this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
667 points (94.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35694 readers
1277 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I am asking here because all the political subs don't allow a question, and US politics used to seemed so simple until to understand this man came along.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] AnthoNightShift@lemmy.ca 294 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

Because this needs to be done 1000% right, there is no margin for error, everything has to be done in an iron clad manner that cannot be dismantled by half-assing it. Indicting a former president is a first in the history of this country, and this former president is nothing short of a cult leader with millions of unshakable followers, many of whom are armed to the teeth and ready to burn this country to the ground for him. So this has to be done very friggin carefully.

[–] TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Like Mueller half-assed it and the end result was nearly a fucking coup. Can’t let that happen again.

[–] Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 71 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Mueller didn’t half ass anything. He conducted his investigation and determined that crimes were likely committed, but that he didn’t have the power to bring charges in his position as special counsel and it would be up to the AG.

Which is true. A DOJ special counsel is not the same thing as the independent counsel that used to exist, which was what Ken Starr was when he investigated Clinton.

A DOJ special counsel is completely beholden to the AG and DOJ policies and can’t bring charges without the AG signing off on them.

If you actually read the mueller report, it’s extremely damning and he turned it over to the AG and Congress to do something about it. The AG declined to bring any charges based on a DOJ memorandum that says a sitting POTUS cannot be charged. The House impeached Trump over the findings and the Senate failed to convict and remove him.

The current AG could still bring criminal charges over the conclusion of the report, but at this point it’s been so highly politicized that it would be impossible to get a conviction on.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Stop saying "the AG". Say his fucking traitor name. William Barr. Who only got cold feet at the 11th hour when the groundwork for the coup was already being made.

The Mueller report - as you say, damning - was completed and then given to this scum, who withheld it, released a "summary", claimed it found no wrongdoing whatsoever, eventually released a heavily redacted version...

I mean I remember it happening. This slimy fuck. He got a report that said the many ways Trump did illegal shit, but since he was the one who could choose when and how to release it, he was able to get ahead of the media by saying all kinds of bullshit lies. By the time he was finally forced to release the real report, it was too late, the "Trump did nothing wrong" story was already too far out there.

Look, I'm glad he finally, barely, by the skin of his teeth did the right thing and said there was no fraud in the 2020 election. But we should not forget that brazen bullshit he pulled in front of Congress and the American people.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

Muller half assed the investigation, on top of that corrupt Barr hid all the important findings, and Bitch McConnell swept the whole treason under the rug - that all lead Orange Man to be even bolder with his treason and rise of blatant lawlessness within the Republican Party.

I don’t disagree with what you said but I just wanted to point out how entire republican machinery is responsible for the imminent death of democracy in this country. Not just Muller’s half assed investigation.

[–] Daisyifyoudo@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

unshakeable followers

You spelled ignorant morons wrong

load more comments (17 replies)
[–] danielton@lemmy.world 75 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When you're a billionaire, you can do whatever the hell you want in Murica.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When you're a billionaire, you can do whatever the hell you want.

[–] aksdb@feddit.de 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, it does depend a bit on the country. Didn't several russian billionaires (aka oligarchs) ... erm.... have accidents last year? So I don't think money helps you a lot in a system like that. It gets them further, no question. But ultimately it didn't matter.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago

The country's political system didn't kill them. A more powerful billionaire killed them.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

Unless you're a Chinese billionaire and say something bad about Winnie the Pooh

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Part of it is because there are still looming constitutional questions about whether a president, current or former, can be indicted for his actions during his presidency. I think we've mostly resolved those, though. A substantial and powerful cadre of political thugs is still going to try to sue to throw every conceivable barrier in the way of a reasonable interpretation of the law, but that just takes time to wade through the bullshit.

Another big problem is that Trump captured a huge amount of the judiciary, at all federal levels, by putting cronies into high ranking judicial seats. It's the main thing Republicans have been doing for, like, 50 years. Putting a case in front of any one of those is a landmine, and that minefield has to be carefully navigated, and that also takes time. We're basically done with that part, now.

