Opinion Politics (warning, may contain political views you disagree with)

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Can’t believe Biden sent the DOJ after his own son
Did you forget Biden organised through the DOJ a very cushy plea deal for Hunter that included in the fine print, immunity for all past crimes.

He spat the dummy in Court when the Judge asked a couple of questions about it and decided to plead not guilty. Must have been a coke rant, so now faces a trial.

Don't worry though. Biden will pardon Hunter, himself and anyone else in the family that gets a conviction.
 
I'm not much of a gambler but I made a little bit of money on the day of the election in 2020 when Trump opened up what seemed a huge lead and Biden went out to $3.20. It looked absurd and I put $20 on Biden. At this stage unless the odds said 99% Trump I'd ignore it.
Hillary had 99% approval in the polls.
 

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The 172 is a typo on my behalf. I apologise for the mistake.
Trump was not tried under federal law, he was tried under NY state law. So what you've mentioned above with regards to 'Wilful' isn't relative to this case.
A typo you make twice. If you didn't go out of your way to be condescending, while being wildly inaccurate with everything you posted I

NY State law was an out of time misdemeanor, not a crime. But Bragg said it could considered be a raised and charged as a felony, if it was done to hide a crime. The crime was a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), or a NY statute making it illegal to influence an election by "unlawful" means.

Willful is relevant and if you read the link in my last reply to you, McCarthy explained Judge, or more accurately "acting Judge" Merchan declined to instruct the jury on it. That’s a gaping hole in Bragg’s case. Not to worry, though: Merchan filled it by declining to instruct the jury on willfulness, the state of mind that Bragg was supposed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict Trump.

That was a problem, however, because Bragg is a state prosecutor who has no jurisdiction to enforce federal law — which is what controls elections for federal office. Plus, the two federal entities that Congress endowed with exclusive authority to prosecute Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) violations, the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission, had thoroughly investigated Trump and determined not to take action — precisely because the NDAs were not cognizable campaign expenditures.
The DA thus remained cagey and noncommittal about what underlying crime he was alleging Trump had committed. In this and other irregularities, the patently conflicted Judge Juan Merchan abetted the DA - its being no more propter for Merchan to entertain an action in enforcement of federal law than for Bragg to bring such as action in the first place.
One of Bragg’s layers of camouflage was New York election law. That was remarkable too: The provision on which he relied is also a misdemeanor — conspiracy to influence an election by unlawful means. Bragg couldn’t charge this offense, just as he couldn’t charge the business-records-falsification misdemeanor, because the two-year statute had lapsed by 2019. On Bragg/Merchan math, though, these two time-barred misdemeanors somehow added up to a felony with a six-year statute of limitations and a potential prison term of four years, which Bragg multiplied into 34 counts (136 years — though capped at 20 years under New York sentencing law).
...
Then again, this wasn’t really a prosecutorial enforcement of federal law because Bragg and his sidekick-in-a-robe didn’t really apply FECA. They made up their own FECA.

That’s never been done before, for a very simple reason. The DOJ and FEC zealously guard their turf. If a state prosecutor had tried to enforce FECA against any defendant other than Trump — the Biden Justice Department would have gone on the warpath. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s prosecutors would have demanded that the federal courts shut the state enforcement effort down, just like they do when states try to enforce federal immigration law because Biden won’t.
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As Bragg played peekaboo regarding his enforcement of federal campaign law, Merchan ensured that actual federal law would not intrude. He denied Trump’s defense the right to call former FEC commissioner Bradley Smith, who would have explained that (a) the NDAs were not campaign expenditures, and (b) even if the Stormy NDA on which the business-records charges were based had been a campaign expenditure, there would have been no reporting obligation until after the election. That is to say, Bragg's fairy tale that Trump stole the 2016 election by skirting FECA reporting requirements was utter fiction, in addition to being legal nonsense.

It is not enough to say Merchan kept Smith off the witness stand while allowing Cohen and Pecker to opine on federal campaign law, a matter regarding which they — like Bragg and Merchan — are out of their depth. The judge further invited prosecutors to tell the jury, again and again and again, that Cohen had pled guilty to FECA crimes and Pecker struck a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department because he feared FECA prosecution.

