The Corruption of the Supreme Court

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View: https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/sen-whitehouse-alito-s-excuses-are-so-preposterous-they-re-almost-incriminating-184225349871

 

[LogGrad98]

All it shows is that you don't know what bribery is. What is flying around social media is bait for the ignorant who want to believe the judges striking down Row are corrupt. Accepting bribes is a crime even if the bribe were non-monetary and even for Supreme Court justices.

Bucknutz has posts showing the timeline of any possible interactions between the fishing billionaire and Alito in his official capacity. If your opinion is an informed opinion then it should be easy to answer Bucknutz' request to point out the necessary element to show bribery. The mere existence of a thing of value and an interaction between the parties in an official capacity, even if that interaction has a positive outcome for the gifting party, is not bribery. If that is all you have then you are talking out of your butt.

Ever seen an iceberg. I had the chance once to take a boat by a few. They looked like small little islands of ice. Some no bigger than the boat.

Of course there was far more of it unseen. But hey, as long as all we do is look at the top of it we can pretend the rest of it doesn't exist.

And it is interesting that your view of ethics is anything is fine as long as they can't prove anything. You know, I can sleep in the same bed as my sister in law with both of us naked but hey, you can't prove my dick went anywhere inappropriate so the entire situation is absolutely fine, right?

 

[Deleted member 365]

Ever seen an iceberg. I had the chance once to take a boat by a few. They looked like small little islands of ice. Some no bigger than the boat.

Of course there was far more of it unseen. But hey, as long as all we do is look at the top of it we can pretend the rest of it doesn't exist.

And it is interesting that your view of ethics is anything is fine as long as they can't prove anything. You know, I can sleep in the same bed as my sister in law with both of us naked but hey, you can't prove my dick went anywhere inappropriate so the entire situation is absolutely fine, right?

What’s wrong with sleeping naked in the same bed as your hot sister in law when your wife is out of town on a business trip? You mean, you haven’t done that? How do you prevent loneliness?

….

It’s also dishonest. Not a single one of these conservatives would be defending justice Brown if she were going on fishing trips with and sucking in thousands from George Soros. Fox News would be having a nuclear meltdown right now. None of these posters on this website would be so willfully blind. They’d all be calling her out (rightfully) for the corruption and blatant bribery. They’d be demanding Biden resign or be impeached for nominating someone so corrupt and lacking in judgement to the court.

Thomas and Alito have shown supreme corruption and lack of judgement. We’d all be better off if such pieces weren’t on the court. We’d all be better off if the court actually had real accountability. As it stands, the branch that judges the laws of our society is the one with the least ethics or accountability. That’s messed up

 

[Al-O-Meter]

And it is interesting that your view of ethics is anything is fine as long as they can't prove anything. You know, I can sleep in the same bed as my sister in law with both of us naked but hey, you can't prove my dick went anywhere inappropriate so the entire situation is absolutely fine, right?

Ever seen an iceberg. I had the chance once to take a boat by a few. They looked like small little islands of ice. Some no bigger than the boat.

Of course there was far more of it unseen. But hey, as long as all we do is look at the top of it we can pretend the rest of it doesn't exist.

And it is interesting that your view of ethics is anything is fine as long as they can't prove anything. You know, I can sleep in the same bed as my sister in law with both of us naked but hey, you can't prove my dick went anywhere inappropriate so the entire situation is absolutely fine, right?

It isn’t that there is a lack of proof but instead an overwhelming amount of proof of the opposite. Your opinion is akin to someone making claims the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disneyland is a real submarine because the top looks like a submarine in photos and there is no evidence it isn’t a submarine. There are engineering documents, photos from the initial construction showing the pool being built with rails, and maintenance workers who can tell you exactly how the ride works, but all you care about is the photos of the top you’ve seen on social media.

I’m sure you can find other barking seals who will cheer for your idea of it being a secret submarine but it isn’t. Likewise, you can find other barking seals who think Alito and Thomas have taken bribes but that is equally as dumb. There is no criminal investigation because it would take about 12 seconds and the results would be embarrassing for those initiating the investigation.

The more troubling part of your willful blindness is the disregard of the obvious politicization of the court you want to impose. You want a bipartisan oversight committee like the Senate Judiciary Committee who denied Merrick Garland a confirmation vote to have the power to remove judges from the court or from cases at any time and apparently without even needing to prove anything because you want to bang your wife’s sister.

Please tell me in your infinite wisdom how that wouldn’t almost immediately result in the party in the majority gutting all justices who didn’t align with their political values. The party in majority would gain the power to impose their will even on states where the opposition party was in the majority by striking down their laws as unconstitutional. Your proposed solution, because you read some stuff on social media, is to give control of the Judicial Branch to the Legislative Branch. Genius.

 

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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse(D-RI) has been focused on the influence of right wing dark money on the SC for years. Took awhile, but people are starting to understand it’s not a good influence for our democracy….

