Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty

[Hermanator 7021]

In early November of 2016 when we saw this stupid ass country actually elected this jackass was there any question this would end any other way than insurrection, attempts to overthrow elections, and multiple entities seeking to charge him with a kaleidoscope spectrum of crimes?

The only thing that has been mildly surprising is the amount of Americans that continue to support this even with all the crimes and treachery being obvious. But in retrospect it isn't surprising. This has always been a country awash in it's own mountains of bullshit, propaganda, and cover ups but we just didn't want to believe the extent of it until confronted with something like this. 

[WhatTheBuck 28754]

I think the people who were criticizing the move to indict Trump for the hush money coverup in New York before indicting him for his other crimes were wrong. You have your appetizer before the main course is served. Trump’s supporters can bitch about the triviality of hush money paid to Trump’s mistresses to keep them quiet during the 2016 election and say it doesn’t warrant prosecution. But I think it’s going to turn out that those charges won’t seem so trivial as the heavier charges pile up.

If the campaign finance violations, let’s call them what they are, whether that can be proven in a court of law or not remains to be seen but we all know perfectly well what they are, had been charged after the other three larger cases, it would’ve just seemed like piling on. Instead we get a ramping up in the charges and as their collective weight increases, that first case will be seen as just another in the pile of Trump’s many crimes. 

[RomaVicta 29864]

14 hours ago, Hermanator said:

This has always been a country awash in it's own mountains of bullshit, propaganda, and cover ups but we just didn't want to believe the extent of it until confronted with something like this. 

Well put. Our ruthless slaughter of indigenous communities and enslavement of foreign peoples are huge facts of our history, yet we dare not even acknowledge them for fear of upsetting our self-deception.

Self-deception and overblown self-congratulation form a toxic mix for any organization or endeavor.

Edited April 10, 2023 by RomaVicta

[Gatorubet 30175]

Well put. Our ruthless slaughter of indigenous communities and enslavement of foreign peoples are huge facts of our history, yet we dare not even acknowledge them for fear of upsetting out self-deception.
Self-deception and overblown self-congratulation form a toxic mix for any organization or endeavor.

Wait a couple years. The GQP American exceptionalism will eventually include a mantra that America had the best slavery system in the world, and it was something to be proud of.

[Gatorubet 30175]

15 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

It has been decades since I successfully tried a civil RICO case, but I have to say that the enterprise theory and predicate acts seem very provable in this case.  An Enterprise theory is the element where you show how people /entities are trying to take over other legitimate entities - think organized crime infiltrating labor unions.  
A predicate act in assistance would be any interstate email, phone call or snail mail.  For example, if you are rounding up supporters like Miss Lady Bug to threaten and hound politicians in Georgia - assisting Trump in finding him a set number of votes so he could be declared the winner - if interstate phone calls or emails are involved (and we know they were) it seems to me they have a plausible case.
A hell of a lot can happen in the law in decades, and so I have no idea whether it is harder now to prove a RICO conviction, but it used to be that any act in furtherance of the enterprise would subject someone to criminal liability as a co-conspirator. For example, calling up Georgia election officials and lying about the my pillow stolen election bullshit and why they should not certify the election, if they were also communicating with Trump and his organization in that effort, could be enough to get any number of those chuckleheads indicted as co-conspirators for making interstate calls or emails. 
Granted, this is criminal RICO, which I never did, as opposed to civil RICO. But back in the day if you had a decent enterprise theory of how the bad guys were trying to take over the good guy’s organization, finding predicate acts was never a problem.  Given the number of phone calls and emails involved in the Georgia post election strong arming, the cast of characters to be indicted could be very, very interesting.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Gatorubet

[RDCanecutter 26356]

On 4/7/2023 at 9:47 PM, closetohumping said:

You can smell the faux-linoleum sheeting from outside the house.

[Beau Vine 54149]

 

[WhatTheBuck 28754]

Trump has never looked good. 

[TwiceHorn 31398]

6 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

It has been decades since I successfully tried a civil RICO case, but I have to say that the enterprise theory and predicate acts seem very provable in this case.  An Enterprise theory is the element where you show how people /entities are trying to take over other legitimate entities - think organized crime infiltrating labor unions.  
A predicate act in assistance would be any interstate email, phone call or snail mail.  For example, if you are rounding up supporters like Miss Lady Bug to threaten and hound politicians in Georgia - assisting Trump in finding him a set number of votes so he could be declared the winner - if interstate phone calls or emails are involved (and we know they were) it seems to me they have a plausible case.
A hell of a lot can happen in the law in decades, and so I have no idea whether it is harder now to prove a RICO conviction, but it used to be that any act in furtherance of the enterprise would subject someone to criminal liability as a co-conspirator. For example, calling up Georgia election officials and lying about the my pillow stolen election bullshit and why they should not certify the election, if they were also communicating with Trump and his organization in that effort, could be enough to get any number of those chuckleheads indicted as co-conspirators for making interstate calls or emails. 
Granted, this is criminal RICO, which I never did, as opposed to civil RICO. But back in the day if you had a decent enterprise theory of how the bad guys were trying to take over the good guy’s organization, finding predicate acts was never a problem.  Given the number of phone calls and emails involved in the Georgia post election strong arming, the cast of characters to be indicted could be very, very interesting.

