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The wacky Right again: how can they be this stupid? We Need To Talk About Sen. Mike Lee’s Far-Right Pocket Constitution
Oct 17, 2020 00:44:25   #
rumitoid
 
Chris D'Angelo and Christopher Mathias
Thu, October 15, 2020, 3:53 PM MDT

On Monday, 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19, a maskless Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) appeared at a Senate hearing on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, where he spent the majority of his allotted 10 minutes “pontificating on the nature of constitutional government,” as The Daily Beast aptly described it.

Toward the end of his lecture, Lee produced a pocket-size U.S. Constitution and shook it as he emphasized his words.

“This is a thing that works, and works best when every one of us reads it, understands it,” Lee declared, pointing at the booklet. “And takes and honors an oath to uphold it and protect it and defend it.”

But Lee’s copy was no ordinary Constitution. It was an annotated version that’s published by a fringe Mormon group founded by the late conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen and which has become the favorite of anti-government extremists and right-wing figures, including the men who led an armed seizure of an Oregon wildlife refuge over the conviction of two arsonist ranchers.

The booklet is annotated in such a way as to make it seem like the founders envisioned a solely Christian nation and a severely limited federal government. It includes both the Constitution’s original text and several religious ― at times out-of-context ― quotes from the Founding Fathers.

Western Values Project, a Montana-based public lands advocacy and watchdog group, alerted HuffPost to Lee’s far-right Constitution.

Skousen, whom The New York Times once called “the constitutional guru of the Tea Party movement,” peddled a distorted, Mormon-centric version of American history. He served as an FBI agent in the 1940s, and then briefly as Salt Lake City’s police chief before the mayor fired him, calling him a “master of half truths.” Skousen spent the later part of his life as a far-right, anti-communist activist preaching a theocratic interpretation of America’s founding documents.

He embraced a frenzy of conspiracy theories, contending that global bankers were working to create a totalitarian world government and that Russia stole its Sputnik satellite from the United States. His 1982 book “The Making of America” describes African-American children as “pickaninnies” and slave owners as the “worst victims” of the slavery system, as Salon reported in its 2009 expose on Skousen and his influence on commentator Glenn Beck.

“Skousen was a case study of the extreme-extreme right from the 1950s, as well as a con man,” Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton University, told HuffPost in an email Wednesday morning.

“His history is trash; his politics a concoction of fantasy and paranoia,” Wilentz added. “He made a comeback around 2010 thanks to the hard right bunko artist Glenn Beck. That a United States senator should be peddling this lunacy with a straight face would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.”

The Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, a right-wing think tank that Skousen founded in the 1960s, prints and distributes the pocket Constitution that Lee displayed during Monday’s hearing. There are more than 15 million NCCS Constitutions in circulation. Tens of thousands of them have been distributed in public schools throughout Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported, and sales of the booklet soared in 2016 after Gold Star father Khizr Khan held up a pocket-sized Constitution ― not the NCCS edition ― at the Democratic National Convention and challenged President Donald Trump to read it.

Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Lee, told HuffPost that the senator carries many versions of the Constitution and “was not aware” that he’d brought the NCCS edition.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mike-lee-pocket-constitution-215329288.html

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 06:54:57   #
TexaCan Loc: Homeward Bound!
 
rumitoid wrote:
Chris D'Angelo and Christopher Mathias
Thu, October 15, 2020, 3:53 PM MDT

On Monday, 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19, a maskless Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) appeared at a Senate hearing on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, where he spent the majority of his allotted 10 minutes “pontificating on the nature of constitutional government,” as The Daily Beast aptly described it.

Toward the end of his lecture, Lee produced a pocket-size U.S. Constitution and shook it as he emphasized his words.

“This is a thing that works, and works best when every one of us reads it, understands it,” Lee declared, pointing at the booklet. “And takes and honors an oath to uphold it and protect it and defend it.”

But Lee’s copy was no ordinary Constitution. It was an annotated version that’s published by a fringe Mormon group founded by the late conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen and which has become the favorite of anti-government extremists and right-wing figures, including the men who led an armed seizure of an Oregon wildlife refuge over the conviction of two arsonist ranchers.

The booklet is annotated in such a way as to make it seem like the founders envisioned a solely Christian nation and a severely limited federal government. It includes both the Constitution’s original text and several religious ― at times out-of-context ― quotes from the Founding Fathers.

Western Values Project, a Montana-based public lands advocacy and watchdog group, alerted HuffPost to Lee’s far-right Constitution.

Skousen, whom The New York Times once called “the constitutional guru of the Tea Party movement,” peddled a distorted, Mormon-centric version of American history. He served as an FBI agent in the 1940s, and then briefly as Salt Lake City’s police chief before the mayor fired him, calling him a “master of half truths.” Skousen spent the later part of his life as a far-right, anti-communist activist preaching a theocratic interpretation of America’s founding documents.

He embraced a frenzy of conspiracy theories, contending that global bankers were working to create a totalitarian world government and that Russia stole its Sputnik satellite from the United States. His 1982 book “The Making of America” describes African-American children as “pickaninnies” and slave owners as the “worst victims” of the slavery system, as Salon reported in its 2009 expose on Skousen and his influence on commentator Glenn Beck.

“Skousen was a case study of the extreme-extreme right from the 1950s, as well as a con man,” Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton University, told HuffPost in an email Wednesday morning.

“His history is trash; his politics a concoction of fantasy and paranoia,” Wilentz added. “He made a comeback around 2010 thanks to the hard right bunko artist Glenn Beck. That a United States senator should be peddling this lunacy with a straight face would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.”

The Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, a right-wing think tank that Skousen founded in the 1960s, prints and distributes the pocket Constitution that Lee displayed during Monday’s hearing. There are more than 15 million NCCS Constitutions in circulation. Tens of thousands of them have been distributed in public schools throughout Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported, and sales of the booklet soared in 2016 after Gold Star father Khizr Khan held up a pocket-sized Constitution ― not the NCCS edition ― at the Democratic National Convention and challenged President Donald Trump to read it.

Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Lee, told HuffPost that the senator carries many versions of the Constitution and “was not aware” that he’d brought the NCCS edition.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mike-lee-pocket-constitution-215329288.html
Chris D'Angelo and Christopher Mathias br Thu, Oct... (show quote)


I find it very “telling” that this article doesn’t tell us what the Senator tested just before the hearing!!!
You can bet he would not have appeared in public if he tested positive! Can a reporter get anymore ignorant?

The left defends the Muslims in our government, but spews fear of those dangerous Catholics and Mormans! LOL! Talk about hypocrites!🤯

You’re going to have to do a little more searching those “search engines” that you brag about! You found this one at the very bottom of the barrel! 😂😂😂😂😂

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 08:58:13   #
lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas
 
rumitoid wrote:
Chris D'Angelo and Christopher Mathias
Thu, October 15, 2020, 3:53 PM MDT

On Monday, 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19, a maskless Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) appeared at a Senate hearing on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, where he spent the majority of his allotted 10 minutes “pontificating on the nature of constitutional government,” as The Daily Beast aptly described it.

Toward the end of his lecture, Lee produced a pocket-size U.S. Constitution and shook it as he emphasized his words.

“This is a thing that works, and works best when every one of us reads it, understands it,” Lee declared, pointing at the booklet. “And takes and honors an oath to uphold it and protect it and defend it.”

But Lee’s copy was no ordinary Constitution. It was an annotated version that’s published by a fringe Mormon group founded by the late conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen and which has become the favorite of anti-government extremists and right-wing figures, including the men who led an armed seizure of an Oregon wildlife refuge over the conviction of two arsonist ranchers.

The booklet is annotated in such a way as to make it seem like the founders envisioned a solely Christian nation and a severely limited federal government. It includes both the Constitution’s original text and several religious ― at times out-of-context ― quotes from the Founding Fathers.

Western Values Project, a Montana-based public lands advocacy and watchdog group, alerted HuffPost to Lee’s far-right Constitution.

Skousen, whom The New York Times once called “the constitutional guru of the Tea Party movement,” peddled a distorted, Mormon-centric version of American history. He served as an FBI agent in the 1940s, and then briefly as Salt Lake City’s police chief before the mayor fired him, calling him a “master of half truths.” Skousen spent the later part of his life as a far-right, anti-communist activist preaching a theocratic interpretation of America’s founding documents.

