Can you unravel the trend here?
- Richard Nixon commits crimes, but is pardoned by Gerald Ford and never goes to trial.
- Jimmy Carter: no crimes.
- Ronald Reagan and his top lieutenants commit crimes, but are pardoned by George H. W. Bush and never go to trial.
- Bill Clinton: dodgy record for sure, but he paid large fines and lost his law license. No pardons. No one avoided trial.
- George W. Bush and his aides commit crimes, but to Bush's credit he doesn't pardon any of them.
- Barack Obama: no crimes.
- Donald Trump commits crimes, but pardons many of his favored cronies so they never go to trial.
- Joe Biden: no crimes so far.
Is it large, gray, and herbivorous?
Conclusion: Republicans are criminals
Of course the severity of these crimes do differ, with Agent Orange's crimes a potential threat to the survival of the US as we know it.
With respect to his first indictment, all that fucking moron had to do was to scrounge up $130K in cash and/or other valuable and send one of his idiot sons in a private jet to deliver it. Instead his scheme was to allow the payment to be treated as a business expense which is tax deductible. Didn't Roy Cohn teach him how to properly do a payoff?
+1
Barack Obama committed murder by drone, many counts. Bush committed torture and murder by drone, many counts of each.
The use of a drone is irrelevant. If the victim is wearing a military uniform of a country at which one is at war, it isn’t murder. However international law characterizes killings in other conflicts, it doesn’t matter whether it is done by drone or small arms or bomb or artillery shell.
There are plenty of people Obama's government killed, not even including "collateral damage", who were not in any military uniform. You may prefer the term "extra-judicial execution", but it still merits outrage.
Didn't Bush (GW) invade a sovereign country for no reason? Yeah, I know. WMD. Even I could tell that was fake. Watching Powell try to convince the UN was pathetic, it was obvious Powell was doing it because he was ordered to do it, not because he believed it.
Kind of scarily impressive how Fox et al have been so effective convincing the public that it's mostly the Dems that have done all the criming while justifying all GOP acts much easier.
Also worth noting the unilateral election shenanigans like Nixon sabotaging the Viet Nam talks, Reagan sabotaging the Hostage negotiations, Bush Jr 2000 recount and 2004 Wars, and Trump's 2016 and 2020 games. The only thing I can think of on the Dem side was Gore returning Bush's stolen campaign docs unread.
Clearly, nice guys finish last. A sad indictment of our "justice" system.
IMHO, this all goes back to Nixon, his Southern Strategy and Watergate. The Right sees itself as the standard bearers of principle, morality and religion, that what they are doing must be right (because they are right) and that the Left must be both wrong and evil....ever since Nixon, they've been looking to get the goods on the Left (for the wrong they feel must be there). The further they've gone done that road, the harder it is for them to face up to the horror they've become
As for the the virtue signalling of the Right (without substantial proof or action in its pursuit...gun control, anyone?), it's classic projection....you accuse the Other of that which inhabits your own darkness, that which you most dread being revealed to the light, the darkness that drives you to unspeakable acts and the betrayal of yourself and everything you purport to stand for.
Well stated!
By random chance, Kevin was saying the same thing on my monitor where the scrolling quote in his page header was Matthew 6:5.
If you convince people they are fighting for their lives (which the Right has done) then they operate from a position of desperation.
The ends justify the means.
But… but … John Edwards paid off someone somewhere that he was having an affair with… so Both Sides Are Equally Criminal!
And was inducted and went to trial, and his political career was over, he couldn’t get elected as dog catcher, though I suppose he could make a comeback as a Republican😂
Like +10! And what is it with some guys who just can't keep it in their pants?
The public needs to know what they're voting for.
Alternatively one might conclude from this that the Democrats control the courts and/or the news media. And I was unaware that Bush had pardoned Reagan.
Partisan hacks like you maybe, those of us that live in reality see that Republicans commit more crimes
"Alternatively one might conclude from this that the Democrats control the courts and/or the news media"
And pRobaBly ALso OUR THOUSGHTS!!!1!!
But if you are interested in data, fwiw, a majority of the Supreme Court has been appointed by Republican presidents since _1969_, and the Circuit courts have been majority Republican-appointed for most of the past four decades. The district courts are more evenly split, but certainly not "control[ed]" by Democrats.
