If there is one image from Jan. 6th that will remain indelible with the day, it is the “QAnon Shaman.” Bare chested and wearing an animal headdress, horns and red-white-and-blue face paint, Jake Angeli Chansley is to the Capitol riot what Rosie the Riveter was to World War II. Howling and “chanting an unintelligible mantra” on the Senate floor, he is the embodiment of the unhinged rage that led to one of the most disgraceful attacks on our constitutional process in history.
However, the newly released Fox footage from that day raises serious questions over the prosecution and punishment of Chansley. The videotapes aired on Tucker Carlson this week show Chansley being escorted by officers through the Capitol. Two officers appear to not only guide him to the floor but actually appear to be trying to open locked doors for him. At one point, Chansley is shown walking unimpeded through a large number of armed officers with his four-foot flag-draped spear and horned Viking helmet on his way to the Senate floor.
It is otherworldly footage. While I admit that I approach these stories from the perspective of a long-standing criminal defense attorney, I would be outraged if I was unable to see such evidence before a plea or sentencing. At no point in the videotapes does Chansley appear violent or threatening. Indeed, he appears to thank the officers for their guidance and assistance. On the Senate floor, Chansley actually gave a prayer to thank the officers agreed “to allow us into the building.”
Before addressing the legal implications of this footage, one thing should be clear. The public should have been given access to this footage long ago and the Jan. 6th Committee withheld important evidence on what occurred inside the Capitol on that day.
While it is understandable that many would object to Carlson being given an exclusive in the initial release, many in the media are denouncing the release of the footage to the public at all. The press and pundits are now opposing greater transparency in resisting any contradiction of the narrative put forward by the Jan. 6th Committee. Indeed, MSNBC’s Jason Johnson angrily objected that this is “federal evidence” — ignoring that it is evidence that was denied to criminal defendants.
This is not just material that the public should be able to see, it was potential evidence in criminal cases like that of the QAnon Shaman.
When the footage aired, I wrote a column raising the question of whether this evidence was known to or shared with Chansley’s defense. After all, he was portrayed as a violent offender by the Justice Department at his sentencing.
It now appears that the answer is no. I spoke with Chansley’s new counsel, Bill Shipley, and confirmed that defense counsel did not have this material.
In the hearing, federal prosecutor Kimberly Paschall played videos showing Chansley yelling along with the crowd and insisted “that is not peaceful.”
That portrayal of Chansley would have been more difficult to maintain if the Court was allowed to see images of Chansley casually walking through a door of the Capitol with hundreds of other protesters and then being escorted by officers through the Capitol. At no point is he violent and at no point is he shown destroying evidence. Instead, he dutifully follows the officers who facilitate his going eventually to the unoccupied Senate floor.
We all knew that Chansley was treated more harshly because of his visibility. It was his costume, not his conduct, that seemed to drive the sentencing. In the hearing, Judge Royce Lamberth noted, “He made himself the image of the riot, didn’t he? For good or bad, he made himself the very image of this whole event.”
Lamberth hit Chansley with a heavy 41-month sentence for “obstructing a federal proceeding.”
However, the QAnon Shaman was led through the Capitol by officers. Defense counsel could have noted that his “obstruction” in going to an unoccupied Senate floor was facilitated by officers. While the police were clearly trying to deescalate the situation after the Capitol was breached, this is evidence of how Chansley came to the Senate. Indeed, his interaction with officers could have impacted how he viewed the gravity of his conduct. It certainly would have been material to the court in sentencing the conduct.
In his rambling sentencing statement to the court, Chansley apologized for “a lot of bad juju that I never meant to create.”
I have great respect for Judge Lamberth, who has always shown an admirable resistance to public pressure in high profile cases. I cannot imagine that Lamberth would not have found this footage material and frankly alarming.
At first blush, this would appear a clear “Brady violation” when a prosecutor fails to provide a defendant with any evidence that is favorable or exculpatory to his case. Like most things in Chansley’s life, it is a bit more complex than it would seem.
First, Chansley quickly pleaded guilty to the charge. This may have been due in part to the draconian treatment that he received by the Justice Department, which insisted on keeping him in solitary confinement with no apparent justification. The result is that he moved rapidly to sentencing without significant discovery in his case.
Second, the footage was in the possession of the legislative branch so the Justice Department could claim that it was not required to produce it. Indeed, the prosecution may have been entirely unaware of the footage.
Third, Chansley waived an appeal of the plea agreement and is now weeks away from release. The case is practically closed.
It is not clear, however, if Judge Lamberth will find the failure to disclose this evidence troubling and worthy of inquiry. None of this means that Chansley should not have been given jail time. Indeed, it is appropriate to sentence rioters to greater than average time due to the assault on our constitutional process.
Yet, it is hard to believe that Judge Lamberth would have given 41 months to a nonviolent, first offender who was led through the Capitol by police officers to the floor. This was a Navy veteran who pleaded guilty to the crime.
The role of Congress in withholding this footage is disgraceful and wrong. The Congress and the January 6th Committee knew of this footage and its relevance to a pending criminal case. Yet, they refused to make it public. Instead, the January 6th Committee hired a former ABC producer to put on a made-for-television production of highly edited images for public consumption. Countervailing evidence or images were consistently excluded and witnesses appeared as virtual props to support high-quality video packages.
Even The New York Times admitted the narrative was meant to “recast the midterm message” and “give [Democrats] a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.”
