GOVERNMENT’S SURREPLY IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY
This is the MAL case in Florida, with Judge Loose Cannon, but I am pleased to have this all on the record, in such clear and concise terms.
What the filing is about.
As set forth below and in the Government’s forthcoming opposition to defendant Donald J. Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment based on selective and vindictive prosecution, the defendants’ request for discovery should be denied.
The fun part! I’ll bet it felt good to get this out. (bolding is mine)
None of the purported comparators the defendants identify is similarly situated. There have been many government officials who have possessed classified documents after the ends of their terms in office—often inadvertently, sometimes negligently, and very occasionally willfully.
There have also been a very small number of cases in which former government officials who havebeen found in possession of classified documents have briefly resisted the government’s lawful efforts to recover them.
But there has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct remotely similar to Trump’s. He intentionally took possession of a vast trove of some of the nation’s most sensitive documents—documents so sensitive that they were presented to the President—and stored them in unsecured locations at his heavily trafficked social club.
When the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) initially sought their return (before learning that they contained classified national defense information), Trump delayed, obfuscated, and dissembled.
Faced with the possibility of legal action, he ostensibly agreed to comply with NARA’s requests but in fact engaged in additional deception, returning only a fraction of the documents in his possession while claiming that his production was complete.
Then, when presented with a grand jury subpoena demanding the return of the remaining documents bearing classification markings, Trump attempted to enlist his own attorney in the corrupt endeavor, suggesting that he falsely tell the FBI and grand jury that Trump did not have any documents, and suggesting that his attorney hide or destroy documents rather than produce them to the government.
Failing in his effort to corrupt the attorney, Trump enlisted his trusted body man, codefendant Waltine Nauta, in a scheme to deceive the attorney by moving boxes to conceal his (Trump’s) continued possession of classified documents. As a result, Trump, through his attorney, again returned only a portion of the classified documents in his possession while falsely claiming that his production was complete.
The obstructive conduct even persisted from there. In June 2022, knowing that he had arranged for Nauta to move boxes to conceal them from Trump’s attorney, and knowing that the government had subpoenaed the security video footage that would reveal that surreptitious box movement, Trump, now joined by not only Nauta but also codefendant Carlos De Oliveira, attempted to have the information-technology manager at Mar-a- Lago delete the video footage that would show the movement of boxes.
The defendants have not identified anyone who has engaged in a remotely similar suite of willful and deceitful criminal conduct and not been prosecuted. Nor could they.
It goes on from there, but that’s the money quote – full filing (PDF)
John Revolta
TIL a new word (“surreply”)!
Looking forward to using it it a conversation and looking like a pretentious asshole sometime soon!
Martin
Wonder if Chesebro is going to prison for lying to the court regarding his role in the fake electors plot.
Chesebro in a deposition said he had no Twitter account, no alternate ID.
The alternate account was promoting fake elector theories that Chesebro said he rejected.
feebog
The DoJ has him hooked, landed and weighed. All they have to do is decide how to filet.
WaterGirl
Yes, it’s clear that part of the law is similar to playing the children’s game – Mother may I?
Apparently one has to get permission in advance to file a surreply. And yes, You would look like a pretentious asshole if you used it. :-).
WaterGirl
@feebog: Except they have to get past his judicial protector, Cannon.
I like to think her playtime on this case will be cut short soon.
Baud
@Martin:
There’s a well known legal principle that prevents prosecutors from using documents to prove a crime if they’re marked DRAFT.
teezyskeeyz
If this is setting Cannon up to either get with the program or to commit to such an egregiously corrupt decision that the prosecution can be confident they can get her removed, then bravo. Otherwise it feels like groundhog day. Smith submits perfectly clear filings obliterating Trump and his lawyers, Cannon manages to show her ass and keep shit in limbo. Forever. And Ever. And Ever.
scav
@WaterGirl: I’m hoping to achieve a similar pretentious asshole rating from working “comparator” in — mother may I? (or am I just behind all the real nerds vocabulary superpower.)
teezyskeeyz
@feebog: He can’t even offer three wishes to get away, either.
EDIT: I take that back. He may or may not have hinted at a SCOTUS seat for Cannon, but in either case I assume that’s in the back of *her* mind…or the forefront.
cain
@teezyskeeyz: But isn’t that expensive for him? He still have to keep paying lawyers (or not pay) and federal legal defense is really expensive. So he’s also draining his coffers as he delays.
smith
The fun thing about all these whackadoodle motions by TFG’s lawyers is not just Jack Smith’s takedowns, it’s also the serious dilemma it poses for “Judge” Cannon. One of the lawyers at Meidas Touch said that her foot is now hovering over a bear trap. She’s already painted herself into a corner with her clear error in ruling that witness names should be publicized, but now TFG is demanding her support for ever more wildly cuckoo claims that even she, as incompetent and corrupt as she is, will be hard-pressed to endorse.
Consider his claim of presidential immunity for the MAL case: He says that he magically in his mind redesignated top secret nuclear secrets, war plans, our defense capabilities, etc as his personal property while he was still in office so those are now his to keep forever and ever. How on earth can she respond? If she rules against him it’s a betrayal of a cause she’s totally committed to, if she rules with him she’ll be taken off the case first thing yesterday.
WaterGirl
@Baud: For real? And was Cheese-bro’s stuff marked draft?
trollhattan
@John Revolta: Capital of Suriname.
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: Pretty sure that was snark
Steeplejack
Nicolle Wallace is back on Deadline White House on MSNBC, for those who care.
teezyskeeyz
@WaterGirl: Again, I think Smith is trying to let her hang herself out to dry with her increasingly venal decisions so that having her removed will be a slam dunk. This makes *her* kind of like the frog in the pot, but the water temperature is the increasing brazenness she’s willing to display in her quest to help Trump. She keeps getting away with more and more until she’s gone too far.
Martin
@WaterGirl: None of it was a draft. He did delete the tweets, though.
Protip: Twitter may have a delete button, but the internet does not.
lowtechcyclist
@John Revolta:
Sounds French. “Le surreply est sur le table.”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Not for real.
lowtechcyclist
That “nor could they” is a thing of beauty. The legal equivalent of slamming Trump’s fingers in a door.
teezyskeeyz
@cain: Well it’s more *she* is doing what she can to help him with the tools she has. She can’t make his lawyers work for free.
