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I mean ffs the democratic nominee for vice president said on the debate stage like three months ago that he didn’t believe “hate speech” was protected speech. He said throughout the campaign that things like “hate speech” or “disinformation” were not protected by the first amendment. Their vice presidential nominee. A stance entirely in line with how the current democratic administration behaved in office. So sick of this gaslighting that we’re ignorant or crazy to say that the modern left does have a problem with free speech
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Additional mental note: spot Trumps approval rating aggregate around an additional 3 points this time around. I was skeptical in the run up to 2024 that he would outperform his polls yet again just because past performance doesn’t equal future results but it’s happened three times in a row now.
I think it’s clear now that pollsters really do have an issue reaching an appropriate number of Trump voters and that would extend to narratives about his approval too.
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@Double_R
What on earth are you talking about?
The Biden admin was sending social media companies specific posts and demanding they censor them. The case went all the way to SCOTUS where it was dismissed for lack of standing, but the fundamental facts, that the USG was monitoring communication and sending companies specific things that they demanded to be removed, was never in dispute. Before Elon bought Twitter, every single social media company was on board with this. Zuckerberg wrote an open letter just a few months ago admitting that he felt pressured by the government and expressing deep regret that he acquiesced to their demands.
There was also a broader cultural trend against free speech led by the left when they felt ascendant during the George Floyd mass riots and the early Biden Admin. Remember “free speech does not equal freedom from consequences” whenever some random unfortunate would get caught on camera performing some minor blasphemy and would have their life ruined, get fired from their job, etc? That’s more or less dead now. I’m surprised you’re acting as if you have no clue what I’m talking about because I have distinct memories of discussing this sort of thing with you in 2021-2022 and you expressing your approval.
Obviously this is only one man’s testimony but I fully believe it. It seems evident to me that there was a concerted effort to control the information flow of technology through ideology and regulation. This certainly seems like the type of thing that democrats would be on board with given their behavior with other industries.
“ He continued, “They were taking us through their plans, and it was – basically just full government – full government control. Like this sort of thing, there will be a small number of large companies that will be completely regulated and controlled by the government, they told us. They said don’t even start startups – there’s just no way that they can succeed – there’s no way that we’re going to permit that to happen.”
Rogan gasped.
But Andreessen wasn’t finished. “They said that this [control of AI] is already over. It’s going to be two or three companies and we’re just gonna control them and that’s that. Like this is already finished.”
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@Mharman
I get the sense the country’s centrists vote as a collective on him. I’m not entirely sure if it’s sure or why it would be if it is… perhaps Trump is so provocative that they have to take a look at him and his message- there’s no room to look at him equal or less to his opponent. So if they find things aren’t going well under a left wing administration, they will all go for him.
I think people underrate how incredibly radical and divisive the Biden administration was. There’s a reason he’s been extremely unpopular for three straight years. They what, quadrupled immigration (entirely low skilled) unilaterally, were completely open about using the USG as a racial spoils system, an obviously failed foreign policy (just look at the results!!) and while they backed off from it because it backfired (and flipped extremely important players like Musk and other tech elites to Trump) there was an effort in 2021-2022 to use the administrative state and friendly industry to effectively repeal the First Amendment and destroy freedom of speech forever. And then the inflation. While this was unavoidable to some extent they did make it worse by passing huge spending bills that weren’t needed.
And to top it all off the President himself, the person we elected to run the executive branch and to deal with foreign leaders, revealed himself to be completely incoherent and possibly senile due to his advanced age. After the debate all these leaks started coming out about how the President was only functional four hours a day, that he couldn’t stay up past 8 o clock, that he no longer recognized people he had known for years. And that this had been going on since 2022 at least. They spent years covering it up! They LIED to us for years, the entire party.
Honestly Harris over performed by a lot. I think if we reran the simulation there’s a good chance that Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, New Jersey, Minnesota, and New Mexico all flip.
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Also he gave her “no primary contest” which is technically true…but in this highly unusual case that was obviously bad for the incumbent party. They didn’t have a primary because there wasn’t enough time…because there was a scandal that forced the sitting POTUS out like three weeks before their convention.
And he gave her both keys for a strong economy which I don’t know how I would’ve handled but it CLEARLY wasn’t how voters saw it. And a key for major foreign policy success. I must’ve missed that huge success in between all the wars and chaos that broke out.
Yeah the model actually held up lol he was just a hack
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@Greyparrot
The funniest thing about that guy is I’m pretty sure the 13 keys model would’ve actually held up if he had applied them honestly. I remember he said that there was no “Scandal” key for example…I would say the sitting POTUS having to drop out four months before the election because he was exposed as senile on national television and the conspiracy to cover that up ranks among the biggest scandals in history.
