Saturday, July 02, 2022

Many People Just Don't Want The Facts To Get In The Way Of The Narrative And it Shows

Some people have allowed Trump to live in their heads rent-free and engage in coup fantasies and it shows.

In my post The January 6 Show Trial Resorts to Hearsay I pointed out issues with the veracity of the testimony made by Ms. Hutchinson and some indicators that it was less than true, especially as those who were actually there, unlike Ms. Hutchinson. have stated the salacious details did not happen and that they offered that they would testify to the contrary.

RobertaX from The Adventures of Roberta X then came by and left a comment that Federal hearsay rules aren't simple. Well, to people who don't understand hearsay that is true enough. Starting out they appear very complex but once you understand the logic behind the rules they do make sense and can be worked with.  Just to be clear, I deal with hearsay in court all the time so I'm rather well acquainted and have a good working knowledge of such in both Federal and State Court. 

 I then noticed she had made a post on her blog on the same subject Wading The Rubicon: Yesterday's Hearing claimed Trump had "crossed the Rubicon" and attempted a coup, based on Hutchinson’s testimony.

Rather histrionic and contrary to the actual occurrence, which was bad enough.  No need to go over the top and over-exaggerate.  The riot, such as it was, was an unacceptable act and properly condemnable and indeed I have and continue to condemn it loudly and clearly, just in case anyone is wondering.

I then pointed out in a comment on her blog regarding the issues with the reliability of Hutchinson’s statements given, they were allegedly relaying information she had been given second or even third-hand and that those she alleged made the statements have said it didn’t happen and even offered to testify.

RobertaX as you can go see in the comments on her blog in the post then replied saying that

“As for "the originator of the tale was not called to testify under oath," he has, in fact, refused to testify under oath, one of the many Trump Administration staffers to so refuse (or to take the Fifth when they do testify). and that Trump attempted a coup."

She also claimed I failed to discuss the talking point that Trump allegedly wanted to go to the Capitol that day.   Go read her comment for yourselves.

No, I indeed did not address ever possible talking point and did not address that tidbit, mea culpa if such is required for not addressing every possible claim in the testimony. But, I’ll note her post doesn’t even mention that tidbit either so no need for my comment to discuss it, neh?

I then replied back to the effect that (no I did not save the comment after posting it there as I expected there would be no need to preserve it, so this is not verbatim and is paraphrasing and summarizing what was written hours earlier):

1. I’m rather familiar with hearsay and the reason it is not allowed in court is its unreliability, such as the case with Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony before the committee. Note in my original comment to her I stated it was disliked.

Disliked as in verily hearsay statements are typically inadmissible unless the statement is not hearsay or there is an exception from the rule to allow its admissibility. But I simply said “disliked”, as I doubted she wanted a dissertation in her blog comments on hearsay, it’s definition, and exceptions. (For the record, lest anyone think otherwise, I do know the committee is not a trial, had there been a trial there might have been cross-examination of the witness, disclosure of evidence, exclusion of un-reliable statements etc, and this is a managed TV show trial production, but hey, you do you).

2. I stated in my comment directly replying to her point that she claims the witnesses are refusing to testify.  I stated that The January Sixth Committee has the subpoena power and can easily compel the original witnesses to the alleged events who allegedly relayed them so they eventually reached Ms. Hutchinson to testify. They have chosen not to do so, nor apparently take up the offers of testimony by those who were actually there and state it did not happen - which speaks volumes.  Namely it  reveals that the Committee prefers unreliable salacious politically-charged accusations that get headlines over an attempt to determine the truth of what occurred that day.

3. It is highly unlikely that Trump could have reached the steering wheel from where he was seated. Since Hutchinson claimed it was in the Beast. He was instead in a Suburban limo which is not the Beast, that testimony is all questionable. What else did she get wrong hearing of it second- and third-hand?

4. There’s a reason testimony like this is disfavored it allows unreliable fabulations and confabulations to be accepted as factual when actual first hand accounts of the same event that contradict the approved narrative are available.

