Biden to push for Supreme Court ethics reform, term limits and amendment to overturn immunity ruling, sources say
Biden to push for Supreme Court ethics reform, term limits and amendment to overturn immunity ruling, sources say | CNN Politics
Just pack the goddamn court. There's ONE conservative justice on the Supreme Court who was appointed by a president who came to power having received more votes than his opponent, and that's Clarence Thomas, the man whose loyalties can be bought with a luxury vacation and whose wife aided and abetted insurrectionist traitors.
The ENTIRE conservative wing of the Supreme Court is illegitimate. Every single one of them. And you know what? Thanks to the GOP, it only takes 50 votes to approve a supreme court justice. It used to be sixty, but they changed the rules so they could more conveniently destroy America.
Easier than a constitutional amendment, but it still requires 60 votes in the senate to expand the number of justices in the court.
There needs to be a true check to the complete corruption of the supreme court.
We need,
The Ultra Supreme Court XXL
I’m wishing he had packed the courts when he had the chance.
Yep, exactly. I remember seeing many warnings in 2021-22 saying that then was the right time to pack the courts. Establishment Dems twiddled their thumbs while insisting that everyone everywhere needs to follow proper decorum and procedure. And now look what happened with the string of terrible Supreme Court decisions.
The fact that the US has to 'pack the courts' to get anything through shows how broken the system is.
Not that any other country is better but still, you'd think judges should be impartial and resistant to influence, and yet you get Clarence offering up his chocolate starfish for a vacation in a warm climate
Fuck procedure. Dems need to act instead of just talking about shit. I'm legit terrified for this next election.
And you think that wasn't the wanted outcome.
He never had the chance, Manchin was pretty outspoken about his opposition to it.
True, I was just dreaming for a minute.
add ranked choice
Only if the ranking is applied at the state level AND the national level. I'm not going to throw away my vote or my delegate's vote.
Make every US citizen a Supreme Court justice when they turn 18. There’s nothing in the constitution that says you can’t do that. Put cases up to popular vote every year or two. Also, whatever law passed to do this would count as senate approval because who’s going to strike it down… the Supreme Court?
There’s nothing in the constitution that says dogs can't play basketball.
This meme is great but it drives me crazy. There are certainly multiple eligibility requirements to play on a school basketball team, including age and being a registered student, which would prevent a dog from qualifying.
There is that basketball court that's on top of the Supreme Court.....does that mean another Air Bud sequel but this time he's a justice?
This is hilarious. I'm sure someone with more bandwidth than me can point out a dozen reasons why this is bad, but fuck if it isn't funny and appealing.
Yeah but what we have now is clearly bad too.
We’ve already got a partisan court and the decisions affect us all anyway, so…
Hopefully he succeeds. The court is fucked
I can't imagine how he possibly will. R is happy just the way things are.
People need to flip House and Senate blue. Theres a better chance of that happening than Biden winning.
Even when Biden loses, it will be necessary to have a majority to keep Trump in check.
PACK THE FUCKING COURT! You're in that office to serve the people not the fucking system. Doesn't matter anyway republicans are going to destroy everything they can get their hands on.
Yeah, why would you try to actually solve a problem instead of just applying a band-aid that the next administration can rip of again (by incresing the size of the court again)?
Every solution that works within the system would be a band-aid. The entire system is band-aids. The government set up by a group of wealthy white men almost 250 years ago for a population 130 times smaller than it is now simply does not and cannot work in today's world.
If he doesn't do it, Trump will if he wins.
He can't do it with a Republican House and a Senate that requires 60 votes to do anything.
That's the real problem, but too many people here and elsewhere are unaware of the limitations on how the legislative process works. Anything like this is pretty much DOA and purely ceremonial. I'm happy for all of the positive things Biden has been able to get done in spite of such gridlock, but amendment level change in this country is just not at all possible right now.
Nope. And while the call for a Constitutional Convention to re-do the whole thing currently has more support (28 states out of 34 required), it's generally coming from red states and would require 3/4 of the states to approve it. So that's a non-starter too.
https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/constitution-courts-and-democracy-issues/article-v-convention/#
Well, I mean. if their rhetoric has hit a tipping point, maybe there wont be 60 for long.
