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The former guy would say they were suckers. How a vet could vote for him is beyond me
I was wondering IF/HOW the Right/GOP supporters would respond to the Ted Cruz revelation... As part of the og NE - CONald election campaign strategy!
Old school (what else is new with The CONald) but still part of his strategy. The slightly distinctive reality ALSO is the source is not 'directly' the NEWS, but the courthouse ...
I reckon one should NOT EXPECT any changes from this group of die-hards:
Holy Crap! It's only taken a 78 YO, low-energy, drowsy, flatulent
sleepy, shambling asspickle a week to get the "Press" to begin reporting on "his" age, stamina, alertness, gate and cognizance.
Damn, it's as if President Biden isn't that much older than his opponent after all.
I'll be damned! Who knew?
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218888005
6. Everyone
they report that he's falling asleep, looks thinner, "shambles" down the hall...
There was even some Faux guy that was complaining how he was used to playing golf, and how he needs to get sunshine, and how it's "hard for a 78YO to just sit in a courtroom.
His age, mental fitness, stamina, etc., has NOT been a secret for years, but every media discussion about "age" and "fitness" has centered 98% on President Biden.
It's taken the Press a LONG time to start examining the guy that's a whole 3 years younger, and a million Big Mac's ahead of Joe Biden.
It's about time, and might be a good sign that he is no longer in charge of the media's script.
Cohen would not have gone to prison if there was no crime, committed. Meanwhile, Cohen had no motive to lie, except to cover for Trump.
Lying for Trump has been the norm. We know this because of Weisselberg lying for Trump, as well as Mark Meadows, Paul Manafort & MANY others (see below). It's always the same. Trump claims no knowledge & other people go to jail for things Trump said never happened.
Meanwhile, over the last 45 years of his career, Trump has managed to be involved in over 4,000 legal disputes, averaging 7.5 new lawsuits a month. Even for huge, successful corporations, this is nowhere near normal. The only common denominator in all these is Donald Trump. That's not the history of an honest or competent man.
The LIST of those who've gone away... is impressive: LMMFAO!!!
Those who fell on their sword for Broke Don:
[] Bannon
[] Manafort
[] Flynn
[] Wiselburg
[] Gates
[] Stone
[] Cohen
[] Papadopoulos
[] Broidy
[] Meadows
[] Eastman
[] Chesebro
[] Giuliani
[] Ellis
[] Smith
[] Clark
[] Cheeley
[] Roman
[] Lee
[] Floyd
[] Kutti
[] Still
[] Shafer
[] Powell
[] Latham
[] Hampton
[] Hall
[] 1003 J6 insurrectionists: Too many to name
And I'm CERTAIN there are folks I've missed...
BUSINESS FAILURES & BANKRUPTCIES:
1. Trump Steaks
2. GoTrump
3. Trump Airlines
4. Trump Vodka
5. Trump Mortgage
6. Trump: The Game
7. Trump Magazine
8. Trump University
9. Trump Ice
10. The New Jersey Generals
11. Tour de Trump
12. Trump Network
13. Trump Charity
14. Trump Hotels & Casinos!
15. I'm sure there are more I missed, neglected to UPDATE, & wouldn't be surprised to see $DJT added at some point...
As usual,... Time will tell... ALWAYS DOES!!
.....
JUST THE FACTS PLEASE!!
...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174266832
.
My hats off to you for your service to our country.
This is not completely up to date but it holds up well as an indictment of ALL of the stupids comprising the GOP House.
THE VAINGLORIOUS MTG
Actual Fucking Congresswoman, Heaven Help Us
https://showercapblog.com/the-vainglorious-mtg/
Take an unusually weak mind, surgically remove evolution’s hard-won capacity to tell fact from fiction, fill the empty spaces with hate, and you’ve got Marjorie Taylor Greene. Drop that mind in the middle of the I-know-we’re-not-supposed-to-dismiss-MAGA-whites-as-racist-hillbillies-but-COME-ON shithole known as the Georgia 14th, and you’ve got the dumbest, most malicious member of the United States Congress, and ascendant American fascism’s loudest, vilest mouth.
Of all the shitty, shitty humans called to politics by the squalid toll of Trumpism, Marj might just be the shittiest, and she works with a child molester, an unapologetic white nationalist, and Gym Jordan.
