Law-abiding citizens wouldn’t have a 50% recidivism rate.
While it’s admirable to push back against the state, not all defendants earn our sympathy in their plight.
What if being incarcerated has an affect on this value?
...but are the lion's share of these hopeless on the basis of the evidence, combined with a fair process and a just, civically-informed legal framework?
A person who is searched pursuant to a prompted canine indication, and found to be in possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine has a "hopeless" case, but they have committed no offense to society that I can recognize, and their inclination to plea to a lesser charge means that the particulars of the search will never be heard by a jurist.
> Law-abiding citizens wouldn’t have a 50% recidivism rate.
This seems like a testable hypothesis, albeit only after a successful completion of the abolitionist movement. I'll bet that, in a society focused on restorative justice and no dependence on a slave economy dressed up as incarceration, that nobody will have a 50% recidivism rate.
> While it’s admirable to push back against the state, not all defendants earn our sympathy in their plight.
Agreed, of course. But there's no justice in taking even the worst in society forcing them to be laborers to make Starbucks packaging. Let's remove the incentive structure first, and decide how to distribute our sympathies second.
This is going to be hard to sell. "dramatically" sounds like >50%, and I assume not just old laws on the books that aren't in-forced. So you want to remove >50% of chargeable offenses? What else besides drugs?
Now if you want to make a majority claim about those incarcerated being incarcerated for something which a rich person would go free, that’s something else
The difference is the plea deal.
Honestly I wasn't sure what you meant by adding "legally speaking". It seemed to imply there was some legal ruling that both companies were the same. Cause otherwise imho there is no difference "they ran both companies" and "they ran both companies as a matter of law".
A convenient distraction, perhaps.
What? It's a bribe, he gains money. He doesn't care about pissing anyone off, he's (probably) not running for reelection, he cares about money, it's really that simple.
Might be more like "what the people advising Trump would gain".
Besides the ~$1 million a head he's openly selling[0] pardons for?
Why wouldn't he pardon a white-collar felon fraudster? This president has pardoned dozens of those[1]—frauds who had no reason at all to be deserving of clemency, other than being incredibly rich. He's pardoned fraudsters who defrauded thousands of victims[2]. He's pardoned a fraudster convicted of fraud, who committed fraud again, and he pardoned them a second time[3]. There are no limits.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-presidential-pardo... ("Inside the New Fast Track to a Presidential Pardon / Lobbyists close to Trump say their going rate to advocate for a pardon is $1 million")
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executi... ("List of recipients of executive clemency from Trump")
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/us/politics/trump-david-g... ("Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence / David Gentile had been found guilty for his role in what prosecutors described as a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of investors.")
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/politics/trump-fraudst... ("Trump Sets Fraudster Free From Prison for a Second Time")
> "The crypto community largely backed him in the last election"
Gee golly; I wonder why.
FWIW, prediction markets don't seem to believe he will be pardoned either[0].
[0] https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-trump-pardon-before-20...
By the way, Trump literally said he won't pardon SBF[0]. It seems money is not the only factor he considers when handing out pardons.
[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-not-pardon-sam-bankman-...
So Trump will pardon SBF?
This administration seems to relish getting away with things that would destroy any other presidency.
Unless these crypto folks have massive money and are using it right now to pay Trump tk not pardon SBF, what would they do? What backlash could crypto do? It's not like he can unpardon Trump. Crypto just joins the long line of people who fell for it again and nothing happens.
What, is a Republican going to vote against Trump? Hah! Impeachment? What trouble could crypto cause for Trump? Even if they could cause trouble, Trump would just make up charges and send the DOJ after crypto.
Sure some relationships might be worth it, but whose? Trump already got the votes, which is what let him avoid prosecution for insurrection, mishandling of classified documents, etc. etc.
What friend or relationship would he lose for pardoning SBF? It has to be a billionaire, because he respects billionaires, or it has to be somebody paying home more than SBF to keep SBF in jail. What billionaire would risk their relationship with Trump in order to express displeasure about pardoning SBF? Wha person would pay more than SBF to keep SBF imprisoned?
Again and again Trump burns people that supported him. There is zero loyalty, everything is purely transactional.
I appreciate you exchanging this information and your opinion.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-bankman-fried-says-donate...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/22/ftx-crypt...
But it's true: master has given Dobby a sock
That’s a really light sentence for someone who defrauded people out of billions. Meanwhile many languish in prison for a lot less. It’s a two tier justice system, and the wealthy can get out of consequences with the right connections or donations.
Next up, Elizabeth Holmes - once her family donates enough to the MAGA PAC.
Even if you "cooperate", that shouldn't be an 80-90% sentence reduction. She was part of the fraud, consciously, for years!
SBF was toast with or without Ellison's testimony.
It should be the other way around. You get 10 years. You don't want to cooperate? Great! You get another 10.
Those people are often accomplices. Sometimes the medium large fish get off if they chop up the big fish.
There are the way things should be, and there are the way things are.
She profited very little compared to the others and was invaluable for the case
I don't excuse anything that she did, but didn't 98% of investors get everything back with interest?
For comparison, MtGox went tits up twelve years ago in 2014 and they're still figuring out repayments for its BTC holders, which is both a hell of a lot simpler than FTX's grab bag of own tokens etc and has gone up a zillion percent since 2014.
Hence why "attempted murder" is a thing.
World order is out of the door, and has been for a while -- they are all probably fighting amongst themselves to get her onto their board ASAP.
Nonetheless, we should not be fooled by a sort of "Svengali defense", where Caroline or the others claim that they were beguiled by a dark charismatic genius who forced them into the crimes. The entire inner circle is super guilty of flagrant crimes. The shorter sentences are an artifact of plea bargains, and not a sign of lesser guilt.