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Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

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Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#821
post #506
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This myth that the US constitution is in any way "good" is weird. It's one of the earliest; and fortunately others leared from its mistakes. Including the US itself, when it had considerable influence in drafting the WW2 losers constitutions, which uncoincidentally are quite different from the US. Checks and balances essentially don't work in the US. The best bit is simply a decent judiciary, but that was mostly copi…

I strongly disagree. A check and balance has been on great display in recent weeks. A President has stated, "the election was a fraud, I should get another term". Congress has stated, "the election was correct. Moreover, we may choose to prevent you from holding office ever again." The judiciary agrees. That Congress is likely to deadlock is arguably a feature, not a bug. (That voters don't demand better from their c…

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Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#822
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to break it to you, but as with many things in the US constitution, the reason the President can pardon people is because it's a modified copy of the British constitutional system of the time. The House is Parliament, the Senate is the House of Lords, and the president can pardon people because King George III could and the office of the presidency is a limited term elected kingship. Executive orders are Royal…

While pardon power originated from British law, the reason we kept it was what the OP referred to (see the federalist papers [1]). When forming the government the founders didn't just blindly copy British government. There was a lot of debate over what to keep and what to omit (For example, we don't have a king. Presidents were seen as servants not as rulers). Pardon power is mostly a direct copy of British pardon po…

In addition, the US Constitution introduces another dimension to the idea of separation of powers - that the various branches of government should be able to counteract one another in certain circumstances.

The British approach is more appropriately labeled not as a separation of powers, but a fusion of powers [0] - probably the strongest example of such a government currently around today.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_of_powers#United_Kingdo...

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#823

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?

Reportedly its "worth a pardon" for about $2M a pop. Much cheaper then paying the amount Levandowski owed in the settlement, so its just good business.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the alternative: a president who announces they will blanket pardon all white people and no one else.

That’s…not the alternative. I mean, I suppose its one of a near-infinite number of possible alternatives, but I don’t see how its an even relevant one. The discussion wasn’t about someone pardoning only black people, it was about pardoning all people convicted under a particular set of laws.

I read the statement as "consider an alternative" or "consider this alternative". With this reading, the line of reasoning implied is correct and relevant.

Typos happen (and this is an international community including people unfamiliar with some idioms). Obviously the alternative presented isn't THE alternative.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#825
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constitution has some excellent checks and balances but the blanket pardon isn't one of them. The pardon doesn't do anything to address systemic problems in the justice system and has become a channel for doling out political favors.

This myth that the US constitution is in any way "good" is weird. It's one of the earliest; and fortunately others leared from its mistakes. Including the US itself, when it had considerable influence in drafting the WW2 losers constitutions, which uncoincidentally are quite different from the US. Checks and balances essentially don't work in the US. The best bit is simply a decent judiciary, but that was mostly copi…

>such as that congress is likely to deadlock;

The bicameral requirement for a concurrent majority is entirely by design and has plenty of supporters. It's pretty egregious to cite this first on the list of supposedly crucial flaws.

>that its form of democracy is subject to unproportional divergence as state population sizes diverge, that by contrast adding new states is way too easy

The one fixes the other, but adding new states turns out not to be that easy. From a political standpoint, larger states have an outsize cultural and regulatory influence (which is known to the state of California to cause cancer, but which cannot be mentioned in textbooks used in Texas schools) so compensating smaller states makes sense; voters in large states who feel their votes are diluted should, in principle, be able to correct this with a split. Is it a perfect balance? Not at all, but it's something.

But in practice, adding new states has become too hard and this may be a source of recent political problems! Puerto Rico should have been a state in the '90s. Movements to split large states may not be such a bad idea.

>that elections at all are in no way shape or form necessarily fair

A cultural and political flaw, not a Constitutional flaw. Maybe an omission, but you can't write all of the laws and practices necessary for a fair election into the Constitution; it would take up most of the document!

>that the constitution isn't sufficiently amendable

A risk-averse and historically motivated bias; we had one bad Amendment (the 18th) and the fallout really put a damper on amendment movements.

>the lack of a checks on the presidency (clearly not intentional, but impeachment is a purely hypothetical check)

Trump's impeachment trial was heavily impacted by the Democrats' primary season and not-so-subtle party establishment hopes that Warren would somehow pull out a win, so everything had to be rushed in order to avoid distracting her (and she lost badly anyway).

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#826
post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were waiting until now for trump to prove that he was a righteous man who keeps up on his promises then you willfully avoiding reading the story that repeats ad nauseum for the man's entire existence.

What a senselessly uncharitable comment. Blockcipher said "as many of us saw coming" ; clearly Trump's nature is not a recent realization for them.

Hence the "if you were" - if you weren't, feel free to ignore this comment.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#827
post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to pardon for things from your administration during your own term seems to erode checks and balances. Some kind of limitation on that or maybe at least some kind of congressional approval could keep out the truely egregious stuff. Aside from that the self-pardon question should be ruled out entirely or all checks and balances are basically gone.

The presidential pardon has allowed our country to move on from problems that would lead to decades of prosecutions and counter-prosecutions as power changes party. Nixon and the civil war are both examples.

Congress already has tools for that (and the president has some sway through veto power): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_law#United_States

There's no good reason to give all that power of unconditional pardons to one person.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#828
post #417

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 Jeffer…

Sorry to break it to you, but as with many things in the US constitution, the reason the President can pardon people is because it's a modified copy of the British constitutional system of the time. The House is Parliament, the Senate is the House of Lords, and the president can pardon people because King George III could and the office of the presidency is a limited term elected kingship. Executive orders are Royal…

Here Herererererererrrrrreeeeererrerere!

I personally think we should have kept the part where Parliament ceremonially slams the door in front of the Usher of the Black Rod every time. Cracks me up every time.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#829
post #569

> Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good. What a laugh. Significant price? How so?

I thought the price was $2M.

john kiriakou said he was seen by trump on tucker carlson and requested jared look into him. jared reached out and part of his pardon "application" was 1/4 of the single page dedicated to how being pardoned would help get trump reelected.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#830
post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. A check and balance has been on great display in recent weeks. A President has stated, "the election was a fraud, I should get another term". Congress has stated, "the election was correct. Moreover, we may choose to prevent you from holding office ever again." The judiciary agrees. That Congress is likely to deadlock is arguably a feature, not a bug. (That voters don't demand better from their c…

> Is adding states too easy? There are three million US citizens in Puerto Rico without representation in Congress. "Statehood is too easy" is probably the wrong critique. The problem is that there is not clear enough guidelines for enforcing some criteria for what constitutes a new state. Thus we have a false positive like Wyoming, which shouldn't be a state with its minuscule population, and we a false negative in…

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/thirteen-colonies (1770)

Virginia: 447,016

Georgia: 23,375

About 19x.

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