The last thread was a total dud, so maybe we need a new one.
I very much like the sound of this:
The DOJ is prepared to seek indictments against multiple figures in former president Donald Trump’s orbit...
and this:
They would do so using evidence against the ex-president that has not yet been publicly acknowledged by the department, including other recordings prosecutors have obtained which reveal Mr Trump making incriminating statements.
Please, please, please.
⚖️
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) June 29, 2023
I don’t generally follow UK newspapers – is the Indepenent reliable?
The Department of Justice is prepared to seek indictments against multiple figures in former president Donald Trump’s orbit and may yet bring additional charges against the ex-president in the coming weeks, The Independent has learned.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the department has made preparations to bring what is known as a “superseding indictment” — a second set of charges against an already-indicted defendant that could include more serious crimes — against the ex-president, and could do so in a number of different venues, depending on how prosecutors feel the case they have brought against him in a Florida federal court is proceeding.
The Independent understands that prosecutors’ decision on whether to seek additional charges from a grand jury — and where to seek them — will depend in part on whether they feel the Trump-appointed district judge overseeing the case against him in the Southern District of Florida, Aileen Cannon, is giving undue deference to the twice-impeached, now twice-indicted former president.
Prosecutors are now prepared to “stack” an “additional 30 to 45 charges” on top of the 37-count indictment brought against Mr Trump on 8 June. They would do so using evidence against the ex-president that has not yet been publicly acknowledged by the department, including other recordings prosecutors have obtained which reveal Mr Trump making incriminating statements.
Curious… do you guys see this as a warming to Cannon? As a power move? As standard operating procedure?
Open thread.
HERE. IS. BETTER.
raven
Parkland officer not guilty of not confronting the Parkland School Shooter.
WaterGirl
@raven: What? That’s bullshit.
Baud
Anything may happen.
raven
@WaterGirl: Looks like they overcharged again.
raven
Baud
I didn’t think superseding indictments could be in a different venue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I don’t believe they can be.
cain
@Baud: I think the plan is to overwhelm his supporters and Trump himself with indictments in multiple venues. I think there is probably even more crimes being discovered that isn’t related to the direct case plus they got a whole bunch of new people that need prosecuting. This guy is looking to clean up.
MisterDancer
@WaterGirl: It’s horrific and not shocking in the least.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: Filing additional indictments isn’t the issue. It’s the reference to a superseding indictment, which is basically an amended indictment that adds further charges. That’s what has caused a bit of confusion.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Interesting. I’ve seen in the last couple days that Garland-hating twitter has been getting it’s hate on for Smith for not bringing indictments in NJ for the (apparent? alleged?) Bedminster fuckery. I wonder if this is why they’ve held back on that. Those charges would have to go before a judge in the state, no?
I am curious as to why they didn’t search Bedminster. Did they have such good info– security footage and eyewitness accounts- that they know where all the Beautiful Mind Boxes were?
WaterGirl
@Baud: @Omnes Omnibus:
I thought that, too, but of course you guys would know. Then I decided they were suggesting that they are weighing their options between superseding indictments and indicting in other places, too.
WaterGirl
@MisterDancer: I wouldn’t be brave enough to run into the equivalent of the burning building – and that is why I am not a firefighter or a police officer.
You put on the badge, you had better be prepared to put yourself in danger to help others.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Their info on Bedminster was something like a year or more old – my understanding is that with one-year=old information, they didn’t have probable cause that could get them the warrant.
dmsilev
I want TFG charged everywhere and anywhere possible. But also, please please please let there be charges against Giuliani for all of his attempted election fuckery. Though, I’m willing to credit him at least some time off his sentence in recognition for the gift he gave to the nation’s comedians in the form of Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
dm
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sure the lawyers will chime in, but, to get a search warrant, you have to have be able to put pretty good evidence before a judge that you’re going to find something in the places you tell the judge you’re going to look.
At Bedminster, they may suspect there’s stuff based on circumstances, but they don’t have a witness telling them, “Gee, I saw TOP SECRET folders spilled on the floor of the ballroom, maybe you should check that stuff out.”
I kind of wonder about the Secret Service detail. Surely they all have clearances, and would know what they were seeing, and would feel a responsibility to report it? Or are they all Stockholm Syndromed?
MattF
I guess I’m in the ‘additional’ indictment camp, i.e., rather than ‘superseding’. It would explain why Bedminster stuff has been downplayed to some degree. Also… did Rudy make a proffer (gift link)?
