- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
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A coup. That’s what was attempted. Everyone may not call it that now, but that’s what history will call what Trump attempted.
Trump has to be held accountable and punished severely as a deterrent for the future.
It took 244 years for our first nearly successful coup. The next attempt may be much much sooner.
I heard this a couple years ago: The single most important predictor of a successful coup, is a failed coup
And he knows it too.
Another unfortunate thing is that surely rivals and enemies of the US noticed how unprepared we were for an event like that, and while as various pundits and news organizations pointed out, our institutions did prevail and were strengthened, they sure weren’t rock solid. And we’re still having to deal with this orange-painted douchebag, who is not only not in prison, but almost as popular as before and running for president. But anyway, it’s a concern that someone like Russia or China could sponsor and a stage a coup by manipulating the crew of violent mouth breathers into it. I mean, I’d be surprised if foreign influence wasn’t involved in the last one.
We know that it was.
Or did you think that the Saudi royal family was just paying kushner 2 billion for an excellent blowjob?
I assumed that they bought state secrets from Orange Julius. I’m not sure they have a particular interest in destabilizing the US as much as say, that one guy who is basically 2 inches from war with NATO.
the Saudis will do what’s best for the Saudis. Including destabilizing the US if it means they can continue being assholes on the world stage.
Why not? Destabilize the US, let them invade Iran under false pretense, like Russia did in Ukraine, rely on Saudis and maybe Israel as “strategic partners to stabilize the region”, so they can control the middle east and establish their theocracies. Meanwhile the weakened US relies on more ressources and funding from the Saudis so they make big money and gain influence in the US economy.
The capitalist elites are happy to sell out America. Americans are easy to get into another invasion with lots of war crimes, heck Hillary Clinton was eager to attack Iran sooner than later.
Keep in mind that the 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudis and ISIS was largely funded from there. If they think it’ll benefit them, they’ll burn the US to the ground.
The people who stormed the capital were able to do so because intelligence was WILLFULLY ignored. Trump and his appointees downplayed the risk of violence and denied reinforcing the capital.
Without those loyal to Trump ignoring refusing to increase security for the capital, the storming of Congress would not have been successful.
The absence of the vast majority of the Capitol Police (in stark contrast to, for example, the Black Lives Matter protests the summer before) was part of the coup attempt.
Don’t rule Saudi Arabia out either there.
Im willing to bet that this involved assistance from the Russians.
I wouldn’t say anything was strengthened.
A coup. That’s what was attempted
It pisses me off that I continually hear people call it a “riot”.
It wasn’t a “riot”, that’s a republican rebranding of what happened that day. It wasn’t a bunch of people that got pissed off and suddenly decided to start breaking things.
It was a planned and coordinated attack on our nation’s capitol with the specific goal of stopping the peaceful transfer of power and installing an unelected individual as head of government by any means necessary, up to and including the attempted assassination of members of both houses of Congress.
That’s a coup d’etat, Not a riot. Normalizing the phrase “capitol riot” is rewriting history.The attack on the capitol was just a small piece of the coup. It was a delay/scare/chaos tactic to use the alternative electoral certificates. There is no doubt or subjective interpretation here, this was a coup attempt, and there is a long trail of evidence due to the many layers of government they had to go through to make it happen.
It is past time caring how the members of this hostile faction are calling and interpreting it. They’ve been denying their intentions, crimes, and reality for a god-damned long time. They’re even denying the weather of the day. You’re right, and don’t dignify their rebranding with a response, just call it what it is.
riot /‘rī′ət’/ noun -
- When minorities peaceably assemble to petition for their civil rights to be respected
- When conservatives attempt to violently overthrow the government to install a dictator
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I had not heard this before, thanks for sharing! Fascinating.
Hitler got a slap on the wrist for his first coup attempt (nine months in prison), we all know what happened next.
However, there have been less successful coup attempts in US history. The only other major one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
Less coup-y, but more successful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
Hmm… I wonder what those all have in common?
(Also, “fun” fact related to the Brooks Brothers Riot: no less than three of the lawyers who worked on the Bush side of the subsequent Bush v. Gore case are now Supreme Court justices.)
And we’re still in the midst of that coup.
How soon is going to depend a lot on what consequences Trump faces.
