A Deeply Fractured US

[Brad Sallows]

It's not a spin, it's a fact. The duty of an AG is to uphold the laws that the people, through their legislatures--of both sides--over the years, have made.

Many, if not most, of the AGs in the US are--like James-- elected and run their campaigns on a "get tough on crime agenda." The proof in the pudding that she was right to get tough on this particular law-breaker is borne out by the judgment.

I find it hilarious that right wingers, who generally are tough on law-breakers, especially fat-cat rich ones, are loosing their shit over the fact that their fair haired golden boy is being prosecuted for the numerous crimes he has committed over the years. Get thee hence and find yourself a new but worthy hero to worship. There are plenty of them out there.

Sure. How long has that law been on the books? [Add: since 1956.] How many times has it been used (in this way; it's extremely broad and has been used in other ways)? Why now and not earlier?

I don't care about Trump. I care about rule of law, which is debilitated by selective prosecution. Take your situated misdirection elsewhere.

 

[QV]

I find it hilarious that right wingers, who generally are tough on law-breakers, especially fat-cat rich ones, are loosing their shit over the fact that their fair haired golden boy is being prosecuted for the numerous crimes he has committed over the years. Get thee hence and find a new but worthy hero to worship. There are plenty of them out there.

You don't understand Trump's appeal. He is not part of the establishment and is wealthy enough to withstand pressures. That is tough to find.

And to add, he was a famous American icon of wealth and success before running for POTUS. Of course some (many?) will scoff at that, but its fact.

Suddenly he is colluding with Putin to destroy America. Nobody buys any of the bullshit anymore.

 

[FJAG]

Take your situated misdirection elsewhere.

Gee. I'm sorry. I didn't know that it was only your opinion that mattered.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Gee. I'm sorry. I didn't know that it was only your opinion that mattered.

Mine isn't. But when you use "yourself" in a reply to something I wrote, I can fairly assume you're addressing me.

 

[FJAG]

You don't understand Trump's appeal. He is not part of the establishment and is wealthy enough to withstand pressures. That is tough to find.

You're actually quite right. I do not understand Trump's appeal. Being wealthy, not part of the establishment and able to withstand pressure is laudable, but not if its accompanied by the all the negative aspects of his character. If Jan 6th, by itself, wasn't enough to be the nail in the coffin, well then, I truly do not understand.

The problem that I see is that there will always be an establishment. The choice is to have one that is mostly benign and generally works for the interests of the country or one that is made up of extremists which only work for themselves. Notwithstanding the hateful rhetoric and outright lies that spew forth from Trump's faction, I believe that the current "establishment" as a whole serves for the benefit of the country.

Mine isn't. But when you use "yourself" in a reply to something I wrote, I can fairly assume you're addressing me.

Actually I was addressing the "right" in general. In retrospect I should have said "yourselves." If only one person hero-worshipped him he wouldn't be a problem. It's the mass that create the danger. It's interesting to watch from a distance as the more moderate right lean away from him the more radical flank becomes ever more extreme as they test the boundaries. Would anyone, even ten years ago have imagined that Trump would one day control the Republican National Committee by getting a lightweight like Lara Trump installed as co-chair?

All that I can say is "be careful what you (all of the right - not you personally) wish for."

 

[QV]

You're actually quite right. I do not understand Trump's appeal. Being wealthy, not part of the establishment and able to withstand pressure is laudable, but not if its accompanied by the all the negative aspects of his character. If Jan 6th, by itself, wasn't enough to be the nail in the coffin, well then, I truly do not understand.

What Trump is being blamed for regarding Jan 6th can be added to long list of hoaxes designed to damage him electorally (Russia collusion, fine people, etc). This is so obvious it is laughable some people outside the corrupt media/DNC still reference it. The "blood bath" hysteria is only the most recent example. Despising Trump is no excuse for refusing to acknowledge lies and corruption and calling them out.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I do not understand Trump's appeal.

The establishments of both parties have mostly managed the affairs of the US in ways which just happened to mostly benefit the members of the establishments. The appeal is that he belongs to neither of them.

If the interests of the country don't cover all voters well enough, some of them are likely to defect. The ongoing shift of voter allegiances in the US is well-reported. A repeated criticism of the establishments was plain incompetence - at best, they failed to strike a balance of interests across economic classes; at worst, they favoured themselves whenever a decision had to be made. The situation is of their making. The establishment is not mostly benign if it flat out says to some people that their jobs are going away and they will just have to deal with it (eg. coal miners), while coddling its members faced with upheaval (eg. journalists).