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It’s a relatively weak victory all things considered, his 2016 map + Nevada and a popular vote margin of +1%. All the talk of Trump winning Virginia, Minnesota, Maine, etc is a pipe dream. This isn’t the Republican 2008, but it could’ve been with a better candidate.In the senate the GOP wins West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio but predictably chokes in the other close states. In the house the republicans keep their majority but it’s a similarly weak showing to 2022.
Alright so other than getting the ultimate victor right I got the most important part of my prediction wrong. Biden did actually drop out. But this prediction is pretty good, I got every state right and the PV will settle at about R +1.5%. The GOP house “victory” was indeed anemic and they choked in literally four (!) senate races where Trump won the presidential vote. But they did manage to pick up Pennsylvania by a tiny margin which is a big scalp.
If Biden had stayed in it would’ve been the Republican 2008 even with Trump.
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@Barney
I’ve been off for a while, what’s uncertain about the site?
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@Owen_T
Lonesome Dove is huge but incredibly beautiful. I think about that book at least once a week.
It’s cliche, but Blood Meridian has the reputation it does for a reason. There’s no greater villain than The Judge. Personally I thought it was kind of a slog mixed with writing that was so good I didn’t believe it was even possible to write like that, and then the ending absolutely slapped.
The Flashman series. Hilarious and actually great for casually learning history.
Akenfield- this is my all time favorite non fiction book. It’s a series of interviews with, for lack of a better word, peasants in an English village in the mid 1960s. The overwhelming sense you get reading it is a window into a vanished society and way of life, which is both good and bad. Even though it’s technically well past that timeframe listening to some of the old people talk gives you a good idea of what the past several thousand years of life constantly on the edge of a Malthusian disaster was like.
Children of Time- extremely good hard(ish) science fiction, that was probably the last time I blew off work to read like 150 pages in one night. Didn’t hold up upon re read when I knew what would happen but I think if you go into it blind you’re in for a treat
Only if you have a kid- The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Bleak, but beautiful ending. Think about a lot. Doesn’t hit the same if you don’t have a kid but is still good
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@Double_R
That's insane. Even grade school children listen to Trump and remark about how dumb he sounds. He has the vocabulary of a 4th grader, he'll make a statement that was meaningless the first time and then repeat it over and over again to fill up space because that's as deep as he can get, he talks about everything as a contrast between "good people" and "bad people", and in 9 years as a politician I've never heard him go into any kind of detail on any complex subject. You can't say any of that about Biden or Harris.
Whatever lol. One thing doing formal debate in high school taught me was how difficult extemporaneous speaking actually is. You think “a four minute rebuttal? Really? I won’t even be able to bring all my points in that amount of time!” And then you actually try it and you start stumbling over your words after thirty seconds. It takes a lot of practice to hone that skill even with a subject that you’ve prepared for. I can’t imagine doing it day in and day out about all sorts of random things knowing that it will be broadcast to tens of thousands at a minimum.
I never said his performance is impressive (I even said it’s terrible by the standards of politicians!) what I said is that it’s way way better than an average member of the public would be able to do, which is true. It’s an extremely difficult skill to learn and many people would never be able to do it no matter how hard they tried. Idk how you can say that Biden is clearly so much better at this considering that like two months ago he lost a debate against Trump so badly that he had to drop out. Even before his severe cognitive decline he was known as a gaffe machine. Yet Biden is still capable of better extemporaneous speaking than about 95% of the general population imo.
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@Double_R
Oh you said SOUNDING intelligent. With Harris that’s hard to say, I. her previous campaign she came off extremely badly but I thought she was just one of those people who aren’t really the best under the spotlight. I would probably sound like her in a national campaign. But for me to accurately assess her abilities as a politician she would have to take questions from reporters and do interviews instead of reading from a teleprompter, which she has refused to do
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Romneys education (Harvard law and MBA) and his business career speak for themselves
I can’t remember where I saw it but I remember reading that there were so few black students at Columbia law at the time that using publicly released demographic data, Obamas LSAT was around 170 using the current scale which would be a hair above 130 IQ
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@Double_R
Yes, I can’t tell who is more intelligent between Trump and Biden, Harris I would guess is more intelligent than Trump but by a small margin. They’re all likely in the 105-110 IQ range whereas Obama and Romney would’ve clocked in at 130ish
Source: I made it up
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People underestimate how difficult it is to talk on the fly on a huge variety of subjects basically all day every day, often to a hostile or skeptical audience, without sounding stupid at least some of the time. Even politicians who are very bad at it like Trump, Biden, Harris are better at it than probably 95%+ of the general population.
