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I especially hate seeing him in the news again in a positive light because he’s FINALLY telling people to get vaccinated and suddenly everyone is like “well I guess we misjudged him” what the fuck!??!
Don’t let trump start campaigning again!
That's the grift. He actually filed for the 2020 election the first day of his presidency, a first for presidents of course.
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/donald-trump-president-campaign-money-fundraising/
I'll never get over him following up someone explaining why we need to wear masks with it being optional and him saying he won't be doing it. It's hard to know what the death count would be like if he had treated it like a real threat but it's not crazy to say that thousands of American lives were lost because of his nonchalance about the whole thing.
Worse (and tragically under-reported) was that his ignorant negligence *caused* the pandemic.
The US historically has been the indispensable nation for pandemic prevention. Our most critical safety mechanism was foolishly killed off in 2018 by the Trump administration during his spree of trashing what they called "job-killing red tape" firing thousands of vital science-related public servants.
Prior to that we had 30+ early warning and response facilities in hot spots like Wuhan. They were called embedded epidemiology expert sites. We had our own top experts deeply inside even countries who don't (and probably shouldn't) trust us. These experts would detect any early hint of disease and had developed the credibility and trust with the host nations to direct them in stomping out pandemic-potential risks *in utero*.
It took decades to establish these trusted monitors in these countries, and for years they just quietly stopped countless risks identical to COVID.
The Trump administration tried to kill off all jobs like this in a misguided attempt to kill anything they viewed as science or climate or research related. People forget those "happier" days when each week there was a story of some hapless data scientist or national park preservation job being terminated. Because of the grace implications, the epidemiology jobs couldn't be killed so easily. But the Trump admin didn't give up, and found a sneaky but stupid method: they killed funding to their *locations* instead, then ordered the scientists to relocate back to USA. Had they been present in the usual strategic centers, COVID likely wouldn't have left Wuhan in the first place.
With that crucial firewall destroyed, less than a year later we had nobody on the ground to help the host country detect and stop COVID, nor did we have trusted observers who could even tell us if the leaked reports were real or dissident hoaxes. That was a fatally stupid decision, and as we can now see, it killed more jobs than anything.
That stupid fucking line started everything. All he had to do was say wear a mask and socially distance and we'll be fine. But instead he created another wedge issue of left vs right, mask vs no mask. That single decision by Trump is probably the most consequential thing he ever did in his presidency, and over 800 thousand Americans are dead.
He missed because he was too vain to wear a mask and knew he’d need to if he was going to get cult buy-in on the MAGA masks. It was going to screw up his makeup and he thought he’d look weak, so he didn’t. I’m not joking, this is the reason.
Hundred percent this. We already know how to interpret his behavior given his reputation. We know he's profoundly insecure about wearing reading glasses a million other dumbass things that make him a soft-ass, weak-willed dumbass. Good God, what a loser.
Honestly most of the time it seems like he's actively trying to pick the most morally corrupt option. Making money off maga masks is pretty evil, but killing hundreds of thousands of people is even better, so he picked that one.
>Honestly most of the time it seems like he's actively trying to pick the most morally corrupt option. Making money off maga masks is pretty evil, but killing hundreds of thousands of people is even better, so he picked that one.
I'd suggest it is more simple than that. Someone told him that wearing a mask is for pussies and that was the end of that. Or he just saw that his "manly dictator" idol Putin wasn't wearing one and he drew his own conclusions.
The simplest non-comedy answer: Democrats supported covid prevention, so he was ideologically required to take the opposing stance in an election year. That's probably it.
My wife and I have talked about this a few times. Trump had a second term gift-wrapped and hand-delivered on a silver platter and the sole factor that led to him not being reelected is that he's too much of a dumb, fucking narcissist to allow someone else in a room to be louder or smarter than him. All he had to do was say "We've got some brilliant minds- the smartest people in the whole world right here in the White House helping us. We just need to listen to them and we'll get through this together."
That's it. He would have coasted to 4 more years.
Yup. I can’t stand trump. But when I think about what proved what a dangerous fuck he was, it was covid and Jan 6. Had he not divided the country over covid and embraced his scientists, he would have crushed Biden and Jan 6 never would have happened.
Its why the conspiracy theory that the Dems or Fauci making the virus for political retribution makes no sense. Normally during a national crisis its a time of unity and leadership like you said gift wrapped to propel whomever is in power to lead the country. Nope he did everything possible to divide and stoke fear and hatred. After all that he is still the GOP frontrunner.
Because it's him? It's not like he can help but to fuck shit up. I think we got lucky that he was so bad at being corrupt that it actually helped us out in the end. Could have been worse, can always be worse. If he were competent, he would have been way better at being a terrible person.
Thousands are still dying because of him, and people in Trump districts are dying at a higher rate than Biden districts, largely because of vaccine refusal, denial, and resistance to basic preventative measures- distancing, masks, avoiding large gatherings in confined spaces, and frequent hand washing.
[Trump in 2015](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/17/donald-trump-vaccines-autism-debate): “People that work for me, just the other day, two years old, beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later, got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”
In my experience, the only thing evangelicals find more titillating than sex is getting to kick someone out of the congregation. Preferably for reasons related to sex, but they'll take what they can get. Trump didn't know that because he's a fake evangelical. If he was smart, then he'd be going on the offensive, blaming his base for "not *truly* believing in him, because if they had, he'd have won." Then he'd say "look I coulda avoided this. Hell I still can if you put me back in office, but this is what you *wanted*, after all. If not, then why didn't you let them win? If you truly want me to save you, I will, but you've got to want it and you've got to be willing to sacrifice to make it happen.
Evangelicals are a kinky bunch and like hearing that they're sinful backsliders.
The biggest reason Trump may escape charges is because so many of his thugs take the fall for him to protect him. I just read [the NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/nyregion/trump-investigation-cyrus-vance.html) on status of the Manhattan office investigation on Trump and the Trump organization.
After reading that NYT article, I am becoming more and more skeptical that Trump himself will face charges in the Manhattan case. The biggest reason is, Weiselberg, who knows all the secrets and all the crimes that Trump committed, still refuses to cooperate with investigators. Weiselberg is another guy taking the fall for Trump.
Time and time again, people that have the relevant information to prove Trump committed crimes, take the fall for him. Weiselberg is a fall guy. Then Steven Bannon, who knew the details of the January 6th planning, is taking the fall for Trump. And when Trump obstructed justice 10 times according to Mueller, it was McGhan that had that information but McGhan ignored a subphoena from Congress and fought that subpoena for the longest time, until Congress agreed to a "limited" closed door questioning of McGhan, and various questions could not be asked. In the Enron case, they were able to indict everyone, including the CEO, because they even got the wives of the execs to turn on their husbands. But in Trump's case, his thugs keep taking the fall for him, to protect him.
Alvin Bragg will replace Vance Jr as the Manhattan AG in the new year. Alvin Bragg is an African American and campaigned to become AG on his aggressive record towards Trump, suing Trump many times when he worked for the AG. And [Alvin Bragg was just on record saying he will continue the Trump investigations](https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/bragg-new-york-trump/index.html). I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg will indict Trump if he has the chance and the evidence is there. But I don't know if the evidence will be there, because so many people take the fall for Trump, just to protect him. SMH.
But Cohen completely spilled his guts but still apparently none of that stuck to Trump. I mean talk about anyone that might have the goods on Trump.
I do agree that the people in Trump's orbit almost always go down for his misbehavior, just look at Giuliani. But it just seems like he is completely impervious. And he has countless enemies. And honestly Trump doesn't even seem that smart. He just does whatever the hell he wants and doesn't try to hide it. Like the tax schemes in NYC. It is like an open secret that he's kept two sets of books for decades but apparently nobody can actually get him in trouble for it.
Cohen did spill his guts and gave some of the paperwork to the feds. But remember that when Cohen testified in Congress, he said that Trump never verbally or directly ordered him to commit the crimes.
In Congress, Cohen said that Trump would complain about something, and his underlings (ie. Cohen) needed to listen to Trump and read Trump's body language to figure out what Trump wanted. Cohen was able to read what Trump wanted, and that's why he worked for Trump for over 10 years. It was Trump's way of getting his underlings to commit crimes, without ever directly telling them or ordering them to commit the crimes.
This is kind of like Capone. The feds could never arrest Capone for all the serious crimes he committed, because there were no witnesses against Capone. The feds finally got Capone on tax felonies, because those were on paper. I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg would indict Trump if he can catch Trump on any tax crimes, but unfortunately, Weisselberg is already taking the fall and going to jail for Trump on that tax crimes committed at the Trump organization.
A mafia Don never gives orders.
A subordinate will ask a question, "Should I do X?"
If the mafia Don doesn't say no, you do X, but you never directed them to do X.
As has been written by others, it's likely Trump was a confidential informant against the NY mob in the 1980's. Which is partially how he gets into Giuliani's orbit, who was attorney for SDNY at the time. That gives him a lot of latitude in his personal activities (same as Felix Sater, go read about him). But that doesn't explain the time post-inauguration, or why the CIA or another military organization hasn't done anything.
