President Trump Pardons Anthony Levandowski, Ex-Uber Engineer Sentenced To Prison For Stealing Trade Secrets From Google (whitehouse.gov) 240
On his final night in office, President Trump granted clemency to a total of 143 people, ranging from former adviser Stephen K. Bannon to rapper Lil Wayne. One name in particular that stands out in the tech community is none other than Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer that was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Google.
"Levandowski left Google in 2016 to start his own self-driving truck company, which was quickly acquired by Uber for $680 million," reports CNET. "These actions set off a chain of events that led to Google's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, suing Uber over alleged theft of self-driving car trade secrets."
Why would this tech executive be pardoned you may ask? The Press Secretary writes: "This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others..."
"Levandowski left Google in 2016 to start his own self-driving truck company, which was quickly acquired by Uber for $680 million," reports CNET. "These actions set off a chain of events that led to Google's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, suing Uber over alleged theft of self-driving car trade secrets."
Why would this tech executive be pardoned you may ask? The Press Secretary writes: "This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others..."
And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Funny)
Would you mind changing the oil while you're under there?
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Hey, this is not Google parking lot and free oil change to employees is not part of THIS distopia.
Googlers all drive EVs, so there is no oil to change.
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Googlers all drive EVs, so there is no oil to change.
I still remember the days when they had it. In fact, they probably do for the last remaining holdouts. It was a free service in the Chocolate Factory parking lot circa 2015. One of the many "perks" to ensure that the Umpah-Loompahs never leave the Chocolatey distopia along with free food, free laundry and god knows what else.
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Informative)
-The US passed 400,000 coronavirus deaths on his last day.
-He finished with the worst first term approval rating.
-He left office with 3m less jobs than when he entered, the worst since the depression.
-Impeached twice, for inciting literal insurrection against democracy
How's that swamp draining going? Seems to me he's done the literal opposite...
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Interesting)
"How's that swamp draining going?" Now, now, he signed an executive order limiting lobbying by former administration officials. Uh-oh, he, uh, just canceled that executive order with a new one that now allows lobbying by former administration officials. Gee, who would have guessed he'd do that now?
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"How's that swamp draining going?" Now, now, he signed an executive order limiting lobbying by former administration officials. Uh-oh, he, uh, just canceled that executive order with a new one that now allows lobbying by former administration officials. Gee, who would have guessed he'd do that now?
This is in no way a defense of Trump, who is a lying con artist I'd really like to see in prison, but it's interesting to note that Bill Clinton did almost exactly the same thing. Early in his first term he signed an executive order limiting lobbying for five years (same as Trump's order), then signed another reversing it in the last days of his second term. in both cases, former administration officials have complained that they have a hard time finding jobs after leaving the White House. This sort of orde
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Good luck with that. I have a better chance too sick a according between my butt cheeks and squeezing off Beethoven 9th. Then winning a Oscar for my performance.
Re: And as for you seditionists... (Score:3)
OMG he's the Swamp Thing!
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Funny)
His idea of draining the swamp was to throw in more alligators to displace the water.
Beau Of The Fifth Column (Score:3)
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Informative)
you fucking nitwit
if you're trying to look smarter by insulting others ... just so you know: it is not working.
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Informative)
Job losses were the faults of the states that locked down the economy, you fucking nitwit.
Job losses and GDP decline were far lower in countries with a proper national lockdown in March than it was in the US. France for instance saw a 13.8% drop in Q2 compared to 32.9% in the US. Many if not most of the job losses would not have happened if not for Trump (although the primary cause was still Covid-19). Plenty of blame is also due for Senators who wouldn't pass more comprehensive stimulus.
Based on the language you used I doubt you are willing to listen to reason though. Troll on.
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you saying that he is responsible for the virus
He never said Trump is responsible for all 400k deaths. Who knows what future researchers will determine, but I would put my money on about half of them are due to his administration's lack of response. Well not just lack of response; irresponsible messaging to his supporters has likely been just as bad if not worse than his lack of response.
Just take a look at France for an example of a proper response. Total number of deaths are misleading because of population size, density, etc. but you can see a huge difference in trendlines. France dropped their deaths per day from 1000 in early April to 60 by the end of May. A 94% drop. Deaths stayed low for 4 months because of their proper response, only increasing again in the fall as experts predicted. Their recent lockdown allowed deaths to peek before the end of November and are hovering at about half of their peak just before winter.
