In a way, yes. Which actually tells precisely just how we ought to take everything coming out of Trump's mouth.

Or his tweets.

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.

No, but it's reasonable to conduct surveillance on suspicious individuals irrespective of whether or not they are working on a campaign. Campaigns should vet their staff, and establish rules that require disclosing all past and current contacts with foreign nationals.

What if it’s based on fake info sourced from Russian intelligence and payed for by the opposing political campaign? If the FBI using Russian propaganda, lying, concealing evidence, and manipulating documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign isn’t a problem, then what is?

“Trump said...”.

Sorry, but every time you guys wring your hands about the words coming out Trump’s mouth I know you have nothing.

Steve Scully, the next debate moderator, just outted himself by trying to gossip with Scarramucci on Twitter. The Commission on Presidential Debates claims the former Biden intern and Never Trumper was hacked. This is the guy who was supposed to be an unbiased moderator.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/steve-scully-twitter-hack-claim-debate-commission-scaramucci

What are you basing that on? The only thing I'm aware of is the quote I gave from the Ratcliffe letter, and that obviously doesn't imply she did what Trump did. Seems to me you're just echoing Trump's claim that the investigation (the one he obstructed) was a witch hunt.

IMO, the worst provable thing Trump did was to encourage perjury by dangling pardons and following through on the pardon. That was criminal and prosecutable. What did Clinton do that is comparable? If you're simply going on hunches from sketchy evidence against Clinton, then we can open the floodgates on possible acts by Trump.

Again, I’m not saying Hilary Clinton is guilty of anything.

Don’t listen to Bunkey and just think about it. Do you think the American government should use the intelligence apparatus to spy on opposing political campaigns?

I’m not saying Hilary Clinton was guilty of anything. What I will say, definitively, is that Trump was treated unfairly. It appears the Clinton campaign is guilty of the exact same thing they accused Trump of for numerous years, and the reticence on the subject is suspect, but expected.

I think Trump is right to criticize the lack of justice on the matter. I do not think it amounts to “calling on Barr to indict Biden”, or however they try to spin it. We’re talking about the American government spying on an opponent’s political campaign, a democratically-elected president, and weaponizing the state apparatus to hinder the presidency. All this “Trump said...” sniffing is to me the death throes of a dying orthodoxy.

I’m not sure whether it was the Clinton campaign’s intention to approach Russian spies for dirt on Donald trump in order to influence the election, but nonetheless that’s what occurred. The point of Ratcliffe’s letter is that Russia knew of the campaign’s effort and might have used the opportunity to insert disinfo. I’m not saying they committed any crime, but that the country was nearly paralyzed by their efforts and the media’s complicity in it.

Steele sourced much of his info from Russian intelligence. This intelligence found its way to the highest echelons of the FBI. The FBI was warned of the disinfo threat but ignored it. The FBI ignored Steele’s ties to Russian oligarchs. According to a declassified footnote in the Horowitz report:

In addition to the information in Steele's Delta file documenting Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarch, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received [redacted] indicating the potential for Russia disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting.

I don’t care how much you hate Trump, but if you want to condemn his campaign for wanting wikileaks to release emails, you should show equal concern for the propaganda efforts of the Clinton campaign, who actually did share false, Russian-sourced info in order to find political dirt on their opponent.

I suppose that answers the question, then, as I'm not the one to tell you what you should believe or not believe. I'm just simply stating there are other viewpoints to look at when considering the possibilities of the afterlife.

They are welcome to their viewpoints. I just wanted to state that I don’t think there is any merit to their beliefs.

Once again, assuming dualism is true, what makes you believe you can see one's spirit or mind in the afterlife? Unless there is some sort of physical connection between the spirit and one's body you could never know what happens. You can't see my spirit/mind just as I can't see yours.

I don’t think one can see another’s spirit or mind because I do not think either exist.

A woman.

If physicalism is true, then yes we have proof of what happens in the afterlife. Nothing. If dualism is true, however, you've only shown what happens to the body and not the spirit or the mind.

Seems like a debate I don't want to get into.

It would be a tough debate for the dualist, certainly. We can literally watch what happens to us after death, and can refer to the entire history of humanity to confirm it. I imagine one would have to invent a variety of invisible entities in order to convince himself.

So the Democrats have learned how to play the game like the Republicans did with Bill Clinton?

What's new?

Divide et impera, I say.

It works, you know.

(even if you, me, and other annoying people here aren't voting American citizens.)

It may work and it may have been done before, but that doesn’t mean it is right.

