(05-30-2017 11:56 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-30-2017 10:50 PM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(05-30-2017 10:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-30-2017 09:50 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(05-29-2017 08:06 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Actually, no, they aren't, and that's exactly the point. Take Jeff Sessions, for example. He had two "meetings" with "Russians" over a six month time frame, one in his office and one a chance encounter at an event, both openly known. That's not how you engage in nefarious activities.

Just because one is incompetent at performing nefarious deeds doesn't make the deeds less nefarious. Just nefarious and stupid.

\Start from an assumption of guilt and then make everything fit.

Actually, I started with a presumption of incompetence and Trump is putting everything nicely into place for me.

A rereading of your statement does not lead to that conclusion.

If you say so. I'll simplify it for you: Nefariousness and incompetence are not mutually exclusive.

(05-31-2017 09:03 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Sorry you feel so misunderstood and mischaracterized, lad. The only person I know who is equally misunderstood and mischaracterized is ....me. I too have had to take the step, several times, of stating my positions on much of this explicitly. Gets old, doesn't it?

You are more reasonable than many others, and so I direct a lot of my responses to you while ignoring the others as best I can.

Russia probably did the hacking. Wikileaks did the publishing. The question is why? For Russia, the assumption by antiTrumpeters is that they did it to influence the election toward Trump for some reason. But there are better possibilities. One is simply that they hated Hillary. She alienated Putin personally.
Another is that the DNC stuff was so much easier to get. A third is that they were just trying to sow discord and polarize our electorate, and to freeze our government into inaction on the off chance that Trump won. If so, working perfectly. If so, who is playing into their hands now?

Nobody gave Trump a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Do we really think that the Russians' polling is so much better than ours that they noticed, months before the election, that Trump just needed a little push, and publishing a few emails without editing would provide that tiny but adequate push? Damn, they are good. And still, the question is, why would they prefer Trump over Clinton? other than the personal animus that Putin had for her, of course. Did they expect him to lift the sanctions? Get out of the way in syria? That is the quid pro quo that is missing.

The French election is different primarily in the timing.

Rail against the Russians playing us all you want. i will join you. Russians, keep away!!!! But when it comes to the "nefarious" conspiracy theories pushed by some, they are quite simply, ridiculous.

There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

But as I have each of the other times I have explained my position here, if one tries to tell the story in such a way that the investigations are warranted, they don't hold water. Might as well have John Cleese testify that Trump turned him into a newt. I keep asking for the narrative of what yall think happened, and all I get is comments about smoke, or incompetency, or bad attitudes,, but never any coherent narrative of what it is that you think happened that investigation will show to be true.

What's wrong with bringing up Hillary? She was the loser in whose behalf all this angst is being played out. she was the candidate that had over a quarter century of public and private actions that played into the loss, actions that are defended by many who attack Trump. It is legitimate to point out inconsistencies in people's positions. maybe the word hypocrisy does not have to enter into it.

I feel your pain, Lad.

To the bolded only - she didn't win the election, is not POTUS, and is not involved in any way, shape, or form, with the current state of affairs. The conversations circling Trump have nothing to do with the flaws of Hillary as a candidate, just the actions that Russia took during our elections and if Trump and his team were involved with them.

And as to pointing out inconsistencies, I don't see how her email handling is connected in any way, shape, or form, with the release of hacked emails. If the issue at play here was security, then I can buy that. But the issues here are influence from a foreign gov't, possible collusion, etc.

If you don't mind, maybe you could explain a bit better how those are connected. I certainly don't see it.

Are we to do this like a court of law, where only certain evidence is admissible?

yeah, she didn't win, and from that flows this entire matter. she isn't president and enquiring minds want to to know WHY NOT?

Email handling is cogent because bad handling is how those emails got into other people's hands in the first place. it is salient because classified material was treated in the same way as the publicized emails. it is a part of the discussion because Hillary blamed her loss on it. And it is a part of the discussion because people are pointing to it as evidence of collusion.

there is no more reason to exclude Hillary than there is to exclude Thomas Jefferson or JFK.

Really, if you want to do this so narrowly, then I move to exclude France. And anything prior to one year ago. And his family.

(05-31-2017 09:59 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 09:03 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Sorry you feel so misunderstood and mischaracterized, lad. The only person I know who is equally misunderstood and mischaracterized is ....me. I too have had to take the step, several times, of stating my positions on much of this explicitly. Gets old, doesn't it?

You are more reasonable than many others, and so I direct a lot of my responses to you while ignoring the others as best I can.

