The usual kerfuffle in social media ensued, and Trump was bare-knuckled
by what he considers media thugs, purveyors of “fake news.” Following the
pummeling, Trump tweeted, more temperately, “Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but
their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!"
If tweets had been available in the glory
days of President Andy Jackson, the father of the modern Democratic Party might more easily have signaled to John Calhoun, once Jackson’s Vice President, that if the
newly elected Senator from South Carolina continued to press
nullification in response to federal tariffs adversely impacting the economy of
his state, Jackson would send federal troops to South Carolina to
apprehend Calhoun and hang him from the nearest oak tree. Troops were sent; South Carolina abandoned its Nullification Ordinance; Calhoun was not
hanged; tariffs were made less onerous; and a nullification dispute between the
North and the South abated for a few decades, after which a bloody Civil War
decided the issues of nullification and slavery.
Try to imagine, if you will, the incendiary
tweets the Civil War might have generated.
Resemblances between Trump and Jackson have
been made by the lying media – but, really, Trump is no Jackson. He has not yet
threatened to hang his persistent Connecticut “never-Trumpers,” U.S. Senators
Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, from the state’s gypsy-moth infested oak
trees.
Relations between these three are iffy, according to a story
in a Hartford paper, “Amid Vitriol, Can Trump, State's U.S. Senators Come To Terms On Coveted Appointment?”
The coveted appointment is the position soon to be vacated
by retiring U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny, who some years ago improperly intervened in the execution of mass murderer Michael Ross, for
which Judge Chatigny was rebuked, though not fired. It is nearly impossible for
an aggrieved public to fire a renegade judge. Even Andy Jackson could not have
fired Chatigny. Old age is now bearing him off.
The legal world, according to the story, is waiting with
bated breath “to see how Trump and two of his most strident critics come to
terms over coveted political appointments.”
The reporter uses the expression “strident critics” to
characterize the opposition of Blumenthal and Murphy to past presidential
choices. But this is a considerable understatement. Critics render opinions;
U.S. Senators register votes. And Blumenthal and Murphy, both “never Trumpers,”
have opposed virtually all of President Trump’s major appointments. The usually
cautious Blumenthal, a former Attorney General for two decades in Connecticut,
went so far as to impute racism to former U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s
choice for U.S. Attorney General.
“At one point during
his cross examination of Sessions,” Connecticut Commentary noted, "U.S. Senator
and mud thrower from Connecticut Dick Blumenthal subtly suggested that Sessions
might have a soft spot in his heart for the KKK. Blumenthal noted that Sessions
had received some awards during his twenty years in the Congress, among them an
award from the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Frank Gaffney's Center for
Security Policy and the Federation for American Immigration Reform,
the latter of which Blumenthal noted is classified as a hate group by the
Southern Poverty Law Center, according
to a story in the Washington Examiner.
"'Given that you did not disclose a number of those
awards,' Blumenthal asked Sessions, 'are there any other awards from groups
that have similar kinds of ideological negative views of immigrants or of
African-Americans or Muslims or others, including awards that you may have
received from the Ku Klux Klan?'"
Should Trump seek to appoint to the U.S. District Court a
judge who had received awards from the Klu Klux Klan, Blumenthal might just
“blue slip” the nominee. The two Connecticut Democratic Senators can “issue a blue slip, which kills the
nomination by preventing the Judiciary Committee from scheduling confirmation
hearings,” according to the story.
Blumenthal insists – wrongly – that such measures are
“traditional.” They are extraordinary. Tradition holds that senators from the same party as the
president may issue recommendations for judgeships;
Blumenthal is a “never-Trumper” Democrat now in the process of suing Trump for
having violated the emolument clause of the U.S. Constitution, while Trump is a
duly elected Republican President who is under no obligation to accept judicial
nominations from suit-prone party opposition pests such as Blumenthal.
One hopes such issues will not erupt into a bitter twitter
war.
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