2024 US Presidential Election

[xtsho]

The bottom line is that trump broke the law. He was charged, had a jury trial, and that 12 person jury after looking at the evidence found him guilty.

There is no liberal plot. trump broke the law. Those defending him want to just pick and choose what laws to follow. They like him and don't care.

Real Americans are happy to see that the law is applied to those even if they are powerful. In some countries criminals like trump would never even be charged. The United States system of law worked and a criminal was held accountable. It's that simple.

I'd like to ask those defending trump how he isn't guilty of what he was convicted of. The evidence is now public. He definitely broke the law. What is his defense? He falsified business records. That's a fact. So how is trump being persecuted when he's just being held accountable to the same laws any other American is held accountable to?

 

[moose eater]

The bottom line is that trump broke the law. He was charged, had a jury trial, and that 12 person jury after looking at the evidence found him guilty.

There is no liberal plot. trump broke the law. Those defending him want to just pick and choose what laws to follow. They like him and don't care.

Real Americans are happy to see that the law is applied to those even if they are powerful. In some countries criminals like trump would never even be charged. The United States system of law worked and a criminal was held accountable. It's that simple.

I'd like to ask those defending trump how he isn't guilty of what he was convicted of. The evidence is now public. He definitely broke the law. What is his defense? He falsified business records. That's a fact. So how is trump being persecuted when he's just being held accountable to the same laws any other American is held accountable to?

Absolutely.

And from what I understand there was possibly at least one pro-Trump juror, though I don't know that.

Part of the vetting of a jury involves answering questions re. bias, etc., and if misrepresenting a position or political activities, a juror can actually be charged.

 

[PadawanWarrior]

The bottom line is that trump broke the law. He was charged, had a jury trial, and that 12 person jury after looking at the evidence found him guilty.

There is no liberal plot. trump broke the law. Those defending him want to just pick and choose what laws to follow. They like him and don't care.

Real Americans are happy to see that the law is applied to those even if they are powerful. In some countries criminals like trump would never even be charged. The United States system of law worked and a criminal was held accountable. It's that simple.

I'd like to ask those defending trump how he isn't guilty of what he was convicted of. The evidence is now public. He definitely broke the law. What is his defense? He falsified business records. That's a fact. So how is trump being persecuted when he's just being held accountable to the same laws any other American is held accountable to?

I'm sure he did break the law somehow but it's kinda like going to prison for getting caught with a joint. This post makes some good points on both sides. I'd rather we have 2 totally different candidates personally, but this is the shi*t storm that's forced on us.

The best — and worst — criticisms of Trump’s conviction

Was Trump wrongly convicted? The debate, explained.

