Note to Readers
A heads up on content, as we juggle some breaking news
This site might get a little hectic in the upcoming days. First, there are multiple developments in the Tulsi Gabbard surveillance story, with more confirmation, context, and information about how and why she ended up in the TSA’s “Quiet Skies” program.
We’ll also be releasing a story in the next hours by
about a new set of documents related to the Mueller investigation, and tangentially to recent global systems shutdown villain Crowdstrike. It’s complex and because it involves news going back many years, the author and I will be hosting a Spaces discussion tomorrow night. Check back in this space tomorrow morning for details about timing.Also, this site released a mountain of FOIA documents yesterday, and a brief note on that is still to come. In general, I haven’t had much chance to take my reporter hat off this week, so please bear with us here at Racket. Thanks for your patience, more to come.
Looking forward to your excellent journalism. Getting it right is more important than getting a sloppy scoop.
No worries... on another "speech" note, I found this kind of scary.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/08/12/rebecca-lavrenz-praying-grandma-jan-6-sentence/
"A Falcon woman convicted of breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during the riot to disrupt the results of the 2020 presidential election was sentenced Monday to one year of probation.
Rebecca Lavrenz, known as “J6 Praying Grandma” on social media, will also be required to pay a $103,000 fine and $500 in restitution, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., said. She was convicted of four misdemeanor counts for entering the Capitol and conducting disorderly conduct inside. "
103 K???
"Lavrenz’s defense attorneys requested a one-year probation, no fine and no restitution, in court documents filed last week. They argued that she was a retired, first-time offender with “countless ties” to her community and commitments to her extended family.
Her attorneys said that Lavrenz’s conduct Jan. 6 was peaceful and nonviolent, that she caused no property damage and that she complied with the conditions of her release over the past two years after she was arrested in 2022, according to court documents.
Federal prosecutors requested the judge order Lavrenz to serve 10 months in prison, followed by a year of supervised release and 60 hours of community service. The sentence was justified, prosecutors wrote in a letter to the judge filed last week, because Lavrenz has been “one of the loudest public voices calling the prosecution of January 6 riots a corrupt exercise.”
“Although Lavrenz certainly has a First Amendment right to publicly espouse her views, her unrepentant promotion of the riot is powerful evidence that she continues to pose a threat to future acts of political violence like that which engulfed the nation on January 6,” they continued. "
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So if (some people) complain that they were unfairly prosecuted, that means they "continue to pose a threat to future actions of political violence" even though they were not violent? Interesting way to go at speech.