Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[SoulForge]

---SNIP---

Let me stop this BS really easily.

Republicans have been in control since then. Even had a president in office. So flip a coin here;

A.) There was nothing to the whole Clinton affair.
B.) Republicans are so god damn incompetent that they don't do anything.

Law enforcement has always held a traditionally right leaning. Did you see any whistleblowers over the Clinton email affair? Hell if anything the FBI helped Trump win by reopening that investigation DAYS before the Presidential election.

[postman1782]

-more bullshit Trump defense-

I didn't say the FBI can't be questioned on its decisions, but the mere fact you are defending this piece of shit traitor with hundreds of classified documents, and probably chanted lock her up about Hillary, even after she was cleared, makes you an ignorant fucking hypocrite. There is no evidence of the FBI doing anything illegal or even remotely bad here.

[Breccia]

What he will do is determine if what the DoJ wants redacted is reasonable or excessive.

UPDATE: Reasonable.Redacted affadavit to be released tomorrow by noon. I guess there's the option to appeal, but I think a lot of people (including myself) believe the redactions are going to be so major that the FBI might just not care.

Incidentally, tomorrow is when that Trump case before another judge, the "what do you expect the special master to do?" case, is due. Trump has until tomorrow to explain what, precisely, he wants and how it will help. Otherwise the FBI will still return the stuff that Trump didn't steal as they typically do, really, Trump is just wasting his time and his lawyers' money.

[s_bushido]

really, Trump is just wasting his time and his lawyers' money

I see what you did there.

[gondrin]

I didn't say the FBI can't be questioned on its decisions, but the mere fact you are defending this piece of shit traitor with hundreds of classified documents, and probably chanted lock her up about Hillary, even after she was cleared, makes you an ignorant fucking hypocrite. There is no evidence of the FBI doing anything illegal or even remotely bad here.

The way all of them are acting(I don't count Trump himself in this as he has always been a major drama queen his whole life) is like the FBI just randomly chose to one day show up to the front door of Mar-a-Lago, kicked the door in, stole everything and did it without a search warrant, subpoena or anything else.

You know, it isn't like the government didn't ask(they did), kept asking(they kept asking) and practically begged and pleaded to get the Top Secret documents back. Usually, search warrants are the last line when someone is refusing to cooperate. If this were over presidential memoranda or communications, this more than not would have just been going through the court system.

[Paranoid Android]

Fox Reports Trump's TRUTH Social Faces 'Big Money Woes,' Owes Web Host $1.6 Million in Outstanding Payments

Umm not Big Money Woes here. This is just Trump not paying his bills, plain and simple. Never can believe how this guy keeps getting idiots who want to do business with him. I'm talking about businesses that actually don't want to grift.

[gondrin]

Fox Reports Trump's TRUTH Social Faces 'Big Money Woes,' Owes Web Host $1.6 Million in Outstanding Payments

Umm not Big Money Woes here. This is just Trump not paying his bills, plain and simple. Never can believe how this guy keeps getting idiots who want to do business with him. I'm talking about businesses that actually don't want to grift.

Trump not paying his bills? Must be a day that ends in y. I mean, the web host can just cut off access if they continue to refuse payment like any other service provider. Funny thing is the host of Truth Social claims they want to give conservatives a "cancel-proof" alternative. I wonder if they will keep their promise or have to "cancel" service to a non payer.

[Edge-]

Fox Reports Trump's TRUTH Social Faces 'Big Money Woes,' Owes Web Host $1.6 Million in Outstanding Payments

Umm not Big Money Woes here. This is just Trump not paying his bills, plain and simple. Never can believe how this guy keeps getting idiots who want to do business with him. I'm talking about businesses that actually don't want to grift.

I can only imagine that Truth Social has overtaken Reddit for the title of, "The most worthless users on a social media platform."

And I'm not saying that as an attack on the users, but as a practical financial reality in terms of how much those users are worth to advertisers given clickrates and transactions resulting from them, and how much they're willing to spend per-impression/thousand impressions.

Maybe Devin Nunes shoulda kept his old gig, there's more job security as a Republican member of the House in a safe district than there is as the CEO of a startup social media company largely created and run by known grifters.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump not paying his bills? Must be a day that ends in y. I mean, the web host can just cut off access if they continue to refuse payment like any other service provider. Funny thing is the host of Truth Social claims they want to give conservatives a "cancel-proof" alternative. I wonder if they will keep their promise or have to "cancel" service to a non payer.

