#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!

[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

[pissingonmonarchy]

It is clear that the Supreme Court thinks it can override the Constitution. The US Constitution says that the Legislature can override a Supreme Court ruling by passing laws by 75% majority in the House, 75% majority in the Senate, and 75% of the States ratification. Article 14 Section 3 was passed that way yet the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional which they do not have the authority to do according to the Constitution. The press, Legislature, and office of the Presidency are not putting a stop to the abuse of power by the Supreme Court. This ruling is just another overreach by the Supreme Court.

You know the assignment.

Vote Blue. Vote en masse.

We outnumber the GOP 4:1 we can win this.

[sleepyleftistdemon]

(via Cartoon: Royal court)

[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.

[lenbryant]

Corrupt Supreme Court in their boss's shoes.

[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)

[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.

[liberalsarecool]

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

[soberscientistlife]

Corrupt AF

[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

[reynard61]

President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration for Florida, enabling the federal government to move supplies in ahead of the storm’s arrival, but the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has refused to take a call from Vice President Kamala Harris about planning for the storm. When asked about DeSantis’s refusal at today’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that the president and vice president have reached out to give support to the people of Florida.   As for DeSantis, “It’s up to him if he wants to respond to us or not. But what we're doing is we’re working with state and local officials to make sure that we are pre-positioned to make sure that we are ready to be there for the communities that are going to be impacted. We are doing the job… to protect the communities and to make sure that they have everything that is needed." When asked about DeSantis’s snub, Harris answered: “It’s just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish, and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”

So, Floridians, remember that your so-called "Governor" is more interested in performative fuckery then he is in establishing a dialogue in order to help you during and after this upcoming storm.