Ray Blanton

[billy.pilgrim]

The following is from memory and may be off a little, but I lived in Tennessee through this.



Blanton was a crook and the democratic (still considered Not the Party of Lincoln) governor of Tennessee in the 70s. His story may be playing out again with trump. I hope not. He was never impeached, served no time and paid no fines, in spite of selling his office to the highest bidder.

Everything was fake news if it was negative. He even announced that he would not take any more negative questions from the media. He continued to hold press conferences, but if he didn't like the question, "sorry, that's a negative question, next" and so on.

His biggest money maker was selling pardons to murderers for $300,000 to $400,000 each. He was doing it so much that the FBI ran a sting and he pardoned their guy too, but somehow they didn't make the case against him.

After the election of an idiot kazillionaire, Lamar Alexander, who wore, rain or shine, 100 degrees or snowing, a red flannel shirt and walked across the state, sort of, telling everyone how he was one of them, "see my flannel shirt", the legislature changed the inauguration date and installed Lamar several weeks early in an attempt to stop Blanton from signing the stack of pardons he was busily signing.

In his last days he awarded himself a bunch of state highway contracts - mostly paining all roads in the state with water colors.

He never served a day for his crimes, but more interesting were all the Man on the Street interviews with people saying that this is the way it's done and they would have done the same.
No problem.

Not only does the public not care that trump is a dangerous crook, Congress supports him too.



And then this morning I saw this

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/5/9 ... hite-House

[billy.pilgrim]

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/13/78781156 ... dreds-more


Channeling his innermostray blanton, Kentucky governor blevins repug scumbag turns out and cashes in by selling pardons to all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-lookin' people. I mean he was handing them out to mother-rapers father-stabbers father-rapers!
Father-rapers are now sittin' right there on the bench next to people in Kentucky! And they is mean. (sorry arlo)

blevins“who narrowly lost a bid for a second term last month, issued pardons to hundreds of people, including convicted rapists, murderers and drug offenders.”

“the pardon of Dayton Ross Jones, who pleaded guilty to the 2014 sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. The act was captured on video and shared on social media”

“Bevin gave no explanation of why he issued Jones a pardon and commuted his sentence to time served.”

[Vrede too]

I wondered if the reactions are partisan, so I checked your article plus a couple of others.
https://www.readingeagle.com/ap/article ... vestigated
https://www.14news.com/2019/12/14/matt- ... ying-what/

The reporters make the case that SOME of the pardons might be reasonable. Folks reacting negatively include:

GOP
Rob Sanders, the Kenton County commonwealth's attorney
KY Senate President Robert Stivers
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
state Sen. Chris McDaniel

Dem
New Gov. Andy Beshear
Senate Minority Floor Leader Morgan McGarvey

No apparent partisanship.

Aside: Beshear took office on December 10. The election was on November 5. A rapid turnaround makes sense to me in the digital age.

[O Really]

I'm sure there are lots of people in prisons that deserve to be pardoned or their sentences commuted for a variety of reasons. But taking a big swipe of hundreds of pardons after the voters have tossed you from office does look suspicious, particularly with no public review of the reasons.

[billy.pilgrim]

In Blanton's case they were found to have been advertised and sold. This one looks just as funny.


Zero reason this should be partisan, but same with trump.

[Vrede too]

In Blanton's case they were found to have been advertised and sold. This one looks just as funny.

Zero reason this should be partisan, but same with trump.

Maybe it's an indication of responsibility, or maybe it only appears that way because Blevins is gone, wasn't very popular with Repugs, anyhow, and is an easy and safe target.