I know that you're juggling a lot of different threads here, so it's understandable - but we appear to have lost track of our particular conversation. I'll try again. Here's where we are:

what evidence would convince you that Trump did the things he is accused of? Or put differently - are you open to the possibility that Trump did the things he is accused of? — EricH

You’d have to prove he did so corruptly. Any quote or admission would suffice, given proper context. Inference by projection or conspiracy theory just doesn’t cut it. — NOS4A2

Not quite following you here. Are you saying that the only thing to convince you would be if Trump himself acknowledged it he did so corruptly? Or would you be convinced if multiple direct eye witnesses testified that what he was doing was illegal? — EricH

And here's your last response where we seem to lose the thrust of my question:

The illegality of the charges is that he intended to corruptly defraud the United States or deny people their rights. No one proved he defrauded the United States or denied people their rights, and they certainly didn’t prove he did so corruptly. On top of that it isn’t up to the government to determine what is true or false, what people should believe, and what they can say about it. — NOS4A2

It looks to me that your last response was to a different question. I'm simply asking for clarity on what evidence would convince you that Trump is guilty of the charges? Just to repeat it:

Any quote or admission would suffice, given proper context. — NOS4A2

I'm looking for clarity on your response - must that be a quote from Donald Trump or can it be a quote from eye witnesses to the events?

You’d have to prove he did so corruptly. Any quote or admission would suffice — NOS4A2

Not quite following you here. Are you saying that the only thing to convince you would be if Trump himself acknowledged it he did so corruptly? Or would you be convinced if multiple direct eye witnesses testified that what he was doing was illegal?

No. I am unable to pass off someone else’s judgement with my own, especially a Washington jury. — NOS4A2

Based on the evidence available to the public so far seems quite clear that Trump is guilty - but he is allowed his day in court - and if he can present a credible defense and the jury finds him innocent I would accept that.

So what evidence would convince you that Trump did the things he is accused of? Or put differently - are you open to the possibility that Trump did the things he is accused of?

The Hawaii situation happened due to ineptitude (or incompetence or inexperience - take your pick) on the part of the Hawaiian electoral commission - perhaps inexperience is an OK explanation since this was their first time participating in national elections.

The vote was so close that they had to do a recount - but the electoral ballots had to be cast before they were able to finish the recount. Oops. So the Democrat electors held a public session in which they cast their electoral ballots for Kennedy - and as the article makes clear they had to do this on the designated date - otherwise even if the recount had showed that Kennedy had won (which he did) their ballots could not be legally counted.

While not explicitly stated in the article there is no doubt that if Nixon had won the recount then the Democrats would not have contested the results.

So it was most definitely not an attempt to subvert the legitimate vote counts - as Trump tried to do.

Or maybe there was some context there that made sense that's absent here. — flannel jesus

That is indeed the case - as the article NOS linked made clear: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/07/1960-electoral-college-certificates-false-trump-electors-00006186

The judge there seemed to think them legitimate. Would you call that scheme criminal? An effort to overthrow/subvert an election? — NOS4A2

Good article - well written & researched. I'm not an expert in these matters but as a lay person it seems that your article is making a pretty convincing case that the "scheme" was most definitely not criminal and in no way was it an attempt to overthrow/subvert an election

Contesting an election isn’t criminal. But criminalizing political speech is. — NOS4A2

You are half right. Contesting an election isn’t criminal and while technically not a crime in of itself, criminalizing political speech is unconstitutional.

However, attempting to subvert/overthrow the results of an election is criminal. And his false claims of a "stolen election" were part of his scheme to subvert/overthrow the results of the 2020 election. That is what he's being charged with.

The best analogy I've heard so far is that these attempts to hide behind the 1st amendment are equivalent to a bank robber claiming that his instructions to have the teller hand over money are covered under the 1st amendment.

if a car comes towards you as you are driving your car, the measured velocity relative to both of you is v..., if you knew your velocity relative to the road as being .5v, then you would say that the other car is coming towards you at –.5v....the total v will not be 0... — Gampa Dee

We may be mixing up speed & velocity. Speed is a scalar but velocity is a vector.

In your example, both cars are traveling at a speed of 0.5v relative to the road (again no direction). In order to calculate the relative velocity we need to do vector calculations (which can get complicated). In the most general situation the two objects may be moving in arbitrary directions and may or may not ever collide. In your simplified one dimensional example, the velocity of one car is .5v and the velocity of the other car is -5v. But these are vectors, so to calculate the relative velocity between the two you cannot simply add the .5v & -5v and get 0. You have to factor in the direction and do vector math. The end result will be a relative speed of v - and the vector math will show a collision between the two cars at some point in time depending on the values of v and the starting distance between the two cars.

