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Donald Trump v. Hillary Clinton Opinion
The court agrees with the defense position that "[w]hatever the utilities of [the Amended Complaint] as a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances, it has no merit as a lawsuit."
I'm slammed today, so I can't offer much detail; but I thought I'd include a link and the opening discussion (the opinion was issued yesterday by Judge Donald Middlebrooks (S.D. Fla.)):
Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit on March 24, 2022, alleging that "the Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton." On this general premise, Plaintiff brings a claim for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"), predicated on the theft of trade secrets, obstruction of justice, and wire fraud (Count I). He additionally brings claims for: injurious falsehood (Count III); malicious prosecution (Count V); violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA") (Count VII); theft of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 ("DTSA") (Count VIII); and violations of the Stored Communications Act ("SCA") (Count IX). The Amended Complaint also contains counts for various conspiracy charges and theories of agency and vicarious liability. (Counts II, IV, VI, and X–XVI).
Plaintiff's theory of this case, set forth over 527 paragraphs in the first 118 pages of the Amended Complaint, is difficult to summarize in a concise and cohesive manner. It was certainly not presented that way. Nevertheless, I will attempt to distill it here.
The short version: Plaintiff alleges that the Defendants "[a]cting in concert … maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty." The Defendants effectuated this alleged conspiracy through two core efforts. "[O]n one front, Perkins Coie partner Mark Elias led an effort to produce spurious 'opposition research' claiming to reveal illicit ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives." To that end, Defendant Hillary Clinton and her campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and lawyers for the Campaign and the Committee allegedly hired Defendant Fusion GPS to fabricate the Steele Dossier. "[O]n a separate front, Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussman headed a campaign to develop misleading evidence of a bogus 'back channel' connection between e-mail servers at Trump Tower and a Russian- owned bank."
Clinton and her operatives allegedly hired Defendant Rodney Joffe to exploit his access to Domain Name Systems ("DNS") data, via Defendant Neustar, to investigate and ultimately manufacture a suspicious pattern of activity between Trump-related servers and a Russian bank with ties to Vladimir Putin, Alfa Bank. As a result of this "fraudulent evidence," the Federal Bureau of Investigations ("FBI") commenced "several large-scale investigations," which were "prolonged and exacerbated by the presence of a small faction of Clinton loyalists who were well-positioned within the Department of Justice"—Defendants James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and Bruce Ohr. And while this was ongoing, the Defendants allegedly "seized on the opportunity to publicly malign Donald J. Trump by instigating a full-blown media frenzy." As a result of this "multi-pronged attack," Plaintiff claims to have amassed $24 million in damages {includ[ing] fees amassed in bringing the present action}.
Defendants now move to dismiss the Amended Complaint as "a series of disconnected political disputes that Plaintiff has alchemized into a sweeping conspiracy among the many individuals Plaintiff believes to have aggrieved him." They argue that dismissal is warranted because Plaintiff's claims are both "hopelessly stale"—that is, foreclosed by the applicable statutes of limitations—and because they fail on the merits "in multiple independent respects." As they view it, "[w]hatever the utilities of [the Amended Complaint] as a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances, it has no merit as a lawsuit."
I agree. In the discussion that follows, I first address the Amended Complaint's structural deficiencies. I then turn to subject matter jurisdiction and the personal jurisdiction arguments raised by certain Defendants. Finally, I assess the sufficiency of the allegations as to each of the substantive counts….
Discussion
First, the pleading itself. A complaint filed in federal court must contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Each allegation must be simple, concise, and direct. Each claim must be stated in numbered paragraphs, and each numbered paragraph limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances.
Plaintiff's Amended Complaint is 193 pages in length, with 819 numbered paragraphs. It contains 14 counts, names 31 defendants, 10 "John Does" described as fictitious and unknown persons, and 10 "ABC Corporations" identified as fictitious and unknown entities. Plaintiff's Amended Complaint is neither short nor plain, and it certainly does not establish that Plaintiff is entitled to any relief.
More troubling, the claims presented in the Amended Complaint are not warranted under existing law. In fact, they are foreclosed by existing precedent, including decisions of the Supreme Court. To illustrate, I highlight here just two glaring problems with the Amended Complaint. There are many others. But these are emblematic of the audacity of Plaintiff's legal theories and the manner in which they clearly contravene binding case law.