He embraced a frenzy of conspiracy theories, contending that global bankers were working to create a totalitarian world government and that Russia stole its Sputnik satellite from the United States. His 1982 book “The Making of America” describes African-American children as “pickaninnies” and slave owners as the “worst victims” of the slavery system, as Salon reported in its 2009 expose on Skousen and his influence on commentator Glenn Beck.

“Skousen was a case study of the extreme-extreme right from the 1950s, as well as a con man,” Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton University, told HuffPost in an email Wednesday morning.

“His history is trash; his politics a concoction of fantasy and paranoia,” Wilentz added. “He made a comeback around 2010 thanks to the hard right bunko artist Glenn Beck. That a United States senator should be peddling this lunacy with a straight face would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.”

The Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, a right-wing think tank that Skousen founded in the 1960s, prints and distributes the pocket Constitution that Lee displayed during Monday’s hearing. There are more than 15 million NCCS Constitutions in circulation. Tens of thousands of them have been distributed in public schools throughout Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported, and sales of the booklet soared in 2016 after Gold Star father Khizr Khan held up a pocket-sized Constitution ― not the NCCS edition ― at the Democratic National Convention and challenged President Donald Trump to read it.

Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Lee, told HuffPost that the senator carries many versions of the Constitution and “was not aware” that he’d brought the NCCS edition.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mike-lee-pocket-constitution-215329288.html
Chris D'Angelo and Christopher Mathias br Thu, Oct... (show quote)


There is nothing in the Constitution forbidding the electing of insane people to public office.........................but you'd have to be nuts yourself to keep doing it.

Reply
 
 
Oct 17, 2020 09:27:06   #
TexaCan Loc: Homeward Bound!
 
lpnmajor wrote:
There is nothing in the Constitution forbidding the electing of insane people to public office.........................but you'd have to be nuts yourself to keep doing it.


They’ve been doing it for 47 years by electing Joe! Why stop now! The liberals are completely ignoring his corruption!👿

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 10:53:40   #
rumitoid
 
TexaCan wrote:
I find it very “telling” that this article doesn’t tell us what the Senator tested just before the hearing!!!
You can bet he would not have appeared in public if he tested positive! Can a reporter get anymore ignorant?

The left defends the Muslims in our government, but spews fear of those dangerous Catholics and Mormans! LOL! Talk about hypocrites!🤯

You’re going to have to do a little more searching those “search engines” that you brag about! You found this one at the very bottom of the barrel! 😂😂😂😂😂
I find it very “telling” that this article doesn’... (show quote)


Whoa, you are off into Lala land. My thread had nothing to do with the strawmen you attacked.

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 11:08:55   #
TexaCan Loc: Homeward Bound!
 
rumitoid wrote:
Whoa, you are off into Lala land. My thread had nothing to do with the strawmen you attacked.


I guess we read different articles! LOL!

Lee.......virus.......check!

Religious bigotry of Mormans.........check!

Who’s in La La Land? 🤣😂😅😃☺️😊🤪

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 12:57:05   #
rumitoid
 
TexaCan wrote:
I guess we read different articles! LOL!

Lee.......virus.......check!

Religious bigotry of Mormans.........check!

Who’s in La La Land? 🤣😂😅😃☺️😊🤪


You.

Reply
 
 
Oct 17, 2020 17:24:06   #
TexaCan Loc: Homeward Bound!
 
rumitoid wrote:
You.


Nah uh! I’m not in La La Land, Rumi! Remember! I’m in Vacation land! And it is absolutely a beautiful day!

The ocean is slick, the sun is shining, it’s about 68 degrees and we’re having the White Trout for supper that Jack and our neighbor caught yesterday! This is better than La La Land! 😘

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 18:07:05   #
Rose42
 
rumitoid wrote:
Whoa, you are off into Lala land. My thread had nothing to do with the strawmen you attacked.


Its amusing when you say others are in Lala land. Your hatred for Trump and the right has twisted your mind into a pretzel.

Reply
Oct 17, 2020 20:41:33   #
TexaCan Loc: Homeward Bound!
 
Rose42 wrote:
Its amusing when you say others are in Lala land. Your hatred for Trump and the right has twisted your mind into a pretzel.


He claims that I never comment on the subject of the thread, and yet when I do, he claims that I don’t! LOL!

I just can’t seem to please him! 🤷🏻‍♀️😳 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

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