Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

[TurkeysGhost]

"I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it," Alito said in the interview published in the Journal's opinion section. "No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period."

If Dems ever take back the Senate (har har, funny joke), this alone should be enough to justify impeachment.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

"I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it," Alito said in the interview published in the Journal's opinion section. "No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period."

You're right. A SCOTUS with any integrity would regulate themselves. Thanks for abandoning the pretense of being an honorable institution.

 

[ZiprHead]

If Dems ever take back the Senate (har har, funny joke), this alone should be enough to justify impeachment.

What would happen if, like the Dobbs decision, they come up with a stupid reason that the impeachment of a Justice is unconstitutional?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

What would happen if, like the Dobbs decision, they come up with a stupid reason that the impeachment of a Justice is unconstitutional?

Well, how many guns does the SCOTUS command? They're old farts in robes, you make them leave whether they want to or not and ignore any illegimate parallel court. if they don't back down you throw their asses in prison. Constitutional crisis go brrrrrrrrr

This is like government 101, you don't entertain challenges to your monopoly on legitimacy. Fake Trump electors are being charged with conspiracy for their little scheme as we speak, the same principal applies for fake judges that refuse to follow the law.

 

[ZiprHead]

Well, how many guns does the SCOTUS command? They're old farts in robes, you make them leave whether they want to or not and ignore any illegimate parallel court. if they don't back down you throw their asses in prison. Constitutional crisis go brrrrrrrrr

This is like government 101, you don't entertain challenges to your monopoly on legitimacy. Fake Trump electors are being charged with conspiracy for their little scheme as we speak, the same principal applies for fake judges that refuse to follow the law.

I do know Alito loves him some second amendment. It could be the "solution".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wonder why this corruption took so long to come out. Maybe Ginni's involvement in the J6 coup brought a closer look at Thomas, but still....

 

[JayUtah]

I wonder why this corruption took so long to come out. Maybe Ginni's involvement in the J6 coup brought a closer look at Thomas, but still....

I'd say it's because previous Courts weren't as overtly political. When the Court goes from "leaning Right" to full-blown right-wing nut jobbery, they attract more investigative attention.

 

[dann]

“They seem to have created a way of letting Thomas have his cake and eat it to: Thomas stays put—in his supremely important public sector job—and his wealthy, right-wing supporters pay for him to live like a rich guy,” says Chris Hayes. “This deal has meant that Clarence Thomas is essentially a kept man.”
‘Shockingly corrupt’: Hayes shreds ‘kept man’ Clarence Thomas over megadonor deals (MSNBC on YouTube, Aug 11, 2023 - 10:12 min.)

It turns out that Pro Publica's initial report on the luxury gifts Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted from billionaire Harlan Crow only scratched the surface. A new report from Pro Publica paints the clearest picture yet of the extent of the generosity of Thomas's wealthy "friends."
'Jaw-dropping': New report details extent of billionaires' shocking luxury gifts to Clarence Thomas (MSNBC on YouTube, Aug 11, 2023 - 5:29 min.)

ProPublica Reporter Justin Elliot, Executive Director of the nonpartisan judicial watchdog, Fix the Court Gabe Roth and Democratic strategist Basil Smikle discuss with Alicia Menendez, in for Nicolle Wallace, the new ProPublica reporting which through an array of previously unavailable information, published what they call the fullest accounting to date, on "the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide."
Busted: Clarence Thomas ethics scandal gets worse (MSNBC on YouTube, Aug 11, 2023 - 10:02)

upreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly received lavish gifts from billionaire friends beyond Harlan Crow, according to another detailed investigation into Thomas by non-profit investigative website ProPublica. None of these gifts or the names of these newly reported benefactors appeared in financial disclosures. Don Fox, former acting director and general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, who was quoted in the ProPublica piece, joins Joy Reid with his analysis.
Public financial disclosure should not be new to Thomas: Fmr. ethics officer on new report on gifts (MSNBC on YouTube, Aug 11, 2023 - 8:02)

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joins MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss ProPublica’s new report on the billionaires who have funded at least 38 luxury trips for Justice Clarence Thomas, and the potential pressures on Justice Thomas and other “rogue” justices.
After new Justice Thomas bombshell, Sen. Whitehouse says SCOTUS scandals will get worse (MSNBC on YouTube, Aug 11, 2023 - 5:48)

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I wonder why this corruption took so long to come out. Maybe Ginni's involvement in the J6 coup brought a closer look at Thomas, but still....

Because SCOTUS is one big club where everyone likes eachother, often including the press that is supposed to have an adversarial relationship with them.

Much of political reporting relies far too heavily on access journalism, so the press pulls a lot of punches to avoid losing their contacts to insiders. It's more like PR than journalism.

NPR's court reporter was bragging about how she and RBG were close friends for decades while she was supposedly covering the court (to the point that RBG officiated the journalist's wedding), which should have anyone wondering about the quality of the coverage.