The image of the QAnon Shaman being escorted through the Capitol by police officers is hardly the image that they wanted to show the public. So Committee members and counsel buried footage that was clearly relevant to literally hundreds of people facing criminal sentencing across the country. They did this while repeatedly referencing those cases in hearings as upholding the rule of law.
I hold little sympathy for Chansley or the others arrested on that day. I was highly critical of President Donald Trump’s remarks before the riot.
However, it is hard to see this withheld evidence and not conclude that the Qanon Shaman got the shaft on his sentencing.
It is clear that all hours of the videos have not been given to the defendants and their attorneys either by the Capitol Police (who control the Capitol videos), the DOJ, the FBI, the Metro Police (who may have outside videos), or the Prosecutors. This is a Brady violation. As a results all defendants sent to prison should be released and open for new trials. I would expect civil cases against various agencies. If Brady violations are known to be by Police and Prosecutors then they generally are forfeit for serving in Law. The Judges that have tried these people should be stopping any case and letting out all people now in jail on bail, while this mess is settled before another trial is held.
Don’t squeeze the Shaman!
Professor Turley,
I’m hoping you might clear up something for me. You stated:
“… one of the most disgraceful attacks on our constitutional process in history.”
Were you referring to the corrupt fraud that tainted the 2020 Presidential election or were you erroneously referring to the ‘insurrection’… that wasn’t an insurrection.
I find it surprising that such an esteemed scholar would allow himself to appear as a ‘Post Turtle’, unwilling or unable to consider the same sort of evidence Chansley’s defense was so heinously denied.
Thank you for your consideration.
Does a bear doo doo in the woods?
Sounds like you’re trying to straddle the fence between leftism and reality. Tsk.
Worse, everyone in the media calls it a Viking helmet or headdress.
Wouldn’t Plains Indian >>>buffalo headdress<<< be more accurate?
(In before "Rus Vikings may have seen one deep on the steppes…")
I used to like Turley. Not anymore.
Thanks for your cogent reasoning as to why you 1) used to like him, and why 2) you no longer do.
Oh wait…
The DVS case and the J6 story are unrelated.
If as you hope Fox loses the DVS case – they are in serious financial trouble.
No amount of J6 coverage will fix the problem.
Regardless, I know this is hard for you left wing nuts – but the DVS case will be decided by the law, not the news ratings.
Fox can not win the DVS case with J6 exposes. Nor are they trying to.
But they can do what news organizations exist to do – bring to light what those in power seek to keep hidden.
Absolutely Fox’s goal is ratings – just like every single other participant in free markets.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”
Adam Smith
Tucker Carlson would have no audience at all for his J6 expose – but for the fact that those of you on the left picked a false narrative and silenced every effort to bring the truth to light.
Is this dangerous ? – To the left certainly and deservedly so.
Those of you on the left keep trying to do your dirty deeds in dark alleys and use your power to try to prevent everyone from knowing what you are up to.
Whether it is the truth about Benghazi, or Uranium One, or the 2016 election, or the Biden’s dirty dealings, or the censorship of politics, or pretty much everything Covid, or election lawlessness.
Those of you on the lefts, first, next and last instinct is to silence those critical and to hide everything from the public.
And you wonder why you are not trusted ?
Your not trustworthy.
i prefer the part that comes after that in Wealth of Nations.. i have never known much good to be done by those who affected to trade in the public good.
250 years ago Adam Smith wrote an inquiry into the wealth of nations.
There were no computers, even the collection of national statistics was rare.
And yet he managed to capture with almost no error the fundimentals of human conduct in markets,
and why free markets produce the highest standard of living.
There is no law or principle of economics that does not have some foundation in the Wealth of Nations.
Smith has to my knowledge been wrong about nothing.
A century later Freud fathered psychology in the same way Smith fathered economics.
Even today Psychology remains an unstable science with an unfirm foundation.
Freud was undoubtedly great. But Smith is not merely great but right.
Interestingly Economics is just the psychology of people in large numbers engaged in exchange.
I beleive Marty Byrde says something in Ozark to the effect of – I can not tell you what any individual will do, But I can predict with near perfection what 10,000 people will do in a given circumstance.
Everything you point out in your post is accurate to the tenth degree. The left hides every illegal act they perform and is turning our once great country into a banana republic, while those in charge of the fracas collect the taxes and live high on the hog.
But they are not – the federalist has run a story on the case and offers that contra your claim – the actual evidence is that Dominion is losing – badly.
Even your “narative” above – suggests that.
Dominion’s claim is that Fox was out to get them – yet the evidence YOU cite is that Fox was divorcing itself from Trump.
Fox misread the tea leaves – and YOU are documenting that.
Fox thought Trump was finished. They thought the election fraud claims had no legs,
That is not the best case for Fox made false claims about Dominion WITH MALICE.
In fact – Fox as a whole was dismissive of Trump post election, and dismissive of election fraud claims – including Dominion claims.
As has been noted frequently – though Powell was an occasional guest, she was treated skeptically.
Fox – particularly Carlson often has guests – including Powell that he disagrees with.
Carlson is particularly significant as he is today the highest profile political comentator in the country.
Carlson even today makes no secret of the fact that he is not a Trump fan.
DVS’s case rests on a premise that is completely at odds with a free press.
That is that media can not report on anythign that it can not prove is true.
Those of you on the left keep fixating on what various people in Fox beleived regarding DVS or the election.
That is not relevant. What matters is what they KNEW.
