Donald Trump discussion Thread IX (threadbanned users listed in OP)

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121019880#Comment_121019880

Canada will always exist for those wealthy enough to allow their mistresses to travel.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121020963#Comment_121020963

I was thinking how similar the situation would be to what ran here largely but....

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121019880#Comment_121019880

Haley was the only one realistic about abortion. I was surprised by how much she went after Trump also. She landed the best attack of the night on him, but it won't mean anything as her campaign is dead.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121019645#Comment_121019645

Tbf the DeSantis campaign have got plenty of shots in on Trump and its not really working because the voters really like Trump. That might sound simplistic, but gun to head etc, their is maybe a 10% lane of never trump conservatives and that won't win any elections.

political analyst

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0824/1401351-us-republican-party/

Do they not consider the effect that having a convicted felon as president would have on their country's standing in the world? Surely, the Republican Party's leadership committee could do with Trump what the British Labour Party's national executive committee is doing with Corbynistas who want to run as Labour candidates in the next general election, couldn't it?

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121021838#Comment_121021838

I think that at this stage it's gone beyond Trump's ability to have people believe what he says is honest joe talk - the B/S he spun about the democrats firstly, and when they swallowed that, he followed it up with RINO and other lies about senior decades-in-service GOP members.

It's more that they now CHOOSE to believe he is the best thing the GOP has going for it rather than admit they were gullible enough to be taken in by him. So many of the party members tried to wake them up to the liar Trump is and failed, and the thanks they got was to be thrown out of the party leadership at his behest. They believe in TV reality show performances so much they cant tell the difference between it and real life.

Edit: There is a difference between the US Republican Party and the British Labour Party, the rules governing them. AFAIK, the different states have the say on whom is a member of the state party and not those sitting in Washington.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121022431#Comment_121022431

In theory, a US citizen who is intent on committing genocide could get elected as president. I recall that, before the 2016 election, there was speculation that, if Trump was to order the military to launch nuclear missiles without justification, the military itself would be obliged to mutiny against him because of the Nuremberg principles.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121022868#Comment_121022868

By people, I meant the average GOP voter. I understand Trump assessed the gullibility of the democrat party when he was a supporter of it and found it unfit for purpose so he went to the GOP, assessed it and found it fit for his purpose.

The US military is well used to B/S and came to know Trump for what he is. Unfortunately they are restricted due to their oath to the constitution and all it stands for. I believe any person of command rank would have insisted that Trump provide them with the questionable order signed and in writing. I believe Trump however has no such morals and he tossed his oath of loyalty to the US constitution into the bin solely for his own benefit.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121023022#Comment_121023022

They take an oath to defend the US Constitution against all enemies - foreign and domestic (I'm channelling Nicholas Brody in "Homeland", by the way!). A convicted felon who is President might qualify as a domestic enemy.

The Nuremberg principles still stand.

This article is from 2 years ago.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/milley-acted-prevent-trump-misusing-nuclear-weapons-war-china-book-n1279187

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121023333#Comment_121023333

I'm mindful that this thread is about Trump and the attempt he made to steal the election from the US citizens as a whole [that includes the GOP] and from the winner so I'm going to stick with that, if you don't mind. There is one thing that I've come to accept from Trump the defendant and that is everything he says is a lie, that the opposite is the truth. Last night's "“As you know, you have many people that you’ve been watching over the years, do the same thing,” Trump said. “Whether it’s Hillary Clinton or Stacy Abrams or many others, when you have that great freedom to challenge, you have to be able to, otherwise you can have very dishonest elections. What has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong and everybody knows that, I've never had such support.” statement after the jail episode is the usual Trump untruth.

One thing he did was replace one of his lawyers, Drew Findling with Steve Sadow, another Atlanta lawyer, before his visit to Fulton County Jail to be booked in there as a defendant in the felony racketeering case against him. I assume he was advised to take on Sadow, rather than by doing a Golden Pages pick for a lawyer.

Thanks for the book tip, BTW.

Rjd2

So back on twitter it seems.

I am shocked it took so long tbh.

I don't think this is a good idea, his rantings on truth social at times were borderline insane ...I think he posted about 10 posts insulting RDS in a few hours the other day, that's fine when its only the fanatics reading but some of this stuff is so dumb its going to remind people why they voted Biden in the 1st place. He's going to get much more attention and news cycles covering his tweets which he will love but do wonder how much he gets himself in legal trouble and he will get a lot of community notes!

