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[Brisketexan 107035]

21 minutes ago, Bookman said:

Now see, if there's anyone who's not getting paid, I assume it would be her.

What, is her Onlyfans page down?

[Doc Sam Beckett 5908]

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

If they think that it's going to net hurt their ratings long term, I'd assume no. If Trump is a liar do these people deflate and stop watching news?

Yeah, zero chance. They will play the highlights later in the few instances where Donald looks good or scores a point. Can't let the dumbfucks see that the orange god might actually be the worst person in America 

[The Dog 44865]

 

[TeeDubya 3362]

2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

If they think that it's going to net hurt their ratings long term, I'd assume no. If Trump is a liar do these people deflate and stop watching news?

You're giving them too much credit.

They are broadcasters.  There is no "long term" in these companies.  Its 25% reaction to overnight ratings, 50% quarter to quarter, and 25% year to year.  

Edited October 27, 2023 by TeeDubya

[Homercles 10206]

On 10/26/2023 at 4:08 PM, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I'd love for Biden and Trump to debate and for Biden to say "Hey Donald ... you rant about crime in New York City.  Every year during my administration, the murder/rape/burglary statistics for New York City have gone down.  During your last year as President, the number of murders in New York City increased 50 percent.  50 percent, folks!  This was after decades in which the number of murders dropped by 80 percent. Now Donald says he's going to reduce crime in New York City. If that's true, why didn't he do so before and why did we see such an incredible increase in homicides in New York City when he was president?"

The first thing out of Trump's mouth would be "That's a lie! Murders didn't increase in New York City when I was President!"  

The fact checkers would be all over it. 

Or, more succinctly:  "Donald, you always talk about crime in New York City. During the last year of the Obama-Biden administration, 2016, there were 338 murders in New York City. In the last year of your administration, there were 471. That's almost a 50% increase in murders after four years of Donald Trump. After the 50% Trump increase, the numbers are now trending down again under four years of Joe Biden. What happened?" 

 

Gawd how is this not asked all the time of Texas legislators and leaders…”you say you’re going to fix xyz, you’ve been in elected offices for 21 years…why haven’t you done anything about it before?”

[C-Man 27834]

28 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What, is her Onlyfans page down?

[atomheartbevo 90679]

20 hours ago, NAVY said:

He made idiots feel smart. That’s the value.  Gave them opinions they couldn’t even fully comprehend. 

20 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Yeah, the political fury (see "Reagan vs Carter") was a lot less incendiary prior to Rush.  He observed the efforts of Newt et all and ran with it.  It worked.

It helped that Limbaugh mastered AM radio.  Later, O'Reilly and then Tucker mastered evening TV shows, Trump mastered twitter.  You have to have people who know their mediums and their audiences, who somehow convince their audiences that they are "one of them", and who are more than happy to spew falsehoods because they get a big paycheck out of it.

Tucker fucked up though with the Dominion stuff - the others knew the lines not to cross.

Hell, throw Alex Jones in that mix - he knew his mediums (Austin Public Access TV and then YouTube) and his audience, and made 10s of millions of dollars feeding them bullshit.  But he didn't know the lines not to cross, and is paying for it.

Edited October 27, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 90679]

20 hours ago, Born to Run said:

No way this coward narcissist kills himself. None. Indirectly via pills and a rage induced heart attack sure. But he lacks courage to step in front of a bus

Yep, plus, owing to his narcissism, he believes he's in the right and that he's always the smartest guy in the room, and guys like that don't feel the need to off themselves.

[atomheartbevo 90679]

On 10/26/2023 at 3:30 PM, Macanudo said:

I was talking to a family member this week and he mentioned his every day carry weapon (of course he's a Glock fanboi.)  He lives in Austin and while he says he's not a Trump fan he's a Trumptard.  I asked him if he thought he was living in fear about needing a gun on him at all times.  He's convinced that any day now, he'll need to get into an OK Corral type shootout with the bad men.   

He's a lost cause.  

6 hours ago, texasdago said:

Yeah, these people drive me crazy... sorry... especially in Austin which is a relatively safe city, particularly if you're not hanging out on 6th street past midnight or over by 183 on the north side of town.  I think you can make a case to some extent in Houston but the people who coooonstantly complain about how bad Austin is really need to just stay home, cower while ignoring the lawn or move out to Llano or somewhere deep in the hill country.  Enough whining from these people...

