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@Double_R
I still don't understand why the FEC needs to prove a person innocent.No one has argued this
You did:
Now show me the example where the FEC says payments made to shut up pornstars are excluded from campaign expenditures and this debate will be over.
Implying that unless the FEC enumerates the exact circumstances as personal expenses, then they must be a campaign expenditure. This no doubt works in reverse where unless the FEC enumerates the exact circumstances as campaign expenses, then they must be personal expenses.
In either case you assume guilt unless the FEC says otherwise specifically.
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@Moozer325
I can show you, it would just take a long time. As for how seriously you take me, that is not something I can control.
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@Greyparrot
Well in broad theory there isn't any other choice but to have interpretations by people, not unless a real AI is built; but it could be a lot better than even what the founders intended (and what we're seeing is not that).
If judges have the authority to overturn laws (and that is how they have operated due to constitutions being supreme laws) then they should review and veto laws before they are passed. It's pretty stupid to wait until someone gets enough money to sue before you react and that your reacting is "oops, we're sorry the government wrecked thousands of lives, moving on"
Vague laws, laws that attempt to delegate definition to unelected authority, and laws that violate the constitution should never make it to the people.
I drafted a few constitutions years ago and one provision which was absolutely core to the "improvement" over the American Constitution is the 'just cause' test. It is not enough for a law to be clear and equally applied. It also needs to serve the purpose of protecting liberty. If it doesn't serve that purpose don't call it a law.
There are whole batteries of heuristics (thought experiments in this case) you could make mandatory for a law to pass. The outcome of that kind of review would pretty much boil away these ridiculous grey areas and make it much easier to spot and eliminate oath-breaking judges.
That being said, I'm not making excuses for Merchan. Before TDS no judge would dare contradict all precedent, not even pretend to look at election law, and then presume a fringe interpretation that would make every candidate since 1970 a criminal.
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@FLRW
So you think of Trump's genitals for most of the day, but there has to be breaks right? It would be exhausting if you dreamed about them too. Or maybe you switch between Donald and Melania and somehow that can be maintained indefinitely?
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@Greyparrot
Well in theory the only purpose of a judge is to interpret law, but the problem here is that he's dead wrong on letter, precedent, not a federal judge, and no principle which will be applied equally has been relied upon.
That's not really interpreting that's making it up, and that's what makes him a pseudo-judge instead of a judge.
The FEC isn't needed to prove people innocent, until now nobody has even been pursued for election violations without clear condemnation from the FEC, and as I said when the guidance is new there has been no punishment since it's obvious that they're making stuff up as they go along.
Double R is right, legislatures do write laws so vague because they want to create unaccountable bureaucracies (so people stop blaming them, still their fault). The constitutionality of this practice is doubtful, but even with that flaw the FEC (the unaccountable bureaucracy in this case) is not even the origin of the attack.
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@Double_R
No, you are debunked.I gave you the link, you refused to read it, then you go ahead and jump down the hole with spikes at the bottom. Let me guess, your interpretation being in direct contradiction with an FEC example is just another attempt at a 'meaningless' 'gotcha'?Yes, it is a meaningless gotcha.
Now show me the example where the FEC says payments made to shut up pornstars are excluded from campaign expenditures and this debate will be over.
The debate is over. You lost.
...and just to be clear the purpose was to win the 2016 presidential election? Which you claim would not have happened if it had been filed as a compensated NDA to Stormy Daniels?The evidence overwhelmingly shows their intentions were to impact the election, and the jury agreed.
Then why does Alan Dershowitz claim that the electorate would not have seen the filing till after the election?
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@Mall
Got something against coffee too? (grips mug protectively)
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@Moozer325
but this sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory
Conspiracies do exist, and one which requires as little coordination as this one does are such a permissive definition of "conspiracy" as to include all wars in the definition.
What are wars but people conspiring to defeat another conspiracy?
I would like to take a look at some of these sources though
The information is everywhere, the conclusion requires a well developed sense of relative probabilities when trying to fit all the pieces together into a coherent world view.
In other words, there is no single smoking gun and there never will be because there is no single conspiracy.
As to “what I am”,
I meant what motivates you to vote and what factors do you care about.
If you only care about policy and outcome like me, you don't care if the candidate's brain is broken or that he's a scoundrel if the outcome of his/her election is better than the alternative.
In other words is the office a ball in your game of pool or do you actually look for people who you can trust to do the right thing? I don't trust anyone who has ever had a chance in my lifetime.
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@Moozer325
I don't think he's handled anything. I think the executive branch is being run by a committee whose members we may never know.
That committee has many policies I disagree with, but the primary reason I'm voting for Trump and not Biden is because what they're doing to Trump is a message to "sit down and shut up" to anyone who would threaten the core elements of the military industrial (and now pharmacological) complex, the governmental portion being known as the deep state and the international portion being known as the globalist.
As far as I can tell that movement is:
A) Highly dishonest
B) Partly deluded by collectivist utopian fallacy
C) Partly sociopathic imperialists
D) Generally completely happy to carve their living off the backs of people they're stealing from and defrauding like the parasites they are.
There are people who vote on philosophy and world trajectory like me, but very few.
There are way more that vote based on perception of average prosperity, and they aren't happy.
Those who vote based on a Hollywood idea that the president is some kind of pinnacle of intelligence or morality and they are most disturbed by Biden's dementia.
What are you? Not sure:
He has handled everything non-partisan with the skill that any president should,
I can't think of anything except that which could be described as ceremonial.
