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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29463 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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I don't accept your characterisation of Trump's indictments as "lawfare". My view is much more in line with Kevin Williamson's:

The FBI’s serving a search warrant on Donald Trump’s residence is not — in spite of everything being said about it — unprecedented. The FBI serves search warrants on homes all the time. Donald Trump is a former president, not a mystical sacrosanct being.

If we really believe, as we say we believe, that this is a republic, that nobody is above the law, that the presidency is just a temporary executive-branch office rather than a quasi-royal entitlement, then there is nothing all that remarkable about the FBI serving a warrant on a house in Florida. I myself do not find it especially difficult to believe that there exists reasonable cause for such a warrant. And if the feds have got it wrong, that wouldn’t be the first time. Those so-called conservatives who are publicly fantasizing about an FBI purge under the next Republican administration are engaged in a particularly stupid form of irresponsibility.

There are no fewer than five different congressional committees with FBI oversight powers. I’m not especially inclined to take federal agencies and their officers at their word in almost any circumstance, and so active and vigorous oversight seems to me appropriate here, as in most other cases. But if it turns out, in the least surprising political development of the decade, that Donald Trump is a criminal, then he should be treated like any other criminal.

If that did indeed establish a precedent, it would be a good precedent.

So define Trump as criminal. Then it makes it not lawfare. It’s not unprecedented because we defined Trump as a criminal. Despite the fact we spied on his campaign, invented a fake RussiaGate impeachment, used the Logan Act to target senior officials while in office (which every administration has broken), have a half dozen cases everywhere, changed statute of limitations so we could put him in court on rape (though the accused doesn’t even know what year it happened). But since we defined him as a criminal it’s not lawfare and we aren’t targeting a politician because we defined him as a criminal. It’s not unprecedented him being the first POTUS and 40% chance of being next POTUS because he’s not that he’s just a criminal. And of course all these cases are novel legal theories never used against anyone before. And then we are going to try this case with the current POTUS sons former business partner as judge. And of course instead of filing the cases earlier we are filing them during the election process.

But if it turns out, in the least surprising political development of the decade, that Donald Trump is a criminal, then he should be treated like any other criminal.

Funny how "drain the swamp" and "lock her up" became "you're not allowed to enforce the law on me because I'm a politician".

When asked about the possibility of another Trump presidency, Pelosi commanded the reporter “Don’t even think of that.”

“Don’t think of the world being on fire,” she continued, adding “It cannot happen, or we will not be the United States of America.”

  • Nancy Pelosi

So yes Trumps rhetoric is just normal politics as Pelosi is senior in the government. Calling for the breakup of America if Trump wins.

Trump is completely allowed to say things like that, and does so regularly.

You'll note that Pelosi is not intimidating witnesses in a criminal trial.

And Trump was not intimidating witnesses either. It was political speech. The trial is well politics. I just want a level playing field.

Well, that's the whole contention. I don't agree.

Who do you think he was threatening to come after?

Violently - no one. Trump has no history of violence. Politically yea the right wants to dismantle the lawfare people so sure shut down the fbi etc because there just a partisan institution now.

I never suggested he was threatening violence. In fact I specifically said the opposite. That's not material - it doesn't become legal or acceptable to threaten retaliation against witnesses just because that retaliation is non-violent.

So I ask again - who was he directing that threat towards, if not the witnesses?

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Exactly. They didn’t break precedence and launch 100 investigations into Clinton.

Cosy uniparty stuff. I turn a blind eye to your corruption, you turn a blind eye to mine. Not interested.

I consider this naive. You don’t understanding how many quasi legal decisions every POTUS makes. And of course Clinton and Barack are both rich now. Probably both richer than Bush.

You seem to be totally fine with this system of corruption as long as Trump gets to cash in too.

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