'The election was unconstitutional': Oaf Creeper Stewart Rhodes testimony goes off the rails

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes took the witness stand on Friday and declared that he supported a "right to riot" while also declaring the 2020 presidential election "unconstitutional."

Politico's Kyle Cheney reports that Rhodes, who is on trial for allegedly engaging in a seditious conspiracy for his role in instigating the deadly January 6 Capitol riots, made a Freudian slip on Friday when he told the court that "I support the right to riot," before he quickly caught himself and said he supported the right to protest.

After this, Rhodes' attorney asked him to discuss his feelings about the 2020 election, and Rhodes didn't hide that he believed it to be wholly illegitimate.

"I believe the election was unconstitutional," he said. "That made it invalid."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-election-was-unconstitutional-oath-keeper-stewart-rhodes-testimony-goes-off-the-rails/ar-AA13KeQa?cvid=be8e56aebf734850b96fd906ef52911c

To paraphrase Mark Twain, it's better to have people think you're a dumbass than to open your mouth and prove it.

[MontanaMama]

1. What a maroon.

Just because you think it doesn't make it true, Elmer.

[aggiesal]

15. I think you'll like this better. ...

[louis-t]

2. Oh that'll help his case.

Not.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

3. Proving Mark Twain correct....Rhodes is a DUMBASS!

Who will find himself in Federal prison for at least 20 years for Seditious Conspiracy.

Throw TDFG in there as well. His turn is coming.

[gratuitous]

4. I know how the prosecuting attorneys will be spending their weekend

I don't know if much cross-examination will be required or if they'll let Elmer's own "friendly" testimony speak for him, but the attorneys for the prosecution could have much fun getting Elmer to flesh out his remarks.

"Now, Mr. Rhodes, you have a law degree, isn't that correct? Is it fair to say that you know more about the law and its interpretation and application than the average person? On Friday, you testified that the 2020 election was unconstitutional and invalid. Can you tell this court and the members of the jury just where in the Constitution or case law the very clear language of Article II Section 1 for electing a president and vice president are repealed?"

[Wounded Bear]

9. You mean after they stop laughing, high fiving and toasting?

[hlthe2b]

5. So, if I think I have the "right" to be filthy rich, I can just knock some heads and take their $$$

Right, Stewie?

[republianmushroom]

6. LIKE

[NNadir]

7. I am pleased to rec this post based on "oaf keeper."

For my money you win the award for "Great Locution of the Day"

[mountain grammy]

25. It's "Oaf Creeper"

Which, of course, is even better...

[NNadir]

34. True, dat!

[Frustratedlady]

8. If I remember correctly, his family was terrified of him. I'm sure they are watching this closely.

If he isn't sent to prison, they will have plenty to worry about. His sudden finding Christ moment is a bit hard to believe.

[ShazzieB]

28. Oh, I forgot he was THAT guy!

I remember bits and pieces of that story. His teenage kids reported the threats he was making, and his wife was afraid of him, too?

Oh yeah, I just found a story about the kids:

In February, Hatewatch met with and interviewed Rhodes’ adult children: son Dakota Adams, 24, and daughters Sedona Adams, 23, and Sequoia Adams, 19, in Kalispell, Montana. Rhodes and his ex-wife, Tasha Adams, have three other children who are still minors, and are not included in this interview.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/12/exclusive-oath-keepers-leader-stewart-rhodes-children-speak

[Frustratedlady]

50. Thank you for posting that link. It is amazing those kids have turned out so well...or at least it

looks that way. It makes you wonder how many others have lived through their personal hell because of the control their parents need to be happy. Trying to escape from his control was scary. Makes me wonder if the police were members of his gang/group when they didn't appear with the restraining order.

It would be interesting to know how much money they collected through GUFUNDME scams. But, then, Trump did/and is doing the same thing. How many others were doing the same?

I hope the kids and his ex are safe and can have a decent life. He sounds like a terrible mess inside.

[Ilsa]

10. One riot, one Ranger

"One Riot, One Ranger is a bronze statue of a Texas Ranger, installed from 1961 to 2020 at Dallas Love Field, named for the famous story of Bill McDonald, a captain of Ranger Company B, in the 1900s who by himself broke up an illegal boxing match in the U.S. state of Texas."

Too bad Stew didn't have a run-in with Texas Ranger McDonald.

[Aviation Pro]

11. Hear that?

That’s the sound of ADX Florence beckoning you, you one-eyed shitstain. Maybe you can make friends with Ted.

