Trump Pardons Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao (apnews.com) 92
President Donald Trump has pardoned the Founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to anti-money-laundering violations and served prison time. The Associated Press reports: Zhao has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September. Trump's most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar. World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance. Zhao also has publicly said that he had asked Trump for a pardon that could nullify his conviction.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a "desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry." She said there were "no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims," though Zhao had pleaded guilty in November to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a "desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry." She said there were "no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims," though Zhao had pleaded guilty in November to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program.
Re: BS quote (Score:3)
That's Arthur Feynman (no relation), Professor of Oligarch Studies at the University of Pighole, Utah.
Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
The tough on crime party sure does love letting criminals out of jail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Trump will need all the Crypto coins he can to create his new (white?) Trump tower in the location where the U.S. White House used to be...
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"his new (white?) Trump tower in the location where the U.S. White House used to be"
White? Of course not! It'll be gold!
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White gold perhaps?
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Leper outcast unclean....
Re: Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
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and taking bribes
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I think highlighting the white-collar crime wave would be good. It is, after all, the actual reason prices on everything are going up, and the reason government isn't returning any services for your taxes.
Makes you wonder why the Democrats have neglected this angle. Probably because a lot of them are involved in the same stuff, but they have a bit more self-awareness not to make fighting it the centerpiece of their message. They at least feel shame about such flagrant hypocrisy. Whereas Republicans just go
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What makes you think I'm not doing it?
So the Democrats neglect white collar crime (Score:2)
There's an old saying in politics, if you're explaining you're losing.
The basic problem here is that the average voter is just not equipped to deal with what they're expected to.
What the Demo
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The tough on crime party sure loves committing crimes
It's because no one sees the hidden comma.
the tough on, crime party.
Re:Curious (Score:5, Interesting)
The tough on crime party sure does love letting criminals out of jail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Trump doesn't seem to consider "white collar crime" crime or supporters doing "bad things" a bad thing - especially if either group has $$$. Basically anything he (or family members) might do, or has done, is okay or, at least, shouldn't be punished too hard. He also seems to believe in the "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" thing, w/o the asking for forgiveness as nothing he ever does is wrong in his thinking. The rest of the GOP just looks the other way when it come to Trump so as not to rile him or his blindly loyal ~35% base they need -- many of whom are about to get priced out of their healthcare, or lose a rural hospital due to Medicaid cuts, or lose their farms due to tariffs or lack of cheap labor ... /$0.02
Re:Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
About the only consistent through line in conservatism is doing something shitty while yelling very loudly how the other guys are doing it.
The right always puts itself as the party of law and order. They never are, because they are the party of the rich. Law and order cost money and the right prefer tax breaks. Plus the best way to get rich is to cheat.
So to be clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
there were... "no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims".
And for that fraud and lack of victim the founder pled guilty, paid a $50m fine and went to prison. The company pled guilty paid $4.3bn in fines. And FTX sued to recover money that it alleged Binance fraudulently transferred.
So we had allegation of fraud, admission of fraud, and an identifiable victim took them to court.
Also laws in the USA apparently don't matter anymore. Don't forget no need to pay speeding fines, there's no identifiable victim so you shouldn't be punished anymore.
We all know Trump is a wannabie dictator, my real question is how did Leavitt somehow manage to appear more of a piece of shit than he is?
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
there were... "no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims".
And for that fraud and lack of victim the founder pled guilty, paid a $50m fine and went to prison. The company pled guilty paid $4.3bn in fines. And FTX sued to recover money that it alleged Binance fraudulently transferred.
So we had allegation of fraud, admission of fraud, and an identifiable victim took them to court.
Also laws in the USA apparently don't matter anymore. Don't forget no need to pay speeding fines, there's no identifiable victim so you shouldn't be punished anymore.
We all know Trump is a wannabie dictator, my real question is how did Leavitt somehow manage to appear more of a piece of shit than he is?
Trump has a motivation. Leavitt is just his motivations justification mechanism. There is no real motivation behind her, other than sucking up to Trump, and it's impossible to hear anything she says as anything other than him using her as a puppet. Except real puppets probably have a better chance at escaping their masters.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Leavitt is just his motivations justification mechanism. There is no real motivation behind her, other than sucking up to Trump
Indeed. The chorus of utterly ridiculous claims in support of Trump, many from otherwise reasonably-serious people, are baffling until you understand that performative self-humiliation is their goal. Standing up and saying true or even remotely defensible things to defend him, even using standard politician tricks like deflecting or dancing around the question, is something that anyone tasked with defending him might do, which means it's useless if your goal is to prove your loyalty to Trump.
