Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
If only you were in a position to do something about it…
He’s not, unless you want a different coup. It’s up to Congress and the Senate. Executive, Legislative, Judicial.
Technically 2/3 of states could amend by statute
2/3rds of the States can’t even agree whether or not you can marry children.
Asking them to amend anything at this point will fail.
yep
It’s checks and balances, not rock paper scissors
His power here is to set a direction and to nominate new appointees. He could write a bill to expand the bench and/or a constitutional amendment to require a code of ethics… Hell, he could even say “ok supreme Court, you say you can self-regulate… Publish your own code of conduct publicly or I’ll lead the charge in imposing one on you”
Presidents have a lot of soft power. He can write executive orders to demand the problem be evaluated, or he can use his platform to rally support… He can even go to Thomas privately and suggest he resign with dignity while he can, even try to bluff him off the bench
There’s a lot he could do - his hard power over the supreme Court is very limited, but soft power is how most everything works
He’s doing one of the only things he can do: using his soapbox to draw attention to the issue.
The only real fix to this would be for Democrats to hold a majority in the house, a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate (or remove the filibuster with a simple majority), and the presidency.
The last time this was possible was a brief 7-month period from 2009-2010. Prior to that… 1978.
He could use his soapbox to promote remedies to the situation, instead of finally acknowledging that this is an unmitigated disaster.
Conservatives don’t wait for a supermajority to effect the change they want. You act like Democrats want to build consensus before doing anything, but Biden doesn’t even seem to have consensus on what he wants to do.
What would Biden do with an absolute majority? How would he fix things? That’s what he should be talking about, what he should be promoting.
Conservatives don’t wait for a supermajority to effect the change they want.
They don’t need a supermajority. All* they want to do (cut taxes and budgets via reconciliation and stack the courts*) is possible with a simple majority.
* Supreme Court does still need 60 votes to end debate and actually vote on confirming
- Supreme Court does still need 60 votes to end debate and actually vote on confirming
I thought McConnell actually ended that for Supreme Court nominations with his rule set, and that’s how he was able to stuff acb on the court.
I didn’t spend long looking for a source and what I found just said it goes from committee to floor debate then to a vote, and I assumed anything going to the floor for debate needed a cloture vote to end debate. But looking up the cloture vote for ACB does say it ways 51 to 48, so yeah looks like I was wrong.
Pointing out the problem puts it into play for public debate, and there isn’t anything Republicans can say about the issue that doesn’t make them look bad (because on this issue they are unquestionably the villains).
Getting into details about the solution, however, offers the Republicans a line of attack and a way to muddy the waters. (“They want to pack the court!”).
Nothing is gained by having Biden get into the nitty-gritty, but something is lost.
Prior to that… 1978.
Republican president from 1980-1992. And in 1993-1995 we hadn’t yet seen this insanity of obstruction for the sake of power, so getting rid of the fillibuster at that time would have seemed like an unprompted power grab.
I’m fairly certain that Democrats didn’t hold all branches of government with a majority in both houses for a full eight years.
Honest question here … what would you have him do?
Pack the court it’s with in his power to add justices to the Supreme Court. Democrats have the majority in the Senate so it can be done.
Where are you getting this idea the president can do this? When you see an article on this type of thing at least check the wikipedia page. I understand how the misunderstanding comes about due to the talk around the new deal in history classes but roosevelt only pushed for congress to act. This is something you see a lot with presidential tenures. They will push congress to act but they themselves can only do so much. It is only in recent times executive orders have been used extensively but this is still limited to what congress did not define and the constitution does not define in law.
roosevelt only pushed for congress to act.
That sounds like a good step. Where are Biden’s speeches on pushing Congress to pack the Court?
I really don’t think he should. It was not a great move by roosevelt either. It was actually about judges retiring. I actually think no one should be holding an office of any kind after 60 myself. Just adding more though is not going to help. Better to impeach them.
It was not a great move by roosevelt either.
And yet after it the votes changed and they allowed the New Deal. Courts become less extreme when their comfortable power is threatened.
What’s your solution to a corrupt court throwing away precedent and making law from the bench? Just pat Mitch McConnel on the back and say “shucks, you got us Mitch, guess we’ll just live the rest of our lives under conservative rule”? Because waiting for 67 Democratic senators or multiple conservative justices dying under Democratic rule isn’t likely to happen.
Adding more justices may instigate a tit-for-tat, but it’s no worse than just accepting that they get to make law for the rest of your life, and the credible threat of doing it (or the actual practice) is likely to lead to real functional reform.
