The January 6th defendants may get access to the videos
“Shaman” Chansley’s former lawyer says he was never shown the potentially exculpatory video aired recently on Tucker Carlson’s show:
Albert Watkins—former lawyer for the "QAnon Shaman"—says he had not seen the footage of his client that Tucker Carlson aired.
He tells Tucker: "It didn't fit their narrative, and but for you disclosing it, I don't know where we'd be." pic.twitter.com/W5BBFXsLt4
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 9, 2023
Fancy that.
Of course, you don’t need to show the defendant possibly exonerating video when you’re preparing a show trial, or when you’re putting him in solitary confinement in order to coerce a confession.
However, the times they may be a-changing:
House Republicans are moving to provide defendants in Jan. 6-related cases access to thousands of hours of internal Capitol security footage, a move that could influence many of the ongoing prosecutions stemming from 2021’s violent attack.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the House Administration Committee’s oversight subpanel, said that the access for accused rioters and others — which Speaker Kevin McCarthy has greenlighted — would be granted on a “case-by-case basis.”
It’s about time. Actually, it’s way way past time, but it’s only able to happen now because the GOP won a majority (albeit slim) in the House, and Kevin McCarthy appears to have more cojones than a lot of people gave him credit for.
I’m thrilled to admit I was wrong about McCarthy.
It’s way past time for this to be done, and the Democrats’ refusal to provide this to defendants is unconscionable.
Contrary to what the proponent of The Globetrotter meme may repeat, elections do matter. Under Nancy’s rules would the Jan. 6 tapes have ever been released? Hard to argue a counterfactual?
Kevin McCarthy appears to have more cojones than a lot of people gave him credit for.
Perhaps, but lets look at McConnell – “It was a mistake in my view for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.”
Distrust of GOP Leadership is well earned.
This is all great but it won’t matter one bit.
Time will tell whether it matters. Events, my boy, events.
The question is there anything to be done for guys like Chansley?
Ace of Spades seems to have indicated that he would have had to sign a document forgoing any appeals. Does that count even if the prosecution is corrupt?!
om,
I meant specifically the individual cases because the fix is in for all of these people.
Bigger picture maybe it will matter but even that is doubtful IMO.
It is hard to be too cynical nowadays.
Yes, McCarthy may have been a secret NON-squish all along. May …
capital computers show there was a watermark, so they were viewed, no of course you match the sign in of the viewer at the time,
are they lying, are their lips moving,
“Kevin McCarthy appears to have more cojones than a lot of people gave him credit for.”
McCarthy may very well squish-out at some point in the future but what he’s already done and how he’s already conducted himself make him the best GOP Congressional leader in years, if not generations. Which kind of demonstrates how disgustingly low the bar had been set.
Mike
I’m with Griffin. Give the past history from Hillary’s illegal server onwards, there seems to be no consequences for any of these people. Being cynical is now just being realistic.
Bunge, always looking for the silver lining.
Good start, certainly better than nothing. But I don’t think it’s wrong to expect more out of Republicans in Congress than Jan 6 counter-theater. It may do a little good for the people who got railroaded. Real progress for the rest of the country will be made when the tax-eaters can’t count on getting paid and we’re not seeing anything like that yet.
Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP wing of the Uniparty of course are doing their bit to roll back even the little McCarthy has done. Dan Crenshaw, Mitt Romney, all the usual suspects more than happy to give the media that supposedly hates them the quotes they need to undercut what McCarthy is trying to do.
From Naomi Wolf, who has appeared to be in a process of political change:
Dear Conservatives, I Apologize
There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who “put America first” everywhere.
It’s tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug — to “move on” without every acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways.
But that erasure of personal and public history would be wrong.
I owe you a full-throated apology.
I believed a farrago of lies. And, as a result of these lies, and my credulity — and the credulity of people similarly situated to me – many conservatives’ reputations are being tarnished, on false bases.
The proximate cause of this letter of apology is the airing, two nights ago, of excepts from tens of thousands of hours of security camera footage from the United States Capitol taken on Jan 6, 2021. The footage was released by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson [https://www.axios.com/2023/03/08/mccarthy-defends-jan-6-footage-tucker-carlson-fox-news].
More here: https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-conservatives-i-am-sorry
(I’ve never encountered the word “farrago” before)
@Marisa:From Naomi Wolf, who has appeared to be in a process of political change:
I don’t see any sign that Wolf is becoming any less Leftist. What I see is her realization that the media is now in the business of speaking power to truth, when she’d always thought it was the other way around. The media is becoming an arm of the government and not a check on the government. The media is broadcasting the narrative of the day and not looking for truth. Well, 20 years late to that realization is better than never.