The much bigger problem, in my perspective, is that any criminal trial requires a jury.

Almost 50% of the voting public voted for this motherfucker. His approval has dipped sharply since then, but still, a huge portion of the US public is willing to do just about anything to make sure "their guy" wins. They have proven nearly invulnerable to rational argument, emotional argument and any appeal to empathy or compassion. They will lie to get on that jury, and then they will vote for his acquittal if they don't get caught. Voir dire--the process of choosing that jury--is going to be one of the most harrowing things any prosecutor ever has to do. And it has to be done correctly because it's extremely important that once the wheels of justice start turning, that they reach the correct verdict.

Any thinking person knows what that verdict has to be. But there's no guarantee that we'll get it.

And if we don't get it, we see the rule of law start to collapse at all levels. Remember the 1992 riots after the cops that beat Rodney King got acquitted? Imagine a whole country of that. The prosecutors in these cases are thinking about that. And that's why they're being extremely meticulous about every detail of these proceedings, because their errors could cost us a lot more than Trump getting away.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It feels like, while in theory it might be possible to convict a former president, in practice it'll be literally impossible to find a jury who aren't biased in one way or another, because everyone has a strong opinion about the man. I'd bet my life savings that for virtually every potential juror, how they voted in 2020 has a bigger impact on their verdict than any evidence either side could possibly provide.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] yiliu@informis.land 52 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Well, aside from what others are saying...

Try to picture Trump on the phone with the Proud Boys, giving them explicit instructions or discussing strategy. Even if he did talk to them (which I doubt), surely it'd be his usual "We're going to do great things, great things, we're all great people, we're gonna turn this thing around, it's going to be beautiful!"

When Russia collaborated to help Trump get elected, do you figure they talked on the phone in person? Or emailed back and forth? Motherfucker couldn't make it through a one-page intelligence briefing, I'm not even sure he can write. Surely it was Trump's people working with Putin's people (several levels down in both cases).

You need to prove that Trump personally and intentionally violated the law. It's not enough to show that shady shit was going on around him. And that's hard to prove, since he generally was working at a remove. And this is a guy who's been in and out of courtrooms his entire adult life; surely he has some instinct for what kinds of things to avoid.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Except when he was clearly hear saying he wanted the Georgia officials to find exactly enough votes to win, on a phone call to them.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

I think my personal favorite was when he said on tape that he had stolen classified documents, they were definitely classified, that he could have declassified them and definitely chose not to do that, and that the person he was showing them to 'shouldn't look too close' at them

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Arsenal4ever@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The two indictments about Jan 6th and the plot to use fake electors offer a detailed look at a conspiracy. This isn't just mob talk about "it would be awesome if this happened" – there is evidence of a coordinated effort to create fake electors and attempt to steal an election. The act of creating fake electors is a crime. The conspiracy to create fake electors is a crime.

All of these things are a crime. The problem is, in America, people who have power are held to a higher standard. Trump will get all sorts of concessions, and slow this down like mad. What he also has is an entire network carrying water for him. Because of Fox News – which was started to avoid another Nixon, he gets to both sides this.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Look into RICO laws, it makes it much easier to convict people of those types of nebulous crimes. They were pretty much invented to take down mob bosses who "never personally did anything illegal."

The GA indictments include RICO charges.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (14 replies)
[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you come for the King, you best not miss.

This is what it boils down to. All this time, I kept seeing all the shit he did and kept wondering the same question. But the flurry of indictments over the past little while has answered it: they were biding their time, making sure all their ducks were in a row, so they could all collectively take one giant, perfect, swing for the fences. We can only hope they don't miss.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It has been a taboo to go after previous politicians, so all prosecutors are trying their best to ensure that they've followed every procedure to the letter, which has taken a while.

We are also dealing with a person with a long history of doing whatever he can to stretch out court cases.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] rusticus@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago (8 children)

It's a good question - all Constitutional scholars agree he has violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and is therefore ineligible to hold any political office (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/donald-trump-constitutionally-prohibited-presidency/675048/) but does America have the collective strength to admit it?