Trump has said and done some stupid things but his performance as a politician is well above what an average person would be able to do. The last election with two clearly high IQ and well spoken candidates was 2012
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But at his recent press event he was saying that more than 100% of job creations went to migrants. And it wasn't like he slipped and said the wrong thing. He stopped mid sentence, re-iterated it and repeated it more than once. Emphatically. What kind of moron thinks that more than 100% of jobs could go to anyone.
This just is true. Their interpretation of it or what they’re trying to imply may not be correct. But in the past few years the number of native born people in the workforce has declined while the number of foreign born people in the work force has increased. So 100% of net job growth did go to immigrants. That probably has more to do with the massive baby boomer cohort retiring than policy but it’s certainly not a moronic thing to say.
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@Greyparrot
Pretty much, he doesn’t morally deserve to be POTUS but it’s hard to just ignore policy. Also, it’s a little grating to hear democrats talk about “democracy” when their party was just caught red handed trying to perpetuate the biggest fraud against the people in my lifetime by lying for years about the presidents health and then installing a new candidate nobody ever voted for. Not to mention trying to put their opponent in prison for the “crime” of selecting legal expense in a drop down menu when paying your lawyer. Or trying to give amnesty for illegal immigrants to help win more elections. Nobody cares about “democracy”
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I disagree that we’re getting poorer but I would agree that it’s in spite of bad policy ( we’re growing because of technology.) It is underrated how bad some dem economic policies are. It’s baffling that California with its incredible weather and nature and longstanding powerhouse industries is losing population because they make their state miserable for productive people to live in. When Dems like Kamala talk about “equity” it scares me because I can hardly think of anything that would be worse economically than trying to forcibly equalize outcomes
Idk if you’re familiar with Richard Hannania but he said something I agree with recently, that he isn’t necessarily morally opposed to government intervention in a lot of stuff but every time it happens it just doesn’t work out the way he would want. It’s just done incompetently, the money is siphoned away by grifters, there are unintended consequences, etc. Free market is better
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Oh I don't think that was the tone of the OP.More of an animal backed into a corner giving one last warning before it strikes.
Yeah I just don’t see things that way. I think we have more agency to live conservative values in our own lives than we did in the recent past.
Just as an example, fifty years ago if you were unlucky the government would forcibly bus your kids to inner city schools where they would get no education be beaten up. And outside of private schools that mostly didn’t exist and were exorbitantly expensive it was illegal to protect them from that as homeschooling was totally banned. You had to move. If you resisted the state would take your kids. Now the state is going to pay for my kids Catholic education.
There’s been lots of moral degradation in the general population (this current culture is clearly NOT going to make it) but if you have the agency to avoid that it actually seems easier than ever to live your life…
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I mean yeah there are definitely millions of voters who should not have ever been here, either because they got some form of amnesty (which should never be granted to anyone ever) or because their parents were here illegally and they were automatic citizens because of our retarded birthright citizenship policy. What are you going to do about these citizens, an ethnic cleansing? The whiny attitude of “it’s over” is counter productive. There’s work to be done that can be done
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@SocraticGregarian96
You shouldn’t be so demoralized. Demographic change in the US electorate is already a fait accompli, it’s baked into the cake. Even adding 10m new potential hispanic voters from illegal immigrants overnight (only around half of whom would actually vote and around 35% of those whom vote Republican based on current trends, in mostly safe states) wouldn’t do much of anything to change the long term trend. Republicans are going to have to learn to adapt to an increasingly diverse electorate no matter what.
American society has changed several times throughout history. The original version of the constitution was for all intents and purposes completely destroyed by immigration in the 1800s. You just have to pick yourself up and keep going, and keep trying to advocate for a better world like you would do anyway. Nothing is ever over, no matter how low you get you can always get yourself into a better position even if certain doors are closed.
If Trump is your last hope sorry but it’s over. Even if you have faith in his abilities (despite doing nothing the first time) if democrats are so close to permanent victory that one more presidential term means they win it all, then it’s already over. There will be another Dem POTUS eventually no matter what. I’m supporting Trump for President mostly because I want him to replace Alito and Thomas because I can’t stomach the Dem appointed justices and I think Kamala is a radical but even if he wins not much will change either way.
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@Double_R
The executive branch doesn't control everything so I understand the position that Trump will not ultimately succeed at destroying the American experiment. But the fact that there is absolutely nothing you can show to demonstrate that he won't try is what baffles me. The naivety is striking. It's like someone taking their car to 120 with your child in the backseat. Sure they're fine now, and sure they are statistically likely to be fine the next time, but does that mean it's fine to put them in that same car again?