Taylor Greene’s claim to fame is that she believes every single conspiracy theory, no matter how batshit, automatically, unquestioningly, and with all the certainty of a suicide bomber. Every. Single Time. In fact, we usually only hear about the latest coronavirus miracle cure, or “Joe Biden feeds Christian babies to his dogs every Wednesday at 3:15 as a ritual sacrifice to George Soros” in the first place because this dizzy twit once again used her platform as, one more time, a UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE to share it.
I’m not fucking kidding. Pizzagate, QAnon, school-shootings-are-false-flags, JEWISH FUCKING SPACE LASERS. She thought there was A) a Jewish conspiracy to B) start wildfires by C) SHOOTING MOTHERFUCKING LASER BEAMS FROM OUTER SPACE. She thought that happened, in real life. She thought that’s just where wildfires come from: space lasers. Jewish ones.
Still, if you set aside her boundless gullibility, she really isn’t so b-JUST KIDDING Marjorie Taylor Greene is most definitely in the Worst Human Alive conversation. I can neither recall nor imagine any human failing she does not possess in abundance.
She is racist enough to make Jeff Sessions blush. She associates almost exclusively with monsters. She lies, not just like a rug, but like a rug other rugs would agree was unusually dishonest. She is too fucking stupid to grasp the concept of Guam. And what’s truly, madly, deeply fucked up is, we haven’t even addressed her worst quality yet.
Because what Marjorie really wants is blood. Democrats’ blood generally, Nancy Pelosi’s specifically. Your blood and mine, spilled in the streets if necessary, though obviously, the spectacle of public executions is preferred.
Point is, it’s violence she’s after. She got stripped of her committee assignments, for the very good reason that she kept inciting violence targeting her colleagues. Regrettably, that wound up being a “strike me down, and I shall become more obnoxious than you can possibly imagine” kind of situation; that maniac didn’t come to Washington to make laws, she came to terrorize her political opponents.
And it would be so awesome if I were recklessly overstating shit by using words like “terror” and “terrorist,” but don’t forget, the very first stunt she pulled upon assuming power was relentlessly harassing Democrat Cori Bush until she was forced to move to a different office.
“See,” she’s telling every disaffected loser flirting with the notion of joining the Proud Boys, “You want results, make ‘em feel unsafe. Make ‘em afraid.” It’s…literally what terrorism is.
You’ll notice she makes a lot of threats. I suggest you take them seriously; she means every word.
For someone who says and does so much profoundly weird shit, it’s actually pretty difficult to make jokes about Marjorie Taylor Greene, because what she is a straight-up American Nazi. A Nazi clown, sure, but still a Nazi. The Naziest Nazi* in the gettin’-Nazier-all-the-dang-time House Nazi Caucus, and she makes Kevin McCarthy jump through hoops like a trained goddamn seal. Sleep tight.
*If it’s any consolation, Congressman Gosar, it was really, really close.
Your "references" are noted.
I'm gonna be rich. I'm writing software to dumb down AI for the masses.
When I was a freshman in college, my first semester, there was a campus demonstration against the war in Vietnam. Some of the more excitable demonstrators took over the college Administration Building and were subsequently tear gassed. This was, of course, decades before social media, but the thing is, I don't remember anyone writing or even saying that they shouldn't have been tear gassed. Everyone knew there would be consequences.
The problem with on-campus demonstrations in cities is that it's impossible to tell who's a student and who's there for shits and giggles. My school was in a more remote area that was conservative so it wasn't an issue. Students have every right to protest on their campuses, outsiders don't have that right.
conix, Weiss certainly has a tendency to simplistic superficiality at times
Political views
According to The Washington Post, Weiss "portrays herself as a liberal uncomfortable with the excesses of left-wing culture",[70] and has sought to "position herself as a reasonable liberal concerned that far-left critiques stifled free speech".[71] Vanity Fair described Weiss as "a provocateur".[6] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency said that her writing "doesn't lend itself easily to labels".[72] Weiss has been described as conservative by Haaretz, The Times of Israel, The Daily Dot, and Business Insider.[73][74][75][76] In an interview with Joe Rogan, she described herself as a "left-leaning centrist".[77] The Times of Israel recounted that her public fight with the New York Times made her a hero among some conservatives.[78]
Weiss has expressed support for Israel and Zionism in her columns. When writer Andrew Sullivan described her as an "unhinged Zionist", she responded saying she "happily plead[s] guilty as charged".[79] As of 2024, Weiss had visited Israel over 15 times, including after the October 7 attacks, and compared pro-Israel social media commentators to former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, whose years in prison made him an icon of the movement to free Jews from the Soviet Union.[78]
In 2018, she said she believed the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but questioned whether they should disqualify him from serving on the Supreme Court because he was 17 when he allegedly committed the assault against Christine Blasey Ford.[75] After backlash in the press, Weiss conceded that her sound bite was glib and simplistic, and said instead that Kavanaugh's "rage-filled behavior" before the Senate Judiciary Committee should have disqualified him.[6]
Following the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Weiss was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher in early November 2018. She said of American Jews who support President Donald Trump:
---
I hope this week that American Jews have woken up to the price of that bargain: They have traded policies that they like for the values that have sustained the Jewish people—and frankly, this country—forever: Welcoming the stranger; dignity for all human beings; equality under the law; respect for dissent; love of truth.[80]
---
In 2019, The Jerusalem Post named Weiss the seventh most influential Jew in the world.[81]
In January 2022, Weiss was criticized by a doctor appearing on CNN for her comments on the late night talk show Real Time with Bill Maher criticizing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, citing that the COVID-19 pandemic response had resulted in mental health issues and that as a result she was "done with COVID".[82]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#Political_views
zab: Sounds like a good guy.
