Questioning witnesses in the first impeachment hearing staged by House Republicans, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez prompted each to say they were not presenting “firsthand witness accounts” of crimes committed by Joe Biden.

The New York Democrat also accused Republicans of fabricating supposed evidence of corruption involving the president and his surviving son, Hunter Biden.

Republicans on the House oversight committee called three witnesses, Democrats one.

    • metaStatic@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      at this point

      oh man where have you been for the past … checks notes … 169 years

      • candybrie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        Nah. Lincoln was the republican president 169 years ago. Also Teddy Roosevelt was pretty cool. Trust busting and all.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          There are exceptions but for most of that time it’s been the party of hateful douchebags.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            17
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            For almost a century of the 169 years posted, Republicans were the more progressive of the two parties.

            The parties did not align as-is until the Civil Rights Act was passed and the racists left the Democrats as a result.

            Democrats during the Hoover era were famously corrupt, for instance, and them refusing to work with Hoover to prevent his re-election almost certainly worsened the Great Depression.

            It’s important to remember that the parties were originally both coalitions - that’s why the same Republicans who are racist as fuck today still call the Dems the “party of slavery” - it’s bullshit and the smart ones know it, but most people don’t understand the history.

            • Madison420@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              1 year ago

              I did not say the Democratic party was any better at any point either. They’re shades of shit one at times more “progressive” than the other.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                This isn’t a “both sides” thing for me, just clarifying the history of the parties.

                Currently, and basically since the CRA, there is clear superiority of one side.

                • Madison420@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  It’s not both sides for me either boss. Pointing out that the system itself is flawed not simply a party or the parties but the system itself.

                  Take for instance Lincoln’s proclivity for hanging native Americans and pardoning people that murdered natives. Ie. Progress is a relative term.

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    77
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Earlier today, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, presented up on the screen something that … appeared to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation… That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image.”

    She caught them fabricating evidence in the hearing. They shopped a bubble around a section of a larger text to take it out of context and make it look like a standalone statement. She (read: her staff) went through the exhibits and found the actual quote with context that entirely changed the meaning of the statement.

    • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      1 year ago

      And this is allowed because the congressmen who presented the “evidence” were not under oath, so they’re allowed to completely doctor fake evidence?

      • Nobody@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        In the days of yore, public figures cared about at least pretending to have integrity in the public eye. The system wasn’t built with many safeguards against bad actors who do so publicly with zero sense of shame.

        • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I have a contentious opinion. The system *was" built with safeguards against bad actors without shame. I think the founders assumed that dueling would serve that purpose. Anyone who was routinely obnoxious would end up getting killed eventually.

    • t3h_fool@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is terrible reporting. Could the Guardian have shown the screenshot? Could they have asked what the context was? I don’t understand why this all is behind a mostly opaque screen. Why we are being told something that obfuscates what was said rather than giving us the chance to judge for ourselves.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      She is a bit of a unicorn there. Even among what they were calling her posse of new politicos, she’s a stand-out brand-focused mouthpiece for her own agenda.

      I’m ever so glad her agenda happens to align with helping people, as she’s a force of nature.

      • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        And yet the centrist Democrats hate her, even though she’s energized her voting base, pushed for legislation, made more interested in running for office, and doesn’t bow down to Republicans because they were nice to her one time.

  • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    1 year ago

    I mean, the stupid thing is that they’re not even bothering to fabricate evidence, they’re just fabricating the entire accusation and not presenting any evidence at all. Their first witness even said point blank that there’s no reason to be doing any of this; so as usual, not only are they criminally partisan, but they’re also really bad at it.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Except for, you know, the fake screenshot of a text message explicitly mentioned in the article.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I don’t know, does that count? The text message actually happened, the fakery was just putting it into a screenshot. The context was all bogus, of course, as AOC correctly pointed out; but the text itself wasn’t fabricated per se.

  • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    1 year ago

    She went on to accuse cheetahs of running fast, mountans of being tall and fire of being hot. Fox news denied all of her claims as hearsay and deep state propaganda.

  • Lianodel@ttrpg.network
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    The entire impeachment theater is directed at low-information voters. People who will find out about the hearing and not bother to read or watch to find out it’s a nothingburger, who won’t read the accusations but just take it that there’s a scandal, and who will throw their hands up and say “both sides are the same” because they’re impeaching one another’s presidents.

    • Goo_bubbs@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s okay to just say Republicans instead of low-information voters, since the Venn diagram for them is a circle.

  • Billiam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    1 year ago

    Remember how Rudy Colludy went to Ukraine in 2019 to “gather the facts” about Hunter Biden and Burisma?

    Wonder why the GOP don’t want to hear from him about that trip?

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I wonder why the Dems didn’t present his testimony. If it’s exculpatory, they had a duty to present him as part of a best-defence kind of duty.

      Unless there’s some gamesmanship or something in his testimony fucks with the case unduly, the Dems are usually smart enough to bring all barrels to bear, and the omission is odd.

  • June@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    She’s calling them out on it, not accusing them of it.

    • orbitz@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Agreed, accusing makes it sound uncertain. When they want to seem balanced but there’s a hippo on one side of the balance it’s not balancing it’s helping legitimize the false side.

  • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Dear The guardian. The word you are looking for is “Fabricating”. One would think that journalists would be proficient in the language they report in. But maybe that’s just me expecting unrealistic standards.

    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Journalist often target their content to people with a low reading age. Some tabloids in the UK target their content for someone of a reading age of 7. Even the financial times a high brow economic paper targets a reading age of 12.

      It’s likely the journalist made a conscious decision to not say fabricate, as that would restrict the amount of people that could comprehend the headline.

      • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ll take your word for it. So, in short, I am in fact expecting an unrealistic standard. Complaining about shit like this makes me feel like an old grumpy man, and I’m not even 30 yet

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The New York Democrat also accused Republicans of fabricating supposed evidence of corruption involving the president and his surviving son, Hunter Biden.

    Turning to Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and well-known conservative commentator, she said: “In your testimony today, are you presenting any firsthand witness account of crimes committed by the president of the United States?”

    Ocasio-Cortez asked the same question of Eileen O’Connor, a former assistant attorney general in the justice department tax division who worked for Donald Trump’s transition team and is a member of the rightwing Federalist Society.

    Ocasio-Cortez said she would “assume the same” of the sole witness called by Democrats, Michael J Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor.

    Referring to Byron Donalds, she said: “Earlier today, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, presented up on the screen something that … appeared to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation.

    Donalds showed text messages he claimed indicated that Hunter Biden engaged in fraud and money laundering, to the benefit of his father.


    The original article contains 509 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      1 year ago

      The summary cuts off right before the paragraph the title is actually referring to:

      “I don’t know where it came from,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I don’t know if it was the staff of the committee, but it was not the actual direct screenshot from that phone. […] What was brought out from that fabricated image excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning and allegation that was presented up on that screen, by this committee and by members of this committee.”