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

[Kennythetiger 9584]

Hasn’t the Texas Attorney General been under indictment for several years?  Even winning reelection?  

[C-Man 27684]

I only drink some of the milkshake.
Seriously tho, ever since I did a factory reset on my phone, auto-fill is nuts. My 6 month old phone is not doing what I want it to do in brand new ways. It's an innovator. I'm one-thumbing it thru a post and the phone is just furiously trying to guess what I wanna type like some coked-up contestant on Name That Tune ignoring the repeated buzzers while it fires off a torrent of song titles, half-titles, emojis, gifs... while my Unfrozen Caveman ass keeps plodding along with the keyboard freezing and auto-shifting.

Sounds like one of Fake Tiger’s “My dad Earrrrrrrl” rants on The Ticket.

“He says hi.”

[Bookman 4754]

It will be easy to get rid of MAGAts in voir dire. One question:

Do you think Barack Obama is a Muslim?

 

 

[cactusflinthead 27626]

32 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

Hasn’t the Texas Attorney General been under indictment for several years?  Even winning reelection?  

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by cactusflinthead

[Pato del Muerto 53325]

I forget and don’t want to search:  was it Florida where their lege passed or is trying to pass legislation allowing them to remove elected people (maybe specifically DAs) for refusing to follow the law?  And now desantis is refusing to follow the law?

that might be Georgia, to deal with the trump phone call mess by removing for actually doing their job. 

[Horn Dog 10156]

9 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You don’t get to grift off of this! Only we get to grift off of this! 

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/31/trump-plans-to-turn-himself-in-00090037

 

I would make a Trading Places $1 type bet that with minimal effort, we could gey a decent number of Georgia and Bama fans to contribute to Surly Burnt Ends NIL by convincing them that Smart and Saban are backed by Soros. 

[YGIFS 19456]

I'll give Commander Dipshit credit.  He bankrupted a "dealer must hit soft 17" casino.  TWICE.  Fucked up water, wine, red meat, vodka, three marriages, five children's mental health, multiple elections, and a New York real estate empire.  

But he's about to monetize the fuck outta being arrested.  He's gonna make more money going to jail than all of us not doing to jail combined.  Hat's off...

[Born to Run 6598]

What comes to my mind is "Up shit creek", with oars instead of paddles.

Ween sang about this. "Up shit creek with some turds on the paddles."

[TwiceHorn 31982]

20 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I forget and don’t want to search:  was it Florida where their lege passed or is trying to pass legislation allowing them to remove elected people (maybe specifically DAs) for refusing to follow the law?  And now desantis is refusing to follow the law?

that might be Georgia, to deal with the trump phone call mess by removing for actually doing their job. 

Georgia. Started pre-trump-grand jury with the idea of getting rid of "progressive prosecutors" more generally, but haa been amended toward getting Fani Willis.  In some states with a robust separation of powers doctrine, may be unconstitutional. 

[jimmyjazz 46958]

Aren't there only so many potential jurors the prosecution can pass on during voir dire?  I guess the venue, if it's indeed Manhattan NYC, might allow a fairly MAGA-free jury, but 100%?  Color me skeptical.

[Beau Vine 55806]

11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Aren't there only so many potential jurors the prosecution can pass on during voir dire? 

IANAL, but it sounds like you are talking about peremptory challenges, which have never failed to get me tossed from a jury pool.

[Horn Dog 10156]

31 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I forget and don’t want to search:  was it Florida where their lege passed or is trying to pass legislation allowing them to remove elected people (maybe specifically DAs) for refusing to follow the law?  And now desantis is refusing to follow the law?

that might be Georgia, to deal with the trump phone call mess by removing for actually doing their job. 

Desantis also removed a prosecutor for not prosecuting certain laws broken by certain people (which is exactly what they are expecting the NY prosecutor to do)

Inside Ron DeSantis’s Politicized Removal of an Elected Prosecutor

Spoiler

When Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced last summer that he had taken the extraordinary step of removing a local prosecutor from his job, he cast his decision as a bold move to protect Floridians.

