Until recently, those were the words of the mainstream anchors. They still use them when referring to Rush Limbaugh and others.
Then you haven’t been watching very closely.
Google, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter are doing exactly that and have been called to Congress to explain themselves. The mainstream cabal doesn’t have total control … yet. They still have to play the game of “it’s just corporations competing for money”.
And yet still they seem to have no real competition between them. They use the exact same words at the exact same time and always in the exact same political direction. They are exposed for anyone bothering to observe. Even Ted Koppel proclaimed that they are unified and biased and that actual journalism is dead. And Fox is a cable network.
The money leads to socialist/democrat agenda. George Soros ring any bells? Bill Gates? Mark Zuckerberg? Sergey Brin? Michael Bloomberg?
Just because someone is making money using a corporation, doesn’t mean they are capitalists. It merely means that the battle has yet to be won.
Saying it doesn’t make it true. They might be the, “Alternative major news network,” which is just to say the one that doesn’t lean left. I believe Limbaugh has the #1 radio program in the country, right? He’s Christina Aguilera to Fox News’ Britney Spears.
I guess I have to grant you that much. I most certainly haven’t. I don’t mind the news, don’t misunderstand, it’s just that none of those things are the news.
No, what those companies do is partially control the narrative on platforms that they themselves own. It’s no different than a hardware store in Peoria, Illinois putting a, “Make America Great Again,” poster in the window…the store just has a much smaller window. I do not dispute that they control the narrative on their own platforms, though.
What do you mean, “No real competition?” Fox is #1 because it has less meaningful competition. Do you mean competition in terms of different messaging? They don’t have competition for that because they are competing for the same target market, except MSNBC, which targets more left than something like CNN. CNN is the channel for you if you want to watch left-leaning media whilst convincing yourself that you are watching moderate and impartial media.
Anyway, they say some of the same things because they have the same target market. They just want to be perceived as better at saying those things than are the other guys.
Marketing 101. News, in its current state, is fundamentally no different than any other product.
The money way well lead to that agenda, but that’s only because that is the political agenda of the majority of the owners/operators of those news outlets. I’ve said that already.
That happens to be illegal in the US. They have been given “utility status”, meaning that they are to ONLY provide for communication. Any tampering with content, especially in a bias capacity takes away their utility status and puts them into “media status”. They are allowed to ban for abuse, but that is it. They claim to Congress that they have no bias whatsoever (a clear lie), but their excuse is that an “algorithm” dictates who to ban or shadow ban. That excuse is met with a capitulating, complacent, “Oh, okay. There must be nothing we can do then” by the left wing representatives.
Whoa. I think you might need to brush up a bit on US media. Fox stands alone against the 5 major US leftist media broadcast outlets; MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN plus the newspaper sources; New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Bloomberg, and many others. Recently the Epoch Times has joined forces with the conservatives.
But Fox doesn’t merely get higher ratings. It is also rated as most trustable by the general population (accounting for its higher ratings when anything important occurs), despite the extreme liberal propaganda machine. CNN has become so biased that its ratings have fallen almost off of the chart. Bezos was caught on tape commanding his reporters to report only Trump negativity (similar with Bloomberg). Actual journalism is not allowed.
They are not just “saying the same things”. If they were reporting the exact truth, they would be just saying the same things. Instead, they are saying the exact same words in unison. When the “quid quo pro” issue arose, it was understandable that they all used that same term. But when the DNC discovered that it wasn’t selling well, they ALL, simultaneously changed to “extortion” then to “bribery”. They settled on “bribery” because that is the word used in the Constitution. They were and remain in sync throughout and have for a long time. I think since before I was born.
That is NOT genuine independent news reporting. That is collaborating. And via secret agreement, is called “a cabal”. And is anti-trust illegal in the US. They WILL be broken up or they will conquer the USA into socialism.
Okay, so you have a company operating within the fringes of legality to promote its interests. Is that what you’re suggesting? If so, good, we did Marketing 101 earlier and now we are into Business Management 101. Some businesses operate within the confines of laws and regulations more strictly than others, of course.
You’ll excuse me for not taking the time to list every major news channel. I didn’t discuss newspapers because we weren’t talking about newspapers.
You’ll also forgive me for not giving a sweet fuck what the general population considers most trustworthy. Is that the same general population that believes that the God of Abraham is more likely to be the case than not? Yeah, that’s not going to hold a ton of water with me for anything except a statistical talking point, which is itself fine, I like statistics.
Speaking of, the poll that I assume you are referencing pertained to channels that those polled watched three, or more, times per week. Newsflash: People tend to watch the news stations that they trust the most. I’m shocked. Astounded. You could knock me over with a feather right now.
I made no claim of actual journalism taking place at any of these outlets. If forced to make a claim, I would make a claim to the contrary.
They are literally saying the same exact words verbatim? Are you sure that they are not saying substantially similar things with the exact same keywords? I could buy that. I would expect sources that fundamentally agree with one another to say substantially similar things with the same keywords. I guess you don’t watch sports channels that often if you think this is in any way unique. Do the sports stations also have a cabal?
I made no claim that they do independent genuine news reporting. I believe that my claim was the precise opposite. I believe I said something like:
[b]
[/b]
It’s news based entertainment. They aren’t selling news, they are selling a skewed and biased version of the news to people who are more than happy to buy it with their eyes, ears and time. Every segment, or at least most, is not straight reporting…it’s also an advertising effort to keep people watching.
So, you propose that the agreement is so secret that a random dude posting on a sub-forum on a niche message board knows about it, but most other people do not?
This claim is clearly exaggerated and a bit incoherent, but I’ll let you provide support for the claim if you have it. I’ve seen the video of all the ‘local’ anchors saying the same thing, but they were all part of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a company that is generally pro-Trump and has special access arrangements with the GOP. So that seems to weigh against your claims. I challenge you to show something similar from liberal-leaning sources.
Also note that presenting the same facts is not in itself an indictment; two people reporting the same story truthfully should present the same set of facts, as there will often be general agreement about what facts are relevant and worth reporting.
At some point, that testimony is duplicative. Take a hypothetical where a whistleblower tips off investigators to the existence of a recording of a call, and investigators subsequently obtain that recording and make it the basis of an indictment. What additional information can the whistleblower add? Forcing that person to testify can only dilute good information with worse information, and introduce whatever bias that person has. It doesn’t move anyone closer to truth.
I don’t think we should make that distinction, at least to the extent we can prove them. What matters is the message that’s communicated. If someone threatens to hurt me, it doesn’t matter to me whether they’ve said “I’ll hurt you” or “shame if something were to happen to you, capisce?” If someone intends to communicate X, and successfully communicates X, it doesn’t really matter how the communication was achieved. Indeed, the implicit quid pro quo is, if anything, worse, because it is evidence of a guilty mind (again, assuming we can independently prove that the intent was to communicate X).