Absolutely.
I am genuinely concerned that a jury will have at least one person that will not convict Trump no matter what the evidence shows. There are people so brainwashed by Trump’s big lie that getting an impartial jury will be neaely impossible.
I only have slim hope it will be ok since a grand jury did choose to indict him. I guess we’ll see.
There’s a reason why so many lawsuits end in a settlement instead of a jury trial. We all want to believe every trial is like 12 Angry Men, but the reality is that a “jury of your peers” is made up of the general public (ever looked around on a public bus?), so at the end of the day jury trial is basically a coin flip.
Same thing here. If it goes to trial, the outcome is going to basically be random.
None of what you said is true. I know what you mean, and it’s a good worry, but juries are not purely “random”.
They are heavily scrutinized and thoroughly checked from both sides. A large group of potentials are brought together (randomly) and a selection process takes place. Both sides form written questions of the potential jurors to ensure they aren’t a shoe in for the other side. Those questions are provided to a judge who validates that they are not bad. Then the questions are provided to the individuals to answer with the judges guidance. Then they are selected to serve or be alternates by all three parties. Yes trumps lawyers will be there and have a say but it can be countermanded by the other side and the judge focuses on the meat of the items.
In trump’s case the pool will be very large and the judge will be spending a very long time talking to each to ensure they will be impartial and fair. Above and beyond the simple questionnaire. They also have the capacity to double check for obvious issues like lying about their belief structure and the judge sets out the requirements for the case.
The judge 100% talks to the jurors directly and in general tries to engender a level of trust between themselves and the potential jurors. They will ensure neutrality.
Yes it could go sideways, but it is unlikely. The politics are so unbelievably polarizing it would be hard to imagine a juror lying through their teeth to get into there with the risk of being found to have lied through the process. And seriously lying on the juror question forms is… bad. Really bad.
Btw lawsuits end in a settlement because the cost of the lawsuit is higher than the cost of settling and getting money now. Nothing more or less. You are conflating very different processes.
Be angry about the right things with the right information. It’s way more healthy and will help you energize others.
Have you ever served on a jury? I have, and my comment was based on my experience. It has nothing to do with being “right” or “healthy” lol. Its what happened to me in real life.
Yes and I know many who have. Your experience is not the norm for high profile cases.
Cases where there is no overriding community exposure is significant less invasive/picky.
You can expect Trimp lawyers to always deny non pro Trimp candidates. Also they’ll smear the jurors they couldn’t prevent and make their life hell, so they drop out.
I wouldn’t be suprised if they try to drag it out for years, while smearing as much shit around the court and the lawful institutions of the US until Trump is in office again and can seize power indefinetely.
It won’t happen. They will complain, but the judge has final say and if they name a juror they will go to jail and face disbarment. This is not a game and they know it.
You are right to worry in general, but this is one place and detail I wouldn’t worry about.
The selection process will take a while, but it won’t be impossible and the lawyers won’t be able to hose that part up. There will be attempts to move the venue (already talking about trying to go to wv) but the law is clear that it should be handled via the dc federal system.
Delays in general will happen.
They will make motions around the questionnaires going to the potential jurors and many more things. Most of which the judge has pure control over. Then they will attempt to research each of those selected and get them thrown out to force a mistrial. The judge will have lots of alternates.
It’s a short case with extraordinary focus. It will take much longer than it should, but it has none of the difficulty like the clearances and other issues in florida. Keep up your hope, I’m not saying everything is perfect but these aren’t the problem areas.
Because of social media it will be pretty easy to screen jurors I hope.
Not just the jury, you also need all the appellate courts.
US v trump is existential in its nature. This is about whether the concept of the US, as envisioned by the founders, is still seen as valid. There can be no more important domestic trial.
What an enormous waste of energy and money this guy is.
Imagine spending all the time and effort on something that could have helped the world instead of his ignorant ass
True, but Trump didn’t happen in a vacuum. He would be utterly unimportant, if he didn’t have half of the country in tow.
We had someone very similar in Austrian politics (Frank Stronach). He got ~10% of the votes and for the remainder of his political carreer he was mainly a big joke.