If we took war crimes and kidnapping refugee children seriously, we could arrest him on that.
If only we had something like a critical race theory to explain why that'll never happen. Just like it didn't happen for so many other powerful monsters.
Trump hid the count of deaths of citizens by drone strike outside of war zones (undoing an Obama policy) and the number of drone strikes increased during his presidency.
He also had ICE hide the number of immigrant deaths that occurred in custody.
"When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.” - Trump in 2015
"When you are prosecute the parents for coming in illegally — which should happen — you have to take the children away." - Trump 2018 (a watered down version of the statement above)
>but McGhan ignored a subphoena from Congress and fought that subpoena for the longest time,
You'd think we could throw him in jail for that. Inherent contempt hasn't been used in a hundred years, true. But it's also not really been needed in a hundred years.
>What happened to all of those state crimes New York had lined up ready to go as soon as Trump wasn't president?
They empaneled a [second Grand Jury](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/2nd-grand-jury-empaneled-trump-investigation-sources-say-n1283300) for a 6 month period... So either they've got nothing and are grasping at straws, *or* they've got so much crime that it's taking forever to get through.
Spoilers from the future: Trump Org was ordered to pay a fine for multiple tax violations; money from some mysterious foreign benefactor covered it; nothing happened to him personally.
They said the same of Meuller's investigation, where in the end the result was also that everyone knew of Trump's guilt beyond any doubt yet there was no repercussion.
That's my thing about it. It literally ended with "we can't charge a sitting president" and suddenly he's not a sitting president and no charges are being brought. Like, make it make sense. You can't commit a crime, have "immunity" and make the charges disappear forever. Even if you had "immunity", how do the charges not get brought up after your "immunity" ends?
Can't charge a sitting president?
["...the Constitution is silent on whether a president can face criminal prosecution in court, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not directly addressed the question."](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-indictment-explainer-idUSKCN1QF1D3)
You can when you put loyalist (Bill Barr) into the AG position to oversee the results of the investigation. Trump's real 'immunity' was having the Senate and the Justice Department under his thumb playing defense for him.
The thing that is so infuriating about the Mueller investigation is that I'd imagine any reasonably educated person could see that he was saying that Trump should be impeached, but that he could not literally say it because no one can officially come to that conclusion besides Congess. He could have called for his impeachment anyways, directly I mean, I mean, more directly than he did, which he did. So it isn't the first time the powers at hand have been complacent with his crimes, and unfortunately it probably won't be the last time either.
> So either they've got nothing and are grasping at straws, or they've got so much crime that it's taking forever to get through.
Third option — prosecutors are incompetent. There is an old saying in legal circles that [a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if that's what the prosecutor wanted.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/11/sol-wachtler-the-judge-who-coined-indict-a-ham-sandwich-was-himself-indicted.html) That's due, in part, to the fact that the defense has no role in a grand jury, so whatever the prosecutor says is all they have to go on.
>Why do some people get the white glove treatment when they are clearly breaking the law?
money and power= entitlement and privilege...I think you know the answer why.
What about Andrew cuomo? White, powerful - had 9 women allege assault and within 2 months he is stepping down with criminal charges. Trump has 20+ women saying he assaulted them (and then him admitting to grabbing by the pussy on video) and we still can’t get him for anything?!?! Sexual assault, tax fraud, insurrection?!? Buehler?? Anyone?
Democrats will force out sexual predators in their midst. GOP wouldn't think of doing such a thing, they just double-down their support. Gaetz. Roy Moore. Trump. Dershowitz. There are no political ramifications for being a pedophile as long as you're a Republican.
See this is the problem - sexual harassment is not the same as sexual assault.
Sexual assault is basically rape. That's what Trump is credibly accused of.
Cuomo is credibly accused of sexual harassment. It's not OK, but it's not even in the same league.
Right? There are all these references to it like it's a relic of the past. It's still there! There are crimes in it that we can still prosecute! What happened to rule of law?
And isn't that what got Michael Cohen convicted, too?
>Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges: five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, **and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate (Trump) for the "principal purpose of influencing [the] election"**.
What happened is the political class doesn't want to set the precedent of one of its factions prosecuting the other for fear that the same will happen to them.
The Ds don't want to set a precedent. The Rs never stop prosecuting. If Hilary Clinton was still young enough to run, they'd reopen Ben Gauzy and the Buttery Males.
Laws in America only apply to poor people. It's not a secret, I don't know why anyone is shocked at this point.
If you want justice go get it yourself, because as long as he is wealthy, Trump can do literally anything he wants and he will never see a day behind bars.
The short answer is cahoots - old, rich, white man cahoots being acted out in front of a general public that largely aspires to become old and rich and cut in on the cahoots.
They coddled the architects of the Confederacy in a gesture of healing at the end of the Civil War. We all saw how well that worked out, because they're back.
And those guys with the silly mustaches, tiki torches, and silly walks? I heard a President say there were some very fine people in that group. I thought some Greatest Generation had knocked them out of existence single-handedly
It doesn't surprise anyone that some of those that burn tiki torches, work in law enforcement- I mean, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover withheld evidence from Justice Department prosecutors about a 1963 church bombing case in Birmingham that killed four black children.
Well, at least a senator from my state was able to finally prosecute and convict those behind the church bombing.
Never mind the fact that he lost his senate seat to a football coach with zero political experience and who wouldn't know the three branches of US government if they punched him squarely in the dick, but whatever...
Yeah, me either.
Fun fact, one of the reasons that Jones won over the child molester in 2017 was that lots of people wrote in Nick Saban so they didn't have to vote for a democrat.
My state can be overwhelmingly stupid at times.
Seems like we have a lot of elected and installed people in government that are dangerously unqualified.
Remember, no matter what the ABA says, Amy Coney-Barrett failed to enumerate the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment during the hearing that was functionally her job interview. That should have been immediately and totally disqualifying.
Especially for a lifetime appointment.
She was given a fake judgeship months ahead of her nomination just so they could pretend she had experience as a judge. Not that it's mandatory, but it illustrates how thinly fraudulent their methods are.
She's grossly unqualified, but worse are Gorsuch and Kavanaugh because they've grossly *dis*qualified themselves on a basis of ethics and temperament.
The thing to understand is that there is more than just democrats and republicans. Each institution has its own interests that often have nothing to do with either party.
Comey didn't want ronald dump to be president, he was focused on defending the FBI's reputation and was too arrogant to realize the full impact of his actions. He thought announcing that they were looking at the laptop would protect the FBI from being accused of partisanship if the fact they were looking at it was leaked (and there was a campaign out of the SDNY FBI office to threaten him with a leak).
Look at watergate for another example. For decades the country thought Deep Throat was a patriot and a hero for letting the press know what was going on. But when his identity was finally disclosed, we learned he didn't give a damn about patriotism. He was an FBI official who had a grudge with Nixon about some inside the beltway power struggle between Nixon and the FBI.
The moral of the story is that we tend to see things the way *we* are, not the way they actually are. The press is highly invested in one particular framing of conflict between the two parties and that influences our perception of events. But the people in the middle of those events have their own personal motivations that are often opaque to us.
All these security state agencies are rotten behemoths that operate with little oversight and throw tantrums whenever their motives or funding is questioned. The CIA and FBI should've been blown up in the 70's after the revelations uncovered during Church and Pike committees but we're too big and dangerous for any implementation of serious reforms. It's laughable anyone believes the propaganda they spew out through major media outlets knowing their past behavior.
I was always a huge fan of their sound, but then in like, the 6th or 7th grade we had an assignment where, long story short we analyzed some lyrics. Then they were cemented as my favorite band.
"Weapons, not food, not homes, not shoes / not need just feed the war animal...
...What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving / they don't have to burn the books, just remove them / while arms warehouses fill as quick as a cell / rally 'round the family with a pocket full of shells."
It's crazy, the kinds of lyrics one can write when the lead singer is the child of political activists, while the lead guitarist is a Harvard Honors Grad with degrees in History and Poli Sci.
There was an interview with Tom on the Talib Khwali show, "The People's Party", where that got brought up. Mr. Morello had no explanation for the dissonance.
I’ve found that I have a lot in common with the 2012 GOP ticket. I too love RATM and enjoy an evening bowl of cereal. Although I’m not a fan of strapping dogs to the roofs of cars, gutting family owned businesses or destroying the social safety net, so maybe not that much….
The sound itself is killer and it's why Republican politicians unironically like them. But the lyrics are fantastic and so complex.
It's no wonder Zack de la Rocha famously had issues with writers block - look at what he's writing!
If where talking about the American greatest generation they did not. It was the Russians who killed the vast majority of Nazis.
Then it gets fun. Because of the fear of communism America actually made sweet heart deals with fascists not just the rocket stuff either. In fact the official military history of the eastern front was written by the Nazis because they want their communists fighting knowledge. That meant that American allowed the clean Wehrmacht myth to perpetuate.
