That they clearly either haven't, or are being pretended as not read and understood.
It's hard for people to squirm away from quotes. I've had to eat em a few times :)

Trump breaks another record: the first former president to face a criminal trial. The supposed federal crime is that Trump never reported payments to Michael Cohen as “hush money”, or some such nonsense. He signed the check wrong? Who knows.

At any rate it’s another non-crime. It’s so hard to make sense of any wrong-doing on the part of Trump, while the anti-Trump weaponization of the justice system seeks a desperate win before the election. So desperate are they that they tried to use the famous Access Hollywood tape as evidence. :lol:

Does anyone even listen to this Trump cultist anymore? Lol.

Eh, whatever. Carry on; you’re doing God’s work changing everyone’s minds about the degenerate, pornstar-fucking con man. :up:

Criminal trial: day 1.

The case is about attempts to squash negative accounts before the election. The law involved concerns efforts to change perceptions of the electorate through illegal means. What actually happened sexually no longer matters.

"The signed statement with the denial was publicly released on Jan. 30, 2018. Not long after, Daniels recanted the statement and said that an affair had occurred. She said her denials were due to a non-disclosure agreement and that she signed the statement because parties involved “made it sound like I had no choice.”" -source

The statement will certainly be brought into evidence, and Daniels (Clifford) will probably testify that the affair did occur. It will be up to the jury to assess whether her in-court testimony (under oath) will convince the jury.

But I'm not sure it matters a great deal. Worst case, it's like the doorman who claimed to have knowledge of a "love-child" of Trump's, and similarly got paid off to prevent going public with it. Even after it was shown to be a false accusation, Trump still wanted the story killed until after the election. It is the killing of these stories, and reporting these as legal expenses, that is the crime. Not any affairs.

Help me understand why one would vote for Trump

I live in Texas, and know more people who support Trump than who oppose him. I would like to better understand their point of view by hearing rational reasons why one might vote for him.

I'm not interested in hearing praise or condemnation for Trump's personality traits (e.g. lecherous, lying, bullying, insulting, xenophopic, racist, conspiracy-theory minded, etc), crimes he's committed (or alleged to have committed) such as sexual assault, fraud, election interference, conspiracy.

I'm mostly interested in hearing what policies you expect him to implement that may be perceived as positive by supporters. You don't have to be a supporter to understand why some would find policies attractive to supporters, even if you don't agree it's a good idea.

I'm open to hearing about things he did while President (policies implemented by law or executive order) - but explain what this has to do with future policies he's promised to implement.

If you point to differences in conditions (e.g. inflation, deficits, immigration rates...), explain what he did (and/or what Biden did) to create those differences in conditions.

I hope NOS4A2 takes advantage of this to make his case, but it's a useful exercise for everyone to try and understand the attraction.

The alleged felony crime is falsifying business records, repeated 34 times, all of which happened after the election. Now we are left to wonder how such book-keeping can be said to influence an election that happened in the past. The alleged crime Trump intended to conceal, according to Bragg, was a misdemeanor long past its statute of limitations.

Actually, the crime you're alleging is what the Clinton campaign did when they funnelled money through Perkins Coie to fund the Steele dossier, which they then hid as "legal fees". They also lied about it for years. Clinton and the DNC got fined by the FEC for their efforts. Of course, as is typical with a 2-tiered justice system, none of them were held accountable for what you call a crime.

Trump is charged with a felony because, per state law, the falsification of the records was allegedly undertaken with the intent to commit another crime: the scheme to keep the public from becoming aware of the allegations of his sexual conduct. The scheme was executed prior to the election, Cohen made the payments before the election. Critically, these payments were approved by Trump prior to the election - and in the indictment, this constitutes Trump's "causing" the false business records to be produced - albeit that the actual false recording occurred after the election.

Nevertheless, I do think it's a tenuous case, because of the legal technicalities involved. The prosecution has a difficult burden to meet.

the crime you're alleging is what the Clinton campaign did when they funnelled money through Perkins Coie to fund the Steele dossier, which they then hid as "legal fees — NOS4A2

It's misleading to call this "funelling money... to fund the Steele dossier" because it suggests intent by the Clinton campaign. The campaign was not involved with the decisions on what to investigate (other than approving opposition research) nor on whom to hire to conduct that research, nor did they direct anyone on invent facts to support a narrative.

The fact that the DNC and Clinton campaign funded opposition research was not withheld from the public. The expenditure wasn't associated with a crime or coverup, nor was it improper: conducting opposition research is normal. The crime was simply a failure by the campaign to properly report the purpose of an expense by Perkins Coie. It was reported only as "legal services". The FEC ruled that it should have been reported as opposition research. The Clinton campaign argued that it was correct to consider this a legal expense, since it was an expense incurred by the law firm they used, but the FEC ruled against that interpretation.

From my encounter with Trump voters, in my family and work life, there is a difference between those who are mostly concerned with having the least amount of taxes charged against them as possible and those who want more control of cultural institutions. I have met people who want both of those agendas but plenty more who do not care about the other side of the politics.

