There needs to be some measure of accountability for SCOTUS. I'm sick of this.
38 unpaid vacations. This is beyond absurd. hhahahahha! Do you think Clarence was like "Yeahhhhh, this is all fine. I've earned this."? Because I do, I think he probably believes that. The Citizens United ruling makes so much more sense. And I imagine this is going on to some extent for the other justices. Well, I mean, we know it is.In Wyoming, the Thomases fished, rafted on the Snake River and sat by a campfire overlooking the Teton Range with the other couples. At one point, the Paolettas serenaded the justice with a song they wrote about him.
I keep having to stop reading this and come back to it because it reads like every conspiracy theory coming true. All of the "evil rich men conspiring to rule the world" is just here in front of us in plain black and white... and probably nothing will change. frustration runs high
Niall Ferguson wrote a book called The Square and the Tower which is basically "of course the Bavarian Illuminati existed, the tragedy is they weren't more effective." Ferguson has a point: if you get a bunch of smart elites together to try and make the world a better place, they should end up with a positive impact just because that's what they're trying for. Of course, he also makes the point that Henry Kissinger is a hand print on the ass of history because he just frickin' knows everyone so... li'l of Column A, li'l of Column B. Malcolm Harris' Palo Alto actually gets into Bohemian Grove in a studiously non-fiction way, including quoting Nixon on it ("the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine"). He paints a portrait of Herbert Hoover and his hangers on, camping fishing and deciding who among the anointed they would back for this that or the other board position. Fundamentally, it's a country club cookout for the white Republicans who run California and, by extension, vast swaths of the world's economy. I think we fundamentally accept this: rich, powerful people have buddies, too, and we're never truly surprised when we find out that Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones shared a dorm room freshman year. We grumble and gripe but our gears don't grind until they start fucking us over. The United States veered towards socialism in the '30s because it had been leaving poor people in the dust for 70 years previously... and the powers-that-be were primarily interested in protecting the rich after the collapse of Wall Street. Russia ended up the USSR because the venal power structure of the Czars didn't make any attempts to modernize the middle class. We look at Clarence Thomas being the opposite of impartial and we see them rubbing our fucking noses in it. Marie Antoinette never actually said "let them eat cake" but she lived it.
The most benign theory I've heard is that these "perks" are given to the justices to dissuade them from retiring. It'd be interesting to see if the majority of these trips and gifts are occurring while a democrat is in the white house, but yeah, of course I think that theory's absolutely bunk.
Well. It turns out that "the most benign theory" is 1. True and 2. Not really benign at all. lol A level of absurdism one such as myself can only aspire to. I also very much dislike the specter of RBG's doings, but at least she reported things. Objectively; This has to stop. It won't. I'm not passionately opposed to increasing SCOTUS salaries, but something tells me that people like Clarence Thomas have an insatiable lust for power.In early January 2000, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
George Priest, a Yale Law School professor who has vacationed with Thomas and Crow, told ProPublica he believes Crow’s generosity was not intended to influence Thomas’ views but rather to make his life more comfortable. “He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary,” Priest said. “So he provides benefits for him.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disclosed taking more trips than any other justice in 2018, totaling 14. She visited Tel Aviv, Israel where she was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Genesis Prize Foundation. Shortly following the award ceremony, she disclosed being provided transportation, food and lodging as a tourist and guest of billionaire Israeli businessman Morris Kahn.
Well obviously most of the court has usually already made up its mind and works backwards from there using bogus philosophies like cOnStiTuTiONaL oRiGinALiSm after "deliberations", but this corruption is about what happens before their minds are made up on any particular case, imho. Like billionaire buddies making generalized appeals to protect the interests of the wealthy and religious.
Ever heard of McDonnell v. United States? https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mcdonnell-v-united-states/ It's laughable in retrospect.
If you can learn to make war with it without it harming your personal health, that would be preferable. I'm not sure I can/am, so don't feel bad if you're in the same boat. Would hug you, bro. and then like smoke stogies and sip scotch or whatever. Had a very strange week with masculinity, coworker/leader in the hospital. Won't communicate. Apparently openness is vulnerability. Stupid.
