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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37930 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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If you've used right wing websites for any amount of time, you're bound to find someone pointing out the vast and far reaching influence of zionists in the US government, media, and finance. I'm sure you've seen the infographics showing the prolific and far reaching influence of groups like AIPAC or other powerful zionist special interest groups, as well the Epstein/Maxwell Mossad connection.

  • I define "zionist" as people with a real or imagined Jewish identity or loyalty, conspiring to promote their ideological and financial interests at the expense of others. This is done through finacialization, campaign finance and lobbying, and manufacturing consent through media.

  • Race is a social construct. George Soros literally changed his race to white, and worked for the Nazi party during the Nazi occupation of Germany during WWII.

Now, I've heard plenty of arguments pointing all of this out, but what are the arguments against it?

Since I'm capable of self-reflection, I'm aware that Black identity politics have a similar view of white people.

  • I might have a high probability of seeing zionists among journalists/bureaucrats/intelligentsia I don't like.

  • However, a Black person will look above them and see a white person in power nearly 100% of the time. After all, the diaspora of "white" people are quite prolific.

I want to try taking off my magic sunglasses that cause me to see zionists everywhere, and see a different perspective. Most left-coded media either denies that this is happening at all, or accuses you of being a bad person for noticing it. What other arguments are there against it?

I think the fundamental problem with this sort of post is that that the vast majority of people like you do not seem to understand what the word "zionist" means. If you think that the holocaust was bad and that the survivors deserve a homeland of their own, you are technically a "zionist" but that's not how the term is typically used. My first thought reading your post is "Tell me that you are a self-hating jew without using those exact words".

Well, for one thing, George Soros was 14 years old when the Nazis surrendered, so I am guessing the claim that he "worked for the Nazis" involves some serious spinning.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SGWizajL7tA&t=264

Ignoring the obviously loaded question video title, here's him talking about it.

If you look at the entire story - that he was posing as a relative of a Hungarian collaborationist official, who was himself a traitor for hiding a Jewish relative, and helping said official confiscate property in 1944, that is, at a time when everoyne knew the war would be over very soon, and the confiscation themselves mostly irrelevant.. It's not charitable at all to say that he 'worked for the nazi party'. It's stretching the truth to the breaking point, really.

Clearly given your username this isn't really a good faith post.

Can you explain? Is there some meme I don't know about?

It's a reference to the naming scheme that was used by the ban evasion subreddits for Million dollar extreme, which follows the Number, Currency, Rhymes-with-extreme pattern. Sure, I might be biased, but I've been reading a lot of rationalist stuff recently, and I've been reconsidering some of my viewpoints. (I'm a problem theorist, not a conflict theorist.)

"6 Gorillion" is a common revisionist jeer at the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Would you please explain to me the thought process behind including this in your reply? If you genuinely believe this to be a bad faith actor then the appropriate response would either be to ignore and move on or to publicly register them as such first. Actual engagement, while an enticing option, is their intended goal - granting it to them just doesn't make any sense.

Alternatively you don't actually think that but you want to call out their belonging to a group/antisemitic signalling, in which case you may want to address that (e.g. Are people of differing ideological beliefs allowed to post here? Are they capable of posting here within the rules? Are usernames even useful for anything other than marking a continuous personality across conversations/threads?).

A post can be a bit, but not entirely, bad faith. Being "bad-faith" doesn't prevent its topic from being interesting to discuss. Maybe the 'best response' to a bad faith post is an earnest one. Maybe you want to convince readers, if not the poster. Even the worst poster - maybe an earnest response will plant a seed of doubt, or something.

I am aware that this is a very hot button issue to ask, and had cleared it with a mod before posting.

Would you please explain to me the thought process behind including this in your reply?

I would think it obvious. I understand that rationalists suffer from a form of institutionalized autism where in they genuinely believe that you can separate the reliability information from the source (IE that someone has lied dozens of times before should not be taken as evidence that they might be lying now) but that doesn't make theirs an accurate model of the world. Obvious bad faith actors are obvious and should be treated as the degenerative communal disease that they are.

To be clear, we are not talking about humans here, we're talking about alphanumeric strings on an an anonymous internet forum. IE the intellectual equivalent of bacteria in a gut.

What makes @GorillionRialGraphene a bad faith actor? Where are they lying?

The theme of my username is commonly associated with trolling campaigns.

I define "zionist" as people with a real or imagined Jewish identity or loyalty, conspiring to promote their ideological and financial interests at the expense of others. This is done through finacialization, campaign finance and lobbying, and manufacturing consent through media.

Well then you define "Zionist" wrong. A Zionist is someone who is in favor of a Jewish state in Israel.

I'm guessing the bit you quoted is aimed at pro-Israel neocons in America? Because I can't help but suspect the word "imagined" is doing more work there than at first blush.

And when I see people being anti-Zionist, it's usually the left wing, and it usually has to do with problems in the Gaza strip.

What other arguments are there against it?

Jews are the highest-IQ subpopulation, are concentrated in big cities, and have a culture promoting intellectual endeavours. Is it really a surprise they are overrepresented in fields that draw from urbanites with high IQ and high work ethic?

The higher IQ applies to the ashkenazim and is thought to be from selection in the late middle ages and after, but the pattern of concentrating in certain elite professions and the majority getting mad about it applies to jews much more generally, and so is presumably not explained by it.

  1. It's happening, but it's a prospiracy instead. Jews aren't necessarily aware of their own thought processes that causes this.

  2. It's happening, but it's the equivalent of Russell conjugation. Non-Jews have a stick in their eyes that prevents them from seeing that were the situation reversed, they could be described in the exact same way. I forget who said it here, but it's about how those without power don't seem to understand the experience of having it.

  3. It's happening, but it's in response to history. Basically, Jews have been so poorly treated by others that they were funneled into doing things others did not want to and built their advantages upon that. In this case, Jews are acting rationally and have learned that they benefit from the existence of a state for their people (and whoever else they want to allow), among other things.

These are just a few I can come up with. This says nothing about evidence, of course, and that applies to both sides of this debate.

I'm aware that Jewish people are smart, and intelligence is a predictor of improved life outcomes. However, you'll notice my post only contains the word jewish once, as I'm specifically referring to the subgroup of zionists. Bernie Sanders (or at least, the idealized 2016 version of him) is "Jewish" but very clearly has a different agenda then zionists do. Netanyahu is clearly a zionist, but is becoming unpopular with Israelis.

Basically, Jews have been so poorly treated by others that they were funneled into doing things others did not want to

I've heard this one before, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument that as to how money lending is an oppressive job. If you were to oppress a people group with high intelligence and labor skills, it would probably look like the Nazis forcing interned Jews to assemble radios and electronic components.

I think it has to do with the fact that for a long time Christians were not allowed to do money lending, and Jews didn't have to rely on Christians' good will in order to get into that business.

My understanding is that Christians at the time weren't allowed to charge any interest, as that was considered usury.

I've heard this one before, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument that as to how money lending is an oppressive job.

It's not an "oppressive" job, but it is one that historically - not just in Europe - was carried out by a minority caste who was generally despised, because unsurprisingly, people who loan you money and then expect to be paid back, with interest, are unpopular. The fact that everyone considers them wicked and greedy and yet they're rich rubs salt in the festering sores, which from Japan to England to Russia would periodically result in a purge of the moneylending class when the ruling class found it inconvenient to repay their debts.

The fact that everyone considers them wicked and greedy and yet they're rich rubs salt in the festering sores, which from Japan to England to Russia would periodically result in a purge of the moneylending class when the ruling class found it inconvenient to repay their debts.

There's a general argument saying that perhaps it's better for long-term stability of society that debts gets annulled from time to time, because otherwise, especially in relatively static farming societies, Matthew effect result in socially undesirable concentrations of wealth, no ?

What’s ironic is that very notion was written into the founding documents of the Nation of Israel, the Year of Jubilee. No generational debt, and everyone has a home property they can return to.

I don't know, is there? "There's a general argument" seems awfully vague and evasive to me, almost as if you want to make an argument that you do not want to state explicitly. So please elaborate. I'm particularly interested in how you think such an annulment should be executed vis a vis moneylending classes.

They were never forced to be money lenders, though. They held lots of other skilled urban jobs. And despite what some sources say, there were no prohibitions on Jewish land owning that would prevent them from simply living as farmers.

What about the Hibernian conspiracy?

And more.

Yet more.

☘☘☘They☘☘☘ don't want you to know who's really in charge. The Jews take the heat, but the media, government and major companies are run by ☘☘☘them☘☘☘.

Terrible idpol response:

  • There aren't state laws mandating Irish potato famine education courses in 23 out of 50 US states.

  • The US doesn't give disproportionate amounts of money to Ireland, and then also have to give money to their neighbors to incentivize them to play nice with the irish.

  • Ireland has never been caught spying on US politicians or planting Stingray units around the White house. (However, in fact checking this, I did discover that the IRA got weapons from the USSR once.)

  • Our relationship with England is not actively sabotaged by the Irish.

While clever, this works the same for Italians or Germans. You could even stretch it to work for Asians too.

Crackpot rightoid identity politics response that probably doesn't meet posting standards:

Honestly, just posting that as a rebuttal would probably have been okay, but explicitly saying "I don't think this meets posting standards" and then posting it anyway with spoiler tags is just obnoxious. Post what you want to say and stand by it, or do not.

Isn't it a bit odd that Irish-Americans are less than 10% of the population but they make up around half of all Presidents historically and almost all modern Presidents? And look at this list of major bank CEOs. Bit strange that a single digit percentage ethnic group ended up in charge of almost all American banking. Coincidence? "Prospiracy"?

And this small group also ran the Fed for almost the entire 20th century? Yet another bit of happenstance or a "prospiracy" where they just all happen to independently desire control over money and banking? The coincidences and prospiracies are piling up. Let's admit the fact that in-group bias and ethnic affinities exist. And one small group inexplicably gets almost all the presidencies and banking CEO positions.

