President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

This was from 2018. ... The Martin Act was getting attention then due to what Eliot Spitzer had done with it to extort money from businesses, and then in 2018 when Eric Schniederman was using it's broad, unjust powers to try to go after ExxonMobile in a climate change suit of all things.

Depoliticize the Martin Act

The subhead was: In the wrong attorney general's hands, the New York statute is a weapon of mass destruction against business

That kind of authoritarian power is so antithetical to due process and an America that PROTECTS people's rights -- like when it is you, not Donald Trump. It's dangerous. In the case of Trump's case. ... the only victim the suit even alluded to (it was a fraud case that didn't need to go to the trouble of identifying victims) a) said it would do business with Trump again, and b) was so defrauded. ... that it made money from doing business with him.

Yet a judge was able to just issue a summary judgment. "Yeah, I think he is a fraudster, so let's just move onto punishment." Honestly, that is how North Korea does "due process." It's not something we should be happy about, even if it is Donald Trump. And that punishment could be anything. ... dissolve the business, exact huge fines. You have businesses in other states, where the blue sky laws actually have a high standard to prove fraud. ... that can't be punished in such a draconian way.

I hope none of you ever face a proceeding that skewed against you.

This is something, some guy wrote last year when the initial summary judgment came down, and he gets it right. People don't want to think about the process. But the process it's important. Because these are barn doors that once you open it. ... it isn't limited to the "obvious" bad guys for whom you don't care if they get a fair process.

Red Jahncke (opinion): 'Dangerous' law used against Trump

One last link from 2018 too, when Schneiderman was abusing the law in that ExxonMobile case. The WSJ called the Martin Act the Worst Law in America.

The Worst Law in America

But I get it. 10,000 words. And there are people who will stick their fingers in your ears, not care to even listen to what I was saying: "He broke the law! STFU." Despite having no idea what the "law" was and how it actually went down.

You don't give a fuck because it's Donald Trump. But it's why America consistently reaps what it sows. The "ends justify the means" attitude because you are so partisan that things like individual rights don't matter. But when the law is getting misused to get someone you're more sympathetic to. ... you endorsed that kind of thing. And we're all worse for it. There are a gazillion legitimate ways to "get" Donald Trump -- he's immoral, will break the law, does commit fraud like it is a bodily function. But it's just not so easy to do it in a fair way, because it requires due process and errs in favor of his rights, and gives him the ability to fight back in the way America is supposed to allow people to.