Just when it's the democrat politicians lying, it's an outrage and shows their twisted ways...

Hah. To be fair lying in congressional hearings and senate trials is a big deal.

Always a convenient end-stop slogan for the infatuated.

What? No article to tell you how to respond?

The debate will continue after you've addressed the research from the Brookings Institute, referenced above.

What’s to debate? Correlation does not imply causation.

Trump’s words are so powerful he can manipulate matter. You believe in sorcery, friend.

Trumps words damage lives. That’s not the first stupid thing I’ve heard today, but pretty close.

Still waiting for an answer to this one...

No, not really. Again I don’t look to politicians for truth. In fact I think it would be idiotic and naive to do so. What I want is leadership and results.

You don't seem to know what this word means.

The words people say certainly tell us something about the people who say them. Do you dispute this fact?

I do not dispute that.

Quite a bit. But I've insulted you enough. I'll keep it to myself.

One thing I will mention: It means you value hilarity over veracity. That's just childish.

I’m not insulted at all. I love hearing people try to psychoanalyze others from afar. They insult themselves.

So you find nothing at all objectionable in his habit of making false and misleading statements?

I prefer the little falsities and misleading statements to the Big Lie of public relations politics. I like to know what my leaders are thinking, whether true or false.

Well. That tells us a lot about you as a person.

What does it tell you about me as a person?

Good to know.

So I'll ask you again: What do you have to say about Trump's well-documented history of making false and misleading statements?

Do you trust Trump?

I don’t trust politicians as a matter of principle. As long as what Trump says is interesting and hilarious I’m fine with it. So no I do not trust Trump but I do like what he says.

Then you must be in support of inviting witnesses - Bolton and Mulvaney, for starters - to testify. Do you support the call for witnesses?

I do, yes. I don’t trust the GOP and do not understand why the McConnell does not want witnesses. A long senate trial effectively removes Warren, Klobechar and Sanders from the campaign trail.

They may be right (it's up to the philosophers to decide that), but oh, how sweet this navel-gazing is.

If they only knew. It should be a part of early childhood education.

Navel-gazing, time wasted.

I love when you guys pat each other on the back. Very cute.

No props for Relativist? He’s the only one making coherent arguments. If you need someone to copy and paste articles you can find that on Twitter.

Would you care to place a small wager on whether or not Bolton's book, and or his testimony, will be consistent with this reporting?

Be careful. They say this is based on multiple sources, and Bolton's attorney has essentially acknowledged it.

As I often say when debating Christians: faith is an obstacle to truth.

No wagers from me. What I would question is the editorializing and lack of direct quotes of the manuscript itself. It takes faith to trust in a 3rd-hand account of someone’s book.

The NYT publishes rumor as written by a go-to journalist for the DNC. Consider me shocked.

Right... So that constitutes control and power over the structures doesn't it. That they can vote people into positions of control, based on their intentions to exercise such control, constitutes de facto control.

Let’s say you and I team up to affect democracy and the rule of law. Since we have de facto control over both, how would you and I go about doing that?

What barriers are in the way then? Voting in an election couldn't be easier really. Standing for election is slightly harder but still no more so than the average business career.

Voting is one thing, but to “simply elect someone” is quite another. You can’t “simply elect” your neighbor for instance.

The private citizen elects the state in almost full knowledge of their intentions. How is that not power to affect such structures?

I’m only saying the private citizen has no control or power over the structures. In order to affect those structures they must vote people into those positions. I’m not saying they cannot vote people into those positions.

The word “process” is a noun, but it is series of actions. These actions are reified into a noun. For instance the word “jog” can be used as a noun. “I went for a jog”. But is a jog a thing? I think the grammar leads to confusions and unnecessary reifications.

. This is clearly not true because if private citizens wanted to make such a purchase, they would simply elect someone (or themselves stand for office) such as to make such an opportunity available.

That’s clearly not true because it is not easy for any one private citizen to get someone elected or to get elected himself.

Only the state has the power to usurp ideals like democracy and the rule of law because they are in direct control of, and in power over, the structures of democracy and the rule of law. The private citizen has no such power.

The categorical distinction is beside the point. I'm not denying the it is possible to classify people on the basis of their job, but your categories are not mutually exclusive. The point is that those who are in positions of power are drawn from, and maintained in those position by, private citizens, so saying that power structures are not made by private citizens simply because they cease to be labelled as such when they are thus enabled is tautologous.

I’m mostly speaking about the positions and structures and not necessarily the various people who occupy them. Anyone who occupies those positions are bestowed a power not available to those who don’t.

I think he might mean that “life” and “consciousness” should not be nouns because they aren’t persons, places and things. I don’t think it is beyond reason to suspect the grammar itself could lead to strange theories and conclusions, for instance vitalism.

