The McDaniel Hostage Crisis – Days 46-47 – ‘You got served’ and ‘hide your crazy’

We interrupt our coverage to bring you this special report.

The TEA Party’s prodigal son has come home. And then got served with a subpoena. #WelcomeToMississippi

Charles “Chuck” C. Johnson apparently admitted on twitter that during a “Thank You Tour” appearance in Mississippi, he got served with a Lauderdale County grand jury subpoena to testify on matters regarding Chris McDaniel’s spokesman Noel Fritsch (not surprisingly) and a South MS TEA Party figure named John Rhodes. This is of course in reference to the “Reverend” Stevie Fielder who Johnson admitted paying for what now appears to be an interview where Fielder lied about paying for votes in the runoff. This became the centerpiece or “Exhibit A” of the McDaniel challenge.

Here’s a copy of the subpoena as reported by the Clarion Ledger. So what’s a hard-nosed, damn-the-torpedoes “journalist” to do to show his fealty to McDaniel and TEA Party street cred? Post it immediately to Twitter! What else? (#facepalm)

The only problem with posting to Twitter is that the subpoena specifically states that the recipient should not reveal the existence of the subpoena as it might impede the investigation. Johnson then took the subpoena down “on the advice of counsel” (good call, Chuck), but not before it got grabbed by the “liberal” media. This might be funny if it weren’t so pathetically sad and emblematic of the three-ring circus sideshow this “challenge” effort has become.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, Tom Freeland dug out some of the information regarding the “scientific regression analysis” mentioned in the election challenge. As it turns out, the McDaniel campaign saw the analysis on the 538 blog. Maybe they can subpoena the author to come testify in a Mississippi courtroom about how black folks never vote Republican (or something).

Undeterred, the McDaniel campaign machine keeps on raising money using liberal “boogeyman” such as Henry Barbour. I don’t know about you, but when someone says Henry Barbour, “liberal” is not on the list of words I immediately associate. Though curiously, they’re starting to tone down the rhetoric a bit. Instead of words like “fraud” and “scam”, they’re using phrases like “the unfortunate oversights”. The closer this gets to a court of law, the worse it gets for the Magic 8-Ball Legal Team.

Finally, from Sam Hall’s mailbag, a little TEA Party love note,

I should check Facebook more often. I missed this delightful message from a reader. pic.twitter.com/YYcYH20xxB

— Sam R. Hall (@samrhall) August 9, 2014

Folks, this stuff isn’t just a bad string of coincidences or a “liberal media” conspiracy. This is who these people are. I don’t know if these folks need election lawyers, criminal lawyers, trial lawyers, psychiatrists or an exorcist. Maybe all of the above.

One thing is for sure. You cannot hide who you really are or what you really think over a long period of time. Who you are and what you believe comes out with nothing more than time and exposure. The nursing home break in, the courthouse late night incident, campaign finance violations, and now the “bribed reverend” scandal, and the unchecked vitriol on social media are absolutely part and parcel of how these people are made up. (And when I say these people, I don’t mean “TEA Party voters”. I mean just this radical jihadist wing of that group who’ve shackled themselves blindly and unquestioningly to the campaign). These folks absolutely believe that “the rules don’t apply to us because what we think is so righteous and so noble.”

I referenced earlier this week that there are, in my mind at least, some striking resemblances in the Chris McDaniel story and the Dickie Scruggs saga that started almost 6 years ago. Many now forget, but Scruggs had vocal supporters, even in the press, in the early phases of his scandal. Both McDaniel and Scruggs are lawyers, and I think both started with their heart in the right place. I think both men were absolutely convinced that “the other side” did bad things and cut corners. I think they felt themselves as the defenders of the greater good (as they saw it) and reasoned that since they were “doing the Lord’s work” that if they fought fire with fire and cut a few corners, it was OK because it was just temporary and it would all work out in the end. Both surrounded themselves with zealots who would do nearly anything for them or the cause. But in the end, whether it was the judicial bribery scandal (Scruggs) or the string of legal violations that we have seen the folks around Chris McDaniel get entangled with, it’s clear that those events are a direct reflection of the folks involved. Otherwise, in the current circumstance, McDaniel would have cleaned house long ago.

These are his people and a perfect reflection of how he would govern and what he believes. Can you imagine if this sideshow actually went to Washington? Unfreakin-believable.

Again, everyone but them can see that this won’t end well for them. And so we wait and watch with morbid fascination.

That’s the way it was – Days 46-47 of the McDaniel Hostage Crisis.

Good day Mississippi – and good luck.

As stated on several occasions, the author of this piece has made a reportable campaign contribution this cycle in this race. Please factor that into your reading of this story.