First, the Amended Complaint's answer to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the original Complaint, wherein Defendants noted the lack of predicate RICO offenses, was to add another predicate offense—wire fraud. The Amended Complaint alleges that the Defendants "engaged in a calculated scheme to defraud the news media, law enforcement, and counterintelligence officials for the purpose of proliferating a false narrative of collusion between Trump and Russia." Not only does Plaintiff lack standing to complain about an alleged scheme to defraud the news media, but his lawyers ignore the Supreme Court's holdings that the federal wire fraud statute prohibits only deceptive schemes to deprive the victim of money or property. It is necessary to show not only that a defendant engaged in deception, but that an object of the fraud was property. Kelly v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 1565, 1571 (2020); Cleveland v. United States, 531 U.S. 12, 26 (2000). Likewise, the Amended Complaint, like its predecessor, fails to account for the Supreme Court's requirement that to obstruct justice there must be a nexus to a judicial or grand jury proceeding. United States v. Aquilar, 515 U.S. 593, 599 (1995); see also United States v. Friske, 640 F.3d 1288, 1291 (11th Cir. 2011).
Many of the Amended Complaint's characterizations of events are implausible because they lack any specific allegations which might provide factual support for the conclusions reached. For instance, the contention that former FBI director James Comey, senior FBI officials, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "overzealously targeted" Plaintiff and conspired to harm him through appointment of special counsel are strikingly similar to the conclusory and formulaic allegations found deficient in the seminal Supreme Court case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). What the Amended Complaint lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances.
Plaintiff has annotated the Amended Complaint with 293 footnotes containing references to various public reports and findings. He is not required to annotate his Complaint; in fact, it is inconsistent with Rule 8's requirement of a short and plain statement of the claim. But if a party chooses to include such references, it is expected that they be presented in good faith and with evidentiary support. Unfortunately, that is not the case here.
Two examples illustrate this. Paragraph 3 of the Amended Complaint states in part: "[t]he scheme was conceived, coordinated and carried out by top-level officials at the Clinton Campaign, and the DNC—including 'the candidate' herself—who attempted to shield her involvement behind a wall of third parties." To support that statement, footnote 1 cites the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation at 96 (2019). I went to page 96 of the Inspector General's Report looking for support for Plaintiff's conclusory and argumentative statement but found none. The Inspector General's Report is referenced throughout the Amended Complaint, in support of Plaintiff's claim that senior officials of the FBI and Department of Justice conspired to harm him through a baseless investigation. However, the Amended Complaint fails to acknowledge that the Inspector General's Report, while acknowledging deficiencies, reached the following ultimate conclusion:
The decision to open the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation was made by the FBI's then Counterintelligence Division (CD) Assistant Director (AD) E.W. "Bill" Priestap, and reflected consensus reached after multiple days of discussions and meetings among senior FBI officials. We conclude AD Priestap's exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivations influenced his decision—we found that Crossfire Hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predicate.
Plaintiff and his lawyers are of course free to reject the conclusion of the Inspector General. But they cannot misrepresent it in a pleading.
Likewise, the Amended Complaint cites copiously to the indictment of Michael Sussmann and a substantial portion of the Amended Complaint contains its allegations. Exhibits and testimony from the trial are also included. But nowhere does the Amended Complaint mention Mr. Sussmann's acquittal. See United States v. Sussmann, No. 21-cr-582 (D.D.C.) In presenting a pleading, an attorney certifies that it is not being presented for any improper purpose; that the claims are warranted under the law; and that the factual contentions have evidentiary support. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11. By filing the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff's lawyers certified to the Court that, to the best of their knowledge, "the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law," and that "the factual contentions have evidentiary support[.]" Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(2). I have serious doubts about whether that standard is met here.
The sprawling nature of the Amended Complaint and the number of defendants makes analysis difficult to organize. I will endeavor to examine each count, separately referencing individual defendants where appropriate….
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Didn’t he try to get a different judge to hear this? Guess which one. Go on, guess.
He sought for the Bill Clinton appointed judge to recuse himself.
Not quite what you posted.
Oh go on, what judge did he actually want?
Hint: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157.30.0_6.pdf
“Didn’t he try to get a different judge to hear this? Guess which one. Go on, guess.”