You say this is identity politics. I say yes, of course: they are playing identity politics and they're winning. The evidence is right in front of us.

God dammit, not the Droods again, I can't withstand the memes...

Did someone mention droods?

I watched a Let's Play of that once and remember nothing but 'What the hell did I just watch?'

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.

Even in Florida local news is so bias. I’m a little drunk but they never once quoted his real attorney. Like Costello son is an actual friend of mine.

In a few places, I've seen the purported basis for prosecution being a "novel theory" on the law. Now, I know that I'm a legal philistine, not versed in the way that very serious law people are, but I find it irksome that there are any remaining novel theories to be had in criminal law (outside of things pertaining to new technology). After a millennium or so of the underpinnings of the law system developing and a couple hundred years of American law, people should more or less know what is a crime and what isn't a crime, without a ton of wiggle room for any novel theories regarding the latest in legal creativity. I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that this proves that the case is politically motivated bunk, but it certainly increases my likelihood of believing it to be so.

but I find it irksome that there are any remaining novel theories to be had in criminal law

Welcome to complex systems. Evolution's a bitch.

You now realise that all law is BS thought up ad hoc by rich connected people to justify whatever doing whatever they want on that particular day. And it always has been.

What you identify as a bug is in fact a feature.

The recent stuff coming out of the LBRY case has been a good example.

I am on board with some caution, because we haven't seen the literal document yet. There are a lot of possibilities. That said, there has been a lot of news reporting, and SDNY has been plenty talkative privately with left-leaning journalistic outlets over the last several years. We just had reporting about how there was a "mutiny" in the office over whether or not to finally bring the charges.

So, on the amount of caution, I would contrast with the caution I was suggesting back in the pre-Mueller days about the Trump-Russia thing. On that issue, it was highly likely that if there was any there there, it was done pretty secretly. It was highly likely that if a case was going to be made, it was going to be made using the much more secretive counterintelligence resources of the federal government. And Mueller wasn't going to be giving private exposes to journalists; he was going to just let his documents do the talking.

Those factors are different here. Every journalist that is likely mainlined in to SDNY is telling the same basic story with the same basic parameters that we've known for years. We've known the basic contours, because they pushed super hard in the Cohen indictment to cram it in there! You can easily believe that every ounce of effort was put forth to make sure that he pled guilty to the campaign finance charge so that they could blast "unindicted co-conspirator" on every mass media outlet they controlled.

So, while it may be the case that some additional facts have been discovered, we probably actually have a really good guess as to the main thrust of the case, because we've probably known the main thrust of the case for the past few years. It's been turned over and over by plenty of legal experts, most of whom came down on the side of, "This is a pretty out there, novel interpretation of campaign finance law, struggling with the John Edwards history as well as the Supreme Court's embrace of quid pro quo being the purpose of such laws in Citizens' United." We know who paid who, from whose account, and how it was labeled.

I still totally agree that we should have caution in making actually conclusive statements about the contents of this particular indictment, but if you paid close attention to this issue the first time around, I feel like there's a pretty low (<10%) chance of there being anything genuinely new/surprising besides perhaps a few minor facts/twists.

There could be lots of related charges such as tax fraud, witness tampering, etc that would be much stronger

Those would be some potentially significant shifts. I don't think I've seen any reporting or even wild speculation from the usual commentariat that has even hypothesized particular facts that could be used to support such a thing. Have you seen anything at all?

Not that you’re wrong to be suspicious, but it’s not entirely unreasonable for novel law to come up. Federal-state intersections are weird. There’s just not as many people operating in this overlap.

In this particular case, I believe the "novel theory" concerns an aspect of campaign finance law. That entire field of law is about fifty years old. I make no promises how that will (or should!) move your priors, so take it as you will.

I would imagine that there's probably enough evidence to indict Trump on numerous charges (even if flimsily), and given that he might as well see charges re: Georgia interference, I can understand there being a push from the legal-political class in NY to try to "get him" first. Nevermind the implications because he'll be charged with some more serious crime anyways, and hell, if we can do it, why not? Are we just going to let this opportunity pass?

I imagine there are some bitter feelings in NY political circles with respect to how they feel Hilary Clinton was treated, and they consider turnabout fair play.

I'm going to agree with some of the commenters below that even HUGE BREAKING NEWS STORY! requires more than just rushing to be the first to drop a link. You can find "Oh wow, LOOK WHAT JUST HAPPENED!" anywhere else on the Internet. If you're that eager to be first to "break" the story on the Motte, you still need to put the effort in to say something meaningful about it.

You can find "Oh wow, LOOK WHAT JUST HAPPENED!" anywhere else on the Internet.

Yeah, but you can't find the same bunch of insightful people anywhere else and I'm interested in what they have to say.

Yes, that's fine, I would expect someone to start a thread about this. I'm saying you should still put the same effort you'd put into launching any other topic.

I'm no fan of Trump but I really don't like the charges being secret. Smacks too much of gulags and black helicoptera for my liking. Is this normal? Don't they have to say what Trump is actually being charged with?

The charges aren't secret, the indictment just happened - the gears of "process" will grind away for a few more days before the indictment is unsealed.

"Hey, we're charging you with a crime but you have to surrender to the court before we'll tell you what it is" is a really weird process.

It's not clear if the surrender will happen first? Both surrender and unsealing apparently happen in the next few days. When you combine the stickiness of paperwork/procedure, the process being designed for a pre-digital era, and the media trying to break the story as early as possible, making the moment of decision, at which point we hear about it, before the moment of unsealing, it doesn't seem that bad.

Love how other boards have been saying Trump was grifting over this indictment.

Boomer lib shit. He'll skate on this, even though what he did should clearly be illegal.

  • -17

It’s not ‘clearly illegal’, they’re claiming that paying off his mistress is a campaign expense(which is debatable).

the word "should" was italicized for a reason.

I think they’re claiming he mislabeled it as paying a lawyer as a business expense versus paying her off.

Paying off a mistress doesn’t seem illegal but perhaps he did it in an illegal way.

No, more than a link should still be needed, if only because nothing is lost except the dopamine of being first to post a hot topic.

I disagree — a lot of people want to comment immediately without going through the hassle of writing up a big post

Doesn’t take long to write a few lines and a lukewarm take.

But then you have to live with the fact that your permanent record has been besmirched by a lukewarm take.

Oh the humanity…

That doesn't mean they ought to be indulged.

Partial Mod-Hat: If I had seen this first it would have been at least a one day ban. Intentionally violating a rule and not being punished for it makes the rule meaningless. I would have preferred to make an example of a post like this, rather than just allowing it with a light warning. For anyone thinking of pulling this in the future, please take note that OP's lack of a ban is from Luck rather than official policy. End of partial mod-hat

Thoughts on some things:

The Crime of living under an Administrative State

The underlying "crime" seems dumb. It is a result of an overactive administrative state. Its exactly the type of reason why overactive administrative states are evil. There are hundreds of thousands of rules, and a single mistake is enough justification to wage a legal war. Two mistakes in close enough proximity can get mashed together to more than double the consequences. The question we should ask is, can someone pay off their mistress to keep quiet? If yes, end of story. If no, then Hollywood watch out. All the complaints about how the money might have been mislabeled are administrative state bullshit. Why should I need to label how my money (or my businesses' money) is spent for the administrative state? If Trump had labelled the expense "payoff to stormy Daniels" do we have any expectation that the administrative state would be happy, and wouldn't do something like conveniently "leaking" that detail to the press?

John Edwards, Campaign Finance

One of the "rebuttals" to this administrative state unfairness, is that the unfairness was pointed the other direction a decade ago. John Edwards got in trouble for using donations to cover up an affair. Here is the problem, Campaign Finance laws are blatantly unconstitutional. They clearly violate the First Amendment. Campaign finance survives the court system because judges are smart enough to realize that those laws are in place to give legitimacy to the US government. And the actual job of every judge is to hold up the legitimacy of the government, ruling on court cases is merely their means of accomplishing that goal. Campaign finance laws are also always doomed to failure. You can't take money out of politics when politics is so wrapped up in the economy. Anyways, a decade ago when the Obama administration was still getting its legs under itself, parts of the administrative state were still controlled by Neo-Con types. Its not a surprise they used some lawfare to go after a Democratic politician. People here either seem to have short memories, or they've lived shorter lives than me. The post-9/11 period of government, up until about 2010 was absolutely filled with shady things being done by the government that seemed to benefit the Neo-Con agenda. In the exact same way that the opposite is happening today.

State vs State Lawfare

The DeSantis refusal to assist in arrest is interesting. It speaks to a coming problem facing the American legal system. If it hasn't happened already, it soon will happen that there things that are crimes in one state, and in other states NOT doing that thing will be a crime. Trans issues for kids are already splitting that way. The NY attorney is currently going after Trump. Meanwhile Missouri and some other states are going after Fauci. I happen to hate Fauci, and I'm cheering on Missouri, but I'm part of the 'problem' of expanding lawfare. States with entrenched political interests can afford to wage lawfare on the national stage against their political opponents. No one else really has the resources to wage lawfare on the national stage, which Elites probably saw as a feature rather than a bug.

There are also cases of states weaponizing the constitution against the federal government. It might have been Missouri as well, but they passed a law a while back saying that it was Illegal for any state law enforcement agents to enforce unconstitutional federal gun bans. There were a lot of details to the law that made it look like it was basically a setup for a perfect legal challenge against a federal gun law. Coincidentally gun laws have not been getting passed as often lately, so I guess this law hasn't been tripped up yet.

There are "sanctuary" cities. Of various types of sanctuary. Initially for immigration. Now other things that cities don't want to enforce just aren't enforced.

