Who Meddled more Putin or Trump? The Collusion Thread visits Venezuela

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
Good article about Dems running away from Russiagate and -- in the @South_Mountaineer / @nohero world -- "supporting Trump."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/15/robert-mueller-trump-midterms-897887

"In states like Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, the red-state Democrats are running ads about how closely they work with President Trump,” Gardner said. “So, it’s difficult to talk about an investigation at the same time they’re trying to be his best friend.”

Looks like a lot of Trump supporters in the Democratic Party.  And of course if they support Trump they support Putin because we know that everything Trump does is controlled by Putin.

 Two thoughts:
1.  The quote alone doesn't accurately portray either Cory Gardner position in full, or the overall point of the article.  Most important, "working with" the incumbent isn't the same as "supporting" him.  The more important point in the article was made by two Republican strategists and Larry Sabato from one of my old stomping grounds:

“I think one of the problems Republicans face is that the Democrats quit harming themselves with Russia and actually started talking to voters about things that matter,” said Mike Shields, the former chief of staff at the Republican National Committee. “I would rather they went back to Russia.”
Political operatives say neither Democrats nor Republicans want to talk about the Mueller probe in no small part because it isn’t breaking through with everyday Americans already deluged by an onslaught of Trump stories.

“People are anesthetized to it,” said Rory McShane, a GOP strategist working on 2018 races in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada and Tennessee.

The special counsel’s lack of public commentary also hardly makes for good campaign material, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“Mueller is the great sphinx so far,” Sabato said. “No one really knows what he’s thinking or how far his investigation has come. It’s hard to grab onto fog.”

2.  I remember when the @paulsurovell/@nan position was "The Democrats aren't running on issues, all they're talking about is Russia!"  Now his/her position is "The Democrats aren't running on Russia, all they have are issues!"  They're ready to argue either side, depending on what they think will make the Democrats look bad next to Trump.  Good job, kids!

Don't put words in my mouth.  Where have I said "The Democrats aren't running on Russia, all they have are issues!"   ?????????

paulsurovell said:

jamie said:
FYI the Mueller investigation won't mean anything until it's conclusion.  Hence the void from the election campaign.  Midterm races are mostly local on the whole.  If Trump was on the ticket - it may get a bit more attention.
 

So Rachel Maddow's shows haven't meant anything for all these months? And Ari's, and Chris's, Lawrence's and Joy's?
And all the posts on this thread claiming Trump colluded?

 I think the shows were more about - why have many of Trump's direct connections have plead guilty to charges brought forth by Mueller (Flynn, Gate, Manafort, Pinedo, Papadopoulos, van der Zwaan, Cohen and Patten )  - and what are their plea deals about.  We don't know the answer to these yet.  Do you understand why plea deals are accepted?  

I'm surprised these connections don't concern you at all.  Trump may be too smart to directly collude himself, instead others close-by have taken the fall, time will tell.  Tick tick tick.

paulsurovell said:

South_Mountaineer said:

Democrats who supported bombing Syria or moving the embassy before Trump aren't "supporting Trump",  they're supporting what they supported before Trump.  I can't believe I had to write a sentence like that, but there wasn't a simpler way to explain what is a simple concept.

Now you're digging yourself into a deeper hole. You say that anyone who supports Trump on a policy isn't really supporting Trump if they supported that policy "before Trump."  That means that Sean Hannity doesn't support Trump on immigration, Obamacare, climate change, etc., because Hannity supported those Trump policies long before Trump became a candidate.
Under your "simple concept," Sean Hannity doesn't support Trump.

 No it doesn't work like that.  We don't need to construct any elaborate claim connecting Sean's views to Trump's to try to figure out if he supports Trump.  We can say that Sean Hannity supports Trump because he says so himself.  

Not only that, Sean will happily admit that in saying that "Hillary colluded, not Trump", he is supporting Trump's position.  At least there's SOMEONE being honest about that.

jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

jamie said:
FYI the Mueller investigation won't mean anything until it's conclusion.  Hence the void from the election campaign.  Midterm races are mostly local on the whole.  If Trump was on the ticket - it may get a bit more attention.
 

So Rachel Maddow's shows haven't meant anything for all these months? And Ari's, and Chris's, Lawrence's and Joy's?
And all the posts on this thread claiming Trump colluded?

 I think the shows were more about - why have many of Trump's direct connections have plead guilty to charges brought forth by Mueller (Flynn, Gate, Manafort, Pinedo, Papadopoulos, van der Zwaan, Cohen and Patten )  - and what are their plea deals about.  We don't know the answer to these yet.  Do you understand why plea deals are accepted?  
I'm surprised these connections don't concern you at all.  Trump may be too smart to directly collude himself, instead others close-by have taken the fall, time will tell.  Tick tick tick.