[LudwigPastorius]

12. Bite me, Elmer.

Your jabroni friends may think you're some kind of bad-ass leader because of the big talk and the eye patch, but you are, in fact, nothing but a traitorous asshole who is going to have a very hard time in prison.

[intheflow]

51. Prison won't be too bad for him.

He'll hook up with a white supremacist gang, he'll be their hero for being politically persecuted for his beliefs.

[James48]

13. That jury better find him GUILTY

Or else America is finished.

[SoCalDavidS]

18. Both Could Be True nt

[SergeStorms]

14. If I were his Attorney....

I'd take his eyepatch and put it over his mouth.

[MontanaMama]

17. Unfortunately...

Elmer's eye patch isn't big enough to cover his king sized mouth.

[SergeStorms]

40. Thing is, he doesn't need the eye patch.

He just thinks it makes him look dangerous and tough. 🙄 He is, without a doubt, the biggest jackass outside of Mar-ma-lardo or whatever that place is called.

[MontanaMama]

45. Seriously? He doesn't need it?

My gawd what a maroon.

I call that place Maga Lardo. We’re all talking about the same shithole.

[SergeStorms]

47. No, his eye is intact.

And he can actually see quite well with it. Like I said, it's all part of his "bad dude" costume. 🙄 What a jacksss.

[IronLionZion]

16. Elections are unconstitutional

if you're using the alternative constitution that exists only in the imaginations of loony MAGAts.

[Warpy]

19. Aw, baby learned a new word, and it's got a whole bunch of syllables

He has no fucking clue in the world what he's talking about.

These lunatics want everything that was written after 1789 to be tossed out, I guess. They have no clue that if that were to happen, they'd be the slaves, 3/5 of a citizen, unable to vote unless they held clear title to land. It would be nice if someone would explain the concept behind amendments and the body of law to him and how they directly benefit him, but I doubt he'd listen.

He done got him a six syllable word and he's gonna stick to it.

[SergeStorms]

41. Indentured servants.

How many people of European descent even know what that term means? Chances are, if your ancestors came to this country well before the Revolutionary War, they were indentured servants. They were either convicted criminals, willing to come to the "new world" (to the indigenous people of this land it was "the world" ) for a minimum of seven years of free labor to the land owner who purchased their indenture.
Others just wanted to escape Europe, for whatever reason, and their term of indentured servitude was usually four to six years.
In essence they were just as enslaved as African slaves, but had the promise of one day being released from indenture.
My ancestors were indentured servants who came from England, not as criminals, but as people who wanted a chance for new life away from the reach of Kings and religious persecution. They were granted their freedom after having served their indenture, and later fought in the Revolutionary War against the British.
So many of these numbskulls - who think themselves so very pure and entitled - had ancestors who were slaves.

[Warpy]

48. Being "transported" to either America or Austraila was the only alternatve

to the hangman in a lot of those cases. The only branch of my family here in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were Dutchmen who probably used some of these indentured servants in upstate New York. Like laves in the south, they were bought and sold, a servant's remaining time sold to someone else if the first owner needed fast money.

The difference was that any children born to married indentured servants were not the property of the master and weren't chattel.

The concept of one's fellow citizens being trash originated in England and sending the trash offshore was very popular. Making some of the expense of that back by selling them to temporary owners was also popular.

Everybody made out like bandits but the people who were thrown off small holding farms by the series of Enclosure Laws, with no option but to flock into already overcrowded cities where there were no jobs or infrastructure for them.

[SergeStorms]

49. Maybe your family owned mine.

Well, held the indenture anyway. 😉 They came to America in 1719 and were indentured to a family named Stanley. After they worked off their indenture they settled in the Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown, NY. area. They were tailors by trade, so I imagine working off their indenture was work that was quite foreign to them.

My Aunt and Uncle, both retired professionals in medicine, did the complete family history in 1962. She wanted her daughter to be able to join the DAR (for some reason I never discovered) so there's quite a bit of documentation that needs to be fulfilled in that pursuit. We have a hard-copy book researched by a professional genealogist with all the family information in it, for what that's worth. It never did anything for me. 😉

It's pretty fascinating stuff, though, and I'm happy they both traveled Europe and gathered the information. It's nice to know your roots. I think of all the people from Africa whose history was taken from them, and feel great sadness. Most of them will never know.

Anyway, many people have no knowledge of this "special" path to the new world, and maybe they'd be a little more accepting of others if it turned out to be part of their history.

Take care.

[Warpy]

53. There is hope that descendants of slaves with African ancestry can know

a little more than they do through DNA testing that nails down specific region instead of just saying "African." I don't think they can nail it down to tribe yet, but the African Genome Project will probably allow that in years to come.

