More evidence for the need of an ethics board to govern the SC.

Coincidentally, the judge that presided in the case is the same judge who denied Bragg's injunction of Gym Jordan's subpoena. She used the same kind of flame throwing, hyperbolic, politicized, language in both decisions she accused both Bragg and McDougal of using. No surprise, being a Trump appointee.

 

Fascinating stuff. There's a novel to be written from folks' posts around this place. Reminds me of American Hero, republished as Wag The Dog.

On his death bed, Lee Atwater devises a plan to secure president George H. W. Bush's reelection by having a war professionally produced by Hollywood agent David Hartman.

However, in this version, Lee Atwater is a born again Democrat, Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow play themselves, I get to be Larry Beinhart and you get to be Jack Hays, a 34 year veteran of the CIA who steadfastly supports Clarence against all the shade being thrown his way, in spite of his friendship with Harlan, or perhaps because of it. It's complicated isn't it, whether or not this "conservative" court would rule in favor of Crow in a Kelo v Crow type of case. Would Thomas give consideration to his precedent of his own dissent in Kelo v New London? The case where RBG sided with the land developers whereas Thomas sided with the homeowners. Or would he toss it aside as he did Roe?

The Atlantic article linked above casts some reasonable doubt about Harlan being a Naziphile, but it is an odd relationship nevertheless giving cultural weight to folks like Sam Jackson viewing Thomas derogatively as an Uncle Clarence. Billionaires pulling strings, nah, that's not a thing, is it? Certainly it's not illegal if it is a thing.

Thomas on Citizens United, interesting reading I think.

 

If Clarence had one iota of the integrity Abe Fortas had, or more concern for the Court than he does for himself as Fortas did, he wouldn't need to be impeached......he'd resign.

Fortas insisted he had done nothing wrong, but he stepped down, explaining in his resignation letter to Chief Justice Earl Warren that “the welfare and the maximum effectiveness of the court to perform its critical role in our system of government are factors that are paramount to all others.”

Justice Thomas’s conduct has been far more egregious in scale than Fortas’s. ProPublica reported that a single nine-day “island hopping” trip by Justice Thomas and his wife, which included a 162-foot superyacht, could have cost him over $500,000 if he had chartered the private jet he flew on and the yacht himself. Justice Thomas did not report the largess he received on his financial disclosure forms, which appears to violate federal law, according to ethics experts ProPublica spoke to. (Justice Thomas issued a nonapology of the “there is nothing to see here” variety.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/opinion/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-abe-fortas.html

What this country needs more of are acts like this. Leaving a position of power to prevent the appearance of possible impropriety. Hmmmmmmm, let me think of an example. I know........what about Ginni Thomas stepping away from her work for conservative causes that end up being decided by the SC.

Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris' husband leaves job at powerhouse law firm DLA Piper
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...t-powerhouse-law-firm-dla-piper-idUSKBN27Q3BM

 

Fortas's parting shot was just self-serving blather. He took money from someone under investigation.

In 1968, Johnson tried to elevate Fortas to the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court, but that nomination faced a filibuster and was withdrawn. Fortas later resigned from the Court after a controversy involving his acceptance of $20,000 from financier Louis Wolfson while Wolfson was being investigated for insider trading. The Justice Department investigated Fortas at the behest of President Richard Nixon, who saw the idea of replacing Fortas as a chance to move the Court in a more conservative direction. Attorney General John N. Mitchell pressured Fortas into resigning.[2] After retirement, Fortas returned to private practice, sometimes appearing before the justices with whom he had served.
Abe Fortas

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Abe_Fortas


Abraham Fortas (June 19, 1910 – April 5, 1982) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United ...

 

Black conservatives are subject to especially vicious attacks because they left the liberal plantation.
Citizens United was a critical defense of free political speech.

 

Thomas exposed himself to heightened attention by his routine violations of ethical norms but especially for the illegal act of not reporting certain financial transactions. Shame on you for playing the race card.

 

Thomas has committed no illegal act. As for the race card, I believe that was introduced by the poster quoting Samuel L. Jackson's reference to "Uncle Clarence."

 

These are inaccurate oversimplifications imo.
You claim not to calibrate your political opinions based on D or R party positions, yet you fail to demonstrate much content that supports this assertion.
Take for example your assertion that you view Dobbs as representative of a conservative value, independent of D or R definitions of what that might mean.
You assert that it is conservative because it devolves regulation of forced term childbearing to the states.
What would be the logical progression if that is in the direction of conservatism?
I suggest that perhaps it would be toward even more local levels.
Municipalities, neighborhoods, households, and, perhaps, even down to families and individual decisions.
It is not a conservative value imo to regulate a woman's individual decision to give birth.
It is a convolution of religion, barely distinguishable from the fringe elements present in other religions.
Are you a religious person?
In your years of service to the US, was it ever part of your mission to pursue devolving African nations interests down to the equivalent of state level government?