Given that even today – over 2 years later we do not KNOW that DVS did not rig the election – though it is not likely,
there is no way to constitutionally preclude criticism of Dominion even now.
“In fact – Fox as a whole was dismissive of Trump post election, and dismissive of election fraud claims – including Dominion claims.”
False.
Fox was “dismissive of Trump post election because Dominion sued. They were still peddling Trump’s false voter fraud claims long after the election. They stopped including the Dominion claims because Dominion sued and they knew they were in trouble.
All of the Dominion filings released show that Fox News knew Trump’s claims and those of his lawyers were not true but they still chose to air them in order or keep their viewers from fleeing to Newsmax. Fox News case against dominion is very weak and getting worse with every new document dump by dominion.
Fox News viewers are shielded from the truth merely by staying inside the information silo they created. It’s the equivalent of flat earth believers unwilling to accept the reality and overwhelming evidence before them that the earth is indeed a sphere.
Fox News was lying to their viewers long before the election, hyping them with the false claims trump was making about voter fraud. The most ironic part of all this is that Fox News was the most accurate network when it came to calling AZ for Biden. There was no way they could see it being a trump win with the data they had. After hyping a Trump win for months, calling Biden the winner was not what Fox News viewers already conditioned by Fox into believing Trump’s BS were expected. They were lied to so much that the conflict from the truth was a seen as a betrayal. Fox went back to lying about the election and pushed the election fraud claims and started defaming Dominion in the process. That was their biggest mistake. Greed and fear of losing profit was the driving force, not journalism.
“Fox thought Trump was finished. They thought the election fraud claims had no legs,
That is not the best case for Fox made false claims about Dominion WITH MALICE.”
No, according to the filings, depositions, and internal emails Fox KNEW the election fraud claims were false. Knowing that they continued to push the narrative that the election was stolen and election fraud was rampant. All lies from the very beginning.
“Given that even today – over 2 years later we do not KNOW that DVS did not rig the election – though it is not likely,”
False, DVS did not rig the election. Lack of evidence is NOT evidence. To keep insinuating that it could be possible without any evidence other than pure speculation based on crackpot conspiracy theories is defamation.
“Carlson told Scott directly : I’ve never seen a reaction like this,
to any media company . Kills me to watch it.” Ex.211. Scott immediately relayed the email to Lachlan Murdoch. Ex.212. She told Briganti that Sammon did not
understand the impact to the brand and the arrogance in calling AZ which she found astonishing given that as a top executive it was Sammon’s job to protect the brand Ex.213. And on that day one,” as Scott termed it Fox executives made anexplicit decision to push narratives to entice their audience back. Ex.214 at FoxCorp00056542 . Scott and Lachlan Murdoch exchanged texts about theplangoingforward:Scott:”Viewersgoingthrough the5stages ofgrief.It’sa question of trust the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them . at FoxCorp00056541 . Murdoch: Yes. But needs constant rebuilding without any missteps.
Fox executives also began to criticize Fox hosts for truthful reporting . On November 9, Fox anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a White House Press Conference when Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany began making unsubstantiated
allegations about election fraud. As Cavuto told viewers, Whoa, whoa, whoa She’schargingtheothersideaswelcomingfraudandillegalvoting,unless she has moredetails to back that up,I can’t in good countenance continue to show you this and that’s an explosive charge to make. Ex.217 at 1:05; see Ex.98, Bartiromo 170:24-171:25. The brand team led by Raj Shah at Fox Corporation notified senior Fox News and Fox Corporation leadership of the Brand Threat posed by Cavuto’s action.
Also onNovember 10,Scott and Wallace texted about the numbers they had
just received. Wallace: The Newsmax surge is a bit troubling truly is an
alternativeuniversewhenyouwatch,butitcan’tbeignored Scott: Yes.”Ex.223
atFNN071_04502926.Wallace: Tryingtogeteveryonetocomprehendweareon
.
key Fox hosts had understood the crisis immediately after Election Night. On November 5, Tucker Carlson texted regarding election coverage , We’ve got to be incredibly careful right now. We could get hurt. Ex.224. On November 7,David
Clark told Lauren Petterson that Jeanine Pirro was [a]ngling for a job somewhere
else. 100%. Ex.225; Ex.106, Clark 176:16-22. By November 11, Sean Hannity
recognized the critical role the Dominion fraud narrative would play in winning back viewers , Hannity told Carlson and Ingraham on November 12: In one week and one
debate they destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable. Ex.230atFNN035_03890510.Tuckerresponded:It’svandalism.
. The hostsalso discussedthe possibility ofcompetition to Fox emerging. Hannity told them: [ S erious $$ with serious distribution could be a real problem. Imho theyneedtoaddressbutwtfdoIknow.”Id.Tucker:Thatcouldhappen. Id.at
FNN035 03890511.
As Irena Briganti said on November 12, glad the panic button was hit 2 days ago. Ex.227.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/redacted-documents-in-dominion-fox-news-case/dca5e3880422426f/full.pdf
Fox News has a weak case.
Do you think repeating falsehoods over and over makes them true.
We have addressed this repeatedly and you have no argument.
As you note Fox’s internal communications are now public.
We can all read them.
Ordinary people do not need your help to spin them.
Most of us are aware that Post election – Fox’s ratings were suffering.
They were losing ground to OAN and NewsMax, and Epoch Times.
Why ?
That was no secret. Because Fox was not as supportive of Trump as their audience was.
