A Deeply Fractured US

[Fishbone Jones]

First off, I just want to say that it's incredible to me that good-faith actors here continue to engage with you.

This specific thread on this forum is an amazing study of the human psyche: A criminal indictment or other serious, fact-based accusation against Donald Trump is submitted to US federal court. @brihard comments after he's personally reviewed the indictment with a much-better-than-most layperson's interpretation of the document, explaining why he thinks the most recent indictment is significant. You @Fishbone Jones shitpost a bunch of random right wing (note I'm specifically not using the term conservative, because conflating the two here isn't helpful) chaff "articles" designed to stoke right wing anger in response.

@brihard asks you if you've taken the time to read the indictment yourself, and if you have anything to offer to counter the items being discussed. You (by my count near 100% of the time) ignore this, and instead post a National Review, Daily Wire, etc. article about Hunter Biden to try to distract from the facts that he's trying to discuss. This has repeated for nearly 200 pages of this forum.


Regarding Alan Dershowitz: I would think that by this point he's a problematic public figure, given the numerous accusations made against him that peg him as an associate of Jeffery Epstein and a visitor to his island:

Alan Dershowitz Cannot Stop Talking

Alan Dershowitz helped Jeffrey Epstein get a plea deal. Now he’s tweeting about age of consent laws.

Jeffrey Epstein Victim Said She Was Forced Into Threesome With Alan Dershowitz

Etc., etc.

Now since then, one of the key witnesses has come forward to say that she could have been mistaken, likely as part of ongoing legal proceedings:

Epstein Survivor Says Accusation Against Alan Dershowitz May Have Been 'Mistake'

Epstein Victim Says She May Have ‘Made a Mistake’ in Accusing Dershowitz

I have not followed this case closely enough to take an educated position as to whether or not this is indicative of Dershowitz being "innocent", or rather the victim saw an unprovable case in front of her and took a settlement instead.

My gut tells me that Trump, Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, and a number of other Western elites were probably involved in some gross stuff relating to Epstein's Island, and I can only hope that the truth will someday come out. Again, I'm not going to call Dershowitz a sexual predator without proof, but can probably conclude that his reputation as an independent constitutional scholar is likely not as clean as you make it out to be.

Given that the standard of evidence for conspiracy theorists is typically so rock bottom, and that your profile picture says, "I IDENTIFY AS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST. MY PRONOUNS ARE TOLD/YOU/SO", I have to conclude that you have no interest in seeking the truth or any sort of philosophical resolution to the events discussed in this thread whenever they put Donald Trump or his shitty grifter family in a negative light. Instead, I have to conclude that you are here to repost Newsmax et al., trash and hopefully convince others to adopt your angry, paranoid worldview.

Again, the fact that reasonable members of this forum continue to engage with you IMO speaks to their patience, not to your value-added to this community.

I wasn't going to bring this up but bri and I get a little too heated here. I've said that I wouldn't engage with him here. To that end, I have him on ignore. I don't read his opinion, here. Period. I don't even look.

I read him this am, when I saw this tempest in a tea cup.

Brihard, I'm sorry if you took anything I said personally. It wasn't meant to be. However, I still won't be following in political forums.

As for you Pelorus, I don't know you and while entitled to your opinion, I don't agree with you. Put me on Ignore so you don't see my posts. I will do the same for you. I am under zero obligation to agree with anything, including you.

Look folks, this forum is A Deeply Fractured US. Not a Deeply Fractured Trump Presidency. Although you might not know it by the posts. It has been nothing but Trump. I am right wing and a Trump supporter. I don't believe he's as guilty, if he is guilty, as some here. Simply, the fact that only a couple of people talk about the crimes of the Biden family is telling. Let's call it what it is. It's a thread for people to spill their guts about Trump, express their anger at Trump, and attack Trump almost as much as the DNC for the same reasons. I'd like to say that when Hunter gets properly indicted and Joe gets impeached, it'll change focus to their crimes and misdemeanors, but it won't. This will continue to be a Trump bitch fest for the next six years if he wins the Presidency again.

As for my avatar, it's more like sarcasm. I float lots of ideas, about lots of things and people have questioned my sanity on occasion. That’s fine, some have even change my views.

So, there it is. It's what make us human. I can't tell anyone else what to do, so if you want to continue to rant about me, that's up to you. I won't participate.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

First off, I just want to say that it's incredible to me that good-faith actors here continue to engage

Again, the fact that reasonable members of this forum continue to engage with you IMO speaks to their patience, not to your value-added to this community.

