…that would be the first bucket “verified.”
Your response does nothing of the sort.
Just because it’s “salacious” and “unverified” does not make it untrue. Or do you have some other interpretation of those words?
First off, I didn’t make up the buckets, SingleMalt did. Secondly, is “verified” synonymous with “true” in your mind? It appears to be, based off of your post, but I don’t think that’s a very sound conclusion.
For example, if I told you the moon was made of cheese, and then independently three other people confirmed this story, would you call that piece of information “verified”? Would you call it “true”?
On this we agree. Do we also agree that just because it’s “verified” doesn’t make it true?
Whaa…??? Of course not. Verified MEANS true. Look up the definition of ‘verify’ in a dictionary.
No wonder you’re so confused.
A link to a quote or two by 'various officials" would certainly enhance the credibility of this claim. Do you have any to offer?
In the whole history of human events, do you think anyone has ever said “we verified that” and “that” turned out to be not true?
…the author not believing everything is accurate is a point in the memo’s favor, not against it. The dossier was “raw intelligence.” Steele was a seasoned agent: he knows better than anyone that human intelligence has failings. How exactly do you think this intelligence gathering process works exactly? Spies have been playing this game for decades. They know that some of the stuff that they gather will not be 100% accurate because sometimes their sources might be compromised, or could be mistaken, or could be getting fed false information. So they use multiple sources. They gather information in many different ways. The information is put through a verification process. It was handed over to the FBI who used their resources to attempt to verify elements of the dossier. This isn’t a Reality Show. There isn’t a hidden camera that will one day miraculously reveal that the dossier was either “all true” or “all false.” This isn’t how it works.
Of course there are parts of the dossier that are “unproven.” We knew this a year ago when some of the people defending the dossier in this very thread were arguing that Buzzfeed shouldn’t have released the dossier on that very same basis. So we haven’t learnt anything new.
…this isn’t “science.” “True” is a meaningless metric in intelligence. How do you determine intelligence is “true” when the original primary source of the intelligence has been murdered? You can verify intelligence. Find out the same thing from different independent sources. Maybe steal/photograph/leak primary documents. But determining “truth” is extremely difficult when the vast bulk of intelligence comes from subjective sources. The job of the analyst is to verify, to coo-berate, to find patterns.
So there isn’t a “true bucket.” And there shouldn’t be one.
Of all the awful semantic arguments I’ve heard, this “verified != true” idiocy is pretty far up there.
Some things could be deemed to be “true” if you have things like video of the event.
Most of the “true” things are really more accurately labeled “most likely true with a high degree of confidence that “X” happened”.
Remember the FBI is trying to build a case that has to stand up in court so the bar is set at least there. Given that they may be after some high powered people (and perhaps the president of the United States) I am willing to bet they move the bar to “iron clad” as court cases go given how many slither out with faulty memories or confusion over what the definition of “is” is.
Beyond that you get into metaphysical discussions on what is really “true”. Let’s not go there.
Thank you. I agree completely. Outside of the dictionary, “verified” is probably best understood to mean “corroborated”.
In the whole history of human events, do you think anyone has ever said, “That’s true,” and “that” turned out to be not true?
Does that mean, therefore, that “true” does not mean “true?”
First off, singlemalt didn’t make up the buckets either. Those buckets have been around for this dossier since the dossier has been around, and for intelligence gathering as long as intelligence gathering has been around.
As far as intelligence is concerned, verified is as close to “true” as you get. It means that, through the use of the intelligence apparatus, claims have been corroborated with reliable assets.
Is that really what you think is happening?
A second factual error:
That’s (at least) two factually false assertions in the memo, verifiable from publicly available information, so far, if anyone’s keeping track.
EDIT:
Here’s the other one I linked to:
False, unless by “best” you mean “best for trying to prop up the increasingly absurd claim that the Steele dossier is a complete work of fiction fabricated by Democrat stooges in an attempt to slander the perfectly innocent and incredibly virile Donald Trump”.
At least we’re calling them stooges now.
A third factual error:
A minor one, to be sure, but also an incredibly easy one to avoid with just very basic quality control. Three factual errors so far.
Water is wet, too. :rolleyes:
But you do you.
An appeal to your personal “insight” is a fallacious argument.
No. You made the claim about what FISA judges “care about.” Since you made the claim, YOU need to present the evidence.