The prosecutor, Andrew H. Warren, a twice-elected state attorney for Hillsborough County and a Democrat, had signed a public pledge not to prosecute those who seek or provide abortions. Moreover, he was among a group of progressive prosecutors around the country who, in Mr. DeSantis’s words, think “they get to pick and choose which laws that they are enforcing,” the governor told reporters and handpicked supporters at a news conference.

Those left-leaning prosecutors, he said, had “undermined public safety” and been “devastating to the rule of law.”

Left unsaid, however, was that Mr. DeSantis and his advisers had failed to find a connection between Mr. Warren’s policies and public safety in his community.
 

In fact, just the day before, writing in blue pen on a draft of an executive order, the governor had personally removed any mention of crime statistics justifying Mr. Warren’s suspension, after Mr. DeSantis’s lawyers lamented that they could find nothing in them to support the idea that Mr. Warren’s policies had done harm, according to internal documents and testimony.

As he travels the country promoting a new book and his expected presidential campaign, Mr. DeSantis repeatedly points to his ouster of Mr. Warren as an example of the muscular and decisive way he has transformed Florida — and could transform the nation. He casts Mr. Warren as a rogue ideologue whose refusal to enforce the law demanded action.

But a close examination of the episode, including interviews, emails, text messages and thousands of pages of government records, trial testimony, depositions and other court records, reveals a sharply different picture: a governor’s office that seemed driven by a preconceived political narrative, bent on a predetermined outcome, content with a flimsy investigation and focused on maximizing media attention for Mr. DeSantis.

Two weeks after his removal, Mr. Warren sued the governor in federal court seeking his reinstatement. The lawsuit, which Mr. Warren appealedafter it was dismissed in January, produced a significant quantity of discovery, which The New York Times reviewed in detail.

Months before suspending Mr. Warren, Mr. DeSantis had ordered his staff to find progressive prosecutors who were letting criminals walk free. Under oath, his aides later acknowledged that they had deliberately avoided investigating Mr. Warren too closely, so that they would not tip him off and prompt him to reverse his policies — thwarting the goal of making an example of him. When contrary information did materialize, Mr. DeSantis and his lawyers dismissed or ignored it, the records show.

Only after Mr. Warren was removed did the governor’s aides seek records from Mr. Warren’s office that might help justify Mr. DeSantis’s action.

If the investigation into Mr. Warren was cursory at best, the preparation to remove him while simultaneously publicizing that ouster involved greater planning. And those plans were executed with military precision. The governor’s aides gave special attention to news outlets they referred to as “friendly.” Immediately after the news conference, DeSantis aides exerted influence over communications at the state attorney’s office, an independent county agency, working to ensure that the takeover did not result in negative coverage.

And that night, the governor headlined Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to promote his move. Mr. Carlson opened with a 12-minute speech about prosecutors who disregard the law, then turned to an exclusive interview with the governor.

“Ron DeSantis is the man who put an end to it today in the state of Florida,” Mr. Carlson said.

Although Mr. DeSantis’s move was cheered in the conservative news media as a victory in his war on “wokeness,” a federal judge ruled in January that the governor had violated Mr. Warren’s First Amendment rights and the Florida Constitution in a rush to judgment. “The actual facts,” Judge Robert L. Hinkle wrote, “did not matter. All that was needed was a pretext.” Mr. DeSantis’s office, the judge said from the bench, had conducted a “one-sided inquiry” meant to target Mr. Warren. (The judge said he did not have the authority to reinstate Mr. Warren, who is appealing in state and federal court.)

Mr. Warren, in an interview, said he believed Mr. DeSantis had disregarded the will of the voters in his county for political gain.
 

“He’s willing to abuse his power to attack his political enemies,” Mr. Warren said.