"Reasonable "???

Let's make one thing clear here, I am teetering on the edge of nuking all these threads until court decisions are made.

No one here is being reasonable or unreasonable, there are opinions and the day opinions become "unreasonable " ( within social norms of course), is the day all politics can disappear from what is generally a well thought out exchange of ideas website.

Go after the post, not the poster...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

"Reasonable "???

Let's make one thing clear here, I am teetering on the edge of nuking all these threads until court decisions are made.

No one here is being reasonable or unreasonable, there are opinions and the day opinions become "unreasonable " ( within social norms of course), is the day all politics can disappear from what is generally a well thought out exchange of ideas website.

Go after the post, not the poster...

I think locking it would be a great idea. You can even blame me for it.

 

[KevinB]

Interesting Absence

https://twitter.com/x/status/1687142377419415564

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Interesting Absence

https://twitter.com/x/status/1687142377419415564

Although stranger things have happened, I think someone should make Cohen take a piss test.

 

[KevinB]

Although stranger things have happened, I think someone should make Cohen take a piss test.

Honestly I had expected a bunch of indictments against Kushner given the leaked information already out there.
Furthermore, those charges would have also supported the Conspiracy route that wasn't taken - so it does seem a little odd.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Never trust the jailhouse informant. They'll say whatever you want to hear if it saves their skin....

 

[KevinB]

Never trust the jailhouse informant. They'll say whatever you want to hear if it saves their skin....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1687175424772820992

I don’t personally believe it, but it would give reason as to why the conspiracy charges were not proceeded with.

Also if you have not read the indictment. Please do, it makes it clear that Donald Trump is a traitorous piece of crap.

 

[KevinB]

I’m guessing Trump needs a new lawyer (again)

Defendant Trump’s Lawyer John Lauro admits his client’s guilt on Fox News hours after the arraignment in federal court

In the category of “you’re never going to believe this,” John Lauro, supposedly the reasonable, experienced one in Defendant Trump’s legal clown car, confirmed that the scene described on page 34 of the indictment of his client happened exactly the way it is depicted.

open.substack.com

 

[brihard]

A lot hinges on "knowingly" and the notion of conspiracy to commit some kind of fraud or deprive people of rights. Any of the claims which could be fitted to any dispute or claims in the prior 5 presidential elections basically looks like it's being shaped to fit Trump. Proving Trump didn't have a reasonable apprehension of ill-doing is going to be very hard in view of what was known about the "Russian Collusion" investigations by then. Elevating novel or even crackpot legal ideas about the electoral processes to the realm of "unlawful" will also be difficult. Smith is choosing to tread novel ground himself, which is not ordinarily an indication of law-as-usual.

Whether they win or lose in court is irrelevant to me, because I don't see the case concluding before the inauguration. What has my attention is how the political battle is shaped. What I see is that Trump's popularity is holding. A conviction might change that. A non-conviction (Bragg's case, particularly), or a case unfolding weakly, I expect to push Trump's support a little higher. Trump's numbers are probably not good enough to win the general yet. If none of the cases concludes before the election, voters will basically be comparing what they know about Trump with what they know about Biden and weighing documents/insurrection against shopping US policy execution to countries not necessarily friendly to the US. The fact that one is in court and one probably will not be will not weigh much at best and weigh against Biden at worst, since it's his administration.

Sorry I was slow getting back to you, yesterday was a mess.

I think you’re falling prey to a misconception that Trump can build a defense on relitigating the 2020 election. He can’t. This isn’t a civil matter with potentially extremely broad discovery, and a broad ability to drag a lot of things in. “Chuck shit and see what sticks” is more common in civil actions.

This is going to be a defense at trial (and in prime-trial motions) against four specific criminal charges, three of which are quite conventional charges, and are based on a pretty straightforward, if highly unusual, fact set. He’ll need to get permission from the judge to admit evidence and elicit testimony that doesn’t speak particularly directly to the actual material charges. While he’ll no doubt use this later to claim his defense was muzzled or some such, he shouldn’t expect to be permitted to introduce all manner of discredited conspiracy theories to muddy the waters.

Trump and his team tried to reverse portions of the election over 60 times in court and all failed. That’s not going to be what’s at bar here. If anything, it will show that he had understanding of what lawful processes existed, that he was represented by counsel in exercising those processes, and that ruling after ruling resulted affirming the legitimacy of various aspects of the election. The indictment speaks to this.

