I am not going to write negatively about Trump now because I wonder if there is something I am missing. Here in Norway I don't know about any person who would have voted republican if they had lived in the US. So what are we Norwegians and other europeans not seeing? There must be something good? Here a politican who is not even found guilty, but suspected of something, would be forced to resign
It's a bit of a puzzle to us here in the US as well, but there appears to be a couple of different factions and motives.
First, Trump is all about power and money and narcissism, embodied by an unyielding support of him. He has no regard for the truth, only those three things mentioned. Anything else to him is just being weak.
His loyal base are largely those that are marginalized and are very mad, and want a new leader who a) plays outside the rules, b) blames everyone else for the fact that they are losing and are viewed as losers, by in large. Even when they know they are being lied to by Trump, they choose those lies to listen to because at least he panders to them and says what they want to hear, and visibly angers the meritocracy (who they hate) so much.
And then there is the rest of the Republican party who put up with him because a) they need his base to win, and b) he is their best hope (however distasteful), and c) he admonishes punishment on those politicians and leaders who cross him.
In short, Trump is a lying, cheating, unethical force that has managed to take control of his party, and he cannot be extracted at this time without losing their chance to win the upcoming presidential election.
they allowed non related testimony against Trump from Stormy
You may have examples In unaware of, but in parts I followed, I saw roughly real-time comments from lawyers/legal analysts describing the defense making some obviously reasonable objections and some without substance. These were sustained and denied in ways I think you’d expect. But I also saw a number instances of questioning the defense, as in “why aren’t they objecting to this?”
I expect some of this is on them. Blanche was good in spots but uncharacteristically weak overall. And, of course Habba was chosen by Mr. Trump because she’s out of central casting for the TV cameras rather than for her unparalleled skill in criminal defense.
The point about the defense stepping in it and not securing some reasonable doubt from at least one juror is part of Randall Eliason’s article in the Times. He’s a law prof and former chief at the DC US Attorney’s office. You may not fully buy his claim that he was a skeptic who was fully convinced by the prosecution’s case, but this rings true:
”Instead, the defense was vintage Trump: I’m a victim. Deny everything. Everyone else is lying and out to get me. Witnesses who could safely be largely disregarded must instead be attacked and destroyed.
Whether this was at the insistence of the client or the counsels’ own decision, it led the defense to make inconsistent arguments that simply were not credible. Once you lose your credibility with jurors by denying things that seem clear and obvious, they are less likely to believe what you say about the things that are really in dispute.
There is most likely a chapter yet to be written in this case. I remain something of a skeptic when it comes to whether these convictions will survive long term — although I'm the first to admit I've already been proved wrong once.”
A similar dynamic has plagued Democrats in the court of public opinion on Trump at various times, if for some different reasons. They have often overplayed their hand and tried to throw a lot at the wall, when the actual facts have usually been damning enough. And even though only a small percentage of the population is persuadable, they Dems have lost some of them by having shaky factual footing for too many of their claims, which undermines the value of all the actual demonstrable facts that support their charges. And that couples with other facets of Trump’s approach (some related to tried and true demagoguery and propaganda tactics, some related to Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy) to weaken people’s ability to discern truth.
Boy-cries-wolf problems (I’m not convinced there’s a wolf here, though) are remarkably common for Trump, a guy with little concern for the truth, contempt for institutions, and no real attachment to fairness. It’s no wonder he has a very poor record in legal proceedings when he doesn’t have an overwhelming advantage in legal representation (as he’s has in so many of his successful cases, in which he was sued by “little guy” types).
Its baffling how any supposed conservative or "Christian" can support a guy who is the absolute opposite of what they profess to believe and espouse.
There are perfectly good, sane, learned, moral, honest Republicans and conservatives in this country. Donald Trump is not one of them.
The Republicans you speak of are NOT perfectly good, sane, learned, moral and honest. They are despicable trash just like Trump. If you support trash..you are trash too! It’s comparable to cops. If a so called good cop supports or stays silent when they know about a bad cop doing bad things..they are just as bad as the bad cops. There is no doubt in my mind that the supposedly “good” Republicans know Trump is a racist, narcissist, criminal and overall piece of shyt but they have made a conscious decision to turn a blind eye to it all for the idiotic “us vs them” fight.
Its baffling how any supposed conservative or "Christian" can support a guy who is the absolute opposite of what they profess to believe and espouse.
There are perfectly good, sane, learned, moral, honest Republicans and conservatives in this country. Donald Trump is not one of them.
