Moved Live Trump Trial Updates

[Shadowy Man]

Well, he didn't embezzle, he didn't do insider trading, he didn't commit insurance fraud, he paid someone to keep quiet about a legal act.

That he put the numbers in the wrong column of the spreadsheet won't sell to Middle America.

And paying her was not a crime. If only he just paid from his own money like he should have, the self-professed billionaire that he is. Instead he used campaign money and then lied about how the money was being used, pretending it was for legal services he was never billed for.

 

[Copernicus]

Does Trump even want to be acquitted? If convicted, he will NOT be sentenced to prison and any fine will be small compared to the hundreds of millions in judgements he's already liable for. This leaves only community service as a possible punishment, and Trump would try to turn such "service" into campaign rallies.

How much flexibility does the judge have in imposing specific "community service"? I suppose anything involving significant physical exertion would be off-limits ("cruel and unusual") due to the criminal's age. I suppose the Secret Service must go wherever Trump goes; that limits the options.

Suggestions?

Trump has made very bad judgments in the past, and I do think that he is terrified of a conviction, regardless of his bravado and the front that he puts up. His supporters have always bought into his martyrdom narrative, and a conviction will only confirm their delusion. But a felony conviction here would make a huge difference in the campaign, because then his voters would have to confront the criticism that they are voting to install a convicted felon in the presidency. Maybe a majority of voters in swing states can be convinced to do that, but those are states with close elections. Swing votes matter hugely in those states. So a conviction will have serious consequences for Trump, because those states will be won on the margins.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Does Trump even want to be acquitted? If convicted, he will NOT be sentenced to prison and any fine will be small compared to the hundreds of millions in judgements he's already liable for. This leaves only community service as a possible punishment, and Trump would try to turn such "service" into campaign rallies.

How much flexibility does the judge have in imposing specific "community service"? I suppose anything involving significant physical exertion would be off-limits ("cruel and unusual") due to the criminal's age. I suppose the Secret Service must go wherever Trump goes; that limits the options.

Suggestions?

The media says he will not be sentenced to prison. He can be sentenced, up to, I've read four years for each charge. Further, it is no guarantee he will remain free pending appeal. This is up to the judge and his determining factor is the likelihood of Trump winning on appeal.
This is all based on my naive assumption that we are all treated equally before the law.

While people are placing all these can't do this and can't do thats because he is a former president, my hope is if the judge is going to do anything extrajudicial, it will be that he will take into consideration that his ruling may be the determining factor of whether or not we get to continue on with this great American experiment of being citizens and not subjects.

 

[Swammerdami]

Sure, most of us would love to see him spend a month in solitary. BUT that will inflame his base.

The best hope for democracy is that many Trumplickers will feel apathetic enough to stay home on Election Day. But if they feel their mascot has been abused, they'll go pull his lever on Election Day out of spite.

Should a rational voter decide not to vote for a convicted felon? Perhaps, but rational humans have become just a tiny minority, and most of them already despise the Orange Psychopath.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Well, he didn't embezzle, he didn't do insider trading, he didn't commit insurance fraud, he paid someone to keep quiet about a legal act.

That he put the numbers in the wrong column of the spreadsheet won't sell to Middle America.

People have had a good grasp on the concept of a coverup being a crime since at least the early 70’s. Especially when it’s done by someone running for President.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Our far right idiots have long claimed lying about a crime is worse than the crime itself. At least they did during the Clinton - Lewinsky era. Yes, Clinton was not being impeached for a blow job by a willing, young lady, but lying about having gotten a blowjob in the White House.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Well, he didn't embezzle, he didn't do insider trading, he didn't commit insurance fraud, he paid someone to keep quiet about a legal act.

That he put the numbers in the wrong column of the spreadsheet won't sell to Middle America.

It's so cute when you pretend you're not defending Trump while you are defending Trump.

Cute or sinister?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Sure, most of us would love to see him spend a month in solitary. BUT that will inflame his base.

Who gives a flying fuck about his brainless base? You mean those idiots that stormed the capitol? They're so smart?

 

[Jarhyn]

What accommodations will be made for his secret service guards?

