Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
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Comments (24161)
Well, I am much smarter than you, I guess.
People should not be prosecuted, jailed or impeached for the sounds that come out of their mouths. But, as that era has proven, the bar has already been set.
Do we jail people for burping?
I mean the problem with righties is that they want to be friends, while the lefties want to win.
Nope
Because words do not cause any such crimes
Do you go out and kill cops if a politician says such things?
Then it’s their stupidity that led them to do it, not the words of someone else.
That is legally not quite sound. If I persuade someone to kill another human being I am held accountable for instigation, or maybe conspiracy. Words do things NOS we know that since Austin...
Slavery was once legally sound. Philosophically, it’s magical thinking. Speaking cause little more than the movement of air. Speech is an act but words are not actors.
For what?
Bullets can tear through a person’s body. Shooting someone is justifiably a criminal act. Words possess no such force, have zero connection to another’s actions, and thus speaking cannot be justified as criminal act. I think your view is magical thinking.
Anyways, have a good one. Be free.
I appreciate free speech too much to punish someone for speaking.
Good. Repubs are equally as evil, in my mind.
So uh, an officer ordering the killing of civilians or prisoners of war isn't a war crime?
One should remember that behind every eccentricity of our time there are those actual and obvious crimes that have happened and should be obvious to everybody, the events to what referred to. Perhaps those kinds of accusations (like hate speech) are just hurled at people at the present toxic debate environment, but that doesn't change the actual real crimes of incitement.
They are crimes according to some species of legalism, but they wouldn’t be if people refused to do what they were ordered. So despite the legal theories the fact remains: whether people obey or disobey an order is not determined by the words.
Legal prosecution will show he was planning this.
People will obey some words but not others, so obedience is certainly partly determined by the words.
I'm sympathetic to your position, but it's false to claim that one person's words have zero connection to another's actions.
Are people transing kids?!? Who has been teaching you about the world?
What is the connection?
Words/information cause reactions. That's why advertising works.
Quoting NOS4A2
Read Edward Bernays (the father of public relations) and Ernest Dichter (the father of motivational research) if you think subtle powerful subliminal words only work on the dumb. They work on us all.
I don’t go out and buy something whenever I see an advertisement for it.
[quote=Keyser Söze]The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. [/quote]
"The reason that [people] think advertising doesn't "work" is that they think advertisements are trying to make them do something immediately."
Why Good Advertising Works (Even When You Think It Doesn't)
Remember when it was the parent’s job to teach their children about sexuality?
Of course the only time these people - especially the men - tend to actually be around children is when they are actively trying to fuck them, so the oversight is somewhat understandable.
Yes, and often they did nothing.
The government has done such a great job.
Except when Trump is in office. Then government isn't the problem. Then it's the deep state.
As Reagan said, government is the enemy.
I assume you'll decline accepting Social Security payments from the "enemy".
A connection, influence, the words caused me to go buy something—it’s all figurative. None of it negates the conscious, decision-making process, which is the true cause of one’s activity. Words cause none of it.
I’ve never used your slogan. No need to make stuff up.
Governments are large employers, even corporate in nature, but you don’t like when someone speaks ill of it. Why is that?
Of course we make conscious decisions, and bear responsibility for those decisions. But an optimal decision making process consists of a deliberation based on information that has come to our attention. This information comprises an external influence - it is a factor. In the absence of certain information, the specific decision would not have been made. It is therefore part of the causal chain.
Yes; we hear articulated sounds and observe marks on paper, among a seemingly infinite deluge of other details, all of which are factors. But this is activity we perform. We hear, we look, we read, we understand, we act, and so on. We are the agent of this activity at every moment. We may act upon those particular marks and sounds more or less than others, but they hardly act upon us more or less than any other detail.
OK.
But it's still an empirical fact that advertising increases sales. That's why companies spend so much money on advertising. And it's an empirical fact that campaigning increases votes. That's why political parties spend so much money on campaigning.
It is an empirical fact that our decisions are influenced by our environment, including the things other people tell us.
That you, personally, don't succumb to such influences every time is a strawman.
Quoting NOS4A2
So you're saying that persuasion/incitement is a (meta)physical impossibility? That advertising and campaigning work would prove you wrong.
And if we were to take a more technical view, the libertarian concept of free will is inconsistent with what I think is the more reasonable account that the human mind (and any associated decision making) is a product of brain activity which is subject to the same deterministic (and occasionally stochastic) physical processes as everything else. We don't have anything like a "soul" that is able to transcend these influences.
Suppose your next door neighbor has a swastika tattoo, a number of guns, and you often hear him ranting about (n-word)s. Would you share with him complaints about negative encounters you'd had with specific black individuals - knowing that he might take aggressive action against them? If he murders a 10 year old who threw rocks at your car, were your complaints not a factor that led to the murder?
I was disputing the argument that “Words/information cause reactions”, and that this is the reason that advertising works. I wasn’t saying advertising doesn’t work.
It doesn’t prove me wrong. Ads and campaigns hardly work. They are better than nothing, though.
The physical processes that produce brain activity are nonetheless that of the individual, and therefor determined by him. Until you can show that a human’s action is determined by some outer or foreign force, it seems to me your view is without merit.
There's no such thing as a self that's distinct from brain activity. There's no ghost in the machine. Our decisions just are brain activity, and such brain activity is a consequence of prior physical events which must originate from outside itself.
Your decision to post the above was directed in part by reading my post. You wouldn't have posted it had I not posted mine. My post influenced your post. That's all there is to the matter. Whatever kind of causal role you're arguing against is a strawman.
So if I am carrying a gun and threaten to kill you unless you kill someone else, and if you then kill someone else under such duress, then you should be prosecuted for murder and I should be left alone because I didn't kill anyone and because words cannot be justified as a criminal act?
I don’t think there is a ghost in the machine. I also don’t believe in a brain in a vat. The self extends beyond the brain and it’s activity but not beyond the skin. We’re organisms, not brains, not brain activity. So no; no decisions or prior states occur outside the self.
I saw and read your post. I’m not denying that. But your influence and persuasion neither influenced nor persuaded me. You came across my posts, decided to engage with them by your own volition. I didn’t influence you to do anything. Words don’t have the kind of causal power you claim they do.
They have exactly the kind of causal power I claim they do; the kind such that you would not have done/said X if I had not said Y.
It might not have the kind of strawman causal power that you're arguing against, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.
No, I get it. If I had not started talking about this you would not have responded. But your argument is redundant. I did not influence you to read, think about it, or respond. You chose to by your own volition.
Choices don't occur in a vacuum. They're influenced by our environment, including the things other people say. I might choose to turn left instead of right, but I only choose to turn left because you told me that it's the fastest way to reach my destination. Your words have influenced my decision making.
And if it then turns out that turning left has led me onto what you knew to be a dangerous, collapsing road, then you bear some degree of moral responsibility for my accident, just as in the previous example of me threatening you I bear some degree of moral responsibility for the murder and can rightfully be prosecuted.
I understand the folk psychology of “influence”. You make decisions based on information you pick up from the environment and believe the information has effected you in some way, somehow forcing you to turn left. But there is zero physical evidence of this cause and effect.
Who said anything about force? I'm not arguing that words are compulsive. I'm just talking about the sense already mentioned: you would not have done/said X if I had not said Y. That's really all is meant when we talk about influence and incitement, and that's really all that is required for moral responsibility to be shared. If I threaten to kill you if you do not kill someone else then I share (perhaps even the majority) of the moral responsibility for you then killing someone.
Influence means effect. Incite means to stir up. But there is no effect or stirring involved. Setting a precedent based on magical thinking is a very bad idea.
Of course there is. My words have an effect on you. That's precisely how we are able to engage in conversation and share knowledge.
Not if I spoke a different language. Same meaning, same knowledge, different symbols. You understand these words because you’ve spent time learning the language. It is the effect of your learning, your self.
It's not just the effect of my learning, it's also the effect of your speech. We cannot converse or share knowledge if we just sit in silence and stare at each other. Us actually talking is an essential component. I'm not going to pass you the butter unless you ask me to.
Who is to blame for you paying taxes? You or the government? The existence of a law and the threat of punishment doesn't force you to do anything; that would (apparently) be magical thinking. You choose to pay taxes. If you choose to pay taxes then taxation isn't theft. Will you accept that conclusion?
LFW implies there is a degree of choice independent of the external environment, not that there is a complete absence of external environment.
Chris Rock was part of the Will Smith's external environment. Had Chris not made the joke, Will would not have hit him. Chris played a causal role. This does not eliminate or lessen Will's moral accountability, but clearly Will was reacting (inappropriately) to Chris.
Actually, the work of Robert Cialdini is backed up by numerous empirical studies.
After this therefor because of this. The post hoc fallacy lets one believe in a false cause without having to prove its effect. Every act of Will Smith began and ended with Will Smith. Chris Rock didn’t cause Will Smith to rise from his chair any more than he caused the rest of the audience to remain seated. Will Smith caused Will Smith to slap Chris Rock.
I do choose to pay taxes. I choose to pay because if I don’t the government punishes me. But it also skims from every purchase. It takes from every paycheck before I even see my money. It steals my capital gains, my property, whatever I can save up for my family should I die. Not only is it theft, but also robbery, extortion, slavery.
I'm astounded that you believe Smith would have hit Chris Rock even had Chris not been on the stage or opened his mouth to speak. That's totally irrational.
Do you believe Chris rock caused Will Smith to hit him?
Of course not. Smith made a choice in the circumstances he was in. However, those circumstances came into being by factors outside of Smith.
I’m finding it hard to remember where we disagree.
Right, I do not think the circumstances caused Will Smith to assault Chris Rock, for instance.
1. The circumstances were caused.
2. Had those circumstance not occurred, Smith wouldn't have had the choice to make.
I see nothing wrong with that.
Then you can admit that words influence actions while also holding they are not fully determinative of actions. In other words, we can all exit the rabbit hole and agree on the blindingly obvious.
It doesn’t follow that the circumstances are a part of the cause. The fact that it was the Oscars does not mean the Oscars were a cause of Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock.
Nope.
Rabbit holes can be so warm and cozy. It's a jungle out there - in the Real.
Here's how David Lewis defined causal dependence:
[I]An event E causally depends on C if, and only if, (i) if C had occurred, then E would have occurred, and (ii) if C had not occurred, then E would not have occurred.[/i]
Where E= Chris Rock's cheek pain at that date and time, the circumstances (that you agreed were a necessary condition) are part of the cause.
When Trump admitted he didn't win the election, this thread should have ended. Perhaps revitalized only if the GOP truly chooses Trump as their candidate for the next presidential elections.
Now talking about Chris Rock being hit is just life support.
I'll end here.
A necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. Leaving the counterfactuals aside, we can examine the video and see that Will Smith animates himself, with no outside force or condition lifting him into the air, no strings attached to his limbs walking him up onto stage to slap Chris Rock.
No wonder you want this thread to disappear: It’s basically an embarrassing compendium of your belief in hoaxes and fake news.
That's what's known as 'influence' in this context.
You have a point. But maybe it's apt that random silly stuff goes here so the Shoutbox has more room for food talk.
I think the idea of “influence” is the sort of magical thinking I’m talking about. It implies an action at a distance I’m very uncomfortable with.
You made a good case for Smith's moral accountability, which I never disputed. You have not shown that circumstances are not part of the cause.
There's nothing magical about it. It implies just what you agreed to in this context, necessary but not sufficient conditions for acting. This argument seems to boil down to nothing more than you not liking the word 'influence', which is fine but not worth arguing with anyone over.
?
Oh, I think at least for some of the Forum members, that would be the "Ukraine crisis" thread. Not this one.
And I'll try to really end here... :shade:
I’ve said Will Smith caused each of his movements. There is no transfer of energy from any other circumstantial object to Will Smith, and therefor no other causal force animating his movements. I cannot say any other object or activity in the environment animated his biology in such a way that they can be considered causes.
1. The circumstances were caused.
2. Had those circumstance not occurred, Smith wouldn't have had the choice to make.
This reflects a connection between the circumstances and the act. You can't erase this connection by some convenient definition of causation.
I do disagree because it’s also consistent with the criticisms of counterfactual causation. Will Smith would not have slapped Chris rock had Will Smith had not been born. If will smith’s birth was the cause of the slap, I cannot agree.
[Quote]Will Smith would not have slapped Chris rock had Will Smith had not been born. If will smith’s birth was the cause of the slap, I cannot agree.[/quote]
It's absolutely true that had Smith nor been born, the slap wouldn't have occurred- this is another connection.
Pointing a gun cannot cause someone to hand over the money, but it can make them afraid and decide to obey. Likewise, a charging lion cannot cause a man to run, but... Magical thinking in such cases is not magical at all, but a shorthand for a causal chain that includes a sensitive, responsive, motivated organism. There is no reason to expect complex causal chains to be fully deterministic; even the properties of an inanimate object such as an iron beam cannot be made consistent, as microscopic variations in the material will change the bending and breaking points for example.
Conditions are connections now? I don’t think so.
The birth of Will Smith caused the slap on Chris Rocks face. You heard it hear first.
What does this have to do with anything? This isn't what any of us mean when we talk about someone's actions being influenced by the things other people say or do. You're arguing against a strawman.
Quoting NOS4A2
There's nothing magical about psychology. Social influence is a real thing with a mundane (albeit very complicated) explanation.
I'm not debating the semantics of "cause", and I said that already. You agreed that the circumstances are a necessary condition. How do you rationalize the claim that a necessary condition is not a connection?
It’s not connected to anything.
Influence: the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influence
Are we not talking about the same word?
Necessary conditions to an event do not comprise a connection to that event?!?!
Correct.
I'm talking about the ordinary, common-sense understanding of the word that even you use:
[quote=NOS4A2;382944]It is our first amendment right to petition, to influence the government. It’s one of the most important ways to do so. It worked in the case of slavery, for instance.[/quote]
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
And on the word "incite":
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
cause
noun
us
/k?z/
cause noun (REASON)
[ C/U ]
something without which something else would not happen:
Are we not talking about the same word?
This is false. A transfer of energy is how hearing works.
What this means is that it is correct for me to claim that someone's post caused me to reply, even if someone has trouble realizing that "cause" is defined as all words, within a particular context.
Cause can mean as little as "persuaded" to as much as "forced." It just depends. Fascinating stuff.
Chris Rock caused Will Smith to slap him, but he didn't have to slap him. Wrap your head around the "could have done otherwise" idea. Head exploding emoji here.
Don't bring a fact to a feeling fight.
NOS4A2 agreed that the circumstances were a necessary condition for the slap: had Chris Rock not been on stage, and had he not made the joke, Smith would not have been in position to choose to slap Rock. [U]Of course[/u] this has no bearing on blame or moral accountability. I don't insist he label these circumstances as "cause" or "a causal factor", although at least some philosophers would do so, but it's absurd to say there is no connection between necessary conditions and the event.
Therefore, I conclude NOS4A2 is being irrational, because he insists there is no connection. I'm happy to hear some defense of NOS4A2's claim, but all he's given me is his unsupported judgment ("no connection").
I won't pester him again to justify his denying a "connection", but his political positioning was shattered when he admitted that circumstances were a necessary condition. For example, access to guns is a necessary condition to most mass killings.
I never said I don’t use the word. It’s that I’m suspicious of the physics of it.
All I remember of counterfactual causation is the lectures I attended on it over 20 years ago, much of it criticizing Lewis’ idea (Suzy or Lucy and the glass window, etc.)
Myself, I don’t have a theory of causation, so I appreciate the debate.
I guess feedback from others is irrelevant in this worldview. Anything critical is fake news.
I honestly don't think he read my posts thoroughly. He keeps going on about use of the word "cause", when I'm talking more generally about there just being a "connection".
You said they were a part of the cause and played a causal role. You also brought up counterfactual causation.
“Chris played a causal role.”
“…the circumstances were a necessary condition for the act of hitting to take place - that means it is part of the cause.”
Now we’ve moved to “connections”. It’s too confusing, friend.
Finally, something physical! Sound waves do affect people. Words are not sound waves, though.
Quoting NOS4A2
Psychology might not be as rigorous a science as physics but things like therapy have been shown to work.
Words can – and do – affect people, whether it be as encouragement, persuasion, teaching, criticism, insults, etc. There is sufficient empirical evidence of this.
The "physics" of it is the transfer of energy via sound in the case of speech or light in the case of writing. Our brains are predisposed (in part via habit/learning) to respond a certain way to certain kinds of sounds and images – a response which elicits the associated mental phenomena (e.g. understanding or emotion) which in turn factors into decision making.
I’m sure it’s the other way about. People act upon words. We hear them, read them, learn them, write them, speak them, use them. They do not affect us more than any other sound from the mouth or any other scribble on paper because they are hardly different in physical constitution and energy.
As you said yourself, we are predisposed to act upon certain sounds and images because we’ve learned and trained ourselves to do so.
We started with "connections":
Quoting Relativist
Of course they do. Random noises aren't going to affect me in the same way as a doctor saying "I'm sorry, but your wife died on the operating table." In this specific case, my subsequent grief certainly wouldn't be a choice I make but something triggered by the doctor's words.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, and because of such learning and training our decisions are influenced by the things we hear and read. I'm not going to be influenced (much) by a phrase I don't understand, but I will by a phrase I do understand, regardless of how I came to understand the phrase.
All that soundwaves trigger is the delicate biology of the inner ear. After transduction it’s all you. The biology—you—does all the work. It causes your hearing; and if any aspect of the biology is messed up along the way, it doesn’t.
This is like saying that because plastic melts in fire and tungsten doesn't then it's not the fire that causes the plastic to melt but the plastic causing itself to melt.
Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann found not guilty of lying to FBI, in blow to Durham investigation
Some additional commentary from this article:
And also:
Michael Flynn's Identity Was Not Improperly Revealed By Obama Officials, Secret DOJ Report Finds
Quoting NOS4A2
Yep, so there is no crime of instigation or conspiracy. A totally new take on criminal law by none other than our very own NOS4A2.
Quoting NOS4A2
Hmm, if it is all energy, then why do different words do different things? Hell even the same word does different things depending on context. The yes in respect to the question "does it rain now", is a very different yes from the 'yes' in response to 'will you marry me?'. It is not only legally bollocks it is philosophically quite untenable too. I should not be surprised though.
To speak is to act. And, in many cases the crime is in the intent behind the words. Whether or not the words have causal efficacy is irrelevant. That's what "conspiracy" is all about.
It’s nothing like saying that. Do you think mechanical soundwaves convert themselves to nerve impulses?
I guess it’s a good thing I don’t respect your opinion.
I think that mechanical soundwaves are causally responsible for the subsequent nerve impulses.
But hair cells transduce vibration into impulses.
So? The sound waves cause the hair cells to move which cause the nerve impulses to fire.
Quoting NOS4A2
The irony here is that your account of causation would entail that it is guns, not people, which are responsible for murder because it is the internal mechanics of the gun that cause the bullet to fire, not me pulling my finger on the trigger, and that the gun wouldn't fire if something inside it was broken.
It's not easy to respect an opinion you don't understand.
EDIT: also the verbal contract no longer exists! Nothing to enforce because words can't cause a contract to come into existence. Wait a minute. A written contracts is just words too that form into sounds in my head upon reading so that isn't binding either! Fuck yeah!
The movement of hair cells. That’s the extent of the causal power of words.
Biology isn’t a machine or built like a gun, though. Guns aren’t conscious or able to control their actions.
Right, so I'm not causally responsible for breaking the window when I kick a ball into it. The extent of the causal power of my kick is the ball moving; anything that happens after that is the responsibility of the ball.
Quoting NOS4A2
Why does that matter? It's the same principle whether the material is organic or metal.
Quoting NOS4A2
Neither are the hair cells in my ear. I don't know what you're trying to argue here.
The ball broke the window. You kicked the ball. Sure.
It was designed for someone to pull the trigger and set off the mechanisms which ultimately shoots the bullet.
The cells in your ear are a part of you and I’m pretty sure you’re conscious.
And I broke the window.
Quoting NOS4A2
So? According to your account of causation as explained above, I pulled the trigger, the gun fired the bullet, and the bullet killed the target.
If I didn't cause the window to break in the previous example then I didn't cause the target to die in this example. But if I did cause the target to die in this example then I did cause the window to break in the previous example.
Quoting NOS4A2
I don't consciously control the actions of the hair cells in my ear. Their actions are determined by the sound waves that reach them.
Well yeah, a bullet tears through flesh, ceasing bodily function, which kills the target. So you’re right.
The cells transduce the waves to nerve impulses. The cells are a part of you. So you transduce the waves to nerve impulses. Consciously or not, you do it.
And consciously or not, the gun fires the bullet. But it's still the case that I, being the one who pulled the trigger, caused the bullet to fire. And it's still the case that the sound waves, being the thing that stimulated the hair cells, caused the subsequent nerve impulses.
Whether it's a gun or an ear, the physics of causation is the same.
If the cells are a part of me, and if sound affects the cells, and if speech is sound, then speech affects me.
That really made me laugh! :rofl: See, NOS, words do do something after all! :party:
[i]Prosecutor: Did your client order his troops to train their guns on the innocent villagers and did he then utter the words "Shoot! and spare no one"?
Attorney: Yes he did, that is exactly what he said.
Pro: So, your client is ready to rescind his not-guilty plea is he then?
