US Politics: Losing Appeals

[mcbigski]

18 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m on the “dark side” because I say supporting the guy convicted of sexual assault, who says he wants to be a dictator, who says he will not support our NATO allies if they suffer an invasion is a poor choice, and because I believe you are smart enough to see how you are lying to yourself… right…

 

Trump has never been convicted of sexual assault.  He called an obvious fraud out but still got a partisan judge to rule there was defamation of a clear liar.  Somehow after New York State changed their statute of limitations, a long time partisan democrat said, for the first time about 40 years later, that President Trump assaulted her in a department store changing room, in the eighties or so, while she was wearing a fashion item that wasn't even designed until several years later.  

That entire story is clearly post fabricated garbage.  Do you want to believe that sexual assault was so commonplace in NYC department store changing rooms that the alleged incident wasn't newsworthy?  When was the earliest media report?

If Trump did assault her, why did it take so long to get out?  It's not like he didn't have a very popular broadcast TV show  decades ago or spend 4 years as the actually legitimately elected POTUS. Use some lawyer thinking here instead of just parroting whatever the mass media force feeds us.

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

Trump has never been convicted of sexual assault.

But..if he was, you plainly would cognitive dissonance it away anyway, so what does that matter?  You'd just dismiss that in the same way you just dismissed a jury of six men and three women finding Trump liable for sexual abuse, battery, and defamation.  Sorry, I know the facts hurt.

Edited March 22 by DMC

[polishgenius]

Imagine how much of a gullible cretin you'd have to be to think Trump didn't assault E. Jean Carroll. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Trump has never been convicted of sexual assault.  He called an obvious fraud out but still got a partisan judge to rule there was defamation of a clear liar.  Somehow after New York State changed their statute of limitations, a long time partisan democrat said, for the first time about 40 years later, that President Trump assaulted her in a department store changing room, in the eighties or so, while she was wearing a fashion item that wasn't even designed until several years later.  

That entire story is clearly post fabricated garbage.  Do you want to believe that sexual assault was so commonplace in NYC department store changing rooms that the alleged incident wasn't newsworthy?  When was the earliest media report?

If Trump did assault her, why did it take so long to get out?  It's not like he didn't have a very popular broadcast TV show  decades ago or spend 4 years as the actually legitimately elected POTUS. Use some lawyer thinking here instead of just parroting whatever the mass media force feeds us.

 

That was a Jury who found that Trump committed “sexual assault”.  And during his four years as President there was a genuine question as to whether or not he could be found to have committed such an act hence the delay.  

(And are you really saying women reporting sexual assault or rape against powerful men is an easy thing for them to do? (And are you really suggesting Fox, OAN, Breitbart, Newsmax, Joe Rogan, etc… aren’t “mass media?))

https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db

 

Edited March 22 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[IheartIheartTesla]

I've seen some opinion articles on my feed that Biden is slowly 'edging ahead' of Trump in the polls. I dont see it myself in the data (its pretty much statistically tied with Biden slightly worse in swing states). So I have to wonder if this is Democrats changing the algorithm through seeded articles to mitigate some of the doom and gloom permeating the left. 

Another thing to watch out for is how many third parties actually make the ballots. The Libertarians and Greens are solid, but RFK may not be on that many states choices. He's the one I'm most worried about though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

RFK may not be on that many states choices. He's the one I'm most worried about though.

So do you really think many normal Biden supporters are going to be tempted by an anti-Vax Trump ally like RFKjr.?

[IheartIheartTesla]

I dont think anything, this is what the polling indicates right now. Biden does noticeably worse when candidates like RFK are included. As I've noted before, a lot of this support vaporizes when the election rolls around, but its still troubling enough.

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Trump has never been convicted of sexual assault.  He called an obvious fraud out but still got a partisan judge to rule there was defamation of a clear liar.  Somehow after New York State changed their statute of limitations, a long time partisan democrat said, for the first time about 40 years later, that President Trump assaulted her in a department store changing room, in the eighties or so, while she was wearing a fashion item that wasn't even designed until several years later.  

That entire story is clearly post fabricated garbage.  Do you want to believe that sexual assault was so commonplace in NYC department store changing rooms that the alleged incident wasn't newsworthy?  When was the earliest media report?

If Trump did assault her, why did it take so long to get out?  It's not like he didn't have a very popular broadcast TV show  decades ago or spend 4 years as the actually legitimately elected POTUS. Use some lawyer thinking here instead of just parroting whatever the mass media force feeds us.

 

Most sexual assaults go unreported.  It's one of the least prosecutable crimes because it often hinges on one witness against another.  And that's before you even consider the fear and intimidation involved.  I'm sure you know all this. 