 Rachel Maddow describes the facts with respect to current events.  I think that's why paulsurovell prefers the Hannity version ("Hillary Colluded, not Trump").

nohero said:

  You're going to have to show me an example of the "mantra" I'm supposedly abandoning.  I'm not going to guess which statement I wrote is being incorrectly described by you.

You've argued for many months that my agreement with Trump on the collusion issue constitutes "adopting his position" and thus "helping him."  But when confronted with examples of Democratic officials in agreement with Trump and actually bragging about those agreements you refuse to apply the same standards that you apply to me when I agree with Trump. In the case of Donnelly, you embrace his collaboration with Trump.

And you make the absurd claim that I'm "angry about" Donnelly's video --

nohero said  That's a commercial about a legislator who pushed for legislation, and as part of that he had to make sure to convince the incumbent President to sign it.  It's not his fault that Trump is that incumbent.  You're blaming him for having to work with Trump, when you should be blaming the people who should have helped to defeat Trump but sat on the sidelines.  And now you're all angry about it and lashing out at the Democrats.  Good job!
 

Of course, for months I've taken the position -- that you've opposed (dare I say "angrily?") -- that being in agreement with Trump when Trump is right does not constitute "adopting his position," "helping Trump," or "supporting Trump."

To be clear -- your mission on this thread has been to attack my agreement with Trump on the collusion allegation as being "pro-Trump."

Now you've reversed yourself with regard to Senator Donnelly.

This begs the question -- after embracing Senator Donnelly's collaboration with Trump, do you still believe that my agreement with Trump on Russia collusion constitutes "adopting his position" and being "pro-Trump?"

Or do you continue your hypocritical stance that it's OK for Democratic officials to agree with Trump, but not those who dissent from the Russian collusion narrative?

Exhibit B: Democrat John Tester's full-page ad in Montana newspapers. Is he "helping Trump?"

South_Mountaineer said:

paulsurovell said:

South_Mountaineer said:

Democrats who supported bombing Syria or moving the embassy before Trump aren't "supporting Trump",  they're supporting what they supported before Trump.  I can't believe I had to write a sentence like that, but there wasn't a simpler way to explain what is a simple concept.

Now you're digging yourself into a deeper hole. You say that anyone who supports Trump on a policy isn't really supporting Trump if they supported that policy "before Trump."  That means that Sean Hannity doesn't support Trump on immigration, Obamacare, climate change, etc., because Hannity supported those Trump policies long before Trump became a candidate.
Under your "simple concept," Sean Hannity doesn't support Trump.

 No it doesn't work like that.  We don't need to construct any elaborate claim connecting Sean's views to Trump's to try to figure out if he supports Trump.  We can say that Sean Hannity supports Trump because he says so himself.  
Not only that, Sean will happily admit that in saying that "Hillary colluded, not Trump", he is supporting Trump's position.  At least there's SOMEONE being honest about that.

 So you're running away from your "simple concept."

South_Mountaineer said:

jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

jamie said:
FYI the Mueller investigation won't mean anything until it's conclusion.  Hence the void from the election campaign.  Midterm races are mostly local on the whole.  If Trump was on the ticket - it may get a bit more attention.
 

So Rachel Maddow's shows haven't meant anything for all these months? And Ari's, and Chris's, Lawrence's and Joy's?
And all the posts on this thread claiming Trump colluded?

 I think the shows were more about - why have many of Trump's direct connections have plead guilty to charges brought forth by Mueller (Flynn, Gate, Manafort, Pinedo, Papadopoulos, van der Zwaan, Cohen and Patten )  - and what are their plea deals about.  We don't know the answer to these yet.  Do you understand why plea deals are accepted?  
I'm surprised these connections don't concern you at all.  Trump may be too smart to directly collude himself, instead others close-by have taken the fall, time will tell.  Tick tick tick.

 Rachel Maddow describes the facts with respect to current events.  I think that's why paulsurovell prefers the Hannity version ("Hillary Colluded, not Trump").

 Has Rachel ever described facts that show that Trump colluded with Russia?

paulsurovell said:
Exhibit B: Democrat John Tester's full-page ad in Montana newspapers. Is he "helping Trump?"

 No.  See earlier discussion that as a Senator he needs the incumbent to sign legislation that senator is championing.  Also see earlier discussion about you shifting the attack towards Democrats who have to deal with Trump, instead of to those responsible for Trump.

