On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.
“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.
Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.
Oh, FFS.
take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court
Nooooooo! Then the right-wing media would paint them as partisan! Instead of what they’re doing now, which is … painting them as partisan.
Reforming the Supreme Court was basically Pete’s thing during the primaries. He was talking about it years before Roe, Chevron, and absolute immunity. He suggested adding 6 more judges, 5 of which would be rotating appointments by the other 10. It’s a shame Biden won’t do anything about this - especially when there are other leaders in the party who would.
Didn’t appreciate where his overall platform ended up, but his court plan was awesome. It’s very much at the point where it needs serious reform beyond just judicial ethics and balancing the numbers.
Loss of advantage will certainly feel like a sting to conservatives, but it’s a plan that has some fundamental appeal to fairness. Of course since then the court has gone 6-3, so instituting a 5-5 split would require actually getting rid of a sitting justice.
lol like buttigieg would do ANY of that, do you remember how hard and fast he flipflopped on universal healthcare?
I agree that we have no idea if he’d actually go through with reforming the court if given the opportunity - I’m just pointing out that Democrats have openly called for reforming the court, on the presidential debate stage, as recently as 2019. It shouldn’t be viewed as a non-starter - especially when these ideas were coming from the so-called moderate wing of the party.
On the M4A topic, it’s crazy to me how its supporters have managed to ally themselves with the private healthcare lobby in opposing a competitive public option. If Medicare is more efficient than profit-driven insurance, as we all suspect, then forcing private insurance to compete with it puts us on a direct path to a single-payer system. Pete is a democratic capitalist - it shouldn’t be a surprise that his version of M4A uses the system in place to get us there. If Bernie amended his bill to include a 15-year transition plan I doubt anyone would accuse him of flip-flopping.
On the M4A topic, it’s crazy to me how its supporters have managed to ally themselves with the private healthcare lobby in opposing a competitive public option. If Medicare is more efficient than profit-driven insurance, as we all suspect, then forcing private insurance to compete with it puts us on a direct path to a single-payer system. Pete is a democratic capitalist - it shouldn’t be a surprise that his version of M4A uses the system in place to get us there. If Bernie amended his bill to include a 15-year transition plan I doubt anyone would accuse him of flip-flopping.
The difference between Bernie and Pete is Bernie has proven he won’t flip flop like Obama, Bernie has proven he acts according to a genuinely socialist vision. Pete is just another milquetoast status quo manager who knows what coat of paint looks fresh and cool this season and adopts his policy stances to match that. Bernie is literally the polar opposite of that.
Come on, Joe! You’ve lived long enough to become the villain. DO IT!
Let’s be clear about what this is,
this is the executive branch refusing to put checks on a clearly corrupt and dysfunctional judicial branch. The stability of our 3 branch system depends on the branches being willing and able to check each other. If one branch yields to another, the system fails.
I agree. This is within the president’s role to fix.
Biden, you are head of the executive branch. Your job is to ensure the law is followed. Do your job and start making them do theirs. It doesn’t have to be bloody but applying some pressure would be a great start.
I mean, having an unelected group with lifetime appointments with ultimate power was kind of destined to fuck us at some point.
They are an existential threat to our freedom and democracy! We have to do everything in our power to stop them! Except, you know, doing anything. That would be inconceivable.
It’s astonishing that a man of his age is still flexible enough to stick his head up his own ass. He still thinks he can work with conservatives, doesn’t he?
When it comes to politics there is one golden rule that explains everything:
Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice.
I hate when people use the original version of that rule because it’s never a good lense. The original should be ‘Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to profit’, or do people really think the world is run by idiots who just accidentally managed to profit off of every single time things got worse.
They always say the same. “Oops we did massive war crimes in Korea and Afghanistan and Iraq and oopsie we’re doing a Genocide in Gaza! It was all with the best of intentions we’re just so clumsy haha!”
