Last evening, I posted an Unethical Quote allegedly made by Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer that “Donald Trump’s impeachment acquittal will be meaningless because we never accepted the results of the 2016 election in the first place. Anyone who accepts an acquittal is a danger to our democracy.” I originally titled it the Unethical Quote of the Day, and later, as I read it again while responding to the predictable shocked comments, I upgraded the comment to Unethical Quote of the Century, a designation I was prepared to defend.
This morning, momentarily awake and planning to go back to sleep, I decided to check the Ethics Alarms comments, and saw this, from frequent commenter Here’s Johnny.
Re: Unethical quote:
I would think that, for the unethical quote of the century, I would be able to find a few references to it in the news media. My best Google search efforts have turned up reports from Ethics Alarms and The Sacramento Brie. The Brie does not appear to be a legitimate news site, and their reference to this quote appears to show a Fox News screen grab. Searching at Fox News did not turn up the quote. The quote does not appear in the Senate Democrats text of Schumer’s comments at the press conference where he supposedly made the comment.
So, what is going on here? Is there evidence that Schumer actually said what is in the quote? I could not find it.
This was disturbing. The post had no link, which is unusual, and I couldn’t tracj down where I got it from, though I believe the pointer came from a Trump Deranged friend on Facebook who quoted it approvingly. I’ve checked my browser history to no avail. After reading HJ’s comment, I listened to every YouTube clip I could find from Schumer yesterday. He made a number of disingenuous and hyperbolic statements about a trial with no witnesses not being a trial (The Clinton impeachment had no witnesses, and Democrats seemed to be happy with that), but nothing as outrageous as the alleged quote I posted.
Like Johnny, I cannot believe that if Schumer said something that irresponsible, it wouldn’t have been widely reported. Thus I am suspending the post pending verification, and as of this moment, assume that it was false. I also deleted the tweet that the blog generates for every post. I will continue to look for the quote and the source, and to identify exactly how this happened.
To some extent I know the latter: the news media and other Democrats have been foaming at the mouth for days, and many of the quotes are no less head-exploding than Schumer’s, except that they were not made by the leader of the party in the Senate. Assuming that there was no such Schumer quote, I was bitten by fake news that triggered confirmation bias. I have written for years that the Democrats/”resistance”/ mainstream media alliance have denied the legitimacy of President Trump’s election, and that conclusion is objectively unavoidable. Though I was stunned to see Schumer say so out loud, it was not as if what the quote indicated was out of line with reality. The second part, about “the danger to democracy,” echoed many of the irresponsible statements made by Rep. Schiff and others during the House impeachment managers’ presentation, and similar rhetoric by pundits and other Democrats. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), for example, tweeted yesterday,
“The Senate’s abdication of responsibility to the rule of law represents a much deeper threat to our democracy, our institutions, and our republic. The GOP knows that its agenda is incompatible with democracy, so their larger project is to dismantle it.”
That statement is as inflammatory and absurd as the alleged Schumer tweet, but not as shocking because OAC is, after all, an idiot. Schumer, however, is not.
I cannot apologize sufficiently for this. My attention has been even more divided than usual this past week—that’s not an excuse, but a partial explanation—and I’ve been bouncing around two computers and two many news sources to count, and, apparently, keep proper track of. I should never post a story or commentary with out verified links to the source, and, frankly, I don’t know why I didn’t this time.
Facebook is unreliable; I know that. There were plenty of aspects of the quote that should have set off my own ethics alarms, but I let my emotions take over: the quote really infuriated me, because as I suggested by noting the Schumer was “playing with fire,” that kind of rhetoric—and there has been a lot of it— rips at the connective tissue that holds this republic together. However, publishing unverified inflammatory rhetoric is just as wrong as saying such things.
Readers here have to be able to trust me; an ethics blog without trust is like a—oh, you can make up your own metaphor, I’m too upset to be clever—and this time I failed their, your, trust by not following my own procedures, and apparently being fooled because I didn’t heed my most important rule, to avoid bias making me stupid. I apologize to everyone reading this, everyone who passed along what appears to be Ethics Alarms fake news, and everyone who might have been misled by the fact that the invalid quote was passed along. I apologize to the commenters whose reactions are vanishing with the essay: I’m so sorry. I wasted your time. I also apologize to Senator Schumer.
I am going to have to do better, and I will.
I could say that I hope I can find that the quote was accurate after all, but I don’t. I am relieved that it appears to have been fabricated. I felt, when I read it, and foolishly believed it, that this was a tipping point, and a dangerous one.
Now, before I go back to bed and dream of self-flagellation, I am going to add the portion of the banned post that I know was accurate, because it had value. Indeed, another reason I accepted the quote impulsively, I think, is that it gave me a pwoerful lead-in to content I had already written. That will teach me.
I hope.
