Adam Schiff and the art of lying
How do you know Adam Schiff is lying? His lips are moving.
Schiff’s lies have been obvious for a long long time. But although the evidence was both clear and stark – the Schiff memo vs. the Nunes memo, just to take a single example – it hasn’t really seemed to hurt him, except on the right.
It’s depressing even now to look back at it, and I’m not going to do so in any depth, but you can do a search yourself for “Nunes memo vs. Schiff memo” and follow it from the early MSM reports praising Schiff to the skies and excoriating Nunes, to the IG report exposing Schiff’s as being full of lies and Nunes’ as being accurate, to the spin by the MSM that tries to cover up or minimize those findings. If you want one article summarizing the whole thing, I refer you to this by Mollie Hemingway.
Then of course there was Schiff’s performance at the impeachment, complete with fake paraphrasing of the famous phone call. More recently, we have the fact that Schiff has been suppressing the transcripts of the hearings his committee held in 2017-18 into supposed Russia election interference, and then the threat to Schiff by Director of National Intelligence Grenell that if Schiff didn’t release them Grenell would, which has somehow convinced Schiff to do so at long last.
Fancy that.
And fancy this: those transcripts reveal a pack of lies and liars, such a disparity between their public statements and their long-secret congressional testimony (under oath and threat of perjury) that one is tempted to go around, like Diogenes, carrying a lamp looking for an honest man – or woman, in this case. It’ll be a long search, in terms of the cast of characters trying to sink the Trump administration.
Ace details (here, here, and here) just three of these people (or entities, in the case of Crowdstrike) and the difference between their public statements and their testimony before Congress. Funny thing, the pattern is the same for all: public accusations, private disavowals.
For example:
This testimony never leaked, or at least was never reported. I can’t think why. https://t.co/0jV7tqj1Fb
— Brit Hume (@brithume) May 7, 2020
Or this:
I want to stress what a pretty big revelation this is. Crowdstrike, the firm behind the accusation that Russia hacked & stole DNC emails, admitted to Congress that it has no direct evidence Russia actually stole/exfiltrated the emails. More from Crowdstrike president Shaun Henry: pic.twitter.com/UCGSyO2rLt
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) May 8, 2020
The gist of it all is this:
The transcripts, which were released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., revealed top Obama officials were questioned over whether they had or had seen evidence of such collusion, coordination or conspiracy — the issue that drove the FBI’s initial case and later the special counsel probe.
“I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified in 2017. “That’s not to say that there weren’t concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence. … But I do not recall any instance where I had direct evidence.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, according to the transcript of her interview, was asked about the same issue. Power replied: “I am not in possession of anything—I am not in possession and didn’t read or absorb information that came from out of the intelligence community.”
When asked again, she said: “I am not.”
Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was asked the same question.
“To the best of my recollection, there wasn’t anything smoking, but there were some things that gave me pause,” she said, according to her transcribed interview, in response to whether she had any evidence of conspiracy. “I don’t recall intelligence that I would consider evidence to that effect that I saw…conspiracy prior to my departure.”
When asked whether she had any evidence of “coordination,” Rice replied: “I don’t recall any intelligence or evidence to that effect.”
When asked about collusion, Rice replied: “Same answer.”
Former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was asked the same question during his House Intelligence interview.
It goes on that way: Ben Rhodes, Loretta Lynch, and so forth. And that article I linked, from which the quotes come, also contains Schiff’s response. It’s as you might imagine: twist, turn, spin, repeat.
However, I am pretty sure that were I to bring this matter up with my Democratic-voting friends and family, they would all react to the news with one or more of these responses:
(1) I haven’t followed it.
(2) Well, there’s plenty of other evidence (and then quoting Schiff, or someone else’s statement that’s been debunked)
(3) That’s just Fox’s take on it, so it’s not true.
(4) I hate Trump anyway and want him gone.
One can’t get too cynical in these matters, unfortunately. Many years ago I had an assumption that revelations such as these would change the minds of most people. But in the last twenty years or so I’ve learned that’s very rare, although it does happen. It is especially unlikely in the current climate – a climate that became especially apparent during the Obama years – in which the MSM will do anything and say anything to protect the left no matter what they do.