The complaint was filed in the Fort Pierce courthouse in the Southern District of Florida, where Judge Aileen Cannon is the only sitting judge. The lawsuit wound up assigned to Judge Donald Middlebrooks, though.
Hopefully there’s a sanctions motion and award of fees and costs.
If you want to file political ads dressed up as lawsuits that’s your prerogative but you shouldn’t be able to make other people pay for them.
The last sentence of the order:
“(7) I reserve jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions. “
Yup. And another commenter mentioned the court referred to rule 11 a couple of times.
It really seems like plaintiff (and/or his lawyer) should get dinged for all the fees and costs in the entire suit. But it might be limited to just the amended complaint and related briefing.
The signing and filing of the original complaint also likely ran afoul of Rule 11.
If there is a motion for sanctions, it should make for an interesting hearing.
A complaint like this definitely is time-consuming for a judge or anyone to digest. It is surprising to me that certain claims are foreclosed by precedent. You would think that the lawyers would have done more research to avoid that outcome.
This is Parking Garage Lawyer’s handiwork. She did the best she could.
We call them “dog-catcher’s court lawyer” where I come from.
I was being literal.
The judge was appointed by the husband of the Defendant. He clearly should have recused himself.
Isaac: We can’t wait to hear your opinion about Aileen M. Cannon, U.S.D.J., S.D. Florida!
There’s a big difference. Conservatives are capable of logic and reason. Liberals are not.
Sure, and let me guess: any judge appointed by Biden should recuse himself because Trump and Biden were and may again be opponents. And any judge appointed by Bush (either one!) should recuse himself because Trump and Jeb! were opponents. And any judge appointed by Obama should recuse himself because Obama’s black.
As I was reading the judge’s summary my brain was playing Woody Woodpecker and his “ah-ah-ah-ah-AH-ah”. How the hell did he get a serious lawyer to even file this mess?
Trump can dish it out but when it comes to taking it he’s 100% pussy.
The 2024 election is shaping up as a rematch of 2020 – a traveling show called “The World’s Greatest Clown”.
“How the hell did he get a serious lawyer to even file this mess?”
Objection. No foundation.
The judge refers to rule 11 directly or indirectly more than once. Will Trump’s legal teams one day be the subject of a lecture of a legal ethics course? Will they have to give lectures on legal ethics to keep their licenses? An engineer responsible for the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse spent the rest of his life talking to engineers telling them not to be like him.
Another day, another Trump LOLSuit tossed.
But you have to give his attorneys an “A” for effort in attempting to get the case heard by Aileen Cannon instead of an actual judge. The rest of the filing, not so much.
Let’s hope the judge issues some kind of penalty for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
I have observed that just as dogs often look like their masters, attorneys often reflect the character of their clients. I only had one case where that was wrong, the other side had a client who was a total jerk, but the lawyer was a total mensch.
In Trump’s case, my paradigm certainly holds. Clown client, clown lawyer.
IANAL, but if I were one I’d be quite hesitant to represent a client who won’t listen to my advice, publicly undermines the argument I’m trying to present to the court, will likely not pay the attoney’s fees, and after it’s done and he loses due to his own damn fault complain publicly and sic a mob to social media to harass me.
So, no, I wouldn’t exactly expect the best and the brightest.
What are you saying? He’s a bad client or something?
I’d probably do the initial consult just for the laughs, but then I’d beg off with a conflict or something.
But say you are a second-tier lawyers. You are not going to get the big cases or the big clients and here you have a chance to work for the former President, isn’t that worth some value to you? Help you get your foot in the door to some clients? The case is awful, but the opportunities is great.
I wonder which Volokh posters helped Trump with his Complaint. The overlaps are obvious.
From the decision:
A complaint filed in federal court must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(1). Each allegation must be simple, concise, and direct. Each claim must be stated in numbered paragraphs, and each numbered paragraph limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances. Fed. R. Civ. P. 10.
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is 193 pages in length, with 819 numbered paragraphs. It contains 14 counts, names 31 defendants, 10 “John Does” described as fictitious and unknown
persons, and 10 “ABC Corporations” identified as fictitious and unknown entities. Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is neither short nor plain, and it certainly does not establish that Plaintiff is entitled to any relief.
I wonder whether his lawyers will get paid by Trump, by his fund-raising committees, or he’ll just stiff them per his old SOP.
