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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the "A-Tale-of-Flodden-Field" dept.

5News reports:

President Donald Trump appears to have changed his story about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that is pivotal to the special counsel's investigation, tweeting that his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to collect information about his political opponent.

[...] That is a far different explanation than Trump gave 13 months ago, when a statement dictated by the president but released under the name of Donald Trump Jr., read: "We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago."

also at Vox, MSN and Mic


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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 08 2018, @03:50PM (17 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) on Wednesday August 08 2018, @03:50PM (#718823) Journal

    Oh, I get it. You took a quote where I highlighted exactly how conservatives constantly argue in bad faith, and got super offended that it was rude.

    Conservatives have a broke brain condition where they think they deserve to be respected as a precondition to being respectable.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 09 2018, @01:22AM (16 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 09 2018, @01:22AM (#719174) Journal
    I was tempted to brag at how easy it was to find examples where you've expressed irrational bias about these things, but I see it's even easier than I could possibly conceive with you eagerly providing more such examples on demand. Kinda boring actually.
    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:03PM (15 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:03PM (#719371) Journal

      "Irrational bias" means "bias lacking justification"

      If you really wanted to show that you should've cut off the part where I explained why, or given some sort of demonstration of why they "why" was lacking in reason. As it stands you just seem angry about being disrespected. I'm absolutely biased against republicans after decades of never seeing you guys make a sincere point where you actually value the pretense under which you make it.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 10 2018, @04:19AM (14 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 10 2018, @04:19AM (#719782) Journal

        "Irrational bias" means "bias lacking rational justification"

        FTFY. I think we're done here.

        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 10 2018, @01:49PM (13 children)

          by ikanreed (3164) on Friday August 10 2018, @01:49PM (#719900) Journal

          "Aha! With this trivial rewording that doesn't actually change your intent or point I, master wordsmith, have proven my point in a way that's clear to no one else in the world. I certainly don't need to follow up and address what you actually said"

          In fact, I'd say more than anything, you've reinforced that you do exactly what I accuse your political allies of doing non-stop. Muddying on irrelevant technicalities without even a half-assed nod towards addressing the central point. You, in particular, are a intellectually dishonest asshole who doesn't care about the real value of what you're saying one bit.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 11 2018, @03:10AM (12 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 11 2018, @03:10AM (#720180) Journal

            With this trivial rewording that doesn't actually change your intent or point

            Look up flat Earth arguments some time. They give plenty of justifications why they believe the world is flat. By your definition, that means their bias is rational. Oops. By my definition, no matter how much quantity of irrational justification, it's still not rational bias.

            In fact, I'd say more than anything, you've reinforced that you do exactly what I accuse your political allies of doing non-stop. Muddying on irrelevant technicalities without even a half-assed nod towards addressing the central point. You, in particular, are a intellectually dishonest asshole who doesn't care about the real value of what you're saying one bit.

            What central point? You've just been mouthing off for years. There's nothing there to half-ass nod at.

            • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Saturday August 11 2018, @02:55PM (11 children)

              by ikanreed (3164) on Saturday August 11 2018, @02:55PM (#720310) Journal

              So here's the "never acknowledge a point has been made" thing I was talking about that makes you such an insufferable ass.

              You get mendaciously into the weeds of your own grievances of being called the goddamn stupid asshole you are, that you yourself forget what it was I actually said and then blame me for your own refusal to read.

              You know the favorite game of kinda scummy people who are really invested in "center right" politics, who will go "You know, politifact(WHO HAS A LEFT WING BIAS RABBEL) rated 2 things Barack Obama said as pants on fire" so you can't trust left wing politicians at all either.

              And you can either play their game of acknowledging that they're technically correct and have an underlying point, that liberal and left politicians lie, and fairly often. Then they're right and justified in voting for the heel who basically without remorse fucks as many of us as possible. Or you can disagree on the scope and scale and scale of the problem, and then they take a deluge of right wing talking points disconnected from context and give you a mudball of a conversation, and no goalposts where they acknowledge a point has been made.

              Do you remember this? This is the point you didn't address.

              And what's amazing is you're gonna go off and refuse to acknowledge I just now made a point because I was 100% right about how you argue. You're either gonna pedantically argue some irrelevancy of my post without acknowledging just how directly it answered your question, that you never asked with any sincerity or restate your original goddamn "point" about how aggrieved you are. It's not that you can't up and declare me right, because I understand no one does that. It's that you have some psychological block where you won't even acknowledge that a point has been made at all.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 12 2018, @01:49AM (10 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 12 2018, @01:49AM (#720411) Journal

                So here's the "never acknowledge a point has been made" thing I was talking about that makes you such an insufferable ass.

