Verify, and Don't Trust

Seemingly regretful over his support for Donald Trump because of the latter's phony Christianity and the war in Iran, Tucker Carlson in April told brother Buckley (of course) Carlson

In real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now. We'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be and I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional.

Concered that the left is falling into a trap, David Pakman sends an important warning, noting

.....The idea is that Tucker Carlson has now apologized for helping support Donald Trump. He has said some things that sound anti-war and there are people on the left naively falling for it and saying "look, maybe there's an opportunity here to work with some of these people. Maybe we can make a coaltion with Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene"....

I've said before that populist rhetoric can be very deceptive. Populist rhetoric flattens very important issues into emotion, east-to-agree-with statements that feel like common ground when they really aren't.

He notes that rhetoric about "elites" is

designed to trigger agreement without any deep examination of what comes next. what comes next is the most important thing. I've said before: you might hear a couple of sentences from Bernie Sanders and a couple of sentences from Tucker Carlson and they will be very similar because they are employing populist rhetoric. But when you ask Tucker what is the solution here, it is an atrocity and that is whole tric. That's where the differences matter. 

We'll talk about Tucker. Tucker's criticism are not rooted in consistent principled frameworks that align with the progressive or center-left policies.

All that is valid and important, but is incomplete In an interview conducted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro apparently a couple of months ago but recently published in The New York Times, Carlson noted Israel's continuing assault on Lebanon following a ceasefire President Trump reached with Tehran. Carlson complained

And within hours of Trump announcing this, Israel publicly, in a way that was designed to get the attention of everyone, including the Iranians, starts killing civilians in Lebanon. Now, what was the point of that? Not to secure the Israeli homeland. The point of it was to end any talk of a negotiated settlement, to keep this going until Iran was destroyed and chaotic, which is the Israeli goal.

Steve M responds

Carlson is essentially saying that Trump is blameless in this matter -- he could have gotten us out of the war, but Israel trapped him. Carlson ignores Trump's own strategic ineptitude, and his own desire to keep fighting the glorious war that both Netanyahu and Fox News want him to fight until he achieves the glorious victory they tell him he can achieve....We think Carlson has broken with Trump, but I think he's being careful not to burn the bridge between himself and Trump. 

This is further reflected in Carlson's rationalization that

... I never saw, nor did I hear about anybody who works for the Trump administration, who was enthusiastically pushing this war on Trump, being like: “You want to make this country great again? We need a regime-change effort in Iran.” Instead there were a lot of cowardly people, as there always are, and Trump engenders cowardice in the people around him through intimidation. And there is a kind of quality that he has that’s spellbinding. And I think it probably literally is a spell. And the effect is to weaken people around him and make them more compliant and more confused. And I’ve experienced this myself. You spend a day with Trump and you’re in this kind of dreamland. It’s like smoking hash or something. It’s interesting, very interesting. And there may be a supernatural component to it. I’m not a theologian, but it’s real, and anyone who’s been around him can tell you it’s true. But whatever the cause, no one around him was weighing in strongly, as far as I know, on either side, for or against. But people from the outside were strongly weighing in, calling him constantly.

So Donald Trump is a big, strong, and intimidating man. And yet he also is a victim of outsiders who duped him. Trump is projected as always powerful, yet somehow the victim. Carlson believes that the President "was doing this against his will," that he was "more a hostage than a soverieign decision-maker" in deciding to go to war against Iran. Steve M explains 

Trump is too powerful to get honest advice from his subordinates and also too powerless to rebuff Netanyahu and a couple of Fox News talking heads, not to mention the 95-year-old man who founded Fox. Either way, Carlson seems to be describing Trump as more sinned against than sinning, which tells me he could return to the Trump fold in the future.

He could, and probably will. As David Pakman understands, the left's response to Carlson et al. should be, as the fictional Martin Dooley cautioned, "trust everybody- but cut the cards." 

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Uncertain Allies

In 2005, minister and theologian Wayne Stiles argued "We will always struggle with temptation in this life. But God has not left us alone in the struggle. He has provided all we need to defeat sin and Satan (Ephesians 6:10-18, 1 John 4:4). He noted

More than thirty years ago Flip Wilson kept America in stitches with his television characters “Reverend Leroy,” the friendly, pompous pastor of the “Church of What’s Happening Now,” and “Geraldine Jones,” the sassy African-American woman in a miniskirt. Whenever Geraldine would impulsively buy a dress—or do anything she shouldn’t—she excused her urge by uttering the line she made famous, “The Devil made me do it!”

America laughed at Geraldine for her obviously lame excuse. In fact, to say, “The Devil made me do it,” became the rage all over the country. Of course, we all know that the Devil wants us to sin, but everybody knew the truth.

Scofff all you wish, but this applies to the Iran war, in which a few influential far-right figures are claiming "the devil made me do it"- or rather, "the devil made President Trump do it."

In hisletter resigning as director of the National Counterterrorism Center and "subsequent remarks", Joe Kent

has claimed that President Donald Trump was “led to believe” that military action against Iran would be swift and effective, alleging that Israel played a key role in shaping that perception.

Kent said that following protests in Iran earlier this year, Israeli officials pitched the idea that targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would pave the way for protesters to take control. According to him, the plan was presented as a limited and straightforward operation, similar to past regime-change expectations in other conflicts.

“In essence, we were told we would be greeted as liberators — that strikes on the IRGC would allow protesters to take over,” Kent said, describing the proposal as overly optimistic.

