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Would You Boycott NYC?
New York City, USA – September 10, 2012: A Tractor-Trailer 18-Wheeler truck is seen as it makes a sharp turn from W.42nd Street onto 8th Avenue while pedestrians wait for it to pass as it heads northbound in West Midtown Manhattan. (JayLazarin/iStockphoto.com)
Longtime readers of my meanderings may remember that I spent some 14 years roaming across the country in an 18 wheeler following my retirement from the military. The idea was to see the country for awhile and experience as much as I could of the place I helped defend. I travelled through 47 of the lower 48 states and developed a working list of places I did and did not wish to re-visit in the future.
So when I heard about truckers planning to decline deliveries into the New York City area following the $355 million fine levied against Donald Trump for a crime which has produced neither victims nor proceeds, I have to ask myself what I would do?
Let’s first stipulate that the boycott effort will be easier for some professional drivers than others. Those who own their own trucks can as a rule decide which locations they will travel to, so they will have an easier time avoiding NYC. Company drivers have no such option, particularly as larger companies who can deliver freight at a reduced cost will fill in the void left by owner operators. An owner operator can point his truck in another direction and survive, while a company driver who refuses a dispatch will be out of a job. So the boycott will not be air-tight.
And to be fair, I should also point out that I never missed an opportunity to miss driving into NYC. It’s the place where good attitudes and good driving records go to die. It would be the greatest embellishment to say that local drivers habitually changed their minds as they swerved from one direction to another, because they hadn’t any.
One time, I had a delivery at some place or other on Park Avenue and I had to parallel park. The mental image of an 80,000 pound, 80 ft. long truck negotiating downtown traffic should be enough to have the reader reaching for a glass of bourbon. Now imagine having to back that beast and parallel park the truck and trailer curbside in the midst of all that traffic with an obstacle course of vehicles careening all around and you’ll want the whole bottle. I saw so many middle fingers during the tribulation that I wondered if there was a proctology convention in town.
To be honest, I did all I could to boycott NYC before it was fashionable. From bridge clearances that were inaccurately marked, to downtown truck route signs that were removed by local gangs so they could rob lost truckers, to incomprehensibly rude drivers who suffered from acute cranial rectal inversion, any trip assignment to the Big Apple was like playing Russian Roulette. To borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, to avoid being persecuted in that place is to be, “…as happy as a martyr when the fire won’t burn.”
The question remains, if I were a professional driver, would I join with other truckers in an embargo of NYC? Would I abstain from a city where innocent people are routinely brutalized by roving gangs of moronic goons who are released from jail before the arresting officer’s shift is over? Would I refuse delivery to a city where the hard-earned money of taxpayers is diverted from services for New Yorkers and spent on those whose singular achievement in life was to break into the country illegally while the State Attorney General instead uses her resources to go after Donald Trump for utilizing a very common practice in real estate circles that, to date, hasn’t been prosecuted? As business investor Kevin O’Leary explained on CNN:
So in this case, what I’m trying to figure out — and I’m not pro or con and I don’t care about the politics — is who lost money? Nobody. The bank got paid back the construction finance loan and a new building was built. If you’re gonna sue this case and win, you’ve gotta sue every real estate developer everywhere because this is all they do. This is what they do all day long, every day! So I don’t think this thing will ever survive appeal regardless of what the fine is. This doesn’t even make sense! … If you’re a real estate developer and watching this, you’re saying, “What is this? This is ridiculous!”
So absolutely yes, I’d join in the current trucker boycott if I could (I came off the road in 2018). Would I advise other professional drivers to do the same? Yes. And if the boycott somehow imposes discomfort on the good people of that city, I would remind them that as Barack Obama famously observed, “Elections have consequences.” After all, we’ve been suffering the consequences of the 2020 election for nearly four years now.
Published in General
Am I to assume that you believe James did not have the right to seek an indictment and trial pursuant to role as AG? Otherwise why do you compare an obviously illegal activity to the execution of the duties of one’s office?