                Thank you. I try. Let us keep in mind my role in this discussion as the insufferable ass is not to prop up your candy ass.

                You know the favorite game of kinda scummy people who are really invested in "center right" politics, who will go "You know, politifact(WHO HAS A LEFT WING BIAS RABBEL) rated 2 things Barack Obama said as pants on fire" so you can't trust left wing politicians at all either.

                And you can either play their game of acknowledging that they're technically correct and have an underlying point, that liberal and left politicians lie, and fairly often. Then they're right and justified in voting for the heel who basically without remorse fucks as many of us as possible. Or you can disagree on the scope and scale and scale of the problem, and then they take a deluge of right wing talking points disconnected from context and give you a mudball of a conversation, and no goalposts where they acknowledge a point has been made.

                Do you remember this? This is the point you didn't address.

                There was no point there to address. You whine about an imaginary straw man, the "scummy people who are really invested in 'center right' politics". I can't even begin to be bothered about what that was code for. Then you don't go anywhere with that.

                And look at the beginning of the second paragraph. Once you get into the ideological fever swamp where you can't acknowledge correct statements by your foes, then you're useless. It's not like Obama wasn't a serial liar either. After all, he came up with the "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" lie (which let us note became the Lie of the Year in 2013 on Politifact!). Why get in a losing position where you have to defend the indefensible? As you have repeatedly noted, I don't have that problem.

                And what's amazing is you're gonna go off and refuse to acknowledge I just now made a point because I was 100% right about how you argue.

                You got it and yet you still did it. It's amazing to see you in operation here. You put your foot in your mouth and it didn't work for you. Now you're going to gnaw harder on that foot. It's gotta work! Gnaw furiously oh great one!

                Sorry, when you make poorly thought-out stereotypes about imaginary classes of people, you don't have a point.

                • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 13 2018, @04:28PM (9 children)

                  by ikanreed (3164) on Monday August 13 2018, @04:28PM (#721028) Journal

                  And you literally did everything I ascribed to you, without a goddamn hint of self awareness. Literally every goddamn thing. Down to the fucking minutea of exactly how you "well actually" on trivial points. Of course Obama lied(as I said he did) though your example is(as I said) "not comparable in scope or scale" for reasons you will never acknowledge and I don't want to deal with the fake-ass "mudball" (as I described above) you're gonna make over it*.

                  This is why people disrespect your "imaginary class" of people. Because you're universally, without exception, shitheads who all seemingly behave exactly alike. In truth, I've been around this block enough to know how this goes: you'll remain offended at my rudeness, you'll never think twice about the words I've said. You'll pedantically argue with some almost irrelevant supporting detail of this post(hint: the thesis is that you are presently doing the thing I've accused your group of doing), and life will continue with you being a shithead, and being mad at me for saying so

                  *You won't care, but in context he implied that then-current health plans that didn't meet the new minimum criteria of the law would be allowed to continue as long as both parties renewed it. This was encoded into law, but many insurance agencies canceled the existing plans to standardize to one(or three) plans. You know as well as I do that there's a tacit difference between failing to accurately completely describe all possibilities(even knowingly) and lying. This is a point you will never acknowledge because, as I have alleged, you have a fundamental and intractable intellectual dishonesty.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:28AM (8 children)

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:28AM (#721299) Journal

                    And you literally did everything I ascribed to you, without a goddamn hint of self awareness.

                    Why would a "self-aware" person act any different?

                    What I see going on is a bigot whining about straw men again. We just don't have enough of that on the internets.

                    Because you're universally, without exception, shitheads who all seemingly behave exactly alike.

                    I'm not a member of the Right or a conservative. So what group are you speaking of? Hmmm?

                    You won't care, but in context he implied that then-current health plans that didn't meet the new minimum criteria of the law would be allowed to continue as long as both parties renewed it.

                    Bullshit excuse after the fact. No such context existed at the time of the speech.

                    This is a point you will never acknowledge because, as I have alleged, you have a fundamental and intractable intellectual dishonesty.

                    Says the person carrying water for Obama's lies.

                    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:04PM (7 children)

                      by ikanreed (3164) on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:04PM (#721367) Journal

                      Well, I pretended you'd eventually argue in good faith long enough. Thank you for confirming my biases.

                      (Also I laugh my ass off every time at "libertarians" who think they're not part of the right)

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:34PM (6 children)

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:34PM (#721413) Journal

                        Well, I pretended you'd eventually argue in good faith long enough. Thank you for confirming my biases.