I don’t believe the courts “allowed” the new deal because of the court packing idea. The court by its nature can’t change votes whatever you meant by that. I have no solution except impeachment and indictment which I would truly love to see. Taking bribes like that should never be acceptable.
Nobody wants to be the first to add justices, because that can become a game of one-upmanship where you’d could theoretically end up with a 91 person SCOTUS.
That’s literally no worse than simply submitting to a corrupt and illegitimate conservative Court.
You’re not wrong, but the number of justices could be linked to them number of judicial circuits, which now sits at 13.
What’s wrong with that? More brains the better and when bribes are involved billionaires will have to spend more.
They still own the house and senate and there’s a whole bunch of those.
The court is limited to 9 by law. He’s need a majority in the house and eliminate the filibuster to change that.
Step down and be replaced with Bernie.
Limit how many years they can stay there?
That’s up to Congress, executive branch has nothing to do with it.
I assumed that he could propose a bill or something. And what about executive orders? How does that work? I saw Donald Trump sign some stuff into law while he was in office.
Sorry, not American. I don’t fully understand how your system works.
He can suggest a bill, but he can’t submit it himself, someone in the House of Representatives would have to do it for him.
And as far as executive orders go they can be overturned by Congress or the next sitting president, and there are limitations as to what can and cannot be done via executive order.You’re the only person so far that hasn’t freaked out and have me an explanation. Thank you!
Not a power that belongs to any branch except through a constitutional amendment. The Constitution says life during good behavior.
You may want to actually read the Constitution one day. It makes no mention of “life”. Here’s the text of Article III, Section 1:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Reddit-tier commentary here
Just pointing out that the constitution does, in fact, not say for life as you stated.
While technically true it’s irrelevant as the constitution does not specify any term limits. So yeah - reddit-tier nit-picking over a detail while missing the entire point.
Right? Fucking hell…
If I’m so ignorant of the American democratic system, when I’m not even American myself and was never really educated on the system, would it bother people to explain to me why what I ask is not possible instead of throwing insults?
The comments in this thread are appalling.
What does “during good behaviour mean”?
If their term is given no limit, it’s for life. This isn’t rocket science.
Do you have any basis in fact for that assertion? If it’s not controlled by the constitution than Congress can set a limit.
- It’s not clear that’s constitutionally possible and guess who gets to decide whether or not it is.
- Even if it were that’s not up to the President.
Civics education in this country is fucking pathetic.
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I’m Canadian… not everyone on the internet is American.
I just thought the president had the power to sign an executive order or some shit like Trump did for a bunch of things.
You still have zero excuse. If you think the head of state of any liberal democracy can change the judicial system by fiat you don’t have the understanding nor mental horsepower to be reading about this instead of an introduction to government textbook.
Jesus Christ man. Will you calm down? What’s with the insults?
This isn’t Reddit. Take a chill pill for Pete’s sake
Don’t be insulted. Be better.
Civics education in this country is fucking pathetic.
I agree with you but there’s no reason to believe that the people proposing blatantly unconstitutional courses of action are American. In fact there’s no good reason to believe they’re even arguing for this in good faith. There’s a lot of a bad actors on the internet getting paid by various nation states to foment problems.
I tend to put commenters who won’t accept that their plan is outside the bounds of the law into that second category. They KNOW what they’re saying would cause serious problems if it was done but they keep repeating it. They act just like the Russian led MAGAts with the sole difference that they’re pretending to work for Team Blue.
Oh of course! Sure!
I’m not American and I don’t know how your whole complicated political system works. So if I ask if something can be done a certain way and it’s not how it actually works in your system I simply MUST be a foreign bad actor trying to influence Americans to vote for Putin as international world overlord.
/S
You’ve been instructed over and over and over in this very topic how our system works and you ignore to continue pushing a plan that would have devastating and immediate consequences.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck odds are good that it’s a duck.
pushing a plan that would have devastating and immediate consequences.
It’s some peak white moderation to think that there aren’t already devastating and immediate consequences to simply passively accepting fascism to preserve “order”. You’ll croak about civics education while people are losing their lives due to a corrupt and illegitimate court being giving cart blanche to rewrite law.
Right…
Some of ya’ll need to go back to Reddit with that kind of attitude.
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Yeah that’s by design. Wouldn’t want people doing something crazy like paying attention and trying to do something about the institutional cruelty. 🤔
What are “two excuses you’ll never hear from a Conservative”?