We knew all along it was always the left who aligned with Hitler on hating the Jews. It really wasn’t a secret for any of us who listened to Rush Limbaugh! Plus the left always had the war on women not the right. Again thank you Rush
Elon Musk and Anthony Albanese's church attack spat isn't about free speech. It's about power
"Anthony Albanese and Elon Musk feud over X's bid to show graphic stabbing footage, as conservative senator shares footage
"Meta more Aussie hassle -- eSafety commissioner orders X and Meta to remove violent videos following Sydney church stabbing"
Surely the spat is not only about power. No, it's about both free speech and power.
By political correspondent Brett Worthington
Posted 8h ago, updated 8h ago
VIDEO - Anthony Albanese says Elon Musk is an "arrogant billionaire who thinks he's above the law".
It takes a special kind of person to attract universal criticism across Australia's federal political landscape.
For Elon Musk, the controversial owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the backlash he's facing is likely something he'll wear as a badge of honour.
He's been called an "egotistical billionaire" by cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek, a "narcissistic cowboy" by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, an "absolute friggin' disgrace" by the Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie and an "arrogant billionaire who thinks he's above the law" by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The Coalition too wants in, putting aside its usual defence of free speech rights to suggest Musk is pursuing an "insulting and offensive argument" in his refusal to remove graphic footage of a stabbing in a Sydney church last week.
PM and Elon Musk feud
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and billionaire Elon Musk trade barbs, as a feud continues over
his social media platform's bid to display graphic stabbing footage from the Sydney attacks.
Read more > https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-23/albanese-musk-feud-x-removal-stabbing-footage/103756722
That incident, which authorities quickly called an act of terrorism, saw Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel hospitalised with lacerations to his head after being lunged at with a knife during a mass that was being broadcast online.
Footage of the incident spread across social media platforms, prompting Australia's eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant to order websites take down content referencing the Wakeley stabbing.
Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, agreed, while Musk's company X threatened its legal action in a bid to fight the government.
If it was a legal fight that Musk was wanting, he got it. Inman Grant beat him to the court and won a two-day injunction against X for only blocking the content in Australia .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-22/esafety-commissioner-seeks-injunction-against-x/103755874 .
At the time of writing, the video remains online and is actively being promoted by a crossbench senator .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-23/albanese-musk-feud-x-removal-stabbing-footage/103756722 .. elected under Clive Palmer's party.
Case sparks questions about the reach of Australian law
The whole saga offers a timely reminder of how far the world has come in such a short time.
It was only in 2008 that Supreme Court Justice Betty King banned the crime drama Underbelly from being broadcast in Victoria .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-02-12/judge-bans-underbelly/1040072 . It was a simpler time. TV episodes were broadcast weekly, streaming was barely a thing and getting the episodes to Victoria almost required the shelving of a USB (maybe don't Google that at work) to get it across state lines.
Now we live in a globally connected world, where technology and media companies have wide-reaching platforms that share content across international jurisdictions.
The Musk-Inman Grant matter sits in the hands of the courts to determine how far-reaching Australian laws are.
Should a country be able to ban content being shown globally? Where does the line exist? Could a country, say Russia, have the ability to demand X remove content beyond its borders of Ukraine's military resistance?
These are questions for the nation's sharpest legal minds to determine. But there is more at play here than simply matters of the law.
Elon Musk is finding few federal political friends wanting to support his response to the terror attack in Sydeny.