Since it is non-partisan I shouldn't have any problem agreeing if you show some examples?
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@Owen_T
Maybe you should ask a question if you want an answer, unless you're a sock puppet of underdog; then don't bother.
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@Moozer325
It's because his brain is failing, not because of his age. That is a sleight of hand designed to distract and make people compare to Trump's age and point out the fact that there are tons of people at 95 who are still capable of kicking your ass at chess and remembering what they did when they were 25.
You can be old and have a fully functioning brain, but Biden is not one of those lucky people.
Also, there is much more evidence that Trump has dementia than Biden does.
Not if you filter out hearsay and limit yourself to public video recorded evidence.
Biden has proven that he can do the job
...
Sure, you could say his age might have an effect on his policies, but he has proven that it doesn't.
Or you have proven they aren't his policies.
We should judge a president based on his policies, and the work they did. Nothing else.
Sounds fine to me.
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@TheUnderdog
You assume whatever you want, I forgot it was pointless to talk to you since you ignore fact checks.
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@Double_R
Now apply your standards and tell me if buying new shoes under those circumstances is exclusively a campaign expense that must be reported?Yes, if someone says out of their own mouth “I spent this money exclusively for campaign purposes” then guess what… it’s a campaign expense. Let’s see who else agrees with me…“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”
...
you’d have those grey areas where there is no way for the FEC to determine whether it was personal or for the campaign (like buying a pair of shoes) so they wouldn’t waste their time trying to step in and determine that.
I gave you the link, you refused to read it, then you go ahead and jump down the hole with spikes at the bottom. Let me guess, your interpretation being in direct contradiction with an FEC example is just another attempt at a 'meaningless' 'gotcha'?
[FEC] Automatic Personal Expenses:Clothing
The campaign cannot pay for attire for political functions (for example, a new tuxedo or dress), but it can pay for clothing of de minimis value that is used in the campaign, such as T-shirts or caps imprinted with a campaign slogan.
Your interpretation of federal campaign law is dead on arrival.
The fact that the disclosure requirement contradicted its purpose is exactly why they chose not to disclose it.
...and just to be clear the purpose was to win the 2016 presidential election? Which you claim would not have happened if it had been filed as a compensated NDA to Stormy Daniels?
Or in other words if what you were saying was true, and lawyers knew this (because they would if it was clear law and precedent) then Stormy's lawyer and Cohen BOTH knew that there was no way to pay Stormy except by a reported campaign expenditure. Why didn't it occur to them that there was no point in having an NDA if everyone in the world would know that an NDA was paid for?It did, that’s why they falsified the records
Dropping context (italic is re-added text), I'm talking about Stormy and her lawyer here.
Are you ceding that they were co-conspirators?
Again, the NDA itself was not illegal.
That is not a flaw in the inference if the NDA is for all practical purposes illegal, illegal to get any benefit from.
What was illegal was the falsification of Trump’s documents, which there is no reasonable way to tie Stormy to.
Your theory also require non-reporting to be illegal. I just pointed out how non-reporting should have been obvious if your assertion that the supposed campaign finance violation was obvious is true. I am only appearing to have to remind you because you are intentionally straying in an attempt to shift context to a different theory of your own invention, in other words a stawman, a despicable tactic of sophists.
Moreover, if they made Stormy a target that would have blown up the entire case, so of course they wouldn’t have gone after her.
That is a distraction. The question is not why the prosecutors didn't go after Stormy's lawyer (she can rely on advise of council defense), the question is why the lawyer would lead his client straight into a criminal conspiracy.
You have in the past repeatedly appealed to concepts you do not understand. One of them is Occam's razor. Here is how to correctly use it:
By Occam's razor the explanation with the least assumptions tends to be correct, and the explanation with the least assumptions is that there was no reason to believe it was a criminal conspiracy because it wasn't a criminal conspiracy because this is not federal election law as so aptly demonstrated by your total failure to cite precedent, law, or even come up with a coherent understanding of FEC guidance as seen above.
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Consenting to penis in vagina sex where both parties are fertile is consenting to the risk of pregnancy. Risk of X is not the same as X.
If that risk was inaccurately gauged by false or withheld information then it was not consented to.
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@Greyparrot
Very forward thinking comrade, the utopia is just around the corner with men like you!
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@TheUnderdog
But you seem to be dodging the question:
Have you considered the possibility that I did answer and it's a technical glitch that you can't see it?
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@TheUnderdog
Certainly, and it would be 10x stronger case if they did start broadcasting a speech of his and then cut it off when the person whose job it is to censor heard something coming 5 seconds ahead.If Trump does a 2 hour speech, then you can’t expect them to broadcast all of it.
This is misdirection, that is not the context.
You can sell shoes, just don’t do it at a Resturant because they can’t use that to make money.
You can say you sell shoes, but if they're actually pine cones you're lying. Just like you can say you're a journalist, but if you censor matters of utmost public interest because you don't want your viewers/readers to know about them then you're lying.
Many people including doctors were blocked. Many posts were removed.It’s probably a software glitch.
Oh, you're trolling again. I suppose not knowing when you are trolling is part of the troll.
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@TheUnderdog
Depends on if you call violating the law and lying about it constantly "a policy".Interesting theory, we'll just apply it to the criminal traitors that Trump hopefully locks up and see that they couldn't possibly be undergoing censorship since you know who they are.It depends on what their crime is. But if it’s a policy disagreement, then that’s not a good enough reason to lock someone up.
but it’s not impeachable.
Democrats said whatever congress wants to be impeachable is impeachable.