Ah, the DAR. They contacted my mother when she was in her late teens to apply for membership. She said OK, knowing full well that the sour Dutchmen who had once owned indentured servants also fought on the wrong side, but she thought the genealogy would be interesting. She found the whole thing overlong and very intrusive, so when she got to "list your hobbies," she looked up at her shelf of piggy banks and wrote "I keep pigs." She never heard from them again.

[rsdsharp]

20. Eye Patch Elmer shows how to fuck yourself

in one easy lesson.

[MayReasonRule]

21. The Jokes Write Themselves

Time, and time, and time again.

Same as it ever was, hoisted by their own petard.

[Vinca]

22. So is he changing his defense to insanity? LOL.

[TeamProg]

23. Lincoln... Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

24. The saying has been credited to both Lincoln and Twain

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/

[TeamProg]

29. Ken Burns, in 2001 a companion book, a section titled "What Twain Didn't Say"

Yes, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/ Then read further down..

When Ken Burns filmed a documentary about Mark Twain in 2001 a companion book was released, and it listed the following version of the quote in a section titled “What Twain Didn’t Say”: [4]

Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.




- Perhaps not Lincoln, either !

[jmowreader]

26. And which court were you on that decided that, Mr. Rhodes?

Under Rhodes' unusual legal theory, I could just walk into his house, tell him I believe his title deed is invalid, and he'd just pack his shit and leave.

[ancianita]

27. Also, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled."

"I believe" were the only true words he said. A Yale law grad, no less. Like they say -- from Yale to jail.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

52. Or this one,

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

Obviously he doesn't have the brilliance, so he resorts to bullshit, which won't go over well with the jury.

[boyedav1969]

30. You'd think that any defense attorney worth a crap...

...would be advising these guys not to take the stand on their own behalf. Even if they had anything to say that would really benefit them, so many of them tend to be loose cannons. Just about the only reason for them to take the stand is if they're going to lie and/or if they think they can out smart everyone else in the room. So yeah, pleeeeease take the stand.

Of course, it's not like they're going to take the advice of their lawyer anyway.

[Ohio Joe]

39. It's a Hail Mary...

They knew they were fucked once the prosecution finished. Him talking can’t make it worse so they give it a shot. He’ll be destroyed on cross examination.

[SergeStorms]

42. Oh, I don't know.

I think he made it worse. He might as well have asked for the maximum sentence allowable with his litte tirade.

[Ohio Joe]

44. If it turns out that way...

I’m good being wrong

[SergeStorms]

46. Hey, I'm wrong a lot...

it ain't no big deal.

[bluestarone]

31. Prosecutor will say

Please show us some proof of you're belief!

[KPN]

32. Now all we need is all of the jurors having a different

belief than him that the election was “wholly illegitimate”. What are the chances of that? I have to wonder. Just me having a couple of siblings out of 8 who believe the election was stolen based on “the math just doesn’t add up” in their heads makes me nervous.

[Elessar Zappa]

36. So far juries

have done their jobs regarding Jan 6th defendants. I don’t think there’s been one “not guilty” verdict.

[LiberalLovinLug]

37. That's what could be problematic

If its not Trump cult indoctrinated judges, its Trump cult indoctrinated jurors.

Even a decade ago, I wouldn't worry about some random RW whackjob left on a jury, because they were more rare and easy to weed out. Even if they weren't, not many cases would be sagataged, because there simply wasn't the level of indoctrination there is now. Now, in a new normal, being a Republican means that you not only claim to adhere to conservative values of God, guns, and family, but also have a mission to defeat Democrats in every and any way you can. Lying about your intentions to get a positive ruling is inspired from no less than members of the SCOTUS. Or refusing to allow an anonymous decision when guilt is clearly obvious. This is now a real threat to justice.

[NQAS]

33. Before he became a terrorist, did he hold a job with the job description, moron?

I mean, really, how can anyone be this stupid?

[BlueIdaho]

35. Some lines of DNA

Should just be extinguished.

[SergeStorms]

43. He definitely resides...

within the shallow end of the gene pool, yet he believes himself to be presidential material.

Well, it worked for Trump, so I guess I see where he might get that idea.

[Septua]

38. 60 court judges, AG Barr, all 50 states' Governors & Secretaries of State,...

..all of Trump's White House Counsel, his Director of Cybersecurity, etc didn't believe the election was unconstitutional or rigged.

If there had been the slightest hint of verifiable illegality with the election, Trump would be in the White House. You'd think a fucking lawyer (Rhodes) knows the difference between what you believe and what you can prove.