It’s a real shame it has come to this. If Trump was a normal person and just accepted that he lost like every single loser before him and not lie to the point where his supporters committed acts of domestic terrorism then he wouldn’t have to deal with this.
in his own advice: “YOU LOST. GET OVER IT. LOSER”
As a non american this just feels like a stunt to promote Trumps election for president.
Edit: For the record I said as a non american cuz I dont know a lot about it. Lets be real, he is not going to prison, he deserves it tho, but he has too much power to go to prison. Only thing happening is his name is now everywhere, so if he was not popular enough already, people are talking more about him now
So the justice department should have just let Trump get away from it all and then he for sure wouldn’t be re-elected?
There have been a lot of people saying that prosecuting Trump for crimes only helps him and never hurts him. I’m not sure that’s true.
Even if it does help him, which I am dubious of, the alternative is to say “Presidents and ex-presidents can get away with doing whatever they want.” Is that really the best thing for the country?
I think giving up on prosecuting him because it may help him would indicate a far greater forfeiture of USA’s democracy.
We can’t choose to do things or not do things based on “what will the 30% of Americans who are die hard Trump supporters think?” If we did that, we might as well just turn over all power to then and let them make our lives a living hell. (They certainly don’t worry about what we think.)
Prosecuting Trump for his crimes is the right thing to do. Nobody is above the law and Trump needs to face justice for his crimes. If he doesn’t, we’re just begging someone else to do the same thing, but be more successful at it.
As an American I think that’s insane… There are a lot of dumbasses here tho… Fuck that dipshit criminal motherfucker though.
I am curious what mecanism would save him from prison at this point. Power should have shielded him from investigations, the DOJ, the FBI, from the indictments going through, from the grand jury indicting him, but here we are. At this point, people usually end up in prison. What if the jury and judge give prison time, what law or mecanism is gonna prevent it? I mean, we know that he could get a pardon, but that is about it.
At this point, Trump has about 4 ways to avoid prison, not all of them likely:
First, he could beat all the charges outright. While Judge Cannon might throw the case in Florida, I don’t think he could beat every charge and avoid all punishments. One of the problems he’s facing with the multiple indictments is that it only takes one sticking to land him in prison for years, if not decades.
Secondly, he could plea out. Like the last option, this is unlikely. Maybe he could reach a deal in one case (though I doubt it without an admission of guilt and prison time), but all 4 (including Georgia)? Highly unlikely.
Third, he could get reelected and pardon himself. This might work for the federal cases, but won’t work in the upcoming Georgia case.
Finally, the most realistic option, Trump could be convicted and sentenced, but the reality of security concerns over a former President being in prison keeps him out of an actual cell. Instead, he’s stuck in a “cell” on some military base or in Mar-A-Lago which gets taken over and converted into a “prison for one.”
For the latter, it would involve nobody else allowed on property who isn’t part of security or supporting the “prison.” Trump’s room would be stripped to the bare walls and a prison cot tossed in the room. He’d spend most of his time in the bare room without TV, a phone, or anything else - only allowed out for meals (prison food, not his usual Mar-A-Lago fare) and maybe an hour of “outside time.” So while he technically wouldn’t be in prison, he’d be effectively locked up.
If he’s convicted and sentenced, he deserves to lose ALL former presidential benefits.
He doesn’t respect the position, and thus, all benefits should be stripped from him.
It’s probably less about the benefits, and more about what he knows as a former president. Though I doubt he actually read any of those stolen documents enough to comprehend them or paid attention in any of his security meetings, they would probably need to treat him as if he did and create a high-security special containment protocol for representing not only a physical threat to the nation, but a knowledge-threat as well.
Another real-albeit-unlikely possibility: Imagine him getting thrown into a normal high security prison, getting all the other criminals to rally behind him, overthrowing the prison guards, escaping, and rallying his MAGA troops on the outside for coup-attempt No. 2. Regardless of likelihood, facist leaders should be removed from their main weapon: an audience.
Getting paid by the taxpayers, as well as his own lifetime security, are benefits that he needs to stop receiving.
I agree with everything else you said.
I suppose this would need to go through congress to happen. Very unlikely to succeed.
Which, if that happened, means all those who are on his side need to lose their jobs and protections.
No hyperbole: this is a coup, it’s ongoing, and we need to cut out the toxicity.