For the Republican Party to acquire significant numbers of Leftist voters like Naomi Wolf would just mean that Republicans become a party of Clinton (Bill, not Hillary) Democrats.
Granted that Clinton Democrats are better than the lot we have now, Clinton Democrats are how we got to where we are now. The way people like that like to run things is not made better if they put Rs after their names instead of Ds.
And they agree like 50% – 75% with the Left. They might back off on gender reassignment surgery for children but you better believe they’re going to keep taxpayer funded abortions for children.
Wolf herself is pretty good about publicly admitting she got things really wrong, and had to do so pretty spectacularly a few years back when she wrote a book claiming that Victorian England executed gays.
Real progress for the rest of the country will be made when the tax-eaters can’t count on getting paid and we’re not seeing anything like that yet.
==
Who did you have in mind?
Thank you for the Naomi Wolf link! While true that it does not sound like she’s turned into a rightie, and it boggles my mind the things she lists as, “I believed such and such because people who should have known said it,” (give me a break), at least she’s seeing the lies for what they are: lies.
I found this part very interesting: “…I was not at all surprised to see, on Mr Carlson’s security camera footage, the person was [sic] became the most memorable ‘face’ of the ‘insurrection’ (or the riot, or the Capitol breach) — escorted to the beating heart of the action, where his (Jacob Chanley’s) image could be memorialized by a battery of cameras forever.”
I didn’t think of that angle before, but now it makes sense; Chanley made the PERFECT “symbol of the insurrection,” or whatever the heck the judge in his case said, and by golly, they made sure he got where they wanted him to go!
@Art Deco:Who did you have in mind?
You’d have to go through the budget line-by-line to know exactly who they are, but I do know that we’re paying them at least a trillion dollars.
In 1956 Federal expenditures were $71 billion, which is $781 billion in today’s money. The government back then was not particularly lean and mean, the Cold War was on, but use that number as in the ballpark for what a reasonable level of government expenditure might look like.
Reasonable people can disagree about Social Security and Medicare and even Medicaid, so if you exclude the $3.9 trillion for that, and the $350 billion for the interest on the debt, then there’s about $1.8 trillion that was spent in 2022 that was not Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs for poor people, and interest on the debt.
$1.8 trillion minus $781 billion equivalent for a reasonable 1956 level of Federal government leaves just about $1 trillion. The people receiving that $1 trillion are more likely than not to be tax-eaters.
If you want to parse out the tax-eaters in the social spending, or in the 1956 Federal expenditures for that matter, be my guest. No one who works for other people* had a choice about participating in Social Security so I’m reluctant to describe anyone getting it with a term like “tax eater”, but math is a hard mistress and if we want to keep it going it will have to change in a lot of unpleasant ways.
*There is a religious opt-out for Social Security but there’s a lot you have to prove, and the IRS has to agree to it, so I still think it’s accurate to say that none of us have a choice about Social Security.
She has developed a certain appreciation for dissent largely because of her experiences
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1634003776146219009
Bill Shipley (@shipwreckedcrew) was on Tucker Carlson’s show tonight along with Jacob Chanley’s mother. He’s the attorney now working Chanley’s case. He confirms that there are few options for Chanley, as he signed a release as part of his plea deal, that forces him to forgo any further appeals or other processes that would get him released early.
Shipley was not in praise of Chanley’s former attorney Watkins, who was on Carlson’s show earlier this week, and he was particularly critical of the plea deal. But he does seem to think that there may be some legal maneuvering that could bear fruit, and he further thinks that the judge might be amenable to reconsidering Chanley’s situation.
Chanley made an ass of himself and seems to have some long-standing mental health issues, but I am of the belief that burying people under the jail, in solitary confinement, to get them to plead guilty is something that we don’t do here.
Apparently, it is something we don’t usually do here, unless extremely powerful, super-tenured, super-annuated (vicious, paranoid, quasi-senile) politicians are made to feel an incidental twinge of fear that their safety & security might not be impregnable. As is evidenced by the 10 ft tall, wait 14-ft tall stockade surrounding the Capitol and the parody of an inauguration that followed.
“Who did you have in mind?”
The United States’ military spending is roughly three times bigger than China’s and bigger than China’s and at least the next seven or eight biggest military spending countries after that combined. The U.S. could cut its military spending by a third or more and still be by far the most powerful military in the world and more than capable of defending any genuine national security interest.
