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ymeskhout  3mo ago (text post)   2414 thread views

The Bailey Podcast E035: Ray Epps Does Jay Six

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In this episode, we talk about the deep state, J6, and Ray Epps.

Participants: Yassine, Shakesneer.

Links:

Jack Posobiec's Pipe Bomb Allegation (Twitter)

Pipe Bombs in Washington DC (FBI)

Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears to Have Led the Very First 1/6 Attack on the US Capitol (Revolver)

Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign (DOJ)

'I started a riot for the sitting president': Why Ali Alexander won't go to jail for his role in Jan. 6 (Raw Story)

J6 Select Committee Interview of Ray Epps

Ray Epps Defense Sentencing Memo (Courtlistener)

Proud Boys Sentencing Memos (Courtlistener)

Wishing For Entrapment (Yassine Meskhout)

Recorded 2024-01-19 | Uploaded 2024-01-22

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A few points that I think are salient to the issues presented, but I don't think were appropriately discussed.

  1. The FBI, prior to J6 had many directives to investigate conservative orgs. There really was no rational and reasonable reason to be doing this, so it is very strong evidence (alongside the cornucopia of evidence discussed here) that there is serious anti-conservative bias at that organization, which obviously is a key cog in the "deep state" as defined in the discussion.

  2. Yassine didn't think entering the Capitol Building/encouraging that was all that dispositive, and I don't think this was pushed back against enough. Entering the Capitol IS why J6 is "JANUARY SIXTH". If no one enters the building its a boring protest outside the Capitol that has no political value to Democrats at all.

  3. More buttressing of the problems with J6 is how, if there is no inside job, its just a demonstration of outright incompetency. I will describe a generic building to you: Large masonry structure, at the top of a hill, with armed guards. What have I described? A fort. Julius Caesar could have held the Capitol building against the J6 crowd with 8 men in sandals equipped with no more than some sticks and a few shields. An the Capitol police lose it with dozens of times that manpower? That is, indeed, suspicious.

  4. Also, chronically under-discussed is how incredibly valuable "JANUARY SIXTH" has been to Democrats. Not only has it been an excuse to prosecute thousands of conservatives in connection to it, not only has it been an excuse to prosecute an opposition candidate for the office of the President, but its been nearly their only political argument for 3 years now. Without J6 they have nothing. That protesters were allowed into the Capitol has resulted in the largest political victory for either party in my lifetime. And that really should mean something to anyone discussing the events of that day.

I would love it if you were willing to record a Bailey episode! You and I had many disagreements over the years so there's plenty of topics to pick from.

Just so everyone is aware of the process behind the curtains:

  • I'm the one who ends up editing the final cut, but it's to get rid of ums, silences, or (rarely) dead-end discussions that didn't go anywhere. Everyone ever involved in an episode has always had full access to the raw audio files, and I've always made sure they get a chance to listen to the final cut and offer feedback/suggestions before it's posted publicly. Sometimes we've even re-recorded or added passages. Thus far no one has ever claimed that I selectively or misleadingly edited their statements.
  • Before any episode, I ask everyone to post links/articles that they think everyone should be familiar with before a discussion. If it's bound to be particularly contentious conversation, I make sure that everyone has reviewed ahead of time what will be cited in recording. The goal here is to avoid the very boring "my studies are better than your studies" duels that are very common in mainstream debate, and also to allow people to research the sources ahead of time instead of getting ambushed off-guard.
  • I've also accommodated requests to mask/modify voices, including that time we hired a Nigerian voice actress to redub the whole track.

