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@cristo71
You will be a prisoner in your own mind, trapped in the nightmare that is your paranoia, enabled by your feeble but stubborn understanding of this ruling.
If only I could find someone on this site who has actually read this ruling and could explain how my detailed analysis of it is wrong...
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@ILikePie5
Here is what’s in the opinion: When the President acts pursuant to "constitutional and statutory authority," he takes official action to perform the functions of his office. Does the President have the constitutional or statutory authority to execute his political opponent? Clearly not
Clearly not according to common sense. The problem is that in order to apply common sense you'd need facts and evidence that are admissible in court, which the SC pretty much just got rid of.
Here's a question for you: what's the difference between executing your political opponent and carrying out a military strike for the sake of national security?
Answer: Intent.
Question: So how would we tell what the president's intent was?
Answer: We can't, because the ruling just stated that the president's motives cannot be questioned and that the president's conversations with his agencies are not subject to Congressional or judicial review.
So explain it to me, how does this get to trial?
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@thett3
Decided to share my own opinion
Then perhaps you'd care to share your opinion on this?
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@WyIted
He we go with trump is going to genocide all the jews again
Trump has already, publicly, stated that he's running for retribution, has mused about jailing Hilary Clinton (who's had nothing to do with anything he's mad about), said democrats "opened up a Pandora's box" by prosecuting him which means it can be done to them, and has now been given complete and total immunity to do whatever he wants with the DOJ. Please provide one rational reason to reject the scenario I laid out.
Hint: calling it hysteria is not a rational argument against.
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@cristo71
No one cares.If YOU don’t care, why did you posit your doomsday scenario fever dream as an example of what could very well happen? You’re all over the place on this
It's your strawman interpretation of my posts that's all over the place. You repeatedly bring up the immunity now granted to Joe Biden as if Joe Biden ever had anything to do with the concern here. He doesn't. So when I respond to your question, I am telling you that no one cares about the aspect of this ruling you are fixated on.
I am not fixated on Biden, I am fixated on what this ruling means for everyone, particularly if Trump wins another term. That's why my hypothetical did not mention Biden at all, in fact it posited a scenario where a president orders the prosection of all of his political opponents. What is so difficult about that distinction?
Well, you have just now registered understanding of what I’m talking about.
I said the same thing three times in three different sets of words. You are the one who is just now getting it.
when I asked “Do you understand?” your answer was “No.”
I understood your question, I didn't understand your point, because your point appeared to have nothing to do with anything I'm arguing and that seems to have been confirmed.
As things stand now, your understanding of this ruling is severely limited (as is left leaning media’s representation of the ruling— coincidence?)
I've given you a detailed point by point explanation of the issue with what this ruling actually says, a detailed hypothetical which I entirely made up as I wrote it that laid out a specific example and tied every piece of that example to what the ruling explicitly states, and I challenged you to show me how the dots to not connect. You haven't even attempted to refute it, presumably because you haven't read the ruling yourself.
Your insinuation that I'm just believing what I'm told to believe appears to be projection. If you had a real argument against what I've said perhaps you would have offered it.
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@WyIted
though they did state that the president's mindset could be taken into account.
*Couldn't* be taken into account, I assume you meant to say. Just to be clear.
In their opinions they literally state that he presidents can be charged for things and that it is not based on whether they feel an act is official duty but whether it is or not
Correct, they did say that president's can be charged for some official acts, and then they removed nearly every practical means by which this could be accomplished.
I've already explained how in detail. Let me know when you have an actual response instead of just repeating right wing talking points.
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@thett3
The freak out over this is a mix of hilarious and depressing, it was a very reasonable and measured decision and didn’t give Trump anything close to what he was asking for.
It gave Trump more than he was asking for. Trump's attorneys argued that if the president were impeached and convicted by the Senate then he could be criminally charged for official acts. The SC ruled that he could not be charged regardless.
I've addressed why extensively on this page the left wing freak out is not dramatic at all. Do you have any arguments against them?
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@cristo71
*facepalm* That is what I’m saying!! Dang, man…Try and follow this:If Trump… were to prosecute Biden and his administration… as you just imagined that happening… in your post addressed to me… that would violate Biden’s entitlement to the immunity that SCOTUS just ruled in favor of.
