Donald Trump and US politics

shes kinda cute in this photo

id totally meet with her

i wouldn't mind meating her either

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k1rage wrote:

shes kinda cute in this photo

id totally meet with her

She got nothing on this waifu

who is she?

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k1rage wrote:

who is she?

Natalia Vladimirovna Poklonskaya is a Deputy of the State Duma of Russia and a former Prosecutor General of the Republic of Crimea.

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Xavderion wrote:

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k1rage wrote:

who is she?

Natalia Vladimirovna Poklonskaya is a Deputy of the State Duma of Russia and a former Prosecutor General of the Republic of Crimea.

awesome

Some snippage - responding to a similar aspect of two posts:

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soneka101 wrote:

That leads to the second key passage, which reads: "No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation prohibited by" the law.

Regardless of whether Trump Jr. received any information, which he insists he did not, the solicitation of the meeting violates this statute, Ryan said. "Whether or not he actually received that information does not matter in the eyes of the law," Ryan said. "Trump’s solicitation of the information is what constitutes the violation."


On both videos they talk about the same law, that one shouldn't solicit accept or receive money or anything of value from foreign officials.

Ryan is correct that,in theory, solicitation can be broadly construed. Giving someone a flower for agreeing to wear a pink ribbon pin lapel that says "fight breast cancer" is legally a solicitation. On the practical side (case law) we have thousands of cases in which prosecuting solicitation successfully requires more than just a nodding agreement. Saying "I want" or agreeing to meet someone without explicit subject matter won't fly in court.

Unless I missed something from the email exchange, these are Don Jr's actual comments in the email chain: http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-posted-rob-goldstone-emails-russia-2017-7

Don JR: Can we do a call?

Don JR: Rob, can we speak now?

Don JR: Great, it will likely be Paul Manafort (campaign boss) my brother in law and me.

Don JR: How about 3 at our offices? Thanks rob appreciate you helping set it up

At no point in these does Don Jr say anything about what will be discussed. Implied context would be laughed at by a serious prosecutor, and dismissed with predjudice by a judge. This kind of thing has happened so often, that a defence lawyer merely mentioning it will likely have the judge siding with him.

The technical legal defense still doesn't mean something nefarious didn't happen. A person could have been carefully wording and ommitting key information to avoid being caught in doing something wrong. However, in this case, it is the solicitation statute that is being used in its most stringent technical interpretation, to insinuate wrong doing.

The claimed wrongdoing presumes that Don Jr believes the person is an agent of the Russian government and working at the government's behest to interfere with an election. The exchange of information itself isn't illegal otherwise. While some sources may insinuate differently, they seem to be ignoring some very obvious and public history that refutes that. As lawyer Alan Dershowitz said on the issue:

"Obviously if anyone conspired in advance with another to commit a crime – such as hacking the DNC – that would be criminal. But merely seeking to obtain the work product of a prior hack would be no more criminal than the New York Times publishing of the work product of thefts such as the Pentagon Papers and what the Washington Post and many other papers did with the material stolen by Snowden and Manning. Moreover, the emails sent to Trump Jr. say that the dirt peddled by Veselnitskaya came from “official documents.” No mention is made of hacking or other illegal activities. So it is unlikely that attendance at the meeting violated any criminal statute."

Lastly, we have the contention of whether it is "something of value" - which I previously posted a renowned legal scholar's refutation that trying to interpret the statutes to have any kind of information exchange would be a broad sweeping and unprecedented interpretation of the law.

As an example - Hugs have value. Even if someone didn't know this intuitively, they could tell from the following sign in which hugs were offered for "free", which would mean that hugs are not normally free, and worth seeking out.




Since we have established that hugs are something of value, next we have photographic proof of Obama allegedly violating 11 CFR 110.20 , 52 U.S.C. 30121 36 U.S.C. 510 "A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value" from a foreign national Prime Minister Narendra Modi:




I use this as an illustration of excessive and unwarranted strict interpretation of the law, NOT that I think Obama should be charged

Meanwhile, I hear rumours that Justin Trudeau will be giving $20 million dollars of Canadian tax payer monies to the Clinton Foundation?

In contrast with the Trump witch hunt, this is the kind of thing that should be investigated:

"A Canadian government agency promoting the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s nonprofit.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Department, which is responsible for the country’s diplomacy, donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014, according to data released by the group headed by the former president and the former secretary of State."

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/233185-canadian-pro-keystone-agency-donated-to-clinton-foundation

The optics of Don Jr talking with "Russians" to get "dirt" on Hillary, certainly looks bad, and is unseemly. I don't like it one bit, but that doesn't make it criminal. As the details start to unfold, this case actually looks very bad for the democrats. Delving into that is a subject for another post though.

Not to be taken seriously, but fun, none the less*:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKhiIqT98I

=^[.]^=

Day Job Orchestra isn't particularly political, skewering both sides of the aisle from time to time, but CNN is such a suitable case for treatment... =^[.]~=

Looks like Barron just got a new step brother!

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Xavderion wrote:

Looks like Barron just got a new step brother!

Spoiler

such a cute lil guy

lol