OK, I’m going to thoroughly and exhaustively curb stomp your remedial ass one good time and then be done with you, because you’ve thus far illustrated that you don’t argue in “good faith,” and I can’t abide that. From where I stand, factual integrity is paramount.
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
You've just ... now again mindlessly repeated what the news is saying word for word. Do you never learn?
First off, I zealously consume all manner of publications > books, empirical studies, newspapers, journals, etc... from perspectives that span the political and ideological gamut; AND AT THE SAME, I’m ever parsing, scrutinizing, conceptualizing, inferring, refining and structuring this data so that I have the best possible handle on it whenever I choose to assert it as accurate and disseminate it when making decisions. I also venture out and engage the world often and freely in order to conduct my own analysis and experimentation. Independent research is a HALLMARK of critical thinking ability. Therefore, the well-sourced conclusions I've reached and the stances I hold are anything but "mindless."
FOH.
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
The news has lied to you for 2+ years and you are STILL being led on like a lemming...?
What clear, verifiable evidence do you have to support your assertion that “the news has lied” concerning the Mueller investigation? While you’re at it, who or what entities constitute this “news?” And how are you defining “lied?” I require PROOF that supports your accusation, and not some bullshit yanked from the recesses of your tattered, loose, irritable bowels.
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
You know nothing about William Bar. Why presume that he rather than the news is being dishonest with you?
On the contrary, I do know things about William Barr because his career, actions, words, ideas and world view have been made public and are easily accessible to those willing TO. FUCKING. READ.
1.] Barr aided the 1988 Bush presidential campaign with its vice presidential selection process and was later appointed to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, a decision made in part because of his support for wide presidential powers and authority, Barr himself has said. At the Office of Legal Counsel, he informed legal opinions that influenced White House policy and action, and he produced a 10-page memo detailing a broad vision of the executive branch's abilities to refute Congress' attempts at oversight.
Keeping in tandem with the unitary executive theory, a train of legal thought that envisions a standard of uncompromising presidential power from the Constitution, Barr's support for executive authority once laid the groundwork for a decision to almost fire an independent counsel who had doggedly pursued Bush.
2.] Barr in 2001 said he had urged Bush to pardon a number of integral figures involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran and anti-government guerrillas in Nicaragua. Bush's decision to pardon these individuals (including one conviction, three guilty pleas, and two pending cases) is often listed among the most controversial examples of the president exercising pardon power in US history.
3.] Barr’s confirmation for a second stint as attorney general was complicated by the disclosure that he had written a 19-page memo expressing deep skepticism about aspects of Mueller’s investigation, essentially like an audition, into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia–he questioned the legal theory that might permit Mueller to conclude that the president tried to obstruct the Russia inquiry. Worse, Barr suggested the public might never learn all the details of what the special counsel has found.
What the above points (all of which are easily verifiable) illustrate is that Barr has shown a biased world view (and acted from that locus) in favor of wide executive powers, that is deeply sympathetic to Trump’s interests (the viability of his executive orders, the degree to which he/the President can be held accountable for his actions/indicted, etc...) and so it is rather reasonable to hold his overall agenda and murky conclusions re: the Mueller Report with some skepticism. Mind you, even Trump himself has asserted that had Barr been the Attorney General before Mueller had been appointed, the investigation wouldn’t have happened.
Unlike you, strong critical thinkers do their best to evaluate in an objective manner, looking at something from both sides of an argument, while holding in tension the biases each side may possess. My admitted bias is that I fucking despise Trump, but am willing to concede to the FACTS, as they unfold and whatever they may be; but because Mueller’s Report has not been released IN TOTALITY, we don’t have access to ALL THE FACTS. Furthermore, Barr is currently obstructing the public from attaining everything there is to know, making him appear even more suspect than he already was.
Having said that, what, pray tell, is your bias?
Lol
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
The report concluded no collusion and no evidence of collusion, no one disputes that. Clearly, that's what it concluded - Mueller is not contesting the fact.
1.) AGAIN, unless you are privy to information that the vast majority of the public do not possess, then YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE MUELLER REPORT CONCLUDED, but only snippets of information carefully chosen and worded by AG William Barr. Period.
2.)Customarily, the Justice Department's special counsel rules do not directly allow for Mueller to make any public statements about his findings, though he may possibly be subject to subpoena by Congress. Instead, his confidential report must explain why he filed the charges he did and why he might have declined to bring charges against others. Barr has previously suggested that the public is unlikely to hear from Mueller directly. Furthermore, people who know Mueller say that they would be shocked if he’d ever do more than issue a brief statement indicating that a report had been submitted to the attorney general before going radio silent. Mueller's aversion to the public spotlight has been consistent and well documented across the duration of his vaunted public service.
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
Why would you assume that some scrap of information no one has heard of exists and is incriminating? Why doubt the reports findings? This was the most extensive investigation ever conducted, Mueller had access to everything under the sun. Every email, every phone call... everything. Why are you incapable of questioning this insane, baseless partisan determination that's been implanted into your head ...?
Sigh...
1.) Look, son, when prosecutors like Barr carefully choose their words and say that an investigation “did not establish” a “tacit or express” agreement with the Russian government, that doesn't mean that they concluded it didn't happen, or even that they don't believe it happened; it means that the investigation didn't produce enough information to prove that it happened conclusively, at a level sufficient to stand up in court. Without seeing Mueller's full report, we don't know whether this is a definite, hard conclusion about lack of coordination or a candid admission of insufficient evidence–the distinction matters.