                        My take is that I would have confirmed your biases no matter what I wrote. After all, you went into this already "knowing" what shenanigans I was supposedly going to do.

                        (Also I laugh my ass off every time at "libertarians" who think they're not part of the right)

                        Too bad. Libertarians are one of the most liberal groups out there - liberal as in advocators for freedom. To get lumped in with "conservatives" in some blob called the "Right" is a disservice to your brain.

                        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:40PM (5 children)

                          by ikanreed (3164) on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:40PM (#721474) Journal

                          I've tossed around several replies to this post in my head. There's no good way to respond to someone feeling like I don't respect their dignity.

                          But of course I wouldn't confirm my biases no matter what you said. Those biases were very specific. It's easy to assume I would, because bad faith argumentation is everywhere in the world. To confirm my biases, the ones I laid out, in front of you before you even started posting this hellthread, you'd have to argue some pedantic point through semantics and never acknowledge the core idea for what it was. You did exactly that.

                          Look, I get it. You have your reasons, and no one's ever forced to acknowledge a point has meaning. It feels like making the other person, who is brash, rude, and having a deleterious ideology towards yours, right. I don't need to be right, but I do need to deal with people honest enough to go "You know, Trump outright makes shit up daily, and that's pretty different from being wrong about the real world outcomes of a healthcare bill." That doesn't make Obama good. That doesn't make Obama a pillar of honesty. It doesn't make me right about everything, but it's really hard to deal with just how many of you people do exactly this.

                          (Also, no. No libertarian has ever done anything for freedom, ever, unless you a priori buy into the fundamentals of their, yes, far-right ideology about money and property representing freedom in some foundational way, which just as often impede freedom in a more philosophical and human sense.)

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:43PM (4 children)

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:43PM (#721750) Journal

                            But of course I wouldn't confirm my biases no matter what you said. Those biases were very specific. It's easy to assume I would, because bad faith argumentation is everywhere in the world. To confirm my biases, the ones I laid out, in front of you before you even started posting this hellthread, you'd have to argue some pedantic point through semantics and never acknowledge the core idea for what it was. You did exactly that.

                            Again, you have yet to make any such point. First, we still don't know what group you're even speaking of (labels in the absence of any sort of criteria are useless, hint hint) or why they're supposed to be arguing in bad faith. Then you've run your mouth for a half dozen or so posts without actually saying anything. I get the impression you disagree with me about something, but not what that is supposed to be.

                            (Also, no. No libertarian has ever done anything for freedom, ever,

                            Let's look at what you refuse to see. Libertarians oppose (a non-inclusive list):

                            • NSA whole sale spying and the FISA court (which let us note Obama didn't oppose! original reason I stopped backing Obama in the first place)
                            • Tariffs and other economic manipulation by governments - more on the latter below
                            • Forcing people to make speech that is against their religious convictions and criminalizing speech (such as "hate speech" laws).
                            • Asset seizure laws.
                            • The use of state power to crack on mostly harmless behavior that someone deems immoral (such as kids playing outside unattended, prostitution, gambling, smoking dope, amateur scientific research, reading certain books or listening to certain music, belonging to certain religions, and being the wrong ethnicity in the wrong place at the wrong time).
                            • The use of regulation to force behavioral changes (sin taxes, bans on various sorts of toilets, light bulbs, plastic straws, etc).
                            • profoundly stupid economic regulation (that typically hurts the people it's supposed to help, reduces employment, worsens our lives, and strongly encourages formation of large multinational businesses).
                            • Huge spending in military and social policy.

                            Now some can and do disagree about inclusion of various items on this list. But this list exists in the first place because we're not collectively doing enough to prevent this loss of freedom. At least libertarians are doing something.

                            unless you a priori buy into the fundamentals of their, yes, far-right ideology about money and property representing freedom in some foundational way, which just as often impede freedom in a more philosophical and human sense.)

                            Now we get into the Orwellian war is peace stuff. This alleged "far-right" ideology has one of the most liberal and non-conservative policy out there concerning money and property. And the rest of the libertarian philosophy such as backing democracy and freedom has little to do with much of the far-right agenda, such as it is.

                            And what is the claim about "impeding freedom in a more philosophical and human sense"? Why is that something that should matter? Such fluff is typical of the counterarguments. People mouth off [soylentnews.org] about how monopolies and oligopolies are end states of "free markets" while ignoring that these are often even more the end states of the supposed cures to free markets' problems. We're not better off that most developed world countries have state institutions dominating such things as peoples' pensions, health care, and education. We're not better off that our heavy (and still growing) regulatory burden encourages the growth of large corporations (and the oligopolies that we supposedly care about preventing). We're not better off that a half century or more of allegedly pro-labor or pro-poor social policy hasn't and never will yield the advertised results.