I have a group of friends/former co-workers who would get together for boardgames, D&D, etc., and depending on when and where, we'd have the kids along, and one of the guys in the group is one of these "I have to carry everywhere".  Motherfucker lives in Pflugerville and works at a tech company in Round Rock, and most of his commutes are between a subdivision full of hundred-thousandaires and said Tech Company, and he played football in high school and was kind of a big dude. His wife does all of the errands, groceries, etc., and most weekends he's in playing video games, watching the kids, or was hanging with some of us, so he's never in a place that is even close to being dangerous.  

We got together for one of the kid's birthdays and were going to play boardgames while the kids were in the backyard, and he comes into the house with his kids, walks into the kitchen, and pulls a sidearm out from under his shirt and asks where he can keep it while he's there.  He did it in front of a bunch of people and kids (who were then extremely interested in it).  He could have pulled the homeowner aside when he arrived privately, or texted about what to do or left it in his car, but no, he had to make a big fucking show of having it.  He literally drove just 2-3 miles from his hundred-thousandaires subdivision to another hundred-thousandaires subdivision.

He stopped being invited to gatherings after that.  He was wound tight for somebody that has so very little to fear.  Shit, his biggest threat would be mouthing off to a cop over his rights during a traffic stop.

Would have been epic when he pulled his sidearm out if somebody had asked his wife "so he has a small dick, doesn't he?"

[Bookman 4769]

Quote

The judge also said Ivanka Trump should have submitted an affidavit asserting that she does not live or work in the state presently. “Only she can tell us that, and it’s too late to do that now,” Engoron said.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/politics/ivanka-trump-subpoena-judge/index.html

Trump really does have the best lawyers.

[TwiceHorn 32108]

12 minutes ago, Bookman said:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/politics/ivanka-trump-subpoena-judge/index.html

Trump really does have the best lawyers.

Quote

Ivanka Trump’s attorney had argued that she should not be forced to appear after an appellate court removed her as a defendant in the case.

That's just the stupidest argument in the history of evar.  You're either a witness with relevant testimony, or you're not.  Whether you are defendant has little bearing on that question (although most defendants do have relevant testimony).

[TexArcher 39078]

4 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I don't think for a second he would tell the truth.  He'll perjure himself all day long.  Why wouldn't he?  If he tells the truth, he's fucked anyway.

I don't think it's a choice for him.  Even with a gun to his head while standing on a scale that read 295, he'd say, "I'm about 260."

[Born to Run 6601]

It helped that Limbaugh mastered AM radio.  Later, O'Reilly and then Tucker mastered evening TV shows, Trump mastered twitter.  You have to have people who know their mediums and their audiences, who somehow convince their audiences that they are "one of them", and who are more than happy to spew falsehoods because they get a big paycheck out of it.
Tucker fucked up though with the Dominion stuff - the others knew the lines not to cross.
Hell, throw Alex Jones in that mix - he knew his mediums (Austin Public Access TV and then YouTube) and his audience, and made 10s of millions of dollars feeding them bullshit.  But he didn't know the lines not to cross, and is paying for it.

I saw an Alex Jones for president 2024 shirt at the gym tonight. Fat old white guy. Did not engage and could not even cropdust him sadly. Just stay away fat boy human personification of hot dog water
Those alpha supplements or whatever, Do not counteract gravy apparently.

If shit goes down I like my chances.

[tx 3 putt 78763]

Ho Hum, no bog deal …..

 

[Biff Tannen 46205]

1 hour ago, Bookman said:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/politics/ivanka-trump-subpoena-judge/index.html

Trump really does have the best lawyers.

She's just as dumb as him.  Just not as narcissistic.  

[Satchel 6983]

42 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Ho Hum, no bog deal …..

 

He doesn’t believe fat meat is greasy. A couple of nights in a roach infested cell oughta convince him.

[WhatTheBuck 28941]

On 10/26/2023 at 12:47 PM, ConferenceRoom said:

Jesus, people. 

That makes no sense. 

[Biff Tannen 46205]

Listening to some lawyer this morning on a podcast about prosecuting dotard.  He said, "if there's a hung jury, I think the election is over because a hung jury is seen by the defense as a loss."

Is he on crack?  Is he drunk?  Am I?

This guy CLEARLY doesn't understand that this is a cult.

[Red Five 41787]

His poll numbers are higher now after 91 felony counts than before. At this point I'm not even sure that convictions in these cases would matter. 