It’s like the “this is fine” meme, but some people are actively trying to continue burning down the house. If they can’t be stopped from continuing the burn the place down, they need to be escorted out and remove any and all arsonist-related abilities / materials. If they continue even after that, they need to be jailed.
At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden pardoned him, not because it would make any sense at all, but because we live in bizarro-world now and that makes sense there.
IMO the best case scenario is trump goes to jail and Biden announces he’s not running for re-election. Biden not running being symbolic to show it wasn’t about winning the election, it was about upholding the rule of law. I know that won’t happen because Biden is too proud of himself to do that, but that simple gesture would do a lot to heal this country.
While I’d like that too, considered in and of itself, the lack of an obvious Democratic front-runner in Biden’s absence means I’d worry that would just be ceding the presidency to DeSantis.
I think the happy middle ground would be Biden rerunning with AOC as his vp. Kamala Harris isn’t popular, and that combined wihh Biden not being too popular is a recipe for trouble, that might be somewhat mitigated by having AOC drum up some support. However, I doubt DeSantis has a chance in hell of even getting a modicum of republican support, so I’m not that worried about him.
trump also hates Desantis, and so do much trumpets. If trump does not run Biden is sure to get reelected.
I think what will protect him is when this goes to the supreme court. However they manage to get it there, we’ll be at the mercy of the morally corrupt judges there. Whether they decide to pull some 6th century deer shit farming traditions out of their ass to justify their decision or not is what will determine the outcome.
I don’t think this court has ever been sympathetic towards Trump, or even the GOP, in the sense that what they want usually align but they don’t really care about Trump. They already rejected the state legislature theory and previous Trump claims. Don’t get me wrong, they suck, but their allegiance is not with Trump. They care about OG conservatives values and Christianity values. They’re anti liberal, not pro-Trump, if that somehow make sense.
They’re more like Mitch McConnell, and he obviously hates Trump.
Legally, I don’t think anything short of the plea deal of the century could keep him out of prison. Realistically? A mob of his supporters could try and break him out, which based on recent history might not be too far-fetched.
The same mechanism that kept OJ out of prison: money.
On another note, how the ever living fuck would you find an untainted jury for that? Who hasn’t seen it and is unbiased?
That’s the problem with finding unbiased juries for extremely high profile cases or defendants. If you manage to find someone who hasn’t heard of Trump or is actually neutral about him… what has this person been doing if they’ve really never heard of him? or, , how could anyone have no real opinion about one of the most confrontational and aggressive politicians in recent history?
There is a difference between not heard of it and willing to weigh the evidence laid in front of them. Both sides will axe all who have strong opinions.
It will be difficult, but not impossible. Even in the dc area.
I would imagine a jury of his peers wouldn’t be hard to find but is that who you really want on the jury? I’d rather have critical thinking intelligent members of society.
I think the US vs Trump will be the trial of the century. Probably the Jan 6th case more than the documents case. Trump will be a case example on why the framers write our constitution for people like him. I only hope the laws of justice uphold. Even by the time a Republican does get into the White House (say 2028) and pardons him, the Georgia state charges still stick (if he’s convicted) and he remains in prison the rest of his life
The civil war follow up just sucks
Yeah the first season was so much better I think its because they got rid of abe tbh
Sadly, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have not affected the show.
Yeah just if Abe had agreed to be turned to a vampire when Sturgess offered, would have been a real twist.
Okay. So.
Just one question. Which US vs Trump are we talking about? There’s two.
The Jan 6 conspiracy indictment that just dropped.
If Trump is allowed to get away with his attempted coup, it’s an existential crisis for our country.
Existential crisis is putting it mildly. A win means total validation for him, his cronies, and all the people who supported/participated in his coup. He’ll ride the “I told you I was innocent! They stole the last one! They can’t steal this one!” train through his entire campaign. The morons who drank the kool-aid last time will be out for blood.
I’m terrified to think of what comes next if he manages to worm his way back into power, but I really don’t want to spend my days in another country as a refugee…
He needs to be made an example of and silenced for good. Him and everyone else involved. This can’t happen again.
My biggest fear is that Trump and DeSantis both run and split the ticket, but get more votes combined than Biden. Biden wins, red states refuse to certify, some move to secede and drag the rest with them.
