Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

table has the moral high ground, you know. Since we all agreed with the invasion of Iraq and he didn't.

sounds like you do think it is nbd in the grand scheme of things

Liz Cheney and her entire family should be burnt at the stake in front of an audience of the Iraqi people

That's a bit medieval, isn't it? Dick is certainly a war criminal, but does Liz bear any responsibility for her father's crimes? She may have her own to answer for, but she wasn't even in Congress until 2017. Back in the mid-aughts, she was a mid-level State Department official. (She was part of a group formed to pressure Iran and Syria, which was disbanded in 2007 when the Bushies wanted to try to make peace with those two countries.

I just don’t think there’s anything redeemable about Liz Cheney, and quite frankly don’t give a fuck about the “good work” she’s done on the January 6th committee. She’s a fascist.

Aimless, I’m not a Kantian, so what I think about the genocidal Cheney family has little bearing on what I think about even the most violent “criminals” in the US justice system. Your gotcha moments are tiresome precisely because they fail to recognize context, and instead rely on false syllogism to buoy their reasoning.

Your gotcha moments are tiresome precisely because they fail to recognize context

right. the context here is your personal judgement operating on a case-by-case basis. For example, your expressed judgment is that every member of the Cheney family should be burnt at the stake. But, if I were to draw from that statement the conclusion that you favor the death penalty I can see I'd be 'relying on a false syllogism'. You am what you am.

im no philosopher but seems to me it could be useful & maybe even healthy to find a way to talk about politics without indulging in so many hyper violent torture/murder fantasies but ymmv

I think very deeply

How do we talk about people who aided and abetted genocide under completely false pretenses? It might be crass or a rejection of Christ-like logic of turning the other cheek to ask for their heads, but perhaps the fact that genocidaires continue to live comfortable and lovely lives insulated from violence and criticism should also be considered.

Posting this for no reason whatsoever

SIERRA ADAMSON: “That’s an American citizen that’s being targeted without due process of law, without trial. And he’s underage. He’s a minor.”
ROBERT GIBBS: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father.

table literally everyone in this thread agrees that liz cheney is bad, a couple posters remarked that it would be good if the jan 6 comittee which she is a part of contributed to stopping trump, youve spent the entire day fulminating that people itt are trying to rehabilitate her or insulate her from criticism which literally nobody is doing and its tedious, we all hate liz cheney but ok you hate her in the best most violent & correct way, can we please move on now

I don’t get the impression that everyone thinks she is bad, which is why I keep being a tedious asshole, but I’ll stop now.

A primary loss for Cheney is a win for Trump and his personal brand of vindictive cancel culture, it’s as simple as that. I don’t want to see Trump have a reason to celebrate anything at all.

Although I must admit I am glad that he focuses so much more on redressing personal slights than on doing anything at all to advance the goals of the GOP.

Yeesh. https://t.co/U7AfNgpT4d pic.twitter.com/46R2JqVEEJ

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 17, 2022

You finish “Breaking History” wondering: Who is this book for? There’s not enough red meat for the MAGA crowd, and Kushner has never appealed to them anyway. Political wonks will be interested — maybe, to a limited degree — but this material is more thoroughly and reliably covered elsewhere. He’s a pair of dimples without a demographic.

What a queasy-making book to have in your hands. Once someone has happily worked alongside one of the most flagrant and systematic and powerful liars in this country’s history, how can anyone be expected to believe a word they say?

It makes a kind of sense that Kushner is likely to remain exiled in Florida. “The whole peninsula of Florida was weighted down with regret,” as Cynthia Ozick put it in “The Shawl.” “Everyone had left behind a real life.”

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/RV-AP784_BKRVFD_M_20150312122211.jpg

which one is Kushner?

He's the chair.

Word gets around eventually...

Former president Donald Trump and close aides have spent the eight days since the FBI searched his Florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. But the answer they keep hearing is “no.”

The struggle to find expert legal advice puts Trump in a bind as he faces potential criminal exposure from a records dispute with the National Archives that escalated into a federal investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act and other statutes.

“Everyone is saying no,” said a prominent Republican lawyer, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations.

...

Ordinarily, the prestige and publicity of representing a former president, as well as the new and complex legal issues at stake in this case, would attract high-powered attorneys. But Trump’s search is being hampered by his divisiveness, as well as his reputation for stiffing vendors and ignoring advice.

“In olden days, he would tell firms representing him was a benefit because they could advertise off it. Today it’s not the same,” said Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for Trump who was convicted of tax evasion, false statements, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress in 2018. “He’s also a very difficult client in that he’s always pushing the envelope, he rarely listens to sound legal advice, and he wants you to do things that are not appropriate, ethically or legally.”

One lawyer told a story from early in Trump’s presidency of his legal team urging him against tweeting about the Mueller probe, only to find he’d tweeted about it before they got to the end of the West Wing driveway. Several people said Trump was nearly impossible to represent and that it would be unclear if they would ever get paid.

Reynal is probably game.

What lawyer wouldn't want a client who doesn't pay for advice he doesn't pay attention to? Oh, and one who will destroy your career and reputation.

Sounds like a job for Giuliani & Powell, LLC!

Please let this go to trial, please let Rudy and Sidney represent him, please please oh please

Go to trial? I doubt there’s even going to be charges.

