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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: A Book about the Anti-Trump Conspiracy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Oh gosh, did it every occur to me? I give up.
Hey the Liberal Nazis win, the Lefty Fascists win. Down we go. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
A lot is being made recently of the tape where Donald Trump and Michael Cohen discuss the Karen McDougal payoff. Is what's being written in the news part of an Anti-Trump conspiracy by the news media bto ring Trump down, as Pirro alleges?
A copy of the recording may be found in How Michael Cohen’s Audio Clip Unraveled Trump’s False Statements from today's New York Times. The recording appears after the article's 3rd paragraph. Let's examine this article paragraph by paragraph to see if it supports Pirro's thesis. It appears in the Times' politics section. It is not an opinion piece. An annotated transcript of the tape can be found at The Trump-Michael Cohen tape transcript, annotated. The article is by Matt Apuzzo and Maggie Haberman. Matt Apuzzo is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist working for the Times. Maggie Haberman is the Times White House correspondent and a political analyst for CNN.
quote: The above paragraph is just a straight recounting of facts. In greater detail, it is saying that on November 4th, 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that then presidential candidate Donald Trump had had an affair with Karen McDougal that AMI (parent company of the National Enquirer) had covered up by performing what is called in the business a "catch and kill," where the rights to a story are purchased with the intent of killing it. The Trump campaign issued a flat denial, spokeswoman Hope Hicks saying the report was "totally untrue." AMI also denied the story, saying in a statement, "AMI has not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump." The Times is reporting facts.
quote: The Times is reporting what Hope Hicks was reported to have said in the Wall Street Journal. It's just more facts.
quote: These are just more facts. It was indeed the Times that broke the story, and Giuliani did indeed describe the recording as "exculpatory." The Times next includes a way to play the recording. The relevant portion begins at about 2:00. The article continues:
quote: This paragraph says that the statements from both Hope Hicks and Rudolf Giuliani were false. Is that true, or is it a conspiratorial lie designed to turn the country against a fine and upstanding president doing his best for God and country? Hope Hicks statement that the Journal report was "totally untrue" would have occurred on November 3rd, 2016, the day before the article appeared in the Journal on November 4th, 2016. The Cohen tape records a discussion between Donald Trump and Michael Cohen that took place in September, 2016. Therefore Trump was discussing payoffs to McDougal at least a month before Hope Hicks declared the reports of the affair and a payoff "totally untrue." What she said was false. Now let's get to Rudolf Giuliani. Was what Giuliani said false? By exculpatory Giuliani of course meant legally exculpatory, meaning that Trump had done nothing illegal. If Trump lied to the press, whether directly or through spokespeople, that would not be illegal, and Giuliani probably wasn't worried about that. It would be a lost cause denying Trump lied anyway, since he so obviously did. But why the claim the tape was exculpatory? Does something on the tape imply that Trump did something illegal? Yes, it possibly does, depending on what is learned when all the facts come out. (Remember, we don't have to rely on the tapes alone - Michael Cohen was there and can testify about the conversation, and previous conversations.) Unreported payoffs could possibly be a violation of campaign financing laws. Giuliani was claiming that the tape is exculpatory about campaign finance law violations. Giuliani provided his own transcript where instead of Trump saying "[unintelligible] pay with cash," he says, "Don't pay with cash." It makes little difference either way. The means of payment has nothing to do with campaign finance laws. Also, paying with cash might be worse, depending upon the means used to hide the money trail, since that might introduce charges of money laundering. So Giuliani's statement that the tape is exculpatory is false. It is not exculpatory.
quote: This is the first sentence in the article that Trump supporters will see as an indication of bias and a statement of opinion, rather than just a recitation of facts. But Trump, his campaign and his administration have now told so many documented lies, then doubled down on them, that is hard to see them as anything more than a strategy to defend against the truth when it isn't favorable. If this paragraph is just opinion, then why all the Trump lies?
quote: This sentence is just straight reporting of the president's own words.
quote: This is just a statement about how politicians in general manage the truth when it is inconvenient, such as the "nondenial denial" and just waiting out the storm.
quote: I disagree with this paragraph's assessment that Trump has "turned that thinking on its head." I think Trump's using the same techniques that politicians have always used, just more brazenly while combined with constantly churning the news cycle so there's never time to dwell on any particular lie. The rest of the paragraph is factual, merely mentioning White House Press Secretary Sander's false denials that Trump had dictated his son's statement about the Trump Tower meeting with Russians.
