Tie a Blue Ribbon Around It

Joe Biden gave an interview with CBS's Norah O'Donnell for "60 Minutes," airing tonight, about his presidential candidacy and revealed what he would do about the ideological imbalance in the federal court system.

The answer reminds us why Joe Biden is considered a moderate. It also disappoints everyone on either side of America's political divide. 

Biden said that if he's elected President, he would a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission that would look at the federal judiciary over a six-month period and report back to him on how to fix the courts.

"What I will do," Biden said, "is I'll put together a national commission of - bipartisan commission of - scholars, constitutional scholars, Democrats, Republicans, liberal, conservative," Biden told O’Donnell. "And I will ask them to, over 180 days, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system. Because it’s getting out of whack, the way in which it’s being handled . . .. The last thing we need to do is turn the Supreme Court into just a political football."

Biden fails to appreciate one thing; that's already happened. Amy Coney Barrett is about to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice tomorrow, and a Court with her on it is likely to overturn the Affordable Care Act - for starters. Assuming this commission Biden speaks of is seated by February should he win the White House, a Justice Barrett could do a lot of damage by the tie the commission reports back to Biden in August.

Biden's solution will likely fail to satisfy anyone. Conservatives who think the court system works just fine (because it's always ruling in their favor) don't want to have a commission look at anything in the judiciary, while progressives will be bitterly disappointed that Biden won't move quickly to expand the Supreme Court (something Biden will only admit he has not ruled out).  

I don't think I'm satisfied with Biden's stand either, as I believe that the courts should be expanded, and I'm saying this as someone who wants him to win the election.  I know that some judicial experts have urged Biden not to act on Supreme Court expansion until the Court moves too far on anything if he becomes President.  Okay.  Let him wait if he becomes President.  But I'm telling you, he won't have to wait long.  

And let me tell you, a blue-ribbon panel is the last thing you want to rely on.  Blue-ribbon panels suggest, they recommend, the advocate, and they opine, but they never actually do anything. 

Vote, Dammit!

I don't want to hear any bellyaching from the Democrats about the Supreme Court upholding the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries or anything else the Court does.  Because they brought it on themselves.

Blaming the victim, you say?  You bet!  For decades, Republicans have kept their eye on the federal judiciary and have been systematically been packing it with conservatives, while Democrats have been too wimpy to retaliate much. And when they do retaliate,  they play checkers while Republicans play chess.  Democratic Party voters haven't been very engaged either.  Because they failed to come out in the 2014 midterm elections, the Republicans took over the Senate and then blocked President Obama - whom Democratic congressional candidates in 2014 (most of whom lost) refused to link themselves to - from making a Supreme Court appointment.  A Democratic Senate being seated in 2017 could have approved an Obama pick for the Supreme Court in the waning days of his administration, but the Democratic electorate largely stayed home in 2016 and let the Republicans keep the Senate.  And the Democratic National Committee gave the Presidency to Donald Trump by promoting Hillary Clinton.

Maybe Democrats - which I am not one of - should start voting more regularly.  Otherwise, the party will be so weakened and beaten up that it is going to be doomed to Whig-like extinction.       

Stay

A federal judge (or so he's called ;-) ) in Seattle - James Robart, a judge appointed by noted liberal George Walker Bush - blocked Trump's executive order banning people from seven Middle Eastern countries and refugees from Syria in particular from entering the country.  Wow, it was temporary! :-D

The administration tried to get the stay on the order overturned on appeal, but another judge sided with Robart.  It could go to the Supreme Court now, given all of the efforts for and against the order churning in the system.  Theoretically, by the time it reaches that court, it could be after the ban was set to have expired.  Needless to say, this only underscores why the Democrats - and whatever party replaces them after the 2018 midterms (the Dems are headed for Whig-like extinction, remember) -will be hell-bent on stopping Neil Gorsuch or anyone else Trump appoints for Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court seat for the next four years.  

Meanwhile, people from the affected countries are coming to America again. It looks like Trump may not win this battle.  But the war has only begun.

And am I upset that Trump's favorite football team has won the Super Bowl?  No, because I'm not a football fan.  If I were, though, I'd be even more upset that a rock and roll band - a real rock and roll band, not a light-rock ensemble like Coldplay - can't get a Super Bowl halftime gig anymore because the NFL has decided instead to book dance-pop divas for them from now until the end of time (which, thanks to Trump, could arrive before the next Super Bowl).