Why aren’t these guys in jail? Seriously. I mean, I know the theory of the rule of law and all, but even our widely-acclaimed greatest president suspended habeas corpus when insurgent seditionists tried to overthrow the Union.
I suspect that this is extremely dry humor, but for others that read this, Trump pardoned both Bannon and Stone
it’s still unfathomable that trump was “allowed” (I know it was “legal”, don’t point that out) to pardon his literal partners-in-crime. He basically has already self-pardoned himself by proxy by allowing these traitors to walk free.
Ford pardoned Nixon.
Bush Jr pardoned Scooter Libby.
Governor Abbott pardoned a pedophile for shooting a black girl’s white boyfriend
Why is this even remotely surprising?
We messed up when we allowed Ford’s pardon of Nixon before he was convicted. We should only allow pardons after the person was convicted. That created all kinds of paradoxes:
- creating a blanket pardon “from any crime that we don’t know yet about”
- possible pocket pardon, where a president could pardon themselves secretly
- hiring thugs on president benefit and giving pardon right before leaving office. They know they can do anything and will receive a blanket pardon. If president had to wait for conviction then there was no guarantee he would be there to pardon them. So it would make whole escapade more risky
- total immunity which trump is arguing about would be even less likely if there was no blanket and pocket pardon and he had to wait until being convicted before being able to be pardoned
The only restrictions on presidential pardons are on convicted impeachment and the requirement that it must be a federal crime. Yes, Trump can even pardon himself from the federal documents, insurrection, and election fraud cases if he takes office again.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013316/
I’m not sure if I’m joking. In any case, the writ of habeas corpus is the legal tool that a court can theoretically use to compel the appearance of a prisoner before it. It is the legal doctrine that underlies the right to trial, and I say “theoretically” because courts rarely need to issue one; it’s just standard procedure to bring people to court to face charges.
By suspending it, Abraham Lincoln could detain those people he deemed dangerous seditionists indefinitely, because the detainees would have to go to court to challenge their detention, and there was no way to get to court. The effect of suspending it again is that it wouldn’t matter that Baboon (autocorrect and I’m leaving it) and Stone were pardoned, or that there were even criminal charges.
Lincoln did it, George W. Bush did it. Barack Obama did it. The Constitution contains a clause which allows it to be suspended due to rebellion or threats to public safety. It’s a dangerous thing to allow a president to do, but the MAGA danger might be greater.
Worth noting that, historically speaking, if a state official wanted to punish someone without going through the court system he could always just turn the prisoner over to a lynch mob.
So while suspending habeaus corpus is a danger to democracy, it is not a singular method by which mayors, governors, or Presidents have disposed of political opponents.
In other words the US is neither a state of law nor is it a democracy as separation of power can be overturned whenever the president feels like it.
Throughout human history, laws have never stopped conservatism. Jails have never stopped conservatism. Pacifism has never stopped conservatism. Only force has ever stopped conservatism. Only force.
People get called that when they’re pretending to be far left while urging everyone to take the exact actions the Repubs want them to take.
Tankies are literal authoritarians. People say they’re “authoritarian communists,” which ignores they’re mostly Maoists or Stalinists, both of whom were closer to fascism than the left. It sort of ignores the basic premise of communism or even socialism to have a single authoritarian ruler. Kind of like how the Nazis called themselves socialists. I guess they were a workers’ party to start, but I don’t think you can reasonably conflate their ideology with the tenets of socialism.
Because Trump pardoned him.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/23/949820820/trump-pardons-roger-stone-paul-manafort-and-charles-kushner
As in my other reply, the Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of rebellion or threats to public safety, and without that writ, charges and sentences are irrelevant.
The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution contains a right to habeas corpus in Boumedine v. Bush. The Lincoln thing was never fully litigated and was probably unconstitutional.
Roger Stone’s been to jail a number of times. He really doesn’t care because he knows he’ll get pardoned. Also he’s basically a mafia don, so I imagine he gets a lot of respect in prison from republicans.
