#trump's legal problems

[tomorrowusa]

« Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain. But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president. »

— Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden-Harris campaign, at POLITICO.

A small number of independent voters may drop Trump from consideration but we should not count on that to keep the Orange Felon from winning. Trump won in 2016 despite the Access Hollywood tape; don't depend on non-electoral events to deliver us from Trump.

It's up to us to register and vote and make sure that like minded people do so as well.

I Will Vote

[stevensalerno]

Trump Indicted, Round 3: Big Balls Clanking

…Trump’s big balls, legally speaking, may prove to be a huge hindrance of his political forward momentum. His disregard for Constitutional law may ultimately bring what brings him down. But it probably really won’t matter much because he’s the influential immoral template for many others to fill his orange shoes…

[irenespring]

Sorry for the politics post but TRUMP WAS FOUND GUILTY OF ALL 34 CRIMINAL CHARGES. ALL OF THEM. No matter what happens (appeals, a lot of bullshit, and many many bad op-eds, probably), today is a big day. The first United States president convicted of crimes. Hilarious given how many United States presidents have actually done crimes but still! Hahahahaha. Brain is playing "Hava Nagila" over and over again.

[realasslesbian]

Idc who this upsets, but I actually hated the whole forced mask wearing era with a burning passion. As someone with epilepsy which is aggravated by heat, it was absolute hell to have to wear that shit because (and fuck what y’all abled-bodies wanna say) it DOES impact my breathing and make me overheat. And I actually cannot just ‘go get a medical exemption’ because a) they don’t give that shit out like free candy, I had to go pay $500 to a neurologist to get that lil note, and b) I could staple that med cert to my fucking forehead and still get people losing their minds every time I went anywhere without a mask. Everyone like ‘oh disabled people are so terrified of COVID-19 so you should think of them before ragging on masks like this’ as though everyone ain’t already spent the last three decades of my life not giving a singular shit about my disability, but now suddenly want to act like they care about disabled people? Why tf should I care about giving anyone the spicy cough when no one has ever given a fuck how many seizures their actions cause me? Y’all want me to put my own health at risk by wearing this mask, so you don’t get a lil sore throat, when y’all will remain deliberately oblivious to epilepsy and other heat-related illnesses, right up until someone dies, and then you’ll still have a giggle about that too? Way more people be dying every day from heat-related illnesses than from COVID-19, so where’s my mandatory air-conditioning and icepack stations at every street corner? Fuck hand sanitizer stations, provide me a free cold drink. Additionally, mask wearing was the ONLY thing people got this fucking turnt about too. It’s not like any of y’all were social distancing (something which would have actually helped me with my disability lmao). No one was getting booted out of stores for standing on my damn heels every time I had to get in a queue. Anyway, after the first twenty times I got asked to leave a store for not wearing a mask (despite having that magical medical certificate) I made up my own mask by getting four of those ‘valves’, absolutely gutting the inside of them to allow unrestricted airflow, and then stitching them into a linen mask. Still uncomfortable, fo sure, but a lot better than having to deal with hot air on my face and under my sunglasses while already struggling not to pass out in the middle of the Australian summer. 

[crimeronan]

trump shouting the quiet part into a megaphone two days before the georgia runoffs is KILLING me. like this is clearly a very sad very old very rapidly neurologically deteriorating man who has been surrounding himself exclusively with people who just nod indulgently with "ok sure that's all definitely true granpa now let's get you to bed" to everything for so long that he Actually Fully Believes that he has been cheated. and also that the general public loves hearing him Say Things and is on his side. and it is. DELIGHTFUL. i know the actual thing he said was serious and scary and should not be downplayed but that's Why this is so fun. it's so inexcusable and antithetical to not just average american culture but also Specifically Republican Values that it's wreaking HAVOC on the party atm. the way i KNOW that the repubs who play the game properly are shitting their pants and sobbing and suffering migraines and throwing up over twitter calls-to-action and making desperate phone calls screaming "WHO LET HIM HAVE ACCESS TO A PHONE, WHO LET THAT HAPPEN, TAKE IT AWAY, TAKE IT AWAY!!!!!!!" to whichever strategists will listen.... oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. i am basking in it. soaking it all in. i love this song

i do take the little joys where i can get them.

