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On Covid and Texas, Biden Courts a Constitutional Crisis
When Donald Trump was president, we heard a lot about Norms® and Standards.™ Trump was accused of violating this vague collection of unwritten rules, a convenient tactic when they couldn’t prove actual crimes. The good news was that Biden’s election would restore this Beltway-approved system of etiquette. How refreshing.
Eight months into his administration, Biden has folded, spindled, and mutilated our Norms® and Standards,™ even those mandated by the Constitution. Trump was erratic but Biden is openly courting a constitutional crisis.
Pressured by far-left backbencher Cori Bush in August, the White House reinstated an eviction ban already declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Biden knew it was a violation but said: “by the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time.”
As expected, SCOTUS immediately crushed it stating, “if a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.” Just as it says in the Constitution.
On Thursday, Biden made two more obviously unconstitutional moves. First, he ordered hapless Attorney General Merrick Garland to sue the state of Texas over its new abortion law. The administration was furious that the Supreme Court actually followed the law and refused to issue an emergency stay. The DOJ bizarrely claimed that a state exercising its rights will “nullify the Constitution of the United States.”
Later in the day, the President announced a six-point plan to tackle Covid. Called “Path out of the Pandemic,” his executive orders require millions of Americans to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. The groups include federal employees, employees of contractors that do business with the federal government, and workers in hospitals, home health care facilities, and other medical facilities.
Biden also ordered all private employers with 100 employees or more to require weekly Covid testing, and they are required to give employees paid time off to get vaccinated.
“This is not about freedom or personal choice,” Biden said in a national address. “We’ve been patient but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us.” After attacking Americans, the President took on the states. “If these governors won’t help,” Biden said, “I will use my powers as president and get them out of the way.”
Back in December, Biden promised that he would not make vaccines mandatory. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki repeated this in July. But Biden’s promises are irrelevant, as Americans and allies still stranded in Afghanistan have learned. Wanting voters to forget the crisis overseas, he is creating new ones on the homefront.
The White House has no authority to do any of this, of course. The White House knows they have no authority to do any of this. Biden is doing it anyway.
Norms®? Standards™? Not for Biden. He has chosen constitutional crisis.
Published in Politics
. . . with the prerogative of pinning your post to the top of the Main Feed for days.
Bingo
So what’s the solution here, guys? Blue Yeti, Rob Long, and Peter Robinson are not going to fire Jon because of that post. Peter and Rob are not going to fire Blue Yeti. Being that Rob is a founder of the business, he’s not going to be fired. I don’t think Jon is going to set himself on fire as an apology for having a negative opinion about a politician you revere. Are you going to keep carping and sniping about it forever?
You can either accept that there are people in high places on this site who have very different views than you or you can go somewhere else where everyone thinks alike.
I am fairly libertarian for a Republican and you have written very insulting things about libertarians. OK. So What? We disagree. If I showed up in the comments on post after post after post of yours to bring up some old argument, maybe you would be happy to keep rehashing an old argument but it would bore the hell out of everyone else.
I don’t think anybody was asking for Jon Gabriel or anyone else to be fired. They were asking for him to defend his views in light of what has happened since the election. This may be somewhat unpleasant in a mostly-friendly group discussion, but I think it is part of a healthy debate as long as people act respectfully and honor the Ricochet code of conduct. I’ve seen a lot more disparaging remarks than this directed at our stubborn friend with the Ronald Reagan avatar.
It would probably annoy me too if one person challenged my previous views multiple times. However, Jon Gabriel is in the unique position of being the Grand Pooh Bah of this website, and therefore is exposed to criticism/praise more than any other member in the discussions. Just like being President of the United States, the job comes along with much more responsibility and scrutiny than the job of men’s room attendant. And it is not just one person who is criticizing the infamous post about the January 6th riot and his encouragement to impeach Donald Trump. I haven’t taken a poll but this matter is a fairly widespread concern among Ricochetti.
I actually think it’s kinda funny – poetic justice or something – to use “Jon’s Creation” in part to refute and debunk and discredit Jon’s views expressed on that same “Creation.” And especially the… “tenor”… with which he sometimes expresses them.
BRT
What is BRT?
Boring, repetitive, and tense.
I didn’t agree with Jon’s Post of Infamy, but I didn’t need my fainting couch after reading it, either. Neither did I wet my pants when the MAGA Shaman marched through the hallowed halls of Congress. If I can stomach the idea of Dick Durbin holding a position in the US Senate that doesn’t involve ladling out bean soup, I can deal with all that.