When Mr. Surovell quoted my post, he deliberately removed the statement of his to which I was responding.  Not good, sir.  Your statement to which I was responding was, "So you have abandoned your mantra that 'agreeing' with Trump means "supporting" Trump?"

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

  You're going to have to show me an example of the "mantra" I'm supposedly abandoning.  I'm not going to guess which statement I wrote is being incorrectly described by you.

You've argued for many months that my agreement with Trump on the collusion issue constitutes "adopting his position" and thus "helping him."  But when confronted with examples of Democratic officials in agreement with Trump and actually bragging about those agreements you refuse to apply the same standards that you apply to me when I agree with Trump. In the case of Donnelly, you embrace his collaboration with Trump.

Trump is engaged in a political battle, to delegitimize any questioning of his behavior and potentially improper actions during the election campaign.  It most certainly does help Trump when Mr. Surovell or anybody else proclaims "Hillary Colluded, Not Trump".  [Edited to add] In responding to me earlier, he actually did write: "Russiagate is a fraud and Dems know that", basically saying that the Democrats are, not just wrong, but dishonest, and Trump isn't being dishonest. (Extra points for pointing out the "low hanging fruit" to rebut, that I left in the prior sentence.)

Mr. Surovell can't argue against what I actually wrote, so in describing what I wrote he omitted my word "help" and replaced it with "support" (which does have a different meaning).  He could be a useful idiot for all I care, his motives don't make any difference to me.  

And anybody watching the Donnelly video can see he was trying to boast that Trump had supported his initiative, not that he was supporting Trump.  There's a difference, of which Mr. Surovell is well aware, which is why he incorrectly describes it.

nan said:

nohero said:
2.  I remember when the @paulsurovell/@nan position was "The Democrats aren't running on issues, all they're talking about is Russia!"  Now his/her position is "The Democrats aren't running on Russia, all they have are issues!"  They're ready to argue either side, depending on what they think will make the Democrats look bad next to Trump.  Good job, kids!

Don't put words in my mouth.  Where have I said "The Democrats aren't running on Russia, all they have are issues!"   ?????????

Apologies.  Your and Paul's posts on collusionpalooza seem interchangeable, and there's an awful lot of mutual "Liking".  Sorry if I assumed that you'd adopt Mr. Surovell's argument of "Hah, hah, the Democrats aren't running on the Russia issue".

No need to apologize.   It's their intention to blur reality so if readers sometimes need better glasses to figure out if something was actually posted by Boris or by Natasha, it's to be expected.

nohero said:
When Mr. Surovell quoted my post, he deliberately removed the statement of his to which I was responding.  Not good, sir.  Your statement to which I was responding was, "So you have abandoned your mantra that 'agreeing' with Trump means "supporting" Trump?"

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

  You're going to have to show me an example of the "mantra" I'm supposedly abandoning.  I'm not going to guess which statement I wrote is being incorrectly described by you.

You've argued for many months that my agreement with Trump on the collusion issue constitutes "adopting his position" and thus "helping him."  But when confronted with examples of Democratic officials in agreement with Trump and actually bragging about those agreements you refuse to apply the same standards that you apply to me when I agree with Trump. In the case of Donnelly, you embrace his collaboration with Trump.

Trump is engaged in a political battle, to delegitimize any questioning of his behavior and potentially improper actions during the election campaign.  It most certainly does help Trump when Mr. Surovell or anybody else proclaims "Hillary Colluded, Not Trump".  Mr. Surovell changed my word "help" to "support", which does have a different meaning.  He could be a useful idiot for all I care, his motives don't make any difference to me.  
And anybody watching the Donnelly video can see he was trying to boast that Trump had supported his initiative, not that he was supporting Trump.  There's a difference, of which Mr. Surovell is well aware, which is why he incorrectly describes it.

 @nohero's intellectual dishonesty as well as his hypocrisy is on full display here.

He denies that Democratic votes with Trump and their highlighting of Trump's praise for the votes are "helping Trump." At the same time he accuses my "agreement" with Trump on Russian collusion as "helping Trump."

@nohero knows that "agreements" with Trump policies by Democratic officials are equivalent in principle to "agreement" with Trump's position that he did not collude with Russia.  In both cases, the "agreements" are based on the merits, not what Trump says or believes.

@nohero has for months inveighed against my independent dissent from the collusion story by saying I've "adopted Trump's position," but now, when confronted with Democratic officials collaborating with Trump and highlighting his praise for them, @nohero condones their agreement with Trump and their grandstanding to their constituents.

Intellectual dishonesty because @nohero knows what he's doing.

