Teenager in Chief

What do you do? Do you confront it or ignore it.

When the most powerful man on earth, our president, publicly sends base insults to an entertainer who made a joke at his expense.

“It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$.” That was just part of the rant against Trevor Noah who hosted the Grammys on Sunday.

The instinct to ignore it is born of two things, right. Fatigue. The man is incessant in this behavior. And hopelessness. No price is or will be paid for acting like an out-of-control teenager.

It could be seen as a mercy that the president wastes his time insulting entertainers. He is distracted from sundering historic military and economic alliances, threatening invasions, or wrecking the planet for future mankind.

Ah, but the problem is, not for long. He soon gets right back to doing that. While back-dooring weapons to Israel, he is quietly blocking them from Ukraine. The armada he has dispatched Iran’s way is, in all its detailed military specifications, a force for invasion.

At the same time, he is pushing our economy back to the stone age of oil, away from international agreements, and pushing old friends to take their business elsewhere.

But there is no check, no parental guidance, no time out, no requirement, such as with the young son of a good friend, that the son pay for a new TV after throwing a baseball through the old one.

Our publication is, as the name Courthouse News Service suggests, aimed especially at a legal audience, lawyers and judges.

The law has been to me a bit like a religion, a social religion, a set of rules and traditions and decisions going back centuries, that you can debate, challenge, but ultimately that you believe in.

But let’s say the federal government simply ignored the courts, refused to follow court orders, refused to follow virtually any laws or rules, or any control or check whatsoever, none. Well, except possibly the sentiment of gun owners.

It is their reaction to the killing of a gun-carrying protester that seems to have made the administration slow down in Minnesota.

Beyond that, what can control the teenager in chief. Because it is not the law.

The chief federal judge in Minnesota’s district courts published a list of 96 court orders violated or ignored by the administration. A former law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz was promptly labeled an “activist” by the president’s staff.

“This list should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law,” wrote the chief judge. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

Likewise, after several of his rulings were also ignored, the chief judge in the D.C. District Court, James Boasberg is said to have said at a judicial conference that he was concerned “the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts, leading to a constitutional crisis.”

The national administration’s justice department claimed misconduct and, after looking into it, the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit found that even had the statement been made, it was not an ethical violation.

And, not said in the finding, the judge’s statement was true.

Then a federal judge in Massachusetts found on Friday that the administration violated the federal act that requires open meeting when it quietly created a committee of climate contrarians to write a report then used to overturn an EPA determination that climate pollution is a threat to human health and well-being.

This now seems like small potatoes but it is part of a greater transgression, the slow desecration of our beautiful earth.

Back to what to do. The only hope is the coming elections. It is a slim hope but it is the only disciplinary tool Americans have available.