Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Verdugo]

“There are not a lot of people who avoid serving prison time on a racketeering offense,” said Cox. .[/i]

That implies that there are some that manage to do just that.

[Belize]

That implies that there are some that manage to do just that.

You can do whatever you want with enough money.

[solinari6]

https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia...le-2/16-10-20/

Ok, that's pretty crazy:

upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000.00 or by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years, or both.

$1000 fine OR 1 to 5 years in jail. LOL ... Seems like a lot of wiggle room for a conservative judge to just sweep this away.

[Breccia]

So many things coming to light.

I can't wait to see the extension of Trump's lawyers' argument.

"This is defamatory! We're going to sue the NYTimes! This information about Trump's taxes is false!"
"Okay. Show us Trump's taxes."
"...no."

By the way, the only thing worse than not paying your taxes, is not paying your taxes in the past. Because then you get to pay things like interest.

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Reports I'm seeing are that Trump is back in NYC now, "checking in" on his businesses. It is the first Trump's been back in NY since he lost the election sixty times in a row.

I don't think this is a casual visit. I think he's there to yell at his employees to keep Trump out of jail.

[Edge-]

Unlike Carroll's defamation lawsuit against Trump, which is very much alive, Trump's defamation lawsuit against the NYT for publishing an op ed arguing there was "quid pro quo" between Trump and Russian officials in the 2016 election is very much dismissed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/b...dismissed.html

Mostly because it's objectively speech protected by the First Amendment.

In his decision on Tuesday, Judge James E. d’Auguste noted three reasons for dismissal. He wrote that Mr. Frankel’s commentary was “nonactionable opinion,” meaning it was constitutionally protected speech; that the Trump campaign did not have standing to sue for defamation; and that the campaign had failed to show that The Times had published the essay with “actual malice.”

So what's Trump up to...at least 150 lost lawsuits over 4 years?

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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...f-health-rules

If you go to the grocery store and pick up something wondering what's in it, that nutrition label is there because of rules from the Department of Health and Human Services.

If you show up at an emergency room needing medical care, you have to get treated because of these rules. You're also able to drink bottled water knowing it doesn't contain arsenic because of rules, too.

All of those rules — and thousands of others — could disappear without warning because of the Trump administration's Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely or SUNSET rule, finalized the day before President Biden's inauguration. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court argues that that rule is a "ticking time bomb" designed to tie up the current administration in bureaucratic knots.

In short, the rule requires the Department of Health and Human Services — which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health — to review all 18,000 existing agency regulations, within several years.

If a review of a rule isn't completed in the required time frame, it will automatically expire. The SUNSET rule states that its aim is to "ensure the Department's regulations are having appropriate impacts and have not become outdated."

The SUNSET rule reflects the Trump administration's "overarching view that regulations do no good — that they're generally harmful," explains Erin Fuse Brown, health law professor at Georgia State University.

"This SUNSET rule does go way beyond the idea that it is good for agencies to periodically review their regulations and make sure that they're keeping up with the times," Fuse Brown says. "This creates this presumption that all regulations should disappear unless they're subject to that periodic review."

To be clear, Fuse Brown explains, rules are law. When Congress passes a bill, it's not getting into the details.

"[Congress] provides the materials, it provides some direction — 'Build a skyscraper that generally will be about this tall and have this many floors.' But it's really up to the agency to design that and implement it and make sure it actually becomes a building," she says. "You take the building away if you take the rules away."

As an example, Congress passed HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, with the goal of protecting people's health information. But what actually spells out those health information protections in detail, Fuse Brown explains, "is a regulation that the agency [HHS] came up with, because Congress doesn't have the expertise to come up with the details."

The initial notice of the proposed SUNSET rule came on Nov. 4, the day after the 2020 election, with a public comment period of 30 days. The complaint filed Tuesday alleges that the Trump administration rushed the rule through and didn't follow legal requirements for the public to be able to weigh in.

So it's seems one of Trump's final "Fuck You"'s to America was to potentially kill off tens of thousands of regulations and rules that protect every day Americans.

Seriously, this is evil villain shit.

[masterhorus8]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...f-health-rules

So it's seems one of Trump's final "Fuck You"'s to America was to potentially kill off tens of thousands of regulations and rules that protect every day Americans.

Seriously, this is evil villain shit.

I mean, if it wasn't something passed in congress, Biden can just say "nope" with an EO, yeah?

[Edge-]

I mean, if it wasn't something passed in congress, Biden can just say "nope" with an EO, yeah?

I dunno, EO's aren't quite that straightforward. It's why Trump couldn't completely repeal DACA despite that being an EO, for example.