 Trump's on tape "you have to grab them by the pussy" c'mon man.  That's not "locker room talk".

but even without all this, Trump is a horrible presidential candidate.  What is he going to do that you think is better than Biden?  I don't particularly like Joe Biden.  But as far as being President it's not even fucking close.  Trump's an angry, hateful 14 year old boy in an old man body who couldn't even manage to not piss away his inherited super wealth.  He's not a good businessman, he's not a good person, and he's certainly not good at managing the country.  

 

All we got out of Trump was a tax cut for the rich, stoking tensions in the middle east (moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, killing the Iranian Nuclear deal, killing Soleimani), three activist supreme court justices, a bunch of dog whistle racism, a bunch of overt displays of racism against Muslims and Central and South American immigrants, and a bungled attempt at using a crowd of angry idiot suburban dudes to stay in office un-democratically.  There was no election fraud.  Those claims have been investigated and tried in the courts of Trump appointed judges and all been bullshit.

Why do you want more of that? 

Edited March 22 by Larry of the Lawn

[Phylum of Alexandria]

15 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Why do you want more of that? 

Revenge, and boredom.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I've seen some opinion articles on my feed that Biden is slowly 'edging ahead' of Trump in the polls. I dont see it myself in the data (its pretty much statistically tied with Biden slightly worse in swing states). So I have to wonder if this is Democrats changing the algorithm through seeded articles to mitigate some of the doom and gloom permeating the left. 

I wouldn't say edging ahead, but if you discount McLaughlin & Associates (and you should), Biden is within the margin, even, or leading in 12 of the last 13 national polls.  That's notable movement.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

@mcbigski

And it’s interesting that you completely ignore Trump saying he wants to be a dictator on the first day and that he would abandon NATO allies to their fate if they are invaded.  Are you cool with those expressly stated Trump positions?  If not what about Trump makes you willing to ignore such positions?

[DMC]

Farthest thing from a surprise, but it's good to have confirmation - RNC Already Helping Raise Money For Trump’s Legal Bills, Despite Campaign's Claims:

Quote

Despite previous claims that the Republican National Committee would not be paying Donald Trump’s various legal bills, an invitation to a Palm Beach, Florida fundraiser next month shows that the Save America committee Trump has been using for that purpose will, in fact, be a recipient of donor money.

The fundraiser for a joint committee called “Trump 47” is to be held on April 6, according to an invitation obtained by HuffPost, with a “chairman” level donation set at $814,600 per person, and a “host” level at $250,000.

 

[Zorral]

Long piece detailing the shocking fax that billionaires are mean to, backstab, and cheat their fellow cheating billionaires too!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/21/truth-social-trump-merger-lawsuits/

Quote

 

.... "When former president Donald Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group and its proposed merger partner, Digital World Acquisition, announced last month a shareholder vote on their long-delayed deal, it marked a final step for the owner of Truth Social to become a public company potentially worth billions of dollars — most of which is owned by Trump himself.

But in the lead-up to Friday’s vote, both companies have been rocked by legal warfare. Their leaders, past and present, have traded heated accusations of deception and impropriety across four lawsuits in three states. And the cases threaten to erode Trump’s grasp on a stake in the post-merger company potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars — a possible financial lifeline, given that he owes more than $500 million in legal fines. ' ....

 

 

[Maithanet]

2 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I dont think anything, this is what the polling indicates right now. Biden does noticeably worse when candidates like RFK are included. As I've noted before, a lot of this support vaporizes when the election rolls around, but its still troubling enough.

Biden has had several good approval polls recently, and his net approval average of 538 has ticked up 4 points in the past two weeks (probably influenced by the SOTU).  Although that's only an improvement from -18 to -14, while Trump is at -10. 

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Long piece detailing the shocking fax that billionaires are mean to, backstab, and cheat their fellow cheating billionaires too!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/21/truth-social-trump-merger-lawsuits/

 

Twitter never made much money which is why it ended up in Musk's hands. Why would supposedly  smart billionaires invest money in Truth Social, which will probably have a tenth of the subscribers that Twitter had and even less than that in the way of advertising? Somebody here is scamming some others. Is the fake billionaire smarter than the real ones? If they really want a platform,  buy X off of Musk. I am sure he is a motivated seller. 

[Zorral]

My goodness this sounds like what the USA has devolved into.

The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers
The Nazi leader didn’t seize power; he was given it.
By Adam Gopnik

Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power by Timothy W. Ryback

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/25/takeover-hitlers-final-rise-to-power-timothy-w-ryback-book-review

Quote

So the historian Timothy W. Ryback’s choice to make his new book, “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” (Knopf), an aggressively specific chronicle of a single year, 1932, seems a wise, even an inspired one. Ryback details, week by week, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election and whom the entire conservative political class regarded as a chaotic clown with a violent following. Ryback shows how major players thought they could find some ulterior advantage in managing him. Each was sure that, after the passing of a brief storm cloud, so obviously overloaded that it had to expend itself, they would emerge in possession of power. The corporate bosses thought that, if you looked past the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you had someone who would protect your money. Communist ideologues thought that, if you peered deeply enough into the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you could spy the pattern of a popular revolution. The decent right thought that he was too obviously deranged to remain in power long, and the decent left, tempered by earlier fights against different enemies, thought that, if they forcibly stuck to the rule of law, then the law would somehow by itself entrap a lawless leader. In a now familiar paradox, the rational forces stuck to magical thinking, while the irrational ones were more logical, parsing the brute equations of power. And so the storm never passed. In a way, it still has not. ....