I don’t see DeSantis having that kind of support. But your point about Republican legislatures refusing to honor a popular vote that doesn’t go their way is extremely valid.
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Yeah. I guess my point is… there’s two.
yes. that makes me happy. I can be petty like that…
There are three federal criminal cases—that we know of anyway. There may be more ongoing investigations.
what’s the third? My understanding is the current federal indictments are the one in florida for documents, and the one in DC for jan 6. His third indictment that I know of is the NY tax fraud that’s in a state court (NY vs Trump or whatever)
There’s also georgia state charges that are still pending, and the “conviction” on rape allegations, a state civil charge.
My bad, I should have added that it’s conjecture on my part but I suspect the Feds are also investigating him for defrauding his donors to “stop the steal,” to the tune of ~$250 million. But yes, two confirmed federal cases. Good call.
That would be hilarious. But also incredibly difficult.
Yeah, the future of democracy in the US hinges on this case.
Also the ugliest
"*I don’t often get to use the term gobsmacked, but that is how I was rendered when I saw the film Jurassic Park. I remember the 1993 cinema trip vividly: clutching my popcorn, wide-eyed, as the first dinosaur, a brachiosaurus, ambled across the screen. Walking out with my parents, I jabbered with excitement: “Could we really make dinosaurs real again, Dad? Could we? Could we?”
These memories came flooding back as I read Natasha Bernal’s piece in Wired UK, exploring the world of biobanking animal cells. Bernal answers the question of whether extinct animals could be brought back with a tentative yes — science has long proved that “frozen cells from extinct animals could potentially be used to revive species” — but that is not what biobanking is about. The intention is to increase the diversity of living species, cloning to prevent further loss, rather than to bring back what is already gone. As a species dwindles, so does its genetic pool, and frozen cells from extinct animals could potentially be used to help prevent extreme inbreeding.
Bernal’s case study is Tullis Mason, a chap who sports “three-quarter length shorts” even in a lab coat. Matson runs an artificial insemination company for racehorses from his family’s farm in Shropshire, England. However, on the side, he is also planning to save the animal kingdom by building the biggest biobank of animal cells in Europe. It’s not always a dignified business, with Bernal describing Mason hooking an elephant penis into a device that looks like “a huge condom,” but the science and the ethics her article explores are fascinating. We may not be about to bring dinosaurs back to life, but with help from biobanking, life already on this planet might still find a way.
This is why, back at Matson’s farm, there is a tiny, black, felt-like ear and two bat testicles the size of olive pits on a lab bench. The Seba’s short-tailed bats at Chester Zoo are usually housed in the Fruit Bat Forest, where visitors can feed them as part of a £56 “experience”. Though not currently listed as endangered, with global biodiversity at a tipping point, it’s likely that no species is entirely safe. This bat died of natural causes, but its genetic material will live on.
The first thing that Lucy Morgan, a scientific advisor at Nature’s SAFE, does is shave the ear. “Ears grow to a certain extent throughout our lifetime, so they’re a cell type that’s already wanting to grow and regenerate itself,” she says. “So when choosing a sample that you’re trying to pick to culture in the future, it’s a good one.”
She puts the ear to soak in chlorhexidine to clean it from bacteria and switches on a timer. After two minutes, she transfers it to a petri dish, and starts cutting it into small pieces the size of chocolate chips. Using tweezers, she puts them in cryovials filled with cryopreservant. The tiny testicles will be preserved whole. They couldn’t get any semen out of them – a common problem for animals that are too small to preserve in the traditional manner.
Safely pipetted into a cryovial or straw, an animal’s tissue, semen or ova are deposited into the cryogenic tank, ready to be unfrozen when they may be needed for repopulation programmes in zoos or, if feasible, the wild. In the case of some creatures, whose anatomical challenges do not currently permit artificial insemination using sperm or ova, the samples may stay there for decades. For now, all of Nature’s SAFE’s samples are in one location, but the charity aims to build a backup so that tissue can be split into different places and safeguarded for the future.*"
Please learn to line break.
I think I read what was two paragraphs before giving up and scrolling through the rest.
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Upvote for effort
Dredd Scott probably thought the same thing.
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