Current Events > B8 Politics Containment Topic #1: Fuck Fandom

(+) Yeah! (+)

Good update

Here's hoping he immediately violates the order by posting about how unfair the order is to him

I hope they actually go through with it if he violates the gag order again. Of course his supporters will just say that it's not fair and that there is a two tier justice system, ignoring that Trump is a beneficiary not a victim of the two tier justice system.

I guess less importantly, despite Trump repeatedly lying about it being rejected - Merchan also said Trump can go to Barron's graduation.

Thorn posted...

notes that while such an amount may work in most cases, notes that that is a pretty useless fine (in terms of achieving the intended outcome - stopping the offender from continuing the behavior) when the offender is wealthy enough that the fine is basically nothing to them. And therefore he explicitly warns that jail may be necessary for continued offenses.

Good response.

this whole thing was for chump change and a warning?

I don't know what I expected, but, lmao

I feel like the maximum is there so as not to overly punish poor people. But ultimately it means that for a billionaire it's meaningless. I feel like the maximum should instead be based on your tax bracket.

AFAIK, getting jailed for violating a gag order is a pretty unusual action. I think the judge is basically issuing the maximum fine he legally can, then noting that the fine is trivial to someone like Trump and that while he'd like to be able to issue bigger fines as a deterrent - perhaps escalating them if he continues to violate the gag order - he legally can not and therefore the only option he has left on the table is jail - and making Trump and his lawyers aware of that.

Getting tossed in jail for a first time offense of violating a gag order (in this case. I know there are the others but I don't think he can use those here) was never on the table. It would honestly be an extraordinary action and honestly would likely support Trump's claims of political/personal bias. So the judge basically did the only thing he could do instead - issue the maximum fine, explain both that he understands the fine is useless to a wealthy offender but that the law doesn't let him go any higher - so since he can't up the fine in the future his only other recourse is jail.

Now, granted, I'm skeptical that any judge, this one included, would actually go for it - but to this point I think his actions in issuing the fine and warning are the best he can do here. I assume that when they hold the hearing for whatever violations Trump committed between April 18 and April 30/today it'll still "just" be fines because Trump would have committed the violations before this warning was posted.

It's what happens for any violations Trump makes from this point onwards where we'll see what happens. If Trump keeps doing it and the judge continues to only issue fines then then I think we can call it out as weak. I suspect that's what'll happen but it hasn't yet.

When asked by TIME if he sees why many Americans see talk of a dictatorship as contrary to the principles of America, Trump says no. "I think a lot of people like it."

cool cool

https://twitter.com/ianbassin/status/1785311810675233198

I mean... he's not nearly as wrong as we'd like to hope. A large portion of any population would be happy with a dictator as long as he kind to them and unkind to those they dislike.

"Fuck you, got mine" runs really deep, probably deeper than a love for democracy.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dea-plans-back-reclassifying-marijuana-drug-sources/story?id=109795806

DEA reportedly will recommend reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1 where it currently is to Schedule 3 (ketamine, steroids, testosterone being some others in this class)

Wouldn't legalize recreational use on the federal level, but would - as far as I understand - basically legalize it for medical use, requiring a prescription.

Who actually has the authority to reclassify? Congress?

Thorn posted...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dea-plans-back-reclassifying-marijuana-drug-sources/story?id=109795806

DEA reportedly will recommend reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1 where it currently is to Schedule 3 (ketamine, steroids, testosterone being some others in this class)

Wouldn't legalize recreational use on the federal level, but would - as far as I understand - basically legalize it for medical use, requiring a prescription.

Lets goooooo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRMH5XuJfr4

While I believe Congress can simply decide to pass a bill to reschedule a drug if they want (and have done so in the past.) It's otherwise left to DEA and other related agencies. The process to reschedule takes forever though - Biden initiated it quite some time ago (nearly a year ago) but the steps take forever to get through, and I think even this wouldn't quite be the final one.

Basically DEA asks HHS to review the medical and scientific evidence and give a recommendation. HHS then goes through a process with FDA to conduct said review and return their opinion. Then DEA does their own review while taking the HHS opinion into account.

Like even from here it ends up going to OMB for a public comment period, etc. etc. Bureaucracy is sloooow. But I think this would be the most significant step.

Comparing this glacial process with the time Congress approved $600 extra per week for unemployment in like 20 minutes... it's maddening.

Dancedreamer posted...

I feel like the maximum is there so as not to overly punish poor people. But ultimately it means that for a billionaire it's meaningless. I feel like the maximum should instead be based on your tax bracket.

All fines should be based on your income, otherwise they are things that are just illegal for the poor.

