volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@RunRichRun this is the kind of article that seems completely unaware that different governments are structured differently, and the differences between this government and that government are absolutely critical to understanding how the situations are different.

A little political science education would be useful here.

The US government is structured very specifically to make sure presidents don't have the authority to do what this article points to in the parliamentary system.

This is just a really ill-informed article coming to a ridiculous conclusion, and a basic understanding of civics would debunk the picture it tries to paint.

@mattround If more people asked that question and then listened to the answer then maybe we wouldn't have so many people running around with their hair on fire making ridiculous claims about Trump II being a slide into fascism.

They would know that that is not at all what's happening here.

@caitp Presidents can pardon people at any moment throughout their entire presidency.

It's just that they might delay pardons until the very last moment to avoid accountability.

@karlauerbach Right, and the court also actively promoted prosecution of misbehavior that is not within the core function of the presidency.

Since presidents are not authorized to violate civil rights by sending people to Guantanamo for, like, no reason, that would not be within the core function of the presidency.

So the Supreme Court ruling would encourage prosecution of a president who does such a thing.

@karlauerbach you do realize what you're saying is crazy, right? You're just repeating these really nutty conspiracy theories that don't match the real world?

No, Trump can't ship Hunter Biden off to Guantanamo without fear of punishment. The Supreme Court specifically called for the prosecution of crimes, the prosecution of actions that are not authorized by law.

I don't know who you're listening to, but they are seriously misleading you about what's going on in the world.

@dianathy The defense was allowed to present evidence, and it did.

The defense also had a say in the jury selection, by the way.

The evidence against Trump, including a lot of his own statements! was just so overwhelming, you don't have to stretch to figure out how he was convicted.

Occam's razor go for the simple explanation here. The jury found him guilty because he simply was.

He shouldn't have done the crime if he didn't want to be found guilty of doing the crime. And he definitely shouldn't have left that much evidence of the crime on the table.

Trump wasn't even a smart criminal. He basically incriminated himself with the mountain of evidence he left behind.

@joenepraat this is simply not true

For one, the corporations are owned by stockholders, including a whole lot of very much not rich people.

And on the other side, BlueSky has even less of an ownership model than Fediverse, which itself focuses on instances which are absolutely owned by people who are not you and me.

So what you're echoing here is just misinformation.

@didgebaba but that's in line with what I'm saying, agencies have not sought consensus advice from the group, and the group itself barely exists in the first place.

So it's a hollow suit at this point. Maybe in the future there will be some substance, but for now it's just symbolic.

@jjg which order, specifically?

@Yehuda Presidents don't have that authority.

It will be just one of his many broken promises.

@tbluvoter see this reflects what I've been saying ever since the first Trump term: government has become a circus, so they elected a clown.

This is the effect, not the cause.

@enlightenedferalboy

It's part of the ceremony, for better or worse.

@realTuckFrumper No, that's not with how presidential elections work.

Voters don't determine Trump's victory. Electors do.

@didgebaba but at this point this is filing a suit against something that doesn't exist. It's just as nonsensical as the DOGE itself.

It's one PR stunt building on another PR stunt, and we need to be clear about how silly this all is.

@eScienceCenter that seems pretty counterproductive.

If you're worried about increasing levels of misinformation on the platform, leaving it without better information just makes the problem worse.

@SueInRockville none of that matters though because it's the Electoral College that votes for the president.

So really, if you're pointing to some nonsense that Trump is spewing out, then you're missing the point. None of that matters. The EC voted him in.

@shacker a woman of incredible intelligence?

No, we rejected Harris because she was dumb as a rock.

She was so flawed as a candidate, so obviously flawed, that even a twice impeached convicted felon liar was a better option than the people that the Democrats put forward.

I BEGGED Democrats to put forward somebody worth voting for, someone who wouldn't flub this election. I begged for someone who would actually be a woman of incredible intelligence and qualification. But no, they settled on this moron that the country had already rejected in the past.

If Harris was actually intelligent and qualified she would be president today. But Democrats chose a terrible candidate, so they threw the election to Trump.

Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

@SueInRockville

Here's a list of the Electoral College votes.

Exactly which ones do you think the national archive is lying about?

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/2024

@dianathy that doesn't change that they got him.

And the people who sat through a week of evidence proving the case certainly didn't believe the charges were bogus. With the mountain of evidence presented to them they determined that the charges were entirely proven.

Why did they only prosecute when he was running for office? Because they wanted to. Doesn't change that he's guilty. It just shows that they got him, as you say.

@harvhat he can't.

Presidents don't have that authority.