The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[LordMortis]

Oh I know it's because I expect to hear "begs for an answer" or "asks the question", I just don't know why this particular thing bothers me. I usually like living language but some things make me wince and that's one of them.

[Holman]

We have to let this one go.

The formal traditional "begging the question" doesn't really deserve defense because it completely inverts the normal English sense of "beg/lack/ask."

It's not even a good phrase for the fallacy it describes, which is better put as "presuming the premise" or something similar.

[Kraken]

We have to let this one go.

The formal traditional "begging the question" doesn't really deserve defense because it completely inverts the normal English sense of "beg/lack/ask."

It's not even a good phrase for the fallacy it describes, which is better put as "presuming the premise" or something similar.

I agree on this one, and I'm a copy editor. If I run across the phrase in something I'm editing I'll correct it to "raises the question" or "implies the question" or whatever fits the context. But my heart isn't in it.

[GreenGoo]

We have to let this one go.

The formal traditional "begging the question" doesn't really deserve defense because it completely inverts the normal English sense of "beg/lack/ask."

It's not even a good phrase for the fallacy it describes, which is better put as "presuming the premise" or something similar.

Can't. Yet.

Doesn't matter though, soon enough everyone who isn't an English professor who knows the meaning of "begs the question" will be dead. Hell, I didn't know the meaning until GoneGold, I think.

[hitbyambulance]

Doesn't matter though, soon enough everyone who isn't an English professor who knows the meaning of "begs the question" will be dead.

or at least decimated

[LordMortis]

Insanity coupled with a sizable portion of the people's eagerness to drink from that well really has me questioning "the rational mind"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-BBJmQOf

Also, it appears as though someone else posted those tweets. Trump has never posted with that detail or coveferrectness.

The irony is Trump is right.

The President Obama quote just before election. That’s because he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win and he didn’t want to “rock the boat."

[YellowKing]

So the same guy who claimed that the election was rife with voter fraud thinks it's absurd that an American election could be rigged?

[Skinypupy]

Another charge this morning. This time, a lawyer charged with lying about working with Gates and turning over e-mails.

[Pyperkub]

Another charge this morning. This time, a lawyer charged with lying about working with Gates and turning over e-mails.

Pleading guilty, which means he flipped too. Manafort is in deep, deep trouble. This will dramatically increase the pressure on him.

[Holman]

Another charge this morning. This time, a lawyer charged with lying about working with Gates and turning over e-mails.

And this lawyer just happens to be the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch and Putin crony who met with Trump in Moscow.

[LordMortis]

So the same guy who claimed that the election was rife with voter fraud thinks it's absurd that an American election could be rigged?

...And the Obama didn't do enough to stop rigging that didn't happen that falsely made Crooked Hillary look competitive where he should have won the popular vote but at least had an enormous electoral vote victory, thank goodness for the fine job Comey did whose lack of loyalty incompetently and maliciously showed he was favorable to Crooked Hillary and the deep state and so Mueller must wrap up his investigation because no collusion and while we're at quit asking about Russian connections and business dealings that have nothing to do with my election, or Ukraine or Syria or oil drilling or property sales or banking or off shore accounts or what a fine person Putin is, or so I've heard, I've barely spoken to him about anything but adoptions and don't known anything about wikileaks who haven't been tied to 13 people indicted and haven't been tied to Russian government which had no ties to my asking Russians to release more wikileak documents during the campaign....

Stay strong Flynn!

NO COLLUSION!

[stessier]

So the same guy who claimed that the election was rife with voter fraud thinks it's absurd that an American election could be rigged?

...And the Obama didn't do enough to stop rigging that didn't happen that falsely made Crooked Hillary look competitive where he should have won the popular vote but at least had an enormous electoral vote victory, thank goodness for the fine job Comey did whose lack of loyalty incompetently and maliciously showed he was favorable to Crooked Hillary and the deep state and so Mueller must wrap up his investigation because no collusion and while we're at quit asking about Russian connections and business dealings that have nothing to do with my election, or Ukraine or Syria or oil drilling or property sales or banking or off shore accounts or what a fine person Putin is, or so I've heard, I've barely spoken to him about anything but adoptions and don't known anything about wikileaks who haven't been tied to 13 people indicted and haven't been tied to Russian government which had no ties to my asking Russians to release more wikileak documents during the campaign....

Stay strong Flynn!

NO COLLUSION!

This is why increasing the twitter character limit above 140 was a mistake.

[Kraken]

Another charge this morning. This time, a lawyer charged with lying about working with Gates and turning over e-mails.

Pleading guilty, which means he flipped too. Manafort is in deep, deep trouble. This will dramatically increase the pressure on him.