I don’t really disagree with that much of what you said. I do think it would be fair to say he tried to steal the 2020 election. But it was such an incompetent effort and the system is so strong that it just isn’t a threat I take seriously. I do expect him to throw a temper tantrum and file some frivolous lawsuits if he loses this time but if he couldn’t get close to overturning his loss when he was a sitting President there’s a 0% chance it happens this time.
I’m supporting him for President anyway because of other reasons you likely aren’t interested in, but I’m under no illusion, I wish I didn’t have to vote for him
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@Double_R
That's only the first hire. A second Trump term will result in the gutting of the federal government of anyone who serves the constitution and replace them with those who serve Trump. Let's see how easily he'll get forced out the second time once he has turned the entire executive branch into his own personal task force.
Yeah I just don’t share your confidence in the competence of an 80 year old Trump and his cronies and I think you underrate the stability of the system. I don’t think the apocalyptic rhetoric is warranted, there will be a 2028 election no matter who wins
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Some type of term limit or guarantee that each POTUS has the opportunity to appoint the same number of justices is a good idea but I don’t see how you could possibly do it in a fair way at this point.
Actually I just thought of a fair way. Implement term limits or whatever type of reform is best for newly appointed justices but they don’t go into effect until 30 years from now. We’ll have to deal with the current bad system for the time being but we’ll end it there. And absolutely nobody could possibly predict what politics will be like that far in the future so it’s as “fair” as you can get, the “fog of war” from the future is the only possible way to get both sides to agree. Whichever side feels like they have dominance on the court in the near future will never agree to a change even if it’s best for the country
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@Moozer325
Some type of term limit or guarantee that each POTUS has the opportunity to appoint the same number of justices is a good idea but I don’t see how you could possibly do it in a fair way at this point. The current system where massive swings in power depends on when an elderly person happens to die is insane. I don’t think the founding fathers anticipated how much power SCOTUS would end up having. It’s ultimately the sovereign body in the US which is why I’m terrified of a liberal majority. The last time the left had a solid majority and decided to go for it the Warren court basically threw out the original constitution lol
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@Greyparrot
It’s possible. It’s a bad system but if their favored party has the house and senate SCOTUS justices should retire at even the first hint of poor health. Ginsberg not retiring under Obama was wild
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@Double_R
What excuses will Trump supporters offer for this one?
Dictators famously plan to step down from office in the exact time period that the constitutional order demands. He’s a narcissistic moron who doesn’t want to be a dictator but doesn’t care what happens to his country or his party after he can’t be POTUS anymore.
But I need him to replace Alito and Thomas and possibly Robert’s so he has my vote :)
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@badger
I totally disagree with you that liberals seem harmless. In the US at least the left wields asymmetric power and so the things they’re wrong about concern me a lot. Conservatives don’t seem to really do anything at all.
Here’s a few things about the left that really worry me. These are of course generalizations and not every lefty agrees with all of these but they’re things that are way way way more
common on the left than the right.
-On criminal justice there’s a subset of the left that is incredibly extremist, and will release obviously violent criminals again and again and again and again until they kill someone. But if a civilian attempts to stop these criminals even in a self defense situation they’ll come down on them
like a hammer. You may think I’m exaggerating but I’m not, look up Daniel Penney. Huge swathes of the urban United States are places so violent that it would be hard for a European to even comprehend (no offense.) The homicide rate in places like south Chicago are comparable to a country in the middle of a war. It did not used to be this way, crime rates skyrocketed in the 1960s when the left ascended.
-Their policies/behaviors on affirmative action in the workplace and education are a direct threat to my ability to make a living to support my family, and a threat to the livelihood of my own children in the future.
-The US had a developed something as close as possible to a post racial consensus that the left deliberately blew up in the 2010s by spreading completely false narratives about police brutality etc
-The position of the Democratic party on abortion is that is should be allowed for any reason the mother decides up to the moment of birth. To me that’s absolutely horrifying
-Leftist judges tend not to care about the constitution, and will just rule however they want. An interesting trend I’ve noticed in my years of watching the Supreme Court, there’s never any debate whatsoever how the liberal justices will rule on a contentious political issue. It’s not even considered by anyone for a split second. The question is always if some of the conservatives will defect. Leftist judges when they get power will ignore the constitution, precedent, and common sense and just brute force the country in the direction they want. For example for a half century the official constitutional interpretation of this clause was that it meant there was an absolute right to an abortion: “No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”
-The lefts position on parental rights is insane. They think that public school teachers have the right to talk to my children about sex and transgenderism and call them by a different name without my consent or knowledge.
