Setting aside your partisan viewpoint on the events, every innocent person who has ever been arrested has been treated unfairly. That does not give them the right to lie under oath. In fact, lying under oath will always look suspicious, so it's a bad idea.

I think submitting someone to unjust investigation and treatment, and then convicting them because they weren’t 100% correct during that investigation, warrants leniency, especially for a 70 year old first-time offender. Others are getting let out of jail while he was being thrown in. It would have been certain death for him. I wager you aren’t that callous in real life.

He was raided by an FBI Swat team in the middle of the night with CNN in tow. He was gagged at his trial. His judge and jury forewoman were anti-Trumpers. All because he lied to congress during a farce of an investigation. Note: James Clapper and John Brennan both lies to Congress, but of course they were too busy spying on Americans to receive any punishment.

Because he was treated unjustly and wasn’t given a fair trial.

I love it when you foam at the mouth, Tim. But it’s a shame your insults are as about as good as your arguments.

You're spouting the Trump line about the Mueller investigation being a farce. Even if there were problems with the FISA applications, the investigation was conducted in a legal manner - with legally obtained subpoenas that obligated Stone to tell the truth. He didn't. Why?

You’re spouting the Pelosi line that the Mueller investigation was a legit investigation. The Steele dossier was payed for by the Clinton campaign and sourced from Russian intelligence, leading to unwarranted spying, investigations and a misinformed western populace, all for the purpose of winning an election—Russian collusion. Any indictments?

Stone was raided by a SWAT team with CNN in tow, and for what?

Not according to me and the rest of the 45 million or so Black Americans. My life surely didn't matter when I was walking home at night in my black hospital scrubs and some deputies decided to hop out of their car unholstering the weapon all because they thought my cargo scrub pants were "tactical." My life didn't matter when in graduate school after leaving lecture being stopped by LAPD and having my hands placed on a running car vehicle and when I protested how hot his car hood was being told "don't you people like barbecue?" Surely, BLM then wasn't evident. My life doesn't matter to a cop. They'll see my tattoos and automatically label me a gang members regardless of my education and/or clinical profession.

A couple bad experiences might lead one to use faulty generalizations, and that is probably true for some police as well.

If the police treat you unjustly—excessive use of force, denial of constitutional rights, failure to intervene, indifference to risk of harm—you have legal recourse to sue their jack-boots off.

The prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Stone was guilty of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. He's a criminal and ought be in prison.

His sentence (which was less than the guidelines recommended) being commuted is political and unjust.

He’s still guilty and still a felon the last time I checked. Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller probe were a farce. They spied on a political campaign and ruined the lives of people who should not have been investigated, Stone included.

I’ve explained my views on Stone before. I think the investigation and prosecution were political and unjust.

Stone’s sentence commuted. And the outrage is glorious.

I think it’s more in line with a sort of Blanquism: In effect, revolution for the sake of revolution, without any care for what society may look like after. It resembles the paradigm of the typical revolutionary activism, but adorned with a new vocabulary and made public with increasingly diminished returns.

Because the media aren't posting comments on here, whereas you are.

But less flippantly, I went over that here. Journalists were told by sources they deemed credible that Russia was paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers and that Trump was briefed on this. It's their job to report this. Their sources were evidently somewhat credible as there really was intelligence that Russia was paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers – intelligence that warranted months of preparation and briefing allies.

So I ask again, what do you want from them? To only report on things which are public or which have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt?

I know that if I was given highly classified, highly dubious information, the publication of which could ruin fact-finding missions and put intelligence sources lives at risk, I wouldn’t publish it, especially if it was for the purpose of making the president look bad.

I wonder why you’d quibble about my use of the word “gossip” while leaving the media’s hysteria, which perhaps ruined all avenues of finding the truth of the matter, untouched.

It wasn't credible enough for him to do anything, but was proved enough to worry him, and was credible enough that the Trump administration did something about it; according to O'Brien they have spent months preparing options, briefed the Pentagon, and briefed allies.

Then what is the problem again?

It was credible enough to spend months preparing options and to brief allies and to worry that general.

It wasn’t credible enough to do anything, according to McKenzie.

“I found it very worrisome, I just didn't find that there was a causative link there," Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said in an interview with a small number of reporters.

‘The intel (intelligence) case wasn't proved to me -- it wasn't proved enough that I'd take it to a court of law -- and you know that's often true in battlefield intelligence,” said McKenzie.

“You see a lot of indicators, many of them are troubling many of them you act on. But, but in this case there just there wasn't enough there I sent the intelligence guys back to continue to dig on it, and I believe they're continuing to dig right now, but I just didn't see enough there to tell me that the circuit was closed in that regard.”

He added that force protection levels in Afghanistan are always high “whether the Russians are paying the Taliban or not." McKenzie said the insurgent group has always focused its attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, though that has ceased under the current U.S. peace agreement with the Taliban.