What were the war crimes in Korea? I would have thought Vietnam would be an easier example. Though admittedly I don’t know much about the Korean war.
The Korean war is weirdly never really mentioned. It was a lot like Vietnam but more at the beginning of the cold war. We did an amazing amount of war crimes. Napalm was really hot back then (badum ts)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea
Air forces of the United Nations Command carried out an extensive bombing campaign against North Korea from 1950 to 1953 during the Korean War. It was the first major bombing campaign for the United States Air Force (USAF) since its inception in 1947 from the United States Army Air Forces. During the campaign, conventional weapons such as explosives, incendiary bombs, and napalm destroyed nearly all of the country’s cities and towns, including an estimated 85% of its buildings.[1]
A total of 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, were dropped on Korea.[2] By comparison, the U.S. dropped 1.6 million tons in the European theater and 500,000 tons in the Pacific theater during all of World War II (including 160,000 on Japan). North Korea ranks alongside Cambodia (500,000 tons), Laos (2 million tons), and South Vietnam (4 million tons) as among the most heavily-bombed countries in history.[3]
We just see Kim Jong Un waving with his ballistic missiles and thinking he’s a funny crazy man that hates America for no reason. That’s the magic of telling one side of history.
I want the power Obama had. The power to overthrow an entire nation based on nothing but economic fears and leave in it’s place an open air slave state, then have people who claim to not like war think your biggest scandal is the color of your damn suit. Just doing an oopsie in Libya, whoopsie daisy.
Dems have to be in on it, that’s the only thing that makes sense. It isn’t Dem vs. Rep, it’s rich vs. poor :(
I promise you that trump and the Christo-fascist movement that he represents will be very creative and forceful wielding this power. For Biden and the Democratic leadership to asymmetrically disarm is yet another example of why the fascists keep advancing despite being unpopular on nearly every issue. The allegiance to decorum and gentlemanly procedure is killing us. Remember when Obama just let them steal a Supreme Court seat, without any fight at all? Hell, remember when Gore just cowardly backed down and ceded his win for the good of the country? I’ll say it again. Every bit of awfulness that Republican authoritarians are successfully persecuting is actively enabled by a pathologically cowardly, ineffective Democratic Party. Biden is exactly the wrong leader for this moment in history.
Biden once again bringing a deck of cards to a gunfight because responding effectively and proportionally in a situation that desperatetly calls for it wOuLd bE DiVisiVE
This. Right. Here.
It’s fine if Biden doesn’t want to play by the new rules – admirable in fact – but we have to understand that this is the game we’re playing now. Either learn to play the game or take your ball and go home.
It’s fine if Biden doesn’t want to play by the new rules – admirable in fact
It’s admirable, but not fine! Biden must play by the new rules; the Supreme Court gave him no choice.
“Taking the high road” doesn’t just make him lose, it also dooms all the rest of us! It is unethical for him to be that selfish.
Agreed. Hence the “but” and the rest of my comment.
2D deck of cards vs anarchy checkers, and America loses.
I wish I could disagree with you but I just can’t anymore. I fear that we will look back on this as the breaking point.
Biden isn’t a fascist and neither are the people he appointed. Even if he gave an illegal order, it wouldn’t be followed because his administration isn’t stocked incompetent lackies chosen for their loyalty alone.
Gaza protests: US officials who have quit over Biden’s support of Israel
Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, left in late May. She said she resigned over an administration report to Congress that she said falsely stated Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Alexander Smith, a contractor for USAID, quit in late May, alleging censorship after the U.S. foreign aid agency canceled publication of his presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians. The agency said it had not gone through proper review and approval.
Looks like everyone that doesn’t get in line with Blue MAGA is getting the boot to me.
So you’ve found examples of folks moving on… while ignoring who they are…. Call things “blue maga” but that’s your label. You are “blue maga”… you make this shit up.