Russia probably did the hacking. Wikileaks did the publishing. The question is why? For Russia, the assumption by antiTrumpeters is that they did it to influence the election toward Trump for some reason. But there are better possibilities. One is simply that they hated Hillary. She alienated Putin personally.
Another is that the DNC stuff was so much easier to get. A third is that they were just trying to sow discord and polarize our electorate, and to freeze our government into inaction on the off chance that Trump won. If so, working perfectly. If so, who is playing into their hands now?

Nobody gave Trump a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Do we really think that the Russians' polling is so much better than ours that they noticed, months before the election, that Trump just needed a little push, and publishing a few emails without editing would provide that tiny but adequate push? Damn, they are good. And still, the question is, why would they prefer Trump over Clinton? other than the personal animus that Putin had for her, of course. Did they expect him to lift the sanctions? Get out of the way in syria? That is the quid pro quo that is missing.

The French election is different primarily in the timing.

Rail against the Russians playing us all you want. i will join you. Russians, keep away!!!! But when it comes to the "nefarious" conspiracy theories pushed by some, they are quite simply, ridiculous.

There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

But as I have each of the other times I have explained my position here, if one tries to tell the story in such a way that the investigations are warranted, they don't hold water. Might as well have John Cleese testify that Trump turned him into a newt. I keep asking for the narrative of what yall think happened, and all I get is comments about smoke, or incompetency, or bad attitudes,, but never any coherent narrative of what it is that you think happened that investigation will show to be true.

What's wrong with bringing up Hillary? She was the loser in whose behalf all this angst is being played out. she was the candidate that had over a quarter century of public and private actions that played into the loss, actions that are defended by many who attack Trump. It is legitimate to point out inconsistencies in people's positions. maybe the word hypocrisy does not have to enter into it.

I feel your pain, Lad.

To the bolded only - she didn't win the election, is not POTUS, and is not involved in any way, shape, or form, with the current state of affairs. The conversations circling Trump have nothing to do with the flaws of Hillary as a candidate, just the actions that Russia took during our elections and if Trump and his team were involved with them.

And as to pointing out inconsistencies, I don't see how her email handling is connected in any way, shape, or form, with the release of hacked emails. If the issue at play here was security, then I can buy that. But the issues here are influence from a foreign gov't, possible collusion, etc.

If you don't mind, maybe you could explain a bit better how those are connected. I certainly don't see it.

Are we to do this like a court of law, where only certain evidence is admissible?

yeah, she didn't win, and from that flows this entire matter. she isn't president and enquiring minds want to to know WHY NOT?

Email handling is cogent because bad handling is how those emails got into other people's hands in the first place. it is salient because classified material was treated in the same way as the publicized emails. it is a part of the discussion because Hillary blamed her loss on it. And it is a part of the discussion because people are pointing to it as evidence of collusion.

there is no more reason to exclude Hillary than there is to exclude Thomas Jefferson or JFK.

Really, if you want to do this so narrowly, then I move to exclude France. And anything prior to one year ago. And his family.

No, inquiring minds do not want to find out why HRC is not POTUS. They already know - she lost the electoral college. There may be a small percentage of the populous that ties the election of Trump very solely to Russian tampering, but most do not. Most, I would hazard, blame Comey's letter about the Carlos Danger computer for her loss, more than the Russian hacking. (And this is where I should clarify something I should have done earlier - when I state that Russia succeeded at influencing the election, I'm suggesting they were able to turn the election from a HRC win to a lose, but the email hacks played a role of some sort and inevitably influenced people by being a significant part of the news cycle).

In reality, most people just want to know what happened with regards to the email hacks and if any of the Trump team was involved, and if they were, how so.

And I don't buy your logic about why HRC's handling of emails is related to the Russian hacking.

The Russian's were not able to hack the DNC emails because of the servers HRC set up. The security issues with respect to HRC's servers weren't really related to phishing (how Podesta was hacked). You're trying to suggest that because HRC stored emails on a personal server, that bringing up up how people responded to her email scandal should have some bearing on how they feel about the Russian hacking, solely because the hacked emails were also stored on personal servers. Boy, is that a WIDE net to cast.

The original reference to HRC was about how some people did not see her personal server as being an issue, yet they felt that the hacked emails were. The problem here is that those are two separate issues being conflated for the same - one is a concern over personal data storage, the other is a concern about the intentions of a foreign government. Had Podesta's emails been hacked but not released (and say just an email saying they had been hacked was released), you would probably see the same response from those people.

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  And still, the question is, why would they prefer Trump over Clinton? other than the personal animus that Putin had for her, of course. Did they expect him to lift the sanctions? Get out of the way in syria? That is the quid pro quo that is missing.

