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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Trump Indicted: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/donald-trump-indicted-in-hush-money-payment-case.html

This is a major enough story that I think it goes beyond needing more than just a link.

I tend not to blame Ford for pardoning Nixon. When your chief executive fears legal annihilation if he ever transfers power to enemies, there's no telling what can happen. For one, it's the proximate cause of the death of the Roman Republic. Caesar knew he would have charges brought against him once his proconsulship in Gaul ended, so the price of crossing the Rubicon and of letting his term expire were the same.

This is a stupid escalation of precedent.

When your chief executive fears nothing, period, there’s no telling what can happen.

Whereas here, we have a pretty good idea of what can happen. He’s not going to get executed or even go to prison for a campaign finance crime.

no, he's just going to provide another object lesson on the mile-high stack that the points are made up, the rules don't matter, and any appeal to norms or procedure should be assumed to be bad-faith on sight. How many completely novel legal theories have been applied to Trump and his associates and supporters now? Is it because he's really that novel, or is it because we're well past the point where the paper system mattered?

The time to stop this was five or six years ago, and it's far too late now, so let's keep going and see what happens.

Logan Act attempts at General Flynn. He should have told them to fuck off and admitted to it. The law might be unconstitutional. And literally every administration has violated between Election Day and inagauration. And has been attempted twice. That really hurt the Trump administration getting up and running because it became apparent novel legal theories or anything that’s never prosecuted would be investigated in you if you took a trump admin position.

Trumps actually probably violated the Logan act since office. I believe he’s said he could make peace in Ukraine which could be construed as negotiating with a foreign government.

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