Right, don't view it as "this thing is illegal because it comes with a fine." It is more accurate to say "this action is legal if you pay this fee."

https://twitter.com/daviddoel/status/1785663396177661994?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

In case you have friends or family who ride the line of Hamas keeps rejecting ceasefire deals.

After Republicans obstructed (voting to adjourn to avoid voting on a repeal) and blocked it for a while, Arizona has passed a repeal of the 1864 abortion ban that their Supreme Court ruled was now in effect.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/arizona-senate-passes-repeal-1864-abortion-ban-sending/story?id=109827722

Granted, this simply means that instead of this near total ban being in effect, the law will revert to the 15-week ban that Republicans passed in 2022 but it's better than nothing.

Arizona's Senate voted 16-14 to repeal the 1864 law. All 14 Democrats joined by 2 Republicans. One of those Republicans suggesting they hoped that by repealing this law they can stand a better chance of thwarting the ballot initiative that Arizona will vote on this November to protect abortion rights.

Still, it needs to be 90 days after the end of the legislative session for the repeal to take effect - and theoretically the GOP could drag that out until the end of June so there still could be a few months where the 1864 law is in force in Arizona.

Trump's second gag order violation hearing underway (technically just concluded - no ruling yet though I think, believe the judge wants to get the jury in and not waste more time.) DA specifically said they wanted fines this time not jail because they didn't want to disrupt the proceedings.

Bunch of absurdity in it - including Trump's lawyers bringing 500 pages of shit to try and justify this, up to and including handing the judge a thumb drive. But this one in particular got me because it's literally a GameFAQs ToS argument. Confronted with Trump making comments attacking the jury, their defense is "We didn't name any specific juror!!!"

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1786035458834669924

English local elections yesterday with results coming in now, the key points:

-Nothing short of absolute humiliation for the Tories, who have currently lost a majority of their races. Currently looking like they will go from a narrow first place in terms of councillors to third behind Labour and the Lib Dems.

-Labour have hit their marks with significant gains, their biggest win being the Blackpool South by-election for the Parliamentary seat, where they got one of the biggest swings in history. They are on course for a landslide at the general election as the polls suggest. However, there are a few things to caution them, as they have lost support in some areas including majority control of one council due to Gaza and other social issues. The party has acknowledged this too.

-Lib Dems have done fine but the big contests for them in the south are yet to declare their results. Greens have done very, very well and on track for their best ever local elections result, definitely gaining from dissatisfaction with Labour in some urban areas but also everybody else. The hard right Reform Party (Farages party) have done alright in voteshare for some areas to the Tories cost but no actual wins, nothing to say from that yet but you know the right-wing media will crow about it endlessly.

-The one bright spot, using the term very generously, for the Tories is that they have narrowly won the Teeside mayoral election. Of course, this was a guy who got 73% of the vote last time and enjoys massive cross-party support; the swing from this result and council elections still suggest Labour is on course to win every seat in the area at the general election. Its a bit like how Vermont has a Republican governor to put it in US terms, so the Tories claiming this as a win is hilarious.

TL;DR: Tories demolished, everybody else gaining, some small setbacks for Labour on areas theyve swung rightwards on. Something to be happy with for everybody whos not a Tory!

Related, and very funny:

https://twitter.com/pippacrerar/status/1786110656409743792?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

Fuck fandom.

Presented without comment:

https://twitter.com/nicolemsilverio/status/1786473166748991839?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

Does anyone in the administration understand who their base is? Like... nobody's going to be swayed to vote for him because of this. They will simply say it's just him trying to get votes.

Dancedreamer posted...

Does anyone in the administration understand who their base is? Like... nobody's going to be swayed to vote for him because of this. They will simply say it's just him trying to get votes.

I dont think you understand how blindly patriotic a majority of voters are.

Nothing was wrong with the answer honestly.

It was an attempted "gotcha" and she did her best to avoid playing into it.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Related, and very funny:

https://twitter.com/pippacrerar/status/1786110656409743792?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

Knowing Johnson this was absolutely intentional. Here we are talking about Johnson rather than the abject failure of results for the Tories.

Trump found in criminal contempt (again. This is the 10th time in this trial for those keep score at home.)

It was for an instance before the April 30 order that warned about jail and the DA was only asking for a fine so Merchan only fined again but repeated his warning of jail more explicitly for any future violations - and I think with the result of this hearing we've basically taken care of all his violations from before the April 30 order so anything he does in the future will very likely have been made after he was found in contempt and warned of jail.

I remain personally skeptical this (or any) Court will actually have the guts to jail him but given Trump's inability to help himself we'll probably find out sooner rather than later.

