In the world of superstition, Friday the 13th is a bad luck day, and that was the case way before Mike Lindell scheduled his cyber symposium in South Dakota for this August. Hereinafter, that date and Lindell’s farce may be cited as the main reason , or one of them at least, the day is so feted.
As usual, Mike Lindell was back on Steve Bannon’s show touting how grand it’s all going to be. However, Lindell did walk back the morning of August 13 as the day Trump is restored to office. He states that he didn’t say Trump would be reinstated on that day, only that “the world” would “know what I know” on that day. And, of course, what he knows is of such earth shattering significance that the Supreme Court will be brought into the fold.
Now where this four-and-a-half-minute clip gets interesting is that Steve Bannon is deadpanning a recitation of the facts, which he’s heard over and over ad nauseum, and he lets slip the phrase, “18th century law.” Ummm….it’s sorta a law of jurisprudence that the older the case/statute, the less it might hold water, unless of course it’s a landmark case like Marbury v. Madison. Â That case holds simply that the Supreme Court is the chief interpreter of the constitution, and therefore the avenue of last resort.
Whatever law it is that Bannon alluded to and Lindell nodded sagely about, they didn’t mention it by name. I can’t wait until end of day on August 12, when it’s revealed just how Lindell is going to pull this rabbit out of the SCOTUS hat. As I have said before, even Alan Dershowitz isn’t coming near this with a 10 foot pole and that’s a statement in and of itself.
Bannon seems quite jocular and Lindell is much calmer than usual. Maybe the tranquilizers are kicking in. Or, maybe he’s calm after he finally sleeps after being up for three or four days, who knows?
You can bet he’ll be wired in South Dakota. This is Lindell’s last stand, look for headlines saying just that. After this effort goes belly up, there ain’t no more.
AFAIK there aren’t many 18th century laws that *could* apply here. None before 1787, I think, because Constitution.
I’ve said before that some of these “Original Intent” fanatics don’t actually mean the intent of the founders who wrote/ratified our Constitution. Nope. What they want is going all the way back to the Articles of Confederation – that unwieldy set of governing documents that damned near cause the collapse of the American experiment in its infancy. They did pretty much give all the power to a handful of rich & powerful white guys to run things how they wanted and to change the rules in their domains pretty much whenever and however they liked. Just like a handful of rich and powerful (and almost all) white assholes (almost all guys) are trying to do now!
Can you imagine the mess if we got that set back? NJ and NY, or MD and VA, charging tariffs to cross the river?
Well, they can *want* that to their heart’s desire but, barring 38 states agreeing to convene a NEW Constitutional Convention, they ain’t gonna get it. (That is the only legal way, aside from Congress initiating the move, although, for the most part, the standard use for Article V is designed for introducing new amendments rather than a whole new Constitution. It’s worth noting also that there’s no actual framework for establishing a new Constitutional Convention; questions include how delegates would be chosen by the states and how many delegates would be allotted per state and how many delegates would need to agree to the final proposal and how ratification would work.)
Is there anything in the Federalist Papers perhaps? we have six occupants in the S.C. who put that crap over the actual constitution.
Call me crazy but learning about the Federalist Papers when I was in school made me wonder what all the fuss was about. “Publius” was actually three of our founders, Hamilton (who I regard as a talented but self-righteous asshole who believed he was superior to everyone around him including his patron/benefactor George Washington), Madison and John Jay. Jay actually wrote only a handful of the essays. Five to be exact. He fell ill early on after writing 2-5 and only contributed one more, much later in the process. The bulk of them were written by the other two with Hamilton writing fifty or so and Madison close to thirty. So, one of the things I learned early when the Federalist Papers were covered in my U.S. History (and Civics too) was that they were mostly Hamilton’s thoughts. Yes, he displayed bravery in battle and yes he was the first Sec. of the Treasury but does he deserve all the accolades he gets?
The Federalist Papers have been cited by many judges and Justices in decisions, as a window into the thoughts of our founders but as I’ve noted while the authors surely were influenced in their views by their colleagues those essays were mostly the work of just two of our founders and one, who never even held elected office wrote the lion’s share!
What I also learned is that for all the fuss made about the Federalist Papers they played virtually no role in the ratification of the Constitution. By the time they started getting published most of the state ratification process was complete and even New York where they were published/marketed to influence the process was well along in the ratification process so despite what people think those “monumental” essays actually played virtually no role in either the drafting, passage by the Convention or the ratification of our Constitution!
Given all that I again note my having so often questioned the mystique, the special place so many people including TOO MANY fucking judges and Justices hold for the Federalist Papers. They are predominantly the views of one person, albeit with some significant contributions from another key figure of the era (Madison) who would go on to become President. As for Hamilton who authored the lion’s share of the essays he was an important person in our history to be sure, but hardly the key figure in the debate and drafting of our Constitution. Hell, John Jay (who surely would have written more of the essays had he not taken ill) is arguably more significant both as a diplomat (including the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War) and as our first Chief Justice.
One final thought on the Federalist Papers and the authors, who would go on to be part of the Federalist Party itself in the early years of our Republic. They were, contrary to what the current Federalist Society and all those activist conservative judges would have you believe in their selective quoting proponents of a STRONG federal government! It was the FEDERALISTS who pushed for moving past the Article of Confederation and having the Constitution which has guided us. They had to make what for them were bitter compromises with the Jeffersonians, but had they had their way a significantly stronger federal government would have been enshrined in the original Constitution and many of the issues that have plagued us since are the result of compromises to satisfy the Jeffersonian types who wanted the states to reign supreme. The kicking of some thorny issues down the road.
If the consequences of what the Federalist Society has wrought since it’s formation in the 1980s weren’t so devastating I’d laugh at the irony of them using the Federalists as their “inspiration. In reality, it’s just another (ugly) example of conservative branding and messaging – the naming of a powerful group with tons of resources devoted to consolidating power and wealth in the hands of a few than providing the most freedom and true opportunity to the masses with a name that evokes the opposite of what they are actually all about.
I don’t (and never have) discount the thoughts expressed in the Federalist Papers, but I’ve never held them in the veneration that far too many people do. You can find much more material in the correspondence and journals of virtually all the founders who’s names you can think of off the top of your head than what’s contained in the Federalist Papers. It’s just that the latter was a pet project initiated by Hamilton to get his own thoughts out there – no doubt expecting that the time would come when it would be known he was the author of the bulk of them. An earlier version of Custer type self-promotion. But I will give him credit for helping marshal others who believed in the need for not just a central government but a strong one to replace the Articles of Confederation.
The more attention I give to the Political Compass (www.politicalcompass.org), the more I tend to ask myself, “is this a left and right issue, or is it an up and down issue? Or is it some of both?” This is clearly both,but it may not be obvious, because it posess (not begs – that’s omething totally different) the question “Whose suthority will be less oppressive to the people – that of the Federal goverm=nment or that of the states?” It’s a question whose answer changes depending inwhere there are more authoritarians in the governing coalition, but I tend to see the Federal government as not only less oppressive but also reining in the oppressions of state governments. But it’s never 100% one way or the other, and we are certainly in danger of it swinging to the Federal government being the most oppressive.