Supreme Court Strikes Down LGBTQ Discrimination

The Supreme Court issued a new landmark ruling this morning when it held that federal job protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act should be extended to prohibit discrimination against gay workers. Even more surprising that the outcome of the ruling is that Neil Gorsuch, a Trump-appointed justice, authored the opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts also joined the Court’s four liberal justices to form a 6-3 majority.

In the ruling, Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., includes several similar cases but is named for Gerald Bostock, a child social services coordinator who was fired after his boss learned that he had joined a gay softball league. Other plaintiffs included Donald Zarda, who was fired from his job as a skydiving instructor at Altitude Express after mentioning that he was gay, and Aimee Stephens, a biological male who was fired from his funeral home job after telling his employer that he planned to “live and work full-time as a woman.”

The ruling holds that the employers in all three cases violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which holds that it is “unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual . . . because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

“An employer violates Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in part on sex,” Gorsuch writes in the majority opinion. “It makes no difference if other factors besides the plaintiff’s sex contributed to the decision or that the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group.”

“Because discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or transgender status requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of their sex, an employer who intentionally penalizes an employee for being homosexual or transgender also violates
Title VII,” the ruling continues.

While the Civil Rights Act clearly did not intend to protect homosexuals, transgenders, and transvestites, Gorsuch notes that the letter of the law does not exclude such claims, saying, “The employers contend that few in 1964 would have expected Title VII to apply to discrimination against homosexual and transgender persons. But legislative history has no bearing here, where no ambiguity exists about how Title VII’s terms apply to the
facts.”

After noting that there is little argument over the meaning of the words “sex” and “discrimination” and that the employers admit to firing the employees due to their sexual orientation, Gorsuch states, “This Court has explained many times over many years that, when the meaning of the statute’s terms is plain, our job is at an end. The people are entitled to rely on the law as written, without fearing that courts might disregard its plain terms based on some extratextual consideration.”

In Gorsuch’s view, his decision was not judicial activism but a result of following the established facts and the written law to its conclusion. While Gorsuch may or may not have sympathy for the gay community, the facts of the case were determined by the words that Congress enacted into law in 1964.

Justices Alito and Thomas joined in a dissent penned by Alito, which notes that a bill that would have defined “sex discrimination to include both ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity'” has been brought before Congress but not enacted into law.

“The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous,” Alito charges. “Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of ‘sex’ is different from discrimination because of ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’ And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to ‘mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written.'”

Alito continues vividly, saying, “The Court attempts to pass off its decision as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation championed by our late colleague Justice Scalia, but no one should be fooled. The Court’s opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriated––the theory that courts should ‘update’ old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society.”

Justice Kavanaugh also penned a separate dissent in which he argues that discrimination because of sexual orientation and discrimination because of sex are not the same thing.

“Courts must follow ordinary meaning, not literal meaning,” Kavanaugh writes. “And courts must adhere to the ordinary meaning of phrases, not just the meaning of the words in a phrase.”

“Both the rule of law and democratic accountability badly suffer when a court adopts a hidden or obscure interpretation of the law, and not its ordinary meaning,” he continues.

In the end, the ruling is not surprising given the Supreme Court’s embrace of same-sex marriage and other gay-friendly rulings in past decades. While the ruling will disappoint social conservatives, most of the country will not be unhappy with the decision. American culture has shifted in recent decades to the point where a large majority approve of homosexuality.

The ruling does hold two important lessons. The first is that Congress should craft legislation extremely carefully and as specifically as possible. The problem is that legislators have no way of knowing how language and culture will shift 50 or 100 years after they pass a law.

Justice Alito makes this point when he writes, “The question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not.”

The second lesson is an established one that Supreme Court justices cannot be depended upon to always vote as their partisan backers wish. This is especially true in the case of textualists who look to the words of the law as written rather than the party platform of the president who appointed them.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, a Supreme Court justice is “like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Gorsuch Sides With Court Liberals - And It's a Good Thing

“But the Supreme Court” was the rallying cry for Trump supporters in the 2016 election. This was replaced by, “But Gorsuch” after President Trump's appointment of Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacant seat of Antonin Scalia last year. Imagine the consternation then when Justice Gorsuch joined with the liberal wing of the Court to rule against the Trump Administration this week in a prominent immigration law case.

In truth, Gorsuch's ruling is exactly what should have been expected from a strict constructionist jurist. This is what most Republicans have claimed to want on the bench, but, unlike judicial activists, a constructionist judge can be expected to rule against partisan interests when the facts of the case require it.

