[Finfinder]

I already refuted it, and then the response is, “what about a massive conspiracy?”

This is not worth entertaining until there’s any evidence of said conspiracy.

There was a time on this bird when Todd.D and other rightwingers were right there with me refuting dumb conspiracy theories. Whether this had to do with GMOs, chemtrails, vaccines, or Truthers, there was a bipartisan wing on pofo that would roll in and shit down the stupid.

Now it’s the rightwing embracing the conspiracy theories and any it’s too stupid to comment on in detail. It’s not like this is an aboutface for me—infamously hate arguing about feelings and invisible psychic Carpenters that have been dead for thousands of years.

Conspiracy theories of all stripes are just attempts to reorder reality to one’s feelings without any evidence.

We can argue evidence all day, but the fact is that we don’t have all of it, what the GOP brought outnis pretty slim and easily rebuked.

Either we need more evidence to fight again another day (yay); Trump is, like Hillary and the Democrats, a rich asshole that is stacking his administration with the same Goldman-Saches assholes both parties always do; or there is a massive secret conspiracy war going on with no evidence that happens to justify the feelings of rightwingers if we all just hold our breath and pray enough about it. Or, really, the same is true with the various Democrat theories about Russian whatever.

But I’m not interested in feelings or attempts to justify them with improbable conspiracies.

The fact is, again, Trump is stacking his administration with the same assholes that are always in charge; Democrats are acting mad that the same assholes they had in charge are in charge; and Republicans are pretending this is some kind of revolution is happening that will save us all.

After younsee this cycle through once or twice, I don’t know how you keep falling for it.

Please outline in detail the conspiracy theory you are talking about.

[The Immortal Goon]

Please outline in detail the conspiracy theory you are talking about.

Since it mostly makes no sense and there is no proof of anything, I won't bother. Here are some handy charts the rightwing has put together to start with while you imagine your own fun conspiracy theory:

[Rancid]

@The Immortal Goon, go on, I'm listening.

I have my own theory to share as well.

[Sivad]

[Rancid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-YgjmWMJB0

That video was largely a bunch of nothing.

[Sivad]

Inane pseudoskepticism

More from Parenti -

Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests.

Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists.

[Rancid]

I don't think anyone is denying people plot and scheme in board rooms, CIA war rooms, etc. etc.

When we call you a crazy conspiracy theorist, what we're saying is, you are extrapolating information to absurd and largely baseless levels. In other words, you're stupid and making shit up from minimal amounts of information..

[The Immortal Goon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-YgjmWMJB0

I don't think anyone is denying people plot and scheme in board rooms, CIA war rooms, etc. etc.

When we call you a crazy conspiracy theorist, what we're saying is, you are extrapolating information to absurd and largely baseless levels. In other words, you're stupid and making shit up from minimal amounts of information.

This is exactly right.

None of those charts by right-wingers that cracked the code on an anti-Trump conspiracy even agree on anything. It's the papacy, or the Jews, or the communists, or the uranium one deal, or Facebook, or any number of crazy things that are thrown out to explain the conspiracy against Trump.

I'm not even so against the idea of a conspiracy. I'm a bit of a truther on the Patriots cheating in some games. I'm a think there's a lot of evidence to the effect that the Iraq War was a big coordinated move by the British and Americans to try and shore up oil more than anything else. I think that it's more likely than not that the October Surprise conspiracy theory is accurate.

But there is evidence for these things.

Sitting here, now, and saying that your feelings about Trump are justified by any number of possible conspiracy theories is counting the angels at the end of a needle. There's literally nothing to discuss as there's no actual information.

[Sivad]

When we call you a crazy conspiracy theorist, what we're saying is

we can't fuck with your facts or your logic, we have no argument at all, so we're forced call you names and pretend like we're winning.

[skinster]

[Rancid]

we can't fuck with your facts or your logic, we have no argument at all, so we're forced call you names and pretend like we're winning.

