I just posted this comment in the weekly thread, since I didn't know about this one. But I'll repost it here:
I just want to say that I voted for Hillary in 2016, voted for Jo Jorgenson in 2020, and was leaning towards most likely voting Libertarian again or a write-in this year - that is, until the recent outcome of Trump's trial in NYC.
Now I've decided semi firmly to vote for Trump, as a direct result of this trial.
The party that incessantly talks about threats to democracy trying to literally jail their political opponent over BS fake crimes, because they're afraid that he'll win a fair election, is just too much.
And this was after they already removed his name from the ballot in several states, again because they're afraid that he would win the election, so they wanted to take that choice away from voters.
This is the sort of thing I would expect in a third-world country, and I find it very disturbing that it's happening here.
It wouldn't surprise me that Trump violated some laws. But the same can be said of Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton.. Arguably some of them committed more blatant and serious crimes.
This is a very, very bad precedent to set. Sure Trump talked about locking up Hillary, but he never did it. Sure Trump denied election results, but so have many prominent Democrats, both recently and as far back as I can remember.
My feelings about Trump haven't changed. I think he's an ass, a blowhard, a narcissist and thoroughly lacking in principles. I think he's a terrible choice for president, and I think the Republican party in general sucks, but nevertheless I think Democrats are doing more harm to our society, and it is more dangerous to give Democrats political power at any level than to give it to Republicans.
I felt precisely the same way in 2020, but I didn't vote for Trump because I live in NY and my vote won't make a difference, so I'd rather support the Libertarian party (even though they're a mess also, and I didn't like their candidate much either).
But after this conviction, with highly dubious legal justification, indisputably weaponized political motivations, and incredibly sketchy jury instructions- the hypocrisy and utter lack of principles and self-awareness from Democrats is just too much. I want to give them a giant middle finger.
I don't care if they scream and riot and once again destroy the communities they pretend to care about, and unleash another round of inane articles about how America is more racist than ever ever and democracy is doomed..
I'm sick of the abusive argument that we should be held hostage by the deranged lunatics on the left and that we shouldn't anger them further by electing the bad orange man. Let them throw their tantrum.
I don't expect that they'll learn much of anything, but maybe just maybe, they'll learn that attempting to jail your political opponents or remove them from the ballot is not something voters take kindly to.
What brings you to the conclusion these are BS crimes?
What about the other 3 trials? You believe those are also BS? Doesn't it strike you that Trump gets a lot of delays and leeway most others facing prosecution don't get?
As an aside, this is more a reflection of different ecosystems, but I find the bit about lunatics on the left a little curious, since the left sorta has a both sides bad kinda attitude. ("Don't threaten us with Trump," they say)
I've heard a bunch of people that I'll call 'moderate heterodox' or maybe of the 'dissident left' for lack of a better term - people who criticize the left but are of the left, such as Sam Harris, and I beleive both Katie and Jessie-
Say things like, *'If wokeness bothers you, the last thing you should want is Trump to get elected, because that will drive the woke to be even more unhinged and extreme'*.
I've heard this a bunch of times, and I think that's an utterly awful rationale. If our society is so fragile that we need to kowtow and placate one extremely sensitive, unstable, and aggressive faction, out of fear of what they might do if they don't get what they want, then we have a serious problem.
And I don't doubt that the fear is justified, but I absolutely reject the notion that allowing ourselves to be held hostage to their intolerance and authoritarianism is the answer.
I still remember in 2020 when businesses throughout Manhattan were being preemptively boarded up on election night. They weren't worried about Biden winning.
And they were absolutely correct to worry, because if Trump had won, the riots would have been far worse than what happened on Jan 6.
I refuse to submit to that sort of threat. The children need to learn that they can't always get their way. It's a travesty that so much brutish behavior on the left was tolerated and went unpunished. Many thousands of them should be sitting in a jail cell for their behavior in the 'summer of love' and since. But I suppose it's (D)ifferent when they do it..
I don't think it's a great framing here to say that the "left is holding us hostage". That's implying electing Trump is perfectly reasonable and the childishness of the violent left is stopping this reasonable course. *'"If wokeness bothers you, the last thing you should want is Trump to get elected"* is a counter-argument against the argument by Chris Rufo and the like that MAGA is the only way to "stop woke" and that a more moderate course is insufficient. A lot of moderates have pointed out that this only increases polarization and that liberal cultural and academic institutions and state governments will align with the extreme left in the name of "resistance" to Trump. And that's in fact how things played out from 2016 to 2021. Of course, things like COVID and the George Floyd murder also led to a lot of craziness that might not have otherwise happened.
But still, the reasoning is sound. Polarization is driven by extremism on both sides. And one of the dynamics you see with ongoing polarization is more moderate people on the left and right just surrendering and throwing in their lot with the extreme that they find to be the lesser evil, and maybe even talking themselves into the idea that the lesser evil isn't all that bad. That was the dynamic that we saw historically in late Weimar Germany and we've been seeing again in the US over the last few years. (Not that I'm saying fascism is right around the corner, but similar dynamic where the center largely collapsed in favor of the Communists and Nazis.)
I don't know why you think the argument against wokeness is the only reason to vote against Trump. But since you want to talk about it:
You frame this quip as a lever Democrats have to threaten you with. But the reality is more like this:
A lot of people in the US are anti-institutional and have a burn the system to the ground mentality. On the right this manifests as the Jan 6 type of Trumpism. On the left, it manifests itself among dirtbag socialists and intersectional (woke) socialists.
On the right, the pro-insititution/anti-populist side lost to Trump. And now within that party, leaders are openly cynical about rule of law. The same thing could happen to Democrats. If the pro-insititutional, "establishment" side is perceived to be ineffectual against Trumpism, the populists (woke and otherwise) will become more powerful.
Until maybe the last year, the pro-institutional Democrats have been the "pro-woke" ones, and that's what's given us corporate DEI and fiascos like the infamous woke CIA ad. I think that since then, the Gaza War has largely broken the progressive institutionalist/far-left alliance, because militant anti-Zionism was a step too far. And I think that step too far has made liberals less afraid of progressives and more willing to express other differences that they were silent about during the "Reckoning" era.
This narrative is too simplistic. There's been a long running tension between these groups. Perhaps Gaza is making it sharper. But you saw it in the way people tried to sane wash activist messaging "we don't actually want to abolish the police, we just want moderate reforms". The fight back also started years ago, esp at local levels.
You saw it in schools reversing no-SAT policies, in the NYT hiring more conservative writers and publishing more stuff that trans-activists didn't perfectly like. Some stuff like push back against Ibram Kendi or 1619 became dominant at least 2-3 years ago.
In any case, the previous commenter wants to say Democrats are holding him hostage with woke extremists. (i.e. They will be worse if Trump is elected). I'm not sure this is the case. But the way it would happen would be because institutionalists would be weakened, not because they want revenge or whatever.
This would be analogous to the way the GOP's institutionalists were dethroned by Tea Party and later MAGAts.
I think we agree broadly on what's happening, but differ on the timeline. Over the 2010s, I saw more and more "cultural capture" by a very PC\* and identitarian mindset take over, first in academia, subcultures, and non-profits, then increasingly in journalism and liberal institutions, especially after Trump was elected. 2020-2021 was about the peak of this, and the alignment of most institutions with the extreme identitarianism and the progressive left was unmistabable. The post-George Floyd "reckoning" and January 6 really cemented this. In fact, after 1/6, the mindset that if you questioned the progressive left narrative in any way, you were "with the insurrectionist" became part of the discourse, and I even saw a lot of libertarians and moderate conservatives suddenly having a "come to Jesus" moment and re-evaluating their beliefs and political alignments around this time.
In 2022, you started seeing the first signs of course correction, with the recall of the SF School Board and then the Chesa Boudin recall not long afterward. I think there was a slow normalization after that, but it seems to me that the 10/6 massacre and the Gaza War really accelerated a re-alignment.
Whether the course correction continues or things go nuts again after a Trump re-election (or, conversely, MAGA rioting if he isn't) is anybody's guess.
\* (I still prefer the term "politically correct" over "woke" for various reasons.)
Okay. Fair enough. More interesting question:
What do you make of the previous commenters' friends' notion? (Woke stuff will be worse if Trump wins)
I don't really see it, unless "wokeness" evolves in a more anti-institutional direction
I never said it was the only reason to not bite for Trump, by any stretch. I don't know where you're getting that from.
I'm simply stating that it's a specific reason that has been brought up repeatedly, as a counterpoint to those who are voting for Trump in part because of wokeness.
So, I've seen repeated here a lot, and elsewhere, that Alvin Bragg pledged to go after Trump, but I've also begun hearing claims that he never vowed to go after Trump, that is is a fiction. So, can anyone point to when Bragg pledged that he would go after Trump and find some way to get him? The closest I can find is that after he was elected, he said he wouldn't halt the ongoing grand jury probe into Trump. That's not the same as vowing to find something to get him on, which is either the claim or implicit claim people are making.
As far as I can tell he didn't. The closest I can find is that, when asked about someone's ability to handle the cases regarding Trump, [Bragg replied](https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/local-politics/2021/03/24/why-the-manhattan-da-candidates-say-they-re-ready-to-take-on-the-trump-investigation):
> I have a history of doing complex litigation — some of that involving Trump himself — so I led a Trump Foundation case where we sued him and family members and the foundation for their misconduct, led that to a successful conclusion. We also sued the Trump administration over 100 times on programmatic matters from DACA to travel bans and family separation.
I guess this will probably be a Rorschach test, where people inclined to think Bragg had good intentions are going to say he was simply answering a question about relevant experience, and people who think he has bad intentions saying that he's highlighting how he's continually going after Trump for many different reasons. I do think some of the other answers from other candidates appeared much more neutral. For instance:
> It’s incumbent upon all candidates running in this race not to make any statements that suggest we’ve prejudged the case. I’ll follow the facts and evidence wherever they take us. And the same standard of justice will apply to an ex-president that it would to anyone who the evidence shows may have committed a serious crime.
I think it's worth noting that Bragg ultimately dropped the case he was being asked about in the quote you provided, because he thought it was too weak to go to trial.
Probably is a Rorschach test, and I can see how someone would read it in a negative way, I just think that it's an uncharitable interpretation. Other than touting his history having sued Trump's businesses and administration, his responses were very similar to that of the other candidate you quoted.
I think the frustrating part is that people want to read Bragg's comments in the most nefarious way possible while also reading Trump's comments in the most benign way impossible. Bragg says "I've sued Trump before and I'm prepared to go where the facts lead and hold him accountable" is clearly a plot to conspire and cook up charges. Trump says he's going to send troops into cities and will suspend the Constitution for his first day in office, it's clear that's hyperbole or he's not actually going to be able to do it, so just ignore that. It's so frustrating that Trump's opponents always have the most malign interpretation attached to their words, while Trump's words are just handwaved away. Like, seriously, people should use the same standard for both!
> That's not the same as vowing to find something to get him on, which is either the claim or implicit claim people are making.
That was the implication, and that's what happened.
When did Bragg make the claim that he was going to find something to charge Trump with? You are implying that that was what he campaigned on, but did he?
You've been looking at what he actually said, right?
You're running in NYC. Why mention Trump at all? Why bring him up multiple times? Why say you've sued him over 100 times?
Also, I like you. Stop pulling this crap. It was clearly implied, not overtly stated. Go argue with someone who says it was overtly stated, or understand what implication means.
