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Does John Edwards Deserve 30 Years in Prison?

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Does John Edwards Deserve 30 Years in Prison?

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wirednuts said:
youre so right about that. it would be silly to slam one guy for it when the entire system is set up to do what he did in a microcosm (is that the correct term?). the fact that they just re-voted to allow corporations to donate unlimited funds, to me, is incomprehensible. its like saying "here, we want to make it LAW to enforce political corruption". PASSED! 🙄
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We agree on that - and I think it's our country's most critical political issue.
 
wirednuts said:
it was fairly unclear if he was guilty or not during the trial. it was a horrible trial. thats why he got off. but since then? come on, the way the guy has acted and the fact that he wrote a damn book (dont think it released) that was titled "i did it" pretty much sums it up. everyone knows he did it.
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The prosecution did badly - I think it was clear to those who had more information he was guilty. That's another topic of money buying justice. The book was published - after being seized by his victims' families, and re-titled from his title of "if" he did it to their new title simply having him say how he did it - and the money going to them.
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
We'll see how the jury decides however how could Edwards not understand that donations made to a campaign fund aren't properly used to hide personal problems. I'm not an attorney but if I were given money I would assume that if I used a tax free vehicle for the purpose Edwards did my ass would be in a sling.
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Did he actually spend campaign donations though, or did his donors write other checks to the Youngs or possibly to Hunter herself? If the money came in through his campaign fundraising apparatus then he should be toast, but if he never touched it it's much less clear that he violated the law. Clearly this money should not have been tax free, and clearly it was for Edwards' political benefit, but whether that technically constitutes a violation of the law is not clear to me. Seems to me that although the money was to protect Edwards' political viability, it was received and consumed by the Youngs and Hunter, and therefore they, not Edwards, would owe the income or gift tax. If Edwards is legally guilty because donors gave money directly to his mistress to protect his political viability - undeniably what happened since Edwards' wife already knew and he had his own millions to support his mistress and child - then couldn't, say, the Koch brothers have donated money to Clinton and then to Lewinsky (assuming they learned about the affair before it broke) and thereby have gotten Clinton imprisoned? That seems like rather a dangerous step to take. Surely Edwards would at least need to solicit the money to be guilty. (How the HELL do you ask someone if they'll give a few hundred thousand dollars to your mistress to maintain your political viability? His donors must have absolutely no morals whatsoever.)

Also, I don't think regular campaign donations are deductible, nor can they be hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I'm assuming that these were either outside of the campaign fundraising organization or else were to a 527 or something similar. Anybody know this?
 
FoBoT said:
jury has reached a verdict, result not announced, yet
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In only 1 of the 6 counts from what I heard in CNN.

[Posted at 2:53 p.m. ET] The jury in the John Edwards trial has only reached a unanimous decision on one charge against John Edwards.
The group of jurors said that as of this moment they could only agree on the charge of illegal campaign contributions from Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. We do not know which way the jury decided on that count.
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I think this Edwards case highlights a possibly dangerous loophole in campaign contribution law.

Campaign donations to candidates are severely restricted. (PAC are another mater, but they cannot coordinate with, or contribute to candidate either.)

However, candidates can spend unlimited amounts of 'their' own money.

Currently, what's to stop these uber wealthy people from contributing a million $'s directly to their candidate of choice and claiming it's merely a gift. (IIRC, gifts of up to $2 million a yrs a can be made tax-free, but it still needs to be reported on a gift tax return if over $12k.)

The candidate can then turn around and spend it on their own campaign. It also opens up a huge question/likelyhood of 'buying' influence.

What's to say this hasn't already been going on? The only persons with access to gift tax return info are the donor and the IRS. The latter is prohibited from disclosing it to anyone, even other govt agencies.

I find it quite odd that a billionaire feels the need to make a 'gift' to a multimillionaire, particularly so during election time.

Fern
 
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Fern said:
Currently, what's to stop these uber wealthy people from contributing a million $'s directly to their candidate of choice and claiming it's merely a gift. (IIRC, gifts of up to $2 million a yrs a can be made tax-free, but it still needs to be reported on a gift tax return if over $12k.)