Here’s the remaining section of the now zapped post, and one more time, I am so sorry:
I wonder why it doesn’t occur to Democrats that attacking as illegitimate whatever institution that is involved in their party’s defeats–let’s see, we have the Electoral College, the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, the Constitution, democracy—might eventually begin to make them look untrustworthy and unsavory.
This is as good a time as ever to point you to Molly Heminway’s dead-on article in The Federalist, titled Top 8 Reasons Trump Already Won Impeachment. It makes me feel good, because almost all of her points have been tracked here, while my deeply smug Trump Deranged friends on Facebook have called me a Fox News shill and “on the wrong side of history. (“I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!”)
How can the acquittal be illegitimate when Democrats didn’t even come close to engineering a fair process, a credible argument, or evidence of impeachable offenses? It’s all big lies now (this one was Big Lie #2. “Trump is not a legitimate President”); somehow, Democrats convinced themselves that if they just keep repeating, “The President should be impeached!” without anything more, that will eventually work. How much contempt for citizens does that demonstrate?
Amazingly, some “resistance” members are even more over the moon than Schumer.
Here’s Jason Johnson, editor of The Root, ranting on MSNBC:
” Imagine Donald Trump deciding sometime in June, “Well, I heard this conspiracy theory that a lot of illegal immigrants voted in California, so I’ve decided that during the presidential election California has to undergo extreme vetting because we can’t trust their votes. We’re going to shut down voting in a state.” This is literally the kind of thing he will do now. We’re not talking hypotheticals anymore….For all of these people who are worried about their elections, we’re talking about the actual country. And anything that he’ll do to Joe Biden he will do to a senator, he’ll do to a senator in his own party. So why people aren’t concerned, why people don’t realize that this is step one to actual autocracy. Not the theoretical one, not the one we talk about in class, but an actual president who will say, “This state’s votes don’t count. These people don’t have a right to vote. These people can’t come into the country.” That is what they’re allowing to happen here. And I don’t understand how anyone cannot be terrified, not just angry, but literally terrified about what the future’s gonna bring.”
Of course, this being MSNBC, nobody stopped this insane “non-hypothetical” and said to the frequent contributor, “Now calm down, and go with these nice men in the white coats. They will help you…”
Here’s Virginia political analyst and academic, also a frequent CNN guest, Larry Sabato, who claims to be non-partisan:
Someone please ask Larry how he got the idea that the Senate is required by the Constitution to convict when the House impeaches a President, especially since it never has.
On CNN, Jim Sciutto asked old Watergate sleuth Carl Bernstein why Republicans were willing to turn on President Nixon, but not on Trump, saying “Of course the key to Watergate was that you had a handful of Republican senators who in effect turned on the president. The weight of the evidence was too much. You have not seen that here. Why?”
Oh, because with Nixon there were tapes, a crime, a cover-up, and conduct that wasn’t a typical exercise of Presidential power that the Democrats had decided was suddenly impeachable. Reasons like that. (You hack.)
Instead, Bernstein answered, “Well, first of all let’s look at what Watergate was because it was about a criminal president who acted as a tyrant. And what we have here now is the Senate of the United States through the Republican leadership and membership has now joined hands with a tyrant.”
That’s truly outrageous. What has President Trump done that was tyrannical? Again, it’s another big lie, this time Big Lie, #3 : “Trump Is A Fascist/Hitler/Dictator/Monster.”
There are many more like this in the last 24 hours: MSNBC hosted Michael Moore saying that acquitting the President was like letting a wife-beater go free; NBC’s Jon Meacham today said “President Trump is functionally a monarch at this point. If the king does it, it’s okay.”
Here is Mollie Heminway’s Reason #8. Media Malfeasance:
The media always owned this impeachment process. Pelosi did her best to avoid impeachment but the media all but forced her into it. They championed it every step of the way and provided help, including the blocking of arguments against it.
For instance, although it’s fairly standard to name whistleblowers and to do journalism figuring out who key players are, many in the media decided to help Democrats keep from having to answer questions about his role with the whistleblower. They steadfastly avoided looking into him and his motivations or how that might have affected the entire proceedings.
Each day provided evidence that the media didn’t just want Trump impeached and removed from office, but desperately wanted that. There are videos of scrums of reporters fighting with Republicans over their case, but none of them fighting with Democrats. Republican senators are hounded by reporters to pressure them to change their vote, but Democratic senators don’t receive the same treatment.
It didn’t help that in the midst of the circus, a CNN host and his panel were openly yukking it up about how Republicans are all stupid.
Ethics Alarms 
I was just wondering where that post went. Apology accepted. In a day when the passions of faction are inflamed ( as Washington would have put it), it’s not surprising when even the best of us is fooled.
I would have hoped the Senator wouldn’t be so stupid.
And it appears that he wasn’t…not quite.
“…not quite”…yet!