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse — The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court - Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College

www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUZM_KnYxEM

This member of Congress wants everyone to know about the 'dark money scheme' that's 'captured' the Supreme Court | U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

www.whitehouse.senate.gov

“Unlike some members of his party, Whitehouse has steered clear of reform ideas such as adding more seats to the bench or setting term limits for justices. Instead, the three-term senator has been vehemently pushing for financial transparency in the third branch of government to expose how it's been influenced by a far-right conservative agenda.

Whitehouse, who chairs a key panel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, calls it a three-fold "scheme" — private groups use anonymous donations to groom Supreme Court candidates, promote and defend these nominees with political ad campaigns and later try to influence these justices in legal briefs filed without any financial disclosures.

"If it's the same people who paid for all of it, particularly if they're the same people who are funding politicians, then it becomes not just a problem, but potentially toxic," Whitehouse, 66, said in a recent interview with Insider.

According to the senator's findings, the effect of this operation is being played out during Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure, which has handed down at least 80 partisan decisions that advanced conservative interests

 

[Red]

Nice perks…

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel

The fullest accounting yet shows how Thomas has secretly reaped the benefits from a network of wealthy and well-connected patrons that is far more extensive than previously understood.

www.propublica.org

“At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.

This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.”

 

[Deleted member 365]

Nice perks…

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel

The fullest accounting yet shows how Thomas has secretly reaped the benefits from a network of wealthy and well-connected patrons that is far more extensive than previously understood.

www.propublica.org

“At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.

This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.”

LOL. They just keep comin!

 

[Deleted member 365]

Can we be honest for a second? No one actually thinks this is okay. Cmon. This bribery is so blatant.

In early 2000, Clarence complained to a congressman about needing to step down from being a justice because his pay wasn’t sufficient for the lifestyle he wanted to live. By 2019, he was still on the court and completely changed his tune, saying that the compensation was “plenty.”

What changed?

Well, after he complained, the right wing machine feared he might step down, leaving the option open for Clinton or Gore to appoint his successor. So the floodgates of corruption opened. Suddenly, Thomas was given big time dollars to speak at private events, was extended book deals, his wife Gained a position at Heritage, Republican rich donors paid for his vacations, mortgages, and RVs, and he was given tons of perks.

This is corruption. This is bribery. No one should be okay with this. And this is a justice who is weighing in on the legality of our laws? Unreal.

A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign

Interviews and newly unearthed documents reveal that Thomas, facing financial strain, privately pushed for a higher salary and to allow Supreme Court justices to take speaking fees.

www.propublica.org

 

[Deleted member 365]

I don’t know if you’ve seen or read this, but it’s pretty incredible how the Supreme Court Justices are just able to take bribes from billionaires. Of course these bribes influence them. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be offered these bribes.

Thread below:


View: https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1643929027353124864?s=46&t=QT7YFlZ_IlHq81PpZAhKgw


Article:

Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From Major GOP Donor

Island-hopping on a superyacht. Private jet rides around the world. The undisclosed gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the Supreme Court. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” says one former judge.

www.propublica.org

I think this goes to show the absolute need to namely:

1) Enact strict ethical laws against this sort of thing. Nothing jeopardizes the court more than corruption like this. Violate these laws? You’re booted immediately from your perch on the court.

2) Term limits on the court, no more lifetime appointments.

3) Expand the court, rotate the justices out (have a type of bullpen), give each president 1-2 justices guaranteed instead of waiting for them to retire/die out. Help take the partisanship out of these spots. Because it’s so partisan right now, Thomas’s tribe will defend him because they want to protect the majority. If he were to be pushed out right now, Republicans would try and stonewall his replacement until 24.

I think there are a lot of things we can do to reform the court and make it a less political body. The court shouldn’t be the de facto legislative branch for the party out of power that can’t pass legislation on its own.

Bump. I’m old enough to remember when posters here recognized that the court had become rotten to the core and no longer served the country but legislated for Republicans.

The Supreme Court Rewards Trump’s Defiance

By blessing the president’s rampant abuse of the rule of law, the high court has guaranteed that we’ll be seeing more of it.

newrepublic.com

 

[Sardines]

Bump. I’m old enough to remember when posters here recognized that the court had become rotten to the core and no longer served the country but legislated for Republicans.

The Supreme Court Rewards Trump’s Defiance

By blessing the president’s rampant abuse of the rule of law, the high court has guaranteed that we’ll be seeing more of it.

newrepublic.com

This attack on our democracy is unprecedented.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

This attack on our democracy is unprecedented.

I love how backwards your view of democracy is. Trump is on the side of democracy and the lower court judge was against democracy. Deporting terrorists has broad popular support, and Trump facilitated their removal using a law the people's representatives crafted. It is the unelected lower court judge's attempt to subvert the will of the people that is in opposition to democracy. It is the court's attack on our democracy that is unprecedented, not Trump using laws to do popular things.

 

[Red]

Ridiculous….

Supreme Court's conservatives lean toward allowing country's first religious public charter school

Oklahoma's Republican attorney general says the proposal to launch a Catholic virtual charter school violates the Constitution's First Amendment.

www.nbcnews.com

A battle over religion and schools in Oklahoma could decide the future of the First Amendment

Conservative religious activists want to dismantle the longtime understanding of the separation of church and state — and the Supreme Court may be on board.

www.nbcnews.com