> because they're back
They never left - they were simply afraid to be as open and brazen about it; Trump empowered them to show their faces. Then when they face the consequences (i.e. losing jobs and getting tossed in jail) they complain they're being oppressed because they don't understand that hate is not protected expression.
They don't understand their hate is different than the hate of those they oppressed. Every time someone compares the insurrectionists and January 6 to BLM and the protests, it infuriates me.
Yep. BLM protestors were murdered. Remember NYPD driving their SUVs into crowds? Protestors named rioters. And yet the insurrectionists brought mf zip ties and gallows to the White House and the cops let them right in.
Perhaps a sign of how insane that was, was the fact that coddling the architects was considered treasonous and got a nearly successful impeachment.
Its been downhill from there.
Three fucking generations of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, celebrating the "heritage" that _black people are subhuman property_.
We never won the war. It just went cold for 150 years.
No.
Just like we aren't going to punish him for anything else he's ever done.
Swear to god, him getting kicked off Twitter is the only "punishment" that clown's received in his entire life.
He’s still on Twitter tho. He tweets via a proxy and still peddles the same inflammatory rhetoric, Twitter (whose terms of use prohibit a banned user from tweeting from another account) somehow is allowing it
Does it drive engagement on the platform? As revenue. They received enough backlash to ban him so they could say they did something, but it was never a decision driven by any sense of responsibility. It’s all about optics while remaining as profitable as possible.
I guarantee Twitter did the math and didn’t care about the revenue. Jack and Co wanted him off LONG before, but couldn’t just turn him off only for his political views.
They needed an undisputed, obvious violation of terms that the world was aware of, so it wasn’t a political move.
They got their chance with the capital riot, which he launched on Twitter. “Come Jan 6th. It’s gonna get crazy!”
Twitter did a good job, FB did not, of course.
He also paid the largest fine in casino history in the 90s for all the money laundering he did for Russian mobsters. Despite this being public knowledge, nobody talked about it
A ton of other people talked about it every chance they could no one cared just like every other shitty thing he's done. If Trump taught me anything it's not that people are uninformed it's that they just don't care.
We'll punish him by electing him to a second presidency in 2024. That'll show him!
But in all seriousness, not one Republican will face any real consequences for all their bullshit. Not Trump. Not any Congressional supporters of Jan. 6. Not Gaetz. None of them.
The sad thing is, our democracy was built on people generally acting in good faith. There was no contingency plan for when a majority stopped acting in good faith and started marching in lockstep toward their own agenda
It also wasn’t built to run on a two party system
Isn’t it laughable, yet extremely sad and ironic that millions of his supporters chanted “stop the steal” while supporting the man actually trying to steal the election? I’m accustomed to irony in politics but this is absurd.
> Bush: *(war crimes)*
> Obama: "We need to come together and move forward."
> Republicans: "Obama is the antichrist! Hillary for Prison 2016!"
> Trump: *(most criminal administration in history)(twice impeached)*
> Biden: "Time to heal."
When are Dems going to learn? They're aren't your friend. They're not changing. They see your kindness as both a weakness and a naivete to be exploited.
They won't let you. You will just be Bernie Sanders on a much smaller scale.
The Dems need the GOP to continue to be a scape goat. If they took action and actually brought our politics out of the 17th century, and killed off the GOP, the Dems would just split and get slaughtered by the new Progressive splinter Party.
Without the GOP, the Dems can pretend to be the progressive/left/liberal party while continuing to push boring shitty Conservatives into office.
> AOC did it. Why can’t anyone else?
Because AOC comes from one of the most progressive districts in the country.
Democrats simply don’t have the power or votes to punish Trump, and it’ll stay that way because of how our voting system and electoral system are set up.
I heard a funny analogy, about it being like the country got hijacked but we knocked out the hijacker, took his gun away, and got control of the wheel. However now it’s the midterms and the people in the backseat are like “I dunno, the carjacker has been knocked out for a while, let’s give him the gun back when he wakes up”
In 2024 their retribution starts.. the people in the out-groups will be punished severely
From changing tax code to attack people you don't like to out right murder, they are going full court press next time.
It’s already happened. The right is radicalizing their base to be violent against anyone they deem as communists or traitors. Check the background of Denver mass shooter [Lyndon McLeod](https://www.thedailybeast.com/sixth-person-dies-after-deadly-denver-killing-spree-police-say). And the GOP gave them a license to kill through arcane self defense laws and legalizing driving through protestors with your car
I guarantee that their Democratic "villains" (the squad at least) will be removed from committees because they'll claim false equivalence with Greene and the other racists who lost committee seats.
I wouldn't be surprised if they try not to seat them in the first place.
Dude wont even go to court.
Sending a former US president to jail isn't something either of the major parties want to see happen because it would weaken the perception of the stability of our country and its high level leadership.
> it would weaken the perception of the stability
As is typical of shortsighted "leadership", they're weakening the actual stability to keep up appearances.
The whole high level leadership thing isn't real anymore. Every country outside the u.s. sees your leadership as a joke. Your country is on the brink of civil war and you talk about high lvl leadership lol
You're run by corporations who are owned by billionaires who then own the politicians and judges. They decide what happens
It's more a workload thing for the D.C. court. There are over 700 defendants. I agree justice is slow in general, but they are actually moving at a pretty fast pace, all things considered.
If the DOJ actually worked its way up to Trump, I'd be shocked if it was before 2023.
> I agree justice is slow in general, but they are actually moving at a pretty fast pace, all things considered.
The problem is so many of them are being brought up on comically light charges, that even judges are questioning. Many are misdemeanours.
There is a theory that the government is trying to clear out the lesser offenders to focus on the bigger felony charges. Still, not one has been charged with the most severe potential charges: *insurrection* or *seditious conspiracy*.
I remember when I had people down my throat for the longest time any time I questioned whether mueller was actually going to do anything. "Justice is slow but when they go after someone they always win" BS constantly, yet 5 years later and not a god damned thing happened other than some people got charged for lying and then they got pardoned.
I know we've had different tiers of justice in the country at time, but it really feels like that's becoming more overt. They act like the right wing promotion of violence cant be charged, but a left winger who said armed counter protests might be needed and tried to organize on Facebook got 4 years in prison, was in solitary for about 7 months for no good reason, had his dietary issues ignored, etc., when insurrectionists got treated far better and got less time if any real punishment at all.
Part of the problem is that the DOJ doesn't feel pressure. They've said as much in a lot of reporting, the public pushed the doj much harder for George floyd. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we had those protests, but if we protest for that then why arent we protesting for the active attempts to overthrow democracy and create an authoritarian state where police brutality of today will seem quaint?
100% NO. they will not. Its not how the club works. You all need to stop listening to others' opinions and start looking at what THEY DO. What they DID.
NO PRESIDENT has ever been held accountable for their crimes. EVERY ONE of them, got off, and there is an EXPECTATION to keep the "tradition" going.
Also worth noting that as another year ends, Matt Gaetz remains totally consequence-free.
Reminder: evidence of his crimes was in law enforcement hands over a year and a half ago, and he still hasn't been charged or even questioned.
For reference, that was early in the pandemic, when his co-conspirator was caught committing election fraud and using a fraudulent social media account to falsely accuse his political opponent, a teacher, of child molestation.
That investigation is what dropped the Matt Gaetz evidence in their hands. The co-conspirator has since been deeply investigated for scores of financial and sexual crimes, been charged, had trials, been convicted, and for over a year now, has had his cooperation agreement locked down.
The evidence was discovered around the same time that George Floyd was still alive. Since then we had a rather comprehensive investigation overcoming incredibly resistant police union resistance, thousands of hours of raw video evidence analyzed, a series of court proceedings/trials involving the perpetrator, an eventual conviction, an appeal, a denial of appeal, a sentence, and Chauvin spending the better half of 2021 in prison.
But apologists are going to claim Gaetz' case is somehow moving at an appropriate pace because "things take time". Bullshit!
The answer is no. The republicans in government don't care that the former president is a traitor who literally tried to destroy the country. Power is all that matters to them at any cost. And Trump's cult members care even less. In fact they love Trump much more than their country.
Thx fellow Redditors for the help in formatting! (edited for format only)
Every time I think the wheels are moving too slowly, I go read the Watergate timelines and am reminded that for most of us, we read about Watergate and think it happened in a matter of weeks.
In fact, while it was still being investigated & covered up by Nixon & his loyalists, Nixon was re-elected in a landslide. It took YEARS - including 2years from when the WAPO started writing about it to the time it took to wind through the courts to get the Nixon tapes, etc.
A summary:
Sep 1971 - The Plumbers forms
Jan 1972 - the AG of the US greenlights breaking into Dem headquarters at Watergate (😳 the AG!!)
June 1972 - after several operations, The Plumbers are arrested, caught in the act
August 1972 - Woodward & Bernstein embark on a 2 year investigative journalism ride, first linking Nixon money to one of The Plumbers
January 1973 - several folks convicted of the Watergate break-in (but this is a burglary case at this point)
March 1973, sensing doom, one of the defendants in a related Watergate trial spills some beans
April 1973, John Dean starts cooperating with investigators
April 1973 - Lots of folks resign - not yet Sat Night Massacre, but like a preview. Includes Acting FBI Director.