The Order of the Court says...

Because the offensive statement was made prior to this Court's Decision of April 30 and because the People are seeking only a monetary fine, the Court will, once again, fine Defendant $1,000. However, because this is now the tenth time that this Court has found Defendant in criminal contempt, spanning three separate motions, it is apparent that monetary fines have not, and will not, suffice to deter Defendant from violating this Court's lawful orders.

THEREFORE, Defendant is hereby put on notice that if appropriate and warranted, future violations of its lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration

https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1787887521839329595?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

Yikes.

How do I get certified to post here?

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1787887521839329595?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

Yikes.

Honestly, I would just take this as Biden reducing it all to the long, long history of religious conflict over Jerusalem re: Crusades, etc.

I think that's reductionist in the extreme and kid of glossing over the Israeli government's actions but I don't particularly think it's a "yikes" worthy thing - just bog-standard "how basically all US politicians and most of the public talk about/reduce the extremely complicated situation"

----------------------

Stormy Daniels has been testifying today in the Trump trial. It's generally information we've heard before - but being told directly by her in one concise narrative. In telling it, it's pretty clear her encounter with Trump was pretty much coerced/nonconsensual but again, I believe we "knew" that in terms of the information out there.

The DA seems to want to get into as much of the lurid details as they can - presumably to hammer in to the jury just how damaging this story would have been to Trump in 2016 and therefore why he paid her off to keep it quiet - but Merchan has been trying to keep them from getting too detailed - sustaining several defense objections such as when they got into the details/"mechanics" of the sex.

I'm seeing articles about a post he made today which was deleted shortly after posting:

I have just recently been told who the witness is today, Trump wrote in the hastily-deleted post on his Truth Social platform, according to screenshots of the text shared on social media. This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare. No Judge has ever run a trial in such a biased and partisan way.

I've read that his team does have a full list of witnesses, but that they order of the witnesses was not being provided in advance. So they idea that they only just found out Stormy would testify is false, they've known for months.

In any case I hope the fact that he quickly deleted this one doesn't mean he's not eligible to be held in contempt again. It's still something he personally put out there and is being circulated and reported on despite it's removal.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-cannon-grants-trumps-latest-152247217.html

That one is real, AFAIK, but I don't know if it constitutes a violation of the gag order. He's allowed to attack the judge and he is allowed to lie on social media.

To the specifics of what he/his legal team would know - they do in fact know all the potential witnesses the DA can call and have known that for a long time - it's required that both sides submit and share their potential witness list.

It is indeed the order in which they are called that Trump's team does not know. Usually that information is given to the defense as a courtesy but the DA here said they were concerned about witness intimidation based on Trump's history of doing just that. As a result, at the very beginning they agreed to give them the first witness as a test case under the condition they not leak it and - of course - within hours they did just that. Since then the DA went to the judge about it and has not disclosed the order ahead of time to the defense.

Seanchan posted...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-cannon-grants-trumps-latest-152247217.html

Zzzzzzzzzz

I mean I saw this coming, but great more fucking delays. So either he gets away with absolutely everything or he gets enough time to completely fuck everything up. Even more so.

Bet if Trump loses the election you'll have people demanding Trump be let go because "Why are you still on his case for this?"

Picking up on the day in the hush-money case from where we left off...

Upon returning for lunch break there was an immediate sidebar where he called both sides to discuss a possible limiting instruction when Trump's lawyers immediately moved for a mistrial on the basis that Daniels's testimony was too prejudicial and they couldn't "unring the bell" for the jury. Per a reporter in the room, Merchan seemed to give actual consideration to this, but ultimately he rejected the motion to mistrial - stating that while things went further than he would have liked and there things "better left unsaid" he did not feel it rose to the level of a mistrial and that the appropriate remedy was cross-examination and a limiting instruction. He also implied that the defense should have objected more and was surprised that they had not and so some of this was on them.

https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/1787909874560413725
https://twitter.com/TylerMcBrien/status/1787911653880709618

Daniels herself seemed to also take it to heart and when the direct continued (and wrapped up) after the lunch break she reportedly stayed concise in her answers.

Cross-examination then started and was extremely hostile from the jump. Looks like the Trump legal team tactic her is to go all-in on attacking Daniels directly (as opposed to trying to make an argument about the facts of the case.) Lots of trying to establish that she "hates" Trump and an extended attempt to attack her for not paying legal fees to Trump in a defamation case she lost... which feels like a pretty weak vector to attack her credibility on to me (focusing on her hating Trump made more sense in my eyes) but who knows how it would play to a jury. They ended the day by dramatically accusing Daniels of trying to extort Trump. Nevertheless, this all still seems like trying to play to the jury and ignore the facts of the case - the actual alleged crimes are the payments and the coverup thereafter. Even a successful attack of Daniels doesn't really address that unless they are alleging the payments never occurred which... uh... good luck?