Today's SCOTUS corruption updates: Sotomayor is facing criticism for not recusing herself from cases involving the publishing company she used to write her book. This is long-public information, mind you, and is only being brought up now as a "whatabout", obviously. Yeah, she probably should have recused, and I hope she makes better decisions in the future. Sooooo I guess now conservatives are in favor of instituting a code of ethics for SCOTUS?? Just kidding. They only wanted to complain about a dem-appointed judge, but still do nothing that would involve keeping money out of politics. Very populist. And also, breaking news today, as referenced by kleinbl00 downthread: Clarence Thomas: mega-donor paid for great-nephew’s private school People are still voicing their support for Thomas, btw. Literally tweets like "Who among us hasn't wanted to send their younger family members to a private school and accepted thousands upon thousands of dollars to do so from the same friend that also gifts us lavish vacations all the time?". Very normal stuff.
sigh Here's another new Exhibit A of GOP judicial corruption pertaining to the record-breaking $1.6 billion donation we heard about last year: Leonard Leo used Federalist Society contact to obtain $1.6B donation The funniest part, to me, is the byline: Fact: There is nothing like the Federalist Society on the left. So every time you hear someone on the right bitching about "activist judges", you're free to disregard anything else they allege. Fact 2: SCOTUS has had a majority of GOP-appointed judges since 1969.The society’s close ties to Leo’s network raise questions about its nonpartisan, non-political status.
That’s actually the reason that these conservatives giving Thomas and friends tons of money doesn’t bother me that much: it’s largesse, not influence peddling. If it were influence peddling, then there might be some unexpected decisions. As it is, we all know how they’re going to rule on almost every controversial decision, so it’s not as if the bonus bucks are buying the votes.
Ω I actually don't know how I got an omega, but, How is Harlan Crow friend'ing Clarence around the world in private jets and yachts not a conflict of interest? Is that honestly remotely normal to you?it’s largesse, not influence peddling
It’s not that I don’t think it’s fucked up. I do. Not normal at all. I just don’t think it’s affecting Thomas’s jurisprudence all that much, because he’s already so ideologically committed to voting only one single way in politically charged cases. His wife’s business bothers me a lot more, because it’s easy to point to the trump cases he was the lone dissenter on and say, “Yep, that’s her influence.” I just doing think that as bad of a look as it is, that crow’s money has bought that much, I guess.
So fundamentally you're saying "Clarence Thomas would vote the way he votes regardless of the influence because he's so ideologically pure?" This is an interesting take, as the general consensus on Clarence Thomas in private life is "Ginni is his Svengali" while the general consensus on Clarence Thomas in jurisprudence is "Antonin Scalia was his Svengali". Scalia, of course, was even shadier than Clarence Thomas. I find the argument "he's a scumbag on principle, not a scumbag for money" rarely holds water, especially when dealing with political movements that indoctrinate through largesse.
I'm not saying that I support it or I'm not bothered by it. But I am saying that I haven't seen evidence that he's voting in ways that I wouldn't have expected him to vote but for the influence of Harlan Crow. I am saying that there is clear evidence he votes in ways he wouldn't otherwise vote but for the influence of his devil-wife. The last thing I'm ever going to do is hand wave away the damage that Thomas and his ilk has done and is continuing to do to the country. But again, I think it's not clear to me that his vacationing habits are really the root issue, and there's a lot else to be annoyed by.
I think where I disagree is in the idea that the water we swim in doesn't impact the way we swim. You are pretty sure that Clarence Thomas votes exactly the way he votes regardless of whether or not Harlan Crow pays for his kid's private school tuition. Would you feel the same if it were revealed Clarence Thomas goes fishing with George Soros every month? How would you feel about a "fairness doctrine" in which Clarence Thomas were compelled to have lunch every weekend with Antifa and OWS? The issue is that the idea is laughable - the thought experiment of liberal influence touching such an extremely conservative judge is rejected out of hand because it'll never fucking happen. Thomas' ideological alignment is crystal-clear, and no amount of hanging out at World Central Kitchen will change that. So why, then, do you reject the idea that Thomas cannot be influenced by those he chooses to associate with? Especially considering the massive rightward shift within the Republican Party at the ascent of Donald Trump?
Right?? I'm not sure of their distant history, but it seems like Politico is going the route of CNN. Maybe Politico can host the second Trump town hall.
When Politico hit the scene they positioned themselves as ostensibly neutral, but politically counterbalancing Air America. They seemed to put effort into actually presenting both sides of a political story when they could - my perspective was they went easy on the Republicans because of course that was my perspective. I think their "leftward drift" since then is more reflective of standing in place while the Republicans shot the rapids. In 2007, Politico could say "Dick Cheney's daughter has a bright future within the Republican Party" and be excoriated by the lefties and accoladed by the 'wingers. In 2023, Politico can say "Dick Cheney's daughter has a bright future within the Republican Party" and get chin-stroking from the lefties while the fascists fling their poop. The fact that the Democrats are more often pleased by Politico than the Republicans has more to do with the Republicans leaving the ground than it does with Politico's lean, I think.
