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No Justins, No Peace

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

We still have time to mess this up!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“woke” is the new caravan.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Let’s finish the job.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

In after Baud. Damn.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

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Activist Judges!

Crooked Clarence and ‘Quid Pro Koch’

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Over at Slate, legal reporters Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discuss why ProPublica’s latest revelations about Clarence Thomas and the Koch network are so significant: Clarence Thomas’ Latest Pay-to-Play Scandal Finally Connects All the Dots. As Stern points out, Thomas brags about his judicial steadiness, which he (implausibly) cites as proof that no outside influences affect his rulings.

But conspicuously, Thomas changed his mind on so-called “Chevron deference,” i.e., the notion that agencies’ “reasonable interpretation of ambiguous federal laws” should stand. And he flipped on that standard after being corruptly coopted by the Koch network:

Thomas was a strong supporter of Chevron deference and even wrote a major decision expanding it. But after he was cultivated by the Kochs and became their close friend, he drifted away from Chevron, ultimately renounced and repudiated Chevron deference and is now on the brink of issuing or joining a decision that will overturn Chevron deference this coming term, in a case that is partly funded and supported by the Koch network…

Stern: There’s no speculation required to connect those dots. There had been previous reporting on why Clarence Thomas changed his mind about Chevron deference, because it is a big question. It’s a huge anomaly in his jurisprudence to have an about-face like this, and I think the ProPublica report makes any kind of remaining subtext very clear. He was initiated into this circle through a conscious effort—basically recruited, right?

Lithwick: Groomed. Let’s say groomed… Last go round, we called it quid pro Crow, and now we’re calling it quid pro Koch, but it’s the same pay-to-play.

Thomas has demonstrated repeatedly that he has absolutely no shame. In 2021, he issued a ruling that favored shielding communications among a group of coup plotters that we now know included his wife. So it makes sense to assume he will not recuse in the case this term and will rule in favor of deregulation, just as the Koch network’s long-term strategy envisioned.

It’s hard to get normies to pay much attention to the SCOTUS, though the Dobbs decision seems to be an exception. Maybe that’s a crack in the dam or maybe not. In any case, kudos to ProPublica for keeping the heat on Crooked Clarence. I have a feeling they aren’t done digging up examples of plutocrats plying Thomas and his Fed Soc-approved colleagues with luxuries.

Open thread.

 

 

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KBJ in Birmingham

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke yesterday at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama at a memorial to mark the 60th anniversary of the KKK bombing there that killed four girls. Here’s a gift link to a NYT article about KBJ’s speech. Excerpts from the article below:

In a speech from the pulpit of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Justice Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, said that she made her first trip to Alabama “to commemorate and mourn, celebrate — and warn…”

“If we’re going to continue to move forward as a nation we cannot allow concerns about discomfort to displace knowledge, truth or history,” Justice Jackson told a crowd of hundreds. “It is certainly the case that parts of this country’s story can be hard to think about. I know that atrocities like the one we’re memorializing today are difficult to remember and relive. But I also know that it is dangerous to forget them.”

“We cannot forget because the uncomfortable lessons are often the ones that teach us the most about ourselves,” she added. “We cannot forget because we cannot learn from past mistakes we do not know exist.”

The Times says it’s “rare” for a Supreme Court justice to speak publicly on civil rights issues. Prior to KBJ’s speech, only Justices Breyer and Marshall “have made notable appearances at civil-rights-related events,” according to the article. It also notes that when justices do appear in public, they usually stick to law school lectures or commencement addresses in academic settings or judicial conferences.

That last part is not quite accurate. According to an oil painting commissioned by billionaire GOP sugar daddy Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas has addressed plutocrats and Fed-Soc bigwigs in luxurious yet casual settings over brandy and cigars. I’m sure we still don’t know the half of it.

KBJ’s colleague Samuel Alito regularly complains in public about unfavorable press and asserts that he and the court are exempt from Congressional oversight. I think Amy Coney Barrett appeared at a Mitch McConnell shindig a few years back to absurdly claim the court’s Fed-Soc Six are apolitical.

Their greed and naked partisanship stand in stark contrast to the civic and moral clarity of Ketanji Brown Jackson, who sees what’s happening in parts of this country and told the truth about it yesterday. She’s worth 10,000 Fed-Soc hacks as a force for good in public life, and it’s a shame there aren’t networks of billionaires eager to elevate more KBJs to the highest court in the land.

Like Ron DeSantis, Ketanji Brown Jackson grew up in Florida, and both went to Harvard Law School. From there, their paths diverged sharply. In a sense, they represent a fork in the road for America too. One path leads to ignorance, hate and division while the other bends toward truth, knowledge and reconciliation. I hope we choose wisely.

Open thread.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

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Just in case any of y’all might be interested:

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Back to the ‘Real’ World

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People dap in *Iowa*, now. (There is, of course, a WikiHow.)