Thanks for the update on the Chuck Schumer quote. I’ll say this for you Jack, you made a few mistakes since I’ve been here but you always own it, try to learn from it and move on.
That said; Schumer’s mouth, along with his DC counterparts mouths, have been spewing a LOT of unethical incendiary trash since the Senate trial started, it’s daily.
Since my comments in the other thread were not specifically about the singular quote, that now appears to be untrue, my comments stand.
and
Thanks. I couldn’t figure out how to keep the comments while dinging the post, and I’n glad you reposted these.
You’re welcome.
I actually save everyone of my posted comments in their raw HTML form no matter where I post them online. It randomly comes in handy so I can refresh my memory with a simple text search.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I don’t save every comment, but sometimes I write the longer ones in notepad so I can proof and word-smith before publishing. It helps another way, too. Sometimes I read what I wrote and realize it’s too ridiculous for public consumption. It’s a good way to save me from myself…and to save you all from myself.
I’ve thought better of some of my posts, too.
I have written sometime long involved posts, proofread them… and backspaced out of every word.
I blame Jack. I cannot seem to stomach posting violations of the ethics violations used by the self exiled ones.
If she had prosecuted Scott Peterson back in 2004, she would have convinced the jury Peterson was acting in self-defense against his unborn child!
Thank you, Jack. I looked for that piece again this morning and wondered where it went. I appreciate your desire to get things right and your willingness to admit you may have it wrong. You’re more upstanding and honest than the vast majority of those who report news. Many of them intentionally mislead…you do not. What’s more, you are quick to set the record straight…most do not.
But I am not completely innocent. I was one of those who commented specifically on Schumer’s words, and as egregious as that statement seemed to me, I did not do any digging myself. I should have and that was wrong on my part.
Your apology is accepted – wholeheartedly.
Thanks for the update. I don’t fact check your posts but because errors are always possible no matter how diligent one is I don’t instantly share anything. I do know that if an error occurs here it will be corrected as soon as it becomes known.
Whether Schumer made such a nonsensical statement or not is immaterial when he and others make the claim there were no witnesses or documents presented. The House managers made a public display of delivering 28,000 pages of documents to the Senate before the “trial”. Further, their case was predicated on testimony that was replayed for the Senate. True, unlike a criminal trial the video testimony was not live which allowed the prosecution to selectively edit out parts that undermined their case. The defense simply used the same videos to undercut the prosecution’s narrative. Apparently exculpatory evidence is inadmissable among these partisans.
Why can we not see the testimony of the IG? Why are the House managers preventing the release when simply redacting the complainant’s name would prevent outing Eric Charimello. Ooops.
We need to ask why is Biden above the law. We need to about investigate if a coverup is occurring relating to the Schiff and staff relationships with partisans in the intelligence communities. Remember it was Schumer that said if you pissoff the intel people they have six ways from Sunday to get you.. Why are sarcastic comments from Trump relating to HRC’s emails treated as actual demands?
Based on Schumer, et al’s behavior, acceptance of an undesired outcome is as likely as seeing a dinosaur walking down the street so we know full well that many have never accepted the results of elections. The rules of the Senate trial were established beforehand just like the 2016 election. Just like the protests following the election the same people are once again complaining that the pre-agreed to rules did not yield the result in their favor therefore it was unfair.
How is this attitude any different than their positions on health care, income distribution, and so on. Apparantly some want the rules to gaurantee an outcome.
The thing is: though Schumer did not in fact utter those words, the statement is a kind of paraphrase which does reflect the truth.
Wherever it came from, whoever cobbled it, though it was false (and thus false-news) it does reflect truth in a certain way. The danger is when the recipient of it, the receiver, takes it as ‘absolute fact’ when it is really a paraphrase.
Everyone paraphrases everyone else though in this strange, contentious present. Now why is this? Because we are forced to assume that people lie to us every day and all the time. Our government lies all the time, as Bolten truthfully explained. We know this. We also know that the large corporations lie and deceive, often resulting in very real harms that they must cover over. Power must lie. We know this. If we are not capable of ‘sifting through the lies’ and ‘translating’ the narratives, we are not very accomplished denizens in our realms. Therefore, we have to develop very special ears and specially tuned perceptual apparatuses.
So, while no one of them have said such a thing, we seem to understand, or we do understand, that their motives are more in line with the paraphrase, than they are in line with their own declarations about their motives, which we understand to be lies.
That is, if we are perceiving correctly.
It is all very curious & strange: we have to have special ears in order to *hear*. And the reason is — I venture to say — that lies & distortions are so common and prevalent.