That’s because it’s much easier to roadblock things than implement them.
The GOP got their perjurous Justices confirmed, their tax cuts passed, their book bans, and the end of Toe V Wade. Seems like they are implementing just fine.
That’s not really implementing… You left out every bit of context.
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They waited and said no, we won’t confirm Garland and then got the majority and pushed through a justice during an election.
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They’re ignoring laws and passing their own book bans that their now regressive Supreme Court is cool with.
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And the end of Roe v Wade was accomplished at least in part but that same saying no and waiting.
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The book bans are happening at state level, not federal. Other than that, it’s all been tearing down what’s existing
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The Democrats did that a month ago (and in Aug 2022 as well).
Notice that it only has a 1% chance of passing at this point (as it’s got to get through the committee first).
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Do you want a dictator? Or do you not understand that Biden can’t do that?
Take a chill pill. I’m not American. I don’t know everything about your system.
You would do well to indicate in your posts that you know absolutely nothing about the topic and have no business discussing it then. It sounds more like a suggestion than a question.
Man, fuck off. What are you? The boss of the internet?
I’m “not the guy admittedly opining on a subject I know nothing about”.
Lol, man your trigger was sensitive.
You’re good. Sadly, if you don’t repeat the approved narrative you are treated with hostility.
By “approved narrative” do you mean “the law”?
He could introduce a plan to reform the courts, but it would ultimately have to go through Congress.
There are a few options available. Pack the court, call for ethics inquiries, draw attention to the unconfirmed justices, or literally anything at all. Go on the attack. Be a leader. Demand justice. Biden is content to shrug and say “Ah, well, you see the GOP controls too much, so only if we have all the power can we make things better.”
He’s not governing, he’s campaigning.
Go on the attack. Be a leader. Demand justice.
Literally what the article is about.
Not at all.
When asked the question directly, Biden paused for a few seconds. Then he sighed and said, “I worry.”
“Because,” he said, “I know that if the other team, the MAGA Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
But he said, “I do think at the end of the day, this court, which has been one of the most extreme courts, I still think in the basic fundamentals of rule of law, that they would sustain the rule of law.”
The reasons he was Obama’s VP:
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He was “the Republican Senator whisper”
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He was supposed to be there to guide Obama
He was supposed to be the one that got that SC pick thru, but I don’t remember seeing a single article or interview where he tried.
That 5 years later people forgot and started claiming Joe was “the Senate whisper” again was just fucking ridiculous. The only thing worse was when Biden implied once the Dems had a white man as president, suddenly Republicans would be super cool again.
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With hindsight, given the dirty tricks the GOP played in order to secure Trump two Supreme Court appointments; the Dem’s should have just gone full radical and take the Senates refusal to put the nomination up for a vote as a tacit ‘approval’ (seeing as they didn’t technically vote him down), and sit Garland on the court.
It’s the political equivalent of not negotiating with Terrorists, akin to the Paradox of Tolerance.
It’s like playing checkers with a kid who openly cheats…
If you keep following the rules, the kid will always win. If you can’t make them stop cheating, your only options are to stop playing or cheat back.
This isn’t a game of checkers tho. We can’t just stop, and if we keep following the rules then we’ll never win.
So literally the only thing we can do is play like they do.
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They don’t give a fuck about the rules. Why should the Dems? They don’t want to play by the rules, then we shouldn’t hamstring ourselves with following the rules. If they want to knock over all the pieces and shit all over the board, that means we can do whatever we want, whenever we want because they threw the rule of law out the window, after wiping their ass with it.
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Change the playing field during the few weeks he had a supermajority in the house and Congress.
Campaign finance reform, voting rights guarantees, fucking anything rather than pissing away an opportunity to actually enact some meaningful changes.
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Tell me what he could’ve done
At the absolute bare minimum Biden should have understood that the issue with Republicans wasn’t just a Black president…
And that “working with Republicans” wouldn’t work.
Yet that’s what Biden ran on in the primary, and surprise! Working with Republicans is just as impossible today.
It’s not that complicated, and I highly doubt no one has ever explained that if you ask a lot…
Are you just ignoring people when they try to explain that to you?
Are you just ignoring people when they try to explain that to you?
Well, you ignored the actual question. The question was what could Biden have done to get the Dem nomination to the Supreme Court through in the face of McConnell obstructing it.
