SCOTUS

[Typical Lax Dad]

GOP donor paid private school tuition for Justice Thomas’s grandnephew, report says

By John Wagner
Updated May 4, 2023 at 11:18 a.m. EDT|Published May 4, 2023 at 8:33 a.m. EDT

The same Texas billionaire who treated Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to lavish vacations paid private boarding school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew, a boy the justice has said he raised as a son, according to a new report that said Thomas did not disclose the payments.

ProPublica reported that Harlan Crow, a prominent Republican donor, paid tuition at Hidden Lake Academy, a boarding school in Georgia, as well as at Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, for Mark Martin. Thomas had legal custody of the boy.

The publication cited a bank statement that showed Crow paid $6,200 in monthly tuition at Hidden Lake Academy in July 2009. Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school, was quoted as saying that Crow “picked up the tab” for the entire time Martin was a student there, about a year. Grimwood also told ProPublica that Crow told him that he paid tuition as well for Martin at Randolph-Macon Academy, which Martin attended both before and after his time at Hidden Lake Academy.

No big deal. Roberts says they can police themselves.

All the Court possesses to create, buttress and continue its institutional legitimacy is the appearance that the Court's component members are committed to the rule of law, and free of abiding prejudices and biases. In my lifetime, the decision not to carry out a proper and expeditious confirmation process on Garland, the circus of Kavanaugh's confirmation, the rush through of the confirmation of ACB, and the revelation of the scope of Thomas's partisanship and succour from the right have basically killed this institution. Roberts: we have always thought he was an institution first kind of actor. He is now at the Rubicon.

There is no bottom for Republican voters. Where the F is the outrage? They don't care. Little D's and R's........tell us more about Hunter's laptop, and how it's important that our government isn't for sale.

Our country continues to circle the drain----if you're a Registered Republican and haven't sent one simple email to your two Senators, as well as your Rep sharing your outrage? This is on you. If you have....good on you, and thanks.

This would NEVER have been allowed by Republican voters or leaders when I was a kid. Its what I liked about them and their party.

Those days are SO long gone.

I postulated whether we were seeing the beginnings of the fall of the American empire a few years ago…..I got a ton of pushback…..doesn’t seem so crazy now. The signs were there. It’s remarkable that most people are asleep. The peasantry doesn’t care…..

The peasants can revolt at the ballot box. That is the only option available to them. The mistaken belief is that party D will do things different than party R and vice versa. At the end of the day nothing changes except the party in charge. How true is it that absolute power corrupts absolutely. How many people are elected to serve this nation and arrive in DC without 2 nickels and a pot to pee in. Funny how within a decade or less they often become very wealthy while serving their country.

Other than agreeing to my suspicion, not sure what this has to do with what I postulated.

When did Rome finally come to the conclusion their empire was crumbling around them? You postulated that our country is beginning to crumble. In one form or another those sentiments have been around since the early 1960s. You could right, maybe this nation is no worthy of greatness, that's what everybody keeps saying.

Might be right, might be wrong. Won’t know until we have the benefit of hindsight….it’s a very young country.

[ggait]

I'm betting the next thing that comes out is that Harlan bought Clarence his 40 foot Prevost motor coach.

New ones start at $1.5 million. I think Clarence got his used year ago.

So less than $1.5M. But still pretty expensive for a guy who has to beg (i) private school tuition for just one kid and (ii) $100k bag drops for his wife.

[Typical Lax Dad]

I guess my question isn’t novel….

WAR AND PEACE INEQUALITY IMPERIALISM
The US Empire Is Crumbling Before Our Eyes
With unprecedented economic inequality and massive overspending on military expansion, America now looks a lot like 476 CE Rome.

By Rebecca Gordon
JANUARY 21, 2021
Facebook Twitter Email
The Nation
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
How can you tell when your empire is crumbling? Some signs are actually visible from my own front window here in San Francisco.


Directly across the street, I can see a collection of tarps and poles (along with one of my own garbage cans) that were used to construct a makeshift home on the sidewalk. Beside that edifice stands a wooden cross decorated with a string of white Christmas lights and a red ribbon—a memorial to the woman who built that structure and died inside it earlier this week. We don’t know—and probably never will—what killed her: the pandemic raging across California? A heart attack? An overdose of heroin or fentanyl?

Behind her home and similar ones is a chain-link fence surrounding the empty playground of the Horace Mann/Buena Vista elementary and middle school. Like that home, the school, too, is now empty, closed because of the pandemic. I don’t know where the families of the 20 children who attended that school and lived in one of its gyms as an alternative to the streets have gone. They used to eat breakfast and dinner there every day, served on the same sidewalk by a pair of older Latina women who apparently had a contract from the school district to cook for the families using that school-cum-shelter. I don’t know, either, what any of them are now doing for money or food.


Just down the block, I can see the line of people that has formed every weekday since early December. Masked and socially distanced, they wait patiently to cross the street, one at a time, for a Covid test at a center run by the San Francisco Department of Health. My little street seems an odd choice for such a service, since—especially now that the school has closed—it gets little foot traffic. Indeed, a representative of the Latino Task Force, an organization created to inform the city’s Latinx population about Covid resources told our neighborhood paper Mission Local that small public health clinics like this “will say they want to do more outreach, but I actually think they don’t want to” and that he thinks this one was put on a street like Bartlett for a reason: “They don’t want to blow the spot up, because it does not have a large capacity.”

What do any of these very local sights have to do with a crumbling empire? They’re signs that some of the same factors that fractured the Roman empire back in 476 CE (and others since) are distinctly present in this country today—even in California, one of its richest states. I’m talking about phenomena like gross economic inequality; over-spending on military expansion; political corruption; deep cultural and political fissures; and, oh yes, the barbarians at the gates. I’ll turn to those factors in a moment, but first let me offer a brief defense of the very suggestion that US imperialism and an American empire actually exist.

IMPERIALISM? WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?
What better source for a definition of imperialism than the Encyclopedia Britannica, that compendium of knowledge first printed in 1768 in the country that became the great empire of the 19th and first part of the 20th centuries? According to the Encyclopedia, “imperialism” denotes “state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas.” Furthermore, imperialism “always involves the use of power, whether military or economic or some subtler form.” In other words, the word indicates a country’s attempts to control and reap economic benefit from lands outside its borders.

