MAGAThread XIV: All persons born or naturalized ...

[Cannot think of a name]

Autocorrect fucked you on an important part of that sentence and I can't get at what you're trying to say.

What I was trying to say, is that trump paid his lawyer with funds separate of his campaign finances. ie. a business expense instead of campaign expense.

That was the story until Wednesday when that lawyer stood up in court and plead guilty to campaign finance fraud and said he was told to do it by Donald Trump. And released a tape. And the publisher of the Inquirer was offered immunity to turn over evidence.

[Grinning Dragon]

What I was trying to say, is that trump paid his lawyer with funds separate of his campaign finances. ie. a business expense instead of campaign expense.

That was the story until Wednesday when that lawyer stood up in court and plead guilty to campaign finance fraud and said he was told to do it by Donald Trump. And released a tape. And the publisher of the Inquirer was offered immunity to turn over evidence.

Then the whole thing is going to end up as trumps word against the lawyer, since trump can just say it was a personal expense and not a campaign expense when the check was cut.

[Ifreann]

That was the story until Wednesday when that lawyer stood up in court and plead guilty to campaign finance fraud and said he was told to do it by Donald Trump. And released a tape. And the publisher of the Inquirer was offered immunity to turn over evidence.

Then the whole thing is going to end up as trumps word against the lawyer, since trump can just say it was a personal expense and not a campaign expense when the check was cut.

Trump's word against the sworn testimony of many witnesses supported by physical evidence.
#MAGA

[Cannot think of a name]

That was the story until Wednesday when that lawyer stood up in court and plead guilty to campaign finance fraud and said he was told to do it by Donald Trump. And released a tape. And the publisher of the Inquirer was offered immunity to turn over evidence.

Then the whole thing is going to end up as trumps word against the lawyer, since trump can just say it was a personal expense and not a campaign expense when the check was cut.

Except for the taped conversation with the lawyer and the lawyers record keeping. And the publisher. And the woman who was paid. And the reality that it was a story about the candidate that was killed during a campaign from a payment by Trump through a lawyer who recorded the conversation and kept records from a publisher who also kept records...except for all of that, sure. If he paid to kill a story about him during a campaign, that's a campaign expense.

[Ifreann]

Then the whole thing is going to end up as trumps word against the lawyer, since trump can just say it was a personal expense and not a campaign expense when the check was cut.

Except for the taped conversation with the lawyer and the lawyers record keeping. And the publisher. And the woman who was paid. And the reality that it was a story about the candidate that was killed during a campaign from a payment by Trump through a lawyer who recorded the conversation and kept records from a publisher who also kept records...except for all of that, sure. If he paid to kill a story about him during a campaign, that's a campaign expense.

But Trump sez!

[Cannot think of a name]

Except for the taped conversation with the lawyer and the lawyers record keeping. And the publisher. And the woman who was paid. And the reality that it was a story about the candidate that was killed during a campaign from a payment by Trump through a lawyer who recorded the conversation and kept records from a publisher who also kept records...except for all of that, sure. If he paid to kill a story about him during a campaign, that's a campaign expense.

But Trump sez!

The best part of Trump sez is it's multiple choice.

[Albrenia]

Knowing how stupid the ballad of Trump can get, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a recording or paperwork of Trump specifically calling it a campaign expense somewhere. This is the guy who went on national television to torpedo his own cover story on firing Comey just because it implied he didn't make the final call on a decision.

[Dahon]

Damn, the National fucking Enquirer? It's a shitty rag angling for its 15 minutes of publicity. Pecker's testimony I'll treat as troll bait till proven otherwise.

[Ifreann]

Damn, the National fucking Enquirer? It's a shitty rag angling for its 15 minutes of publicity. Pecker's testimony I'll treat as troll bait till proven otherwise.

Hardly gonna get immunity from baseless troll bait.

[Albrenia]

Damn, the National fucking Enquirer? It's a shitty rag angling for its 15 minutes of publicity. Pecker's testimony I'll treat as troll bait till proven otherwise.

Best not to rely on the word of tabloids, I agree.

[Dahon]

Damn, the National fucking Enquirer? It's a shitty rag angling for its 15 minutes of publicity. Pecker's testimony I'll treat as troll bait till proven otherwise.

Hardly gonna get immunity from baseless troll bait.

We'll see when he coughs up what he knows of Trump's... I was gonna say "seamy side", but that implies there's a part of him that ain't seamy, and that's fake news, so... "Trump" it is.