This was the case in Sessions v. Dimaya. A legal immigrant from the Philippines, James Dimaya, was convicted of two burglaries. The Trump Administration ordered Dimaya's deportation under a federal law that requires mandatory removal of any immigrant convicted an “aggravated felony.” The law refers to the definition of “aggravated felony” in the US Code, which is a “crime of violence” to encompass “any … offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” The Trump Administration's position was that Dimaya's two nonviolent burglaries were aggravated felonies under the law. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the definition of “aggravated felony” was unconstitutionally vague.

The ruling, even though it did not include most of the Court's conservatives, was directly in line with how Justice Scalia would have likely ruled. In fact, the ruling in Sessions v. Dimaya follows a precedent in which Justice Scalia wrote the opinion for a unanimous ruling. In Johnson v. United States (2015), the Court ruled that a similar definition of “violent felonies” was also too vague.

In both cases, the justices resisted the temptation to fill in the blanks and decide what Congress meant when it established the statute. Even though many conservatives would have been pleased if the two cases had been decided differently, if the Court had presumed to know the intent of the legislators who wrote the law they would have been guilty of legislating from the bench, something conservatives purport to abhor.

Scalia was a strong opponent of trying to divine what legislators meant when they crafted laws. In a different dissent, Scalia famously railed against the practice, which often leads justices to rule based on their own opinions rather than the letter of the law, saying, “The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”

“If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again,” Scalia explained in a different speech. “You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That’s flexibility.”

If the Trump Administration wants to deport burglars, it should persuade Congress to pass a law that explicitly says immigrant burglars should be deported rather than trying to redefine burglary as a violent crime.

The Supreme Court's ruling in Sessions v. Dimaya may have been a loss for the Trump Administration, but it was a sorely needed victory for the rule of law. It should inspire Congress to be more specific in new laws and leave less room for interpretation by prosecutors, judges, bureaucrats and presidents.

It looks more and more like Neil Gorsuch will be the kind of justice that America needs.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Are Conservatives Tired of Winning Yet?

As a candidate, Donald Trump promised Republicans that “We are going to win so much that you may even get tired of winning.” Over the past year, I’ve noticed that the president’s supporters and conservative critics don’t seem to share the same definition of “winning.”

A few times recently the different views of winning have come to the surface. When Donald Trump tweeted, “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and maybe someday that will happen,” Trump supporters erupted in cheers and celebrations on social media. Several lists of Trump’s accomplishments making their way around the internet, such as this one on Conservapedia, point out the areas where Trump supporters believe he is winning.

From my analysis, President Trump’s accomplishments seem to fall into three main categories. First is the appointments of conservative jurists to positions throughout the judiciary. Second, Trump has used his executive authority to enact a number of promised reforms. Finally, Donald Trump uses his “bully pulpit” to fight back. The duration and effect of these accomplishments varies wildly.

In my view, President Trump’s most important and – so far – only lasting accomplishment has been his effect on the federal judiciary. The appointment of Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is only the tip of the iceberg. Working with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who many Trump supporters view as an establishment foe, Trump had appointed 44 federal judges and had eight confirmed by August. These conservative judges will have a lasting effect on the judicial branch.

The same cannot be said of Trump’s executive actions. Many of President Trump’s executive actions overturn President Obama’s executive actions. A successor could erase President Trump’s executive legacy just as easily.

The quality of President Trump’s executive actions varies as well. His executive actions range from the excellent, such as cutting bureaucratic regulations and reinstating the Mexico City policy to ban federal funding for abortions in other countries, to the ineffective, such as his travel bans that would likely have no effect on fighting terrorism.

Some of Trump’s executive actions, though they fulfill campaign promises and are applauded by his supporters, are actually harmful to the country. In one of his first acts as president, Trump withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership. The lack of American participation did not kill the trade deal, however. Other parties to the treaty are continuing to move forward on the agreement. If the deal goes forward without the United States, it will be American businesses, workers and consumers who lose.

The third category of Trump accomplishments is the most meaningless and illusory. Trump supporters love his snarky tweets and insults. They like the fact that he fights back and consider this an accomplishment. Essentially, Trump’s tweets and insults make Republicans feel good about themselves.

The problem is that Trump has the opposite effect on the rest of the country. An ABC News poll found that 70 percent of the public thinks that Trump does not act presidential and 68 percent don’t see him as a positive role model. The president’s behavior is now directly linked to electoral losses in which voters say that they are voting for Democrats specifically because they oppose Donald Trump.

