{"id":794761,"date":"2019-04-11T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/opinion-knopf-trumps-call-to-get-rid-of-judges-an-affront-to-our-democracy\/"},"modified":"2019-04-11T21:28:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T03:28:00","slug":"opinion-knopf-trumps-call-to-get-rid-of-judges-an-affront-to-our-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-knopf-trumps-call-to-get-rid-of-judges-an-affront-to-our-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Knopf: Trump\u2019s call to \u2018get rid of judges\u2019 an affront to our democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

\u201cWe have to get rid of judges.\u201d \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not the first time the president has flaunted the rule of law. The president has heckled and ridiculed judges. The Brennan Center has a great article<\/a> complete with photos of the tweets, if you care to relive some of the lowest points in our nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

It makes me sick. I just can\u2019t comprehend how the party which historically pegged itself as the \u201claw and order\u201d party, can be complicit in Donald Trump\u2019s destructive tirades. He disgraces the office and continues to undermine the authority and trust of so many agencies and cabinet posts, I can not possibly recount them all in the space of this column.<\/p>\n

Our Attorney General William Barr will rue the day he called a legally executed FBI investigation \u201cspying.\u201d Trump claims the by-the-book investigation was an attempted coup. How did Trump pass high school history? A coup is an armed attempt to illegally seize control of a government. That never happened.<\/p>\n

For the record, members of Trump\u2019s family and his campaign staff met with Russian intelligence operatives. Russia hacked Democratic Party files and Hillary Clinton\u2019s files, at the very public request of Donald Trump. Seems like a pretty good reason for the FBI to get FISA warrants. The truth of the misdeeds is revealed in the Mueller indictments.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we no longer live in a country governed by the rule of law. Don\u2019t let the facts get in the way of a good story. The criminals accuse the innocent of the crimes they themselves commit. And Fox and any number of websites repeat the lies so many times, the public can\u2019t tell fact from fiction.<\/p>\n

Spying? Trump asked Russia to do his spying. Russia did Trump\u2019s bidding. The FBI received the fruits of Russian spying, ordered by Trump. Then FBI Director James Comey felt compelled to hold a press conference regarding his review of this illegally seized material, besmirching candidate Clinton. But when asked about the FBI investigation into Trump, Comey remained mum. A coup? Election tampering definitely. No coup.<\/p>\n

Now we witness more resignations and dismissals. Trump has a dismal record for staff retention<\/a>. In his latest house cleaning he resembles the Queen of Hearts, \u201cOff with their heads!\u201d He seeks staff to do his dirty work. He\u2019s looking for security and border officials<\/a> who will have no problem breaking the law and violating the Constitution. \u201cHe just wants to separate families,\u201d said a senior administration official, according to a CNN report<\/a>. \u201cAt the end of the day, the president refuses to understand that the Department of Homeland Security is constrained by the laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN reported two sources said the president instructed border patrol agents not to let migrants in. Tell them we don\u2019t have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble, say, \u201cSorry, judge, I can\u2019t do it. We don\u2019t have the room.\u201d The Washington Examiner reported<\/a>, \u201cAfter Trump departed, Border Patrol leaders told their agents to ignore the president\u2019s comments because they would be breaking the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump now says Stephen Miller is in charge of immigration. He\u2019s the architect of the Muslim travel ban<\/a>. He\u2019s the guy with the scary scowl, who apparently has completely lost track of his own immigration roots. Writing for Politico Magazine, his uncle calls him an immigration hypocrite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family\u2019s life in this country. I shudder at the thought of what would have become of the Glossers had the same policies Stephen so coolly espouses\u2014 the travel ban, the radical decrease in refugees, the separation of children from their parents, and even talk of limiting citizenship for legal immigrants \u2014 been in effect when Wolf-Leib made his desperate bid for freedom.\u201d Dr. David S. Glosser is a retired neuropsychologist, formerly a member of the neurology faculties of Boston University School of Medicine and Jefferson Medical College.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one who\u2019s forgotten his roots. At the Jewish Republican Coalition meeting in Las Vegas last week, Trump repeated his new tag. \u201cCan\u2019t come in \u2014 our country is full. What can you do? We can\u2019t handle any more. Our country is full \u2014 can\u2019t come in. I\u2019m sorry. It\u2019s very simple.\u201d There was applause.<\/p>\n

Both Trump and those attending the meeting are descendants of immigrants. As if to highlight his ancestry, Trump made one of his classic goofs<\/a> saying his father was born in Germany, when Fred Trump was actually born in Brooklyn. All but one of Trump\u2019s children is first generation American on their mothers\u2019 sides. What is he talking about? It\u2019s widely believed Melania got in illegally<\/a>. What if we told her, \u201cSorry, we\u2019re full.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lunacy of the president\u2019s position is economists across the board agree we need more people<\/a>, more labor if we are to grow our economy. So what\u2019s Trump\u2019s game: placate the base, or grow the economy?<\/p>\n

The bottom line is, it\u2019s up to us. We must judge ourselves. Will we uphold our own Constitution? Will we allow those escaping torment in their homelands to seek asylum in the USA? Will we allow an intolerant president to disparage those who would come here and work for meager wages in hope of building new lives in a country governed by the rule of law, by judges who uphold the Constitution?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s encourage our government to hire more judges to expedite the immigration process. Let\u2019s encourage asylum seekers to bring good paperwork and evidence of their need to seek a new home. And let us all remember that every single one of us originally came from somewhere else.<\/p>\n

See the online version of this column for links to source material. Susan Knopf is a Summit county resident who writes a weekly column for the Summit Daily News.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe have to get rid of judges.\u201d \u2014 President Donald Trump This is not the first time the president has flaunted the rule of law. The president has heckled and ridiculed judges. The Brennan Center has a great article complete with photos of the tweets, if you care to relive some of the lowest points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-794761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 13:02:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}