1. #8121
    For those dismissive of Benghazi I'll sum up why there was even an investigation, oh, I mean witch hunt, in the first place. Clinton's first public statement on the attack mentioned a video that may have caused a protest that then turned violent. Barely an hour later she emailed her daughter Chelsea where she made no mention of the video had just described to the American people and instead mentioned an "an al Qaeda-like group." as being responsible for the attack. She's either a serial liar or she told the lie for a reason. I don't think she's a serial lair...

    I guess if a mayor of a city purposefully mislead the public about the cause of a police shooting in their city, and that caused Black Lives Matter to call for an investigation into exactly why such a lie was told you'd all be consistent and decry their motives as merely a witch hunt right?

    But yea, I'm totally excited about voting for Hillary, she's such a great candidate. You can't believe anything she tells you, but that's ok...

  2. #8122
    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    For those dismissive of Benghazi I'll sum up why there was even an investigation, oh, I mean witch hunt, in the first place. Clinton's first public statement on the attack mentioned a video that may have caused a protest that then turned violent. Barely an hour later she emailed her daughter Chelsea where she made no mention of the video had just described to the American people and instead mentioned an "an al Qaeda-like group." as being responsible for the attack. She's either a serial liar or she told the lie for a reason. I don't think she's a serial lair...

    I guess if a mayor of a city purposefully mislead the public about the cause of a police shooting in their city, and that caused Black Lives Matter to call for an investigation into exactly why such a lie was told you'd all be consistent and decry their motives as merely a witch hunt right?

    But yea, I'm totally excited about voting for Hillary, she's such a great candidate. You can't believe anything she tells you, but that's ok...
    There were 7 congressional investigations into Benghazi. If you want to claim there was cause for an investigation you haven't even defended half of what happened.

  3. #8123
    Quote Originally Posted by Lenonis View Post
    Wait...there are people who still think Benghazi is a legit issue even though multiple GOP leaders has admitted it was pure politics?

    How twisted up in your rhetoric do you have to be to disbelieve your own party leaders for your own narrative you made up in your head?
    Give me the names of GOP leaders who said it was pure politics. And Colin Powell doesn't count.

  4. #8124
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    There were 7 congressional investigations into Benghazi. If you want to claim there was cause for an investigation you haven't even defended half of what happened.
    You'll have to excuse me if I don't bend over backwards to dispel assertions. It's easy to type "witch hunt!" and several orders of magnitude harder to go through, in depth, most of what was discussed in those hearings.

    I'm not going to put forth much effort because not much effort has been put into this by anyone else. I started off with the low hanging fruit, one of the reasons Hillary was under investigation and an important factor in the current Presidential election, she lied to the American public about why some of our fellow countrymen were killed, and didn't act sympathetic when pressed shouting "What difference does it make!?".

    But no, seriously, Hillary is a wonderful candidate so long as you overlook you can't trust her at all. Just keep saying "witch hunt" and it'll all be ok.

  5. #8125
    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    For those dismissive of Benghazi I'll sum up why there was even an investigation, oh, I mean witch hunt, in the first place. Clinton's first public statement on the attack mentioned a video that may have caused a protest that then turned violent. Barely an hour later she emailed her daughter Chelsea where she made no mention of the video had just described to the American people and instead mentioned an "an al Qaeda-like group." as being responsible for the attack. She's either a serial liar or she told the lie for a reason. I don't think she's a serial lair...
    I don't think anybody is going to say that an investigation wasn't warranted or that she shouldn't have been questioned.

    But EIGHT committees? The vast amounts of time and taxpayer money wasted to uncover....???

    That's why people are calling it a witch hunt. Republican politicians have admitted as such. The entire affair has been intensely politicized from the start.

  6. #8126
    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    You'll have to excuse me if I don't bend over backwards to dispel assertions. It's easy to type "witch hunt!" and several orders of magnitude harder to go through, in depth, most of what was discussed in those hearings.

    I'm not going to put forth much effort because not much effort has been put into this by anyone else. I started off with the low hanging fruit, one of the reasons Hillary was under investigation and an important factor in the current Presidential election, she lied to the American public about why some of our fellow countrymen were killed, and didn't act sympathetic when pressed shouting "What difference does it make!?".

    But no, seriously, Hillary is a wonderful candidate so long as you overlook you can't trust her at all. Just keep saying "witch hunt" and it'll all be ok.
    This is almost entirely gibberish. Was there a justification for investigating the attacks? Sure. Then there were 6 more "investigations". It was clearly heavily abused by the GOP for political gain.

