Donald Trump has been issuing more pardons than his predecessor Barack Obama, and that’s a good thing. The problem is, he’s less interested in correcting miscarriages of justice then promoting himself through the cult of celebrity. So if you’re not famous, you’re probably not going to get any mercy.
Pardon Me, Donald Trump
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Leonard Peltier remains imprisoned.
Why whine about who Trump pardons?
Fuck me the Clintons were paid for pardoning people. Comey and Hillary’s brother were involved.
This is Trump bashing taken to the idiotic.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/06/the-stupefying-mediocrity-of-barack-obama/
The Stupefying Mediocrity of Barack Obama
“Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” Obama sighed. The country hadn’t been ready for the first black president and his lofty post-racial vision.
These quotations are all the evidence one needs to understand what goes on in the mind of someone like Barack Obama.
In fact, the last quotation is revealing enough in itself: it alone suggests the stupefying dimensions of Obama’s megalomania. It is hardly news that Obama is a megalomaniac, but what is moderately more interesting is the contemptible and deluded nature of his megalomania. (In some cases, after all, egomania might be justified. I could forgive Noam Chomsky for being an egomaniac—if he were one, which his self-effacing humility shows is far from the case.) Obama clearly sees himself as the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement—he who participated in no sit-ins, no Freedom Rides, no boycotts or harrowing marches in the Deep South, who suffered no police brutality or nights in jail, who attended Harvard Law and has enjoyed an easy and privileged adulthood near or in the corridors of power. This man who has apparently never taken a courageous and unpopular moral stand in his life decided long ago that it was his historic role to bring the struggles of SNCC and the SCLC, of Ella Baker and Bob Moses, of A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr. to their fruition—by sailing into the Oval Office on the wave of millions of idealistic supporters, tireless and selfless organizers. With his accession to power, and that of such moral visionaries as Lawrence Summers, Hillary Clinton, Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, Arne Duncan, Robert Gates, and Samantha Power, MLK’s dream was at last realized.
Obama was continuing in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionists when his administration deported more than three million undocumented immigrants and broke up tens of thousands of immigrant families. He was being an inspiring idealist when he permittedarms shipments to Israel in July and August 2014 in the midst of the Gaza slaughter—because, as he said with characteristic eloquence and moral insight, “Israel has a right to defend itself” (against children and families consigned to desperate poverty in an open-air prison).
He was being far ahead of his time, a hero of both civil rights and enlightened globalism, when he presided over “the greatest disintegration of black wealth in recent memory” by doing nothing to halt the foreclosure crisis or hold anyone accountable for the damage it caused. Surely it was only irrational traditions of tribalism that got Trump elected, and not, say, the fact that Obama’s administration was far more friendly to the banking sector than George H. W. Bush’s was, as shown for instance by the (blatantly corrupt) hiring of financial firms’ representatives to top positions in the Justice Department.
And it’s only because the masses are stupid and prejudiced that they couldn’t see the glorious benefits they would have received from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the few issues in which Obama seems genuinely to have been emotionally invested. What primitive tribalists they are to be worried about the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs, the increase of prices for medicines, inadequate protection for the environment, and in general massive empowerment of corporations.
Taken together, the two quotes above that constituted Obama’s initial explanation of Trump’s victory—‘we pushed too far’ and ‘I was too ahead of my time’—also confirm the not very surprising fact that the moral issue of classdoesn’t exist for him, as (by definition) it doesn’t exist for any centrist politician. Obama may have paid lip-service to it in his rhetoric, but what he cared about more was a threadbare type of identity politics, cultural inclusivity, symbols and spectacles of the post-racial, post-nationalist millennium, of which he saw himself as the great exemplar. If Trump was elected it can only be because people aren’t ready for this millennium quite yet. But that doesn’t affect Obama’s own place in history: he is certain he’ll be vindicated, indeed will be viewed as even more remarkable for having come too soon.
