MAGAThread XX: A Journal of the Plague Year

[New haven america]

Barrett says she has no agenda, that she's not a GOP pawn, and that she's totally not gonna try to get rid of Roe vs. Wade.

Bull fucking shit~

[Northern Davincia]

Barrett says she has no agenda, that she's not a GOP pawn, and that she's totally not gonna try to get rid of Roe vs. Wade.

Bull fucking shit~

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

[Cannot think of a name]

Barrett says she has no agenda, that she's not a GOP pawn, and that she's totally not gonna try to get rid of Roe vs. Wade.

Bull fucking shit~

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

This is Trump’s third appointee.

[New haven america]

Barrett says she has no agenda, that she's not a GOP pawn, and that she's totally not gonna try to get rid of Roe vs. Wade.

Bull fucking shit~

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

It's not like there might be 6 Conservative Reps v. 3 Liberal/Progressives on the stand or anything. Yeah, it's most likely going to happen.

Do you no know how the Supreme Court works?

[Albrenia]

Barrett says she has no agenda, that she's not a GOP pawn, and that she's totally not gonna try to get rid of Roe vs. Wade.

Bull fucking shit~

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

You really think a massively conservative SCOTUS wouldn't take the first chance to strip away abortion rights? Or any other things which offend their values such as LGBT rights and gay marriage?

[Northern Davincia]

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

It's not like there might be 6 Conservative Reps v. 3 Liberal/Progressives on the stand or anything. Yeah, it's most likely going to happen.

Do you no know how the Supreme Court works?

Judges usually follow case precedent, even conservative ones.

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

You really think a massively conservative SCOTUS wouldn't take the first chance to strip away abortion rights? Or any other things which offend their values such as LGBT rights and gay marriage?

I don't think they'll try anything major. However, not putting these issues on the ballot is what has allowed this situation to become so dire in the minds of many. Taking the culture war into the courts was the wrong move.

[Loben III]

I don't think they'll try anything major. However, not putting these issues on the ballot is what has allowed this situation to become so dire in the minds of many. Taking the culture war into the courts was the wrong move.

thats their fault, maybe they shouldve passed a law after the courts various decisions but i suppose that takes effort.

[Northern Davincia]

I don't think they'll try anything major. However, not putting these issues on the ballot is what has allowed this situation to become so dire in the minds of many. Taking the culture war into the courts was the wrong move.

thats their fault, maybe they shouldve passed a law after the courts various decisions but i suppose that takes effort.

Indeed. Leaving it in the court's hands, perhaps, gives ammunition to both sides for presidential elections.

[Eukaryotic Cells]

20 threads about Trump.


Fucking hell.

Hopefully that tapers off after January next year.

[Cannot think of a name]

20 threads about Trump.


Fucking hell.

Hopefully that tapers off after January next year.

I'm looking forward to referring it him in the past tense, in the terms of the damage he did that needs to be fixed and if he goes and pees himself in Times Square I won't even click on that fucking article. The only thing I'd look at is if he faces legal consequences now that he's no longer protected by the presidency. Once he has his hands off the levers of power I can go back to not giving a fuck about him like I did when he was just a dude with a reality show.

[Albrenia]

Hopefully that tapers off after January next year.

I'm looking forward to referring it him in the past tense, in the terms of the damage he did that needs to be fixed and if he goes and pees himself in Times Square I won't even click on that fucking article. The only thing I'd look at is if he faces legal consequences now that he's no longer protected by the presidency. Once he has his hands off the levers of power I can go back to not giving a fuck about him like I did when he was just a dude with a reality show.

I would love to live in that world.

[Picairn]

I'm looking forward to referring it him in the past tense, in the terms of the damage he did that needs to be fixed and if he goes and pees himself in Times Square I won't even click on that fucking article. The only thing I'd look at is if he faces legal consequences now that he's no longer protected by the presidency. Once he has his hands off the levers of power I can go back to not giving a fuck about him like I did when he was just a dude with a reality show.

In other words, back to the 90s!

[Ifreann]

Ah,. Farn got the new thread up.

Because who doesn't care about catching COVID from Trump?

Well, he has never taken it seriously anyway so...

We all dream of a world where Donald Trump is no longer in the news, but I don't think that him losing the presidency will be the end of his public life.

Tough to say: if he were to lose, Twitter would almost certainly shutdown his account since, well, he wouldn't be the President anymore. But I do think Trump will try to start Trump TV, and then probably face prosecution for a a variety of State crimes.

