Election 2020
luka
Well-known member
The men Ed Buck lured to his apartment for “party and play” found themselves in a situation of life and death, prosecutors said.
Two men enticed by the promise of drugs for sex died. Those who survived overdoses reported harrowing encounters with a man bent on injecting them with methamphetamine and slipping them other drugs.
Nearly two years after Buck was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors, the wealthy Democratic donor is going on trial Tuesday on charges of providing fatal doses to two men, running a drug den and persuading others to travel for prostitution.
Two men enticed by the promise of drugs for sex died. Those who survived overdoses reported harrowing encounters with a man bent on injecting them with methamphetamine and slipping them other drugs.
Nearly two years after Buck was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors, the wealthy Democratic donor is going on trial Tuesday on charges of providing fatal doses to two men, running a drug den and persuading others to travel for prostitution.
luka
Well-known member
Buck, a wealthy white man who was active in gay and animal rights issues, exploited vulnerable men — most of them Black — paying them to come to his home to use drugs and engage in sex play, prosecutors said. Many were destitute drug users who often worked as prostitutes to support their habit.
“Buck’s preference was to personally inject victims, and he pressured or incentivized victims to let him do so, sometimes offering large cash bonuses to coerce a victim to agree to an injection or additional injections,” prosecutors said in court papers. “Other times, Buck simply injected victims while they were unconscious.”
“Buck’s preference was to personally inject victims, and he pressured or incentivized victims to let him do so, sometimes offering large cash bonuses to coerce a victim to agree to an injection or additional injections,” prosecutors said in court papers. “Other times, Buck simply injected victims while they were unconscious.”
IdleRich
IdleRich
Apart from the 80 odd indictments and convictions that came a direct result.
luka
Well-known member
i never heard of any of them so that means it had no effect plus everyone knows the point was to shunt Trump
from office
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Right, but in the end they got Al Capone for tax evasion, didn't they? You wouldn't therefore say he didn't commit all those murders he was accused of.
Or look at Blair, as I said. The Hutton report achieved far less than Mueller did, in terms of legal consequences for individuals. Does that exonerate Blair?
IdleRich
IdleRich
We can't judge effectiveness based on your ignorance.
Leo
Well-known member
AP: Few AZ voter fraud cases, discrediting Trump’s claims
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona county election officials have identified fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3 million ballots cast in last year’s presidential election, further discrediting former President Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state’s most populous county.
An Associated Press investigation found 182 cases where problems were clear enough that officials referred them to investigators for further review. So far, only four cases have led to charges, including those identified in a separate state investigation. No one has been convicted. No person’s vote was counted twice.
Arizona’s potential cases also illustrate another reality: Voter fraud is often bipartisan. Of the four Arizona cases that have resulted in criminal charges, two involved Democratic voters and two involved Republicans.
AP’s review supports statements made by many state and local elections officials — and even some Republican county officials and GOP Gov. Doug Ducey — that Arizona’s presidential election was secure and its results valid.
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona county election officials have identified fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3 million ballots cast in last year’s presidential election, further discrediting former President Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state’s most populous county.
An Associated Press investigation found 182 cases where problems were clear enough that officials referred them to investigators for further review. So far, only four cases have led to charges, including those identified in a separate state investigation. No one has been convicted. No person’s vote was counted twice.
Arizona’s potential cases also illustrate another reality: Voter fraud is often bipartisan. Of the four Arizona cases that have resulted in criminal charges, two involved Democratic voters and two involved Republicans.
AP’s review supports statements made by many state and local elections officials — and even some Republican county officials and GOP Gov. Doug Ducey — that Arizona’s presidential election was secure and its results valid.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I was gonna finish that with "Or else nothing will be effective" but I thought that would have been a cheap shot and not really fair.
I understand that an investigation which lasted months and cost twenty million dollars and which concluded with "He might have done it and he might not have but I can't be totally sure cos he refused to answer any of the tricky questions which might have helped me decide and I didn't test my powers to force him to answer them cos after all he is the president" might on the face of it seem a little disappointing, but the fact of all the arrests and so on which happened along the way changes that rather a lot.
Also, of course the head of the DOJ was Bill Barr, Trump's appointee and basically Trump's creature so he was never going to act on it anyway (I was actually surprised when it turned out that trying to pretend the election was stolen proved too much for him, maybe he realised it was never going to work, I can't believe it was down to principles). It was interesting that Barr thought that the report was sufficiently damaging to lie about its conclusions and ever since it's been extremely common to see people claiming that it exonerated Trump - some people lying, some having fallen for the lie I guess.
But overall I do think that you're wrong about the investigation - when I said that there were many indictments as a result of it, I do mean literally that; not that it uncovered crimes but, a number of indictments were so called process crimes, people lying to the investigation or lying to the FBI or whatever, cos they were so worried about what might come out.
I find something particularly funny that the investigation actually made people commit crimes and then arrested them and put them in jail for those crimes, how can that be a failure, it's almost the perfect investigation in that sense. It's also like something out of an Alain Robbe-Grillet novel sort of...
IdleRich
IdleRich
Genuine question though, do people feel that Trump did collude with Putin's attempt to put him in power? Personally I am really not sure but I lean towards "No" cos I reckon he is fairly inept and something would have come out by now if there was something.
