Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

During Trump's time in office, he accumulated $200 million more in debt raising the total to $1.3 billion. Most likely reason, by borrowing against properties he doesn't like, he can pay back the loans on the ones he does like. Of course, this is still Trump and the banks know it, so it's unlikely he'll be able to declare his minor properties bankrupt and escape.

He's desperate.

Incidentally, Trump continues to attack McConnell and is demanding Party of Trump Senators to tank the debt ceiling thing and be directly, specifically responsible for a US govt default and the recession that would shortly follow. I'm sure McConnell is tired of this, too, but too bad, he chose this. Having the Party of Trump turn on him was a very real risk he had to know was imminent.

By the way, under Trump, the US debt rose $7.8 trillion and now Trump is demanding that the US not pay and default. Similarly, under Trump, the debt ceiling was raised three times.

I'm guessing this could be some kind of attempt to get the US to default and blame Biden, despite every single ounce of evidence showing the Republican Party doing this in public. I don't think that will work. Biden's not re-elected till 2024. The Party of Trump people who are caught directly causing a default/recession could be evicted in 2022, especially if the party infighting continues and Trump tries to primary the remaining Republicans between court visits and hanging "for sale" signs on his remaining buildings.

No, I don't think this is some kind of grand master plan. I think Trump just wants to be a contrarian and take what he feels is revenge on McConnell. If Trump was a better planner, he wouldn't have directly encouraged a lethal outbreak that's now killed 700,000 Americans -- and maybe more.

[PhaelixWW]

NYTimes: Trump Tells Former Aides to Defy Subpoenas From Jan. 6 Panel

Former President Donald J. Trump has instructed his former aides not to comply with subpoenas from the special congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot, raising the prospect of the panel issuing criminal referrals for some of his closest advisers as early as Friday.

In a letter reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s lawyer asked that witnesses not provide testimony or documents related to their “official” duties, and instead to invoke any immunities they might have “to the fullest extent permitted by law.”

The House committee has ordered four former Trump administration officials — Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Dan Scavino Jr., a deputy chief of staff; Stephen K. Bannon, an adviser; and Kash Patel, a Pentagon chief of staff — to sit for depositions and furnish documents and other materials relevant to its investigation. They all faced a Thursday deadline to respond.

Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the select committee, has threatened criminal referrals for witnesses who do not comply with the subpoenas, and said the panel expected witnesses “to cooperate fully with our probe.”

The move amounted to a declaration of war by Mr. Trump on the investigation, and raised legal questions about how far the committee could go in compelling information from a former president and his advisers.

The committee is demanding that Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel submit to questioning next Thursday, and Mr. Bannon and Mr. Scavino the following day.

It is unclear whether President Biden’s team will see fit to extend executive privilege — which shields a sitting president’s communications and deliberations from disclosure — to the former president.

The Justice Department and the White House have already waived executive privilege for a previous batch of witnesses who were asked to testify before the Senate Judiciary and House Oversight committees, which were investigating the Jan. 6 attack and the Trump administration’s efforts to subvert the results of the presidential election. The Justice Department argued that privilege was conferred to protect the institution of the presidency, not to provide immunity for wrongdoing.

...

[postman1782]

NYTimes: Trump Tells Former Aides to Defy Subpoenas From Jan. 6 Panel

Hope they go full fucking criminal contempt with it. It is being floated around for it.

[DarkTZeratul]

By the way, under Trump, the US debt rose $7.8 trillion and now Trump is demanding that the US not pay and default. Similarly, under Trump, the debt ceiling was raised three times.

So what you're saying is that he did, in fact, run the country the way he ran his businesses.

[Kaleredar]

Hope they go full fucking criminal contempt with it. It is being floated around for it.

These snakes seem to have done a pretty good job of slithering out of facing consequences via operating in legal gray areas or by violating “unspoken codes of conduct and traditions” instead of actual laws.

If they want to step foot-first into a legal bear trap they could otherwise avoid violating? I’d consider that at least some shred of the justices they deserve being served to them. Even better if they do it because they’re continuing to follow trumps inane ramblings.

[Poopymonster]

Also, if "kids of color feel like people that belong and that makes white kids unhappy", then the "problem" is that those white kids are racist little shitmongers, and if they're causing problems about this, they should be suspended/expelled.

