Just One Thing: QAnon Shaman Redux
NOTE: SEE VIDEOS AT THE END OF THIS BLOG RE TUCKER CARLSON'S LATEST ANTICS AND SOME RESPONSES TO THEM
Tucker Carlson made a big splash on Monday night with footage from the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 including video showing Jacob Chansley, the guy sometimes called the QAnon Shaman who was at the capitol wearing face paint and a horned helmet, being more or less escorted around the Capitol by cops. I’d like to make a few quick points: First, I’m far more interested in what happened outside the building than inside (including people putting up a small gallows and calling to "hang Mike Pence") and I'm far FAR more interested in President Trump’s lack of effort to stop the mayhem than in anything else. But to the extent that Chansley or anyone else had the book thrown at them by a federal judge without this footage (or whatever similar footage might be relevant to another case) ever being made available, that’s a travesty of justice. Did Chansley deserve 3½ years in prison? Maybe, but only if this information was part of the calculation. And again, let's not assume that the new information is important just because Tucker wants us to think it is.
BTW, re Chansley, in his defense he's clearly dealing with mental illness (at least his lawyers claim so and his history would seem to support that), and aggravating factors for him would be that he seemed to be calling for violence online after the election as well as using a bullhorn in the Capitol with the apparent intent of riling up the trespassers.
Anyway, I hope the judge who heard the case, Royce Lamberth (who's been around a LONG time), will at least ask himself whether this new information would have impacted his sentencing. And if it would have, he should 1) reopen the sentencing phase of the trial and 2) ask the government why this footage was not made available during trial, assuming it wasn't. Again, it's possible that the judge will say that this footage does not mitigate the other known facts.
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Today's Guests
Carl Szabo is Vice President and General Counsel of Net Choice, a free-market think tank focused on Internet law and policy.
We'll discuss a soon-to-be-law in Utah that will require users of social media platforms to prove their ages before access is allowed.
NetChoice Sends Veto Request to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on HB 311 and SB 152 - NetChoice
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Dan Lyons is the author of Disrupted: My Adventures in the Startup Bubble, a New York Times bestselling memoir, and Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us. He was also a writer for the hit HBO comedy series Silicon Valley. As a journalist, he spent a decade covering Silicon Valley for Forbes, ran tech coverage at Newsweek, and contributed to Fortune, the New York Times, Wired, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker
His new book, published yesterday, is called STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World.
Time Magazine: How Talking Less Will Get You More | Time
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Next to the Ukrainians, few nations have more at stake in the outcome of the Ukraine-Russia war than does Poland. We'll talk about it with the Polish Consul-General in New York, Adrian Kubicki. (The "c" in his last name is pronounced like "sh".)
Consul General in New York - Poland in US - Gov.pl website (www.gov.pl)
Which countries are sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, and is it enough? | Euronews
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Other Stuff
Offered without comment: The Navy's First Vietnamese Admiral Saw His Family Killed by an Infamous Viet Cong Guerrilla | Military.com
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The only thing that surprises me is how Powell keeps saying the same thing over and over and over and yet the market seems surprised every time: Fed may need to accelerate rate hikes, Jerome Powell says (CBS News)
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It's not just that Americans aren't much better than this. Too many congressional Republicans, and a guy who could be the next GOP nominee for president, aren't better than this:
French nationwide strike to extend as pension reform fight intensifies | Reuters
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I am SO SO SO sick of articles that talk about what's "at stake" such as this CFPB thing or the illegal student loan reallocation scam as if what's important isn't whether the government is doing something unconstitutional but only whether their actions benefit enough people. It's utterly lawless.
