Tucker Carlson’s efforts to cast the January 6 insurrection as some kind of FBI plot proves that his hatred for America keeps getting more and more extreme – and the Murdochs are fine with that.
For the past several nights, Carlson has pretended to "ask questions” which, in Tucky Speak, means he’s spewing conspiracy theories he can’t back up:
From Media Matters:
On Tuesday, Carlson alleged that “some of the key people who participated on January 6 have not been charged,” citing charging documents in which “the government calls those people unindicted co-conspirators.” He then exclaimed: “What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case they were FBI operatives. Really? In the Capitol on January 6?”
Carlson was citing a report from Revolver News’ Darren Beattie, who he then brought on. Beattie is not a credible source -- he left his job at the Trump White House after CNN asked about him speaking at a 2016 conference alongside well-known white nationalists. But even Beattie suggested that Carlson was taking his work too far -- when Carlson said that his piece explains that “the FBI was organizing the riots of January 6,” he replied that it only “suggests that possibility.”
In fact, this theory, which rests on the premise that “unindicted co-conspirators” are by definition “FBI operatives,” collapses with the slightest scrutiny, and suggests that Carlson either a) lacks a basic understanding of federal investigations or b) thinks his viewers are rubes.
Carlson has been eviscerated for this dangerous crap but, confident he has the support, if not outright approval, of Lachlan Murdoch, Carlson soldiered on with his January 6 whitewash on Wednesday night. He played the victim, of course. Super-rich, Fox megastar Tuckums is always the victim when his extremism gets called out.
CARLSON: Well, last night, clips from our show began to circulate on social media. The tech monopolies, which helped get Joe Biden elected, continue to work closely with the administration to control the news and information that you are allowed to see. Because it's America, right?
Well, this piece of news, the one on our show last night was a problem for them so they tried to make it go away.
Then Carlson reiterated his conspiracy theory, pretending that he doesn’t have a cable news network at his disposal (a reporter did appear on the show but he was there for another hit piece on Hunter Biden). F***y Tucky slyly worked in his trademark white supremacy into this salvo in his war on America. From the show transcript:
CARLSON: Federal law enforcement appear to have played a role in what happened that day. We'd tell you more about it, we'd love to, but we don't have subpoena power. We're just a cable news show. Congress does have subpoena power, let's hope they use it immediately.
In the meantime, we want to start tonight with an actual insurrection, a real one. An insurrection against the rule of law, against civilization itself that's been going on for more than a year in the City of Chicago.
Since the death of George Floyd last May, Chicago's Mayor, Lori Lightfoot has embraced every part of the equity and inclusion agenda. Lightfoot banned the police from chasing criminals even in the case of some very serious offenses.
We can add Chicago and its Black mayor to the parts of America Carlson can't stand.
Last night, Carlson used his January 6 BS to launch an attack on the media. Carlson has a history of deliberately endangering journalists (another part of America he’d love to wipe out) but Tuckums can’t seem to take any bit of criticism when it's dished out at him.
CARLSON: [T]he obedient minions of the national security state who run the social media accounts of The New York Times and occupy the anchor desks at CNN, they became hysterical when we mentioned it.
"You can't say that," they screamed. "That's not allowed!"
The geniuses at Twitter weighed in to inform us that the people we had described as "agents of the FBI" were in fact, just FBI informants, so, "Shut up." Hilarious.
But, we won't shut up, and we shouldn't. It could not be more obvious at this point that the government is in fact hiding something, probably quite a few things.
...
The government is hiding more than 14,000 hours of video surveillance tape that shows exactly what did happen at the Capitol that day. Why are they hiding that? And why aren't news organizations demanding to see it?
You can watch the kind of lies and opinion Lachlan Murdoch calls “center right” below, from the June 15, June 16 and June 17, 2021 Tucker Carlson Tonight shows, (top, middle and bottom videos, respectively) via Media Matters.
The basis for this entire false narrative about the January 6 attack is the fact that angry Right Wingers still cannot accept the fact that the Pence White House lost the 2020 election. They can’t admit to anyone, much less themselves. They spent two months from November to January repeatedly refusing to acknowledge that Joe Biden was the President-Elect and making wilder and wilder claims about what would happen on January 6. When that day came, and Pence’s childish spokesman incited the crowd to go commit mayhem, they descended on the Capitol Building. (The spokesman’s intentions become clear once you look at how he responded to a frantic Kevin McCarthy while the building was under seige – first trying his cover story that somehow the attackers were all disguised “antifa” and then admitting it was in fact his supporters and saying “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” Pence’s childish spokesman was clearly hoping the crowd would intimidate the Congress into doing what he wanted – just declaring him re-elected even though he’d lost.)
The idea that somehow the angry Right Wingers who rioted inside the Capitol Building were led by FBI Agents is a bizarre transmutation of events. It sounds like angry Right Wingers are trying to push a COINTELPRO narrative, as this was how the FBI dealt with anti-war protestors and the Black Panthers in the late 60s and early 70s. But COINTELPRO was about small-time protests and petty crimes. The idea that the FBI would lead an open assault on the Congress itself is one that could only be proposed by a particularly desperate pundit who’s already lost the argument. On the other hand, we continue to have angry Right Wingers who think that Mike Lindell and Sydney Powell are somehow the oracles of truth, no matter the extent of the lunacy in their arguments.