As a result the some of the audience was leaving.
How was Fox at odds with its audience ?
Because it called states for Biden – often before the rest of the media.
And because Fox was hostile to the claims of Election Fraud – particularly the DVS claims.
Again none of this is secret.
While you may not have understood the underlying factors – you and others on the left were celebrating at the time.
So claiming you were unaware is lunacy.
Put more simply – to the extent that an news organization with thousands of people can have a single public voice,
Fox’s voice was consistent with its private communications.
Next, you constantly engage in massive over generalization, and beat the schiff out of straw men.
As noted above Fox does not have one Voice. Bartromo, Carlson, Ingram, Gutfield and Hannity are different people.
Their news and opinion shows are independent and have different content standards.
You continue to pretend that challenging a single aspect of Election fraud obliterates it in its entirety.
Myriads of people understood even before the election started that a foul Oder was in the air.
As the election was unfolding it was clear that in 99% of the country the election was a replay of 2016 – With Trump doing better than 2016 and Biden doing worse than Clinton in 2016. But in 1% of the country Biden was doing far better than Clinton had done.
Places that Biden had not campaigned AT ALL. Places where the Biden campaign had made no noticeable effort to do better than Hillary.
Places were the election count was not completed on election night – again unlike nearly all the country.
Places were massive efforts were made to hide every aspect of the election form public scrutiny.
Without the tinest bit of actual evidence of Fraud – ordinary people had FAR MORE than sufficient reason to be mistrustful.
The real bottom line is that You, the left, democrats and the people in these 6 key cites – undermined trust in the election – BEFORE the first vote was counted.
You did so by refusing to follow the law. By pretending that an epidemic which it was already self evident you were clueless to address, and that likely has no government solution, justified gutting all the election laws of the past 2 centuries that you did not like, and it key places in the country you seduced the courts into going along – further undermining trust in the election.
Before the election took place – there did not need to be one iota of evidence of fraud for people to be legitimately distrustful.
The DVS claim, Gulliani’s dead people claim, myriads of other claims regarding election fraud were all just efforts to explain an outcome that people had excellent reason to distrust – even before the vote count started.
The government is required to conduct elections that people Trust.
The standard is not – “you can not prove how we cheated”.
It is the election is conducted according to the law, transparently and the law is such that cheating is not possible.
It was not necescary to prove any specific form of fraud. The duty to conduct an election that people trust rests with government – not the people.
It has taken time to work out SOME of the details of HOW those on the left rigged the election.
What is increasingly evident is that was done Multiple ways.
I can list a dozen different problems with the 2020 election – all of which are wrong and reasons we do not trust the results.
The good news for republicans and the bad news for democrats is that Everything that you did to win 2020 does not alter trends that are mostly going against you. It just delays the moment that things flip on a very large scale.
You have polarized the country in a way that has not been present in my lifetime. That has destroyed any hope of any move to moderation.
You are trying to hold back the pendulum, A task which gets harder with each election.
I am honestly surprised that given the number of massive lies you have told that anyone continues to vote for democrats at all.
Regardless, you are slowly losing support and you will not get it back.
The amount of fraud necescary to continue to hold on to power increases with each election cycle.
And each cycle increases the risk you get caught.
You appear to have mostly prevailed in AZ and NV – but you did so at even greater damage to Trust in Elections.
And your ability to use Social Media is significantly diminished.
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that basement Biden did not tally 81Mil legal votes. Thanks to election system changes (most not made by state legislatures) in violation of state laws, massive mail-in ballots and dirty voter rolls Biden was able to get millions of phantom votes. The msm cartel, NGO dark money, Zuck bucks, ballot harvesting and ballot stash houses, election system manipulation and hacking of election equipment supposedly not on internet. A great example of Venezuela type elections.
There are three significant kinds of Fraud that nothing we have seen rules out.
First – Direct Ballot injection. If you have 20 trucks carrying 100,000 ballots each to some civic center for counting,
Get 2 more Trucks with 100K ballots through the door. This is an inside job, but it requires very few people to actually know about the fraud.
Next – which we pretty much KNOW occured – take over the local election machinery, and provide the political parties with the information on everyone who has not voted yet, so they can send campaign workers to their door to get them to fill in their ballots and vote.
First this again occured almost exclusively in the 6 key democrats cities – if you have 80% of the vote in a location going one way – you can even pretend to be neutral and give the same information to both parties – you still know what the impact is going to be.
You also know that even if it takes 4-5 visits you are going to get the vast majority of people who do not want to vote to vote – just to make you go away.
Further because you are dealing with mailin ballots – the ballots are in the posession of the voter – when the campaign worker comes by.
I do not want wives looking over the should of husbands or parents over their kids when they vote. I sure as schiff do not want party aparatiches hovering over the shoulders of reluctant vulnerable people. Ultimately it does not matter whether they glare, buy, recomend, or whatever – a secret ballot REQUIRES that you vote without anyone over your shoulder.
You can not do that with Mailin voting. We are right back in the 19th century when the party printed your ballot for you followed you to watch you drop it in the ballot box, and then paid you for your vote.
WE KNOW this occured – the Zuckerberg 501C3’s took over local elections in these cities and provided information to parties on who had not voted.
A similar but related fraud – and the AZ audit strongly indicates this – as well as the TTV work, and the problems we saw in the CA recall,
is to go through voter registration rolls looking for people that have not voted in years, and manufacture ballots for them.
