Summations Only

There may be some legal definition you have in mind, but before writing that I looked up "hearsay" in the dictionary, which said it's:

quote:

---

information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate

---

Another dictionary said it's:

quote:

---

unverified, unofficial information gained or acquired from another and not part of one's direct knowledge

---

Since what the president said has been substantiated and verified, it isn't hearsay by these definitions.I touch on this verification issue in my next message where I review a Washington Post article detailing the meeting.--Percy

Sorry to reply to your message yet a third time, but this morning brought a Washington Post article titled Inside the tense, profane White House meeting on immigration. Let me take you through it.Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Graham (R-SC) arrived at the oval office last Thursday expecting to meet with Trump to discuss their bipartisan immigration agreement, but that's not what happened:

quote:

---

But when they arrived at the Oval Office, the two senators were surprised to find that Trump was far from ready to finalize the agreement. He was fired up and surrounded by hard-line conservatives such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who seemed confident that the president was now aligned with them, according to one person with knowledge of the meeting.

---

The congressional "hard-line conservatives" surrounding Trump were Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), David Perdue (R-GA), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

quote:

---

Trump told the group he wasn’t interested in the terms of the bipartisan deal that Durbin and Graham had been putting together. And as he shrugged off suggestions from Durbin and others, the president called nations from Africa shithole countries, denigrated Haiti and grew angry. The meeting was short, tense and often dominated by loud cross-talk and swearing, according to Republicans and Democrats familiar with the meeting.

---

Trump's racist character showed itself again when the topic of the Black Caucus came up:

quote:

---

Attendees who were alarmed by the racial undertones of Trump’s remarks were further disturbed when the topic of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) came up, these people said.

​

At one point, Durbin told the president that members of that caucus an influential House group would be more likely to agree to a deal if certain countries were included in the proposed protections, according to people familiar with the meeting.

​

Trump was curt and dismissive, saying he was not making immigration policy to cater to the CBC and did not particularly care about that bloc’s demands, according to people briefed on the meeting. You’ve got to be joking, one adviser said, describing Trump’s reaction.

---

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is clearly on board with Trump's agenda and language:

quote:

---

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly was in the room and was largely stone-faced, not giving any visible reaction when Trump said shithole countries or when he said Haitians should not be part of any deal, White House advisers said.

---

About Trump's language:

quote:

---

Trump was not particularly upset by the coverage of the meeting and his vulgarity after it was first reported by The Washington Post, calling friends and asking how they expected it to play with his political supporters, aides said.

​

Everyone was saying it would help with the base, which would agree with his characterization, one person who spoke with the president said.

---

This is disturbing because Trump seems to want to let what his base rule what legislation he signs, rather than working towards compromises acceptable to all sides.The White House understood there was a brewing controversy but wasn't too concerned because the President didn't seem too concerned:

quote:

---

By Thursday evening, many White House aides were concerned that the story was exploding beyond the usual level for a Trump controversy, but they carried on with their plans for the night: a send-off for deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, a former Goldman Sachs executive and ally of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Nearly every top official ducked into the exclusive Italian restaurant Cafe Milano in Georgetown to toast Powell. There was little effort to significantly push back on the story that night because aides knew that Trump had said it and that the president wasn’t even too upset, according to people involved in the talks.

---

Trump later denies he used the language but doesn't deny expressing the sentiments, thereby revealing his willingness to lie about even the littlest things:

quote:

---

Then Friday morning, Trump appeared to suggest in a tweet that he had not used the objectionable word at all: The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.

---

This little excerpt reveals Perdue and Cotton to be just what we thought they were, deceptive little liars for Trump:

quote:

---

Three White House officials said Perdue and Cotton told the White House that they heard shithouse rather than shithole, allowing them to deny the president’s comments on television over the weekend. The two men initially said publicly that they could not recall what the president said.

​

Representatives for both men declined to comment.

---

Oh, gee, I wonder why they declined to comment. I wonder if it could be because Cotton just blatantly and baldfacedly lied on national television on Face the Nation when he denied that Trump said the word (even if he did truly believe the president said "shithouse" instead of "shithole", claiming deniability on that basis is simply deceitful, deceptive and unprincipled), he even denied that Trump has expressed the sentiment that people from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa were not welcome. Perdue merely denied that Trump used the language, but that still makes him a liar.We have a profane, erratic, racist, xenophobic liar for a president surrounded by sycophants. Sad.--Percy

I was just curious if he actually said shithole or not. So where's the proof he said shithole? I dunno, I saw a headline that said South Africa is protesting because he said shithole.I'm uninterested in the sentiment because I already know that. I don't know if he actually said shithole or not. There you go again! Good day, sir.