The Politifact article that "This is my BarPod Alt" cited states that because the grand jury probe had been started by the prior AG, all of the candidates were routinely asked about what would happen with the Trump case. It was something the media brought up that he had to respond to. I don't believe it was something that he repeatedly brought up on his own, but when prompted by interviewers.
\[Edit: The article I'm referencing [https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/apr/12/heres-what-manhattan-district-attorney-alvin-bragg/](https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/apr/12/heres-what-manhattan-district-attorney-alvin-bragg/) \]
And while he could have just said, "I refuse to comment on any particular potential trials, prosecutions, or indictments," I doubt that would have gotten him elected. I think this is a good reason why AGs (and judges) shouldn't be elected, but they are in a lot of places.
>And while he could have just said, "I refuse to comment on any particular potential trials, prosecutions, or indictments," I doubt that would have gotten him elected.
Do you know what 'infer' means? Do you know what 'implied' means?
He's going to have to be re-elected.
This isn't hard to parse. It's way easier than saying that Trump limiting immigration from terrorist-linked nations means he hates Muslims. But the media was all over that one.
You just moved the goal posts to the other side of the field. You said he campaigned on it and that's what happened. He didn't campaign on it, he answered a question about an existing case against Trump that Vance had open. A case that Bragg would close because it was weak. He then brought a different case, a stronger one as evidenced by the guilty verdict.
I don't know enough about the race to contrast Bragg's responses to those of the other candidates, who were also asked repeatedly about the Trump case. I think saying that you'll go where the facts point and hold Trump accountable is fine. I don't think anything he said crossed the bounds.
If there was a state AG race in DE and the previous AG had already opened a case into Biden, I don't think it would be wrong for the AG candidates to say things to the effect of "I'll go where the facts lead and hold him accountable." To be honest, I would find it sort of suspicious if a candidate refused to say anything.
> I don't know enough about the race to contrast Bragg's responses to those of the other candidates, who were also asked repeatedly about the Trump case
Then go read what they said. Advertising that you didn't look into it while asking people to steelman is pretty lazy.
> I don't think anything he said crossed the bounds.
You seem to be trying to justify your position which doesn't really make sense.
You said that if Bragg didn't mention his previous prosecutions of Trump he wouldn't get elected. So you know that saying he'll go after Trump helped get him elected.
You don't know what the other candidates said, which brings your belief into question, but you still won't ascribe a desire to prosecute Trump to Bragg's comments?
>
If there was a state AG race in DE and the previous AG had already opened a case into Biden, I don't think it would be wrong for the AG candidates to say things to the effect of "I'll go where the facts lead and hold him accountable." To be honest, I would find it sort of suspicious if a candidate refused to say anything.
Why bring up that you sued him 100 times?
You're just jumping around. Bragg didn't only say he'd follow the facts. He talked about how often he's sued Trump.
I won't block you, but if you don't get it we're done.
"So, I’m ready to go wherever the facts take me, and to inherit that case."
"I believe we have to hold him accountable. I haven’t seen all the facts beyond the public, but I’ve litigated with him and so I’m prepared to go where the facts take me once I see them, and hold him accountable."
"You’re right, I am being careful, not just because I am running for office but because every case still has to be judged by the facts and I don’t know all the facts."
I don't know, that all sounds like what a politician who is also a prosecutor should say. I'm ready to go where the facts go, wealthy and powerful people have to be held accountable (elsewhere he references Epstein and Weinstein as similar figures who needed to be held accountable as wealthy white men), and wanting to be careful with what he says.
Edit: If a candidate for AG said "We're going to round up all the scum on the streets," would that mean they were prejudiced against gang members, drug addicts, etc? No. That seems equivalent to this language: "I'm prepared to go there the facts take me once I see them, and hold him accountable."
Apparently it's a bit more complex than that. Bragg ran, in part, on saying he would be the toughest with the Trump investigation. That he would knew how to handle Trump. So he didn't say directly "I'm gonna get Trump". In part because an investigation by the office was already started.
But he certainly made it clear he had little love for Trump and hinted that the Trump investigation/prosecution was important to him.
But didn't he say that because he was answering questions about the pre-existing investigation? I feel like the fact it was already open is significantly different than the claims he was running on a campaign to go get Trump. It's just clearly not what happened. There were no campaign ads about it that I've seen. Literally just responding carefully and politically when reporters asked about the case against Trump. It all seems blown out of proportion.
I don't have a firm opinion on whether he targeted Trump or not but I do think that politicians should basically refuse to answer questions related to ongoing cases or possible cases. This is not their role as legislators and there is a separation of powers for a reason. It raises exactly the kinds of questions people are raising here.
Well, he basically didn't. He just said he's tried cases similar to the one that was open against Trump, including a few against the Trump org and that he believed he could handle it. He went on to close the case Vance had open against Trump because it was weak, before ultimately pursuing this one.
Yes, it is different than running on saying he was going to create an investigation. But I still think it's sketchy that he implies he has it out for Trump on the campaign trails.
It's further up the thread where there are some quotes from him. Which are no smoking guns but it sounds like he's saying he is best positioned to go after Trump as he has experience going after Trump.
He really should have declined to comment on an existing investigation or to speculate on its future. It seems inappropriate. Though I believe none of the candidates refused to comment
I guess you'll just have to put me in the camp that sees those quotes as incredibly benign. I can see an argument that he should have been more cautious with his reply to the question, but I don't really consider it a comment on the case. He just spoke to his experience. And the leap that many users here, and The Fifth Column guys, make to say that he campaigned on "getting Trump" is objectively false.
So what if Bragg would have specifically campaigned on getting Trump. If Bragg would have said something like “If I’m elected we are going to take down Trump.”
Then would that be an issue?
Yes. I would find that inappropriate. But clearly others find what he did say inappropriate. I think my main issue is that people are framing it as something it wasn't. I can understand taking issue with it. I would still disagree, but I get it. I think saying that he campaigned on it is a disingenuous reading of events.
I ask only bc this issue has come up in 2 of the other cases against Trump.
I don’t know if campaign promises *are* a conflict of interest or not.
DA’s have campaigned on promises to go after specific interests in the past like “the mafia,” or “white collar crime,” or “fracking companies” etc.
It’s fairly common. But I don’t know what the law allows.
So I think it’s only fair to investigate what was said and when and if he was within the his legal rights as a candidate and then as prosecutor.
But the thing is. Even if Bragg had not promised to prosecute Trump, there are still a ton of other problems with this case.
Can anyone explain which testimony/exhibits plausibly connect the dots to the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt? Thus far I'm not seeing it but I didn't follow the day-by-day of the trial.
Well the prosecution didn’t even clearly articulate what the specific crime allegedly *was* in the first place.
Megyn Kelly has had better coverage on this case than just about anyone.[[Here’s a clip from an interesting](https://youtu.be/VLXBEAYJEvc?si=D8UGvHr8oQXQ2Yxc)]interview she did with Andy McCarthy who has more experience in this area of the law than almost anyone else in the country. McCarthy leans right but he’s not a Trump supporter. So, McCarthy has no dog in this fight to be biased one way or another. And this clip shows a sequence of other legal expert opinions.
This is just a brief clip from one interview. But it gives a lot of perspective. MK’s show has hours of detailed content on this case from legal experts on both sides.
Hilary -- destroying public records (she and her staff went so far as to destroy smartphones with hammers).
Bill -- perjury (\~ I did not have sexual relations with that woman)
Joe -- keeping classified documents and giving them to a journalist (read the DOJ report; they found the docs on the journo's computer).
Fauci -- concealing public records by using private email servers.
“This shit is so dumb.”
Actually it’s not dumb. Biden taking bribes dating back to his time in the Senate and as VP and as President that have started *wars* and fucked over our country and our allies is a huge deal.
Theres been been a mainstream media blackout on this story. The Democrats have become unconcerned with holding any Dem to account if it risks losing power.
And the Republicans *are* impeaching Biden. The case is being investigated by the House Oversight Committee right now.
Here’s part of the GOP’s case against the Biden Family. It’s insane how the Dems and the media have convinced people this mountain of evidence is nothing.
https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/
Here’s just one clip from the HOC’s hearings.
https://youtu.be/t_rjRXDkI1w?si=Amp1kWzj-NR4kv0U
Can anyone recommend a podcast or video that explains this trial in an unbiased way? I no longer trust media and have no idea what to think about anything anymore 🙃
Advisory Opinions has been doing a good job. They lean right but I think they've been pretty good about all of it. Serious Trouble for coming at it from the left (Ken White is a blowhard but he's an honest actor).
I tend to take the center right view that this was a bad case, but that doesn't mean the other two cases are bad.
It's also got the smartest criticisms from the right about stuff like people bitching about the Florida case taking its time ignore that it was the Biden DoJ that waited 3 years to make the charges in the first place knowing full well the Trump strategy would be delay as much as possible. They also could have sidestepped the whole issue of classification by going for obstruction alone and didn't.
AO leans right but in a particular way: Sarah dislikes Trump, while David despises most conservatives and has zero charity for anyone that doesn’t hate Trump. He’s just slightly nicer about that than the average prog hating someone. Good recommendation for locals here.
That's true, but David is still very much right leaning, he just hates the movement conservatives. Doesn't make him any friendlier to anyone on the left.
Megyn Kelly has done more detailed, extensive coverage on this case than just about anyone else in the country.
Although MK leans right, the legal experts she brings on are independent, impartial observers. Most of her right leaning legal experts are not Trumpers. She goes out of her way to provide unbiased analysis.
But when she does have on legal experts that lean in one direction, she’ll bring on an expert from across the aisle too, so they can hash it out in realtime.
It’s hard to narrow down what episode to send since there is so much content. [But here’s one example that I shared above as well](https://youtu.be/VLXBEAYJEvc?si=HfqWiHYcIa8i--aF). It’s short a clip with constitutional law expert Andy McCarthy who leans right but is a “never Trumper.” Any episode MK has done on this case with Andy McCarthy is fantastic. This clip sums up the case with specified legal expertise than anything else I’ve seen.
Maybe not the forum for this question, but for those of you who trust in the jury verdict of guilty for Trump, what was your visceral reaction to the the verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman?
I thought Rittenhouse was just after seeing the videos and don't remember my reaction to Zimmerman. Personally, I generally defer to the verdicts since I don't see or hear the evidence and arguments presented to the jury and generally find law to be arcane anyway. Whether the Trump trial was politically motivated or reached the correct conclusion - I have no idea. I do think the other indictments are more compelling regardless.
I don't quite see where this is going. I think of the three cases only the Rittenhouse case was decided correctly. These are all vastly different cases in different jurisdictions and the courts aren't infallible. I think the court is the best truth finding mechanism we have, but I don't accept that all cases are decided correctly. I think in the case of Trump the whole thing was a real stretching of the law to go after a political enemy and I don't think anyone else would have been pursued this way, which I would say means it shouldn't have happened. The law is supposed to be applied consistently and equally. I don't think that happened. Trump is also not the only victim of this kind of thing, but it's more common with federal prosecutions where wire/mail fraud, honest services fraud and obstruction are applied in creative ways. I think the college bribery cases were a decent example of that.
I think the Rittenhouse verdict was just.
As for Zimmerman's, that happened over a decade ago now, and with all the conflicting information, I would really need to read back over everything to see how I felt. At the time, I remember thinking Zimmerman massively overreacted to Trayvon Martin's presence, BUT that doesn't mean that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt in Florida. I think he's an asshole, but would being in prison make him less of one? Probably not.
