Here we go again. Justice John Roberts has been profiting from his position via his wife’s lucrative headhunting.
Jane Roberts was paid more than $10 million by a host of elite law firms, a whistleblower alleges.
At least one of those firms argued a case before Chief Justice Roberts after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Details of Jane Roberts’ work come as Congress struggles to reform the Court’s self-policed ethics.
Here, let’s slather a little more juicy slop into the trough. He refuses to testify about Supreme Court ethics because it might compromise “separation of powers concerns” and “judicial independence.”
Chief Justice John Roberts has notified Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin that he won’t testify at an upcoming hearing on Supreme Court ethics, instead releasing a new statement signed by all nine justices that is meant to provide “clarity” to the public about the high court’s ethics practices.
When will congress learn that you don’t ask the crooks to dictate what the law should be? You tell them.
I’m not sure there’s any ethics violation at all here.
I guess I’d like to know how a judge gets $10 million “ethically”.
Well the money went to the Justice’s wife not the Justice. But still the optics of the Justice’s wife reciving money from someone who has a case before the Court is – well terrible to put it mildly. Justice Roberts should have recused himself at least!!
Also is it not a bit much when the spouse of a Judge uses that fact to get business!!!
Also is it not a problem that the Suipreme Court a much looser and less transparent “Ethic” than the great majority of Judges!!!!
Does anyone really think that the above behavior by a lessor Judge etc., would not deserve sanctions of some kind?
Chief Justice John Roberts has notified Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin that he won’t testify at an upcoming hearing on Supreme Court ethics
Is that so? How about they subpoena his friggin’ arse?
They won’t, of course.
Another justice exposed as (even more) corrupt, and all nine of them tell Congress to stop asking so many questions. For completely innocuous reasons having to do with upholding the independence of the judicial branch, I’m sure.
Which part of this was supposed to be fixed by electing the other presidential candidate, again?
It might be fixed by electing more people who’d be willing to IMPEACH those corrupt clowns. That’s the ONLY thing that will improve Federal judicial ethics.
(Subpoena Roberts? What will anyone do if he ignores it?)
Senators fighting back
https://youtu.be/ObWmJQ845wQ
Good times
I’m really disappointed, to say the least, in Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for signing that statement. I had higher hopes in her being a cut above all the other old farts, and incorruptible. Shame on her.
Impeach them all, or let them resign with a little dignity. There can be no trust or goodwill from any of these justices, sad to say.
We need new, young faces that aren’t Amy blah blah idiot. I’ll be interested to see what Justices Sotomayor and Kagen have to say about this. They’ve been there quite a while. I’ll give KBJ a pass because I don’t think she’s been there long enough to have been sucked into the machine, and she actually seems to be a competent judge. Time will tell, I guess? But yeah, @8, that was not a good look.
It’d be really nice if we could just collectively stop giving a shred of legitimacy and adhering to systems developed by patriarchal white supremacist colonizers over 200 years ago that allows a handful of people such massive amounts of power that directly affects the lives of hundreds of millions.
That’s an easy one to fix. Don’t come and testify, the SCOTUS budget for FY 2024 becomes $1.98.
Congress usually doesn’t have to use such a blunt instrument, for things like the DoD, they’d just not authorize officers and especially general officers, but the power of the checkbook is a very real thing.
So, leave them with a budget that won’t allow the justices to cover their staff payroll or even the utilities.
We could replace them with ChatGPT.
I’m not saying AI would make a great supreme court justice, but one thing it’d be hard for an AI to do is be corrupt. Humans maintain their superiority there.
Marcus #12
There are all sorts of ways to corrupt an AI. Modify iits code is one. If it has been given goals, work out how to subvert them. Filter its inputs. Etc.
Hex #10
Its easy to claim the current system is bad.
If you stop a system be sure a new one will take its place.
Do you have an alternative system, even a scribble note of one?
Balls and strikes? This should be strike three! (Thomas, Gorsuch, Roberts).
Who do you mean by “the other presidential candidate”? And who has said the corruption of the Supreme Court could be fixed by electing any presidential candidate?
Who submits candidates for the SCOTUS to the senate again?
Remember that advice and consent of the Senate thing?
https://www.senate.gov/about/glossary.htm
@ ^ wzrd1 : Apparebntly the ultra-
conservativeregressive Federalist Society. See :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society
Which looks a lot to me like a Conspiracy to pervert the course of Justices by, well, appointing your own baised Justices.
@DanDare #14
The main feature of human societies across time and space has been their diversity.
Vastly different ways to organize, establish relationship and distribute power.
The relative uniformity of liberal nation-states is only a recent phenomenon.
The problem is that we look at ourselves as the pinnacle of civilization and we assume, because we’re told so since we’re born, that there is no better way.
Did you actually stop and consider whether there actually are better systems?
Did you actually try and look around, dig a bit deeper, cast your net wider?
Do you remember Occupy Wall Street?
Their slogan was “A different world is possible”.
I’ll tell you about two experiments, out of many, I’m particularly fond of: Autonomous Chiapas and Rojava/AANES.
Both groups went through fiercely feminist, relatively bloodless revolutions and set up extremely decentralized, federated governments: the main organ of power is the local assemblies where everyone can participate and have their voices hear.
When different assemblies must coordinate, they elect recallable delegates with very narrow mandates that meet in the regional assembly and report back to the local one.
Chiapas has been doing this for… 30 years now? And managed to build the schools and hospitals that the Mexican government never provided.
Rojava has been using the system, which they call “democratic confederalism”, to manage an area of about two millions people: it does work and it does scale.
These are only two examples that developed independently towards very similar solutions, and in both cases decentralization is key, but there are many others.
Of course, the problem is: “how do we get there from where we are” and I don’t have a definite answer: different places and different times will have different answers.
What I think is at least part of the solution, and something that individuals can contribute to, is to push for a culture that sees any accumulation of any kind of power (political, economical, judicial, social and so on) as a threat.
Building mutual-aid networks and decentralized organizations is another important part of the puzzle.
It is, by necessity, a long term project, it is very unlikely that it can succeed in our lifetime, but we can create the bases for this.
SCOTUS = Supreme Corruption of The United States.
Yeah, I know, a bit crude, but it does reflect how I feel about the current court. And the Congress. And our state government. And the police. And just about every church in the land. And the media. And large businesses. And the airline industry. And the tech industry. And Twitter and Facebook. As a matter of fact I don’t trust anyone outside of my immediate family and even then there’s my MAGA sister-in-law in Ohio.
Supreme Court Republicans Of The United States. I’m going to use the acronym for them from now on.
@18, it looks like the article referenced contradicts your assertion, as the group vetted Trump’s list, who submitted it to the Senate, the Federalist Society didn’t present the list to the Senate under threat of machine gun nukes or something.
Yes, it’s a lot on the corrupted side, but POTUS submits candidates to the Senate, who either approve of a candidate or do not approve of said candidate.
Alas, the know nothings are in charge of that mess, controlled by the society’s know nothing misleadership, but history has shown that’s a short lived mess that self-resolves when the populace realize just what a house of horrors and inaction it is.
“When will congress learn that you don’t ask the crooks to dictate what the law should be?”
My guess would be “At some point after we stop electing crooks to congress…”
A bit dated but anyway:
https://youtu.be/IDMdSJJCKzk
New laugh, China has discovered how to make a blimp.
HORRORS!
Next week, we’ll discover black powder.
Seriously, our press sucks, the discovery after balloons partying around things sensitive old news, maybe China will develop a new airplane that has less than sixteen wings…
Since nobody ever heard of logical progression and well, fucking history.
FWIW, PBS Newshour has this report :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senate-probes-supreme-court-ethics-after-questionable-financial-dealings-by-justices
on the SCOTUS ethics issues here.
Just seen that Abe Drayton’s Oceanoxia blog has this post :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2023/05/02/what-did-harlan-crow-get-for-his-gifts-to-clarence-thomas-power/
on the corrupt SCOTUS issue.
Are Justices really to be above the law? Are you ok with that USA?