As a hypothetical, information that was known to be fake would be an inappropriate basis for an investigation. The problem is that you are jumping to politically biased conclusions based on partisan interpretations of sketchy facts and cries from Trump (in the record books for prevarication) that he's been treated unfairly.

That’s false. The information was suspected of being Russian disinformation. They knew it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/footnotes-in-watchdog-report-indicate-fbi-knew-of-risk-of-russian-disinformation-in-the-steele-dossier/

stand back, stand by” is some secret white supremacist bat signal. — NOS4A2

No one is claiming it was a bat signal, it was what it means in English. Like if Biden said ANTIFA should 'stand by' for him, your tiny little troll head would explode and you'd be all over this thread like a disease. Keep squirming and lying though. It's fun to watch.

Trying to figure out if it is or is not is not worth more time. It shouldn't even be a question. And yet it is. An implicit debate here seems to be "how many times should a leader condemn white supremacists to make it justifiable for him to give mixed messages or endorsement of the same group or of others that are of a similar bent?" This is ridicuous. That such things are unclear is a failure of Trump's. He was given the opportunity to clear any ambiguity. Any misunderstanding. He did not. Intentionally or not makes no difference. He failed.

No I wouldn’t, no matter what your little fantasies tell you. Worse, Biden refused to condemn antifa, saying it’s just an idea.



He did, clearly and unambiguously, many times. He even said he was going to label the KKK (and antifa) as terrorist organizations. But these facts don’t exist in the false, hysterical anti-Trump worldview.

You have already acknowledged the failure with your "Big Deal" comment.

Again, debating the 'ratio' is ridiculous.

Biden refused to condemn antifa — NOS4A2

Good for him. ANTIFA kick the shit out of Nazis and racists. Can't think of a nobler calling.

You have already acknowledged the failure with your "Big Deal" comment.

Again, debating the 'ratio' is ridiculous.

And you perpetuate a political lie. Fair enough.

Nope. The failure at the debate was acknowledged by yourself. You simply downplay the significance. We are repeating ourselves now.

You sensationalize the significance, taking cues from you-know-who, but end up chewing on another nothing-burger.

Now you appear to no longer be talking about any specific point. Also not worth further research.

I guess you could clear up any confusion by pointing out the media outlets that tell it like it is and report more than crumbs.
– praxis

The reasonable thing to do is judge reporting on its merits, not on where it comes from. — NOS4A2

The thrust of your comment is that most don't have access to anything besides 'crumbs'.

Members of the Proud Boys called Trump’s message “historic” on private social media channels and one member said they have received a spike in new recruits, the New York Times reported.

“The Proud Boys were quick to react to the president’s remarks. They heard them as a call to action and rapidly created ‘standing by’ memes designed to help mobilization in the group,” Joseph Carter, program manager at network analysis firm Graphika, told The Washington Post.

I know your dumb but I didn't take you to be dumber than a Proud Boy.

The approach of another civil war in the disunited state of America?

T-minus 25 days. :mask:

"Il Duce" Cheeto Trumpolini is attacking his own self-appointed "hunters" for not finding any WITCHES in three MAGA-Infowars conspiracy theory "witch hunts":

• Attorney General Bill Barr for not arresting & prosecuting Obama or Biden, and the so-called "Durham Report" won't be ready until sometime after the election (if ever).

• FBI Director Christopher Wray for not trumping-up any fraudulent ballot shenanigans in any Democratic Party-controlled "Blue State" (and daring to contradict official WH lies by testifying to congress that the clear and present danger to next month's General Election comes from Trump dog-whistled, Infowars deluded, MAGA-supporting White Supremacy DOMESTIC TERRORISTS like e.g. Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, White Separatist/Nationalist "Militias" (like e.g. the gang of 13 thugs who plotted to, at least, kidnap Michigan's Democratic Governor), KKK-infiltrated law enforcement, self-appointed "2nd Amendment" lone gunmen racist vigilantes (e.g. Kyle Rittenauer, Patrick Crusius, Robert Gregory Bowers, Santino William Legan, Nikolas Jacob Cruz), et al).

• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for not finding any of HRC's "missing 33k emails" in the State Department servers or archives.