Another commonly cited accomplishment is the surging stock market. While stocks have hit record highs under Trump, they did the same under Obama. In fact, a look at the stock market over the past 10 years shows that the market has been climbing since the end of the Great Recession in 2009. Supporters have difficulty pointing to any specific Trump policy change that could explain the surging market since Republicans have scored so few victories on fiscal and economic policy.

On the other hand, my definition of “winning” relies heavily on legislative victories that would be difficult for Democrats to reverse. As the Trump Administration prepares to close out its first year and enter a midterm election year, it has not scored a single legislative victory.

The repeal or reform of Obamacare would have been a major legislative victory since Republicans had been campaigning against the federal health law since 2010. Donald Trump campaigned against Obamacare as well, but when the chips were down, the president’s erratic behavior and attacks on Republican senators almost certainly contributed to the reform effort’s demise.

Likewise, Trump began the tax reform effort with a war against Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate budget committee. Trump insisted that, in contrast with conservative fiscal doctrine, that the tax reform not lower the rates of the wealthiest taxpayers. The top 20 percent of taxpayers pay 95 percent of taxes per the Office of Management and Budget, but taxpayers in the top bracket won’t get a lower rate, if tax reform actually becomes law, thanks to President Trump.

While Trump supporters may argue that the president has accomplished more than any president except FDR, most Americans understand how little has been done in the past year. Without the passage of a single piece of legislation that is part of the Trump agenda, Republicans seeking reelection have few accomplishments to run on. As a result, many Republicans are deciding that 2018 is a good time to retire.   

Donald Trump has not ushered in an era in which conservatives have grown tired of winning. In fact, winning has been in short supply over the past year. What President Trump has lacked in winning, he has more than made up for in whining, but that makes a poor substitute.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Few lasting achievements from Trump's 100 days

As the Trump Administration passes its 100-day mark, the most striking thing is how ineffective the new president has been thus far. In spite of a plethora of Executive Orders that undoubtedly please most on the right, President Trump has put few lasting marks on the country at this early point in his presidency.

Even though President Trump has signed many bills in his tenure as president, most have not been laws that have lasting significance. For conservatives, passing laws is not an end unto itself. Laws should roll back government and make it smaller and less intrusive on the American people. Politifact notes that several of the bills that Trump has signed are business-as-usual type laws that designate memorials and name buildings, for example.

Not all of Trump’s new laws have been trivial, however. About half of the 28 bills signed by Trump so far were passed under the Congressional Review Act. This law allows Congress to review and rescind last-minute Obama-era rules by federal agencies. The law provides for a 60-day window to review bureaucratic rules that begins when Congress is notified that a rule has been finalized. The Daily Signal has a list of Obama-era rules that run the gamut from gun control to environment to education that have been rescinded by President Trump and the new Congress. Nevertheless, the laws merely preserve the status quo and do not break new ground in shrinking government or rolling back Obama’s legislation. Additionally, the window is now closed to rescind other rules from the Obama Administration.

The most notable legislative story of Trump’s 100 days is the failure to advance a bill repealing or reforming Obamacare. For seven years, Republicans have railed against President Obama’s trademark health entitlement yet, under President Trump’s leadership, Republicans in Congress have failed to advance even a watered-down version of bill reforming Obamacare.

President Trump’s answer was to pivot from health care to tax reform, but he is likely to have the same result and for the same reasons. The Trump coattails left Republicans with tiny majorities in both houses of Congress. The Republican Senate majority cannot defeat a Democrat filibuster and the House Republicans are too divided between Tuesday Group moderates and Freedom Caucus conservatives to pass a health reform bill. Tax reform is likely to be no different.

In order to avert a government shutdown, President Trump even had to give in and omit funding for construction of his wall and crackdown on sanctuary cities from the spending bill that will carry the government through the end of the fiscal year in September. Trump said repeatedly that Mexico would pay for the wall before asking for taxpayer funds.

Trump has done better with Executive Orders. The president has issued many orders that will slow the growth of government and streamline government regulations. An early Trump Executive Order reinstated President Reagan’s Mexico City policy that banned federal funds from international groups that promote abortion. President Obama had rescinded the policy in 2009. Other Executive Orders, such as the travel ban, seem poorly conceived from the beginning.

Good or bad, Executive Orders are limited. The president cannot legislate from the Oval Office with an Executive Order in place of Congress. Executive Orders may also last only as long as the president who signed them. An incoming president could sign Executive Orders rescinding Trump’s orders as easily as Trump reversed Obama’s.

On foreign policy, President Trump, whose views in the campaign ranged from promising a plan to destroy ISIS within his first month to neo-isolationism in other regions, launched what is largely considered to be an ineffective attack on a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack before turning his attention to North Korea.