Another Scott
I’m sensing a pattern here….
Grr…,
Scott.
rikyrah
The 1/6 indictments and the Georgia ones will read like a John Grisham novel.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: I think they subpoenaed the security footage from Bedminster.
JPL
@rikyrah: That’s what I think. Eastman getting disbarred might be the best thing to happen to him. I think Willis will arrive with a list.
Sister Golden Bear
@Another Scott: Using an invented company that never actually was in business filing a complaint about a non-existent request by a fictional client to strip LGBTQ people of their rights… this is my utterly unshocked face.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: @dm: thanks
Yutsano
@Another Scott: i can smell the copulation of rodentia from here.
Doug R
@WaterGirl: I don’t see that you could do anything really more than firing as WCB would say a police officer has the right to stay alive.
moonbat
I think we’ve been reading the House GOP’s craven defense of Trump all wrong. It’s not Trump they’re trying to save, it’s their own asses. How long before that evil DOJ begins handing out charges to about 8 sitting House GOP representatives? I know one of ours here in PA was up to his neck in conspiracy.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, they got that footage quite awhile ago, but we are just learning about it recently.
I believe that we are only seeing the tip of the Jack Smith iceberg.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I’m not sure what you’re suggesting here.
WaterGirl
@Doug R:
“We’re here to protect and serve. If it’s too scary, we’ll protect ourselves and not you.”
I don’t think that’s how most of us view the obligations of a police officer.
WaterGirl
@moonbat: I think a ridiculous number of Rs have been taking Russian money for a long time.
I think it’s kind of a “we must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately” kind of thing.
Jeffro
Hey that ex-Ohio Speaker of the House got sentenced today – woot!
20 years, baby!!
WaterGirl
I think this needs to be a meme.
rikyrah
I think Jack Smith following THE MONEY, in addition to having Meadows texts and emails…
TERRIFIES THEM
Baud
@Jeffro:
👍
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@moonbat: Perry? I was thinking earlier today: Did the DoJ ever get final court approval to see/use the contents of his phone?
ETA: Nicolle Wallace’s interview with Biden airing now
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: Let’s hope this is the summer of justice for a lot of corruption.
Jeffro
Yup. Money and the occasional bit or five of kompromat on their opponents.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I think Jack Smith is FOLLOWING EVERYTHING, and it should terrify them.
Jeffro
They just might. I’m hoping they sound like a B-52 strike.
WaterGirl
Speaking of justice…
Dangerman
So, an express bus lane for hanging? Works for me.
FastEdD
Jack Smith sure knows his stuff. The only thing I am worried about is getting a fair-minded judge and a jury that is impartial. And running out of time. If Fat Bastard is convicted even once democracy will be okay.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
The Independent is a bit better than The Guardian, so yeah, somewhat reliable.
Jeffro
It’s both, and what’s great is that trump is surely going to bleat on, loudly and publicly, about how they’d BETTER save him…or else
He knows where all the dirt is. He knows what the kompromat on each of these goons is. He also knows they’ve all been taking lightly-laundered Russian money for quite some time, too.
Redshift
TFG was telling a crowd “there might be more indictments” yesterday or the day before. Now I wonder if his lawyers got heads-up from DOJ about something specific, rather than just “well, duh, everyone knows that except you, dude.”
JPL
@WaterGirl: IMO He will be indicted for his scheme to overturn the election. You don’t have to serve time behind bars if you are disbarred.
narya
@Sister Golden Bear: Not least because the Masterpiece decision basically put up guideposts about how to bring the case, IIRC.
trollhattan
So they fished out (sorry, no, really) parts of the imploded Titanic semi-submersible including presumed human remains. But really, how much can be left? Impressive technical feat, to be sure. And within a day of that, the latest probable source of rich person exotic tourism deaths heads into near space.
WaterGirl
@JPL:
Why not? He had his law license when he did all the crimes.
HumboldtBlue
Joe is being Joe, meaning he’s being far too fucking kind to Senate Republicans.
mrmoshpotato
Delicious! Slap all the trash with most of the fish!
(Keep some chubs and salmon for smoking. Mmmmm smoked chubs.)
trollhattan
@WaterGirl: Is “absolute presidential immunity” anything like double-secret probation?
I fail to grasp how the mere act of entering the White House grants no takesy-backsies for life.
