Tag: Judges

Justice Thomas–Just Another Political Hack

We know the Chief Justice Roberts is a political hack ans now Justice Thomas has opened his mouth and once again proved that he is a hack as well.

I have known he was one for years  and his wife is worse than him….there are so many times he should have recused himself but instead vote to assist the people in the suit.

His latest performance is around the abortion pill….

Justice Clarence Thomas sharply criticized a recent Supreme Court ruling preserving nationwide access to an abortion medication, arguing the drug manufacturers were operating a “criminal enterprise.”

On Thursday (May 14), the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to uphold nationwide access to the abortion pill mifepristone, according to The Guardian.

In October 2025, the state of Louisiana sued the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for allowing mifepristone to be prescribed remotely and mailed to patients, arguing that mailing the medication violated the state’s abortion restrictions and federal law.

This ruling halted a May 1 order from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that would have significantly restricted nationwide access to mifepristone.

In Thomas’s dissent, he argued that the plaintiffs — Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, two mifepristone manufacturers — had not shown they would experience irreparable harm if access to the medication remained blocked.

“Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise,” Thomas wrote. “They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes.”

He also pointed to the Comstock Act, passed in 1873, which broadly bans the mailing of anything considered “obscene, lewd or lascivious”, arguing mifepristone fits that description.

Thomas was joined by Justice Samuel Alito, who argued the ruling conflicted with the court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which gave each state the individual authority to regulate abortion.

In a similar case from 2024, the Supreme Court ruled against a lawsuit filed by The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), a coalition of conservative medical organizations and physicians.

The lawsuit challenged FDA rules allowing expanded access to mifepristone, including mail delivery and telehealth prescriptions.

(binnetweork.com)

Yo Thomas the only criminal enterprise here is the Supreme Court.

Then Thomas spoke at the Univ of Texas about ‘god given’ rights and how Progressives are destroying that….

…

Justice Thomas is perhaps one of the most revered living justices on the right. Conservative lauded his speech, calling it “extraordinary.” “In addition to its sweeping condemnation of progressivism, his speech is an immediate classic in civics formation,” wrote Andrew Walker, professor of Ethics and Public Theology at Southern Baptist Seminary. “But that the speech’s content is now so foreign, so unfamiliar, to so many, reveals how successful progressivism has been in memory-holing our national inheritance. Progressivism is a civic, moral, and theological cancer. It must be fought against and defeated if there is to be an American order (and moral decency).”

https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/news/2026/05/clarence-thomas-warns-progressivism-threatens-americas-god-given-rights

Sorry Bubba the only cancer on society is your Oreo ass and the ilk that you represent.

BTW….what are those ‘god given rights?’  Name them!

These people like Thomas and his ilk are pathetic and creepy and will lie just to keep their positions in life….time for this one and well all of them to step down and let more competent people take over the Court….these people are doing more harm to this country than anyone they point their fingers at in their BS….

Any thoughts that you would like to share?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Can SCOTUS Be Fixed?

A new year and a new focus on the political hacks we call the Supreme Court.

It is actually functioning as an extension of MAGA these days and it is time for us peasants to realize that it must be changed or replaced.

The justices of the US supreme court – even its conservatives – have traditionally valued their institution’s own standing. John Roberts, the current US chief justice, has always been praised – even by liberals – as a staunch advocate of the court’s image as a neutral arbiter. For decades, Americans believed the court soared above the fray of partisan contestation.

No more.

In Donald Trump’s second term, the supreme court’s conservative supermajority has seized the opportunity to empower the nation’s chief executive. In response, public approval of the court has collapsed. The question is what it means for liberals to catch up to this new reality of a court that willingly tanks its own legitimacy. Eager to realize cherished goals of assigning power to the president and arrogating as much for itself, the conservative justices seemingly no longer care what the public or the legal community think of the court’s actions. Too often, though, liberals are responding with nostalgia for a court that cares about its high standing. There is a much better option: to grasp the opportunity to set right the supreme court’s role in US democracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/19/us-supreme-court-legitimacy

If we agree that something needs to be done with SCOTUS and its drift from neutral arbitrator to MAGA enforcer then what can be done?