Mr. DeSantis, who declined to be interviewed, insists in his new book, “The Courage to Be Free,” that his action was justified by Mr. Warren’s public statements. He argues that prosecutors who want “to ‘reform’ the criminal justice system” should quit and run for the Legislature.

In response to written questions, a spokesman for the governor referred to public statements and the trial record, adding, “Mr. Warren remains suspended from the office he failed to serve.”

In recent weeks, Mr. DeSantis has indicated that he intends to target other prosecutors with whom he disagrees, lashing out at another Democratic state attorney.

Earlier this month, he told donors at a private gathering in Palm Beach that because he’d won only 50 percent of the vote in his 2018 election, people had told him to tread lightly.

“But I won 100 percent of the executive power,” he said, “and I intended to use it to advance an agenda that I campaigned on.”

 

 

‘All roads led to Mr. Warren’

Midway through a meeting with his closest advisers in December 2021, Mr. DeSantis abruptly asked a pointed question: Did they know of any prosecutors in the state who weren’t enforcing the law?

The topic was not on the meeting’s agenda, but it hardly came out of the blue.

Right-wing pundits and podcasters had for years railed against local prosecutors elected on platforms promising alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent crimes or avoiding the death penalty. The critics painted those prosecutors as agents of George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor, and as giving rise to a scourge of crime. One such prosecutor at the time, Chesa Boudin, was facing a recall electionin San Francisco.

A top DeSantis aide, Larry Keefe, set out to answer the governor’s question. A former United States attorney, Mr. Keefe’s title is public safety czar. But he has served in a broad role for the governor, executing high-profile projects including helping to coordinate the flight of scores of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in September.

Mr. Keefe began by asking Florida sheriffs whether they knew of any progressive prosecutors. Several mentioned the state attorney from Hillsborough County. Communicating over encrypted text messages and personal email, Mr. Keefe assembled a dossier on Mr. Warren’s policies and charging decisions.

Mr. Warren was the only prosecutor he scrutinized, Mr. Keefe said later in a deposition: “All roads led to Mr. Warren.”

A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Warren, 46, was elected in 2016 promising to create a new unit to search for wrongful convictions, focus resources on prosecuting violent offenders, reduce prosecutions for first-time misdemeanors and curb the number of children charged as adults.
 

After Mr. DeSantis took office in 2019, Mr. Warren became a frequent critic. When the governor barred local governments from enacting their own Covid restrictions, Mr. Warren called the order “weak and spineless.” In 2021, he sought to organize opposition to a DeSantis-backed law that restricted political protests. In January 2022, Mr. Warren instituted a policy that made prosecutions of pedestrians and bicyclists for resisting arrest an exception rather than the rule, responding to studies that show the charge disproportionately affected Black people.

Florida’s Constitution allows governors to suspend local office holders for reasons including “malfeasance” or “neglect of duty” until the Legislature votes on whether to permanently remove or reinstate them. Mr. DeSantis was the first Florida governor in many decades known to have suspended an elected prosecutor over a policy difference.

By contrast, his predecessor, Rick Scott, publicly clashed with a prosecutor who refused to seek capital punishment and took death penalty cases away from her, but he did not force her from office.

For months, Mr. Keefe’s dossier on Mr. Warren failed to cross the threshold to take action against him, Mr. DeSantis’s lawyers later testified. Then, in June, after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion, an advocacy group released a statement signed by Mr. Warren and 91 other prosecutors around the country.

In it, they vowed to “exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide or support abortions.”

Whether the pledge would have any practical impact in Hillsborough County was unclear. Criminal cases of any kind involving abortion had been exceptionally rare in Florida. A new law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy was being appealed
 

 

Mr. Warren told a TV reporter that the statement should not be read as a blanket policy: He would individually evaluate any cases that emerged. The governor’s aides saw the TV report and disregarded it, according to court records.

Ryan Newman, the governor’s general counsel, and Ray Treadwell, Mr. Newman’s deputy, testified that the pledge was the evidence they needed. Mr. Warren had said he would not enforce abortion laws, and could therefore be considered negligent and incompetent.

