Trump

[merman]

I think what's going to be more interesting is how many of his cronies, ostensibly not pardoned, actually have a nice little pocket pardon tucked away. I'm guessing everyone you were surprised he didn't pardon, including himself, plus a raft of others.

Why pocket pardons? Because it would have looked bad in his impeachment trial.

The only way he theoretically could have done this is to get the Attorney General to halt *Federal* cases, or set a time limit on investigations into *specific* allegations. And that needed to happen before he left office to be set in motion later - nothing he does now as a private citizen can prevent a civil trial (for example, Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Rudy Guiliani - for saying voting machines were faulty - filed after Trump left office).

[tufty]

I don't see how that works. A presidential pardon only applies to federal crimes, sure, and to crimes committed before the pardon was issued, but that's it.

For example, his Pardon of Joe Arpaio, here : https://www.justice.gov/pardon/file/993586/download states not only that he is pardoned for his conviction, but also for any other offences (under the umbrella of "contempt") that might arise from that case in the future. Arpaio is bulletproof in that respect WRT to that case.

Bannon got simply a "full and unconditional pardon" for his part in an unspecified list of offences. That's fairly broad, and there doesn't seem to be anything that could disqualify Trump from having issued a pardon to a person or group of people covering them for their part in any and all federal crimes arising from investigations into the Trump presidency. My understanding is that it can be that broad, or even more so.

"The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

and that's all she wrote. No limits, no caveats, no amendments covering it. There is literally nothing else. The crime does not have to have been prosecuted, or even discovered, but it does have to be in the past, otherwise the president could preemptively pardon someone for, for example, murdering an opponent. There's nothing stopping a president from pardoning someone who murdered an opponent after the fact, though.

[Dio]

Tom Clancy had the president issue preemptive pardons in Rainbow Six. Not a legal opinion of that much weight, you might say, but he was pretty obsessive about research, so I'd be fairly surprised if he hadn't managed to find a constitutional lawyer who thought it wasn't totally unreasonable.

[tufty]

That said, I was wrong about the pardons issued to Bannon (and Manafort and Stone). It appears they were very specific, and only cover the charges they were convicted for.

[tufty]

Meanwhile, Biden did not, in fact, remove Trump's "Diet Coke Button" from the Resolute Desk.

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-did-not-fa ... 00961.html

As well as cleating that little item up, this article also explains why we are not living in a post-holocaust nuclear wasteland right now, viz:

Trump didn't actually use the Diet Coke button all that much because "he would usually just verbally ask the valets, who were around all day, for what he needed."

IOW, the man who wanted to use nukes to solve crises like, for example, Iran, Palestine, and, y'know, bad weather, was either too dumb, or too lazy, to actually press a button. Thankfully.

[merman]

Biden overturned 19 of Trump’s executive orders in his first day. Fast work.

[SuperMappy]

Biden overturned 19 of Trump’s executive orders in his first day. Fast work.

President Biden to Sign Executive Order Reversing Trump's Ban on Transgender People Joining the Military.

Good, I never could understand this bizarre thinking that, forgive me if I say this incorrectly, people who have different relationships are a threat to anyone and seem to have an uncontrollable sex drives.

If I'm in a combat situation I'm going to be more worried about the person next to me being a good shot infinitely more than what they like to do in bed.

[PFVA]

US terrorism alert warns of politically motivated violence

The wording of the document suggests that national security officials see a connective thread between recent violence over the last year motivated by anti-government grievances, including COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results and police use of force. It also singles out racially motivated acts of violence such as the 2019 rampage targeting Hispanics in El Paso, Texas, as well as the threat posed by extremists motivated by foreign terrorist organizations.

https://www.nbc29.com/2021/01/27/us-iss ... dens-term/

[skab]

Biden overturned 19 of Trump’s executive orders in his first day. Fast work.

Actually quite easy, isn't it? Basically the same thing Trump did with everything Obama started: Just go through every single order Trump made and order the exact opposite. Job done. You can't fail. It's that easy.

[Misfit]

Biden overturned 19 of Trump’s executive orders in his first day. Fast work.

Actually quite easy, isn't it? Basically the same thing Trump did with everything Obama started: Just go through every single order Trump made and order the exact opposite. Job done. You can't fail. It's that easy.

Whilst I don't disagree with dumping a lot of Trump's policies, it strikes me as pretty bad that they can all make changes to law so easily. Presumably, there are some controls/limits of what the can do an EO for?

[Harlequin]

Whilst I don't disagree with dumping a lot of Trump's policies, it strikes me as pretty bad that they can all make changes to law so easily. Presumably, there are some controls/limits of what the can do an EO for?

I think EOs are confined to being instructions to federal agencies rather than being actual changes to law.

[KlaxonCow]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... y-new-book

‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy
[...]
Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed by KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into the politics.

The ex-major recalled: “For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.

“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”
[...]
Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: “He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we’re going to develop this guy and 40 years later he’ll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people.”

“Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election.”

So, this book, with info from an ex-KGB spy, suggests that Trump was cultivated as an "asset" by Moscow, and they encouraged him into politics. Fed him talking points that Japan was exploiting its relationship with America, feeding him scepticism about America's participation in NATO and so forth. Seeding problems in its international affairs to Russia's benefit.

They set him up over 40 years to interfere in American politics and when, fuck me, he actually stood a chance at the Presidency, they interfered with the election to pull off the jackpot - actually landing their well-groomed "asset" in the top job.

One wonders, was Trump's insistence that he won and the election was fraudulent, and that they needed to coordinate an insurrection on the Capitol actually one of those things that Putin was encouraging in the background, by flattering the narcissist's ego all along, to pull in a pro-Russian direction? Like, Russia just keeps telling him that they have "proof" it was all fake and he has to make a heroic stand for America and all that, just more of them feeding chaos into the orange narcissist's head - he believes them that they have this proof, because his ego won't believe he just lost. Keep that going, until he actually mounts an insurrection. And Russia's laughing, popping the champagne corks that their "useful idiot" is so laughably simple to manipulate.

[tufty]

Whilst I don't disagree with dumping a lot of Trump's policies, it strikes me as pretty bad that they can all make changes to law so easily. Presumably, there are some controls/limits of what the can do an EO for?

I think EOs are confined to being instructions to federal agencies rather than being actual changes to law.

The way Biden could reverse what Trump did so easily is that Trump notably failed to get much - well - /of anything/ concrete done. He issued bunch of EOs is about it. An EO issued is an EO just as easily reversed.

Where Biden is likely to have problems is with the Supreme Court, which Trump managed to stack quite spectacularly in the Republicans' favour. They've already decided not to make a ruling on (and thus safeguard against future duplications of) Trump's blatant "sidestepping" of the emoluments clause, as Trump is no longer president.

[Harlequin]

An interesting interview from the land where enough people can be persuaded that a god needs their money to make millionaires out of dozens, if not hundreds, of charismatic preachers:


(https://youtu.be/QHOK_9hWU5U?t=37).

[merman]

Republican Majorie Taylor Greene voted off two committees (budget & education) for advocating violence and being a whack-job QAnon loving conspiracy theorist (allegedly)*

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55940542


*She threatened violence against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hassled survivors of the Parkland College shooting and shared QAnon social media posts