22 Comments

The criming and corruption is endless, add this to the list of shit we need to fix. No wonder we can't have nice things. Is it now one step forward, twenty steps back? Fifty? How about we elect all Democratic women & see how that works out for a few generations.

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Pretty damn sure Air America, Inc. CIA dropping drugs into Mena, AR to disburse into black America inner cities to create a new and improved plantation capitalism private prison industrial complex should have been the early warning red alert that would have surely kept every neoliberal out of office. Oh wait, but that was another “Catch and Kill” news report so these bastards could get 2 million citizens warehoused inside those money making “Free Market” schemes. I suspect black Bill Clinton would disagree.

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Comrades Trump and Giuliani plotted to sell presidential pardons.

Godspeed, Special Counsel Jack Smith 😎 #AboveTheLaw no more.

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Excellent historical reminder Greg! Presidential pardons are supposed to pass through government pardon committee channels. However,corruption appears to have limited consequences in today’s political rift of the space-time continuum.

Rudy has always played sides of cartel justice, hence the Trump abyss we find ourselves in today.

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Whoa! Wow.

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Excellent as always, Greg!

The Bulwark has a piece on pardons this morning too. Must be something in the water. I shared yours with them, so I’m sharing theirs with you. Enjoy.

https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/trump-and-the-abuse-of-the-pardon-power

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And DeSantis says that, if elected, he’ll pardon Trump! Those who seek to overthrow our democracy have certainly done a good job of undermining public confidence in our elected officials!

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If "fuckateer" doesn't make into Websters dictionary then, er...I guess there is no justice.

Seriously of all the ways Congress can fuck with Presidents how does Trumps and Clintons, obvious participation in the crime, do the pardons remain in place and unchallenged? This has turn the rule of law in to a joke domestically and abroad.

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George Mason, a prominent founding father from Virginia, refused to ratify the Constitution on the basis of a number of objections. In Nov 1787 Alexander Hamilton had them published them in Federalist IX. One of Mason’s objections was so prescient it’s almost as if he had a Time Machine: “The President of the United States has the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason; which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.” Mason repeated his concern during the 1788 Virginia ratification convention* arguing that some future president might not have the rectitude of a George Washington. He further stated that the president “ ought not to have the power of pardoning, because he may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic. If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection? The case of treason ought, at least, to be excepted. This is a weighty objection with me.”

In Trump’s case the multiple instances of traitorous instigation were hardly secret, but he was, as Mason feared almost 250 years ago, unrestrained in his ability to screen from punishment his co-conspirators. Should Trump or someone favoring Trump regain the presidency Mason will almost surely and sadly have been proven right for all the efforts of Mueller, and Jack Smith will be for naught.

*https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/07/25/the-pardon-power-and-original-intent/amp/

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founding

Do you remember that video about Montenegro begging GH for help like "help" was given to Haiti? Fancy shit. Better than that when the freaking spy whales were found in Alaska like haha 8 years ago. I wish Franklin Graham didn't spend so much time in Alaska. Poor freaking cetaceans. Save the whales?

If only we had someone who could predict these kinds of attacks.

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founding

This is another reason that Ivory Tower bows to rawint but rawint bows to gifts. Better be fucking specific and credible.

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I admit to being a neophyte politico back in early 2001 when the Marc Rich pardon happened. I heard about it and saw the outrage, but never really understood the story until now -- the activities of the last two decades got in the way of researching that. Now, almost 23 years later, I can say that it smacks of shitty and crooked and whatever other descriptors like that you can place on it. AND, OF COURSE, reflected badly on Hillary, for reasons only Republicans can speak to. I suppose she would have been pilloried for saying the truth when she said that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy against her husband. It was actually against HER. Again, the stink of some of Bill's activities never rubbed off her, and that's just pure misogyny.

Trump, pardoning his co-conspirators IS orders of magnitude worse. There must have been several Masters of the Loophole in his administration, for he seemed to always find the crack he could slide his crooked, scheming agenda through. "Oh! ABSOLUTE pardon power? REALLY? I'm doing that!" I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that he was POTUS, that he's probably already on placemats at Stuckey's when they use their "Presidents of the United States" table settings. Ugh! Fuck a duck!

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The Marc Rich pardon history is the type of "whataboutism" that's truly valuable. While I never thought Bill Clinton angelic, this pardon does validate the Clinton dirty tricks vibe and is useful to acknowlege in light of Trump's pardons. Really makes me long for the days of equal opportunity shame.

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