You can't put 340 million people on live TV, but one of them is POTUS and if you won't show people what POTUS is saying you are not genuine press.Would you argue Fox News is censoring Biden by not letting him be on air?
Certainly, and it would be 10x stronger case if they did start broadcasting a speech of his and then cut it off when the person whose job it is to censor heard something coming 5 seconds ahead.
A company doesn’t have to display your entire monologue.
A company that refuses to show the speech of national officer holders due to the content of that speech is not part of the press. A propaganda organization by that act alone.
Refusing to let anyone see the original claim because you think it's false is not free speech.Correct, but I’ve seen so many anti COVID vax posts at the height of the mandates and they weren’t taken down
You don't see the ones that were taken down. You may have heard of survivorship bias.
Many people including doctors were blocked. Many posts were removed. This is well documented and if you don't believe it that's hardly surprising given that you refused to read a single page bill that you spread disinformation about no matter how many times I gave you the link.
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@TheUnderdog
the guy who has been framed, gagged, the target of tons of online censorshipIf the media hated Trump to the extent of wanting him to get censored and if conservatives were being censored by Big Tech for being conservatives, then nobody would know who Ben Shapiro is because he would have been censored before he became famous.
Interesting theory, we'll just apply it to the criminal traitors that Trump hopefully locks up and see that they couldn't possibly be undergoing censorship since you know who they are.
who was dropped from fox news liveThis is not censorship anymore than if Fox News refused to have Bernie Sanders on. You can’t put 340 million people on live TV, but all 340 million of us have free speech.
It's literally censorship when you're broadcasting someones speech and then you cut it off because you don't want people to hear what he's saying.
You can't put 340 million people on live TV, but one of them is POTUS and if you won't show people what POTUS is saying you are not genuine press. Nothing is more public interest than controversial remarks by the most powerful man in the country.
Bernie Sanders has never been president and has never been cut off mid broadcast because he was saying something 'dangerous'.
CNN won't broadcast because they want to fact check it firstFact checking (even if you believe it’s fake) is free speech.
Refusing to let anyone see the original claim because you think it's false is not free speech.
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"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!"
Mmmmm (Kermit / Jordon Peterson sounds)
I think it was Herman Cain who said if you’re not doing well, don’t blame the government, blame yourself
Mmmhmm?
"don’t blame the government"
"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks"
harummmmmmm
"government = wallstreet" ???
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@Best.Korea
Thanks chat GPT, insightful
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@TheUnderdog
So uh, the guy who has been framed, gagged, the target of tons of online censorship, who was dropped from fox news live because they "couldn't confirm what he was saying" or some such deep state bullshit, the guy CNN won't broadcast because they want to fact check it first.... that's the guy you're pegging as the problem for free speech?
I'd say "don't make me laugh" but I'm afraid it's far too late for that.
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"don't blame the government" seems to be mutually exclusive with "the tea party movement", probably a fake quote; it's cause he pays people to feed him disinformation and thinks it's funny to intentionally not read any sources of information not endorsed by the state.
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@Greyparrot
I don't know if using SD lawyer as an example helps since he was responsible for her current 500k payout to Trump....
Really? I didn't know that.
You know something, this whole grotesque story might be a good basis for a book of the theme: "kill all the lawyers"
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@Double_R
which means you are claiming that the payment could not exist without a campaign to support.There you go again… claiming that the standard is about whether the payment “could not exist” rather than “would not have existed” despite me pointing this out to you already.“I could beat up a 10 year old”“I would beat up a 10 year old”The difference between these two statements is not semantic, they are saying completely different things. Injecting the word “could” merely refers to the possibility, while “would” refers to the reality.
You are right, it's a meaningful difference and "could" is correct while "would" is not. "Could" can be objectively evaluated. "Would" cannot. For example:
If a candidate stops on the way to a rally to get new shoes (and not reporting it to the FEC), goes to the rally, and then says "look at my shoes, aren't they fabulous, I bought them just for this campaign. You should elect me because of how stylish I am".
Would he have bought the shoes without a campaign? He implies he would not have.
Could he have bought the shoes without a campaign? YES
Now apply your standards and tell me if buying new shoes under those circumstances is exclusively a campaign expense that must be reported? (don't try to sneak around with limits they are expensive shoes, and the candidate has already exceeded the aggregate reporting threshold)
Note the bold. It does not say “well since it came out of a personal account it’s a personal expense” nor “it’s a campaign expense if the candidate says so”. It literally says the opposite.
The FEC has literally said that the candidate decides how much can be paid by campaign money in other circumstances.
Therefore "for campaign purposes" must me "for expenses that could not exist without a campaign" or it contradicts with the rest of the FEC guidance, precedent, and history. Which is not impossible. Governments give contradictory information all the time; but that doesn't leave you with case it leaves you with none.
Judges, real judges, choose definitions and interpretations that don't create contradictions and when they can't they strike down the law/policy as unconstitutionally vague.
Now you can choose an interpretation of "campaign purposes" that creates contradictions and lose this point or you can choose an interpretation that doesn't and still lose this point. The only difference is that if you do the second one you can still claim to believe that FEC guidance has legal force.
...the prosecution to prove that Trump and his attorney knew this from the start and did it anyway, and the jury found that they did.
...but they didn't.
In fact when Trump knew, he authorized suing Daniels under the NDA. May as well use it right? Now what is the point of bringing a legal case with a contract that was executed by illegal means? Does it seem possible that multiple sane lawyers would do that?No one is claiming the NDA was illegal.