                            Instead, we're better off because we let people do their own thing.

                            but I do need to deal with people honest enough to go "You know, Trump outright makes shit up daily, and that's pretty different from being wrong about the real world outcomes of a healthcare bill."

                            It's a far less egregious case of lying for starters. Obama's lie hurt tens of millions of people. Trump's tweet lies hurt mostly Trump's reputation.

                            • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:23PM (3 children)

                              by ikanreed (3164) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:23PM (#721782) Journal

                              It's a far less egregious case of lying for starters. Obama's lie hurt tens of millions of people. Trump's tweet lies hurt mostly Trump's reputation.

                              Yeah, I'm sure completely untrue merit lies about putting children literally innocent of any crime into fucking 8x8ft dog cages, where some die of preventable illnesses because no one was paying attention because their parents were illegal immigrants, and publicly claiming not days before it came out that they all were given foster homes and good schools ("or something") is just as bad as your maliciously misreading a statement to make it wrong.

                              You scum fucking dishonest fuck. You complete horseshit of a human being. Don't bother to tell me, I know you don't personally approve of the concentration camps that you knowingly voted for.

                              Fuck you. Fuck everything about your ideology. Fuck you as a human being. The world deserves better than you.

                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 16 2018, @03:03AM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 16 2018, @03:03AM (#722033) Journal

                                Yeah, I'm sure completely untrue merit lies about putting children literally innocent of any crime into fucking 8x8ft dog cages, where some die of preventable illnesses because no one was paying attention because their parents were illegal immigrants, and publicly claiming not days before it came out that they all were given foster homes and good schools ("or something") is just as bad as your maliciously misreading a statement to make it wrong.

                                As I noted before, Obama's lies hurt a lot of people. Trump's lie here hurt himself. The children weren't imprisoned even a day longer by those Tweet lies.

                                You scum fucking dishonest fuck. You complete horseshit of a human being. Don't bother to tell me, I know you don't personally approve of the concentration camps that you knowingly voted for.

                                That in a nutshell is your problem not mine. How much more ugliness will we find when we peel you back even further?

                                Fuck you. Fuck everything about your ideology. Fuck you as a human being. The world deserves better than you

                                Called it.

                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:35PM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:35PM (#722145) Journal
                                To continue on the subject, here's what PolitiFact had to say [politifact.com] on the matter:

                                But what really set everyone off was when Obama tried to rewrite his slogan, telling political supporters on Nov. 4, "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law, and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed."

                                Pants on Fire! PolitiFact counted 37 times when he’d included no caveats, such as a high-profile speech to the American Medical Association in 2009: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."

                                That was over a several year period. Let us also keep in mind that it wasn't a mystery that such changes in health care plans would have come, just due to the large changes in the cost of such health insurance. Changes and dropping health care plans would be a typical and easily foreseeable consequence of law that raises the price and liabilities of health insurance.

                                And Obama didn't throw this out on Twitter one dark night, but repeatedly made the claim over several years in many public speeches. Then when the original statement became untenable to continue, claimed he didn't really mean it. As to the tweet(s), I think SN commenter, theluggage has a sound take [soylentnews.org] on the value of Twitter speech:

                                Ah, Twitter - all those stupid things human beings say when they're drunk, stoned, upset, lonely or just plain bored - once forgotten by the morning after, now recorded, preserved for posterity, made available to all and mistaken by journalists as a source of news.

                                [...]

                                What's really frightening is the degree of seriousness that some people apply to tweets (buying/selling shares, voting for orange people, etc.)

                                Finally, if you're having trouble with people quoting PolitiFact in order to defend the Orange One, perhaps you could instead acknowledge the truth of the observation and continue with your own, namely that a certain other US president has obtained Lie of the Year status for the last three years (and probably will have a lock on the thing for the rest of his tenure as president). But I suppose debate requires thinking and that's hard for you, right?

                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:47PM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:47PM (#722152) Journal
                                As a final remark, notice how your sole concrete example of the nefarious bad faith you're supposedly arguing against ended up with you creating this rhetorical cliff and then diving off of it. You shifted from the original argument to you voluntarily defending some pretty egregious lies as not lies. That's yet more supporting evidence for my claim that the sole common factor is you. You didn't have to do that. But even if you did, you didn't have to do it in a way that was guaranteed to lose.