Sorry, that's like saying when you hear 5 children died in an orphanage that 25 lived. It may be a good thing, but 5 still died.

Unlike you, I include people in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Honduras as people who matter in the world. And as long as they're dying at the hands of Americans through bombings or coups, there is no Pax Americana. Or, in other words, America has helped kill millions in those countries in the past 20 years. That is a bad thing.

There has been little revelation or exposure of any substantial quid pro quo. — Thanatos Sand

https://www.vox.com/2017/7/18/15983910/donald-trump-russia-putin-natalia-veselnitskaya-collusion

There has been little revelation or exposure of any substantial quid pro quo.
— Thanatos Sand
https://www.vox.com/2017/7/18/15983910/donald-trump-russia-putin-natalia-veselnitskaya-collusion

Sorry, a Russia expert's theory isn't evidence; it's a theory.

I suppose I'm wondering about that which goes unspoken...

X-)

Here's a hypothetical...

Suspect A rolls over on suspect B. Warrant. Suspect B rolls over on suspects C, D, and E. Warrant....

You wrote:

The big question is what is he scared of.

In a Trump's situation, if that actor is not scared, it could be for one of only two possible reasons. Either he's done nothing wrong, and he trusts the judicial system's capacity/ability to render proper judgment. Or he's done all sorts of stuff, and he trusts the system to render improper judgment. Being under investigation for criminal wrongdoings such as being part of a proven conspiracy to get yourself elected bears a heavy heavy toll on one's emotional state(s), we can all be assured of that.

Few doubt that he has had sketchy dealings with Russia and probably many other countries. But if that's all there is, and all that happens is he pays millions in fines or is even impeached for those dealings, the hordes obsessed with the hope that Russia tampered with the election, and Trump facilitated that, are going to be extremely disappointed.

If that investigation can legitimately lead to financial records that help prove criminal wrongdoing of any variety, then Trump had damned well better believe that he is innocent and that the judicial system will render sound judgment, or that he is guilty and that the judicial system will get it wrong.

Thanatos Sand

You wrote:

The big question is what is he scared of.

In a Trump's situation, if that actor is not scared, it could be for one of only two possible reasons. Either he's done nothing wrong, and he trusts the judicial system's capacity/ability to render proper judgment. Or he's done all sorts of stuff, and he trusts the system to render improper judgment. Being under investigation for criminal wrongdoings such as being part of a proven conspiracy to get yourself elected bears a heavy heavy toll on one's emotional state(s), we can all be assured of that.

That's interesting, but I didn't address the reason why he isn't scared, but what he's scared of.

Few doubt that he has had sketchy dealings with Russia and probably many other countries. But if that's all there is, and all that happens is he pays millions in fines or is even impeached for those dealings, the hordes obsessed with the hope that Russia tampered with the election, and Trump facilitated that, are going to be extremely disappointed.

If that investigation can legitimately lead to financial records that help prove criminal wrongdoing of any variety, then Trump had damned well better believe that he is innocent and that the judicial system will render sound judgment, or that he is guilty and that the judicial system will get it wrong.

Again, this doesn't really address what I said. I appreciate the effort, though.

If you cannot understand the relevance between my last post and the question you asked, then there's not much more I can do to help you.

If you cannot establish that relevance, and you haven't, there's not much more I can do to help you.

Being under investigation for criminal wrongdoings such as being part of a proven conspiracy to get yourself elected bears a heavy heavy toll on one's emotional state(s).

Yeah, that's stating the obvious. And that's completely irrelevant to what I said in my post.

The big question is what is he scared of.

The obvious answer is being under investigation.

Questions that have obvious answers aren't called "big" questions by those who know the answer is obvious.

And now you're quoting fortune cookies. You're adorable.

These (i.e. members of Trump entourage) are not the best Americans. They are nihilists à la Steve Bannon, “idiots” like Page [judged thus by a Russian agent], neophytes like Trump Jr., or opportunists like Manafort. They have acquired, over many months of politicking and quasi-governing, the language of the patriot without understanding what they are saying. Not only that. Their pretend patriotism, their ignorance of American history, its poetries and injustices, its constant existential confrontation with itself, leaves them especially susceptible to the allure of the authoritarian. There is a logic and clarity to the authoritarian, with his shiny toys and Potemkin bullet trains and airport terminals. The authoritarian knows how to put on a good show, and these people love to be dazzled. They are vulnerable to Putin because they admire him while not understanding where he comes from nor who he is. They have no idea whom they are doing combat with. They do not even know that they are engaged in battle, and that the battle is already won.

