Well… one could argue that. But I think it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he pardoned and commuted hundreds in order to undermine the argument that his actual goal was to let out the particular few who were ‘advantaged’ in some way by campaign donations.
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My take is that this scumbag granted these pardons partially to appease certain donors, but mosty as a huge F.U. to the state of Kentucky for voting him out. The concepts of morals and ethics are not with most Republicans grasp, but they understand revenge very, very well.
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This sounds like that time Assad released a bunch of terrorists in Syria during the civil war. He knew they would stir up trouble for the opposition.
IIRC it was more a case of Assad turning a peaceful uprising into a civil war by using lethal force against peaceful protesters and releasing a bunch of terrorists who would make him look like the lesser of two evils.
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To reiterate, hymens don’t even work that way. Specific time in RickMycroft’s video: https://youtu.be/Fdn8r3W8cB8?t=201
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That sounds like a frighteningly realistic possibility. And would make him an even more corrupt asshole than i previously thought.
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Hold the vote for “the worst thing a Republican did this year”, we have a strong last minute entry.
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This should be made an issue in EVERY race in 2020. Sample ad:
People in Kentucky thought they could trust Republican Matt Bevin with their vote. [picture of Bevin]
But they were wrong. He PARDONED A CHILD RAPIST. [picture goes grey and ominous]
Now Republican [so and so] is running for office. Some people think it’s ok to vote for him/her. [picture of so and so]
WILL [so and so] BE THE NEXT REPUBLICAN TO PARDON A CHILD RAPIST?
Vote carefully.
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The choices of who to pardon and his apparent reasons for them are disgusting, but I hate this headline. Any pardon system is going to involve people convicted of terrible things. Further, if we are serious about unwinding mass incarceration we will need to look at a lot of people who are legitimately incarcerated for bad things and not just drugs and wrongful convictions. Headlines that lead with the offense of the pardoned rather than some of the reasons Bevin was wrong make good pardons less likely.
I’d like to see some numbers on that. I think America could probably end mass incarceration without any significant change to how it prosecutes and sentences murder and rape. Canada’s incarceration rate is around a seventh of the US incarceration rate, but we have life sentences for first and second degree murder and up to 14 years for rape.
ETA: Also, no one with unilateral pardon power.
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I hadn’t intended to restrict that portion to rapes and murders which will fit the worst class for any system, but we need to evaluate even those. I can’t find good statewide numbers but a lot of the individual institutions in Kentucky run between a quarter and a third sex offenses and roughly a fifth violent offenses. https://corrections.ky.gov/About/researchandstats/Documents/Annual%20Reports/2018%20Annual%20Report.pdf Maybe some of those people need to be away forever, maybe we’ll get better outcomes after 1 decade or 2, but if the topic is taboo and we restrict our reform discussion to nonviolent drug offenses we are ignoring a huge portion of the issue.
Maybe there is hope?
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Boing Boing: “disinformation” in this context means lies. Say lies. Otherwise you are helping these liars get away with their lies.
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