In that context, “imperialism” is an accurate description of the trajectory of US history, starting with the country’s expansion across North America, stealing territory and resources from Indian nations and decimating their populations. The newly independent United States would quickly expand, beginning with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France. That deal, which effectively doubled its territory, included most of what would become the state of Louisiana, together with some or all of the present-day states of New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana, and even small parts of what are today the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Of course, France didn’t actually control most of that land, apart from the port city of New Orleans and its immediate environs. What Washington bought was the “right” to take the rest of that vast area from the native peoples who lived there, whether by treaty, population transfers, or wars of conquest and extermination. The first objective of that deal was to settle land on which to expand the already hugely lucrative cotton business, that economic engine of early American history fueled, of course, by slave labor. It then supplied raw materials to the rapidly industrializing textile industry of England, which drove that country’s own imperial expansion.

US territorial expansion continued as, in 1819, Florida was acquired from Spain and, in 1845, Texas was forcibly annexed from Mexico (as well as various parts of California a year later). All of those acquisitions accorded with what newspaper editor John O’Sullivan would soon call the country’s manifest—that is, clear and obvious—destiny to control the entire continent.

Eventually, such expansionism escaped even those continental borders, as the country went on to gobble up the Philippines, Hawaii, the Panama Canal Zone, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Mariana Islands, the last five of which remain US territories to this day. (Inhabitants of the nation’s capital, where I grew up, were only partly right when we used to refer to Washington, D.C., as “the last colony.”)

AMERICAN DOCTRINES FROM MONROE TO TRUMAN TO (G.W.) BUSH
US economic, military, and political influence has long extended far beyond those internationally recognized possessions and various presidents have enunciated a series of “doctrines” to legitimate such an imperial reach.

Monroe: The first of these was the Monroe Doctrine, introduced in 1823 in President James Monroe’s penultimate State of the Union address. He warned the nations of Europe that, while the United States recognized existing colonial possessions in the Americas, it would not permit the establishment of any new ones.

President Teddy Roosevelt would later add a corollary to Monroe’s doctrine by establishing Washington’s right to intercede in any country in the Americas that, in the view of its leaders, was not being properly run. “Chronic wrongdoing,” he said in a 1904 message to Congress, “may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation.” The United States, he suggested, might find itself forced, “however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.” In the first quarter of the 20th century, that Roosevelt Corollary would be used to justify US occupations of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua.

Truman: Teddy’s cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, publicly renounced the Monroe Doctrine and promised a hands-off attitude towards Latin America, which came to be known as the Good Neighbor Policy. It didn’t last long, however. In a 1947 address to Congress, the next president, Harry S. Truman, laid out what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, which would underlie the country’s foreign policy at least until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It held that US national security interests required the “containment” of existing Communist states and the prevention of the further spread of Communism anywhere on Earth.

It almost immediately led to interventions in the internal struggles of Greece and Turkey and would eventually underpin Washington’s support for dictators and repressive regimes from El Salvador to Indonesia. It would justify US-backed coups in places like Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. It would lead this country into a futile war in Korea and a disastrous defeat in Vietnam.

That post-World War II turn to anticommunism would be accompanied by a new kind of colonialism. Rather than directly annexing territories to extract cheap labor and cheaper natural resources, under this new “neocolonial” model, the United States—and soon the great multilateral institutions of the post-war era, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund—would gain control over the economies of poor nations. In return for aid—or loans often pocketed by local elites and repaid by the poor—those nations would accede to demands for the “structural adjustment” of their economic systems: the privatization of public services like water and utilities and the defunding of human services like health and education, usually by American or multinational corporations. Such “adjustments,” in turn, allowed the recipients to service the loans, extracting scarce hard currency from already deeply impoverished nations.

Bush: You might have thought that the fall of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War would have provided Washington with an opportunity to step away from resource extraction and the seemingly endless military and CIA interventions that accompanied it. You might have imagined that the country then being referred to as the “last superpower” would finally consider establishing new and different relationships with the other countries on this little planet of ours. However, just in time to prevent even the faint possibility of any such conversion came the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which gave President George W. Bush the chance to promote his very own doctrine.

In a break from postwar multilateralism, the Bush Doctrine outlined the neoconservative belief that, as the only superpower in a now supposedly “unipolar” world, the United States had the right to take unilateral military action any time it believed it faced external threat of any imaginable sort. The result: almost 20 years of disastrous “forever wars” and a military-industrial complex deeply embedded in our national economy. Although Donald Trump’s foreign policy occasionally feinted in the direction of isolationism in its rejection of international treaties, protocols, and organizational responsibilities, it still proved itself a direct descendant of the Bush Doctrine. After all, it was Bush who first took the United States out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and rejected the Kyoto Protocol to fight climate change.

His doctrine instantly set the stage for the disastrous invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the even more disastrous Iraq War, and the present-day over-expansion of the US military presence, overt and covert, in practically every corner of the world. And now, to fulfill Donald Trump’s Star Trek fantasies, even in outer space.

AN EMPIRE IN DECAY
If you need proof that the last superpower, our very own empire, is indeed crumbling, consider the year we’ve just lived through, not to mention the first few weeks of 2021. I mentioned above some of the factors that contributed to the collapse of the famed Roman empire in the fifth century. It’s fair to say that some of those same things are now evident in 21st century America. Here are four obvious candidates:

SUPPORT OUR WORK WITH A DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION.
Get unlimited access: $9.50 for six months.

SUBSCRIBE
Grotesque Economic Inequality: Ever since President Ronald Reagan began the Republican Party’s long war on unions and working people, economic inequality has steadily increased in this country, punctuated by terrible shocks like the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and, of course, by the Covid-19 disaster. We’ve seen 40 years of tax reductions for the wealthy, stagnant wages for the rest of us (including a federal minimum wage that hasn’t changed since 2009), and attacks on programs like TANF (welfare) and SNAP (food stamps) that literally keep poor people alive.

The Romans relied on slave labor for basics like food and clothing. This country relies on super-exploited farm and food-factory workers, many of whom are unlikely to demand more or better because they came here without authorization. Our (extraordinarily cheap) clothes are mostly produced by exploited people in other countries.

The pandemic has only exposed what so many people already knew: that the lives of the millions of working poor in this country are growing ever more precarious and desperate. The gulf between rich and poor widens by the day to unprecedented levels. Indeed, as millions have descended into poverty since the pandemic began, the Guardian reports that this country’s 651 billionaires have increased their collective wealth by $1.1 trillion. That’s more than the $900 billion Congress appropriated for pandemic aid in the omnibus spending bill it passed at the end of December 2020.

