Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

its kinda funny and pretty dicey that this is the thing hes going to get tried for cause paying someone to shut up isnt against the law its done all the time instead theyre making the argument that paying her was for the benefit of his campaign and therefor violated campaign laws which is not a particularly common way of thinking about things, youd think if you were going to arrest the ex pres youd want to do it for something rock solid

Most likely Trump's attorneys were told by the Manhattan DA's office that an indictment would likely issue early next week and that he would need to surrender on Tuesday and appear in court.

That would not be an "arrest" but Trump is trying to dramatize this for his supporters. https://t.co/DN4bYLhkCM

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) March 18, 2023

Anyway, this may just be the tip of the iceberg. There's little doubt he's committed numerous crimes in numerous ways in numerous states. That's never really been in question. The issue has been prosecution, which, go figure, only really ramped up once he was out of office. Though not least because several of his crimes (Georgia, January 6, classified docs) were committed on the way out.

His rants scan like mistranslated North Korean propaganda.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 18 March 2023 bookmarkflaglink

It's actually purely American in its levels of delusion about the best country in the world. With a bunch of racism.

its kinda funny and pretty dicey that this is the thing hes going to get tried for cause paying someone to shut up isnt against the law its done all the time instead theyre making the argument that paying her was for the benefit of his campaign and therefor violated campaign laws which is not a particularly common way of thinking about things, youd think if you were going to arrest the ex pres youd want to do it for something rock solid

― lag∞n, Saturday, March 18, 2023 10:57 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cohen’s already gone to jail for this, so maybe that sets a precedent. But I agree—this seems dicier than the Georgia election fraud case but I am no lawyer.

They just want to get him in court and talking so he'll confess to 7 other things during one of his rants

I think that's probably right, and it's the area where in the past he might have been savvier, but I think he'll say all kinds of nonsense under oath now

He'll probably just keep pleading the fifth, which is one reason this stuff keeps getting dragged out. But the ongoing Stormy Daniels thing specifically seems to have been drawn out due to prosecutorial foot dragging; it was always weird that Cohen did time for a crime committed at the behest of the asshole that did not go to jail, but again, don't underestimate the dampening effect of Trump being president. The second he was out of office all this shit started ramping up. He's been in and will be in court for all sorts of stuff for the foreseeable future, even if he'll never see the inside of a jail cell, though he's such a POS there is ample potential for him to finally cross some red line and get himself in even more serious legal jeopardy. He's a perma-perp. He can't help it.

That Trump tweet (or whatever they're called on Truth Social) above very reminiscent of Wire's "Reuters": "This is your correspondent, running out of tape, gunfire's increasing, looting, burning, rape."

A good minithread from someone who keeps regular tabs on this stuff

For those asking, so far there's scattered anger but no concrete plan on Trump forums for his potential arrest on Tuesday.

So far it's:
1—Users urging DeSantis not to be like "Judas Pence" and hand him over
2—Random, rote calls for Civil War if it happens

I'll keep you updated.

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 18, 2023

Judas Pence was more into leather

Hopefully this ugly link works ...

https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwtWgBhDhARIsAEMcxeC6PoXcXx-B0xxVmos44bIkuAcxm6q9f5aZpv6Tqk0vbiTyBGAxS6UaArVqEALw_wcB#!/ENQpnoy6A-BgHK0zZBk1

what do you think the ?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwtWgBhDhARIsAEMcxeC6PoXcXx-B0xxVmos44bIkuAcxm6q9f5aZpv6Tqk0vbiTyBGAxS6UaArVqEALw_wcB#!/ENQpnoy6A-BgHK0zZBk1 bit means

I literally have no idea, why don't you tell me? I was just trying to find a way to embed my generated video.

My new band concept is heavy metal covers of songs about coins ("Penny Lane," "Three Coins in a Fountain," "Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares," "Brother, Can you Spare a Dime?,"and selections from the Threepenny Opera).

I am calling it Judas Pence

Google Click ID (GCLID) is a parameter passed in the URL with ad clicks, to identify the campaign and other attributes of the click associated with the ad for ad tracking and campaign attribution. In Google Ads, this is enabled by turning on the auto-tagging setting. It’s required for Google Ads website conversion tracking and also used to link data between Google Ads and Google Analytics. It can also be used in conjunction with features like offline conversion tracking.

Huh. What does that mean? That the link generates ad revenue?

Sad Wings of Desantisy

I suspect his supporters know the arrest is the point: the final act of martyrdom. It will be a glorious day for'em.

It means you can just delete everything from the ? onwards

https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/

if *we* can barely figure out what he's being prosecuted for in nyc, imagine how it will seem to, like, normal people. which will make his claims that this is a political prosecution resonate.

Perhaps it will be easier to figure out when there's an actual indictment.

what if it just says "cheeto man bad" tho then what

It means you can just delete everything from the ? onwards

Yeah, but that would only get someone to the site's homepage with the template, not the thing I generated. When I click on the messy link I pasted it takes me to the thing I generated.

He's been/being prosecuted for lots of things in NY, iirc, but this one seems pretty simple (if relatively minor, compared to classified docs and GA): using campaign funds to pay out hush money. Right?