Unless, of course, he can count on a presidential pardon.

[LordMortis]

Another charge this morning. This time, a lawyer charged with lying about working with Gates and turning over e-mails.

Pleading guilty, which means he flipped too. Manafort is in deep, deep trouble. This will dramatically increase the pressure on him.

Unless, of course, he can count on a presidential pardon.

Stay strong lawyer!

[Pyperkub]

Another charge this morning. This time, a lawyer charged with lying about working with Gates and turning over e-mails.

Pleading guilty, which means he flipped too. Manafort is in deep, deep trouble. This will dramatically increase the pressure on him.

Unless, of course, he can count on a presidential pardon.

Indications have long been that Mueller has a plan for that.

[Rip]

So the same guy who claimed that the election was rife with voter fraud thinks it's absurd that an American election could be rigged?

Obama?

[Isgrimnur]

Low-effort troll. Sad.

[LordMortis]

So the same guy who claimed that the election was rife with voter fraud thinks it's absurd that an American election could be rigged?

Obama?

nothingburgers, but I'm sure Nunes will write a memo ask for its release where he accuses Obama of not doing anything about investigating Russia and you will be able to hold that memo up as proof that Obama and Clinton are to blame.

[msteelers]

Low-effort troll. Sad.

He’s just parroting Trump and right wing media. They are all in on Obama doing nothing to stop Russia. Of course it’s bullshit, but people like Rip don’t care.

[LordMortis]

From the outside, it looks like Obama knew and did nothing because he thought Clinton would win. I don't see that as a fabrication of the media or Trump. The leap comes where they say it was done to help Clinton. When Gucifer was leaking DNC mails to help Clinton win. When Comey's announcements about email being unsettled was to help Clinton win. That social media bots pushing Sanders, Stein, and Trump were to help Clinton win. Seriously. What synapses are going to make those leaps?

And tie after tie after tie after tie after tie from Trump to Russia is nothingburgers.

[msteelers]

Obama didn’t do anything publicly because McConnell and the Republican Party refused to do so in a bipartisan manner. If Obama had come out by himself and said the Russians were doing this, it would have been seen as a partisan defense of Clinton. Behind the scenes he warned Russia and hit them with sanctions. I’m not sure what else he could/should have done.

[Combustible Lemur]

Obama didn’t do anything publicly because McConnell and the Republican Party refused to do so in a bipartisan manner. If Obama had come out by himself and said the Russians were doing this, it would have been seen as a partisan defense of Clinton. Behind the scenes he warned Russia and hit them with sanctions. I’m not sure what else he could/should have done.

This. My understanding is that McConnell directly threatened to turn it partisan if it was made public. And behind the scenes there are several memos indicating that the administration was widening and broadening the legal investigations of all these things.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Pyperkub]

From the outside, it looks like Obama knew and did nothing because he thought Clinton would win. I don't see that as a fabrication of the media or Trump. The leap comes where they say it was done to help Clinton. When Gucifer was leaking DNC mails to help Clinton win. When Comey's announcements about email being unsettled was to help Clinton win. That social media bots pushing Sanders, Stein, and Trump were to help Clinton win. Seriously. What synapses are going to make those leaps?

And tie after tie after tie after tie after tie from Trump to Russia is nothingburgers.

Except that it is incorrect:

One fascinating revelation is that the White House did not simply punish Russia symbolically by expelling “diplomatic” personnel. It also fought fire with fire via a covert, retaliatory cyber operation.

On its face, a secretive and ambiguous action seems an unlikely choice for deterrence. As when President Trump used the “mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan, standard U.S. procedure is to issue loud and clear warnings to adversaries. While the details of Obama’s cyber operation remain classified, The Post’s reporting suggests that it was designed to be detected by Moscow and to imply Washington’s ability to inflict severe damage should Russia’s meddling increase. Thus, this particular covert response may have allowed the White House to threaten its adversary without creating a public spectacle and the domestic and international consequences.

And of course, Trump immediately tried to reverse the diplomat/spy expulsions and embassy land seizures, and has done nothing to follow up on the covert side, in that Russia hasn't been deterred from interfering in multiple issues since, and it is widely expected by everyone in the US intelligence community that the 2018 midterms are already being attacked by the Russians.

This is all on Trump fiddling while Russia fucks with us (to Trump's benefit).

[Alefroth]

Anyone seen mention of Flynn's motion to reverse his plea in reputable media?

http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/19/mic ... orruption/

[LordMortis]

I won't even dignify that link with a click. They've earned that. What a shame or is that sham to go under the Federalist moniker.