An economy like ours, which depends so heavily on consumer spending, cannot survive the deep impoverishment of so many people. Those 651 billionaires are not going to buy enough toys to dig us out of this hole.

Wild Overspending on the Military: At the end of 2020, Congress overrode Trump’s veto of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which provided a stunning $741 billion to the military this fiscal year. (That veto, by the way, wasn’t in response to the vast sums being appropriated in the midst of a devastating pandemic, but to the bill’s provisions for renaming military bases currently honoring Confederate generals, among other extraneous things.) A week later, Congress passed that omnibus pandemic spending bill and it contained an additional $696 billion for the Defense Department.

All that money for “security” might be justified, if it actually made our lives more secure. In fact, our federal priorities virtually take food out of the mouths of children to feed the maw of the military-industrial complex and the never-ending wars that go with it. Even before the pandemic, more than 10% of US families regularly experienced food insecurity. Now, it’s a quarter of the population.

Corruption So Deep It Undermines the Political System: Suffice it to say that the man who came to Washington promising to “drain the swamp” has presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in US history. Whether it’s been blatant self-dealing (like funneling government money to his own businesses); employing government resources to forward his reelection (including using the White House as a staging ground for parts of the Republican National Convention and his acceptance speech); tolerating corrupt subordinates like Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross; or contemplating a self-pardon, the Trump administration has set the bar high indeed for any future aspirants to the title of “most corrupt president.”

One problem with such corruption is that it undermines the legitimacy of government in the minds of the governed. It makes citizens less willing to obey laws, pay taxes, or act for the common good by, for example, wearing masks and socially distancing during a pandemic. It rips apart social cohesion from top to bottom.

Of course, Trump’s most dangerous corrupt behavior—one in which he’s been joined by the most prominent elected and appointed members of his government and much of his party—has been his campaign to reject the results of the 2020 general election. The concerted and cynical promotion of the big lie that the Democrats stole that election has so corrupted faith in the legitimacy of government that up to 68% of Republicans now believe the vote was rigged to elect Joe Biden. At “best,” Trump has set the stage for increased Republican suppression of the vote in communities of color. At worst, he has so poisoned the electoral process that a substantial minority of Americans will never again accept as free and fair an election in which their candidate loses.

A Country in Ever-Deepening Conflict: White supremacy has infected the entire history of this country, beginning with the near-extermination of its native peoples. The Constitution, while guaranteeing many rights to white men, proceeded to codify the enslavement of Africans and their descendants. In order to maintain that enslavement, the southern states seceded and fought a civil war. After a short-lived period of Reconstruction in which Black men were briefly enfranchised, white supremacy regained direct legal control in the South, and flourished in a de facto fashion in the rest of the country.

In 1858, two years before that civil war began, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Illinois Republican State Convention, reminding those present that

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved —I do not expect the house to fall —but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

More than 160 years later, the United States clearly not only remains but has become ever more divided. If you doubt that the Civil War is still being fought today, look no farther than the Confederate battle flags proudly displayed by members of the insurrectionary mob that overran the Capitol on January 6th.

Oh, and the barbarians? They are not just at the gate; they have literally breached it, as we saw in Washington when they burst through the doors and windows of the center of government.

BUILDING A COUNTRY FROM THE RUBBLE OF EMPIRE
Human beings have long built new habitations quite literally from the rubble—the fallen stones and timbers—of earlier ones. Perhaps it’s time to think about what kind of a country this place—so rich in natural resources and human resourcefulness—might become if we were to take the stones and timbers of empire and construct a nation dedicated to the genuine security of all its people. Suppose we really chose, in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, “to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

Suppose we found a way to convert the desperate hunger for ever more, which is both the fuel of empires and the engine of their eventual destruction, into a new contentment with “enough”? What would a United States whose people have enough look like? It would not be one in which tiny numbers of the staggeringly wealthy made hundreds of billions more dollars and the country’s military-industrial complex thrived in a pandemic, while so many others went down in disaster.

This empire will fall sooner or later. They all do. So, this crisis, just at the start of the Biden and Harris years, is a fine time to begin thinking about what might be built in its place. What would any of us like to see from our front windows next year?

[PizzaSnake]

Fcuking grifter. Helped himself, did he?

Resign.


https://www.businessinsider.com/clarenc ... 2023-5?amp

“Justice Clarence Thomas — who has accepted lavish vacations and other financial benefits from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow for years — said in a speech in 2001 that serving on the Supreme Court wasn't worth it for what it paid.

"The job is not worth doing for what they pay," Thomas said during a speech in 2001, The New York Post reported at the time. "The job is not worth doing for the grief. But it is worth doing for the principle."”

[MDlaxfan76]

“The idea that Leonard Leo, who has a passionate ideological interest in how the court rules and who has worked hard for years to advance that interest, could pick up the phone and generate substantial compensation to Virginia Thomas, which also benefits Clarence Thomas — that idea is bad for the country, the court and the rule of law,” Gillers said. “It’s not the way the Supreme Court should do its business or allow its business to be done.”

All they had to do was believe Anita Hill. She tried to tell us what a POS and immoral man we were dealing with......we didn't want to hear it, apparently.

Oh well. Nothing we can do now.

You're 100% right. Thomas neutered all of them then with the "high tech lynching" defense. Joe Biden, as chair of the Senate committee, is foremost to blame for cowering.

I'm sure a lot of Senators and former Senators regret their call on Thomas. Undoubtedly including Biden.

Decades before "me-too", sense of hope for more diversity on Court, etc.

But that's 3 decades ago...the issue is what do the current Senators do?
Even more importantly (hopefully) is the question as to whether the Court as a whole has the guts to make hard decisions when it comes to policing themselves. They should step up, but will they?

And then back to the Senators if they do not.

And then to voters...

Meanwhile, it remains disgraceful that Congress balks at its own regulation, stock trading etc.
But people did go to jail when they were found to have taken trips paid for by lobbyist Abramoff...it's not a close call as to whether its ethical.

Try as much as you want MD, you can never transform a pickle back to a cucumber. IMO justice Thomas used the high tech lynching defense to make him the justice he is today. I think he has a lot of personal resentments towards alot of folks in charge in DC today. Y'all can complain about him until the cows come home but he is one of nine who is bullet proof.

Let's lose the "bulletproof" analogy, as unfortunately, no one is.

I think the odds of removal by impeachment or stepping down are below 1%, though that means the classic "you're saying I have a chance?" remains. Would need 16 R's, so ain't gonna happen....but this keeps getting worse and worse, so if actual criminal activity has happened, never know.