Dangerman
SWAG, but maybe something artificial like a hip replacement? Otherwise, it’s like the Dude that got sucked into the airplane engine in Dallas (how does that happen unless you wanna off yourself spectacularly?), I mean, not a lot.
Calouste
@Jay: Both are a heck of a lot better than the Telegraph and the Daily Mail though.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Just in case you really are asking, disbarment is a professional licensing procedure. You lose your license to practice if you lose the case. It has nothing to do with criminal prosecutions.
Jay
@Dangerman:
Tumbrel lane, 2 passengers or more.
JPL
@WaterGirl: BTW This is from George Conway
From the journalist who first reported that a federal indictment was about to drop.
Conway seems to think the reporter is reliable.
RevRick
@moonbat: Are his initials S(cott) P(erry)?
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I know!
What I don’t know is whether he still absolutely believes it or if it’s more “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it” at this point.
It’s willful blindness if he still believes it.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev:
I’m not! Punch Ghouliani in his fucking fascist face with the full force of the law!
ETA – and let Hillary kick him in the nuts too! “She wasn’t there on 9/11.” Fuck off!
WaterGirl
@geg6: Yeah, that’s why I’m still not understanding what JPL is saying. Still trying to figure it out.
Eunicecycle
@Jeffro: and yay! he was led away in handcuffs by US Marshals to begin serving his sentence!
Baud
@dmsilev:
@mrmoshpotato:
Let’s compromise and rename the prison he’s housed in to Four Seasons Correctional Facility.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: I have commented before that Trump’s attorneys seem to be getting closer and closer to just claiming, “My client is King for life. Anything he does must allowed because he is King! All hail King Donald!”
Ken
I just felt a tiny disturbance in the Force, as if the few remaining Trump lawyers had screamed in anguish.
Somewhat more seriously, I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought “incriminating statements about what?” Hopefully, as some have said above, that same thought is rattling around in the head-cavities of a bunch of Republican congresspersons.
Jay
@Calouste:
The Torygraph and the Daily Flail?
The Guardian isn’t bad, unless it’s covering Britain,
The Independent is a little better.
Here we have the CBC, which is meh, but then we have the Grope and Flail, which is straight up Con propaganda and Billionaire worship.
We also have The Epoch Times, which is a “free” newspaper at all the transit stops, other than downtown, your only other free reading is condo ads.
Downtown, you can get the Georgia Straight, which has “Cheap Eats”, (a go to for good affordable food) and of course, Dan Savage.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Yep. I’m starting to think that some sitting Republican congress critters are gonna go down.
I think the news last week that some guy whose name I have already forgotten did the plea agreement and the only thing he had to do was give them access to his social media. The guy was part of the Roger Stone inner circle.
Brachiator
Trump is a weird man-baby and never learns. He really believes that being president puts him above the law.
And now he is also claiming that he is one with his base, he is Trump Jesus, and that when he is persecuted, he is taking on the persecutions of those who believe in him.
Damn, I really want to see Trump convicted just to watch his reaction.
narya
@WaterGirl: Stroyer?
rikyrah
Uppity Faerie Gothmother of Metal and #TeamOrca (@FountainPenDiva) tweeted at 2:06 PM on Thu, Jun 29, 2023:
Racializing poverty = cutting the social safety net.
Claim voter fraud = demands for voter suppression laws.
Racialize drug abuse = harsher sentences.
As long as those affected are Black and Brown, it’s fine.
When the chickens come home to roost though…
(https://twitter.com/FountainPenDiva/status/1674494536821923840?t=Xmf7a2ZdfS_RLggIQIF6Tw&s=03)
WaterGirl
@narya: I’m not sure I ever took note of his name.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: i just heard Nicolle Wallace go into full Garland-hate mode in her interview with Biden. She turned allegations into fact. I don’t know what decisions the DoJ made, what factors the DoJ had to take into consideration, how long complex investigations take, what influence Trump holdover may have had, etc…but at least I recognize these are unknowns and that the 2 people who could answer questions (Garland & Monaco) cannot speak in keeping with dept policy.
What Wallace did was unethical IMO. She, Maddow, Reid, & Melber are showing real illiberal tendencies.
prostratedragon
Another Scott@18: Looks like I need to update my understanding of “surprise witness.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: She’s pretty unhinged on the topic, and something of a carrier.
Frankensteinbeck
We knew Smith had gamed out the Cannon situation. ‘Will bring other charges in other locations’ is definitely one possible strategy.