On March 27, Megyn Kelly

criticized right-wing politicians and commentators for “pushing” President Trump to launch military operations against Iran.

“As this goes south, we need to know exactly who talked him into it and what representations were made to convince the president that this was a good idea,” Kelly said.

The former Fox News host specifically named Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “first and foremost” and said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was “equally to blame.”

Kelly also slammed conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro for “pushing this war” on his show and said radio host Mark Levin was “chief among” the right-wing advocates for military action against Iran.

“There were very prominent activists on the right who were frothing at the mouth for this thing,” Kelly said. “And now that it’s not only going poorly, but the president’s poll numbers are in a precipitous free fall, we'd love to see more accountability.Who? Who promised him what?"

Then on March 30, Fox News host Laura Ingraham

called into question whether President Trump understands the “complexity” of the U.S. military operation in Iran.

The host used her opening monologue on “The Ingraham Angle” to talk about how, despite the April 16 deadline set by the president, Trump faces complications to his calls for negotiations with the Iranians amid his threats of further escalating the conflict.

“Now, knowing what little time we have and how quickly this can spiral out of control, we still have a lot of questions,” she said. “For instance, was the president fully briefed about the risks of all of this from the beginning? And was he then able to take it all in and understand the complexity of this? How complex it could actually get, and further possibilities of casualties or other damage –– the difficulty of dealing with these people? Or was he told this would be relatively quick, in and out?”

So alpha "please, Mr. Trump, no more winning" male was told that the war would be a quick enter and exit, or he was pushed or talked into going into Iran.  However, when this war end- and however it ends- Donald Trump will take credit for not only a "victory" but for attaining peace.

Kent, Kelly and Ingraham are opposed- sort of- to the current war against Iran. But they're also apologists for the President. They can turn on a dime by supporting Trump. and probably will, on another important issue or perhaps even this one.

They are, thankfully, not Tucker Carlson. However, it is almost (almost) as true of them as it is of Carlson, of whom it has been said that he "is one of the clearest examples of how the 'enemy of your enemy' is not in any reliable way your friend".

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Donald Trump, Man of Love and Nuance?

I think the word Tucker is looking for is "unbelievable."

Tucker Carlson on his conversation with President Trump: "His understanding of world affairs is so much more nuanced and sophisticated and pro-American than the moronic neocons currently in charge. It was remarkable." pic.twitter.com/BYKfLBjUoE

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) April 12, 2023

At 4:24 of the video below, the former President can be seen stating

First of all, Ukraine's been obliterated. O.K., let's not even talk- nuclear. But let's say it wasn't, let's say they were doing better than anticipated, uh, if he decided to use his second form of destruction, which is nuclear, that's the end of the world. You understand?

Trump then remarked that, of course, Carlson understands, which only makes sense because both he and his interviewee are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russian.

So, let's "talk nuclear," which Trump argues here is never done, although it is.  In October, CBS News explained

Tactical nuclear weapons are sometimes referred to as "small nukes," even though they still cause devastating fatalities and destruction. They are designed for limited strikes against relatively close specific targets, like command posts, instead of destroying cities from afar.

The explosive yield of tactical nuclear weapons can range from under one kiloton to about 100 kilotons, whereas strategic nuclear weapons can have a yield up to one thousand kilotons. The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were between 12 and 21 kilotons. The one dropped on Hiroshima weighed 9,700 pounds and a 10,800-pound bomb leveled Nagasaki. 

Tactical nuclear weapons can have a similar yield or greater — up to several times as powerful as the Nagasaki bomb — but they are often smaller and more portable. For instance, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed devices small enough to fit into a suitcase-sized container....

There is a wide range. Over 70,000 people are estimated to have died immediately when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima. Thousands of others later died due to poisoning from the radiation.

However, that wouldn't necessarily occur if Russia were to launch a nuclear weapon against Ukraine because

Tactical nuclear weapons, by design, do not have as much radioactive fallout, since they are used against a specific target, but there is still some fallout.

Nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein has built a simulation called NukeMap to estimate the effects of nuclear strikes. According to NukeMap, if the Davy Crockett, the smallest U.S.nuke ever produced, were to be used on a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., it would kill 3,270 people and injure 3,620. Other tactical nuclear weapons are larger and would result in a more devastating death toll.

Consequently, we don't know what impact a tactical nuclear weapon would have. Yet, Donald Trump says "that's the end of the world" if one is set off  He's either ignorant or wants people to believe that the world will blow up unless Ukraine caves to Russia.  Or both.

Carlson's claim that Trump's understanding of world affairs is more pro-American than that of neocons is possibly even more ludicrous than his characterization of it as nuanced and sophisticated. Lest we forget, Biden's immediate predecessor last Halloween tweeted on his Truth Social "our country is rigged, crooked and evil." That wasn't "Joe Biden" or "this Administration." It was "our country" which is evil.

Donald Trump obviously hates the United States of America. He wouldn't have called it "evil" otherwise. On second thought, in tweeting "our country,"  Trump might not have been referring to the USA. It's hard to believe, however, that he'd ever refer to Mother Russia as corrupt or evil.

 

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Smear Undone

On Wednesday, CBS News reported

An Ohio man has been charged with raping a 10-year-old girl whose case drew national attention following a doctor's comments that the child had to travel to Indiana for an abortion, an account that had led some prominent Republicans – including Ohio's attorney general and a congressman – to suggest it was fabricated.

