Not to worry, The Turtle will make up another “rule” to block nominations.
If George Soros bought a pair of old bowling shoes at Sonia Sotomayor’s garage sale, the right would be losing their collective mind.
Yes, and? The court is already Republican. How would that be worse?
At least them, sometimes, the court would be Democratic.
Better, of course, for it to be non partisan, but that ship has long sailed.
I had an absurd mental image where it’d never stop. We’d have hundreds of millions of Supreme Court justices. Maybe the seats would be handed out like Oprah…“You’re a Supreme Court justice! And you’re a Supreme Court justice!”
More seriously, it’s pretty difficult to pack the court that way, so I wouldn’t be too worried about republicans retaliating like that. Retaliating in other ways, sure, but not by expanding the court.
That is a direct result of the system not holding trump, et al, accountable. If/when they do, I’d bet that’d stop. (Not that I’m holding my breath, mind you.)
Twenty years? Why wasn’t this discovered previously? Washington, DC, has more media coverage of the government than anywhere else in the country.
Can’t the senate at least pull him in for a hearing to take him down a notch? There is something in that smug fucking smile of his that just screams he believes he’s untouchable and is the arbiter of the real truth. I think it’s time they learn they may be practically unimpeachable, but they can be humiliated in a public forum.
I’m pretty sure most people here are aware of this effort -
Which, well, yeah, don’t expect to get Republican votes for.
But perhaps this will be ammunition on the funding issue. Fuck all for additional funds for the Supreme court unless they clean up their act? This sort of thing gives a very good reason for Democrats to stand their ground on the issue at least.
“Sorry, no funding for extra security until you do something about CT… talk to him if you want more guards after trashing precedent…”
ETA - we really lack the ability to do much about CT in our current political climate and with the protections of his position, but is the donor at any sort of risk? I doubt it, but wonder if those gifts were declared or written off in any way that the IRS would find questionable…
You can’t be humiliated unless you have a sense of shame.
Sure you can. I guarantee you Trump was humiliated by his lose to Biden. The trick is, you have to tie the humiliation to their ego (with which they are oversupplied) instead of their decency (of which they have none).
Thomas should be humiliated in front of the Senate again. He deserved it the first time too.
Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court was largely propelled by former Senator from Missouri, Jack Danforth, who had worked with Thomas several times.
Danforth has a checkered history. He’s an ordained Episcopal minister who opposes capital punishment. In 2005 he wrote an NY TImes op-ed decrying the takeover of the Republican Party by conservative Christians, and in 2015 he called on the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage.
In 2001 Danforth supported Missouri’s John Ashcroft for U.S. Attorney General. Former Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton said "John Danforth would have been my first choice. John Ashcroft would have been my last choice.”
Danforth was a mentor and supporter of Josh Hawley, who was elected to the Senate in 2018. Hawley famously gave a raised fist salute to the January 6th protestors. Shortly thereafter Danforth said that supporting Hawley in 2018 was the “worst mistake I ever made in my life.”
Danforth should be reevaluating that judgement — I think the Thomas family has raced well in front of Hawley. (And Ashcroft is a very respectable third.)
The Book of Matthew says: "You will know them by their fruits (…) every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.” I’m not sure what kind of tree Danforth is, but the fruit smells as bad as the fertilizer.
I’m a pretty low level decision maker called an Administrative Law Judge. The one thing I remember from training was the clear warning to NEVER say or do anything suggesting you wanted special treatment due to your status. I think they mentioned some idiot trying to get out of a speeding ticket.
Has been pretty easy, as folk haven’t been lobbing gifts at me, but I guess different rules apply for Supremes. (I note, from everything I’ve heard, the Supremes get treated pretty incredibly deferentially in DC. It is telling that that is not enough, and this asshole wants freebies IN ADDITION to being treated like a minor deity.)
For the record, the donor in question claims that CT is just a “close friend” and that he would do the same for anyone that close to him.
Permit me to take that with a grain of salt one meter on a side.
What we need is a law that automatically expands the court by one seat each month, or somesuch, until such time as a Constitutional amendment is passed to create an actual process for choosing Supreme Court justices.
Well-intended, but it doesn’t do anything about the income the judges make from other sources. Which is the whole problem to begin with. If you’re a judge, and get paid millions in bribes, why would you care if your official salary is zero?
Hey, don’t ask me to bring about the perfect world, I already acknowledged the problems with their position and the political climate. But I will suggest that it is vaguely within possibility to deny their funding, especially for their new security demands, in light of those actions.
I don’t think that even matters. It’s still a valuable gift, even if it’s from a close friend, and must be reported.
Turns out, all that guy’s close friends are judges and congressmen.
Just pure coincidence.
But wouldn’t that just hurt the ones who don’t take bribes much more than the ones who do? 
The ones currently demanding it the most seem (emphasis on seem) to be the conservative judges who were getting protests at their homes after they killed RvW.
Fuck them.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/politics/supreme-court-security-budget-request/index.html
The court is also asking for a little more than $3 million to pay for restoration work of the building’s courtyard and a number of fountains on its grounds. The fountain work will include upgrades to the fountains’ mechanical equipment and the installation of pH monitoring controls equipment.
Want a nicer place? Clean up your act.
Now granted, I am absolutely cherry picking. I’m sure that since RWNJ are verifiably more prone to threats of and actual violence, that liberal members of the court could use protection, and some is earmarked for lower court protection as well. But over all, they need to fix their shit.
Not to mention if they pre-impeach the new Wisconsin SCJ on entirely partisan lines, we’re already at the point where the judiciary is likely tarnished for all time nationwide, so, yeah, why fund it more?
Frankly, I see zero good solutions, and while Trump not getting re-elected was good, it has proven to be a finger in the dike moment as anti-democracy efforts by the Republican party have tripled down ever since, specifically so they never have to lose again.
Honest question:
Could he be disbarred?
I know that does not get him off the supreme court but I think it would be worth doing anyway.