Article states that Congress can take action via Congressional Review Act, and HHS could try to get a stay on it while the lawsuit is in process. I'll have to dig around more to see if there's anything Biden specifically can do via EO.

[cubby]

I mean, if it wasn't something passed in congress, Biden can just say "nope" with an EO, yeah?

We're seriously living in a comic book right now - we literally have a super [fucking idiotic] villain. From the article:

If you show up at an emergency room needing medical care, you have to get treated because of these rules. You're also able to drink bottled water knowing it doesn't contain arsenic because of rules, too.

All of those rules — and thousands of others — could disappear without warning because of the Trump administration's Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely or SUNSET rule, finalized the day before President Biden's inauguration. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court argues that that rule is a "ticking time bomb" designed to tie up the current administration in bureaucratic knots.

In short, the rule requires the Department of Health and Human Services — which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health — to review all 18,000 existing agency regulations, within several years.

If a review of a rule isn't completed in the required time frame, it will automatically expire.

The only good news is that our "super hero" knows the government inside and out, and will more than likely have a rapid fix for this last-minute cluster fuck from the Trump "administration".

No - this unfortunately won't go away with an EO. I'm sure there are plenty of tricks that will work to "review" existing rules rapidly. You can bet if there are, Biden either knows them or knows someone who does. The only good news is that it's up front and probably going to be address immediately.

(it wasn't wrong to be happy when Hitler died, right?)

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Addendum: the whole thing might actually die in this lawsuit if the Admin Law Magistrate rules that the window for review wasn't sufficient.

[masterhorus8]

Addendum: the whole thing might actually die in this lawsuit if the Admin Law Magistrate rules that the window for review wasn't sufficient.

That'd be nice if that can happen, since it's rather apparent that that was likely the point the the window for review given.

[cubby]

That'd be nice if that can happen, since it's rather apparent that that was likely the point the the window for review given.

It would be - I used to tutor admin law in school, so this is kinda "fun" for me (I have issues). But there are sorts of technical hurdles for a major rule like SUNSET to come into effect. If the Trump legal team fucked even one thing up, it might be rescinded. If the team that filed the initial lawsuit was smart, they brought in some Biden people as soon as was possible.

We'll have to see. I wouldn't want anyone else as President for this kind of thing - Biden is a master at working the government. He more than likely has someone in the wings who can spearhead the project of reviewing all the rules, if it becomes necessary.

[Benggaul]

55,683 new cases, about 2k fewer than last Tuesday. That's not a huge difference, but Tuesdays have started to become another underreport day the past month. There's some weirdness going on in a few places. More later.

Top 5:

New York: 7,153 new cases; 83 deaths
Texas: 5,119 new cases; 168 deaths
Fuck Florida.
California: 4,168 new cases; 227 deaths
New Jersey: 4,126 new cases; 45 deaths

The stuff I had to say about Texas last week still appears to be holding true, unfortunately. Positivity is oscillating between about 13% and 16% and testing isn't improving much.

And then there's this:

Minnesota Department of Health: "An audit by MDH epidemiologists of unverified possible COVID-19 case reports identified 891 cases and 138 deaths that were previously unreported to MDH by private labs in violation of a state rule. These cases and deaths occurred over the course of the last year. The cases will be attributed to the appropriate date in the "Positive cases by date specimen collected data table." However, deaths will appear as a one-day spike because deaths are represented by the date reported."

I get the feeling there are a lot of stories like this out there.

1,704 deaths is about 350 fewer than last Tuesday and brings the total to 540,574. The numbers keep coming down pretty steeply in the death column and I still expect us to stay south of 2k for most if not all of the week. This number will also start beginning to plateau, however, matching the new cases curve.

Related news:

Fauci warns U.S. Covid cases may 'plateau again at an unacceptably high level'--This is something I've been saying for ages now and pretty much everyone else here probably also knew, but it's still a bit of a gut-punch to hear it from pretty much the foremost expert. *sigh*

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

So what's Trump up to...at least 150 lost lawsuits over 4 years?

These are the top 13 from an article a month ago.

[Ursus]

He has enough? Debatable, I am collecting a VA paycheck and I am probably worth more than he is after you take a look at how much he owes.

Serious question, do his debts even matter? It seems like people have been talking about how he's been in serious debt for many years now (even before his Presidency), not to mention other troubles like refusing to pay people who do work for him, and none of it ever seems to matter.