"Well yeah sure he's a convicted felon, but have you seen how old Biden is? And his son has a laptop, I heard. So I might as well just vote for Trump again." 

[Underdog 29223]

Motherfucker could flee the country in disgrace and his moron base would still be there in full support. 

[Brisketexan 107035]

His poll numbers are higher now after 91 felony counts than before. At this point I'm not even sure that convictions in these cases would matter. 
"Well yeah sure he's a convicted felon, but have you seen how old Biden is? And his son has a laptop, I heard. So I might as well just vote for Trump again." 

Motherfucker could flee the country in disgrace and his moron base would still be there in full support. 

Bingo. It’s a cult, so there’s literally nothing that could happen that wouldn’t make his supporters love him MORE.

He could endorse Joe Biden while sucking Hunter Biden’s dong to celebrate completely opening the border, and his GQP support would go UP.

[Biff Tannen 46205]

Same guy said he was also amazed at how many of dotard's lawyers apparently engaged in criminal activity.

I think this is why us non-lawyers lose our minds on Twice and others here when they go off on how the justice system works.  I know you lawyers are indoctrinated to think that the law is this untouchable, golden system that governs us all and is the ultimate say in humanity, but the past few years have shown us this is just not the case.  It's just not.  The law is not only fallible, it's a veneer that is easily destroyed.

[Brisketexan 107035]

Same guy said he was also amazed at how many of dotard's lawyers apparently engaged in criminal activity.
I think this is why us non-lawyers lose our minds on Twice and others here when they go off on how the justice system works.  I know you lawyers are indoctrinated to think that the law is this untouchable, golden system that governs us all and is the ultimate say in humanity, but the past few years have shown us this is just not the case.  It's just not.  The law is not only fallible, it's a veneer that is easily destroyed.

I’m a lawyer….and I’ve literally been repeating your final point on here for years. The law is just a set of agreements about behavior. When one side opts out of it, it’s all over. It’s that fragile. We can go from the rule of law to rule of the gun in an instant. That’s the whole fucking problem. Which I can see clearly from the fact that I operate inside that world, and have my whole professional life. It’s also why I have nothing but hatred for any lawyer who would undermine it.

[Born to Run 6601]

I’m a lawyer….and I’ve literally been repeating your final point on here for years. The law is just a set of agreements about behavior. When one side opts out of it, it’s all over. It’s that fragile. We can go from the rule of law to rule of the gun in an instant. That’s the whole fucking problem. Which I can see clearly from the fact that I operate inside that world, and have my whole professional life. It’s also why I have nothing but hatred for any lawyer who would undermine it.

Well that and the glacial speed that law proceedings move at is a wee bit frustrating. 4-8 years to get something through trial. Then another decade for appeals. Then actually enforcing civil penalties. Yall act like you are still using quills to communicate and having to traverse the many miles to ye old court house via horse and buggy.

[Macanudo 13341]

57 minutes ago, Born to Run said:

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

I’m a lawyer….and I’ve literally been repeating your final point on here for years. The law is just a set of agreements about behavior. When one side opts out of it, it’s all over. It’s that fragile. We can go from the rule of law to rule of the gun in an instant. That’s the whole fucking problem. Which I can see clearly from the fact that I operate inside that world, and have my whole professional life. It’s also why I have nothing but hatred for any lawyer who would undermine it.

Well that and the glacial speed that law proceedings move at is a wee bit frustrating. 4-8 years to get something through trial. Then another decade for appeals. Then actually enforcing civil penalties. Yall act like you are still using quills to communicate and having to traverse the many miles to ye old court house via horse and buggy.

If you have lots of money or are good at grifting.  If you don't, well that's another justice system entirely.  

[nbmishoid 989]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Same guy said he was also amazed at how many of dotard's lawyers apparently engaged in criminal activity.

I think this is why us non-lawyers lose our minds on Twice and others here when they go off on how the justice system works.  I know you lawyers are indoctrinated to think that the law is this untouchable, golden system that governs us all and is the ultimate say in humanity, but the past few years have shown us this is just not the case.  It's just not.  The law is not only fallible, it's a veneer that is easily destroyed.

Read Ellie Mistal’s Black Dude’s Guide to the Constitution, for more fury.