A.] It’s worth mentioning that Barr only cited Mueller's lack of evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the "Russia's government”; however, this would seem to leave out several major interactions with Russians, like convicted felon Paul Manafort covertly giving tons of polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, or Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner meeting up at Trump Tower with that Kremlin-linked lawyer who was allegedly offering info on “Crooked Hillary.”
B.] Barr limits the collusion absolution to two specific Russian operations: the manipulation of social media platforms and the hacking and dissemination of emails from Clinton's campaign and the DNC. Other apparent discussions between Trump associates and Russians that most included some sort of mutually beneficial "trade-off," such as Trump's Moscow tower project and Michael Flynn's secret talks about mitigating sanctions, have been put aside. Barr's letter doesn't show that Trump is innocent of collusion or obstruction. It shows that collusion and obstruction were defined to exclude what he did. This phrasing leaves open the possibility that Mueller found prevalent coordination with others who were not part of the government but were a few degrees of separation removed. AGAIN, for the cheap, pedestrian seats in the back, without seeing the actual report, we just don’t know, which is WHY it must be fully released and WHY a framing like yours is not only premature but dumb.
2.) To clarify, none of this is to say Trump is LITERALLY a foreign agent directly answering to Putin–I’ve actually never believed as much because I’m not a simpleton. For those who understand and are capable of something called “context,” there is a middle ground between “no collusion” and Trump being a foreign agent. However, even if we extend the benefit of the doubt and say that he had only been acting in his own interest and of his own volition, many of his public actions (and heaven knows how many of his private actions) have fulfilled Russia’s chief agenda of demonizing/corrupting America’s institutional integrity and influence. The release of Mueller’s report would most probably aid in adding greater context to the many deeply concerning instances we already know about.
3.) Considering the public record of the Trump campaign’s contacts with many Russians and its officials’repeated lies about those contacts, it is hard for critical thinkers/those who aren’t idiots to believe Mueller found nothing with widespread national security implications. I always knew that setting the bar for “collusion” at blatant criminality was never going to be good enough because American laws allow for all kinds of problematic, unethical behavior at the intersection of money and politics–which could stand to hurt US security and are treacherous in the long run. It’s critical thinking about these types of potentialities that demands one possess the ability to infer and draw conclusions based on the information presented–data doesn't always come with a summary that spells out what it means. You'll often need to assess the information given and draw conclusions based upon it.
To that end, need I inform/remind you that aside from the 32 charges brought and 7 guilty pleas achieved by Mueller, there are 16 other investigations still in play, some that he passed along to federal/state prosecutors, other AG offices and some taken up by Congress? Investigations tangential to, but existing outside the (stupid) narrowly defined notion of “collusion with Russia?” How can that not heavily factor into how one approaches/thinks about this issue? Furthermore, if not from a plethora of information sources (and they are LEGION), who the fuck are we supposed to believe? The man who has literally lied thousands of times? The guy with all of the conflicts of interest and irrefutable ties to a foreign power that has long hated America’s guts? I mean...if these red herrings, glaring contradictions, inconsistencies, etc... don’t signal that there is still more to be uncovered, then you truly are a brain dead shill of the highest order. In this case, it takes far more effort to close one’s eyes to all the hanging threads, then to actually engage the hanging threads.
Suffice to say, YOU, my (non) friend, do NOT think “critically.”
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
I wonder if when the Mueller report is released you'll step back and say... ok now I see I was manipulated by the news. Or... more accurately, I was complicit in the lie for my own corrupt purposes, I knew all along it was a lie on a low level I just cooperated because it seemed to serve my own ends at the time. I really doubt you will. The truth is simply not in you, is it? It's amazing.
LOL ...lemme venture a guess...you had issues with compulsively licking lead-lined walls as a kid, right?
Originally Posted by
scholarlyhost
If you had any respect for facts (or critical thinking ability) you would not have been misled like a puppet into this hysteria for 2+ years by this political propaganda machine, chasing after this white whale of a "scrap of information maybe existing somewhere". If you had any critical thinking ability you'd be skeptical of the news at this point rather than doubling down and insisting there must still be some hidden scrap of incriminating information despite the reports findings. And you'd question the news rather than William Bar, a random person that has never lied to you and who you knew nothing about until 2 days ago. Just randomly googling and believing what you read is what got you into this mess, the corrupt input of the news and then this robotic output is precisely the problem. I doubt once the report is released it will even effect your thinking frankly. It's an amazing thing how deep the brainwashing goes.
Sigh...
Allow me to do what your parents evidently neglected to do--you don't have to fear the unknown, sweetness. It really will be alright. Or not, but don’t be a pitiable, cowardly bitch about it, clinging like a dingleberry to the ass of a known pathological liar, just because you have trouble/openly resist/distrust "reading between the lines" and establishing conceptual logical connections between bits of data, whether loosely or tightly related. And funny enough, you barely even cling to what’s in front of your fucking face, considering how often you conveniently duck and dodge the facts. You strike me as the same kind of dullard plebeian that would've staked his life on the belief that the earth was flat 500 years ago. Your screen name be damned because you certainly are NO scholar unless your studied discipline is unadulterated ignorance and buffoonery.
FOH.