I'm not sure how or why SCOTUS was set up with no accountability. These are flawed people like all of us. Thomas and Alito, in my opinion, should be impeached and removed from the Supreme Court. They are traitors to our Rule of Law, our Democracy and our Republic. I realize in order to accomplish this, we need to win in November. My prayers and hope is that we win and kick these awful people to the curb. Vote Blue!!!
Thank you for your information. I wonder if anything will be done about Alito and Thomas. I don't see how, since MAGA Republicans see nothing wrong with what these men are doing. Doesn't it take a majority in Congress to make changes? Forgive my ignorance. I'm still trying to make sense of all that goes on in politics. All that is happening is scary to me, which is why I appreciate knowledgeable people such as yourself.
We're all just trying to work our way through this. For so long we have been deceived by so many judges (including Justice Alito) about what our Constitution means that it takes some time to to figure it out. As for what we can do, I think we can (and should try to) prompt Congress to action by focusing more on principles and powers than on party. The people who designed the Constitution were smart and clever. They designed the Constitution to make many different actors be each other's rivals to make them all a better team (a team of rivals, to borrow an excellent phrase from Doris Kearns Goodwin). Justice Alito threw down a challenge that both parties in Congress should take up in defense of their own powers and ours.
I agree that we must wake up to this challenge. Democracy and our Constitution, designed for democratic rule, depends on participation. Too many, it seems, just expect from the country; they selfishly expect it to provide for them and not others, clueless as to the connection we have to one another.
JFK said "ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country". And he had an even broader vision: what this country can do for the world ( in example). Right now it's negative. Right now there is a dangerous disease amongst us spreading out of vulnerability and not knowing , a selfishness, partisanship which is frighteningly uncaring about us as a whole.
Wordsworth wrote: "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers" This has a lot to do with it. But it's not the whole story. There is a lying hateful nastiness to Trump's screed. If we don't rise out of this and dominate it, we are lost.
We absolutely need 13 justices to reflect the 13 circuit courts. This is a crucial point. Above all, there must be a vigorous effort to enforce ethics regulations. Lifetime terms must also be reevaluated. In conclusion, we undeniably have a dysfunctional court run by a radicalized and/or aggrieved set of justices who are determined to resist the tide of progress and history using the tools of the federal judiciary.
You're right that size matters. SCOTUS is so small that the Court, as well as its size, too often prove to be not much more than ridiculous. As small as this nation and our population were in 1789, SCOTUS had 6 justices. It's absurd to pretend that 9 somehow can suffice to support and defend our Constitution in a nation this size with all the judges we have. Too many judges attack and undermine our Constitution, and (too often) SCOTUS just lets them. Many thousands of petitions are filed with SCOTUS every year, but SCOTUS addresses only a tiny fraction. Too often, SCOTUS justices choose to defend only what a majority want to defend.
Alito and Thomas think of themselves as Untouchable in the Elliot Ness sense. There is a far older sense in which the term applies, that epitomizes the concept "beneath contempt."
So for the sake of conversation regarding Alito and Thomas, suppose either or both of these guys were involved in some extra-legal activity and that they were prosecuted and found guilty of whatever crime or action with which they were charged. And continuing this thread, suppose they appealed and appealed and eventually their case(s) arrived on the doorstep of the Supreme Court. And following the reasoning regarding recusals could we extrapolate that they could sit in judgement of themselves or each other? The absurdity of this underscores the need for a meaningful and enforceable set of rules for all jurists regardless of the level of their office. Even the lame rules at the Supreme Court are pretty clear as to the restrictions of its members. But without enforcement or at least some level of supervision by the Chief Justice it’s pretty much a joke. If readers feel the same way I do, then allowing Donald Trump back into the White House to perpetuate the insanity of freewheeling, politicized judges and justices is in and to itself, insane. Vote blue to preserve our democracy!
The only checks and balances the Christofascist judges are interested in is their own bank accounts. We have a corrupted Supreme Court run by Christofascist Oligarchs. The court represents the paper intellectuals of fascism. Who can't wait to make things all white again. Clarence just wants to be accepted as one of the White guys. Poor Clarence, but that's why he married into a family of bigots. He'll show us. The rest are just creepers I would ignore at a dinner party. God can't help us. He went out for a pack of smokes and never came back. I read today in the Guardian, that 51% of Scottish people don't believe in religion anymore. There's hope out there. Vote Blue and save democracy.