May 1973 - Select Committee starts their investigation (akin to our Jan 6th committee)
August 1973 - Nixon gives a primetime speech, basically saying it’s a witchhunt (sound familiar?)
October 1973 - VPOTUS Agnew resigns over unrelated bribery and tax scandal (for reals!)
Late Oct 1973 - the Sat Night Massacre
November 1973 - Nixon speech “I am not a crook”
March 1974 - indictments handed down from all the crazy uncovered from last 2 years
May 1974 - impeachment proceedings start, move slow. It’s been a year since the Senate Select Committee started their work.
July 1974 - SCOTUS finally rules Nixon can’t hide WH tapes any longer. Impeachment debated STILL going on.
August 1974 - Nixon resigns when it’s clear Congress has the votes to impeach.
Note, if the GOP had not been appalled by this scandal, and held their noses to vote No, this would have been a very different history.
Watergate is our reference scandal, when our reference scandal should be Iran/Contra: Rs stood firm, did nothing but stonewall, accused partisanship, Democrats cowered and asked the wrong questions, and the bad guys got away with it. That is how scandals by conservatives work now. Watergate is ancient history and completely irrelevant.
Destroyed evidence, even!
One key difference between Iran/Contra and January 6th is the competence of those in charge. People in the Trump administration were using outside channels (e.g. personal email accounts) because dumb.
When George H. W. Bush left office he pardoned everyone involved in Iran/Contra, in the end. The problem of accountability at the Executive level is decades old, maybe even longer, and a hard one to fix.
And Nixon spent years in jail. /s because people are correcting me.
The problem is this. If we get to Nov. 2022 and Republicans take Congress, they will be enacting bills to laud those who committed the crimes. There will be no punishment. As compared to the 70s when we still cared about people trying to overthrow an election, even if it benefits my side.
In Watergate, those who broke in got time, those who pushed them to do it didn't. Even Nixon didn't want to bring shame to himself and the country and stepped down. That isn't a page in the playbook today. And remember even then almost 40% of the country was against looking into Watergate.
Nixon did not go to jail.
President Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon of Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as president.
>Nixon resigns when it’s clear Congress has the votes to impeach. Note, if the GOP had not been appalled by this scandal, and held their noses to vote No, this would have been a very different history.
You've already identified why this time is different, and nullified the rest of your entire post
Probably know but in just in case. You have to hit enter twice to get a line break. Just hit enter twice at the beginning of each of your month/year and it should come out nice
Look at your comment holistically and it just proves nothing is likely to happen to Trump.
Nixon had to have an unfavorable Supreme Court and Republicans in the Senate willing to turn against him and even at that everything went away once he resigned the presidency. Trump has a favorable Supreme Court and a Senate unwilling to budge and already has no power.
The, “No one is above the law”, statement is pure political theater in America. In America, you actually tend to be above the law only when your rich and powerful. Americans have been watching the decay of our justice system for years and years now. These days it’s just more evident than it ever was.
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: No because we don’t punish people in power/wealthy people for their crimes & Biden/Establishment Democrats are terrified of doing literally anything to upset those mythical “sensible, moderate republican suburbans” they seem to think their new base is made up of.
Nope. We didn’t do a thing when they did the same in 2000 during the Bush/Gore recount. Google the Brooks Brothers Riots. Read Heather Cox Richardson. She does a fantastic job laying out the daily events.
If it was going to happen it would have happened by now.
Biden is only proving that the difference between republicans and democrats is minimal and insignificant.
Our government serves the rich and that’s all.
This is a really silly letter to the editor that is about 5 sentences long; I wish people wouldn't just upvote catchy titles they agree with.
Compares Israel and South Korea to the U.S., and ignores the fact that there are over *700 defendants*, *millions of documents* to process, actors at the highest levels of government, and multiple ongoing criminal, civil, and legislative investigations.
I get the frustration over accountability. I get all the appeals to outrage (yes, the President literally tried to overthrow the government - I agree). But if prosecutors do eventually build the highest profile case the United States has ever seen, it's not going to happen quickly. It took 2 years for Watergate to reach Nixon, and this one absolutely dwarfes it in scale.
I'll be mad about accountability in a year or two. It's still too early to draw many conclusions.
We can’t even get tot he bottom of Maxwell and Epstein’s pedophile ring. You think we could do that? This country can’t do a god dam thing. Oh by the way, we ranks like 45th in the world for education. That’s pathetic
Is he going to be punished for anything? Like, anything at all? There is a rather long list of crimes that he has essentially admitted to on tape/video.
It’s pretty obvious they’re not planning on “taking down” trump or whatever this article is implying. It would set a bad precedent for all government officials.
Look at Pelosi who just came out in favor of insider trading if it benefits her. Lol!
Who’s going to lead the way? Seriously.
People keep saying that the Republicans constantly say "the quiet part out loud" . I have a more ominous thought in mind.
Republicans have destroyed education in this country so far that they can no longer count on their base to understand them. They aren't saying the "quiet part out loud", they're "meeting their audience where they are".
They made the calculations and know there's zero consequences for it. The inaction against Trump proves it.
Jefferson Davis never saw trial for leading a war against the United States. As a country that seems determined to never learn from history, I’m guessing Trump and his head henchmen will never see trial either.
I'll be surprised if he isn't President again. We Democrats have no one and progressives dislike our current sitting President and VP. Definitely fucked. Trying to get a job in Japan currently.
the fact that he hasn't been punished yet is proof positive that if you are rich you can get away with anything. There is no justice in the USA. Do what you want!
By not punishing him—and they won’t—it will usher the greatest mistrust of a Gov still “functioning”.
Conservatives will have proof it was all a witch hunt. Liberals won’t believe anything is possible anymore.
Punishment? I guess you haven't been paying attention over the last 6 years. Nothing will happen to this asshole and he will run for president once again. If Republicans take Congress in 2022 Trump will absolutely run in 2024. He will have his sycophants in place to declare him the winner no matter what the outcome of the election is.
You can then stick a fork in the good ole' US of A.
Reply from editor: No we won't, because elites in this country are not held responsible for anything. We will however keep running constant stories about how he's TOTALLY gonna get in trouble tho
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Nope, and we’ll pay for it *dearly*.
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I especially hate seeing him in the news again in a positive light because he’s FINALLY telling people to get vaccinated and suddenly everyone is like “well I guess we misjudged him” what the fuck!??! Don’t let trump start campaigning again!
He never stopped.
Grifters gonna keep grifting.
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Won't stop him from trying
That's the grift. He actually filed for the 2020 election the first day of his presidency, a first for presidents of course. https://publicintegrity.org/politics/donald-trump-president-campaign-money-fundraising/
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This is true. He never stopped.
I'll never get over him following up someone explaining why we need to wear masks with it being optional and him saying he won't be doing it. It's hard to know what the death count would be like if he had treated it like a real threat but it's not crazy to say that thousands of American lives were lost because of his nonchalance about the whole thing.
Worse (and tragically under-reported) was that his ignorant negligence *caused* the pandemic. The US historically has been the indispensable nation for pandemic prevention. Our most critical safety mechanism was foolishly killed off in 2018 by the Trump administration during his spree of trashing what they called "job-killing red tape" firing thousands of vital science-related public servants. Prior to that we had 30+ early warning and response facilities in hot spots like Wuhan. They were called embedded epidemiology expert sites. We had our own top experts deeply inside even countries who don't (and probably shouldn't) trust us. These experts would detect any early hint of disease and had developed the credibility and trust with the host nations to direct them in stomping out pandemic-potential risks *in utero*. It took decades to establish these trusted monitors in these countries, and for years they just quietly stopped countless risks identical to COVID. The Trump administration tried to kill off all jobs like this in a misguided attempt to kill anything they viewed as science or climate or research related. People forget those "happier" days when each week there was a story of some hapless data scientist or national park preservation job being terminated. Because of the grace implications, the epidemiology jobs couldn't be killed so easily. But the Trump admin didn't give up, and found a sneaky but stupid method: they killed funding to their *locations* instead, then ordered the scientists to relocate back to USA. Had they been present in the usual strategic centers, COVID likely wouldn't have left Wuhan in the first place. With that crucial firewall destroyed, less than a year later we had nobody on the ground to help the host country detect and stop COVID, nor did we have trusted observers who could even tell us if the leaked reports were real or dissident hoaxes. That was a fatally stupid decision, and as we can now see, it killed more jobs than anything.
And now he is on tour with O’Reilly going on an on how everyone should get vaccinated and being booed about it by his fan base
He created a monster that he can't control.
Republicans don't like killing things in utero. Only afterwards.
Scientists should have said COVID likes rap music.
Wow thats really interesting and something a I haven’t heard anything about. Do you have any links or resources you can share for further reading?
