onfocus

Thomas, in a financial disclosure made public on Friday, acknowledged that conservative billionaire Harlan Crow paid for Thomas to join him on trips to Bali and California in 2019. Thomas wrote in the filing that he “inadvertently omitted” the gifts from Crow in previous filings and that his inclusion of the gifts on this year’s filing came after he “sought and received guidance from his accountant and ethics counsel.”

LOL, fingers crossed that he has a chat with his ethics counsel about recusal for conflict of interest. Also after all the scandal might be time to shop around for a new ethics counsel?

In Alito’s telling, he not only won’t recuse but in fact can’t recuse himself from the insurrection cases. Why? Because, he suggests, the nonbinding and entirely subjective ethics code to which the nine justices half-heartedly committed themselves this past fall requires that they remain on cases when they personally decide there’s no legitimate reason to recuse. Alito therefore asserts an “obligation” to hear the Trump-related cases.

This brazen corruption would be comical if it wasn't a Supreme Court that’s taking away fundamental human rights and enabling authoritarianism in America.

“When Americans see a case like this – so clearly concocted and motivated by special interests, and with evident connections between those interests and the judges on the case, it does tremendous damage to the reputation of the courts, and to the public trust in their ability to give all litigants an even shake,” said Alex Aronson, the executive director of the nonpartisan group Court Accountability and a former chief counsel to the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

"It’s not technically illegal" is the first refuge of scoundrels.

His position as a justice on the highest court in the land should require more candor, not less, in reporting the kind of relationships the Ethics in Government Act requires be made public.

Not to mention his failure to recuse himself on cases where his wife is an activist for one side. Law and order for thee but not for me.

The subpoenas were approved following a contentious meeting in which Republicans accused their Democratic colleagues of attempting to undermine the Supreme Court by targeting private citizens.

Undermining how corrupt Supreme Court justices are beholden to billionaires is exactly the point.

The code, which does not include any enforcement mechanism, comes after ProPublica and other outlets disclosed that justices had repeatedly failed to disclose gifts and travel from wealthy donors.

LOL, just a perfect non-binding 'code' for a corrupt court. Like a petulant child, "There, we have a code of ethics. Happy?"

The law says that if there is “reasonable cause” to believe a judge “willfully” failed to disclose information they were required to, the conference should refer the matter to the U.S. attorney general, who can pursue penalties. But that would be unprecedented.

You know what else is unprecedented? A Supreme Court that is this corrupt and this dishonorable. It’s time for some unprecedented remedies like holding people accountable to existing rules.

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.

The corrupt court story gets worse and worse and worse. We need accountability.

Alito, and the kinds of people who can afford to pay Alito, are bristling merely because justices are being investigated like any other public officials with power.

A+ headline

The two men’s silence serves to obscure whether Justice Thomas had an obligation to report the arrangement under a federal ethics law that requires justices to disclose certain gifts, liabilities and other financial dealings that could pose conflicts of interest.

Yes, "friend" did some "financing" though I can think of other more accurate words. Corrupt court.

The court, Kagan concluded, “exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.”

It’s a remarkable statement. To say that the Supreme Court can violate the Constitution is to reject the idea that the court is somehow outside the constitutional system. It is to remind the public that the court is as bound by the Constitution as the other branches, which is to say that it is subject to the same “checks and balances” as the legislature and the executive.

Another Supreme Court case based on no real injury with the sole purpose of overturning policy Republicans don’t like with zero accountability. Corrupt court continues and will for the foreseeable future.

"There need not be a specific case involving the drilling rights associated with a specific plot of land for Alito to understand what outcomes in environmental cases would buttress his family's net wealth," he told the outlet. "Alito does not have to come across like a drunken Paul Thomas Anderson character gleefully confessing to drinking our collective milkshakes in order to be a real life, run-of-the-mill political villain."

These aren’t the greatest cloistered legal minds sorting out America’s thorniest questions for the greater good. They’re striving asshole politicians getting what they can for themselves.