Well, it was about time he got indicted for something. And then today he was arraigned. You are invited to offer your thoughts on this historic development below and no, that picture of Trump’s arraignment isn’t an AI-generated fake or anything.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
My main thought, other than huzzah at the indictment, is I wish cops still wore those kinds of uniforms. They used to look far more respectable, though that might be a wistful nostalgia for a time that never actually was.
It’s been years, but I can’t get over the fact that people called Hillary Clinton corrupt and then went and voted for Trump. That’s like going, “It’s too wet in the rain – let’s go and jump in the ocean.”
Mr. Trump said he never expected to be indicted in America.
That’s odd. I’m no expert on the law, but back when Trump was running for president I said that this man had led a charmed life up until then. If he became president, however, there would be so much attention paid to his former, current, and future crimes that an indictment — maybe even a conviction — was practically inevitable. I admit that I started to lose hope that this would ever occur. But Alvin Bragg, a chubby New York prosecutor, has restored my cautious faith in the US judicial process.
@epitome of incomprehensibility:
You have to remember that in 2016, the majority people knew him as “the world’s greatest buisnessman”, an undeserved reputation which he basically bought. The knowledge of his past misdeeds and corruption spread quickly among the politically informed, but in the US, the politically informed are a minority, hard as that may be for some of us to see outside our bubbles. The mainstream media hammered on Hillary’s baggage and speculated about more, while barely speaking about Trump’s history at all.
And then there was that whole thing where Trump tried to pander to LGBTQIA+ people early in his campaign (a bit poorly, but did so nonetheless) and had that whole best buddies thing going on with Caitlin Jenner (and even said that he’d let her pee in the women’s bathrooms in Trump Tower), which might have left some people with the impression that he’s not that bad… particularly if they also missed the later parts where he went all anti-LGBTQIA+ to pander to the Evangelicals.
So some of those people who voted against Hillary for being “too corrupt” genuinely didn’t know about Trump. Others just used “too corrupt” because they didn’t dare to state their real reasons, which was usually “too female”. Though despite the minor reputational advantage, he still lost the popular vote…
Lock him up! The accusations of democrats being corrupt was as usual with right wing grifters just projection.
Trump was just a manifestation of a set of people that are brainwashed by the right wing hate and fear mongering machine mixed with idiocy and fear of losing their place in society.
@Sarah:
My main thought, other than huzzah at the indictment, is I wish cops still wore those kinds of uniforms. They used to look far more respectable, though that might be a wistful nostalgia for a time that never actually was.
It’s not just you; that black chitinous paramilitary aesthetic, having come to permeate the actual military, has filtered down to law enforcement along with all the military surplus equipment:
https://popula.com/2019/02/24/about-face/
Even police Legos have grown steadily more menacing:
https://twitter.com/GreggDCaruso/status/1142103520583266306
“It’s too wet in the rain – let’s go and jump in the ocean.”
Cliff and Norm survey the bar snacks at Cheers.
Cliff, to Norm: “Hey, the expiration date on this runs out tonight.”
Norm, to Cliff: “Better work fast, then.”
{They start shoveling pub mix into their mouths.}
@epitomeofincomprehensibilty; @bekabot:
That’s like going, “It’s too wet in the rain – let’s go and jump in the ocean.”
Which brings to mind my favorite moment with Duane Byers’ plus-size hillbilly nature goddess Hilda:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZcuuMPk5Lkc/Wue_Pz6_05I/AAAAAAABFi8/JTUlJ47gLkcUib6SxSqfPNtB94MWikoqACLcBGAs/s1600/hilda%2Bblogdeimagenes%2529%2B%252830%2529.jpeg
Although Hilda’s actions make sense if you consider that she’s sheltering not from the rain per se, but from the wind carrying it—which would have a chilling effect on her wet skin.
I see Trump continues to make nasty comments (which may be considered threats, but I’m not a lawyer) about the presiding judge and family.
Truly, I wish I had the confidence of a mediocre white man who used to sit in the Oval Office.
