The News Thread

[HamburgerBoy]

How is bleach, rope, and masks found in their apartment not self-explanatory? And it obviously does not require the brothers' testimony; if the brothers denied helping Smollett and the cops found the same items evidence, would it no longer be admissible in your opinion?

Yes, reality operates entirely on conditional logic. If it doesn't, nothing does.

 

[CiG]

I debated over what category to say. It's impossible to lump everyone into just one. I picked what I thought would be a less objectionable term.

You picked far-right over right-wing in reference to people following MSM-tier stories? Holy bias.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Anyone to the right of John McCain is probably a neo-Nazi in his eyes.

 

[CiG]

Especially all those endless black Youtube pundits shitting on Smollett and covering the Trump/Russia investigation.

 

[Einherjar86]

How is bleach, rope, and masks found in their apartment not self-explanatory? And it obviously does not require the brothers' testimony; if the brothers denied helping Smollett and the cops found the same items evidence, would it no longer be admissible in your opinion?

No physical object is self-explanatory. Objects don't enjoy the gift of conceptual language. I have bleach, rope, and a ski mask in my apartment. I hate to think I'd be a suspect in a similar investigation.

You picked far-right over right-wing in reference to people following MSM-tier stories? Holy bias.

EDIT: you just made me realize I said "far-right" in my original post and not "right-wing." I meant to say "right-wing."

I didn't want anyone here to assume I was calling them "far-right."

 

[CiG]

I have bleach, rope, and a ski mask in my apartment.

Neo-Nazi.

EDIT: you just made me realize I said "far-right" in my original post and not "right-wing." I meant to say "right-wing."

I didn't want anyone here to assume I was calling them "far-right."

 

[Einherjar86]

I swear to fucking god I almost said "Freudian slip."

Ultimately, all I'm saying is that I think Jussie Smollett is guilty and I think Trump's guilty. I see the actions of the SA and AG, in both cases, as special treatment.

 

[CiG]

I don't think they're really as equivalent as you're saying, beyond the dynamic that the left proclaimed Smollett's innocence (or should I say, victimhood) before the investigation and the right were to some degree suspicious (though many did virtue-signal about it), and the left have been claiming that Trump is a Putin puppet since he was elected and the right have been dismissing it for the most part (a yin yang of bias).

One difference is that at least some right-wingers were willing to believe Smollett's tale, whereas I don't really know of any left-wingers who were genuinely skeptical about the Trump/Russia accusations.

For me the Smollett case looks way more blatantly open and shut based on what we know. The Trump thing is murky at best.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

No physical object is self-explanatory. Objects don't enjoy the gift of conceptual language. I have bleach, rope, and a ski mask in my apartment. I hate to think I'd be a suspect in a similar investigation.

You previously conflated testimony with explanation. Now you're dodging that and ignoring several different lines of evidence that all relate to each other in different ways supporting the claim that Smollett staged an attack by hiring two men for it. By contrast, there is virtually no available evidence that Trump was complicit in collusion with the Russian government. Keep dodging retard.

 

[CiG]

Ein also implies that his apartment and Smollett's two Nigerian friends' apartment are equivalent places for those items to be found in. You (HBB) said "How is bleach, rope, and masks found in their apartment not self-explanatory?" and his response was to focus only on the objects and not the context they existed in; their apartment.

 

[Einherjar86]

You previously conflated testimony with explanation. Now you're dodging that and ignoring several different lines of evidence that all relate to each other in different ways supporting the claim that Smollett staged an attack by hiring two men for it. By contrast, there is virtually no available evidence that Trump was complicit in collusion with the Russian government. Keep dodging retard.

I never conflated testimony and explanation. I used them in different ways. Maybe you're conflating them though...

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I never conflated testimony and explanation. I used them in different ways. Maybe you're conflating them though...

All of which requires explanation. As evidence, it doesn't explain itself. It requires the brothers' testimony.

You said that the evidence required explanation. You said that the evidence requires the brothers' testimony. I clearly said that it did not, and provided an obvious hypothetical where it would not. Anything that can be perceived possesses information, and anything that possesses information can have explanation. The explanation is of course generally more contentious than the information, yet information can often lead to the same explanation even from independent interpretations. I.e., information can be self-explanatory.

 

[Einherjar86]

I recall my comment. Any piece of evidence requires explanation. That's why we call it evidence (and not proof). An object cannot testify to its explanation, so it requires the testimony of humans. Alas, rope and bleach can't stand trial.

If the brothers denied helping Smollett, the evidence would still be admissible; but it would lack the testimony that explains why the bleach, rope, and masks are relevant. As I suggested, plenty of people probably have these things in their possession.

Ein also implies that his apartment and Smollett's two Nigerian friends' apartment are equivalent places for those items to be found in. You (HBB) said "How is bleach, rope, and masks found in their apartment not self-explanatory?" and his response was to focus only on the objects and not the context they existed in; their apartment.

If the objects were self-explanatory, then they should be all we need to focus on.

All I'm saying is that we who "know" Smollett to be guilty as choosing to believe something about the evidence.