The lawyers discussed asking Mr. Warren to clarify whether his pledge would apply to existing abortion restrictions. But they decided not to, one later testified, because they worried that this would have “tipped him off” and given Mr. Warren a chance to walk it back, short-circuiting their effort to remove him.

Records obtained through litigation show that Mr. Keefe and the lawyers began drafting the executive order suspending Mr. Warren.

The tone of an early draft, written by Mr. Keefe in July, was highly partisan. The document named Mr. Soros six times, pointing to reports that Mr. Warren had received indirect support for his campaign from the billionaire Jewish philanthropist, a frequent target of conservatives and of antisemitic tropes.

(In a deposition, Mr. Keefe said he had not known that Mr. Soros was Jewish, but said he was “concerned” that “one of Florida’s state attorneys had been co-opted” by the philanthropist.)

In another draft, Mr. Treadwell highlighted a passage referring to Mr. Soros and wrote, “I would prefer to remove these allegations, but they may be valuable for the larger political narrative.”

The signed executive order included no references to Mr. Soros.

Editing out the data

On July 26, Mr. Newman, Mr. Keefe and James Uthmeier, the governor’s chief of staff, met with Mr. DeSantis to present their plan, according to sworn deposition testimony.

The governor was initially skeptical, transcripts show. He questioned whether Mr. Warren could be removed based on his signed pledge alone, lacking evidence that he had declined to prosecute an abortion-related crime.

Mr. Newman argued that Mr. DeSantis should act while Mr. Warren’s refusal to prosecute was still hypothetical: It could be both impractical and unwise to wait to challenge Mr. Warren over a specific decision, Mr. Newman explained under oath at trial.

Mr. DeSantis was persuaded. He asked for additional information about Mr. Warren’s record but gave a green light to charge ahead.

Still, the governor seemed reluctant to hang Mr. Warren’s removal narrowly on the abortion pledge.

In handwritten instructions on a draft of the executive order, he told his lawyers to list “non-abortion infractions first,” including language accusing the prosecutor of “acting as if he is a law unto himself.”

Mr. DeSantis also crossed out three paragraphs packed with statistics about prosecution rates in Hillsborough County. Aides had dug up the data in hopes of showing a declining rate of prosecution during Mr. Warren’s tenure, but the numbers weren’t clear.

“You can kind of tell we didn’t have any definitive proof of a correlation,” Mr. Treadwell later testified.

In December, during a three-day trial over Mr. Warren’s removal, Judge Hinkle, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, said the evidence suggested that the goal of the governor’s review of Mr. Warren’s record was really “to amass information that could help bring down Mr. Warren, not to find out how Mr. Warren actually runs the office.”

“A cynic would say, ‘I just needed one pelt — just needed to nail one pelt to the wall,’” the judge added.

Mixed signals in the messaging

The day before he was suspended, Mr. Warren and his staff were putting the finishing touches on a major announcement set for the next day: indictments in two decades-old rape and murder cases.

Aides to Mr. DeSantis were planning a starkly different event, the legal records show.

Mr. Keefe was sending over talking points for Susan Lopez, a state judge who had agreed to replace Mr. Warren.

“Love it!” Ms. Lopez texted Mr. Keefe. “Sounds like me!”

Christina Pushaw, the governor’s spokeswoman at the time, teased the coming news on Twitter: “Major announcement tomorrow morning” from Mr. DeSantis, she wrote. “Prepare for liberal media meltdown of the year.” Her tweet alone generated headlines by Fox Newsand other conservative news outlets.

But Mr. DeSantis wanted to avoid the appearance that his ouster of Mr. Warren was an overtly partisan act.

 

[Underdog 29095]

2 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Ummm, this should get a person disbarred, shouldn't it?

Censored at least, oh wait... 