Simple as I am, I don't see the problem with that.
Put him in solitary confinement, without Internet access, post a SS guard.
Easy Peasy.
If necessary, transfer him to a basement in Gitmo.
Tom

There are bits of me that would be happy and at peace knowing that he was in a dark hole being slowly forgotten, but the rest of me that is made excessively uncomfortable when my principles are violated would want him to instead be put in a lavish cage, albeit cut off from the internet or any of his followers. Give him a veritable mountain of cocaine and barbiturates and whatever other drugs he snorts like a vacuum cleaner. Spare no expense. Spend millions a year to hold him, I don't care. Give him fake "presidential" briefings, and make him think he's there because if he wasn't held the Democrats would come after him or whatever. Make ChatGPT generate it all, even the visuals. Put him in a fantasy land where he is happy. I have no real need or desire to see him suffer, as much as I hate him, and that would only make me more like him either way.

 

[TomC]

Spare no expense. Spend millions a year to hold him, I don't care.

I might have a tiny shred of sympathy for this attitude if it applied equally to everyone in prison. But it doesn't.
And a big part of the reason that prison conditions are as appalling as they are is that people like him and his supporters don't think that we can afford it.

There's also the fact that I am compromising my principles by putting him in prison at all. I think that everyone would be better off with the public execution of Insurrectionist Traitors to the USA who had as much political power as Trump has. I'm no fan of capital punishment but I do think that there's a place for it when a perp can continue to cause mayhem despite being in prison.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I see five possible outcomes. Which one do you think will happen?

1. He is found guilty of all charges. That means the court will have to figure out how to punish him. How could they send him to jail? What accommodations will be made for his secret service guards? Will they issue a million dollar fine? He'd laugh at that.

Yeah, he'll just have his supporters pay it. I doubt it'd be that much though. And there will likely be probation.

This was always one of his lesser crimes, but it was the "easist" to bring to trial. His serious crimes are being delayed by his lawyers.

 

[Toni]

I see five possible outcomes. Which one do you think will happen?

1. He is found guilty of all charges. That means the court will have to figure out how to punish him. How could they send him to jail? What accommodations will be made for his secret service guards? Will they issue a million dollar fine? He'd laugh at that.

Yeah, he'll just have his supporters pay it. I doubt it'd be that much though. And there will likely be probation.

This was always one of his lesser crimes, but it was the "easist" to bring to trial. His serious crimes are being delayed by his lawyers.

I’ve read that the Secret Service has already been in talks about making necessary accommodations in whatever institution he might be sentenced to if he is convicted. This absolutely would be necessary as, even if a convicted felon, Trump is entitled to SS protection for life. It is difficult to imagine how he could be held securely unless it were solitary confinement, which, imo and the opinions of most people familiar with the practice, cruel and unusual punishment.

Not that he doesn’t deserve that but still….

 

[Toni]

Well, he didn't embezzle, he didn't do insider trading, he didn't commit insurance fraud, he paid someone to keep quiet about a legal act.

That he put the numbers in the wrong column of the spreadsheet won't sell to Middle America.

Well, no: what he did was commit campaign finance fraud. There was no legitimate reason for him to have attempted to hide the payments. It is even difficult to imagine the man feared this indiscretion would lose him the election, having famously declared he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and no jury would convict him.

No, he committed campaign fraud because he does not believe rules apply to him—not the rule of law, not the rules of polite society or his own golf clubs or contact laws or the rules of common decency. He functions only be breaking rules which he does as a shark breathes moving through water. Not only because he can but because that’s the only way he knows to be.

 

[Jarhyn]

I see five possible outcomes. Which one do you think will happen?

1. He is found guilty of all charges. That means the court will have to figure out how to punish him. How could they send him to jail? What accommodations will be made for his secret service guards? Will they issue a million dollar fine? He'd laugh at that.

Yeah, he'll just have his supporters pay it. I doubt it'd be that much though. And there will likely be probation.

This was always one of his lesser crimes, but it was the "easist" to bring to trial. His serious crimes are being delayed by his lawyers.

I’ve read that the Secret Service has already been in talks about making necessary accommodations in whatever institution he might be sentenced to if he is convicted. This absolutely would be necessary as, even if a convicted felon, Trump is entitled to SS protection for life. It is difficult to imagine how he could be held securely unless it were solitary confinement, which, imo and the opinions of most people familiar with the practice, cruel and unusual punishment.

Not that he doesn’t deserve that but still….

