SCOTUS Focus

 

I don't love that I'm revisiting this again so soon, but the entire Supreme Court has an ethics problem, as in they don't think they've got an ethics problem and they actually should be the first to see it. Their unanimous joint statement of clarity is pretty clear--who is supposed to check them?  

But what if every indicator suggests these mere mortals are not exactly reliably self-checking?

We are called to mind again of the genuine likelihood of conflicts of interest via spousal income--this time in the form of Chief Justice Roberts' wife's $10 million from making job placements with lawyers to assorted law firms. The kind of firms that are going to be heard in her husband's court? Well, yeah, Obviously. 

The sordid story regarding Justice Kavanaugh's 2018 confirmation hearing was also once again revisited today, with the report that his Senate investigation, just like his FBI investigation, was faulty. The GOP Senate never wanted to know the real story with regards to Kavanaugh because it never mattered to them, 

And of course Sam Alito was heard from, because he won't be ignored. He thinks he knows that the Dobbs leaker was definitely not a conservative. Also, he still claims the leak could have gotten him killed.

All I know is, Alito is safe and sound and women are told they need to be near death's door to get health care because of that sanctimonious bullshit decision. Women are suffering, materially harmed and threatened with death, because even nonviable fetuses are given rights over the mother's life. (And Florida goes from 15 weeks--a horror, to 6 weeks, an effective total ban.) He facilitated both higher infant and maternal mortality through his pecksniffery. I can't be bothered with his whinging about whether the court is respected or defended.  His musing about who is at fault for the leak of the decision he wrote is a disgrace when we know he's been happy to run and tell his successes to his little extremist friends before. 

I don't respect him because he doesn't respect real persons over his little imaginary fetal friends, because his very real ideological friends want to control women's bodies and are sloppy with money in all the right places. I don't care if he's influenced or a true believer--I care about the women his stupid decision is harming right now. 

These black-robed arbiters of the law need to also be subject to it, to also be ethical and not appear to be under outside influence. Their umbrage is all too human, but the law sometimes needs to be an ass.

These people on this bench are not representative of We, the People so long as they aren't subject to the kind of guidelines many lower-lever civil servants are, so long as they stay unattached to the idea of the harms their decisions can visit. 

We need to look at who serves this court in a different way. And if we can't impeach Thomas (Gorsuch, Roberts?)  maybe it needs to be expanded to be closer to the people the laws need to protect and serve.