tvc184

Lipstick on a pig? It is a ludicrous spending of public money as window dressing that will be taken out soon by a drunk driver.

That brings up two points in my mind. 1. It kind of cancels the, “we can’t disregard a minority” if it’s obvious by the internal polls that Biden will poll better or for that matter, anyone else such as Gavin Newsom. 2. I think her demographics and gaining votes based on that cancels #1. Let’s face it, if it’s two old white guys running, many people will not be inspired and will stay home. If it is any kind of minority whether by race, sex, age, ethnicity, sexual preference status and so on, it can guarantee that a percentage of people who might not really care about voting will all of a sudden be galvanized to vote. It doesn’t have to be much to change the election. Remember that it doesn’t matter who is more popular, it matters who shows up on Election Day.

If they want Harris, why not Biden back out and give his delegates to her? At least she could potentially make up some ground from the negative ratings for her and Biden based on demographics. Let’s face it, Biden isn’t going to pull any extra votes based on sex, race, age, state, etc. If they think Harris is the future, I think she may have a better chance than Biden. She can pull some numbers from sex, race and age just from people who like identity politics and to check off boxes. This is not a prediction but simply wondering if she might do better than him if he gets any worse. Harris standing alone might get her the glass ceiling female/minority quicker than tagging onto his cocktails. What do you think? I and plenty of others said the exact same thing about him resigning right after the election, in the last election.

Certainly they could throw it wide open and not deal with “the issue”, don’t get involve at all and let the best man (or woman) win in a completely open and fair selection. However…. Do you believe that the DNC insiders are not going to be heavily involved in picking the candidate? Ponder this, who gets all of the delegates that Biden has already compiled? Does Biden simply release them? What about the super delegates? And all of this to get around Harris so as not to seem prejudiced…. although I have no clue why they can’t simply point out that her approval is as bad as his, she got beaten so badly in 2020 that she was the first declared candidate to drop out of the Democrat primary. You could be correct but I don’t think that the DNC is going to stand by and simply let history take its course in a completely fair remainder of the primary. Unbind all of the delegates to date and then get out of the way. Maybe you have more faith in the DNC and a sudden change of fairness.

I spoke about that in the other threads. If they are going to make a change, it has to be pretty quick now. Like LBJ in ‘68, Biden will have to suspend his campaign since he is already running and gotten most of the primary/caucus votes. Like LBJ, Biden’s approval rating is horrendous. Unlike LBJ who I believe shocked the electorate, Biden bowing out will not.

I have seen that spoken about briefly by some of the talking heads on the Dems side months ago but I don’t think it will be much of a deal. It would almost certainly lose the Dems some votes, which they can’t afford. It won’t likely happen, but what would be even funnier (and stupid) would be to pick somebody like Newsom from California and then pick Harris again for VP like as a consolation. OHHHH!!!! She good enough to be in line to be the President in an emergency … twice… but she is not good enough to get the nomination? Can you imagine the outrage? 🤣🤣🤣 They would be better dropping her all together, and just running with it. But….. It sure seems like a good bit of grumbling from inside the Democrat’s own camp which is practically unheard of. Maybe they will let Biden keep going but I have a hard time thinking they aren’t going to plug the holes in the ship and try to save it and I don’t think that Harris will be the savior.

I think the end is near for Biden. He has been pandered and pampered long enough for those in charge of the Democratic Party and served his usefulness. I think it is getting to the point where the leadership doesn’t want this to continue much longer. I am not thinking about any resignation by Biden (and putting Word Salad in charge) but rather giving up his delegates to another candidate for the election. It has certainly been mentioned before in these forums but I think the time is growing short. I think the longer Biden stays in, the better Trump looks. Naming a replacement soon might change the game but if they wait until too deep of a hole has been dug, it might be too late. That’s why I think they may be pulling the plug on him soon. I think the grumbling by the Democratic operatives will be too strong in the next few weeks.

Are you basing your thread on changed stances by Republicans on the opinions of paid political pundits who may disagree with each other on a narro topic? I thought there was some major policy shift that I missed.

Any details on the “swift change” and by whom?

I think that she has to hang in until the South Carolina primary on February 24th.

Yep. Supposed kind a godchild or some such was killed. If my memory is holding up, France would not give permission for overflight, they had to go a lot farther and take a lot longer to complete the mission, with more refuelings.

I don’t think it was legal then or now to draft a 17 year old, who is still a child under federal law.

That’s always the question.

Just a good ol’ boy looking out for his people. Bombing 747s in mid-flight is all part of providing free gasoline to the masses…..

Wow, shocked!! 🤣

There is culpability. Who does it belong to is the question. To me no culpability means that no matter what, no one is responsible. I think there is a difference between no culpability and can culpability be proven in a particular case. Certainly the DA thinks there is culpability. Are all crimes solved? No. Can all crimes be proven in court? No. Maybe I am misunderstanding but you said that if “someone gets killed in Hollywood” there was no culpability based on “being an actor” and there should be no culpability based on “no expectations of personal responsibility”. I have not said that nor implied it. Even an actor who is hated due to his politics stance however, has the same right to require proof of responsibility as seen by a reasonable person in his position.

But… did Baldwin know it was a firearm? Who loaded it? Who brought live rounds onto the set? Who handed the revolver to Baldwin and was there any statements made like the revolver was safe or wasn’t even a real weapon and a blank firing replica? Read my comment above this one on Mistake of Fact. I don’t know any of the answers but I think the belief that Baldwin is automatically guilty without looking at the law is a mistake.

