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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#325326: Aug 28th 2020 at 5:52:05 PM

I think odds are good that Trump might die before ever spending a single day in jail.

If the list of crimes against him is even half as long as we all suspect it is, then it might take years before the whole process is sorted out.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#325327: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:10:26 PM

Couldn't Biden have federal charges pressed?

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#325328: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:14:51 PM

Has there been any polling on how popular the idea of charging Trump for things after he's out of office is?

I imagine the common wisdom would be that it would be terrible optics for Biden to do so (assuming he could) regardless of the actual merit of any charges.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#325329: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:17:42 PM

There's at least one, I haven't bothered to check its methodology so I have no idea if it's reliable or not but the results are interesting.

According to the poll around half of voters think he committed a crime.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 28th 2020 at 6:20:31 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#325330: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:20:28 PM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2020/08/28/day-1317/

Day 1317: "Profoundly."

    🗳 How To Vote In The 2020 Election In Every State. 
Everything you need to know about mail-in and early in-person voting in every state in the age of COVID-19, including the first day you can cast your ballot in the 2020 election. (FiveThirtyEight / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

    😷 Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.” 
Global: Total confirmed cases: ~24,566,000; deaths: ~834,000

U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~5,903,000; deaths: ~182,000

Source: Johns Hopkins University

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

At least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March – about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html

💻 COVID-19 Live Blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / USA Today / CNN / CNBC

    Main Stories 
1/ Trump’s effort to block a subpoena for his financial records would “significantly impair” an ongoing investigation into potential financial crimes, according to the Manhattan district attorney. Cyrus Vance urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject Trump’s emergency bid to block the subpoena for eight years of his tax returns, saying the “continued delay of the grand jury’s investigation is unwarranted” because Trump has “no chance of success.” Trump has until Monday to respond in writing. Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 1. (Reuters / Politico)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-subpoena/trump-must-turn-over-tax-returns-does-not-deserve-immunity-manhattans-top-prosecutor-says-idUSKBN25N2YZ

2/ A federal judge ordered the Trump administration and the U.S. Postal Service to turn over documents and information about USPS service changes that could undermine mail-in voting. U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian gave the administration 10 days to comply with the order, which is tied to a lawsuit brought by 20 states over the changes made by Postmaster General Louis Dejoy. The Justice Department opposed the request, arguing that responding to the requests would be burdensome and that much of the information is already part of the public record. Among the information sought by the states is a list of all mail sorting machines identified for decommissioning, including their locations, and whether they will be reinstalled if they have already been decommissioned. (Associated Press / CNN)

https://apnews.com/8048565099b3c3394ef3448f22f53e8a

A judge ordered an Iowa county to invalidate 50,000 requests for absentee ballots, agreeing with Trump’s campaign that its elections commissioner overstepped his authority by pre-filling them with voters’ personal information. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/judge-voids-50-000-absentee-ballot-requests-iowa-county-n1238665

3/ Trump “profoundly” accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for a second term, botching the word “proudly” in his prepared text, during a 70-minute speech on the South Lawn of the White House. Trump repeatedly misrepresented his own record and leveled numerous false or misleading attacks on Democrats, asserting that he is responsible for everything good that has happened since taking office and that everyone else is to blame for the country’s problems. Trump, meanwhile, has presided over the deaths of 180,000 Americans with nearly 30 million people out of work from the coronavirus, and civil unrest over racial injustice that he has repeatedly and consistently stoked. And, nearly every claim Trump made about Biden’s positions was false. Trump, nevertheless, claimed the nation is on the cusp of a takeover by “violent anarchists” who would exploit a “weak” Joe Biden to destroy America, adding: “No one will be safe in Biden’s America.” Nearly 2,000 guests on the lawn were packed into rows of chairs with few wearing masks despite the pandemic and social distancing guideline. (NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/republican-convention-analysis/index.html

👑 Portrait of a president: Instead of Evolving as President, Trump Has Bent the Job to His Will. When asked to define what his second-term agenda would be, Trump replied: “But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.” (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/politics/donald-trump.html

🌀 Dept. of Political Infomercials.

