LOS ANGELES.–Wasting more time during an Election Year, 34-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and 61-year-old Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to denigrate the Supreme Court talking of the need to pass legislation regulating Supreme Court ethics, especially over receiving gifts or other purks. AOC and Raskin want to impose the same $50 limit Congress has about accepting gifts, something obviously not followed on the High Court with reports of lavish vacations received by some justices. But whatever AOC and Raskin want to do, they’re clearly out of their lane under Article 1 advising the Supreme Court under Article III how to run their separate-but-equal branch of government. AOC and Raskin, both ranking members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, are battling to stop the Committee from slapping Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland with Contempt of Congress.
AOC and Raskin are off-the wall thinking that they can regulate the Supreme Court, only trying to score political points in an Election Year. “And so, it is not a question . . . of if Congress has the jurisdiction and power over the Supreme Court. It is, what power are we going to exercise in order to rein a fundamentally unaccountable and rogue court?” asked AOC, making purely political points. AOC and Raskin know that have no legal standing to make any recommendations about the Supreme Court or Executive Branch [Article II], but get the kick out calling the Supreme Court “rogue.” To AOC and Raskin the court is rogue because in 2022 they overturned 1973 Roe v. Wade, removing women’s right to abortion. AOC and Raskin know they have no power, no influence, no right to dictate ethical standards of the Supreme Court or Executive Branch.
AOC and Raskin want to make the case to voters that Republicans let the Supreme Court run amok, making the case for giving 81-year-old President Joe Biden four more years. Forget about the fact that Biden battles with his Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland to keep an audio record of Biden’s memory and cognitive impairment out of the public’s sight. After releasing heavily redacted transcript of Biden’s 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, Biden declared executive privilege over the audiotape because it would reveal for all to see Biden’s memory and cognitive impairments. So, AOC and Raskin think going the offensive against the Supreme Court is the best way to go in an Election Year. AOC and Raskin know that their proposed legislation to restrict the Supreme Court to the same $50 gift rules as Congress will go absolutely nowhere.
Fashioning legislation to try to control the Supreme Court can go nowhere due to the Constitutional separation of powers. “Congressman Raskin and myself will be introducing forthcoming legislation to even have the Supreme Court be subject to the same $50 gift rule that he and I are subject o, as everyone else who are members of Congress,” AOC said. Whatever gifts have been afforded to Supreme Court justice by donors or anyone else, it has no relevance or consequences to the House Oversight Committee. AOC and Raskin want to discredit what they see as a conservative court in anyway possible. Talking about reigning in ethical breaches doesn’t address to active conspiracy in the White House, House Democrats and the press to deny the public access to factual information about Biden’s memory and cognitive impairment. AOC and Raskin see nothing wrong with the cover-up.
When it comes to politics in the GOP-controlled House, Democrats will do anything to cover-up the facts behind Biden’s mental condition. AOC and Raskin defend Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland’s right to withhold the audiotape of Biden’s two-day, 2023 interview with Biden. Biden reportedly told Special Counsel Hur he could not recall when he was Vice President or when his oldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer. “It’s the highest court in the land with the lowest ethical standards. These are the only government officials to land who are not government by a binding ethics code. There’s no process by which we can hold any of them accountable,” Raskin said. Raskin knows a modicum of Constitutonal law, enough to know that he’s part of Article 1, one of three coequal branches of government. It’s inappropriate for AOC and Raskin fashion legislation for the Supreme Court.
AOC and Raskin are political animals, wasting more time in Congress over making the conservative court look bad. “And so, we need to clean that up. And that’s why we said we’re going to start with something simple that the whole country will be able to understand immediately and intuitively,” Raskin said about his legislation. Raskin knows he’s grandstanding with AOC only to denigrate conservatives heading into the 2024 election. AOC and Raskin hope voters don’t wise up to the cover-up of Biden’s memory and cognitive impairments making him unfit for the White House. Yet if you ask AOC and Raskin they have every right to call out the High Court’s ethical breaches, even though they have no jurisdiction to comment or control the judicial branch. Diverting attention off Biden’s memory lapses and cognitive impairments is Democrats’ top priority.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
