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> And I was trying to convey to the parent post that these issues of data use and disingenuous campaign practices would have come up, Trump or not, because it's

> And I was trying to convey to the parent post that these issues of data use and disingenuous campaign practices would have come up, Trump or not, because it's happening and we don't like it as a society. Right, but then you said Obama was doing the same thing. He was not. Nor was Clinton. So the fact of the matter is that it may have come up, but there's been literally no evidence to suggest it's happened in the past by any of the winning Democratic campaigns. That's the false equivalence I'm talking about. You're shifting blame away from the Republican party, the Trump campaign, and placing it solely on Facebook and unscrupulous data collection parties, when the issue should mostly be on the fact that a political campaign not only engaged said parties but won using them. > No. Sadly we only have a situation where an app was collecting data using Facebook and a video where two individuals were pitching their product by saying things to try and win a customer. And the words/documents provided by the CA whistleblower. That's immensely important. > but we don't know that the Trump campaign knew about their data practices any more than their other customers knew. Steve Bannon knew. Unless you're now claiming that he, as VP of CA, didn't know what his own company was doing. > We don't know that the Trump campaign knew about this. And we don't know that the recent videos weren't just CA lying to sell their product. That's because you're removing broader context that shows that we should probably err on the side of "they probably knew about all this" rather than "there's no way they could have known". The fact is, CA was testing phrases used by the Trump campaign literally years before they approached Trump. The Mercers pumped money into the Trump campaign at a critical time (June 2016), and forced all campaign processes to go through CA. This is all documented. In August of that year, Bannon left CA (which was already running Trump's campaign) and joined the Trump campaign directly. You're trying to pretend like there's more ambiguity than there actually is. EDIT: The latter half of this article goes in depth on how the Mercer's money shifted from Ted Cruz to Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/politics/robert-mercer-donald-trump-donor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/politics/robert-mercer...

wybiral 9y ago
> Right, but then you said Obama was doing the same thing. No. I didn't say anything like that. I literally said "people tried to accuse Obama of all kinds of stuff" and my point was to the parent post who said "Its purely Trump hatred driving this". You missed the point because you don't like that I'm not blaming this entirely on Trump. I want an investigation into all of this. And other sketchy behavior surrounding the Trump campaign. But I was stating that I don't think the parent post was correct in saying that this is all about Trump. > You're trying to pretend like there's more ambiguity than there actually is. You're trying to pretend like there's more certainty than there actually is and that this is somehow all Trump's fault. I think that's dangerous because the Trump team keeps claiming that there's a witch hunt going on so when all new scandals are pinned to him it actually helps them as far as optics go. We need to investigate this all and get to the bottom of it and I hope Trump is exposed for the scam artist that he is in the process.
- mike10010100 9y ago
  > I literally said "people tried to accuse Obama of all kinds of stuff" and my point was to the parent post who said "Its purely Trump hatred driving this". Right, but that's still comparing the current amount of information we have on what the Trump campaign and CA did to mere baseless accusations. The comparison is implicit. > because you don't like that I'm not blaming this entirely on Trump. No, I don't like the fact that you're trying to cast this as mere accusation like the many false accusations against other prior campaigns. > But I was stating that I don't think the parent post was correct in saying that this is all about Trump. And I agree with that bit. Which is why I didn't engage it. Instead, I engaged the implicit false equivalence that the parent post was outright stating and that you were merely suggesting. > You're trying to pretend like there's more certainty than there actually is And yet you haven't refuted any of my statements, sources, or facts. > and that this is somehow all Trump's fault. Just like how it's the fault of the person composing and releasing doxxing info, not the fault of the person the dox is about for putting it online. So if it isn't Trump's fault, whose is it? Bannon's? CA? The Mercer's? > the Trump team keeps claiming that there's a witch hunt going on so when all new scandals are pinned to him it actually helps them as far as optics go Are you seriously suggesting that we not use new information as it comes out to paint a larger picture, simply because of the optics on the part of Trump? > We need to investigate this all and get to the bottom of it We are. The media is. And this is what is coming out. What, are we not supposed to connect the very obvious and extremely public dots? Are we just supposed to pretend that the Paradise Papers don't exist and don't show money being moved around from sanctioned, Kremlin-owned finances, through shell companies residing in tax havens, and finally on to various American/European companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica?
  - wybiral 9y ago
    We have different approaches but we're on the same side in case you haven't picked up on that. I agree with you on most of these points but until the proper investigations proceed not much will happen. And this administration will attempt to block or obstruct any investigations that they think are part of a "witch hunt" so putting too much emphasis on Trump himself seems risky in the meantime. Let the investigators put those dots together. Also, Trump is just the tip of the iceberg in this story of corruption. Companies like CA and groups like Internet Research Agency need to share this blame because Trump didn't create them. He just benefited from them (because he has no morals). PS: If you haven't contacted your representatives (or candidates) to ask them to support ongoing investigations into these particular issues (like the Special Counsel one). Do it please. Especially if you have a representative up for reelection.