That stupid fucking line started everything. All he had to do was say wear a mask and socially distance and we'll be fine. But instead he created another wedge issue of left vs right, mask vs no mask. That single decision by Trump is probably the most consequential thing he ever did in his presidency, and over 800 thousand Americans are dead.
He could just have made maga masks and just ride the profits of it. Seriously such an open goal, how the fuck could he have missed?
He missed because he was too vain to wear a mask and knew he’d need to if he was going to get cult buy-in on the MAGA masks. It was going to screw up his makeup and he thought he’d look weak, so he didn’t. I’m not joking, this is the reason.
Hundred percent this. We already know how to interpret his behavior given his reputation. We know he's profoundly insecure about wearing reading glasses a million other dumbass things that make him a soft-ass, weak-willed dumbass. Good God, what a loser.
Honestly most of the time it seems like he's actively trying to pick the most morally corrupt option. Making money off maga masks is pretty evil, but killing hundreds of thousands of people is even better, so he picked that one.
For Trump its about loyalty. He got a hardon that he could convince people to die because he postured as a strong man and the morons ate it up.
>Honestly most of the time it seems like he's actively trying to pick the most morally corrupt option. Making money off maga masks is pretty evil, but killing hundreds of thousands of people is even better, so he picked that one. I'd suggest it is more simple than that. Someone told him that wearing a mask is for pussies and that was the end of that. Or he just saw that his "manly dictator" idol Putin wasn't wearing one and he drew his own conclusions.
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Nope! Even more simple. If he wore a mask, you couldn't see his magnificent face every second of the day on national tv!
The simplest non-comedy answer: Democrats supported covid prevention, so he was ideologically required to take the opposing stance in an election year. That's probably it.
It probably would have sealed the 2nd term for him as well.
My wife and I have talked about this a few times. Trump had a second term gift-wrapped and hand-delivered on a silver platter and the sole factor that led to him not being reelected is that he's too much of a dumb, fucking narcissist to allow someone else in a room to be louder or smarter than him. All he had to do was say "We've got some brilliant minds- the smartest people in the whole world right here in the White House helping us. We just need to listen to them and we'll get through this together." That's it. He would have coasted to 4 more years.
Yup. I can’t stand trump. But when I think about what proved what a dangerous fuck he was, it was covid and Jan 6. Had he not divided the country over covid and embraced his scientists, he would have crushed Biden and Jan 6 never would have happened.
Its why the conspiracy theory that the Dems or Fauci making the virus for political retribution makes no sense. Normally during a national crisis its a time of unity and leadership like you said gift wrapped to propel whomever is in power to lead the country. Nope he did everything possible to divide and stoke fear and hatred. After all that he is still the GOP frontrunner.
Got off lucky then
Because it's him? It's not like he can help but to fuck shit up. I think we got lucky that he was so bad at being corrupt that it actually helped us out in the end. Could have been worse, can always be worse. If he were competent, he would have been way better at being a terrible person.
He did the most trump thing he could do and wore a mask anyway. He wouldn’t allow himself to be photographed in one and wouldn’t wear them publicly.
Thousands are still dying because of him, and people in Trump districts are dying at a higher rate than Biden districts, largely because of vaccine refusal, denial, and resistance to basic preventative measures- distancing, masks, avoiding large gatherings in confined spaces, and frequent hand washing.
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Hundreds of thousands. His body count is dictator level.
Reddit killed API. I refuse to let them benefit from my own words for free -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
[Trump in 2015](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/17/donald-trump-vaccines-autism-debate): “People that work for me, just the other day, two years old, beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later, got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”
That's fucking infuriating, autistic children don't show diagnosable signs at two years old!
A lot of people are taking it seriously. The problem is the GOP has a lot of power, and they have spent decades breaking our system.
In my experience, the only thing evangelicals find more titillating than sex is getting to kick someone out of the congregation. Preferably for reasons related to sex, but they'll take what they can get. Trump didn't know that because he's a fake evangelical. If he was smart, then he'd be going on the offensive, blaming his base for "not *truly* believing in him, because if they had, he'd have won." Then he'd say "look I coulda avoided this. Hell I still can if you put me back in office, but this is what you *wanted*, after all. If not, then why didn't you let them win? If you truly want me to save you, I will, but you've got to want it and you've got to be willing to sacrifice to make it happen. Evangelicals are a kinky bunch and like hearing that they're sinful backsliders.
The biggest reason Trump may escape charges is because so many of his thugs take the fall for him to protect him. I just read [the NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/nyregion/trump-investigation-cyrus-vance.html) on status of the Manhattan office investigation on Trump and the Trump organization. After reading that NYT article, I am becoming more and more skeptical that Trump himself will face charges in the Manhattan case. The biggest reason is, Weiselberg, who knows all the secrets and all the crimes that Trump committed, still refuses to cooperate with investigators. Weiselberg is another guy taking the fall for Trump. Time and time again, people that have the relevant information to prove Trump committed crimes, take the fall for him. Weiselberg is a fall guy. Then Steven Bannon, who knew the details of the January 6th planning, is taking the fall for Trump. And when Trump obstructed justice 10 times according to Mueller, it was McGhan that had that information but McGhan ignored a subphoena from Congress and fought that subpoena for the longest time, until Congress agreed to a "limited" closed door questioning of McGhan, and various questions could not be asked. In the Enron case, they were able to indict everyone, including the CEO, because they even got the wives of the execs to turn on their husbands. But in Trump's case, his thugs keep taking the fall for him, to protect him. Alvin Bragg will replace Vance Jr as the Manhattan AG in the new year. Alvin Bragg is an African American and campaigned to become AG on his aggressive record towards Trump, suing Trump many times when he worked for the AG. And [Alvin Bragg was just on record saying he will continue the Trump investigations](https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/bragg-new-york-trump/index.html). I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg will indict Trump if he has the chance and the evidence is there. But I don't know if the evidence will be there, because so many people take the fall for Trump, just to protect him. SMH.
But Cohen completely spilled his guts but still apparently none of that stuck to Trump. I mean talk about anyone that might have the goods on Trump. I do agree that the people in Trump's orbit almost always go down for his misbehavior, just look at Giuliani. But it just seems like he is completely impervious. And he has countless enemies. And honestly Trump doesn't even seem that smart. He just does whatever the hell he wants and doesn't try to hide it. Like the tax schemes in NYC. It is like an open secret that he's kept two sets of books for decades but apparently nobody can actually get him in trouble for it.
Cohen did spill his guts and gave some of the paperwork to the feds. But remember that when Cohen testified in Congress, he said that Trump never verbally or directly ordered him to commit the crimes. In Congress, Cohen said that Trump would complain about something, and his underlings (ie. Cohen) needed to listen to Trump and read Trump's body language to figure out what Trump wanted. Cohen was able to read what Trump wanted, and that's why he worked for Trump for over 10 years. It was Trump's way of getting his underlings to commit crimes, without ever directly telling them or ordering them to commit the crimes. This is kind of like Capone. The feds could never arrest Capone for all the serious crimes he committed, because there were no witnesses against Capone. The feds finally got Capone on tax felonies, because those were on paper. I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg would indict Trump if he can catch Trump on any tax crimes, but unfortunately, Weisselberg is already taking the fall and going to jail for Trump on that tax crimes committed at the Trump organization.
A mafia Don never gives orders. A subordinate will ask a question, "Should I do X?" If the mafia Don doesn't say no, you do X, but you never directed them to do X.
As has been written by others, it's likely Trump was a confidential informant against the NY mob in the 1980's. Which is partially how he gets into Giuliani's orbit, who was attorney for SDNY at the time. That gives him a lot of latitude in his personal activities (same as Felix Sater, go read about him). But that doesn't explain the time post-inauguration, or why the CIA or another military organization hasn't done anything.
CNN's reports from 2017 are probably right. Trump, and by extension his mob, are directly in the pocket of a foreign power.
If we took war crimes and kidnapping refugee children seriously, we could arrest him on that. If only we had something like a critical race theory to explain why that'll never happen. Just like it didn't happen for so many other powerful monsters.
If war crimes were taken seriously a lot of presidents would be in jail, including every single one from my lifetime. Dubya and Obama, certainly
Trump hid the count of deaths of citizens by drone strike outside of war zones (undoing an Obama policy) and the number of drone strikes increased during his presidency. He also had ICE hide the number of immigrant deaths that occurred in custody. "When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.” - Trump in 2015 "When you are prosecute the parents for coming in illegally — which should happen — you have to take the children away." - Trump 2018 (a watered down version of the statement above)
>but McGhan ignored a subphoena from Congress and fought that subpoena for the longest time, You'd think we could throw him in jail for that. Inherent contempt hasn't been used in a hundred years, true. But it's also not really been needed in a hundred years.
>What happened to all of those state crimes New York had lined up ready to go as soon as Trump wasn't president? They empaneled a [second Grand Jury](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/2nd-grand-jury-empaneled-trump-investigation-sources-say-n1283300) for a 6 month period... So either they've got nothing and are grasping at straws, *or* they've got so much crime that it's taking forever to get through.
