Russiagate

[Phil1111 901]

tkhayes

. Apparently you have never spent any time in a real legal setting to understand what lying really is.

BTW, your commander in chief is the guy in charge now and is the biggest fucking liar to ever hit the whitehouse, bar none, in the history of the republic. Since you seem to be keeping track of lies. I hope you started your list.

The three greatest understatements in the history of mankind. Ok ok thats a lie. But understated truths at a minimum.

[sonnyblu 0]

tkhayes

that is a stretch...I love how everything has to be an absolute lie or the absolute truth and nothing in between.

The fact that Obama had to use weasel words like "declared" suggests that he knew Syria still had (undeclared) chemical weapons, which would be a violation of the UN resolution - showing once again how Obama did nothing and failed to make good on his threats.

[yoink 321]

Every contract or legal document written is full of these 'weasel words' as you call them.

If you're telling me that if you were CIC instead of Obama and would have approved a statement that said 'I am 100% absolutely certain that Syria has no more chemical weapons' instead of leaving yourself some room for 'to our best possible knowledge' you're either an idiot or a liar.

Why you're trying to use this particular piece of nonsense to attack Obama when a) there must be so many other avenues (he was president for 8 years, after all), and b) he's not really relevant now, kind of baffles me.
I guess it just shows how much anti-Obama you might be. Everything he ever did or said MUST be wrong, right?


Obama did a LOT of stupid stuff. Defining a 'red line that must not be crossed' that he wasn't willing to enforce is just one example that is relevant to the Syria situation thhat you might use, but taking personal responsibility for Syria hiding chemical weapons from the inspectors after saying they're all disposed of isn't even a stretch. It's just a stupid argument.

[sonnyblu 0]

yoink

Every contract or legal document written is full of these 'weasel words' as you call them.

Obama wasn't under contract when he gave the speech that I alluded to in post #188 and then substantiated in post #190.

yoink

If you're telling me that if you were CIC instead of Obama and would have approved a statement that said 'I am 100% absolutely certain that Syria has no more chemical weapons' instead of leaving yourself some room for 'to our best possible knowledge' you're either an idiot or a liar.

Yoink, meet the Obama administration:

"We got '100 percent' of chemical weapons out of Syria"

You can chalk that up as incompetence if you want, but I for one happen to think a bit more highly of Obama.

And maybe even John Kerry. . .nah, scratch that.

yoink

Why you're trying to use this particular piece of nonsense to attack Obama. . .he's not really relevant now, kind of baffles me.

I agree, his statement was nonsense - but that's a fair question. . .

His statement came just several months ago after Trump's election during a speech about how we should move forward with regard to counter-terrorism.

He was trying emphasize the importance of diplomacy by boasting about his success in eliminating Syria's chemical weapons program, which IMO was a pretty dumb example.

He was trying to play off our naivety, or wishful thinking that diplomacy with these people actually works, when in reality it doesn't, at least not in the long haul.

I really wanted to believe that diplomacy and education would ultimately get us out of this mess within 50 years or so, but like I said earlier, it's time to cut our losses. These dickheads are just stalling and trying to buy as much time as they can. But we need to act now, while WE still can.

Our power is not going to last forever. We're almost 20 trillion in debt - and when it comes time to face the consequences of that, I for one want to have something to show for it. Namely, a world where we don't have to share our misery with these fucking assholes making it worse.

[normiss 619]

Speaking of weasel words.

[sonnyblu 0]

Like we said in the other thread, you're gonna have to learn how to engage in actual conversation.

[kallend 1,619]

sonnyblu

Like we said in the other thread, you're gonna have to learn how to engage in actual conversation.

With a sock-puppet?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[sonnyblu 0]

More than 10% of my posts involve conversations with you alone.

Of those conversations, you made the initial engagement more than 76% of the time.

It hasn't all been in vain tho. For example, my experience with a recent hospital stay, along with you and your wife's comments about the medical industry have me somewhat convinced that inpatient treatment might have more to do with CYA rather than medical reasoning.

[SkyDekker 1,119]

sonnyblu

Weasel word.

Maybe, but your argument shows you didn't listen to the statement properly in the first place. Or just didn't understand it.

Your continued attempt at justifying why you didn't catch it in the first place is humorous though.

[sonnyblu 0]

SkyDekker

***Weasel word.

Maybe, but your argument shows you didn't listen to the statement properly in the first place. Or just didn't understand it.