Not only that but they’ll have to prove the statements were false. — NOS4A2

That will be trivially easy. The election was legit. His own people told him that - Pence, Barr, Wray, Krebs, etc, etc. They will testify as such in court. And there are 1000s of election officials all across the country who have stated that the election was fair - I'm sure they would be willing to testify if called upon.

It's now been over 2 & 1/2 years and yet there is no evidence of any fraud that would have altered the outcome. All Trump's lawyers have is just hand waving.

But if you have any evidence of a specific person or persons who committed a specific illegal act that would have altered the outcome of the election then you should pass this information to Trump's legal team.

Trump's only hope is to delay and hope that he (or a sympathetic Republican) wins in 2024.

They knowingly made false accusations that Trump knowingly made false claims. — NOS4A2

Actually this is almost correct - at least from Trump's perspective. Of course things can and will likely change as events take place, but for the moment it looks like Trump's defense is going to be that he "unknowingly made false statements" - i.e. that he was given bad advice. In other words he will put the blame on his advisors. Hence the unindicted co-conspirators.

But you don't have to take my word for this: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pence-trump-indictment/story?id=101953368

For the benefit of everyone in this discussion, here is the actual document in question.

What I find fascinating about this document is that (for all intents and purposes) it ignores racism. The word "racism" occurs exactly 3 times in the curriculum - and 2 are duplicates and one is in a discussion of the holocaust. While the curriculum spends a lot of time on historical facts (the details of slave trade, black contributions to society, etc) the curriculum ignores that slavery & segregation in the US were based on racism and what impact that might have on the emotional well being of both whites & blacks.

The word "reparations" is also not mentioned in the black history section.

This one is pretty "clutter free" - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/07/five-ways-ai-might-destroy-the-world-everyone-on-earth-could-fall-over-dead-in-the-same-second

I wish this were so, but the Democrats have a unique ability to undermine their own chances. If there are 19 ways to win an election and 1 way to lose, the Dems will seize that one chance out of 20. They will occasionally win because they do not correctly implement that one chance and actually win through incompetence.

Trump is the only living president who isn’t a descendant of someone who enslaved Americans. — NOS4A2

Thank you so much for this piece of information. Up to now I was convinced that Trump was a horrible person and the worst president we ever had, but you have totally changed my mind. Trump's lack of slave holding ancestors demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubt that he is innocent of all the nasty terrible things that the evil communist Democrat controlled justice system has falsely accused him of doing.

I asked the same question again and got no response. He (she?) has been studiously avoiding this whole topic. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they need to think it through first before responding.

So if I'm following you correctly, Trump (if he so choose to do so) could have

1) As Commander in Chief obtained the blueprints for building an H-Bomb (or the nuclear codes or a list of all foreign secret assets or etc),
2) Declared them to be his personal property,
3) Taken them with him when he left office (since they're now his personal property)
4) And then sell them to the highest bidder (or put them on Truth Social)

And all this would be perfectly legal. Am I getting this correct?

So if I'm following you correctly, Trump (if he so choose to do so) could have

1) Rquested the blueprints for building an H-Bomb (or the nuclear codes or a list of all foreign secret assets or etc),
2) Declared them to be his personal property,
3) Taken them with him when he left office (since they're now his personal property)
4) And then sell them to the highest bidder (or put them on Truth Social)

And all this would be perfectly legal. Am I getting this correct?

Mike Pence in his recent CNN town hall makes a compelling argument against Trump's indictment. It sends a terrible message to the world. Since Pence and Biden committed the exact same crimes (according to Pence), indicting only Trump undermines the U.S.A.'s enviable reputation as a place where all rich and powerful white men stand as equals above the law. — Pierre-Normand

Either Pence is lying or he is deeply ignorant of the law. OK maybe he misspoke in the heat of the moment. But either way Pence did not break any laws. Merely possessing documents is not a crime since the documents came into Pence's possession through procedural/bureaucratic error - and Pence reported the documents as soon as he became of them and immediately turned them over to the FBI.

Whether Biden committed a crime is still under investigation. As with Pence, he immediately notified the FBI as soon as he became aware of them and turned them over.

Again - there has to be intent in order for possession to be a crime.

I like xkcd's take on this: https://xkcd.com/718/

I personally know 3 trans people. 2 were born male, one was born female. Of the two who were born male, one has done full upper & lower surgery, the other only upper. The person born female has done some upper surgery and takes hormone treatments.