This perception of his probably also explains his general reluctance to publicly criticize Trump. He simply doesn’t care enough to do so—he has nothing like a deep outrage against the continuous injustices of Trumpian politics—because his task has already been accomplished: he has written himself into the history books by being the U.S.’s first black president. That achievement is what matters, that and his eight years of (supposed) attempts to “heal the country’s divides.” Again, it’s too bad the country wasn’t ready for him, but that isn’t his fault.
Thus, rather than getting involved in any thoroughgoing resistance to Trump—which might exacerbate cultural divisions, horror of horrors, and wouldn’t be decorous or “presidential” (for the powerful shouldn’t criticize each other)—the Obamas are now planning to produce shows on Netflix that will be unpolitical and “inspirational.” This new project of theirs is symptomatic. Powerful people like to propagate “uplifting” stories, for anything else might prick their conscience, challenge the legitimacy of the social order from which they benefit, and inspire resistance movements. Better to focus on feel-good stories that reassure people about the essential justness of the world, or that inculcate the notion that anyone can improve their situation if they only try. This is the same reason that Bill Gates’ new favorite book is Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, which argues that things are far better now than they’ve ever been, so we should all be grateful.
I happened to watch a video recently in which Norman Finkelstein psychoanalyzed Obama, and his interpretation stuck with me. Not because the pathetic person who was being analyzed is of any intrinsic interest, but because the type he representsis always with us—and will always be popular, and will always be morally and intellectually vacuous. Finkelstein had learned from reading David Garrow’s biography that, as president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama had a very conciliating style. Whenever arguments arose between the conservatives and the liberals he approached the problem in the same way: he took the interlocutors aside and said, “Don’t get so excited, it’s not such a big deal. Why are you getting so excited? There are bigger things in life.” “Because for Obama,” Finkelstein explains, “there was only one big deal in life: me. Everything else was just small change, except him.”
That’s the key. When your overriding value in life is self-glorification, what you tend to get is the moral cowardice and fecklessness of people like Obama, the Clintons, and, in truth, all centrist politicians. They’ll do whatever they have to do to rise to power, so they can realize their “destiny”—of being powerful. They’ll always try to please “both sides”—a binary notion that leaves out the genuine left, which is to say the interests of the large majority of people—because that is the safest and surest road to power.
Which brings us to Obama’s real legacy, as opposed to the one he imagines. The moment he committed himself to a life of pale centrism in a time of escalating social crisis, he determined what his place in history would be. I’m reminded of Georg Lukács’s analysis of Germany’s waffling liberal intelligentsia during the 1920s in his book The Destruction of Reason. The elite liberals of the Weimar Republic couldn’t countenance fascism but wouldn’t commit themselves to a decisive democratic program to resist it—for they feared socialism even more than fascism—so they ended up vacillating pathetically, criticizing mass democracy while on occasion semi-defending it, fecklessly counseling moderation, thereby enabling ultra-reaction.
Pardon Wesley Snipes
Pardon Tim Allen
Pardon Christian Slater
Pardon Mike Tyson
Pardon Lauryn Hill
Pardon Tommy Chong
Pardon Ja Rule
Zero Hedge had a poster named Million Dollar Bonus, MDB for short.
He would take the most outrageous pro-government stance with a surreal supporting explanation.
He was there for years.
He stuck to his role tirelessly.
Crazyh and American teacher have created similar satiric characters.
Their convoluted support of weak positions reminds me of the magnificently overdone twisted logic seen in British sitcoms. A character will get caught out making an insane claim or action and continue to not only defend that claim but create even more insane situation to support the original.
Unlike Henri who is egotistical.
“Roy: Peter, what’s your email address?
Peter: Oh, it’s filepeter@hotmail.com.
Roy: “filepeter”? Why “filepeter”?
Peter: Well, File is my second name.
Roy: Oh, right, I see. Peter File.
Moss: Who’s a paedophile?
Roy: No no, his name is Peter File.
Moss: His name is paedophile?
Jen: [angry] Don’t say it like that. It sounds like “paedophile.”
Moss: Isn’t that what he just said?
Jen’: No, Peter File.
Moss: [enunciating] Paedo phile?
Jen: Peter File!
