Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Azadina]

Only if you spell trespassing correctly.

sad times. Guess I chose profession well, and didn't become an English teacher. Would have failed right away!

[Gorsameth]

Nice, so I could rob jewellery stores at will, and then plead guilty to say...tresspassing?

If your taking a plea deal to testify on major criminal figures who were also involved in that robbery? Sure.

If its just you and your pals your shit out of luck.

Wouldn't be much of an incentive to snitch if you didn't get a lot out of it.

[Nymrohd]

Nice, so I could rob jewellery stores at will, and then plead guilty to say...tresspassing?

Reality is, you will get a much more lenient sentence than any other demographic. False?

[Azadina]

Reality is, you will get a much more lenient sentence than any other demographic. False?

Don't know. Do you believe our sentence would differ for a same robbery?

[Celista]

How does 9 counts of felony charges become a single misdemeanor charge? That's just ridiculous, plea deal or no.

I would like to think she gave them some juicy deets.

[Drutt]

How does 9 counts of felony charges become a single misdemeanor charge? That's just ridiculous, plea deal or no.

It means she pushed for immunity and got told no, you need to take some kind of hit for this.

Very likely a strong indication that she has some very, very damaging information. Prosecutors aren't going to give her a nearly-free ride in exchange for something that isn't of significant value.

[gondrin]

Nice, so I could rob jewellery stores at will, and then plead guilty to say...tresspassing?

Depends. Are you going to be turning on someone that is a bigger deal to the police and the state in general? Then yes, they will absolutely drop charges in order to get evidence that will lead to a conviction.

Key phrase there is "will lead to" and not just maybe. Most plea deals have stipulations that come with the notion that it will lead to an actual charge for someone more important.

[Breccia]

Lying liar Trump lies all the time about everything.

Was Trump's Jan. 6 Crowd Bigger Than for MLK's 'I Have a Dream' Speech?

Quoting the entire thing. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that some of our honest, genuine posters sometimes miss a couple of things, even when it's made clear and public. Perhaps by quoting the entire thing, it will be easier for these honest, genuine posters to catch before posting something that's objectively false. I'll even add pretty pictures and some boldface too, to help capture their attention.

Trump's Answer Featured False Claims About the Capitol Riot
During the news conference at Trump's club, an unidentified reporter in the room asked him about remarks he made minutes earlier, saying, "Mr. President, you just said that there was a peaceful transfer of power last time when you left office." The reporter mentioned the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, and asked, "How is that peaceful transfer of power?"

During Trump's answer, he claimed, "Nobody was killed on Jan. 6." According to information previously reported by The New York Times, Fox News and FactCheck.org, among other outlets, such a statement is false.

Then, Trump said he spoke the words "peacefully and patriotically" during his speech regarding his supporters' demonstrations, omitting the fact he repeatedly and baselessly told his supporters the 2020 election would feature massive voter fraud. He also neglected to mention that he told his crowd on Jan. 6 that he would walk to the Capitol with them, then didn't. Trump told the same crowd on the Ellipse, among other similar remarks, "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Further, regarding a peaceful transfer of power, Trump failed to attend the inauguration of his successor, U.S. President Joe Biden.

Trump's answer to the reporter continued with him speaking about his supporters who participated in the Capitol riot — people who seemingly believed his false claims about massive voter fraud. Trump himself repeated those untrue claims to his supporters for months leading up to the 2020 election, before inviting those supporters for his Jan. 6 rally. He told the reporter, "I think that the people of Jan. 6 were treated very unfairly and, they were there to complain, not through me. They were there to complain about an election."

Trump's Jan. 6 Crowd Size Claims
Continuing with his answer, Trump mentioned the size of the crowd for his Jan. 6 speech:

The biggest crowd I've ever spoken to … I was in, at the Mall. I was at the Washington Monument. I was at the whole thing. I had crowds, I don't know who's ever had a bigger crowd than I had, but I had it many times. The biggest crowd I've ever spoken before was that day. And I'll tell you, it's very hard to find a picture of that crowd. You see the picture of a small number of people relatively going to the Capitol. But you never see the picture of the crowd, the biggest crowd I've ever spoken, I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me.

His remark claiming that "it's very hard to find a picture of that crowd" was not entirely true. In fact, the official Trump account TeamTrump on X posted a photo (archived) aiming to show a glimpse at the day's crowd size, taken before the start of his rally and showing the Washington Monument, near the site of Trump's speech on the Ellipse. The post read, "This is what Democracy looks like."



