Dinesh D'Souza to get a pardon?

[Dashinka 24,765]

10 minutes ago, bcking said:

All the more reason to avoid a hundred billion+ dollar pet project.

Still have to protect the borders and deal with illegal immigrants, but I suppose that will lessen as jobs leave the US.

[bcking 3,157]

16 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Still have to protect the borders and deal with illegal immigrants, but I suppose that will lessen as jobs leave the US.

I agree we need to protect our border and deal with illegal immigrants.

 

The "wall" is just a very concrete (no pun intended) solution that is both incredibly costly, and unlikely to be significantly effective.

 

The percentage of illegal immigrants who have been here for 5+ years is rising. The wall obviously only targets new ones.

Also - From 2007 - 2014 more illegal immigrants came here by overstaying their visa, compared to "crossing the border".

 

So it's a costly job that won't be targeting even 50% of the annual new illegal immigrants (and you would expect at least some of the people it stops will just enter via an alternate route, including overstaying a visa), and new illegal immigrants are a minority compared to the ones that are already here.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by bcking

[yuna628 9,711]

57 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Isn't that what is being argued with protecting the border?  Regardless, D'Souza didn't get away with anything, he was tried and convicted of his crime even though we see this regular on almost all  political campaigns, so the pardon only has the effect of clearing his proverbial permanent record.

It is rational, and should be applied to illegal immigration.

D'Souza admitted that he had committed a crime, admitted it was wrong, and agreed that he should be punished accordingly. He did not even really dispute what he had done (he's also a pretty scuzzy guy in other ways imo).

 

Perhaps we should stop using the everyone does it defense, and ensure punishment happens to those who partake in this activity accordingly. Who makes the laws that says it is a crime afterall? Personally I find pardon powers to be a most abused thing. A president shouldn't be in the business of handing out pardons to friends or out of some sort of vendetta or out of anger or clever dangle to others... because the optics smack of impropriety. They should reserve pardons for persons who were truly remorseful for a crime and have made every attempt to make amends. Or for persons in the past that were prosecuted under laws since stricken or invalidated. Pardons aren't for ''X person committed a crime but I think it's unfair they got caught for it" type thing. It's showing that some people that are connected are more special than others.

 

The Johnson pardon was well overdue. The rest are approaching a territory no president should want to be involving themselves in.

 

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

It won't matter anyway since the economy is headed for a ditch with the stupid tariffs.

So why is he doing it?

 

[Dashinka 24,765]

6 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

D'Souza admitted that he had committed a crime, admitted it was wrong, and agreed that he should be punished accordingly. He did not even really dispute what he had done (he's also a pretty scuzzy guy in other ways imo).

 

Perhaps we should stop using the everyone does it defense, and ensure punishment happens to those who partake in this activity accordingly. Who makes the laws that says it is a crime afterall? Personally I find pardon powers to be a most abused thing. A president shouldn't be in the business of handing out pardons to friends or out of some sort of vendetta or out of anger or clever dangle to others... because the optics smack of impropriety. They should reserve pardons for persons who were truly remorseful for a crime and have made every attempt to make amends. Or for persons in the past that were prosecuted under laws since stricken or invalidated. Pardons aren't for ''X person committed a crime but I think it's unfair they got caught for it" type thing. It's showing that some people that are connected are more special than others.

 

The Johnson pardon was well overdue. The rest are approaching a territory no president should want to be involving themselves in.

 

So why is he doing it?

 

No idea.  The stated reason "national defense" rivals Obama's lie regarding keeping your doctor.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

56 minutes ago, bcking said:

All the more reason to avoid a hundred billion+ dollar pet project.

We’d be well on our way to a wall had we not wasted millions of dollars on this “investigation” that is STILL ongoing.  Or the Iran deal. Or the $535 million that was wasted on Solyndra.  Or the $831 billion spent in the ARRA (the outcome of which is still debated).  But whatever.  We waste money every year on so many things.

[bcking 3,157]

4 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

No idea.  The stated reason "national defense" rivals Obama's lie regarding keeping your doctor.

Comparing those statements are (pardon the overused phrase), comparing "apples to orange". I also think neither one really constitutes a "lie". 

 

Obama talking about keeping your doctor was commenting on something that had not yet come to pass. He was saying with the new plan you would be able to keep your doctor. So in Obama's case he turned out to be wrong, but he could have very well believed at the time that you would have been able to keep your doctor. You aren't lying every time you are wrong, especially when you are talking about the future. 

 

Trump, on the other hand, is providing his rationale for his current decision. Again I'm not really sure "lie" applies here. We may disagree with his rationale but if the statement is "I am doing this because I think it is important for National Defense" (which I believe is the argument he has to make in order to do it himself), it's only a lie if he truly has another motive that he isn't sharing. If that is his true motive then it isn't a lie, even if it is misguided.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

19 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

D'Souza admitted that he had committed a crime, admitted it was wrong, and agreed that he should be punished accordingly. He did not even really dispute what he had done (he's also a pretty scuzzy guy in other ways imo).

 

Perhaps we should stop using the everyone does it defense, and ensure punishment happens to those who partake in this activity accordingly. Who makes the laws that says it is a crime afterall? Personally I find pardon powers to be a most abused thing. A president shouldn't be in the business of handing out pardons to friends or out of some sort of vendetta or out of anger or clever dangle to others... because the optics smack of impropriety. They should reserve pardons for persons who were truly remorseful for a crime and have made every attempt to make amends. Or for persons in the past that were prosecuted under laws since stricken or invalidated. Pardons aren't for ''X person committed a crime but I think it's unfair they got caught for it" type thing. It's showing that some people that are connected are more special than others.

 

The Johnson pardon was well overdue. The rest are approaching a territory no president should want to be involving themselves in.

 

So why is he doing it?

 

Wait a minute... were you not one of the people in another thread talking about how you think traffic and speeding cameras are unfair?  When all they really do is take a picture of someone breaking the law?  I read many arguments about those that are based on “every one else is doing it”.  If you were not one, sorry, but I thought you did.

[bcking 3,157]

Just now, IDWAF said:

We’d be well on our way to a wall had we not wasted millions of dollars on this “investigation” that is STILL ongoing.  Or the Iran deal. Or the $535 million that was wasted on Solyndra.  Or the $831 billion spent in the ARRA (the outcome of which is still debated).  But whatever.  We waste money every year on so many things.

The cost of the investigation is peanuts compared to the wall. 20 million dollars? That is literally a drop in the bucket.

Solyndra - Even 500 million is quite small compared to building and UPKEEP of a wall. Low estimate of 20 billion just to build the wall would put that at 2.5% of the cost.

 

Iran deal - Show me evidence that the deal wasn't doing what it intended to do. All evidence points to the fact that it was effective. So I wouldn't consider that money wasted unless you can provide evidence to the contrary. Netanyahu couldn't do so, so good luck with that. Also - What is the estimate of the actual cost of the deal? What did we actually spend on it? 

 

ARRA - I can agree with you there. Whether or not that helped is unclear (and will likely always be). That money could have instead been put into a wall. 800 billion would have built the wall and invested in it's upkeep for at least a few years. I can't say what would have been a better use of the money.

[bcking 3,157]

1 minute ago, IDWAF said:

Wait a minute... were you not one of the people in another thread talking about how you think traffic and speeding cameras are unfair?  When all they really do is take a picture of someone breaking the law?  I read many arguments about those that are based on “every one else is doing it”.  If you were not one, sorry, but I thought you did.

I know you aren't talking to me but I love traffic cameras. I fully support any tool that increases our ability to enforce laws.

 

I think many people break traffic laws because they know that 99% of the time they "get away with it". If that number was decreased to even 90% of the time (10% chance of getting caught), less people would speed/run lights/break laws. 

[yuna628 9,711]

4 minutes ago, IDWAF said:

Wait a minute... were you not one of the people in another thread talking about how you think traffic and speeding cameras are unfair?  When all they really do is take a picture of someone breaking the law?  I read many arguments about those that are based on “every one else is doing it”.  If you were not one, sorry, but I thought you did.

Ummmm nope. Not that I recall. *Jeff Sessions voice*

 

Things I think are silly: speeding cameras that do not work properly (as in they have taken pictures of people not speeding or not going through a red light and trying to make people pay the fine), and really short yellow lights. Overall I don't find (at least around these parts) that cameras really reduce speeding or barreling through red lights, but there's no issue with them for me. It's not enough to deter some people though.