Between you and Fani Willis, I won't do the Popehat in this case.

[Gatorubet 30175]

4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Between you and Fani Willis, I won't do the Popehat in this case.

[TwiceHorn 31398]

10 hours ago, Hermanator said:

In early November of 2016 when we saw this stupid ass country actually elected this jackass was there any question this would end any other way than insurrection, attempts to overthrow elections, and multiple entities seeking to charge him with a kaleidoscope spectrum of crimes?

The only thing that has been mildly surprising is the amount of Americans that continue to support this even with all the crimes and treachery being obvious. But in retrospect it isn't surprising. This has always been a country awash in it's own mountains of bullshit, propaganda, and cover ups but we just didn't want to believe the extent of it until confronted with something like this. 

Well, as someone who has been a long time Trump hater and also a long time Hillary disliker (I seriously questioned whether my dislike of either of them was irrational, questioned whether I should vote at all, and wound up going for the downballot and voting for Gary Johnson, yes I am one of those), I was fairly stunned when he won.

At that point, I thought and I think maybe a lot of people thought that he might stop being a complete blowhard asshole, get serious and maybe do OK as President.  And I thought (and still do) that some of the early criticism of him was fairly irrational (I think it matters because getting all breathless about fairly trivial shit set the stage nicely for his witch hunt refrain).  Going back to Perot, I confess to being intrigued by non-politician Presidents, but both of them wound up being pretty total assholes.  Trump much worse than Perot, and, of course, actually elected.

But, no, after about six months, I was convinced that he was a much bigger asshole than I had thought he was for the last 20 someodd years and also much dumber than I thought.

Edited April 10, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Brisketexan 104855]

Well, as someone who has been a long time Trump hater and also a long time Hillary disliker (I seriously questioned whether my dislike of either of them was irrational, questioned whether I should vote at all, and wound up going for the downballot and voting for Gary Johnson, yes I am one of those), I was fairly stunned when he won.
At that point, I thought and I think maybe a lot of people thought that he might stop being a complete blowhard asshole, get serious and maybe do OK as President.  And I thought (and still do) that some of the early criticism of him was fairly irrational (I think it matters because getting all breathless about fairly trivial shit set the stage nicely for his witch hunt refrain).  Going back to Perot, I confess to being intrigued by non-politician Presidents, but both of them wound up being pretty total assholes.  Trump much worse than Perot, and, of course, actually elected.
But, no, after about six months, I was convinced that he was a much bigger asshole than I had thought he was for the last 20 someodd years and also much dumber than I thought.

I confess to having been blind to plenty of shit over the years, some of it embarrassingly so.
But I remain baffled how smart people didn’t see EXACTLY what Trump was well before he won the nomination. He is and always has been a low IQ malignant narcissist. Imagine what a low IQ malignant narcissist would do if he became president. That’s exactly what Trump was, and exactly what he did. The horrible thing is actually how EASY it was to predict. He is a simple, dim, pathetic little man. There is no complexity, nuance, or unpredictability. He was never, ever going to find a more “measured and mature” path, because he has always been completely incapable of such a thing.
I cannot put into words how much I hate him, and how much I hope that he is dropping dead of a massive coronary as I type these very words

[Gatorubet 30175]

RICO Act

§ 1961. Definitions

As used in this chapter

(1) racketeering activity means (A) any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year; (B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: Section 201 (relating to bribery), section 224 (relating to sports bribery), sections 471, 472, and 473 (relating to counterfeiting), section 659 (relating to theft from interstate shipment) if the act indictable under section 659 is felonious, section 664 (relating to embezzlement from pension and welfare funds), sections 891894 (relating to extortionate credit transactions), section 1028 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents), section 1029 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with access devices), section 1084 (relating to the transmission of gambling information), section 1341 (relating to mail fraud), section 1343 (relating to wire fraud), section 1344 (relating to financial institution fraud), section 1425 (relating to the procurement of citizenship or nationalization unlawfully), section 1426 (relating to the reproduction of naturalization or citizenship papers), section 1427 (relating to the sale of naturalization or citizenship papers), sections 14611465 (relating to obscene matter), section 1503 (relating to obstruction of justice), section 1510 (relating to obstruction of criminal investigations), section 1511 (relating to the obstruction of State or local law enforcement), section 1512 (relating to tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1513 (relating to retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1542 (relating to false statement in application and use of passport), section 1543 (relating to forgery or false use of passport), section 1544 (relating to misuse of passport), section 1546 (relating to fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents), sections 15811592 (relating to peonage, slavery, and trafficking in persons).,^[1] section 1951 (relating to interference with commerce, robbery, or extortion), section 1952 (relating to racketeering), section 1953 (relating to interstate transportation of wagering paraphernalia), section 1954 (relating to unlawful welfare fund payments), section 1955 (relating to the prohibition of illegal gambling businesses), section 1956 (relating to the laundering of monetary instruments), section 1957 (relating to engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity), section 1958 (relating to use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire), section 1960 (relating to illegal money transmitters), sections 2251, 2251A, 2252, and 2260 (relating to sexual exploitation of children), sections 2312 and 2313 (relating to interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles), sections 2314 and 2315 (relating to interstate transportation of stolen property), section 2318 (relating to trafficking in counterfeit labels for phonorecords, computer programs or computer program documentation or packaging and copies of motion pictures or other audiovisual works), section 2319 (relating to criminal infringement of a copyright), section 2319A (relating to unauthorized fixation of and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos of live musical performances), section 2320 (relating to trafficking in goods or services bearing counterfeit marks), section 2321 (relating to trafficking in certain motor vehicles or motor vehicle parts), sections 23412346 (relating to trafficking in contraband cigarettes), sections 242124 (relating to white slave traffic), sections 175178 (relating to biological weapons), sections 229229F (relating to chemical weapons), section 831 (relating to nuclear materials), (C) any act which is indictable under title 29, United States Code, section 186 (dealing with restrictions on payments and loans to labor organizations) or section 501 (c) (relating to embezzlement from union funds), (D) any offense involving fraud connected with a case under title 11 (except a case under section 157 of this title), fraud in the sale of securities, or the felonious manufacture, importation, receiving, concealment, buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), punishable under any law of the United States, (E) any act which is indictable under the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act, (F) any act which is indictable under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 274 (relating to bringing in and harboring certain aliens), section 277 (relating to aiding or assisting certain aliens to enter the United States), or section 278 (relating to importation of alien for immoral purpose) if the act indictable under such section of such Act was committed for the purpose of financial gain, or (G) any act that is indictable under any provision listed in section 2332b (g)(5)(B);