 

[CiG]

If the objects were self-explanatory, then they should be all we need to focus on.

Objects found in an apartment belonging to friends of the victim that match the objects claimed to be used in the crime itself (add to that the video footage showing the two friends committing the "crime" against Smollett) are self-explanatory, I think is the point. You can accuse a hardware store owner of doing the crime if the objects exist in a vacuum, I think you're being a bit autistic here because he said they're self-explanatory.

 

[Einherjar86]

Objects found in an apartment belonging to friends of the victim that match the objects claimed to be used in the crime itself are self-explanatory, I think is the point. You can accuse a hardware store owner of doing the crime if the objects exist in a vacuum, I think you're being a bit autistic here because he said they're self-explanatory.

Maybe, but "self-explanatory" means the object explains itself.

I understand the point, and I'm going to continue to argue that we believe what we believe, in both Smollett's and Trump's cases, because we make judgments about evidence. Neither case is "self-explanatory."

 

[CiG]

One case is objectively much more simple, the Trump case is vastly more open to speculation whereas the Smollett case isn't and this speaks to one case's almost complete lack of vagueness.

 

[Einherjar86]

One case is objectively much more simple, the Trump case is vastly more open to speculation whereas the Smollett case isn't and this speaks to one case's almost complete lack of vagueness.

For sure. Which was why the second opinion I suggested in my original post was "Total exoneration!" and not "Well, seems like there's no collusion, or at least not enough evidence to charge him for it. But obstruction, not so sure..."

I'm accusing those who think Barr's summary is proof of total innocence of being hypocrite's for not assuming that Foxx's decision is proof of total innocence. Ultimately, both sides are making judgments about the evidence. Neither case is "self-explanatory."

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I recall my comment. Any piece of evidence requires explanation. That's why we call it evidence (and not proof). An object cannot testify to its explanation, so it requires the testimony of humans. Alas, rope and bleach can't stand trial.

If the brothers denied helping Smollett, the evidence would still be admissible; but it would lack the testimony that explains why the bleach, rope, and masks are relevant. As I suggested, plenty of people probably have these things in their possession.

If the objects were self-explanatory, then they should be all we need to focus on.

All I'm saying is that we who "know" Smollett to be guilty as choosing to believe something about the evidence.

Testimony is not always available. If Bob murders Joe and there are no witnesses and the only evidence is a knife Bob purchased soaked in Joe's blood, and Bob refuses to admit to the slaying, then there is no testimony beyond the cops that discovered the knife. The cops provide testimony to the knife not being planted, but it's the knife itself that carries the information of blood and location. You need expert opinion to translate the explanation of the knife, e.g. forensic experts running PCR on the blood to match it to Joe, or bank records showing the purchase of the knife by Bob, but the knife itself is its own evidence.

That testimony too could easily be unnecessary. If investigation by the cops confirmed that the rope and masks were bought by the shortly before the hoax, or that the rope had skin cells of Smollett's embedded, or that the masks were identical to those captured on security footage, the testimony of the brothers denying the hoax would likely be seen as false.

The reason we don't even need to focus as much on the objects is because two people already confessed IN ADDITION TO the plethora of physical evidence which supports their claims. We believe Smollett to be guilty because $130k was spent in investigating the various leads and pieces of evidence, including investigation by many experts and independent sources, all of which point to the whole thing being a hoax.

 

[CiG]

For sure. Which was why the second opinion I suggested in my original post was "Total exoneration!" and not "Well, seems like there's no collusion, or at least not enough evidence to charge him for it. But obstruction, not so sure..."

I'm accusing those who think Barr's summary is proof of total innocence of being hypocrite's for not assuming that Foxx's decision is proof of total innocence. Ultimately, both sides are making judgments about the evidence. Neither case is "self-explanatory."

There's actually credibility to some degree in continuing to push the Trump/Russia theory, whereas only a total brainlet die-hard IdPol-tard still thinks Smollett dindu nuffin. On that basis alone I have to reject your claim that believing one summary over the other makes you a hypocrite, or whatever weird narrative you're trying to push here.

I know you're grasping for straws because not Trump nor anybody surrounding him was caught up in this investigation and Smollett, a hate crime you referenced in the past and probably had some investment in politically, came up as probably the most high profile hate crime hoax in recent memory, but this is pretty bizarre.

Let's be honest here, the main reason the right are talking about the Smollett thing a lot is because Smollett himself used this hoax as a direct attack on them and the POTUS they elected. He didn't just make up a white vs black fake news story, he shoehorned in MAGA. The two stories only intersect because Smollett wanted to take down Trump, and wasn't satisfied with just a generic good ol' boy white bigot.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I'm accusing those who think Barr's summary is proof of total innocence of being hypocrite's for not assuming that Foxx's decision is proof of total innocence. Ultimately, both sides are making judgments about the evidence. Neither case is "self-explanatory."

One was a summary of a massive two-year investigation that recommended no charges for collusion on a basis of lack of evidence. The other was a single act of prosecutory discretion dropping a case that had already resulted in sixteen charges on a basis of substantial evidence.