The Republicans you speak of are NOT perfectly good, sane, learned, moral and honest. They are despicable trash just like Trump. If you support trash..you are trash too! It’s comparable to cops. If a so called good cop supports or stays silent when they know about a bad cop doing bad things..they are just as bad as the bad cops. There is no doubt in my mind that the supposedly “good” Republicans know Trump is a racist, narcissist, criminal and overall piece of shyt but they have made a conscious decision to turn a blind eye to it all for the idiotic “us vs them” fight.
Glad you’re able to sidestep that “us versus them” pitfall.
If you dislike banana republics, you must be incensed at the guy who was party to a fake elector scheme, who disingenuously called l’élection results into question, and who sat on his hands instead of acting like a leader of a functioning democracy while violence unfolded at the Capitol.
GREAT. WE DONT HAVE A COUNTRY ANYMORE ANYWAYS. 3RD WORLD SH1THOLE, LET IT DIE.
Then the russian trollls chime in with utter nonsense.
How is life so terrible for Rs that they support this clown? What about their day to day life is lacking? What?
I mean, other than sex and a sensible diet and deodorant?
By sex, you obviously mean men with other men. By sensible diet you mean non GMO organic free range vegan, and by deodorant you mean fair trade with essential oils. All purchased with government assistance, and picked up on bicycle, scooter, or public transportation.
By sex, you obviously mean men with other men. By sensible diet you mean non GMO organic free range vegan, and by deodorant you mean fair trade with essential oils. All purchased with government assistance, and picked up on bicycle, scooter, or public transportation.
Well, people in welfare apartments support Ukraine and Biden
I am not going to write negatively about Trump now because I wonder if there is something I am missing. Here in Norway I don't know about any person who would have voted republican if they had lived in the US. So what are we Norwegians and other europeans not seeing? There must be something good? Here a politican who is not even found guilty, but suspected of something, would be forced to resign
The demographic and social compositions of US are very different from Europe, Asia, or any other regular nations. Race, wealth distribution, political and judicial issues are much more polarized. Democrats and CNN would lead the charge for change, magnifying every race and discrimination issue, calling for wealth redistribution and equity for all. GOP and Fox would highlight crimes, associating everything negative with immigrants and minorities, trying to defend “traditional values” and existing systems. As the society advances towards equity, GOP is losing ground since 2000 in their voter base. Trump is GOP’s only hope to fight a war in “non traditional” ways as Bushes are considered too gentlemen to win national elections. Trump’s personal character flaws and past transgressions are really minor issue, as he did point out several new ways of winning. First, GOP needs to win at all costs, do things and say things out of norm that no one dares to say before, just to draw attention and to win. Second, they have to sow doubts over the democratic process, including the media and election systems. In case they lose, they can burn down the system so GOP can start over again. Finally, they would prioritize judicial nominees, leave moles to shortcut the courts, and prepare for gaining legitimacy using their people. In my opinion, America democracy will be over in 20 years. We will either split into several independent states through a civil war, or turn into a dictatorship just like Russia and North Korea we fight against.
Think about this. It is very likely that the GOP candidate for President soon will have to check in with his probation officer.
Keep in mind, The GOP candidate for President already had a court appointed business Nanny that watches his business to make sure his company doesn’t cheat and lie like they have.
The GOP candidate for President is forbidden from ever operating a charity because he was stealing from kids with cancer.
Trumpism is not an indictment of Trump. It is an indictment of the stupidity of his voters.
Add to this the fact that the GOP candidate for President lost his right to vote.
Think about this. It is very likely that the GOP candidate for President soon will have to check in with his probation officer.
Keep in mind, The GOP candidate for President already had a court appointed business Nanny that watches his business to make sure his company doesn’t cheat and lie like they have.
The GOP candidate for President is forbidden from ever operating a charity because he was stealing from kids with cancer.
Trumpism is not an indictment of Trump. It is an indictment of the stupidity of his voters.
Add to this the fact that the GOP candidate for President lost his right to vote.
Democrats will fight to the death and give up their Target charge cards to let anyone vote, including illegals, three year olds, dead people, and all other felons. But not Trump.
A quote from Ilya Somin, a largely libertarian law prof at the conservative Scalia School of Law at GMU:
”Trump deserves severe punishment for serious crimes he committed in other 3 cases against him. The NY case is much weaker. He did what prosecutors said, but charges [are] based on dubious legal theory. Yet not obviously wrong either.”
The weaknesses in the case brought by Bragg are much discussed by those in the know, but they fall far short of the “sham” and “banana republic” charges spouted by some talking heads and their parrots here. The weaknesses do increase Trump’s chances of winning on appeal, though.
This seems to make having the NY case tried first to be a problem for those who dislike Trump, since it creates something of a familiar pattern in the court of public opinion. This has long been viewed as the weakest of the cases (less on facts than on theory, as noted above). Are people paying attention to that? Not much.