No no no, you see if their hosting provider shuts off the servers and de-facto ends the service then that's just PROOF of the DEEP STATE CONSPIRACY against Trump. It extends to all big tech! Even a company like RightForge, which is honestly the first time I've ever heard of this company and it doesn't seem like they're very "big tech", but that doesn't matter.

[gondrin]

I can only imagine that Truth Social has overtaken Reddit for the title of, "The most worthless users on a social media platform."

And I'm not saying that as an attack on the users, but as a practical financial reality in terms of how much those users are worth to advertisers given clickrates and transactions resulting from them, and how much they're willing to spend per-impression/thousand impressions.

Maybe Devin Nunes shoulda kept his old gig, there's more job security as a Republican member of the House in a safe district than there is as the CEO of a startup social media company largely created and run by known grifters.

- - - Updated - - -



No no no, you see if their hosting provider shuts off the servers and de-facto ends the service then that's just PROOF of the DEEP STATE CONSPIRACY against Trump. It extends to all big tech! Even a company like RightForge, which is honestly the first time I've ever heard of this company and it doesn't seem like they're very "big tech", but that doesn't matter.

They opened up in 2021 so they are very new.

Here is their wikipedia page for what it is worth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RightForge

[Breccia]

Owes Web Host $1.6 Million in Outstanding Payments

Ah, I was wondering what RightForge did when I posted this two and a half hours ago (glares).

This only makes the "breach of contract" Trump is pushing even stranger. What would a host do, that would break contract? Of all the issues CyberTrump 2077 had, "the servers are down" wasn't really all that prominent, and those complaints are old.

[SoulForge]

Trump not paying his bills? Must be a day that ends in y. I mean, the web host can just cut off access if they continue to refuse payment like any other service provider. Funny thing is the host of Truth Social claims they want to give conservatives a "cancel-proof" alternative. I wonder if they will keep their promise or have to "cancel" service to a non payer.

I seriously doubt they will keep that site running if they don't pay. They are about capitalism. They aren't a charity.

[gondrin]

Ah, I was wondering what RightForge did when I posted this two and a half hours ago (glares).

This only makes the "breach of contract" Trump is pushing even stranger. What would a host do, that would break contract? Of all the issues CyberTrump 2077 had, "the servers are down" wasn't really all that prominent, and those complaints are old.

Well, they breached their contract because they wanted money and Trump said "Nope, all mine."

[Breccia]

Well, they breached their contract because they wanted money and Trump said "Nope, all mine."

You joke, but Trump routinely put in clauses that said the job had to be done to his satisfaction, then just say the job wasn't to his satisfaction. He's admitted such in public. So, yeah, it could be exactly that.

The NYTimes reports that

Sean Hannity became the latest Fox star to be called for a deposition by Dominion’s legal team, according to a new filing in Delaware Superior Court. He is scheduled to appear on Wednesday.

Tucker Carlson is set to face questioning on Friday. Lou Dobbs, whose Fox Business show was canceled last year, is scheduled to appear on Tuesday. Others who have been deposed recently include Jeanine Pirro, Steve Doocy and a number of high-level Fox producers, court records show.

So once again: let's talk about Delaware's corporate laws.

They're fucking broken.

This means, in this context, that Dominion is facing an uphill battle. FOX News is, and yes I am conjecturing from previous experience but it's still just an educated guess, probably going to end up protected from what its own employees see on its own channel during their sponsored, advertised time slots.

But the individuals themselves might not be. If Hannity and/or Carlson are put on the stand, as it seems they will be, there is zero to negative chances they will not be asked flat-out something like "When you said the election was fraudulent, did you know that was true? Not suspect, not guess, not feel, know." Dominion has been prepping for this for a long time, and it's highly unlikely that Hannity, Carlson or FOX News have any evidence that Dominion machines were hacked at the time. We still don't have it now. The only people who broke into voting machines were Republicans, after the fact, looking for who broke into the voting machines.