The next Civil (court) War

It is worth thinking about what the end state of all this lawfare will look like. I don't think it actually leads to a hot war with bullets flying. Most of the court cases and topics end up being so dumb and boring that people can barely grab onto what is happening. Instead I think it ends in gridlock. Federal and State courts clogged with cases of lawfare that drag on for many many years. The Supreme Court unable to break the gridlock, because they are a part of the lawfare as well, and their reputation as non-partisan has been damaged too badly. Bureaucratic agencies unable to enforce any of their edicts on suddenly unwilling and uncooperative states. A president would have to call in the troops to start enforcing federal bureaucratic mandates, otherwise state LE just plays a game of arrest and release of any bureaucrats that step on their territory. But even the troops aren't too effective ... after all the issue is going to go to a local court with a local judge presiding, and a favorable local jury of peers.

The way out

Courts have a letter of the law vs spirit of the law problem. We have tried a system of enforcing the letter of the law for the past century. I think it ends in the gridlock scenario outlined above. Laws aren't mathematical enough to all coexist nice and peacefully with one another. There are conflicts, discrepancies, and gaping holes all over. The court system has been papering over those problems for as long as they can. But everyone is starting to see the problems. Trump, as always, is just a catalyst. No one has even bothered asking what spirit of the law Trump has broken. They went straight to finding the tiny letters that he might have broken.

I think the way out will require a great reset of court systems. Possibly with everyone getting their own AI lawyers. Or possibly a system that doesn't require any lawyers. Courts will need to re-establish themselves as bastions of fairness and justice. Rather than just as battlefield locations for lawfare. The longer the period of gridlock or legal failure, the more likely it will be that "Courts" come out looking/feeling/being named something completely different. Courts will have to focus on spirit of the law. Where people that don't violate a single law might still get prosecuted, because they so obviously violated the spirit. Or where people that broke a million tiny elements of the law get off completely free, because they weren't doing anything that actually violated the purpose of the laws.

Why should I need to label how my money (or my businesses' money) is spent for the administrative state?

Because you want the tax benefits that flow from labeling it a certain way?

Like, if you want to pay taxes on all the revenue your company earns or all your personal income or whatever then you don't have to care about how your money is labelled. But the reason people label things as business expenses is because the government gives certain kinds of tax advantage for those expenditures. The government is, I think understandably, upset when people lie to them and claim expenditures were for things that give tax benefits when they actually were not.

Courts will have to focus on spirit of the law. Where people that don't violate a single law might still get prosecuted, because they so obviously violated the spirit. Or where people that broke a million tiny elements of the law get off completely free, because they weren't doing anything that actually violated the purpose of the laws.

I don't understand how you can possibly think a legal system that operated this way would be perceived as more just than the current system. "We're going to throw you in jail, not because you broke any law but because fuck you." "Yea, you broke a bunch of laws other people are in jail for, but we aren't gonna punish you because we like you." Very just!

"We're going to throw you in jail, not because you broke any law but because fuck you." "Yea, you broke a bunch of laws other people are in jail for, but we aren't gonna punish you because we like you." Very just!

Are there not countries around the world that work somewhat like this, where the de facto law is much more informal than it would seem? I think there's some value in having a "Rule Zero"/"Because I Said So" clause in law, where a situation is sufficiently outside a system's reference class and it also demands swift and decisive action.

I am not sure there is any entity I (or people more generally) would (or ought) trust with that power, for what I think are pretty good reasons.

"Yea, you broke a bunch of laws other people are in jail for, but we aren't gonna punish you because we like you."

This one is real. Selective prosecution is just a thing.

Like, if you want to pay taxes on all the revenue your company earns or all your personal income or whatever then you don't have to care about how your money is labelled. But the reason people label things as business expenses is because the government gives certain kinds of tax advantage for those expenditures. The government is, I think understandably, upset when people lie to them and claim expenditures were for things that give tax benefits when they actually were not.

Administrative state crap. I'd prefer it if they stop creating thousands of different laws that reward different micro categories of spending with tiny tax incentives. I don't doubt that whatever silly rule is violated has some reason for existing within the bureaucracy. I just don't care about the system in general. Burn it all down I say.

I don't understand how you can possibly think a legal system that operated this way would be perceived as more just than the current system. "We're going to throw you in jail, not because you broke any law but because fuck you." "Yea, you broke a bunch of laws other people are in jail for, but we aren't gonna punish you because we like you." Very just!

Because a sufficiently complex set of rules just eventually wraps back around to that outcome anyways. When everyone is violating the rules and the only thing that saves them is prosecutor discretion, then it's just some prosecutor deciding who they want to make guilty and innocent. Why not skip the step of having a super complex legal system that wastes a bunch of resources? And why not select the judges and prosecutors based entirely on their wisdom to make good judgements, rather than their ability to manipulate a stupidly complex legal system?

And why not select the judges and prosecutors based entirely on their wisdom to make good judgements, rather than their ability to manipulate a stupidly complex legal system?

How do you determine "wisdom to make good judgements" in advance? What if people disagree about what good judgements are?

That's why they are elected positions.

I could definitely envision a future where the courts are so unwieldy that private courts, i.e., arbitration, becomes the de facto court system, with the government courts being the courts of last resort. You could even have local governments or states that would elect to reciprocally bind themselves to a qualified arbitrator for each citizen that chose to do so, e.g. I could choose from a list of arbitration firms approved by the state and agree to be bound by their judgements, and in return the state agrees to only bring cases against me through that firm. The state courts then would be only for people who chose not to select some other alternative.

I would have preferred to make an example of a post like this, rather than just allowing it with a light warning. For anyone thinking of pulling this in the future, please take note that OP's lack of a ban is from Luck rather than official policy. End of partial mod-hat

You're not wrong.

But just uttering the term "Trump Indicted" with a reliable source to back it up kinda brings in all the necessary context for discussion on it's own.

Doubtful anyone here needs the background story.

The president ordering in the National Guard is increasingly looking like it'd just devolve into its own lawfare.

Individual states are getting really close to passing "Defend the Guard" laws which would stop state national guards from being used without a governors approval or declaration of war by congress. This is a huge movement amongst the 10th amendment center and Mises Caucus of the libertarian party, allegedly individual state senators in out of the way states will get 1000s of calls to their office from local libertarian activists on the days leading up til votes... and its getting really close to the first state tipping over and passing the bill.

America will probably go down the path of the Holy Roman Empire, where the legal complexity and rivalled centers of power create defacto independent polities and overlapping unnavigable sovereignty

I have to say I think this is a really good post. Could work as a public intellectuals substack writing on the issue.

I’ve often thought someone should create a sub stack and just repost Motte comments, but not sure how that would fly. I’d want to credit people but it’s tough with the way things are set up.

There is The Vault.

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.

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

Not really. When powers are separated, the executive can rattle around in its little box, hemmed in on all sides, and then leave power, frustrated but not existentially threatened.

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.

As I said, it's an escalation. The Biden adminsistration has apparently made prosecuting Trump on something, anything, a major goal. And now for the first time in history a president has been indicted. Don't you think this will be returned with interest if the faction Trump represents gets back in power?

That proves too much.

Say Trump shot someone on 5th Avenue. New York doesn't do death penalties, but life without parole is pretty close to "legal annihilation." Should he face charges?

The whole point of murder laws is that (prospective) murderers should feel existentially threatened. Political concerns don't supersede that. The perverse incentives are obvious.

But this isn't murder, it's campaign finance! Sure--where do you draw the line? Tax evasion? Defamation? Petty theft? I don't believe a public figure should gain immunity to any of those charges. What makes campaign finance different?

I don't have a problem with the argument that this particular charge is brought in bad faith, or that a Democrat in Trump's position would be unfairly privileged. It seems quite plausible! No, I'm objecting to the general argument for holding our executive branch to a lower standard.

Personally, I think this ought to be covered by the normal protection of a jury trial. If they're going to try for a federal charge, the jury pool should cover that jurisdiction. A true jury of his peers should be able to cut through any fabricated charges.

I agree that there needs to be a standard and that said standard needs a credible mechanism to ensure that it is followed. The question for these topics always is, "What standard will you commit to holding your politicians to as well, and how credible is the mechanism that is going to ensure that you hold to your commitment?" Because we lived through the Lock Her Up era, where the only possible reason to bring a prosecution against a political opponent was because you lived in a tin pot little dictatorship. Where were the people who are now saying the very reasonable, "A true jury of his peers should be able to cut through any fabricated charges," at that time, and were they saying, "A true jury of her peers should be able to cut through any fabricated charges"?

I think this is why people could reasonably think that the standard shouldn't necessarily follow along the lines of "sufficient badness". Instead, I could reasonably see a standard of "sufficiently long history of consensus toward said badness". This is what I think has really rubbed the Right wrong in the past seven years. With Hilary, the common talking point was, "Everyone knows (and therefore, everyone agrees that the long-standing consensus is) that any of us would 100% be prosecuted for doing that." (Hell, at the very least, the IG's report says that one of the officers involved basically couldn't understand why Paul Combatta wasn't charged with 1001, because what he did would normally catch a charge >95% of the time.) Whereas every single time with Trump, it's been like, "Weeeeeeeeeelllllllllll, if we squint our eyes and contort our reading only a liiiiiiiiiiiittle bit, there isn't absolute precedent in the courts that what he did is not illegal!"

There is a lot to prosecutorial discretion. They do legitimately have to make calls when there is uncertainty about the law. I actually personally said that, looking the Hillary case, it seemed more like a 50/50 than an 80/20 (in either direction) for whether they could actually obtain a jury conviction for Hillary, herself. I said that I was fine with the refs swallowing the whistle on a 50/50 call with two minutes to go in the third period. Should she have had to have a jury of her peers cut through any fabricated charges after having lost the election? Maybe. I don't know. It would have held the standard that you might want. But I kinda lean toward thinking that if there is much of a belief that the person is going to stay active in politics, we should be mostly bringing cases where there is long, well-trodden legal history, less "novel theories".

