Supreme Court Corruption

Speaking of Las Vegas, and Nevada in General

by WaterGirl| June 22, 20241:01 pm| 69 Comments

This post is in: Elections 2024, Open Threads, Politics, Supreme Court Corruption

This is AOC speaking in Las Vegas, campaigning for Jacky Rosen and Joe Biden, but especially Jacky Rosen, I think. Republicans are coming hard after Jacky Rosen’s seat. You will recall that earlier this year we raised funds for Four Directions in Nevada.

Well, we’re not stopping there.

Just to give you a little peek ahead, we are trying to connect with a couple of organizations in Nevada to see if they might be a good fit with our strategic fundraising. That’s all I’ll say for now.

Check out this 2-minute barn burner of a close from AOC. I like AOC and I think she’s good for Democrats overall, but I’m not one of the “oh, she should be president one day” club. Bat damn, I got goosebumps watching her closing here. h/t trollhattan

AOC: I have a message for this conservative court and Donald J. Trump. The women and people of this state do not consent. And the woman and people of this country certainly do not consent to Donald Trump nor this corrupt court that he has enabled. pic.twitter.com/I6MfefIrae

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 22, 2024

She even calls out the corruption of the not-so Supreme Court. Watch it if you can!

Speaking of Las Vegas, and Nevada in GeneralPost + Comments (69)

Supreme Court Decisions Again Today at 10 am Eastern

by WaterGirl| June 21, 20249:50 am| 80 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Corruption

If you want to follow along on SCOTUSblog.

Here we go!

In Texas v. New Mexico, the court upholds the U.S.’s objections to a consent decree that would resolve the dispute over each state’s allocation of the waters of the Rio Grande.

RATING: ?

The court rules 6-3 in Department of State v. Munoz that a citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.

RATING: Looks bad to me. Attorneys?

In Erlinger v. United States, the court rules that under the Armed Career Criminal Act, which imposes mandatory prison terms, a judge should use a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard to decide whether the offenses were committed on separate occasions or instead a jury must make those decisions unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt.

RATING: ?

In Smith v. Arizona, the court rules for the state that the confrontation clause does not bar an expert to present an absent analyst’s true statements in support the expert’s opinion.

RATING: ?

The Supreme Court rejects the challenge to the constitutionality of a federal law that bans the possession of a gun by someone who has been the subject of a domestic violent restraining order in United States v. Rahimi.

RATING: Seems good to me. Attorneys?

Supreme Court Decisions Again Today at 10 am EasternPost + Comments (80)

Supreme Court Decisions at 10 am Eastern

by WaterGirl| June 20, 202410:04 am| 283 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Corruption

Some decisions will be announced today (6/20), some tomorrow (6/21).

Holding my breath as I wait.

SCOTUSblog appears to be adding a quick summary as each opinion is released.

*****

Live blogging at The Guardian

First case was Moore v. US. This is a big tax case that has implications on the viability of the wealth tax.
7-2 ruling, by Kavanaugh, Thomas and Gorsuch dissent, saying that Congress CAN tax “pass through” entities.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) June 20, 2024

Supreme Court Decisions at 10 am EasternPost + Comments (283)

The Not-So Supreme Court

by WaterGirl| June 17, 20244:50 pm| 133 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Corruption

SCOTUS covers itself with, well, something that is closer to excrement than to glory.

NEW: During Justice Alito’s confirmation hearing, he said he’d abide by higher ethics standards than the law required, presented himself as an impartial judge with no ideological agenda and said the president is NOT above the law.

We have the receipts: https://t.co/4qBkfF8jmY

— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) June 17, 2024

Laura posted this about the Supreme Court in a comment last week – it’s quite the indictment! (Not literally, unfortunately!)

The breathtaking speed that:

they are repealing the protections Reconstruction Amendments,
encouraging cases that claim racial bias against white people,
the desire to return to Lochner,
the steady accommodation of a certain type of religion into the government sphere- and for profit as they divert our tax dollars,
the made up theorie,s
and limited protections from the law,
the velvet roped off area reserved for the very wealthy and their desires,
the shadow docket,
the disdain for precedent,
acting as a finder of fact and ignoring their role as an appellate court,
the rejection of the Right to Privacy,
refusing to acknowledge the barbarity of the death penalty as it currently operates,
the stonewalling on presidential immunity and it’s active interference of the upcoming presidential election in favor of a convicted felon.

