Merged All things Trump + Russia

[Emily's Cat]

Why didn't you include it in what you had found in the previous post then?

Because there's whole pages of this discussion already. If I include everything ever mentioned in every single post, we'll crash the server.

After all, it's very pertinent to the question of whether Trump admitted firing Comey to stop the Russia investigation or not. In my view, he very clearly admitted doing so, especially when you combine his own statement about thinking about the Russia investigation when deciding to fire Comey with the fact that he bragged (No, that's not interpreting, it's what Trump does) to the Russians about how firing him took the pressure off.

"In your view". Your view is not fact.

It is absolutely interpretation... furthermore, it's an interpretation filtered through your own view. It's entirely possible that it was bragging, it would be completely consistent with my understanding of Trump's behavior. Given that you didn't hear the conversation, nor did any of the folks reporting it, there's no way for you to know that he was "bragging".

And even if it were bragging, such bragging doesn't constitute an admission of the sort you're claiming. He did not admit that he fired Comey in order to cease the investigation.

Emily's Cat, there's apologetics and there's stupidity.

It's a good thing I'm engaged in neither.

Your posts are clearly aimed at the former, but you should know that they are venturing towards the latter. Defending Trump like you are is a difficult task for the rational-minded. You should leave it to the irrational pro-Trump posters.

I am not defending Trump. I am opposing transparent and obvious spin. FFS, it's not subtle!

I can conceive of no other situation in which so many people on this forum would accept such sparse and speculative information as if it were fact. Swap out the subject of this entire discussion, of the news media, all of it. Pretend it were Obama's name in there being accused of colluding with Russia. How quickly would this end up in the Conspiracy Theory forum?

In any other context, there would be a clear majority decrying the out of context three-word quotes, the speculation, the unverified and unverifiable allegations, the spin and shine rubbed on these reports. But that isn't happening here.

Why is it that so many otherwise intelligent people are willing to accept so little solid information as convincing evidence?

Confirmation bias is insidious.

 

[varwoche]

Repeatedly referring to me as "pro-trump". It's so clearly a situation of "if you're not with us, you're against us" that it's striking. Just because I don't buy in to the obviously transparent spin being employed here doesn't mean I like Trump. Refraining from calling him names doesn't mean I support him. I also don't call Clinton names. Nor any other politician.

I called your argument pro-Trump, once, not repeatedly. That's because you seem to have a higher bar for Trump critics than Trump defenders.

The only thing I support is honesty and objectivity. Speculation and allegation aren't evidence. Hearsay isn't evidence. Unverifiable information leaked from anonymous sources isn't evidence until such time as a person with authority to back up those allegations presents it as such. Three word quotes taken out of context and surrounded by "may", "might", "could" isn't evidence.

So you say. This is meaningless to me unless we tie it to specific claims.

I'll add though that in the abstract, I take issue with this part. In the political sphere, we are often forced to deduce. If X claims something unfavorable to Y, and Y doesn't refute, it might be reasonable to conclude, provisionally, that Y actually did what X claimed.

Sessions does not appear to have made that claim. Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores made that claim. If we dismiss out of hand anything that fails to confirm our pre-formed opinion, we are biased.

I don't dismiss it out of hand. I accept the possibility it's true. Nor do I accept it as fact. I think "according to" is entirely in order.

 

[Tony Stark]

Pretend it were Obama's name in there being accused of colluding with Russia. How quickly would this end up in the Conspiracy Theory forum?

Did Obama inexplicably publically lick Putin's balls? Did Obama change the Democratic party platform to be pro Russia? Did Obama associates meet with Russian officials and then lie about it? Did Russia help Obama get elected? Was there an FBI investigation concerning possible Obama collusion with Putin?

Your comparison is flat out idiotic.

 

[Stacko]

AP and WSJ are reporting that Flynn has changed his tune and is complying with the subpoena by turning over the requested documents.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I called your argument pro-Trump, once, not repeatedly.

Apologies if this is the first time. I admit to being quite tired of well-poisoning. There have been many cases of people accusing me of being an apologist, a Trump-supporter, etc. simply because I don't accept the arguments being made.

That's because you seem to have a higher bar for Trump critics than Trump defenders.

Which Trump defenders? So far, I've got a Justice Department spokesperson that I might consider to be a Trump defender. I set a high bar for critics in general.

ETA: There are a couple of posters one might consider a Trump defender, but if you look closely, you may notice that many of those are people I don't engage or respond to.

So you say. This is meaningless to me unless we tie it to specific claims.

I'll add though that in the abstract, I take issue with this part. In the political sphere, we are often forced to deduce. If X claims something unfavorable to Y, and Y doesn't refute, it might be reasonable to conclude, provisionally, that Y actually did what X claimed.