There is a big difference between saying "declared chemical weapons arsenal" and "declared chemical weapons program"

It'd be like saying Obama eliminated NASA's space program just because he ended the STS.

But that's the fun thing about using weasel words. Obama can say whatever he wants to give one impression, and then when called out on his bullshit, people like you can try to weasel him out of it.

If he was honest, he would've said that "diplomacy went a long way in eliminating over 1300 metric tons of chemical weapons, but it wasn't enough - and Syria is still in violation of UN resolution 2118. I implore the next administration to follow through with my threats and not make the same mistakes that I have."

[SkyDekker 1,119]

I thought declared was the weasel word?

Now that you have figured out what that words means, you have other objections? I think that whatever the response is, you will find another objection, simply because your mind was made up long before any rational thought or discussion happened.

[normiss 619]

He's clearly got the weaseling part down, so at the very least he understands that singular portion of the discussion, yet nothing of a political process with foreign interests that impact the agreement and the adherence to it.
Declared sure is used with regularity in agreements between nations.
If only Russia would have declared they were lying and being deceptive about the agreement as a whole. But, that's what Russia does so...

[sonnyblu 0]

SkyDekker

I thought declared was the weasel word?

Correct.

[Phil1111 901]

A Lesson in Moscow About Trump-Style ‘Alternative Truth’
Jim Rutenberg NY Times APRIL 16, 2017

MOSCOW — I wanted to better understand President Trump’s America, a place where truth is being ripped from its moorings as he brands those tasked with lashing it back into place — journalists — as dishonest enemies of the people.

So I went to Russia.

It was like a visit to the land of Alternative Truth Yet to Come. But it also gave me a glimpse into how our new national look is playing in the global information war, where competing narratives are clashing along a sliding scale of fact and fiction.

I had picked a ghoulishly perfect week to swing through President Vladimir V. Putin’s Moscow, where spring was struggling to break out over the low-slung, slate-gray cityscape.

Mr. Trump had just ordered a Tomahawk strike against Syria’s Shayrat air base, from which, the United States said, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had launched the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 and sickened hundreds.

As soon as I turned on a television here I wondered if I had arrived through an alt-right wormhole.

Back in the States, the prevailing notion in the news was that Mr. Assad had indeed been responsible for the chemical strike. There was some “reportage” from sources like the conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones — best known for suggesting that the Sandy Hook school massacre was staged — that the chemical attack was a “false flag” operation by terrorist rebel groups to goad the United States into attacking Mr. Assad. But that was a view from the fringe.

Here in Russia, it was the dominant theme throughout the overwhelmingly state-controlled mainstream media.

On the popular Russian television program “Vesti Nedeli,” the host, Dmitry Kiselyov, questioned how Syria could have been responsible for the attack. After all, he said, the Assad government had destroyed all of its chemical weapons. It was the terrorists who possessed them, said Mr. Kiselyov, who also heads Russia’s main state-run international media arm.

One of Mr. Kiselyov’s correspondents on the scene mocked “Western propagandists” for believing the Trump line, saying munitions at the air base had “as much to do with chemical weapons as the test tube in the hands of Colin Powell had to do with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

That teed up Mr. Putin to suggest in nationally televised comments a couple of days later that perhaps the attack was an intentional “provocation” by the rebels to goad the United States into attacking Mr. Assad. RT, the Russian-financed English-language news service, initially translated Mr. Putin as calling it a “false flag.” The full Alex Jones was complete.

When Trump administration officials tried to counter Russia’s “false narratives” by releasing to reporters a declassified report detailing Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles — and suggesting to The Associated Press without proof that Russia knew of Mr. Assad’s plans to use chemical weapons in advance — the Russians had a ready answer borrowed from Mr. Trump himself.

As the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia put it, “Apparently it was for good reason Donald Trump called unverified information in the mass media one of the main problems in the U.S.”

It was the best evidence I’ve seen of the folly of Mr. Trump’s anti-press approach. You can’t spend more than a year attacking the credibility of the “dishonest media” and then expect to use its journalism as support for your position during an international crisis — at least not with any success.

While Mr. Trump and his supporters may think that undermining the news media serves their larger interests, in this great information war it serves Mr. Putin’s interests more. It means playing on his turf, where he excels.

Integral to Mr. Putin’s governing style has been a pliant press that makes his government the main arbiter of truth.

While talking to the beaten but unbowed members of the real journalism community here, I heard eerie hints of Trumpian proclamations in their war stories.

