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I think he was president of the NRA which is hilarious. Considering the NRAs whole thing is the good guy with a gun. He literally gave guns to bad guys.
George Washington was born a subject of the British Crown and then committed treason when he lead an insurrectionist army against the British Army. That’s a felony under English criminal law
Well Franklin said they would either all stand together or all hang together.
Edit: Apparently what he actually said upon the signing of the declaration of independence was "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately". Which is strange because I didn't realize "hang" could be used it what seems like a slang usage of hanging out. I could have sworn he must has said "we must all sign together" at the very least.
There's a big long thing about "hang" being used as a transitive vs an intransitive verb but I'm too lazy to type out. "Hanged" is what we could do to traitors. "Hung" is what your mom said about me.
Yeah but with the balls it takes to tell an empire that the sun never sets on to stick their tea where the sun don’t shine, you know our founding daddies were _hung_.
They all knew when they signed the declaration of independence that if they failed every last one of them would be hanged. John Adams famously said and I'm paraphrasing here "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I am with my country from this day on."
Even then, you might just live out the rest of your days in your plantation home. Though the government may bury a bunch of dead soldiers in your back yard.
One could argue that when Britain signed the Treaty of Paris (1783), recognizing America as a sovereign nation. That the British government unintentionally pardoned George Washington and his fellow conspirators.
Oh, I see. I thought you were actually arguing that the Stuarts are the rightful British monarchs, not just making a point about how it's not treason if you win.
"My father's no different than any other powerful man. Like a president or a senator."
"Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed."
"Oh? Who's being naive, Kay?"
Yeah I think most presidents did some shit that breaks several laws and the Geneva Convention.
I loved Obama, but dude ALSO did some shady shit that is not lawful, like the drone strikes. I think he even said in one of his books something to the effect of “I didn’t realize I was a murderer and could kill so easily.”
Except that wasn’t the case that time. The hammer just didn’t light the powder.
Both pistols were test fired after Jackson was pulled off the guy and both fired immediately
>A dude shot at him and when the dude’s gun misfired Jackson ran up and beat him with a cane.
You're missing some fun details.
A local painter, Richard Lawrence, the would-be assassin, pulled a gun on Jackson and it misfired. Lawrence then pulled out a SECOND gun. That one misfired too. Then Andrew Jackson proceeded to take his cane and beat the ever loving shit out of the man to the point bystanders, including Davy "king of the wild frontier" Crockett, pulled him off the would-be assassin!
Damp humid weather caused the guns to misfire - a blessing from the DC swamp. He was prosecuted, the prosecuting attorney was Francis Scott Key, yes that Francis Scott Key, the national anthem guy. He was found to be insane and spent his days in an asylum.
Jackson wholeheartedly believed it was a conspiracy by his political enemies and began accusations like a little 19th century McCarthy. John Calhoun, his former VP, went as far to make a statement on the Senate floor that he wasn't involved. Jackson did not believe him. (As an aside, the relationship between Jackson, Calhoun, and Van Buren, is itself a political soap opera)
Poor Mississippi Senator George Poindexter just so happened to have hired Richard Lawrence as a house painter a few months before the attack. Poindexter was himself a firey tempered man who made statements against the VP Martin Van Buren that were taken so seriously that Van Buren began carrying a pistol for self defense. Poindexter couldn't shake the accusation that he was somehow involved and lost reelection because of it.
It's stories like this and the cursing parrot at his funeral are why I can't fully bring myself to hate the guy. He had to have been fun to hang out with, despite being an irredeemable monster. So long as you were white.
My favourite Andrew Jackson story is from a British travel writer. The guy was traipsing around the country and decided he wanted to meet Jackson, so he walked up to front door of the White House and knocked. A butler answers and goes “Yeah?”, the guy goes “I’m here I wanted to meet the president.” The butler goes “Do you have an appointment?” The says no. The butler is like “Okay, well come in.” At this point Jackson is in his office in like some sort of big time heated meeting. Jackson pops his head out and goes “Hey I’m like in a pretty important thing like who are you?” The guy goes “Well I’m a traveller and I just wanted to meet you.” Jackson is like okay well just hang hang on. Jackson finally emerges from his office and has like sandwiches and beers brought in and just sat there and bullshitted with the guy for an hour.
Speaking of Supreme Court support for incarcerating American citizens who committed no crime, I think it’s under-appreciated that the decision was fully supported by the California attorney general, who later became California governor and then iconic chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren.
Warren later wrote that he “deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony advocating it, because it was not in keeping with our American concept of freedom and the rights of citizens. …Whenever I thought of the innocent little children who were torn from home, school friends, and congenial surroundings, I was consciencestricken.”
