Indecision 2024

[monkey]

It looks like the New Hampshire primary was done fairly, because Trump is projected to win.

[monkey]

On the republican side anyway, Biden won despite not being on the ballot. Obvious shenanigans there.

[Woodchopper]

As expected Trump won with a large majority over Haley. It also looks like the total number of votes cast - circa 300 000 with more to be counted - exceeds the turnout in previous NH Republican primaries in 2020, 2016 and 2012.

[TopBadger]

FFS - the turkeys are literally voting for Christmas.

Does Haley need to stay in the race to be the fall back for the party on the basis Trump actually becomes ineligible?

[Stranger Mouse]

Peter Navarro gets 4 months although I don’t know if he’ll ever serve them

https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/175057 ... 10830?s=61

[headshot]

Judge Engoron is due to give his verdict in the NY civil fraud case by the end of the month.

Very much looking forward to that.

[dyqik]

Trump answered a single question while testifying in his defense in the second civil defamation trial in NY.

Jury will get the case tomorrow, probably.

[Stranger Mouse]

Great fun today. Habba just threatened with lockup

https://x.com/eorden/status/1750893530728284211?s=61

Trump walks out

https://x.com/eorden/status/1750896766440853939?s=61

Boris Epshteyn gets pwned

https://x.com/eorden/status/1750897404025471256?s=61

Unless there is a full on Trumper who has lied through jury selection I think Trump has a nasty surprise coming.

[bolo]

I rather like this sentence from a WaPo article on today's trial:

Nikki Haley stayed in the race but has critiqued Trump only in the most passive terms — talking about how “chaos follows” Trump as if chaos were a homeless dog and Trump were an innocent tourist rather than a walking sausage wearing a bacon suit.

[dyqik]

Verdict incoming...

[Grumble]

$83.3m
Interesting number, I’m sure it’s worked out somehow.

[Stranger Mouse]

$83.3m
Interesting number, I’m sure it’s worked out somehow.

Mostly punitive damages. Love the fact that they took into account the hugely inflated level of wealth he claimed in the New York fraud trial and he won’t be able to claim he can’t afford it without admitting he was bullshitting.

Apparently the amount is considered reasonable enough that it should withstand appeal.

[Martin_B]

$83.3m
Interesting number, I’m sure it’s worked out somehow.

$7.3 million in damages for loss of reputation
$11 million to a fund to reputational repair campaign
$65 million in punitive damages, presumably because he won't stop defaming her and that's a sum of money which *might* make him think twice.

[dyqik]

The court appointed monitor in the NY civil fraud trial has included a footnote that suggests deliberate tax evasion took place over many years.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-do ... x-evasion/

[Stranger Mouse]

DC appeals court rules that Trump does nit have criminal immunity for any offences committed while President

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 3677.0.pdf

[IvanV]

DC appeals court rules that Trump does nit have criminal immunity for any offences committed while President

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 3677.0.pdf

The Supreme Court refused a request to take it on directly for an early determination in view of its importance. I don't know if the cases where Trump is trying to depend on this as a defence can proceed with a ruling at this court level, or whether they will have to wait for the Supreme Court, who will take their time.

[Stranger Mouse]

I follow American politics quite closely and most of the lawyers I follow seem to think that the Supreme Court won’t take it up - in effect leaving the decision to stand and Trump crying into his fried chicken.

[lpm]

There is a week where Trump must appeal and SCOTUS take it up. Otherwise the decision is final on Feb 12.

[lpm]

I think SCOTUS should take it up, even though it will delay the DC trial. Worth stamping out for all time any notion of magic immunity.

[lpm]

Tribe has pointed out that the ruling refers to the President as an officer throughout.

[lpm]

I think it's over. Biden needs to step down. They can slot in a replacement at the Convention.

Trump will still be beaten, all attention would shift to his confused mental state.

[Woodchopper]

What lpm is referring to:

The special counsel investigating President Biden said in a report released on Thursday that he had decided “no criminal charges are warranted” against Mr. Biden over his handling of classified material after leaving the vice presidency in early 2017, but had found evidence that Mr. Biden had willfully retained and disclosed some sensitive material.

Robert K. Hur, the special counsel, said in his highly unflattering report that Mr. Biden had left the White House after his vice presidency with classified documents about Afghanistan and notebooks with handwritten entries “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods” taken from internal White House briefings.

The report said that Mr. Biden had shared the content of the notebooks with a ghostwriter who helped him on his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad” even though he knew some of it was classified.

While Mr. Hur decided not to prosecute Mr. Biden, some of his reasons for doing so are likely to raise new questions about the president’s conduct and his mental state, portraying him as unable in interviews to remember key dates of his own vice presidency — and even precisely when his son Beau had died.

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Mr. Hur wrote.

It would be difficult to convince a jury after Mr. Biden left office that “a former president well into his 80s” was guilty of a felony that “requires a mental state of willfulness,” Mr. Hur added.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/us/b ... unsel.html

[Woodchopper]

What would happen if they were both effectively out of the race by the summer? Trump prosecuted and Biden in a care home.

[headshot]

Russia or China would try something.

[Woodchopper]

Biden’s memory lapse was a common theme throughout Hur’s report. He writes that Biden did not remember when he was vice president or, “even within several years,” when his son Beau died. Biden, Hur writes, “appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him.” He predicted that Biden’s attorneys “would emphasize these limitations in his recall” if they were called upon to defend him at trial.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/0 ... l-00140509