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US politics - have you no sense of decency, sir?


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One of the Capitol Police Officers, regarding the verdict.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/29/rhodes-oathkeepers-sedition-verdict-jan6/

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U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who helped defend the Capitol on Jan. 6, said he ran over to the federal courthouse when he heard there was a verdict. He sat sweating in the front row as the verdict was read.

“I was emotional,” Dunn said afterward. “I didn’t expect to cry.” He thanked the jury and the Justice Department for their work on the case.

“I don’t look at it like a victory,” Dunn said. “A victory is when you win. This was right. This was about doing the right thing.”

The Justice Department arrested Rhodes in January and Tarrio in June after an internal debate over whether the magnitude and organization behind the Capitol attack merited bringing rarely used seditious conspiracy charges. Bringing the politically charged count posed a higher risk at trial because it required that prosecutors prove the defendants harbored an intent to forcibly oppose the federal government, compared to the charge of conspiring to obstruct a proceeding of Congress, which is punishable by the same 20-year maximum prison term.

The Justice Department has argued in related cases that a conviction on either charge should carry the same seven to nine-year sentence under advisory federal guidelines, a potential starting point for the judge in Rhodes’s case. But the department calculated it was worth the risk to try to send a public message by charging the defendants with one of the most serious political crimes in a wider attack on democracy. ....

 

 

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3 hours ago, DMC said:

I think Trump's ability to "burn it all down" in the event he loses the primary is vastly overestimated.

 

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Take them where?  I'm sure if he loses to DeSantis that he'll be a sore loser, but so what?  He won't campaign for Ron or endorse him, but that barely matters.  Even if he out and out says that he got screwed and was the true winner, do you think that means a huge portion of the Trump wing of the party will stay home?  Because Republicans have a long established pattern of falling in line even if they don't like the nominee (see Trump, Donald-2016).  And after 6 months of Fox News and InfoWars railing against the impending Biden+Communist takeover, I think the vast majority of Trump voters will be voting for Desantis, and many of them will claim they always had mixed feelings about Trump anyway.

Sure, a small portion of true diehards won't show up, but enough to swing the election?  I'm a bit doubtful. 

I don't think it needs to be at either extreme. If 5% fewer Trump loyalists stay home in 2024, that alone could make a massive difference.

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4 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

The only Harry Dunn I'm familiar with is the one played by Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber

Capitol Police Officer that was there on 1/6.  He's the tall one.   :) 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

In Georgia.  Will that work elsewhere?

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

I don't think it needs to be at either extreme. If 5% fewer Trump loyalists stay home in 2024, that alone could make a massive difference.

Again, it didn't just happen in Georgia.  From Virginia to Alaska; Nevada to Ohio, Republican candidates that distanced themselves and even were attacked by Trump got more votes than Republican candidates supported by Trump.

 

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IMO the Trump cult dies the minute he loses the Republican primary. I think any attempt to transplant the big lie from the Democrats to the Republican establishment running the primaries to say the nomination was stolen from him will end him and what remains of his loyal followers. Whether ti would be enough for people like MTG to be primaried herself might be a question. We'll see how smart she is when she has to choose between being loyal to Trump or keeping her nose in the Washington trough.

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8 minutes ago, DMC said:

Again, it didn't just happen in Georgia.  From Virginia to Alaska; Nevada to Ohio, Republican candidates that distanced themselves and even were attacked by Trump got more votes than Republican candidates supported by Trump.

 

I'm aware and it's reasonable to draw the conclusion that you are. I'm just curious to find out if we haven't fully seen the results of cats fighting in a bag yet. What do you think would happen if Trump just flatly told his supporters not to vote for the nominee? 

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

What do you think would happen if Trump just flatly told his supporters not to vote for the nominee? 

Nothing much if that nominee just beat him.  We're still so far away from the election obviously anything's possible.  That goes double considering it's Trump we're talking about.  He may well suspend his campaign tomorrow and I wouldn't be that surprised.  My point is that many are overestimating his ability to dictate how Republican voters behave in general elections - and indeed the evidence we do have in actual results suggests the opposite.