This is why I would propose the golden cage where he lives a lie as deep as the lies he has told others, where he is entertained by some set of very unfortunate and very well paid actors, from the confines of a false Whitehouse deep in the earth with every window a television screen, but "he can't leave because the Democrat Mexican Trans Muslim Terrorist Criminal brigade will try to murder him with "B.I.R.D."s"

We shouldn't have to go through such an expense, but here we are.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Jury returns 14 minutes after deliberating and delivered a long droning speech that appeared to be written in very large letters with a thick black sharpie pen. In the speech, the head juror indicated the jury felt that Trump was the "victim of a witch hunt", applauded he for his "decorum and body cleanliness", made references to how he was so "the best person ever to stand trial", and ruled that they could not in good conscience convicted a man that was such a "victim of Sleepy Joe."

 

[ZiprHead]

One explanation for the 2024 election’s biggest mystery

A theory for why Biden is struggling with young and nonwhite voters.

www.vox.com

I’ve been toying with a different theory of the president’s woes, one that makes better sense of his peculiar demographic weaknesses: Voters with low levels of trust in society and the political system are shifting rightward.
Donald Trump redefined the GOP in the eyes of many, associating the party with a paranoid vision of American life and a populist contempt for the nation’s political system. In response, Democrats rallied to the defense of America’s greatness, norms, and institutions. As the parties polarized on the question of whether America was “already great,” voters with high levels of social trust and confidence in the political system became more Democratic, while those with low social trust and little faith in the government became more Republican.
This miniature realignment was apparent in 2016 and 2020, according to some analysts. And there is some reason to think that it may have accelerated over the past four years. If it did, then Biden’s peculiar difficulties with young, nonwhite, and/or low-propensity voters would make more sense, as those demographic groups evince unusually little trust in their government or fellow Americans.
This theory is merely speculative. It’s consistent with many data points but proven by none. If true, however, it does not bode well for the Biden campaign.

Biden is losing ground with America’s most distrustful demographic groups​

Some Americans generally trust their nation’s institutions and people. Others don’t.
Political scientists have long taken an interest in this distinction. To investigate the effect of trust on voter behavior and democratic health, researchers have attempted to measure two different types of trust.
“Social trust” describes a person’s degree of confidence in the decency of other people. Those high in social trust believe they can safely expect others to abide by social norms. People low in social trust aren’t so certain. Political scientists measure this trait by asking voters questions like, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”

Much more in the link.

 

[ZiprHead]

Trump doesn't care if he's acquitted, it is a win for him either way. If he wins he can say "see, even a New York court with a corrupt judge and DA failed to convict me." If he loses he can say "they're trying to keep me off the campaign trail, they're afraid of me." Either way, he pushes a few more votes his way.

Those who hate Trump went into this case with high hopes. Now they're grasping for hope.

Also, and this needs to be remembered, what does the average person think of when you say "crime"? They think of theft, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. To them this looks like "he put numbers in the wrong column of the spreadsheet." Financial crimes of this sort don't register the same way. Now if he had stolen the money used to pay off Stormy Daniels, or if he was paying her off so she wouldn't accuse him of rape, that would register as a real crime to many people. Since he used his own money to pay her to keep quiet about a legal act, this doesn't seem nearly as bad to the masses.

Really? I think it would be great if more white collar criminals did real time. I think a lot of other people feel the same.

The thing is for most white collar criminals getting caught pretty much nukes their career. That's a big punishment that doesn't apply to those who don't already have a career.

What? you think it's easy for blue collar people with a record to get a job? I know a guy who got a concealed weapon charge trying to stop someone from stealing his car. Almost everywhere he applies won't even consider him for employment.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Well, he didn't embezzle, he didn't do insider trading, he didn't commit insurance fraud, he paid someone to keep quiet about a legal act.

That he put the numbers in the wrong column of the spreadsheet won't sell to Middle America.

It's so cute when you pretend you're not defending Trump while you are defending Trump.

Cute or sinister?

Well, I said "here is where Biden needs to do better to sell his message".
Zipr thinks that is a pro-Trump argument.
Zipr thinks pro-Trump arguments are cute.
Apparently T.G.G. Moogly thinks Zipr finding pro-Trump arguments cute is sinister.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Sure, most of us would love to see him spend a month in solitary. BUT that will inflame his base.

Who gives a flying fuck about his brainless base? You mean those idiots that stormed the capitol? They're so smart?

You don't need a brain to vote. That's why we have a 2 party system.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Of the five options I've listed, everyone is paying attention to option 1. Is it because you think that will happen, or because you want it more than the other four options? Personally I think 2 more likely, and 4 and 5 more entertaining.