SCOTUS: No longer content with stacking, they're now dealing from the bottom of the deck

[China]

Samuel Alito tells Congress to stay out of Supreme Court ethics controversy

 

Congress should stay out of the Supreme Court’s business and stop trying to impose ethics rules on justices and clerks, Justice Samuel Alito said in an interview published by The Wall Street Journal editorial page Friday.

 

“Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” Alito said. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

So there are no checks and balances?  Maybe Congress should teach him a lesson and impeach him.

[Fergasun]

So is he saying the Judiciary Act is unconstititional?  

[China]

12 hours ago, China said:

Samuel Alito tells Congress to stay out of Supreme Court ethics controversy

 

Congress should stay out of the Supreme Court’s business and stop trying to impose ethics rules on justices and clerks, Justice Samuel Alito said in an interview published by The Wall Street Journal editorial page Friday.

 

“Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” Alito said. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

So there are no checks and balances?  Maybe Congress should teach him a lesson and impeach him.

 

Democrats balk at Alito assertion that Congress has ‘no authority’ over Supreme Court

 

His remarks sparked pushback from a slew of House Democrats.

 

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) argued Congress would always have regulation power over the high court.

 

“Dear Justice Alito: You’re on the Supreme Court in part because Congress expanded the Court to 9 Justices,” Lieu posted Friday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Congress can impeach Justices and can in many cases strip the Court of jurisdiction.”

 

“Congress has always regulated you and will continue to do so,” he added. “You are not above the law.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Larry]

I'm pretty sure I'd be outraged if I knew more about that. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

And yet nobody will do anything about it.  The system is broken.

[CobraCommander]

2 minutes ago, China said:

And yet nobody will do anything about it.  The system is broken.

Down with the Oligarchy!

 

[LD0506]

[samy316]

3 hours ago, China said:

And yet nobody will do anything about it.  The system is broken.

 

Lifetime appointments.  Nothing anybody can do about it.  Congress is the only possible roadblock, but to impeach an SC justice, you need to get a majority vote in congress and a 2/3 vote in the Senate.  The chances of anything like that happening?  LMAO.  They could also pass a bill to add more SC Justices to the bench, which is again, extremely unlikely that this would ever come to pass with this House/Senate.  2016 will haunt Dems for decades.  It's not just that Trump won, they literally ceeded control of the SC to the Republicans for at least a generation.  Nice work.

Edited August 10, 2023 by samy316

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Fan since a Fetus]

[@DCGoldPants]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Clarence Thomas’ Corrected Ethics Disclosure Form Is Not Actually Correct

 

If there was any doubt about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ identification with the Republican establishment, it dissolved last week when he filed his annual financial disclosure report, which was accompanied by the simultaneous release of a statement from his attorney scorching his “left wing” critics for engaging in “political blood sport.” The statement, unmistakably authorized by Thomas himself, set a new benchmark for partisan denunciations from a Supreme Court justice. What’s perhaps worse, though, is that Thomas’ amended—and supposedly now correct—disclosure report continued to conceal the value of largesse from his conservative benefactor, Harlan Crow.

 

First, the politics of it. Of the many thousands of attorneys in Washington, D.C., Thomas chose to be represented by Elliot Berke, whose practice has been largely devoted to counseling prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee itself. His website boasts of running “election day war rooms for presidential and gubernatorial candidates.”

 

A justice concerned with even a minimal appearance of neutrality would have retained an apolitical lawyer. Instead, Thomas chose an openly partisan spokesman who all but declared war on the “Democratic members of Congress” who dared to seek additional information about Thomas’ previously undisclosed luxury vacations as the guest of billionaire Harlan Crow.

According to legal commentator David Lat, Thomas himself is not responsible for Berke’s diatribe. “As a member of the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas had to show restraint in responding to the ethics allegations against him, but his lawyer didn’t,” Lat wrote. That is wrong. Berke’s statement was pointedly released “On behalf of Client Justice Clarence Thomas.” A lawyer as accomplished as Berke would never issue such a statement without his client’s specific approval, which makes Thomas responsible for both its language and tone.

