Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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Daily Broadside | DOJ Prosecutes Trump Over Missing Document But Lets Brandon Skate Because “Diminished Faculties”

Via Ace of Spades.

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Hur has declined to prosecute President Joe Biden for his handling of classified documents but said in a report released Thursday that Biden’s practices “present serious risks to national security” and added that part of the reason he wouldn’t charge Biden was that the president could portray himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who would be sympathetic to a jury.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report said, but added that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

I see. So Brandon’s “elderly” age and “poor memory” is a mitigating factor when considering criminal charges, but not when he’s RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

The report from Hur — who previously appointed by former President Donald Trump as one of the country’s top federal prosecutors — also made clear the “material distinctions” between a theoretical case against Biden and the pending case against Trump for his handling of classified documents, noting the “serious aggravating facts” in Trump’s case.

Yes, “serious aggravating facts” such as Trump’s an “America First” kind of guy and threatens the oligarchy running our country. Or that he’s a Republican. And that he does what is right for the patriotic men and women of Main Street America.

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” it said. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

As Ace explains:

There you go — his impaired cognitive state precludes him from having the culpable mental state of willfulness required by the crime.

Just a refresher, crimes have both an actus reus — the culpable act — and a mens rea — the culpable mind. If you’re out hunting and you accidentally shoot a man wearing a brown coat, mistaking him for a deer, you can’t be prosecuted for murder, which requires intent as a mental state (or such extreme recklessness that shows a depraved indifference to human life).

This particular crime requires “wilfulness,” which is an intermediate mental state, short of “intent,” but a couple of steps above mere negligence (aka carelessness, lack of concern over something the law demands you have concern and care about). It’s something like, “you may or may not have intended to do this thing, but you acted so unconcerned that your actions would result in this thing that we call you ‘willful’ with respect to your indifference to the outcome of your actions.”

Like if you get smashed-out drunk and go for a drive. You may not have intended to kill the person you wind up running over, but you made a series of decisions which were willful in their indifference to the very real possibility you’d kill someone.

Note this doesn’t mean that Biden didn’t have intent — just that the law doesn’t require it. A “higher” mental state, like intent, is always sufficient to satisfy the requirement of a lower one, like willfulness.

But the law says that the state doesn’t have to prove you intended to retain classified information — just that your actions were likely to result in this outcome, and you willfully chose to take those actions anyway.

Instead of prosecuting the crime, the DOJ forecloses that possibility by simply saying, “No one is going to convict him. He’s just a well-intentioned old man who, gosh darn it, had a lapse of memory. Besides, isn’t he cool in those aviator sun glasses?”

This is proof positive that we have an unaccountable organized mob running our country that protects its own and applies the full force of the law to its political enemies. We are no longer living in a “free” country where the rulers fear the people. We live in a country where the people are beginning to fear those in power, who are no longer checked by the law.

Every institution has been captured by the Left and rabid Marxists, and we won’t be able to vote our way out of this.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | What Dirt Does the Deep State Have on Amy Coney Barrett?

Some “””conservative.”””

The Supreme Court voted 5–4 vote to allow U.S. Border Patrol agents to remove razor wire that was set up along the U.S.–Mexico border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, while a legal challenge plays out.

In a brief order, the high court vacated a ruling issued in mid-December 2023 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh voted to deny the application to vacate that lower court injunction, which would have prevented Border Patrol agents from removing the barrier.

Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, sided with the Biden administration. No one provided an explanation for their vote.

Roberts is completely unreliable and blows with the wind of political opinion. Coney Barrett, hailed as a rock-solid Catholic conservative, is proving to be a huge disappointment and just as unreliable.

With an invasion of massive proportions, she says it’s just dandy for the federal government to remove razor wire barriers to allow foreigners unimpeded access to the country. If we were processing the illegals and deporting them or testing their claims of hardship, that would be one thing, but we’re in the middle of a full on invasion that is being facilitated by the United States governement.

