Summary:
In what may be a first in American history, President Trump just expanded the presidential pardon power to include corporations.
Corporations are artificial legal fictions designed to maximize shareholder wealth. Nonetheless, they can theoretically commit crimes and be indicted for them. According to a 1999 memorandum from the Justice Department, the “important public benefits” of prosecuting corporations include “deterrence on a massive scale,” particularly for “crimes that carry with them a substantial risk of public harm,” such as “financial frauds.”
Such public benefits now fall prey to the whims of the president with his pardon of a cryptocurrency company that smacks of political corruption.
On Friday, Trump issued full and unconditional pardons to four individuals and a related cryptocurrency exchange, BitMEX.
BitMEX solicits and takes orders for trades in derivatives tied to the value of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Last summer, BitMEX entered a guilty plea in a Manhattan federal court for violating the Bank Secrecy Act for having operated without a legitimate anti-money laundering program. Prior to August 2020, customers could register to trade with BitMEX anonymously, providing only verified email addresses. The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Opinion newsletter
On Jan. 15, 2025, BitMEX was criminally fined $100 million in connection with its guilty plea, which was on top of $130 million in civil penalties previously imposed by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. At sentencing, the judge noted that BitMEX, which is incorporated in the Seychelles, had claimed not to operate in the U.S. for several years even though U.S. customers comprised a large share of its business.
Sadly, most folks aren’t in a position to gtfo of dodge, as much as we would like to.
I am (sorta - it would still take a tremendous amount of effort), but I also have dreams I want to chase here that just aren’t possible elsewhere. It’s a real shitty catch-22.
Most folks aren’t willing* to gtfo of dodge.
Seriously, I’ve had this conversation on Lemmy so many times. Every so often someone has a disability or is broke poor with no degree, but the other times people say things like “family”.
You don’t think FlyingSquid had a family? I’ve immigrated twice. You think I don’t have a family?
Most people who want to go can go. But most people don’t actually want to go.
FlyingSquid left the USA because of his family. His child was part of a group targeted by modern day conservatives. He did the most important job as a father and protected his child. He took his child to a safe country.
Good for him. I’m staying here. Not because I have to. In fact, there are several relatively easy paths available to me if I wanted to leave. I’m staying because I refuse to let these fascist fucks have my country. Leaving is the easy personal solution but it doesn’t help anybody else.
I keep going back and forth on this for myself. I believe I have a responsibility to contribute to fixing the problems here as it affects others negatively and I have even the smallest amount of power to help fix this.
it doesn’t automatically help anybody else, but leaving can be allow you to be helpful somewhere else
I hate my family, only have a weak associates degree, and have fucking cancer.
Also FlyingSquid literally left for the sake of their family, a trans child who needed out of the USA
I dislike FS but he literally left the country because of his family. His daughter is targetted by MAGA fascism, and he got her and his family out.
He had the means to and I don’t blame him for getting out. If I had the money I would too, and give my friends the means to as well.
Mind if I ask why? I mostly just know him as (until recently) one of the big Lemmy power users, and I never personally saw a bad take or had a problematic interaction with him.
I’ve had a few bad encounters with FS, personally. Most often when I called out something Biden did that was genuinely bad (Gaza, COVID mismanagement, Mexican border cages) and he would often blow up at me.
In the final months, he swore anyone attacking him was mocking him for his medical issues randomly, often felt like it was a way to gain sympathy and avoid being downvoted for being rude or oddly combative to people agreeing with him.
If FS comes back, I hope they’re better off mentally and health wise, and I hope they’re better in general, especially their children.
Stress does things to a person. I’m hopeful that his absence is indicative of getting all his ducks in a row across the pond, and when he’s ready to come back hopefully some of that stress is relieved.
God do I know, I’m stressed to high hell about my living situation, the landlord, and a worker/cleaner who hates being a cleaner he signed up for.
Moving is expensive and complicated, especially international. Not to mention the difficulty of finding work in a new country.
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Complicated and expensive. Expensive being the more limiting of the two. I saw a thread just today where a Canadian told an aspiring American ex-pat to have about $10k on hand, in addition to selective qualifications. Most aspiring ex-pats lack $10k on hand. I don’t know much about comparable costs in other countries, but just physically moving across an ocean would be expensive.
And by complicated I was referring more to the many, potentially exclusionary, complications that arise than to the complexity of the task itself. Canada is more selective than you might think, Europe presents its own unique challenges. Much easier in some cases if you have recent European ancestry, but a lot of Americans are 5th generation, or more.
I’m one generation down from easy migration. Same with my wife.
Would be hella scary to emigrate. We don’t speak the language. I figure most dutch people speak English but it would be really isolating. We don’t have skills that would let us get jobs easily. We have significant health issues.
We won’t unless we must.