*wriggle

Source confirms Allen Weisselberg will implicate the Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corp when he pleads guilty to criminal tax fraud charges in the morning — and he will agree to testify against them at trial in October if called as a witness. https://t.co/c7HCjwfm0n

— Molly Crane-Newman (@molcranenewman) August 17, 2022

the move by the AG to drop the investigation into Trump looking stupider by the day

(DA) otm

CNN says just the opposite:

(CNN)The former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization is expected to plead guilty Thursday to a 15-year tax fraud scheme, but he will not enter into a cooperation agreement to aid New York prosecutors in their criminal investigation of the real estate companies' finances, a person familiar with the matter said.

my read was that if he pleads guilty 'without cooperation' he can't take the 5th when he's later subpoenaed to testify, and that that was the agreement reached

Daily Mail says he is gonna plead guilty & testify in exchange for a greatly reduced sentence - 100 days vs up to 15 years

Can't blame him

From Newsweek daily bulletin:

FBI Sought Russiagate Files and Trump’s Personal Stash of Hidden Documents

TL/DR: "We've still got to unpack all of these terms—nuclear, espionage, classified—so the public understands. That will be tricky because the issues and technicalities are in fact extremely complicated,” one official told Newsweek.

The FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago was intended to recover Donald Trump's personal "stash" of hidden documents, two high-level U.S. intelligence officials told Newsweek. While some of the intelligence documents might have dealt with nuclear weapons, the classification level was not the main focus. "Trump kept documents that interested him," one official said, "sometimes Iranian or North Korean nukes, sometimes Ukraine or Russia, some foreign leaders." But the Justice feared that Trump might "weaponize" the information.

"Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state," an ex-Trump official says. Trump may have been planning to use them as part of a 2024 run for the presidency. The FBI were also after documents that they felt the former president had no intention to return," said an official. Trump said the FBI broke into his personal safe. The two officials agree that the private cache was located separately from the storage room that contained the 11 sets of documents that were the bulk of what the FBI retrieved.

What happens now? Several Trump supporters have lashed out at the Justice Department’s decision to oppose the release of an affidavit supporting the search warrant. It’s “hard for people to understand” that classification was not the focus, one of the officials said. "It is Donald Trump's potential law-breaking that is the focus… Justice was alarmed that Trump was planning to keep his possession secret," the official said. The other official said that it is what authorities knew (or believed) about Trump's plans that prompted the search now. But the official, who is confident that the search was legally valid, questions whether it was the smartest move.

Deeper reading: FBI Sought Documents Trump Hoarded for Years, Including about Russiagate

"Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state," an ex-Trump official says.

I mean isn't this just the next way they'll lie about the investigation? That Trump was holding on to the materials to justify his arguments about the deep state?

I wish the fucker was dead.

I can’t read Newsweek. It shows up but the words physically blend together. I then export the single mass of words as a cube of extra firm tofu and enjoy it with chipotle sauce

I wish the fucker was dead.

― politics is about vibes and the vibes are off (stevie), Thursday, August 18, 2022 5:41 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

he shouldve died of the virus, we were robbed

Good chance if that had happened then Pence would have won, and would you want that?

we cant all be political consultants, someones got to want the enemies dead

i don't think Pence would have won, he has the personality of a damp sock

A month out from the election, Pence delivers nice eulogistic noises to keep MAGA on board, Trump-hesitant GOPers feel comfortable about voting for the GOP again ("he won't embarrass us"), I think it might have been enough in the closest states.

I'm not saying I would have WANTED it to happen, but.

The Supreme Court fix would have been in by that point regardless, Ginsburg passed in mid-September.

I sincerely doubt Pence would have won. MAGA folk voted for Trump, not him. lot of the may have still voted, a lot of them would have lost their motivation.

not to mention the whole fiasco of how to get his name on the ballot that late would have been tricky.

in general you don't want your party's candidate dying the month before a Presidential election, is how I break things down to an extent.

though for state legislative races, sometimes it doesn't matter lol

It its intersting to speculate whether folx in another reality would have turned out in sufficient numbers to elect a dude who, in our reality, they wanted to see dead less than two months later.

honestly don't think a "sane" Romney or McCain type Republican is ever gonna win again in my lifetime. I think Pence would've gotten crushed.

xp never forget

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/missouri-elects-dead-man-as-senator-623222.html

THIS time, Charlie Brown

The moment has finally arrived when Lindell is going to change the world by presenting 12 hours of “evidence” on Sat and 12 more on Sunday to hundreds of millions of viewers on Lindell TV: “I’m telling you everybody, it’s over for them!” pic.twitter.com/CLmRfaJIkm

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) August 18, 2022

get your pillows ready

Who knew Mike Lindell would be the next slow cinema titan?

Is it Pay per View? Should be. Vince McMahon needs some work.

Re: voters, I think we all tend to overestimate the level of engagement of the general public. I saw an interview with one of the Alex Jones jurors, and she's from Texas, identifies as liberal, and yet had never heard of Alex Jones. I suspect that just as there are millions of people that think horribly of immigrants or gays or Jews or whatever without having met a single person in any of those categories, there are probably plenty of people (on, er, both sides) that vote for the idea of a candidate without actually knowing much or anything about them or their policies beyond "not Trump" or "not Biden" or whatever.