Renaud Camus in his book (the title in English is “You Will Not Replace Us!”) delves into what he calls the ‘false-real’ (the falseal as he tries to coin it in English from le faussel in French, though this translation does not work well) as a principle feature of our distorted time. We expect it. We are trained to sift it out, to discern it. Of course he is speaking of ‘the great replacement’ as a real thing which cannot be described nor recognized as a real thing in the media-systems. So, whole systems of false-view and whole vocabularies have to be reworked so that the lie is camouflaged, so the truth is not stated. This is what Power is doing in our present. Indeed it must do this. What power demands can often only be gotten through deception and false-representation.
He then refers to people who — this is my main point here — are forced to become adept at *hearing* what is really being said or presented, when what is being said and presented is presented as being something other than what it is!
This deception, of course, operates in many different areas. The Dissident Right, generally, sees the hyper-liberal present as a power-system that must lie to achieve its goals and objectives.
Here, he describes, what these people do in a deceiving present:
“They all read, hear and understand the words underneath the words, and underneath the blanks, and the silences. But very often they are afraid to translate them even into their minds, and stubbornly refuse to understand what they understand.”
The will not to see what one sees! The complicity of one level of self in obscuring what another level of self sees and understands without doubt! Submerged perception that is not – cannot! — be translated into the mind as a ‘fact of perception’.
Principally, and before I read Camus certainly, this has been one of my main points or ‘areas of interest’. In order fo us to actually *see* what is going on we have to go through a process of deprogramming.
Similar to what goes on when they capture someone from a cult. They have to be confronted by *the structure of lies* that they have absorbed and internalized: that they have given their assent to. It is a painful process, at least initially, because ‘the self’ has become wedded to the false-real or to the distortion & the lie.
The question is: Who can tell us the truth about the present? Who can see it and who can state it?
You are arguing that we are programmed to respond not to what is said but to the dog whistle that resonates at a frequency we cannot truly hear but instinctlvely understand.
Simply put, I was trying to say that because we are given lies all the time, we have become adept at deciphering them. And when we decipher them we translate them into paraphrases.
I can give you what I think is a good example. All the people who came to the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, when now Charlottesville is mentioned, are referred to as white supremacists and as Nazis. This is, if the truth were to be told (if the truth could be told) a complete lie. Not just a partial lie but a near-complete lie.
Now, I know for a fact that many different groups went there — 20-30 different ones — and each of them had different views and ideologies and reasons for protecting southern monuments.
But do you-plural know this? If you knew this, you would not be tricked by the lie. You would not be so easily tricked by the false-vocabulary. You see? You would see through the lie. Then, facing another potential lie, or the knowledge that people are lying all the time, you would have ears *perked* to *hear* the lie. You’d have *ears to hear* to coin the New Testament phrasing.
Here is what *they* say (Wiki):
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally that was conducted in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017.
But if you had access to the real, and not the false-real, you would have to rephrase what they said. You would essentially have to translate it back from a false-statement to one closer to the truth.
Lies serve very specific functions. And the assembled vocabularies serve the lies and their function. To confront the lie one has to first *see* the truth, and then confront the assembled vocabulary.
Camus wrote: “They all read, hear and understand the words underneath the words, and underneath the blanks, and the silences. But very often they are afraid to translate them even into their minds, and stubbornly refuse to understand what they understand”.
For example I do not myself suffer from a mis-perception about Charlottesville and what it was. I may lack some facts or elements but I believe I understand what it was (and what it is).
But *you-plural* might be more wedded, as I say, to the false-real narrative about it.
‘Dog whistles’ are different, I think.
Just as an example of the trash that’s coming out of the Democrat’s mouths. Here is a video clip of a news conference on Senate Democrats News Conference on Impeachment Trial – Janury 31, 2020 where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated as fact…
That wasn’t an opinion of what Alexander stated that was a baldfaced intentional lie!
Here is what Alexander actually stated on January 30th, source Alexander Statement on Impeachment Witness Vote
Alexander DID NOT SAY that “it was proven that the President did what he was accused of” the statement by Schumer was a baldfaced intentional lie. These political hacks think no one will check. We know that the fully consumed anti-Trumpers haters and most of the political left won’t bother to check what these liars say but the rest of the critically thinking public aren’t that stupid. Where are the fact checkers checking these liars; Schumer is a liar.
There is a LOT more bull shit and intentional incendiary rhetoric in that news conference!
Until everyone starts calling these kind of lies lies, nothing will change.
Did anyone see how CNN intentionally cherry picked a segment of a statement made by Alan Dershowitz to intentionally misrepresent what he said, Dershowitz took them to task on their own network.
Wrong video, try this one.
If I ever get a Twitter account . . . can I count on you to shoot me?
Oh, I’m dying to see what you do with a character limit!
That was a cheap shot, Jack. But it was so funny, I really don’t mind. 😉
Arthur in Maine wrote, “That was a cheap shot, Jack. But it was so funny, I really don’t mind.”
Of course your welcome to your opinion on that but I think it’s a bit off base.