In order to prove your utter loyalty it's necessary to inflict damage on your own reputation, to abase your self and humiliate yourself in front of the world. This is why Trump demands that his cabinet members pay him ludicrously over-the-top compliments, on camera, at the beginning of each cabinet meeting. It's not just that they know they're lying, they know that everyone knows they know they're lying and everyone knows they're doing it merely to toady. That reputational self-harm of publicly licking his boots is how they show Trump they're irrevocably tied to him no matter what.
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It should be unconstitutional too. The controlling Supreme Court case is US v Shapiro (1940) -- year is important to find the correct case.
The dissent is bang on. The government can compel providing existing records, but not creating new records.
This new power of compulsion was important to the New Deal. But FDR had been threatening to add new Justices until he got a pro-New Deal majority, so the court caved in.
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Absolutely wrong. What actually happens is that laws are strictly enforced, just not against the president and his friends, and those that curry favor with the president king. But you as a mere subject, if you do something wrong, expect the full force of the law to be used against you. This is how it works also in Russia or China, and all th
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Absolutely wrong. What actually happens is that laws are strictly enforced, just not against the president and his friends, and those that curry favor with the president king. But you as a mere subject, if you do something wrong, expect the full force of the law to be used against you. This is how it works also in Russia or China, and all the corrupt countries on earth.
"The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies."
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Absolutely wrong. What actually happens is that laws are strictly enforced, just not against the president and his friends, and those that curry favor with the president king. But you as a mere subject, if you do something wrong, expect the full force of the law to be used against you. This is how it works also in Russia or China, and all the corrupt countries on earth.
Stated succinctly by another authoritarian [google.com]: "For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the Law."
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You mean other the people who died because of the drug dealers laundering their money? Or the women who are repeatedly raped and sold as cattle by human traffickers? Or the children and babies being used to produce child porn?
Re:So to be clear... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are clearly identifiable victims, everyone else on or near the road who was endangered by you traveling beyond the socially agreed risk level.
Now who did Binance hurt? and how?
The great thing about you making such a nebulous claim is that the equally nebulous claim can apply to every law. Who did Binance hurt? Well me, by breaking the socially agreed rules governing the risk of securities trading potentially exposing my trading partners.
That and all the people who were suing Binance for fradulant transfers amounting to billions.
I get it though, playing favourites with which laws you *think* should apply is fun, but since you invoked the concept of "socially agreed" your and my opinion is irrelevant. We socially agreed on laws and they admitted they were broken.
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What makes you think logic will work in this discussion? The clouds deidentify frogs tree rainbow usually.
The amount of illogical insanity appears to be breaking everyone's mind while laws are broken in plain visibility to everyone... and yet somehow or another, people are denying that they saw something. Logic is not rational in a world of mental disabilities.
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And for that fraud and lack of victim the founder pled guilty, paid a $50m fine and went to prison.
I'm not commenting on this particular case, but due to the US plea-bargaining system, a guilty plea should not be seen as an admission of guilt.
The "right to a trial" is a distant memory in a land where anyone exercising that right case face a sentence 2 or 3 times longer than if they plead guilty.
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Also laws in the USA apparently don't matter anymore.
Yes. Welcome to the newest "shithole" country.
Zhao already completed his sentence (Score:3, Informative)
Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to a single violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, which included failure to properly implement an effective anti-money laundering program. Binance paid $4.3 billion to resolve the Department of Justice’s investigation led by former Attorney General Merrick Garland and coordinated by then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen through its financial crime units.
Zhao left federal prison in September 2024 after serving a four-month sentence.
Re:Zhao already completed his sentence (Score:5, Informative)
No. He had completed his prison term.
Part of Zhao's plea bargain was to never be involved in the crypto-banking industry again.
The pardon erases that requirement.
Re:Zhao already completed his sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Now he has a convicted fraudster under his thumb as a now-loyal minion for crypto.
Birds of a feather, I guess.
Ah, America... (Score:4, Insightful)
The land where the well-connected get pardoned for money laundering, but those who cross the border illegally or don't have documentation of the fact that they're American can be deported to countries they've never seen, where they don't even speak the native language.
Please, someone explain how this makes sense.
Re:Ah, America... (Score:5, Insightful)
The land where the well-connected get pardoned for money laundering, but those who cross the border illegally or don't have documentation of the fact that they're American can be deported to countries they've never seen, where they don't even speak the native language.
Please, someone explain how this makes sense.
