Reining in the rogue court is a crucial goal with wide support from Americans across the political spectrum

“Better late than never” is a useful maxim in all of life and in politics as well. On Monday, Joe Biden caught the “better late than never” bug when he unveiled a series of proposals to reform the US supreme court.

Those proposals come more than two and a half years after the US president’s presidential commission on the supreme court issued its recommendations, and more than 40 years after Biden called former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan to impose term limits on the court “boneheaded”.

In 2020, during his quest for the White House, Biden again distanced himself from people who were pushing for significant institutional reform at the court.

How times have changed. That was before the court overruled Roe v Wade, the ethics scandals of justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas came to light, and before the court gave the president almost blanket immunity from criminal prosecution.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Biden is?

    Clearly you’re mistaken. The right-wing starts down this road a long time ago, and have only intensified their efforts. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now if they hadn’t blocked Obama from naming a justice, which was his rightful action as sitting President. All this shit with Thomas, Alito, and Roberts that’s finally gotten some attention is only having a light shined on it finally.

    • worldwidewave@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Mitch McConnell blocked Obama from nominating Garland to the Supreme Court in March 2016 as “the voters should decide”. Then he fast tracked Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination in September 2020, despite being 6 months closer to an election than the last time he was in the exact same situation.

      But please, tell me again how Democrats are politicizing the stolen court?

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Sometimes replies are concurrences or addendums instead of rebuttals.

          It’s rare enough that it’s understandable that one assume the worst by default, though.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      No, no, no. You see, the cons behaving badly is just situation normal and only right and natural.

      If the Democrats were to even point their bad behavior out, never mind do anything to counter the actions of the cons, that is “politicizing” things.

  • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
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    1 month ago

    Better late than never seems to be the only time US presidents get things done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pleased that this lame duck* is trying to get things done even after giving up the presidency. But this Supreme Court has been openly corrupt for at least four years; the only thing that has changed since Biden took office is they finally went too far and pissed off everyone who held their nose and voted D last time.

    • A once-in-a-lifetime occurrence happened when I typed duck, it autocorrected to fuck. Years of training autocorrect that I actually do want to swear when I type fuck finally pushed it too far the other way.
  • cabbage@piefed.social
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    1 month ago

    The Republicans might have politicized the Court, or the Court may have politicized itself when it decided to throw its last glimmer of judicial legitimacy out the window. Hard to say.

    In either case, all Biden is doing here is trying to fix a problem that was not of his making.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        abortion was popular among evangelicals until the republicans appropriated catholic theology to politicize AFTER Roe was ruled. Like it literally was the politicians, media and their donors that sent out the memos to create division and change religious beliefs just as they had worked to incorporate capitalism into christianity (yes prosperity gospel was started by the wealthy and donor dangled to churches, as well)