Apparently, hell hath no fury like a “squad” member chasing a lost cause.
Having already lost in the battle to keep her fellow squadster and New Yorker Rep. Jamaal Bowman in his seat — he was defeated in lost a Democratic primary last month after plenty of anti-Israel rhetoric on his part — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is continuing her quixotic battle against Republican-appointed Supreme Court members.
According to the New York Post, AOC’s office announced Wednesday that she had introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the current court’s two most senior members.
The move stands no chance of succeeding in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, mind you, but I guess it’s better to be seen doing something — anything — rather than to make sure you’re doing something constructive with your time.
Ocasio-Cortez has been forever threatening the court — with its 6-3 conservative majority — with impeachment, the latest time after its July 1 ruling that former President Donald Trump had some measure of immunity for official acts he committed while in office.
“The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,” the congresswoman wrote on X in the wake of the ruling.
“Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy,” she wrote. “It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture.
“I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.”
The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control.
Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture.
I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 1, 2024
Well, Congress is back — and while the rest of the Democratic Party is consumed with the slow-motion car wreck that’s been President Joe Biden’s candidacy after the June 27 debate debacle, AOC wants to pivot to impeachment.
In a statement, the congresswoman claimed the two justices’ “pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law.”
Thomas, of course, has faced criticism from the left for failure to disclose his decision to accept travel and accommodations from a wealthy friend and his wife’s beliefs about the outcome of the 2020 election.
Alito, meanwhile, has faced criticism for something even dumber: How his wife flies flags outside their homes.
Should AOC resign?
During a speech on the House floor Wednesday, AOC said that “traditional standards require justices to recuse themselves in any proceeding where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In other words, if a person could reasonably believe that the legitimacy of a justice’s judgment could be or be perceived to be compromised, due to their personal involvement in the case or its parties, the standard is clear. The justice must recuse. They are required to recuse.”
But, you know — if she can get a simple majority of representatives to impeach two justices (which she does not have), maybe she would get two-thirds of senators to convict (which she definitely does not have), and then she could get two Democratic justices appointed (which will not happen).
Then the Supreme Court would be “working again,” Democrats would say. Which is to say, it would be functioning as a separate legislative body that issues uniformly liberal decisions. Until then, AOC, the Democratic Party and the progressive left will be living in fear of a court that actually interprets the Constitution as it’s written.
And, actually, she knows removal is impossible, as well — and said as much at the end of her three-and-a-half minute oration on the House floor in which she tried to gussy up this nonsense as Very Serious Stuff™:
Corruption, without consequence, infects all it touches. Congress must exercise its powers to impeach.
The corruption of Justices Thomas & Alito constitutes a clear danger to our democracy. I moved to impeach them because it is the right thing to do for the American people. pic.twitter.com/eOscx9avE1
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) July 11, 2024
“I am here today presenting these articles of impeachment, not because I am a Democrat, and not because I am blind to its odds in a Republican-led chamber,” AOC said.
“I present them because it is the right thing to do. And while our Framers perhaps may not have envisioned someone like me, in this seat, they absolutely did envision the necessity and value of the impeachment action upon which I seek to advance today.”
Oh. So the “right thing to do” is to waste Congress’ time with your own petty grievances, in other words.
AOC, proudly doing the right thing since 2019, will apparently continue to do it as long as members of her deep-blue New York City constituency keep sending her back to Congress after Congress.