The biggest downside I see to this is that politicians could then come up with "novel badness", and I think that's maybe just a price we have to pay. Impeachment is of course a political option to stop any ongoing badness, and the legislature can immediately thereafter pass a law clarifying whether such novelty really should be considered to fit within the scope of the law if such novel badness is sufficiently bad to warrant further measures. Which sort of brings me back to the Edwards case. Who out there was clamoring for, "Hey Congress! What John Edwards did was really really bad, and it cuts to the core of free and fair elections! It's only because you wrote a shitty law that he got off! You really need to pass a new law clarifying that such behavior is in fact really really bad!" Basically nobody. Nobody really cared to set the standard there.

"Everyone knows (and therefore, everyone agrees that the long-standing consensus is) that any of us would 100% be prosecuted for doing that." (Hell, at the very least, the IG's report says that one of the officers involved basically couldn't understand why Paul Combatta wasn't charged with 1001, because what he did would normally catch a charge >95% of the time.) Whereas every single time with Trump, it's been like, "Weeeeeeeeeelllllllllll, if we squint our eyes and contort our reading only a liiiiiiiiiiiittle bit, there isn't absolute precedent in the courts that what he did is not illegal!"

You are aware that "would be prosecuted for that" and "that is illegal" are not the same thing?

Obviously. I don't see your point. Please speak plainly.

You are using a motte and bailey where the easier to defend idea is "Trump did something that is illegal when you don't squint at it" and the hard to defend idea is "Trump did something that you or I would be prosecuted for". They are not the same thing, but you seem to think that because you can defend the former, the latter must be true.

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As I said, it's an escalation. The Biden adminsistration has apparently made prosecuting Trump on something, anything, a major goal.

This prosecution isn't coming from the Biden administration. It is coming from a locally elected District Attorney in Manhattan. The personal incentives facing Alvin Bragg (particularly the possibility of a future run for Mayor or Governor in New York where the main opposition is other Democrats) mean he might bring a prosecution that Biden and national Democratic leadership would prefer he didn't.

Don't you think this will be returned with interest if the faction Trump represents gets back in power?

Having asked Blue Tribers this point blank before on the Old Place, the answer I got was Whig History: that Trump's faction will never get back into power, because the arc of history bends towards justice and no-one will vote for ReThuglicans in the enlightened future.

There's also a pinch of Machiavelli in here, that "Men should either be treated kindly or destroyed utterly". Fear that the enemy will get back into power is a reason to lawfare them MORE, not less, because if you lawfare them enough that decreases their chances of getting back into power.

Having asked Blue Tribers this point blank before on the Old Place, the answer I got was Whig History: that Trump's faction will never get back into power, because the arc of history bends towards justice and no-one will vote for ReThuglicans in the enlightened future.

I am extremely skeptical that any such conversation happened back at the Old Place, let alone that multiple "Blue Tribe" regulars expressed such a sentiment.

I am extremely skeptical that any such conversation happened back at the Old Place, let alone that multiple "Blue Tribe" regulars expressed such a sentiment.

This seems like a comment intended to cause friction and adds little to the conversation, a similar transgression you felt the need to mod comment another user about. Seems like you want to be a bully and it really irks me.

Be as irked as you like that I am prone to challenging dubious assertions. There's nothing bullying about asking "Why would you claim that?"

Don't you think this will be returned with interest if the faction Trump represents gets back in power?

I think it's reasonable to assume this can not happen because the bureaucracy is not nonpartisan. Lawfare is a weapon that can only mostly be used by those with institutional backing.

Backing like a triple majority in a state?

Nope. Backing by the unelected lawyers and staffers that actually do the work.

Enter Texas and the fifth circuit.

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.

I don’t think that’s a good reason to give officials a vague, absolute defense against charges. The “Rubicon” analogy proves way too much. Should Trump be immune to less objectionable felony charges, if such a thing even exists? To misdemeanors? Which of those count as “legal annihilation”?

I don't think the rubicon analogy holds water either, and I enthusiastically support prosecution of officials who break the law, provided I'm confident that such prosecution is actually being applied in an impartial and unbiased manner.

Do you think that Trump's prosecution is how this would play out for someone in good standing with Blue Tribe elites?

It is almost exactly how it played out with John Edwards.

Nah, I'm pretty skeptical of this one. At least going off the limited details.

Actually, it looks like we have a counterfactual. John Edwards, who went after the Dem nomination in 2008, was charged with six counts relating to payments funneled towards his mistress and their son.

After nine days of deliberations, a jury acquitted Edwards of one charge of accepting an illegal donation, but was hopelessly deadlocked on the other five counts, resulting in a mistrial. The Department of Justice chose not to re-try Edwards.

I'm not clear on whether the prosecution fumbled this or there really was no case. This is probably where the "novel" federal-state stuff comes in, which is the biggest red flag for political grandstanding. Why can't the state prosecutor just bring the state misdemeanor charges?

Parliamentary immunity seems to be a fairly common feature of the world’s democracies; for a few years that was a major loophole in use in Italian abortion law.

Parliamentary immunity protects current elected officials, not former ones. The purpose (to prevent the executive using criminal prosecution as a weapon against the legislature) is not served by protecting former officials.

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.

A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump in connection with a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Is that what this is about? I thought they at least had tax fraud receipts. What the fuck?

There's multiple possible indictments in the pipeline for Trump. This is the one that commentators seemed to think was the furthest along and likely to drop first.

The other main one is the Georgia election interference; here's the latest news article I can find on that, from just a few days ago. It mentions a May 1 deadline for some legal next step, so probably no major news coming out of that in the next few weeks, at least.

Not sure what others are going on exactly.

A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump in connection with a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

It's a campaign finance violation. The suggestion is that Trump used campaign funds to pay the hush money. AFAIK, this is a civil thing, it happens not-infrequently in small local elections, and the punishment is usually that you pay some multiple of the amount of the violation.

So like, if it's a 5x multiple, Trump will owe $500k or so.

The suggestion is that Trump used campaign funds to pay the hush money.

I don't believe that has ever been the suggestion. In fact, I think it's the opposite. He used private funds hushing up Stormy Daniels, "in service of the campaign", without properly disclosing it as campaign spending. Through some arcane and novel interpretation, this has been goosed up to a felony.

Oh my god you're right. That is absolutely r-slurred beyond belief.

You can say Retard here, king.

It's not wholly novel, Jon Edwards was charged with a felony for the same thing and was acquitted.

The novelty is that a state is using an alleged (but never tried) violation of federal campaign finance law to create a state felony unrelated directly to campaign finance reform. So notwithstanding that those actually tasked with upholding campaign finance laws passed on this case, a state DA decided to effectively bring the case.

In short, it is a hard area to win, the facts are far from clear, and the DA is using a novel application of the law. Against a former president. Beyond idiotic.

John Edwards was accused of using campaign contributions as hush money, which is not the same thing.

The money never came from an Edwards campaign fund, a major donor sent the money to a friend who sent it to Edwards assistant's wife and they paid off his mistress. Edwards says this a personal expense paid for with a personal gift. SC's Republican prosecutor said this was in service to the campaign and so an unreported campaign donations, just like what NY prosecutor says about Trump.

This is not correct for several reasons. Edwards was tried in a federal court in North Carolina, not a state court, or in South Carolina. Trump has not been charged with any federal crimes, and in fact the DOJ and FEC conducted their own inquiries into the same alleged offense and decided against charging him with anything. It also makes a significant difference as to whether the money comes from a donor - which places it in the realm of campaign contributions - or from the candidate's own pocket or business organization. The Edwards prosecution also cited fake invoices for nonexistent purchases that the donor listed as the reason they were giving money to Edwards, so that the money wouldn't have to be listed in FEC reports.

As far as I can tell, under Bragg's theory, if you pay hush money it is a legitimate campaign expense.

Bragg's theory

What's that? Isn't that about x-ray diffraction?

Reading the article would have revealed that the prosecutor in this case is named Alvin Bragg.

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I believe Jon Edwards was charged with the opposite problem. He did in fact use campaign contributions to pay off a mistress, not his own personal money.

My understanding is that a major Edwards donor (Rachel Mellon) wrote personal checks to Edwards which he used to pay off his mistress. The prosecution said that since paying off his mistress was in the interest of the campaign these were illegal campaign donations not personal gifts.

My understanding is that a major Edwards donor (Rachel Mellon) wrote personal checks to Edwards which he used to pay off his mistress. The prosecution said that since paying off his mistress was in the interest of the campaign these were illegal campaign donations not personal gifts.

I'm trying to untangle the specifics. It's plausible, but every source I've found over 6 articles or so just says they were campaign contributions. Illegal campaign contributions even, because they were in excess of the allowed amount. But they were also from, were they his campaign chair and campaign chair's wife?

I suppose in a sense it could be similar to Trump's problem, if the federal government came in after the fact and said "Wait wait wait, those checks with your name on them were actually campaign contributions! And big illegal ones at that!" Except in Trump's case it was just his own damned money.

The feds also totally FUBARed that prosecution from what I read. But who knows, maybe they'll coast in NYC on "Orange Man Bad" alone.

I scanned the indictment and they say there was a complex scheme where the major donor wrote checks to a friend who gave the money to the wife of Edwards assistant, and then she used it to pay the living expenses of Edward's mistress.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2011/06/03/edwards-indictment.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjkybKe9IT-AhUSm2oFHVLIC5AQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1EMw9kIVnbJaWJLkYhos4K

Which I've heard pointed out as a catch-22. If you are running for office and wish to make a private NDA with someone to not blab to the media about your embarrassing private matters, how legally can you do this?

Use your campaign funds and you are misusing them.

Use your private funds and you are sneakily concealing expenditures that benefit your campaign. That should be campaign funding since it benefits the campaign.

I suppose the solution is merely to not be scandalous--but this would be quite a high bar for many politicians to clear.