[Enough]

Anyone seen mention of Flynn's motion to reverse his plea in reputable media?

http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/19/mic ... orruption/

Gawd that website is insufferable bullshit made to look all pedantic and researched. I just made the mistake of reading an article there that it's a bunch of scary capitalistic white men who are "institutionalizing transgender ideology." It turns out they are in for the money and on the Federalist we all know how much they love to interfere with people trying to make money and be good capitalists.

[Pyperkub]

Anyone seen mention of Flynn's motion to reverse his plea in reputable media?

http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/19/mic ... orruption/

Mr Fed at Popehat pretty much shows it's complete BS. The whole thing is premised on Nunes' (retracted) theory that the Carter Page FISA warrants were illegal, however, even if you posit that, Mr Fed explains quite concisely that data found (even illegally), can be used quite easily to get warrants on other people and that it's only the person whose rights were initially broken who has standing:

It's true that people are arguing that Mueller's investigation is tainted because (among other reasons) a FISA warrant application to surveil Carter Page didn't adequately disclose the partisan nature of the information it relied upon, and that the entire investigation must therefore be shut down because of that and various other wrongdoing.

This argument is completely detached from the law for numerous reasons.

First, there's the concept of standing. "Standing" means that I cant' assert violations of your rights to get a court to exclude evidence. The "tree" has to be a violation of your rights for you to use the doctrine. So if the cops illegally search your house, and try to use the resulting evidence against me, I can't get it thrown out unless I had some sort of right to privacy in your house — as a tenant, for instance. But if the cops illegally search me, violating my rights, and then use the resulting evidence to get a search warrant for your house, and find more evidence there, then I might get that evidence suppressed because the "tree" is a violation of my rights.

In the Special Counsel's case, the only people who could conceivably claim "fruit of the poisonous tree" based on a bad FISA warrant application would be people whose rights were violated by that warrant — that is, Carter Page, and perhaps someone recorded talking to him.

[LordMortis]

Yeah, but Fed is part of the Libertarian Deep State conspiracy.

[Moliere]

Mueller charges lawyer with lying in Russia probe

A man who communicated with former Trump campaign adviser Richard Gates has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian election interference.

Attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan was charged with making “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations” to the special counsel’s office and FBI agents, according to a court filing released Tuesday morning.

He entered a guilty plea on Tuesday afternoon.

Van Der Zwaan allegedly lied about his last communications with Gates and then deleted emails requested by the special counsel’s office, according to the indictment.

He allegedly did so as part of his work for a firm hired by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice to prepare a report on the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister of Ukraine.

[Skinypupy]

So, there's this:

From @TIME: WH staffers were unable to convince Trump to mute his tweets to Mueller indictments, so they booked spokesmen on Fox News "to try to direct Trump toward a little less fanciful readings of the indictments." #ThisIsntNormal

"This isn't normal" is a massive understatement.

[Paingod]

It's like a warped version of the Addams Family is in power.

[hepcat]

Gomez Addams was honest and stable (in his own way). Unfortunately, his first name would have prevented him from being elected to office.

[Holman]

Catch up on mainstream media Russian conspiracy theories in this piece by @FDRLST PS-If you are a Russian Bot please make this go viral PSS-If you’re not a Russian Bot you will become one if you retweet

[Kurth]

I read some of the comments to that tweet. Why do people even bother? It’s like 99% of the comments there (and, really, everywhere else on social media) are made by obvious trolls or maybe bots.

This is also why a large part of me feels like the whole “Russia tried to influence the election” thing (which I believe absolutely happened) is just . . . sad.

I don’t really blame Russia for trying. I blame all the idiots in this country who believe what they read on Twitter and Facebook and in the comments to pretty much every piece of online content. If we, as an electorate, are unable to spot obviously fake crap from clearly shady sources and/or are so partisan and tribal that we just spew it forth without regard because it reinforces our team’s position, a large part of me feels we deserve what we get.

[GreenGoo]

I don’t really blame Russia for trying. I blame all the idiots in this country who believe what they read on Twitter and Facebook and in the comments to pretty much every piece of online content. If we, as an electorate, are unable to spot obviously fake crap from clearly shady sources and/or are so partisan and tribal that we just spew it forth without regard because it reinforces our team’s position, a large part of me feels we deserve what we get.

For the record, I saw a piece that contained a short interview with some Russians involved in information warfare in social media, and this is exactly what they said. Stupid people deserve what they get.

Enjoy.

[Rip]

I blame idiots that think a few stupid troll ads got Trump elected.

http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/374 ... verups-did

Much of the media coverage is hailing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian trolls as stunning proof of foreign hacking of the 2016 election. Mueller may have other cards up his sleeve and the jury is still out. But the U.S. government likely duped far more voters than did the Russians on Election Day 2016.