The US on the other hand went from 2250 deaths per day at their peak in mid-April to around 550 by the end of June. A 75% drop when compared to France's 94% drop. But we didn't have that good summer Europe had because our response was lacking, so deaths started to rise again in early summer. As for this winter, we never peaked in mid-November but instead are peaking just about now.
If our trendline looked like France because of a similar well thought out national response, tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Trump decided to punt responsibility to individual states to fight among themselves because he didn't have the courage or capability to deal with it in the proper way at the national level.
and is also responsible for all the jobs it killed?
Countries that did a proper national lockdown in March and April saw far less economic damage than the US. In Q2 the US had a 32.9% drop in GDP compared to a 13.8% drop in France. The US would likely have seen half if not a third of the job losses if Trump had done his job. Although here he had plenty of help from the Senate too.
And are you also insinuating that the impeachments weren't much more than vendettas?
Of course he is insinuating that, if not outright saying it. Trump is the first president in history to have Senators from his own party convict him of impeachment, and there will be many more doing that for his second impeachment. History will look back on all the things Trump got away with, not wrongful convictions. Hopefully we will soon see Trump in actual prison for all he has done.
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The house didn't even present enough evidence in his first impeachment hearing, and that's why there was that whole fiasco about pulling in additional "witnesses" to testify AFTER he was impeached.
I think you need to familiarise yourself with how the process of impeachment works.
The House votes whether or not to impeach. They're the equivalent of a grand jury. An impeachment is an indictment; it's not a trial. Those who are requesting impeachment only need to present enough evidence for the House to vote to impeach, nothing more.
Once the impeachment is granted, the matter then goes to the Senate for trial. Republican Senators wouldn't allow there to be any witnesses during the trial [npr.org]. It wasn't the H
Re:And as for you seditionists... (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. It's used against those that broke into the Capitol building seeking to execute the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, and those that enabled them or actively egged them on.
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Most countries leaders have the power of pardon. Thing is using it ethically, fixing injustices, not selling them for political favours, campaign contributors or other political reasons like pissing off the opposition.
disgrace (Score:5, Insightful)
Nepotism? Clinton pardoned his brother (Score:5, Insightful)
> If you had any doubts of the depths of Trumps nepotism and self serving nature you only have to look at his last acts of who he Pardoned
Nepotism in Trump's pardons?
That word doesn't mean what you think it does.
Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger. That's nepotism.
Re:Nepotism? Clinton pardoned his brother (Score:5, Informative)
> If you had any doubts of the depths of Trumps nepotism and self serving nature you only have to look at his last acts of who he Pardoned
Nepotism in Trump's pardons? That word doesn't mean what you think it does. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger. That's nepotism.
Nepotism covers both family and friends. There is a huge difference between Clinton pardoning his brother, and Trump's pardons. Clinton's brother had served his sentence a decade earlier, and the pardon cleared his record. Nepotism, but in the grand scheme of things not a big deal - he had served his time. Trump pardons allies that are under active investigation or have just been convicted - Bannon [nytimes.com], Flynn [bbc.com], Joe Arpaio [wikipedia.org] in moves undermining the rule of law, as well as pardoning allies sabotaging the Russia investigation.And some war criminals convicted of massacres [vanityfair.com] for good measure.
Re:Nepotism? Clinton pardoned his brother (Score:4)
Nepotism covers both family and friends.
If Lil' Wayne is his friend, then maybe Trump isn't so bad.
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Re:Nepotism? Clinton pardoned his brother (Score:5, Informative)
10 Years seems ridiculously excessive, but did he have any prior convictions for similar offences?
In 2007, he was arrested for smoking marijuana. They searched the tour bus and found a gun in a gym bag. The gun was registered by his manager, but Lil' Wayne was charged because, hey, whatever. It isn't clear why having a gun in a gym bag was illegal in the first place.
In 2020, he was arrested because there was a gun on a private jet that he chartered.
Would a white guy go to prison for 10 years for that?
Look, the guy broke the law and deserves, say, six months of community service. But ten years in federal prison is absurd.
I am glad that he was pardoned, but many less famous people are in prison right now for similar BS. America is badly in need of criminal justice reform.
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All about politics. He pardoned the war criminals merely because there's a staunch far right faction who feel no Americans should ever be accused of crimes in foreign countries, much less military personnel, and this was a bone tossed to that faction. The pardon seriously weakens the rule of law and logically should be anathema to any conservative; another reason that Trumpism is not the same as conservatism.
