@mastodonmigration He just means united state and church, billionaires and bureaucrats suppressing people rights and freedoms to stay in power forever. "Unified" means likely that democracy abolished, and those who do not praise Trump in approved manner will be sent to jail or mental hospital in Soviet manner
Classic NYT Maggie Haberman finger on the scale masgerading as straight news:
"The prosecutors’ proposed instructions, among other things, ask the judge to give the jury what legal experts said was unusual flexibility in determining whether Mr. Trump had a role in the creation of the false records at the center of the charges."
What "legal experts"?
This is NY law. How is it "unusual" to advise juries about the law?
The defense on the Trump election fraud trial has rested. Many will discuss what a terrible final witness Robert Costello was, and he was a disaster, but maybe more relevant to the outcome will be what the defense did not do.
Trump's team offered no defense that in any way contradicticted or shred doubt on the key physical hard evidence, the Cohen bank statement with Weisselberg's "grossed up" notes.
If there were any other explanation for doubling the amount than the payback being disguised as income, the defense would certainly have brought someone forward to provide the explanation. Weisselberg or some other witness could have explained it, but they can't because there is no other explanation. So they are stuck with trying to impeach Cohen by bringing a crony liar up on the stand. It's all they had.
Tomorrow in the Trump election fraud trial, Cohen's cross examination will conclude. The usual suspects on TV will offer their hot takes as to whether the defense 'scored points' or 'dirtied up Cohen' successfully.
Let's try to stay focused on the facts, not some kind of sports coverage analogy.
Bottom line is going to be, did Trump approve "grossing up" Cohen's payment, thereby commiting fraud, as shown in this piece of hard evidence, the Cohen bank statement with Weisseberg's notes?
So now SpaceX, with no working spacesuit, and years behind on it's multi-billion dollar moon lander, is lobbying NASA to go to the Hubble Space Telescope.
"A successful private mission could improve Hubble's ability to point at celestial objects and, by boosting its orbit, extend its life by years... however, an accident could leave the multibillion-dollar telescope broken — or, even more tragically, tethered to the dead bodies of the astronauts sent to repair it."
Something about this plan to move Hubble, didn't make sense. If the space telescope still has 10 years of useful life, why this risky SpaceX mission to boost it's orbit now?
Well it turns out the main thing threatening the utility of Hubble is... wait for it... SpaceX Starlink satellites, which orbit just above Hubble constantly "photo-bombing" the images. Within a few years there will be so many Starlinks that Hubble will be useless.
Action. If you feel energized by this issue and want to learn more about how Starlink is wrecking astronomy as well as creating the potential for a Kessler Syndrome catastrophe please follow eminent astronomer activist Prof. Samantha Lawler @sundogplanets and join the Kessler Rebellion (https://www.kesslerrebellion.com/take-action) initiative to get the FCC to properly regulate Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
For those following the Trump election fraud trial.
Just wondering about the New York Times' journalistic ethics having Maggie Haberman covering the Trump election fraud trial, when she is also identified several times during the trial as a go to reporter for pushing out stories Team Trump want to favorably spin.
For those following the Trump election fraud trial.
Is this really what just happened?
Trump attorney shows Cohen texts between Cohen and Schiller that do not mention the Stormy matter. The attorney then says that these texts prove Cohen did not discuss the Stormy matter in a subsequent phone call.
Missing something here? Does this make any logical sense?
Have gone back and looked at it, and not sure it is such a problem. It seems very possible that Cohen could have spoken to Trump during a minute thirty quick interaction. Something like, "Yes, yes, you'll get paid." And hands phone back to Schiller.
We will see how the prosecution deals with it. Thanks for the clarifications.
So, over in the astronomy world there is some consternation about a tweet from eminent satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Apparently "Starlink Precipitation" is now a thing. And yes, you got that right, Starlink precipitation is pieces of Elon Musk's fucking internet satellites raining down from space.
Action. If you feel energized by this issue and want to learn more about how Starlink is wrecking astronomy as well as creating the potential for a Kessler Syndrome catastrophe please follow eminent astromoner activist Prof. Samantha Lawler @sundogplanets and join the Kessler Rebellion (https://www.kesslerrebellion.com/take-action) initiative to get the FCC to properly regulate Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Really disappointed in Biden today. Believe given climate crisis we should be doing everything we can, including buying inexpensive EVs from China, to hasten the transition from carbon based fuels.
That said, certainly international relations are complex and we don't have all the information or know all the constraints he is wrestling with.
In any case, would never threaten to withhold electoral support. These issues pale measured against a Trump win and the incumbent end of democracy.
@mastodonmigration he is an isolationist like Trump. He is also a war monger and very selective in civil rights. The two candidates may have different personalities etc, but policy wise there are a lot of similarities between Dems and GOP
@mastodonmigration@Lassielmr preaching to the converted there mate. If I were a U.S. voter it’d be a no brainer for me.
To me, the longer term issue in the US is the same as in the U.K.: Long in the tooth democracies, with voting and election setups that no longer work well in the current times, and legal setups that no longer work well enough, nor speedily enough, when confronted with bad faith actors of the worst sort, as is clearly evident now.
New gag order violation? How does the judge deal with all this? Trump keeps finding new ways to break the law and rope others into breaking the law for him.
"New York Magazine's Andrew Rice, appearing on MSNBC's "Alex Wagner Tonight," said he spotted Trump rewriting and editing lines that would be spoken by the handful of notable guests who made the pilgrimage to the court, where he's on trial for falsifying business records."
Probably the most important documentary evidence of the crime in the Trump election fraud case is this Michael Cohen bank statement showing an amount Weisselberg wrote on the document of $420,000 — the $130,000 plus $50,000 repayments grossed up to $360,000 to account for taxes and a $60,000 bonus.
The fraud is revealed by "grossing it up" since this demonstrates the payments are being represented as income when in fact they are a repayment of the hush money Cohen gave Stormy Daniels.
Cohen today said it was Melania's idea to spin the Access Hollywood tape as "locker room talk." We will most certainly get strong push back on this from team Trump in the days ahead, but let's recall that immediately after the tape came out just prior to the 2016 election, Melania was all over the media pushing this 'totally unfair' "boy talk" damage control canard.
Here is just one example from an interview with Anderson Cooper on October 17, 2016:
@mastodonmigration It still irritates me that at one time I actually felt sorry for Melania not knowing that she is of the exact same ilk as Trump. Good grief our press- this was right before the election and Melania just softly murmurs inanities and Anderson Cooper just nods along or pushes back with all the will power and strength of a single strand of dandelion fluff floating merrily on the breeze.