Yes you have. You claimed it would have to be disclosed to the public and you have claimed that would cancel the purpose of the NDA.
That's like saying it's legal to buy a potato, you just have to poison it before you eat it. That is defacto illegal.
and the intended purpose of that falsification is what made it really illegal.
The intended purpose must be to obscure a crime. A crime is a thing which is illegal <-basic English. Therefore if the intended purpose is to hide failing to report a campaign expenditure/donation pair, then that must be illegal.
Yes, you and they are accusing Trump of {conspiring to hide {a conspiracy to hide (by failing to report) paying Stormy Daniels}}.
The fact that you can't even keep it straight yourself leaves little room to wonder why most Americans haven't a clue, even the TDSers, the TDSers don't care though. They know Trump is evil and that everything he does is evil and dishonest and just HAS to be against the law, so they reach for faith.
Or in other words if what you were saying was true, and lawyers knew this (because they would if it was clear law and precedent) then Stormy's lawyer and Cohen BOTH knew that there was no way to pay Stormy except by a reported campaign expenditure. Why didn't it occur to them that there was no point in having an NDA if everyone in the world would know that an NDA was paid for?
The only conclusion would have been that Cohen and Trump were planning to commit a crime, in which case lawyer's rules of ethics would have required Daniel's lawyer to tell his client that she would be aid and abetting a crime by seeking this compensation. Like signing a contract to receive stolen goods.
Can you point out a flaw in the above chain of inference?
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@TheUnderdog
Because if 12 year olds can consent to sex, then they can consent as to whether or not they should attend school (6th grade).Yes, and they can do both. How absurd to have a theory in which every minor student is being forced to go to school.This to me doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Kids should be forced to go to school.
Whether they would be forced or not is a different measurement than whether are forced.
I am forced to pay taxes, I do not consent; but there are those who consent. They are not forced.
In neither case does the government care; but that does not change the fact that one person does consent and one person does not.
We both have the capacity of consent
I believe being able to pass a citizenship test should be required to vote for everyone.
That would be easily subverted to suppress dissent.
I believe the American experiment has gotten as far as possible with "who decides". Further progress can only come from a more complex system for filtering "what is decided".
Maybe, but you stop for a month and it's just as good as before. Also like weed, caffeine, and food.Possible, but I'm not sure.
Of course not, you've never done it.
I've never had someone I would consider marrying either, but I've seen a lot in my time personally and through literature, history, and news.
When people actually have a happy marriage and kids they consider random sexual adventures to be of so little value compared to what they have gained as to be almost repulsed by them.
That is why they try to teach kids self-restraint and advise them to wait for the special person. Or at least that's what they used to teach them, but we're seeing fewer and fewer happy marriages.
If I had to argue against sexual promiscuity I would argue that sexual desire used to be a tool to motivate very active courtship seeking and perhaps that resulted in more happy marriages.
I don't really believe that though which is why I don't really see a problem with sexual promiscuity or simply a lot of sex or masturbation.
If you feel personally addicted then stop to prove to yourself you have discipline but really it's objectively the healthiest of addictions so long as you don't make it other people's problem. It's definitely one of the good things in life, but there are people who think it's enough to be happy forever and it certainly is not. Those people are just as misguided as those who try to find happiness in good food, drugs, the thrill of being at risk, etc...
In my opinion only two things make people genuinely satisfied:
1.) Production, the creation of the good things in life, the act of reshaping the world to more closely fit your concept of perfection
2.) Babies, children; yes it's totally hind-brain but it's a super effective treatment for depression.
What both have in common is responsibility. (now speaking like Jordan Peterson)
People are happy when they have a responsibility, and they fulfill it.
Sex isn't a responsibility. It will bring you pleasure but never permanent satisfaction. It's great, just don't expect it to be more than it is.
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@Double_R
"Under the "irrespective test," personal use is any use of funds in a campaign account of a candidate (or former candidate) to fulfill a commitment, obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal officeholder" - FECHe didn't use campaign funds, so there is no way for the personal use ban to apply. I am pointing out, that you are inverting the standard by claiming he MUST use campaign funds.I never said the funds must come out of the campaign account, I argued that the payment to SD was a campaign contribution
Misdirection to subvert the point, or in other words you pretended a different context.
If the payment must be a campaign contribution then it must also be a campaign expenditure. There is no difference between Trump donating 130k to his campaign and then paying 130k from his campaign account. They call it "in-kind contribution".
You claiming that the payment to SD was in fact a campaign contribution regardless of Trump using personal money means you are claiming it is a mandated campaign contribution, which means you are claiming it is a "campaign purpose" and not just "intended to help the campaign" which means you are claiming that the payment could not exist without a campaign to support.
you show me a rule that explains when campaign expenditures can be used as personal expenses
No, a example that shows the same expense can be both a legal campaign use and personal and in such cases the candidate/committee chooses how much campaign donations to use vs personal money.
I’m not the one doing the inverting here.
Yes you are. If the personal use ban doesn't apply that implies nothing about whether the expenditure is exclusively a campaign expenditure. You tried to conclude that if the personal use ban doesn't apply, it must be a campaign expenditure.
All B are A
Not all A are B
I never argued that there is no overlap, of course there is.
Yes you have, by implication.
I’ve already described to you what those tests are.
The opinion of pseudojudges is not a test. If you don't have an objective argument I will simply keep pointing out that you don't have an objective argument.
This is what it looks like when you care more about winning the argument than facing reality.