How Russia Played Trump

Scaramucci used big brush strokes to paint a portrait of his skyscraper-high regard for Trump, even though it was a mere two years ago that he was dismissing Trump on Fox News as a “hack politician” with “crazy rhetoric” that was “anti-American” and “very, very divisive.”

The Daily Beast reported that, hours after he got the White House job, Scaramucci deleted his old tweets praising Hillary, calling her “the real deal.”

On Friday, it was all Trump love.

The Mooch and the Mogul, Maureen Dowd

It is similar to Frankfurt's technical use of "Bullshit" in that truth and falsehood cease to be significant. The post-truth world is the result of the ascendancy of the bullshitter, who is contrasted with the liar in that while the liar knows what is true and what is false, and knowingly speaks falsehoods, the bullshitter does not know or care for truth. — Banno

The media I encounter uses bullshit to make money. Article after article dangles some tempting news before the reader only to fail to deliver in the fine print. Big speculations no news. I've generally turned away from it.

The media I encounter uses bullshit to make money. Article after article dangles some tempting news before the reader only to fail to deliver in the fine print. Big speculations no news. I've generally turned away from it.

Definitely. CNN, MSNBC and pretty much all MSM have become the dealers of stories where there "appears" to be something, or it "seems" to be the case. Instead of reporting the actual facts in their Russia conspiracy theory frenzy, they're--to tantalize readers obsessed with the story and personally invested in a Russia-tampered election, and they're own biases--constructing narratives of possibility and conjecture....not quite the way Woodward and Bernstein did it.

Banno, your reply to me was posted on The Philosophy Forum Facebook page. Congratulations and Thank you for your contribution.

There's something interesting though about media conjecture. While I agree that much of it is based upon unproven premisses, I wouldn't call all of it "bullshit".

Trump supporting outlets have been recently focusing upon the notion of evidence, claiming that there is none to prove that the Trump campaign worked with Russian operatives in order to influence the American election. That claim itself works from a very dubious presupposition. It assumes that the speaker has knowledge of the evidence. They do not.

Then there are those folk who are putting out possible scenarios. Some of whom at least begin by acknowledging that the investigation is working with evidence that the public does not have access to.

I personally am a bit intrigued by a few different knowns. We know that the American intelligence community has had an ongoing investigation into Russian operatives for decades. As a matter of fact, there were several deeply imbedded operatives in the states who were caught and traded for American operatives captured in Russia during the Obama years. Some of those spies worked in academia at the college level. Others did other things. None-the-less, the common denominator between them all was the end goal. To penetrate and infiltrate the American system for the expressed purpose of influencing American political views in ways that were most favorable to Russia. All of that is known.

Then we have one Paul Manafort. We have hard evidence, in the form of written contract, that clearly shows in plain English, that he, himself, entered into a contractual obligation in which he received millions of dollars in order to satisfy the exact same same end goal as the aforementioned Russian operatives. The question here becomes clear. What is it exactly that makes one a Russian operative if it is not working on behalf of the Russian government for some expressed goal determined by that government? Changing the American public/political narrative in ways that are most favorable to Russia and her interests.

Paul Manafort, meanwhile, became instrumental in satisfying the aforementioned Russian intelligence agency's goal, by virtue of changing the language in the republican platform from that which was not most favorable to Russian to that which was. That is precisely what it takes to influence American political belief and public opinion in terms most favorable to Russia and Russian interests. While the change in language was just a blip on the screen, in terms of the amount of attention it received at the time, it did strike many as odd. However, by that time there had been so many outrageous behaviours by Trump himself, that very little aside from Trump's action received much attention. So, the language changed from supporting rebels against the Russian government, to staying out of it altogether. Manafort satisfied his voluntarily entered into obligation by virtue of making the world match his words(by keeping his promise/word). Then - suddenly - Manafort was no longer a part of the campaign, although the republican platform language remained unchanged.

At the same time, there were other things going on, which garnered the media's and thus the public attention. Namely, the dnc servers had been hacked and wiki-leaks released the e-mails. That had an effect upon Sanders' supporters. What the e-mails showed was that the dnc was not acting impartially with regard to the primary candidates at the time. Rather, they were actually planning and working for the purpose of putting Clinton in the White House. That is wrong for many reasons, and it included plenty of different things which are irrelevant to the Russian aspect, aside from making it known to Americans that the dnc was being less than impartial.