And for the third time... No one cares. I don't know why you think I'm not following what you're saying, I've addressed this twice already.
No one was concerned about Trump prosecuting Biden before because under the rule of law, you'd need to bring facts and evidence, which the political right does not have.
Under this new rule, Biden is apparently immune. So either way, no one cares.
What we care about is what this will mean for everyone else. Because unlike a president, the rest of us are actually subject to the rule of law.
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@cristo71
Yet you insist on initiating conversation with me regardless
I just do it for the exercise. I'm not a constitutional professor so I'm well open to the idea that I'm wrong, just waiting on someone to provide a well thought out rebuttal.
In other words, the scenario you describe would be a violation of executive immunity, not a fulfillment of it. Do you understand what I am saying?
No, because what you're saying seems to defy basic English. Immunity by definition means the immunized person cannot be prosecuted, therefore the only way to violate this is to prosecute them.
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@cristo71
Wow… how melodramatic
I provided a detailed action by action breakdown to satisfy your hypothetical and then referenced the specific parts of the ruling that render the scenario legally impossible to prosecute. Calling that melodramatic just shows how unserious you are to talk to.
In your own words: “Republican fantasies about prosecuting Joe Biden have always been ridiculous…” Perhaps that doesn’t apply to Democrat nightmares about Republican persecution somehow…
Clearly, you haven't bothered to absorb a word I've said.
The purported position within MAGA is that the prosecutions against Trump open Biden up to the same, the idea here being that prosecutions are just a matter of descretion having little to do with the law or any reasonable standard of evidence. That's what is ridiculous, so if we're talking about using the rule of law against Biden there just isn't a threat there.
What we're talking about here and especially now is not a scenario where the rule of law is being used, it's being set to the side entirely. The president has now been granted by the SC a window within which he can operate with all of the impunity of Vladimir Putin. That's not an exaggeration, that's what logically follows from the term "absolutely immune".
Trump's potential and even promised abuses of power has always been a threat democrats recognized and is front and center to why we believe Trump is unequivocally dangerous to reelect. This ruling effectively legalizes all abuses of power. Not exaggeration, by definition.
Well, at the very least, what about Biden’s ability to claim immunity to such prosecution? And anyone operating under Biden’s authority in a legitimately Constitutional capacity?
Again, no one cares about this including MAGA, because no one actually believes Joe Biden will abuse his powers in the way the SC just gave him the power to do. Also because none of us on the left care about or even want Biden to have such immunity. If he broke the law then prosecute him. That's how the rule of law works.
The republicans have spent the past few years telling their cult followers that Biden is some kind of mob boss criminal mastermind. The fact that none of them are ringing the alarm bells about what he now has the power to do is difinitive proof that they have been lying through their teeth the entire time.
(Which is what I have been trying to point out all along— as I said “perhaps futile”)
Perhaps what is futile is getting you to absorb a word I've said. I responded directly to your point before and did so again here. If there is something you think I've missed then rephrase.
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@cristo71
Can you give a hypothetical example of how your claim could play out?
Trump orders his DOJ to prosecute every one who has opposed him politically. He explicitly tells his officials to fabricate evidence and give false testimony. He then tells them he will immediately pardon them for anything they've done on connection with these orders, and will fire them if they don't.
Under this ruling Trump's motives cannot be questioned, so the individuals and their connection to Trump is inadmissible. Under this ruling, Trump's conversations with his DOJ officials is automatically inadmissible, so what he tells them cannot be reviewed by congress or the courts. And of course, his pardon power is absolute, so no one can reverse it.
Based on the above it is impossible to even bring a prosecution let alone secure a conviction. None of us can do anything about it.
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@cristo71
The search for a publication you are able to respect whose substance supports what I am saying goes on…
It has nothing to do with the publication, read the opinion. "Absolute immunity" has a very clear definition within the English language, and that's what the SC just granted the president in certain situations.
But you have already conceded that a Seal team assassination hypothetical (which falls under the scope of “can do whatever”) is a bit dramatic even for you. Why the dramatic conclusion now?
Because we're specifically talking about the president's command over the justice department, which the SC explicitly said in their ruling cannot even be questioned.