Regarding your points:

  1. I'm not very familiar with this point but it would've been relevant to bring up. I then would have been curious to see whether the targeted conservative orgs had any other common elements besides just being conservative. If not, then it would indeed be strong evidence of a serious anti-conservative bias from the FBI.
  2. It is of no relevance to me whether something has political value to Democrats. I don't think someone entering the Capitol and peacefully wandering around is a big deal, I only care to the extent someone engaged in violence or somehow actually meaningfully obstructed the proceedings that day. If someone disagrees and wants to be hyperbolic about it and compare wandering around to Pearl Harbor or whatever, it's on that person to defend that position.
  3. I agree there was definitely incompetence involved. The Caesar comparison is odd because he wouldn't be telling his men to rely on non-lethal weaponry in their defense of the fort. Capitol Police have used their M4s to hold off the crowd if no one cared about the ensuing massacre.
  4. This would have been interesting to dissect, because it would illustrate the underlying assumptions in play. On my end, as someone who largely accepts the mainstream J6 narrative, there's nothing particularly interesting about "members of a political movement have humiliated themselves by their own actions, and their opponents are benefiting from this." I suppose the "J6 has been valuable to Democrats" discussion would have more salience if you already accept that J6 was an inside job, but we didn't get there.

Regarding a podcast, I would be wiling to do one, but it would probably not be on this topic, which I am not passionate about. That being Ray Epps status as a fed or no.

Regarding the specific subsections my points would be:

  1. The Whitmer case presents a prima facie case that needs to be rebutted by an equally ridiculous prosecution of left wingers to rebut. See also, the abortion cases (protesters at clinics vs. at pro life clinic protesters). Until the FBI entraps lefties by conjuring a kidnapping plot out of whole cloth of a Republican governor you will never satisfy the level of scrutiny you asked for in this interview.

  2. The value to Democrats is literally the whole game. If you dont care about this point you don't care about the most important thing.

  3. I am simply saying that it was trivial to prevent J6 from being "a thing". So the fact that it is "a thing" is odd.

  4. I did not want to invoke this because its silly, but the best analogy of J6 is the Reichstag fire. Maybe it was Commies, maybe it was Nazis. But we know who it benefited. And in many ways it is worse. There is testimony on the record from the former chief of the Capitol police being denied backup.

Do I think a podcast would be beneficial? Maybe. It would take an exorbitant amount of time to assemble the sources, of course, because they are mostly suppressed by search engines. So, it would only really be of benefit to talk about things where you don't stipulate to facts if you have some unpaid interns that can go out and get the transcripts from testimony and bookmark them for us. Otherwise I am going to be saying things and you will be asking for citations that are onerously burdensome to provide.

  1. This is a recurring dynamic with these conversations that I've referred to as "pulling a Kendi". I would hope that it's obvious that you can't just point to disparate treatment and herald it as proof of discrimination. A recent example is how the Seattle subway changed how it enforces fare evasion because it decried the old system as racist because blacks received a disproportionate number of citations. Is it proof that the fare enforcement was racist? Maybe! But of course none of the reporting I came across even entertained the idea that it could also be because black people evaded fares more often. Similarly, maybe the FBI intentionally targets conservative groups for prosecution...or maybe lefties are less likely to hatch kidnapping plots, or maybe they're more suspicious of FBI infiltration, or maybe they're more likely to cover up their tracks, or maybe it's for some other reason.
  2. I admit I don't know what this means. As best as I can guess, it seems to mirror your point about J6 being valuable to Democrats.
  3. Capitol police unloading assault rifles on a crowd doesn't sound "trivial". I also don't know what they could've done differently in protecting entrances like the one in the tunnel.
  4. Again, if a political movement does something humiliating, it's going to benefit their political opponents. That's just standard cause & effect, it's not evidence that the opponents somehow marionetted the movement into humiliating themselves. If we adopt your logic, where does it stop? Did Republicans cause Bill Clinton to get a blowjob from an intern?

Quibble: disparate treatment is not only evidence of discrimination, it is discrimination. Disparate treatment of similarly situated individuals without sufficient justification is the literal definition of illegal discrimination. "Pulling a Kendi" would be saying disparate impact alone is evidence of discrimination. I.E., any differences in group outcome must be the product of discrimination.

You're right, I was not sufficiently precise with my language.

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