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Well yeah, that’s because um, um… he stole those jobs and gave them to Mexican rapists!
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A Very Solid GDP Report
There is much to like in this report. The economy is growing at a solid pace that is roughly in line with most estimates of the economy’s potential growth. Inflation is continuing to slow, and given the virtual certainty of rental inflation slowing, it should be very close to the Fed’s 2.0 percent target by the end of the year.
The weak GDP growth in the first quarter translated into weak productivity growth after three very strong quarters at the end of 2023. With hours growth likely to come in at close to 1.5 percent for the second quarter, we should see productivity growth slightly over 1.0 percent. That does not help the case for a pick-up in the pace of productivity growth, but it should be fast enough to leave it an open question. In any case, the economy is still looking very good.
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ETA: The Op-Ed in the Washington Post is actually written by Biden and has more information that the fact sheet on the White House website. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to have a subscription to read the op-ed, since it’s from the President, but I could be wrong.
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I still think hanging reversal of the monumentally bad decisions of this Court on a constitutional amendment is a flawed (impossible, in the near term) plan. The greater detail on term limits and ethics makes me more comfortable with those parts of the plan. I can see how there would be cynical advantages late in a campaign for making the only path forward an amendment, thus requiring a massive landslide to be anything but a pipe dream, but I’d rather have a practical plan to expand the court to at least the number of federal districts.
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Well the only other way to reverse the immunity decision is to wait for a future, more liberal Court to reverse that decision. That could 20 years, unless we pack the Court, and that is as unlikely in the near term as a Constitutional Amendment.
I actually like the idea of pushing for an Amendment, even though it’s unlikely, because I think we need to re-normalize the idea that the Constitution is a malleable document. It hasn’t been Amended since 1992, and that Amendment was proposed in 1789. But it hasn’t always been this way. Between 1912 and 1971, the 17th through the 26th Amendments were proposed and ratified. That’s ten Amendments in 59 years, about one every six years. Now, we haven’t really had even one in the last 53 years. That needs to change. And we can start by actually introducing some and having a President lobby for it. It may not pass, but it might plant a seed that this is something we can do.
ETA: And while we’re at it, we can introduce a new Equal Rights Amendment rather than continuing to imagine that Republicans are going to relent and decide that the earlier one didn’t actually expire.
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I’m confused. Why would simple legislation be as difficult as an amendment and why would it take 20 years? Simple majority in Congress, presidential signature, and 4 nominations. I could see that taking 6 months or so, but not 20 years. What am I missing?
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Simple legislation will not reverse the immunity decision of the Supreme Court. Their decision, per the majority opinion, was based on the Constitution. Federal law doesn’t override the Constitution. So there are two options to overturn that particular decision. And only two. One, wait for a future Supreme Court to overturn it. Two, pass a Constitutional Amendment. Had their decision been based on federal law, rather than on the Constitution, then a new federal law or an amendment to an existing one would work. But their decision was based on the Constitution. Wrongly, in my opinion, but I’m not on the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court says “The Constitution says X,” then the Constitution says X, even if it clearly doesn’t. And a law won’t change it to Y. They would just declare that law unconstitutional.
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The legislation isn’t to overturn the SCOTUS immunity decision, it’s just to expand the court.
Ah, I see that I missed a step. After confirming 4 new justices, bring a T**** case in front of the Court so that they can undo the prior decision. Still well under a year from start to finish. Then start knocking out previous decisions that were bought-and-paid-for like Holder, Citizen’s United, etc.
An amendment establishing that there is no presidential immunity would be counter-productive, IMO. First, that’s already established in the Constitution. Second, such an amendment would inevitably muddy the waters and is likely to cause unforeseen problems. We really should avoid unnecessary amendments when the answer is already obvious in plain language.
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Ok, well yes, we don’t need an Amendment for that, but Biden isn’t proposing that. I thought you were referring to the Amendment he proposed. I still want to see an Amendment. That’s a more secure change than an expanded Court overturning the previous decision. Another future conservative Court could reinstate the immunity. An Amendment is more robust. Again, yes, it’s unlikely. We should still try, for the reasons I said earlier.
ETA: Also, just to clarify, the reason I said 20 years to wait for a more liberal Court is because Biden isn’t proposing expanding the Court. First, it’s not even possible right now because we don’t have a Democratic majority in the House. And if we retake the House in November, and hold the Senate, we’re probably not going to have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. And I doubt if there will be enough votes to eliminate the filibuster, either. Unless we have a massive blue wave in November, it’s all very unlikely. I still want to push for an amendment. I want to start to acclimate people to the idea that we can do that.
