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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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Sidney Powell has taken a plea deal in Trump's Georgia RICO case regarding the efforts to overturn the Georgia election result.

Under the terms of the deal, she cops to 6 charges, the RICO charge gets dropped against her, she gets 6 years probation (so no jail time), pays a $6k fine, provides a written apology, and testifies against Trump and other co-conspirators. Considering the serious exposure she had, I count this as a pretty sweet deal.

Interestingly, Kenneth Chesebro (another co-conspirator) reportedly rejected a similar plea deal. He has asserted his right to a speedy trial, and that is set to start very soon. We shall shortly see which of the two of them made the right call.

Seems like a poor choice by Chesebro. $6K to make it all go away seems like a pretty darn good deal to me.

Maybe he thinks it's too cheap a price for his soul.

Which is to say of course that someone who has been 'conspiring' with Trump probably believes in him and believes him that there was fraud involved. And someone who believes an election was fraudulently won is unlikely to respect the frauds now in charge and might even think being jailed is a small sacrifice for saving their homeland. Or similarly he might think an $8k fine for insurrection is a sign his opponents have no faith in themselves and their case.

To be clear, Chesebro has not been charged with insurrection or for any of the events at the Capitol on Jan 6th. He has been charged for his involvement in the Georgia false elector scheme.

Saving the term insurrection for the capitol shenanigans is in essence agreeing it was an insurrection. I do not and I have no respect for the idea, so I call anything Trump 2020 related an insurrection with the exact same amount of respect for the term as I would use referring to the capitol shenanigans, which is to say none.

Yes, but you were referring to the state's understanding of "insurrection." If I said, "he might think an $400 fine for robbery is a sign his opponents have no faith in themselves and their case," and you pointed out that he was charged with shoplifting a can of tuna, not robbery, it would hardly be a convincing response for me to say, "well, I refer to all types of larceny as robbery." What does my personal definition, of which the authorities have no knowledge, have to do with how strong the authorities think their case is?

No, I was guessing at the reasons he wouldn't take the plea deal. I didn't think it was necessary to ensure my hypothetical thought processes favoured accuracy over rhetoric.