Presumably this is what the investigation is attempting to determine. My personal belief is that, like the majority of Americans, Putin identified Trump as an infantile blowhard likely to destabilize the world in Russia's favor. Of course, that's just my belief. I'm obviously happy to wait for whatever official investigatory findings come out.

Quote:There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

This is a joke, right? We can literally look at Hillary's polls before and after Comey's e-mail announcement and watch them plummet. Also, the idea that we shouldn't investigate the Russian thing unless it was the ONLY reason Hillary lost is a non-sequitur. Obviously it wasn't the only reason. But it's ludicrous to say the e-mails had absolutely no effect.

Quote:I keep asking for the narrative of what yall think happened, and all I get is comments about smoke, or incompetency, or bad attitudes,, but never any coherent narrative of what it is that you think happened that investigation will show to be true.

Trump stood at a podium on national TV and asked the Russia to hack Hillary's e-mails. Russia hacked the DNC/Podesta/whomever. Trump's affiliates had an unorthodox number of pre-election contacts with Russia and either lied about them or failed to disclose them, not only to the press, but to each other. Trump fired Comey for the stated reason (to the Russians, no less) that he wanted to relieve "pressure" stemming from the Russia investigation. What part of this is insufficient to support an investigation? You don't need concrete evidence of criminal activity. It's enough that Trump is as good at avoiding suspicion as a four-year-old.

Also, you keep implying that this is a specifically partisan issue. It's not just Democrats who wanted a special prosecutor, you know.

Quote:What's wrong with bringing up Hillary? She was the loser in whose behalf all this angst is being played out. she was the candidate that had over a quarter century of public and private actions that played into the loss, actions that are defended by many who attack Trump. It is legitimate to point out inconsistencies in people's positions. maybe the word hypocrisy does not have to enter into it.

Right, except that the issue of liberal hypocrisy is wholly independent from the issue of whether Trump did anything wrong. Both can be true. The fact of one does not excuse the other or provide a reason for not investigating the other.

(05-31-2017 10:35 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

Quote:There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

This is a joke, right? We can literally look at Hillary's polls before and after Comey's e-mail announcement and watch them plummet. Also, the idea that we shouldn't investigate the Russian thing unless it was the ONLY reason Hillary lost is a non-sequitur. Obviously it wasn't the only reason. But it's ludicrous to say the e-mails had absolutely no effect.

Right, except that the issue of liberal hypocrisy is wholly independent from the issue of whether Trump did anything wrong. Both can be true. The fact of one does not excuse the other or provide a reason for not investigating the other.

That is a world class job of mixing and matching issues. Comey's announcement was in connection with Hillary's voodoo shop server; not the leaked Podesta emails.

Please do tell how supposed Russian action had *anything* to do with Hillary's jury-rigged secret spilling machine and Comey's September announcement?

Or was Podesta's phished account residing on that server and no one ever bothered to check that little detail?

Please stop conflating Comey's September announcement with Podesta's stupidity.

(05-31-2017 10:50 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 10:35 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

Quote:There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

This is a joke, right? We can literally look at Hillary's polls before and after Comey's e-mail announcement and watch them plummet. Also, the idea that we shouldn't investigate the Russian thing unless it was the ONLY reason Hillary lost is a non-sequitur. Obviously it wasn't the only reason. But it's ludicrous to say the e-mails had absolutely no effect.

Right, except that the issue of liberal hypocrisy is wholly independent from the issue of whether Trump did anything wrong. Both can be true. The fact of one does not excuse the other or provide a reason for not investigating the other.

That is a world class job of mixing and matching issues. Comey's announcement was in connection with Hillary's voodoo shop server; not the leaked Podesta emails.

Please do tell how supposed Russian action had *anything* to do with Hillary's jury-rigged secret spilling machine and Comey's September announcement?

Or was Podesta's phished account residing on that server and no one ever bothered to check that little detail?

Please stop conflating Comey's September announcement with Podesta's stupidity.

I wouldn't say world class (hey, they were both about emails), but yeah, definitely mixed up.

The rest of the comment I'm down with though.

(05-31-2017 10:26 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 09:59 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 09:03 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Sorry you feel so misunderstood and mischaracterized, lad. The only person I know who is equally misunderstood and mischaracterized is ....me. I too have had to take the step, several times, of stating my positions on much of this explicitly. Gets old, doesn't it?

You are more reasonable than many others, and so I direct a lot of my responses to you while ignoring the others as best I can.

