For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.





On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz released “The Legal Limit Report No. 4,” a comprehensive report on the Obama administration’s “persistent power of lawlessness” and abuses of power. “In the more than two centuries of our nation’s history,” Cruz wrote—outlining a period in which American citizens were rounded up and put in camps, deprived of habeas corpus, and routinely denied basic rights on the basis of race—”there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.”

Given those stakes, much of what’s on Cruz’s list is pretty trivial. Not only are many of the abuses several dozen bureaucratic rungs beneath the president’s purview, but there’s no real explanation of how they might be remotely classified as lawless abuses. Here are the eight silliest items on the list: