The "Russian Hoax"

[Grace]

And Manafort was removed from the campaign. Both the news sources you have both used are ones that have shown to be political and wrong on multiple things. You seem to keep trusting news sources that show their bias.

My struggle with all this is Hunter Biden was on a Ukrainian gas company board and received large amounts of money yet this is ignored as foreign interference.

Other presidents have had people like Manafort on their campaigns and it is totally ignored. China has a much larger influence on the politics of the US and this is ignored. There were democratic operatives that had the same ties as Manafort and they were ignored. I would trust all this more if there was at least an attempt to be balanced on these investigations.

My question to several here who seem to greatly dislike Trump. It is okay. You are allowed. I do not like him much as a person myself. Why is there the level of hate? It is like some just can't wait to see him fail and be put to shame. He was President for 4 years. The world did not end. We had no major wars. The government did not crash. On the contrary, some things went well. SO what is the fear of this man?

I mean there are some big investigations going on of the Bidens right now which suggest a lot of foreign interference. No one has started any threads about it. There is not the need to prove Biden is evil like there seems to be with Trump. I don't really understand the push to get Trump. He is not the best president the US has ever had, but not the worse either. Why the need to prove him evil? These are not rhetorical questions, but some I would really like to hear and listen to.

Good questions.

In the thread "Bill Barr on Trump" , I chuckled at the complaint made, that discussing a topic on making Trump look bad, is almost impossible. I perceived that as "you MUST make him look bad, or else".

In answer to your questions, this is my humble perception. Some are Biden supporters, maybe even voted for him. His administration has failed on so many fronts and almost everywhere we look the current administration's policies have created chaos, hardship, a proxy war, emboldened Putin, denigrated women in sports, etc. The only way to NOT focus on the disastrous current administration, is to focus on the prior one.

[Bootstrap]

Once again I said nothing about guilt. I specifically said wrongdoing. Guilty is a legal term in such matters. Are you disputing my remembering that you used a very similar statement in Muellers report to suggest that wrongdoings did occur?

Gary, I think you are having a hard time accurately reading even posts I just made today and yesterday. I don't trust your ability to remember what I said years ago, and I don't remember saying what you remember.

Beyond that, is this a cross examination where you are trying to prove me guilty of something? It feels like it. Why not respond to the main thrust of the things I am saying instead? I'm providing a fair amount of information, with sources and analysis, I don't see you responding to much of what I am saying. Your responses seem to be trying to find something wrong with me instead. Without providing evidence beyond "I seem to recall".

Why make it about me?

[Robert]

But in this thread, perhaps we should focus on the facts, and what they show?

The challenge is the "facts" are often distorted and found to be incorrect when one uses certain news sources(NYT/Politico/CNN/MSNBC). It is like people's minds are made up and they just look for news that supports their decision.

Manafort was removed from the Trump campaign before the elections. The Obama Administration started an investigation after Manafort was removed. Mueller team was filled with Democratic operatives, yet still found almost nothing. Durham states there was not real evidence to start Crossfire Hurricane. This strongly points to a political hit job. You seem to be okay with these facts.

Trump was actually working to dismantle the Military Industrial Complex and reducing wars. His foreign policy was bringing peace. Abraham Accords, North Korea, Leaving Afghanistan and Iraq. These are all things people of peace would normally support and want to see more of. These facts are ignored and you hold onto Manafort, who was only in the campaign for a bout a month or so.

[Robert]

Once again I said nothing about guilt. I specifically said wrongdoing. Guilty is a legal term in such matters. Are you disputing my remembering that you used a very similar statement in Muellers report to suggest that wrongdoings did occur?

Gary, I think you are having a hard time accurately reading even posts I just made today and yesterday. I don't trust your ability to remember what I said years ago, and I don't remember saying what you remember.

Beyond that, is this a cross examination where you are trying to prove me guilty of something? It feels like it. Why not respond to the main thrust of the things I am saying instead? I'm providing a fair amount of information, with sources and analysis, I don't see you responding to much of what I am saying. Your responses seem to be trying to find something wrong with me instead. Without providing evidence beyond "I seem to recall".

Why make it about me?

I am not reading it this way. We are all accountable for what we have said and posted.