This little humorous sidetrack was started by Alizia and just continued by Jack and I. There’s always a little shred of truth to these kinds of things, Alizia really does appear to dislike Twitter a LOT, Jack is correct about the character limitation and how it would likely affect Alizia, and I really am a good long distance shooter.
That’s exactly what I find funny, Steve. Alizia’s comments are thoughtful and often provocative. As a rule, they’re also L-O-O-O-O-O-O-N-G. I find Twitter to be problematic for a variety of reasons – not least of which is that so many people turn into assholes when they get on it. I simply find the idea of Alizia attempting to limit herself to 280 characters and spaces a hilarious concept. I might as well decide that I was going to be 18 again.
i don’t think it was a cheap shot.
I may be a hell of a good long distance shooter but from here to Columbia might be a bit of a stretch. 😉
Well done, Jack. I saw your post last night, which was busy around here, but I must admit I was suspicious in that there was no reference or link to source. I meant to note same earlier this morning but you’d already nuked the post – and I suspected both 1) it was bogus from the start, and 2) you’d just discovered that.
Schumer says many outrageous things. He’s a manipulative slimeball – as sometimes gets said in Maine, “too low to kick, and too slimy to pick up.” But he’s not stupid, and I had a hard time believing he would have said this.
Others in Congress, and the Senate? Not so much. I can absolutely see something like that coming from AOC or Maisie Hirono.
Oh, and for those wondering, the Sacramento Brie is a satire site. It tries to mine Onion territory, usually not as well, and apparently without realizing that the real action these days is the Babylon Bee.
+1 on your Level One apology.
The quote from Larry Sabato is bothering me even more today. I’ve seen listening to an Irish commentator who makes similar arguments on issues as here: reasoned and with examples. Brexit is a deliberate act, voted for under an administration that thought the vote would validate staying. The voters called the EU supporters’ bluff. (electing Trump was much the same)
But the EU supporters’ flailing and anger would be more amusing if they were not such bad losers. But like the AUC here, the media is quite weaponized. The departure has been fought tooth and nail with polls giving all kinds of opinions that the vote was invalid.
The reason why it’s more disturbing the next day is that I was on an online chat for a topic unrelated to politics and one person was apparently so mad about Brexit, they explicitly said that they wanted Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall to force England out of the UK. I was flabbergasted and made a quip that that will happen when California or Texas are forced out of the States. But really that is such a stupid wish. England is the bigger economy and exiling an entire country for ‘bad think’ is absurd. You can leave a place you cannot stand, vote with your feet, but you have no right to force someone else. Emigrating within the EU is supposed to be easy… they’ve had time to bug out.
Political unions are hard to dissolve, there’s still resonances from empires that ended last century. Making a new one where voter input is irrelevant is not the answer either. Trump is not king, but they cannot forgive that Hilary is not Empress with the power they claim he uses. Making England leave is the same impulse as making the deplorables quiet little imperial drones.
I could see California attempting to force the rest of the United States out of the union, Marie.
they don’t have that much control, but their mouthpieces have the media…
CA features THE most billionaire$ and THE most homeless.
You’re CA adjacent OB; anything, or nothing to it…?
In November 2015 I was responsible for an incident of forwarding Fake News which, if briefly, snared Jack.
The gist: “(Melissa) Harris-Perry called the Black police officers that were involved in the Freddie Gray incident ‘white African-Americans.’ If they weren’t part ‘white’ I seriously doubt the fatal injuries that were done to Mr. Gray would have occurred.”
I was mercifully, if embarrassingly, corrected by the inimitable, if AWOL, Chris Bentley.
FWIW, a far-left pal, and former Melissa Harris-Perry fan, didn’t question its veracity when I forwarded it.
I very much miss Chris B, whom I hope is at least out there lurking.
These people simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
Macro Rubio said in a generalized statement that
(Bold Mine)
CNN intentionally cherry picked the statement “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office” and intentionally presented it out of context as meaning that “Trump did the things in regard to Ukraine that have been alleged.”
They did EXATLY the same thing to Alan Dershowitz and got nailed for it by Dershowitz himself.
CNN is lying through their partisan hack mouths – AGAIN!!! These lying masters of lefty propaganda deception are a serious danger to the public.
Did anyone hear about the TSA agent who grabbed the braids of an American Indian woman and rode her around the terminal shouting “giddy-up”?
Sound plausible to me!!!
My personal favorite “foaming at the mouth” comment by a Dem leader is Nancy Pelosi’s insisting the Trump Senate defense lawyers should be disbarred for “trampling the Constitution.”
Other Bill wrote, “My personal favorite ‘foaming at the mouth’ comment by a Dem leader is Nancy Pelosi’s insisting the Trump Senate defense lawyers should be disbarred for ‘trampling the Constitution.’ “
In my opinion; other than Pelosi and the House Managers being liars, they are Psychologically Projecting*.
