Free Republic

“So if he becomes the Trump VP nominee then will the Left counter with another black person....”

The person who’s been mentioned as a possible Trump running mate is Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). This thread is about Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL).

Tim is black. Rick is white.

Rick would be a terrible choice for VP. Before he was elected, he was implicated in significant Medicare fraud.

“Why would they make this problem for themselves? Anybody?”

The long-established practice is that the party that holds the White House goes second, holding its convention in August. The party of the challenger goes first, generally with a July convention.

In 2020, the Republican convention was second. As a result, Trump was renominated AFTER the Ohio deadline for the ballot. Guess what, the Republicans who control Ohio granted him an exemption. I’m guessing that, this time around, the Democrats assumed the same thing would happen.

As for all the comments about the Dems finding a “friendly” judge: The Ohio law, in practice, is that a candidate nominated after early August gets on the ballot if he’s a Republican but not if he’s a Democrat. That is, frankly, absurd. Any honest judge, regardless of political orientation, would say that Ohio can’t put a thumb on the scales like that.

This goes far beyond the standard complaints about drop boxes and the like. Anyone of either party can use a drop box. Ohio is trying to engage in blatant discrimination, and I predict it will be overturned in court. I further predict that the very attempt will be used by the Democrats to paint the GOP as being against fair elections

“They don’t agree- they have to get off or be reseated. Flight was fully seated, and no other available....”

That’s the part that I don’t understand. In that whole cabin, couldn’t the flight crew have quickly found ONE person who was willing to change seats with her and was willing and able to assist with an emergency exit?

My impression from the photo is that she had an aisle seat, so maybe she wouldn’t agree to exchange with middle or window. Even so, somebody with an aisle seat should have figured out that switching would get them to their destination a lot more quickly.

“I’m not saying he’s absolutely wrong, but I am saying I take that style of hyperbole with a grain of salt.”

Gotta disagree with you. I AM saying he’s absolutely wrong.

“He’s been told he can’t defend himself, can’t say he’s innocent, etc.”

Where do you get that? He has an absolute right to take the stand and defend himself and say he’s innocent. (The gag order doesn’t apply to in-court testimony). Whether or not he testifies, his attorneys can defend him in other ways.

Most notably, because the prosecution has the burden of proof, defense attorneys can sometimes win without putting in any evidence, just by cross-examining the prosecution witnesses — which Trump’s attorneys have done. They can also put in evidence instead of or in addition to Trump’s testimony.

“It’s like Trump is not allowed to defend himself whatsoever ....”

Actually, one point that’s gotten a lot of discussion in the media is whether Trump will testify in his own defense. It’s clear that he’s allowed to. Speculation is that he wants to but that his attorneys are urging him not to testify.

In the first trial against E. Jean Carroll (civil case for defamation and sexual assault), Trump took his attorney’s advice and didn’t testify. He lost. Since then he’s been saying (correctly IMO) that he got bad legal advice in that instance. So maybe he’ll overrule his lawyers and take the stand this week.

“With leftists (progressive Marxists), who now include all Democrat politicians, no penalties for lawlessness apply....”

Not so fast there. The Department of Justice secured an indictment of Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for corruption. His trial was scheduled to begin today so I assume it’s under way.

He’s up for re-election this year, but the party wanted nothing to do with him. He didn’t even file to enter the Democratic primary.

“Unfortunately the website is not available to European readers, so could you, please, tell me how they explained that all the vote counts were equal despite some votes being double counted?”

The officials’ explanation is that the ballots were SCANNED twice but not COUNTED twice. Sometimes, when they fed a ballot into a scanner, it didn’t get scanned properly for some reason, so they tried again.

The obvious check would be to examine the list of people who signed in to vote. The number of such voters in a precinct should equal the total number of ballots counted in that precinct. I don’t know whether this was done.

“I meant to say that Trump has been known to favor RINOs over other Republican candidates even in close primary races.”

Would you elaborate on that? I’m a little hazy on the details. There might have been cases where Trump endorses the less conservative candidate in favor of some rich guy who can self-fund, but I don’t think Trump has favored RINOs very often.

Thanks for the info! You’re right that the ability to raise money is a key consideration. I’m glad to learn that Smiley has done well in that regard. It also means that she starts with a large donor list from her 2022 race. Many of them will presumably help her out again.

There's probably some danger of a repeat of the 2022 "jungle primary" result. If Newhouse's Republican challengers again split the vote, then Newhouse could again be the highest-finishing Republican. Some Democrat could take second place. Then the November runoff would again be RINO versus Democrat.

According to the NR article, Trump has endorsed a candidate who, in 2022, finished fourth, with only 12% of the vote. Maybe he should reconsider that in light of Smiley's entry. In 2022, she ran for the Senate against long-time Democratic incumbent Patty Murray. Murray had the advantages of incumbency and huge name recognition (she'd been in the Senate since 1993). Smiley lost by 15%. That's a decent showing in state where Biden beat Trump by 19%. In this very red Congressional district, Smiley should have a good chance.

As I understand the dynamic, a lot of short selling can benefit the investors who purchased the stock early. At some point, the short sellers must go into the market to buy shares to cover their short position. Their hope is that, by the time that happens, the stock price will have fallen and they can buy shares cheaply. The risk is that other short sellers will also be looking to buy the stock, which drives the price up.