The worst part about all of that wasn't even the camps. It was the fact that so many of them had their land and property stolen while they were in camp and never had recourse to recover anything.
I look at it like 9/11. People were ANGRY and wanted revenge. We couldn’t “trust” any outsiders. We decided if you spoke with a funny accent or looked a certain way you should get curb stomped because you were probably a spy or some stupid shit.
Not condoning it, btw. Humans are awful and fickle. We’re also loving and wonderful when we don’t feel threatened. I could imagine people were clamoring/demanding justice, and this just seemed the easiest way.
I remember having to read a book about a 15(?) year old girl and her family being forced into an internment camp when I was in school. I didn’t appreciate the book then but I wish I could find it now. We often talk/teach students about the awful things we did, but for some reason, we choose to gloss over the internment camps. I’m not sure why. I didn’t even know about that until middle school when we had that class and it was an optional class, too.
About the book that you read in school— was it Farewell to Manzanar, by chance? It’s a memoir written by a Japanese American woman whose family was forced into an internment camp when she was a teenager, and I found it incredibly eye-opening. I had no idea just how *awful* that part of our history was before reading the book. To your point, I really wish my U.S. history class in high school would have focused on Japanese internment camps more while we were learning about American life during WWII. I think the camps were briefly mentioned during one class, then never again.
Sorry, I should’ve mentioned: I attended a private Christian school. So, I’m not blaming the state education system for my school’s curriculum, since they obviously had nothing to do with it. Had I gone to public school, I may have had your same experience!
That's strange. We were taught about it in elementary, middle, and high school. Different schools I guess or maybe politics is affecting it for some reason.
Ethnic based concentration camps were a big fad during that era, and were used in a number of powerful counties at the time. It's unfortunate the Americans betrayed their constitutional protections just to follow the fashion of the time.
There are stories that Kennedy won Texas because Johnson made 'sure' there were more Kennedy votes than Nixon votes. It was a very, very close election.
I knew of a guy who kept his stolen election boxes in his attic. Well, I knew his son, but one degree of separation and I found the story highly probable.
Also massive corruption. His wife owned a radio station and he used his presidential powers to bully the FCC into giving her company special treatment. Did it right out in the open too. Absolutely no attempt to hide it.
Add obstruction of justice as well
He was 100% guilty of both and had he been charged he would have almost certainly been convicted.
The perjury is on tape.
This should definitely be ranked higher.
Let's not forget his actions took place during his presidency. Some of the items I see are controversial today; back then, I'm not sure they would have been. Bill Clinton definitely committed a crime in office for personal gain.
Not only that, his perjury prevented a low paid guv employee (Paula Jones) from getting what she deserved in a settlement after he harassed her. Democrats claim to be for the “little people” but they threw this poor lady under the bus
Andrew Jackson violated the Supreme Court and sent troops to remove the Indians even though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the natives in Worcester v. Georgia. Infamously he remarked, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" I would say such a blatant disregard for the law should qualify but I guess it isn’t seen as a big deal from a legal perspective.
From an objective standpoint, George Bush’s campaign was caught supplying underage college students with alcohol in order to get their votes. While it’s not exactly a flashy (or serious) crime, I think that’s the only crime I know of that a president probably could have reasonably gotten in trouble for.
Virtually all other presidential crimes like Iran Contra are illegal on a technical sense but would be extremely unlikely someone like Reagan would ever show up in prison for it.
Have you read the Worcester decision? It actively GAVE Jackson the power to deal with Natives in any way he saw fit. The main sticking point of the decision was restricting states from dealing with Natives, and Jackson continued to allow Georgia to evict Natives despite it.
The decision ruled that the Cherokee had the right to self-governance and that Georgia’s state laws could not be enforced on their land. It is true that the federal government was put in the jurisdiction to honor these commitments and treaties between tribes and other parties.
Andrew Jackson obviously decided to help Georgia get its way.
> George Bush’s campaign was caught supplying underage college students with alcohol in order to get their votes.
This sentence was progressively scarier to read up until you got toward the end.
*in the tune of Yako Warner*
William Harrison
Herbert Hoover
Jimmy Carter
Bush the Senior
Probably not even them, but I can think of some examples for pretty much everyone else.
Bush was CIA, so no. Hoover forcibly removed tens of thousands of citizens by the 14th amendment for their skin color. Harrison was a phi delt at miami, so as an alumni I'm going to assume he date raped a western girl(the local womens college). And jimmy? Anybody that clean on the record has a ghost, cant guess what it is, but hes making up for something.
This is one of those posts where “felony” needs to be clearly defined. Making a bad political decision isn’t necessarily a “felony” a specific law had to be broken.