@moonbat:
It’s the principle of IOKIYAR. They don’t care what he did. He’s a Republican, so he’s above the law. Period.
@trollhattan:
It’s “Do you know who I am???”
moonbat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, Perry. They HAVE to have him and Mastriano fighting over how they were going to overturn PA’s election results as well as plotting before and on 1/6/20.
moonbat
@RevRick:
Bingo!
Baud
@tobie:
What could Biden say except “I can’t talk about it because DOJ is involved in a pending case.”
Jeffro
True, but even worse: he believes that being an ex-president and/or a candidate for president puts him above the law.
He actually made me laugh at that last stupid speech he gave. Trump: “and so I’m like hel-LO, Jack Smith, didn’t you hear? I’m running for pres-i-dent” (in that dumb little sing-song voice of his – SO manly!)
That’s all it takes, I guess. Just say you’re running for president, and they can’t indict you for anything! Sheer genius!
MattF
Tsk. Those darn windows and Russian bank executives. It’s like moths to a flame.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sigh. Wallace is a broken record on this topic and has been this way since 2 months into Garland’s tenure. I expected a somewhat more nuanced take from her for some reason.
Ken
One other thought about these new taped incriminating statements: This should peel away a few more potential Trump voters*. As someone said in comments last night, Republican presidential candidate Trump might not be a bad thing, since we already did that and he lost — and that was before January 6, and the documents, and the indictments.
* Of course the hardcore supporters will accept whatever word-salad excuse he comes up with. I do wonder what it would take for some of them. “No, Vladimir, I need at least eighteen million for these top-secret classified documents”?
japa21
@tobie: This is the one area where I have a problem with Wallace. She, like many that comment here, have lost all sense pf rationality on this particular subject. I think she honestly believes if Trump can be gotten out of the way, the prion disease that has infected the Republican Party, her “former” party, will disappear and Republicans will become respectable again.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: thank you for the heads up on the Nicole Wallace interview. I enjoyed it. You can see Biden at work, trying to break off the Republicans that are reachable in the Senate. Making it clear that they are not profiles in courage.
tobie
@Baud: that’s exactly what he said. It’s rare to get an interview with the President. I can’t believe Wallace wasted precious minutes asking him to speculate on speculation.
Chris Johnson
@dmsilev: If he’s flipped, along with Meadows, as far as I’m concerned let him go.
Let him be a double traitor. Never trust him again, his name can be a disgrace, but one time pays for all.
Beau of the Fifth Column talked about him and what might be going on. If he has in fact flipped, and is cooperating and telling everything, and so has Meadows, you wouldn’t believe the number of traitors who might be really screwed right now.
A noun, a verb, double treason.
Scout211
reactions to the story in The Independent
tobie
@Elizabelle: Yes, that & always pointing to the principle at stake. This is what enables Biden to pursue an agenda without being partisan. He’s clear on the values he wants to promote or defend.
bbleh
@Ken: I just felt a tiny disturbance in the Force, as if the few remaining Trump lawyers had screamed in anguish.
Whoa, hey now, I don’t know if this is serious enough to warrant mixing SF metaphors. I mean, there are limits …
Chris Johnson
@WaterGirl: All of my THIS. It explains a lot of the brazenness. They literally can’t peel off from the doomed strategy. It’s blackmail. They’re literal traitors in their clinging for power.
It’s more about how many of them get to walk away free men in exchange for breaking the power… it’s inherently political, and the power has really really shifted.
Elizabelle
@tobie: I missed that part of the interview. Tuned in too late. I did get the Saint John McCain wrapup. I thought Biden did fine.
I found it really interesting when Biden brought up that the MSM, I took it to mean the “pencil press” direct quote: “has no editors anymore.” And that he was told by a reporter that “they were advised to build their brands.”
kind of implied that their brand building involved tearing him down. He kind of segued into that, from a comment about his unpopularity in the polls.
I am sick at heart that Biden is not more popular, at least with the morons who answer polls, but his decency and seriousness absolutely showed through in that interview.
Baud
@tobie:
QFT.
raven
@tobie: Yea, she must have spent an entire minute on it. The Horror.
Renie
@FastEdD: This concerns me also. That section of Florida where the trial will be held is rabid MAGA. All they need is 1 not guilty. I sure hope they indict trump in another state.
