Miscellaneous Political Stuff - Part 14

I realize the frivolity of the site. I just happened to see that entry last week and it made me laugh to see her use THAT particular person to call out someone lying.

To get to the issue Aaron Rupar, the lying sack of shit is claiming in his tweet...



That is a very clipped video. I thought that was frowned upon here? You know, "context" and all. That word you like to use against me.

Turley also said: "While the indictment acknowledges that candidates are allowed to make false statements, Smith proceeded to charge Trump for making "knowingly false statements."

What Trump said is relevant because he used the lies about election fraud as part of his criminal plans

www.axios.com/2023/08/03/trump-defense-jan-6-first-amendment-indictment

Zoom in: "There's no First Amendment right to participate in a conspiracy," said Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor who previously worked in the Justice Department, and has written about the First Amendment implications of prosecuting Trump for his role in Jan. 6.

To put it simply, if you and I engaged in a criminal conspiracy, and we talked about it in public, no, we couldn't be prosecuted for what we said. But that wouldn't get us off the hook for the underlying crime. We could still be prosecuted for that.


www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64034782.amp

"Some of the speech might be protected by the First Amendment," said Mr Huq of the University of Chicago Law School. But, he added: "Speech that is used to facilitate the crime is almost never covered by the First Amendment."

a quote from the indictment reading: "The Defendant's knowingly false statements were integral to his criminal plans to defeat the federal government function, obstruct the certification, and interfere with others' right to vote and have their votes counted."

That might be a reason why the special counsel tries to stress that what Mr Trump said and did was a key component of his conspiracy to overturn the election result.

"The defendant's knowingly false statements were integral to his criminal plans to defeat the federal government function, obstruct the certification, and interfere with others' right to vote and have their votes counted," states one key passage.

That doesn't turn Aaron Rupar's tweet into truth. Aaron Rupar is still lying about that very deceptively clipped 15 second video. 

You're talking about Turley, who was brought up by onelasttime 's post about Aaron Rupar's tweet. 
I AM talking about him and his deceptively edited tweet.  
I'm not arguing whether or not Turley's opinion is right or wrong, I'm objecting to the claim based on 15 seconds clipped mid sentence.

None of you would allow that bullshit if it was the other way around. 

joe biden’s as dirty as a baby’s shitty diaper.

I must have missed your posts on the former guy’s corruption, nepotism and the billions of dollars he and his children profited from his position. Or your posts on Trump’s federal indictments including a charge of defrauding the United States.

In other news today, voters fixed the Republican attempt to silence 2 members of the Tennessee state legislature.
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-3-2023

In a special election today, voters reelected Tennessee state representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, whom the Republican supermajority in the state house voted on April 6 to expel for their participation in a demonstration in favor of gun safety. “Well, Mr. Speaker, the People have spoken,” Jones tweeted. The Tennessee legislature will convene on August 21 for a special session.

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tweeted: “Congratulations [Brother Jones] on your decisive victory and return to the Tennessee legislature! So pleased that the voters have sent you back where you belong—pursuing justice and opportunity For The People.”

And look at that, on closer scrutiny the Republican witness regarding Hunter Biden fell apart.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-3-2023

Archer was supposed to be a key witness for the Republicans’ allegations, but in fact the transcript supported the Democrats: Archer testified that he had never seen Hunter Biden involve his father in business discussions and that he had no evidence that then–vice president Biden changed U.S. policy to help Hunter. He said he knew nothing about the $5 million bribe to each Biden Republicans have been alleging.

He testified that he had no knowledge of wrongdoing by Biden senior, who was not involved with the Ukrainian company Burisma on whose board Hunter sat, and that he believed it was important to Hunter Biden to follow the law.

What emerged from the interview was a very different picture than Trump Republicans have been alleging in the media: Biden was calling his son every day around the time of his other son Beau’s death, just to check in, and the younger Biden sometimes put the call on speakerphone. Archer said: “Hunter spoke to his dad every day…nd so in certain circumstances…if his dad calls him at dinner and he picks up the phone, then there’s a conversation. And…you know, the conversation is generally about the weather and, you know, what it’s like in Norway or Paris or wherever he may be.”

The transcript also revealed complaints by Democrats on the committee that the Republicans have kept information and documents about their investigation into Hunter Biden from Democratic committee members, forcing the Democrats to get their information “mainly from press statements…and leaks to press outlets.” The Republicans claim to have “a hard drive in their possession that they have refused to date to provide to committee Democrats.” They also limited the ability of Democrats to ask questions of Archer. “This obviously raises strong concerns that committee Republicans are once again attempting to cherry-pick facts, which has been an ongoing issue in this probe.”

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said: “The transcript released today shows the extent to which Congressional Republicans are willing to distort, twist, and manipulate the facts presented by their own witness just to keep fueling the far-right media’s obsession with fabricating wrongdoing by President Biden in a desperate effort to distract from Donald Trump’s third indictment and the overwhelming evidence of his persistent efforts to undermine American democracy.”

And here’s a fact check on the timing of the investigation. There are so many investigations into Trump, it’s not really surprising that there’s some overlapping of dates with the Republican inquisition on Hunter. . Some of the dates regarding Jack Smith’s investigations are out of his control, they were determined by the courts. The overlap is not evidence of a conspiracy.

