REVOLUTION: Say you want a revolution?

MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2025

Remarkably, it's already here: We hadn't heard about Mike Lee's tweets until this very morning!

Shortly after 6:30 Eastern, his tweets were mentioned—and were aggressively assailed—on today's Morning Joe. Amazingly but perhaps predictably, a google search seems to show that Blue America's major news orgs are largely failing to report what the solon has done.

Other Blue orgs seem to be having a hard time finding the language with which to describe what he's done. Also, with which to describe the aggressive reaction his behavior has occasioned.

Mike Lee (R-Utah) is the senior United States senator from the state in question. According to the leading authority on the basic facts of his life, he started out as a child of substantial advantage. 

He now seems to be an adult of a peculiar type of moral / intellectual ruin:

Mike Lee

Michael Shumway Lee (born 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Utah, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, Lee became Utah's senior senator in 2019, when Orrin Hatch retired, and the dean of Utah's congressional delegation in 2021, when Representative Rob Bishop retired.

The son of U.S. Solicitor General Rex E. Lee and brother of Utah Supreme Court justice Thomas Rex Lee, Lee began his career as a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah before clerking for Samuel Alito, who was then a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. From 2002 to 2005, Lee was an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Utah. He joined the administration of Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., serving as the general counsel in the governor's office from 2005 to 2006. Lee again clerked for Alito after he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the 2010 U.S. Senate election in Utah, Lee defeated incumbent senator Bob Bennett in the Republican primary, and won the general election.

Although he refused to endorse Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries and voted for Evan McMullin in the general election, Lee eventually became a Trump ally. He endorsed Trump in the 2020 and 2024 elections and supported the Trump administration's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, although he ultimately voted to certify the outcome.

Lee has been reelected twice, in 2016 and 2022, the latter victory over McMullin.

Early life and education

Lee was born in Mesa, Arizona on June 4, 1971, the son of Janet and Rex E. Lee, who was solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan. Lee's older brother Thomas Rex Lee is a former justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

Lee's family moved to Provo, Utah, one year later, when his father became the founding dean of Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School. While Lee spent about half of his childhood years in Utah, he spent the other half in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. His father served first as the assistant U.S. attorney general for the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1975 to 1976, and then as the solicitor general of the United States from 1981 to 1985. 

So the background goes. Lee was once seen as a fairly moderate Republican voice, but some sort of evolution has occurred. Although, to borrow from the language of Lincoln, we're probably looking at "a result [more] fundamental and astounding" than that.

Concerning the senator's pair of tweets:

You may have heard about the recent murders and attempted murders in Minnesota, one of the fifty states. Over the weekend, as the assailant remained on the loose, Senator Lee took to X to mock the victims of these assaults, but also to mislead the public.

Concerning the flow of public information, please consider this:

Yesterday morning, we were surprised by callers to C-Span's Washington Journal who seemed to think that the apparent killer was a Democrat—who seemed to think that the "No Kings" fliers found in his car meant that the apparent killer was a supporter of that protest movement.

In Minnesota, that wasn't what state and federal authorities seemed to have deduced. But that's what several callers seemed to believe during yesterday morning's 7 o'clock hour.

Watching yesterday's Fox & Friends Weekend, we began to see how people might have gained that impression. Watching last evening's astonishing performance of The Big Weekend Show, the picture became a bit more clear.

Stating the obvious, those are two of the most fraudulent programs in the history of broadcast news. But until this very morning, we didn't know that Elon Musk seems to be part of the latest fruit of the ongoing revolution in American values and procedures.

As usual, Blue America's major orgs are currently staying away from what Senator Lee has done. That said, here's the start of a report from The Daily Beast—a report which, in our view, is searching for the appropriate language with which to describe his conduct:

MAGA Sen. Mocked for Absurdly Calling Dem Assassin ‘Marxist’

Republican Senator Mike Lee faced ridicule for calling the suspect of fatal shootings in Minnesota a “Marxist.”

“This is what happens ... When Marxists don’t get their way,” the Utah senator captioned a photo of alleged gunman Vance Boelter wearing a latex face mask.

The Utah senator also shared another post of Boelter with the caption, “Nightmare on Waltz [sic] Street.”

Other MAGA figures, including Elon Musk, have also portrayed Boelter as a violent leftist.

So read the start of this report. And so read Lee's two tweets. 

According to The Daily Beast (no paywall), Musk has been "portray[ing] Boelter as a violent leftist." That may help explain yesterday's phone calls to Washington Journal. 

Also, it may help explain what we saw on the Fox News Channel yesterday morning, then again yesterday evening, as this truly ridiculous ship of fools swabbed the decks of The Big Weekend Show:

The Big Weekend Show: Sunday, 6/15/25
Griff Jenkins: co-anchor, FOX News Live
Lydia Hu: correspondent, FOX Business Network
Taylor Riggs: co-host, The Big Money Show
Dr. Marc Siegel: senior medical analyst for Fox News

In our view, the conduct of that group was astounding—and their group recitations persisted for the entirety of their two-hour broadcast.

"Say you want a revolution?" Way back in 1968, that's what the Beatles asked.

Today, the revolution has already happened. But as we've told you again and again, Blue America's biggest news orgs seem to be working hard to avoid reporting or discussing that blindingly obvious fact.

In this instance, the orgs which have reported Lee's tweets seem to have had a difficult time finding the language with which to describe what the solon has done. They also softened their account of the way the solon has been assailed for the astonishing pair of tweets.

"Carrying pictures of Chairman Mao," Senator Lee, rather plainly, seems to have been mocking the dead and the brutally wounded. 

For ourselves, we still aren't sure that we (or the Daily Beast) correctly understand what he meant by his tweet about the Marxists. But so you'll know, these are the astonishing messages Lee somehow chose to deliver:

Mike Lee speaks:
First tweet: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.” 

As the Daily Beast reported, that comment was appended to a photograph of the apparent assailant—a photo taken by doorbell cam moments before one of his murderous assaults.

Second tweet: “Nightmare on Waltz [sic] Street.” 

That entertaining comment was appended to another photo of the apparent assailant. To Lee, it was just good solid fun!

Mike Lee seemed to think this whole thing was amusing. He also seems to think the American discourse, or what it left of same, is a very large joke.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk was involved in this, or so the Daily Beast reports. We can guarantee you of one additional fact:

The players dragged out yesterday by the Fox News Channel were deeply involved in keeping Red America's "cable news" viewers misinformed, and under-informed, about the events in question.

"Say you want a revolution?" Back in 1968, the Beatles said, No thanks.

Today, the revolution is in place. But across the sweep of Blue America, major news orgs don't seem to want to report or discuss the way this revolution in values and procedures continues to be brought on.

Dearest darlings, use your heads! As we've told you many times:

It simply isn't done!

Tomorrow: During yesterday morning's 8 o'clock hour, the Fox News Channel's Johnny Joey Jones almost seemed to pretend to conduct an interview about the murderous assaults. 

He almost seemed to pretend to ask a bunch of key questions. He asked nine (9) such questions in all. You can review them here. 

For right now, also this: Here's a second report, this time from HuffPost, about the senator's tweets.

As with the Beast, so too here. It seems to us that this report wasn't quite willing to speak directly about what Senator Lee had done, or about the online response his conduct has occasioned. We see a lot of softened language about both parts of the deal.