Those with gender dysphoria deserve as much respect and dignity as anyone else. My empathy ends the moment I am told to conform my language to another’s demands, that I must concede grammar and truth to people who are knowingly misidentifying themselves. So there is an ethical component to it as well.

Past and future are posited beyond all things, so no, they don't exist.

Trump didn’t torpedo the deal. He withdrew from it citing Iran’s failed compliance. Now Iran continues to violate it right in Europe’s face and Biden is considering going back to it. Laughable.

I guess we could have given them another 20 years and another couple trillion dollars to get our “allies” ready to stand on their own feet, but really, no amount of counterfactuals can justify more intervention there.

He was legally allowed to do it, therefore there is no national security issue

That’s not what I said, though. I said I’m not concerned; and I’m not concerned until I have reason to be concerned; and because he had those powers there is no reason to believe something untoward or nefarious has happened.

At any rate, “national security” is an excuse to abuse power. So many lives and livelihoods have been sacrificed on that alter. You can almost see the foam at the mouth of chickenhawks whenever they invoke it, and you can predict with decent accuracy that someone is about to lose their rights. I don’t like thinking in imposter terms such as that.

It is not simply that the material belongs to the national archives, it is that the material contains classified documents. Having them in his personal possession raises national security issues. The fact that he did not protect them from a whole host of people raises national security issues. Is it that you are not able to see why it is of concern, or are you just pretending not to?

I am not concerned. He was the president of the United States, the commander in chief, and had the unilateral power to do whatever he wanted with those documents, including taking them home. What concerns me is a political DOJ and FBI raiding a former president’s house and stealing these documents, among other personal items.

If someone were to read this without having read what comes before it they might assume you are talking about Trump.

And they’d be wrong.

Spoken like a true Trumpster. The allied interests of the world are our interests. It is not as if we are separate and safe from a nuclear threat that only affects the rest of the world.

They’re your interests, maybe. Trump has done more for peace in the Middle East in one term than decades of your allied interests.

They should be evaluated on the basis of accuracy or other measures. The potential of how others might use them is irrelevant to the philosophies themselves. Not only that, but it is a dangerous grammatical mistake to treat words as subjects and human beings as their objects. Philosophies in particular and words in general do not act upon human beings in the way we pretend they do.

Based on what you have said you have made it clear once again that you did not read the article. What do you hope to gain by providing further evidence of it?

I don’t care about the article or the book of some establishment bureaucrat. I read what you quoted and what you tried to sell from it. The suggestion of yours and the reviewer that Trump’s concerns were partisan is still nonsense. The idea that using the FBI to raid political opponents over national archives disputes is in any way comparable to “pressuring” federal prosecutors to do their job is also nonsense.

So, because Iranian soldiers were busy killing US soldiers while US soldiers were busy killing Iranian soldiers (it's called "war") efforts to salvage a nuclear arms deal made by several world powers should not have taken place? The allied interests of the world, not the unilateral interests of Trump or what he thinks are the interests of the US are at issue.

The efforts of former bureaucrats to undermine the president of the United States and coddle one of America’s adversaries while it was killing American soldiers should not have taken place. I don’t give a straw for the “allied interests of the world”.

You can’t name a single return on investment. Iran gets everything, United States gets nothing. A shoddy deal.

The reviewer quotes Berman. Perhaps I assumed too much, that you would know what an advanced copy is and how quoting sources work.

Yes, I know how quoting works, and I know that he was not in fact quoting Berman in the content you provided. If he did quote Berman, you’d be able to provide the quote. But you can’t. So all this condescending talk about reviews and quoting is hilarious.

The problem is with your characterization of the meetings as rogue.

According to a report in The Washington Times, Zarik also met with Robert Malley, who was President Obama’s Middle East adviser and Obama-era Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. All were top U.S. negotiators of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The fact of the matter is that there were efforts throughout the Trump years to minimize the harm being caused by him. Kerry's allegiance was not to Trump, but to the US. And this failure to demonstrate allegiance to him is why Trump pushed for an investigation.

In 2019, Trump himself, according to the article, sought to open his own back channel of communication with top Iranian officials.

That’s right. Smug bureaucrats from the previous administration were undermining the duly-elected president of the United States policy in Iran, and this during a time when Iran was busy killing US soldiers in Iraq. So the idea Trump was mad for partisan reasons is breathtakingly stupid.

What did the US get out of the deal? Maybe you can name one thing.

That is what I did! If you had read the piece you would know that. But you do not even read some of the things you link to, so there is no reasonable expectation that you would read this one.

No, you quoted the reviewer. But you claimed it was Berman’s claim. So why won’t you show me Berman’s claim?

What did he say and where did he say it? Or don't you actually know because he didn't actually read more than a headline?

When asked about reports of him meeting the Iranian foreign minister he said “ Yes, I have. That’s accurate”. It was on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.

And what did the US get out of the deal?

Who is "she"? The reviewer, Benjamin Weiser, is not making any claims. He is reviewing a book by Geoffrey S. Berman. It is Berman who made the claim. How does this lead to your conclusion that the review is breathtakingly stupid?

Then quote him.

You turn a rumor into a fact. Trump himself tweeted that what Kerry was doing was:

Kerry himself admitted it. The Iranian foreign minister confirmed it. You’re turning a fact into a rumor.

I have read it.

Why was it a good deal?

We got nothing for it. Zero return on investment. Why do you think it is a good accomplishment?

She claims that Kerry’s activities “angered Trump” and his pressure was motivated by “partisan concerns”, and not, say, concerns over national security, shadow diplomacy, treason, undermining allies, and so on.

