There are a lot of different things one can do in order to keep relatively sane during this period of attack on civilization and democracy by Republicans. One might just get away from it all and watch stuff on TV or go biking. One might engage in a mentally challenging project such as writing a novel or developing a really complex and possibly useful software application. One might even spend a bit of time imagining how this is all going to turn out. Imagining FBI Agents closing in on Trump moments after the next president is inaugurated, cuffing him, taking him down town, searching him (full cavity search, of course), delousing him, putting him in the orange jump suit, etc. etc. Eventually that fantasy results in the moment of conviction in a US Federal courthouse, and his long term imprisonment.
Unfortunately, that last part is never going to happen. Here’s why, and it is very simple.
Something like 35% of Americans think Trump is their god, or at least, hero. If any one of them gets on a jury in a case charging Trump or any of his gang with any crime, they will not do their duty as citizens. They will do their duty as deplorables. There will be no conviction.
Assuming that about 30% of Americans are Deplorable (probably an underestimate) and the chance of one getting on a jury is random (probably an overestimate since more of them live in South Dakota than Washington), the chance, according to a simulation study I just ran, of having zero deplorables is about 8 in 1000. If we reduce the likelihood of getting a deplorable on the jury to about 15%, half, the chance of having a deplorable-free jury goes up to just over 10% (156 in 1075). Still pretty bad.
What I’m saying here is don’t get your hopes up. There are a number of scenarios in which Trump and his gang of Republicans get sidelined or removed from positions of power, but there are actually very few scenarios in which any of them go to prison.
This is probably why prosecutors in the ongoing Manafort trial are trying to keep Trump and his conspiratorial activity out of their courtroom. This is a good strategy. They know the odds, and they are hoping that if this first trial is a conviction it might break some sort of dam or change perceptions in some way to make it slightly more likely to get justice in later trials.
But it is a risky situation. What happens if Manafort is acquitted? There is very likely at least one Deplorable on that jury. Jury members generally get in line and do their jobs. If you’ve ever done jury duty you’ve seen how that happens and understand that idea (if you’ve never done jury duty you probably have more misconceptions than facts about it). But a true deplorable will not be affected by that process.
The outcome of the ongoing Manafort trial is going to be very interesting, and very important.
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The most likely people to be in prison for anything serious are the left-wing kooks who were using the entire Department of Justice and FBI for their personal presidential-election swaying devices.
Citation(s) and extraordinary evidence as per Sagan’s Standard needed for your extraordinary claim here.
1)
Glenn Simpson testifying to Congress, under oath.
“Did the FBI ever reach out to you or Fusion GPS in relation to the matters that Mr. Steele informed them upon?” House Intel investigators asked Simpson.
“No,” he replied.
“You’ve never heard from anyone in the U.S. government in relation to those matters, either the FBI or the Department of Justice?” investigators asked.
“After the election. I mean, during the election, no,” Simpson said.
Bruce Ohr’s notes show that he met with Simpson numerous times during the election.
Perjury to Congress is a federal crime.
2)
Chris Steele told the FBI he had not talked to any media about his dossier and investigation of Trump.
He told a court in London that he briefed a number of reporters. This includes briefings prior to the time he told the FBI he hadn’t talked to reporters.
Lying to FBI investigators is a federal crime.
“Something like 35% of Americans think Trump is their god, or at least, hero. If any one of them gets on a jury in a case charging Trump or any of his gang with any crime, they will not do their duty as citizens. They will do their duty as deplorables. There will be no conviction.”
Bullshit. Damn Greg. You can’t just be saying crap with out backing it up.
Talk about a fucking war on science. Jeez.
Here’s a bit of research you can do now to attempt to validate your belief.
Poll 1000 of these deplorable people you are on about and ask em about a hypothetical situation where they on a jury. That’s a bit of evidence.
The other thing you could do is look at stats of
all the court cases in in last 3 years. Any wild jump, spike or trend in number of acquittals?
That’s more of a macro thing but you could dig a bit and see if the accused in say 10,000 cases is in some way either aligned to this deplorable philosophy personally, or the alleged crime was somehow condoned by deplorable philosophy, and look at acquittal rates.