The seal team 6 remarks are a bit dramatic, I think, but I also in that same post pointed out that the SC removed pretty much any conceivable avenue for which evidence against a president who ordered it could even be brought so it's an open question. Would you care to opine on that? If the president's motives cannot be questioned in any context, and if the president's communications with his agencies is, regardless of content, inadmissible in court, how do you prosecute a president who orders the assassination of a political rival?
Honestly, my position on the seal team 6 hypothetical perhaps just feels dramatic, probably because of my unfounded faith in people generally and our rule of law specifically. But when rationally scrutinized, I'm not so sure my impulses there are correct.
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@cristo71
“The decision to bless nearly all official presidential conduct as immune from prosecutorial scrutiny also has ramifications for Biden. Republicans have repeatedly suggested that their allies in government should consider charging Biden with crimes for actions ranging from his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal to the flow of migrants over the southern border. Those policy considerations would be clearly beyond the reach of prosecutors under the Supreme Court’s analysis.”
Justice Jackson put it very well in her dissent:
"being immune is not like having a defense under the law. Rather, it means that the law does not apply to the immunized person in the first place"
Republican fantasies about prosecuting Joe Biden have always been ridiculous, the Hunter Biden hearings have put that on full display. The idea that democrats should be breathing some sigh of relief from this is silly. In her dissent, Sotomayor went into fine detail to explain the many layers of protection imbedded in the law from these ridiculous right wing pipe dreams. Established law and precedent already addresses a president's role in carrying out his official duties, no you can't criminally charge a president for poor handling of a military operation. No you can't criminally charge a president for border policies you don't like.
The danger is not what Trump and his minions might do within a legitimate legal system, it's what they will do outside of it. What the SC just said it's that there is no such thing as outside. Trump can do whatever he wants, and the rest of us can do nothing about it.
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@WyIted
He is the ruler of America, he has to take some accountability for what happens when he is in office.
This isn't how logic works. President's are not gods, their job is to make decisions that will have the best impact on the circumstances they are faced with, they do not have the power to dictate what those circumstances will be.
Trump's job when he took office was to not fuck up the strong and growing economy Obama left him - the one you remembered so fondly before. Biden's job was to clean up the mess left by a global pandemic that Trump terribly mismanaged. To compare the job the two did by comparing the circumstances under each is absurd and I've already explained why to you in detail.
No matter how many times your nonsense gets debunked you just keep going around repeating it. You have no mechanism for self correction, you just believe whatever you want to believe because you want to believe it. It's no wonder you're voting for Trump.
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@WyIted
Yeah this 80 year old man goes without any sort of criminal record and the magically when he runs for president gets 97 felony charges
It's not magic, all four of his criminal indictments are directly related to his candidacy or presidency. Regarding the rest, it's hardly remarkable. Turns out that when you decide to run to become the most powerful man on earth people pay very close attention to your conduct throughout your life. Who knew?
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@WyIted
Biden weaponized the DOJ to lock up his political opponents.It's objectively true that his opponents have had legal problems similar to how Putins opponents have legal problems
You know this is a complete lie. The only political opponent of Biden's who got indicted is Trump and no one with an IQ above room temperature can look at the facts and claim Trump did not commit the acts with which he was charged. The only case you'd have a halfway rational case against is the hush money trial which had nothing to do with the federal government.
All you guys do is repeat the same nonsense ad nauseam regardless of how thoroughly and repeatedly it gets debunked.
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@cristo71
I am attempting (probably futile) to point out how this ruling does not provide protection solely to Trump, but acknowledging that requires an objective prospective without partisan blinders on.
Everyone is acknowledging that this applies to every president, what a ridiculous thing to say.
The reason why no one (including MAGA world) is the least bit concerned about the current occupant brazenly violating the law with the impunity the SC just handed to him is because everyone knows he isn't interested in that, which is ironic given that these are the same people who have been running around for the past few months claiming Biden weaponized the DOJ to lock up his political opponents. This ruling and the lack of concern from the right about the implications here just shows how full of shit they all were.
Meanwhile, what you are observing from the left only further proves the fact that the left is the side that actually cares about the rule of law. No one cares that Biden can now do whatever he wants because we don't want him to. If he breaks the law he should be held accountable like everyone else.
The two sides are not the same.
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@cristo71
Looks as though this ruling could really hamper Trump making good on his promise of retribution if he gets elected…
Sarcasm?
