The Media Needs To Stop Conflating Presidents' Critiques Of Judiciary

It was annoying this morning to see CBS legal correspondent Jan Crawford yammering away on Trump's recent attacks on the judiciary and other presidents' criticisms,  including Obama. The problem is that Crawford made no distinction between attacking a ruling and attacking the character of the justices themselves. Let's also be mindful that Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump’s own nominee for the Supreme Court, condemned Trump's attacks on the judges as “demoralizing” and “disheartening.”

NY Times columnist Charles M. Blow put things in proper  perspective, referencing Obama's criticism of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision vs. Trump's attack on Judge James Robart and yesterday the 9th Circuit Court hearing his Muslim ban case:

"That was his personal opinion — and the opinion of millions of Americans, many of whom were his supporters — and he had every right to voice it. Furthermore, he did so by confining his displeasure to the ruling itself and not impugning in any way the character or qualifications of the justices who rendered it."

Why was Crawford unable to distinguish Obama's ruling-centered critique from Trump's attack on James Robart's character ("The opinion of this so-called judge"  etc.) ?  Is it because she's lazy, or is it the chronic media tendency for conflating political incidents and lax reporting?  The issue is open for discussion, but another reason may well be an effort at normalizing a brazen bully who now has even gone so far as to misuse his bully pulpit to push an American company (Nordstrom) to give poor little Ivanka a break.  Nordstrom halted her line of clothes not out of any political pique - contrary to Trump's tweet about it (when does this guy work, anyway?)

They dropped her line because consumers - actually citizens - stopped buying it. Much of that could be traced to a boycott of all things Trump right after the election.

In any event, as Ari Melber (MSNBC legal expert) put it last night, Trump is treading on dangerous ground by insinuating himself into his daughter's business. Isn't he supposed to be divested from his family's  business?  Yes he is, and what this shows is 19 days after his proclamation he'd be disentangling himself from Trumpian businesses, he's as involved as ever.  Apart from the fact it is unseemly for a president to be hawking his daughter's business anyway.

But again, this lunatic has no sense, no judgement, no intelligence. He's a political fraud, also a business fraud  - masquerading as a president. He acts like he's running a grade Z corporation but is supposed to be running the country. Instead he watches cable TV for seven hours a day and tweets the rest of the time.

The guy is so lame, so out of it, his staff is "alarmed" by his behavior. Hence, the most recent leak that he awakened Michael Flynn (part of his national security team) at 3:00 a.m. to ask him a question about the dollar. See e.g.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/trump-call-to-mike-flynn/516087/

This raises serious questions of how this nut would handle a real crisis. My bet is, the citizens of this country - and his staff- would largely be on their own.

It is sad that a sociopathic goober who isn't fit to run a dog kennel is now in charge of our nation. It's a damned tragedy that he hasn't the first clue about how to go about it - other than watching TV and tweeting about every pissant thing that upsets him.

But neither Jan Crawford or any other media person is obliged to run interference for Trump, and that includes conflating his abhorrent and odious actions with the justified ones of other chief executives.

Trump Is Insane And Needs To Be Removed From Office ASAP

"In whatever spider hole in hell they've placed bin Laden, along with all the other petty tyrants of history, all of them must now be laughing. For in the days following 9/11 we grew to despise a thug terrorist who wished to destroy what it meant to be an American.

Now, in the days after Inauguration Day, 2017, we find ourselves led by a thug president bent on finishing the job."  - Chuck Plunkett, Editor of The Denver Post, Feb. 5, p. 1D

With Trump's latest outbursts, the national security state needs to do its due diligence to the nation and remove this "defcon 1"  threat pronto. This is also in the wake of the fact that Russian intervention in our election remains unexplained, uninvestigated and unpunished. Which also leaves open the extent of penetration into the Trump campaign, and now the Trump administration. Indeed, we may  not only have a Russian stooge occupying the highest office, but a crazy man prepared to do their bidding - given they have a compromising video on him.

 It doesn't matter one damn what the cause of Trump's explosive, unstable behavior might be  - even his overuse of Propecia (see last post)) - this lunatic needs to be removed from office for the good of the country. Let's even leave out his whacko pre- SuperBowl remarks to Billo O'Reilly that the U.S. is as bad as Russia in terms of killing political opponents (which Gen. Barry McCaffrey said he never thought he'd hear an American President say).