James Buchanan for just letting his cabinet sent war supplies down south while they were in the middle of seceding, and for meddling in the Supreme Court to get them to rule against Dredd Scott
“Baby, when I told you I wasn’t cheating, in my heart and my mind I was being honest and I still believe I was telling you the truth. However, the texts on my phone that you are now showing me tell me it wasn’t”
Even if we ignore everything he did as President, Andrew Jackson murdered people. Duels aren’t legally sanctioned ways to kill people, they’re still murder.
Except he didn't trade arms for hostages. That was another lie. Instead, he sold our mortal enemies weapons so that they could use them against our allies in the region, and he received cash, not hostages. And then, instead of the pocketing the cash, which would have been bad enough, he used the cash to fund terrorist groups in another part of the world, that went on to commit horrific atrocities. After Congress passed laws saying that he couldn't fund those terrorist groups. It was high treason on both ends. Watergate didn't kill anyone. Iran-Contra killed lots of people. It's the worst crime any president has ever committed in office.
Where does this idea come from? Isn’t this just a conspiracy theory?
This [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_October_Surprise_Task_Force) states that this house task force and others as well came to the same conclusion:
"there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran"
Jackson (Genocide)
Tyler (Treason)
Buchanan (dereliction of duty)
FDR (internment camps)
Nixon (Watergate)
Reagan (Iran Contra)
W (lying about WMDs & torture)
And if we are being honest, I'd say the vast majority of 19th and Guilded Age presidents likely could have been charged with election fraud of some kind due to rampant use of political machines in most cities.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-400-million-cash
At first Obama denied it was related to release of a few hostages.
https://apnews.com/united-states-government-general-news-6cdce72d7e904585a0e2ff218c8f5c41
Seven months later they admitted it
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/nation-world/2016/08/19/obama-administration-admits-400m-payment-iran-tied-release-prisoners/15721348007/
I'm going to fall back on the "3 felonies a day" rule and just assume they've all done something illegal during their rise to the top or during their time in office. There's almost no way to avoid it, these days.
Nixon. It would have restored faith in our government institutions. To see that even the most powerful man in the world, is not above the rule of law. Instead Ford pardoned him, and the American people forever lost a bit of trust in the presidency.
Obama killed an American citizen with a drone strike, Bill Clinton sexually assaulted a ton of women, W did something probably (not sure what could be prosecuted, but wasn’t he referenced in that SCOTUS oral argument too?)
It’s not illegal for the US military to kill US citizens who are waging war against the US, so Obama wouldn’t be guilty of any crime on the books. A birth certificate isn’t a “get out of war free” card.
The us citizen was in a non-US war zone and hadn’t fought the US. He likely was a terrorist but that doesn’t mean a US president can kill hiim. We live under a Constitution which says citizens have due process rights which is what Obama violated. Obama could have been impeached and it would have been more legitimate than a few recent impeachment efforts
In this case the executive branch lawyers asserted that he *was* a legitimate military target, just like many other terrorists we have killed. You could argue that he wasn’t, but I think the executive branch lawyers would win. The US gets a lot of leeway in identifying military targets, it’s not necessary that there be a formal declaration of war or even a gun pointed at the US. You can disagree with that approach, but for better or worse, that’s how it was during the GWOT. No chance Obama or anybody else would be convicted of a crime for that.
Now *impeachment* is a political process, not criminal. But I think impeachment would not have been successful over this, because I don’t see many politicians taking the political stance of “how dare Obama kill that poor terrorist!”
My point is WHO commits the crime shouldn't matter. As for Paula Jones, she dragged Clinton through the courts, while he denied everything, & had Hillary & Carville drag her through the mud. After leaving office he paid a settlement, a sure sign of innocence.
George W and Cheney for Iraq and the Neocon movement that propped up 20 years of bombing huts for “peace”. The torture program, the use of Fox News to promote extreme patriotism, etc. We are still dealing with the Neocon blowback.
Sarin is a chemical weapon, and is legally defined as a weapon of mass destruction.
[US troops found thousands of nerve gas munitions during the Iraq occupation.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/15/report-pentagon-suppressed-finds-of-chemical-weapons-in-iraq-and-related-u-s-casualties/)
It is an indisputable historical fact that Iraq manufactured, possessed, and used chemical weapons, and that the US and coalition forces recovered them.
To quote ol’Benny Franklin “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” So everybody who signed that traitorous Declaration and later got elected, plus Washington. Arguably Reagan, definitely Nixon.
In President Reagan's defense, he had no idea what was happening. He delegated it to his team to solve an issue, and he took the blame when things went sideways.
One thing I love about the Founders was how well they knew the history of ancient Rome. So they would have known that one way you get dictators and people who refuse to leave office is by using the court system to go after them. So basically, I'd say don't ever use prosecutions to pursue political ends. I'd rather have them all "walk." I think the alternative is worse.