quote: This paragraph is just a factual recounting of events.
quote: This paragraph merely describes what crimes Cohen might possibly have committed, according to federal prosecutors.
quote: This is just a factual recounting, concluding that it is unknown whether this creates legal problems for Trump.
quote: Just another paragraph of facts.
quote: From the tape it is clear that Trump is already familiar with the topic of McDougal. He even offers up himself the amount of the AMI payoff to McDougal, $150,000, so he must have discussed this before, else how could he know?
quote: Just more factual recounting.
quote: More factual recounting. Cohen is telling Trump that he has already alerted the Trump Organization's CFO that the need for financing for the payments for the McDougal story rights may come soon.
quote: Cohen is probably gently reminding Trump that the money for the payoff has to come from somewhere. The "him" Cohen is referring to is probably the head of AMI, though of course the payment would actually be to AMI. Remember, they're not talking about paying off McDougal. She's already been paid off. They're talking about purchasing the McDougal story rights from AMI.
quote: Just more boring facts.
quote: More facts. I mentioned the Giuliani version of the transcript earlier.
quote: Just describing what Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis said.
quote: Here the article is saying that Giuliani is making up what he says is on the tape out of whole cloth. I've listened to the tape several times and it seems obvious to me that at best Giuliani is hearing what he wishes were on the tape, not what is actually there. Listen yourself and make up your own mind. Again, the recording is after the third paragraph in the article. But whether Trump said check or cash makes little difference. There's no disagreement about what the rest of the tape says. Trump friend AMI paid off McDougal to keep her quiet before the election, Trump lied about knowing anything about it, and he discussed with Cohen buying the payoff from AMI so they had complete control over it.Given that the McDougal affair went on for about 10 months, McDougal might have a great deal of evidential documentation. So there's the whole article analyzed paragraph by paragraph in a search for biased and inaccurate reporting that is part of a conspiracy designed to bring down Trump. No biased or inaccurate reporting was found. --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 423 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Taq writes: In fact, most presidents were smart enough to avoid nepotism. While most US Presidents seem to have avoided direct nepotism a significant number have not. Remember Bobby Kennedy and Sargent Shriver? According to an article in Constitution Daily on the subject: quote:
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Faith writes:
No, nothing ever occurs to you. It's your most noticable characteristic. Oh gosh, did it every occur to me?And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Faith writes: Oh gosh, did it every occur to me? I give up.Hey the Liberal Nazis win, the Lefty Fascists win. Down we go. Yeah, let's see what we win. --Cheaper and better access to healthcare--Lower tariffs on our exports --no families being inhumanely separated at the border --fair tax law --allies who aren't dictators --intelligence agencies who aren't attacked by the executive branch --an EPA that actually cares about the environment instead of spending money on trips --a president who doesn't have to pay off porn stars to cover up affairs --a president who thinks that racists are not very good people Yeah, that sounds awful.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You have NO idea.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Faith writes: You have NO idea. I guess I still don't because you refuse to spell it out. What do you think this leftist agenda is, and how do you think it fits into this supposed conspiracy?
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Faith writes: My position is that there IS a conspiracy to attack Trump against all the rules of journalism and common decency because the majority of journalists are leftist. There's a conspiracy because the majority of journalists are leftist? Most of us are anti-fascists, but that doesn't mean there's a conspiracy. I think your reasoning is out of whack. Given that you don't follow the news, how did you perform this detailed analysis of journalistic practices? What evidence do you have of a conspiracy, and what reporting can you point to that breaks the rules of journalism and common decency? I just posted a detailed analysis of a New York Times article about the Cohen tape in Message 152. Go through it and identify the parts that you think are untrue, break rules, are indecent, or are part of a conspiracy. Here's a graph from Just 7 percent of journalists are Republicans. That’s far fewer than even a decade ago. But the number of Democratic journalists has also shrunk. Turns out that today most journalists are independent, so you're wrong again.
The "criticism" is so far out of bounds... This would be the criticism that you don't read?
...he's criticized incessantly, constantly, in such a way that it is impossibly to ignore how much the press hates ME and all his supporters, but they don't seem to care about that or about anything except imposing their leftist views on the nation. Again, this would be the criticism that you don't read?
I think it was Pew Research... You don't read or listen to the news, but you read Pew Research?
...that showed that Trump is getting at least twice the amount of negative press of any other President ever or something like that, even conservative Presidents. I don't think anyone here would question that. If it's only twice as much as any other recent president I'd be surprised. Given the number of negative things Trump does and that are reported on it seems it should be more.