(ABC News)
Both Musk and Australian politicians are using the case to fight political battles in their interests.
For Musk, it's a chance to further bolster his free speech credentials. It's in his interests to pick a fight with a government he thinks is overreaching. It's a chance for him to be seen sticking it to "the man".
But there is more at stake than just speech. His commercial interests lie at the heart of this dispute.
Musk knows that other nations are closely watching the laws Australia makes for the social media giants. Just look at how Australia's plain packaging of tobacco has been adopted internationally. Further social media crackdowns here could come with greater crackdowns in bigger markets like the United States and the United Kingdom.
The X owner says the footage should stay up because it doesn't breach the company's standards.
Musk also seems to forget that free speech doesn't mean it's free of consequences. Global tech companies might have long been able to influence governments of the day, but it is the law of the land, not his commercial interest, that determines what is legal and what isn't.
For Albanese and the broader Australian political class, this too is about standing up to "the man".
The government sees a political virtue in pushing back against Musk and his platform, which has repeatedly been found to foster a toxic discourse. They've determined that the spreading of a terrorist act is a bridge too far in the public's eyes.
Labor likely sees another use for this scandal. It's been threatening greater action against the social media platforms to curb the spread of misinformation. This unrelated scandal offers cover for advancing new laws against the tech giants.
It's little wonder Meta, knowing the threat it is facing, was so keen to be seen to have followed Inman Grant's orders .. https://medium.com/meta-australia-policy-blog/metas-response-to-the-recent-attacks-in-sydney-0109a8f8ddcc . (Also, did someone say schadenfreude?).
Julie Inman Grant has powers to compel social media companies to release information. (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)
The former US president Theodore Roosevelt is often quoted as saying you can go a long way if you "speak softly and carry a big stick".
It's a sentiment that embodies the American-born Inman Grant's approach to her tenure as eSafety commissioner.
Inman Grant is a former senior official at Twitter. She knows X's soft underbelly and has repeatedly shown an ability to find the spot to inflict pain on the company when it fails to meet community standards.
Her job comes with enforceable powers which means if the companies don't answer her questions, they face daily fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's these powers that have allowed her to accuse X of failing to police hate and failing to meet anti-child-abuse standards .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-16/social-media-x-fined-over-gaps-in-child-abuse-prevention/102980590 .
That big stick that Inman Grant carries has brought with it not just shame but financial pain for Musk's X.
He's now taken to calling her the "Australian censorship commissar", a move straight out of Donald Trump's playbook to dismiss her as a Communist or Soviet party official.
Having touched a nerve, Musk might not be the only one wearing a badge of honour.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-23/elon-musk-anthony-albanese-church-court-injunction-x/103757040
Ahh Jeff. The jokes continue to write themselves, but thanks for bring them to our attention. 😆
... more
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/narcoleptic-old-dipshit-wakes-up?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1162742&post_id=143863531&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6zfhm&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
"But that doesn't mean he's not still radically conservative, or a religious fanatic. He's both."
Yes. All of that. And if he hadn't acted, you can also surmise that there would have been a discharge petition at some point as well.
But he stepped up right then, and he did it at the risk of his own career, when the rest of the MAGAts were all prostrating themselves before Trump and Putin (and still are).
And yes, he's still a young earth creationist... a biblical literalist, a Seven Mountains Dominionist who believes men cavorted with dinosaurs, and doesn't appear to believe in banks, and all that. But here, you have to give him some credit where it's due.
I wish sometimes that I would be able to state things. But even on the internet I rarely post much of my family, or friends. I do this out of respect for not having their lives trampled by someone. I have not been back to New York to even visit his grave site; thanks to internet I can pull it up anytime I want. He was much older than me, he always fixed my bikes, and then my first motorcycle.
Always appreciated each day. But again, the economy is doing great. The Federal Reserve just wishes the American consumer would slow down. I wonder if Republicans remember supply and demand. When demand for goods and services remain high, prices can move up, especially when your labor supply is still tight. I keep explaining that to many of friends on the other side of the aisle.
Even with interest rates that are staying high as compared to previous decades. No one has studied what being shut in during the Pandemic did to the American people. MY newest neighbor, he has been around for almost five years, is older than me, and ex-marine, and he does not slow down doing projects around his home.
Nothing like spending money in America press a button and it arrives within days, sometimes sooner.
zab: My wife's ex was also Air Force stationed in Vietnam about same time. Yes, we talk and visit each other!!!!
