Trust in the US Supreme Court is down to less than 35 percent. Only one of every three Americans thinks the court is NOT an entitled collection of grifting politicians masquerading as legal scholars in robes.
That means two-thirds of Americans are right. Hurray for the USA. Our Supreme Court sucks.
Strict Ideology, bribery and life long appointments to almost absolute power have absolutely corrupted the court. And just like it always does, strong religious “belief” has made this court do evil as well (“faith” is the only foundation for the Dobbs Decision and lying about and then breaking stare decisis to put us on the road to eliminate the “right to privacy” is clearly a legal evil).
Sure, Clarence Thomas is examplemas prime. Having a billionaire buy and fix his mom’s house and let her live there for free is the least of his corrupt acts. Tuition for his adopted son, free trips and a brand spanking new free RV come to mind too.
We don’t even need to look into his insurrectionist wife to find crimes he has likely committed in not reporting trips, gifts and peddling his prestigious influence. But we should look into Ginny Thomas anyway. Worse, Clarence left an oil painting of his crimes for all to see.
Yes, Samuel Alito thinks he can take any free vacation he wants from and with anyone and drink someone else’s $1000-bottles of wine and then tell the Wall Street Journal (incorrectly): “No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”
Even though Article III, Section 2 of the constitution says:
In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii
But those two are only the most obvious part of the problem.
John Roberts has refused to enforce any code of ethics or even tell Congress what those ethics may be.
A majority of the court has spent the past decade gutting ethics rules and government corruption standards so that only a proven quid pro quo counts for corruption. It seems they have been building a legal structure to save themselves from their own shady trips and bribes.
We all know the corrupt don’t leave paper trails and witnesses. It’s a wink and a nod — a free jet trip here, a resort there that keeps the justices voting in favor of our corporate overlords and wanna be high priests.
Every recent justice has had ethical issues with gifts, or recusals or ethics. You can see the full list here:
Even the justices without obvious violations have failed to hold their brethren accountable. It’s not enough not to take bribes yourself. When you read the paper and know that your colleagues are taking gifts and likely committing crimes by not reporting this largesse, it is your duty to report.
Report to the media, report to the Congress, report to the world that you do not condone such actions. Condemn their actions and call for investigations.
Instead the “other justices” have remained stoically silent or even defended the court as ethical and having integrity. Stop pissing on our legs and telling us it’s raining. Making believe all is well while the corruption is obvious is not going to save the court’s reputation.
Going along to get along is the fuel that fires this bullshit. Justices don’t believe they will ever be held accountable, so the grifters keep grifting.
DC AG
Did you see that the Attorney General of Washington DC has opened an investigation of Leonard Leo? The AG wants to know how $73 million cash found its way into Leo’s pocket out of the $1.6 billion (Billion with a B) donations to his foundations. It looks like there may be up to $10 million a year in fake or overpriced invoices.
What do we call that investigation?
A good start.
What we need is Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the entire supreme court. Every justice, their clerks and all court personnel. Don’t forget their billionaire friends. What are their legal and ethical violations? What did other justices and staff know about trips taken by Thomas, Alito and others and when did they know it?
What other gifts, real estate purchases (Gorsuch land in Colorado), loan forgiveness (Kavanaugh’s house and credit cards), special favors, high-priced teaching assignments in exotic places and other goodies have they collected while passing judgement on how we “the people” act (including our sex acts — Thomas has said we should make sodomy illegal again.)
Garland is fond of saying “without fear or favor,” and that’s exactly what he should do in investigating that entire rotten branch of this government.
This isn’t a witch hunt based on political ideologies. This is making sure the people who get to make the ultimate decisions defining the law have to follow it themselves. It seems once they are sworn in, they all believe the law no longer applies to them. They are only guided by their “own conscience.“
If we can spend 5 years investigating the Russia investigation, and another 5 years investigating Hunter Biden for buying a gun while he was on drugs and not paying his taxes, we can definitely spend the next few years finding out if our highest court is on the take.
I guarantee the entire court does not want an investigation — they know the answer. It sure stinks from here.
There may be plenty of crimes and definitely embarrassing actions all the way around. Who leaked the early version of the Dobbs decision? Let’s actually find out.
If we are ever going to rebuild trust in this institution again, it starts with an investigation and criminal charges against whoever may have been taking trips, gifts and other goodies — and not reporting them — no matter the politics of that judge, who appointed them or how much some groups may “like” their decisions.
There’s a whole bunch of other steps in building a system of ethics and holding people accountable for bad behavior even if it is technically legal. But let’s start by getting any of the potential criminals off the court.
Even if they did nothing wrong, we need some sunlight to expose the vermin who seem to surround these justices (see painting above).
Then we can worry about term limits, minimum ages, number of justices, new laws from Congress, an Inspector General for the courts and every other reform we think it’s going to take to turn this court from a robed oligarchy into a legal structure that is actually interested in following the law and living up to the promise of “justice for all”.
A knockout. Simple as that.
Tip of the iceberg for ways our “democracy” has gone off the rails. The dilemma is, how to clean the whole house? School boards to congress to president, and everything along the way.
True. Getting the money out of political campaigns. Not allowing elected officials or their families or staff to trade individual stocks. Vote the bums out. Would all be good places to start.
Seems there are drawbacks to lifetime appointments, that our founding fathers might not have appreciated.
People didn’t live that long in 1780’s.
This is well written with excellent facts and points.
This supreme pizza court needs a major overhaul. The catch 22 is people who have all the power dont want to be investigated and they make the decision -this seems crazy to me. Kind of like executive privilege seems crazy.
-Butterpants
Yeah. The original idea was the three branches would compete against each other for the favor of the people. Now they are colluding against us.
I heard Mark Medows say that if the Dems win in 24, they will stack the court. I suppose that means he is against a President doing that.
If they haven’t done it by now, they never will.