Reuters photojournalist Carlos Barria captured a wider picture of the same portion of the crowd taken at an unknown time on the day of the rally. The New York Times published a large version of the same photo.

Near the end of Trump's answer at his club, he compared his speech's crowd size to that of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. King delivered his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington. Trump told reporters:

If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate. Same everything. Same number of people, if not, we had more. And they said, "He had a million people," but I had 25,000 people. But when you look at the exact same picture, and everything's the same, because it was the fountains, the whole thing, all the way back from Lincoln to Washington. And you look at it, and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd, we actually had more people. They said I had 25,000 and he had a million people. And I'm ok with it because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.

Crowd Estimates for 1963's March on Washington
The March on Washington in 1963 drew crowds estimated at more than 200,000 people. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University published the number of "more than 200,000 demonstrators." The National Park Service reported "an estimated 250,000 people" attended the march. Meanwhile, the NAACP said "the rally drew over 260,000 people from across the nation."

The Getty Images image-licensing websites hosts several historical photos showing the massive gathering on the day of King's speech.



Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. waves to supporters on Aug. 28, 1963, on the Mall in Washington. (Image courtesy Getty Images)

One photo displays a high-angle view of the crowd.



Trump's Crowd Size Estimates for Jan. 6
As for Trump's speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, no credible estimates came close to that of King's.

The Washington Post reported Trump's crowd size simply as "thousands of supporters amassed on the Ellipse near the White House."

The New York Times reported "tens of thousands of Trump supporters" gathered in Washington for the rally. The Times also noted of Trump's remark at Mar-a-Lago in August 2024 that the House Jan. 6 committee estimated his speech drew a crowd of "approximately 53,000 supporters."

Prior to Trump's Jan. 6 speech, the pro-Trump group Women for America First requested from the National Park Service a permit for the Ellipse, including upping its estimate of rally attendees on Jan. 3 from 5,000 to 30,000. The NPS stopped publicly providing crowd estimates for gatherings around the National Mall after a controversy involving the Million Man March in 1995.

The Associated Press reported on the day after Trump's speech and the Capitol riot that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy "said law enforcement's intelligence estimates of the potential crowd size in the run-up to the protests 'were all over the board,' from a low of 2,000 to as many as 80,000."

So, at the absolutely most favorable end, Trump was lying by a factor of triple. To give an example of how bad lying by a factor of three is, imagine claiming a NFL quarterback weighed 700 pounds. Imagine saying the speed limit on a US federal highway was 190MPH. Imagine saying the Simpsons has been on for one hundred seasons. These are not mistakes you make casually. These are mistakes you make out of ignorance, and if so you shouldn't be declaring your answer as fact, or willful mistake, also known as "blatant lying".

Trump lied. Trump lies all the time about everything. And everyone knows it.

As always, any and all Trump supporters are invited to address any of these objective Trump falsehoods. Failure to do so in, oh I don't know, a week? And I get to quote you as saying "Yes, Trump lied, yes, I know Trump lies, yes, I refuse to call him out, yes, that makes me a coward".

[Edge-]

Remember the guy who proved that Mike Lindell's "proof of voter fraud" was completely bogus and sued, and won, to claim the $5M prize that Mike Lindell promised?

Well he's getting another $4,508 to cover his attorney fees.

Mike Lindell now owes Robert Ziedman $5,004,508.

[Breccia]

Mike Lindell now owes Robert Ziedman $5,004,508.

Why do I get the feeling that stiffing a lawyer, even your opponent's lawyer, is a really pooor idea? That $4,500 might actually be cause more problems than the $5M.

[gondrin]

Why do I get the feeling that stiffing a lawyer, even your opponent's lawyer, is a really pooor idea? That $4,500 might actually be cause more problems than the $5M.

Funny thing about lawyers is that unless they are a public defender, they are not required to represent you in any way.

And only public defenders have to do it because everyone has the right to representation in a court of law.

[Breccia]

Funny thing about lawyers is that unless they are a public defender, they are not required to represent you in any way.

And only public defenders have to do it because everyone has the right to representation in a court of law.

I guess what I meant was, if you refused to pay a lawyer, such as your opponent's lawyer that you are required to pay due to court judgement as Lindell must now do, I would expect that lawyer go to after you far more effectively than most people you could owe money to.

[gondrin]

I guess what I meant was, if you refused to pay a lawyer, such as your opponent's lawyer that you are required to pay due to court judgement as Lindell must now do, I would expect that lawyer go to after you far more effectively than most people you could owe money to.

Well, with as much as Lindell owes, he pretty much became "judgement proof".

