Only Biden can force Alito and Thomas to recuse. He may however be afraid to be seen as interfering in the judicial process. I think it was Biden’s decision not to prosecute Trump for Jan 6 until his hand was forced by the hearings of the Jan 6 Select Committee of the House. The nation would overwhelmingly support Biden if he backed a mo…
Only Biden can force Alito and Thomas to recuse. He may however be afraid to be seen as interfering in the judicial process. I think it was Biden’s decision not to prosecute Trump for Jan 6 until his hand was forced by the hearings of the Jan 6 Select Committee of the House. The nation would overwhelmingly support Biden if he backed a move by Garland to recuse them. It will identify and portray him as an independent and decisive President; not a doddering old fool.
I assume he means "push for political pressure that would force them to recuse". But, as he says in his second sentence, if we go there, the next fascist president will have a precedent for interfering with the DoJ AND with the court system.
It's hard to balance our reactions between "pushing hard enough to make something happen, that really needs to happen", and "pushing too hard, and handing future fascists a weapon that we won't want them to have". I pray for progressive politicians.
To continue this line of thought, the next step becomes what Trump and the Republicans are going to do anyway if they win in November: consider that the judicial branch has no power to enforce its rulings; that power, the police power, rests exclusively with the executive branch. And then it's just a game of whose orders the foot soldiers follow.
I won't be surprised if (responding to your previous comment) Alito and Thomas don't recuse, and (responding to this comment) the Supremes deny the motion (how many votes would it take to accept the motion?).
I think this is like the mid-match part of a chess game, where a bunch of intermediate steps are necessary before you can announce "check". Taking actions that should be useful in a good-faith conversation, just to clarify that's not the situation we're not in, is frustrating to watch, but we can't be frozen in place.
Only Biden can force Alito and Thomas to recuse. He may however be afraid to be seen as interfering in the judicial process. I think it was Biden’s decision not to prosecute Trump for Jan 6 until his hand was forced by the hearings of the Jan 6 Select Committee of the House. The nation would overwhelmingly support Biden if he backed a move by Garland to recuse them. It will identify and portray him as an independent and decisive President; not a doddering old fool.
I assume he means "push for political pressure that would force them to recuse". But, as he says in his second sentence, if we go there, the next fascist president will have a precedent for interfering with the DoJ AND with the court system.
It's hard to balance our reactions between "pushing hard enough to make something happen, that really needs to happen", and "pushing too hard, and handing future fascists a weapon that we won't want them to have". I pray for progressive politicians.
I also pray for the other kind ...
To continue this line of thought, the next step becomes what Trump and the Republicans are going to do anyway if they win in November: consider that the judicial branch has no power to enforce its rulings; that power, the police power, rests exclusively with the executive branch. And then it's just a game of whose orders the foot soldiers follow.
Biden can task DOJ to move in SCOTUS to recuse Alito and Thomas.
I won't be surprised if (responding to your previous comment) Alito and Thomas don't recuse, and (responding to this comment) the Supremes deny the motion (how many votes would it take to accept the motion?).
I think this is like the mid-match part of a chess game, where a bunch of intermediate steps are necessary before you can announce "check". Taking actions that should be useful in a good-faith conversation, just to clarify that's not the situation we're not in, is frustrating to watch, but we can't be frozen in place.