Democratic President Joe Biden highlighted the case last week at the signing of an executive order aimed at protecting access to abortion as state after Republican-led state, including Ohio, enacted near-total restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court's recent landmark ruling.

The President's reference to the case bothered many conservatives, with Fox News online attempting to discredit the account as "repeated by President Biden last week, but the widely shared story is facing increased skepticism and hasn't been verified by even left-leaning fact checkers," Shockingly, "even left-wing fact-checker Snopes could not determine if the story was true." (Of course, a fact-checker leans left because facts have a liberal bias.)

CBS News added

A detective testified Wednesday at an initial court appearance for the 27-year-old suspect that Columbus police learned about the girl's pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother June 22, and that she had an abortion in Indianapolis on June 30, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

The detective said DNA from the Indianapolis abortion clinic was being tested to confirm paternity.

An Indianapolis physician who provides abortion services, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, had told The Indianapolis Star that an abortion had been provided for such a child because the girl couldn't get the procedure in Ohio under a newly imposed state ban on abortions at the first detectable "fetal heartbeat." A judge lifted a stay on the ban after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

As Judd Legum details, an entire right-wing campaign was unleashed. Tucker Carlson declared the news item "not true." Further

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost appeared on another Fox News show, Jesse Watters Primetime, to attack the Indianapolis Star report. "We have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs — not a whisper anywhere," Yost said. In a subsequent interview with USA Today, Yost said that there was "not a damn scintilla of evidence" to support the story, which he described as a likely "fabrication." Watters himself concluded that the story "fits a pretty dangerous pattern of politically timed disinformation."

 

The Ohio congressman to whom CBS referred was the famous, more deservingly infamous, Jim Jordan:

A 10-year-old girl was raped in @Jim_Jordan's home state of Ohio.

Jordan publicly called the story a lie.

Then, after the rapist was arrested and confessed, Jordan deleted the tweet without any acknowledgment or apology. pic.twitter.com/ot4SaDtbBz

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 13, 2022

 

Conservatives understood that Americans might realize that if an abortion could be denied to a 10-year-old rape victim, every woman would be in jeopardy. Among the worst offenders was the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, which called Indianapolis Star Shari

Rudavsky's report a "fanciful tale[]" that was "too good to confirm." Ignoring Bernard's first-hand account, the editorial claimed there is "no evidence the girl exists." The piece criticizes Bernard for not providing details that could expose the identity of the 10-year-old including "where the alleged crime occurred" and "the Ohio doctor who referred the case." They suggested that Bernard perpetrated a hoax because she has "a long history of abortion activism in the media."

 Legum, again:

5. The other issue seized on by the right-wing, and then @GlennKesslerWP at the Washington Post, is under Ohio law that it is mandatory a rape to a child welfare agency.

That is true.

But it's not mandatory for those reports to be made PUBLIC. https://t.co/OrmuZLtI7m

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 14, 2022

Yost is unrepentant. Jordan is unrepentant. No Republican will admit to error because to forced-birth advocates, no error was made.

8. Ohio could have included a rape or incest exemption. It did not.

Instead, it included an ambiguous health exemption that may or may not apply to this 10-year-old girl.

It makes sense for a doctor to refer her out of state to avoid potential prosecution.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 14, 2022

 

A safe prediction:

This is the first documented case of a child rape survivor having to flee her state to secure an abortion but it will not be the last. https://t.co/y7u0EHncE3

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 14, 2022

 

It will not be the last. Donald Trump is the GOP hero and the only Republican with a serious chance of heading him off is the similarly cruel Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. Pro-life is not the point for party officials. Cruelty, and coercion of women- even rape victims- are on their wish list.

 

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Replacement Theory And Trump Supporters

As displayed at the beginning of the recent Young Turks video below, three months ago Tucker Carlson wailed

The left and all the gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term "replacement," if you suggest the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots....

The Democratic Party is not trying to replace or reduce the electorate, but instead to expand the electorate. Tucker continues

... with new people more obedient, voters from the third world. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening, actually. Let's just say if that's true. So this matters on a bunch of different levels but on the most basic level, it's a voting rights question. If you change the population you dilute the political power of the people who live there so every time they import more voters, I become disenfranchised as a current voter....

Carlson does not lose the right to vote. His followers don't lose the right to vote. And what is happening is not importing more voters but allowing individuals constitutionally and legally eligible to vote to continue to vote.

In case you thought that Tucker was referring to race when he said "import" and "Third World," he wants you to know

So I don't understand why you don't understand this. I mean, everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it. Oh, you know, the white replacement there- no, no, this is a voting rights question.

Carlson uses not a dog whistle but a blow to the head when he invokes "replacement" theory, a term and concept reinvigorated by author Renaud Camus in his 2011 book “Le Grand Remplacement.” The French news network France 24 last year explained that.

Rooted in racist nationalist views, the great replacement theory purports that an elitist group is colluding against white French and European people to eventually replace them with non-Europeans from Africa and the Middle East, the majority of whom are Muslim. Renaud Camus often refers to this as “genocide by substitution”.

Notions of the theory date as far back as 1900, when the father of French nationalism Maurice Barrès spoke about a new population that would take over, triumph and “ruin our homeland”.

In an article for daily newspaper Le Journal, he wrote: “The name of France might well survive; the special character of our country would, however, be destroyed, and the people settled in our name and on our territory would be heading towards destinies contradictory to the destinies and needs of our land and our dead."

