There’s no real point in trying to reason with this … person. He has his talking points and all he’s going to do is repeat them. He lives in Trump’s world and he likes it there. He doesn’t have to think. He gets to shit all over the people he has felt inferior to for his entire live.
Plonk.
EasyPhil, liar? Delusional? Troll? It’s a tough call.
Hey, EP, is there any chance you can reform yourself and become a useful poster who posts things that aren’t lies and who argues in good faith? Why not be a positive contribution to the board instead of a whiny, lying troll who repeats already-refuted bullshit talking points over and over again in the same thread, and then opens a new thread with new, easily-refuted talking points?
Also, since it’s clear your talking points are utterly wrong, have you considered getting better news sources?
I really don’t understand why people do this. A good, well-source, good faith argument can be an interesting intellectual exercise. Posting bullshit and having smarter people just pile on just seems like no fun. I guess it’s because my parents weren’t born under a bridge, spending their time being fooled by billy goats.
Don’t jump the queue. He’s getting to that one, soon enough.
No it’s not. It’s (d), All of the Above
It’s because posters like EasyPhil think they are the smarter poster, not anyone posting facts or anything like that. If Faux/Shit-Gibbon broadcasts/tweets that 2+2=9, then they’ll argue it’s correct rather while lobbying to change the numbering system, and then say they were correct all along.
Two issues : one, to have an interesting, well-sourced debate you have to work. And by work I mean read. Sometimes complicated or very long stuff. Which is a drag. Second, you have to actually have a position on stuff, a well thought-out one that takes into account all the shit wot you’ve read - which is, again, more work but not just that : it also puts you in danger. Because if your carefully considered position is thoroughly dunked on, then it’s not just your position that’s implicitly called into question, it’s your capacity for reason.
To put it simply, having an intelligent, researched argument is running the risk of finding out you’re not quite as smart as you think or don’t know as much shit as you think. Which, if you’re the typical internet arguer, is something you value very highly (being smart, or looking smart, or feeling smart I mean). Getting thoroughly thrashed when you’re doing your level best is the worst feeling.
Whereas just spouting gibberish and canned pre-chewed takes is taking the piss. You know it’s shit, but it’s like sending a dick pic out of the blue on Tinder : you know from the get go it’s going to fail, so there’s no *actual *risk of failure where ego is concerned. You get attention, you get dunked on, you go on with your life, it’s all very safe. Everything is controlled. And the only other possibility is it happily working, on people even dumber than you (or girls even more desperate). It’s not lose-win. So I can see why it’s popular.
It’s stupid, obnoxious to all around and terminally unambitious, but I can see why it’s popular.
I’m glad to see that you have been reading the full document (if you have been - as opposed to say skipping to just those locations that have been pointed out to you by spin doctors, which I would say is not a good method of research.)
And I would say that it is reasonable to not take Horowitz’s conclusions as gospel. Even if we accept that he is not a partisan, he is still a mere human and fallible. If the evidence that he gives does not back his conclusions then the evidence should win.
But, that’s a pretty high bar. Horowitz may be a fallible human but a) so are all of us and, more importantly, b) he was actually there to talk to people and review all of this and has a lot more familiarity with all of this than any of us do. You would need something conclusive and this is not that.
This cite, if accurate, says that some individual FBI agent was aware of Fusion GPS and Steele’s information, second hand, at around the same time as the Australian ambassador reported first-hand knowledge of a first-hand encounter with an actual member of the Trump campaign, where that Trump member admitted to knowledge of and possible participation in an illegal scheme to pervert the election, corruptly.
Now, personally, I do not believe that the FBI is composed of member of the Borg collective. It would be reasonable to say that a fairly large part of the entire thrust of the Horowitz report is that information that people should be aware of isn’t being efficiently passed through the system to get to them. So while I can’t say that I know exactly why this information did or did not become part of the initiating information, it seems far more reasonable to assume that it simply didn’t make its way through the system very fast. What one FBI agent is aware of is not immediately and magically known to all FBI agents. As said, they are not the Borg.
Your cite, in fact, makes no implication except that it is not until 6-8 weeks later that this information became known to anyone who was also aware of Crossfire Hurricane at which point, their reaction was, “Fuck off”, not, “Wowza, I need to get in on that!”
And let’s further assume that the movement of information through the FBI travels at varies depending on how fast it should travel through the system.
So again, we have:
If both of these signals came into the FBI at around the same time, I personally do not find it surprising that the second signal traveled further, faster.
But, let’s also go back to what I said about trusting that Horowitz is a non-partisan source.