And even if he could, there's literally zero reason to think he would. This is more empty campaign rhetoric like back in 2020.
That's the thing that kills me, he makes these promises that he KNOWS he can't get done, which leads to the whole "Well, Democrats never do anything!" argument.
What he NEEDS to say is "Here's what I want to do, but I need your help throwing out the bastards in the House and Senate blocking it! Here are their names, let's get them gone!"
Yep, this is the carrot that will never be given to us, standard DNC playbook.
No talkie talkie. Fucking do.
Explain how.
The reforms backed by Biden would need congressional approval and the constitutional amendment would require ratification by 38 states in a process that seems nearly impossible to succeed.
inb4 the Supreme Court rules that new laws made about the Supreme Court are illegal. Why even stop there. They can simply rule that ACKTCHUALLY the US is a monarchy and Clarence Thomas is in charge of it all.
Imagine shit hitting the fan if Congress passed a law limiting a clearly corrupt court and then the court "ruled it unconstitutional".
That isn't going to fly.
It's not even in the constitution that the supreme court can rule something unconstitutional, they just did it once early on and everyone went with it.
What a nice thought, too bad Biden didn’t do anything over two years ago when it would have actually mattered.
Not that it will get passed now, but if he did that 2 years ago, everyone would be saying that there isn’t any good indication these things are truly a huge issue. Now that it is out that they are taking bribes, working directly in conflicts of interests, and clearly doing things in contradiction to duty, there is a much stronger case.
Making a change with the fundamental design of the of the separation of powers will always be, nearly, impossible, and completely so without strong demonstration of why they need to be changed.
The Supreme Court has always been susceptible to corruption and bribery, which is how corporate power and influence has been expanded to the virtual oligarchy we have today. That said, the current court outed itself as biased and broken when they wrongly handed the 2000 election to W Bush. I don’t believe corrective actions at any point during the Biden presidency could have been legitimately questioned, and certainly not after the SC stripped women of the right to bodily autonomy over 2 years ago.
What a nice thought, too bad Biden didn’t do anything over two years ago when it would have actually mattered.
He could not have. Nor was he himself convinced of the need, and for good reason, until the SC's presidential immunity ruling and the more recent evidence of their corruption. I think Laurence Tribe is a good person to get context from, and unless I'm mistaken he has never, before now, called for SC reform despite having written entire books on it. IOW, this is all kind of new.
This might be of interest: How the US supreme court shredded the constitution and what can be done to repair it
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema already said they weren't going to support that, so what do you suggest the President do without a Senate majority?
It's crazy how often I see people doing this; they're ardently against Trump's efforts to turn the presidency into a dictatorship, while at the same time complaining that Biden didn't do x y, or z when those aren't things that fall under his purview.
What do they want?? Dictatorship is ok if it's the neo-liberal I like?
Instead of trodding out the tired old excuses of Sinema and Manchin time and again for doing absolutely nothing, I suggest that instead Biden actually tries something. He could demand they be removed from the party. He could go to their home states in their home districts and loudly campaign for them to come around, all the while screaming from the rooftops how badly their constituents are being screwed by their reprehensible policies and refusal to cooperate. Force them to comply, or ensure their removal from office.
But no, Biden is not this kind of leader. Instead he thinks of them as friends, and would never seek to challenge their positions for a meaningful political agenda. Perhaps this lack of initiative to deliver for the people is why Biden is so wildly unpopular, and hurtling towards a landslide defeat to the criminal traitor Trump in November. Trump may be a totally fake populist, but at least his messaging resonates with the pain and suffering felt at this time by the American people. Of course Trump has no agenda other than self enrichment, but he at least says things that people want to hear. DC insiders such as Biden, Manchin, and Sinema are totally oblivious to that reality.
Those two should've been kicked out of the party a long time ago. Both are up for reelection this year and are not running as a democrat.
Oh then it's okay he didn't even try anything until he realized he was so unpopular people are asking him to step down.