Richmond: Who’s a paedophile?
Jen: No one is.
Moss: [finally understanding] Right. It just sounds like paedophile.
Jen: No, no, it doesn’t!
Moss: Does a bit. Peter File.
Roy: Peter File… Yeah, no, it does.
[There are murmurings of agreement from the rest of the table as everyone starts pronouncing it themselves]
Peter: [exasperated] YES I SUPPOSE IT DOES!”
“Jen: I’ve got Aunt Irma visiting.
Moss: Oh, do you not like Aunt Irma? I’ve got an aunt like that. [Roy and Moss look confused]
Jen: It’s my term for my time of the month.
Roy: Oh.
Moss: What time of the month? The weekend?
Jen: No.
Moss: Does Aunt Irma visit on the weekend?
Roy: Moss!
Jen: You know, it’s “high tide”.
Moss: But we’re not on the coast.
Roy: Moss!
Jen: I’m “closed for maintenance”!
Moss: Closed for maintenance?
Roy: Moss!
Jen: I’ve fallen to the communists!
Moss: Well, they do have some compelling arguments.
Roy: [Finally putting it to words] Carrie, Moss! First scene in Carrie!
Moss: Oh. Okay. [walks out of the room; embarrassed.]”
“Douglas: April, these past few days have been like a dream. Usually, I can’t wait to get away from a woman once I’ve ejaculated, but with you… I don’t know, I feel alive. April, I love you.
April: What?
Douglas: That’s right, I totally love the bloody arse off you.
April: Oh, Douglas! I love you too!
Douglas: Oh, poppet… to think when we met, you were so worried that you came from Iran.
April: …what?
Douglas: When we met, as if I’d be worried about something like that! I don’t care where you’re from; Iran, France, doesn’t bother me. I’m very modern
April: I’m not from Iran!
Douglas: Well, you said something along those lines.
April: No, not Iran, a man! I said I used to be a man!
Douglas: You used to be a man…?
April: Yes!
[Douglas grips April very tightly]
Douglas: OH GOD…”
“Edina has lost her speech which she has to present to the PR meeting]
Eddie: Yeah I was gonna’ make a-
[taps microphone]
Eddie: Testing. Testing. -Yeah I was gonna’ make a speech, but I just can’t be bothered anymore. I mean, this used to be like fun you know; yeah it used to be fun, but I’m getting bored of all the ‘fun’ bits now. You know, your endless bloody lunches and launches, you know, no-career celebrities and party desperates. And what for, huh? Some colony of crap tags and mags! Well I’m sorry there has to be a little more than that doesn’t there?
[slams her handbag down]
Eddie: Hmmm? You know I had a speech, you know, my… my integrated-projected-global-tele-network system bloody system-system. But you know, if that’s what the worlds coming to I don’t want to be in it. No I don’t want that. I don’t want to be in some sort of cyber-space-hypervirtual bloody reality. I don’t want that- exchanging e-mails with some old age bloody hippies with more information at their fingertips than is safe to know about. I don’t want that! What kind of reality is that, huh, you know, with a thirteen-amp plug on the end of it? Huh? Huh?… That can be un-plugged like that? Come-on I’m going.
[She turns to leave, but… ]
Eddie: No I’m not going yet! No, you!
[points to her competition, Claudia Bing]
Eddie: You, you, just sit there like your velcroed to some bloody add-man! You know those crap-head add-men over there, you know, those kings of bastardization that have just taken everything that was ever real and genuine and honest and original and attached it to a toilet cleaner! Whereas I, I… Like a bird on a wire… Like a drunk in a midnight choir… I have tried in my way to be free.
[Then she sings]
Eddie: Like a bird, on a wire.
Patsy: Go for it Eddy.
Eddie: [singing] … Like a drunk in a midnight choir. I have tried in my way to be free.
[Claudia Bing and her colleagues are laughing]
Eddie: Yeah you can laugh, but you know something- I don’t want more choice I just want nicer things! And you, you can take that look off your face, sitting there with your… with your wheels and AIDS and starvation. You know, skimming a neat profit of the whole of human misery. Labeling us all with this- with this global guilt. Well it may not be all great and good but it ain’t that bad, so cheer up world it may never bloody happen!
