When The Russian Hoax Is Exposed, Should The Democrats Be Held Accountable?

You repeatedly made it your point that the 17 agencies did not independently make the statement actually, in post #347 you quoted a part of the fact checker that said the 17 agencies did not independently declare Russia was the perpetrator, and you said that this was "exactly" your point (even though no one claimed otherwise). Then in post #350 you referred to that same post again. In post #575 you quoted that part of the fact check again.. and then in post #590 you accused me of arguing that the 17 agencies did make independent statements.. because because apparently the head of the USIC's statement on the USIC's consensus doesn't represent the USIC.. makes sense

and finally, in post #617 you responded that you thought me acknowledging that "17 agencies did not independently declare Russia was the perpetrator" meant that the discussion was over.. which would strongly imply that you previously thought that I was arguing that the 17 agencies independently made the statements.

So again, I never claimed that the 17 agencies independently made their own statements, I simply restated what the fact checks says, which is that the Director of National Security's joint statement represents 17 agencies. The statement represents 17 agencies because it is the head of the USIC speaking on behalf of the USIC, which is a collection of 17 agencies. You don't have to believe it to be true, but it is the truth regardless, hence why all the fact checkers agree with me and not you.

 

I would rather you not accuse me of saying things that I didn't say, even though you've consistently done exactly that through this thread. You mentioned #590:

I said exactly the opposite of what you accused me of saying. Why can't you be honest through this thread? You keep doing this.

 

You're cherry picking, I referenced five different posts where you used the fact that the 17 agencies didn't independently make the statements as your choice of argument.. even though no one ever said otherwise, and you even admit that no one ever said otherwise. You are arguing with your own interpretation of what I was saying, because I never said that the 17 agencies independently made the statements

As for post #590, that's another example of your distorted interpretations of my posts. You tell me that I cannot say that the 17 agencies did not independently make the statements and refer to the consensus that was shared in the head of the USIC's statement. This is a model example of how you take what the other person is saying and create your own interpretation to make the other person's post mean something entirely different to what they actually mean.

I say it is a consensus from the USIC because the head of the USIC made a statement on their behalf in which he said that they were confident that Russia meddled with our elections, and contrary to what your posts suggest, I can say that and still address the fact that the 17 agencies did not independently make the statements. Facts are facts, whether you agree with them or not

 

I "cherry picked" post #590? In truth, that was the only one I looked at because your interpretation of it seemed so off that I suspected that something was fishy and sure enough it was. No doubt if I wanted to check the others I would find the same thing. Of course I've noted throughout this exchange your constant dissembling and re-imagining, for lack of a better word, of my statements. It's always easier for you alter my meanings by re statement. I however, am sure to provide your direct quotes. I realize you must hate that.

Let's reboot. My contention: The media (and your) phrase of "17 intelligence agencies" is inaccurate because the reports cited were not from "17 intelligence agencies" but from two or three. The media and your use of "17 intelligence agencies" is merely to provide extra credibility (where none actually is) to the two joint statements.

Your contention (and feel free to argue this point) is that because the DNI is one of the agencies on both of those joint messages, and the Director of the DNI is the nominal "head" of the IC, anything from the DNI is de facto, from all "17 intelligence agencies," whether they actually contributed or participated to any reporting or not.

I've amply made my case.

 

With the Mar-a-Lago Messiah now at a whopping 60% disapproval, it is essential that Special Counsel Mueller, appointed by Trump's Deputy Attorney General, be patient and persistent in exposing all nefarious antics that befouled the 2016 presidential election. Congressional Republicans may be anxious to relieve themselves of a serious impediment to re-election in '18.

 

The others were as I described them, you quoted the part of the fact check that said that the 17 agencies did not independently make the statements, and then you said that this was your point exactly. You then continued to refer back to that post multiple times, even though no one ever tried to claim that the agencies independently made the statements.

but now you're admitting that you are basing judgments on my arguments without even looking into them, so that's progress I guess. I could already tell you weren't putting much thought into your arguments, your posts are full of inconsistencies, first you're denying misinterpreting any of my posts, and then the next minute you are unwittingly admitting to it.

To go back over post #590, you told me that I cannot say that the 17 agencies did not independently make the statements and still say that the Director's statement represents 17 agencies... and now as a diversion from your own distortions, you are accusing me of distorting your posts. You are now implying that I was accusing you of saying that I said the 17 agencies independently made the statements.

uhh.. no, I never accused you of saying that I said that, in fact that was my point exactly. You know damn well that I never said that the 17 agencies independently made the statements, yet you keep reinterpreting my posts to mean something that I never said. Over and over again you are basing your argument around the fact that the 17 agencies did not independently come to the conclusion, even though no one ever tried to claim such a thing

Over and over again you make this your point

and then you referred back to the same post again

and again

So why are you basing your point on something that no one ever claimed? Seriously, no one ever said that the 17 agencies independently made the statements, and you fully acknowledge that no one ever claimed this... yet for whatever reason you continued to make this your point. It's not rational

No one is saying that the 17 agencies independently made the statements.. all I am saying, and all the fact checks are saying is that the head of the USIC speaking on behalf of the USIC obviously represents the USIC, which is 17 agencies. That is it

 

Uh, since he will not be looking at the DNC, Hillary and democrats, nor the DHS, who hacked into some elections, he won't find any nefarious antics to expose. He will find things not related to his primary investigation, so he has something to show for his effort.