Christy42

I suspect a few community notes might go missing in the case of Trump.

aloyisious

The State Supreme Court in Wisconsin which has turned liberal [according to the W/Post] seems to be minded to rule on the issue of voting districts and abortion rights from a non-republican stance. Is Wisconsin an omen on how things may change and affect the US national scene on some topical issues and result in a swing toward a more Liberal tendency?

political analyst

Would Trump's campaign to be re-elected have petered out if he wasn't being prosecuted at all?

Do the opinion polls tell the whole story about the extent of support for Trump in the Republican party?

ancapailldorcha

Yes.

He has nothing now but a failed insurrection, the worst handling of covid in the rich world and croynism. The MAGA faithful will turn out but moderates and swing voters probably not. Notice how he hasn't enunciated a single policy. The man is out for revenge and literally nothing else.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121038159#Comment_121038159

All Trump has is a mix of Hard Core MAGAs who believe his "Stolen Election" tripe and a group of "Always GOP" voters who don't necessarily like him but if he's the GOP nominee they will vote for him.

He is beyond Toxic to any Democratic Party leaning voter and a majority of Independents feel the same way about him.

There are probably only 10-15% of voters out there that are genuinely "influenceable" in terms of getting them to change their vote from last time and Trump will find it very hard to get those to his side with his current "It's all a big conspiracy to get me" story line.

And it will only get harder as more and more details of the various court cases against him are made public and evidence is being heard in courts etc.

aloyisious

Mark Meadows request to have his trial in Georgia moved from a state court to a federal court on the grounds that he was a federal employee at the time of the alleged offences seemed peculiar to me, as if he was angling to get around any conviction and sentence in a state court being proof from a pardon, should that come to be the decision of the court trying him. I looked in askance at his setting such an attempt might also be a lead to "others" in the same fix then following him in applying for change of court because "they" too were in receipt of federal employee pay. I'm not sure if the main defendant would finally agree to such a ploy as it would mean he'd have to accept being a federal employee and not the boss.

One legal opinion in the US is that if he succeeded in getting such a move he would then become liable to Hatch Act charges where a federal employee is barred from interfering with an election and liable to imprisonment for so doing, separate to the charges he already faces in Georgia.

Timberrrrrrrr

Seeing reports that the trial date has been set for March 4th 2024.

Larbre34

Interesting. Right in the teeth of the Primaries.

RNC is scheduled for July 24. If the Party grandees want Trump gone, he'll be convicted by then, or not. Which I know means nothing for a candidature, but it makes him less likely to be a Republican one.

Expect a flurry of challenges now, all of them groundless. Maybe a few lawyers disbarred. All good sport.

aloyisious

It seems, as of now, Trump's trial in Georgia state will be televised live from court. The public won't be relying on reporters handwritten notes of what went on in court.

Meadows is on the stand now making the case for his change of venue request from State to Federal court. If he succeeds and gets a move, apparently it will be to another part of Georgia more populated by GOP voters.

Edit; A change from State to Federal court would result in no live TV feed of the trial due to court rules. Georgia state law allows for TV cameras in its courts and the Federal courts do not. If the venue change is allowed, no one would see what a live feed would show.

duploelabs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121039390#Comment_121039390

Day before super Tuesday

aloyisious

I read an opinion-piece by Eugene Robinson in the W/Post about the group of republican candidates in the live debate and how realistic they are as candidates relative to how they - when asked at the end of the debate if they would support Trump - all raised their hands in an Aye show of hands. This show of hands indicates an unspoken putting of party loyalty above the constitution when they did not swear fealty to the party but did do to upholding the constitution. Ein Fuhrer, Ein Party, and Ein????

Somewhere along the line while reading the W/Post item, I saw an aside to a distinct issue [allegiance to the constitution] linked to Trumps activities in Washington on the 06th Jan. It included a reference to the 14th amendment and representation.

The 14th amendment to the US constitution relative to the number of senators, congresspersons and other elected persons at state level etc came up and I saw in the amendment that the number of elected representatives persons would be reduced if the number of male over 21 years of age citizen voters fell below a certain number. The amendment makes specific mention of representative numbers being reduced when voters participated in a rebellion. The 14th amendment makes no mention of female over 21 years of age citizen voters. Is it to be taken that the female voters are included, just not mentioned, in the whole number of persons in the state.

The amendment does make specific mention of untaxed Indians in its wording reference them not being included in the count of number of persons in each state so it appears it is capable of including wording about a specific number of persons in the states.

Brian?

Here’s what worries me: Evergrande collapses, the Chinese economy goes into crisis and we have a world wide crash.