TLDR- Trump got bitchslapped out of court like he should’ve been for this frivolous bullshit.
Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth II is still dead.
How does a judge get selected for parsing through this crap? Seems like torture.
But… having this ruling by a Clinton appointee will only fuel the Trump fire.
Well, supposedly Trump filed the suit in a South Florida court hoping that Judge Cannon would get assigned the case – but somehow it didn’t work out like that. I suspect that even Cannon would have forwarded the Amended Complaint to Charmin’.
Is this case truly dead?
The Federal Tort Claims Act requires plaintiffs to exhaust their administrative remedies before suing the Federal government, and Trump didn’t even pretend to do that. The judge dismisses the case against the Federal government for that reason. The judge then reviews the many other flaws in the complaint (my favorite is Trump’s claim to be the victim of malicious prosecution when he hasn’t been prosecuted), and determines that a dismissal with prejudice is appropriate because this is an amended complaint which doesn’t correct any of the flaws in the original complaint.
The dismissal of the suit with respect to the Federal government is without prejudice, presumably because the rule contemplates the defendant exhausting his administrative remedies and then refiling if he isn’t satisfied with the result. Trump therefore could in principle refile, this time naming only the United States as a defendant. But my guess, or at least hope, is that refiling would result in sanctions because the current ruling puts Trump on notice that his suit is meritless.
Trump would have a problem of timeliness with refiling against the United States. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), a tort claim against the United States shall be forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within two years after such claim accrues or unless action is begun within six months after the date of mailing, by certified or registered mail, of notice of final denial of the claim by the agency to which it was presented.
I suspect the lawsuit accomplished its goals of fund raising and the former President has found another group to sue the Lincoln Project. There will be another fund-raising letter about asking for money to fight this new lawsuit and more of the little people’s money will be taken.
The question was raised of sanction and court cost, but what of the money collected in support of the Clinton lawsuit? Will that be returned or pocketed?
None of the Trump pasta stuck to the wall against which it was thrown.
That opinion was a bit of a slog. And I feel sorry for both the judge and the judge’s law clerks for having to dispose of all the bool and sheet arguments that TFG tried.
But the RICO sections in particular are a great example of why the Popehat “It’s Not RICO, Dammit” screed was originally written:
https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/
A classic, and far more amusing than wading through the opinion (unless you like to see TFG getting repeatedly bench-slapped).
But in case anyone’s truly lazy, regarding TFG’s weak-sauce RICO attempts:
“That’s not what RICO means. RICO is not a fucking frown emoji. It’s not an exclamation point. It’s not a rhetorical tool to convey you are upset about something. It’s not a petulant foot-stomp.
RICO is a really complicated racketeering law that has elaborate requirements that are difficult to meet. It’s overused by idiot plaintiff lawyers, and it’s ludicrously overused by a hundred million jackasses on the internet with an opinion and a mood disorder.”
RICO is hard. “Malicious Prosecution” is easy, as in to suffer malicious prosecution, one needs to have been actually prosecuted. But what’s in a name?
As the court notes:
“Plaintiff sues… for malicious prosecution. But Plaintiff was never prosecuted.”
I was looking for the count where he claims defendants turned him into a newt. How’d his attorneys miss that one?
No, it’s not comparable. A blow job does not potentially impact national security. Once a semi-plausible claim had been made that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians, that does impact national security, and it needed to at least been investigated. You could argue that the Russian investigation should have concluded earlier than it did, but unlike Clinton getting a blow job, it was a legitimate national security concern that needed to be looked at.
Which, in turn, is why the calumny is not comparable either.
And my biggest gripe with Republican what-aboutism is that, as here, most of the time the two situations aren’t even similar. What aboutism would still be a logical fallacy even if they were, but if you want to engage in that fallacy, at least try to find something that is factually on point.
“blow job does not potentially impact national security”
Married president having an affair is a potential blackmail target. Maybe slim in these immoral hedonistic times but still slightly more real than your imaginary “semi-plausible” “cahoots” theory.
The affair has nothing to do with impeachment, other than the fact that it existed. He was impeached for lying under oath in his civil deposition related to Jones v Clinton.
Have whatever opinion you want but committing a crime while president could reasonably be seen as impeachment worthy.