Attorney: Oh, no on the contrary! My client wishes to join the families of the victims in asking for indemnification from the soldiers! Yes, he uttered those words, but how could he foresee that these depraved men would actually train their guns on the innocent villagers and shoot them, sparing no one? If we look at it from an energy perspective, the amount of energy dissipated is similar to saying "Give each other a group hug!". My client relied on the good sense of his soldiers, but became bitterly disappointed in them, bitterly your honor! Those sound waves themselves do not do anything, they are interpreted by the men in question and they did interpret his sounds in the most heinous of ways. Obviously my client simply needed not imagine words could have the influence to cause otherwise upright men do such a thing! Acquittal I say, Not guilty I say. Do make sure you proclaim your not guilty verdict loudly your honor, especially the 'not' part. Otherwise, the similarity in energy is just too big. Those words get misinterpreted and who knows what might happen. My client has suffered enough from this kind of mishap as it is![/i]
Guys, if you ever have a bad run in with the law. Do not consider NOS as your defense attorney. I do hope these words manage to reach you well, because after all they are just blots of ink, stimulating your retina... maybe you interpret those words as "please hire NOS"... We just learned that what words mean and do is solely up to your discretion my dear readers.
Coincidentally on reading your post my body decided to shake itself and laughter decided to happen.
:lol:
Quoting Tobias
No no — what you choose to DO with those words is up to your discretion. Because we have free will and we’re conscious entities blah blah.
Quoting Michael
Obvious to anyone not trying desperately to defend an indefensible political position.
It’s based entirely on emotion, ultimately. In this simplistic Ayn Randian world, everything we know about physics and causality have to suspend.
All to defend the “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” philosophy. It always seems to boil down to Nickelodeon principles with plutocracy-loving, anti-social narcissists.
Quoting Tate
Exactly. That’s what all this bullshit is about.
Hah, nice.
Censors throughout history have pretended words have the sorts of causal effects you pretend they do, and used it as justification to murder and maim. It’s no surprise you are of that ilk.
If I was a lawyer I wouldn’t show my face, especially with any sort of pride.
:rofl:
…followed by the usual bullshit. :lol:
Please expound more on your sticks and stones theory. It’s riveting.
Show us on the doll where the capitalist touched you.
Yes, the question is, why not? Lawyers act as a bulwark against state power, one of the very few we have. They are generally opposed to censorship as it deprives lawyers of the information they need to accurately defend or judge their case. Especially a libertarian or a conservative, like Antonin Scalia was, should favor the law. You are neither, I guess you are a populist for lack of a better word. You seem to hold on to the maxim "what my gut feeling says is the truth, is the truth". That mentality leads to the same censorship and the perversion of justice you criticize.
In the stomach and the soul.
What a shocker that he brings it back to pedophilia again. Extreme right wingers do seem obsessed with it. It's strange. :chin:
As if NOS's laughable rantings on causality has something to do with capitalism.
My (and others) interpretation of him must be fake news. It's because I'm a communist. Or because I'm anti-American. Etc. Whatever it takes not to examine oneself.
Neither logic nor disparagement work; he hasn't the logical intelligence or the emotional intelligence for either. Yet I feel it's necessary to continue doing both, lest anyone new to the forum mistakes his pathological worldview as representative.
I'd say that's a worthy cause.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H.L. Mencken
I agree with that one. It's just a long wait for the People (in no way excluding myself) to put away childish things. Another millennium or two should do.
A significant number of them will applaud him when he does. Unfortunately.
I wonder if Murdoch and Trump will share a cubicle in Hell.
In practice, the president ends up being above the law, especially if he's very influential like Trump. Does Trump's failure to be impeached reflect a diminished commitment to democracy? Definitely. I don't know where that's headed.
Post presidency, they just can't find a crime to stick on him. That had nothing to do with democracy.
Mueller's investigation identified several instances of obstruction of Justice, with evidence that many former federal prosecutors agreed was more than adequate for an indictment. I see two possible reasons to explain why this hasn't been prosecuted: 1) conviction depends on proving Trump had corrupt intent - which is challenging, and 2) anything short of a conviction could be perceived as political vendetta.
New York is apparently dropping the criminal case against Trump for his financial crimes, and it's because the case is so complex and therefore difficult to establish Trump's personal involvement at key steps. It's notable that Trump does not use email. On the other hand, the civil suit has a good chance of succeeding. However, past suits that he lost don't seem to matter to his cult members.
It's possible a good case can be made for his attempts to overturn the election, but it remains to be seen. I've always thought that his best defense would be to argue that he truly believed he won the election, whether out of stupidity or delusion. It's not a crime to publicly proclaim something he believed to be true. It was interesting to hear testimony from Barr, Jason Miller, and Ivanka - but this just shows Trump was provided the facts, not that he accepted them.
Perhaps we'll learn that Trump was told about the planning of the Proud Boys for 1/6. We'll have to stay tuned.
A sober analysis, Relativist. Respect.
"Stand down, and stand by." Trump was directly ordering the Proud Boys.
Terrible. More power to Amber Heard.
Interesting but also depressing thread. People need to realize that anti-trans culture warring is the bleeding edge of American fascism right now. Anyone who buys into, perpetuates, or stands by it is on the side of fascists, full stop. Or as Jason Stanley put it the other day - either one stands in solidarity with our trans friends, or one is complicit in end of what little there is of American democracy. That's the choice.
He said: "Stand back and stand by."
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-donald-trump-chris-wallace-0b32339da25fbc9e8b7c7c7066a1db0f
Americans don’t deserve a leader who accepts facts.
Clearly, the Proud Boys perceived it that way, but how do you establish Trump's intent? His post debate statement would get him off: “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are. Whoever they are, they have to stand down. Let law enforcement do their work.”
By every single thing that happened. Seem obvious and consistent. Trump never hides anything.
Maybe. Therefore, what?
Good question!
Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro says he'd exact revenge by issuing subpoenas to Biden, Pelosi, and the Jan. 6 Committee if Republicans win in 2024 (Business Insider; Jun 3, 2022)
Ex-Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Vowed Revenge On Biden Before Being Indicted (HuffPost; Jun 3, 2022)
And Trump threatened Clinton on live TV way back when.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1532492766579609600[/tweet]
Today's installment was groups of thugs and rabble-rousers standing outside the homes of election officials, or driving around video trucks calling them paedophiles and perverts. This, directed in many cases, at lifelong Republicans, one of whom was at the time caring for a terminally-ill daughter inside the house, while the mob stood outside chanting slogans. (She has subsequently died.)
Indeed. Trump is always more horrible than we can imagine.
https://archive.ph/Lv2lc
:death:
Showtune soothing aide tho?
--
Also I have no sympathy with SS agents and the only tragedy in that is that Trump was not successful in lunging for the wheel and dying a fiery death in a car accident of his own making.
And really if you people really just believed it - like actually believed it - when we call Trump a fascist, none of this should come as a surprise. Like, not one bit of it. Stop being surprised. Stop it.
Even if these hearings revealed that Trump crucified and vivisected children alive in the white house basement, you would still not have earned your surprise and shock.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/GabbyOrr_/status/1541940680716599298?s=20&t=y8uIyJvHxeMTQsNytlTs8A[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1541910389289635841[/tweet]
Again, if Trump didn't grab the wheel of a moving vehicle, there's a name for that - a missed opportunity.
He’s Jason Bourne.
I knew it!
I'm just wanting to see the film about Trump & Jan 6th. Of course, as this is America, the movie will try to portray everything as very "presidential", not as chaotic and mindless as reality actually was. :snicker:
I don't think so. He'll always be our manic clown.
If the movie would be done as a comedy, like "The Death of Stalin", it would be far more accurate. But as Hollywood is liberal, they have to portray the seriousness of the threat. Not emphasize the whimsical nature of it all.
But the movie will happen...
No doubt.
The Borowitz Report: Trump Fears Putin Is Too Distracted by Ukraine to Help Him with 2024 Campaign
Because the democrats won't win in 2024. Not under Biden. And they're not going to do anything substantial to Trump other than sing an angry poem at him or something. So when all this becomes established beyond reasonable doubt, and then the Republicans win - there's one single point of significance: the American people will have endorsed a coup.
That's where this goes.
If everyone would agree, that would be the end and things would move on. But they don't. There's a lot of people like NOS4A2 that think this all is a huge democratic conspiracy ...and Trump won.
Quoting Streetlight
Americans give their support to the President in office, if the economy is good. If it's bad, vote the other guy. And nothing else matters much. Likely the economy is lousy in 2024, so likely you are correct. The only thing is that the political polarization will just go to even more extremes.
Trump has never tried to "broaden his support", but just has doubled down on his core supporters. I guess many Republicans think the same.
Quoting jorndoe
Trump being Trump, the narcissist:
2024 Elections, here we come...
:rofl:
There’s almost no chance that Trump will be prosecuted for anything. “X changes everything” has been said for 7 years now.
Dems and republicans of the establishment variety, to be clear. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy because that would entail some cunning and foresight. I think they’re deranged.
Conspiracy does not require cunning foresight. There's a lot of inept conspirators.
You're missing my point. They will agree, and still vote for Trump because Biden is inept in a way that is on the scale of tragicomedy. He's completely paralyzed, a walking, talking corpse of a president. And he so because he's a Republican ally through and through.
Everything people hyperventilated would happen under a second Trump presidency is happening under a Biden one. What is the point of that miserable brain dead zombie? This. This is the point. He was put there so all this would happen. This is the point of him.
Quoting ssu
Lol, another one of ssu's "pulled it from my arse" pseduo-facts. I.e. standard ssu post.
Another standard ad hominem from down under, literally and in figure of speech.
In the 20th and 21st Century usually US presidents have usually served two terms. If they serve one term, there's a problem. Usually it's the economy.
This happened to:
Hoover = the Great Depression
Ford = the 1973-1975 recession
Carter = 1980 recession (yes, failed hostage rescue also impacted)
Bush (Sr) = early 1990's recession
:point:
Is Bolsonaro next? Putin catching a bullet soon? Federal and/or state indictments of TR45H by this Labor Day for fuck's sake?
:shade:
An oldie but goodie, from late 2016, that's aged pretty well. In tribute to our banned comrade, @Streetlight –
"The Left" = Democratic Party (of Clinton, Obama & Biden)
Nice :up:
Criminals need a fast getaway!
I wonder if he left a voicemail. Otherwise how could just calling someone count as witness tampering. :chin:
With Trump, you know he left a calling card.
Biden secures deal whereby Mexico agrees to provide $1.5 billion to help U.S. manage migrants on southern border
Witness intimidation is a crime.
Phoning someone isn’t.
You have no proof that is all that happened.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/12/jan-6-committee-notifies-doj-that-trump-tried-tampering-with-one-of-its-witnesses-cheney-says.html
Trump has a long pattern of intimidating witnesses. Meuller Reports documents it.
And zero trials or convictions for what you claim are crimes. The patterns of the false accusations, though, are never-ending.
Yes, Trump is more persecuted than Jesus.
Teflon don. Keep trying.
House will bury him.
Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of
cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, occurred in public
view. While it may be more difficult to establish that public-facing acts were motivated by a
corrupt intent, the President’s power to influence actions, persons, and events is enhanced by his
unique ability to attract attention through use of mass communications. And [b]no principle of law
excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes. If the likely effect of the acts is to
intimidate witnesses[/b] or alter their testimony, the justice system’s integrity is equally threatened.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download
Any witness tampering cases to show?
Already did. No offence, but I trust the US Department of Justice over your opinions.
I can’t find it in their cases, though. No such cases arose from the Mueller report, either.
I never said Trump was convicted of witness intimidation. I said it is obvious Trump is criminally intimidating witnesses.
Oh, it’s just obvious. Very convincing.
A corporate statist defending the Great One. How shocking.
What a shocker!
[quote=Glenn Kirschner, fmr Federal Prosecutor, July 22, 2022]On January 6th Donald Trump was not the leader of the country, he was the leader of the coup.[/quote]
:mask:
I wonder why.
Oh, that's why. They're unwilling to tell the truth and they're unwilling to lie under oath.
Another domino falls ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/26/trump-justice-investigation-january-6/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/kevin-mccarthy-lindsey-graham-trump-devotion-2024-election/661508/
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/08/trump-fbi-maralago-search-00050442
tr45h won't even win the GOP nomination in 2024 (if he runs,) because he will have to drop out of the primary race due to
There are several other major reasons too (as I've pointed out for years) but those six should suffice to make the point: despite the media circus, it's a fool's bet to bet on this Dead Traitor Walking. :mask:
Cue the vampire making excuses.
I'm amazed by those supporters though. If I ever get charged with something I want me some cheerleaders too.
Is he actually though? People have been saying this for years. The guy atempted to kill democracy in the US yet remains free as a bird.
Imagine if Trump’s DOJ raided Biden’s house in the lead up to the midterms. He was impeached for simply asking Zelensky to look into claims about Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.
They're a little more graceful.
Did Biden instruct the DOJ? Did Biden instruct the January 6 commission? If not, I really don't see what the point is you're trying to make other than expressing your undying and uncritical support for Trump as we've come to know you.
e.g. @NOS4A2 & US House Minority Leader McCarthy
:sweat: :up:
As pointed out in this 10 February 2022 article https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/can-trump-be-barred-for-running-for-president-because-he-flushed-papers-down-a-toilet/ from Mother Jones magazine
[quote=Title 18, Section 2071, of the US Code]
Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.[/quote]
[Emphasis added.]
However, as of 8 August 2022, and the execution of a search warrant by the FBI at tr45h's Florida residence for evidence of illegally taken and retained / destroyed (classified?) documents, the likelihood of prosecution and therefore tr45h's disqualification from holding Federal office ever again is substantially greater. Punishments for Sedition, Insurrection, Defrauding the US Government, etc also include the same disqualification.
Addendum to
Appeals court says House can obtain Trump's taxes from the IRS
He’s having a bad day.
And now they, just like NOS4A2, took the bait.
Time for some of that Jan 6. magic to increase the polarization. Elections are coming.
Quoting Mr Bee
Let's hope so. :vomit:
What a stupid life you live.
What I see is two-tiered justice. No FBI broke into Clinton’s house with guns drawn when she stored classified info in her house and destroyed evidence with hammers and bleachbit. They didn’t do it when the Clintons stole furniture from the white house. Trump dares to take a letter addressed to him from Obama and they show up with rifles and vests.
The FBI is stealing something or planting something, one or the other.
Or there’s evidence of serious wrongdoing on Trump’s part but wasn’t on the Clintons’ part.
It’s a document dispute about the National Archives. And if there are classified materials involved the president can declassify whatever he wants.
An ex-President can’t. He’d need to show that he declassified them before he left office.
:up:
Just asking :vomit:
If Putin's bitch has kept in his unsecure residence "top secret" documents concerning US Nuclear Weapons (or those of foreign powers), then there is no question he has violated the Espionage Act of 1917. Upon the release today (or sometime soon) of the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, tr45h will be exposed for the traitorous clear and present danger to the US (at least) he has seemed to be since 2017 and therefore unelectable as well as, once prosecuted, disqualified from holding any Federal office.
Consider:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-espionage-act-fbi-raid-b2142685.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
update: Besides the potential crime noted above, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 also comes into play if, in fact, nuclear documents were found among the two dozen or so boxes Individual-1 stole from the US government. Deep shit. :eyes: :fire:
Addendum to
update:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/728496
Quoting 180 Proof
Heck, he can be made even the Speaker of the House.
Which is unlikely (because he wouldn't give a rats ass about the job), but all things are possible in the US. I assume he doesn't get some immunity or legal privileges from the post, otherwise he might consider it (just like in Russia gangsters prefer seats in Parliament as to get immunity).
Jesus. Imagine they don't find them. What if Trump sold them to Saudi Arabia.
"But I declassified them before I left" would hardly justify it.
HAHAHAA!
That would be soooo fitting to the Trump administration. They already reinstated the Taliban into power by stabbing in the back the Afghan regime they created, so this wouldn't be anything new. Yeah, Saudi's desperately want a nuclear weapon IF Iran has one. Perfect opportunity to get some bucks from the tech transfer: better have that cash going to the US (and family Trump) than to Pakistan, or North Korea.
And then of course a revolution happens in Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda comes into power and [s]Saudi[/s] Islamic Arabia is the worst nightmare to the US, perfect bogeyman with the vast majority of 9/11 terrorist already having come from there.
Quoting Benkei
Well, raiding a house of a previous president and a potential presidential candidate does raise eyebrows. But so does Trump himself also.
There's nothing remotely funny about this so I'm puzzled by your reaction.
Quoting ssu
Yes, so since it would be political suicide if this were directed by the Democrats or done without probable cause, we can be confident there actually was a smoking gun.
Why? Whatever Trump does, it doesn't matter for his supporters. Because it's all just fake news, even if they hear about the issues. What would change their minds, other than Trump going full liberal?
A guy that gives such a backstabbing blow to America's own protege, the Afghan government, with a "peace deal" that basically was a surrender and then makes a video of Joe Biden where he accuse Sleepy-Joe of losing Afghanistan, simply isn't on the scale of ordinary political assessment. Just to make one point of one policy issue. But Trump is simple beyond ordinary assessment, he is just a vehicle of polarization now.
Quoting Benkei
Ask that from @NOS4A2. I think he's not confident about that.
I'm just happy that I am not an American.
What exactly is funny about Saudi Arabia getting nuclear weapons information?
Hey Trumptards, this is what TREASON looks like:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/12/search-warrant-shows-trump-under-investigation-for-potential-obstruction-of-justice-espionage-act-violations-00051507
LOCK PUTIN'S BITCH UP! :mask:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/13/nuclear-or-not-classified-or-not-mar-a-lago-files-spell-out-jeopardy-for-trump
happy friday :party:
The stated predicates for the 8 August 2022 search and seizure warrant for Individual-1's Florida residence is recovery of evidence of the following (ongoing) Federal crimes:
Addendum to
I wonder why they lied. :chin:
[quote=RM]Republicans are promising to investigate Hunter Biden in Congress. Since when was the House of Representatives a criminal investigation unit purposed to investigate civilians? The only purpose would be to embarass Hunter's father, and hence that would be yet another Republican abuse of power.
The Jan 6 investigation is in contrast legitimate because it involved an assault on Congress instigated by another branch of government.[/quote]
They really are just trying everything to try to get him off the hook.
Well, at least here the normal bickering over normal political issues (taxes, immigration, economic policy, etc.) is similar, yet when shit hits the fan (pandemic, February 24th) the left and the right, or basically the administration and the opposition can quickly reach a consensus on the most important issues and act as like "Team Finland". With the most important issues done, then the political parties can (and will) go to the usual critique and political arguments. But as no party can think of getting absolute majority and have to work with other parties is coalition governments, they cannot go in the mudslinging so far to portray the other parties as raving maniacs that will destroy democracy or to insane conspiracy theories like Pizzagate.
In the US it has gone down that rabbit hole and I don't know how it will get back.
The whole US Middle East policy has been for a long time an absolute train wreck. It's not a tragedy, it's a tragicomedy.
Quoting Michael
Now the focus is on Trump. And when Trump decides it's in his best efforts to declare that he is seeking Presidential candidacy, I fear nobody will dare to compete with him. And then he can brush of this as a politically motivated witch hunt, which not only @NOS4A2 thinks it is. Likely the GOP would want him to do it after the midterms, but I'm not sure Trump will wait for it.
Yes, they are doing everything...and even if many don't look at TV anymore, Fox News has more viewers that MSNBC or CNN.
What else can it be?
We're all baffled. :grin:
A fact that he illegally possessed classified documents and defied a subpoena by not returning them all.
According to his defense he had a standing order to declassify documents so he could take them for work at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI suspiciously waited until before the midterms to retrieve those documents, making a show of it no doubt. This is the same FBI that deceived the country and foreigners like @ssu with Russiagate.
He doesn't have the authority to declassify documents that are TS/SCI.
Why is it suspicious? They didn't have enough evidence to obtain a warrant earlier, and even issued a subpoena to have him return them which he defied. And after obtaining a warrant it doesn't make sense to then wait months until after the midterms as the very point is that them being there is a national security threat.
Although I'm not sure what the midterms have to do with anything. Are you suggesting that the FBI did this just so that the midterm elections will be influenced to favour the Democrats? Given that you've previously argued that the very notion of influence is "magical thinking", you refute your own rhetoric.
By all accounts, the DOJ was trying execute the warrant as low key as possible. This included waiting for Trump to be away. If Trump hadn't made it public, we wouldn't have known it happened.
It's irrelevant if Trump declassified the documents. The Espionage Act prohibits the possession of documents related to national defense, without regard to their classified status. It's also a violation of the Presidential Records act to have any papers.
There's also the matter of the lie by Trump's attorney who signed a letter indicating there were no additional documents marked as classified in his possession. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. I anticipate Trump will throw the attorney under the bus.
The president can declassify what he wants. He’s the commander in chief.
Yes, I believe it was politically motivated, because they know people such as yourself will spread it uncritically and use it to guide their activity.
Good point.
Laws and Lists in Search Warrant Offer Clues to Trump Document Investigation
No he can't.
Not Even the President Can Declassify Nuclear Secrets
The TS/SCI documents that were taken might involve the identity of spies or information about nuclear power (as some outlets have reported).
Also, anything that one President declassifies a future President can reclassify. So if Trump wants to play the game that he "had a standing order" that declassifies anything he took home, Biden can play the game that he ordered that anything taken to Mar-a-Lago is reclassified.
An Atlantic article. Nice. Here’s a NYT article.
That's about procedures. Some people say that a President just has to say "it's declassified", others say that it actually has to go through a process where the classification markings are changed and the relevant departments are made aware of this.
Quoting NOS4A2
So you want to argue over semantics? Regardless of what word you use, Trump broke the law by possessing the documents and by not returning them when subpoenaed. That's why they raided his home. It wasn't a political hit job as per your conspiracy theory.
None of this has been proven and all of it is without precedent. None of us have seen the affidavit. So your claim he broke the law is without merit, and given a long and poor history of such claims, just another conspiracy in my books.
Possessing those documents is against the law. So are you saying that he didn't possess them? Then what were these non-existent things that he supposedly declassified?
Yes. There's never been a President quite as criminal as Trump (although maybe Nixon).
Why is it against the law to posses declassified documents?
Because Congress passed such a law which was then signed by the President of the time?