[slams her bag down again]
Eddie: Come on I’m going.
[Edina walks off making rude farting sounds at everyone in the room]:
Now why didn’t Nixon and Clinton didn’t think of pardoning themselves? Could it be that they actually understood how this country was supposed to be run?
Oh, wait, Nixon famously said, “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” I guess not.
Ford pardoned Nixon, the public didn’t even blink at Reagan conspiring with terrorists, Bush & Cheney are still free men, and O’bomber got a freakin’ Nobel.
They’ll keep pulling this BS just as long as we let them.
CrazyH
Rudy tossed that pardoning thing to drive ProGay Racists like yourself crazy.
Or should I say the role you have created as the angsty hipster that’s seen it all and done it all.
Most likely based on Joaquin Phoenix. Or that idiot who hid the flags but 4chan kept outing him.
Your other role as American Teacher should appear soon for the mating dance to begin.
In a few years Henri will admit he had created both characters to prank the minority of readers and amuse the dwindling FrancoSvensk community.
Lutefisk, Norwegian is superior less lye used, filled baguettes for all!
el buitre clarified this nuance at ZH; “BTW, a president can pardon a person prior to indictment, thus cutting it off at the pass, and it can be very generalized. For example, unelected Gerald Ford granted Milhouse “a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while president.” But presidents can only pardon people for federal crimes. The majority of crimes; murder, robbery, assault, most fraud, impersonating a duck, etc. are state crimes. If the Watergate break-in was in say Virginia rather than DC, in theory Nixon could have been indicted by the AG of Virginia for conspiracy to commit burglary after the fact, despite Ford’s pardon. Not that would have ever happened, but it makes a point.”
@wiz – once again I must wonder what ass you pulled this out of.
I’m not a millennial, I’m not gay, I’m not a racist, and you are not making any sense whatsoever.
I *am* a boomer with a long history of civil-rights activism. PRO civil rights for EVERYONE. Even those who religions I mock.
You obviously want to fight – okay, I’m up for it, but you’ll have much better luck fighting me on something I’ve actually posted.
Otherwise you’re just arguing with yourself. Let me know who wins, m’kay?
Good job working up the backstory.
You need to refine it a bit though, I think you have made a few contradictory posts.
But frankly, I’m far too bored to research that.
I think undercover officers call the back story a Legend.
I saw how deeply involved in civil rights you were posting about the whole gay cake fiasco. Wow, two upper-middle-class gays had enough money to take a so-called discrimination case to SCOTUS, but could not simply use another store and tell their community never to buy cookies there again.
Fuck me that’s a world breaker.
I Imagine you fought back the tears of rage when you valiantly typed those few sentences.
Afterward, you crawled to your safe space and shook for hours.
Meanwhile, those nasty darkies got what they deserved cause their daddy was drunk when he closed that garage door.
Those four cents was probably too much in your opinion.
Just amazing what the SJW prioritize.
Gay wedding cake but fuck that redskin Leonard Peltier, right?
Bet you don’t even know his name.
And you think Trump is a big asshole for allowing terminally ill people access to experimental drugs.
Either way, it’s time for your alter-ego in a Twoface like appearance to start that Tango.
Or cause you seem to be a Gore fan the Macarena.
The dance of love unrequited, or personalities Sybil like ( Well there was that Phillip K. Dick story but I can’t recall the name, I think Downey and Reeves were in the toon/film version)playing out their inner turmoil.
@whiz – two questions:
1) What are you smoking?
2) Did you bring enough for everybody?
@Crazy Horse
Are you pro civil rights for white people?
CrazyH
People like you are the problem.
Instead if finding common ground with the so called other side, you choose to focus on the trivial. Like Gay wedding cakes.
Which is exactly what TPTB want.
The us vs us vs us vs us.
Never allowing the genpop to ACTUALLY address what REALLY matters and make it about us vs them.
Don’t worry though there are just as many asshole so called conservatives who fall into the same trap.
Right now SF is a third world nation with so much human shit on the street they are in the midst of a Hepatitis outbreak which may just spread, most likely already has, to other cities.
There are 100 MILLION americans NOT IN THE LABOR FORCE. In a decade pensions will fail, and even more people will be on the streets with NO MEDICAL ACCESS.
20% of Opioid deaths are Millennials, that cuts into the amount of tax bearers the system needs to survive.
2013 this happened
“U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs …”
then this
“Recall that as we reported in early June, “a bill to implement the U.S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth had been quietly introduced in Congress. As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information. Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.”
Also called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S. 2692), when introduced in March by Sen. Rob Portman, the legislation represents a dramatic return to Cold War-era government propaganda battles. “These countries spend vast sums of money on advanced broadcast and digital media capabilities, targeted campaigns, funding of foreign political movements, and other efforts to influence key audiences and populations,” Portman explained, adding that while the U.S. spends a relatively small amount on its Voice of America, the Kremlin provides enormous funding for its news organization, RT.
“Surprisingly,” Portman continued, “there is currently no single U.S. governmental agency or department charged with the national level development, integration and synchronization of whole-of-government strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”
Long before the “fake news” meme became a daily topic of extensive conversation on such discredited mainstream portals as CNN and WaPo, H.R. 5181 would task the Secretary of State with coordinating the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response,” which will pinpoint sources of disinformation, analyze data, and — in true dystopic manner — ‘develop and disseminate’ “fact-based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.
In short, long before “fake news” became a major media topic, the US government was already planning its legally-backed crackdown on anything it would eventually label “fake news.”
* * *
Fast forward to December 8, when the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” passed in the Senate, quietly inserted inside the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report.
And now, following Friday’s Obama signing of the NDAA on Friday evening, the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act is now law.
I did notice your other half replied right on time.
No Henri though. Must be allowing the divisions of his brain to act freely. ”
The founder of Daily Kos was CIA trained. Anderson Cooper was CIA.
I could list more but you get the drift.
Except your outrage is over fucking cake!
American Teacher
Nice role playing.
Kind of like faux conservative web larping.
You are so lacking in sharpness that you don’t even realize EVERYONE has lost rights and freedoms.
Shit you never get back.
We are all niggers now brother.
Wiz
I am a proud white man. And a soldier in my school
> Are you pro civil rights for white people?
@Awesome Teacher
Was there some part of “EVERYONE” that wasn’t clear to you? Like I said in the post you are responding to – but evidently didn’t read – I even support your right to be a superstitious ignoramus.
(Anticipating your response: No, you do not have a *right* to push your superstitious ignorance on others. Your right to swing your arms ends where the next guy’s nose begins.)
@Crazy
I wasn’t sure if white men were included as part of the human family any more.
You might see us as blue-eyed devils.
> You might see us as blue-eyed devils.
Citation Needed.
You are a leftover from the sixties. I am certain Malcolm X was an hero of yours.
> I am certain Malcolm X was an hero of yours.
Citation Needed.
Well, he’s my hero. I am a nationalist, just like he was.
No citation needed.
Praise Jesus!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-06/trump-issues-pardon-prompted-kardashian-meeting
President Trump on Wednesday commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old woman who was handed a life sentence in 1996 on non-violent drug charges, after meeting with Kardashian West, according to the New York Post.
Kardashian celebrated the commutation as the “best news ever” on twitter.
Kardashian West had requested the meeting to advocate for prison reform – and specifically to lobby Trump to pardon Johnson. During her time at the White House, Kardashian West also met with Trump son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner. Trump has issued several high profile pardons, including pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza and former assistant to the vice president Scooter Libby.
Johnson was convicted after getting involved with a cocaine trafficking ring – something she says she did because she was broke and had suffered through a series of tragedies, including losing a job at FedEx, seeing her marriage end in divorce and losing her son, who had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Trump is reportedly preparing to pardon up to 30 convicted felons.”
I have suffered tragedies, too. And I never got involved with a cocaine trafficking ring.