But I don't think claiming "high tech lynching" holds any sway any more, probably won't again in our lifetimes. Just a raw political power issue now.

That all said, I don't think ALL of the Justices are corrupt POS, indeed I expect most of them, maybe only with the exception of Alito, are deeply disturbed by this set of ethical revelations and what it means for their institution. Perhaps in varying degrees, I think there's likely some real self-reflection, both institutionally and personally, going on among the Justices and a desire to find a path that restores public trust.

Roberts seems to have failed that test in the immediate moment but I hold out some hope that as the revelations pile up he'll work with others to put in place a much more clear set of rules and consequences.

And meanwhile, the increased "sunlight" on specific transgressions is going to continue until that's pretty well exhausted and the Justices, at least most of them, will be trying to avoid such going forward...a good thing.

But if this all blows over and they galavant away as if nothing happened, that's incredibly bad for our democracy if not responded to electorally.

I'd expect it to matter in 2024 and beyond, ultimately with major Court reform insisted upon by a Congress heavily dominated by progressives. It won't be enough to simply appoint liberal Justices upon the death of the right wingers, they'll increase the size of the Court and hopefully institute ggaits wish of term limits.

Why so quick to lose the bulletproof analogy? There are 9 justices sitting in the SCOTUS that answer to no controlling legal authority. You seem to believe that reality is going to change. Justice Roberts refused to go in front of a Senate panel that wanted his chestnuts roasting on a roaring fire. Roberts may not like Thomas on many levels but he does have his back.

Because we live in a culture of gun violence in which a surprisingly large portion of Americans actually believe in the use of violence to achieve political aims.

ggait's "untouchable" word expresses just fine what you meant.

Do you have any statistics to back up your claim?? How surprisingly large is the portion of Americans who profess violence as a solution?? I know a huge number of Americans who love their guns and yet have no intention of inciting or condoning random violence. You must be making this chit up as you go along? We also live in a country that loves drinking, smoking and gambling among other things.

I think 1 in 4 is a "surprisingly large portion". Shocking, really.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/10768731 ... times-okay

WAPO survey had it 1 in 3, in Jan 2022, but Guardian poll at 1 in 5 June 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ified-poll

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... nce-survey

All are "surprisingly large" in my book.

Don't like those publications, https://nypost.com/2022/01/02/34-percen ... justified/

538 summed it up: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wh ... -violence/

Note that the polls indicate a larger % of Republicans agree that violence is sometimes justified for important political aims, than Dems...but independents are close to GOP.

I don't see a breakdown between gun owners and non gun owners, but there has been research done on the threat of gun violence toward public officials from about 40% of threats mentioning guns in 2016 (yikes!) to over 60% now. And the number of threats has grown hugely overall against public officials.
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/report/t ... -violence/

And the amount of actual politically motivated gun violence is way up as well...any is alarming.

So, maybe before you assume I'm "making chit up" trying using the little google machine at your fingertips.

There is a huge difference between advocating violence and theoretically supporting it in some cockamamie poll. You own shotguns and enjoy hunting ducks. That must make you a threat to the country because well...you own guns and enjoy blasting ducks from the sky. So I can safely conclude you sir are a threat to the country. FTR MD I don't make chit up from some Google machine at my finger tips. I do my own reading just like you do and just like you do I come to my own conclusions. You just have a difficult time understanding that some people don't come to the same conclusions that you do. There is nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact having a difference of opinion is a good thing. Of course there is always the fact that you think people should be lock step in what you believe. Hell there are even rare occasions when I agree with you. Those rare occasions are becoming fewer and farther between the more radical your opinions keep getting. I'm more concerned about the violence and crime emanating from our cities and towns every night. Your concerned about the hypothetical threat from Christian white supremacists. Those idiots that stormed the capital on Jan.6 were nothing more than a bunch of hooligans who more resembles the rabid soccer fans of Europe. Any group of ideologues who want to butt heads with the unlimited power of the US government is going to get their ass handed to them on a platter. I think most people with any common sense understand that fact very well.

sigh...you asked for stats.
I shared lots of different sources, none of which I "made up".

I just think using gun violence language, including claiming a Justice is "bulletproof", is tragically incorrect. I don't wish on any government servant, including those I think are rather reprehensible, to be the subject of gun violence and threats of gun violence.

You want to rant about other topics, go ahead, I was simply answering your direct question.

[PizzaSnake]

“The idea that Leonard Leo, who has a passionate ideological interest in how the court rules and who has worked hard for years to advance that interest, could pick up the phone and generate substantial compensation to Virginia Thomas, which also benefits Clarence Thomas — that idea is bad for the country, the court and the rule of law,” Gillers said. “It’s not the way the Supreme Court should do its business or allow its business to be done.”

All they had to do was believe Anita Hill. She tried to tell us what a POS and immoral man we were dealing with......we didn't want to hear it, apparently.

Oh well. Nothing we can do now.

You're 100% right. Thomas neutered all of them then with the "high tech lynching" defense. Joe Biden, as chair of the Senate committee, is foremost to blame for cowering.

I'm sure a lot of Senators and former Senators regret their call on Thomas. Undoubtedly including Biden.

Decades before "me-too", sense of hope for more diversity on Court, etc.

But that's 3 decades ago...the issue is what do the current Senators do?
Even more importantly (hopefully) is the question as to whether the Court as a whole has the guts to make hard decisions when it comes to policing themselves. They should step up, but will they?

And then back to the Senators if they do not.

And then to voters...

Meanwhile, it remains disgraceful that Congress balks at its own regulation, stock trading etc.
But people did go to jail when they were found to have taken trips paid for by lobbyist Abramoff...it's not a close call as to whether its ethical.

Try as much as you want MD, you can never transform a pickle back to a cucumber. IMO justice Thomas used the high tech lynching defense to make him the justice he is today. I think he has a lot of personal resentments towards alot of folks in charge in DC today. Y'all can complain about him until the cows come home but he is one of nine who is bullet proof.

Let's lose the "bulletproof" analogy, as unfortunately, no one is.

I think the odds of removal by impeachment or stepping down are below 1%, though that means the classic "you're saying I have a chance?" remains. Would need 16 R's, so ain't gonna happen....but this keeps getting worse and worse, so if actual criminal activity has happened, never know.

But I don't think claiming "high tech lynching" holds any sway any more, probably won't again in our lifetimes. Just a raw political power issue now.