*Psychological Projection: a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.
The Jungian definition of projection might be helpful to your general definition:
Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naïvely suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. … All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings, and it is only by recognizing certain properties of the objects as projections or imagos that we are able to distinguish them from the real properties of the objects. …
Cum grano salis, we always see our own un-avowed mistakes in our opponent. Excellent examples of this are to be found in all personal quarrels. Unless we are possessed of an unusual degree of self-awareness we shall never see through our projections but must always succumb to them, because the mind in its natural state presupposes the existence of such projections. It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected.
Projection means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the opposite of introjection. Accordingly, it is a process of dissimilation, by which a subjective content becomes alienated from the subject and is, so to speak, embodied in the object. The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents by projecting them. [“General Aspects of Dream Psychology”]
There are those now — we have been referring to them as ‘the Democrats’ — who we see as engaging in extreme forms of projection. They project onto those they define as their opponents what we have noticed, but they do not notice, as the content about their own self they do not wish to face. For example, they call people ‘Nazis’ but then they disrupt talks and seminars in a manner similar to what the real National Socialists did when they broke up Left-Communist rallies and such. The list goes on & on . . .
What seems to be taking shape among the ‘Progressive Left’ is that they project outward from their own self what they do not or cannot see about their own self. It is a dangerous state of affairs aided and abetted by *social media* tools.
I think one can recognize a classic projection when one sees one’s opponents in over-dramatized forms and speaks of them in that way. When a charged word or term is applied as a way to keep from having to actually see them, or their positions, it is a good indicator that a projection is in operation.
If we can get clear about things it will help us to destroy these commie bas*&%rds before they destroy us and ship us off to the indoctrination centers!
I missed that. As usual, appealing to the gullible ignoramuses.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7949109/Pelosi-suggests-Dershowitz-disbarred-claiming-elected.html
You suppose she has people writing these sorts of outrageous talking points? I assume she’s an idiot and stuff like this just pops out of her mouth on a fairly regular basis.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/speaker-nancy-pelosi-hints-house-action-trump-senate/story?id=68641973
Here’s what appears to be the unedited version of that news conference.
https://pelosi.house.gov/news/press-releases/transcript-of-pelosi-weekly-press-conference-today-50
It is as if the author does not know what defense lawyers are supposed to do.
DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Ethics Alarms or the Ethics Alarms Commentariat.
DC Democrats and the main stream media are intentionally cherry picking statements and presenting those statements out of context to LIE to the American people, this is 100% intentional. Even after things have been debunked, they continue to spew the same lies over and over again. Lying is second nature to these immoral and corrupt people! The intentional misrepresentations, intentional cherry picked quotes presented out of context, and outright lies come so often and flow so naturally from the lips of the political left that I can no longer find any reason to apply Hanlon’s Razor, I firmly believe that the falsehoods coming out of the mouths of the political left are 100% intentional lies. The story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf immediately comes to mind.
Nancy Pelosi said…
LIAR!!!
The President’s team is there to defend the President if the United States that’s being prosecuted by the House Managers for two articles of impeachment and the defense team is using the Constitution as written, instead of the intentionally bastardized* version that the House managers have presented, to defend the President of the United States. Even “bad orange man” has the Constitutional right to his day in court and the right to a defense and that is exactly what’s happening.
*Bastardize: change (something) in such a way as to lower its quality or value, typically by adding new elements.
The argument about “good for the country, then any action is justified” is a blatant misrepresentation of the actual facts as presented on the Senate floor and it’s been thoroughly debunked!!! (See video below) This is an example of intentionally LYING to the public about the meaning of a cherry picked quote that is intentionally presented out of context!
Pelosi is intentionally lying to you.
There is absolutely no evidence to support this outrageous propaganda lie to scare the hell out of the American people, it’s transparent anti-Trump propaganda LIES.
This is Pelosi presenting another lie that she, DC Democrats and the main stream media have been presenting since before the Muller investigation. President Trump is a terrible speaker and terrible in interviews but Pelosi, Congress and the media know full well that when President Trump presents this statement it’s in context with the claims of obstruction of justice in regards to the Muller investigation and the firing of Comey. President Trump is talking about the fact that Article II gives the President the power to fire someone like Comey for any reason the President see’s fit. They just keep on trotting this smear and intentionally edit out the context (cherry picking) and act as if President Trump is making that statement as an all encompassing power of the Presidency. These people are intentionally LYING to you!
There is absolutely no evidence to support this outrageous propaganda lie to scare the hell out of the American people, it’s transparent anti-Trump propaganda LIES.
BALDERDASH!!!!!