“Over the past several years, the Taliban have done their level best to carry out operations against us, so nothing is practically changed on the ground in terms of force protection, because we have a very high force protection standard now, and that force protection standard's going to continue into the future,” said McKenzie.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-general-doubts-russian-bounty-program-killed-us/story?id=71653874

You said "[Russian bounties] wasn’t raised to [Trump's] attention because it wasn’t credible intel and could not be corroborated. It’s gossip. So it’s no surprise opponents have grasped onto it."

But the intelligence on Russian bounties isn't gossip. It's credible enough that the administration spent months preparing options and briefed allies.

You use the euphemism “intelligence”; I use the word gossip.

It wasn’t credible enough to brief the president or Vice President or the gang of eight. None of it matter anyways, because the leaks have ruined any chance at verification, putting everyone involved at risk.

He didn't say that the Russia bounties is a hoax. He says that "we've been working for several months on options for the President". I don't think they do that on gossip.

Yes, he said the reporting that the president was briefed was a hoax.

Again, more than gossip.

If you don’t like the word use another one. Rumors? Whispers? Tales?

There is no fact that Trump doesn’t read intelligence reports. It is fake news because the story is, according to the administration, false.

You make the most negative possible assumptions about this, and you also assume the mind-states of the president in the worst possible ways. You parrot the partisan news and the line of the democrat party, so if you don’t like hearing the other side of the story, you might want to include it in your analysis from here on out.

It’s gossip. Robert C. O’Brien also said the reporting was a hoax, and that the information was unverified and not corroborated. This is why you should probably view the context rather than taking on faith what the WaPo tells you to.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?473567-1/national-security-adviser-robert-obrien-president-previously-briefed-russian-bounties

If you truly believe the intel was not credible, why did you blast Schiff?

The publicly available information on this intelligence does not support your view that it wasn't "credible". It was unproved, but that doesn't imply it shouldn't be a cause of of concern. - it was not presented as a questionable, unsupported rumor. It was not a "hoax" as Trump initially alleged, and it WAS in the written briefing material he received. A competent President would have known it was not a hoax - he had the information, but failed to read it.

There's no way to spin this in way that is positive for Trump.

But there is a way to spin it so it is negative for Trump. Hence the leaker, the Democrats, the fake news singing the same songs in unison. They want hearings on unverified information, the leaks of which may have compromised ongoing intel and operations and even lives.

Suppose Schiff was derelict. Does this somehow imply Trump was not?

The bounty issue was conveyed to Trump in his written intelligence briefings - which his senior staff also receive. Trump is derelict on an ongoing basis for failing to read these, but even if we set that aside because everyone knows he doesn't read them - why wasn't this verbally raised to his attention by his staff? Trump is responsible for the activities, and inactivities, of his staff. Their incompetence is his problem - he appointed them. Compound this with the fact that Trump's initial reaction was that it was a MSM hoax, which was clearly wrong.

I couldn't care less if Schiff gets investigated. It has zero bearing on Trump's dereliction of duty.

It wasn’t raised to his attention because it wasn’t credible intel and could not be corroborated. It’s gossip. So it’s no surprise opponents have grasped onto it.

The Harper letter is funny and so is NOS4A2's idea that the right is the victim of cancel culture.

I’ve never said such a thing. But I will say everyone is a victim of cancel culture. You will only deny it until it comes for you.

A couple years ago the city in which I live removed the statue of John MacDonald, Canada’s first prime minister, due to his residential school policies. They did this due the politically correct pressure, behind closed doors and in the dead of night, without any consultation with the people who live here. There was a small protest with the typical fare: those who opposed it on grounds that it erased history, and those in favor because it was a symbol of racism. Now there is only one MacDonald statue in the entire country and is currently in petition for removal.

I am bothered by the removal of statues because I hate to see the destruction of art and history. I don’t want to see the removal of a statue for the same reason I don’t want to see the destruction of a totem pole (Slavery was rife in local tribes). Because where does it end? Might we deface the pyramids?

It seems to me a free society demands that we allow more room for history to be written. Instead of tearing down a statue, build a statue.

I wonder where those writers and academics were years, even decades ago, when the alarm bells were being rung. Better late than never, I suppose.

But special consideration needs to be given to Chomsky. He’s been a free speech warrior throughout his entire career, even defending the rights of Holocaust revisionists (his defence of Robert Faurisson was legendary) and war criminals.

I figure that since “true” and “false” are adjectives and descriptive terms, there is really no need to imagine them as nouns and go off in search of them. There is a curious process here: turn an adjective into a noun with some suffix or other, and in so doing alter a description of things into a thing. Modifying the pseudo-thing with more adjectives, it is no wonder that they and other “qualities” become exceedingly difficult to think about. I’m not sure what the linguistic purpose of such a process might be, but it is interesting.

Answeing the first question this way, the second question (am I original?) is already answered: I'm not original.

Unless you have existed at some other place and time, you are original and one of a kind. As a corollary, this is why you matter.