Hannity and Carlson are two of the planet's leading weasels, but at some point, "answer the question fuckwit" becomes the order of the day. They can't take the Fifth without admitting what they said is criminally liable. And I can't help but imagine they'd be fired if they say "Our bosses made us say that" (NYTimes suggests that Dominion is waiting panther-like to pounch on Rupert Murdoch with a subpoena the very second they have an opportunity)

We all know the standards for slander and libel.

• A false or defamatory statement was made towards the plaintiff.
• The statement was either said to or published by a third person.
• There was malicious intent, or at the very least, negligence when the statement was made. “reckless disregard for the truth”
• The plaintiff incurred damages or harm as a result of the statement.

A statement of opinion, such as "I feel the election was not fair", is protected speech. "Dominion machines were hacked" is not. The First Amendment does not protect slander, libel, or defamation, and thus far, that's beenHannity/Carlson/ FOX News' most touted defense. I also do not expect the defense of "We didn't say it, we just invited people onto our shows who said it, and did not correct or question them" to work, either. And putting the word "Opinion" on a sign over your head does not change statements of fact to be something other than statements of fact.

FOX News might escape, I think they will, but Dominion can and should be going after their anchors. Force them to say, on the stand, they said something that was not true -- they might not even need to admit they knew it was a lie, “reckless disregard for the truth" after all. Once thusly entered into the record, they're evidence in the lawsuits both men should hopefully face next. Without FOX News to stand between them and a bullet, Dominion might finally see some justice served.

[Jotaux]

Trump not paying his bills? Must be a day that ends in y. I mean, the web host can just cut off access if they continue to refuse payment like any other service provider. Funny thing is the host of Truth Social claims they want to give conservatives a "cancel-proof" alternative. I wonder if they will keep their promise or have to "cancel" service to a non payer.

So can you join Truth social, troll some people and not get banned?

[gondrin]

So can you join Truth social, troll some people and not get banned?

As long as it isn't Trump, the company itself and anyone connected to them, probably.

[Kaleredar]

You're really stopping short of responses that actually address the key questions. But first, Hillary did claim ignorance about the C marking in her emails making them classified. She said that to federal investigators. Much like Trump, stupidity and ignorance is not much of an excuse.

But Trump would literally have had to actively shred the documentation to come close to Hillary. Her and her lawyers deleted emails under subpoena and active investigation, and scrubbed the servers afterwards. That's the cornerstone for knowing she violated the law, and attempting to cover up afterwards. Some emails were eventually recovered, but not all.

The starkness of her example is a useful tool to separate people with standards for these things, to people that just make up standards to help defend people they're favorable to, and prosecute those they want to attack. If you're dismissing Hillary lying about not knowing classified markings, and deleting emails under active subpoena, then I know just about the degree of effort I should use in answering your questions. Hillary's response to the inquiries was to delete the evidence and scrub the drives. Very nice use in your post of "responses to the inquiries," because they were different.

You don't seriously expect me to believe you think that Clinton didn't break the law because the FBI said she didn't? I wasn't aware that you let federal agencies decide whether people violate the law based on their word alone. They didn't charge her for the crime. Remember back to when I said mishandling classified documents was a statute rife with prosecutorial discretion on whether to charge. Here in America, we don't call people guilty or innocent based on whether the department of justice charges, or whether they allege someone is guilty. You're in really dangerous territory giving federal agencies this power over your critical faculties ... like pre-J Edgar Hoover levels of ignorance.

Multiple posters have demonstrated that your understanding of the situation is patently misinformed at best, and malicious disinformation at worst.

If a metaphor would make it easier for you, think of it like this.

Clinton was driving in a 45 zone going 50. A cop pulls her over, decides writing the ticket isn't worth it, and lets her off with a warning.

Trump was driving in a 45 zone going 95, ran up on the curb, cut off a police car, then lead them on a high-speed chase through downtown trying to lose them before they caught up with him, and now he's loudly complaining that he wants his car out of impound and that he was unfairly targeted for speeding because he saw Clinton going 50 when he blew by her.

And you're coming in here with "they both violated traffic laws! Why are the police treating them differently?!?!"

And your statements in this thread, following the metaphor, have only ever acquiesced to "Traffic laws are very important. I think the person doing 50 was in the wrong. Because they didn't give that driver a ticket, we clearly can't trust their judgement on any potential traffic violation."