Hey, he's disclosing things now, after being thoroughly shamed into it. Great!
Uhhhhhhh Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ The details in that article are absolutely wild. Obviously, this warrants an entire DoJ and Congressional investigation. If there was anything remotely akin to this on the left, I'd want the same.
Yeah I love how the payment was for Shelby vs. Holder. I give Judd Legum money. One reason is after that ridiculous bullshit dustup about young black men not knowing their place in Tennessee, Legum decided to shake the tree and see what fell out. So far we've got one resignation for sexual harassment and the speaker of the house defending himself against allegations of fraud. So far it seems like after ProPublica pointed out what a shady asshole Clarence Thomas has always been, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the WSJ have all fallen all over themselves to bake the Supreme Court's alaska. How badly do you think those fuckers don't want a special counsel up in their business?
Pff, I hope they appoint a special counsel to sniff out the entire SCOTUS bench. Were I a SCOTUS judge (ha!), I also would have refused to sign onto Roberts' ridiculous declaration of self-regulated SCOTUS ethics that he included last week in his polite refusal to testify before the Senate judicial oversight committee.
"They" will never be both the executive and a 2/3rds supermajority House vote to impeach, obviously, at this moment in time. So there goes a joint executive and legislative check and balance. The Senate's hearing last week was a circus, so much for that. Whether DoJ chooses to do anything substantial independently? Kinda doubt it. Checks and balances warfare is almost totally neutered. Two-party warfare is the dominate dynamic. Again, statement made for posterity, I know you know this.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the wsj editorial page spins this one. They’ve been throwing heavy weight behind defending the Harlan Crow business—as recently as this morning before this news broke. This one is a lot harder to deflect, but they’ll find a way. Of that I’m sure.
What flummoxes me is: Why is all of this reporting happening within the span of like three weeks? Either someone near them decided the Thomases have grafted his last grift, or... were reporters like "oh, maybe we should dig into the financial records of the most outwardly-corrupt-appearing member of the most powerful court in the world after all". It's pretty wild that Clarence, Ginni, et al. were probably like "And if they catch us? It won't even matter, right? Is there any legal recourse? Regardless, the party will close ranks around us", and their calculus was correct.
You don't usually see a single pigeon jump at a loud bang. You see a whole powerline's worth. Journalism happens in flocks, too. Especially if it's something where you can just log into a bunch of websites and make the interns dig around. Syrians were dying by the dozens crossing the med - then one dead boy washes up in a photogenic way and all of a sudden every news bureau in the world is rooting through shipping statistics.
Welp, we're back with our daily update of additional likely SCOTUS corruption: Jane Roberts, who is married to Chief Justice John Roberts, made $10.3 million in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower documents show There needs to be hearings and investigations, at a bare minimum. SCOTUS is out of control. Not that the American oligarchy isn't seeping into every corner of Congress or the executive, either.Dratel said that regardless of whether there was an actual conflict of interest, the linkage between the couple's careers looked bad. "What's the public confidence in a system when the firms which are appearing before the court are making decisions that are to the financial benefit of the chief justice?" he asked.
Another devastating ProPublica scoop. Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal. Minor detail: Clarence Thomas's mom still lives in that house. Guys this is all totally normal and not money laundering, to be VERY clear.
This shit has seriously got me in stitches, guys. The biggest smearer of Clarence Thomas is Clarence fucking Thomas. Just hilarious. "Who among us hasn't accepted the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from Nazi memorabilia collectors while deciding court cases on SCOTUS that might or might not be favorable to billionaires financing your repeated, lavish vacations?" Like are you secretly inviting this class warfare to become physical? I literally cannot pity your person anymore. You have alienated yourselves entirely, WSJ editorial board.
One key difference is that you and I would also be outraged at the remote equivalent of this w/ Sotomayor-Soros. The idea that Harlan Crow did all of this out of friendship, and had no interest in rulings like Citizens United is actually offensive. Oh, and fuck Ginni Thomas, too.
