Biden campaign received massive help

Well, my conclusion from reading all this is that a bunch of ex-intelligence officials got together and wrote a letter that didn't help Biden's campaign as much as a campaign commercial would have, didn't include any identifiable mistruths, and wasn't in any way unlawful or even unethical. I think they may have overestimated the amount of Russian interference in the laptop fiasco, but I would expect at least some opportunistic involvement by Russia, they just do that kind of thing all the time.

And this is on top of the whole Hunter laptop issue, which has yet to provide anything beyond innuendo.

I am disappointed.

essentialsaltes said:

As far as I can tell, nobody mentioned this letter at the time. At most there was some discussion of individual intelligence experts expressing doubts. Even in a thread entitled "Hunter Biden Expose is "Fake News"", which started a few days before the letter was published, it is not mentioned, as far as I can see.

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Might be a case of needing to make up something "they" said as a way to quell the cognitive dissonance caused by thinking too hard about what actual posters actually wrote?

hislegacy said:

I have to agree there - they admit they have no knowledge and they have seen no evidence. Yet it was received as Gospel truth even by some members here.

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Can we take this as a retraction of your claims that they made false statements?

hislegacy said:

I have to agree there - they admit they have no knowledge and they have seen no evidence.

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Exactly. That isn't false.

Yet it was received as Gospel truth even by some members here.

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"We haven't seen it but it feels like a Russian disinformation operation" - weird Gospel.

hislegacy said:

no -

A person cannot make truthful statemtens on something they have no knowledge of

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They have knowledge of previous Russian operations and can spot telltale public signs, even without access to ongoing intelligence information.

hislegacy said:

It is not the truth nor accurate either - guess were are back in the Clinton days where it depends on what 'is' means.

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It was not false and it was accurate as far as it went.

hislegacy said:

I have knowledge of my past cars - I can tell you all about them - that doesn't mean I know anything about yours having never seen it or knowing anything about it.

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You're comparing intelligence officers knowledge of Russian known behaviors with knowledge of cars?

hislegacy said:

I have knowledge of my past cars - I can tell you all about them - that doesn't mean I know anything about yours having never seen it or knowing anything about it.

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What? That doesn't make sense.

But here's some hints for my car. It has four tires. And a windshield. Also a steering wheel. It has a driver's seat as well as a passenger's seat. Rear view mirror. Headlights. Oh, and taillights. There's a radio. I could go on. It seems strange to me that others would be able to predict things like this, but you can't.

hislegacy said:

no -

A person cannot make truthful statemtens on something they have no knowledge of

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But they also cannot make untruthful statements on something they have no knowledge of. Instead, they just express an opinion -- in this case an informed opinion based on their experience.

You seem to be minimizing their expertise, seemingly intentionally. As individuals who have seen Russian disinformation attempts, they know what types of common traits to look for and the saw, some of those, just in the reporting of the story. This would seem to be true, even not seeing the laptop and even if it turned out the laptop is legitimate. Much the same way that a police report of a robbery by a tall man wearing a black hoodie, blue shorts and dark running shoes in a neighborhood; then a policeman has reason to believe that a tall man running in that neighborhood wearing a black hoodie, blue shorts, and dark running shoes may be the robber -- even if the policeman finds the man actually is someone just out jogging and not involved.

hislegacy said:

no -

A person cannot make truthful statemtens on something they have no knowledge of

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None of their statements about the email/laptop situation were formulated in such a way that they could be evaluated as true or false. They stated their opinions, based on the public knowledge available about the emails and their own past experiences working in intelligence (and especially with regards to Russia).

Some people certainly took those opinions and restated them (incorrectly) as fact, but that does not change the fact that the letter itself did not make any false claims.

hislegacy said:

I have knowledge of my past cars - I can tell you all about them - that doesn't mean I know anything about yours having never seen it or knowing anything about it.