Totenberg was aware of more intimate details of RBG's failing health and did not report them, even though this is obviously newsworthy.

Ginsburg’s health began to deteriorate in 1999, when she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, becoming progressively worse with bouts of pancreatic and lung cancer and other serious illnesses. Although Ginsburg’s surgeries were reported – they could not be concealed – Totenberg was aware of other health issues that were not made public, including debilitating intestinal blockages due to Ginsburg’s colon surgery and episodes of shingles so painful that they interfered with her work.

Ginsburg’s health was a matter of public concern, and President Obama surely would have wanted to know about it in 2013, when he gently attempted to persuade her to resign. Totenberg kept mum, however, in no small part because her husband Dr. David Reines was among Ginsburg’s physicians. That was another conflict; a reporter without personal relationships to Ginsburg or Reines would have pressed the doctors for details.

Even if Reines was totally tightlipped, Totenberg may have at least been aware of how often Ginsburg consulted him about her cancers. In a 2016 interview, she asked Ginsburg about her health, but accepted “It’s very good” for an answer without any follow-up. When Ginsburg volunteered that she planned to remain on the court “as long as I can stay on the job full steam,” Totenberg apparently didn’t inquire about medical obstacles, although Ginsburg was already a double cancer survivor.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3653576-nina-totenbergs-conflict-of-interest/

Clarence Thomas's array of sugar daddies was right there in plain view for anyone that wanted to look, but until now nobody was. It's a real indictment of the US press.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I wonder why this corruption took so long to come out. Maybe Ginni's involvement in the J6 coup brought a closer look at Thomas, but still....

Dobbs.

US politics have rested for a long time on the impartiality of the courts. It was okay if the GOP in congress got up to some shenanigans because SCOTUS could be relied on to strike out the more grossly unconstitutional bits. Even the clearly biased GOP members. Their ability to be fair and impartial when ruling had to be considered paramount. No one was willing to kick at that last remaining support just because of some blatant conflicts of interests that might become a problem. Or more accurately, the political forces that were willing were aligned with the corruption. Rest assured Sotomayor getting some kickbacks would have had Fox screaming bloody murder. Even appointing a drunken rapist was obviously a problem, but as long as they could rule impartially it wasn't a problem problem, right?

But with Dobbs and the other rulings making it apparent beyond doubt that justice has been well and truly purchased, whatever mechanism people had in mind to justify their complacency is finally gone. The court isn't impartial and hasn't been for a long time. Reporting all the ongoing corruption they've previously sat on might be too little too late, but it's a start.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

But with Dobbs and the other rulings making it apparent beyond doubt that justice has been well and truly purchased, whatever mechanism people had in mind to justify their complacency is finally gone. The court isn't impartial and hasn't been for a long time. Reporting all the ongoing corruption they've previously sat on might be too little too late, but it's a start.

I'd argue the court was never impartial, and even assuming that such a thing is possible belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what their role is in government.

There's a huge difference between lower level judges, which are meant to be doing their best to interpret an established jurisprudence to novel facts, and those at the top of the system establishing what that jurisprudence is.

I really doubt many conservatives felt the prior decades of a liberal court were impartial. It seems only clueless libs thought that this state of affairs was some force of nature rather than a political result that they needed to jealously guard.

 

[JayUtah]

I'd argue the court was never impartial, and even assuming that such a thing is possible belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what their role is in government.

Indeed, judicial appointments are check-and-balance structure. The executive is presumed to appoint candidates favorable to their politics, and the legislature is presumed to check that power by applying its own politics. The whole system is obviously predicated on the presumptions that jurisprudence is not neutral and that judges will lean to one side or the other of any issue of political interest. The notion that the judiciary is fully impartial seems to be a myth perpetuated largely by the judiciary and some very old law professors. No one living in the U.S., for example, will argue that it won't matter whether we try a case in the Ninth Circuit versus the Fifth Circuit.

 

[JayUtah]

You're right. A SCOTUS with any integrity would regulate themselves.

While Congress has only very limited power to regulate the Supreme Court, it has substantial authority over the rest of the federal judiciary. The "inferior courts" mentioned in the Constitution are established (and therefore regulated) by Congress. As such, Congress establishes rules of ethics for judges in those lesser jurisdictions that are roughly in line with the ethics rules for other government officers of similar rank and power. The punchline is that the Supreme Court fully endorses those ethics rules for its lesser judges on the federal bench. It doesn't consider the rules themselves to be unreasonable, or Congress' application of them to be an improper erogation of power. More importantly, it considers them an important part of maintaining the semblance of an impartial judiciary.

