A Constitutional Crisis and a Confederacy of Dumbasses

 

Huh. You know, if a general violated any international treaties and committed war crimes, a judge would very legitimately have something to say about that. A judge could certainly reject the case of an attorney general and determine that their reading of the law was wrong if it very much was. And the idea that judges can determine that an act of Congress or of the executive office was in violation of the Constitution is called "checks and balances." The old separation of powers thing where we don't want any branch of government to be really dictatorial. 

This is the "are you smarter than a fifth grader?" level of understanding how our government works.  Senators Mike Lee and Tom Cotton also played very dumb about what they should have very earnestly understood based on their own education. 

Trump Talking to Libertarians Did Not Go Well

 

"In the last year I've been indicted by the government for 91 different things, so if I wasn't a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now." —Donald Trump, who apparently thinks libertarians like crime. https://t.co/pT8XUHLtqM

— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) May 26, 2024

Now, Trump is just enjoying the latitude of his pre-felon days.  He will most likely receive convictions by-and-by. The whole thing where Trump thought it would be great to talk to the Libertarian Party and try to win them over was kind of frustrated by his own teams' efforts. They planted MAGAs in the NY Young Republicans in Libertarian seats and got stroppy about protest shows like rubber chickens asking Trump to debate Bob (Kennedy--naturally). It was not great. 

Trump got uniformly booed--but who is speaking up for him? His Renfields. 

Look at Senator Mike Lee, head shaven, about to bang a tambourine to collect money for this entire asshole at the airport:

No other president in U.S. history could have done that—show up at the convention of a political party not his own and garner substantial support.

Joe Biden certainly couldn’t.

I’d love to see him try it.

In fact, I challenge Biden to do so.

Tomorrow!

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 26, 2024

What if, instead of Biden being dumb enough to do that, he was smart enough to not do that, which is actually being better than Trump is, because Trump is a desperate little fuck trying to stay out of prison?  Because Trump doing that was very desperate and dumb?  And Mike Lee's desperate clinging to Trump's unraveling bolero coattails is very embarrassing. For him, even if he is too stupid to feel it.

This is the cult-like ethos of "Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed." 

We're used to a certain level of TrumpWorld embellishment about crowd size--like the Bronx rally lies. This was an actual disaster--he couldn't seed his MAGAs in the crowd adequately to counter the actual Libertarians, and he couldn't avoid going off-script and negging them. 

They aren't my political cup of tea, but that doesn't make them stupid. They did not love being told their candidates get 3% anymore than Trump should love having done this because he has to hustle after points. They booed Mike Lee because they see the tyranny. 

TWGB: Mike Lee is Storming the Cockpit

 

I'm so old I remember when Mike Lee wasn't gonna support Trump, but there has been a whole lot of water under that bridge between 2016 and now, including Mike Lee helping with the fake electors plot, but why even go there? Senator Mike Lee has endorsed Donald Trump. Wholeheartedly.  Why is that?

He added, “And so, whether you agree with him on every point or not, if you are not content with the status quo — the status quo of lawlessness, of putting America last — it’s time to get behind Donald Trump, and I wholeheartedly endorse Donald J. Trump in his bid for the presidency in 2024.”

Wait a minute--lawlessness? Let me check this out--the former president who wants the Supreme Court to decide he had infinite hall pass on crimes while president is the remedy to lawlessness? The guy who said he wants the economy to fail while Biden is in office because it helps his election puts America first?   

The rapist, racist business fraud, who took classified documents and incited a riot on 1/6--is supposed to be the not-chaos guy? Prithee, how, sway? 

Although, how is that any different from what Gov. Chris Sununu has said? He would support Trump as the nominee even if he's convicted of crimes.  Because even Trump--proven criminal, but a Republican, is better than a Democrat of any kind whatsoever. 

Meathead Mike Lee

 

Republicans launched a new conspiracy based off J6 footage claiming an insurrectionist was holding an FBI badge & must be an agent.

The facts?

It was a vape and he was sentenced to more than 4 years in prison.

These lies are sickening. Story… https://t.co/wd14r0qdOj

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) November 19, 2023

 A lot of Republicans having read the community notes now understand they have been led astray, but Mike Lee, US Senator and former law clerk for Sam Alito, wants to hold on to the fantasy that an FBI "op" instigated the 1/6 melee, and that an undercover fed was for some reason caught flashing his actual badge on camera. In a set-up to compromise Trump supporters to make it look like they stormed the Capitol and beat up cops and whatnot which they did, but to somehow make it look worse for reasons? 

