Roger Stone: Guilty

[segara82]

What are you talking about? He's already gone to trial. He was found guilty on all 7 counts. All that's left is sentencing.

Ah, my mistake, i missread. Still, he is 'free' until Feb. 6 and can somebody tell me if he can file for appeal?

[Breccia]

somebody tell me if he can file for appeal?

Of course, but like any appeal, there have to be some grounds. It's not an instant "I Win" button. And even then, the overturn rate is, um, not stellar. A few quick sites I visited suggested far more appeals were simply tossed (confirming the original verdict) than both taken and also overturned.

[segara82]

Of course, but like any appeal, there have to be some grounds. It's not an instant "I Win" button. And even then, the overturn rate is, um, not stellar. A few quick sites I visited suggested far more appeals were simply tossed (confirming the original verdict) than both taken and also overturned.

It's less about him getting off but dragging things out until something happens.

[Breccia]

It's less about him getting off but dragging things out until something happens.

Maybe. I don't see how that's realistic, though. I'm willing to bet most judges will think poorly of threatening public posts.

Trump could pre-pardon him I suppose, but that would require Stone drag this out until Trump is fleeing office.

[AeneasBK]

Shhhhh! Your ignorance is showing!

https://freepress.org/article/wasted-vote-myth

In a FPTP system, any vote that wasn't for the winning candidate is de facto wasted.

This includes 3rd party votes. The philosophical ramblings of that article are interesting, but ultimately just saying "This is how it ought to be" rather than "this is how it is".

[Santti]

Shhhhh! Your ignorance is showing!

https://freepress.org/article/wasted-vote-myth

Because that's totally how it works. As AeneasBK said, that would be ideal, but it's far from what actually happens. Your link is a wish-list. Geee, thanks for the enlightenment.

You have a 2-party system, which is inevitable in FPTP. Voting for 3rd party is taking the vote away from the party that you most agree with. Where do you think the votes come from, when a hypothetical 3rd party is more aligned with Republicans than Democrats? That's what I mean by "hurting your own interests".

And when people realize their 3rd party can't make a fucking dent, they vote strategically, because Spoiler Effect.

And please, don't talk about ignorance. I've seen your posts (including this one). Good God.

[AeneasBK]

Fair assessment. But ultimately there comes a time where option A and option B are total trash and you can't genuinely vote for either candidate. Look at 2016 as the prime example. I also voted for a 3rd party option in 2008, as this was another example of a dumpster fire and a pile of manure as your choices.

I'm British, and with a general election in a few weeks, and not one, not two, not three but at least 4 steaming piles of shit to vote for as the most probably 'winners' (There are no winners in British politics right now) it's something I've been lamenting about the FPTP system. But as of 2010, the enlightened public expressed that they are mostly satisfied with it so I guess we've made our bed. Even if we've shat all over it.

[Santti]

Voting for the "lesser of two evils" is still voting for evil, as the article points out. Why vote for someone you don't believe will better your situation, or that of the country itself?

The two-party system is a joke, and if you think that just voting for A or B is the only option, then you are delusional.

Again, going for the wish-list. Not how things work, buddy, no matter how much you wish it did. I already covered that. And please, if people gave a rat's ass about evil, people would not have voted for Trump. Even if you lob Hillary into the evil camp, which I find rather ludicrous, then how come 3rd party got fucking nowhere? Because that's not how this works.

I also didn't say that 3rd party isn't an option. Pay attention now. I said it's hurting your own interests. Sure, go ahead, vote for whatever. I don't care.

Anyway, this is terribly off-topic, and I'm going to drop it now.

[Temp name]

How is it hurting your best interest to not vote for some someone you feel does not have your best interest at heart? Your logic is not quite sound.

Sadly it's people like you who disillusion others with this type of bullshit. But please, go on with your "it is what it is" shtick.

Okay, in case you actually believe this, let me explain very quickly:

Let's say we have 2 major parties:
Party A, and Party B
They are both bad, but they are the only parties you can vote for, even if no one really likes them.
Every election they swap places as winning as a few people in the middle swap sides (getting 48 and 52% of the vote, alternating).
Along comes Party C. They're pretty close to Party B in what they would do if they won.
Now, the next election comes, and Party C does super well, they get a whole 10% of the vote.
But where did those votes come from? They came from Party B.
So instead of the election results being Party A (48%) and Party B (52%), it's now Party A (48%), Party B (42%), and Party C (10%).
Party A now won, and everyone who voted Party C caused it to happen, meaning they're now more miserable than if Party B would've won.

In a FPTP system, you can only have 2 parties. Anything more and you're hurting yourself. If you want more than 2 parties, get another voting system. Alternative Vote is a good one.