(2) State means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or possession of the United States, any political subdivision, or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof;

(3) person includes any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property;

(4) enterprise includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity;

(5) pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years (excluding any period of imprisonment) after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity;

(6) unlawful debt means a debt

(A) incurred or contracted in gambling activity which was in violation of the law of the United States, a State or political subdivision thereof, or which is unenforceable under State or Federal law in whole or in part as to principal or interest because of the laws relating to usury, and

(B) which was incurred in connection with the business of gambling in violation of the law of the United States, a State or political subdivision thereof, or the business of lending money or a thing of value at a rate usurious under State or Federal law, where the usurious rate is at least twice the enforceable rate;

(7) racketeering investigator means any attorney or investigator so designated by the Attorney General and charged with the duty of enforcing or carrying into effect this chapter;

(8) racketeering investigation means any inquiry conducted by any racketeering investigator for the purpose of ascertaining whether any person has been involved in any violation of this chapter or of any final order, judgment, or decree of any court of the United States, duly entered in any case or proceeding arising under this chapter;

(9) documentary material includes any book, paper, document, record, recording, or other material; and

(10) Attorney General includes the Attorney General of the United States, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, the Associate Attorney General of the United States, any Assistant Attorney General of the United States, or any employee of the Department of Justice or any employee of any department or agency of the United States so designated by the Attorney General to carry out the powers conferred on the Attorney General by this chapter. Any department or agency so designated may use in investigations authorized by this chapter either the investigative provisions of this chapter or the investigative power of such department or agency otherwise conferred by law.

§ 1962. Prohibited activities

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt in which such person has participated as a principal within the meaning of section 2, title 18, United States Code, to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce. A purchase of securities on the open market for purposes of investment, and without the intention of controlling or participating in the control of the issuer, or of assisting another to do so, shall not be unlawful under this subsection if the securities of the issuer held by the purchaser, the members of his immediate family, and his or their accomplices in any pattern or racketeering activity or the collection of an unlawful debt after such purchase do not amount in the aggregate to one percent of the outstanding securities of any one class, and do not confer, either in law or in fact, the power to elect one or more directors of the issuer.

(b) It shall be unlawful for any person through a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.

(c) It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprises affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.

(d) It shall be unlawful for any person to conspire to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section.

 

if you thought the New York case was clear as mud, welcome to RICO

There is no SOL issue here. There is a smorgasbord of crimes that they can use against you to obtain a RICO conviction.  Too many, really.  Not a fan of the law, but I am terrified by it as the evidence needed to get you indicted ain’t much when compared to other crimes. 

Edit: don’t get too hung up on interstate commerce.   The movement of money, goods, or services from one state to another satisfies this requirement.  IOW, sending money to your political operatives or allies to accomplish your goal will suffice. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Gatorubet

[TwiceHorn 31398]

18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I confess to having been blind to plenty of shit over the years, some of it embarrassingly so.
But I remain baffled how smart people didn’t see EXACTLY what Trump was well before he won the nomination. He is and always has been a low IQ malignant narcissist. Imagine what a low IQ malignant narcissist would do if he became president. That’s exactly what Trump was, and exactly what he did. The horrible thing is actually how EASY it was to predict. He is a simple, dim, pathetic little man. There is no complexity, nuance, or unpredictability. He was never, ever going to find a more “measured and mature” path, because he has always been completely incapable of such a thing.
I cannot put into words how much I hate him, and how much I hope that he is dropping dead of a massive coronary as I type these very words

I thought perhaps it was basically a bit.  I even understood well how his rejection by polite Manhattan society drove him.  I did not understand how fundamentally stupid he was.  I thought maybe that was my bias at work.  HOWEVER, I didn't watch him debate or campaign, which probably would have revealed to me that he was as bad as I thought and worse.

He's really a glowing example of how you give a personality-disordered moron a lot of money and they can be "successful."

