Not sure why this is being downvoted; it makes a lot of great legal arguments showing how Musk and other right wing cancel culture blowhards like him are hypocrites on the “muh freeze peach” train.
That’s fair. I wish that not every piss he takes would make headlines, because the fatigue it creates means that the pieces that are genuinely worth reading end up in the same pile as the ones that are shit by default.
Since people are not reading the article: I think Elon is a stupid shit, a fascist, and I love watching his toys break. Popehat hates the son of a removed and the article is a clear warning about the “censorship” argument the right always pulls
Advertisers are just using their free speech to decide they don’t want to pay to have their speech presented next to hate speech. Nobody’s silencing anyone. Elon could do just fine with no ads, he’s just greedy and also wants hate speech to be profitable.
Calling out lies as lies, not mere differences of opinions, is justified and this author does a good job of pointing out two direct lies. I’ve always respected the “you can have your own opinion, but you can’t have your own facts” mentality. That’s basically all he’s saying.
First, he points out that some coverage indicates the laws used to prosecute Trump are ONLY for Civil War era crimes. Which is just complete bullshit and deserves to be called out. That would be like saying the financial regulatory overhauls that came from 2008 are ONLY applicable to the 2008 crisis. Laws may be enacted for a specific purposes, but they can and should be applied to future wrongs.
Second, he points out that some coverage indicates there is a legal requirement for specific monetary connections. But that just isn’t true under the statutes used for the charges, and the report he’s pointing to literally cites an entirely unrelated statute and precedent. Once again, this is not a difference of interpretation. It is an intentional misleading of their audience and refusal to acknowledge the truth. It deserves to be called out for what it is.
Critical thinking is being lost. Pieces like this that call out bold-faced lies are valuable and I wish more journalists (and debate moderators) would be willing to do so with the same brutality as this piece.
I think in this case it’s a pretty fair post - tl;dr: the blogger doesn’t offer a view on whether or not Trump broke the law, only that his actions could plausibly be illegal based on the sections of the constitution used to prosecute him, and that it’s not an obvious win for the prosecutors as it depends on the state of mind that led to the actions.
It doesn't depend at all on "Trump's state of mind". We know that his coup was preplanned before the election. And it is his actions that will be prosecuted.
Reminder that Steve Bannon frankly confessed Trump's Start the Steal conspiracy plans to a group of Trump insiders before the election.
…audio from Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, surfaced from October 31st, 2020, just a few days before the Presidential election.
Let’s listen. [Begin Videotape]
STEVE BANNON: And what Trump’s going to do is declare victory, right? He’s going to declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. The Democrats — more of our people vote early that count. Theirs vote in mail. And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump’s going to take advantage — that’s our strategy.
He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm. Also — also if Trump is — if Trump is losing by 10 or 11:00 at night, it’s going to be even crazier. Because he’s gonna sit right there and say they stole it. If Biden’s wining, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.
I probably did a poor job of summarizing, as I’m not a lawyer; here’s the key quote from the article:
That doesn’t mean that it will be easy for the Special Counsel to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump had the requisite mental state to violate the law. It means that his actions plausibly violate the law.
My point was that contrary to the previous commenter’s implication that anyone telling you to watch out for lies is just going to feed you their own propaganda, this article is fairly objective.
popehat.substack.com
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