You don’t need to hit this analyst over the head with a 2×4, no sirree! I’m on these things like a shot. It only took me two-plus years, a fake House investigation, Tucker Carlson and rote news media lies to put it all together.
Bruce is talking to me in that classic above from the Ethics Alarms clip library.
Yes, the disgusting aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol is now one of those national ethics fiascos in which everyone who touches it (or boards the train) breaches ethical standards one way or another. The riot has been unethically distorted by Democrats for political gain, weaponized and spun by the Trump Deranged like Liz Cheney, used to justify a blatant violation of House tradition and bipartisanship by Nancy Pelosi, nauseatingly misrepresented and mis-characterized by most of the news media, frighteningly used to justify political show-trials by the Justice Department, exploited to execute an unconstitutional impeachment (probably rendering the process useless going forward), epitomized double standards in the treatment of the riot narrative and the rioters compared with the far more destructive George Floyd riots, and launched more demagoguery and anti-historical nonsense than any event in memory.
And what a passenger list! Donald Trump, Cassidy Chivers, Nikki Haley, Mitch McConnell, Tom Manger, Chief of the Capitol Police, Kevin McCarthy,prosecutors and defense attorneys, Pelosi, baskets of Senators and House members, enough talking heads and pundits to re-enact the Battle of Gettysburg, which, you know, was but dust in the wind compared to the cataclysmic rumble that had no substantive effect on anything except in the imaginations of Machiavellian partisans.
Yet it took smug, cynical, ethics-disabled Fox News fomenter Tucker Carlson to penetrate my thick skull and make me realize that this isn’t just an extension of the endless, disastrous, 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck but its own, ugly thing.
Last night Carlson decided to go “Nyah, nyah, nyah!” at the mainstream media hacks who treated his selective use of the security footage to bust at least part of some false narratives as if he had released another pandemic virus:
How absurd of them; how puerile of Tucker. But the most spectacular First Class train wreck boarder was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Read his entire rant from yesterday here; meanwhile, regarding some highlights:
“Last night, millions of Americans tuned into one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on cable television….”
Not even close, Chuck, you insufferable hack. The prime time broadcasts of the J-6 committee’s hearings were more shameful; President Biden’s “Republicans are fascists” speech was more shameful; heck, any installment of the Colbert show is more shameful. Carlson was showing actual video of aspects of the rioting that contradicts the deliberately distorted version of the event that your party unethically inflicted on the American people. Yes, he was the worst possible messenger. Never mind. Res ipsa loquitur.
With contempt for the facts, disregard of the risks, and knowing full well he was lying—lying—to his audience, Fox News host Tucker Carlson ran a lengthy segment last night arguing the January 6th Capitol attack was not a violent insurrection.
The lie is calling it an insurrection, which the unarmed was not under any legal or factual analysis. And what risks? Oh, that’s right: Chuck’s party now regards opinions and opposition to its Big Brother world view as dangerous.
“Mr. Carlson told the bold face lie that the Capitol attack—which we all saw with our own eyes—was, somehow, not an attack at all. He tried to argue it was nothing more than a peaceful sightseeing tour. Can you imagine? A nonviolent demonstration, a perfectly fine and appropriate instance of people expressing their opinion. “
A flat out lie by Schumer. Carlson never implied or stated that there was no riot. He focused on a single participant in the riot who was probably unjustly and unethically charged and imprisoned. He also correctly suggested that the riot was hyped, and Schumer’s hysterical remarks now continue that deception.
I don’t think I have ever seen a prime-time cable news anchor manipulate his viewers the way Mr. Carlson did last night.
Really? Chuck must not watch MSNBC.
Speaker McCarthy has played a treacherous—a treacherous—game by catering to the hard right. He’s enabled the Big Lie and has further eroded away at our precious democracy. When people don’t believe elections are on the level, that is the beginning of the end of this bold experiment in democracy that has gone on for more than two hundred years.
How does finally releasing the footage every American has a right to see (and every lawyer for those tried by the Justice Department had a right to review) cater to the hard right or erode democracy? Wait, I forgot: the motto of the current Democratic Party is “You can’t handle the truth!”