That all said, I don't think ALL of the Justices are corrupt POS, indeed I expect most of them, maybe only with the exception of Alito, are deeply disturbed by this set of ethical revelations and what it means for their institution. Perhaps in varying degrees, I think there's likely some real self-reflection, both institutionally and personally, going on among the Justices and a desire to find a path that restores public trust.

Roberts seems to have failed that test in the immediate moment but I hold out some hope that as the revelations pile up he'll work with others to put in place a much more clear set of rules and consequences.

And meanwhile, the increased "sunlight" on specific transgressions is going to continue until that's pretty well exhausted and the Justices, at least most of them, will be trying to avoid such going forward...a good thing.

But if this all blows over and they galavant away as if nothing happened, that's incredibly bad for our democracy if not responded to electorally.

I'd expect it to matter in 2024 and beyond, ultimately with major Court reform insisted upon by a Congress heavily dominated by progressives. It won't be enough to simply appoint liberal Justices upon the death of the right wingers, they'll increase the size of the Court and hopefully institute ggaits wish of term limits.

Why so quick to lose the bulletproof analogy? There are 9 justices sitting in the SCOTUS that answer to no controlling legal authority. You seem to believe that reality is going to change. Justice Roberts refused to go in front of a Senate panel that wanted his chestnuts roasting on a roaring fire. Roberts may not like Thomas on many levels but he does have his back.

Because we live in a culture of gun violence in which a surprisingly large portion of Americans actually believe in the use of violence to achieve political aims.

ggait's "untouchable" word expresses just fine what you meant.

Do you have any statistics to back up your claim?? How surprisingly large is the portion of Americans who profess violence as a solution?? I know a huge number of Americans who love their guns and yet have no intention of inciting or condoning random violence. You must be making this chit up as you go along? We also live in a country that loves drinking, smoking and gambling among other things.

I think 1 in 4 is a "surprisingly large portion". Shocking, really.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/10768731 ... times-okay

WAPO survey had it 1 in 3, in Jan 2022, but Guardian poll at 1 in 5 June 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ified-poll

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... nce-survey

All are "surprisingly large" in my book.

Don't like those publications, https://nypost.com/2022/01/02/34-percen ... justified/

538 summed it up: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wh ... -violence/

Note that the polls indicate a larger % of Republicans agree that violence is sometimes justified for important political aims, than Dems...but independents are close to GOP.

I don't see a breakdown between gun owners and non gun owners, but there has been research done on the threat of gun violence toward public officials from about 40% of threats mentioning guns in 2016 (yikes!) to over 60% now. And the number of threats has grown hugely overall against public officials.
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/report/t ... -violence/

And the amount of actual politically motivated gun violence is way up as well...any is alarming.

So, maybe before you assume I'm "making chit up" trying using the little google machine at your fingertips.

There is a huge difference between advocating violence and theoretically supporting it in some cockamamie poll. You own shotguns and enjoy hunting ducks. That must make you a threat to the country because well...you own guns and enjoy blasting ducks from the sky. So I can safely conclude you sir are a threat to the country. FTR MD I don't make chit up from some Google machine at my finger tips. I do my own reading just like you do and just like you do I come to my own conclusions. You just have a difficult time understanding that some people don't come to the same conclusions that you do. There is nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact having a difference of opinion is a good thing. Of course there is always the fact that you think people should be lock step in what you believe. Hell there are even rare occasions when I agree with you. Those rare occasions are becoming fewer and farther between the more radical your opinions keep getting. I'm more concerned about the violence and crime emanating from our cities and towns every night. Your concerned about the hypothetical threat from Christian white supremacists. Those idiots that stormed the capital on Jan.6 were nothing more than a bunch of hooligans who more resembles the rabid soccer fans of Europe. Any group of ideologues who want to butt heads with the unlimited power of the US government is going to get their ass handed to them on a platter. I think most people with any common sense understand that fact very well.

Um, two groups, the Oaf Keepers and the Proud Bitchse, have been convicted by federal juries of seditious consoiracy.

[ggait]

"I don't have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States," Thomas said in an interview for a 2020 documentary about his life titled, "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words."

"I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There's something normal to me about it," Thomas continued, adding, "I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that."

Nice total bull shirt quotes from Thomas from a 2020 documentary.

But the best part is this. Guess who financed the documentary?

Of course. That good old hospitality providing, boarding school tuition paying, mom's house buying dude. Harlan Forking Crow.

You just couldn't make this stuff up.

[SCLaxAttack]

Interesting opinion piece. At least one person thinks Crow and Thomas might have some tax/income issues.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/harlan-cr ... gift-taxes

"Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes
JUSTICE FOR ALL
The billionaire’s generosity to the Supreme Court justice and his family raise a whole lot of questions about whether the “gifts” were declared properly.


Martin Sheil
Updated May. 05, 2023 2:25PM ET Published May. 05, 2023 12:45PM ET
OPINION

Gift taxes were probably not a topic discussed on the yacht or around the campfire during the Harlan Crow-subsidized luxury vacations for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni. But maybe they should have been.

Recent reports indicate that Crow provided Thomas’ grandnephew with tuition to a pricey boarding school in the 1990s. Thomas did not report this gift from Harlan Crow as required on his annual disclosure forms. But that is nothing new. ProPublica had previously reported on multiple luxury vacations provided to Justice Thomas and his wife via Crow’s yacht and jets—including an island-hopping junket in Indonesia that ProPublica valued at $500,000.

That Thomas has made multiple lapses in ethical judgment in not reporting the receipt of such valued largesse from Crow is something for him, SCOTUS, and now Congress to muse over.

But what about Crow’s judgment? Did he file gift tax returns and pay gift taxes on any of the gifts he provided to the Thomas family?

It is a reasonable question to ask, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) appears to have formally done so, with a reported due date of a response May 8. In lieu of gift taxes, did Crow expense the value of the trips and tuition provided the Thomases on either personal or business income tax returns? Wyden wants to know.

If Crow took business expense deductions for the above referenced “gifts,” then he can’t claim they were gifts. And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t have had to file gift tax returns which—given a potential tax rate of up to 40 percent—would represent a pretty price for the billionaire real estate magnate.

The criteria for what constitutes an untaxed gift that exceeds the limit to avoid paying tax vary by year. For example, the limit was $13,000 per recipient in 2013, but $17,000 in 2023. The Indonesian junket—valued at over $500,000 by ProPublica—would generate gift taxes of approximately $200,000 for Mr. Crow.

Now, if Crow did take business deductions for the value of the luxury vacations provided to the Thomases, he would have opened up another can of worms for himself tax-wise. That’s because Crow has publicly stated he did not discuss any business before the court with Justice Thomas.