Merchan knew this evidence was inadmissible against Trump. In one of the more cynical exercises in judicial malfeasance you’ll ever see, however, Merchan purported to admit the evidence to help the jury “weigh the credibility” of Trump’s two associates. The judge was well aware that the guilty pleas and non-prosecution agreement did not bear on the credibility of these prosecution witnesses — that the defense did not want the evidence in the case and the prosecution was not remotely interested in impeaching its own key witnesses. Bragg wanted the evidence in the case for precisely the reason the law makes it inadmissible — to argue that Trump must be guilty because he directed the commission of these “crimes” that his associates admitted. It was Merchan’s job to protect Trump from prosecutorial abuse; instead, he assumed the role of undercover prosecutor.


That’s a gaping hole in Bragg’s case. Not to worry, though: Merchan filled it by declining to instruct the jury on willfulness, the state of mind that Bragg was supposed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict Trump.

En route, the jurors were told that they needn’t agree on what unlawful conduct Trump had engaged in to conspire to corrupt the election (which, remember, was not charged in the indictment). Rather, Merchan served up a menu of three Bragg theories — FECA, tax irregularities, and more business-records shenanigans — and told the jurors to pick any one they liked. As long as each juror found one, it wouldn’t matter if they all found the same one.

How can there be guilt beyond a reasonable doubt if the jury doesn’t agree on whether prosecutors have proved a key element of the case? Don’t ask such impertinent questions.

And which one or ones of the menu items did the jurors pick? We’ll never know. Merchan dispensed with the routine procedure of jury interrogatories on this make-or-break issue in the first ever criminal prosecution of a former American president.

Interrogatories, after all, would have documented the jury’s conclusions for appellate courts to review.


So even in the end, the defense doesn’t know what the jury found — which is nice symmetry since from the beginning the defense wasn’t told what Bragg was alleging.
 
I’m no law talking guy, but it’s obvious Trump will lose on appeal. For one simple reason: he’s a loser

Lost the election
Lost 60 cases trying to create election fraud out of thin air
Vast majority of his endorsed candidates lose
Lost the civil suit
Lost the Caroll cases twice
Failed to run a casino
Failed to sell steak to Americans
Failed to run a charity (because he stole the money)
Failed to run a university (because he stole the money)
 
Is jailing your political opponent's a key component of fascism ?
AG Garland is testifying in front of Congress that it's nothing to do with him that his assistant IC, Michael Colangelo went to Bragg's Office in NY (taking a 70% pay cut) to revive a misdemeanor wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in another misdemeanor charge.

"Pomerantz writes this book which I'm sure you're aware of where he says, we put together the legal eagles to get Trump."
 

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So has anyone determined who is the worst candidate for the next US election yet?

Or are we still in the process of copy paste media articles?
 
There must be better options in the US, to Trump & Biden.

The mind boggles that a country of multi million people, cannot find better candidates. They make Dutton look like a Rhodes Scholar.
 
Yes, I read and no don't care much for mainstream media.

Have you resolved the Biden v Trump issue yet?

I am not sure there is a way anyone can resolve it. It is a sad choice.

I will try to find one of Biden's recent transcripts from an interview. It is not flattering at all sadly.

Also interesting to note is Biden has now started to try something at the border after saying he didn't have the authority to do so.
 
Better read beyond the fake WaPo headline.

Despite Carroll's claims that Trump had r*ped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense.

Liable for sexual battery and defamation.

No doubt he's a narcissist, but when she initially said it occurred in 1995 or 1996 then changed it to 1997 or 98 because those years didn't agree with her main witness who she said she told at the time, couldn't remember the month or date and it occurred in a crowded shop change room, think we're treading in dangerous territory with the same jury pool of 85% voting against him.
 
Those weren't the odds though, the odds were much tighter.
But they were the odds for that so called respected poll.

I remember clearly being astounded on election day which started off with many repeating that and others.

I think only one independent pollster was correct in that election.
 
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