That assumes that all people claiming XYZ are true. Maybe you are innocent but paying someone 10K is worth it.

If you are running for office and wish to make a private NDA with someone to not blab to the media about your embarrassing private matters, how legally can you do this?

As a counter to this: making private NDAs with people to avoid scandal is something that happens regularly with all sorts of public figures, not just political candidates -- see SpaceX paying off a flight attendant. It seems plausible to argue that personal reputation (especially for a businessman with a penchant for oversized gold lettering of his name on buildings) is not merely a campaign item.

I heard on a radio show that private NDAs are common among celebrities. Hollywood types, etc. It is not very romantic to ask your new girl to sign an agreement to keep relationship details secret, but supposedly some major media figure do just that.

So yeah, people with no political ambition at all have these agreements. They are merely managing their brand. So please sign this agreement to not disclose personal information.

How do they know wasn’t his his money?

His crime was winning the 2016 election. It was the crime that prompted two impeachments, and now an indictment. Trump cannot be allowed to get away with it, and so Democrats have overreached at every opportunity, grasping at straws, to get something, anything, to stick to him.

Hence many misdemeanors going unprosecuted in NY, while this particular misdemeanor gets up-jumped to a felony in order to finally charge Trump.

The mod team has discussed this comment in response to a couple of user reports. The result is mixed. I am explicitly not giving you a warning at this time--but I need to say a little more about that, because we are probably going to be dialing up the sensitivity on posts like this in the near future.

This is connected with @Amadan's moderation of @firmamenti and @cjet79's partial modhat comment about it. Since moving over from reddit, moderation has gotten both easier and more difficult in interesting ways. We have far fewer bad drive-by comments and much less brigading from trolls (although, importantly--not zero troll brigading!). We seem to have more users paying attention to AAQCs, both in terms of crafting them and in terms of nominating them, such that many excellent posts don't make the roundup simply because there are so many plausible nominations. These are positive developments!

On the downside, though, low effort comments from more regular users also seem to be turning up more frequently. There is a tendency to rely on shorthand arguments that are both low effort and obfuscatory for new users. This is understandable--as the community coheres it can often feel like certain individuals are just re-treading old ground. But that is something we want to try to mitigate. In this particular comment, your substantive position (that the primary impetus for targeting Trump is purely political, as evidenced by the ceaseless barrage of unusual, contorted, or even spurious charges raised against him) seems defensible, but the way you raise it as though it were obviously true (implicitly building consensus), without furnishing either evidence or argument, brooks no discussion on the matter. That is antithetical to the foundation of the Motte.

I will be writing a longer top post about low-effort posts in the near-ish future, but it seemed worth mentioning here to get people thinking a bit about the problem, hopefully.

I'd like to give a defense of my comment here, since I [obviously] disagree with the idea that mine was a low effort/drive by comment.

The story and the thing that is here to be discussed is the story about Trump being indicted. This is a uniquely big story, and my "take" on this is going to serve (in my opinion) as a distraction from the main story. From my perspective, posting "Trump Indicted" and a clean link to the story (I intentionally chose CNBC as the most 'neutral' source I could find) is me being courteous to fellow forum users by not distracting from the topic of discussion.

I think that this sits in contrast to things like constant stories about trans people misbehaving, conservatives saying stupid things, etc. There is a functionally infinite number of those stories happening every single day, and so for those the requirement/expectation is that a user should add additional thoughts/context to raise the story above the noise floor.

However, "Trump Indicted" itself rises above that floor, and in fact posting a "lukewarm take" as one user called it will do nothing but bring the story closer to the background noise.

Another user implied that posting a simple story like this is a way of getting a dopamine rush, but again I think the opposite is true. I'm not posting this so that people can talk about me, or what I said, or my take, or even engage with me at all. I'm posting a huge story, then standing aside from it to allow the story to stand on its own, and due to the nature of the story, I think that it is able to do so. Me adding a take turns the post towards my take and not the story itself which, again, is large enough to rise above the noise floor in a way that something like trans people shut down a street doesn't.

If I wanted to post something like activist stands on car during Trans Day of Vengeance, then yes I absolutely need to write a post about why this matters, why we should talk about it, etc, since there are dozens of identical stories being posted on this topic ever day.

"Former president and presumptive presidential candidate criminally prosecuted by his political rivals ahead of election" is, at least for now, a unique story that is not happening constantly and a post about this is only made worse by an inclusion of my "take" on this.

In fact, just talking about forum etiquette, the best/most polite thing to do if I wanted people to talk about my take (instead of the story itself), and get the dopamine hits that somebody was talking about, would be to post a clean link "Trump Indicted" as an anchor/catchall/megathread type post, and then reply to myself with whatever take I had.

To summarize: I think this story is unique, I think it is courteous to stand aside from it, and I think that posting a place for discussion about this topic in a different way would have been rude and narcissistic. Posting the way I did was good forum behaviour and is the type of thing that should be encouraged, not threatened with banning.

I'm of this view. If he had never successfully ran for president, then prosecutors would continue not wanting to charge him.

But he won and brought MAGA to us, so they now are looking for payback. They found the man, they merely need to find the crime.

Also Trump probably commits a lot of crimes throughout his life. So they'll find reasons.

If I understand the allegations correctly, I believe the theory of the case is that because this payment benefited his presidential campaign, it should have properly been paid out of campaign funds. Since it was paid out of personal funds, this makes it an illegal undisclosed campaign contribution.

An illegal undisclosed campaign contribution…to himself?

This is a better argument for the simulation hypothesis than anything Bostrom ever came up with, that’s for sure.

NYT article.

The prosecution’s star witness is Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who paid the $130,000 to keep Ms. Daniels quiet. Mr. Cohen has said that Mr. Trump directed him to buy Ms. Daniels’s silence, and that Mr. Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, helped cover the whole thing up. The company’s internal records falsely identified the reimbursements as legal expenses, which helped conceal the purpose of the payments.

Although the specific charges remain unknown, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have zeroed in on that hush money payment and the false records created by Mr. Trump’s company. A conviction is not a sure thing: An attempt to combine a charge relating to the false records with an election violation relating to the payment to Ms. Daniels would be based on a legal theory that has yet to be evaluated by judges, raising the possibility that a court could throw out or limit the charges.

Really looking forward to more detail, because this sounds pretty contrived.

Ms. Daniels would be based on a legal theory that has yet to be evaluated by judges, raising the possibility that a court could throw out or limit the charges

The NYT is being overly dramatic. The law in question is falsifying business records, specifically that Trump recorded payments to Cohen as legal fees when they were actually reimbursements to Cohen for hush money paid to Daniels. That crime is a felony if done with the "intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” The supposedly new legal theory is that that applies to other federal crimes, not just state crimes. Courts have apparently not previously ruled on that particular question, but it is hardly a stretch, given the plain text of the law. But perhaps there are reasons to rule otherwise.

but it is hardly a stretch,

The untouchable has been made touchable. People aren't freaking out because the law is being stretched, but who it is being stretched to cover. Presidents as Kings has taken a grave blow.

There is no reason to believe that these standards will be applied to Blue-Tribe approved presidents, no matter how much like a king they behave.

John Edwards was prosecuted for almost exactly the same thing (the Feds went after him on the underlying campaign finance charges, rather than a State prosecuting the cover-up) and although he wasn't an ex-President, he was a Democratic Senator and Vice Presidential candidate, which I think counts as Blue Tribe approval.

The case went to trial, and there was a hung jury on most of the counts, and the prosecution didn't seek a re-trial. That is a normal level of prosecutorial effort for a real crime that isn't a cause celebre. The decision to prosecute came from the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ, which is staffed by career government lawyers and looks like it is part of the Deep State. For whatever reason, the US Deep State seems unusually willing to prosecute process crimes relating to large sums of money in a way that they are not willing to prosecute other crimes committed by insiders.

Article on John Edwards at the time and indictment.

John Edwards' case was a vastly better case for the purpose of campaign finance law. He took someone else's money and gave it to his mistress. The indictment describes the purpose as:

In order to restrict the influence that any one person could have on the outcome of the 2008 primary election for President of the United States, the Election Act established that the most an individual could contribute to any candidate for that primary election was $2,300.

Citizens United limited the purpose of these laws to quid pro quo. Consider Steven's dissent in Citizens United, trying to set a wider outer bound of what type of corruption these campaign finance laws can get at (beyond quid pro quo), saying things like:

Congress may “legitimately conclude that the avoidance of the appearance of improper influence is also critical . . . if confidence in the system of representative Government is not to be eroded to a disastrous extent.” A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold

and

Proving that a specific vote was exchanged for a specific expenditure has always been next to impossible: Elected officials have diverse motivations, and no one will acknowledge that he sold a vote. Yet, even if “[i]ngratiation and access . . . are not corruption” themselves, they are necessary prerequisites to it; they can create both the opportunity for, and the appearance of, quid pro quo arrangements. [Emphasis added]

For Edwards, this could make sense. He took a million dollars from two specific blokes and gave it to his mistress. Those two specific blokes very likely had "ingratiation" and "access" on account of that money. I could at least see someone making a reasonable argument that they think such an arrangement means that laws were being bought and sold. They didn't prove quid pro quo, but it at least could point in that direction.

In this case, Trump it makes no sense to claim that Donald Trump was trying to enter a quid pro quo with Donald Trump; it makes no sense to claim that Donald Trump was trying to gain ingratiation, access, or undue influence over Donald Trump. At best, one could try to claim that the Enquirer was trying to gain something in return (like influence) even though money never actually changed hands between them, but Trump could say the same thing that he would say to everyone else who he has bought or attempted to buy something from: “That’s what the money (I offered you) is for.".

In fact I think it's already quite clear that Presidents as Kings is an even more untouchable standard, so long as you weren't elected against the wishes of the entrenched elite. But god help you if you were.

Oh.