[Red Five 41590]

18 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

It would be ugly no matter what if he gets convicted in any of the cases, but if we get to Atlanta and DC cases, get ready for the racist dog whistles to be cast aside for racist megaphones when those juries are mostly black Democrats.

Perhaps he will finally be charged with jury tampering. 

[Gatorubet 30626]

5 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I think that McNaughton is just in on the grift and having a good time.  He can’t be real. 
 

Did he just tread on the ‘don’t tread on me’ snek?   Also, how did that fat fuck with a 4” vertical climb into the cab in the first place?

[jimmyjazz 46958]

3 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Also, how did that fat fuck with a 4” vertical climb into the cab in the first place?

I imagine a big, strong man with tears in his eyes came up and said "sir, can I give you a boost?".  You know, like back in the day.

[Gatorubet 30626]

4 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Dog the Bounty Hunter, please.

“Went after me.  Like a dog!”

[tx 3 putt 78455]

3 hours ago, Bookman said:

It will be easy to get rid of MAGAts in voir dire. One question:

Do you think Barack Obama is a Muslim?

 

 

walk up two flights of stairs 

[Biff Tannen 46060]

25 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I imagine a big, strong man with tears in his eyes came up and said "sir, can I give you a boost?".  You know, like back in the day.

My god this man was actually president 

[jimmyjazz 46958]

1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

My god this man was actually president 

No matter how much "money" one has, it doesn't necessarily buy a good haircut, a well-fitting suit, or tactful behavior.  But Obama.

[tx 3 putt 78455]

5 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I think that McNaughton is just in on the grift and having a good time.  He can’t be real. 
 

that’s trump rolling into Manhattan with fake Melina 

[aggie08 21732]

4 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Dog the Bounty Hunter, please.

How could a bounty hunter hope to find him though? At any given time, he could be at any one of three golf courses within 5 miles of the resort.

[lemonlime 5503]

 

[RomaVicta 30495]

5 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

Just blatantly tell your followers that your ebil lib enemies are doing what you're doing, and they believe it every single time.

This conditioning started back with Newy POS Gingrich. He went after Jim Wright for selling books as a way to profit off his office. It was sleazy. Everybody was doing it and it had been going on for decades. Cleaning that up is a great idea.

Gingrich was doing the same thing at the same time only using his wife (not sure if this one is the one he served divorced papers while she was hospitalized with cancer or not) as the author instead of himself. 

An early example of how the press would only focus on one thing (the accusation against Wright) and not even really allow the public the chance to consider how widespread the practice was or that Gingrich was himself doing it. Or maybe the public can't hold that many ideas in their puddin' heads.

Who knew the practice would actually grow to this enormity. 

Their public was cultivated to have an appetite for simplism and hypocrisy. 

 

I'm sliding off into the deep end. You unplug reason, reality, logic, and change words so they connote the opposite of what they are such as social justice being wicked and wokeness to flaws in society being a conspiracy to hurt feelings,and you pretty much short circuit those of us striving to be rational.

The titanium wires weaving themselves into the zipline of doom are almost a cable now. Asleepism, hate, irreversible climate change being ignored, and mass idiocy will provide the push and wheeeeee! We baby boomers will be despised (everybody before us in the 20th Century should be, too) even worse when this soft, beautiful, ample world is torn to pieces. Not the planet. Our world.

I don't want to see anyone tortured. Not even this fuck. What I would like for this physical coward and rich bully to undergo is a daily cuffing from some woke, SJW with muscular arms and tears streaming down his face because he sees what future Donald Trump desired and partially created. Back handed slaps all around the arena on national TV so all can see Donald snivel and cower.

Let this guy start the ceremony.

 

I'll go take my meds now. Perhaps emotional detachment will return soon. 