From Wikipedia (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_squeeze for full article):

“Short squeezes result when short sellers of a stock move to cover their positions, purchasing large volumes of stock relative to the market volume. Purchasing the stock to cover their short positions raises the price of the shorted stock, thus triggering more short sellers to cover their positions by buying the stock; i.e., there is increasing demand. This dynamic can result in a cascade of stock purchases and an even bigger jump of the share price.[2][3] Borrow, buy and sell timing can lead to more than 100% of a company’s shares sold short.[4][5] This does not necessarily imply naked short selling, since shorted shares are put back onto the market, potentially allowing the same share to be borrowed multiple times.[6]

“Short squeezes tend to happen in stocks that have expensive borrow rates. Expensive borrow rates can increase the pressure on short sellers to cover their positions, further adding to the reflexive nature of this phenomenon.”

Many individuals and institutions want to short the DJT stock simply because they dislike Donald Trump. That raises the potential that, down the road, there could be a short squeeze that would send the price skyrocketing, as spacejunkie2001 wrote.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: The foregoing is not investment advice. I’m just offering wild guesses based on what I read in the mass media. I, personally, am neither buying nor selling the stock. Good luck to those of you who do!

“Waste of time. That’s why...”

Of course there is zero chance of conviction in the Senate. But the Dems demonstrated with their impeachments of Trump that even a hopeless attack can generate useful publicity. There are lots of voters who will skip past routine political news to get to the baseball scores, but who will take notice if there’s an impeachment.

I unhappily offer my explanation for the failure to impeach: There are too many RINOs who are afraid to rock the boat.

“NASDAQ:DJT is option traded on the CBOE, I’d buy puts if I thought it was going to tank.”

An interesting point — but you can’t buy puts unless someone is willing to sell. It seems that most of the purchasers who are bullish on DJT stock are small investors who don’t get into anything as sophisticated as options trading. Institutions that are bearish would want to buy puts, not sell.

I’m one of those small investors who don’t get into options trading, lol. Is there a way to find out if a lot of puts (or calls) are being traded, and at what price?

“The dims will get him on via the courts, but it is fun to watch.”

The same rule was in effect last cycle, but the Republicans gave Trump an exception so he could get on the ballot. (It’s usual that the incumbent party’s convention goes second. That’s why, in 2020, the Democrats met the deadline but the Republicans didn’t.)

So, yeah, if the GOP politicians who control Ohio elections apply the rule selectively, the results will be: (1) they’ll get sued, (2) as you predict, they’ll lose the suit and Biden will get on the ballot, and (3) the Democrats, who don’t want to talk about the border, will instead talk about how the Republican Party tried a sleazy undemocratic maneuver. Net gain for Biden IMO.

“and Trump called for J6 protestors to peacefully protest”

Under this terrible decision, that doesn’t matter. Trump called for them to peacefully protest, therefore he was calling for them to protest, and he’d be liable for any criminal act that anyone committed during the protest. There’s no need to show that he ordered it or even wanted it.

Didn’t the Supreme Court just eliminate Trump’s best defense to the J6-related prosecution in DC?

Thanks for the explanation that Lang chose to waive his right to a speedy trial. Very valuable info!

“That is why when Trump wins again, the mass media needs to be seized by the military and all normal broadcasting shut down, to be replaced by the proceedings of the military tribunal(s) to follow until such time as full military justice has been administered to the evil garbage around us.”

I always thought of Free Republic as a place where people took pride in defending the Constitution.

Your plan for defending the Constitution is to abrogate the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, along with all of Article III?

And this will be done simply by Executive Order, because who needs that pesky Article I, either?

What happened to the “right to a speedy trial”???

I was wondering the same thing. Apparently the answer is that his case is caught up in the pending appeal to the Supreme Court, in which other J6 defendants argue against some of the charges on which they were convicted. If they win, Lang couldn’t be tried on similar charges, so his trial awaits the SCOTUS decision.

As to why he’s still in custody, his conduct was more violent than that of others, but the main thing is that he ruined his own bail application by shooting his mouth off afterwards. According to a news story:

[Judge] Nichols cited the two-hour duration of Lang's alleged combat with police; his lack of remorse as he bragged about his activities on social media; and the strength of the evidence against him in video recordings and his social media posts.

But the judge also gave another reason to keep Lang in jail: alarming comments that he allegedly made on social media after the riot about "getting a f---ing arsenal together" for Biden's inauguration and waging war against the government.

"I think these messages — which, again, happened after January 6th — they were not in the heat of the moment, and they reflect at least a risk that in the future Mr. Lang would, as the government put it, be at risk of committing or advocating violence in favor of his political beliefs," Nichols said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/three-years-jan-6-riot-080103869.html

The takeaway: If you're planning to get an arsenal together and wage war on the government, don't brag about your plans on social media.

“Article II section 4 would be superfluous if the head of the executive branch and the nation’s chief magistrate could be subject to prosecution under Article III.”

That doesn’t follow at all. A president could be prosecuted for acts done before becoming president, which would not be a basis for removal from office. Or a president while in office might commit an act that was a crime but that didn’t rise to the level of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” (That phrase must mean something other than just any old crime.) Or a president might do anything at all on January 19, when there’s not enough time to go through impeachment and conviction.

The Constitution specifies the bases for removing someone from office. It doesn’t say that removal from office is a necessary prerequisite to an ordinary criminal prosecution, especially one brought after the president has left office anyway.