-The left in the US does not believe that our country has the right to secure our border. We’ve had about ten million illegal immigrants move here since Biden took office, with the tacit support of the Democratic establishment
-The left does not believe in freedom of speech which is extremely important to me as it’s a right my people have had for centuries. The right has basically won on this issue in the past few years but the stuff I personally witnessed in 2020 is something I’ll never forget. I saw people lose their jobs for saying really milquetoast stuff in private conversations with people they thought were their friends.
That’s just off the top of my head. I hate a lot about the modern right too, like their retardation, the conspiracy theories, wanting to cut taxes for billionaires for some reason, but the left scares me more
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@IlDiavolo
I’ve gotten this impression too but we will see with his speech. I don’t think people really change that often, especially 78 year olds, but it does happen. More likely than a true change, a temporary one after a near death experience that is long enough to last for the remaining three months of the campaign is certainly possible too.
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@Moozer325
Not a fan. I don’t think it will move too much but this is a bad pick, Vance adds nothing to the ticket and has a lot of potential downsides
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@Moozer325
I doubt more than 1% of people support what he did. Even people who hate Trump to the extent that they would like to see him *redacted* would overwhelmingly prefer it to be through some formal governmental process. Some random schizo capping a nominee and former president while also killing innocent people isn’t something any sane person supports
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Like him or not, Trump is the main character and has plot armor. I’ve substantially revised my estimate of him winning again upwards, not because I think anyone will really be moved by this but because of the narrative.
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@WyIted
I don’t think they’ll be able to pass over the first black woman vice president. Live by identity politics die by identity politics
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@WyIted
Him remaining President is a serious issue. I don’t like Kamala but she’s an intelligent adult who seems to be “all there” and is comparatively young. It’s so absurd that he’s asking to be POTUS for another 4.5 years. Insulting
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@cristo71
Yeah but they’re fun and if you’re right you look smart, if you’re wrong you can say “hey I don’t got a crystal ball!”
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@WyIted
Literally day 1 the war in the Ukraine stops with both sides pissed about the concessions they have to make, and piaaing and moaning from war hawks.
Foreign leaders are somewhat afraid of Trump because of the madman theory and his ego making him not want stuff to happen under “his watch.” Biden is just so feckless it’s not surprising that there’s been so much chaos during his term
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@Savant
I don’t think Trump has the policy chops to implement real changes and he also doesn’t have his ego under control enough to essentially hand the keys to aids who know what they’re doing. But to be honest I haven’t read the full project 2025 document, I just saw some stuff democrats were freaking out about that I was pretty confident aren’t going to happen. There could be some more modest stuff in there that gets done
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PS, even if it’s Kamala and not Biden the scandal of hiding the presidents rapidly deteriorating mental state from the American people isn’t one that can be easily shaken. Everybody knew, and they lied
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Here are mine which are probably all wrong:
Biden does not drop out. He has few if any “senior moments” from here on out because access to him will be carefully planned and limited and he will slowly claw back support, but too much damage is done and Trump wins. It’s a relatively weak victory all things considered, his 2016 map + Nevada and a popular vote margin of +1%. All the talk of Trump winning Virginia, Minnesota, Maine, etc is a pipe dream. This isn’t the Republican 2008, but it could’ve been with a better candidate.
In the senate the GOP wins West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio but predictably chokes in the other close states. In the house the republicans keep their majority but it’s a similarly weak showing to 2022.
Thomas and Alito retire in the first years of Trump’s term. Trump is about as unpopular as he was in his first term, give or take a few % either way. None of the “project 2025” stuff happens. Trump doesn’t do much of anything as POTUS.
Very little happens on immigration because both sides quietly realize that a growing population is key to economic growth and a real decline in living standards is the one thing the population absolutely will not tolerate. However there will be some change to the antiquated, post WWII asylum system. Smart Dems realize that hoards of dependents being able to overwhelm the border and stay in the country on taxpayer dime if they say a few magic words is a long term strategic threat to their party. The fiscal situation continues to get worse as Trump extends at least some of his tax cuts without meaningful spending cuts. There is a free and fair election in 2028, democracy doesn’t end and Trump leaves with his ego satisfied. Entitlements are not touched. Biden is remembered as the guy who let Trump back into office
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@Double_R
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.
Not even close. he wanted blanket immunity which is just as ridiculous as saying the president doesn’t have any immunity for anything.
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?
Didn’t read anything past the OP but have been seeing the collective freak out online by people reading into a histrionic dissent instead of the actual majority opinion. Decided to share my own opinion
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@cristo71
The truth about Sotomayer that isn’t the care for Kagan and doesn’t seem to be the case for Jackson(although the jury is still out) is that she’s genuinely unintelligent. People shouldn’t take the claims made in the dissent which is NOT the law at face value
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@WyIted
The chief justice even called out her hysteria in the majority opinion. 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.