[YGIFS 19456]

3 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

 

This seems/looks/sounds fantastic.  In hindsight, on Thursday, I should have better choices after this was all announced.  I started snorting 'bath salts' but really it was just me in our moldy, old guest room bathtub trying to light and snort a Morton salt canister on fire.  I'd like to scream "I regret nothing!"  But I do, I really do

[TwiceHorn 31982]

3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Aren't there only so many potential jurors the prosecution can pass on during voir dire?  I guess the venue, if it's indeed Manhattan NYC, might allow a fairly MAGA-free jury, but 100%?  Color me skeptical.

Challenges for cause, like "you're a fucking magat, get off my jury" are unlimited.

As I said previously, normally it is difficult to entirely exclude biased jurors:  they are deceptive about their biases and you run out of strikes.  I don't think a magat is capable of hiding her bias and that bias is highly likely to get one successfully challenged for cause.

Like me or Prof. Vine, above.  We likely hold views disliked by both prosecutors and defense attorneys, but we are smart enough to hide any biases we may have (unless we're looking to get kicked off).  You do too, they generally hate engineers.  We, though, are unlikely to be successfully challenged for cause.  But if you have a facingbook and twitter full of lunacy  and are a magat, you won't be able to help yourself.

['stache 22115]

Magats are like cross fitters, you can’t talk with one for more than 5 minutes before they bring it up. Also if a lone one makes a jury and tries to hold out for jury nullification, good chance the rest of them code red him/her for holding them hostage.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20834]

1 hour ago, lemonlime said:

 

Needs a MAGA tears infusion to be complete. 

[Bojack 2087]

2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I imagine a big, strong man with tears in his eyes came up and said "sir, can I give you a boost?".  You know, like back in the day.

He'd need to be a very strong man.

And if he tried to boost Trump's fat ass into a truck, his hands would disappear. 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Bojack

[TexArcher 38816]

1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

How could a bounty hunter hope to find him though? At any given time, he could be at any one of three golf courses within 5 miles of the resort.

He could also be at the cheeseburder drive-thru.  Or in a warehouse selling national secrets to Russians.  Okay, giving, whatever.  Ol' Dog's got his work cut out for him this time.

[WhatTheBuck 28904]

1 hour ago, lemonlime said:

 

Made with the cheapest ingredients and priced way more than it’s worth. 

[South Austin 53151]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Challenges for cause, like "you're a fucking magat, get off my jury" are unlimited.

As I said previously, normally it is difficult to entirely exclude biased jurors:  they are deceptive about their biases and you run out of strikes.  I don't think a magat is capable of hiding her bias and that bias is highly likely to get one successfully challenged for cause.

Like me or Prof. Vine, above.  We likely hold views disliked by both prosecutors and defense attorneys, but we are smart enough to hide any biases we may have (unless we're looking to get kicked off).  You do too, they generally hate engineers.  We, though, are unlikely to be successfully challenged for cause.  But if you have a facingbook and twitter full of lunacy  and are a magat, you won't be able to help yourself.

I always strike dentists.

[Beau Vine 55806]

29 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I always strike dentists.

anti-dentite!

[Gatorubet 30626]

He'd need to be a very strong man.
And if he tried to boost Trump's fat ass into a truck, his hands would disappear. 

[TwiceHorn 31982]

Stumbled across this article listing out and discussing a number of NY cases where falsifying business records was elevated to a felony by another crime being an election law violation. https://www.justsecurity.org/85745/survey-of-prosecutions-for-covert-payments-to-benefit-campaigns/

The only hitch is that it appears that in all of them, the election law violation was of NY state election law, which also limits contributions like the federal law.  The defendants were all convicted of both falsifying records and the election violation.

So, this is not an uncommon thing among NY political criminals.  The weirdness is that the "predicate" for making it a felony is a federal law that a NY court lacks jurisdiction to enforce. Weird.

Here's the law in question:

§ 175.10 Falsifying business records in the first degree.

A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree
when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second
degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit
another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.

Falsifying business records in the first degree is a class E felony.

§ 175.05 Falsifying business records in the second degree.