What‘a the best guess for the federal crime? Is that where the campaign violations come in?

Somehow I doubt they’re nailing him on adultery.

To my understanding, yes, they're claiming that the hush-money payment was a campaign contribution that should have been, but was not, reported as such. This seems...unlikely.

And to he fair to Trump: having your lawyer draft and execute a private NDA is a legal expense. It's in fact not a campaign contribution from Trump to himself.

Isn't this the same shit John Edwards noy get indicted for?

They charged John Edwards with 6 crimes and got zero convictions.

Also a political donor gave Edwards checks that he used to fund his payments. The allegation (that resulted in no conviction) is that this constitutes an undisclosed campaign contribution.

Trump is a step removed from Edward's not-found-guilty issues in that he spent his own money rather than a donor's. So it's an alleged undisclosed campaign contribution to himself to deal with his personal matters.

The supposedly new legal theory is that that applies to other federal crimes, not just state crimes.

Wouldn't this at least plausibly punt the jurisdiction for this crime to a federal court? There are all sorts of odd cross-jurisdictional questions this brings up like whether or not a pardon for the federal crime would bar state prosecution. Aren't there several immigration cases suggesting that states don't have the authority to enforce federal law by themselves?

But I'm not a Real Lawyer, so perhaps I'm missing something.

No, because the crime charged is a state crime. The criminal act is misreporting the payment as legal expenses. If it becomes a felony when it was intended to facilitate a federal crime, that does not mean that the state is enforcing that federal crime. They are still enforcing the state crime. And, because it is a state crime, federal courts would not have jurisdiction.

You keep saying this and keep being obtuse. For there to be a felony here there needs to be a federal crime. Thus as a predicate the state needs to prove the federal crime (ie prove this crime helped another crime).

That means indirectly the state is enforcing federal law.

A rarely tested, underdeveloped, and uncharged to the specific defendant area of law. That is troubling both from a prudential perspective and from a legal perspective (eg is there a due process concern)

I keep saying it because it is an accurate statement of the law. If you have authority for the proposition that the fact that the prosecution for crime X happens to "indirectly" enforce federal law divests a state court of jurisdiction over crime X, I would love to see it.

I could just as easily ask you for authority the other way around. The whole reason people are raising this as novel is precisely because NYS needs to effectively try a federal crime despite the federal government not prosecuting the crime. That is to my knowledge (and I’m guessing yours and numerous legal commentators) heretofore untried. Therefore it is novel.

Perhaps you are confusing this with double jeopardy cases where there is state crime X and federal crime X. Here, there is no state level campaign finance law.

The whole reason people are raising this as novel is precisely because NYS needs to effectively try a federal crime

No, they don't. As I have said several time, they only need only show an intent to commit a federal crime. Whether the payment (or Stormy Daniels's forbearance) meets the definition of "campaign contribution" under federal law is a purely legal question that is not tried at all. Trump's lawyers will move to dismiss the felony charge on the ground that what he attempted was not a federal crime, because no "campaign contribution" was made. If the judge agrees, that will be the end of it. If the judge disagrees, the jury will NOT be asked to decide whether Trump violated a federal law, but will be told, "if you find that Trump intended to fail to report the payment/forebearance/whatever as a campaign contribution, you must find that the offense is a felony. If not, you must find that the offense is a misdemeanor." They will not be asked to determine whether he actually committed a campaign finance violation.

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The State is enforcing a State law against false accounting. Some possible motives upgrade false accounting, under State law, from a misdemeanor to a felony. One of those is facilitating a federal crime.

There are lots of laws like this, and they don't cause jurisdictional issues - they sometimes cause practical problems because of the need to resolve a technical point of the law of jurisdiction A in the courts of jurisdiction B, but in a federal system like the US that is also something that happens all the time and processes exist to deal with it.

There can even be laws where the predicate crime is a violation of foreign law. I don't know about US examples, but for example the UK has a crime of "Failure to prevent facilitation of foreign tax avoidance offences" where the predicate crime is a violation of foreign revenue law.

In those cases, I understand generally the predicate crime was adjudicated.

It is quite odd for example to say there was a crime in Jurisdiction A that was uncharged. However, Jurisdiction B is going to effectively pretend that crime occurred (not exactly what is happening here but not too far off).

Note that sometimes one forum depends on another forum to interpret that other forum’s law (ie advisory opinion). Federal courts are the appropriate forum for campaign finance law but as an Art III matter federal courts cannot provide that advisory opinion.

Can you provide one case where something like what NYS is doing occurred? If not, can you stop saying this isn’t abnormal. If you can provide the case, I’ll admit to being wrong.

He is being charged with a state crime, not a federal one. The federal crime is re campaign donations .

  1. Under state law, the statute of limitations was tolled during the periods Trump was out of state. See comment elsewhere. And, even if the statute has run, that does not transform the prosecution into a prosecution for the federal crime.

  2. There appears to be no requirement that they prove he actually committed another crime, but only that he intended to commit another crime. Had I lied about reimbursing Cohen for bribing the night watchman at a bank to pretend be asleep during a planned theft, I would be guilty of a felony even if the theft never took place. Morever, even if they did have to prove that he committed another crime, that would not transform it into a prosecution for that crime. Lots of laws require proof of the commission of a predicate offense, including offenses from other jurisdictions, but that does not make them prosecutions for those offenses.

  3. I don’t know why you assume that someone who simply states facts you find inconvenient is partisan. For the record, as far as I can tell, Bragg is motivated primarily by his own self-interest. Moreover, the prosecution is both politically beneficial for Trump and a terrible precedent; if we want to avoid banana republic territory, then politicians should only be prosecuted for very, very serioys crimes. But my personal opinion does not alter the legal status of the prosecution.

Dude, this thing where you pretend to be obtuse (while still being insanely nitpicky and condescending) whenever you want to score some partisan points is so fucking old.

Stick to the arguments, rather than projecting motives onto people and flipping out at them.

Nice try to deflect. He is being tried with a state felony that rests on him committing the federal crime. The state needs to prove as a predicate the federal crime so in effect the state needs to prove the federal crime in order to get the state felony conviction.

There appears to be no requirement that they prove he actually committed another crime, but only that he intended to commit another crime.

You're just kicking the can down the road. They still have to prove that what they claim he intended was in fact a crime, when the relevant authority already said it isn't.

  1. No, the relevant authorities simply declined to prosecute.

  2. Only courts, not prosecutors, can definitively say whether something constitutes a crime. It is a separation of powers issue. Prosecutors' opinions are not binding on anyone.

  3. Regardless, OP is incorrect to say that the state is charging him with a federal crime. Even if the DA has to prove that he committed the federal crime, he is not charged with that crime. If he is convicted, judgment will be entered on the state crime alone, not the federal crime, and the punishment will be that imposed for the state crime. It is no different than when a person convicted of child molestation in TX moves to CA and is charged with frequenting playgrounds. The DA must prove that he committed the TX crime, but the DA is trying him for violation of a CA law, not a TX law.

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No, they don't need to prove the other crime. They need merely get a jury to agree that the state crime was committed in furtherance of the other crime. The legal system is full of this kind of crap; another version of it is where sentencing for one crime can be based on commission of other crimes which were alleged but not proven or sometimes not even prosecuted.

I generally agree that this case is embarrassingly weak. Internal corporate accounting standards are way outside my pay grade, but how is hush money pursuant to an NDA not a legal expense though? If it's apparently illegal to label it as a legal expense, what exactly should it have been labeled?

A legal expense is a payment for legal services. Stormy Daniels did not perform legal services for Trump.

got 'em coach!

Even assuming the accounting was illegal, why should I believe that Trump gave direction on how to record the payment in the books?

Most accounting systems will have an auto-suggest based on past expenses recorded against vendors. An accountant could have just thoughtlessly clicked legal expense as it popped up.

On the other hand it would be an NYC jury, so my priors on it being a remotely fair trial are very low.

Right. The idea is to bring Trump up before a Democratic jury in a Democratic state with a Democratic court system, in a political prosecution based on a dubious technicality. The message being that Republicans had better watch out; if they don't stick to their role as genteel losers, they will be pursued to the ends of the earth.

New York doesn't allow felony convictions on a majority vote, so it only takes one MAGA juror to hang the jury. Manhattan voted 12% for Trump in 2020, and the 5 boroughs were 23%.

I predict the same result as the Edwards prosecution - unless the whole thing gets overtaken by more serious charges coming out of one of the other investigations (similar to the way the prosecution of Cohen for the same crime got overtaken by events when it turned out that he was also guilty of tax evasion and running a taxi medallion scam).

New York doesn't allow felony convictions on a majority vote, so it only takes one MAGA juror to hang the jury.

So they'll ensure there are none.

how is hush money pursuant to an NDA not a legal expense though

And how is violating an NDA to blackmail a politician not in itself some kind of crime?

EDIT: Also: If hush money doesn't hush someone, is it really hush money? Daniels is not doing wonders for the perception of the ethics of sex workers.

Daniels is not doing wonders for the perception of the ethics of sex workers.

LOL. But really, Trump should have sued D

He did! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/stormy-daniels-must-pay-300k-donald-trump-losing-defamation-case-appea-rcna21002

No, that's where Daniels sued him for defamation and ended up losing and having to pay his attorney's fees. Trump should have sued her for violating the NDA.

Am I the only one thinking Daniels should have asked for more money? Charlie Sheen paid 75 times that to keep his HIV diagnosis quiet, and he wasn't even running for President, never mind getting elected.

Do you think "Trump Banged Pornstar (at least) Once" is really a secret worth paying millions to keep? I'm half surprised he didn't pay her to make a movie about the incident.

Elie Mystal over at The Nation has a pretty skeptical take. Noting that the statute of limitations has passed for both crimes and the theory for why it should be tolled is not great.

