You can't pay a greedy person enough to keep them from acting corruptly. They always want 10 cents more than you pay them.

bearister said:

---

You can't pay a greedy person enough to keep them from acting corruptly. They always want 10 cents more than you pay them.

---

Absolutely. Where you place your hope and faith is where your worship lies. For some, it may be respect of others. For others, it will be money but we all give our lives and worship to something.

calbear93 said:

---

bearister said:

---

You can't pay a greedy person enough to keep them from acting corruptly. They always want 10 cents more than you pay them.

---

Absolutely. Where you place your hope and faith is where your worship lies. For some, it may be respect of others. For others, it will be money but we all give our lives and worship to something.

---

concordtom said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

bearister said:

---

New Supreme Court ethics allegation surfaces



https://mol.im/a/12048999

"A conservative judicial activist arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars a decade ago with instructions that her name be kept off paperwork, according to a new report."

---

While I defended the position that the change in form of legal entity does not represent a sale, this is getting shady. Of course, not surprising Ginni is in the middle of all this.

---

These Justices need to be paid more so they can't be bought so easily. Same elsewhere at high levels of govt.

OR we need to nominate and vet the character of individuals better.

---

Just demand more accountability.

Federal employees are not allowed to receive gifts worth over $20 (up to $50 worth a single year) unless the gifts are the result of a personal relationship.

This is the loophole that is being used:

"You may accept a gift given under circumstances that make it clear that the gift is motivated by a family relationship or personal friendship rather than your official position."

Stop the abuse of this loophole.

dimitrig said:

---

concordtom said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

bearister said:

---

New Supreme Court ethics allegation surfaces



https://mol.im/a/12048999

"A conservative judicial activist arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars a decade ago with instructions that her name be kept off paperwork, according to a new report."

---

While I defended the position that the change in form of legal entity does not represent a sale, this is getting shady. Of course, not surprising Ginni is in the middle of all this.

---

These Justices need to be paid more so they can't be bought so easily. Same elsewhere at high levels of govt.

OR we need to nominate and vet the character of individuals better.

---

Just demand more accountability.

Federal employees are not allowed to receive gifts worth over $20 (up to $50 worth a single year) unless the gifts are the result of a personal relationship.

This is the loophole that is being used:

"You may accept a gift given under circumstances that make it clear that the gift is motivated by a family relationship or personal friendship rather than your official position."

Stop the abuse of this loophole.

---

That sounds good. Make it apply to every single government employee of every branch. And shut down insider trading, including by spouses of legislators. And shut down personal travel and bribes disguised as speaking arrangements.

dajo9 said:

---

chazzed said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Right, and "reasonable" Republicans such as wifeisafurd are still claiming it is a "both sides" issue. This nicely sums up the radical state of the GOP at this time. Republicans simply can't be bothered to operate in good faith.

---

Correct. That is why finding common ground is a useless approach. The problem will persist until they are defeated soundly at the ballot box a number of times.

---

Well here is some balance for you as Gorsuch and Sotoamayor get attacked for not reporting publication fees. Like most of the complaints onThomas, the reporting is dated and had been reported on years ago.

https://news.yahoo.com/2-supreme-court-justices-failed-161724996.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

I can understand laymen thinking it is one side because of the reporting, but the perks of being on SCOTUS are (1) you get to make a lot of money, go on junkets and have expenses paid for to give speeches and (2) you get to publish a lot and make big bucks. You also (3) tend to have rich friends, (4) be members of nice clubs, (5) be rich from being a successful lawyer, and on and on. Judicial philosophy doesn't matter.

The press is making it worse because they don't understand the disclosure rules (especially on real estate transactions) or who even who makes the rules (if I had a dollar for every article complaining about the justices not following disclosure rules voted by Congress) and they also tend to be from news sources that don't like the conservative majority. The liberal justices, in fact, are right there with the conservative judges on the gravy train, and don't want the rules changed (i.e., that SCOTUS sets the rules for itself by controlling the Judicial Conference). It wasn't just the conservative justices that sent the letter to Chairman Durbin to F/off. It was all the Justices. If you don't understand that so be it, you are summarizing the divisive state of politics these days, and can't be bothered to comment in good faith. You are not going to find anyone who gives a crap a few weeks from now that isn't on the liberal side of the ledger by ignoring that the conduct occurs on both side of the philosophical spectrum, and has for some time now. They just think it is politics as normal.

chazzed said:

---

Right, and "reasonable" Republicans such as wifeisafurd are still claiming it is a "both sides" issue. This nicely sums up the radical state of the GOP at this time. Republicans simply can't be bothered to operate in good faith.

---

ICYMI from April 25, 2023:

All 9 justices issued an extremely rare--even unanimous--statement.