 

Berke’s over-the-top ideological taunts undermine the credibility of his “confident” assurance that “there has been no willful ethics transgression, and any prior reporting errors were strictly inadvertent.” While a nonaligned lawyer might be trusted to have conducted a dispassionate review of Thomas’ past disclosures, Berke’s red-meat rhetoric has the precise opposite effect, suggesting, to all but Thomas’ many apologists, that the outcome was predetermined.

 

Thomas’ level of inattention to disclosure obligations, as revealed by last week’s amended form, is shocking for a Supreme Court justice who, as observed by Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, “applies one standard to himself and another to everyone else,” including indigent criminal defendants, whose inadvertent errors of timing and procedure are never excused by Thomas, even when they are facing the death penalty.

 

It is especially galling for Thomas to claim inadvertence because this is not the first time it has happened. In 2011, Thomas amended 20 years of disclosure reports from which he had “inadvertently” failed to include his wife’s employment “due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” In fact, Virginia Thomas had earned at least $686,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation during that period. The excuse was barely plausible then, given the simple language of the form, and it beggars belief that a Supreme Court justice, whose job includes interpreting complex statutes and regulations, would continue to take his statutory reporting obligations so lightly.

 

The thing is, even after this latest amended filing, Thomas is still at it. Thomas’ latest report, for the first time, includes disclosure of a Crow-financed vacation, in this case a week at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks, where the Thomases had been enjoying annual vacations for many years. But that disclosure raises an entirely new question.

 

Having acknowledged that he and his wife had been “guests” of Harlan Crow, Thomas added an explanatory note stating that the “transportation, meals, and lodging” were listed “under ‘reimbursements’ not gifts,” according to “advice from the staff of the Judicial Conference Financial Disclosure Committee (July 10).”

 

The difference in categories is significant because gift reports must include their “value” while reimbursements need not. Although Thomas claims that this unusual categorization is “consistent with previous filings by other filers,” he gives no examples.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Justice Samuel Alito rejects calls from Democratic senators to recuse in case involving journalist who interviewed him

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sharply rejected calls from Democratic senators that he not participate in an upcoming tax case where one of the lawyers involved also participated in recent Wall Street Journal interviews of the conservative jurist.

 

Alito, in a court filing Friday, said the argument for him to recuse was “unsound” and that there was “no valid reason” for him not to participate in the case.

 

“When Mr. Rivkin participated in the interviews and co-authored the articles, he did so as a journalist, not an advocate,” Alito wrote, referring to David B. Rivkin, the opinion journalist in question who is representing one of the parties in the tax case.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

But sure, we believe them when they say they're addressing their ethics problems:

 

Brett Kavanaugh says justices are working on ‘concrete steps’ on ethics

 

ustice Brett Kavanaugh said Thursday that the Supreme Court is working on “concrete steps” to address ethics issues at the high court amid an array of recent news stories on justices’ travel and relationships with political donors.

 

Appearing before an audience of judges and lawyers during a judicial conference in Ohio, Kavanaugh noted that Chief Justice John Roberts had pledged in May to assure the public that the court was committed to adhering to the highest standards of conduct.

 

“The chief justice spoke about that in May and said that we are continuing to work on those issues and that is accurate,” Kavanaugh told the audience. “We are continuing to work on those issues and I’m hopeful that there will be some concrete steps taken soon on that.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

What's so difficult.  They could simply adopt the ethics rules in place for other courts/judges.  It shouldn't take long or be complicated unless they really don't want to do it.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Fan since a Fetus]

On 9/7/2023 at 3:07 PM, China said:

Clarence Thomas’ Corrected Ethics Disclosure Form Is Not Actually Correct

 

If there was any doubt about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ identification with the Republican establishment, it dissolved last week when he filed his annual financial disclosure report, which was accompanied by the simultaneous release of a statement from his attorney scorching his “left wing” critics for engaging in “political blood sport.” The statement, unmistakably authorized by Thomas himself, set a new benchmark for partisan denunciations from a Supreme Court justice. What’s perhaps worse, though, is that Thomas’ amended—and supposedly now correct—disclosure report continued to conceal the value of largesse from his conservative benefactor, Harlan Crow.

 

First, the politics of it. Of the many thousands of attorneys in Washington, D.C., Thomas chose to be represented by Elliot Berke, whose practice has been largely devoted to counseling prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee itself. His website boasts of running “election day war rooms for presidential and gubernatorial candidates.”

 

A justice concerned with even a minimal appearance of neutrality would have retained an apolitical lawyer. Instead, Thomas chose an openly partisan spokesman who all but declared war on the “Democratic members of Congress” who dared to seek additional information about Thomas’ previously undisclosed luxury vacations as the guest of billionaire Harlan Crow.

According to legal commentator David Lat, Thomas himself is not responsible for Berke’s diatribe. “As a member of the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas had to show restraint in responding to the ethics allegations against him, but his lawyer didn’t,” Lat wrote. That is wrong. Berke’s statement was pointedly released “On behalf of Client Justice Clarence Thomas.” A lawyer as accomplished as Berke would never issue such a statement without his client’s specific approval, which makes Thomas responsible for both its language and tone.

 

Berke’s over-the-top ideological taunts undermine the credibility of his “confident” assurance that “there has been no willful ethics transgression, and any prior reporting errors were strictly inadvertent.” While a nonaligned lawyer might be trusted to have conducted a dispassionate review of Thomas’ past disclosures, Berke’s red-meat rhetoric has the precise opposite effect, suggesting, to all but Thomas’ many apologists, that the outcome was predetermined.

 

Thomas’ level of inattention to disclosure obligations, as revealed by last week’s amended form, is shocking for a Supreme Court justice who, as observed by Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, “applies one standard to himself and another to everyone else,” including indigent criminal defendants, whose inadvertent errors of timing and procedure are never excused by Thomas, even when they are facing the death penalty.

 

It is especially galling for Thomas to claim inadvertence because this is not the first time it has happened. In 2011, Thomas amended 20 years of disclosure reports from which he had “inadvertently” failed to include his wife’s employment “due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” In fact, Virginia Thomas had earned at least $686,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation during that period. The excuse was barely plausible then, given the simple language of the form, and it beggars belief that a Supreme Court justice, whose job includes interpreting complex statutes and regulations, would continue to take his statutory reporting obligations so lightly.

 

The thing is, even after this latest amended filing, Thomas is still at it. Thomas’ latest report, for the first time, includes disclosure of a Crow-financed vacation, in this case a week at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks, where the Thomases had been enjoying annual vacations for many years. But that disclosure raises an entirely new question.

 

Having acknowledged that he and his wife had been “guests” of Harlan Crow, Thomas added an explanatory note stating that the “transportation, meals, and lodging” were listed “under ‘reimbursements’ not gifts,” according to “advice from the staff of the Judicial Conference Financial Disclosure Committee (July 10).”

 

The difference in categories is significant because gift reports must include their “value” while reimbursements need not. Although Thomas claims that this unusual categorization is “consistent with previous filings by other filers,” he gives no examples.

 

Click on the link for the full article

“How dare the left hold us accountable for breaking laws, rules and ethics. We don’t have morals, but they shouldn’t call it out!”

 

I don’t mind the Repubs calling out the left if they are doing the exact same thing. I just want it to be factual and not hypocritical. Their whole focus has been Hunter Biden and we have to impeach Joe because he has a son that was not aborted, but has has the unfortunate outcome of being born and living his own life. Republicans seem to hate the born anymore. 
 

But the lies the right spews makes all of their accusations fall on deaf ears except for those that don’t need proof. Everybody should be held accountable. Everybody!!!

 

 

On 9/8/2023 at 2:01 PM, China said:

Justice Samuel Alito rejects calls from Democratic senators to recuse in case involving journalist who interviewed him

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sharply rejected calls from Democratic senators that he not participate in an upcoming tax case where one of the lawyers involved also participated in recent Wall Street Journal interviews of the conservative jurist.

 

Alito, in a court filing Friday, said the argument for him to recuse was “unsound” and that there was “no valid reason” for him not to participate in the case.