www.vox.com

In Trumps defense

1) Trump may have falsified business records, but he did not do so with an “intent to defraud,” in the legal sense of that term. As the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy argues, the Supreme Court recently confirmed that “intent to defraud” has a very specific and narrow legal meaning: It describes the intention to deprive someone of money, property, or some other concrete good through deception.
There is no evidence that Trump falsified business records for the sake of tricking any specific individual into giving him cash. But Bragg’s office argued that, under New York state law, “intent to defraud” can refer to deliberately misleading the government or voting public.
McCarthy argues that this is much too broad: If you can commit fraud without actually trying to “steal something in which people have a concrete interest,” then “any untrue statement a candidate makes” could be prosecutable fraud, since such statements deceive voters.
2) The claim that Trump falsified business records to conceal a separate crime rests on a dubious interpretation of an obscure and arguably inapplicable law. Legal analysts (from across the political spectrum) have long argued that the shakiest part of the prosecution’s case was the claim that Trump’s fraudulent paperwork was intended to cover up another crime.
After all, there is no law against paying your ex-lover not to speak with a tabloid about your sordid liaison. The prosecution’s case rested primarily on the assertion that the payment to Daniels violated federal campaign finance law.
There are two potential objections to this: First, as David French notes in the New York Times, the Department of Justice chose not to charge Trump with violating campaign finance law by arranging Daniels’s payoff, apparently concluding that the case would be difficult to win. Yes, Cohen did plead guilty to a campaign finance violation related to the Daniels payment. But a guilty plea does not have the same weight as a jury verdict, from the standpoint of legal precedent. And in any case, Cohen’s plea did not establish Trump’s guilt in the alleged scheme.
Second, Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, has observed that it isn’t clear that a violation of federal law can qualify as “unlawful means” under New York state law. Before this trial, the question had simply never been adjudicated.
To its credit, Bragg’s office anticipated this problem, and argued that Trump not only promoted his own election through federal campaign finance violations, but also through other unlawful means, such as the falsification of separate business records and violations of tax law. But the validity of these supplementary charges is contested.
More fundamentally, some legal scholars argue that New York’s law against promoting a candidate’s election through unlawful means is preempted by federal law. “Federal election law, generally speaking, preempts state election law when it comes to a governing of federal elections, except there are exceptions whereby certain state election laws can come into play,” Jerry H. Goldfeder, a campaign finance lawyer, told CNN last year.
3) There is little evidence that Trump knew he had violated campaign finance laws, let alone that he knowingly tried to conceal having done so. Donald Trump does not have a reputation for being highly fluent in the details of public policy or the legal niceties of the political system.
As National Review’s McCarthy argues, “there is not a shred of evidence that Trump was even thinking about FECA (the Federal Election Campaign Act) in 2016-17, much less willfully transgressing it — which, to establish, prosecutors need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump was aware of a legal duty to comply with FECA’s contribution limits and reporting requirements, yet intentionally violated them.”
4) Even if Trump were guilty, the statute of limitations on his offense has already expired. The statute of limitations on misdemeanor business records falsification is two years; for the felony version, it’s five years.
Trump committed his alleged offense in 2017. But New York law holds that the clock on its statute of limitations stops when a defendant is “continuously” outside of the state. Therefore, it is plausible that the years Trump spent primarily in the White House and Mar-a-Lago do not count against the clock.
Still, even under this interpretation, Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain argues that two years have certainly passed since Trump allegedly falsified records related to his hush money payment. In Germain’s view, it “is not clear whether the felony can stand when the misdemeanor is time barred” because the “felony statute requires showing that the misdemeanor was committed, since the felony is really a penalty enhancement on the misdemeanor.”
5) The prosecution was blatantly politically motivated, and the judge was politically biased. Finally, the prosecution’s skeptics point to all of its case’s dubious elements — and then to the surrounding political context — and argue that Trump has been politically persecuted. As former federal prosecutor Elie Honig notes in New York magazine, Alvin Bragg ran for district attorney on a promise to indict Donald Trump. And the judge in Trump’s trial, Juan Merchan, donated to “a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation,” in violation of a rule barring New York judges from contributing to political campaigns, according to Honig.
And there is indeed some evidence that Trump’s prosecution was highly selective. No state prosecutor has ever cited federal election laws as a predicate state crime. The Manhattan DA hardly ever brings cases in which the sole charge concerns the falsification of business records. And the statute prohibiting conspiracies to promote a person’s election through unlawful means has almost never been used: According to an analysis from the Washington Post, since 2000, no judge issued a single legal opinion concerning the statute until Trump’s trial began last year.

 

[audiohi]

I'm sure he did break the law somehow but it's kinda like going to prison for getting caught with a joint.

us cannabis users have always had to man up and deal with the consequences of our actions if/when that time came.

glad you admit he broke the law.

time to man up.

 

[moose eater]

Imagine if everyone disgusted with the quality of candidates in this election agreed to choose a non-corporatist, thinking and soulful being from a third party... Imagine....

No groupies per se', just business and sincere concern for the Country and ideas. Imagine that for just a moment.

And the primary reason they rarely do? Fear of each other's choices.

 

[xtsho]

I'm sure he did break the law somehow but it's kinda like going to prison for getting caught with a joint. This post makes some good points on both sides. I'd rather we have 2 totally different candidates personally, but this is the shi*t storm that's forced on us.