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@WyIted
I actually read through the ruling and it says this would not apply to things the president thinks is official but is clearly intended to be for his own benefit.
Let's take this a piece at a time.
Before getting to the ruling, let's start with basic English. If neither you or I commit a crime, we cannot be prosecuted. That's not immunity, that's how the rule of law works. So immunity has no application unless someone does in fact commit a crime, which means that when we say someone is immune from prosecution in any sense under any circumstance, that by definition means they cannot be prosecuted even when they do commit a crime.
So what does the ruling say. Let's start with page 4:
"The first step in deciding whether a former president is entitled to immunity for a particular prosecution is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions"
This is where I think some of the left wing commentary might be a bit hyperbolic. While the source of their concerns are valid, I don't ultimately think any court would rule that sending in steal team 6 to assassinate a political rival would pass this test. But here's the problem:
"In dividing official from unofficial acts, courts may not inquire into the president's motives"
This is perhaps the single most absurd line I've ever heard in a legal opinion. In almost any alleged criminal violation, what makes the difference between whether an act was illegal is the person's intent. Intent is the difference between someone who accidentally walked out of a store with an unpaid item vs shoplifting. With regards to a president's conduct, his intent is in most cases is the very thing that determines whether his actions were within his authority, and yet the SC just ruled that this can't even be questioned.
Let's combine that last line with this next gem:
"The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials."
Let's be clear about what this says combined with the above. If Trump's motives can't be questioned, and his discussions with his DOJ officials cannot be questioned, then literally he cannot be prosecuted for anything he says to them so long as he colors his words with official conduct language. There is therefore no avenue for a prosecutor to bring any charges against him for it because any evidence or even argument they can make would be automatically tossed in the trash according to this ruling.
And if that goes for his conversations with the DOJ then it absolutely applies to his conversations with the military.
So you tell me, if the president orders steal team 6 to assassinate his political rival for "national security"... How does he get prosecuted for it?
And that's the easy one. Perhaps next you can explain what stops him from selling presidential pardons.
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@WyIted
They aren’t doing the silly little thing you claim (executing babies, apparently for the fun of it), that doesn’t mean they can’t be held legally liable for it.How would they be held liable for an action they don't do?
That’s the entire point. If there is a threat that they could be prosecuted for performing an abortion they won’t perform it. What they will do is instead wait until the situation is so dire that there is no way anyone can deny the need for it, meaning that they aren’t thinking in terms of what’s best for the patient, they’re thinking about what’s the best way to avoid someone charging them and then using stupid non-medical school educated arguments to convince an uneducated jury that they’re guilty.
Yeah like when he told everyone they should inject bleach?
No. That was stupidity, this allegation is supported by his clear narcissism.
He didn't tell everyone they should inject bleach, he mused openly about the possibly of people injecting disinfectants as a way to fight COVID. Many people out there exaggerated this into "he told people to inject bleach" which isn't accurate but is also not nearly as far from the truth as you have convinced yourself of. What any educated person understands is that there are always stupid people out there who trust public figures and will do what they interpreted their leaders as telling them to do. So when Trump did this it wasn't a surprise that there was a sudden uptick of people hospitalized with disinfectants in their system.
Any halfway intelligent would have known better than to throw out such ridiculous ideas at a press conference where the entire country is tuning in and scared. But Trump isn't halfway intelligent, the man is a downright moron.
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@WyIted
No but fact checkers are which is why you still have idiots who think he told people to inject bleach
Again, it’s a lazy excuse, this response only further proves that. There are always going to be fake claims made and people out here arguing to further them, that is irrelevant to the truth of the claim so the nuclear method of blowing up all fact checking which you are essentially doing here doesn’t work.
The fact is if it is already illegal than liberals would not give a shit about a bill that makes it illegal. That is a fact.
No, that’s the political game republicans are playing to get you to think democrats are baby killers. And this is why… because it works.
This kind of thinking is very much like when conspiracy theorists make wild claims and then place the burden on everyone else to prove them wrong. Legislation with no purpose and no real impact on anything should be rejected. It is your job as the sponsor of a bill to show why everyone else should vote for it, not to throw out a bill that accomplishes nothing and then act s if those who don’t vote for it must be against whatever your bill pretends to accomplish.
Some of the responses I heard was this puts doctors in trouble, which is nonsense if you also claim they just aren't doing it.
