Tuesday, July 30

Contents:

1. US President Joe Biden Calls for Supreme Court Reforms

2. Fact of the Day

3. Quote of the Day

4. Word of the Day

US President Joe Biden has called for reforms of the Supreme Court, but those laws have a very small chance of being passed before his term comes to an end.

Amid deep concerns over the neutrality of the United States Supreme Court, Biden has finally taken a stance on the issue. Due to the timing of the exits of multiple justices, former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three new justices -- those being Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett -- skewing the court to become a 6-3 conservative majority. Despite the fact that justices are supposed to be impartial, a large portion of public views the Supreme Court as heavily politicized, and according to a recent study, the number of people who approve of the court's decisions has dropped from 60 percent to 40 percent in two decades, while the percentage of people who disapproved came up from 29 percent to 53 percent in the same period of time. Due to the Supreme Court's extreme power, they have the authority to completely overturn laws, an example of which was the recent overturning of 1973's Roe v. Wade case.

President Biden is now trying to make the most of the little term he has left, and is speeding up his agenda to try and complete as many tasks as he can before Kamala Harris takes over as the frontman for the Democratic Party. One of those is completely changing the Supreme Court, but any sort of law passed to execute that would most likely extend well past his term, which ends this year in January.

The reforms include several important key points, including preventing presidential immunity, implementing term limits for Supreme Court justices, and mandatory ethics rules, which focus on the years-long controversy over bribes to justices. The prevention of presidential immunity would reverse the court's recent decision to give former presidents full immunity from being prosecuted, coming during Trump's run for presidential immunity. For the term limits, Biden suggests a new law that would state that the incumbent president would have to choose a new justice every 2 years to serve for 18 years on the court, slowly rotating through justices to assure that there wouldn't be any sort of political majority for a long period of time-- right now, justices can serve for as long as they would like to after appointed. Polls have shown that the public agrees with having some sort of age limit on the justices as well-- both Democrats and Republicans.

Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as Republicans, quickly wrote it off as ”a typical Biden con" and "dead on arrival in the House," respectively. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, another Republican, described Biden as trying to "shred the Constitution," and many other Republicans also responded strongly to Biden's proposal.

Whether any of these reforms for the Supreme Court will actually take place is unknown, but it is a tight race in the November elections, and a win for Democrats could mean that the rules could start being implemented in the next four years.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): Flamingos bend their legs at the ankle, not the knee-- the joint in the middle of their leg is their ankle. They essentially stand on tip-toe, since their knees are much farther up and are very close to the body.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): If you’ve got to work for the rest of your life, you’d better do something you’ll enjoy. (James Sinegal)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Aspersion (noun)- To cast aspersion (or aspersions) on someone is to criticize them harshly or unfairly: aspersion is defined as "a false or misleading charge meant to harm someone's reputation, or the act of making such a charge." Aspersion may also refer to a sprinkling with water, especially in religious ceremonies.

In a Sentence: Melissa believed that Roger had unjustly cast aspersions on the quality of her research.