Tag: campaign promises

Trump failed to deliver ‘Day 1’ promise to grant clemency to Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road

President Trump did not pardon or commute the prison sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the anonymous marketplace website Silk Road, despite his promise on the campaign trail to free him on “day one.”

Ulbricht was convicted because his website, which was founded in 2011 and used cryptocurrency for payments, was used to sell illegal drugs, even though he did not sell any of the illicit substances himself.

After being sworn into office on Monday, Trump issued several executive actions, including efforts to reduce immigration, designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move to resume federal executions and pardoning or commuting sentences to time served of people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

But Trump’s first day back in the White House came to an end with Ulbricht still behind bars without a pardon or commutation from the president, who pledged to do so last spring.

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Biden Dodges Question About Releasing Marijuana Prisoners Before Leaving Office, As He Previously Promised He Would Do

President Joe Biden declined to respond to a question over the weekend about whether he plans to fulfill his campaign promise to release people still imprisoned for marijuana before his term ends later this month.

Following a ceremony where Biden awarded various figures with Presidential Medals of Freedom recognizing their contributions to national interests on Saturday, New York Post reporter Steven Nelson called out to the president, asking “will you honor your campaign pledge to release all marijuana inmates?”

Biden didn’t acknowledge the question, exiting the event without talking to attending press.

With just two weeks until President-elect Donald Trump assumes the office again following his November election victory, there’s been added pressure on Biden to make good on his promise and take executive action to ensure nobody is incarcerated over non-violent federal cannabis convictions.

But while the White House has indicated that there are still clemency options being considered, there’s been no additional confirmation that Biden plans to go beyond the pardons and commutations he’s already issued for simple marijuana possession offenses.

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Trump Reportedly Plans To Continue Aid To Ukraine But Will Raise NATO Spending To 5%

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to continue sending military aid to Ukraine, despite Trump earlier on the campaign trail mocking Zelensky for being the “greatest salesman on earth” for his getting tens of billions of US taxpayers’ money with ease.

A new Financial Times report has cited European officials who say Trump’s team told them he plans to continue military aid to Kiev after his inauguration. He’s reportedly trying to calm fears of an immediate US withdrawal of support, and this is connected to an expected Trump policy for NATO member states to increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP.

“Donald Trump’s team has told European officials that the incoming US president will demand Nato member states increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, but plans to continue supplying military aid to Ukraine,” FT writes.

NATO’s existing target of 2% of GPD for defense spending certainly has not been met by all members… not even close. The 2% is being met by only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members, and so a significantly higher bar set of more than double that is certainly going to rile Europe.

European NATO leaders have long been trying to figure out how to ‘Trump proof’ future defense aid for Ukraine, as has the Biden administration.

But there’s at least one severe critic – Hungary’s Viktor Orban. He estimated in a radio interview on Friday that the US and the EU have pumped over $300 billion in financial aid and military assistance into Kiev’s coffers since the war’s start.

“During the negotiation with the Americans, I received the figure that Europe and America together have spent €310 billion so far. Those are huge numbers!” the Hungarian prime minister declared.

He went to describe that such a massive amount “could have done wonders” for European people themselves, instead of sinking the funds into an unwinnable war, while avoiding the necessity of negotiations with Moscow.

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President Trump Doubles Down On Pledge To End Birthright Citizenship, A Policy Backed By The Overwhelming Majority Of American People

America, since its inception, has been a place of opportunity for aspiring, high-skilled people.

The geniuses and artisans of Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries flooded to these shores, enriching the society in many cases and making invaluable contributions to American culture – from our culinary traditions to newfound architectural styles – that continue to be influential through the present day.

This custom of selecting only the best and brightest is not anomalous to great nations throughout history.

All nations are only as good as the people which compose them: thus, any worthwhile nation would desire to enhance the quality of its people overall in order to elevate its global standing.

That operative goal, however, cannot be achieved under the present, suicidal policy of citizenship by birthright.

Among nations of the world, America is the only developed one that confers citizenship onto anyone simply for having been born to a parent who managed to inhabit these borders, regardless of legality.

That America is the only noteworthy country to still have this policy in place should be enough evidence alone of its insanity. The prevailing view among liberal legal scholars is that the Fourteenth Amendment sanctions this policy, which is permanent and cannot be altered.

This is flatly wrong. This erroneous interpretation is the byproduct of a slipshod and lazy construction of that particular Amendment, through the prism of erroneous interpretations of largely discredited, or at least, increasingly obsolete legal precedent.

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Trump vows to pardon Jan. 6 rioters on day one after getting into office

President-elect Donald Trump said that he will pardon Jan. 6 rioters on the first day in office in his upcoming administration. 

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Trump told anchor Kristen Welker that “These people are living in hell.”

Over 1,500 people have been charged with crimes connected to the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot in 2021, according to NPR.

Trump has said in the past that he would pardon many of them. 

“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” he said during a 2023 CNN event. “I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, got out of control. I would say it will be a large portion of them and it would be early on.”

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Trump Gives Stark Answer When Asked If He’ll Split Up Families During Mass Deportations

During a sit down interview with NBC News, president Trump gave a striking answer when asked if he intends to separate families through mass deportations of illegal aliens.

“Well, I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way that you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump declared.

“We don’t have to separate families, we’ll send the whole family very humanely, back to the country where they came,” Trump emphasised.

“If they come here illegally but their family is here legally, then the family has a choice. The person that came in illegally can go out, or they can all go out together,” he added.

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Biden’s Pardon Of Son’s Drug-Related Crimes Draws Calls From Advocates To Free Marijuana Prisoners

President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, for drug-related and other crimes is drawing cries from criminal justice and marijuana policy reformers, who call the action hypocritical and say the president should do more to grant clemency to cannabis prisoners before his term expires next month.

