Speaking at the American Constitution Society's National Convention, Senator Biden
raged against the right-wing's judicial agenda:
"What is really at stake the wholesale liquidation of any constitutional protection of privacy." Biden added that those on the right, the "Constitutional in Exile crowd, believe that there should no protection of privacy in the constitution."
Biden further explained that the Constitution in Exile movement seeks to overturn many of the New Deal reforms. He quoted American Enterprise Institute's Michael Greve, who has argued for, "a fundamental intellectual assault on the entire New Deal edifice." To exemplify the dangers of the Constitution in Exile movement Biden asked, "What would happen if we had five Justice Thomases?...Five Justice Thomases, thousands of laws, environmental, criminal, civil rights, would be declared unconstitutional." (Click here for ACSblog's dicussion on what a Thomas Court might look like). Biden then asked the audience, "Do you believe, if we did not have a Social Security Law, one would be passed today in the House of Representatives? I don't think that there is any possibility."
Biden explained that judicial nominations are so important to the radical right to push their agenda rather than the congress is because, "Because the American people do not agree with them...[and]now is the time for the right to strike and lock in the their philosophy to handcuff future congresses from overturning the right's agenda...and an acknowledgment that the right can not take on popular programs in the light of day."
It's about fucking time a Democratic Senator stood up and screamed that the Supreme Court does a whole lot more than abortion and gay rights. The right wants to destroy our very system of government, and Biden is fighting back.