See here
Because it is a public and sensitive matter. It should be in an authority control, not in private hands or businesses.
That they are using the overly-broad world war 1 era law used to justify jailing whistleblowers and critics of the government is enough for me to know that it reeks of politicization of the Department of Justice.
That’s exactly the line of reasoning used to justify the state persecution of Assange and Snowden. The government’s criminality and murderous barbarism are certainly sensitive to some parties.
The material was classified for a reason. What reasonable rationale could Trump have for declassifying them without seeking input from the military, or whatever department classified them in the first place? It's extremely careless, and the law makes such carelessness an enforceable crime.
Trump has not been indicted. The dynamic changes if he is. At this point, the net result is that DOJ has remediate the security risk Trump created. Do you deny that there was a security risk?
Completely agree with you, NOS.
But I think both sides are wrong. Trump possessing sensitive declassified documents and the prosecution against Assange and Snowden are causes of why the citizenship is losing the hope and credibility in democracy.
It’s often used against political opponents and whistleblowers.
It doesn’t matter his rationale.
I doubt it was reckless. That the judge who signed off on the warrant defended associates of Epstein is enough for me to know that Trump is scaring all the right people.
Failure to get input from the agencies that classified it in the first place (as is normally done) makes it reckless. Do you think Trump is clairvoyant?
Not when those same agencies are engaged in reckless or criminal behavior.
Enlarge on this, because I see no logic in it.
Make 2 assumptions:
1. The documents include information relating to our nuclear capability.
2. There are criminals within the DoD.
How does #2 make it perfectly fine to risk exposing our nuclear secrets?
Of course, everyone except Trump is reckless and criminal.
Wow. You set an extremely low bar for concluding a judge (plus multiple FBI agents, their management chain, the Trump appointed FBI director, and the AG) is corrupt, while maintaining an impossibly high bar for a negative judgment for Trump.
You do see how silly this looks, don't you? Seriously, is it simply inconceivable that Trump may have done something wrong?
When it comes to Trump, @NOS4A2 is mostly here for comic relief. On other topics, he says the odd sensible thing though.
I can’t help it. I have never had any faith in their idea of justice, nor the American justice system and her institutions. The FBI has been especially odious in this regard and the historical record proves this.
By saying "I can't help it", is this an admission that you aren't analyzing this rationally? Because your standard of proof is inconsistent.
There's good evidence Trump did something wrong here, but you excuse if it's not technically illegal ("Trump declassified it"), still excuse it if it IS technically illegal (the espionage act doesn't depend on a formal classification), and cannot conceive that it might have been reckless to store such documents in an insecure way.
On the other hand, you judge that anything the FBI does is odious. Do you suggest all criminals incarcerated by the FBI be released, or is it just that they're "odious" with respect to Trump? Are you basing this on the errors identified by the IG with respect to Carter Page?
I see. I wish we could cue up a laugh track while reading the posts.
Is this a good idea?
IMO, the document shouldn't be released to the general public if it jeopardizes potential prosecutions (Trump is not the only possible target of prosecution; the lawyer who allegedly told DOJ there were no additional classified documents is at risk, and perhaps others).
But it might be a good idea to review it with some members of Congress. However, there's a risk of it being interpreted through partisan eyes, and (worse) they might present a partisan spin on the info and exacerbate the polarizing rhetoric we already hear.
I hear you.
But do you understand that this is the way the two parties want you to polarize? The best way for the duopoly to continue is to have the voters be against each other.... and not to look at something else.
Quoting NOS4A2
Ummm...hold on, @NOS4A2
Why do you forget that the FBI gave the "October Surprise" that was detrimental to Hillary Clinton and continued it's investigations on Clinton, which in my view had far more effect on the election than Russian interference did? We are in a Philosophy forum. It isn't logical that the department that was so influential in making Clinton lose would then be against Trump, if it didn't try to be neutral / apolitical. Besides, Trump forced them to make the inquiries.
It's all now obvious... Yes, the Russian rooted for Trump, yet that wasn't the reason why Trump was elected in 2016. Simply put it, Hillary was a lousy candidate. So what on Earth is your problem?
[quote=Noam Chomsky]It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.[/quote]
I know this ain't your superpower, NOS, but try to process the following inconvenient truth:
• A Trump appointed Federal Prosecutor in South Florida issued the search and seizure warrant after Trump's lawyers lied in writing about Trump having any more US government documents in June.
• A Federal [s]District[/s] Magistrate Judge [s]appointed by Trump[/s] cconsidered the Trump appointed Federal Prosecutor's showing of probable cause and granted legal authority to the FBI to execute the search and seizure warrant.
• A Director of the FBI appointed by Trump signed-off on an team of agents to execute the warrant at Trump's residence.
• Trump himself made the FBI search public lying that it was a sudden evening "raid" when, in fact, the search and seizure warrant was executed around 9 am and concluded around 6:30 pm.
• One of Trumps' attorneys was present the entire time the FBI team was searching and retrieving evidence from Mar-a-Lago.
• The FBI agents were dressed as civilians, without and "FBI" identifying markings on their jackets or vehicles. Neither the FBI nor DoJ publicized that they executed search and seizure warrant at Trump's residence.
This was not a "raid". These are facts as the Trump appointed FBI Director and US DoJ have recited them and have been corroborated by Trump's attorneys and by South Florida media and police. As for the warrant itself, read "Attachment A" and weep (relevant section on crimes for which there was probable cause cited here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/728607
Since Friday, Trump has shut his piehole and gone dark (though his fundraising operations have gone on full tilt ripping-off mindless MAGAnauts who love to be lied to like you, NOS :rofl:) because it's thoroughly explained to Trump that he is now irreparably fucked and that "the deep state" TRUMP HAD HELPED MAKE WITH HIS APPOINTMENTS has finally "got" him ... the way they "got" e.g. Al Capone, John Gotti & Saddam Hussein.
The old orange fascist conman has fucked around one too many times and has now found out. So, @NOS4A2 (TPF's resident alt-Right, MAGA-clown), STFU with your cluster-FOX'd Noise AND STFD. :shade:
Update: correction of factual errors.
Magistrate judges are appointed by the court, not the president. (https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-trump-appoint-judge-who-approved-fbi-mar-lago-raid-1732495). This magistrate judge happened to recently recuse himself from a civil racketeering case that Trump has brought against the DNC, but never said why. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article264444421.html).
He never said it was a sudden evening raid. He said it was an “unannounced raid”. (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/news-gf6pdxrpau2342)
Trump’s lawyer said she was basically kept in the parking lot during the raid.
The search warrant was personally approved by AG Garland, who is suspiciously missing from your inconvenient truth. “I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” (https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-merrick-garland-delivers-remarks)
Trump has been very vocal on Truth Social and his official website all weekend, despite your claims he has “gone dark”. (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago
IFF YOU CAN "HANDLE THE TRUTH." :mask:
1. The "raid" wasn't "unannounced". His residence was not "raided".
2. Two of Individual-1's lawyers were present on the premises the entire time and was obligated to contact her client as soon as the warrant was served (Eric Trump got the call).. Individual-1 knew the FBI was at Mar a Lago as soon as they had arrived that morning and watched some of the search remotely via live feed through surveillance cameras.
3. The Federal search warrant was not authorized by the Attorney General. Merrick Garland had only approved (signed-off on) his Prosecutor's filing for the warrant with the Federal District Court.
4. I stand corrected: Judge Reinhart was previously a defense attorney in matters related to Jeffrey Epstein, Individual-1's deceased pedophile trafficking BFF (once upon a ride on the "Lolita Express" ago)
https://www.businessinsider.com/judge-bruce-reinhart-fbi-search-warrant-trump-mar-a-l
[quote=Business Insider, 11August2022]During his time as a federal prosecutor, Reinhart worked on the case against now-deceased Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
But, he switched sides in the middle of the case, quitting the US Attorney's office and going on to defend several of Epstein's employees.[/quote]
In other words, while not a Trump appointee, Judge Reinhart is not a "Democratic operative" or evangelical "Never Trumper" either. No "witchunt", Trumptards! :victory: :sweat:
Wow. That ought to be unusual.
They took his passports?
First step on the road to the slammer.
The irony.
If Trump would have used his passports to go to another country would have been ironic. (Russia, UAE or Morocco among others don't have an extradition treaty with the US.)
This is where all the powerful criminals tend to go... UAE is an artificial state made by government Mafia and black money... I would never understand why we allow these kind of countries the "right" of declining cooperative extradition.
Stealing documents.
The search warrant says:
So it seems reasonable to assume that Trump's passports were mixed in with documents marked as classified. And that after all the documents were properly examined, stuff that wasn't relevant was returned.
It’s not reasonable to take people’s passports when you’re there to seize government classified documents. The FBI ought to know what they’re taking before they take it, and if they don’t, they are either incompetent or corrupt.
They take what the search warrant tells them to take, which included "any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located, as well as any other containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents and containers/boxes."
You'd only be right if the passports were just sitting on the table out in the open.
I’m not sure why you’re leaving out the first sentence, but passports aren’t “physical documents with classification markings”. It doesn’t matter anyways. The 4th amendment demands that law enforcement know what they’re taking before they take it.
Is your reading comprehension that bad?
"any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located"
This means that if a box contains a document that has classified markings then you take the box and everything in it. It doesn't say that you take out all the documents marked as classified and then leave the box.
Quoting NOS4A2
A judge signed off on the warrant that included the phrase "any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located". If you think the warrant itself is unconstitutional then I suppose Trump's legal team can appeal it. Although it's a little late for that now. Maybe they can at least get a moral victory.
Did they raid the house for Donald Trump’s passports? The answer is “no”. There is no need to weasel for their incompetence or corruption.
Jesus, do you really think such poor reasoning is going to work on me? You're embarrassing yourself.
You’re defending the FBI taking things they ought not to have. That’s embarrassing.
What they ought to have taken is what the search warrant told them to take. The search warrant told them to take "any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located". Therefore, they ought to have taken any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located. And if Trump's passports were in such a box then they ought to have taken Trump's passports.
No, they ought not to have. They should have grabbed “All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 2071, or 1519”. The parenthesis “and all contents therein” is simply a way to weasel out of constitutional violations and other incompetent or corrupt moves, such as taking Trump’s passports.
So you think the search warrant itself is unconstitutional. Well, Trump's legal team can try to appeal it if they want, not that it will do any good now.
No I think it was ironic and wrong to take Trump’s passports.
If it's not an unconstitutional search warrant then they had the legal right (and so it isn't stealing) to take Trump's passports if they were contained within a box that contained documents marked as classified.
This really isn't difficult to understand.
Legal or not, it just goes to show their incompetence or corruption. They were there for classified documents and walked out with personal documents. Pretty basic stupidity
It's not incompetence, corruption, or stupidity. The search warrant told them to take the box and so they take the box. They're carrying out proper procedure. Your rhetoric here is neither reasonable nor convincing.
Then why did they return the passports? Because they shouldn’t have taken them. In this case the contents wasn’t theirs to take, and they knew it. Corruption, incompetence, stupidity.
Because they shouldn't keep them. This really is quite straightforward stuff.
Are you under the impression that that when objects are taken in a search warrant, law enforcement operates with perfection regarding what they seize? My guess is that it's pretty common to inadvertently take things that weren't intended. No harm was done, because the 3 passports were returned.
So exactly what I said. They take the boxes then check the contents and return what they need to.
"Whatever we can do to help — because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn't, terrible things are going to happen," Trump said, adding that people "are not going to stand for another scam."
Rather than bring the temperature down, Trump turns it up, making threats, calling the investigation a scam, and signaling his followers to not stand for it, but says nothing to condemn the threats made by his followers on the FBI and DOJ.
He was threatening insurrection.
I don't think you're fluent in dum-ass-demogogue. :grin:
I don't think so. This is an example of "Trumpspeak". He said it in such a way as provide plausible deniability, but we know how his supporters are reacting. As the article noted: "Even Trump's allies on Fox News have urged him to tamp down the "violent rhetoric" amid his verbal assault on the FBI."
I agree, however, that he would not think an insurrection terrible, but he is well aware that those who are not his followers and those who do not wish the overthrow of the government would see it as terrible or even terrorism.
But if Trump will in fact face punishment (including jail time), what does that mean for America?
A civil war, for sure.
Don't be too panicky...
Recap (in light of treasonous Individual-1's pending indictments in multiple jurisdictions) & still-relevant caveat:
Jan 2017: faux 'Weimar '33 redux' ... first impressions :sweat:
Civil war...we can only hope. Unfortunately, just like nothing happened to Bush and Cheney for indisputably being outright war criminals, nothing will happen to Trump for all of his vague quasi-criminal offenses (which every president is more or less guilty of).
Nothing will happen to Trump.
Won't he die someday?
He lives an extra 30 days every time someone says “he’s going to jail” and he doesnt go to jail. Currently clocked at 600 more years.
But seriously, and Im no Trump guy, but how many times have you steadfastly predicted his downfall and been wrong? Am I misremembering? Is it possible you aren’t clearly thinking it through each time?
“The good die young…but pricks live forever!”
Victim: "The Stasi spied on me."
Stasi Spokesman: "All of it was above board.”
update:
After a quick search of my post history, DJ, I'm batting 1.000 so far. Only within the last eight days have I "steadfastly predicted his downfall"; previously, my predictions ranged from aspirational to qualified. However, since Individual-1 left the WH in 2021 after a failed coup and second Impeachment in 13 months:
• 2021 prediction on 2022 indictments
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/559282
• 2021 year-end predictions for 2022-2024
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/629464
• 2021 comments on insurrection and disqualification from Federal office:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/486293
• 2022 prediction about indictments & the 2024 elections
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/689938
• 2022 prediction since the August 8th search warrant
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/728272
Newt Gingrich is currently touring right wing media, saying that the FBI is totally corrupt and has now become the new American Stasi. This greatly confused Margorie Taylor Greene who thought the FBI rather was the new Gazpacho police.
Sounds about right. The FBI has such a sordid past that it boggles the mind that anyone could trust them.
Outcries about George Floyd protests. They race to defend the Capitol rioters. Outage about “defund the police,” now calling to defund the FBI. Also instigating violence and fantasizing about civil war.
Empty people with no principles whatsoever. Not even the self awareness enough to recognize the extreme hypocrisy. As pathetic as ever.
Sounds about right? Your and Gingrich's positions about the FBI's history are nearly polar opposites. Gingrich has always been a tough on crime pro law enforcement kind of guy. He never bat an eyelid when they investigated Bill or Hillary Clinton. He only turned on the FBI when they (and the justice department) stopped treating Trump himself as being above the law. You, on the other hand, are saying that the FBI always has been untrustworthy and what is happening now is more of the same.
All this weird hand-wringing about rhetoric means little in the wake of such actions, in this case the unprecedented actions of federal law enforcement. Bill or Hilary were never raided, even when they lifted furniture from the Whitehouse or when they ran the fat cat hotel out of the Lincoln bedroom.
Hillary provided access to the entire email server and there was no issue surrounding paper documents because there was no probable cause she did that too. So she was cooperative. Trump on the other hand, knowingly retained documents that he knew he was supposed to return.
I'm not sure what situation with Bill you're referring to. He had sex with someone and I can't recall confidential information was involved.
:rofl:
OK, let's play the whataboutism game.
The Clinton's returned, or paid for, what they took from the White House after it became an issue, and there were no national security implications.
Had Trump returned everything when initially asked, there would be no issue here either. It would have been deemed an inadvertent error, and it would be unlikely to result in any charges. Nevertheless, it would be just as worthy of public attention as Hillary's carelessness with having a server, and political fair game to remind voters about his vilification of Hillary for her poor judgment while then hypocritically doing something at least as bad.(Technically, worse, since Trump signed into law a new that made it a felony, and not just a misdemeanor).
Instead of returning everything, as he was required to do, he lied and said everything had been returned. This included some documents related to national security. Imagine if Hillary had continued to use her unsecure server after claiming she'd shut it down, and continuing to have classified documents on it.
These candidates lost badly, but now are claiming fraud
[i]Stephen Fowler
NPR
Jul 2, 2022[/i]
[quote=Kandiss Taylor (Jun 4, 2022)]I want y'all to know that I do not concede. I do not. And if the people who did this and cheated are watching, I do not concede.[/quote]
[quote=Tina Peters]We didn't lose. We just found more fraud.[/quote]
[quote=Joey Gilbert]It is impossible for me to concede under these circumstances. I owe it to my supporters. I owe it to all Nevadans of all parties to ensure that every legal vote is counted legitimately.[/quote]
[quote=Harrison Musselwhite, Lauren Martel]...[/quote]
[quote=Couy Griffin (Jun 17, 2022)]My vote to just remain a no isn't based on any evidence. It's not based on any facts, it's only based on my gut feeling and my own intuition, and that's all I need.[/quote]
Trumpeople.
For Cheney it means continuing her efforts to keep him out of office. If she is to help accomplish this it will not be with the support of the Trump Party. From an outsider's perspective, it does not look like what was once the Republican Party is ready to separate itself from Trump. Her sights are set on the national level rather than whatever is going on in Wyoming. She will not follow the current trend of working within the party by working against the Democrats. This is likely to be seen in a favorable light by moderates and Independents.
I think she will have a strong public presence, but she may be more effective speaking out seeking or holding public office. Much depends on the results of the current investigations into Trump and his company. Like the proverbial rats abandoning ship, a significant number of Republicans may come to see him as a liability. Taking the long view, Cheney might see the current situation as a temporary anomaly, and herself in the right position to regain political power in one form or another as things shift back to "normal".
They really don't. Trump is still very influential.
Quoting Fooloso4
Will she become a Democrat? I just don't see how the Republican party can endure as it is.
Quoting Fooloso4
I'm not sure that's going to happen. Do you think it will?
I don't think so. I think she will try to return the Republican Party to what she thought it represented pre-Trumpism.
Quoting Tate
Just about everyone who is not with Trump has left. The party may endure but its principles clearly have not.
Quoting Tate
I don't know. Prior to Trump I would not have thought that things could be as they are. Right now it seems that the differences that divide us are greater than anything that might unite us. But, of course, being united is not necessarily in itself something good.
It’s just the death throes of another establishment political dynasty. The Cheneys, the Clintons, the Bushs—all are heading towards the trash-bin of history.
Dynasty?
It’s like a bloodline.
Yea. I was more concerned about the fact that she lost to a Trump sycophant. Doesn't that bother you?
I love it. She lost to someone I never heard of, despite being coddled and fawned over by the legacy media, despite being a war monger and torture defender.
Sure. She's the scum of the earth and everything. It's just Trump sort of booted her out for attacking him over his Three Stooges coup attempt. Doesn't that bother you? :love:
The people of Wyoming booted her out. I won’t lose a wink over it.
Good point. It's democracy at work. I don't know about this democracy thing. It doesn't seem to be working in line with my values. What does one do in those cases? What's the correct philosophy there?
Sure hope that's not how she got more votes than Cheney.
Torture defender... That's one area where she and Trump were on the same page.
I cannot deny that.
Well, don't forget the Trumps then:
Quoting ssu
It is interesting to point out the fact of how a politician is reviled after the end of his legislature.
I cannot remember a "dynasty" who has good memories about their actions when they were in power. Whenever the legislature ends, most of the people get tired of them. We can say it is normal because a politician tend to worn-out during the course of a government. But this is insane.
Nobody ends up remembering them with good words.
So what is the real responsibility afterwards? How worthy is to put them in power?
I think the elections are there just to remove the old ones and put others. But what I mean is that none of them would make a real difference from the previous one.
Is there any real interest to do anything about Trump?
Why the colossal failure of the US justice system and the American public in general?
Nope. Trump is just a political football for the democrats to whine about. If anything, Trump is merely a symptom of a greater problem.
Quoting baker
Decadence.
:100:
You're hoping for civil war?
Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator
:sweat: :up:
Thanks for the link.
Do there exist any analyses on this?
Attorneys
Get
Attorneys!
True ...
However, Individual-1 is a proven traitor and so it's incumbent on the +81 million of us who weren't brain-dead enough to have voted in 2020 to reelect this malfeasant venal man-baby to make an "unprecedented" example of him. :victory: :mask:
FYI – I'm (we're) waiting on pending indictments to drop in (one at least before the midterm elections in November)
[quote=2022-23 Trumpster fire]
• Federal DoJ investigation of "2020 fake electors conspiracy"
• Federal DoJ investigation of "2020-2021 J6 insurrection conspiracy and obstruction of justice"
• Fulton County, GA DA's investigation of "2020 suborning election fraud & fake electors conspiracy"
• (pending) New York State AG investigation of "2002-2016 tax, insurance, bank, etc fraud ..." for which Individual-1 & co are currently being civilly sued by the NYS AG
• Federal DoJ investigation of "2021-2022 espionage, obstruction of justice, etc ..."
• (so far – stay tuned!) [/quote]
as well as release (leak) of Putin's Bitch's embarrassing & damning tax returns – also (I hope) before the midterm elections – along with the J6 Select Committee's Preliminary Report. :clap:
My
Ass
Got
Arrested!
There will be.
If having no precedent were ground for taking no action, there would never be any precedent for anything at all.
*gah* A couple links over, polls suggest DeSantis is up-and-coming
The rise of sentiments like those of ...
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Wendy Rogers, Kandiss Taylor, Rod Dreher, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis
seem like a symptom of societal decline to me. "Clear the brain-fog, US voters."
:rofl: :death: That was a clever rhythm!
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/letitia-jamess-trump-investigation-is-nearing-its-endgame
DeSantis Suspends 4 Elected School Board Members After Report on Parkland (Aug 26, 2022)
[tweet]https://twitter.com/DoomScroling/status/1563238200193470467[/tweet]
I agree there's a near certainty that tax fraud was committed, but it remains to be seen if a sufficiently strong case can be made against Trump, specifically. Trump avoids putting his orders/requests/expectations in writing, which gives him some degree of deniability. My money is on the civil suit succeeding, where his pleading the 5th can be used against him, and the burden of proof is lower.