Insisting that this is merely what Trump deserves is just leftist blindness. You keep saying this while never providing an ounce of evidence.
This idea that we're pushing the idea that Trump "cannot be questioned" is beyond absurd in this political atmosphere. Did you see the article Trump Weighs Stripping Security Clearances From Officials Who Criticized Him? Apparently Trump doesn't like to be criticized and attempts to punish those who do. He's been trying to stop the Mueller investigation, too.
He isn't being "questioned" he's being subjected to slander, fake news, character assassination, taking his words out of context, refusing to give him the slightest benefit of the doubt, spinning everything he says to bring him under the black cloud of Political Correctness. Again, since you don't read the news, how would you know?
It is so obvious to any conservative who has any contact whatever with the news,... But you told us you have very little contact with the news, certainly not enough to back up anything you say nor enough to create informed opinions.
...what's amazing is that nobody on the left can see it at all. What's amazing is that you who don't read the news are so sure you're right. Why not read the news for a few days and report what you find back to us. With links and excerpts, of course. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Faith writes: I can't prove it because anything I point out gets rationalized away as if it's just normal criticism. You haven't even tried to prove anything you say yet.
If you can't SEE that everywhere you turn there is NOTHING BUT attacks on everything from big issues to trivia I'm not going to be able to convince you. What is evident from the news, even from Fox News, is that Trump is disgracing the office of the presidency, and that I can prove.
The work it would take to explain every little thing that's been spun out of context to mean something negative about Trump would take me hours. All I can do is say conservatives see it, why don't you? If you don't read the news, how do you know that Pirro isn't just spinning tales?
You don't seem to understand that FACTS can be spun, that they can be taken out of context, that there have been fake news facts already that have been shown to have been invented. Marc9000 has described this to some extent. Headlines are just about always skewed to give some negative impression that is unnecessary. Over and over some minor personality is reported to have said something negative about Trump as if that person's opinion matters, totally unnecessary and tendentious but probably influential with a lot of people. ANYTHING negative seems to be the journalistic standard these days. You sure seem to know a lot about the news for someone who doesn't read the news. Any examples of any of this?
Sometimes I wish I could devote my life to trying to prove these things but I've got too many other things to devote my life to and I've learned by sad experience that no matter how much work I put into my arguments nobody here accepts any of it anyway. You haven't even pretended to attempt making a case in this thread. If you spent just half the time building a case that you do casting unsupported aspersions and accusations there might be an actual discussion going on here. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You sure seem to know a lot about the news for someone who doesn't read the news. Any examples of any of this? I know enough to have an opinion, not enough to muster the evidence. I don't have the energy for it or the optimism that it would make any difference if I did. In my experience the examples are everywhere every day, there is no avoiding them, so your merely asking me to produce them does not bode well for any effort I might make. You produce "evidence" that you may be convinced of but it's the sort of thing that could be the result of all kinds of distortions and at least contrary interpretations. I'm sure Trump is at fault in many ways but I'm also sure that the reality is far exceeded by the conspiracy to make it out to be far worse than it is. Sorry, no evidence. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Here's an example of the problem: how do I prove that the remarks Trump has made that are called racist aren't in fact racist? I know they are not, yes I know it, but the spin is very convincing to some, I can't counter that kind of propaganda, there is no evidence that could possibly accomplish that. Yet you keep demanding evidence. The charge of racism is Leftist Political Correctness character assassination aimed at destroying the opposition. I know that but convincing you is hardly likely.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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The problem is that there isn’t a good defence for what Trump actually has done. If Trump were simply pandering to racists it would hardly be much better than being racist and there’s enough evidence that he has at least done that.
The real problem is that Trump is a terrible person.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Faith writes: You sure seem to know a lot about the news for someone who doesn't read the news. Any examples of any of this?
I know enough to have an opinion, not enough to muster the evidence. How could you possibly know enough to have an informed opinion? By your own admission you do not watch the news. You say you pick up pieces here and there by occasionally seeing headlines, occasionally hearing news on the radio in the car, and reading the The Trump Presidency thread. Obviously you pick up far too few pieces, because otherwise you'd be supporting your claims. And I just provided a whole article about the Cohen tape in Message 152, accompanied by analysis. It's sitting right there just inches above this message. Give it a read, think on it, make some comments. Attach some facts to your claims.
I don't have the energy for it or the optimism that it would make any difference if I did. You had enough energy to call leftists neo-Nazis and fascists, so you certainly have enough energy to read an artcile and check a few facts.