[Satchel 6912]

The mystifying thing about his improbable ascendancy to the presidency, is New Yorkers who know him best told us exactly what a demon this guy is. And to be completely transparent, I ain’t trying not to throw it your faces that Hillary told us what would happen under Trump. She 100% nailed it. 

[TwiceHorn 31398]

9 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

RICO Act

§ 1961. Definitions

As used in this chapter

(1) racketeering activity means (A) any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year; (B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: Section 201 (relating to bribery), section 224 (relating to sports bribery), sections 471, 472, and 473 (relating to counterfeiting), section 659 (relating to theft from interstate shipment) if the act indictable under section 659 is felonious, section 664 (relating to embezzlement from pension and welfare funds), sections 891894 (relating to extortionate credit transactions), section 1028 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents), section 1029 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with access devices), section 1084 (relating to the transmission of gambling information), section 1341 (relating to mail fraud), section 1343 (relating to wire fraud), section 1344 (relating to financial institution fraud), section 1425 (relating to the procurement of citizenship or nationalization unlawfully), section 1426 (relating to the reproduction of naturalization or citizenship papers), section 1427 (relating to the sale of naturalization or citizenship papers), sections 14611465 (relating to obscene matter), section 1503 (relating to obstruction of justice), section 1510 (relating to obstruction of criminal investigations), section 1511 (relating to the obstruction of State or local law enforcement), section 1512 (relating to tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1513 (relating to retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1542 (relating to false statement in application and use of passport), section 1543 (relating to forgery or false use of passport), section 1544 (relating to misuse of passport), section 1546 (relating to fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents), sections 15811592 (relating to peonage, slavery, and trafficking in persons).,^[1] section 1951 (relating to interference with commerce, robbery, or extortion), section 1952 (relating to racketeering), section 1953 (relating to interstate transportation of wagering paraphernalia), section 1954 (relating to unlawful welfare fund payments), section 1955 (relating to the prohibition of illegal gambling businesses), section 1956 (relating to the laundering of monetary instruments), section 1957 (relating to engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity), section 1958 (relating to use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire), section 1960 (relating to illegal money transmitters), sections 2251, 2251A, 2252, and 2260 (relating to sexual exploitation of children), sections 2312 and 2313 (relating to interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles), sections 2314 and 2315 (relating to interstate transportation of stolen property), section 2318 (relating to trafficking in counterfeit labels for phonorecords, computer programs or computer program documentation or packaging and copies of motion pictures or other audiovisual works), section 2319 (relating to criminal infringement of a copyright), section 2319A (relating to unauthorized fixation of and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos of live musical performances), section 2320 (relating to trafficking in goods or services bearing counterfeit marks), section 2321 (relating to trafficking in certain motor vehicles or motor vehicle parts), sections 23412346 (relating to trafficking in contraband cigarettes), sections 242124 (relating to white slave traffic), sections 175178 (relating to biological weapons), sections 229229F (relating to chemical weapons), section 831 (relating to nuclear materials), (C) any act which is indictable under title 29, United States Code, section 186 (dealing with restrictions on payments and loans to labor organizations) or section 501 (c) (relating to embezzlement from union funds), (D) any offense involving fraud connected with a case under title 11 (except a case under section 157 of this title), fraud in the sale of securities, or the felonious manufacture, importation, receiving, concealment, buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), punishable under any law of the United States, (E) any act which is indictable under the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act, (F) any act which is indictable under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 274 (relating to bringing in and harboring certain aliens), section 277 (relating to aiding or assisting certain aliens to enter the United States), or section 278 (relating to importation of alien for immoral purpose) if the act indictable under such section of such Act was committed for the purpose of financial gain, or (G) any act that is indictable under any provision listed in section 2332b (g)(5)(B);

(2) State means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or possession of the United States, any political subdivision, or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof;

(3) person includes any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property;

(4) enterprise includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity;

(5) pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years (excluding any period of imprisonment) after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity;

(6) unlawful debt means a debt

(A) incurred or contracted in gambling activity which was in violation of the law of the United States, a State or political subdivision thereof, or which is unenforceable under State or Federal law in whole or in part as to principal or interest because of the laws relating to usury, and

(B) which was incurred in connection with the business of gambling in violation of the law of the United States, a State or political subdivision thereof, or the business of lending money or a thing of value at a rate usurious under State or Federal law, where the usurious rate is at least twice the enforceable rate;

(7) racketeering investigator means any attorney or investigator so designated by the Attorney General and charged with the duty of enforcing or carrying into effect this chapter;

(8) racketeering investigation means any inquiry conducted by any racketeering investigator for the purpose of ascertaining whether any person has been involved in any violation of this chapter or of any final order, judgment, or decree of any court of the United States, duly entered in any case or proceeding arising under this chapter;

(9) documentary material includes any book, paper, document, record, recording, or other material; and

(10) Attorney General includes the Attorney General of the United States, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, the Associate Attorney General of the United States, any Assistant Attorney General of the United States, or any employee of the Department of Justice or any employee of any department or agency of the United States so designated by the Attorney General to carry out the powers conferred on the Attorney General by this chapter. Any department or agency so designated may use in investigations authorized by this chapter either the investigative provisions of this chapter or the investigative power of such department or agency otherwise conferred by law.