Of course the POTUS is immune from prosecution from official acts. Obama unintentionally killed a US citizen in Yemen during a drone strike against his father who was a legitimate military target. Obviously Obama can’t be charged with negligent homicide or whatever. Trumps alleged conduct re: January 6 is almost certainly not an official act (at least most of it) and SCOTUS created a rough framework for the lower court to assess what was and wasn’t. They aren’t going to have time to do that before the election, but that’s why you don’t wait until the last minute to put forward a complex and novel case.
And no, sending the navy seals to assassinate your political opponents is not an official act lol. Murdering your political opponents is not a power given to the President by the constitution.
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@Double_R
So to recap, since Micheal Cohens scheme was in fact illegal, and since Donald Trump was found via the evidence presented at trial to be involved in it, that proves to the jury that when Donald Trump falsified his New York business records, that he did so with the intent to (at the very least) conceal another (Micheal Cohen’s) crime.That is not an adjudication of federal law. That is not a determination of Donald Trump’s guilt in committing a federal crime. It is a determination as to what Donald Trump’s intentions were while he was violating NY criminal law. Because the reason you violate a law is relevant to how severe your violation is.
I do see what you’re saying more now. You can indeed be guilty of trying to cover up a crime someone else committed as an accessory after the fact or party to a conspiracy or something like that. However that type of stuff is illegal at a federal level too—you’re still mixing up jurisdictions. If that’s truly what happened it begs the question of why the federal government didn’t pursue it. I think you’re still running into the issue of the state interpreting and enforcing federal law because if Trump was allegedly party to a conspiracy to cover up a campaign violation, the federal government is the one who gets to decide and enforce that. As I see it you’re just changing what the alleged offense is, but either way it’s federal and not state. Increasing the severity of a state charge because of a federal crime that’s never been proven at trial isnt right. At the end of the day the state is saying he did something wrong with regards to a federal issue, when the federal government didn’t pursue any allegation of wrongdoing. Jurisdiction issue.
Btw even the FEC commissioners who did want to investigate Trump didn’t allege anything like that, but instead said that he may have knowingly accepted an illegal campaign contribution from Cohen. Which gets into questions about what he could reasonably be expected to know, etc.
I know you think it’s just pure bias by the FEC but there actually are a lot of issues with proving something like that beyond a reasonable doubt, it was probably a prudent decision not to move forward. And if it wasn’t, well, that’s still not New York's bone to pick
Legal arguments, such as ‘the state must ignore what is established at the federal level to be a crime’ is not a moral/ethical argument sufficient to substantiate being for or against a moral/ethical charge (such as the justice system is being weaponized against Trump). That is the legal game attorneys must play to defend or convict a defendant through our system of rules that were put in place to protect the innocent.
Sorry but no. Due process is in fact a system of morals and ethics that evolved through centuries of common law to create the optimal system. When it’s done correctly our legal system actually is pretty close to perfect and beautifully balances the interests of all morally relevant stakeholders. A due process violation is an extremely serious issue. A DA who hinted at “dealing with” a defendant when he was trying to get elected, who lowers 2/3rds of violent misdemeanors into felonies but zaps a non-violent long past the statute of limitations misdemeanor into a felony (selective prosecution), a judge who donated to the defendants political opponent, jurisdictional issues, the juror unanimity issue, the indictment being so vague that the defendant himself doesn’t know fully what the “secondary crime” he committed was, etc etc. There were tons of problems here.
You’re not gonna move me on this lol. I’m a mix of Anglo and Jewish, my people invented obsessing over due process
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@Double_R
This is mostly accurate. We agree that a state cannot adjudicate federal law, therefore in order to use a federal crime as a predicate for increased severity of a state crime, the legality of that crime must have already been adjudicated at the federal level. What you are claiming is that this adjudication can only take place in the form of a conviction, I reject that position.If the defendant pleads guilty there will never be a conviction because a jury at that point is not necessary. I find it absurd to suggest that the illegality of an act is established when the defendant declares they are innocent and fights the charges and loses, but not when the defendant himself, with advice of counsel says ‘don’t even bother, I’m guilty’.
