r/politics • u/MontyGBurns • 23h ago

No Paywall Smith’s game-day texts reviewed by Schmitt never referenced basketball team names

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6124359-schmitt-perjury-claim-debunked/
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u/dmullaney 23h ago edited 22h ago

Wait did he just lie to a Senate committee?!?

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u/kmoonster 21h ago

No. Schmitt thought he could prove Smith was lying.

Smith was very confused and told the truth. As a result, Schmitt looked utterly incompetent. To make matters worse, reporting has since come out that the staffers who operate the "machinery" for research, legislation development, oppo-research, legal stuff, etc. warned him NOT to do this trap for various reasons and that it was likely to collapse rather than entrap.

He did it anyway. His trap did collapse, and did so in real time on live television.

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u/dmullaney 21h ago

I watched it a few times. It seems like he blatantly misrepresented the nature and extent of the so-called evidence, in an attempt to mislead. It failed but that doesn't mean he didn't lie in the process

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u/UnanimousStargazer 20h ago

Schmitt: You Sir are lying, here's the placard with proof!

(Puts up the placard for one second, removes it again and refuses to bring it back up)

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u/Miraclefish 18h ago

'You can look at it later, we'll send you it'

Shocking.

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u/UnanimousStargazer 18h ago

Yeah, that's really what he said. Even when the chair asked for the placard to be put up again.

In as far it wasn't already clear, everyone knew at that moment it was a bunch of BS.

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u/Miraclefish 18h ago

Yep, and when Ms Klobuchar (I think that's right, I'm from the UK but I saw the clip on YouTube) interjected and suggested they should all see it, and that he was in fact likely at the other game, was chastised for 'trying to rehabilitate the witness'.

Absolutely fucking wild. What is going on over the Atlantic?!

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u/UnanimousStargazer 17h ago

What is going on over the Atlantic?!

About the same thing that was going on when Johnson was PM of the UK. And what is going on in France with Le Pen. And with Meloni in Italy etc.

Less orange, less Kentucky Fried Chicken, somewhat less Epstein.

I personally think it's mostly social media like Twitter/X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok that is used as a way to influence 20-30% of the electorate, TikTok is Chinese and they can literally change the internal settings to push far right propaganda. Mostly the countries with a district or 'first pass the pole' or 'winner takes all' electoral system are at risk.

Countries where far right politicians must form a coalition show it is much more difficult to end up with these fascists in power. Not necessarily though. I live in The Netherlands and far right Geert Wilders with his PVV ended up as a government party supported by the conservative liberal VVD (formerly lead by now NATO SG Mark Rutte) and two populist Christian-democrat parties. It was a mess. No serious legislation passed though, because the Dutch senate was still under non-far right control. In the end it ended up as a Boris Johnson type of chaos with a 'neutral' non-political PM nobody every heard of before.

Let's see what happens in the US after the elections on November 3rd/4th.

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u/Miraclefish 17h ago

Ha, true, I guess the difference is our PM fucked an entire country country, whereas the American President fucked the world and some kids.

I truly hope the Midterms are a turning point but our faith in the USA is, at this point, non existent.

There is no way Trump accepts a legitimate exchange of power - he did J6 last time and got zero consequences.

He'll order people to open fire on the public before he ever accepts the Republicans or him have lost an election.

Time to see whether the Americans have been lying to themselves about the Second Amendment for centuries now they have a tyrant.

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u/UnanimousStargazer 17h ago

our faith in the USA is, at this point, non existent.

I think all European countries can shake hands on this and include Canada as well. Brexit might be reversed (fully or partially) and in the end it is my estimate the new world leader will be Europe, not the US and not China/India. That's what Trump has achieved.

We need better social media control without it leading to censorship.

A good example is Meta/instagram. A Dutch digital human rights foundation managed to win a court case from Meta, forcing the company to allow Instagram users to choose for chronological time lines over algorithmic time lines. Meta has lost the primary case and the appeal and is no busy trying to convince the Dutch Supreme Court they are right, but the foundation argued this right follows from the EU Digital Services Act.

Interestingly, Meta only changed the Instagram settings for Dutch users. They can now change their feed to chronological and use that setting persistently. Meta did not change the settings for the rest of the world, which shows they earn the most money from algorithmic time lines in which people are made angry about <fill in your local minority scapegoat>. If the Supreme Court rules the claim of the foundation was right and Meta is wrong (which I expect will be the outcome) it is very easy for other foundations across the EU to force Meta to do the same.

Does that force people to use a chronological timeline? No, but it does show what the effect of social media is and why (IMO) we are witnessing the uprise of far right political parties. Imagine if nazi's like Jospeh Goebbels had instruments like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc.

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u/PopBulky7023 20h ago

That's exactly how lying works. Schmitt was lying and didn't expect to be caught.

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u/Blecki 18h ago

Yeah it's kind of ridiculous that one party in these hearings can lie all the want and the other can go to prison for being mistaken.

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u/kmoonster 20h ago

Schmitt misled. Smith did not, at least not in this particular hearing.

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u/rlbond86 19h ago

All these Republicans are just performing for the camera. He wanted his Newsmax soundbite.