At the time Barrès was writing, “anti-Semitism was extremely mainstream”, says Dr. Aurelien Mondon, a senior lecturer of politics at Bath University in an interview with FRANCE 24. “Barrès spoke about the idea of racial purity,” he says, which is why the theory of population replacement became so popular among the Nazis, for example.

But after World War II, the French far right needed a new discourse to move back into the mainstream. Shifting away from biological racism towards cultural racism, the replacement theory gained ground in the 1970s and 1980s.

“The Nouvelle Droite (New Right) and some French intellectuals were trying to find ways to move away from the margins,” Mondon says. Over the years, these ideas spread among the far right, which was becoming more and more mainstream in France, eventually paving the way for Camus to publish his book on the topic without being disregarded as too radical.

“Camus didn’t invent anything,” Mondon explains. “He put concepts together and coined the phrase, but his theory is part of a much broader context that contributed to the reshaping of the far right [in France.”

With the far-right Marie Le Pen currently posing a serious threat to Emmanuel Macron and democracy in France, the movement has newly taken on added importance. However, it helps make clearer the self-deception engaged in by Trump supporters who believe their hero won the 2020 presidential election. Sarah Longwell writes

I regularly host focus groups to better understand how voters are thinking about key political topics. Recently, I decided to find out why Trump 2020 voters hold so strongly to the Big Lie.

For many of Trump’s voters, the belief that the election was stolen is not a fully formed thought. It’s more of an attitude, or a tribal pose. They know something nefarious occurred but can’t easily explain how or why.

The anti-Trump Republican Longwell concludes

These voters aren’t bad or unintelligent people. The problem is that the Big Lie is embedded in their daily life. They hear from Trump-aligned politicians, their like-minded peers, and MAGA-friendly media outlets—and from these sources they hear the same false claims repeated ad infinitum.

Now we are at the point where to be a Republican means to believe the Big Lie. And as long as Republicans leading the party keep promoting and indulging the Big Lie, that will continue to be the case. If I’ve learned anything from my focus groups, it’s that something doesn’t have to make sense for voters to believe it’s true.

As Longwell notes, the GOP does promote and indulge the "Big Lie" and these voters aren't unintelligent. Yet, they claim "flipped" votes overnight after polls closed; mail-in ballots as a "crock;" a "fixed" election; or  "something just doesn't feel right."  Scorned (or so they believe) for being Trump voters- and maybe for being racist- they won't be as forthright as Tucker Carlson, who has his own reasons for peddling racially divisive ideas.

Longwell concedes the Trump voters hear "false claims repeated ad infinitum" from "Trump-aligned politicians, their like-minded peers, and MAGA-friendly media outlets."   Nonetheless, she maintains "these voters aren't bad or unintelligent people," and she's right about the latter.

But something is at work, and if it's not stupidity, Longwell needs to recognize that a person doesn't have to be a flat-out racist to be at least somewhat malevolent. If asked if liberals voted twice, immigrants voted illegally, or blacks were pressured by Democrats, many of her interviewees would have sounded a lot like Tucker Carlson. They are not helpless pawns, but have found a like-minded spokesman for their electoral interests.

 

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Tucker Carlson's Treemas

In the opening lyrics of Don McLean's American Pie, "a long, long time ago," shortly after Thanksgiving, a fellow freshman student told us in the social hall of a dormitory "Tree is the reason for the season."

Actually, he said "Jesus is the reason for the season."  But Tucker Carlson, commenting upon the Christmas tree fire outside of Fox News headquarters, begs to differ:

lol I thought the symbol of Christianity was the cross, not a fucking pine tree. https://t.co/vAHKYmsB5I

— John Phipps: Himbo Slice (@GameDadJP) December 9, 2021

Carlson's first clue should have been the calendar, upon which December 25 is noted as "Christmas Day" rather than "Treemas Day." However, it appears that he was twisting the meaning of Christmas and trivializing its importance in order to make a different political point. He continued

It's an assault on religious observance. By current standards, destroying someone's religious symbol would be a hate crime. That's a category much loved and meticulously chronicled by the Biden Justice Department. The D.O.J. can tell you precisely how many Korans were burned last year in the United States but they don't keep track of Christmas tree. Why is that?

Well, because they could care less. Christopher Ray isn't dispatching a team of FBI agents to get to the bottom of Christmas arson . Merrick Garland is not going to issue a press release about it.

"By current standards," Carlson maintained, "destroying someone's religious symbol would be a hate crime." If the Christmas tree were a religious symbol rather than a decoration, it might be. But it's in public places, appears in holiday parades, and is increasingly wielded as a tool in ginning up retail sales.

Even then it might not be a hate crime.  Under federal law, a hate crime occurs when someone "willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person...." 

Under New York State law, a hate crime is an offense committed at least in part "because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, gender identity or expression, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct." 

Forty-nine-year-old Craig Tamanaha was arrested, arraigned, and released. He is homelesss and had been arrested in the past for drug charge(s) and indecent exposure.  Nothing has been reported of his political views, religious views, or whatever may have motivated the arson. The implication that the fire constituted a hate crime is premature at best.

Carlson targeted the concept of hate crimes by disguising it as a concern about the religious faith of the vast majority of his fans. He charges "torching Christmas trees is an attack on Christianity" and upon "a tradition that's hundreds of years old."

Yet, Christianity- as he intellectually is aware- is not hundreds of years old but thousands of years old. Except as used as a tactic, Christianity is of little concern to Carlson, who refers to a tree "a symbol of a specific culture." It's the tree as a symbol of a culture, increasingly marked by materialism and conspicuous consumption, that impels him. 