I don’t know that anyone here needed a “fainting couch” after Jon’s screed, but we’re not libs/Dims.
Well, not most of us, anyway.
No. It was a state law mandating smallpox vaccination, a truly necessary vaccination against a truly deadly disease, far beyond even the Spanish Flu. Smallpox was driven out of the world by a truly worldwide military style operation to immunize every single person, ending in the same Pakistani mountains that have more recently harbored Islamic terrorist groups.
And, the Supreme Court said it was not really forced vaccination because all the law did was allow up to a single $5 fine (about $100 today). So, nothing contemplated by the lab coat left node of the authoritarian blob is supported by that old case. It was the evil, lawless 1927 ruling in Buck v Bell that upheld eugenics via forced sterilization. Holmes falsely cited Jacobson v Massachusetts as authority for imposing forced sterilization on people.
Now see? This is unfair. I do not “revere” Donald Trump. I don’t set him up as some kind of idol. I am not a Trump cultist!! And I don’t believe anyone else on Ricochet is either. We see the man with his flaws. We see the compromises built-in to our electoral system. We’re not idiots. And, as it turns out, we got pretty lucky with the Trump interregnum. I was skeptical, but until COVID (interesting timing), Trump was nudging this ship of state in the right direction. His administration was a pause between the radicalism of Barack Obama and the collapse Joe Biden is accelerating.
But, Jon and other NTers can’t write a single stinking post about the looming disaster of Democrat rule in this country without taking a dig at Trump. I’m just asking for one example of what he means about Trump being “erratic” in this context. Just one!
/now I am getting angry, and I wasn’t before
One could, and I would argue should, have been able to discern between a bumptious, accidentally blasphemous, frequently outrageous, generally caustic man capable of getting things done, and a potted plant.
And, btw, I’m totally open to the possibility that there is an example. Maybe more than one. I’m asking Jon to think about it and come up with one, which might cause me to think about it — and even agree with him!
I thought this was how conversation was supposed to work. We share thoughts, sift them out, and decide which we can hold onto and which we can discard. I thought Ricochet was a conversation site expressly designed for this purpose. Prove me right, Jon.
Yes, but I don’t intend to relitigate the Trump-Never Trump positions again. See comments above. I’m actually trying to stay within the context of Jon’s post.
I was referring back to the post from January. Sorry I drifted there.
You asked how I felt about it and you got a straight answer.
I believe you but I have seen a few Ricochetti who think that Trump can do no wrong. Granted, I think they are in the minority. Idolizing one’s political heroes is something way more common on the left. That’s what makes the recent revolt against Biden in the leftist media so significant. I think this is the first time since the Johnson administration that leftists have openly castigated a democrat president.
I don’t think it is too disrespectful to name people on this, since I am not criticizing them for it, but Max Ledoux and Columbo are the first ones that come to mind.
And yet both have been unhappy with Trump.
Maybe so. I don’t read enough Ricochet posts to get a real accurate pulse on things, but of the stuff I have read, I never saw these two criticize Trump when it was clearly warranted..
I think in particular what we’ve learned about the events of that day over the last several months.
I should have thought that after four years of the media pressing their anti-Trump narrative, only to learn a few days later that their narrative was a lie from the start (see Covington Catholic for a great example, although there have been lots more), that “hold your fire” is the best approach when responding to “Breaking News about Trump!”
And now, after several months, the “INSURRECTON! COUP!” narrative has been revealed to be utter nonsense. Anyone still saying “We almost lost the country that day!” needs to be made to wear a dunce cap and sit in an internet-free corner for about a decade.
There are as many Trump Cultists in this country as there are QAnon-ers.
Which is to say “statistically zero, but it’s a handy stick to beat people with.”
Yes, and this is the tactic used to avoid answering the question. “Oh, you’re just a Trump cultist who believes he’s infallible. I don’t have to answer your challenge because you wouldn’t accept any data I provided anyway.”
That’s NOT a path toward civil discourse, dear Editor in Chief.
I’ll have you know that I revere Columbo — I am a founding member of the cult of Columbo — and I will brook no insult sir!
Pardon me sir, there’s just one more thing……………………
You realize, I hope, that comparing Joe Biden to a potted plant is an insult to potted plants.