Depending on the system in your state – you may have to submit fake requests for a ballot for them. You may have to counterfeit actual ballots.
But this does not actually require that many people to KNOW about the fraud.
You need rooms full of people filling out ballots and filling out the information on the security envelope – all of which is available from public voter registration lists – maybe buying a bit of information legitimately from credit bureaus. These people are likely to have a clue what they are doing.
Then you provide batches of ballots to “mules” to deliver to ballot drop boxes – these people do not have to know that what they are doing is illegal.
There are some means to prevent this – but few states implimented them. Unattended ballot boxes is a huge hole in security.
If you have to bring your ballot to a person, it is much harder for one person to drop off hundreds of ballots without someone saying – now wait, you do not have that many close relatives.
Another huge red flag is collisions. If you gather a million names of people who did not vote in the past 10 years from voter registration lists, and you create ballots for them – a small percent will collide with people who decide all of a sudden to vote.
We KNOW that happened in AZ – cyber ninjas found 50K ballots from 13K people. Maybe we have 13K individuals engaged in fraudulently voting multiple times. Much more likely we have 200K fraudulent ballots that collided with 13K people who were not supposed to vote who did.
Did absolutely everything I described about happen in 2020 ? Maybe maybe not.
But we do not have elections conducted that could have prevented or detected those types of fraud if they occurred.
Nor are these the only possibilities.
One person scanning the same batch of ballots over and over has happened in every election since there were scanners.
But you can not inject 100K ballots that way. But you can inject 500, 0r 5000.
We know that happened in atlanta, We know that happened in Philadelphia – it happens in Philly every election.
Trump lost. And he was an awful president.
A is debatable and B is false.
Trump was no steller president – but he remains the best president of the 21st century and that is not even a close call.
Bush Obama and Biden were disasters. Biden is only 2 years in and he is working hard to beat Buchannon as the worst president in US history.
Even counting the economic problems of Covid – Trump outperformed every other President of the 21st century.
The actually spendable income of working class families rose by 4500/year by the end of Trump’s presidency. That is more than 8 years of Bush and much more than 8 years of Obama.
Biden has lost all of that in 2 years and we are not done yet.
Trump is the only president since Gerald Ford that did not get us sucked into a foreign military conflict.
The dangerous wacky bull in a china shop that was supposed to be the most dangerous person to ever have nuclear codes – ended conflicts.
He did not start any.
Biden has been president for barely over 2 years and botched the witdrawl from Afghanistan – and the more were learn the worse that gets – aparently someone in the administration flinched and that cost 13 service men and hundreds of civilians their lives. But it was OK to hellfire a family the next day – claiming they were torrorists.
But more importantly the doomsday clock is closer to midnight than it has been since the Cuban Missle crisis.
It is difficult to prove alternative history – but virtually no one with two brain cells believes that Putin would have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president – he did not while he was.
Putin invaded somebody during every presidency since Clinton – EXCEPT TRUMP.
With Trump we would not have america last energy policy – Putin would have known that invading Ukraine would have resulted in The US supplying Europes Energy needs. And we would have been better able to do it.
With Trump we would not have engaged in foreign policy stupidity of talking about bringing Ukraine into NATO – Putin has Repeatedly said that NATO membership for countries bordering on Russia is a red line for Russia and Everytime there has been loose talk of doing so – Putin has invaded – He invaded Georgia when we talked of that. And he has now invaded Ukraine twice – everytime we talk of that.
While Biden is doing an excellent job of fighting a proxy war through Ukraine to remove Russia from the world stage as a global power.
It is also an unnecescary war – Russia could not maintain its global position over the next decade no matter what. Demographics and other factors are insurmountably against it. The critical US foreign policy role regarding Russia should be to assure the safety of Russian Nukes as Russia slowly fails. That is far easier to do if you have not made them a mortal enemy.
The WORST foreign policy mistake of the last 30 years was alienating Russia after the Collapse of the USSR,
The Only US president that was not a part of that failure was Trump.
Regardless, I grew up with “duck and cover” – I thought those days were gone. Biden has brought them back.
As Well as Biden is doing at Fighting Russia by Proxy – it remains an unnecescary and very very dangerous game.
Actual adults do not engage in this kind of brinksmanship unnecescarily.
The odds are very good Biden will get away with it.
But the price for failure is 300m people in the first 12 hours and 3B people in the first year.
This did not happen under Trump. As bad as they were it did not happen under Obama or Bush.
Do not Poke the F$%Kin bear!
Not when you do not have to.
Those of you on the left freak out over Covid – there are more than twice as many covid deaths under Biden as Trump – and Biden had a vaccine.
Biden said during the debates that any president that failed that badly should resign.
Aparently like everything from the left that was just hollow talk.
None of you give a damn about reality.
You do not give a schiff what makes the country better off.
It is all about power. Your ability to shove your failed ideas down other peoples throats
In Answer to Marjorie Taylor Green – there will be no national divorce.
The left is FAILING, completely on its own.
Fix your own messes before you try to tell the rest of the country how to live.
You control every major city in the country, and you have made them all progressively worse.
Show people that you are capable of governing.
Fix YOUR schools, YOUR cities, Fix the problems where YOU live, before you try to F#@K everyone else.
The problem is not Trump. It is not even Biden – it is YOU idiots on the left.
“You can’t even run your own life,
I’ll be damned if you run mine”
I understand it. You hate the fact that economic growth rose and unemployment fell while the percentage of workers increased. You hate the fact that African American and Hispanic poverty rates fell to record lows.