Tucker Carlson condemns the burning of a Christmas pine tree because the Christian tradition is, he suggests, "hundreds of years old."  For him, and for those who will continue to follow him faithfully after this, trees are indeed the reason for the season.

 

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Popular Strategy

I’m somewhat confused by the DC press corps suddenly being outraged that US drone strikes might be counterproductive and actually kill innocent civilians based on bad intel. Have you paid any attention to the last 12 years of US targeting debacles?

— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) September 20, 2021

No, the media has not, and the American public has not. Had the media paid attention, the American people nonetheless would have not.

Speaking Monday to Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, U.S Representative from Hawaii and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, laid out the threat she perceives from "Islamist ideology," which she distinguished from "Islam." She stated

Militarily, we have two choices in how we do that. Number one, continue to invade and occupy and nation-build in countries around the world, just as we did in Afghanistan- at great cost. number two, we an take a targeted approach using air strikes, using our special forces to go in and go after these terror cells.

The reality is that the cost, the cost to the American people, the cost to our troops, the cost to civilians will be far less if we take this targeted approach to go after these Jihadist terrorists, that if we continue to make the very same mistakes that we saw in Afghanistan and other parts of the world of invasion, occupation, and nation-building...

Gabbard argues "the cost to the American people, the cost to our troops, the cost to civilians will be far less if we take this targeted approach." 

"Two out of three ain't bad," Jim Steinman wrote for Meat Loaf over 40 years ago, and Gabbard might have gotten two right. Obviously, the cost to American soldiers will be far less and, unless there is an increase of terrorism on American soil, the cost to the American people will drop. But the cost to civilians will not.

Drone strikes in North Africa/Middle East are likely to rise. They will do so in part because the military will not roll over and play dead.  The weapons of war must be used for something and they probably will be called upon to do more now that there will be fewer American soldiers in the region to respond to terroristic threats.

Journalist Garrett Graff is rightfully annoyed that there was little attention paid by the media to USA "targeting debacles" of the past twelve years.  Avoidance of the topic helped prevent public outrage over civilian deaths.

But this door swings both ways. One reason media generally ignored the air strikes was that there is scant interest among the public in deaths of foreign civilians. They are not Americans.  The deaths we care about are those of American men and women, the same individuals to whom we say "thank you for your service" when we are sincere and when we are not.

That's why Tulsi Gabbard can claim "the cost to civilians will be far less if we take this targeted approach,"  though she knows otherwise. She may know, too, that while numerous surveys in recent months have asked voters whether they support withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, far fewer explore sentiment about air strikes.

Those questions would raise awareness of this approach, to which the federal government has been pivoting in fits and spurts over the past three Administrations. Investigation of the role of the intelligence establishment in assisting the strategy is critical. Still, not many Americans would care- and even fewer would disapprove, especially if Gabbard and others continue to whitewash it as "targeted."

 

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The Public Seeing Clearly

Miriam E. "Mimi" Rocah, now Westchester County, NY district attorney and formerly a legal contibutor (better than an illegal contributor) at MSNBC, understands that aside from cases involving a police killing

Police departments and prosecutors must be more proactive in vigorously pursuing much lesser forms of misconduct, such as lying on police reports about confidential informants, having the consent to conduct searches, or other matters; excessive use of force in restraining an uncooperative detainee; and off-duty road rage incidents.

In the piece published by CNN, she maintains also that Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd because of

three factors: The prosecutors did their job and treated this case and Chauvin's actions like any other case, without special treatment because he was a police officer; the murder was recorded on video; and an unprecedented number of fellow law enforcement witnesses, including the Minneapolis police chief, testified that Chauvin's actions were antithetical to police practice and standards.

Even Tucker Carlson, with a perspective on the case far different than that of Rocah, probably wouldn't contest any of those three. However, he argues (at 3:31 of the video below)

Mobs trying to influence this trial should shock and horrify at least as much as the George Floyd video did. This is a picture of a country moving backward at high speed.

Actually, the speed at which the country is moving backward has slowed considerably (if not reversed), given that we no longer have a President who would accuse Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff of treason and Andrew McCabe of criminal corruption. However, Carlson did emphasize

The strange thing is that most people didn't seem shocked or upset by any of this. They seemed relieved by the verdict. They watched the troops in the street and understood what an acquittal woud mean. They believed that a conviction justified or not would buy the country peace. Many people thought so, including many Republicans. Some said so..... Derek Chauvin had to sacrifice for the sins of a nation. They told us.

"They" turns out to be Nancy Pelosi, who crudely remarked "Thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice" and was criticized by both left and right.

We will never know for sure whether jurors convicted Chauvin in part because of the ramifications to civil peace of a not guilty verdict. No one will say "I voted for conviction, which will mean a long jail sentence, because I was intimidated."

And to be fair- perhaps more than he usually deserves- Carlson was not referring to jurors but rather to "most people," whom he argued "didn't seem shocked by any of this," by "mobs trying to affect this trial." Fortunately, we have one piece of startlingly evidence by which the validity of Carlson's claim may be tested.

On March 5, USA Today shockingly noted

Last June, 60% in a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll described Floyd's death as murder; that percentage has now dropped by double digits to 36%. Uncertainty has grown about how to characterize the incident, caught on video, when Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck and ignored his protests that he couldn't breathe. Last year, 4% said they didn't know how to describe it; that number has climbed to 17%....

