#us supreme court corruption

[canadianabroadvery]

[politijohn]

Source

[foreverlogical]

[cyarsk52-20]

I'll keep saying it because it's true: the goal of the Roberts Court is to eradicate equal rights and delegitimize the courts. Expand/ change/ get rid of the corrupt judges of the supreme courts

[centaurianthropology]

I very much hope that the six supreme court justices that voted to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people--despite the original complaint being completely fabricated--get treated to a lifetime of businesses discriminating against them.  I hope that every time one of them walks into a restaurant or requests a service, they are told that they have to leave because “we don’t serve your kind here”.  

It’s only fair for those fucking ghouls to reap what they sow.

[tomorrowusa]

How the Republican Supreme Court is celebrating the holiday.

We ourselves should celebrate by brushing up on SCOTUS corruption and conflict of interest.

Here's an interactive SCOTUS corruption graphic. It's best viewed on medium and larger screens for detail.

Supreme Court Corruption June 27, 2023 • Corrupt Supreme Court

[contemplatingoutlander]

The conservatives on the Supreme Court are behaving like autocrats now, vacating lower court rulings at will, without explanation. It is time that the country rise up and demand changes on how the Supreme Court operates. We cannot let 5 corrupt conservative justices have this much power. 

Here are some excerpts from this opinion column:

The Supreme Court is increasingly setting aside legally significant decisions from the lower courts as if they had never happened, invalidating them in brief procedural orders. The pace of these actions has increased in the past 22 months, neutralizing important civil rights and civil liberties decisions.

Reasoned opinions by the federal appeals courts on issues ranging from voting rights to Donald Trump’s border wall have been wiped from the books, leaving no precedent for the lower federal courts to follow. Legally, it is as if these decisions by the appeals courts, one rung below the Supreme Court, had never existed. The Supreme Court’s final, unilateral exercises of power in these cases have gone largely unreported. [...] But when the Supreme Court vacates a lower court decision, that decision is erased, and any subsequent litigation on the issue must begin anew. Since January 2021, soon after Amy Coney Barrett took her seat on the Supreme Court, expanding the conservative majority, the court has relied on a 1950 decision to vacate 13 politically and legally significant decisions issued by federal appeals courts. That case, United States v. Munsingwear, held that when a case becomes moot during an appeal — meaning there is no longer a continuing controversy — the justices can vacate the decision with an order known as a vacatur.

The recent flurry of Munsingwear vacaturs is sharply at odds with the pace of past court practice. Since a 1994 Supreme Court decision scaled back the use of the Munsingwear precedent, the court has cited the case only 48 times to vacate lower court decisions, according to our research. Slightly more than half of those actions have occurred in just the past five years, after the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch, which maintained a 5-to-4 conservative majority. More than a quarter have come in the past 22 months, with the conservatives holding a 6-to-3 majority. [...] In 12 of the 13 lower court rulings vacated by the justices in the past 22 months, the court erased decisions that seemed to align with progressive values and objectives:

Two that granted standing to plaintiffs suing Mr. Trump for violations of the emoluments clauses by profiting from his hotels and restaurants.

One that held that Mr. Trump could not block critics on his Twitter account.

One that allowed states to be sued directly under the Voting Rights Act.

Two that allowed Pennsylvania election boards to count undated ballots or to extend mailing deadlines for ballots during the pandemic.

Two that tossed out work requirements approved by the Trump administration for beneficiaries to receive Medicaid.

One that held that the House of Representatives had standing to sue the executive branch for violations of its appropriations power in connection with Mr. Trump’s border wall.

One that prohibited the Trump administration from returning asylum seekers to Mexico under its Migrant Protection Protocols.

One that allowed the House Judiciary Committee to obtain redacted grand jury materials in its impeachment case of Mr. Trump.

One upholding a preliminary injunction against an executive order issued by the governor of Tennessee during the pandemic blocking abortion procedures for three weeks.

[,,,] In recent months, many scholars have noted the court’s seeming disregard for precedent in big, headline cases, such as its overturning of Roe v. Wade on abortion. In the months ahead, the court may well overrule other longstanding decisions. But at least in such cases, the justices will offer their reasoning.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Steve Benen

By any fair measure, Justice Clarence Thomas was already one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most controversial members, even before this year got underway. But in recent months, the far-right jurist has faced a series of ethics questions that he and his allies have struggled to answer.

Over the last three months, ProPublica has taken the lead on exposing Thomas’ unusual and previously undisclosed ties to a Republican megadonor. Over the weekend, The New York Times took the story considerably further.

At the heart of the story is an organization with a name that’s probably unfamiliar to most Americans, but which counts among its members an exclusive group of powerful and wealthy elites:

“On Oct. 15, 1991, Clarence Thomas secured his seat on the Supreme Court, a narrow victory after a bruising confirmation fight that left him isolated and disillusioned. Within months, the new Justice enjoyed a far-warmer acceptance to a second exclusive club: the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, named for the Gilded Age author whose rags-to-riches novels represented an aspirational version of Justice Thomas’s own bootstraps origin story.”

According to the Times’ account, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, it was quite a pairing, as the Supreme Court Justice found a home alongside “a cluster of extraordinarily wealthy, largely conservative members who lionized him.”