The United States Government was always built to protect the already well off in a way that was just appealing enough to the not so well off that they didn't outright rebel against their "betters." Donald Trump's actions are testing the line on how far that can go. But, in all honesty, we were going to get here one way or another. He's a symptom, not the disease. The disease was built in. It didn't have to go this way, but unrestrained greed is pushing it forward regardless.
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The land where the well-connected get pardoned for money laundering, but those who cross the border illegally or don't have documentation of the fact that they're American can be deported to countries they've never seen, where they don't even speak the native language.
Please, someone explain how this makes sense.
The United States Government was always built to protect the already well off in a way that was just appealing enough to the not so well off that they didn't outright rebel against their "betters." Donald Trump's actions are testing the line on how far that can go. But, in all honesty, we were going to get here one way or another. He's a symptom, not the disease. The disease was built in. It didn't have to go this way, but unrestrained greed is pushing it forward regardless.
Trump may not be the disease. However, he is the current policeman for the crime, so he gets to pick and choose who to give a ticket to. It's also extremely fortunate for Trump that there is no domestic emoluments clause. There is the little phrase about bribery and impeachment, but fortunately for him, Trump has Congress as a wingman.
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The land where the well-connected get pardoned for money laundering, but those who cross the border illegally or don't have documentation of the fact that they're American can be deported to countries they've never seen, where they don't even speak the native language.
Please, someone explain how this makes sense.
The United States Government was always built to protect the already well off in a way that was just appealing enough to the not so well off that they didn't outright rebel against their "betters." Donald Trump's actions are testing the line on how far that can go. But, in all honesty, we were going to get here one way or another. He's a symptom, not the disease. The disease was built in. It didn't have to go this way, but unrestrained greed is pushing it forward regardless.
Trump may not be the disease. However, he is the current policeman for the crime, so he gets to pick and choose who to give a ticket to. It's also extremely fortunate for Trump that there is no domestic emoluments clause. There is the little phrase about bribery and impeachment, but fortunately for him, Trump has Congress as a wingman.
And let's not forget the Supreme Court as a . . . mmm, Mommy? Cohort? Egger-onner?
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The land where the well-connected get pardoned for money laundering, but those who cross the border illegally or don't have documentation of the fact that they're American can be deported to countries they've never seen, where they don't even speak the native language.
Please, someone explain how this makes sense.
Was "money laundering" the charge?
IIRC it wasn't that he was laundering money, it's that his business did not comply with licensing requirements for his type of business, which includes instituting government-mandated anti-laundering systems. He failed to actively seek/stop/report potential laundering activity by his customers.
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Please, someone explain how this makes sense.
If you can pay off someone who has power, then you get away with whatever you did. If you can not pay them, they destroy you so thoroughly that everyone will find a way to pay the powerful.
Is it rational now?
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What sort of books do you reckon will be in the library?
A huge crash is coming (Score:5, Interesting)
We have completely deregulated the finance system and that orange goon has repeatedly pardoned people who have committed Financial crimes in the hundreds of millions.
That means every single big crook out there looking to steal your 401k has zero fear of law enforcement.
Meanwhile there isn't a single credible economist who won't tell you that the stock market is massively overvalued.
On top of this we have a massive trade war going on so that the Republicans could pass tax cuts on billionaires using tariffs as a national sales tax.
If you voted for Trump you done fucked up boy.
For everyone thinking they're safe let me tell you a story. Buddy of mine drive School buses. He'll complain to me because people will pull out right in front of them.
Takes him three football fields to stop he says.
That's the US economy. It takes a long time for it to come to a halt.
You just swerved in front of the US economy by putting a fat orange rapist in charge of everything in your life.
That economy is about come colliding directly with your shitty little SUV. It's going to go right through you.
But hey, for One shining moment you got to own the libs. I mean look at me and my TDS. Did you hear they were going to make that an actual medical diagnosis? Just like the Soviets did. You like the Soviets now right?
Holy fucking shit you're stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of like how you have been protected by democrats from the horrors the Republican party is about to unleash for your entire life and taking it for granted. No you didn't just take it for granted you sneered at their protection.
That's why I am not in the least bit hesitant to call you a fucking moron.
You sir are a classic libertarian cat. Convinced of your fuse Independence and utterly dependent on a system you neither appreciate or understand.
It's up to you to prove me wrong. But that would require you giving up long cherished beliefs and the ability to look down on people you dislike on a personal or physical gut level.
And frankly I don't think you have it in you.