I don't see Twitter shutting down his account, not when he's driving so much engagement and when the people who'd kick up a fuss are the big name right wing accounts with billionaire money behind them.

---

...

In law, the defendent is innocent until proven guilty. However, if intentional premeditated homocide is then proven, she has a legal duty to prove she was using self defence. Do you think that in a court of law people can just shout 'self defence' and the prosecution has to prove them wrong? That's not how that works. That's now how a legal exception works. Those availing themselves of the exception have to prove that the exception applies.

I get sick and tired of people with a 'society 101' understanding of legal procedure lecturing me how they think the self defence exception works. As if 'innocent until proven guilty' is a rule that probibits even talking about behaviour as possibly criminal until there has been a conviction.

The state has the burden to prove a crime was commited, this should hold true in any and all situations. To demand an accused person to provide proof of innocence is a repulsive miscarriage of justice.

The state does have to prove guilt, but if you go into court and claim self defence then you are inherently conceding that the prosecution's case against you is true and accurate but for one point of law. If you can't provide a sufficiently convincing explanation for how the thing you did fits under the self defence exception set out in the relevant laws then you have given the state an ample length of metaphorical rope and some tips on how to fashion a noose.

But also, NSG isn't a court of law. That Amy Ford has reportedly claimed to have been acting in self defence does not create an obligation on anyone here to prove her wrong or accept that claim. Nor can posters who do accept that claim hide behind the presumption of innocence when challenged that the reported facts do not support it, that is very obviously invalid. Northern Davincia is neither a party accused of a crime nor a defence attorney and Vassenor is not a prosecutor. She has made a good point against the claim of self defence by pointing out that Ford reportedly disengaged from the confrontation, armed herself, and then returned, a perfectly good answer to his question about whether we have reason to believe it wasn't self defence. If no one can provide some other version of events or argument that actually those events are self defence, then she's made a good point that none of us here can rebut. She doesn't have to prove her position beyond reasonable doubt to a jury of Ford's peers or any other shit like that. And this little sideshow rather suggests that no rebuttal will be forthcoming.

I don't know why some posters here have such difficulty believing that an associate of the President might be a criminal that they must go to these silly lengths to deny the case against Amy Ford.

---

Remember, the loud part is the investigation, the quiet part is finding nothing.

The federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly requested the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The revelation that U.S. Attorney John Bash, who left the department last week, had concluded his review without criminal charges or any public report will rankle President Trump at a moment when he is particularly upset at the Justice Department. The department has so far declined to release the results of Bash’s work, though people familiar with his findings say they would likely disappoint conservatives who have tried to paint the “unmasking” of names — a common practice in government to help understand classified documents — as a political conspiracy.

Then onward to the next investigation!

[Vassenor]

OK then. Prove the security guard who shot that Trumpist a few days ago was not acting in self defence.

Why would I do that even if I could?

So it was self defence then, by your own admission.

[Northern Davincia]

I don't see Twitter shutting down his account, not when he's driving so much engagement and when the people who'd kick up a fuss are the big name right wing accounts with billionaire money behind them.

How does one get this billionaire money from Twitter-posting?

[Jerzylvania]

I don't see Twitter shutting down his account, not when he's driving so much engagement and when the people who'd kick up a fuss are the big name right wing accounts with billionaire money behind them.

How does one get this billionaire money from Twitter-posting?

That's a good question.

[Ifreann]

I don't see Twitter shutting down his account, not when he's driving so much engagement and when the people who'd kick up a fuss are the big name right wing accounts with billionaire money behind them.

How does one get this billionaire money from Twitter-posting?

Slide into Ben Shapiro's DMs, maybe he could give you some tips on courting the surviving Koch.

[San Lumen]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/1 ... ory-429428

Trump is amplifying a Qanon backed conspiracy theory that Bin Laden's death was a hoax. Robert O'Neill, who says he killed bin Laden in the 2011 raid, has rebuffed Trump and others in several tweets for promoting the conspiracy theory that bin Laden's body double was instead killed.

[Farnhamia]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/14/famed-navy-seal-pushes-back-after-trump-amplifies-baseless-bin-laden-conspiracy-theory-429428

Trump is amplifying a Qanon backed conspiracy theory that Bin Laden's death was a hoax. Robert O'Neill, who says he killed bin Laden in the 2011 raid, has rebuffed Trump and others in several tweets for promoting the conspiracy theory that bin Laden's body double was instead killed.