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But if I described some parts of my car and those parts bore a strong resemblance to one of your past cars, then you might reasonably believe that I had the same car, right? You wouldn't necessarily say, "Rocks owns a Ford Taurus," but you might say, "Based on my knowledge of Ford Tauri, having owned several over the past twenty years, the car that Rocks is describing sure sounds like it could be a Ford Taurus." Right?

hislegacy said:

Nope - you are incorrect -

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And yet you still haven't managed to specify exact what was false in the letter.

Just because they spoke out of sheer ignorance on the matter doesn't make them truthful

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That they were truthful about the extent of their ignorance and their expertise in the subject is what made them truthful.

hislegacy said:

I have knowledge of my past cars - I can tell you all about them - that doesn't mean I know anything about yours having never seen it or knowing anything about it.

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As a more fitting analogy: I have knowledge about rocks and minerals. If I encountered someone talking about a cool rock that they found, and the description sounded very close to asbestos (which is a naturally-occurring mineral, and can look pretty neat), I would feel a duty to chime in and warn the guy that his cool rock may be dangerous and he should probably get it checked before he puts it on display in his living room. I've never seen his rock, and there are other harmless minerals that might be described similarly, but if I'm right, that "cool rock" represents a major threat to his health and the health of anyone living in his house.

RocksInMyHead said:

Can we take this as a retraction of your claims that they made false statements?

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I've noticed that some on the Internet consider retractions to be admitting one is wrong and that admitting one is wrong is a sign of weakness. At least it seems that way to me.

hislegacy said:

Yet it was received as Gospel truth even by some members here.

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Please quote anyone here claiming that.

Heck, please quote anyone, anywhere claiming that.

RocksInMyHead said:

Then surely you can point out which parts of their statement are false? I'll quote it here for convenience:

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I appreciate the clarity here...a lot gets said about a letter that no one seems to read.

There's only really one glaring problem with the letter, and it is the failure to present their own bias along with their personal beliefs.

They should have included the line....


"Every primary signer of this letter currently or previously been paid, employed, or contributed to the following news outlets NYT, WaPo, HuffPo, LATimes, providing editorial commentary that has been overwhelmingly negative for Trump.

Furthermore, the fact that we have no evidence to suggest our conclusions are true, this should not be taken as evidence that no one has evidence of any sort. We are all well aware the FBI has been in possession of the laptop for nearly a year.

RocksInMyHead said:

Then surely you can point out which parts of their statement are false? I'll quote it here for convenience:

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"We are all individuals who devoted significant portions of our lives to national security. Some of us served in senior positions in policy departments and agencies, and some of us served in senior positions in the Intelligence Community. Some of us were political appointees, and some were career officials. Many of us worked for presidents of both political parties."

This part of the letter is to assure the reader of impartiality. They don't want the reader to think they are stumping for Biden....which is exactly what the emails later revealed....they weren't impartial in any way and fully intended to provide support to the Biden campaign.




"We are all also individuals who see Russia as one of our nation’s primary adversaries. All of us have an understanding of the wide range of Russian overt and covert activities that undermine US national security, with some of us knowing Russian behavior intimately, as we worked to defend our nation against it for a career. A few of us worked against Russian information operations in the United States in the last several years."

This is to convince the reader of their expertise. This is highlighted first....not last....because the reader is supposed to be convinced that these intelligence officials are the best we have and unlikely to be wrong. If they brought up the fact that they've seen exactly zero evidence first....you might think they are mistaken.

The intent of the letter is plain, the subsequent lines about holding principles of elections being determined by an informed public....are in fact lies. They don't care about the truth. They didn't protest when their letter was badly mischaracterized....and they used their "expertise" to promote the candidate of their choice.

That's the intel community spreading disinformation to the American public.

Two elections in a row....on behalf of the Democratic Party.

The same two elections? In one, the Russian government spread factual information about how dirty the Democrats are. The second election....the Republican Party spread factual information about how dirty the Democrats are.

Any person at this point that is upset with the Republicans or Russia should remove their heads from whatever hole they are currently stuck in.