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Well, just to be fair, some of the miscreants the alleged president pardoned have a nice collection of his skeletons that he rather wishes they would not take around the block for a brisk airing. He should have pardoned his minder, Putin.
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Trump is protecting himself. People with dirt on him and facing long prison sentences are a threat.
Trump must be expecting a wave of charges and lawsuits later today when Biden takes over. These strategic pardons are aimed at protecting him from potential witnesses willing to throw him under the bus for a deal.
Re:Nepotism? Clinton pardoned his brother (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump is protecting himself. People with dirt on him and facing long prison sentences are a threat.
Well, pardoning people who are involved in his crimes or know about them can come around and bite him. Anyone who is involved in a crime may refuse to talk as a witness based on the fifth amendment. Somebody who has been pardoned cannot claim to protect themselves from self-incrimination. So when called as a witness they may have to talk.
Re:Nepotism? Clinton pardoned his brother (Score:4, Informative)
Nepotism covers both family and friends.
No it doesn't. You don't get to change words based on your fucking feelings. Either you're too goddamn lazy to type NEPOTISM DEFINITION into Google or your're delusional. Which is it?
Definition of nepotism
: favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship
your google-fu is incomplete
kinship /knp/
a sharing of characteristics or origins.
and severely lacking:
nepotism /nptz()m/
the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.
and you continue embarrassing yourself by insulting others.
Picking them nits. (Score:2)
That makes the way Trump is handing out pardons a saint. Clinton from 20 years ago, who was impeached successfully, is the actual bad guy. And he still is! Nothing wrong with Trump. No sirree! Move along.
Yeah, you didn't say it. But using that kind of response because of the morally reprehensible pardons are technically not "nepotism" in the sense of favouring family members is still a red herring.
Always keep in mind that in your two party system with term limits, the 'other side' is lik
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But people with so much power should be held to high standards regardless of where they come from.
Hence the way I see it, if Clinton deserved to get a guilty verdict, Trump certainly does as well.
If there's no accountability even for those things, one has to wonder where the line will be drawn.
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Re:Picking them nits. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Clinton was not impeached successfully. He should have been anyway.
Clinton was impeached successfully. He wasn't convicted and removed. These are separate things, though the impeachment is a prerequisite for the trial.
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You're a brave man to provide even a semantic defense of Trump while he still has almost 12 Presidential hours to Trump all over everything. Also, FWIW, Jared Kushner's father Charles got a pardon on Christmas Eve; much like the Roger Clinton pardon, it comes more than a decade after the illegal conduct. Clinton's pardon was for a 1985 cocaine conviction. Charles Kushner's was for:
a revenge plot against his brother-in-law, William Schulder, for cooperating with prosecutors in a tax evasion case against him. Charles hired a hooker to have sex with Schulder in a Jersey motel room, where a hidden camera was rolling. The elder Kushner then sent the footage to Schulder's wife, Ester, who is Charles' sister.
The revenge plot backfired ... the Schulders gave the footage to prosecutors, who tracked down the prostitute. She eventually snitched on Charles.
These really are some of the worst people in America.
Re:disgrace (Score:5, Interesting)
Many of the pardons were not political cronies or campaign donors or business associates. There seems to be a scattershot of pardons, maybe some just paid for the pardons and others were semi-celebrities who he pardoned just because and others perhaps he pardoned just to piss people off.
Bannon was pardoned but I believe he's not immune to civil lawsuits over his fraud. Too bad he's not in the big house, as he's the architect of modern fake news and did a lot of the whispering in Trump's ears driving his early actions.
Personally, we should just get rid of the pardon power with an amendment. It's abused far too much, not just by idiots like Trump but most of the other presidents as well. If they were found guilty by a jury of their peers, or they plead guilty based on incontrovertible evidence, letting them go merely for political reasons is a perversion of justice. Governors should be limited too. Perhaps require congressional approval for the pardons.