I always remember your service in the Air Force, my cousin was in the Air Force at that time, but he went in New York, and again ended up a mechanic stationed at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam.
Anthony Albanese and Elon Musk feud over X's bid to show graphic stabbing footage, as conservative senator shares footage
"Meta more Aussie hassle -- eSafety commissioner orders X and Meta to remove violent videos following Sydney church stabbing
"Google must face video ad company's antitrust lawsuit, judge rules
'Meta says Facebook cannot solve media industry’s ‘issues’ as it defends ending payments for news in Australia
May, 2022 - "Australia's Standoff Against Google and Facebook Worked—Sort Of'""
By political reporter Jake Evans
Posted 16h ago, updated 9h ago
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Elon Musk's comments expose him as an "out of touch" billionaire.
(ABC News: Nick Haggarty)
* In short: Anthony Albanese and Elon Musk are feuding over the billionaire's fight for X to be able to display violent content.
* Following a temporary order to remove graphic videos of the Wakeley church stabbing, a federal senator has reposted the clip.
* What's next? X has vowed to continue fighting the eSafety commissioner's order.
A federal senator has shared the unedited violent footage of the Wakeley church stabbing attack as a feud continues over X's bid to be able to host it on its site.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday morning hit back at "arrogant" billionaire Elon Musk after he made comments goading Mr Albanese on his social media platform X.
Mr Musk is feuding with Australia's eSafety commissioner over an order to remove graphic footage of last week's Sydney church stabbing, and on Monday night faced a defeat in court when it ruled X must temporarily pull the posts from its site .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-22/esafety-commissioner-seeks-injunction-against-x/103755874 ..until the next hearing date.
Overnight Mr Musk twice posted comments mocking Australia's prime minister, suggesting X's refusal to remove the violent videos left it alone among social media platforms as a defender of free speech.
"I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one," Mr Musk wrote.
Don’t take my word for it, just ask the Australian PM! pic.twitter.com/ZJBKrstStQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024
Interesting reading from "The Fucking News" this morning.
(emphasis mine.)
I could remember the late 1968-70 days, but with so many actual bombs going off destroying buildings, and even a dormitory where my buddy was supposed to stay. That is how we became lifelong friends, his dormitory was blown up, and moved into mine.
The nights of sleeping outside in the springtime, why, in those days you would get a bomb scare, and no one knew quite how to make sure your dormitory was safe.
I also remember earlier days at Columbia University in the city, now those were protests.
Besides this is America, you know the land of Freedom of Speech. I remember the last administration that turned the hoses upon people protesting just so he could get a snapshot of himself holding a Bible upside down. Back then they thought hosing down protestors was wonderful, now if you shout at someone it is scaring these poor souls.
When administrations change, so do their level of tolerance against any America who disagrees with anyone. When they call someone woke, I really wish they lift up a mirror and look upon themselves.
zab: I remember the 60's like it was yesterday. I was Air Force 1965 -1969. Of all places i was station in CA. We were told to not were our uniforms off base. But if you went TDY or on leave you had to be in uniforms, to fly standby. People would not talk to us or be any help for anything, Yes, they treated us like dirt. Called us all kind of names. Not like it is today!!!
In the context of the article I took it as a rhetorical question.
I am glad you don't remember the 60s, these protests are milder than a family get together during the holidays.
Yes been working since age sixteen. Did not have the time on my hands to become one of these zombies attending so-called colleges without higher learning other than hatred for others. Privileged is what I call them. By the way I made no such threat here. You interpret incorrectly but that is the norm here.
“Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment in 12 monthly installments during the first year of his presidency, portraying them as checks for ongoing legal services in an illegal scheme to conceal their true purpose, according to prosecutors. Cohen ultimately received $420,000 — more than double the $130,000 payment to Daniels.
"Donald Trump was a very frugal businessman. He believed in pinching pennies. He believed in watching every dollar. He believed in negotiating every bill. He ran the Trump Organization with total control. You'll hear testimony about his relentless focus on the bottom line. With Cohen and the 'catch and kill' deal, he didn't negotiate the price down, he doubled it," Colangelo said. "And you'll hear evidence that the Trump Organization was not in the practice of paying twice what they owed for anything."”