The best — and worst — criticisms of Trump’s conviction

Was Trump wrongly convicted? The debate, explained.

www.vox.com

In Trumps defense

1) Trump may have falsified business records, but he did not do so with an “intent to defraud,” in the legal sense of that term. As the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy argues, the Supreme Court recently confirmed that “intent to defraud” has a very specific and narrow legal meaning: It describes the intention to deprive someone of money, property, or some other concrete good through deception.
There is no evidence that Trump falsified business records for the sake of tricking any specific individual into giving him cash. But Bragg’s office argued that, under New York state law, “intent to defraud” can refer to deliberately misleading the government or voting public.
McCarthy argues that this is much too broad: If you can commit fraud without actually trying to “steal something in which people have a concrete interest,” then “any untrue statement a candidate makes” could be prosecutable fraud, since such statements deceive voters.
2) The claim that Trump falsified business records to conceal a separate crime rests on a dubious interpretation of an obscure and arguably inapplicable law. Legal analysts (from across the political spectrum) have long argued that the shakiest part of the prosecution’s case was the claim that Trump’s fraudulent paperwork was intended to cover up another crime.
After all, there is no law against paying your ex-lover not to speak with a tabloid about your sordid liaison. The prosecution’s case rested primarily on the assertion that the payment to Daniels violated federal campaign finance law.
There are two potential objections to this: First, as David French notes in the New York Times, the Department of Justice chose not to charge Trump with violating campaign finance law by arranging Daniels’s payoff, apparently concluding that the case would be difficult to win. Yes, Cohen did plead guilty to a campaign finance violation related to the Daniels payment. But a guilty plea does not have the same weight as a jury verdict, from the standpoint of legal precedent. And in any case, Cohen’s plea did not establish Trump’s guilt in the alleged scheme.
Second, Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, has observed that it isn’t clear that a violation of federal law can qualify as “unlawful means” under New York state law. Before this trial, the question had simply never been adjudicated.
To its credit, Bragg’s office anticipated this problem, and argued that Trump not only promoted his own election through federal campaign finance violations, but also through other unlawful means, such as the falsification of separate business records and violations of tax law. But the validity of these supplementary charges is contested.
More fundamentally, some legal scholars argue that New York’s law against promoting a candidate’s election through unlawful means is preempted by federal law. “Federal election law, generally speaking, preempts state election law when it comes to a governing of federal elections, except there are exceptions whereby certain state election laws can come into play,” Jerry H. Goldfeder, a campaign finance lawyer, told CNN last year.
3) There is little evidence that Trump knew he had violated campaign finance laws, let alone that he knowingly tried to conceal having done so. Donald Trump does not have a reputation for being highly fluent in the details of public policy or the legal niceties of the political system.
As National Review’s McCarthy argues, “there is not a shred of evidence that Trump was even thinking about FECA (the Federal Election Campaign Act) in 2016-17, much less willfully transgressing it — which, to establish, prosecutors need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump was aware of a legal duty to comply with FECA’s contribution limits and reporting requirements, yet intentionally violated them.”
4) Even if Trump were guilty, the statute of limitations on his offense has already expired. The statute of limitations on misdemeanor business records falsification is two years; for the felony version, it’s five years.
Trump committed his alleged offense in 2017. But New York law holds that the clock on its statute of limitations stops when a defendant is “continuously” outside of the state. Therefore, it is plausible that the years Trump spent primarily in the White House and Mar-a-Lago do not count against the clock.
Still, even under this interpretation, Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain argues that two years have certainly passed since Trump allegedly falsified records related to his hush money payment. In Germain’s view, it “is not clear whether the felony can stand when the misdemeanor is time barred” because the “felony statute requires showing that the misdemeanor was committed, since the felony is really a penalty enhancement on the misdemeanor.”
5) The prosecution was blatantly politically motivated, and the judge was politically biased. Finally, the prosecution’s skeptics point to all of its case’s dubious elements — and then to the surrounding political context — and argue that Trump has been politically persecuted. As former federal prosecutor Elie Honig notes in New York magazine, Alvin Bragg ran for district attorney on a promise to indict Donald Trump. And the judge in Trump’s trial, Juan Merchan, donated to “a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation,” in violation of a rule barring New York judges from contributing to political campaigns, according to Honig.
And there is indeed some evidence that Trump’s prosecution was highly selective. No state prosecutor has ever cited federal election laws as a predicate state crime. The Manhattan DA hardly ever brings cases in which the sole charge concerns the falsification of business records. And the statute prohibiting conspiracies to promote a person’s election through unlawful means has almost never been used: According to an analysis from the Washington Post, since 2000, no judge issued a single legal opinion concerning the statute until Trump’s trial began last year.

trump isn't going to serve a day in jail over these charges if they stand up to appeal. He has a clean record and like you and I will just get probation.