§ 1962. Prohibited activities

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt in which such person has participated as a principal within the meaning of section 2, title 18, United States Code, to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce. A purchase of securities on the open market for purposes of investment, and without the intention of controlling or participating in the control of the issuer, or of assisting another to do so, shall not be unlawful under this subsection if the securities of the issuer held by the purchaser, the members of his immediate family, and his or their accomplices in any pattern or racketeering activity or the collection of an unlawful debt after such purchase do not amount in the aggregate to one percent of the outstanding securities of any one class, and do not confer, either in law or in fact, the power to elect one or more directors of the issuer.

(b) It shall be unlawful for any person through a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.

(c) It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprises affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.

(d) It shall be unlawful for any person to conspire to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section.

 

if you thought the New York case was clear as mud, welcome to RICO

There is no SOL issue here. There is a smorgasbord of crimes that they can use against you to obtain a RICO conviction.  Too many, really.  Not a fan of the law, but I am terrified by it as the evidence needed to get you indicted ain’t much when compared to other crimes. 

Compare, Ga. Code Section 16-14-4

Prohibited activities

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person, through a pattern of racketeering activity or proceeds derived therefrom, to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise, real property, or personal property of any nature, including money.

(b) It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise to conduct or participate in, directly or indirectly, such enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity.

(c) It shall be unlawful for any person to conspire or endeavor to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a) or (b) of this Code section.

A person violates this subsection when:

(1) He or she together with one or more persons conspires to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a) or (b) of this Code section and any one or more of such persons commits any overt act to effect the object of the conspiracy; or

(2) He or she endeavors to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a) or (b) of this Code section and commits any overt act to effect the object of the endeavor.

There's a lot of loaded words in there, so I'll just link the definitions section. https://casetext.com/statute/code-of-georgia/title-16-crimes-and-offenses/chapter-14-racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations/section-16-14-3-definitions  Note that many are drawn from the federal statute above, directly.

Edited April 10, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Pato del Muerto 52446]

[Gil Bang 25906]

54 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, as someone who has been a long time Trump hater and also a long time Hillary disliker (I seriously questioned whether my dislike of either of them was irrational, questioned whether I should vote at all, and wound up going for the downballot and voting for Gary Johnson, yes I am one of those), I was fairly stunned when he won.

At that point, I thought and I think maybe a lot of people thought that he might stop being a complete blowhard asshole, get serious and maybe do OK as President.  And I thought (and still do) that some of the early criticism of him was fairly irrational (I think it matters because getting all breathless about fairly trivial shit set the stage nicely for his witch hunt refrain).  Going back to Perot, I confess to being intrigued by non-politician Presidents, but both of them wound up being pretty total assholes.  Trump much worse than Perot, and, of course, actually elected.

But, no, after about six months, I was convinced that he was a much bigger asshole than I had thought he was for the last 20 someodd years and also much dumber than I thought.

please allow me to  indulge in a retroactive "fuck you, you fucking asshole".  You voted for a guy that never heard of Aleppo, because of your irrational hatred of Hillary.

[BamaATL 16592]

4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I thought perhaps it was basically a bit.  I even understood well how his rejection by polite Manhattan society drove him.  I did not understand how fundamentally stupid he was.  I thought maybe that was my bias at work.  HOWEVER, I didn't watch him debate or campaign, which probably would have revealed to me that he was as bad as I thought and worse.

He's really a glowing example of how you give a personality-disordered moron a lot of money and they can be "successful."

He was always a dimwit, a 2 bit huckster whose father funneled nearly a billion dollars to, who in turn didn't ever come close to even beating inflation; in fact, he continually lost it all.  I get the appeal of an outsider for political purposes, but why on earth anyone ever thought this guy is beyond me.  He's low rent, with no integrity, and he's never shown to be anything else in his entire life.  Every power player in the finance world had run away from him for near 30 years, yet he markets himself as a business genius.  He's wealthy (only from inheritance and theft) trash.   

If I've learned much in the is world, one thing I know for sure is this, people that actually are doing well financially don't run around yelling it at everyone.  They also don't brag about something as stupid as having a gold plated toilet, because at the end of the day, it's a fucking toilet.  The toilet is thing I can never get over, he legitimately thinks that buying something like that equates class, and that somehow he bought class.  He didn't, his gaudiness has always showed that he has no class, and that mere concept to him is completely foreign.  Money is important as a means to survival and even ability to live as you please, but it's never been the be all of the world, and it's in no way indicative of truth worth as a human.  At the end of the day, money or no money, he's worthless; an empty blow hard in a suit with zero class, dignity, or redeeming qualities to humanity as a whole.  He isn't an embarrassment to just Republicans, or the office of the President of the United States, or even to all Americans; rather he's an embarrassment to all of humanity.  

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

During the early days of Trump's first term, I was called to DC for a family event, and at the time, one of my sisters was a concierge at the Four Seasons. She told me that she worked with a lot of Nigerians, who sarcastically thought it was hilarious that we had elected an African dictator. A couple of days after that I was in an Uber, driven by a Cameroonian, and I was kind of drunk, and apologizing to him for how we had made this terrible mistake as a nation. how we had duplicated what he had fled from, and I assured him that the US By God American justice system would prevail and we would have him impeached and thrown out of the White House and no time at all. He just laughed and said “the only way that man is going to leave that house forever is with a bullet in his head.” Linked is maybe Trevor Noah’s finest moment in a career of few.