There are a few suggestions….

Should Democrats retake the White House in 2028 and have majorities in both chambers of Congress, one legal expert is arguing there are numerous ways the six-member conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) could be brought to heel.

In a Monday essay for Slate, legal writer and attorney Mark Joseph Stern directly addressed a reader’s concern that no matter what laws Democrats may try to pass under a potential new Democratic majority government, the Supreme Court could simply strike those laws down. Stern countered that there are several ways to re-establish Congress’ powers and prevent SCOTUS from acting as an unelected super-legislature.

First, Stern argued that Congress should immediately grant statehood to both Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. as part of a “suite of structural reforms.” He argued this was a necessary step to take in order to make sure that sparsely populated conservative states like South Dakota and Wyoming aren’t over-represented in Congress (both territories have already passed statehood resolutions, meaning all Congress needs to do is pass a bill to admit them).

“Remember, the senators who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court represented fewer people than the senators who voted to oppose him,” Stern wrote. “That is a huge structural problem that Congress can fix.”

Second, Stern proposed that Congress pass a law that would require the Supreme Court to have a 7-2 supermajority to strike down any legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the president. He noted that the Nebraska and North Dakota state constitutions already have amendments requiring a supreme court supermajority in order to toss out any laws, and called on a potential future Democratic government to “put it in there that the law cannot be struck down unless seven justices agree that it’s unconstitutional.”

Stern also advocated for imposing a strict time limit on the judicial review process, calling the Supreme Court to no longer be able to evaluate the constitutionality of any new laws more than one calendar year after their passage. He observed that the Supreme Court’s 2012 review of the Affordable Care Act took place after Democrats had already lost their majority in the House of Representatives in 2010, and that a one-year limit would mean that Congress’ partisan makeup would still be the same if the Court threw out any laws passed by that Congress and lawmakers wanted to try passing the law again.

The Slate author described these proposed reforms as a “good-faith effort by Democrats to recalibrate the balance of power by reestablishing Congress’ primacy and diminishing the Supreme Court’s untouchable supremacy.” However, he allowed for the possibility that these reforms may fall short. In that event, he called on Democrats to “add four seats” and pack the Supreme Court with new Democratic appointees.

“The current Republican justices have already shredded adherence to precedent. A future liberal majority should say no to unilateral disarmament and apply the same rules,” Stern wrote. “That is how Democrats put the court back in its place: by undoing its attacks on democracy and restoring the constitutional settlement the Roberts court has spent years dismantling.”

(alternet.org)

I do not think much will change (for now) no matter what happens in November.

Personally I think it is beyond time to put these smug bastards in their place or rid ourselves of their stench completely.

But that is just me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS: Political Hacks

This past session of the all powerful SCOTUS I believe that they have proved my point that they are nothing but political hacks.

But the one ruling that meant the most was their neutering the lower courts….

President Trump quickly celebrated Friday’s ruling by the Supreme Court that drastically limits the power of federal judges to impose national injunctions on his policies. The case in question involved his executive order to undo birthright citizenship—the idea that anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen—but Trump suggested at a news conference that he would press his advantage on a range of issues:

  • He mentioned funding for sanctuary cities, bans on the use of federal money for transgender surgeries, and the suspension of refugee settlement programs, reports the Washington Post. “We have so many of them,” Trump said. “I have a whole list.”
  • Trump said he would “promptly file” to advance other issues that have been blocked in similar fashion, per the AP.
  • To be clear, the court didn’t rule directly on Trump’s plan to undo birthright citizenship, but it found that federal judges who imposed nationwide bans on the policies in the interim went too far. Such bans should only apply to their jurisdictions, the court ruled. The upshot is that Trump “opponents will have to jump through additional hoops to try to shut down policies on a nationwide basis,” per CNN.
  • Trump called the ruling “giant,” adding, “Our country should be very proud of the Supreme Court today,” per the New York Times. He lavished particular praise on Justice Amy Coney Barrett, author of the majority opinion. “I just have great respect for her,” he said when asked about criticism of her by some of his supporters. “I always have. And her decision was brilliantly written today—from all accounts.”
  • Attorney General Pam Bondi also praised the court for ruling against what she called “lawless injunctions” imposed by federal judges: “They turned district courts into the imperial judiciary.” Bondi also expressed confidence the court would eventually rule in favor of ending birthright citizenship as well, probably in October.

The criminals on the Court are assisting in the destruction of the whole checks and balances thing that has proved needed for this country to progress.

The Roberts court has driven one of the last nails in the coffin that use to be a thriving republic…..to them it appears that the Constitution means nothing….only political ideology.

…

John Roberts has spent his fundamentally hypocritical career bleating to the press about how much he values the Court’s reputation and seeks to protect it, all while making shambolically corrupt rulings proving it to be a legally and morally illegitimate institution. He was advertised to us by the Very Serious people during the Bush Administration as a Very Serious man we should be excited about who won’t let the Court go off the rails, then Roberts let some of the most corrupt people to ever exist in Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas serve as his North Stars. Roberts’ entire legal doctrine is “whatever daddy Trump wants,” proving him to be more unserious than Trump in many ways, as there is at least a cynical honesty to Trump’s politics that Roberts is too much of a duplicitous coward to admit to.

But perhaps now he is admitting to his and the conservatives’ staggeringly cynical worldview that the Constitution enshrined Trump’s id above the Bill of Rights. From the moment Roberts gave Trump immunity, it has become clearer and clearer with each ruling that the Roberts Court does not seek to rein Trump in, but to torch the Constitution and replace it with Trump as King. The Roberts Court’s entire theory of jurisprudence is antithetical to the intellectual Constitutional framework that at least attempts to provide a legal foundation for its depraved views on the worth of Black people. The Roberts Court is just naked authoritarianism that even doesn’t pretend to be anything else. These six hacks are out here contradicting themselves from a year ago, plainly showing the entire world what kind of people they are and what they truly value and how little the law actually means to them.

Trump has completely usurped Congress’s power (which the Republicans were happy to abdicate, because the lone commonality among the GOP is abandoning all your principles and personal ambitions to get in line to lick dear leader’s boot), and the Roberts Court is now helping him do it to the judiciary. It’s clear as day that if Trump asks Roberts to start repealing Amendments, Roberts simply would ask how many his master would like.

https://www.splinter.com/republicans-have-turned-the-supreme-court-into-an-illegitimate-institution

The elimination of any opposition the court has given Donny the power to do as he wants and the country can go get screwed.

“I agree, Judge Sotomayor, no right is safe under the new regime, not even the ones clearly guaranteed under our Constitution.”

I am so proud what the voters have done to this country (sarcasm in case you missed it)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Butt Licker To The Rescue

Just days ago the US Court of International Trade put a whammy on Donny’s dreams of harsh tariffs on the world…..and yesterday a Trumpite came to the rescue.

President Trump’s tariffs were reinstated by a federal appeals court ruling on Thursday. The court’s ruling came after a second federal court found that an emergency powers law does not give Trump authority to enact tariffs, and that most of the ones he’s already ordered after invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unlawful.

  • US District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that the law does not permit the president to “unilaterally impose, revoke, pause, reinstate, and adjust tariffs to reorder the global economy,” the Hill reports. The US Court of International Trade reached the same conclusion on Wednesday.
  • The appeals court didn’t rule on the merits of the tariffs or the trade court’s ruling, but granted an emergency request to hold up the ruling, allowing Trump to keep collecting the tariffs while the issue is being decided in the courts, per the AP.
  • The Justice Department asked two sets of judges to let the Trump administration proceed with its tariffs, per the New York Times. If need be, administration officials had said they’d ask the Supreme Court on Friday for emergency relief, per the Washington Post.
  • After the 33-page ruling by Contreras, who was appointed by Barack Obama, for the DC District Court, the government filed another appeal. His ruling gave the government 14 days to appeal before it took effect, meaning the tariffs are still in place for now.
  • White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that there are “other legal authorities” Trump could use to impose tariffs, per the Guardian, and that he “is willing to use those.” She criticized what she called “a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision-making process.”
  • The Guardian notes that only three of the 11 judges who granted the stay were appointed by Republican presidents. After the ruling, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro blasted the 12 states that sued as elitist Democratic coastal states, though Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota aren’t on either coast and the first two voted for Trump last year.

A loyal visitor to IST asked if this could be settled by the Supreme Court…..and I answered that I did not know for sure….and now the answer is yes if could be settled by SCOTUS.

SCOTUS has been in Trump’s corner for many of its rulings….so the pathetic tariff question will be answered by a pack of political hacks.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

An “Ethical Crisis”

For years now many of us here in the blogosphere have been telling the world that there was a moral and ethical crisis within our Supreme Court….now a report has been issued but it will be attacked as misinformation and just naysayers popping off.

Some of the judges have been taking favors from special interests and some have been openly partisan and others….well you get the jest….

The report of which I spoke….

A report released Saturday by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee after a 20-month investigation declares the Supreme Court “has mired itself in an ethical crisis of its own making.” The report lists a series of ethical lapses and failures and estimates the value of gifts accepted by Justice Clarence Thomas in the millions of dollars. “The number, value, and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” the report says, per the Washington Post. Those gifts sometimes came from people with issues before the court, it adds.

Congress needs to enact an enforceable ethics code that would provide for an independent panel to review complaints, the report says. The committee approved such a bill this year along party lines, per NBC News, but Republicans prevented a Senate vote. “It’s clear that the justices are losing the trust of the American people at the hands of a gaggle of fawning billionaires,” Chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement. Republicans on the committee did not take part in the investigation.

The report lists previously documented gifts as well as free travel by Thomas that hadn’t been disclosed, including a yacht trip to New York City sponsored by Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and Thomas benefactor. Thomas did not answer investigators’ inquiries but previously maintained he wasn’t obligated to report many gifts because they were covered by a “personal hospitality” exemption in force at the time. As polls have shown its public popularity falling, the court approved an ethics code a year ago, per the Post, that has no enforcement mechanism.

More than few people have been calling for some sort of true reform of SCOTUS….from term limits to retirement age to recusal mandatory when appropriate….things need to change the court is NO longer the ‘referee’ of our government but the spokesman for one party.

This is just a wish list as we head into yet another dismal 4 years and all I can do is just fight back as I see fit.

When I read the report I thought ‘seriously?  How long did it take to come up with this conclusion?  A conclusion that many already have.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Impeach The Bastards!

There has been a lot of lip service to how bad our cracker jack Supreme Court is and now someone has stepped up to try and repair at least some of the damage it has done to our society.

That someone would be AOC….

As promised, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has introduced articles of impeachment in the House against Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. The New York Democrat cited their failure to disclose gifts from people with matters before the court and their refusal to recuse themselves from cases “in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated,” CNN reports. Although impeachment has little chance of going anywhere in the House, given that it’s controlled by Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez called the justices’ behavior a constitutional crisis that requires action. “Congress has a legal, moral, and democratic obligation to impeach,” she said in a statement.

The accusations against Thomas include his lack of recusal from Jan. 6 cases despite the involvement of his wife, Ginni Thomas, in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Ginni Thomas has falsely claimed the election was stolen, per USA Today, including to the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol. The gifts that went unreported include luxury travel. “Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Several Democratic colleagues cosponsored the articles, which CBS News reports are a part of the party’s preelection moves against the court in light of its recent rulings on abortion access, guns, and presidential immunity. A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not immediately comment on the filing.

Before you go off on some diatribe….I realize this has little chance of success but at least someone has the cajones to make a move….for that I salute her.

That was from the House and the Senate has acting on these two slugs as well….

After a slew of jarring stories tying Clarence Thomas to multiple undisclosed gifts, loans, and other perks from ultra-wealthy friends, two Democratic senators are now trying to get to the bottom of it. The Hill reports that Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon have requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint a special counsel to investigate the Thomas allegations, specifically on ethics and tax law fronts. “The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct,” the two senators note in their letter to Garland dated July 3.

Whitehouse and Wyden add that “the scale of the potential ethics violations by Justice Thomas, and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws, exceeds the conduct of other government officials investigated by the Department of Justice for similar violations.” The senators note that Thomas has been given the opportunity to answer questions about what happened, and that he maintained a “suspicious silence” or provided otherwise “uninformative” answers. Whitehouse and Wyden add that although Thomas “has claimed that some omissions were ‘inadvertent,’ and he has amended some past reports accordingly … [he] has not disclosed all of the gifts that have been uncovered, and there may well be more.”

“No government official should be above the law,” the senators conclude. “Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code.” The New York Times notes that their request comes as Senate Democrats “are trying to force Supreme Court justices to comply with stricter ethics and financial disclosure rules.” Last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said changes that would boost public confidence in the high court were on the way, though Chief Justice John Roberts hasn’t exactly seemed to want to discuss that.

Again these efforts will go unfulfilled for we know what cowards there are in our do-nothing Congress.

I salute anyone who has the gravitas to seek justice for the crimes committed by political hacks……where it will it go from here?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Out Of Control

In the last days of June SCOTUS has made several rulings along with other for the past few years that point to it being out of contro0l and partisan when it should be the neutral referee….

Bernie has called for it to be stopped before it does even more harm to our nation…that is if it is not already too late…..

In the aftermath of the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court’s potentially deadly rampage against federal regulators, its ruling in support of the criminalization of homelessness, and its decision to grant former President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Monday that nation’s highest judicial body is “out of control” and must be reined in before it can inflict even more damage.

“Over the years, among other disastrous rulings, this right-wing court has given us Citizens United, which created a corrupt, billionaire-dominated political system,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “It overturned Roe v. Wade, removing women’s constitutional right to control their own bodies. Last week, the court chose to criminalize poverty by banning homeless encampments in public spaces—forcing more poor people into the cycle of debt and poverty.”

“With the Chevron case,” the senator continued, “they have made it far more difficult for the government to address the enormous crises we face in terms of climate change, public health, workers’ rights, and many other areas. And, today, the court ruled in favor of broad presidential immunity, making it easier for Trump and other politicians to break the law without accountability.”

Such far-reaching and devastating decisions, Sanders argued, highlight the extent to which unelected Supreme Court justices—with the backing of right-wing billionaires and corporations bent on sweeping away all regulatory constraints—have arrogated policymaking authority to themselves with disastrous consequences for U.S. society and the world.

“If these conservative justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office,” said Sanders. “At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, billionaire control of our political system, and major threats to the foundations of American democracy, it is clear to me that we need real Supreme Court reform. A strong, enforceable code of ethics is a start, but just a start. We’ll need much more than that.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-supreme-court

SCOTUS has given corporations personhood, taken away the freedom of choice, tied regulators hands in holding corporations accountable for shoddy practices, and went on to making a king for this country….

While I agree that it, SCOTUS, must be stopped from destroying the very fabric of our nation I also recognize that an impartial referee is desperately needed….party politics should have NO bearing on who serves on the court.

So I agree with Bernie these d/bags need to be stopped in whatever way possible.

I cannot think of much more to say about SCOTUS….I have said it all.

Since tomorrow is a holiday there will not be many visitors to IST so let me wish all those people to have a safe and fun day/weekend.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Couple Of Takes On Immunity Thing

Now that it is official on the Trump immunity thing there are a couple of takes (not mine but others….given as a info service)….

The Supreme Court’s blockbuster ruling that presidents have immunity for “official” actions continues to resonate, with all kinds of analysis on what it does and doesn’t mean.