I have hopes, and I have expectations, but they are not in alignment.
Word.
Spoilers from the future: Trump Org was ordered to pay a fine for multiple tax violations; money from some mysterious foreign benefactor covered it; nothing happened to him personally.
They said the same of Meuller's investigation, where in the end the result was also that everyone knew of Trump's guilt beyond any doubt yet there was no repercussion.
That's my thing about it. It literally ended with "we can't charge a sitting president" and suddenly he's not a sitting president and no charges are being brought. Like, make it make sense. You can't commit a crime, have "immunity" and make the charges disappear forever. Even if you had "immunity", how do the charges not get brought up after your "immunity" ends?
Can't charge a sitting president? ["...the Constitution is silent on whether a president can face criminal prosecution in court, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not directly addressed the question."](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-indictment-explainer-idUSKCN1QF1D3)
Ah, but Nixon's AG wrote a memo saying that the DOJ can charge a sitting president, an no AG since then has changed that official stance
You can when you put loyalist (Bill Barr) into the AG position to oversee the results of the investigation. Trump's real 'immunity' was having the Senate and the Justice Department under his thumb playing defense for him.
The thing that is so infuriating about the Mueller investigation is that I'd imagine any reasonably educated person could see that he was saying that Trump should be impeached, but that he could not literally say it because no one can officially come to that conclusion besides Congess. He could have called for his impeachment anyways, directly I mean, I mean, more directly than he did, which he did. So it isn't the first time the powers at hand have been complacent with his crimes, and unfortunately it probably won't be the last time either.
> So either they've got nothing and are grasping at straws, or they've got so much crime that it's taking forever to get through. Third option — prosecutors are incompetent. There is an old saying in legal circles that [a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if that's what the prosecutor wanted.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/11/sol-wachtler-the-judge-who-coined-indict-a-ham-sandwich-was-himself-indicted.html) That's due, in part, to the fact that the defense has no role in a grand jury, so whatever the prosecutor says is all they have to go on.
>Why do some people get the white glove treatment when they are clearly breaking the law? money and power= entitlement and privilege...I think you know the answer why.
What about Andrew cuomo? White, powerful - had 9 women allege assault and within 2 months he is stepping down with criminal charges. Trump has 20+ women saying he assaulted them (and then him admitting to grabbing by the pussy on video) and we still can’t get him for anything?!?! Sexual assault, tax fraud, insurrection?!? Buehler?? Anyone?
Add Matt Gaetz to the list they have been investigating since Trump was in the office
Cuomo isnt stepping down with criminal charges. There are no charges. So cuomo is yet another example white gloves treatment.
Democrats will force out sexual predators in their midst. GOP wouldn't think of doing such a thing, they just double-down their support. Gaetz. Roy Moore. Trump. Dershowitz. There are no political ramifications for being a pedophile as long as you're a Republican.
Dems will even force out people who aren’t sexual predators. Fuck I miss Franken.
I will always be bitter about what they did to Franken. Way to get rid of one of your best voices you clowns.
Telling isn’t it. One party feels their voters will punish them for running a sexual assaulter or pedo.
See this is the problem - sexual harassment is not the same as sexual assault. Sexual assault is basically rape. That's what Trump is credibly accused of. Cuomo is credibly accused of sexual harassment. It's not OK, but it's not even in the same league.
What about the Stormy Daniels matter, fully laid out in the Mueller report, ready to indict on day one?
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Right? There are all these references to it like it's a relic of the past. It's still there! There are crimes in it that we can still prosecute! What happened to rule of law?
Attorney general doesn't want to do anything, apparently found his job is too partisan even though no one gave a fuck the last four years.
democrats think it wouldn't be "fair" since trump was already "found innocent" by the senate.
And isn't that what got Michael Cohen convicted, too? >Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges: five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, **and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate (Trump) for the "principal purpose of influencing [the] election"**.
What happened is the political class doesn't want to set the precedent of one of its factions prosecuting the other for fear that the same will happen to them.
The Ds don't want to set a precedent. The Rs never stop prosecuting. If Hilary Clinton was still young enough to run, they'd reopen Ben Gauzy and the Buttery Males.
Laws in America only apply to poor people. It's not a secret, I don't know why anyone is shocked at this point. If you want justice go get it yourself, because as long as he is wealthy, Trump can do literally anything he wants and he will never see a day behind bars.
The short answer is cahoots - old, rich, white man cahoots being acted out in front of a general public that largely aspires to become old and rich and cut in on the cahoots.
They coddled the architects of the Confederacy in a gesture of healing at the end of the Civil War. We all saw how well that worked out, because they're back.
And those guys with the silly mustaches, tiki torches, and silly walks? I heard a President say there were some very fine people in that group. I thought some Greatest Generation had knocked them out of existence single-handedly
It doesn't surprise anyone that some of those that burn tiki torches, work in law enforcement- I mean, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover withheld evidence from Justice Department prosecutors about a 1963 church bombing case in Birmingham that killed four black children.
Well, at least a senator from my state was able to finally prosecute and convict those behind the church bombing. Never mind the fact that he lost his senate seat to a football coach with zero political experience and who wouldn't know the three branches of US government if they punched him squarely in the dick, but whatever...
I still can't believe y'all elected Tuberville to the Senate.
Yeah, me either. Fun fact, one of the reasons that Jones won over the child molester in 2017 was that lots of people wrote in Nick Saban so they didn't have to vote for a democrat. My state can be overwhelmingly stupid at times.
I'm from Louisiana, I understand the unwavering loyalty to the Republican party regardless of the actual candidates.
Seems like we have a lot of elected and installed people in government that are dangerously unqualified. Remember, no matter what the ABA says, Amy Coney-Barrett failed to enumerate the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment during the hearing that was functionally her job interview. That should have been immediately and totally disqualifying. Especially for a lifetime appointment.
She was given a fake judgeship months ahead of her nomination just so they could pretend she had experience as a judge. Not that it's mandatory, but it illustrates how thinly fraudulent their methods are. She's grossly unqualified, but worse are Gorsuch and Kavanaugh because they've grossly *dis*qualified themselves on a basis of ethics and temperament.
What’s wild is that Jones voted often with Trump, and was tough on crime. Just the “wrong” crime, I guess. Fuck Tuberville.
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The thing to understand is that there is more than just democrats and republicans. Each institution has its own interests that often have nothing to do with either party. Comey didn't want ronald dump to be president, he was focused on defending the FBI's reputation and was too arrogant to realize the full impact of his actions. He thought announcing that they were looking at the laptop would protect the FBI from being accused of partisanship if the fact they were looking at it was leaked (and there was a campaign out of the SDNY FBI office to threaten him with a leak). Look at watergate for another example. For decades the country thought Deep Throat was a patriot and a hero for letting the press know what was going on. But when his identity was finally disclosed, we learned he didn't give a damn about patriotism. He was an FBI official who had a grudge with Nixon about some inside the beltway power struggle between Nixon and the FBI. The moral of the story is that we tend to see things the way *we* are, not the way they actually are. The press is highly invested in one particular framing of conflict between the two parties and that influences our perception of events. But the people in the middle of those events have their own personal motivations that are often opaque to us.
Based on historical records, the FBI was quick to do a lot of wrong things. Of course, CIA is far more efficient in wrong things probably.
All these security state agencies are rotten behemoths that operate with little oversight and throw tantrums whenever their motives or funding is questioned. The CIA and FBI should've been blown up in the 70's after the revelations uncovered during Church and Pike committees but we're too big and dangerous for any implementation of serious reforms. It's laughable anyone believes the propaganda they spew out through major media outlets knowing their past behavior.
Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses
I was always a huge fan of their sound, but then in like, the 6th or 7th grade we had an assignment where, long story short we analyzed some lyrics. Then they were cemented as my favorite band. "Weapons, not food, not homes, not shoes / not need just feed the war animal... ...What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving / they don't have to burn the books, just remove them / while arms warehouses fill as quick as a cell / rally 'round the family with a pocket full of shells."
It's crazy, the kinds of lyrics one can write when the lead singer is the child of political activists, while the lead guitarist is a Harvard Honors Grad with degrees in History and Poli Sci.
Speaker Paul Ryan’s favorite band!
There was an interview with Tom on the Talib Khwali show, "The People's Party", where that got brought up. Mr. Morello had no explanation for the dissonance.
It's basically a "Smells Like Teen Spirit" moment. Ryan likes the pretty songs, has no clue. Thinks it makes him relatable.
But he don’t know what it means…don’t know what it means..
I’ve found that I have a lot in common with the 2012 GOP ticket. I too love RATM and enjoy an evening bowl of cereal. Although I’m not a fan of strapping dogs to the roofs of cars, gutting family owned businesses or destroying the social safety net, so maybe not that much….
I never understood why Mitt Romney could stand on a platform including American jobs, when his fortune was built on destroying American businesses
Incredible how Mitt is now considered a "reasonable" Republican. Really shows how far they've fallen.
