Vestal: Shea mounts weird defense

Columnist Shawn Vestal/SR comments:

Just curious: What kinds of defamation and libel laws will we have here once we’ve created the new God-honoring, gun-loving, Eastern Washington state of Liberty?

Will lawmakers be allowed to casually slime people by baselessly claiming that murder weapons “trace back” to them? Will they be able to escape consequences for peddling sloppy lies, so long as they can claim they are busy making laws?

Will that just be considered “constitutional?”

Maybe so, if we are to judge by the manner in which Matt Shea – point guard for Team Bundy and proponent of the silly, hypothetical state of Liberty – is defending himself in a defamation lawsuit. Shea wraps himself crudely and simplistically in the Constitution at all times, but there is something extraordinary in the degree to which he attempts to co-opt “constitutionality” as his defense for claiming a sheriff’s deputy was linked to a triple murder. More here.