And nice goal post shifting, there, Senator. The issue at hand is the false characterization of the riot, not the election.
I must also add that leaders of the party that advocates gutting the First Amendment, impeaching elected opposition party Presidents because they can, packing the Supreme Court, impeding private gun ownership and “sanctuary cites” to block enforcement of immigration laws are ethically estopped from extolling American democracy, which that party increasingly opposes.
All Americans of all types and stripes and corners of this country—Democrats, Republicans, Independents—need to take a stand and call out Mr. Carlson’s conduct for what it is: a dangerous, unforgivable attempt to destabilize our democracy and rewrite the history of the worst attack on our Constitution since the Civil War.
I call this peak demagoguery. Schumer can only utter such nonsense believing that the average American has the historical literacy of my dog Spuds. Yeah, Senator, Tucker Carlson showing actual video from January 6, 2021 and giving his opinion on what it means risks destabilizing our democracy.
Bite me.
Ethics Alarms 
Here is a local conservative anti-Trump Republican’s perspective on the new videos released…
Hitler was kind to his dog
It’s pretty clear that anyone that’s anti-Trump is going to attack, smear and downplay the significance of the newly release videos.
Contrary to what Andrew McCarthy presumes, the guy’s lawyer says he was not aware of the video.
I’m surprised at McCarthy—but then he was a prosecutor.
Jack wrote, “Contrary to what Andrew McCarthy presumes, the guy’s lawyer says he was not aware of the video.”
Yup, I’m aware of that, I actually shared Jonathan Turley’s statement specifically about that…
https://ethicsalarms.com/2023/03/07/regarding-tucker-carlsons-newly-revealed-j6-surveillance-video/#comment-834678
Blaska cherry-picked McCarthy, who also wrote,
“Tucker Carlson and the January 6 committee have pushed very different narratives of the riot. Neither one is accurate… To the extent that the media–Democrat critique is that Carlson is an opinion journalist who is apt to present a skewed picture, this is the price they must have known they’d have to pay for the January 6 committee. That panel was a blatantly partisan, monochromatically anti-Trump political exhibition that presented the country with a skewed picture, eschewing cross-examination and perspectives that deviated from its relentless theme: “Trump’s incitement to insurrection had our democracy hanging by a thread….Anyway, as we have lots of occasion to observe, the first rule of politics is: What goes around comes around. If Democrats and their notetakers don’t like this, they should have rethought the January 6 committee, as many of us implored them to do.”
Jack,
You should take a couple of minutes to read the comments on that blog post we’re talking about.
Do yourself a favor and skip over the imbecilic slobberings of D!CK lesiak, the resident Lazy @$$ Blogge Idiot TROLT.
Reading them leaves one feeling intellectually and philosophically unclean.
Aaa yes, Richard the Lesiak, an alki-bopping internet troll that is the epitome of a dimwitted persona.
It easy understanding that defense counsel were denied access to the videos because the judge presiding over the cases ruled they were not relevant or wouldn’t lead to admissible evidence. I doubt that and I suspect the prosecution lied ir misled the court.
jvb
Erm . . . “it’s ‘my’ understanding . . .”
jvb
And what kind of argument is “What would they have done to Pelosi?” What would the BLM rioters have done to Derek Chauvin? What would the Democratic National Convention rioters have done to Richard Nixon? All Blaska does is appeal to authority. Very unimpressed.
We cannot forget that McConnell stood right next to Schumer in solidarity.
Methinks McConnell has been just as compromised as Biden by the Chicoms and not just the party circuit.
No one should donate to the RNC until McConnell no longer plays any role in distributing campaign funds
I’ve just since I saw the video of Schumer’s rant realized Adam Schiff learned everything he knows from the Senator from Wall Street. Schumer is absolutely despicable. He’s as bald faced a liar as Schiff. Schiff’s just reading from Chuck’s playbook.
Karine is simply awesome::
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/media/tucker-carlson-white-house/index.html
Apparently, Democrats really do love police, the very ones they want to defund.
jvb