I find the fact that Republicans view attempts to fight corruption as a partisan is very telling. It might lead one to think that corruption was a key component of one of the parties platform.
Look, the time to talk about ethics standards is not when Republicans are violating common ethical standards.
/s
And since fucking when do Supreme Court justices require a codified, printed out, and stuck to the fridge list of ethical standards?? What the living, jumping fuck?
Yeah - you would think that, wouldn’t you?
Funny you say that, as much of the rhetoric on the right recently has been on impeaching Biden.
For what, you may ask? Well, they’ll get back to you on that.
The important thing is that they have a whistleblower, and it will be just as big as Hunter’s laptop or the Durham investigation.
Meanwhile, millions of dollars of bribes, knowingly covered up by Thomas (e.g. He declared a few ticky-tack gifts, but explicitly left out the big payments and the salary for his wife)…yeah IOKWARDI
They also dismiss the allegations against Trump by claiming that they are partisan. They don’t understand that that’s a feature of our system, not a bug.
When you run for, or accept a position in the government, you’re going to get increased scrutiny from the opposition and from the press. That is how we, the people, ensure that the people in the government are acting in our interest, and not their own. The standards for correct behavior are high. They should be. When you get caught, the answer is not to complain about the people who were looking into your activities.
If you don’t want people calling you an unethical scumbag, behave ethically, or stay out of government.
It’s not clear to me these are “gifts”. If someone wants me to give a presentation, they better plan on getting me there, putting me up, and feeding me or giving me per diem.
Booooo! I saw 68 new posts in this thread and got all excited that something happened. Alas.
Nothing is going to happen. The Supreme Court is more untouchable than Elliott Ness. Even Henry Hill wouldn’t rat them out. Alito or Kavanaugh could kill someone in session and no one would give them up, nor would they be impeached.
Stranger
To what end is Harlan Crow being so generous?
Why is this question unanswerable?
In almost any other corruption case, you can point to the thing received for the bribe. You can point to the official action or inaction.
The reason it is unanswerable is because there is no obvious corrupt reason for Harlan Crow to be generous to the Thomases.
And how would the answer to that help us determine corruption. Sotomayor received a lot of gifts and I doubt she would have received any of them if she wasn’t a federal judge.
The violation is not that these gifts were offered or received. The violation is that these gifts were not reported. You are allowed to receive gifts from friends I think.
Right. Failing to report them is a violation. Why didn’t Thomas report them? That he knew they gave the appearance of corruption is a likely answer.
Honestly, the luxury vacation should have been reported, but it seems like the sort of thing someone might actually do for a friend. I’ve driven well out of my way to give a friend a ride in my car. If i were in the habit of flying in a private jet, i might have it pick up my friends to take them to my summer house to visit me. But buying his useless land, paying for his (grand?) child’s private school… friends don’t do stuff like that.
Apparently you do not appreciate the value of influencing a decision-maker to have a generally favorable attitude towards one’s interests. Many (most?) of us do not perceive a need for a direct link to a decision in a specific case. Instead, HC will benefit if a justice consistently favors HC’s social and business interests.
You’ve never had/been a friend in a situation where the friend’s interests/wants were given the benefit of the doubt - perhaps more benefit of the doubt than they would’ve merited from an objective disinterested decision-maker? If not, I suggest you are exceptional.
I - and I suspect others - understand your perspective. We don’t agree with it or think it reflects reality or human nature, but we understand it.
Things sure have changed, haven’t they? I recall watching Gone With the Wind, where Rhett Butler was rejected by society as a war profiteer. Contrast that with Cheney/Halliburton etc. And how quaint that Gary Hart bowed out of the race, or Wilbur Mills, or - heck - Al Franken. And the idea that a politician/judge ought to resist profiting from their office.
Judges are supposed to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The reason he didn’t disclose all of this is that he knew it looked improper. Otherwise why hide it, if it is all above board and no big deal? Why not just be open and honest about all these years of financial support if it’s totally unremarkable?
If you think none of this appears improper, then you are a hopeless partisan and are just rooting for your team no matter the consequences to the legitimacy of the court or our pillars of Democracy. Motivated reasoning is really easy to see when you aren’t blinded by it.
I’ve been convinced that that is a concept that is applied far from consistently. Instead, it is carged for political reasons. Perhaps it has always been so. But a case like this doesn’t seem even close - whatever one’s political persuasion.
I really want to know what the Venn diagram looks like of those who have complained about the influence of George Soros vs those who are excusing all of this. I’ll bet it’s a circle.
Even if Thomas never let these gifts influence his decisions, the fact that does not understand how it looks really, really bad means that he is not smart enough to be a Supreme Court justice.
I learned about the whole “appearance of impropriety “ thing when I was an 18 year old Airman Basic. It’s really not a difficult concept.
No, he’s smart enough to know he is above the law.
Career pubic employee here, recalling the annual ethics reminders describing such horrendous situations as when “a pizza just appears”! :D. (Never had that happen personally!) And - IIRC - the idea of a pen or coffee mug with a $10 limit was pretty consistently drummed into us.
This IS NOT something someone w/ CT’s track record could be ignorant of. It isn’t even close.