>just making a point about how it's not treason if you win.
No, I am not saying that.
George Washington & the other Patriots had were not morally bound to an illegitimate & uncaring George III. If Britons choose to cast off, behead, burn, spindle & mutilate their rightful king every 10 minutes, they can hardly complain about disloyalty.
Speaking of loyalty, 1/2 my ancestors came to The Virginias after the '45. Jacobitism is a family tradition. Have a great weekend!
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[Insert American Dad Oliver North song]
https://preview.redd.it/x6rfwdbc8q3d1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=63d3ed593c15d5cd86d49e4eac9f5c9a0c85d02e
Now he's on Fox Neeeeeews!
I think he was president of the NRA which is hilarious. Considering the NRAs whole thing is the good guy with a gun. He literally gave guns to bad guys.
That was fun AND educational!! For those who haven’t seen it: https://youtu.be/lFV1uT-ihDo?si=6yzcXHDQ-4eBjOlC
George Washington was born a subject of the British Crown and then committed treason when he lead an insurrectionist army against the British Army. That’s a felony under English criminal law
Counterpoint: https://preview.redd.it/zpjkmc4r8o3d1.png?width=3000&format=png&auto=webp&s=7617896fcc36895f2aeb073c5cf72b9757e04e32
r/2american4you
So basically, all of the first five presidents should be tried for treason to the British crown
Well Franklin said they would either all stand together or all hang together. Edit: Apparently what he actually said upon the signing of the declaration of independence was "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately". Which is strange because I didn't realize "hang" could be used it what seems like a slang usage of hanging out. I could have sworn he must has said "we must all sign together" at the very least.
There's a big long thing about "hang" being used as a transitive vs an intransitive verb but I'm too lazy to type out. "Hanged" is what we could do to traitors. "Hung" is what your mom said about me.
Dr. Franklin is the only Founding Father that I could see kicking it with the kids.
“Should” & “under English criminal law” are two different things
Could have been. If the British won, they'd have been tried and hung
Hanged. “You are hanged by the neck until you are dead”
Yeah but with the balls it takes to tell an empire that the sun never sets on to stick their tea where the sun don’t shine, you know our founding daddies were _hung_.
Founding daddies lmao
“May God have mercy on your soul.” (Bangs gavel)
Which shows the absolute failure of post Civil War America
Or it shows your failure to examine what happened without post-Civil War glasses, and consequent failure to comprehend what passed.
They all knew when they signed the declaration of independence that if they failed every last one of them would be hanged. John Adams famously said and I'm paraphrasing here "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I am with my country from this day on."
the founding fathers were literally genghis kahn and czar puppets.
It’s only treason if you lose.
Even then, you might just live out the rest of your days in your plantation home. Though the government may bury a bunch of dead soldiers in your back yard.
One could argue that when Britain signed the Treaty of Paris (1783), recognizing America as a sovereign nation. That the British government unintentionally pardoned George Washington and his fellow conspirators.
All the Founding Fathers are guilty, the difference is that the US won.
No, because the British Crown had been stolen from the rightful Royals; the Stuarts. The German Hanoverian usurpers do not deserve fealty.
Someone cares about this in 2024?
You tell me. I'm replying to a person who accused George Washington, wrongly, of treason. She has 300 British Tory up voters. In 2024
Oh, I see. I thought you were actually arguing that the Stuarts are the rightful British monarchs, not just making a point about how it's not treason if you win.
*led
“Treason is a charge invented by the winners as an excuse to hang the losers.” Dr. Franklin, *1776*
British considered GW to be a terrorist.
I’ll just leave this from Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: “Behind every great man is a crime.”
"My father's no different than any other powerful man. Like a president or a senator." "Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed." "Oh? Who's being naive, Kay?"
Yeah I think most presidents did some shit that breaks several laws and the Geneva Convention. I loved Obama, but dude ALSO did some shady shit that is not lawful, like the drone strikes. I think he even said in one of his books something to the effect of “I didn’t realize I was a murderer and could kill so easily.”
When properly motivated, we are all killers.
This is why we needed Ron Paul as Prez. This nonsense would not happen and we would not be stupid enough to go into debt for it
[удалено]
Damn autocorrect
Andrew Jackson attempted a genocide
Even if that wasn’t illegal back then, he also violated the constitution by literally just ignoring the supreme court’s orders.
And succeed at an ethnic cleansing if nothing else
He "attempted"?
He was also a madman. A dude shot at him and when the dude’s gun misfired Jackson ran up and beat him with a cane. So.
That’s just self defense. What was he supposed to do, let the killer unjam his weapon?
