I have been traveling internationally the past ten days and attending a family funeral. I have been extremely unconnected. Pleasantly so.
Consequently, I am not up-to-speed on issues in the headlines. As I departed the US, Teixeira had been identified as the leaker of US intelligence which seems equally damaging and embarrassing. I have no other information about his guilt or innocence or the degree of damage actually wrought. I am in the dark.
I see over at
Althouse that Teixeira appears to have been arraigned while I was gone. She quotes the New York Times account.
"Investigators found a small arsenal in his bedroom at the house he shared with his mother and stepfather. Inside a gun locker two feet from his bed, law enforcement officials found multiple weapons, including handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, an AK-style high-capacity weapon and a gas mask. F.B.I. special agents also found ammunition, tactical pouches and what appeared to be a silencer-style accessory in his desk drawer.... Prosecutors also made public a series of social media posts from 2022 and 2023 in which Airman Teixeira expressed his desire to kill a 'ton of people' and cull the 'weak minded,' and described what he called an 'assassination van' that would cruise around killing people in a 'crowded urban or suburban environment.'"
From "Airman Accused of Leak Has History of Racist and Violent Remarks, Filing Says/Prosecutors accused Jack Teixeira of trying to cover up his actions and described a possible propensity toward violence" (NYT).
With no preconceptions or current context, I read this and think how weak the prosecutors case must be if their strongest points of condemnation are that
He keeps his legally acquired weapons under lock and key but accessible.
He had made possibly racially insensitive remarks in the past.
He had made possibly violent remarks in the past.
He only had a possible propensity towards violence.
I am not disputing whether he might be guilty, that he might have a history of violence and/or a dangerously real plan for violence, or that he might be a real racist.
But the evidence just in those headlines and paragraphs are seemingly tellingly weak. Empty accusations of racism are as grains of sand on the beach. When speech is deemed violent in many establishment quarters, the accusation of violent remarks holds little water. And the fact that he apparently legally owned weapons and responsibly kept them safely secured seems at best a non sequitur.
Since this is the very first thing I have seen on the case in a week and a half, I assume I must be either missing something or am simply overly-jaundiced upon my reentry into the world of hysterical journalism. I read the comments at Althouse to get a sense of which alternative might be true.
Nope. People who have been following the case for the entire time I have been disconnected seem to have the same or even stronger response. The shared view seems to that the New York Times reporting reads more as regime propaganda than as factual reporting.
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