5. There was no “coup”. Indeed her claim of it being a coup demeans the very meaning of the word coup and demeans all the actual coups in history. Verily, if this was a coup as she puts it, it would have to be considered one of the most inept, unorganized, unarmed, unplanned, uncontrolled, and ineffective, coups attempt in the history of the known world. To call this stupid riot a coup is to overstate what occurred by far.   I noted Hutchinson's testimony is a very thin reed to rely upon to claim a coup attempt occurred.

Unfortunately, she chose not to publish the comment, claiming it’s a Trumpy talking point and not addressing the points she raised or others raised in the comments. That, my friends, is false. The comment she chose to block directly responded to her comment and the points she raised.

But that’s fine, that’s her blog, and her choice to not have a conversation nor address the points I made in response to her points. She can have the last word on her blog and mischaracterize what I said in the responsive comment that she has decided not to post as she deems fit.

But, I will note she came over here to my blog first and decided to engage here and discuss my post, which led me to her blog to discuss her over-the-top post, then to reply to her comment replying to mine,  expecting the same courtesy of civil discussion as is extended here. 
 
This is fine, I tolerate multiple views of opinion and do not delete comments simply because they disagree with my view or opinion. I solely delete comments that are spam or defamatory or otherwise in my discretion reach a point of very high unacceptability that you'd know it when you see them. Disagreeing with me does not constitute such. I even allow comments that point out I may have made an error or overlooked something, which I oft have been known to do. This tends to improve dialog and prevents an echo chamber effect and improves my blog as a result.  Dissenting opinions that bring the facts with them in a civil manner are welcome.

RobertaX is certainly always welcome to come and post her opinion in comments on my blog as she may wish to do so, as is anyone else with views that may be contrary to mine.

16 comments:

B said...

Like most Liberals and children, pointing out facts that they don't like makes them uncomfortable and they either ignore or edit those comments when they cannot actually refute them.

Childish, but there it is.

I pulled her from my bloglist for her childish behavior long ago and stopped commenting on her blog for similar behavior.

Typical Old Lady behavior. She wants the world to be the way she wants it and will not hear facts that she does not approve of so that she doesn't have to face things that make her uncomfortable.

It is sad, really. She used to be worthy of respect in her opinions. long a go, I felt that when she and I disagreed, I felt that I had to take a long, hard look at my viewpoint. Now not so much. She has made herself irrelevant, which is a sad thing. I used to respect her, now no so much.

Midwest Chick said...

At this point anyone who watched more than five minutes of the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp brouhaha would be familiar with hearsay. Nothing that's come out of the committee would stand up in a court of law.

pigpen51 said...

Anyone who went to school in my day had an elementary school teacher play the telephone game with their classroom. Just to show how unreliable second hand information is.
I posted in that same discussion, and wondered who she was bad mouthing. I don't think that anyone could think that what went on during the ill fated protest of Jan. 6th was acceptable behavior. And even those who went in with the violent people should have known better. Those who entered at the invitation of police officers, which I myself witnessed on that day, via television, perhaps are exempt from such contempt, or judgement.
It seems that the former president came out that same day with a plea that the protestors stop the violence and disband. I voted for him twice, but I don't know if I could a third time, based upon his behavior after the election. I do think that the election was rigged, and that there was significant fraud involved with the Democrat party in a number of states, Michigan included. They had certainly set up their strategy, ahead of time, and the Republicans did not. I doubt that will happen again.
The show that is the House show trial is a mockery, and has been ever since the leader, Rep. Pelosi refused to seat the duly appointed members from the Republicans, and instead chose the two that she wanted herself. Putting it on national television, in primetime, under the direction of a former producer, shows just what the Democrat party's agenda is with the entire persecution, er, prosecution of this is.
I tend to prefer respectful dialog with people that disagree with me to those who are of the same mind. I can learn more that way. And I am always willing to change my mind on a subject if shown the truth. Sadly, there are some who refuse to do that, and they tend to be on both sides of the aisle.
That the mainstream media has taken the testimony of Ms. Hutchinson for gospel, and are calling the former president guilty of only God knows what, tells me just what their agenda is, although by now, there has been little doubt as to where their loyalties lie. Now I tend to get my news sources from online sources, that are closer to the place where things happen, and on both sides of an issue, if no unbiased source is available.
Have a good weekend, and Happy Independence Day.