But if that’s so, why would so many career civil servants been so shocked by it? These were Republican appointees who have worked through many administrations, they would know if this was business as usual, and they immediately recognized it as crossing lines. That’s inconsistent with it having been acceptable before.
I agree with this with respect to laws, but not with respect to founding documents. Founding documents need to be inspirational, because the instutions they create are only part of the equation: those institutions need popular buy in, they need to represent a grand vision, and such a vision is best communicated through grand pronouncements and flowery prose.
I also think that vagueness is underappreciated. In a pluarlist society, where compromise is hard and opinions differ, a vague clause is often better because it lets people who would disagree on a very precisely worded clause, agree on something. Again, drawing from my legal day job, where there are clauses that are very unlikely to come up and on which we can’t agree, we can sometimes move the negotiation forward by leaving it vague and letting each party have their own pet interpretation, and ‘crossing that bridge if and when we get there’. That’s useful and rational.
But, following on that, I think we agree that it would be better to amend the Constitution to settle down areas where we have arrived at the bridge and we need clarity on which future we’ll choose for ourselves, or where vagueness has allowed interpretations that are bad for society.
(I will also note that I am biased by previous decisions on this question: in writing the founding document for ILP, I intentionally eschewed precision in favor of grand pronouncements and flowery prose.)
Yes. But I don’t think that’s what Trump has done. He’s lied to hide his administrations failures, to exaggerate their successes; in essense, to deprive the people of the information they need to develop an informed opinion on his presidency. That kind of lying is bad faith, it is incompatible with the faithful administration of the office.
But I think I take your general point: I am making a claim based on my interpretation of the oath of office, and it isn’t based on anything other than my reading of the oath and my interpretation of what good faith means.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that. Rather, Urwrong suggested that only fraudulent voting or altering vote counts would qualify as foreign interference in an election. I presented the above hypothetical to show that there are definitely non-voting actions that would qualify. And I think it challenges your assertion that as long as voters are permitted to vote how they like, there is no interference.
My follow-up to Urwrong was a further hypothetical, also not what has happened, but intended to be closer to the current situation to help us draw lines:
I would say that this is foreign electoral interference. Do you agree? If so, step three is imputing vicarious intent, when the foreign country is coerced into starting such an investigation by someone with the intent to affect the election, which is what we have here.
I agree that the testimony can become duplicative, “At some point,” as relates a specific underlying subject matter. I believe the first question that we would have to answer is, “At what point?”
For an unrelated example of a case in which I would agree with the general statement: Suppose Person A shoots Person B in the head in an urban setting and there are fifty people who visually witnessed this event, I quite probably do not need to hear the testimony of all fifty of those people. If there is video evidence of that from beginning to end, then I may well not need the testimony of any of them.
The recording of the call is quite different because the decision to be made here is whether or not something rises to the level of, “High crimes and misdemeanors,” and honestly, I haven’t even determined what I take that term to mean just yet. I would have an easier time with, “Crimes and misdemeanors,” because then I could simply look at applicable statutes and determine whether or not the activity in question fits any of those.
The murder in my example is much clearer. A murder definitely happened.
Instead, I am the left with a qualifier, “High,” which under my interpretation of common language would suggest that it has to be a pretty bad crime or misdemeanor. Other interpretations, including yours, would suggest that it does not have to represent anything on the books that is even a crime or a misdemeanor in the first place.
But, even assuming I come to my own conclusion (itself a problem) as to what a High Crime and Misdemeanor is or could be, we are still left with Question 3 as to whether or not the call rises to that level. Assuming that the call, in and of itself, is not sufficient (based on a reading of the transcript) to rise to that level, now I have to get into thought processes and related evidence. That is where the whistleblower could come in handy. Because he has awareness of the event in question (the call) it is not unreasonable to believe that he could have awareness of the thought processes involved (via discussion) both before and after the call. He might also have awareness or evidence of other matters directly related to the subject of the call. Not least of which is whether or not Trump actually intended to withhold the aid until such time that his purported demands were met.
He did not withhold the aid until his purported demands were met, this much we know, but what we cannot know is whether that was because outside influences changed his decision-making process in this regard or if it was simply a true bluff. We can’t know either of these things absent Trump telling us directly, and that’s only assuming one decides to believe him.
And, like it or not, who the whistleblower is could add credence. Who precisely thought that this was such a big deal and reported it? Is it unacceptable to suggest that Mike Pence being the whistleblower would carry with it more weight than the whistleblower being some random staffer neither of us has ever heard of?
It does matter because the first instance in your example is undeniably a threat and, I believe, could constitute menacing at a minimum. The second statement, on the other hand, could be explained away as something else entirely or as legitimate concern for your well-being. In the second statement, it is being suggested that something could happen to you, and it would be a shame if it did, but it does not in any way even suggest that the speaker would also be the actor. Even if you want to argue that there is definitely an implied threat, it is not necessarily the actor threatening you, but instead suggesting that you should feel threatened.
I do agree with you about the intent, but then you get into that keyword: prove. With the first statement, the clarity is such that the proof exists in the statement itself. I believe I have read the transcript of the call, but who knows, I might have found a fake transcript or something. To me, the call didn’t strictly prove much of anything.
I have two things in response to this:
1.) Does something always cross a line because of what it is, or can it cross a line because of how it was done? That kind of gets into what we talked about above.
2.) The fact that they were Republicans is irrelevant. Unless for strictly political reasons, (which I believe, but also believe that is why the Impeachment happened in the first place) the fact that ZERO Republican Representatives voted for Impeachment fails to give the fact that the staffers were Republican any weight whatsoever. In the procedural sense, the appointees are tasked with suggesting that the activity may have crossed a line, they did that, those tasked with making the decision vis-a-vis Impeachment (on the Republican side) said, “No, it did not cross a line.” The Representatives (as far as Republicans go) can be assumed to be a greater authority as to the position a Republican should take.
All of this also gets back to the fact that the Democrats telegraphed a partial intention and inclination towards Impeachment prior to Trump even taking office. Had the telegraphing not occurred, then I think that it is fair to say that these events would potentially carry more perceptive weight with people, particularly on the Republican side. As it stands, many people fairly (in my estimation) conclude that the Democrats would happily take any excuse to Impeach that they could get. Does that mean Impeachment is wrong? No, not by itself, but it does change the perception.
If the founding documents carried no more or no less weight than the Mission Statement of a business, then I would be inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately, the founding document itself declared its absolute importance not only as an inspiration, but also the absolute law of the land and further tasked (and limited) the highest Judicial body in the land to be bound only to making decisions based upon their interpretation of the founding document. The whole thing was screwed from the word go.
