It is a serious crime. Diesel exhaust is s IARC type 1 carcinogen. Somehow people go nuts when companies pollute water but not when they pollute the air they breathe
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If those buses use DEF, have a anti particulate filter and are well maintained, their emissions should in theory be extremely low, with no heavy compounds. I hope local municipal authorities don't remove filters from their buses. Even then, most if not the new buses in my town are either electric or CNG/electric hybrids
I can. Let’s say for example that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was used to prosecute you for downloading JSTOR documents which you had already access to. And you are facing the cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, personal asset forfeiture. Now, would a pardon from the highest executive office be a miscarriage when the prosecution should never have happened in the first place? I…
I think the fact that you use a very high profile and beloved person as your example is in fact why giving pardoning power to the executive branch is bad — the pardon goes to whoever is able to draw the attention and appear the most likeable to the person with the pardoning power. If you think a law is bad, repeal it. Go through the same legislative process that made it happen in the first place. Trying to fix system…
The problem isn’t always the law, sometimes it is the implementation. Pardoning someone who was later found to be convicted through a travesty of justice (corrupt prosecutor and/or judge) does not mean that the law is bad, only that the system is made up of fallible people.
If pardons need to happen with frequency to correct those errors, then the system is in serious trouble. Perhaps all pardons should trigger a Congressional review process to work on improving the system as a whole. (Not that Congress does anything good, these days.)
In your opinion, which administration have you known to have issued a pardon that was equally justifiable in the eyes of members of political parties from both sides of the isle?
NitPick: "aisle" ... and it doesn't need to be "justifiable in the eyes of members of [any] political parties" in orderto be Justice when a wrong has been commited by the "justice system". Any time a President can use their pardon power to free any actually innocent person from a genuinely unjust act, they should do so. Problem is, we've got Presidents who'd rather abuse it arbitrarily in unjust and fraudulent ways.…
This is not going to win me any new fans but first problem I see is who can truly prove "actual innocence?" Only way to do that is to use "Sodium thiopental". Last time I checked that is not allowed in the American Justice System, e.g., SCOTUS Townsend v. Sain (1963). Also, given that humans are emotional beings, I don't see a way for judges, politicians, jurors to be held accountable or subject to any "guardrails/oversight." Only way to do that is to devoid them of emotions e.g., temporary chemical emotion wipe, or replace them with cyber judges e.g., GORT from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Since that is unlikely to happen, in the short term anyway, things will not change. I suppose if communism becomes the new norm, then judges will be less impartial, as history has shown. But this leads us back to the same problem, doesn't it.
Ergo, you're a crook, just not big enough to be jailed for it. Really, what's wrong with just using gasoline (not diesel)? These days there even exist EV trucks.
gasoline trucks are inferior work vehicles and under heavier work loads gasoline is far less efficient. as for electric trucks, those are worthless. its easy to tell you have no knowledge of the kind of tasks these devices are used for if you think rural people can effectively use an electric vehicle that is impossible to fix yourself.
Ergo, you're a crook, just not big enough to be jailed for it. Really, what's wrong with just using gasoline (not diesel)? These days there even exist EV trucks.
gasoline trucks are inferior work vehicles and under heavier work loads gasoline is far less efficient. as for electric trucks, those are worthless. its easy to tell you have no knowledge of the kind of tasks these devices are used for if you think rural people can effectively use an electric vehicle that is impossible to fix yourself.
Did you read the article? This was not a case of "fixing their car" this was a 4 million dollar business selling illegal services to disable emission controls. They absolutely deserved to be prosecuted.
I read the article, and I've read about these cases over the past few years. Many of the emission control components degrade engine performance, decrease gas mileage, and decrease reliability. The EPA kept moving the goalposts and went beyond the limits of practicality. Congress did not set the limits, so the EPA was basically making it a federal crime to circumvent their rules (not laws). Who do you turn to when the vehicle for which you've paid upwards of $100k doesn't work right, and cannot be made to work right as designed?
These laws are extremely counterproductive to start with. They require mining huge amounts of rare earth metals and building toxic lakes to manufacture, and they do a poor job of cleaning emissions and reduce engine efficiency. Base diesel engines are much better.
An argument against vesting pardons to the SC is that they are supposed to simply apply the law, not make quick corrections based on value judgments. If separation of powers is a concern, remember that checks and balances also exist. If I may suggest anything, perhaps replacing the president should be made easier, either by making the people be able to recall the president, or by recalling the congressmen, and the co…
> If I may suggest anything, perhaps replacing the president should be made easier, either by making the people be able to recall the president, or by recalling the congressmen, and the congressmen then follow through with impeachment. Or both. You may indeed suggest it. Now, how do we make it reality so that "We The People" can get some of our power back in this supposedly "Free" nation?
I don't have the way to fix the situation, for I am no seer, but I can suggest the classical solutions:
- Contact your representatives;
- Seek better representation;
- Participate in/organize local political movements;
- Become less reliant on the government and its private cronies.
> If I may suggest anything, perhaps replacing the president should be made easier, either by making the people be able to recall the president, or by recalling the congressmen, and the congressmen then follow through with impeachment. Or both. You may indeed suggest it. Now, how do we make it reality so that "We The People" can get some of our power back in this supposedly "Free" nation?
I don't have the way to fix the situation, for I am no seer, but I can suggest the classical solutions: - Contact your representatives; - Seek better representation; - Participate in/organize local political movements; - Become less reliant on the government and its private cronies.
> - Become less reliant on the government and its private cronies.
All great suggestions, but this last one is maybe the best one overall. ;)
I can. Let’s say for example that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was used to prosecute you for downloading JSTOR documents which you had already access to. And you are facing the cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, personal asset forfeiture. Now, would a pardon from the highest executive office be a miscarriage when the prosecution should never have happened in the first place? I…
I think they're more talking about systemic effects resulting from such a concept. When you have unchecked power concentrated at a single position, that position will inevitably use that power for their own personal gain, which in the case of pardons happens by enabling crime.