1- There is no real logic, that's the problem. There simply isn't enough information to come up with something logical.
2- I personally would call a conspiracy theorist a moron, yes. Doesn't change point 1 above.

[skinster]

I think this might belong in here:

[Hong Wu]

I feel pretty uninterested in this to my surprise... Nunes says he has like 5 more memos to release and they'll be releasing the Dem memo, but presumbaly the Dems will want to relese rebuttle memos after each GOP memo

The memos are surely set up to prompt people to make certain arguments and do certain things, since they've been in the making for a year and there's six or so in total, yet no one seems to be showing any restraint. Kind of sad to watch. Arguing before you have all of the information is just speculation anyway...

[colliric]

Hong Wu.....

Welcome to the world of true Politics!

We call Parliament "the Grown-ups Kindergarten" in Australia.

[Hindsite]

we can't fuck with your facts or your logic, we have no argument at all, so we're forced call you names and pretend like we're winning.

You got that right. That is the main m.o. of the left. The other is calling anything they disagree with a conspiracy theory.
It is basically impossible to convince a crazy liberal of their flawed logic.

[Igor Antunov]

[Hong Wu]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02 ... tions.html

Just when I had stopped caring, compelling evidence that Obama was involved in this.

[The Immortal Goon]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/07/more-texts-between-strzok-and-page-uncovered-lead-to-more-questions.html

Just when I had stopped caring, compelling evidence that Obama was involved in this.

Nah, you were right to let all this garbage go by you are the politicking it is. You'll note that Fox News doesn't contextualize the Obama part at all, and the link goes to an info dump without any context of where we might find it and decide for ourselves.

The Washington Examiner, who also apparently couldn't find the exact phrase that Fox found and didn't specify, contextualized the general sentiment:

"Potus wants to know everything we're doing," Page texted Strzok on Sept. 2, 2016, according to Fox News. That text was in reference to then-FBI Director James Comey, who had been preparing talking points for Obama regarding the probe into the former secretary of state.

Which sounds more benign, but who will ever know? I'm going to wait to see if some other news organization can go through the thousands of pages of non-searchable PDFs Fox used as a source and tell me which one it's in, at least.

But this is how politics work.

It's insane to me that Trumpites seem completely unaware of this, again, to the point of having to build these elaborate conspiracy theories.

The Democrats and the Republicans do this all the time. There are people in both parties that are hired, and love to do this kind of advertising and reverse advertising. There are no heroes in this game.

You were completely right to write this off as high-politics name calling and then measure the political reaction and how that works rather then look for any grand meaning behind it.

The emperor is pretty open about not having any clothes. Roger Stone and James Carville get off on this stuff and will both laugh in documentaries about the stupid rubes they tricked into supporting someone with a big enough lie or recontextualization. And then you come to a thread like this and there are people lining up to eat their shit.

This is politics as usual. Same as the Russia investigations, same as everything else. It's only interesting to see it at the level as Stone and Carville and see where the dumb move the needle for election season. What is a hail-Mary play, and what isn't. Don't be dumb enough to buy into it.

[blackjack21]

Nunes' memo is a whole lotta nothing. Nothing will come from it, and it's just meant as yet another distraction from the ongoing investigation into the current US Presidency.

Nunes' memo creates a public record of what happened. So it can't just be wiped out from the historical record now. So it is a "something burger." However, it is not quite as significant as the Grassley-Graham memo, which is a criminal referral. Grassley-Graham is telling the DoJ/FBI that someone they know and worked with committed a crime. That means that the DoJ/FBI must review the referral and decide what action to take. In view of the obvious political bias getting exposed daily, non-action tends to suggest political bias too.

The Democrat memo will basically say "everythings bullshit", precipitating an investigation or an expansion of the scope of the current investigation into this area concerning the use of the Dossier.