EDIT: But yes I’m sure if Trump had his choice it would be for her to somehow dismiss the whole thing.
WaterGirl
@Eolirin: Oh good. That was my first thought, but I wasn’t 100% sure. Hard to know these days! :-)
Scout211
This article posted on CNN this morning
It’s a long article, going over both cases. But WTF? A major opportunity? Clearly these lawyers are not going for the “he’s innocent, I tell ya!” defense. They are just rearranging the court calendars to skate to the election. But we already knew that, of course. Grrrr!
rikyrah
Hopefully, she will completely expose herself and Smith with request to have her removed from the case.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Oh, good. Some of these people still don’t understand how this series of tubes works.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: Yes! I think this surreply boxes her into a corner in a way that she hasn’t been until now.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Cannon has already shown her ass. Now she just needs to roll over and bare her neck.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: She was in a corner before the surreply. The surreply just: (1) makes it clear to the lay person how obvious this will look to the Eleventh Circuit; and (2) provides us some succinct and awesome shit talk at Trump’s expense, which is a nice thing on any day.
BeautifulPlumage
@Martin: I love that they found the twitter account by references in the emails he turned over and that he used the same dropbox name for files he sent (BadgerPundit). These guys have no OPSEC at all!
bbleh
@smith: @WaterGirl: @teezyskeeyz: @rikyrah: it occurs to me that it might be running through her mind that Trump’s demands for loyalty, always one-way and often requiring self-sacrifice, are becoming more extreme, as his legal situation (undeniably) worsens and his cognition and stability (apparently) decline, and that it may be getting close to the point to cut her losses and keep her current job, or to put it another way, stop gambling everything on him. But I dunno, maybe she’s one of the Cult, in which case she may show up in a Fox-news-style low-cut robe with exposed cleavage the next time he shows up in her courtroom.
bbleh
@BeautifulPlumage: “who could this ‘Chas Martinbro’ possibly be,” wondered the FBI agents who populate his mind. “This is security we’ll never crack!”
hueyplong
I continue to think that Cannon’s delay isn’t 100% bad, in that the failure to allow this to go to trial before the election removes potential scheduling conflicts with other actions against Trump that are not subject to the presidential pardon power.
And there is at least some value to having the elusive “neutral” person see these crooks for who they are.
So Biden wins and then a near-suicidal Trump, no longer an asset to Putin, gets his ass dragged in a Fla US District court, preferably on or about Jan 6.
Not perfect, but acceptable.
smith
@bbleh: I’ve always thought that his cult members’ puzzling willingness to accept anything he says, no matter how outlandish or detached from the reality they otherwise recognize, is understood by both them and him as a test of their loyalty. He pushes the envelope on that test continuously, and they are required to meet the challenge or become apostates. His increasingly whacky motions in this case look like the same phenomenon to me.
WaterGirl
@hueyplong: I’m not sure I agree. I think this brings a whole new level of being boxed into a corner. It’s laid out in black and white, as clearly as I have seen it.
If she were to rule in Trump’s favor after this, I think it would be game over for her. It might take a little bit more time to tie it in a bow. It feels to me like Jack Smith laid his cards on the table and spelled it out for her. I’d say Cannon has a decision to make, and she can’t put it off much longer.
But really, who knows?
mrmoshpotato
Who else is screaming “But her emails!” 🚼 after reading this post?
WaterGirl
@smith:
That’s a really interesting take. It does explain the inexplicable.
Baud
Nobody puts
babyCannon in a corner.WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I don’t understand your comment.
mrmoshpotato
@John Revolta: I just looked it up. Shame on you.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Funny! (hopefully not true)
Do we think that this surreply might also be a message to the 11th circuit? Or even the supreme court?
Putting everyone on notice that they will look like fools if they make the wrong choice?
Scout211
IANAL, but I am in agreement with you.
However, I do think she can and will put it off as long as possible because that is exactly what the defense is needing her to do and expects her to do. The more silly filings they file, the more delays she can add. And eventually she will postpone the trial date and (as the Trump team expects) jam up the other trial dates.
Anoniminous
@WaterGirl:
I choose door number three: the MAGAsshats are too dumb and ignorant to realize they’re being played like a $3 banjo.
Countdown – Trump has 27 days left to post cash or a bond in the NY case. TTMF
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: No traitorous orange trash in the White House, no highly classified stolen documents at Mar-a-Trasho.
Also, I included the baby sign because of stupid, selfish children.
WaterGirl
@Anoniminous: Perhaps it’s both, depending on the person.
Oh my gosh, that woman they interviewed for one of the nightly shows!
“What do you think of Biden saying X?”
I think he’s totally nuts, losing his mind.
“Oh, sorry, I read my notes wrong, that was actually Trump who said that.”
Stumbles around, saying that Trump saying X make total sense.
With multiple questions. Embarrassing.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Oh, got it!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Those courts aren’t going to read it. They’ll read the filings made in those courts.
That’s the goal of every filing.
WaterGirl
@Anoniminous: Presidential candidate, bought and paid for, wholly owned by:
Musk
Putin
Saudi Arabia
etc.
I hope he has to say where he gets the the money.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Really? So you don’t think the 11th circuit is following along on all of this, and the 6 on the Supreme Court, too?
Do you think they don’t follow the news? I have no way of knowing, of course, but I think I would be following it.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
No, they’re not following it except maybe through the news. They’re not reading the papers.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: In terms of lawyering, the points have already been made. Cannon “got” it before. What’s different now is that it has been exceptionally well translated into (mostly) non-lawyer English.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I will take your word for it.
TBone
I’m almost certain that a consideration of looking like fools doesn’t deter the Supremacist Court one iota. They burned women like Salem witches without a second thought, using arcane, archaic reasoning. Ditto for Loose Cannon.
jsrtheta
@John Revolta:
It’s a fairly common legal term in appellate practice.
bbleh
@smith: He’s not well. I understand all the rules about not diagnosing at a distance, but the profundity of his narcissism has become screamingly obvious. Everyone owes him everything, period. He may have been a little better at covering it before, but a 77-y/o with a family history of Alzheimer’s and equally obviously progressive dementia (look at some of the clips from his recent speeches, with prompters, compared to even 4 or 5 years ago) just can’t dance around it as easily
As to his followers, they truly are a cult, and the entire cult enforces loyalty because it’s central to their self-image. Even tolerating or allowing apostasy makes one an apostate oneself, and that borders on psychic suicide. And the more challenges there are from Outsiders, and the more apostates thrown off the island, the more frantic the enforcement becomes. As the Russians had surrounded Berlin and were closing in on the city center, groups of Nazis were running around arresting and executing those deemed insufficiently loyal.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@WaterGirl: Sure. That’s just science. Like the principle that broken cookies or food eaten standing up doesn’t have calories.