This is meaningless unless I go through and itemize everything that's been bandied about? Which part is meaningless?

In the political sphere we are often placed in a deductive position, yes. But in the case of anonymous sources leaking classified and confidential information, the claim that silence indicates acceptance is pretty thin, wouldn't you say?

In many of the cases, the allegations have been denied by Y. It's just that in almost all of these cases, the denial is being viewed as "protesting too much" or somehow otherwise being viewed as lying.

I don't dismiss it out of hand. I accept the possibility it's true. Nor do I accept it as fact. I think "according to" is entirely in order.

I don't understand the "according to" reference here.

You appeared to be dismissing it out of hand. You called my post fact challenged and pro-Trump, despite the fact that nothing in my post was inaccurate, nor was it pro-Trump. You "fixed" my post by adding incorrect and false information in there. Then you repeated your false claim, and implied that I was taking Sessions at his word and being gullible by doing so.

This despite my initial post being completely factual.

 

[JihadJane]

AKA:

"Please repeat for the 1,000th time what I've already heard so that I may better be able to to misinterpret it again"


no.

Dodge.

 

[NoahFence]

Dodge.

As if your opinion matters one lick.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Speculation on the Kushner/Russia back-channel.

It's looking more and more like this was more about Russian bank loans than anything else. That's all these people do, find foreign financiers for various projects. That's what everything points to and makes sense why he would want the communication to be secret.

Investigation Turns to Kushner’s Motives in Meeting With a Putin Ally

 

[Tony Stark]

If not for the fact that it could cause WW3, I would advocate that the next president kill Vladimir Putin.

 

[logger]

The notion that POTUS elect Trump changed the platform because Putin wanted it, and that's fine and dandy, is flat out bizarre. But fine, let's pretend it's fine and dandy.

Lol
Then why is your side pushing that ****?

Why then did Trump and Manafort lie about it?

They didn't and you can't prove it, it's more fake news from your side.

If I had to guess, the language was not appropriate, that's why it was changed.

 

[varwoche]

Apologies if this is the first time. I admit to being quite tired of well-poisoning. There have been many cases of people accusing me of being an apologist, a Trump-supporter, etc. simply because I don't accept the arguments being made.

Apologies too for my surliness. I'll come back to our discussion later.

 

[ChristianProgressive]

You have an interesting idea of what theft is. Please explain how this election was stolen from the ****?

Voter roll purges.
Hacked DNC.
Hacked voter registration databases.
Unsecure EVM/EVCM that switched/didn't count votes.
Bot/Sockpuppet accounts pro-Trump.
Actual Fake News (Pizzagate, etc).

 

[ChristianProgressive]

Actually your article is quoting the ex NSA agent, so rumour again, Otherwise known as fake news!

I'm not even going to bother replying to you here.

Reported for deliberate lying.

 

[Stacko]

AP and WSJ are reporting that Flynn has changed his tune and is complying with the subpoena by turning over the requested documents.

Sources close to Mike Flynn say he'lll provide some personal documents + business docs after senate intel narrowed supbeona request​

Some? That doesn't sound like he's trying to hide incriminating things at all.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Apologies too for my surliness. I'll come back to our discussion later.

No worries

 

[quadraginta]

Kellyanne Conway's talking point on Fox news calling anonymous sources fake news:

"We all know of one of the news sources lately that had a story wrong three times and it was found to be untrue."

Sounds like a version of the Karl Rove Playbook: Whatever they accuse you of throw it back at them.

I wonder how Kellyanne would feel about tracking the number of times she's been wrong and had said something untrue?

That would be good to throw back at her, since she's keeping score.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Voter roll purges.
Hacked DNC.
Hacked voter registration databases.
Unsecure EVM/EVCM that switched/didn't count votes.
Bot/Sockpuppet accounts pro-Trump.
Actual Fake News (Pizzagate, etc).

Do you have any evidence the hacked databases were tampered with?

The old days also had optical scanner miscounts.

None of those others even remotely contribute to stealing.

 

[logger]

Do you have any evidence the hacked databases were tampered with?

Nope just lots of wishful thinking!

 

[Tony Stark]

So if the highly respected special counsel Robert Mueller concludes that Trump and/or people that work for him committed crimes colluding with Russia what will Trump followers like logger say? That Mueller is part of the conspiracy against Trump? Or that collusion with Russia was acceptable because it helped Trump beat Crooked Hillary?

 

[logger]

So if the highly respected special counsel Robert Mueller concludes that Trump and/or people that work for him committed crimes colluding with Russia what will Trump followers like logger say? That Mueller is part of the conspiracy against Trump? Or that collusion with Russia was acceptable because it helped Trump beat Crooked Hillary?

I'll be saluting president Pence!