I’ve already voted, friend.

No one truly knows what is going to happen in the afterlife, assuming there is one, but if we don't know what's going to happen, then why not imagine the best possible scenario?

We do know what happens, actually, and we have the cadaver farms to prove it.

Complain away. The DNC had a lawsuit based on your premise, but it was roundly panned and subsequently dismissed.

Meanwhile the Clinton campaign sourced actual disinformation from actual Russian spies and used it to influence the election and any subsequent investigation, thereby putting a democratic election in doubt for years to come. They eschewed the peaceful transfer of power, unmasking members of the Trump campaign well into January. Susan Rice and her strange email to herself on Inauguration Day about a meeting with Obama on Jan. 5th regarding unmasking suggests to me a covering of tracks. But we’ve gone over this numerous times already.

He didn’t say he won’t accept the result if he loses. As the whitehouse stated, he will accept the results of a free and fair election, unlike the democrats, who have done nothing but disrupt the president. Today Pelosi was talking about evoking the 25th amendment.

Right-wing hyperbole:

Hillary Clinton: Trump is an illegitimate president
Majority of young Americans view Trump as illegitimate
Former President Jimmy Carter says Donald Trump is an illegitimate president

The Democrats have been nearly unanimous in stating that the last elections was illegitimate—something something Putin, something something Russia. They didn’t accept the last election and I doubt they will accept this one.

I think in order for Trump to win, he cannot win by just a narrow margin, but decisively, or else they are going to contest the election, demand recounts etc.

In other words expect a shit-show worse than 2000.

Peak Trump today. So good. I just think it’s a little too early in his treatment to making these calls.

You’ve already lied by saying I assured everyone the video was true. But here we are with your blind trust in the man’s claims. The issue is under investigation by Minnesota police, so we’ll just have to wait.

Aah yes, the polls. I’m under no delusion that Trump might lose, but relying on polls is a fool’s errand these days.

Right, the guy who claimed he was bribed. I’ll reserve judgement until he offers some evidence.

You mean the guy claiming he was set up?

You're saying that the benefit (you and other committed supporters liked it) outweighs the negatives (exposure of the SS agents to the virus and the loss of votes of those who feel this cements their view regarding his poor response to Covid). That sounds narcissistic...and/or crazy because I'd think you would want him reelected.

No, I just don’t think your fears (derived from the anti-Trump propaganda) are anything beyond the typical hysteria. I think it was cool he greeted supporters. It is a situation unworthy of a cost/benefit analysis. It has nothing to do with my mental health, which is just fine.

That sounds like an interpretation that would appeal exclusively to Trump supporters. Surely you're aware that he's perceived negatively on his COVID response (irrespective of reality - just look at the polls). This stunt doesn't seem likely to improve that perception. That was the point of my question. This doesn't seem that it can help his chances, only hurt (neutral at best).

I imagine you also believe Trump won the debate. If so, wake up to the fact that he probably gained no votes from his performance. Your positive views of the man does not translate to any more votes than the one you cast.

I believe Biden won the debate and even said so.

As for his little ride and wave, I just do not possess the same anxiety towards his actions, and I actually liked what he did. The response sounds like grasping at straws to me. I could care less if they translate to votes.

OK, give it to me. Play the role of Kayleigh Mcenany (before she tested positive) and explain what's good about Trump being driven around by a Secret Service man (risking his exposure) and waving at supporters. Also let me know if you think this positive spin will gain him votes.

It let’s the people know he’s ok. The man is running the country, after all, and he’s in the at-risk category. It also has the added bonus of revealing to everyone how ridiculously his opponents will twist anything he does. A wave from a car can send them into fits. Now they pretend to be worried for law enforcement after months of dismissing wholesale violence against police. It’s a thing of beauty.

Now the press secretary has tested positive for COVID.

"I don't want to suffer, so you should just keep suffering."

No one has ever made this argument, as far as I’m aware. Conservatives are skeptical of human reason and believe a moderate reform is far better for everyone than radical revolutionary change. They believe that we ought not to sacrifice present society on the whims of a few revolutionaries. It actually sounds like they have more empathy than the revolutionary types.

How can this stunt possibly be given a pro-Trump spin?

As easily as you’ve given it an anti-Trump spin, except without having to use another’s opinion to form ones own.

Commies not welcome. Ruin your own country.

SUBJECT: Inadmissibility Based on Membership in a Totalitarian Party

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is issuing policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to address inadmissibility based on membership in or affiliation with the Communist or any other totalitarian party.