Mueller revealed that 13 Russians and 3 companies were allegedly involved in attempting to sow dissent in the U.S. prior to and after the election. Most of their spending on Facebook ads occurred after the election, and they included spurring both pro-Trump and anti-Trump outbursts. Many of the ads were dopey even by Facebook standards, including a picture of Jesus getting ready to punch Hillary Clinton. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein declared that there is “no allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the American election."

At least one of Mueller’s allegations blames Russians for a homegrown political debacle. Mueller charged that Russian trolls conspired to “defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission.” But this is akin to blaming panhandlers for the notorious unreliability of the Washington subway system.


The FEC has long been “borderline useless,” as a New York Times editorial scoffed in 2011. Federal Election Commissioner Ann Ravel complained last year that, thanks to FEC gridlock, "major violations are swept under the rug and the resulting dark money has left Americans uniformed about the sources of campaign spending … violators of the law are given a free pass." Common Cause, People for the American Way, and other liberal groups complained in 2016 that the FEC "is a failed, dysfunctional agency ... Campaigns, political operatives, parties, and independent spenders know they can operate with impunity ... for campaign finance violations." FEC negligence permitted far greater violations of campaign law than the $1.25 million a month the Russian trolls allegedly spent.

[Smoove_B]

It's pretty impressive to watch someone being told (in the video) they actually were promoting Russians sowing chaos prior to the election insist they were not.

The group used its "Being Patriotic" Facebook page, which was designed to look like it was run by real Americans, along with Instagram and Twitter accounts, to organize and publicize the event.

The people behind the "Being Patriotic" page reached out to Miller, a vocal Trump supporter who lived in Florida at the time. Miller agreed to build a cage on the back of his flatbed truck and was paid somewhere between $500 and $1,000 to cover the cost of materials, he told CNN.

...

One reason Goldfarb was skeptical about the claim of Russian involvement goes back to the Russians' tactics: They were not faking rallies or supporters, but trying to prompt real Americans who already backed a cause to turn out in support of it. Goldfarb attended the Fort Lauderdale "Florida Goes Trump" event. She told CNN that she knew all of the people there, "they were at my meetings. They're all Trump supporters."

"I don't go with Russians, c'mon, give me a break," she said.

[gilraen]

It's pretty impressive to watch someone being told (in the video) they actually were promoting Russians sowing chaos prior to the election insist they were not.

Well, technically they were paid to say and do shit that they would have been just as happy to do for free...so it's not like the Russians swayed their political persuasion, just empowered them to say it louder.

Of course, therein lies the genius of the sabotage: "They were not faking rallies or supporters, but trying to prompt real Americans who already backed a cause to turn out in support of it."

[Smoove_B]

I'm not blaming them for falling for the ruse. But when the reporter tells this woman that the FBI has discovered that the group in question was in fact Russian trolls, she flat out refuses to believe it.

[Kurth]

I'm not blaming them for falling for the ruse. But when the reporter tells this woman that the FBI has discovered that the group in question was in fact Russian trolls, she flat out refuses to believe it.

That's not how I took her comments. I didn't watch the video, but from the story, I thought she was more objecting to the whole theme of the piece that these were "unwitting" Americans. I get it that they are "unwitting" to the extent they didn't know they were doing the bidding of the Russian government, but I think that's kind of a misleading way to describe it.

They were absolutely aware of what they were doing and saying and clearly believed in their cause (however the hell they might describe it). And so were all the other activist groups the Russians influenced.

More from that article:

Trump supporters were not the only people duped by the Internet Research Agency. As CNN has previously reported, Black Lives Matter activists and Muslim groups were also targeted.

Micah White, a co-founder of the Occupy Wall Street movement, also fell victim to the Internet Research Agency. In June 2016, he gave a telephone interview to the website Black Matters US, which was run by the group.

He told CNN last fall that Russia's ability to successfully mimic American grassroot movements was concerning.

"If it is true that a Russian-based activist group is indistinguishable from an American-created activist group, that will have negative impacts on our ability to create social movements that are positive, that actually benefit ourselves and not some sort of foreign power."

At this point, I don't think it's an "if," and it goes directly to the dubious quality of many of our grass-roots activist groups.

We have lost the ability to engage in rational, objective analysis. We are a society of tribes and teams, and, by and large, we follow along with the tribe like sheep. See something consistent with the tribe's point of view, share and post away. See something inconsistent with that view, reject it out of hand.

Maybe it was always this way, and social media has just pushed it over the tipping point. I'm bummed.