Such a cut in military spending would harm America’s ability to function as the global hegemon and that could have some pretty nasty follow-on effects. But unless we can resume and continue economic growth at Trumpian levels, the days when the U.S. can play hegemon without demanding the tribute hegemons usually demand are probably drawing to a close no matter what.
Mike
and if we want to keep it going it will have to change in a lot of unpleasant ways.
Not all that unpleasant. You’d need to be careful with transitional procedures.
(1) Have cohort specific retirement ages which are adjusted periodically and freeze when the cohort in question reaches age 55; the ratio of beneficiaries to the working population should bounce around a set point, and having retirement ages which adjust according to the distribution of the population over age ranges is the way to make that so.
(2) End the practice of granting disability benefits to people with anxiety disorders and mood disorders; about a quarter of those granted disability benefits these days are receiving them for these stated reasons; there are likely some procedural amendments you can make to the disability program as well.
(3) Introduce deductibles into Medicare benefits, adjustable annually, so the share of total personal income in the country which is devoted to this program bounces around a set point.
(4) Separate Medicaid into two programs – one to finance medical benefits for the impecunious and one to finance long-term care of various sorts.
(5) For the medical benefits, grants states a franchise to add a deductible adjustable each year so that the share of the state’s total personal income so devoted bounces around a set point. Also grant states a franchise to charge an eligibility fee, which would amount to a % of that portion of a household’s income which exceeds a certain threshold. The threshold would be a function of a dollar value multiplied by the number of members one’s household has. The dollar value would be a function of nominal personal income per capita in the state in question and adjusted annually. The state would charge these fees in lieu of an eligibility threshold stated as a dollar value.
(6) Calculate payroll tax liability attributable to each employee as a % of total employee compensation up to a maximal value. The maximal value would be adjustable each year according to the change in mean nominal employee compensation per worker in the country as a whole. An assessment for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation would be made on each employee, and a supplementary assessment on the employer would be made to assist in financing unemployment compensation.
(7) Institute a comprehensive definition of taxable personal income, without deductions exemptions or credits of a sort which generate preferences for particular economic sectors. Calculate each individual’s or couple’s liability thus:
(0.4 x T) – P – (m x C) = L, where “T” is your taxable income, “P” is what you have paid in payroll taxes during the year, “m” is the number of members your household has for tax purposes, and “C” is a dollar value credit which is adjusted each year according to the change in nominal personal income per capita in the country at large. If “L” is a positive number, that’s your liability, and you’re due a refund if the year’s withholdings exceed this value. If “L” is a negative number, you’re do a net rebate. The maximal value you are due is the absolute value of “L”. However, if that value exceeds the caps applicable to your household, you only get the capped value. If none of the signatories of the return qualify as elderly or disabled, the cap is a function of your earned income. If all qualify as elderly or disabled, the cap is a function of personal income per capita in your region of the country. If one is elderly / disabled and one is not, the cap is the average of these two values. The refund due you will be your net rebate plus your withholdings for the year and paid out to you in installments in the coming year. The continental United States would be cut up into three regions to calculate these rebates, while each off-shore territory would be its own region.
(8) Given that you’re passing out these tax rebates, you can eliminate federal subsidies for the mundane expenditures of undifferentiated clientele. That means the end of SNAP and all other programs of the Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA; the end of TANF, LIHEAP, and some odds and ends run by HHS; and the end of all the programs run by HUD.
(9) Use the income tax revenue to finance grants to the states to for long-term care, grants to the states for Medicaid; cash, vouchers, and insurance distributed by the Veterans’ Administration; Supplemental Security Income, and debit cards distributed by FEMA and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
(10) Institute a value-added tax and a reconstituted corporation tax to finance the federal government’s miscellaneous expenditures. You’d have some smaller revenue sources used for this purpose to (e.g. tariffs and capital gains taxes. The VAT would be applicable to any transaction to which income, payroll, capital gains, and gift-and-inheritance taxes did not apply bar sales of donated, discarded, and salvaged property. There would be a single uniform rate on all transactions.
Yeah, Naomi would have a way to go before becoming a full-fledged conservative. But given that she’s been as hard-core a leftist feminist as one can imagine, that she’s made it this far is quite remarkable.
The United States’ military spending
Military spending is an economist’s public good. He used the term ‘tax eater’, which is usually a complaint about income redistribution.
In 1956 Federal expenditures were $71 billion, which is $781 billion in today’s money.
If you wish to pay people compensation in real terms which approximates that available to employees in 1956, you’re not going to have any volunteers to work for the federal government.