But for some reason, the Supreme Court doesn't feel it necessary to voluntary adopt the same rules for themselves as they agree are appropriate for the ranks from which they, the supreme justices, are generally selected. We require federal judges to adhere to ethics rules because we give them so much power over others. But inexplicably when the ultimate power is awarded, the ethics rules don't apply anymore and the semblance of judicial impartiality passes from something enforced by those rules to a comically non-credible presumption.

Thanks for abandoning the pretense of being an honorable institution.

But they haven't abandoned it. That's the real joke. These justices are so far removed from any iota of substantive thought that they literally think they can just will the public to continue to have faith in them. Justices Alito, Roberts, and others bemoan the situation by saying, "How dare you criticize us!" without even stopping to think that the critics have a very sound basis for it. Yes, the lifetime appointment gives them the privilege to say, "Yes, we're obviously corrupt, but what are you gonna do about it?" but they seem to think it grants them also the prerogative to say, "No, you can't even criticize us over it. We say we're honorable, and so that's where the matter should end." The age-old principle of having to earn respect seems to have long ago ceased to enter their thinking.

 

[bruto]

I think part of the reason for the delay in finding all this out rests on who does the finding, but also a little on the presumption, until recently, that despite political bias and the inevitable drift toward the right, the court would not just outright dump on the constitution and tell the people to **** themselves.

I think there's a kind of assumption that bad as they are, they couldn't be that bad, could they? Finding out just how corrupt they actually are is a little like finding out that your kindly old minister secretly worships Satan, or that the sump in your basement is really a portal to the hollow earth.

 

[TragicMonkey]

But they haven't abandoned it. That's the real joke. These justices are so far removed from any iota of substantive thought that they literally think they can just will the public to continue to have faith in them. Justices Alito, Roberts, and others bemoan the situation by saying, "How dare you criticize us!" without even stopping to think that the critics have a very sound basis for it. Yes, the lifetime appointment gives them the privilege to say, "Yes, we're obviously corrupt, but what are you gonna do about it?" but they seem to think it grants them also the prerogative to say, "No, you can't even criticize us over it. We say we're honorable, and so that's where the matter should end." The age-old principle of having to earn respect seems to have long ago ceased to enter their thinking.

They want the privileges of being a gentleman without the obligations of behaving like one.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

They want the privileges of being a gentleman without the obligations of behaving like one.

Conservatives believe in hierarchy, they resent the very notion that the unwashed masses would comment on the character of their betters.

 

[JayUtah]

The excuses we hear from some of the Justices are so brazenly flimsy and self-serving. These are supposed to be our nation's best reasoners? Are they really so in love with their own purported acumen that they don't think we unwashed masses can spot the nonsense?

"Harlan Crowe has been my close friend for many years." Well, yes—since you were appointed to the Supreme Court! Do you think a billionaire is just going to single out some random poor Black lawyer from Bumblescum, GA upon whom to lavish gifts and attention? No, dummy, he's your "close friend" because he has money and you have power and that's the kind of friendships that exist at your level of influence. Or does he think the stripper is really in love with him?

"That seat would have been empty if I hadn't gone." Then let it be empty! The overriding concern is not whether a seat on a private plane goes to waste, but whether—by taking it as an undeclared gift—you create the impression of partiality. Take the seat, but pay for it or disclose it properly as a gift. The more insightful way to parse the sentence is, "The bribe would still have been on the table if I hadn't taken it."

"We're allowed to have friends." Of course you are. And I wish I had the caliber of friends that will fetch me in their private planes for a weekend in Paris. Don't we all? The question is why those are your friends.

These Justices want to (a) wield enormous unfettered power, (b) be coddled and pampered in a lavish lifestyle fueled by wealthy political operatives, and (c) be respected as impartial judges. It doesn't even cross their minds that being respected by others for how they wield enormous power comes at the expense of some of their freedom. Honor is given, not demanded. Wielding power honorably comes at the expense of other behaviors. A judge's position of power is a privilege; it comes at the expense of privileges less powerful people are still free to enjoy. A gentleman is regarded as a gentleman only if he behaves as one. A judge is regarded as impartial only when he behaves as such—and the required behavior isn't limited to the courtroom. These allegedly eminent thinkers don't realize what the rest of us know: that respect is created by their behavior, not demanded in spite of it.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Or maybe, just possibly, they're smart enough to realize all of that and they just don't care and are lying through their teeth. The amount of mileage the GOP has gotten out of "nuh uh" in the past few years is astounding.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... "Harlan Crowe has been my close friend for many years." Well, yes—since you were appointed to the Supreme Court! Do you think a billionaire is just going to single out some random poor Black lawyer from Bumblescum, GA upon whom to lavish gifts and attention? No, dummy, he's your "close friend" because he has money and you have power and that's the kind of friendships that exist at your level of influence. Or does he think the stripper is really in love with him?....

The irony here is thick given Thomas' excuse for being so vehemently against affirmative action:

In his mind people thought he didn't earn his credentials on his own merit.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Do we need a mod to pluralize the last word of this thread title?