#corrupt SCOTUS

[liberalsarecool]

DOJ must investigate.

[soberscientistlife]

Are these the only 3 justices that follow the rules?

[meandmybigmouth]

Scotus is not the only judicial level willing to protect Trump outside of their oath sworn to uphold the law!

[lenbryant]

I say Idaho Republicans are illegitimate. This march towards theocracy seems never ending. Can’t these weirdos mind their own business for a change?

[eugenedebs1920]

On the eve of America appointing its first king let’s take some time to reflect. Reflect on history from both long ago, and that which is more recent. Peer backward from where we came, we can not go back there, and tomorrow is uncertain, yet somehow strangely familiar.

There’s a phrase the mainstream media likes to use. Trumpnesia. Some mental health experts suggest that as a collective whole much of society’s memories from the pandemic, 2020, and generally the chaos and sh*tshow the first Trump administration was, have been forgotten, hazed over, spotty.

I would assume many who voted in this election were unable to in 2016, their attention focused on much more simple, enjoyable aspects of life.

Honestly, my recollection is subject to rolling brownouts regarding the Trump years. To be completely truthful, I was a savage, and I mean SAVAGE whiskey enthusiast and imbiber during that particular period of this train wreck I perceive as existence. Which may have contributed to the fogginess by its own accord. Nonetheless, there’s more I remember than I’d like.

Every day it was some ridiculous sh*t. Every day it was Trump’s obnoxious voice, or an all caps tweet, dodging accountability, blatantly lying, immaturely insulting, pathetically justifying corruption, every day just cringe worthy embarrassing behavior on the would stage, out there for all to see. It was humiliating!

It was like, have you ever rode in a vehicle where someone refuses to buckle their seatbelt? Despite the “friendly” and relentless coaxing from the safety feature of said vehicle asking them to do so? Just a nonstop, endless, mind piercing, fury stoking, twitch inducing, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, till you’re at the point where your most attractive option is to drive the vehicle off a bridge to your seductive looking watery grave, rip your hair out and punch yourself in the dick to experience something less agitating, or unabashedly berate and howl at your fellow rider, informing them that whether or not they agree with the act, that siren song of a security alarm will not cease until they buckle their f*ckin seatbelt.

Like your neighbor forever using a gas powered leaf blower, day in, and day out, from sunup to sundown, even after the sun has ventured from the east in its determined pursuit to scorch the earth below it, until, in the western horizon it sinks, slumbering to recuperate in preparation to do it all over again. Like being in a house under construction with multiple wood trades, running multiple compressors, seemingly timed to where there is not a single moment of serenity, stillness or silence.

You know? Maybe there were external factors that encouraged my excessive enjoyment of the beautiful, sharp, warm, brown liquor. That which puts out the fire but keeps in the warmth. Whiskey. Mmmmmmmmm.

I digress, and may need a drink.

The utter perturbation one experienced before consuming the news. The dismay at the conduct conducted. The oblivious disgrace brought to the highest office in the land, a once honorable title now in possession of a reality tv personality who fooled half the country into thinking he was even remotely competent or worthy. The shame in the fact that this was a representation of you, your country, and your fellow citizens.

Who the f*ck had the dishonest audacity to, with no hint of humor or irony, declare a lies “alternative facts”!? It’s staggering!

That was every day. This is before the pandemic!

For f*cks sake! The pandemic?! What a disaster! I mean… You could see the frustration, concern and puzzlement of these experts, doctors, and scientists, as Trump would undoubtedly voice his highly unqualified and childish opinion on the subject. His narcissism overriding his ability to allow folks who dedicated their entire adult life to complex sciences to explain and inform the population. I felt bad for them.

What a nightmare! Intense, all encompassing humiliation. A recurring, spiteful, patronizing stale joke. Some darker, irritating and moronic sequel to Groundhog Day.

Well. Here we go again. Only this time spiked with retribution. This time schemed upon for years. This time validated and emboldened by his “reelection” and the absolute immunity bestowed to him by a compromised Supreme Court in all its self righteous perceived wisdom. This time carried out by a far more vindictive, hateful and degrading man.

I keep telling people, this is going to get worse before it gets better. So unlike that jackass who somehow is impervious to the insufferable seat belt alarm. Buckle up.

[mudwerks]

it’s about damn time

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nobody

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 03, 2024

Today, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported that there is reason to believe that when Trump’s 2016 campaign was running low on funds, Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States.

In early 2017, CIA officials told Justice Department officials that a confidential informant had told them of such a cash exchange, and those officials handed the matter off to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was already looking at the links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. FBI agents noted that on September 16, Trump had met with Sisi when the Egyptian leader was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. 

After the meeting, Trump broke with U.S. policy to praise Sisi, calling him a “fantastic guy.” 

Trump’s campaign had been dogged with a lack of funds, and his advisers had begged him to put some of his own money into it. He refused until October 28, when he loaned the campaign $10 million.

An FBI investigation took years to get records, but Davis and Leonnig reported that in 2019 the FBI learned of a key withdrawal from an Egypt bank. In January 2017, five days before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service asked a manager at a branch of the state-run National Bank of Egypt to “kindly withdraw” $9,998,000 in U.S. currency. The bundles of $100 bills filled two bags and weighed more than 200 pounds. 

Once in office, Trump embraced Sisi and, in a reversal of U.S. policy, invited him to be one of his first guests at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi,” Trump said. 

Mueller had gotten that far in pursuit of the connection between Trump and Sisi when he was winding down his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He handed the Egypt investigation off to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D C., where it appears then–attorney general William Barr killed it. 

