SCOTUS

[SuzieC]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4 ... er-options

Clarence Thomas's offenses are impeachable - Democrats have better options

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

For twenty-five years, Clarence Thomas has been billionaire Harlan Crow’s kept man and pocket Justice. This plutocrat has showered the public servant with luxury cruises, high-end vacations, liquor, and sweetmeats. Crow defends his relationship by saying they are just friends. Although, their friendship is one-sided, as there is no record of Thomas picking up a tab.

The news of this cozy domestic arrangement has come as a shock and no surprise. Another conservative playing footsie with big money is a ‘dog bites man’ story. Regardless, Thomas's behavior smacks of influence-peddling, and he should not be allowed to skate.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks Congress should take action. She addressed Clarence Thomas’s venality and spoke about his possible impeachment on the Lever Time podcast, saying,

“I think this is an emergency. I think that this is a crisis. I think we’ve had a crisis for some time on the Supreme Court.”

She adds: “If we decide strategically that the actual author of those articles [of impeachment] and who introduces them may not be me. That’s fine. I will support impeachment. But I just think that if no one’s going to introduce it, I would certainly be open to doing so.”

AOC is a cut above the usual politician. She thinks of the ramifications of her actions and demands strategic thinking. It is easy in the heat of passion to go off half-cocked. Miss the target. And in doing so, suffer the consequences. Ocasio-Cortez knows this and, as a tactician, is looking for the most effective course.

In this case, that course is to abstain from an impeachment push.

Do not get me wrong, Thomas is a disgrace to the bench. Legally, he makes things up. His jurisprudence springs from the tortured place where he battles his demons. A massive chip on his shoulder informs his philosophy. That is not my opinion. It is his — he talks about it at length in his autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

Thomas is the Trump of the judicial branch. A thin-skinned vulgarian whose reason is blinded by roiling anger at the injustices he has suffered. His rage against the establishment was honed to a red-hot edge by the revelations in his confirmation hearings that he was a sexual predator, fond of porn. He called it a “high-tech lynching.” And he has been bent on his revenge from the bench.

He wants to strip Americans of reproductive freedoms — not just choice but also the right to contraception. He would deny many the right to marry the one they love. He has promoted profit over people. And he has dismissed the glaring conflict of interest inherent in his marriage.

He is a horrible man, lacking the sober-minded stature to sit on the highest court in the land. However, the Democrats should not try to impeach him. Not because he does not deserve it. But because it is lousy politics.

Moar at the article. Whatcha think?

I agree that impeachment is just political theater at this point. As the article suggests, that is not the only option. We should do what the article suggests, keep pressing the GOP on what they believe should be done about Thomas as long as we continue to keep his many failings constantly in the public consciousness. The reason Republicans have been so damn successful at debasing our political landscape is that they repeat the same things over and over and over again. What they are repeating is BS. Just think what constant repetition of the truth could accomplish. So, yeah, impeachment is a waste of time and causes Independents to roll their eyes. But keeping everything that makes Thomas utterly inconsistent with justice constantly in the public conscience could help a groundswell of support for shaming the Supreme Court into reigning him in.

AGREE. A third failed impeachment in a row would be bad for the Democratic party. And make no mistake, it would fail. In both House probably and Senate certainly. Then we would be subjected to endless media chin-stroking about why Democrats are such failures. No, thanks. Keep talking about it yes. Formal impeachment no.

[keith]

AGREE. A third failed impeachment in a row would be bad for the Democratic party. And make no mistake, it would fail. In both House probably and Senate certainly. Then we would be subjected to endless media chin-stroking about why Democrats are such failures. No, thanks. Keep talking about it yes. Formal impeachment no.

I'm old enough to remember "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards.

[keith]

By the way, is Harlan Crow the new George Soros?

How do I get on his payroll? Soros has been a little late with his checks lately.

[raison de arizona]

By the way, is Harlan Crow the new George Soros?

How do I get on his payroll? Soros has been a little late with his checks lately.

All you need is an appointment to the Supreme Court.

[Suranis]

My solution? Appoint an ethics officer to the Supreme court, specifically to deal with the Supreme Justices. It's the only court level without one. If the Republicans howl, shout them down.

You can do that rather than pull off an impeachment, and Thomas wont like having someone examining his bank account and behaviour. Neither will Kavenaugh. They might even resign.

[AndyinPA]

[bob]

My solution? Appoint an ethics officer to the Supreme court, specifically to deal with the Supreme Justices. It's the only court level without one. If the Republicans howl, shout them down.

The Republicans control the House, so such proposed legislation, assuming it would be constitutional,* would be DOA.


* I mean, it would be constitutional for Congress to authorize hiring a SCOTUS ethics officer. An officer who would be limited to making recommendations (to SCOTUS and the other branches); recommendations that everyone would be free to ignore. There would be no enforcement power.

