Trump's Rump

[Samson]

someone working on his campaign

That is a new euphemism for prostitute.

 

[Sommerswerd]

That is a new euphemism for prostitute.

that's pretty harsh... the campaign says she is part of the staff.

 

[Samson]

Truth Social Co-Founders Sue Company, Claim Trump Tried To Dilute Shares

Trump tried to screw business associates shocker

An estimated $4 billion business merger involving former President Donald Trump’s social media company could hit a major snarl after a lawsuit was filed Wednesday accusing Trump of trying to dilute the co-founders’ shares.

Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, who co-founded Trump’s Truth Social platform, filed a lawsuit in Delaware claiming their previously negotiated 8.6% stake in Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG ) has been watered down to less than 1%, The Washington Post and CNBC reported.

The dispute comes as TMTG eyes a merger with the publicly traded shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. The sale, which Digital World’s shareholders are scheduled to vote on next month, is estimated to be worth as much as $4 billion, according to The New York Times.

“The attempt here is to deprive them of the deal,” attorney Christopher J. Clark, who is representing Litinsky and Moss’ partnership, United Atlantic Ventures (UAV), in the complaint, told CNBC News. “They actually went out and did the work, they created Truth Social, and now the beneficiary of that, Donald Trump, doesn’t want to pay.”

 

[Gori the Grey]

Donald Trump, doesn’t want to pay.

Color me . . . whatever the antonym of surprised is.

 

[Arakhor]

That's the most unsurprising news since the time that I, a confirmed bachelor of over 25 years standing, revealed that I had no interest in getting married or having children.

 

[Zardnaar]

So is Trump getting more incoherent or is it just the usual levels of Trump stupidity?

 

[Sommerswerd]

In a move that surprised no one...

Supreme Court rules states can't kick Trump off ballot​

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday handed a sweeping win to former President Donald Trump by ruling states cannot kick him off the ballot over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — bringing a swift end to a case with huge implications for the 2024 election.

The court in an unsigned ruling with no dissents reversed the Colorado Supreme Court, which determined that Trump could not serve again as president under section 3 of the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

The provision prohibits those who previously held government positions but later “engaged in insurrection” from running for various offices.

The court said the Colorado Supreme Court had wrongly assumed that states can determine whether a presidential candidate or other candidate for federal office is ineligible.

The ruling makes it clear that Congress, not states, has to set rules on how the 14th Amendment provision can be enforced against federal office-seekers. As such the decision applies to all states, not just Colorado. States retain the power to bar people running for state office from appearing on the ballot under section 3.

"Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing section 3 against all federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse," the ruling said.

By deciding the case on that legal question, the court avoided any analysis or determination of whether Trump's actions constituted an insurrection.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/su...rump-cannot-kicked-colorado-ballot-rcna132291

 

[Lexicus]

Vote for Democrats - they will appoint Supreme Court Justices who side with traitors!

 

[Gorbles]

Can't wait for the "big government is bad" crowd to fall over themselves praising SCOTUS here.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Going back... this was one (of many) outcomes I thought was something the SCOTUS might opt to go with.

It might settle it for the purposes of the Colorado decision, but as Elie Honig points out (echoing my question #19 above), the SCOTUS can address whether individual states even have the authority to disqualify candidates based on the 14th Amendment in the first place.

So if SCOTUS just rules that disqualification under the 14th Amendment, Section 3 can only occur via an act of Congress (or the SCOTUS) then they can declare the Colorado decision improper on its face, essentially based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and then decline to rule on anything else as moot.

Even if they find against Colorado, I want it to be something clear and definitive... something bold and maybe even courageous that gives us clear direction on what the rule is... something like "Individual States cannot disqualify candidates under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, based on state law, period"

Careful what you wish for....

In any case, what the SCOTUS did, by avoiding a ruling on any of the other issues, is they technically left in place Colorado's finding that Trump committed insurrection. They did not appear to overrule that, rather they just avoided it entirely, which means it remains in place.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This

The ruling makes it clear that Congress, not states, has to set rules on how the 14th Amendment provision can be enforced against federal office-seekers.

is an entirely fine position for them to take, except for the fact that CONGRESS WON'T EVER ACTUALLY DO SO!!!11!1!!1!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Ex-Trump Org. CFO pleads guilty to perjury charges​

Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was charged on Monday with five counts of perjury relating to testimony he gave during the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump regarding the size of the Trump Tower triplex apartment and dealings he had with an insurer. Under a deal with prosecutors, Weisselberg, a longtime confidant of Trump’s, has agreed to plead guilty to two counts, both relating to testimony he gave during a 2020 deposition with the attorney general’s office.

He is not pleading guilty to counts related to the testimony he gave last year during a civil fraud trial when he was on supervised release but he will admit the testimony was false. Under the terms of the deal with prosecutors, Weisselberg will be sentenced to five months in jail – a deal identical to the prior arrangement he made. In the previous case he served about 100 days.

CNN
Earlier Monday, Weisselberg declined to comment to CNN. Seth Rosenberg, an attorney for Weisselberg, also declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Weisselberg had been in plea talks with Manhattan prosecutors for several weeks relating to his testimony taken during the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into the former president in 2020 and when he testified last year, several people familiar with the investigation said. As part of the plea talks, Weisselberg was not expected to turn on Trump and will not testify against him at the New York criminal hush money case scheduled to start later this month, the people said.