A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree
when, with intent to defraud, he:

1. Makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an
enterprise; or

2. Alters, erases, obliterates, deletes, removes or destroys a true
entry in the business records of an enterprise; or

3. Omits to make a true entry in the business records of an enterprise
in violation of a duty to do so which he knows to be imposed upon him by
law or by the nature of his position; or

4. Prevents the making of a true entry or causes the omission thereof
in the business records of an enterprise.

Falsifying business records in the second degree is a class A
misdemeanor.

So, it seems there are some obvious difficulties here.  First is establishing Trump's knowledge of the details of the scheme, or at least the purpose to camouflage the nature of the payments.  Second is what does "intent do defraud" mean and did he have it?  Then you have to prove that he intended to benefit his campaign and not him personally to make it an election law violation.

Then you have this whole issue of you can't try him in a NY court for the predicate crime.  I guess you could still instruct the jury on the questions for the federal crime and require them to answer yes. 

[hornmpa96 2651]

4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

 

So, it seems there are some obvious difficulties here.  First is establishing Trump's knowledge of the details of the scheme, or at least the purpose to camouflage the nature of the payments.  Second is what does "intent do defraud" mean and did he have it?  Then you have to prove that he intended to benefit his campaign and not him personally to make it an election law violation.

Then you have this whole issue of you can't try him in a NY court for the predicate crime.  I guess you could still instruct the jury on the questions for the federal crime and require them to answer yes. 

Doesn’t 99% of this come down to one simple thing: Does the entire jury believe Michael Cohen?

 I’m assuming that Cohen is going to testify to all of those points. Trump knew about the payment, his intent, etc.

[nbmishoid 984]

You got a knack for this.

 

Also, I understand keeping off engineers. Most are Magat.   Otherwise, they assume the perp is guilty.

[Neonmoon 38130]

So I think they can prove falsifying business records in second degree, but what other crime was he committing in doing so? To make it a felony?

[nbmishoid 984]

In furtherance of (federal) election laws.  Maybe 

[brown water 3787]

2 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Needs a MAGA tears infusion to be complete. 

Won’t be complete without a few dashes of orange bitters 

[G650 14421]

19 hours ago, BevoAbyss said:

Why the veiled insults What the Buck? I am glad you can see Trump for what he is, a blatant fascist and enabler of theocracy (among many other things). 

As for me, you don't know a damn thing. I have faced "witty" comments like yours for decades in cities/states where I lived. Same old story: I am alarmist, too paranoid, etc. I am new on this site, yet I have spoken/written/published (in print) on these topics at times over the past 3-4 decades. I post here while taking a break from other formal projects.... and for the peerless Surly humor!  And as a proud UT alum disgusted by Bush-Perry-Abbott-Trump-MAGA Texas.

Buck: I've been warning friends and others (liberals, libertarians, and conservatives I knew) about the threat of theocracy since Reagan/Religious Right in the 1980s, while I was at UT. Every freaking conservative/libertarian I knew at UT was in 100,000% denial. Every last one! "Free markets and religious freedom, that's America, dude!" That was the mantra. 

And I warned about the fascist tendencies of Perot (the proto-Trump) and his "United We Stand," then Bush 2 and "Tea Party" theocracy/fascism, and now Trump and MAGA. Always met with good ole American Exceptionalism and denialism about threat of religious rule and the ongoing intellectual collapse across a huge swath of America. No matter the facts or elegance of my assertion, it was too paranoid, too cynical, too anti-American, I was told.

And, yet here we are.... yes, the "Pod People" you mentioned are coming. Waving flags, bearing crosses, carrying AR-15s, driving SUVs or F-150s!

Adios, Buck. With all due respect, this will my last comment to you on this.

I no longer argue/debate/attempt to persuade anyone of anything—all pointless, as I have learned over the decades. I just put out ideas/concepts and let people do what they want with them. Surly seems like a good place for that!

