This week, as anticipated, the man who is technically still the President of the United States unveiled his plan to fundamentally uproot and re-structure the US Supreme Court. Joe Biden -- back when he was still pretending to be a moderate, and perhaps in greater control of his faculties -- rejected the Left's loud push for SCOTUS 'reforms.' Fighting for his political life a few weeks ago, he started announcing insane new left-wing campaign promises, like economically-illiterate (and illegal) federal rent control, and a scheme to remake the Court. Not coincidentally, in my estimation, many of his most vocal defenders as he hung by a thread were prominent leftists, such as Bernie Sanders and AOC. This was, explicitly or implicitly, the price of their public loyalty. That thread got snipped anyway, and now Kamala Harris is picking up those extreme positions and running with them, even as she tries to run from many of her previous radical stances.
Her campaign now claims she no longer supports banning fracking (she does), has axed her gun confiscation designs (she calls it a "mandatory buyback program"), and suddenly doesn't want to outlaw private health insurance (one of her signature issues). Harris' authentic agenda is the one she rolled out last time she sought the presidency, when she revealed her vision for the country from scratch. We all heard what she said about her designs during the 2020 cycle, and we should believe what she said:
In the 2020 election cycle, Kamala Harris built her vision for the country from scratch. Her ideas and proposals from that presidential campaign represent her authentic beliefs. She’s lying about them now. Proceed accordingly. pic.twitter.com/glwhjxey9h
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 30, 2024
The Biden-Harris Supreme Court "reforms" are a political play to channel and exploit the Left's anger over not being able to control a major, powerful institution. For decades, Democrats and progressives delighted in all sorts of judicial rulings that they supported, including Constitutional travesties opposed strenuously by conservatives. Nobody talked about destroying the Court or aggressively challenging its legitimacy. But now that the Left has been forced to endure some major decisions that they despise, and because they're impatient to return to their perceived birthright of power, they've engaged in shameful, destructive threats and attacks against an institution that currently stands in the way of their ideological project. If they can't control or bully something, it must be dismantled and rebuilt in their image. If they aren't winning, they must re-write the rules. The "crisis of confidence" they cynically describe is something they have intentionally manufactured and are using as a pretext for their attempted power-grab. This is a corrosive, norms-crushing temper tantrum from entitled ideologues. Defenders of the scheme say it falls short of "court-packing," in the sense that it doesn't propose adding seats to the Court. But its goal is the same:
This specific term-limit proposal for the Supreme Court is genuinely radical. https://t.co/hfu4R7K4XW
— Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) July 29, 2024
"Any legislation purporting to strip individual justices of their duties would be unconstitutional," writes Adam White, who was appointed by Biden as a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. https://t.co/coUEHr0bLn
— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) July 30, 2024
"It is just court-packing by another name." https://t.co/GJF3pVJLT8 pic.twitter.com/qppSfbPHE4
Joe Biden spent five-plus decades in political power, and now that he's being forced out, he's decided to embrace term limits for other people. The brand new rules, conveniently, would start now. And he's not targeting the legislative branch in which he served with this change; he's targeting the judiciary, comprised of people who are supposed to have lifetime appointments. And he's doing it, obviously, because his side isn't getting its way. If they were, no one would be breathing a word about any of this. And if some Republican suggested it against a left-leaning Court, Biden, Harris and that whole pack of frauds would furiously denounce it as an attack on 'democracy,' our 'norms,' etc. Not to be outdone by Biden, however, here's Kamala Harris -- who has fully endorsed the above power grab -- pushing even further:
Kamala Harris wants to pack the Supreme Court with far-left activist judges because she doesn't like their decisions.
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 29, 2024
"I'm open to this conversation about extending the number of people on the U.S. Supreme Court." pic.twitter.com/Z4vecpmm8D https://t.co/xGM4lJ3gTx
There is nothing they won't break, no rule they won't ignore or change, in service of their own power. And that's why, in that very same spirit and with the same level of good faith, I'd like to offer a counter-proposal on Supreme Court "reform." They must lead by example, for democracy, you see:
In this same spirit, while cloaking myself in language about institutional legitimacy, I propose lifetime appointments for conservative justices and new term limits for progressive justices. They must lead by example!
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 29, 2024
Magnanimously, I'm even willing to make this new plan an experiment for just the next 100 years. Will Democrats accept this reform compromise, or do they hate democracy? On a more serious note, Federalist Society co-founder Leonard Leo laid matters out quite well in his formal response to this Biden-Harris scheme:
“No conservative justice has made any decision in any big case that surprised anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence. It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with. If President Biden and the Democrats were truly serious about ethics reform, then they would ban all gifts and hospitality of any kind to any public official in any branch of government, starting with Congress, where the real corruption is. They would close all of the loopholes that allow Members to travel on private jets to fancy hotels and restaurants. With respect to judges, they would include the things where influence peddling is most present and dangerous—and that’s when the liberal Justices rub shoulders with influencers at places like law schools, bar associations, progressive think tanks and their conferences, and other groups and events funded by Left-wing billionaires, where they support real vested interests in the work of the Court. Let me be clear: If Democrats want to adopt an across the board ethics ban for all branches, I am in favor of that: no jets, no meals, no speaking honorariums, no gifts for anyone from anyone for any reason in any branch, starting with Congress. Until they support that, let’s all be honest about what this is: a campaign to destroy a court that they disagree with.”
I'll leave you with this nasty and stupid remark from our deteriorating technical president:
The leader of Johnson’s party was shot in the head on July 13th. https://t.co/euxHVLAA5a
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 29, 2024
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