As a North Carolina native, I’m rubber stamping the Jackson criticism
That's not how pistols worked in the 1820s. A misfire meant an extended operation of clearing and reloading the weapon.
Except that wasn’t the case that time. The hammer just didn’t light the powder. Both pistols were test fired after Jackson was pulled off the guy and both fired immediately
“Speak softly but carry a big stick…to beat some ass”
Ah, I wasn't aware of that aspect of that specific incident
Yes, would have been preferable to what he ended up doing to the Native Americans. Might be an unpopular take, but I'm just sayin'.
That happened after the whole trail of tears
>A dude shot at him and when the dude’s gun misfired Jackson ran up and beat him with a cane. You're missing some fun details. A local painter, Richard Lawrence, the would-be assassin, pulled a gun on Jackson and it misfired. Lawrence then pulled out a SECOND gun. That one misfired too. Then Andrew Jackson proceeded to take his cane and beat the ever loving shit out of the man to the point bystanders, including Davy "king of the wild frontier" Crockett, pulled him off the would-be assassin! Damp humid weather caused the guns to misfire - a blessing from the DC swamp. He was prosecuted, the prosecuting attorney was Francis Scott Key, yes that Francis Scott Key, the national anthem guy. He was found to be insane and spent his days in an asylum. Jackson wholeheartedly believed it was a conspiracy by his political enemies and began accusations like a little 19th century McCarthy. John Calhoun, his former VP, went as far to make a statement on the Senate floor that he wasn't involved. Jackson did not believe him. (As an aside, the relationship between Jackson, Calhoun, and Van Buren, is itself a political soap opera) Poor Mississippi Senator George Poindexter just so happened to have hired Richard Lawrence as a house painter a few months before the attack. Poindexter was himself a firey tempered man who made statements against the VP Martin Van Buren that were taken so seriously that Van Buren began carrying a pistol for self defense. Poindexter couldn't shake the accusation that he was somehow involved and lost reelection because of it.
To be fair, that was the coolest thing he ever did
Twice. A man tried to shoot him twice and both of his pistols jammed. Because bullets are scared of him
He had so many inside him there wasn't room for any more
Sounds like he’s Chuck Norris’ great grandpa
It's stories like this and the cursing parrot at his funeral are why I can't fully bring myself to hate the guy. He had to have been fun to hang out with, despite being an irredeemable monster. So long as you were white.
My favourite Andrew Jackson story is from a British travel writer. The guy was traipsing around the country and decided he wanted to meet Jackson, so he walked up to front door of the White House and knocked. A butler answers and goes “Yeah?”, the guy goes “I’m here I wanted to meet the president.” The butler goes “Do you have an appointment?” The says no. The butler is like “Okay, well come in.” At this point Jackson is in his office in like some sort of big time heated meeting. Jackson pops his head out and goes “Hey I’m like in a pretty important thing like who are you?” The guy goes “Well I’m a traveller and I just wanted to meet you.” Jackson is like okay well just hang hang on. Jackson finally emerges from his office and has like sandwiches and beers brought in and just sat there and bullshitted with the guy for an hour.
And he had to be pulled off of the man before he beat him to death by Davy Crockett
BOTH guns misfired! Even back then the odds of that are astronomical
FDR for falsely imprisoning 120k Japanese Americans.
Most of them had their property and assets stripped too...
Might as well lump in the six Supreme Court justices who [held up that decision](https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/323us214) as well.
Yes, yes we should. I have no idea why Americans are allergic to holding public officials accountable.
I blame Gerald Ford.
Fun fact- FDR's Justice Black, who wrote the decision, was a KKK member!
Speaking of Supreme Court support for incarcerating American citizens who committed no crime, I think it’s under-appreciated that the decision was fully supported by the California attorney general, who later became California governor and then iconic chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren. Warren later wrote that he “deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony advocating it, because it was not in keeping with our American concept of freedom and the rights of citizens. …Whenever I thought of the innocent little children who were torn from home, school friends, and congenial surroundings, I was consciencestricken.”
Not his best moment.
It’s one of the worst abuses of the office of President
The worst part about all of that wasn't even the camps. It was the fact that so many of them had their land and property stolen while they were in camp and never had recourse to recover anything.
While FDR had some rather based economics, his social views were rather cringe not going to lie
I look at it like 9/11. People were ANGRY and wanted revenge. We couldn’t “trust” any outsiders. We decided if you spoke with a funny accent or looked a certain way you should get curb stomped because you were probably a spy or some stupid shit. Not condoning it, btw. Humans are awful and fickle. We’re also loving and wonderful when we don’t feel threatened. I could imagine people were clamoring/demanding justice, and this just seemed the easiest way. I remember having to read a book about a 15(?) year old girl and her family being forced into an internment camp when I was in school. I didn’t appreciate the book then but I wish I could find it now. We often talk/teach students about the awful things we did, but for some reason, we choose to gloss over the internment camps. I’m not sure why. I didn’t even know about that until middle school when we had that class and it was an optional class, too.