They aren’t doing the silly little thing you claim (executing babies, apparently for the fun of it), that doesn’t mean they can’t be held legally liable for it. That’s the problem with these laws. A doctor’s job is to make medical decisions. When you start legislating what they are or are not allowed to do, it is no longer just a medical decision, now it’s also a legal decision, which means they now need lawyers to get involved.
Most doctors are not going to risk their freedom over simply doing their job, so the end result is that when these services are necessary they just won’t bother. This is why even when it is technically legal to perform an abortion, the mother ends up bleeding out until she’s on her last breath before the doctors will intervene. This is what people are talking about when they say keep the government out of the doctors office.
The response is to claim that this is necessary to prevent the evils the law seeks to ban but that’s the problem; they’re just not happening. No one walks into a doctor’s office and says “I don’t feel like being pregnant anymore cause I want to go to the beach, so please kill this 9 month old baby”. So the evil situations you’re causing all of this havoc over aren’t real, but the pain and suffering resulting from it absolutely are.
Now it is clear that Trunp is a mustache twirling villain and literally insulted dead troops while surrounded by generals and military people.
What you want to take out of the conclusion that he said it is up to you, but you cannot claim he didn’t say it without defying all logic and reason.
You keep eluding to the idea that what he allegedly said is so outlandish it should be rejected out of hand while dismissing the fact that he says such outlandish things all the time. That’s like if Jeffery Dohmer was released from prison and was accused of eating someone and me coming along and saying “no way, no one would do that”.
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@WyIted
You can't believe biased fact checkers
Facts are not biased. This is a lazy excuse to look the other way rather than acknowledging the pathological liar you are defending.
this is one of those situations where there is a grey area in abortion laws and if a failed abortion is technically outside of the mother and technically still alive it is a newborn. This is a matter of semantics not a lie.
No, it’s a lie. Trump’s claim is that democrats support executing babies after birth. Reality doesn’t come close to that.
This claim comes from a bill that attempted to outlaw the killing of a fetus after birth, specifically tailored to a failed abortion. The bill didn’t propose outlawing anything that isn’t already illegal - if the fetus is out of the womb it’s already subject to the protection of the law like anyone else. The only thing the bill could have accomplished due to its apparent legislative intent (which judges absolutely do consider), are the efforts made to maintain the life of a non viable fetus.
Wherever you stand on that issue, that is worlds apart from “democrats are ok with infant execution”. And the use of the term “execution” is what takes this from a lie, to egregious propaganda. That’s intentional, which is exactly why Trump does this. It’s all about enraging you so that you don’t bother to question what he actually plans to do to make your life better, because for that he has nothing.
He lied about his "suckers and losers" quote, which he absolutely did say. He says he has 19 people who can say that he didn't say that, but has not backed that up in the slightest.He didn't say it. The quote originates from a general and came after the general was fired and just passed at his former boss. It's silly to think this guys stood in a military graveyard surrounded by generals and said this
Already explained to you in detail why this is nonsense.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
He didn't do a good job at that either though.
Hence why I began my post by saying Biden was abysmal at the debate.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
No it wasn’t, go back to post 34. All I said was that there really isn’t a format to deal with someone like Trump… because you can’t make your own case without stopping to fact the other guy every 5 seconds.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
That's not a thing that happened and if Trump wins it will be because of liberal fever dreams like this, exactly like in 2016.
What on earth are you talking about? I’m talking about the difficulty of debating someone who is untethered to reality. You appear to be having a conversation with someone else.
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@3RU7AL
do you think that someone who doesn't think before acting is generally more of a "danger to society" than someone who does think before acting ?
It depends on what kind of behavior they are prone to engage in. But generally speaking, someone who does think and still does wrong is worse. Because that person is beyond help, the person who doesn’t think can in most cases be helped.
Since this comment was made in regards to our discussion about the criminal trial, what you’re implying here is ridiculous. That is that Trump engaged in this carefully crafted scheme by accident. The circumstances as demonstrated by the evidence presented at trial showed clearly what the circumstances were, how aware Trump was of those circumstances, how intent Trump was on not letting this impede his candidacy, and the sophistication with which they worked to cover this whole thing up. To suggest he did all this without thinking is like me telling my wife that I got lost on my drive home and accidentally ended up in another woman’s bedroom.