[Grinning Dragon]

Then the whole thing is going to end up as trumps word against the lawyer, since trump can just say it was a personal expense and not a campaign expense when the check was cut.

Except for the taped conversation with the lawyer and the lawyers record keeping. And the publisher. And the woman who was paid. And the reality that it was a story about the candidate that was killed during a campaign from a payment by Trump through a lawyer who recorded the conversation and kept records from a publisher who also kept records...except for all of that, sure. If he paid to kill a story about him during a campaign, that's a campaign expense.

Since a candidate can contribute as much as they can to their own campaign and if he paid the money directly as hush money then that could be seen as a crime, if he directed his lawyer and then compensated his lawyer, then there really isn't a crime being committed. This is how I can see this being argued if it gets that far.

[Ifreann]

Except for the taped conversation with the lawyer and the lawyers record keeping. And the publisher. And the woman who was paid. And the reality that it was a story about the candidate that was killed during a campaign from a payment by Trump through a lawyer who recorded the conversation and kept records from a publisher who also kept records...except for all of that, sure. If he paid to kill a story about him during a campaign, that's a campaign expense.

Since a candidate can contribute as much as they can to their own campaign and if he paid the money directly as hush money then that could be seen as a crime, if he directed his lawyer and then compensated his lawyer, then there really isn't a crime being committed. This is how I can see this being argued if it gets that far.

Or Giuliani will argue that Trump doesn't "exist" in a legal sense.

[Cannot think of a name]

Except for the taped conversation with the lawyer and the lawyers record keeping. And the publisher. And the woman who was paid. And the reality that it was a story about the candidate that was killed during a campaign from a payment by Trump through a lawyer who recorded the conversation and kept records from a publisher who also kept records...except for all of that, sure. If he paid to kill a story about him during a campaign, that's a campaign expense.

Since a candidate can contribute as much as they can to their own campaign and if he paid the money directly as hush money then that could be seen as a crime, if he directed his lawyer and then compensated his lawyer, then there really isn't a crime being committed. This is how I can see this being argued if it gets that far.

You're six excuses behind on this story.

[Dahon]

"Sir, he's the President of the United States of America."
"But you see, 'Donald J. Trump, POTUS' and 'Donald J. Trump, defendant' are two different things."
"Explain."
"What the president does is by definition completely legal."
"But that definition --"
"Illegality isn't illegal. Not at all."
"... wha."

Am I doing this right?

[Cannot think of a name]

"Sir, he's the President of the United States of America."
"But you see, 'Donald J. Trump, POTUS' and 'Donald J. Trump, defendant' are two different things."
"Explain."
"What the president does is by definition completely legal."
"But that definition --"
"Illegality isn't illegal. Not at all."
"... wha."

Am I doing this right?

If you had done it in italics Bombadil style I might have googled it to make sure.

[Dogmeat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57jRBt4h6ks

[Cannot think of a name]

This is a story you can not believe rather easily. And I suspect that might be the strategy behind the Pecker vault. That this vault held a mix of credible stories and bullshit with no nod to the ratio-

The contract appears to have been signed on Nov. 15, 2015, and states that AMI has exclusive rights to Sajudin's story but does not mention the details of the story itself beyond saying, "Source shall provide AMI with information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child..."

The contract states that "AMI will not owe Source any compensation if AMI does not publish the Exclusive..." and the top of the agreement shows that Sajudin could receive a sum of $30,000 "payable upon publication as set forth below."
But the third page of the agreement shows that about a month later, the parties signed an amendment that states that Sajudin would be paid $30,000 within five days of receiving the amendment. It says the "exclusivity period" laid out in the agreement "is extended in perpetuity and shall not expire."
The amendment also establishes a $1 million payment that Sajudin would be responsible for making to AMI "in the event Source breaches this provision."
"Mr. Sajudin has been unable to discuss the circumstances regarding his deal with American Media Inc. and the story that he sold to them, due to a significant financial penalty," Held told CNN. "Just recently, AMI released Mr. Sajudin from the terms of his agreement and he is now able to speak about his personal experience with them, as well as his story, which is now known to be one of the 'catch and kill' pieces. Mr. Sajudin hopes the truth will come out in the very near future."
In April, Sajudin told CNN he claims to have knowledge of a relationship Trump had with his former housekeeper that resulted in a child.
At the time, AMI called Sajudin's story "not credible" and denied any connection between the story and Trump and his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen.
The White House did not respond to CNN's requests for comments in April.
CNN has contacted AMI to clarify whether Sajudin has now been released from the contract to be able to speak on terms of the agreement and to seek reaction on this latest development, but has yet to receive a response.
Sajudin's allegation that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock has not been independently confirmed by any of the outlets that have investigated the story.