The first issue that Bragg has is time. Trump committed the underlying campaign finance offense in 2016, and the statute of limitations on bookkeeping fraud and campaign finance violations is five years. That brings you to 2021. The statute of limitations for tax evasion is three years. Even if you don’t start the clock on that until the story breaks in the news in 2018, that brings you, once again, to 2021. To get to 2023, Bragg appears to be arguing that the statute of limitations paused while Trump was president and living out of state. That’s… a theory, but not necessarily a good one, and certainly not one that has been tested enough to know how it’s going to hold up in the courts. Remember, the alleged immunity Trump had from prosecutions applied only at the federal level. Local prosecutors, like Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, who was the Manhattan DA during Trump’s presidency, could have charged him with this crime at any time.

ETA:

My understanding is the case is a claim that Trump falsified business records with his payments to Cohen that were ultimately intended for Daniels. Normally this is a misdemeanor:

A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree when, with intent to defraud, he:

1. Makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise

However, it upgrades to a felony if:

his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.

So the question is does "another crime" include federal crimes or only state crimes? He's not being prosecuted for violating any particular federal law, his violation of federal law is merely the predicate for finding he committed a more serious violation of New York State law.

Bragg appears to be arguing that the statute of limitations paused while Trump was president and living out of state. That’s… a theory, but not necessarily a good one, and certainly not one that has been tested enough to know how it’s going to hold up in the courts. Remember, the alleged immunity Trump had from prosecutions applied only at the federal level. Local prosecutors, like Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, who was the Manhattan DA during Trump’s presidency, could have charged him with this crime at any time.

This is what happens when "journalists" don't do even mimimal homework. The reference to Trump being out of state is almost certainly not a reference to him being immune while in office, but rather a reference to Article 30.10(4) of the NY criminal procedure code, which says:

In calculating the time limitation applicable to commencement of criminal action, the following periods shall not be included: (a) Any period following the commission of the offense during which (i) the defendant was continuously outside this state

Moreover:

Of course, an individual can be absent from the state for weeks or months; return to New York for a time; and then leave for additional weeks or months. And such absences and returns may occur repeatedly over a period of years. The issue that naturally arises in limitations cases concerns which among intermittent periods of absence are those in which a defendant is considered to have been "continuously" outside the state.

The Court of Appeals addressed that issue in People v Knobel (94 NY2d 226 [1999]). The Court agreed with the People that "all periods of a day or more that a nonresident defendant is out-of-State should be totaled and toll the Statute of Limitations." (People v Knobel, 94 NY2d at 230; see also People v Chase, 299 AD2d 597, 598-599 [3d Dept 2002]; People v Ferrari, 155 Misc 2d 749, 754 [Ulster County Ct 1992].) That is true for every day that the defendant is absent for the "full" day. Thus, if defendant in this case was a nonresident and was absent from New York for more than 93 complete days between November 13, 2012, and February 14, 2018, the two challenged counts survive defendant's attack—even if at various other times in that period defendant was in New York.

People v. Cruciani, 63 Misc. 3d 226, 228 (2019).

Can we talk about how dumb that rule is? The whole point of a SOL is that certain things when passed need not be litigated years later on the idea that evidence may be stale / people deserve certainty.

There isn’t really a credible reason to tie the SOL to the location of the individual.

Not saying that makes the law invalid. Just dumb.

It is limited to five years, and it is a very common rule. Most states have it. And while that might be the purpose of a SOL, it is not the only policy consideration. Another policy consideration is that criminals should not be encouraged to attempt to avoid justice by fleeing the jurisdiction. Hence, it is not dumb. It is a compromise between competing principles.

That would be true IF the person leaving the jurisdiction somehow prevented the government from prosecuting the case or gathering facts. Maybe that was true once upon time but no longer in today’s world. At minimum there should be a rebuttal presumption.

That would not address the problem of criminals avoiding justice entirely by fleeing and waiting out the SOL. Which is the problem that the tolling statute is meant to address. There are many legitimate, yet mutually inconsistent, ways of compromising among the competing principles. The fact that the one chosen by the NY legislature is not the one you would have chosen does not render their choice stupid.

Of course, one could toll SOL after an indictment which solves your problem. It is dumb because it defeats the purposes behind the SOL in todays world.

That is what a WARRANT is for!

You issue the warrant, and then if the person in question is out of state the charge has been filed.

There is nothing about being out of state that prevents the filing of charges, the prosecution of charges sure you need the person to be present for trial... but countless people have fled the country and warrants were procured in their absense.

The SOL applies to before the charges are filed. There is no reason the presense or absense of a person would limit the filing of charges unless you need them to be present to even get the evidence, for which you'd accuse them of a crime... which you can get warrants to procure evidence...

So the only reason absense would play on the statute of limitations is there is not even enough evidence to procure a warrant to procure evidence... in which case its litterally just hearsay and speculation, and there's no goddamn reason the statute of limitations shouldn't be running.

Back in the old place, in the old times (last summer, lol), we were talking about the raid of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents. I sketched a timeline:

The most important thing is the timing of the charges and potential conviction. You probably want to prevent Trump from becoming the official nominee. If he's already the official nominee, it's going to be a harder political sell to strip one of the major parties of their candidate at the last minute. Think back to Comey and the investigation into Clinton emails. On June 6, 2016, the AP and NBC declared that Clinton had won enough delegates/superdelegates to ensure the nomination. On July 5, Comey publicly addressed the investigation, attempting to declare it closed. At the time, I wrote that it seemed more like a 50/50 that they could get a conviction than an 80/20 either way, and that it seemed completely reasonable for the refs to swallow the whistle on a 50/50 call in the third period of a playoff game. Enough had been settled that it would be incredibly destructive to the political process if they brought charges at that point; either the case would be hanging over the whole process, just waiting to get adjudicated until after the election... or they'd have to rush through a trial, and the resulting clusterf would be immense.

The first primaries are January 2024. You need enough time for blue states to go through an expedited process that evaluates the conviction and declares that their understanding is that it prevents Trump from being on their primary ballots... as well as enough time to physically print/distribute the new ballots and such. So, the ideal time for a conviction is maybe late fall, early winter 2023.

Now, the Trump campaign would have to go to the district courts in all these states in an attempt to get it changed back. The states will vehemently reject any ruling from a district in another state (or a circuit they are not part of), and they will lean on how some provision in their state law is different than that of the other state, so they are not a suitable target of an injunction, even if a district judge tries to implement a nationwide one. Blue districts/circuits will slow-play the cases as much as possible, so the Trump campaign will have to target the reddest district/circuit in a blue state that is brave enough to try to strip him off the ballot. Game theoretically, if every blue state in sufficiently red circuits refrain from stripping him off the ballot, that probably won't tip the primary in his direction, but it prevents a case from getting pushed through quickly. All they need to do is gum up the works for long enough that some number of primaries happen before SCOTUS steps in. And SCOTUS could be put in a terrible spot - maybe only days/weeks out from some primaries, are they really going to tell states, "You have to change all your ballot material again to put this guy back on"?

If a few states go through without Trump on the ballot, you have the best shot at establishment Republicans rallying around an alternate candidate, everyone declaring post-hoc, "Candidate X was obviously going to win anyway; Trump is a loser; none of that stuff really mattered," and trying to ignore it all as hard as possible. While Trump's base will continue to be up in arms, they would really lack any power to do anything about it.

So, what implications does this have for the timing of everything else that leads up to this? Well, ballpark a typical case that goes to trial as taking a year. If you bring charges only six months out, Trump can probably delay things long enough that a conviction happens too late to make changes to the primary; if you bring charges a year and a half out, Trump will 100% demand the speediest trial that ever did happen. Obviously, you can't predict the future perfectly, but shooting for a year out is probably the best EV move (would love to hear some actual lawyers' takes on this). That means you want to file charges in late fall, early winter 2022.

...in turn, that means that if you're taking a shot on what may or may not be a fishing expedition, hoping that you can bring charges at the optimal chance to keep Trump off of the ballot, you'd want that shot to be... summer 2022. You have a few months to thoroughly analyze everything you were able to acquire and game things out in more detail, with much more information.

In hindsight, I feel like I wanted to lean on the lower side of 6mo-1yr rather than just 1yr, but that may just be wishful thinking. I'm pretty confident that I thought 1.5yr was definitely too long. Whelp, since those charges seem to have evaporated (with the revelations of classified materials at many other politician's private locations and all), this must be the next best shot. Nevermind that SDNY probably had all of the relevant information on the matter ever since Cohen's guilty plea, here we are, 6mo-1yr out.

I want to add my prediction that we haven't seen the end of the classified documents yet. This stands in addition to, rather than replacing, my earlier prediction that he won't be charged for it. So, grandstanding.

One thing I’d point out on the strategy of write-ins or third party is that neither has historically worked. No third party candidate has won a federal office in the modern era, nor has a write in. The closest thing we have is a strategy of voting for a dead candidate, then replacing said dead candidate with his wife, which happened In Missouri. The best performance by a Third Party candidate was Ross Perot who won the right to be on all the ballots and in the debates. He got about 20% of the vote.

The only election question is how such a campaign would affect the GOPs ability to beat a Trump write-in or third party candidacy would affect the mainstream candidate’s chances. Third party candidates are much more likely to be spoilers than serious contenders. And as such, my prediction for the election is that anything that keeps Trump as a candidate helps democrats, not republicans, because republicans will split their votes between Trump and Desantis while democrats rally around their nominee. A clean campaign between Desantis and Biden is likely to be close.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis will not assist with extradition: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/desantis-trump-charges-are-un-american-says-florida-will-not-assist-in-extradition-request-by-manhattan

I don’t think he has a choice. It would crush his presidential aspirations.

And there are already serious constitutional questions with this.

If you're really powerful and the charge is trifling, the prosecutor and defendant + lawyers ink out a deal that avoids any jail time. In some cases, no media coverage either. Likely Trump sees no jail time and charges dropped or settled, so it does not matter if DeSantis is providing false hope or not: he gets all the upside of capturing some of Trump's voters and no downside from being wrong.