Good luck out there you're going to need it
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Kind of like how you have been protected by democrats from the horrors the Republican party is about to unleash for your entire life and taking it for granted.
LOL. The Democrats want the same thing as the Republicans, just for different purposes. Both parties want absolute power and ALL of the money. Both parties think they can spend your money better than you can, they merely differ on what exactly they want to do with the money. The Republicans want to satisfy their personal greed. The Democrats want to help others with whatever is left over after their corruption... which ends up being nothing much of the time.
So, a person's choice is to either vote to lose al
Is that really all you got? (Score:2)
Anyway Trump fucks kids. 28 credible rape accusations eight of which are against children. Over and over and over again Trump fucks kids and the Republican party gleefully allows it.
If you sit down at a table with Nazis and pedophiles and you realize you're at a table full of Nazis and p
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Hm. So it matters to you whether or not the cannibals that are about eat you hold their pinky out while they drink? I guess it matters in a posthumous way but you are still gonna get eaten. I guess if I have to choose who eats me, I would choose the one with a little class, but, I am still stuck on voting for someone who will eat me regardless of what else they will do.
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Holy shit, if you sucked his dick any harder his head would cave in. Be careful not to dislocate your jaw as you gargle his balls.
Re:A huge crash is coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. I cashed out all of my investments.
The president of US is asking his own DOJ to give him $230m using taxpayer money because of emotional toll from having lost the 2020 election and various other BS things. There are no parallels to this. Every day I wake up to find out a new massive screwup at the national level. How can any govt. be so destructive to their own country?
We are thoroughly screwed. MAGA wanted to screw over the libs. But they have no idea of the destruction they have unleashed on the American public. When shit hits the fan, they, many of them poor and uneducated, will be first to feel the pain. Farmers who voted overwhelmingly for Trump are already there.
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When shit hits the fan, they, many of them poor and uneducated, will be first to feel the pain
They have been feeling the pain for decades. What you really mean is that they will start dying at a much faster rate.
PROMOTION TIME :-) (Score:2)
I wonder how much (Score:2)
that pardon cost? Trump doesn't strike me as the type to do anything like that for free.
the evolution of the bribe (Score:2)
we used to decry "campaign donations".
now we have "ballroom donations," "presidential library donations," "airplane donations," and "cryptocurrency investing"
Reseting the monetary system (Score:2)
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Uh, you realize the Federal Reserve already does this with the dollar, right?
He wasn't pardoned. (Score:1)
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Santos sentence was commuted = released from prison, on probation, on record as a convicted criminal.
Zhao received a pardon = conviction is voided, all rights are restored, no longer considered a convicted criminal.
Time to abolish presidential pardons (Score:2)
Presidents have demonstrated they are incapable of using such power without being corrupted by it. It is past time for a constitutional amendment abolishing the pardon.
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Yes. And if Trump's massive abuse of that power is not enough, nothing will be.
Re:Time to abolish presidential pardons (Score:4, Interesting)
Presidents have demonstrated they are incapable of using such power without being corrupted by it. It is past time for a constitutional amendment abolishing the pardon.
I think the reasons the pardon power was given to the president still make sense, so abolishing it is a step too far. Instead, it should just be weakened a little, probably by adding a review by a non-partisan review board plus a limit on the number of pardons a president may issue. The review board shouldn't try to decide if the pardons are "correct", but only whether there is a presidential conflict of interest.
The question of what something like this should look like was interesting to me, so I had a long conversation [claude.ai] with Claude to collaboratively design a solution. The high level of the proposal is:
1. If someone files an objection within 30 days, the pardon is reviewed by a 9-member panel of judges selected algorithmically from all sitting federal judges. Unobjected pardons sail through.
2. Reviews must be completed within 60 days or the pardon is automatically upheld.
3. The panel examines the pardon for evidence of presidential impropriety, mainly conflicts of interest. The president can file counterarguments to objections.
4. If 6 of the 9 judges vote to overturn the pardon, it's voided.
5. If the president has three or more pardons voided during a term, the burden shifts and pardons are void unless a majority of the panel approves them.
6. To prevent the president from flooding the judiciary to exploit the time limit to get his pardons through, a given judge's queue of reviews is limited to n = 16. Any assigned pardon above this limit automatically receives a vote to void the pardon.
The selection algorithm Claude proposed (after some refinement) struck me as brilliant: use HMAC-SHA-256(pardon_id || date_of_first_filed_objection) to generate a sequence of judge IDs to fill the panel. It's publicly verifiable and hard to game, providing an essentially randomly-selected pool. The president can try to game it by ordering the pardons to use the pardon_id value to pick a "friendly" panel, but opposing parties can also game it by picking the day they file... and both sides have very limited options, so gaming it effectively will be possible, but hard, and rarely successful.