Well, if he was there for his ability to negotiate with Republicans, he could have negotiated with Republicans…
If he was there to use his lifetime in the Senate to advise Obama, he could have explained that the Senate is just allowed to vote on SC picks. Not voting is a choice, so Obama should have called their bluff and appointed his pick.
asdfasf
I recall an exchange, I think it was between Obama and some Republican senator, but for the life of me I haven’t been able to find it since I read it. It went something like “I’m not going to vote on this bill without something in exchange.” “Okay, I can make sure we get some funding for some project. So, this means I can count on your vote?” “Oh, no, I would never vote for that.”
There is no negotiating. You try to meet them half way, and they’ll take a step back. Every time.
So…
Why did Biden, the party, and the media all act like Biden was the only one who could negotiate with Republicans in 2020?
Were all those people just too stupid to know better? Or were they all lying to voters?
Yes, I’m quite sure that Obama, the Constitutional scholar, wasn’t aware that a simple trick like saying ‘I’ll accept your silence as consent’ would actually work and get his SC pick through. I’m absolutely confident that whoever the hell you are is right and Obama, Biden, and their entire administration overlooked this one neat trick that republicans hate. Damn you’re smart.
…
Republicans were cheating, so we just gave up?
How did that work out? Did republicans suddenly discover morals and stop cheating?
Is everything better now that we took “the high road”?
It’s insane to see so many people act like they’re fine with the last decade of politics and think Dems are doing a great job
A) republicans cheat within constitutional loopholes. what you bigger isn’t a loophole, it’s wholesale disregard for the constitution.
B) they’re bad so we should be bad too is a shit line of reasoning.
C) I’m not fine with the last 30 years of politics (if you think it’s only a decade that we’ve been seeing the rise of this breed of fascist right wing, you’re less informed than even I guessed from your previous comments), and the dems are doing a pretty poor job, particularly in regards to being aggressive with pushing their agenda through.
Grow up.
In all fairness, saying “working with Republicans won’t work” isn’t specifying what the Dems could have done to have their nominee seated, which is what the commenter asked for.
Oh, thought we were talking about Biden…
Back when Obama was in office he should have said:
If republicans won’t hold a vote, I’ll appoint who I want
And then just fucking did it. Republicans don’t just do what they’re allowed, they do everything they can.
That’s why their winning. They don’t spend half a term discussing if they can do something, they do it and hope it sticks.
You can say that’s not how a government should work, and I’d agree. But when 2 people are playing a game without a ref, you better cheat just as hard or you’ll never win. Because regardless of if we always play explicitly by the rules or not, they’re gonna keep cheating.
We can piss and moan all day about how it shouldn’t be like this, but the reality is that it is like this.
Oh, thought we were talking about Biden…
We are. You asserted that as Obama’s VP “[Biden] was supposed to be the one that got that SC pick thru.” And you’ve been challenged to state how you think Biden could have done that.
Your suggestion what you think Obama should have done belies a misunderstanding of the process. Obama did appoint Merrick Garland. The Constitution says the appointee has to be confirmed by the Senate before they can be seated. The Court isn’t going to end-run around that and seat an unconfirmed judge.
The lesson to have learned is not to cheat harder than them, it’s that we need to update the rule book to prevent this type of obstruction in the future.
There actually is a loophole that allows for appointments without approval. If the senate is in recess the appointment just happens. The Obama administration tried and failed to argue several lower positions were recess appointments when there were pro forma sessions though. It’s really not possible that a justice was going to be seated without approval.
Very true about recess appointments.
Actually during recesses Republicans would leave someone behind to keep the Senate in session. They’d open and then adjourn, essentially blocking recess appointments.
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asdfasfa
Lol, I know it’s fake internet points, but how does this guy have a positive score for the “direct violation of the constitution” strategy.
sadfasdfasdf
Because your country is rife with people who don’t understand how their own country works.
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Too bad you can’t scroll down and see I’ve addressed that multiple times…
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I just realized I already replied to you multiple times… No matter what you just say “that’s not what I meant” and never clarify what you meant.
I think the reason “no one has explained it to you” is the same reason my dog doesn’t know anything about nuclear physics. The smartest experts in the world can spend his whole life explaining it.
But my dog is never going to get it. Thinking that means there’s no explanation for nuclear physics…
Do you honestly think what you’re saying in this thread is intelligent? Admit you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about and log off for the day, bud.
Dude. Your answers are like complaining about our lack of faster than light travel. It’s actually impossible and yelling about it not happening is not an actual solution.
