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Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

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Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#901

Post by nilamo »

The_President wrote: post #876
nilamo wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we're ok with murdering dozens of people that might maybe have some kind of drugs on them? In peacetime? Without evidence? Outside of our own territory/water? We're lucky Venezuela hasn't attacked us back yet.

Your doubt in US intelligence and military capability shows. Venezuela attacking US assets would result in swift, almost instantaneous elimination of the threat. The speed boats hauling ass in international waters are known smugglers on known routes using customized craft only drug smugglers use. Policy of vaporizing these boats with weapons is both a) fairly effortless target practice for our military and b) puts ma…

Yes, I doubt. The US intelligence has invented intelligence plenty of times in the past, and I absolutely do not trust that particular shadow branch of ICE.

Even if what they say is true, destroying boats with people on them without proof is wild.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#902

Post by Pxtl »

dmix wrote: post #585
eqvinox wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. is running an outdated installation of democracy. The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Except the populace is already badly split into warring camps.

> The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Do you mean the French Revolution? If you actually read the history on that (even basic stuff beyond the "Reign of Terror") I don't think any person would want to experience that for their country. It had tons of indiscriminate violence and took a decade of chaos before they sorted out into a real governmen…

The term "the French Revolution" is kinda misleading because by the normal definition of "revolution" they had a few of those not just one.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#903

Post by Pxtl »

netsharc wrote: post #875
eqvinox wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. is running an outdated installation of democracy. The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Except the populace is already badly split into warring camps.

Heh, a balkanized USA, or one with different warlords like Afghanistan, would be interesting to see... "In this region, I'm the ruler, and here we believe in TERF!".

I wanna be a citizen of Mr Lee's Greater Hong Kong.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#904

Post by Yizahi »

actionfromafar wrote: post #563
kbd wrote: post #233

The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressional review, or strip it altogether.

The way this is going, the President won’t need using any pardon powers, because the judges will all ask the President what the judgement should be in advance. And the prosecutors will ask who to prosecute. Finally only fair justice!

This is by the way literally word for word official statements of the ruzzian officials. The conviction rates in ruzzian courts are above 99% every year and the official explanation is that the prosecutors and police are so amazing and great, that only real criminals make it to the court. :)

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#905

Post by electriclove »

sleepybrett wrote: post #269
electriclove wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the ones that Trump pardoned right?

there are good pardons out there. People who were rotting in prison for small amounts of drugs, etc. .. but if you are trying to imply hunter biden, then fuck yeah I don't fucking care, put him in prison if that's what it takes.

Yes and also that the pardon power has been abused by every president (not just trump)

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#906

Post by Pxtl »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #817
apstls wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious: what were the abuses by the Biden and Obama administrations?

Biden promised not to pardon his son and then pardoned his son. And not simply pardoned. Pardoned also for crimes not yet discovered

He only pardoned his son after Trump was elected, because Trump made it clear that he was going radicalize the DOJ to do extremely punitive things to his enemies. And that's exactly what has happened.

Up until the election he seemed very willing to let Hunter face the music.

Every decent father would've done the same thing.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#907

Post by dimal »

kelnos wrote: post #723
eqvinox wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. is running an outdated installation of democracy. The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Except the populace is already badly split into warring camps.

For better or worse, the US constitution does not have provisions or a process for dissolving itself and developing a new constitution. The closest thing we have is the amendment process. In theory we could use that to rewrite the entirety of the constitution[0], but good luck getting the required votes in place on any possible replacement. The bar is pretty high: amendments need to be proposed by either a vote of 2/…

We don’t need a full rewrite. Despite the divisions in this country, there are a couple things that most people agree on:

- Corporate money should be out of politics

- Gerrymandering should be stopped

If we had amendments for these two things, it could change A LOT. Congress might actually be able to function. Corporate corruption could be prosecuted. We might be possible to put meaningful limits on corporate power.

Of course, the devil’s in the details. How do you write amendments for these two things in a way that actually accomplishes the goals? But though it would be difficult, I don’t think it would be impossible.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#908

Post by guywithahat »

strangattractor wrote: post #495
guywithahat wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean there are lots of people arrested on effectively political charges, and it's good to be able to reflect on it years later and get them out of jail. I'm not convinced Changpeng Zhao's charges would have ever been brought against him if the Biden admin didn't go so hard against crypto, I'm happy to see him pardoned. Hopefully next Trump can get whistle blowers like John Kiriachou

Doesn't necessarily have to be left up to the whims of one person though.

Why not? A large portion of the punishment is just going through the court system. For a significant amount of time all you can do is stress about your next court date, you can't get work and burn through your savings. In his case he has already paid tens of millions in his money and the company paid billions. He spent four months in jail, and has spent years out of work.

By the time a pardon comes the persons life is usually already in deep distress, and whatever they were working on is likely already over. I don't see why it's such a tragedy to let some people get pardoned who maybe don't deserve it.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#909

Post by ratelimitsteve »

kbd wrote: post #233

The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressional review, or strip it altogether.

honestly? I think between this and hunter biden you could probably drum up some bipartisan support as long as you don't let either side find out that they accidentally agree with the other. I'm of a mind that the power of the pardon is one of many (many, many, many) ways that the so-called "egalitarian" founding fathers made sure to preserve the power of the aristocracy over that of the people. After all, a conviction has to come from a jury, and that means that a pardon is by definition the powerful elite overruling the people.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#910

Post by ratelimitsteve »

dylan604 wrote: post #311
kbd wrote: post #233

The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressional review, or strip it altogether.

Which congress do you want doing that review? The past several congresses have been unqualified to do any sort of constitutional reviewing in my opinion.

I feel like we'd have a better idea of what congress is qualified to do if they ever actually tried to do something but they seem to have broadened their role from "prevent executive overreach and govern" to "prevent govern". Congress is where you send something if you want to be sure it doesn't happen.

That being said, there's always the option of just getting rid of the president's ability to overrule the people on criminal matters. We could probably go after state governors as well, that's just as rife with abuse.

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