In what capacity does he resemble the mafia? He’s a snake. These guys want to desperately be associated with the mafia but they’re just con men. The Mafia were intelligent criminals.
Everyone needs to remember this guy shaking hands with world leaders during his years in office. In every single picture he is smiling like a pig in shit. It is only after the indictment photo he is attempting to rebrand himself as some sort of tough guy criminal instead of a slimy, smug con artist.
I wonder if they’re actually dumb enough to try the false electors scheme twice in a row?
They got caught are being convicted right now for doing it in 2020, and everybody is expecting it now.
Whatever the result they’re going to keep trying again. Why wouldn’t they when there are virtually no consequences? Fascists don’t give a damn about what election results say, they’re always going to try to gain power by any means necessary.
Well that’s what I mean.
There are so far very severe consequences. Lawyers have been disbarred, dozens of people have been charged, the trials are ongoing right now and more charges are occurring from more agencies. there are a whole lot of legal consequences which is why i am wondering if they’re going to do it again.
They don’t care about election results, but they do care about legal consequences.
They only care about the legal consequences that affect THEM. There’s always another idiot lawyer ready to get disbarred.
The trials are being sandbagged by republican judges, nobody is actually getting punished for trying to steal the election. They’re gonna do it again.
That’s happening more with The classified documents case, not with the fake electors.
Good news, The fake elector charges and trials are actually going through without a hitch, have a lot of defendants informing on co-defendants. Several defendants have already pled guilty, participants are being arrested, more charges are coming, there’s actually a lot going on with this case.
What about the one in DC run by Judge Chutkan that’s on indefinite hold thanks to the Supreme Court?
What about the one in Georgia that is on indefinite hold thanks to the Georgia Supreme Court?
Those seem pretty hitched to me.
But who is the defendant in the fake electors trial? This isn’t one where Trump himself is on the docket, right?
Uh… If you don’t want your election stolen, you, uh, you gotta vote. Vote so hard they can’t steal it. Make your friends vote. Make your friends’ friends vote.
Because if we don’t win this year, we don’t get to have any more elections. No more voting. We’re getting rid of it because your don’t vote good.
I’m pretty sure they’ll do increasingly farcical votes for some time after.
They will. And they’ll take it to the Supreme Court, where <checks notes> they’ll just install Trump as the winner of the election. Mark my words.
Humbug. I take cynicism lightly.
They didn’t get past mailing in the forged documents last time, and they have a worse chance this time.
They’d have to do something different, like state legislatures passing laws that say they don’t have to listen to appointed electors.
That’s already failed, but that’s the tack I think they’ll try to refine, since they’re approaching it so poorly right now and direct forgeries don’t work
I would think that failure just exposes points of improvement. They failed before, but now they know how to succeed. :(
yeah. I doubt they would do that unless there was a precedence set for a court to determine a presidential election.
Sure. But there are less idiotic and more effective ways to try to seize power.
Literally forging documents and sending them in two institutions that verify documents is pretty dumb.
Resulting in legal consequences already.
You’re still assuming those bodies operate in good faith. Democrats must win the house and senate to ensure that.
Who is being convicted? It sounds like nobody’s been convicted yet, so they’re wiling to try it again. Also who cares if some false elector goes to jail? Not Trump. Not the dirty ratfucker.
Well, as a personal conspirator in this game, dumps is certainly liable.
He’s been indicted in Georgia. And by the doj, so dumps will have to fight those charges of conspiracy.
This is such a huge case investigated by so many agencies that everyone isn’t even charged yet 4 years later.
So the convictions will take time, but at least eight people, including chesebro and other planning-level agents, have actively been working with every investigation testify to the involvement of the others.
The trials and convictions are still ongoing, but a few trials have finished.
I only know about the ones that have pled guilty and are informing on others. But none of this is halted or not happening, it’s just that the trials and sentencing are still going on.