Are you suggesting private citizens are barred from being public officials?

In English we differentiate between those who hold official power conferred by the state—judges, bureaucrats, police etc.—and those who don’t by using those phrases.

Let them eat cake.

The legislature and enforcement bodies are constituted of private citizens and in most modern cases the rule makers are elected by private citizens in at least partial knowledge of exactly what they intend to do, so I'm not sure (apart from historically) what point you're making.

One becomes a public official when he is in a position of official authority conferred by a state. A private citizen has no such power. I’m saying the wealthy are the latter not the former; and it is the former who are usurping ideals like democracy and the rule of law.

Good explanation. It is a horrible idea. One can be technically wealthy but effectively poor and your farmer example is a good one.

I feel the same way about any inheritance tax. There is actually a homeless guy in my town who recently became very wealthy when his grandmother passed away. The point is not every wealthy person was born in the lap of luxury and privilege.

I don’t like taxation at all but any “tax the wealthy” proposal reeks of envy and animus.

You're thinking too simplistically in terms of buying influence with direct payments. This is only a tiny fraction of the mean by which money can buy influence.

Tax breaks for the wealthy, for example, are rarely just 'bought'. They're part of a package in right-wing governments which also includes populist legislation. Control of what constitutes popular opinion is disproportionately held by the wealthy.

I’m just writing simplistically. My point is that if the State or King never made these advantages available in the first place, others would be unable to acquire them. In this sense it isn’t the private citizen who usurps democracy or the rule of law, it is whomever legislates and enforces it. The result is a two-tiered justice system, rigged elections, unequal application of law and so on.

We tend to blame the those at the upper echelons of the private sphere for having the means to acquire power through purchasing advantage. I think this is the wrong approach because the vast majority of us operate in the same private sphere. The rich, like the poor, are private citizens.

Private citizens, rich and poor, would not purchase power or advantage if there wasn’t first someone selling it. Wherever there are those that legislate and administer the law lies the problem.

Too vague to be considered a rebuttal. Your rebuttal doesn't address the specific facts in my fact check. To continue the discussion, please address the specific facts in my fact check.

Also: Again: What do you have to say about Trump's well-documented history of false and misleading statements? Do you trust Trump?

You don’t even know your own “fact checks”. Sorry, pal, but this isn’t going to work.

If you had read my fact check, above, you would know. Go ahead and give it a read.

I already did, hence my rebuttal. I just want to see if you know your own “fact checks”.

Vague, unsupported opining.

You are unable to even name the persons who said otherwise. Give it a shot.

It's above, in my fact check.

Your fact check is wrong.

So-and-so say it's so. So-and-so say it's not. So it's arguable. But you've made up your mind. Because you're a fanatic and have an emotional weakness for Trump. You're infatuated, in a word.

Who says it’s not? Because they address that as well. Of course you’d have known this had you watched the arguments.

You’re being misled to believe piffle, friend. Go watch the arguments and try coming to your own conclusions.

Rather, psychology 101.

Spin and nonsense 101.

Reference please.

Purpura‘s arguments lay it all out, and includes videos of each of those men saying so. But you would have known that had you watched it.

Again, I won't try to convince you.

Trump is a well-documented liar. You don't seem to care. That's on you. Ukraine had every motivation to lie and no motivation to tell the truth.

History is the tale of politicians telling lies.

So much for facts.

I'm not going to try to convince you. See my fact check, above. Make up your own mind.

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."

Because your claims are unconvincing.

The transcript (which the White House said is not verbatim) shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything. (Misleading, especially in the context of ensuing testimony. Noted in my fact check above.)

Then where in the transcript did he condition security assistance or a meeting on anything? Testimony from the only people who spoke to Trump proves the opposite.

Ukrainians have said there was no quid pro quo.(Maybe true, but they have every motivation to lie about this. For reasons I would assume are obvious: Self-preservation, in a word.)

Presumption and mind-reading. Both the president’s and Ukrainian’s words tell the opposite story.

Ukraine did not know security assistance was paused until a month after the 25 July call. (False. See Fact Check above.)

Testimony from Volker, Morrison, Kent and Taylor say otherwise. All four testified that it was only after an August 29th Politico article (which was forwarded by the Ukrainians with their concerns) that they knew about it. During July there was numerous meetings between Ukrainian and American officials, and during exactly zero of those meetings was the topic of frozen aid brought up. The fact check isn’t a fact check at all. You’re being misled.

No Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden took place.(Because of the whistleblower. Trump and Co. got caught.)

Speculation and conspiracy theorizing.

Trump has been a bigger supporter of Ukraine than his predecessor, Barack Obama.(Irrelevant.)

Except in the context of the House’s claims to the opposite, it is completely relevant.

So much for facts.