Matthew W said...

Anyone that thinks that Trump was involved in a coup or insurrection should be declared to ignorant to vote.

Roberta X said...

Interestingly, even the "sources" (allegedly U. S. Secret Service agents, who I hope will testify under oath) disputing Hutchinson's second-hand account of a physical altercation between Mr. Trump in the limo do *not* dispute that he was insistent on being taken to the Capitol, a fact far more salient than if there was a struggle or not.

As for the 2020 election, it was not "rigged" or cheated or fraudulent. There is no evidence to support any such allegations, not in any state. I understand that GOP Trump loyalists are in the position of Wile E, Coyote after running off a cliff: clawing for a grip before admitting the reality of gravity. It's time to give up the fantasy. (Yes, B, that's directed at you. Enjoy.)

Aaron, I would have quite welcomed a comment from you on the admissibility and legal status of hearsay; I was inviting one when I pointed out the Federal statute was not especially clear to non-lawyers. At least one Press commentator with a law degree has claimed a specific exception applies to Ms. Hutchinson's testimony but when it comes to attorneys in such matters, one is often best advised to get a second opinion, if not more.

Truth will out. And it's been outing Mr. Trump as far worse than I was willing to credit him. That's not happy news.

Matthew W said...

" insistent on being taken to the Capitol"
Wow !!
Just "WOW!!!"
So what he wanted to go to the Capital?
Nothing illegal or insurrectiony about that.
The LIE is that the President attempted to take over the limo and it's a provable lie.

Roberta X said...

The same President who told the crowd, "You've got to fight like hell or you won't have a country any more," exhorted them to go to the Capitol, knew some were carrying weapons and promised to join them -- my, oh my, whatever could he have intended? Bit of a self-coup?

Some of his staff knew, and warned that it should not be allowed to happen. They stopped him. That doesn't excuse him any more than stopping a bank robber in the act excuses the attempted crime.

Midwest Chick said...

It seems that Jeh Johnson, a former Obama official, agrees that the J6 committee overstepped with Hutchinson's comments. Why? Because it was secondhand hearsay. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/04/jeh-johnson-concerned-j6-committee-overreached-on-trump-lunge-story-wouldnt-be-admissible-in-a-courtroom/

Chuck Todd pointed out that it was actually third-hand.

Aaron said...

RobertaX:

Nice switching the goal posts there.

My comment was directly answering your comment and you chose, for whatever reason to block it. That's your choice. Your comment to me certainly did not request a discussion of hearsay either, but be that as it may.

The comment discussed the unreliability of Hutchinson's statements, statements you relied upon to the exclusion of any other evidence to declare that Trump was trying to style himself a Caesar.

Further, your comment did not address the allegation of President Trump wanting to go to the Capitol, that was neither part of your original post, nor was it in our subsequent conversation either on this blog or yours, so no, I did not add any discussion to the follow on comment as it would not have addressed your comment.

If we had discussed it, We might discuss that there is still no verifiable testimony as to what he wanted to do should he have actually gone to the Capitol building. He could have done anything from telling everyone to calm down and go home, to as you claim, declaring a crossing of the Rubicon and naming himself Caesar to anythign in between. All counter-factual and the whole Caesar bit is highly unlikely and indeed he did not bring an armed army across the river to take over the state so your historical comparison is rather overstated and misplaced, as it did not happen and so far we have only Hutchinson's rather compromised testimony for such.