Put this in perspective! An alleged "America First" president makes brash statements before 50 million viewers that the country he allegedly governs (we've seen little evidence so far other than photo ops) is no different from so many others where political opponents can be offed in the dead of the night. No wonder Gen. McCaffrey had to fight to sustain his composure when discussing it.

Then there are his rabid attacks on an independent judiciary - namely the highly respected judge James Robart - who issued a ruling Trump didn't like. Then there have been his nutso outbursts at Malcolm Turnbull of Australia (which Sen. John McCain had to apologize for) and the other attacks on Mexico's President, apart from bringing us to the brink of  war with Iran.

This is a crazy person, who as Rep. Ted Lieu noted last night (MSNBC, 'All In') , desperately needs to have a thorough mental evaluation. Quoting Rep. Lieu:

"We have a problem here in America: Our president lies pathologically, He has a staff lie pathologically.  He attacks the free press, he attacks the judiciary. Donald Trump is a danger to the Republic and we need to wake up in America to the harm he is causing our country..."

Rep. Lieu went on to reference Trump's Twitter feed and how it shows lots of "mental issues" which he says people can see for themselves/ (I have, and it does! I rate this feed at 'defcon 1' in terms of possibly provoking other nations to retaliate just based on his unhinged garbage. This we cannot afford, not with Trump controlling 6,500 nuclear weapons.)

If Trump had no unilateral control over our nuclear arsenal, I personally wouldn't hit the 'Defcon 1' button and say he needs to be removed with utmost urgency. I'd say let it all play out in the courts, in congress,  like with Nixon. But we don't have that luxury of time, especially now with the Doomsday Clock at two and a half minutes to midnight. As Rep. Ted Lieu went on to say:

"He has a disconnection from the truth which is highly disturbing and we can't have that person making decisions on things like nuclear weapons. ..."

To reinforce this, Rep. Lieu and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey have actually introduced a bill to curb Trump's ability to launch a nuclear strike.   The congressman clarified this bill when asked by Joy Reid about it:

"We introduced this bill last year, and believe it should apply to any American President. But certainly the rants by Donald Trump do make this issue more urgent. The issue is that right now one person can destroy the whole world, the President.  He can launch four thousand nuclear weapons with no checks or balances from the judiciary or the congress.  We think the framers of the Constitution never would have allowed that.

That's why our bill, which has now been endorsed by the New York Times, says that the President first has to get a Declaration of War from Congress for a nuclear first strike."


First, let's grasp that in many ways this bill is unrealistic. For one thing, the Republicans will never allow passage to shackle their personal looneytune whose coattails they're riding to push their agenda.  Second, an enemy first strike could come at any instant, and the time needed to get a declaration of war from congress may only ensure we have no retaliatory response.

But this is why it is essential to have a person of sound mind, a rational person, in charge of the nuclear arsenal - not some crackpot who lacks even impulse control for his tweets. This ought to be a no brainer. The question that occurs for many of us is: Why, when the CIA and NSA (under the Staff D operation) took out JFK for what they believed to be 'traitorous' actions (e.g. failing to go all out to attack Cuba in the Cuban Missile Crisis)  would they allow a serious threat and unhinged Russian stooge like Trump to remain?   It makes no sense, none.  They removed one president from power for his sober actions and restraint, but allow an unhinged maniac with his finger on 20 times more weapons to remain? What's wrong with this picture? Well, everything!

This isn't just blowing smoke or an expression of "bitterness" as the Reeptards claim, but  deep concern the nuclear codes are accessible to a likely paranoid schizophrenic with borderline personality disorder as well.  Add in the lack of any impulse control - who combusts and reacts to virtually everything (as Charles Krauthammer observed in a recent WaPo piece) in the media-sphere, and you have a volatile situation. I'd say one that's thousands of times more serious than transpired with the Missile Crisis in '62.

Consider you are evaluating a candidate for a high profile job with top security clearance and access to more than 6,500 nuclear weapons (the actual number) which could reduce the planet to smoldering, radioactive ash. Would you just assume any bozo would be able to handle this responsibility, OR would you insist on a battery of psychological tests first? Obviously, a sane and rational person would demand the latter,.

