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CalvinJarrett's Replies
What does that have to do with the classification of the acts that gave rise to the instant criminal proceeding? What proof would we have that the jury considered the charged conduct to have been official acts? Even if they did so, it would not be the jury's province to determine if an act was 'official' and protected by executive immunity. That sort of inquiry would always be a matter of law for a judge to decide.
"If his appeal of the fraud conviction results in a new trial, then his attempt at getting the conviction reversed by calling his actions official, might work against him at the new trial."
Not that I believe Trump's pre-election offenses can be construed to be official acts, but what I think he (or his lawyers) is/are getting at is that, there can be no new trial. Just a straight reversal. Because if the charged conduct is determined to be "official acts," he is covered by official immunity. So he was immune from suit to begin with; he should never have been charged. Therefore, whether or not he did what the NY prosecutors said (and proved) he did is immaterial. Whether he admits he did what they said he did is immaterial. The argument is that immunity provides an affirmative defense to prosecution. There would no no new trial, if this argument is deemed meritorious because there should not have been a trial in the first place. I don't think it will pass legal muster, but that is the procedural posture his team is going for. A wholesale reversal of the jury's verdict and Judge Merchan's entry of judgment on the jury's verdict. No remand to the local, state court for a new trial.
A lot of Project 2025 seems to relate to governmental human resources, and the replacement of civil servants the president can fire at his/her discretion. Trump is not averse to firing people as both a public official and private businessperson. In fact, he brags about it (like he was doing during last week's debate against Biden.) The fear I have for Project 2025, is that Trump will fire a whole slew of lifelong civil servants from as many federal agencies as he desires and replace them with loyalists who have no intention of enforcing the rules/regulations the agenc(ies) was/were created to enforce.
Yes, PaladinNJ, hit the nail on the head. It was explained better in the book. As good of an adaptation of the source material Silence of the Lambs, the film, was of Thomas Harris's novel, the novel was about 400 pages. You can't capture every character, subplot, detail. I do wish, however, that the film devoted more time to Buffalo Bill;s psychopathy, which the book did very well. In the book, there were specific tests cited that proved to the gender reassignment doctors at multiple hospitals that Buffalo Bill was not a transexual. That, coupled, with his prior criminal record disqualified him for the surgery. That motivated him to seek alternative means to slip into his feminine skin.
Hahaha! That's a funny way of putting it!
In the interest of candor, Spielberg has never been one of my favorite directors. Whether it be his '70's films, '80's, up through the current time. So I am not rushing to his defense over some fanboy loyalty to my favorite moviemaker. I just don't like that sort of reasoning whether we're talking about politicians, athletes, performers, film directors, or any worker on whose project the end product hinges upon multiple people's efforts (or shortcomings). That kind of logic makes it too convenient for blind love or hatred of any single individual.
I see what you mean by "faint praise," in light of my choice of words. However, I was trying to be respectful to Mrs. Clinton. I wanted to refute the vitriol people throw at her on the basis of her physical looks, but I did not want to sexualize her or come off as such a huge fan of her image that my credibility would be called into question.
I looked through all 82 photos, and she really is not a bad looking woman at all. Young, middle-aged, and as a senior. Sure, maybe 20% were not so photogenic, but out of 82 pictures, that's going to happen some of the time. Some hairdos flattered her more than others. Again, if we look back over 50 years of our own hair styles, some do us justice, some do not. I really do not understand the hate for Hillary Clinton's looks. I think people are projecting their dislike for her personality or politics onto her face/figure, but it's a psychological error. She's a decent looking woman.
I don't think your statement about Spielberg is fair, Annkat. He can't win. If you like his early stuff, it's due to a phantom 'mentor'. You don't like his '80's movies, so those can be attributed entirely to Spielberg. Movies are a confluence of many people's ideas and input, no matter how bold the director. By your analysis, if it's bad, it's all Spielberg; if it's good, it's some unidentified genius operating behind the scenes.
