Pardon Me

You will be granted full immunity for any and all truthful statements you make. And from there, Vic Mackey, the protagonist, slash anti hero from the TV series, the shield proceeds to coldly and pathologically spill his guts, much to this May of the other law enforcement officers with which Vic made a deal for immunity, but they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into with Vic Mackey, they had not seen the previous however many seasons that that Vic had or the shield had been on like we had. So we knew Vic to be incredibly awful, terrible, worst kind of human being ever. But at the same time as these stories or these shows are able to do, or movies make him into a person that we’re all cheering for and hoping that the bad guy actually comes out on top the whole idea of the anti hero. And this is a recurring archetype across entertainment. Think about other TV shows like Dexter, who were cheering for us, a guy is a serial killer who’s out there doing terrible things, but, but, but, but we love him in the name of of justice. So Vic Mackey, the shield. If you’re not familiar with it, I definitely encourage you to check it out. I think it’s probably one of my favorite all time TV shows, and the ending, which I just spoiled for you. Just spoiled the ending, Vic gets immunity, or what it appears to be, everything that he’s ever done. So he ends up coming out on top of a lifetime of crime, and he gets away with all of it in the end. So why talk about Vic Mackey and why talk about full immunity? Well, obviously, it’s because we are coming towards the end of the presidency of Joe Biden, and news just broke a couple of days ago that he is going to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, who is a I don’t think he is anti hero. I don’t know if there’s any part of Hunter that’s actually a hero. He is a troubled individual, and God Only Knows. God only knows the things that he has done in the positions that he has been in, and the positions that he has been put into, and how different would we handle it if we were in challenging, compromise, difficult positions like him? So I’m not, I’m not going to pass any judgments on any of it. Well, I’ll probably pass some judgments on all of it. So I don’t know why I just said that. Does it? Is there anybody who doesn’t make judgments about things? Do you look around and not judge the other human beings that you’re in contact with that you see on television or celebrities or athletes? I think that we all do. So of course, I will give a little bit my opinion, which I suppose is why you’re listening, but just made me think, what’s the, what is the what’s the history of presidential pardons, and as it would be, commutations? How often does this happen? How frequent is it? What are some of the more high profile historical pardons, commutations that have taken place. So I wanted to go through that a little bit with you, and maybe provide some context and to attempt to humanize what can be a very, very unhuman, non human experience of seeing a family on television every day, and family that had been in politics for Joe’s entire life on what literally he’s been a Senator for a really long time. Then, obviously he was vice president for eight years, and now he’s wrapping up his presidency so extraordinary. And we do forget, or just don’t focus on the reality that these are regular human beings and their sons and their brothers and husbands and all of it, dads, all of these things. So these dynamics exist. Dynamics exist, not unlike the dynamics between you and your friends and your loved ones and the people that you’re doing business with and attempting to get things done with. So just very interesting. So let’s get into it. A pardon and a commutation are both forms of the exact. Clemency. So that simply means clemency means that we’re absolving people of their wrongdoings, but they serve different purposes, getting back to commutations and pardons and have distinct effects. So the technical definition of a pardon is an official forgiveness for a crime, removing the legal consequences of the conviction, effectively erasing the offense. So we’re forgiving it. We are removing the conviction. So erasing the offense, the impact is that while a pardon restores the civil rights like the right to vote or hold public office, it doesn’t imply innocence. It merely forgives the offense. A pardon is typically granted after the individual has completed their sentence, though can be issued at any time. So here’s an example. Is that Gerald Ford, President, Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon after the Watergate scandal to prevent a trial. So instead of having Nixon go through a very public trial and figure out if he was guilty or innocent. President Ford at that time, for whatever reasons, made the decision that let’s just go ahead and forego this, and I’m going to I’m going to pardon vice or President Nixon. A commutation is something that reduces a criminal sentence either in length or severity, but does not erase the conviction, so it does not restore the civil rights or imply forgiveness. It only modifies the punishment. So for example, a death sentence might be commuted to life in prison. These are often granted to those currently serving a sentence, especially if they demonstrate good behavior meet specific criteria. So there you go. Let’s talk about some pretty popular examples of that. President Obama commuted Chelsea Manning’s 35 year prison sentence, allowing early release. So there you go. Think that that gives enough sort of clarity or context around what those two things are to give you an idea the past five United States presidents. Joe Biden, before this had happened. He had actually issued a pretty small number of Pardons, but he did issue a mass pardon for federal marijuana position offenses that have benefited 1000s of people. President Trump issued 143 pardons during his