Sarin-dippity

[The Outsider]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Covfefe

[emby]

Covfefe

[emby]

US Senator Bob Menendez's defence has sought to shift blame for his alleged bribe-taking to his wife, in opening statements at his corruption trial.

Nadine Menendez "kept him in the dark" on financial matters, the politician's attorney, Avi Weitzman, told the jury.

But prosecutor Lara Pomerantz said Mr Menendez, 70, used his wife as a go-between in trading political influence for money, gifts and gold bars.

The long-serving New Jersey Democrat "put his power up for sale", she said.

Dayum! Shots fired!

"It wasn't me, your honor. It was my low down, rotten, good for nothing wife!"

I gave zero shits about this case outside of making sure he was properly hung out to dry. Didn't even matter to me what the facts were. After Marion Berry, anything is possible. But then Jon Stewart did a bit on it this week and ho boy! this just might be the political farce I've been craving.

These people are cartoon characters.

As the gold bar turns...

NEW YORK — After nine weeks and well over a million words of testimony and lawyer arguments, jurors in Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption trial began deliberations on Friday afternoon.

They will decide whether a sprawling, yearslong federal investigation and high-stakes political prosecution is a righteous takedown of a corrupt New Jersey Democrat or a catastrophic and misguided waste of time.


Their decision will determine the fate of a famed New Jersey politician who wielded enormous influence on the local, national and world stage over the course of his 50-year career. At 70, a guilty verdict could very well mean Menendez will spend the rest of his life in prison. But an acquittal — or hung jury, like in his 2017 trial — would amount to a historic and extraordinary legal feat for a senator who has long accused the Justice Department of “hunting” him.


The corruption case is, to be sure, complex. Prosecutors allege the senator was involved in a series of overlapping schemes to disrupt state and federal criminal investigations and help Egypt obtain American military aid in exchange for cash and gold found when the FBI searched his home.

But prosecutors from the Southern District of New York say their case boils down to a simple story about an entitled elected official selling himself. The trial opened in mid-May with jurors being shown those goods — piles of cash and over a dozen bars of gold.

The 12 jurors, who included a doctor and retired economist, have a daunting task ahead.

Prosecutors are attempting to prove beyond a reasonable doubt 18 separate charges against Menendez, a pair of businesspeople and the senator’s wife Nadine. A third businessperson already pleaded guilty and testified against Menendez. His wife will be tried separately because of a breast cancer diagnosis.

On Thursday and Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein spent about four giving the jurors instructions.

Some of those jury instructions were based on relatively fresh Supreme Court rulings that have made it harder than ever for prosecutors to combat political corruption.

And whatever jurors decide may not be the final word. If they convict Menendez on one or more of the 16 counts he faces, the senator will almost certainly appeal.


At the most basic level, the jurors main task ahead is who to believe: prosecutors or Menendez.

Yet, it became clear in the final days of the trial that there is a third side of the story.

Attorneys for the senator’s co-defendants — Egyptian-American meat mogul Wael “Will” Hana and prominent New Jersey developer and longtime Menendez friend Fred Daibes — acknowledged or left open the possibility that their clients gave gifts of cash or gold to the Menendezes that the senator’s legal team spent the whole trial suggesting he did not receive.

Instead, Hana and Daibes’ defense is that cash and gold was not given in exchange for any particular official act by the senator. Stein’s jury instructions included a relatively novel section that made clear not every gift to a public official, like Menendez, is a bribe.

“Were these bribes or were they gifts, were they something criminal, or were they something generous?” Hana attorney Larry Lustberg told jurors. “Don’t, as the government asks you to do over and over and over, just assume the worst.”

While all the defendants argued there were no bribes, the competing defenses add to what the jurors must reconcile.

“They didn’t give me any gifts whatsoever,” Menendez told POLITICO as he left the courthouse on Wednesday.

But authorities found Daibes’ fingerprints on envelopes of cash found in the Menendez home and have traced back some of the cash to when it was printed and put into circulation. The fingerprints of Hana associates have been found on other envelopes.

At other times, Menendez’s attorneys have tried to portray their client’s wife as doing things behind his back. Daniel Richenthal, one of the federal prosecutors, urged jurors to reject this defense.

“I’m not making fun of her,” he told jurors Thursday. “But does she strike you as a diabolical genius who concocts a plan with Menendez’s friend and Wael Hana to dupe him for five years, including when they’re living together? You think that she could have even pulled that off if she tried?”


No matter what the jury decides, Menendez’s political life is all but over, though he is mounting a long-shot reelection bid as an independent.