Bob, it’s to laugh. Everyone knew that Clinton was a hound dog who chased every skirt within sight. The idea that someone can be blackmailed over something that everybody already knows is ridiculous. You could equally as well threaten Trump with exposure that he’s a business crook.
Oh I think lying about contacts with Russian agents when Russia is trying to influence the election in your favour has WAY more national security issues than a blow job.
The Mueller Report concluded that the Russians attempted to influence the election in Trump’s favour, that Trump knew about it, that Trump staff had meetings with Russians, which they lied about, and that Trump and his staff obstructed the investigation.
The Russian collusion hoax was a lie from the beginning, yes. Still is. Russian collusion, however, was not a lie.
Plus, if it was a witch hunt it was another Republican witch hunt, funnily enough.
Only according to Bill Barr.
It most certainly did. I read all 448 pgs.
You aren’t a disaffected, delusional right-winger living in Can’t Keep Up, Ohio.
A) russia has been active in trying to influence elections since stalins time
B) what makes you think that the russians wanted trump to win when they already had bought hillary?
That’s different.
Because Jesus.
I have run into clown client-clown lawyer tandems.
Nothing quite like Trump Election Litigation: Elite Strike Force, though.
I not only am confident you are a lawyer, mad_kalak, but also would doubt that you graduated from a legitimate college.
(Backwater religious schools — the type run by conservatives that teach nonsense to gullible hayseeds — don’t count.)
Yep. Somebody didn’t bother to actually read the Mueller report.
Hard to believe that anybody is still claiming “hoax” at this point.
34 indictments, convictions, or guilty pleas.
That’s not exactly “hoax” results.
So, yes, the Mueller Report did show all that, so where’s the lie? Where’s the process crime? You’re trying to both-sides the Clinton and Trump investigations, but you have to actively cover for Trump and downplay the findings and dismiss his actions to do so.
You haven’t shown anything except that either you don;t know what’s in the Mueller report or you lied about it, and you’re still trying to pretend there was nothing. In your efforts to draw an equivalence about both, of course, you rely on right-wing framing.
If you are going to keep commenting on the Mueller report, you should probably go ahead and read it at some point. A lot of his findings are going to surprise you, I think.
The results of the Mueller Report is that you know ‘The Russia Hoax’ was not a hoax, but you keep calling it that.
LOL, m_k saying “It’s a witch hunt” and then right after “I’m not trying, I’m succeeding, in showing it was a witch hunt” having…just typed witch hunt once.
Forget the Mueller report. The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also put out a report. It also concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win, and that members of the Trump campaign were aware of, welcomed, and worked with Russia on this.
Are you still talking to queen? His/her understanding of history is not nearly deep enough to understand subtle things like Patton’s attitude toward Germany and the Soviets in 1945.
Besides which, how did the Nazis come to be despised by the American left while the Communists are still acceptable? Like the Communists treated people any better that the fascists? Joining with the communists to fight the fascists is really no better than joining with the fascists to fight the communists. Instead we chose to fuck over people like the Poles, who deserved a lot better than we got.
And that doesn’t even touch on the Japanese, who were an order of magnitude more cruel than the Nazis.
You don’t have to think the Communists acceptable to think extending the second world war indefinitely by invading Russia was a bad idea. After all, what could possibly go wrong with an invasion of Russia?
I’m not sure why you’d think the Germans were ‘better.’ Nothing in Russian history – soaked in blood and brutality as it is – quite matches the death camps for horror.
I didn’t say they were better. Read again. I said they were the same.
But in America almost everyone hates the Nazis but a significant portion of the American left loves them some communism.
The gulags were very, very bad, they did not include gassing the inamtes and burning the bodies on an industrial scale.
Mad_kalak said they were better. Sorry for mixing the replies to you both.
Hating Commies has been a significant feature of American society cultiure and politics since the war, way more so than hating Nazis. I’d say the portion of Americans that currently loves the Communists is far smaller than the portion who currently love the Nazis, at least openly, and while the Nazi-lovers vote for Trump, I doubt the Commie-lovers vote for Biden.
I didn’t say they weren’t, moron. I said the Japanese exhibited more cruelty. The Germans mostly focused on Jews. The Japanese didn’t discriminate. They were monstrous toward everyone.