Fern
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I'm pretty sure it's actually $5,000,000 lifetime, which is the same as the estate tax limit. It's also co-extensive with it, meaning that inter vivos gifts over $13K per person per year reduce your estate tax exemption, so doing this is not without penalty.
 
wirednuts said:
it was fairly unclear if he was guilty or not during the trial. it was a horrible trial. thats why he got off. but since then? come on, the way the guy has acted and the fact that he wrote a damn book (dont think it released) that was titled "i did it" pretty much sums it up. everyone knows he did it.
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While we are on this topic, there is an interesting documentary called "The Overlooked Suspect," which makes a fairly compelling case for the proposition that it's just as likely Jason Simpson (OJ's son) was the killer, and that to the extent OJ was involved, it was to help his son evade prosecution after the fact. I have always shared the commonly-held view that OJ was guilty, but that documentary really made me consider Jason Simpson as a very likely (perhaps even more likely) suspect.
 
Craig234 said:
So clueless, unable to weigh friends willingly giving money over an affair against Kochs.
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As soon as you posted your "Koch brothers" crap you lost all credibility as a free thinking individual. Anyone that "looks up"what the Koch brothers have done to help people with donations know the real story:colbert:
 
*kjm said:
As soon as you posted your "Koch brothers" crap you lost all credibility as a free thinking individual. Anyone that "looks up"what the Koch brothers have done to help people with donations know the real story:colbert:
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This is an obviously fallacious argument. I gather you are not offended by the Koch brothers' political activities, but many are. The fact that they have been generous charitable donors (presumably for both positive reasons, like wanting to help their fellow man, and self-interested reasons, like wanting to minimize their tax burden and improve their public image) has no bearing on whether they can fairly be criticized for their other behavior. Bernie Madoff was also a generous philanthropist - are you saying that places him above criticism?
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
While we are on this topic, there is an interesting documentary called "The Overlooked Suspect," which makes a fairly compelling case for the proposition that it's just as likely Jason Simpson (OJ's son) was the killer, and that to the extent OJ was involved, it was to help his son evade prosecution after the fact. I have always shared the commonly-held view that OJ was guilty, but that documentary really made me consider Jason Simpson as a very likely (perhaps even more likely) suspect.
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I saw that story as well and found it an interesting idea, and the police better have eavluated him as a suspect. It was a good reminder to those of us ready to convict OJ.
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
This is an obviously fallacious argument. I gather you are not offended by the Koch brothers' political activities, but many are. The fact that they have been generous charitable donors (presumably for both positive reasons, like wanting to help their fellow man, and self-interested reasons, like wanting to minimize their tax burden and improve their public image) has no bearing on whether they can fairly be criticized for their other behavior. Bernie Madoff was also a generous philanthropist - are you saying that places him above criticism?
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It's perfectly reasonable to be critical. The problem is the irrelevant introduced to mitigate and that constantly happens.
 
*kjm said:
As soon as you posted your "Koch brothers" crap you lost all credibility as a free thinking individual.

Anyone that "looks up"what the Koch brothers have done to help people with donations know the real story
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Wow, how much do they pay you?
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
It's perfectly reasonable to be critical. The problem is the irrelevant introduced to mitigate and that constantly happens.
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I agree, and that is precisely the behavior my post was intended to address. Do I think the Koch brothers are relevant to this discussion? Not really. That being said, their charitable contributions are not relevant to a discussion of their unseemly political activities either.
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
I agree, and that is precisely the behavior my post was intended to address. Do I think the Koch brothers are relevant to this discussion? Not really. That being said, their charitable contributions are not relevant to a discussion of their unseemly political activities either.
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Agreed.
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
Do I think the Koch brothers are relevant to this discussion? Not really.
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They are relevant as an example when contrasting the difference between the motives of Bunny's donations to Edwards and the Kochs' donations to Walker and others.

That's relevant in illustrating the intent of the law, and contrasting what it's intended to prevent with the example in Edwards' case. Part of the jury seems to agree.
 
dmcowen674 said:
Wow, how much do they pay you?
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For gosh sakes I work in the school system in WI and can’t wait to get out! Management is a mess and we piss away tons on tax dollars on shit students..... The whole system needs a rework and this is a great start!

I cant wait till I'm out of the system and can not run far enough away..... total wast of my life!

And they think they know what the real world is all about.... right:hmm:
 
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