Nearly two-thirds of Black Americans, 64%, view Floyd's death as murder; fewer than one-third of white people, 28%, feel that way. White Americans are more likely to describe it instead as the police officer's "negligence," 33% compared with 16% of Black respondents.

That said, Americans who have heard at least something about Chauvin's trial say 4 to 1, or 60%-15%, that they hope Chauvin is convicted. That included 54% of white Americans and 76% of Black Americans.

If the survey from earlier this year accurately- or even nearly accurately- reflects public sentiment, a huge number of people believe Derek Chauvin should be convicted of a murder he did not commit. 

Don't think too long about why people believe a police officer, one in a valued "first responder" profession, should do hard time for something he didn't do. You don't have to. Because like him or not- and most of us don't- Tucker Carlson has just told us why.

 

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The Name Of The Game Is Control

Althought Tucker Carlson often is slammed as a "racist," his commentaries are less often informed by racial bias that partisanship.

Carlson is funamentally hyper-partisan; not compared to Sean Hannity or even Laura Ingraham, yet far more than allowed by the image of one dedicated to standing up for the beleagured white majority. On April 8, he remarked

.... where the government shows preference to people who have shown absolute contempt for our customs, our laws, our system itself and they're being treated better than American citizens. Now I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term "replacement"; if you sugggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it- that's true.

With few exceptions, the only people using the term "replacement" are the people who are complaining that people are using the term "replacement." Unfortunately, he continues

If this was happening in your home, if you were in the sixth grade, for example, and if without telling you, your kid- your parents adopted a bunch of new siblings and gave them brand new bikes and let them stay up later and helped them with their homework and gave them twice the allowance they gave you, you would say to your siblings "I think we're being replaced by, by kids that our parents love more. And it would be kind of hard to argue against you because look at the evidence.

I don't know what preceded or followed this rant. However, the supporters of immigration rights are not advocating that immigrants be granted increased rights, privileges, or new bikes but a path to citizenship, which would render them eligible for the same- not increased- benefits as others. Some recommend mere legalization (against which I've vociferously argued). At the extreme, in a few jurisdictions (such as California), privileges already conferred upon citizens and legal immigrants are being conferred upon illegal immigrants.

But now Tucker finally gets to the real issue when he maintains

So this matters on a bunch of different levels but on the most basic level it's a voting rights question. In a democracy, one person equals one vote.

Well, no, it doesn't, in part because this is a republic, not a democracy. In 2018, Democrats failed to gain control of the lower legislative chambers in three states while winning a majority of votes statewide. One of those states  was North Carolina, in which Republicans won 10 of 13 seats in the US House despite losing the statewide vote. 

Over in the other federal chamber, North Dakota has 770,000 residents and two Senators while South Dakota has 897,000 residents and two Senators. They are granted four senators, reliably Republican and conservative, for 1,667,000 individuals. California has nearly 40 million residents and two Senators, fairly reliably Democratic. Thus, there is one Senator for every 416,750 individuals in the Dakotas and one for every 19,806,750 individuals in California. If it's one man, one vote in the Dakotas, it's 47 men, one vote in California.

And then there is the race for the presidency, in which the Democratic nominee won the popular vote in 2000 and 2016 but lost in the Electoral College, leaving the nation with two individuals who turned out to be disastrous presidents.

Still, Carlson continues with

If you change the population, you dilute the political pwer of the people that live there. So every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter. So I don't understand, what you don't understand, is everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it and ooh, the white replace theory- no, no, no. This is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they are importing a brand new electorate. Why shouldn't I sit back and take that? The power that I have as an American guaranteed at birth is one man, one vote and they're diluting that.  No, they're not allowed to do that. Why are we putting up with this?

Now people are imported goods who don't come to this country to escape tyranny or extreme poverty and hunger but because "they (presumably Democrats) import a new voter" continuosly.   Carlson won't tell his audience that these imports can vote only once they go through the arduous process of becoming a citizen, a full-fledged American because it would disabuse it of the ignorance he depends upon.

Voting rights is an issue, the main (if not only) issue uniting the party pols with the party faithful. Ingrained in GOP voters is the myth that once an immigrant, legal or illegal, enters the country, he or she gets to vote. Do not pass go; just vote. Thus, most of those voters want immigrants to stay put in their native countries while most of the party's officeholders and office seekers are fine with immigrants coming as long as they don't gain citizenship, thus the right to vote. 

Many Republicans believe, as Tucker is claiming, that every immigrant who votes further disenfranchises him and others like him. But they are not being disenfranchised. They are competing with other Americans and, in some instances, actually cooperating with them in electing a Republican to office. 

The electorate always is changing. Carlson rails against a "brand new electorate," though every individual of every ethnic group becomes a new part of the electorate once he or she turns 18 and registers to vote (which should be made far easier).

The Republican Party could compete for these voters but for the most part chooses not to do so. Competition is the key, just as the left should compete in the marketplace of ideas rather than trying to shut down Carlson or other right-wing voices.  If you wish, however it might annoy persuadable voters, call Tucker Carlson "anti-semitic, racist, and toxic" or a "white supremacist" with "a hood or swastika."  Surely, his appeal is not to brotherhood or a generosity of spirit.  Nonetheless, his aim is not to bring back the Ku Klux Klan but to shrink the electorate for eletoral gain. It is less for racial hegemony than for Republican hegemony.

