Election 2016 Thread

[pErvinalia]

Stop changing to Hillary when we are talking about the Donald.

I gave an example of weasel language, which by its own terms gives reason to doubt the "denial." A denial which allows for the substance of an allegation to be true, and also the denial to be technically true, is wiggle room. What I was saying is that the Alfa Bank denial left no wiggle room. They said flat out that they had no communications, no emails, no dealings, no money transfers, nothing -- with either Trump OR the Trump organization.

If they're lying, then a single email from Alfa Bank to someone in the Trump organization, or vice versa, will prove the lie.

I said stop changing the subject to Hillary. Your reply is a total non-sequitur.

[Forty Two]

Go fuck yourself. I don't give a shit what subjects you don't want changed.

It's not a non-sequitur. I just explained the difference between a straight answer, and an answer with wiggle room leaving plausible deniability. I used an example to make that point. That's not changing the subject. It's illustrating the point, fucknuts.

[Forty Two]

A Russian bank would have almost zero compunction to tell the truth (if the truth was bad). If it was an American bank, then I would expect the pressure to tell the truth would be greater.

Sure, and American banks lie all the time.

The question is, is there any proof or reason to think Alfa Bank is lying? They didn't need to say anything at all.

The "allegation" here isn't even an allegation. The article is not specific as to what is the bad conduct here. Both the Trump org and Alfa are saying there was no business dealing, no emails, no communications, no money transfers - nothing. But, what if there were? Would that be improper? Not in and of itself, certainly. The article even points out that Alfa Bank is a large Russian bank with lots of business dealings in the US, and has a reputation for being a good corporate citizen in the US, including philanthropy, and it has an unblemished regulatory history. That's not what I'm saying. That's what the article said.

So, would there be anything wrong with the Trump organization having business dealings with Alfa Bank? What would be wrong?

Now, if Trump or Alfa are lying about NOT having those business dealings, then that would certainly raise eyebrows. But, why would they be lying? And, is there evidence that they are lying? If so, what?

The article even says that it is plausible that this was an old server that was not being used anymore -- which originally was sending out spam/marketing emails - and which was no longer doing so but was still active to the extent of a small number of DNS address pings.

So? What is the contention against Trump here? Against Alfa?

The article tried to imply that there was some kind of connection between Vladimir Putin and the two main guys involved in Alfa Bank, but the connection was 25 years old and flat out said that they were not in some inner circle. The article said that the founder of Alfa bank was "like" a judo buddy to Putin, even though they provided zero detail as to what involvement Putin and the Alfa founder had together. The article tried to say that the Alfa founder "worked with Putin in St. Petersburg Administration..." but that wasn't exactly true -- they both worked in St. Petersburg, but at the time Putin was in a foreign trade office working for the MAYOR of the city of St. Petersburg, while the founder of Alfa was in St. Petersburg working for the then Prime Minister of the Russian Federation's foreign ministry - in other words, it's like a guy working for Mayor DeBlasio's administration in New York, as compared to a guy working in the US Department of Trade's New York office. The article fails to connect them up in any way beyond that. It just throws out the "suggestion" that there is some close relationship between them. And, the author doesn't even try to connect that "suggested" relationship with Donald Trump. So what if the founder of Alfa was "like a judo buddy" with Putin in 1992? What is the import of that?

[pErvinalia]

Go fuck yourself. I don't give a shit what subjects you don't want changed.

It's not a non-sequitur. I just explained the difference between a straight answer, and an answer with wiggle room leaving plausible deniability. I used an example to make that point. That's not changing the subject. It's illustrating the point, fucknuts.

You are off your perch today (and yesterday). Your point had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. Hence why your introduction of Hillary Clinton was your usual lame attempt at a tu quoque like fallacy.

[Forty Two]

Go fuck yourself. I don't give a shit what subjects you don't want changed.

It's not a non-sequitur. I just explained the difference between a straight answer, and an answer with wiggle room leaving plausible deniability. I used an example to make that point. That's not changing the subject. It's illustrating the point, fucknuts.

You are off your perch today (and yesterday). Your point had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton.

That particular point had nothing to do with Hilary Clinton. It used the example of Donna Brazile's weasel-wording "denials" as an example of a denial which leaves logical loopholes upon which a person can later rely to say that they were not "lying" when they were giving the impression of denying the allegation.