Also, the principle enshrined in our legal system since the Magna Carta, IOKIYAR,
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Scout211: Of course that’s Cannon’s game, that she’s working with the Trump lawyers.
I don’t understand the rules of this game, but the people on Meidas Touch seem pretty confident that no matter what kinds of scheduling games Cannon tries, TFG will have a criminal trial and conviction before the election.
In fact we have one firmly scheduled for Mar 25, don’t we?
smith
@bbleh: No doubt he’s off his rocker, but it doesn’t explain why or how his followers, who presumably can tie their shoes and keep themselves fed and even hold down jobs, accept every nusto thing he utters as if it came out of the Bible.
TBone
Oooh, I finally saw someone mention Project 2025 on with Nicole! Didn’t catch her name. The discussion is good. AND the Moms for Liberty threesome 🤣
Autocracy class
patrick II
O/T.
The “Shogun” tv series starts on FX on Tuesday night and will be shown starting the next day on Hulu. If you don’t have Hulu, you still have one-time chance to catch it on FX on Tuesdays.
Brachiator mentioned this show the other day but he didn’t have Hulu and wrote it off. So if he is around sometime you may want to mention it can also be seen of FX.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@bbleh:
This can’t be repeated enough. They are a cult and should be treated as such.
jimmiraybob
And when it comes to the plaintiff bellowing of the Trumpian oppressed, “BUT the two tiered system of Justice let Biden off” it’s time to remember that Pence was also investigated for keeping secret documents and was not prosecuted.
smith
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m not sure they expect the MAL trial to happen before the election, but its delay will open a space for the DC election interference case to be completed if the Supremes get off their asses soon, and Alvin Bragg’s surely will be. It’s possible the GA case might at least get started next summer, which would help keep insurrection on everybody’s minds during the general campaign.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: ha!
bbleh
@smith: I’d say there’s several things at work. (1) they agree with a lot of what he says, or more accurately what he means, eg the misogyny, the bigotry. And he not only exemplifies their beliefs, he validates them, because he’s successful / president / rich etc. He’s an avatar. (2) even where they’re not cultists and don’t necessarily agree with the specifics, they’re on his “side” in other matters and in general (muh taxes, gummint bureaucracy, etc.), and you cheer for your team. And (3) even if they don’t agree with the specifics or care much about other matters, he makes the people they don’t like (or actively hate) mad, so they’ll say they agree, especially when there’s a camera or a pollster around.
Bill Arnold
@smith:
And passing such a loyalty test is accomplished only through a public display of enthusiastic gullibility.
Shalimar
@WaterGirl: I don’t think it even matters at this point. Cannon has stalled the case long enough that there won’t be a trial before the election. Either she continues to stall, or a new judge takes 3-4 months to get up to speed. Either way, the documents case is going last of the 4.
Quadrillipede
I took the day off work today, and I think I’m starting to feel better, but evidently not quite well enough to read this Wonkette article, which is simultaneously horrifying, infuriating and laugh-out-loud hilarious:
WHICH HUNT! YOU ARE THE COVFEFE! ERECTION INTERFELONY! The next eight months are going to be the longest decade of my life… 😑
Anoniminous
@WaterGirl:
Assuming he can find some idiot willing to piss away $450+ bilion I think we’ll know who ponied up the cash. There are plenty of national and international controls on money transfers of that amount.
Dangerman
@Baud: I’ve seen it many times; she is placed in a corner with a pointy hat that says “Dunce”. I think she’s also been caught In Flagrante with Jack Horner, who isn’t so little any longer.
smith
@bbleh: Good points. I’m sure you’re right that for a fair number of them their “agreement” is no more than an inch deep, and simply stands in for other motivations. And since they frequently live in bubbles of like-minded people they never have to defend the nonsense that he spouts.
I think there is a hard core, though, that truly believes. Given how many people happily cling to weird conspiracy theories, it’s probably not surprising that some people who have the same type of, um, special cognitive traits are dedicated Trump acolytes.
WaterGirl
@Shalimar: Should have been the simplest. shaking my head.
*not in disagreement with you, just shaking my head in disgust. These past few years have been eye-openers, for sure.
WaterGirl
@Quadrillipede: That Wonkette article is outstanding. a very gratifying read.
WaterGirl
@Anoniminous: Glad to hear that we would know if it’s a foreign entity.
edit: I’d say that owning the president of the United States for a mere $450 million, in these times, would be worth it. I imagine that China and Russia would both be happy to own him.
AlaskaReader
@Baud:
@WaterGirl:
I find it hard to believe that at least some of the 11th circuit judges aren’t reading the filings in the case. They’ve already were called upon to take action in the case and it’s not unlikely at all they still feel as if they may be called upon to take action again.
To declare they are not keeping current with the progress of the case is a stretch, the lawyers I know would rather read court filings than ever pay attention to the ‘news’, since the ‘news’ is so often very factually wrong with their narrative driven coverage of trials.
My bet is that at least some of the 11th circuit judges are very interested in what Jack Smith has offered in the way of his filings. I imagine they’re likely paying close attention just because of the import and novelty of the case.
They might not follow along with all the cases they might be called to review, but this case isn’t like any other they’re likely to face.
NotMax
@smith
“Move the
wagonsshort buses into a circle.”//
Martin
@bbleh: I think waving them off as a cult is a mistake. That term suggests a motivation that is wrongly placed. This is a continuation of the very longstanding belief by roughly half the country that the US only deserves to be a democracy within the envelope of white christian nationalism. Until recently, that was a given, but it no longer is. And in the tug of war between white christian nationalism and democracy, the latter is the more disposable to them.
