10 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 12

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Tags: usa, politics, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

26 comments

  1. [11]
    langis_on
    Link
    Judge fines Donald Trump more than $350 million, bars him from running businesses in N.Y. for three years

    Judge fines Donald Trump more than $350 million, bars him from running businesses in N.Y. for three years

    8 votes
    1. [5]
      KapteinB
      Link Parent
      I'm glad to see the judge included his sons as well. Anyone know what happens during the appeal process? The article says he'll probably have to post a bond, but other than that, can he continue...

      I'm glad to see the judge included his sons as well.

      Anyone know what happens during the appeal process? The article says he'll probably have to post a bond, but other than that, can he continue doing business there?

      5 votes
      1. [4]
        langis_on
        Link Parent
        I've read that, if he appeals, he will have to put up the entire fine in escrow while the appeals court reviews the case. I'm not 100% sure if that it accurate though.

        I've read that, if he appeals, he will have to put up the entire fine in escrow while the appeals court reviews the case. I'm not 100% sure if that it accurate though.

        2 votes
        1. [3]
          ackables
          Link Parent
          He can get a bond for it, so in reality he only needs to put up as much as a bondsman takes as collateral. It should still be a lot of money though.

          He can get a bond for it, so in reality he only needs to put up as much as a bondsman takes as collateral. It should still be a lot of money though.

          1 vote
          1. MimicSquid
            Link Parent
            He's also banned from taking out bank loans for 3 years, so whoever loans him that money will be an interesting character, I'm sure.

            He's also banned from taking out bank loans for 3 years, so whoever loans him that money will be an interesting character, I'm sure.

            1 vote
          2. psi
            Link Parent
            He could in principle get a bond, but he will be hard-pressed to find a bondsman willing/able to loan him hundreds of millions of dollars. It's worth noting that he didn't use a bondsman to appeal...

            He could in principle get a bond, but he will be hard-pressed to find a bondsman willing/able to loan him hundreds of millions of dollars. It's worth noting that he didn't use a bondsman to appeal Carroll 1 (in which "only" a few million dollars are at stake).

            There's a decent chance he'll be forced to liquidate some property if he wants to appeal this decision.

            1 vote
    2. [5]
      PantsEnvy
      Link Parent
      The law is a really weird one, it does not require showing any actual harm to anyone. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/nyregion/trump-fraud-trial-ny-law.html So while it has been used by Letitia...

      The law is a really weird one, it does not require showing any actual harm to anyone.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/nyregion/trump-fraud-trial-ny-law.html

      So while it has been used by Letitia James to go after the oil company Exxon Mobil, the tobacco brand Juul and the pharma executive Martin Shkreli, it does open Letitia James up to accusations of political bias.

      1. [2]
        FriendlyGnome
        Link Parent
        Speeding or running a red light, while not crashing into anything, also doesn't harm anyone. Does that mean speeding and red lights laws should only be enforced if they result in direct harm, per...

        Speeding or running a red light, while not crashing into anything, also doesn't harm anyone. Does that mean speeding and red lights laws should only be enforced if they result in direct harm, per incident?

        But if you read the decision, the penalties are actually based on exactly how much the bank did lose out on due to the fraud. This was quantifiable because the bank literally gave Trump loan offers with and without personal guarantees, and he opted for the one with a personal guarantee that was based on fraudulent accounting (and which had a much, much lower interest rate)

        6 votes
        1. PantsEnvy
          Link Parent
          Yes, false declarations deserve punishment. A lot of people have been convicted criminally of very minor false declarations made under perjury. Clearly Trump lied, he told the IRS one thing, and...

          Yes, false declarations deserve punishment. A lot of people have been convicted criminally of very minor false declarations made under perjury. Clearly Trump lied, he told the IRS one thing, and the government another thing. It's still a weird law that is open to completely valid accusations of misuse.

          Yes, I read the decision, the penalties were based on what an expert witness testified the interest rate would have been if Trumps asset estimates had been more accurate. Yet the banks seemed to claim no harm no foul, yet it didn't matter, because the law didn't require harm. I think Trump basically admitted the declaration was false before the trial even began, by the same team that didn't even request a jury trial.

