Biden's Last Gasps
Plus: Venezuelan election follow-up, racial segregation is back (for Kamala), and more...
Biden's SCOTUS proposal: "I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers laid out in our Constitution," President Joe Biden said yesterday at an event in Austin, Texas. "But what's happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers. Extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court's decisions."
He's right—the chief executive is attempting to curtail the power of a conservative-majority Court, citing recent decisions he disagrees with as the justification—but I think he's only being self-aware by accident.
To bolster the implication that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, or less legitimate than it used to be, Biden started down a laundry list of "extreme opinions" handed down by the Court that "have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections," like the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion lawmaking to the states.
"Most recently and most shockingly, the Supreme Court established in Trump v. United States a dangerous precedent," said Biden. "They ruled, as you know, that the president of the United States has immunity for potential crimes he may have committed while in office." Biden's portrayal of the immunity decision removes a lot of nuance, though. The Supreme Court actually "held that a former president enjoys 'absolute' immunity for 'actions within his exclusive constitutional power,' 'presumptive' immunity for other 'official acts,' and no immunity for unofficial acts," writes Reason's Jacob Sullum. Justices disagreed about which conduct might fall into which category, and the Trump case was remanded to a lower court.
(The ruling is "based on the concern that the threat of criminal charges is apt to have a chilling effect on a president's performance of his duties," notes Sullum. But "in weighing the risks of presidential paralysis against the risks of presidential impunity, the ruling raises troubling questions about when and how a former occupant of the White House can be held criminally liable for abusing his powers.")
In his speech yesterday, Biden proposed 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, an enforceable code of ethics for justices, and a constitutional amendment that would fully strip presidents of immunity for any crimes committed in office. Hemming in the judiciary in such a manner would require congressional approval, which is unlikely to happen.
Note the irony of Biden, who has just now recognized that his 51-year stint in the political limelight is coming to a close, suddenly caring a lot about term limits. For those who may need a refresher: Biden has been experiencing notable cognitive decline for a while, which has been hidden from the public by his inner circle. Following a horrible debate performance at the end of June, Biden claimed for weeks on end that he was still mentally fit to seek the presidency—until nine days ago, when he finally suspended his reelection campaign. Biden is not some man of principle, he's someone oddly seeking to capitalize off of the Supreme Court's crisis of legitimacy—something at least in part created by Democrats repeatedly claiming the Court is corrupt whenever it hands down a decision with which they disagree.
Segregation is back: Not to be outdone by the "white women for Kamala" Zoom organizing call (attendance: 150,000), progressive organizers not technically affiliated with the presumed Democratic nominee's campaign conducted a "White Dudes for Harris" call last night, helmed in part by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who called the "vibes" of the call "incredible."
"What a variety of whiteness we have here," joked (if you call that a joke) actor Bradley Whitford during the opening remarks. "It's like a rainbow of beige." Actors Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill, Mark Ruffalo, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt also made appearances.
"Win With Black Women" and "Win With Black Men" calls have also been held by progressive organizers who seek to raise money for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign. Ditto for other groups—Hispanic women, Native Americans, and queer people, for example.
All of this feels very Pantsuit Nation. Very retrograde, like we're pre–cancel culture movement, pre–Trump election, back before non-academics knew what "wokeness" meant, back before Robin DiAngelo bamboozled human resources departments in consulting firms across the country into giving her gobs of cash to hector people about unpacking their role in white supremacy (at work), back before our long national nightmare of Race2Dinner, before the "funeral procession" at the Javits Center when that glass ceiling wasn't shattered. The fixation on racial "affinity groups" (whatever that means) and calling people out for their "privilege" feels like a stupid trend in American politics not worth reviving—and something that contributed to America's intense political polarization by gender.
Scenes from New York: It does not take all that much for ostensibly progressive Brooklynites to become raging NIMBYs.
WATCH: Brooklyn residents, who overwhelmingly voted to make NYC a sanctuary city, demand migrant shelter be closed amid violence concernspic.twitter.com/DLi7vKIOgP
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 28, 2024
QUICK HITS
- "Venezuela's opposition can prove that Edmundo González won Sunday's election, according to María Corina Machado, who led the campaign against President Nicolás Maduro," reports Bloomberg. "She told supporters at her party's campaign headquarters on Monday evening that the opposition has enough of the 'actas,' or voting tabulations to prove they won the election. Last night, they had access to about 40% of them, now they say they have over 70%. The figures show a categoric and 'irreversible' triumph: 6.2 million votes for González compared to 2.8 million for Maduro."
- Related: Some of the most appalling mainstream media dishonesty I've ever seen.
The New York Times concludes that Venezuela was destroyed by "brutal capitalism." Unreal. pic.twitter.com/a7mM46bnPe
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) July 29, 2024
- "The dominance of cars has turned children's play into work for parents, who are left coordinating and supervising their children's time and ferrying kids to playgrounds and play dates," writes Stephanie Murray in The Atlantic. "But it has also deprived adults of something more profound."
- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper says he doesn't want to be considered by Kamala Harris to run on her ticket as vice president. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is looking increasingly likely.
- The only person convicted in relation to their role in the My Lai Massacre is now dead, at 80.
- Absolutely bizarre supercut about how Republicans, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) especially, are "weird."
- The best thing on the internet today, courtesy of Mary Katharine Ham.