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he's the architect of modern fake news
1. Nope he is not. He copied most of his term paper from Vladimir Surkov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2. Vladimir Surkov is not the inventor either. The fundamentals were established by a research project called BDI which became SCL - the primary NATO "public opinion adjustment contractor". The initial funding was released by the Thatcher Government in 1990 to "correct errant democracies in the Eastern Block". Further funding was provided by NATO as well as USA and UK directly: https://www.fagain.co. [fagain.co.uk]
Re:disgrace (Score:5, Interesting)
Your source here is pretty far into the same conspiracy nut death spiral as the Trump zealots who stormed the capitol. The irony is the things he claims influenced his own thinking directly contradict his position: "Democracy dies the day when people start voting on religious belief alone instead of ideas and policies." is used to attack efforts to promote democracy in Eastern Europe by NATO members, while seeming to have no issue with the fact those countries didn't have democracy in the first place. The full conspiracy nut trend is evident in coverage claiming footage of the Russian BUKs in Ukraine (related to the shooting down of the airliner) which is almost entirely based on claims that the direction of shadows shows it is faked; this claim could be credible but when the argument is that the original shadows were removed and someone worked out what the shadows should look like (angle etc) and re-added them but got them the wrong way around... and just for good measure they edited out all the car exhausts (they don't give any indication of why they'd want to do this, yet they're sure they did and this helps prove it's faked).
This is ironically exactly the sort of misinformation that Russia loves to propogate. It isn't obviously tied to them, it includes plenty of technical detail which is likely to be compelling to the target audience, and is hard to error-check because the case refuting the claim would have to be incredibly dry (proving that shadows could be in that direction and that they weren't faked) and any error-check by an western official or media can be dismissed as "they would say that".
Re:disgrace (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want anyone to believe you, you should get an NYT (or similar) reporter to interview you and publish your claims. In all seriousness, this seems like a story they would want to write. Note that they won't take your unvarnished and anonymous word for it, they'll insist on evidence that your claims of personal knowledge are reasonable and will require corroboration, too.
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Fake news as a concept goes back to age of telegraph at the very least. See: Spanish-American war.
I suspect I can find even earlier examples of comparable severity, though those would be of the time when "news" were geared almost solely toward aristocracy, so unlike with aforementioned Spanish-American war, the concept of "journalism" as such didn't yet exist. Instead you had what was essentially spymasters who performed a task that was serving effectively the same ends in the age before print.
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Fake news goes back at least to the Egyptian pharaohs. Those wall paintings on the pyramids and other stuff they built were directly out of Political Propaganda 101. And it even goes back as far as cuneiform texts that have been translated, from the Tigris-Euphrates civilizations that predate the Egyptians. I also have my doubt about cave paintings showing the equivalent of modern gun-nuts showing off their spears and bragging about the size of the critter they killed.
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A lot of what Bannon did was right out of the N@zi playbook, the same tactics they used to gain political power and support. Blame and fear others, then propose a radical "solution" to the made up problem, i.e. immigrants and the wall.
That's why the fascists were so happy when Trump won and dared to do things like the Unite the Right rally, and why Trump was so reluctant to condemn them and so desperate to create false equivalence with Antifa. They studied history and recognized the pattern.
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I think it's that Bannon actually implemented it (Score:3)
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"I'm gay and you're lesbian but if we marry we'll make both our parents happy, and we only need to maintain the charade until I win a second term!"
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Yes, those pardons were also disgraceful. Trump however ran under the platform of draining the swamp. This is just more proof that he was pumping in extra sludge to the swamp and lying to his voting base. Anyone who thinks Trump was different and not really a politician failed to notice that he practiced every political vice there was.
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Why does the US president even have this power? This is an open invitation for all manner of corruption. Maybe if congress or some subcommittee would be required to endorse these pardons.
Why historically? Kings and queens had it so when the framers of the constitution were redoing it they just carried that over.
Why is it popular enough not to get deleted? The US system of justice is fundamentally completely broken. There are a load of injustices - basically, if you are rich like Donald Trump, you can get off repeatedly with good lawyers. If you are poor you can go to jail for life for stealing a pizza.
You'll notice that the Trumpkins are comparing Trumps pardons with Clinton (at this point,
No Qanon Shaman? (Score:5, Funny)
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Let him remain in place so we all remember the real Russian influence.
Nope, not in jest. Russian equivalent, Shaman Gabyshev: https://www.9111.ru/questions/... [9111.ru]
The difference is that the Russian equivalent after 3 attempts to exorcise Vlad and a single one month long visit to the psychiatric ward is preparing the fourth. The USA shaman will not be preparing anything - he will be sitting 25+ years for sedition. Long live the land of the free.