And the Congressional summer recess is over:

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Eastman Vouches for Crooked Clarence

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It’s amusing that Crooked Clarence Thomas allies feel obligated to defend his (nonexistent) honor — they’re feeling the heat. Via TPM reporter Nicole Lafond:

Fox News published a piece this Tuesday afternoon reporting that more than 100 of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ former clerks had signed onto a letter defending the justice’s “integrity” and “independence.” The signatories argued that recent media reports on him unethically accepting luxurious gifts from billionaire donors and people with business before the high court are simply all “part of larger attack on the Court” and its “legitimacy.”

High profile circuit court judges like David Stras of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, Jim Ho of the 5th Circuit and Allison Rushing of the 4th (all Trump appointees) count themselves among the 112 signees.

And so does John Eastman.

You’re damn right it’s a larger indictment of the Leo Court and its “legitimacy.” Also, Eastman doesn’t seem to grasp his change in status from tweedy fash-curious law professor to multiply indicted criminal defendant on the verge of disbarment.

Lafond notes that Eastman keeps popping up in the media “during a time when it would behoove him to keep quiet.” As we discussed here recently, Eastman gave an interview to a Claremont Institute colleague a while back and basically confessed to trying to overthrow the duly elected government.

This week, he was scheduled to appear on Laura Ingraham’s White Power Hour. I didn’t watch it, but it’s hard to imagine him helping his case in that venue. Keep talking, Eastman. Keep talking.

As for Crooked Clarence, I’ll repurpose a famous Emerson quote: “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted his wingnut billionaire-funded vacations and gifts.”

Open thread!

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GOP Venality Open Thread: ‘Just Us’ Thomas Is Attracting All the Wrong Attention

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'Just Us' Thomas and His Very Special, Deluxe RV - STOCKPILE

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

BettyC already covered the news about Clarence & Ginni’s extravagant vacations, but wait, there’s more!…

Justice Clarence Thomas met the recreational vehicle of his dreams in Phoenix, on a November Friday in 1999.

With some time to kill before an event that night, he headed to a dealership just west of the airport. There sat a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon, eight years old and 40 feet long, with orange flames licking down the sides. In the words of one of his biographers, “he kicked the tires and climbed aboard,” then quickly negotiated a handshake deal. A few weeks later, Justice Thomas drove his new motor coach off the lot and into his everyman, up-by-the-bootstraps self-mythology.

There he is behind the wheel during a rare 2007 interview with “60 Minutes,” talking about how the steel-clad converted bus allows him to escape the “meanness that you see in Washington.” He regularly slips into his speeches his love of driving it through the American heartland — “the part we fly over.” And in a documentary financed by conservative admirers, Justice Thomas, who was born into poverty in Georgia, waxes rhapsodic about the familiarity of spending time with the regular folks he meets along the way in R.V. parks and Walmart parking lots.

“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” he told the filmmakers, adding: “There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer being around that.”…

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ProPublica has more dirt on Crooked Clarence

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There’s a new ProPublica report on a trio of right-wing oligarchs fulfilling Clarence and Ginni Thomas’s champagne wishes and caviar dreams. You can read the whole thing here (and pitch in a few quid for the tremendous public service ProPublica reporters are doing here if you’re so inclined).

The latest report says that in addition to the mind-blowing largesse Thomas and the kooky missus receive from Harlan Crow, the justice has three other right-wing billionaire sponsors: H. Wayne Huizenga, David Sokol and Paul “Tony” Novelly. All three met Crooked Clarence after Bush appointed him to the Supreme Court, and all independently decided to shower Thomas with luxuries out of the goodness of their hearts:

During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.

Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:

At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.

Rhetorical question: does Thomas ever pay for his own vacations? He probably can’t afford it since he’s barely scraping by on his $285,000 annual salary, plus whatever off-the-books piles of cash for “consulting work” that Leonard Leo can funnel to the dumb-as-a-post insurrectionist wife.

When ProPublica busted Alito for corruptly accepting a luxury fishing vacation, he snippily typed out a pained and misleading prebuttal for publication in the WSJ because that’s how he rolls. Thomas is mostly silent in public, but the scale of his entitlement snaps into view with occasional recorded comments:

(Thomas) once complained that he sacrificed wealth to sit on the court, though he depicted the choice as a matter of conscience. “The job is not worth doing for what they pay,” he told the bar association in Savannah, Georgia, in 2001, “but it is worth doing for the principle.”

Sure it is, as long as you can also loll around on yachts anchored off the Amalfi coast. Also, ProPublica obtained a Thomas “biography” the right-wing oligarch Huizenga hands out to family and friends that contains this choice quote from Thomas:

“We are in a society where everything is quid pro quo,” Thomas said, but not with the Huizengas. “I don’t do anything for them and they can’t do anything for me.”

Except send a private and lavishly decorated 737 just for him, of course. Jesus, these people are absolutely shameless.

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