Today, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that Elon Musk and other tech executives are putting their money behind a social media ad campaign for Trump and Vance, and are creating targeted ads in swing states by collecting information about voters under false pretenses. According to Schwartz, their America PAC, or political action committee, says it helps viewers register to vote. And, indeed, the ads direct would-be voters in nonswing states to voter registration sites.

But people responding to the ad in swing states are not sent to registration sites. Instead, they are presented with “a highly detailed personal information form [and] prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” handing over “priceless personal data to a political operation” that can then create ads aimed at that person’s demographic and target them personally in door-to-door campaigns. After getting the information, the site simply says, “Thank you,” without directing the viewer toward a registration site.

Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at more than $235 billion. 

In June the Trump Organization announced a $500 million deal with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump International hotel in Oman. 

In January 2011, when he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller gave a speech to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated and had multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.

These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”

In order to corner international markets, Mueller explained, these criminal enterprises "may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called 'iron triangles' of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat."

In a new book called Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, journalist Anne Applebaum carries that story forward into the present, examining how today’s autocrats work together to undermine democracy. She says that “the language of the democratic world, meaning rights, laws, rule of law, justice, accountability, [and] transparency…[is]  harmful to them,” especially as those are the words that their internal opposition uses. “And so they need to undermine the people who use it and, if they can, discredit it.” 

Those people, Applebaum says, “believe they are owed power, they deserve power.” When they lose elections, they “come back in a second term and say, right, this time, I'm not going to make that mistake again, and…then change their electoral system, or…change the constitution, change the judicial system, in order to make sure that they never lose.”

Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor. 

The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” 

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.” 

The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity. 

In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sordidamok]

SCOTUS will probably put off making their decision until after the elections. If Trump wins, they could then rule in favor of presidential immunity. If Biden wins, they certainly wouldn't.

I don't think any POTUS should have a get out of jail free card for whatever they decide to do while in office, so I'm fine with Biden not having immunity.

Trump having immunity would be the end of democracy in the US.

SCOTUS should not have the power to determine whether or not democracy survives.

[odinsblog]

This Supreme Court is illegitimate and deeply corrupt

Two years after John Roberts' confirmation as the Supreme Court's chief justice in 2005, his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, made a pivot. After a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, she refashioned herself as a legal recruiter, a matchmaker who pairs job-hunting lawyers up with corporations and firms.

Roberts told a friend that the change was motivated by a desire to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, given that her husband was now the highest-ranking judge in the country. "There are many paths to the good life," she said. "There are so many things to do if you're open to change and opportunity."

"When I found out that the spouse of the chief justice was soliciting business from law firms, I knew immediately that it was wrong," the whistleblower, Kendal B. Price, who worked alongside Jane Roberts at the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, told Insider in an interview. "During the time I was there, I was discouraged from ever raising the issue. And I realized that even the law firms who were Jane's clients had nowhere to go. They were being asked by the spouse of the chief justice for business worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there was no one to complain to. Most of these firms were likely appearing or seeking to appear before the Supreme Court. It's natural that they'd do anything they felt was necessary to be competitive."

Roberts' apparent $10.3 million in compensation puts her toward the top of the payscale for legal headhunters. Price's disclosures, which were filed under federal whistleblower-protection laws and are now in the hands of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, add to the mounting questions about how Supreme Court justices and their families financially benefit from their special status, an area that Senate Democrats are vowing to investigate after a series of disclosure lapses by the justices themselves.

(continue reading)

[liberalsarecool]

Lifelong appointments based on perjury should be disqualifying. What other occupation would allow such corruption/lack of ethics?

[soberscientistlife]

Corrupt AF

[geezerwench]

Most of the US Supreme Court is corrupt.

Samuel Alito

Amy Coney Barrett

Neil Gorsuch

Brett Kavanaugh

John Roberts

Clarence Thomas

President Biden is working to change that. He proposed an amendment to the Constitution there is no immunity for presidents for crimes committed while in office. The No One is Above the Law Amendment.

18-year term limits. Bill that has been introduced by Democrats.

Binding Code of Ethics. Bill that has been introduced by Democrats.

Of course, Republicans are opposed to these bills.

[lenbryant]

Corrupt Supreme Court in their boss's shoes.

[eugenedebs1920]

Hmmmmm!….. Wonder why he would do that?! I feel like a damn broken record.

Who doesn’t want to be fact checked? Liars.

Who doesn’t want t corruption guard dogs such as inspectors general? People who are planning to be corrupt.

Who would want to get rid of a consumer protection agency? People who intend to rip consumers off.

Who terminates any or all people that investigated a crime you’re accused of? A person guilty of said crime.

Who eliminates a department tasked with finding and fighting election fraud? Someone guilty of doing it themselves.

This isn’t hard to comprehend. You don’t remove protections against fraud and terminate law enforcement not loyal to you unless you plan on committing massive fraud and acts of criminality. This is a coup!

The Republican Party has now just became the largest organized crime entity in the world. Our country will suffer greatly.

But hey!! At least the wealthy and corporations won’t have to pay taxes, adding trillions we, and our children will have to pay back! Way to go maga! You f*ckin owned those libs for sure! Traitors…

🖕

[finnhuckery]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Arkansas Democrat Gazette

+

That’s the quote. I was looking for it. And here it is. Hannah Arendt on the Matt Gaetz as AG announcement ::

'This process includes the replacement of all first-rate talents, regardless of their political loyalties, with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is the best guarantee of their loyalty.' (The Origins of Totalitarianism, renewed version, A Harvest Book New York, 1976, 339)

‪Tamar de Waal‬ ‪@tamardewaal.bsky.social‬