Though, I'm not sure being an unwitting pawn in Putin's game is a massively better thing tot be than a co-conspirator - I suppose it makes him idiot rather than traitor.
Though, I'm not sure being an unwitting pawn in Putin's game is a massively better thing tot be than a co-conspirator - I suppose it makes him idiot rather than traitor.
Leo
Well-known member
depends on your definition of "collude". did they get together, brainstorm ideas and put a detailed plan together? no. did trump give Putin a wink, a green light, and look the other way when things surfaced? obviously, yes.
trump operates like a wannabe mafioso, speaks in code. I'm sure he dropped plenty of hints in his conversations with Putin, and Putin is smart enough to pick up on them. remember: "nice store you have here, be a shame if anything happened to it" isn't technically, legally, an extortion threat.
but also, it's not like Russia would have been sitting on their hands, waiting from direction from trump. they always done things to cause chaos and uncertainty for opponents, they probably would have done it all on their own anyway.
trump operates like a wannabe mafioso, speaks in code. I'm sure he dropped plenty of hints in his conversations with Putin, and Putin is smart enough to pick up on them. remember: "nice store you have here, be a shame if anything happened to it" isn't technically, legally, an extortion threat.
but also, it's not like Russia would have been sitting on their hands, waiting from direction from trump. they always done things to cause chaos and uncertainty for opponents, they probably would have done it all on their own anyway.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yeah, but keeping things at that kind of arms length was uncharacteristically smart for Trump. Perhaps part of his cunning but ruined brain did still register that that would be - potentially - a bad one. That his natural constituency would be the very ones who would not only draw the line at getting help from the traditional enemy to cheat in a presidential election, but that if they thought that that line had been crossed, then they would turn on him with the ferocity of a lover spurned.
Although I have to say that f he did think that I'm not sure that he was right. Definitely when he accepted Putin's words over the FBI or whatever it was, it felt as though a lot of MAGA were happy enough, I would have been quite interested to know what would have happened if that question was fully tested, I think that there were quite a lot of MAGA who would have said "If the only way for Trump and his friends to defeat Sleepy Joe and prevent socialism from taking over the US by cheating in the election, is to get help from Putin to cheat against the cheats then so be it".
I feel that we have something similar in the UK where you would get people arguing very passionately for Brexit as the only way of guaranteeing the sovereignty of the UK, that if you really loved the UK and believed that its continuing existence as a meaningful body was something worth fighting for, then you should surely vote Brexit. Now it has become clear that Brexit may have removed the UK from the EU but due to the Scottish desire to remain in the EU and the seemingly intractable problems relating to the NI/ROI border it has put an enormous strain on the union and threatens its existence far more than the EU ever did... and yet Brexiters say "well if the breaking up of the UK is the only way to protect Brexit then so be it":
In each case the thing (Brexit/Trump) which had been argued for as a pragmatic solution and a way to gain or maintain certain advantages has somehow metamorphosed into a holy object which must self-evidently be fought for at all costs EVEN including the loss of those very things it was supposed to protect.
Leo
Well-known member
scariest part is you start to question whether there are any adults in any room who, at some point, will say "ok, enough of this nonsense." at times that seems to be lead by the business community.
someone like Mitch mcconnell knows exactly what's going on but has been willing to stand silently on the sidelines as long as it means either thwarting democrats or empowering republicans. but at some point, do even the Mitch mcconnells of the world say "ok, enough"? I used to think the answer was yes. based on the evidence of the past year, I'm now not sure.
someone like Mitch mcconnell knows exactly what's going on but has been willing to stand silently on the sidelines as long as it means either thwarting democrats or empowering republicans. but at some point, do even the Mitch mcconnells of the world say "ok, enough"? I used to think the answer was yes. based on the evidence of the past year, I'm now not sure.
"the only way to save the village was to destroy it" comes to mind.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yeah I really don't know. That what I was saying with Barr, ok, he didn't throw his weight behind the Trump "big lie" and he pretty much washed his hands of it and sat back saying "I see no evidence of fraud so...".
But was that cos of his principles, cos he thought "I'll bend the law here and there and I'll do this and that to attack so and so in the service of my overlord Trump, but this, questioning the integrity of our elections and threatening the very fabric on which our great nation s built, is simply too much for me, this I cannot countenance"?
My guess is that it's more likely that, not being stupid, he looked at everything going on and thought to himself "Trump is gonna make a big fuss and try all kinds of shit, and he has got away with a lot from the day he was born to when he was elected president and beyond - but he is not gonna be able to whine his way into changing the election result in his favour so do I a) try and help him, inevitably fail and be remembered as an entirely evil failure who will be unemployable as soon as Trump is out or do I b) bravely take a hugely principled stand by saying "I haven't seen anything guv" and hide in the back room with the door locked and listening to music loudly until it's all over and thus hopefully be remembered as the one guy in the whole administration who did have a tiny bit of idealism still left in them somewhere?".
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yeah kinda but with a sort of intermediary step.
It does seem very strange to me, I think Trump voters are people who see themselves as patriots, who care a lot about the country. How did things change from "I believe that Tump is the person on the list of candidates who is most likely to take the steps which I consider to be best for the USA as a whole" to "Trump is the USA and whatever he wants is by definition best for the USA"?
I guess I am repeating or rephrasing the same questions I was asking the other day about the cult of Trump and so on.... but nobody has approached an answer so I guess that's not so surprising.