Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 450: Year of Luigi

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not_an_Owl posted...

Pardoning a convicted narcotics distributor who tried to have multiple people killed?

Yes. The "war on drugs" is pure evil.

Also the vast majority of US-owned Bitcoin was stolen from Silk Road, but of course the US will keep that to themselves.

ross ulbricht is a freak

Foolmo is right, life in prison based on evidence obtained illegally is fucking insane.

Celebrating bad people is insane.

Holy shit. I had no idea that's who Ross Ulbricht was.

Yeah I think the war on drugs is slightly worse than hiring hitmen tbh. Ruined way more innocent lives

red13n posted...

Celebrating bad people is insane.

Phew, good thing nobody here is doing that.

Uh huh.

The nazi thing really does showcase how good the Republican machine is right now. An army of whataboutism ready on hand with pictures of democrats making "nazi salutes".

People think its innocuous and dumb, but this shit works. People literally are in fact this dumb.

We're all doomed forever.

red13n posted...

with pictures of democrats making "nazi salutes".

and not a single *video* of those "salutes"

Interesting

Yep, but it doesnt matter. It is enough to keep their supporters riled up and get a few people on the fence to stop clicking.

An excuse I saw was "he meant he wanted to spread love from his heart, he just made the gesture in an awkward way!"

I might have bought that excuse (if I didn't know who Elon Musk was and I gave him a ton of benefit of the doubt) but he literally did it twice in case it wasn't clear what he was doing the first time. Give me a fucking break.

For all you know the youngest voters last election probably know Nazi and fascist primarily as online insults bereft of meaning.

Ross Ulbrich didn't just sell drugs, he sold illegal weapons and fake documents, too. Someone sold a KIDNEY on the Silk Road.

I'm all for drug legalization, but he was not a good person.

He is a bad person who did bad things, undeniably. My issue is the sentence, life with no parole seems extreme to me for a nonviolent criminal. Of course then the better option would be to commute the sentence rather than a pardon.

Let us be clear though, it was only done as a bung to the Libertarians and crypto bros, not out of the goodness of Trumps heart. Whatever you feel about this it was classic transactional Trump. He doesnt agree with this at all.

He was charged only for drugs. If they charged him for conspiracy to commit murder or whatever crime it is to for someone to sell a kidney on your website (which craigslist and FB marketplace are probably guilty of as well) then fine. But they didn't. It was 100% a war on drugs public lynching.

You guys also have NO idea how the dark web works and how crucial its existence and illegal drug market activity is to DARPA (who maintains it). Even if you hate drug markets and hate hiring hitmen, the US gov is not helping you in this case.

The pardon is surprising to me because as LS says, Trump almost definitely hates everything about this guy and would never choose to pardon him. There's some weird calculus being made to pardon him, which doesn't make sense to me yet.

Social media caused societal stagnation

foolm0r0n posted...

He was charged only for drugs. If they charged him for conspiracy to commit murder or whatever crime it is to for someone to sell a kidney on your website (which craigslist and FB marketplace are probably guilty of as well) then fine. But they didn't. It was 100% a war on drugs public lynching.

This is not accurate to what was presented in court.

Damn that n4zi salute.

What was?

In 2021, Ulbricht's prosecutors and defense agreed that Ulbricht would relinquish any ownership of a newly discovered fund of 50,676 Bitcoin (worth nearly $5.35 billion in 2025) seized from a hacker in November 2021.[77] The Bitcoin had been stolen from Silk Road in 2013, and Ulbricht had been unsuccessful in getting them back. The U.S. government traced and seized the stolen Bitcoin. Ulbricht and the government agreed the fund would be used to pay off Ulbricht's $183 million debt in his criminal case, while the Department of Justice would take custody of the Bitcoin.[78][79]

fun stuff

Well it's not lock block chain is an immutable ledger that could have potentially been used to determine who the bitcoin was stolen from and return it to them.

Oh wait

Elon has to be the only person in history to develop a cult of personality without developing an actual personality first.

damn this might be the realest thing I read all day

You don't need to develop anything when all you do is borrow and buy from others.

Musk actually had a pretty charming public persona pre-Trump. My favorite was his transitional persona which led to incidents like the Flint water investment and the scuba diver incident.