“In pardoning Hunter Biden, the president noted that despite believing in our justice system, sometimes the outcome of that process is not fair or just,” said Sarah Gersten, executive director and general counsel for Last Prisoner Project (LPP), a nonprofit that focuses on drug policy reform. “That is certainly the case for the nearly 3,000 cannabis prisoners who remain incarcerated federally for activity that has been widely legalized.”

Biden over the weekend pardoned his son, who had been convicted on felony gun and tax charges earlier this year. Three of those convictions were related to lying on a federal form about drug use when buying a gun in 2018, a time when he was using crack cocaine.

In a statement, the president said his pardon reflected the belief that his son was “being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” noting that “people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form.”

That’s a claim that even some Republicans have echoed. Following the convictions, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said Hunter Biden “might deserve to be in jail for something, but purchasing a gun is not it.”

“There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm against current laws,” the congressman said.

Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a supporter of cannabis reform, said at the time that the “Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb.”

Nevertheless, advocates point out that thousands of people are still behind bars for cannabis-related offenses.

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Tax Cuts Without Spending Cuts Won’t Reduce the Taxpayers’ Burden

As this election cycle has demonstrated yet again, Democrats are not shy about calling for tax increases. In every election cycle they call for more taxes, whether through corporate taxes or through taxes on unrealized capital gains.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to cut some taxes. I say “some” because Trump has also pledged to raise taxes on imports.

Nonetheless, Trump ran on the idea that he would reduce the tax burden on Americans if elected.

Unfortunately, Trump has no plans to cut government spending, and this means there is little chance that ordinary taxpayers are going to experience any real tax relief.

This is because tax cuts without spending cuts don’t actually lessen the cost of government. A tax cut without a spending cut simply moves around the tax burden, and often replaces explicit taxation with the stealth tax of price inflation.

Unless accompanied by spending cuts, a tax cut simply increases deficit spending, and taxpayers will pay for deficits one way or another. Typically deficits are paid for using one or more of the following: future taxes, present interest payments, and monetary inflation. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, when it comes to paying off deficit spending, “the future” is already here. In the 2024 fiscal year, the taxpayers had to pay nearly $900 billion in interest on the debt. That huge tax bill exists because federal politicians in the past spent more than they had in revenues.

Forcing the taxpayers to pay off old debts isn’t exactly popular, however. So, federal technocrats have found a way to push down interest rates on government debt. This reduces the amount of interest owed and nominally reduces the cost of government debt.

But this also ends up costing the taxpayers bigtime because the way that technocrats suppress the cost of interest is by having the central bank buy up more federal debt. (By buying government debt, the central bank artificially drives up demand, so the Treasury doesn’t have to pay as much in interest to attract buyers.) And where does the central bank get the money to buy up government debt? It prints the money. That then leads to both monetary inflation and (eventually) price inflation.

So, tax cuts that increase deficits only end up placing new and different burdens on the taxpayers. They’re not a real tax cut at all.

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Trump Has Sweeping Plans For His 2nd Administration: Here’s What He Has Proposed

Projected President-elect Donald Trump has made a number of sweeping proposals for a second term in office, outlining a wide-ranging agenda that targets federal regulations, taxes, immigration, and social issues.

As of Wednesday morning, The Associated Press projected that Trump is the winner of the election after securing enough electoral votes over his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.

Early Wednesday, the former president and president-elect claimed victory in the 2024 presidential contest, telling supporters that voters had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” Early projections show that Trump may win not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote, something he’s never done in his previous two campaigns.

Immigration

Since 2015, Trump has made curbing illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaigns. As president, he built or reconstructed about 400 miles of border barrier along the U.S.–Mexico border and implemented a number of rules curbing illegal migration into the country.

During the campaign, Trump often said that he would initiate the largest “mass deportation” effort in U.S. history if elected. Recently, he also warned Mexico that he would impose a 25 percent tariff targeting the country if it fails to curb illegal immigration and that he would raise that tariff if Mexico doesn’t comply.

Also, he’s suggested more enhanced screenings for immigrants, ending birthright citizenship—which may require a constitutional amendment—and reimposing certain policies enacted during his first term such as the “remain in Mexico” protocol.

Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who is expected to join the new administration, told media outlets last year that the scale of deportations depends on what resources are available.

During a “60 Minutes” interview in October, Homan was asked about whether families would be separated. Homan responded, “Families can be deported together.”

Vice President-elect JD Vance said in his debate with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 1 that deporting criminals would be a second Trump administration’s initial focus.

“You’ve got to reimplement Donald Trump’s border policies, build the wall, reimplement deportations,” Vance said, adding that the United States has 20 to 25 million illegal immigrants in the country.

“What do we do with them? I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants.”

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Kamala Claims She Will Legalize Recreational Marijuana in Last-Ditch Vote Pandering Scheme After JAILING People for Pot Possession

Kamala Harris took to social media on Sunday, just days before Election Day, with a claim that she will legalize recreational marijuana. Unfortunately for the Democrat presidential hopeful, she made her career on locking up individuals who were in possession of small amounts of weed.

“I will legalize recreational marijuana, break down unjust legal barriers, and create opportunities for all Americans to succeed in this new industry,” Harris said in a social media post on Sunday.

1,560 people were sent to state prison for marijuana-related offenses in California under then-state attorney general Harris.

“Under Harris’s six-year tenure, hundreds were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses, crime records show,” The Washington Free Beacon said in 2019.

On a debate stage in Detroit, Michigan in 2019, Tulsi Gabbard, then a Hawaii representative and rival for the Democratic nomination lambasted Harris over her anti-pot record.

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