[Gatorubet 30789]

6 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I know you lawyers are indoctrinated to think that the law is this untouchable, golden system that governs us all and is the ultimate say in humanity, but the past few years have shown us this is just not the case.  

Nobody believes that. We just get annoyed that the very same legal system that has existed during the entirety of your lives - you finally decide to take a minute to look at and demand it immediately change.   

[Biff Tannen 46205]

28 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Nobody believes that. We just get annoyed that the very same legal system that has existed during the entirety of your lives - you finally decide to take a minute to look at and demand it immediately change.   

Well, you know, when people start BLATANTLY giving it the finger, setting it on fire, and just doing whatever they want and you lawyer types are like, "oh, well, let's just let it run its course because maybe what they are doing isn't blatantly giving it the finger, setting it on fire, and doing whatever they want", yeah, I think we are warranted.

[atomheartbevo 90679]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Bingo. It’s a cult, so there’s literally nothing that could happen that wouldn’t make his supporters love him MORE.

He could endorse Joe Biden while sucking Hunter Biden’s dong to celebrate completely opening the border, and his GQP support would go UP.

 

MAGA would be saying to themselves “hey maybe I should be sucking Hunter’s dong because if it’s good enough for Trump, it’s good enough for me!”

[Gatorubet 30789]

22 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Well, you know, when people start BLATANTLY giving it the finger, setting it on fire, and just doing whatever they want and you lawyer types are like, "oh, well, let's just let it run its course because maybe what they are doing isn't blatantly giving it the finger, setting it on fire, and doing whatever they want", yeah, I think we are warranted.

As is common here, you speak in angry generalities to avoid a discussion of facts and policy.  Just like people pissed off because a guilty criminal gets off due to a “technicality“  - when the technicality is a police broken chain of custody.   

They scream about the unfairness of it all, being too focused on the murderer walking than the fact that not having a chain of custody requirement results in far MORE abuse of justice and planted evidence system-wide.  Little Debbie’s parents should be outraged.  They are emotionally invested in a result.  Not irrationally either.   But the good of the nation requires a chain of custody rule that sometimes let guilty folk evade justice.   I get why Debbie’s parents friends, neighbors, and their twitter readers will be outraged.   

But for the legitimacy of the system, that rule is enforced by the law and lawyers - despite the shitty result - despite the individual injustice - and despite the anger of non-lawyers who do not get the vastly more important principle protecting all defendants from dirty cops and DAs planting evidence.   Debbie’s posse does not give a shit about that argument, just like you don’t give a shit about many of the explanations here.  Many of your complaints here are similar, focusing on the failure to convict Trump quickly despite decades of policy considerations that are valid in the bigger scheme, but seeming to fail justice on the individual level with this despot crook.  Does not mean we are happy with some of the rulings that outrage you, but like my chain of custody example, we understand the “why” of some of them that offend you

We are used to it.

[safe sex 12043]

Apropos of recent discussion:

Trump’s Lawyers Should Have Known Better

Quote

Trump's Lawyers Should Have Known Better

 

By Jesse Wegman

At a pivotal moment during one of the Watergate hearings in 1973, President Richard Nixon’s counsel, John Dean, asked a question that still resonates: “How in God’s name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?”

In the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation, the issue posed by Mr. Dean’s bracing question triggered a revolution in the legal profession. With so many lawyers involved in the Watergate criminal scheme, the American Bar Association started requiring law schools to provide ethics instruction or risk losing their accreditation. Exams began testing law students’ knowledge of intricate ethical rules.

It wasn’t enough, if the past few weeks are any guide. In Fulton County, Ga., three of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers — Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis — have now pleaded guilty to crimes in service of Mr. Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election and stay in the White House. All three have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the sprawling state RICO case against Mr. Trump. Two other Trump lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, still face criminal charges in the Georgia case. They, along with Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, have also been identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the related federal prosecution of Mr. Trump, which will probably benefit from the guilty pleas in Georgia.

The charges in the plea agreements vary, but the underlying story is the same: Fifty years after Watergate, the nation is once again confronted with a president who grossly abused the powers of his office, leading to criminal prosecutions. And once again, that abuse relied heavily on the involvement of lawyers. If Mr. Trump’s 2020 racket was “a coup in search of a legal theory,” as one federal judge put it, these lawyers provided the theory, and the phony facts to back it up. In doing so, they severely tarnished their profession.