In short I don't think this discussion will get us much farther, and I would simply hope in the future that you view sources of third-hand salacious testimony such as Hutchinson with far more skepticism and critical thinking that you did on your post. Hutchinson's testimony far too nicely fits the preferred narrative of Trump bad yet has ever indicia of being unreliable and fitting an agenda rather than the facts of what may have occured.

Trump may indeed be bad, but her second- and third-hand testimony based on alleged accounts of others, who have since come forward and denied the events ever occurred is simply insufficient whether in a court of law (which yes, I do know the January 6 committee is not and it may continue its narrative-driven show accordingly) or even in a court of public opinion among people who seek credible and reliable evidence upon which to base their opinion.

Give me reliable evidence that "Trump crossed the Rubicon" and I'll condemn him and it as much as I've condemned the stupidity of the Jan 6 riot. But it had better be actual, serious, and verifiable evidence, and not the hearsay broken telephone game of he said athat he said that Trump did.

I wouldn't accept such hearsay crap about Clinton or Obama, nor would I accept it about Trump.

pigpen51 said...

I feel honored. I have been banned from a blog by it's author, for the first time. I also feel insulted, since Robert X said that I somehow was dishonest, and tried to somehow lie or not really follow the link that I said I did, etc. It involved the issue of how deaths from Covid are counted.
In April,2020, a press conference was held by Trump. Dr.Fauci, and Dr.Birx were there as well as VP Pence. I mentioned Dr.Fauci, and did forget that I mentioned him in my first comment. So she was right that I was wrong about that. However, she accused me of repeating a lie that Dr.Birx said at the 1 hour, 38 minute mark, that at the time, the U.S. was counting any death that occurred in conjunction with other illnesses like lung cancer, kidney disease, etc., they were calling it a death by Covid. I said this twice, in two different posts.
The second post is the winner. She not only did not post it, but banned me. Which of course is her right. Her bat and ball, take it and go home. But don't say that I lied when I did not.
I just have to post this somewhere, and since you know about the issue, I will post the last part of Dr.Birx comment, from the time mentioned to Ms. X, here. Perhaps you can tell me that you interpret it differently.
There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem, some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now we’re still recording it and the great thing about having forms that come in and a form that has the ability to mark it as COVID-19 infection, the intent is right now that if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.
I wish you the best, and a continued safe and healthy summer.

Roberta X said...

The comment your quote, Pigpen, does not come from the press conference you identified as having been on 20 Aprl 2020, but from a different one, 7 April 2020. So, wrong cite, and you did not provide a link. I had to go dig it up.

Than you proceeded to insist that you had never said Dr. Fauci was at the press conference, yet your earlier comment says exactly that, and it would have been on the screen while you wrote that you never said it. (I'm seriously bothered by that kind of thing.). It's all still there if you would like to go look.

Dr. Fauci was, in fact, at the press conference on 7 Aril 2020, and not at the one on 20 April 2020.

That all adds up to a person just posting something without going to check it, trying to bluff their way through, and doubling down when they were caught. That's why you got banned. Do your homework and you might the ban lifted. My blog is not a hugbox for anyone. I don't care if you agree with me, I care about getting the facts right. "Not kinda-sorta, feels okay," but right.

My rules are simple: stick to the facts. Link to your sources.

The Dr. Birx quote is based on the criteria long-used in the U.S. for cause of death: if you have lung cancer and six months to live, then get a respiratory infection and die a week later, you died of the respiratory infection. It's nothing nefarious or sneaky.

B said...

Dance like a monkey, Ms X.

You can't hide your misdeeds. Not here and not on your blog either.

No matter how much you wish it otherwise, your behavior sucks.
You were once so much better than this.

Roberta X said...

Here's Aaron's unpublished comment from my blog, with fisking but otherwise unedited aside from replacing double quotation marks with single quotes.