Not that I believe those kids necessarily exist. But if they do, they're the problem, not the other kids or the schools' policies.

If you're racist and get fired get expelled, it's your fault. *CLAP* *CLAP*

The "uncomfortable" kids?
They become the bullies, not the kids trying to fight back that get in trouble for fighting.
They become the teenage guys staring at an exposed ankle sending a girl home for "distracting dress".
They grow up and have kids of their own.
They name their boys Brock Turner.

- - - Updated - - -

During Trump's time in office, he accumulated $200 million more in debt raising the total to $1.3 billion. Most likely reason, by borrowing against properties he doesn't like, he can pay back the loans on the ones he does like. Of course, this is still Trump and the banks know it, so it's unlikely he'll be able to declare his minor properties bankrupt and escape.

He's desperate.

Incidentally, Trump continues to attack McConnell and is demanding Party of Trump Senators to tank the debt ceiling thing and be directly, specifically responsible for a US govt default and the recession that would shortly follow. I'm sure McConnell is tired of this, too, but too bad, he chose this. Having the Party of Trump turn on him was a very real risk he had to know was imminent.

By the way, under Trump, the US debt rose $7.8 trillion and now Trump is demanding that the US not pay and default. Similarly, under Trump, the debt ceiling was raised three times.

I'm guessing this could be some kind of attempt to get the US to default and blame Biden, despite every single ounce of evidence showing the Republican Party doing this in public. I don't think that will work. Biden's not re-elected till 2024. The Party of Trump people who are caught directly causing a default/recession could be evicted in 2022, especially if the party infighting continues and Trump tries to primary the remaining Republicans between court visits and hanging "for sale" signs on his remaining buildings.

No, I don't think this is some kind of grand master plan. I think Trump just wants to be a contrarian and take what he feels is revenge on McConnell. If Trump was a better planner, he wouldn't have directly encouraged a lethal outbreak that's now killed 700,000 Americans -- and maybe more.

Trump wants turtle to tank the debt ceiling, tanking the economy. Trump runs, says this about republican senators "See what they did? VOTE EM OUT! What do we need? We need fResh new Active people who Can Implement my Super bigly yuge plan To Save this nation!" This puts an army of sycophants in congress, even if he doesn't win. Who are beholden and may actually believe what he's saying.

[Benggaul]

Thursday's report:

102,090 new cases; about 21k fewer than last week.

Top 10:

Fuck Florida.
Texas: 8,562 new cases; 245 deaths
Ohio: 6,310 new cases; deaths not reported
Pennsylvania: 5,819 new cases; 90 deaths
Georgia: 5,753 new cases; 191 deaths
California: 5,523 new cases; 148 deaths
New York: 5,481 new cases; 20 deaths
North Carolina: 3,781 new cases; 74 deaths
Illinois: 3,371 new cases; 46 deaths
Wisconsin: 3,224 new cases; 2 deaths

More and more states are falling to the "High" risk category as time goes on with most still listed as "Very High" and the Northwest and Alaska remaining at "Severe". Cases per 100k remains largely the same as yesterday for those states with California and Connecticut remaining best in the nation at about 16 and 11 respectively. Well, unless you count Puerto Rico which only has 4 cases per 100k population. Oh and they have the best vaccination rate at 80% with at least one shot and 71% fully vaxxed. Tell me again why they can't be a state but we're still saddled with Texas? Hospitalizations are also declining through most of the US though 8 states--Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Texas--still have 15% or less of their ICU capacity available. Rationed care is still a thing in some areas.

1,709 deaths is over 350 fewer than last Thursday and brings the total to 730,206. Texas, Florida and Georgia keep the top 3 spots. Things are looking more promising as the 7-day average continues to fall. Not quickly, but steadily. Florida's bullshit reporting messes with that a bit as usual, but deaths overall have been lower than the previous week for a while now.

