Trump floats guy who thinks child labor laws are unconstitutional for Supreme Court

By Joan McCarter
Friday Sep 23, 2016 · 10:59 AM EDT

Does Donald Trump really want to win Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) endorsement, or is he just trying to mess around with Lee's BFF, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)? Trump has released an updated list of potential Supreme Court nominees, with the Utah senator at the top of his list. Now, it might be Lee's ideas about what's unconstitutional that appeal to Trump.

Lee’s conservatism, moreover, is rooted in a hard-line understanding of the Constitution that was popular among judges in the early twentieth century but is now widely viewed as wrong and immoral. As a candidate for the senate in 2010, Lee laid out many of the consequences of his vision—a vision he would potentially be in a position to implement if appointed to the nation’s highest court. Among other things, Lee believes that federal child labor laws, Medicare and Social Security are all unconstitutional. […]

So say goodbye to Social Security. Say goodbye to Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and SCHIP. Can’t afford health insurance? Or unable to find an insurer who will cover your preexisting condition? Mike Lee thinks you should get nothing from the federal government.

Lee has already shot down the trial balloon, his spokesman saying he likes the job he has and "This does not change Sen. Lee's mind about Trump in any way what so ever." So was Trump signaling to the tenthers that he's one of them, or trying to make some inroads into Utah (good luck) or continuing to try to get under Ted Cruz's skin? He's already done that one this week, by giving a totally out-of-nowhere endorsement to a ridiculous issue Cruz is crusading on in an effort to monkey-wrench negotiations to avoid a government shutdown. It's an obscure thing—who runs ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which assigns domain names and which has been overseen by the U.S. but is moving to "a group of international stakeholders" on October 1. Trump leapt into the debate this week, either to force this grudging tweet of appreciation out of Cruz or to just get under his skin. With this elevation of Cruz's BFF, I'm thinking it's the "let’s mess with Cruz" motivation.

Who else is on the list? It's a fairly obscure group—which does not include previously floated right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel—that's more diverse than his previous bunch of old white guys. This one has one woman on it. That brings his total to four women he'd consider for the court. Doesn't even need a binder for that.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/23/1573419/-Trump-floats-guy-who-thinks-child-labor-laws-are-unconstitutional-for-Supreme-Court