A guilty plea is the equivalent of a conviction….the illegality of an act can be established by a trial or by a guilty plea. It can’t be established for individual Y because individual X pled guilty to something. You said it was an “egregious lie” when I stated “You’re literally pointing to someone else pleading guilty to a crime as legal proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that a different person is guilty of a crime.” but then you just said:
“We agree that a state cannot adjudicate federal law, therefore in order to use a federal crime as a predicate for increased severity of a state crime, the legality of that crime must have already been adjudicated at the federal level. What you are claiming is that this adjudication can only take place in the form of a conviction, I reject that position”
Trump was never accused of anything at a federal level let alone convicted. So the only way for the state to use this as a predicate for their own charge is to either adjudicate it themselves, which you just said you don’t support, or to assume Trump is guilty because Cohen pled guilty to something and said that Trump was involved. And you’ve been arguing this whole time that Trump is definitely guilty because Cohen pled guilty. So it seems like rather than what I’m saying being an “egregious lie”, Trump being assumed guilty because of what happened with Cohen is something you support.
That’s the fundamental disagreement here. That’s a violation of very basic due process and I would never ever agree to a system of justice where that type of practice is standard.
The prosecutors made the case that he was guilty of that crime. Big difference.Action X occurred and is a crime =/= Individual Y is guilty of crime XThe former is what the jury was instructed to accept as fact, because that had already been adjudicated in federal court. So what was left to adjudicate in state court is not whether Trump committed a federal crime, but whether Trump’s intent when falsifying his business records was to aid or conceal the commission of that crime.
1) they’re not allowed to do that. They don’t have jurisdiction over federal law. The state is not qualified to tell a jury what is or isn’t a violation of federal law. Since there’s no conviction of this individual by the proper jurisdiction, the exact opposite of what you’re saying is the case. The assumption must be innocence, not guilt.
2) that’s insane sophistry. We can decide if the individual was “concealing” a crime, but we can’t decide if the thing that was being concealed was actually a crime. It’s circular. Since the state isn’t qualified to determine what is or isn’t a federal crime, that also means they aren’t qualified to determine if a federal crime was being concealed
That’s your opinion and is supposed to be the topic we are debating. But all you’ve offered are legal arguments based on legal technicalities, so if that’s all you’re going to offer that what I’m going to respond to. But then you scoff at me when I use legal technicalities to make my point.
“Jurisdiction” “juror unanimity” “a fair an impartial judiciary” …an individual not being ASSUMED to have committed a crime without his day in court. These are not my “opinions” or “technicalities”, its basic process
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@3RU7AL
mafioso is caught red-handed and admits everything was premeditated and they knew everything was 100% illegal (as part of a plea deal)
Yeah I didn’t want to get into that because it’s a whole different can of worms but the language of a statement accompanying a gullty plea is usually going to be favorable to the state. That’s part of the purpose of a plea bargain.
“Someone pled guilty to a crime, because of the language accompanying that guilty plea it’s therefore fair assume that a different individual would be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of a crime he was never accused of, and its fair for a different jurisdiction to use that assumption as an “underlying crime” in their own charge”
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@Greyparrot
Finally you get it.I don't give a shit if Trump is innocent or guilty, but not charging him, yet calling it an "underlying crime" is beyond banana republic territory. You're just making shit up just for the sake of government corruption.
It’s insane. I hope that if Biden or a prominent democrat was hit with equally absurd charges I would have the integrity to see it for what it is. “Yeah he’s guilty of falsifying business records to cover up another crime. Yes it was in a different jurisdiction. No that jurisdiction didn’t charge him lol. No we aren’t qualified or allowed to interpret that jurisdictions laws but…well…he did it. Trust me bro.”
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@Double_R
What an egregious lie. I did not argue anything close to this.What I pointed out was that Cohen is officially, legally, guilty of committing a federal crime, and that per the evidence established through the trial, Trump at minimum, worked to conceal that crime by falsifying his business records.These facts satisfy every element of the crime as charged and does not require NY to adjudicate federal law, which is what you argued as your major concern here.
No, that’s not a fact lol. He was never accused of any crime in this matter.
Here is what you are saying:
Individual X pled guilty to a crime in jurisdiction A. Individual Y was possibly implicated in that crime, and a complaint was lodged against him. The relevant authorities in jurisdiction A performed an inquiry and determined that no further investigation into individual Y was warranted.
Because individual X pled guilty to a crime in jurisdiction A, jurisdiction B can use a crime that individual Y was never charged with much less convicted of as a predicate for their own charge in a different jurisdiction. Their prosecutors can tell jurors as a statement of fact that individual Y was guilty of a crime in jurisdiction A even though he was never even charged with a crime there.
Just not how it works. There’s a reason even very left leaning commentators were extremely skeptical of this one
Micheal Cohen spent three years in prison in part because he pleaded guilty to the illegal campaign contribution as charged by the DOJ. So yes, I do think they understand campaign finance law better than I, and they locked someone up over it.The fact that the DOJ locked up Cohen for this crime but not the same guy who in their own charging documents stated that Cohen worked "in coordination with and at the direction of" when he committed it, if you were being honest, would tell you clearly that the decision to not charge Trump had nothing to do with whether the contribution was a campaign finance violation or whether Trump was involved in it. It was and he was. That is a fact according to the federal government that you've been appealing to as the authority this whole conversation.