Related news:

Fewer Covid-19 hospitalizations, more vaccinations show US may be turning corner in pandemic but experts warn: 'We're still in two Americas'

"Along with virtually all of my colleagues, we are smiling quietly," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, told CNN on Thursday. "We haven't put up a 'mission accomplished' banner yet,

Oh snap.

but for sure we think things are improving. New cases and hospitalizations certainly are down, and here and there, we're actually seeing a reduction in deaths."
Yet he added, "it's obvious that this plateauing and diminution -- although you can see it across the country -- it is happening more steeply in some parts of the country, the better vaccinated parts, than in other parts of the country, the less vaccinated parts, including my own state of Tennessee. So, although we are clearly making progress, I think we're still in two Americas."

Organ centers to transplant patients: Get a Covid vaccine or move down on waitlist--Expected and appropriate. They won't give a new liver to someone who's still drinking their life away, why would they give organs to others who ignore their own health and safety?

Donald Trump Takes Ghoulish Victory Lap Over 2021 Covid Death Toll Surpassing Last Year’s--Unsurprising. He didn't give a shit about the people he killed last year; why would he care about the people his inaction and misinformation got killed this year? He had a big hand in politicizing the pandemic, so the by now largely avoidable deaths still land squarely on his fat head as far as I'm concerned. Fuck Trump and fuck his supporters.

Stay safe, folks.

[Machismo]

I do love that we have conclusive evidence that not only did Trump make multiple attempts to overthrow the election... but that he also threatened to fire anyone who wouldn't assist him in his coup attempt.

[Breccia]

This puts an army of sycophants in congress, even if he doesn't win.

We've talked about a civil war within the Republican Party for a while now. And while Trump continues to refuse to admit the South lost the Civil War, he hasn't lost this one yet. He can still win, of course, if the Republican Party just surrenders at every opportunity and continues to hand Trump control. So far, they've done that nearly every single time. McConnell's vote on the debt ceiling is a rare exception, but honestly, it's because what Trump is asking for is stupid and suicidal beyond what McConnell is ready to do.

If the Republican Party is going to break free from Trump's control -- good luck with that -- they'll need a few things.
1) They'll need to actually try. Taking steps against Trump's chaotic interests by publicly saying things like "no, that's stupid, I'm not doing that" or "well yes, that was a crime, Team Trump shouldn't be doing crimes and I won't".
2) Something significant and bad will need to happen to Trump personally. Right now, Republicans are outnumbered by the Party of Trump -- they invited it and allowed it to happen, this is their fault. They can't force him out without outside help. This outside help could include:
(a) Trump goes bankrupt.
(b) Trump is arrested EDIT and preferably convicted.
(c) We find out Melania had an abortion (I remain convinced this is a game over, if we it actually happened of course)
(d) He gets sick and/or dies.
3) We know Trump's own donation pool, which he will steal for himself, hit a snag with the whole Lewandowski thing. The Republican Party can out-fundraise Trump if they get their act together. The older and richer and whiter you are, the more likely you are to be a classic Republican and not a Party of Trump member. The Republican Party needs to go back to their old, conservative base and get their money.
4) Finally, the Republican Party will need an objective, public win that Trump would have lost. The debt ceiling isn't it. You can't say "well, if we hadn't raised the debt ceiling, we would have had a default and recession" because the rabid fanbase will just put their fingers in their ears and scream "RINO RINO RINO". They need to push a result that Trump opposes, that gets a clear win for the American people. This will need to be something bipartisan, because again they're heavily outnumbered.

I don't know what #4 would be yet. If I had to guess, I'd say "infrastructure". A bipartisan infrastructure bill, to fix old roads and bridges, creating tens of thousands of jobs, but doesn't have Trump's name on it therefore Trump will oppose it.

[Ripster42]

It was when it was filed. An affidavit is a sworn statement. I'll be honest, I didn't know you could "externally" file a sworn statement in support of a lawsuit without being part of that lawsuit, but if the plaintiffs didn't file it themselves I don't have a problem with them scrubbing it from the record. If they did, my question stands.

"Friend of the court" filing. Relatively common.

It depends entirely on the jurisdiction's procedures and rules. Typically, however, you can withdraw a suit without penalty, especially if it was recently filed and hadn't been acted upon outside the filing.

I mean, ideally, we want that in our legal system. If someone legitimately screws up, we want them to be able to fix it on their own, without tying up the legal system unnecessarily. Unfortunately, what we've seen, is that the Trumpkins/GOP/Conspiracists are taking advantage of these situations and making a good situation bad.

