• AlDente@sh.itjust.works
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    10 hours ago

    This was one of the biggest requests of the Libertarian Party and Trump followed through with it. Could you imagine the Democratic Party agreeing to any demand from the Green Party in an attempt to get votes?

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Didn’t Donald the Jester say something about fighting crime before the election? And then he drops thousands of hard criminals back on the street?

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    13 hours ago

    He referred to the prosecutors as scum and said they were the ones who were persecuting him like it was some purely political shit when he is an incredibly prolific fraudsters, rapist, and traitor. He should have been arrested during the Jan 6th insurrection and never allowed free again.

    His reasoning was that Ross was a libertarian and this is to honor the libertarian movement that supported him… dude! He labeled the fucking drug cartels terrorist organizations and Ross enabled so much drug trafficking it isn’t funny. How the fuck do people not see through that?

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      Here’s my convoluted conspiracy theory for how this makes sense.

      • Trump launches Trump Coin

      • Trump pardons crypto drug dealer, but not paper drug dealers

      • Crypto market booms

      • Trump sells coin to whichever idiots he hasn’t scammed yet

      • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        12 hours ago

        it was to kill competition who were threatening to kill him. id say if the law won’t protect you, you are free to protect yourself

        • AugustWest@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Edit: I wrote a whole comment about this and the corrupt DEA agents involved in pushing him into a murder-for-hire scheme who were also working as moderators for the Silk Road, and later went to prison for crimes surrounding the ordeal.

          But I decided against it, because the fact remains that it is likely he did attempt to have people killed. It was due to threats of exposing him, not threats on his life. And the fact is that him likely being entrapped is a good legal defense but not a good moral one.

          If we ignore everything involving the possible contract murder deals, I say that his release is wonderful. Considering he was never convicted of any of the murder for hire stuff, his sentence was draconian, and marked a real shift in the freedom of the internet. As to Trump, even a broken clock is right twice every 78 years.

          But this release is not so sweet knowing what Ross may have and likely tried to do in order to hang onto his crumbling empire.

            • AugustWest@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              I really don’t know, but I doubt they would. It’s possible for the original 5 instances he was accused of, as he was never tried but the district court conceded he probably did it.

              The 6th, later and more famous instance? Probably not. He was actually indicted for that in Maryland, but it was a weak case that was dropped once he was convicted of his other drug and financial crimes. In the later incident, the hitman who he purportedly hired was Carl Force; the corrupt DEA agent. At best, Force’s action constituted entrapment. At worst, the whole story is unreliable. Either way, I can’t see any government agency thrilled about dragging the details of that situation out of obscurity.

    • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 hours ago

      even a broken clock is right twice a day…

      this was probably timed to distract from the whole, nazi salute controversy.

  • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me.”

    He called Ulbricht’s prison sentence “ridiculous.”

    I clearly recall Trump being president from 2016-2020, Ulbricht was sentenced to life without parole in 2015.

    If it was so ridiculous, why didn’t he pardon him on his first term? What changed to make it such an immediate priority now?

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      10 hours ago

      Trump doesn’t need to think about re-election this time around so he has more political freedom.

    • Podunk@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Because he needed the libertarian vote this time in order to win. Its a very cheap promise that guarantees votes and doesnt alienate anyone that doesnt care. Honestly, the fact that he followed through suprises me.

      “But why didnt he need the libertarian vote in 16?”

      Because he never intended to win the first time. The first run was a fluke. He wanted to play victim and run the media circuit for profit.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      1 day ago

      Back then he thought Bitcoin was bad and a scam. This time someone showed him how to make money by creating a scam coin and doing a pump and dump, so now he’s pro Bitcoin. So pro he’ll get rid of all regulation so pump and dump scams are completely legal.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        I bet Trump is still anti Bitcoin. Under the previous administration, the SEC applied the Howey Test to cryptocurrencies and would have identified Trump Coin as a security. Trump is only interested if he can be in charge of it.

      • parody@lemmings.world
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        1 day ago

        Imagine how many times he was asked:

        “Why don’t you have your own “Bitcoin” coin yet, Mr. President?”

  • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    I didn’t even notice that this happened:

    Today, President Biden granted Leonard Peltier executive clemency and commuted the remainder of his sentence.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      17 hours ago

      commuted the remainder of his sentence.

      Commuted it to home fucking arrest, not even full clemancy.

  • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Trump said he had called Ulbricht’s mother to tell her he would pardon her son “in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly”.

    Wildy transactional.

    So… does “full and unconditional” mean he’s also pardoned for the murders-for-hire? Or just for being a drug lord and America’s Next Top Website Boy?

      • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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        1 day ago

        His part is signing a piece of paper with a Sharpie that one of his handlers puts in front of him. That phone call had to be horrible, Trump trying to explain to a mom he is setting her son that he knows nothing about, free because he once said he would to a large group of people he wants to grift.

        Because 0% he knows the guy’s name, who he was, or why he was in prison.

        Edit - autocorrect =(

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I mean, I’m just going to go with the most obvious grift. Ulbricht is going to go right back to operating a crypto street pharmacy. Hell, he’ll do it on the open web now. He’ll call it “The New Silk Road” or similar.

          And then there’s an agreement for the feds to not go after them. In exchange, Ulbricht uses a good portion of his earnings to become the largest single investor in Trumpcoin ever. If asked, the feds can either ignore the question or hide behind some fig leaf excuse they come up with.

          It’s not like Trump didn’t run blatant undeniable cons in the last administration.

      • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Yeah, it’s insane that he’s just openly being like, “I promise to use the powers of my office to solely benefit myself,” and the Supreme Court’s just like, “Get it, grrrrrl”

        Although, to be fair, it did also benefit a guy who tried to murder five people.

  • stevedice@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I remember this guy being a fucking idiot that paid for several fake assassinations of fake rivals. It was pretty funny.

    • owl@infosec.pub
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      1 day ago

      It is funny in hindsight, knowing the assassinations were a scam. But he thought they were real, he talked in great detail about them and payed for them. This is missing from the article, I believe it was part of his indictment.

      • stevedice@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Oh yeah, he’s a piece of shit for sure. I just think it’s funny that he’s also a moron. What kind of drug lord gets a message saying “Hey, I heard of a guy who wants to take you down, wire me a cool mil and I’ll kill him for you, k?” and just… sends the money? More than once?! He definitely tried to rescue an overthrown Nigerian prince as a kid.

        • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          20 hours ago

          Don’t forget, he was caught because he posted his email in a public forum while advertising the Silk Road. That email address contained his real name.

            • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              17 hours ago

              Honestly, the only reason he’s famous at all is because the Silk Road was used to drum up shock by the media, so the government used him as an example to those who would make them look bad. Otherwise, he would have faded into obscurity like every other idiot criminal who stumbled into short term riches.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          21 hours ago

          Yeah, when I watched a synopsis of the story, multiple alarm bells rang in my head midway through watching it. He’s so gullible for how rich he fucking was

          So the twist that was that they were all the same person, didn’t even surprise me, you could see that it was a scam a mile away if you were paying attention

          The scammer was pretty good, though, I will give them that. Too bad the scammer was also pretty dumb about how the handle the money after the fact, and got caught lmao.