Chris Johnson
@Ken: I said that, loudly. I don’t buy the argument that there’s a danger of Trump running and ‘winning’. That is talk for the purpose of preparing for a coup and having people accept it, and that ship has fucking sailed. Ain’t happening twice, didn’t succeed the first time.
Elizabelle
If anyone ever sees an MSNBC link to the entire Biden interview, I’d be interested in it. Thank you.
RaflW
@MattF: Chris Hayes last night on Rudy Giuliani’s reported (alleged?) proffer agreement with DOJ: “Giuliani is a former federal prosecutor — and he is presumably self-aware enough to know that the only thing worse than facing one indictment is facing multiple indictments.”
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Yep. Getting indicted and losing the E Jean Carroll case has really got to him. But he responds by making his crazy claims of immunity.
bbleh
@trollhattan: @Frankensteinbeck: didn’t the Clenis Hunt resolve this? Like, the only thing absolute about “absolute presidential immunity” is that it absolutely doesn’t exist?
trollhattan
Idaho, folks:
It goes on.
https://news.yahoo.com/idaho-sheriff-implies-drug-users-175623567.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr&guccounter=1
sdhays
@Baud: Forget President, with compromises like this, you should be the new Judge Judy.
MattF
@bbleh: It’s the Clinton Exception.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Get back to me after they do the umpteen hundred LEOs in Uvalde.
sdhays
@RaflW: I wouldn’t assume anything based on Giuliani’s self-awareness.
tobie
@Elizabelle: even in the portion on McCain, he talked about NATO unity in the context of US leadership. That’s as red, white and blue as things get. Who could oppose it but those who want the US to play second fiddle?
David_C
@Jay:
I know Trent Crimm used to write for The Independent, so it’s got to be good. ;-)
Elizabelle
@tobie: I was thinking that interview would play well with anyone who is giving Biden a fair look. Which might be a lot of those who usually support Republicans, but fascism, sheer meanness, and taking away their daughters’ and wives’ reproductive rights has split them off.
JoyceH
@Jeffro:
Oh, that is SO teeth-gritting, isn’t it? Nails on chalkboard.
But something that I’ve never seen mentioned, and it irks me, is that another American Norm that Trump has demolished is – length of political speeches! When you reach an hour and a half, you’re into Banana Republican Strongman territory. We used to sort of laugh at those countries!
Jay
@David_C:
Noice,……..
great call back.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Who plays Jack Smith in the movie?
I’m thinking George Clooney or Jon Hamm
eta: Maybe Daniel Craig
WaterGirl
@MattF: Never heard of her.What role did she play?
bbleh
@rikyrah: @WaterGirl: “Jack Smith” sees all. His gaze penetrates cloud, shadow, earth and flesh. You know of what I speak …
MattF
@WaterGirl: No idea. I don’t want to seem unsympathetic, but I think ‘Russian bank executive’ is not a safe career choice.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Scott Anderson used to be one of the 4 on the Rational Security podcast. I think his take one this makes a lot of sense.
it also helps makes sense of the superseding indictments comment being mixed in with charges possibly being filed in a different venue.
zhena gogolia
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I think Jon Hamm could do it. I have to admit I NEVER watched Mad Men, but I started watching it as my P/T exercise show, and it’s really good! He’s brilliant!
NOT Daniel Craig. He’d do some terrible American accent like the one in the Benoit Blanc movies.
Citizen Alan
@raven: TBH, while I thought the guy was a coward, I was never clear on what actual crime he was supposed to have committed.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I’m thinking John Goodman or John C. Reilly as Bill Barr
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: What’s the point of them doing that?
zhena gogolia
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Goodman.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Sorry, I read that wrong. I was thinking Uvalde when I read the first comment.
Brachiator
Comment deleted. Could not get my thoughts together.
MattF
Geraldo Rivera has quit Fox. I was never exactly a fan, but he showed a glimmer of rationality once in a while.
Dan B
@Another Scott: What happens if the Supremes decide in favor of 303 Creative since the supposed gay wedding was actually a straight married guy with a child? No gay wedding, no threat to 304 Creative.
Martin
This is basic probability at play. The reason you bring 20 different charges for willful retention, even though they will all be grouped and result in the same sentence is that if the jury rejects 19 of them and accepts one, you get the same sentence as if they accepted all 20. Jack Smith gets 20 saving throws against the jury, so the odds of getting a conviction go up.
Similarly, stacking this with another judge in another district with a different jury and another 20 charges is even more saving throws against a biased judge, a biased district, a biased jury, a bad ruling on admission of evidence, and so on.