Because, it should be pointed out that the FBI is largely Republican. In fact, I am unaware of any, who have been revealed as having a connection to Crossfire Hurricane, who were not Republican.
Robert Mueller - Republican
Andrew McCabe - Republican
Peter Strzok - Republican
Lisa Page - Republican
James Comey - Republican
Bruce Ohr - Unknown
Let’s also note that outside of one two month period in 2001, the FBI has only ever had a Republican director or acting director in its entire history back to 1935.
To join the FBI, just must be 30 years old or older, with experience in law enforcement.
Men lean Republican and law enforcement leans, heavily, male. People tend to become partisan as they age.
There are likely Democrats in FBI, I’m not going to say otherwise, but we would expect the organization to lean pretty strongly towards Republicanism.
And, let’s also note that none of these people have any reason to target Donald Trump.
Just as the FBI is not the Borg, Hillary Clinton is not a mind-controlling magician. She has no power to cause all of those Republicans at the FBI to investigate her political opponent. James Comey, as example, hates Hillary Clinton. He was part of Kenneth Starr’s team and wanted to arrest her for Obstruction of Justice and destruction of evidence. Starr declined to do so.
So let’s examine some reasons that the FBI would investigate Donald Trump.
Ultimately, there are two reasons that the FBI might investigate Trump. 1) Because that’s their job, or 2) the Republican party is trying to take Donald Trump down.
Sure, we can remove him. So long as we remove everyone else who lies. Which would be the entire government as best I can tell.
For the record, I’ll also note that a few names pop up pretty regularly in the Ukraine testimonies. Specifically, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.
All those people giving testimony that, so far as they are aware and could tell, Donald Trump used his position for personal gain, at the expense of the people of the United States of America in aim of cheating the American people out of a fair and honest election, are the hirees of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, both of whom are not only Republicans, they’re the appointees of Donald Trump.
Awesome post. Should be a sticky, if it had much chance of doing any good. Won’t help anyone who needs to change, but it might help the rest of us a little as we deal with such folks.
I acknowledge that sometimes I might be on of “them” and not “us.” I find that hard to imagine, but Dunning and Kruger’s findings were based on real evidence, so I have to accept that it’s a possibility.
Since this has become an unintentional self-pitting, I’ll just pop in to note that the self pitter just got a warning over in GD for accusing someone of lying (irony meter goes poof!).
EP, if you’re planning on flaming out here, please keep at it! Or, you can try and not follow in the footsteps of disingenuous, trolling, propaganda-spewing assholes and mend your ways. Your news sources are terrible and they are lying to you. They are feeding you Russian propaganda, they are stressing unimportant things (irrelevant parts of the Mueller report, for example), and they are actually harming this country, putting party, Trump, and Russia over the interests in the United States.
I’m assuming you’re actually American here, so do me a favor and stop spewing lies and propaganda please. Learn to debate like a grownup, accept when you’re wrong, acknowledge your errors. Let’s MSDGA together!
But see, this is why we take the risk : for that good-good ego stroking when it’s not too obviously bollocks we talk. Oh yeah debate daddy, gimme that endorphin rush…
(smartarsery aside, thanks for the kind words)
Yeah, no. Trump doesn’t just “lie.” A mere “lie” is saying six inches when it’s three and a half. Trump is a massively insecure yet arrogant, selfish, hateful, petty, spiteful, liar, a man who lies right to your face about yourself. He cannot live without his lies. And his followers want his lies to be true, so they love his lies.
I get the impresion a shitload of’em couldn’t give a flyng turtle’s fuck about his lies, and just want to see the country burn.
ETA: Ya but Schiff’s constant, nasty, mean, round-the-clock lying, though.
Meet The Press featured a discussion of “Regular Joes” about their impeachment interest. One woman, a Trump supporter, asked why we were giving money to Ukraine in the first place. “Did we owe them money; was this a gift?”
Her ignorance of the facts was no deterrent to proudly having an opinion. Trump supporters often choose willful ignorance over actual thought.
Either that, or she was genuinely fucking stupid, which can not be ruled out.
It can be, and usually is, both.
Now Schiff is claiming ignorance to cover for the lies that he told. He had the same access to information as Nunes and even wrote a rebuttal to the Nunes memo. If we take Schiff at his word that he had no knowledge of the abuses outlined in the IG Report his memo which was widely accepted as true was based on no factual information at all.
Do you know how to fucking cite?
And no - not unexplained youtube links.
I know that this is going to come as a shock to many, but that’s a straight up bonkers summary of what Schiff said in that interview.
Really? How?
Schiff said in the interview:
He penned a memo saying the opposite was true and like I said earlier he had access to the same information as Nunes. He’s lying.