How in God’s name? The question is no less urgent now than in 1973. Lawyers hold immense power within the American system of government, which depends on their expertise, and their integrity, to function. Those who abuse this power pose an even greater threat to the country than some random Capitol rioter, because we count on them not only to draft and execute the laws but to follow them — to lead by example. Everyone should behave ethically, of course, but despite the “Better-Call-Saul” reputation of so many lawyers, there’s nothing wrong with holding the profession to a higher standard.

One can view the guilty pleas by the Trump lawyers as evidence that the system is working as it should. They broke the law, they violated their ethical obligations, and now they are facing the music — not only in the courts, but from their chosen profession. Mr. Giuliani’s New York law license was suspended for his “demonstrably false and misleading statements” on Mr. Trump’s behalf; the District of Columbia’s bar association has recommended he lose his license there for good. Ms. Ellis was censured by Colorado state bar officials for violating the rule against “reckless, knowing, or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys,” and may face more severe consequences in light of her guilty plea.

Mr. Eastman, a former law-school dean and one of the key legal architects of Mr. Trump’s bonkers plot to stay in office, is in the final days of his California disbarment trial for ethical violations. Officials there have argued that his conduct was “fundamentally dishonest and intended to obstruct the lawful certification” of President Biden’s victory.

All of this is to the good. Careers are rightly ruined over such behavior. It is also the exception to the rule. In the real world, lawyers rarely face any consequences for their legal or ethical transgressions.

“It’s a club,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal-ethics expert at New York University School of Law who has studied the profession’s opaque and feckless disciplinary system. “The judges who make the decisions are lawyers in robes. They tend to be sympathetic to the other lawyer.”

And it’s hard to gloss over the fact that a disturbing number of experienced attorneys, some of whom once held prestigious posts in government and academia, were willing and eager to tell transparent lies and concoct laughable legal arguments to help a con man stay in the White House against the will of the American people.

“Part of the reason Trump had to resort to attorneys to attempt the overthrow of the election was because the military was not available to him,” Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me. Recalling the notorious Dec. 18, 2020, Oval Office meeting, during which the former president openly contemplated ordering the armed forces to seize voting machines, Mr. Eisen said, “It’s a testament to our military leaders, to our military culture, that that door was closed.”

The same cannot be said, alas, for America’s legal culture. It’s easy enough to understand why Mr. Trump, who was mentored by the ruthless mob lawyer Roy Cohn, would seek out lawyers who were willing to do whatever he asked, legality and ethics be damned. The more troubling question is how he was able to find so many takers.

The obvious answer is the eternal seduction of money and power. Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s foremost constitutional scholars, fell back on that explanation for the choices made by Mr. Chesebro, his former student, referring to him as a “moral chameleon” who was engaged in deeply dishonest lawyering.

Related to this is the intense pressure to satisfy the demands of powerful clients, even if it means bringing lawsuits so frivolous that they can result in legal sanctions, as many of Mr. Trump’s lawyers have learned the hard way.

There is an important caveat here: Many government and private lawyers in 2020, faced with Mr. Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional demands, resisted the temptation and behaved honorably. From the White House counsel’s office to the Justice Department to top law firms, some key attorneys held the line.

“What was one of the determinative factors in Trump’s coup failing?” asked Ian Bassin, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “Responsible lawyers refused to participate.”

That explains why many of the lawyers caught up in Mr. Trump’s outrageous plot were not what you might call the cream of the crop. They were grifters, shysters, hair-dye-leakers, tapped primarily because Mr. Trump had trouble finding more serious people to make his case. And yet there were still those with more respectable backgrounds, like Mr. Chesebro, who chose to sell their honor to a man devoid of it, and who they should have known wasn’t going to pay them anyway. In the end, they were all smeared with the humiliation of having filed meritless, fact-free cases. With one minor exception, federal and state courts rejected every lawsuit brought on behalf of Mr. Trump.

To a degree many people didn’t fully realize until the past few years, the functioning of American government depends on honor. “There are no guarantees in a democracy,” Mr. Eisen said. “Our rule of law is a central part of what defines our democratic system. Ultimately it comes down to whether the majority of people will do the right thing.”

When it comes to lawyers, the choices of just a few can make all the difference.