We’re under occupation by a ruling class that has no interest in enforcing the law.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton isn’t giving up yet, promising “that ‘the fight is not over’ after the Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal by the Biden administration to allow Border Patrol agents to resume cutting razor wire set up by Texas at the southern border.”

“The Supreme Court’s temporary order allows Biden to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America,” Paxton said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

“The destruction of Texas’s border barriers will not help enforce the law or keep American citizens safe,” he said. “This fight is not over, and I look forward to defending our state’s sovereignty.”

Since when is a State not allowed to secure its borders? When is it not allowed to protect its citizens? In what way does “federal” law trump “state” law?

If you recall, the first Civil War got started as a dispute over States’ rights. Could this be the flashpoint that starts a new clash? Citizens have had enough too:

TakeOurBorderBack.com

After what the Deep State has put us through with its lying and destruction of evidence while sentencing ordinary Americans to lengthy jail terms over January 6, I’m surprised and pleased that there are still Americans willing to confront the government. But how much you want to bet that anyone who shows up will be photographed, identified, hunted down, arrested, detained indefinitely and then tried and sentenced for treason and sedition in opposing the government’s will?

Once Trump is the nominee, we have to put aside all bickering and close ranks behind him. If Trump is not elected, we face the destruction of our republic and the banishing if not outright national cleansing of conservatives and Christians. There is no room for error.

Politics has become a brawl. We need a fighter. Trump is our last best hope.

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Daily Broadside | The Insurrection Isn’t Coming from the Right. It’s Coming From the Left

Lots of reactions to the Colorado Supreme Court ruling from Tuesday, with Leftists, NeverTrumpers, anti-Americans, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself five-fold) predictably gleeful with the decision, and conservatives, Trump supporters and other patriots condemning the decision as unAmerican and “election interference.”

I don’t know how you can look at it any other way than a partisan effort to disrupt our election process. (This is contra what yesterday I wrote that, “All seven of the Colorado Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democrats, so one can’t plausibly argue that it was a partisan decision.” I read something that I can’t find saying that the majority justices all attended an Ivy League law school [like Harvard or Yale] and the three dissenting votes attended non-Ivy League schools. So I stand corrected).

Trump has never been accused of, tried for, or convicted of being engaged in “insurrection.” There is no way that the Colorado Supreme Court has standing to 1) find that Trump engaged in insurrection and therefore, 2) to disqualify him from the ballot based on that finding.

They’re interpreting an amendment that was written to keep Confederate soldiers and leaders who had taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, but had then literally engaged in insurrection to the point of raising armies and killing other Americans, as applying to Trump.

All Trump did was encourage his followers to “fight” for what they believed in, and that is now “insurrection.” The Colorado Supreme Court stretched that word so far that if it had been Elastigirl, she would’ve dislocated her shoulder.

On closer inspection, the ruling undermines itself, leaving us to wonder what it’s all about.

The majority on Tuesday said every key legal issue came out against Mr. Trump.

“The sum of these parts is this: President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president,” the majority said in an unsigned opinion, saying that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results amounted to engaging in an insurrection and that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, bars insurrectionists from federal office, including the presidency.

They’re unequivocal in stating their conclusion. Trump is disqualfied from holding office and therefore listing him on the Colorado primary ballots would be “a wrongful act” under the Colorado Election Code. One has to wonder how a State usurps federal prerogative to decide if a person engaged in “insurrection” or usurps the candidate’s State’s rights to make that determination.

Or if there is even a way to make that determination apart from a formal charge, trial and conviction.

But this is the interesting part of the Colorado court’s ruling: they issued a stay until January 4th.

The majority added: “We do not reach these conclusions lightly. We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

But the court gave Mr. Trump a provisional escape route. It put its ruling on hold through Jan. 4, and if he seeks review in the U.S. Supreme Court, as he said he will, the state court said his name would remain on the primary ballot.

What they don’t say is that in the ruling, which you can read here, it says,

Therefore, to maintain the status quo pending any review by the U.S. Supreme Court, we stay our ruling until January 4, 2024 (the day before the Secretary’s deadline to certify the content of the presidential primary ballot). If review is sought in the Supreme Court before the stay expires on January 4, 2024, then the stay shall remain in place, and the Secretary will continue to be required to include President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, until the receipt of any order or mandate from the Supreme Court.