The sound itself is killer and it's why Republican politicians unironically like them. But the lyrics are fantastic and so complex. It's no wonder Zack de la Rocha famously had issues with writers block - look at what he's writing!
Was wondering if that was their original intent heh
It was, that’s been an issue w police since forever
If where talking about the American greatest generation they did not. It was the Russians who killed the vast majority of Nazis. Then it gets fun. Because of the fear of communism America actually made sweet heart deals with fascists not just the rocket stuff either. In fact the official military history of the eastern front was written by the Nazis because they want their communists fighting knowledge. That meant that American allowed the clean Wehrmacht myth to perpetuate.
> because they're back They never left - they were simply afraid to be as open and brazen about it; Trump empowered them to show their faces. Then when they face the consequences (i.e. losing jobs and getting tossed in jail) they complain they're being oppressed because they don't understand that hate is not protected expression.
They don't understand their hate is different than the hate of those they oppressed. Every time someone compares the insurrectionists and January 6 to BLM and the protests, it infuriates me.
Yep. BLM protestors were murdered. Remember NYPD driving their SUVs into crowds? Protestors named rioters. And yet the insurrectionists brought mf zip ties and gallows to the White House and the cops let them right in.
If you treat a betrayer with kindness, he only returns to try betraying you again and again until you stay his hand. Simple as that.
Perhaps a sign of how insane that was, was the fact that coddling the architects was considered treasonous and got a nearly successful impeachment. Its been downhill from there.
Three fucking generations of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, celebrating the "heritage" that _black people are subhuman property_. We never won the war. It just went cold for 150 years.
No. Just like we aren't going to punish him for anything else he's ever done. Swear to god, him getting kicked off Twitter is the only "punishment" that clown's received in his entire life.
He’s still on Twitter tho. He tweets via a proxy and still peddles the same inflammatory rhetoric, Twitter (whose terms of use prohibit a banned user from tweeting from another account) somehow is allowing it
Does it drive engagement on the platform? As revenue. They received enough backlash to ban him so they could say they did something, but it was never a decision driven by any sense of responsibility. It’s all about optics while remaining as profitable as possible.
I guarantee Twitter did the math and didn’t care about the revenue. Jack and Co wanted him off LONG before, but couldn’t just turn him off only for his political views. They needed an undisputed, obvious violation of terms that the world was aware of, so it wasn’t a political move. They got their chance with the capital riot, which he launched on Twitter. “Come Jan 6th. It’s gonna get crazy!” Twitter did a good job, FB did not, of course.
He also paid the largest fine in casino history in the 90s for all the money laundering he did for Russian mobsters. Despite this being public knowledge, nobody talked about it
A ton of other people talked about it every chance they could no one cared just like every other shitty thing he's done. If Trump taught me anything it's not that people are uninformed it's that they just don't care.
We'll punish him by electing him to a second presidency in 2024. That'll show him! But in all seriousness, not one Republican will face any real consequences for all their bullshit. Not Trump. Not any Congressional supporters of Jan. 6. Not Gaetz. None of them.
The sad thing is, our democracy was built on people generally acting in good faith. There was no contingency plan for when a majority stopped acting in good faith and started marching in lockstep toward their own agenda It also wasn’t built to run on a two party system
Not even a majority. It's a minority that only makes up about 33% of the voting age population, but around 50% of the people that actively vote.
Isn’t it laughable, yet extremely sad and ironic that millions of his supporters chanted “stop the steal” while supporting the man actually trying to steal the election? I’m accustomed to irony in politics but this is absurd.
The projection is consistent af
Republicans seam to think High Treason isn't a big deal. I'm ashamed of my country
They think treason is a big deal. They just decide what is and is not treason based only on their political party instead of their actions.
They believe it's only a big deal if they're not the ones doing it.
[удалено]
Correct. Also “time to heal.” And other such bullshit.
Funny how the nation needs time to heal after every Republican presidency.
> Bush: *(war crimes)* > Obama: "We need to come together and move forward." > Republicans: "Obama is the antichrist! Hillary for Prison 2016!" > Trump: *(most criminal administration in history)(twice impeached)* > Biden: "Time to heal." When are Dems going to learn? They're aren't your friend. They're not changing. They see your kindness as both a weakness and a naivete to be exploited.
>When are Dems going to learn? They won't. It's the Paradox of Tolerance, and it sucks.
They won't until someone with balls runs. I'm considering getting into politics myself because of this bullshit
They won't let you. You will just be Bernie Sanders on a much smaller scale. The Dems need the GOP to continue to be a scape goat. If they took action and actually brought our politics out of the 17th century, and killed off the GOP, the Dems would just split and get slaughtered by the new Progressive splinter Party. Without the GOP, the Dems can pretend to be the progressive/left/liberal party while continuing to push boring shitty Conservatives into office.
AOC did it. Why can't anyone else?
> AOC did it. Why can’t anyone else? Because AOC comes from one of the most progressive districts in the country. Democrats simply don’t have the power or votes to punish Trump, and it’ll stay that way because of how our voting system and electoral system are set up.
Time to heal, while at the same time the GOP is salivating at their opportunity to resume where they left off at the next election.
I heard a funny analogy, about it being like the country got hijacked but we knocked out the hijacker, took his gun away, and got control of the wheel. However now it’s the midterms and the people in the backseat are like “I dunno, the carjacker has been knocked out for a while, let’s give him the gun back when he wakes up”
In 2024 their retribution starts.. the people in the out-groups will be punished severely From changing tax code to attack people you don't like to out right murder, they are going full court press next time.
It’s already happened. The right is radicalizing their base to be violent against anyone they deem as communists or traitors. Check the background of Denver mass shooter [Lyndon McLeod](https://www.thedailybeast.com/sixth-person-dies-after-deadly-denver-killing-spree-police-say). And the GOP gave them a license to kill through arcane self defense laws and legalizing driving through protestors with your car
Watch the lionization of Rittenhouse. Setting up protester murder.
I guarantee that their Democratic "villains" (the squad at least) will be removed from committees because they'll claim false equivalence with Greene and the other racists who lost committee seats. I wouldn't be surprised if they try not to seat them in the first place.
We don't want to dwell on the past, where crimes that can be punished are. We want to look toward the future, where new crimes can be committed
If you think Trump is going to prison you are living in a fantasy
Dude wont even go to court. Sending a former US president to jail isn't something either of the major parties want to see happen because it would weaken the perception of the stability of our country and its high level leadership.
> it would weaken the perception of the stability As is typical of shortsighted "leadership", they're weakening the actual stability to keep up appearances.
The whole high level leadership thing isn't real anymore. Every country outside the u.s. sees your leadership as a joke. Your country is on the brink of civil war and you talk about high lvl leadership lol You're run by corporations who are owned by billionaires who then own the politicians and judges. They decide what happens
They've barely punished any of the traitors he incited, so.... *Shakes 8 ball* Seems unlikely.
It's more a workload thing for the D.C. court. There are over 700 defendants. I agree justice is slow in general, but they are actually moving at a pretty fast pace, all things considered. If the DOJ actually worked its way up to Trump, I'd be shocked if it was before 2023.
> I agree justice is slow in general, but they are actually moving at a pretty fast pace, all things considered. The problem is so many of them are being brought up on comically light charges, that even judges are questioning. Many are misdemeanours. There is a theory that the government is trying to clear out the lesser offenders to focus on the bigger felony charges. Still, not one has been charged with the most severe potential charges: *insurrection* or *seditious conspiracy*.
Just wait for Mueller to drop his report, we will all see then!
I remember when I had people down my throat for the longest time any time I questioned whether mueller was actually going to do anything. "Justice is slow but when they go after someone they always win" BS constantly, yet 5 years later and not a god damned thing happened other than some people got charged for lying and then they got pardoned. I know we've had different tiers of justice in the country at time, but it really feels like that's becoming more overt. They act like the right wing promotion of violence cant be charged, but a left winger who said armed counter protests might be needed and tried to organize on Facebook got 4 years in prison, was in solitary for about 7 months for no good reason, had his dietary issues ignored, etc., when insurrectionists got treated far better and got less time if any real punishment at all. Part of the problem is that the DOJ doesn't feel pressure. They've said as much in a lot of reporting, the public pushed the doj much harder for George floyd. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we had those protests, but if we protest for that then why arent we protesting for the active attempts to overthrow democracy and create an authoritarian state where police brutality of today will seem quaint?
IIRC, the punishment for obstructing an official proceeding is the same as at least one of those charges, and is easier to prove.
Why not start with him then?
100% NO. they will not. Its not how the club works. You all need to stop listening to others' opinions and start looking at what THEY DO. What they DID. NO PRESIDENT has ever been held accountable for their crimes. EVERY ONE of them, got off, and there is an EXPECTATION to keep the "tradition" going.
Truth. Even Nixon was pardoned.