[raison de arizona]

[Kendra]

That took my brain a few minutes to catch on to. LOL.

[Slim Cognito]

You're not the only one.

[Dr. Ken]

[RTH10260]

BUT... But... but... Hunter BIden and his laptop! and the money that flowed to the Biden family from China, and ...

[RTH10260]

PS. will Joe Biden later this year get to assign a replacment in SCOTUS?

[p0rtia]

FTR, the part that gets left out of the Thomas real estate story is that the company made a slight change in its name in 2009 (or something), when it formed an LLC. The reported income was legit*, only whoever did the bookkeeping/reporting didn't change the name of the company.

No money laundering in sight.

Gifted link:

https://wapo.st/3GOtMmN

WaPo's use of "misstatement" is accurate, though they don't really explain that this isn't a massive scandal.

[neeneko]

WaPo's use of "misstatement" is accurate, though they don't really explain that this isn't a massive scandal.

I got the impression it was not being presented as a major scandal or money laundering, but was instead an example of how sloppy his reporting is.

[much ado]

Oh darn!

[p0rtia]

WaPo's use of "misstatement" is accurate, though they don't really explain that this isn't a massive scandal.

I got the impression it was not being presented as a major scandal or money laundering, but was instead an example of how sloppy his reporting is.

By WaPo, yeah--although the never plainly stated "this is not to suggest that the incomewas questionable." So all of social medial is reporting the "getting money from a company that went out of business in 2009" without bothering to mention the simple name switch. Mayhem ensues.

[Suranis]

And you can bet 100% that part is getting reported extensively in the Right wing sphere and bieng used as evidence that all the reporting of scandals by the "left wing" is 100% lies.

And them people wonder why the Cultists don't care about the scandals about Bloatfield. They might if they believed them. And they don't because they are given genuine evidence of sloppy and false reporting on scandals about their Heros.

[RTH10260]

very long article

Judicial record undermines Clarence Thomas defence in luxury gifts scandal
Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow was linked to a conservative group that had court business while Thomas was on the bench

Ed Pilkington in New York
Thu 20 Apr 2023 08.00 BST

Earlier this month, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas put out a statement in which he addressed the storm of criticism that has engulfed him following the blockbuster ProPublica report that revealed his failure to disclose lavish gifts of luxury vacations and private-jet travel from a Texan real estate magnate.

Thomas confirmed that the Dallas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy were “among our dearest friends”. Thomas admitted, too, that he and his wife Ginni had “joined them on a number of family trips during the more-than-a-quarter-century we have known them”.

The justice, who is the longest-serving member of the nation’s highest court and arguably its most staunch conservative, insisted he had taken advice that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends” did not have to be reported under federal ethics laws. He emphasized that the friend in question “did not have business before the court”.

But a close look at Thomas’s judicial activities from the time he became friends with Crow, in the mid-1990s, suggests that the statement might fall short of the full picture. It reveals that a conservative organization affiliated with Crow did have business before the supreme court while Thomas was on the bench.

In addition, Crow has been connected to several groups that over the years have lobbied the supreme court through so-called “amicus briefs” that provide legal arguments supporting a plaintiff or defendant.

In 2003, the anti-tax group the Club for Growth joined other rightwing individuals and organisations, including the Republican senator Mitch McConnell and the National Rifle Association (NRA), in attempting to push back campaign finance restrictions on election spending.

At the time of the legal challenge, from at least 2001 to 2004, Crow was a member of the Club for Growth’s prestigious “founders committee”. Though little is known about the role of the committee, it clearly commanded some influence over the group’s policymaking.

During the course of a 2005 investigation into likely campaign finance violations by the Club for Growth, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) noted that rank-and-file club members could “vote on an annual policy question selected by the founders committee”.

Crow has also been a major donor to the club, contributing $275,000 to its coffers in 2004 and a further $150,000 two years later.

The 2003 legal challenge championed by the Club for Growth targeted the McCain-Feingold Act, which had been passed with cross-aisle backing the previous year. The legislation placed new controls on the amount of “soft money” political party committees and corporations could spend on elections.

On appeal, a consolidated version of the lawsuit, Mitch McConnell v FEC, was taken up by the supreme court. In a majority ruling, the court allowed the most important elements of the McCain-Feingold Act to stand (though they were later nullified by the supreme court’s contentious 2010 Citizens United ruling).

Thomas was livid. He issued a 25-page dissenting opinion that sided heavily with the anti-regulation stance taken by the Club for Growth and its rightwing allies. Thomas began his opinion by breathlessly accusing his fellow justices of upholding “what can only be described as the most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the civil war”.

By the time Thomas issued his opinion in December 2003 he had already forged his deep relationship with Crow. According to the billionaire, they first met at a conference in Dallas in 1994 – by which time Thomas had already been nominated by George HW Bush to the most powerful court in the land.