 

 

[Horn Dog 9744]

51 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I confess to having been blind to plenty of shit over the years, some of it embarrassingly so.
But I remain baffled how smart people didn’t see EXACTLY what Trump was well before he won the nomination. He is and always has been a low IQ malignant narcissist. Imagine what a low IQ malignant narcissist would do if he became president. That’s exactly what Trump was, and exactly what he did. The horrible thing is actually how EASY it was to predict. He is a simple, dim, pathetic little man. There is no complexity, nuance, or unpredictability. He was never, ever going to find a more “measured and mature” path, because he has always been completely incapable of such a thing.
I cannot put into words how much I hate him, and how much I hope that he is dropping dead of a massive coronary as I type these very words

Anyone who was alive in the 80s/90s who now declares astonishment that Trump is a narcissist moron is either a moron  or purposely blind. I remember being in low high school in the late 80s/early nineties and running into a classmate who was reading Art of the Deal and everyone hazed him relentlessly cause as kids we know Trump, in his absolute prime, was a narcissist moron.  

[TwiceHorn 31398]

15 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

please allow me to  indulge in a retroactive "fuck you, you fucking asshole".  You voted for a guy that never heard of Aleppo, because of your irrational hatred of Hillary.

At least I didn't vote for Trump.  I came so close to sitting that one out entirely and voted for Johnson on a whim.

Edited April 10, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[mchookem 16299]

[Beau Vine 54149]

[closetohumping 17425]

[atomheartbevo 89572]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

He's really a glowing example of how you give a personality-disordered moron a lot of money and they can be "successful."

[Hermanator 7021]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

At least I didn't vote for Trump.  I came so close to sitting that one out entirely and voted for Johnson on a whim.

Just curious but what was so bad about Hillary? I've heard that a ton of times but have yet to hear anyone give a concrete example of policy issues or anything related to her time as a NY Senator that was so bad it justified not deciding to run to the polls to vote for her as soon as Trump became her opponent. 

 

[atomheartbevo 89572]

4 minutes ago, Hermanator said:

Just curious but what was so bad about Hillary? I've heard that a ton of times but have yet to hear anyone give a concrete example of policy issues or anything related to her time as a NY Senator that was so bad it justified not deciding to run to the polls to vote for her as soon as Trump became her opponent. 

It’s been talked to death here and on Shaggy, but a lot of us who were of age in the 90s developed an image of her and Bill that was….complicated, and not just because of law firm records turning up out of nowhere or capping ex-lovers in a park and making it look like suicide .  

Those were such innocent times compared to Trump.

[Biff Tannen 45638]

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I cannot put into words how much I hate him, and how much I hope that he is dropping dead of a massive coronary as I type these very words

This is how I felt in 2016.  In the years since, I have realized it's his followers that make me feel this way.  He is the outcome.  The horrid, awful, worst people of this country, who I never realized existed before now, are the outcome.  Fuck them all.  None of us have time to try and bring them into the light.

[Sawbonz 27490]

Trump won Texas by 9 points. If every GJ voter had gone to HRC he wins by 6 

[WhatTheBuck 28754]

36 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

It’s been talked to death here and on Shaggy, but a lot of us who were of age in the 90s developed an image of her and Bill that was….complicated, and not just because of law firm records turning up out of nowhere or capping ex-lovers in a park and making it look like suicide .  

Those were such innocent times compared to Trump.

You didn’t really buy into the bullshit about the Clintons having anyone killed, did you?

[TwiceHorn 31398]

24 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You didn’t really buy into the bullshit about the Clintons having anyone killed, did you?

I certainly did not.  What it boiled down to me for Hillary is that she rode Bill's coattails to power.  Not the first to have done that, certainly not the last, but I was unconvinced that she was prepared to run the country.  And her campaign did nothing to convince me otherwise.  I figured she'd win handily, so my vote was just symbolic, or so I thought.

I had a lot of the same feelings about Kamala Harris, very expedient and power-hungry not leading to competence.  That seems to have been a reasonably accurate assessment.

I'm sure this will draw some accusations of misogyny, and maybe at some level true.  I really liked Liz Warren, though, despite seeing her political flaws.

Edited April 10, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[atomheartbevo 89572]

24 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You didn’t really buy into the bullshit about the Clintons having anyone killed, did you?

 Even though they were from Arkansas, no, but it was entertaining to imagine Hillary killing off lovers in bizarre ways.  And if she could kill people off and keep it covered up, that’s who you want negotiating with foreign leaders.

[Mole 4321]

Bill’s relationship with Monica was by modern definition non-consensual. He also lied about it to cover it up. Take partisan politics out of it and pretend he was the CEO of the world’s largest bomb distributor. We all would agree that an ethical bomb distributor would fire him immediately or we should shop elsewhere.

If two decades later, they named his wife their new CEO and named him national spokesman, we’d all laugh at how terrible this company is.

Even if Hillary was perfectly ethical and honest, the Bill Clinton stench still looms pretty large. It’s probably not fair to her and she was 100% right about Trump, but such is life and we get the worst kind of leader.

