B-Man

Douglas Murray recently said in a great analogy that sometimes “a flare goes up, and you see exactly where everyone is.” That is what has happened with this trial. Biden and the Democrats have shown their true colors. They have shown that they desire dominance, not democracy. And there is no way to unsee what we have seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw81d46yUD0

The report made him appear LESS competent? No wonder they won't release the tape.

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‘Democratic Principles and the Spirit of Free Institutions’ Democrats embrace their Inner-Putin By Carl M. Cannon It’s the last Friday in May during an election year and whether Americans know it or not, they woke up this morning in a nation different than it was the day before. A former U.S. president – and the Republican Party’s all-but-certain nominee for president this November – now stands convicted of vague crimes by a Democratic Party jury on charges brought by a Democratic Party prosecutor overseen by a plainly hostile Democratic Party judge. Heretofore responsible conservatives are today openly calling for GOP prosecutors to respond to the Democrats’ “lawfare” by exacting retribution in legal venues friendly to their side. Presumably, that strategy would entail indicting prominent Democrats on criminal charges of some nature in an escalation meant to produce, well, it’s not clear what the endgame is here. This much is obvious, at least to me: By bringing such a dubious criminal case against a former president, the Democrats have now openly criminalized public policy differences. This is a dangerous game. It hardly transfigures Trump into Nelson Mandela, an unwise comparison Trump likes to invoke himself. Liberals also bristle at a more current analogy with Trump as Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader exiled, imprisoned, and murdered by Russian authorities on phony charges, presumably on orders from Vladimir Putin. Democrats would say the comparison offends them because Navalny was a heroic figure and Donald Trump is a menace to society. This view is sincerely held, for sure. But I suspect something else makes Democrats uneasy: Deep down many of them know that they’ve weaponized the criminal justice system in a way that is unhealthy for a republic; that they’ve undermined their own plot line about “saving democracy”; and that in their zeal to get Trump, Democratic Party leaders and millions of rank-and-file Democrats alike have all indulged their inner Vladimir Putin. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/05/31/democratic_principles_and_the_spirit_of_free_institutions_151034.html .

You are missing a lot of things Frank. As expected. .

Give the Devil the Benefit of Law': Political Prosecution of Trump Will Backfire on Democrats Amy Curtis There is a fantastic scene in Robert Bolt's play 'A Man for All Seasons', about Saint Thomas More, where More explains to his future son-in-law William Roper about giving the devil the benefit of the law. The exchange goes this way: William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!’ Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that! Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake! https://twitchy.com

You know we aren’t deciding if Trump ought to be canonized as a saint. The question isn’t whether or not Trump is perfect and many people wish someone else was being nominated, but that isn’t the question right now, either. The question is whether or not he is better than Biden. And for more and more people , that is an easy ‘yes.’

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin leaves Democratic Party, registers as independent https://www.foxnews.com/politics/west-virginia-sen-joe-manchin-leaves-democratic-party-registers-independent What will this mean for Chuckie's rest of the year in the senate ?

NY Magazine: Trump Prosecutors Contorted the Law JOHN SEXTON Over at New York Magazine, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig has a piece which attempts to be down the middle on the Trump conviction. On the one hand, Honig offers respect to the jury who he says did their job. On the other hand, he points out that there remain a lot of problems with this case, any one of which might be grounds for it to be overturned on appeal. Honig also mentions DA Bragg's decision to run for office based partly on his anti-Trump record. But his main issue with the case is the completely novel and unique legal approach which turned what were a bunch of misdemeanor business records charges that were already past the statue of limitations into 34 felony charges. That was a magic trick performed solely because the defendant was Trump. https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/05/31/ny-magazine-trump-prosecutors-contorted-the-law-n3789389 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html?utm_campaign=intel&utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1 .

Political consultant Ken Mehlman’s latest weekly update includes this chart, which has got to be adding to Democrats’ panic over Joe Biden:

Tim Scott Levels CNN Anchor for Deceptively Misquoting Trump After 'Hush Money' Conviction Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) made a CNN anchor look foolish during a segment discussing comments regarding a jury’s decision to convict former President Donald Trump in the “Hush Money” trial. During the conversation, host Abby Phillip deceptively claimed that, if elected, Trump would use his position to seek revenge against his enemies. https://redstate.com/jeffc/2024/05/31/tim-scott-levels-cnn-anchor-for-deceptively-misquoting-trump-after-hush-money-conviction-n2174903

