The Supreme Court

[elliseamos]

Bought and fixed his friend's mom's house and let her live there rent free.
Paid for his friend's grandnephew to go to two different private schools at $72,000 tuition.
Paid for his friend and the friend's wife to vacation all around the world.
Paid to have a painting of his friend created and hung in his own house so everyone would know that this man and he were friends.

Harlan Crow: Totally normal friend

[simple schoolboy]

You won't get a constitutionally kosher new ethic guidelines to remove SCOTUS Justices, so this is clearly just about deligitimizing SCOTUS.

Weird how there's no similar sudden interest in legislative insider trading on pending legislation.

What, do we really think that deep down inside, Thomas is constitutionally a progressive and that he sold out his actual beliefs for a real estate sale?

Sure, he might have failed to report that properly, so go ahead and impeach him if you think it's that important.

[Bi_3]

You won't get a constitutionally kosher new ethic guidelines to remove SCOTUS Justices, so this is clearly just about deligitimizing SCOTUS.

Weird how there's no similar sudden interest in legislative insider trading on pending legislation.

What, do we really think that deep down inside, Thomas is constitutionally a progressive and that he sold out his actual beliefs for a real estate sale?

Sure, he might have failed to report that properly, so go ahead and impeach him if you think it's that important.

Agree on phase 5, but I do believe AOC and Matt Gaetz put a bill forward on stock trading.

Two points on this:

1.) I think part of it is that most people don't understand how much a billion dollars is. This quote for a WaPo article this week sums it up well:

The brothers “share a fortune worth at least $2.5 billion,” Forbes estimates, though it’s not clear how much of that is Harlan Crow’s alone.

Let’s say it’s $1 billion. Paying $6,000 a month for tuition, then, is the equivalent of someone worth $60,000 paying 36 cents. Buying a home for $133,000 is like someone worth $60,000 paying eight bucks.

For Crow, paying for his friend's mom's house is like buying your buddy a beer at happy hour.



2.) There doesn't seem to be have been a measurable effect. Which specific cases has this corrupt nazi been able to influence that Thomas wouldn't have decided the same way on his own? MSNBC suggests at most one:

In January 2005, the architecture firm Womack+Hampton Architects LLC filed a petition seeking over $25 million from Trammell Crow Residential Co., which was co-owned by Crow Holdings, for allegedly violating copyrighted building designs. But the court refused to review the appeal and Thomas was not noted to have recused himself or dissented in the one-sentence order issued, according to Bloomberg.

None of this is to say that there won't be something in the future that uncovers real corruption. But so far, it's just been noise to make people no blame the blue team for abortion, student loan, and affirmative action loses. The last of which is interesting as given Kagan's connections to Harvard she did not recuse herself on that one like Brown did.

[McParadigm]

After all, what's a little arranging for a Supreme Court justice's wife to be secretly paid by an organization actively involved in multiple Supreme Court cases for no work done...between friends?

[Bi_3]

After all, what's a little arranging for a Supreme Court justice's wife to be secretly paid by an organization actively involved in multiple Supreme Court cases for no work done...between friends?

You talking about this?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA1aL642

In December 2012, the Judicial Education Project submitted an amicus brief in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging a landmark civil rights law aimed at protecting minority voters. The court struck down a formula in the Voting Rights Act that determined which states had to obtain federal clearance before changing their voting rules and procedures. Clarence Thomas was part of the 5-to-4 majority.

Thomas issued a concurring opinion in the case, arguing that the preclearance requirement itself is unconstitutional. Thomas’s opinion, which was consistent with a previous opinion he wrote, favored the outcome the Judicial Education Project and several other conservative organizations had advocated in their amicus briefs. He did not cite the Judicial Education Project brief.

Legal ethics experts disagreed about whether the arrangement outlined by Leo and the payments from Conway should have led Thomas to recuse himself from the Shelby case.

.....


Thomas’s votes were aligned with the Judicial Education Project in six of the cases in which it filed briefs, including the Hobby Lobby case and two involving affirmative action at public universities. Thomas, a longtime critic of affirmative action, voted with the majority to uphold Michigan’s prohibition on race-based admissions at its public universities, and he dissented in a ruling that upheld admissions policies at the University of Texas.

Thomas’s votes did not align with the group’s position in three other cases, including one that largely upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. The court did not take up all the cases in which the Judicial Education Project filed briefs.

[simple schoolboy]

The Sotomayor/ Random House thing is kinda funny.

Don't pretty much all the Justices get book deals? For anything involving publishing or copyright, should they all just recuse themselves and leave it to the lower courts?

[Bi_3]

Article from the before times on Thomas getting gifts from Crow:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html


The difference in tone, communication style, and focus on the facts between this 2004 article and the 2023 ProPublica articles is a great reminder of what we've lost in journalism.

[elliseamos]

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say that it's bullshit to excuse Harlan Crow's ability to throw money around and insulate himself and anyone (in this case a SC Justice) from reproach because he has lots of money to throw around.

Whether it's 36 cents or $130k, it's done with a purpose that impacts Thomas's thinking. It's done to impact who Thomas associates with when he's not working and with his family. In fact it impacts his time with his family because they're involved in this. His wife, his mother, and his adoptive son. The amount and its proportion to Crow's wealth is just the distraction you're projecting on others. The acts, and not singular, but many and long standing, are meaningful and wrong.

[simple schoolboy]

[96583UP]

now that billionaires know SCOTUSes can be bought with trivial amounts

what's next?

Super PACs to buy them fancier things?

SCOTUS 4 lyffffee

above the law we make the law

ATVs in da hot tub, playa

Sotomayor need dat bling bling biotchesssss

[elliseamos]

It just seems completely rampant:

Thomas flew on Crow's private plane to the dedication of a statue to Thomas’s eighth grade teacher, Sister Mary Virgilius Reidy, at a cemetery in Mahwah, New Jersey. Crow also paid for the sculpture.

[96583UP]

suffice it to say this could inhibit the independence of his judgement

which is why THESE KINDS OF GIFTS ARE ILLEGAL FOR FIDUCIARIES SO WHY THE FUCKING HELL CAN THEY BE LEGAL FOR A FUCKING SUPREME COURT JUDGE FUCK HIS FACE

[Bi_3]

Here's article from 12 years ago on the relationship between Thomas and Crow for additional context:

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/us/p ... homas.html

[Bi_3]

[Higgs]

Wait wait wait - MTG operates under a code of ethics?? Da fuq?

[4/5]

There was an absolutely fascinating episode of the NPR podcast More Perfect last week about Clarence Thomas. It basically argues that the best way to understand him is not as a typical conservative but as a black nationalist, hence the provocative episode title, Clarence X. I highly recommend it.

[B]

How did Roberts vote against Alabama? I thought he solved racism a decade ago.

Also, Alito's face must be SOOOO red right now!

[96583UP]

this jack daniels poop dog ruling makes sense to me

[elliseamos]

Alito, man.

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

[Bi_3]

Alito, man.

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

So, in 2007 the court rejected a hedge's fund's complaint. In 2008 the owner took him on a trip. In 2009 it again rejected his complaints. Again in 2010 it turned them down. Then, 6 years after that trip, it finally took one of eight complaints and decided in their favor (7-1, with Kennedy, Kagan, and Breyer joining)? And what is this evidence of?