I'm sanguine. Liberals are push, conservatives are pull - "If you want me to vote Democratic you have to pass my 90-point purity test" vs. "Yeah Trump is awful but my family votes Republican and always has." This works up to a point: the further outside the norm both parties reside, the less votes they get. The basic platform of the Democratic Party remains center-right, much like the country. The basic platform of the Republican Party, on the other hand, is unabashedly reactionary fascist. Not only that, but they're reactionary for an era most voters never experienced - if 2024 is your first general election, Boys Don't Cry was in theaters seven years before you were born. Caitlyn Jenner came out when you were nine. You have never seen television where girls don't kiss. Dan Quayle going after Murphy Brown is about as relevant to you as Ed Sullivan. The Republicans are going to get increasingly reactionary. They are also going to get increasingly isolated. I mean, look - I think we can all agree at this point that Donald Trump is a loser. By his own standards, by his own definitions, by the bravado of all Trumpism, Donald Trump is a loser, and nobody backs a loser. It's not like victory was snatched from his clutches - he's been simping one ineffective defense after another, like a toddler being dragged off to bed. Will he still be the Republican nominee? Probably. Is Clarence Thomas going to serve out the rest of his life in the Supreme Court? Probably. But it becomes less and less relevant and effective. This is the thing that keeps the normie republicans awake at night - for the longest time, Democrats ignored the courts. Suddenly? They give a shit. And they have the bulk of the country behind them. There is nothing in Republican behavior that grows more Republicans. They know it. They're trapped. The only thing they can do is attempt to moderate the rate of incineration.
I agree with almost all of that. 16 million more Gen-Z'ers became eligible to vote between 2020 and 2024. And they seem pretty pissed, generally. The probably perceive a future more obviously crumbling before their eyes than it was for millenials like me, but at least the millenials wised up and aren't becoming more "conservative" as they age. So yeah, the eventual future looks like it could be pretty dope. But that's like 10 - 15 years out, realistically, and in the meantime, the "rate of incineration" will be dialed up to 11. The sort of legally-adjacent, cold civil war between rural and metro is really taking shape. It's always hard for me to imagine what it'll be like, but I always know it when I see it. The Tennessee House story is the perfect example of what we can expect over the next decade. So is the mifepistrone thing. Dems still don't give enough of a shit about the courts, or they'd either politely tell Feinstein to fuck off immediately unless she can make it to vote, or circumvent the blue slip Senate confirmation rules. They'd hold a vote to impeach Thomas, even with the knowledge that it'll likely fail on a party line in the House. They'd have been more publicly curious about wtf was that Eileen Cannon thing? I'm just saying, the gloves are gonna have to come off sooner or later. We got a small taste of that with Dark Brandon's Philly speech. There is no reason to pretend like appeasement is possible with reactionary fascists. Not enough establishment dems seem willing to understand. Then we can go back to pleasantries when the GOP extincts itself and the dems split into progressives and conservative dems.
My prediction is that the abortion pill thing is going to blow over quickly when the Circuit court says the plaintiffs have no standing to sue, and then severely rebuke the judge who wrote that drivel. No matter the 5th Circuit's policy preference, this is one of the least conservative rulings one could imagine. Even the WSJ EB was like wtf is this shit? However, the GOP activists judges are remarkably similar to the raptors in Jurassic Park who keep testing the electric fence in different spots. We all know there's another legally dubious ruling just around the corner, and eventually (like the Dobbs case) one of the creatures will get into the kitchen and cause havoc. Vigilance is always a must.
Let's go with the Jurassic Park metaphor. I think most Americans like theme parks. They like them to give them their money's worth. They don't want to go there every day, but when they show up, they expect expensive, greasy food, exciting rides and probably some sunburn. I think a lot of Americans went "oooh, dinosaurs!" when Sarah Palin appeared on the scene. It got even more exciting when Trump showed up because he's a T-rex with dentures. The thing of it is, though, dinosaurs aren't really theme park material (as Jurassic Park so entertainingly demonstrated). I mean, they're still cool? But fuckin' hell triceratops shit was not on your agenda. I think things got really dumb when the cages failed. Yeah, there's a few people who think this is exactly the sort of vacation they've been missing but by and large? Nobody was here to actually participate in any of this shit. They wanted to ride around in a jeep and stare at a brontosaurus from a safe distance. And I think we're at the point where there are still a few people going "DINOSAURS FUCK YEAH!" as they run around saying "Bambiraptor! Sauroposeidon!" to anyone who will listen but most people just wanna go home, man. This is not what they signed up for, they'd really rather get back to normal, what was wrong with the goddamn tilt-a-whirl, you knew what you were in for with a tilt-a-whirl. "What do you mean, an armadillo is fucking with my OB-GYN's supply chain," they say, not wanting to think about abortion, periods, misoprostol, mifiprestone or lady bits at all, really, do we need to go to war over everything now? And by and large, the Democrats are slapping the side of the tilt-a-whirl while the Republicans are looking for goats to chain to a stake. Absolutely. Vigilance is a must. But I think we can all acknowledge that this is a very different discussion in 2023 than it would have been in 2017.
