Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[PhaelixWW]

1) Name the state in which you can vote three months after election. Bear in mind, we are talking about the federal election, the one certified Jan 6th, which in turn is two months after the election. So...good luck.

"Headline news: The new President, two weeks after being sworn in on January 21st, receives a devastating surprise in the form of a surge of late ballots which have flipped the result of the election held three months prior."

-- The Onion, probably

[gondrin]

"Headline news: The new President, two weeks after being sworn in on January 21st, receives a devastating surprise in the form of a surge of late ballots which have flipped the result of the election held three months prior."

-- The Onion, probably

Over the past 4 years, The Onion has had more normal headlines than the real ones that tell what Trump did. If they posted it, somehow I can believe it.

[Breccia]

Trump talked to the Economic Club of Chicago for some reason, no idea why, he's as likely to carry either Chicago and/or people who know how economics works as he is to be struck by lightning.

While there, he refused to commit to a peaceful loss, denied again that he lost 2020, made the usual personal attacks, and this:

For the auto industry, Trump threatened tariffs of as high as “2,000%” to prevent foreign companies from importing cars. He said the move would price those companies out of the American consumer market unless those car companies begin building new and more manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

Trump spoke of the decline of the U.S. steel industry until he imposed tariffs on Chinese steel. He also repeated his opposition to the potential acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan-based Nippon Steel.

“There are certain companies you have to have. There are certain things you have to have. Steel, you have to have if you go to war,” Trump said. “While we’re talking about it, we have never been so close to World War III as we are right now with what’s going on in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East.”

Leaving aside the fearmongering about World War III, why would we need all that steel for war if he was going to stop the war, as he said he would?

But no, obviously, the standout is the two thousand percent tariffs. And you know where this is going.

Hey @tehdang do you think two thousand percent tariffs are a good idea? Not tariffs, not high tariffs, two thousand percent tariffs that Trump specifically and directly announced on purpose in public.

[Shadowferal]

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait...tore him to pieces.

It's later than I thought, but the kiddie gloves are finally coming off.

[PhaelixWW]

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait...tore him to pieces.

It's later than I thought, but the kiddie gloves are finally coming off.

This is the right time for it, IMO.

[postman1782]

Trump talked to the Economic Club of Chicago for some reason, no idea why, he's as likely to carry either Chicago and/or people who know how economics works as he is to be struck by lightning.

While there, he refused to commit to a peaceful loss, denied again that he lost 2020, made the usual personal attacks, and this:



Leaving aside the fearmongering about World War III, why would we need all that steel for war if he was going to stop the war, as he said he would?

But no, obviously, the standout is the two thousand percent tariffs. And you know where this is going.

Hey @tehdang do you think two thousand percent tariffs are a good idea? Not tariffs, not high tariffs, two thousand percent tariffs that Trump specifically and directly announced on purpose in public.

You see this? Yeah, hes going nuts, he talked about Virginia voter rolls when asked about Google.

[Breccia]

You see this?

Parts. Enough. I'm increasingly convinced a Harris strategy is to just let Trump speak in public.

[Kathandira]

There's a lot to be said culturally about Cyberpunk as a genre, beyond just that particular franchise, and how attractive people see it as being. The argument is essentially that cyberpunk stories aren't actually much more dystopic than the actual world we have to live in, but on the one hand everyone acknowledges the bullshit rather than pretending otherwise as they do in the real world, and at least you get cool VR tech and cybernetics and all that cool shit to distract yourself with, which we don't have.

Living in the world of Blade Runner or Cyberpunk 2077's dystopia comes off as more appealing than the dystopia we already live in. One of my first experiences in Cyberpunk 2077 was getting to your shit-ass gutter rat's apartment for the first time, and it's . . . actually super nice and comfortable and probably out of the price range of a lot of people in the real world.

We're in a cyberpunk world that is wearing a solarpunk mask

[Valdhammer]

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait...tore him to pieces.

It's later than I thought, but the kiddie gloves are finally coming off.

Trump swayed to music like a deranged nursing home patient for 40 minutes instead of taking questions at his own town hall event and most of the media reported it as “Trump is not a politician, a politician would never do something so spontaneous”. So the fact that a relatively unknown journalist asked Trump difficult questions at a niche event will hardly register in this environment.

I said earlier that this election will answer the question of whether ANYTHING matters anymore. It’s sure not looking like it does from where I am sitting because the picture of this man that reaches most voters has been filtered and refined by those who stand to benefit by his prominence.

[Breccia]

Bad news for Trump in court.

"You'll have to narrow that way the hell down."

Trump has claimed Jack Smith, and special prosecutors in general, are unConstitutional. He claimed a bunch of other things, too. He is using those claims to attempt to have his case dismissed during the pre-trial motions, before the trial even begins. No evidence, no swearing in, just having the entire thing thrown out due to claims of unConstitutionality.

Naturally, Smith objected.

In a Wednesday court filing, Smith cited Gorsuch's ruling from the United States v. Pope case in 2010. In that case, Mark Pope, who'd been charged with firearm possession after a domestic violence misdemeanor conviction, argued that the charge was unconstitutional and should be dismissed.

"The US tried to arrest the Pope?"

...no. It was a domestic abuser who was caught with a gun he wasn't allowed to have because he's a domestic abuser.

I dug up that case. Here is the decision:

This case began when a grand jury indicted Mark Pope for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). That statute makes it a federal felony for a person previously convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to possess a gun. In response to the indictment, Mr. Pope filed a motion to dismiss. While he admitted to being previously convicted of a domestic violence crime, and to possessing a gun, Mr. Pope pressed an affirmative defense that, he said, precluded his conviction. Because he possessed the gun in question only on the property where he was living and only to protect himself, others, or his property, he argued that the application of § 922(g)(9) to him would violate the Second Amendment. While the statute may be constitutional as applied to other situations, it is, he submitted, unconstitutional as applied to the facts of his case.

The district court denied Mr. Pope's motion to dismiss and today we affirm that decision. We do so without passing, one way or the other, on Mr. Pope's Second Amendment defense because an antecedent procedural problem lurks here. All the material facts on which Mr. Pope's motion to dismiss relies are outside the indictment, hotly disputed by the government, and intimately bound up in the question of Mr. Pope's guilt or innocence. Under these circumstances, Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b)(2) and our precedent preclude the resolution of Mr. Pope's as-applied constitutional challenge before trial.

(pages and pages of why Pope was a dumb fuck)

To all this, Mr. Pope offers two replies meriting mention. First, he says, the government never objected to the district court's consideration of facts outside the indictment. Mr. Pope stresses that the government offered its own competing facts and, he suggests, this amounted to a “tacit[ ]” acquiescence to Mr. Pope's wish to look to facts outside the indictment. Reply Br. at 1. In fact, however, the government expressly noted that a motion challenging the indictment's ability to state a criminal violation should normally be decided “solely on the basis of the allegations made on [the indictment's] face, and such allegations are to be taken as true.” R. Vol. I at 29 (quoting Hall, 20 F.3d at 1087); see also Gov't App. Br. at 27-28; supra Section I. The government then argued that it is a “rare exception” when facts outside the indictment may be considered; that this exception exists only when the motion is based on “undisputed facts” agreed to by the parties; and that this “exception is inapplicable here.” R. Vol. I at 29 (quoting Hall, 20 F.3d at 1088); see also supra Section I. Plainly, the government did contest the district court's ability to resolve Mr. Pope's motion on the basis of facts outside his indictment. While the government proceeded to offer its own (disputed) extra-indictment facts and suggest that Mr. Pope's motion would also fail in light of them (something it again does on appeal), this only serves to highlight that Mr. Pope's motion lacks the sort of genuinely undisputed factual record that might render it amenable to pretrial resolution under Rule 12(b)(2).

Second, Mr. Pope submits that at least some of the extra-indictment facts he presented in connection with his motion to dismiss in the district court were agreed to by the parties, and he invites us to decide his case based on them. He says, for example, that it's agreed (1) he wasn't carrying the gun (only an ax handle) when he spoke to the owner of the dogs; (2) he possessed the gun only on the property where he was then living; and (3) his reason for carrying the gun was for the protection of himself and his property. But, as it happens, the government has actively disputed (3), never agreed to (2), and contested the significance of (1) and (2). The hard reality of the case for Mr. Pope is that the material facts that might shed light on whether his gun possession was really and only for the defense of self, others, or property are outside the indictment and fiercely disputed. In these circumstances, we can hardly say it was error for the district court to deny his pre-trial motion to dismiss.

In other words, Pope threw handfuls and handfuls of shit at the wall, but only two bits came close to sticking.

This is bad news for Trump, of course, whose sole legal defenses are (1) I have absolute immunity and (2) throwing handfuls of shit at the wall.

"Okay, but that was surely some commie librul Obama appointee."

One of the judges was Gorsuch.

"...any relation?"

Same person.

"Fuck."

Gorsuch, who was a 10th circuit judge at the time, affirmed a lower court's ruling that the charge had to be settled at trial rather than pretrial and therefore would not be dismissed.

Gorsuch emphasized the need to resolve factual disputes at trial rather than through pretrial motions. Pope's claim that he had the firearm for self-defense was something that a jury had to decide, according to Gorsuch.

Smith argues the same is true here. Trump's "alternative narrative" defense merits no consideration by the Judge Tanya Chutkan at this stage and instead needs to be decided at trial.

"In any event, facts developed at trial will conclusively demonstrate that the defendant's alternative narrative is inaccurate," Smith wrote in the Wednesday filing.

The article cites how Smith has also used other charges against other Jan 6th terrorists (besides Trump) which stood in the same filing, including a SCOTUS ruling.

Perhaps @cubby will explain in more detail, but this simply means Trump now faces obstacles to having his case thrown out before it begins (and therefore before the election). Obviously, SCOTUS can do whatever it wants with basically no repurcussions in any way, but so far, they haven't been blatant about saying "we're doing this only because it's Trump and for nobody else". Springing Trump will be harder to do when they themselves have set the rules, and Smith is throwing those rulings back in their robed faces.

Or, maybe Biden will just line them up and have them shot, apparently that'd be legal.

[gondrin]

You see this? Yeah, hes going nuts, he talked about Virginia voter rolls when asked about Google.

That is where the interviewer should have said, point blank:

"What the hell does any voter rolls in Virginia have anything in any way with Google?"

And every time he tries to deflect to it, repeat that question.

I am glad the interviewer didn't allow him to waver much.

[Breccia]

That is where the interviewer should have said, point blank:

"What the hell does any voter rolls in Virginia have anything in any way with Google?"

Or maybe something that seems less provocative.

"Now I'm going to ask you exactly the same question again. I think America deserves an answer."

[Bodakane]

Somewhere along the line the press decided they were neutral observers who milk the fights for ratings instead of being the firewall for bullshit for the American public.

[DarkAmbient]

It's a shame America has no Jeremy Paxman or Andrew Neil. They used to savage our politicians on a regular basis. I don't think I've ever seen a US politician put on the spot and subjected to rigorous journalistic scrutiny.

[Kaleredar]

It's a shame America has no Jeremy Paxman or Andrew Neil. They used to savage our politicians on a regular basis. I don't think I've ever seen a US politician put on the spot and subjected to rigorous journalistic scrutiny.

The most rigorous journalists in America willing to take both sides to task are the comedians on the daily show.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/17/trum...f-revenue.html

Trump family gets 75% of crypto coin revenue, has no liability, new document reveals

So yeah, a transparent grift.

[bladeXcrasher]

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/17/trum...f-revenue.html



So yeah, a transparent grift.

New documents reveal? I thought that was printed right at the bottom of the website?

[Edge-]

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...cannon-recuse/

Ryan Routh, the man charged with attempting to assassinate former President Trump at his Florida golf course last month, asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday to recuse herself from the case because Trump appointed her and has praised her handling of his classified documents indictment.

Routh’s attorneys said the “unprecedented circumstances” could create an appearance of partiality in the public’s view.

“Mr. Trump is the current Republican candidate for President in next month’s election. On the campaign trail, he has repeatedly praised Your Honor for her rulings in his case,” Routh’s attorneys wrote in the motion.

“As the alleged victim here, he has a significant stake in the outcome of this case too. Were he to become President in the future, he would have authority to nominate Your Honor to a federal judgeship on a higher court were a vacancy to arise,” they continued.

Don't give a shit either way, but it's interesting to see his lawyers appear to use a similar approach that Donald has used to try to get his cases moved to more friendly judges.

[Poopymonster]

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...cannon-recuse/



Don't give a shit either way, but it's interesting to see his lawyers appear to use a similar approach that Donald has used to try to get his cases moved to more friendly judges.

I don't speak legalese, but that sounds kinda like "Begone Partisan Thot".
I'll laugh my ass off if the next court up from Cannon's bullshit yoinks her "He got a point, yo."

[Breccia]

So yeah, a transparent grift.

Nobody is surprised. I have to admit, "has no liability" is probably only added due to that massive recent collapse. They want to just have all the money, and keep it. So they put that disclaimer in there, hoping nobody would notice, to make that happen.