IMPLICATIONS OF CONVICTION The trial of Donald Trump on jerry-rigged charges produced the foreordained outcome. Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury of 34 felony charges. It couldn’t have been otherwise. This was a show trial. It would have been more efficient — it would have saved a day or two in show time — if Judge Merchan had simply directed a verdict of guilt and sent the jury home when the parties’ rested. It would not have been more unconstitutional than having the jury pick from Column A, Column B, or Column C for the “other crime” that was vital to the case. Instead Merchan let the prosecution run wild. He constrained the defense. He all but stripped Trump’s defense to the charge of federal election misconduct to which Michael Cohen had pleaded guilty. He gagged the defendant. He excluded evidence that might have helped the defendant, say with respect to the allegation of misconduct under federal election law. He crafted jury instructions that adopted the show-trial theory of the case. And the jury performed predictably under the circumstances. In this case its role was ministerial. The guilty verdict on each of the 34 charges was for show. {snip} The Democrats are guilty of every sin they attribute to Trump. Election interference — this is how it’s now to be done, with a strong dose of humiliation, a patina of legality, and the threat of incarceration. The threat produces an erotic effect on the Democrats and their media allies, but that is not the point. The point is to take down a political adversary. The point is the electoral effect — the point is political. The Democrats lack confidence in their ability to defeat Trump at the polls. The point of the rigged trial is the rigged election, and not in the “who’s voting” or “who’s counting the votes” departments, although there is that too. The intended audience of the show trial is the few voters who occupy the middle of the road and could go either way in November. If they move them to one or two or three percent to Biden, as seems plausible and even likely, that is the point. This is the Democrats’ objective in the medium term. Intelligent readers can draw a straight line to infer the long-term objective. Every metaphor descriptive of what is happening here falls short of the moment. “Crossing the Rubicon,” “sowing the wind,” and so on, have a remote and clichéd quality that fails to capture what the Democrats have done. In political terms, one might think of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. But that is too remote as well. One has the sense that Democrats do not fully grasp what they have done. If the Democrats’ show-trial moves only enough voters to swing the election to Biden — a not implausible outcome that is what the case is all about — how can the outcome be acceptable to the many who understand what the Democrats have done. The show-trial bears seeds of alienation, discord, turnabout, and violence. That is the point buried in the clichéd metaphors. That is the implication of the conviction rendered in the show-trial. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/implications-of-conviction.php

Fighting back Examples of courage, decency and sanity at a time of madness MELANIE PHILLIPS At this terrible time for the Jewish people, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer weight of unreason and hatred and to feel that the entire world is against us. Well, it’s not. There are countless numbers of good people who are appalled by the onslaught within the west against Israel and the Jews. And there are Jews and others who are fighting back for decency and sanity. Here are a few examples. Just over a week ago, the Phoenix cinema in London screened a film about the massacre at the Supernova music festival during the October 7 Hamas-led pogrom in Israel, when hundreds of young music fans were mown down as they ran from the gunmen. A pro-Hamas mob naturally besieged the cinema in an attempt to stop the screening. But on this occasion, they didn’t have it their own way. The Israel supporters fought back and refused to allow them to control the streets. https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/fighting-back

https://www.twobillsdrive.com/community/topic/107762-if-you-had-john-edwards-sex-tape/#comment-9082714 Billstime bumping a 14 year old thread, just to help him jerk - off better. Banning is the best solution. .

Now Is Not the Time to Be Centrist By Brandon Morse What happened to Donald Trump in New York was wrong. There is no way around that fact. The idea that a political party can weaponize our justice system and prosecute a citizen who is politically inconvenient to them is the stuff of dictatorial governments. We used to look down out noses at those countries for their backward thinking. And yet, here we are. The Democrat just did it to Trump in order to either halt or complicate his road to the White House in 2024. This isn't a small thing. If a political party can weaponize the justice system in order to protect its own interests and political power, then we've lost the Republic. There is no justice system, just an enforcement arm of the Democrat Party. This is a very big deal and yet, so many people on the Republican side of the aisle can't seem to wrap their heads around what just happened. On Thursday night, I wrote about how Asa Hutchinson and Larry Hogan both urged the same thing, to accept the verdict whether we like it or not. I want to reiterate something I said during the Hutchinson article. Now is not the time for centrism. Now is not the time to play the role of nice, calm Republican. Acceptance of this verdict isn't respecting the rule of law. This court was a sham. The judge, the prosecution, and the case itself are all radical leftist creations hell bent on destroying a political opponent through lawfare and a weaponized justice system. This was rigged from the beginning. Nothing about this has anything to do with the rule of law as it should be in America. It might have taken place in America, and in an American courtroom, but what happened in that courtroom is far from being anything American. The only thing this verdict or this trial is worthy of is condemnation and reprisal. Republicans should be gearing up to bring Democrats to court left and right in order help them understand that playing with fire results in painful burns. https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2024/05/31/now-is-not-the-time-to-be-centrist-n2174898

Donald Trump Was Found Guilty, and Not a Single Mind Has Been Changed By Joe Cunningham I am not exactly breaking news here. Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of... business fraud? Paying off a porn star? Having an affair? We're still not quite sure. Even some legal experts are dumbfounded. There's a claim of fraud, but the only person who seems to have been defrauded was Trump when his lawyer, Michael Cohen, stole tens of thousands of dollars from one of his businesses. Donald Trump had a scumbag for a lawyer and had an affair with a porn star. Congratulations, you convicted Donald Trump of being everything we knew he was personally - a privileged rich guy with poor judgment. Those are a dime a dozen in New York, much less across the rest of the country. But Trump's real crime was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016, and the Democrats will never let that go. Since he won the GOP nomination in 2016, they have tried to put him in prison. Now, eight years later, they got him. Will it impact anything? Hard to tell. Nothing new was really learned from all this, except that you can now buy Trump prison merchandise from both sides of the aisle. I don't want to be too flippant, it's just exhausting. We've seen the poll numbers on whether a conviction will impact how people vote. It's basically a wash. The most recent polling shows nearly an equal number of people are more likely to vote for Trump or Biden based on a conviction, while two-thirds of American voters' decision remains unchanged. If you are more likely to vote for Trump despite the outcome, you were probably going to vote for Trump anyway. If you were more likely to vote for Biden because of the conviction, you were already highly likely to vote for him anyway. I do not think there are many undecided voters at this point. I think there are a lot of people who are going to wash their hands of this foolishness and stay home. I think Trump supporters are more motivated to donate and go out and vote, and I think Biden supporters are more motivated to scream about the polls being wrong when Trump gets a bump from this. https://redstate.com/joesquire/2024/05/31/donald-trump-was-found-guilty-and-not-a-single-mind-has-been-changed-n2174897