An Island in the Pacific

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III preparing to perjure himself before the Senate

I've made reference before to the notion that Trump's attorney general, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, seems stuck in the 1950s. He just nailed it, discussing Trump's disastrous immigration order:

"We've got cases moving in the very, very liberal Ninth Circuit, who, they've been hostile to the order," Sessions said. "We won a case in Virginia recently that was a nicely-written order that just demolished, I thought, all the arguments that some of the other people have been making. We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power."

Emphasis added.

The judge "sitting on an island in the Pacific" is Judge Derrick Watson, of the U.S. District Court of Hawaii; the island is Oahu.

Hawaii became a state on August 21, 1959.

The breathtaking ignorance is deliberate, don't doubt it for a minute. The message, from this lifelong advocate of states' rights now that he's part of the federal apparatus is simply another attack on the judiciary, following in the footsteps of The Hairpiece.

Remember, this is a man who believes, from the bottom of his heart, that if you're accused of something, you must be guilty. He also believes, apparently, that the president gets to make the law, without challenge.

Which is just another demonstration of something I've maintained for a while now: not only do Republicans not believe in our foundational principles, they're vehemently opposed to them. If you doubt that:

In the interview on Tuesday, Sessions also added that judges shouldn't "psychoanalyze" Trump when he was asked about potential judges Trump would appoint.

"I think our President, having seen some of these really weird interpretations of the executive orders that he's put out, I think he's more understanding now that we need judges who follow the law, not make law," Sessions said.

"The judges don't get to psychoanalyze the President to see if the order he issues is lawful. It's either lawful or it's not. I think that it will be real important for America to have judges in the model of Judge (Neil) Gorsuch and (the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin) Scalia, people who serve under the law, under the Constitution, not above it, and they are faithful to the law. They honor it and don't try to remake it as they'd like it to be."

This has become standard right-wing cant for any court decision they don't like. Remember the cries of "lawless" when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Obergefell? Aside from the obvious oxymoron, it's another way of avoiding the substance of the decision, especially when it rests on constitutional guarantees of individual rights. (And contrary to Sessions' assertion, legislative intent has always been an important factor in weighing the validity of laws.)

Via Digby, who notes:

He is an authoritarian monster, the worst of all possible world, the scariest member of the scariest administration in American history.