Folks being censored by the Biden administration and the entire administration falling in line to intentionally lie and censor and support Genocide you mean?
I’m so censored! So genocide! So what do you mean? Supporting genocide is just a by-product of language? Genocide is what we do? Do you understand the word or are you just desperate to repeat it? The Biden administration has FORCED me so much… so who can say?
Stop apologizing for Genocide
I didn’t even realize I was commenting on your thread until I got to the genocide shit. Yeah Biden sucks. Yes Israel is perpetrating genocide.
Trump would have Palestinians pushed into the sea by tanks with Zionists jumping off and popping settlements like a real time strategy game. Then everyone would sing hallelujah what a savior as extremist Christians and extremist Jews join hands and wait to receive their Lord and Savior at their new multi-million dollar beachfront mcmansions right over the literal bodies of every Palestinian child in existence.
Stop Trump! Vote!
If you VOTE for the Person who CURRENTLY HAS THE POWER TO REIGN IN THE FASCIST COURT they’ll do something about the Court! Pinky Promise!
Does he actually currently have the power? Thread yesterday said it requires the House.
The Supreme Court just ruled that he can do anything he wants, up to and including assassinating them, as long as it’s an “official act.”
Jesus Christ just hand us over to Russia already then
Moderates keep telling us nothing matters besides stopping trump, but they keep refusing to take action to actually stop him…
Either they’re lying about how big of a threat trump is (they’re not) or theyre intentionally not doing everything they can to stop him.
There’s no logical consistency.
That shit flies no problem with Republican voters, but historically Dem voters don’t like it.
They believe their constitution is magical and if you follow it like you do the Bible, then God will reward you with the presidency. Problem is, fundamentalists have interpreted the book to play by a different set of rules.
SC is literally telling Biden he has all this power…
And Biden’s response is seriously:
I don’t think I do, so I’m going to ignore this.
Like, imagine playing a game of soccer and the ref says you can pick the ball up.
Other team starts playing rugby, and you refuse to let your team pick up the ball.
Now imagine it’s not just a game, and literally millions of lives depend on you not losing…
That’s what Biden is doing.
Except that we know for a fact the refs are incredibly biased against specifically one team.
I wish he would use it, but I understand the hesitance to do so. Why would they do this BEFORE Trump is back in and even give Biden the option to use it? Why risk giving Biden a 4 year larger window to use it if he does win? Feels like a trap to me.
Except that we know for a fact the refs are incredibly biased against specifically one team.
The ref’s just gave either team the power to choose new refs that are biased against the other team.
I know that’s what all our Lemmy lawyers are saying. But I’m pretty confident SCOTUS would find a way for rules to apply to Biden that weirdly wouldn’t apply to Trump.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see him try. I’m just saying if I was in his spot, I wouldn’t immediately jump in assuming everything will just be “that easy”.
You should at least sleep on it once or twice before you do something as drastic as everyone wants.
I’m not sure you’re understanding what I’m laying down. If all previously extra-judicial actions are now potentially on the table, that opens new avenues for changing the members of SCOTUS.
Mate…
If you think republicans are waiting for Dems to abuse it before they do…
I don’t know how much you’ve been paying attention.
If your point was “why wouldn’t they wait for Biden to be out office”, it seems like they’re confident Biden won’t do anything.
And considering how Biden immediately and publicly said he wouldn’t, kind of looks like that was a good assumption
I’m not saying they were wrong, but effectively making the first king of the USA doesn’t seem like something one should risk the outcome of, no matter how strong your assumption is.
You’re surprised far right extremists have poor risk assessment skills?
That’s honestly one of the things that contribute the most to how precarious the current situation is.
A smart person with no fear of failure is a very bad thing, and as terrible as most of the SC justices are, they’re not stupid, and the people who put them there definitely aren’t.
They’re just not afraid of consequences.