The non-profit organization, which awards scholarships and promotes members’ “economic opportunity” ideals, has benefited from the association with Thomas. From the article:

“While he has never held an official leadership position, in some ways he has become the association’s leading light. He has granted it unusual access to the Supreme Court, where every year he presides over the group’s signature event: a ceremony in the courtroom at which he places Horatio Alger medals around the necks of new lifetime members. One entrepreneur called it “the closest thing to being knighted in the United States.””

Just so we’re clear, when the Times mentioned “the courtroom,” it was referring specifically to the Supreme Court’s interior chamber where Justices sit and hear oral arguments.

“The association has used access to the court ceremony and related events in the annual gathering to raise money for scholarships and other programming, according to fund-raising records reviewed by The Times,” the report added.

As for Thomas, he’s received benefits of his own, beyond simply enjoying the camaraderie of like-minded allies who were eager to celebrate him. The Times’ account highlighted the degree to which the Justices’ associations with the association’s members “brought him proximity to a lifestyle of unimaginable material privilege.”

The result was relationships in which Thomas’ Horatio Alger friends “have welcomed him at their vacation retreats, arranged V.I.P. access to sporting events and invited him to their lavish parties.”

Remember, over the last few months, the Supreme Court Justices’ principal problem was his relationship with Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, and the generosity the GOP megadonor has shown Thomas. But what the Times appears to have uncovered is a similar problem multiplied several times: Thomas “has received benefits — many of them previously unreported — from a broader cohort of wealthy and powerful friends,” thanks to his connections established through the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.

Among the benefits: In 2016, an HBO film brought Anita Hill’s allegations against Thomas back to the fore. Soon after, a documentary titled “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” designed to defend the Justice, was released.

It was financed in part by Thomas’ Horatio Alger pals.

The Justice has not yet responded to the allegations raised by the Times.

[cctinsleybaxter]

small piece of good news I just found out about; the state of Illinois has eliminated cash bail

[queerism1969]

[canadianabroadvery]

WHEN ANTONIN SCALIA WAS FOUND dead at Cibolo Creek Ranch in a remote area of West Texas, officials said then that Scalia was there at the invitation of the ranch’s owner, John Poindexter.

Most of his companions, numbering a dozen or so, were not publicly identified.

Would you believe us that it was because they are members of a centuries-old, all-male, secret society of elite hunters?

It emerged Wednesday that among those people, however, were, in fact, members of a centuries-old all-male secret society of elite hunters, known as the International Order of St. Hubertus, the Washington Post reported. Scalia himself does not appear to have been a member, though the Post reported that Poindexter and C. Allan Foster, a prominent lawyer, held leadership positions in the group. Foster had traveled by private plane to the ranch with Scalia.

Scalia spent the night of February 12th with Foster, Poindexter and others at the ranch, eating dinner with Poindexter before retiring to bed and later dying in his sleep. It’s unclear what ties Scalia had to the order, though Poindexter said that he had “no connection” to the group. 

“There is nothing I can add to your observation that among my many guests at Cibolo Creek Ranch over the years some members of the International Order of St. Hubertus have been numbered,” Poindexter tells the Washington Post. “I am aware of no connection between that organization and Justice Scalia.”

The ranch, known for its remoteness and discretion, would be appear to be a good fit for the secretive order, which was founded in 1695 by Count Franz Anton von Sporck in the Kingdom of Bohemia, or what is now the Czech Republic, according to its website, which also outlines a colorful history for the all-male group.

The order was banned by Hitler in Germany after refusing to accept Nazis as members, their website says, also claiming that members of the order hunted food for rural populations in Austria during World War II, “avoiding not only famine but helping to save the country to falling behind the Iron Curtain.”

The order appears to touch on many of Scalia’s interests, which included not just hunting but also opera.

“Count von Sporck was also a prominent patron of music, having commissioned numerous Vivaldi operas and the four Bach minor Masses for performance at his private Opera House in Prague,” the order’s website says.

The order is named for St. Hubertus, the patron saint of hunters, as well opticians, mathematicians, and metalworkers. Its motto is “Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes,” which translates to “Honoring God by honoring His creatures.”

The United States chapter of the order was established in 1966 at San Francisco’s Bohemian Club, which hosts Bohemian Grove, one of the most famous secret societies in the world.

The ranch, which has also hosted other politicians and public figures over the years, including Mick Jagger, has hosted the group before.

In 2010, CultureMap Houston reported, the ranch hosted 53 members for a hunting expedition.

“Poindexter reports that some of the players went so far as to dress in traditional European shooting attire for the boxed bird shoot competition and for the driven pheasant and chukar shoot, highlight of the sporting events,” CultureMap Houston said.

[politijohn]

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Nothing to see here!

[cyarsk5230]

Fuck you. If Democrats don't win, Republicans wins, and that's a negative for everyone. So fuck you, I'm voting Democrat til I can't anymore.

[cyarsk52-20]

Six years ago, some of y'all f..ked around and didn't vote for Hillary, and Roe v. Wade was overturned, and now affirmative action has ended. So stop f..king around with "Biden is too old," or "I am not going to vote unless..." before this sh.t turns into The Handmaid's Tale.

[cyarskj52]

Right? She hasn't been wrong once

[cyarskj1899]

SCOTUS majority Republican goal is to roll America back to a time when there was No Equal Rights, No Voting Rights, No Women’s Rights, and no Gay Rights. A time where only WHITE MEN had the rights, and you dumb MFQUERS who voted Trump who are minorities, gave them the power! You sluted out and you’re paying the price. Choke please!