:fire:
If legal action against ex-presidents becomes a "thing", we are entering a new age of tyranny. Yet, this has been brought on by the negligence of Presidents abusing the power of the office for decades.
True. Absolutely..., but give me an honest description of the alternative and tell me it is any less appalling. As a nation, US is stuck in a rutt, and the stakes are tightening. Fascism and commusism are on the rise, and we will probably end up with one or the other when the dust settles, whenever that may be.
Communism is on the rise in the U.S.? That's news to me.
Prosecuting people for their crimes is tyranny?
You never lived Fascism and communism as we did here in Europe.
Is it only Republicans who think that way?
It seems that one of the likeliest explanations for why the Democrats (and the US general public) are so ineffective against Trump is precisely because they fear what being a tad more effective could bring about.
From the perspective of the Democrats, the really offensive thing about events like Jan. 6 is not that it was orchestrated by Republicans, but that a bunch of plebeians stormed an establishment in which they, the plebeians, are anything but welcome.
Nobody, not the Republicans and not the Democrats, wants the disenfranchized, the poor, the plebeians.
Americans have ... a peculiar understanding of communism.
Four suits. Jan. 6. Georgia. New York suit. Now Mar-A-Lago. Still early in the last but, the new pic is worth a thousand words.
Conspiracy to defraud the United States. Seditious conspiracy. Obstruction of justice. Tax fraud. Treason.
He's not the only one who will be charged with some of those. Many are aiding and abetting and/or complicit co-conspirators. As soon as charges are brought, much if not most of the aiding and abetting will cease.
So they accept that these documents haven't been declassified.
Lots of empty folders with classified banners. What's he done with the contents?
Best case: he flushed them down the toilet.
Sheds light on his claim that "people are flushing their toilets 10 times, 15 times".
What's the bet that Trump Tower gets searched next?
Given the strict chain of custody standards concerning the information itself, it can be known if anything is still missing. If that ends up being the case, and the missing information is important enough, given the way the Mar-A-Lago events unfolded, I would think that there will be more searches to come. Rumor has it that there are still some records missing.
Another important bit...
An unusual number of agents and informants have been killed and/or turned up missing since Trump left office. If the seized or missing information pertains directly to any of that, Trump will be in so much more hot water than he already is.
America first!
He sure loves his dictators. Definitely wishes he had their power.
Yeah. (And too bad he hadn't those Wehrmacht generals he'd wished he had. Perhaps then we would have had that unfortunate helicopter accident with Marine One.)
But at least some time ago understanding that your opponents are smart would be seen as a good thing as the worst mistakes happen when you depreciate your opponent.
Even Trump in the bit forecast correctly how the anti-Trump media would play it him saying so.
Individual-1 aka "Agent Orange" aka "Putin's Bitch" had petitioned a Federal Judge, whom Individual-1 had appointed during the last months of his failed, disgraced, and perhaps treasonous, presidency to do him "a service" of significantly delaying the ongoing criminal investigations of his potentional Obstuction of Justice, Espionage, etc (and real-time damage assessments of espionage against US national security) which she servilely and expeditiously granted without legal grounds or precedent. :shade:
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/05/trump-special-master-fbi-ruling
"Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me."
~Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather (1972)
:mask:
"[A] foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities."
The original report saying:
So what sands have shifted? It seems to me that the new report simply confirms that they found what they were reportedly looking for, and clarifies that the documents were related to some other nation.
same thing?
We’re now going to pretend that we haven’t been speaking about US nuclear documents this whole time?
I haven't. I don't know about you. You make a habit of misrepresenting whatever anyone else is saying. This is what I quoted in my original post on the matter:
FBI searched Trump’s home for classified material about nuclear weapons: report
You also said this, linking to a report alleging the Trump administration was sharing nuclear tech with Saudi Arabia.
Either way, I wasn’t talking about you.
Then who were you talking about? The news agencies reporting on the matter? Because, again, the original report specified that it wasn't clear whether or not it was concerning the United States or foreign nations.
But if you want to go ahead and say that other posters here were jumping the gun, then go ahead, but it seems like you're trying to deflect attention away from the fact that Trump was illegally in possession of, and insecurely storing, at least one document related to the defence and nuclear capabilities of some other nation. That's a huge deal. Your attempts to try to defend Trump and make it out to be some Democrat/FBI-led political hoax or whatever is absolutely ridiculous.
Quoting NOS4A2
Because I didn't rule out that it was about U.S. weapons. But neither did I say that it was about U.S. weapons. I'm actually capable of nuance.
It’s a nothingburger. Zilch. Nada. All this crap about “national security risk” has fallen from the table at which millions of anti-Trump devotees were gorging themselves. Now it’s about a different country’s national security. It could be documents about Chad for all you know. One way or another, you’re following selective leaks from a political DOJ and falling for it.
I don't think Chad has any nuclear capabilities. The document is likely to be regarding one of the nuclear powers.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is one document amongst many, many more. That same report also says:
We just don't know the details of these documents (obviously). We'll know more about the national security risk after the intelligence agencies have completed their damage assessment (assuming the results will be made public).
I assume you must have read the documents, perhaps even the missing ones, if you know this. You did not tell us that you are authorized to view classified documents.
Not to mention Trump’s medical and tax records and passports. God knows what they found in Melania closet and Barron’s room.
The reason why is simple: he has no regard for national security. He carelessly threw all these things together as if they are his personal effects.
The evidence of significant wrongdoing has already been produced. He is wrongfully and illegally in possession of classified documents.
There was plenty in the Mueller report. Trump was not, as he claimed, exonerated. The fact that he was not prosecuted does not mean there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing.
How did that come about then?
Here is a quick and clear summary:
A federal judge addressed this memo a while back.
Judge tosses Trump's lawsuit to keep his taxes secret
It might be DOJ policy not to indict a President, but that's all.
You must be unfamiliar with the facts. Trump has been treated better than anyone else would possibly be treated.
For starters, he violated the Presidential Records act on Jan 21, 2021. Chalk that up to carelessness, due to his failure to plan his departure. But the National Archives requested their return in May 2021, and that's when they should have been returned. Had this been anyone other than a former President, the docs would have been retrieved within hours. This was just the beginning of his special treatment, but I'll leave it there for now.
As someone commented on CNN recently, this court order should have negligible effect on the DOJ investigation. It merely bars (pending review by a Special Master) investigators from making use of the content of the seized documents while doing the investigation. She didn't rule that the investigation should be halted. The specific content of the documents is mostly irrelevant to what Trump is being investigated for. He's not going to be charged for possessing anything that falls under the purview of any sort of privilege (his own communications, or communications to him). It's rather the fact that those documents are classified (and their degrees of classification) that landed him on hot water, and/or the fact that they belong to the National Archives, and the circumstances surrounding his possession of them. Nothing in the judge's ruling impedes the investigation into those matters.
This is not to say that there is any merit to the judge's ruling, though. It's just not as damaging to the investigation as people seem to think.
Even if there is relevance to the documents, they need to compare the associated delay of a Master's review with the alternative delay of the appellate process- likely to go to SCOTUS.
I prefer not to go there, because it feeds the Trumpian narrative that judge's are either biased for, or against him. The (bad) decision is explainable as incompetence. Even Trump apologists Judge Napalitanoand Bill Barr consider it a bad opinion.
I certainly hope her judgement was deliberate. It is after a judge's job to, wait for it... deliberate. I don't doubt for a moment that her judgement may have been heavily biased. She's a conservative judge whose nomination had been recommended by the Federalist Society. She can also have been unconsciously biased due to the fact that Trump nominated her. But bias and corruption still are two different things.
Trump and his supporters can’t wait to turn the US into a dictatorship.
Here's the thing: even if she actually did it for corrupt reasons, it's impossible to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, it should be easy to show the judgment is legally flawed.
Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York until he was fired by Trump has a new book, "Holding the Line". Some highlights from an advance copy review by the NYT:
Eric Trump inadvertently made a similar claim a while back:
Because Trump directed the FBI, it must be that Biden does it too.
He has repeatedly and without evidence made accusations about election fraud, and now ... he is being investigated for election fraud. He may once again avoid prosecution but some around him will no doubt be convicted.
This is a good little reminder, despite the breathtaking stupidity of the review. Kerry had a rogue “back-channel” with Iran during the Trump years. The Iranian Foreign Minister admitted that during their meeting he was surprised when Kerry started talking about Israeli military operations against Iranian assets in Syria. This was happening during when the US was moving to withdraw from the shoddy JCPA. Iran has zero diplomatic relations with the US and are adversaries. Kerry did it anyways, and got away with it. Why wouldn’t Berman look into it?
These are principles you hold to no one else while everyone else literally copies and pastes another's work.
Explain how a review of a book you have not read is breathtakingly stupid.
She claims that Kerry’s activities “angered Trump” and his pressure was motivated by “partisan concerns”, and not, say, concerns over national security, shadow diplomacy, treason, undermining allies, and so on.
We got nothing for it. Zero return on investment. Why do you think it is a good accomplishment?
I have read it.
Why was it a good deal?
:starstruck:
Who is "she"? The reviewer, Benjamin Weiser, is not making any claims. He is reviewing a book by Geoffrey S. Berman. It is Berman who made the claim. How does this lead to your conclusion that the review is breathtakingly stupid?
Quoting NOS4A2
You turn a rumor into a fact. Trump himself tweeted that what Kerry was doing was:
More from the review you did not read:
Then quote him.
Kerry himself admitted it. The Iranian foreign minister confirmed it. You’re turning a fact into a rumor.
And what did the US get out of the deal?
That is what I did! If you had read the piece you would know that. But you do not even read some of the things you link to, so there is no reasonable expectation that you would read this one.
Quoting NOS4A2
What did he say and where did he say it? Or don't you actually know because he didn't actually read more than a headline?
No, you quoted the reviewer. But you claimed it was Berman’s claim. So why won’t you show me Berman’s claim?
When asked about reports of him meeting the Iranian foreign minister he said “ Yes, I have. That’s accurate”. It was on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.
What did the US get out of the deal? Maybe you can name one thing.
From my first post on this:
Quoting Fooloso4
The reviewer quotes Berman. Perhaps I assumed too much, that you would know what an advanced copy is and how quoting sources work.
Quoting NOS4A2
He acknowledged meeting with the Iranian foreign minister. That is not the same as the claim that:
Quoting NOS4A2
The problem is with your characterization of the meetings as rogue.
According to a report in The Washington Times, Zarik also met with Robert Malley, who was President Obama’s Middle East adviser and Obama-era Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. All were top U.S. negotiators of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The fact of the matter is that there were efforts throughout the Trump years to minimize the harm being caused by him. Kerry's allegiance was not to Trump, but to the US. And this failure to demonstrate allegiance to him is why Trump pushed for an investigation.
In 2019, Trump himself, according to the article, sought to open his own back channel of communication with top Iranian officials.
Yes, I know how quoting works, and I know that he was not in fact quoting Berman in the content you provided. If he did quote Berman, you’d be able to provide the quote. But you can’t. So all this condescending talk about reviews and quoting is hilarious.
That’s right. Smug bureaucrats from the previous administration were undermining the duly-elected president of the United States policy in Iran, and this during a time when Iran was busy killing US soldiers in Iraq. So the idea Trump was mad for partisan reasons is breathtakingly stupid.
You can’t name a single return on investment. Iran gets everything, United States gets nothing. A shoddy deal.
Based on what you have said you have made it clear once again that you did not read the article. What do you hope to gain by providing further evidence of it?
Quoting NOS4A2
So, because Iranian soldiers were busy killing US soldiers while US soldiers were busy killing Iranian soldiers (it's called "war") efforts to salvage a nuclear arms deal made by several world powers should not have taken place? The allied interests of the world, not the unilateral interests of Trump or what he thinks are the interests of the US are at issue.
I don’t care about the article or the book of some establishment bureaucrat. I read what you quoted and what you tried to sell from it. The suggestion of yours and the reviewer that Trump’s concerns were partisan is still nonsense. The idea that using the FBI to raid political opponents over national archives disputes is in any way comparable to “pressuring” federal prosecutors to do their job is also nonsense.
The efforts of former bureaucrats to undermine the president of the United States and coddle one of America’s adversaries while it was killing American soldiers should not have taken place. I don’t give a straw for the “allied interests of the world”.
You admit you didn't read it but that did not prevent you from saying:
Quoting NOS4A2
I won't say what stands as a good little reminder of breathtaking stupidity.
I did not try to sell anything from it. But, of course, you would not know that since you did not read the review and what it says in distinction from what you assume I rather than the review said. The review speaks for itself.According to the review Berman describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican and that during the 2016 presidential primary season, Mr. Berman volunteered for Mr. Trump’s campaign and later for his transition committee. Unlike you, Berman has first hand insider knowledge of the things he wrote about.
Quoting NOS4A2
It is not simply that the material belongs to the national archives, it is that the material contains classified documents. Having them in his personal possession raises national security issues. The fact that he did not protect them from a whole host of people raises national security issues. Is it that you are not able to see why it is of concern, or are you just pretending not to?
Quoting NOS4A2
If someone were to read this without having read what comes before it they might assume you are talking about Trump.
Quoting NOS4A2
Spoken like a true Trumpster. The allied interests of the world are our interests. It is not as if we are separate and safe from a nuclear threat that only affects the rest of the world.
I am not concerned. He was the president of the United States, the commander in chief, and had the unilateral power to do whatever he wanted with those documents, including taking them home. What concerns me is a political DOJ and FBI raiding a former president’s house and stealing these documents, among other personal items.
And they’d be wrong.
They’re your interests, maybe. Trump has done more for peace in the Middle East in one term than decades of your allied interests.
Quoting NOS4A2
"He was legally allowed to do it, therefore there is no national security issue".
That's a fallacious inference.
And he had no legal right to retain them, or to defy the subpoena for their return, after losing the Presidency.
Well that settles it. NOS is not concerned. We can all rest assured.
Quoting NOS4A2
The commander in chief is not an emperor. He cannot do whatever he wants with classified documents. He cannot give them or sell them to Russia or China or use them as leverage against his enemies.
Quoting NOS4A2
Only because they did not notice you were not referring to Trump, not because it does not describe what he continues to do.
Quoting NOS4A2
They are the interests of anyone who is able to see the threat of a nuclear Iran. On the one hand you point to Iran killing US soldiers but on the other pretend there is no danger with them being a nuclear power.
He is now pushing for a 90 day review process of the documents. Run the clock out until after the midterm elections.
That’s not what I said, though. I said I’m not concerned; and I’m not concerned until I have reason to be concerned; and because he had those powers there is no reason to believe something untoward or nefarious has happened.
At any rate, “national security” is an excuse to abuse power. So many lives and livelihoods have been sacrificed on that alter. You can almost see the foam at the mouth of chickenhawks whenever they invoke it, and you can predict with decent accuracy that someone is about to lose their rights. I don’t like thinking in imposter terms such as that.
The quicker they put this degenerate crook in prison, the better.
Has to be proven...never will happen
Jaja Liao raised some warnings in 2019
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JajaLiao/status/1560019193113845760[/tweet]
TikTok privacy concerns and data collection (Sep 1, 2020)
Anyway, did Trump actually get something right for once? :D
Donald Trump–TikTok controversy
Another thing Trump said he would deliver and didn't do.
Yet far better than the surrender deal that Trump did with the Taliban. I mean talk about backstabbing your own ally you created.
I guess North Korea and China would happily have during the Korean war accepted a similar treaty where they would have stopped attacking US troops and continued the fight only against the South Koreans. I guess with that kind of "Trump Peace Deal" we surely would have a united Korea with a capital in Pjongyang in the early 1950's.
Nobody could then even fathom the idea of there being K-Pop and (South) Korean electronics.
Anyone remember this thing?
Mealwhile on Earth Prime .... :rofl:
The truth is that there's really only a few things Trump got right. Like talking to the Germans how being dependent on Russian energy is a bad idea.
I guess we could have given them another 20 years and another couple trillion dollars to get our “allies” ready to stand on their own feet, but really, no amount of counterfactuals can justify more intervention there.
Trump didn’t torpedo the deal. He withdrew from it citing Iran’s failed compliance. Now Iran continues to violate it right in Europe’s face and Biden is considering going back to it. Laughable.
Trump torpedoed the deal because he refused to recertify the suspension of sanctions while it's on record the Iranians complied - just search for the IAEA reports. Trump was unhappy with the suspension of sanctions which he thought were not "proportionate and appropriate"; Iranian compliance had fuck all to do with it.
After Trump torpedoed it the Iranians still kept to the deal until it became clear the EU wasn't willing to circumvent the US sanctions. Only then did they stop following the deal, since there simply was no deal anymore as the US broke it and the other parties did nothing to alleviate the negative consequences for Iran when the US broke that contract.
The fact is, the JCPOA limited Iran’s nuclear activities and was ensuring Iran would never become a nuclear weapons power as long as it was upheld.
The fact is, after Trump torpedoed the deal Iran has moved closer to nuclear weapons.
It doesn't even matter. It can be illegal to possess documents even if they're not classified. Tax records are not classified, but that doesn't mean a President can just take someone's tax records.
None of the three laws mentioned in the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago concerned the classification status of the documents. They were:
18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
18 U.S. Code § 1519 - Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy
To answer your specific question, anything related to nuclear weaponry is considered restricted data, which falls outside the scope of ordinary classification (established by Executive Order 13526), and as such information about nuclear weaponry can be both classified and restricted data. Regarding restricted data the President's "declassification" powers are limited to that of adjudication when the Department of Defence and the Atomic Energy Commission disagree. He cannot unilaterally "declassify" restricted data at-will.
In addition to both the aforementioned Espionage Act and Atomic Energy Act, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act prevents the unauthorized disclosure of the identities of spies, irrespective of "classification" status.
Although, perhaps tellingly, Trump's lawyers haven't actually claimed in court that the documents were declassified. They've only said that the FBI hasn't proven that they haven't been declassified.
The Trump team has asserted the Constitution imbues a President with absolute control over document classification. If prosecution came down to this, it would need to be decided by SCOTUS. But as Michael said, the official classification status is irrelevant to the laws in question.
Yep. And we should remember that when he was running for President in 2016, he promised he'd negotiate a better deal with Iran, "A Trump presidency will force the Iranians back to the bargaining table to make a much better deal." Of course, this didn't happen.
He also said, "no deal is better than a bad deal" - and I don't see how anyone could claim we've been better off by abandoning the deal.
Afghanistan was wrong from the start.
Iraq was wrong from the start.
At least with Iraq it was Trump that got finally the GOP to talk the truth that the reasons to invade Iraq in 2003 were bullshit.
Yet if you think so about Afghanistan, what's then different with Iraq? The US is still there. But the country is quite on the cusp of exploding again. Shouldn't then the US leave also there?
Although Trump himself hardly ever made any mention of those reasons. He savaged George W Bush but he lavished praise on Saddam Hussein. He's an isolationist and, as such, isn't opposed to foreign interventions on the ground of them being unjustified but rather on the ground of them being costly. He's a big advocate of runaway military spending, arm deals with rogue powers and runaway arm races. He explicitly scrapped arm control treaties because he loves arm races. He's just opposed to spending any of the money generated by those endeavors. All that money rightly belongs to the military-industrial complex and to the politicians (including himself) who accept their bribes, why spend any more of it?
[quote=Letitia James, New York State Attorney General]Claiming you have money that you
do not have does not amount to the art of the deal. It’s the art of the steal.[/quote]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/trump-new-york-investigation-ivanka-donald-eric
Yeah, stop the steal and lock Individual-1 up asap! :victory: :mask:
update:
More good news today. :up:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-records-hold-lifted
Trump is basically just a populist, if there is to be found any trace of an ideology behind the man (as narcissism and lust for power isn't an ideology). Whatever his base thinks, he will think. And for populism (The evil elites are against the common people) isolationism fits well, but it doesn't have ideological background as what is referred to isolationism.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
Uh...no. Trump was for the increase of the size of the military, so he isn't opposed to spending on the army.
And of course when we are talking about Trump, he will first have had totally opposing views, but his loyal followers don't care about that, as usual.
Just listen to this:
I meant that after the money has been spent needlessly inflating the size of the army and stockpiling the armament, there is no need to make any use of it for peace missions or anything actual deployment. This would only increase the deficit without generating any more bribes or political support (or so Trump seems to think).
And of course I agree that Trump doesn't have any motivating ideology; his isolationism is merely opportunistic. Even his populism is opportunistic and very much the only thing he can enact with some degree of success since shoveling BS on the destitute and the angry appears to be his only skill.
But remember... that isn't the case when he feels like the mission is justified and he will look good.
Trump was all eager to go after the IS. That's a classic "War on Terror" mission. And Trump got the Iranians to attack US bases with missiles as a response to his own actions (which btw. Trump didn't then respond to in fear of escalation). And lets not forget just how enthusiastic he was about telling Xi Jingping while eating dessert at Mar-a-Lago about the missile attack he made to Syria.
Trump has no values other than looking good to his supporters. Trump is a president who would instantly use military force if otherwise not using the military he would look like a "weak dick" to his USA chanting supporters.
Trump's (and his supporters') "defence" that he declassified them is irrelevant. None of the statutes cited in the warrant concerned the classification status of the documents. Declassifying a document doesn't make it Trump's property. And declassifying a document doesn't make its contents no longer a matter of national security. Normally when a document is declassified it is done so because it is no longer an issue for its contents to be made public, but if we were to accept Trump's "standing order" to declassify documents when moved to Mar-a-Lago so that he could continue to work with them then presumably they are still a matter of national security and their public release would harm the United States, showing once again Trump's utter incompetency and the danger he posed as President.