That is to say that they did not need to make the founding document simultaneously the incontrovertible (absent amendment) legally-binding document in the land to accomplish all of that other stuff that you said that it does. The founding document and the ultimate legal document of the land could have existed separately, or you could just not have the latter thing and instead focus on laws.
The Constitution made no effort to build as many bridges as possible, and therein lies the difference. With your contracts, you essentially say, “Let’s come to an agreement that allows us to build as many bridges over this divide as we possibly can now, and then any bridges that are too cumbersome to build now, we will build later if it is determined that a bridge is needed in that particular spot of the divide.”
Not only does The Constitution fail to itself build very many bridges, those that it does build are not structurally sound. The SCOTUS, as an entity, often has to commit great leaps in logic to untie its own hands of The Constitution while simultaneously, and with only limited success, giving the appearance of the strictest possible adherence.
Let’s ask this: If The Constitution was at all definitive, would the perceived political leanings of potential appointees to SCOTUS Justice be perceived of as being at all relevant?
Let’s start with, “He’s lied to hide his administration’s failures.”
—Okay, one thing that accomplishes is that it, in intent, gives the perception of rightness to the American people as well as to those abroad, which could include enemies. The lie, as it were, is only detrimental if found to be a lie which, I think we could agree, is not the goal of a lie.
—Lying to exaggerate successes, if accurate, also accomplishes the same goal.
Therefore, I would counter-argue that it could very well be not only compatible with faithful administration of the office, but more than that, could actually be beneficial to the country provided the lie is not discovered to be a lie.
The other thing to understand is that is just how Donald Trump conducts business. He exaggerates. He uses grandiose terms even when most people would think that those terms do not apply.
I appreciate our differences in the interpretation. And, again, if The Constitution intended for the President to always be truthful in everything that he says aloud and to the American public, then The Constitution should have said that.
The Oath of Office is 35 words long and whether or not the second half of the Oath is fulfilled could only really be decided by the Speaker himself. It’s abysmal.
I do not agree for several reasons:
1.) France can announce whatever it wants to announce.
2.) France cannot interfere in our elections without actually being on our soil, or if they could, it would take more than making an accusation.
3.) Government is an entity made up of entities, namely Government officials. Any person can make an accusation. In my view, no accusation (absent evidence) carries with it any more automatic weight than any other…and people accuse Trump of various things all over the place. Do the Americans who accuse Trump of various things (if there is nothing to indicate those things are true) also commit electoral interference?
4.) While I recognize it may not be true for everyone, absent proof, I care nothing about a mere accusation. That is especially true when the accuser himself or herself faces no possibility of punishment for making the accusation. Granted, if France made such an accusation about Trump, then Trump could retaliate both now and if he wins the election with unfavorable action against France, but such action does not necessarily harm the speaker of the accusation.
5.) Same thing, but I really want to stress that I only care for proof, so I am saying it twice.
—Now, for the purposes of your example, let’s suppose for a second that France actually fabricated evidence of this non-event, or suppressed exculpatory evidence…then I think you might have an argument for electoral interference.
Did you actually watch the speech? He was doing his very typical sarcasm to introduce Hillary’s criminal 30,000 emails missing issue. Anyone with half a brian not corrupted immediately knew that he was not making any serious plea to Russia. It was a joke that only malignant people would spin into a Russia collusion hoax.
The question is, why did you take it seriously? Did you merely hear about it from leftist media? Or did you witness it directly and failed to see the obvious truth of it?
If that is all you had as evidence of this accusation, next accusation please?
I started to display all of the research on this issue yesterday but I don’t know enough about how to get youtube to display. I suspect that Fox News Channel being blocked in certain countries prevents easy transport of their videos. And in addition there are many videos displaying montages of the exact effect that I mentioned. It is nothing new. But searching videos is extremely time consuming. I decided that for sake of someone who argues before doing any research and insultingly presumes that “some random dude on a sub-forum” couldn’t possibly know anything that he hadn’t been fully inform about was impossible, it wasn’t really worth it.
One video from Tucker Carlson, “Tucker: No One Is Above The Law Except Democrats” contained a short montage displaying the effect. Perhaps you can look it up if you care. He has run several in the past months concerning different verbiage (yes “verbatim”). Sean Hannity ran others. And I think Laura Ingraham ran one or two. So counting their investigation and production teams, there are at least a dozen people who were aware of this besides that one random dude on a sub-forum (not to even mention 100’s of psychologists and mass media professors and students). How Pav was left out of the loop will remain a mystery.
I am more interested in your litany of accusations. I have observed Mr Trump intimately for years and I believe that I know him and his intentions and motivations very well. But unlike others on your board here, I like to research things before I make serious accusations. Such research incentive leads to asking people like yourself to yield whatever evidence they have concerning any issue of interest to me.
And since I first signed onto this board and began interacting with these people, I have been mystified why James S Saint (my research subject) stayed here for so long. It was an unanswered question that has been plaguing me while I was poking around for clues. I mention that because as I began to respond on the subject of your accusations, I believe that I finally discovered the answer. The answer, I feel certain about now, is simply, “is there anything that I have missed”.
And that is what I am looking for with your reasoning - is there possibly anything that I have missed?
On your first count, it seems not unless you have further evidence for that charge.
Was your argument going to be that the other side does the same thing? Or was it to be the highly typical liberal tactic of hypocritically accusing the opponent of their own guilt?
Either way, I am not really interested in getting into that discussion because it would take far too much time to bring the facts forward to people who seem to not really care to find them or hear them.
First off all, let me apologize to you if you took genuine offense to my statement about some random dude on an internet message board. It was not meant to insult you. It was meant to do nothing more than point out that, if it is in fact a cabal, then it does a really bad job of being a cabal. Like, astoundingly bad.
What is the liberal media and what does the liberal media do? I think we fundamentally agree on the second question and disagree on the first. That is to say that we fundamentally agree about what it does, but not what it means. I have already stipulated that I do not consider those outlets to be news, but rather biased news entertainment. I have questioned whether or not they are really journalism. I stop short of admitting to a cabal because:
A.) I do not see many qualities that would render it a cabal, namely, secrecy. I consider what they are doing and why they are doing that to be relatively obvious; it is not my fault if other people do not.
B.) Where it does maybe satisfy qualities that a cabal might have, my combination profit-motive and message-promotion motive explanations satisfy me that those things are more likely the case.
You have promoted the theory that they are a cabal. I have countered with a theory that they are simply (as a news entertainment product) attempting to appeal to a target market. If there was a large enough market for those who wish to have the facts presented to them as objectively as possible, then I should assume that there might be a channel designed to accomplish just that. Of course, many viewers of the leftist stations, and of Fox News, will claim that their news entertainment outlet of choice does exactly that. The claim that they are at least attempting to do that…I probably could not prove that claim to be false to the satisfaction of very many of those people.
While it does not discredit what you are saying in and of itself, every single person that you just referenced is a Fox News host. These are multiple accounts of events coming from the same base source. Like, have you heard of Blaze TV or The Daily Wire? I’m just saying that there are other conservative media outlets available, though they are smaller.
That does not make the Fox News accounts wrong, I’m not saying that they are wrong or right; it’s just that if you’re going to promote the notion that different liberal media outlets have the same general messaging, why should that notion not apply to an individual conservative media outlet?
I’m unaware of your educational background and make no implications or assumptions with the following statement; I would be loathe to offend you again: If an individual sets about doing a college research paper, or perhaps even a high school research paper, one thing that you will generally notice is that the professor/teacher will stipulate a minimum number of different base sources to be cited and found on the, “Works Cited,” page.
Why should we suppose that should be the case?
Without getting too far into the weeds, I would say that the basic reasons are twofold:
1.) The assumption that a single source will generally agree with itself. This often applies also to websites, though those websites may have different writers working for them. If a person finds different sources to support that person’s position, then that person’s position (whether accurate or not) is considered to be better supported. That is generally considered true even if the different sources generally agree with one another.
2.) While an individual will likely cite sources that support that person’s position stated in his/her thesis, (unless deliberately doing a compare/contrast paper-by demand or by choice) I think that the real hope of requiring the person to research and cite so many works is that it will cause the individual to be exposed to different views on an underlying matter. The goal there is naturally to force critical thinking, which, in my opinion, is what making someone do a research paper ought be about.
-But, there is a secondary element involved, as well. What if, in this critical examination, an individual comes across a work that makes a point that supports the individual’s point, despite the fact that the source involved is actually trying to do the opposite and advocate against that individual’s point? By this means, the individual may learn not only how to construct arguments, but also how to deconstruct arguments to find critical flaws.
Holy shit. I’m not a professor myself, but if I were, he just went up a letter grade.
Same quote, but I’ll quote you again since it has been a few words:
I will watch the specifically suggested video and offer my thoughts on the breakdown. Prepare yourself for an attempt at objectivity in action. I’m not promising complete objectivity, (how could I?) but I do promise an attempt.
Start-0:41
Tucker (who I dislike, so you should thank me for watching this, by the way) starts off by saying that Trump is rallying his supporters in Hershey, PA. There is no Earthy reason that I can think of for anyone to argue against that assertion.
Tucker follows up by stating the time and day that President Trump took the Oath of Office. Tucker points out that, minutes later, Democrats (key) were calling for his Impeachment. Tucker admits that such might be an exaggeration, but if it is, then it is barely an exaggeration:
MY THOUGHTS:
I agree with Tucker that some Democrats were calling for Trump’s Impeachment, and I don’t think he’s exaggerating with minutes later, but is actually underestimating the case. I believe that some Democrats were calling for Trump’s Impeachment prior to Trump even taking office in the first place.
Key to honesty is that Tucker just says, “Democrats,” with no qualifier whatsoever. Literally, this would only interpret itself to, “More than one Democrat,” which is how he might defend his phrasing, but I don’t think that is critical or intellectually honest. Why would Tucker simply say, “Democrats,” absent a qualifier? He doubles down and says, “The left has been howling…”
—This is nothing more than an attempt to define terms and control the narrative/messaging. I believe that it is more than fair to stipulate that fewer Democrats were calling (at least, openly) for Trump’s Impeachment within ten minutes of him taking office (or any time prior to that) than there were…say…two months ago.
—Why would Tucker fail to make this obvious distinction? Again, messaging. The right messages and the left messages and they do this, in part, by virtue signaling. By using terms such as, “Democrats,” and, “The Left,” without a qualifier…what is being accomplished is continuing to set up a battle of: Them v. Us They are the Democrats, they are The Left, they act as one.
—He does not go as far as to directly state that not a single Democrat was opposed to Impeachment then, or is opposed to Impeachment now, because such a statement would be seen as completely ridiculous on its face and can be easily disproven. The balance to strike here is to send that message without making a disprovable statement, and Tucker performs that balance adequately. “The Democrats,” could mean any number that is greater than one, it could mean all of them except for one, it could mean 10%, 20%, 99.856%…you name it. A more specific claim would be provable or disprovable.
—Now, now, don’t get upset. The Left media ALSO does these same exact things because the left media shares the same exact goal, just on the other side. They will say, “The Right,” or, “The Republicans,” also without quantifying or qualifying those statements as it suits them. The goal is to send a message, to virtue signal, to create a them v. us: And, in so doing, to give the viewers what they want. To make them want to tune into the program the following night, the following week, to check out our different programs…but mostly…
Please watch our damn advertisements!!!
Because that’s how we get paid.
Next section, off we go now:
0:41-1:36
The rest mainly just needs into a news clip, where the (physical) speaker does the same exact thing that Tucker just did. He makes dogmatic and uncritical statements as to what has happened:
“That is exactly what President Trump did.”
There are a few problems with that simple sentence:
1.) The House of Representatives votes upon Articles of Impeachment, which then go to a trial in The Senate. If we hold the presumption of innocence as tantamount for that trial as we would for any other, then it is for the Senate and the Senate alone to decide whether or not The President did what is being suggested. The House of Representatives cannot make that conclusion, they only conclusion that they can make is that they accuse President Trump of doing what he said. This would otherwise be an extremely important legal distinction to make, because it touches upon the actual Constitutional process of Impeachment. You don’t “Convict,” a President in an Impeachment, you just Impeach him.
2.) It’s dogmatic. He doesn’t say, “The House of Representatives has decided that he did it,” but rather that he just did it. Even then, you could make an argument that the House of Representatives doesn’t speak with a single voice on this matter (in fact, Democrats were the only ones to vote to the contrary of the majority of their own party), but legalistically speaking, it is understood that the House of Representatives, by way of vote, does speak with a single voice…so maybe I’m engaging in sophistry a bit.
The fact remains that the House of Representatives cannot, or should not be able to, flatly declare that he did it…just that they accuse him of doing it. The Senate decides whether he did it or not.
But, again, this is really just about narrative/message controlling, anyway.
And we continue:
1:36-2:22
“No one is above the law.”
Speaking with one voice, narrative/message control. They speak with one voice to show solidarity and control the message. They want those who agree with them to speak, basically, with that same voice. I consider this not only NOT surprising at all, but also see no evidence of a cabal.
3:22-4:12
“Solemn”
-First of all, Jesus Christ is this guy insufferable. That’s not a shot at Fox News or a promotion of any other news, as I am sure they have insufferable people also…but did this guy aspire to be an actor, fail, and decide to go into pseudo-journalism, instead? I don’t mind a little mocking laughter to emphasize a point, but could he at least be the least bit subtle about it? Do news watchers (not just Fox) not have the intelligence to pick up on a message that’s not thrown directly in their faces?