          1 vote
      2. [2]
        spit-evil-olive-tips
        Link Parent
        she's the first African American and first woman to be elected NY Attorney General she was a Democratic member of the NYC city council, getting re-elected with almost 90% of the vote: she sued the...

        it does open Letitia James up to accusations of political bias.

        she's the first African American and first woman to be elected NY Attorney General

        she was a Democratic member of the NYC city council, getting re-elected with almost 90% of the vote:

        She was re-elected on the Democratic line on November 8, 2005, with 88.11% of the vote, compared to 6.80% for Republican Anthony Herbert, and 5.08% for Independence Party candidate Charles B. Billups.

        she sued the NRA in 2020. the lawsuit is still ongoing but it's produced headlines like Civil trial scrutinizes lavish spending by gun rights group’s longtime leader

        in a hypothetical parallel universe where she hadn't filed this case against Trump...do you think she would somehow be immune from accusations of political bias?

        6 votes
        1. PantsEnvy
          Link Parent
          She is a very impressive DA. I like what she has done with the law. I do not like the law itself.

          She is a very impressive DA.

          I like what she has done with the law.

          I do not like the law itself.

          1 vote
  2. [7]
    spit-evil-olive-tips
    (edited )
    Link
    Ezra Klein: Democrats have a better option than Biden (archive link) here's the videos he's referring to - 2019 and 2024 I think he is spot on about this feeling of fatalism, that there's nothing...

    Ezra Klein: Democrats have a better option than Biden (archive link)

    We had to wait till this year — till now, really — to see Biden even begin to show what he’d be like on the campaign trail. And what I think we’re seeing is that he is not up for this. He is not the campaigner he was, even five years ago. That’s not insider reporting on my part. Go watch a speech he gave in Pennsylvania, kicking off his campaign in 2019. And then go watch the speech he gave last month, in Valley Forge, kicking off his election campaign. No comparison here. Both speeches are on YouTube, and you can see it. The way he moves, the energy in his voice. The Democrats denying decline are only fooling themselves.

    here's the videos he's referring to - 2019 and 2024

    Part of my job is talking to the kinds of Democrats who run and win campaigns constantly. All of them are worried about this. None of them say that this is an invention or not a real issue. And this is key: It’s not the age itself they are worried about. The age of 81 doesn’t mean anything. It’s the impression Biden is giving of age. Of slowness. Of frailty.

    The presidency is a performance. You are not just making decisions, you are also acting out the things people want to believe about their president — that the president is in command, strong, energetic, compassionate, thoughtful, that they don’t need to worry about all that is happening in the world, because the president has it all under control.

    I think he is spot on about this feeling of fatalism, that there's nothing that can be done, it's a freight train that's already travelling at 100mph and nothing can be done to stop it so it's best to just jump out of the way:

    I think one reason Democrats react so defensively to critiques of Biden is they’ve come to a kind of fatalism. They believe it is too late to do anything else. And if it is too late to do anything else, then to talk about Biden’s age is to contribute to Donald Trump’s victory.

    he has a prediction/nightmare that I find completely plausible:

    I have this nightmare that Trump wins in 2024. And then in 2025 and 2026, out come the campaign tell-all books, and they’re full of emails and WhatsApp messages between Biden staffers and Democratic leaders, where they’re all saying to each other, this is a disaster, he’s not going to win this, I can’t bear to watch this speech, we’re going to lose. But they didn’t say any of it publicly, they didn’t do anything, because it was too dangerous for their careers, or too uncomfortable given their loyalty to Biden.

    even in the best-case scenario of Biden winning...that means he'll be President until January 20, 2029. a little less than 5 years from now. does anyone believe he has 5 years of full mental & physical health left?

    if you need a reminder of how much the Presidency ages someone - here's Obama in 2009, 2012, and 2017. and Obama was 55 when he left office. (in other words, when Obama left office in 2017, he was the same age as Joe Biden was in 1997)

    are we supposed to vote for Biden, with an unwritten assumption / open secret that he very likely won't be able to serve the full term, and will either resign or die in office so that Kamala Harris can take over?