From the article: "Alito seemed to be saying that if you prosecute Trump for refusing to leave office after his election loss, future presidents will also refuse to leave office for fear of prosecution."
HIs stance here is so bizarre, as if he expects all presidents to act like Trump while in office. Future presidents will probably not commit crimes in office to the extent that Trump did, will probably not be impeached twice during one 4-year term, nor run the presidency like a mob family. It's quite curious that he thinks they will.
If you would like to see more about Justice Alito's lies and how Justice Alito lies about our Constitution, consider what he wrote and did in his opinion on May 23 in Alexander v. S.C. State Conf. of the NAACP. In the second piece below, I start to show how Justice Alito is lying about federal judges being required to have "faith" in the "good" intentions of state legislators (even when they admit their bad intentions).
I'm not sure how or why SCOTUS was set up with no accountability. These are flawed people like all of us. Thomas and Alito, in my opinion, should be impeached and removed from the Supreme Court. They are traitors to our Rule of Law, our Democracy and our Republic. I realize in order to accomplish this, we need to win in November. My prayers and hope is that we win and kick these awful people to the curb. Vote Blue!!!
SCOTUS definitely was not set up with no accountability. I just wrote a piece refuting Justice Alito's lie about this very issue. https://open.substack.com/pub/blackcollarcrime/p/speaking-of-justice-alitos-lies?r=30ufvh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you for your information. I wonder if anything will be done about Alito and Thomas. I don't see how, since MAGA Republicans see nothing wrong with what these men are doing. Doesn't it take a majority in Congress to make changes? Forgive my ignorance. I'm still trying to make sense of all that goes on in politics. All that is happening is scary to me, which is why I appreciate knowledgeable people such as yourself.
We're all just trying to work our way through this. For so long we have been deceived by so many judges (including Justice Alito) about what our Constitution means that it takes some time to to figure it out. As for what we can do, I think we can (and should try to) prompt Congress to action by focusing more on principles and powers than on party. The people who designed the Constitution were smart and clever. They designed the Constitution to make many different actors be each other's rivals to make them all a better team (a team of rivals, to borrow an excellent phrase from Doris Kearns Goodwin). Justice Alito threw down a challenge that both parties in Congress should take up in defense of their own powers and ours.
I agree that we must wake up to this challenge. Democracy and our Constitution, designed for democratic rule, depends on participation. Too many, it seems, just expect from the country; they selfishly expect it to provide for them and not others, clueless as to the connection we have to one another.
JFK said "ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country". And he had an even broader vision: what this country can do for the world ( in example). Right now it's negative. Right now there is a dangerous disease amongst us spreading out of vulnerability and not knowing , a selfishness, partisanship which is frighteningly uncaring about us as a whole.
Wordsworth wrote: "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers" This has a lot to do with it. But it's not the whole story. There is a lying hateful nastiness to Trump's screed. If we don't rise out of this and dominate it, we are lost.
"He told Bream a neighbor had put up a sign that said 'Fuck Trump,' and it was 50 feet from a children’s bus stop."
An interesting concern, given that no kids would be present at said bus stop due to remote learning in Jan of 2021.
We absolutely need 13 justices to reflect the 13 circuit courts. This is a crucial point. Above all, there must be a vigorous effort to enforce ethics regulations. Lifetime terms must also be reevaluated. In conclusion, we undeniably have a dysfunctional court run by a radicalized and/or aggrieved set of justices who are determined to resist the tide of progress and history using the tools of the federal judiciary.
You're right that size matters. SCOTUS is so small that the Court, as well as its size, too often prove to be not much more than ridiculous. As small as this nation and our population were in 1789, SCOTUS had 6 justices. It's absurd to pretend that 9 somehow can suffice to support and defend our Constitution in a nation this size with all the judges we have. Too many judges attack and undermine our Constitution, and (too often) SCOTUS just lets them. Many thousands of petitions are filed with SCOTUS every year, but SCOTUS addresses only a tiny fraction. Too often, SCOTUS justices choose to defend only what a majority want to defend.
This somewhat long Vox article on Justice Alito is well worth the read.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/350339/samuel-alito-republican-party-scotus
The only way the Supreme Court will get an enforceable ethics code is when a liberal justice does something as brazen as Thomas and Alito.
Alito and Thomas think of themselves as Untouchable in the Elliot Ness sense. There is a far older sense in which the term applies, that epitomizes the concept "beneath contempt."
Thank you for writing about Justice Alito's serial attacks on our Constitution! But please don't perpetuate the falsehood that federal judges have "lifetime appointments." That only supports Justice Alito's lie about Congress not having the power to regulate SCOTUS justices. https://open.substack.com/pub/blackcollarcrime/p/speaking-of-justice-alitos-lies?r=30ufvh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
So for the sake of conversation regarding Alito and Thomas, suppose either or both of these guys were involved in some extra-legal activity and that they were prosecuted and found guilty of whatever crime or action with which they were charged. And continuing this thread, suppose they appealed and appealed and eventually their case(s) arrived on the doorstep of the Supreme Court. And following the reasoning regarding recusals could we extrapolate that they could sit in judgement of themselves or each other? The absurdity of this underscores the need for a meaningful and enforceable set of rules for all jurists regardless of the level of their office. Even the lame rules at the Supreme Court are pretty clear as to the restrictions of its members. But without enforcement or at least some level of supervision by the Chief Justice it’s pretty much a joke. If readers feel the same way I do, then allowing Donald Trump back into the White House to perpetuate the insanity of freewheeling, politicized judges and justices is in and to itself, insane. Vote blue to preserve our democracy!
The only checks and balances the Christofascist judges are interested in is their own bank accounts. We have a corrupted Supreme Court run by Christofascist Oligarchs. The court represents the paper intellectuals of fascism. Who can't wait to make things all white again. Clarence just wants to be accepted as one of the White guys. Poor Clarence, but that's why he married into a family of bigots. He'll show us. The rest are just creepers I would ignore at a dinner party. God can't help us. He went out for a pack of smokes and never came back. I read today in the Guardian, that 51% of Scottish people don't believe in religion anymore. There's hope out there. Vote Blue and save democracy.
From the article: "Alito seemed to be saying that if you prosecute Trump for refusing to leave office after his election loss, future presidents will also refuse to leave office for fear of prosecution."
HIs stance here is so bizarre, as if he expects all presidents to act like Trump while in office. Future presidents will probably not commit crimes in office to the extent that Trump did, will probably not be impeached twice during one 4-year term, nor run the presidency like a mob family. It's quite curious that he thinks they will.
Every week some thing else. Is this really the US?
The plot only thickened on May 29, 2024 when Justice Alito issued two letters refusing to recuse: See "More Lies and Extreme Deceit in Justice Alito’s Refusal to Recuse" https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/more-lies-and-extreme-deceit-in-justice?r=30ufvh
See also "The Clear Appearance of Impropriety in Justice Alito's Conduct" https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/the-clear-appearance-of-impropriety?r=30ufvh
A belated question: Exactly whom did Mrs. Alito expect to come to her rescue? Kyle Rittenhouse? The Proud Boys? The Klan?
Alito and Thomas each need to be checked. Their balance is due. And it's corrupt as heck. I hope Sen. Durbin can investigate them.
If you would like to see more about Justice Alito's lies and how Justice Alito lies about our Constitution, consider what he wrote and did in his opinion on May 23 in Alexander v. S.C. State Conf. of the NAACP. In the second piece below, I start to show how Justice Alito is lying about federal judges being required to have "faith" in the "good" intentions of state legislators (even when they admit their bad intentions).
Sam's Club (SCOTUS) Says Separate But Equal is Cool https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/scotus-says-separate-but-equal-is?r=30ufvh)
Black Magic (Justice Alito Lies Again) (Part I) https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/black-magic-justice-alito-lies-again?r=30ufvh
Black Magic (Justice Alito Lies Again) (Part II) https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/black-magic-justice-alito-lies-again-536?r=30ufvh
"The proper response to this case is not to throw up" (So Says SCOTUS Dissent to Alito Gang's Lies) https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/the-proper-response-to-this-case?r=30ufvh
Alito's Gang Advocates and Protects "Political Apartheid" https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/the-alito-gang-advocates-and-protects?r=30ufvh
Black Magic (Justice Alito Lies Again) (Part III) https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/black-magic-justice-alito-lies-again-4cf?r=30ufvh