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The whole thing is a crock of shît. We are not in 16th century royal France where the king pardons at his fancy. The latest pardon list is a who’s who of white collar crime. Sends out such a poor message.
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@Billy-Tell yeah seems crazy in a democracy today that the leader can pardon his mates or those he chooses, something you'd expect in a dictatorship.
Is there a line as to what the President can pardon someone for?
EDIT: I see that has been mentioned above, he can pretty much pardon anyone charged for anything under US laws?
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@Godder said in US Politics:
The ACA was heavily tinkered with when the penalty for not having insurance was reduced to 0.
Company boss: "OK, I need to spend $2m a year on health insurance for my workers or pay a $1,000 fine."
Obama: "We have made affordable health care a reality"
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@canefan said in US Politics:
Otherwise why would anyone who is not of sufficient means not want subsidized or free health care?
Huge swathes of it were subsidised and free - particularly for the over-60's. (Google The Donut).
Can understand the antipathy to government running & controlling healthcare but there were/are models which would have got around that problem and been far more cost-effective.
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@Billy-Tell said in US Politics:
The whole thing is a crock of shît. We are not in 16th century royal France where the king pardons at his fancy. The latest pardon list is a who’s who of white collar crime. Sends out such a poor message.
Nice to see such absolute faith in a "systemically racist" justice system
Uh oh... black lives don't matter all the time huh?
Alice Marie Johnson was serving life in a federal prison for a nonviolent drug conviction before her case was brought to Mr. Trump’s attention by the reality television star Kim Kardashian West.
The president’s decision to commute her sentence freed Ms. Johnson, who had been locked up in Alabama since 1996 on charges related to cocaine distribution and money laundering. Mr. Trump later pardoned Ms. Johnson on Aug. 28, 2019.
I don't think pardoning people is a point of difference between presidents
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Having one person unilaterally grant pardons is the antithesis of democracy. For the rest, too bored to go into yet another BLM discussion etc.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
Obama pardoned 1927
Easier than Foreign policy, I guess.
How many were bankers in 2008 😉
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@Billy-Tell said in US Politics:
Having one person unilaterally grant pardons is the antithesis of democracy.
I think it's more the antithesis of an independent judiciary.
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@Siam said in US Politics:
How many were bankers in 2008
I'm sure Senators Gramm, Leach, Bliley & Slick Willie would know.
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@pakman said in US Politics:
What I do recall is that owing to epidemics and splintering of the tribal group the wealth created dissapated pretty dramatically. Ring any bells?
Nope. Only researched NZ's attitude to Germany and what was going on in Samoa. Some very serious concerns about the treatment of Samoan culture in both the media and government and across pakeha/maori lines.
I think we were gifted in NZ with some outstanding leaders at that time - unlike the US today. (just to bring us back on topic)
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@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
what I find interesting, and I've done a little googling but not definitive
people seem to be saying Trump will pardon 150 odd people plus maybe 100 he had already pardoned up until the end of the last year which I thought was a lot, until looking into it
Obama pardoned 1927, Bush 200, Clinton 459, Bush snr 77, Reagan 406, Carter 566, Nixon 926, Johnson 1187...etc
so at 250ish...hes on the low end
Probably worth noting that most of those numbers include commutations, not just pardons. The Wikipedia article for Obama's acts of executive clemency says 1715 were commutations and the other 212 were pardons.
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@Godder said in US Politics:
@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
what I find interesting, and I've done a little googling but not definitive
people seem to be saying Trump will pardon 150 odd people plus maybe 100 he had already pardoned up until the end of the last year which I thought was a lot, until looking into it
Obama pardoned 1927, Bush 200, Clinton 459, Bush snr 77, Reagan 406, Carter 566, Nixon 926, Johnson 1187...etc
so at 250ish...hes on the low end
Probably worth noting that most of those numbers include commutations, not just pardons. The Wikipedia article for Obama's acts of executive clemency says 1715 were commutations and the other 212 were pardons.
good to know, i found the numbers in an article (they probably got them from wiki) and they mst have just bundled them all together, any idea how many commutation Trump passed?
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@Kiwiwomble You can check them out yourself if you want:
One thing that I found quite shocking was the number of old men on the list who were imprisoned for unconscionably long terms for non-violent marijuana related offences. There are guys on the list who have served 2 or 3 decades of a life sentence for handling something that is now legal in many parts of the US. I have no problem with a grant of clemency for something like that, but I'm amazed it has needed the President to step in to right something that seems to me to be obviously wrong.
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@JC said in US Politics:
@Kiwiwomble You can check them out yourself if you want:
One thing that I found quite shocking was the number of old men on the list who were imprisoned for unconscionably long terms for non-violent marijuana related offences. There are guys on the list who have served 2 or 3 decades of a life sentence for handling something that is now legal in many parts of the US. I have no problem with a grant of clemency for something like that, but I'm amazed it has needed the President to step in to right something that seems to me to be obviously wrong.
Stupidity in legal systems is widespread. I read an article yesterday about a woman in France who was declared dead by the courts during some endless complicated legal issues and now struggles to do anything including prove she is alive because she is officially dead.
US Politics