I disagree. I usually like Sean Young. I did think she was pretty, but her hair was matronly looking - even for 1987. I thought she just came off cheap and vulgar in this movie. Sure, she did not deserve the fate that befell her. But there was nothing "seductive" about her ... she has intercourse with Costner within the first 10 minutes of the movie in a limo with the driver watching. You lose the title of 'seductress' when you leave a party after talking with a stranger for 2 minutes and are f|_|cking five minutes later.
What's so provocative about knowingly committing adultery with the Sec'y of Defense, living as a kept woman in an apartment he pays for, and shagging another guy at your friend's apartment so Sec'y of Defense because that would be a violation of your lease?
I don't think he knew what was going to happen. First of all, that would require an almost super-human sense of perceptiveness. Second, we're looking at this through the benefit of hindsight. This was the first contemporary American political assassination. Before Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X. It was the end of innocence. No modern American president would have feared such a catastrophic turn of events at the time in 1963. Who was the last assassinated president, William McKinley? James Garfield? I'm not sure of the answer, but I think both were shot in the 1800's! Added to that, Kennedy, was riding high in '63. He had such confidence, perhaps hubrus. I think his waving and smiling at his (and Jackie's) many admirers in Dallas that day was genuine; he was completely oblivious to the level of the hatred (or indifference to the sanctity of human life) that was about to do him in.
That onanism has been conflated with masturbation is an example of mass misinterpretation of the Bible. It may also be an intentional misinterpretation, or generalization, by people who have a personal abhorrence to masturbation in an attempt to use the Bible's teachings to support their abhorrence and deter others from masturbating. I think what some people are interpreting is that if Onan pulled out and spilled his seed on the floor, he must have jerked himself off when he did so. That's where they drag the masturbation into it. However, within the text of the Bible, there is no mention of that, merely that he spilled his seed upon the ground. For all we know, he was the original greatest puller-outer, and he managed to stay inside until the very last second, withdraw, and hands-free ejaculate on the ground.
In the modern era, it can and should be seen as a form of contraception. I don't know that it is the most "responsible" form of contraception, but that's another story. The problem was in biblical times, there really was no call for contraception. Sex was not an end to itself. It was a means to an end, and that end was procreation. Especially in Tamar and Onan's case, the explicit purpose behind Onan getting to have intercourse with Tamar in the first place was because Onan's brother/Tamar's husband had died. Levirite law demanded Onan sire Tamar a son so that Tamar and her children could be supported by the estate (and her son(s) would care for her when he/they reached adulthood and she reached old age.) Onan's sin was using Tamar as a sexual object. He wanted to catch a nut without giving her the seed.
No, I don't think the Bible was advocating that, but it might have been more common due to the sheer lack of population black then, to say nothing of the limited number of people within a specific ethnic/religious group.
The way the Bible describes it, Tamar wore a veil, so Judah had sex with her while not knowing her true identity. He looked at her as a faceless prostitute, and literally paid a heavy price for (like his son, Onan) using a woman as a sexual object. But in the end, the Levirite law was followed, and Tamar was taken care of by Judah until her and Jonah's sons (who may have been twins if memory serves) were in a position to care for their mother.
Again, the Bible did not want women in Tamar's position to be forced into prostitution because they had no other form of subsistence. In Tamar's case, that fate did come to her, but it was only temporary because the 'Judah' she slept with was a family relation thus insuring her rights under the 'estate laws' of the time.
It was an amazing era, whynotwriteme. I was even younger than you (I was born in '77), so you might have a better idea as to how truly easy it was to score back then - even if you were to young to be the one scoring. But I have researched the '70's significantly, and, though I do not know firsthand, everything seems to indicate that the sexual permissiveness exemplified in The Van was present in reality.