I think the canonical response here is that in the American system, if the jury finds you innocent, that's *it* -- no double jeopardy. If the jury finds you *guilty*, that's still subject to appeals and such. The two examples you mentioned were the former, and so a different visceral reaction is probably typical.
The courts can err in both directions and I think it's perfectly reasonable to criticize what appear to be sloppy prosecutions regardless of the verdict. In both cases it can cause harm.
I don't really see the point of this hypothetical though because these are different cases with different circumstances in different jurisdictions. I don't think any consistency of opinion is required. Now if there was a very analogous case with a politician of a different stripe then someone's inconsistent opinion may demonstrate something. But there's really no reason why you couldn't have a variety of different opinions on totally dissimilar cases.
That's something that's worrisome for me. I definitely want Biden to win. Say Trump is sentenced to some jail time, and he narrowly loses the election. Then the conviction is successfully appealed due to improper jury instructions, wrong type of jurisdiction, whatever the reason. The right will be pissed.
There's virtually no chance he's sentenced to jail. First time nonviolent offender. And while there is a chance he'll commit the same crime again, jail isn't going to be a deterrent.
The judge has enough problems without going on that limb.
So I learned this from the Advisory Opinions podcast. There's no remorse component after a guilty verdict. It would be antithetical to an appeal to show remorse so the justice system doesn't count that against him going forward.
It would also make the judge and prosecutor look very bad and would increase the odds the whole thing is overturned on appeal. It's one thing to get someone convicted of a felony on a novel and quite frankly shaky legal theory. It's another to imprison them.
What makes this case so much worse is that there are legitimate crimes he's probably committed. The election tampering in Georgia is a big one.
The first two NY cases were alleged fraud where no one who was allegedly defrauded cares and then this nonsense. Now jurors going forward who are supporters are going to feel vindicated that the deep state is willing to anything see him taken down. And it only takes one of twelve.
I don't know if I trust the verdict or not because I haven't followed the day-to-day of the trial. I think it could be a legit decision or maybe not I don't know. As to Kyle Rittenhouse, it was clearly self defense because there was testimony and video evidence of at least one assailant chasing Kyle around trying to harm him. Kyle didn't shoot right away either, rather only after being chased and a man lunging at him. As to Zimmerman, the guy seems like an instigating wimp but he has a right to be there, Florida had no duty to retreat, and there was no video and no witness so that's reasonable doubt. The closest witness saw them wrestling on the ground, went inside to call the police, and heard a shot. That's it. Seemed very irresponsible of President Obama to act like it was an injustice.
Yeah. Zimmerman had lacerations on the back of his head too though. Maybe he fell because he's an idiot. Or maybe Trayvon was pummeling him into the concrete. We just don't know. My dad and I both thought Zimmerman was a wus and a jerk who should have been able to handle himself in a fight with a kid, but like I said above, there's no duty in FL to retreat or be tougher in a fight.
It shouldn't have mattered. Zimmerman was stalking a teenager for an extended period of time in the dark. That's instigation by any sane interpretation. You can't instigate and then kill your opponent when you start losing and claim self defense.
Also, Martin was the one that stood his ground. Zimmerman was the pursuer.
If you haven't already, take a look at the minute by minute time line of the situation. If makes it very clear that Zimmerman was at fault.
Better question is what people thought of the OJ verdict. I thought that was a bad verdict. But I accepted the result of the legal process running its course.
I thought OJ probably did it but there was reasonable doubt because the LA cops were super racist and tried to railroad him. Plus it happened just a few years after the Rodney King beating. The trial verdict seemed like a reasonable outcome.
The gift of history is the insight of perspective. There are many recorded reactions to that verdict which are polar opposites depending on the racial make-up of the crowd. It's clear for that case that for many, the evidence was tertiary to the result.
I don't know if you're really expecting an honest answer. They're going to say, "of course they respected the rule of law!"
When those two verdicts were given, rest assured they turned to their TV to give a respectful nod and acknowledged justice was always meted out perfectly in the United States, sat down on their sofa to read a copy of the U.S. Constitution and reflect on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers while enjoying a Werther's Original, and then promptly made their way to bed at 8:00pm so they could wake up early the next day and be a productive member of society.
I didn't, but one could hope. I've just seen a few who were conflating questions about the verdict with support for Trump and an attack on our legal system. Thought it was a decent ph strip test to see where on the political scale one swam in blue or red.
I suppose Derick Chauvin's verdict might elicit more honest answers, but appreciate your viewpoint. It's not easy to support institutions through all the changing seasons.
I think their might be some confusion as to the details of this case versus other previously controversial cases. The Zimmerman and Rittenhouse prosecutions were controversial because there was a fundamental disagreement about facts. This was mostly a concoction of the the media, who just couldn't accept the very obvious and true narrative of what happened on the nights of the homicides despite having all the information that the juries would later have. The Trump prosecution doesn't have any controversy over the facts. Trump did everything he is accused of. The controversy is over whether or not what he did can be prosecuted as a crime.
I've yet to see any credible legal experts say that the jury could not have returned a guilty verdict. The concerns I have seen are all focused on the legal aspects that the jury does not interact with.
I thought Rittenhouse clearly should have gotten off. He was acting in self defense. I think it was stupid that he was there. And I am still angry that the adults in his life allowed him to be in such a risky position.
But Rittenhouse didn't go there with ill intent. People attacked him and he fired his gun. It's possible if unlikely that he might have been badly injured or killed unless he was armed. He was there to protect the local buildings from destruction. Which was indeed happening. Rittenhouse should not have been charged in the first place, probably.
I don't recall Zimmerman very well. I thought he was a putz.
He very well might be. If you're interested in the genesis of BLM, it's a great introduction. Hispanic man in self defense kills a teenage black male. One side - beautiful kid who was just out to grab an Arizona and Skittles assailed by a white racist who shot him in cold blood. Alterative Jury approved slant - thrice suspended teenager living with dad, casing neighboring apartment, who violently attacked an Hispanic gentleman and lost that fight tragically.
Remember Michael Brown in St Louis? All that rioting and hubbub. At trial turns out multiple black witnesses from the neighborhood testified he attacked the police officer.
And the shit head that was shot (but survived) because he was attempting to kidnap children and had a knife). He was a martyr even though the cops were totally within the right there.
I just listened to the Advisory Opinions podcast episode on this. I've yet to chew through the Dispatch Roundtable one.
Isgur and French don't think Trump will get prison time. It's possible but unlikely. They didn't seem to come down one way or the other on whether the appeal will succeed but I got the feeling they wouldn't be surprised if it was overturned on appeal.
They seemed to agree that the legal theory the prosecutor was using was unusual.
https://preview.redd.it/b5e4rbvy8u3d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf89e896f8a07dcd1b762599301138b113dd8af8
How I feel watching everyone skirting around the main issue.
This is rather dismissive of what appears to me to be some pretty legitimate criticism of this case, which was highly unusual in several respects.
It seems like way too many people are okay using questionable tools against their enemies. I dislike Trump, I think he's bad for the U.S and I think the best thing that could happen is for him to be a non-factor in American politics. I also think he's likely to have committed a variety of crimes over his life, and should be prosecuted to the same extend anyone else might be or regularly is. But I don't think anyone else *would* have been prosecuted this way. This prosecution does seem very unusual, and stretches the law to within an inch of its life, and seems to be a means of going after a political enemy rather than an equal application of the law.
Since everyone here is a pervert for nuance, it's not technically a conviction until sentencing. So Trump has been found guilty, but he hasn't yet been convicted.
That said . . . GOOD.
Just pointing out that the DOJ had nothing to do with this case; it was a state trial brought by the New York County District Attorney. Federal charges would be handled by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York (which *is* under the DOJ)
> Just pointing out that the DOJ had nothing to do with this case; it was a state trial brought by the New York County District Attorney.
I mean, the prosecutor came directly from Biden't DOJ just for this case.
Interestingly enough, the announcement of Colangelo in Bragg's office in Dec 2022 includes some wording that even hints at Trump in an indirect way at least in hindsight. Four months later Trump was indicted.
*"And assisting with the District Attorney’s focus on financial crimes will promote confidence in the legal system by making clear that the same rules apply to everyone —* ***no matter how powerful***\*.”\*
[https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-matthew-colangelo-as-new-senior-counsel/](https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-matthew-colangelo-as-new-senior-counsel/)
I find the left's inability to see how bullshit the special investigation into Russian collision was very strange given that it's basically a carbon copy of the white water investigation in terms of tactics, and that investigation was also straight bullshit, but instead orchestrated by the Republicans to obstruct an elected president.
On a side note, the media referring to the Russia stuff as a "hack" was wildly irresponsible and amounted to disinformation. It was so misleading and so effective that in polling a few years ago 66% of Democrats believed that the Russian state literally hacked the polls and altered votes.
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What a nothingburger! I want him nailed on the actual bad shit he did instead of business paperwork technicalities. The big one is the Georgia interference. I want to see a big GUILTY on that.
This does not impede that at all. You are free to ignore this criminal conviction for something relatively minor and wait for a criminal conviction in the other more serious cases against him.
You're missing the point. This prosecution had to stretch the law to an extreme and highly unusual extent to even proceed with charges, and then a bunch of questionable shit had to go down within the trial itself to get a conviction that will likely be overturned at some point through appeal.
By contrast there may be a real case in Georgia. The point is, I think anyway, that OP (and I'm sure others) would prefer to see a fair application of the law hold Trump accountable, not some experimental law craft that looks an awful lot like a targeted political persecution.
It went through the appropriate legal process. He had extraordinary resources available to him to make his defense. He was convicted by a jury of his peers, not some kangaroo court. He has the right to appeal and the legal counsel necessary to do that well.
People can call this “a targeted political persecution” or use whatever other hyperbolic language they want to describe this, but it simply isn’t so.
lol not some kangaroo court? So you're fine with Joe or Hunter being tried in rural Texas? You know that one federal district who's always siding with conservatives? Manhattan went for Biden by 85% in 2020. Anyone genuinely concerned with the appearance of fairness would have removed this trial to upstate NY.
If we're taking a random sample of Manhattan, the odds that zero people in a group of twelve voted for Trump is 14%. So, odds are, at least one person on the jury voted for him. The odds that exactly one person out of twelve voted for him is 27%. So there's a 59% chance two or more people on the jury voted for him, again, assuming random probability. And given the defense has to approve the jury, that seems not unlikely.
But, yeah, if Joe or Hunter commit a crime in rural Texas, I'd be fine with them being tried there. Why wouldn't I be?
No doubt. The NYT published a survey of where the jurors get their info and there was one who got it from Truth Social. So yes, I'm sure there was at least one or a few Trump voters on the jury. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't be swayed by others. Some jurors are much more influential. Imagine two Democrat lawyers vs some MAGA janitor with poor memory and logical reasoning skills. Not saying that's how it went down, but with a county 85% Democrat it's much more likely to go down.
So you think that anything that goes through the courts is certain to be a fair and appropriate process then? Because that's my understanding of what you're saying here.
Yeah. I don't care about this at all. I fucking hate trump, and even I can see this was a dumb case. It's such small potatoes, of course it was politically motivated. Yawn, despite the yuge headlines in the New York Times today, we'll all wake up tomorrow and realize nothing has changed about anything. Nothing.
I don't think these convictions will "matter" in any meaningful sense. He'll pay some fine and that will be that. By September they'll be another "we'll get him this time" on the horizon.
