Interestingly enough as I understand it, if the pardons haven't been delivered and executed yet they can still be withdrawn. But it might be too late already depending on the execution of them.
Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
861–870 of 996 posts
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#862Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think I can think of any non-profit more deserving of donations than the ACLU in my opinion.
pre-2010 ACLU? sure. The current ACLU, where free speech isn't absolute, but must be weighed against upsetting the apple cart on other issues? nope. https://www.axios.com/aclu-leaked-memo-free-speech-civil-rig...
Respectfully, fuck off. This article cites the origin of the memo as the ACLU defending white nationalists' rights to protest in 2017. This is a hard issue. They're not saying free speech isn't absolute, they're saying they have finite resources and a number of civil rights they're trying to protect- and they're clearly outlining, explicitly, the right of hate groups to say their bullshit even when it runs directly opposed the ACLU's values.
I think the actual leaked memo is a phenomenal read and very well balanced. : https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621AC...
Excellent quotes from that memo:
> “although the democratic standardsin which the ACLU believes and for which it fights run directly counter to thephilosophy of the Klan and other ultra-right groups, the vitality of the democratic institutions the ACLU defends lies in their equal application to all.”
>We also recognize that not defending fundamental liberties can come at considerable cost. If the ACLU avoids the defense of controversial speakers, and defends only those with whom it agrees,both the freedom of speech and the ACLU itself may suffer.The organization may lose credibility with allies, supporters, and other communities, requiring the expenditure of resources to mitigate those harms. Thus, there are often costs both from defending a given speaker and not defending that speaker.Because we are committed to the principle that free speech protects everyone, the speaker’s viewpoint should not be the decisive factor in our decision to defend speech rights.
Considerations in prioritizing cases:
> Whether the speaker seeks to engage in or promote violence
> Whether the speakers seek to carryweapons
> The impact of the proposed speechand the impact of its suppression
> The extent to which we are able tomake clear that even as we defend aspeaker’s right to say what they want, we reserve our right to condemn the views themselves
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#863Earlier 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…
" And even that is more poorly executed than elsewhere, due to the political nature of judicial appointees, and esp. due to the tradition of direct elections of some judges. " How do you pick judges if you don't appoint them or elect them?
Sortition
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#864Earlier quoted context omitted.
How exactly would you describe Anthony Levandowski's pardon?
Under the logic of picking a single bad example, every single US administration is corrupt.
Bad example? It's the entire point of the original post.
Keep moving those goal post tho. You've already went from it's mean to say that the previous administration was corrupt to every administration is corrupt.
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#865Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Seriously, name 1 check/balance that's actually particularly good! The person in charge with executing the law is different from the people in charge of crafting the laws to be executed.
I don't believe this helps, at all. If anything it makes things worse, because it lets congress off the hook, and that's exactly what happens in the US - lots of congressional powers are abrogated to the executive, which is essentially a monarchy that hasn't devolved into a dictatorship simply because of tradition and popular unease at that route - but it's really unsafe. The real protection here is that a simple maj…
I sincerely hope that we all (the people of the US, Congress, the Judiciary) take what happened on Jan 6th as a concrete warning of this hazard and work to pare back and reign in the executive. It has been needed for a long time.
All it will take is a stronger, more popular leader who feels 'bypassing the rules' is ok for 'the greater good' (aka themselves), and we're in deep trouble.
If Trump hadn't spent all 4 years of his tenure actively disparaging, impugning, maligning, and throwing under the bus every military leader or hero he ran across, we could be in a very, very different country today. I'm still amazed how close he came to winning Arizona considering what he said and did to McCain.
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#866Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we were to alter this configuration of the Senate, the same question would undoubtedly arise--why should small states like North Dakota, Vermont, and Oklahoma remain in the Union, only to be dictated to by the citizens of Florida, New York and California? I don't know why this is a valid argument, when you can turn it on it's head. Why should states like Florida, Texas, New York and California, who (1) have the…
Because of the resources those states provide. In almost all cases, resources (food, minerals, oil, energy) flow from those more sparsely populated states to feed, fuel, etc. the more densely populated ones. If you think NYC could be supported purely by NY state alone (or frankly even just 'Blue' states), you'd be in for a rude shock. That much of the value add/economic activity happens in the more densely populated…
California produces, by far, the most food of any state, ($50B for California, $27B for #2 Iowa)[1]. Texas produces, by far, the most oil of any state (1.8B barrels vs 512M for North Dakota)[2]. Catastrophic famine? The data doesn't support that assertion at all. Rude shock? I guess I'm more shocked at how much California feeds the nation, but is ruled by sparse smaller states. Your initial claim is so wrong I'm interested where you got it - maybe I'm Googling the wrong information.
[1] https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17844
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/714376/crude-oil-product...
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#867Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the Supreme Court doesn’t make the rules, it just interprets them. The rules are made by elected representatives.
That's not how common law systems work. Things like executive privilege, qualified immunity, the fighting words doctrine, are all essentially just made up by judges.
Statutory law over-rides common law, however. If Congress passed a law explicitly overriding any of those, those would cease to exist.
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#868Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The pardon power should obviously at this point be severely limited, it has a purpose, but clearly its major use is corruption or the threat of corruption in order to secure deals. So many modern presidents have used it to do crimes and then pardon their helpers.
However much you may dislike the particular individuals that trump has pardoned, he has used the pardon in a much more restrained way than Obama, who gave an order of magnitude more. So far, the pardon power is still a net good.
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#869Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The pardon power should obviously at this point be severely limited, it has a purpose, but clearly its major use is corruption or the threat of corruption in order to secure deals. So many modern presidents have used it to do crimes and then pardon their helpers.
This is not so obvious to me. I don't think the evidence supports your claim that its "major use is corruption." The vast majority of pardons seem to be entirely unrelated to corruption.
Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
#870It'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?
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