Until he was indicted last fall, Menendez was among the most powerful people in the world as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a post he was forced out of amid accusations from this case that he was working as an agent of the Egyptian government.

In a sign of how diminished he is, compare where he was on primary day in New Jersey. As Menendez was stuck in court on June 4 listening to an FBI investigator testify about a stakeout that caught him dining with an Egyptian intelligence officer, New Jersey Democrats went to the polls and selected Rep. Andy Kim as his likely replacement.

But Menendez is not going to go down without a fight.

Almost each day of the trial, his team of attorneys have made objections meant to preserve grounds for an appeal and provoke Judge Stein into making a ruling that could be used to overturn the whole case.

The judge’s mid-trial rulings have ranged from mundane instructions on basic rules of evidence to complex interpretations of the Constitution’s speech or debate clause. That language was meant by the nation’s founders to insulate members of Congress as they deliberate, and is seen by Menendez’s attorneys as fertile ground to plant an appeal aimed at Supreme Court justices who are increasingly hawkish in carving out immunity for elected officials.

[emby]

Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire behind Tesla, X, and SpaceX, has claimed to be an alien.

Speaking at VivaTech in Paris, France a worldwide summit for technological start-ups, Musk was asked by an event host if he was an alien.The 52-year-old entrepreneur laughed and responded: "I am an alien yes, I keep telling people I'm an alien. But nobody believes me."

Goddamned illegal aliens.

[PetePierson]

Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire behind Tesla, X, and SpaceX, has claimed to be an alien.

Speaking at VivaTech in Paris, France a worldwide summit for technological start-ups, Musk was asked by an event host if he was an alien.The 52-year-old entrepreneur laughed and responded: "I am an alien yes, I keep telling people I'm an alien. But nobody believes me."

Goddamned illegal aliens.

I wouldn't be surprised.

[PetePierson]

High Thought from lame Sober:

Do you think campaigns consider how the ticket sounds?

Biden / Harris. Trump / Pence. Trump / Vance?

[The Outsider]

High Thought from lame Sober:

Do you think campaigns consider how the ticket sounds?

Biden / Harris. Trump / Pence. Trump / Vance?

I'm sure some marketing nerd somewhere in the campaign staff considers it, yes. Ironic that Trump/Vance can easily be shortened to Trance, evoking either EDM or thoughts that it's far too close to one of those scary words that refers to people they're afraid of because they are attracted to some of them but those people also have dicks.

[PetePierson]

I'm sure some marketing nerd somewhere in the campaign staff considers it, yes. Ironic that Trump/Vance can easily be shortened to Trance, evoking either EDM or thoughts that it's far too close to one of those scary words that refers to people they're afraid of because they are attracted to some of them but those people also have dicks.

Hmmmmm Ladybois.

[emby]

I'm sure some marketing nerd somewhere in the campaign staff considers it, yes. Ironic that Trump/Vance can easily be shortened to Trance, evoking either EDM or thoughts that it's far too close to one of those scary words that refers to people they're afraid of because they are attracted to some of them but those people also have dicks.

Hmmmmm Ladybois.

Real shit. Would drunken Pete have let a ladyboy go down on him in the right circumstances?

[PetePierson]

I'm sure some marketing nerd somewhere in the campaign staff considers it, yes. Ironic that Trump/Vance can easily be shortened to Trance, evoking either EDM or thoughts that it's far too close to one of those scary words that refers to people they're afraid of because they are attracted to some of them but those people also have dicks.

Hmmmmm Ladybois.

Real shit. Would drunken Pete have let a ladyboy go down on him in the right circumstances?

Pedro shall plead the 5th.

[PetePierson]

Back in my less than honorable days of being a real glutton and drunkard, I partook in a certain hobby, a free exchange of services type deal.

Anywho, it's a dangerous game so when you find a provider where you vibe and there is some level of the most basic "relationship", regular meets can occur. So, I had one of these such deals.

One weekend, she was in town and asked if I wanted to meet up. After we made arrangements she asked me to meet her and a friend out for dinner & drinks. I figured this is where things go sideways and I end up robbed, beaten or dead... possibly the hattrick. But as we all know, I am stupid and the meet was at a fairly swanky steak house in uptown Charlotte so decided to meet up.

Turns out her friend was also in the business (shocking). This chick was 23-24ish and absolutely stunning. Had dinner and drinks, and everything was fine other than me looking like a super creep and / or a pimp.

Meet up with just the regular the next night and she drops that her friend is trans. Granted, I was drunk and restaurant has dark lighting but there is no way I would have guessed. Voice was a little deep / raspy but wouldn't have thought twice about it if I hadn't known.

And that kids, is one to grow on.