Trump 64: He's Finally In Front Of A Judge

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

It’s odd, but then again, it happened in the Netherlands in 2002. When Pim Fortuin was assassinated right before the elections, the ballots had already been printed. They couldn’t be rectified in time, and people overwhelmingly voted for him posthumously

So my state has actually had candidates die very close to election dates twice that I can think of since I started voting.

Spoiler

We had a candidate who was found dead on the morning of the 1999 state election - the election went ahead everywhere except that electorate which had a by-election a month later, and which then decided the government (very close result that year, that result caused a hung parliament and a goverment was formed with three Independents). 

A similar thing happened again last year in my state where a candidate died 2 weeks ahead of the state election - people in that electorate got to turn up twice, once to vote for the Upper House and once two months later to vote for their Lower House representative (result wasn't even vaguely close, we knew who would form government by 8pm the night of the main election).

Having an ineligible (deceased) candidate causes the election in the Lower House to be ruled as "failed" and re-run due to it being for a single representative per electorate.   If it were to happen with an Upper House candidate I think the vote would go ahead as scheduled as the result is decided across much bigger regions for more candidates and proportionally by Party, so not dissimilar to the Pim Fortuin situation? Who did end up in the political position - a member of his party?

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

So my state has actually had candidates die very close to election dates twice that I can think of since I started voting.

  Reveal hidden contents

We had a candidate who was found dead on the morning of the 1999 state election - the election went ahead everywhere except that electorate which had a by-election a month later, and which then decided the government (very close result that year, that result caused a hung parliament and a goverment was formed with three Independents). 

A similar thing happened again last year in my state where a candidate died 2 weeks ahead of the state election - people in that electorate got to turn up twice, once to vote for the Upper House and once two months later to vote for their Lower House representative (result wasn't even vaguely close, we knew who would form government by 8pm the night of the main election).

Having an ineligible (deceased) candidate causes the election in the Lower House to be ruled as "failed" and re-run due to it being for a single representative per electorate.   If it were to happen with an Upper House candidate I think the vote would go ahead as scheduled as the result is decided across much bigger regions for more candidates and proportionally by Party, so not dissimilar to the Pim Fortuin situation? Who did end up in the political position - a member of his party?

We elect parties, but do so by choosing preferred candidates. The total number of votes for the parties determines the number of seats the partiy gets. The preferential votes determine who sits in those seats. Pim ended up being the most preferred candidate that year and his votes went to the number two on the list.

[CTRLZero]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

What I find strange is that it’s possible to write in a candidate of your own choosing so be able to vote for someone who’s not on the ballot, be they alive or dead. 

I have thought that, given the persistence of the MAGA party, if someone other than Trump is the candidate, it might be an option to push for him as a write-in vote.  If enough people voted for Trump, it would split the GOP vote and the Dem candidate would come out on top.  Of course, I’m not really sure if the write-in system would work as I envision, but I can dream…. 

[Audrey2]

10 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I have thought that, given the persistence of the MAGA party, if someone other than Trump is the candidate, it might be an option to push for him as a write-in vote.  If enough people voted for Trump, it would split the GOP vote and the Dem candidate would come out on top.  Of course, I’m not really sure if the write-in system would work as I envision, but I can dream…. 

I'm afraid that Bobby Kennedy running as a third party candidate is going to split the Biden vote and put the orange menace back in the White House.

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

I'm afraid that Bobby Kennedy running as a third party candidate is going to split the Biden vote and put the orange menace back in the White House.

Yes, it’s a horribly scary scenario.  

[fraurosena]

Does Bobby Kennedy have many followers then? Or is he too fringe?

[GreyhoundFan]

6 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Does Bobby Kennedy have many followers then? Or is he too fringe?

I don’t think he has many supporters, but even a small percentage going for a third party candidate can cause issues. 

[backyard sylph]

14 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

I'm afraid that Bobby Kennedy running as a third party candidate is going to split the Biden vote and put the orange menace back in the White House.

He's more likely to draw voters who weren't going to vote for Biden to begin with; there was a sizeable number of people who initially voted for Trump for reasons other than being racist nutballs. Now they know Trump isn't the answer, but still mistrust Biden as too "liberal." Kennedy has been a DINO all along.

The third party splits in the last two elections were because of more liberal candidates, not more conservative ones. The real problem currently is with people who call themselves moderate but don't realize there aren't suitable compromises in the top issues right now. If they are comfortable enough in their daily lives, they don't understand people who want what they consider extreme action. Moderate is for simpler times than we're currently in. Overton Window cartoon goes here. 

At the same time, people more liberal than Biden who want to make a stand for their beliefs worry me more. It's been tough to convince some younger members of my family that voting for an actual liberal (or just progressive) presidential candidate is also not in our current best interests. We can try to do that with the down ballot candidates, though in this state are nearly gerrymandered out of the picture, and especially on issues, such as the speciously named and described Issue 1 here in Ohio. And in the primary, when the math is considered. 

Edited October 10, 2023 by backyard sylph
this is my pet topic

[fraurosena]

Hide the ketchup! It's Weisselberg's testimony today. 