And why don’t you hate the Communists as much as the Nazis? Arguably at least the Germans followed one bad leader. The Coms exhibited horrible cruelty under multiple leaders over several generations. But they’re a-ok.
That’s not what you said, Kalak.
You said we fought on the wrong side in WWII.
You may have tried to crawfish away later with that business about Patton, but you said what you said.
And again, Patton was a fine general. That doesn’t make him a foreign policy expert.
‘The Japanese didn’t discriminate.’
The Japanese were brutal and barbaric but, again, they didn’t create industrial-scale murder camps. I dislike turning this into an atrocity competition, but I find your assertions unpersuasive and, frankly unnecessary.
‘And why don’t you hate the Communists as much as the Nazis?’
Who says I don’t?
Given how history unfolded I find your argument here arbitrary.
a significant portion of the American left loves them some communism.
For some definitions of “significant.” And a larger portion of the right loves them some authoritarians.
He was also saying that the Germans were a better people.
I’m saying, I think he was right.
Yeah. You’re a fan of the Nazis who, by the way, persecuted a lot more people than the Jews.
You think it would have been just lovely if they had conquered all of Europe. Then we could have been pals.
Fuck you.
I don’t give a fuck if you call the Communists worse than the Nazis. Your opinion has no value to me.
What I won’t let go is your assertion that we fought on the “wrong side.” That means, in plain English, that we shouldd have fought on the Nazi side.
And what do you think the outcome would have been had we remained neutral? Delightful for Eastern Europe? And Western Europe?
And sure, let’s invade Russia after defeating Germany. That’s a;ways a good plan.
The Germans mostly focused on Jews.
Not so.
An estimated 17 million people were murdered by the German Nazi regime and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945, according to data published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). The estimates are based on the regime’s own reports as well as demographic studies of population loss during World War II.
Yeah, to borrow a phrase from the current press secretary I said what I said a little inartfully. I was trying to say that the Germans were more focused and the Japanese were more impartial in their slaughter. No intent to minimize either one, it just seems odd that the world remembers the Nazi crimes but those of Japan are pretty much forgotten. Except by the Koreans and Chinese I guess.
I’m fully aware that the Nazis killed more than just Jews. My grandfather fought in the Army COE in Europe and in the final days he and his unit came upon an SS unit trying to cover up a very fresh minor atrocity that they had committed. I have a picture that my granddad took that day of approximately 1000 partially burned bodies lined up on the ground, all gypsies and gays and bohemians and the like. So I’m aware.
The atrocity is known as the Gardelegen Massacre if you’re interested. Awful stuff.
Patton was a virulent antisemite. Is that your excuse, too?
You did not say that we should have stayed out of the war; you said that we should’ve fought on the other side.
1) No, he didn’t. It was not as harsh as things he wrote at other times, before and after; it was not ‘wonderfully positive.’
2) Churchill didn’t know about the Holocaust at the time, because it hadn’t happened yet. What’s your excuse?
Did he say we should have fought on Hitler’s side?
Bernard, your statement dismissing sympathy toward communism from the left (and no it’s not nearly all but it’s a lot) is absurd.
We won’t even get into the all the college profs and admins who adore communism, or the entertainment liberals who have expressed solidarity with guys like Chavez and Castro.
A guy who is an open and proud lifelong communist has finished 2nd in the last two Democratic primaries. Yeah, you’re going to say “oh no, he’s a Democratic Socialist” but that’s just self labeling. He spent his entire life extolling the virtues of the Soviet Union and Cuba, even as they oppressed hundreds of millions. He walks like a duck and talks like a duck. He isn’t an egret.
And who is worse the left or the right isn’t even the issue I brought up. My question is this – Nazi style fascism is regarded with universal disgust these days, and rightfully so. Why hasn’t communism, which was every bit as bad and in some ways worse, thought of the same way. Anyone who says “I’m a communist” deserves the same treatment as the Proud Boys. But they don’t get it. Why?
I agree with you that there’s plenty of support for communism on the left. What there is virtually none of is support for Stalin on the left. That’s a true kook fringe.
True, David, but still where’s the differentiation? Stalin was special, but communism under people other than Stalin was still universally oppressive. Things didn’t get any better for Eastern Europe when Khrushchev or Brezhnev came along.
Pol Pot. Castro. Chavez. Mao. The list goes on forever.