The businessman had already showered Thomas with several lavish gifts before the McCain-Feingold challenge reached his court. Thomas disclosed for instance a 1997 flight from Washington to northern California on Crow’s private jet to attend an all-male retreat at Bohemian Grove at which the justice went on to become a regular guest.

There was also a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglass, then valued at $19,000. In 2001 Crow made a $150,000 donation to create a Clarence Thomas wing within the Savannah, Georgia, library the justice frequented as a child.

The federal law 28 US Code section 455 requires any federal judge – including the nine supreme court justices – to recuse themselves from any proceeding “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”.




still more at the link https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... xury-gifts

[Kendra]

Opinion, gifted link.

Justice Clarence Thomas has gotten the attention of late due to questionable ethics. But it’s high time Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. received the scrutiny he deserves. Alito’s dissent in the mifepristone case has served up yet another example of his intemperate, partisan rhetoric.

On Friday, the Supreme Court instituted a stay that could last well over a year (until a final decision from the high court on the merits) in a case brought by forced-birth advocates to ban the safe and effective abortion and miscarriage drug mifepristone. While the action temporarily suspends a preposterous opinion from U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk reversing the Food and Drug Administration’s two-decades-old approval of the drug (at the behest of certain antiabortion doctors and groups), the decision was not unanimous. Alito and Thomas would have allowed the indefensible ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to stand.

In the rush to celebrate the failure of medical zealots (this time) to dredge up an antiabortion activist in robes to countermand the FDA, Alito’s dissent shouldn’t be ignored, for it perfectly encapsulates the degree to which he’s become “unmoored from reason,” as legal scholar Norman Eisen tells me.

[pipistrelle]

My impression is he's never been moored.

[Dave from down under]

Time to increase SCOTUS to 15..

Ahh. Politics… will have to wait for confirmation majority

[chancery]

https://www.nycsouthpaw.com/p/neil-gors ... chinations

From Pawprints, the substack of Luppe B. Luppen aka @nycsouthpaw:

Neil Gorsuch and the Machinations of Billionaires: On Walden's Context


I can’t really account for why this little piece of conservative media fluff—and particularly its stray description of the billionaire oil and railroad tycoon Philip Anschutz from an ideological ally—has stayed with me for all these years, but it tickled something at the back of my mind when I read Politico’s report on Justice Neil Gorsuch’s land deal this morning.

The name of Flaherty and Granat’s production house was Walden Media. In the first two years of its existence—and apparently before it made any movies—it was folded into Anschutz’s sports and media empire for an extraordinary $100 million reported investment. In line with Anschutz’s vision, Walden has pursued a moral mission with its films, and it had returned with a mixed track record at the box office, with “more misses than hits,” as the L.A. Times put it.

For whatever reason, I remembered the name: Walden Media.

And it struck me that when Neil Gorsuch and his two partners in the 40 acre mountain property in Colorado, who also happen to be tied into Anschutz’s business, went to form the limited liability company that would hold the property in October 2005—one month, as it happened, before The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe’s premiere—they named it The Walden Group LLC.

It is no revelation, of course, that Justice Gorsuch has deep ties to Anschutz and his enterprises. As a DC-based lawyer, Gorsuch used to represent Anschutz and his companies. Gorsuch has reportedly been a frequent guest at Anschutz’s dove-hunting retreats at his ranch, “Eagle’s Nest,” on the South Platte River. And Anschutz reportedly lobbied the Bush administration to secure Gorsuch’s first judicial appointment in 2006. The New York Times wrote a sprawling report on those ties in 2017 before Gorsuch was confirmed, and it noted that The Walden Group exemplified them in a number of ways.

Cannon Harvey, one of the co-investors in The Walden Group, is an executive in Anschutz’s venture capital business and was once a Gorsuch client. And Kevin Conwick, the other co-investor in The Walden Group, was a deals lawyer at Bryan Cave who had Anschutz’s sports and media arm as a prominent client.

Anschutz’s connections to the real estate deal may well end there. It may be that the choice of The Walden Group as a name was merely a laconic tribute the three men chose to honor the man whose patronage had helped them to buy a fishing retreat just as his Walden brand was about to make a splash in Hollywood. We may find out that the deal to sell the Colorado property to the DC-based head of Greenberg Traurig within days of Gorsuch’s confirmation to the high court, however shady it looks, was largely coincidental. We may even learn that with enough hair-splitting the way Gorsuch reported the income resulting from the sale on his disclosure forms fits within the four corners of the applicable rules.

But the choice of the name and the web of well-known connections—material and symbolic—that bind another conservative Justice to another secretive billionaire combine to tell a story that can’t be whittled down to nothing. Our Supreme Court, and particularly its Republican-appointed majority, is saturated with the influence of the inapproachably wealthy. The Justices are far more familiar with the country’s tiny coterie of billionaires, and several may well consider themselves in a billionaire’s debt.

[raison de arizona]

[AndyinPA]