It details how and why the Supreme Court decides recusals on cases and other ethical issues.

It is carefully written, well-reasoned, and entirely convincing.

It should put to rest… pic.twitter.com/teNkQgSYd5

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) April 27, 2023

You can cry as much as you want but even the liberal justices reject your radical games.

GoOskie said:

---

I am, at the moment, organizing my Nazi memorabilia But as soon as I am finished, I will join you in praising our unflappable Chief Justice.

---

Hitler Exonerated After Footage Discovered Of Him Moonwalking On Subway https://t.co/isMpyAUZWQ pic.twitter.com/sVzdo0DcxP

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) May 5, 2023

Speaking of Nazi memorabilia, do you have the Michael Jackson Hitler footage?

Huh, I never heard of this about Jackson. He was a bit loony though. Thanks for pointing that out.

MinotStateBeav said:

---

concordtom said:

---

MinotStateBeav said:

---

It's obvious the attacks on the chief justice are coordinated to produce media pop. It will disappear soon, just ignore it.

---

Here's some more click bait crimes for you.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/clarence-thomas-wife-ginni-paid-020838847.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink

Clarence Thomas' wife Ginni was paid nearly $100,000 for 'consulting' by a nonprofit that ended up filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court: report


A conservative activist helped Ginni Thomas rake in nearly $100,000 for consulting, The Washington Post reported.

Conservative lawyer Leonard Leo reportedly ensured Ginni Thomas' name was kept off the paperwork.

Leo's nonprofit filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court that same year.

A little more than a decade ago, a conservative judicial activist helped Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, secure consulting work that yielded her nearly $100,000 all the while asking that her name was left off the financial paperwork, according to a new Washington Post report.

---

Maybe the DOJ can look into that after they look into the Biden's being paid millions by Ukraine and China and the Moscow Mayor's wife.

---

No one cares about made up smoke, go where the fire is. The fire is Thomas and Ginni

SBGold said:

---

MinotStateBeav said:

---

concordtom said:

---

MinotStateBeav said:

---

It's obvious the attacks on the chief justice are coordinated to produce media pop. It will disappear soon, just ignore it.

---

Here's some more click bait crimes for you.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/clarence-thomas-wife-ginni-paid-020838847.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink

Clarence Thomas' wife Ginni was paid nearly $100,000 for 'consulting' by a nonprofit that ended up filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court: report


A conservative activist helped Ginni Thomas rake in nearly $100,000 for consulting, The Washington Post reported.

Conservative lawyer Leonard Leo reportedly ensured Ginni Thomas' name was kept off the paperwork.

Leo's nonprofit filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court that same year.

A little more than a decade ago, a conservative judicial activist helped Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, secure consulting work that yielded her nearly $100,000 all the while asking that her name was left off the financial paperwork, according to a new Washington Post report.

---

Maybe the DOJ can look into that after they look into the Biden's being paid millions by Ukraine and China and the Moscow Mayor's wife.

---

No one cares about made up smoke, go where the fire is. The fire is Thomas and Ginni

---

Nice try, we have proof.

AunBear89 said:

---

Who's "we"? Got a mouse in your pocket and he has the proof?

Tha soundz

---

I got soundz for ya

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Thomas sold himself to two billionaires.

cbbass1 said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

chazzed said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Right, and "reasonable" Republicans such as wifeisafurd are still claiming it is a "both sides" issue. This nicely sums up the radical state of the GOP at this time. Republicans simply can't be bothered to operate in good faith.

---

Correct. That is why finding common ground is a useless approach. The problem will persist until they are defeated soundly at the ballot box a number of times.

---

Well here is some balance for you as Gorsuch and Sotoamayor get attacked for not reporting publication fees. Like most of the complaints onThomas, the reporting is dated and had been reported on years ago.

https://news.yahoo.com/2-supreme-court-justices-failed-161724996.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

I can understand laymen thinking it is one side because of the reporting, but the perks of being on SCOTUS are (1) you get to make a lot of money, go on junkets and have expenses paid for to give speeches and (2) you get to publish a lot and make big bucks. You also (3) tend to have rich friends, (4) be members of nice clubs, (5) be rich from being a successful lawyer, and on and on. Judicial philosophy doesn't matter.