This apparently came out in April but since that last line, went away. This certainly is a word against word story since no one who investigated it managed to confirm Sajudin's story. But Inquirer paid for it anyway. I wonder if this is the flack, the scatter so that we're mistakenly (already happening) talking about it as if it's an Inquirer story and not if it's a story about Inquirer.

[Dahon]

In other words: National Enquirer Trump vault poisoned troll bait ABORT ABORT

[Cannot think of a name]

In other words: National Enquirer Trump vault poisoned troll bait ABORT ABORT

Kind of, yeah. A vault of Trump stories is kind of a salacious idea but the story is still 'did he pay money to kill a story about himself during the campaign.' Things that don't matter: The Inquirer is a shitty tabloid. Whether or not the Inquirer prints some crazy ass bullshit. Whether or not he had the affair, honestly. The legal question is campaign financial filings, as unsexy as that is.

When there's actual sex, a tabloid, and a fucking vault, it's easy to distract from the unsexy core with all that crazy sexy and then dismiss the whole thing as a circus. In fact this would be someone standing in a field saying something important and then a bunch of people running to build three rings and a tent around that person and car full of clowns and a pack of elephants and going, "See? It's a circus."

[Cannot think of a name]

You could have been 'on watch' for this immediately. You're playing into a dumb game by playing at neutrality and deciding that the story might be fake because the first place you read about it was CNN. This isn't how bias works. This is Trump's game but it has no reflection on the reality of the media landscape.

Here's AP via ABC, most reports are off the AP article.

I *thought* CNN first reported it.

Because that was the first place you saw it?

I'm sorry but I'm cautious and am careful and don't blindly trust CNN, Salon, Express.Co.UK, The Telegraph, Al Jazeera, Jersualem Post, Haaretz, The Guardian, HuffPost, or Fox, Breitbart, etc.
I'm a healthy skeptic.

So careful and cautious that before checking to see if CNN was the only source (rare) you not only disbelieved the implication (where actual media bias would be at play in most cases) but believed the story was made up and then took that careful and cautious skepticism and posted on the forum doubting the story's very existence? That's careful and cautious to you? Not, "There might be more to this story, I should wait until I have more time to look this up before I comment" but "It's from CNN, CNN shouldn't break stories". What you did was neither careful nor cautious and regardless of what flag you want to fly feeds into the absolute shit show media critique and literacy has become.

No one has asked you to blindly trust CNN. No one ever brought up those other sources. There is an ocean between "I'm dismissing this out of hand without so much as a two word google search" and "I believe CNN is gospel."

They do have mixed factual reporting compared to average,

I'm afraid if I ask you to document this conclusion I'm going to get anecdotes. Can you do this without anecdotes? I don't want a litany of "what about this story that turned out to not be true" I want the actual comparison you're talking about. Thing is, I don't believe you, a 24 hour news cycle that favors being first means that they will often be the first to be wrong, but there's more to that phenomenon than just "I see CNN, this may not be true wholesale!"

and so I'm careful.

Again, careful would have been waiting to comment until you can do a two word google search.

I'm sorry I'm not blindly believing damaging stories I thought originally came from a biased source as fact.[/quote]
Don't apologize, no one asked you to.

I'm sorry I am always watchful for propaganda.

eeeeeeeehhhhhhh...

Do I distrust CNN inherently? No, I'm willing to believe many stories of it,

I'm just going to do a brief history of fake news one more time here. Fake news IS NOT established news outlets making up stories wholesale as a product of their bias. Fake news was exactly what it sounds like. A fake story, made to LOOK LIKE it was from an established news organization but will be like ABC.com.co and not really ABC. This story will be passed around and people will believe that, say, Obama is seeking to outlaw the pledge of allegiance. (actual fake news story shared by an old friend on facebook as if it was real. From the aforementioned abc.com.co.)