Biggest loser is as biggest loser does.

I mean, seriously, this is so fucking stupid. There's a group Proud Boys, that goes out of its way to deny it's white supremacist is then identified by Trump as white supremacist and militant, while he's telling them to "stand back and stand by" and this results in exactly 0 complaints from the group that they are called white supremacists, celebratory tweets from members and an uptick in membership all because Trump "condemned" them.

Can we fucking ban the racist scumbag still defending this shit?

I don't know but I need a shower after that interaction. :vomit:

The problem is most are not aware of everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth, and are basing everything on whatever crumbs the anti-Trump media lets them hear. — NOS4A2

I mainly try to judge any administration on what it actually does and how it deals the various issues and crises that it handle's. Even if a President or a Prime Minister is an important player, still he is part of the team that makes an administration and surely not an autocrat.

So for example, if Trump has always kissed Putin's ass in bizarre way (especially when they met here in Helsinki), it's obvious that the Trump administration was never influenced by the Kremlin in any way. Even now and especially with the Marine generals that Trump had around, obviously the course is kept steady, even if Trump sometimes makes gaffes like purposing a joint US-Russian task force to prevent cyber attacks. And I guess now they have learnt how to deal with Trump: never say anything against him publicly, perhaps only correct the most outrageous things that Trump just throws out there..as those are forgotten next month.

But I get it, for example Bush too was in his own way likeable for Republicans and Obama was a very good speaker. However it's the actual policies that count not the tweets or comments.

As far as I can tell the plotters of the kidnapping were just anti-government extremists. I haven't found any evidence that they were either far right or far left, and according to the Detroit Free Press the Whitmer kidnapping was part of a wider plot to attack cops and try to start a civil war:

"The Wolverine Watchmen militia group didn't just plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but they were on a mission to attack the state Capitol and target police officers at their homes as part of a broader mission to instigate a civil war, authorities said Thursday in announcing felony charges against 13 militia members accused in a sensational case of domestic terrorism."

As far as I can tell these guys were just violent anti-government radicals and while its fine for law enforcement to keep tabs on these groups I don't really know what else can be done because the right to a well regulated militia is a guaranteed in the Constitution.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/mike-lee-not-a-democracy-republican-trump-authoritarian.html

Mike Lee comes out against democracy. Do Republicans have to start tattooing swastikas on themselves before the turn towards fascism is recognized?

+
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/republicans-are-suddenly-afraid-of-democracy/ar-BB19S0B9

There's a group Proud Boys, that goes out of its way to deny it's white supremacist is then identified by Trump as white supremacist — Benkei

To be completely fair, Trump was asking "what do you want me to call them? Who do you want me to..." and Biden suggested "Proud Boys". It is hard to make out in the audio because everyone is talking over each other, but Trump didn't pick the Proud Boys to name himself.

And as I said earlier, it seems to me like a coin toss whether Trump was just too stupid to know the difference between "stand down", "stand back", and "stand by", or whether he was using obfuscating stupidity to send a coded message. It is plausible, but maybe a little too convenient, that he was trying to do as he was asked, and just fucked it up royally. In any case, the Proud Boys themselves took it with the worst possible interpretation, so whatever Trump's intentions, the effects were the same.

I haven't found any evidence that they were either far right or far left — BitconnectCarlos

They were probably Bernie supporters who just wanted to give her free health care. No idea either why anyone would associate gun-toting Dem-hating liberty freak militias with the right wing.

Do you think the American government should use the intelligence apparatus to spy on opposing political campaigns? — NOS4A2

There's a couple things wrong with this question. First, the government agency has no allegiance to one party or another, so it's wrong to say that it is investigating, "spying", or whatever you want to call it, an "opposing" campaign. The agency does not have a side, regardless of who produces information against whom. Remember, Clinton was investigated concerning the emails, so the agency goes both ways. Second, if the agency has reason to believe a crime was committed, an investigation is in order, regardless of the political affiliation.