    5 votes
    1. [3]
      boxer_dogs_dance
      Link Parent
      If the alternative is Trump? I would literally vote for anyone over Trump

      If the alternative is Trump? I would literally vote for anyone over Trump

      6 votes
      1. spit-evil-olive-tips
        Link Parent
        right, if it's a ballot with 2 names, Biden or Trump, I'm obviously picking Biden, no question or hesitation. but that's also the sense of fatalism I'm referring to. lots of Democrats are acting...

        right, if it's a ballot with 2 names, Biden or Trump, I'm obviously picking Biden, no question or hesitation.

        but that's also the sense of fatalism I'm referring to. lots of Democrats are acting like those ballots have already been printed and the names on them are set in stone.

        Biden will be the nominee, because...he just will. there's no primary, because there doesn't need to be one. Biden will be the nominee, no matter what. it's pointless for the Democratic party to have a democratic process for picking the nominee, because the nominee has already been decided. the nominee is Joe Biden, and Joe Biden is the nominee.

        and yes, no sitting President has ever lost his party's nomination for re-election...but sitting Presidents have declined to seek 2nd terms before. LBJ off the top of my head, probably others I'm forgetting. and that's what Klein is advocating here:

        So then what? Step one, unfortunately, is convincing Biden that he should not run again. That he does not want to risk being Ruth Bader Ginsburg — a heroic, brilliant public servant who caused the outcome she feared most because she didn’t retire early enough. That in stepping aside he would be able to finish out his term as a strong and focused president, and people would see the honor in what he did, in putting his country over his ambitions.

        The people whom Biden listens to — Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Mike Donilon, Ron Klain, Nancy Pelosi, Anita Dunn — they need to get him to see this. Biden may come to see it himself.

        I take nothing away from how hard that is, how much Biden wants to finish the job he has started, keep doing the good he believes he can do. Retirement can be, often is, a trauma. But losing to Donald Trump would be far worse.

        during the 2020 primary, Biden soft-pedaled the idea that he would do exactly that, and not seek a 2nd term if elected:

        Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term

        While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicating that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.

        According to four people who regularly talk to Biden, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters, it is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024, when he would be the first octogenarian president.

        “If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”

        as Klein repeats several times, the current polling we have, inaccurate and flawed though it surely is, points towards Biden is losing

        And yet Biden’s poll numbers are dismal. His approval rating lingers in the high 30s. Most polls show him losing to Donald Trump in 2024.

        ...

        But even given that, I was stunned when his team declined a Super Bowl interview. Biden is not up by 12 points. He can’t coast to victory here. He is losing. He is behind in most polls. He is behind, despite everything people already know about Donald Trump. He needs to make up ground. If he does not make up ground, Trump wins.

        ...

        And that can become a self-fulfilling cycle. His staff knows that news conference was a disaster. So how will they respond? What will they do now? They will hold him back from aggressive campaigning even more, from unscripted situations. They will try to make doubly sure that it doesn’t happen again. But they need a candidate — Democrats need a candidate — who can aggressively campaign, because again — and I cannot emphasize this enough — they are currently losing.

        not just in head-to-head election polls - this page from 538 has a little widget that compares approval ratings. Biden's approval rating currently is lower than Trump's approval rating at the same point of the presidency.

        there's a weird conundrum where 2024 is The Most Important Election Of Our Lives and beating Trump is absolutely the only thing that matters, everything else is secondary...but "maybe a different Democrat would have a better chance of beating Trump" is seemingly the one thing that's off-limits in trying to figure out the best way to defeat Trump.

        5 votes
      2. anadem
        Link Parent
        Yes, me too! But the issue is made of those who would abstain from voting for anyone because they recognize Biden's weakness.

        I would literally vote for anyone over Trump

        Yes, me too! But the issue is made of those who would abstain from voting for anyone because they recognize Biden's weakness.

    2. [2]
      Omnicrola
      Link Parent
      I'm not familiar with the historical precedent, but how often have presidents chosen a new VP? Is that a viable strategy here?

      and will either resign or die in office so that Kamala Harris can take over?