And of course Adam Schiff is well aware of that. That is what gives him the arrogance to lie and lie and lie and consider himself untouchable. If only the likes of Fox and the NY Post and the Federalist and Jonathan Turley call him out on it, he knows the vast constituency on which he depends will never read it, and if they do they will apply the time-tested arguments trotted out by him, the NY Times, the WaPo, and the rest. It is a phalanx, an army of liars who present a united front against their common enemy, which is the right.
ADDENDUM: Kayleigh’s on the case:
Of those four potential responses IMO only # 4 has any real validity.
As for “Many years ago I had an assumption that revelations such as these would change the minds of most people. But in the last twenty years or so I’ve learned that’s very rare, . . . ” I absolutely agree. I noticed years ago that debates rarely changed minds. Ultimately so many people work on the fundamental principle that “believing is seeing,” and this, of course is linked with the three most difficult words in the English language: “I was wrong.”
The pathology of California, which I left 3 years ago after 60 years a resident, is such that I would not be surprised to see Schiff run for and be elected as Feinstein’s successor in the Senate. The middle class left California, as I did, and what is left is a feudal society.
I am so tired of Schiff, Comey, Deep State, Russians, FBI, the coup, etc, and et al. I tend to skip over all of this now. Until one of them starts wearing an orange jumpsuit I can’t see spending much energy on any of it. And since that will never happen, I guess I’m off the hook.
Color me so far beyond cynical there’s no color description.
The importance of this stuff isn’t to convince viewers of Rachel Maddow they’re wrong. It’s about giving folks on the Right intellectually and emotional ammunition to fight it out with the Left. There is little as motivating as having ironclad evidence that you are right and your opponents are cravenly wrong.
It’s also about giving undecided folks in the middle something to gravitate toward. If you ever listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast, it’s fascinating to hear him talk with his comedian buddies about Trump and politics. They’re all culturally liberal and none of them actually like Trump but most of them seem perfectly aware of how terribly Trump has been treated by the media and how awful the Democrats are. None of them will probably vote for Trump but they may not vote for Biden either.
Mike
Zimri Schiff has lied outside of congress. anyone hurt by Obama’s Russian witch hunt should sue his effete are
You have to wonder what ordinary–ordinary liberal–people think when they have to face such information and reformulate their responses. Do they think…I’m lying because I have to. Do they think…This is the way it’s always been, nothing that went before actually exists.
Do they think, the end justifies the means no matter how disgusting I look to other people.r
Silly Richard, Dems feel first, then think.
4) I hate Trump and want him gone!
That’s the feeling. All the “thinking” is more properly called rationalization and so any or all of 1, 2, 3, will do.
Reps need better jokes, and laugh at how ignorant the Dems are who don’t know the truth.
What is the truth?
0 – zero – of the guilty Dem criminals have been indicted. Including McCabe & Comey.
0
No indictment – no change of mind.
Until more are indicted, so that there are new “facts” to discuss, all the Dem supporters will be easily able to justify their continued support.
Democrat Derangement Syndrome gets taught in schools. Especially colleges, but also now in K-12. This should have been clear with Kavanaugh DS — but I’m alone in talking about it. It will be more clear in 5 years, as Trump leaves and the next Rep “is Hitler”. (If not sooner)
Reps need to work far more on education than on business.
Here’s an idea – ask Dem friends:
“Do you know what Trump Derangement Syndrome is?” And then mention one of the facts and point out the TDS folk don’t know that fact.
Serious question: what has to happen for these people to be executed for treason?
They can’t be convicted for treason since they weren’t actively colluding with a foreign power. That’s John Kerry’s job.
MBunge — there’s no point in accumulating facts to argue with a leftist. Present them with facts, and they go spinning off on a tangent like a pinball. They will never respond to facts, because they’re not interested in facts. It’s just OrangeManBad! all the way down.
Credited to Jonathan Swift, among others . . .
“You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into.”
. . . originally, more like . . .
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.”
I like the more modern formulation a lot better.
Mike, on “giving undecided folks in the middle something to gravitate toward”.
This consideration will likely decide the election, and the fate of the country.
If most of *them* seem, or become (thru indictments of the RussiaGate perps), perfectly aware of how terribly Trump has been treated, it shouldn’t be hard to get them to face, how much those deeds push Trump backers to demand justice, or move toward succession.