Russia probably did the hacking. Wikileaks did the publishing. The question is why? For Russia, the assumption by antiTrumpeters is that they did it to influence the election toward Trump for some reason. But there are better possibilities. One is simply that they hated Hillary. She alienated Putin personally.
Another is that the DNC stuff was so much easier to get. A third is that they were just trying to sow discord and polarize our electorate, and to freeze our government into inaction on the off chance that Trump won. If so, working perfectly. If so, who is playing into their hands now?

Nobody gave Trump a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Do we really think that the Russians' polling is so much better than ours that they noticed, months before the election, that Trump just needed a little push, and publishing a few emails without editing would provide that tiny but adequate push? Damn, they are good. And still, the question is, why would they prefer Trump over Clinton? other than the personal animus that Putin had for her, of course. Did they expect him to lift the sanctions? Get out of the way in syria? That is the quid pro quo that is missing.

The French election is different primarily in the timing.

Rail against the Russians playing us all you want. i will join you. Russians, keep away!!!! But when it comes to the "nefarious" conspiracy theories pushed by some, they are quite simply, ridiculous.

There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

But as I have each of the other times I have explained my position here, if one tries to tell the story in such a way that the investigations are warranted, they don't hold water. Might as well have John Cleese testify that Trump turned him into a newt. I keep asking for the narrative of what yall think happened, and all I get is comments about smoke, or incompetency, or bad attitudes,, but never any coherent narrative of what it is that you think happened that investigation will show to be true.

What's wrong with bringing up Hillary? She was the loser in whose behalf all this angst is being played out. she was the candidate that had over a quarter century of public and private actions that played into the loss, actions that are defended by many who attack Trump. It is legitimate to point out inconsistencies in people's positions. maybe the word hypocrisy does not have to enter into it.

I feel your pain, Lad.

To the bolded only - she didn't win the election, is not POTUS, and is not involved in any way, shape, or form, with the current state of affairs. The conversations circling Trump have nothing to do with the flaws of Hillary as a candidate, just the actions that Russia took during our elections and if Trump and his team were involved with them.

And as to pointing out inconsistencies, I don't see how her email handling is connected in any way, shape, or form, with the release of hacked emails. If the issue at play here was security, then I can buy that. But the issues here are influence from a foreign gov't, possible collusion, etc.

If you don't mind, maybe you could explain a bit better how those are connected. I certainly don't see it.

Are we to do this like a court of law, where only certain evidence is admissible?

yeah, she didn't win, and from that flows this entire matter. she isn't president and enquiring minds want to to know WHY NOT?

Email handling is cogent because bad handling is how those emails got into other people's hands in the first place. it is salient because classified material was treated in the same way as the publicized emails. it is a part of the discussion because Hillary blamed her loss on it. And it is a part of the discussion because people are pointing to it as evidence of collusion.

there is no more reason to exclude Hillary than there is to exclude Thomas Jefferson or JFK.

Really, if you want to do this so narrowly, then I move to exclude France. And anything prior to one year ago. And his family.

No, inquiring minds do not want to find out why HRC is not POTUS. They already know - she lost the electoral college. There may be a small percentage of the populous that ties the election of Trump very solely to Russian tampering, but most do not. Most, I would hazard, blame Comey's letter about the Carlos Danger computer for her loss, more than the Russian hacking. (And this is where I should clarify something I should have done earlier - when I state that Russia succeeded at influencing the election, I'm suggesting they were able to turn the election from a HRC win to a lose, but the email hacks played a role of some sort and inevitably influenced people by being a significant part of the news cycle).

In reality, most people just want to know what happened with regards to the email hacks and if any of the Trump team was involved, and if they were, how so.

And I don't buy your logic about why HRC's handling of emails is related to the Russian hacking.

The Russian's were not able to hack the DNC emails because of the servers HRC set up. The security issues with respect to HRC's servers weren't really related to phishing (how Podesta was hacked). You're trying to suggest that because HRC stored emails on a personal server, that bringing up up how people responded to her email scandal should have some bearing on how they feel about the Russian hacking, solely because the hacked emails were also stored on personal servers. Boy, is that a WIDE net to cast.

The original reference to HRC was about how some people did not see her personal server as being an issue, yet they felt that the hacked emails were. The problem here is that those are two separate issues being conflated for the same - one is a concern over personal data storage, the other is a concern about the intentions of a foreign government. Had Podesta's emails been hacked but not released (and say just an email saying they had been hacked was released), you would probably see the same response from those people.

Personal?

I never thought Hillary's PERSONAL(?) data storage was the issue. Nobody cares about her hair appointments. It was the nonpersonal stuff. You know, the State stuff.

