Preemptive Pardons

[mowens]

but to use it as an "oops" contraceptive is ridiculous.

I agree.

[neurosis]

You sound vaxxxxed.

And like I said before. You sound like you'll believe anything you read on twitter, as long as it feeds your confirmation bias.   

[Newbeeee™]

And like I said before. You sound like you'll believe anything you read on twitter, as long as it feeds your confirmation bias.   

Yes that's correct.
100% correct.
Only Twatter.
Nothing else
Only Twatter.
Because Electric Jesus has now stated, "WE ARE THE MEDIA"
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!

P.S. I'm still right.

[neurosis]

Yes that's correct.
100% correct.
Only Twatter.
Nothing else
Only Twatter.
Because Electric Jesus has now stated, "WE ARE THE MEDIA"
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!

P.S. I'm still right.

I mean, most of the links you've posted to me to prove your point, have come from twitter.

P.S. I'm still right.

Right about what, exactly? 

[Newbeeee™]

Right about what, exactly? 

About being sceptical as fuk for all the right reasons about everything.
And you sounding vaxxxxed.

[neurosis]

About being sceptical as fuk for all the right reasons about everything.
And you sounding vaxxxxed.

Being a skeptic makes someone right? I'll have to remember that. I'm skeptical about some of the links you post. That means I"M RIGHT!   

And if you're what it sounds like to not be vaxed, I'm glad I sound vaxed. 

[CNCAppsJames]

I know you're vaxxed but what am I?

[Jeff]

You sound like you'll believe anything you read on twitter, as long as it feeds your confirmation bias. 

Doesn't Twatter have "community notes" that combat bias and fake news? Supposedly that's the reason the libtards are all up in arms about "free speech" and moving to BlueSky where nobody can call them out on their bullshit.
I've heard from a lot of people that it's what makes Twatter so good.
Still doesn't get me to use it though.

[Newbeeee™]

Doesn't Twatter have "community notes" that combat bias and fake news?

Notable funnies for me is seeing the trusted BBC get noted, Climate BS gets noted, Buyed-In etc gets noted

Yes i see lots of people "announce they're leaving".
H E L L O  it's not a fkin airport. Nobody needs to know your departure 

[neurosis]

Still doesn't get me to use it though.

Same.

I don't know much about twitter. I follow links that people in here post occasionally but that's about the most I see twitter.

[Smit]

This is an interesting read.

There are few good things to be said about Donald Trump's plan to fire the F.B.I. director, Chris Wray, and install in his place Kash Patel, a thuggish lackey who has spent years fantasizing about taking revenge on Trump's enemies. But there is one: Patel has helpfully provided us with a list of people President Biden should pardon before he leaves office.

Patel's 2023 book, "Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy," purports to show how government employees who defied Trump constitute a shadowy cabal that is "the most dangerous threat to our democracy." The "deep state," in Patel's telling, is "as treacherous and evil as the villains portrayed in books and movies." Virtually every investigation of Trump and his allies, Patel suggests, is part of a monstrous plot against "the people's president." The book strongly implies that Jan. 6, "the insurrection that never was," was encouraged by "deep state" agitators and then used as a pretext to persecute patriotic Trump supporters. In a blurb on the book jacket, Trump wrote, "We will use this blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these gangsters from all of government!"

Who are these gangsters? Patel lists 60 of them in a useful alphabetized appendix. It is not, as he acknowledges, exhaustive, since he limits himself to the executive branch, leaving out "other corrupt actors of the first order" like Senator-elect Adam Schiff, the former Republican House speaker Paul Ryan and "the entire fake news mafia press corps." His catalog of the "deep state" includes some of Patel's bureaucratic foes from when he served in Trump's first administration, like Bill Barr, who as attorney general said that Trump could make Patel the deputy F.B.I. director only "over my dead body," and Wray, the man Patel would replace.

Patel also lists both the current secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, and Trump's secretary of defense Mark Esper. Cassidy Hutchinson, the brave young former aide to Mark Meadows who testified before the Jan. 6 committee, is on the list, as is Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump staff member who often criticizes her old boss on "The View." Naturally, Biden, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton are on it as well.