Biden offered to golf with traitor trump…
In the Venn diagram of “how fucked am I, personally, if Trump wins?”, they’re not the first, second, or even fifth group that gets murdered in a ditch by Christo-fascist militias. So upsetting the status quo is only seen as risking/actually hurting themselves today, over a possibly in the future. Any talk of “divisiveness” is milquetoast dereliction, the MAGA fringe are not honest negotiators.
They’re not actual allies, they’re fair weather friends. For all the rhetoric of “resist” that was thrown about in early 2016, I saw a lot of pink pussy hats and very little black-block. Politics is still a game to them, the stakes aren’t real. Yet.
I don’t understand how he can make changes to the Supreme Court using this new Supreme Court ruling. My understanding is that change requires Congress and the recent ruling just means he can’t be held accountable for crimes committed as official acts.
What crimes are being suggested to change the Supreme Court?
Biden has been fighting Congress since he took office on this…
When we had the numbers, he said he’d “look into it” and then we didn’t hear back till after the midterms when we no longer had the numbers to do it.
The reason it wasn’t done when we could, is Joe Biden.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/biden-support-expanding-supreme-court-white-house/story?id=85703773
After he was elected, Biden appointed a 36-member bipartisan commission to study potential changes to the Supreme Court – including the addition of more seats, as well as term limits and a code of ethics for justices.
The commission unanimously adopted a report late last year, in which they warned that excessive change to the institution could cause democracy to regress in the future.
The panel found “considerable” support for 18-year term limits for justices, but the issue of expanding the court beyond nine seats was met with “profound disagreement.”
Because the bipartisan commission claimed fixing it would do more harm then letting the current corrupt court do shit like repeal Roe v Wade and all the other shit Biden now says was so terrible.
But if elected again, he still won’t fix.
That’s a big reason Biden has a 37% approval rating, he opposed actually fixing things. And just wants to maintain the status quo.
It’s not a valid long term strategy.
Moderates just want to complain, they don’t want to actually fix shit. We’ve been ignoring it since Obama’s pick was stolen, ignoring it more won’t magically solve it.
Ok, but what crimes are being suggested to change the Supreme Court?
He could throw them in prison extrajudicially for actions against the US government including treason for their support of 1/6… Hell, he can ship em to Gitmo even tho theyre US citizens.
Although I’ve seen far less civilized but more permanent suggestions.
It’s not even a crime, or false accusation.
And as an official act, no one can go after Biden for it.
If Biden believes trump is the threat he says he is, then he needs to do that. But ideally he would have expanded the SC back in 2021 when we had the numbers.
Like, we’re backed into this corner because Biden decided to walk into it…
My understanding is many supporters of Biden don’t want a coup or fascism.
If Biden engages in those acts wouldn’t that result in less votes and support? And also increase the chances republicans get away with a coup/facism?
Also, my understanding is a supermajority is required in Congress to change the Supreme Court. Which we did not have in 2021. Am I wrong?
If Biden engages in those acts wouldn’t that result in less votes and support? And also increase the chances republicans get away with a coup/facism?
Republicans are gonna republican. But we’re literally fight fascism so…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Also, my understanding is a supermajority is required in Congress to change the Supreme Court. Which we did not have in 2021. Am I wrong?
Can be done with a simple majority, which we had till 2022. If Dems really fought and tossed out the filibuster, but they didn’t.
Instead Biden created a bipartisan committee to investigate if the corrupt Republican SC should be allowed to stand as is. He gave them 6 months, and after 2 years (as soon as Dems.lost the House) they decided we should just let it go.
At every step, Biden and party leadership refuse to fight.
We can’t afford that. If trump is as dangerous as they say (he is) then we need to actually fight.
Even if we lose, it motivates voters for the next election.
But he could still, this very day, arrest them for treason and jail them indefinitely and no one can stop him due to the SC’s recent ruling.
From what I’ve read, impeaching a Supreme Court justice requires the same impeachment process as the president so 2/3rds. Not a simple majority.
