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Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

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Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#721

Post by sn_master »

wnevets wrote: post #690
sn_master wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CIA operatives don't lie for political gain purposes?

You're absolutely right, trading pardons for cash would be completely out of character for the previous administration. Anthony Levandowski's conviction was obviously a miscarriage of justice and its a good thing it was corrected at the very last minute.

Your response shows the effect of the mainstream media which intentionally denied all the positive things Trump and his administration has done to the country.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#722

Post by abruzzi »

sn_master wrote: post #587
NelsonMinar wrote: post #519

It's weird to see the Republican party embrace intellectual property theft. Levandowski stole from his employer and his colleagues at Google to enrich himself at Uber. Why would that possibly be worth a pardon?

I can say similar things about many of the Obama pardons, but I'll get downvoted into oblivion if I do so. Pardon is by definition an admission of guilt, and Levandowski has already paid a steep price for what he did.

I suspect in this case that you are getting downvoted /because/ you didn't provide specifics. It's certainly possible that some Obama pardons were self serving, I didn't hear much about his pardons at the time, but I'm open to the idea that some are morally dubious, but I would need names and why it is dubious, rather than innuendo. Many people on both sides felt Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich was pretty iffy.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#723

Post by benzible »

Apparently Trump screwed up many of the pardons [1]

> The pardon for Paul Manafort (on Dec. 23, 2020), is illustrative. By its own terms, the pardon covers only the crimes “for his conviction” on specific charges and not any other crimes (charged or uncharged). [...] Manafort pleaded to a superseding information containing two conspiracy charges, while the entire underlying indictment — containing numerous crimes from money laundering, to witness tampering, to violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act — now remains open to prosecution as there was no conviction for those charges.

Not sure if this applies to Levandowski - I haven't seen the text of his pardon.

Update: Levandowski's pardon [2] covers "those offenses against the United States individually enumerated and set before me for my consideration." Manafort's pardon [3] lists specific convictions with docket numbers. IANAL so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[1] https://www.justsecurity.org/74241/the-gaps-in-trumps-pardon...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/file/1357121/download

[3] https://www.justice.gov/file/1349071/download

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#724

Post by cherrycherry98 »

pokot0 wrote: post #623
briandear wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government is the government of the individual states. A state is a sovereign entity. Each vote in the United Nations general assembly is identical regardless of the size of the country voting. Ireland’s vote is just as valuable as India’s. That’s the point of the United States — it’s a republic, not a democracy. As far as 1 WY vote being worth 4 Texas votes, that’s also irrelevant because the president i…

I never went as far as saying the the USA is not a democracy but you did. Goes far behind my point, but that was the direction. Saying that the president is not a president of the people when people literally vote directly for that person (unlike most of the wester republics) is frankly pretty weak. How can you argue he is not the most influencial political figure in a US citizen life?

The citizens don't vote directly for the president, the electoral college does. Usually the distinction doesn't matter but it does affect outcomes. States have different rules in how their electors vote for the president.

Some states have tied their electoral votes to the national popular vote in the name of increases democracy. It will be interesting to see the first state that has its electoral votes changed due to this. I imagine those residents won't be so thrilled to have their votes go against their will and in favor of how other people in the country voted.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#725

Post by rat87 »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #611
1MachineElf wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was investigated for 2 years and is still accused to this day for Russian collusion. Pardoning either Snowden, who is in Russia right now, and Assange, who is accused of being a co-conspirator in the Russia collusion accusations, would be like throwing gasoline on that fire. I don't see how he could do it without alienating most of his establishment support, which he still needs after leaving office.

No, it's not about the Russia collusion hoax (yes it was a hoax btw). Simply put, Trump was threatened that if he pardons Assange, senate republicans (the establishment) would vote to convict. I wish he had the courage to call their bluff, because them convicting Trump would fragment the GOP to an extent that is irreversible, IMO. Most people who aren't Trump supporters don't appreciate the extent to which Trump's ba…

Trump doesn't care about the GOP or the country or anything but himself(and he doesn't care about the law)

That's one of the reasons he colluded with a hostile foreign entity(Russia). Cause he doesn't give a shit. Sadly I don't have much hope for senate Republicans to do the right thing regardless of what Trump did, even after his role in the attempted coup

Trump doesn't have courage, he has bluster and self interest, he didn't see what was in it for him to pardon Assange

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#726

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dionidium wrote: post #677
0xdde wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are basically the same as they always have been And you came to this conclusion without reading any history? This is too absolutist a statement. Sure, some things need to be relearned through experience, but there are also plenty of cases where you don't want to waste time reinventing the wheel.

The downvoters are thrashing a straw man. Obviously nobody believes you're supposed to recreate society every 20 years ex nihilo. What I'm arguing is that the case for reading history has been overstated. Specifically, I was reacting to the claim that, "Human behavior seems to be notoriously consistent across centuries." I agree. It is. Human beings react to the same emotions and incentives they always have and there…

Fine, but by your own argument, reading history gives you some insight into how the humans of today will react to certain situations. You can read history to find out what humans actually are like, not what theory says they're like.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#727

Post by boringg »

Strs2FillMyDrms wrote: post #650
lokar wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read some reporting that the going rate was only $20k, 10 up front and 10 after.

I'm a little bit confused.. I am ecuadorian (efefctively 3rd world), we manage ourselves in dollars. I live in a somewhat affluent side of a main city, even tho I am not rich myself, and on a daily basis I see cars which are 50k+, one behind the other. Even though this people are corrupt (most of them, tax evasion, etc..), I'd argue that US corruption would be on another different scale... 20k for a presidential pard…

It is a function of the current corrupt president and his close aides. This would never be the case on any of the former presidencies - presidential pardons aren't bought. It's such a sham that it is apparently something that can be bought and really speaks to the depths of depravity and how low the Trump presidency can go.

I think the OP has the numbers wrong but regardless, it isn't something that should ever be bought.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#729

Post by rootusrootus »

marcusverus wrote: post #455
raldi wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I agree with everything you said. (Well, except that Supreme Court justices are appointed, not elected.) The other gaping flaw is the systemic, undemocratic bias that determines the makeup of our Upper House.

The issue you're referring to with the Senate is, of course, the fact that each state gets two senators, regardless of population. This means that the sparsely populated North Dakota has the same number of senators as California. This a feature, not a bug, and in fact the United States would not exist without it. The senate prevents small states from being dominated by large states, and is the only reason that smalle…

> This a feature, not a bug

Perhaps. The problem I see is that state boundaries are pretty arbitrary. The real political division is between urban and rural, and whether or not a particular state is 'red' or 'blue' depends on how those boundaries have been created. There are a huge number of rural voters in California that share more with Wyoming rural voters than Wyoming urban voters, so why should they be disenfranchised simply by living within the state of California?

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#730

Post by rat87 »

hintymad wrote: post #643
dgellow wrote: post #363

No Assange, no Snowden. What a fool I am, I seriously envisaged that could happen... Instead it’s just more and more corruption.

Here is my wild speculation: - Trump can't afford making more enemies in the intelligence community, or simply does not want to. - Assange and Snowden are libertarians' heroes, but libertarians didn't even vote for Trump this time, right? The percent of libertarians voting for an independent candidate was larger than the gap between Trump and Biden, even though Trump was probably the most libertarian president in the…

Trump is the least libertarian/most authoritarian president we've had in a long long time

Don't mistake incompetence for libertarianism.

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