[theskydoesgreatthingsnow]

Greenday: this next song is called “the war in iraq and other Mideast wars are a blood thirsty nazi dictators petty quest for oil, which I am experiencing on propaganda loaded tv in the American suburbs, which are a soulless wasteland full of judgmental religious nut jobs who hate the poor which drives the young people to do drugs and commit suicide out of boredom and alienation, so I am acutely aware that soldiers, cops and nationalists don’t defend freedom, because it doesn’t exist in America, and they are rather human guns caught in mass hysteria, egged on by powerful shitheads who use homophobia to divorce citizens from any sensitivity or human reactions to iniquity. I fuck dudes and if the “moral” majority of people believe in Christofascism count me as a member of one of many suppressed minorities. I’m a fucked up product of a broken system but the one saving grace is least I shred guitar and I’m not a right-winger about it” Also it slaps so hard. Up next is one about smoking weed and jerking off, (illegally).

Some republicans: wow these people don’t like the government and say faggot. So do I.

Greenday: the same thing but now

Republicans: wwww what 🥺

I swear to god that green day has had this exact same "scandal" like five times now.

[eowyntheavenger]

Americans, these are things we are NOT saying in 2024:

"Voting blue won't solve anything." Yes it will: if enough of us do it, it will solve a problem called Trump's second term in the White House. We unfortunately live in a two-party system. If you refuse to vote, you're effectively voting for Trump. I shouldn't need to explain this to people, yet here we are.

"It doesn't matter who's president. Both candidates are the same anyway." No, they are REALLY not. Biden was never my first choice, and his shipments of arms to Israel are despicable, but don't try to tell me even for a second that a second Trump term would be the same for the world as a second Biden term.

"But voting blue won't fix [fundamental underlying problem in America]." Voting for Democrats cannot fix every issue, this is true. But by saying this and ONLY this you are discouraging people from voting by making them feel hopeless. Voting is one of many tools in our arsenal, not the only tool, but an important one, and it does matter.

"You shouldn't vote blue, you should do [other thing] instead." See above: you can vote and protest and organize at the same time. It's not either/or. You can do it all. Stop discouraging voters from exercising their rights under the guise of leftism.

"Voting is just legitimizing government power. It makes you part of the system." Literally just shut up. Women and people of color didn't fight for their voting rights to have you say things like this. If you live in America and you can legally vote, then you should fucking vote, and vote blue. There is no neutral option.

"Voting blue just makes you complicit in [this bad policy]." Inaction, and allowing Trump to have a second term, is worse for the entire world than any Democrat policy. Yes, even that one. Voting is not about finding a perfect unproblematic candidate. It is about choosing the lesser of two evils.

"Voting doesn't work because—" STOP IT. STOP DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM VOTING.

You know who wants you NOT to vote? Trump supporters, that's who. You should be suspicious of ANYONE who is suggesting that your vote doesn't matter, or that both candidates are the same, or that Biden's policy on XYZ means you shouldn't vote for him. Trump supporters aren't trying to get your vote by saying, "Vote for Trump!" They're trying to get your vote by DISCOURAGING YOU FROM VOTING AT ALL.

I don't like Biden either, but Trump is unequivocally worse. Voting doesn't fix everything, but it is the minimum fucking requirement of living in a democracy. Voting for president has real, tangible, immediate impacts on people's lives, and choosing not to vote is not the rebellion you think it is, it is just relinquishing your voice. So fucking vote. THIS IS A GROUP PROJECT AND DAMN IT WE ARE NOT FAILING BECAUSE OF YOU.

[beatrice-otter]

Is there any plan for after Harris loses (which seems inevitable at this point)? People are pointedly not talking about after, so I assume that Trump winning really does mean everything is Over in a very final way.

...

Both of those assertions are wrong.

Polls are notoriously unreliable (and getting less reliable), and things are close. I honestly have no idea who's going to win. But right now, fivethirtyeight.com (which is the best overall politics predictor in the US, and has been for the last several election cycles) has Harris ahead by 1.3 points. So, no, Trump winning is not inevitable.

But especially with things this close and the election this close, this is the least likely time for people to be publicly talking about contingency plans for a Trump win. The more people think Trump is going to win, the less likely Harris voters are to show up at the polls ... which means that Trump is more likely to win. Talking about how awful a Trump presidency would be if he got elected can motivate people to vote, when paired with "but voting for Harris can help prevent that!" Talking about what to do after he wins (if he does) is much more concrete and much more likely to convince people that there's no point in voting, we need to move on to the next step of preparing for the inevitable. But it isn't inevitable! Not even close!