Trump is the vehicle to get there, but by calling it a cult suggest that it starts and ends with Trump. It absolutely does not. DeSantis may have tried to take over that role and failed, but in the wake of Trump there will be another character. They do not care about Trump, they care about what Trump instinctively wants to deliver for them – an authoritarian state where they can freely act against the people they hate in exchange for giving Trump supreme power. That’s a fair trade to them because they believe (because Trump tells them this directly) that they will be protected and the rest of us punished.
That’s not how a cult works. It’s something much, much worse. It’s also not new, it’s just revealed again, because the old status quo of white christian men always coming out on top in every scenario is under threat. Making Trump go away doesn’t make the problem go away.
Loyalty is there because that’s also how fascism works. The only way you can survive in a fascist state is to prove your worth to leadership by attacking the out groups – whoever they are – even if you are part of that out group. (Insert why black cops target and kill black citizens – its how they keep conservatives protecting them).
Anotherlurker
@feebog: Hooked, landed and weighed. I suggest filleting with a dull knife. snark.
karen marie
@WaterGirl: That was Kimmel – I posted a link to the video in a thread last week. It keeps popping back into my head because it was so nuts but perfectly in keeping with what we’ve seen of Trump supporters.
Warblewarble
Those who need a cult will always find a cult no matter how whacko. Those who need a cult will never abandon their cult.
karen marie
@Anoniminous: Keep your eye on the GoFundMe for multiple donations of $9,999, or a dollar below whatever amount triggers banking laws.
NotMax
@Warblewarble
I blame L. Ron Hubbard.
// // //
trnc
@Martin: Nice catch! So, regarding this:
Obviously, what his lawyer claims was a “goof” was exactly what was used in court. Does the lawyer’s comment on this open privilege to the crime fraud exception?
WaterGirl
@karen marie: It was crazy, seeing that in real time, with a real person.
I mean, what normal person wouldn’t respond with “oh, you’ve got me there! but he’s still better than Biden!”
or something like that. What we watched was truly mind-boggling.
cain
Anybody see this thing on twitter and other places? A young airman, goes to the Israeli embassy and then self-immolates himself and essentially dies. The cops show up and while the guy is burning, have pointed their guns at him. Fucking moronic. The EMT is shouting at the police saying we don’t need guns, we need fire extinguishers. The cops are fucking morons.
https://twitter.com/kit_sionn_witch/status/1761976078166352273
Meanwhile, the free Palestinan crowd is hailing him a martyr for the cause.
I’m not like – I don’t know if you’re going to change much minds there. Certainly our pathetic media is not going to do much other than navel gazing.
ETA of course, you all remember that the Arab Spring started with self-immolation.
Martin
@trnc: I wouldn’t think so. There’s nothing wrong with the lawyers knowing about your criminality, so long as they don’t participate in it and I don’t see anything to suggest they did.
I think the lawyer is just trying to put a good face on this, to minimize things, but Chesebro clearly lied to the court.
Sister Golden Bear
@cain: He may be draining his coffers, but every day he delays is 1) a day he’s further away from being in jail, and 2) a day closer to potentially winning the presidency, when he make this unpleasantness all go away.
WaterGirl
@cain: That sounds awful. I don’t even want to look.
I assume he is dead now. What point was he making? Or attempting to make?I see that you answered my questions with your edit. thanks.
Josie
@Martin:
Thank you. This makes so much sense as an explanation for why it is working as it does. I have to admit that I am surprised and disappointed that so many citizens are in favor of this, but it is evidently the case, Do you see anyone on the horizon that will be as successful as the former guy has been at leading the pack?
trnc
I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but his claim that he magically declassified and/or owns the documents or otherwise had every right to hold on to them is pretty much the entire case, so that’s not something she’s going to rule on before trial. While her DT friendly rulings are preposterous, I suspect the circuit court’s decision to remove would be a very difficult bar and that it’s much more likely that she’ll get her hand slapped by them with a ruling at some point but that she’ll remain on the case.
Suffice it to say, I would be happy to be wrong.
Sister Golden Bear
@smith:
It’s a known tactic used by both authoritarian leaders and cult leaders.
WaterGirl
Happy to see a few details about this:
trnc
@Martin: OK, thanks.
Princess
This all feels like it’s going nowhere — I mean the criminal cases that address Trump’s most heinous crimes. I don’t see where y’all are seeing something to be positive about in all of this. It feels like the chance he is held accountable recedes further every day.
smith
@trnc: I think it’s one of the seven motions to dismiss he just filed. IANAL, but doesn’t she need to rule on this before trial?
I think this one’s a little different from his claim that he magically declassified the docs with his mind that he’s been asserting all along, since here he’s claiming he made them his property. It could be because there are paper trails required to declassify, and, as I understand it, presidents can’t unilaterally declassify the nuclear secrets anyway. Might not make any difference in the end, but it’s a new twist, to me at least.
Quadrillipede
This is Jack Smith we’re assessing here, and I’ve not yet seen anything from him that doesn’t suggest he knows what results he wants, and he knows what needs to happen to obtain them.
schrodingers_cat
@Princess: And you know this, how?
VFX Lurker
For me, that outrageous clip showed what happens when a human being shuns reason and embraces rationalization.
Princess
@schrodingers_cat: I know nothing. I expressed it in terms of feelings. Then again, no one else in here knows much either. For instance, everyone seems to feel it’s an easy and commonplace thing to remove Cannon from the case if she goes too far. Is it? How often does that happen? Does anyone here know of prior similar cases?
Quadrillipede
@lowtechcyclist: All I know is: “Le singe est dans l’arbre…”
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin: Absolutely agree. Trump is a symptom of the larger disease.
OTOH, he was also a catalyst in ways others would-be Trump never managed, and his followers have made it clear that as long as he’s around, he will be their rallying point. Both DeSantis and Ramaswamy tried to out-Trump Trump and failed. Obviously there’s multiple reasons for that, but a big one was why settle for imitations when you can get the real thing.
They’ll still be there whenever Trump is no longer here, and far more energized and open about letting their freak flag fly, but I’m not sure they’ll find someone who provides the same sort of resonance amplifier effect.
Geminid
@cain: I saw this story and the coverage on Twitter last night. I thought it was very sad. Airman Bushnell is the second person to do this; a young woman set herself on fire a couple months ago, outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta. A quick-thinking security guard suffered burns while saving her life.