According to “multiple intelligence sources familiar with the briefing”, Schiff was briefed in February, but for some reason took no action.

Top committee staff for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, were briefed in February on intelligence about Russia offering the Taliban bounties in Afghanistan, but he took no action in response to the briefing, multiple intelligence sources familiar with the briefing told The Federalist. The intelligence was briefed to Schiff’s staff during a congressional delegation, or CODEL, trip to Afghanistan in February.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/02/schiff-learned-of-russian-bounty-intelligence-in-february-withheld-information-from-congress-and-took-no-action

So perhaps an investigation is indeed in order. I suppose we’ll see.

That was all faithful to your responses. That your argument lacks any degree of coherence, only you are to blame.

That’s nonsense, but it appears nonsense is the going rate here.

Okay, so just to be clear then. Your anti-black-lives-matter position is that you are troubled by the support networks you say they are not putting in place to disrupt a nuclear social requirement you say doesn't exist. :up:

Just to be clear, your only arguments are straw men. Is that because you think you’re clever, or because you have no other argument?

If I were a journalist and John Bolton contacted me to tell me about this intelligence and that Trump had been briefed, but asked to be kept anonymous, and if he'd shown himself to be a reliable source in the past, and if two or more other government officials had contacted me to say the same thing, then I'd run the story. Wouldn't you? That's how journalism and anonymous sources work. Just look at Deep Throat and the Watergate scandal. There's sense in this even if it isn't perfect or doesn't always pan out.

I’d be weary of it for ethical reasons. The public should have as much information as possible in order to judge the reliability and motivations of sources. What if these “officials” are Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff? Wouldn’t you want to know that? Don’t you think the public deserves to know that?

Can you explain how they can possibly implement the extended family model while obeying the nuclear family structure requirement? Again, you seem to be contradicting yourself, twice in this case.

There is nothing to obey. There is no requirement. They can live and gather as they wish in an open society. And they can do so without disrupting anything.

I think the role of the media should be to continue growing. Keep the means to reach an audience open to anyone. That’s why I would say censorship is the most pressing issue growing forward. Suppression is absolute, and we’re letting the means of mass communication be controlled and regulated by vast companies and governments. The gates of information have been opened but some still cling to their power.

At any rate, I suspect that we are dealing with this new world of accessible information in our own way.

As for the news, I think the turn from objectivity to advocacy journalism has had deleterious effects to the entire enterprise.

Great. So you support BLM's "supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another" at least in principle, even if you disagree that it exists in practise?

I think it’s a great idea to support others, especially those in need of family. What I don’t agree with is to do so to disrupt the “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement”.

So you support a network of black people helping one another now?

I think everyone should help one another. It’s a brilliant idea.

Again, no one has a dim view of “helping one another”. That would be what is known as a lie where I’m from.

I just don’t find your opinions compelling or interesting.

I don’t need to misrepresent them. I can quote them directly from their website and interviews.

Why? It doesn't disrupt it for you: you seemed to agree that people having such networks doesn't hurt your right to be left alone and let everyone else gft. It disrupts it for people for whom it's a problem, or is insufficient.

Because I believe it is a bad idea. I’m not going to stop them or impede their choices, but I’m not going to support them either.

If your ideology casts helping one another as a sin rather than a virtue, you've got a pretty rotten ideology.

It’s a rotten lie that I cast “helping one another as a sin”.

The war is not for culture, though. It's for power. One side doesn't want it, they just want to stop the power grab. They're too concerned with culture, because "politics is downstream of culture." Well, that depends on the power structure.

So they did actually show up to the culture war, with their culture of conserving the system.

I think the current political hegemony in culture—academia, the press, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, corporate America—is quite a bit more powerful than the winning of elections. Even the most conservative of politicians is forced to play catch-up to it. Even to mention what the Chief Justice of the United States said 30 years ago would be to render oneself unfit for office in the public eye.

Well, no. I confess my first thought when I heard of George Floyd's murder was not: "This wouldn't be happening if black people cared less for one another."

But why does it make sense to you? Even if you believe that the individualistic nuclear support structure suits you, to the extent that you would not want any involvement in any kind of support network, why do you believe that it must be championed by everyone, including those in very different situations to you for whom a support network might be useful? What troubles you about the idea of people helping one another? Too commie? Black people might benefit from it? Not useful to you so shouldn't be allowed? Too reminiscent of the African village structures the idea is derived from? I'd list some positive possible motivations but I can't find any.

"The idea of people helping one another" doesn't trouble me, but the idea of disrupting "the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement" does. It troubles me for reasons I've already stated. And it true that it is a little too commie for my blood.

Okay so according to your information (whatever that is), the BLM virtual village isn't a thing. So why do you find it troubling if it isn't happening? This isn't amounting to a coherent position, even an ugly one.

I find it troubling that anyone would preach such piffle, when the opposite might be the better cause. Does that make sense to you?