“Federal Judge Appoints Himself President” is the headline over the latest scoop in the Babylon Bee. The appointment, the Bee reports, was made by Judge Mortimer Dithers of the Northern District of California. The Trump administration’s agenda, the breathless Bee reports,“was stopped in its tracks” by the judge appointing himself president. “There’s nothing we can do about it,” the Bee quotes “legal experts” as saying. “He’s a federal judge.” 

Hah. Good for the Bee. The story is satire, which is the Bee’s business. There is no Mortimer Dithers on the bench in California. Nor is it true that a Judge Dithers granted himself “all the powers of the executive branch in an emergency move to stop Trump.” Nor did a Judge Dithers issue executive orders for Tesla to stop making cars. Yet the gag marks better than any jape we’ve yet seen the hubris of federal district courts in a race to stymie a duly elected president.