Thanks for the retraction. I just have to go on what you posted, and after making broad accusations of sycophancy towards the former president, went on to connect it to the pattern of blaming "women getting abortions or on minorities or on gay and trans people." I'd say that establishes a bad pattern for you, especially if you want fruitful answers on what the other side thinks. Is this person a questioner, or just someone that knows his conclusions and is looking for some excuse to engage in another diatribe on the dastardly Republicans?

Well, let me ask you right now.

Are you more troubled by women getting abortions, illegal immigrants, and pushes for LGBTQ+ rights including things like trans women playing on women's sports teams and shared restrooms, or are you more troubled by high-ranking far right-wing politicians who occupy offices of power engaging in the distribution of conspiracy theories, judiciary malfeasance, and right wing violence?

Which do you think is a larger issue in the United States?

Because I think the people in power abusing power and the people they goad on dealing violence is more problematic. And no, I don't mean "idle threats on the internet," I mean "raiding the capitol building," "Storming an FBI office with the intent to kill," and "conspiracies to kidnap governors" egged on by politicians citing the existence of "space lasers" and peddling "mask hoaxes." To me, that's more important than what's in the pants of a person batting a volleyball over a net.

I'm looking at the recent conduct of the FBI, for that matter.

What evidence of malfeasance on the part of the FBI do you have? Trump claiming that there is?

You take Trump at his word that this is all cooked up. I choose to believe the thoughts of the FBI over the thoughts of the person they're investigating. A person who has lied in the past, is currently lying about the situation, and who I have no reason to believe wont continue to lie in the future.

From my first post, and Now, I wish I could say you're getting to a point where I believe you read and understood my first response to you. I'm not going to repeat myself again and again just because you missed it the first time.

Asked and answered. What part of prosecutorial discretion and needing to see the probable-cause affidavit do you not understand? Are you really just going to restate that the FBI said something, and since that's good enough for you then it ought to be good enough for me? I don't have infinite patience for people that receive their answers, but don't like them, so pretend that they never got them in the first place. You wanted my thoughts, you have them. You made some absurd multiple choice answer scheme that left out responsible choices, so I gave my own. You don't understand what is unknown to the public at this stage of the investigation, limiting possible deep speculation, so I tried to help you out.

You wish to talk about context, but haven't given any impression beyond that you think the FBI is above reproach when given the context of the most recent issue of mishandling of classified documents. I don't elevate them to that degree.

Yes, I'm questioning the FBI's past conduct in regards to this charge. I know this really upsets people that let Democrats off the hook for deletions and lies regarding them, but I'll continue to do this. It's the most relevant context to seeing when prosecutors decide not to prosecute the crime, which occurred. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have believed Democrats would be all "Well, the FBI treated this black person and white person political figure and that political figure differently, so they must therefore be too different to compare."

So you're going with "The FBI is probably making it all up and it's no big deal"

If that's the conspiracy you're going with, then you could have just said that outright.

Your statement of "breaking the law is bad" is meaningless when, instead of saying how that pertains to your thoughts on Trump, you immediately pivoted it to "so don't you think Hillary Clinton is bad? You're a hypocrite if you don't!"

Which echoes my ultimate sentiment of: you don't care what Trump did. Your standing opinion seems to be that Trump is probably the victim of FBI overreaction and possibly malfeasance, as evidenced by your misunderstanding of the circumstances surrounding a completely unrelated investigation on a completely different person who did a completely unrelated thing. Which you then are giving yourself enough leeway to segue into "Well even if Trump did something wrong, Clinton did a wrong thing too!"


Which means you don't care what Trump did. It will not denigrate your willingness to vote for him in a way that will stop you from actually voting. Maybe you'll dislike it. Maybe you'll hold your nose and do it. But you'll still do it.


And you've never said that that assertion is wrong.

[Breccia]

Well, let's check in on FOX News. Surely their take on current events will be fair and balanced.

The Hunter Biden laptop--

And I immediately regret this decision. But, hey, CNN points. But this continued aggressive, one might say "rabid" and "cultist" defense seems a bit off. Trump has draged FOX News into a lawsuit which I posted about today, for which the Murdochs might get deposed. Trump is attacking McConnell in broad daylight. And indictments could land at literally any second at this point. FOX News is still clutching their pearls, but it's more like "making sure they're still visible" and less "opening of Batman".