  • Carte blanche: In the view of Elie Mystal at the Nation, the ruling means that a sitting president can go on a crime spree that includes everything from rape to murder without being held accountable. Court defenders will say that’s not the case, because presidents can still be prosecuted for “unofficial” acts, he predicts. “But they will be wrong, because while the Supreme Court says ‘unofficial’ acts are still prosecutable, the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting ‘unofficially.'” Read his full essay, headlined “The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially.”
  • In defense: Fox legal analyst Jonathan Turley defends the decision in the New York Post and accuses liberals and Democrats of “hyperventilation” in their reaction. “The Supreme Court was designed to be unpopular; to take stands that are politically unpopular but constitutionally correct,” he writes. And that’s what happened here: Scholars “have long disagreed where to draw the line on presidential immunity. The court adopted a middle approach that rejected extreme arguments on both sides.” Read his full column.
  • ‘Whims of a king’: The court’s ruling essentially says that Trump is “entitled to immunity from prosecution for crimes he has already committed, and for the ones he intends to commit in the future,” writes Adam Serwer at the Atlantic. “The entire purpose of the Constitution was to create a government that was not bound to the whims of a king,” he adds. But the court’s “self-styled ‘originalists’ … have chosen to put a crown within Trump’s reach, in the hopes that he will grasp it in November.” Read the full piece.
  • The trend: Whatever one’s view of the decision, it illustrates a clear trend in America, writes Charlie Savage in the New York Times: It”adds to the nearly relentless rise of presidential power since the mid-20th century.” His piece explores this, including the differing views on whether the ruling risks putting the president above the law as expressed by Chief Justice John Roberts (it “does not place him above the law; it preserves the basic structure of the Constitution from which that law derives”) and Justice Sonia Sotomayor (“in every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law”). Read the full analysis.

Assassination?  Now there is one I have not heard of and believe me I have heard all the dire predictions and conspiracies that awaits us if/when Trump wins the election.

This political charged ruling is a bad idea….period!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Resign Now!

This is for that political hack that hides behind legal garments….Clarence Thomas.

We know of this past gifts and bribes but apparently that was only the tip of the iceberg….

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took three trips on private jets bankrolled by Harlan Crow that were not disclosed, according to information released Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The information was contained in documents the billionaire Republican donor had turned over to the committee under subpoena over seven years, the Hill reports. Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said the committee is still investigating. The latest finding, he said, “makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment.”

Elliot Berke, an attorney for Thomas, said the three trips came under the “hospitality exemption,” meaning disclosure wasn’t required. The exemption applies as long as the hospitality is extended by “friends who did not have business before the court,” Berke told CNN. The free travel, all on private jets, per the Washington Post:

  • St. Louis to Kalispell, Montana, and a return flight to Dallas in May 2017.
  • Washington, DC, to Savannah, Georgia, and back in March 2019.
  • Washington, DC, to San Jose and back in June 2021.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to require Supreme Court justices to adopt a binding code of conduct, per NBC News

Oh there is so much more to this crook……and the gifts that pay…..

New details of Thomas’ luxury travel emerged from negotiations between the Senate committee—which authorized a subpoena for Crow last year—and the billionaire’s attorneys.

Documents the committee obtained from Crow “revealed travel and gifts that Justice Thomas has failed to disclose to date,” including a May 2017 private jet trip from St. Louis to Kalispell, Montana and a return flight to Dallas; a March 2019 private jet trip from Washington, D.C. to Savannah, Georgia and back; and a June 2021 private jet trip from Washington, D.C. to San Jose, California and back.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that “nearly $4.2 million in gifts and even that wasn’t enough for Justice Thomas, with at least three additional trips the committee found that he has failed to disclose to date.”

“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethical crisis is producing new information—like what we’ve revealed today—and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” said Durbin. “As a result of our investigation and subpoena authorization, we are providing the American public greater clarity on the extent of ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices and the need for ethics reform.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/clarence-thomas-resignation

There so many rotten apples in the SCOTUS basket that it will take a major effort to clean the garbage out.

It is time for Thomas and Alito to resign and make way for some fresh blood….no telling what we would get but anything is better than these two corrupt d/bags.

Alito?

In case you were jerking off and missed the story…..

The fallout continues for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito over the flying of a symbolic upside-down flag outside his house, a debate possibly complicated by a report of another flag carried by Jan. 6 rioters having been displayed at Alito’s beach house. More:

  • Censure: House Democrat Steve Cohen of Tennessee introduced a motion on Tuesday to censure Alito “for knowingly violating the federal recusal statute and binding ethics standards and calling the impartiality of the Supreme Court of the United States into question,” per the Hill.
  • The symbol: The upside-down flag is widely associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement asserting election fraud on behalf of Donald Trump. Alito says it was his wife, not him, who put the flag up in January 2021, as part of a dispute with a neighbor over political yard signs.
  • From GOP: CNN collects quotes from key Republican senators critical of Alito over the controversy. “Bad decision,” said John Thune. “I don’t know how you explain that.” Lindsey Graham told the outlet “it creates a bad image” and “was a mistake.” However, neither called for Alito to recuse himself from Trump- or election-related cases. Mitt Romey said the flag was “unfortunate and we ought to take a look at it,” but another GOP senator, John Cornyn, said “there are more important things to worry about.” Cornyn is in the mix to be the new GOP Senate leader.
  • Democrats: About 50 House Democrats, meanwhile, called on Alito to recuse himself from two upcoming rulings, one on Trump’s immunity from prosecution and the other on Capitol rioters. “Reasonable people will doubt that you can be impartial in deciding whether Mr. Trump should face criminal prosecution for his actions arising from the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter, per the Washington Post. “This indisputable appearance of a conflict of interest requires that you recuse yourself.”
  • Symbol No. 2: Another flag carried to the Capitol by rioters was spotted at Alito’s vacation house in New Jersey last summer, reports the New York Times, which has photos. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag is a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement as well as a plea to make the nation more Christian. It’s also called the Pine Tree flag. Ethics experts again were troubled by a justice taking a public political stance, with one calling it deeply disturbing “when a judge celebrates his predispositions by hoisting them on a flag.” The flag at Alito’s beach house shows up on Google street view.

In case you are not sure4 the judges are suppose to be impartial and these asses fly in the face of justice.

Time for both Alito and Thomas to pack their bags and get the f*ck out of DC…..could we bring back tar and feather as a punishment?

The atmosphere in DC will prevent any change or reform from making the cut….does that not say something about the GOP that fights to keep these slugs on the court

Enough is enough!

Resign Now!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–19Dec23

I love whiners….like Justice Thomas of SCOTUS….it seems he does not think the judges are paid enough….

ProPublica’s deep dive into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial dealings continued on Monday with a new report that describes Thomas as under financial strain in early 2000 “just as he was developing his relationships with a set of wealthy benefactors.” It cites interviews and documents in describing the conversation that allegedly took place in January 2000 as Thomas returned home from a high-end Georgia beach resort where he gave the keynote at a conservative conference.

Friends tell the site Thomas had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to purchase an RV the month prior. He sat beside GOP Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns on the flight home and allegedly discussed his frustration with his $173,600 salary—more than $300,000 in today’s dollars—saying Congress should raise the justices’ pay. If they failed to, Thomas predicted one or more justices would leave within a year or so. As ProPublica puts it, “the lawmaker left the conversation worried that Thomas might resign” and subsequently sent Thomas a letter vowing to look into a bill that would raise Supreme Court salaries. ProPublica has a copy of the letter, and reports Stearns did undertake an effort to raise the issue.

ProPublica reports that in other conversations around the time, Thomas discussed killing the ban on justices giving paid speeches. There was no substantial raise or end to the ban, but ProPublica says the conversations give context to what it has previously reported came next: “Thomas accept[ing] a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court,” though it notes there is “no evidence the justice ever raised the specter of resigning with [those] wealthy benefactors.”

What a whiny titty baby!

He has been sucking at the taxpayers teat for 30 years….and in all that time he has been finding his supplemental pay in  plain brown envelopes from his wealthy patrons.

Move on if you are not happy with your pay….we can do better.

He also said a couple others would leave….I say let the corrupt political hack bastards move on.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”