Also I like this little swipe at the district court:
Hmm, so where else did Donnie send classified documents? We already know of a classified folder at the Trump Tower. Maybe there are more documents there. And maybe also Bedminster. Who wants to bet on more search warrants?
And on the issue of declassification, there was a court ruling in 2020:
I bet he can bend spoons too, just by stroking them with his lovely little hands.
"Do not try and read the classified documents—that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth."
"What truth?"
"There are no classified documents."
Quoting Michael
:clap: :cool:
The president can do whatever he wants with classified documents. He is ultimate authority.
“Established procedure” is that the president is the ultimate authority on classified materials and can declassify at will. Your ruling shows that the president cannot inadvertently declassify documents.
As the ruling says, he must still follow a procedure. An employer has the right to fire someone at will, but simply thinking "John is fired" isn't actually firing someone. He'd need to actually tell John, remove him from the payrolls, etc.
A footnote to that quote from the court ruling says "As explained above, Executive order 13,526 established the detailed process through which secret information can be appropriately declassified."
Quoting NOS4A2
He can set the classification status of a document. He cannot decide that it's his personal property and take it home with him when he's no longer President, or refuse to return it when the new administration requests it.
To repeat the recent appeals court ruling, "In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal. So even if we assumed that Plaintiff did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them."
And besides, his lawyers are refusing to assert that the documents have been declassified, so this is even more irrelevant.
The ruling says “we decline to hold that the judiciary may conclude that certain executive branch statements may trigger inadvertent declassification because such determinations encroach upon the President’s undisputedly broad authority in the realm of national security”. The judiciary has no say on this matter. The “procedure” is that the president is the highest authority on classification, has “undisputedly broad authority”, and can declassify anything at will. Trump is right. “You’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it”.
That someone has the authority to do something isn’t that they can do that something telepathically. Again, an employer cannot fire their employee just by thinking about it.
It is evident that you did not read the document or did not understand it.
The statement you quote begins:
What is at issue in this case was not Trump's ability to declassify simply by thinking about it, but, rather, whether his remarks on another occasion could be construed as "inadvertent declassification". It was the executive branch in this case attempting to prevent declassification, not Trump declassifying inadvertently or at will.
More importantly, in the paragraph above this one states:
and the footnote:
This detailed process is not satisfied by:
Quoting NOS4A2
What are the odds that his defenders are engaging in elaborate satire?
I’m aware that the case has to do with the inadvertent declassification of documents, and said as much.
“Your ruling shows that the president cannot inadvertently declassify documents.”
“Designated officials” are those designated by the commander in chief, the president. The power to declassify at will is satisfied by article 2 of the US constitution. He is not obligated to follow any procedures other than those that he himself has prescribed.
It is what you didn't say that is important. Which is the more charitable conclusion, you did not read or understand the document or you willfully ignored and misrepresented what it says?
Quoting NOS4A2
Article 2 says NOTHING about classified information.
What article 2 does say is:
Quoting NOS4A2
According to Executive order 13,526, which established the detailed process through which secret information can be appropriately declassified, he is obligated to follow procedure. Executive orders have the force of law. Only a subsequent executive order can overturn an executive order. Trump did not do that and could not do that by thinking it.
Did that declassify all those documents?
And let's imagine that Trump were to tell some relevant subordinate on record that some document is to be declassified and published but then privately thinks to himself that he's changed his mind and it isn't to be declassified. Would it be illegal for his subordinate to start the bureaucratic process to declassify and publish the document? According to NOS4A2's reasoning, yes. Which is absurd.
That's what the court said.
Quoting NOS4A2
I didn't say that.
But the Supreme Court has long ago determined that his classification powers come from his authority under Article II of the Constitution.
As Lawfareblog determined:
Once again, executive orders have the force of law and can only be overturned by another executive order.
Quoting NOS4A2
What is at issue is not what can and cannot be declassified. What is at issue is HOW documents can and cannot be declassified. A president can declassify by executive order, but Trump did not sign an executive order declassifying the documents in his possession.
No doubt Trump has been told this, but when he goes on Hannity he is not making an argument that would hold up in a court of law. He is playing to that segment of the court of public opinion that watches Fox.
Quoting NOS4A2
In typical fashion, you fail to read or cite crucial information in the article you cite that undermines your claims. From the article:
In short, Lawfareblog determined that there was plausible evidence in that case to impeach.
In addition, what is at issue here is not whether Trump was authorized to disclose information in that meeting in 2017, but rather his now having documents in his possession now that he is no longer the president. Documents bearing on national security. Documents that unless found to be otherwise remain a matter of national security. Documents that unless determined to be otherwise he as a private citizen should not have in his possession.
The question as to weather a president can declassify at will or has to follow a process are addressed in the quotes I cited, all of which contradicts your assertions saying otherwise. That you’d shift focus to their opinions on an impeachment strategy in order to avoid this accounting is obvious.
“Different people say different things but as I understand it, if you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it. Because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you’re sending it. There doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be.”
Trump’s statement is true, and that’s probably why the phrase “by thinking about it” was torn from its context and served as fodder for those who fall for those sorts of efforts.
It is not my assertion, it is what is clearly stated in the executive order. What happens when a president disregards the procedures in place is not so clear cut.
Quoting NOS4A2
A distinction must be made, and was made in the article you cited, between criminal law and high crimes and misdemeanors. This is why the authors of the article "shifted focus", or more accurately, moved to the actual focus of the article.
The current case, however, does involve criminal law. From the NYT
So far neither Trump nor his lawyers have repeated in court his claims that he declassified everything.
@NOS4A2
re: Letitia James & Fani Willis :fire:
... and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The question you ask presupposes that I meant something other than what I wrote. I did not. What I wrote is plainly understood exactly as it is written. Do you not understand it as it's written?
It does? I used the wrong word then.
Quoting creativesoul
Not really, no.
There have been an extremely unusually high number of American agents murdered or missing since Trump left office.
Trump illegally took the kind of highly classified documents that deal with agent information like those agents to Mar-a-lago.
Is that a coincidence?
Not if those stolen documents directly pertain to those missing or murdered agents. Not if the classified information pertaining to those agents is missing.
I've no idea.
No.
Can you provide a source?
@creativesoul wasn't quite accurate in saying that it's "since Trump left office". Rather it's "in the last few years". And it's not American agents, but agents working for America.
Thanks Michael. What prompted me to ask is the connection to Trump.
Thanks. That's sounds like what I remember seeing only once mentioned, then forgotten.
I guess mere words matter after all, aye @NOS4A2 ? :lol:
Trump claims in his lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that CNN had used its considerable influence as a leading news organization to defeat him politically.
To be honest, I am in Trump's side. Big press and social media tend to use their high influence to destroy your image or political career. This happens everywhere.
Wait, what? Trump was defeated? I thought he “lost” because of voter fraud.
So the press should be firmly regulated by the government? :grimace:
No need. . . It already serves the system willingly. :mask:
If it’s serving then why is Trump grumpy about it?
Source - that's the word I was looking for.
The press should be impartial and express the news objectively.
:up: :sparkle:
If you control the press then it’s no longer free though, right?
Exactly and both political parties are guilty.
Trump is not the system, it doesn't serve him. It's my opinion that, unlike every other president, he does not serve the system, which is why people either love him or hate him.
Quoting javi2541997
:up:
Maybe an example will help clarify what we are each trying to convey. Are you familiar with the Breitbart News Network? It's an American far-right syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website. You seem to be suggesting that a far-right party controls Breitbart. Who would that be exactly and how do they enforce their control?
Every political group needs to be heard by the population. It is not the same if I express myself in the streets rather than spread all my speech in news and media which catch up millions and millions of citizens. Every clever politician controls a newspaper or journalists to control all the citizens.
You asked "who" are they exactly and how they do it. It is very difficult to know because those powerful groups tend to act in the shadows or as a "ghost writers"
For example: Nazi Germany is well known as a good example of spreading propaganda about Hitler. But... Hitler himself was not the main responsible for these actions. It was Goebbles. This Nazi politician was "Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda"
Why he did that? Because he understood they only way of maintaining III Reich and going to war was manipulating the people. As much as we know it today.
I recommend you to read this: Dreyfus affair. One of the main examples of fake news and manipulation by the press and journalists.
So you don’t know who they are or how they control the news and yet have no problem with defaming Breitbart on a public forum. Shouldn’t news networks be allowed the freedom that you have?
I am not defaming "Breitbart" on a public forum (I don't even know who is he). What I intended to argue is the fact that news are a very powerful political lobby. They can help you to reach the top or destroy your career.
I understand that there could be transparent journalists but they don't tend to work in big media as CNN, NY Times, BBC, etc...
Quoting praxis
Absolutely. But... are they really free? We the citizens end up receiving the "real" freedom thanks to their "independence"
So far you have neglected to explain how they are not free. You claim that politicians control newspapers and journalists but fail to explain how they control them. Is it by bribery or blackmail? Do gangs of armed thugs force them to do whatever politicians want? You also mention “ghost writers” who work for “powerful groups”. This is all meaningless without facts or anything substantive to support your claims.
If a news outlets wants to hire ghost writers they are free to do so. I’m not aware of any laws against hiring ghost writers. Ghost writers can also be easily fired, unless they have a strong union or something.
They just use their influence. Being a powerful politician is intimidatory.
I shared with you an article about "Dreyfuss case" but I guess you didn't read it or didn't understand it because that article explains very well how powerful groups use press and journalists but I going to use another example and try to convince you.
The 1991 Gulf War and the following Iraq crisis is a perfect example. This conflict started because of the war between Iraq and Kuwait, right? Well it turned up everything in a more complex issue. Don't you remember the fallacy of "Iraq holds nuke weapons"? Why there was an interest in such lie?
The powerful members of NATO needed to use a fallacy, through journalists and newspapers, to the intervention in Iraq. "News World Order" was the title of another program in the series; it focused on the media's complicity in promoting the war, as well as Americans' reactions to the media coverage.
Years later in 2003:
Despite this lack of physical evidence, on 19th March 2003 President Bush announced the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, informing the public that the Iraq Regime threatened peace with weapons of mass murder.
Of course, the US and its allies never found WMD’s. Speaking before the World Affairs Council in 2006, Bush stated that he “fully understood that the intelligence was wrong, and [he was] just as disappointed as everybody else" when U.S. troops failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
Link and facts: Bush, The Media & Misinformation Surrounding the Iraq War
You’re essentially saying that you can control people by lying to them. That has nothing to do with the integrity of the press. Indeed, Trump is suing CNN because they frequently reported on his lies, particularly his Big Lie.
You are using CNN as an example of integrity. OK, we can be agree here that they are trying to uncovering the lies of Trump. But… what about Fox News? They are always be a media support Donald Trump. So here is when the problem begins. Who is saying the truth? Who is acting with integrity? A trump supporter would say “CNN is lying to us” meanwhile you, that don’t like Donald Trump, say that CNN is good press because they are uncovering all Donald Trump’s [s]shit[/s].
Nevertheless, what are the real interests of doing so? Open the eyes of the American population or just to wreck his political influence?
No, I wrote: “Trump is suing CNN because they frequently reported on his lies, particularly his Big Lie.”
Quoting javi2541997
Should they be forced to do otherwise?
Quoting javi2541997
Again, I wrote: “Trump is suing CNN because they frequently reported on his lies, particularly his Big Lie.”
I did not say whether or not frequently reporting on Trump’s lies was a good thing.
Quoting praxis
You mixed up integrity with the fact that CNN frequently reported Donald’s Trump Big Lie.
Quoting praxis
Yes. I still think media should be impartial, objective and avoid persuading people.
Quoting praxis
Our debate started because you said I cannot prove with facts or arguments that media tend to manipulate us in order to get some benefits for some. Nevertheless, you defended that there are some media that act with integrity. Then, you put CNN reporting Donald Trump’s lies as an example.
I would never disagree with that. Many many forms of media try to manipulate us with the intent to benefit some and not others. I asked you who and how. Eventually, it became clear that the how is by lying and the who is anyone who lies. Politicians lie in order to manipulate others. This has nothing to do with the integrity of the press.
Quoting javi2541997
I said that politicians lying has nothing to do with the integrity press. If CNN, or anyone really, went to a press conference with Trump and he told a lie, would it show a lack of integrity to publish what he said? No, because it would simply be publishing what he said. Would it show a lack of integrity to fact-check what he said? It certainly would if the fact-checking was not factual. Would it show a lack of integrity to not fact-check what Trump said? That depends on the nature of the individual or group reporting, what their principles are and what their audience's expectations are. For example, if Breitbart started faithfully fact-checking everything that Trump said their audience would dramatically shift. They would quickly lose Trump supporters and perhaps gain some Trump critics. Nothing would prevent Breitbart from doing that, though it would no doubt be devastating to their bottom line.
Newspapers and News Networks are in business to make money and they will therefore cater to their audience.
Quoting javi2541997
It's not clear if you mean that their right to free speech should be curtailed or if this is just wishful thinking, like casually saying that you don't think that people should lie.
Good argument, indeed. Nevertheless, I have to admit that it is a very difficult issue to reach. I guess that's impossible. To be honest, we have to accept that most of the information has filters, simple. But that's not necessarily always bad. What I tried to argue is the fact that we "deserve" more transparency. How? I don't know... and this context, I am lacking of information or knowledge to keep arguing in this point but I really liked what you said.
Quoting praxis
This is the root of everything. They need money (millions) and rich politicians (as Trump) gives them a lot of money in order to make news just for some interests.
Quoting praxis
No, no. What I mean is in act of free speech, they should act objectively. If we know some information or news is "thanks" to them who provide us all the "breaking news". But... sometimes I feel they have the "duty" of lying...
I mean, it looks like that's the real nature of journalism.
BUT, I am agree with you that I should not have prejudices. It is true that there are some good journalists but they don't have so much power like the big ones.
:up: :sparkle:
I feel it’s my responsibility to try looking for the truth and see issues from all sides, challenging as that can be at times.
:up: :sparkle:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63237092 Fuck 'em! :lol:
So the Mar-a-Lago employee whose interview prompted the FBI's search warrant was the White House valet responsible from bringing Trump his drinks when he pressed the Diet Coke button.
We really do live in The Onion.
So of three total indictments there were two acquitals and one plea deal with no prison time. What a pointless investigation.
(FYI, 1 billion dollars in $100 bills weigh 10 tonnes.)
Yet for the Trumpsters, this doesn't matter.
May still be far out ahead of my skis, but I think this classified document situation is much bigger than the information released thus far.
Mar-a-Lago classified papers held U.S. secrets about Iran and China
[tweet]https://twitter.com/realdailywire/status/1592705971629232130?s=46&t=ecdGkuxkns5PVa-K31Ec9A[/tweet]
I hope you managed to not wet yourself with excitement.
There just has to be some unconscious element to all of this. It is like he is some kind of cultural mirror: when he reveals his shallow crassness, the obvious lies and obfuscations, something about the way he does it - reveals us to ourselves - us content westerners - and we can't face it.
His vileness is obvious to us - because, in our rare moments of honesty - we remember and recognise ourselves. The MAGA crowd lacks our sophistication, and our refined duplicity and so they don't see what is obvious to us: He will say anything to get ahead - as we all do and must - in a culture which increasingly demands and rewards compliance.
Well said. It is a phenomenon on the level of mass psychosis, even a religion. He’s both folk hero to his supporters and folk devil to his detractors at the same time.
Trump Derangement Syndrome. As prevalent on the right as the left…roughly.
True. Right and left are relatively meaningless in the Trumpian context. He is hated on all sides.
Take the Big Lie for example, Trump is obviously trying to “get ahead” with this lie, and many are complicit in this lie because they either actually believe it or they believe their compliance will in some way serve their interests. Most Americans, however, are not complicit.
So it’s unclear to me what your point is about compliance. We could say that Trump is out of compliance with the American people or democracy, or we could say that the American people are out of compliance with Trump and his Big Lie.
Also, why do you believe that compliance is increasingly rewarded and in demand?
I intended to also include derangement of the type where Trump supporters are blind to his flaws, think he is fighting secret cabals of baby eating rich people, think he is a good christian etc.
Trump Derangement Syndrome, to me, is believing all or most of Trumps lies and/or believing all or most lies told about Trump. Its the suspension of reason because of ones strong feelings about Trump.
I think that’s a fair analysis. But, of course, there is no such syndrome. It’s less to do with mental illness and more to do with belief and propaganda. No doubt people want to believe certain things about Trump, and continue to believe certain things, even when the opposite has proven to be the case.
When I think of incidents like Jan 6th I tend to think that mental illness must play a large part, and that given the sheer volume of Trump lies and the volume of complicity with his lies, I think that TDS must be predominantly MAGA Republican.
Ya, I didnt mean it as an actual psychological condition, more of a social phenomenon. Its derangement in the layman's sense.
Its not though, its seems nearly impossible to have a rational discussion about Trump, with either side.
“He’s the worst evil!”
“Hes the saviour that delivers us from evil!”
Conversation done. This entire thread is just rephrasing this sentiment, meanwhile neither position is true.
So you believe that more people believe or go along with lies about Trump than people who believe or go along with Trump lies?
I would guess its pretty close but who knows.
I do think its rampant enough on both sides to be the responsibility of both sides.
I'm curious about what you know that the vast majority of Americans don't know about Trump. What are some of the major lies that people believe about Trump? Things like Russian collusion? There was a rather extensive investigation into that matter, as I recall.
Im not in possession of special knowledge about Trump, no. Its not hard to find lies or dishonest spins on the things Trump says and does, any more than finding out Trump himself lies and deceives. (Or his people)
I can’t think of any specific example off the top of my head.
Funny, I imagine there are relatively few in the world who couldn’t recall a few Trump lies off the top of their heads.
I was talking about the lies about Trump. The lies Trump tells are pretty obvious.
Well it’s just odd that you can’t think of even one example of lies about Trump, while claiming that the balance is “pretty close”. I can’t tell if you’re kidding or serious.
Journalist Sharyl Attkisson has a great compendium of media mistakes, lies, and propaganda in the Trump era.
https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/03/50-media-mistakes-in-the-trump-era-the-definitive-list/
I skimmed through it and out of the about 40 that I looked at, two of them I knew of and assumed true, namely the one about tear-gassing protesters in Lafayette Park and the other about defunding the CDC prior to the pandemic.
:lol:
You hold the same standards for news as you do politicians? No wonder fake news works so well.
There's of course a certain laziness in news outlets parroting each other under the assumption the original story is correct and with a 24 hour news cycle a lot of reporting involves no investigation just regurgitation of opinions and statements.
Also, Trump was in public office as presidenr which I do hold to a higher standard than newspapers. I guess it's a win you aren't denying the sheer amount of lies he's uttered.
I wish I could call them errors. “Russian collusion” and the multi-million dollar investigations, the red scare, the lives and careers and reputations ruined by it was premised on the fake political dirt of the opposition party. One could go so far as to argue the years of this kind of reporting helped usher in the present threat of nuclear war. This is the greatest media disaster in modern history and some outlets received Pulitzer Prizes because of it. No correction, no apology, nothing.
If my memory serves, I seem to recall that you believed Trump didn’t condemn white supremacy and neo-Nazis after Charlottesville.
There were good people on both sides of Charlottesville, my good man, good people on both sides. :flower:
There you have it.
What do I have?
1) the Russian government tried to help Trump win;
2) the Trump campaign was eager to benefit from hackings targeting Democrats; and
3) Trump’s campaign advisers had a lot of troubling ties to Russia.
Plenty of stuff to raise the question whether there was in, lay man terms, collusion, which is what was reported on: "possible collusion" after Mook mentioned the Russians stole the DNC emails to release via wiki leaks with the purpose of helping Trump. Which turned out to be accurate.
Mueller also found 10 issues of possible obstruction of justice about which he said "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state." A logical negative inference is then Mueller believes it likely.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's total bullshit when that proxy war spans at least two decades already.
“Collusion” is synonymous with “conspiracy”, as explained in the Mueller report. No one from the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russians to influence the election, according to the Mueller report. There simply wasn’t any evidence for it. And despite there being no evidence, despite there being no collusion, I can’t recall any journalists coming to anywhere near the same conclusions. It was the biggest nothingburger.
And just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it morally right. The goal and purpose of those 100 meetings between Trump and his associates with Russians was hardly benign. See again, the Mueller report.
I refuse to believe everyone in the media didn’t know what “collusion” meant, and therefor what they were reporting on was true.
Again, the Muelller report states that “collusion” is synonymous with “conspiracy”. But because the word is irrelevant to law they went with “conspiracy”. That’s the extent of the matter. They had to do that because the acting attorney general told them to investigate whether members of the Trump campaign—and perhaps Trump himself—had committed crimes by “ colluding with Russia government officials ”, which you yourself admit is not a crime. So not only was the DOJ starting a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign based on something that isn’t a crime, but they used the rubric set forth by the media, not law, to set it in motion.
The investigation stemmed from information given to the FBI by an Australian ambassador after his meeting with one of Trump's campaign advisors.
The Mueller investigation began when AG Rosenstein buckled under Democrat and media pressure after Comey’s firing.
Imagine looking at this guy and thinking he’s an honest man, a victim of persecution. :lol:
At least he's not the US President, so you likely won't have every media outlet repeating what outrageous tweet he made last night.
Republicans should understand that for Dems Trump is like Hillary was to them, but on steroids.
wow! times have changed!
Hopefully it won't pick up.
What were those crimes?
Making America Great Again.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trump-staggering-record-of-uncharged-criminal-misconduct/
An uncharged crime is not a crime.
Quoting Benkei
Classic example of people misunderstanding "innocent until proven guilty". You're innocent if you didn't do it and guilty if you did, regardless of proof, charges, or conviction. The presumption of innocence simply asserts that the courts shouldn't punish anyone for a crime unless it can be proven.
