There's a perfect headline in The Guardian tonight about Benedict Donald's latest Executive Order: "Trump Signs Order to Restrict Mail-In Ballots in Probably Unconstitutional Move."
Gosh, could American media write headlines like that? After all, as The Guardian correctly points out, "The US constitution gives the President no authority over elections, and expressly authorizes states to set election rules."(Look it up: Article I, Section 4, Clause 1.)
Take it from us, if an Executive Order from the President could magically fix problems with state-run elections, Lyndon Johnson wouldn't have troubled himself to make Congress pass the Voting Rights Act. He could have just wiped out Jim Crow and poll taxes at the ballot box with the stroke of a pen. But it doesn't work that way.
Donald's performative antics have gotten so silly, they deserve nothing more than an exasperated eye roll. Yes, Marc Elias and his valiant team at Democracy Docket will have to contest this latest EO in court. However, judges have become the biggest eye rollers of them all.
Take US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of the man we used to call The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived. (Trump long ago left George W. Bush in the dust.) Leon put a stop to Donald's $400 million Beyond Bad Ballroom today. It looks like the Congress will have to bless it now, and if folks on Capitol Hill value their jobs, they'll vote it down in a heartbeat. (Hint: It's not popular.)
Also today, US District Judge Randolph Moss permanently blocked a Trump EO that defunded NPR and PBS. "It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch," Moss wrote.
The judicial branch is really the only guardrail left, which seems an odd thing to say in the era of the Roberts Court — but Trump is definitely feeling it. If Donald's in the dumps about all this, he can comfort himself that maybe he's not the most ridiculous person in his orbit these days. There's Kristi Noem, for example. We cats PURR.
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