Stack again with a set of Jan 6 related charges in DC, and you have yet another set of saving throws.
Law of large numbers says that at least some of these will succeed by virtue of having insulated yourself from the one bad judge or one bad juror by bringing so many different charges in different venues before different juries. And if Cannon wants to slow walk this trial, the NJ judge may choose to schedule first, or the DC one.
Trump manipulates the courts – picks venues, makes dishonest motions, delays, etc. Jack Smith is using that system against Trump. Good for him.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: He’s not god!
bbleh
@Brachiator: Of course. It’s one thing to expect a law-enforcement officer to “run toward trouble,” and to discipline them administratively if they shirk their duty visibly and without good reason, but to try to hold them criminally liable for not doing so is absurd.
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: Isn’t it just a bad pun? You can’t be behind bars if you’ve been disbarred.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
JL Cauvin as Trump, obviously.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
He’s not god yet!
Another Scott
@Elizabelle:
YouTube.com – Nicolle Wallace Biden Interview (19:47)
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: That makes the SC justices who wanted to take this case look like the fools that they are.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: aw I’m just makin’ fun. That’s actually a quote from the LOTR movie. (Or almost, it might be “pierces” and not “penetrates.”)
WaterGirl
@Martin: Agree. That is surely the game plan.
WaterGirl
@Eolirin: Oh! I was apparently reading too literally.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: That sounded very bible-y to me! :-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is one of the more restrained reports I’ve seen on this. I don’t know if Obama is in DC, or his family
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: Tolkien did spend a lot of time hanging out with CS Lewis, just saying. :)
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Damn.
Citizen Alan
@zhena gogolia: I think the Benoit Blanc accent is almost deliberately bad. IIRC, Rian Johnson toyed with the idea of Blanc having a completely different accent in every future movie but they stuck with that quasi-Cajun thing Craig used in the first two.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: OBVIOUSLY!
Eolirin
@Citizen Alan: I personally find it hilarious, and yeah, it was my understanding it was intentionally over the top.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: Thank you!!
Spanky
@rikyrah:
zhena gogolia
@Eolirin: Okay. But most Brits are terrible at doing the accent. Exceptions: Colin Firth (who lived here as a teenager) and Theo James. Unlike most people, I don’t think Hugh Laurie does that good a job. Carey Mulligan’s pretty good.
Martin
@bbleh: Except that’s expected in the contract. ‘Run, hide, fight’ is explicitly a set of instructions to buy time for law enforcement to arrive. Teachers are expected to move toward trouble in order to lock and barricade doors, close blinds, etc. Everyone on the other side of this contract is expected to put their life in harms way in a manner, not reflective of whether or not law enforcement *might* arrive, but whether or not they *will* arrive. This is why I said Uvalde would have big consequences because Uvalde broke that contract clean open. Nobody would ever trust law enforcement ever again to respond to a shooting. Run, hide, fight goes out the window.
If there is no mechanism whereby the presence of guns in our community does not guarantee a response, then the game is up. Nobody is coming to save you. If you are worried about your neighbor with an AR-15, your best bet is to slit his throat when he’s out drunk on his deck.
I don’t want this guy to be criminally charged either, but legislators aren’t really giving us any alternative, now are they? What choice do we have but to go after what few targets we are allowed still to go after and hope that triggers a different dynamic that gets us there. You’re expecting the community to trust a system that is specifically designed to do harm to do right. That’s not reasonable.
Eolirin
@zhena gogolia: Sure. It’s hard to do accents well.
JPL
@WaterGirl: I was being sarcastic. Eastman is going to have a long hot summer.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: @Baud: I mean, who else could it possibly be?
He’s so good at Trump that I can’t even watch him anymore!
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG
WaterGirl
@JPL: Play on words between disbarred and being put behind bars?
I totally missed it!
Shana
@WaterGirl: That reminds me to dig out our copy of 1776 prior to the 4th. It’s a family tradition.
karen marie
I didn’t stop to specifically identify the cheap “Weekly World News” rag but when I was at the grocery store earlier today, I saw a headline that said something to the effect that Trump was negotiating a deal to avoid jail. Hahaha. As if.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: Nobody called the purported gay guy. Nobody! Also implies the Supreme’s clerks did no due diligence.
Jay
@Dan B:
surprise, surprise, surprise,……….
Baud
@Dan B:
They never do diligence over the facts.
