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

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122035310#Comment_122035310

Don't think they released that data and I doubt they will.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122035310#Comment_122035310

Possibly? Sure; but they would have to scrubbed all posts on social networks etc. One such already struck out apparently as we're now down to 5 from yesterday's 7 with 9 potential candidates for today out of the 96 planned as per CNN.

The first juror to go expressed concerns about her identity being shared publicly, saying friends and family had already reached out to her asking about the trial after her description was published in news reports.

Now, a second juror has been excused, this time after prosecutors said they found information that called into question the truthfulness of their answers during voir dire, the period where lawyers from both sides question potential jurors.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022611#Comment_122022611

If ever the phrase "Word salad" applied to anything, it's that utter drivel.

robinph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122035480#Comment_122035480

The vast majority of the questions that have been quoted as being set for the jurors are to do with finding potential MAGA supporters.

aloyisious

What's the estimated % of MAGA supporters currently amongst NY GOP members? Have any of the MAGA House and Senate residents shown up in the NY courthouse zone to show support for Trump, given how it does NOT seem important anymore for the GOP and Trump and his family and associates to believe the lines they are feeding to the public about it all being a Democrat fix.

With Marjorie sprouting the most fantasist theories in the House and trying to unseat the GOP speaker over a munitions- support issue that Trump and the Speaker are like-minded on [with Israel - whatever about Ukraine - on the list] Trump has to see the danger Marj is to the pins holding the wheels on the wagon that he needs to travel on into Washington.

aloyisious

The chamber speaker has declared the Ukraine support bill has passed in the House, 311 Yea, 112 Nay. Minimum votes needed for success was 218. Friends of Putin will not like that result.

aloyisious

TFWS setting in on day one of his trial. If it was from another persons mouth, it might be believable but it's laughably from the mouth of the person who called a witness at his trial today a liar. Trump has called for less NYPD security outside the courthouse where he's on trial as he thinks the security is preventing his MAGA supporters from protesting there, they are being denied the freedom to protest like the students at Columbia University.

aloyisious

Early snippets of how the SCOTUS is reacting to Trump's legal team efforts to get him off facing charges in the courts seem to show it plans to introduce a whole new set of rules for lower courts to operate by when they are considering what a president can and cannot do while using presidential immunity as a cover-all for all type of activities.

As its too early yet to actually find out what SCOTUS has in mind for both Trump and the prosecution in respect to his efforts to avoid legal sanction for his unlawful activities while abusing the office and powers of the presidency, its still possible that SCOTUS may stand on its own feet and those of its membership he thinks are likely to be loyal to him may decide to follow their own consciences and not his guidance.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122063946#Comment_122063946

I’ve been half following the case. I assumed it was too ludicrous to have a chance, but it looks like they are planning to decide a POTUS has immunity for certain actions and not others.

Isn’t this the “legislating from the bench” that the conservatives complain about? The founding fathers definitely never intended the POTUS to be immune from prosecution, they outright rejected the idea of a king.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122064535#Comment_122064535

It's what happens when you choose a third of the people trying you. Corrupt as anything.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122064535#Comment_122064535

There is an argument to be made that certain "official" acts as President should have immunity clearly defined in law.

A President taking actions approved by the House/Senate should not be subject to personal litigation as a result for example.

But, in deciding that some acts by the President provide immunity from prosecution it gives Trump the "win" he wanted as it would mean that that list of those acts would need to be codified and documented in law. For Trump they would need to go to court and present arguments as to whether each thing that Trump is accused of is an "Official act" or not and with Trump appealing each decision it could literally take years to get the requisite clarity.

This is yet another example of those "unwritten but clearly understood" behaviours that have never been an issue before but now when faced with an utterly amoral self serving narcissist they are not fit for purpose to control him.

The failure of a Constitution written by "gentlemen" who assumed that honourable "gentlemanly" behaviour was always going to be a given and therefore didn't need to be explicitly codified.

aloyisious

One should, if one is an opponent of Trump, take note of his legal defence teams argument, on his behalf, of immunity and their apparent inclusion [as one of the immunity argument grounds] of assassination of a political rival being a legitimate action for a US president. I'm supposing they actually meant a foreign rival, not a US rival. Bumping off a foreign head of state is supposedly a "NO NO" action for a US president as it would be creating a precedent would could rebound on the initiator. The snag is in what one could see to be a rival, say DeSantis or one of the other 15 GOP candidates who ran against Trump, let alone the one chosen by the Democrats.

