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So it looks like there are plans to reprise the MAGA protests on inaugaration day, and to protest at all the state capitols too.
15,000 National Guard are planned to be mobilized, with possibly other law enforcement officers as well.
Over/under on how many yallqaeda corpses there will be in D.C. by the dawn's early light on Jan. 21st?
Also, which states' capitals do you expect the most shit to go down at? My money's on GA since they have a videotape and everything.
Also, for any FBI/MI5/Interpol agents who happen to be monitoring banana's online activity, I personally do not endorse any form of violent protest at all.
I wouldn't go withing 500 miles of one of those things. Unfortunately my state is only 90 miles wide, so I'm going to have to dig deep under ground to get far enough away.
Do you want to set the over/under on the longest prison sentence resulting from those demonstrations?
If it were me, I'd set the post at 32.5 years.
Solid meme.
I look forward to the coming geological discoveries resulting from your ~500 mile deep hole.
(Note: the Kola borehole is ~7.6 miles deep. At that depth, the heat and pressure makes the rock behave more like cork than a brittle solid.)
The guy who killed the cop is getting sentenced to death, or life imprisonment. Or the guy who gets framed for it, if they can't figure out who did it.
Let's see how "mostly peaceful" this event is. I'll make sure I'm stocked up with weed and biscuits.
I think a 500 mile deep hole would be too hot. The pressure at the bottom would be ridiculously intense.
they don't need to figure out who did it. Just charge everyoneQuote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
https://wtop.com/dc/2021/01/prosecut...fficers-death/
Imagine if they applied this to the cop the BLM looter shot. You were protesting in the same vicinity? Murder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Banana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzleBqMKdQ
I can't decide my favorite moment. Was it when she called everyone a cracker? how about Chuck saying "Can we remove her? No, ok".
threatening Pelosi's vineyards.....that's diabolical!
The difference, as noted in the article, is that protesting is not a criminal offense. Similarly, entering the capitol is not a criminal offense. However, entering the capitol with the intent to commit a crime, or to abet in others committing crimes is a criminal offense.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Translation....we can make it a crime if we want to depending on who you vote for.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Though, if the video of that cop getting wedged in the door is the same situation and cop that caused the death (I'm not 100% clear on the link, there), then I don't think even felony murder is appropriate, in my very naive understanding of the law.
It didn't look like that crowd was trying to kill anyone. They were surging their bodies forward against the police line. They wanted "through" the line, not to cause bodily harm to anyone. I don't recall seeing thrown bottles, or fireworks like I saw over and over in the BLM protests. Not necessarily indicating that was intended to harm someone in riot gear, but even that level of "attacking" the police was absent from the video I saw - again, if that's the video of this instance.
Seems to me like manslaughter is a more appropriate charge. Meaning that what you did was recklessly negligent and was not unlikely to cause serious injury to another person, and you *should* have known better, but alas, you were just being stupid and not murderous, so the penalty is not the same.
Like drunk driving is often prosecuted as involuntary manslaughter if there's a vehicular accident and anyone is injured.
Again... I am just guessing, here... connecting some dots on my own, and not at all well acquainted with the specific laws in DC.
fypQuote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Banana
No... more like... you need to prove motive in a lot of cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Banana
The example in the article is the common one about a robbery and the getaway driver being charged with felony murder even though they did not have a gun and weren't in the store at the time. They are complicit accomplices in that it was reasonably likely to assume that engaging in such an activity as armed robbery would result in the loss of life. Ergo claiming that you were not complicit in that act is not holding up in court.
In the BLM protests and in the capitol protest, you have to prove that the people who committed the actions that resulted in the loss of life had a reasonable expectation to assume that their actions, or the actions of their accomplices (not a clear line in this case) would result in loss of life.
It's the same rule in both cases, and my point was that it was probably correctly applied more often than not during the BLM protests, and I expect a similar outcome from this protest. The notion that anyone in the video I saw was trying to kill the cop is dubious at best. The person who was manhandling that cop's gas mask and yanking the cop's head around is maybe one we could mark as committing actions that any reasonable person could expect to cause harm to that cop. You can't go yanking someone head back and forth and not expect some injury, potentially severe injury... but that's still not a murder charge, IMO.
How the lawyers interpret that act, and how "complicit" that makes the people near that act were, and for how wide a radius that complicitness extends is all speculation right now.
Entering the Capitol might be a criminal offence, idk if criminal trespass is a thing in USA but it wouldn't surprise me. But it's got to be a minor offence at worst, akin to trespass on a railway in the UK. Worthy of a fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I mean, anyone who is seen encouraging someone to attack a cop, I can't sympathise with them if they get charged with abetting, but just being nearby is a whole different thing.
I don't think the cop in the doorway is the one who died - at least they don't look the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Also, the guy who cranked the cop in the head* with a fire extinguisher certainly could get 2D murder. That's not exactly a whoopsie.
