The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(05-21-2021, 02:04 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(05-20-2021, 05:56 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-20-2021, 01:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Can states block federal extradition?

Consider that the FBI typically charges its quarry with an offense for which people rarely get convicted: interstate flight to evade prosecution. The FBI usually drops that federal charge because the state charges such as murder, rape, kidnapping,   armed robbery, or even grand theft auto are more consequential.

There is no escaping IRS charges for tax fraud. States cannot block an IRS investigation.

The US Postal Service catches a surprising number of offenders on mail fraud, wire fraud, and bank fraud. I would suspect that the largest number of white-collar offenders in the federal penal system were convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, or bank fraud. Almost any scam involves a violation of mail fraud, wire fraud, or bank fraud.

Once one is in federal custody, the state government can no longer protect one. State officials cannot protect anyone from an IRS audit, let alone federal charges of just about anything. If the Feds get their hands on the former President, then the Feds can decide where he is tried. It could be Georgia for electoral fraud (which would involve wire fraud due to the phone call) or New York for various tax offenses.

It's notable that the NY State Attorney General joined an NYC case in progress, and the District Attorney is happy about that. There may be some collaboration, or it could just be intended to avoid one party granting immunity to person A, when the other entity needs to have him or her on the hot seat.  Prior to the collaboration, the state was only pursing civil penalties.  Not so now.

Is she a partisan political hack like you guys?

Would that make a prosecution any more effective, should it be carried out? We have never had a former President charged with violations of the federal criminal code before, so we are in uncharted territory should we ever have an indictment of a former President. On the other hand, no prior President has ever had so many shady deeds as President Trump had before or during his President. Most high-profile pols have some hangers-on who do anything for their pal, and that pol may at times find them useful for fund-raising or as a "hatchet-man", but when such people are caught for doing illegal stuff in the name of an electoral victory, using their connections to enrich themselves unlawfully, or doing some crime in personal indulgence (all of which is abuse of power, a great temptation that many people cannot resist), then prosecutions of such people are possible. Think of some Nixon appointments.

This said, prosecution of those who have recently been close to the President and have had high profiles in news media causes many of us to tremble or to shed tears. We are all legitimately scared of political witch-hunts, as almost all of us have 'voted wrong' at some point in our lives. This time the prosecution seems likely to culminate not in the likes of Albert Fall,  John Mitchell, Robert Haldeman, or John Erlichman. It is not going to be someone who got as high in a position of power as former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert who messed with minors long before he became Speaker of the House. Yes it can be sickening. Power and privilege do not redeem a person devoid of self-control or moral compass. At the extreme consider the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. 

Unless one prosecutes on behalf of a despot as devoid of justice as Josef Stalin it is generally foolish to fabricate a criminal case from nothing other than vindictiveness or fear. We have never had a former President indicted for a felony crime. Unfortunately for Donald Trump he will be the first exception among thirty-eight former Presidents who survived the Presidency. Donald Trump has been a shady character much of his life, and he was still elected President. 

Yes, I realize that one can interpret the indictment of someone who won 74 million votes in a bid for re-election, and I am not going to say that he did not get those through any electoral fraud, might seem an insult to the self-perceived astuteness of those voters. OK, so Trump is good at fooling people. So what! It is highly immoral to fool people to fleece them or to get them connected to vile deeds.        

      

Quote:Is there evidence of it within the public realm that can be used against her and the state she represents during a lawsuit.

Criminal defendants have often accused prosecutors of misconduct before the case whose proceedings have since proved immaculate. Prosecutorial misconduct happens, but that is best established by the defendant's attorney better able to document such for an appeal than by a defendant who knows nothing about the intricacies of the law and of legal practice. A prosecutor definitely has the intent to do one of the worst things possible to a person, which is to achieve a conviction that leads to imprisonment or even a lawful execution.    

Quote:I'm glad to see the rule of law no longer matters to those on the Left.

Wrong. The center-left accepts the old conservative principle that the rule of law is essential to a sane and just society and to the protection of civil liberties. Any prosecution of Donald Trump will succeed only in the furtherance of the rule of law; mere vindictiveness for his political agenda will be inadequate. Any successful prosecution of him will require solid evidence or testimony. False statements on tax returns will be enough to get him convicted in a court of law.   

Quote:It's going to make the elimination of those on the Left much easier. So, I hope you don't bitch about one of us having the same power as her and the freedom to use public resources as a political tool/weapon against people like you and her either.

Liberals are as capable as conservatives of expressing the principle best rhymed as "do the crime and do the crime", and they must do so when they are by fault the prosecutors or judges when and where conservative pols by American standards are rare. "Blue" areas are more violent than the rest of America as a whole only where social conditions are hideous. This said, "do no crime and do no time" is also a valid assumption.   

Quote: Oh, now that fascism is acceptable to you and since you're now related to it and currently supporting it, does it really matter if we are fascists or not at this point? You do understand that you are supporting fascism and you do understand that you are more likely going to be harmed or be killed one way or another because of your association with it today.

Liberalism is the diametric opposite of fascism.  Unlike fascism, liberalism well serves people who have self-control and a moral compass. 

Yes, anyone who dons a garish KKK robe or an offensive Nazi getup offends most sensibilities. The difference between one and the other is that one has an ideology compatible with large-scale genocide and the other is connected with large-scale genocide. I can imagine the KKK setting up concentration camps and torture chambers if it got the chance because its ideology is similar to that of Nazis who did mass shootings and herded people into gas chambers. Although I consider science-fiction scenarios in which the Axis powers, evil as they are in historical reality, conquering America I can easily imagine Nazis using the KKK as perpetrators of a Holocaust in America and as enforcers of Nazi ideology. KKK=(Nazi swastika) and KKK=(SS runes) are not hysterical exaggerations.

The few fascists who did little killing (Salazar, Dollfuss, Schuschnigg, Metaxas, and the pre-WWII military leaders of Poland come to mind) seem more to be ultra-conservatives with moral compasses. I can fully accept Schuschnigg having the assassins of his predecessor executed. If anything I am likely to extricate the label "fascist" from them. If such is what it takes to thwart a proletarian revolution and the mass death that ensures from such, then so be it. Good people in political life do not leave a trail of innocent martyrs, religious, ethnic, or political. The hyper-villains of history from Pontius Pilate (Jesus was not his only innocent victim) to DAESH do that.   

We liberals know well enough to avoid toying with Marxism-Leninism, which has a record of repression and mass death similar to that of fascists.   

Now you tell me...

  

how does this not fit Donald Trump? It is all pathology. Then again, Donald Trump is political pathology and little else.