Aaron: "Yes, hearsay is excluded because it is unreliable, get it, so its hardly reliable before a committee primed to accept such to fit the narrative regardless of the truth."
RX: There are a number of exceptions to the hearsay rule. The rules apply to trials but I have not seen that any of it applies to Congressional Hearings. Some political commentators have asserted that Ms. Hutchinson's testimony would be allowed under the Federal rules concerning hearsay.
However, your claim that the 1/6 Committee is "primed to accept such to fit the narrative regardless of the truth" is simply opinion, and at odds with stated objectives of the Committee.

Aaron: "You know the committee has subpoena power to require the originator of the statement to appear right? That they instead chose to rely on a third-hand retelling of the story that has been debunked and denied by those who were you know actually there, is rather telling."
RX: You are aware that the enforcement powers of Congressional Committees are weak, and that most of the major players in Mr. Trump's Administration (including Mark Meadows) have refused to testify on various grounds or invoked the Fifth Amendment when they have appeared. No part of Ms. Hutchinson's testimony has been refuted by others under oath, and only part of it (the physical assault by Mr. Trump) has been denied by "sources" that have not themselves been verified. Even these informal claims have confirmed Mr. Trump's insistence on being taken to the Capitol that day.

Aaron: "There was no 'coup', pace the fairy tales believed by the Democrats and the easily gullible."
RX: That is a matter of opinion, expressed in dismissive language but entirely unsupported. Certainly it was not a *successful* coup but the evidence presented by the 1/6 Committee supports that it was an attempted coup. (Also, are you really accusing the hard-headed Liz Cheney, who voted with the Trumpist Republicans over 90% of the time during his term, of being "easily gullible?")

(continued)

Roberta X said...

(from previous)

Aaron: "Or if it was a 'coup' it was the most unplanned, ineffective, under-armed coup in history of coups."
RX: There is no "ineptness" exception for attempts to overthrow the government. They don't get a pass for bumbling. And the 1/6 Committee has produced evidence of actual planning and co-ordination by some of the people and groups involved. Your claim here is just a rehash of the "over-enthusiastic underlings" notion employed by Richard Nixon and Henry II. Didn't work then, doesn't work now.

Aaron: "Trump did plenty of things which I find objectionable."
RX: Can you list three? 'Cos you seem to be onboard his cult-of-personality train. (That's a rhetorical question.)

Aaron: "The stupidity of the riot on January 6 is similarly unacceptable and easily and properly also condemn-able. "
RX: You'd think that much mayhem and riot might merit an independent commission, or at least, oh, a Congressional Investigatory Committee, wouldn't you? Or don't you? Hunt with the hounds or run with the hares, you can't have it both ways.

Aaron: "To call it a coup is to engage in fantasy or ignorance as to what a coup actually looks like."
RX: Opinion. Also, would you call the storming of the Winter Palace a "coup?" C'mon, don't hold back, tell me what a coup looks like. Maybe like an armed mob, forcing their way into a major government building where one of three branches of government is conducting their Constitutionally-obligated duties, with the intent of interfering with it? With the express intent of lynching one or more duly elected members of that government? Yeah, yeah, they only achieved partial and temporary success. Get that far with an attempted bank robbery and you'll still go to jail, no matter how clumsy you are at it.

Aaron: "I find Hutchinson telling lies to a committee setup to spread such lies to spread a fake narrative for purely political reasons is equally if not more objectionable."
RX: opinion, opinion, opinion. You know as well as I do that testimony under oath is presumed honest unless proven otherwise -- and that perjury carries stiff penalties. Ms. Hutchinson's a Republican and has torpedoed her career in Mr. Trump's GOP, so what's her "political reason?"

--And this tiresome, annoying fisking is why I didn't post your comment on my blog, Aaron. Most of it was already asked-and-answered, the bulk of it in the same comments thread; and yet you keep returning to the well, you keep thinking your opinion somehow outweighs sworn testimony, and so on and so on. Well, here you go. Happy? Didn't think so.

B said...

Roberta: you should stop now...At this point your errors and illogic and outright twisting of facts to justify your self is embarrassing for you.

Roberta X said...

So fisk it, B, instead of lobbing lazy insults. Come on, ante up.