term, including high profile controversial pardons for Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, Barack Obama granted 212 pardons and 17 115 commutations. That’s the most commutations of any president in US history. Most were part of his anti drug clemency initiative so non violent drug offenders at essentially rotting away in prison. He commuted many of their sentences. George W Bush issued 189 pardons and 11 commutations. Bill Clinton issued 396 pardons and 61 commutations. He he had a lot of controversial ones. One of the biggest ones, which he did in the last day of office, was pardoning Mark Rich, who is a financier. You can google Mark rich and find out some of the stuff that he had going on. So let’s talk about some of the historic ones I already talked about how Ford, this is regarded as as as the biggest pardon in US history. Ford pardon Nixon before, before he was to stand any trial, after, Nixon had obviously resigned and Ford had taken the office of presidency. Nixon, or rather, Ford, went ahead and and pardoned him. Jimmy Carter, in 1977 pardoned he it’s called the pardon of the Vietnam draft evaders. So Carter issued a blanket pardon to 1000s of men who evaded the draft during Vietnam War. So obviously divisive as everything is with politics, I mentioned Clinton pardoning, pardoning Mark rich on his last day of office, Donald Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe. Arpaio, I live in Arizona, and certainly very well versed with Sheriff Joe, and what a polarizing figure he was, and I believe still is, and just, I mean, Joe, Joe Pyle is running for office in very recent memory. I don’t know if he was running for anything, or maybe he won. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s still on about thanks to Donald Trump, I

suppose, uh, 1968 Andrew Johnson’s pardon of confederates. Soldiers. So after the Civil War, Johnson issued a blanket pardon to most former Confederates, restoring their rights if they swore loyalty to the United States of America. The pardon was seen as a step toward reconciliation, but angered many Northerners who wanted harsher punishment for southern leaders. Not surprising, I mentioned Obama pardoning rather issuing a commutation for Chelsea Manning. Very, very controversial. Chelsea Manning’s pretty controversial individual, certainly for a lot of different reasons. So I if you want to dig more into that, go for it. So some people that have not, some people that have, there have been a lot of conversations around, should we ought we pardon? Ought we commute some of the sentences? What about Edward Snowden? What about Julian Assange? Think that Julian Assange just received a pardon, didn’t he? He’s been in the news, so you know to look that up, but for a long time, Julian Assange has lived in embassies all over the world, a very, very, very strange existence that has never been pardoned. Leonard Peltier is a very famous Native American activists. And in 1975 he convert he killed two FBI agents at a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He has maintained his innocence the entire time, but he would that’s what he was convicted of, but still have not pardoned him. And there are certainly a lot of others, but those are a handful that really stand out. So what do you think? What do you think? What do you think about Biden? Joe Biden, pardoning Hunter. Biden, how would he not? How would he not do that? It could be ridiculous if he did not do that. Back in my head, I always thought that the next the incoming president, whoever it might have been Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Turns out it’s Donald Trump that he or she would have pardoned Hunter. That’s what I thought, sort of a a professional courtesy kind of a thing. Now, if you’re Joe Biden and your son, is facing a lot of scrutiny and a lot of potential charges. He’s certainly facing already, and I think he’s been convicted or is on trial for a handful what would you do? Would you wait and just be hopeful that the incoming administration pardons your son. Or would you be proactive and say, You know what? I’m just going to go ahead and go do this now, as with everything, we’re going to split lots of hairs and say, well, the context, or rather, the details of this pardon are interesting. They’re interesting. It went back something like 11 years and a handful of days, or something like that. So as with everything, there’s lots of sides to every story, and we have no idea, and probably never will know, the extent of any that Hunter may have engaged in beyond what we know, so that just is what it is. But again, would you do anything other than I would? I would have. I would, 100% pardon my son, so I can tell you that definitively I’m in a position to do that. I would have. So I certainly don’t begrudge him, him that, and I’d be curious to to hear the other perspective and the other side of that. I certainly have a deep appreciation for justice, and it’s one of my core values, so I’m opposed to it from that perspective. But what I’m talking about here is, from the perspective of, if I were in his shoes, what would I do? So let me know what you think be curious. Dig into some of those, some of those pardons. Check out the shield. It’s quite a show. Even if you know a little bit about what happens at the end, it’s quite a ride. So pretty groundbreaking in a lot of ways. And Vic Mackey is an all time great character, even though it’s an all time awful character. Michael chickless, what a masterful job and some wonderful other not the term cameos, but supporting actors and actresses in a wonderful show. So check that out and make up your own mind on all this kind of stuff, on what’s the right thing to do, what’s the wrong thing to do, and what’s the humane familial thing to do. Maybe that’s how we close that up. So as always, do your part by doing your best.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.