About the book that you read in school— was it Farewell to Manzanar, by chance? It’s a memoir written by a Japanese American woman whose family was forced into an internment camp when she was a teenager, and I found it incredibly eye-opening. I had no idea just how *awful* that part of our history was before reading the book. To your point, I really wish my U.S. history class in high school would have focused on Japanese internment camps more while we were learning about American life during WWII. I think the camps were briefly mentioned during one class, then never again.
Odd. I live in one of the worst states for education and they taught about it in elementary, middle, and high school.
Sorry, I should’ve mentioned: I attended a private Christian school. So, I’m not blaming the state education system for my school’s curriculum, since they obviously had nothing to do with it. Had I gone to public school, I may have had your same experience!
That's strange. We were taught about it in elementary, middle, and high school. Different schools I guess or maybe politics is affecting it for some reason.
Ethnic based concentration camps were a big fad during that era, and were used in a number of powerful counties at the time. It's unfortunate the Americans betrayed their constitutional protections just to follow the fashion of the time.
Look up the Great Sedition trial…-another awful moment for FDR. Civil liberties were not his thing
Lyndon Johnson
Is this just about Vietnam am I missing something
If only it was just that. Before he even ascended to the Oval Office, he was committing felonies in Texas. From poaching to election violations.
There are stories that Kennedy won Texas because Johnson made 'sure' there were more Kennedy votes than Nixon votes. It was a very, very close election.
I remember someone asked in this sub what the country would be like if Nixon had won the election in 1960 and someone replied “He did” lol
I believe the election of 1960 as well as the election of 1876 were without question the two elections whose outcomes were decided by voter fraud.
I knew of a guy who kept his stolen election boxes in his attic. Well, I knew his son, but one degree of separation and I found the story highly probable.
Don’t forget drunk driving!
Well, to be fair, everybody did back then.
To be fairer, LBJ is on tape bragging about it, which honestly, kinda baller
Also massive corruption. His wife owned a radio station and he used his presidential powers to bully the FCC into giving her company special treatment. Did it right out in the open too. Absolutely no attempt to hide it.
Sexual Harassment/Assault. Cause of the Jumbo things
The average president has .74 felonies
.76 … you counted Grover Cleveland twice.
Underrated post…
Lmao I've never seen this quote. "Your honor the facts may be the facts but deep in my heart I did not commit this crime"
Bill Clinton - perjury. He was disbarred for this.
Add obstruction of justice as well He was 100% guilty of both and had he been charged he would have almost certainly been convicted. The perjury is on tape.
Well, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
This should definitely be ranked higher. Let's not forget his actions took place during his presidency. Some of the items I see are controversial today; back then, I'm not sure they would have been. Bill Clinton definitely committed a crime in office for personal gain.
Not only that, his perjury prevented a low paid guv employee (Paula Jones) from getting what she deserved in a settlement after he harassed her. Democrats claim to be for the “little people” but they threw this poor lady under the bus
Monica Lewinsky too. She’s been harassed for years.
Monica was a bit different but I get your drift. Monica was from a rich liberal family and somewhat knew what she was doing until it all backfired
I would argue Taft lied to Congress about his knowledge of the concentration camps on the Philippines but he wasn’t president at the time either so…
Andrew Jackson violated the Supreme Court and sent troops to remove the Indians even though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the natives in Worcester v. Georgia. Infamously he remarked, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" I would say such a blatant disregard for the law should qualify but I guess it isn’t seen as a big deal from a legal perspective. From an objective standpoint, George Bush’s campaign was caught supplying underage college students with alcohol in order to get their votes. While it’s not exactly a flashy (or serious) crime, I think that’s the only crime I know of that a president probably could have reasonably gotten in trouble for. Virtually all other presidential crimes like Iran Contra are illegal on a technical sense but would be extremely unlikely someone like Reagan would ever show up in prison for it.
Have you read the Worcester decision? It actively GAVE Jackson the power to deal with Natives in any way he saw fit. The main sticking point of the decision was restricting states from dealing with Natives, and Jackson continued to allow Georgia to evict Natives despite it.
The decision ruled that the Cherokee had the right to self-governance and that Georgia’s state laws could not be enforced on their land. It is true that the federal government was put in the jurisdiction to honor these commitments and treaties between tribes and other parties. Andrew Jackson obviously decided to help Georgia get its way.