You can’t stand that the income of the Middle-Class family increased by nearly $6,000.
Today you are happy because we no longer have the energy independence that was previously provided by Trump.
You must love people killing one another in the Middle East because you hate the Abraham Accords.
Talking about death you must love all the children being killed and women being raped on our southern border a border that was rapidly being closed to illegals and drug trafficking. I won’t skip the terrorists now coming across our border along with gangs and cartel members.
You like war something Trump kept us out of. You like the death in Afghanistan and the deaths in Ukraine.
I can list what he did for hours but you hate peace, a growing economy, and the middle class. You prefer violence, shortages, and a world at war.
What is it that you have been right about ?
Benghazi ?
The collusion delusion ?
Hunters laptop ?
Social Media Censorship ?
Covid ? Anything at all about Covid ?
Why should anyone trust your judgement about anything ?
You want trust – that is easy. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t censor, don’t cancel.
Make your arguments, and understand that people may not be persuaded.
Follow the law rigorously, and do not put massive effort into hiding everything that conflicts with your naratives.
Things that are actually true will survive in the sunlight.
You claim that half the country is brainwashed – but only one political group is seeking to censor, cancel, silence everything that they do not like.
You rant about the DVS lawsuit. The truth of the election regarding DVS was always easy to resolve.
I can give you a dozen different ways to conduct elections that we can be certain that did not occur.
NONE are the way we conduct elections.
Every single Claim that Trump or Guilliani, or Powell made is testable.
But NONE were tested.
I do not beleive you – is not a test.
You have not persuaded the courts – is not a test.
Letting sunlight in and actually checking things – not just when someone cry’s foul – but ALWAYS
that is a means to conduct trustworthy elections.
How should DVS have responded to claims they were involved in Election rigging ?
Not by suing the people who made the claims or more accurately – suing people who did not make the claims.
But by demanding proper audits of their systems.
Car makers pull randomly selected cars off the assembly line and tear them completely apart – looking at everything to find any indications of production problems.
They track customer complaints and do statistical analysis on them, they keep meticulous records – most of the time they when problems show up with customers – they can identify which batch of parts was defective or which assembly line was out of spec or which employee was doing their job wrong.
They can manage to do this in china.
Certainly we can do it with our elections.
You want people to trust elections – conduct elections that people can trust.
Fox was not out to get dominion. They were willfully lying about Dominion rigging machines and promoting Trump’s voter fraud claims knowing they were false. They did it to preserve the brand. It had nothing to do with “newsworthy” content as they claim. They wanted to fire those who were saying on the air what THEY were saying privately, the truth. That shows malice.
“Meanwhile,later that night of November 12,Ingraham was still texting with Hannity and Carlson. In their group text thread,Carlson pointed Hannity to atweet byFoxreporterJacquiHeinrich.Ex.230atFNN035_03890511.Heinrichwas fact checking atweet by Trump that mentioned Dominion and specifically mentioned
Hannity’s and Dobbs broadcasts that evening discussing Dominion. Ex.232; Ex.231. Heinrich correctly fact-checked the tweet,pointing out that top election infrastructure officials said that There is no evidence that any voting system deletedorlostvotes,changed votes,orwasinanyway compromised Id Ex.232.
Carlson told Hannity : Please get her fired . Seriously What the f*#k ? actually shocked It needs to stop immediately , like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke Ex.230 at
FNN035_03890511 . Tucker added: just went crazy on Meade over it. Id. at FNN035_03890512 . Hannity said he had already sent to Suzanne with a really? Hethenadded: I’m3 strikes. Wallace shit debate[]Electionnight adisaster[.]
Now this BS? Nope . Not gonna fly . Did I mention Cavuto?
I would suggest learning the meaning of words.
Willful lying does not mean what you think it does.
Even by your own claims – it is neither willful or lying to say something that you beleive may not be true.
Willful lying requires that you KNOW something is not true.
Given that we do not know that DVS did not rig the election today – we could not possibly know in November 2020.
Further, you keep claiming that Fox was saying on air – particularly in hard news, things it was NOT saying.
Were some guests – on opinion shows saying things that are PROBABLY not true ? Sure.
Though given that DVS would lose a defamation claim against Powell, how are they going to win one against Fox ?
Reporting things that are wrong is not Defamation – or Trump would have a massive defamation claim against the entire media for the collusion delusion story.
And that – unlike DVS election rigging is something we absolutely KNOW is false.
You are wrong on the law, you are wrong on the facts,
And if you were Right – Trump would have bankrupted all the media in the country and be richer than Musk.
It is stupid to make arguments that you have not considered applied generally.
I would suggest that before you make up rules that you consider Kant’s catagorical imperative
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
Do not make an argument, do not impose a standard on your enemies that you are not prepared to expect your friends to conform to.
The idiotic application of Defamation law that you are manufacturing would violate the first amendment or end any free press as we know it.
If it was absolutely proveable today, it it was absolutely proveable at the time. That DVS did not rig the election – Fox and any other news organization would be free to have guests that claimed otherwise.
Think about your argument.
Should CNN or local news refuse an interview with someone accused of a murder – because they might claim falsely to be innocent ?
While note directly on point as it is more about the attempt by media to censor – rather than YOUR attempt to censor the media.