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@IlDiavolo
We'll see whether this base is careless or not. There is time yet to decide.
Trump has been a pathological liar for years. His base has shown clearly that they don’t care.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Bullshit. What you do in that situation is call them out and relentlessly make fun of them for it.
That would have required Biden to entirely abandon answering any of the questions or making the case that people should vote for him. That’s kind of the entire point of a debate.
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@3RU7AL
obviously, you can't prove that you had no malice
And once again, I don’t need to. Those who are accusing me of malice have that burden.
This is every bit as silly as asking me to prove Bigfoot doesn’t exist. If they can’t substantiate their claim because they have no evidence of this then their belief isn’t based in reason, which is to say they are just believing whatever they want because they want to. At that point, I couldn’t care less about what they believe and no one else should either.
So now that we’ve beaten this horse to death, can you now tell me what this has to do with our original conversion (the Trump trial)?
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@IlDiavolo
I heard many experts say that this CNN debate format has been prepared to benefit Biden. It couldn't be otherwise.And Joe didn't take advantage of it
Biden’s performance was abysmal, but there really is no format that can solve the problem of debating someone who has no regard whatsoever for reality coupled with a base that couldn’t care less.
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@3RU7AL
basically, if you don't say anythingthe investigators have the burden-of-proofbut the second you open your goddamned mouthyou have the burden-of-proof
The burden of proof is the obligation one has to substantiate the claim they are making. In a criminal trial if you want the jury to accept your claim then you have the burden to prove it. But as the defendant you also don’t need the jury to believe any of your claims, the prosecution still has to prove it’s case regardless of what you do or don’t say.
What does any of this have to do with our conversation? You asked me if I’ve even been accused of malice when there was none. What is your point?
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@3RU7AL
do you think your co-workers and friends and family "care about logic and reason" ?do you think judges and advocates and juries "care about logic and reason" ?
I think most do, but many don’t. So what? I have no control over the irrationality of others. If you aren’t interested in being reasonable and making rational arguments I’m not interested in what you have to say.
in my experience, every single individual believes "the other party" bears the burden-of-proof
The burden of proof isn’t a matter of opinion. It falls onto the person who makes the claim, any other interpretation leads to incoherence and absurdity.
timestamped directly to the part where a law professor explains exactly how the burden-of-proof works
I watched 9 minutes in, he didn’t say a word about it. Try again. Or better yet, don’t. If you think there’s something I’m missing about the burden of proof just write it out in actual words so I can respond without wasting my time to figure out what you’re trying to point to as I’ve already done.
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@Swagnarok
visiting a cemetery and calling the soldiers who were buried there "losers and suckers" would be such an exceptionally horrid and unbelievable statement for a grown man not in the throes of dementia to make in the company of other grown men that exceptional proof is warranted to prove that it happened as described. I don't care if you feel as though Trump is the kind of guy who'd say it. Again, show me the exceptional proof.
This analysis defies logic and reality. The idea here is “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, but you are overblowing the claim in order to raise the evidential standard beyond all practicality.
The alleged statement is absolutely horrid and for anyone else would be extraordinary, but for Trump it certainly isn’t. This is the same man who publicly mocked John McCain for his wartime injuries and said he was not a hero because he got caught. He clearly has no respect for military service. Moreover, Trump’s propensity to see everyone as either a winner or loser could not be more substantiated - it’s literally central to his entire brand.
So when you say you don’t care what we think about Trump you’re ignoring both logic and reality - the fact that this fits Trump perfectly immediately downgrades the need for “exceptional proof” because the claim itself is not exceptional.
Adding to that, this story was reported back in 2020 and it took John Kelly 3 years to finally admit to it. That demonstrates that he had no axe to grind which cuts entirely against your excuse that he’s just some disgruntled former employee looking to get even. All of which only adds to the fact that he’s again, a four star general and Trump’s hand picked chief of staff. I don’t know how much more exceptional it could possibly get than that.
This isn’t a court of law, it’s a court of public opinion. A unanimous jury verdict of beyond a reasonable doubt is not the standard here. We’re talking about Occam’s Razor, and there is no rational case to be made that this story being made up and confirmed by members of Trump’s own inner circle is a better explanation than the idea that he did in fact say it.