These are principles you hold to no one else while everyone else literally copies and pastes another's work.

I like having the ability to predict possible consequences and the power to generate reasons to explain my actions. I like choosing certain courses of action. There is no better combination for a good and ethical life. They’re all boon and no burden. Why are they a burden for you? I ask because there has to be a reason for it but it’s not made explicit.

However, to the people who disagree that global warming is a threat, that climate change isn't real, I would like to have a polite and interesting discussion about why you feel the way you do.

It always reminds me of the poem “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost. I’d much rather the climate stave off the ice age and warming is one way to accomplish that. In other words, since climate changes, it’s changing in a suitable direction. I hold with those who favor fire.

What I fear most is the lengths people will go to in order alter what they believe is a terrifying future. Crazy experiments, vast systems of coercion and control, and many lives sacrificed on the alter of safety and planning—all of these are a greater threat, to me.

Wouldn’t it follow that if being just is learned behavior, being unjust is also learned?

It tells of pressure to pursue Mr. Kerry, who had angered Mr. Trump by attempting to preserve the nuclear deal he had negotiated with Iran.

This is a good little reminder, despite the breathtaking stupidity of the review. Kerry had a rogue “back-channel” with Iran during the Trump years. The Iranian Foreign Minister admitted that during their meeting he was surprised when Kerry started talking about Israeli military operations against Iranian assets in Syria. This was happening during when the US was moving to withdraw from the shoddy JCPA. Iran has zero diplomatic relations with the US and are adversaries. Kerry did it anyways, and got away with it. Why wouldn’t Berman look into it?

Not to mention Trump’s medical and tax records and passports. God knows what they found in Melania closet and Barron’s room.

It’s a nothingburger. Zilch. Nada. All this crap about “national security risk” has fallen from the table at which millions of anti-Trump devotees were gorging themselves. Now it’s about a different country’s national security. It could be documents about Chad for all you know. One way or another, you’re following selective leaks from a political DOJ and falling for it.

You also said this, linking to a report alleging the Trump administration was sharing nuclear tech with Saudi Arabia.

Jesus. Imagine they don't find them. What if Trump sold them to Saudi Arabia.

"But I declassified them before I left" would hardly justify it.

Either way, I wasn’t talking about you.

We’re now going to pretend that we haven’t been speaking about US nuclear documents this whole time?

The sands have shifted once again. First it was nuclear documents, now it’s a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses. Rest assured, another nothingburger sending TDS sufferers into a mental spiral.

More so an undying hatred for the establishment uniparty and the State, but tomatoes tomatoes.

When have I ever said anything about nuclear codes?

I re-read your post. You didn’t say anything about nuclear codes, but rather nuclear documents. My mistake.

I remember Clinton losing them.

You do know that nuclear codes change between administration. Might you at least clarify that they our outdated and useless nuclear codes?

All of it, it turns out, was misinformation and propaganda. As a defender of truth and combatant to misinformation, ought you not set the record straight? Or do we just move on to the next one and pretend it never happened, like Russian collusion?

I love me some polarization, to be honest.

You believed and tried to sell the idea Trump was selling nuclear codes to Saudi Arabia, perhaps without knowing they change the nuclear codes from administration to administration. Was this combatting propaganda or spreading misinformation in your eyes?

Well deserved.

Do you still believe Trump was giving away the nuclear codes to Saudi Arabia? Or was that propaganda/misinformation?

You claimed he sympathized with neo-Nazis and accepted the endorsement of the KKK.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/03/politics/donald-trump-disavows-david-duke-kkk/index.html

That much is clear. I don't respond to you to because I think I'll finally get through to you. I know you're a lost cause. I respond to you to for the sake of others, combatting your rhetoric/misinformation/propaganda.

You employ propaganda in order to combat propaganda. Fair enough.

The White House asking the National Archives in May to give access to the FBI to the boxes returned In January is evidence that Biden knew and signed off on the search warrant issued in August? You really are reaching.

Yes it is evidence. And you’re working overtime to cover for them.

Timothy Thibault, the FBI agent alleged to have interfered with an investigation into Hunter Biden, was assigned by the Washington Field Office as “point man” to manage whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, the first son’s former business partner, before the 2020 election — but he suppressed his damning revelations, sources say.

Bobulinski spent over five hours secretly being interviewed by the FBI on Oct. 23, 2020, about his inside knowledge of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business deals with China.

The previous day he had revealed in a press conference that Joe Biden was the “Big Guy” due to get a 10% cut of a lucrative joint venture with Chinese energy firm CEFC, according to an email found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.

Bobulinski gave the FBI the contents of three cellphones containing encrypted messages between Hunter and his business partners, along with emails and financial documents detailing the Biden family’s corrupt influence peddling operation in foreign countries during Joe’s vice presidency.

But his evidence appears to have fallen into the same black hole at the FBI as Hunter’s laptop, never to be seen again.

FBI agent Timothy Thibault hid intel from whistleblower on Hunter and the ‘Big Guy’ Joe Biden

https://ia601509.us.archive.org/9/items/ken-klukowski-public-statement-of-6-25-22/Ken%20Klukowski%20Public%20Statement%20of%206-25-22.pdf

Didn't he?

Quote him.

Yes he is treating his opponents like domestic terrorists. No anti-Trump analysis of Biden’s’ words is going to convince me otherwise.

There is some evidence Biden knew and even signed off on it.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/biden-called-in-fbi-to-look-at-classified-trump-documents/

I’m referring to the Facebook stuff and the whistleblower reports.