Damn, it’s pretty weird you suggesting some wacky stuff without evidence. And if you are
really full on about it, as you seem to be because your statements are pretty unambiguous, you don’t just need evidence, but extraordinary evidence.
Please note I’ve requested some evidence about judges being crooked on a different blog here that you commented on , and yet to receive a reply.
Its interesting reading you recently from a a sort of anthropology sort of view. You are like a subject! And you are displaying some interesting behavior.
Get some fucking evidence. For your own sake. You wondering around believing any old thing at the moment.
> You wondering around believing any old thing at the moment.
He’s promoted Omarosa’s book, and the Michael Wolfe one.
I think he even endorsed the Jacobson study that said 100% wind, water, solar energy by multiplying the number of hydroelectric turbines by 16, with no new facilities.
In case you missed it, what Greg has posted is not a scientific paper that needs to be backed by data, statistics etc. It’s merely an opinion borne out of observing the behaviour and character of the brain-dead deplorables… the Trumpster’s zombie army. I totally agree with Greg that you’d be hard-pressed to find one who would have enough integrity to look at the evidence dispassionately and objectively. Have you come across any Trumptards even grudgingly acknowledge that the sleazy conman is a pathological liar? It’s like a cult _ the cult of Trump, and all the cult followers, the zombies at his rallies, cheering every insult, every inane utterance and turning on the press, it’s quite surreal…and a bit scary, as most zombie movies tend to be. The fact that the zombies will bend over backward _or in the case of MikeN, bend forward with his trousers down _ to defend the treasonous conman’s every transgression, every lie, doesn’t give much hope of finding one who will sit on the jury with an open mind and judge the case on its merits. And just like Greg’s, mine is merely an opinion based on observation, so don’t ask me to produce some scientific survey to back it.
Don’t underestimate the percentage of trump people who believe false things: mikeN, billyR, rickA are three prominent examples here, ranging from the notion that some conspiracy was in place to make Trump’s inaugural crowd was far smaller than it was to buying into the “spy in the trump campaign” bullshit, wild stories about Steele and the funding for the dossier, HRC “giving away” a massive amount of US uranium, “pay to play” crap about the Clinton foundation, and so on. None of those things have any basis in fact, but all are repeatedly pushed by these (trump supporters in general) loons.
More concerning is a recent poll of in which 48% of the Republican respondents said the media is an enemy of the state and 44% said they believed trump should have the power to shut down media if it “didn’t behave”.
You shouldn’t expect trump supporters in general to show any bit of integrity or concern for the country: they were butt-hurt that there was a black man using the front door to their White House for 8 years, that he was well-spoken, intelligent, a family man, and was able to get the US economy back from the ledge Bush had put it on. (If they were as concerned about his horrible expansion of the asinine “war on terror” or failure to get the US out of the torture business that would have been a plus, but they couldn’t get past the race card.) I don’t know percentages, but I have no problem believing that trump’s base would put their bigoted views ahead of the good of the country.
Jp. There’s various um, mechanisms? by which we all can choose to attempt to understand the nature of reality.
I’m suggesting one process. A process that would go someway to eliminate
well known bias issues in personal observations.
You wouldn’t believe the crap I observe that I could go waaay off about but don’t because a simple bit of mental statistical matrixing says that my observations are outliers.
Fuckwits in Volvos being an example.
Fuckwits in suits being another.
It’s unreal how people carry on about women in some all covering headgear and utterly ignore the men in suits.
Has anyone ever added up the damage caused by these fuckwits? Fiscally alone it must be hundreds of trillions of bucks.
Ive been ripped off by 3 parties in my life and 2 of the parties were suit wearers. Oh I could go right off at suit bastards. Until I run a simple matrix and discover such thinking is nuts. Takes about 1/2 a second.
If you wanna call trump following idiots a sort of cult or religion , I don’t have a problem, if they match characteristics of cults or religions.
But what’s being suggested is akin to a
Hindu MUST be subversing the law as a juror when the defendant is a Hindu too. Or a Hindu judge, as Greg has , not theorized, but claimed, elsewhere.
Make claims about court data? Show bloody court data I say.