Percy, if you are going to tell somebody that they are wrong, then you don't get to cherry pick a definition that you believe makes them wrong. We've discussed dictionaries meanings before. Often you have to be smarter than a bag of hammers to apply a definition. Let's be real here. What you are considering corroboration are just more statements from people.It is the case that hearsay is often considered unreliable, but that is not the essence of what hearsay is. Hearsay is literally a person repeating something that he heard. The unreliability comes from the fact that anyone can say anything.The legal definition is a statement made out of court offered for the purpose of proof of the matter asserted. So yes by the legal definition, such statements are hearsay.However, let's apply the dictionary definition properly.If someone says that Trump said something, then it is hearsay. Ten instances of people saying that Trump said something are 10 instances of hearsay. You still have no way to check the reliability of any one of the statements other than by relying on more hearsay. Apparently, there are no recordings, only testimonies from people who were there, and reports from folks who those folks talked to. (Actually, there is probably slightly more evidence than that but arguably those reports are hearsay too).But when some of those people don't have a motive for lying, we might believe the statements despite them being hearsay. But so far hearsay is the evidence we have. The error here, if any, is thinking that labeling something hearsay, or circumstantial, or saying there is no direct evidence, are equivalent to saying that the evidence is unreliable. Some hearsay is reliable. That's why legally, there are exceptions to the general rule that hearsay evidence is not allowed.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

NoNukes I think you are going even further into dubious technicalities than NCE.If someone heard Trump say something then they are a witness to Trump saying that thing and classifying it as hearsay really implies that they aren’tYou could argue - and I presume this is what NCE is arguing - that the fact that we get our information from the news media rather than direct from the witnesses themselves makes it hearsay. But it seems he was prepared to rely on such hearsay in arguing that Trump didn’t say it. And really when we have on-the-record statements from the witnesses - who are public figures well able to correct misrepresentations - it seems very nit picky to call it hearsay at all.

I understand that implication. Some witness testimony, even some allowed witness testimony is hearsay that falls under an exception. If Durbin were in court would almost certainly be allowed to testify as to what he heard, and to the reactions of other folks in the room to what he heard. None of that means that the statements are not hearsay. Some hearsay is allowed even in court. Actually, NCE was quite careful about what he said. He primarily characterized the evidence, and expressed questions about what Percy and I were saying. Unless I missed them, he did not make affirmative statements of a contrary opinion. He questioned Percy's posts and labeled them hearsay. I'd make a different argument. When we have on the records statements like these, then something other than branding them hearsay is required to establish that the story is unreliable.But maybe that is nitpicking. I'll admit that I am not above that. But unlike what NCE is doing, I am not using that nitpicking to deflect or lie. We have what seems to be great information about what Trump said.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

NCE was not so careful as you think.He stated: Which is every bit as much hearsay (and less than honest since we have testimony that he did say that from a person at the meeting

I disagree. I think any of us in discussing what happened have to acknowledge that there were folks who were in the room who don't back up Durbin and Graham. That is the honest thing to do. I certainly mentioned it in my statements. What NCE did not do is to say that he was going with the folks that denied that Trump "said that".

quote:

---

Now, the people in the meeting are saying that he didn't say that.

I disagree. I think any of us in discussing what happened have to acknowledge that there were folks who were in the room who don't back up Durbin and Graham. That is the honest thing to do.

---

You did notice that you quoted NCE and not anything I said ? You do realise that I was making the point that NCE was not admitting that anyone who was in the room did say that Trump said that ?And you don’t address the primary point. That NCE was happy to use reports that he would have to count as hearsay if he was being consistent.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Well, he is sorta speaking. He knows what was said, but won't confirm that Senator Durbin was accurate or incorrect.The Note: Shutdown is the new 's-word' as blame game begins - ABC News

quote:

---

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, was in the room Thursday when Trump reportedly described some African nations as "s---hole countries", WPLG reports.

​

This is a president that said things differently than clearly I would say them," Diaz-Balart told Local 10's Glenna Milberg Monday. "I will not comment on what may or may not have been said. The bottom line is I will not be in a position to solve this problem.

---

You know what? You know Trump thinks that people from countries experiencing some form of hardship are unwelcome here? Why does the vocabulary matter? You're quote mining. I didn't ask if it is really your sole interest to defend Trump. What I said was, "Is it really your sole interest to defend Trump against the claim that he uses salty language?"That being said, aren't you a Trump supporter interested in defending him against spurious and outlandish charges?--Percy

What!? No. WTF?This is fucking ridiculous, I'm just gonna stop talking.The tribalism is too much - either I dive head first into the circlejerk or I have to be treated as being diametrically opposed to it - that is so stupid it hurts.Goodbye understanding through discussion.

Oh, well, pardon me, how could I have ever concluded you're a Trump supporter after you agreed with so many of his positions on things like guns and healthcare, and after you agreed with his racist comments about Charlottesville and all the "very fine people" marching for Nazis? Yes, maybe that would be a good idea. Goodbye.--Percy

Worth noting there as well is that the don't pluralise it either - it's Nederland, not Nederlanden. The official name of the country is, however, Koninrijk der Nederlanden. Legally, the distinction between Nederland and Nederlanden dates to the constitutional amendment of 1922, which defined the Kingdom of the Netherlands as consisting of four realms united in one kingdom (Netherland, the Dutch East Indies, Suriname and Curacao). The same concept exists today; except now the four realms are Netherland, Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten. Nederland is the European part of the Nederlanden as opposed to it's overseas constituents,I don't know if people used singular Nederland in common speech before that, though,

That was my intention. I think I did address it.If his point was that Trump did not say something as opposed to his point being that we were relying on hearsay, then I would agree with you. Instead, NCE pointed out that there was a lot of crap flying around. Cat's Eye has yet to say that Trump did not say "shithole". His strongest post in that direction was to ask pointedly if Trump did say it.