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/trump-hush-money-trial-opening-statements-witness-testimony/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjt8vPTlNiFAxVk4skDHTMdCckQ0PADKAB6BAgREAE&usg=AOvVaw2iklu-ent0FY0yTsX62Isz
I dunno. But I'm here for it!
she loved my dad. He wrote her from Vietnam and shared all of that with me. I wouldn't have ever known about his battle merits if it wasn't for her.. Everything that douche could not tell us.. I'm not sure if she's even alive these days, or living with his Vietnamese wife but I know my cousin who is in jail.
LOL like I said, my family history is really complicated. I've not even started on my mom's side, except for a little here and there. I'm just lucky to be alive and it's a miracle that me and my sister were born in the first place.
Reminder - Trump administration broke law in withholding Ukraine aid, watchdog says as Senate prepares for impeachment trial
"[...] Matter of: Office of Management and Budget—Withholding of Ukraine Security
Assistance"
Published Thu, Jan 16 202010:05 AM EST Updated Thu, Jan 16 20207:20 PM EST
Dan Mangan @_DanMangan , Kevin Breuninger @KevinWilliamB
Key Points
* The Trump administration broke the law by witholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine over the summer “for a policy reason,” a top government watchdog said.
* The report by the Government Accountability Office came a day after the House of Representatives sent articles of impeachment of President Donald Trump to the Senate for conduct related to the withholding of that aid to Ukraine.
* Trump held back the funds while pressuring Ukraine’s new president to announce investigations by that country of former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
More -- https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/trump-administration-broke-law-in-withholding-ukraine-aid.html
Unpacking the alleged crime that made Trump’s alleged crime a felony
"Trump’s Trial Challenge: Being Stripped of Control
"Prosecutors Want to Ask Trump About Attacks on Women"
Analysis by Philip Bump
National columnist
April 22, 2024 at 2:31 p.m. EDT
Donald Trump, left, attorney Michael Cohen and adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. (AP)
All links
Attorneys offered opening arguments in the criminal trial of Donald Trump on Monday in Manhattan, beginning the process of presenting to the jury the state’s case against the former president. The jury will ultimately be asked not whether Trump is guilty of a crime in the abstract but, instead, whether the state provided enough evidence to eliminate any doubt that he violated the letter of the law. This means that the letter of the specific law undergirding the charges in the indictment against Trump is crucially important.
In that indictment .. https://manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf , Trump is charged with 34 felonies, each predicated on his having allegedly falsified business records. Specifically, prosecutors argue, he caused the Trump Organization and his personal trust to record payments made to attorney Michael Cohen in 2017 as retainer fees rather than as reimbursements for the $130,000 that Cohen paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Falsifying business records is not always a felony. But if the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof,” the New York criminal statute reads .. https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/NACF91AF08C9211D882FF83A3182D7B4A/View/FullText.html?transitionType=Default&contextData=%28sc.Default%29 .. , it can be charged as one. As it was in each of the charges against Trump.
So what is the “another crime?” It isn’t articulated in the criminal indictment. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) was somewhat vague when the indictment was handed down, saying that the intent was “to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”
Offering his opening statement Monday, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo made clear that the crime was centered on Cohen’s payment to Daniels.
“This was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election,” Colangelo said, “to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures, to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior, using doctored corporate records. It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, rejected that idea.
“There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election; it’s called democracy,” he said during his opening statement. “They put something sinister on this idea as if it was a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”
Except that it can be. And in this case, almost certainly is.
VIDEO Trump’s shifting story on the Stormy Daniels payment 1:25
In 2018, President Donald Trump denied knowing about a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
Later that year, he changed his tune. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post,
Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
At issue is another fairly esoteric body of law: campaign-finance limits. These laws limit how much money people can contribute to political campaigns and how campaigns have to report what they take in and how they spend it. Outside parties can spend money on promoting candidates, too; those are called independent expenditures. But they can’t coordinate with the campaigns or candidates on how they plan to do so.
The goal of those laws — an important aspect of the issue at hand — is centrally to limit the corruption that could follow from a big donor bankrolling a candidate’s entire campaign. If, say, Google could simply put up a candidate and spend $1 billion getting her elected to the Senate, it would be hard for anyone to compete — and Google would have a presumably loyal senator sitting in D.C.
So with those prohibitions in mind, consider what Cohen did — as he admitted when pleading guilty .. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax .. to federal campaign-finance charges.
Cohen and a representative of Trump’s campaign (later revealed to be Trump) met with David Pecker — then chairman of American Media Inc. and publisher of the National Enquirer — in August 2015. Pecker offered to help the campaign by buying stories that would reflect negatively on Trump and then burying them. AMI and Pecker confirmed this story in a non-prosecution agreement reached with the government.