 

The crux of the abortion debate is the question whether it involves one life or two. That is a question beyond the remit of any court, and therefore appropriately left to the states to answer via their respective legislatures.
As for religion, I'm agnostic.

 

The crux of the abortion debate is the question whether it involves one life or two. Making it a decision best left to the individual, her family, and her doctor, with certain restrictions put in place for later term pregnancies.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 13, 2023 – Today ProPublica reported new revelations into Justice Clarence Thomas’s dealings with Republican billionaire Harlan Crow. Not only has Thomas received lavish vacations that he didn’t disclose, but he also sold property to Crow totaling $133,363 — despite having listed the value of the property as “$15,000 or less” in financial disclosures just years before. In fact, this led to Crow owning the property where Thomas’s mother was living. Thomas never disclosed the sale, despite a federal disclosure law requiring him to do so.
https://www.afj.org/article/justice-thomas-broke-the-law-and-accountability-is-essential/

 

As pointed out in a previous post, the omission, if there was one, was almost certainly a simple oversight easily rectified.

 

Nope. If the conclusion is that two lives are involved then the state has an imperative duty to protect both, including the defenseless one. We do not permit individuals to extinguish other lives because of their personal beliefs.

 

That is not a conclusion any body, judicial or legislative, has any business making for anyone because it is based on subjective, religious, unscientific beliefs.

 

On the contrary. Judicial and legislative bodies routinely decide that individuals cannot make life or death decisions about others because of personal beliefs, regardless of whether they are "subjective, religious, [or] unscientific".

 

Clarence Thomas didn't recuse himself from a 2004 appeal tied to Harlan Crow's family business, per Bloomberg

Justice Clarence Thomas didn't recuse himself from a 2004 appeals case, even though the company being sued was part of the real estate empire run by Harlan Crow, the GOP mega-donor who has showered Thomas with lavish trips starting in 1997 and more recently bought Thomas' childhood home, according to Bloomberg.

Thomas previously told Bloomberg that it was OK for him to accept gifts from Harlan Crow because the GOP mega-donor did not have "business before the court."

But the 2004 appeal ties the Crow family name to a case that did come before the Supreme Court: In January 2005, the court denied the appeal petition, a $25 million copyright claim brought by an architecture firm against Trammell Crow Residential Co., a development company that's part of the real estate empire built by Crow's father. The Supreme Court's decision ultimately benefitted Trammell Crow Residential.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cla...didn't,childhood home, according to Bloomberg.

The case for impeachment, or voluntary resignation, continues to build.

 

"At the time of this case, Trammell Crow Residential operated completely independently of Crow Holdings with a separate management team and its own independent operations," the statement to Bloomberg said. "Crow Holdings had a minority interest in the parties involved in this case and therefore no control of any of these entities. Neither Harlan Crow nor Crow Holdings had knowledge of or involvement in this case, and a search of Crow Holding's legal records reveals no involvement in this case. Harlan Crow has never discussed this or any other case with any justice."

 

As usual, the lefties prioritize misleading headlines over truth.
Politico's Gorsuch Hit Continues To Delegitimize SCOTUS
David Harsanyi, Federalist

Even as a transparent piece of partisan propaganda, the recent attack on the Supreme Court Justice is poorly conceived. Read More

 

I'm sure you believe that.

 

The quote is from your link.

 

At least Neil didn't break any laws, as Clarence did. He ONLY omitted the name of the buyer of a property he had a stake in. A buyer who's law firm had 22 cases before the Court. Something that makes it all the more important for there to be a method for enforcing sanctions for ethics violations. Especially considering Roberts' dismissal of calls to reform ethics rules to include SC justices.

Nemo judex in causa sua, a dictum that translates to “no one should be a judge in his/her own cause”, is widely considered a pre-requisite to a reliable, trustworthy judicial system. At the moment, something this country doesn't have at the highest court in the land. The appearance of impropriety needs to be removed.

 

And..........?

 

The leftists have been trying to lynch the conservative brown man ever since he was first nominated. I guess this is the one instance the leftists are against diversity?

 

and he applied what precedent for the last Trump nominee when he installed a radical right days before the election?

 

Gosh Jack, that's a steaming pile of horseshyte. But I don't want to get distracted from the topic at hand. The need to apply the same ethics rules all federal judges must comply with to SC justices.