From the original post, it said it was a filing by an outside party, unless I'm mistaken as to what you are referring.

The AG decides on the charges; the judges don't do that. The AG also recommends the sentence, though the final decision is up to the judge. Somehow I doubt the judge is going to arbitrarily come up with a harsher sentence on his own in these cases, though.

It has happened with jan 6 defendants. Well, not arbitrarily, but the prosecutors were asking for probation and judge handed out jail.

https://www.newsweek.com/t-funded-ov...eories-1636126

Go figure...OAN's primary funder with over 90% of all funding is...AT&T. Who knew they were such big players in the right wing fictional media space.

@cubby, if they were using AT&T's funds to bankroll what is essentially a political propaganda organ that was losing money, would stockholders have a case for a class action lawsuit for failing their fiduciary duty?

Perez got 15 months and a $1,000 fine. Also, I'm just going to go ahead and guess 15 months is a felony, which means from now on, when Perez fills out a job application, he will have to tell his prospective boss he lied about having his cousin lick a grocery store because he didn't want to stand in line.

I'm not saying you're wrong about him being charged with a felony, but there are some misdemeanors with 2 year sentences in some jurisdictions.

[jonnysensible]

I do love that we have conclusive evidence that not only did Trump make multiple attempts to overthrow the election... but that he also threatened to fire anyone who wouldn't assist him in his coup attempt.

one of the bad things in all the articles is they are treating the threat as if its past tense, when its still ongoing.

[Machismo]

one of the bad things in all the articles is they are treating the threat as if its past tense, when its still ongoing.

Oh, it is absolutely still ongoing.

Nazis like Trump won't stop.

[Hollycakes]

Trumps says today that lots of the migrants from Haiti coming have Aids.
Said it's a death wish for America.

'So, we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem,' Trump told host Sean Hannity.

'Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country. And we don’t do anything about it.

Still a big teddy bear isn't he.
As someone with friends from Haiti, he can fuck off.

[Breccia]

Trump tried to make money off his businesses with the power of his office, including that famous FBI/post office thing.

He failed. The DC hotel lost $71 million while Trump was in town.

Just a reminder, in case @TexasRules or any other Trump supporters are watching: just because Trump tried to do something unethical but failed, doesn't mean he didn't do anything unethical. It just means he's unethical, and incompetent.

[DarkTZeratul]

Trumps says today that lots of the migrants from Haiti coming have Aids.
Said it's a death wish for America.

'So, we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem,' Trump told host Sean Hannity.

'Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country. And we don’t do anything about it.

Still a big teddy bear isn't he.
As someone with friends from Haiti, he can fuck off.

AIDS? Really? This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Nobody gives a shit.

[Edge-]

AIDS? Really? This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Nobody gives a shit.

Obligatory -

[Breccia]

AIDS? Really? This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Nobody gives a shit.

1) I don't know if Trump ever left the 80's. Hell, in a few years, he'll be in his 80's.
2) It's a common trigger word to rile up the pro-life crowd because AIDS is associated with A Certain Lifestyle.

[Ayirasi]

Trumps says today that lots of the migrants from Haiti coming have Aids.
Said it's a death wish for America.

'So, we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem,' Trump told host Sean Hannity.

'Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country. And we don’t do anything about it.

Still a big teddy bear isn't he.
As someone with friends from Haiti, he can fuck off.

Also obligatory:

[Hollycakes]

I just watched Dave Chapelle's new stand up last nite and he mentions the Da Baby thing.
Explains how that fool shot and killed someone in a Wal Mart some years ago and it didn't affect his career.
Trump knows this about his base and nothing he says will outrage them and if anything, they'll agree.
People from Trump's generation don't know it's not a death sentence anymore etc.
Nor would they care.
Just stirring that national pride stew baby.

The irony in them claiming things are used to control us like vax's etc and yet,
Using language and ignorance as a weapon like this is that very thing.
One more thing they can be afraid of.
One more thing he can use to sway them in the direction he wants.

[Benggaul]

AIDS? Really? This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Nobody gives a shit.

Well there's also the fact that the GOP idolize Reagan and his (and that cunt Nancy's) response to the AIDS epidemic was "it only affects gay people so let them die! lol" so Trump or anyone else from the GOP have no leg to stand on there.