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Trump has avoided legal trouble so far because there hasn't been enough evidence to guarantee charges would stick. With the latest few indictments, he either basically admitted to the charges or other new evidence came to light. It's taken so long because the prosecutors are making sure they built absolutely bulletproof cases, and because the nature of the trials (first time a former president has been charged), and because trump's lawyers are trying to delay as much as possible. It's basically a huge mess, but the general sentiment is that trump is screwed... Eventually.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, I would never talk directly to them. And you would never talk directly to them. But neither one of us would go on the record on video saying we could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody.

There have been plenty of cases where he's done some incredibly stupid things that he could easily have gotten away with simply by playing along. Hell look at the documents, he could have literally just made photocopies of them said my bad and It would never have even hit the press.

I think the legal system is just moving as slowly and carefully as possible to make sure he can't lawyer his way out of these things.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Commiunism@lemmy.wtf 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because current US politics and justice system are a sham that only serves the rich.

How come there are still people who get the death penalty but later get found to be innocent, while when it comes to an ex-politician, they gotta drag the process out for years and years to find every single detail?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

If they arrest him, there is a major concern of right-wing terrorism.

Police departments don't want that to happen because they'll have to arrest their own.

Government departments will also start to point fingers at one another, as loyal maga fucks deep inside places may refuse to act or do their job.

The legal way is the most non-violent way to handle this, even if it does drag on and on.

[–] exegete@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I know this may be pedantic, but he was “arrested” the same day he was arraigned for the first three indictments (he will surrender later this week for the fourth one in Georgia). He just wasn’t handcuffed and isn’t being detained while he awaits trial. He was also booked at the courthouse instead of the police station.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Money and power. He has (or claims to have) alot of money and alot of people on the Right still seem to follow him, but I think that's more just based on momentum, there's really nobody else on the Right that they have that's as "charismatic" as Trump. The closest they have is DeSantis, and he's just some wannabe fanboy with no personality. I personally think Trump is pretty much done and washed up, the GOP just doesn't know what else to do at this point (certainly he still has a shot at the presidency, but I doubt it'll work out). The Right had one really good shot at a violent coup on January 6, and the only reason they really managed to pull anything off was because Trump himself was in charge at the time and he was able to subdue the Federal response to it.

I think one of the main reasons he's being treated with kid gloves is out too much caution of it appearing political. I think the DOJ is afraid of appearing partisan if the Democrat's #1 political opponent were to be locked up (regardless of how slam dunk the evidence is). In any other country, we'd assume that it was a dictator trying to tighten their control of the political system by locking up their opponents, and that's exactly what Biden/DOJ/Democrats are being accused of. Personally I think there's going to be some amount of protest or violence if/when he gets locked up/sentenced/found guilty/whatever, they may as well just do it now to get it out of the way. The longer we wait and the closer we get to the election, the worse it's going to get. It honestly won't matter how much evidence is trotted out during the multiple trials, or how many judges/juries find him guilty, Republicans are still going to bitch and whine about it. He's obviously guilty though, there's more than enough evidence.

[–] stefenauris@pawb.social 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The rich and powerful are exempt from the rules

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] ChojinDSL@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I don't think Trump will spend a day in prison. Simply because they don't want to set a precedent, that a u.s. president can go to jail.

Worst that might happen, is that he's barred from running again.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] rakyat@artemis.camp 11 points 1 year ago

Have faith. Coming from a country that jails our ex prime minister, I’ll say that it takes quite a lot of time.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

The only good thing about trump is that I've learned a lot about how gov't, justice, and red states are. Good is probably the wrong world.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Law is very different for rich people.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's very political, because of course it is!

As the president, and now ex-president, of the United States there are a significant number of political factions at play. If you're going to go for the king you better not miss, definitely applies to the politics of the president.

People in his orbit, don't have the same political protections, they won't create as much trouble when they go down. So they go down. They simply don't have the protection the leader has.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›