Or perhaps later the vice-presidential nominee?
What if there are no stated laws? Would he be guilty in the eyes of God if he believed in God, and not guilty if he is atheist?
Yep. The list of Trump’s crimes grows. Will he be prosecuted? Probably not.
Funny to watch the super-objective people who screamed endlessly about Hillary Clinton’s emails suddenly care about “presumption of guilt propaganda.” Lol
If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?
He once said:
“You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
Edit: I'm slow. I didn't pick up that you were quoting him.
I'll add that of all the weird and irrational s***t that Trump gets up to, the trump card, pardon the pun, was his NFT collection from a couple of months back. The idea that someone who pretends to be a contender for the highest office would instigate such a scheme is just beyond ridiculous.
That picture. :rofl:
Yeah what’s hilarious is that it isn’t even done for comedic effect. This is how he wants his worshippers to see him: Superman.
Wealth, Fame, and Power, the 3 (modern) transcendentalia. I intelligo.
And a great example of where US politics has gone.
A populist politician doesn't and actually shouldn't be a true statesman as those who support populism don't actually want wise capable statesmen, but just an image of one.
[quote=Matt Lewis, TheDailyBeast]Do you think Syndey Powell is “a complete nut”? So does Laura Ingraham. Do you think Rudy Giuliani is “full of shit?” So does a Lou Dobbs producer. Think the allegations of voter fraud are “Bullshit?” So does Bret Baier! Think “The North Koreans do a more nuanced show” than Lou Dobbs? So does the president of the network. Think Trump is a “demonic force”? So does Tucker![/quote]
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-knew-trumps-big-lie-was-bs-the-whole-time
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/17/fox-news-hosts-dominion-lawsuit-trump-election-fraud-tucker-carlson-sean-hannity-laura-ingraham
Meanwhile one of the consequences of Trump's election lies is determination on the part of many lower-level election officials to reinforce and safeguard free and fair elections. It's becoming quite a grass-roots movement throughout the US.
[quote=WaPo] When the new Arizona attorney general took office last month, she repurposed a unit once exclusively devoted to rooting out election fraud to focus on voting rights and ballot access.
In North Carolina on Tuesday, the State Board of Elections began proceedings that could end with the removal of a county election officer who had refused to certify the 2022 results even as he acknowledged the lack of evidence of irregularities.
And later this week, a group of secretaries of state will showcase a “Democracy Playbook” that includes stronger protections for election workers and penalties for those who spread misinformation [/quote]
A Silver Lining playbook, perhaps.
The song's wrong, it's cupidity, not money which makes the world go around...
Quoting Wayfarer
Hope so.
I wish one of the other consequences was the elevation of truth in politics.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-new-york-city-only-on-ap-donald-trump-georgia-266e28c4e47e54731b233e0f770f6729
Rupert Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods
Fox News "fair and balanced", balancing the truth with lies.
“Why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table,” the former US president posted to his platform Truth Social.’
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-attacks-murdoch-for-throwing-his-anchors-under-the-table-20230302-p5cor5.html
Trial hasn’t even started yet!
Murdoch saying he doubted their conclusions does not mean he cannot control his own employees. The news hosts themselves doubt the truth of what they reported. It is not about the truth. It is about pandering to their viewers.
It may be that this puppet master story is like a version of Pinocchio.
Who cares? After years of Russia collusion, Covid propaganda, Ukraine warmongering, January 6th handwringings, and all the deep-state dinner theater news outlets have spoon-fed us these past few years, I’m now supposed to give a hoot over Murdoch disagreeing with Fox News anchors about the results of an election?
He did not disagree with them. Fox News knowingly peddles lies about the election. Is there any evidence that he attempted to stop them?
Now you may not give a hoot that a major "news" network did this, but it is a serious matter. It is not simply that what the claimed turned out to be wrong, they were well aware that it was not the truth.
I honestly don’t care because everything to the anti-Trump brigade is a serious matter until one looks closely. Every conspiracy theory regarding Trump, whether it was Russia collusion or his tax returns, have been massively and comically overstated, and as a result has turned justice into nonsense, journalism into a joke, politics into circuses, and the US into clown world.
It’s gotten so bad that one can adopt a contrary belief without any evidence to do so and he’ll be right most of the time.
Spoken like a true Trumpster. Dear Leader would be pleased by your loyalty.
Despite Trump's claim that there was no collusion and Barr's attempt to sweep it under the rug, the Mueller investigation did not exonerate him. Whether you call it collusion or something else, the Senate Intelligence Committee found clear evidence of cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Here is a summary of the findings. But you can safely ignore it because by your logic Trump and his campaign did no wrong.
As to tax evasion, the Trump Organization was found guilty of fraud and fined 1.6 million dollars.
There are several ongoing cases. I won't go into any of it because by your logic, despite whatever the facts reveal, you are right to conclude he did nothing wrong and you are likely to be right.
Again I could care less about any of your propaganda. Fact is, all these investigations and conspiracy theories over the years and he has yet to be found guilty of anything, despite your assumptions of guilt. But, like a true fanatic, you double your efforts long after you have forgotten your aim.
The Senate Intelligence Committee findings, led by eight Republicans and seven Democrats. are not my "propaganda". The fact that the Trump Organization was found guilty of fraud is not my "propaganda". The grand jury's indictment recommendations in the Georgia investigation into election interference are not my "propaganda".
Maybe it won’t seem as communistic if he also promises that Mexico will pay for the cities.
Real Estate Developer in Chief
:up: :up: :up:
Just a guess, but I've always had a strong suspicion, based soley on his/her posts, that @NOS4A2 is someone who desperately needs to be lied to by FOX Noise, OANN, Newsmax, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Pravda (RT) and other wingnut media. :mask:
Here's some more "propaganda" for NOS:
[i]Making
Attorneys
Get
Attorneys[/i]
:victory: :smirk:
[quote=Tucker Carlson, the FOX Noise paid actor, Jan. 4, 2021, from Dominion defamation lawsuit]We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait.
I hate him passionately.
That's the last four years. We're all pretending we've got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn't an upside to Trump.[/quote]
I think you guys are just mad at the guy because he exposed the extent of the propaganda you’ve been fed for years in one single segment. So you have to sift through one or two out of context texts for gossip. No matter; I’ll listen to the worst propagandist before I consider a peep from any busybody.
[quote=Mark Twain]It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.[/quote]
What form does he want and expect these protests to take? Given what has happened in the past, it does not seem likely that they would be peaceful.
But this is typical of Trump. It is clear that he does not want his day in court. Above all else is the court of public opinion. But in a selective rather than general sense, that is, limited to the opinion of his followers.
It’s typical of his critics to erect some sort of show-trial for political purposes. Impeachments, J6 hearings (complete with a television producer from ABC), raiding his home, multiple investigations and civil suits, and now thinks he might be arrested by a Manhattan district attorney (of course). This is the deep-state dinner theater that has made Trump a folk devil in the eyes of the establishment base.
It is typical of apologists such as yourself to jump to Trump's defense by making vague accusations that portray him as an innocent treated unfairly by the media, the courts, politicians, and anyone else who, because they dare to question the legality of Trump's actions, are part of a deep state conspiracy.
Quoting NOS4A2?
Empty rhetoric. Trump, his Republican supporters, Fox News, the Federalist society, big money supporters are all entrenched part of "the establishment".
:up:
:lol:
:rofl:
:cool: :party:
No, I don't think so.
I think so. Rather in the same way that a corrupt policeman is still a member of the police.
Broadly speaking, he's an anti-establishment figure. He was a perfect rendition of the demagogue who leads the fight against the establishment. In this case, the establishment is neoliberal, so MAGA was about taking the country back to somewhere around 1965 when embedded liberalism assured the average white guy a good job with benefits.
It wasn't a good look when Obama and Clinton tried to explain that we can't go back. That assured that they'd be taken as exactly what they are: representatives of the establishment.
Another hint is that establishment figures don't try to arrange coups.
That's like saying that policemen do not commit crimes. Dangerous falsehood. Hitler came to power democratically and then established his dictatorship. Likewise any revolutionary government comes to power in a coup and immediately becomes established or is overthrown by a counter coup by the disestablished establishment. Trump is a corrupt member of the establishment, seeking to exploit the establishment and resentment of the establishment in equal measure and with no loyalty to either.
I guess we're thinking of different meanings of "establishment.". Today's establishment is those college kids who wrestled with the police at Kent State. Clinton was very progressive in her youth and then became part of the new establishment. It's not about authority or policing anything. If anything, our establishment is "let the markets do what they want and defund aid to the inner cities.". That's what both Clinton and her husband ultimately stood for.
I know it's hard to think of Trump as the leader of the young rabble rousers, but he actually is. He was elected in part by refugees from the Democratic party. It didn't turn out well. He didn't strike a particularly heroic pose, but he did reveal a well of frustration with, and anger toward...
the establishment.
Quoting unenlightened
I'm sure Trump would have liked to establish his own [I]ment[/I]. He wanted to be a dictator.
His anti-establishment rhetoric helped to get him elected, but he is no "man of the people". He is every bit the kind of elite he rails against.
Quoting frank
Trump is neoliberal.
I'm pretty sure you know this isn't true. Why are you saying it?
What isn’t true?
They aren't relying on Cohen's word. He's supposedly got a recording that proves Trump directed him to violate campaign finance laws.
You didn't know that?
And this is how the game of dissimulation is played. Trump and his followers object to legal investigations, but at the same time attempt to discredit statements made, the truth or falsity of which might be established through such investigations.
I don’t know nor care about the details. Establishment supporters have been making the case that Trump was a criminal for years, and let’s just say their record is abysmal. Can you tell me briefly what he did this time that has the foam increasing in and around the mouths of those who believe this shit?
Quoting NOS4A2
:chin:
Is that a “no”?
He's going to be charged with violating federal campaign finance laws. You been out hunting moose or something?
I remember when establishment supporters swore he was a treasonous, Russian asset, and now this is the hill they’re dying on. Campaign finance! Clinton and the DNC were fined for violating campaign finance laws just last year and the establishment wasn’t frothing at the mouth then. Pure deep-state dinner theater.
Quoting NOS4A2
:clap: :lol:
Ever read what Al Capone was finally convicted of? Was it unjust to put Al Capone in jail?
Apparently a grand jury thinks there's enough evidence to indict. Have a little faith in the system, man.
Christ. Have you lot got nothing better than this? Trump's not Joan of Arc, his arrest, incitement, rallying, corruption, or stupidity are all completely irrelevant. If it wasn't him it'd be some other figurehead. He's hardly got the intelligence to put his trousers on the right way round, let alone lead an insurgence.
The problem is not Trump, it's the sentiments which drive his support, and all the while you all play into the narrative that he's some uniquely corrupt figure who's removal and punishment are major concerns, the actual root problems which have given rise to populism in numerous countries just grow stronger.
Try walking into the home of an unemployed ex-industrual worker in Idaho, and telling him to "Have a little faith in the system", see if you get out with your nose unbroken, let alone any shift in his voting intentions.
That, sir, is a very third rate religion you're espousing, I'm afraid. Not because it has proven false, for religion does not deal in fact, but because it entirely lacks ambition.
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
23 million people are on the brink of starvation right now across Africa and it's all the result of completely legal behaviour.
Politicians being able to hold shares in the industries they're supposed to be regulating, accepting lobbying payments from corporations they might otherwise legislate against, walking out of office into lucrative board jobs with the companies whose interests they just served...
All vastly more damaging than misappropriation of campaign funds. Being smart enough to get away with your chosen corruption isn't something to be impressed by.
The current government, the ones wielding the actual power right now, are driving the world toward more war, more famine, and more destitution... And the talk is all about this pointless micro-story about some stock-in-trade level corruption.
I don't think the world needs to be saved, if that's what you mean.
I mean your faith is cute, but unappealing, whichever way you express it. The system that you ask us to have faith in is rather a meat grinder, as @Isaac details above.
Quoting unenlightened
This is me. I need to visit the barber.
Capone, Hitler, Mussolini. Have you ever heard of a false analogy?
Anyway, hopefully the Frump will see justice and/or go away.
In other news:
Starbucks CEO Clearly Just Coming To Company Headquarters To Use Bathroom
[sup]— The Onion · Mar 15, 2023[/sup]
[quote=Alison Whitlock (Starbucks project manager)]He clogged the toilet, stuffed some sugar packets into his pockets, and left. He took a minute to hover near the front, pretending to read a couple of documents, but his eyes were darting toward the bathroom door the whole time.[/quote]
[quote=The Onion]Alison Whitlock [...] estimated that Schultz came into the Starbucks office approximately three to four times a week just to lock himself in the bathroom for 10 minutes and leave a terrible mess.[/quote]
So because one crime is more damaging than another crime then we shouldn't care about the latter? I don't see why. People can care care about both crimes.
I don't see any cause to hope. If he goes away he'll be replaced by an identical figurehead with an identical agenda. Did you really think he was a one man show?
Quoting Michael
Oh I must have missed those other threads on the starvation in Africa, the corruption of share stocks, the effect of lobbying, the homelessness crisis, the opioid devastation, the union busting, modern slavery, refugee crises...
There's only one front page. It matters what's on it.
Have you repeated this enough to actually believe it? It is likely you do since you admit:
Quoting NOS4A2
Are you aware that when you bury your head in the sand the world does not disappear? There is plenty of evidence that Trump was and is a Russian asset. What evidence? Evidence you do not know and don't care about.
You quote me out of context and then apply that quote to some other subject. It’s the basest propaganda, but it works wonders on someone such as yourself, which is probably why you do it.
I don’t care about the details in this most recent of witch-hunts, but I’ve pored through the details in the Russia case and many others, and the conspiracy theories are just as bunk now as they were then. You can go back to any page in this thread to confirm that.
I am as reassured as I would be if I blind man told me what he did not see.
Quoting NOS4A2
One need not go back very far in order to see how you lump things together:
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
You say "until one looks closely", but you do not look closely. Even with the Mueller report you did not look closely.
Oh dear. You can curate and string together as many of my quotes as you wish and give yourself exactly the story you want to hear. It’s a telling habit. Still, two impeachments, dozens and dozens of investigations, and here you are empty handed with nothing to show for the wasted efforts, tax dollars, and time you’ve spent as a true believer.
Just putting aside mouth frothing, if there's evidence that he violated the law, he should be prosecuted. I'm sure you agree with that.
It depends on the law because I do not believe in most of them.
And that's what I figured it was really coming down to with you: you're an anarchist, so you don't support any type of prosecution for anyone.
I’m not an anarchist. I believe in justice and prosecuting someone for non-violent vices such as a campaign finance violations is unjust. Witch hunts are unjust. Persecution is unjust. Fishing expeditions are unjust. Digging through someone’s private affairs to appease the establishment is unjust. The list of injustice is too long to bear for anyone who cares about justice.
Quoting https://inthesetimes.com/article/media-russia-russiagate-trump-putin-rachel-maddow-msnbc
Quoting https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/26/trump-is-tripping-over-iran-and-russias-red-lines-in-syria/
Quoting https://time.com/4846889/trump-putin-g20-natural-gas/
I can see a lot of anti-Russian policies which emerged from the Trump administration. I'm not so clear on what Trump actually did for Putin.
What policies did this Putin-puppet put in place during his four year tenure in service of his master?
Didn't even imply that. :roll: Did you really think I think so? :brow: I mean, really, honestly?
Quoting Isaac
That is, the majority of voters are dumb and blind and stupid? I suppose, if a majority of humans altogether are idiots (but not you :grin:), then perhaps that spells the (deserved) end of homo sapiens. (Genetic engineering, AI, artificial selection, control, eugenics, aliens, gods, to the rescue?)
Prosecuting someone for violating campaign finance laws is unjust? Why?
Because they are stupid laws. The US did just fine without them.
Why are they stupid? They're supposed to protect doners so you don't give me money to run for alderman only to find that I spent your money on donuts.
There's the problem right there. Fuck the working class completely, and if they act out, they must be stupid. How dare they! Don't they know how much cleverer we are?
If you give someone money and they do with it what they want it’s your fault for giving them money.
Ok. So you don't think Trump should be prosecuted for this particular law because it's unjust. You're suspicious that the charges are politically motivated (by a grand jury). At the same time, you're confident that since he hasn't been convicted of any crimes up until now, he won't be found guilty this time either.
Don't worry about people frothing at the mouth. It doesn't matter.
I’m not confident he will be convicted or not because the entire system is stacked against someone like Trump. I am suspicious of the system and anyone who earns a living from it. The state is only after protecting its own interests and Trump goes against those interests.
So?
He's done fairly well for himself in spite of that.
Quoting NOS4A2
I assume you aren't talking about mailmen. Politicians are an odd breed. A true politician doesn't have much of a moral compass. She's just looking for prominence. But in a democratic system, the way to gain prominence is to please the people. That means politicians do pay attention to what the people want. A prime example is Biden's present support for tuition reimbursement. He wouldn't be supporting that except that it became apparent that in order to secure the electorate, he would have to move left.
Likewise, Trump's success showed that Republicans need to move toward being a little more anti-Semitic and racist in order to keep their voters. Thus DeSantis freely brings up Soros as a way to attack Democratic NYC. It couldn't be more plainly anti-Semitic, but it's working for him. If it wasn't he would back off of it.
And then you have Trump. He's not a politician. He's not trying to please the people. What do you think he's trying to do?
Quoting NOS4A2
The state is something larger than any particular generation. It's not the kind of thing that acts on its own. A state is basically a kind of legal technology. Think of it as a kind of animal that, having evolved, is very successful. That's why you have to go hunting moose near the arctic circle to get away from them. They're incredibly successful at this time.
The establishment is a different thing. It's a generational cohort that has found itself with the power to protect its power. An establishment doesn't usually get super rigid and reactionary unless they think their power is in danger. Our present establishment has no fears. They're not particularly worried about Trump because he can't really do the kind of damage he might like to do.
Trump wouldn't be facing charges now if he hadn't directed his lawyer to violate campaign finance laws and then subsequently publicly distance himself from that lawyer. That pissed Cohen off and he's been trying to get revenge ever since. As people close to Trump explain, Trump has a tendency to create conflict and war for himself. Even if it's not there, he'll create it. It's just his personality.
He was fairly nondescript as far as presidents go, except that he did away with what Arthur Miller described as executive tailoring, which is almost prerequisite in Washington.
In historical terms he is either a folk devil or folk hero depending on where one’s allegiance lie.
For me he is the demagogue I’ve been waiting for, the kind Murray Rothbard defended. His mere presence has lead the establishment, Washington, the 4th estate, the political dynasties, and their stooges on the world stage to overplay their hand, and I don’t think there is any going back.
Change in terms of ideology. I can’t predict the future but my hope is that the spell of statism becomes untenable and people begin to claw back the power the state has stolen from them. But that only begins as soon as we stop thinking in their terms.
If anyone else said this I would assume it was a joke. His ridiculous coiffure, his orange make-up, his years with speech coaches, he is the textbook example of executive tailoring.
Quoting NOS4A2
He is a demagogue. On this we agree. But I do not agree with Rothbard when he says:
Nor can I agree with him when he says:
It was common to cite Plato on the dangers of demagogues when Trump was elected.
Trump, with his penchant for gilding toilets and putting his name on everything, would take offense at the idea that he is rough and unpolished, although he does pretend to me a man of the people when he is not bragging about how special he is.
Rothbard's demagogue is a libertarian. Trump is completely without a political or social ideology.
That's true.
Trump has none of the characteristics described in Miller’s lecture, I’m afraid. More nonsense.
Trump is so refined and polished, according to Fool.
I don’t care whether you agree or not. Try telling us your own beliefs.
So nothing then.
This 'Russian Asset' is put into power at enormous expense, no small amount of risk... He's in power for four years with almost total authority (220 executive orders) and you can't name a single massively pro-Russian policy he put in place.
Its funny how the term 'conspiracy theory' has become the go to term for a group of people who think an evil foreign power installed a puppet president in the US as part of some, as yet hidden, plot... on the basis of some circumstantial evidence put together by a British spy.
But the idea that a pharmaceutical company, proven in a court of law to have previously committed fraud, might have... you know... committed fraud. Apparently that's so wild a conspiracy theory that only the most deranged mind could maintain it to be true.
The idea that a deadly virus found in Wuhan might have escaped from a lab working on deadly viruses in Wuhan... Apparently the activity of a truly fevered mind.
The notion that politicians and panel members with millions invested in certain industries might have made decisions to favour those industries... Apparently only the most drug-addled flat-earther would believe such a thing.
That the most powerful nation on earth might have, after threatening to end a pipeline project should Russia invade Ukraine, have... well... ended a pipeline project because Russia invaded Ukraine. That's just so implausible that only a tankie such as myself could believe it.
... but the whole 'president-installed-by-foreign-evil-dictator-to-do-secret-bidding-says-spy' is just your run-of-the-mill, bona fide goings on. You'd have to be some kind of 'extremist' no doubt to not believe such a plausible story.
The conspiracy I heard about wasn't that, but 'Psychopath leader secretly supports election of easily manipulated Narcissist Fantasist as leader of enemy power to undermine from within. Manages to sow enough confusion and dissent to be able to invade neighbouring country unopposed.'
Trump winning was a bonus, but just the campaign served to promote internal conflict. The conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories amongst the enemy has indeed been universally successful and exploits the very principles of freedom to undermine it. But the idea that Trump has the smarts or the principles to be a proper agent of anything but his own fantasy image is ridiculous.
Yeah... Only Obama wouldn't send lethal aid to Ukraine, Trump gets in, and the first Javelins go off to help their fight against Russian separatists.
So what's the angle there. Trump helped Russia invade unopposed by... giving Ukraine weapons his predecessor wasn't prepared to give...?
Oh, I know... the Javelins Trump gave were secretly flawed. Yes, they had a special chip inserted which caused them to fly into Poland...