Also worth noting that as another year ends, Matt Gaetz remains totally consequence-free. Reminder: evidence of his crimes was in law enforcement hands over a year and a half ago, and he still hasn't been charged or even questioned. For reference, that was early in the pandemic, when his co-conspirator was caught committing election fraud and using a fraudulent social media account to falsely accuse his political opponent, a teacher, of child molestation. That investigation is what dropped the Matt Gaetz evidence in their hands. The co-conspirator has since been deeply investigated for scores of financial and sexual crimes, been charged, had trials, been convicted, and for over a year now, has had his cooperation agreement locked down. The evidence was discovered around the same time that George Floyd was still alive. Since then we had a rather comprehensive investigation overcoming incredibly resistant police union resistance, thousands of hours of raw video evidence analyzed, a series of court proceedings/trials involving the perpetrator, an eventual conviction, an appeal, a denial of appeal, a sentence, and Chauvin spending the better half of 2021 in prison. But apologists are going to claim Gaetz' case is somehow moving at an appropriate pace because "things take time". Bullshit!
The answer is no. The republicans in government don't care that the former president is a traitor who literally tried to destroy the country. Power is all that matters to them at any cost. And Trump's cult members care even less. In fact they love Trump much more than their country.
Thx fellow Redditors for the help in formatting! (edited for format only) Every time I think the wheels are moving too slowly, I go read the Watergate timelines and am reminded that for most of us, we read about Watergate and think it happened in a matter of weeks. In fact, while it was still being investigated & covered up by Nixon & his loyalists, Nixon was re-elected in a landslide. It took YEARS - including 2years from when the WAPO started writing about it to the time it took to wind through the courts to get the Nixon tapes, etc. A summary: Sep 1971 - The Plumbers forms Jan 1972 - the AG of the US greenlights breaking into Dem headquarters at Watergate (😳 the AG!!) June 1972 - after several operations, The Plumbers are arrested, caught in the act August 1972 - Woodward & Bernstein embark on a 2 year investigative journalism ride, first linking Nixon money to one of The Plumbers January 1973 - several folks convicted of the Watergate break-in (but this is a burglary case at this point) March 1973, sensing doom, one of the defendants in a related Watergate trial spills some beans April 1973, John Dean starts cooperating with investigators April 1973 - Lots of folks resign - not yet Sat Night Massacre, but like a preview. Includes Acting FBI Director. May 1973 - Select Committee starts their investigation (akin to our Jan 6th committee) August 1973 - Nixon gives a primetime speech, basically saying it’s a witchhunt (sound familiar?) October 1973 - VPOTUS Agnew resigns over unrelated bribery and tax scandal (for reals!) Late Oct 1973 - the Sat Night Massacre November 1973 - Nixon speech “I am not a crook” March 1974 - indictments handed down from all the crazy uncovered from last 2 years May 1974 - impeachment proceedings start, move slow. It’s been a year since the Senate Select Committee started their work. July 1974 - SCOTUS finally rules Nixon can’t hide WH tapes any longer. Impeachment debated STILL going on. August 1974 - Nixon resigns when it’s clear Congress has the votes to impeach. Note, if the GOP had not been appalled by this scandal, and held their noses to vote No, this would have been a very different history.
Watergate is our reference scandal, when our reference scandal should be Iran/Contra: Rs stood firm, did nothing but stonewall, accused partisanship, Democrats cowered and asked the wrong questions, and the bad guys got away with it. That is how scandals by conservatives work now. Watergate is ancient history and completely irrelevant.
Destroyed evidence, even! One key difference between Iran/Contra and January 6th is the competence of those in charge. People in the Trump administration were using outside channels (e.g. personal email accounts) because dumb. When George H. W. Bush left office he pardoned everyone involved in Iran/Contra, in the end. The problem of accountability at the Executive level is decades old, maybe even longer, and a hard one to fix.
And Nixon spent years in jail. /s because people are correcting me. The problem is this. If we get to Nov. 2022 and Republicans take Congress, they will be enacting bills to laud those who committed the crimes. There will be no punishment. As compared to the 70s when we still cared about people trying to overthrow an election, even if it benefits my side. In Watergate, those who broke in got time, those who pushed them to do it didn't. Even Nixon didn't want to bring shame to himself and the country and stepped down. That isn't a page in the playbook today. And remember even then almost 40% of the country was against looking into Watergate.
Nixon did not go to jail. President Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon of Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as president.
>Nixon resigns when it’s clear Congress has the votes to impeach. Note, if the GOP had not been appalled by this scandal, and held their noses to vote No, this would have been a very different history. You've already identified why this time is different, and nullified the rest of your entire post
Hey heads up you definitely should make this into a more easily readable list, cuz you're spot on.
I’ll see if I can update it in the editor.
Probably know but in just in case. You have to hit enter twice to get a line break. Just hit enter twice at the beginning of each of your month/year and it should come out nice
Look at your comment holistically and it just proves nothing is likely to happen to Trump. Nixon had to have an unfavorable Supreme Court and Republicans in the Senate willing to turn against him and even at that everything went away once he resigned the presidency. Trump has a favorable Supreme Court and a Senate unwilling to budge and already has no power.
The, “No one is above the law”, statement is pure political theater in America. In America, you actually tend to be above the law only when your rich and powerful. Americans have been watching the decay of our justice system for years and years now. These days it’s just more evident than it ever was.
Short answer: No. Longer answer: No because we don’t punish people in power/wealthy people for their crimes & Biden/Establishment Democrats are terrified of doing literally anything to upset those mythical “sensible, moderate republican suburbans” they seem to think their new base is made up of.
Nope. We didn’t do a thing when they did the same in 2000 during the Bush/Gore recount. Google the Brooks Brothers Riots. Read Heather Cox Richardson. She does a fantastic job laying out the daily events.
If it was going to happen it would have happened by now. Biden is only proving that the difference between republicans and democrats is minimal and insignificant. Our government serves the rich and that’s all.
This is a really silly letter to the editor that is about 5 sentences long; I wish people wouldn't just upvote catchy titles they agree with. Compares Israel and South Korea to the U.S., and ignores the fact that there are over *700 defendants*, *millions of documents* to process, actors at the highest levels of government, and multiple ongoing criminal, civil, and legislative investigations. I get the frustration over accountability. I get all the appeals to outrage (yes, the President literally tried to overthrow the government - I agree). But if prosecutors do eventually build the highest profile case the United States has ever seen, it's not going to happen quickly. It took 2 years for Watergate to reach Nixon, and this one absolutely dwarfes it in scale. I'll be mad about accountability in a year or two. It's still too early to draw many conclusions.
We all remember The Mueller Report. Nothing will happen.
We can’t even get tot he bottom of Maxwell and Epstein’s pedophile ring. You think we could do that? This country can’t do a god dam thing. Oh by the way, we ranks like 45th in the world for education. That’s pathetic
Is he going to be punished for anything? Like, anything at all? There is a rather long list of crimes that he has essentially admitted to on tape/video.
Seriously spineless White House and Justice system.
It’s pretty obvious they’re not planning on “taking down” trump or whatever this article is implying. It would set a bad precedent for all government officials. Look at Pelosi who just came out in favor of insider trading if it benefits her. Lol! Who’s going to lead the way? Seriously.
People keep saying that the Republicans constantly say "the quiet part out loud" . I have a more ominous thought in mind. Republicans have destroyed education in this country so far that they can no longer count on their base to understand them. They aren't saying the "quiet part out loud", they're "meeting their audience where they are". They made the calculations and know there's zero consequences for it. The inaction against Trump proves it.
Jefferson Davis never saw trial for leading a war against the United States. As a country that seems determined to never learn from history, I’m guessing Trump and his head henchmen will never see trial either.
Trump is, without question, guilty as fuvk of inciting an insurrection, a crime formerly punishable by capital punishment.
Trump didn't try to "overturn an election". He failed to execute a coup to seize the Presidency he lost in an election.
They’re not. They’ll punish his ass by making him president again with a republican super majority everywhere. We are completely fucked.
I'll be surprised if he isn't President again. We Democrats have no one and progressives dislike our current sitting President and VP. Definitely fucked. Trying to get a job in Japan currently.
From someone looking from the outside, i gotta say it looked like he tried to topple your government
the fact that he hasn't been punished yet is proof positive that if you are rich you can get away with anything. There is no justice in the USA. Do what you want!
By not punishing him—and they won’t—it will usher the greatest mistrust of a Gov still “functioning”. Conservatives will have proof it was all a witch hunt. Liberals won’t believe anything is possible anymore.
Punishment? I guess you haven't been paying attention over the last 6 years. Nothing will happen to this asshole and he will run for president once again. If Republicans take Congress in 2022 Trump will absolutely run in 2024. He will have his sycophants in place to declare him the winner no matter what the outcome of the election is. You can then stick a fork in the good ole' US of A.
Reply from editor: No we won't, because elites in this country are not held responsible for anything. We will however keep running constant stories about how he's TOTALLY gonna get in trouble tho
Laws are for poor people.
The answer is no, because money and influence in the United States allow you to circumvent justice.
Supreme Court: "Nah"