 

 

 

 

Lol. Stahp

[henrygandorf 29218]

 

[atomheartbevo 90538]

10 hours ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

I think it is not very likely.  However, I'm glad they are going to let the justice system play out on this one. 

I really want the other indictments to follow asap, and feel the same way.  I am doubtful of convictions, but there is enough out there to put indicate him on many of his actions. 

At the very least, MAGA is going to have to put up or shut up.  I suspect the number that want to actually fuck around and find out in NYC is very low, given that Soros apparently owns NYC and NYPD, and they've watched a steady stream of their fellow Trumpanzees getting jail time, felonies, etc., over J6.  But MTG and others are trying to get them there, so who knows what'll happen when they see their god in the flesh.

Speaking of fucking around, if you have any MAGA relatives who are talking about this on Facebook, make sure and jump in with something like "Look, I may disagree with you all because I don't think he should be having an affair with a porn star or anybody behind his wife's back,  but I can reach common ground with you and agree that he has the right to pay a porn star $140,000 to keep her mouth shut about the affair.  You should be able to pay off a porn star and not have it be public knowledge because it's your money."

Or something like that.

[atomheartbevo 90538]

8 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

IANAL

[achooloco 1086]

Soooooo, the grand jury is sat and in Manhattan right? I only ask cause I have grand jury duty starting on April 12 in queens and while I think it is a civic duty to serve, it is just terrible work timing. But if I could wrangle a trump case…

figure either way a win win. Either I get dq for being a normal human that realizes trump is a PoS or I get our on his case and I have a hand in history. That said, pretty sure this is all Manhattan. But I do think I could be impartial on the facts; the cocksucker is devoid of deserving all sympathy but I want a conviction by the book. No room for error. Need some air tight no reasonable doubt to get that conviction cause you know the Magats will magat no matter what. Our only defense  for the republic is the rule of law. 

[Gil Bang 26174]

Huntington Beach is the Florida of California, part infinity.  One could argue that it's the birthplace of Punk Rock, and now it's Trumpkin Central.

 

[TwiceHorn 31982]

3 hours ago, hornmpa96 said:

Doesn’t 99% of this come down to one simple thing: Does the entire jury believe Michael Cohen?

 I’m assuming that Cohen is going to testify to all of those points. Trump knew about the payment, his intent, etc.

Well, Cohen has some credibility problems, as we know.  A juror can actually mostly believe Cohen and still find a reasonable doubt.

I hope they have some witnesses or documents that corroborate him.  I have heard rumblings that they do.

[TwiceHorn 31982]

46 minutes ago, achooloco said:

Soooooo, the grand jury is sat and in Manhattan right? I only ask cause I have grand jury duty starting on April 12 in queens and while I think it is a civic duty to serve, it is just terrible work timing. But if I could wrangle a trump case…

figure either way a win win. Either I get dq for being a normal human that realizes trump is a PoS or I get our on his case and I have a hand in history. That said, pretty sure this is all Manhattan. But I do think I could be impartial on the facts; the cocksucker is devoid of deserving all sympathy but I want a conviction by the book. No room for error. Need some air tight no reasonable doubt to get that conviction cause you know the Magats will magat no matter what. Our only defense  for the republic is the rule of law. 

I think you mean petit jury.

[Biff Tannen 46060]

1 hour ago, Gil Bang said:

Huntington Beach is the Florida of California, part infinity.  One could argue that it's the birthplace of Punk Rock, and now it's Trumpkin Central.

 

I drove through there in December and this is the least surprising thing ever.

[TwiceHorn 31982]

3 hours ago, nbmishoid said:

You got a knack for this.

 

Also, I understand keeping off engineers. Most are Magat.   Otherwise, they assume the perp is guilty.

Well, the general thinking is that engineers are coldly rational most of the time.  So they won't be emotionally swayed and they will follow the jury instructions to the letter, for better or worse.  And they're generally regarded as smart, so may hold sway over other jurors. They do tend somewhat conservative, but not strongly enough usually to make the difference.