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Paul Erickson – President Trump has issued a full pardon to Paul Erikson. This pardon is supported by Kellyanne Conway. Mr. Erickson’s conviction was based off the Russian collusion hoax. After finding no grounds to charge him with any crimes with respect to connections with Russia, he was charged with a minor financial crime. Although the Department of Justice sought a lesser sentence, Mr. Erickson was sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment—nearly double the Department of Justice’s recommended maximum sentence. This pardon helps right the wrongs of what has been revealed to be perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American History.
I must say that is a remarkably spiteful statement to put out on a pardon announcement. Really doesn't leave much to the imagination as to the real motivations there.
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Also what the hell is a “recommended maximum” sentence? They aren’t hard limits?
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A bit of digging turns up this contemporaneous report of the sentencing [argusleader.com]:
Re:No Qanon Shaman? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also misleading. Erickson wasn't charged with a "minor financial crime", he was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering totaling $5.3 million over the last 20 years. The DoJ's recommended sentence for Erickson was 33 to 41 months, which was extremely light in view of the amount of money involved. The judge referenced two other similar fraud cases that involved less money and resulted in sentences of 108 months and 57 months. Erickson's sentence of 84 months in confinement and 36 months in supervised release was not unreasonable in the least. Then, the dumbass had the temerity to ask for home confinement due to the risk of COVID-19, but didn't bother to wear a mask to court.
Noon can't come soon enough today.
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2million https://dissenter.substack.com... [substack.com] .
Might depend on who you are though.
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That figure isn't included in the list.
There's some very suspicious looking pardons in there.
"In 2016 Mr. Liberty was convicted for campaign finance violations and later was indicted for related offenses. Mr. Liberty is the father of 7 children and has been involved in numerous philanthropic efforts."
Uhuh.
Every president has controversial pardons (Score:5, Insightful)
The most *outrageous* scandal in all of this, to me, is the pardon of Manning without a pardon for Snowden. I see Snowden as a whitleblower that revealed clearly illegal conduct in a very *professional and deliberate* fashion to a journalist, vs. Manning's wholesale release of defense information to a black-hat hacker. There's certainly a very good argument to pardon Mainning, and I can get behind that, but it's just very inconsistent that Snowden wouldn't have received the same privilege.
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So you see pardoning Blackwater people more controversial than the Bush administration enabling them, and the Obama administration turning a blind eye to their activities?
Re:Every president has controversial pardons (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, of course, as would any objective person. Enabling people of questionable character is one thing, removing consequences of proven criminal conduct is another.
I wonder how many are "turning a blind eye" to your moral judgements? Perhaps there needs to be an adjustment there.
Short memories (Score:2, Informative)
Americans sure so have short memories.
Whatever happened most recently, whatever is going on this month, is the worst ever or the best ever - it's YUGE!
The Manning pardon was fucked up because Manning straight up sold out our national security your security.
For abuse of pardon power it hardly holds a candle to Clinton pardoning his brother, Roger Clinton.
Then of course you have the pardons of terrorist Lopez Rivera, who actually waged war against the United States, responsible for at least 28 bombings in Chi
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The problem is that institutionally, the Army and the NSA both demand that these issues be brought to light, but at the end of the day, these demands are "corporate claptrap", and there will be repercussions for anyone who actually carries through with t
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It is far far worse (though I also disagree with the Clinton pardon). The crime Roger was pardoned was one he had already served his time for; the most egregious of Trump's pardons are clearly nepotistic and to stop people ever facing the consequences of their actions.
Re:Short memories (Score:4, Informative)
The Manning pardon was fucked up because Manning straight up sold out our national security your security.
Manning was *NOT* pardoned. Her sentence was commuted, there's a huge difference.
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Though people should stop collating these two. It is questionable if Manning should have been prosecuted at all. In most other countries a person with that level of psychological issues would be denied security clearance. Similarly, if the incident happened in another country, all of her superiors and the person who issued the security clearance would have had to face a board of inquiry and/or court-martial while he/she would have been tried with a psychiatric assessment stapled to the file as exon
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I can speak to this to some degree, because I was in the military, in a related role to Manning (I was in intelligence, but I wasn't an analyst). Understand, Manning joined the military at a young age, and at this point in your life, you don't have much of a background to investigate, p
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I directly worked under someone who "everyone" knew was gay, and I didn't have a problem this at all.
You missed my point.
There is nothing wrong in being a STABLE gay or any other STABLE sexual preference. This is different from a person with an INSTABILITY in his/her personality regardless of is it SEXUAL or OTHER. They are a security risk.