To date there is zero evidence to support those claims, all they have is innuendo, opinion and accusations. These people are intentionally taking something that any President of the United States can legally do and trying to make it illegal because of an alleged motive that has not been proven with facts. The House Managers have presented zero evidence to support the first point of that argument, they keep on spewing the accusation and completely fail to prove it – the accusation is a LIE. The only thing the House Managers have to support the second point of that argument is innuendo and opinion – no facts – the accusation is a LIE. The third point of this argument has been thoroughly debunked, see the video above – the accusation is a LIE
This is Pelosi trying to help figuratively build their hill to die on. There is currently a trial in the Senate regarding the impeachment articles against President Trump presented by the House Managers. The trial is happening. There have been witnesses that testified under oath and there has been documentation that the House of Representatives presented to the Senate as evidence. The current trial in the Senate is literally President Trumps day in court. Pelosi and anyone that presents this argument is intentionally LYING to you!
I’m not entirely sure if the “they” Pelosi is talking about is the President’s defense team, the Senate Republicans that will likely vote not to have witnesses or both. Whatever she’s talking about, the reply is the same.
Her statement is a false smear unless you apply her statement to what the House Managers have done on the Senate floor. The House Managers and the House Democrats have been bastardizing the system and the Constitution and literally been undermining the system of checks and balances since they started this whole unconstitutional impeachment fiasco. If the House impeached the President for reasons other than what’s stated in the Constitution then, by definition, it’s unconstitutional. The House cannot do what ever the heck it wants to do, they must follow the Constitution.
Again; the President’s team is there to defend the President if the United States using the Constitution as written instead of the intentionally bastardized version that the House managers have presented. The Senate is there to uphold the United States Constitution no matter what the House Managers or the Presidents defense team or anyone else says. If the House Managers didn’t prove the case that they’ve repetitively claimed had “overwhelming evidence”, that’s on them. The House Managers are the prosecutors in this trial; it’s not the responsibility of the United States Senate to prosecute the case against the President of the United States that the House Managers failed to prove, period!
In my opinion; Pelosi’s statement if applied to the President’s defense team or the Senate Republicans is a LIE. The President’s defense team and the Senate Republicans have not undermined the system of checks and balances.
Again, this is an example of intentionally LYING to the public about the meaning of a cherry picked quote that is intentionally presented out of context!
Again, this is an example of intentionally LYING to the public about the meaning of a cherry picked quote that is intentionally presented out of context!
Pelosi is using the Principles of Progressive Goebbelism which seem to be the core guiding principles of the propaganda that progressives have used to brainwash and dumbed-down our society.
The core principles are:
1. If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.
2. If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
3. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
4. If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth.
5. If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
These same principles were put into practice by the master propagandist Paul Joseph Goebbels who was a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, thus the term Goebbelism.
In a press conference that was less than 10 minutes long, Nancy Pelosi, a duly elected member of the United States House of Representatives, stood there and intentionally LIED to the American people twelve times. The patterns are clear to me, these are not insignificant white lies, there is malice behind these lies.
CONCLUSION
It’s my opinion that Pelosi, the House Managers and the left leaning main stream media will not (not cannot) tell the truth about anything related to President Trump; in my humble opinion the patterns are clear to me, they’ve proven to me that they’re all liars.
REVISION: It’s my opinion that Pelosi, the House Managers, the majority of DC Democrat politicians and the left leaning main stream media will not (not cannot) tell the truth about anything related to President Trump; in my humble opinion the patterns are clear to me, they’ve proven to me that they’re all liars.
It is amazing how these people exaggeratge what Trump allegedly did, just as they minimized what Clinton had allegedly done over twenty-one years ago.
Was not the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter an abuse of power? After all, congress, in enacting Title IX, did not specify as to how universities were to handle allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault. And yet Obama issued a letter purpoting to impose additional conditions, additional condcitions to forbid universities from providing protections to male students accused of sexual assault.
And he did this to curry extra favor from feminists and anti-rape activists for his upcoming re-election campaign.
Nancy Pelosi sure as hell did not have a problem with that.
http://reason.com/2018/09/19/betsy-devos-gets-a-bum-rap-on-campus-sex/
I’m going to embarrass Jack again by recounting that what first brought me to this blog was the White House blogger kerfuffle. I used to follow many legal blogs at the time and there was a somewhat deservedly dog pile. But Jack accepted responsibility and apologized. That earned my respect, and that’s why I’ve stayed. Funny thing is after all these years I’ve either stopped following those ones or they’ve gone dark.
In any case, thanks Jack for keeping your standards up.
Saw this post yesterday and so wanted to firebomb a few Facebook posts with it.
I tried finding it because I did not think your link, if you had provided one, was accurate. After a brief search, I could not find it, inertia set in and I moved on to cat videos.
Two takeaways: 1) if it makes you feel better, your word was not enough to induce confirmation bias on my part; 2) my laziness saved both of us some additional embarrassment.
