He's guilty

This site is actually a great metric of how much his popularity has actually dropped off a cliff

In 2016 the electoral college scheme distracted from how the GOP lost seats in both chambers of congress. They then lost the house in 2018, and the senate in 2020. They regained the house in 2022 but projections had the GOP winning by a landslide only for them to just barely take the house (and then revealed they have no earthly clue wtf they're doing since all reason has left since Trump)

This is the second huge opportunity the GOP has had to disown Trump and once again they're doubling down on supporting a loser. It's mind boggling. With his sentencing scheduled only 4 days before the convention I thought strategist would be bold and try and get a fresh face and get rid of the emotional baggage around trump so they could fully focus on highlighting Biden's unpopularity, especially someone middle aged and not elderly.

But they're too afraid of offending the cult...

Thanks for this. I will pass along your insightful political strategy to GOP officials because it's always a good idea to do exactly what your enemy political opponents tell you to do.

Maybe they will change their strategy a bit when they have lost biggly on November 5th.

re the supposed timing of the cases against him, first have you folks forgotten the DOJ guidelines? i don't believe they are correct but based on them there is a general idea we don't indict sitting presidents.

second, cohen pled guilty during trump's term for similar charges. served time. the man should thank his lucky stars it was left until after his term, that he was able to dodge this that long. he doesn't get to have it both ways, charges delayed until after his term, then delayed until the next election.

reminds me of the bs about scotus judges. oh, we can't give obama his in an election year. and then barrett appointed weeks before trump leaves. i dislike such fake word games.

third, you and i both know why the man wants the federal cases delayed until he sees if he can get elected. it's not so they ever get to a trial and jury.

Slimy con man whose life is all about finding the shady angle to benefit himself whines when others play an angle, but do so with greater adherence to the law and the facts than he has on his best day.

Trump supporters who consider themselves tough guys clutch their pearls and moan from their fainting couches: "Well, I never!"

re the supposed "double standard," one, his gofer was charged and pled guilty (cohen) and two, have people forgotten john edwards?

re the supposed "immunity," running for office isn't an activity of the government. RFK isn't immune if he shoots a man on a street corner or violates campaign finance laws. when he takes home papers from the white house it by definition didn't happen while he was president. it's nonsense.

^^^^^

This is a common and tired Carmine/Newman schtick that his childish, deluded mind thinks is actually effective at proving some vague point. For every Trump case (and probably other cases with criminals he loves - Boris Epshteyn, Kraken, Giuliani, all the Germans at Nuremberg), whether civil and criminal, he has repeatedly posted these idiotic questions in rhetorical style -- "What did he do? What is charged with?" -- and then when no one answers his stupid question, of if he gets called out for his stupid question, or even if someone takes the time and actually provides links to court documents that answer his stupid question, he somehow, and solely in his own head, "concludes" that no one knows what Trump is charged with - i.e., in his head, the case must be rigged with fake and/or unknown charges because no one on a message board explained the charges to his satisfaction.

He did that here - see post # 394 on page 20. He seriously is that mentally fvcked up that he thinks this repeated childish ploy actually works on anyone (except himself). Watch him. He'll do it at least once in every thread related to a Trump case, and usually does it multiple times per thread.

No chance. If we learn anything from history, once sin enters the world, transgression will only become bigger and stronger over the time, pushing people further away from the truth. GOP is lost as a party of conservatives. GOP is now Trump party. Anyone against it will be crushed along the way. Third party is America’s only chance of salvation, no matter how small the chance is.

not quite the same thing as "double standard" but at least on fair treatment and the specter of malicious prosecution, you can find examples (as in a wealthy financier) brought up on similar charges in NY in recent years. I'm not convinced that the interpretation of the law was sound in this case (although I believe it's undeniable that the facts supported that interpretation beyond reasonable doubt in just the way the unanimous verdicts on 34 counts seem to support).

And for those people dismayed by the facet of NY law that allows the jury to decide without having a consensus on which underlying criminal actions apply, look at the different counts and tell me why you think there wouldn't be a lot of union space in that Venn diagram.

re the fraud, as i understood it, cohen's NDA payment is well in excess of allowed contributions. they did an NDA to shut someone up, they hid that the NDA existed, created misleading records so you couldn't work backwards that the paperwork related to an NDA. they also created a shell corporation as a cutout. cohen was paid by a trump trust rather than the business, they then acted like it was for a retainer as opposed to repayment on the NDA.

the "double standard" thing is really orwellian. in reality what they mean is the man can never be impeached, charged, or tried with anything.

can you imagine what would have happened 50 years ago if we'd found out nixon (a) asked the USSR for dirt on humphrey, (b) browbeat austria unless it said mcgovern was corrupt, (c) took classified records home to california, (d) called georgia when he was at risk of losing an election, (e) urged people to rush the capitol, etc. etc.? he'd be in a max cell in prison, impeached, defrocked.

The really funny thing is I've been seeing takes from liberals now such as "now Nixon is officially not the worst president anymore"

Let's look at the conservative GOP circa 1973-74 shall we, Nixon:

- Established the EPA

- Ended conscription

- Was a huge proponent of the 26th amendment (lowering the voting age)

- Yep title XI too

- He even wanted a negative income tax bracket, or in modern lingo a form of UBI

Todays GOP

- Wants to abolish the EPA

- Has proposed raising the voting age because their youth support is in the toilet and the fault clearly can't with them

- Forget UBI being evil communism, they pretty openly want to raise taxes on the poorest Americans...

Man wouldn't it be nice to have an opposition party to today's Democrats putting forward some Nixonian policy ideas...

BTW this isn't an argument that Nixon was great. That's just how incredibly bad American policy makers are now...

The strategy has never been to win. They will claim it’s rigged and storm the capital again. Trump is stupid. Bottom line. That’s why anyone with mid level intelligence will not vote for him.

re the nixon comparison, what you're missing is that was back in the time period when GOP candidates tried to appeal to the middle instead of own the libs. as we have already seen, governing from the hard right trying to own libs proved a good way to be a one-termer. [the man lost by 70 electoral votes. which is why he beefs about a list of states and not just one.]

I don't even think they will they attack or riot when Trump loses again. Donnie has been dog-whistling for months -- when indicted, when arraigned, during the trial -- and all we see are a few crying magoos outside the courthouse. Donnie is losing his mojo and the magoos don't want to admit it but they know it is true.

lest people pretend, i don't think dubya belongs in jail, but then i think down deep he's a decent guy. no jail for cruz, johnson, or most anyone else. the banana republic stuff is horribly off.

this is about a single dude who thinks he can do whatever he likes, the law doesn't apply, and his party and judges will bail him out. and i think based on that blatant tude he will get a jail sentence for this case, and then we'll see if his judges let him off.

dude talked smack about the prosecutor, judge, law clerks, biden, etc. violated the gag order. dude constantly wanted to yak to cameras about how innocent he was, then didn't testify. no contrition, no remorse. found guilty on all counts.

no, i don't expect a long sentence, but the book will get tossed at him a little. you don't publicly abuse the people deciding your fate and it comes out well.