I would suggest reading Taibbi. To understand the importants of the first amendment.
https://www.racket.news/p/my-statement-to-congress?publication_id=1042&post_id=107370013&isFreemail=true
One has to notice that discovery of DVS internal communications, management’s frequent concerns re system vulnerability, documented hacking by China in 2020 and 2022 elections noted in pcaps by cyber experts is not covered by msm. One should research board members of DVS and Smartmatic and their relationship with Soros and CCP affiliated organizations that taint our election systems.
What we see in the media is a narative – it is not the facts.
I have been involved in election integrity since shortly after the 2000 election.
I found it highly unlikely that Dominion would participate in an effort to rig an election.
Getting caught would be absolutely devastating.
At the same time I was well aware of the myriads of problems and vulnerabilities with assorted electronic voting equipment long before 2020.
I have not been following that discovery – I did not need to. The equipment is easily hacked, and full of problems many of which are 2 decades old.
There are ways to conduct secure and trustworthy elections with the assorted electronic equipment we have.
The GA proposal for random audits that Raffensberg rejected prior to the 2020 election is one way.
But the reality is the easiest solution is to eliminate electronics from the initial counting process.
Decentralize voting. Many precincts small numbers of voters, with ballots counted onsite by hand.
That can be done, it can be done quickly, and it can be done with a reasonably high degree of trust.
The more centralized you make things – the more vulnerable they are, the fewer people need to be involved in large scale fraud, and the harder it is to catch them and the more complications you need to the process to prevent fraud.
If you have a precinct with 5000 voters, and 3 people counting – 1 from the minority party and 2 from the majority party,
The max fraud you can get away with is quite small, and you have to do it under the noses of two other people one of which is not in your party.
If you have 50 people with machines counting 2M ballots, and taking a week to do it – large scale fraud is easy and few people need involved.
One simple huge factor is that Ballots should never leave the precinct where people voted. If you do not move ballots – until long after the election, there are far fewer chain of custody issues, and it is far harder to inject ballots unnoticed.
Sneaking an extra truckload of 100K ballots into a civic center counting 2M ballots – requires very few people to know what is happening.
The drivers need not know, the people receiving need not know, the counters need not know.
If you do not have chain of custody – once those ballots are off the truck its over. You have successfully injected 100K ballots.
There is not one of the 6 key cities in 2020 that does not have atleast 200K more ballots than their records show voters.
That is not proof of fraud. But it is proof that fraud is easily possible.
That can not happen if you do not move ballots before they are counted.
A precinct with 5000 voters can not produce 10,000 votes without attracting attention.
The more you decentralize the harder large scale fraud is.
Every now and then Johnathan forgets he got out of the left loony bin, After a couple of cocktails he wishes the lft loons would embrace him. This is one of those times. The young man was not of sound mind when they put him in solitary confinement as demonstrated by his release from military much earlier. He deserves a healthy cheque for disgusting behavior from courts and some mental help compliments of Chuck and Nancy personally. He had to have been broke and buried. That committtee made him out to be the second coming of Attila the Hun and second coming of the Grand Wizard. Get your head out of your you kow wha5t Johnathan and stick up for the guy. I totally see a guy who non violdnt. I totally understand the guards not arresting him and making a scene. What he did was wrong but to get solitary knowing his mental condition and they also knew they had a silver of tape to make decisions on and knew thousands of hours were not forthcoming. That stu”’ Judge should be awshamed of himself. Maybe Johnathan take him off your Xmas list. The Shamon Qanon or whatever looked to be a nice guy who deserved 30 days in jail and realeased. 100% worse than a BLM rioter and what he got was million times worse for far less mayhem. Then there is Ashli Babbit.
Clearly Jonathan has never worked as a poll watcher or greeter. The fraud is not hard to find and very well documented in the book Vote Scam: The stealing of America published in 1992.Then their the work that Bev Harris and Benny Johnson did at blackboxvoting.org. Hundreds of hours of congressional testimony.. On Jan. 6 Trump and his supporters were exerciing there right to redress there government only to end up in a Fed entrapment scheme.
Conducting elections that can be trusted is doable.
Business performs far more difficult tasks all the time.
As with most government processes, Elections are a point by point checklist for how to do things wrong.
While there are many options that can be permitted with elections – the task of assuring trust is exponentially greater the more ways and options there are for voting.
In the conflict between convenience and trust – Trust must always win.
The simplest solution is in person voting at precincts of near uniform population, on election day, with Government ID.
With a government printed ballot that is printed with similar concern for counterfeiting as currency as based on election spending the average ballot is worth about $300.
Voting done in secret inside the precinct.
Hand counted and publicly reported immediately after it is cast.
Ballots never leave precinct. Chain of custody for all ballots.
Number of voters reconciled against the number of ballots counted hourly.
All voting, all ballot handling, all counting must be done at the precinct on the smallest scale possible.
The last thing we want is ballots trucked all over the place and counted in sports arena’s
The more ballots you have in one place – the more incentive for fraud.
Any processes that allow ballots – especially filled ballots outside a precinct – the greater the oportunity for fraud.
The more centralized election processes – the greater the oportunity for Fraud.
Finally – if the oportunity exists – it WILL eventually occur.
.Well isnt this interesting, The unSELECT special CONGRESSIONAL committee. never viewed or picked the video used to produce fictional made for TV movie call Jan6
So it was a Congressional committee that Elected Congress persons did not manage, direct, or anyalyze any evidence, They were literally actors reading from a script not written by any person elected to serve.