And this from a guy who was banned by Delta Airlines after tweeting a selfie of his mask-less face on one of their flights. He does support Trump but SEALs are fussy about people putting down their actual combat deeds, I guess.

[Zurkerx]

The Unmasking Probe commissioned by Barr concludes without charges or any public report.

The federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly requested the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.

The revelation that U.S. Attorney John Bash, who left the department last week, had concluded his review without criminal charges or any public report will rankle President Trump at a moment when he is particularly upset at the Justice Department. The department has so far declined to release the results of Bash’s work, though people familiar with his findings say they would likely disappoint conservatives who have tried to paint the “unmasking” of names — a common practice in government to help understand classified documents — as a political conspiracy.

The president in recent days has pressed federal law enforcement to move against his political adversaries and complained that a different prosecutor tapped by Barr to investigate the FBI’s 2016 investigation of his campaign will not be issuing any public findings before the election.

Legal analysts feared that Bash’s review was yet another attempt by Trump’s Justice Department to target political opponents of the president. Even if it ultimately produced no results of consequence, legal analysts said, it allowed Trump and other conservatives to say Obama-era officials were under scrutiny, as long as the case stayed active.

The department — both under Barr and Trump’s previous attorney general, Jeff Sessions — has repeatedly turned to U.S. attorneys across the country to investigate matters of Republican concern, distressing current and former Justice Department officials, who fear that department leaders are repeatedly caving to Trump’s pressure to benefit his allies and target those he perceives as political enemies.

Kerri Kupec, the Justice Department’s top spokeswoman, had first revealed Bash’s review in May, after Republican senators made public a declassified list of U.S. officials, including former vice president Joe Biden, who made requests that would ultimately reveal the name of Trump adviser Michael Flynn in intelligence documents in late 2016 and early 2017.

In an appearance on Fox News that month, Kupec told host Sean Hannity that Barr had tapped Bash, the top federal prosecutor in San Antonio, to review Obama-era officials’ unmasking requests. She said that though the practice “inherently isn’t wrong,” the frequency with which requests were made or the motive for making them could be “problematic.”

Though “unmasking” is common and appropriate because it allows government officials to better understand a document they are reading, Trump and others suggested the list of requests that ultimately revealed Flynn’s name showed wrongdoing.

Bash’s team was focused not just on unmasking, but also on whether Obama-era officials provided information to reporters, according to people familiar with the probe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation. But the findings ultimately turned over to Barr fell short of what Trump and others might have hoped, and the attorney general’s office elected not to release them publicly, the people familiar with the matter said. The Washington Post was unable to review the full results of what Bash found.

Bash announced last week that he was leaving the department — surprising many in the Justice Department because the move came so close to the election — though he made no mention of the unmasking review. He said in a statement that he had informed the attorney general of the decision a month earlier and had “accepted an offer for a position in the private sector.” He gave formal resignation letters to the president and the attorney general on Oct. 5, and his last day was Friday.

Before being nominated as the U.S. attorney, Bash worked in the Solicitor General’s Office and as an associate counsel to Trump. Bash thanked Trump and others in the statement, and Barr offered his “gratitude” for Bash’s service.

“I appreciate his service to our nation and to the Justice Department, and I wish him the very best,” Barr said.

Asked Tuesday if Bash had quit over anything related to unmasking, Kupec said, “No, that was not my understanding.” At the time Bash’s departure was announced, she had said of the unmasking review, “Without commenting on any specific investigation, any matters that John Bash was overseeing will be assumed by Gregg Sofer,” who was tapped to replace Bash as the U.S. attorney. She declined this week to comment specifically on the status of the unmasking investigation.

Bash declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio said he could not immediately comment.

It was not immediately clear why the department was holding back Bash’s findings. Officials do not generally discuss investigations that have been closed without criminal charges — though Bash’s case is unusual because it was announced publicly by the department spokeswoman. Justice Department policies and tradition, too, call for prosecutors not to take public steps in cases close to an election that might affect the results.

Before Bash’s appointment, Kupec had said that a different federal prosecutor, John Durham in Connecticut, also had been looking at unmasking as part of his broader investigation into the FBI’s 2016 probe of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the election. It was not clear how Durham’s and Bash’s work intersected.

