Disheartening and demoralizing

Neil Gorsuch is not impressed by Trump’s repeated attacks on the judiciary over the past week. He had a meeting with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Dem, today.

Trump on Wednesday morning declared that an appeals court’s hearing Tuesday night regarding his controversial immigration executive order was “disgraceful,” and that judges were more concerned about politics than following the law.

The remarks followed earlier tweets from Trump disparaging “the so-called judge” who issued a nationwide stop to his plan and saying the ruling “put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system.”

Blumenthal said Gorsuch, whom Trump nominated to the Supreme Court just over a week ago, agreed with him that the president’s language was out of line.

It would be pretty appalling if he didn’t.

“I told him how abhorrent Donald Trump’s invective and insults are towards the judiciary. And he said to me that he found them ‘disheartening’ and ‘demoralizing’ — his words,” Blumenthal said in an interview.

Gorsuch “stated very emotionally and strongly his belief in his fellow judges’ integrity and the principle of judicial independence,” he added. “And I made clear to him that that belief requires him to be stronger and more explicit, more public in his views.”

It does, sort of. If that’s what he thinks then he should say so publicly. We really don’t want Trump attacking the judicial branch.

The contretemps added another layer to the roiling nature of Trump’s young presidency. Some historians wondered if Supreme Court nominees had ever separated themselves in such a way from the president who nominated them; others tried to recall if a president had ever given a nominee reason to do so.

Well, Trump likes to break all the records.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, a group promoting Gorsuch’s nomination, said the judge’s remarks simply confirmed what those close to Gorsuch already knew.

“He’s always been a person independent of the president, and it was shown by his statement,” she said.

Those on the left, meanwhile, said Gorsuch would need to do more than that.

“Is Gorsuch distancing himself from Trump? As we say on the Internet: LOL,” Drew Courtney of People for the American Way said in a statement. “To be clear: Donald Trump’s pattern of attacks on federal judges is more than demoralizing — it’s a threat to the separation of powers and our constitutional system, and it’s hard to imagine a more tepid response than to call them ‘disheartening.’ ”

You mean because Trump isn’t just some talking head, but someone with the power to actually weaken the judicial branch? Fair point.

Speaking Wednesday at the Major Cities Chiefs Association Winter Conference in Washington, Trump said he listened to the oral arguments at the appeals court and was disappointed at what he heard.

“I don’t ever want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased,” Trump told the group. “But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what’s right.”

Trump said the arguments were “disgraceful” because his executive order “can’t be written any plainer or better and for us to be going through this” — he paused to mention that a judge in Boston had ruled to allow the order to continue.

In other words he babbled and veered off the point the way he usually does.

Trump said the courts were standing in the way of what he was elected to do and that even “a bad student in high school student” would support his policies.

“We want security,” he said. “One of the reasons I was elected was because of law and order and security. It’s one of the reasons I was elected … And they’re taking away our weapons, one by one. That’s what they’re doing. And you know it and I know it.”

And fluoride. And ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream. And you know it and I know it. Bad! Nordstrom. Emails. Alec Baldwin. Carnage. Bathrobe. Melissa McCarthy. Judges. Weapons. Pouring in. It’s a disassster. I don’t have my glasses, the writing is very small.

Trump’s comments were the latest escalation in a worsening dispute between the executive branch and the judiciary that the president has personally carried out on social media and in public remarks. While it is not new for a president to disagree with the actions of another branch of government, Trump’s crusade against the federal judiciary comes before the legal process has fully played out and is unusual for its threatening tone and use of personal invective.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that the president is expressing his frustration with a process that he believes should be subject to common sense.

“He respects the judiciary,” Spicer said. “It’s hard for him and for a lot of people to understand how something so clear in the law can be so misinterpreted.”

And you know what? That’s his problem right there. He’s ignorant as pig shit, and he’s having hourly public tantrums because he doesn’t like it that the law is not as simplistic as he thinks it should be. Well tough shit. If he knew anything at all about it he would already know the law is not just “common sense.” Of course a lot of people think the law should be “subject to common sense” but they’re not the god damn president, are they. He is. He has a responsibility to understand how all this works. It’s truly contemptible that he’s whining because It’s Not That Simple. Of course it’s not!

But he’s a narcissist. He’ll never learn anything.

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