Yep, Biden is under the delusion that representatives vote on policies based on what their constituents want.
There's no way there was enough public support for that notion right after the overturning of Roe v Wade. Even now it's critical enough to first release he would consider it to test the waters.
it's almost as if there were barely 50 senators in the senate and it takes 60 to pass anything.
Stack the fucking court Joe. I don't care if there are 500 Supreme Court Justices.
Requires an act of congress and elimination of the filibuster. Not possible with the current makeup of the Senate. Need more blue senators, which is hard because California gets the same number of Senators as North Dakota, which has the same population as a small apartment complex in LA.
So we need record turnout for that. Vote.
Just saying, he could officially eliminate a few justices in the short term.
They had the house, the senate and the white house before the mid terms and they squandered it
Vote and volunteer to help others get to the booths if they can't on their own. We know they want to do everything they can to make voting harder for the blue. Getting the blue to stay home is their only chance of winning. If everyone votes, there is no longer a republican party. (or those that are around won't matter, they won't be able to strip rights from the American people)
Pack it, but better yet is to completely restructure it. The Constitution is extremely vague about what SCOTUS is. Just that it exists, its the highest court in the land, and Congress defines it.
The most amazing ideas always come when the election draws close. But he can't implement any of them because there is no time.
Good thing Biden already fulfilled his previous election promises. Student loans are a thing of the past.
He rescheduled the fuck out of weed too right….riiiight?
Whoah whoah whoah. He said "push for", not implement. He'll do his best!
Just let me get that barn door for you Democrats.
Bush full of birds, but our hands are still empty...
Biden had four fucking years to do something, half of that time Dems controlled both House and Senate.
But he doesn't start talking about it till right before the election as a promise for something he'll "look into" in January
Dems controlled the Senate with the slimmest majority possible. One fucker that owns a coal company was able to tank all meaningful climate bills and there was nothing Biden or anyone else could do about it. You can forget about any progressive policies in that environment, lol. Biden did well with the tools he was given.
Dems controlled the Senate with the slimmest majority possible
And four years ago Biden wouldnt shut up about how only he could work with a Republican Senate.
Long before we dreamed if 50 seats.
As soon as that was on the table, it switched to 50 accomplishes everything. And almost immediately after we got that. Biden said it wasn't enough
Three big goalpost moves in like 6 months, that shit is noticable to voters and some can remember the last election, and not take Biden on his word again.
It's very disingenuous to say the Democratic party controlled the Senate while having the House majority. The Senate was 48 Democratic, 2 Independents who caucused with the Democratic Senators, and 50 Republicans with the VP casting tie-breakong votes. Very little legislation could be passed because of the filibuster, which needed 51 votes to reform and both Machines and Lineman stating they absolutely would not go along with that. The Senate could approve most nominees, and pass reconciliation (ie 3 types of budget-related bills) once a year. They had no path the expand the court or codify Roe or anything like that with the "majority" they had. We need either 51 Senators who will amend the filibuster (or get rid of it) or 61 Senators to overcome the filibuster to really have the ability to get anything substantial done.
Then why was Biden saying he could work with a Republican controlled Senate 4 years ago?
Why say that the Georgia runoffs would get the whole platform?
What number do we need for any current campaign promises to come true? And if the deciding factor is House and Senate, shouldn't we do ch Biden for a candidate that would help down allot races?
Dems didn't control both the house and the senate soo... Thats why Dems haven't been able to pass as many things as they would like.
Yeah, seriously considering, so nothing is going to happen. Words mean nothing without action.
Yeah, would have loved to see action before now. Still, what specific steps would you rather see this moment?
At least he's talking about it and maybe giving people hope that things could settle the fuck down. Lot of people probably voting against Trump, but would help to have more reasons to vote for Biden
38 states to agree on that constitutional amendment ?
Which states ?
This needs to happen.
Oh Captain my Captain!
If he doesnʼt die from COVID.
Needs the Congress to make them amendments
And if they’re going to do that, they should add all federally elected or appointed people. If you hit the federal retirement age during your term, you’re ineligible to run again. For SCOTUS, if you hit it, you begin the process to step down while a replacement is vetted and approved.
Would have been good if he was working last 3.5 years too, now doing damage control is too little too late
The problem ofc being that congress fights him tooth and nail for anything he wants done, but yeah... all his fault.
Not all his fault, but he definitely shares much of the blame, largely due to a lack of leadership on the topic.
What the president can do in those situations is focus the discussion, he has the highest pulpit of any politician, he should've been using it to move the frame of discussion and shift party strategy to make court reform a stronger pillar of the party platform. When the president says something it gives other party members permission to hammer on an idea.
Instead he lingered on his dusty, worthless notions of bipartisanship and "reaching across the aisle" and wasted all his political capital defending a genocide.
He could have done what hes trying to do now three years ago. Why did he wait until there were LESS democrats in office before trying?
Liberalism is the transformation of mankind into cattle.
-Nietzsche
Incomplete and out of context sentiment, recommended reading here: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/nietzsche-in-his-time-the-struggle-against-socratism-and-socialism/
In addition to its critical analysis of Nietzsche’s philosophy, The Aristocratic Rebel presents readers with a distinctive window into nineteenth century liberal thought, showing how Nietzsche held deep sympathies with liberal thinkers of his time and indeed forged much of his thought in line with many liberal ideals. Situating Nietzsche in the political context of his time helps readers to locate and bring Nietzsche to life in our present day when the debates between liberal and socialist conceptions of justice, equality and emancipation remain ever pertinent questions.
Some more context:
What made Nietzsche’s reactionary political views sympathetic to liberalism were their mutual disdain for socialist leveling and equality. This similarity led Nietzsche to endorse many of the same pro-imperial and anti-egalitarian sentiments that liberals of his time adopted. We must read Nietzsche’s political thought in the wake of the Napoleonic conquests of Germany for which the German liberal establishment agreed that the influence of the French ideals of egalitarianism and equality were foreign impositions on German culture, stripping it of its vitality
Thanks for the context.
What does that make cattle transformed into ?
Steak.
Amendment. I would be shocked if a constitutional amendment passes in the next 30 years.
Fuck yeah, he has my vote. The Supreme Court needs some serious nerfs and better guardrails.
This is like Bidens re election chance 0% chance this actually happens 🤣😭
Hey Biden, why don't you work on giving term limits for the house and Senate first And then work on term limits for the court.
Honesty kinda conflicted on representative term limits. Longer term people can be out of touch, but they also have a lot of experience and know how to collaborate to get laws passed 🤔
This would be amazing if he can do it. At least he's promising good changes vs trump promising judgment day on day one...
Didn't he literally say he would take vengeance on all his political opponents day one? Then the Supreme Court gave him absolute immunity?
Yes. He said both what I wrote and wanting revenge, saying he will be a dictator for one day, day one. This video has both clips, if you want to skip to 8:17 for the revenge and judgment day after that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNzzOwiebvM
It is weird that they dicked around for 4 years on this, though.
Still, vote blue, your vassals beg you (Australian here).
4 years of daily Republican sabotage of the US government. Democrats are not perfect. They are also not the problem at hand.
Undoing the amount of damage they caused takes time. Biden inherited a spiraling economy, hundreds of thousands of people sick and dying, and a coup attempt that nearly got a bunch of people killed.
Not to mention all the idiotic shit the prior president had done while in office, such as austerity cuts that fucked social programs, legal systems, and low and middle income Americans.
It will take 12-16 years of unified democrat rule to fix corruption, regulatory capture, anti-trust for monopolies, universal healthcare, infrastructure investments that don't get slashed by idiotic presidents, etc.
Four years of chemotherapy isn't nearly enough when we have policy tumors and R&D funding cut abscesses from fucking idiots like Regan, Bush, and Trump.
Hmmm, genuinely improving the lives of Americans vs fire and brimstone and a dictator. Tough choice for Americans in November /s
Get everyone you can to vote in November, seriously. Trump's faction is barely scraping by. We can do this.