17 Comments
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Shari's avatar

Hard to press a "heart" icon for something that filled me with such anger and despair. But nothing is more important to say and it hasn't been better said. Best columnist around right now.

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Paul Waldman's avatar

Thanks. I wish I had cheerier news, but...

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dale coberly's avatar

much as i hate to ever agree totally with anyone, I totally agree with Waldman here, Now, what can we do about it?

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Andy Kotlarz's avatar

There's always the Jefferson Remedy . . .

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dale coberly's avatar

when in the course of human events...?

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Marycat2021's avatar

Not much. Voting blue can't hurt, but the Supreme Court will be out of reach for most of us for decades.

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Julie Greenberg's avatar

Win in House and keep Presidency and Senate in Nov. Then eliminate filibuster and enlarge court to at least 13, or go with recommendation (Jamal Green of Columbia?) of much larger court from which 9 are randomly chosen. Then impeach Thomas and Alito and subject them to grueling impeachment trials in the Senate with the polish of the Jan. 6 hearings. Impeachment won't pass because 2/3rds of Senate votes are need, but their corruptness can be fully exposed.

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dale coberly's avatar

who will bell the cat?

[actually, your suggestions may be the best place to start. but as long as 70 million people vote for Trump ism I think we are in checkmate. It doesn't help that 90% of the media and 10% of Democrats jumped on the Biden is too old bandwagon.

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Julie Greenberg's avatar

It's over 40% of Democrats who believe Biden is too impaired by age to campaign aggressively and win. Winning Presidential campaigns typically lose 10% of their party base. With anyone decent Democrats on the ticket and an aggressive campaign, Democrats can win big.

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dale coberly's avatar

Julie

I picked 10% as a non-scientific number to refer to the Democrats with a public voice, not those who are merely answereing polls. The actual number is not important. Those anti Biden voices have been anti-Biden since long before the debate. In my view they have an unreaistic view of what a President needs to do an what he can do.

I understand that Biden shows weakness, and "strength" is what people look for in a leader. But the hysteria over the debate is fueled by malevolent forces that are motivated more by long standing hate-Biden forces who are glad to take advantage of his performance. And the trouble for us is that we have NO reasonable alternative to Biden at this point. (and the trouble for me is that I don't think Biden's weakness has anything to do with his ability to manage good policy as President. Best I can hope for is that the people and pundits and politicians quit the feeding frenzy long enough for Biden to demonstrate that he can do the job and quiet the fears. First, that would demostrate some backbone, which would be good for us. Second it might give the Dems a chance to find "someone decent" and prepare an "agressive campaign. The possibility of a Trump win is the problem we need to be focussed on..and publicly, noisily, fighting, not attacking our own candidate before giving him a chance to recover from the dabate. Beating Trumpism and the Supreme Court is a matter of life and death.

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Marycat2021's avatar

Good luck.

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Lynn's avatar

Sigh. Which is precisely why Biden, the House and the Senate must be in the Democrats hands. To hell with institutionalism.

Pass serious judicial reform. Add 4 more justices and impose term limits.

Blow up the damn filibuster to do so. If this corrupted and bought SC objects, defund them. They have no army, they’re obeyed ONLY through our good will.

There are supposed to be 3 EQUAL branches of government. It’s time to bring them to heel.

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Marycat2021's avatar

Thank you, Paul, especially for writing about Loper-Bright v Raimondo. This country is in big trouble, and people are still asleep.

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belf's avatar

Dead on.

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Ashley Montague's avatar

Exactly!

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Wub-Fur Internet Radio's avatar

As written, the Constitution actually gives Congress the lion's share in the balance of power between the branches. Sadly, the powers Congress has which could (and should!) be used to rein in the courts have completely atrophied from lack of use and to have any hope of changing that in the future we'll need a Democratic trifecta and elimination of the filibuster (a fella can dream, can't he?).

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Tom Smith's avatar

IOKIYAR is alive and well. Although we could rework it into IOKIYDTOHE (it's okay if you're Donald Trump or his enabler).

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