It’s really kind of shocking to see it all laid out like that. Nothing we don’t already know, but to see it spelled out like that is something else.

Open thread.

The Not-So Supreme CourtPost + Comments (133)

SC(R)OTUS Open Thread: Harlan Crow & Clarence Thomas

by Anne Laurie| June 14, 20242:30 am| 83 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Republican Venality, Supreme Court Corruption

(Joel Pett via GoComics.com)

It must irk ‘Just Us’ Thomas no end that Sam Alito gets all the publicity as a ~~mean-spirited revanchist~~ hard-bitten traditionalist, while poor Clarence is dismissed as a ~~high-dollar whore~~ chronic willing taker of bribes.

Rest assured, Justice Thomas will not be out-sleazed!

BREAKING — Senate Judiciary Committee uncovers 3 additional undisclosed trips that Justice Clarence Thomas took as a gift from Harlan Crow. These were *not* included even in Thomas’ revised financial disclosure.

Info was obtained via the cmte’s subpoena authorization for Crow.

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) June 13, 2024

Mr. Harlan says they can talk to his… lawyers:

Judiciary Dems say Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose three private jet trips funded by Harlan Crow pic.twitter.com/FcMQamkn3A

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) June 13, 2024

Can we all agree that Clarence Thomas is corrupt as hell? pic.twitter.com/TosZsaVfIc

— X  🇺🇸 (@realXanderXjork) June 13, 2024

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SC(R)OTUS Open Thread: Harlan Crow & Clarence ThomasPost + Comments (83)

Republican Supreme Court Justices View Themselves as Above the Law

by WaterGirl| June 9, 20241:05 pm| 127 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Corruption

The Republican Supreme Court justices view themselves as above the law. Do they see themselves as Kings? Rulers? Not-so-Benevolent Dictators? I’m not sure what to call it, but we have got to turn this around.

How did we get to the place where the Supreme Court can just make shit up and most of the legal world just shrugs and says “oh, well”?

Two things notable: one, SCOTUS has become “an institution I barely recognized,” and two, doctrines like “major questions” were “invented to produce the court’s preferred outcome,” not based in Constitution. Agreed. Indeed, invented in billionaire-funded doctrine factories. https://t.co/LqU0qt8hzU

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 7, 2024

This is finally getting enough play, I think, to possibly make a difference. Beyond ProPublica, beyond Sheldon Whitehouse, beyond just a few voices shouting into the wind.

David Tatel, a retired federal judge, has delivered an unusually stark warning about the Supreme Court and the future of the planet and democracy. https://t.co/oaV3fHoRdt

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 7, 2024

If we win the fight in November, and I am quite hopeful that we will keep the White House and take back the House, then I think the table is being set for us to be able to return the highest court of the land to the rule of law. It will take some time, but I believe the momentum is there. It’s time for the coat hanger faction of the court to experience some consequences.

I am hopeful, but less confident, that we will take / keep the Senate. We have a ton of work to do between now and November, and I hope to be able to announce our upcoming strategic fundraising effort sometime time this week.

Totally unrelated to the Supreme Court, but this is a damn good ad.

Open thread.

Republican Supreme Court Justices View Themselves as Above the LawPost + Comments (127)

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases

by WaterGirl| May 29, 20245:35 pm| 49 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Corruption

Gotta love our constitutional scholars!

A bit of background on Jamie Raskin before we get to Jamie’s (we’re on a first-name basis, dontcha know) Guest Essay Opinion piece in the New York Times today. (Suddenly everyone skips past this article?)

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases — Such a cute picture of Jamie. Has he ever been through a lot since that photo was taken in 2019. We are lucky he is still here fighting with us.

Raskin Embraces Role As Constitutional Scholar (The Hill, 2019)

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the often-disheveled former constitutional law professor, has carved out one of the most important roles in the House as Democrats contemplate their investigations of President Trump in the wake of the Mueller report.
The Maryland Democrat serves on two key committees — Judiciary and Oversight and Reform — that are central in the Democrats’ budding probes. He’s also secured a seat this term on the powerful Rules Committee, which shapes every piece of legislation just before it hits the floor.

Perhaps most importantly, Raskin is a member of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) leadership team, which frequently leans on him when the discussion turns to complex questions surrounding the Constitution — and the accusations that Trump is flouting it.