But this is still off topic for this thread, which is about a Trump confidant being found guilty of lying to congress

[Adam Jensen]

Drain the swamp!

The irony is when this is all finished and the swamp monsters are in jail, we will be able to say that Trump did indeed drain the swamp.

[Kaleredar]

The irony is when this is all finished and the swamp monsters are in jail, we will be able to say that Trump did indeed drain the swamp.

It's kind of like the "Hitler couldn't have been so bad; he did kill Hitler, after all" sentiment

[Temp name]

It's kind of like the "Hitler couldn't have been so bad; he did kill Hitler, after all" sentiment

Hitler is my hero for exactly that reason!
/s (oh please god don't take this seriously)

[Mormolyce]

I mean, of SO many things.

The amazing thing is not that he was finally found guilty and sent to jail, but rather that he wasn't locked up and they thrown away 40 fucking years ago. Guy's a lifelong criminal. Has a tramp stamp of Nixon, you can't make shit like that up.

The US has basically been lawless since the mid-70s provided you're a rich white guy or in good with the right wing. There is a straight line from Nixon to today.

[Fugus]

It's kind of like the "Hitler couldn't have been so bad; he did kill Hitler, after all" sentiment

Ok, I will have to steal this sometime later for the next time someone on my facebook feed tries to give credit to Trump for paying lip service to cleaning up a mess that he started to begin with.

[Alfreed]

LOL. What the left is willing to cling to.....

I love it when someone that rips the idiocracy of the left must be a Trumpkin or a "woke" independent. Your hive mind is adorable.

Please expand on how grouping people into one group is bad, you fucking hypocrite.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The two-party system is a joke, and if you think that just voting for A or B is the only option, then you are delusional.

In our winner-take-all system of electing officials, voting for someone who will get 2% of the vote is essentially throwing your vote away. If we had a system where you could vote on a tiered system, where you vote from most wanted to least, it might mean something. If we had a proportional power assignment, where lesser parties got seats based on the percent of the vote they got, that would also make third party votes mean something.

But winner take all? Pfffff, yeah, it's a wasted vote. Does that mean it's how it should work? Hell no, I don't like the winner take all system either. But it's the system we have. But if you're starving and your choice is an apple, an orange, or an imaginary pizza, I'm going to vote for the food that's going to be a meaningful choice. Sorry, I don't make the rules, but I know how they work, and I'm not throwing away my votes just because I'm some dreaming ideologue.

[Kaleredar]

In our winner-take-all system of electing officials, voting for someone who will get 2% of the vote is essentially throwing your vote away. If we had a system where you could vote on a tiered system, where you vote from most wanted to least, it might mean something. If we had a proportional power assignment, where lesser parties got seats based on the percent of the vote they got, that would also make third party votes mean something.

But winner take all? Pfffff, yeah, it's a wasted vote. Does that mean it's how it should work? Hell no, I don't like the winner take all system either. But it's the system we have. But if you're starving and your choice is an apple, an orange, or an imaginary pizza, I'm going to vote for the food that's going to be a meaningful choice. Sorry, I don't make the rules, but I know how they work, and I'm not throwing away my votes just because I'm some dreaming ideologue.

And to make this clear, these "woke independents" are not "dreaming ideologues;" they want to convince their political opponents to be them precisely so they waste their vote.

Remember, Republicans can't get new people to vote for them. Their tactics have become to disenfranchise young people and minorities, gerrymander away votes, and attempt to split up the democratic party from the numerous other groups that are increasingly becoming attracted to it.

The afformentioned "woke independents" along with the "Bernie Bros" that "preferred Trump to Clinton" are just a wholly transparent arm of that notion.

[Mormolyce]

LOL. What the left is willing to cling to.....

What, criminal convictions in a court of law?

Fucking lol.

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The two-party system is a joke, and if you think that just voting for A or B is the only option, then you are delusional.

This is such a fascinating confusion of ideas.

[Orbitus]

What, criminal convictions in a court of law?

Fucking lol.

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This is such a fascinating confusion of ideas.

The right are no longer the party of law and order like they want to claim. The only want law and order, to be against the left wingers, but not for them.

[Mormolyce]

The right are no longer the party of law and order like they want to claim. The only want law and order, to be against the left wingers, but not for them.

"Law and order" has literally always been a racist dog-whistle - I'm currently reading through Silver Age Marvel comics and they even mentioned it in there.



Spider-Man #92, cover dated Jan 1971. So it was common knowledge in popular culture at least that far back.

George Wallace and Nixon pioneered "law and order" as a coded phrase to win over the South. Nobody had any doubt what they really meant by it at the time. Like "forced busing" and "state's rights" as Lee Atwater put it:

You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.