For several weeks, Trump suggested that he would make trade concessions to China in exchange for help in dealing with North Korea. As recently as April 30, Trump suggested on CBS News that he was open to dealing with China on trade, saying, “Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade.”

Today that has changed. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross seemed to walk back weeks of diplomatic overtures in an interview with CBS, saying, “I don't think he [Trump] meant to indicate at all that he intends to trade away American jobs just for help on North Korea.”

One hundred days into Trump’s presidency, there is also still no detailed plan to defeat ISIS.

To date, the Trump presidency can be described as lurching from one crisis to another. Some of these crises have been self-inflicted, such as the president’s tweets about wiretapping by the Obama Administration. Others, such as North Korean missile tests and Syrian chemical warfare, have been outside the president’s control. Still others, such as the division among congressional Republicans, reflect a lack of leadership from President Trump.

The one unqualified success that President Trump has had is with the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch seems to be as solid a conservative jurist as anyone could possibly have picked. Nevertheless, the confirmation came at the cost of the filibuster. This was necessary due to unreasonable Democratic obstructionism, but may haunt Republicans in the future.

To have a lasting and positive impact, President Trump is going to have to develop a cogent and consistent worldview on both domestic and foreign policy. So far, the president has been inconsistent on numerous issues in both realms. He needs to make up his mind as to what his goals are and concentrate on those items.

The president also needs to learn to work with Congress. Donald Trump was elected partly on claims that he is a world-class dealmaker. His deal-making skills are sorely needed in hammering out compromises on Obamacare and tax reform, but so far President Trump seems to have little interest in the details of policymaking. The president should realize that the qualities that made him the Republican nominee and that enabled him to win the election don’t necessarily make him a natural leader and statesman.

None of this means that he will have a failed presidency, however. President Trump has assembled a very qualified and capable team. With a few exceptions, the Trump cabinet can truly be called a “conservative dream team.” President Trump should listen to their advice and consider it carefully.

As someone who was a Never Trump conservative and a third-party voter during the election, I must admit that Trump, with all his foibles, has not been the worst-case scenario that I feared. So far, he has undoubtedly been better than President Hillary (shudder) would have been. Neither has he been a valiant, steely-eyed, conservative leader. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

So far President Trump has been erratic and ineffective, but he has trended toward the right. In some cases, such as backing away from his plans to terminate NAFTA, his flip-flops have even be reassuring. In other cases, such as his saber-rattling against North Korea, his actions are downright scary.

After 100 days, the jury is still out. 

Originally published by The Resurgent

It's up to Democrats to save the filibuster

The Democrats cannot prevent Neil Gorsuch from taking his place on the Supreme Court, but how they decide to handle their opposition to his nomination will make or break the Senate’s filibuster tradition. If the filibuster, which has endured in the Senate for more than a century, is eliminated, it will be nobody’s fault, but their own.

The filibuster dates back to at least the 1840s. The early tradition of the Senate was to allow unlimited debate on legislation. In 1917, Senate rules were changed to allow for a cloture vote, in which a two-thirds majority of senators could stop a filibuster. The requirement was later lowered further to the current 60 votes.

The history of the filibuster of judicial nominees is more recent. According to the Washington Post, the filibuster of qualified judicial nominees began when Democrats held up George W. Bush’s nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Court of Appeals in 2003. After seven failed cloture votes, Estrada withdrew his name from consideration and a new Democrat tactic was born.

In 2005, a bipartisan group of Senators called the “Gang of Fourteen,” many of whom are no longer in office, compromised to allow a vote on several of President Bush’s nominees and averted a threat by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to end the filibuster for nominees. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNN that the group agreed that filibusters of nominees would only be used in “extraordinary circumstances” and would “try to do everything in our power to prevent filibusters in the future.”

When Republicans used the tactic under President Obama in 2013, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) changed Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster of most presidential nominees, but left it intact for Supreme Court nominees. “The American people believe the Senate is broken, and I believe the American people are right,” Reid told the Washington Post at the time, “It’s time to get the Senate working again.”

At the same time, Reid also changed Senate rules to require only a simple majority vote to amend Senate rules rather than the traditional two-thirds vote required for major rule changes. Reid’s precedent makes it much easier to Republicans to change the Senate rules today.

Fast forward to 2017 and Democrats are threatening to filibuster another well qualified nominee. The Democrats do not have enough votes to defeat the Gorsuch nomination, but they do have enough votes to block the Senate from voting on him under current filibuster rules.

A Democrat filibuster would be an exercise in futility that would change the Senate forever.