@Epitome
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre
The above applies to fascists in general, not just their anti-Semitism. You you’ll never get anywhere if you treat the words they say as having anything but phatic meaning. “Crooked Hillary” is a fascist shibboleth, with no meaning but to tell listeners that the speaker is a fascist.
@Snowberry
Citation needed. Some people believed that, but I doubt greatly they were a majority, given that Trump had been a punchline for at least the thirty years I’ve owned a Doonesbury album devoted entirely to making fun of him. FFS, the man couldn’t run a Vegas casino at a profit, and that was very well known.
I’m trying really hard to not just post a sarcastic meme here. Exactly zero people were fooled by that nonsense. Or any of the rest of his bullshit either. Absolutely nobody voted for Trump because they were well-meaning but misguided. Nobody voted for Trump because they thought he was anything but what he clearly is: a fascist bigot who tells horrible people that it’s ok to be horrible people.
@Dalilama: I live in a town in fairly conservative area, and I know people who regretted their vote for Trump because they “didn’t know” and voted for Biden in 2020. Granted some of them still might have been prone to overlook or be dismissive of what little they might have heard because Hillary was “too female”, but here most people tuned in to the local Fox station for news (Which wasn’t the same as or as bad as Fox News, but still not great) or read the local newspaper which has never, as far as I know, run Doonesbury or any other politically-aware comics.
You live in Portland, right? Or at least some other liberal city? The information bubble out here is different, even different from the conservative bubble which exists in the cities, particularly since most people here aren’t online that much if at all. (Also if I’m gone from this site for weeks it’s not always because I’m taking a mental health break, sometimes it’s because of freaking Comcast, which is the only service around.) I couldn’t say what percentage of the population was genuinely ignorant of Trump, but I do know they exist.
@Full Metal Ox,
In defense of The Lego Group, that last figure is NOT using Lego parts. Those are third party armor and weapons – there’s quite a market for them, since Lego (mostly) does not make modern weapons or military vehicles.
They have skirted the policy a few times, like with some Indiana Jones and early Batman sets, and a civilian version of a military aircraft that they wound up canceling because ti was still treading too close.
(There is quite a debate that this position is hypocritical hair-splitting, given their many lines emphasizing warfare that feature historical, fantasy, or scifi weapons and war machines.)
Lego actually objected to military planners using the blocks in war gaming.
Off topic, but as long as we’re mentioning Legos: One time, just for fun, I tried to imagine what it would be like making actual buildings out of life-size lego bricks. And I realized there was a scaling issue. Do you scale the bricks by the minifigs, the larger figures in certain specialty lines, the buildings in typical lego sets, or the thickness of typical real-world walls? Because those all give you different brick sizes to work with. I calculated that the interior walls of my house would be approximately 4½, 6, 7, or 8½ 1-stud-wide bricks high respectively.
@ snowberry
I’d love to see that; and scaled up Meccano. Although I guess that is just engineering anyway.
But whilst these aren’t scaled up blocks; it is a life size house.
@Full Metal Ox:
Playmobils too. It’s fascinating, terrifying, and deeply depressing at the same time.
Trump is probably disappointed he didn’t get a mugshot to put on mugs and sell. Even so, he’s raising a lot of money off of this.
I wish they’d gone with one of the stronger cases.
I think he’ll get away with it. Again.
@Full Metal Ox:
Shameless self-promo—I once wrote a Hilda fanfic for the Yuletide exchange. Features motorists in need of assistance, rain, stolen hubcaps, and a goat.
@Trying
Remember that there are multiple ‘they’s here. This is just the Manhattan DA stuff.
Georgia is still setting up charges for election interference. The DoJ Special Prosecutor is also still looking into both the classified documents and the January 6th cases, and when that particular Special Prosecutor was hired a number of people commented on him having a reputation of being extremely meticulous as well as having a history of good work on corruption cases; he’s likely to be slow but have a lot of evidence laid out at the end.
Think of these charges like hitting Al Capone for tax fraud. Sure, it’s far from the worst thing he’s done, but there is a fair bit of evidence for it, and it keeps him and his lawyers busy while other things are set up in the background.