The spinning of Truth via reflexive Marxist-style projection now includes Obama. Take this post via Instapundit posted late tonight:
WELL, IF “RULE OF LAW” IS A SYNONYM FOR “CRIMINAL CONSPIRACIES OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION,” THEN YES: Exclusive: Obama says in private call that ‘rule of law is at risk’ in Michael Flynn case. [Link in original]
Glenn Reynolds comments: Actual rule of law is the thing Obama’s circle dreads most at this point. Which is why he’s scattering chaff.
– – – – – – –
Hmmm. Chaff or the chafe provoking righteous outrage? Selected reactions from a dialog and one commenter, whose sentiments I happen to share, show this is a revealing reckoning, portending civil war:
Midwest Guy:
Let’s not understate what we’re witnessing here.
This is the first time in American history that an outgoing president has refused to peacefully transfer power to the incoming president. We now know, beyond any real doubt, that Obama attempted to maintain power, through holdover former subordinates, to destroy the new president and anyone who dared to work for him — not just politically, or even professionally, but personally to the point that Obama’s political opponents nearly ended up frog-marched to prison.
After America finally falls, future historians will look back on this very moment as a, or perhaps *the*, central occurrence leading up to that fall.
[Will persecution change this?Is team Trump rushing all this to get it out before the election, hurried up because of the pandemic?]
Midwest Guy replies:
It won’t matter. This is not the kind of thing that a political system can recover from, even if every single Obama holder is sent to prison — even if the civil service laws are repealed and every lefty bureaucrat is fired.
Obama’s actions here mark the exact moment when bitter political opponents became enemies. This is the most momentous occurrence in American government since Fort Sumter.
===========
My comment: Linger on those two last sentences. If political opponents have become enemies, then can there be any outcome but blood spilling?
Since the Democrats will keep doubling down on their lies, and the Marxist media will back and promote their projection, without any serious correction, then what is the point of peaceful election process that is a charade? Who will change their minds or have grounds of trust to compromise?
Didn’t Jefferson write something apropos this moment about broken Republics, and how once broken, nearly impossible to get back?
Here is a link to a recording of the call by Obama, as referenced ABOVE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=tbQ8P3GhD-c&feature=emb_logo
I encountered an old friend for the first time in decades last fall. She was in the persuadable middle, I think. She was very troubled, and dropped many hints along the lines of “I don’t recognize my party any more.” There were several true believers in this get-together, and she was being polite and discreet about announcing her near-apostasy, but not all of this information was escaping her. Not that she was in any sense becoming a Trump supporter; she still wanted to find any way in the world to escape having to do that. If the Dems were promoting anything like a centrist platform or candidate, she’d be there for them.
When there are indictments this summer the Fake News can’t ignore that.
Obama won’t be indicted, but he clearly ordered the FBI and CIA to do the unlawful spying.
“Many years ago I had an assumption that revelations such as these would change the minds of most people. But in the last twenty years or so I’ve learned that’s very rare, although it does happen.”
And these people vote; people immune to facts or data or reasoning or really anything. They just believe.
And when there are enough of these sorts of non-thinking, sheep like, people , they will freely vote for a Chavez or Castro and that will be end of the USA.
And do not think it cannot happen here in the USA; it can happen anywhere.
And when there are enough of these sorts of non-thinking, sheep like, people , they will freely vote for a Chavez or Castro and that will be end of the USA.
And do not think it cannot happen here in the USA; it can happen anywhere.
Castro was never elected dog catcher. Electing Chavez was an act of mass stupidity, but what made it possible was 25 years worth of gross corruption and incompetence courtesy the Venezuelan political class.
What we’re facing is the complete collapse of any sense of procedural norms among Democratic politicians, Democratic lawyers, and the attentive Democratic voters alike. To this is conjoined copious quantities of deception and self-deception as well as egregious attitudinizing.
They’re not going to enjoy it when the opposition gets tired of the simulacrum of norms and just lets them have it with both barrels. And they’ll have earned it too.
Didn’t Jefferson write something apropos this moment about broken Republics, and how once broken, nearly impossible to get back?
Who cares? You have ample data from working political societies. No need to pay much attention to Mr. Jefferson’s letters.