I suspect the fraction of people who are Trump hero-worshippers is small. I read plenty of commentary by people who think he's an asshole, but like the way he gets up the noses of people who really don't like Trump. They don't like Biden, either. What they do like is a Republican rather than Democratic administration. There are plenty of conservatives who simply zero out Trump's outbursts and the threats he is unlikely to carry out and that could never go anywhere anyways because he does not in fact have the courts/military/Congress on his side, assess what happened during Trump's administration, and conclude another Trump administration will be better than a continuation of the current one. No amount of pretending the entire Republican party is in the grip of its right-most factions changes that. And since the Biden administration appears, by the reckoning of many right-wingers, to be in the grip of its left-most factions on matters of blowout spending and promoting ideological social change, it's not objectively better in the "who is less beholden to extremists" contest.

Democrats in America have promoted Trump and Trump-adjacent politicians whenever it suited Democrats to run against them in general elections, and if that doesn't work out, Democrats deserve what they get even if no-one else does.

 

[Kirkhill]

The people that voted for Trump were often a hairs-breadth away from voting for Bernie Sanders.

As Brad says, it has less to do with being enamoured with Trump than being disgusted by the aristocracy/clergy/establishment.

The same thing applies to Trudeau and the Canadian Establishment, to Brexit and Johnson, and to any number of European countries. The Establishment seldom acts altruistically for the benefit of their taxpayers. The Establishment and its clerks work to their own benefit first.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Sure. How long has that law been on the books? [Add: since 1956.] How many times has it been used (in this way; it's extremely broad and has been used in other ways)? Why now and not earlier?

I don't care about Trump. I care about rule of law, which is debilitated by selective prosecution. Take your situated misdirection elsewhere.

By "that law", I assume you mean the statute under which authority the AG investigated and civilly sued Trump - Executive Law § 63(12). It's been used multiple times. Some of the notable cases (under this AG) has been against Exxon (the AG didn't prevail), Martin Shkreli (the slimeball Pharma investor who jacked up a drug price by 4000%) and (under a different AG) Trump himself (for the Trump University case). It's also been used against predatory lenders, nursing home fraudsters and even recently against a pet shop puppy mill.

 

[FJAG]

What Trump is being blamed for regarding Jan 6th can be added to long list of hoaxes designed to damage him electorally (Russia collusion, fine people, etc). This is so obvious it is laughable some people outside the corrupt media/DNC still reference it. The "blood bath" hysteria is only the most recent example. Despising Trump is no excuse for refusing to acknowledge lies and corruption and calling them out.

Well as long as one is convinced its all a laughable fraud then there's really no point in discussing it further.

The establishments of both parties have mostly managed the affairs of the US in ways which just happened to mostly benefit the members of the establishments. The appeal is that he belongs to neither of them.

That's a position that I can share.

If the interests of the country don't cover all voters well enough, some of them are likely to defect. The ongoing shift of voter allegiances in the US is well-reported. A repeated criticism of the establishments was plain incompetence - at best, they failed to strike a balance of interests across economic classes; at worst, they favoured themselves whenever a decision had to be made. The situation is of their making. The establishment is not mostly benign if it flat out says to some people that their jobs are going away and they will just have to deal with it (eg. coal miners), while coddling its members faced with upheaval (eg. journalists).

I can generally agree with that although certain issues, such as disappearing jobs, are more tied to economics and shifting consumer preferences for cheap over homemade. I think you're overvaluing the press (I presume you mean MSM). That may have been true two decades ago (when journalists had a near monopoly on representing the politicians to the public) but these days that power is waning as numerous communication sources are in play. Unfortunately the public no longer goes to any media to be informed, it goes there to have its biases confirmed.

I suspect the fraction of people who are Trump hero-worshippers is small. I read plenty of commentary by people who think he's an asshole, but like the way he gets up the noses of people who really don't like Trump.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

They don't like Biden, either.

Neither do I.

What they do like is a Republican rather than Democratic administration.

I used to. But these days I can only go so far before I gag or upchuck. There are fundamental issues which I simply will not compromise on.

There are plenty of conservatives who simply zero out Trump's outbursts and the threats he is unlikely to carry out and that could never go anywhere anyways because he does not in fact have the courts/military/Congress on his side, assess what happened during Trump's administration, and conclude another Trump administration will be better than a continuation of the current one.

Here's where we split. There are enough kowtowing people available who will hitch themselves to Trump's coattails (Conway, Miller, Bannon, Flynn) and some of whom will do whatever it takes to make their vile agendas a reality. I seriously doubt that Trump has the ability to stop them even if he wants to.