The Democrats aren't capable of self-consistency, which is why their effort to unseat Trump won't go anywhere. The Democrat's memo was authored by Andy Schiff. Tucker Carlson lambasted him pretty well last night on this premise: the Obama administration decided characterize RT as anti-American to compel RT (Russia Times; a Russian propaganda outlet) to register as a foreign agent (something they don't do to BBC America, for example). Then, Carlson shows a clip of Andy Schiff appearing on RT bashing US intelligence with respect to the Iraq War--ergo, Andy Schiff is a Russian agent.

So Andy Schiff--and self-styled communists like TIG--will try to muddy the waters to hide the ties between Hillary Clinton and Russia.

Why does it need to be investigated, but Trump's presidency possibly colluding with a foreign power that interfered with the US elections, should not?

Trump "possibly" colluding with Russia comes from Hillary Clinton's campaign, who actually did collude with foreign powers that interfered with the US elections. Why shouldn't she be investigated?

I am all for an investigation into this, if there is evidence of wrong-doing.

There is not only evidence, but proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Hillary Clinton and the DNC funneled money through Coie Perkins, to Fusion GPS, to Christopher Steele, and to others that they claim are Russian government officials in Russia. If collusion is wrong, Hillary Clinton is dead to rights. Christopher Steele is an MI-6 spy. The claim that he dug up information on Trump from Russian government officials for Hillary Clinton establishes collusion between Hillary Clinton and Russia. Her motive was to try to discredit Trump. Her claim is that Trump had ties to Russia. She is trying to establish that case through her own ties to Russia in which she uses several layers of indirection to pay them for information compiled by Steele into a dossier. As you already know, collusion isn't a crime. Using the disinformation she collected to spoof the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, however, is a criminal matter.

The pretense that the FBI is partisan against the GOP, is a conspiracy theory that is not backed by fact.

They were specifically against Donald Trump and as a matter of fact let Hillary Clinton off the hook on criminal charges. That is established fact and there is plenty of evidence to substantiate that assertion.

Both Comey and Mueller are Republicans.

Nobody is fooled by these illusions. Drlee purports to be a Republican, but rarely supports anything the Republicans say or do. John McCain is a Republican, and once again he's going against nearly 80% of the electorate on immigration; not just Republicans, but all voters. The idea that you can simply register with one political party or another and be presumed to be loyal to its membership is ludicrous.

Obviously it was indicated in a minor way (Nunes keeps saying it was a "footnote") and I feel like they should have done more than just a footnote.

The problem with the footnote is that it is a deliberate attempt to conceal a material matter. It's like saying "We have a document establishing an order for the Final Solution. It came from a high ranking official in the Nazi Party." Except that if it was signed off on by Hitler himself, you'd want to know that, wouldn't you? Hillary Clinton is an internationally known figure who has a reputation for dishonesty, was under criminal investigation herself, and was the principal financier of the dossier used in the application. Don't you think a judge would want to know that before deciding whether or not to grant the warrant? Otherwise, it makes the judge look complicit.

Edit: More I think about it, they should probably still be punished for using footnotes like that.

While the footnote is true, it's an obvious effort to conceal the source from the court where the court would likely have deemed the source a material matter in whether or not to grant the warrant.

In other words you cannot refute any of the facts so you'll post a cartoon and 5 sheep will like this post.

TIG claims to be a communist. So he's going to engage in misdirection. Just consider the source.

I already refuted it, and then the response is, “what about a massive conspiracy?”

This is not worth entertaining until there’s any evidence of said conspiracy.

A conspiracy is just two or more persons taking actions in furtherance of an object. A conspiracy doesn't have to be "massive." There is no question that Hillary Clinton, the DNC and a Barack Obama PAC funnelled money to Coie Perkins, that Coie Perkins funnelled money to Fusion GPS, that Fusion GPS funnelled money to Christopher Steele. The banking records establish this as fact. Why do you think there is no evidence of this? The FBI specifically terminated Christopher Steele as a source.

Are you trying to say that Christopher Steele doesn't exist? Are you trying to say that the FBI lied when they said Christopher Steele was a source, that he was suspended as a source, and then he was terminated as a source?