[Hermanator 7021]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

I certainly did not.  What it boiled down to me for Hillary is that she rode Bill's coattails to power.  Not the first to have done that, certainly not the last, but I was unconvinced that she was prepared to run the country.  And her campaign did nothing to convince me otherwise.  I figured she'd win handily, so my vote was just symbolic, or so I thought.

I had a lot of the same feelings about Kamala Harris, very expedient and power-hungry not leading to competence.  That seems to have been a reasonably accurate assessment.

I'm sure this will draw some accusations of misogyny, and maybe at some level true.  I really liked Liz Warren, though, despite seeing her political flaws.

Spending a couple of terms as a NY Senator after being first lady was worse preparation for being president than being a life long public shit head who managed to bankrupt casinos in Atlantic City? Who wasn't born on 3rd base but was born with his daddy having hit a home run for him yet managed to trip and break his leg rounding the bases?

See none of this makes any sense, and otherwise intelligent and rational people believed this. I think this just goes back to the power of propaganda. The GOP in Texas has been putting out such garbage for so long that you just started believing it without realizing what you were believing. It "trumped" all manner of rational thought on the subject. 

The funny thing is if you line up the last 40 years of presidents: Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, and Trump i think it's almost impossible to argue that Reagan, Bush 2, and Trump did the most damage to Americans and Clinton and Obama did the least. Yet in the year 2016 you still believed republicans were preferential even with 36 years of evidence to the contrary. It took someone so corrupt he attempted to overthrow the government and become dictator to wake some people up. And millions more will never wake up. 

 

[DigglerontheHoof 21133]

JFC, there's a Hillary thread around here somewhere... fucking use it. 

[Lurch 5922]

We also have a Trump thread…

[TwiceHorn 31398]

5 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Spending a couple of terms as a NY Senator after being first lady was worse preparation for being president than being a life long public shit head who managed to bankrupt casinos in Atlantic City? Who wasn't born on 3rd base but was born with his daddy having hit a home run for him yet managed to trip and break his leg rounding the bases?

See none of this makes any sense, and otherwise intelligent and rational people believed this. I think this just goes back to the power of propaganda. The GOP in Texas has been putting out such garbage for so long that you just started believing it without realizing what you were believing. It "trumped" all manner of rational thought on the subject. 

The funny thing is if you line up the last 40 years of presidents: Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, and Trump i think it's almost impossible to argue that Reagan, Bush 2, and Trump did the most damage to Americans and Clinton and Obama did the least. Yet in the year 2016 you still believed republicans were preferential even with 36 years of evidence to the contrary. It took someone so corrupt he attempted to overthrow the government and become dictator to wake some people up. And millions more will never wake up. 

 

I wasn't comparing her to Trump.  I was still nominally an R at that point, vacillating between cynical ennui and trying to do my citizen's duty.  It was whether I thought I could vote for either.   As I stated, when I went to the polls, I intended to abstain on President, but checked the Gary Johnson box on a whim, kind of chuckling at voting Libertarian.

Edited April 10, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Biff Tannen 45638]

1 hour ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

JFC, there's a Hillary thread around here somewhere... fucking use it. 

I weep for the future. 

[atomheartbevo 89572]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

but checked the Gary Johnson box on a whim, kind of chuckling at voting Libertarian.

As a former (L) this is what every Libertarian voter goes through at the ballot box.

Going back to Trump, wonder what news he's heard about indictments because he's pounding the WWIII drum on truth.social

this morning:

The way the U.S. is going, we will soon be in World War lll, with NO AMMUNITION!

--------------------------

This was 35 minutes ago:

Slovenly and pathetic Bill Barr, our COWARD former A.G., was on ABC FAKE NEWS this weekend making statements that he knows nothing about (he was long since gone from the White House, I wanted him out!) concerning the BOXES HOAX, a continuation of RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, the Mueller Witch Hunt, & more. While he correctly puts down the N.Y.D.A. case, he plays up the equally ridiculous BOXES HOAX, where Biden should have the problem, not me. Barr is a weak & angry RINO!

------------------

This was from last night:

Just like New York, the Racist District Attorney in Atlanta, who presides over one of the most deadly and violent jurisdictions in the U.S. (and does nothing about it!), is having an impossible time showing that my “PERFECT” phone call was bad, when none of the many lawyers on the call interjected that I was saying something wrong or improper - Not even a word of admonishment. They never hung up or said “how dare you.” That’s because, as everyone knows, there was nothing wrong with the call!

and:

The BOXES HOAX, WHERE I DID NOTHING WRONG, BUT BIDEN DID, IS JUST ANOTHER WAY FOR THE DEMOCRATS TO CHEAT ON ELECTIONS THROUGH, IN THIS CASE, ELECTION INTERFERENCE. I AM COVERED BY THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT AND, UNLIKE BIDEN WHO WAS NOT PRESIDENT, HAVE THE POWER TO DECLASSIFY. MY PEOPLE ARE BEING THREATENED AND HARASSED BY A THUG PROSECUTOR WHO WAS PUT IN BY BIDEN TRUMP HATERS. OUR LEGAL SYSTEM IS CORRUPT, AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE USING IT TO RIGG THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. WAY UP IN POLLS!