The other reason I think it really was that easy back then has to do with my own coming-of-age in the '90's. I was in high school and college in the 1990's. As you recall, AIDS that rocked the nation (and the world) in the '80's and '90's. One thing HIV/AIDS did was, certainly by the 1990's, get the school system to warn teens against the dangers of unprotected sex (if not sex, in general, even with condom-use) through their sex ed. curriculum. This notwithstanding, it was still easy to find willing partners with whom to have intercourse or oral sex - both with or without condoms. So I've got to figure, if that was the reality of the '90's, after we knew that HIUV/AIDS could be transmitted through heterosexual sex, imagine how permissive things must have been in the '70's before HIV/AIDS became a known entity. STD's were largely treatable with an injection or pills, and the birth control pill had been available since the 1960's. Not that I would personally endorse a careless approach to abortion, it also must be noted that abortion was a constitutional right for any woman in any and every state starting in 1973, and that would be the case until two years ago.
In terms of Cherise Wilson, I'm glad you agree about her appearance and physique. Also, as I said, it was racist to credit her "Mexican girl," especially since she was not of Mexican descent. She was only 'fat' compared to Debra White and the other (perhaps too skinny) actresses in The Van. That waterbed popped because it was cheap. It had nothing to do with Cherise's weight.
You'll like Cherise Wilson.
Wallpaper was most certainly part of the '80's. When we moved into our new house in 1983 (the year Revenge of the Nerds would have been filmed) every room in the house was wallpapered. And there was nothing '70's about it. It was the latest in home fashion. I remember throughout the '80's when my parents wanted to repaper a room, they'd get these huge books from interior decorators filled with swatches of different patterns. I'm sorry, but you don't know the '80's if you don't think wallpaper was very much a part of that decade, andersb-36022.
I looked not he full cast list on imdb. I think her name is Cherise Wilson. She is listed as "Mexican girl." I know, racist. Why imdb didn't describer as "Waterbed partner," or "Girl on waterbed," I don't know. The Van is her only credit.
No, the actress I'm talking about is not Debra White (pictured). I looked through all 13 pictures and the heavy-set one who had sex with him on the waterbed in his van is not pictured. But thank you for trying, whynotwriteme. I'm telling you, she was basically a speaking extra. She had one or two lines. She did get naked, but it seemed as though on original release or on the DVD I purchased, they did something to blur out her pubic area.
Specifically, Onan's sin was not getting Tamar, his sister-in-law, pregnant. Under Levirite law at the time, it was the duty of a man's brother to marry his deceased brother's widow and sire children with her. This was before things like life insurance and a female's ability to inherit property, so if a woman was widowed, she really was out-of-luck if her husband's family did not come to her aid. Once an heir is born, he could take care of his mother once he reached maturity.
Onan's sin was instead of having coitus with his widowed sister-in-law, Tamar, he used her as an object of sexual gratification. He had intercourse with her but instead of giving her his speed he 'spilt it upon the ground.' Thus, he stole his brother's fortune for his own line instead of using it to take care of Tamar and raise children with her.
There was a real concern in biblical times that women in Tamar's position would become prostitutes having no other form of subsistence if the Levirite law was not followed. Tamar did just that. In the end, she gained support from her deceased husband's father, Judah. Judah visited the brothel where Tamar worked, had sex with a veiled Tamar, finished inside, and Tamar became pregnant. As such, she and her progeny were taken care of by her husband's father (father-in law) because he sired her children.
Hey, HarlemEagle42, yes, either way it's weird what they stated he did. But I can not speak to what's appropriate for a parent to do in order to cope with the loss of a child. I can not fathom any of my children dying before me. I have a great deal of empathy for those who have had to deal with such a loss, and I would give them a fairly wide berth to do whatever they need to do to get through the rest of their lives.
Of course, if her death were brought on by him sexually abusing her and he's now using a prostitute as a surrogate for his deceased daughter, I have zero sympathy for him. And, yes, I can pretty much justify his demise in the movie. But the script is unclear. Their story would make a pretty compelling story in and of itself. And if any actress could take on that kind of a part, Judith Light would be the one.