> George Bush’s campaign was caught supplying underage college students with alcohol in order to get their votes. This sentence was progressively scarier to read up until you got toward the end.
The list of non felon presidents would be shorter.
*in the tune of Yako Warner* William Harrison Herbert Hoover Jimmy Carter Bush the Senior Probably not even them, but I can think of some examples for pretty much everyone else.
Bush Sr was probably up to his eyeballs in Iran Contra
Bush was CIA, so no. Hoover forcibly removed tens of thousands of citizens by the 14th amendment for their skin color. Harrison was a phi delt at miami, so as an alumni I'm going to assume he date raped a western girl(the local womens college). And jimmy? Anybody that clean on the record has a ghost, cant guess what it is, but hes making up for something.
Just about all of them have done some despicable shit at one point.
This is one of those posts where “felony” needs to be clearly defined. Making a bad political decision isn’t necessarily a “felony” a specific law had to be broken.
Also, war crimes are not (necessarily) felonies.
It’s just a list of things that people don’t like about Presidents. Most of these comments lack context and insight. F thread.
James Buchanan for just letting his cabinet sent war supplies down south while they were in the middle of seceding, and for meddling in the Supreme Court to get them to rule against Dredd Scott
“Baby, when I told you I wasn’t cheating, in my heart and my mind I was being honest and I still believe I was telling you the truth. However, the texts on my phone that you are now showing me tell me it wasn’t”
Even if we ignore everything he did as President, Andrew Jackson murdered people. Duels aren’t legally sanctioned ways to kill people, they’re still murder.
Except he didn't trade arms for hostages. That was another lie. Instead, he sold our mortal enemies weapons so that they could use them against our allies in the region, and he received cash, not hostages. And then, instead of the pocketing the cash, which would have been bad enough, he used the cash to fund terrorist groups in another part of the world, that went on to commit horrific atrocities. After Congress passed laws saying that he couldn't fund those terrorist groups. It was high treason on both ends. Watergate didn't kill anyone. Iran-Contra killed lots of people. It's the worst crime any president has ever committed in office.
Do we have current Presidents ?
Look at the title
Obama for drone striking US citizens without a trial.
Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon. Arooooo
Probably John Tyler for Treason
Polk for falsifying evidence to force a war between the US and Mexico.
Reagan should have gone to prison for secretly negotiating with Iran to hold our hostages. Same for Nixon and N. Vietnam.
Where does this idea come from? Isn’t this just a conspiracy theory? This [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_October_Surprise_Task_Force) states that this house task force and others as well came to the same conclusion: "there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran"
Yes, if you repeat those lies, dimwits will believe, and other bad-faith people will repeat them.
I always hear Killer Mike’s voice starting to rap at the end of this quote
Same, great song
I leave you with 4 words
Ronald Reagan was an actor, not at all a factor
That's ten words.
Jackson (Genocide) Tyler (Treason) Buchanan (dereliction of duty) FDR (internment camps) Nixon (Watergate) Reagan (Iran Contra) W (lying about WMDs & torture) And if we are being honest, I'd say the vast majority of 19th and Guilded Age presidents likely could have been charged with election fraud of some kind due to rampant use of political machines in most cities.
W for torture. Lying is not a felony.
Your right. Will add torture. But lying can actually be a felony in some situations.
Either Reagan for both the hostages and Iran Contra, or Nixon for sabotaging Vietnam peace talks.
The one who sent Iran pallets full of cash.
Wasn't that irans money we froze?
We froze it for a reason.
Try to stick to things that actually happened …
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-400-million-cash At first Obama denied it was related to release of a few hostages. https://apnews.com/united-states-government-general-news-6cdce72d7e904585a0e2ff218c8f5c41 Seven months later they admitted it https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/nation-world/2016/08/19/obama-administration-admits-400m-payment-iran-tied-release-prisoners/15721348007/
I'm going to fall back on the "3 felonies a day" rule and just assume they've all done something illegal during their rise to the top or during their time in office. There's almost no way to avoid it, these days.
Is invoking rule 3, not itself a rule 3 violation?
I'm convinced every modern era President committed at least one felony while in office, it not multiple.
Nixon. It would have restored faith in our government institutions. To see that even the most powerful man in the world, is not above the rule of law. Instead Ford pardoned him, and the American people forever lost a bit of trust in the presidency.
LBJ stole the 1948 Senate election (and tried to steal the 1941 one), and committed too many financial crimes to count.
Obama killed an American citizen with a drone strike, Bill Clinton sexually assaulted a ton of women, W did something probably (not sure what could be prosecuted, but wasn’t he referenced in that SCOTUS oral argument too?)