Debating is facing reality. You trying to change the subject instead of supporting your assertions or resolving apparent contradictions in your presented facts is failing at debating and thus hiding from reality.
If you knew what you were talking about and were right you wouldn’t need to.
Catching you in a contradiction is how I prove your assertions have a flaw.
“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”In the overlap, candidates choose whether it's a campaign purpose or a personal expense by the act of using personal money vs campaign money.That’s not even close to what it says.
That is what the whole of the guidance (including the page I linked to) and common sense (as in avoiding absurd conclusions) says.
This payment does not require a campaign to exist. Therefore it is not up to you whether it is a campaign expenditure. It is not a matter of deluding yourself into thinking you know someone's intent. The only intent that matters is using campaign funds or personal funds.Then all campaign finance law is irrelevant. According to this standard, as long as the candidate can argue that his expense was personal, it was personal.
"as long as a fascist pseudo-prosecutor can argue that the expense was an exclusive campaign purpose, then it was an unreported campaign expenditure"
This standard, is the standard. Violating this standard is not standard since it contradicts precedent. You are only claiming it's irrelevant because it makes it irrelevant for getting Trump, but campaign finance law was not designed to GET TRUMP and does not become meaningless just because you can't legally get Trump with it.
Campaign finance law is designed to do two things:
1.) To keep campaigns from defrauding the donors by spending their money on non-campaign expenses
2.) To inform the public about potential special interests and lobbying
Trump spending his own money can't defraud donors
Trump being beholden to himself goes without saying
The requirement to report campaign donations even from the candidate is a bookkeeping requirement. If the campaign committee spent more than the recorded donations that would create unnecessary difficulty during an audit. There is no other legitimate purpose under the law.
Only the insane cultist mind can take a book keeping requirement, combine it with an absurdly wide definition of campaign purposes, and come up with criminal liability for not reporting a 'donation' that never went through your campaign committee to be spent as a reported expenditure.
We can’t know anyone’s intent after all.
We don't need to. It's irrelevant. The FEC decides what are automatic personal expenses and what are automatic campaign expenses. Everything else is decided by who is paying. If the FEC thinks someone got it wrong there is a process for that, then people know not to do that; but in the spirit of the ex post facto principle it has never entered anyone's mind that you could criminally punish someone for making a choice in the absence of clear guidance to the contrary.
In my opinion it never occurred to anyone that a compensated NDA would ever be considered an exclusive campaign expenditure because that contradicts nearly every guideline and precedent to date. I don't think anyone knew about this NDA but Cohen, Stormy, and her lawyer; but I'm sure none of them thought it was violating campaign finance laws.
You know, if you knowingly aid someone in violating the law that makes you an accessory? If Stormy had any clue she's an accessory. If her lawyer had any clue he's an accessory.
When Trump found out, and his other lawyers found out; did they freak out "oh no we've violated campaign finance law!" No, didn't even cross their minds until the witch-hunt goons attacked Cohen, mixing in fake crimes with real crimes and not even going to trial (best to keep it away from the eyes of judges you don't control).
In fact when Trump knew, he authorized suing Daniels under the NDA. May as well use it right? Now what is the point of bringing a legal case with a contract that was executed by illegal means? Does it seem possible that multiple sane lawyers would do that?
You asked about Trump and Daniels shaking hands over a kitchen table (we may get to that, depends on how stubborn you are); that would be the best you could do if it was actually illegal to pay her; well if she could be trusted which she can't. A contract that would expose a crime is hardly one you can use against someone. It would be like signing a contract to sell illegal drugs to someone. What's the point of that?
There is no predicting lawfare though. It has no relation to the objective meaning of the text of the law or precedent. But keep going, call all the competent lawyers MAGAs for not rewriting everything they've known for decades, we could use more people.
the rest of us here in reality will continue to use common sense to prove what people’s intentions were and hold them to account for it
Have fun in that "reality", you sure are making the dream come to life. I don't think it will work out well for either of us.
I’m going to pretend this issue must be resolved first
Since you're a galloper a pin needs to be put somewhere.
and by resolved I mean when you agree with me.
Yes
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@3RU7AL
Last time I saw inflation come up IWRA said his wages doubled. Now they've tripped.
He's not just a government worker, he's personally selling weapons to Ukraine. Isn't that nice for him.
JK I don't believe him for a second.
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@Best.Korea
Allowing people to consent to sex does not mean allowing them to consent to anything. Thats a false dichotomy of "able to consent to everything or nothing".
Consent requires two things:
1.) Understanding of what is being consented to, in other words an accurate prediction
2.) An act of discernible will
If you can consent to anything you have discernible will. In that way consenting to one thing means you can consent to anything. However you may not understand everything, and therefore you can't consent to everything.
Since children have discernible will, they can consent to anything they can understand; and by 11 years old they can understand a hell of a lot. That can consent to murder, consent to drive, consent to do drugs, consent to jump off a cliff, consent to vote, etc.... etc...
Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. A man may learn of the birds and the bees at 11, but he can still find new wisdom about it at 93.
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@TheUnderdog
lol, a "balance" yea I've heard that before. Still waiting on a consensus about any balance ever to exist.Because there should be a balance between liberty and security.
"balance" in the context of ethics is arbitrage (arbitrary decision, a whim, subjective, baseless) in fancy clothes. See mass delusion.
If we look by mere nature, sexual urges begin to get strong at age 12 or 13, so why wouldnt that be the age of consent?Because if 12 year olds can consent to sex, then they can consent as to whether or not they should attend school (6th grade).
Yes, and they can do both. How absurd to have a theory in which every minor student is being forced to go to school.