They were probably Bernie supporters who just wanted to give her free health care. No idea either why anyone would associate gun-toting Dem-hating liberty freak militias with the right wing. — Baden

They're gun-toting government hating liberty freak militias. At least one of them posted anti-Trump content. Would you consider Timothy McVeigh a right wing extremist?

Would you consider Timothy McVeigh a right wing extremist? — BitconnectCarlos

He is generally considered one.

Pretty much all domestic terrorists in the US have been.

Maybe we have a different conception of what McVeigh believed and why did what he did? My understanding of McVeigh was that he was motivated by his hatred of the US government and what he saw as its encroaching, expanding power. Given this account, he just seems like an extreme, violent libertarian - or at least in that camp ideologically. I don't think he was a follower or admirer of an authoritarian right wing regime. I've never heard him say anything positive about capitalism or socialism for that matter. It seems weird for me to call him "right." I usually associate the right with conservativism or a belief in traditionalism.

Libertarianism in the United States is generally associated with the right. There are some left-libertarians, like me, but we’re either a minority or terribly underrepresented. Left-libertarians aren’t usually calling to just destroy the government and let the pieces fall where they may, but to displace the government with something better.

The way I see it the libertarians and the right (conservatives) often vote along the same lines, but they are definitely not the same. Atheistic capitalist libertarians and conservative, traditionalist republicans (often communitarian) might vote for the same party but these are two substantially different camps with very different core values.

I did a bit more research on McVeigh though and it does seem that he's on the right so I recant a little of what I said earlier. I do think he's more libertarian than he is right though so.... in any case it's just interesting and kind of strange to me that all libertarians and christian conservatives just get thrown under the same umbrella (that it "the right".) I still do consider left-libertarians a version of libertarianism though and even if it's not so popular in the US (I'd be interested to see the numbers) it must have support elsewhere in the world.

To be fair, that makes exactly 0 difference. The point is that his remarks aren't defensible. Whether Biden identified them first, is irrelevant. Trump identified them too. Trump's intention? I didn't even go into it because it's irrelevant but it's utter lunacy to defend it based on idiocy. Are we seriously entertaining whether Trump knows what "stand by" means? A native English speaker? Fuck off. It's not "convenient", that's the type of bullshit parents peddle when their kids are chastised by strangers for being horrible: not informed by the facts and informed by a misplaced optimism about their character (eg. They're not bad, they just don't know any better).

If Trump's "condemnation" leads to an uptick in racist shits joining the Proud Boys then we have 2 options : 1. he didn't condemn then but encouraged them, 2.Trump is such a threat to white supremacists they feel a need to rise up.

Whether he did 1 accidently still leaves no room to defend it.

Domestic terrorism in America simply is right-wing violence.

The two terms can be used interchangeably without loss.

This includes libertarians who all ought to swallow poison and die before they cause further harm to anyone else.

Trump, of course, has been an hyper-catalyst and petri-dish for it.

Are we seriously entertaining whether Trump knows what "stand by" means? A native English speaker? — Benkei

You have heard him speak, right? He can barely get through a single sentence without fucking it up one way or another.

I'm not saying that his idiocy is any excuse for his actions, but he is clearly either a genuine idiot or else really good at pretending to be one. I'm not at all optimistic about Trump's character, but it's genuinely hard to tell sometimes whether something awful he says is due to maliciousness or stupidity.

Sometimes he even says good things, apparently being too stupid to realize that that's contrary to his party platform; promising universal health care in 2016, for example, or suggesting a gun-control-first-ask-questions-later approach shortly after his election.

I think his utter amorality stems from an inability to know (or care enough to figure out) what is genuinely good or bad. Instead he just goes with whatever gets him praise, thus being easily manipulated by whoever will allow him to feel good about himself. Which, to be clear, is a bad way of conducting oneself, not a moral thing to do.

But it's behavior I see in people like my own parents, and I imagine is behind a lot of the people who vote for Trump too; the kind of people who believe whatever crazy thing they read on Facebook, if it allows them to feel like they're the good people and that good people like them are going to win over the bad people, who by definition aren't like them, because they're the good people.

It's a horrible way of thinking and living that's done horrible things when elevated to the highest office, but it's an all-too-common way of thinking and living that I can understand and pity as much as it may disgust me.