@BennieGThompson
, former chair of the Jan. 6 committee, said lawmakers were never given that type of access to the footage last Congress. “It’s strictly a new policy that the new speaker has put in place,” he told CNN.
Thompson said he doesn’t think any of the Jan. 6 members themselves ever had access to the footage — they let only staff view it. “I’m actually not aware of any member of the committee who had access. We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”
Dr. Turley you should be very sympathetic to Chansley. You are a prop in this fake system of justice and if you have any honor one day it will turn on you.
It already has. No MSM appearaances. JT is a leper. I’m disappoinnted in this coluumn but generally happy he has a set in the mess he has lived in his whole life
Yes. The MSM usually doesn’t feature dissidents and/or truth-tellers.
Have you no conscience, Vic. This is clearly unethical prosecutorial misconduct, whether technically Brady material or not.
Airing the tapes (some 26 months later) is harmful, they claim. “Harmful” to what? “Democracy.” Why are they “harmful?” You are not allowed to ask for reasons.
Behind all the obfuscations, smears, and diversions, that complaint boils down to: Knowledge is harmful — to the public. Like High Priests of the Dark Ages, they seek to keep the public ignorant. Why? Because the ignorant are easy to manipulate and control.
The View’s Whoopi Goldberg asks why Fox News and Tucker Carlson reporting on J6 Footage isn’t considered “recruiting” domestic terrorists by “radicalizing” them. Whoopi says, “This should be against the law.”
_______________________________
It should be against the law to watch the show The View.
“MORE breaking news in Proud Boys trial.
Defense attys file to dismiss case based on revelations in Tucker tapes AND FBI concealing, doctoring evidence.”
“Brazen lawlessness at FBI in its biggest January 6 case.
Boss instructs FBI agent to “destroy” hundreds of items of evidence.
If this is a slam-dunk case of “seditious conspiracy,” why is FBI destroying, hiding evidence?”
“BREAKING: Drama in the Proud Boys trial yesterday after FBI agent caught lying on the stand and concealing evidence from defense attorneys.
Motion filed this morning from Nick Smith, attorney representing Ethan Nordean.
This is what happens when a rogue, corrupt FBI…”
“The federal judges in Washington DC are snakes. They’re nothing but a rubber stamp for the DOJ and some of them need to be impeached.”
@julie_kelly2
(follow julie kelly’s reporting on the case)
“Even more egregious (maybe?)–FBI accessed emails between one defendant and his attorney and discussed its contents. This agent apparently knew one defendant planned to go to trial.
The judge excused the jury as soon as this info was revealed in court yesterday. Hearing shortly”
@julie_kelly2
“Attorneys, please weigh in here.
DOJ claims attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply to those incarcerated.”
@julie_kelly2
“Tucker Carlson is cherry picking.”
It doesn’t matter if he’s kumquat picking. The fact is that the actions on the videos speak for themselves.
As with countless other issues (e.g., the Twitter files), the Left’s response is to smear and attack the messenger. To wit: “Carlson uses *selective* editing.” Is there such a thing as non-selective editing? Editing by its nature is selective. What that ad hominem amounts to is: The Left gets to select. Your duty is to report obediently. For further details, see the NYT, WaPo, NPR.
This time, the Left has added a new neurosis to their replies: Whining. “Why didn’t other news outlets get those tapes?” That is, of course, a form of manipulation, also intended to distract the public from the actions on the videos. And BTW, you didn’t receive those videos for the same reason a person who constantly crashes cars doesn’t get the keys.
@Sam,
I think you need to clarify the term editing.
There’s the meaning of editing as in picking and choosing a selection of what videos to show.
Then there’s editing where you modify the selection.
Tucker edited his selection meaning he chose to show video clips that were counter the the selection of videos released in the J6 Hearings.
What has already been alleged is that the J6 Committee had edited the audio of some of those selections.
A key distinction that has ramifications.
The accusation against Tucker is that its not just showing the selection but perhaps not showing portions of the video clips. Think of the Nick Sandmann video clip.
In any event. The fact that these videos exist and have not been presented is disturbing.
Many in Congress have egg on their faces.
“I think you need to clarify the term editing.”
That is the responsibility of those using the smear: “Carlson is engaged in selective editing.”
Slam. Are you sure. I thought he hired a producer and an a director. Made his own movie about what happened. I think it was a Speilberg production. After all you must just about believe anything. LOL
Exactly. As if the Dems weren’t “cherry picking” what they showed.
Even though Jacob Chansley signed a waiver of appeal in his plea agreement he can still file a section 2255 federal habeas corpus petition, as long as he can get around the AEDPA statute of limitations using newly discovered evidence as his claim.
Contrast the gleefully harsh mistreatment of Buffalo Guy with the extreme leniency afforded Collinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman, the progressive New York lawyers accused of firebombing a police car during the Democrat-sanctioned BLM Riots of 2020. Brian Coogan, the sentencing Judge, even went so far as to praise Rahman for choosing a career in public interest law to fight against social injustices.
Is there any wonder Americans have lost faith in our political and justice systems?
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/06/05/new-york-attorneys-accused-of-firebombing-police-car-given-generous-plea-deal/
Mar 7
Did Fox and Tucker Carlson show more of the January 6 videos as promised or did they change the programming after threats and pressure to do so?
From what I can gather the plan to air more January 6 tapes on Fox tonight… changed. That must have been some battle behind the scenes. But it should be addressed explicitly on the program rather than just pretending to ignore it.
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The True Stories of January 6th
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