Actually it's about time trump has had to be held accountable. Decades of being notorious for not paying contractors that he hired. He had a legal team already working for him. It wasn't worth the six figure lawyer fee to try and get their money.

He's a very bad person. He cares only of himself. People are just tools to him. Just look at all the ruined careers and live he's left in his wake. If you're anywhere near trump and a bus is around you're likely going under it.

I will give him credit for being a true shark. He shows no mercy and everyone is expendable. No morals, no values, no conviction, nothing... It's all about survival with trump.

The best way to survive is to have a good offense and trump figured that out decades ago. He's good at what he does which is con people.

 

[PadawanWarrior]

trump isn't going to serve a day in jail over these charges if they stand up to appeal. He has a clean record and like you and I will just get probation.

Actually it's about time trump has had to be held accountable. Decades of being notorious for not paying contractors that he hired. He had a legal team already working for him. It wasn't worth the six figure lawyer fee to try and get their money.

He's a very bad person. He cares only of himself. People are just tools to him. Just look at all the ruined careers and live he's left in his wake. If you're anywhere near trump and a bus is around you're likely going under it.

I will give him credit for being a true shark. He shows no mercy and everyone is expendable. No morals, no values, no conviction, nothing... It's all about survival with trump.

The best way to survive is to have a good offense and trump figured that out decades ago. He's good at what he does which is con people.

What's up Xtsho. Good seeing you here. I know we don't agree on everything, especially politics, lol, but I respect your weed knowledge. I know Trump isn't a good person, but I think he did a way better job of running the country than Biden. I was hoping Nikky Haley would be the republican candidate but that didn't happen. Trump is too divisive and so is Joe. Joe said how he was going to unite the country but that was a load of sh*t. We really have no good options.

 

[GOT_BUD?]

What's up Xtsho. Good seeing you here. I know we don't agree on everything, especially politics, lol, but I respect your weed knowledge. I know Trump isn't a good person, but I think he did a way better job of running the country than Biden. I was hoping Nikky Haley would be the republican candidate but that didn't happen. Trump is too divisive and so is Joe. Joe said how he was going to unite the country but that was a load of sh*t. We really have no good options.

What makes you think Trump ran the country better than Biden?

Not trying to start a fight. Just genuinely curious because I've never seen you in the Speakers Corner before so I assume you really don't follow politics. So I'm thinking you might be the "average man on the street" if you will.

 

[GOT_BUD?]

We've had Greens run for office in Alaska and years ago some won their contests.

Greens right now offer a far more reasonable and citizen/domestic/national-oriented solution than either of the 2 primary corporate hacks.

Jim Sykes is one in particular, and he helped (was actually THE founder) to form the Greens in Alaska and won ballot access via litigation using previously established case law, set in motion by later-murdered Joe Vogler and his Alaskan Independence Party (*See 'Manfred West', a cartoon sketch artist and the doer in Vogler's death) ...

Jim and I worked together gathering signatures for the first SB21 oil referendum in (I think) about 2013.

The Greens, of all parties, recognize the fact that any real changes start small and work their way up. And grass roots acceptance and momentum HAS to start locally.... by definition. Known faces from people with integrity matters... And Jim has -very- stout integrity

Jim Sykes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And yet you think voting 3rd party for President is a viable option.

 

[GOT_BUD?]

I followed the trial as it went on. I see no reason to watch a biased Left Wing Media video but thanks.

Well, I guess I really don't need you to answer the question above as you have already had the koolaid and found it delicious.

Enjoy crying in November.