Trump Leaving Office Poll (Part 2)

[Grath]

It's still a little dubious whether or not they'll charge Trump for his crimes, but at minimum Christina Bobb should probably be contacting her malpractice insurance to let them know that they won't be needed anymore since by the time she's out of prison she won't have a law license anymore:

[Yoji]

I figured we were bound to live through something historic, whatever that might be. But I never thought it'd be so stupid.

[Friday]

the fact that Captain Planet was the most accurate depiction of the villains and the horrors to come is pretty dope

[Mongrel]

[Thad]

Trump is offended by staging of photo, admits to crime.

[KingRoyal]

[Thad]

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

Presidon't

[Mongrel]

People talking about other Trump sites being raided. Now why would th-





Ah. Yes.

I suppose I should have figured.

[Crick]

Man, it just feels like a Big Crime to me, but I guess he's living under different rules.

[Mongrel]

Lock Her Up is now officially MAGA-brand Copium.

He also called Biden "an enemy of the state" in the first two minutes. You think that'd merit a Secret Service investigation or something, wouldn't ya.

[Friday]

At this point I fully expect MAGA to grind babies to paste in a giant baby grinding machine "because this baby might be gay" while simultaneously complaining about abortions. "Cognitive dissonance" doesn't even begin to describe what goes on in their brains.

[Thad]

I can't really see any other conclusion at this point but that conservatism is "what we do is good; what they do is bad" and everything else is just a coat of paint on top of that central premise.

[Mongrel]

As the quip goes, 'the cruelty is the point'.

[KingRoyal]

There's always the old adage from Frank Wilhoit* about conservativism

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

*There is in fact a Frank Wilhoit is a political scientist who studies these things, but that quote is from a 63-year-old composer in Ohio. Finding out the actual source of that quote, though, has made me like it less

[Thad]

Judge Cannon has granted Trump's request for a special master.

Up to this point she's basically bent over backwards to accommodate the Trump team. That's concerning, but Popehat doesn't think it's evidence of a fait accompli just yet:



(Nitter mirror)

He goes on to mention that this is the kind of handholding you sometimes see judges do with pro se defendants -- and so while it's really extraordinary to see it happening with a former president who has experienced lawyers representing him, this could just be a case of a judge holding a defendant's hand because his counsel is completely incompetent. (He also doesn't rule out the related possibility that the judge is giving Trump every possible accommodation so that when she nails him it's airtight, but says "It would be a fairly extravagant example of the genre.") It's not yet clear that she's in the tank for Trump; there are still other possible explanations for her behavior up to this point. Now, if she appoints a special master who's in the tank for Trump, that's going to be a clear signal, but she hasn't done that yet.

Her executive privilege analysis is bad (more on that from Akiva Cohen) and strong grounds for the DoJ to appeal. The obvious downside to that is that it would cause more delay. Cohen believes that, as usual, that's what this is really about, that Trump doesn't have a good case but every day he spends arguing it is a win for him. Cohen believes an indictment is inevitable at this point; I wouldn't go that far but there does seem to be more than enough evidence to indict and convict just on those "TOP SECRET" labels, even without examining the content of the documents.

But DoJ is going to want to make its case airtight, and avoid establishing a precedent that a former president can invoke executive privilege against an executive agency. And those are both good things; I just wish they were also fast things.

[Crick]

Cynical part of my brain unable to stop the countdown to "ah, well... nevertheless"

[Thad]

God I hate that fucking meme.

[KingRoyal]

It's hard to argue with, especially when the opposing argument seems to come up with ever more convoluted speculation for why the Trump appointed judge keeps bending over backwards for Trump

This seems to be a convergence of the Trump already having been able to skillfully avoid any real legal consequences* before becoming president, and now he has the traditional presidential immunity of the government simply giving former leaders a pass for anything