You don’t get the difference between making up crimes and going after someone for no actual crimes, as they’ve done with Trump, versus going after someone like Hillary or FJB who DID violate laws regarding security, classified documents, etc, which they had no authority to do as Sec of State, or Senator, or VP? That doesn’t even get into the corruption, influence-peddling, money laundering, etc.
ibid.
And, no office has the duty to create and pursue bogus charges.
Oh, of course they would. Right now they’re seeing how much they can get away with. Because if they successfully do it to Trump, then they’ll do it to everyone else.
TDS is a hell of a drug.
It’s an interesting marker you throw down. Are you saying that Republicans should only prosecute Republicans and only Democrats should prosecute Democrats so that no one can accuse them of “disliking” the defendant?
“A pyromaniac in a field of straw men.”
That’s why we have an appeals process and not summary hangings. I know many of you have given up on the system, I have not.
The Process Is The Punishment. Even for Trump. Especially when the people like James and Engoron and Willis have little if any reason to fear any consequences for what they do.
Which is exactly what I said (with proper acknowledgement to Mark Steyn) on the thread covering the verdict. American jurisprudence is often too expensive and too lengthy.
That being said, I do not know of a system that provides for both an independent and fair judiciary and one that provides that a judge must fear the consequences of his decisions on the bench.
Please tell me what such a system would look like. Who induced the fear?
It’s already established that officials can lose immunity for conscious – or even negligent – violation of law/rights. Which subjects them to federal prosecution, or – if you’ve got federal officials like FJB and Garland who would refuse to do anything – federal lawsuits. In the case of Trump, that would mean he could sue the officials and the state that elected them, for damages. And since the state of NY is not a person, a $500 Million judgement could easily be appropriate, perhaps even 10x that. And then if the people of NY get tired of their votes costing them so much, maybe they’ll change their voting. Or if they don’t, fine: they’re volunteers.
Officials, not judges.
Your only answer is impeachment or loss of office at the polls.
Just one case, covering over 3 years, with enough “receipts” to satisfy anyone.
Judges Are Not Immune.
Are you not aware that, in order to lodge an appeal, President Trump must first post cash or a bond in the amount of the judgment? With interest, that’s just shy of a HALF-BILLION DOLLARS.
Are you also not aware that the judgment as entered prohibits him from doing business in New York state? Which includes his prior lenders, so he has to post a bond but cannot approach his lenders in the Big Apple?
No matter how wealthy a person or company may be, no one has that kind of money lying around. The judge made sure Trump was hamstrung in this vicious, vindictive, malicious prosecution.
As a practicing attorney for more than 45 years, I have never seen a travesty as great as this, all to destroy a man, his family, and their businesses. Disgusting.
No big deal. Nothing to see here for Conservatism, Inc.
What happens if that which the developers develop cannot find buyers?
The prosecution.
Watching (or, in this case, reading) the smooth dance of one so comfortably smug within the safety of his intellectually closed world is entertaining from time to time. But, now over 100 comments of it, I think I will bow out of this one. Adios.
I think you are missing my point. There was no predicate for this court proceeding that James brought. She campaigned on the basis of if you elected her she would find a way to get Trump. Goes to her state of mind and lack of ethics. She was free to say anything she wanted say. But she should not have been free to bring this proceeding with no factual/legal predicate other than to punish Trump for the crime of beating a former New York senator in a race for the White House.
And there was no jury to be prejudiced, just a hack judge whose wife rants on social media about how horrible Donald Trump is.
Ug.
Ej. I cant say the things I want to say. But your a total fool. And I pray that what will come to you wont happen. But I fear it will. And you will be shocked by what happens.
Actually it looks a lot will.
I expect NY state short of Zeldin as governor to bomb in the coming years.
Your a total fool.
in your world two worlds make a right?
Im joining you.