Yeah they locked up Michael Cohen…and they determined that no investigation into Trump was needed. What it sounds like is that you disagree with that decision because you believe your interpretation of campaign finance law in superior to that of the FEC commissioners. Maybe they really were wrong, but that doesn’t make what New York did here appropriate.
I’m not going to debate this with you because I don’t want to even pretend like I am an expert in campaign finance law. You are attempting to construct a narrative that the FEC was politically biased. This is narrative is suspect due to your own extreme partisanship and your lack of expertise in the subject. But here’s the kicker, you can be right that the decision not to go after Trump was an error, but that isn’t an error that’s reversible by New York!
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@Double_R
The relevant authority did decide this. The DOJ (as in the federal government) charged Cohen, and Cohen plead guilty and was sentenced to and served 3 years in prison. That by definition, means that Cohen is, legally speaking, guilty of violating federal law.Donald Trump was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be involved in this adjudicated crime. So even if we apply the most charitable position towards Trump in this, he is still guilty.
The federal government didn’t pursue any charge against Trump, probably because the relevant authorities understand campaign finance law better than you do. Idk what else to say besides nice talking to you. You’re literally pointing to someone else pleading guilty to a crime as legal proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that a different person is guilty of a crime. That’s just not how it works at all. There really isn’t a point in moving forward on this. Try to think about if you’d support this type of reasoning for a criminal defendant not named Donald Trump.
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The net interest scares me because it’s something that can completely run away from us, and it seems like that’s happening right now. Both parties are to blame of course. I think we’ll ultimately be able to worm our way out of it but not some pretty serious economic pain and politicians are going to wait until the absolute last second to pass the unpopular tax increases and spending cuts needed
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@Greyparrot
It's essentially the same as a "hung jury"In any case, it by no means indicates Trump violated anything.
It’s even less than that since the standard of evidence needed for investigating something, indicting someone for something, and convicting someone goes up each time. The complaint against Trump didn’t even make it past the first step
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@Double_R
This isn’t even about the law anymore, this is a matter of understanding basic common sense, yet no matter how many examples I give you just keep retreating to the same tired talking point without addressing anything I’ve said.At some point, after so many attempts to get you to engage, your intent to continue ignoring this element of the conversation becomes apparent, some might say beyond a reasonable doubt.
The one misunderstanding is you. Of course intent to commit another crime can be a predicate (although in a different jurisdiction idk.) But in order for someone to have the intent to commit a violation, it has to be determined that what they intended to do was indeed a violation! New York does not have jurisdiction on this matter. A New York judge is not qualified to give instructions to a jury on this matter. New York is not able to determine what is or isn’t a violation of federal election law.
Let me repeat: In order for Trump to have falsified business records with the intent to cover up a federal elections violation, the action he either did or attempted to do with regards to a federal election must be a violation of federal campaign finance law. New York does not have the jurisdiction to determine that. A New York judge is not qualified to instruct a jury on that. If he were convicted of this violation on a federal level, then their case is more reasonable (although I still don’t know about the jurisdiction issue.) When the relevant authorities, who have jurisdiction, chose not pursue the case, New York does not get to decide that in fact a violation did occur.
In other words, you are just wrong when you claim the authority here decided this wasn’t illegal. The authority who ultimately decides that is the DOJ, not the FEC. The FEC even said so themselves in their own ruling.
The DOJ under a Democratic president also didn’t pursue any case against Trump. Maybe they made the wrong decision. But the decision was the prerogative of the federal government, not the state of New York. The nuances of campaign finance law are extremely difficult to navigate, when the commissioners split 2-2 on whether something is worth investigating or not it’s not fair to say that Trump OBVIOUSLY did something wrong. The important point is that legally it doesn’t matter what your opinion is on why someone wasnt charged with someone. People are innocent until proven guilty. Justice departments don’t issue press releases saying that people are COMPLETELY INNOCENT and their conduct was NOT ILLEGAL because the decision not to pursue charges speaks for itself. Because in our system people are innocent until proven guilty. Period. Guess what happened in this case?
Legally right now he is innocent of any federal campaign finance violation. You don’t have to like that, but it’s the truth. That’s why it was incredibly inappropriate for the judge to allow prosecutors to tell the jury the opposite of this. And that’s why it’s incredibly inappropriate for New York to use it as a predicate in their case. He was never even tried for a federal campaign finance violation much less convicted.
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