"In actual decisions from the justices on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives weakened federal anti-corruption laws.
The conservatives did so by ignoring the plain text of the statute at issue, a point Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made for the liberal trio in dissent."
"Although the case involved a law regulating state and local actors, it was hard not to also read Jackson’s sharp dissent through the prism of the ethical questions raised about members of the Supreme Court over the past year and a half."
The amount of public #corruption is already at unbelievable levels. We must figure out better ways to root it out and hold public officials accountable.
🚨BREAKING: The Supreme Court just officially legalized bribery in a 6-3 decision. The ruling was engineered by the justices who have been accepting billionaire gifts.
The Lever did the definitive deep dive reporting on the Snyder case, way back in March.
Jay Kuo recounts his recent interview of God, in which Kuo asked God about Alito's claim that "godliness" needs to be brought back. God's reply:
"One of the worst things about being God is that I am often defined by people who claim to be in My ‘fan club.’ Samuel Alito is extremely partisan and lied his ass off in his confirmation hearings."
"Where was he on Jan. 6? I assume his wife was busy raising and lowering crazy flags all day, as this is apparently the only thing she has to do to occupy her time. Perhaps the Alitos should remember that true godliness demonstrates love for all people. A flag is just a symbol; real godliness is shown through actions. So, I judge them by their actions. And their actions suck."
Yes, this entirely organic surge in popular support, which must be related to Trump's convictions because that's what the RW press says, is indeed shocking.
"By shielding Donald Trump from standing trial before a jury in two of his felony cases, Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court, along with the even more MAGA Justices Alito and Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon, have already irreparably interfered in the 2024 election."
"Whether it’s in Orban’s Hungary, Erdogan’s Turkey, Putin’s Russia, or now the United States, authoritarian movements consistently attempt to amass and consolidate power by hijacking courts to provide them with post-hoc impunity. …
If we are to find solutions to the cancer of autocracy creeping through the American body politic we must be candid with ourselves and each other about the nature of the disorder. It has profoundly corrupted our judiciary."
Sounds like Ted Cruz and the GOP really don't want this document leak out there
They keep getting redacted by "news" sites who were hosting them. Apparently, even "free-speech" Elon Musk had them removed from his nazi-enthusiast site twitter (per Newsweek)
@flexghost The name Len Blavatnik jumped off the page at me. Then...
Blavatnik is a friend of...Netanyahu & has donated to a private legal defense fund for Donald Trump.
Blavatnik is also a longtime friend & business partner of Ukrainian-born Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg...close to... Putin & several other Russia-associated oligarchs who are under international sanctions for support of totalitarian regimes & criminal activities...
@flexghost Here's a little more info on John #Aycoth. Keep in mind, while he was in the military, Aycoff had top secret special intelligence security clearance as a cryptographer. This article is from 2006. #TedCruz#Corruption
...For a brief time he (Aycoff) joined the lobby firm then known as Black, #Manafort, Stone and Kelly, where he was introduced to representatives of countries such as Angola and the Dominican Republic...
"The price the rest of us pay for Clarence living high on the Harlan hog is more gun carnage, more government-mandated births, and more women dying from lack of medical care. He is, for all intents and purposes, jeopardizing 333 million American lives to make money he doesn’t need.
…the #judiciary is an equal branch of #government & congressional #Democrats have limited opportunities to enact concrete changes.…
#Republicans, who control the #House, oppose legislation to tighten ethical guidelines for the justices & have portrayed overhaul as a political effort to damage the legitimacy of a #conservative#SCOTUS that has delivered them major victories on #abortion & other issues [+ they worked decades to install this court].
“The importance of confirming judges is no excuse for his failure to exercise his committee’s #oversight authority to investigate the most serious #ethics & #corruption scandals in #SupremeCourt history, especially when the few judges #Durbin hopes to confirm before November would inevitably see their rulings shredded by the Court’s captured #RightWing#supermajority in service to its #billionaire backers,” Aronson said.
Imagine how ruthless, callous, cruel, and dangerous the hard-right Catholic bloc controlling the Supreme Court could be if they weren't ardently pro-life.
"We need to be very clear, the right wing on the Supreme Court with their perverse misinterpretation of the 2d Amendment are directly responsible for many of the nearly 50,000 gun deaths that occur in the US each year. Guns kill people. But so do judges who serve the NRA."
“'Today’s decision to reject that ordinary understanding will have deadly consequences,' Sotomayor wrote. 'The majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.' And when the next Las Vegas happens, it will not be enough to blame it on the madness of a single deranged individual. There are so many others."
"The Supreme Court didn’t just become a problem for America over the last couple years. The highest court in the land has been a right-wing playground for years, despite the outlier decisions in favor of same-sex marriage and Obamacare. The conservative court has worked overtime to restrict the rights of millions of Americans, from minority college applicants to women to potential victims of gun violence and beyond."
"The court is out of control, making decisions based on specious arguments that expose — once again — what a ridiculous joke the concept of conservative 'originalism' is. Essentially, when it comes to this crackpot legal theory the device used to decide the intent of the founders is 'whatever makes Republican voters happy.'"
"But the court’s problems, as revealed by the journalists at ProPublica (and NOT the New York Times or Washington Post, who are too busy canoodling with justices or actively hiding their behavior), go far beyond their right-wing interpretation of the law. The court is corrupt."
Someone needs to write a "fictional" story about a fictional justice named, oh, say, Cancel Shatmore and his fictional sugar daddy Worn Harcal.
"Justice Thomas reports lavish gifts only when he is caught failing to report them. He then claims the failure to disclose was a 'mistake' —despite an unbroken pattern of failing to disclose luxury travel and vacations from Harlan Crow. The most reasonable interpretation of the facts is that Justice Thomas is corrupt and dishonest. And Chief Justice John Roberts is fine with that."
FedSoc justices disgraced themselves and their fake pet theories in the oral argument on presidential immunity.
Remember when they were “minimalists”? Oh, but now they embarked on a long policy peregrination so as to make what Gorsuch called a “ruling for the ages.” (He actually said that.) Behind the stunning pomposity, it’s miles from “minimalist.”
Remember when they were “constitutionalists”? The constitution says they’ve got to stick to the “case or controversy” before them, and yet they went on their wild hypothetical wanderings. Some “constitutionalists.”
Remember when they were “originalists”? Follow the text, never mind the outcomes?
All gone, in hand-waving about what various rulings might portend, and what effects they could have.
Remember their recent switch (Dobbs, Bruen) to “history and tradition”? The “history” is that no president but Nixon and Trump committed crimes; none sought immunity.
The “tradition” is presidents for centuries got along just
SCOTUS’s delay in deciding Trump immunity case is inexcusable. Nixon tapes case was decided 16 days after oral argument. We have been waiting 2 months. “Every passing day further delays a potential trial on charges related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election and his role in the events that led to the storming of the Capitol.” The public has a right to a speedy trial.