Conspiracy theories of all stripes are just attempts to reorder reality to one’s feelings without any evidence.

Yes, but you are trying to sustain the idea that Trump may have colluded with the Russians. The primary evidence for that is the Steele dossier. That was financed by Hillary Clinton through several layers of indirection. Perhaps that is too complicated for you to follow. All we are doing is taking jimjam's advice and following the money. It goes from Hillary Clinton campaign donors--some of whom are staffing Mueller's investigation--to Hillary Clinton's campaign; from there, the money goes to Perkins Coie; from there it goes to Fusion GPS; from there, some of it goes into Nellie Ohr's pocket, whose husband works for the FBI and was on Mueller's investigation and who maintained a relationship with Christopher Steele; and some of it goes from Fusion GPS to Christopher Steele, who compiles a dossier based on his conversations with Russian government officials in Russia.

These are facts. So we're supposed to take the dossier at face value and assume Trump may have some ties to Russia, but not take the facts surrounding the creation of the dossier at face value such that Hillary Clinton has ties to Russia and used information obtained from Russians to try to influence the election? Is that how it works? And if we don't do that, then we're stupid?

We can argue evidence all day, but the fact is that we don’t have all of it, what the GOP brought outnis pretty slim and easily rebuked.

The banking records aren't easily rebuked. Why would money leave a campaign, go to a law firm, and then go to Fusion GPS. Why would Fusion GPS pay a CIA employee whose husband works at the FBI, pay Christopher Steele to compile a dossier, and pay reporters? Do you suddenly have no sense of curiosity?

When we call you a crazy conspiracy theorist, what we're saying is, you are extrapolating information to absurd and largely baseless levels. In other words, you're stupid and making shit up from minimal amounts of information..

Yeah, because it's totally normal for money from a US presidential campaign to end up in the hands of a British spy who gives some of it to Russian government agents in exchange for information that gets compiled in a dossier and used against the opponent's presidential campaign. We should believe what's in the dossier and not question anything else, right? Otherwise, we are stupid conspiracy theorists? Is that how it works?

Just when I had stopped caring, compelling evidence that Obama was involved in this.

There's really no question. It's just a matter of who gets nailed. Another black politician I met once said, "Never write anything down." His name is Willie Louis Brown, Jr. I particularly liked this quote from your article:

On Election Day 2016, Page wrote, "OMG THIS IS F***ING TERRIFYING." Strzok replied, "Omg, I am so depressed." Later that month, on Nov. 13, 2016, Page wrote, "I bought all the president's men. Figure I need to brush up on watergate."

The next day, Nov. 14, 2016, Page wrote, “God, being here makes me angry. Lots of high fallutin’ national security talk. Meanwhile we have OUR task ahead of us.”

The big deal in Watergate is that deep throat fed information anonymously, always met in dark garages some distance away from the reports, and Mark Felt never used his own phone. Today, even that is not enough. Even burner phones aren't really enough. Nellie Ohr is CIA, and she ended up getting a HAM radio license. It seems like Page learned what Willie Brown would have told her had she been looking for his advice.

The last text is from Page to Strzok, and comes on June 23, 2017, when she wrote, "Please don't ever text me again."

That's right you ding dong bitch! That's a writing and it's admissible as evidence in a court of law, contrary to what stupid communists think. Since you are using a government issued phone, that means that Trump can use the NSA to intercept all of your communications and he doesn't need a warrant, because your phone is public property, and unless the executive of the United States says so, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy from government oversight when communicating on a government issued phone on government time. Duh! How do you think they figured out there were x-number of missing texts. The NSA knows ALL!

[Rancid]

Yeah, because it's totally normal for money from a US presidential campaign to end up in the hands of a British spy who gives some of it to Russian government agents in exchange for information that gets compiled in a dossier and used against the opponent's presidential campaign. We should believe what's in the dossier and not question anything else, right? Otherwise, we are stupid conspiracy theorists? Is that how it works?

You've not been following things. I'll give you a pass.