If that is true, then it is possible that Crow falsified his income tax returns by expensing the cost of the vacation provided the Thomases. It’s also possible the vacations provided the Thomas family could be viewed as income to Thomas—since he would be viewed as providing value to Crow through business discussions. To be very clear, this is speculative and none of this is proven, but the possibility alone makes it worth investigating.

What seems much more clear-cut is that Justice Thomas doesn’t seem to think he has to report gifts from wealthy businessmen, who also are generous corporate political donors, like Harlan Crow.

“Not reportable” is the phrase used by Thomas’ attorney/friend Mark Paoletta when he tweeted (incorrectly) about how the tuition payment by Crow to the school attended by the grandnephew was not reportable as a gift.

Such an admission by Paoletta suggests knowledge of gift tax requirements by both Thomas and Crow going all the way back to the 1990s. It also raises additional questions. Was Justice Thomas motivated not to disclose valuable junkets provided to him and his family in order to abet his buddy Crow’s non-filing of gift tax returns and/or expensing of the value of the trips on his tax returns?

Oh me oh my!

Now, Mr. Crow may think he has insulated himself by procuring a golden passport from St. Kitts and Nevis—which is a notorious tax haven and money laundering refuge in the Caribbean. Then there’s the fact that Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, has a registered ownership under an entity called Rochelle Marine Limited—a company domiciled in Guernsey, another notorious tax haven located just off the shores of the U.K.

Mr. Crow clearly has employed some clever tax accountants and lawyers over the years. And we all look forward to the answers he provides to the questions posed by Sen. Wyden but, clearly, Crow has exhibited a predisposition for tax avoidance behavior. Did he cross the line into tax fraud? That is something to contemplate and discuss around the campfire.

But why is this question even significant?

It is murky as to whether any of Crow’s business dealings were ever subject to SCOTUS review—even indirectly. What is not unclear are the heavy-duty political campaign contributions made by Harlan Crow.

Has Mr. Crow donated to dark money PACs? We don’t know, because anonymity is the whole point of dark money PACs.

What about corporate political donations?

There is no limit to those given the Citizens United decision, wherein SCOTUS bestowed personhood on corporations and concluded that limiting corporate political contributions was tantamount to limiting freedom of speech—which was unconstitutional.

Might that issue have ever come up when Thomas was sailing on Crow’s yacht or flying on his corporate jet? Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United, which certainly had to make corporate executives everywhere in the U.S. pleased—even if it opened the door to contributions from overseas, and not just from Caribbean tax havens, and not just from dual passport holders.

That Justice Thomas was unethical in not disclosing receipt of luxury gifts provided to him is transparently obvious, though it seems inconsequential to date. But it does raise the question as to whether those who provide wealthy gifts to civil servants that hold positions of power should face any consequences, particularly when tax responsibilities are clear.

Should wealthy corporate executives who make large political donations to obtain results favorable to their business (or make luxury gifts to powerful people) be held accountable? Bottom line—does the wealth, power, and position of the wealthy insulate them from the consequences of their actions? (Normal tax-paying citizens would certainly face such a reckoning.)

These questions are bigger than just Thomas and Crow. They speak to the integrity of our political systems, and whether ordinary Americans should have to live by different rules than the wealthy and politically powerful."

[Typical Lax Dad]

Interesting opinion piece. At least one person thinks Crow and Thomas might have some tax/income issues.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/harlan-cr ... gift-taxes

"Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes
JUSTICE FOR ALL
The billionaire’s generosity to the Supreme Court justice and his family raise a whole lot of questions about whether the “gifts” were declared properly.


Martin Sheil
Updated May. 05, 2023 2:25PM ET Published May. 05, 2023 12:45PM ET
OPINION

Gift taxes were probably not a topic discussed on the yacht or around the campfire during the Harlan Crow-subsidized luxury vacations for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni. But maybe they should have been.

Recent reports indicate that Crow provided Thomas’ grandnephew with tuition to a pricey boarding school in the 1990s. Thomas did not report this gift from Harlan Crow as required on his annual disclosure forms. But that is nothing new. ProPublica had previously reported on multiple luxury vacations provided to Justice Thomas and his wife via Crow’s yacht and jets—including an island-hopping junket in Indonesia that ProPublica valued at $500,000.

That Thomas has made multiple lapses in ethical judgment in not reporting the receipt of such valued largesse from Crow is something for him, SCOTUS, and now Congress to muse over.

But what about Crow’s judgment? Did he file gift tax returns and pay gift taxes on any of the gifts he provided to the Thomas family?

It is a reasonable question to ask, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) appears to have formally done so, with a reported due date of a response May 8. In lieu of gift taxes, did Crow expense the value of the trips and tuition provided the Thomases on either personal or business income tax returns? Wyden wants to know.

If Crow took business expense deductions for the above referenced “gifts,” then he can’t claim they were gifts. And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t have had to file gift tax returns which—given a potential tax rate of up to 40 percent—would represent a pretty price for the billionaire real estate magnate.

The criteria for what constitutes an untaxed gift that exceeds the limit to avoid paying tax vary by year. For example, the limit was $13,000 per recipient in 2013, but $17,000 in 2023. The Indonesian junket—valued at over $500,000 by ProPublica—would generate gift taxes of approximately $200,000 for Mr. Crow.

Now, if Crow did take business deductions for the value of the luxury vacations provided to the Thomases, he would have opened up another can of worms for himself tax-wise. That’s because Crow has publicly stated he did not discuss any business before the court with Justice Thomas.

If that is true, then it is possible that Crow falsified his income tax returns by expensing the cost of the vacation provided the Thomases. It’s also possible the vacations provided the Thomas family could be viewed as income to Thomas—since he would be viewed as providing value to Crow through business discussions. To be very clear, this is speculative and none of this is proven, but the possibility alone makes it worth investigating.

What seems much more clear-cut is that Justice Thomas doesn’t seem to think he has to report gifts from wealthy businessmen, who also are generous corporate political donors, like Harlan Crow.

“Not reportable” is the phrase used by Thomas’ attorney/friend Mark Paoletta when he tweeted (incorrectly) about how the tuition payment by Crow to the school attended by the grandnephew was not reportable as a gift.

Such an admission by Paoletta suggests knowledge of gift tax requirements by both Thomas and Crow going all the way back to the 1990s. It also raises additional questions. Was Justice Thomas motivated not to disclose valuable junkets provided to him and his family in order to abet his buddy Crow’s non-filing of gift tax returns and/or expensing of the value of the trips on his tax returns?