It is, by Raskin’s own admission, not the sexiest role on Capitol Hill. But in many ways, his life’s work studying the founding documents has made him a perfect fit for a divisive moment in American history.

“For me, everything comes back to the Constitution. … For most people, that’s unbelievably esoteric and dry. And for me, it’s spellbinding,” Raskin said in a long and wide-ranging interview in his office on Capitol Hill that took place just before the Department of Justice’s release of the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. “I love reading about the precedence of the House of Representatives. I love reading about Jefferson’s manual. And I love studying the rules of parliamentary procedure.”

Raskin’s role as constitutional consultant has been particularly prominent with Trump in the White House and Democrats probing a long list of controversies swirling around his tenure, such as whether the president has profited illegally from the office.
“I’m definitely not the most telegenic member. I definitely don’t raise the most money of the members,” Raskin said. “But I might be the one who’s most drenched in constitutional law and the rules of parliamentary procedure.”

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases

Mr. Raskin represents Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He taught constitutional law for more than 25 years and was the lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

Gift Link

Many people have gloomily accepted the conventional wisdom that because there is no binding Supreme Court ethics code, there is no way to force Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from the Jan. 6 cases that are before the court.

Justices Alito and Thomas are probably making the same assumption.

But all of them are wrong.

(more after the jump)

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Cutting to the chase in Jamie Raskin’s NYT opinion piece …

Everyone assumes that nothing can be done about the recusal situation because the highest court in the land has the lowest ethical standards — no binding ethics code or process outside of personal reflection. Each justice decides for him- or herself whether he or she can be impartial.

*snip

The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion: the Constitution of the United States, specifically the due process clause, and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 28 U.S.C. Section 455.

*snip

The constitutional and statutory standards apply to Supreme Court justices. The Constitution, and the federal laws under it, is the “supreme law of the land,” and the recusal statute explicitly treats Supreme Court justices like other judges: “Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The only justices in the federal judiciary are the ones on the Supreme Court.

This recusal statute, if triggered, is not a friendly suggestion. It is Congress’s command, binding on the justices, just as the due process clause is. The Supreme Court cannot disregard this law just because it directly affects one or two of its justices. Ignoring it would trespass on the constitutional separation of powers because the justices would essentially be saying that they have the power to override a congressional command.

When the arguments are properly before the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor will have both a constitutional obligation and a statutory obligation to enforce recusal standards.

Indeed, there is even a compelling argument based on case law that Chief Justice Roberts and the other, unaffected justices should raise the matter of recusal on their own (or sua sponte). Numerous circuit courts have agreed with the Eighth Circuit that this is the right course of action when members of an appellate court are aware of “overt acts” of a judge reflecting personal bias. Cases like this stand for the idea that appellate jurists who see something should say something instead of placing all the burden on parties in a case who would have to risk angering a judge by bringing up the awkward matter of potential bias and favoritism on the bench.

But even if no member of the court raises the issue of recusal, the urgent need to deal with it persists. Once it is raised, the court would almost surely have to find that the due process clause and Section 455 compel Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. To arrive at that substantive conclusion, the justices need only read their court’s own recusal decisions.

Last paragraph of the opinion piece (looks to me like Jamie is throwing down the gauntlet)

But the Constitution and Congress’s recusal statute provide the objective framework of analysis and remedy for cases of judicial bias that are apparent to the world, even if they may be invisible to the judges involved. This is not really optional for the justices.

I look forward to seeing seven members of the court act to defend the reputation and integrity of the institution.

Read the whole thing!

And before you say “one neat trick”, remember that Jamie Raskin is a constitutional scholar, and I would bet that he knows whereof he speaks.

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 CasesPost + Comments (49)

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

It’s a doggy dog world.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Let’s finish the job.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Speaking of Las Vegas, and Nevada in General

Supreme Court Decisions Again Today at 10 am Eastern

Supreme Court Decisions at 10 am Eastern

The Not-So Supreme Court

SC(R)OTUS Open Thread: Harlan Crow & Clarence Thomas

Republican Supreme Court Justices View Themselves as Above the Law

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases

Gotta love our constitutional scholars!

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases

Cutting to the chase in Jamie Raskin’s NYT opinion piece …

Last paragraph of the opinion piece (looks to me like Jamie is throwing down the gauntlet)