Will Obama Set Another Record?

President Obama is on pace to set another dubious record. He will probably be the modern President who went the longest before pardoning someone. George Washington still has the record by a wide margin, but there weren't many/any Federal prisoners in 1789.

On Thanksigiving, President Obama made the usual PR stunt of pardoning two turkeys. Humans are not so lucky. Obama has pardoned zero people so far.

There are two types of errors in the "justice" system. There's freeing a criminal. There's wrongfully imprisoning someone. No politician wants the embarrassment of seeming "soft on crime".

That's a bold statement by the President. "There are zero people wrongfully imprisoned in the USA." That's what Obama means, when he hasn't pardoned anyone. "Failing to pardon someone who deserves it." is just as serious as pardoning someone who doesn't deserve it.

For example, Sholom Rubashkin deserves a pardon, or his sentence reduced/commuted to time served. However, a pardon would offend the people who lobbied for Rubashkin's imprisonment. A pardon would offend anti-"illegal immigration" activists. A pardon would offend large meatpackers. Rubashkin's efficient business threatened their meatpacking monopoly, so they lobbied for his arrest/raid/imprisonment.

I've mentioned before that Robert Kahre is wrongfully imprisoned. He invented a gold/silver income tax evasion scheme, exploiting the loophole that American Eagle coins have a legal tender value far less that their metal/melt value. It's economic terrorism, to jail a nonviolent tax resister.

As another example, Bradley Manning deserves a pardon, but won't get one. Did he leak "government secrets"? Did he leak evidence of criminal activity?

Typically Presidents wait until just before leaving office, to issue pardons. Everyone who's jailed has some influential group lobbying for his imprisonment. That makes a pardon politically risky.

It's ironic that Obama has pardoned more turkeys than humans. That's a bold statement. "There are zero people wrongfully imprisoned in the USA." Every jailed nonviolent offender is a political prisoner. All nonviolent offenders deserve pardons. That isn't going to happen.

Obama's "zero pardons" is just as significant a statement as any actual pardons. However, an actual pardon risks criticism. It's politically risky, to pardon someone. That's a common State parasite error. Eager to avoid explicit error A, State parasites instead do nothing.

The Presidential pardon is the last line of defense, for people wrongfully imprisoned. President Obama has pardoned zero people. That removes one of the checks and balances against abuse of State power.