But even if it could be done with a simple majority, your statement depends on the vote of Manchin and Sinema.
He could throw them in prison extrajudicially for actions against the US government including treason for their support of 1/6… Hell, he can ship em to Gitmo even tho theyre US citizens.
I didn’t say anything about impeachment…
From 2020-2022 we could have added justices with a simple majority after throwing out the filibuster.
We didn’t.
We are running out of actions because we are running out of time. I wish Biden wouldn’t have wasted those two years with a bipartisan commission to find out if everything was fine…
But he did.
Due to the recent SC ruling, Biden faces no punishment for actions committed in office. So he can jail Clarence and everyone else who’s corrupt in jail and thus remove the conservative majority. Hell, legally he can have them executed for treason without trial, but I think Gitmo and no communication is more than enough.
There’s lots of people in GITMO who have done far less
If trump is the threat Biden says (he is) then we need to do whatever we can to prevent trump.
Do you disagree that trump is an existential threat to American democracy and we may never recover if he becomes president.
The reason it wasn’t done when we could, is Joe Biden.
if I recall correctly, the words were… “nothing will fundamentally change”. a man of his word.
Kill the judges using his own immunity granted by them. Elect new ones that will take away this immunity. They are very obviously a threat to democracy and they themselves have said that whether something is an official order cannot be questioned.
He doesn’t need to kill them. Take all their personal property using eminent domain, sell all their office space in D.C. and close the court buildings where they operate. Leave them running SCOTUS out of a store front in a strip mall in the most crime ridden part of D.C. He could even use extraordinary rendition (Thanks Dubya) to nab their families and hold them in black sites in foreign countries. There are any number of non-lethal official acts that he can use to make their lives a living hell until they consent to make the changes we need to keep this country safe from fascism. When your enemy hands you a gun, use it.
Can you cite that last part? I didn’t read the whole brief, and that wasn’t in the summaries I saw
The president is now entirely above the law while on the clock.
But where did they say no one can question whether something is official?
Any power outlined in the constitution is absolutely official, which arguably covers murder via the military. But if you murder the people who would say something isn’t official, an entire world of options opens up. The survivors will either agree with you or want to not die.
Which is notably why it’s so dangerous under Trump. Trump can get the broad immunity without murdering most of the court (and rightfully setting off alarm bells/triggering rebellion) first.
Who do you think decides when it’s an official act?
Yeah, but killing people is still illegal, so even if it was official, he can be impeached.
You can be impeached for basically anything. But you still need 67 votes in the senate to be removed. And senators can also be murdered. Being able to have immunity for murder as long as you murder anyone who would deny it is a self-empowering ability.
But that’s not all. They also ruled that you can’t use official acts in the process of determining what wasn’t an official act. If Biden ordered the military to assassinate Trump, the fact that the President is Constitutionally the head of the military and that the military must obey orders from the President couldn’t be used as evidence that he gave an illegal order.
This situation is fucked up.
Can you even consider the killing in the impeachment trial? He has absolute immunity from criminal acts.
But who’s going to do the impeaching when everyone who would oppose it can simply also be killed?
No, the president has immunity during official duties much like a first responder. If they break the law that isn’t an official duty.
I don’t understand how he can make changes to the Supreme Court using this new Supreme Court ruling. My understanding is that change requires Congress
-
Just do it.
-
Have anyone who tries to stop you (including Congresspeople who would vote against it) killed.
-
Call it an “official act.”
That’s legal now.
Nope. That is not within the duties of the president. Declaring something official doesn’t make it official.
You say that as if it wouldn’t be a moot point once SCOTUS has five or six vacancies on it all at once, along with who knows how many in the Senate.
That’s how power actually works, you know. Don’t believe me? Watch Saddam Hussein’s 1979 purge to see how it goes down.