No. Instead they’re gonna have state legislature throw out the results of the election. Which they can probably do, Constitutionally-speaking.
The State legislature pick the electors. Just because they all use a popular vote to do it doesn’t mean they can’t change the law in between the voting in November and the actual election in December.
Ha, I’ve answered that two or three times to other people here!
I agree that changing or interpreting the law to pick stricty conservative electors is their next strategy， but I don’t think it’s going to be as simple or successful as they imagine.
Sort of like how they didn’t realize sending in forged documents was very likely to fail.
Forged documents are illegal. Changing laws regarding how electors are selected isn’t.
Heck - way back in 2000 the Supreme Court hinted at the tactic in the majority opinion in Bush v Gore, saying that the Florida legislature probably could have just selected electors directly after the vote.
How would he know? Trump isn’t supposed to talk with felons.
That’s only if he gets away with probation. Due to him talking with felons all day every day and the fact that he’s publicly shown ALL of the contempt (in both the colloquial and legal sense of the word) of the court and continues to do so, that’s unlikely in spite of the kid gloves he’s being treated with.
My guess is he gets community service and I hope it involves picking up thrash while wearing a jumpsuit that matches his skin.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Trump’s not going to be picking up trash. He will either get house arrest, or community service. Community service will likely consist of recording public service announcements. This is how celebrities are typically treated.
His security is actually a valid concern for the court, which must be considered. It’s impossible to guarantee his security while picking up trash on the side of the highway - since anyone could stop and shoot. Likewise, it is impossible to guarantee his security in prison without solitary confinement.
Of course, it is possible that one day he may get to run his own prison like Pablo Escobar, but I think house arrest is more likely. He’ll love it. Sitting on his ass in Mar a Lago, doing virtual campaign events, watching the news and shitposting all day.
I’m a Republican that does their own Research and even though the election hasn’t happened yet I ALREADY KNOW TRUMP LOST UNFAIRLY because of Sleepy Joe Biden being UNFAIR!
This is exactly how I feel so your comment is one hundred percent correct.
The Republicans get away with so much despicable action and each time the Dems get pants by the audacity of the attempt. That’s how we are here now.
The conservatives will try absolutely anything, up to and including armed insurrection. Now with AR15s, and probably with bumpstocks fitted.
Don’t think that it could never happen. The MAGA element love being underestimated.
So, I work in a gun store(part time), if you think bump stocks are unethical, look up(or don’t) a binary trigger. Those, as far as I know, have never been banned, and are far more effective when it comes to trying to attempt to increase fire rate.
To be honest, a lot of gun legislation is really ineffective. The amount of loopholes etc, are kinda insane. If we’re going to talk about gun legislation, it needs to be a helluva lot more than a part ban on “assault style” firearms, until then, it’s just pandering for votes imo.
(Please don’t assume I am a crazy arsenal wielding person. I actually don’t own any firearms at this moment despite my part time occupation.)
I actually looked up the legalisation one time. Congress described a machine gun and gave all the definitions that were forbidden to alter it to make it automatic fire. It was pretty comprehensive, particularly given that it was written in the 80s. However this supreme court said that the magic words ‘bump stock’ wasn’t in the legalisation. Words that didn’t even exist until 2003, or thereabouts. The court ignored the legislative text completely.
And I don’t believe that you are a gun nut at all. You seem perfectly reasonable and make a good point.
However this supreme court said that the magic words ‘bump stock’ wasn’t in the legalisation.
A bump stock doesn’t make a gun automatic fire, therefore a prohibition on modifications to make a gun automatic fire does not include it. It’s a basic “the law says what it says, you don’t get to add things you don’t like and call them close enough” argument. It’s not about the words “bump stock”, but that the law prohibits modifications to make a gun automatic and a bump stock does not make a gun automatic, it merely makes a method for firing a semiautomatic gun faster easier to achieve.
