Table of Contents
Tim Donner
Liberty Nation News
It came off almost like a schoolyard taunt from a lame-duck president desperate to restore his tainted legacy. It featured vintage campaign rhetoric, but from a man whose 50-year career in politics is now all but over, expressed in a series of proposals replete with lofty ideals for radical reform that he knows will go nowhere. Indeed, in a cliché-ridden op-ed in Washington’s most prominent newspaper on July 29, followed up by a speech at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, Joe Biden called for seismic reform: root-and-branch changes to the Supreme Court and a new constitutional amendment limiting executive authority.
If the 46th president had his way, he would end lifetime appointments to the High Court, limiting justices to 18-year terms, refresh the highest court in the land with new justices every two years, and institute a binding code of conduct. He also called for amending the constitution with what he amusingly calls the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment.” He left no doubt about his motivation when he added, “It would make clear that there is no (italics his) immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.” One would think that a career politician like Biden would have masked his Trump derangement more effectively than that.
While it is hardly worth the time to examine the specifics of Biden’s plans any further since they will serve as little more than click-bait and talking points, the emotions and strategy animating them are worthy of discussion.
Root Causes: Hate, Fury, and Envy
First, let’s summarize the president’s agenda in plain language, shall we? Biden wants to upend the American constitutional system because he hates, fears, and envies Donald Trump.
We are already well aware of the president’s seething hatred for his predecessor and potential successor. But this op-ed revealed his passive-aggressive envy and fury. He is envious that Trump got three Supreme Court Justices confirmed in the space of four years while he got only one. He is furious that the Supreme Court has ruled on presidential immunity in a way that benefits Trump. He is envious that a single branch of government is delivering one victory after another for the right. He is furious that every indictment of Trump is crumbling. And he is both envious and furious that Trump is in a position to recapture the presidency.
To the matter of a law – or constitutional amendment – transparently aimed at a single person, Article 1 of the Constitution is clear. It specifically prohibits what’s called a bill of attainder – legislation declaring an individual guilty of a crime and allowing the government to punish the person for the perceived crime without due process. The provision is designed to strengthen the separation of powers by preventing Congress from assuming the functions of the judicial branch. While this is not directly applicable to Biden’s proposals, it captures the spirit of the framers and effectively defines the principle in play. Put another way, it is designed to assure that no man is either above or below the law.
In the wake of the recent High Court decision defining the parameters of executive privilege, Biden claimed, “there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.” Of course, that is not true; a president’s protection is limited to official duties, and Biden knows it every bit as much as he knows Trump never actually called white supremacists very fine people. But, undaunted, he goes on to describe a court “mired in a crisis of ethics” – which apparently arose suddenly, as soon as Trump completed his trifecta of Supreme Court appointments assuring a six-three conservative majority. This is simply another broadside at the conservative justices, particularly Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, both subjects of recent intense investigations by left-wing media.
Intent on putting the mayhem of Jan. 6 prominently before the electorate once again, Biden tied the issue of presidential immunity directly to the Capitol riot, essentially warning that it is an invitation to insurrection. What is especially disturbing from this man who has been holding down the job for more than three years is that he ignored the grave consequences of any president being subjected to prosecution for decisions of great consequence if his private deliberations are subject to public disclosure and debate. This should be obvious to anyone not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
There was also another inconvenient truth revealed in the president’s plans: This is yet another sign of leftists’ utter dependence on the courts to enable their unpopular progressive ideas to take root. And it signals their futility in seeing the Court overturn its most valued decisions, most prominently Roe v. Wade, knowing there is nothing they can do to stop it.
Unless, that is, the rules of the game are changed.
Rescuing the Supreme Court
Biden needs to answer a fundamental question about his “plans” for the Supreme Court and a 28th constitutional amendment: If these reforms are so vital to the future of the republic, why did you wait until the 11th hour when you were the lamest of lame ducks to advance these radical proposals to alter one of the three branches of government and amend the Constitution?
Biden knows full well that a lame-duck president no longer wields power with Congress, especially in the heat of a presidential campaign. That renders these proposals nothing more than political theater. It’s as true of Biden as any other president: Had he been really serious about these reforms, he would have prosecuted the case during his honeymoon, the first six to 12 months of his presidency, when his approval was highest. Revealing these proposals after he was forced out of his re-election campaign looks like little more than swinging wildly for the fences in a race Democrats are losing.
Another sign that these plans are not legitimate is that they should have been advanced by the person who would theoretically steward them through to completion. That would be Kamala Harris, not Biden. But by announcing these proposals himself, Biden lifts the burden from Harris of making such an explosive announcement while at the same time handing her a radical agenda consistent with her pronounced plans for a prospective administration. Sure enough, the VP added her endorsement to the plans shortly after Biden’s announcement.
When Republicans go big, they usually propose things like tax cuts or changes in energy or economic policies. When Democrats get ambitious, they attempt to pack the Supreme Court, remove justices they find objectionable, turn left-wing territories into states, and abolish the Electoral College – all designed to guarantee perpetual leftist control of the federal government. Put simply, while the GOP works within the constitutional framework built upon centuries of debate and deliberation, modern-day Democrats seem intent on dramatically altering the law of the land to reflect the current progressive age.
With one foot out the door, Biden is using the fading remnants of his bully pulpit to lecture the American people on the injustice of a system that he has upheld for more than half a century. In doing so, he has come to personify the famously depressing lamentation in Shakespeare’s Macbeth about life itself: “a walking shadow, a poor player. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
This article was originally published by Liberty Nation News.