If the appeal proceeds before the election, then, some people may buy into Trump’s “I was wronged” refrain (in this case, the boy may have seen a wolf) and conflate that with other results and the muddying of the waters around them (partisan circling of the wagons on his impeachments and doublespeak is as easy to point out as partisan motivations for the impeachment calls, and Barr’s PR decision on the Mueller report as well as his direction for Durham on CH) to lead to the conclusion that the other investigations are likely at least partially undercut by some similar questionable facets, even if they are not.
So, first things first, I was wrong about the details of the charged crimes.
Yes, you were wrong. You and many others. You are to be commended for learning something new. There are others here, like AdultintheRoom (who seems to be posting here as Glitter Bomb), who will keep repeating what they know is a falsehood about the charges against Trump being kept secret.
Odd and disappointing to me that National legal voices seem unaware of this.
With respect to legal reporting, the national media, in general, does a lousy job. That's my opinion. They get things wrong, manage to stay uninformed, emphasize things of minor importance, fail to emphasize things of major importance, emphatically lecture us on cliched, abstract legal theories and practices like they were bedrock courtroom rules, and many other flaws. It seems like they can't be bothered running their reports by even a first year law student for edits and corrections.
With respect to the Trump cases in particular, Fox News has, of course, taken the lead in terrible reporting. And a lot of times, they aren't just getting it wrong because they don't understand it, but they seem to be deliberately getting it wrong merely because Trump announced it and they want to be supportive of his efforts.
So Trump is convicted on a misdemeanor committed (it was determined) with the intent to further another crime such as election interference or a tax code violation.
No. He was convicted of a felony (actually 34 felonies)- Falsifying Business Record in the first degree under NY Penal Law 175.10 which is a felony and requires, among other things, "an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."
As you now know, the "other crimes" include violation of FECA campaign contributions as well as the two "other crimes" you mentioned.
Interesting they say intent to break election law when those charged with enforcing election law did not charge him with such.
I'm not entirely clear what you are referring to with "those charged with enforcing election law did not charge him with such." But to the extent I understand you, I don't find it that interesting at all. Different offices and actors make different determinations on different standards and concerns all the time. Why do you think it's interesting? How interesting? Most importantly. what conclusions do you draw from how interesting you think it is?
Also, Cohen was charged in federal court with (and pled guilty to) the exact same violation of FECA that Trump was accused of in state court. You may remember that Trump was prominently referred to as "Individual-1" in the Cohen Indictment. The FEC, which has civil (not criminal) enforcement authority for FECA violations found that Cohen, Pecker and National Enquirer violated FECA for the exact same conduct identified in the Trump trial.
Here is the very odd Statement of the FEC why they were not pursuing claims against Trump (a dissenting Statement was also filed). Basically they declined to go after Trump because Cohen had pled guilty in federal court to the criminal behavior he engaged in with Trump, and Cohen's detailed guilty plea made "the public record complete with respect to the conduct at issue in these [Trump] complaints." So the FEC's decision not to charge Trump civilly seems to be because Cohen's detailed guilty plea got all the Trump behavior out in the open, which appears to be the FEC's primary purpose ("public record [is] complete"). Seems like weird reasoning to me, but there it is.
So is the NY DA saying he had intent but failed to do it? Or have they concluded somehow he did interfere (again despite the [Congressional authorized] enforcers seemingly disagreeing)?
1. "intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof" is all the NY criminal statute requires.
2. "interfere" is not recited in NY 17-152 or the FECA provisions limiting contributions.
3. The prosecution never said Trump failed to commit the crimes he intended to commit. But again, they didn't have to prove Trump was successful in his criminal pursuits, only that he intended to commit crimes.
4. There is plenty of corroborated AND unrebutted evidence that Trump and Cohen's payments to Daniels were campaign contributions and/or expenditures exceeding all legal limits -- i.e., he successfully committed the "other crime." Again, "intent" to violate FECA is all the statute requires but, to the extent it matters, I can't see any real dispute that Trump committed the crime he intended to commit with respect to FECA. Keep in mind that Trump's co-conspirator Cohen was charged and went to prison for doing exactly what Trump did with Cohen.
But, for a parallel situation, the Clinton private email server which was used seemingly in violation of Federal requirement arguably so she could avoid FOIA disclosures and thus support her 2016 run for President (ie interfere with election). Tell me what I am missing here? Should some eager DA go after her?
"parallel situation" - uh huh . . .
I know a lot of you guys love whaddaboudyous and think they are effective, but I'm not one of them. My eyes begin to cross whenever I see stuff like this. Maybe I have some kind of aphasia on whaddaboudyous. So I'm the wrong guy to try and explain to you what you're missing here, although I'd guess that you are missing a lot of sh!t here.