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by safe sex

[Brisketexan 107035]

Apropos of recent discussion:
Trump’s Lawyers Should Have Known Better

Trump's Lawyers Should Have Known Better
 
By Jesse Wegman
At a pivotal moment during one of the Watergate hearings in 1973, President Richard Nixon’s counsel, John Dean, asked a question that still resonates: “How in God’s name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?”
In the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation, the issue posed by Mr. Dean’s bracing question triggered a revolution in the legal profession. With so many lawyers involved in the Watergate criminal scheme, the American Bar Association started requiring law schools to provide ethics instruction or risk losing their accreditation. Exams began testing law students’ knowledge of intricate ethical rules.
It wasn’t enough, if the past few weeks are any guide. In Fulton County, Ga., three of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers — Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis — have now pleaded guilty to crimes in service of Mr. Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election and stay in the White House. All three have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the sprawling state RICO case against Mr. Trump. Two other Trump lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, still face criminal charges in the Georgia case. They, along with Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, have also been identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the related federal prosecution of Mr. Trump, which will probably benefit from the guilty pleas in Georgia.
The charges in the plea agreements vary, but the underlying story is the same: Fifty years after Watergate, the nation is once again confronted with a president who grossly abused the powers of his office, leading to criminal prosecutions. And once again, that abuse relied heavily on the involvement of lawyers. If Mr. Trump’s 2020 racket was “a coup in search of a legal theory,” as one federal judge put it, these lawyers provided the theory, and the phony facts to back it up. In doing so, they severely tarnished their profession.
How in God’s name? The question is no less urgent now than in 1973. Lawyers hold immense power within the American system of government, which depends on their expertise, and their integrity, to function. Those who abuse this power pose an even greater threat to the country than some random Capitol rioter, because we count on them not only to draft and execute the laws but to follow them — to lead by example. Everyone should behave ethically, of course, but despite the “Better-Call-Saul” reputation of so many lawyers, there’s nothing wrong with holding the profession to a higher standard.
One can view the guilty pleas by the Trump lawyers as evidence that the system is working as it should. They broke the law, they violated their ethical obligations, and now they are facing the music — not only in the courts, but from their chosen profession. Mr. Giuliani’s New York law license was suspended for his “demonstrably false and misleading statements” on Mr. Trump’s behalf; the District of Columbia’s bar association has recommended he lose his license there for good. Ms. Ellis was censured by Colorado state bar officials for violating the rule against “reckless, knowing, or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys,” and may face more severe consequences in light of her guilty plea.
Mr. Eastman, a former law-school dean and one of the key legal architects of Mr. Trump’s bonkers plot to stay in office, is in the final days of his California disbarment trial for ethical violations. Officials there have argued that his conduct was “fundamentally dishonest and intended to obstruct the lawful certification” of President Biden’s victory.
All of this is to the good. Careers are rightly ruined over such behavior. It is also the exception to the rule. In the real world, lawyers rarely face any consequences for their legal or ethical transgressions.
“It’s a club,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal-ethics expert at New York University School of Law who has studied the profession’s opaque and feckless disciplinary system. “The judges who make the decisions are lawyers in robes. They tend to be sympathetic to the other lawyer.”
And it’s hard to gloss over the fact that a disturbing number of experienced attorneys, some of whom once held prestigious posts in government and academia, were willing and eager to tell transparent lies and concoct laughable legal arguments to help a con man stay in the White House against the will of the American people.
“Part of the reason Trump had to resort to attorneys to attempt the overthrow of the election was because the military was not available to him,” Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me. Recalling the notorious Dec. 18, 2020, Oval Office meeting, during which the former president openly contemplated ordering the armed forces to seize voting machines, Mr. Eisen said, “It’s a testament to our military leaders, to our military culture, that that door was closed.”
The same cannot be said, alas, for America’s legal culture. It’s easy enough to understand why Mr. Trump, who was mentored by the ruthless mob lawyer Roy Cohn, would seek out lawyers who were willing to do whatever he asked, legality and ethics be damned. The more troubling question is how he was able to find so many takers.
The obvious answer is the eternal seduction of money and power. Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s foremost constitutional scholars, fell back on that explanation for the choices made by Mr. Chesebro, his former student, referring to him as a “moral chameleon” who was engaged in deeply dishonest lawyering.
Related to this is the intense pressure to satisfy the demands of powerful clients, even if it means bringing lawsuits so frivolous that they can result in legal sanctions, as many of Mr. Trump’s lawyers have learned the hard way.
There is an important caveat here: Many government and private lawyers in 2020, faced with Mr. Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional demands, resisted the temptation and behaved honorably. From the White House counsel’s office to the Justice Department to top law firms, some key attorneys held the line.
“What was one of the determinative factors in Trump’s coup failing?” asked Ian Bassin, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “Responsible lawyers refused to participate.”
That explains why many of the lawyers caught up in Mr. Trump’s outrageous plot were not what you might call the cream of the crop. They were grifters, shysters, hair-dye-leakers, tapped primarily because Mr. Trump had trouble finding more serious people to make his case. And yet there were still those with more respectable backgrounds, like Mr. Chesebro, who chose to sell their honor to a man devoid of it, and who they should have known wasn’t going to pay them anyway. In the end, they were all smeared with the humiliation of having filed meritless, fact-free cases. With one minor exception, federal and state courts rejected every lawsuit brought on behalf of Mr. Trump.
To a degree many people didn’t fully realize until the past few years, the functioning of American government depends on honor. “There are no guarantees in a democracy,” Mr. Eisen said. “Our rule of law is a central part of what defines our democratic system. Ultimately it comes down to whether the majority of people will do the right thing.”
When it comes to lawyers, the choices of just a few can make all the difference.