Yet another example of when keeping your yapper shut proved to be the prudent course of action.
-Jut
This is a lesson I have never learned, and am unlikely to.
I’ve heard enough other dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric from the rest of the Democrat Politicians and Democrat Media heads to still posit the question:
When do the Democrats start firing on Fort Sumter?
“When do the Democrats start firing on Fort Sumter?
I’m certain you’re aware precedent exists MW; Jefferson Davis WAS a democrat.
Some thoughts on a few passages from a NYTs ‘news analysis’ by Peter Baker.
WASHINGTON — Ralph Waldo Emerson seemed to foresee the lesson of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. “When you strike at a king,” Emerson famously said, “you must kill him.”
Mr. Trump’s foes struck at him but did not take him down.
Here, they (he) make a thoroughly outrageous statement — one that if ever said in a periodical of importance in the US of President Obama — would have elicited gasps. Rightly so since killing a king is assassination. Though he meant that their impeachment didn’t work, nevertheless the use of a killing metaphor remains in its resonance.
With the end of the impeachment trial now in sight and acquittal assured, a triumphant Mr. Trump emerges from the biggest test of his presidency emboldened, ready to claim exoneration and take his case of grievance, persecution and resentment to the campaign trail.
Here is a good example to insert what I called a ‘paraphrase’. The paraphrase is necessary here, because the words and the phrases seem to say a specific thing, but in fact they say another thing.
There was no ‘test’ of his presidency, but there was another desperate and fabricated effort to take him down by means that cannot be reconciled with ‘political decency’. If there is a ‘test’ here, it will be a test to see how the Democrats, who have engineered this underhanded manoeuvre, manage to survive the misfortune of necessary failure they engineered for their selves. And the Democrats have a direct responsibility in creating the circumstances of emboldening Trump the man who has every reason to claim exoneration and to speak about grievance, about persecution, and as everyone knows to *hype* the resentment that he must feel and which his constituency definitely feels. They seem to live vicariously with Trump because of their strong identification with him.
The president’s Democratic adversaries rolled out the biggest constitutional weapon they had and failed to defeat him, or even to force a full trial with witnesses testifying to the allegations against him. Now Mr. Trump, who has said that the Constitution “allows me to do whatever I want” and pushed so many boundaries that curtailed past presidents, has little reason to fear the legislative branch nor any inclination to reach out in conciliation.
However, this was known from before the beginning. So, having gone forward with it, and gotten exactly the result that was predicted, it is the Democrats who have the ‘stain’ on their record. That is, an underhanded and improper use of the impeachment alternative as a political tool to unseat and defeat an elected president. It could be said then that they ‘rolled out the biggest weapon and used it against themselves’. It could also be said that these Democrats demonstrate what ‘doing what they want’ is, even when it is improper, underhanded and danger-making to Constitutional principles and the ‘smooth transition of power’ during an election. Who here has ‘pushed boundaries’?
Again, one has to read these statements, and when reading them translate them.
“I don’t think in any way Trump is willing to move on,” said Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman who teaches at Princeton University. “I think he will just have been given a green light and he will claim not just acquittal but vindication and he can do those things and they can’t impeach him again. I think this is going to empower him to be much bolder. I would expect to see him even more let loose.”
Wait! Excuse the exclamation point in my otherwise calm exposition. You are saying that Trump is unwilling to move on? What would ‘moving on’ mean to you? You mean to pretend that what you brought out against him did not happen? But let’s translate: what you are saying, though you do not seem aware that you are saying it: it is that you/Democrats are unwilling to move on. You have done no ‘moving on’ at any point. And here you project your own content onto President Trump.
Since there is a valid argument that there was no wrong-doing, and that if anything was done it was more *indecorous* than improper or illegal, you are implying that he should not celebrate and take political advantage of the tremendous opportunity handed to him?!? Since it could be argued that the ‘things’ he did were non-things, what ‘things’ will he now continue to do? No sir, what you mean is that you-Democrats will continue to do ‘things’ — any things, all things — that are possible to do.
This is an amazing statement: “I think this is going to empower him to be much bolder. I would expect to see him even more let loose.”
In fact, you handed this to him as if on the proverbial *silver platter*. Much bolder? Has he ever been unbold?
(The whole article can be gone through in this way. This supports my point that so much that is said requires ‘translation’).
There is nothing more for me to add about your fuck-up, so moving on.
This has its roots in the Democratic leadership’s promotion of the Great Awokening.
Yeah.
The alleged action is a mere request to reopen an investigation based on new evidence.
Nothing Trump is accused of violated the civil rights of Americans.
Obama, by sharp contrast, violated the civil rights of male students with his 2011 Dear Colleague Letter.
How did Bernstein’s ethics become corrupted?
Bill Clinton’s popularity during his impeachment went up.
I suspect that the media was the culprit.