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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29143 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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Trump indicted with 4 counts over 2020 election

The indictment alleges that shortly after election day, Trump "pursued unlawful means" to subvert the election results.

The first conspiracy charge was handed down due to Trump's alleged use of "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit" to defraud the US.

The second was because of Trump's alleged attempts to "corruptly obstruct" the 6 January congressional proceeding of peaceful transfer of power to President Biden.

The third stems from allegations that Trump conspired against American's right to vote and to have their vote counted.

The other charge - obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding - involves Trump's alleged attempts to obstruct the certification of 2020 electoral results.

Goddamn, they really mailed fake elector certificates to the Vice President.

Googling this right now. They all have the same format. This is obviously a coordinated conspiracy.

Trump is toast. He should be on his knees begging DeSantis for a pardon in exchange for his endorsement right now. He will be in jail on election day.

They all have the same format. This is obviously a coordinated conspiracy.

If that is what makes a coordinated conspiracy, then so is every petition drive to "write to your congressperson about this issue!" where they say "the best way to get attention and make sure your letter doesn't end up in the bin is to write it like this" and "if everyone repeats the same points, the politicians will know what we want done", and then they provide a form letter template to fill in your own name and send off.

You’re not American, so you may not realize what a big deal the elector certificates are. These are the official electoral college votes which are opened by the Vice President and counted in the presence of congress to determine the next president of the United States per the 12th amendment.

The only problem is that they were fake. The federal government received two sets of electoral certificates from these states, a real set, and a fake set. The fact that all of the fake sets have the same formatting is a big deal because it implies there was a coordinated plan to send fake votes to congress.

I mean... "The formatting is the same" does indeed imply a coordinated plan, but we don't need to grasp at such straws given that the indictment includes quotes from emails and text messages of the people doing the coordinating.

I wouldn't put it past a prosecutor to misrepresent an email conversation. The fact that there is outside corroborating evidence seems quite relevant at this stage of the game.

I desperately want to see him run, win, and run the country from jail, so this is a positive development.

Now all we need is a banger campaign and some justices to convince themselves that he can't pardon himself. It's all coming together.

I can certainly imagine him campaigning as a fugitive from justice, and daring the Feds to come arrest him at his Red-State rallies.

It could be brutally effective and/or kick of Civil War II -- so, Jocko_Good.jpg I guess?

I desperately want to see him run, win, and run the country from jail, so this is a positive development.

It worked in Irish elections! Put him in to get him out was the slogan coined for the 1917 election campaign of Joseph McGuinness:

While in prison, McGuinness was selected against his will as Sinn Féin candidate for the Longford South by-election in May 1917. The prisoners in Lewes were opposed to standing a candidate when the Irish Parliamentary Party looked likely to win, so McGuinness declined to stand. However, Collins had him nominated anyway, and McGuinness went on to win by 37 votes after a recount. His election slogan was "Put him in to get him out!"

It was adapted for other candidates as well, with variants on it such as A Felon Of Our Land.

I think "A Felon Of Our Land" would be a great slogan for a Trump Prison Campaign, plus we'd get to see all the people agitating for felons to have the vote suddenly back-pedalling on why that is now a terrible idea and why people who break the law are dangers to society 😁

This is obviously a coordinated conspiracy.

What do you think politics is?

Part of the process of negotiating resource allocation via negotiation within a framework of laws, traditions, and norms.

Why, what do you think it is?

The eternal struggle of organized groups to wrest power from each other. Of course.

You're confusing political formula and politics. The lie people tell others about why they should hold power for the rules of power itself.

There is no such thing as laws norms and traditions except as game theoretic objects that are shattered as soon as convenient through exception.

Rule of law is fiction, you live in an oligarchy. And you always will.

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Who do you intend to vote for in the primary?

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I just think he was a whiny loser and I would a support an impreachment resolution that said, "Resolved, Donald J. Trump is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, Article 1: Trump is a whiny loser."

That being said, if being a whiny loser merits impeachment, there's a lot of politicians from dog catcher upwards who would be impeached... hang on, I'm starting to like this idea!

Would your position change if he was still pending trial, or was out on an appeal bond following a conviction in this case?

I don't know what people would do if he's still out of jail (which I agree is the most likely thing) but I'm fairly sure that if he is in jail, a lot of people will go "Oh fuck no" and protest vote for him along the lines of OP - they don't like him but they also don't like abuse of the legal system for petty revenge and disposing of your political foes.

It's not actually a crime to send letters to Congress. Nor is it fraud to sign a piece of paper saying you believe.

Nor is it fraud to sign a piece of paper saying you believe.

It literally is fraud to do that though, is the thing. That's what fraud is.

But they did these in their own name. They did arrive at congress and congress was confused they might be the real electors and were then entered as real electors.

The fact they signed their real names would seem to be evidence they were not fraud. When they were counting votes no one was confused about whether Michigan was Biden or Trump votes

This has never been charged before.

I mean, not specifically.

But signing your name to something you know isn't true or tricking some else into similar is the dictionary definition of fraud.

You know for a moment I was under the impression that lying wasn't a crime. You're telling me all these years we could have arrested all politicians that say things they know to be not true to each other and everyone?

It's not a crime to falsely claim "I work for the Red Cross".

It's a crime to falsely claim "I work for the Red Cross and we're collecting donations, how much would you like to give?"

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It's not actually a crime to send letters to Congress.

It can be. Depends what's in those letters.

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