I doubt people finding out she was fed debate questions were shocked at all. she was the candidate of the DNC.

I think the whole email server thing was a minor point. But it is the one that people on both sides have chosen to focus on.

I think your statement that everybody knows why she lost - she lost the electoral college - is silly. It's like saying the reason we lost a baseball game is that the other team had more runs. I think a lot of people want to know WHY she lost the Electoral College, why she lost Michigan, Wisconsin, et al, and they are flailing around for the the only reason that makes sense to them - she was cheated, by a coalition of deplorable, yucky Americans and evil Russians. We must prove this, since the world would make no sense otherwise.

(05-31-2017 10:35 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  Trump stood at a podium on national TV and asked the Russia to hack Hillary's e-mails.

AFTER they had already done so. If I implore Western Kentucky to keep beating Middle Tennessee, are you going to conclude I am in collusion with WKU?

Quote: You don't need concrete evidence of criminal activity.

WHAT?

You need more than a bad outcome to your hopes and dreams. With the evidence you quote, you could investigate me.

And maybe you should. After all, not attacking Trump is the same as saying I'm good with the russians running things, right? Is there anything more suspicious than not being suspicious of Trump?

(05-31-2017 11:19 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 10:26 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 09:59 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 09:03 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 08:37 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Sorry you feel so misunderstood and mischaracterized, lad. The only person I know who is equally misunderstood and mischaracterized is ....me. I too have had to take the step, several times, of stating my positions on much of this explicitly. Gets old, doesn't it?

You are more reasonable than many others, and so I direct a lot of my responses to you while ignoring the others as best I can.

Russia probably did the hacking. Wikileaks did the publishing. The question is why? For Russia, the assumption by antiTrumpeters is that they did it to influence the election toward Trump for some reason. But there are better possibilities. One is simply that they hated Hillary. She alienated Putin personally.
Another is that the DNC stuff was so much easier to get. A third is that they were just trying to sow discord and polarize our electorate, and to freeze our government into inaction on the off chance that Trump won. If so, working perfectly. If so, who is playing into their hands now?

Nobody gave Trump a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Do we really think that the Russians' polling is so much better than ours that they noticed, months before the election, that Trump just needed a little push, and publishing a few emails without editing would provide that tiny but adequate push? Damn, they are good. And still, the question is, why would they prefer Trump over Clinton? other than the personal animus that Putin had for her, of course. Did they expect him to lift the sanctions? Get out of the way in syria? That is the quid pro quo that is missing.

The French election is different primarily in the timing.

Rail against the Russians playing us all you want. i will join you. Russians, keep away!!!! But when it comes to the "nefarious" conspiracy theories pushed by some, they are quite simply, ridiculous.

There is also " no evidence that they have actually succeeded" as you say, in influencing THIS election. Zero. Nada. None. Hillary's excuses to the contrary, I can think of a hundred reasons that had more impact than the emails. "Deplorables" comes to mind. Benghazi comes to mind. Stagnant wages come to mind. The dissatisfaction with the status quo and "more of the same" comes to mind. But Hillary losing was an upset of cataclysmic nature. I didn't expect it. There has to be an explanation why things didn't go as expected. Has to be that somebody cheated, right? Has to be. No other way to explain it. Either that or witchcraft.

But as I have each of the other times I have explained my position here, if one tries to tell the story in such a way that the investigations are warranted, they don't hold water. Might as well have John Cleese testify that Trump turned him into a newt. I keep asking for the narrative of what yall think happened, and all I get is comments about smoke, or incompetency, or bad attitudes,, but never any coherent narrative of what it is that you think happened that investigation will show to be true.

What's wrong with bringing up Hillary? She was the loser in whose behalf all this angst is being played out. she was the candidate that had over a quarter century of public and private actions that played into the loss, actions that are defended by many who attack Trump. It is legitimate to point out inconsistencies in people's positions. maybe the word hypocrisy does not have to enter into it.

I feel your pain, Lad.

To the bolded only - she didn't win the election, is not POTUS, and is not involved in any way, shape, or form, with the current state of affairs. The conversations circling Trump have nothing to do with the flaws of Hillary as a candidate, just the actions that Russia took during our elections and if Trump and his team were involved with them.

And as to pointing out inconsistencies, I don't see how her email handling is connected in any way, shape, or form, with the release of hacked emails. If the issue at play here was security, then I can buy that. But the issues here are influence from a foreign gov't, possible collusion, etc.

If you don't mind, maybe you could explain a bit better how those are connected. I certainly don't see it.

