It's in her court filing. If she lied on it, her law license is in jeopardy.

every potential juror is going to know she was fucking him when she gave him the job. — RogueAI

According to Willis, she was not romantically involved with Wade when she hired him.

Where in my post did I say that Trump controlled the economy that was doing well. I stated a platitude -- the economy was doing well. A great economy helps any sitting president. — L'éléphant

I was responding to that platitude, not making an accusation.

I think from what I'm reading in this thread, there's a lot of psychological fear of the idea that Trump might be president again. — L'éléphant

Yes, there is. It seems irrational

You mean the 2017 tax cuts and job acts. What were the votes? Did both parties vote for it? — L'éléphant

No. It received no votes from Democrats.

Even Jonathan Turley has said impeachment is unwarranted.

Things can be existent, not existent or half existent too. — Corvus

To be a thing is to exist. If you don't understand that, then there's no point discussing further.

Nothingness is a concept, but it is also ontic. — Corvus

Ontic= existing. Nothingness is an absence of existence. Nothingness existing is self-contradictory, like married bachelor.

The total vacuum state of the space can be called Absolute Nothingness. — Corvus

No, it can't. Quantum fields exist at every point in space.

Yes, that is where nothingness comes from. Therefore the origin of nothingness is external to human mind, not internal to human mind. — Corvus

You're blurring the distinction between the objects of the world (the ontic) and concepts we formulate in our minds. Nothingness is a concept (not ontic). We formulate it based on other concepts (eg the concept of an empty biscuit tin). Biscuit tins are ontic, but there are no biscuit tins that are truly devoid of contents. That's pure conceptualization without any real world referrent: nothingness is not ontic.

But married and unmarried is not existence. — Corvus

My point was that a phrase that entails a contradiction cannot have an ontic referrent (i.e. there can exist no object that is described by a contradiction; it is logically impossible). You had said, "And for something X to be impossible, it must first exist". It makes no sense to claim an impossibility has to exist. I think this may get back to your blurring of the conceptual with the ontic.

Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has an interesting article about this:

Is Infinity Real?

You can make up an empty set from a biscuit tin, which contain no biscuits. Empty set can be made up from empirical world objects. — Corvus

You haven't made an empty set, you have conceptualized one. Sure, you can conceptualize nothingness by starting with an empty biscuit tin, then conceptually disregard the air it contains, the quantum fields that exist everywhere, and then ignore the biscuit tin itself. What's left: nothing is left.

How could something be impossible in the actual world, if it didn't exist? — Corvus

If something is impossible, it cannot exist. It is impossible to be simultaneously married and unmarried, so it is impossible for someone to be a married bachelor.

:up:

Indeed. it's impossible to categorically attribute policy to results. But economists study these things, and this can give us a basis to judge the policy. It's far from perfect, but it's a superior basis to merely blaming or crediting a President for the price of gas or bread.

"Absolute Nothingness" itself must be from external to you, because without the object called "abstract nothingness", how could you have formed the concept inside your mind? Where did it come from? What gave a birth to the concept "Absolute Nothingness"? — Corvus

Nothingness is an abstraction mentally constructed from other abstractions: in particular, set theory. It is similar to the concept of an empty set. Empty sets don't exist in the real world: they are defined as sets with no members, while sets are purely conceptual groupings.

And for something X to be impossible, it must first exist. I — Corvus

That's self-contradictory.

But isn't the subtraction external to your mind? — Corvus

No. Concepts are mental "objects", and the subtraction process is entirely a mental activity.

What are the connections / relations between something and absolute nothingness? — Corvus

I don't see how there could be any. Nothingness is a concept that is mentally constructed by subtraction, but it has no real-world analogue.

Agreed- but the appeals will take a while, and (if elected) SCOTUS will find some excuse (possibly a good one) to keep him out of prison while in office. It would, however, be the strongest possible case for an impeachment+removal (a truly "high crime") but of course- GOP still wouldn't convict.

Suggestion: let's vote against him, so these things don't come to pass.

I agree:
• SCOTUS will deny a former President has absolute immunity
• Trump will be cash constrained at some point this year (not as early as you say)

I disagree:
• that Engeron will dissolve the Trump Org in NY; I expect only a fine, commensurate with his savings on interest due to receiving interest rates more favorable than his finances warranted. This will contribute to Trump's cash constraints.

• that Trump won't be the GOP nominee. This is because 95% of delegates to the GOP nominating convention are committed to vote based on the primaries. They would be freed only if Trump were to drop out of the race - and that won't happen.