The press is making it worse because they don't understand the disclosure rules (especially on real estate transactions) or who even who makes the rules (if I had a dollar for every article complaining about the justices not following disclosure rules voted by Congress) and they also tend to be from news sources that don't like the conservative majority. The liberal justices, in fact, are right there with the conservative judges on the gravy train, and don't want the rules changed (i.e., that SCOTUS sets the rules for itself by controlling the Judicial Conference). It wasn't just the conservative justices that sent the letter to Chairman Durbin to F/off. It was all the Justices. If you don't understand that so be it, you are summarizing the divisive state of politics these days, and can't be bothered to comment in good faith. You are not going to find anyone who gives a crap a few weeks from now that isn't on the liberal side of the ledger by ignoring that the conduct occurs on both side of the philosophical spectrum, and has for some time now. They just think it is politics as normal.

---

Forget, for a moment, the "philosophical spectrum" of "liberal" vs "conservative." Let's take a look at this along the economic spectrum of Labor vs Capital.

Yes, corporations & lobbyists are showering both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices with tangible economic benefits that are far & above an Associate Justice's salary. "Both sides" are doing it. And both sides are wrong to do it. And it needs to stop.

Like I've said before, SCOTUS Justices are Public Servants. They can't serve Capital and We The People at the same time. It appears that they're serving the interests of Capital at The People's expense.

That said, Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY benefits & payments is at a completely different level. He clearly has contempt for The People, and for the financial disclosures & reporting requirements that come with the job. In his view, if a billionaire like Harlan Crow bribes him to make a decision in his favor, well, that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Might makes right, and money buys policy. If you don't like it, you don't have enough money to play this game.

OTOH, we all know that if George Soros had provided the exact same benefits to Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, or Jackson, AND they failed to disclose those payments & benefits, the GOP & conservatives' heads would explode, they would be calling for their impeachment within the hour, and all the conservative media outlets would be driving it home 24/7 until they were removed from the bench -- or until one of the deplorables burned their house down, whichever came first.

---

What utter gibberish - I guess anyone gets a megaphone in a democracy.

You again somehow manage to conflate economic concepts of labor and capital into a discussion about legal ethics. You say corporations and lobbyists are showering Justices on the left and right with benefits, which really has nothing to do with how much labor or capital makes. And you clearly have never been near a law book, as you have constantly demonstrated, yet you seem only to willing to declare what courts and judges should do with broad language abbots public servants, we th e people and other grab bag phrases.

This may seem repetitive, but so is your capital vs labor exaltations. Let's start with history. Justice Thurgood Marshal almost always voted for corporations. The last time I saw a study on the issue, Marshall voted the most times for the corporate party than any other Justice. I'm not sure if anyone has broke his record. The guys that gave corporations rights, particularly against government, were liberals like Brennan.

But econcmic theories, especially as it applies with labor and capital, start with the assumption that individuals are rational and respond to incentives (a highly questionable assumpton), efficiencies are to be favored, productivity should reward labor, capital gets returns dictated by markets or regulated by government in the case of regulated companies, and other concepts that no court ever considers. Wealth inequality, taxation burdens, and all the other concepts we want to throw around are something the legislative branches deals with, as long as it doesn't override basic protections in the Constitution, like taking property without compensation, imposing taxes that are not allowed, etc. Constitutions can be changed by legislatures, but at least in our government and society you can't change these limitations by nine guys in robes.

To focus on decisions impacting business entities, most SCOTUS business cases tend to be decided on things like federalism vs state rights, textualism, that is, how much you focus narrowly on the bare language of a statute, and separation and limitation of powers under the Constitution. None of this has anything thing to do with labor vs capital, and your views, while your own, and subject to debate, are not subject to debate by the Supreme Court. You are simply wrong on the law and how it works. You are simply looking at the wrong branch of government to attain your economic goals. Things like the NLRB, taxes, capital and labor markets which can be regulated by Congress and the executive branch, and the like dictate returns for labor and capital.

Moving beyond the economic gibberish, you say both sides (liberal and conservative Justices) are taking corporate and lobbyist treasury trove and it needs to stop. Why? Thomas is going to vote on cases, however Thomas is going to vote, wether he does real estate transactions with Crow or not. So are Sotamayer and Kagan. No one who knows anything about the law thinks getting book publication rights (like Sotomayor), or going on lavish junkets with Harvard Law School donors like Kagan used to do, is going to change that. But what has been said around ten times that you simply fail to grasp, is none of the lawyers arguing the cases ask for any Justices to step out of the cases. So any conflict that may exist has been waived by the parties. If the parties involved in the case don't give a sheet what exactly is your problem?