wybiral 9y ago

> Right, but then you said Obama was doing the same thing. No. I didn't say anything like that. I literally said "people tried to accuse Obama of all kinds of stuff" and my point was to the parent post who said "Its purely Trump hatred driving this". You missed the point because you don't like that I'm not blaming this entirely on Trump. I want an investigation into all of this. And other sketchy behavior surrounding the Trump campaign. But I was stating that I don't think the parent post was correct in saying that this is all about Trump. > You're trying to pretend like there's more ambiguity than there actually is. You're trying to pretend like there's more certainty than there actually is and that this is somehow all Trump's fault. I think that's dangerous because the Trump team keeps claiming that there's a witch hunt going on so when all new scandals are pinned to him it actually helps them as far as optics go. We need to investigate this all and get to the bottom of it and I hope Trump is exposed for the scam artist that he is in the process.

mike10010100 9y ago
> I literally said "people tried to accuse Obama of all kinds of stuff" and my point was to the parent post who said "Its purely Trump hatred driving this". Right, but that's still comparing the current amount of information we have on what the Trump campaign and CA did to mere baseless accusations. The comparison is implicit. > because you don't like that I'm not blaming this entirely on Trump. No, I don't like the fact that you're trying to cast this as mere accusation like the many false accusations against other prior campaigns. > But I was stating that I don't think the parent post was correct in saying that this is all about Trump. And I agree with that bit. Which is why I didn't engage it. Instead, I engaged the implicit false equivalence that the parent post was outright stating and that you were merely suggesting. > You're trying to pretend like there's more certainty than there actually is And yet you haven't refuted any of my statements, sources, or facts. > and that this is somehow all Trump's fault. Just like how it's the fault of the person composing and releasing doxxing info, not the fault of the person the dox is about for putting it online. So if it isn't Trump's fault, whose is it? Bannon's? CA? The Mercer's? > the Trump team keeps claiming that there's a witch hunt going on so when all new scandals are pinned to him it actually helps them as far as optics go Are you seriously suggesting that we not use new information as it comes out to paint a larger picture, simply because of the optics on the part of Trump? > We need to investigate this all and get to the bottom of it We are. The media is. And this is what is coming out. What, are we not supposed to connect the very obvious and extremely public dots? Are we just supposed to pretend that the Paradise Papers don't exist and don't show money being moved around from sanctioned, Kremlin-owned finances, through shell companies residing in tax havens, and finally on to various American/European companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica?
- wybiral 9y ago
  We have different approaches but we're on the same side in case you haven't picked up on that. I agree with you on most of these points but until the proper investigations proceed not much will happen. And this administration will attempt to block or obstruct any investigations that they think are part of a "witch hunt" so putting too much emphasis on Trump himself seems risky in the meantime. Let the investigators put those dots together. Also, Trump is just the tip of the iceberg in this story of corruption. Companies like CA and groups like Internet Research Agency need to share this blame because Trump didn't create them. He just benefited from them (because he has no morals). PS: If you haven't contacted your representatives (or candidates) to ask them to support ongoing investigations into these particular issues (like the Special Counsel one). Do it please. Especially if you have a representative up for reelection.