@Art Deco:Military spending is an economist’s public good.
If it’s actually military, and actually commensurate with what’s really needed, sure. In 1956 they had a military so I’ve clearly made allowance for a non-tax-eating portion of military spending, but military spending today is pretty bloated, in my opinion, with people, goods, and services that don’t actually keep us safe.
compensation in real terms
Already corrected my numbers for inflation. If anything it’s the other way around. Median family income in 1956 was $4,800 which is $52,800 today, but in 1956 a color television was the equivalent to about $10,000 today. Correcting for inflation, 1956 salaries go a lot farther today than they did in 1956 because stuff is a lot cheaper (quite aside from technological advance) in real dollars.
you’re not going to have any volunteers to work for the federal government.
Not sure what you’re trying to say here. Volunteers aren’t usually paid at all. I think you’re trying to say that $781 billion isn’t enough to pay the number of Federal employees that are “really needed” and if that’s what you mean I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to show your work. Partly because how many are needed depends on what the government actually needs to do and partly because it’s not just government salaries in that money, the government is also purchasing goods and services, distributing grants to NGOs, etc.
Already corrected my numbers for inflation.
Government compensation has to be vaguely competitive with private sector compensation (which, in real terms, has increased several fold since 1956).
Not sure what you’re trying to say here.
I gather.
@Art Deco:Government compensation has to be vaguely competitive with private sector compensation
Without saying how many Federal employees we’re talking about, you can’t say $781 billion in 2022 dollars isn’t competitive.
(which, in real terms, has increased several fold since 1956).
Cite please? Are we using “real terms” the same way? In 2023 dollars, median family income in 1956 was $52,800 compared to today’s $78,800, which isn’t “several -fold”, it’s 50% higher, and 92th percentile family income was $110K compared to today’s $235K, which is one-fold higher.
I gather.
I’ve engaged with you in good faith, without snark. Not only that, I’ve spent some time collecting information in response to your questions. Perhaps I need to think harder about how and with whom I put in that kind of time.
The PhD demands respect.
And Bunge learns a new word from the Quincy Institute (hegemon),
@Beth “The question is there anything to be done for guys like Chansley?
Ace of Spades seems to have indicated that he would have had to sign a document forgoing any appeals. Does that count even if the prosecution is corrupt?!”
In contract law, coercion specifically, and unconscionable conduct more broadly is grounds for having a contract set aside. So yes, I believe you could get a court to ignore that agreement due to the behaviour of the prosecution in obtaining it. That may however be a high bar in Washington, and it would only be public pressure that would get it over the line. As Robert Barnes would say, its a reason why the court of public opinion is important – judges are influenced by public pressure.
}}} and Kevin McCarthy appears to have more cojones than a lot of people gave him credit for.
Pretty sure he demonstrated that his first day in office when he threw Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off the Intel committee.
😉
}}} Distrust of GOP Leadership is well earned.
Indeed. McConnell puts special meaning to “the con”. He shows very little evidence of being much more than a RINO out for his own, he’ll back whatever benefits him Right Now.
}}} farrago *and* (I’ve never encountered the word “farrago” before)
Been seeing that word A LOT lately. Seems to have entered someone’s lexicon and gotten some heavy polish by their followers.
😀
It’s appropriate as-used, just not a common word until recently. I think I may have encountered it once or twice in decades, and suddenly it’s in many commentaries.
😀
Didnt loudermilk tell us five days ago there would be no video
}}} at least she’s seeing the lies for what they are: lies.
Unfortunately, this may well mean absolutely nothing. I have commented many many times on the primary quality of Liberals being an abject incapacity for Wisdom (learning from experience, vs. intellect, learning from books).
Liberals are the eternal 3yo — 3yo are self-excused by having no experience. Liberals, have the experience, they’ve never managed to process it into life-lessons, and so are indistinguishable from any 3yo.
This is how they retain insane concepts no matter how often the facts are shoved in their faces.
If there was a “WQ” to match the IQ, then liberals would cluster in the bottom 1/3rd of the normal curve.
It also ties into the Liberal Midnight Reset Button® :
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/04/30/the-real-war-on-women/#comment-2621473
}}} you’re not going to have any volunteers to work for the federal government.
You say this as though it is a bad thing?
}}} Already corrected my numbers for inflation. If anything it’s the other way around. Median family income in 1956 was $4,800 which is $52,800 today, but in 1956 a color television was the equivalent to about $10,000 today. Correcting for inflation, 1956 salaries go a lot farther today than they did in 1956 because stuff is a lot cheaper (quite aside from technological advance) in real dollars.