  7. #8127
    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    For those dismissive of Benghazi I'll sum up why there was even an investigation, oh, I mean witch hunt, in the first place. Clinton's first public statement on the attack mentioned a video that may have caused a protest that then turned violent. Barely an hour later she emailed her daughter Chelsea where she made no mention of the video had just described to the American people and instead mentioned an "an al Qaeda-like group." as being responsible for the attack. She's either a serial liar or she told the lie for a reason. I don't think she's a serial lair...

    I guess if a mayor of a city purposefully mislead the public about the cause of a police shooting in their city, and that caused Black Lives Matter to call for an investigation into exactly why such a lie was told you'd all be consistent and decry their motives as merely a witch hunt right?

    But yea, I'm totally excited about voting for Hillary, she's such a great candidate. You can't believe anything she tells you, but that's ok...
    I've pointed out her lies regarding Benghazi several times. Her emails from Blumenthal, Beth Jones, communications with her daughter, the Egyptian Prime minister, State Dept cables, all show that she knew it was terrorism from day one. No one here cares.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    This is almost entirely gibberish. Was there a justification for investigating the attacks? Sure. Then there were 6 more "investigations". It was clearly heavily abused by the GOP for political gain.
    What's surprising about different committees with different jurisdictions investigating different aspects of the incident that fall under their individual jurisdiction?

  8. #8128
    Quote Originally Posted by Merkava View Post

    What's surprising about different committees with different jurisdictions investigating different aspects of the incident that fall under their individual jurisdiction?
    You think 7 congressional investigations were all justified?

  9. #8129
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    You think 7 congressional investigations were all justified?
    From Politifact I don't think anyone on here could possibly hope to be qualified or informed enough to speak on every detail of every investigation and comment on which aspects of them were warranted and which were redundant, but it shouldn't be that difficult of a proposition to accept.

  10. #8130
    Quote Originally Posted by Gestopft View Post
    I don't think anybody is going to say that an investigation wasn't warranted or that she shouldn't have been questioned.

    But EIGHT committees? The vast amounts of time and taxpayer money wasted to uncover....???

    That's why people are calling it a witch hunt. Republican politicians have admitted as such. The entire affair has been intensely politicized from the start.
    She drug the entire thing out because of how she answers questions. When she answers one 10 more questions follow. She screws things up on a consistent basis. Even people that have known and worked for her say the same thing. The questions and committees could've ended years ago but that's not her style. She wasted the taxpayers money not everyone else.
    Last edited by Barnabas; 2016-09-22 at 03:48 AM.

  11. #8131
    Quote Originally Posted by Merkava View Post
    Give me the names of GOP leaders who said it was pure politics. And Colin Powell doesn't count.
    House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy
    Richard Hanna
    Even Fox News

    Maybe not "pure" politics, but they all admitted they were seeking political gain.

  12. #8132
    The Insane Masark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    You think 7 congressional investigations were all justified?
    Of course. They need to have as many as it takes to uncover DA TROOF!

    Warning : Above post may contain snark and/or sarcasm. Try reparsing with the /s argument before replying.
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  13. #8133
    Quote Originally Posted by Merkava View Post
    I've pointed out her lies regarding Benghazi several times. Her emails from Blumenthal, Beth Jones, communications with her daughter, the Egyptian Prime minister, State Dept cables, all show that she knew it was terrorism from day one. No one here cares.
    Thanks for the heads up, it's quickly becoming apparent who deserves a response and who doesn't.

  14. #8134
    The Undying Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    So now that he's stepping out and doing just what you'd expect, surely you won't find anything to complain about, right?
    Um, he did it once, maybe twice, and it didn't work at least half the time. That was my point. Let me know when he tries again and we'll see if there's a tiebreaker.

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    You said that his speech has a 100% failure rate with actual black people.
    No, I said

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Trump has now given four high-profile speeches in which he calls out the issues of African Americans. One was in Iowa, one was in New Hampshire, one was in Lansing, and one was in North Carolina. All four were to nearly all-white crowds. Trump appears to be afraid of African-Americans, but not in the "oh shit, n-word's gonna shiv me" way. More like a "they're going to call out my bullshit" way. The way he was in Flint, to date his only real appearance in a mostly minority crowd.
    You then tried to attack that point, by saying things like "well there are no black people in Iowa" to reinforce my point (that wasn't very bright of you by the way) and so I clarified.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Again, my uncontested point, that he has a 100% failure rate in front of crowds with actual black people in them..
    Bolded for emphasis. Now, you chose to interpret that as if I meant every single individual, not the speeches or the crowds themselves. In other words, you chose to interpret my words to make them easier to attack. But that's on you. I mean, after what I said about Iowa and you reinforcing that, I'm not convinced you're great on context.