 

Fox News is paying millions to help a straight up white supremacist spread his radicalizing vitriol. The only thing missing is a hood or swastika. But the words and hysterical delivery are just as potent. This is a hate group operating openly on a national level. https://t.co/ySfaqxEOOD

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) April 9, 2021

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One Thing Always Present

Surprisingly, it was not until Thursday night, two nights after Robert Aaron Long apparently shot nine people, eight fatally, for a prominent conservative to bring out the standard nonsense about a mass shooting incident. 

Tucker Carlson, as far as we know, has never personally conducted a psychiatric evaluation on Long- of for that matter, anyone. Yet, at 5:31 of the video below he can be seen referring to Long as "a mentally ill sex addict." A minute earlier, he had ridiculed the president of Rice University, who evidently has pointed to use of the term "Chinese virus" as a contributing factor in anti-Asian American violence. Carlson sarcastically remarked

Predictably, this escalation of racially biased hatred has led to violence so he's telling us. It was entirely predictable because once you describe a Chinese virus as Chinese, people are naturally going to start murdering Korean women. Could have seen that coming.

I hope I live long enough that an assailant motivated by racial bigotry will differentiate among Americans of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese etc. descent, If so, I will be called "Methuselah."

More seriously, though, Carlson at 2:48 claimed

Robert Long seems deranged but his obsessive and violent behavior also seems sadly familiar if you follow these cases closely.  An increasing number of Americans struggle with mental illness. It'd be worth knowing much more about Robert Long's life if only to prevent the next mass shooting. Then there's the very real question of sex addiction....

"Obsessive behavior:" "struggle with mental illness;" "sex addiction." Predictably, Carlson (other conservatives sure to follow) avoids the obvious and makes some bold conclusions about someone whose history he claims he'd like to know more about. That interest would be more credible if, for instance, his degree were not in history and he had not taken up journalism because he was told "they'll take anybody," a judgement his career has seemingly confirmed.

This is the right wing's go-to response to a mass shooting, the implication that it was prompted by mental illness.  Evidently unbeknownst to Carlson, many Americans suffer from mental illness (though they shouldn't be diagnosed from afar). Ditto, obsessive behavior and sex addiction.

 

One journalist makes a good point:

Anti-Asian bigotry
Male sexual rage
Lax firearms laws

can all co-exist at the same time you know

— David Frum (@davidfrum) March 18, 2021

 

But a lot of people dislike Asians and a lot of men suffer from sexual rage- or other psychological problems. However, there is one thing all these mass shooters have in common, and it's not obsessive behavior, mental illness, or sex addiction.  It's so obvious it shouldn't be necessary to point it out. But it is, and thus Charlie Pierce has reminded us

Whatever the alleged killer’s motivation was, there is no ambiguity in how he was able to carry it out: this country’s insane fetish for its firearms continues to run unabated. There is some movement in the Congress again on passing sensible gun-control legislation, which means we’re all in for another absurd debate over the Founders’ weakness for dependent clauses. We will learn more about the crime and the criminal as the days go on, but this simple fact will never change: he was able to kill eight people in three places in one night because he was able to obtain the correct tool for the job. One more day of blood sacrifice to a perverse idea of freedom.

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Carlson Makes Oliver's Point

John Oliver devoted his "main story" on Sunday's "Last Week Tonight" to proving that Fox News' Tucker Carlson is a white supremacist. He is a particularly dangerous one, Oliver argued (at 2:00 of the video below), because "he is the most prominent vessel in America for white supremacist talking points."

That virtually inescapable observation stems from Carlson's sleight of (verbal) hand, wherein, Oliver notes

conveniently for him (he) doesn't fit neatly into a lot of people's perception of white supremacist, especially if they share his definition that it must require burning crosses, Klan hoods, and a name tag  that says "hello, my name is a racist."

It should require quite a bit, however, most of which Oliver laid out Sunday. Fortunately for us, Carlson made it even clearer Tuesday in his own commentary, delivered from El Salvador in San Salvador, one of the three nations from which a huge number of refugees and prospective immigrants have traveled to our southern border. Presumably, the piece was about this crisis, and Carlson railed against the current Administration's "humane" (curiously, his term) policy which he vehemently maintained has caused this plight.

Presumably, because Carlson went on to talk about "the gender studies department at a community college" (don't ask), gold allegedly being hoarded by the Spanish government, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Then, after these seemingly disconnected comments, at 7:15 of the video below Carlson took a sharp, dangerous term upon remarking

We hope the good people of Central America are ready for the Democratic Party's version of humanity and compassion. They might want to take a quick field trip to Baltimore just to see how it works out in the end. In 2018 the city of Baltimore recorded a higher murder rate than the nation of El Salvador or for that matter the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, or Afghanistan even, and yet no one thought to call FEMA to help the people of Baltimore. Somebody should have no one from Baltimore was offered asylum in El Salvador- and by the way if they are offered it they should strongly consider accepting because it's much safer to live with MS-13 than it is to live in Baltimore.

It would be far safer to go to Honduras in 2018. Thirty of the 298 municipalities in Honduras reported no murders at all; same in Guatemala and in fact here in El Salvador where 14 municipalities reported zero murders. That is a massive improvement over so many of our cities so here's an idea if you're telling us that parts of Central America are so dangerous that crime constitutes a humanitarian crisis and that's exactly what the Biden administration is claiming, then why not just move the people of El Salvador or Honduras or Guatemala to safer parts of their own countries. Has that even occurred to any of the professional compassion merchants in the Biden Administration?