 

[SassyPants]

2 hours ago, backyard sylph said:

He's more likely to draw voters who weren't going to vote for Biden to begin with; there was a sizeable number of people who initially voted for Trump for reasons other than being racist nutballs. Now they know Trump isn't the answer, but still mistrust Biden as too "liberal." Kennedy has been a DINO all along.

The third party splits in the last two elections were because of more liberal candidates, not more conservative ones. The real problem currently is with people who call themselves moderate but don't realize there aren't suitable compromises in the top issues right now. If they are comfortable enough in their daily lives, they don't understand people who want what they consider extreme action. Moderate is for simpler times than we're currently in. Overton Window cartoon goes here. 

At the same time, people more liberal than Biden who want to make a stand for their beliefs worry me more. It's been tough to convince some younger members of my family that voting for an actual liberal (or just progressive) presidential candidate is also not in our current best interests. We can try to do that with the down ballot candidates, though in this state are nearly gerrymandered out of the picture, and especially on issues, such as the speciously named and described Issue 1 here in Ohio. And in the primary, when the math is considered. 

My parents were Trumpers (democrats). They hate the Clintons, plus my dad is a misogynistic 90 YO. On my last visit my dad admitted that Trump is an idiot. I could see my parents voting Kennedy. They are also life long cafeteria Catholics. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, please. 

[zeebaneighba]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Oh, please. 

I have never been more relieved that the former guy is NOT president than right now.

[fraurosena]

Jack Smith is playing 4 dimensional chess whilst Trump is eating checkers.

Great thread:

Spoiler

 

 

[CTRLZero]

Re: advice of counsel defense - Trump and his big mouth strike again.  I hope we get to read all of John Eastman’s advice on how to overthrow a government.  🧐 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A tantalizing detail in a new Trump legal filing"

Quote

Donald Trump’s many legal problems have led to a veritable fire hose of often-mundane, procedural court filings. But occasionally, there’s a nugget that catches your eye.

Such was the case Monday, in the government’s latest filing in Trump’s classified documents case.

While arguing against the motion by Trump’s lawyers to delay the May 20 trial, special counsel Jack Smith’s lawyers assured they’re ready to go and that such a delay isn’t necessary, unsurprisingly. But they also said they are ready to prove something significant that, to this point, has remained shrouded and the subject of much speculation: why Trump allegedly took and kept the documents.

“That the classified materials at issue in this case were taken from the White House and retained at Mar-a-Lago is not in dispute,” Smith’s office said.

It then added that “what is in dispute is how that occurred, why it occurred, what Trump knew, and what Trump intended in retaining them — all issues that the Government will prove at trial primarily with unclassified evidence.”

The government apparently thinks it knows “what Trump intended” with the documents. And it’s signaling that it plans to prove that intent.

This would seem important, not only from a general-interest standpoint but also from a legal one.

Smith’s team might not necessarily need to prove Trump’s intention or his motive in the case. You have documents, you fail to return them when the government comes calling and that’s a crime regardless of why you did it, the argument goes. Trump’s indictment in the case made no direct claims about a potential motive.

But that doesn’t mean proving Trump’s motive wouldn’t be helpful. Indeed, establishing a motive would seem to drive home the intention of Trump’s actions and combat any arguments that this was all a misunderstanding — or that Trump somehow didn’t know what he had (which the government has taken care to undermine).

It’s a lot like Smith’s other indictment of Trump, the Jan. 6 case. In that case, Smith need not necessarily prove that Trump knew that his claims of massive voter fraud were false to demonstrate that Trump broke the law in trying to overturn the election. But it too would be helpful, and Smith’s office has made it abundantly clear that it intends to prove it, devoting 20 out of 45 pages from the indictment to that point.

In each case, the government appears to be signaling that it’s not going to leave stones unturned and that it intends to get into that much-debated space between Trump’s ears.

What that alleged motive could be remains anyone’s guess. But there are some prevailing theories about why Trump might have done it.

One of them — promoted by Trump’s allies — is that he’s a pack rat and that these documents just happened to be mixed in with a bunch of other, less problematic materials that were taken from the White House. But not only is there all kinds of evidence that he took an interest in the boxes and their contents as the government was trying to retrieve them, but the government has said Trump was also involved in packing the materials when he left the White House in January 2021.

Another, somewhat less nefarious explanation would be that he viewed even sensitive materials as something akin to trophies and mementos — his “beautiful mind” materials, in the words of one aide.

Where things could get even hairier for Trump is if the government can demonstrate that he intended to use the documents for some purpose. And at least in one case, the government has gestured toward to a potential purpose.

Perhaps the most significant document in the indictment deals with a plan for attacking Iran, which Trump allegedly showed to a writer and a publisher. A recording of the scene has been made public.

The document and recording are significant because they show Trump acknowledging, in real time, that the document is classified and that he never declassified it — contrary to his public suggestions about the documents. (Trump had also initially said the document didn’t exist and that his talk was mere bravado — before Smith’s team added the actual alleged document to a superseding indictment.)

But they’re also significant because they showed Trump actually apparently using the documents for a purpose: in the service of going after a target of his ire, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley.

“I just found, isn’t that amazing?” Trump said in the recording. “This totally wins my case, you know.”