For all three people, they will tell you that they always knew since early childhood that somehow they were different - and that it wasn't until they were teenagers that they became aware of the trans movement and they all realized that this was who they are.

I would also add that my wife worked for years in a pre-K center (that's ages 3-5) and they had several kids who were clearly trans even at that young age.

My point here is that this is not some sort of performance/act - this is genuine.

As a plain language person I can't get past the word "greater". To my way of thinking, "greatness" implies some mechanism to measure some observable or measurable property. But even this definition falls apart outside strictly defined parameters. Who is the greatest artist? Who is the greatest athlete of all time? Who (or what) is the greatest (fill in the blank)? Any criteria you choose to measure "greatness" in these examples is arbitrary.

Perhaps a naive question here, but does the word "greater" have some special meaning/usage in a philosophical discussion apart from the plain language meaning/usage?

Here is from a recent interview with Chomsky:

"It was observed long ago that the U.S. is basically a one-party state: the business party, with two factions, Democrats and Republicans. Now there is one faction: the Democrats. The Republicans hardly qualify as an authentic parliamentary party. That’s fairly explicit under McConnell’s rule. When Obama took office, McConnell made it clear that his primary goal was to ensure that Obama could achieve virtually nothing, so that Republicans could return to power. When Biden was elected, McConnell reiterated that position even more strongly. And he’s lived up to it. On virtually every issue, the GOP is 100 percent opposed, even when they know that the legislation is popular and would be very valuable for the population. With a handful of right-wing Democrats joining the uniform GOP opposition, Biden’s platform has been cut down very sharply. Perhaps he could have done more, but he’s being unfairly blamed, I think, for the failure of what would have been constructive programs, badly needed. That includes Biden’s climate program, inadequate but far better than anything that preceded it, and if enacted, a stepping stone for going further."

https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-maintaining-class-inequality-at-any-cost-is-gops-guiding-mission/

if you wanted to bring about your preferred solution, what would personally do to help (whom would you petition, what political or social action would you take)?

Or do you consider the electorate just as helpless pawns who can do more than watch as the powers play it all out? — Isaac

Not sure what country you're at, but here in US the Ukraine is for the most part a side show - it simply does not have any direct impact on people's lives. The possibility of a nuclear war is too abstract and remote for most folks to think about. If Putin were to make explicit direct threats to drop nukes on US, that would change the equation.

But as it stands there's no point in even attempting to bring about my "preferred solution". Even if I could somehow join with like minded people, petition my representatives, protest, etc and get some sort of mass movement to force Biden (or Trump in 2024) to say to Ukraine "Either go with this proposal or we'll cut off aid"? Would Putin ever agree to internationally supervised elections? Nyet!

As an aside, my "preferred solution" would be for Putin to tell the world that he was wrong to order the invasion and that there would be a unilateral ceasefire followed by an immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops. But that's not going to happen.

I would gladly be wrong, but it looks like this thing is going to drag on for years.

My guess is that the conflict will slowly freeze, with lines not only far worse for Ukraine than Russia's offer at the start of the war but also without any actual end to the war there will be little repatriation of Ukrainians that left and likewise little reconstruction. — boethius

We're all helpless pawns here.

A naive (and very sketchy) outline for peace plan

1) Ceasefire
2) Russian military leaves all contested territories - to be replaced by UN Supervised International force
3) UN supervised elections within some period of time - let's say 5 years - inhabitants can choose whether they want to be part of Ukraine or part of Russia (maybe offer option of being independent)

Yes, yes - a million and one details to be worked out. Who will administer the contested territories, is there any hope of reparations, etc, etc, etc.

Of course this is currently unacceptable to both sides.

Have at it.

I could be wrong, but I think this is what NOS is on about. If this link doesn't work for you, just google "Race Social Construct".

I guess I wasn't clear. When I said "out here"? That was directed at the folks engaging back and forth conversations here in the forum. There seem to be two prevailing positions I would summarize:

Putin/Russia bad --- USA/Ukraine good.
USA bad --- Ukraine a pawn --- Putin/Russia forced into doing bad things.

Yeah, yeah - this is over simplifying and there are a thousand and one details/nuances. But as I read the back & forth conversations? Both sides make some legit points - hence my comment that both sides share blame.

Am I the only person out here who feels that there is plenty of blame to spread around on both sides for causing this tragedy?

But Ann Coulter is an idiot. — frank

Yup, but she reflects what a significant number of MAGA folks think

Haley will appeal to swing voters because she seems to have a moral center. — frank

That may be so, but apart from Romney and a few isolated others the Republican Party has no moral center. I could be wrong (happens on a regular basis) but I don't see any scenario in which Haley can win in the primaries.