Yeah, JohnTyler, most liberals have become sheep, esp. since the Great Awokening, starting in SparkleFarts’ 2nd term, see John McWhorter, at
http://www.theDailyBeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/AntiRacism-our-flawed-new-Religion .
However, there may still be enough relatively open-minded liberals (e.g. Amy Goodman?), whose possible flight from Leftism (spurred by Durham’s indictments of SparkleFarts’ gang?) may make a disproportional diff. in these coming years.
What Durham does in these next few weeks/ months could make a huge diff.
The two things that I see that make me sure this is gonna end in blood are:
1- So what if a lame duck president ordered the FBI and the Justice Department to conduct a fully politicized inquisition, frame an innocent man, and conduct one of the most egregious civil rights violations since Jim Crow…Orange Man Bad, and that’s all that matters!
2- It’s OK if Joe Biden is too senile to put his pants on front-ways-round… we’ll make him President, then other people will run the country!
I only hope that this time we don’t repeat the mistake we made after the Civil War.
As good as any available way to tell the key diffs., between open-minded liberals and committed Lefties, is to know/ recall their real views on the RussiaGate stuff, seeing as the real score on this stuff has become **so clear**, since the output of the Mueller & Horowitz reports, and the Flynn exoneration.
I mentioned A. Goodman in my comment above, because she stood tall with Greenwald last year, in his ripping into D.C. Johnston, for his McCarthyite smears vs. DJT as a Russian agent, see
https://theIntercept.com/2019/03/25/watch-a-contentious-constructive-Debate-on-the-Media-and-political-humiliation-from-the-Mueller-report/ .
Anyone purporting to be **fair and knowledgeable** should’ve had no trouble joining Greenwald, Chomsky, Taibbi, Oliver Stone, etc., in ripping this Russia stuff as laughable, or at least staying agnostic.
Anyone who was on board with it, or who tries now to apologize for those who pushed it, has no place being taken seriously, in any discussions of any major public issue.
And, anyone (Lefty or never-Trumper) who is still on board with it, makes themselves outright radioactive, such that you associate with them at all at your peril.
And, liberals who can’t at least somewhat understand, why we would treat the above crowds as radioactive, should be clearly told of the copper etc. aphorism, that “when you lie with dogs, you end up with fleas”.
DaveP, on “this is gonna end in blood”:
Unless a slew of big busts by Durham etc., gets many liberals to face music, that most of the Left has enslaved the once-liberal Dem party, to an infantile world-view.
Art Deco;
Yes, electing Chavez was an act of mass stupidity; but it happened irrespective of the cause.
Yes, Castro was not elected, but he became the boss.
Here in the USA we have the massive 24/7/365 propaganda machine that is the media that many folks listen to and believe they are hearing objective news. The power and influence of propaganda can not be under estimated.
I will speculate that more folks watch/listen to the media than read websites such as this.
Recall the famous line from Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels; “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” And Hitler himself stated that “the bigger the lie, the more readily it will be believed.”
I have no doubt that Neo’s uber liberal friends are well educated, but as she herself states, she has no illusions that they will alter their views based on new and INCONTROVERTIBLE FACTS.
Why?
Is it because they have heard for 3 solid straight years from the media that Trump is a Russian stooge and a sick joke?
Would NEO’s liberal friends hold this same opinion if the media supported Trump as they did Obama?
IMHO they would all be in love with Trump if the media fell in love with him, as they did with Obama .
I know my liberal acquaintances would be tripping all over themselves with praise for Trump if the media supported him.
I gave up long ago any attempt to talk to liberals; the ones I know believe everything they read/hear/see from the media. End of story.
Such is the power of propaganda; it’s like hypnosis and most bizarre of all, the level of one’s education or accomplishments seems to have zero affect on one’s susceptibility to it.
How to get many liberals to face music?
Maybe, by getting some of the biggest names of pre-Awakening
liberalism to rub loudly liberals’ noses in the monstrosity of what SparkleFarts’ crowd tried to do, with the active complicity of so much of the MSM.
How about if, say, Barr & Durham, when they announce big busts, get the likes of Rosey and Pientka to announce, to a nat’l TV news audience, that they’ve testified to having covered, for what they *know* to be the biggest criminal conspiracy in the history of modern democracy?