This is what should have raised red flags and is part of the security clearance assessment in a lot of countries.
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Manning entered the Army at a young age, and there just isn't very much background there to investigate. High-school acquaintances generally aren't considered something worthwhile in an SSBI (Single-scope background investigation), generally the investigation used to determine eligibility for a Top Secret clearance. You can make a valid argument that juvenile acquaintances shoul
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I think, why your high-school drama shouldn't be a factor in your future employment.
Oh, definitely, if my high school record is taken into account, I will be on a terrorist watch list for life. It's looks like the Anarchist cookbook :) We are talking purely based on her Army record.
Her military career started by ending up in the discharge unit as being mentally unfit for service. Her personality issues were on the medical record. That alone should have disqualified her from holding a security clearance for at least a few years until there is confidence that she is stable and has the psy
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That's a definite flag, but you have to understand what entering the military looks like -- (I'm assuming you haven't experienced that, as most people in the tech sector don't have a military background. And I'm making numerous assumptions, namely that you're in the tech sector and that you haven't been in the military.)
When you enter the military, (and I'm speaking from a US military perspective), you
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And I'm making numerous assumptions, namely that you're in the tech sector and that you haven't been in the military.
Your assumptions are correct and you are probably correct looking at it from the USA side of the fence.
While I have not been in the military, I have grown up around people holding some the highest possible security clearances on the other side of the iron curtain. I am familiar with what it took to have it and to avoid having it, if you wanted to. I am looking at the whole affair from that perspective.
To put it bluntly, Manning would have been disallowed to be anywhere near the material she was given ac
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Two wrongs make a right? What kind of absurd BS is that? Trump pardoned people just for licking his ass. Trump pardoned murderers and his supporters who were caught red handed being corrupt. This is so that if he or his son makes it to office in 2024 people would be willing to break the law for him.
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Am I going to l
Absolutely no moral fiber (Score:3)
Corruption (Score:2)
Trump will pardon you for anything as long as you loudly proclaim yourself a Trump follower and/or pay a large sum of money. This will encourage a lot of people to do criminal acts with impunity because they know when Trump comes back in 2024 they will all get pardons just by feigning loyalty. Anyway, I am glad Steve Bannon was pardoned, maybe he will steal even more money from xenophobic people. Haha. I am surprised more people don't feign loyalty to Trump to get all kinds of benefits. If the stupid Irani
Re:Corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming Trump doesn't get convicted in his Impeachment trial and then barred from future office and/or doesn't get barred via Section 3 of the 14th Amendment ... (the latter can be challenged in Court and/or reversed by a 2/3 vote by both houses of Congress).
Trump's talking about starting his own political party, which will stoke his ego, but is probably misguided. He believes he has 74 million followers / voters behind him, when he actually only has some (perhaps large) fraction of that. There are many Republicans that voted for Trump simply because he was the Republican candidate and/or not Biden, but would not have if there had been an alternative Republican candidate. If the 2024 race ends up with 3 candidates / parties -- Democrat, Republican, ReTrumplican -- he and the Republican candidate are (most likely) going to lose 'cause they will have split the votes they had in 2020.
Even if he doesn't start his own party, he probably won't really run again, but will at least *pretend* to run to (a) stoke his ego and (b) grift his followers (even more). Preventing this is why an Impeachment conviction is being pursued, even post-term.
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Trump will rally his followers to vote for his son Don Jr. instead. He's already setting himself up to run and compared himself to Simba from the Lion King (Scar being Biden, and King Mufasa being his dad).
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Trump will rally his followers to vote for his son Don Jr. instead. He's already setting himself up to run and compared himself to Simba from the Lion King (Scar being Biden, and King Mufasa being his dad).
I heard about that, but isn't Jr's main claim to fame simply riding his father coattails (like his other children)? It's going to take a LOT of rallying to get everyone past Jr's douchbag persona. In any case, none of his kids have Donald's "charisma".
Hopefully, however unlikely, they'll all end up wearing orange jumpsuits in an island resort [wikipedia.org] off the coast of New York City. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
and King Mufasa being his dad
Well, I guess the hair kinda fits.
Ya, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Pardons can be a double-edged sword. Accepting one means waving your ability to plead the 5th Amendment on questions about what the pardon covers because you're no longer in peril from self-incrimination. Failing to answer could mean jail time for, well, failing to answer, contempt of court, etc... Trump pardoning the wrong person on a whim could put himself or others in his circle in jeopardy from additional questioning those people.