Some other important bits: Objections may be filed by anyone but are filed under oath and bad faith objections are also subject to sanctions and contempt orders by the panel. Successful bad faith objections may also expose the objector to civil suits by the failed pardonee. Pardons take effect automatically on day 31 if no objections are filed and on day 61 if the panel doesn't collect enough votes for a disposition. Pardonees who are in custody may demand a hearing to request conditional release. The judge will evalaute their request based on the nature of their alleged offense, their risk of flight and the apparent likelihood that the pardon has the appearance of impropriety, and will decide whether the pardonee should be held or released, and on what conditions.
I think this would work quite well.
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I think this would work quite well.
Yeah, just like the Supreme Court should work quite well. Time has shown us otherwise. Your method does not involve any cleaning or resetting, so corruption will eventually build up around it. How? I can't predict a specific future, but I can predict trends. Corruption is everpresent, even within our own souls.
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I think this would work quite well.
Yeah, just like the Supreme Court should work quite well. Time has shown us otherwise. Your method does not involve any cleaning or resetting, so corruption will eventually build up around it. How? I can't predict a specific future, but I can predict trends. Corruption is everpresent, even within our own souls.
You didn't actually read the method, I think. In order for corruption to "build up around it", the entire (or at least most of) the federal judiciary would have to be corrupted. While that's not impossible, if it happens we'd have much bigger problems than pardons. And the fact that the judiciary isn't already irredeemably corrupt is strong counter-evidence, because the benefits of corrupting the courts are far bigger than the benefits of corrupting the pardon system.
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the entire (or at least most of) the federal judiciary would have to be corrupted.
Oh boy. Do I have some news for your about The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society.
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the entire (or at least most of) the federal judiciary would have to be corrupted.
Oh boy. Do I have some news for your about The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society.
No, you don't. I'm sure I follow that a lot closer than you do. Any claims that the federal judiciary is already captured are just silly. SCOTUS is an issue, but look at all of the rulings against Trump. Even the appellate opinions that the news calls as in favor of Trump are basically all just staying the district injunctions until the merits are decided, and if you read the opinions, not just the headlines, you'll see they're almost always extremely skeptical on the merits.
Honestly, even SCOTUS isn'
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Honestly, even SCOTUS isn't quite as captured as a lot of people on both sides think.
It is captured enough to turn the law on its head. That is enough.
I am one of the lucky ones. I am "white", I can trace my lineage here in America before it was America back to sunny and warm England. I am not gay or trans. I am not poor. My only drawback is that I am not stupidly wealthy. So why should I care about all of this bullshit?
I can tell you why I care: Because this has all happened before and EVERYONE suffers until it is corrected. Stay blind, I don't fucking care. This shit won't be over before
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Dude, your confirmation bias is running circles around you.
I am open to discussions about my confirmation bias. I do not know everything. What I do know is that masked men with guns, no uniforms, and a severely unprofessional demeanor are wandering about kidnapping people based on the appearance of the people being kidnapped. Citizens have been kidnapped. We know this is true because we know some of them were released. Nobody knows if any were not released. The highest court in the land signed off on this. Let's talk about confirmation bias...
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Prosecutions and corrupt legal practices were a long standing problem of the UK and history which the founders were aware of.
The pardon power most of all needs to exist to protect the president or governor from their own family from being targeted by the corrupt to seek revenge or coerce them. You must have seen many stories with plots along such lines.
Secondly, the public lacks a way to correct popularly wrongful convictions except by a single elected official (some judges are elected but they are supposed
Cute (Score:3)
Free Sam Bankman Fried (Score:2)
His Caroline set him up the bomb and the Feds said all his bases belong to US.
Zhao bought this pardon (Score:3)
It's open blatant in your face corruption.
About as in your face as the White House Demolition.
Or the fact that Donnie boy wants the DOJ to cut him a quarter billion check.
Some Americans got off the couch last Saturday. What will it take to get enough of them to care to make an actual difference?
Who is next? (Score:2)
Roly poley crypto guy with the hair.
Followed by the blood lady with the black turtle neck and deep voice and gollum eyes.
The Rule of Law is Dead. (Score:2)
Pardon after a jail sentence? (Score:1)
Didn't know this was a crime (Score:2)
"failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program"
If that's a crime, I think the entire US population should be in jail. I know for sure as hell I don't have such a program.