U.S. media was being very cautious then as they are being now. One reason I’ve seen given is that suicidal ideation can be contagious.
I do not think Bushnell’s action will trigger the result that the Tunisian vendor’s did. That was a longstanding situation under a dictatorship that just needed a spark to become a revolution. Like it or not, the current debate over U.S. support if Israel’s Gaza invasion does not amount to a pre-revolutionary situation. I think Bushnell’s death was a tragic waste that will accomplish nothing.
I know a Bushnell, so I looked up information on the Airman. He attended high school in the Cape Cod area and his father, an Army veteran, is a homebuilder.
schrodingers_cat
I agree with you on this. IANAL, and I know little about the justice system other than what I read. So I don’t speculate on the outcome at all.
Quadrillipede
Some kind of National Truth an Reconciliation Tribunal in Biden’s second term might be hard to bring into being, but evidence of these kinds of legal “tactics” would make for great information to be disseminated widely to the American public in such a forum…
Geminid
@Princess: I will be happy if and when these criminal cases pan out, but I’ve always assumed we will have to beat Trump at the polls this November 5th. That day of accounting is fixed and is not receding anywhere.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: I think she’s talking about how she feels, not necessarily based on some particular thing that has happened or that we have learned.
TBone
Off topic, but this fucking guy. Again.
“Listen up, #Taiwan is not part of the #PRC & certainly not for sale,” Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jaushieh Joseph Wu wrote on X in response to Musk’s comment.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/24/house-china-committee-elon-musk-spacex-starshield-taiwan.html
bbleh
@Martin: I don’t disagree that the Trump Cult is built on a much deeper and more enduring foundation. I’d say that a lot of modern Republicanism is built on that foundation, first the racist nationalist part, and since Reagan also the religiostic part. Trump doesn’t invent or build; he just jumps in front of a parade and acts like they’re following him.
BUT I think the Trump Cult IS unusual in that it’s so heavily focused on him and that it comprises so much of the present movement. For comparison, I’d say there was a kind of adoration of Reagan — St. Ronnie and all that — and certainly there were some who would qualify as cultists. And likewise Bush The Even Lesser, He Of The Codpiece And The Flightsuit, although to a considerably lesser extent. But I would say that the large majority of Reagan’s followers would have described themselves as “loyal Republicans” first — that is, their principle fealty was to a set of ideas, and they revered Reagan for how he exemplified and led on those ideas — whereas for Trump’s cult I think he defines what it means to be a Republican; their loyalty is to HIM, because they identify personally with him. I think it’s a distinction with a difference
And I certainly don’t wave them off. A cult is even more of a menace than a focused political movement because important aspects of it are irrational. It’s like religious zealotry, and those people are dangerous! And you’re right that they won’t go away when he does. The parade was there, after all; he just jumped in front of it and made them all feel really good about being in it.
WaterGirl
@VFX Lurker: She certainly did shun facts and truth. It was astonishing to see it in action like that.
When I put myself through college working as a grocery store cashier, I had to manually take my unconscious assumptions down several notches – in terms of how smart people are – after the girl who had worked there for 3 years still had to be taken to the back room where they worked with her on counting back change.
She was a really nice and sweet young woman, but damn. In high school I hung out with other smart kids and in college all my friends were smart, so working at the grocery store had me working with all sorts of people, and it was an eye-opener.
That’s how I feel again now, it kind of surprises me that some of the MAGA people are able to feel and clothe themselves and hold down a job.
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Another woman interviewed was asked how she felt about Biden evading military service by claiming to have bone spurs. She went off on an righteous anti Biden rant. The interviewer corrected herself, re-asking the woman her thoughts about TIFG avoiding service with bone spurs; she didn’t miss a beat, saying her bil had flat feet and couldn’t serve.🤦🏼♀️
Quadrillipede
@mrmoshpotato: on buttery males, I am at a last-spoken-line-in-Chinatown place with it.
WaterGirl
@Princess: I am only aware of one other time the 11th circuit did that, and though I don’t recall the details, it was pretty black and white.
Lyrebird
@Princess: Feeling discouraged is pretty darn understandable! The most active volunteering I’ve done was for Kerry and for Clinton. Broken heart emoji. Sick at heart emoji.
How can I see something good? Even though I was a fool waiting for Fitzmas? I guess I expected such worse outcomes this time, and I know there is still a long haul, so I will take any hint that the hold of this disgusting wannabe dictator over our country is NOT 100% as a sign of hope. Also, seems to be heading downward.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I stopped watching after the first video – it was hard for me to watch.
That’s amazing about the bone spurs. shaking my head again
Villago Delenda Est
@Quadrillipede:
No “Truth and reconciliation” tribunal. A “Truth and retribution” tribunal.
Martin
@Josie: I think there are plenty of people both capable and motivated to fill that role. I don’t think you can predict which specific individual will slot into that role.
But the left needs to stick together and hold the line, and shrink that population down enough that the lift to power becomes insurmountably high. Right now, you have small state biases in the House through gerrymandering and the Senate simply due to how they’re comprised that allow majorities in small southern and midwestern/western states to get this power from a minority national position. They will resort to increasingly extreme efforts to rule from that minority position until such time as they are marginalized to such an extent that even their most extreme efforts would be certain to fail.
Quadrillipede
Looking like fools only a few months before a federal election that will determine the balance of the Supreme Court itself might, might, moderate the two or three who can walk on their hindlegs, and only two are needed for a 5-4 decision.
smith
@Villago Delenda Est: I agree. I don’t think I’ll be ready for reconciliation in this lifetime.
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Seems to me that being beholden to a foreign country/ies is disqualifying to be President of these United States???
Geminid
@Jackie: It may be disqualifying in a practical sense if voters know a foreign nation is backing Trump appeal bond.
lowtechcyclist
@Quadrillipede:
How about “fetchez la vache!”
gwangung
@Jackie:
Not if there’s an “R” after the name.
Harrison Wesley
@Geminid: I can see him using it as a fundraiser for his legal fees: “Double your investment in Your Favorite President! RF and PRC will each match a dollar for every dollar you contribute to Making America Great Again!”
Dorothy A. Winsor
From Joshua Friedman on Blue Sky:
lowtechcyclist
@bbleh:
He brought A LOT of new people into the parade when he jumped in front. There were a lot of culturally conservative (racist, misogynist, etc.) but basically apolitical types before Trump that Trump turned into Rethug voters.
They were, I think, people whose radar didn’t really pick up on the years of GOP dog whistles, but then Trump said the formerly quiet parts out loud, and they jumped into the parade.
Ksmiami
@Princess: Merrick Garland has fucked the country. All of these traitors should have been prosecuted on Jan 20th. But they weren’t and here we are. Add in our stupid, lazy media and electorate and Trump is 50-50 to win.
Quadrillipede
@Sister Golden Bear: I like to tell myself that he [🧟♂️🍊] doesn’t have what it takes to attract unaffiliated voters in swing states in November. If his antics can also depress R turnout more generally it will hopefully be much harder to get a Stollen 2: Electoral Boogalo scenario going on and we might finally have some much deserved space for more proactive triage of ongoing events. Hope springs eternal…
Geminid
@Harrison Wesley: “And an anonimous Angel Donor from an Arab Gulf state will double-match donations received by midnight!”
More seriously, I think Trump will have to rely on an American multi-billionaire who will likely require collateral.
Quadrillipede
@Princess: He is an irredeemable monster who simply will not stop committing crimes until he is locked away for the rest of his life (which is something of an outlier in the judicial system, I suppose), but he’s about to be have a lot less cash flow, the civil appeals seem to be played out, and one of the criminal trials (I lost track) will be starting in the next few weeks, so some degree of optimism is warranted in my limited opinion.
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl: I had a similar experience as a baby lawyer. I was cross examining a witness and he kept contradicting his deposition testimony. So I handed him the deposition transcript and asked him read his previous response to the same question. He reacted…strongly. I finally realized he couldn’t read.
That was shocking to me—illiteracy was nothing more than an abstract concept to me, and there it was staring me in the face in the middle of a jury trial.
Steve in the ATL
@lowtechcyclist: stop trying to make “fetchez” happen—it’s not going to happen!
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: I worked one summer as a cashier as well. It was an eye opener that people who were decades older than me still had the relative maturity of the high schoolers I’d escaped from by going to college.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Seems like it should be!
But how many things that we considered to be rules and laws turned out to be “norms” and niceties that are no longer in place – the call is coming from inside the house.
The guardrails turned out to be suggestions.
We can fight this but it is an uphill battle.
Quadrillipede
@TBone: Thank you for this. My wife is Taiwanese (daughter of a DPP activist, actually) and a Phony Stark normie, so if she doesn’t volunteer this to me herself, I may try to bring it to her attention…
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I saw that, too, but I didn’t get a sense of whether that is a good thing re: the trial in GA, or a bad thing.
Do you have a sense of that, one way or another?
WaterGirl
@Geminid: What I read (somewhere!) is that most of Trump’s buildings are already tied up, backstopping other loans, so they are likely not available for this.
It would be a shame if his house of cards came tumbling down.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Ksmiami: This crap is so tiring. The dude wasn’t even sworn in until March 2021.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Teachable moment. Swallowing hard, I imagine.
Hoping this witness was not for your side. :-)
WaterGirl
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: It is tiring, indeed. I guess it makes sense if you don’t care whether people read your comments, or skip over them.
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl: I was cross-examining, which means he was not in my side!
Josie
@Martin:
That is where Texas is at this point. People say that elections for governor, lt. governor are statewide, They don’t realize, however, that voter suppression is accomplished by a gerrymandered legislature. I’m not sure how you solve that, but we need to figure it out.
UncleEbeneezer
@Quadrillipede: Manhattan criminal trial with Alvin Bragg for illegally paying off Stormy Daniels in an effort to subvert the 2016 Election. And that’s the way Bragg is framing it so news stories are going to be particularly bad for Trump during that trial.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Reading comprehension. How does it work? :-)
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: I hear “hush money” trial – even from people who should know better! – and I worry that my head will explode.
It’s not about sex with a porn star, or paying a porn star. It’s about election interference. Election interference years before Jan 6.
Quadrillipede
I kind of like that your company did this. From the limited context, it sounds like this one shortcoming she had didn’t materially interfere in her ability to do the rest of the job, and I would like to imagine she did get better at it with practice…
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Did Raven ever get in touch? (I did my part.)
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I hope that’s the case. We may find out soon.
This is another reason I’m glad Nikki Haley is staying in the race at least until Super Tuesday (March 5 I think). Keeps the pressure on. I don’t think Trump can handle it. He’s not a tough man, just talks tough.
eclare
@Steve in the ATL:
One of my best friend’s dad never learned to read. Millionaire, inherited a lot of land that used to be country but later became the suburbs of Atlanta.
TBone
@Quadrillipede: from yer lips to their ears! I remain hopeful with caution in this regard.
TBone
@Jackie: should have been already.
WaterGirl
@Quadrillipede: Come to think of it, that was a nice thing. A lot of things have changed since then.
Now cashier’s don’t have to count back the change!
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: egads
Quadrillipede
This may have been suggested in jest, but I gotta admit, that sounds a bit Bannonian/Millerian for my tastes.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I want Haley to stay in the race as long as possible.
I like to think that there will be some Republicans, women especially, who will look at the 40% of the vote that’s going to Haley in various states, and see that as affirmation of any doubts they have about voting for Trump.
The longer she stays in, the bigger that effect could be.
TBone
@Quadrillipede: Alvin Bragg with state charges FTW! He’s making a superb case about the hush money being election interference, quashing some of its salacious nature.
NotMax
OT.
Ad on Freevee just crossed the ears. Back was to the screen so didn’t catch the company name.
“Sign up with our phone service and get a new iPhone 12 for only $99.99.”
Correct me if I’m mistaken but isn’t the iPhone already up to 14?
Quadrillipede
@lowtechcyclist: I’mma switch gears for a “schnell, schnell, kartoffelkopf”…
TBone
@Quadrillipede: my pleasure. I hope it helps.
TBone
@WaterGirl: oh noes! 😆
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: I know. It bugs the shit outta me too. Fortunately honest analysts like Harry Litman, The Meidas Touch crew, Allison Gill, SistersInLaw (Joyce Vance White, Barb McQuade, Jill Wine Banks) etc., will give it proper context as it becomes the biggest story in the news. Hopefully some good faith journalists in the MSM will follow suit. Karen Friedman Agnifilo (from LegalAF) is a former Manhattan Assistant DA will be on a lot of shows on CNN and I’m sure she will emphasize the election angle at every opportunity. So I think the narrative will get better once things get moving.