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@Greyparrot
Lol, I don't repeat the lies you repeat from billionaire propaganda. Massive projection bro.
Name one lie I’ve repeated that you are willing to stand by and argue as opposed to your silly throw away one liners you are famous for.
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@3RU7AL
shifting the burden of proof might seem like a good idea
It’s not shifting, that’s how the burden of proof works to anyone who cares about logic and reason. Anyone who doesn’t care is not worth having a conversation with.
Not watching a 2+ hour video to figure out your point. If you have one please make it.
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@Swagnarok
I'll post some comments on the debate here instead of making a thread for it.
I actually agree with most of your recap. I will just say I hate these debate formats. 2 min to answer and 1 minute to respond is ridiculous. Sure the moderators followed up at times but these really aren’t debates more than they are just long formatted interviews. They’re trying to cover every topic which cannot be done meaningfully, so instead all we get are the same talking points we’ve been hearing from these two for months if not years.
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@Greyparrot
So maybe stop worshipping oligarchic propaganda?
You talk about propaganda while all you do is repeat it.
Let me know when you have a coherent argument to contribute.
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@TheUnderdog
It’s not the candidate’s job to give people more choices. In fact that’s kind of an absurd framing - no one “gives” people choices. People get to choose from those who decide to run. If not enough people are running that’s not the candidate’s fault. If others are running and are not getting traction from the public that’s not the other candidates fault.
If enough people were interested in RFK he would have been on that debate stage. He wasn’t because they aren’t.
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@3RU7AL
how did you manage to PROVE you had no malice ?
I don’t have to, the burden of proof is on the person who claims there was malice, which in a criminal trial would be the prosecution. So the question is… how do you prove malice?
Answer: with the same evidence that we all use every single day of our lives to tell what the intentions of the people around us are.
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@WyIted
It doesn't have the word displacement in it
Didn’t have time to write a response to that so it was the first link I found.
The disruption came in many forms. One example would be the factories world wide that shut down due to the spread of the disease. We didn’t know how to contain it at that time so that had little choice. This was a very common occurrence in China where much of our supplies come from. In the US we saw major meat processing plants close which fueled a significant increase in the cost of chicken and beef.
There’s also the issue with computer chips. Because everyone was conducting their business at home, demand for computers and tablets skyrocketed. The supply was not there, so what happens next is obvious. To meet that demand the companies who make those computer chips then had to shift their efforts towards computers, leaving a shortage on cars since most modern cars use those same chips. The end result is the price of new cars skyrocketing.
Also, as soon as we started to come out of Covid many businesses did not make it through the pandemic and had to close down, placing the burden to meet that demand on the businesses that remained. Again, basic supply and demand.
Trump couldn’t have fixed this. This was going to happen no matter who was in the White House.
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@Swagnarok
"General Kelly was the source" doesn't mean Trump actually said it. The Administration had a high cabinet-level turnover rate; a lot of ex-officials, after leaving the White House, had an ax to grind with their difficult ex-boss who fired them
Why do you guys keep making excuses for him? People get fired in every administration, never before have we had so many people this close to the president warning people about how dangerous he is. General Kelly was his hand picked chief of staff not to mention a 4 star general, taking Trump’s denials over his recounting of the story is ridiculous especially given how well these comments fit with everything else Trump has said publicly.
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@WyIted
If Trump won reelection than Russia would not have invaded Ukraine and Israel would jot have been attacked. They know Trumps response can be extreme so these other countries would tread lightly.
Missed this part.
The idea here is that Russia is somehow afraid of Trump, which is absurd. Not only because Trump spent his entire term fawning over Putin at every opportunity and then coward to him on the world stage siding with Putin over his own intelligence agencies, but also because Trump made it a center piece of his campaign that he had no interest in defending anyone else. That’s what America first is all about.
So there is absolutely no reason to believe Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine with Trump in office, but anyone who understands world affairs considers it to be the best explanation that the reason Putin waited till after the 2020 election is because he was hoping Trump would get reelected and pull the US out of NATO first, which would have made the environment to pull this off far more favorable.
It seems like you are saying if something is good a Democrat in office made it that way but if they are in office and it was bad then they inherited it. Is this the logic?
Ugh. No.