Bias, however, is far more subtle and often talked about wrong. It's not 'saying as many nice things as bad things about someone,' it's generally speaking more about how they decide what is and is not important. For instance say on Tuesday where within an hour Trumps former campaign manager was found guilty on 8 counts and mistrialed on 10 (I think that was it, doesn't matter this is an example) and his former lawyer plead guilty to crimes he said in open court he was compelled to do by his client Donald Trump. This is, objectively, some big news. CNN and MSNBC just covering it wouldn't be bias per se (it could be in how they cover it) but it could be argued that Fox deciding to instead run the story on a woman killed by an undocumented immigrant instead would be bias. Fox is not making up a story, and they did not ignore the rulings, they just reported them quickly and spent more time on the stabbing. Their bias is that the agenda of Donald Trump (undocumented immigrants are dangerous) is more important than his legal troubles. That is bias and then it comes down to how much that matters to you or if you're getting your news from one source or not.

None of this is CNN made up a story.

but I'm just being cautious here.

Again, cautious would have been waiting until you've looked something up before posting about it.

I'm not neutral, I've spoken out against Trump, and believe sources his people call fake news, all the damn time(NYT, WaPO, Reuters, Forbes, BBC, The Economist, Newsweek, The Independent, etc.).

It's not about what flag you fly. We can get sucked into the narrative either way.

I was busy, so wrote a quick post.
Thing is, you should always just be careful,

This might seem like I'm trying to score points or whatever, but this is important. Just a quick post, just a quick share, just a thing here or there...what you did was not careful. And that's important. If we're going to change media literacy we have to actually be cognoscente of how we interact with the stories we see.

because CNN is a very biased station, like Fox and the like.

This, right here. CNN is not without sin. But they are CNNs sins and Fox commits Fox's sins. Just because a frustrated Trump supporter goes "What about the Clinton News Network, CNN" every time Fox gets critisized does not mean they are flip sides of the same coin. This is not careful. It's the kind of laziness that is leading to the problems with media literacy we face today.

Do I like them? Actually, yeah!

They're just this side of a news aggregate these days. But that's neither here nor there.

But I'm cautious,

In the future, use that caution to research before commenting. It's a forum, not a text chain. We can wait for your insight.

to not be misled.

You have been. But you're in the majority on this one. Most people think it works this way. It just doesn't is all.

I make sure other sites correlate first, as well as make sure it wasn't the original reporter.

You didn't do this.

So please don't pester me with that crap,

Forum posts are meant to be challenged.

I'm not neutral, I'm on your guys's side,

Doesn't care what 'side' you're on.

I'm just not going to blindly believe everything CNN says about Trump.

A thing no one asked you to do.

People are taking Omarosa as a credible source, and I'm skeptical, but not considering it ridiculous. Same thing here.

Omarosa is reality show contestant. Not a news organization.

So with all due respect, stop trying to pull me to blindly trusting a well-known news media station,

No one asked you to do that.

which while I like, am careful about(Same way I approach many politicians too.).

Re-evaluate how you do careful.

I'm also not a "media is distrustworthy" guy,

You just comment without research about the validity of sources based on assumptions.

I'm just cautious of certain sites I see as a bit more skewed than most and a bit more biased on certain subjects, even some I like(Like CNN, and HuffPost.).

That's great. Bias doesn't work that way where it's either "True" or "False."

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

I saw a news story this morning about a former Playboy model being found dead. My first thought was to wonder if Trump had paid to sleep with her.

[Shaggtopia]

So, Trump is probably definitely a criminal or at the very least associates with more criminals than I have in my life (which isn't a small number and I'm normally not proud of that).
All that really remains to be seen is how big a crime did he commit and does that crime carry a capital punishment...
Does the Trump administration feel like a toddler with a loaded gun to anyone else?

[Big Jim P]

So, Trump is probably definitely a criminal or at the very least associates with more criminals than I have in my life (which isn't a small number and I'm normally not proud of that).
All that really remains to be seen is how big a crime did he commit and does that crime carry a capital punishment...
Does the Trump administration feel like a toddler with a loaded gun to anyone else?

Even if true, he is neither the first nor the last, and at least he is doing good for the nation.

[Cannot think of a name]

So, Trump is probably definitely a criminal or at the very least associates with more criminals than I have in my life (which isn't a small number and I'm normally not proud of that).
All that really remains to be seen is how big a crime did he commit and does that crime carry a capital punishment...
Does the Trump administration feel like a toddler with a loaded gun to anyone else?

Capital punishment means the death penalty.