You know - weasel-wording - like when Bill Clinton said "i did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." He used weasel-words, because of the definition of sexual relations arguably being limited to vaginal sex, and he got a blowjob, which he could plausibly say is not "sexual relations."

That's called giving an example. The Alfa Bank denial was not that kind of denial, because it did not leave loopholes to allow there to be communications found later while the original denial remains nevertheless technically true. If any communication, any email, any money transfer, any business dealing, of any kind, were to be discovered between Alfa and Trump or Alfa and any Trump organization, then the denial is proved false. Not only Alfa's denial, but Trump's denial. So, they better damn well be telling the truth, because the way emails get found these days, if it's out there, they will need to always be worried about it.

Hence why your introduction of Hillary Clinton was your usual lame attempt at a tu quoque like fallacy.

No, it's not tu quoque, because there hasn't even been an allegation that Trump did anything wrong with respect to Alfa. The article seems to "suggest" that something is going on here, but it doesn't say what. No allegation is leveled. It's not even explained what would be improper about Trump's server and Alfa Bank's server.

Tu quoque means "what I did isn't bad, because you did it (or something bad) too." That's not anything that I've argued.

You're just doing your usual bullshit of evading talking about the substance by griping and grousing that I shouldn't have approached the argument the way I did. it's your usual horseshit evasion.

But, do go on.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Nobody knows if the Russians were involved in hacking or interfering in the election or the DNC, but some people suggest that it was the Russians . . .

"Some people" being the Department Of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. To be clear, they aren't just "suggesting that it was the Russians," they state it outright:

The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.

[Tyrannical]

Russia is so last week.......
Weiner probe lol

[pErvinalia]

Tu quoque means "what I did isn't bad, because you did it (or something bad) too." That's not anything that I've argued.

It's what you ALWAYS argue via proxy.

[Brian Peacock]

Weiner probe.

[laklak]

Yep.

[Forty Two]

Nobody knows if the Russians were involved in hacking or interfering in the election or the DNC, but some people suggest that it was the Russians . . .

"Some people" being the Department Of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. To be clear, they aren't just "suggesting that it was the Russians," they state it outright:

The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.

Sure, that's what they say, and of course their suspicions are always right, and we are well-advised to take their conclusions at face value without evidence. If Bush was President, I would definitely believe the Department of Homeland Security's suspicions too.

Note, they do not say they have evidence. What they say is that the events are "consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts." That's not exactly damning evidence. "Consistent with motivations" means that that they see the Russians having a motive to do it. And, "consistent with methods" means the methods of the "alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona" are consistent with Russian methods.

Note, they still call it "alleged hacked emails" -- they don't claim to have demonstrated that they were hacked, nor do they recount the "methods" they are referring to.

So, it's less than an "outright" statement. The long and short of it is that the documents were and are "allegedly" hacked, and they don't have proof that it was the Russians, but it was the Russians.

I would agree that the Russians are a possible candidate, but they aren't the only candidate. And, given all the lying that we've seen going on recently, and not so recently, I don't "believe" anything an agency of the government says. That's not to say that everything they say is false. Much of what they allege and say is true. What I don't do is take their assertions for granted, or trust them. I'll accept an assertion of fact as fact when it is backed up by evidence. Until then, I recognize what they say, and it's certainly plausible. That's it.

[Forty Two]

Russia is so last week.......
Weiner probe lol

All of a sudden Homeland Security is all "The Russians are Coming." Anyone who thinks Russia is a geopolitical threat is an idiot. So 1980s. Remember? Obama told us not too long ago -- "The 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back."

[Forty Two]

Tu quoque means "what I did isn't bad, because you did it (or something bad) too." That's not anything that I've argued.

It's what you ALWAYS argue via proxy.

It's not what I argued, at all, ever. I never argue by proxy.

[Tyrannical]

I look foward to all the news pundits having to say weiner probe with a straight face.

[Tero]

This just in! Trump found to be 27% more disgusting than Hillary!

Trump was found to be disgusting when he says "disgusting" or "Hillary" folllwed by any words.

Mainly Republicans found Hillary disgusting because "she just can't be trusted."