Cont: All things Trump + Russia Part 2

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Emily's Cat said:
I want France to send me a puppy!

Is my expression of what I want reasonably interpreted as me actually and seriously asking the government of France to send me a puppy?
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You're aware you're not a chosen candidate of one of the two major parties of America for President, correct? Because that makes a huge difference.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I want France to send me a puppy!

Is my expression of what I want reasonably interpreted as me actually and seriously asking the government of France to send me a puppy?
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Imagine that you are the Republican candidate for president speaking at a campaign rally and you look down the barrel of the camera and say: "If the government of France is watching this and I think they are, I want you to send me a puppy. You will be rewarded"... What then?

If France send you a kitten instead, does that mean your words have no effect?
 
WA Po: Russian firm tied to pro-Kremlin propaganda advertised on Facebook during election
Representatives of Facebook told congressional investigators Wednesday that the social network has discovered that it sold ads during the U.S. presidential campaign to a shadowy Russian company seeking to target voters, according to several people familiar with the company’s findings.

Facebook officials reported that they traced the ad sales, totaling $100,000, to a Russian “troll farm” with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda, these people said.

A small portion of the ads, which began in the summer of 2015, directly named Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the people said, although they declined to say which candidate the ads favored.

Most of the ads, according to a blog post published late Wednesday by Facebook’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, “appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.”
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Argumemnon said:
It's pretty unanimous that you have. So either you're not telling the truth, or you're not very good at introspection.
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Say wut? It's not even ugly unanimous, let alone a more aesthetically pleasing form of unanimous. In any case, from what I can tell it's highly non-unanimous.
 
Stop moving the goalposts.

You made a claim:

sunmaster14 said:
There are news articles almost every week about how Mueller is putting pressure on this guy or that, or focusing on this area or that. Or working with the NY attorney general to pin a state crime on Manafort so that Trump can't pardon him. This information must be coming from somebody on Mueller's team, unless you think the reporters are making it up out of whole cloth.
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that's easily shown to be wrong because that information can and often does come from other sources:https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-read-news-story-about-investigation-eight-tips-who-saying-what

sunmaster14 said:
They wouldn't know about investigative strategy. They might try to speculate of course, but in that case I would expect the articles to be written with less certain language. Also, most of the reporting implies that these leaks are coming from people connected to the investigation. Either they're people on the team, or support people who happen to be privy to some of the strategy just though proximity and osmosis.
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Your expectations don't drive reality.

And defense lawyers, witnesses, etc are certainly connected to the investigation, are they not ?
 
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/trump-russia-investigation.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump Jr. told Senate investigators on Thursday that he set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer because he was intrigued that she might have damaging information about Hillary Clinton, saying it was important to learn about Mrs. Clinton’s “fitness” to be president.

But, I thought it was about adoption: :rolleyes:

In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”
 
Sounds very much coached and rehearsed. But there are inconvenient facts that will trip him up, no matter how good the story sounds. Like for one, all the Russians attending that meeting is not consistent with the adoption story.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Sounds very much coached and rehearsed. But there are inconvenient facts that will trip him up, no matter how good the story sounds. Like for one, all the Russians attending that meeting is not consistent with the adoption story.
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If it leads to prosecution then sure, the adoption story will not fly, but if we're only considering the court of public opinion then if the GOP and Trump administration consistently say that it was about adoption then enough people may come to believe that it was about adoption when the time comes to place their vote in 2018 or 2020.
 
Argumemnon said:
It's pretty unanimous that you have. So either you're not telling the truth, or you're not very good at introspection.
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Ha ha ha ha ha... That's a funny joke there.

You: You've rejected everything!
Me: No, I haven't rejected everything. I've rejected most things, but I've accepted some things, for example (lists specifics). I've rejected things that (presents specific criteria used for rejection)
You: It's unanimous that you rejected everything, so you must be lying either to us or to yourself!

Really? That's what you're gonna go with? I expect better of you, Argumemnon.
 
Brainache said:
Imagine that you are the Republican candidate for president speaking at a campaign rally and you look down the barrel of the camera and say: "If the government of France is watching this and I think they are, I want you to send me a puppy. You will be rewarded"... What then?
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Then it's still a ridiculous assertion to think that France would take me seriously.

Brainache said:
If France send you a kitten instead, does that mean your words have no effect?
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It probably means France thinks I'm an idiot.

In this case, however, Russia did NOT do the thing that Trump asked for... nor did they do anything substantially similar to what Trump asked for.
 
Argumemnon said:
Yeah of course Trump supporters won't agree. I wasn't counting them.
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Oh god, I laughed coke out of my nose. At least it was cherry flavored.

You're slipping, my friend. You just made the argument that people who don't agree with you don't count, and that the only people that count in your assessment are people that already agree with you.

100% of the people who agree with me, agree with me!

Want to try that again?
 
TheL8Elvis said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/trump-russia-investigation.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump Jr. told Senate investigators on Thursday that he set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer because he was intrigued that she might have damaging information about Hillary Clinton, saying it was important to learn about Mrs. Clinton’s “fitness” to be president.

But, I thought it was about adoption: :rolleyes:

In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”
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They're both true. There's no conflict there.

They set the meeting up expecting damaging info about Clinton. What they got was a discussion about adoption.

Consider an analogy: I left the house around noon, to go to the gym. I ended up at the donut shop.
 
Emily's Cat said:
What they got was a discussion about adoption.
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The adoption discussion was about a Russian law forbidding US adoptions
The Russian law was in response to US imposing Russian sanctions
Trump lifting Russian sanctions would be a major goal of collusion
The flip side of collusion would be Russia providing dirt on Hillary Clinton
Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton was why the Trump campaign deliberately arranged the meeting

They're not even particularly trying to disguise it.
 
Emily's Cat said:
They're both true. There's no conflict there.

They set the meeting up expecting damaging info about Clinton. What they got was a discussion about adoption.

Consider an analogy: I left the house around noon, to go to the gym. I ended up at the donut shop.
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No, they said that they had a meeting about adoption.

They also initially failed to inform people about the meeting, and then lied about it, changing their story after the press got hold of an email.

The attendee list also increased several times.

Regardless of that, if you are a candidate and you get an email from someone who claims to represent the Russian government, offering dirt on your opponent, then you report it unless you think it's a hoax.

Which the Trump campaign did not.
 
jimbob said:
No, they said that they had a meeting about adoption.

They also initially failed to inform people about the meeting, and then lied about it, changing their story after the press got hold of an email.

The attendee list also increased several times.

Regardless of that, if you are a candidate and you get an email from someone who claims to represent the Russian government, offering dirt on your opponent, then you report it unless you think it's a hoax.

Which the Trump campaign did not.
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Molinaro said:
Why would you believe that is what was talked about when they have already lied repeatedly about the meeting?
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Given that several people have claimed that was the topic of discussion, I tentatively accept it as such. I suppose it could have been about something else, but it certainly didn't seem to have borne fruit from the "damage Clinton" perspective.

Yes, they probably should have reported it... but I'm inclined to think that pretty much any candidate of any party would have been happy to have a meeting with anyone who they credibly believed might have damaging information about their candidate. Maybe I've become too cynical.
 
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