 

“When Mr. Rivkin participated in the interviews and co-authored the articles, he did so as a journalist, not an advocate,” Alito wrote, referring to David B. Rivkin, the opinion journalist in question who is representing one of the parties in the tax case.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

But sure, we believe them when they say they're addressing their ethics problems:

 

Brett Kavanaugh says justices are working on ‘concrete steps’ on ethics

 

ustice Brett Kavanaugh said Thursday that the Supreme Court is working on “concrete steps” to address ethics issues at the high court amid an array of recent news stories on justices’ travel and relationships with political donors.

 

Appearing before an audience of judges and lawyers during a judicial conference in Ohio, Kavanaugh noted that Chief Justice John Roberts had pledged in May to assure the public that the court was committed to adhering to the highest standards of conduct.

 

“The chief justice spoke about that in May and said that we are continuing to work on those issues and that is accurate,” Kavanaugh told the audience. “We are continuing to work on those issues and I’m hopeful that there will be some concrete steps taken soon on that.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

What's so difficult.  They could simply adopt the ethics rules in place for other courts/judges.  It shouldn't take long or be complicated unless they really don't want to do it.

I agree with Alito here. I don’t know that having an interview with someone should mean he needs to recuse himself from the case. But as far as him whining that no one is defending him and he has to defend himself against all of the attacks this year, I would like to give him some advice: Stop being an asshole. No one is saying you have to be mute. I know a lot of government employees and none of them receive the types of gifts these justices and politicians receive. If they did, they would be looking for new jobs. They also have to share their taxes regularly. 
 

As far as Kavanaugh, I think Congress or someone else should work on the “concrete steps” towards ethics. It seems like this could have been done already and should have been done ages ago. Also, if our Supreme Court does not exhibit any ethics as individuals doing a job, then how do they expect the rest of the country to trust their judgement and think their rulings are sound?

 

I worry their ethics adoption will be more like “how do we keep this stuff in house and not let it out to the public?” Then they just release a statement saying “here’s what we are doing folks! Nothing to see here, everything is fine.”

[China]

House Democrats Urge IRS Investigation Into Supreme Court ‘Bribes’

 

Three House Democrats are requesting the IRS “confirm” if gift taxes were paid by billionaire benefactors to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito after reports show both jurists received luxury vacations and other items of worth.

 

“Today my colleagues and I are calling on the IRS to probe all the free gifts republican judges clarence thomas and sam alito have gotten and whether taxes were ever paid on all these bribes,” U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) wrote via social media. Congressman Pascrell is the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Oversight.

 

“In light of recent reports, we respectfully request that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examine whether gifts to Supreme Court Justices have been appropriately reported for tax purposes,” wrote Pascrell, along with Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), in a letter addressed to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. They add: “we urge the IRS to confirm that appropriate filing requirements were made – and appropriate taxes paid – on these gifts.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[skinsmarydu]

On MSNBC now:  Dick Durbin calls on Justice Thomas to recuse himself from upcoming case.  I don't know what case yet. 

[dfitzo53]

How about all of them? That would be good. 

[China]

Democratic Senators Sound Alarm Over Koch-Backed Plot to 'Eviscerate' Regulatory State

 

Hours before ProPublicarevealed new details about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' relationship with the Koch network, a group of Democratic senators filed a brief on Thursday warning that Koch-backed entities are closely involved in an upcoming case that could further gut the federal government's regulatory power—and enhance the strength of the conservative-dominated high court.

 

The case in question is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which stems from a New Jersey-based fishing company's challenge to a law requiring certain fishing boats to carry federal compliance monitors to enforce regulations.

 

Loper Bright Enterprises specifically objected to an interpretation of federal law by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which said the Magnuson-Stevens Act allows the agency to require industry to pay the costs of the monitors.

 

The dispute over an obscure federal statute has since exploded into a matter of great interest to industry groups and environmentalists, with the latter warning that if the Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs, it will be much more difficult for federal agencies to implement climate regulations.

 

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed that concern and spotlighted the attention the case has attracted from right-wing and corporate-funded groups.

 

"This case is the product of a decades-long effort by pro-corporate interests to eviscerate the federal government's regulatory apparatus, to the detriment of the American people," the lawmakers wrote, noting that a number of groups connected to the Koch network and other powerful right-wing organizations have submitted briefs in support of the plaintiffs in Loper v. Raimondo.

 

Click on the link for the full article