Probably not a factor with Anthony Levandowski's case, but the others ...?
Re:Ya, but ... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an article that argues that you can still plead the fifth because there are so many possible crimes that one can be indicated for that the bar is high to compel testimony. Also, there are lots of state-level crimes that a Presidential pardon does not absolve you of, so you can still plead the fifth to avoid those crimes.
The key insight I got from the article is the last sentence here:
"The Fifth Amendment is simply too important to a democratic way of life to be waved away so easily, Zelin said. It exists, he said, to protect people from the government forcing testimony, whether those people are guilty or innocent. To invoke it, you don't even need to point to an existing case or investigation."
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Re:Ya, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice article, thanks.
Perhaps, but (most likely) only about things that may still incriminate yourself on other things that prosecutors might care about -- in those cases, you could be granted immunity for ancillary things. If the crime involved others, you cannot plead the 5th after receiving a pardon simply to protect them whereas w/o the pardon you were protecting yourself as well as the others as answering about them would have incriminated yourself. It may be narrow in places, but getting a pardon for a crime is basically the same as being granted immunity for that crime. In the case of Trump, being granted a pardon for doing something that Trump told you to do or knew about -- and, of course, Trump denied -- means you can be asked and expected to answer questions about his involvement ... Prior to the pardon you'd have plead the 5th to protect yourself and that would have also protected Trump. After the pardon, you're no longer in jeopardy and can't circumstantially protect Trump anymore. Obviously, this only applies to Federal crimes. As far as invoking the 5th to protect against additional state prosecution, the state could always wave prosecution for more important federal testimony about a co-conspirator. Everything depends on the crime and who's the bigger fish relative to the pond. :-)
[ Disclaimer: IANAL, but I read a lot. ]
Who? (Score:2)
Are we meant to know those 'strongly supported by' names?
8 hours to go... (Score:2)
And Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is probably sweating heavily right now [dailymail.co.uk]...
Treason, fraud, corruption, stalking... (Score:2)
...also racketeering, bribery and extortion, illegal gun possession.
Trump pardoned / commuted sentences for these things, but we're going to ignore all that and just concentrate on the one case of stealing trade secrets... WTF?
For comparison (Score:3)
Highlight reel (Score:3)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20... [cnn.com]
Remember Elliott Broidy next time a Trumpkin starts blubbering on about Biden and China.
Re:Highlight reel (Score:4, Informative)
I remember Jared Kusher selling green cards to China while Donald railed about limiting immigration.
I remember all the trademarks Ivanka was awarded while Trump negotiated with China...and Argentina and I'm sure others.
Trump’s business applied for the trademarks in late December 2017. Shortly after the close of the trademark opposition period, in May of 2018, the United States reached a deal with Argentina and a few other countries to permanently eliminate tariffs on aluminum and steel, on the condition that the countries agreed to limit steel exports.
After Argentina approved the trademarks in November, the Trump administration restored the tariffs on steel and aluminum. The president defended this abrupt action on Twitter, claiming that Argentina manipulated its currency, making it cheaper to purchase its exports abroad. Economic experts and officials from both countries denied these claims.
While Argentina’s economy was hurt, Trump, of course, still ended up with the economic benefit of new trademarks.
US held off on tariffs while Argentina reviewed Trump trademarks [citizensforethics.org]
Then of course there's a couple of decades of Trump himself pursuing business deals in China. I'm not buying this "China Joe" propaganda at all. That's not even scratching the surface of Trump's shady deals though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think the presidential pardon power should be eliminated. There's truly grievous prosecutions that should be able to be struck down by the president, fully and unconditionally (does anyone here *really* disagree with all the marijuana pardons by Obama?). Sometimes, this power is abused. Inevitably, people are going to disagree with the pardons, and sometimes, the pardons will be of a political nature -- even Clin
Re:A question from an outsider (Score:5, Interesting)
The pardon power should be cutoff x days before elections and kick back in when a new term starts. This way voters can change their vote based on pardons if they want to.
Re:Can people get un-pardoned? (Score:5, Informative)
US criminal law differs from European law in that an acquittal or a pardon cannot be appealed. A conviction can be appealed up the chain of courts, but the first acquittal stops the process.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget: Accepting A Pardon is an admission of guilt.
They may get out of jail but they're still officially guilty of the crime.