Anyway, the rest is more examples of narrative control. The Democrats are promoting narrative x by doing y. See all of them doing it the same way? I do. Point taken. A cabal/conspiracy that does not make. Those things have to be secret, for one, at least, the way that I would use either of those words.
4:13-4:23
“Dig your hand a little deeper into the stocking, another present.”
—I found that very amusing.
4:20-4:29
“…Chuck Schumer, the professional Wall Street shill who lies for a living. Going onto the Senate floor…and accusing us of being dishonest.”
Okay, so you can say he lies for a living, but he can’t accuse you of being dishonest. Got it. Double standards are fun, aren’t they?
—Both sides! Both sides! Calm down, my friend.
4:30-5:10
Actually, Schumer also called them liars. He didn’t say, “Being dishonest,” he said something worse than that. Being dishonest could at least mean something more akin to, “Lied on this occasion,” or, “Was not critical and objective.” No, he flatly also called Fox News liars.
At what point does the higher ground get taken? I guess never. The higher ground might not be inflammatory enough, though it does spare one the fire for another minute or day.
Anyway, Tucker was being charitable to suggest that Schumer merely accused them of dishonesty. He’d have done better to not also call Schumer a person who lies for a living.
----But, why didn’t he? Is it not true that, to do so, he might make Fox News a more sympathetic figure? “Look at this, he called us liars! Can you believe that? We would never accuse him of lying, we just have different opinions.”
----But, Fox News has its viewers and would like to get more like-minded people who wish to be entertained, speaking in a non-inflammatory and non-divisive way does not entertain…unless one has an inclination towards Philosophy…which few do. They’re not trying to convince me, in other words, they are only trying to further convince the people who believe they are right and the other side is wrong.
****Wait, wait, the left does it too!!! Easy, tiger.
5:11-5:38
“What the left accuses you of doing is precisely what they are doing themselves.”
—Yup. It sure is. Granted, the verbiage again emphasizes the THEM v. US aspect because that is what the viewers want. What the right accuses the left of doing is also, sometimes, what they themselves are doing, also.
5:39-6:42
Christ this guy is an over actor. I’d need to do actual research into the Hunter Biden relationship with Ukraine before arguing for or against what Tucker said.
—See that? Do you see that? I’d have to do INDEPENDENT RESEARCH into it. In other words, it’s not automatically wrong in my view merely BECAUSE it comes out of the mouth of someone whose mannerisms and presentation I find to be completely melodramatic and insufferable. It’s not automatically wrong in my view because Fox News promotes it. This is attempted objectivity in action. Most who converse with one another on the affairs political (not necessarily meaning anyone here) should be taking fucking notes right now.
—The only aspect of anything he said that I specifically disagree with is to say that Hunter Biden is, “Otherwise unemployable.” As in, like, he couldn’t get a job anywhere? McDonald’s wouldn’t even have him?
6:43-7:58
If I muted this video and watched it side-by-side with one featuring Cenk Uyger of The Young Turks, I think I would see a ton of similarities. Did both of them fail out of the same acting school?
7:59-8:25
“Both parties know it’s not a reason to Impeach.”
—Um…This is tantamount to, “They’re lying, they’re all lying.” Yeah, the other side can play that game, and frequently does. If his voice wasn’t so grating, I’d probably have been asleep by now.
8:26-END
Oh my god! Finally! Meat! Substantive argument! Taking and defending positions!
1.) Twitter doesn’t accept defeat and thinks it would nullify the loss.
—I agree that the folks on Twitter are generally displeased and further agree that this, to some degree, was Impeachment on demand. I haven’t been alive for many Presidents, I’ll be honest, but nary do I remember a time where every single action taken by the President was scrutinized with an eye towards a, “Gotcha,” moment that could lead to Impeachment.
—I disagree that it would nullify the loss and that anyone (with 0.2% or more of a brain) actually believes that. Hillary Clinton does not become President if Donald Trump is removed from office, Mike Pence does. The Election is not nullified, there is no asterisk, the results of the Election itself are unchanged.
—“Doesn’t accept defeat,” is vague enough that I will leave it alone.
2.) “Ignore every lesson that came with that Election; the lessons that both of our parties needed to learn, but didn’t.”
—I’m not sure what lessons he is referring to, but for the first time (in this one specific clip) I like his sentiment. It admits that both parties are not flawless, needed to learn (!?) and failed to do so.
3.) “…But, we kicked him out, we don’t need to think about why voters would have supported him in the first place.”
—Damn good argument. Rock solid. I very rarely see anyone, as I did in a different thread, take a minute to consider, “Why would they have voted for Trump?” That would require an attempt to understand the other side rather than mock, belittle, condescend to and flatly declare as wrong. It’s kind of a shame that Tucker spent the first few minutes of the video doing exactly those things, since he clearly seems to grasp the alternative concept.
***Why would they have voted for Trump? Not often enough asked by the other side. When it is, I frequently see answers like, “Rednecks, stupid, basket of deplorables, racists, hate-mongerers.”
—If we want to begin to critically evaluate claims so that we can make and support claims to the contrary, point out flaws in the other claims, or perhaps even find flaws in our own claims…then we must first know what those claims are. I don’t think very many, if any, people went to the polls and said to themselves, “I am an idiot, and as an idiot, I must vote for Trump.”
—No. Why was Trump preferable? Why does Trump’s vision appeal to you more than Clinton’s? What policies do you think are important? Why are you on Trump’s side when it comes to that policy? What are your goals? What are your fears?
—But, these questions would require caring, perhaps even empathy. If not those things, then at least intellectual curiosity.
Generally speaking, I do not think Fox News is intellectually curious, of it they are, that is often not what they present. Same goes for Leftist media.
4.) “…believe it will help their case in the 2020 Election.”
-I agree with this. As I read the analyses presented by FiveThirtyEight as pertained Impeachment and Removal from Office, one thing that I noticed was those analyses were not focused on whether or not Trump did the right or wrong thing. At least, not for the most part. 538 was primarily concerned with not who will dissent from his/her own party, but by who can afford to dissent, in the political sense, from his or her own party.
***PARAPHRASE FOR EXAMPLE: Well, District 7 is an extremely Liberal district, 78% of them voted for Clinton, you know, so that’s obviously going to be a lock. District 15, on the other hand, is more interesting. District 15 actually voted for Trump 50.1% to 48.6% with the rest going to other candidates, largely a rural district, you know, with exception to (example town) of about 20,000. This Representative could quite possibly vote against Impeachment, you know they are going to be working on him, but if he does, you can expect there to be a challenger in the Primary, that’s for sure, possibly (potential candidate XXX XXX). I mean, he himself is fairly popular and just cruised in the General Election last time, despite the fact that the District went to Trump, one of only (number) of Districts in the country to vote for Trump, but also to vote for a Democratic representative. You have to figure he’s going to get challenged in the 2020 General Election anyway, but there’s nothing to indicate that he faces any real opposition in the Primary at this time.