[Breccia]

This WaPo OP ED, like most OP EDs, draws on factual citable items, and raises a valid question:

Is Trump lying on purpose?

One reason, of course, is that Trump is not now and has not ever been terribly worried about the product of his riffing. Sure, he almost invariably gets himself into trouble by disgorging false claims or toxic disparagements, but it’s easy enough to bury those with more disgorgement. It is the way; it has always been the way.

But this habit now unfolds in an environment where, thanks in part to Trump’s own energetic efforts, Americans are attuned to signs of mental decline or confusion. A story about, say, a near-deadly helicopter ride with a famous California politician — as Trump presented on Thursday — isn’t as easily dismissed as it might have been. Is this Trump making stuff up? Or is this Trump confusing different parts of different stories? Trump has a cover that President Joe Biden never did: that history of bizarre disgorgements.

Based on previous articles, WaPo is not really handwaving Trump's lying, even if that first paragraph sounds that way.

But the claim "Trump has dementia" is, arguably, Trump's biggest issue.

One, because it might be true. Dementia is a legitimate and terrifying condition to watch in a family member, assuming you love them. His DEI hires might have other issues, such as a demented Trump destroying their inheritance.

Two, because Trump cannot shake this issue. He's the oldest person to ever run for office, he keeps making statements which are rambling at best and strings of objective falsehoods at worst, and he refuses to leave the spotlight and he refuses to stop. He will continue to provide evidence for this serious, valid concern forever.

- - - Updated - - -

Cited from dozens of places: Trump Media reported a $16.4 million loss and less than $1 million of quarterly revenue.

I remain fascinated that its value remains above $10.

[Paranoid Android]

This WaPo OP ED, like most OP EDs, draws on factual citable items, and raises a valid question:

Is Trump lying on purpose?



Based on previous articles, WaPo is not really handwaving Trump's lying, even if that first paragraph sounds that way.

But the claim "Trump has dementia" is, arguably, Trump's biggest issue.

One, because it might be true. Dementia is a legitimate and terrifying condition to watch in a family member, assuming you love them. His DEI hires might have other issues, such as a demented Trump destroying their inheritance.

Two, because Trump cannot shake this issue. He's the oldest person to ever run for office, he keeps making statements which are rambling at best and strings of objective falsehoods at worst, and he refuses to leave the spotlight and he refuses to stop. He will continue to provide evidence for this serious, valid concern forever.
.

You know from the get when Trump was elected I would have sworn on anything you wanted me to do that Trump has dementia. Trump more or less went away 4 years and now has come back running for President and he seem much better to me. Now people are going to call me crazy, but I'm saying my base test was when he was President and he was horrible.

Idk, maybe he does his short burst and prepared speeches that makes him seem better. Yes, people every other sentence or every sentence is a jumble of words making no sense. Cognitively he is not there. I would still say that his mental decline is a concern if he was elected.

[Breccia]

short burst and prepared speeches that makes him seem better.

So, 140 characters?

[PhaelixWW]

Well, this doesn't pull any punches...

The Intercept: Racism Is Why Trump Is So Popular

To understand the rise of Donald Trump, you don’t need to go to a diner in the Midwest or read “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance’s memoir.

You just need to know these basic facts:

In 1980, white people accounted for about 80 percent of the U.S. population.

In 2024, white people account for about 58 percent of the U.S. population.

Trump appeals to white people gripped by demographic hysteria. Especially older white people who grew up when white people represented a much larger share of the population. They fear becoming a minority.

While the Census Bureau says there are still 195 million white people in America and that they are still the majority, the white population actually declined slightly in 2023, and experts believe that they will become a minority sometime between 2040 and 2050.

Every component of the Trump-Republican agenda flows from these demographic fears.

The Trump phenomenon and the surge of right-wing extremism in America was never about economic anxiety, as too many political reporters claimed during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It was, and still is, about race and racism.

The mainstream press has been afraid to say this directly and succinctly. Political pundits keep looking for other causes; after Trump’s upset win in 2016, they thought that “Hillbilly Elegy” was the answer. I read the book in its entirety — something I doubt most campaign reporters can claim — and it offers nothing about Trump or the economic anxieties in the American heartland that supposedly led to Trump’s election. It’s a personal memoir about his dysfunctional family, and the closest thing Vance gets to a political message comes when he writes that his relatives screwed up their lives on their own and have no one else to blame.

But the political press somehow concluded that the book’s narrative unlocked the key to understanding Trump voters, and the ambitious Vance, now Trump’s running mate, didn’t bother to correct them.

The press hasn’t done any better in the years since. It has now failed to adequately cover Trump for three straight presidential campaigns.

