(Dobbs) Who’s the Lunatic Here?“A power struggle” between Trump and the federal courts, “which is testing the basic tenets of U.S. democracy.”
Doesn’t this guy have anything better to do? Yesterday, at 4:08 a.m., the president of the United States, who is supposed to be working hard to end several wars and make Americans’ lives more affordable, put up another psychopathic post. It’s about his unwanted plan to convert a public golf course beloved by everyday golfers on the Potomac into a golf course for the elite: “The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that!” But because a federal judge had issued an order that the government must provide at least three days’ notice before making any kind of “irreparable modification” to the 27-hole course, which came after the first roughly 400 trees were taken down without public notice or official approval of any kind, Trump insisted: “They do not need an approval. Work is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY!” And then this, as if to assure us that the work will be done to his unparalleled standards: “The experts at ‘Interior’ are allowed to do this First Class renovation ‘as of right.’ They do not need an approval.” Yeah. Just like the way the “experts at Interior” brought ruin to the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall: Then he attacked the federal judge who is trying to put the reins on at least this one impulse of the president: “The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane? The tapes have been blocked from usage by the judge.” Who’s the lunatic here? But that preposterous post in the middle of the night wasn’t enough. Still not having solved the wars or made life a little cheaper for Americans, our commander-in-trivial-obsessions came back to the internet just before midnight: “‘Trash Island,’ Washington, D.C., the nickname for the broken and dilapidated Golf Course that is the subject of frivolous litigation in the United States Court System, before a judge that seems not to want Greatness for our Capital or our Nation (but who knows?), has been badly managed for so many decades that it is a completely nonviable and unsafe Project.” Then he posted a bunch of photos meant to confirm the claim: Maybe he forgot that some of this debris is the consequence of the trees he took down before the federal judge jumped in. It’s just one more conflict in what The Associated Press back in May called “a power struggle” between Trump and the federal courts, “which is testing the basic tenets of U.S. democracy.” According to the AP, which reviewed court records, “In the second Trump administration’s first 15 months in office, district court judges ruled it was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices.” And that was back in May. Before the golf course and other conflicts even made the list. This tug-of-war over the golf course is just another one. But it highlights the contempt Trump has for the judicial branch of government. In a hearing yesterday, an associate attorney general told the judge that he considered her order for at least three days’ notice “inappropriate” and that in fact, he would tell his colleagues to blatantly ignore it. She rightfully shot back, “I’m the one who’s going to say how we move today, not you.” But issuing the order is one thing, enforcing compliance is another. The Washington Post reports today that another roughly 330 trees have been targeted for removal. “Unlike trees NPS removed earlier this year because they were dead, dying, hazardous or invasive,” The Post says, “the trees targeted last weekend were healthy and noninvasive, according to NPS (National Park Service) officials’ testimony.” This is a small story on the large spectrum of defiant and anti-democratic moves by Donald Trump, a solution in search of a problem. But that’s the point. He has made it a large story…. all the while solving little or nothing in the issues that Americans need him to fix. © 2026 Greg Dobbs |