Hypocrisy because @nohero refuses to apply the standards he's upheld for months against me to Democratic officials for doing the same thing  (but with a real impact on society).

sbenois said:
No need to apologize.   It's their intention to blur reality so if readers sometimes need better glasses to figure out if something was actually posted by Boris or by Natasha, it's to be expected.

Not even a microscope will find a difference between @nohero and @South_Mountaineer.

nohero said:
When Mr. Surovell quoted my post, he deliberately removed the statement of his to which I was responding.  Not good, sir.  Your statement to which I was responding was, "So you have abandoned your mantra that 'agreeing' with Trump means "supporting" Trump?"

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

  You're going to have to show me an example of the "mantra" I'm supposedly abandoning.  I'm not going to guess which statement I wrote is being incorrectly described by you.

You've argued for many months that my agreement with Trump on the collusion issue constitutes "adopting his position" and thus "helping him."  But when confronted with examples of Democratic officials in agreement with Trump and actually bragging about those agreements you refuse to apply the same standards that you apply to me when I agree with Trump. In the case of Donnelly, you embrace his collaboration with Trump.

Mr. Surovell can't argue against what I actually wrote, so in describing what I wrote he omitted my word "help" and replaced it with "support" (which does have a different meaning).  He could be a useful idiot for all I care, his motives don't make any difference to me.

 The two terms are pretty close, but if you're bothered by "support" I'm happy to use "help."

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

Mr. Surovell can't argue against what I actually wrote, so in describing what I wrote he omitted my word "help" and replaced it with "support" (which does have a different meaning).  He could be a useful idiot for all I care, his motives don't make any difference to me.

 The two terms are pretty close, but if you're bothered by "support" I'm happy to use "help."

 Fine, but then it doesn't match you're carefully constructed nonsensical argument about Democrats.

paulsurovell said:

sbenois said:
No need to apologize.   It's their intention to blur reality so if readers sometimes need better glasses to figure out if something was actually posted by Boris or by Natasha, it's to be expected.

Not even a microscope will find a difference between @nohero and @South_Mountaineer.

 I'm sure lots of people who disagree with you on these issues could post the same arguments I do, but have (probably wisely) given up doing so on MOL.

Apologies to readers using their phones, but the whole quote is necessary because Mr. Surovell just ignores what I wrote, in his purported "response".  Not going to keep repeating the same thing just because you want to disregard what I actually wrote.

Please don't call names like that.  The lower level of discourse is probably why people have given up on MOL politics, if not the entire site (see my prior post).

Hint:  Just because people get fed up with your nonsense, doesn't mean they agree with you.

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:
When Mr. Surovell quoted my post, he deliberately removed the statement of his to which I was responding.  Not good, sir.  Your statement to which I was responding was, "So you have abandoned your mantra that 'agreeing' with Trump means "supporting" Trump?"

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

  You're going to have to show me an example of the "mantra" I'm supposedly abandoning.  I'm not going to guess which statement I wrote is being incorrectly described by you.

You've argued for many months that my agreement with Trump on the collusion issue constitutes "adopting his position" and thus "helping him."  But when confronted with examples of Democratic officials in agreement with Trump and actually bragging about those agreements you refuse to apply the same standards that you apply to me when I agree with Trump. In the case of Donnelly, you embrace his collaboration with Trump.

Trump is engaged in a political battle, to delegitimize any questioning of his behavior and potentially improper actions during the election campaign.  It most certainly does help Trump when Mr. Surovell or anybody else proclaims "Hillary Colluded, Not Trump".  Mr. Surovell changed my word "help" to "support", which does have a different meaning.  He could be a useful idiot for all I care, his motives don't make any difference to me.  
And anybody watching the Donnelly video can see he was trying to boast that Trump had supported his initiative, not that he was supporting Trump.  There's a difference, of which Mr. Surovell is well aware, which is why he incorrectly describes it.

 @nohero's intellectual dishonesty as well as his hypocrisy is on full display here.
He denies that Democratic votes with Trump and their highlighting of Trump's praise for the votes are "helping Trump." At the same time he accuses my "agreement" with Trump on Russian collusion as "helping Trump."
@nohero knows that "agreements" with Trump policies by Democratic officials are equivalent in principle to "agreement" with Trump's position that he did not collude with Russia.  In both cases, the "agreements" are based on the merits, not what Trump says or believes.
@nohero has for months inveighed against my independent dissent from the collusion story by saying I've "adopted Trump's position," but now, when confronted with Democratic officials collaborating with Trump and highlighting his praise for them, @nohero condones their agreement with Trump and their grandstanding to their constituents.

Intellectual dishonesty because @nohero knows what he's doing.
Hypocrisy because @nohero refuses to apply the standards he's upheld for months against me to Democratic officials for doing the same thing  (but with a real impact on society).

paulsurovell said:

 Has Rachel ever described facts that show that Trump colluded with Russia?