    Now granted, I did miss the Detroit speech. All ten minutes of it. So, 50%, which still ain't great. How many people were in that church, by the way?

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    You act as if its a radical notion that a black church will have more than a 50% black congregation.
    I act like it's a radical notion that someone will point out Trump in a black church, only to find the described event and, big surprise, it's still a mostly-white crowd. That seems like a foolish thing to use in your side of the argument, considering it was my point (the ethnicity of his crowd) in the first place.

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    The title says it all. The Bishop submitted questions to Trump. He got to ask the questions he wanted to ask, he just gave them in advance.
    Yes. The pastor submitted questions, in advance, and then the campaign wrote the scripted answers to the questions they chose to respond to. And again, still not in front of a crowd -- yelling at the TV screen doesn't work.

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    Your complaint is that he isn't talking to black people about black issues
    See above original post on the subject. A crowd in the room, and a crowd on TV, are nowhere near the same thing. You demonstrate a lack of context of the point you're trying to argue against. That's not helping you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    During the moments leading up to the speech starting the camera is panned out. I don't see many white people.
    Well, let's let the audience decide!



    Is that "many"? I think you're being willfully blind.

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    If only I said Trump had a 100% success rate with blacks in his speeches maybe then you could point to black protests as evidence against my claim. Thankfully I'm not that dense to make such an outlandish claim.
    Doubling down on poor context on your part, does not make it good context on your part.

    Quote Originally Posted by Taneras View Post
    The correct answer was that a reasonable person would infer from his constant referencing to modern day events and time periods that he was speaking about modern day events and time periods.
    Reasonable like, the head of the NAACP?

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/21/politi...oks/index.html

    I think his take on the subject outweighs yours. And besides, even if he was talking about recent times, that does nothing to dispute my earlier quoted data regarding Reagan, Bush, and Bush. Unless you think he meant the last six years, in which case he's still wrong, because things like unemployment and crime have been dropping since 2010.

    Trump was flat-out incorrect. There is no timeframe, "reasonable" or otherwise, you can use to defend his statement. You have nothing.

  15. #8135
    Quote Originally Posted by Gestopft View Post
    House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy
    Richard Hanna
    Even Fox News

    Maybe not "pure" politics, but they all admitted they were seeking political gain.
    Well, in order, McCarthy didn't say anything about it being politics. He merely mentioned that her numbers were dropping. And he recanted that later and said that the inquiries had nothing to do with politics.

    Hanna's comments that the Benghazi probes were political, are themselves politically driven. He was appealing to voters in Clinton's home state, and at the time was accused of even aligning himself for a position in her administration should she win, which makes more sense now since last month he publicly announced his support for Hillary Clinton.

    So, "multiple party leaders" really means 2 out of 302 Republicans in Congress. I know you're not the one who made the statement, but it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.
    Last edited by Merkava; 2016-09-22 at 04:04 AM.

  16. #8136
    He directly tied her poll numbers to the investigations. It takes some pretty serious generosity to not see that as political.

  17. #8137
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    He directly tied her poll numbers to the investigations. It takes some pretty serious generosity to not see that as political.
    And then he completely recanted. Even so, it was one person. And he didn't say it was "purely political," remember, that's the standard to be met.

  18. #8138
    Quote Originally Posted by Merkava View Post
    And then he completely recanted. Even so, it was one person. And he didn't say it was "purely political," remember, that's the standard to be met.
    He took it back after it was a political liability. Come on Merkava, you're not naive to how politics are. Maybe there was a legitimate component to to the investigations. There was also clearly a heavily political motivation.