Already, you can see that this is an offer to benefit the campaign that involved coordination with agents of the campaign; that is, with people empowered to act on the campaign’s behalf. That’s Trump himself, of course, but also Cohen, who would represent the campaign publicly and discussed campaign strategy with Trump.
When Pecker later bought a similar story from former Playboy model Karen McDougal for $150,000 intending to bury it, it 1) was an action taken to benefit the campaign, as per the August 2015 meeting and 2) was not an independent expenditure, since the McDougal payment was made in consultation with Cohen. Cohen pleaded guilty to “causing an unlawful corporate contribution” — since corporations like AMI can’t legally contribute .. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/who-can-and-cant-contribute/#:~:text=Corporations%2C%20labor%20organizations%2C%20national%20banks&text=National%20banks%20and%20federally%20chartered,%E2%80%93federal%2C%20state%20or%20local. .. to campaigns, and the $150,000 was a non-monetary contribution to Trump. AMI and Pecker offered testimony, resulting in that non-prosecution agreement.
In October 2016, a month before the election, Pecker informed Cohen about Daniels’s story. Cohen reached a deal with Daniels’s attorney — also McDougal’s attorney — for $130,000, but didn’t pay immediately. Only when Cohen learned that Daniels was thinking of going public elsewhere in the days before the election did Cohen finally pay the money.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign-finance charges related to this as well. That plea didn’t depend on arguing that Cohen was an agent of the campaign, though; instead, it argued that Cohen made the contribution “in cooperation, consultation, and concert with, and at the request and suggestion of one or more members of the campaign.” A later filing identified that member of the campaign: Trump .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/07/government-implicates-trump-trump-campaign-federal-campaign-finance-law-violations/?itid=lk_inline_manual_30 .
Some on the right have argued that the payment to Daniels didn’t violate campaign-finance law. Earlier this month, Trump shared on social media a 2023 article .. https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/04/no-cohens-guilty-plea-does-not-prove-trump-committed-campaign-finance-crimes/ .. written by the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, making that case.
The timing, McCarthy argued, “was just common-sense hardball” on the part of Daniels and McDougal, “striking when their leverage against the notoriously parsimonious Trump was at its height; it didn’t mean that [nondisclosure agreements] — which Trump had plenty of other personal, political, and business incentives to pay for — were necessarily in-kind campaign expenses.”
Perhaps this could be an argument made against such charges, albeit a dubious one. After all, Cohen recorded a September 2016 conversation .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/24/four-important-points-that-arise-from-the-trump-cohen-recording/?itid=lk_inline_manual_36 .. with Trump in which they discussed the McDougal case and, in another context, the need to bury negative information until after Election Day. The idea that Trump and Cohen didn’t view the Daniels payment as related to the campaign is ridiculous — especially since it first came to their attention immediately after The Washington Post published the “Access Hollywood” tape, drawing new scrutiny to Trump’s interactions with women.
But Trump’s defense team isn’t trying to make McCarthy’s argument anyway.
“There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” Blanche told jurors Monday. “It’s called democracy.”
So if Trump was admittedly trying to influence the election by agreeing with Cohen to pay off Daniels, then Cohen — as he admitted in federal court — violated campaign-finance laws. And therefore, if the repayments to Cohen were falsified to obscure their intent — remember, the Cohen-Daniels story didn’t become public until 2018, after the reimbursements had been made — it seems as though that was done to “conceal the commission” of those campaign-finance violations.
Proving Trump actively caused the records to be falsified is the central job of Manhattan prosecutors. Demonstrating that the records were allegedly falsified to obscure this other crime seems a much easier task.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/22/trump-hush-money-trial-charges/
Keep in touch with your aunt. She sounds like a good person.
I'll admit to not knowing a bunch of that but my father's side of the family were all successful. I have a cousin who was a vice president for Caterpillar and is filthy rich. He's just a consultant now but almost everyone but my dad turned out really well in a family of, get this, twelve kids. I used to go meet everyone when I was young but me and pops had a serious falling out later on.
It was his sister (my aunt) that actually kept in touch with me and told me our family history. She and my mom didn't get along so after my dad and her split up they stopped staying in touch. My aunt was the one who got my college buddy his first and only job that he's been at forever now. She's retired and all of my uncles are all dead. I always wanted to be part of the team but my old man turned out to be such a prick that I lost it all. My sister still stays in touch with the cousins but her stories are not anything I need to hear. We have our own problems too so it makes it hard to go back in time...