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I think each state should have 1 justice. Enough of this supreme 9 crap.
Then maybe he should have packed the court with some good judges
“Upload OUR version of the law.” Fixed it for you.
Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
If he really worries about that, and is not just scaring people to vote for him, then he has a responsibility to enlarge the court.
I’d argue this should have been the immediate response to Mitch McConnell blocking nominees half a term away from an election, but if the court can’t uphold the rule of law, it should be fixed (and expansion seems like the obvious solution) or replaced.
The procedural question on this one is whether he could shrink the court to boot say… Thomas, then expand it again to replace him with someone less obviously corrupt. Republicans fail to confirm a replacement? We’ll shrink the court a little more. Obviously, this won’t happen, but I’m interested to know if it’s possible.
I’d argue this should have been the immediate response to Mitch McConnell blocking nominees half a term away from an election
Honestly I feel like that needed a civil war level response, that really should not have been allowed/normalized, regardless of which party initiated the block.
whether he could shrink the court to boot say… Thomas, then expand it again to replace him
I couldn’t agree to that, that’s way too manipulative and dishonors the previous selections from previous presidents.
I would expect him to just expand the court by two seats, if he was going to try to do something along these lines.
dishonors the previous selections from previous presidents.
To what degree should prior selections be honored/respected if the presidents in question won under questionable circumstances, e.g. George W. Bush’s election in 2000 and the stopping of the Florida recount, or Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016 after his call for foreign interference, alongside James Comey reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton just before the election?
To what degree should prior selections be honored/respected if the presidents in question won under questionable circumstances
It would depend on the circumstances, but it would have to be very unique and extreme circumstances. The goal would be to avoid a Tit for Tat downward spiral to Civil War.
George W. Bush’s election in 2000 and the stopping of the Florida recount,
I believe that the mob that raided the office should not have allowed the vote counting to have been stopped. IMO it gave a green light to whomever set that up to go forward and do something along the lines of January 6th.
Having said that, no I wouldn’t for this situation. Almost, but no.
or Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016 after his call for foreign interference, alongside James Comey reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton just before the election?
No. Simple political interference wouldn’t be enough, we’re talking about extreme circumstances only.
Don’t forget Reagan/Carter. Reagan manufactured the October Surprise, making a deal with terrorists to prolonging a hostage situation in Iran, just to tank Carter in the polls.
Yeah, the most scandal-ridden judge was appointed under H.W. Bush. They’re not a particularly worthy bunch even aside from shenanigans.
Shrinking it (through established legal channels) is impeachment and removal which has a high bar. Enlarging it is just passing a law, which is only hard because the senate has a policy (not a law) to effectively not pass laws without supermajorities. The latter could be done with a simple majority of politicians with a spine.
My preference would be to simply enlarge the court by a few seats, nominate some additional candidates that exceed the number of available seats by 2 or 3, and then hold some sort of Survivor-like competition to see who captures the seats. I would also accept a Hunger Games style competition for this first new court session.
High-level politics should involve physical challenges. Put the judge chairs up a tall ladder and across a balance beam and we won’t see so many justices dying on the bench. At least from old age rather than balance-beam accidents.
Other than political gain for one team or the other, what is the argument for expanding the supreme Court?
To correct for the explicitly political gain one team is solely interested in for their own authoritarian redefinition of established precedent that also had their nominees lie their way into their SC positions at the expense of the Constitution and our freedoms. That’s the argument.
you don’t think by expanding the court the “other side” isn’t just doing the same exact thing you just described? so where does it stop?
What options are there to fix this active extremist right wing slow motion coup that is trying to overthrow our Constitution by destroying established legal precedent?
This is not a one side versus the other political sport contest, this is far beyond any such sophomoric simpleton bullshit.
The problem is that we’re at a point where Republicans are not hesitating to lie, cheat, and steal their way to power. They have demonstrated quite clearly that they no longer have an interest in playing fair.
We need Democrats who aren’t afraid to fight back or we’ll lose our Democracy in America and eventually fall to fascism.
There may not be a good ending here, but it’s time to draw a line in the sand.
It’s a sad state when people actually believe one party has a better moral compass than the other. The reality is one party lies better than the other, but it’s two sides of the same coin. I blame gullible people that can’t do anything but parrot what the media tells them to. Sadly, that’s the majority of society.