That's fucking asinine. There was no need for an op: every damn extremely online human associated with politics knew what was up that day. All antifa humans knew they were not going there because the headbreakers were coming out in force. MAGAs were being drawn like moths. And actual "cops" seemed to have little clue. This all would make a lot of sense unless your guilty little soul needed a retcon for some reason. 

Like actually being one of the people who wanted to overturn the election.  I don't know why the boy needs to be so shy about it, after Trump misdialed Mike trying to reach Tommy Taterhead. He considered Sidney Powell a "straight shooter". 

Is Mike Lee saying he's still going around looking for the "REAL CULPRITS"? 

Somehow, I'm not buying it. And I think Mike Lee is just playing at being this big of a meathead himself. 

The GOP Appeasement Caucus

 

This flag 🇺🇸 stands for the sovereignty and freedom of other democratic nations or GTFO. We stood with our allies against authoritarianism in WW2 and to not do so now is appeasement. Meathead Mike thinks isolationism is based. The reality is: it's impossible. Reality intrudes. https://t.co/Ff5tEuQm8M

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) September 22, 2023

I remember when the right wing was calling President Obama an "appeaser". They liked to do that, back in the day. They would compare someone to Neville Chamberlain. And along comes Russia, sponsor of their little Tin Godlet, Trump. And some of the biggest Trump fans are all about letting Putin and his desire for lebensraum cook. He'll only take Crimea. He'll only take Donetsk. He's just annexing Russian-speakers...

Lies. Actually, he's performing war crimes , and negotiating how he can keep any of the territory he's seized is...appeasement, politically demonstrating that if you are a celebrity, they just let you grab whatever territory you like. Deciding not to intervene is certainly some kind of moral choice, but I would not commit to it being the right one. 

Falling for Fakery on Ukraine

 

Zelensky has no right to presume that our sons and daughters will fight his war. Shame on him. We’ve somehow sent the message that we work for him. Shame on us! https://t.co/l84guBiIsk

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) March 1, 2023

Here are both Senator Mike Lee and a former Trump Administration employee falling for a truncated video that appears to show Volodomyr Zelenskyy suggesting that US troops would defend Ukraine. The expanded version is Zelenskyy's opinion that if Russia is not stopped at Ukraine, then they will encroach NATO space and once NATO Article 5 is in effect, the conflict we've been dreading will come to pass. The lack of context is significant, and that these two individuals went with the outrage instead of exploring the context first, tells me a lot about what I dread from social media-oriented foreign policy.

It's bad enough that US foreign policy has become subject to the election cycle, partisanship, and the willingness of ambitious tools to subordinate the long-term interests of this country to their own short-term desire to be seen as standing up to the Administration of the opposite party. If people--responsible people with actual jobs making decisions about our foreign policy, can so easily fall for an outrage-farming post, I'm just sick inside. 

Mike Lee Wrote Something for His Local Paper

 

It's not very long and it seems to be a campaign bio written in the third person, which is very nice, but couldn't he find someone else to put their byline under it? (Anyone?)

Mike Lee serves as a United States senator representing the state of Utah. Since taking office, Senator Lee has earned a reputation as a principled conservative. He believes elected officials are responsible for keeping the federal government within its constitutionally limited role.

His respect for the Constitution was instilled early in life by watching his father, Rex E. Lee, argue before the Supreme Court as President Reagan’s Solicitor General. Attending those arguments gave him an up-close understanding of the federal government’s proper role.

It's very nice. It doesn't really explain why he wanted to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, but "something, something, constitution: something, something, limited government." 

Ta-da!  

UPDATE: Mike Lee did indeed whip out his Constitution during his debate with Evan McMullin:

Mike Lee, the Constitution is not a prop. #UTSenDebate pic.twitter.com/xNgCwmLYJP

— Evan McMullin 🇺🇸 (@EvanMcMullin) October 18, 2022

Which in his hands feels about as valid as Herschel Walker's honorary lawman badge. He defended his part in the 1/6 events with what I call "just the tip insurrectionism" claiming he only did what was constitutionally necessary. Feh. He wanted to support the Republican presidential candidate at the expense of democracy, because he doesn't understand that a republic only exists because of democracy-the consent of the governed: including the 81 million that voted for Joe Biden. I consider every equivocator who answers the question "Who won the 2020 election?" with "Joe Biden is president", without admitting he won, a goddamn poltroon.  

The man showed himself in the debate.  That should be enough for the voters if they only looked. 

UPDATE: Oh heck, they changed the byline to "Campaign for Mike Lee", which I guess is a little less like a kid doing an essay on "Who do you admire most?" and picking themselves.  But the original byline remains in the memory of the internet. 