Are we to do this like a court of law, where only certain evidence is admissible?

yeah, she didn't win, and from that flows this entire matter. she isn't president and enquiring minds want to to know WHY NOT?

Email handling is cogent because bad handling is how those emails got into other people's hands in the first place. it is salient because classified material was treated in the same way as the publicized emails. it is a part of the discussion because Hillary blamed her loss on it. And it is a part of the discussion because people are pointing to it as evidence of collusion.

there is no more reason to exclude Hillary than there is to exclude Thomas Jefferson or JFK.

Really, if you want to do this so narrowly, then I move to exclude France. And anything prior to one year ago. And his family.

No, inquiring minds do not want to find out why HRC is not POTUS. They already know - she lost the electoral college. There may be a small percentage of the populous that ties the election of Trump very solely to Russian tampering, but most do not. Most, I would hazard, blame Comey's letter about the Carlos Danger computer for her loss, more than the Russian hacking. (And this is where I should clarify something I should have done earlier - when I state that Russia succeeded at influencing the election, I'm suggesting they were able to turn the election from a HRC win to a lose, but the email hacks played a role of some sort and inevitably influenced people by being a significant part of the news cycle).

In reality, most people just want to know what happened with regards to the email hacks and if any of the Trump team was involved, and if they were, how so.

And I don't buy your logic about why HRC's handling of emails is related to the Russian hacking.

The Russian's were not able to hack the DNC emails because of the servers HRC set up. The security issues with respect to HRC's servers weren't really related to phishing (how Podesta was hacked). You're trying to suggest that because HRC stored emails on a personal server, that bringing up up how people responded to her email scandal should have some bearing on how they feel about the Russian hacking, solely because the hacked emails were also stored on personal servers. Boy, is that a WIDE net to cast.

The original reference to HRC was about how some people did not see her personal server as being an issue, yet they felt that the hacked emails were. The problem here is that those are two separate issues being conflated for the same - one is a concern over personal data storage, the other is a concern about the intentions of a foreign government. Had Podesta's emails been hacked but not released (and say just an email saying they had been hacked was released), you would probably see the same response from those people.

Personal?

I never thought Hillary's PERSONAL(?) data storage was the issue. Nobody cares about her hair appointments. It was the nonpersonal stuff. You know, the State stuff.

I doubt people finding out she was fed debate questions were shocked at all. she was the candidate of the DNC.

I think the whole email server thing was a minor point. But it is the one that people on both sides have chosen to focus on.

I think your statement that everybody knows why she lost - she lost the electoral college - is silly. It's like saying the reason we lost a baseball game is that the other team had more runs. I think a lot of people want to know WHY she lost the Electoral College, why she lost Michigan, Wisconsin, et al, and they are flailing around for the the only reason that makes sense to them - she was cheated, by a coalition of deplorable, yucky Americans and evil Russians. We must prove this, since the world would make no sense otherwise.

No personal data storage was the entire issue - that she stored some classified material on a PERSONAL DATA STORAGE device (e.g. a personal server).

Don't go getting all worked up because you read that wrong - maybe ask if you misunderstood it first?

Also, you glossed over a lot of points I made to focus on two very specific items. To your second one, I really don't think as many people are out there trying to rationalize the loss via the Russia investigation - I mean, you did see how many articles were written after the loss about the obvious failings of the DNC platform and the candidate herself, right? I think a lot of people are genuinely concerned about the overt actions taken by Russia and the possibility that the sitting POTUS or his team were involved (and there are plenty of circumstances to make that possibility not seem entirely outlandish).

(05-31-2017 11:30 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 10:35 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  Trump stood at a podium on national TV and asked the Russia to hack Hillary's e-mails.

AFTER they had already done so. If I implore Western Kentucky to keep beating Middle Tennessee, are you going to conclude I am in collusion with WKU?

Quote: You don't need concrete evidence of criminal activity.

WHAT?

You need more than a bad outcome to your hopes and dreams. With the evidence you quote, you could investigate me.

And maybe you should. After all, not attacking Trump is the same as saying I'm good with the russians running things, right? Is there anything more suspicious than not being suspicious of Trump?

You don't need concrete evidence to start an investigation, do you?

If you are investigating a murder, you don't wait until you find a video of a person committing a crime to investigate the whereabouts of a person of interest. You can use more circumstantial evidence, like a relationship to the victim, potential motives, etc to start an investigation into someone, right?

Comey to testify publicly that Trump pressured him to drop Russia investigation.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/f...index.html

Edit: If Trump has nothing to hide, why would he do such a stupid thing? (I am open to explanation that it's the stupidity, stupid.)