Unsubstantiated ideas about groups in societies are a fucking plague.
Calls for substantiation shouldn’t be dismissed easily. And I’m here calling for it.
I can’t even believe I gotta articulate this shit. I really can’t.
Hoy you gypsie lesbian jewish disabled mob. Sorry but guess what. I’m gonna dehumanize you and I don’t need evidence. Because you are somewhat less than human, I don’t deem you fit jury duty. You not capable of it .
Sorry, it’s just who you are sorta in an inate way. You don’t have the impartial
capacity.
If people wanna make claims with even the potential to dehumanize, they BETTER get some fucking data and competent analysis of the data.
Someone want to argue this? They can get fucked.
It’s two thousand and fucking eighteen for christ sake.
Validate your belief in a better way Jp.
Get some fucking evidence Greg.
Damn.
Just so the above is clearer, there should really be bunny ears before Hoy
and after capacity.
I realised when rereading it’s not always clear who I am addressing.
Creeping normalization is a very real thing, and very very hard for one to see in oneself. It’s easier often for outsiders to observe and comment on.
Hithero rational people saying people ain’t fit for jury duty cuz of the shitty hat they wear freaks me the fuck out.
It was fucking unreal what happened literally in one day to large sections of the Australian population when the MV Tampa took some people on board to save their lives. Shocking.
Couple decades before and wet sorry arsed Vietnamese walk ashore and
get handed a beer. As they should.
Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory.
First they declared Trump was nuts, or conflating an investigation with a wiretap.
The objections now have to get more and more technical.
Some of the reporters writing these stories had a copy of the FISA application a they were writing the articles.
Another reason that Trump will not see jail is in his (spoof alert) escape to Kamchatka
I spent a little time today looking into the question of contacts between Glenn Simpson and Bruce Ohr. I didn’t learn much. I saw two opinion columns on The Hill Web site by John Solomon (one dated 8/09/2018, the other undated) that talk about it. The Hill specifically disclaims everything by an “opinion contributor”.
Then there is a report on the same Web site that House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is preparing subpoenas for Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie. So I presume we may learn something at some unspecified date after the Congress returns from recess.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/401193-gop-chairman-set-to-issue-steele-dossier-subpoenas
While I’m here…I recall MikeN defending Trump’s fawning behaviour at his meeting with Putin, opining something to the effect that if you want to improve the relationship you have to be diplomatic. But the next day Trump corrects himself; apparently he mispoke. The effect of that correction is that he meant to insult Putin and call him a liar to his face. Some diplomacy. I doubt that MikeN or any of Trump’s moronic followers caught on to the inconsistency of that scenario and Trump’s claimed purpose for the meeting, i.e., improved relations. Obviously just another bare-faced lie from the swamp creature.
I think most commentators didn’t believe Trump’s walkback.
While it makes sense in context, it would still be diplomatic to say that Putin is denying it.
Yeah, mispoke repeatedly for the length of the press conference. But you are correct — there will be trump supporters showing up to say there is no contradiction here. Devotion to the man is more important than reality. (Again, look at the continued “there was a spy” bullshit defense tossed out above.)
This is from MikeN’s first comment:
“1)
Glenn Simpson testifying to Congress, under oath.
“Did the FBI ever reach out to you or Fusion GPS in relation to the matters that Mr. Steele informed them upon?” House Intel investigators asked Simpson.
“No,” he replied.
“You’ve never heard from anyone in the U.S. government in relation to those matters, either the FBI or the Department of Justice?” investigators asked.
“After the election. I mean, during the election, no,” Simpson said.
Bruce Ohr’s notes show that he met with Simpson numerous times during the election.
Perjury to Congress is a federal crime.”
The key phrase is “in relation to those matters.” In his eagerness to support Trump, MikeN simply takes for granted that the conversations were in fact about “those matters”
and implies that they have bearing on the investigation. He also implies that Ohr was involved in or able to influence the investigation. According to the article below, which unfortunately is based on facts rather than partisan connect-the-dots speculation, Ohr was not associated with the Russia investigation. His relationship with Steele predates the election and another article described them as “longtime friend[s].