Oh me oh my!

Now, Mr. Crow may think he has insulated himself by procuring a golden passport from St. Kitts and Nevis—which is a notorious tax haven and money laundering refuge in the Caribbean. Then there’s the fact that Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, has a registered ownership under an entity called Rochelle Marine Limited—a company domiciled in Guernsey, another notorious tax haven located just off the shores of the U.K.

Mr. Crow clearly has employed some clever tax accountants and lawyers over the years. And we all look forward to the answers he provides to the questions posed by Sen. Wyden but, clearly, Crow has exhibited a predisposition for tax avoidance behavior. Did he cross the line into tax fraud? That is something to contemplate and discuss around the campfire.

But why is this question even significant?

It is murky as to whether any of Crow’s business dealings were ever subject to SCOTUS review—even indirectly. What is not unclear are the heavy-duty political campaign contributions made by Harlan Crow.

Has Mr. Crow donated to dark money PACs? We don’t know, because anonymity is the whole point of dark money PACs.

What about corporate political donations?

There is no limit to those given the Citizens United decision, wherein SCOTUS bestowed personhood on corporations and concluded that limiting corporate political contributions was tantamount to limiting freedom of speech—which was unconstitutional.

Might that issue have ever come up when Thomas was sailing on Crow’s yacht or flying on his corporate jet? Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United, which certainly had to make corporate executives everywhere in the U.S. pleased—even if it opened the door to contributions from overseas, and not just from Caribbean tax havens, and not just from dual passport holders.

That Justice Thomas was unethical in not disclosing receipt of luxury gifts provided to him is transparently obvious, though it seems inconsequential to date. But it does raise the question as to whether those who provide wealthy gifts to civil servants that hold positions of power should face any consequences, particularly when tax responsibilities are clear.

Should wealthy corporate executives who make large political donations to obtain results favorable to their business (or make luxury gifts to powerful people) be held accountable? Bottom line—does the wealth, power, and position of the wealthy insulate them from the consequences of their actions? (Normal tax-paying citizens would certainly face such a reckoning.)

These questions are bigger than just Thomas and Crow. They speak to the integrity of our political systems, and whether ordinary Americans should have to live by different rules than the wealthy and politically powerful."

Wasn’t Harlan the characters name in Knives Out?

[jhu72]

So what's the catch?? On Thursday SCOTUS unanimously found for a Central American trans female in her quest to remain in the US.

[youthathletics]

So what's the catch?? On Thursday SCOTUS unanimously found for a Central American trans female in her quest to remain in the US.

That all these woke people are crying over spilled milk? That the US already recognizes them and they just need to go on with their lives and stop bitching?

[SCLaxAttack]

So what's the catch?? On Thursday SCOTUS unanimously found for a Central American trans female in her quest to remain in the US.

That all these woke people are crying over spilled milk? That the US already recognizes them and they just need to go on with their lives and stop bitching?

That's EXACTLY what they want. But there are segments of our society and certain state and local governments that are determined to not allow that to happen for them.

[Farfromgeneva]

Interesting opinion piece. At least one person thinks Crow and Thomas might have some tax/income issues.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/harlan-cr ... gift-taxes

"Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes
JUSTICE FOR ALL
The billionaire’s generosity to the Supreme Court justice and his family raise a whole lot of questions about whether the “gifts” were declared properly.


Martin Sheil
Updated May. 05, 2023 2:25PM ET Published May. 05, 2023 12:45PM ET
OPINION

Gift taxes were probably not a topic discussed on the yacht or around the campfire during the Harlan Crow-subsidized luxury vacations for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni. But maybe they should have been.

Recent reports indicate that Crow provided Thomas’ grandnephew with tuition to a pricey boarding school in the 1990s. Thomas did not report this gift from Harlan Crow as required on his annual disclosure forms. But that is nothing new. ProPublica had previously reported on multiple luxury vacations provided to Justice Thomas and his wife via Crow’s yacht and jets—including an island-hopping junket in Indonesia that ProPublica valued at $500,000.

That Thomas has made multiple lapses in ethical judgment in not reporting the receipt of such valued largesse from Crow is something for him, SCOTUS, and now Congress to muse over.

But what about Crow’s judgment? Did he file gift tax returns and pay gift taxes on any of the gifts he provided to the Thomas family?

It is a reasonable question to ask, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) appears to have formally done so, with a reported due date of a response May 8. In lieu of gift taxes, did Crow expense the value of the trips and tuition provided the Thomases on either personal or business income tax returns? Wyden wants to know.

If Crow took business expense deductions for the above referenced “gifts,” then he can’t claim they were gifts. And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t have had to file gift tax returns which—given a potential tax rate of up to 40 percent—would represent a pretty price for the billionaire real estate magnate.

The criteria for what constitutes an untaxed gift that exceeds the limit to avoid paying tax vary by year. For example, the limit was $13,000 per recipient in 2013, but $17,000 in 2023. The Indonesian junket—valued at over $500,000 by ProPublica—would generate gift taxes of approximately $200,000 for Mr. Crow.

Now, if Crow did take business deductions for the value of the luxury vacations provided to the Thomases, he would have opened up another can of worms for himself tax-wise. That’s because Crow has publicly stated he did not discuss any business before the court with Justice Thomas.

If that is true, then it is possible that Crow falsified his income tax returns by expensing the cost of the vacation provided the Thomases. It’s also possible the vacations provided the Thomas family could be viewed as income to Thomas—since he would be viewed as providing value to Crow through business discussions. To be very clear, this is speculative and none of this is proven, but the possibility alone makes it worth investigating.

What seems much more clear-cut is that Justice Thomas doesn’t seem to think he has to report gifts from wealthy businessmen, who also are generous corporate political donors, like Harlan Crow.

“Not reportable” is the phrase used by Thomas’ attorney/friend Mark Paoletta when he tweeted (incorrectly) about how the tuition payment by Crow to the school attended by the grandnephew was not reportable as a gift.

Such an admission by Paoletta suggests knowledge of gift tax requirements by both Thomas and Crow going all the way back to the 1990s. It also raises additional questions. Was Justice Thomas motivated not to disclose valuable junkets provided to him and his family in order to abet his buddy Crow’s non-filing of gift tax returns and/or expensing of the value of the trips on his tax returns?

Oh me oh my!