Central Planning
@NotMax: it’s at 15.
TBone
@WaterGirl: I always think of Sisyphus and the boulder, but with the gods being on our side. Truly they must be.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: Yes, they should! Just because the computer tells the cashier how much change to give back, doesn’t mean they take the correct amount from the till. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to give the cashier a dollar back (two bills stuck together) OR counted it aloud and had to say, sorry, but you still owe me $$. Cashiers get in trouble when their tills are over or under when it’s counted at the end of their shift.
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
Technically, if the box hasn’t been opened, it’s a “new” iPhone! :-)
I wonder how many people take them up on that, without knowing that it’s 3 releases behind?
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Yes, and Trump is not helping himself on the campaign trail. His team would rather he cruised to the convention, but he hasn’t knocked Haley out.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: 59% of her voters say they won’t vote for Trump. That’s the part that I like.
Quadrillipede
I’m not going to defend everything Garland has done as AG, but how many convicted J6ers are now walking free after appeal? It would’ve been nice if he could’ve expedited things, but without the opportunity to spend several months inside the DOJ watching the cases get built, I can’t make an estimate for how much faster they could have got to where we are now. I want fatty put away forever and I don’t want him slithering back out of prison on appeal.
ETA: fuck the media though, they know what they did.
[Ew, my autocorrect is trying to put JK Rowling words in my post.]
Shalimar
@Princess: Removing a judge is extremely rare and even with the strongest circumstantial case Smith can put together for appeal, the 11th Circuit is a lot more likely to send the case back to Cannon with pointed instructions on what she has done wrong and how to fix it rather than ordering her replaced. There is no magic threshold she has to pass to be out. It is a judgment call by a conservative-dominated court.
WaterGirl
@Quadrillipede: Plus, some highly placed Trump holdovers were blocking things the DOJ was trying to do.
That was one of the great things about the Jack Smith choice – he got to completely pick his team, and highly placed people no longer had an impact on anything that is Jack Smith’s domain.
Christopher Wray needs to go, too, and we need a Dem in his place.
Another Scott
Apparently Biden said at a press gaggle today that he’s hopeful that a ceasefire will be in place by Monday.
Fingers crossed.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: That is great news. Fingers crossed, indeed.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: Me, too! I hope Super Tues gives Haley enough incentive (and donors) to keep on being a thorn in TIFG’s side!🤞🏻He’s forced to spend money to win the primary rather than start spending money against Biden.
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl: yes, thank you!
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl: eh, it would have been obvious to lawyers but not necessarily to the “IANAL” crowd.
Of course, Omnes still wouldn’t have caught it….
Captain C
@Jackie:
And that’s also money that he can’t pay lawyers with.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Ha!
I think that was detail was pushed out of my head in the horror for all involved in that situation.
You just don’t know what you don’t know. sigh.
Steve in the ATL
@eclare:
then he can pay people to read for him! Lot of fortunes have been made that way with farmland.
smith
@Jackie: Unfortunately, one of her big donors, the surviving Koch brother, whichever that is, has decided to turn off the money spigot. I’m guessing Super Tuesday will be her last hurrah.
Quadrillipede
@WaterGirl: Now cashier’s don’t have to count back the change!
In some cases, they don’t even need to scan the items either! (Unless it’s bagels in Costco, cause I can never get those through the self-checkout without assistance…)
UncleEbeneezer
@Shalimar: INAL, but my understanding (from various former US Attorneys) is that if she rules in a way that puts witness safety at risk, and does so in blatant disregard of the 11th Circuit’s established precedent, that will be the third strike against her and that should be enough to warrant the case being reassigned to another judge.
Subsole
@bbleh:
Ironically enough, they’ve pretty well managed to recreate among themselves the self-devouring carceral empire of Stalin and Beria…
WaterGirl
@smith: She should push now for him to debate her, and make him look like the coward he is when he says no.
Subsole
@smith:
Because it pisses you off. That’s it. That’s the magic, that’s the mystery. It’s spite.
They know it’s bullshit. But it pisses you off, and that’s good enough.
dnfree
@Glidwrith: At one job, an employee cafeteria worker older than me said, with a superior tone directed at me, “I’d rather have common sense than be SMART.” Thing was, her life was a complete mess. She didn’t have common sense either. She just thought she did.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Shalimar:
The justice system is a joke, then. It’s clear as day that she’s utterly corrupt. She should never have been assigned this case in the first place. I might be wrong, but wasn’t there another judge in that judicial district that could’ve been given this trial? And that cases are assigned by some court admin official? I’d like to know what that person’s reasoning was when assigning this case to Cannon given her prior behavior
Ksmiami
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: He delayed a serious investigation into the insurrection leaders by at least a year and a half. And don’t get me started on the Hur report
smith
@WaterGirl: Would be great if it worked. Maybe she could challenge him to debate her to prove he’s not cognitively impaired.
cain
@TBone:
You might like this
https://twitter.com/Doomscroller83/status/1761899569984496065
Elon got a new PC and suddenly is all up in arms about having to create an account because AI will use it. The twitter thread ends up with Elon texting Satya about his PC!
No matter how high up you are in tech – you’re still someone’s “computer person”. :D
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: I don’t listen to Meidas Touch, and I haven’t seen any of the other legal eagles being confident about that.
But human nature being what it is, I would think that if she continues to embarrass the court and if they can stand up for something noble and non-partisan, like protecting witnesses and citizens, that that might help set the stage for them maybe doing more than smacking her upside the head and telling her how to rule. Again.
Ksmiami
@Quadrillipede: he’s not going to jail, he’s never going to face justice. It’s over
Quadrillipede
@Jackie: If I need to figure out, say 2/3rds of 19, or something similar, if I have time, I quite often do the math in my head before reaching for a calculator. If the results disagree, it’s usually my bad, but I suppose it’s a bit like Sudoku or Wordle or something, make sure the old brain is still braining away effectively.
WaterGirl
@smith: Yes! I can think of any number of ways she could frame it so he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.
I’m all for that!
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: Was your crystal ball on sale when you bought it?
