Portside

This bill cuts programs for the most vulnerable, and is totally unnecessary – why doesn’t Biden invoke the 14th amendment?

Reader Comments: GOP Default Disaster; Child Labor Laws GOP Solution in Red States: Gun Deaths Still Climb, Uvalde Anniversary; Sartre; Welcome-This Week in People’s History; Ukraine Peace Appeal; Cartoons; more....

As negotiations with congressional Republicans over raising the debt ceiling drag on, at least five U.S. senators are circulating a letter that urges President Joe Biden to prepare to invoke the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Reader Comments: GOP Rot at the Top; Florida Lies; MAGA PRESENTS: The Three Scamigos; Nabka at 75; 75 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; African American Singing Traditions; Cartoons; more....

President Biden should do “whatever it takes” to avoid an economic catastrophe. House GOP-led efforts are to blame for the impending debt crisis. In 2011, the GOP’s demands for massive spending cuts sabotaged the Great Recession recovery.

“The validity of the public debt of the United States,” the 14th Amendment declares, “shall not be questioned.” If Congressional Republicans violate this, President Biden, acting along, should do as the Constitution requires.

"The 14th Amendment makes clear that based on his past behavior, Donald Trump is disqualified from ever holding federal office again," said Rep. David Cicilline, the lead sponsor of a new bill raising a constitutional challenge against Trump's bid.

In a recently published brief, the Justice Department claimed that residents of U.S. territories do not have a right to U.S. citizenship under the Constitution.

There can be long periods where it feels impossible to amend the Constitution. But then conditions change and in a very short period of time there can be three, four or five amendments. The heart of the story is progressive change.

Charting the ironies of freedom won and lost during and after the Civil War, Eric Foner, the American historian, has also helped us better understand the ambiguous consequences of what were almost always only partial victories.