The logic is that we grade presidents not merely on what happens while they are in office, but on what they did to impact the circumstances they inherited. It just so happens to be the case that every Republican president in this century who took over for a Democrat came into office with a great economy and left behind a mess, while every Democrat came into a mess and left a strong economy.
Can you explain the displacement. What it is and how it effects the economy.
That was acceptable. The Democrats were not allowing people to go to work.
That’s a much larger conversation. We were talking about Trump v Biden. If the best you got is it was ok for Trump but not Biden then we’re done.
Also as far as debt is concerned what does owing somebody money have to do with inflation?
If the money is borrowed it doesn’t, but if there are not enough borrowers that’s a different story. Not sure how they specifically impacted each admin specifically, but if Trump ran larger deficits (he did) then at minimum Biden and Trump would be equal in this regard.
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@Greyparrot
Censoring on MSM and debate venues and jailing your opposition are "features" of Democracy then?It's hard for people to feel free to choose when they are forced into false dichotomies.
The media is made up of private entities who all get to decide what they cover. No one owes you a platform, so refusing to give you one is not censorship.
The only person threatening to jail their political opponents is Trump. Trump is being prosecuted for the obvious crimes he committed, that’s how the rule of law works. Running for office as a shield so that you can blame your political opposition for holding you accountable is not.
No one is being forced into anything. Choose whomever you want, and if the treat of the country chooses someone else then tough luck. That’s called democracy.
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@TheUnderdog
The 2 parties not debating RFK is bad for democracy.
Democracy is about the people’s right to choose their own leaders. That is entirely unaffected by whether Biden or Trump decides to get on a debate stage with RFK. If their decision animates you, vote for RFK. If it doesn’t, then don’t. And if enough people actually care about this then the candidates will act differently. That’s how democracy works.
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@TheUnderdog
The way to reduce innocent civilian death counts is to not fund war across the board.
That’s why liberals want the US to stop funding Israel’s slaughter of innocent Palestinians.
In Ukraine it’s the complete opposite. Russia is slaughtering the Ukrainians, the US is supporting the effort to stop them. That’s not funding a war.
There’s no inconsistency in those two positions.
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@WyIted
How would making it so people can afford their basic necessities not a trait of a good or bad president.
Trump didn’t “make it” so that people could afford anything, he inherited it, as you have explicitly admitted.
Biden inherited an economy that had completely collapsed and a global supply chain that was experiencing massive displacement. Of course our situations would look different afterYeah maybe don't create the situations that cause that
Biden didn’t cause that, he inherited it. The economy cratered under Trump. The massive displacement in the global supply chain which lead to much of our inflation occurred under Trump. If you are taking the position that the president is to blame/credit for whatever happens while they are in office, then Trump is responsible for the very things you are blaming Biden for.
Correct if liberals like starting new social programs and making the money printer go brrrrrrr does that add to inflation or reduce it?
Do you mean like the covid stimulus checks Trump literally put his name on?
If your argument Is that Biden is responsible for inflation because of his out of control spending then it fails yet again as Trump added twice as much to our debt, which is what makes the money printer go brrrrrrr.
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@WyIted
You didn’t address anything I asked. Yes, rent is much higher, gas is more expensive as are eggs. That’s not what makes a good or bad president.
Again, the circumstances these two men inherited are night and day different. Trump inherited an economy that has been growing for seven straight years, Biden inherited an economy that had completely collapsed and a global supply chain that was experiencing massive displacement. Of course our situations would look different after that.
The question that matters is what each of these men did with the circumstances they inherited because that’s all they could have controlled, not you seem to give absolutely no thought to that question. Do you seriously believe that if Biden were elected in 2016 we would have seen such massive inflation? Or if Trump won reelection none of that would have happened?
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@WyIted
I thought your point was that people were racist for saying Obama is a great orater.
And how earth was that your take away?
The speaks so well part was just an example. The point I made was about the difference between “I hate all black people” kind of racism and “black people suck but you’re ok cause you’re not like the rest of them” kind of racism.
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@WyIted
Also, why do you blame Biden for your financial situation? What did he do specifically that impacted you? And whatever happened to personal responsibility?
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@WyIted
I was being a wise ass. Trump was elected in 2016, he took office in January 2017. If you were living the life in 2016 and you credit the president for that, then it is Obama you should be thanking.
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