 

Great piece. And the comparison to the military is good, but painful.
The coup didn’t work because most lawyers refused to go along with it. But not enough. And those who refused more should have done more to stop it. Frankly, I’d like it if our ethical rules were reformed to create a duty, or at least allow, attorneys to actively work against a client or prospective client trying to permanently destroy the rule of law.

[Bozo_Casanova 26910]

59 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

But for the legitimacy of the system, that rule is enforced by the law and lawyers - despite the shitty result - despite the individual injustice - and despite the anger of non-lawyers who do not get the vastly more important principle protecting all defendants from dirty cops and DAs planting evidence.   Debbie’s posse does not give a shit about that argument, just like you don’t give a shit about many of the explanations here.  Many of your complaints here are similar, focusing on the failure to convict Trump quickly despite decades of policy considerations that are valid in the bigger scheme, but seeming to fail justice on the individual level with this despot crook.  Does not mean we are happy with some of the rulings that outrage you, but like my chain of custody example, we understand the “why” of some of them that offend you

I think you are making a fair point but also begging the question; essentially that people who are outraged at this moment are outraged because of outcomes, and that lawyers understand why the process yielded that outcome, as unsatisfactory as it may be. I think there is certainly some of that, but I think you are looking past the primary outrage - that too many in the profession are abusing and undermining the legal process to facilitate bad outcomes to which they are a party/beneficiary and working the refs in the obvious manner of wrestling heels, and the bar doesn't seem to care enough to do anything about it. It is the exact problem that people have with doctors - that once you join this exclusive club nobody cares how you behave or how poorly you treat the profession as long as you dress the part.  

Edited October 28, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[Biff Tannen 46205]

11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

It is the exact problem that people have with doctors - that once you join this exclusive club nobody cares how you behave or how poorly you treat the profession as long as you dress the part.  

I would posit that more doctors and medical professionals in general are concerned with the well-being of their patients over the perception of being a doctor, whereas lawyers are the exact opposite.  

[tbone_ 14470]

If you have lots of money or are good at grifting.  If you don't, well that's another justice system entirely.  

This should be repeated. Over and over.

[TwiceHorn 32108]

12 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Same guy said he was also amazed at how many of dotard's lawyers apparently engaged in criminal activity.

I think this is why us non-lawyers lose our minds on Twice and others here when they go off on how the justice system works.  I know you lawyers are indoctrinated to think that the law is this untouchable, golden system that governs us all and is the ultimate say in humanity, but the past few years have shown us this is just not the case.  It's just not.  The law is not only fallible, it's a veneer that is easily destroyed.

How the law works has absolutely zero to do with whether lawyers do crimes.  No one has ever contended that lawyers don't do crimes.  That's just a total straw man.   Lawyers do fucking crimes all the time; most of the time, it's straight up crimey crime, not some kind of political crime.

No one has ever contended it's golden, untouchable, infallible.

But I'll tell you one fucking thing.  The law has held up better against Trump that any other US governmental institution.  And the places it's falling down are mostly due to Congress' failure to act.

Right this minute, you have a Trump-addled House of Representatives in a total shambles.  A Senate with a bare majority and a Republican minority that recently failed to convict Trump twice, and according to Romney, has no institutional backbone to stand up to Trump, even though most of them think they should.