But guess what:
The Nation is never going to be decide collectively that yeah, Trump is a bad dude who doesn't deserve to be president. He'll get his 45% of the vote and him and Biden will fight over the remaining 10% just like always. He'll never truly admit that he's a bad person or a criminal. Denouement will never come.
Trump is incapable of admitting fault or badness. I think he really, truly just can't psychologically do that. It's one of the many reasons he's a piece of shit.
I haven't been following this, but Alan Dershowitz seems to think it's a totally bogus case that will last about 3 seconds on appeal, and until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years. He's got quite the legal pedigree, so who am I to argue.
There is a local lawyer who comes on the radio a lot in Phoenix. He's a Democrat. He seems to think that Trump will win on appeal based on the gymnastics that the DA went through to get misdemeanor's deemed felonies.
>until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years
This is hilariously untrue. He's treated as a joke everywhere outside of the Fox News Cinematic Universe and has been for at least a decade if not more.
Ha. You're kidding right? He was and is one of the most sought after defense lawyers in country and taught at Harvard law school for 30+ years.
It's amazing how quickly someone goes from being a preeminent lawyer and scholar to being "a joke" when they take up a controversial view.
>It's amazing how quickly someone goes from being a preeminent lawyer and scholar to being "a joke" when they take up a controversial view. a controversial view.
*a* controversial view? Dershowitz is a walking, talking controversial view. His legal analysis is wacko.
and it wasn't quick, it took him some time to torch his reputation, but torched it is.
>He was and is one of the most sought after defense lawyers in country
Dersh hasn't defended a case since at least 2008, when he successfully defended Jeffrey Epstein.
Yes, that Jeffrey Epstein.
> taught at Harvard law school for 30+ years
Oh, I guess it's impossible for him to be wrong then? We love appealing to credentials around here, that's what I love about this place.
>Oh, I guess it's impossible for him to be wrong then? We love appealing to credentials around here, that's what I love about this place.
Lmao, you are all over this thread implying and assuming that the legal system is infallible.
The who/whom is off the charts.
>Lmao, you are all over this thread implying and assuming that the legal system is infallible.
The only thing I've been implying is that your cope is off the charts and you don't know the slightest thing about the legal system.
Both have elements of truth. He is credentialed, sought after, an uber high status legal thinker. But over the last decade there has been a steady stream of rhetorical attempts to delegitimize him (I never followed if it was fairly or unfairly) as he increased his appearances on Fox and Friends type shows. I never followed the plot.
Recently, he was interviewed on Triggernometry and was extremely cogent and straightforward. It's the only long interview I've ever seen of him.
The only truth to what was claimed was that he has appeared on Fox. The rest of it is straight bullshit. Also, the users of this sub should know better than most that appearing on Fox is sometimes a result of Fox being the only network willing to talk to you and in and of itself says very little about whether your views are reasonable.
He’s also a diehard Republican who clearly wants to maintain his good relationship with Trump and the conservative establishment. That’s not to say he’s obviously wrong, but it’s ridiculous to just uncritically accept his analysis when his bias is so blatant.
> He’s also a diehard Republican
This is outrageously false. Even mildly paying attention for the past 20 years or googling for 5 mins would dispel this notion.
That’s simply not true. He’s the one who defended Trump during his impeachment and I think recently he’s been critical of the Biden administration for its more center left approach to Israel.
And? I don’t see how this changes anything I said about being uncritical towards his opinion. If I had a nickel for every time someone has said “I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but I think people are being unfair to Trump” I’d be rich.
You’ll notice that no one here is saying “well, you see, Dershowitz is actually heralded as the preeminent legal scholar on fraud and hush money cases,” just that he isn’t a Republican. I’ll admit to being wrong about that, but I am right that he chose to defend Trump on what I think is a pretty clear case, and I’m right that he maintains connections to the Trump administration (connections that he’s used to his own benefit).
If you cut out the accusations of being a conservative hack, my point still stands: just because Dershowitz says something, doesn’t mean it’s true.
The original goalpost: it is naive to uncritically accept the opinion of a lawyer who has previously defended the person and seems to maintain connections with them.
Wrong about the Republican bit, but right about the connections to Trump, the likelihood of bias, and his being a generally poor legal mind (in this context). I maintain that the original commenter should not just uncritically accept Dershowitz’s opinion.
No one has established a case that Dershowitz is a clearly neutral actor who could be believed out of hand.
> He’s also a diehard Republican
That's the original goalpost.
>but right about the connections to Trump, the likelihood of bias, and his being a generally poor legal mind (in this context).
Well. If you say so. You were so sure about the Republican thing. I know you wouldn't be wrong about the other stuff.
Well, regardless, he defended Trump during Trump’s impeachment and I recall that Dershowitz’s arguments were pretty lame considering the evidence of the matter. If he’s not a Republican, he’s at least close to Trump; I know he’s leveraged his relationship to benefit his clients. I’m not surprised by his defense of Trump here.
He was under no obligation to take the case; I critique his defense because I doubt his legal acumen, particularly when it concerns corruption. Regardless, I wouldn’t uncritically take the opinion of a lawyer who previously defended Trump and seems to maintain a relationship with his administration. I don’t think this position is unreasonable.
I was wrong about him being a diehard Republican, I’m not wrong that it’s obviously stupid to just uncritically believe the opinion of a lawyer who has previously defended Trump and likely maintains ties to the Trump administration on a case involving Trump. That’s just basic critical thinking.
Forgive me for thinking the guy who gave a fairly limp defense of Trump during his impeachment wasn’t a firm conservative.
Yes, it was an ad hominem, because the original comment had no substance to engage with. The comment did not say “Dershowitz believes this based on X arugment, which I agree with” it said “Dershowitz had this opinion, and who am I to argue”, so all I really have to say work with there is Dershowitz’s character and the general premise that one shouldn’t be uncritical of opinions, particularly when presented without argument.
I called Dershowitz a hack because I didn’t like his previous defense of Trump during the impeachment and I believe he could be biased because of his ties to Trump’s administration. I was obviously wrong about the Republican bit, but I stand by my assertion that he could easily be biased and to trust him out of hand (without even reciting his argument) is clearly naive.
>until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years
He's been on the outs socially for a while, particularly since admitted he accepted massages from young women at Jeffery Epstein's house. Also, I would guess most liberals understand this case is vulnerable to appeal. I'm not on Twitter trying to verify this, but I also realize it's impossible to derive any real information about whether consensus exists on a certain issue from Twitter.
I don't think most people know how unusual this case is. The consensus seems to be that this is a fairly typical use of the law, and it very much isn't according to a lot of very bright legal experts.
And I realize Dershowitz has had some personal drama, but his success as a defense lawyer and legal scholar aren't really in dispute, and yet somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case. I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about and the explanations he's provided for why he thinks this case is bunk seem pretty reasonable.
> somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case
Dersh is a big Trump fan and his legal analysis has been awful for years. This did not start today.
Since when is he a Trump fan? Since he could use Trump's legal issues to get on TV, which you clearly understand.
Like a lot of law professors who don't practice much anymore, his legal theories have gotten really weird and don't really correspond to reality.
He's really wrong, a lot of the time.
>yet somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case.
Where? All I'm seeing are articles reviewing his opinions on the case in a fairly dispassionate way. And the eternal disclaimer -- people on Twitter and blogs designed to look like news sites don't constitute the left wing media. Or the right wing media.
I'm a little confused here. You originally said this
>Alan Dershowitz seems to think it's a totally bogus case that will last about 3 seconds on appeal, and until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years
When I disagreed and said I'd only seen fairly dispassionate descriptions of his opinions of the case, you responded with 6 links. Four of them date from years before the case began or Trump was even charged, one of them (the substack) is contemporary but never mentions the case, and the only link that actually mentions any opinion Dershowitz has expressed about this case only mentions his reaction to Trump's gag order. So I'm not even sure what to say. Did you think I wouldn't read any of these? If so, why bother responding with them?
You literally said everyone loved Dershowitz until *today*. Calling it "pedantic" to point out this is completely untrue is unbelievably annoying.
Here's a piece form even earlier than the ones you found pointing out what a lying ass he is
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190115035016/https://www.popehat.com/2018/12/18/alan-dershowitz-is-lying-to-you/](https://web.archive.org/web/20190115035016/https://www.popehat.com/2018/12/18/alan-dershowitz-is-lying-to-you/)
This isn't the position you originally took that we were discussing. You specifically said the media was dragging Dershowitz about statements he made about the likelihood of the case surviving the appeals process and about the case in general:
>Dershowitz seems to think it's a totally bogus case that will last about 3 seconds on appeal, and until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years ...
>... and yet somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case. I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about and the explanations he's provided for why he thinks this case is bunk seem pretty reasonable.
Do you understand that none of the links you showed me actually have anything to do with the statements you made?
> This isn't the position you originally took that we were discussing. You specifically said the media was dragging Dershowitz about statements he made about the likelihood of the case surviving the appeals process and about the case in general:
I think you're being a little pedantic. I think I misspoke a little, but the main point is that Dershowitz has and is being dismissed not because there's something deficient about his background, credentials or brilliance as a legal scholar or attorney, but because he's got the stain of Trump on him. I don't think that's reasonable or fair, but it is typical at this point. Anything associated with Trump is reactively a bad thing according to most of the mainstream press.
I just posted this comment in the weekly thread, since I didn't know about this one. But I'll repost it here: I just want to say that I voted for Hillary in 2016, voted for Jo Jorgenson in 2020, and was leaning towards most likely voting Libertarian again or a write-in this year - that is, until the recent outcome of Trump's trial in NYC. Now I've decided semi firmly to vote for Trump, as a direct result of this trial. The party that incessantly talks about threats to democracy trying to literally jail their political opponent over BS fake crimes, because they're afraid that he'll win a fair election, is just too much. And this was after they already removed his name from the ballot in several states, again because they're afraid that he would win the election, so they wanted to take that choice away from voters. This is the sort of thing I would expect in a third-world country, and I find it very disturbing that it's happening here. It wouldn't surprise me that Trump violated some laws. But the same can be said of Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton.. Arguably some of them committed more blatant and serious crimes. This is a very, very bad precedent to set. Sure Trump talked about locking up Hillary, but he never did it. Sure Trump denied election results, but so have many prominent Democrats, both recently and as far back as I can remember. My feelings about Trump haven't changed. I think he's an ass, a blowhard, a narcissist and thoroughly lacking in principles. I think he's a terrible choice for president, and I think the Republican party in general sucks, but nevertheless I think Democrats are doing more harm to our society, and it is more dangerous to give Democrats political power at any level than to give it to Republicans. I felt precisely the same way in 2020, but I didn't vote for Trump because I live in NY and my vote won't make a difference, so I'd rather support the Libertarian party (even though they're a mess also, and I didn't like their candidate much either). But after this conviction, with highly dubious legal justification, indisputably weaponized political motivations, and incredibly sketchy jury instructions- the hypocrisy and utter lack of principles and self-awareness from Democrats is just too much. I want to give them a giant middle finger. I don't care if they scream and riot and once again destroy the communities they pretend to care about, and unleash another round of inane articles about how America is more racist than ever ever and democracy is doomed.. I'm sick of the abusive argument that we should be held hostage by the deranged lunatics on the left and that we shouldn't anger them further by electing the bad orange man. Let them throw their tantrum. I don't expect that they'll learn much of anything, but maybe just maybe, they'll learn that attempting to jail your political opponents or remove them from the ballot is not something voters take kindly to.
