"Someone at the White House hasn't read the manual on 'Writing executive orders' and the executive who signed the order couldn't tell an executive order from a large place mat and is, for the 20th time in one week, exposed as a dope. Isn't somebody supposed to be looking after the man?" Garrison Keillor, The Denver Post, Feb. 5, p. 3D.
With the latest slapdown of the Trump anti-government, the Ninth Circuit not only upheld the stay on his travel ban but schooled Trump and Company as well. They delivered, as part of the 29-page ruling, remarks that basically lectured the Donald and his crew like a patient teacher would a backward nursery school kid - on the law.
For example, in respect of the idiotic claim that the courts lack the authority to review executive actions (which are different from orders) the three judges wrote:
"Neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held courts lack the authority to review executive actions in those arenas for compliance to the Constitution."
In other words the Trump cabal that scrawled the "action" wasn't even aware of basic settled law applicable to the case.
In the wake of the ruling, Trump as usual tweeted in caps like a twelve year old:
"SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"
For which the Appeals Court already had a rejoinder embedded in its ruling, even before Trump could tweet, i.e.:
"The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack on the United States."
In other words, the "order" is all palpable horse manure designed to stoke fears among the brain-addled and woefully uninformed. Who - if they were informed - would know that domestic terror attacks by white right wing nuts have exceeded attacks by radical Islamics by nearly 2 to 1 since 9/11.
Trump's 'see you in court' bollocks is especially choice, given he is doomed to lose there(Supreme Court) too, with the likely outcome a 4-4- split, although I predict at least 7 justices (excluding Clarence Thomas) will very possibly see it the Appeals' Court's way. After all, they are also part of the Judicial Branch and it doesn't redound to their benefit to side with the executive. In any case this is all about the level of executive power. Is it absolute or must it have checks and balances? Given we live in a constitutional system - a Republic - the Founders were adamant about checks and balances. And since we can't expect the cowards of the Republican Party to stand up to this mentally unbalanced demagogue, we are left only with the judiciary.
Of course, racist Jeff Sessions recently rammed through as AG, is just as bad as Trump, insisting
"when one is standing in court, representing the United States, there is no place for partisanship or bias"
implying the lower courts got it wrong. But in reality, what he is saying - which is why he ought to have been voted down by principled Republicans - is that there can be no independent judiciary that is not at Trump's beck and call. In other words, Sessions wants the judiciary to be a rubber stamp like Hitler had with the Reich Court.
As Rebecca Love Kourlis has noted (ibid.):
"The Rule of Law is a tough concept to convey. But it is really, really important to our democracy. What it means is that as a society we accept that the law applies equally to everyone — the powerful, the powerless, rich, poor, rural, urban, whatever. The opposite of the Rule of Law is the rule of man: where one person or one group make arbitrary decisions based upon their own personal preferences and agendas without checks and balances."
This is a point Trump and his illegitimate cabal (including Sessions) will have to get through their fat heads, and even conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer concurs he's on a losing wicket (see link at bottom)
Getting back to the schooling of the Trumpistas in the recent Appeals Court ruling, that included the following statements:
-"The Government asserts that [unlike the President] the courts do not have access to classified information about the threat posed by terrorist organizations operating in particular nations, the effects of the organizations to infiltrate the United States, or gaps in the vetting process. Courts regularly receive classified information under seal and maintain its confidentiality. Regulations and rules have long been in place for that."
Following which the statement lists an extensive set of such regulations and rules. In other words, the Government clowns didn't even have elementary facts at their disposal pertaining to the reach of the courts! It's one thing to tell the public or press "if you only knew the scary things we know", but another to say it to a federal appeals court already aware of their powers. In other words, it makes you look like a truckload of fucking clowns or total incompetents.
Let's move on to the next sign of total incompetence, pointed out by the 3 judges:
- "The Government has argued that even if lawful permanent residents have due process rights, the States challenge to Section 3(c) based on its application to lawful permanent residents is moot because several days after the Executive Order was issued White House counsel Donald McGahn issued authoritative guidance, stating that sections 3(c) and 3(e) of Executive Order do not apply to lawful permanent residents.
At this point, however, we cannot rely upon the Government's contention that the Executive Order no longer applies to lawful permanent residents. The Government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the Executive Order signed by the President and now challenged by the States and the proposition seems unlikely.
The White House counsel is not the President and he is not known to be in the chain of command for any of the Executive Departments. Moreover, in light of the Government's shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by the White House counsel - even if authoritative and binding - will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings."
Now, let's process what this means. The clowns in the Trump gubmint basically fucked themselves by essentially saying "Oh uh, please don't rule on that part of the executive order...we decided to change that now...never mind what it says." But the judges had to lecture these dolts that this is not how it works. (Ironic, given Trump tried to compare the Appeals court to 'bad high school students' the night before the ruling was issued - when he now looks like Captain Goober). Thus, the WH counsel saying 'don't pay attention to that part of the EO' fucks it in its entirety because it is part of the EO. DUH! In other words, the EO says 'don't pay attention to it', in that part.
This latest ruling, now making a trifecta, shows these Trump assholes are not only getting successively shut down by the courts, they are completely blowing it on basic A, B, Cs of legal knowledge. The nub of this ruling is that the court wipes out any claim that the administration has the right to do whatever the hell it wants on immigration. Again, in the court's words:
"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of constitutional democracy."
Hence. NO president (maybe a dictator) has "unreviewable authority". Of course, the government authority is reviewable, not unlimited, which is why we have a Constitution in the first place! If you want a president with absolute authority - as 58 % of Trump supporters appear to (according to the latest PPP poll) then go and live in a dictatorship! Get the hell out of the United States, you don't belong here!
Again, this all shows the Trump cabal is not about citizen "safety" but stoking fear to lay the groundwork for an autocracy patterned on Hitler's Reich Courts. So let's not mince words here. These vermin basically want to eliminate an independent judiciary to do whatever they want. "If the President does it it must be valid" - to paraphrase Tricky Dick Nixon, but as he learned, that doesn't wash. So will the Trump cabal.
Meanwhile, the moron Jan Crawford this morning again put her foot in her mouth insisting Trump has "good legal arguments" Uh no, Jan, he does not. Not now, not ever. Unless you - like him - regard the Constitution as "just a piece of paper". The best plan for the Trump cabal is to "fold its tent" as Michael Smerconish suggested last week on his CNN show, given all he stands to do is lose political capital from here on out. But given this asshole's yen for autocratic power - like Hitler - I wouldn't hold my breath. (In a future blog I will be comparing Hitler's psychiatric profile to that of Trump -showing the remarkable parallels)
But to paraphrase Chuck Schumer's advice:
"He should abandon his proposal, roll up his sleeves and start getting to work as a real President as opposed to watching TV seven hours a day and tweeting in between."
See also:
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/09/trumps-travel-moratorium-is-a-hopeless-disaster/
And:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-feffer/71098/steven-bannon-s-real-vision-isn-t-america-first-it-s-america-alone