Trump is indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment and reimbursement before the 2016 presidential election. Weisselberg was central to the financial dealings but neither prosecutors nor Trump’s attorneys said they plan to call him as a witness. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

It is the second guilty plea by Weisselberg, who in 2022 pleaded guilty to 15 counts of tax fraud and testified in the trial of two Trump Org. entities. Weisselberg was credited with giving truthful testimony and the entities were convicted and fined. The judge sentenced Weisselberg to five months in jail and supervised release. He served about 100 days in Rikers Island jail.

The latest charges are a blow personally for Weisselberg, who is in his late 70s with medical issues. Last month, the New York state judge overseeing the attorney general’s civil case found Weisselberg liable for fraud and ordered him to pay $1 million plus interest, roughly half of the $2 million severance he received from the Trump Org.

In the hush money case, Weisselberg helped arrange the reimbursement to Michael Cohen, the ex-president’s former lawyer, who advanced $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public about an affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair.

The payment initially drew scrutiny of federal prosecutors who gave Weisselberg limited immunity for his testimony before a federal grand jury. Prosecutors moved forward with charges against Cohen.

“Because the Trump Organization is a privately held company, had I remained silent and stayed on Donald’s desired messaging, none of this would have been exposed,” Cohen told CNN. Cohen was investigated by federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to multiple charges in 2018. He did not cooperate with the federal investigation. However, he did cooperate with the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation and is expected to testify against Trump at the trial later this month.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/04/politics/allen-weisselberg-trump-org-cfo-plea-perjury/index.html

 

[Birdjaguar]

Scotus decision at this link

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/04/politics/read-supreme-court-opinion-trump-colorado-ballot/index.html

 

[Gori the Grey]

Re Weisselberg (but also SC, for that matter): Color me . . . whatever the antonym of surprised is.

Do we really have nothing better than "unsurprised"?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Re Weisselberg (but also SC, for that matter): Color me . . . whatever the antonym of surprised is.

Do we really have nothing better than "unsurprised"?

Meh?

 

[Lexicus]

This

is an entirely fine position for them to take, except for the fact that CONGRESS WON'T EVER DO SO!!!11!1!!1!

What floors me the most about this is those three "liberal" wastes of flesh couldn't even give us a good dissent along the lines of "the majority is ignoring the plain text of the 14th amendment to ensure that its preferred candidate remains on the ballot."

 

[Sommerswerd]

Do we really have nothing better than "unsurprised"?

How about "unimpressed"?; or:


I guess that's the right word but it doesn't capture the spirit of what you are trying to convey... what about this one?:


Or you could go with the classic... "McKayla Maroney is not impressed" (with your medal ceremony)

Or in this case... "McKayla Maroney is not impressed with your SCOTUS ruling"

 

[Gori the Grey]

Well, I'm also unimpressed (with Weisselberg or the SC), but that's not an antonym for surprised. I can actually figure a reason for that. Not-surprised is so much our normal state, that it doesn't seem to need specifying by its own term.

 

[soundjata]

What floors me the most about this is those three "liberal" wastes of flesh couldn't even give us a good dissent along the lines of "the majority is ignoring the plain text of the 14th amendment to ensure that its preferred candidate remains on the ballot."

Democracy!
and the greatest of all (the northern star of humankind)

 

[Sommerswerd]

What floors me the most about this is those three "liberal" wastes of flesh couldn't even give us a good dissent along the lines of "the majority is ignoring the plain text of the 14th amendment to ensure that its preferred candidate remains on the ballot."

I'm noticing commentary/articles online that are pointing to the complaints the liberal Justices raise in their concurring opinions. The TL;DR of which is that they only needed to hold that individual states can't kick Trump off the ballot via the 14th amendment. They did not need to also hold that only Congress can do so.

"This is a warning": Analyst highlights SCOTUS liberals' "shot across the bow" in Trump ballot case​

"In the concurrence from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, a warning of sorts in my view to some of the other justices saying, we didn't need to decide anything more here than the principle that states don't have the authority to disqualify candidates for federal offices," Rubin said Monday.

"By going further than that," Rubin added, "and saying that only Congress has that enforcement power, 'You have decided something that didn't need to be done,' and they say, 'We protest the majority's efforts to use this case to define the limits of federal endorsement of that provision because we would only decide the issue before us. We concur only in the judgment.'

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/04/th...-liberals-shot-across-the-bow-in-ballot-case/

I have to admit that I'm unimpressed with that distinction. First of all, what "warning"? They're in the minority... they had no power to stop Trump getting a favorable ruling. Second, the 14th Amendment, section 5 states explicitly that "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.", so that position, that Congress are the ones who have the power to enforce it, was an obvious position for the Court to take if they wanted.

The other, more practical thing, is that if they aren't allowing the states to enforce it, then the only other governmental body to theoretically be able to do so would be them, ie the SCOTUS, so by complaining that the majority put the responsibility solely in the hands of Congress... they are essentially complaining that the SCOTUS didn't reserve the power for themselves or at least leave the door open for them to do so later.

But assuming that was their intention, that would be a puzzling position for them to take, since they didn't dissent. The SCOTUS unanimously voted to keep Trump on the ballot, which has the effect of sending the message "we (the SCOTUS) aren't getting involved in disqualifying Trump"... so then going on to say "its Congress' problem/job not ours" was the natural extension of that. If the liberal Justices disagreed with that position, they could have dissented and said that they felt that SCOTUS had a role here and they should have found Trump committed insurrection and disqualified him. They are in the minority, so the result would have been the same, ie a ruling in Trump's favor.