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20201002-PartyMembership.pdf

I was comparing his haters to a poisonous snake, in this case those who signal their virtue by wishing death on the president.

Expressing sympathy for Trump and denouncing those who don't is just vacuous moral signaling; an attempt to display moral high ground when it in fact signals the opposite.

This is true. We’ve known for quite some time the evil in some people’s hearts. It’s like getting mad at a snake for being poisonous. The embarrassing part, I suppose, is that their evil exceeds that of the one they hate.

He’ll get more done in quarantine than Biden has done in 47 years.

Trump goes all over America doing massive rallies and nothing. Spends a little time with a Democrat and he’s infected with covid.

They’re idiots, as far as white supremacists go. They don’t even realize that their leader is a black Cuban.

I remember Tom Perez, chair of the DNC, suggesting that Republicans are “going to keep forcing millions of Americans to choose between their safety and their vote.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/493224-republicans-put-lives-in-danger-to-try-to-steal-an-election-now-they-want-to

But there is always more:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/the-democrats-vote-by-mail-conundrum/616535/

What's the problem? It's common practice to dig up dirt on political opponents and to utilize whatever dirt is available (consider Trump's use of Wikileaks, not to mention Stone's coordination with Assange). It WOULD be a problem if the formal Russian investigation by the FBI and Mueller were a product of a political witch-hunt, but the IG has already assessed that and indicated it was not.

Crossfire Hurricane was set up to investigate whether individuals associated with President Trump's campaign was coordinating with the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The problem is that they investigated the wrong campaign.

One can still express a brutal truth with kindness and respect. Managing a series of lies is a great deal more difficult and stressful than telling the truth. And if the lying is discovered, no matter how courteous, they indict your character.

Nothing else developed an allergy to peanuts. Nothing else developed a fear of spiders. So what, then, is responsible?

I understand the need to define parts of the body for the sake of understanding. But no matter what part of the body we can point to we are still pointing to the body. Though I am able to fathom why a being who cannot see the back of his own head may come to believe he is not the whole, and may identify with some part or other, further examination proves otherwise.

Personally, I'm voting in person on election day to ensure my vote is tabulated on that day.

That’s a good idea. I fear that the whole “it’s dangerous to vote in person” idea is a form of voter suppression, and it’s good to see someone unswayed by it.

Great. So if Trump would win the Democrats could argue that the Republicans manipulated the mail-in votes. The same kind of switcheroo that Republicans had with the FBI and Comey as we have seen. Or whatever :shade:

I’m not sure how they could do that when the place and manner of federal elections is regulated by each state.

Lmao. And our resident Trumptard is still pushing the same line too.

Yet your DNC fellow-travellers are beginning to see the error in their ways.

But you have yet to get the memo. Only about one-hundredth of 1 percent of in-person votes are rejected, whereas rejection rates of 1 percent are common with mail-in votes. If your ballot is rejected your vote doesn’t count.

And rejected ballots are on the rise. There go all your votes to the trash bin. Brilliant.

With the coronavirus creating a surge in mail-in balloting and postal delays reported across the country, the number of rejected ballots in November is projected to be significantly higher than previous elections.

If ballots are rejected at the same rate as during this year’s primaries, up to three times as many voters in November could be disenfranchised in key battleground states when compared to the last presidential election, according to an Associated Press analysis of rejected ballots. It could be even more pronounced in some urban areas where Democratic votes are concentrated and ballot rejection rates trended higher during this year’s primaries.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-top-news-oh-state-wire-az-state-wire-mi-state-wire-881c098ab2847dea9d87604bab9568d6

I enjoyed your argument and reading it, but I look at it a little differently.

I would argue that the conditioning and predispositions are formed by the will. We don’t just have likes and dislikes as if they dropped in our laps. They are causa sui. What I mean is, when information enters a person’s biology it becomes a part of his domain, or at any rate, of him. Insofar as a person is his biology, he literally controls what the information does from the moment it contacts his senses. Ironically, he couldn’t do otherwise.

It would be a mistake to call this control a conscious choice, but nonetheless, the self manipulates the outcome—not as a little homunculus making decisions and pulling levers, but as nothing more or less than the entire, physical organism controlling every process within its being. Even the seemingly automatic and “subconscious” processes such as the heartbeat can be found to be determined in a similar manner. They are willed, and freely, by one thing in the universe and nothing besides.

Obviously I’m equating will, body, person and self, but only because I believe they are one and the same. I think the sooner we come to admit this the better.