------

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the reports that 20 of his buddies are being investigated/contacted/etc. involving RICO stuff is probably true.  Those are some serious meltdowns over his perfect phone call, and he's pissed at the DA in Atlanta more than he usually is.

Edited April 10, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89572]

Also, when he says "MY PEOPLE ARE BEING THREATENED AND HARASSED BY A THUG PROSECUTOR WHO WAS PUT IN BY BIDEN TRUMP HATERS.", I wonder if "MY PEOPLE" means the Secret Service agents, etc., being interviewed about the access to the documents that was mentioned a few pages back, because that's obviously the DOJ stuff and not the Atlanta stuff.

[Mdhorn 5943]

19 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

It has been decades since I successfully tried a civil RICO case, but I have to say that the enterprise theory and predicate acts seem very provable in this case.  An Enterprise theory is the element where you show how people /entities are trying to take over other legitimate entities - think organized crime infiltrating labor unions.  
A predicate act in assistance would be any interstate email, phone call or snail mail.  For example, if you are rounding up supporters like Miss Lady Bug to threaten and hound politicians in Georgia - assisting Trump in finding him a set number of votes so he could be declared the winner - if interstate phone calls or emails are involved (and we know they were) it seems to me they have a plausible case.
A hell of a lot can happen in the law in decades, and so I have no idea whether it is harder now to prove a RICO conviction, but it used to be that any act in furtherance of the enterprise would subject someone to criminal liability as a co-conspirator. For example, calling up Georgia election officials and lying about the my pillow stolen election bullshit and why they should not certify the election, if they were also communicating with Trump and his organization in that effort, could be enough to get any number of those chuckleheads indicted as co-conspirators for making interstate calls or emails. 
Granted, this is criminal RICO, which I never did, as opposed to civil RICO. But back in the day if you had a decent enterprise theory of how the bad guys were trying to take over the good guy’s organization, finding predicate acts was never a problem.  Given the number of phone calls and emails involved in the Georgia post election strong arming, the cast of characters to be indicted could be very, very interesting.

And won't this case set some kind of precedence?  Either way, something will be learned and gained from it.  Whose gain and knowledge is on the line for future acts.  

[YGIFS 19449]

Quit trying to make ‘Boxes Hoax’ happen, Gretchen.  It’s not going to happen.  

[RomaVicta 29864]

I admire Twice Horn's honesty. I also get the retroactive fuck you, and I can't say I didn't smile when I read it. 

I gave Trump a bit of a chance when he won. Right off the bat you have:

• The Russia conference at Trump Tower.
• Kushner setting up back channels to Russia that will get around White House communications.
• General Flynn, top security advisor, has ties to Ukraine/Russia.
• The insane lie about the inauguration crowd.
• His early press conferences where he reveals emphasizes his contempt for and determination to discredit the American press.
• He gives his immediate family important White House positions.

That's just off the top of my head. All of it early on. I was stunned he got the nomination, I was horrified that he got enough votes to win, but I still tried to hope for the best. 

I'm glad you've shaken off the residual GOP virus. A lot of smart people had to take the medicine and shiver their way through withdrawal to see that what they thought the GOP was about was illusory.

This vile man needs the humiliation of felony conviction and jail. He appears to be physically deteriorating right before our eyes. I don't want him to die of natural causes in his bed at home before he faces justice. But I have little say in those matters.

 

[Bullneck 19068]

11 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Just curious but what was so bad about Hillary? I've heard that a ton of times but have yet to hear anyone give a concrete example of policy issues or anything related to her time as a NY Senator that was so bad it justified not deciding to run to the polls to vote for her as soon as Trump became her opponent. 

 

Same here. 

I don't think her messaging was very good as to why exactly she wanted to be president but people let a visceral dislike for her rule their brains (Pelosi has had the same issue).  

If you want to be depressed just think about how different things would have been. 

[jimmyjazz 45797]

If you actually study Hillary Clinton's background, the concept of her "riding Bill's coattails" to success is laughable.

[SaucyJack 3487]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Also, when he says "MY PEOPLE ARE BEING THREATENED AND HARASSED BY A THUG PROSECUTOR WHO WAS PUT IN BY BIDEN TRUMP HATERS.", I wonder if "MY PEOPLE" means the Secret Service agents, etc., being interviewed about the access to the documents that was mentioned a few pages back, because that's obviously the DOJ stuff and not the Atlanta stuff.

My People = Me, Myself, I

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

If you actually study Hillary Clinton's background, the concept of her "riding Bill's coattails" to success is laughable.

As a former sufferer of Hillary Derangement Syndrome myself, this is correct.  A whole bunch of us let 30 years of propaganda, which really got started because she had the audacity to sit on a committee to try to reform healthcare, taint our impression of her.  Thanks Rush/Fox/et al.

[Longhornfan1024 1707]

8 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

Same here. 

I don't think her messaging was very good as to why exactly she wanted to be president but people let a visceral dislike for her rule their brains (Pelosi has had the same issue).  

If you want to be depressed just think about how different things would have been. 

It's called sexism.  Our country still has so much sexism that enough voters thought they'd rather have Donald Trump as President than a woman.  

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

1 minute ago, Longhornfan1024 said:

Our country still has so much sexism that enough voters thought they'd rather have Donald Trump as President than a woman.  

Or a black guy