Lying for rhetorical advocacy
On the judicial nominee front:
Nusrat Choudhury, Biden’s pick for a New York City federal trial court, allegedly claimed during a 2015 panel that police shoot unarmed black people every day in the United States. Choudhury defended the statement in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April. But on May 11, Choudhury told the committee she had never made such a statement.
“I did not make this statement. I strongly disavow this statement, and I regret not disavowing this statement during my hearing,” Choudhury wrote in a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon…
Republicans have yet to defeat one of Biden’s judicial nominees, and Choudhury’s unexplained turnabout presents their best opportunity yet. A second hearing would prolong the confirmation process and heighten pressure on the nominee.
Choudhury is a career ACLU lawyer whom Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has championed for the bench. She participated on a panel at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs in 2015. A representative from a school alumni group live-tweeted the event and reported that Choudhury claimed unarmed black people are shot by police on a daily basis.
There is no record of Choudhury’s statement apart from the tweet. But when pressed by Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) about the claim at an April 27 hearing, Choudhury said she had been “engaging in rhetorical advocacy” three times and never disavowed the false claim.
It’s hard to sort this out, but whatever’s going on, it’s another depressing story. “I strongly disavow this statement, and I regret not disavowing this statement during my hearing” – what does that sentence even signify? Why would a person who is accused of making a false and incendiary statement – accused in an official public forum – try to make excuses for the statement rather than simply saying, “I never said that!”, and then suddenly much later on claim that he or she actually had never made the original statement? Are we to imagine that it had just slipped Choudhury’s mind to let us know she’d never said it? That doesn’t pass the smell test.
Choudbury is a “career ACLU lawyer.” The ACLU has turned into a leftist organization, and “rhetorical advocacy” would indeed be common among its lawyers. But it is not a recommendation for someone who would be a federal judge. And yet the bench is loaded with such people.
The lie that unarmed black people are shot by the police “every day” (or often) is a falsehood that has done a remarkable amount of damage, from riots to property destruction to killings of police officers. It’s financially and politically enriched a lot of people as well, most particularly the BLM officials who siphoned off a lot of the money they collected by peddling the lie. The false “narrative” has also fed a great deal of hatred and paranoia, and it’s been repeated and repeated and repeated by people who should know better and who probably do know better.
Was Choudhury one of those people who knew better? I think the evidence tends towards the conclusion that she most likely was.
Betting another Critical Race Theorist going to sit on a court judging how race plays a part in every trial.
Every Sundowner Puppeteers pick for any Federal job is a Bat Shit Leftists more than the last pick. It’s all a test how far they can get.
Glenn Loury, “Unravelling the Spiral of Silence”:
Video clip below: https://glennloury.substack.com/p/unravelling-the-spiral-of-silence?s=r
So first she makes a factually untrue statement, then defends the factually untrue statement under the aegis of “engaging in rhetorical advocacy” (whatever the hell that is), then denies she even made the statement at all. I mean, this is pretty cut and dry. To lie egregiously, then later defend the lie, then later still deny even making the lie? In a sane world such a person would be nowhere near a position of power such as a federal judge. But sadly we don’t live in such world so I’m sure she’ll be appointed.
Of course she knows she is lying. BAMN
Let her join Tanden, Chipman, Omarova and Raskin in the unemployment line.
As Dennis Prager put it in a recent column:
https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-prager/2022/05/24/joe-bidens-buffalo-speech-was-the-speech-of-an-indecent-man-n1600295
Shooting at School in Texas. A lot of smoke about the shooting, nothing really clear as yet.
At least fourteen children, one teacher dead at that elementary school in Uvalde, TX. Daily Mail says the shooter, now dead himself, was a Hispanic male student at the local high school. He may have shot his grandmother off-site before running into the school. As usual, early reports should be treated with caution; they may be wrong.
Repubs need to do more than win elections.
They need to do stuff like fight these nominations … and they need to remove some of the worst of worst if they get back in power.
“They need to do stuff like fight these nominations … and they need to remove some of the worst of worst if they get back in power.”
Ah but that would be ‘proof’ of… racism.
Had they any cojones, when accused of racism for voting against such as she, Senators would simply say, it’s not the color of her skin, it’s the content of her character revealed by her lying under oath. Then walk away…
The ACLU was always leftist. They were founded by the communists for the express purpose of waging lawfare against America.
The ACLU was always leftist. They were founded by the communists for the express purpose of waging lawfare against America.
There were a couple of organizations founded in the 1940s who fit that description, but the ACLU was not one of them. The ACLU was founded in 1919. Per Wm. Donohue, it was always a political lawfare outfit. It was not, however, a communist front.
Correction. The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee was founded in 1951 by Corliss Lamont. The Center for Constitutional Rights was founded in 1966 by Arthur Kinoy. The latter still exists.
I’ve watched a few of these Biden DOJ appointment/confirmation hearings and the level of disingenuousness & evasion in their testimony is depressing. Sen. John Kennedy (LA) is the best at exposing their deceit.
The evil myth that police “routinely shoot unarmed black men” has permeated the Democrat Party. In a number of examples, Democrats are asked how many unarmed black men are shot by police. They assert that the number is in the “thousands.” It is actually 22.
“They need to do stuff like fight these nominations … and they need to remove some of the worst of worst if they get back in power.”
I would replace “some of the worst of worst” with “as many as possible”.
‘rhetorical advocacy’ is an academized term for lying – she’s basically acknowledging having lied but attempting to excuse that as justified given the intent and disposition of her statements.
You’ll see it employed in contemporary postmodernized Rhetoric Studies, though it may have originated elsewhere. But it’s typical of that jargon, in that the phrase is cosmetic and deceptive.
Hopefully people will recognize the significance of what she’s trying to get away with.