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I was referring to the amendment he proposed. I hate to say, it’s just smoke and mirrors. It’s a pipe dream, at least in the foreseeable future. Whereas packing the court and overturning the immunity decision is practical and relatively quick. If Biden still feels squicky about packing the court (I don’t know why, it’s overdue to expansion to at least 13), maybe Harris doesn’t have that same hesitance. Ultimately, they will need to pack the court anyway to fulfill the promise of overturning Dobbs and re-establishing Roe, so they might as well do a complete repair while they are at it.
Regarding your edit, which is all good stuff, BTW: The Senate can remove the filibuster with 51 votes. The Senate can confirm SCOTUS nominees with 51 votes. The only folks holding that back were Manchin and Sinema, and they’re both out of the picture in January. Again, Congressional Democrats, assuming they win the House and hold the Senate, have to get over the bullshit or we’re just going to be right back where we are now in 2 years. If they fail to deliver by midterms it’s going to be another bloodbath.
Oh, and I agree about the importance of an amendment; I just disagree about which one should get priority. An immunity amendment is unnecessary, IMO. What’s it going to say, “Hey, remember in Article II when we said the president doesn’t have immunity from criminal prosecution? Yeah, we really meant that.” I like your earlier suggestion of revitalizing the ERA. I think that’s an amendment that has a chance of actually passing, especially if women really come out to vote in big numbers and determine the outcome in November. Even regressive Republicans would have to consider voting for it or face overwhelming opposition in all but the safest districts.
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I mean, there’s no reason we can’t pursue both options. Neither is likely to succeed, but we should try (Manchin and Sinema are not the only “Democrats” who oppose expanding the Court, unfortunately).
I don’t know if you’re familiar with how the 27th Amendment finally got ratified, but it’s a pretty good lesson in not giving into despair, and also in the power of getting personally offended by something. That Amendment was part of the original package of 12 Amendments that became the Bill of Rights. Two of them were never ratified. However, unlike modern Amendments, they didn’t contain a sunset clause. In other words, they had no expiration date. In 1982, an undergrad student in a polysci class at the University of Texas had a writing assignment about some aspect of government. He initially wanted to write about the ERA, but then discovered this Amendment that had just been sitting there waiting for ratification for, at that time, almost 200 years. And the Amendment seemed like a good idea and a no brainer to him. So he focused his paper on proposing that this Amendment could get ratified, and outlined a plan on how to do it. The TA who graded his paper thought it was an infeasible idea, and gave him a bad grade. The student appealed to the professor, who just sided with the TA. He ended up with a C- in the class, and he was pissed. He took it personally. And so he set out to prove them wrong and actually get that Amendment ratified. It took him 10 years, but he did it.
We, myself included, are sometimes prone to thinking that things that are unlikely are impossible and shouldn’t even be tried. We need to stop doing that. We should try both the Amendment and expanding the size of the Court.
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TIL about the 27th Amendment! Thank you!
I’m usually in the camp of “we can do this!” When it comes to government action. Regarding the immunity amendment Biden is proposing, I’m not sure we should do it. From what I can tell it doesn’t add any provisions that aren’t already covered in the main text. If it spelled out very clearly that even official acts (like Obama drone assassinating a 15 year old US citizen without a trial) were fair game for prosecution, I could see value in that. But from what I can tell it doesn’t.
As for expanding the court, I think there is unbreakable leverage for Democratic voters involved this cycle. Congress simply cannot repair damage as fast as this Court can break things. Any legislation they pass to protect abortion access, repair voting rights, introduce sensible gun control, etc. will just get shot down by this Court. The only way to make any progress at all is to fix the Court first. And they need to do it pretty quickly, while public opinion is behind them thanks to Thomas’ and Alito’s corruption and the overturning of Dobbs. The longer those conditions stagnate, the more people will just give it up as the “way things are.”
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Well his proposal doesn’t include an actual amendment, so we don’t know what the wording will be. He’s asking for it to be drafted. So we’ll just have to wait and see exactly what they come up with. Personally, I would be in favor of no immunity from criminal prosecution period. And then if a President wanted to argue that his actions were necessary for national defense, or whatever, they can raise that as a necessity defense at trial. If we’re going to say no one is above the law, we should mean that.
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In before Trump accuses Biden of stealing his thunder.
Edit: Sorry, I guess it’s not one-boxing. But whoop, I called it:
EDITEDIT: Bah, nothing’s oneboxing…
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The best part? Dark Brandon strikes again:
A reporter asked Biden on Thursday about Trump’s suggestion that he would have brought the detainees home without giving anything in exchange.
“Why didn’t he do it when he was president?” Biden replied.
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Well, technically only one of the four was arrested when Drumpf was in office. But yes, Whelan should have been back a looooong time ago.
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