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Dude… both sides are absolutely not the same. Just look at the policies each side is trying to implement. On one hand, you’ve got Democrats trying to do things like forgive student debt and raise the minimum wage. On the other, you’ve got Republicans focusing almost solely on a culture war they’ve started just because they hate people who are different than they are.
I could go on and on with examples here. While it’s true that people parrot things they’re told to believe by the media (like pretty much everyone who watches Fox and actually believes it’s real news).
Our current Republican party has zero plans to actually help anyone they supposedly represent. It’s insane to me that anyone could look at what they’re doing and think it’s somehow beneficial to society…but I guess that’s because I don’t think of hurting people as a way to make my own life better.
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If you look at the history of people who were put up for nomination as a Supreme Court member, you’ll see that what you said is not true.
The persons being submitted have a distinct qualification for fairness that one side puts up, versus the other.
Probably stops at civil war.
How?
Are you under the assumption Joe Biden is some sort of wizard?
The supreme court is supposed to be based on certain numbers, when those numbers increased the SC could have been increased, but hasn’t been.
Basically all it would take is for the president to decide “hey this court is supposed to be bigger, because the rules it wrote for itself say so” and sign a few things and boom. Increased court size.
What fucking coloring book did you read that in
LOL
What? Where did you find executive branch authority to regulate the Supreme Court?
Even if they did, how would a president appoint justices without Congress?
I don’t know the details, from what I understand FDR was contemplating the same thing, so it does seem like the power to do this is an electoral branch power and not in the legislative branch.
But I honestly don’t know the details so I could be wrong, its just something I heard of before.
Congress can pass a law increasing the number of justices. The current law setting it at nine justices was passed in 1869. Congress is inept right now.
“so it does seem like the power to do this is electoral branch power and not in the legislative branch”
Quite poor evidence for your conclusion. FDR tried to pass legislation to expand the SCOTUS, and was interpreted as trying to manipulate the court by his own party, which is why it was blocked.
Court expansion has always been done by Congress, it’s interpreted as an extension of it’s power to create courts.
Quite poor evidence for your conclusion. FDR tried to pass legislation to expand the SCOTUS, and was interpreted as trying to manipulate the court by his own party, which is why it was blocked.
It was blocked after the judges flipped and started approving his programs. It was expected to pass up until that point.
Quite poor evidence for your conclusion. FDR tried to pass legislation to expand the SCOTUS, and was interpreted as trying to manipulate the court by his own party, which is why it was blocked.
Fair enough. Just a friendly reminder…
But I honestly don’t know the details so I could be wrong, its just something I heard of before.
It was an off-the-cuff comment and I mentioned in the comment I could be wrong and that I was not certain, so, /shrug.
I am concerned about the obvious concerning things as well. Y’all should make me your leader.
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That’s alright. A decision to release billions to Iran to cause a war is so much worse.
If team magma wins, what will the water Pokemon do??
To me, as a non-American, the most baffling thing is that everyone in the States just assumes, and accepts, that these appointed justices are going to rule according to some political bias.
That’s not the way it works in the rest of the free world. Judges are, by definition, trusted to be impartial interpreters of the law/constitution. That’s their role.
I live in Canada, and I’m vaguely familiar with some of the names of our Supreme Court justices, but I certainly don’t know their political leanings, nor do I care. Nor does any Canadian I know. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
So as far as I can see, the problem isn’t that SCOTUS is stacked with Republicans, nor that it can be. The problem is that everyone seems to assume that this is the way it should be.
No, we don’t. Along with Citizens United, EVERY American with a brain and open eyes is aware these are the absolute most important problems, and they lead to endgame checkmate authoritarianism.
And yet I never see any mention of this anywhere. Even here, it seems that Biden is more concerned about whether the court can administer justice because it is so much out of balance. No mention, though, that the “balance” shouldn’t even be a factor.
SCOTUS justices are appointed for life because it’s supposed to put them above political considerations. No politician can influence them by threatening removal. Yet, there you are, SCOTUS is just as political as the other two branches.
And yet you’ve collectively allowed it to happen, and have taken no action to change the status quo.
Sounds like Americans like their authoritarianism just fine.
edit: Lotta Americans here angry they don’t know how to protest like a grown up country.
These complains about “you just don’t understand our political system” are just you disempowering yourself and excusing your own inaction. If you actually cared about any of this you’d be out in the streets.
That there are no mass protests. No major efforts to modify laws. No new candidates for political offices offering anything substantive. All while your life expectancy collapses, your birth rate falls off a cliff, your healthcare system continues to implode, and your wealthiest parasites make trouble for everyone without consequences.