Is the Trump - Fox News love affair over?

Fox News, whose pro-Trump opinion hosts dominate the network’s primetime lineup, was not the first place many would expect to hear condemnations of Mr Trump’s actions, particularly while much of the GOP is involved in spinning the president’s defence.

But that’s exactly what happened in the immediate wake of the raid when Steve Scalise, the GOP House whip, went on Fox & Friends likely expecting his baseless accusations about the FBI to go unchallenged.

“I’m just curious whatever happened to the Republican Party backing the blue?” questioned Fox’s Steve Doocy, setting Mr Scalise up for a brutal takedown of his nonsense claim that there were “rogue” elements in the FBI responsible for the raid. Mr Doocy has been one of if not the most vocal defenders of the FBI and federal law enforcement on Fox in the days since the raid.

“Frankly, we are very strong supporters of law enforcement, and it concerns everybody if you see some agents go rogue,” Mr Scalise responded.

That was enough for Mr Doocy, who shot back incredulously: “Who went rogue, Steve? Who went rogue? They were following a search warrant!”

Jonathan Turley, a Fox legal analyst, offered another sobering take on 9 August, the morning after the raid.

“Obviously, if there’s classified material present at Mar-a-Lago, [the FBI] have every right to collect it. And the former president has no right to retain it,” he said plainly.

Of course, there are other guests who are holding the Trumpian line ("We admire murderous insurrectionists, GO TEAM TREASON!" spits Greene between SWAT raids) but that's expected. A lineup of guests who are not defending Trump to the death is less so.

Employees on the network’s news side have long insisted that their journalism doesn’t serve to boost or scapegoat Mr Trump or any politician (though the channel’s critics strongly dispute that). The nuanced coverage from their reporters, analysts, and even some on the opinion side like Mr Doocy, they argue, show a network that has more independence than it is given credit for having.

One current news-side producer at the network, who preferred to not use their name, put it like this: “On the news side we’ve always taken incoming [fire] from Trump [just] as we take incoming from the Biden White House who don’t like our coverage.”

“A lot of the other networks went so far against [Trump] that any favorable reporting by Fox looks like we are cozying up to him,” they argued.

Yeah, any favorable reporting on convicted child rapists also looks like you're cozying up to convicted child rapists. Probably because they're indefensible.

The "FOX News and Trump fight" topic has come up multiple times over the years. And yes, each time, it's because FOX News' mouth is slightly further away from Trump's cock. Who knows, maybe after the guilty verdict, they won't even be touching.

[postman1782]

I can only imagine that Truth Social has overtaken Reddit for the title of, "The most worthless users on a social media platform."

And I'm not saying that as an attack on the users, but as a practical financial reality in terms of how much those users are worth to advertisers given clickrates and transactions resulting from them, and how much they're willing to spend per-impression/thousand impressions.

Maybe Devin Nunes shoulda kept his old gig, there's more job security as a Republican member of the House in a safe district than there is as the CEO of a startup social media company largely created and run by known grifters.

- - - Updated - - -



No no no, you see if their hosting provider shuts off the servers and de-facto ends the service then that's just PROOF of the DEEP STATE CONSPIRACY against Trump. It extends to all big tech! Even a company like RightForge, which is honestly the first time I've ever heard of this company and it doesn't seem like they're very "big tech", but that doesn't matter.

There is a reason that Donald Trump left the board for the company. Not only because it is being investigated, but probably because it is a broke bitch just like Trump is. And no one will advertise on it but other broke bitches like Trump.

[Gorsameth]

Fox Reports Trump's TRUTH Social Faces 'Big Money Woes,' Owes Web Host $1.6 Million in Outstanding Payments

Umm not Big Money Woes here. This is just Trump not paying his bills, plain and simple. Never can believe how this guy keeps getting idiots who want to do business with him. I'm talking about businesses that actually don't want to grift.

I'm legit shocked that every company working with Trump or a Trump associated business doesn't demand money up front simply because he and everything he touches are a proven payment risk.

[Mekh]

But Trump would literally have had to actively shred the documentation to come close to Hillary.

Fun fact: he did. Got a special app for it and everything. Sometimes he also tried flushing it.