ChiGoose

If anyone is looking for a comprehensive overview of the case from a legal perspective, Just Security has put together a very detailed guide. They are more bullish on this case than I am, but something I've noticed is that the more familiar people are with NYS law and the regular practice of the Manhattan DA's office, the stronger they believe this case is. In regards to proving the elements of the case, they note: "Despite early and ongoing skepticism of DANY’s case, we view it as strong because prosecutors will likely establish with relative ease three of the four corners of the alleged crimes: the “catch and kill” scheme, the payment to Daniels to bury the story of the affair, and the paper trail of reimbursements and records that mischaracterized and concealed the nature of the hush payment. As one commentator wrote, “the spine of the case is the paper trail of the money, [and] Bragg will be bringing the receipts to trial.” The fourth corner of the scheme is Trump’s intent to commit or conceal another crime, as the law requires to be elevated to the felony first-degree falsification of business records. DANY will have to prove that Trump intended to commit or conceal campaign finance violations (state or federal) or tax violations. Proving this intent will be more difficult than proving the objective facts (as it almost always is), but as discussed in more detail below, DANY appears to have the upper hand." (emphasis mine) As for how these types of charges have been used in the past, they provide some examples: "When Bragg first charged Trump in April 2023, he stated that in his 14 months in office he had already prosecuted 117 felony counts of falsifying business records against 29 individuals and companies. During the ten years from March 2013 to March 2023, the office prosecuted 437 such cases. Moreover, DAs across the state of New York frequently charge defendants with felony falsification of business records. Reports in April 2023 stated, “Data shows 9,794 cases involving state penal law 175.10, or falsifying business records in the first degree, have been arraigned in both local and superior New York state courts since 2015.”" (emphasis mine) They also note that these charges have been used in the context of campaign finance violations in the past: Former NYS Assemblyman Clarence Norman was convicted in 2005 of falsifying business records in connection with campaign finance violations Richard Brega pleaded guilty to one count of felony falsifying business records for misrepresenting the source of funds he funneled into a county executive campaign Richard Luthmann was arraigned for multiple felony charges including falsifying business records and election law violations and subsequently pleaded guilty.

Well, if Jones didn’t want such a big judgment against him, maybe he should have actually participated in discovery.

Last time I checked, the suit was a civil case and not a criminal one.

If your child was murdered at school and then you had to endure harassment and threats because a moron who was popular with other morons was making bank by saying that you made the whole thing up and your kid either never existed or wasn’t actually killed, what kind of damages do you think would be reasonable to get the idiot to stop ruining your life?

Thanks for sharing. Didn’t realize this was a thing. I’ll have to watch it as soon as I have time. Alex Jones is a garbage human and anyone who believes him is also garbage.

I listen to far too many podcasts. Used to listen to SYSK but fell off a while ago. Nothing against the show, there is just too much stuff out there.

We have to fix the electoral system to eliminate the Spoiler Effect for third parties to become viable. Anyone running as a third party candidate in the current system is either a conman or ignorant. (I say this as someone who voted for Gary Johnson twice…)

This feels like a classic pump and dump (the financials are a mess), but I’m wondering if it has legs as a way for people to give money to Trump.

Looks like a cargo ship lost power and crashed into the bridge. I’m not an engineer but I don’t think bridges are built to withstand impacts like this. But I’m sure the usual crowd will spin this into a dumb conspiracy.

Should be interesting but this is easily the weakest case against him. Given the delay tactics for the other cases, there’s a non-zero chance he’s acquitted in Manhattan and the election occurs before the more serious and easier cases against him.

Cover1 is an excellent Bills content site. Greenwald is a hack.

Huh. A big government policy aimed at protecting vulnerable people. Is DeSantis a lib now?

I also subscribe to NYT digital but can’t bring myself to spend money on a Murdoch property. I do get the print editions of The Economist which gives center-right perspective with an international focus I find very informative. Twitter tends to be what you make of it. I’ve mostly curated my news feed towards beat reporters instead of publications or outlets. Like following people on the Bills beat as opposed to ESPN or the official Bills accounts. I don’t watch tv news with the exception of major events or occasionally watching WGN for local news here. Generally, CNN is only on for NYE because my wife likes to watch the hosts get drunk on air. I’d much rather read an article or listen to a podcast than watch a show. Feels like a lot of the show format is to either evoke emotional reactions to keep you invested through the ad break or to fill time to meet their 30 or 60 minute air time. I’m not familiar with half the shows people talk about here. I’ve only started getting into financial news in the last two years. My last job barred me from trading stocks due having access to MNPI. That’s not an issue anymore so I have a small brokerage account just for fun. Haven’t really gotten into too much though.

I haven't used Google News but if I'm in a newsy mood, I usually keep Memeorandum open on a tab. It's a pretty solid aggregator and also lists multiple sources for the trending stories so you can pick if you want to see the takes from different outlets.

Trump getting special treatment:

Feels like this is just going to lead to more mistakes by the refs. If you have to go through large amounts of effort explaining what the thing your banning actually is, how do you expect the refs to make the correct calls in the moment?

I don’t really recognize myself too much in any one category (they seem to assume a lot of people watch tv news, which I guess might be true but isn’t something I do). Overall, I think my mix is pretty similar to yours with a bit of category 10 (Nichers) thrown in.

US follows “duty to warn” so even if we have a hostile relationship with a country, we still often warn them if we learn of an impending terrorist attack. Because it’s targeting civilians. That’s what the bad guys do. If Ukraine wants to target legitimate military or infrastructure targets in Russia, that’s fine. But actually targeting civilians is always bad.

Everyone get out your Jump to Conclusions Mat, pick whatever explanation best fits your personal narrative and then disregard anything that challenges your conclusion.

For sure. We definitely need to do something, and I don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That being said, I’m worried that they just wipe their hands after this and let the other companies off the hook

My concern is that instead of putting in safeguards for all social media companies to prevent this kind of stuff (could even use the EU’s GDPR as a template), they just targeted TikTok. Seems like a big win for Meta, Alphabet, etc. to have the government eliminate a competitor. Better than nothing but definitely not ideal.

In case anyone is wondering why he changed his mind on TikTok. Yass is a major investor in ByteDance, which owns TikTok.

MTG Officially Launches Revolt Against Speaker Mike Johnson "It’s anarchy again in the House GOP. On Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to formally boot Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from the office, according to a source familiar with the matter. Greene's move, which came amid conservative outrage over Johnson's deal on a spending deal to avert a government shutdown, threatens to throw the chamber into chaos just months after a hard-right faction ousted Kevin McCarthy from the top job. It was not immediately clear when a vote on Johnson's fate would occur." What a clown show. A party completely incapable of governing.

Trump appears unable to secure a bond for his appeal. Shouldn’t be that hard for a billionaire business magnate…