There was no mention of generations of segregation; redlining; job discrimination; inconsistent, sometimes racially-biased law enforcement; proliferation of firearms, often transported into cities; a regressive tax system in most states; transportation priorities tilted toward suburban/rural areas and away from the needs of cities (especially Baltimore); a health care system prioritizing profit over people; and, yes, a denial of reproductive freedom. 

Unless he has been living under a rock for decades, Tucker Carlson knows all these- and more- have played a role in exploding income and wealth inequality and sequestering America's poor, disproportionately minority, into major cities.

His was not a commentary about immigration but one focused on ethnicity. If Carlson is not a charlatan- a highly questionable assumption- there is one reason he simultaneously slams, with gobs of contempt, immigration and cities such as Baltimore and (as he also name-checked) Detroit, Gary, Indiana, and Newark, NJ.  Carlson wasted no effort trying to link Democratic immigration policy to the problems besetting such cities because he obviously recognizes that there is one thing, and one thing only, linking them. That one thing is, depending upon one's characterization, color or race: white vs. non-white.

Of course, Tucker Carlson's wet dream is to chase residents of Baltimore, citizens of the USA, to El Salvador, home to widespread poverty and rampant gang violence. They don't belong here, he (un) reasons, because only some people do. John Oliver's timing was impeccable.

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Tucker And Hunter

Friday is a good day for snark:

Obviously the executive producer tipped off the Clinton Foundation, which has a network of deep penetration document-interception agents inside Fedex. Trust nobody. https://t.co/fhobizU5Eb

— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 29, 2020

After extensively quoting Carlson, the Daily Beast remarks

Tucker Carlson’s office received secret documents from a source that could change the course of the election, asked for them to be shipped across the country rather than scanned and securely emailed, his producer sent them off, and they have now been stolen from a mail facility, and no one knows what happened.

According to a text exchange posted on Twitter by Salon’s Roger Sollenberger, Carlson stated that copies or photos were made of the documents before seemingly asserting that this episode was proof that he was being spied upon.

If copies or photographs of the documents were made and they are the least bit negative, we'll know even before you read this. More likely, either they don't reflect badly on Hunter Biden, much of the story is made up, or it is all made up.

I hate to criticize someone who admits "re-tweets are emphatic endorsements" rather than the standard "re-tweets are not necessarily endorsements." Still, this reminds me of the Tucker Carlson who revealed the address of a reporter and family, alleging without hard evidence that the reporter was going to reveal Carlson's address in an upcoming story, after which the reporter's address and other personal information inevitably made the rounds on social media.

This is the way the GOP and their hacks do things, which a President Biden will need to know. And he'll need to understand it so that he recognizes what he's up against and be determined to overcome.

 

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Violating

It's easy to pile on Tucker Carlson and if The New York Times isn't lying, he deserves all of this and more.  But this post isn't about Carlson; it's about Meghan McCain, one of the co-hosts of The View, and her, uh, unusual values.. The Washington Post reports

On Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a surprising accusation: The New York Times, he said, was trying to endanger him and his family by revealing where they live in an upcoming story. As he lambasted the newspaper on-air, Carlson suggested that his prime-time show could expose the home addresses of the reporter and Times editors.

Within hours, an army of conservative Twitter accounts started publicly posting the address and personal information of the reporter Carlson identified as the story’s writer. Many encouraged people to harass the reporter.

In a statement to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the Times denied Carlson’s claims.

“While we do not confirm what may or may not publish in future editions, the Times has not and does not plan to expose any residence of Tucker Carlson’s, which Carlson was aware of before tonight’s broadcast,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to comment further when asked about the reporter’s doxing....

He identified the reporter behind the story as Murray Carpenter, airing his photo and calling the freelance writer a “political activist.” Carpenter’s website states that he focuses on science and environmental stories and has written for the Times, The Post and National Geographic, among other outlets.

Carlson also mentioned photographer Tristan Spinski and the Times’s media editor Jim Windolf by name.

“How would Murray Carpenter and his photographer, Tristan Spinski, feel if we told you where they live, if we put pictures of their homes on the air?” Carlson asked. “What if we published the home address of every one of the soulless, robot editors at the New York Times, who assigned and managed this incitement of violence against my family?"

He added: “We could do that. We know who they are.”

He- or, given that Carlson proudly uses the imperial "we"- they might as well as have done that because

Carlson’s supporters quickly got to work. Several accounts shared addresses, phone numbers and other contact information for the reporter. One account tweeted, “Give him a taste of his own meds.”

Of course, "meds" is popular shorthand for "medicines" or "medication," so Carlson's supporter was tweeting "give him a taste of his own medicines" or "give him a taste of his own medication." However, if that criticism is grammatically nonsensical, this makes even less sense:

This is extremely dangerous and a weird new norm. Even printing his neighborhood or building or home area is really dangerous. Why people feel comfortable doing this to people with whom their politics they hate is sick. It is the most violating thing in the entire world. https://t.co/hI67GEcaYq

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) July 21, 2020

It's curious that McCain would equate revealing a talk show host's "home area" with revealing his specific address. Carlson's program, is believed to garner more viewers than any cable news talk show in history, and Meghan McCain believes that identifying his current town of residence would be overly intrusive.

That would be "the most violating thing in the world." This, therefore, would not be:

The most violating thing in the world. The good news is that Meghan McCain evidently never has been raped, which would be more "violating" than what The New York Times was accused of planning. Even men understand that- but a lifelong Republican, a woman married to The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech, does not. She is still taken seriously.

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