Who said there was no culpability? You are adding 2 + 2 and trying to come up with 5.5. It is on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt where that culpability lies. Again I will rely on Texas law only as an example. It is a defense to prosecution that a reasonable belief was held by the accused if that mistake would have negated the culpability. It is called Mistake of Fact Sec. 8.02. MISTAKE OF FACT. (a) It is a defense to prosecution that the actor through mistake formed a reasonable belief about a matter of fact if his mistaken belief negated the kind of culpability required for commission of the offense. So if a person “formed a reasonable belief”, if that mistake negated the culpability, it is a defense to prosecution for that accusation. Let’s say you are awakened at 2am by someone kicking hard on your door screaming to open the door or he is going to break the door down. You fire a shot through the door in self defense when the hinges start breaking. You stay in the house and call 911, telling the police that somebody was trying to break into your home you believed they were going to kill you or your family. Legal under Texas law? I think so. But what happens when you find out that it was your next-door neighbor and good friend and he came home drunk and got the wrong driveway. He was mad because he thought his wife was locking him out of the house. You might have thought it was legal but you killed an innocent man who was no threat to you. While tragic, should you go to prison for the rest of your life when you thought you were complying with Texas law and your family really was in danger? Or would you rely on a reasonable mistake of fact?

It is not different rules by profession although there are several laws based on profession. It is a reasonable belief of a person in that position. Look at Brandon Lee’s death. There was a real revolver used but it was loaded with dummy rounds. That way when the camera got a close-up shot of the front of the revolver, people would see the cartridges in the gun. To make the dummy rounds, the armor is removed. The projectile had dumped out the powder and seed the projectile. The rounds had no powder but appeared to be a live rounds when looked at closely on camera. Of course the armorer is to remove the primer also. Oops, he forgot! The actor fired the incorrectly modified dummy round and the primer which wasn’t removed, detonated and was just strong enough to push the projectile a short distance into the barrel. So in the next scene they removed the dummy rounds and replaced them with blanks which had a powder charge and no projectile. The actor fired the actual blank at Brandon Lee from about 15 feet. The projectile that was stuck in the barrel basically made the blank round equivalent of an actual round and it killed Lee. There were no convictions in Lee’s death. You can see where an actor is relying on someone else to properly load and check the firearms and ammo. The actor doesn’t go into a room and start disassembling bullets, pouring out powder and then reseating the rounds. They hire people to do that. In Lee’s case the actor was supposed to be given a revolver with a blank round in it. It had a blank round all right but because of the previous screw up by the armor, it turned it into a fully functioning firearm by accident and it killed Lee.

… which is a state jail felony with a maximum sentence of two years in state jail. NM laws could be significantly different but they probably have similar elements.

That is exactly what I was talking about. If he brought the revolver and bullets onto the set and then he grabbed the wrong one, he is likely guilty of killing someone with at least criminal negligence which is Criminally Negligent Homicide in Texas as an example.

I will bring it up again, did he know it was a firearm? A fake, a prop gun, a kid’s cap pistol and an exact replica air soft gun are not firearms.

I’m not positive, but I’m fairly certain that the FBI was not involved nor has any interest in this case except at the request of the state DA for a lab test. It isn’t a federal crime. The DA is merely trying to cover all their bases. It is obvious that Baldwin pulled the trigger. I have shot a few of those types of single action revolvers and they can have what people call a hair trigger. It is extremely easy on some firearms to fire the shot accidentally by merely touching the trigger. Been there, done that… with the muzzle being pointed in a safe direction. So was it an accident and he didn’t intend to shoot? Does he think that he didn’t intentionally pull the trigger? Is he only lying to look more innocent in the public? The DA wanted to know and/or prove that the weapon could not be fired by dropping it, bumping it, etc. It depends on their state laws but in Texas as an example, merely pointing a firearm and someone ,even if you believe it is unloaded, is a crime. It is called Deadly Conduct. I believe that the main question will come down to, did Baldwin know that he was holding a real firearm capable of firing real bullets or did he reasonably believe that it was a prop gun and could only fire blanks or not at all? I have no idea how they will prosecute this case but I have seen some articles that suggested that the indictment was based partly on the fact that Baldwin hired a person who was unqualified to be the armorer. That may be true, however, does that make him culpable of a crime? If a Chief Of Police hires a police officer and two months later the officer makes a horrible mistake and kills an innocent person, does the chief go to jail for murder? Suing the police department and the chief is understandable for negligent hiring or negligent retention. That is far different than charging the police chief with murder when he/she was no part of the incident. Is it normal for actors to be handed a non-firing weapon by a person hired to do exactly that? Is it standard that the actor to always then inspect the gun and fake bullets to make sure there the armorer was correct (why hire an armorer then?) or do they trust the crew? It might be now a new rule but was it at that time? How many times was Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Robert Duvall, etc., given a gun that they didn’t check it? I think people are making silly argument that, everybody that handles firearms knows that you always check it and never point somebody. That is completely true however, that is not a movie set which is basically all fake. So beyond a reasonable doubt, did Baldwin know the he was handling a firearm (a non-firing item is not a firearm) or maybe did he bring a real revolver onto the set and especially did he put it next to a prop gun? Then he perhaps saw a couple of guns and grabbed the wrong one? Yep, he might be guilty but I think that is the burden that the DA has to prove.

But not looking good is not a crime. I was answering Hippy when he said they might get him for lying.

Unknown. I doubt it and almost certainly if he had a lawyer.