  19. #8139
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    He took it back after it was a political liability. Come on Merkava, you're not naive to how politics are. Maybe there was a legitimate component to to the investigations. There was also clearly a heavily political motivation.
    Here's the statement that's being challenged.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lenonis View Post
    Wait...there are people who still think Benghazi is a legit issue even though multiple GOP leaders has admitted it was pure politics?
    We seem to be discussing one member of Congress (out of 302). Now, did he say that the comittee's work was "purely political" as Lenonis charges? I say, clearly not. You can look up his statement here. His statement, as Wikipedia puts it, was "interpreted by Democrats and members of the media as an admission that the investigation was a partisan political undertaking rather than a substantive inquiry." He later clarified that by saying
    Benghazi is not political. It was created for one purpose and one purpose only — to find the truth on behalf of the families of four dead Americans. ... The integrity of Chairman Gowdy, the Committee and the work they've accomplished is beyond reproach. The serious questions Secretary Clinton faces are due entirely to her own decision to put classified information at risk and endanger our national security. ... I've been very clear about this. And don't use politics to try to change this around. I could have been more clear in my description of what was going forward
    There clearly were political components to the investigations. I've never denied that. I've also said that I thought it was political theater, on both sides. There were also legitimate and substantive investigations. We could, I'm sure argue about the balance of that, but what I'm taking issue with here, is the comment that it was "purely political," and as evidence against interest, that there were "multiple GOP leaders who admitted that." There were not multiple GOP leaders who admitted any such thing.
    Last edited by Merkava; 2016-09-22 at 04:24 AM.

  20. #8140
    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    No, I said...
    That's not what I was referencing. Here is what I was paraphrasing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Again, my uncontested point, that he has a 100% failure rate in front of crowds with actual black people in them.
    Again, all it takes is one black person who's been to a Trump rally to prove this claim wrong. This is so cut and dry, why can't you just admit that you were exaggerating for effect? Or did you really believe that was a factual statement?

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    You then tried to attack that point, by saying things like "well there are no black people in Iowa" to reinforce my point (that wasn't very bright of you by the way) and so I clarified.
    No I simply pointed out general population statistics and explained that pretty much any venue will host a mostly white audience unless you specifically try and make the audience be mostly black (by picking black venues). Anything chosen with neutrality will end up containing very few black people. Mostly due to population percentages but also modified by political affiliation. Expecting Trump crowds to contain large amounts of black people then chewing into Trump for that not happening isn't fair. He can't force them to go, and even if they did turn out in a proportionate number, it'd still be a very small amount (~13%) of the crowd.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Bolded for emphasis. Now, you chose to interpret that as if I meant every single individual, not the speeches or the crowds themselves. In other words, you chose to interpret my words to make them easier to attack. But that's on you. I mean, after what I said about Iowa and you reinforcing that, I'm not convinced you're great on context.
    If you're talking about crowds, expecting a 100% approval rating from large crowds is an equally bad point to make.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    I act like it's a radical notion that someone will point out Trump in a black church, only to find the described event and, big surprise, it's still a mostly-white crowd. That seems like a foolish thing to use in your side of the argument, considering it was my point (the ethnicity of his crowd) in the first place.
    That'd be a point worth discussing if it (the demographics of the crowd) were actually true.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Yes. The pastor submitted questions, in advance...
    Thanks, that's what I said.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    See above original post on the subject. A crowd in the room, and a crowd on TV, are nowhere near the same thing. You demonstrate a lack of context of the point you're trying to argue against. That's not helping you.
    Your point this entire time was that he was talking about/to black people infront of a mostly white crowd (never mind population percentages, political affiliations by race, and Trump's inability to force anyone to attend his rallies), I don't think its outlandish to point to an interview where a black Bishop got to ask Trump questions given in advance that's would be aired to a mostly black audience.

    So if he talks to black people, it can't be through the television? And he can't force them to go to his rallies? And he can't have too many white people in his entourage? And the members of the press need to pass a race filter so we don't see too many white heads upfront during the broad cast?

    Are there any other arbitrary criteria you'd like to add? Or do you want to wait until after he does another attempt at reaching black communities so you can see exactly how you can nit pick ex post facto?

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Well, let's let the audience decide!

    Is that "many"? I think you're being willfully blind.
    In all honest I see a lot of black people, at least 50%.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    Reasonable like, the head of the NAACP?
    A reasonable reaction would be to reach out and ask for clarification before jumping to such a conclusion.

    Ever heard of the "Principle of charity"?

    "In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity requires interpreting a speaker's statements to be rational and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation..."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

    While not exactly designed for political discussions it does work wonders. Interpreting your opponents words in the best possible way cuts down on a lot of bickering and back and forth.

    Honestly, do you think in Trump's mind that he thinks blacks have it worse now than they did when they were slaves? Considering the context and references of his speech was modern day events, I think the most charitable interpretation of his comments would be that no, he doesn't think that.

    There's nothing wrong with asking for clarification just to make sure, but jumping straight to such an outlandish claim considering the circumstances is simply trying to score political points. A thinly veiled attempt to do so I might add.
    Last edited by Taneras; 2016-09-22 at 04:27 AM.

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