“For months, Republicans have attacked Mr. Ohr because his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked as a contractor for FusionGPS, the opposition research firm that hired Mr. Steele. The two men had known each other before Mr. Steele began working for Fusion.
But Mr. Ohr worked on counternarcotics at the Justice Department, not counterintelligence, and he is not known to have played any role in the Russia investigation.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/11/us/politics/trump-sessions-russia.html
I don’t know anything about Ohr’s realationship with Simpson, but I don’t imagine MikeN does either. What I do know about MikeN is that his information comes from garbage sources, that he hasn’t been chastened by experience, and that he’s quick to jump to conspiratorial conclusions. Thus far all attempts to compromise the investigation have backfired.
Bruce Ohr was demoted at DOJ, and interviewed several times by FBI reasons unknown.
Some of Ohr’s notes and e-mails have been released, and they show meetings not just with Simpson but with Steele as well.
Jan 31, 2017:“Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues.”
“I’m still here and able to help as discussed,” Ohr texted back. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”
Steele replied, “If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous.”
“There is something separate I wanted to discuss with you informally and separately. It concerns our favourite business tycoon!” Steele wrote Ohr on July 1, 2016
Ohr and Steele met in person on July 30, 2016 along with Nellie Ohr.
“Great to see you and Nellie this morning Bruce,”
I see these sites supporting you mikeN:
washington examiner
fox news
independent sentinel
cnsnews
national review
realclearpolitics
daily caller
hotair
washington times
sputnik news
Do you have a reference to anyplace the “reporters” don’t have to enlarge the eyeholes in their white hoods to be able to type?
Well, Manafort was convicted and will spend time in prison. And he’s not through yet.
Cohen, too, will be doing jail time. And so will a number of others.
This is interesting because it tells us about the partisan divide and that incontrovertible evidence isn’t always easy to ignore.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/manafort-juror-one-holdout-blocked-conviction.html
“I see these sites supporting you mikeN:
washington examiner
fox news
independent sentinel
cnsnews
national review
realclearpolitics
daily caller
hotair
washington times
sputnik news
Do you have a reference to anyplace the “reporters” don’t have to enlarge the eyeholes in their white hoods to be able to type?”
K9 dean, suffers from raceophobia. Treatment course – Peace Corp.
The right fights evil, K9 dean fights racism and poverty.
K9 dean’s tombstone will read – love; diversity; and equality for all.
You keep saying this. It isn’t true. Much of that which the right does *is* evil. The racism, the victim-blaming, the vicious selfishness, the shilling for corporate power, the helping hand for the rich and the kick in the face for the poor… All hallmarks of the right.
You seem to know about as much about good and evil and the nature of rightwing thought as you do about the Constitution.
“You keep saying this. It isn’t true. Much of that which the right does *is* evil. The racism, the victim-blaming, the vicious selfishness, the shilling for corporate power, the helping hand for the rich and the kick in the face for the poor… All hallmarks of the right. ”
Typical Socshevik class warfare. Your Squireship, only the righties are capable
of racism?? Do you know how stupid that sounds. Meme. #METOO
Only the righties commit victim-blaming? Can you give two examples?
Only righties commit “vicious” (he had to make it sound bad) selfishness?
Please, two examples.
“shilling for corporate power, the helping hand for the rich and the kick in the face for the poor.”
Yes, my dear Bloke, ONLY the right does this and dat is why you gave
us the Gulags.
We can discuss the US Constitution if you want, but more than likely
you do not command any knowledge in that field.
BTW, until recently, the Progressoes movement was against the law
enforcement agencies and intelligent services and now because they serve
your interest, you are now their promoters.
BBD, you arguments are very easily dispatched because they have
little substance.
I really feel sorry for you blokes. :<( It is not an admiral task.
Not true. Just as the stupid lie about the right fighting evil is not true. What I said is correct and widely understood and only a biased, dishonest cretin like you would pretend otherwise.
“the Progressoes movement was against the law enforcement agencies and intelligent services ”
Typical dishonest move on your part. Try to understand: pointing out and opposing abuses of power does not equal opposing everything.
British racism. LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=46&v=sEEx3oUuiII