It's stupid how fast a gun collection grows on you.
I started out never thinking I'd own a gun, but then my neighborhood hit a sharp decline. :( Lots of drug dealers with pit bulls running loose, it didn't feel safe. More of a pit bull problem than a drug dealer problem.
So I bought my first gun, Beretta 92fs, 9mm, got proficient with it, and felt better for having it in the house. This was, oh, '98? '99 now?
Roll forward a few years, my grandfather passes away, leaves his guns to my dad. My dad has a massive heart attack and passes away, leaves that collection to me.
So the first thing I did was get grand dad's Remington 721 .30-06 bolt action cleaned up and made safe. Problem was it had a defect in the trigger and could just "go off". Armorer fixed that.
Then I'm looking at what dad had collected. He had this little .22LR Hi Standard Derringer, which was cute but useless.
The Ranger II has the opposite problem of the High Standard... it's a BRICK. Not really decent for concealed carry.
After I had MY heart attack, and decided that I needed to start carrying concealed, I got my permit and picked up a .380 that just DISAPPEARS when I'm carrying. You'd never know it was there, which should be the whole point of concealed carry.
But then THAT got me thinking, "Wait... let's do an inventory here..." All these guns from dad and grandad and no shotgun?
So picked up a Mossberg Shockwave to fill that gap.
So, yeah, all told, between dad's guns, grand dad's guns, and my guns, I've ended up with something like 13 or 14 of them? Pistols, rifles, competition target pistols, semi auto, bolt action, lever action, breach loaders... it's all covered.
I wish more political commentators would wrestle with this fact. I understand the need to remain calm and denounce violence, and we should certainly do that! But at the same time, the discussion needs to be had about what to do when all the other options are exhausted. And as you've already outlined, we're running out of options. Basically everything hinges on the vote in November, and I'm under no illusion that Trump and the GQP and SCQTUS will steal it if it's any closer than it was last time. Then what?
Would this news, highlighting the 'forgotten' stuff again, deaden the probable 'electoral boost' he'll get from the attempted assassination?
Seems like bad news when the case was all but stalled with no news about it in the media... Now it'll probably get more news traction as it's appealed over the coming months.
Washington, D.C. 4 federal felonies January 6th Election Interference
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - The trial, originally scheduled for March 4th, had been placed on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Immunity.
The Supreme Court ruled that the President does enjoy limited immunity for "official acts", it now returns to lower court to determine what, if any, of his acts leading up to 1/6 were "official". https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/01/politics/supreme-court-donald-trump-immunity/index.html
Conviction
Sentencing
Georgia 10 state felonies Election Interference
As of 3/13/24 - Judge McAfee cleared 6 charges, 3 against Trump, saying they were too generic to be enforced.
As of 3/15/24 - The case may proceed, but either Fulton County DA, Fani Willis and her office or Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade must remove themselves due to the appearance of impropriety.
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
All 19 defendants have surrendered.
Trial - October 4th, 2024 hearing has been set to determine if Fani Willis can remain on the case.
Three defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and bail bondsman Scott Hall, have all pled guilty and have agreed to testify in other cases.
Conviction
Sentencing
Florida 40 federal felonies Top Secret Documents charges
Investigation
Indictment
Original indictment was for 37 felonies.
3 new felonies were added on July 27, 2023.
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - The trial had been set to begin May 20, 2024, but was subsequently delayed indefinitely by the judge, and has now been dismissed outright under the claims that the prosecutor was not Constitutionally appointed. https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-tosses-trump-documents-case-ruling-prosecutor-unlawfully-appointed-2024-07-15/
The expectation is that this will be appealed and the Judge removed from the case.
Conviction
Sentencing
Other grand juries, such as for the documents at Bedminster, or the Arizona fake electors, have not been announced.
The E. Jean Carroll trial for sexual assault and defamation where Trump was found liable and ordered to pay $5 million before immediately defaming her again resulting in a demand for $10 million is not listed as it's a civil case and not a crimimal one. He was found liable in that case for $83.3 million.
There had been multiple cases in multiple states to remove Trump from the ballot, citing ineligibility under the 14th amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled on March 4th that states do not have the ability to determine eligibility in Federal elections.
It's actually not. The more worrying proposition was that she waited for a jury to be seated -- attaching jeopardy -- and then dismissing the charges with prejudice.
This certainly pushes it way past the election, but that seemed a certainty anyway.
The convenient timing was probably a reference to the Republican National Convention, where Trump aims to become the official presidential candidate of the Republican party, and which is starting today.
The process goes district court -> appeals court -> Supreme Court. Cannon is a district (trial) Court judge; if Smith chooses to appeal the dismissal (which he will because her dismissal reasoning is dogshit) it will go to the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. After the appeals court rules on the procedure used in the trial court (with NO NEW ARGUEMENTS!), then either party could choose to make a final appeal to the Supreme court- and we all know what they will rule on. However the Supreme Court is not obligated to take on cases referred from an appellate court. And nowhere in this process can they refer to a new trial judge.
Trump Appointed Judge Aileen Cannon just made it LEGAL to share TOP SECRET SCIF DOCUMENTS with LITERALLY anybody in the World including our Enemies! But it's JUDGE MERCHAN'S DAUGHTER we need to worry about!
I spent 3 years and half a million dollars getting a law degree...and it make me feel good to know that everything I learned there doesn't actually fucking matter. All I needed to learn was that if you are appointed by an authoritarian Cheeto, the law is what you make it.
"The main benefit of controlling a modern bureaucratic state is not the power to persecute the innocent. It is the power to protect the guilty." - David Frum
You pretty much learn this, but then you find your way into camp A that attempts to hold up this system, or Camp B where you attempt to use this system to destroy itself....Camp B is struggling right now.
I was wondering how much this Trump fuckery is going to effect legal precedent since precedent seems to matter quite a lot in the legal system. Or do you think most judges are going to straight up just say Trump gets more legal rights so precedent set by him doesn't matter?
They don't give a shit about precedent. They are fascists appointed by an insurrection leader. They will make decisions that benefit Christian nationalism without regard to anything else.
They're not the only Judges though. If a otherwise normal judge was given an argument in court that brought up the precedent Trump set, laws start to fall apart. I'm worried that many laws will become almost unenforceable no matter who the judge is.
Members of the out group are allowed to argue precedent too, and like I said not every judge is going to be a fascist, so I'm still worried many laws are going to be unenforceable against anyone.
I suggest listening to the podcast Strict Scrutiny. They do a fantastic job of breaking down the way the current Supreme Court has just thrown out nearly every well established precedent. And it pretty much is based upon their own individual ideology and not based on any logical interpretation of the constitution.
I have a friend who had a case before Cannon and told me that she was both one of the stupidest and the meanest judges she's ever dealt with, which is saying something since she practices primarily in Florida. As a representative of the caliber of judges the Federalist Society has to offer, Cannon is pretty damning... and if we get four more years of Trump, the federal bench is going to be stacked with jurists even worse than her.
We are dangerously close to an emperor has no clothes moment in regards to the rule of law. When people digest that the law is whatever it needs to be to suit the needs of the moment, they'll operate as if there is no law and they'll be right. I fear we are already past the point of no return.
When the supreme law of the law, the Constitution, is nullified the Great American Experiment ceases to exist - we are there. The war has already begun.
The fascist in chief is having the best week he could for his 2024 run. I'm glad I won't be seeing any of my maga relatives any time soon, they must be insufferable right now.
