This topic catches REEEEs, better than fly paper catches flies.

Kerry never had a national stage career after his loss, not exactly a great comparison for the current 2024 GOP front runner who has had people flying "Trump 2024" flags since literally 2020. applying any conventional poli-sci 101 logic to Trump is spurious at best, he's enigmatic not formulaic.

as to where RICO is appropriate, we both know RICO is a very shady prosecutorial tactic at it's core. the media is glorifying it because it paints Trump as a mafia boss, but in reality it's a hail mary from the DA.

putting the two together its why i land on my position. this isn't about a conviction (RICO = low damning evidence), it's not about politics (this boosts support for Trump), it's just a song and dance to try and counter the election fraud narrative. its either that or we pretend fairly decent IQ people with billions of dollars are still under the impression that this is the time they get trump, and are completely unaware this type of thing boosts his support. OR we assume the DA is totally rogue to the political machine, but that's silly.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Aug 16 2023 06:27am

We both watched the George Floyd trial. The problem is that the threat of dancing on a knife's edge like this is very real. Get enough political motivation and you can convict anyone of anything, evidence and law be damned. Democrats don't need to counter the election fraud narrative, it appeals to nobody but a diehard base of wackos. What they do need is to try to tarnish Trump enough that centrists abandon him, and while they might think they can do that by dragging him through trials enough even if they can't get a conviction- they can get a conviction. And that's where the arsonist wing of the party takes over. We've been watching for 7 years straight as the democrats continue to escalate, escalate, escalate. Starting with uncivil political gambits and dirty tricks, the kavanaugh hearings, spying on trump, muellergate, etc- but escalating to all-out pushes on impeachment and trying to lock him up. The kind of reciprocal response to incrementalism like McConnell did to Reid on the nuclear option doesn't apply if one party escalates to the breaking point before any threat of being countered in turn.

At each turn these maneuvers can be justified by cynical strategists trying to win at all costs. If Biden is polling so negatively and Trump only lost the last election by a hair thanks to what was basically divine intervention, Democrats can feel desperate enough to push the riskiest escalations in hopes they can scrape an election victory and then not have to worry about consequences or retaliation. The danger is of breaking our democracy entirely and then it doesn't matter who scores points.

the fact that you've been convinced that pushing a baseless, evidence-less, self serving narrative that the presidential election was fraudulent, in many states, over a hundred or so filed court cases, is NOT in any way at all a criminal violation at all is pretty funny. calling this "just a lie" is pretty telling your mind is made up before the facts are laid bare. there's a very real chance that there's criminal guilt here when we take into account the number of election officials who were pressured, and the number of court cases that were filed.

and a court case that seeks to lay out the facts of the election fraud claims "breaks our democracy", but filing 100 court cases with zero evidence is "just lying". lol, ok.

You know what guarantees Americans the right to make baseless, evidence-less, self-serving narratives in all states? The first amendment. The very concept that it should be a 'criminal violation' to be wrong is utterly anathema to the concept of a free democracy that enshrines civil liberties. We already have the best safety valve against lies: the truth. People speaking baseless narratives are countered by people speaking truthful narratives. Judges striking down failed legal arguments is what enshrines the rule of law, not ordering people locked up for exercising their legal options. The moment you start assigning arbiters of what political speech is criminal and which politicians must be locked up for their viewpoints, is the moment democracy ends.

ahhh yeah, the first amendment, which covers everything from "i heard jenny let her boyfriend go all the way" to "i'm going to file 100+ lawsuits in a dozen states asserting claims i know i have no evidence for because i dont want to admit i lost the presidency of the united states".

this is like saying 2a should cover owning a stealth bomber.

but to be crystal clear, i do not support nor think Trump and co. will be heading to jail, unless the facts prove more damning than what WAPO has been reporting for months. what i do support is the use of the courts in extreme cases such as this to settle concerns with the electoral process itself.

lies shouldnt bring you to court, but LIES should in some cases.

leave it to goom to project the latest talking points of the right

bro he isnt being charged on anything for his free speech or first ammendment rights, that isnt even what the case is about.

The Case is about trying to overthrow a fair and free election

fucking hello?



This post was edited by Crunkt on Aug 16 2023 10:05am

It is legal to legally challenge the result of an election. In the event that your legal challenge is successful, you need a provisional slate of electors. What's going on in Georgia is a massive overreach that will fail either at the state or SC level. We're Trump to lose the 2024 election after a GA conviction subsequently overturned by the SC we'd find ourselves in a situation where at least ~45% of the country and a majority of states would view the election as fundamentally illegitimate. In order to stop this, I suggest the DOJ pursue the DA on trumped up conspiracy charges to set an example for all DAs moving forward.

I'm trying to think of something more directly covered by the first amendment in both intent and effect than political arguments being made by politicians, let alone political legal arguments in court- those petitions for redress of grievances. Even the free press wasn't as problematic for the founding fathers when they could disseminate their treatises right under the nose of colonial authorities.

To the eyes of a civil libertarian its not just repugnant but also a bit unfathomable why anyone would actually believe the answer to someone saying something they don't agree with, is to lock them up. If Trump wants to say the election was rigged, you go right out and say it wasn't. His speech, your speech. Oh, but his speech is 'dangerous'? Well maybe we should have the bureau of government censorship add The Art Of The Deal to the list of proscribed works by forbidden authors.

seriously how much of the current democratic talking points are rooted in the argument that Trump expressing his views is inherently dangerous and must be stopped

This post was edited by Goomshill on Aug 16 2023 11:03am