* I'm assuming it was a blow to the head that killed him, as it's hard to imagine another lethal place to hit someone with a heavy object.
"Adolf Hitler was a socialist."Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Banana
National Guard sleeping in the Capitol. Six more days to find out whose side they're on!
https://i.imgur.com/15oiRtG.jpeg
Happy new year y'all. I hope I did not miss too much.
Happy New Year Jack!
The MAGA-lution is gathering steam...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPjC91VgJag
Oh wait, they might not need it after all.
https://twitter.com/ChrisCardsFan/st...055044/photo/1
A 22 year old kid, basically a baby by today's standards, is an enthusiastic gun owner. He's been known to carry his holstered gun openly everywhere he goes. He's permitted and legal in his local jurisdiction.
But today he wandered a little too close to DC and got nabbed a checkpoint. Apparently you need different licenses and permits to carry a gun in DC. He didn't know because he's a kid and he's dumb. It wasn't concealed, the gun could easily be seen on his hip. He wasn't trying to hide it. He's just a dumb kid who made a boo boo.
Headline: "Avowed Trump Supporter, armed, arrested at security checkpoint ahead of inauguration"
Used to be you could divide whatever the media said by 5, and that's about how much truth was in it.
Now you need to divide everything you see and read by 30.
Looks like there might be a reboot on the whole MAGA-lution thing, with Trump announcing his impending arrest and all.
https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/sta...26904874000384
Oskar must have the biggest hardon of his life...
He wishes he'd get arrested. Might actually be good for him. Would give credence to the witch-hunt narrative.
Former presidents clearly do enjoy legal immunity up to a point. Which is good in a way because then you don't get some nonsense like in Brazil. If they didn't get Jared Kushner for doing pay for play for billions of dollars with Saudi Arabia, they're not going to jail Trump for a campaign finance violation.
Yeah, I'd like to think if there's anyone they'd make an exception for, it'd be him. But, since yallqaeda would absolutely lose their shit they may decide it's just not worth it.Quote:
Originally Posted by oskar
I suppose another thing is it would be pretty embarrassing for the entire country to have an ex-POTUS photo'd in handcuffs...
IDK. Isn't it more embarrassing to have an obviously criminally corrupt politician just keep getting away with crime after crime?
Especially when they're the head of a political party that is openly pro Police and "hard on crime?"
Seems that's the more embarrassing of the 2 options.
IDK if Trump would be in handcuffs. I don't think there's any requirement to handcuff someone when you arrest them. I've certainly been arrested and not cuffed before. When you're cooperative and respectful and it's a non-violent crime (probably doesn't hurt to be white in the US), the police can be nice.
It'd be bad optics to put Trump in cuffs, IMO. Not necessary, either.
The bigger issue is that the case Trump is saying he will be indicted for is ... Trumped up charges (badum tiss).
The laws in question to charge this particular thing have never been cobbled together into a single infraction, and without cobbling together multiple laws in a new way, there's no crime there with the whole paying a sex worker to not talk about how bad you are at sex or whatev he paid $130k for.
So with all the obvious crimes, charging him with a huge "maybe this is illegal, no one's tested it before," crime seems politically motivated... and not necessarily by his political opponents.
Depends on who you ask. If a good chunk of the population think he's innocent because he's the Orange God, then they'd probably feel differently about it. But yeah, I get your point too.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I mean the Stormy Horseface or whatever he calls her thing is a bit nebulous. Seems like something wrong was done there, but whether it was illegal or not is another question.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
But what about the phone call of him talking to the GA election dude asking for another 8,000 votes or whatever the number was. Seems like that must be illegal.
Then there's the whole inciting a maga-lution thing, which he seems ready to do at the drop of a hat, and actually did after the last election. So yeah, in the balance, if they can get him on anything they probably should. Even if they have to Al Capone him and get him for something less egregious than treason, the guy is a menace and should be kept away from the public.
I think I agree. Which is why I think it's wrong for the first major trial against him to be something wishy-washy and untested. There are egregious and flagrant examples of him behaving in treasonous ways. He tried to bully Zelenskyy into fabricating dirt on Hunter Biden, too.
And dozens of crimes. His 4 year presidency was scandal after scandal. He put his own family in top positions of power and didn't dissociate his personal finances from the business of being POTUS.
His own lawyers are serving time for stuff they did at his direction.
If some weak sauce case is thrown at him first and he manages to slither his way out of it, that only adds fuel to the fire of his supporters belief that he's a saint who is being mercilessly attacked and lied about to bully his constituents into "wokism." Whatever that means. IDK. It's their boogeyman of the week and their concerns are all stupid jump scares that turn out to be shit they made up to be a jump scare.
Anyway. This is why I'm skeptical that the current case about paying off a sex worker is actually intended to hurt him.