No amount of pretending the entire Republican party is in the grip of its right-most factions changes that. And since the Biden administration appears, by the reckoning of many right-wingers, to be in the grip of its left-most factions on matters of blowout spending and promoting ideological social change, it's not objectively better in the "who is less beholden to extremists" contest.

Once again we agree. The problem with the razor thin majorities in both the house and senate means that each faction has to count on every one of its members which automatically gives minority extremist elements much more power than they should have. That's equally true of the left who have come up with some truly hairbrained schemes and positions.

America needs a middle party that rejects both extremes.

Democrats in America have promoted Trump and Trump-adjacent politicians whenever it suited Democrats to run against them in general elections, and if that doesn't work out, Democrats deserve what they get even if no-one else does.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

 

[Brad Sallows]

By "that law", I assume you mean the statute under which authority the AG investigated and civilly sued Trump - Executive Law § 63(12). It's been used multiple times. Some of the notable cases (under this AG) has been against Exxon (the AG didn't prevail), Martin Shkreli (the slimeball Pharma investor who jacked up a drug price by 4000%) and (under a different AG) Trump himself (for the Trump University case). It's also been used against predatory lenders, nursing home fraudsters and even recently against a pet shop puppy mill.

Read what I wrote. It's a broad law. I know it has been used multiple times - Exxon is cited by practically everyone who refers to it - and I acknowledged that. The challenge is to find cases in which it was used to prosecute people for padding their asset evaluations. If the case you cite isn't that, the case you cite is irrelevant to my question.

Laws should be applied consistently. Since some moderate (at least) Democrats have stated their belief that what's going on is basically lawfare, people opposed to Trump ought seriously to consider whether they are the wreckers of democratic institutions (in this case, rule of law) they complain about. Some of the people here are all about input legitimacy - process and rules. Great. But the election is going to be won or lost on output legitimacy - sense of fairness. Selective prosecutions and imaginative uses of laws aren't that.

I had hoped that either or both of the parties would manage to select another candidate during the primary process. There's still a slim chance. Democrats have been gambling that they can land a criminal conviction on Trump after it's too late to switch him out, but before the actual election, because almost any other candidate would obliterate Biden. They can't get a bump. By now all the people who wrote encomiums to Biden's SOTU performance must have coughed up their skulls watching video of his public appearances in the next few days without the benefit of intense rehearsals and pharmaceutical reinforcement.

Based on the way polls are trending, people who don't like Trump will have to choose between settling scores in court or keeping him out of the White House. Half-a-billion is chump change compared to the value of controlling the US presidency for four years. How f*cking dumb are those people, I wonder.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"Democrats in America have promoted Trump and Trump-adjacent politicians whenever it suited Democrats to run against them in general elections, and if that doesn't work out, Democrats deserve what they get even if no-one else does."

I don't understand what you're saying here.

Democrats have supported, with funding and strategic primary voting and media attention, Trump-aligned candidates over more moderate ones, the thinking being that they stand a better chance of defeating the Trump supporter than the moderate. That has mostly worked out well for them for the past couple of elections. It didn't work in 2016. (There was a small stream of op-eds openly advocating supporting Trump in the primary, thinking Clinton was a sure thing if Trump was the Republican nominee. He got lots of extra airtime; I recall an estimate that it would have cost about a billion dollars to buy.) If it doesn't work again, they get what they deserve for their interference and hypocrisy (they've been bitching about people who support Trump and Trump-aligned candidates non-stop for 8 years).

From 30,000 feet, it looks like they've f*cked with the chances of Americans to have more moderate Republican candidates, while resisting putting up a better one for the presidency themselves.

 

[FJAG]

Democrats have supported, with funding and strategic primary voting and media attention, Trump-aligned candidates over more moderate ones, the thinking being that they stand a better chance of defeating the Trump supporter than the moderate. That has mostly worked out well for them for the past couple of elections. It didn't work in 2016. (There was a small stream of op-eds openly advocating supporting Trump in the primary, thinking Clinton was a sure thing if Trump was the Republican nominee. He got lots of extra airtime; I recall an estimate that it would have cost about a billion dollars to buy.) If it doesn't work again, they get what they deserve for their interference and hypocrisy (they've been bitching about people who support Trump and Trump-aligned candidates non-stop for 8 years).

From 30,000 feet, it looks like they've f*cked with the chances of Americans to have more moderate Republican candidates, while resisting putting up a better one for the presidency themselves.

Interesting concept. Is there any reliable data on how often that went on and how often it led to disaster.

I can see the Clinton situation as an effect and I can see where Trump got way more air time then he deserved but it was all as a bad example rather than a preferred choice. But that doesn't mean some rich Democrat bought Trump airtime just that he got a lot. It's the downside of the "you just can't believe what this aged celebrity said today" system of reporting.