-So, it’s what is good for the vote rather than whether or not the Impeachment itself is right or wrong.
-That’s what makes the matters underlying the Impeachment itself so foggy for me. When the accuser has every possible motive not to accuse, but then does it anyway, that is impactful. When the accuser is extremely strongly encouraged to accuse…by legions of the accuser’s supporters…maybe now not so much.
-It doesn’t mean I definitely would have viewed the actions and evidence as grounds to remove before, especially not with such a standard open to interpretation, but I would have been more likely to do so. I could have smelled the air and not detected a faint fragrance of biased bullshit.
5.) Polls and Stuff.
-The poll that he cited was interesting. More interesting, in my view, are the polls related to the agreement of removing Trump from office or not doing it. Shortly in advance of the House presentation and vote, the percentage of people who supported removing Trump from office:
After the House of Representatives presented their evidence and voted to Impeach, the numbers picked back up a little bit, but did not return to where they were a week prior, except with Republicans (what few there are who support Removal).
In other words, Removal is seen as a less supported outcome after the case was actually made to the House of Representatives. What does this mean? It means that they made their own prior, that Donald Trump should be removed from office, less generally compelling.
Will this impact be seen at the polls in 2020, or did the Democrats accomplish their goal of exciting the base to actually turnout and vote, despite the drop in the support for Removal from Office? I don’t know, because the numbers didn’t change dramatically and also because one is only loosely related to the other such that any causal effect would likely be extremely minimal. Will there be a correlative effect? Don’t know. Supporting removal and actually going out and voting later this year are two very different things and there is quite a time chasm in between where plenty of other stuff could happen such that this event no longer directly effects in either direction.
Conclusion
And, we’re done. I can’t stand that guy. You should appreciate the fact that I conducted this experiment. He was even overly emotive to an extremely irritating degree (in my view) during the parts where I explicitly agreed with what he was saying.
***Please note, if I expressed agreement or disagreement anywhere in which the source of my opinion is not specifically cited, there was research involved previously that resulted in my priors. I tried to say, “I don’t know,” or, “I have no opinion,” or, “I would need to do more research,” when that was true, but might have missed a few spots. Tucker made quite a few absolute statements that I did not specifically address because I would have to know more about them.
I was addressing Carleas, not asking for you to go look up evidence. There was far too much evidence to sort and present for me to prove my point to you.
Can’t you identify fact from opinion? When you see a video of a speech, for example and forgiving the possibility of fake videos or out of context clips, the video montage, you are witnessing an event. What you see is fact. When someone tells you that someone said something, that is opinion. The subject of concern was repeated exact words and phrases. Tucker showed a montage of video. He showed the fact, He was not giving opinion even though he agrees with you completely on the issue of separation of opinion from news. He and Hannity frequently remind their audience that they are only opinion hosts, not news anchors. They both have had shows explaining why that is important. They both also very quickly apologize when they get something wrong (without having to be sued, unlike the mainstream).
I imagine that Tucker says “the Democrats” for the same reason the Iranians say “the Americans” killed Soleimani. By the way, Tucker is a Democrat.
“They speak with one voice to show solidarity and control the message. They want those who agree with them to speak, basically, with that same voice.” By what means did they agree to do that? That is what defines a cabal. Don’t ask me to explain why they didn’t send you the memo. It wasn’t my idea.
You are obviously not familiar enough with Tucker to be injecting motives into his words. You complained that you knew Carleas as a friend and are sure that he doesn’t hate. I said that merely from the little that I have seen of him that I am certain that he does. But you have the upper hand merely from your much longer experience. I have a little advantage because I have a habit formed of immediately separating fact from opinion (an observer not a pundit). I didn’t agree with you, but I didn’t continue in argument either. Tucker is someone who I have more experience with and thus are more likely to guess his motives. I don’t agree with everything he says, nor Hannty nor the entire Fox network. I observe for facts being shown, not reports and skewed opinions being promoted. I don’t care who’s side anyone is on. But I have little patience for those who willingly deceive.
The mainstay tactic of the loony left is hypocrisy and inflaming suspicion often by simply lying and projecting. So of course both sides say the other is lying. At very least one of them is right. Being able to distinguish fact from opinion reporting is how you tell the difference. The example that Carleas just brought up concerning Trump’s bid to have the Russians dig up Hillary’s emails is an example of seeing the evidence SHOWN (Mr Trump making the speech), having enough experience with the situation (knowing how Mr Trump talks and what he means by it), and distinguishing fake news being reported about it (“Trump solicited foreign aid”). It isn’t about liking Mr Trump. It is about disliking deception and being able to filter it.
There is trouble tormenting here.
Historically a fifty to a hundred billions of dollars is not unheard of, there are various potentates who have reached many trillions over and above.
Plainly, capital has been around for a long long time without calling it Capitalism.
It is plainly not a question of ideological policy to accumulate privilege over years, decades, centuries. It is more basic then that.
The will has no possible effect without power, and it is the power to will that is lacking in such spreads of historical accumulation that is vested in an indefinite future.
The problem here is, in the world, that ideology has been ousted from modern life, and the differential between classes is becoming accentuated by immensely exploded populations.
Given that scenario, the control of population takes in another configuration in terms of economic planning.
There are those who qualify new reactionary ploys without the figures.
The substance of planning, is inimical in the very procedural lack, the Republicans vine about.
The demand something that they inversely reject in the upcoming Senate trial, the use of corroborating witnesses.
The inverse serve a two regions, the use of clarification to get to the ‘facts’, and by the use of a linguistic coincidence that they are wringing out of shape to get there.
Second, it is obvious, as always, that monetary considerations are inversely applied by a supposedly neutral agency, such as the Federal Reserve, an institution not created by congressional fiat. To name an inverse approach is to create a sense of collision between a raising of interest rates and a maintenance of low interest.
This appearent collision, on deeper analysis is an illusion, an illusion to create the collusive stench of indeterminate monetary policy, so as to look like the collusive basis that divides the nation.
In fact, it subtly reinserys an inverse dialectic between the social contract prefiguring as the Constitutional bill, of the rights of man, and their ultimate material dialectic.
This formula, as all social processes require them is the foubdemental problem with the epoch of postmodern Capital
The ancien regime had the same problem, the actors changed but the act remains the same. The industrial revolution gave fodder to the dynamic because the means of exchange labor for profit became the new element.
The quantified substratum below the dynamic was not well understood, it was formula drawn in very large letters, that the current holders of capital do not have to face off on.
The increasing number of millionaires, living off current indigenous populations is the new method by which the optics can create illusions of fairly even social distributions of wealth , across the board. Especially so, because the incredibly powerful supercomputers , co-relate between two entities: the market, and it’s correlative, the defense of it.
It appears, that only the inflationary tendency of Capital poses considerable risk. The clash of civilisations, long ago predicted, will go the way of real danger to the economy
In addition, how does the man on main street, really enjoying this great run the economy is having, while traders, are very worried by the political reality which is supposed to guarantee the continuation of this best of all worlds?
There is profound weaknesses that is best left unsaid.
The repeated words and phrases did not support your opinion of the Leftist media outlets to the extent that not a single person in the montage (that I could tell) was a member of the media. I’m pretty sure they were all politicians of one ilk or the other. How does that montage demonstrate anything about the media?
There was no reminder in that video, but assuming what you say about Tucker and Hannity is true, I very much appreciate the fact that they say they are opinion hosts. I care not whether or not they apologize every individual time they get something wrong if they are presenting themselves as opinion hosts and nothing else. Opinions exist and can only result in three possibilities, one of which is to be proven wrong, so I imagine it happens a lot.
Yeah, messaging. I am an American, I did not kill Soleimani, so to say all of us did it would be false and clearly absurd. To say, “The Americans,” without all just implies that more than one American was complicit.
I know that he used to be a host for MSNBC, but the messaging of that station moved too far to the left for him and they couldn’t really find a use for him. I find the fact that such happened (at least, in my oversimplified version) a great credit to Tucker. Certainly he could have, “Seen the light,” if I may, and moved to the left as the station did. If he lost his job for that, that is admirably intellectually honest. I appreciate you pointing that out.
My understanding is that Tucker is a Democrat for the purpose of voting in local primaries. I used to live in Ohio. In Ohio, you don’t per se register as one party or the other, but when you go to the Primary to vote you ask for a particular primary ballot. Whatever ballot you ask for is what you are (according to Ohio) until the next Primary. In this case, one might register other than how one identifies for reasons of a local Primary interest. Perhaps more frequently, to vote for the (non-incumbent) Presidential Primary because it is assumed the incumbent will win and asking for the other ticket is the only way to have a say in that.
No, no, they want those who agree with them (in the media) to speak with that same voice. They don’t have to agree to do that. The (left) media simply hears what they are saying and repeats that. No secret handshake or smoky backroom in a seedy dive bar needed. Not even the back table at an Italian restaurant, unfortunately, even though Italian food kicks ass.
So, it’'s not an agreement by the media, it’s something that those media outlets choose to do of their own volition. Fox News chooses not to parrot the Leftist politicians. I could turn on MSNBC and they could theoretically have stopped parroting them and never parrot them again, but I don’t think that will happen. I could also turn on MSNBC and they theoretically could decide to start broadcasting a documentary on the different recipes for a good horseradish sauce. That I would watch. Horseradish sauce kicks ass, but not on pasta, so let’s not get the ends of the two paragraphs mixed up.
Is it dinner time?
I don’t need to inject a motive if the words themselves make the motive clear to me, at least, from my view. Aside from that, I concede that you are likely more familiar with Tucker than I am. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch him again because his presentation annoys me, but I did learn new things about him today. Thank you.
As long as you are making the, “Loony Left,” something different than just, “The Left,” I have no basis to argue with that statement without further specification on your part.
Where x and y are opposites:
Person 1: I say x, but I know it’s not x.
Person 2: I say y, but I know it’s not y.
THE CASE: z
This demonstrates to you that both sides can be lying, whether or not they know the case is z. If two parties are saying something that they do not believe to be true, even if the two different statements are diametrically opposed, it doesn’t automatically make one side or the other right.
It also wouldn’t automatically mean that either side is lying, as with:
Person 1: I know x, I will say x.
Person 2: I know y, I will say y.
THE CASE: z
In this case, neither side is lying, because to lie requires intent. Both sides are saying what they believe to be true, but unfortunately, both sides are making false statements.
And, another:
Person 1: I say x, but I know it’s not x.
Person 2: I know y, I will say y.
THE CASE: z
In this case, one side is lying and the other side is not. However, the side that is not lying is still making a false statement.
—So, I would not be inclined to make a statement that says, “Nobody ever lies,” because I believe both sides (meant VERY generally) do, on occasion. I believe both sides believe what they are saying is true, though what they are saying is false, on occasion. I believe both sides have made true statements.
—As far as Carleas goes, just in the limited time I’ve been around and involved again, I’ve seen him admit to possible biases. I don’t think Carleas is one who is inclined to be intellectually deceptive. That doesn’t mean that he is incapable of making a statement that is false.
Well, you might be right about that. I was just starting to gather the evidence and gave up. So my apologies for a poor example.
Another thing that you might not have considered is that there is such a thing as “the tail wagging the dog”. The “tail” being the story being told and the “dog” being the real event being inspired into being even though it is assumed as the opposite. You probably already knew that much. But have you considered that the “tail” is the media and the politicians are the “dog” being wagged. In reality, the ideology controls the money. The money controls the media corporations. And the media controls the politicians into supporting the ideology. I will admit that is currently all merely my opinion but not irresponsibly formed. In some cases, the media is circumvented directly, such as with AOC being directly hired and controlled by her millionaire socialist “boyfriend”.
I’m curious as to exactly how you define that.
My sympathies.
Again, I believe that is an issue of the tail wagging the dog. The media is arranging, even extorting the politicians. Think about it. The politicians are very sensitive to what the media does, but the media is very largely independent of what the politicians do. Who really has greater influence over whom? What is a politician going to do to MSNBC without potentially getting crushed within an hour?
You almost certainly, along with most of the American population, have the influence perception backwards (Satanism in action).
I think that perhaps you missed my point - FACT vs OPINION. Fact being what YOU see. Opinion being what someone TELLS you happened. That is the only serious discussion that I am interested in.
And time for me to get ready for work. Enjoy your dinner.
Your theory is interesting, definitely more interesting than your theory’s opposite, which is what I thought you were originally suggesting. But, again, nothing necessarily evidences a cabal…as we will get to shortly.
Messaging? In the corporate world, one might call it, “Branding.” That’s the closest comparison I can think of. I fear any definition I offer for my use of the word would either be overly-encompassing or perhaps not encompassing enough. The voices of the many speaking as one, or closely enough.
It happens sometimes. I don’t mind so much.
I would have used, “Controlling,” rather than, “Extorting,” but that control does not have to be direct. It does not have to be by way of any agreement. No agreement, no cabal.
Getting back to the points I made about 538, the decision-making process by which one would decide to Impeach or not to Impeach, it was assumed, could come down to a simple question of caring for one’s own political well-being. Not getting voted out. Not facing a primary challenger. But, the voters are not (as a whole) putting any direct pressure on the politicians on this specific issue. That is to say that not every single person who voted for this politician is marching on Washington D.C., or that Representative’s in-state office. Most of them just vote and then leave it alone until it’s close enough to start paying attention again.