In my experience the examples are everywhere every day, there is no avoiding them, so your merely asking me to produce them does not bode well for any effort I might make. If your evidence is the stuff of everyday existence then it should be easy to point it out. Over the past few days I've been to Home Depot, 110 Grill, a bus station, a doctor's office, some tennis courts, Logan Airport, Banana Republic, Kohl's, and an assisted living facility. Since the examples are "everywhere every day" then what must I have seen and heard that supports your claims?
You produce "evidence" that you may be convinced of but it's the sort of thing that could be the result of all kinds of distortions and at least contrary interpretations. And since you seem to have no evidence at all, your views are even more likely false. How to settle this? By bringing facts to the table. For example, it is a fact that Trump lied about not knowing about the payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. If you deny it then what are your facts (mine are in Message 152). If you accept it then we have some common ground upon which we can build.
I'm sure Trump is at fault in many ways... Can you name some of the ways Trump is at fault?
...but I'm also sure that the reality is far exceeded by the conspiracy to make it out to be far worse than it is. Given your meager connection to the news and to reality, there is no way you could know that. You're just talking off the top of your head again.
Sorry, no evidence. Isn't this thread about Pirro's book, and aren't you reading it? Doesn't Pirro provide evidence later in the book for the claims she makes in chapter one? Shouldn't you be using this thread to tell us all the evidence Pirro is providing you? I was never a fan of Jimmy Carter's, so a few decades ago when I noticed a book in the library that purported to reveal all Carter's misdeeds I pulled it off the shelf and read the first few pages. It was immediately obvious it was a hatchet job, so I returned it to the shelf. I think you can't recognize a hatchet job when you see one. I do not like the party of Trump (as opposed to the Republican party, which I have no animosity towards though I'm not sure it exists any longer), but I'm not about to waste my time reading hatchet jobs about it, like Michael Wolff's book. I want the truth about the Trump administration, which means corroborated evidence. You should want the same about the left and Democrats, but you seem very determined to remain as ignorant of the facts as possible. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Faith writes: Here's an example of the problem: how do I prove that the remarks Trump has made that are called racist aren't in fact racist? It isn't just Trump's remarks, it's also his actions. I enumerated a number of Trump's racist remarks and actions in Message 137. I agree that proving unambiguously racist remarks and actions to not be racist is an impossible task, since it's not like Trump was ambiguous about it. I've said a lot of things in my adult life, and no one could take any one of them to be racist. I've had rental property, and I would rent to black people. I actually only had one black couple look at an apartment, and I never heard back from them, but had they wanted to take the apartment it would have been theirs. But many Trump apartments were off-limits to blacks in the 1970's. I celebrate the cause of minorities and their right to protest discrimination as they see fit, including before NFL games. Unlike Trump I don't falsely claim they're actually protesting flag and country and urge that they be suspended, fined and fired. I'm against the Ku Klux Klan, and so I wouldn't lie about knowing David Duke (former head of the Klan, and I don't know him), and I wouldn't waffle about whether I support David Duke (I don't). You'd be surprised how similar David Duke's views are to Donald Trump's. For example, who said this:
quote: If you guessed Donald Trump you're wrong. It was David Duke, former head of the Klan. Their views are indistinguishable. Then there's the Trump endorsement of Roy Moore. Let's look at the Roy Moore quote on slavery:
quote: Roy Moore saw America as great despite slavery. The caring he talks about was caring for whites, not blacks. The strong families he describes were white families, not black families. The country's direction was for the benefit of whites, not blacks. Then there's Africa. Trump referred to an entire continent as consisting of shithole countries. And Trump cheered Rosanne Barr for comparing a former Obama aide to an ape. Okay, your turn, explain how those aren't racist comments and actions. The reason explaining them away seems an impossible task to you is because Trump *is* racist, so naturally his talk and behavior reflects that fact about him. It can't be hidden or explained away. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Faith doesn’t care about journalistic standards or the truth. She only cares whether the stories are ones she likes or hates. She goes to the alternative media in part because they have such low standards - so long as they are attacking Muslims or the Left or someone else she hates she loves it.
Of course Faith has to spin it because she doesn’t like that fact, but nevertheless it is a very obvious fact. Faith hates the stories attacking Trump, she likes the idea that there is a conspiracy behind it and there really isn’t much more to it than that. Obviously she can’t sell that to anyone who doesn’t share her extreme and vicious prejudice - and not because we are blind, but because we see all too well.
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