Donald Trump has lost his hush money payments trial, convicted on all 34 counts. As Jimmy points out, however, this result will only serve to help Trump’s ca...
So, first things first, I was wrong about the details of the charged crimes.
Yes, you were wrong. You and many others. You are to be commended for learning something new. There are others here, like AdultintheRoom (who seems to be posting here as Glitter Bomb), who will keep repeating what they know is a falsehood about the charges against Trump being kept secret.
Odd and disappointing to me that National legal voices seem unaware of this.
With respect to legal reporting, the national media, in general, does a lousy job. That's my opinion. They get things wrong, manage to stay uninformed, emphasize things of minor importance, fail to emphasize things of major importance, emphatically lecture us on cliched, abstract legal theories and practices like they were bedrock courtroom rules, and many other flaws. It seems like they can't be bothered running their reports by even a first year law student for edits and corrections.
With respect to the Trump cases in particular, Fox News has, of course, taken the lead in terrible reporting. And a lot of times, they aren't just getting it wrong because they don't understand it, but they seem to be deliberately getting it wrong merely because Trump announced it and they want to be supportive of his efforts.
So Trump is convicted on a misdemeanor committed (it was determined) with the intent to further another crime such as election interference or a tax code violation.
No. He was convicted of a felony (actually 34 felonies)- Falsifying Business Record in the first degree under NY Penal Law 175.10 which is a felony and requires, among other things, "an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."
As you now know, the "other crimes" include violation of FECA campaign contributions as well as the two "other crimes" you mentioned.
Interesting they say intent to break election law when those charged with enforcing election law did not charge him with such.
I'm not entirely clear what you are referring to with "those charged with enforcing election law did not charge him with such." But to the extent I understand you, I don't find it that interesting at all. Different offices and actors make different determinations on different standards and concerns all the time. Why do you think it's interesting? How interesting? Most importantly. what conclusions do you draw from how interesting you think it is?
Also, Cohen was charged in federal court with (and pled guilty to) the exact same violation of FECA that Trump was accused of in state court. You may remember that Trump was prominently referred to as "Individual-1" in the Cohen Indictment. The FEC, which has civil (not criminal) enforcement authority for FECA violations found that Cohen, Pecker and National Enquirer violated FECA for the exact same conduct identified in the Trump trial.
Here is the very odd Statement of the FEC why they were not pursuing claims against Trump (a dissenting Statement was also filed). Basically they declined to go after Trump because Cohen had pled guilty in federal court to the criminal behavior he engaged in with Trump, and Cohen's detailed guilty plea made "the public record complete with respect to the conduct at issue in these [Trump] complaints." So the FEC's decision not to charge Trump civilly seems to be because Cohen's detailed guilty plea got all the Trump behavior out in the open, which appears to be the FEC's primary purpose ("public record [is] complete"). Seems like weird reasoning to me, but there it is.
So is the NY DA saying he had intent but failed to do it? Or have they concluded somehow he did interfere (again despite the [Congressional authorized] enforcers seemingly disagreeing)?
1. "intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof" is all the NY criminal statute requires.
2. "interfere" is not recited in NY 17-152 or the FECA provisions limiting contributions.
3. The prosecution never said Trump failed to commit the crimes he intended to commit. But again, they didn't have to prove Trump was successful in his criminal pursuits, only that he intended to commit crimes.
4. There is plenty of corroborated AND unrebutted evidence that Trump and Cohen's payments to Daniels were campaign contributions and/or expenditures exceeding all legal limits -- i.e., he successfully committed the "other crime." Again, "intent" to violate FECA is all the statute requires but, to the extent it matters, I can't see any real dispute that Trump committed the crime he intended to commit with respect to FECA. Keep in mind that Trump's co-conspirator Cohen was charged and went to prison for doing exactly what Trump did with Cohen.
But, for a parallel situation, the Clinton private email server which was used seemingly in violation of Federal requirement arguably so she could avoid FOIA disclosures and thus support her 2016 run for President (ie interfere with election). Tell me what I am missing here? Should some eager DA go after her?
"parallel situation" - uh huh . . .
I know a lot of you guys love whaddaboudyous and think they are effective, but I'm not one of them. My eyes begin to cross whenever I see stuff like this. Maybe I have some kind of aphasia on whaddaboudyous. So I'm the wrong guy to try and explain to you what you're missing here, although I'd guess that you are missing a lot of sh!t here.
When blatant hypocrisy exposed you dismiss it as whataboutism. The establishment conditioned you to do so
For those of you unsure what to believe - remember trump mocked a cripple man on public tv and bragged he was so rich he could grab a woman by the pu$$ie. Truly unfit.