Appearing on Fox News, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Sunday, “We're going to confirm Judge Gorsuch this week.” Implicit in the remark is the promise that there will be a vote on the Gorsuch nomination, regardless of whether Democrats attempt a filibuster or not. McConnell will invoke the so-called “nuclear option” and change Senate rules, which require now only a simple majority vote to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.

For years, the policy of the United States has been one of “no first use” of nuclear weapons. Harry Reid’s decision to invoke the nuclear option in 2013 shows why. It becomes easier for other countries to use their own nuclear option when the situation warrants.

By eliminating the filibuster for most nominees, Harry Reid made it likely that the filibuster would be erased for the few exceptions that remained as well. There is little doubt among Republicans that, if the roles were reversed, the Democrats would eliminate the filibuster because they have already done so. McConnell and the Republicans feel that they have nothing to lose.

Some conservatives were even ready to trash the filibuster while Barack Obama was president in order to end the Democrat filibuster of Obamacare repeal legislation. At the time, this would have been pointless since President Obama would have vetoed the bill anyway.

If the filibuster is eliminated for judicial nominees, the next step in the escalation will be to eliminate it entirely. If this happens, the Senate will lose a valuable protection against a tyranny by the majority.

The Democrats can prevent this and save the filibuster simply by being reasonable. They should admit defeat and allow a vote on Judge Gorsuch’s appointment. They can vote “no” to appease their constituents and assuage their consciences.

In the end, a vote will be held and Judge Gorsuch will be confirmed. The only question is whether the filibuster will be a casualty of the confirmation fight. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Gorsuch denies criticizing Trump

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is distancing himself from comments that he allegedly made about President Trump in a conversation with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.). In the private conversation, later revealed by Blumenthal, Gorsuch reportedly called the president’s criticism of federal judges “demoralizing and disheartening.”

Now Fox News is reporting that Gorsuch is disputing the context of those comments. In a statement through Kelly Ayotte, a former senator who is assisting Judge Gorsuch in his interviews with senators, Gorsuch attempted to clarify his comments and explain that, in contrast to the impression given by Blumenthal, that he was speaking generally and not criticizing President Trump directly.

According to Blumenthal’s account reported in the Wall Street Journal, the senator asked Judge Gorsuch to respond to President Trump’s attack on a federal judge who ruled against his temporary immigration ban from certain countries. “He said [the attacks] were demoralizing and disheartening—those were his words,” Sen. Blumenthal told reporters. “I believe he has an obligation to make his views known more explicitly and unequivocally to the American people.”

Kelly Ayotte’s statement contradicts Sen. Blumenthal. “Judge Gorsuch has made it very clear in all of his discussions with senators, including Senator Blumenthal, that he could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters,” Ayotte said. “He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.”

In other words, while Gorsuch declined to comment specifically on President Trump’s criticism of judges, he is upset by any accusation that judges lack “integrity and independence.” Presumably, this view includes, but is not limited to, President Trump’s tweets.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) confirmed Ayotte’s view in Politico. Sasse said that Gorsuch did not personally attack Trump, but said that “we need to affirm public trust” in all branches of government.

“Frankly he got pretty passionate about it. I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment, because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators. And this is a guy who kind of welled up with some energy and he said any attack on any — I think his term to me was 'brothers or sisters of the robe' — is an attack on all judges,” Sasse said. “What I saw in that guy is he got some energy about it, was this isn't about somebody just who’s just been nominated to Supreme Court. This is a guy if he were on traffic court in Colorado or in Nebraska would have the same view.”

President Trump also questioned Sen. Blumenthal’s credibility based on his claim to have served “in” the Vietnam War. It was revealed during Blumenthal’s 2010 Senate campaign that he had served in the Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam era, but had never left the US.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox & Friends that “the president is fully confident in Judge Gorsuch.”

Gorsuch’s true comments may win him support on both sides. Even veiled criticism of the president who just nominated him to the Supreme Court indicates an unwillingness to be a yes-man or rubberstamp for President Trump’s agenda. Yet, criticizing Trump directly would have been a breach of protocol and would have engendered opposition and anger from Trump’s supporters.

In essence, Judge Gorsuch is the only one in the kerfuffle to look like an adult. Gorsuch looks righteous for standing up for the principles of decorum and civility while not directly criticizing the president who nominated him. On the other hand, President Trump looks bad for treating judges in an unprofessional manner and Sen. Blumenthal looks bad for misrepresenting a private conversation.

Brit Hume may have won the day with a tweet that gave the underlying lesson of the entire controversy: “Never have a private conversation with Sen. Richard Blumenthal.”

Originally published on The Resurgent