Except for himself, Biden should pardon them all, along with pretty much everyone else Patel has singled out by name and those who worked on the Jan. 6 committee. On Wednesday, Jonathan Martin reported in Politico that there's a "vigorous internal debate" among Biden aides about issuing pre-emptive pardons to officials likely to be unjustly targeted by Trump. A drawback of such pardons, Martin wrote, is that they "could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump's criticisms." After all, Biden may struggle to explain why he's pardoning people who have done nothing wrong.
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Patel's appendix, however, makes the case for blanket pardons easier to convey. The breadth of it demonstrates his McCarthyite impulses better than his critics ever could.

Though Biden is not much of a communicator, he could give a speech laying out the well-founded fears that Patel may try to harass the people on his list with spurious investigations. In addition to justifying sweeping pardons, such a speech could prompt a useful nationwide discussion about what it would mean to put a man like Patel in charge of the nation's premier law enforcement agency.

We are entering a period when the ideal of Justice Department independence will almost certainly be swept away. Political persecution — the kind Trump and his allies claim, falsely, to have been subjected to — will become routine. Biden tried to defend the basic integrity of our imperfect institutions against Trumpist aggression, and he failed. All he can do now is help the American people understand what's coming and try to protect the ones with MAGA targets on their backs.

Those who view the federal government as a nest of criminal conspirators would, of course, interpret a raft of pardons as confirmation of their worldview. But the fear that Biden's aggressive use of the pardon power might embolden Trump seems naïve, since all signs suggest that he will be unrestrained, no matter what Democrats do. The only reason for Trump to choose a person like Patel to lead the F.B.I. is to bend it to his will. Democrats can't arrest that process through fealty to norms that are about to be obliterated. Yes, pardons will give Republicans a cable news talking point. The question is whether denying them that talking point is worth letting Patel ruin people's lives on Trump's behalf.
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The pardons I'm proposing can't cover everyone who is vulnerable to Trump's vengeance. Elsewhere, I've argued that Biden should pardon all those involved in mailing abortion pills to states where abortion is banned, since the Trump administration could revive the long-dormant Comstock Act to investigate them. In doing this, Biden would be following a precedent set by Jimmy Carter when he pardoned most of those who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War. But you can't pardon an anonymous mass of people for breaking unspecified laws; the pardon power wasn't intended for those who've committed no conceivable crimes. If Trump and his cronies can't use the justice system against those they hate most, they may use other tools, like the I.R.S., or find other scapegoats.

There's no version of a Trump restoration that doesn't result in both human and institutional destruction. Biden still has a duty to save who he can.

[beej]

This is an interesting read.

it IS interesting. But democrats should only look 3 feet down the road and see what that door opens up.

Let's just say that Hedgeseth gets through and ends up as SoD. And then he pulls some really shady shtuff. What if Democrats want to do an investigation? What do you think is going to happen if pre-emptive pardons are on the table?

[Jeff]

Shouldn't the only person thinking about a pardon be the only person that has the power to grant them?
WTF are the aides talking about it for?

[Smit]

it IS interesting. But democrats should only look 3 feet down the road and see what that door opens up.

Let's just say that Hedgeseth gets through and ends up as SoD. And then he pulls some really shady shtuff. What if Democrats want to do an investigation? What do you think is going to happen if pre-emptive pardons are on the table?

Well that's the crux of it.

Anybody who is actually guilty of a crime shouldn't receive the preemptive pardon. Instead, they should be prosecuted for it. And don't wait for Trump to take office.

But those people, Liz Cheney for example, who Trump suggests should be prosecuted for basically not swearing fealty to him, should not have to endure persecution for it.

Others who are on Patel's enemy list who have not committed real crimes should be issued preemptive pardons also.

It's possible Trump is just blustering and doesn't mean anything he's said, and if that's the case there is no harm done right?

[beej]

Well that's the crux of it.

Anybody who is actually guilty of a crime shouldn't receive the preemptive pardon. Instead, they should be prosecuted for it. And don't wait for Trump to take office.

But those people, Liz Cheney for example, who Trump suggests should be prosecuted for basically not swearing fealty to him, should not have to endure persecution for it.

Others who are on Patel's enemy list who have not committed real crimes should be issued preemptive pardons also.

It's possible Trump is just blustering and doesn't mean anything he's said, and if that's the case there is no harm done right?

it sounds like Trump is guilty of things he hasn't done yet. it's like we are trading in a moral\legal futures market