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/politics/trump-indictment-fact-check.html

WHAT WAS SAID
“All of these indictments have been called into question because they come right after massive evidence is released about the Biden family. On June 7, the F.B.I. released documents alleging that the Bidens took in $10 million in bribes from Burisma. The very next day, Jack Smith indicted Trump over the classified documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. And then you go to July 26. That’s when Hunter Biden’s plea deal fell apart after the D.O.J. tried giving him blanket immunity from any future prosecutions. The very next day, Jack Smith added more charges to the Mar-a-Lago case. And now, just one day after Devon Archer gave explosive testimony about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals, Smith indicts Trump for Jan. 6.”
— Maria Bartiromo, anchor on Fox Business Network, on Wednesday

This lacks evidence. Mr. Trump and many of his supporters have suggested that the timing of developments in investigations into his conduct runs suspiciously parallel to investigations into the conduct of Hunter Biden and is meant as a distraction.

But there is no proof that Mr. Smith, the special counsel overseeing the cases, has deliberately synced his inquiries into Mr. Trump with investigations into the Bidens, one of which is handled by federal prosecutors and others by House Republicans.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed Mr. Smith as special counsel in November to investigate Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol as well as the former president’s retention of classified documents. After Republicans won the House that same month, lawmakers in the party said they would begin to investigate the Bidens. (The Justice Department separately began an inquiry into Hunter Biden’s taxes and business dealings in 2018.)

Over the next few months, the inquiries barreled along, with some developments inevitably occurring almost in tandem. In some cases, Mr. Smith has little control over the developments or when they are publicly revealed.

The first overlap Ms. Bartiromo cited centered on an F.B.I. document from June 2020 that contained an unsubstantiated allegation of bribery against President Biden and his son, and on charges filed against Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents.

Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, issued a subpoena in May for the document. The F.B.I. allowed Mr. Comer and the committee’s top Democrat access to a redacted version on June 5. That same day, Mr. Comer said he would initiate contempt-of-Congress hearings against the F.B.I. director on June 8, as the agency was still resisting giving all members access to the document.

Two days later, on June 7, Mr. Comer announced that the F.B.I. had relented and that he would cancel the contempt proceedings. Members of the committee viewed the document on the morning of June 8, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, held a news conference that afternoon describing the document.

That night, Mr. Trump himself, not the Justice Department, announced that he had been charged over his mishandling of classified documents, overtaking any headlines about the Bidens. The department declined to comment, and the indictment was unsealed a day later, on June 9.

In the second overlap, on July 26, a federal judge put on hold a proposed plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department over tax and gun charges. Ms. Bartiromo is correct that a grand jury issued new charges against Mr. Trump in the documents case on July 27.

The timing of the latest developments in Ms. Bartiromo’s third example, too, was not entirely in Mr. Smith’s hands.

Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer was first subpoenaed on June 12 to testify before the committee on June 16. Mr. Comer told The Washington Examiner that Mr. Archer rescheduled his appearance three times before his lawyer confirmed on July 30 that he would appear the next day. Mr. Archer then spoke to the House oversight committee in nearly five hours of closed-door testimony on July 31. Republicans and Democrats on the committee gave conflicting accounts of what Mr. Archer said.

Mr. Trump announced on July 18 that federal prosecutors had informed him he was a target of their investigation into his efforts to stay in office, suggesting that he would soon be indicted. Mr. Trump’s lawyers met with officials in the office of Mr. Smith on July 27. A magistrate judge ordered the indictment unsealed at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 1.

If you're asking that question as some kind of gotcha to sunshine, then you aren't even keeping up with what the hell is happening in our government right now.

P.S.  Hunter's issues and the COVER UP came BEFORE Trump’s indictments. 

You jumped into the conversation with:

"Turley could speak for half an hour and it wouldn’t matter. He’s paid to defend Trump, of course he’s going to try to muddy the waters. What matters is what the court and eventually a jury will do."

You can't NOW claim you didn't involve YOURSELF.

I responded to what Turley said. I’m happy to have a conversation about Trump’s lawyer and his defense claiming free speech. In fact, I posted a lot of opinions from legal experts on why that argument will not hold up.

I don’t post anything from Aaron Rupar and I’m not getting involved. If you want to have a conversation about him, talk to onelasttime. Stop quoting me, I’m not getting dragged into it.

I think he’s right. One of the most chilling parts of Trumps indictment is that Trump seriously considered the Insurrection Act and imposing martial law. On Newsmax, Turley defended Trump and essentially said well at least Trump didn’t involve the military.

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/opinion/trump-indictment-jeffrey-clark-insurrection-act.html

Later that day, Co-Conspirator 4 spoke with Philbin, who told him that “there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that if the Defendant” — that is, President Trump — “remained in office nonetheless, there would be ‘riots in every major city in the United States.’ ” To which Co-Conspirator 4 is said to have responded, “Well, that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

You may recall that Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act — which enables the use of the military to suppress civil disorder, insurrection or rebellion — to quell the protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd. Trump wanted thousands of troops on the streets of Washington and other cities, and he had repeatedly urged top military and law enforcement officials to confront protesters with force. “That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people,” Trump reportedly said. “Crack their skulls!”

That this was even contemplated is a testament to Trump’s striking contempt for representative self-government itself, much less the Constitution. With his self-obsession, egoism and fundamental rejection of the democratic idea — that power resides with the people and isn’t imbued in a singular individual — Trump’s attempt to subvert the American constitutional order was probably overdetermined. And it’s not hard to imagine a world in which his defeat was a little less decisive and key Republicans were a little more willing to bend to his will. There, in that parallel universe, Jan. 6 might have gone in Trump’s favor, if it was even necessary in the first place.

The thin line between Trump’s success and failure is why, despite the protests of conservative media personalities and Republican politicians, this indictment had to happen. There was no other choice. Even if his opponents must ultimately defeat him at the ballot box, it would have been untenable for the legal system to stay quiet in the face of an effort to put an end to the American experiment in republican self-government. Trump is the only president in the history of the United States to try to nullify an election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Extraordinary actions demand an extraordinary response.