Why is communism not treated with the same vitriol as Nazism? It certainly deserves to be.
Except using his office to try to haggle for dirt on his political opponent, Biden, using already-promised missiles as leverage. Some people might think that was ‘wrong.’
Not Republicans, specifically, who hardly have any sort of moral authority in their current state.
And yet, one party impeached Trump for doing wrong, and one protected him.
Except Clinton was impeached over a blowjob and Trump was impeached for trying to blackmail Ukraine to give him dirt on Biden. Not the same.
Wow thats apt of braying telling others to read a report when you obviously have not. The report showed no collusion. It says so. Mueller testified as such. It shows russia may have wanted trump to win, but that does not mean collusion.
The only factual collusion we do have is Hillary paying someone in Britain to work wITH Russians to generate lies then feeding it to state and the FBI.
It is amazing how ignorant you leftists are.
I didn’t say it ‘showed’ collusion, though it hardly ruled it out, either, especially considering the obstruction.
I’m sorry, your last paragraph just got thrown out of court, see blog entry above.
Incorrect. It failed because the GOP didn’t care that Trump had engaged in wrongdoing, not because they didn’t think it was wrong.
Come on, Kalak, wasn’t it you who said the US should have allied itself with Hitler in WWII?
Oh. That’s different from turning on Russia AFTER defeating Hitler. Way different.
Just to be clear because people on here like to put words in people’s mouths, wiping out the Nazis was obviously the right thing to do. And the reason we left it as is after was that the country was exhausted and the loss and sacrifice had to stop.
But it would have been nice to have somehow induced the Soviets to go home. Think of the decades of misery that would have been averted.
I said Patton was right.
You also said we fought on the wrong side.
Evade all you want. You said that.
Oh, and Bevis, no one is putting words in m_k’s mouth. We are quoting him.
Or maybe if we’d engaged with the USSR as equals, they wouldn’t have become so paranoid and imperial.
Historical counterfactuals are a mug’s game. Too many possibilities.
Though yeah, anyone saying we fought on the wrong side in WW2 (not you, bevis!) is either a neo-Nazi or like 14 and trying to be edgy.
I know you don’t actually know any history, Sarcastro, but the USSR was paranoid and imperialistic from the very beginning – even ignoring the nature of it’s predecessor Russian Empire.
Take a look at what the USSR was doing in Africa and central Asia pre-WW2. It was no less colonial and imperialistic than the other players of the Great Game had been; it just dressed it up in communist rhetoric.
My point is not that that would have for sure been awesome, only that counterfactuals are impossible to evaluate.
This is absurd on multiple levels. First, they were paranoid and imperial from the beginning. Second, we did engage with them as equals.
A – Okay, I guess that’s an acknowledgement that Russia was trying to interfere with the election.
B – That was the conclusion of the Mueller report, which also said that Trump knew about it and welcomed it and that there were meetings between Russians and Trump’s team which Trump and his team lied about, your weird Clinton fantasies are irrelevant.
I was only worried about mine. Everyone else can fend for themselves. I don’t know what he said and don’t care to go back and look.
The Poles that got out ahead of the bad guys were brave and creative (and super motivated) fighters, particularly a group of pilots flying for the British. I find the way we abandoned Poland after the war to be unconscionable.
Bevis, do you understand the immediate post-war military choice was stark? It was to launch a nuclear attack against the Soviets, or get out of their way—with the negotiated bonus that we prevented them going all the way to the Atlantic.
A lot of Americans who comment on post-WWII Europe have no idea how overwhelming Soviet conventional strength was compared to our own. Are you saying we should have used nukes?
It’s stunning how many people opine on things they haven’t read, be it the Mueller report or this opinion, which clearly states that the Mueller report did not exonerate Pres. Trump. This opinion is a thing of beauty in it’s demolition of incompetent and mendacious lawyering.
I think that one reason Bill Clinton survived impeachment is that his most prominent critics emphasized character flaws that the voting public was well aware of when we twice elected him. People who were paying attention knew in 1992 and 1996 that Clinton had zipper problems and a sometimes casual regard for telling the truth. These characteristics figured into the electoral mix, and the electorate preferred him to George H. W. Bush and Robert Dole.
Actually the article of impeachment charging perjury related to grand jury testimony. The House of Representatives considered and rejected a separate article regarding deposition testimony.