Dan B
@Baud: Well, knock me over with a feather. ADF is all the facts you need.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: ADF?
WaterGirl
@Baud:
For real? That’s the first thing you do.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Not really. The courts rely on the lawyers to convey facts, for the most part.
cmorenc
@Ken:
Don’t get me wrong – I too think it essential for many reasons that Trump be successfully prosecuted and suffer appropriately grave FuckaroundFindOut consequences.
Nevertheless, let’s not overlook the non-zero possibility that if the criminal charges hanging over Trump do end up knocking him out of the 2024 Presidential race such that the GOP is forced to turn to another nominee – and they end up nominating DeSantis as their second choice – the presence of a “Third Way” candidate on the ballot in enough critical states could result in an even worse nightmare of a DeSantis Presidency. Here in BJ it’s fashionable to firmly believe he is too repulsive to mainstream voters to possibly win, but recall that in 2016 Trump was such a noxious clown the possibility of his winning seemed extremely unlikely, right up until the final handful of days before election day, and even Trump firmly thought he was going to lose.
WaterGirl
@Baud: With all the crazy MAGA lawyers these days, I wouldn’t take anything submitted as fact by them, until I verified them.
Tony Jay
@Calouste:
That’s not exactly a high bar to get under. A used pair of paper underpants that have passed through the digestive tract of a sloth and spent six years forming part of the internal wall of a termite mound would be more informative, credible and readable than either the Torygraph or the Daily Heil.
And on the topic, The Independent isn’t terrible, but it is owned by the Russian oligarch who Flobalob ignored MI5 warnings in order to place in the House of Lords, so trust only if you can verify.
MomSense
More charges is good news. I would still like to know if some of those scheming Congress critters are being investigated for their roles in the attempt to overturn the election.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Also, appellate courts rely on the record from the trial court. They do not do any fact finding of their own.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: That simply is not how appellate courts work. Hell, it’s not how any court in an adversarial system works. Courts do no separate fact finding.
brantl
@raven: If I was Peterson, and I was the only guy there, and I didn’t go in and engage that guy, knowing what might be happening…….. I would’ve “swallowed my gun”. As should those asshole, useless cops at Uvalde.
UncleEbeneezer
Everyone sit down, you’ll never believe this…
The Thin Black Duke
@UncleEbeneezer: MORE evidence of a Deep State conspiracy! (pay no attention to that cigarette smoking man behind the curtain)
Scout211
@UncleEbeneezer: Welp, imagine that. Color me not surprised.
Trump will still insist that his power to declassify is inherent because he is
the Kingthe president, now and forever.Dan B
@WaterGirl: Alliance Defending Freedom, a big anti LGBTQ organization that sets up lawsuits with Christianists.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl: Guessing the sheriff is testing the waters for a possible congressional run. Certain rural sheriffs have this idea they’re really important, and this one’s in the middle of Idaho Nazi and Klan territory so he knows how to get their votes. And a few laffs at Washington DFHs in the process.
brantl
@JPL: but I’d REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY like both, wouldn’t you?
some rando
loved reading that so much i wanted to see it again
sorry not sorry
Maxim
@WaterGirl: Owen Shroyer.
JPL
@brantl: Once convicted, he’ll be em-barred.
Geoduck
@trollhattan: The sheriff is trolling, and doing it quite successfully, it would appear.
brantl
@raven: There was a lot better to spend it on, bub.
brantl
@bbleh: Only for democrats.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: For what it’s worth, I think they are!
raven
@brantl: I got your Bub. .
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: Shocker!
More power to the groups that filed the FOIA request!
WaterGirl
@some rando: Welcome!
Another Scott
(via 7veritas4)
Cheers,
Scott.
bbleh
@Martin: as noted I can see disciplining him administratively, and I can see suing him for breach of contract (although I wonder whether a contract would be upheld that said “you agree you will put your life in danger in case of x,y,z regardless of a,b,c…”), but I can’t see holding him criminally liable.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: you should see the clip. Christopher Lee is brilliant.
bbleh
@UncleEbeneezer: OMG I am shocked! You mean, the former (and fer sherr actual) President pulled something totally false out of some orifice that sounded good in the moment to try to squirm out of an uncomfortable situation? But that is so unlike him…!
brantl
@MattF: to be fair, not very goddamn much.