The vital importance of the leaks regarding damning information about Clinton and her campaign wouldn't be realized until much later, and it has nothing to do with the substance of the e-mails themselves, but rather, it has everything to do with who knew about them(outside of the dnc) and when they knew about them, and any and all cooperative efforts to release them at a specific time for the expressed objective of supporting Trump's candidacy. Thus, it becomes apparent that establishing a timeline becomes a necessary tool for understanding how all of the different events relate to one another.

Then there is the case of financial wrongdoing in the form of money laundering and fraud that had been long since under investigation prior to the election. The federal prosecutor for that case had collected all of the evidence that he and his team felt was necessary for a conviction, and were prepared to take it to trial, which was days away. It is worth mentioning that this also involved Russian interests in the form of whose money was being laundered and why. At any rate, despite the fact that the trial was about to start, for some reason or other after becoming president, Trump fired the federal prosecutor in charge of it all. Shortly afterwards, those charged settled out of court and the perpetrators went on their merry way.

Interestingly enough, it is also clear as a bell, that a Trump presidency would most likely be much better than a Clinton presidency in terms of presenting Russia and her interests in the most favorable ways to American citizens. This is a required step in order to put governmental policy in place that is most favorable to Russia.

Now, in light of all this, Trump's language regarding Russia throughout the campaign begins to look a bit less random, and quite a bit more like he's keeping his word.

Circumstantial case? Sure. Is there hard enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump and others were taking actions that satisfied the known primary objective of Russian intelligence operations in the US? Sure.

Need we prove intent here?

Lots of stuff correct here, particularly about the DNC rigging the primary against the better candidate and defrauding his voters and donors, but there is no evidence the Russians hacked the DNC and no evidence Trump or his campaign facilitated that.

That claim itself works from a very dubious presupposition. It assumes that the speaker has knowledge of the evidence.

What claim works from a very dubious presupposition? My claim certainly doesn't.

The claim that "there is no evidence the Russians hacked the DNC and no evidence Trump or his campaign facilitated that."

Sorry, that claim doesn't rest on a dubious presupposition and you haven't shown it has. It's been over 9 months since Hillary has made her claim and no evidence has been provided.

That's what no evidence means, not that there's no possible evidence out there somewhere

If by "there is no evidence" you mean that there has been no evidence provided, then I'm fine with that. A prudent prosecutor doesn't show evidence until s/he is actually making the case. With that in mind...

The investigation is broadening.

Thus, it is clear to anyone who knows how evidence is required for warrant and warrant required for expansion that there is most certainly evidence that the public does not know about... yet.

The claim that "there is no evidence the Russians hacked the DNC and no evidence Trump or his campaign facilitated that" means something quite different from "there has been no evidence provided that the Russians hacked the DNC and no evidence provided Trump or his campaign facilitated that".

If by "there is no evidence" you mean that there has been no evidence provided, then I'm fine with that. A prudent prosecutor doesn't show evidence until s/he is actually making the case. With that in mind...

The investigation is broadening.

Sorry, you don't get basic Criminal Procedure. A prudent prosecutor has to show ample evidence to even get her case to trial and is then required to share all evidence with the defense once it starts. Its' been 8 months and they have still provided no evidence, and we now know the FBI didn't even examine the DNC servers. So, it may be "broadening" but its discovered and provided bupkas. So, the country certainly cant be expected to believe Russia hacked the election at this point.

Thus, it is clear to anyone who knows how evidence is required for warrant and warrant required for expansion that there is most certainly evidence that the public does not know about... yet.

That is nonsense. You are saying they have provided no evidence, but the investigation moves on so there must be evidence. They aren't just investigating the hacking of the election, so you have no idea what evidence (if any) they have or where they are going. They still have shown nothing and have shown no ability to provide anything.

Here's something to consider though...

Proving that Russians hacked the dnc server and that Trump's campaign facilitated that is not necessary for proving that one satisfied the expressed objective of Russian intelligence operatives.

The claim that "there is no evidence the Russians hacked the DNC and no evidence Trump or his campaign facilitated that" means something quite different from "there has been no evidence provided that the Russians hacked the DNC and no evidence provided Trump or his campaign facilitated that".

No, it doesn't because that's exactly what people mean when they say "there's no evidence.' They dont' mean "there's no possible evidence anywhere in the world." Don't be ridiculous.

The former, in order to be justified and true, requires knowledge of all evidence in question. The latter requires only knowledge of the evidence s/he has seen. The former presupposes knowledge of all the evidence, whereas the latter does not.

See my statement above as to why your passage here is nonsense too.