• that the J6 conspiracy trial will have concluded before the election, but even if it is - pending appeals will keep him out of prison. If he's elected, he'll pardon himself and put an end to that.

I was reading how the economy was under his leadership and the economy was actually going well. When the pandemic hit, it was used against him like a perfect storm. — L'éléphant

The economy was doing well, and the summers weren't as hot. A President doesn't control either the weather or the economy.

Regarding the economy, it would be appropriate to point to policies that may have had some impact. The Paul Ryan tax cuts passed under Trump, and tax cuts stimulate the economy. They also reduce government income and thus drive up the deficit. It has the potential to could increase private funds available for investment, but in practice- much of the savings goes into stock buybacks and higher net profits - increasing private wealth.

Biden's infrastructure bills have increased government expenditures, which drives up deficits - but they are also direct investments in the economy - creating jobs and investment opportunities, stimulating the economy.

So my point is simply that one needs to judge policy and ots impact, not simplistically blame or praise for the current state of the economy.

Determinism that tells us that what we perceive as decision making every single day is, in fact an illusion and that in reality "decisions" are not the product of pondering, rather are determined by the physical and electrical state of the brain before the supposed "decision" is made — LuckyR

I disagree. The act of pondering could be a deterministic process and still not be an illusion. Peter Tse ("The Neural Basis for Free Will") has proposed a neurological basis for mental causation. Even if an individual's pondering can only produce one possible result, it's still the case that this pondering was a necessary part of the causal chain that produced this result.

what extent does the existence of 'God', or lack of existence have upon philosophical thinking. — Jack Cummins

A God (defined as an omnipotent/omniscient being who intentionally created the world) provides a solution to all philosophical conundrums. If the world of metaphysical explorations can be considered a jigsaw puzzle, the "God" piece is a ball of putty that can be used to fill any empty space in the puzzle.

Naturalist philosophers have to do more work, since they don't have this handy fits-all puzzle piece.

Absolute nothingness is impossible, but it would not be impossible if it were not for the existence of something.

The bold part seems equivalent to:
Absolute nothingness is impossible because something exists.
and
Something exists: therefore absolute nothingness is impossible

So you seem to be saying: absolute nothingness would be possible if there were absolute nothingness. This seems vacuous: you seem to be basing your claim on a tautology: If X than possibly(X).

It's not very likely Trump would support Israel in its current actions, simply because it would almost guarantee that the US will get embroiled in various wars in the Middle-East, and thus not serve Trump's isolationist views.

Israel/the lobby know that full well. They might use Trump, but the chance that they'll actually support him over Biden is very slim. But they will use Trump to pressure Biden for sure. — Tzeentch

Remember the "Trump Peace Plan"? It was a proposal "negotiated" by Jared Kushner and Netanyahu, that gave Netanyahu what he wanted, and virtually nothing for Palestinians. Further, a large majority of evangelical Christians are Trump supporters, and they are extremely pro-Israel because of their view that God gave them this land.

While people are bickering over a border, I'm just waiting for Sleepy Joe to go to war with Iran and blow up the Middle-East to salvage his chances at this election. — Tzeentch

Are you predicting Biden will go to war with Iran before the election? Are you also predicting this would help his chances of getting elected?

Trump is promising a "perfect" border solution. Reminds me of his criticism of the (imperfect) Iran nuclear deal- he promised to get rid of it, and get a better deal. He succeeded only in getting rid of it.

Dec 5, 2023: House Speaker Johnson is insisting on sweeping border security changes in a deal for Ukraine aid

And now...

Jan 26, 2024: Speaker Mike Johnson calls Ukraine-immigration deal ‘dead on arrival’ in House
"Former president Donald Trump criticised the potential agreement being brokered in the Senate on his Truth Social site. The former president said “we need a Strong, Powerful, and essentially “PERFECT” Border and, unless we get that, we are better off not making a Deal"

It appears to me that Trump wants the "border" problems to persist, because it's to his political benefit.

I'm reading Robert Saplolsky's, "Determined - A Science of Life Without Free Will". I read some good reviews, but I'm finding the book extremely disappointing.

He spoke. You don’t like what he says. — NOS4A2

He defamed Carroll, and many other women who have accused him. And you're right, I don't like him doing that. What an odd thing to criticize.

As Carroll's attorney noted in her closing, less than 24 hours after the previous verdict, costing him a mere $5M, Trump again defamed Carroll. His disrespect for the verdict is just one manifestation of his general disrespect for the rule of law. At last, he received a tangible,well-deserved consequence for his behavior.