Regarding taxes, it appears that Trump has only promised to extend the current tax schedule that's soon to expire - not lower current taxes. By contrast, Biden says he'll keep current tax rates for everyone making under $400K. Trump has also said he's thinking about lowering corporate tax rates. So I don't see a real benefits for most folks.

Trump has also talked about imposing more tarriffs, including 60% on imports from China, and 10% on all others. This will increase the costs of many things, and likely lead to a trade war.

The culture wars issue sounds more like offering rhetorical support.

Well, I was reporting perception, not actual policy on taxes. I take your point on the cost of trade wars.

The culture wars issue sounds more like offering rhetorical support. — Relativist

Not sure what you mean by that, but many people are invested in that view of conflict. I have a lot of family in Texas who are mostly concerned about those issues.

Yeah, you're right about it being about perception.

Trump has also talked about imposing more tarriffs, including 60% on imports from China, and 10% on all others. This will increase the costs of many things, and likely lead to a trade war. — Relativist

This is the only thing he's right on. Western dependence on Chinese production that undercuts our own industries because of Chinese subsidies, lack of environmental protections and labour conditions is ridiculous. If human rights would actually matter, we wouldn't be buying Chinese products to begin with. We're basically funding a fascist state in its ability to oppress its own people.

I agree we need to address the trade imbalance with China, but a sudden, across the board 60% tarriff would hurt consumers and be inflationary. The results of the current tarriffs have been mixed (see this). Going forward, we need to carefully target them to minimize consumer price impacts and avoid supply chain distuptions.

Biden has generally retained Trump's tarriffs on China, even increasing them in some areas. So in practice, there may be little difference between them on tarriffs, although Biden's subsidies for building chip factories is a positive in his corner. The "60%" threat may be campaign talk to create a contrast that's not real. If real, it seems dumb.

Except of course subsidies are terrible and should only be used where it concerns critical infrastructure or services.

I agree, but chip availability is critical to national security.

Regarding perception, the NYC entrepreneurial set of Trumpsters do expect a direct benefit from tax changes in one fashion or another. Moves to change how LLCs operate and the Democratic effort to develop new corporate taxation make these folk nervous. Efforts to make the IRS more effective is also muttered about.

Yes, so what you need is tip top relationships with the Netherlands because of ASML. The rest is all secondary. :joke:

The interviews with people who were recused from the current Trump trial are interesting. Finding the limits to one's own objectivity is such a New York City thing.

That’s not an argument. — Mikie

:chin:

Not a very flattering thumbnail. It doesn't portray Trump's imperial orangeness properly.

A fundamental law of anti-Trumpism is the continuous presence of a racket composed of privileged but panty-waisted group of beneficiaries working behind the scene to both take Trump down and to benefit from the adulation they receive for doing so.

It’s par for the course. For instance, there is an off-the-record Zoom call between people working across different television, print and digital media outlets where lawyers and legal pundits collude to attack Trump legally and propagandize to their followers politically, all of which helps their podcasts, substacks, and commentary careers.

The group’s host is Norman Eisen, a senior Obama administration official, longtime Trump critic and CNN legal analyst, who has been convening the group since 2022 as Trump’s legal woes ramped up. Eisen was also a key member of the team of lawyers assembled by House Democrats to handle Trump’s first impeachment.

The regular attendees on Eisen’s call include Bill Kristol, the longtime conservative commentator, and Laurence Tribe, the famed liberal constitutional law professor. John Dean, who was White House counsel under Richard Nixon before pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with Watergate, joins the calls, as does George Conway, a conservative lawyer and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. Andrew Weissmann, a longtime federal prosecutor who served as one of the senior prosecutors on Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation and is now a legal analyst for MSNBC, is another regular on the calls. Jeffrey Toobin, a pioneer in the field of cable news legal analysis, is also a member of the crew. The rest of the group includes recognizable names from the worlds of politics, law and media.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/23/anti-trump-legal-pundits-calls-00153300

A fundamental law of Trumpism is projection.

“Watch this propaganda as delivered by this anti-Trump cabal.”

Projection indeed.

MeidasTouch was a liberal American political action committee formed in March 2020 with the purpose to stop the reelection of Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election.[4][5][6][7] The SuperPAC aligned with the Democratic Party in the 2020 United States presidential election, the 2020–21 United States Senate election in Georgia, and the 2020–21 United States Senate special election in Georgia.[8][9][10]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeidasTouch

Instead of attacking the perpetrators of this anti-Trump information (and risking committing a genetic fallacy), why don't you point out some disinformation they've put forth? TBH, I've seen some of their material, and although it's certainly slanted and conveys some wishful thinking when predicting trial outcomes, I haven't noticed factual falsehoods, like we see from Trump-friendly sources. I invite you to disabuse me.

Instead of attacking the perpetrators of this anti-Trump information (and risking committing a genetic fallacy), why don't you point out some disinformation they've put forth — Relativist

Interesting how it is "attack the argument not the source" when it comes to your side but not when Alex Jones or Breitbart speak.

Here's a guy that I could attack both ways: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6329053321112

I’m not even aware of his arguments. Got one on hand?

If the video’s title was “Trump exposes Pecker” I might be more inclined to watch, but I’m not going to fund their grift with a viewing.

I expect that title to appear after Stormy gives her testimony.