"Alternatively one might conclude from this that the Democrats control the courts and/or the news media."
That possibility occurred to me on viewing the chart. Without further input, to conclude such a thing would require data, something the chart does not provide. Sadly, to me, it seems many so-called Americans do exactly that, conclude something based on a vague presentation.
Clinton pardoned Cisneros and Deutch.
The W administration began with the Brooks Brothers riot.
No one charged with anything.
Young beer loving pussy grabbing dick flashing Brett Kavanaugh was a Brooks Brothers rioter, before he moved on to writing the licentious parts of the Starr report. And the Republicans claim they aren’t trying to politicize the justice system??
!
Great Monkey of Oz, how did I miss that?
You have the timeline backwards. Ken Starr was investigating Clinton who came before Bush and the Brooks Brothers rioters. Starr had our unlimited tax dollars and investigators as well as Louie Freeh on his side but he came up with nothing but a consensual affair.
We ain't seen nothing yet, The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a contest to win the much valued immunity for sitting presidents.
"Bill Clinton: dodgy record for sure"
Ya think? He pardoned his own HUD Secretary, who had lied to the FBI about payments to a mistress*; and pardoned eight members of the Department of Agriculture who had been convicted of corruption; and Clinton himself committed perjury.
Listen, I voted for Clinton both times and don't regret it. He was the best economic manager the US has ever had, he was the last president to have a budget surplus, and he did huge good for civil rights. But he was also as crooked as a dead snake. We should at least acknowledge that.
* Particularly pertinent just now.
Clinton committed perjury in a civil case, which is rarely prosecuted as the solution to civil perjury is usually considered to be a civil action by the aggrieved party. Perjury in a criminal action is a whole different matter.
True. And you will note that I didn't say Clinton was convicted for it, but rather that he committed it.
Kevin's point seems to be that D's are inherently more law-abiding than R's, which is largely true, but Clinton was a major exception.
Outside of the deliberate misinterpretation of what "having sex" meant, and thus "lying", what laws did Big Bill break? Adultery isn't a ccrime. "That woman" was well above the age of consent.
Bill Clinton is hardly the only one who thinks that “having sex” refers to intercourse and only intercourse.
The people questioning Clinton made the mistake of not defining their terms. That was the whole reason for the “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” phrase uttered by Clinton. He was parsing the sentences like the lawyer he was.
Make no mistake, I think what Clinton did was contemptible, and that he should have resigned (but not convicted in the impeachment trial). He bears much responsibility for the election of George W. Bush.
The Whitewater investigation didn't lead to anything and the first special prosecutor wanted to end it, but the Republicans got the judge to continue it with Starr as the prosecutor. Didn't find anything with Whitewater either, but just kept on looking at everything he could get his hands on--whether or not there was a crime involved--who knows, maybe there could be something there.
I'm not defending Clinton's action, though I though the lying to the FBI was about the sexual activity in the White House, not payments to a mistress.
And no tax evasion or misuse of campaign funds were involved, either.
The first special prosecutor, the highly respected Republican Robert Fiske, issued his report clearing the Clintons for Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, and the most vicious, insane slander of all, the “murder” of their good friend Vince Foster. That should have put an end to that witch hunt but the media buried the report. The NY Times, as well as Republicans, demanded the appointment of an Independent Counsel because Fiske had been appointed by Clinton’s AG Janet Reno — a supposed conflict of interest. So we got Jesse Helm’s protege Ken Starr the guy who covers up real sexual assaults and goes to bat for a child molester.
The first trend is that Democrats are moral and Republicans are immoral.
The second trend is that Republicans are becoming more competent.
The first trend is scary. The second trend is scarier.
Obviously Republican law enforcement officials have been foolishly lenient in investigating Democrims, while leftist law enforcement officials have manically pursued Republicans with one witch hunt after another.
You forgot the "/s".
Well obviously Stephen Colbert was correct in observing that the truth has a known liberal bias.
Last 50 years? You might want to check that math.
I'm so glad you dropped that chart. Crush the bothsidesism that Fox News and Trump will rely upon.
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I'm sort of seeing a pattern here, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is....
LBJ committed a Holocaust. Not a crime for a US president.