Take Mr. Trump’s implicit threat to the owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, during the election campaign. In case you’ve forgotten, while calling The Post’s coverage of him “horrible and false,” Mr. Trump warned that if he won the presidency Mr. Bezos’s other business, Amazon, would have “such problems.” (The Post was undaunted, and the issue hasn’t come up again.)

The government here doesn’t make threats like that. Things just happen. That was the case last year at the independent media company RBC after its flagship newspaper reported on sensitive financial arrangements of members of Mr. Putin’s family and his associates. The Russian authorities raided the offices of its oligarch owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. Within a few weeks its top three editors had left.

The Kremlin denied involvement. But it must have liked the new editor’s message to the RBC staff: Journalism is like driving, and “if you drive over the solid double line they take away your license.”

Mr. Prokhorov is considering selling RBC to another oligarch who is closer to the government, the Russian business journal Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.

That same day, I met with one of the former RBC editors, Roman Badanin. We chatted at his new place of employment, TV Rain, in the Flacon warehouse complex here, populated by young people with beards, tattoos, piercings and colored hair. (Brooklyn hipster imperialism knows no bounds.)

TV Rain has its own hard-luck tale. It was Russia’s only independent television station. Carried mainly on cable, it regularly covered anti-Putin protests and aired voices excluded from the rest of television.

But after it ran an online poll asking whether Russia should have abandoned Leningrad to the Nazis to save lives — deeply offending Russian national pride, and receiving a public rebuke from Mr. Putin’s top spokesman — its landlord evicted it and its cable carriers dropped it.

It now lives primarily as a subscription service on the internet, which remains fairly free given Mr. Putin’s primary focus on television as the most powerful medium in the country. (Mr. Badanin and others worry that’s going to change, too.)

When I asked Mr. Badanin what would be different if Russia had full press freedoms, he looked at me wearily and said: “Everything. Sorry for that common answer, but everything.”

Despite steep challenges, people like Mr. Badanin are still battling on. Their journalistic spirit couldn’t be killed, even after some of their friends and colleagues had been.

One newspaper here, Novaya Gazeta, has lost five reporters to violence or suspicious circumstances since the turn of the century. Toward the end of the week, I went to its spartan offices in central Moscow to visit its longtime editor, Dmitri Muratov, who has fiercely guarded the paper’s independence through all of the killings and the crackdowns.

With the gallows humor of a seasoned journalist, Mr. Muratov was in a jovial mood and told me that he was getting a great kick out of state media’s hard turn against Mr. Trump.

Initially, Mr. Muratov said of the president, “he was treated as warmly as McDonald’s; he entered every home like he was our national Santa Claus.” Mr. Muratov had no doubt the sentiment toward Mr. Trump would reverse again, perhaps soon. (To borrow from “1984”: “Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”)

Novaya Gazeta had the toughest coverage on the chemical weapons attack that I saw here, challenging the government narrative with reporting from the ground indicating the chemical weapons were dropped from the air. (The anti-Assad forces do not have airplanes.)

There’s a lot of speculation in Russian media circles about why the Kremlin allows Novaya Gazeta to continue to operate.

Mr. Muratov says he believes it’s because the newspaper is not owned by a single businessman subject to pressure. The newspaper’s staff owns a majority of the shares, and the rest of them are owned by the former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev. (Mr. Lebedev told The Guardian last year that he was no longer financing newsroom operations because of “the strain.”)

That, and a loyal subscriber base of more than 240,000, help insulate it from outside pressure, if not the violence.

The very day of my visit, Mr. Muratov received a threat against his entire staff from religious leaders in Chechnya, angry over articles about anti-gay violence in the region.

The Novaya Gazeta offices are scattered with reminders to take such threats seriously, like the case that holds the dusty desktop computer of Anna Politkovskaya. She was shot dead in her apartment building in 2006 after exposing human rights abuses in Chechnya and writing unflinchingly about Mr. Putin.

I wondered aloud whether it scared any of Mr. Muratov’s reporters away from certain stories. He turned serious, looked straight at me and said, “I really wish it could.”

Mr. Muratov follows the American news media closely. I asked him what he thought about the American press corps’ quandary when it comes to covering a president, like Mr. Trump, who trades in falsehoods and demonizes journalists.

He seemed put off by the question; the answer, to him, was so obvious.

“Information from the Kremlin or from the White House, it’s not for us verified information,” he said. “We don’t place our trust just on their word.”

