Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ProPublica is leftist garbage. I read an article by them that strongly implied that landlords should be forced to accept section 8 (aka tenants from hell) because DiScRiMiNaTiOn.

You forgot the /s to denote your sarcasm…

It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning bastion of investigative journalism. They brought receipts and the billionaire admitted it.

Admitted what? Their relationship and these benefits have already been publicly known of for decades.

“ get over it libs! We’ve always known we are corrupt. It’s no big deal!”

Not really, it's just not some huge scoop or surprise. We've known all of this for a while, save a few details about where CT likes to travel over the last few years.

A Justice routinely accepts reportable gifts without reporting them, but we've known about it, so no big deal

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ProPublica is leftist garbage. I read an article by them that strongly implied that landlords should be forced to accept section 8 (aka tenants from hell) because DiScRiMiNaTiOn.

You forgot the /s to denote your sarcasm…

It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning bastion of investigative journalism. They brought receipts and the billionaire admitted it.

Admitted what? Their relationship and these benefits have already been publicly known of for decades.

“ get over it libs! We’ve always known we are corrupt. It’s no big deal!”

Not really, it's just not some huge scoop or surprise. We've known all of this for a while, save a few details about where CT likes to travel over the last few years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

The rules are pretty much voluntary for the Justices. Very few apply to the Justices save those which they determine to impose upon themselves. They mostly apply to lower court judges.

There are institutional/separation of powers reasons for the arrangement, but I suspect many here will not find them particularly convincing with such a conservative court.

What are the reasons?

The alleged reasons are, among others, to preserve the independence and supremacy of SCOTUS as highest interpreter of the law in the land. Too much congressional oversight (beyond the power of impeachment) risks politicization of the Court or making it too susceptible to the whims of the political branch. Having too many recusals of SCOTUS may hinder the functioning of the court because there are no ready replacements for SCOTUS justices. Having a committee of the Court police such violations could make things awkward and/or contentious between the Justices and impair the collegiality with which they typically like to operate. Having lower judges police behavior of SCOTUS judges may undermine its supremacy.

Crap like that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

The rules are pretty much voluntary for the Justices. Very few apply to the Justices save those which they determine to impose upon themselves. They mostly apply to lower court judges.

There are institutional/separation of powers reasons for the arrangement, but I suspect many here will not find them particularly convincing with such a conservative court.

What are the reasons?

The Supreme Court is supposed to be as free as possible from political pressure. That's why they're given life time appointments and why impeachment is more or less the only remedy for bad behavior by a Justice. Congress and the President can get creative given sufficient political will: For example, FDR's "court packing" proposal notoriously convinced a court stuck in the Gilded Age to reconsider its opposition to New Deal approaches to mitigating the effects of the Depression.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

The rules are pretty much voluntary for the Justices. Very few apply to the Justices save those which they determine to impose upon themselves. They mostly apply to lower court judges.

There are institutional/separation of powers reasons for the arrangement, but I suspect many here will not find them particularly convincing with such a conservative court.

And even where the Justices say they are self-applying standards, there's really no consequence if a Justice like Thomas says, "I'd prefer not."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

The rules are pretty much voluntary for the Justices. Very few apply to the Justices save those which they determine to impose upon themselves. They mostly apply to lower court judges.

There are institutional/separation of powers reasons for the arrangement, but I suspect many here will not find them particularly convincing with such a conservative court.

What are the reasons?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ProPublica is leftist garbage. I read an article by them that strongly implied that landlords should be forced to accept section 8 (aka tenants from hell) because DiScRiMiNaTiOn.

You forgot the /s to denote your sarcasm…

It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning bastion of investigative journalism. They brought receipts and the billionaire admitted it.

Admitted what? Their relationship and these benefits have already been publicly known of for decades.

“ get over it libs! We’ve always known we are corrupt. It’s no big deal!”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

The rules are pretty much voluntary for the Justices. Very few apply to the Justices save those which they determine to impose upon themselves. They mostly apply to lower court judges.

There are institutional/separation of powers reasons for the arrangement, but I suspect many here will not find them particularly convincing with such a conservative court.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ProPublica is leftist garbage. I read an article by them that strongly implied that landlords should be forced to accept section 8 (aka tenants from hell) because DiScRiMiNaTiOn.

You forgot the /s to denote your sarcasm…

It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning bastion of investigative journalism. They brought receipts and the billionaire admitted it.

Admitted what? Their relationship and these benefits have already been publicly known of for decades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real sin here is that he is a black conservative who is off the liberal plantation. How dare he.