Anyone else would be living in the poorhouse or in jail by this point, but he's still living in Mar-a-lago, apparently completely unfettered by the all the money he owes. He's not even allowed to be living in Mar-a-lago according to the contract he signed with the city of Palm Beach, but again, somehow he gets away with it.

I'm not quite sure how he's able to do this, but it doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

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https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.3/info...ier-boondoggle

Nice piece on how truly pointless and expensive Trump's monument to racism is.

And it was almost 5x the cost of previous border walls/barriers built.

$20 million per mile of border wall? Shit, I've never built so much as a snowman in my life, and I guarantee I could've done it for half that.

[Felya]

So it's seems one of Trump's final "Fuck You"'s to America was to potentially kill off tens of thousands of regulations and rules that protect every day Americans.

Seriously, this is evil villain shit.

I’m still waiting for justification in making asbestos legal again. It never stopped causing cancer and the only place that still made it was Russia.

[postman1782]

I’m still waiting for justification in making asbestos legal again. It never stopped causing cancer and the only place that still made it was Russia.

Just more of a way for Trump to get more Russian money. Just like everything else he did for them.

[Fugus]

Serious question, do his debts even matter? It seems like people have been talking about how he's been in serious debt for many years now (even before his Presidency), not to mention other troubles like refusing to pay people who do work for him, and none of it ever seems to matter.

Anyone else would be living in the poorhouse or in jail by this point, but he's still living in Mar-a-lago, apparently completely unfettered by the all the money he owes. He's not even allowed to be living in Mar-a-lago according to the contract he signed with the city of Palm Beach, but again, somehow he gets away with it.

I'm not quite sure how he's able to do this, but it doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

His debts very much matter.

He has been able to skate for so long now because his title as president protected him from his debtors for that duration and because the main collector now has a history of working with Russia to launder money for them.

Now Trump no longer has that protection and that bank even wants to wash their hands of him.

Also his taxes became a thing of interests during his time in office thanks to his actions to protect them and his own lawyers fingering him for bank and tax fraud along with the leak of his families taxes showing exactly that. That’s a debt collector that wasn’t on his back back then.

Also, before he was president his approach was to make getting what he owed from him as painful and expensive legally as possible. That won’t work against his taxes after all he has done.

And between just the bank and tax fraud that’s likely more then enough to bankrupt him from the information we have out there, then you got the fines and fees associated with them AND the laws he broke in office.

[Katchii]

So it's seems one of Trump's final "Fuck You"'s to America was to potentially kill off tens of thousands of regulations and rules that protect every day Americans.

Seriously, this is evil villain shit.

Yes, HIS reason for doing it is evil as shit, because he's trying to simply get rid of some of these rules and regulations.

However the idea that rules and regulations should be reviewed periodically to ensure they still make sense is actually REALLY good. They should be reviewed periodically, to see if they make sense, if they need updating, if they're still doing their job, etc... that's all part of a good quality process.

[DarkTZeratul]

However the idea that rules and regulations should be reviewed periodically to ensure they still make sense is actually REALLY good. They should be reviewed periodically, to see if they make sense, if they need updating, if they're still doing their job, etc... that's all part of a good quality process.

And they are reviewed periodically already for just that reason. What THIS does is a) force that review on everything within a relatively short period, and b) add the additional measure that if a review isn't completed within that timeframe (say, because they have eighteen THOUSAND others to review), the regulation automatically expires.

[Edge-]

However the idea that rules and regulations should be reviewed periodically to ensure they still make sense is actually REALLY good. They should be reviewed periodically, to see if they make sense, if they need updating, if they're still doing their job, etc... that's all part of a good quality process.

Absolutely! I don't think you'll find any disagreement that periodic review of rules to eliminate ones no longer necessary and update others so they're more applicable is prudent. But giving them a timetable to do so under threat of, "If you don't finish, THEY ALL GO AWAY" is bullshit.

[Elegiac]

However the idea that rules and regulations should be reviewed periodically to ensure they still make sense is actually REALLY good. They should be reviewed periodically, to see if they make sense, if they need updating, if they're still doing their job, etc... that's all part of a good quality process.

Okay, on the same note do you think we need to periodically review laws against murder to make sure they're still needed? Or do you acknowledge that saying a regulation needs to be reviewed just because it's a regulation stems from an irrational place of opposition towards government?

Making every rule and regulation have a set expiration date is a fucking moronic idea that ensures the government spends most of its time reviewing existing legislation rather than addressing current issues - which is precisely why Republicans are so fond of the idea as part of their "hamstring every proper function of government" policy. If a regulation is not working, then address that regulation.

Or do we really need to review what constitutes an acceptable quantity of lead based paint in children's products every five years?