While the United States Congress currently enjoys approval ratings hovering somewhere between genital herpes and pedophilia it as after all a body mandated by the Constitution. The legislative branch is badly broken as is evident by the failure to put a check on the unitary executive (aka the king), the churning out of laws that destroy our cherished birthright civil liberties and the ongoing meddling in overseas conflicts with the main purpose of juicing arms sales. In a land of widespread institutional failure and corruption there are few worse than 'our elected representatives' when it comes to an illustration of just how far that we have fallen.
The U.S. Congress as it currently exists is the biggest gaggle of zanies, liars, cheats, perverts, con artists, charlatans, demagogues, egomaniacs, de facto lobbyists and outright traitors in the land. But as poisoned as the institution has become it is still firmly embodied within the U.S. Constitution. So whenever a prospective presidential candidate shoots off his mouth calling for sending the military after Congress it should turn a few heads.
Senator Lindsey Graham, who is Robin to John McCain’s Batman as well as one of the most strident, big government worshippers in Congress drew scorn over comments that seemed to call for a military coup. While speaking in front of the "politics and pies" forum in New Hampshire where he was promoting his long shot White House bid, the Palmetto State Princess let slip that as president he would unleash the troops against the legislature if they didn’t acquiesce to his whims.
As reported by the website Vox in a story entitled “Lindsey Graham: As president I would deploy the military against Congress”:
Republican senator and presidential maybe-hopeful Lindsey Graham stopped by the "politics and pies" forum in Concord, New Hampshire, today, where he announced that if he is elected president in 2016, his first act will be to deploy the military in Washington to force Congress to reverse cuts to the defense and intelligence budgets.
Yes, you heard that right. Here are Graham's exact words:
And here's the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We're not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.
Graham would use the military to force members of Congress to not just vote on the bill — but to pass it. Graham didn't say "until I get an up-or-down vote on restoring defense cuts." He said "until we restore these defense cuts."
In other words, Graham is proposing that his first act as president would be to use the military to force the legislative branch to pass his agenda.
Graham’s staff flew into damage control mode to spin it as a “joke” taken out of context by his political opponents but with this particular authority loving fascist one never knows.
Graham is a media darling for his availability and the gift of providing great sound bites on any number of issues about war and the domestic police and surveillance state. He has gone so far as to babble about the possibility of a nuclear device being detonated in Charleston Harbor and has never met a foreign conflict that he would not send the sons and daughters of American mothers off to die for. He also is one of the biggest advocates of the ongoing drive to bestow near godlike powers on the federal government to monitor every phone call, email, text and purchase that Americans make with all to be archived in a massive NSA storage facility for some vague future use by a future president. He is also a full blown, balls out lunatic.
Graham’s call for sending the military after Congress was really less of a joke than another outbreak of his paranoid delusions coupled with an incurable case of diarrhea of the mouth. Thank God that this crank has about as much chance at becoming President of the United States as Kim Kardashian does.
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