      I'm not familiar with the historical precedent, but how often have presidents chosen a new VP? Is that a viable strategy here?

      1 vote
      1. boxer_dogs_dance
        Link Parent
        My understanding is that Biden is free to choose a new VP candidate before the convention and I wish he would.

        My understanding is that Biden is free to choose a new VP candidate before the convention and I wish he would.

        1 vote
    3. Eji1700
      Link Parent
      The problem with all of this is simple: It's too late. There's edge cases where maybe a new candidate could get on the ballot, but important deadlines have already passed. The time for this...

      The problem with all of this is simple:

      It's too late. There's edge cases where maybe a new candidate could get on the ballot, but important deadlines have already passed. The time for this conversation was the day after he beat trump, and of course it hasn't been done, and it hasn't been done because they don't believe it. Pelosi is 83 and not going fucking anywhere.

      He was old then, he's old now. There has been evidence from the beginning that he's not just "old" but straight up "unfit", but our alternative is a literal wannabe dictator who only failed because he's actually fucking terrible at it.

  3. [3]
    PantsEnvy
    Link
    Super Bowl 2024 was most watched US TV broadcast since 1969 Moon landing My kid is not even a huge fan of Taylor Swift, but the only crowd shots that interested him were of Taylor Swift. I imagine...

    Super Bowl 2024 was most watched US TV broadcast since 1969 Moon landing

    Taylor Swift's highly anticipated attendance to watch boyfriend Travis Kelce may have boosted the figures.

    My kid is not even a huge fan of Taylor Swift, but the only crowd shots that interested him were of Taylor Swift.

    I imagine broadcasters are trying to thread a fine needle, by showing enough Taylor to appeal to the younger fans who are sitting through three hours of sports just to see less than 3 minutes of Taylor Swift, and yet not showing too much to upset the conservative fans, some of whom get angered by Swift.

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      wowbagger
      Link Parent
      It sounds impressive but they could have run the same headline in 2023, 2015, 2014, 2012, and 2011. The NFL market in the US grows each year with the population, and Super Bowl viewership varies...

      It sounds impressive but they could have run the same headline in 2023, 2015, 2014, 2012, and 2011. The NFL market in the US grows each year with the population, and Super Bowl viewership varies year-to-year based on which teams are playing and who's putting on the halftime show. A better comparison would be to adjust for population.

      Also, I get that the far-right media sphere was having one of their hissy fits about Swift being at this game but does breaking viewership records really count as political news?

      6 votes
      1. PantsEnvy
        Link Parent
        Yeah, good point on the statistics. I didn't check before posting. This is a general US politics, US news and US updates thread. We have a lot of non-US folks, the idea was they could ignore this...

        Yeah, good point on the statistics. I didn't check before posting.

        This is a general US politics, US news and US updates thread.

        We have a lot of non-US folks, the idea was they could ignore this thread and not be overwhelmed by noisy US neighbors.

        2 votes
  4. [2]
    updawg
    (edited )
    Link
    Manchin says he won’t run for president, ending speculation about an independent bid. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/16/us/trump-haley-biden-election I honestly have no idea who he would...

    Manchin says he won’t run for president, ending speculation about an independent bid.
    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/16/us/trump-haley-biden-election

    I honestly have no idea who he would have stolen votes from.

    2 votes
    1. TheRtRevKaiser
      Link Parent
      I suspect pretty much nobody, which is probably why he's not running...

      I suspect pretty much nobody, which is probably why he's not running...

      4 votes
  5. [2]
    updawg
    Link
    Trump Privately Expresses Support for a 16-Week Abortion Ban https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/us/politics/trump-abortion-ban.html

    Trump Privately Expresses Support for a 16-Week Abortion Ban
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/us/politics/trump-abortion-ban.html

    2 votes
    1. langis_on
      Link Parent
      I hope he comes out and says it in a debate or rally. Running on an anti-abortion campaign is a losing strategy

      I hope he comes out and says it in a debate or rally. Running on an anti-abortion campaign is a losing strategy

      3 votes