What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Minsky Moment]

Nothing really surprising here; Paramount-CBS is high profile media company, subject to broad federal regulatory authority. Pre-2025 that would not matter of course, because back then the USA was a free country governed by the rule of law. In 2025, however, the USA is a managed authoritarian state along the Putinist-Orbanist pattern and thus any large media outlet must make accommodations to the junta or face financial consequences or worse.

[HVC]

Apparently his show, while the most popular, "only" gets 2.5 millions views a night. That's seems low. Is network tv really that dead, viewership wise?


Also, trump is now suing the wall street journal. Wonder what writers they'll have to fire to placate trump. 

[viper37]

Also, trump is now suing the wall street journal. Wonder what writers they'll have to fire to placate trump. 

Will they placate him or will they fight?

It's a 10 billion$ lawsuit, so totally frivolous.  There's a lot of anger toward Trump from the Q-Anon Maga.  Murdoch could exploit the anger and turn against Trump to make a killing out there.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I assume Murdoch will fight. He has been terrorising politicians for decades and won't want to lose that power by being revealed as a paper tiger.

[Syt]

Watching a clip from a Karoline Leavitt press conference she really reminds me of Jo on Mythic Quest.

[grumbler]

Will they placate him or will they fight?

It's a 10 billion$ lawsuit, so totally frivolous.  There's a lot of anger toward Trump from the Q-Anon Maga.  Murdoch could exploit the anger and turn against Trump to make a killing out there.

They'll fight until the point where Trump has to make his sworn deposition in the case (when the defense will get to ask him all about his relationship with Epstein, under oath) and Trump drops the suit.  Suing was the most moronic possible response to the WSJ piece, because it opens up Trump's relations with Epstein during discovery.

[crazy canuck]

Also, trump is now suing the wall street journal. Wonder what writers they'll have to fire to placate trump. 

Will they placate him or will they fight?

It's a 10 billion$ lawsuit, so totally frivolous.  There's a lot of anger toward Trump from the Q-Anon Maga.  Murdoch could exploit the anger and turn against Trump to make a killing out there.

 

[Gups]

Also, trump is now suing the wall street journal. Wonder what writers they'll have to fire to placate trump. 

Will they placate him or will they fight?

It's a 10 billion$ lawsuit, so totally frivolous.  There's a lot of anger toward Trump from the Q-Anon Maga.  Murdoch could exploit the anger and turn against Trump to make a killing out there.

Murdoch plays to different parts of the right. WSJ may be Trump sceptic but Fox is   barely mentioning Epstein

[grumbler]

Apparently, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution requiring the DoJ to maintain all records in the Epstein case file. House Republicans yesterday refused to allow the House to do the same.

More grist for primary challengers?

[The Minsky Moment]

Will they placate him or will they fight?

It's a 10 billion$ lawsuit, so totally frivolous.  There's a lot of anger toward Trump from the Q-Anon Maga.  Murdoch could exploit the anger and turn against Trump to make a killing out there.

They'll fight until the point where Trump has to make his sworn deposition in the case (when the defense will get to ask him all about his relationship with Epstein, under oath) and Trump drops the suit.  Suing was the most moronic possible response to the WSJ piece, because it opens up Trump's relations with Epstein during discovery.

You say sworn deposition, but the lawsuit was filed in federal court. Trump can lie with utter impunity in his deposition, because no one will prosecute him for perjury.

It's going to take some time for us to adjust to the reality that rule of law no longer applies in the US, at least with respect to federal functions.

[The Minsky Moment]

Next example:

Brett Hankison was convicted of depriving Breonna Taylor of her civil rights, most notably her right to exist as a living person on this Earth.

In a federal case, sentencing procedure is that the Probation Department issues a Pre-sentence report including a sentencing recommendation based on the federal sentencing guidelines. Then the Government and the defendant each submit their own sentencing memorandum with their sentencing proposals.  The judge reads them all and decides.

The Government sentencing memo is always submitted by local US Attorneys office that prosecuted the case, usually the trial team. Unless the defendant was a cooperating witness and pled guilty, the Government recommendation is almost always at or higher than the Probation recommendation.

In Hankison's case, Probation recommended a sentence of 11-13 years, based on a direct application of the federal sentencing guidelines.  The Defendant argued that the Probation Department used the wrong offense level.  if the defendant were correct, the guidelines sentence would be about 3 years.

At this point, the procedure departed sharply from the norm. The Government sentencing memo was not written by the US Attorney's office that prosecuted the case.  Instead, the Chief of the DOJ Civil Rights division personally intervened from DC to submit a sentencing memo.  The memo does not advocate for the Probation Dept recommendation, or anything close.  It proposes a sentence of a single day, time served.

In 2025, the Black lives do matter at the Justice Department.  They are worth exactly one day of a white man's life, no more. There is no question that if the victim's name was Eric Trump instead of Breonna Taylor, that we would have seen a very different sentencing memo. That is troubling enough, but as troubling is that it was so important to DOJ to make this point that senior leadership overrode the USAO attorneys to make it, in the process expressing utter contempt for the jury verdict.

[Admiral Yi]

There are things about the Trump/Epstein story that don't make sense to me.  It's very plausible that Trump attended one or more Epstein gatherings and fucked one or more Epstein girls.  So what?  The whole world already knows that he fucked Stormy Daniels.  Unless he banged the one underage girl.

[crazy canuck]

The answer is in the word you used. There were girls there.

[Bauer]

There are things about the Trump/Epstein story that don't make sense to me.  It's very plausible that Trump attended one or more Epstein gatherings and fucked one or more Epstein girls.  So what?  The whole world already knows that he fucked Stormy Daniels.  Unless he banged the one underage girl.

Trump is like a hurricane that gathers strength from all these stories.  He's already weathered umpteen things that would end most politicians careers, adding a handful more makes no difference now.

I hope eventually people take a lesson from this era that politicians have to be held accountable early or risk sliding down this slope again.

[Admiral Yi]

Trump is like a hurricane that gathers strength from all these stories.  He's already weathered umpteen things that would end most politicians careers, adding a handful more makes no difference now.

That's my point.  He's built a brand on not giving a shit.  Why is he so bent up about one more public urination charge?