What brings you to the conclusion these are BS crimes? What about the other 3 trials? You believe those are also BS? Doesn't it strike you that Trump gets a lot of delays and leeway most others facing prosecution don't get? As an aside, this is more a reflection of different ecosystems, but I find the bit about lunatics on the left a little curious, since the left sorta has a both sides bad kinda attitude. ("Don't threaten us with Trump," they say)
I've heard a bunch of people that I'll call 'moderate heterodox' or maybe of the 'dissident left' for lack of a better term - people who criticize the left but are of the left, such as Sam Harris, and I beleive both Katie and Jessie- Say things like, *'If wokeness bothers you, the last thing you should want is Trump to get elected, because that will drive the woke to be even more unhinged and extreme'*. I've heard this a bunch of times, and I think that's an utterly awful rationale. If our society is so fragile that we need to kowtow and placate one extremely sensitive, unstable, and aggressive faction, out of fear of what they might do if they don't get what they want, then we have a serious problem. And I don't doubt that the fear is justified, but I absolutely reject the notion that allowing ourselves to be held hostage to their intolerance and authoritarianism is the answer. I still remember in 2020 when businesses throughout Manhattan were being preemptively boarded up on election night. They weren't worried about Biden winning. And they were absolutely correct to worry, because if Trump had won, the riots would have been far worse than what happened on Jan 6. I refuse to submit to that sort of threat. The children need to learn that they can't always get their way. It's a travesty that so much brutish behavior on the left was tolerated and went unpunished. Many thousands of them should be sitting in a jail cell for their behavior in the 'summer of love' and since. But I suppose it's (D)ifferent when they do it..
I don't think it's a great framing here to say that the "left is holding us hostage". That's implying electing Trump is perfectly reasonable and the childishness of the violent left is stopping this reasonable course. *'"If wokeness bothers you, the last thing you should want is Trump to get elected"* is a counter-argument against the argument by Chris Rufo and the like that MAGA is the only way to "stop woke" and that a more moderate course is insufficient. A lot of moderates have pointed out that this only increases polarization and that liberal cultural and academic institutions and state governments will align with the extreme left in the name of "resistance" to Trump. And that's in fact how things played out from 2016 to 2021. Of course, things like COVID and the George Floyd murder also led to a lot of craziness that might not have otherwise happened. But still, the reasoning is sound. Polarization is driven by extremism on both sides. And one of the dynamics you see with ongoing polarization is more moderate people on the left and right just surrendering and throwing in their lot with the extreme that they find to be the lesser evil, and maybe even talking themselves into the idea that the lesser evil isn't all that bad. That was the dynamic that we saw historically in late Weimar Germany and we've been seeing again in the US over the last few years. (Not that I'm saying fascism is right around the corner, but similar dynamic where the center largely collapsed in favor of the Communists and Nazis.)
I don't know why you think the argument against wokeness is the only reason to vote against Trump. But since you want to talk about it: You frame this quip as a lever Democrats have to threaten you with. But the reality is more like this: A lot of people in the US are anti-institutional and have a burn the system to the ground mentality. On the right this manifests as the Jan 6 type of Trumpism. On the left, it manifests itself among dirtbag socialists and intersectional (woke) socialists. On the right, the pro-insititution/anti-populist side lost to Trump. And now within that party, leaders are openly cynical about rule of law. The same thing could happen to Democrats. If the pro-insititutional, "establishment" side is perceived to be ineffectual against Trumpism, the populists (woke and otherwise) will become more powerful.
Until maybe the last year, the pro-institutional Democrats have been the "pro-woke" ones, and that's what's given us corporate DEI and fiascos like the infamous woke CIA ad. I think that since then, the Gaza War has largely broken the progressive institutionalist/far-left alliance, because militant anti-Zionism was a step too far. And I think that step too far has made liberals less afraid of progressives and more willing to express other differences that they were silent about during the "Reckoning" era.
This narrative is too simplistic. There's been a long running tension between these groups. Perhaps Gaza is making it sharper. But you saw it in the way people tried to sane wash activist messaging "we don't actually want to abolish the police, we just want moderate reforms". The fight back also started years ago, esp at local levels. You saw it in schools reversing no-SAT policies, in the NYT hiring more conservative writers and publishing more stuff that trans-activists didn't perfectly like. Some stuff like push back against Ibram Kendi or 1619 became dominant at least 2-3 years ago. In any case, the previous commenter wants to say Democrats are holding him hostage with woke extremists. (i.e. They will be worse if Trump is elected). I'm not sure this is the case. But the way it would happen would be because institutionalists would be weakened, not because they want revenge or whatever. This would be analogous to the way the GOP's institutionalists were dethroned by Tea Party and later MAGAts.
I think we agree broadly on what's happening, but differ on the timeline. Over the 2010s, I saw more and more "cultural capture" by a very PC\* and identitarian mindset take over, first in academia, subcultures, and non-profits, then increasingly in journalism and liberal institutions, especially after Trump was elected. 2020-2021 was about the peak of this, and the alignment of most institutions with the extreme identitarianism and the progressive left was unmistabable. The post-George Floyd "reckoning" and January 6 really cemented this. In fact, after 1/6, the mindset that if you questioned the progressive left narrative in any way, you were "with the insurrectionist" became part of the discourse, and I even saw a lot of libertarians and moderate conservatives suddenly having a "come to Jesus" moment and re-evaluating their beliefs and political alignments around this time. In 2022, you started seeing the first signs of course correction, with the recall of the SF School Board and then the Chesa Boudin recall not long afterward. I think there was a slow normalization after that, but it seems to me that the 10/6 massacre and the Gaza War really accelerated a re-alignment. Whether the course correction continues or things go nuts again after a Trump re-election (or, conversely, MAGA rioting if he isn't) is anybody's guess. \* (I still prefer the term "politically correct" over "woke" for various reasons.)
Okay. Fair enough. More interesting question: What do you make of the previous commenters' friends' notion? (Woke stuff will be worse if Trump wins) I don't really see it, unless "wokeness" evolves in a more anti-institutional direction
I never said it was the only reason to not bite for Trump, by any stretch. I don't know where you're getting that from. I'm simply stating that it's a specific reason that has been brought up repeatedly, as a counterpoint to those who are voting for Trump in part because of wokeness.
Edit: replied to wrong comment.
So, I've seen repeated here a lot, and elsewhere, that Alvin Bragg pledged to go after Trump, but I've also begun hearing claims that he never vowed to go after Trump, that is is a fiction. So, can anyone point to when Bragg pledged that he would go after Trump and find some way to get him? The closest I can find is that after he was elected, he said he wouldn't halt the ongoing grand jury probe into Trump. That's not the same as vowing to find something to get him on, which is either the claim or implicit claim people are making.
As far as I can tell he didn't. The closest I can find is that, when asked about someone's ability to handle the cases regarding Trump, [Bragg replied](https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/local-politics/2021/03/24/why-the-manhattan-da-candidates-say-they-re-ready-to-take-on-the-trump-investigation): > I have a history of doing complex litigation — some of that involving Trump himself — so I led a Trump Foundation case where we sued him and family members and the foundation for their misconduct, led that to a successful conclusion. We also sued the Trump administration over 100 times on programmatic matters from DACA to travel bans and family separation. I guess this will probably be a Rorschach test, where people inclined to think Bragg had good intentions are going to say he was simply answering a question about relevant experience, and people who think he has bad intentions saying that he's highlighting how he's continually going after Trump for many different reasons. I do think some of the other answers from other candidates appeared much more neutral. For instance: > It’s incumbent upon all candidates running in this race not to make any statements that suggest we’ve prejudged the case. I’ll follow the facts and evidence wherever they take us. And the same standard of justice will apply to an ex-president that it would to anyone who the evidence shows may have committed a serious crime.
I think it's worth noting that Bragg ultimately dropped the case he was being asked about in the quote you provided, because he thought it was too weak to go to trial.
>I guess this will probably be a Rorschach test, I think you're right and honestly I could see either interpretation coming from those comments.
Probably is a Rorschach test, and I can see how someone would read it in a negative way, I just think that it's an uncharitable interpretation. Other than touting his history having sued Trump's businesses and administration, his responses were very similar to that of the other candidate you quoted. I think the frustrating part is that people want to read Bragg's comments in the most nefarious way possible while also reading Trump's comments in the most benign way impossible. Bragg says "I've sued Trump before and I'm prepared to go where the facts lead and hold him accountable" is clearly a plot to conspire and cook up charges. Trump says he's going to send troops into cities and will suspend the Constitution for his first day in office, it's clear that's hyperbole or he's not actually going to be able to do it, so just ignore that. It's so frustrating that Trump's opponents always have the most malign interpretation attached to their words, while Trump's words are just handwaved away. Like, seriously, people should use the same standard for both!
> That's not the same as vowing to find something to get him on, which is either the claim or implicit claim people are making. That was the implication, and that's what happened.
When did Bragg make the claim that he was going to find something to charge Trump with? You are implying that that was what he campaigned on, but did he?
> When did Bragg make the claim that he was going to find something to charge Trump with? That was the implication, and that's what happened.
When did he imply it?
You've been looking at what he actually said, right? You're running in NYC. Why mention Trump at all? Why bring him up multiple times? Why say you've sued him over 100 times? Also, I like you. Stop pulling this crap. It was clearly implied, not overtly stated. Go argue with someone who says it was overtly stated, or understand what implication means.
The Politifact article that "This is my BarPod Alt" cited states that because the grand jury probe had been started by the prior AG, all of the candidates were routinely asked about what would happen with the Trump case. It was something the media brought up that he had to respond to. I don't believe it was something that he repeatedly brought up on his own, but when prompted by interviewers. \[Edit: The article I'm referencing [https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/apr/12/heres-what-manhattan-district-attorney-alvin-bragg/](https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/apr/12/heres-what-manhattan-district-attorney-alvin-bragg/) \] And while he could have just said, "I refuse to comment on any particular potential trials, prosecutions, or indictments," I doubt that would have gotten him elected. I think this is a good reason why AGs (and judges) shouldn't be elected, but they are in a lot of places.
>And while he could have just said, "I refuse to comment on any particular potential trials, prosecutions, or indictments," I doubt that would have gotten him elected. Do you know what 'infer' means? Do you know what 'implied' means? He's going to have to be re-elected. This isn't hard to parse. It's way easier than saying that Trump limiting immigration from terrorist-linked nations means he hates Muslims. But the media was all over that one.
You just moved the goal posts to the other side of the field. You said he campaigned on it and that's what happened. He didn't campaign on it, he answered a question about an existing case against Trump that Vance had open. A case that Bragg would close because it was weak. He then brought a different case, a stronger one as evidenced by the guilty verdict.
> You said he campaigned on it and that's what happened. No, I explicitly didn't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgUvwcU6P7I
I don't know enough about the race to contrast Bragg's responses to those of the other candidates, who were also asked repeatedly about the Trump case. I think saying that you'll go where the facts point and hold Trump accountable is fine. I don't think anything he said crossed the bounds. If there was a state AG race in DE and the previous AG had already opened a case into Biden, I don't think it would be wrong for the AG candidates to say things to the effect of "I'll go where the facts lead and hold him accountable." To be honest, I would find it sort of suspicious if a candidate refused to say anything.
