News chunks: Rule of law wars intensify; Tucker causes bipartisan outrage?

The radical right war on democracy and the rule of law is getting really ugly. Several sources are reporting that radical right Republican politicians in Georgia are pursuing oversight of state prosecutors. This is a direct attack on the rule of law. What prompted it is the possibility that Trump will be indicted for crimes he committed in Georgia. The NYT writes:

To Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Atlanta, several bills in the Georgia legislature that would make it easier to remove local prosecutors are racist and perhaps retaliatory for her ongoing investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.

To the Republican sponsors of the bills, they are simply a way to ensure that prosecutors enforce the laws of the state, whether they agree with them or not.

To Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Atlanta, several bills in the Georgia legislature that would make it easier to remove local prosecutors are racist and perhaps retaliatory for her ongoing investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.

To the Republican sponsors of the bills, they are simply a way to ensure that prosecutors enforce the laws of the state, whether they agree with them or not. 

Ms. Willis has been a centrist law-and-order prosecutor who has targeted some prominent local rappers in a sprawling gang case. She is also part of the changing face of justice in Georgia: The state now has a record number of minority prosecutors — 14 of them — up from five in 2020, the year Ms. Willis, who is Black, was voted into office.

And of course, there is the Trump inquiry, the latest accelerant to the partisan conflagrations that have consumed the increasingly divided state for years. The subject of Ms. Willis’s investigation is whether Mr. Trump and his allies tried to flout Georgia’s democratic process with numerous instances of interference after his narrow 2020 election loss in the state.

“For the hundreds of years we’ve had prosecutors, this has been unnecessary. 

But now all of a sudden this is a priority. And it is racist.” 

Fani Willis, Atlanta district attorney 

Those supporters include United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted in August that Ms. Willis was using taxpayer funds “for her personal political witch hunt against Pres Trump, but will NOT prosecute crime plaguing Atlanta!”

Lawmakers have fired back. At the hearing last month, State Senator Bill Cowsert, a Republican who is the brother-in-law of Gov. Brian Kemp, said, “For you to come in here and try to make this about racism, that this bill is directed at any district attorney or solicitor because of racism, is absurd, and it’s offensive, and it’s a racist statement on its own.”

Senator Brian Strickland, a Republican who was presiding over the meeting, told Ms. Willis, “You’re being emotional.”

So, who is being racist and emotional here, the radical right, the prosecutor investigating Trump, both or neither, in whole or in part? 

Since it is likely we will never know for sure, it seems reasonable to think the radical right is the one being racist and emotional. The evidence is consistent with that belief in the case of Trump trying to screw and subvert democracy in Georgia after the 2020 election. 

In my opinion, the radical right deserves a default position of distrust because it has worked for decades to build distrust in American society. Now, it just seems fair and balanced for the radicals to reap what they have so diligently sowed for so long. If the radical right wants public trust, it can take the time and effort to try to earn trust on the merits. Maybe in a decade or two, the default distrust position would become untenable. At present, the extremist elites are not inclined to earn public trust on the merits. They are all-in on demagoguing the base and shafting us whenever they can.

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From the Wait, what?? Files: The Hill reports on something strange. Faux News’ Tucker Carlson may have actually cause some actual bipartisan outrage. Or maybe it’s just faux outrage from a few Republican fakers. The Hill writes:

Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 footage sparks bipartisan outrage

Fox News host Tucker Carlson whipped up a firestorm Tuesday on Capitol Hill, sparking bipartisan backlash and igniting tensions with Capitol Police by downplaying the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on his prime-time program as “mostly peaceful chaos.”

His show divided Republicans, with a number of GOP senators ripping his portrayal of the incursion at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, who rarely offers opinions on political issues, said the Monday night show was filled with “offensive and misleading conclusions about the Jan. 6 attack.”

“The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments,” Manger wrote in a memo to lawmakers.  

Carlson at the same time won plaudits from other Republicans who have similarly criticized and downplayed the attack.

“When will judges begin applying justice equally? Doesn’t look like “thousands of armed insurrectionists” to me,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in a tweet after thanking McCarthy and Carlson for showing the footage. 

“I’ve seen enough. Release all J6 political prisoners now,” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) said in a tweet as Carlson’s show aired.

Trump also weighed in on the footage, praising Carlson and McCarthy over its publication and calling the tapes the Fox host played for his audience “irrefutable.”

Although Faux promised to allow Capitol police to review the tapes for security purposes before airing anything, the Hill article says that Tucker and Faux just blew that off. That was just empty bullshit from professional liars.

We all knew this was coming

Remember a couple of posts I recently wrote about Carson, the professional liar, doing a whitewash job with the 1/6 security footage? Calling the violent 1/6 coup attempt mostly peaceful chaos is the sort of thing to be expected. Tucker doing mendacious propaganda like this is no surprise. 

What is a surprise is that a few Republicans in congress expressed disapproval in more than a tiny little squeak of displeasure. Most likely, that will blow over in the next few days. Tucker will be free to continue to lie about the 1/6 coup attempt as he whitewashes it. There will be silent complicity from Republicans in congress, if not their open support. This hiccup will be forgotten. Tucker’s poison will flow freely. 

I have said it before and say it again, the radical right is hell bent on rewriting inconvenient history. The violent 1/6 coup attempt will be mythologized into a tempest in a teapot incident. That is what most of the radical right rank and file believes it was anyway. Extremist elites just need to spread the myth to a larger audience. 

Q: In view of everything that has gone before now, is Republican outrage is credible and real, or is it just political theater for propaganda purposes, e.g., to ease the way for the mendacious mythologizing that Tucker is going to do to the 1/6 coup attempt?