[Bootstrap]

I perceived that as "you MUST make him look bad, or else".

I don't think that's even remotely true on MN. I think, bluntly, that's a line used to kill discussion of facts.

If anyone ever says anything remotely like "you have to hate Trump and make him look bad", that post should be removed. Nobody has to believe or say anything they do not believe. And if anyone responds to negative facts about Trump by calling the poster a hater, I think it should be treated the same way. Or would it be OK to call people who support Trump haters too, just because they defend him? Isn't the answer blindingly obvious?

[Robert]

You are the one responding to these comments, but you are not the only one driving the extreme desire to make Trump look as bad a possible.

Over the years, you have softened and pulled back. I have seen you do even more of late. I appreciate that. You are more than welcome to present your viewpoints and opinions. My struggle is you are taking some news reports as fact that are not. I like that you have been going back to original sources, but the challenge is some of the "official" investigations are actually political hit jobs. This is the challenge many are seeing from the right. The FBI and DOJ are no longer apolitical. Trusting even them as a source is problematic.

Then there is me. I trust very little that comes from the Federal Government. Using them as a source does not prove anything to me. This is the challenge of either side trying to prove facts to the other. We do not trust the source of either side's facts.

So these discussions stay going in a circle and never ending.

I think we all should step back and post in Sudsy's favorite verse thread.

[GaryK]

Once again I said nothing about guilt. I specifically said wrongdoing. Guilty is a legal term in such matters. Are you disputing my remembering that you used a very similar statement in Muellers report to suggest that wrongdoings did occur?

Gary, I think you are having a hard time accurately reading even posts I just made today and yesterday. I don't trust your ability to remember what I said years ago, and I don't remember saying what you remember.

Beyond that, is this a cross examination where you are trying to prove me guilty of something? It feels like it. Why not respond to the main thrust of the things I am saying instead?

I have repeatedly responded to the exact things you have said and you have repeatedly responded by changing the subject. I would simply ask you to respond to what I say and the questions I ask. That's all.

[Josh]

An observation: I think we would all agree that GaryK, Bootstrap, and Robert aren’t partisans. (I don’t think Grace and myself are partisans either.)

Yet we all seem to be reading the exact same report and coming to different conclusions about what that report says. And I don’t think any of the above people are arguing or acting in bad faith. But we can’t seem to reach a consensus here on what this report says, let alone reach a consensus on the conclusions we draw from it.

[temporal1]

Once again I said nothing about guilt. I specifically said wrongdoing. Guilty is a legal term in such matters. Are you disputing my remembering that you used a very similar statement in Muellers report to suggest that wrongdoings did occur?

Gary, I think you are having a hard time accurately reading even posts I just made today and yesterday. I don't trust your ability to remember what I said years ago, and I don't remember saying what you remember.

Beyond that, is this a cross examination where you are trying to prove me guilty of something? It feels like it. Why not respond to the main thrust of the things I am saying instead?

I have repeatedly responded to the exact things you have said and you have repeatedly responded by changing the subject. I would simply ask you to respond to what I say and the questions I ask. That's all.

GaryK, as you know, i find you to be one of the most clear-headed, unemotional, competent readers+writers on forum.
Imagine my surprise to read this addressed to you. i’ve received similar/the same words from boot at various times in the past. This to you is unexpected. And telling.

Like boot, i’m more emotional, sloppy, i can become overwhelmed .. i just had to deal with some IRL personal legal matters yesterday, i have to try to keep my senses, it’s not always easy.

i’m waiting for him to suggest you busy yourself with making brownies.

[temporal1]

i could not resist:

Page 21:

[img]http

That's quite simply not true, even according to the Durham Report. Despite the Really Big Letters.
More in the next post. But big letters are not proof of anything.

Page 29:

But they did have evidence that members of the Trump campaign had unusual levels of contact with Russians who were close to the Russian government, while the Russian government was trying to influence our campaign.

Durham says this is not true:

In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that
at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings
indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in
contact with any Russian intelligence officials[.

Not in that paragraph, at least. I highlighted the two relevant phrases - they do not mean the same thing.

And I don't think anybody, at that time, was saying there was definite evidence that the Trump campaign knew they were dealing with Russian intelligence officials. So why does Durham even say that?