In lieu of such tests, which would include the ability to restrain emotions, control impulses and especially to manage them in critical situations, one would also demand attention to detail- including reading each of the daily briefs he's given by intelligence agencies. Thus, as media commentator April Ryan put it last night ('All In') Trump's very avoidance of reading creates its own degrees of harm, alarm and incompetence. While most presidents, including JFK and Obama, typically read documents, papers for up to nine hours a day  - to help make decisions, Trump reads none. Let me rephrase that: he will read a one page dilution of a PDB from Michael G. Flynn, but it must be put in more or less 'fake news' format.

An equally alarming aspect  - reported in the NY Times yesterday- concerns Trump not knowing or understanding what he was doing when he signed an executive order putting Steve Bannon on the National Security Council.  As the Times put it:

"he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council".

I mean, process this - as Gen.  McCaffrey also did in sober terms. What's worse, putting this proto-Nazi on the National Security Council or not knowing that he did? What we may have is not only a Russian stooge in the White House but a semi-conscious zombot. People are putting things in front of him to sign and he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's signing! Because he doesn't read!  Basically, we are all passengers in a 'vehicle' with an insane guy at the wheel, careening toward perdition.

My point here is that if he doesn't read  the exec "orders" he's signing and can't read the PDBs directly but must have an aide (Flynn) reduce them to cartoon form, then he must be replaced!  He is risking the nation's security as well as the world's by his manifest incompetence.  Coupled with his arrogance and recklessness this is an A- bomb ready to blow.

If he also shows symptoms of paranoid ideation, imagining whole groups out to get him or undermine him,  where there is no evidence, the case is even stronger. Hence, when Trump yesterday went to Ft. MacDill outside  Tampa and rambled on about the media deliberately hiding "phantom terror attacks".  We thus have prima facie evidence that this man belongs locked up in a psych ward at Bellevue, at the very least. He certainly doesn't belong in any place or job where he can gain unilateral access to the nuclear football, enter the codes on a whim -  or belief an "enemy" is about to attack- and reduce the world to rubble. The justifications for getting him out multiply by orders of magnitude when we see he believes he is above any law, or any constraint.

If the national security state isn't convinced we've reached the 'Defcon 1'  alarm yet with this nut, then what is the alternative for removal?  The only solution for now, short of a violent intel agency intervention, would appear to be the 25th amendment - assuming enough Republicans can find their spines (which some have, after the O'Reilly interview).  As Richard Cohen put it:

He thinks he is infallible, a kind of secular pope. Things will go from bad to worse...  One remote remedy is impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate...There is, however, another way. Under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” can remove the president for being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”


It is clear to most sober and sentient citizens that Trump is way past the stage of being able to discharge the duties of the office. We simply cannot afford to have a paranoid sociopath (likely controlled by a foreign power)  with the impulse control of a dyspeptic 4 year old in charge of our nuclear arsenal - and who may launch all those weapons because the Chinese, Iranians, or North Koreans might suddenly piss him off.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/todd-gitlin/71065/government-by-outburst

Another Courageous Judge Throws A Haymaker At The Trump Cabal

Marchers on the streets of Seattle Friday night, demanding the Trump dictatorship obey the law.

"I think this cloud is one that is going to rain a storm upon this administration and it deserves it".   - Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe on MSNBC last night

Following in the footsteps of deputy AG Sally Yates days ago, a federal judge(James Robart)  in Seattle   ordered a temporary halt on Donald Trump’s travel ban for refugees and people from seven predominantly-Muslim nations. Indeed, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reportedly told U.S. airlines that they could board travelers who had been barred.  The result was a haymaker of a ruling, effective nationwide, that upheld the Constitution and had the Trump Imperium on their heels, scrambling for response as they went into histrionic mode.

As I pointed out before, this was a no brainer given that the "order" violated the Constitution in numerous aspects including the equal protection clause and also the establishment of religion prohibition.  There was also the fact this glorified tweet was never properly processed and vetted in the first place, one reason it caused so much consternation including among 1,000 career professionals at the State Department. They put their names to a Dissent Letter which allows them to make their criticisms known without fear of retribution from poltroons and narcissistic assholes.

