#justice for sale

[odinsblog]

HOT TAKE: Conservative Democrats in red states aren’t conservative because “that’s the only way to win in middle America and the South” — they are often conservative because they are well PAID to be conservative

“Together, Sinema and Manchin have caused significant headaches for Democrats over the last two years — first by opposing much of the "Build Back Better" social spending and climate bill and then by opposing Democrats' plans of weakening the Senate's 60-vote filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.

Crow has also made significant contributions to moderate-to-conservative House Democrats.

According to federal campaign finance data, the Texas billionaire has given $16,800 to Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey since 2018, contributing thousands as recently as October 2022.

Gottheimer, a member of the so-called "Unbreakable Nine" of moderate Democrats who insisted on de-linking Build Back Better from the infrastructure bill, has at times been a thorn in the side of his party as well.

And Crow has contributed $12,500 to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas since 2006. Cuellar, a conservative opponent of abortion rights, faced a strong primary challenge from progressive activist Jessica Cisneros in 2022.

Crow's relationship and lavish vacations with Justice Thomas have raised significant ethics concerns — Thomas never disclosed the flights and yacht trips financed by the GOP megadonor, apparently violating a post-Watergate federal law that requires justices to report gifts.”

👉🏿 https://www.businessinsider.com/sinema-manchin-clarence-thomas-vacations-harlan-crow-megadonor-republican-2023-4

[warriorbrother]

[noneofyrbz]

Outrageous! District Attorney Announces Iraq War Veteran Who Shot Pro-Hamas Agitator in Self-Defense will be Charged with Two 'Crimes' - Faces Several Years in Prison (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cullen Linebarger

Marian Ryan shown reading her ORDERS. Look at the zombie standing behind her.

[sunnydinthereal]

straight up tooning my town

[thepopoptic]

On Nov 5th, America chose to return to traditional faith, family, and freedom. On Jan 20, justice and accountability arrive.

[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)

[toniodarling]

ace attorney is hilarious for the stupidest reasons LIKE I’M LITERALLY LOSING MY MIND AND SUCCUMBING TO THE PLAGUE OVER HOW HIS FACIAL EXPRESSION DOESN’T CHANGE

[odinsblog]

GOP megadonor Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice did not disclose the deal.

“Thomas was hiding a financial relationship with Crow,” said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis who reviewed years of Thomas’ disclosure filings.

"A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000," per ProPublica.

👉🏿 https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus

Harlan Crow has been very good to Justice Clarence Thomas, lavishing gifts and other favors on Thomas and his family.

Crow provided $500,000 to allow Thomas’ wife to start a Tea Party group, and he once gave Thomas a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass. He also served on the board of a corporate-aligned think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which once gave Thomas a $15,000 gift.

As ThinkProgress reported earlier, AEI filed at least three briefs in the Supreme Court after giving Thomas this very expensive gift, and Thomas either sided with AEI or took a position that was much more extreme that AEI’s in all three of these cases.

👉🏿 https://archive.thinkprogress.org/second-harlan-crow-connected-group-has-a-perfect-litigation-record-before-justice-thomas-1aaf50c21db8/

[kbkirtley]

Looking to start your holiday shopping? The White Knight is a great gift for the reader or superhero lover in your life!

In The White Knight, Lance Locke is a college student who takes on the role of campus hero after one of his friends is assaulted. But when a billionaire with grand visions of power appears on campus, Lance realizes he might be in over his head. With the help of his friends, can Lance keep those closest to him safe? Or will the campus he’s fought to protect from street level threats collapse around him with the stakes raised?

Find out in The White Knight, a hero inspired by characters like Lancelot, Robin Hood, Batman, Green Arrow, and Nightwing!

Whether you’re getting The White Knight for yourself or to gift for the holiday season, there’s never been a better time to buy The White Knight!

This sale is going through Wednesday, November 27th so act fast!

KirtleyBooks.com

[odinsblog]

Although the three branches of the American government were designed to be coequal, the structure of the Constitution tells us something about the relative power of each branch, as envisioned by the framers.

Article I establishes the legislature. Article II establishes the executive branch. And Article III establishes the federal judiciary. It is true that the branches share powers and responsibilities. But it’s also true that the framers trusted Congress — the representative branch — with far more authority than it did the president or the Supreme Court.

Congress makes laws. Congress spends money. Congress approves the president’s cabinet and says whether he can appoint a judge or not. Congress structures the judiciary and Congress sets the size of the Supreme Court and the scope of its business.

The upshot of all of this is that when Congress calls, the other branches are supposed to answer — not as a courtesy, but as an affirmation of the rules of the American constitutional order. The modern Congress might be weak, and the presidency, against the expectations of the framers, might be the center of American political life, but it’s still newsworthy when a member of the executive branch says he or she won’t meet with the legislature.

Chief Justice John Roberts is in a different branch of government, the judiciary. But he — a constitutional officer confirmed to his seat by the Senate — is still subject to the power of Congress to question and investigate his conduct. When Congress calls, he too should answer.

Last week, Congress called the chief justice. In the wake of revelations concerning the friendship between Justice Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow, a billionaire Republican donor, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, invited Roberts to testify at an upcoming hearing on Supreme Court ethics rules.

“There has been a steady stream of revelations regarding justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally,” Durbin wrote in his letter to the chief justice. “These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence.”

“The time has come for a new public conversation on ways to restore confidence in the Court’s ethical standards,” Durbin went on to say. “I invite you to join it, and I look forward to your response.”

This week Roberts answered. He said, in a word, no.

“I must respectfully decline your invitation,” Roberts wrote. “Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the chief justice of the United States is exceedingly rare as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”

This deceptively polite reply sounds reasonable for as long as you can manage to forget the fact that it is questions about the ethical conduct of the court and its members that have compromised the independence of the court. Was Thomas influenced by the largess of his billionaire benefactor? Was Justice Samuel Alito influenced by an explicit campaign to curry favor with the conservative justices? Was Justice Neil Gorsuch influenced by the lucrative sale of a Colorado property, in the wake of his confirmation, to the head of a powerful law firm with ample business before the court?

It is with real chutzpah, in other words, that Roberts has claimed judicial independence in order to circumvent an investigation into judicial independence.

More striking than this evasion is the manner in which Roberts ended his reply. Faced with serious questions about the integrity of the court, he pointed to a nonbinding ethics document that has done almost nothing to prevent these situations from arising in the first place. “In regard to the Court’s approach to ethics matters,” he wrote, “I attached a Statement of Ethics Principles and Practices to which all of the current members of the Supreme Court subscribe.”

Roberts did not write an aggressive or confrontational letter. And yet, he is quietly making an aggressive and confrontational claim about his own power and authority and that of the court’s. “Separation of powers,” in Roberts’s view, means the court is outside the system of checks and balances that governs the other branches of government. “Judicial independence,” likewise, means neither he nor any other member of the court has any obligation to speak to Congress about their behavior.

The court checks, according to Roberts, but cannot be checked.

—The Polite Disdain of John Roberts

[boobgoogler]

klavier is a project sekai addict capcom told me (truth) and I just KNOWWWW apollo picks at his lips when he's working hard on som shit... aka... afflicting klapollo with mo'isms

[pumpacti0n]

"Challenging racism is easy when it overtly hits you in the face. Systemic racism is harder to fight because it hides in our day-to-day experiences, camouflaged by age-old practices and routine behaviors. That's the problem with systems. They are so pervasive and deeply embedded in society that we must aggressively shake ourselves free from their hold."

Kaleena Sales