Cross-examination is expected to continue Thursday and the DA has said they will have re-direct following that.

Thorn posted...

Honestly, I would just take this as Biden reducing it all to the long, long history of religious conflict over Jerusalem re: Crusades, etc.

I think that's reductionist in the extreme and kind of glossing over the Israeli government's actions but I don't particularly think it's a "yikes" worthy thing - just bog-standard "how basically all US politicians and most of the public talk about/reduce the extremely complicated situation." Which is its own problem but one that is way more than just a Biden thing.

Nah, it's extremely yikes worthy. His base overwhelmingly wants a ceasefire and the man just stood on stage and said that Hamas (the group less than half as old as he is) wants to genocide Jews because of an ancient desire.

If you said this about the leadership of any other ethnic group on Earth, even one who has done awful things, everyone would recognize how insane it is.

Look at it this way: people already call you antisemitic for pointing out that Israel is doing genocide, now imagine what they'd say if you said "Israel is doing genocide because of their ancestral urges".

And you may be right about how he's just doing a bad version of what other politicians do, but this man is supposed to be the head of the Democratic party! It's one thing to support Israel, it's another to say "Islam wants to genocide Judaism".

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

His base overwhelmingly wants a ceasefire

I'm not sure that's super clear. Finding polling on this is harder than I expected but what little snippets I can find seem to suggest that how you frame the question matters a lot.

You'll get 70% saying they support a permanent ceasefire. But then 68% oppose one if it means Hamas remains in power in Gaza and that seems pretty close to a non-starter in a ceasefire talk.

I suppose more sobering is that even among young voters who are by far the strongest supporters of a ceasefire (but again, how you word the question matters - you can see it at 51%) and the most pro-Palestinian (and again you can find close to equal sympathy for Israel and Palestine depending on the poll)... is that only 2% rate it as their most important issue in the election.

Indianastan is voting today, and the results don't look good for Trump...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/07/us/elections/results-indiana-primary.html

President
Republican Primary
Latest results from just now
73% OF VOTES IN

Donald J. Trump
390,391
78.2%

Nikki Haley
108,812
21.8%

literal brain worms

simulation theory has never been more likely

https://twitter.com/DevinCow/status/1788194296115372355

Q: are there numbers on how many 2020 Republicans/Democrat voters have died from covid and any connections to their covid habits (how many vaccines, antivax, etc)?

GTM posted...

Q: are there numbers on how many 2020 Republicans/Democrat voters have died from covid and any connections to their covid habits (how many vaccines, antivax, etc)?

I think there have been some studies on it.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/25/1189939229/covid-deaths-democrats-republicans-gap-study

For instance, one study focused in on Florida and Ohio and found that excess death rates were up at similar numbers for both parties in the early stages of the pandemic but noted that around May 2021, when all US adults became eligible to receive the vaccine, that a partisan divide quickly emerged. At least in FL and OH the Republican excess death rate became much higher than that of Democrats - a 43% rise for them compared to Dems.

NPR also did its own analysis that didn't go as granular as that but simply compared Trump counties to Biden counties, using that same May 2021 dividing line, and found that people in the pro-Trump counties were 3 times as likely to die from COVID than the pro-Biden ones.

Throwing in vaccine habits on top of that I'm not sure. I think there have been (a lot more) studies looking at that by itself but putting the two together idk

MTG moved to vacate Johnson from the Speakership.

Dems previously put out a statement after they passed the Ukraine bill indicating that they would save him if she tried this so I expect they'll just vote present on the motion and lowering the number Johnson needs to survive the vote such that he can do it without MTG and whatever HFC members she gathers together.

I really don't get what the Tories are doing. No attempt to correct course on the things that voters might want, including conservative ideas like lower taxes that they somehow haven't done after many years in power. Instead they push incredibly dumb ideas like banning smoking and declaring Rwanda safe by fiat.

Just read that Baron Trump is going to be a jr delegate in florida...

I was sorta holding out hope that he'd be normal in some way

Nobody raised like that is going to be normal.

Maniac64 posted...

Nobody raised like that is going to be normal.

This and not even necessarily in a bad way, but when you're raised so removed from general society you won't develop normalcy.

Just Trump out there telling oil executives that if they give him and his campaign $1 billion he'll reverse Biden's climate policies

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1788537201233441054

Isn't that like... illegal?

Obellisk posted...

Isn't that like... illegal?

IOKIYAR