You don’t actually care about your problems if you aren’t willing to go outside to try to solve them.
Yeah, we shouldn’t have been walking outside wearing that…
No we definitely don’t enjoy this, it’s the same reason we all love to say “eat the rich” and “it’s guillotine time” and then do absofuckinglutley nothing about it. No one wants to be the one to start something absolutely crazy, we all deep down believe that we can somehow fix this within the system as opposed to throwing Molotovs. :/
It sounds like that belief is worth having a look at again.
Americans largely haven’t had much of a choice. In states where the laws are decent and political corruption isn’t heavily entrenched, things are alright and the system isn’t totally broken. But in places where it has? There’s less and less ability to vote in more reasonable laws.
The problems are systemic. The same states have shitty education systems, mass voter disenfranchisement of prisoners and anyone else they can justify taking the vote from, extensive gerrymandering, and every other form of corruption and political inefficiency. The major population centers take a very different approach, but they have to compete with these backward and broken states through an electoral system that skews the results in their favor.
Trying to take direct action outside of the official political framework is also problematic. In Europe you’ve got the benefit of an extremely high population density and a relatively small area regardless of which country you’re in. In the US everything is extremely spread out. The result is that protest is often not terribly effective. You might be able to shut down a couple of streets, but there’s no way you’re disturbing commerce for more than a single metropolitan area (of which there are many) at a time. It’s the same reason mass public transit runs into issues: we’re way too spread out for strategies that require high and comparatively uniform population density.
That doesn’t mean there’s no answer, but it does mean we’re going to have to get a little more creative.
People take for granted what made Occupy special. We all rally around the fact that folks that normally wouldn’t recognize they’re all the 99% came together. But the real win was that it was everywhere all at once all the time.
Right, but compare the effort to the results. People were bussing in from all over the country, but like what actually changed?
Same thing with the BLM protests. The largest protest movement in American history and… nothing changed. COVID kills a million plus Americans and all that changed is OSHA was banned from enforcing worker safety measures. No extra disease tracking, no countrywide efforts to improve air quality. We’re stuck in a quagmire where leaders just wait out problems rather than needing to address them.
I don’t know what i hate more, being subjected to increasingly authoritarian christofascist rule in my country or having some punk looking down his nose at me and saying it’s my own fault.
Pssssh.
Tell you what. When it happens to you, why don’t you tell me what you hate more.
(Fuggen punks think theyre fighting ready just cuz they’ve never been tested, geez almighty.)
you can swear on the internet
Fuck you
;)
look at that, we can see your spine grow in real time!
now maybe try directing that kind of energy toward changing your political system
Oh, you were agreeing with the punk? Geez i am surprised. I wonder if it matters to you that you wasted my time just now?
Probably not, huh? It’s kinda you’re thing, huh? Being clever?
Yeah… shocking… victim blaming coming from tough guys
Victim blaming and undeserved arrogance come from the same type of folks, huh? The best (only good) part of interacting with these losers is the fact we’re on a public forum. At least then there are others to witness the interaction and see how dumb they look. I can only hope
Oh shit… love the ratm and/or the boss reference! Very different music, very similar representation :)
It’s RATM and steinbeck, since the reference lead me to read the book and afterwards led me to many more truths. Thanks man! I am happy when people get the ref.
You fuck w Tortilla Flat? My favorite by far.
Oh my God tortilla flat is fucking brilliant. I thought it trite in the first couple chapters but i stuck it out and was proven a fool. By the end i loved every one of those guys and now i need to read it again
What do you think RATM would think about these “don’t criticize me for doing nothing” posts?
Tom and zach would both be embarrassed for you.
Firstly for your cowardly sock-puppetry, secondly for not knowing that those lyrics reference an important steinbeck character.
But cone. You have one more, right? One more name you use to pump upboats in your silly existence? Hurry and bring that one out to be clever as well
The irony of you calling someone cowardly. You didn’t name your account “Tom Joad”, you named it in reference to the song, which is explicitly a social protest song from people willing to actually do something rather than complain about being shamed. This isn’t quite Paul Ryan loving Rage while being the actual machine, but what a monumental lack of introspection.
“Where there’s a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air, look for me, mom, I’ll be there.”
I don’t know what i hate more, being subjected to increasingly authoritarian christofascist rule in my country or having some punk looking down his nose at me and saying it’s my own fault.