At worst, the scandal here is that he cheated on his wife. He had his lawyer pay off the porn star, and he then reimbursed the lawyer. The money he used was not directly from a campaign fund, not directly earmarked for any specific use. The fact that he can then later "reimburse" himself from campaign money isn't even part of the question. It's just the muddy waters of finance at that point.
So unless I actually misunderstand the case against him on this... there is no there, there.
I don't think him nailing a porn star is going to cost him a great deal of support. Does anyone really care about that? Consenting adults can do as they please. It's between him and his wife whether it's a problem or not. And I'm guessing that at least 50% of men who judge him for that would also jump into bed with a porn star if they thought the wife wouldn't find out.
I don't doubt the guy was corrupt though, and that is a problem for the public. They'll be careful about throwing the book at him though because it sets a dangerous precedent that would apply to future presidents. Trump is certainly not the only corrupt president in American history. If Biden isn't corrupt he's very probably in the minority.
They'll also be worried about what he can prove about other politicians. You throw him in jail and he's going to come out fighting. I'd imagine there's a fair few people who will be worried about the shitstorm that will follow if Trump is jailed.
The shadiness around this situation is extreme, and the immorality of every step of the way is pretty high.
But immoral and illegal are different things.
Was it wrong to "cheat" on his wife?
IDK. Has anyone asked his wife if she cares? Was it even cheating?
Trump wanted to hide that information from the voters, but was it also to hide it from his wife?
IDK.
Was it wrong to pay someone to not talk about something that would maybe discredit him in the eyes of the public less than a month before said public voted him into office?
Absolutely. Hiding pertinent information from the voters is problematic.
Is it criminal, though?
Can't be. Politicians lie and hide their history all the time.
Was it wrong to have his lawyer do it instead of him so he could further hide this from voters?
IDK. I guess? Seems like the kind of thing that is the norm among people with that kind of money, though.
Was it wrong to lie about the money he paid said lawyer to reimburse him for this hush money payment and call it a "retainer?"
IDK. Sounds like fraud, but the kind of fraud that every politician is up to and not really fair to punish only one politician for doing what amounts to the status quo.
It's like all the details around this case sound fishy.
Politics in America is fishy in general. The difference with Trump is that his immorality is somewhat more public. Trump doesn't benefit from favourable media coverage. I know he has his supporters in media, but the overall balance is heavily weighted towards those who despise him. So it's a lot easier to find what normal people call trustworthy sources that detail Trump's corruption.
His nepotism was on a scale not seen in USA before (to my knowledge). We've had the Kennedy's and the Bush's provide us with multiple high ranking politicians, but they were probably a great deal more qualified and competent than Trump's family. Even Bush Jnr.
I'd say with 99% certainty that Trump is guilty of a serious criminal act such as fraud, but I don't think they actually put him in prison because they're nearly all corrupt and it sets a very dangerous precedent for all politicians. So expect this to be swept under the carpet by Trump's "skilled" lawyers negotiating a settlement with legal crooks.
All Trump's political enemies want is to make him, and anyone who overtly supports him, unelectable. Putting him in prison is too dangerous.
It would be funny if he won the election while in prison though.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Looks like he might get the chance...Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...stormy-daniels
"I want only the best cellmates. Get me Rudy."
Imagine if he negotiates his surrender on the condition he serves his time in his own jail. The Pablo Escobar of America. Imagine what that would do for his ego.
:popcorn:
This gon' be good.
It's being alleged that the hush payment was done to assist the campaign and it went unreported. That makes it a campaign finance violation.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Maybe it's not the cleanest way to punish it, but he didn't just pull one over on voters, he allegedly committed multiple felonies to pull one over on voters.
Further, his m.o. is to perpetually straddle the line, which means there will be not infrequent steps over it. Maybe those steps generally are just barely over it, but when you extrapolate that to a lifetime of abuses and transgressions that individually are hard to justify punishing, it all adds up to an odious record and trail of gain through other's loss that just begs to be punished. Sometimes you get Capone on tax evasion.
True. But he's committed some pretty obvious high level crimes. This one seems like small potatoes.
Also, the charges against Trump in this particular case have never been combined into a single case like this before. So there's no legal precedent for this, unlike tax evasion.
My partner speculated that there are a lot of other criminal investigations around Trump that are still ongoing, but it's not necessarily the case that Trump's lawyer confessed to the alleged crime on a public "news" show. So the depth of research required to build this case is probably much less than most other cases against him.
In this case, we have Rudy explaining the exact series of events on live TV, and Trump's personal signature on the hush payment check. That's gotta make it a bit easier on the prosecution.
I hear they're not going to cuff Trump when he's arrested. Guess they couldn't find any cuffs that would fit his tiny hands.
Also, he's started a gofundme or whatever for his legal defense. There really is one born every minute.