My folks were not funny. They are devout baptists who go to the lengths of no drinking and no dancing. I could go on but basically they think nobody should have any fun in the name of Jesus. I am not a subscriber to that idea so I just excluded myself. I could have been wrong but I also saw the hypocrisy that went along with it and I cut ties.
but yeah, my actual grandpa who died before I was born flew for the german air force and that's where I came from after he escaped to america.
It was another photo shoot at that hotel. Barron was using a brand new camera and was shooting all over. Meridith... mercedise... melania was also posing.
There probably was a crew there with hairdressers and makeup, etc. The whole sequence is on gettyimage.
And if he was a stand out in high school basketball I doubt that she could totally hide such a thing. Possible, but not likely.
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/melania-barron?assettype=image&family=editorial&page=5&phrase=melania%20barron&sort=mostpopular
One sign of narcissistic collapse is lashing out in anger or rage, often with inappropriate and uncontrollable outbursts. In fact, it's one of the hallmark signs of this phenomenon.
He's been doing that for years. What happens next?
Are those Polaroids on the couch?
Could Barron not actually be her son?How does that picture actually get out?Who’s taking the picture of them two?Is this the child Trump had out of wedlock according to the doorman that paid to keep quiet about that allegation?
Just way too creepy. But when one considers all the pictures of Trump with Ivanka in suggestive postings and the fact that he was pals with the deceased Epstein could it be????
I have questions.
They had some top scientists .. “Operation Paperclip.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-us-government-brought-nazi-scientists-america-after-world-war-ii-180961110/
But what about the stereotypes? Surely Brown is for hippy Democrats and Dartmouth is for strait-laced Republicans, right?
No. Things change. Student preferences change. When I was at Wellesley, guys went to Brown chiefly because they hadn't been accepted at Harvard. And then suddenly in the late '80s, it became the coolest Ivy.
Dartmouth was for jocks.
Cornell was the Ivy you always forgot when trying to name them. And so on... Things have changed from my student days, and they'll keep changing. That's to be expected.
suck my dick, a lot of people will like it.
Do you see where you're going with this or are you just generally a complete fool?
They really did have very, very good universities before WWII. And they're still quite good, but not in the way they were.
They offered a real "classical" eduction. Not job training. Everyone learned Greek, Latin, and often several other languages. They read and read and read. Even the ones who went into the sciences.
I knew one person years ago who experienced that kind of education, and I was envious. He was Hungarian (and Jewish); I no longer remember when he got out of the country. When I knew him, he'd taught in California for a long time. He was fabulously funny. Knew tons of 17th century German drinking songs. And much, much more. He was a great deal of fun, and he knew so MUCH.
Most of which isn't even being taught nowadays.
Lime Time, You thunk like a lemon. Scholars once thought earth was the center of the universe, some non-scholars even now see it as flat. Sex orientation has moved us past you bipolar vision. Science is a wondrous study. Read. Consider Learn.
B402, Fuck off with your conservative bleat. It's a big deal because of your conservative culture war creation. The sexual continuum is a biological fact and your conservative camp's inability to cope with it is at the basis of the unhealthy extremist controversy your far-right has created. Your side's lack of realistic policy has resulted in your manufactured culture war. What else to do your Rufo .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171727736 .. said. Administrators and athletes were handling it with little relative fuss until your rabid anti-trans zealots stirred the pot.
Attacks on Ohio transgender community a calculated political ploy to scapegoat the vulnerable
One shelf in our trans library -- https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174078624
Plenty more you should study before making such a silly post again.
Yeah because most of the mods are past'd unfortunately. I'm sorry you couldn't get new mods. Nobody wants to be here.
My post still stands. Please help define a woman.
The Hitler Germany were bad people but I thought it was a stretch to say that they had the best and brightest minds in the world and the best universities and students. I'm far from a historian but I just have to raise my hand and call bullshit on all of that. If my thinking is even halfway correct it destroys the author's whole premise.
Not to mention it was almost a hundred frigggin years ago and my roots are traced to a guy who was a Luftwaffe pilot., so I might be able to answer a few questions.
Lime Time, No comments re moderation, tia. And if we were into stickies yours would not be in contention.
Have always felt that.
Sricky my post.
A lot of people will like it.
I read that whole story you posted only just a snip of because you're just as disingenuous as the author and what disturbed me the most was how the comment section devolved into a race war..
I noticed the same thing. The story was good, but not surprising, at least to people who know stuff about Nazi Germany.
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