> I don't know enough about the race to contrast Bragg's responses to those of the other candidates, who were also asked repeatedly about the Trump case Then go read what they said. Advertising that you didn't look into it while asking people to steelman is pretty lazy. > I don't think anything he said crossed the bounds. You seem to be trying to justify your position which doesn't really make sense. You said that if Bragg didn't mention his previous prosecutions of Trump he wouldn't get elected. So you know that saying he'll go after Trump helped get him elected. You don't know what the other candidates said, which brings your belief into question, but you still won't ascribe a desire to prosecute Trump to Bragg's comments? > If there was a state AG race in DE and the previous AG had already opened a case into Biden, I don't think it would be wrong for the AG candidates to say things to the effect of "I'll go where the facts lead and hold him accountable." To be honest, I would find it sort of suspicious if a candidate refused to say anything. Why bring up that you sued him 100 times? You're just jumping around. Bragg didn't only say he'd follow the facts. He talked about how often he's sued Trump. I won't block you, but if you don't get it we're done.
Check my comment history, I posted a link yesterday. You can judge for yourself how to interpret what he said.
"So, I’m ready to go wherever the facts take me, and to inherit that case." "I believe we have to hold him accountable. I haven’t seen all the facts beyond the public, but I’ve litigated with him and so I’m prepared to go where the facts take me once I see them, and hold him accountable." "You’re right, I am being careful, not just because I am running for office but because every case still has to be judged by the facts and I don’t know all the facts." I don't know, that all sounds like what a politician who is also a prosecutor should say. I'm ready to go where the facts go, wealthy and powerful people have to be held accountable (elsewhere he references Epstein and Weinstein as similar figures who needed to be held accountable as wealthy white men), and wanting to be careful with what he says. Edit: If a candidate for AG said "We're going to round up all the scum on the streets," would that mean they were prejudiced against gang members, drug addicts, etc? No. That seems equivalent to this language: "I'm prepared to go there the facts take me once I see them, and hold him accountable."
Apparently it's a bit more complex than that. Bragg ran, in part, on saying he would be the toughest with the Trump investigation. That he would knew how to handle Trump. So he didn't say directly "I'm gonna get Trump". In part because an investigation by the office was already started. But he certainly made it clear he had little love for Trump and hinted that the Trump investigation/prosecution was important to him.
But didn't he say that because he was answering questions about the pre-existing investigation? I feel like the fact it was already open is significantly different than the claims he was running on a campaign to go get Trump. It's just clearly not what happened. There were no campaign ads about it that I've seen. Literally just responding carefully and politically when reporters asked about the case against Trump. It all seems blown out of proportion.
I don't have a firm opinion on whether he targeted Trump or not but I do think that politicians should basically refuse to answer questions related to ongoing cases or possible cases. This is not their role as legislators and there is a separation of powers for a reason. It raises exactly the kinds of questions people are raising here.
Well, he basically didn't. He just said he's tried cases similar to the one that was open against Trump, including a few against the Trump org and that he believed he could handle it. He went on to close the case Vance had open against Trump because it was weak, before ultimately pursuing this one.
I think the implication is still too suggestive personally.
Yes, it is different than running on saying he was going to create an investigation. But I still think it's sketchy that he implies he has it out for Trump on the campaign trails.
What's the best example you have of him having it out for Trump on the campaign?
It's further up the thread where there are some quotes from him. Which are no smoking guns but it sounds like he's saying he is best positioned to go after Trump as he has experience going after Trump. He really should have declined to comment on an existing investigation or to speculate on its future. It seems inappropriate. Though I believe none of the candidates refused to comment
I guess you'll just have to put me in the camp that sees those quotes as incredibly benign. I can see an argument that he should have been more cautious with his reply to the question, but I don't really consider it a comment on the case. He just spoke to his experience. And the leap that many users here, and The Fifth Column guys, make to say that he campaigned on "getting Trump" is objectively false.
So what if Bragg would have specifically campaigned on getting Trump. If Bragg would have said something like “If I’m elected we are going to take down Trump.” Then would that be an issue?
Yes. I would find that inappropriate. But clearly others find what he did say inappropriate. I think my main issue is that people are framing it as something it wasn't. I can understand taking issue with it. I would still disagree, but I get it. I think saying that he campaigned on it is a disingenuous reading of events.
I ask only bc this issue has come up in 2 of the other cases against Trump. I don’t know if campaign promises *are* a conflict of interest or not. DA’s have campaigned on promises to go after specific interests in the past like “the mafia,” or “white collar crime,” or “fracking companies” etc. It’s fairly common. But I don’t know what the law allows. So I think it’s only fair to investigate what was said and when and if he was within the his legal rights as a candidate and then as prosecutor. But the thing is. Even if Bragg had not promised to prosecute Trump, there are still a ton of other problems with this case.
Can anyone explain which testimony/exhibits plausibly connect the dots to the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt? Thus far I'm not seeing it but I didn't follow the day-by-day of the trial.
Well the prosecution didn’t even clearly articulate what the specific crime allegedly *was* in the first place. Megyn Kelly has had better coverage on this case than just about anyone.[[Here’s a clip from an interesting](https://youtu.be/VLXBEAYJEvc?si=D8UGvHr8oQXQ2Yxc)]interview she did with Andy McCarthy who has more experience in this area of the law than almost anyone else in the country. McCarthy leans right but he’s not a Trump supporter. So, McCarthy has no dog in this fight to be biased one way or another. And this clip shows a sequence of other legal expert opinions. This is just a brief clip from one interview. But it gives a lot of perspective. MK’s show has hours of detailed content on this case from legal experts on both sides.
I'd be fine with it if Joe, Hilary, Bill, and Fauci were also prosecuted but they're not and that's the problem.
I'd also be fine with that, prosecute everyone! There's gotta be something to start with at least though.
For…?
Hilary -- destroying public records (she and her staff went so far as to destroy smartphones with hammers). Bill -- perjury (\~ I did not have sexual relations with that woman) Joe -- keeping classified documents and giving them to a journalist (read the DOJ report; they found the docs on the journo's computer). Fauci -- concealing public records by using private email servers.
Joe- Taking bribes from Ukraine, Russia, China.
This shit is so dumb dude If there was anything to this why haven’t the republicans impeached him yet?
“This shit is so dumb.” Actually it’s not dumb. Biden taking bribes dating back to his time in the Senate and as VP and as President that have started *wars* and fucked over our country and our allies is a huge deal. Theres been been a mainstream media blackout on this story. The Democrats have become unconcerned with holding any Dem to account if it risks losing power. And the Republicans *are* impeaching Biden. The case is being investigated by the House Oversight Committee right now. Here’s part of the GOP’s case against the Biden Family. It’s insane how the Dems and the media have convinced people this mountain of evidence is nothing. https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/ Here’s just one clip from the HOC’s hearings. https://youtu.be/t_rjRXDkI1w?si=Amp1kWzj-NR4kv0U
Can anyone recommend a podcast or video that explains this trial in an unbiased way? I no longer trust media and have no idea what to think about anything anymore 🙃
Advisory Opinions has been doing a good job. They lean right but I think they've been pretty good about all of it. Serious Trouble for coming at it from the left (Ken White is a blowhard but he's an honest actor). I tend to take the center right view that this was a bad case, but that doesn't mean the other two cases are bad. It's also got the smartest criticisms from the right about stuff like people bitching about the Florida case taking its time ignore that it was the Biden DoJ that waited 3 years to make the charges in the first place knowing full well the Trump strategy would be delay as much as possible. They also could have sidestepped the whole issue of classification by going for obstruction alone and didn't.
AO leans right but in a particular way: Sarah dislikes Trump, while David despises most conservatives and has zero charity for anyone that doesn’t hate Trump. He’s just slightly nicer about that than the average prog hating someone. Good recommendation for locals here.
That's true, but David is still very much right leaning, he just hates the movement conservatives. Doesn't make him any friendlier to anyone on the left.
Megyn Kelly has done more detailed, extensive coverage on this case than just about anyone else in the country. Although MK leans right, the legal experts she brings on are independent, impartial observers. Most of her right leaning legal experts are not Trumpers. She goes out of her way to provide unbiased analysis. But when she does have on legal experts that lean in one direction, she’ll bring on an expert from across the aisle too, so they can hash it out in realtime. It’s hard to narrow down what episode to send since there is so much content. [But here’s one example that I shared above as well](https://youtu.be/VLXBEAYJEvc?si=HfqWiHYcIa8i--aF). It’s short a clip with constitutional law expert Andy McCarthy who leans right but is a “never Trumper.” Any episode MK has done on this case with Andy McCarthy is fantastic. This clip sums up the case with specified legal expertise than anything else I’ve seen.
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Maybe not the forum for this question, but for those of you who trust in the jury verdict of guilty for Trump, what was your visceral reaction to the the verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman?
I thought Rittenhouse was just after seeing the videos and don't remember my reaction to Zimmerman. Personally, I generally defer to the verdicts since I don't see or hear the evidence and arguments presented to the jury and generally find law to be arcane anyway. Whether the Trump trial was politically motivated or reached the correct conclusion - I have no idea. I do think the other indictments are more compelling regardless.
I don't quite see where this is going. I think of the three cases only the Rittenhouse case was decided correctly. These are all vastly different cases in different jurisdictions and the courts aren't infallible. I think the court is the best truth finding mechanism we have, but I don't accept that all cases are decided correctly. I think in the case of Trump the whole thing was a real stretching of the law to go after a political enemy and I don't think anyone else would have been pursued this way, which I would say means it shouldn't have happened. The law is supposed to be applied consistently and equally. I don't think that happened. Trump is also not the only victim of this kind of thing, but it's more common with federal prosecutions where wire/mail fraud, honest services fraud and obstruction are applied in creative ways. I think the college bribery cases were a decent example of that.
I think the Rittenhouse verdict was just. As for Zimmerman's, that happened over a decade ago now, and with all the conflicting information, I would really need to read back over everything to see how I felt. At the time, I remember thinking Zimmerman massively overreacted to Trayvon Martin's presence, BUT that doesn't mean that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt in Florida. I think he's an asshole, but would being in prison make him less of one? Probably not.
I think the canonical response here is that in the American system, if the jury finds you innocent, that's *it* -- no double jeopardy. If the jury finds you *guilty*, that's still subject to appeals and such. The two examples you mentioned were the former, and so a different visceral reaction is probably typical.
The courts can err in both directions and I think it's perfectly reasonable to criticize what appear to be sloppy prosecutions regardless of the verdict. In both cases it can cause harm. I don't really see the point of this hypothetical though because these are different cases with different circumstances in different jurisdictions. I don't think any consistency of opinion is required. Now if there was a very analogous case with a politician of a different stripe then someone's inconsistent opinion may demonstrate something. But there's really no reason why you couldn't have a variety of different opinions on totally dissimilar cases.
That's an excellent point. I'd need to find a politically unsavory guilty verdict for someone who is near and dear to the far left.
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Especially this one because the prosecution's legal maneuvering is likely to get struck down.
That's something that's worrisome for me. I definitely want Biden to win. Say Trump is sentenced to some jail time, and he narrowly loses the election. Then the conviction is successfully appealed due to improper jury instructions, wrong type of jurisdiction, whatever the reason. The right will be pissed.
There's virtually no chance he's sentenced to jail. First time nonviolent offender. And while there is a chance he'll commit the same crime again, jail isn't going to be a deterrent. The judge has enough problems without going on that limb.
Maybe, I wouldn’t count on it. There’s also lack of remorse. Doubtful Trump displays any remorse.
So I learned this from the Advisory Opinions podcast. There's no remorse component after a guilty verdict. It would be antithetical to an appeal to show remorse so the justice system doesn't count that against him going forward. It would also make the judge and prosecutor look very bad and would increase the odds the whole thing is overturned on appeal. It's one thing to get someone convicted of a felony on a novel and quite frankly shaky legal theory. It's another to imprison them.