In other words, because they knew Trump will immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, their “stay” will be in force indefinitely. Trump’s name will appear on the ballot no matter what.

So why are they doing this?

I think it’s because being the Leftists they are, they are piling on Trump. They’re part and parcel of the real “insurrection” that is taking place across the United States, with our political, educational, medical, judicial and journalistic institutions all subverting our traditional, historical and legal processes. If they can provoke a reaction from the Right, that would be a bonus. If they can set precedent for the Left in other states, that would be a win for them, too.

And, right on schedule:

In a letter dated Wednesday, California lieutenant governor Eleni Kounalakis (D.) urged California secretary of state Shirley Weber (D.) to “explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot,” given the Colorado supreme court’s decision. On Tuesday, the court voted 4–3 to disqualify Trump from appearing on the Centennial State’s ballot because he allegedly incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

“This decision is about honoring the rule of law in our country and protecting the fundamental pillars of our democracy,” Kounalakis wrote to Weber.

“California must stand on the right side of history,” Kounalakis added. “California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in [Anderson v. Griswold]. The Colorado decision can be the basis for a similar decision here in our state. The constitution is clear: you must be 35 years old and not be an insurrectionist.”

This isn’t about doing the right thing or being “on the right side of history” (what, exactly, does that mean anyway?). This is about finding semi-judicial means by which to eliminate Trump as a candidate. They start with the premise that Trump must be stopped; then they look for any “legal” means by which they can get that outcome.

Sen. Mike Lee put it this way:

“Lawless thuggery masquerading as jurisprudence.” Exactly.

You get the idea. And if what these Congressman and Senators say is true—that what the four horsemen of the Colorado Supreme Court did was “lawless thuggery”—then the next step is to impeach the four of them and remove them from the court.

Which will never happen of course. Because they’re Democrats.

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You Have to Talk to Thomas

Fact from Fiction

Apart from first hand knowledge, everything we know about the world is based on what we’ve been told.

Provided your resources are credible, you’re on solid ground in the way you formulate your convictions.

But when there’s more than one perspective being circulated and it all seems to be based on something authoritative, what might otherwise be a consensus is now a disparate group of passionate voices all convinced that they’re right and everyone else is just trying to catch up.

In such a situation, it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction and what’s true becomes defined more by one’s philosophical preferences than actual events and whole conversations.

In the end, the truth is going to be defined by evaluating all the facts. That, as opposed to scenarios where the commentator is manipulating just some of the facts.

Take, for example, the Resurrection of Christ.

Personality vs Platform

You could talk to Pilate and get one perspective. You could talk with John and get something entirely different. If those two individuals are your only sources of information, in the absence of something undeniable, you will be drawn to the personality championing the platform more so than the platform itself.

But at some point, you have to talk to Thomas.

Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, John saw Him die but it was Thomas who refused to believe anything as nonsensical as Jesus having come back to life unless…

…unless he was able to physically touch where the spikes had gone through His wrists and put his hand into the wound created by the spear that had punctured His side.

The NIV Text Note for this particular verses says, “Hardheaded skepticism can scarcely go further than this.”1

Unless you talk to Thomas, or at least objectively consider his experience, your take on Jesus having conquered death is going to be based more on what you want to believe than what’s actually the case.

You have to talk to Thomas.

Whether it’s COVID-19 or Donald Trump

And the same thing applies to similar situations where you have a variety of viewpoints. Whether it’s COVID-19 or Donald Trump, you have to consider all of the players involved and give extra consideration to the one that represents, not just an eyewitness, but someone whose testimony makes no sense apart from it being absolutely true.

And when you encounter a differing viewpoint who would accuse you of being biased in an effort to make their perspective appear more credible, figure out who the “Thomas” is, make sure you’re familiar with what “Thomas” said, and then say to your opponent…

You have to talk to Thomas.

1. NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1985, p1637