Well there's always one way, but he's going to need more help than the last time someone tried it.

DeSantis knows (or has legal advisors who have informed him) that there is no legal way for Florida to refuse extradition and that it's mandatory under the US Constitution.

INAL but my understanding is that this is not strictly true. As this is a state rather than federal indictment, law enforcement in Florida could simply decline to exercise the warrant and there would be little if anything that the DA in Manhattan could do about it.

Strictly speaking, since 1987 state (and territory, etc) extradition warrants can be compelled by the federal courts; there are only a small handful of valid reasons to reject one (mostly paperwork errors or clear cases of mistaken identity), none likely to be usable here.

In practice, this means that the harmed party (who?) could sue in federal court for a writ of mandamus, which would resolve in a year or so.

Ah yes 1987... a year of great constitutional import when many questions about state and federal powers were resolved via a grand constitutional convention /sarc.

I have no idea why people treat these judicial precedents as anything but worthless paper. The state of California is litterally openly running a drug cartel with itself exercising a monopoly on illegal cannabis dealing within the state, collecting tribute form lower order kingpins violating federal law... and we're supposed to pretend our legal system operates on any principle except might makes right, and shamelessness?

If a governor even had federal agents arrested and cut loose before they could enforce warrants do you really think there's anywhere near enough political will to send troops and start a contitutional crisis?

Ah yes 1987... a year of great constitutional import when many questions about state and federal powers were resolved via a grand constitutional convention /sarc.

Section 2 of Article IV of the US Constitution (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#4) says

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

A plain-and-simple reading of that seems to agree that the Florida can't refuse the extradition. But there will be centuries case law working out the precise procedural details of how it has to happen. Apparently in 1987 one of the corner-cases got tweaked.

There's wiggle room. Trump has never been in New York since being charged, so he did not flee from New York. I don't think the courts would buy that, but it's not much of a stretch.

Yeah, I have no idea what the real law of the land is. Ask the real lawyers.

The point is that the 1987 decision upthread is clearly not some activist reach inventing constitutional rules out of whole cloth.

So when Alabama demands Governor Gavin Newsom to be extradited as the Kingpin in the case of a low level drug smuggler bring weed into the state that was "Legally" purchased in California... what do you expect to happen?

A procedural tar-pit.

The procedural rules are put in place precisely because the bare words of the constitution would allow that kind of shit you name. This is why people pay attention to precedent.

Which is another way of saying Florida need not assist right away (DeSantis choose his words carefully).

It is a moot issue. Trump wants the imagery.

DeSantis knows (or has legal advisors who have informed him) that there is no legal way for Florida to refuse extradition and that it's mandatory under the US Constitution. This is just baiting people with false hope.

He didn't say "refuse", he said "not assist".

The ability to slow-walk everything while still technically fulfilling legal compliance was used by the Deep State to great effect during Trump's presidency; DeSantis is just resolving to give them a taste of their own medicine.

The headline says refuse, I grant you, but, well, that's what you get for only reading the headline.

Bingo. "Not assist" implies that state resources may not be expended (which might still technically violate the Constitution) but does not imply they'll resist attempts to extradite if NY wants to send people to do it.

It puts the onus on NY to either send people to do it on their dime or sue Florida (again on their dime) to try and force the issue.

In a sense, a test of how badly they ACTUALLY want Trump vs. just signalling about it.

Fuck I’m bored. I hope Florida cops pull their guns on nyc cops and tell them to leave. That would entertaining and I believe appropriate.

I'm relatively worried that we end up with some Boomer fudds in golf outfits getting gunned down in an incredibly ill-advised standoff at Mar-a-Lago.

That would be just about the funniest inciting event for kicking off CivWar II.

Ya it would be funny. Curious are we on the same side or do I got to try and kill you in CivWar 2?

If we already lived in AI world and I could upload myself to cloud this would actually be kind of fun. Just download myself back to new meat husks when I die in CivWar2.

I take the Ent position in any hot civil war.

Don't fuck with my trees and we'll be fine.

Of course, I can also predict which side is most likely to overstep and try to goad me into fighting back, but I've positioned myself such that that side is very far away from me and so I probably wouldn't have to interact with them.

Soros is a non-American socialist known for betting against countries’ currencies and reaping huge paydays. The right and the red tribe believe he’s trying to bring down America and the dollar by backing anti-arrest, anti-police DA’s to make crime (organized and otherwise) rampant. The fact that he’s Jewish should never be considered anything but a non-sequitur.

Rachel Vindman: https://twitter.com/natsechobbyist/status/1641585602146496518

I was wondering if you’re still an antisemite. Thanks for letting us know you are and have no intention to back down.

Seriously what the fuck is it with this stuff? In what conceivable way is him saying he won't extradite Trump "anti semitic"?

If you don't let Jewish NGOs buy up your legal system and manipulate your elections by prosecuting anyone resisting it's anti-Semitic don't ya know?

I find this comment ironic given all the other people insisting that banging a gong about the evil globalist George Soros is totally not anti-Semitic at all.

This comment is also low effort and makes inflammatory claims without evidence, and contributes nothing to the discussion. If you personally want to bang a gong about the evil globalist George Soros, you need to put actual effort into articulating your problem with him, or explain all these "Jewish NGOs buying up our legal systems and manipulating our elections."

Her husband really hates the first amendment. They seem like two peas in a pod.

Anyone who dislikes Soros is an antisemite, as far as these people are concerned.

The irony of Trump being Grand Marshal of the Salute to Israel (a real thing that actually happens!) escapes these people. Trump is surely one of the least anti-semitic people of all time. He signed a bunch of hate-crime laws for Jews. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He gave eulogies to the bygone era of Israeli dominance of the US congress:

“The biggest change I’ve seen in Congress is Israel literally owned Congress — you understand that — 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was so powerful. It was so powerful. And today it’s almost the opposite,” Trump said.

“And we’re not talking about over a very long period of time, but I think you know exactly what I’m saying. They had such power, Israel had such power — and rightfully — over Congress, and now it doesn’t. It’s incredible, actually,” Trump claimed.

Really, people should be accusing the people indicting him of being anti-semitic.

The irony of Trump being Grand Marshal of the Salute to Israel (a real thing that actually happens!) escapes these people

That Tweet was directed at DeSantis, not Trump. And it's possible for Trump to be philosemitic while someone supporting him is antisemitic.

Not to mention his son-in-law, who he appointed as a senior adviser, is Jewish.

He mentioned Soros, who is Jewish. Anti-semitic conspiracy theorists on /pol/ also don't like Soros, so complaining about him must mean DeSantis is dogwhistling to them. Unlike when people complain about the Koch brothers or Peter Thiel, which is just expressing justifiable anger at billionaires subverting our democracy.

On a largely unrelated note, it just occurred to me that the whole "vampire harvesting the blood of the young" smear directed at Peter Thiel (for the offense of investing in medical research companies that did longevity research investigating the thing where mice given blood transplants live longer) would 100% have been pattern-matched as "anti-semitic blood libel" if he was Jewish. Somehow I never made that connection before. Here's a list of articles I had saved for those unfamiliar:

Peter Thiel Is Interested in Harvesting the Blood of the Young - Gawker

Billionaire Peter Thiel thinks young people’s blood can keep him young forever - Raw Story

Peter Thiel Isn't the First to Think Young People's Blood Will Make Him Immortal - The Daily Beast

Peter Thiel is Very, Very Interested in Young People's Blood - Inc

The Blood of Young People Won’t Help Peter Thiel Fight Death - Vice

Hey, Silicon Valley: you might not want to inject yourself with the blood of the young just yet - Vox

Peter Thiel Wants to Inject Himself with Young People's Blood - Vanity Fair

Is Peter Thiel a Vampire? - New Republic

Reminds me of the opposite case where a caller-in of the LBC radio show was called anti semitic for using the word “globalist” despite using it to describe Rishi Sunak.

It's almost the mirror image of the adrenochrome theory.

Smart, correct move by DeSantis to stand up for Trump. Huge overlap between their supporters. A state indictment. What the left really wanted was a federal one. And related to taxes, Jan 6th, Russia, etc. As some have joked, this is the equivalent of being arrested for removing a Mattress label or jay walking. Trump will likely serve no jail time and comes out stronger and his supporters emboldened by the obvious power play by the left, the exact opposite of what you want to happen if you want trump to lose.

I think it helps trump win the nomination which means Dems more likely hold power in 24.

I said he would do that earlier here and it’s the correct decision. Or I said it to a lawyer friend of mine maybe both. The issue is New York could refuse to extradite to Florida in the future but my guess is both sides decide to call this a one off case. Both sides would have issues with serious criminals running off to the other state.

Both sides would have issues with serious criminals running off to the other state.

IIRC I've seen discussion here about states issuing non-extradition warrants as, effectively, exile. It allows them to re-arrest criminals that stay in-state, but not shoulder the cost of trials or prison if they just go elsewhere. I don't know what the relative rates of such things are, but I think there are cases in which "running off to another state" is actually a desired result.

I'd guess the flow would be mostly one-way since only one state (well, one major city in the state) has made it policy to prosecute many crimes more lightly or not at all.

I thought it was a good move as well, but more from a White Elephant gift perspective. In costs DeSantis little/nothing if Trump voluntarily goes to New York, since he said he was willing to help, it costs DeSantis personally little if Trump 'accepts' the help because the person breaking the law by not going to New York is Trump not Destanis, but it lets Trump incur huge costs (legal/political) if Trump is 'on the run' by taking the offer even as it puts Trump in debt to DeSantis. In the context of Trump vs DeSantis, all of these work to DeSantis's own advantage, as either it frames Trump as either willingly going to New York, or Trump in debt to DeSantis while dealing with the fallout of not going to New York.


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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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