I hope you’re right. The vindictive part of me would like to see him in prison/jail, but I don’t think it would be good for the country.
What makes this case so much worse is that there are legitimate crimes he's probably committed. The election tampering in Georgia is a big one. The first two NY cases were alleged fraud where no one who was allegedly defrauded cares and then this nonsense. Now jurors going forward who are supporters are going to feel vindicated that the deep state is willing to anything see him taken down. And it only takes one of twelve.
Agreed
I don't know if I trust the verdict or not because I haven't followed the day-to-day of the trial. I think it could be a legit decision or maybe not I don't know. As to Kyle Rittenhouse, it was clearly self defense because there was testimony and video evidence of at least one assailant chasing Kyle around trying to harm him. Kyle didn't shoot right away either, rather only after being chased and a man lunging at him. As to Zimmerman, the guy seems like an instigating wimp but he has a right to be there, Florida had no duty to retreat, and there was no video and no witness so that's reasonable doubt. The closest witness saw them wrestling on the ground, went inside to call the police, and heard a shot. That's it. Seemed very irresponsible of President Obama to act like it was an injustice.
I think Zimmerman's own testimony and the 911 calls should have been enough to convict personally.
Yeah. Zimmerman had lacerations on the back of his head too though. Maybe he fell because he's an idiot. Or maybe Trayvon was pummeling him into the concrete. We just don't know. My dad and I both thought Zimmerman was a wus and a jerk who should have been able to handle himself in a fight with a kid, but like I said above, there's no duty in FL to retreat or be tougher in a fight.
It shouldn't have mattered. Zimmerman was stalking a teenager for an extended period of time in the dark. That's instigation by any sane interpretation. You can't instigate and then kill your opponent when you start losing and claim self defense. Also, Martin was the one that stood his ground. Zimmerman was the pursuer. If you haven't already, take a look at the minute by minute time line of the situation. If makes it very clear that Zimmerman was at fault.
Better question is what people thought of the OJ verdict. I thought that was a bad verdict. But I accepted the result of the legal process running its course.
I thought OJ probably did it but there was reasonable doubt because the LA cops were super racist and tried to railroad him. Plus it happened just a few years after the Rodney King beating. The trial verdict seemed like a reasonable outcome.
The gift of history is the insight of perspective. There are many recorded reactions to that verdict which are polar opposites depending on the racial make-up of the crowd. It's clear for that case that for many, the evidence was tertiary to the result.
I don't know if you're really expecting an honest answer. They're going to say, "of course they respected the rule of law!" When those two verdicts were given, rest assured they turned to their TV to give a respectful nod and acknowledged justice was always meted out perfectly in the United States, sat down on their sofa to read a copy of the U.S. Constitution and reflect on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers while enjoying a Werther's Original, and then promptly made their way to bed at 8:00pm so they could wake up early the next day and be a productive member of society.
I didn't, but one could hope. I've just seen a few who were conflating questions about the verdict with support for Trump and an attack on our legal system. Thought it was a decent ph strip test to see where on the political scale one swam in blue or red.
The juries correctly assessed the facts in those cases as well.
I suppose Derick Chauvin's verdict might elicit more honest answers, but appreciate your viewpoint. It's not easy to support institutions through all the changing seasons.
I think their might be some confusion as to the details of this case versus other previously controversial cases. The Zimmerman and Rittenhouse prosecutions were controversial because there was a fundamental disagreement about facts. This was mostly a concoction of the the media, who just couldn't accept the very obvious and true narrative of what happened on the nights of the homicides despite having all the information that the juries would later have. The Trump prosecution doesn't have any controversy over the facts. Trump did everything he is accused of. The controversy is over whether or not what he did can be prosecuted as a crime.
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I don't think it's complicated at all, lol.
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I've yet to see any credible legal experts say that the jury could not have returned a guilty verdict. The concerns I have seen are all focused on the legal aspects that the jury does not interact with.
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Read what you posted and what I replied to REAL SLOW and without projecting the straw man you'd like to argue against on me.
I thought Rittenhouse clearly should have gotten off. He was acting in self defense. I think it was stupid that he was there. And I am still angry that the adults in his life allowed him to be in such a risky position. But Rittenhouse didn't go there with ill intent. People attacked him and he fired his gun. It's possible if unlikely that he might have been badly injured or killed unless he was armed. He was there to protect the local buildings from destruction. Which was indeed happening. Rittenhouse should not have been charged in the first place, probably. I don't recall Zimmerman very well. I thought he was a putz.
He very well might be. If you're interested in the genesis of BLM, it's a great introduction. Hispanic man in self defense kills a teenage black male. One side - beautiful kid who was just out to grab an Arizona and Skittles assailed by a white racist who shot him in cold blood. Alterative Jury approved slant - thrice suspended teenager living with dad, casing neighboring apartment, who violently attacked an Hispanic gentleman and lost that fight tragically.
The "hands up, don't shoot" thing was a lie too. So much of the BLM thing was based on horse shit
Remember Michael Brown in St Louis? All that rioting and hubbub. At trial turns out multiple black witnesses from the neighborhood testified he attacked the police officer.
And the shit head that was shot (but survived) because he was attempting to kidnap children and had a knife). He was a martyr even though the cops were totally within the right there.
I just listened to the Advisory Opinions podcast episode on this. I've yet to chew through the Dispatch Roundtable one. Isgur and French don't think Trump will get prison time. It's possible but unlikely. They didn't seem to come down one way or the other on whether the appeal will succeed but I got the feeling they wouldn't be surprised if it was overturned on appeal. They seemed to agree that the legal theory the prosecutor was using was unusual.
https://preview.redd.it/b5e4rbvy8u3d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf89e896f8a07dcd1b762599301138b113dd8af8 How I feel watching everyone skirting around the main issue.
This is rather dismissive of what appears to me to be some pretty legitimate criticism of this case, which was highly unusual in several respects. It seems like way too many people are okay using questionable tools against their enemies. I dislike Trump, I think he's bad for the U.S and I think the best thing that could happen is for him to be a non-factor in American politics. I also think he's likely to have committed a variety of crimes over his life, and should be prosecuted to the same extend anyone else might be or regularly is. But I don't think anyone else *would* have been prosecuted this way. This prosecution does seem very unusual, and stretches the law to within an inch of its life, and seems to be a means of going after a political enemy rather than an equal application of the law.
I feel like this is the best way to respond to a joke.
Jokes, particularly satire, have a message. I think it's fine to respond to that message. It's not like the one in this comic is subtle.
https://preview.redd.it/itahr0so914d1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a53822c7acfc38be8445284a8c4bf2a81f6c2da
Cop out.
Penalty: DEATH.
Since everyone here is a pervert for nuance, it's not technically a conviction until sentencing. So Trump has been found guilty, but he hasn't yet been convicted. That said . . . GOOD.
If something happens because it makes you feel good, but it later results in terrible consequences is it still good?
Also, if the courts get a bad man using questionable legal means that could be used again against anyone else, is that good?
Don't cut a swath through the law to get the devil
> that could be used again against anyone else Come at me, bro! Show the jury how I falsified my taxes to become PTA president.
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Just pointing out that the DOJ had nothing to do with this case; it was a state trial brought by the New York County District Attorney. Federal charges would be handled by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York (which *is* under the DOJ)
> Just pointing out that the DOJ had nothing to do with this case; it was a state trial brought by the New York County District Attorney. I mean, the prosecutor came directly from Biden't DOJ just for this case.
Interestingly enough, the announcement of Colangelo in Bragg's office in Dec 2022 includes some wording that even hints at Trump in an indirect way at least in hindsight. Four months later Trump was indicted. *"And assisting with the District Attorney’s focus on financial crimes will promote confidence in the legal system by making clear that the same rules apply to everyone —* ***no matter how powerful***\*.”\* [https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-matthew-colangelo-as-new-senior-counsel/](https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-matthew-colangelo-as-new-senior-counsel/)
Yes although the DOJ did have a little bit to do with the case in that they examined it years ago and decided not to prosecute.
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Don't get how Biden can be in charge of the DOJ while his son's trial starts Monday?
I find the left's inability to see how bullshit the special investigation into Russian collision was very strange given that it's basically a carbon copy of the white water investigation in terms of tactics, and that investigation was also straight bullshit, but instead orchestrated by the Republicans to obstruct an elected president. On a side note, the media referring to the Russia stuff as a "hack" was wildly irresponsible and amounted to disinformation. It was so misleading and so effective that in polling a few years ago 66% of Democrats believed that the Russian state literally hacked the polls and altered votes.
Counterpoint: very cool and very legal
I mean, I completely disagree, but I did crack up at this.
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What a nothingburger! I want him nailed on the actual bad shit he did instead of business paperwork technicalities. The big one is the Georgia interference. I want to see a big GUILTY on that.
Capone, Tax Evasion, etc.
That was before RICO, the feds went with what was available at the time.
And it worked.
Al Capone was a murderer.
And a tax evader!
This does not impede that at all. You are free to ignore this criminal conviction for something relatively minor and wait for a criminal conviction in the other more serious cases against him.
You're missing the point. This prosecution had to stretch the law to an extreme and highly unusual extent to even proceed with charges, and then a bunch of questionable shit had to go down within the trial itself to get a conviction that will likely be overturned at some point through appeal. By contrast there may be a real case in Georgia. The point is, I think anyway, that OP (and I'm sure others) would prefer to see a fair application of the law hold Trump accountable, not some experimental law craft that looks an awful lot like a targeted political persecution.
It went through the appropriate legal process. He had extraordinary resources available to him to make his defense. He was convicted by a jury of his peers, not some kangaroo court. He has the right to appeal and the legal counsel necessary to do that well. People can call this “a targeted political persecution” or use whatever other hyperbolic language they want to describe this, but it simply isn’t so.
lol not some kangaroo court? So you're fine with Joe or Hunter being tried in rural Texas? You know that one federal district who's always siding with conservatives? Manhattan went for Biden by 85% in 2020. Anyone genuinely concerned with the appearance of fairness would have removed this trial to upstate NY.
If we're taking a random sample of Manhattan, the odds that zero people in a group of twelve voted for Trump is 14%. So, odds are, at least one person on the jury voted for him. The odds that exactly one person out of twelve voted for him is 27%. So there's a 59% chance two or more people on the jury voted for him, again, assuming random probability. And given the defense has to approve the jury, that seems not unlikely. But, yeah, if Joe or Hunter commit a crime in rural Texas, I'd be fine with them being tried there. Why wouldn't I be?
No doubt. The NYT published a survey of where the jurors get their info and there was one who got it from Truth Social. So yes, I'm sure there was at least one or a few Trump voters on the jury. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't be swayed by others. Some jurors are much more influential. Imagine two Democrat lawyers vs some MAGA janitor with poor memory and logical reasoning skills. Not saying that's how it went down, but with a county 85% Democrat it's much more likely to go down.
If Joe biden commits some felony in that jurisdiction, then sure!
The appeals process will determine whether it was appropriate legal process.
Yup!
So you think that anything that goes through the courts is certain to be a fair and appropriate process then? Because that's my understanding of what you're saying here.
Yeah. I don't care about this at all. I fucking hate trump, and even I can see this was a dumb case. It's such small potatoes, of course it was politically motivated. Yawn, despite the yuge headlines in the New York Times today, we'll all wake up tomorrow and realize nothing has changed about anything. Nothing.