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11 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

IMO the Trump cult dies the minute he loses the Republican primary. I think any attempt to transplant the big lie from the Democrats to the Republican establishment running the primaries to say the nomination was stolen from him will end him and what remains of his loyal followers. Whether ti would be enough for people like MTG to be primaried herself might be a question. We'll see how smart she is when she has to choose between being loyal to Trump or keeping her nose in the Washington trough.

Aren’t they already doing that in Maricopa County?

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Judge Finds Trump Stepped Outside Presidential Immunity With 2020 Subversion
|
November 29, 2022 3:21 p.m.

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Former President Trump flailed and moaned after the November 2020 election — a tantrum of proportions so huge, a federal judge says, that he won’t get the legal immunity that typically protects presidents from lawsuits.

The ruling came from a familiar place: U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan for the District of Columbia, who held in a Monday opinion that Trump could face civil suit over his attempts to block the 2020 election.

Sullivan loomed large during the Trump years as he oversaw the prosecution, guilty plea, reverse guilty plea, and investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser.

Now the first of several civil rights lawsuits brought against Trump for his attempt to subvert the 2020 elections is before Sullivan.

In the Monday ruling, Sullivan held that the lawsuit, brought by the NAACP and a Michigan group that advocates for low-income people, could proceed — in part because Sullivan found Trump’s actions to be so outrageous that the immunity that’s generally offered to presidents for actions taken in office can be pierced.

“If Former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count, as Plaintiffs allege here, such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution,” wrote U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan for the District of Columbia in a Monday ruling. “For these reasons, the Court concludes that Former President Trump is not immune from monetary damages in this suit.”

Sullivan cited an ongoing prosecution of a January 6 rioter allegedly affiliated with the Proud Boys in his ruling, stating what may seem obvious but apparently needs clarification: That a president “cannot, within the confines of his constitutional authority, prevent the constitutionally mandated certification of the results of a Presidential Election or encourage others to do so on his behalf, nor can he direct an assault on the coequal Legislative branch of government.”

Sullivan’s ruling marks a significant point in civil litigation over the 2020 subversion attempt, allowing a former president to be held civilly accountable for actions taken in office.

It goes to a question that has plagued the cases since they were filed: Did Trump go so far in the run-up to January 6 and after that the normal protections that cover the President, and other government workers, no longer apply?

One other judge, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta for the District of Columbia, already ruled earlier this year that Trump had to face civil lawsuits over the insurrection attempt. Trump appealed that ruling, which is currently before the D.C. Circuit.

The suit before Sullivan accuses Trump of trying to disenfranchise voters by conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

“Immunity does not protect acts that Former President Trump undertook outside the outer perimeter of his official duties,” Sullivan wrote in his Monday ruling.

He added, citing rulings in other civil rights cases brought against Trump for the election subversion efforts, that “there is no immunity defense for Former President Trump for ‘unofficial acts’ which ‘entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term.'”

Sullivan added that part of the reason why the groups could proceed with their lawsuits is because Trump remains an active threat. Not only does he continue to lie about the 2020 and 2022 elections, Sullivan wrote, but he’s reveling in doing so.

“Plaintiffs extensively allege the efforts of Former President Trump and his allies as recently as March 2022 to get state officials to overturn the election results; to endorse and provide financial support to candidates for office who supported his false claims of election fraud; all while fundraising for the 2024 Presidential Election,” Sullivan wrote.

The ruling can be read here at the end of the link.


 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/judge-finds-trump-stepped-outside-presidential-immunity-with-2020-subversion
 

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As always, I have been following the comments sections of political articles. Trump still has a *LOT* of diehard followers. But many of them...well, they're not actually 'distancing themselves from Trump' so much as the saying that Trump has been smeared so badly by the treasonous mainstream media he can't win. So, they are looking elsewhere - mostly at DeSantis. 

That said, if Trump is still alive when the 2024 primary season hits, I have no difficulty envisioning him sabotaging various congressional races by funding far-right loons. That might possibly cost the GOP a few seats.

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1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Can't Trump just run as an independent if he loses the primary?

I mean that would be the most effective "fuck the treasonous Republicans" approach for him right?

Most states have what is called a sore lower law, where if you go in a primary and lose you are unable to effectively run again (other than basically write-in). Not all states have this but enough big ones do that it essentially rules out the possibility, though in theory he could fuck over the other person in the states that don't have that. 

 

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