Organizations at all levels--political groups, advocacy groups, charities, legal aid groups, etc.--have been preparing all along. But the more you talk about those contingencies in public, the more likely you are to actually need them.

And the thing is, we know a Trump win would be bad. How bad, and in what way exactly ... depends on a lot of factors. His first term was bad, but he was prevented from achieving his goals because he is incapable of keeping competent people around, and nobody knew how to make the bureaucracy of government do what they wanted it to do. He may have fixed that problem, he may not. We know what his goals are and those of his closest allies. What we don't know is, would he be better able to carry those goals out this time if he wins, and if so, how many of them he will be able to enact. And what we, as leftists, can do in the event of a Trump presidencey depends on all of those things!

So it's much better to point out that the odds are in Harris' favor right now (even if not by much) and we need to go out and make sure they stay in Harris' favor.

[tomorrowusa]

The Donald Trump hush money trial starts today in NYC.

Jury selection is the first order of business. In normal trials that may take a day or two. With Trump's legal foot-dragging, that could go into weeks.

There had been some doubts about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's approach to this case. There is some new ground here. But Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, an attorney who initially had some reservations about the prosecution, is now "fully onboard" with it.

Over the past year, though, I have realized that my initial doubts about Bragg’s indictment were misplaced. It now seems clear that Trump’s New York trial, slated to begin this week, will be the former president’s only criminal trial before the November election. The other three strong indictments against him in other jurisdictions have unfortunately been delayed by a corrupt judge, a foot-dragging Supreme Court, and a district attorney’s questionable conduct in an already complex case. This, combined with Bragg’s excellent pretrial briefing, has substantially strengthened the case for this prosecution. It is important to American democracy that Trump be forced to defend at least some of his alleged criminal conduct before a jury of his peers in advance of Election Day. [ ... ] Shortly before the 2020 election, Trump wanted to kill a story about his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress. So he allegedly directed his longtime fixer Michael Cohen to pay off Daniels, through a shell company, for her silence. Afterward, Trump funneled $420,000 to Cohen in installments. But he allegedly concealed the payments by listing them as legal expenses for a retainer that did not exist. Last year, I was uncertain whether this scheme, while sordid, rose to the level of a felony offense. I am now convinced that, if proved that he took these actions, it surely does. The falsification of business records is, by itself, a misdemeanor under New York law, but it’s a felony when it’s done with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” In his indictment, Bragg claims that Trump lied about the payments with the intent to violate election law, which is what elevates the crime to a felony. Initially, I was suspicious of this theory; what election law, exactly, was the former president attempting to violate? The district attorney’s initial statement of facts was hazy on this crucial point, raising the possibility that he couldn’t tie the underlying fraud to a state or federal statute. Turns out he could. Bragg has argued, convincingly, that the former president intended to violate at least two election laws—one state, one federal. First, Bragg asserted that Trump and Cohen ran afoul of the Federal Election Campaign Act by making unlawful campaign contributions (in the form of a payoff) at the direction of a candidate (that is, Trump).

As a criminal defendant, Trump has to be in court for the trial. And except for holidays, court will be in session four days a week.

So Trump will be in Lower Manhattan quite a bit for the next couple of months. The New York County (Manhattan) Courthouse is at 100 Centre Street. And he owns a major property at 40 Wall Street (modestly called The Trump Building) where he might occasionally be seen. Google Maps puts the walking distance between the two locations at 0.8 miles (1.28 km). So if you're tempted to exercise your First Amendment right to express your opinions to Trump...

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[metalicats]

your fucking give-up attitude is so frustrating. like yes, people are rightly mad at the democrats! theyre being cowardly supporters of a fucking genocide and giving insane amounts of money to help it continue!! thats reprehensible in every possible way!!

but they are still better than the fucking republicans!!

things can ALWAYS get worse and this troll probably wants things to and is just using Palestine/Israel issues as a method to push people into not voting for the Dems

because the Republicans will absolutely go out and vote! and now maybe you won't, mission achieved.

also, did you know? you can vote AND protest israel AND boycott all at the same time! woooowww amazing~~!!

I live in Michigan btw which is going to be a swing state next year so if you're a hardcore blue maga dem pervert and you want my vote and the vote of the large Muslim and Arab population here who correctly believe biden to be throwing them and potentially their family members or friends in palestine to the fucking wolves then you should stop whining and begging for everyone to vote blue no matter who and fight for the palestinian people because nothing less than liberation is going to get my ass out the door on November 8th next year

[uboat53]

Prediction time? Feel free to call me out on this later. ;)

All right, there's rumors that the Manhattan DA is going to indict Trump; if not tomorrow then probably soon-ish. The head of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has already demanded that the DA supply him with a good deal of information regarding that possible decision.