Colin Powell was a black conservative respected by liberals. But he had moral principles.

I was there and liberal. That man lied like a rug about WMDs and we all knew it. Whatever respect liberals had for him was broken by it.

He explained that later in convincing way. I could also see he was not comfortable misrepresenting justification for the war and he had privately resisted it.

The big difference between them is that CP had a life long track record of acting with integrity while CT does not.

+1
Agree about the WMDs and also about CP as a person.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real sin here is that he is a black conservative who is off the liberal plantation. How dare he.

Colin Powell was a black conservative respected by liberals. But he had moral principles.

I was there and liberal. That man lied like a rug about WMDs and we all knew it. Whatever respect liberals had for him was broken by it.

He explained that later in convincing way. I could also see he was not comfortable misrepresenting justification for the war and he had privately resisted it.

The big difference between them is that CP had a life long track record of acting with integrity while CT does not.

Progressive lawmakers renew call for impeachment of Justice Thomas
A ProPublica article detailed that Thomas took lavish, undisclosed trips paid for by a Republican donor.

April 6, 2023, 3:54 PM EDT
By Megan Lebowitz
WASHINGTON — Progressive representatives on Thursday called for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas shortly after a ProPublica report detailed how he took lavish trips funded by a Republican billionaire donor that he did not disclose.
"This degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter. "Thomas must be impeached."

Progressive ally Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., reiterated the call for impeachment, adding that the Supreme Court needs a binding code of ethics. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., joined in on Twitter: "I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached."

The Supreme Court recently increased the level of disclosure required for justices and even the new rules may not have applied to all of the travel that the ProPublica piece highlighted. Thomas did not provide a response to ProPublica nor has the court responded to a request for comment from NBC News.

"It doesn't make any sense that we are not calling for his impeachment and proceeding with that," Omar said in a 2022 MSNBC interview after news broke that the justice's wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, allegedly tried to convince Arizona lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election.

Other Democratic lawmakers widely condemned Thomas' alleged actions outlined in the ProPublica article without going so far as to call for his impeachment.
Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Dick Durbin of Illinois, among others, called for justices to be bound by a code of conduct. District and appeals court judges are bound by a judicial ethics code, but the highest court is not

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

Especially when they determine the law …

Outrageous unethical conduct and he should be impeached

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, tens of thousands of government employees turn down gifts, tickets, special events ALL the time because ethics matter to them. But people who complain about the “government “ are here defending this guy. Madness.

Feds need to get over themselves.

It's not because ethics matter to them, it's because they are bound by different obligations and ethics enforcement regimes than SCOTUS justices.

The rules themselves are essentially the same. But you are right, there is no enforcement when it comes to SCOTUS. They can violate the rules with no consequences whatsoever. The question is why we let the most powerful people operate above the law.

From historian Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter today - interesting extra history …


The Supreme Court was in the news this morning, as Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica explained that for more than twenty years Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has enjoyed the hospitality and funding of Dallas real estate magnate and major Republican donor Harlan Crow. Thomas and his wife Ginni, who was closely involved in challenging the 2020 presidential election, have taken trips in private jets and gone on vacations with Crow worth as much as $500,000.

Thomas did not disclose any of these valuable gifts. Indeed, in a documentary funded in part by Crow, Thomas presented himself as a regular guy. “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,” he said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that—I prefer being around that.”

After the story dropped, David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times recalled that his newspaper had disclosed the close connections between Thomas and Crow in 2004, noting, for example, that Crow had given Thomas a $19,000 Bible that had belonged to the famous formerly enslaved abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass and a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln. After their story appeared, it seems that Thomas did not stop accepting expensive gifts and travel from the wealthy mogul, but instead stopped disclosing them.

In Crow’s company, Thomas rubbed elbows with his host’s other guests, including senior business executives, major Republican donors, and leaders of right-wing think tanks. Crow has worked hard to move the judiciary and the legal system to the right, and at one of the properties where Thomas vacations, there is a painting of him in conversation with a number of figures, including Leonard Leo, the leader of the Federalist Society who has orchestrated the court’s hard-right turn. Leo is now overseeing Marble Freedom Trust, established to disburse funds from a $1.6 billion bequest to manipulate elections in favor of Republicans.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted: “Important for news media to not simply label this guy as a ‘[Republican] mega donor’. It’s so much worse. Crow has many interests before the Supreme Court. His groups file petitions before the court. It’s the clearest, most brazen violation of judicial ethics you can imagine.”