Then, have celebs like Stone, Dersh, etc., elaborate on the historical/ legal context of this news.
Some things that have come to pass in the last 12 years as a result of the progressive beliefs.
• If a dude pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
• Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
• Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegal Mexicans voting in our elections are good.
• It was cool for Joe Biden to “blackmail” the President of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump merely inquires about it.
• Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote.
• Illegals aren’t required to show ID, but citizens can’t buy cough medicine without it.
• Citizens are fined if they don’t buy their own health insurance, and then they are forced to pay for illegals’ health care.
• People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
• Inflammatory rhetoric is outrageous, but harassing Trump supporters in restaurants is virtuous.
• People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for useless degrees.
• Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
• Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate Central-American gang-banger who jumps the southern fence is welcome.
• If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you can go to college for free.
• Politicians who say that the President is not above the law put illegal immigrants and themselves above the law.
• People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.
• Illegals don’t pay taxes, but they get tax refunds.
• We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, and it seems like a great plan to the Democrats.
• Voter suppression is bad, but not allowing the President to be on the ballot is good.
• Fourth-of-July parades are bad, but parades of women dressed as vaginas are good.
• Deplorable people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and the “right” people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.
• Criminals are catch-and-released to commit more crimes. Locking them up is bad because it’s a violation of THEIR rights.
It’s “1984” in 2020.
So, is it any wonder that the coup cabal believed they could pull it off? And that they are still willing to lie in the face of revelation after revelation of their guilt. It’s a dystopian society in which facts and truth are all in the eyes of the beholder. With the MSM is on their side, they are emboldened to keep on prevaricating.
Unfortunately, if Barr and Durham bring indictments, the perps will proclaim that it is nothing more than political revenge. The indicted perps will be called political prisoners and hailed as martyrs. And the MSM will lead the outcry. It will get very ugly. I hope Barr and Durham have the fortitude and the skill to carry it off.
Yeah, “The indicted perps will be called political prisoners and hailed as martyrs” by the MSM, but they’re losing their influence, as the web (esp. its videos) just keeps gaining on them.
Look at how fast the MSM had to back-peddle vs. N. Sandmann, and how united the GOP were on impeachment.
Many on the right feared, that Conservatism Inc. and the MSM would get the Senate to convict on the 1st Article.
Instead, only Mitt went that way, on only that Article.
I live in Michigan. Was having a discussion with my wife about manners. A person I know was discussing something or other but segued to….global warming is causing the glacial ice to melt which is why the Great Lakes are rising. [Damn’ well are. Shoreline remediation is a big business] Since the subject wasn’t that or anything close I forbore to mention Niagara Falls. I’m usually not deliberately unkind and there was nothing to be gained, like votes, in the discussion.
But I was concerned about the person’s reaction. Puzzlement? Confusion.? “Oh, crap, I got caught looking like an idiot because everybody knows about the Falls”?
Would the rest of the folks think me a jerk for goofing on an obviously disabled person? Wasn’t disabled, except maybe letting otherwise capable people believe this stuff is the right thing to do? Or maybe letting otherwise competent people who obviously know better think they got away with something, got one over on us? People should just be allowed to “say stuff”?
Point is, are we going to start some serious bad feeling among people who are otherwise good folks if we begin objecting to such nonsense? Which, of course, includes the current subject. Is the natural reluctance to do this a handicap or does it make no difference?
In terms of persuasion, I would suggest framing any (or all) of this with something along the lines of “Of course, none of this means that Trump is a good person or that he should be re-elected. The problem is what happens when people start acting like Trump just to get Trump and whether or not we have the nerve to spot if and call them on it.”
The way that all of this (and nearly every other news story since 2016) have been framed is as a referendum on Trump. It will be nigh well impossible to get anyone to budge as long they don’t have a way out of that particular question.
“Some things that have come to pass in the last 12 years as a result of the progressive beliefs.”
BRILLIANT. This listing would be a great script for a political ad. Just have a voice read the list, and finish off with DJT saying something like “I do NOT think that any of these things are right, proper and correct. My name is Donald J. Trump and I approve of this ad.”
J.J You missed: “Modern” pedagogy *requires* that six years old’s be taught about anal sex.