Laughter is The Best Medicine

Politics – Political discourse has gotten so bad, it makes you want to cry, so you have to find a way to laugh about it. This week there were a couple of stories that made us smile, if not laugh out loud. Let’s start with the now not so surprising news about the storing and safeguarding of President Biden’s records, dating from the time he was a Senator for Delaware. This past Tuesday, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) revealed that nine boxes of documents were taken from President Joe Biden's Washington DC think tank, by Mr. Biden’s attorney, Patrick Moore, who then shipped the boxes to his Boston office. NARA eventually picked up those documents back on November 9, 2022.

The funny part is that, as of today, the National archives have not yet reviewed the documents to ascertain whether they contain any classified material! What?? These documents have been packed up and sent from a number of unsecured, different places by people without security clearance; and NARA, after five months of possessing the documents, still takes a lah-di-dah attitude, not caring enough to examine the nine boxes of documents for classified materials? That’s just slightly different than the urgent attitude taken toward former President Trump, when the Justice Department sent 30 or so armed FBI agents to raid the ex-President’s home. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Our take? We agree with President Biden: “How can anybody be so irresponsible.” LOL!

(In a related matter, this past Wednesday during a Senate Intelligence hearing, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia expressed frustration over the intelligence community’s refusal to grant Congressional access to classified documents recovered from locations associated with Biden, Trump, and former Vice President Mike Pence. He stated that “we have every right to see those documents in terms of our oversight role. It doesn’t pass the smell test.” Makes you wonder what they are trying to hide, doesn’t it?)

We smiled even more at the apocalyptic reaction of Democrats and some Republicans to the airing by Tucker Carlson on Fox News of the surveillance video of the riot that occurred in the capitol building on January 6. Senate Majority Leader, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer was especially over the top when he stated that “Rupert Murdoch has a special obligation to stop Tucker Carlson from going on tonight [and] from letting him go on again and again and again, [because] our democracy depends on it." On the contrary, we think the bedrock of democracy depends upon freedom of the press – the freedom of people to be able to express their opinion without being silenced or censored by people in power. Countries like Russia and China, and even Ukraine right now, have shut down dissenting opinions in the media; it shouldn’t happen here in the United States. Shame on you, Senator Schumer!

However, what made us laugh the longest was the stunning admission of Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, who headed the January 6 Select Committee. (Representative Thompson was, in our opinion, a strange pick to head the committee; for back in 2004, he was an “election denier” himself when he essentially voted to object to the election of George W. Bush as President). According to Thompson, members of the committee never had access to the footage that was shown on Fox News. Instead, Thompson stated “we had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.” Kind of? Not thoroughly? This is mind boggling! In such an important undertaking, how could these members of Congress make a fair judgment as to everything that happened without viewing this most important evidence? We see it as a stark dereliction of duty by House Select Committee Members. On the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh; after all, these House members only had eighteen months to review all the evidence before they came to a judgment.

We predict that this obvious failure of Congress to reveal all the recorded evidence will have important ramifications for the administration of justice. Consider the case of the “QAnon Shaman.” Jake Angeli Chansley. During his service to our country, this former Navy Seaman was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and the Navy and Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon. On January 6, he wore none of those, and instead, strangely appeared bare chested and wearing an animal headdress, horns and red-white-and-blue face paint. After he was appropriately arrested, he was charged with “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.” After being held in solitary confinement, he pleaded guilty to a single charge. In his sentencing hearing, the prosecutor emphasized his violent behavior, and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

However, as the well-respected law professor Jonathan Turley persuasively states, the video evidence “raises serious questions over the prosecution and punishment of Chansley… The videos show Chansley being escorted by officers through the Capitol…Two officers appear to not only guide him to the floor but actually appear to be trying to open locked doors for him… At no point in the videotapes does Chansley appear violent or threatening. Indeed, he appears to thank the officers for their guidance and assistance. On the Senate floor, Chansley actually gave a prayer to thank the officers who agreed “to allow us into the building.”

We agree with Professor Turley when he said: “one thing should be clear. The public should have been given access to this footage long agoand the January 6th Committee withheld important evidence on what occurred inside the Capitol on that day. This is not just material that the public should be able to see, it was potential evidence in criminal cases like that of the QAnon Shaman.”

Our founding fathers knew how oppressive governments can be, and they enshrined in the Constitutions protections for all American citizens. When charged with a crime, no matter how serious or violent, all Americans have the right to a fair trial. They have a right to see all the evidence possessed by the government. This did not happen to Mr. Chansley. In fact, just as we were finishing this article, we saw this breaking tweet from Professor Turley: “Fox New is reporting sources as saying that these videotapes were handed over to the FBI soon after January 6th. If true, the Justice Department did have the evidence and failed to turn it over to the defense as Constitutionally required…So the DOJ played videotapes for the court to secure the heavy sentence against Chansley, while the government allegedly withheld videotapes contradicting that account.

This is a perfect example of the type of government abuse the Constitution was designed to protect against. Poor Mr. Chansley could have used the video evidence to push back against the prosecutor’s claim that he acted violently within the Capitol building. Instead, he was denied that opportunity, and he is still languishing in jail. It is important to note that Chansley is not alone. More than 1,000 people were arrested for the January 6 riot in the Capitol building. Many were held without bail for over a year as they awaited trial. They too should have been able to see the video evidence.

We’ll end by saying that we believe that openness and transparency in government is extremely important. We are glad that the new House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has changed the previous policy, and is now allowing all House members to view the actual video footage of what happened on that day. Rather than punish and censor people like Tucker Carlson, as Senator Schumer has proposed, we should celebrate our system and the ability of all Americans to speak their mind without government interference. The American people deserve to know all the facts.