In this scenario* we get Trump, possibly

*its not an unlikely scenario

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121061573#Comment_121061573

I'd argue the Chinese economy has already crashed (and is going through the motions only) due to the China covid policies (factories are closing as they have no orders; equipment is shipped to other countries), unemployement is through the roof both for youth and people above 35s which are usually not of interest to companies incl. state companies, the provice economies built up on renting out ground (many provinces have had to plead for bail out from the state), huge salary cuts for both state & private company employees (we're talking 25%+ cuts), the natural disasters have exacerbate this further (between losing rice fields, flooding whole towns and of course the civil unrest tied to history over the natural disasters coming when the emperor is no longer fit to lead) and of course Xi's policies are about as modern as Mao's and about as helpful.

aloyisious

It seems that RDS is amongst several Republicans candidates proposing that the US use it's military [weapons] to attack Fentanyl Labs in Mexico. Its been 2019 since Trump made comment about the smuggling into the US and the loss of about [back then] 100,000 US citizens as dying from Fentanyl addiction.

So far he does not seem to have noted or become aware of the other candidates quotes and suggestions as he doesn't seem to have gone after both Biden and Andres Obrador [Mexico's president] for failing to stop the production and smuggling of the drug from Mexico as he hasn't made any online comments proposing such an act for election gain. Allegedly China is the main supplier of the base material for the production of Fentanyl to Mexico.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121067589#Comment_121067589

Without seeing the background, I'd presume this entire talking point is the allure of America bombing the brown people coming across the borders, than coherent policy regarding fentanyl. Let's not forget that is a man who had migrants kidnapped, put on a plane and flown under false pretences to Martha's Vineyard - just to "own" the libs. The man is a craven racist, I doubt the well runs deeper than a desire to bomb Mexico as part of his "anti woke" agenda.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121067679#Comment_121067679

RDS does seem to have an outlook on the safety of his states citizens that does not [on the face of it] compute, refusing to accept federal funding from the Biden Admin to help Florida's citizens survive and get over the effects of Hurricane Idalia and the resultant Category 3 storm, while he's asking them [Florida resident voters] for long term support against Candidate Trump. One has to ask what exactly RDS is playing at.

aloyisious

It'd be nice to take the read that Trump is running out of cash to fund his defence team.

According to the Daily Digest he had to transfer funds from his Make America Great Again PAC's to top up the Save America super PAC he's using to pay his legal [incl lawyers] costs.

Allegedly the Save America PAC fund had $105 million in it at the start of the year reduced to $4 million until the top up from the other PAC. Allegedly he had to request a refund of $60 million donation it made to the MAGA PAC, and only received $12.3 million back from the fund.

The notion that Trump is going bust after so many years of getting funds from others is tempting to consider.

I've edited the wording of the 2nd sentence in Para 3.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121077563#Comment_121077563

He's been playing a shell game with the money over the years between the various PAC's , Super PACs and Election funds.

There are all sorts of rules about which money can go where and what it can be spent on which of course it appears that Trump has driven a coach and four through.

His problem currently is that the fund that he is actually allowed to use on his personal legal bills has run out of money having given money to one of the other funds (which it looks like he isn't allowed to do under FEC rules) and is now trying to get that money back.

He still has quite a bit of cash from the MAGA loons , but it's currently in all the wrong places for what he needs to spend it on right now.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121077727#Comment_121077727

My understanding of Super PAC's is that they can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from various sources to influence elections but cannot contribute directly to candidates or parties. How does Trump, as a candidate, get to legally influence how the funds from at least two Super PAC's are used and distributed?

For purposes electorally, Trump has been an influencer for a decade now, even while sitting as president in the oval Office, as one understands what an influencer is nowadays. Not necessarily a person of bona fides but rather a person with malice aforethought and in this case with access to several sources of donated money which do have federal and state laws governing their use.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079468#Comment_121079468

Trump has been openly ignoring the rules around fund-raising and the resulting spending for years.

He used PAC money to pay his bail in Georgia FFS.

"Leadership" PACs are supposed to allow a high profile person to raise money for other people (and only other people) - So a Trump Leadership PAC could raise money to be spent on helping other GOP candidates get elected and so on , but Trump has been using it to fund his own expenses and legal costs.

Same with the Super PACs - Can be spent on helping a candidate get elected , but cannot be spent "in coordination" with the candidate nor can it be used for direct campaign expenses etc. - Again , Trump has been simply directly using that money to pay his legal bills and to re-direct money to his businesses and family. For example one of the Super PACs paid Melania $150k for picking out the tableware to be used at a fund-raiser in Mar-a-Lago.

Up to now he's been getting away with it as the FEC are pretty toothless and the penalties are trivial in general.

Now though , Smith is looking at it and there is the potential for federal criminal charges related to wire/mail fraud because he sent out fund-raising mails seeking money for his "Stop the steal" nonsense , but most of it has just been spent on regular Trump expenses and not for the original purpose - So it's money obtained under false pretenses.