Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

If there's a good criminal case against someone who was in office, the next government should bring it, even if it means they are indicting someone from the other political party. Part of what is delicate about this republic is the rule of law, and lawyers accusing people of crimes is only a problem if they're wrong.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonie.../dp/1594035229

Our state and fed criminals code are already ridiculously overbroad. The question is rarely if a person committed a crime as much as if a person is an attractive target upon whom the codes may be inflicted.

We have strict liability crimes. We have crimes that are considered crimes even if no one is actually directly harmed by them. Most of our laws are designed to protect property rights. You can rape someone and do a fraction of the time you will for fraud.

Setting these ludicrous rule books (written by a mix of dimwitted legislators' aides and corporate lobbyists) loose in the political realm is already problematic enough. I don't think we should be encouraging more of it, particularly where this power could be abused by a wanna be autocrat like Trump.

ETA: Aaron Swartz, decades of targeting minorities via the War on Drugs, this sort of shit - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov I think we have more than enough lawyers running around throwing rule books at people. Christ, we jail more people per capita than the Chinese! The financial and human losses accrued from our overly litigious civil and criminal justice systems, and their legislative enablers, must be somewhere in the several trillions per decade.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

So we shouldn't prosecute anyone?

My own view is that local police and prosecutors are much more likely to abuse the broad discretion that they have, and that over-enforcement of the law against the wealthy and powerful isn't a thing.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

No. We should prosecute far fewer people, and we should stop trying to come up with novel theories on which prosecute people (bullshit like "honest services fraud," which can still cover almost anything).

I agree the state level is where you'll find the worst abuses. And I agree that targeting of wealthy and powerful people isn't widespread. The feds don't go after anyone they aren't damn sure they can nail. If you've seen an investigation of a political figure, you'll see the feds work assiduously to nail the politico, who often doesn't have much money. But the private sector people involved in the conspiracy -- the rich dudes who bought off the politico? The feds will often avoid going after those guys, or give them immunity or a sweetheart deal to flip on the politician. Why? Because those guys can afford to fight. They might actually win, and complicate the prosecution of the poorer members of the conspiracy the feds can usually spend into the ground. This is how you get garbage cases like the prosecution of that ex-governor of Virginia.

Same shit happens all day at the state level, too. They'll max out charges on poor people to run up the felony convictions but rollover and plead out to misdemeanors the minute a defendant with some money hires a lawyer to get in their faces and make them work. Why? So they can get that W/L ratio that gets them a promotion, or if they're really serious Tracey Flicks, a "tough on crime" rep they ride to a DA gig.

Bullies, top to bottom, in battles where they've brutally asymmeteric resources relative to almost all of their targets.

Justice is supposed to be blind, detached. But I don't think it was supposed to be nihilistic. People lament that Trump has turned politics into a pure power game? Get fucking real. Our court system is little more than a pure power game. He's just helping our political system to catch up to our "justice" system.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

OK, fine, whatever. My point: If people in the Trump Administration do crimes, and you can make a good case against them applying whatever standard we are generally applying, we should not give them a pass because they figured out how to do the crimes while exploiting the public trust in a political job.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Honestly, you two should run for office. Chock full of ideas about what actually elected people should do.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

You have ideas too, Hank! They're in there! Just let them out.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I’m doing it! And I’m going to win (because my views on things are totally in line with most people.) And when I do, I’m putting George Carlin on the 20, Chappelle on the 50, and giving Charlie Watts the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Nevermind his citizenship or knighthood.).

“Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.!”

(Witmer looked pretty hot. And I think I just saw Rush Limbaugh get a medal. I’m still processing that. Flashback hallucination? ...That’d be a pretty strange one. But then Trump is President, so....

This World is Definitely a Sarcastic Simulation.)

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Looking forward to some Democratic mobilization this year.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

This is why you lose elections. People care about the economy, jobs, and health care.

Most people are not as far up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as you and I and everyone else here. They don't give a fuck about impeachment (most are too dim to even understand it). They don't care about Ukraine. They don't care about Epstein, or Schiff, or Nadler. They see the thing as a giant waste of time.

Lawyers are interested in this stuff because it's our area. Look up how many lawyers there are in the country.

That ad will mobilize people. People already in your pocket. People of no consequence in an electoral college contest.

Jesus Christ... It's amazing how clueless people can be that they'd think that ad is going to be a game changer. All that will do is enflame people already annoyed with politicians bickering and doing nothing.

Here is wisdom: Counter his economic argument, or risk losing what ought to be easily winnable. Shut the fuck up about impeachment. Like Nancy told you to. And hide Schiff and Nadler in a closet for the next ten months. They're walking billboards for Trump.

The Gov of Michigan wasn't great last nite (a bit muddled), but she was on the right track. Talk about what you'll do for people. And don't stop talking about it. Getting in the mud with Trump is wrestling a pig who has so far and probably will continue to beat the fuck out of you in that arena. It's where he wants to go. Why the fuck would you go there? How stupid can the people running that ad possibly be?

It's like you want to make people understand your anger and share it more than you want to win. They don't. And they get annoyed by preachy, disconnected people running ads like that telling them what to think and taking shots at an opponent while saying nothing about jobs, the economy, or health care.

I know this is a rant, but one last point: Health care! Health care! Health care! Slam him with that. And slam him with his comments about rolling back entitlements. And in a very surgical manner, aim ads about abortion, showing that dumbass speaking a pro life rally, in the Philly suburbs, where the husbands are all voting Trump, but the wives might feel affluent enough to vote on non-economic bases.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I don't mean to hit you again, but in a race where we are already hearing "if it ain't Bernie I ain't voting (or voting 3rd party)" this stuff might keep people pulling the correct lever.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Who do you think the intended audience for this was?

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

You win elections through a combination of motivating your base and persuading the people who could go either way. You do both, not one or the other.

And more than anyone else here, you should know that voters are ready to waste their vote on a pointless statement of sympathy for a message that pushes the right buttons.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

The message you have to overcome with the swing voters you are targeting is, “I hate Trump personally, but the economy is going well, and things are looking up for me, so why fuck with a decent thing?“

I could afford to vote for a third-party candidate. The majority of swing voters that you’re going to need to convert are lower on Maslow‘s hierarchy than me. That’s why I made that point.

The way you convert those voters is to hammer home healthcare, more jobs, and an even better economy. “Trump sucks” and “people like Adam Schiff think he’s evil,” ain’t getting you anywhere.

I don’t know who put together that ad, but he or she does not have a clue about the nature of the swing voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, and Texas.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

People deciding between a moderate Democrat like Buttigieg or Biden and Trump. They are the only voters up for grabs.