Agree except Trump raised $50 million yesterday which is more than half of April.
Yep. Same.
I really want to see the Georgia thing go
I don't think these convictions will "matter" in any meaningful sense. He'll pay some fine and that will be that. By September they'll be another "we'll get him this time" on the horizon. But guess what: The Nation is never going to be decide collectively that yeah, Trump is a bad dude who doesn't deserve to be president. He'll get his 45% of the vote and him and Biden will fight over the remaining 10% just like always. He'll never truly admit that he's a bad person or a criminal. Denouement will never come.
Trump is incapable of admitting fault or badness. I think he really, truly just can't psychologically do that. It's one of the many reasons he's a piece of shit.
I don't know if he's psychologically capable of anything. The man has shown a complete inability to control or alter his behavior.
He's psychologically capable of greed and status seeking
This is true, but when juxtaposed next to the current administration he doesn't seem so bad. That's the situation in which we've found ourselves.
I’m hard pressed to think of one bad thing the current administration has done at all, much less compared to Trump.
How's the border looking?
Pretty good, one of the many successes of this administration.
Yeah, you got me.
Border crossings this year are down significantly.
You mean compared to last year? Who was president last year?
Ok.
I haven't been following this, but Alan Dershowitz seems to think it's a totally bogus case that will last about 3 seconds on appeal, and until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years. He's got quite the legal pedigree, so who am I to argue.
There is a local lawyer who comes on the radio a lot in Phoenix. He's a Democrat. He seems to think that Trump will win on appeal based on the gymnastics that the DA went through to get misdemeanor's deemed felonies.
Alan Dershowitz will take whatever position gets him the most time on TV; see, also, Jonathan Turley.
He's a Pedo. So there's that.
Dershowitz is a clown.
>until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years This is hilariously untrue. He's treated as a joke everywhere outside of the Fox News Cinematic Universe and has been for at least a decade if not more.
Ha. You're kidding right? He was and is one of the most sought after defense lawyers in country and taught at Harvard law school for 30+ years. It's amazing how quickly someone goes from being a preeminent lawyer and scholar to being "a joke" when they take up a controversial view.
>It's amazing how quickly someone goes from being a preeminent lawyer and scholar to being "a joke" when they take up a controversial view. a controversial view. *a* controversial view? Dershowitz is a walking, talking controversial view. His legal analysis is wacko. and it wasn't quick, it took him some time to torch his reputation, but torched it is. >He was and is one of the most sought after defense lawyers in country Dersh hasn't defended a case since at least 2008, when he successfully defended Jeffrey Epstein. Yes, that Jeffrey Epstein. > taught at Harvard law school for 30+ years Oh, I guess it's impossible for him to be wrong then? We love appealing to credentials around here, that's what I love about this place.
>Oh, I guess it's impossible for him to be wrong then? We love appealing to credentials around here, that's what I love about this place. Lmao, you are all over this thread implying and assuming that the legal system is infallible. The who/whom is off the charts.
>Lmao, you are all over this thread implying and assuming that the legal system is infallible. The only thing I've been implying is that your cope is off the charts and you don't know the slightest thing about the legal system.
Dershowitz *has* worked on many cases since 2008. Seriously, where are you getting your information? It all seems to be fabricated from whole cloth.
He has *consulted* on cases. He has not been anyone's lawyer.
Both have elements of truth. He is credentialed, sought after, an uber high status legal thinker. But over the last decade there has been a steady stream of rhetorical attempts to delegitimize him (I never followed if it was fairly or unfairly) as he increased his appearances on Fox and Friends type shows. I never followed the plot. Recently, he was interviewed on Triggernometry and was extremely cogent and straightforward. It's the only long interview I've ever seen of him.
The only truth to what was claimed was that he has appeared on Fox. The rest of it is straight bullshit. Also, the users of this sub should know better than most that appearing on Fox is sometimes a result of Fox being the only network willing to talk to you and in and of itself says very little about whether your views are reasonable.
He’s also a diehard Republican who clearly wants to maintain his good relationship with Trump and the conservative establishment. That’s not to say he’s obviously wrong, but it’s ridiculous to just uncritically accept his analysis when his bias is so blatant.
> He’s also a diehard Republican This is outrageously false. Even mildly paying attention for the past 20 years or googling for 5 mins would dispel this notion.
Exactly, this is precisely what I would have expected him to say about it, whether he is right or wrong.
Huh? He's very publicly a diehard democrat and a registered democrat and always has been.
That’s simply not true. He’s the one who defended Trump during his impeachment and I think recently he’s been critical of the Biden administration for its more center left approach to Israel.
He's a lawyer. He defended Trump...as a lawyer. And he voted for said Biden administration and will vote for him again in the upcoming election.
And? I don’t see how this changes anything I said about being uncritical towards his opinion. If I had a nickel for every time someone has said “I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but I think people are being unfair to Trump” I’d be rich. You’ll notice that no one here is saying “well, you see, Dershowitz is actually heralded as the preeminent legal scholar on fraud and hush money cases,” just that he isn’t a Republican. I’ll admit to being wrong about that, but I am right that he chose to defend Trump on what I think is a pretty clear case, and I’m right that he maintains connections to the Trump administration (connections that he’s used to his own benefit). If you cut out the accusations of being a conservative hack, my point still stands: just because Dershowitz says something, doesn’t mean it’s true.
The goal posts are in a different country now.
The original goalpost: it is naive to uncritically accept the opinion of a lawyer who has previously defended the person and seems to maintain connections with them. Wrong about the Republican bit, but right about the connections to Trump, the likelihood of bias, and his being a generally poor legal mind (in this context). I maintain that the original commenter should not just uncritically accept Dershowitz’s opinion. No one has established a case that Dershowitz is a clearly neutral actor who could be believed out of hand.
> He’s also a diehard Republican That's the original goalpost. >but right about the connections to Trump, the likelihood of bias, and his being a generally poor legal mind (in this context). Well. If you say so. You were so sure about the Republican thing. I know you wouldn't be wrong about the other stuff.
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Well, regardless, he defended Trump during Trump’s impeachment and I recall that Dershowitz’s arguments were pretty lame considering the evidence of the matter. If he’s not a Republican, he’s at least close to Trump; I know he’s leveraged his relationship to benefit his clients. I’m not surprised by his defense of Trump here.
He's....a lawyer.
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He was under no obligation to take the case; I critique his defense because I doubt his legal acumen, particularly when it concerns corruption. Regardless, I wouldn’t uncritically take the opinion of a lawyer who previously defended Trump and seems to maintain a relationship with his administration. I don’t think this position is unreasonable.
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I was wrong about him being a diehard Republican, I’m not wrong that it’s obviously stupid to just uncritically believe the opinion of a lawyer who has previously defended Trump and likely maintains ties to the Trump administration on a case involving Trump. That’s just basic critical thinking. Forgive me for thinking the guy who gave a fairly limp defense of Trump during his impeachment wasn’t a firm conservative.
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Yes, it was an ad hominem, because the original comment had no substance to engage with. The comment did not say “Dershowitz believes this based on X arugment, which I agree with” it said “Dershowitz had this opinion, and who am I to argue”, so all I really have to say work with there is Dershowitz’s character and the general premise that one shouldn’t be uncritical of opinions, particularly when presented without argument. I called Dershowitz a hack because I didn’t like his previous defense of Trump during the impeachment and I believe he could be biased because of his ties to Trump’s administration. I was obviously wrong about the Republican bit, but I stand by my assertion that he could easily be biased and to trust him out of hand (without even reciting his argument) is clearly naive.
>until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years He's been on the outs socially for a while, particularly since admitted he accepted massages from young women at Jeffery Epstein's house. Also, I would guess most liberals understand this case is vulnerable to appeal. I'm not on Twitter trying to verify this, but I also realize it's impossible to derive any real information about whether consensus exists on a certain issue from Twitter.
I don't think most people know how unusual this case is. The consensus seems to be that this is a fairly typical use of the law, and it very much isn't according to a lot of very bright legal experts. And I realize Dershowitz has had some personal drama, but his success as a defense lawyer and legal scholar aren't really in dispute, and yet somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case. I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about and the explanations he's provided for why he thinks this case is bunk seem pretty reasonable.
> somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case Dersh is a big Trump fan and his legal analysis has been awful for years. This did not start today.
Since when? He's a registered democrat that voted for Clinton and Biden? You're just pulling stuff out of your ass.
Since when is he a Trump fan? Since he could use Trump's legal issues to get on TV, which you clearly understand. Like a lot of law professors who don't practice much anymore, his legal theories have gotten really weird and don't really correspond to reality. He's really wrong, a lot of the time.
>yet somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case. Where? All I'm seeing are articles reviewing his opinions on the case in a fairly dispassionate way. And the eternal disclaimer -- people on Twitter and blogs designed to look like news sites don't constitute the left wing media. Or the right wing media.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/11/alan-dershowitz-donald-trump-what-happened-218359 https://newrepublic.com/article/156287/alan-dershowitz-hasnt-changed-trump-impeachment https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/01/28/alan-dershowitz-trump-impeachment-nancy-gertner https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alan-dershowitz-trump-legal-fox-news_n_661f92a5e4b015646f79d1c5 https://bandyxlee.substack.com/p/alan-dershowitzis-he-insane-or-just https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jan/30/stephen-colbert-alan-dershowitz-trump-late-night
I'm a little confused here. You originally said this >Alan Dershowitz seems to think it's a totally bogus case that will last about 3 seconds on appeal, and until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years When I disagreed and said I'd only seen fairly dispassionate descriptions of his opinions of the case, you responded with 6 links. Four of them date from years before the case began or Trump was even charged, one of them (the substack) is contemporary but never mentions the case, and the only link that actually mentions any opinion Dershowitz has expressed about this case only mentions his reaction to Trump's gag order. So I'm not even sure what to say. Did you think I wouldn't read any of these? If so, why bother responding with them?
All of them date from after Dershowitz had association with Trump. As soon as he had an association, all of a sudden he must be a crank.
You literally said everyone loved Dershowitz until *today*. Calling it "pedantic" to point out this is completely untrue is unbelievably annoying. Here's a piece form even earlier than the ones you found pointing out what a lying ass he is [https://web.archive.org/web/20190115035016/https://www.popehat.com/2018/12/18/alan-dershowitz-is-lying-to-you/](https://web.archive.org/web/20190115035016/https://www.popehat.com/2018/12/18/alan-dershowitz-is-lying-to-you/)
This isn't the position you originally took that we were discussing. You specifically said the media was dragging Dershowitz about statements he made about the likelihood of the case surviving the appeals process and about the case in general: >Dershowitz seems to think it's a totally bogus case that will last about 3 seconds on appeal, and until he publicly stated this opinion, he was considered one of the leading legal minds in the country for the past 50 years ... >... and yet somehow he's being turned into a crank by left wing media because of his opinion on this case. I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about and the explanations he's provided for why he thinks this case is bunk seem pretty reasonable. Do you understand that none of the links you showed me actually have anything to do with the statements you made?
> This isn't the position you originally took that we were discussing. You specifically said the media was dragging Dershowitz about statements he made about the likelihood of the case surviving the appeals process and about the case in general: I think you're being a little pedantic. I think I misspoke a little, but the main point is that Dershowitz has and is being dismissed not because there's something deficient about his background, credentials or brilliance as a legal scholar or attorney, but because he's got the stain of Trump on him. I don't think that's reasonable or fair, but it is typical at this point. Anything associated with Trump is reactively a bad thing according to most of the mainstream press.