Lol. As always I overestimate the seriousness and underestimate the ideology of the judges Trump put on the bench. That's a lesson I just can't seem to learn. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/health/abortion-pill-ruling-appeal.html
Side note for breaking news: Jim Jordan earlier today threatened to indict Alvin Bragg (impossible). Alvin Bragg just sued Jim Jordan for obstruction. Can't wait to see enlightened centrists bitch about how political Braggs actions appear. Sorry, but this is exactly the kind of shit I want to see. Jordan is a grandstanding moron damaging our justice system. He has no jurisdiction here. Although not a judge, Jordan is definitely a raptor. But not a clever girl. Love that analogy, though, heh.
I think he knows he can lie and get away with it. No one on Fox will challenge him. I mean this is literally the legislative LARP'ing as the executive, I'm sure that even he realizes that. That wascally waptor
Imagine that you wanted to do your job and you just figured you didn't need to know anything about physics. Now imagine trying to make laws for a living and deciding that you really don't need to know anything about the law. It's pretty remarkable that anyone could have that level of cognitive dissonance, even though cognitive dissonance is precisely what conservative media tries really hard to create day in and day out. Apropos of nothing, I love how the raptor hunter dude is now Elmer Fudd. Beautiful mixing of metaphors.
OK this will be BY FAR the worst content of the day on here, please skip at will, hubski. The left is currently canceling The Young Turks on twitter, but it's hard to say that they haven't earned it. It all began with Ana Kasparian complaining that she doesn't want to be called a "person who can get pregnant", and exclusively requires "woman". I'm not sure who in her personal life is doing that. It's kind of a woke medical journals thing, almost exclusively, and the issue can be put to bed about 99.9% of the time by simply saying "women and people who can get pregnant". But that was more than enough for the entire Daily Wire cast to begin strategically pitting the left against itself. And Cenk and Ana have really taken the bait, I must say, and are viciously rejecting friends' good-faith criticism and critiques."If you want me to vote Democratic you have to pass my 90-point purity test"
Thus far it's the only content, so I guess it's the best and worst. Though it does remind me to be thankful that I'm not on Twitter or any other social media. What a weird world of bubbles that is. Things that matter so much inside the bubble have literally no contact with what's outside of it--totally self-contained.
So I found out today that "Kristen," who helped us out with our gender-inclusive language, is now "Liam" thank you very much. He is very much a "person who can get pregnant" who is throwing a lot of business our way. Spent the morning at the Russian spa. There were at least three people (out of maybe 12 in the whole place) whose gender was not the one they were born with, one of which who was obviously, bravely mid-transition (in a goddamn bikini - you go girl). And I mean, fuck - this shit is all so thunderously performative. Really? You're gonna be the one to whine to the cops and say "I think that woman has a penis?" You're gonna give the cops the job of junk checking for god and country? Fer fuck's sake. What a stupid fucking hill to die on.
Jesus christ. For the record? I employ four midwives, a naturopathic doctor who specializes in gender affirming care and had transgender advocates comb through our materials for gender-inclusive language and I've never heard of Ana Kasparian. This kerfuffle simply has not reached our shores. You'd think it would? 'cuz you know what? There are men - who used to be women - who have babies. We've gotten paid for helping them out. Not something that happened, culturally, just a few years ago and if we're being honest, not something anyone needs an opinion about. If these men aren't having your baby, I don't see how it matters to you. It's not a "woke medical journals" thing it's a "people gain self-esteem from claiming their gender of choice lay the fuck off" thing but you're right - pillorying someone for the thoughtcrime of having an opinion is about as 2023 as it gets. Cenk Uygur is an asshole. I would expect that anyone who works with him is asshole-adjacent.
Not to be outdone, potential Gorsuch corruption enters the chat. I do not respect the Supreme Court. Boohoo, John Roberts, you did this to yourself. edit: keep doing it, by all means! Absolute cowardice. Full-fledged shitting on "checks and balances"! Beyond parody.“Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence,” Roberts wrote.