If future generations will, on average, become duller, than this would be worse for humanity as a whole. — Xanatos

Idiocracy

I cannot recall a government doing a clever plan against Covid.
I guess Australia was one of the effecientest when they locked down all their frontiers, for example. — javi2541997

From a distance it seems that New Zealand did a pretty decent job of handling things. Of course it's much easier to isolate if you're an island nation hundreds of miles away from anyone else.

I don't know if there was/is any perfect plan. It's a highly complex situation with many moving parts - and any action you take will have some secondary effects. You mask up and that slows down transmission - but then that potentially affects childhood development. You lock down, but then everyone is out of work. You come up with a vaccine, but there will inevitably be some negative reactions. Etc, etc.

Wait a minute - you mean to tell me that government institutions are not perfect and that individual people can exploit these institutions for their own personal gain? I'm shocked, I had no idea, Thank you for enlightening me. I will have to re-think everything I ever thought.

I could be mistaken, but my understanding is that WHO relies on the member countries for information and funding. As such they have to defer to to each country to implement their recommendations as they see fit.

As a US citizen, what irks me is the vitriol that people hurl at the CDC for simply doing the best they could to keep everyone healthy and alive in a confusing rapidly evolving situation.

Children of this age should not wear masks for a long duration or without supervision. — https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/q-a-children-and-masks-related-to-covid-19

This only applies to children under 5. If we're using WHO as a guide (which you appear to be doing) then you're fine with masks being required for children above 5. So we're only talking about children between 2 & 5 here as CDC said children under 5 did not have to wear masks..

I did not do an extensive web search so maybe I missed something, but I'm not aware of the CDC or US government mandating masks for children between 2 & 5. Recommended yes, mandated no.

But beyond that. given the numerous crises going on in the world, the issue of whether mask wearing was the best strategy for preventing COVID transmission (or minimizing the effects) is wa-a-ay low on my list of things to obsess about.

I'll give you the last word here (if you want tit)

Not sure where you got that info about WHO, here's what I'm seeing:

"Some countries and regions may have specific policies or recommendations in place. As always, follow the guidance provided by your country or local health department or ministry.
WHO and UNICEF recommend the following:

1. Children aged 5 years and under do not need to wear a mask because in this age group, they may not be able to properly wear a mask without help or supervision.

2. In areas where SARS-CoV-2 is spreading, children ages 6-11 years are recommended to wear a well-fitted mask"

etc, etc

I am not an expert in these matters, but there are other highly qualified folks out there who are pointing out significant issues with this study:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-masks-covid-dont.html

Also there are numerous studies indicating that masks are effective:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html#anchor_1634654801820

Again - I'm not saying this study is wrong, but it seems premature to draw any conclusions from it. In fact, on the Cochrane website we can see this:

Lisa Bero, Cochrane Public Health and Health Systems Senior Editor and an author on an Editorial published to accompany this review said, “The results of this review should be interpreted cautiously, and the uncertain findings should not be taken as evidence that these measures are not effective.

Leaving religion turned me into a nihilist. — Andrew4Handel

I feel sorry for you that that the act of abandoning religion left you unable to find joy/meaning in your life. But that is on you. While I cannot point to any peer reviewed studies, I feel confident saying that the overwhelming majority of atheists lead meaningful productive lives and are not nihilists. Just for example, I suggest you re-read Tom Storm's post above

Now I am agnostic I have recovered some hope. — Andrew4Handel

And here I'm still not getting your point. Why does being not sure if a God or Gods exists give you hope - while believing that no God (or Gods) exist make you a nihilist? Does the possibility of a God (or Gods) existing give you hope? If yes, then it seems like you are seeking for a religion. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Ah, so people like Mearsheimer, Chomsky, — Tzeentch

Chomsky has stated that the "the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in September 1939, to take only two salient examples. It always makes sense to seek explanations, but there is no justification, no extenuation."

I have been following the events in Ukraine and this ongoing discussion with some combination of dismay/sorrow/despair. I understand (tho don't 100% agree) your position (which more or less aligns with Chomsky's) that the war could have been avoided by appeasing Russian concerns and that US support of Ukraine is prolonging the ongoing catastrophe.

I would gladly be wrong but I don't see any end in sight for the near term. I don't see either side gaining a military victory and the Russian strategy of destroying Ukraine's infrastructure (with the side effect of killing civilians) has had the opposite effect of hardening Ukraine's resolve to win.

I don't see any resolution until the two sides get sick & tired of killing each other - and this could go on for years

It would make me very happy to be wrong.

At this point, I'm just trying to figure out what the heck Andrew is trying to say.