 

Every time you refer to my posts, you lie about them. So let's try this again. What do you disagree with in this sentence? " The media (and your) phrase of "17 intelligence agencies" is inaccurate because the reports cited were not from "17 intelligence agencies" but from two or three. The media and your use of "17 intelligence agencies" is merely to provide extra credibility (where none actually is) to the two joint statements."

 

I lied about what you said? no actually, I directly quoted you. You quoted the part of the fact check that emphasized on the fact that the 17 agencies did not independently write the statement that came to the conclusion that Russia meddled with our elections, and then you said that the quoted sections was "exactly" your point. That's not a lie, that's what you did, and denying it doesn't change this fact.

As for the emphasis on 17 agencies, I already explained that the statement was written by the Director of National Security, and that he was speaking on behalf of the USIC, which is in fact a collection of 17 agencies.

Was the statement collectively written by 17 different agencies? no
Does the head of the USIC speaking on behalf of the USIC represent 17 agencies? yes it does

That is all I am saying, but you keep reinterpreting it to mean something entirely different.

 

Did our 17 agencies conclude that Russia interfered in our campaign?

 

That would be the conclusion of the director's statement

"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions"

So to clarify, this is a joint statement from the head of the USIC speaking on their behalf to say that it is their general agreement that Russia was behind the cyber attacks during the elections. The Director of National Intelligence's statement represents a collection of 17 intelligence agencies, but this does not mean that all 17 agencies took part in the investigation, or that each individual agencies made an independent statement. The statement is in fact the head of the 17 agencies speaking on their behalf

Now, whether or not you want to give the director's statement the same significance that he intended is entirely on you. I had a discussion earlier in this thread with another poster who argued that he does not want to give the statement the same weight that was intended because the remaining agencies were essentially being made to nod in agreement under the direction of the head of the USIC. I yielded back in post #137 of this thread that this was a reasonable argument, but that the fact still remains that the statement itself does represent 17 agencies.

So again, whether or not the joint statement represents 17 agencies is not in question, but if you want to critique the joint statement over the fact that it is a conclusion made under the leadership of the Director of National Intelligence instead of being done concluded independently by each of the 17 agencies, that is reasonable.

 

And this morning we find out that CNN has been pushing a story that they knew was bogus all along.

And we are paying a special counsel and a team of high priced lawyers with taxpayer money because of a fabricated story? Does the word, "fraud," come to mind?

 

So why do those joint statements list specific agencies if ALL of them ALL the time are from all "17 Intelligence Agencies?"

 

It's pretty self explanatory, the statement that the head of the Intelligence Community wrote is based on the information attained from the Department of Homeland Security's investigations. Thus the two authors of the statement are the Director himself and the Department of Homeland Security, but again the head of the Intelligence Community was speaking on behalf of the entire Intelligence Community. That's literally what the opening sentence of the joint statement is

You can go back and look at my exchange with AmericanNationalist where everything regarding the joint statement is addressed and acknowledged

 

So you think all "17 intelligence agencies" agree, even if not all are involved, contributed, or knew anything about the joint message?

 

"Held accountable" As in charged or penalized?

No, that is a very slippery slope that I do not want to go down.

They will pay in the polls and in their viewers, the MSM is starting to look worse and worse and losing more and more trust

 

Of course not, however all agencies do have access to the information gathered through the investigation, and are all free to give their own evaluation to what the director said on their behalf. It is also highly unlikely that the Intelligence Community did not know about the joint statement. Officials from each agency meet on a regular basis to discuss their intelligence reports

 

OK, you can drop the act. You don't have to shill anymore on this odd propaganda point. The New York Times has surrendered so you can too.

Trump’s Deflections and Denials on Russia Frustrate Even His Allies

Correction: June 29, 2017
A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

 

This was addressed way back in post #63 of this thread, those are the agencies that conducted the investigations, but the joint statement was the Director of National Intelligence speaking on behalf of the USIC. In fact, when the Director made his fist joint statement on the matter, there weren't even 3 agencies who had investigated.

I don't know how many times this needs to be explained.

 

If the NYT can correct their error, surely you can too.

 

That NY Times article says absolutely nothing about the Director's joint statement, and it is apparent that they are not referring to the joint statement considering there weren't even that many agencies who had done an investigation at the time of the Director's first statement on the matter.

You're basically repeating what you started your argument with a month ago, and making absolutely no distinction between the investigation and the joint statement

 

This stupid lame argument is still going on?

Mike is persistent if nothing else.

He's also wrong

 

Exactly...

That's because I've been correct the entire time.

 

The right to privacy.

 

Normally when someone is corrected they make the proper improvements. I explained way back in post #63 of this thread and multiple times since then that the statement from the Director does NOT mean there was a joint investigation. I explained before that there were NOT 17 agencies involved in the investigation.

a joint statement =/= a joint investigation

That NY Times article you posted is referring to the investigation, it is NOT referring to the Director's joint statement, nowhere do they make reference to the Director's joint statement. The Director's statement was him speaking on behalf of 17 agencies, but no one is trying to say that those 17 agencies were all a part of the investigation. You should know this by now considering it was explained one month ago.. yet somehow you've backtracked and gone back to your original argument that makes no distinction between the joint statement and the investigation