swastika in itself does not carry any nazi symbolism (as opposed to, say,…

A right-facing svastika is a common Hindu blessing on wedding invites, Diwali prayers, etc.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#118

Post by godmode2019 »

George hotz said that Anthony Lewandowski was a real leader and the problem with real leaders is they do first and ask questions later. I don't know Anthony Lewandowski but I agree with the sentiment. Disruption is disrupting, and tends to be illegal. Its pretty hard to stay in the right side of the law, if you think you have not done anything this is because you are not big enough for someone to try find something.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#119

Post by tsimionescu »

jmcguckin wrote: post #19
paxys wrote: post #8

> Stephen K. Bannon – President Trump granted a full pardon to Stephen Bannon. Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project. Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen. This one is hilarious. The "political project" was raising money for a border wall via crowdfunding and putting it int…

You should recite the facts correctly. Supposedly, Bannon represented to the public that 100% of donated funds were going to build the wall. In fact, prosecuters allege that ‘hundreds of thousands’ were diverted to pay Banon’s personal bills. That’s out of 25 million raised.

Oh yeah, he only stole a million dollars of people's money, not the full 25 million. It's so unfair to pursue him!

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#120

Post by pygy_ »

Udik wrote: post #113
spacemanmatt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The white supremacy sign is a white power sign because white supremacists use it to signal each other. It is called a "dog whistle" because people like you cannot hear it accurately.

My issue with the term "dog whistle" is that it's being abused to attribute nefarious meaning to just anything you want irrespectively of the actual content of the message- by definition the "dog whistle" is something that the message doesn't obviously contain. It's a free interpretation license card. I think out-of-context interpretation is the major issue of our times: we got used to the idea that it's perfectly fi…

Getting photographed smiling next to two notorious white supremacists is already fishy. The picture was taken after the sign became a notorious rallying sign for racists. Do you really think that Luckey is aloof to the point of not not knowing what he's doing there?

If you borrowed Occam's razor, you may need to sharpen it a bit before using it.

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