Omnes Omnibus
@bbleh: I agree with you. As a general rule, you can’t make people risk their lives to try to save someone else through criminal penalties. Even where the law imposes a duty to protect on people, they are allow pro take their own safety into account.*
*Not applicable to the military.
brantl
@bbleh: No, it isn’t. They took money, had us put up with their shit, saying that they would do what was needed, and it meant we had to put up with their shit. What was the point of putting up with their shit, putting up with “support the police”, when they leave our kids to die? Horseshit.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: AG and Peter Strzok discussed this on Cleanup On Aisle 45 and the only thing that makes sense to them for such a sweetheart deal is that Shroyer basically told DOJ that he has direct messages (FC, twitter etc.) with some very big names, like big enough for DOJ to be okay with Shroyer not even having to testify.
(My speculation: Rudy, Stone, Bannon, Flynn, Jones etc.)
Maxim
@UncleEbeneezer: That sounds right. And I sure hope those people all get nailed.
Omnes Omnibus
@brantl: With what should cops be charged in this situation?
brantl
@raven: The Horror.? Seriously?
brantl
@Omnes Omnibus: Criminal negligence. Actually, they should have criminal negligence, resulting in manslaughter.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: But there are consequences to not dealing with the systems inability to maintain public order. One of which is you risk people like me who at various points agreed to walk toward that trouble in various ways, who was nearly fired for trying to alert the administration to a potential school shooter (who became a school shooter, and in doing so saved my job) and the next layer of maintainers of the public order will similarly walk away. I was hearing that before Uvalde, I heard it a LOT louder after Uvalde.
So, okay, this guy isn’t accountable, but neither is any layer above him – the legislature, the people who enforce whether or not a given person should be able to get a gun, and so on. As you absolve layer after layer, eventually you run out of layers to hold to account, and so the public is forced to do it directly. Rich people do that easily – move their kids to private schools with security forces, parents start bringing their guns to pick up and drop off, and so on.
bbleh
@brantl: look, I don’t disagree with the outrage at the unfairness — I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a parent in such a situation — but it seems to me that to hold an individual criminally liable would be to make him the scapegoat for a political and civic failure. That one guy is not responsible for “support the police,” nor is he responsible for the decision to put an older, near-retired (? or already retired?) deputy in a position to have to deal with what by then was a well-known, if remote, possibility at a school (or club or mall or or or), in effect making him little more than a token gesture. To hold him criminally responsible would be to make him the scapegoat for both his superiors and (much more importantly) the failure of our political system to deal with — very much on the contrary, to glorify — random armed violence and the widespread availability of powerful weaponry to commit it, and that would be a travesty.
And yes, I understand that the ultimate result is that nobody is held responsible. (Although I guess I would ask, if he could be held individually responsible, why not his boss too? Why shouldn’t the county or the school district be responsible for failing to provide the necessary security, eg one or more SWAT-trained and -equipped officer at every school. And ditto every mall. And club. And church/synagogue.) I just can’t see singling him out — the bottom guy in the chain of responsibility — just to put it on somebody.
UncleEbeneezer
.
Omnes Omnibus
@brantl: I don’t think you have a viable criminal case.
@Martin: We aren’t saying that there shouldn’t be consequences for the guy. We are disputing whether consequences should be criminal.
Betty
@moonbat: In case the Feds don’t indict Perry, I think Rick Coplen is putting togrther a much more effective campaign this time to take hin out in ’24.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
In the navy I was, when assigned to damage control, the entry man. That’s the first in, a flooding or a fire or whatever and someone has to go in. That was what I was supposed to do. Bravery is not really the question. It is from the outside, it isn’t on the inside. Someone has to do this and it almost always is dangerous if it is an actual emergency. It isn’t a choice, or at least it wasn’t in that situation, it is a part of the whole. It didn’t matter if I didn’t like it or didn’t want to be that person. Now I never had to actually do that so I have zero idea what it would be like but I’ve been that guy. You really can’t think about it if you are that person, you do what you have to do and you get to think about it later, or not at all.
Ramona
@karen marie: The Art of the Plea Deal…
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
That’s because you are a sane(ish) human being. Something SFB is nowhere close to. Like not even on the same planet not close to.
Ruckus
@japa21:
Republicans will become respectable again.
I’m sorry, when were they ever respectable? Less obvious sure, I’ll buy that. But respectable? No sale, no how, no way. Not in my 7 decades.
Donatellonerd
@Omnes Omnibus: would it be possible to file professional misconduct charges against the lawyers? (i used to be a lawyer long ago)