TWGB: Senator Lee Is a Wrong Number

 

I have long thought to myself that Republicans like Senator Lee are simply folks with whom someone like myself can not speak--we share a country and a generation and a common language, but our cultural references are still wholly out of tune. And as for the 1/6 insurrection attempt. it didn't actually surprise me that both Trump and Giuliani wrong-dialed Lee in the hopes of reaching some other senator--because of course Lee was still on their speed-dial and I never thought that, given the participation of thirsty wannabes like Cruz and Hawley, that Lee would be far behind in joining whatever fuckery the certification-opposition had in mind. 

Did I think he was an instigator though, and actually tried to promote Powell's bullshit and Eastman's well before 1/6? Like, as of November 2020? Wow. Ok. That was something else. Take the idea that he was texting Meadows that Powell was a straight shooter. Now, I would not have thought Lee was one of the people urging on a meeting of the minds between Powell and Trump's various campaign lawyers and the White House lawyers who saw little problem with putting on their campaign hats. I was sure the braingenius who invited the Kraken in was Giuliani himself.

But there Lee was. And it wasn't until the press conference where she introduced the stupidest Dominion conspiracy theories ever that were obviously going to get everybody sued that Lee apparently recognized that Powell was all crackers and no soup? 

It seems extraordinary, but wow--the conservative folks sure exist in a whole other informational ecosystem, so, maybe? I mean, how else does Eastman's alternate elector slate scheme seem like a likely successful thing--except in a peculiar microcosm where democracy isn't supposed to be an American ideal? Would it somehow make more sense to him that state legislators in say, Pennsylvania, for some reason, could decide that people voted wrong because the state legislators themselves passed a dumb voting law and invalidated all the votes of that state? And so the state legislature would throw out those insane stupid bad presumed legal but apparently not votes, 

Of Course, They Were Trump Supporters

FBI Director Wray knocks down a conspiracy theory that January 6 rioters were "fake Trump protesters" https://t.co/y5r8yH3GCC

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 3, 2021

While Fox News and other right-wing media fell over themselves yesterday discussing whether Dr. Suess Enterprises was cancelling itself for no longer publishing somewhat racist children's books and discussing the metaphorical pee parts of plastic tubers, the main story yesterday should have been that the conspiracy theories that they (and Republican senators) wanted to push about whether the January 6 insurrection was antifa (of course not ) and whether there was any wide-scale voter fraud that impacted the election, were totally busted.

Also in important news--white supremacist violence is real and the threat is growing. It's a real thing, unlike cancel culture which is....just stupid. 

In a bit of an interesting aside, Senators Lee and Hawley were awfully interested in what Wray had to say about cell phone data regarding the investigation, weren't they?

Can They Get a Witness?

 

Looks like Trump’s BS-artist attorneys may have crossed the line from BS to something much more serious. https://t.co/Mh5uu1Dkj2

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) February 13, 2021

I feel like this impeachment really, really needs the kind of answers that will only come from getting people under oath. (Also I think the longer this goes, the worse for everyone who wants to retain loyalty to Trump over their oath of office, but sometimes, I am an actual hope fiend.) I think it would also be neat if Trump's own lawyers would stop lying, but I guess he is getting the exact kind of defense that he wanted from them. 

I also find myself more and more interested in the kind of "help" Sens. Lee, Cruz, and Graham have been offering to the defense. Especially since Sen. Lee got an interesting phone call during the siege that is at issue, and also because Cruz and Graham were a big part of promoting the Big Lie that kept the anger growing.

I mean, we wouldn't want something this important to be rushed, right? 

UPDATE:  Well! Apparently Magic 8 Ball says "Yes!" and we are getting witnesses, with Senator Graham putting his name in the aye column. What this means: since we're definitely going to have someone called, Trump's defense is going to call everybody including Inspector Gadget and Penny, and when there are objections such as: "No, those are cartoon characters, and you can't call them", Trump and friends will be able to say "See, that was rigged, too."  It's childish but Trump has been getting away with childish for this long, so....

UPDATE: Aaaaaand, we're not getting witnesses. I should probably be more irritated than I am based on Twitter, except, I'm not. Look, it was gonna turn into a spectacle, the Senate has other things to do, Republicans are going to acquit, and and I watched Mike Lee's hands the entire time. Just because it's over doesn't means it's over. Yadda yadda yadda. The acquittal is also a part of the crime. Even the testimony would have been part of the cover-up. Forget about it Jake, it's Chinatown. 

I already knew we weren't getting witnesses, plural. How the fuck mad am I supposed be? There will be criminal trials for the criminals.