 

[Kirkhill]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

This is probably closest to the actual position of many. Absent a white knight they will accept a disruptor.

And, I believe, strangely, that most of the people that support Trump's candidacy have more trust in the institutions to limit his ability to act than do his opponents.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Interesting concept. Is there any reliable data on how often that went on and how often it led to disaster.

I can see the Clinton situation as an effect and I can see where Trump got way more air time then he deserved but it was all as a bad example rather than a preferred choice. But that doesn't mean some rich Democrat bought Trump airtime just that he got a lot. It's the downside of the "you just can't believe what this aged celebrity said today" system of reporting.

You'd have to search for specific campaigns. Concentrate on the candidates most people seem to charitably sum up as wing-nuts. There wouldn't be any "data". It wouldn't matter if the effort was decisive or not - the intent is all that matters.

Part of Trump's popularity with media was sensationalism. But Trump got a lot of airtime in part because they figured that it was turning the Republican nomination into a circus and creating a lot of friction. Afterward he got a lot of airtime because they figured he'd self-destruct in front of voters. I take people at their word for the glee they expressed at the time, particularly after he won the nomination.

Trump-hostile media are still addicted to covering him, and the clumsy ways they keep trying to set him up just end up adding to his support.

 

[Kirkhill]

Interesting concept. Is there any reliable data on how often that went on and how often it led to disaster.

I can see the Clinton situation as an effect and I can see where Trump got way more air time then he deserved but it was all as a bad example rather than a preferred choice. But that doesn't mean some rich Democrat bought Trump airtime just that he got a lot. It's the downside of the "you just can't believe what this aged celebrity said today" system of reporting.

So to take Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee: “This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field,” it read.

“The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.

“Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:
• Ted Cruz
• Donald Trump
• Ben Carson
We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/

2016

And now again in 2024.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is making crystal clear who he would rather run against in November, releasing a new TV ad Thursday that contrasts himself with Republican former Major League ballplayer Steve Garvey.

Schiff’s ad describes Garvey as too conservative for California — “he voted for Trump, twice, and supported Republicans for years, including far right conservatives.”

It’s hardly a new approach — with candidates from both parties employing the bank-shot strategy to boost an opponent for the primary whom they view as less of a threat to them in a runoff or general election.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/01/ca-senate-porter-schiff-garvey-ad-00139094

....

Personally I would like to know why the issue is so personal in New York. That is Ground Zero for the Anti-Trump campaign. I used to think it had something to do with the Cuomo clan. I remember reading somewhere that Trump's mother and Cuomo's mother used to be close enough that they regularly met for coffee. Trump also played with the notion of running for the Democrats. It feels like a grudge match.

 

[Kirkhill]

Maybe here -

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/20/the-family-feud-behind-the-trump-cuomo-battle-sometimes-you-have-to-hold-a-grudge/

McCain and Giugliani make cameo appearances.

In 1995, Trump, who was the lead developer for the project, applied to HUD for mortgage insurance on a $356 million loan, according to an agency memorandum. Federal guidelines stipulated that mortgage insurance was appropriate when a development furthered aims of “concentrated housing, physical development, and public service activities” geared toward “neighborhood improvement, conservation or preservation,” the memorandum stated. Trump’s agreement with the city dictated that he set aside 20 percent of the units for low-income housing, New York media reported at the time.

Donald Trump is hurtling toward a critical deadline in his most costly legal battle to date. If the former president doesn’t come up with a financial guarantee by Monday, New York’s attorney general can start the process of collecting on the more than $454 million Trump owes the state in a civil fraud lawsuit.

What happens if Trump can't pay $454 million fraud penalty? What to know

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee tried getting a bond for the full amount, which would have stopped the clock on collection during his appeal and ensured the state got its money if he were to lose.

www.nbcnewyork.com

356 million isn't a long way away from 454 million.

...


And something here

Trump and Cuomo discuss neighbourhoods and rivalries - Jamaica, Jamaica Estates and Holliswood - that are within walking distance of each other but were apparently ethnically segregated.

 

[Kirkhill]

And an interesting perspective on Georgetown.

Hoyagate: Georgetown Law Is Vatican of Trump Hatred - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Despite enjoying tax exempt status and enormous sums of taxpayer money, Georgetown Law Scholl is viciously partisan.

spectator.org

 

[mariomike]

If Jan 6th, by itself, wasn't enough to be the nail in the coffin, well then, I truly do not understand.

Working through the Denial and Anger Stages of Grief?

 

[Remius]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-mike-johnson/index.html

Yeeeeehaaaa GOP!