The simple truth is that Trump is a racist, and it is his shamelessness about his racism that appeals to white people. He says what they wish they could get away with saying. They forgive his criminal behavior, his lies, his egomaniacal behavior, and his other flaws because of his racism, not in spite of it. They don’t care that his economic policies will benefit billionaires and not them, just so long as he makes sure minorities have it worse than them. Vance followed up “Hillbilly Elegy,” his supposed paean to the working class, by becoming a puppet of right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, who bankrolled his Senate campaign in Ohio. Trump no doubt chose Vance to be his running mate at least in part to get more money from billionaires for his campaign.

The evidence of Trump’s racism is so overwhelming that the press and many voters now seem to consider it old news, shrugging at his constant stream of bigoted comments. That is exactly what Trump is counting on; it’s difficult to remember that his racism was still considered shocking as recently as 2016 when he ran for president.

Trump has been a racist his whole life; the Justice Department sued him for racial discrimination in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he took out newspaper ads calling for the death penalty in the case of the Central Park Five — Black and Latino men falsely accused in a New York City rape case — and he has stubbornly refused to apologize to the exonerated men.

He first gained prominence as a political figure for being an obsessive “birther,” propagating false conspiracy claims that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and thus couldn’t legally be president.

Trump remains obsessed with race and is constantly looking for ways to discredit and dehumanize any and all minorities: African Americans, Mexicans, Native Americans, Muslims, Asians. He’s claimed that Mexican immigrants are murderers and rapists, that Obama was the founder of ISIS, that Covid-19 was the “kung flu,” that migrants crossing the southern border have been released from mental institutions and are coming to take “Black jobs,” that Haitians probably have AIDS.

When Trump first emerged as a presidential contender, many Republican Party leaders claimed they were disgusted by his blatant racism.

Now they embrace it.

Dominated by Trump, the Republican Party adheres to policies designed both to maintain white political power and increase the white percentage of the nation’s population.

Once you understand that it is all about white power — especially white male power — the Trump-Republican agenda begins to make sense.

The right-wing obsession over racial demographics becomes obvious in the “pro-natalism” movement, which advocates for conservatives to have more children to take control of society. The mission of the movement is “to build an army of like-minded people, starting with their own children, who will reject a whole host of changes wrought by liberal democracy,” according to a fascinating recent story in Politico.

For the right wing, pro-natalism means looking for every possible means to increase the white percentage of the nation’s population. Through this lens, it’s not hard to see why Republicans remain virulently anti-immigration and strictly opposed to abortion.

Those two issues may appear unrelated, but in fact Republican positions on both stem at least in part from white demographic fears. Republicans want to halt the rise in the nonwhite population by curbing immigration. At the same time, they hope their abortion bans will boost domestic birth rates — staving off white demographic decline. They also want to ban contraceptives and no-fault divorce, forcing women to stay in marriages and have more children.

The Republican Party’s white nationalism is often justified in religious terms, since much of this agenda designed to enhance white power stems from the party’s Christian fundamentalist base. Along with Protestant evangelicals, the Republican religious base now includes fundamentalist Catholics, who stridently oppose abortion.

Fundamentalist Catholicism has started to attract young conservative activists, politicians, and influencers, who seem to searching for a faith steeped in tradition and hierarchy.

Converting to Catholicism has thus become a culture war flex for well-off American conservatives; it is not a coincidence that Vance converted in 2019, just as he was also in the process of converting from being anti-Trump into a Trump lackey. In April, right-wing influencer Candace Owens became one of the latest extremely online conservatives to convert. Leonard Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society and the man widely credited for turning the Supreme Court into a conservative bastion, is now focused on creating new right-wing Catholic organizations to deepen right-wing power in the American Catholic Church while expanding his culture war reach.

Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalist Catholics share a common right-wing political agenda, and both groups have aided the rise of Christian nationalism, a movement driven by opposition to any separation of church and state. Christian nationalists call for a return to a Judeo-Christian America, code for a return to a nation in which Christian whites held all the power. The most prominent Christian Nationalist in politics today is Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, who has said that the idea that the Constitution calls for a separation of church and state is a “misnomer.”

Christian nationalism and white power also help explain the confounding nature of current Republican foreign policy. Many Republicans today oppose U.S. military aid to Ukraine but strongly support military aid to Israel.