🐘 Fact-Checking Night 4 of the RNC: CNN / Washington Post

🐘 RNC Night 4 Recaps: New York Times / The Atlantic / Washington Post / CNN / Politico / Wall Street Journal / USA Today / NPR

[Read] Trump’s acceptance speech at the RNC.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/read-full-text-president-donald-trump-s-acceptance-speech-rnc-n1238636

The Biden campaign bought the domain name KeepAmericaGreat.com and turned it into a list of Trump’s broken promises. “Trump isn’t looking for a second term,” the page reads. “He’s looking for a do-over.” The page also lists a number of promises Trump had made that the Biden campaign says he hasn’t delivered on. Trump announced that Keep America Great would be his re-election slogan before the formal launch of his campaign last year. (Politico / NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trolling-trump-biden-campaign-claims-keep-america-great-domain-n1238653

4/ A senior White House official dismissed concerns about the lack of social distancing at Trump’s GOP acceptance speech, saying “everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.” An estimated 1,500 people, mostly maskless, attended the speech. Most guests were not administered rapid coronavirus tests upon entry. (Talking Points Memo)

Four people involved with the Republican National Convention meeting in Charlotte tested positive for COVID-19. A spokesman for the party said two attendees and two individuals “supporting the event” tested positive upon arriving at the convention and were immediately sent home. In all, 792 tests were given to people who attended or provided support to the convention in Charlotte. (Charlotte Observer / CNN)

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article245322115.html

A member of Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s team tested positive for COVID-19. A defense official said the staffer was part of the advance team for Esper’s trip in the Indo-Pacific region and did not come into contact with Esper or Pentagon staff. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/mark-esper-aide-tested-positve-coronavirus/index.html

5/ Thousands of demonstrators marched on Washington demanding an end to systemic racism while honoring the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address. Speakers called for the Senate to take up the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would make it easier to prosecute police officers for misconduct, and enact a new version of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” Commitment March convened hours after Trump’s acceptance speech on the South Lawn of the White House where he railed against what he called agitators bent on destroying “the American way of life.” (New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / USA Today)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/28/march-washington-2020-thousands-gather-sharpton-nan-rally/3442726001/

Jacob Blake, who is now paralyzed from the waist down after a Kenosha police officer shot him seven times in the back, is handcuffed to his hospital bed. Blake was shackled to his bed because of a warrant related to a July charge of third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct. (CNN / New York Times)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/us/jacob-blake-wisconsin-thursday/index.html

6/ FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn removed the agency’s chief spokeswoman, who was installed by the White House 11 days ago. Emily Miller previously worked in communications for the re-election campaign of Ted Cruz and was a journalist for One America News, the conservative cable network. Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services terminated the contract of a public relations consultant who had advised Hahn to correct misleading comments about the benefits of blood plasma for COVID-19. HHS, however, denied that Wayne Pines’s contract was terminated because of his involvement in the plasma messaging. (New York Times / Politico / CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/emily-miller-food-and-drug-administration/index.html

    ✏️ Notables. 
The House Foreign Affairs Committee announced contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over his “ongoing refusal to comply” with a subpoena for records related to the State Department’s involvement in attempts to link Joe Biden to corruption in Ukraine. In a statement, Chairman Eliot Engel cited Pompeo’s “unprecedented record of obstruction and defiance of the House’s constitutional oversight authority.” (CNBC / Axios / New York Times)

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/28/house-democrats-announce-contempt-proceedings-against-mike-pompeo.html

Twitter removed two fake, pro-Trump accounts that had co-opted the identities of African Americans. The fake accounts used the images of Black men for their profile pictures and had five separate tweets with at least 10,000 retweets related to abandoning the Democratic Party. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/viral-pro-trump-tweets-came-fake-african-american-spam-accounts-n1238553

The Pentagon will reduce the U.S. force in Iraq to about 3,500 troops from about 5,200. “The U.S. and Iraq refrained from publicly setting a schedule for reducing the approximately 5,200 American troops now in the country when Iraq’s prime minister visited Washington last week.” (Wall Street Journal / ABC News)

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-reduce-troop-level-iraq-3500-5200/story?id=72681778

University of Pennsylvania faculty asked the provost to investigate how Trump was admitted to the school in 1966. Eric Orts and five other faculty cited “new evidence” on secretly recorded tapes between Mary Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry, in which Trump’s sister says a friend took his entrance exam. Mary Trump’s new book also alleges that Trump paid someone to take his SATs. In July, the six professors wrote that “failing to investigate an allegation of fraud at such a level broadcasts to prospective students and the world at large that the playing field is not equal, that our degrees can be bought, and that subsequent fame, wealth, and political status will excuse past misconduct.” (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-secret-recordings-sat-penn/2020/08/27/ea7a6640-e892-11ea-a414-8422fa3e4116_story.html

Edited by sgamer82 on Aug 28th 2020 at 6:27:31 AM

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#325331: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:21:07 PM

Honestly, it should not matter what the general population thinks, a crime is a crime.

Justice is not a democracy.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#325332: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:23:24 PM

That's easy enough to say, but politics will be a factor in charging a previous President with major crimes. It's naive to think otherwise.