I'm not sure if you're aware but there's a special counsel that will have an answer to this.

People like you and Trump aim to stop it though.  At least you constantly de-legitimize it.

What we have currently is a LOT of GUILTY pleas from the Trump team.  Investigative journalism often tries to tie connections and associations together to try and piece the puzzle together, I believe you have done this on occasion, as has anyone who does not have access to classified information that our Intelligence Agencies have.

jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

 Has Rachel ever described facts that show that Trump colluded with Russia?

I'm not sure if you're aware but there's a special counsel that will have an answer to this.
People like you and Trump aim to stop it though.  At least you constantly de-legitimize it.
What we have currently is a LOT of GUILTY pleas from the Trump team.  Investigative journalism often tries to tie connections and associations together to try and piece the puzzle together, I believe you have done this on occasion, as has anyone who does not have access to classified information that our Intelligence Agencies have.

 Not a single guilty plea about collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Not a single investigative report citing evidence of collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

As noted before, thousands of US companies are doing business in Russia, wth Russian oligarchs.

An "investigate journalist" could write a scare story about how McDonald's has been infiltrated by Russians who are a fifth column to take over America. Well I guess that's already happened. Maybe a story about solidifying Putin's control over America.

paulsurovell said:

Not even a microscope will find a difference between @nohero and @South_Mountaineer.

I’m not a microscope. 

I find differences between nohero and South_Mountaineer.

Q.E.D.

Paul - please share the classified material on Russia the IC has.  You must have it! TIA

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

Mr. Surovell can't argue against what I actually wrote, so in describing what I wrote he omitted my word "help" and replaced it with "support" (which does have a different meaning).  He could be a useful idiot for all I care, his motives don't make any difference to me.

 The two terms are pretty close, but if you're bothered by "support" I'm happy to use "help."

 Fine, but then it doesn't match you're carefully constructed nonsensical argument about Democrats.

I'll assume that you overlooked the fact that I already substituted "help" for "support" in my argument.

DaveSchmidt said:

paulsurovell said:

Not even a microscope will find a difference between @nohero and @South_Mountaineer.

I’m not a microscope. 
I find differences between nohero and South_Mountaineer.
Q.E.D.

 All of us have differences in our posts from time to time, sometimes they are intentional.

Edited to Add: Do you find similarities between @nohero and @South_Mountaineer beyond their identical views?

jamie said:
Paul - please share the classified material on Russia the IC has.  You must have it! TIA

 Since when is it responsible to trust the IC unconditionally?

paulsurovell said:

jamie said:
Paul - please share the classified material on Russia the IC has.  You must have it! TIA

 Since when is it responsible to trust the IC unconditionally?

 It's just as irresponsible to distrust the IC unconditionally.

paulsurovell said:

Edited to Add: Do you find similarities between @nohero and @South_Mountaineer beyond their identical views?

Not really.*

*Restrictions apply. See terms and conditions (e.g. “I am not a microscope” and “‘Identical’ is your word, not mine”) for details. 

To the other matter at hand: If “help” is the operative verb, then, yes, Democratic votes for actions that the White House backs, campaign ads that treat the incumbent like any other president, and arguments that the Mueller investigation is illegitimate and even dangerous all help Trump. I’d venture to say, though, that they don’t serve his purposes equally.

paulsurovell said:

South_Mountaineer said:

paulsurovell said:

South_Mountaineer said:

Democrats who supported bombing Syria or moving the embassy before Trump aren't "supporting Trump",  they're supporting what they supported before Trump.  I can't believe I had to write a sentence like that, but there wasn't a simpler way to explain what is a simple concept.

Now you're digging yourself into a deeper hole. You say that anyone who supports Trump on a policy isn't really supporting Trump if they supported that policy "before Trump."  That means that Sean Hannity doesn't support Trump on immigration, Obamacare, climate change, etc., because Hannity supported those Trump policies long before Trump became a candidate.
Under your "simple concept," Sean Hannity doesn't support Trump.

 No it doesn't work like that.  We don't need to construct any elaborate claim connecting Sean's views to Trump's to try to figure out if he supports Trump.  We can say that Sean Hannity supports Trump because he says so himself.  
Not only that, Sean will happily admit that in saying that "Hillary colluded, not Trump", he is supporting Trump's position.  At least there's SOMEONE being honest about that.

 So you're running away from your "simple concept."

 No. See what I already wrote. You and Trump can be in favor of something without you being a Trump supporter. Sean is a proud Trump supporter.