The United States Supreme Court revealed what some justices touted as a landmark new ethics code last year.
But critics noted that the scandal-plagued institution’s new rules lacked any enforcement mechanisms, making them essentially a 14-page long list of suggestions.
A new leak of secret discussions from behind the bench, published in The New York Times Tuesday, reveals which justices fought to keep the code of conduct toothless.
The Times reported that the court’s nine justices started passing ultra-confidential memos, kept in paper envelopes and off email servers, back and forth at the end of last summer.
Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito
As expected.
Somehow Kavanaugh not being on that list is surprising to me.
And what’s the deal with Barrett? I do not get that lady.
I get the sense that she is less “corrupt” and more “complete and total adherence to strict laws, mostly biblical laws.”
Yeah, people can be entirely earnest and sincere and still be awful people. A terrible person doesn’t have to be based in a self-serving/opportunistic mindset. They can just have backwards beliefs that result in destructive ideas and actions even while being technically principled and upstanding in terms of the ethics of their role and the law.
The way I explained it as a science major who went to undergrad at a very conservative Christian college is “If you start from a flawed premise, you can use valid logic to get to very flawed conclusions without making any mistakes.”
Religious conservatives are starting from a flawed premise (edit: that premise being the existence of a just, omnipotent, omniscient deity) and either imposing biblical law or libertarianism is the logical outcome of that flawed premise.
As an aside, this is my biggest problem with religion in general. I’m all for “live and let live,” but the logical outcome of believing that your sect has a monopoly on capital-T “Truth” is to spread that “truth” to others by any means necessary for their own good. Most religions, especially Abrahamic monotheism, do not logically allow for pluralism, and the paradox of tolerance means that if we tolerate intolerant religion, eventually that religion will control everything.
They also are welcome to whatever beliefs they have.
The flaw is ignoring the separation of church and state, the lack of an official religion, the intentional non-religious start of the founders, the judicial history of protection of beliefs
Yes, they are entitled to and have a right to any beliefs they want. However, my whole point is that “Separation of church and state” and the lack of an official state religion are antithetical to fundamentalist Christianity, or any Christianity on some level. Christians believe that “the laws of God” supersede the “laws of man,” so they won’t let a pesky little thing like the Constitution get between them and legislating their beliefs.
And their right, if you start from the assumption that Christianity is true. Why wouldn’t you want to spread the word of God and minimize sin? After all, that’s what they are called to do in the New Testament! Why wouldn’t they protect others from themselves by outlawing everything with which their religion disagrees?
To me, that is one of the central problems with tolerating discussion of Christianity and Christian values in a political space (or any religion that claims to have a monopoly on objective truth)
Lawful Evil vs Neutral Evil vs Chaotic Evil
Lawful Evil that THINKS they are Lawful Good
For the most part I’d say so. Then there’s the portion that fall into “extreme malicious compliance”
Yeah, fucked up though it might be, I think that within the moral framework she’s chosen to operate in she’s “doing the right thing”. That framework is monstrous and should be disqualifying for a position on the judiciary. But I think she’s got no moral qualms and would treat the morality that most of us have with a mixture of confusion and hostility.
She is “Lawful Evil”…
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Maybe Kavanaugh is just bright enough to realize that ethics rules won’t mean shit with his favorite fascist coming into power.
He hasn’t been there long enough to start exploiting the loopholes.
But, as they traded memos, Justice Neil Gorsuch emerged as a fervent objector to the idea that the code be anything more than voluntary, the Times said.
Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito apparently backed him up, arguing against critics of the court as bad faith actors.
Bull fucking shit. They knew full well that complaints were legitimate and not in bad faith. Them saying critics are bad faith actors is the bad faith act.
These people need consequences for their corruption.
Not going to happen. Sorry, the world got taken over by fascists when the twin towers fell. That was the act that cemented their power. Everything since then has been an illusion of propaganda. Keep your head down and lick the boot on your neck or they send you to prison or make your kids orphans to be crushed and ground into fuel for the economy that serves the desires of the few over the needs of the many.
The court’s three liberal justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson—all advocated for some form of enforcement
Also
The justices however gave themselves a broad carve-out for book deals and sales. Justice Sotomayor, who received $3.7 million for her memoir and her children’s books, came under fire for using court staff for her book events after being appointed to the court in 2009. Now, justices have explicit permission to use staff for such endeavors.
The code states that justices should not be “swayed by partisan interests.”
“These new rules are more loophole than law,” wrote Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law, after the final document, signed by all nine justices, was released last year.
But… bOtH SiDeS??
These people deserve to be harassed into pure misery
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I don’t know why this is a big deal. We know which assholes opposed it and there’s fuck all we can do about it.
Looks like Clarence is getting another motor coach.
Let’s hope it’s from Tesla and can’t be extinguished.
If these people are gonna be shitheads, they should be transparent in all the ways they are shitheads while serving.
“We already knew” is a terrible reaction to any confirmation of any information that is made public regarding government activity.
If anything at all was going to be done about it I’d agree with you.
But since we’re powerless it just feels like rubbing our noses in the fact that there’s a different set of rules for the rulers.
I’m totally shocked! - no one
Can we calls it SCROTUS yet
It’s been that since the Republicans unconstitutionally stacked the court and got away with it.
Like it even matters at this stage.
Eventually, some clerk or staffer is gonna spend a lot of time in jail but also become a folk hero.
Or a chef.
