Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 19

[dudalb]

Trump now claims Suleimini was plotting attacks on 4 US embassies but still provides no proof whatever.

 

[alfaniner]

Trump now claims Suleimini was plotting attacks on 4 US embassies but still provides no proof whatever.

If the first lie doesn't take well enough, quadruple down on it.

 

[dudalb]

Rumors that Trump is going to greatly expand the travel ban. In other words put making Muslims second class citizens to the top of the agenda.

 

[Ladewig]

I think the bizzarreness of all this is even Trump's supporters admit that Trump is inveterate liar. Yet we're all supposed to still get behind him? That makes my skin crawl.

Asking young men to put their lives on the line requires a principle. Yet Trump is totally devoid of principle and cannot be trusted when he suggests there is one.

Trump LIES on a daily basis. I need to know. How can I know when he is telling the truth?

TRUMP. The President who cried wolf.

“They came to me and and ‘Sir, there are more wolves than we’ve ever seen. What should we do?’ And these were no ordinary wolves. No. No ordinary wolves. These wolves were more dangerous than windmills!”

 

[acbytesla]

“They came to me and and ‘Sir, there are more wolves than we’ve ever seen. What should we do?’ And these were no ordinary wolves. No. No ordinary wolves. These wolves were more dangerous than windmills!”

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What narrative do I have?

I never questioned Barr misrepresenting Mueller's report.

Try reading my post again. Slower.

This was the exchange:

Agreed; it's about time. Barr's bias has been evident since his declaration that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime and it became excruciatingly evident when he lied about Mueller's report regarding obstruction of justice.

Barr didn't make that the policy and Mueller likewise adhered to it.

That's among the least biased things he's done. I hate the policy, but it is the current DOJ policy.

I didn't say Barr made the policy, I said he declared it (as in his memo that he sent, unsolicited, to the WH) and his statement during his confirmation hearing: ...

To which I said:

Way to ignore the facts that don't fit with your narrative.

Barr lied to the public in his speech reporting on the Mueller Report. It wasn't just the indictment of a sitting POTUS part.

A narrative can be pointing out one thing while ignoring something else. That's one way narratives work.

Barr seriously misrepresented the Mueller Report. He not only claimed claimed he couldn't indict, he went on to say there was nothing to indict over, but there was. And that is what Stacyhs was talking about, Barr could have done more than just say there was no reason to change the 40 year old policy. You answered emphasizing the narrow piece about indicting a sitting POTUS.

Mueller said there were crimes but it wasn't his call. Barr not only said that one "can't indict", he claimed there were no crimes of POTUS obstruction in the report.

Stacyhs pointed to Barr's position of refusing to indict as an example of bias. You shifted the subject to one thing you felt was defensible.

The Atlantic:Five Things I Learned From the Mueller Report - A careful reading of the dense document delivers some urgent insights.

There is no way around it. Attorney General William Barr’s efforts to clear President Donald Trump, both in his original letter and in his press conference the morning of the report’s release, are wholly unconvincing when you actually spend time with the document itself.

Mueller does not accuse the president of crimes. He doesn’t have to. But the facts he recounts describe criminal behavior. They describe criminal behavior even if we allow the president’s—and the attorney general’s—argument that facially valid exercises of presidential authority cannot be obstructions of justice. They do this because they describe obstructive activity that does not involve facially valid exercises of presidential power at all.

 

[Ziggurat]

That doesn't change the fact that you have no actual evidence of bias. That's kind of important, you know.

You have no evidence, and yet for some reason you simply believe. LOL!

Is your belief even falsifiable? Your belief appears to me to be akin to a belief in astrology or numerology.

You haven't actually been paying attention. I haven't claimed that there was bias. I've dismissed claims that there was no bias, because we don't know that. But just as I don't want you to dismiss the possibility that there was bias, I likewise haven't dismissed the possibility that there was no bias. So I'm not believing something without evidence, I'm very much taking the position that we can't believe in either direction precisely because of the lack of evidence. See how that works?

But here's the thing: in some ways, it's worse if there was no bias. If all these errors weren't motivated by bias, it's hard to imagine that anything could have caused so many errors in the FBI's processes in this case but not in any other FISA case. In other words, if it's not bias (and I'm not claiming it was), then this sort of abuse is probably the norm. And that should concern you. But you're whistling past the graveyard instead.

 

[Ziggurat]

Rumors that Trump is going to greatly expand the travel ban. In other words put making Muslims second class citizens to the top of the agenda.

That doesn't actually make any sense. How can it make anyone a second class citizen? The travel ban doesn't apply to citizens, it only applies to foreign nationals.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

An FBI agent forged a document to get a FISA warrant. That sort of thing doesn’t deserve an investigation?

Oooo, squirrel!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Quelle surprise, the Hubert investigation into the FBI, Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Uranium One has been closed, having found nothing worth pursuing:


https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/hillary-clinton-justice-department-investigation-results

Shhhh! This was supposed to be released quietly when everyone was looking at the events in Iraq and Iran.

 

[Ziggurat]

THERE! That nails it.

Not really, since he doesn't even know what it is I believe.

Out of curiosity, are you going to admit that you were wrong, that the IG report does not in fact claim that the errors the FBI made didn't affected anything? Because if you want to talk about falsifiable beliefs, well, yours was falsified.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

We know what he altered, it’s in the IG report. Do keep up.

Oh! Another one! So many squirrels, so little time.

 

[acbytesla]

You haven't actually been paying attention. I haven't claimed that there was bias. I've dismissed claims that there was no bias, because we don't know that. But just as I don't want you to dismiss the possibility that there was bias, I likewise haven't dismissed the possibility that there was no bias. So I'm not believing something without evidence, I'm very much taking the position that we can't believe in either direction precisely because of the lack of evidence. See how that works?

But here's the thing: in some ways, it's worse if there was no bias. If all these errors weren't motivated by bias, it's hard to imagine that anything could have caused so many errors in the FBI's processes in this case but not in any other FISA case. In other words, if it's not bias (and I'm not claiming it was), then this sort of abuse is probably the norm. And that should concern you. But you're whistling past the graveyard instead.

So totally unfalsifiable and yet you repeat it over and over and over again. Now why would someone do that? Hmmmm. You must think everyone is as gullible and stupid as the average Trump supporter.

What you're doing is suggesting the nefarious in hopes that people will focus on that as opposed to just how sleazy and corrupt Trump and his administration is. It's such a dishonest strategy.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The IG report does not make that claim. You're simply making stuff up now.

Carter Page was never charged with anything. Were any charges against anyone else dropped because the evidence collected under this warrant has to be thrown out and the cases rely on it?

JustSecurity: Revisiting Carter Page

I’ve written before that I find little merit in the arguments raised by Nunes, and the portrait they paint of a politically-motivated Deep State conspiracy to bring down Trump—are without merit. That assessment still stands. But what little we’ve learned about Mueller’s findings does suggest there are aspects of the FBI’s surveillance of Page that deserve further scrutiny. They’re just not the aspects Graham and his co-partisans are most agitated about....

The trouble for those wedded to the idea of an anti-Trump Deep State conspiracy is, precisely, that it suggests something wrong with the system. A vendetta against Trump does little to explain why investigators would continue spying on Page well into 2017, long after he’d left the campaign and Trump had been sworn in as president, nor why Trump appointee Rod Rosenstein would sign off on that final renewal application.

 

[SezMe]

Plus, of course, they deal with different events.

Heaven knows you can never compare two different events. Keep up the good work, Zig.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Trump Tweets

We will get this done for our great Miners!

Senator Joe Manchin
@Sen_JoeManchin
BREAKING NEWS: Today we came to an agreement that will finally secure pensions & healthcare for our coal miners & their families. . I look forward to voting for this crucial bill later this week & sending it to the President so he can sign it into law. https://sen.gov/M6K9

Guess if you can't get any of those promised jobs for coal miners this is the next best thing.

I haven't looked but tell me, is the GOP responsible for this bill or is it bipartisan?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Trump Tweets

Democrats are now the party of high taxes, high crime, open borders, late-term abortion, socialism, and blatant corruption. The Republican Party is the party of the American Worker, the American Family, and the American Dream! #KAG2020

After years of rebuilding OTHER nations, we are finally rebuilding OUR nation. We are finally putting AMERICA FIRST! #KAG2020

Under my administration, we will NEVER make excuses for America’s enemies – we will never hesitate in defending American lives – and we will never stop working to defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism!

Should we start a poll on what people predict will be in Trump's Super Bowl ad?

I'm going with these lies.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Trump says he deserves Nobel Peace Prize not Abiy Ahmed

US influence in the peace talks was minimal. The United Arab Emirates was key in helping to bring the two sides together.

Obama's Nobel continues to eat at him.

 

[Ziggurat]

Heaven knows you can never compare two different events. Keep up the good work, Zig.

Way to miss the point. Yes, you can compare different events. But because they're different, there's no reason my response to them can't be different as well.

 

[Ziggurat]

So totally unfalsifiable and yet you repeat it over and over and over again.

What's unfalsifiable? The decision to withhold judgment because of a lack of evidence? That's... not how falsifiability works. Again, I'm not claiming that there was bias.

But to point out how ridiculous your position is, the claim that bias existed in the process IS falsifiable. If investigations of other FISA processes in cases which aren't politically sensitive reveal that such problems are common at the FBI, then that would demonstrate that bias wasn't an important factor here. Other FISA cases need to be reviewed precisely because of this possibility, and such investigations may prove exactly that. But it hasn't happened yet.