The media can be the same way. The pressure might be implied. If I am a Democrat and I do or say something that I think MSNBC might strongly disagree with, then MSNBC might unleash it’s full fury on me, which negatively impacts my political well-being and perhaps future electability. I don’t want that. I had better keep MSNBC happy with what I say and do, or if not happy, make it so they basically ignore me.
But, again, that wouldn’t make anything a conspiracy or a cabal. It would just mean that the two things relate to one another in some way.
Everyone’s a critic.
I presented a fact as we discussed above where I thought it was relevant. It was a fact that the montage was entirely comprised of politicians talking and not media persons.
I will, thank you. Safe travels and a good day at work to you.
But there were a dozen people on that call, some of whom have testified in the House to the content of the call, and others who have been subpoenaed who have much better insight into Trump’s mental state in relation to the request. We don’t have any reason to believe that this is someone close enough to Trump to have any insight into Trump’s intention or meaning (indeed, we actually know who it was and we know that he wasn’t at all close to Trump). The whistleblower just isn’t that valuable as a witness given the other witnesses we have.
I don’t actually think this matters much. For one thing, there’s a good argument that withholding the aid as long as he did was illegal (as DoD lawyers pointed out to the White House at the time). But for another thing, even if it was entirely a bluff, what he’s bluffing for is an improper use of the office (more on that below).
Yeah, I am proceeding under the assumption that the statement itself is not the totality of evidence of the existence of a threat. If the only evidence we have is the statement, then we agree that it matters whether it’s implicit or explicit. But if, as here, we have the statement, together with overt acts by the person making the statement showing that they intend to follow through (military aid was actually withheld), and over acts by the person being threatened showing that they understood the statement to be a threat (Zelensky was actually preparing to announce an investigation), we have corroborating evidence that shows it was intended and received as a threat. In that case, it’s no defense to say, “well yes, but I only implicitly said X, so the fact that I intended to communicate X and that he understood me to be communicating X doesn’t count”.
I don’t think this is a sharp distinction. If Trump had gotten Congress to vote to withhold aid, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye; is that what is is or how it’s done? In a government of laws, how it’s done is baked into what it is, and acts can be legitimate or illegitimate, criminal or lawful, based on how they’re done.
I think it goes to sincerity of the shock. If they were all Obama appointees, it would be easy to write off the shock as affected. Where it’s Republican appointees, Trump appointees, it suggests the shock is actually about a perceived violation of norms.
This is a solid point.
Tangentially, one thing I’ve long thought the Constitution needed was a much more robust system of amendments. I’ve even toyed with the idea that a much more minimal document should have been written which established the rules for making future constitutions, e.g. providing for periodic Constitutional Conventions. One big problem with the Constitution is that it hasn’t been amended enough, because it has needed updating many times and many times it’s been too hard to achieve. That creates a kind of pressure build up, which would be dissipated in a system where the document could shift a little more freely. It’s a delicate balance, and I can’t fault the Founders for getting it a little wrong, but they erred too far towards preventing change.
I think this doesn’t give the Founders enough credit. The notes from the various ratifying conventions show vigorous debate around ratification, with different factions arguing it goes to far or doesn’t go far enough. The 3/5 Compromise, for as horrible as it is, is pretty clear evidence that the authors went to frankly absurd lengths to appease opposing factions on the hot button issues of the day. It may not seem like that today, but in an era where everyone who mattered in politics was a wealthy white male, they built as many bridges as possible within that exclusive demographic.
This too is a solid point.
I do think liberal and conservative something a bit different in the context of Supreme Court justices than they do in the context of politicians, but it is still the case that many important and seemingly unrelated outcomes can be predicted based on the politics of the justices (why should privacy and bodily integrity jurisprudence be correlated with 2nd amendment jurisprudence?).
I think misunderstood your argument here:
If France arrested a candidate with the intent of changing the outcome of an election, that wouldn’t be foreign interference? That seems untenable. It also seems intention with your claim here:
If France announces an investigation it knows is vacuous and it does so with the intent to change the outcome of an investigation, I don’t see the difference. When a public official announces a criminal investigation, that strongly suggests that it has some reason to conduct such an investigation, i.e. that it has some evidence of wrongdoing. Strictly speaking, that isn’t fabricated evidence, but when real evidence exists it isn’t generally provided when the investigation is announced, so knowningly announcing an investigation for which insufficient evidence exists is effectively fabricating some unnamed piece of evidence (and which in context we would expect to be unnamed).
This can’t be right. Impeachments and indictments are accusations, and they are different in kind from the same number of people making an accusation of the same conduct. More generally, when someone makes an accusation in their offical capacity as the representative for some larger body, particularly one charged with making formal accusations of wrongdoing, those accusations are different in kind.
This is what you’d call an “affirmative defense”. You aren’t saying that Trump didn’t solicit foreign hacking of his opponent, you’re saying that he was joking when he solicited foreign hacking of his opponent. The fact still stands that he solicited foreign hacking of his opponent.
Let me be clear: the President should not jokingly solicit foreign hacking of his political rivals.
Your claim, as I understand it, is that left-leaning news media are speaking from the same script. I knew of an example of news media literally speaking from the same script, but it was not left-leaning media.
Now, if your belief is that all major media is speaking from a script biased by some small set of central controllers, I don’t disagree, but it that case it’s disingenuous to frame it as a problem on the left. There’s a difference between saying “John’s an idiot” and saying “all humans are idiots”, even though the latter entails the former.
Please refer to my littany of accusations above, and the subsequent posts where I elaborate on them and provide links to support my claims.
When you discover that the “whistleblower” (not actually) is a CIA operative that milked someone like Vindman (known for being anti-Trump and a very weak minded person) into saying something that was negative and potent fodder for a socialist/democrat led impeachment case and then collaborates with Adam Shiff so as to create an important sounding, yet false, claim, then it matters. Yes.
Especially when that one official has been proven to be a liar and political shill.
It was not a solicitation and he said nothing about hacking political rivals. He said, “Russia, if you are listening, I hope that you can find Hillary’s missing 30,000 emails. You will be rewarded mightily by our press.”
You, now that I know that you have heard what he actually said and have misrepresented it yet again, are clearly complicit with willful deception.
You point out that there is a conservative corporation reading from a single script. I am talking about collaboration of multiple, supposedly competing, corporations reading from the same script - MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and AT&T (CNN), not counting many smaller, more diverse distributors and print media.
Significant difference.
Well okay.
I’m curious what your defense for the “general demeanor” allegation is because it sounds amazingly fascist.
How do justify canceling the votes of half of your nation due to general demeanor?