26 women are lying, while Trump's denials are beyond reproach, since he is always so careful to tell the truth. :lol:

Yes, it's totally irrelevant that Trump has sexually assaulted multiple women. Technicalies in the law should have protected him, and his right to degrade his victims. He's a celebrity! He's entitled to grab pu**ys whenever he pleases!

$83M awarded to Carroll in her defamation lawsuit against Trump. The amount he was ordered to pay in the first trial clearly wasn't enough to shut him up, but this time I think it's going to. Not a word about Carroll in his post-verdict angry tweets; just the crazy claim that it's all BIden's fault.

Words send us in circles. But for me, my definition of essence includes our biological makeup, which drives primary functions and attitudes, and, we obtain a large part of our essence from the way we have been treated by others. Some have a loving and caring essence, some don’t because of our upbringing. — Rob J Kennedy

Consider Rob J Kennedy at 10AM yesterday. Rob had a set of unique set of properties unique from all others. This includes Rob's genetic makeup which mutates over a lifetime, as well as his mental makeup - shaped by his lifetime up to then. Today, at 10 AM, Rob J Kennedy was a day older, with another 24 hours of experiences. Are there essential properties that Rob has on both days? What about on all the days of Rob's lifetime?

So there's two extremes regarding individual essence:
1) every property is essential to being that individual at that point of time; There are no accidental properties
2) No properties are part of an individual's essence - there is a "bare identity" (also call haeccity). Every acquired property is accidental. This would even exclude the set of properties that we regard as "humanness".

Personally, I choose option 1. The other extreme seems absurd, and choosing something in between seems arbitrary. So I challenge the notion that essence is even a useful concept, except for use in some thought experiments where we stipulate some fixed set of properties to analyze consequences.

if we consider biology as a part of our essence (I'm not stating that it is), doesn't essence precede existence as our biology is determined before birth? — Rob J Kennedy

Define essence. In particular, are you talking about the essence of "humanness", or what constitutes an individual's essence (that which makes that individual who he is).

Mr Trump will be in middle of a rally or debate, in full harangue, and despite being in excellent physical condition and of serene disposition... — 0 thru 9

ROFLMAO!

I predict just before the presidential election Biden will declare war, possibly with Iran. — jgill

If Biden were to declare a war, it would probably improve (isolationist)Trump's chances.

I do. I’m not making a case; I’m just sharing my beliefs — NOS4A2

You should join a religion forum.

Sure. And you believe the facts are so obvious that there's no need to present the evidence and reasoning.

It was far worse. They tried to frame the democratically-elected president for treason and waged a years-long coup based on Clinton campaign conspiracy theories that reached the highest echelons of the intelligence community and the administrative state. The riot on J6 was just their Reichstag moment. — NOS4A2

Oh my. I used to think you were a rational human being.

That is the way the US views this — ssu

That is not the way everyone in the US views it.

Yesterday, I received a disturbing email from my Senator (the less crazy of two from Texas):

Anti-Israeli rhetoric has spread like wildfire across social media. It's taken root on elite college campuses and even in some parts of Congress.

This past weekend, we saw the latest chapter in ‘blaming the victim’ as protesters gathered in our nation’s Capital to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

They carried signs that said, ‘Free Palestine,’ and ‘Let Gaza live.’ They accused Israel of being an apartheid government and outrageously went so far as to say the United States was supporting genocide.

I find it deeply disturbing to see this view shared by so many because it's completely divorced from reality. These protesters have the entire problem completely backward.

Hamas is not a victim. Hamas is the aggressor in every possible sense, along with its state sponsor, Iran.

But war is not just a battle of brute force – it's also a contest for public opinion.

Hamas goes to great lengths to shift the narrative and build sympathy, and it’s deeply disappointing to see how many Hamas sympathizers are trying to gloss over the truth.

We have a responsibility to call out and correct the falsehoods that are spreading across our country. We have a responsibility to make sure the American people understand who is the aggressor and who is the victim.

We have a duty to stand with our ally Israel as it roots out terrorism, just as so many stood with us on 9/11 when we were in Israel’s shoes.

For Texas,
John [Cornyn]

Don't envy the Americans when they are having to choose between Trump and Biden... and an option of a middle finger vote with voting somebody else. — ssu

The vast majority will have no problem making a choice between these two. A small percent will be disenchanted and either cast a vote for a non-viable candidate or not vote.