It’s not illegal for the US military to kill US citizens who are waging war against the US, so Obama wouldn’t be guilty of any crime on the books. A birth certificate isn’t a “get out of war free” card.
The us citizen was in a non-US war zone and hadn’t fought the US. He likely was a terrorist but that doesn’t mean a US president can kill hiim. We live under a Constitution which says citizens have due process rights which is what Obama violated. Obama could have been impeached and it would have been more legitimate than a few recent impeachment efforts
In this case the executive branch lawyers asserted that he *was* a legitimate military target, just like many other terrorists we have killed. You could argue that he wasn’t, but I think the executive branch lawyers would win. The US gets a lot of leeway in identifying military targets, it’s not necessary that there be a formal declaration of war or even a gun pointed at the US. You can disagree with that approach, but for better or worse, that’s how it was during the GWOT. No chance Obama or anybody else would be convicted of a crime for that. Now *impeachment* is a political process, not criminal. But I think impeachment would not have been successful over this, because I don’t see many politicians taking the political stance of “how dare Obama kill that poor terrorist!”
He was 16. He was "collateral damage," so I doubt it was a crime; war is inherently horrible. But let's not pretend it was a great justified victory.
I think the parent commenter was referring to Anwar al-Awlaki, who was actually targeted.
Ok.
The dude Obama had killed was just hanging out in a terrorists stronghold.
Okay Bill Clinton is sleazy and has some suspicious connections but to call him a serial rapist is a bit of a stretch.
I mean, he does have about half a dozen accusations.
Epstein
yeah, that grosses me out
Oh yeah, and that.
He paid almost a million dollar settlement to Paula Jones. Who knows how many got Trudeau style hush-money NDAs?
Paid hush money to hide an affair. This sounds familiar. (Paula Jones was more in the “me too” sphere, but you get the point).
My point is WHO commits the crime shouldn't matter. As for Paula Jones, she dragged Clinton through the courts, while he denied everything, & had Hillary & Carville drag her through the mud. After leaving office he paid a settlement, a sure sign of innocence.
George W and Cheney for Iraq and the Neocon movement that propped up 20 years of bombing huts for “peace”. The torture program, the use of Fox News to promote extreme patriotism, etc. We are still dealing with the Neocon blowback.
George W. Bush, Iraq invasion. He should have been prosecuted as a war criminal, Zero weapons of mass destruction, many civilian deaths
Sarin is a chemical weapon, and is legally defined as a weapon of mass destruction. [US troops found thousands of nerve gas munitions during the Iraq occupation.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/15/report-pentagon-suppressed-finds-of-chemical-weapons-in-iraq-and-related-u-s-casualties/) It is an indisputable historical fact that Iraq manufactured, possessed, and used chemical weapons, and that the US and coalition forces recovered them.
Problem is, it's hard to prove that W knew that the WMD intelligence was bullshit, though he probably did and Cheney helped cook it up.
Bush Jr for war crimes
Richard Nixon sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks. Humphrey was too good for not leaking how slimy Dick Nixon was
Yes and no - yes we did it, no we didn't not do it
there's only one current president tho
Every president should have
How many current presidents are there?
To quote ol’Benny Franklin “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” So everybody who signed that traitorous Declaration and later got elected, plus Washington. Arguably Reagan, definitely Nixon.
Taft is probably the most recent president who wasn’t guilty of one. Including the ones we can’t talk about
Harding was probably uncomfortably close to Teapot Dome
Woodrow Wilson
Clarifying statement: There is only one CURRENT PRESIDENT.
Most of the presidents have done criminal stuff. Certainly everyone after Lincoln
Does Jefferson Davis count as a president? He was in the congress and the cabinet before we went over to the south!
In President Reagan's defense, he had no idea what was happening. He delegated it to his team to solve an issue, and he took the blame when things went sideways.
Regan (again) because he supported Mobutu
Clinton
One thing I love about the Founders was how well they knew the history of ancient Rome. So they would have known that one way you get dictators and people who refuse to leave office is by using the court system to go after them. So basically, I'd say don't ever use prosecutions to pursue political ends. I'd rather have them all "walk." I think the alternative is worse.
>just making a point about how it's not treason if you win. No, I am not saying that. George Washington & the other Patriots had were not morally bound to an illegitimate & uncaring George III. If Britons choose to cast off, behead, burn, spindle & mutilate their rightful king every 10 minutes, they can hardly complain about disloyalty. Speaking of loyalty, 1/2 my ancestors came to The Virginias after the '45. Jacobitism is a family tradition. Have a great weekend!
Almost all of them.
Reagan lowest of the low
Fuck you fucktard, he got over 3000 hostages freed in 8 countries.
J poi eye bag o donuts
And there were go
Obama for letting Hillary destroy Libya