I mean who gives a fuck what Trump supporters or libertarians et al think, they would think the same thing if he was arrested eating a child on TV. You don't base these moves on whether people will like them.

Republicans don't mind doing things that enrage 200 million people daily.

yeah, all, move to Florida, join Neanderthal and me for Negronis

Probably next on DeSantis's chopping block.

Wokegronis

D'oh, too late

I mean who gives a fuck what Trump supporters or libertarians et al think, they would think the same thing if he was arrested eating a child on TV. You don't base these moves on whether people will like them.

i agree that maga idiots will never change their minds, it doesn't matter. however, it's kind of infuriating that he could tell everyone he was going to try to steal the election, for months, lose the election and immediately try to steal it in several different states, openly, blatantly, with a loudhorn, using a stupidass legal theory that everyone knew was complete bullshit from the beginning, told everyone to come to march on the capitol and steal it for him, and was perfectly fine with letting white supremacists lead and organize the violence. and then what he gets indicted for is some hush payment on sleeping with the four thousandth person who wasn't his wife, and something which everyone already knew about before the election, something he's already done many times while everyone looked the other way, and had long since forgotten about since there were so many other things he openly did.

it's cool and whatever but hundreds of thousands of people unnecessarily died because of him, and that was for something that he won't even be prosecuted for, and something for which everyone has already totally forgiven and forgotten. i guess i'm glad if he goes down over some bullshit but it's hard not to feel like everything is just...absurdly upside-down.

i do want to note that i'm so glad michael avenatti already fucked off

I think the specific arrest day came from Asshole contacting the prosecutors and receiving “C U Next Tuesday” as a reply

sorry don't mean to derail with navel-gazing weirdness but—

anyone else taking a step back from all of this "he's gonna get arrested!" hype and look at how dystopian it all is? one side wants it, the other side has been committing domestic terrorism and all of the news outlets saw how well the fbi going into mar-a-lago drove up engagement so i get this feeling like it's the "super bowl" of possible political comeuppance. yes, of course he needs to be put away forever but so do most politicians. he's just the loudest asshole. ugh. the whole thing: no. simply no.

(and plus— the whole "reason" being given for the arrest seems like a fucking movie plot it's so cliche. otoh, cool that they're gonna try to get him for misogynistic nonsense. be even cooler if daniels was working the long con this whole time and took one for the team.)

(ftr: i hate talking about any of these people. i'm sorry if i come off as flippant, but sheesh. how can anyone have any sort of normal life in this dystopia?)

If it's any reassurance, opinions are pretty aggressively divided among those that care about this stuff at all, but I suspect the vast majority of people dgaf about any of this, which is ... maybe not much reassurance.

I don't think any minds are getting changed about Der Trumpmeister, in either direction. Everyone is dug in.

well in that case, here's my opinion: i want it to be a "choose your own adventure" and i want the next wave of headlines to hit early tomorrow morning (~4am est) and have them be about how he has skeedattled off to moscow to consult with vlad.

(going for the most venture bros-esque scenario)

I want Trump to descend down into the empire of the ants and meet his grisly demise.

i expected this movie to be so much better too. i'd have walked out but they locked the doors.
wait i smell smoke omigod

(reads ahead)

this choose your adventure sucks. everyone dies horribly in all of the outcomes.

The reason most people don’t care about the legal hubbub is because most people are savvy enough to understand that the justice system is built to buoy the rich and punish the poor and non-white. it is mostly liberals who actually care about the legal hubbub because the idea of legal consequences for this stuff feeds into their latent patriotism. “you see the system works!”

Meantime:

They're burning Pepe memes in effigy over on TheDonald. pic.twitter.com/dbsymCGBgO

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 18, 2023

"Our culture"

Children get your culture.

yea I agree with Zach on this the fact that it's the Stormy Daniels thing is pretty lame, like I don't really care about that and I doubt anyone else does either. the only reason why people do is because fuck Trump. fair enough. if you're dumb enough to donate to a dude whose entire campaign was "look at how rich I am" then having that money go to a porn star is probably best case scenario. idk it just bothers me because Trump caught so much shit for things that, lets face it, were kind of trivial, once you get that he's a rich Republican in politics, he's allowed to be corrupt, everyone knows that's how it goes. it shouldn't be overlooked that this guy tried to steal the election in plain sight, which, as far as any soverign nation is concerned, really is a major, unforgivable crime. that's 10000x bigger than some dumb hush money scandal.

Austin otm

Frogbs also

As Flaubert wrote about the Franco-Prussian War, "whatever else happens, we shall remain stupid."

President Trump will be arrested during Lent—a time of suffering and purification for the followers of Jesus Christ.

As Christ was crucified, and then rose again on the 3rd day, so too will @realDonaldTrump.

Violence is never the answer. Winning the election is. Vote for Trump!

— Joseph D. McBride, Esq. (@McBrideLawNYC) March 18, 2023

see you next Tuesday

i *would* like to see donald wriggle his way out of a crucifixion

some people get really cranky during lent, could play a role