That’s the kind of power that exists here in the US now, thanks to the fascist Supreme Court. If Biden doesn’t use it against itself in order to destroy it, the next Republican President will use it to consolidate his own rule much the same way Saddam did.
Is Saddam Hussein in the room with us now?
What a useless non-response.
You can be in denial all you want, but the factual reality is that, since this SCOTUS ruling, the US is an autocracy now. Practically speaking, the only way for it to stop being such in the short term is for the autocrat (i.e., Biden) to forcibly change it back.
That’s because your fantastical scenario is exactly that, fantasy. You do not understand whatsoever the implications of the ruling because you cannot grasp the duty of the president, checks and balances, and the rule of law. Did they stop teaching civics in school?7
Well golly gee, mister, if I’m so ignorant can you please explain to me how I’m wrong? Be specific, now!
If not, then by all means, please continue with your point-free ad-hominem attacks. It’s entertaining! 🍿
What about the voters that are voting Biden because they don’t want a coup or assassinations? Biden would lose all those votes. Then how does he win the election?
- Biden replaces the treasonous court by any means necessary.
- The Democratic Party “strongly condemns” his “rogue” actions and chooses another candidate.
- Anti-coup and anti-assassination voters vote for that candidate ('cause who’re they gonna pick otherwise, Trump? LOL).
Obviously it’s ethically horrific, but (from utilitarian and game theory perspectives) it’s the least-bad option I can think of right now.
-
Yeah, that’s a good point, I’ve seen a lot of suggestions that seem to go beyond the scope of this terrible terrible ruling. I guess he could order the military to prevent congress and the SC from meeting or doing anything. Then he could just issue executive orders, or declare war on a faction of politicians trying to stage a coup maybe?
That’s what it sounded like to me also but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
Are these people suggesting that Biden assassinate politicians and stage a coup arguing in good faith? Seems like something that would be suggested by an enemy nation.
I mean, if Trump wins the election, it might literally be our last election. They have a plan to dismantle our government. So no, unfortunately, I think they’re arguing in good faith, trying to use this tool the GOP has set up against them to save the country.
Saving the country means voting for Biden.
Basically, the Supreme Court decides what is an official act, so any actions Biden would use this new power for to correct this would be ruled over by the hostile Supreme Court. So the hostile Supreme Court would have to be removed, then the replacement could remove the right for the president to do all this. The first action would have to be to attack the Supreme Court. How bleak. Dammed if you do and SUPER dammed if you don’t
If you dont try to fight fascism with every tool avaliable and legal to you, then you’re a fascist. There’s no if and or buts about it. Biden could take steps to counter fascism but instead he make committments to explicitly not fight it using the new SCOTUS ruling and even not to change the courts.
Even if he wins, in 4 years were going to be right back to fascism because he is explicitly refusing to fix this. Hes unfit to fight fascism which means hes unfit to be president in the modern US.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States.
Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Under pressure in 2020, then-candidate Biden promised that, if elected, he would appoint a bipartisan commission to consider reforms to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary.
It’s worth noting, he offered that pledge before the court overturned Roe v. Wade, before it struck down a Trump-era ban on the device that facilitated the deadliest mass shooting in American history, and before it ended affirmative action in college admissions.
Asked what the campaign’s message to voters who have watched as the court has delivered a stream of deeply partisan decisions and who believe the system is broken, and who want to know what Biden would do to fix it in a second term, Fulks offered: “We’re going to continue to make the case and talk to voters about the fact that the judges that Donald Trump put on the court have, honestly, taken away rights from Americans and given more freedom to Donald Trump as president United States to do whatever he wants … This campaign is gonna spend every day from now until November continuing to make that case that if Donald Trump gets anywhere near the White House again, he will do exactly what he has been telling us for months.
The original article contains 825 words, the summary contains 333 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Biden has already prerecorded his congratulations to trump phone call and plans on sending it a week before the election. He believes it’s the only option available to him under the constitution and prevailing sense of political realism.