Trump does pick arguments with others at the drop of a hat so it could be reasonable for some-one who was a target of Trumps anger and media focus to have cause for concern should Trump be re-elected. One does not have to be a politician, as judges, lawyers and media hosts have gotten up Trumps nose since 2016. Trumps view of what can legally be seen as a legitimate official action worthy of presidential immunity must not be the measure by which those on the SCOTUS bench decide on the issue of PRESIDENTIAL immunity for all. To go down that road would rightly lay them open to ridicule.

eire4

Not sure how many people realize just how dangerous this case is. The US has been lurching further to the right for some time now but is still at least a partial democracy. This case could really accelerate the push towards outright authoritarianism in the US and that is a scary thought for not just Americans but for us all IMHO.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122068009#Comment_122068009

I'd be thinking of extremism on both ends of politics there, with a lot of ordinary thinkers in between keeping the gap in between wide. Freedom of expression is being used to damage the boundaries between common sense speech and waffle.

eire4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069571#Comment_122069571

The authoritarian supporting right in the US is quite a large minority including making up a large chunk of the Republican party. The left in the US is minimal in size. It always cracks me up when I hear people in the US talking about left v right and socialism etc. The US is very much a right wing country in general. The Democratic Party itself is economically very much a center right party. There is no its 2 sides of the same coin or right v left as if its close its simply not.

Good loser

Because of their experiences with 'socialism' in middle and south America, especially Cuba and Venezuela, most Latinos hate that creed.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122071747#Comment_122071747

So the Trump statements about the Democrats and Biden being socialist etc etc are just "politics as usual" and not his actual personal belief.

Would that also apply to what seems to be the extreme section of the party politic on Trumps side of the house, as exampled by Marjorie, just playing politics as usual or do they have a different handbook of beliefs which Trump himself doesn't believe in?

eire4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122076196#Comment_122076196

I don't think comrade Trump has any actual " core beliefs" other then me me me. His behaviour in general does come over though as very much a demagogue and wannabe dictator.

Certainly the utterly risible jibe that Biden and Democrats in general are socialists is completely politics given Biden and the Democrats party are very much a center right party economically with only a small actual center left faction.

The Republican party however has a very large group of far right authoritarian leaning politicians. They are not a small minority of the Republican party. In fact when you look at how far right the Republican party is these days it is far to say it is no longer a party that believes in democracy even the limited form of Democracy they have in the US.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122078824#Comment_122078824

I have to admit that at times I liked one thing about Trump and that was his intent to keep his country out of foreign wars, while he was not president. However, when one is in the job, one has to look at things from a different perspective, as the CIC job needs it. He hadn't and hasn't got the bottle to do the job.

Trump's asking for direct assistance from Putin to win the election should have, IMO, put him outside the trust of the US voter across the board. It showed how venial he was and is, and also how scared he was and is of people who don't give him total loyalty.

The content of his speeches alone should have put minds into thinking gear, seeing as he made it clear how he was trying to steer people toward illegal actions while attempting to get "plausible deniability" into the background as a fallback. His mention about personally shooting people and not losing the voter is one classical example. It put that notion into other peoples minds with an inevitable result. He followed that up when he lost the election with his use of the "WE" when he spoke to the people at his peaceful protest event in Washington telling them he would walk with them to the Capitol before he left them for the White House. I don't know how much he learned of people-psychology while running TV game shows but he certainly knows what buttons to push when it comes to people control.

The excuses being rolled out on his behalf now that he doesn't actually mean what he said and says, that it was all about getting out the vote for him and should not have been taken verbatim as a call to action by US citizens from his fanbase is pitiful. He knew exactly what effect his speeches would have across the US and it was what he intended to happen. His legal team are using a variation of his "plausible deniability" excuse for his illegal actions with SCOTUS, asking it to rule that he had presidential immunity when he committed the criminal acts he's accused of to ensure he stayed in office.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122080445#Comment_122080445

But his plan for "keeping the US out of Foreign wars" was simply to allow the aggressors to do what they wanted without any fear of sanction or reprisal.

Listen to him now -

"Israel , just hurry up and finish the job , it looks bad that it's taking this long"

"Ukraine - Just give up and let Putin have what he wants , I mean you guys are all kinda Russian right??"

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122080844#Comment_122080844

Yeah. His "plan" seems to be "I don't really care" and "Somebody else can sort this out later".

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122080844#Comment_122080844

Yes. That is his mindset, while damning Biden into the bargain. Trump is always right, everyone else is wrong if they have an opinion or plan of their own [and that includes his Republican "allies"]. For him, it's the cheaper option and that has always been his modus operandi. It's why he wants the US out of NATO. He wants to avoid anything which will force him to bite the bullet, where he can no longer browbeat the opponent.

Israeli Govt operations are partly of his own making, quite literally, due to his moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, giving Netanyahu a clear signal that he was behind the Israeli Govt fronted by Netanyahu back then all the way. The situation there is a cleft stick situation for him now and may affect the vote at home for him. He's not the president so he can rabbit on with people on his staff prepared to say he should not be taken literally.

The excusers include Mitch McConnell who has said he will vote for Trump in the election while saying that Trump cannot be given presidential immunity for his Capitol criminality, and Barr saying he heard Trump was walking around in the White House talking about having his opponents executed, but that it was OK, it was only Trump talking [while president].

AMKC

IN Town today lol,

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122086338#Comment_122086338

Has anyone seen a certain "both sides" poster recently?