There’s no requirement for the prosecution to prove that “Trump didn't have a reasonable apprehension of ill-doing”. That doesn’t speak to what he’s charged with. The lawfulness of his (and others’) alleged actions isn’t based on his feelings, but on how existing statutes at federal and state level define the process for choosing electors. Proving his (and others’) actions fraudulent will basically require demonstrating that he had knowledge of the broader overall effort, that he knew the hat he was pushing with fraudulent electors and delay of the count wasn’t lawful - and there are a lineup of lawyers and advisors who told him and are ready to testify. I think that’s the more dangerous branch of this prosecution for him.

The other branch of the prosecution will be proving that Trump’s actions resulted in the material obstruction of congressional process on January 6th specifically. I think that will be slightly harder because there appears to be less of a direct evidence trail, and he has a slightly more compelling defense that he didn’t anticipate what the crowd would do.

I do agree with you that this is not law-as-usual, and that Smith is treading novel legal ground. I don’t believe he can be faulted for that when such a concerted effort to usurp an election through fraud and lawfare has never been waged in the US before. Absolutely this is a new set of circumstances with some major gaps in jurisprudence.

Remember, Trump is allowed to lie til he’s blue in the face, and the prosecutors aren’t alleging otherwise. The charges are because of what he allegedly tried to accomplish based on and building on those lies.

 

[Kirkhill]

Opinion | Devon Archer’s Full Biden Story

VP Biden mixed the family business with his Ukraine diplomacy.

www.wsj.com

All of this underscores Joe Biden’s horrendous judgment in blending his son’s business with his duties as Vice President. Mr. Biden was the Obama Administration’s point man for Ukraine, which was fighting Russia’s first invasion, and he can’t claim ignorance about his son’s dealings.

Amos Hochstein, a senior energy official in the Obama Administration, warned the Vice President in 2015 that Russia-backed media were using Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board to “undermine” the U.S. anti-corruption message. The following year a top diplomat in Kyiv, George Kent, was even more blunt in a message to State.

Should this be in the Geopolitics thread or the Ukraine thread or the Russia thread or the China thread?

 

[Brad Sallows]

The p

There’s no requirement for the prosecution to prove that “Trump didn't have a reasonable apprehension of ill-doing”.

"Knowingly false" means his frame of mind is relevant to every choice he had to make about which advice and courses to follow. If he believed he was cheated and that he was pursuing legitimate avenues - no matter how facially ridiculous others might think - then proving otherwise is more difficult if the answer to every question is "because of what happened before". There's no litigating whether he had a reasonable right to feel persecuted.

 

[Kirkhill]

Further to my last

From CBS

House panel releases interview transcript of Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner, testifying on Joe Biden calls

Devon Archer testified that Hunter Biden was selling "the brand" and it was Joe Biden who "brought the most value to the brand."

www.cbsnews.com

From New York Post

Joe Biden’s deep involvement in Hunter’s biz with Chinese, Russians and Ukrainians revealed in Devon Archer’s full damning testimony

WASHINGTON — First son Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told lawmakers this week that Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings brought the political scion onto its b…

nypost.com

From Washington Examiner

Trump indictments and Biden family investigations could define rematch election

The 2024 election is set to be a relitigation of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the last contest as he and President Joe Biden appear poised for a rematch amid the former president's three indictments.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene I, Mercutio.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Should this be in the Geopolitics thread or the Ukraine thread or the Russia thread or the China thread?

Maybe. Fits here, though, because part of the "fracture" is the perception of different standards of legal treatment. They've reached the point at which Biden's defenders have skipped past blackguarding the witnesses and denying the facts and are throwing up a last line of defence based on either Joe Biden being an unwitting dupe of his son, or providing some kind of variant of a "talk to a naked (pretty) girl" service for politics junkies ("She's A Beauty").

 

[GK .Dundas]

Does anyone here honestly see Trump actually able to keep his mouth shut during the trial. I don't mean cutting loose on social media although I can see that happening as well.
I am talking about inside the courtroom during trial. I could honestly see him loosing it , berating the Prosecutor's the Judge, his own Defence team innocent bystanders...
I don't know who I feel sorrier for, Trump's Lawyers or the Judges trying the cases.

 

[brihard]

The p

"Knowingly false" means his frame of mind is relevant to every choice he had to make about which advice and courses to follow. If he believed he was cheated and that he was pursuing legitimate avenues - no matter how facially ridiculous others might think - then proving otherwise is more difficult if the answer to every question is "because of what happened before". There's no litigating whether he had a reasonable right to feel persecuted.

That’s different though. “Knowingly false” is very specific. The sheer volume of false claims that were made, the advice purportedly given to him by various counsel and advisors, and the assurances of election integrity given by responsible authorities from the states in question all add up to him having a very difficult claim to prove if he wants to defend himself on that basis. Paras 11 and 12 on the indictment give us a glimpse of the variety of such claims that prosecutors believe they can prove he knew were false. Remember that the indictment is a very partial look at what prosecutors intend to prove.
Mere unwillingness to believe or accept it on his part likely will not suffice to defend against that, particularly in the face of recordings and contemporaneous notes supplied by other Republican officials.

Does anyone here honestly see Trump actually able to keep his mouth shut during the trial. I don't mean cutting loose on social media although I can see that happening as well.
I am talking about inside the courtroom during trial. I could honestly see him loosing it , berating the Prosecutor's the Judge, his own Defence team innocent bystanders...
I don't know who I feel sorrier for, Trump's Lawyers or the Judges trying the cases.

Doesn’t sound like he had much spark to him during the arraignment. I suspect he’ll be able to keep his mouth shut in court, because he cannot control the consequences of acting out there, and is more likely to fire away on the social media site he owns. I don’t think the judge will be reticent to use contempt powers against him if he makes it necessary to.

 

[IKnowNothing]

"He asked Archer, "Is it fair to say that Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father?"

Archer replied, "Yes."

Goldman followed up, "So, when you talk about selling the brand, it's not about selling access to his father. It's about selling the illusion of access to his father. Is that fair?"

Archer replied, "Is that fair? I mean, yeah, that is — I think that's — that's almost fair."

Goldman asked, "'Almost fair.' Why, 'almost fair?'"

"Because there are touch points and contact points that I can't deny that happened, but nothing of material was discussed," Archer said."

 

[Brad Sallows]

I am talking about inside the courtroom during trial.

If he does, I hope he does it early on. Democrats want this to be a slow steady bleed, but the interests of the US and its voters would be better served by an outburst which drops his support catastrophically well before primaries officially begin. At least one of the candidates ought to be not-Trump or not-Biden. I have some feeling for people in 1914 who could see disaster approaching but were apparently unable to act to avert it. Selfish political interests are preventing either probable candidate from being taken down quickly - one must be protected; one must be destroyed, but not too quickly.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"He asked Archer, "Is it fair to say that Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father?"

Archer replied, "Yes."

Goldman followed up, "So, when you talk about selling the brand, it's not about selling access to his father. It's about selling the illusion of access to his father. Is that fair?"

Archer replied, "Is that fair? I mean, yeah, that is — I think that's — that's almost fair."

Goldman asked, "'Almost fair.' Why, 'almost fair?'"

"Because there are touch points and contact points that I can't deny that happened, but nothing of material was discussed," Archer said."

What do you think that means to people? That Joe is innocent, or that everyone on the calls understood what was implied without explicitly talking about it?

 

[IKnowNothing]

What do you think that means to people? That Joe is innocent, or that everyone on the calls understood what was implied without explicitly talking about it?

Neither? Both?
To me it means that Hunter knew who his Dad is was, and made use of that to his benefit.

In my opinion- pretty uncontested scenario

• People were being influenced by Hunter's connection to Joe
• Hunter used Joe's name and position to benefit financially
• Joe's not an idiot, had some awareness of what was happening

In no way proven, or even credibly accused

• Foreign actors gained influence to American policy for money
• Joe profited from from selling out the USA

As annoying as it is leveraging "you know who my Daddy is?" is not a crime, and neither is being Father to someone willing to play that card. Comer said it himself months ago. There's no evidence or inclination of anything criminal.

But.... even though it doesn't rise to the level of criminal, there's argument that 15 years ago that the optics of it would have lead to forcing him out of politics. That ethically it should. There's an argument that he should take the high road even today.

But... after 4 years of Trump family shenanigans non-partisans are completely desensitized, and who can blame the Biden's/ Dems for saying "piss off with your hypocritical outrage, the Trumps did this weekly."


We're a long way from Jimmy Carter putting the peanut farm in a blind trust that's for sure.