The New Yorker had reported in July 2021 that Milley had feared Trump would start a war with Iran to stay in power; here was Trump, less than a week later, using an allegedly classified document to argue that it was actually Milley who was trigger-happy.

A similar scene was later recounted in Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s book — though the book merely cites Trump having recalled such a document rather than actually showing it off.

Meadows’s book wrote unflatteringly about Milley’s “plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency. President Trump denied those requests every time.”

To the extent Trump used a classified document to go after a critic, that could suggest he saw value in the documents beyond just keeping them or showing them off to burnish his ego.

(Milley has said he never recommended attacking Iran, and such documents are often drawn up as contingencies.)

Whether other evidence points in this direction, we don’t yet know. But Smith’s team has clearly shown an interest in whether Trump used the documents for his personal advantage. In April it subpoenaed information about the dealings of Trump’s businesses with foreign countries, for instance, apparently in search of a possible financial motive. But such a motive wasn’t referenced in Trump’s indictment, and as of November 2022 it hadn’t been established, The Washington Post reported.

Whatever that alleged motive might ultimately be, we’ll apparently learn about it at some point.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

TFG is a whiny little bitch:

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

TFG is a whiny little bitch:

Is he witness tampering again?

[Alisamer]

On 10/8/2023 at 6:54 PM, AnywhereButHere said:

To be honest though, there are dead people I’d rather have in office over some of the (presumably) live ones currently holding the post! 

Honestly I'm not entirely sure about some of the geezers in congress. And then there are Bobo and MTG who appear to be alive, but have no evidence of conscious brain activity. 

 

On 10/9/2023 at 9:00 AM, CTRLZero said:

I have thought that, given the persistence of the MAGA party, if someone other than Trump is the candidate, it might be an option to push for him as a write-in vote.  If enough people voted for Trump, it would split the GOP vote and the Dem candidate would come out on top.  Of course, I’m not really sure if the write-in system would work as I envision, but I can dream…. 

That'd be wonderful, but...

On 10/9/2023 at 7:38 PM, Audrey2 said:

I'm afraid that Bobby Kennedy running as a third party candidate is going to split the Biden vote and put the orange menace back in the White House.

...there's that. Fox news and others have so thoroughly convinced most of their viewers that Biden is senile and useless, while carefully editing and responding to Trump's word vomit in such a way as to make it look like it kind of sometimes makes sense, that there are likely a good many people on the Republican side who think Trump is terrible but Biden is worse. Not helped by the fact that voting for Biden is also, in effect, voting for a woman of color to be president if Biden kicks the bucket, which their "news" sources have convinced them is imminent. And there are some Dems who don't love Biden either who might vote third party. 

Best bet is Bobby Kennedy doesn't run, Biden does, and Trump somehow doesn't get the nomination (perhaps his endless stream of legal trouble might contribute to that). The more sensible Rs and ones who vote R because it's not D, will likely vote for the real candidate. The diehard crazies will write in Trump. Hopefully the vast majority of Dems will realize this is not a "who do we want" race it's a "who don't we want" race and vote Biden.

I'm very curious to see who Trump taps as a running mate, because I can see that potentially influencing some of the less insane Republicans. He doesn't want anyone smarter than him, or more ambitious than him, and if they have a conscience or morals they are a bad fit. (And I do know Trump got a few votes last time from people who didn't like him, but liked good plain vanilla Christian Pence.)

That really doesn't leave many options. Gaetz would go for it, but I think Trump might realize he's too ambitious and untrustworthy. MTG is Trump's style, but perhaps a bit too confrontational, plus she's female and not likely to win many "hotness" votes from the incels. Just about everyone else is either too crafty, has a conscience buried somewhere deep that might come out suddenly a la Pence, or he's already insulted them enough they might turn if given the right motivation (or legal immunity). Or they are on the verge of decomposition. 

So I'm predicting Lauren Boebert. She's dumb, will do anything he asks, is fine with being groped, and will look relatively pretty parked behind him fawning over his every word. Only wild card is if Melania puts her foot down, because apparently she's got an ironclad prenup and enough dirt on the orange one that he listens to her sometimes. 

In that case, maybe the Mypillow guy? He'll market new "White House" branded lumpy pillows and offer a new discount every time he manages to make it on TV.

Nah, it'll be Ivanka. Or maybe Eric, but probably Ivanka. Junior is too strung out to risk asking.

Or, being Trump, he'll declare that he doesn't NEED a VP, he's more than capable of excelling at both jobs, and he only hires the best people so he'll just delegate things if needed. Which also clears the way a bit more for him declaring himself king for life. Kings don't have VPs.

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Is he witness tampering again?

When is he NOT?

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Every time I think he can’t get worse, he dig deeper:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

He is unhinged.

 

[fraurosena]

Say one thing for Trump, say he's a winner at losing. 

 

[fraurosena]

Good grief.

[...] framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President."

[Xan]

BigStupid seems to think that Deutsche Bank gave him a "trophy" for being such a good borrower and paying things back on time.  (Funny... I don't remember my bank ever sending me a trophy for submitting timely mortgage payments.)