Subsole
@cain:
I would be very, very cautious if the Free Palestine crowd (at least the online portions) started sidling up to me. I have seen some stone-cold Nazi shit coming out of that crew.
Subsole
@TBone:
“Oh Christ, it’s this asshole again”.png
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Agree.
But I think it’s easier to count out when you know what the amount is, rather than counting back. shrug
I went to work after smoking pot exactly once. I wasn’t worried at the time, but later that evening I was like holy fuck, what if my drawer is waaaayyy off?
Nervous going into work the next day. The drawer was right, to the penny, as always. whew! But I never went to work high again.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Is Trump even campaigning? Or just flying in for a few speeches here and there?
Quadrillipede
Hmm. Ok, let’s say he somehow avoids jail, but rage-chokes on a hamberder in say August 2024 and winds up aphasic for the rest of his miserable life, would that qualify as “justice”?
Jackie
@Captain C: That, too!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
We can only hope
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: just watching our system of laws fail in real time and the electorate saying more please and faster. I wish it wasn’t true
Subsole
@Glidwrith:
Same. It was eerie realizing people twice my age were, somehow, also barely half of it.
Ksmiami
@Quadrillipede: him choking on a hamburger would be Karma. Karma is different than justice as defined by our legal system.
Jackie
@smith: Haley has a strong small donor base, but the optimist in me hopes if she has a strong enough showing, Koch might reconsider – at least for a short while. Koch has shown he’s no trumper, and TIFG did say he would refuse donations from Haley supporters… lol I kid myself at that absurdity!
gwangung
@Ksmiami: Then you’re an idiot for thinking that. Major cases of ANY sort takes years to put together,
I don’t think you have a clue on how to build an air tight case in general, let along in a political case.
Quadrillipede
@Ksmiami: if I’ve learned anything in my not-quite-five decades on this rock, it’s that sometimes there are enough contradictory trends going on at once that it’s hard to get a sense of whether things in general are getting better or worse. It’s just an unceasing sequence of events, backlashes, counter-backlashes, counter-counter-backlashes all smeared on top of each other. At least with the past, we already know what happened, so we don’t need to worry about it so much.
smith
@Jackie: The way his fundraising is going, the minute she drops out he will be begging her for her donor list.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
@WaterGirl:
Where I work, the cashiers don’t actually make change for customers anymore. They’re all “flex lanes” that can be switched over to self-checkout when necessary, aside from the Self-Checkout Attendant podium, and the cash machines spit out the change after the customer inserts money into it.
I work in the store’s cash office/Customer Service center where I do some accounting functions (auditing drawers, reconciling, counting the safe, etc) and we still have regular tills there (I suspect we will for some time) so we still need to make change for customers.
I think no longer being required to make change could be a problem for those being promoted to Front End Coordinator and SCO Attendant, because they often check customers out at the podium when there’s an issue at the self-checks.
I’m sure the company’s big motivation with these flex lanes was to better control the money by limiting the number of people handling it. It’s not uncommon for cashiers to fall for quick change scams. That can’t be done on flex lanes
WaterGirl
I know we need a new post, but I put up 3 posts in a row, so I really don’t want to put up a 4th in a row, just on general principles. Surely someone will put up another post soon, after Adam’s has been up for awhile.
Closing the laptop, hope everyone has a great evening.
Jackie
@gwangung:
You can stop right there. 😉
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I recently saw “hush money trial ” on the breaking news chyron on one of the news channels and thought “what the hell?”
Quadrillipede
I can agree with this. But at this point I frankly don’t care how liddle’ Don leaves the public sphere, as long as it happens in such a way that it damages the Republican Party to the maximum extent possible.
Ksmiami
@gwangung: I know that, but it should have started right away. We lost precious time and now there’s a big chance he not only gets off Scott free, but the next Trump administration will copy Putin in reprisals.
gwangung
NO IT COULDN”T HAVE.
The reasons have been given to you, but you continue to ignore them. You think Alan Scott or Kyle Rayner is in charge of this prosecution, BUT IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.
Brachiator
@VFX Lurker:
It was outrageous, sad, amazing how quickly the people could find excuses for Trump, totally ignoring or blanking out everything except devotion to their Dear Leader.
I don’t think that I have ever seen people so completely dedicated to voluntary displays of total loyalty and devotion.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: I wonder if these same people, being shown clips of people in North Korea talking about Kim Jong Il, would point and laugh.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Trump is still holding campaign rallies and he’s saying some weird shit at them. The smarter play would be to ignore Haley but I don’t think he can maje himself do that.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@WaterGirl: D’oh! I will now read your name as BongWaterGirl. ; )
Sister Golden Bear
@NotMax: Latest is the iPhone 15, with the 16 due out next Fall.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Up to 15 now.
14 is so last year……
Sally
@WaterGirl: Yes – Wray needs to go, like, last year!
Eolirin
@Ksmiami: Not even karma. Maybe a western bastardization of the concept. But that’s not how karma works in any of the traditions that believe in karma.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Does it still work OK and will it for some time to come?
Because if it does then really there isn’t a lot of difference other than price. One can still purchase older models in places other than the Apple store. And they still work fine – most of the time…..
Sister Golden Bear
@cain: It got better. Elon was entering various Windows command suggested by random bootlickers.
Wondering if someone suggested installing grufbshelper.exe
Eolirin
@Ruckus: Apple usually keeps 2-3 generations of phone in circulation, with the older models filling the role cheaper models do for their competitors.
Eolirin
@Sister Golden Bear: And, as it turns out… you need to set up an account with Telsa to drive one of their cars. :p
dp
@WaterGirl: The standard briefing of motions provided for in the rules are: memo in support, memo in opposition, reply memo. Usually, any additional briefing requires leave of court.
cain
@Sister Golden Bear: oh man, that’s hilarious.
cain
@Subsole: oh for sure – it’s a great place to hide your antisemitic nonsense and yell at some Jews. Stone cold nazis indeed.
Chris Johnson
@Jackie: Dead thread but: Russia already does literally own him and has always paid for him.
If Russia is no longer willing to pay for him, well that’s new.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
One of my siblings was a victim of L Ron.
Decades of taking the humanity out of humans and replacing it with bull and shit. A glorious thing to be remembered for. But then it’s also possible that those that bought his bull and shit were looking for exactly that.