This just in: Joe Biden, the current (supposedly) president of the United States, is not all there. If you need any further proof that he has slipped his clutches, just look at his proposals for Supreme Court “reform,” which he will be announcing officially next week.
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President Joe Biden plans to unveil a proposal on Monday for dramatically reforming the Supreme Court, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.
Biden is likely to endorse establishing term limits for justices and an enforceable code of ethics, in an announcement that represents a remarkable shift for a president who had long resisted calls to overhaul the high court.
He is also expected to push for a constitutional amendment limiting immunity for presidents and certain other officeholders, in a response to the court’s July 1 ruling that presidents are shielded from prosecution for “official acts” during their time in office, in a case brought by former President Donald Trump.
Let’s be real here: None of this will happen. And that’s a good thing.
Joe Biden, to add to the long, long list of things he never understood about our republic and how it works, doesn’t seem to understand that the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, on the same standing as the Executive and Legislative branches. Congress has very little power over the Supreme Court save the Senate’s constitutionally defined “advise and consent” role and the ultimate revocation of impeachment and conviction. That last has only happened once, in 1804, when Associate Justice Samuel Chase – who was appointed to the Court by George Washington – was impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted by the Senate.
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Neither the Congress nor the president have authority over the Supreme Court outside of that.
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What’s more, the constitutional amendment that will reportedly be proposed is likewise a non-starter. At least someone has managed to – correctly – convince the befuddled old Joe Biden that a constitutional amendment would be required to limit executive immunity following the Supreme Court’s “Trump v. United States” decision. Again, this is going nowhere. The Constitution is, by design, difficult to amend, and that’s a good thing, or liberals would have eliminated most of the Bill of Rights by now. While the idea of presidential immunity is well into the arcane for most regular folks, it would likely be near-impossible to convince three-quarters of the nation’s state legislatures to pass such an amendment.
It’s tempting to refer to this as an empty gesture, but it’s not even that. It’s a trifle baffling why the Biden administration would even bring this up just now, as last week’s announcement of withdrawal from the campaign has made him the lamest duck since the unfortunate Gimpy McQuack lost both wings, half of his beak and one leg in a tragic lawnmower accident. This is the last desperate gasp of an utterly failed presidency; an attempt to salvage something of the disaster that has been the Biden administration, an attempt to write a place in history that isn’t just the sad tale of an old man struggling with mental and physical deterioration and a failed presidency.
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The announcement is expected next week, and we’ll cover it when it comes out, but we already know what to expect; it will be as Shakespeare describes, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.