... And then Putin can freely invade Ukraine because some people in American believed an election was stolen and a vaccine didn't work... It's so obvious, when you just say it out loud.
The only, teeny thing I'm still a bit unsure of is why Biden is now spending a billion dollars on lethal aid to help Ukraine defend against the Russian invasion, when we all know that America believing in vaccines, and not doubting the function of polling machines is by far the best defense a foreign country could ask for.
Oh... And Crimea.
When Russia... you know...
Quoting unenlightened
Only they did it without any...
Quoting unenlightened
I bet Putin's generals were absolutely sweating buckets knowing they were invading a foreign country without having first ensured that Americans doubted the authenticity of a laptop. What a mad gamble!
It's boring when sarcasm is the whole argument. It becomes an irritating straw man. I'm saying that Putin saw Trump rightly as a disrupter of American society in the same way he saw Boris and Brexit as disrupters of UK society. That there turn out to be downsides to that for him does not make my argument or Putin's tactics foolish.
Apart from Trump personally adoring Putin, the pro-Russian stance of the Trump team was actually very brief and basically when Trump was running for office and had Paul Manafort at the helm.
In the Republican convention in Cleveland 2016 the only thing the Trump team change about the policies was not to give arms to Ukraine. Nothing else.
Manafort and all the pro-Russian in Trump team were quickly whisked out, and then when Trump was in office, Trump filled his administration with former generals, so then the honeymoon of the administration with the Russians was over. Of course, Trump himself continued adoring Putin with one of lowest events being the press conference in Helsinki, where Trump said he believed Vlad more than his intelligence services. A bit strange coming from the US president.
Then of course there was the case of not giving the aid decided by Congress to Ukraine, but that was a way for Trump to pressure the Ukrainians to give information about Hunter Biden, which lead to the first impeachment of Trump:
It should be said that after February 24th 2022 Trump has changed his stance.
Oh. I thought it was winsome and endearing...
OK, so you don't like the establishment the establishment, Washington, the 4th estate, the political dynasties, and their stooges on the world stage. So Trump irrated them.
That still doesn't make him a good US president, because just irritation isn't good leadership.
I don't think NOS wanted him to be a good US president. He wanted Trump to break the system and create the conditions for a revolution. In another century NOS would have been a communist.
I remember one of best reason given by some guy to vote Trump: with Trump as president the press will do their job. With Hillary they will be her lap dog.
I guess that specific Trump-voter was satisfied:
There's probably some truth to that. The one I saw that sticks with me is a young woman living in West Virginia where the demise of coal mining left a lot of people in poverty. She saw a vote for Clinton as a vote for the status quo. Voting for Trump meant at least trying to improve things.
Unfortunately that's one of the saddest reasons incompetent populists do get elected. People will fall for the boisterous guy who declares the "He can fix everything" and are for them "against the evil elites" and in the end just make a mess.
And even if the guy doesn't leave behind him a disaster zone like Trump and is a mediocre to OK leader, people can simply put too much hope on an elected leader at a specific time. Just think of Obama. I remember when he was first elected, there was much eager hope that he could do something huge. Starting with the Nobel peace prize given as an option for future merits, I guess. Because his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" are a bit vague for me.
Yeah. Notice anything about the number of wars between 2009 and 2017?
... No, me neither.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-in-state-based-conflicts-by-world-region?time=2000..latest
It doesn’t make him a bad one, either. The deep state doesn’t want leaders, anyways. it wants a compliant figure head to give itself prestige so it can look like a doting grandpa as it funds war, regime change, and rips off the public to pay for its boondoggles.
But it explains the fanaticism of his opposition quite well. They’ve sent the entire perverted and corrupt American justice system after him. District Attorney Alvin Bragg, for instance, is trying to raise a misdemeanor to a federal crime, all while telling his staff to avoid prosecuting crimes like resisting arrest in his own state. It’s purely political. It’s a show trial.
I'm sympathetic to some of this. Based on the publicly available information, I don't think a felony charge is warranted. However, while everyday crimes, like resisting arrest, may be over-prosecuted, the same can't be said about white-collar crime - so I disagree there's a relevant inconsistency. I can't disagree that there's political motivation, but there's also political backlash from Trump supporters - which reflects an inconsistency for anyone who simultaneously argued that Hillary should have been locked up (which would have meant treating her differently than anyone else who committed similar security violations).
although I can't help but add that:
Trump is the actual prostitute.
The leadership qualities of Trump can be seen just how effective he was when he had also the legislative branch in control, with both houses with a Republican majority. Or how much wall he actually got built.
Abraham accords? Well, Morocco is happy to get a green light for the annexation of Western Sahara and Sudan is happy to get out of the list of states sponsoring terrorism (let's remember that OBL used to be in Sudan earlier). Yet UAE and Bahrain aren't the biggest players on the bloc.
Perhaps keeping the Saudis and other GCC members from invading Qatar, a country with one important naval base for the US, might actually have been far more important than the Abraham records.
How is the weather in conspiracy fantasy land? Do you have your umbrella?
Quoting NOS4A2
What do you think this misdemeanor is?
There is a lot of speculation, but the fact of the matter is we do not know what he will be charged with.
Quoting NOS4A2
Vague but broad accusations accusing the accusers explains nothing, but it does once again demonstrate the fanaticism behind the compulsive need to protect the Orange Messiah.
According to this,
On a bigger note, Special counsel claims Trump deliberately misled his attorneys about classified documents, judge wrote.
This from the person who thinks that some evil supervillain took over the elections using a network of super-hackers and spy assets to install a puppet head of state to do his bidding, only so secretly that apparently no one can come up with a single thing he actually did during the four years he had absolute authority.
Effectiveness is no measure for leadership, for me anyways, unless one adheres to some statist or collectivist foundation. Hitler was effective. Who cares?
Honestly it was just nice to have someone who wasn’t an utter coward, for a change. The man walked into North Korea where past presidents could only peer through binoculars at a safe distance. He reasoned with Kim Jung UN. He reasoned with Putin. He reasoned with the Taliban leadership. He reasoned with Xi. He reasoned with the Saudis. Imagine warmongers like Bush or Clinton or Biden doing something like that. His mere presence made the status quo shudder beneath its glaringly apparent limp-wristedness. Now that he’s gone, look where we’re at. War in Ukraine. Failure in Afghanistan. A belligerent North Korea. An ascendant China. And a war-posturing American world order trying to assert itself as the world police again.
Falsification of records seems likely, but as another article in the Times today discusses, there are questions about how they will handle it.
Things are not looking so good for Trump and he looks it.
I should ask you the same question about the weather in fabrication land. What evidence do you have of what accuse me of thinking?
Well...
Quoting Fooloso4
Then...
Quoting Isaac
Followed by studious silence....
Hence you think some evil supervillain (Putin) installed a puppet (Trump), despite not being able to come up with a single action carried out during this puppet-hood.
Was that before or after he fell in love with him?
Quoting NOS4A2
Brave = dodging the draft because of bonespurs?
https://pagesix.com/2023/03/21/donald-trump-in-high-spirits-team-pumped-over-arrest/amp/
Smart.
For good reason, which I don't expect you would understand. But really you should if you would look at what I actually said compared to what you accuse me of. But this is a game you are only too willing to play. Play with yourself I'm done.
Political theater and financial opportunism are not incompatible with being scared. I am sure he will get some mileage from playing the martyr.
It felt really good because until then cowards like bush and Obama hid behind bunkers.
I’ll let you know when your opinion means anything.
Its only ever a game I play with myself. It's become a grim fascination, watching idiots tie themselves in knots desperately trying to sustain the increasingly baroque fairytales the latest opinion piece from [s]Warmongers Weekly[/s] The Atlantic tells them.
This latest turn is exquisite. The resurgence of the "I'm not talking to you!" reposte, from its previous stronghold in the playgrounds of our nation's primary schools. What scholars the recently potty-trained will now seem.
People shouldn’t be demonised for trying to avoid going to war.
You're right, that was uncalled for. Sorry.
Doesn't Trump's stolen election BS bother you a lot though? You don't believe that crap, right?
Aside from trying to exploit his notoriety to part suckers from their money, Trump is fantasising about the spectacle of being forced into the 'perp walk':
Quoting NY Times
He's clearly delusional, but what's depressing is the number of people who get pulled along in the slipstream.
No problem.
There was a massive shadow campaign to alter how the very election was ran, and Big Labor teamed with Big Business and Big Tech to alter election laws, shill for mail in ballots, and of course it favored one candidate over the other.
Trump himself has vowed to beat the democrats at their own game, and ensured us his campaign will be ballot harvesting and pushing mail-in votes. I guess we’ll see if it works.
The desire for a savior is strong. Once found everything is formed and reformed in order to conform to that image. It is fueled by resentment and paranoia that there are powerful forces working against them. Hence the appeal of a strong man who by shear force of will can right the world. Those who do not put him above the law are seen as the enemy harboring sinister intentions. Trump has only to step on stage and play his part.
Yes, because more voters preferred Biden to Trump, and they made it easier for voters to vote. That's a win for democracy. Unless you're going to accuse them of allowing for wide-spread voter fraud that swung the election then this is a really bizarre comment to make.
Yeah, don't you hate it when people do that...
... Oh, you probably meant the other guy...
Uhh... the German people and others too, I guess. So much, that they still have these Hitler-Welles of every generation asking just what the hell hapened with them.
Quoting NOS4A2
Personally I've never seen such a humiliating performance of fawning and spinelessness from an American President when Putin and Trump met in Helsinki. Trump had to immediately afterwards back away from what he said in the press conference. On the same day afterwards. It was like the leader of the Soviet Union meeting a Warsaw Pact member country leader. Have to say that it was one of the best performances of Putin, he really enjoyed the whole spectacle.
Quoting NOS4A2
LOL! :rofl:
Trump surrendered to the Taliban. Have you ever read the "peace-deal" done with the Taliban? It basically goes like this: Oh, please, please PLEASE...don't attack us and we will leave you in peace and you can do whatever you want with Afghanistan. If you just put on a charade that you would talk to the government we installed, but that's it and anyway it's not so important.
I bet Kim Il Sung would have accepted a similar peace-deal to end the Korean War, and we wouldn't have been surprised that in a few months South Korea would have collapsed! But hey! Kim Il Sung would not have attacked the US!
And here the best issue is that Biden then continued on with this policy, so obviously people shut up over this as it cannot be taken as an partisan issue to attack the other side. Yes, obviously the Afghan war was a mistake from the start, it was a disaster and the whole reasoning to go to Afghanistan was in error. But really, reasoning with the Taliban???
It was election interference on a mass scale. They had astroturf protesters ready to riot should Trump have won. After the riots of that year of course the chamber of commerce acquiesced. That’s not democracy; that’s fascism.
You didn’t mention that Trump spoke with Abdul Ghani. That’s because the propaganda you dine on doesn’t tell you these things. The propaganda tells you the deal is bad; you think it’s bad.
The accusations continue to appear, but the evidence has not.
It’s by their own admission.
On whose own admission was there election interference on a mass scale? What did they say? Where can we find transcripts?
Making it easier for voters to vote isn’t election interference.
Altering state voting laws in the run-up to an election, getting social media to censor opponents, and threatening businesses with an army of astroturf protesters ready to protest the results should Trump win, is election interference.
Making it easier for voters to vote isn’t election interference.
And according to you, it’s impossible to influence another’s choices, so unless you want to make the claim that Trump voters were physical prevented from voting, your claims make no sense.
Oh, it’s all “making it easier for voters to vote”. The censorship, altering state laws, social media censorship all makes sense now.
Changing the laws to allow for early mail in ballots and the like is making it easier for voters to vote. It’s not election interference.
Quoting NOS4A2
According to your own logic this can’t be election interference because it’s impossible to influence another’s decisions, and so censoring a Facebook post isn’t going to dissuade a Trump supporter from voting for Trump.
No matter the explanation they’ve told you and therefor what you’ve come to believe, and no matter how many times you try to invoke “democracy”, altering state election laws, fundamentally changing how voting itself occurs in the run up to the biggest election in US history is interfering in an election in my opinion.
Yeah, you can’t make someone do something with words. But denying people access to information prohibits them from making an informed decision.
There was a little pandemic going on at the time. But yes, the establishment wanted him out. He was too much of a wild card (idiot).
Your opinion is wrong. Making it easier for voters to vote is to the betterment of democracy.
Quoting NOS4A2
You can’t make an informed decision if you’re being fed misinformation. That would make for a misinformed decision.
Sorry, repeating “democracy” isn’t going to work. They altered laws because it would have otherwise been illegal to do what they did. If Russian tweets and Facebook ads is election interference, then altering the election laws, censoring political opponents, and threatening mass protest and riots should they lose is election interference.
There is really no way to defend censoring information that makes your favorite candidate look bad, so don’t bother.
Yes, that’s what it means to change a law. This is such absurd rhetoric.
Quoting NOS4A2
Sorry, but denying the fact that making it easier for voters to vote is a good thing isn’t going to work.
Quoting NOS4A2
I’m not defending it. I’m saying that it isn’t election interference. It doesn’t prevent or make it harder for people to vote, and according to your logic it doesn’t influence voting decisions.
Which changes to voting laws represent election interference? In what way did these changes prevent citizens from voting?
Quoting NOS4A2
Specifically, who has done this, by what means, and what is the content of what was censored?
Quoting NOS4A2
What evidence do you have of this army of protesters? Who recruited and organized them? How were business targets identified?
This is all just hand waving and gesturing without substantive content.
What was once a form of voter fraud became legal in many states right before an election, and it worked in the current president’s favor. “Democracy”, right?
Election interference is now “preventing or making it harder for people to vote”, according to Michael.
It made it easier for voters to vote, and the fact is that the majority of voters preferred Biden. So yes, that’s democracy.
Whereas the opposing view, that making it easier for voters to vote is a bad thing because it favours one’s opponent, is textbook anti-democratic authoritarianism.
Election interference is letting people vote, according to NOS4A2.
This is the real problem in a nutshell. If making voting more accessible had worked in Trump's favor there would be no objections. This is the same reason why Trump railed against mail-in ballots and wanted to call the results when it looked like he had a better chance of winning.
Quoting NOS4A2
Not just according to Michael. Preventing or making it harder for people to vote is part of the definition of election interference.
No need to lie about this.
If altering election laws in the run up to a contentious election is “democracy” and “making it easier for voters to vote”, what is threatening mass protest should their opponent win and advocating for the censorship of opposing views?
A First Amendment right?
Certainly not election interference as according to you it’s impossible to influence another’s decision to vote.
Given the mass violence and rioting of that year, you don’t think threatening the country with more civil unrest is any kind of threat to voters?
What does it matter if it's a threat to voters? It's not election interference because according to you we can't influence other people, and so can't influence their decision to vote (or not):
Quoting NOS4A2
According to you, any Trump supporter who chose not to vote out of fear of what would happen were Trump to win only has himself to blame. You can't blame them not voting on Democrat protestations.
Are you finally going to abandon this position? And perhaps also argue that people shouldn't be allowed to threaten protests? That would also require abandoning your free speech absolutism.
Yeah, sorry, your words are still not influencing anything. They do not have the causal effects you pretend they do. Your words only reveal what you think. What influences me are my own fears of what might happen should you get violent and burn my business down.
Then threats of protests aren't election interference. They don't prevent people from voting. They don't make it harder for people to vote. They don't dissuade people from voting. They don't persuade them to vote for someone else.
If Trump supporters didn't vote for Trump because they were afraid then they only have themselves to blame for his loss.
Threatening civil unrest lets people know your intentions, that you may become belligerent should things not go your way, and threat of this future activity is more than enough to get people to do what you want.
Sorry, but my words are still not influencing anything.
You can't even maintain a consistent argument across two posts.
Again, your words are not influencing anything. My belief that you may act on your words do. Is this going completely over your head?
You believing what you do isn't me engaging in election interference.
Perhaps given your propensity for sorcery you can move me with your words to believe the same as you do.
Well that's a transparent deflection.
I never brought up the influence angle, but should you remain consistent, maybe you can alter my mind with your words enough so as to influence me to believe that threatening civil unrest should an election not go your way is not election interference.
What is election interference if not the unjust influence of an election? In what way do threats of civil unrest interfere with an election if not by influencing the result? And in what way do threats of civil unrest influence the result if not by influencing voters?
It certainly does influence voters. It does so because people will believe you will act on your threat.
Are Russian tweets and Facebook ads the unjust influence of an election, but threats of civil unrest aren’t?
So my words can influence you, the voter.
The fear of you acting on them influences me, the voter.
Then your fear is the election interference, not my words.
What would Trump say about protest and civil unrest when he is the one who calls for it, as he did with the Capital riot and is now doing with the Manhattan DA investigation? Who is he trying to influence?
There's nothing wrong with threatening mass protest if there's a defensible reason for that mass protest. However, making knowably false assertions about election fraud is indefensible. Even though demagoguery is legal to practice, it ought to be kept within the strictest legal boundaries to minimize its risk.
What??? That's your counter line?
If he spoke with the ghost of Mullah Omar, the deal he made was really a surrender.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yeah, right.
Listening to the WHOLE news conference that Putin and Trump made seems to you propaganda. Well, that's how I came to the conclusion that Trump has some perverse relationship with Putin, because that wasn't normal.
Or the actual written document of the "peace" with Taleban. Have you read the actual terms? Likely not.
I guess they could march around somewhere. I wouldn't expect a lot of death and destruction.
“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely hates the USA!”
Uh. Ok. I still doubt there's going to be much death or destruction. Not much more than we Americans usually do. You can put your horn hat on and ride down to Washington if you want. Check out the Lincoln Memorial. It's incredibly moving for people who aren't jaded as hell.
I'm curious if you see anything wrong with this statement of Trump's. I count 7 things.
It’s not in all-caps.
At his rally yesterday he said he was an example of why the "weaponization of law enforcement" was the biggest problem the U.S. faces — and told the crowd: "They're coming after you." (Axios)
Translation: whoever is against me is the enemy we must fight against. Now someone might want to dismiss this as mere words without consequence, but as comforting as that may be it is dangerously disingenuous.
1) what's the relevance of getting more votes than prior sitting Presidents when his opponent got even more (he lost pop vote both times)?
2) Is a former President above the law?
3) What makes you think there's no evidence of crimes?
4) What's the basis for claiming "it's known by all" no crime was committed?
5) What's the basis for claiming a "false charge"?
6) What is the benefit of mentioning "death and destruction"?
7) Are you aware of the Grand Jury subpoena for docs marked classified, Trump's attorney's letter certifying all had been turned over, and that more such docs were found when the search warrant was executed?
8) Do you deny that at least one crime was committed related to the Stormy Daniel's payment? (e.g. at least a misdemeanor, even of statute of limitations passed - it still .plies a crime committed).
9) Are you aware Trump tried to get the DOJ to lie and claim there was significant election fraud?
10) Are you aware Trump falsely accused Dominion of election fraud?
11) Are you aware Trump repeated a variety of claims about election fraud even after multiple people told him directly these claims were debunked? (E.g. he repeated the debunked Fulton Co. "suitcases of ballots" claim on 1/6 after he received briefings about what actually happened).
12) Are you aware John Eastman pushed a novel electoral college theory that he knew SCOTUS would not accept?
13) Are you aware Trump continues to push the bogus "2000 Mules" claim despite it being debunked?
14) Is Trump's rhetoric consistent with embracing rule of law, and is this at all relevant to you?
https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-indictment-hush-money-stormy-daniels/index.html
However note that at time of writing, while jury has voted to indict, the indictment is yet to be unsealed (i.e. made public) - however this is now expected as a matter of course.
1 SET OF INDICTMENTS DOWN;
3 SETS OF INDICTMENTS (SO FAR) TO GO!
CRIMINAL DEFENDANT-1
DJTrump (aka "Loser" :lol:)
My Ass Got Arrested!
I think they will come to see that backing Trump is a liability, but I would not bet on it. A major factor is what will happen with the protests Trump is instigating. With each protest following each indictment if the protest turn violent, which seems likely, I think more and more sensible Republican voters will turn against him. When enough do the political "leaders" will follow.
But there is another factor. The timeline to MAGA, for deep pocket, high power conservatives, means going back to undoing the socialist programs of Franklin Roosevelt. Of course for the average MAGA supporter it means something different, they do not want to give up Social Security. But this is not where the dark money is. On the other hand, they despise Trump and will only support him as long as they think he can further their own plutocratic interests.
To me, it would make more sense to just indict him for his actions on and before January 6, 2021 rather than this charge. Yes, I know the crimes are in different jurisdictions.
Trump is slowly getting repositioned by the Democrats for a second presidency. Impeaching, indicting, or otherwise attempting to disqualify Trump from this election cycle is going to be seen as undemocratic and he'll become a martyr.
I see this as a major fuck up by the Democrats. They need to run a good candidate and forget about Trump. He'll be dead before his trial and appeals.
Notice the mask. Can't tell, you know, Republican from Democrat.
I'm not sure your right, but I fear you might be.
I expect Fulton County, GA indictments to drop by first week of May. And then Federal indictments on Obstruction of Justice, Espionage Act Violation, etc in "the Mar-a-Lago documents case" by June or sooner.
I suspect Criminal Defendant-1 will manage to delay "the J6 Insurrection case" so that if indictments don't drop by September 2023, they will remain under seal until either TR45H is forced out of running for president or after Election Day 2024.
:victory: :cool: Happy First Indictment Day!
worse than solitary confinement for this particular defendant, one would think.
If there is evidence of a crime then the grand jury was right to vote for indictment and the DA right to bring charges. He might be a Democrat, but it was the decision of him and his Manhattan attorneys (and the grand jury), not the Democratic Party.
