In other news about grotesque Republican authoritarianism, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the candidate no one outside of John McCain's immediate family wants to run for president, has been caught on tape fantasizing to the Concord City Republican Committee last week about engineering a domestic military coup in the name of jacking up the defense budget:

[H]ere is 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're not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.

It's important to observe that Lindsey Graham will not be punished for this. Not by his colleagues, not by the court of public opinion, not by Republicans, not by conservatives. Like his fellow ridiculously over-interventionist colleague Tom Cotton (R-Ark), he can literally say the craziest, most anti-constitutional shit related to national security, and yet about the only time conservatives will let him have it is when he goes all "Grahamnesty" on immigration.

According to the Republican mindset in 2015, Graham and Cotton are wise men on foreign policy, and the only "radical" in the room is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). That the GOP considers this a winning strategy is worrying enough; that party elders remain this committed to interventionism 14 years into our disastrous nation-building all over the globe strains basic human comprehension.

Link via Mediaite's Andrew Kirell. Related viewing from Reason TV: "3 Reasons Conservatives Should Cut Defense Spending Now!"

UPDATE: Graham's office got back to Mediaite, calling the remarks (in Mediaite's paraphrase) a little "over-the-top humor to win over his audience."