Not my point. My point is you don't get certain freedoms until you are old enough because otherwise it's a threat to safety. Otherwise we would have to let 5 year olds vote.
They let gender studies grads vote, that's more dangerous than five year olds.
"Consent" implies the freedom to do something that FGDB or the freedom to not do something that FBDG.
That's the error in the logic.
Consent implies no such thing. I can consent to running my car into a pedestrian but that doesn't mean I should have the legal freedom to do.
I can only imagine how addictive sex is.
Don't worry, there are limiting factors that keep you from doing it too much.
I think sex is the same way.
Maybe, but you stop for a month and it's just as good as before. Also like weed, caffeine, and food.
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@Greyparrot
Your cynical sarcasm is the bane of baiters and trolls.
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@Savant
If consent to sex isn't consent to pregnancy, then consent to be in a canoe isn't consent to catch a disease.
Near 100% concise. I see that less and less often.
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@Double_R
If Trump built a building as candidate and put his name on it, as he always have, your interpretation would hold that it was money spent to influence an election.No one has ever been held to this standard because it is unlawful and downright stupid.Strawman arguments normally are downright stupid, that’s the point of them. You can’t refute my actual position so you have to make one up to attack instead.The test of what makes an expense personal vs a campaign contribution that I’ve been arguing is exactly the same is your own link:“if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban applies.”
Notice the key word in this sentence: “would”. Not “could”, as in, not in some absurd imaginary theoretical example, but “would”, as in, in real life what would have happened.
...and you cultist would argue that Trump would have paid off Stormy even if he wasn't running and then claim he violated the personal use ban by using campaign funds for a personal expense.
In the case at hand, and in accordance with the above test, the burden was on the prosecution to show that this payment was expressly for the purposes of advancing Trump’s campaign.
The above test was for determining if the personal use ban.
"Under the "irrespective test," personal use is any use of funds in a campaign account of a candidate (or former candidate) to fulfill a commitment, obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal officeholder" - FEC
He didn't use campaign funds, so there is no way for the personal use ban to apply. I am pointing out, that you are inverting the standard by claiming he MUST use campaign funds. If he MUST use campaign funds then it would be a contradiction for him to be FORBIDDEN from using campaign funds (the personal use ban).
Trump did not actually pay Stormy, BUT IF HE HAD, using personal funds was by all precedent and FEC guidelines (which we are talking about and you are failing to twist) the safe option. The option that bypasses the personal use ban.
If he had to use campaign funds he would have had to prove an effect on the campaign, something cultist like yourself would vehemently deny because you are able to adopt any position as divine truth so far as it is useful for getting Trump.
Nothing in your Trump hypothetical applies. There is no reason to think putting his name on a building as he has done his entire life would not have occurred if he were not running for office.
Threaten enough people with kangaroo courts and I'm sure you would get some hearsay to the contrary.
You keep twisting my words into ‘if a possible personal expense can be considered a campaign expense, then any expense can be twisted into a campaign expense’.
Not "any expense", "any expense in the overlap between personal and campaign expenses"
That overlap is huge, especially for celebrities. You have butchered election law into an absurdity by asserting that there is no overlap. ANYTHING that could influence a campaign or has been an approved use of campaign money is a campaign expenditure regardless of whether campaign money was used.
This is madness. The existence of expenses which can be paid personally and with campaign money at the same time at the discretion of the candidate contradicts this madness.
If your interpretation was correct, then there would be no "50%" there would be "100%", there would be no discretion, if it helped the campaign it's a campaign expenditure, if you didn't put it through the campaign committee it's an in-kind donation and a campaign expenditure the end.
So again, let me make this very simple. Instead of asking for legal citations and historical precedent, here is very simply what I am talking about so if you have an issue with the way I am interpreting campaign finance law take it up with the FEC:“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”
In the overlap, candidates choose whether it's a campaign purpose or a personal expense by the act of using personal money vs campaign money.
No other interpretation is possible. Simple right?
What's the difference between lawyer's salary and NDA compensation?Reimbursements are not part of someone’s salary.
I even made it clear with "lawyer's salary" to bypass your idiotic and no doubt very recent nomenclature epiphany.
What is the difference that is relevant under federal election law?
Paying a lawyer might help a campaign. Paying under an NDA might help a campaign.
What's the difference that would explain why paying under an NDA is any different from paying a lawyer's salary which may be simultaneously a campaign expense and a personal expense under certain circumstances?
Didn't stop you when you asserted repeatedly that NDA compensation is necessarily campaign expenditureI never said NDA compensation is necessarily a campaign expenditure. I said this payment was a campaign expenditure.
This payment does not require a campaign to exist. Therefore it is not up to you whether it is a campaign expenditure. It is not a matter of deluding yourself into thinking you know someone's intent. The only intent that matters is using campaign funds or personal funds.
If a candidate fills up his tank with gasoline on the way to a campaign rally (and not reporting it to the FEC), you don't get to try and take him to court to prove that he intended to aid his campaign by fueling his car. He's allowed to intend just that without reporting it at campaign expenditure.
If a candidate stops on the way to a rally to get new shoes (and not reporting it to the FEC), you don't get to try and take him to court to prove that he intended to aid his campaign by having fancy shoes. He's allowed to intend just that without reporting it at campaign expenditure.
Let me be clear, he can stop, buy new clothes and confess to the entire world that he did so in order to be elected, and so long as he used personal funds it was not a campaign expenditure.
"campaign purposes" is not about intent, intent has never been litigated in regards to campaign finance laws in its history because it would be insane thought crime. Campaign purposes are purposes that could not exist without a campaign, i.e. everything campaign committees do. You can fill your car with gas without a campaign. You can buy shoes without a campaign. You can enter into a compensated NDA without a campaign. You can pay lawyer salary without a campaign. You cannot put up an add saying "Me for President" without a campaign because the mere existence of such an ad is identical to a campaign.
Campaign expenditures and campaign purposes are two different things. Things that are not campaign purposes can be campaign expenditures. Such as travel expenses, paying a lawyers salary, paying a compensated NDA (probably it hasn't been adjudicated by a real court and is not specifically mentioned in the law).
That's right, campaign money can be used for non-campaign purposes when those purposes could help the campaign. Like I said above, the laws are doing two separate things. Preventing money from being used on purely personal expenses, that is expenses which could not possibly help the campaign, is about protecting the donors from fraud.
The requirement to report campaign purpose expenses is about donor transparency. The category of "things that could help the campaign" is vastly wider than "campaign purposes = expenses that could only exist when a campaign exists, expenses that could ONLY be for the campaign".
You should have been able to figure this out yourself, you would have had you wanted to.
Still waiting.
The delay is you. When the issue of what constitutes a campaign expenditure and who decides is resolved we can debate that.
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@3RU7AL
If you're proposing the question is "would you vote for Biden if the federal government would cease to exist if I didn't"
I wouldn't vote for him. Same for Trump.
That's all I can think of when you suggest that you evaluate a candidate in a vacuum, like a religion alone. If it's a religion alone then the obvious alternative is no religion.
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@Greyparrot
This is the kind of loose discretionary law used expansively in the South during the Jim Crow era.
Indeed it is.
How misguided they are who look at Jim Crow era and think "there is a systematic error" but instead of looking at the system (the government) they try to delve deep in the the hind-brain of the human species and reinvent original sin.
The reason the US form of government (now essentially copied by almost all nations) was enlightened at the turn of the 18th century was precisely because it was crafted on the assumption that people are going to be irrational and evil at times and something needs to hamper that, at least for a time.
What the experiment has shown us is that good law crafts good men because it has a coherent structure arising from objective morals. It makes people think the right way, and it's been a long slow path of corruption.
John Adams said "a nation of laws, not men". He meant exactly this. Any time an agent of the government has arbitrary power over you, and you know you better kiss the boot and grovel because they can screw you and get away with it, that is living in a nation of men, not laws.
Of course even if we didn't have a big pile of Jim Crow style laws which are intentionally vague in order to create a nation of men, if enough people are deranged enough it would not matter.
But it's not like one goes without the other. The philosophy of America has corroded and with it comes the bad laws which are used by the corrupt which accelerates the degradation.
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I did like the airport hidden fees stuff.
There needs to be a lot more of government going after dishonest advertising and fraud and a lot less of government telling people "ask permission to do something you have a right to do because sometimes its dangerous, also prove to us that's not dangerous, also we don't care if it is actually dangerous. Cut your grass to 3" peasant."
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@3RU7AL
Why would you ever cast your vote based on only one candidates record/promises? It's a comparison.(IFF) you believe these are pro-toto good government policies (THEN) you should cast your vote for joe biden
I am simply forced into dichotomy of two choices because 3rd choice isnt available.RFK wins by a lot in a one-on-one against joe bidenRFK wins by a little in a one-on-one against donald trump
RFK needed to win one of the primaries. He didn't try at the republican primary (he would have lost) and he was sabotaged by the democracy hating "democrats".
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@Double_R
Again, the question is:Get to your point.
You have rewritten history and twisted campaign finance law beyond sanity. Your interpretation has absurd implications. There is evidence of this everywhere, including on the FEC's own website giving guidance not one when you MUST call something a campaign expenditure but when you MAY NOT call it a campaign expenditure.
There we find proof that personal and campaign expenses are not mutually exclusive concepts, it is acceptable in some circumstances to pay for the same expense with some personal money (unreported) and some campaign money.
There are two purposes of campaign finance laws:
1.) To keep campaigns from defrauding the donors by spending their money on non-campaign expenses
2.) To inform the public about potential special interests and lobbying
(1) is why the linked page exists https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/personal-use/
By twisting the law into an absurd notion that anything which may impact a campaign CANNOT be personal expenses you:
A) Contradict all precedent as evidenced by https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/personal-use/
B) Give Trump (and anywhere else you would equally apply your interpretation to) a choice between the fryer and the fire in all cases where the long recognized overlap of potential campaign expenditures and personal expenses.
For example the FEC allows campaign money to be used to pay for travel in order to attend a campaign event. Taylor Swift endorsed Biden in 2020. She has personal jets. Under your interpretation if she used her jet to travel to a Biden rally she paid for jet fuel and crew costs to influence a campaign. She would then need to report an in kind campaign.
If Trump built a building as candidate and put his name on it, as he always have, your interpretation would hold that it was money spent to influence an election.
No one has ever been held to this standard because it is unlawful and downright stupid. Now you have admitted that a lawyer's fee can be simultaneously paid for by campaign money and personal money, being forced into that corner by the FEC. You only have one chance to recover your position, and that is to somehow give objective and relevant reasons why compensated NDAs would not be just like lawyers fees as far as federal election law and FEC guidelines (informed by past court decisions) are concerned.
Bringing us back to:
What's the difference between lawyer's salary (which can be paid with up to 50% of campaign funds under certain circumstances) and NDA compensation? Justify with FEC precedent or law citation.
even though neither of us are lawyers.