It’s a lesson American reporters should have learned long before Mr. Trump came along, especially after Iraq.

Journalists in Russia like Mr. Muratov haven’t lost sight of that lesson because they can’t afford to. Neither can we.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/business/media/vladimir-putin-moscow-press-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[DanG 1]

You really should stop cutting and pasting entire articles. It is a copyright violation. A synopsis and a link will suffice.

- Dan G

[Phil1111 901]

You are right

[brenthutch 383]

DanG

You really should stop cutting and pasting entire articles. It is a copyright violation. A synopsis and a link will suffice.

+1 and your perspective as well. Share your thoughts and provide a link to support your position.

[billvon 2,379]

> Obviously they didn't get rid of their chemical weapons program.

Nor did he claim that they did.

Looks like your claims are the dishonest ones.

[sonnyblu 0]

billvon

> Obviously they didn't get rid of their chemical weapons program.

Nor did he claim that they did.

He claimed that "We've eliminated Syria's declared chemical weapons PROGRAM."

Part of that PROGRAM includes chemical weapons facilities that were supposed to be destroyed as part of the deal, but they didn't get rid of all those facilities, did they?

From the December 2016 Security Council Report:

Quote

With respect to the initial declaration of the Syrian Arab Republic and subsequent submissions, I take note of the correspondence between OPCW and the Syrian Arab Republic with a view to resolving the identified gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies. In this regard, I also note the view of the OPCW Secretariat that the declaration by the Syrian Arab Republic remains incomplete and therefore reiterate the need for the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic and the OPCW secretariat to work together to resolve these issues.

The continuing use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic is totally unacceptable. The international community must work together to stop this and to uphold the taboo against the use of chemical weapons. Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must not be permitted to act with impunity. . .

Conclusion
The main focus of the future activities of the OPCW Mission in the Syrian Arab Republic will be on the implementation of Council decisions EC-83/DEC.5 and EC-81/DEC.4 and on the activities of the FFM, as well as on the destruction and verification of the remaining aircraft hangar, confirmation of the status of the two stationary above-ground facilities, and annual inspections of the underground structures already verified as destroyed.

So here we have chemical weapons facilities that still weren't destroyed after 3 years. 39 monthly UN inspection reports continuously noting unresolved gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies of Syria's declaration. Chemical attacks were still taking place as late as November and December 2016 while the Security Council was imploring the international community to work together against the use of chemical weapons to stop these horrific attacks. . .

. . .and then there's Obama - talking about how successful his diplomatic efforts were with these people.

[brenthutch 383]

You are going to confuse him with facts.

[billvon 2,379]

> He claimed that "We've eliminated Syria's declared chemical weapons PROGRAM."

Correct. Turns out they were working on chemical weapons outside their declared program.

>and then there's Obama - talking about how successful his diplomatic efforts were
>with these people.

Awesome backpedal! Second one by my count.

"Obama LIED!"
"Well, maybe he didn't lie - but he used WEASEL WORDS!"
"Well, look - he said his efforts were more successful than I think they were!"

[billvon 2,379]

Latest revelation - FBI was investigating a Trump adviser as a Russian agent during the election.
=============
FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page

By Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous
WaPo April 11

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.
=================

[brenthutch 383]

billvon

Latest revelation - FBI was investigating a Trump adviser as a Russian agent during the election.
=============
FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page

By Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous
WaPo April 11

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.
=================

What will you do if there is no there, there? You are becoming overly invested in the "it was the Russians" narrative. I am worried about your emotional well being if it does not pan out.

[sonnyblu 0]

billvon

> He claimed that "We've eliminated Syria's declared chemical weapons PROGRAM."

Correct. Turns out they were working on chemical weapons outside their declared program.

The aforementioned chemical weapons facilities were part of their declared program.

billvon

"Obama LIED!"
he used WEASEL WORDS!"

All that and then some. . .

[rushmc 18]

brenthutch

***Latest revelation - FBI was investigating a Trump adviser as a Russian agent during the election.
=============
FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page

By Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous
WaPo April 11

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.
=================

What will you do if there is no there, there? You are becoming overly invested in the "it was the Russians" narrative. I am worried about your emotional well being if it does not pan out.

It is all they got! they have to keep this alive.

NOTE: multiple agency's stated that Russian medaling did not affect the outcome of the election.

Hell, even Maxine Waters is doing a two step around this topic now.

Gotta admit that it is fun to see TDS in action

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln