TWGB: *Whom* the Law Binds, Now?*

 

Peter Navarro was tremblingly aggrieved today to find that the act of dodging a lawfully issued subpoena caused him to be treated like a common criminal. Who in the world did they, the Department of Justice, think they were dealing with? It's not like in the time he was working diligently for the public that anyone who mattered thought he was the unethical toady of a vicious moneyed would-be tyrant. (I mean, except for the people who did. But did they matter?) They intercepted him at the airport for crying out loud! As if they were watching him! (Do you think!?)

It's getting so conservatives can't even lie to Congress or the Feds, noted legal mind Louie Gohmert opined. If you're a conservative, of course. He's thinking of how Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman was acquitted of lying to the FBI because it wasn't actually proven, and how Michael Flynn, who plead guilty to lying to the FBI (and apparently, was unmasked quite innocently in a scandal that wasn't, thank you so much), was absolutely railroaded by having his sentence shortened by Trump AG Bill Barr before being pardoned by Trump himself. It's the damnedest thing when Republicans can nearly be held accountable for stuff they did and you can hardly hold Democrats responsible for stuff you want them to be punished for. 

Amusingly, or not, Navarro was just telling the world how when Trump was back in power all the people would pay. That's a lot of moxie for a guy who was pretty open about how he and Steve Bannon were staging the Green Bay Sweep. Next, they are going to be saying trying to steal an election is a bad thing--even if you're a Republican. It's a god-damned upside-down world. 

Now, about that stealing elections thing--I know I'm going to come across as some kind of stickler, but with each bit of material gleaned from the Trumpers (especially Mark Meadows, MVP, whose texts are a source of abundant context), it sure does look that it was they, not anyone else, who were fixing to steal an election, and apparently detailed what they were going to do in assorted memoranda. (Insert jokes regarding taking notes on a criminal conspiracy here. I'm too tired.)  It didn't even entirely occur to them that subverting the will of millions of voters would even matter in the end so why not be a little aggressive about it? (I mean, better to ask forgiveness than gain permission and all that? Or even coerce forgiveness in the form of compliance by way of martial law. You know. Strongman shit.) 

And did the 81 million Biden voters really matter? Particularly the ones whose votes could just be thrown away?  Probably ones in dodgy areas like the Philly metro area--I wonder if that was something Mark Meadows discussed with Scott Perry before those notes went up in smoke. Why Republicans think heavily Democratic-voting areas are rife with fraud is certainly a puzzlement is it not?  (Looking at which voters the Republicans will choose to intimidate in the future and insert it in the very real context of who has gotten to vote in this country historically, it certainly is not.) 

In order for democracy to work, it is necessary that even Republicans be bound by the law. But upon hearing they might be so bound, they sure are fit to be tied. 

UPDATE: AS an entire afterthought--isn't the least bit problematic that the former president wanted a mob to kill the former VP? Because I know the former VP is all like, "bygones", but in the real world, that kind of depraved indifference is basically murderous. (Sorry, l wasn't paying much more attention than the former VP seems to be feeling about that. But he totally could have died and Trump would have been okay with it. ) 

*We acknowledge the valuable contribution of our internet sages at Strangely Blogged.