SectionC3

There’s good reason for that. The focus has been on helping the American people combat the pandemic with tools that do not include magic, bleach, and copious amounts of other ineffective treatments. Such as hydroxychloroquine. Too much hydroxychloroquine. And it turns out that Fox News in fact was fake news the whole time and was masquerading as real, non-hoax news. So now they don’t know what to believe and simply trust the Don.

I watched the NBA. Loved it. Phenomenal basketball. Baseball is what just bores the crap out of me now.

Nope. He made a mistake. A big one. But we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. He’s done a really good job wrangling a lot of snakes over the years. Now it’s crimes plural. Which crimes (plural) did he commit?

yes I do.

I generally agree with you about the pettiness. This story, however, is bad. The guess here is that every democrat with an eye on that office is going to hammer him this weekend and early next week. The republicans will join the fun, too. The stink from this one will linger. *and this is coming from a Democrat who likes and really respects the governor.

You said prison. Assuming someone with no record convicted of this class A misdemeanor received time — an absurd proposition, but whatevs — they’re doing local (that is, jail) time. If you want prison time for this guy then you’d better find a felony to pin on him.

I know the statute. How are you going to get someone convicted of that class A misdemeanor to prison? (Also, this isn't directed at you, just a general comment about playing lawyer and researching stuff like this. Your link directs to an attorney advertisement. Better to use Cornell or a state website [e.g., state senate] on something like this just in case the proponent of the advertisement doesn't properly update the website.)

I agree with this. I always thought it was sort of odd. I don't mind the playing of the anthem, and I personally wouldn't want to stop playing the song, but it is a bit . . . out of place. It's not you. I can't watch it anymore.

Cool. It's a class A misdemeanor. How do you plan to get someone convicted of that statute to prison? I never set that as a bar. I made the point that it is ironic, hypocritical, laughable, and probably a lot of other things for a Trumper to complain about a different chief executive engaging in a lie. FYI - you cited the criminal jury instructions, not the statute itself. Probably doesn't matter here, but sometimes the statutes get changed and the CJI doesn't immediately keep pace.

Cool story. What's the crime? That aside, I can't argue with the point that this is a very, very bad story. Really. Trumpers complaining about executive lies is absurd. That said, Cuomo screwed up here. It's a bad story.

Well said. She hit it right on the head. This fool cost them just about everything, save for the Supreme Court, and he importuned an insurrection. And yet here we are.

Please. You’re looking for a reason to complain. I’m not condoning what happened, but life is a matter of degree. This isn’t “stand back and stand by.”

Stand up and say it’s wrong. Apply the rule of law and common sense to this nonsense. Trump should be convicted. The rioters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And the senators should have the balls to vote based on the (overwhelming) evidence, not based on concern over the political fallout that might follow a conviction.

Or you could be part of a party that has ideas palatable to a majority of the people. Either one. Also, I wasn’t in favor of Puerto Rico and DC statehood. Lately, I’ve come around. It’s fine to be a Republican. It’s fine to have America First ideas. But it’s not fine to be a Trumper, or a Q. This nonsense — hoax this, hoax that, voter fraud, victimization, dog whistle nonsense — has to be squashed. It would be nice if McConnell would do the deed for the betterment of the country. But if he won’t, I’m fine with stacking the deck.

So you’re guessing about an inability to handle “changes.” Got it. Bottom line: you have nothing. Not a single thing. Vague, conclusory complaints about an inability to marshal unspecified evidence in time to make a case supporting even a single element of your voter fraud hoax. Let’s just focus on the Dominion lie here for a second. The claim there is that there was a massive overvote in PA (there, allegedly, according to the hoax crowd, were hundreds of thousands more votes received and tabulated than there were registered voters. Pretty simple to prove. FOIL the voter rolls, compare the number of registered voters to the number of votes reported in the (allegedly, according to the hoax crowd) affected election district(s), and away we go. Maybe a five or ten minute thing if we go to the local BOE in person. Having exposed just that element of the Big Lie, it’s easy to see why you and the Q/Trump/Hoax crowd want to shift the burden here from the hoaxers having to prove the invalidity of the result to others to prove the validity of the result. Election fraud is a hoax, and the idea that a proponent of the result must prove the validity of the election is another hoax.