So here's what's going to happen:

1) Republicans are going to ask for more and more information, especially information that they know the DA can't provide because the case is ongoing. They know this because many of them were prosecutors as well. Of course, the point isn't to get the information. The point is the next thing they will do which is…

2) …scream that the DA must be hiding something when he says he can't provide the information.

This is how they work, demanding more and more information that they know can't be provided without jeopardizing the prosecution and then declaring that perfectly reasonable actions are proof positive of evil. This is exactly how it'll go, count on it.

[biceratops7]

For fucks sake don’t vote 3rd party.

I would LOVE to not have a 2 party system. It’s a cancer on our country and we need to take action to dismantle it, but just pretending like the bad thing already doesn’t exist anymore and making decisions based on that is a TERRIBLE idea. It won’t change shit and it’ll just prevent us from making actual headway. Trump will win if Kamala doesn’t, that’s the system we live in, the notion that that 200 year old monster of a problem is gonna change in 100 days is absolutely absurd. So let’s just establish that before going any further.

I see people all the time saying to vote 3rd party because “Kamala is just as bad as Trump, democrats just wanna LOOK progressive.” (And before that it was Biden but you get my gist.) because of Biden’s deplorable refusal to stop arming Israel. Respectfully, no tf she’s not, even by just a hair. Kamala isn’t the one with a laundry list of straight up legal atrocities she’s publicly planning to commit if she wins. Being genuinely scared of project 2025 and worrying about ourselves because of that isn’t proof that someone calling for a free Palestine is performative. Genuinely, GENUINELY, what the hell do you think is gonna happen to Palestine if Trump wins? Letting our own country possibly be set back several steps and many of our own citizens’ lives be destroyed to “take a stand” for Palestine when it won’t do shit to help them is just as performative. Actually it’s infinitely MORE performative.

[cleolinda]

Are the Trump indictments election interference? asked someone whose question I will take in good faith against my better judgment.

The American presidential election (November 5, 2024) is more than a year away. There is more than a whole year for these four (4) trials to occur. If candidates want to start campaigning (and have already been campaigning) year(s) in advance, that is not the American judicial system's problem. Do not let anyone tell you that "I DECLARE CAMPAIGN SO YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME" is how this works.

I welcome criminal charges of actual substance for any candidate of any party. If you have dozens of pages of carefully documented charges against any/all Democrats, please have a DA call a grand jury whenever you would like. Political parties are not sports teams to me. Justice can do what it gotta do, whether it's convenient or not.

If someone doesn't want to get pulled up on racketeering charges (RICO), they maybe shouldn’t have racketeered. Or falsified business records, or mishandled documents to the tune of 31 charges under the Espionage Act, or incited an insurrection, the latter of which, I don't know about you, but which I personally watched on TV, live, for several hours, including coverage of the Trump rally that sent crowds marching over to the Capitol. We have heard the Georgia phone call that is part of the fourth indictment. We have seen pictures of classified documents piled in a random Mar-a-Lago bathroom. I am confident that these are not frivolous accusations.

District Attorney Fani Willis was careful to state that there should be a presumption of innocence (a standard American judicial doctrine). That said, I consider (as one example), this fourth indictment to be “charges of actual substance” because she delivered a 96-page document describing the racketeering (which, ironically, WAS ITSELF ELECTION INTERFERENCE):

u/code_archaeologist: The math on this is easy. For a jury to find a person guilty on a RICO charge in Georgia the prosecutor has to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they engaged in two incidents that predicated the overarching conspiracy. The RICO charge lists 161 predicating incidents. So Fani Willis has 161 shots at each defendant, and only has to hit twice.

(I like to read r/politics.)

Fani Willis has 161 predicating incidents of conspiracy to work with. I am pretty confident that, while a defendant is innocent until proven guilty in the American justice system, these charges have some weight and deserve to be heard in court.

tl;dr if you don't want to campaign under a legal cloud, don't do crimes.

Also try not to publicly intimidate witnesses. And prosecutors. And judges.

If anyone reading this truly wondered if the substance or timing of these proceedings are warranted, sincerely, I hope laying it out like this helped.