Clearly Tom and Zach would echo this sentiment. Authoritarianism or someone looking down their nose at your inaction, who’s to say which is worse?
Sounds like you don’t have any real-life experience with the American political system.
Largest protests in history (at least at the time) were against invading Iraq in the lead-up to the war. Democrats protest, but Republicans VOTE. That’s why they run everything from a minority position.
No, they gerrymander. They lose on popular vote all the time.
So we’re going to protest our way around gerrymandering now?
It’s gerrymandered because people voted in 6he reps who gerrymandered everything. Things didn’t get gerrymandered by the GOP protesting for more gerrymandering.
First of all, the Overton Window in America is skewed heavily right. So our centrist Democratic leaders are center right, our Republicans are what most countries would call regressive, extremist, authoritarian right wing, or even fascists.
See, the problem is rightwing extremism has been on a campaign since the civil rights era to take control of the country and undo the progress made since the 1960s.
They installed right wing media. They cut education and tampered with curricula. They gerrymandered. They instituted voter suppression. Their strategy culminated in the Federalist Society influencing the selection of Gorsuch and installation of right wing judges during the Trump administration.
The thing you have to know if you ever want to try and stop extremist, authoritarian, right wing regressives is that they do not hold the same ideals and morals as you and I. They do not play from the same playbook or follow the same rulebook.
They believe that “might makes right,” that any ends justify the means, that rules are enacted to protect them and their in group and punish their selected out group. They believe in many cases that their cause is justified by God.
And so any justice who adheres to such zealous principles will see no issue with finding a way to rule in the favor of their side. They may even go so far as to rule with weak or minimal justification. They will be a lot less likely to rule in an unbiased fashion.
My current opinion is that, so far, we have only seen rulings that fall into the “finding a way” category.
I think these justices will incrementally push the envelope on what they can get away with over the upcoming decades.
This patently false, compared to the world as a whole the US is quite liberal. Only in certain aspects, compared to certain European countries is the US “right-wing”. US for instance has way more liberal freedom of speech and religion than most countries. How many European countries have a state religion?
I doubt the Republican justices stay alive for much longer with the growing realization that political assassinations easily solve issues with the supreme court. It’s talked in hush tones a lot online because people act as if talking about the thing means you’re inviting it.
Tbh I’m genuinely surprised suicidal people on the left haven’t already taken one out. I was betting on it to happen shortly after Biden took presidency. It’s going to happen eventually if they keep ruling like shit. Revolutions are started by such political stunts.
Although I used to think all the crazy school shooters were eventually going to be lefties as well. Turns out they at least try to get medicated and fix themselves. Righties just go out murdering for apeshit reasons lol. Still, I know way more people on the left in serious depression and wanting to commit suicide. With the amount of fame MSM gives suicidal murderers… like before, I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened.
“I think these justices will incrementally push the envelope on what they can get away with over the upcoming decades.”
I feel like we have already turned the corner of openly ruling along party lines as well as unrepentant corruption.
I think it will get worse and worse until… well I don’t know what will turn it around or when.
Agreed. I forgot to end my post with “but I fear that it can get so much worse before anything is done.”
I mean, as crappy as the court has been and all the confidence they’ve lost, they have essentially just cemented the role of Supreme Court justice as a politician instead of some honored impartial high quality person who stays above it all.
So they have blatantly pushed the Republican agenda, including things like Roe. But they could do so much more damage still.
Yes. The supreme court is a political tool just like every other branch of government.
They are not impartial. They all have agendas.
I think Canada may not have this issue because there aren’t as many different cultures in Canada competing for dominance.
Even though your ruling class wants to extend its reach as much as possible, they acknowledge they’re still ruling over Canadians.
In the US, it’s “city people ruling over country” or “whites ruling over blacks” or “christians ruling over everything.” This mentality means it’s acceptable and even encouraged for one group to abuse another.
This creates an “us vs. them” mentality because it really is us vs. them.
Your parliament just gave a nazi a standing ovation.
That’s not the way it works in the rest of the free world. Judges are, by definition, trusted to be impartial interpreters of the law/constitution. That’s their role.
The problem is that these judges are appointed through a political process, as about any government worker apparently is. This way you get a hyper politicized country, where even the job of librarian is no longer just a job, but an oppointment that should be strictly controlled.
It’s absolutely baffling.
And proceeds to do fuck all about it! Awesome.
Okay, but “The Extreme Court” does sound a lot cooler.
He’s not alone