Why do we need to “tighten up” what isn’t broken? Show the need. Maybe start with the Dominion Voting Systems lie. And here’s the thing: there is a presumption of regularity with respect to elections. Think there was a problem? Prove it. Go for it. Take your case to court. But you don’t get to shift the burden to the proponent of the result to prove its validity, or to disprove your lies about fraud. That’s not how it works.

Before I so substituted I might read the third to last line of Volume II of the Mueller report. I’ll even paste it for you here: “At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Why engage in conduct that arguably constitutes obstruction of justice if the investigation is a hoax? Doesn’t add up. And doesn’t change the fact that Mueller is unable to say that the President did not commit obstruction of justice in his interactions with respect to that investigation.

Right to inquire as to what, exactly? Election fraud? They know it’s bogus. Every DC Republican I talk to knows that it’s BS. Hawley clerked at the Supreme Court. Both he and Cruz are ivies. They are not stupid, and they know there is nothing to the Big Lie. Not a speck of truth to it. That leaves us at a point where this “inquiry” of which you speak actually was pandering to a bamboozled group of people with the goal of currying political favor. It backfired in a big, bad way, and now those two losers have to bear the consequences.

Let’s start with your first sentence. It contains the false premise that the refusal and failure to quell can relate only to dereliction of duty. That’s wrong. HIs refusal to act once he knew that the mob had overtaken the Capitol is circumstantial evidence that he got what he wanted and what his words leading up that moment had suggested, namely, an assault upon that building. Let’s move next to Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Both of them amplified the Big Lie. That’s pretty well established. And both of them knew better. These are smart guys who capitalized on Trump’s exploitation of a bunch of downtrodden, angry, victimized gullibles. They encouraged this nonsense, and it’s splitting hairs to say that they aren’t complicit in the outcome. Josh Hawley’s little fist of power on the Capitol steps speaks for itself.

What a friggin disgrace. I have no words.

Are you invoking Rule #2?

I get where you’re going with this, and in isolation it might be a fair point. The isolation, of course, would speak to the protestors. If they didn’t have a means of communicating with Trump after the breach (that is, if they were isolated from Trump), then I might agree with you. But in the iPhone world, I don’t see how we have such isolation, and the inflammatory words still “count” after the breach occurred. Diction matters. You/HRC said “the Republicans” are co-conspirators. I do not agree with that, because there may be some who rely on what I believe to be the stupid and politically convenient position that the rejected jurisdictional bar prevents a determination on the merits. If you said “Republicans” who so vote are co-conspirators, then I would agree, because the reference wouldn’t be to ALL such Republicans (it would apply to SOME Republicans) who vote to acquit. Hawley and Cruz are going vote to acquit, and those two scumbags are complicit. Ding ding we have a winner. Refusal to quell despite the obvious power to do so is circumstantial evidence of intent. Also, I’ll add, there is a big difference between “innocent” and “not guilty.”

Maybe you could be like that Lynrd Skynyrd guy and complain that this isn’t smoking gun evidence. I agree with you. I’m sensitive to free speech considerations, but the circumstantial evidence is just too much here. Everyone with a brain knows that the election theft hoax is a (the) Big Lie. Literally everyone. Even Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley (both of whom are very smart, unlike, for example, Mo Brooks). Yet Trump raised money on the issue, repeatedly repeated the lie, egged on his supporters, brought thousands of them to within sight of the Capitol at the time the EC vote was to be certified, let Rudy talk about trial by combat, told his supporters not to be weak and to fight, and then turned them loose on the Capitol. Today we’ll learn that he didn’t give an eff that the Capitol had been breached and refused to immediately ask his supporters to stop the violence. This isn’t a Trump issue for me. It’s an American issue and a common sense question. I can’t imagine better circumstantial evidence that this fool catalyzed the violence.

Degree of victimization has nothing to with incitement. I wasn’t directly victimized, but that doesn’t mean that Trump didn’t incite the insurrectionists and traitors.

You aren’t open minded about this evidence. You’re obstinate. That’s where we part ways. “Smoking guns” don’t exist with respect to intent. They just don’t. It’s not how crime works. You’re applying an utterly unreasonable standard and ignoring the point that circumstantial evidence of intent is perfectly acceptable. It’s a MyPillow-ish position. Just like literally everyone with a functioning brain—including the jurors in this case—knows the election wasn’t stolen, a similar critical mass recognizes that requiring “smoking gun” evidence on this intent issue is absurd.