Not an attorney, but I’ve been semi-monitoring the chatter from actual attorneys, and the interesting pattern seems to be that federal lawyers don’t think the NY case will work, but state lawyers (especially those with experience in NY) think it’s a pretty solid case. Not a slam dunk, but they see why it’s proceeding the way it does.
I’m just going to enjoy my popcorn.
@ Moon Custafer
Love the fic, great fun!
@Moon Custafer:
Shameless self-promo—I once wrote a Hilda fanfic for the Yuletide exchange. Features motorists in need of assistance, rain, stolen hubcaps, and a goat.
Small world—I’ve encountered you first on Doc Hermes’ series of Livejournal blogs, and then here, but I’d had no inkling that you were on AO3! (And I see that Donna Barr of Desert Peach notoriety has commented on that fic via anon.)
…there was a great difference between getting into a stream or pond of her own volition, and having cold water fall on her unbidden from above.
Precisely!
Disclaimer: TL;DR, More Lego nonsense.
I’m not a Lego geek, or whatever they call themselves. My experience with them during my childhood was very limited, and decades ago; I never owned any. The idea of building structures with “life-size Legos” (which is not remotely original, I’m sure) started with an article I read several years back about the possibility of 3-D printing objects using materials other than plastic, including wood paste. So I thought, what if instead of a tent, you used a truck full of fabricated wood parts to assemble a cabin, and then disassemble it when you leave?
It didn’t start with Legos though. First up was Lincoln Logs, which was a bit too on the nose, and rejected it because using actual logs rather than paste-logs would be less heavy. Next was Construx, a now-obscure 1980s building toy which I actually played with a lot (technically they were a christmas gift for my brother, but he didn’t use them much). Scaled-up Construx would be a bad idea, because the panels would be too easy to accidentally knock out. Also it would look too sci-fi-ish to really feel like a cabin. But I used it as a springboard for more practical ideas for highly modular reconstructable building parts for small-scale buildings, which have no need for nails or screws or rebar or anything of that sort. Some of my ideas did take electricity and plumbing into account in case anyone would want to use them to build more permanent structures than cabins, though I didn’t focus a whole lot on that.
One of my later ideas, pretty far removed from the original Construx inspiration, was sort-of-but-not-quite Legos, but I didn’t even make the connection until I watched a humorous video on what the Lego Cities line implies about the reality of the world it exists in. At that point I went off on the tangent of figuring out what would happen if you used actual scaled-up Legos. I don’t think the video touched much on the scale issue, but it became very obvious once I did the research on it. What exactly counts as “life-size”?
First, mini-fig scale. The mini-figs are objectively pretty weird; they’re proportioned like babies, but relative to the world they exist in, are scaled to be roughly midway between baby and adult… while representing, in most cases, actual adults. They’re hobbits living in a human-sized world. If you instead assume they’re as tall as an average adult, the interior walls of my own house would be ~4½ bricks high, and would be stupidly thick. It might be interesting to use to build giant houses to give adults a feeling of being a child again, or just “this is what their world looks like from a mini-fig perspective”, but it would be the least useful from a practical perspective.
Next up, the larger and more realistic-looking figures. They’re proportioned like children who haven’t quite hit puberty, and relative to their world, are scaled to adult-size, but fairly short, an inch or two above 5 feet (roughly 155-160cm). If you presume everyone in Lego world is really that short, then the interior walls of my house would be ~7 bricks high, but if you presume that they’re actually average-sized adults, then it would be ~6 bricks. Still thicker walls than normal either way, but not as oddly so. Either of these would probably be good if you’re specifically trying to evoke the feeling of living in Lego World without making people feel a lot smaller.
The final scale I used presumed that the one-stud-wide bricks were about as thick as my house’s load-bearing walls, in which case the height of said walls would be ~8½ bricks. For the non-load-bearing ones, ~10, but since bricks are standardized, better to use the former. This would be the most practical to build with if you’re going for “really realistic buildings, but plastic”. Or alternately, one could use this scale to make 7-brick-high walls to give a feeling of the building being small, though really tall people would bump their heads on the ceiling.
As a final note, Lego world seems to be largely devoid of interior furniture and lighting, and if it did include them, it wouldn’t be fun to sit or sleep on furniture made of hard plastic.