The Supreme Court has always been Calvinball, but because political systems failed, you now have a super-majority of demagogues that are willing to play Calvinball more openly than any court since the 30s.  The Supreme Court isn't law the way it operates in 99% of the rest of the legal world, it's a bizarre intersection of law and politics, where the politics have been historically gently restrained by  . . . something  . . . that no longer exists.

The reality of it is:  trial and lower level appeals courts are the only places in America right now where provable facts matter in a way that can affect an outcome.

Edited October 29, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[SilasCoade 2622]

4 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

It is the exact problem that people have with doctors - that once you join this exclusive club nobody cares how you behave or how poorly you treat the profession as long as you dress the part.  

WTF are you talking about? Bad doctors get handled with prejudice, as they should. That whole doctor death podcast deal highlighted that basically it was hospital administrators ignoring the other doctors that let him continue his crimes. Once they actually accepted the concerns of the other doctors he went into the criminal justice system and was punished to the full extent allowed but law. 

[tx 3 putt 78763]

[G650 14453]

[TwiceHorn 32108]

5 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

But Trump's a "successful bidness man," that comes with the territory, like cheating on your taxes.

[AnTiM 1695]

The great thing about being a businessman is that when you screw your friends over for money you can always say "It's just business", like that makes it just perfectly fine.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9524]

32 minutes ago, AnTiM said:

The great thing about being a businessman is that when you screw your friends over for money you can always say "It's just business", like that makes it just perfectly fine.

In the early '00s my company hired several execs from GE who'd suckled at the teat of Jack Welch. Their number one phrase which we heard time and time again during reorgs, lay-offs, plant shutterings, etc. was "remember: it's not personal, it's just business." May all JW acolytes be tied to a fire ant mound naked with a gallon of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce poured all over them.

[Js1 87291]

14 hours ago, safe sex said:

Apropos of recent discussion:

Trump’s Lawyers Should Have Known Better

But did they learn their lesson?? - Susan Collins 

[Biff Tannen 46205]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

But Trump's a "successful bidness man," that comes with the territory, like cheating on your taxes.

Sadly, this is what america thinks. And not just the trumpkins.

[Bozo_Casanova 26910]

10 hours ago, SilasCoade said:

WTF are you talking about? Bad doctors get handled with prejudice, as they should. That whole doctor death podcast deal highlighted that basically it was hospital administrators ignoring the other doctors that let him continue his crimes. Once they actually accepted the concerns of the other doctors he went into the criminal justice system and was punished to the full extent allowed but law. 

Yeah that's not a great takeaway from that podcast as other than the two who pursued it the doctors he worked with did nothing and kept their mouth shut, but either way -  I'll never forget the way Doctors worked in Texas to change the law to cap how much damage a bad doctor could be exposed to if they really hurt someone. That's a direct subsidy to carriers who insure bad doctors.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[tbone_ 14470]

Ridiculous. It’s political persecution and you all know it.

[jimmyjazz 47333]

2 hours ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

In the early '00s my company hired several execs from GE who'd suckled at the teat of Jack Welch. Their number one phrase which we heard time and time again during reorgs, lay-offs, plant shutterings, etc. was "remember: it's not personal, it's just business." 

Did their press quote go something like "185 workers were affected by the asset adjustment"?  No, asshole, 185 workers were fired.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9524]

6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Did their press quote go something like "185 workers were affected by the asset adjustment"?  No, asshole, 185 workers were fired.

To. The fucking. Letter.

It was astounding. And after allowing the appropriate 3.5 seconds of quiet respect for those who were being shoved out of the door, it was immediately on to the next message of how the organization was now much more appropriately aligned for growth AND driving shareholder value which is the one and only true measurement of how successful a company is. Fuck 'em all.

[Gil Bang 26251]

The great thing about being a businessman is that when you screw your friends over for money you can always say "It's just business", like that makes it just perfectly fine.

“Tell Michael it was only business…I always liked him”.

[SilasCoade 2622]

1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Yeah that's not a great takeaway from that podcast as other than the two who pursued it the doctors he worked with did nothing and kept their mouth shut, but either way -  I'll never forget the way Doctors worked in Texas to change the law to cap how much damage a bad doctor could be exposed to if they really hurt someone. That's a direct subsidy to carriers who insure bad doctors.

Your definition of bad doctor is naive.