Bump firing is basically using the recoil from a shot to bounce your finger off the trigger and then pull the trigger again, which increases the rate of fire. It’s even less accurate than automatic fire (because of the way the gun has to literally bounce around), and not quite as fast (but pretty close). You can do it without a bump stock, but it’s easier to achieve, more accurate and more comfortable to do with one. The fact that when bump firing you only fire a single round for each function of the trigger makes it not automatic by definition.
The binary triggers mentioned earlier in the thread are basically triggers that will fire both when the trigger is pulled and when it is released, which hypothetically doubles the firing rate of a semiautomatic weapon by not requiring you to release the trigger and pull it again to fire another round. Binary triggers basically come down to an argument of what counts as an “function of the trigger” and whether both pulling and releasing the trigger can count as separate functions of the trigger - if they can then it’s not automatic, if they cannot then it is.
However this supreme court said that the magic words ‘bump stock’ wasn’t in the legalisation. Words that didn’t even exist until 2003, or thereabouts. The court ignored the legislative text completely.
This is the text of the NFA that has defined what is a machine gun since 1934:
The term “machine gun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
I’m not a fan of this SCOTUS, but the bump stock ruling was inline with decades of jurisprudence on the topic and the final opinion was fairly unsurprising as a result. It was honestly less of a gun law ruling and more of an executive regulatory procedure one.
A bump stock does not function by a single action of the trigger and does not meet the statutory definition as a result. The ATF rule banning them got struck down because Congress hadn’t authorized the ATF to regulate machine guns beyond that specific statutory definition.
Bump stocks are no more a machine gun than a Gatling gun is under the definition that has existed for nearly a century, and the legal status of the latter has been extremely clear for a very, very long time.
If the goal is to treat them as a regulated item, then Congress needs to pass legislation with language that covers them because saying it was already there is simply incorrect. There is a specificity to the language of the NFA that doesn’t cover any number of mechanisms. It’s been a deficiency of the law since 1934.
If you want to fix that, that first requires understanding exactly what needs fixing.
I tend to agree. There’s already too many firearms out there (more guns than people) so it won’t be all that effective in the short term.
But I think it’s more of a thing that will take generations for there to be a change. And yeah it’s pandering for votes, but it’s also about opening up conversation, which is a step in the direction of a cultural change. A cultural shift away from buying guns for paranoid reasons about protection from “those people” back towards guns being used for hobbies like hunting and target shooting won’t be easy to accomplish. But gotta start somewhere.
Just be aware that our military is here to protect the constitution.
Meal team 6 ain’t about that life. Not even their Dale Gribbliest. It’s going to be a horrible mistake. Fool me once…
I guess my point is not that they’ll necessarily be successful, it’s more that a great many good people won’t go home to their families that night.
They weren’t successful last time and the Republican Congress welcomed the traitor-in-chief back to DC last week as a hero.
Are they good people if they’re taking part in an armed insurrection? What do they think will happen going against the government like that? The government will drop soap bubbles on them? I mean come on how low IQ are they now? I’ve heard we have gay bombs maybe we have straight bombs we can drop on them because they like the orange man a little too much.
Democrats like to bitch about Republicans but their platforms are 95% the same. The real enemy is leftists, and they’ll take Trump for 4 terms before they ever give an inch to the left.
their platforms are 95% the same.
Economically, yes, but socially, no. That social part matters quite a bit.
Social policies have only been made to matter to create an illusion of two parties. In 1973 Republican and Democratic voters were equally likely to say abortion should be legal.
The US is a corporatocracy and business cares nothing about social matters. Their lobbying efforts fund both sides to ensure that the economic laws meet big business goals no matter who wins.
Ehhhhh it matters less than dems want us to think. Social policy doesn’t matter if nobody can make endsmeat. The social policy of dems is just the other wing of our singular corporate party providing the illusion of choice.
Christofascism or fascism with a pride flag, either way we funnel more of our wealth to the 1% and further disenfranchise everybody else.