Barr recently told some Republican lawmakers that no report of Durham’s investigation would be released before the November election, though unlike Bash’s review, Durham’s work seems to be ongoing, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has in recent days called the delay in the Durham case “a disgrace,” and asserted that his 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be jailed. He was previously critical of another prosecutor specially tapped by then-Attorney General Sessions to investigate matters related to Clinton, but whose case ended with no public report or allegations of wrongdoing.

Barr had said previously he would not hold back Durham’s findings because of concerns about any impact on the election, as investigators were not focused on political candidates.

From early on in the Trump administration, some GOP lawmakers have sought to investigate and highlight Obama-era unmasking requests, believing them to be inappropriate. The effort was initially pushed in part by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), though the House Intelligence Committee he chaired at the time also asked U.S. spy agencies to reveal the names of U.S. individuals or organizations contained in classified intelligence on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In May, Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Rand Paul (Ky.) breathed new life into the effort, releasing a list of those who had made unmasking requests. The list included the names of more than three dozen former Obama administration officials. Among them were Biden, former White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, former FBI director James B. Comey, former CIA director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.

Then-acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell had declassified and personally delivered the list to the Justice Department — his arrival captured by a pre-positioned Fox News camera — on the same day the Justice Department moved to drop criminal charges against Flynn.

Paul said at the time that “we sort of have the smoking gun because we now have the declassified document with Joe Biden’s name on it.” And Trump renewed his broader attacks on the investigation of possible coordination between Russia and his campaign, suggesting those involved should be jailed.

“I’m talking with 50-year sentences,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

Kupec soon appeared on Fox News and announced Bash’s inquiry. His work came on top of that of Durham and U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen in St. Louis, who had been tapped specially to review the Flynn case and ultimately advised that the Justice Department should drop it.

The end of Bash’s case is similar to that of a review conducted by John Huber, the U.S. attorney in Utah, who was asked in November 2017 by Sessions to look into concerns raised by Trump and his allies in Congress that the FBI had not fully pursued cases of possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and during Clinton’s time as secretary of state. The Post reported in January that the inquiry had effectively ended with no tangible results. In the months that followed, Trump bemoaned the state of the inquiry on Twitter, asserting that Huber “did absolutely NOTHING.”

“He was a garbage disposal unit for important documents & then, tap, tap, tap, just drag it along & run out of time,” Trump wrote.

Yeah, that's another of Trump's Conspiracy Theories now dead in the water.

[Jerzylvania]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/14/famed-navy-seal-pushes-back-after-trump-amplifies-baseless-bin-laden-conspiracy-theory-429428

Trump is amplifying a Qanon backed conspiracy theory that Bin Laden's death was a hoax. Robert O'Neill, who says he killed bin Laden in the 2011 raid, has rebuffed Trump and others in several tweets for promoting the conspiracy theory that bin Laden's body double was instead killed.

Donny is scraping the bottom of the conspiracy barrel now.

[Jerzylvania]

I find it laughable that one person alone will take the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's not going to happen.

This is Trump’s third appointee.

Sen. Maisie Hirono hung Barrett out to dry on the possibility of a SCOTUS election case involving Trump and his three appointees.

[Telconi]

This is Trump’s third appointee.

Sen. Maisie Hirono hung Barrett out to dry on the possibility of a SCOTUS election case involving Trump and his three appointees.

Certainly Senator Hirono won't be voting to confirm her now.

[San Lumen]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/14/famed-navy-seal-pushes-back-after-trump-amplifies-baseless-bin-laden-conspiracy-theory-429428

Trump is amplifying a Qanon backed conspiracy theory that Bin Laden's death was a hoax. Robert O'Neill, who says he killed bin Laden in the 2011 raid, has rebuffed Trump and others in several tweets for promoting the conspiracy theory that bin Laden's body double was instead killed.

Donny is scraping the bottom of the conspiracy barrel now.

The scary part is a large portion of the GOP believes such rubbish. In Delaware they nominated a Qanon supporter and flat earther.

[Jerzylvania]

Sen. Maisie Hirono hung Barrett out to dry on the possibility of a SCOTUS election case involving Trump and his three appointees.

Certainly Senator Hirono won't be voting to confirm her now.

It doesn't matter. They don't have the votes to block her. It's about painting her into a legal corner with her own testimony. She's gonna need a few gallons of turpentine.