 

[Zorral]

Ya gotta pay up NOW you pos.

Trump Claims He Has Nearly $500 Million In Cash—As His Lawyers Insist He Can’t Pay NY Fraud Judgement

https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/03/22/trump-claims-he-has-nearly-500-million-in-cash-as-his-lawyers-insist-he-cant-pay-ny-fraud-judgement/?

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the meantime, springing -- er lurching? -- eternally ....

Chris Christie refuses to rule out presidential run on third-party ticket
Republican former New Jersey governor coy on whether he is considering 2024 ballot run with centrist No Labels group

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/22/chris-christie-election-third-party

Edited March 22 by Zorral

[LongRider]

This is an informative article about Truth Social going public.  

Trump could score $3.5 billion from Truth Social going public. But tapping the money may be tricky. - CBS News

Former President Donald Trump could soon receive a windfall valued as much as $3.5 billion, with shareholders of a publicly traded funding partner on Friday approving a merger with his Trump Media & Technology Group.

The approval occurred Friday morning, according to a livestream of the shareholder vote. Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a so-called "blank check" company that will now merge with Trump's media group, jumped 5.5% in morning trading.....

Trump could score $3.5 billion from Truth Social going public. But tapping the money may be tricky.

Former President Donald Trump could soon receive a windfall valued as much as $3.5 billion, with shareholders of a publicly traded funding partner on Friday approving a merger with his Trump Media & Technology Group.

The approval occurred Friday morning, according to a livestream of the shareholder vote. Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a so-called "blank check" company that will now merge with Trump's media group, jumped 5.5% in morning trading.

With Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) shareholders' approval of the deal, the businesses could soon combine, putting the former president's Truth Social social media platform on the stock market. Trump created Truth Social as a conservative-focused social media service after he was banned from Twitter, now known as X, and other platforms following the January 6th riot.

Digital World is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, a shell company that is created to take a private business public without conducting an initial public offering. 

The new company will be renamed Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. and trade under the stock ticker DJT, the same letters as Trump's initials, according to regulatory filings.

Trump stands to make a fortune from the pending deal, given that he will control 78.8 million shares of the newly merged company, or about 58% of the business. Based on DWAC's current stock price, that stake could be worth as much as $3.5 billion. 

Some of DWAC's shareholders appear to be Trump followers, as one group on Truth Social includes more than 7,850 users who have been communicating about the stock and its prospects. That raises the possibility that DWAC's shares are currently getting a lift from Trump's supporters at a time when Trump is moving closer to securing the GOP nomination for president.

That windfall could land in Trump's lap at a time when his financial pressures are ratcheting up. For one, Trump's lawyers have said he's been unable to secure a bond to appeal a judgement of more than $460 million in his civil fraud case. If he can't pony up the money by March 25, New York state could seize property from Trump to satisfy the ruling. 

Trump is also facing hefty legal bills in the other court cases against him, including more than $8.5 million in legal expenses so far in 2024 alone. His political action committees last year spent more than it raised, partly due to almost $50 million in legal fees for the president's ongoing legal defenses. 

But while a $3.5 billion stake in a publicly traded company could help relieve some of those financial pressures, it's unlikely to immediately help Trump. That's because he and other big shareholders are subject to a so-called "lock-up" provision that bars him from selling his stock for at least six months. 

Here's what to know.

Why can't Trump immediately sell his stake in Trump Media?
That's due to a lock-up provision for major shareholders, according to a DWAC regulatory filing. 

Lock-up provisions are a common restriction on Wall Street designed to keep big investors from dumping their shares in a company soon after the company goes public. If they were to occur, such large stock sales could cause a company's shares to tank. 

Trump likely won't be able to use the stock to get a loan, either. That's because the DWAC regulatory filing states that founding investors can't sell, lend, donate or encumber their shares for six months after the deal closes. 

Legal experts say "encumber" is a powerful word that could prevent Trump from using the stock as collateral to raise cash before six months have elapsed.

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I've seen some opinion articles on my feed that Biden is slowly 'edging

I really didn't need to think about Biden edging 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Imagine how much of a gullible cretin you'd have to be to think Trump didn't assault E. Jean Carroll. 

He said he didn't know her and also confused her for being his ex-wife. That is staggering and should alone be all people need to never vote for him before you add in that he raped her. 

Again, we live in the dumbest timeline.