To understand that policy mashup requires an understanding of the beliefs of Christian nationalists. They consider Vladimir Putin to be a fundamentalist Christian, a guardian of traditional white values, largely because he has cracked down on LGBTQ+ rights in Russia. By contrast, they associate Ukraine with Western Europe, which they think is too woke. Andrew Torba, founder of the far-right site Gab who wrote a self-published book called “Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide for Taking Dominion and Disciplining Nations,” said after the Russia’s invasion that “Ukraine needs to be liberated and cleansed from the degeneracy of the secular western globalist empire.” Nick Fuentes, another online Christian nationalist, said on Telegram after the Russian invasion that “I wish Putin was president of America.”

Meanwhile, Christian nationalists believe the Bible demands that they embrace Israel. They see it as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy that Israel must exist as a precondition to the second coming of Jesus. Such biblically-based support among Christian nationalists means that the Republican Party will support Israel no matter what actions it takes in Gaza.

Increasingly, the Trump–Republican Party has become explicit in its embrace of policies designed to expand white power and appease white nationalists. In fact, several of the right-wing authors of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan for a second Trump term filled with extremist proposals, have white supremacist backgrounds and writings. Trump has tried to disown Project 2025, but its authors include former Trump administration officials. Whether Trump officially endorses Project 2025 or not, it remains a good barometer of the white nationalist hold on the Republican Party.

[Breccia]

'Angry' Donald Trump Fumes At New York Times Over Reporting On His Helicopter Story

Donald Trump went after The New York Times on Friday as he ripped the paper’s coverage of a wild helicopter story that he’d told at a rambling press conference.

The Republican presidential nominee, in the presser Thursday, had said that he once went “down in a helicopter” with Willie Brown, a former San Francisco mayor, amid an emergency landing.

Brown has since disputed the claim, describing Trump’s story as “obviously wrong.” He told CNN that such an episode with Trump “never happened, period.”

“And I think my memory is probably better than his,” Brown said.

Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles City Council member, told Politico that he thinks Trump confused him with Brown in the story.

Trump — in what the Times’ Maggie Haberman described as an “angry” phone call — “excoriated” the paper for its reporting on the press conference and insisted that Brown was the one in the helicopter.

“We have the flight records of the helicopter,” said Trump, adding that the aircraft landed “in a field” and that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times’ coverage.

I do not believe he has those records. I don't believe anyone else believe he has those records, either.

I've already talked about Trump suing, or more to the point, the NYTimes hitting back (which they probably both can't and won't). If Trump does, in fact, have the records of the trip he claims he does, he will be able to prove what he said is true, that the NYTimes said is false, and he will sue and win.

He won't. Those records don't exist. Because nobody but Trump says they do, and Trump lies all the time about everything.

He later took to his Truth Social platform to slam the paper and “Two Failing New York Times ‘reporters’” for having “questioned” the helicopter story, while doubling down on his claim that it was Brown in the aircraft.

“So far they are about as accurate as they are with their other stories about me,” wrote Trump, who referred to Haberman as “Maggot Hagermann” and suggested that the paper might have to apologize for its reporting.

Trump, in a separate Truth Social post, suggested that records and witnesses could back up his helicopter story, without providing evidence via the platform.

So while I know none of us have things like TSA records from years ago floating around, and none of us will be able to prove/disprove this story on our own, I do believe whether or not we believe Trump is a valid discussion. As a reminder, the only person Trump said was with him has already said "No, I wasn't".

I think it's pretty clear most people assume Trump is lying, but what do our resident Trump supporters feel? Show of hands, anyone who thinks Trump is telling the truth. As per usual, Trump supporters who do not respond, I get to respond for you, and we have gone beyond the part where I just quote you as saying "Trump was lying". Because "Trump thinks he is telling the truth but isn't" is now a valid risk. So, Trump supporters, you'd better pick an answer, or I'll just have to quote you as saying "I admit Trump is demented and I still plan to vote for him".

[Paranoid Android]

More 2025 by Pro Publica.

NEW: Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos

“Eradicate climate change references”...
Only talk to conservative media...

Don’t leave a paper trail for watchdogs to discover.

In never-before-published videos, Project 2025 details how a second Trump administration would operate.

https://bsky.app/profile/propublica..../3kze7p5fwdh2p

Bluesky so many may not have access.

Twitter link:
https://x.com/propublica/status/1822...mvpXtlUKQ&s=19

Them trying to basically erase anything they don't like is frightening.

"A review of the training videos shows that 29 of the 36 speakers have worked for Trump in some capacity — on his 2016-17 transition team, in the administration or on his 2024 reelection campaign."

https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/182...CagbLYD-w&s=19

[DarkTZeratul]

Bluesky so many may not have access.

Bluesky is no longer invite-only; everyone should be able to access it.