LightningStrikes posted...

nonviolent

I take issue with this. It's the same mentality of "trump didn't cause violence on jan 6" or "Healthcare ceo's are nonviolent". Just because they keep their hands clean doesn't mean they don't cause a shitload of suffering

What violence are you referring to with the drug markets? (obviously hitmen and CSAM is violence but that's not what we're talking about)

Also, I do think the Silk Road take down was a good thing overall. The future dark markets have strictly banned hitmen, stolen material, CSAM, etc and they are pretty much just selling drugs now. I just don't think the punishment matched the convictions, Ross was unfairly strung up as the sole perp, and keeping the stolen Bitcoin is nakedly corrupt.

PeaceFrog posted...

I take issue with this. It's the same mentality of "trump didn't cause violence on jan 6" or "Healthcare ceo's are nonviolent". Just because they keep their hands clean doesn't mean they don't cause a shitload of suffering

ok but dude in his 20s gets life in prison with no parole suffering? A lot of the case was based on warrantless internet traffic monitoring too, which sets an insane fascistic precedent.

In a better society I'd agree with you but I don't think precedent really matters these days

foolm0r0n posted...

Musk actually had a pretty charming public persona pre-Trump. My favorite was his transitional persona which led to incidents like the Flint water investment and the scuba diver incident.

This was definitely not charming. In actuality the Thai cave diver incident was a part of what led you to this. Overall its about ego for Musk, he absolutely hates being seen as the bad guy which has made him a much worse guy as he pursues the approval of the only people who still like him.

Good pardon. The sentence was outrageous given the crime for which he was convicted. He wasn't convicted for attempted murder - presumably, if there was strong evidence for that, they would have charged him with it.

https://twitter.com/joshwaklive/status/1882015347735400549?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

i'm fairly certain that when musk made his flamethrower people on this board were pretty excited about it, distinctly remember a topic on it though not much else. the dude had a charm that crossed over well in early day of SpaceX and before then.

screenshots or no click, tony. read the room

Are they not working on the post itself for you? You dont need to go Twitter to see it, but here:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/581d0daa.jpg

foolm0r0n posted...

The pardon is surprising to me because as LS says, Trump almost definitely hates everything about this guy and would never choose to pardon him. There's some weird calculus being made to pardon him, which doesn't make sense to me yet.

IIRC he said he would to the Libertarian Party during the election to try and get their support though obviously Trump's word generally isn't worth shit, especially since the Libertarian Party didn't end up endorsing him and ran their own candidate.

But I'm guessing the techbros now in his circle kept the issue up and/or just put the paper in front of him to sign.

That's what's surprising, there's no reason he ever needs to deliver on promises, especially to Libertarians

bracing for four years of "trump gets epically trolled!!!" headlines as he obliterates various rights and federal protections

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-begins-operation-west-bank-city-jenin-2025-01-21/

trump ending all the wars

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/16ccf302.png

chat is this true

(i have no idea what pop crave is)

It appears to be true.

That one is actually based on law so I don't think an EO can touch it

Also this is fun stuff, for those saying we should do more operations like the Ross arrest

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-dea-agent-sentenced-extortion-money-laundering-and-obstruction-related-silk-road

Man for not knowing what project 2025 is, he sure does seem to be independently enacting a bunch of their stuff

that is not true, no.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is what prohibits that and there's many later laws that further strengthen protections against discrimination.

what he did do was ban affirmative action and DEI programs that receive federal funding/related to federal contractors.

there's a lot of confusion there because the EO's wording includes anti-discriminatory language in it but it's also not a relevant piece to anything in that field.

So the law the prevents discrimination still exists...

But taking active measures to prevent discrimination and ensure fairness is not allowed?

The confusion is he revoked this EO which is called Equal Employment Opportunity, not the Equal Employment Opportunity Act which is an actual law that's part of the CRA.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/executive-order-11246/as-amended

But this EO is basically saying the same things as his new EO but better.

Isn't that shooting yourself in the foot to keep your non-white supporters from supporting you.

Was the whole white supremacy thing lost on you?

They've been saying they were going to do all of this the whole time.

They will let their media control take care of any potential fallout.

AuraChannelerCh posted...

Isn't that shooting yourself in the foot to keep your non-white supporters from supporting you.

Not an issue since they're no longer necessary to Trump.

Dark_Young_Link posted...

Not an issue since they're no longer necessary to Trump.

Well, obviously, since by then his dementia will reach the leaking point, but for whoever else steps into a hole by saying "Trump was right so I'll do his stuff" after all his future horrible points are kept.