Now, Mr. Crow may think he has insulated himself by procuring a golden passport from St. Kitts and Nevis—which is a notorious tax haven and money laundering refuge in the Caribbean. Then there’s the fact that Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, has a registered ownership under an entity called Rochelle Marine Limited—a company domiciled in Guernsey, another notorious tax haven located just off the shores of the U.K.

Mr. Crow clearly has employed some clever tax accountants and lawyers over the years. And we all look forward to the answers he provides to the questions posed by Sen. Wyden but, clearly, Crow has exhibited a predisposition for tax avoidance behavior. Did he cross the line into tax fraud? That is something to contemplate and discuss around the campfire.

But why is this question even significant?

It is murky as to whether any of Crow’s business dealings were ever subject to SCOTUS review—even indirectly. What is not unclear are the heavy-duty political campaign contributions made by Harlan Crow.

Has Mr. Crow donated to dark money PACs? We don’t know, because anonymity is the whole point of dark money PACs.

What about corporate political donations?

There is no limit to those given the Citizens United decision, wherein SCOTUS bestowed personhood on corporations and concluded that limiting corporate political contributions was tantamount to limiting freedom of speech—which was unconstitutional.

Might that issue have ever come up when Thomas was sailing on Crow’s yacht or flying on his corporate jet? Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United, which certainly had to make corporate executives everywhere in the U.S. pleased—even if it opened the door to contributions from overseas, and not just from Caribbean tax havens, and not just from dual passport holders.

That Justice Thomas was unethical in not disclosing receipt of luxury gifts provided to him is transparently obvious, though it seems inconsequential to date. But it does raise the question as to whether those who provide wealthy gifts to civil servants that hold positions of power should face any consequences, particularly when tax responsibilities are clear.

Should wealthy corporate executives who make large political donations to obtain results favorable to their business (or make luxury gifts to powerful people) be held accountable? Bottom line—does the wealth, power, and position of the wealthy insulate them from the consequences of their actions? (Normal tax-paying citizens would certainly face such a reckoning.)

These questions are bigger than just Thomas and Crow. They speak to the integrity of our political systems, and whether ordinary Americans should have to live by different rules than the wealthy and politically powerful."

Wasn’t Harlan the characters name in Knives Out?

A Kentucky town in Justified.

[PizzaSnake]

Only the Shadow knows what evil lurks…

“Conservative justices on the US supreme court consciously broke with decades-old congressional rules and norms to shift laws governing religious freedom sharply to the right through a series of shadowy unsigned and unexplained emergency orders, a new book reveals.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... ing-agenda

[ggait]

So Sen Whitehouse blows the whistle on Scalia’s sleazy bs abuse of the “personal hospitality” loophole.

Nino took over 70 undisclosed all expenses paid hunting trips (including the one that was the scene of his death).

Appears that Thomas learned from the master of mooching. Any guesses on what colleague Thomas consulted to get the incorrect advice that he didn’t have to disclose his mooching???

Strict construction my butt. Their slanted reading of the rules is such bs.

[Kismet]

https://www.propublica.org/article/samu ... reme-court

Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court

Alito, the weasel he is, took the questions ProPublica asked him and then wrote a self-serving Op-Ed in the WSJ.

"Just gotta love a Justice arguing that he had to take the bribe otherwise the money would have gone to waste." referring to an empty seat he occupied on the billionaire's jet arguing that it would have otherwise been empty so it doesn't count - I suppose that is how you know you’re dealing with a straight-shooter with good judgment.

Funny but that same GOP Billionaire - Paul Singer - the same person who initially funded Fusion GPS’s oppo research work on Donald Trump back in 2015?

[ggait]

Grumpy Sam gets caught with his hand in the same BS "personal hospitality" cookie jar. Seems like Scalia trained Sam and Clarence in how to sleazily get mega-donor rich guys to pay for your lifestyle but not disclose any of the compromising handouts.

And then has the temerity to lamely ty to defend himself. Clue-less.

Takes a free private jet flight to Alaska for a fishing trip. No big deal -- cause the seat would otherwise have been empty. Like a free private jet flight is the same thing as hopping into someone's Uber for a ride from the airport. Alito had never met the billionaire until his butt hit the seat on the private jet.

And no big deal that he presumably stays in the Alaska fishing lodge for free -- because the lodge is "simple and rustic." So simple and rustic that it costs $1,000 a night. And other guests on the trip are bragging that they were drinking $1,000 bottles of wine. Eye roll.

The BS loophole is that while the lodge is a commercial operation, it is owned by another rich Fed Society donor. So it is like the rich dude inviting a good friend over to the house for a backyard weenie roast. Rich dude had previously provided free trips to Scalia. All normal stuff among close personal friends....

And the kicker -- the billionaire jet guy had DIRECT cases before SCOTUS and Sleazy Sam didn't recuse from any of those. If the guy was your personal friend, why didn't Alito recuse? And if Sam didn't know the guy, then how do you accept the free vacation from a stranger as "personal" hospitality?

Sleazy Sam calls it all "personal hospitality" which does not have to be disclosed. Even though he admits he doesn't really know the billionaire providing the empty seat and the lodging. Seriously dude? Dude -- you think this billionaire just randomly offers free jet flights and Alaska fishing vacations to any regular Joe? GMAB.

And take a guess who organized the fishing trip and also attended for free? And who asked the billionaire to invite Sleazy Sam on the free jet ride?

...Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society. Who also lined up $$$ freebies for Clarence and Nino.

Kudos to ProPublica -- great reporting on this issue.

SCOTUS ethics code please.

SCOTUS term limits please.

[OCanada]

You might want to dig into the history of Fred Koch and his sons and their efforts w other billionaires. It is very wide network pf very wealthy people trying to reshape the country to their liking rather than as it was intended to be.

[MDlaxfan76]

You might want to dig into the history of Fred Koch and his sons and their efforts w other billionaires. It is very wide network pf very wealthy people trying to reshape the country to their liking rather than as it was intended to be.

mmm, the one nit with that statement is "rather than as it was intended to be".

Those Founders were pretty much mostly the "billionaires" and other elites of their day and the country was certainly constructed with the benefit of those wealthy folks in mind. At a minimum, the upper middle class, but hey, plantation owners...

But, yeah, definitely not what most of us aspire for the country to be.

[ggait]

Using Sam’s logic, it should be fine to accept bags of cash from the billionaire jet dude.

The billionaire jet dude is so wealthy, he couldn’t possibly spend all his dough. So it doesn’t really cost anything for him to give Sam a bag of Benjamin’s. Otherwise the cash would have gone to waste.