(05-31-2017 11:43 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  If you are investigating a murder, you don't wait until you find a video of a person committing a crime to investigate the whereabouts of a person of interest. You can use more circumstantial evidence, like a relationship to the victim, potential motives, etc to start an investigation into someone, right?

No, but you usually start with a dead body.

(05-31-2017 01:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 11:43 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  If you are investigating a murder, you don't wait until you find a video of a person committing a crime to investigate the whereabouts of a person of interest. You can use more circumstantial evidence, like a relationship to the victim, potential motives, etc to start an investigation into someone, right?

No, but you usually start with a dead body.

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal).

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

Kind of makes sense to me.

(05-31-2017 02:57 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 01:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 11:43 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  If you are investigating a murder, you don't wait until you find a video of a person committing a crime to investigate the whereabouts of a person of interest. You can use more circumstantial evidence, like a relationship to the victim, potential motives, etc to start an investigation into someone, right?

No, but you usually start with a dead body.

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal).

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

Kind of makes sense to me.

Let's rewrite:

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, Vince Foster's body was found with a death due to gunshot and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal) Foster served as the White House counsel, was affiliated with Hillary at the Rose Law Firm, and had a deep personal and professional relationship with both the Clintons.

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia Vince Foster, Hillary, *and* the legal representation of the original Whitewater issue started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

-------

See, the nexus of "coincidences and connections" really doesn't hold up without actual evidence. Based on the foregoing, Hillary *should* have been investigated for Vince Foster's death, according the timeline and issue pattern that you state.

The issues surrounding Foster and the issues surrounding Russiagate are equally as specious and bereft of hard facts. And, I can wash, rinse, and substitute different phrases but same concepts to make an equally compelling case for Obama birth certificates, Bush Sr being a trilaterist stooge, etc., etc., etc.

By the way Lad, what are your thoughts on the Obama scandal laid open in the last week or two on the flow, dissemination, and misuse (per the FISA judge's characterization of the administration's "institutional lack of candor") of intercepted NSA material? I mean that one is way wide open, with an actual crime at the center, and without the need of "weird coincidences" and smoke to prop it up. And, my guess, it will have a definite impact on Russia-gate based on the subject matter and with the last night Obama administration rules changes about dissemination of intelligence within the Executive branch.

(05-31-2017 03:31 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 02:57 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 01:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 11:43 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  If you are investigating a murder, you don't wait until you find a video of a person committing a crime to investigate the whereabouts of a person of interest. You can use more circumstantial evidence, like a relationship to the victim, potential motives, etc to start an investigation into someone, right?

No, but you usually start with a dead body.

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal).

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

Kind of makes sense to me.

Let's rewrite:

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, Vince Foster's body was found with a death due to gunshot and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal) Foster served as the White House counsel, was affiliated with Hillary at the Rose Law Firm, and had a deep personal and professional relationship with both the Clintons.

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia Vince Foster, Hillary, *and* the legal representation of the original Whitewater issue started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

-------

See, the nexus of "coincidences and connections" really doesn't hold up without actual evidence. Based on the foregoing, Hillary *should* have been investigated for Vince Foster's death, according the timeline and issue pattern that you state.

The issues surrounding Foster and the issues surrounding Russiagate are equally as specious and bereft of hard facts. And, I can wash, rinse, and substitute different phrases but same concepts to make an equally compelling case for Obama birth certificates, Bush Sr being a trilaterist stooge, etc., etc., etc.

By the way Lad, what are your thoughts on the Obama scandal laid open in the last week or two on the flow, dissemination, and misuse (per the FISA judge's characterization of the administration's "institutional lack of candor") of intercepted NSA material? I mean that one is way wide open, with an actual crime at the center, and without the need of "weird coincidences" and smoke to prop it up. And, my guess, it will have a definite impact on Russia-gate based on the subject matter and with the last night Obama administration rules changes about dissemination of intelligence within the Executive branch.

I will hazad a guess that will want to stick to the matter at hand and not get into other topics.

if I am going down the street, amd smell smoke, I don't jump immediately to "arson", unless a friend of a friend tells me that the owners of the building met with a guy six months ago whose sister knows a guy who looks suspicious. But, that's just me.

i guess two years from now, when the investigation closes with nothing, we can all meet back here and claim we were misquoted, and how happy we all are that it turns out there was no collusion.

At this point of the Plame investigation, there were calls for the VP to resign or face impeachment.

my father used to tell a joke about a man called for jury duty.
When asked if he could be impartial, he replied "Sure, bring the guilty bastard in,and we can give him a fair trial and hang him before we go home to dinner."

No particular reason that came to mind.

