Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by James Lacey

What is there to say? It's a highly controversial move but one that Biden feels is necessary to protect his son from what is the inevitable endless revenge investigations that Trump's loyalists and lackeys will carry out. On the other hand, the right-wingers want to scream that Hunter got away with it. Yet plenty of evidence supports that Hunter was singled out by the GOP and mistreated. You, of course, want to paint it as hypocritical, all the while ignoring that you voted to put a convicted felon and rapist in the White House. Besides, Trump pardoned family members and now wants to make one of them the ambassador to France. And Trump pardoned plenty of awful people, not the least of which was a war criminal convicted of first-degree murder. So, spare us the fake outrage. Trump probably has the worst pardon record of any president when it comes to wielding the pardon power in a corrupt way.

Hi James:  I personally think Hunter got away with far more crimes than he was ever charged with.  Hunter is a criminal grifter, and his crimes taint his father's legacy.   The evidence is overwhelming that Hunter sold at least the appearance of access to the VP during the Obama years, not to mention the drug, gun, and tax crimes.

That said, if the President is not going to pardon his own flesh and blood, who is he going to pardon?   I expect James Biden to be blanket-pardoned before January 20, and I will not fault the President for exercising his Constitutional prerogative.

FWIW, Trump did grant "political" pardons, and expect many more soon.  But Trump did grant clemency to several people, many who are black, who were serving long sentences under the Clinton-era federal sentencing guidelines for minor marijuana or other drug related crimes.  I thought at the time this was one of Trump's better moves.

Originally Posted by James Lacey

What is there to say? It's a highly controversial move but one that Biden feels is necessary to protect his son from what is the inevitable endless revenge investigations that Trump's loyalists and lackeys will carry out. On the other hand, the right-wingers want to scream that Hunter got away with it. Yet plenty of evidence supports that Hunter was singled out by the GOP and mistreated. You, of course, want to paint it as hypocritical, all the while ignoring that you voted to put a convicted felon and rapist in the White House. Besides, Trump pardoned family members and now wants to make one of them the ambassador to France. And Trump pardoned plenty of awful people, not the least of which was a war criminal convicted of first-degree murder. So, spare us the fake outrage. Trump probably has the worst pardon record of any president when it comes to wielding the pardon power in a corrupt way.

I get your point, but technically, there is no such thing as a corrupt pardon.

Originally Posted by James Lacey

But can't they be used in a corrupt way? The Presidential pardon was intended to forgive someone who had taken accountability for their actions. The norm is that they are only given after a period of good behavior and even the completion of a sentence. Trump completely blew that up and pardoned dozens of friends and allies who never took responsibility for any of their wrongdoings. If that's not corrupt, I don't know what is.

Do you feel the same about Hunter’s pardon?   He has never taken responsibility.  Rather, he and his attorneys and staff have whined about alleged selective prosecution which is a complete joke.

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

Well if all those people Trump pardoned, and all those capital invaders he's going to pardon on Jan 20, aren't going to go to jail then why should Biden's son go to jail?

Dave

Why should Hunter go to jail?   Because he’s a criminal.   Same with convicted J6 rioters.  Of course since Biden pardoned his son there will be no sentence or any other punishment.   This  is within Biden’s authority and really has nothing to do with Trump’s pardons.  

It is interesting that you, James, and lots of writers in the press are using Trump’s past and future pardons to whitewash the Hunter Biden pardon.   It is fine with me if you want to draw moral equivalency in this fashion, my opinion of Hunter Biden is well documented.  To the extent the pardon power can be implemented corruptly, (as described by James, and I think James has made a good point) I think many of Trump’s pardons, and the Hunter Biden pardon would fall under James’s definition of a “corrupt“ pardon. Not a good look for the current president.

Originally Posted by James Lacey

In an ideal world, where Presidential pardons were only given out to those genuinely worthy, Hunter does not deserve his. On the other hand, if we could somehow measure the worthiness of a presidential pardon, Hunter's far outweighs many of those given by Trump, in my humble opinion, which I know is not worth much.

On the contrary James, your opinion is worth its weight in gold!  I suppose we could rank the worthiness of pardons, but our rankings would track our political opinions in the "political" pardon discussion.   In other words, I think Hunter is more of a criminal than you do, so I think his pardon is less worthy than you do. 

This is more or less what I was getting at earlier in the thread.  The Constitution places no limits on the pardon power, except where it overlaps with impeachment.   So no pardon is corrupt "technically."  I do think the depth of the point you bring to the discussion about the relative "worthiness" of a pardon is valid, so long as we all recognize that we are talking about public perception, or our own opinions, exclusively.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

" He has never taken responsibility."

"Hunter Biden reacted to the pardon by saying he has "admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/did-hunter-biden-convictions-led-160850257.html

Hunter may have taken responsibility for the gun and tax charges.   This is a small-potato dodge. He has never taken responsibility for massively enriching himself by selling the appearance (at least) of access to the Vice President.  This was (at least) a violation of the FARA.  

There is a reason the president granted a blanket pardon for all crimes that had been committed or could have been committed over an extended period of time.    Such a wide sweeping “preemptive” pardon is rare, and I have read, but not verified, that a blanket pardon like this was last used for Nixon.   The reason is obviously that there are indeed a slew of uncharged and embarrassing crimes that should have been leveled against Hunter.   

Expect James Biden to get one of these blanket pardons before January 20.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Oh, so now you're going after Hunter on allegations rather than actual charges in much the same manner as Comer's BS house committee investigation did even when their "star witness" blew up in their faces and admitted he lied about the whole thing. Of course, Comer's committee forwarded a criminal referral to the justice department anyway where's it's evidently languished because no attorney overthere would want to pursue a bogus complaint like it anyway. And, of course, it's highly likely Kash Patel would be more than happy to resurrect it again so I hope Hunter actually does receive a blanket pardon.

I suppose you think Burisma and the Chinese entities paid Hunter millions, literally, because of his expertise in the oil and gas industries?

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

That said, I don't see you expounding a similar level of righteous indignation regarding Trump's son in law, Jared, whose firm profited by a billion or more from his and Trump's dealings with the Saudis and one in which makes the Hunter Biden fiasco look like a pauper...

Are you channeling Richard?  What does Jared have to do with our discussion?  If you want to do moral equivalence again, have at it.  Plenty of time to discuss Jared's allegations if/when Trump pardons him.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Oh, so now you're going after Hunter on allegations rather than actual charges in much the same manner as Comer's BS house committee investigation did even when their "star witness" blew up in their faces and admitted he lied about the whole thing. Of course, Comer's committee forwarded a criminal referral to the justice department anyway where's it's evidently languished because no attorney overthere would want to pursue a bogus complaint like it anyway. And, of course, it's highly likely Kash Patel would be more than happy to resurrect it again so I hope Hunter actually does receive a blanket pardon.

That said, I don't see you expounding a similar level of righteous indignation regarding Trump's son in law, Jared, whose firm profited by a billion or more from his and Trump's dealings with the Saudis and one in which makes the Hunter Biden fiasco look like a pauper...

Last comment - I am not indignant at all, as was made clear in my first second and third "pardon" posts in this thread.  If I were president and my son were a crook like Hunter Biden, I'd probably pardon him too.  Promises and legacy be damned.  I am just pointing out the obvious conclusion that Hunter is almost certainly guilty of a lot more than gun, drug and tax crimes, based upon documented evidence from his laptop emails and bank records, and he expressed no remorse for these additional crimes.  

Frankly, I'm not sure why you are defending Hunter, even a little bit.  Hunter Biden is a serious scum bag, who earned every charge and investigation pointed at him, even though the DOJ treated him with kid gloves until the whistle blowers at the IRS made such blatant favoritism untenable.

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

How many procedures for how many patients were denied coverage and the patient died?  Not just by this unfortunate CEO's company but among all of them.

Tens of thousands? Thousands?  Hundreds?  

Who is responsible?  

That's why, although murder and gun violence (outside of self defence) are always wrong, I can see the reason for the killing... 

I understand how many people feel toward the U.S. health insurance industry so, given the number of firearms about, there's bound to be one gun owner who, as George Carlin once put it, "just needed one more thing to go wrong..."

Actually I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner...

Dave

Hi Dave:  I think you are overestimating the level of dissatisfaction with the US healthcare system.  According to some high quality research slightly less than half of the US population (48%) rate U.S. healthcare quality as "excellent or good" but Americans’ have a 72% positive rating of their own healthcare quality.  (I am happily in this camp)  https://news.gallup.com/poll/468176/americans-sour-healthcare-quality.aspx

This is not unlike Canada, where less than half (48%) of Canadians are "satisfied" with their provincial healthcare system – and only a quarter (25%) believe that additional funds injected in the system over the past decade have improved the situation.   https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/less-half-of-canadians-are-satisfied-their-provincial-healthcare-system

I bet if we checked most 1st world nations, the feelings would be about the same. 

I am not posting this to get into a pissing match about whose health care system is better - personally, or overall.  I am posting it to suggest that health care is a limited and extremely costly resource that must be distributed rationally in any system in any country.   I am reading into the parts of your post I highlighted above the suggestion that you think US citizens are particularly or uniquely dissatisfied with the US system.   If that is a fair read of your post, then we disagree on that point.  Sure, some people who might have had treatment denied or delayed for even a legitimate reason are dissatisfied, but this is not unique to the US system.  Not even close.  Jim