Mitch McConnell is scared a Kamala Harris presidency would spell disaster for the Republican party, prognosticating that a Democratic presidency would result in the demise of the filibuster and a liberal packing of the Supreme Court. “Let's assume our worst nightmare – the Democrats went to the Whit...
Number 1
Nowhere in the constitution does it limit the amount of SC justices. We can have 9 or 9000 if we really want.
Number 2
DC and Puerto Rico should have been states decades ago. Guam, too.
Number 3
The policies of Harris/Walz are what 70+% of the country wants. If they are far left, then I am the Queen of England
Number 4
Tell snaggletooth to shut the fuck up and die already. This fucking lich has been the root cause of the court needing to be fixed
#VOTE!
It’s not unconstitutional if you fucking pack the court with people who aren’t fucking traitorous fascists. What are ya gonna do? Sue all the way to the supreme court???
Fuck that weird old strokey bastard. You know what you do when you lose fuck face? Get good or go home.
It’s good to know he’s worried about it, means it’ll probably work
He knows how this works. McConnell spent decades setting up the current Supreme Court to be the monster that it is, and he doesn’t want that work undone in a single Presidential Administration.
The segment of the constitution relating to the supreme court is preposterously small. It’s very weird that people think that no one is capable of actually reading the damned thing.
Never mentions any number of judges. Mentions numbers in a bunch of other places, and gets so detailed as to specify how to break up the initial batch of senators to ensure rolling terms.
But no, they specifically intended for there to be a specific number of justices that they just opted not to write down:
656791079 justices, just like the constitution forgot to dictate.Other fun fact: you can pass a law that says the supreme court can’t hear appeals to certain types of cases. It’s explicitly stated that you could just write the supreme court out of hearing any case that involved the supreme court or any Justice, an executive who appointed any member of said court, or just about anything.
Yes, please!
Since the constitutional amendment process is literally impossible and has been for at least 40 years, SCOTUS is the final verdict on any constitutional matter.
Even if it WASN’T fundamentally broken, it’s the mother and father of all conflicts of interest to make it the final arbiter on matters pertaining to itself and the ex president/wannabe dictator that appointed a plurality of them.
This is interesting, how would appeals work? Would there be a special committee formed by Congress, or would the circuit court be the final word?
There’s no defined process. The constitution just specifies that the supreme court has appellate jurisdiction except where Congress defines exceptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping
Since Congress also has authority to actually create and organize the lower courts, they can do almost whatever they please.
The only thing that can’t do is diminish or expand the original jurisdiction of the supreme court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_jurisdiction_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
So they can’t put a different court in charge of cases involving two states disagreeing over ownership of a river or it’s water, or ambassadors and such.
So if Congress wanted it to be a single use court nominated, appointed and dissolved for one special case they could. Or they could say it just stops at the federal appeals court, the state court or wherever they want.
Personally, I think a single use court established for special high profile cases with a large potential for conflict of interest would be best. There’s some trickiness that would be involved, since Congress can’t actually appoint judges, only the executive can. So if the case involved the current sitting executive (in my opinion only in their personal capacity, as cases involving the office of the president lack the personal liability that makes for a conflict of interest), then they would still need to be the one to make the appointment. Might be able to sidestep it by having the house select already appointed judges without the conflict to hear the case, but it’s very close to appointment with extra steps.
In any case, other than the caveat that’s never happened, it would be so much more clearly unbiased.
Don’t forget Samoa and the other island terrories. It’s a bit of a tricky situation because of population size and such but there shouldn’t be a single person on American territory without voting Congressional representation.
American Samoa essentially can’t become a state because of the way land ownership rights work there. It’s a FASCINATINGLY complex situation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/why-some-american-samoans-don-t-want-u-s-citizenship-n1103256
I think we should welcome any and all territories to become states or leave as they desire, but I also think that staying a territory should remain an option.
Given how lack of representation tends to kneecap funding allocation for things like infrastructure I think they would be unwise to eschew statehood, but I know that, specifically in Puerto Rico, there are groups that against statehood but also against going their own way.
Forcing statehood feels wrong, but so does cutting people off from what support they do get from us, to say nothing of them being US citizens.
I do think we should extend full citizenship to anyone from the territories though. Just because it’s not a state doesn’t mean it’s not the US.
Pretty sure the Lich is literally based on him. If I was coming up with a tabletop and wanted an “undead asshole, lord of assholes” I would certainly use his likeness.
His history is fucking wild. He graduated top of his classes and graduated college with a PoliSci, then went on to join MLKs March and speech “I have a dream” in person. Then he was appointed party whip by Frist. That time as whip is probably why he’s such a hard-line ass-bag of bones now.
There is no “left” in USA, Democrats would be centre at best in Europe. Sure from the GOP pov they seem left, but that’s because republicans are extremely to the right.
For number 2. Some people have been fighting since the late 19th century to make Washington DC a state.