Crushing The Court

Joe Biden is in swan song mode, trying to find a couple last bits of relevance before he hands the reins of power off to his successor. Or, if you're a cynic (and as a friend suggested), his handlers are test-driving some ideas without risking them tainting Harris's electoral prospects.

This week's idea is to (again) attempt to bring the Supreme Court to heel.

The Court's great sin? The unpardonable actions that have Biden or his proxies in such a lather as to challenge a co-equal branch of government?

Having the temerity to actually do its job. Which can be summarized as saying "no."

Which is something that neither toddlers nor tyrants ever like hearing, and which is something that elicits similar tantrums in both.

The first sin was saying "not our job" when it comes to abortion rights. Willfully mischaracterized by the Left as an action against women, the Court told Congress that abortion is a legislative matter, and in doing so, tacitly called out the Democrats' hypocrisy in championing abortion access while simultaneously refusing to codify the Roe v Wade ruling into law at any time in the past half century.

The second was conservative justices refusing to bend the knee by recusing themselves on issues of importance to the Left. This was smokescreened by ginned up hullaballoos over supposed "ethics violations," e.g. hanging out on some rich friend's boat.

The third, final straw, "how dare they" moment was the ruling on presidential immunity that threw a giant monkey wrench into the Left's lawfare efforts against Trump. This was an unforgivable sin, of course, with the merits of either the ruling or the lawfares of no interest.

Thus, we get a three-pack of proposals that, as the NY Post notes, are really about pre-empting Trump's second term should he win in November.

• No immunity for crimes a former president committed in office

• A President can only appoint one justice every two years

• Term limits for supreme court justices

• Binding code of conduct for the supreme court

This stacks on top of a rush to get a bunch of administrative actions secure against rescission by the next administration, no matter that this is an overt subversion of the will of the voters.

We currently have two of the three branches of government not working as intended. Congress has worked hard to abandon its duty to write laws by ceding a large part of lawmaking to the administrative branch. The administrative branch, which should be limited to executing the laws written by the legislators, has drastically overstepped its limits by happily running amok in writing rules via that transference of power. Our past few Presidents have unilaterally taken power for themselves by writing executive orders and basically saying "Congress and SCOTUS, if you don't stop me, I'll do whatever I want."

Congress has repeatedly bent its knee to Presidential excesses, and Presidents have grown so accustomed to this that they expect it now and get incensed when they are told "no."

This latest Biden exercise serves the Left in multiple ways:

• It is, as already noted, a toe in the water meant to gauge public attitude without putting Harris at risk.

• It seeks to bully the Court into acquiescence and rubber-stamping.

• It taints the Court's image by continuing to press the tale that Justices are compromised.

• It sets up a "when did you stop beating your wife" straw man should the Court argue "you set your ethical rules, we set our ethical rules" separation of powers.

• It would stifle Trump's ability to function should he win the Presidency.

• It advances the Left's true goal of “packing” the court with extra Justices that will rubber stamp its excesses.

I don't expect any of Biden’s proposals to get out of Congress, let alone get 38 states' approvals (Constitutional Amendments are required for at lease the first three, and probably all four), but they don't really have to. The goal is to further sully the Court's reputation.

This is just another step in growing the power of the Presidency, something the Left fervently desires and the Right enjoys when it’s in charge but that is totally at odds with the nation's core premises of limited government and separation of powers. If the last bastion of American originalism falls, then there's nothing to save us from descending into socialistic stagnation and from further losing our rights.

Make no mistake, Biden’s plan is an assault on the very fabric of our nation, on the fundamental separation-of-powers principle that underlies our political structure, and on “democracy.” It is being portrayed as a means of reining in the power of the Court, but the Court is already the least powerful of the three branches, since all it can do is say “no” to the other branches. The Presidency, which wasn’t supposed to be all that strong, has accreted enormous power to itself, and this move would be another big step in the transformation from constitutional republic to kingdom.

To reiterate - the end game in all this is to sell court-packing to the American public by maligning the Court. Then, all the Dems will need are decent majorities in both houses of Congress plus an unprincipled President. That may not happen this cycle, but it’ll happen at some point, and unless we all scream “don’t do it!,” they will.