As Washington attorney general Bob Ferguson put it: "We are a nation of laws. Not even the president can violate the constitution. No one is above the law, not even the President"

Indeed, and he will learn - like Richard Nixon did before him - that he is not a goddamned potentate or king, and if his own congress or Justice Dept. will not hold him to account, then governors of the states will. At least those governors who recognize constitutional transgressions when they see them.

AG Ferguson added:

"This decision shuts down the executive order immediately, shuts it down. That relief is immediate, happens right now. That’s the bottom line.”

Meanwhile, Trump's head was exploding as his panties became twisted with yet another uppity guy who refused to kiss his ass and follow his orders, like Aussie PM Malcolm Turnbull and Mexico's President, and now the Iranians too.

In his order, Robart wrote that the states had shown “immediate and irreparable injury” caused by Trump’s order.  He wrote further:

“The executive order adversely affects the states’ residents in areas of employments, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel,” he wrote. He then issued nationwide restraining stops to several sections of Trump’s executive order: its 90-day ban on visa-holders from seven nations, its indefinite ban on Syrian refugee admissions, and its 120-day ban on the entire refugee program.

“The work of the court is not to create policy or judge the wisdom of any particular policy promoted by the other two branches,”


Robart also wrote. “The work of the judiciary, and this court, is limited to ensuring that the actions taken by the other two branches comport with our country’s laws, and more importantly, our constitution.”

The judge insisted that his ruling was “narrow” – about whether certain actions by the president were cause for a restraining order – but concluded that “the circumstances brought before [the court] today are such that it must intervene to fulfill its constitutional role in our tri-part government.”

Late last night, the White House Cabal released a statement saying that it would seek an emergency stay. This was after an earlier request for a stay by a justice department attorney had been denied by Judge Robart. Evidently it's hard for Trumpies to grasp when THEY are breaking the law. Also, it's extra sad that with Sally Yates' departure the DOJ under her replacement Dana Boente appears to be filled with just 'yes'' men and poppets  - prepared to do the potentate's illegal bidding.  They seem to have left their principles at the door.

Propaganda Secretary Sean Spicer said last night:

“At the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this outrageous order and defend the executive order of the President, which we believe is lawful and appropriate. The president’s order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people,”

Of course, this is all recycled horse shit and as I noted in previous posts it does nothing to protect the homeland. All it does is to give ISIS plenty of propaganda material for its online recruitment. That along with the Trump earlier blurt that we "need to take the Iraqis oil."  How dangerous is this stuff? Ask anyone serving in Iraq who now must  look behind their back every second thanks to this deranged fucker's impulsive words.  

Almost as degenerate, as Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe noted last night, was the secret order issued with the phony executive order that all lawful visas be rescinded. In Prof. Tribe's words:

"So called laws made in invisible ink, in the dark, in ways that violate our constitution, hurt everybody."

Referencing states' retort to the idiots in the DOJ, to the effect that they "lack standing". No they do not because their universities and businesses are adversely affected by this fucking ban.

Another takeaway for these Trumpist jackasses and the fools who defend them: The American Enterprise Institute has calculated that the odds of an American being killed by a Muslim refugee are 3.6 billion to 1. That is greater odds against than three Apollo asteroids crashing into the Earth at once.

And finally, 48 college presidents - including from Harvard, Brown, and Washington University (where one of the debates was held) have signed a letter to Trump pointing out the dangers of his foolish "executive order" and how it was unconstitutional and risked Americans' safety.

Michael Smerconish this morning wisely advised it was time for Trump to "fold his tent" and not squander any more "political capital".  (As if he ever had any). Smerconish observed the alternative is that the litigation arising will likely last longer than the ban itself. Indeed, it may last years.  As Trump and his cabal fight on with many different courts and rulings, it is assured that many of his other plans will be flayed as he loses whatever scintilla of capital he has left.  But he has no choice, given "President Bannon"  has issued his direct orders to the Donald.

It was not immediately clear whether authorities would comply with the broad order, especially after officials reacted in confusion a week earlier, detaining valid visa holders and arguing with lawyers. But the justice department at least had the sense to say it would not immediately file for an emergency stay, at least on Friday night. Reports said Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had informed US airlines that they should board travelers who had been barred by an executive order last week.

For those who may be unaware, we are already in the midst of a constitutional crisis, certainly in the embryonic phase.

See also the view from Barbados:

http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/93159/editorial-surely-trump-card-mere-trump-blasts