Edited by sgamer82 on Aug 28th 2020 at 6:23:34 AM

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#325333: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:33:33 PM

Biden did claim he will not pardon Trump, though. Although I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#325334: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:44:18 PM

He's also said that he won't stand in the way of his justice department judging Trump, so I'd say it's definitely on the cards.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#325335: Aug 28th 2020 at 6:46:15 PM

Biden does not have the authority to initiate a prosecution. He cannot instruct the Justice Department to arrest someone, indict someone, or investigate someone. We've forgotten that in the era of Trump.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#325336: Aug 28th 2020 at 7:22:18 PM

Meckleburg County, North Carolina health authorities announced that 2 people who attended and 2 who helped at the Republican National Convention in Raleigh tested positive for COVID-19.

Edited by tclittle on Aug 28th 2020 at 9:22:32 AM

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
ScubaWolf from South Carolina Since: Feb, 2020
#325337: Aug 28th 2020 at 8:01:55 PM

[up] And so the roulette continues. Who will have it next?

Edited by ScubaWolf on Aug 28th 2020 at 11:02:04 AM

"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#325338: Aug 28th 2020 at 8:03:16 PM

But he can request an investigation, I think?

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#325339: Aug 28th 2020 at 8:17:06 PM

I think it's better if Biden stays as hands-off any investigation of Trump as possible. he made his promise not to interfere with it, if the DOJ does so, so let him also not try to prompt it, either.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#325340: Aug 28th 2020 at 8:20:27 PM

I wonder how much of the Republican Party is infected at this point.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Codafett Knows-Many-Things Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Waiting for you *wink*
Knows-Many-Things
#325341: Aug 28th 2020 at 11:15:56 PM

At this point I really don't think it matters. 8 months of a virus that can spread undetected through asymptomatic hosts just going around? More people have had it than any of us are comfortable admitting.

Just Having Fun
NickTheSwing Since: Aug, 2009
#325342: Aug 28th 2020 at 11:16:35 PM

Considering their very close ties to the President, I think it's prudent to bring up the sordid (and very NSFW) saga of Jerry Falwell Jr. and his lovely wife Becki. It more or less resembles a very lewd episode of South Park.

So first there was one pool boy who came forward saying Becki had an intimate relationship with him, while her husband watched. This pool boy went into business with the Falwells' assistance and was photographed with Trump.

Then another pool boy came forward with similar allegations. Saying that Giancarlo did not "share all the details."

And now, a former member of the Marching Band is alleging he was picked up by Becki, seduced by her, and then she badgered him over Facebook and texts to keep on doing it with her.

Keep in mind, Liberty University has a policy of "the only legitimate relationship is man and wife", and bans LGBT students. They've also banned liberal Christian speakers from the University and even threatened one of them with a lawsuit if he "dared show his face and corrupt my students".

Edited by NickTheSwing on Aug 28th 2020 at 11:17:12 AM

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#325343: Aug 29th 2020 at 3:56:45 AM

I mean, their private sexual affairs are their own, as long as everyone is consenting to it. There's nothing scandalous about what they are doing in the bedroom, and we shouldn't kink shame them for it.

The real issue here is the hypocrisy of being a religious leader oppressing other people for the exact same behaviour.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#325344: Aug 29th 2020 at 4:14:00 AM

One thing I appreciate is the fact that Trump, Falwell, and others are causing a serious rift in the white evangelical community. As much as Trump has their support, the younger ones are largely disgusted by their behavior and are not getting any answer that satisfies from their leadership.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Imca (Veteran)
#325345: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:07:30 AM

Because there isn't an answer, they aren't suporting them because of there beliefs, there twisting there beliefs because they suport them.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#325346: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:47:18 AM

Yeah, it's a form of identity politics. Political identity that is.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#325348: Aug 29th 2020 at 7:15:26 AM

Because there isn't an answer, they aren't suporting them because of there beliefs, there twisting there beliefs because they suport them.

I have to disagree, it's certainly contradictory to their stated beliefs but it's perfectly compatible with their true beliefs: Reactionary bigotry.

If we replace "family values" with "supremacy of the patriarch" and "heteronormativity" then their support of a crass sexual predator makes perfect sense.

And if we replace "defend our border" with "maintain white racial dominion" then rallying behind naked and ugly nativism makes perfect sense.

Ultimately the Religious Right are white supremacist reactionaries who pretended otherwise, Trump is just the mask fully coming off.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#325349: Aug 29th 2020 at 7:36:30 AM

[up][up]

Not to mention that she legitimately didn't see any issue with using the FDA's official twitter feed to promote Trump. The Hatch Act really ought to be just done away with if it's not actually going to get enforced (see: this, Kellyanne Conway), as she's not being fired, just reassigned within the FDA.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
ScubaWolf from South Carolina Since: Feb, 2020
#325350: Aug 29th 2020 at 8:26:46 AM

[up]No, we don't need a can of worms opened just because nobody's enforcing it. By that same mindset you have, wouldn't that mean that we may as well not hold any authority figures accountable for anything?

Edited by ScubaWolf on Aug 29th 2020 at 11:27:51 AM

"In a move surprising absolutely no one"

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