Ah, a fan of Carpe Diem, I see? 😀
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/08/adjusted-for-household-size-real-income.html
Also relevant: Much of what does cost more does so because it provides considerably more functionality — cars are far safer and go much farther while needing far far less maintenance. Tires are good for more than 10000 miles without a blowout. Homes have far more amenities and closet space. And most families are far smaller, leading to far more income-per-person at a given family number.
Food is much cheaper, and would be cheaper still if not for Archer-Daniels-Midland and the $#@%@#% ethanol mandate, as well as the Covid/Biden influence on food costs.
}}} Government compensation has to be vaguely competitive with private sector compensation (which, in real terms, has increased several fold since 1956).
a — disagree. at best, median government compensation should be slightly lower than the median for the same job. It is relevant to note that current government compensation is the highest it has ever been, and the growth in US$200k-plus jobs has, for the last 10y or more, been greatest in the Federal government sector.
The Fed currently pays, on average, FAR more than the private sector. This CLEARLY leads to the expansion of bureaucracy, as it makes it far far easier to hire still more government employees which is one of the prime functions of any bureaucracy — expansion of things under its control.
b — government pay should generally be such to exact a preference to be in the private sector, as those are the ones whose efforts pay to support the government hack. Every mouth feeding at the government (local, state, federal) trough is one more body NOT putting food in said trough.
c — noting it should not be at the bottom of the salary range, only below the median by a reasonable amount, lest you only collect the most incompetent (note that being incompetent at government work is not always a bad thing, however — it just depends on what the “work” involves).
d — government unions should be abolished. Who are they fighting against? Other government people?
}}} I’ve engaged with you in good faith, without snark. Not only that, I’ve spent some time collecting information in response to your questions. Perhaps I need to think harder about how and with whom I put in that kind of time
Don’t ever consider yourself to be engaging the person you’re having an argument with… think of yourself as making your case publicly vs. them making their case — with many many lurkers sitting there considering those arguments. 😉
This keeps you from solely being in the unjustifiable XKCD position.
(https://xkcd.com/386/)
Snark can be ok, as long as it’s not the central part of the argument. You do need to be wary of trolls looking to waste peoples’ time, but that’s a different issue.
tl;dr: It’s about convincing all the lurkers, not your opposition. 😉
OBloodyHell,
For years I have had that xkcd comic taped to a picture frame above my desk as a visual aid to help avoid the temptation of the sucking maw that is Internet opinion and the hubris that what I think matters.
Well its wrong in the local paper and tv station, which means every institution that uses that as a source is wrong
Wondering: did Watkins ever ask for all relevant video recordings, including body cam footage in discovery? depending on the prosecutors to be fair and forthcoming on their own is…risky.
He echoed sherwins kangaroo utterings so i would say no
My worry on the US military are:
1. we are getting over priced, fragile, ineffective weapons, that benefit the manufacturers more than the actual users. Decisions are made more for political than what’s best. Simplicius The Thinker articles are terrifying. The 10x casualty rate reported has shocked me, with a Ukrainian army that had 8 years to prepare. Russians are conducting industrial warfare, and the West does not have the infrastructure for this type of fight anymore.
2. The betrayal in forced jabs by the leadership. This is impacting recruitment.
3. Woke policies. Impacting recruitment, retention, and effectiveness. Lieutenant’s in Russia can call in artillery, in the us it takes an hour and at least a colonel, but often a lieutenant general.
4. Cdr salamander on the naval side posits China is playing the long game methodically building up their navy. Using modern manufacturing techniques and incremental improvements.
5. Purchasing effectiveness vs dollars is a better proxy on spending. Basically a dollar buys more in China, than in the US.
In any public outrage, I’m always willing to listen respectfully to people who argue that my proposed response to the outrage is misplaced, and that my efforts would be more usefully directed to another strategy.
I completely tune out anyone whose message is, “There’s no point expressing outrage, nothing will change, and nothing can be done.” If it were true that nothing could be done, there’d be no reason to keep yapping. Just go hide under a pillow and leave the rest of us to discuss what to do.
It is well to remember that McCarthy retains the Speakership under the one vote for vacancy rule that was forced upon him. Feet to the fire, so to speak. If Chansli’s conviction is not overturned, it will be a blinding admission of the failure of the legal system in this country. No speedy trial, extended solitary incarceration and abuse to obtain a confession and since when can you sign away your rights?