The lawyer who “wrote” this is also the lawyer blocking our investigation into Leonard Leo’s Supreme Court freebies.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 28, 2023
Shows how small and shallow the pool of operatives is around this captured Court — same folks keep popping up wearing new hats. https://t.co/NUaoxpBy8a
I have an opinion about this particular justice that is not nice. Samuel Alito's wife leased land to an oil and gas firm while Alito sat in judgment over the EPA. Alito is no stranger to conflicts of interest--it's just that he isn't interested in discussing the conflict part of it. I have once and forever stated that the definition of "conflict of interest" for conservatives was that if one always has decided in one's own interest, there is never a conflict. And I'm not sure that flippant construction doesn't accurately describe the conservative court.
So what is my take on Alito and his beefing on the idea of checks and balances? Because it boils down to whether Alito thinks he has a say over Congress' ability to set tax law without Congress having an ability to determine whether Alito has any ethical standards he ever has to conform to.
It would seem to me like Alito does not prefer to have any ethical standards pertaining to him by another authority because he understands his situation wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, and if he doesn't like my opinion on that, he can fucking fight me.
He won't and doesn't need to, because in his world, my opinion is an irrelevancy. (Also, I would cream him on his conflicted ass and the legacy of it point by butchered legal point.)
He needs to retire because he's at this point trolling how much SCOTUS doesn't have to conform to any ethical standards and he wants to pretend Congress has nothing at all to do with the configuration of the court or the ethics they need to adhere to. But the Constitution literally does exactly that. Congress can determine how many justices, and even if they can be impeached for their skullduggery.
Weird that he missed that. It feels very intentional.
4 comments:
Funny, your link (last paragraph) to Article III, Section 1 only quotes the first sentence. The entire Section is only two sentences. Here's the first part of the second sentence:
"The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour"
For completeness, the second half of sentence two just says they'll be paid and they'll never be subjected to a pay cut. Okay fine.
I think the bit about holding office DURING GOOD BEHAVIOR might have some important applications in the here and now, but on the other hand maybe I'm just a naive texturalist.
So, if we wanted to talk about what is GOOD BEHAVIOR I guess we would be talking about what? What do you think is good behavior if Justices have financial connections to some of those who appear before them? Are they textualists if they side with where their money lies? There is a good argument for justices to recuse where they have a financial issue.
There is an easy way to ensure that Johnny Roberts and the Supremes pay attention: Cut their budget. The Justices are having staff do research for their side gigs (lectures, bookwriting), so there is an argument that they have too much free time. So cut them.
The Six Supreme Injustices on the Supremacist Court are hoping the Democrats in Congress or President Biden attack them by cutting the budget or some other bureaucratic means; it plays to their strength and would be on their field on battle. It's a mistake. But, doing nothing is no good either. But, as the Court is giving every rightwing fever dream the patina of legalese Republicans & Rightwingers don't care about any overreach and ethical violations. They also consider that when these 6 fvcks die they can undermine any more liberal justice placed on the bench.
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