Are you suggesting that the Democratic Party should have pressured a DA into not bringing charges despite evidence of a crime because it would have been better for them politically? Surely we should all be against that kind of corruption. I'm sure we'd all be against it if it was a Republican DA ignoring evidence of a crime committed by Trump, or a Democrat DA ignoring evidence of a crime committed by Biden. The fact that the DA and Trump belong to different political parties shouldn't make any difference. Political expediency shouldn't influence law enforcement.
That's a sad inditement of the US justice system. I thought the whole of the US political system was about the separation of powers.
I get the impression that Americans don't really believe in their justice system. They pay lip-service to it but they seem to believe if you are rich and powerful, you can/should be able to use your wealth and power in every sphere, including justice, to gain advantage and favour. If someone as wealthy and powerful as Trump is held to account then it's presumed it can only be because some even more powerful agency (eg. the Democrat party) has engineered that situation. Of course, this makes the likes of Trump, regardless of the result of criminal proceedings against him, theoretically above the law as any such proceedings are presumed illegitimate a priori. Trump can never do wrong. Therefore, where wrong is done, another party, be it the Democrat party or even the justice system itself must be wrong . Ergo, Trump did not fuck up; the Democrats fucked up or the justice system fucked up.
Sure, my main point though is there's always an out for those like Trump who are both rich and powerful and entrenched on one side of the political divide. Excuses will always be made, blame will always be reapportioned, and everything, including the notion of the separation of powers and the concept of law and order itself will be sacrificed at their feet because power is the only sacred principle. And it's true of both sides. If Hillary Clinton had been indicted, the Dems would be looking for reasons to employ the same playbook, though maybe with a bit more subtlety.
The impeachment of Clinton was a massive mistake and is often cited for the reason why the Republicans lost power after great gains.
There is a political reality that cannot be ignored. You can go on about how justice demands the prosecution of every prosecutable crime damn the torpedoes, and we can then end up with failed impeachments and acquittals followed by emboldened politicians who should have lost power.
The Manhattan case is a case about misuse of campaign funds and falsification of records. It's a finance regulatory case.
Prosecute the man for calling the Georgia Secretary of State and asking for fabricated votes and stop with this diversion into whether Form 1876-b (I made that form up, so don't look it up) was falsified.
This isn't about me not caring about justice or about whatever this psychological analysis is regarding the inconsistencies in the American mindset, and I sure as hell would never vote for Trump. The man is an anti-democratic dictator wanna be.
I wish he'd be hit for something real, not whether he might have improperly paid off the woman he slept with.
The Clinton example is apt here. Whatever started that meaningful investigation ended in whether he lied about getting a blow job. He shouldn't have lied about it, sure, but the Republicans should have let that go.
Impeachment and prosecution are different things.
Quoting Hanover
It's a financial crime, and financial crimes should be prosecuted (and punished if found guilty).
Either apply the law equally to all offenders or get rid of the law. Why should Trump be given special treatment just because he's a former President? It may be politically expedient, but the fair application of the law shouldn't be motivated by politics. That reeks of corruption.
Quoting Hanover
This is a very rhetorical way to phrase it. It's like me embezzling funds from some company I manage and then describing the subsequent prosecution as being just about "improperly paying for a new car".
Or pay attention to whether you're going to secure a conviction and ask yourself what the consequences of your decisions will be. I've not created a per se rule protecting former presidents. I've just asked that politicians pay attention to the political landscape.
At least acknowledge the irony of the left demanding law and order and siding full step with law enforcement. Cities burned in lawlessness as politicians offered tempered politically motivated responses the past few years. And today it's being argued that the right is the party of innocent until proven guilty?
I assume they believe that there is a good chance of conviction, and that the consequences are that a criminal is punished for his crimes.
It is corruption, plain and simple, for a distinct attorney to refuse to convict because it may damage their preferred political party's chances at the next election. I'm sure you wouldn't like it if Bragg were to refuse to prosecute a Democrat congressman for a crime because he wants that congressman to be re-elected.
Quoting Hanover
I don't know what you're trying to say here. Is there evidence that some Democrat politician committed a crime and that some Democrat district attorney refused to prosecute them because they are a fellow Democrat, and that "the left" are okay with this?
That wasn't due to a lack of interest in law enforcement. They were trying to avoid making the protesters more violent.
Clinton committed perjury.
Quoting Michael
They had no chance of convicting Trayvon but they prosecuted anyway.
It just strikes me as naive and unrealistic to suggest that politicians are apolitical. It's also unnecessarily cynical to suggest it's purely political. It's nuanced and multifactorial, like everything.
The basis was politics, not justice. Maybe it was the right call, but the point is that politics is a valid consideration too.
And he was rightfully impeached for it. Whether or not he was wrongfully acquitted is a different matter. But also, as I said before, impeachment and prosecution are two different things.
Quoting Hanover
I'm not saying that they're apolitical. I'm saying that it's wrong for you to suggest that Bragg should have considered how prosecuting Trump would have affected the Democrat Party at the next election. If there's evidence of a crime than it is right to press charges.
That's what bothers me. That you don't even worry that the justice system is run by the politicians.
He should have gone down for that. The Democrats have no moral standing here either.
I recall reading that it was due to a technicality and that Starr messed up. Clinton was asked if he had had sexual relations, and was given a list of activities that count as "sexual relations". Receiving a blow job wasn't on the list.
It would have been interesting if he'd answered "yes" because under a "normal" understanding of the phrase it would have included receiving a blow job, and then he be found guilty of perjury because receiving a blow job wasn't on the pre-defined list of what was meant by "sexual relations".
People were mainly thinking about justice for the black guy who was brutally murdered by the white cop. Public safety was the concern that prompted forbearance on the part of riot police.
Did Democrat politicians play it for all it was worth? Probably. I don't see how you'd identity that as the basis for anything. That's just what smart politicians do.
Not sure what apolitical means. Whether the person in power is appointed, elected, born into power, or the product of a coup, it's still politics.
If you mean democratic power ought be checked to a greater degree than it is in the administration of justice, then that's just a matter of degree.
He has turned a legal issue into a political one, and accused the Democrats of being the ones doing that. If they don't cuff him he will request that they do. All the better for his image as a reality TV star martyr, an image he has been cultivating from the beginning. As he told the faithful in Waco:
Quoting Fooloso4
This he has convinced them is the real threat of what he calls the "weaponization of law enforcement". He has turned law enforcement into a weapon to be used against the faithful MAGA followers, the good people who must fight against the forces of evil.
The threat of civil war is real, but given the disparity of power and weapons, it will not be fought by conventional means. The battleground will be the hearts and minds of the people.
Here's where I read it:
But we're agreeing here. The point of others is that politics has no role in the justice system, that Justice stands upon Mount Sinai as truth, and that its wisdom is to be imparted on the masses regardless of consequence. What you're saying is that temperance in the name of pragmatics is appropriate. If that is conceded, then you have to ask yourself with Trump whether forebearance makes sense in terms of causing outrage among his supporters and an empowering of his position.
I don't agree that Clinton should have been prosecuted for perjury. Holding people accountable for their misdeeds and promoting justice is important, but it's not the only thing that is important.
After years and years of litigation, let us assume that Trump is found guilty and the convictions are all upheld on appeal so that our now 80+ year old man can placed on probation or whatever, and in the meantime, you've polarized a huge segment of society even more and empowered a position that would have been forgotten.
The political energy for change is limited, meaning we have limited ability to multi-task. What do we want to spend our time on? Gun violence, medical care, criminal justice reform, climate change, Trump's form filing, Hunter Biden's computer, or whatever else?
Is anyone really going to be surprised if Biden gets indicted for something some day in retaliation? The only thing that will save him from that is his age.
Guessing at what the short and long term consequences of indictment might be should not be the determining factor. We do not know what those consequences will be. In addition, these are not the only consequences to be considered. Treating someone as if he is above the law and unaccountable to the people he is sworn to serve is a bigger problem.
"President Trump embodies the American people – our psyche from id to super-ego – as does no other figure; his soul is totally bonded with our core values and emotions, and he is our total and indisputable champion."
:rofl:
I think you're right about this indictment in particular. This is not the crime justice should be going all in on.
Makes the North Koreans and Branch Davidians look kind of bland:
"Our father, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, is the most outstanding leader of the times, who has made the greatest contributions to the development of human history. He has devoted his all to the people, to the revolution, and to the country for over 70 years since he embarked on the road of revolution in his early years. With his great ideology and theories, his seasoned leadership and noble virtues, and his outstanding, energetic activities, he has provided a sure guarantee for the victory of our revolution and the happiness of our people, and he has contributed to the accomplishment of the cause of global independence."
"David Koresh has shown us the true path, the way to salvation. Through his teachings, I have come to understand the true meaning of the Scriptures and the will of God. I trust him with my life, and I am prepared to stand by him until the end. He is the chosen one, and only through his guidance can we hope to find our way to eternal life."
Turning assholes into martyrs is counter productive. But who decides to push forward or pull back?
With our annual summer riots, that decision is actually coming from mayors and chiefs of police. They don't want a massacre on their hands.
Who would decide not to prosecute Trump because of unfortunate side effects? The DA?
And yes, there are strong political currents guiding this investigation. And US presidents have committed far worse crime than using campaign funds to pay off a porn star - that is mere peanuts.
It will be interesting to see if this somehow complicates his candidacy for the White House, or if it will only strengthen people to support him more.
Thought I'd quote this quotable quote.
You and I often agree when we're not trying to prove who the biggest smarty-pants is.
I disagree
This is an image of a tardigrade. I've decided to use it as my new smiley face temoji. Temoji - that's short for T Clark emoji.
Here are some facts for those who think they are important:
Bragg did not start the investigation. He inherited it. He was concerned with the strength of the case and slowed down the investigation. As a result the two leading prosecutors resigned. It was not until successfully convicting the Trump's company of tax fraud that he convened a new grand jury. He would not have done so if he did not think he now has a strong case. We do not know the details of the case. The Republican leaders do not know the details of the case either, but are circling the wagons and amping up the rhetoric and threats. All in an effort to get the voters to decide before the trial even begins and evidence is heard.
Been a criminal flouting the rules for years, thinking he’s above the law.
Next up: George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, and other war criminals/international terrorists.
Yes. I can hear the Atlantic-reading champagne Liberals clamouring for those crimes to be prosecuted...
... any minute now ...
... just waiting ...
Oh, apparently they were all great.
I think you guys try to psychoanalze the elusive American mind in trying to understand the resistance to this particular indictment, as if there's something Martian with this perspective.l, but it's really not all that complicated.
Al Capone was a ruthless murderous mobster. Everyone knew it, but he was smart enough not to get caught red handed and no one would testify against him. The government came after him because he was a terrible person, and they'd have charged him with anything to take him down, whether that be not keeping his dog on a leash or tearing the tag off his mattress. They eventually got him for tax evasion. That crime is not malum in se, but is a regulatory crime and a convenient excuse to take him down. No tears were shed for him because of who he was, and the level of scrutiny he was brought under for his every misdeed did not bother anyone.
Had Capone been a civil rights leader, a union organizer, maybe with some communist leanings, but also a stand up hardworking man, but just a thorn in the side of the government and he was imprisoned for tax evasion by what was thought to be an aggressive prosecution, you would have seen protests and "Free Capone" signs all around.
The reason for those protests would have been allegations of pretext, selective prosecution, and political expediency. Yes, tax evasion is a crime, but there would likely be truth in why this prosecution occurred., that it was for the wrong reasons in trying to silence unwanted change.
Back to Trump.
10s of millions of people voted for and support this man. He is viewed as a thorn in the side of government. And now we're prosecuting him for a malum prohibita, a law created by the government, which is seen as an expedient way to shut down the left's public enemy number 1. This feeds directly into the Trump narrative, that this drainer of the swamp must be stopped by any means.
This is all to say let's charge Capone in this instance with murder. That is, if he tried to crush American democracy with voter fraud, let's get him for that, not this lie he told so that we wouldn't know who he fucked.
The Georgia fraud issue is the real crime, not this NY one, and it will appear to some that the NY crimes are BS, and now they just keep taking stabs trying to get one to stick.
Isn’t that all laws?
Pay attention to the malum per se and malum prohibita distinction. That was the point.
Hey, a man can dream.
The nature of Trump’s supposed crimes are invariably of the verbal variety. Word crimes. No violence, no criminal intent, just that his mouth made certain sounds at certain times. They don’t like what he says or the way he speaks, this much is obvious, but his voice can bring about the end of Democracy herself. But it is their reactions to his voice that threaten the republic.
So any law that prohibits something that isn't, in itself, an evil, is an unjust law that shouldn't be a law and so shouldn't be punished?
Quoting Hanover
So are you saying that tax evasion shouldn't be crime? That nobody should be punished for not paying their taxes? That taxes should be optional?
Quoting Hanover
I can't quite understand the reasoning here. Is it that if someone has committed some greater crime then they shouldn't be punished for their lesser crimes? That committing some major wrong somehow absolves them of some minor wrong?
Like, I'm a murderer, so you shouldn't imprison me for stealing that car?
A crime is a crime. Either argue that the crime shouldn't be a crime (for anyone), or accept that people who break it should be prosecuted.
I don't think there's any good reason to argue that the average guy who embezzles money should be punished for it, but a rich, powerful ex-President who embezzles money shouldn't be punished for it because he might have done much worse.
The threat to democracy, which at its most basic level is the power of the individual vote, is what Trump directly threatened. He fought to overturn a legal and fair election by attacking individual precinct officials, pressuring state officials, filing countless lawsuits, empanelling fake electors, pressuring his VP not to certify the results, and then assembling a posse to physically interfere with the certification process.
The reason he failed was due to a robust opposition party, a few noteworthy objectors within his own party, and an immovable judiciary.
His response has been to attack the opposition with fraudulent conspiracy theories, to purge his party of those not lock step loyal, and to condemn the judiciary. If given another shot, he'd appoint loyalists as judges and not just conservative theorists.
The Democrats are not angels and they're not great strategists, and I disagree with much of their economic policy, but, no, they don't threaten the republic. That honor goes to Trump.
Right, election laws are created by the government, as are laws against falsification of records.
The case is likely to be based on combining the two. The latter is a misdemeanor in New York law, but:
NYT
Like I said, word crimes. He spoke and I felt some way, therefor it’s a crime.
His opponents (who are of both parties) fundamentally altered election laws and changed how elections are run. And now they are abusing the justice system in something resembling Stalinism. If Trump did any of that you might have a case, but all you can do is try to make the sound of his voice and words that come out of his mouth into something they are not.
Trump's level of intent couldn't have been higher. He was thwarted by those who wouldn't allow him to interfere with the election. He tried to recruit a governor and Secretary of State to literally invalidate the will of millions of voters. For that he should be in prison.
Quoting NOS4A2
They increased voter participation by having drop boxes and allowing greater use of absentee ballots. The courts upheld those democratically created laws, many by Republican led legislatures to assure voting during Covid. Stalin was not known as the guy who allowed greater voter participation and who supported an independent judiciary.
Stalin was known as the opposite, and as one who often purged his party of those he decided weren't loyal.
This isn't to say Trump is like Stalin, but that was your hyperbole. I recognize that 10s of millions are not dead on Trump's account.
The voting machines worked as well, as the multi-billion dollar lawsuit seems to be proving. Maricopa County should have put a nail in the coffin of the voter fraud arguments even by the staunchest believers in the voter fraud arguments. There was no voter fraud, just fraudsters peddling fraud and marks being defrauded.
Word crimes were as far as it could go because the Joint Chiefs of Staff were determined that his coup wasn't going to succeed. Don't really need a deep state to explain your failure when the US Military is against you.
Which will come out of loyal donations for his defense that will exceed his costs many times over. If anything, this window dressing of prosecution for a relatively minor offense of an ex president will serve to support his claims of political persecution by the opposition party. His history of being a pig will bounce right off his teflon suit.
Not forever, though. It will be remembered that he attempted a coup.
Changing election laws before an election is not suppressing a vote; it’s to ensure voting. All that dark money, those Zuckerbucks, were used to help voters, just like they helped people by suppressing stories that made Trump’s opponents look bad. Not to mention the belligerent groups conspiring to riot should Trump have won. After a full year of violent riots, surely none of those threats led to an alliance of Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Woke to fundamentally alter American elections in the lead up to one of the most important elections ever held, and all behind the backs of voters. It’s no surprise that all of it favored one candidate over the other. Meanwhile a Trump supporter was just convicted of election interference for sharing a meme on Twitter.
The Stalinism was in reference to the politicization of the justice system. Stalin’s chief of his secret police famously said “you show me the man, I’ll show you the crime”. The New York AG campaigned on getting Trump. DA Bragg frequently brought up the numerous times he sued Trump and his family. Trump has been raided while Biden gets away with the same thing for over a decade, and treated with kids gloves. Don Junior and Ivanka are sued into oblivion while Hunter Biden, a corrupt crackhead and philanderer, who left a hand gun in a garbage can next to a school, with photographic evidence of innumerable crimes, is not.
It’s not an either-or. The New York prosecutors are prosecuting him for alleged crimes committed in New York, the Georgia prosecutors are investigating him for possible crimes committed in Georgia, and federal prosecutors are investigating him for possible crimes related to classified documents.
It is too early to tell. We have to wait to see what the criminal charges brought against him will be.
:up:
But because it didn’t happen (because others had the decency to refuse), it’s “just words.”
Trump apologists are hilarious.
:rofl:
(Reproduced in Washington Post)
Throughout his presidential tenure, Trump repeatedly called for his critics to be tried and jailed for treason. Remember this is from the same man who stood on the world stage with Putin and said he would trust Putin over his own intelligence agencies:
And who is credibly accused of fomenting the January 6th secession, for which hundreds of people have already been sentenced to jail and for which Trump will likely be the subject of another (and far more serious) indictement.
During his time in office, Trump actively tried to recruit the FBI, IRS and DOJ to do his bidding and attack his opponents. Remember the 'lock her up chants', directed at Hillary Clinton, and on one occasion notoriously lead by Michael Flynn, who is now one of the MAGA Republicans most vocal in calling Trump's prosecution a 'weaponisation of the justice department'?
Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP.
There was no secession. Secession is when a state leaves the union.
Secession from reality.
Calling, chanting, fomenting. The guy must be a sorcerer.
No, just a demagogue and false messiah. The faithful do what he says.
Could be.
Not 'secession', 'sedition' - my mistake - some of the Proud Boys participants were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
False Messiah. Def: — Leader whose followers get crucified before he does.
That looks just like Bray-fart from Scotchland, London.
Could be the same guy?
They do not believe he is a false messiah, but he does want them to believe that they are the one's being crucified. As he told the faithful in Waco:
... where he was met at JFK by Cat Woman and the Penguin. They drove to Trump Tower where they met the Joker
Viper 2: a vicious or treacherous person.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/viper
The Penguin is very treacherous.
Ex-Presidents get special treatment.
Yes. Sorry for the parochialism.
34 counts of "falsifying business records in the first degree".
Statement of Facts
The timeline of MAGA Loser #1's legal reckoning for his 2016-2023 crime spree (excluding potentially ruinous civil lawsuits) is taking a definite shape:
1. NYC felony indictment 31Mar23 :up:
"34 counts of Business Documents Fraud Crealing and/or Covering-up Felonies", etc
https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-full-document-640043319549?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02
2. Fulton County, GA (pending by 1May23)
"Suborning Election Fraud", etc
[link indictments here]
3. South Florida (pending by 1Jun23) "Mishandled Documents & Obstruction of Justice", etc
[link indictments here]
4. Washington, DC (pending 1Sept23 > DoJ might save this one for 1Dec24 :eyes:)
"J6 Insurrection", etc
[link indictments here]
Comment from today's SMH put the finger on what the NY indictment is actually about, which is more than falsification of business records:
[quote=Bruce Wolpe] What Bragg [said] was that this case is not a garden-variety fiddling with the books. Bragg made that clear in two sentences in the indictment and one sentence in his media conference:
“The defendant Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election. From August 2015 to December 2017, the defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”
Addressing the media, Bragg said that under New York law it is a crime to “conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means. That is exactly what this case is about.”
In other words, says Bragg, Trump was criminally messing with the 2016 presidential election. Much bigger than bad bookkeeping. ...The Bragg indictment presents a credible case of an unlawful attempt to decisively affect the outcome of the presidential election.
It’s the same alleged modus operandi in the 2020 campaign. Trump is vulnerable to being indicted for committing the same class of crimes in Georgia. (“I just want to find 11,780 votes!”)[/quote]
Because of his brown face – yeah I do. Everyday, still. :mask:
He was influencing the 2016 election all through 2017. Trump is so powerful he can influence elections in the past.
It continues to beggar belief, that when it comes to Donald J Trump otherwise sensible people consistently lose their ethical compass. Depressingly, this phenomena was evident during COVID and this war in the Ukraine and strongly suggests that many if not all of those otherwise sensible people are merely proficient at mimicry; what they are is ethical blank slates ready to unconsciously prostrate themselves in whatever direction is necessary to fit in..
In other words, for many if not most people, no matter how well educated they might be, their morality is really a keenly developed sense of fashion. Drop these people into the 19th century mid-west or 1940 Germany and in a New York minute, they turn into Supremacists.
On one level this is all misanthropically cynical. But on the other, it's liberating. Because if the masses of people and our authorities are this hopelessly fallible, then the intuition of the humble authentic self conscious individual - the organic self - is elevated to the locus of meaning and the only cure to this suicidal nihilism.
His indictment consists of 34 felony charges, which are often prosecuted as misdemeanors but that doesn't make them midsdemeanors. Read it here: https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf
Happy?
The New York prosecutors performed legal gymnastics to pretzel the misdemeanor counts into felonies, claiming the falsified records were meant to conceal another crime without stating in the indictment what that crime was.
One potential crime would be a violation of federal campaign finance laws — Bragg has no jurisdiction over federal proceedings. The Department of Justice does, but it has already passed on this case, as has the Federal Election Commission.