Didn't stop you when you asserted repeatedly that NDA compensation is necessarily campaign expenditure repeatedly.... did it?
Especially when I’ve been asking you one very simple question
That's gish galloping. There will be plenty of time to debate other points when you're not trying to escape the contention you're failing to defend.
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@Greyparrot
@Double_R
What's the difference between lawyers salary and NDA compensation? Justify with FEC precedent or law citation.[Double_R] I already explained this. Get to your point.
You did not. Again, the question is:
What's the difference between lawyers salary (which can be paid with up to 50% of campaign funds under certain circumstances) and NDA compensation? Justify with FEC precedent or law citation.
[Greyparrot] So there's none?
Don't hold your breath. It's going to take a long time before he gets tired of running around in circles and quits.
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@Double_R
It's not a provision, it's an example.So if Trump had chosen 2% he would have had to declare 2% to be a donation and then filed an expenditure of that 2%. "$2,600 to Stormy Daniels"?No. If the payment to SD was in fact a personal expense then the legal bills associated with executing the contract would have fallen under this provision.
What's the difference between lawyers salary and NDA compensation? Justify with FEC precedent or law citation.
But as the trial proved, it wasn’t a personal expense
No such thing was proved.
From there the rest of this rule is irrelevant because if it’s a campaign expense the campaign could then have paid 100% of the costs associated with it.
This precedent is not irrelevant, it is on a page teaching us what the difference between personal and campaign expenses is and undeniably proving that there are cases where expenses could be either and as you just admitted the choice of whether those kind of expenses are personal or not is up to the candidate:
"Up to 50%"Who chooses how much?Double_R: The candidate
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@Double_R
So if Trump had chosen 2% he would have had to declare 2% to be a donation and then filed an expenditure of that 2%. "$2,600 to Stormy Daniels"?"Up to 50%"Who chooses how much?The candidate, as long as they don’t surpass 50%.
This is basic English.
Like a parrot throwing out the same phrase at random.
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@TheUnderdog
He's dead, you're nuts. I mean not ebuc nuts but pretty crazy.I also don't understand it why parents take it hyper personally if you insult one of their kids even accidentally. People deliberately insult Donald Trump all of the time; it's not like Trump's dad is mad at democrats for hating his son and even going so far as to incarcerate his son.
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@Double_R
The inescapable implication is that it was a personal expense that could be considered partially a campaign expense. True or false?Could have been considered a campaign expense? Yes, it could have. Which would have required public disclosure, the thing Trump falsified his business records to conceal.
Not just a personal expense, not just a campaign expense, but both at the same time.
That's right boyz, it's the double slit experiment all over again FEC style.
"Up to 50%"
Who chooses how much?
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@Greyparrot
You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
You still have to give them the chance to give their reasons, otherwise you don't know whether they reasoned themselves into it.
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What kind of mind can make this post?
It's like it feels like the setup to a joke but you never deliver a punchline. I hope this isn't what talking with aliens looks like.
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Yep, violent anti-democratic coups don't help either.
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@Swagnarok
Thus instead of motivating the extortion of a false report of consent the motivation is to murder the child so there is no witness.Given that children are molested far, far more often than they're murdered, I don't see the current age of consent laws as having a bad track record.
I wouldn't give credit to the law. It's the child for giving false promises of secrecy and the adult for their own personal moral code.
The law treats statutory rape so harshly that murder would almost certainly be a smaller risk. I choose my words carefully, I said "abducted". I assume the vast majority of pedophiles aspire to a secret consensual relationship and then damn themselves with no plan to prevent or mitigate 'betrayal'.
The issue isn't consent. it's that I think the relationship would do more bad than good on average.This kind of sums it up, but more to the point the right to consent must be taken from minors for their general protection.
No, again your hidden premise attacks.
If a kid brings a permission slip for an optional field-trip to his or her parents, that's not the school "taking consent" from the child, it's the school operating on the principle "your consent is not sufficient". The consent of the child does matter, if he chooses not to go the school won't force him.
There are times when adults violate the consent of children and this is considered acceptable but that has nothing (or very little) to do with this.
A law can simply say "you need parental consent to take kids on field-trips"
The law does not need to say "You need parental consent to take kids on field-trips because children are incapable of consent and therefore taking a kid on a field-trip is statutory kidnapping"
Picture this: a 15 year old kid is approached by a salesman who offers him an instant $100,000 loan. He's given a big stack of legal papers, which he doesn't read through.
Adults don't read through them either. It's a problem.
Now, somewhere out there is a 15 year old kid who would hypothetically be dumb and shortsighted enough to consent to this agreement. Do you think the law should permit him to enter into such a contract?
No, and this is easily accomplished without lying.
"Contracts with minors are null and void, case dismissed." <- no lies, maybe it's not a just law for being so simplistic but no lie in that
"Contracts are null and void without consent, minors can't consent, therefore the minor didn't consent, therefore this contract is null and void" <- Same outcome, but now with unnecessary lies, lies that confuse the hell out of people and lead to absurdities when actually believed.
If your question is whether animals as moral patients ought to be protected from other animals, society has decided no. In part because the whole animal kingdom would go extinct in one or two generations.
Instead of admitting that the logic has a flaw the absurd implication is patched with arbitrary asserted exceptions.
"Men are featherless bipeds"
*presents a plucked chicken "Behold a man"
Update: "Men are featherless bipeds that aren't chickens"
This is what falsehood looks like.
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