(05-31-2017 11:30 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 10:35 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  Trump stood at a podium on national TV and asked the Russia to hack Hillary's e-mails.

AFTER they had already done so. If I implore Western Kentucky to keep beating Middle Tennessee, are you going to conclude I am in collusion with WKU?

Quote: You don't need concrete evidence of criminal activity.

WHAT?

You need more than a bad outcome to your hopes and dreams. With the evidence you quote, you could investigate me.

And maybe you should. After all, not attacking Trump is the same as saying I'm good with the russians running things, right? Is there anything more suspicious than not being suspicious of Trump?

I don't even know what this means. The point of the investigation is to determine whether there is evidence of criminal activity. The point of the trial is to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to constitute a crime. You don't have the evidence first and investigate second.

As for the rest of your terrible analogy, well . . .

(05-31-2017 04:02 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  i guess two years from now, when the investigation closes with nothing, we can all meet back here and claim we were misquoted, and how happy we all are that it turns out there was no collusion.

Presumably this is your attitude towards Clinton and Benghazi?

(05-31-2017 04:07 PM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 04:02 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  i guess two years from now, when the investigation closes with nothing, we can all meet back here and claim we were misquoted, and how happy we all are that it turns out there was no collusion.

Presumably this is your attitude towards Clinton and Benghazi?

Heck,no, and I was being sarcastic. i know that won't be your attitude either when it happens.

but I thought liberal, excuse me, conservative hypocrisy was not to be discussed here. we have been warned off of comparisons with Obama, Hillary, Bill, Loretta Lynch, whoever. stick to the topic, man, or Lad with pull up on the reins.

(05-31-2017 04:14 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 04:07 PM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 04:02 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  i guess two years from now, when the investigation closes with nothing, we can all meet back here and claim we were misquoted, and how happy we all are that it turns out there was no collusion.

Presumably this is your attitude towards Clinton and Benghazi?

Heck,no, and I was being sarcastic. i know that won't be your attitude either when it happens.

but I thought liberal, excuse me, conservative hypocrisy was not to be discussed here. we have been warned off of comparisons with Obama, Hillary, Bill, Loretta Lynch, whoever. stick to the topic, man, or Lad with pull up on the reins.

You can discuss partisan hypocrisy whenever you want. You just can't point to liberal hypocrisy as a reason for ignoring whatever Trump may have done. My point was that your logic was incorrect, not that the topic was forbidden. So, please, tirade away.

(05-31-2017 03:31 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 02:57 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 01:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-31-2017 11:43 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  If you are investigating a murder, you don't wait until you find a video of a person committing a crime to investigate the whereabouts of a person of interest. You can use more circumstantial evidence, like a relationship to the victim, potential motives, etc to start an investigation into someone, right?

No, but you usually start with a dead body.

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal).

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

Kind of makes sense to me.

Let's rewrite:

Well, we know that emails were released against someone's will, Vince Foster's body was found with a death due to gunshot and based on the preliminary investigation that they were almost certainly obtained via Russia (illegal) Foster served as the White House counsel, was affiliated with Hillary at the Rose Law Firm, and had a deep personal and professional relationship with both the Clintons.

Then, a lot of weird coincidences and connections between Trump's campaign team and Russia Vince Foster, Hillary, *and* the legal representation of the original Whitewater issue started popping up, so an investigation to confirm that there are/aren't any illicit connections was started.

-------

See, the nexus of "coincidences and connections" really doesn't hold up without actual evidence. Based on the foregoing, Hillary *should* have been investigated for Vince Foster's death, according the timeline and issue pattern that you state.

The issues surrounding Foster and the issues surrounding Russiagate are equally as specious and bereft of hard facts. And, I can wash, rinse, and substitute different phrases but same concepts to make an equally compelling case for Obama birth certificates, Bush Sr being a trilaterist stooge, etc., etc., etc.

The ironic thing about this is that Vince Foster's death was actually investigated. Hillary even managed not to fire the lead investigator while it was happening.

Quote:By the way Lad, what are your thoughts on the Obama scandal laid open in the last week or two on the flow, dissemination, and misuse (per the FISA judge's characterization of the administration's "institutional lack of candor") of intercepted NSA material? I mean that one is way wide open, with an actual crime at the center, and without the need of "weird coincidences" and smoke to prop it up. And, my guess, it will have a definite impact on Russia-gate based on the subject matter and with the last night Obama administration rules changes about dissemination of intelligence within the Executive branch.

I have to be honest - I haven't spent a lot of time around Alex Jones's ******* lately, so I missed this story. Care to provide some links so we can all check it out?