Trump commutes Roger Stone sentence

[woodley park]

Well, this is going to go either one or two ways:

1. Trump loses re-election and Congress works to pass laws to prevent abuses of power like this.

2. Trump wins re-election, somehow, and America is forever changed for the worse.

Which one is it gonna be, Atlas? I’m now ready to crawl over broken glass WHILE being lit on fire to vote for Joe Biden.

[woodley park]

Well, this is going to go either one or two ways:

1. Trump loses re-election and Congress works to pass laws to prevent abuses of power like this.

President's power to pardon is absolute, there can be no law to restrict it.

That’s ridiculous. This is the exact type of abuse that needs to be rectified - pardons with corrupt intent. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the idea of pardons altogether.

[woodley park]

Well, this is going to go either one or two ways:

1. Trump loses re-election and Congress works to pass laws to prevent abuses of power like this.

President's power to pardon is absolute, there can be no law to restrict it.

That’s ridiculous. This is the exact type of abuse that needs to be rectified - pardons with corrupt intent. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the idea of pardons altogether.

So you want to waste political capital on passing an amendment to change pardon scope? Lol

Yes, because I’m anti-corruption Lol

[woodley park]

Pardons need not be revisited.  The possibility of a Pardon is the ONLY hope for those imprisoned or facing execution who are actually innocent.  Actual innocence is not a ground for appeal, and it is often not used to grant a new trial if the defendant entered a "best interest" plea to, say, avoid the Death Penalty, settle for 25 years rather than 70 years, etc.

I'm fine with commutation of this sentence.  Stone deserves a new trial due to bias issues with the jury foreperson, but one isn't forthcoming due to the bias of an activist Obama appointee.  We can't all be Maximum John Sirica, a conservative Republican who stuck it to Watergate defendants, now can we?

There's a difference between a case a POTUS has absolutely no connection to, and what happened here. This was clearly a pardon done with corrupt intent -- to show Stone, and any past or future collaborator, that there are rewards for taking one for the President. And that is a message that will reverberate throughout the future, enabling corruption in Republican and Democratic administrations yet to come. This will have to be rectified if America is to continue to be a country governed by laws.

Honestly, I'm baffled that people here think this is OK, that this is just the way it is, and that an earnest attempt to undergird our fundamental laws and values is just a "waste" of "political capital". You guys are a bunch of jokers. Seriously, its embarrassing.

[woodley park]

Pardons need not be revisited.  The possibility of a Pardon is the ONLY hope for those imprisoned or facing execution who are actually innocent.  Actual innocence is not a ground for appeal, and it is often not used to grant a new trial if the defendant entered a "best interest" plea to, say, avoid the Death Penalty, settle for 25 years rather than 70 years, etc.

I'm fine with commutation of this sentence.  Stone deserves a new trial due to bias issues with the jury foreperson, but one isn't forthcoming due to the bias of an activist Obama appointee.  We can't all be Maximum John Sirica, a conservative Republican who stuck it to Watergate defendants, now can we?

There's a difference between a case a POTUS has absolutely no connection to, and what happened here. This was clearly a pardon done with corrupt intent -- to show Stone, and any past or future collaborator, that there are rewards for taking one for the President. And that is a message that will reverberate throughout the future, enabling corruption in Republican and Democratic administrations yet to come. This will have to be rectified if America is to continue to be a country governed by laws.

Honestly, I'm baffled that people here think this is OK, that this is just the way it is, and that an earnest attempt to undergird our fundamental laws and values is just a "waste" of "political capital". You guys are a bunch of jokers. Seriously, its embarrassing.

What’s embarrassing is your out of touch take. The public didn’t care about Manafort and that was pre virus. They will not care about Stone with high unemployment, lack of clarity about schools and general virus fears. Newsflash, trumps shenanigans are already baked in at this point into the public’s opinion of him. Who’s flipping their vote after sticking with trump 3.5 years because of stone?  Pontificating about America’s future as a nation just distracts from what will actually change the future - the campaign and election.

You are so wrong — the election is partly about America’s future as a nation (and a referendum on Trump) and so  the potential for future presidents to act with corrupt intent and then pardon their henchmen is entirely worth raising. But yeah OK I guess the only things that matter are ones that the general public closely follow. Eye roll. I’m not saying Biden needs to get out there and make this his stump speech, but I want it to be something that is addressed should he become president.

[woodley park]

The Fuzz is back kickin' heads.

Welcome back.

Anything that makes Adam Schiff's blood boil is OK with me. Spoilt piece of garbage was on the news carrying on like a little kid who did not get his lollies. Just no character to do much but criticise others.

I’m sure you probably wrote that to either troll people here or just have a cathartic moment, a scream into the void to make yourself feel better. It has been a terrible few months for the credibility of the “true believing” Atlas blue team, after all. But I hope you realize that your “anything to rile up Schiff” mindset is incredibly short sighted. What if, one day, there is a Democrat with all of Trump’s corruption and authoritarian instincts but none of his narcissistic, unfocused bumbling, one that is intent on undermining our system to accumulate power and rule as a despot? What if that Democrat succeeds because people like you cheered as Trump corroded our institutions and dispensed with our norms and values? Was it worth it in the long run for the short term goal of trolling the left? Do you even care about that at all?