Obama-era consumer protections could be overruled by SCOTUS. Here’s what’s at stake. (The Hill)
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I want to give Tucker credit for something, something I think I noticed long ago: It was probably at least three years ago that Tucker Carlson did something that really changed the trajectory of his show: He gave a long intense monologue to start the show. I wouldn't call it a rant, but it was in that direction with the caveat that it was very good. I don't remember the details. I just remember thinking, "he needs to do more of that." And he did, and it worked. (Perhaps there's a lesson there for me!) Around the same time it became clear to me that Tucker was distancing himself and his show from being as tied to Donald Trump as the other Fox News primetime hosts were, namely Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, both of whom became unbelievably boring because all they did was talk about and defend Trump. Tucker, on the other hand, talked about issues and stories. I'm not saying I always liked his take. That's not the point. I'm saying that to the extent that Trump was in Tucker's conversations it was as another element within a story, not as THE story. I do think that continues with Tucker and I'm not at all surprised to read that in private he was expressing disdain for Trump and how tired he was of Trump. I think a careful viewer of Tucker's work recognized that already. I should add that over the past couple of years I've found Tucker's drift toward conspiracy theory, wild-eyed populism, defense of Vladimir Putin, and bogus "I'm just asking questions" efforts to spread misinformation unpleasant enough that I've almost entirely stopped watching him. I never liked Laura and Sean became boring and annoying long ago and I haven't watched his show in a few years.
Private Fox News text messages, emails released in Dominion suit (nbcnews.com)
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Colorado history: Eisenhower tunnel beneath Continental Divide in Colorado turns 50 - Axios Denver
Photos: https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2023/03/08/photo-gallery-eisenhower-tunnel-50-year-history
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The single biggest hurdle at the level of individual device for massive electrification is the size and weight of batteries needed to power something like a car or truck or train or airplane for a relevant distance. Scientists now think they have made a significant advance in battery technology that would overcome much of this hurdle. That said, we have to remember that the electrification of everything will require massively more electrical power generation capacity and the grid to handle it, none of which will come cheaply or easily, especially while the Dems still cave in to radical environmentalist's mindless opposition to nuclear power.
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Gorgeous: Real 'Ferris Bueller' Ferrari sold for $18 million at Florida auction | Fox News
(20) Buellerama and the real deal Ferris mobile 2023 - YouTube
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I'm quite confident that I could do 10% of this. Actually, I shouldn't say that. I'm cautiously optimistic at best.
Florida man, 60, does 3,264 pushups in 1 hour to break world record - UPI.com
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I mean, if the lesson is "don't throw away winning lottery tickets" I think I knew that already: $1 million winning lottery ticket spent the night in a bag of trash - UPI.com
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I get the concept. I do wonder how cops will feel knowing that literally everything they say is being sent to a computer somewhere: New AI tool instantly analyzes police bodycam footage (Axios)
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For camera buffs, here's a fun bit of photographic history: Point, Shoot, and Forget. Before Instagram, the disposable camera helped pave the way for digital photography. But the basic idea was a century old by the time it went mainstream.(Tedium.co)
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When your home is such a mess that you don't figure out that the stench is your dead husband's decomposing body: Illinois woman Jennifer Maedge finds husband Richard Maedge's body in home after he disappeared (nypost.com)
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Now everyone's gonna want it, and keep it unrefrigerated: Popular Australian beer recalled due to 'excess alcohol' - UPI.com
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Today's Videos
Do NOT take my corn
This guy's stuff is really funny...I love the Chinese self-deprecating humor. Reminds me of old-school Jewish comedians who used to make funny but not-too-insulting Jewish jokes.
I wish I understood what game Tucker Carlson is playing at. Is it only about trying to build ratings among the most gullible or unthinking Americans? He sure has captured that hill quite enthusiastically. I have no objection to getting the public all the facts that can be shown without jeopardizing Capitol security. And that's probably almost everything. But to say that some video showing some people behaving calmly means that the rest of what we all saw, the mayhem and rioting and calls to "hang Mike Pence", should be ignored is plainly insane.
I think Dan Flynn gets it somewhat right here where he suggests that part of the appeal of Tucker's work goes to the complete distrust of institutions and "the establishment" that has exploded like never before on the conservative side of politics in recent years. Tucker's "I'm just asking questions" approach is knowingly misleading on his part but it's effective in this environment when people are looking for anything to trust. It's just too bad they're not getting it.
First his original stuff from Monday night. Then a couple of responses including from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the object of persistent hate and derision from Tucker and the MAGA crowd.
The next-to-last one tends to violate Godwin's Law and I do not equate the Jan 6 perpetrators with Nazis but the point of the comparison stands.
And the final note, from Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, represents where I am on this issue.