You also seem to be focused on Thomas, reflecting your biases. SCOTUS has become more and more business friendly. However, Justices nominated by Democrats can also be business-friendly. Elena Kagan, for instance, is pro-business 56% of the time, placing her higher on the list of those favoring business than Antonin Scalia. (Thomas was 6th of the current Justices by the way). The least business-friendly current justice, Sonia Sotomayor, still manages to rank 17th out of 57 justices over the last 70 years.. She finds in favor of business 48% of the time. The equivalent number for Earl Warren who was thought to preside over a more liberal court was just 25%. Source: Washington University Review of Supreme Court Data Base. Which I might expect you to conclude so more crackpot theories. Part of the problem, as the current Florida Governor might tell you, is business often back liberal causes. The real correlation is the justices can be seen to be following the lead of the government. When the government takes sides in more recent cases, it usually takes the business's side. The Office of the Solicitor General opposed the business just 20% of the time while Roberts was chief justice, which is over both Democratic and GOP administrations, and the Justices way more often than not follow the solicitor general's lead. Source: Washington University. Perhaps this reflects that compared to what corporations and lobbyists spend on Justices is incredibly small to what they spend on legislators and the executive branch. Certainly George Soros banks politicians and political causes, which is his right to do, as a guy who invests massive amounts of ..... capital.

I'm sure references to terms like deplorables gets you stars, but your post also suggests you have to resort to biased jargon, outrage and moral superiority. It seems futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.

Finally, you still don't get that the 8 other Justices are pretty clear about Thomas not breaking disclosure obligations. But as usual you shot your mouth off: "Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY [your emphasis] benefits & payments is at a completely different level." So take us all through the specific rules set by the Judicial Counsel that Thomas broke by specific transaction. Go ahead, cite the specific rules and why the exemptions claimed by Thomas did not apply. Show us your legal brilliance.

BTW, only on off topic did I learn that if I pays my long time friend's nephew's tuition, that I have enga4ed in tax evasion, no less have taxable income. Wonders never cease. Fortunately, I don't come to this board for tax advice.

oski003 said:

---

I flew on Southwest the other day. Tickets were about $300. The cost to charter the plane would have likely been astronomical, but the costs were shared by other passengers. Did Thomas actually receive $500,000 in value or was he part of a larger group of people vacationing on the jet and yacht? I am merely attacking the sensationalism of the writing. Clearly, this is something SC Justices should avoid.

---

sensationalism - The use of sensational subject matter, style or methods, or the sensational subject matter itself; behavior, published materials, or broadcasts that are intentionally controversial, exaggerated, lurid, loud, or attention-grabbing. Especially applied to news media in a pejorative sense that they are reporting in a manner to gain audience or notoriety but at the expense of accuracy and professionalism.

Please click on the first link (to the ProPublica article) and tell us which parts fit the definition of "sensationalism," or which parts are exaggerated, or not true.

When outrageous corruption like this is pointed out, the problem is the outrageous corruption -- NOT the fact that someone is pointing it out.

You can shoot messengers all you want. This isn't going away. There's lots more where this came from.

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Justice Brennan and his majority would disagree the tuition payment is even taxable, no less proving additional elements of tax evasion. You may know securities laws, but you're now driving in my lane.

wifeisafurd said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

chazzed said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Right, and "reasonable" Republicans such as wifeisafurd are still claiming it is a "both sides" issue. This nicely sums up the radical state of the GOP at this time. Republicans simply can't be bothered to operate in good faith.

---

Correct. That is why finding common ground is a useless approach. The problem will persist until they are defeated soundly at the ballot box a number of times.

---

Well here is some balance for you as Gorsuch and Sotoamayor get attacked for not reporting publication fees. Like most of the complaints onThomas, the reporting is dated and had been reported on years ago.

https://news.yahoo.com/2-supreme-court-justices-failed-161724996.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

I can understand laymen thinking it is one side because of the reporting, but the perks of being on SCOTUS are (1) you get to make a lot of money, go on junkets and have expenses paid for to give speeches and (2) you get to publish a lot and make big bucks. You also (3) tend to have rich friends, (4) be members of nice clubs, (5) be rich from being a successful lawyer, and on and on. Judicial philosophy doesn't matter.

The press is making it worse because they don't understand the disclosure rules (especially on real estate transactions) or who even who makes the rules (if I had a dollar for every article complaining about the justices not following disclosure rules voted by Congress) and they also tend to be from news sources that don't like the conservative majority. The liberal justices, in fact, are right there with the conservative judges on the gravy train, and don't want the rules changed (i.e., that SCOTUS sets the rules for itself by controlling the Judicial Conference). It wasn't just the conservative justices that sent the letter to Chairman Durbin to F/off. It was all the Justices. If you don't understand that so be it, you are summarizing the divisive state of politics these days, and can't be bothered to comment in good faith. You are not going to find anyone who gives a crap a few weeks from now that isn't on the liberal side of the ledger by ignoring that the conduct occurs on both side of the philosophical spectrum, and has for some time now. They just think it is politics as normal.

---

Forget, for a moment, the "philosophical spectrum" of "liberal" vs "conservative." Let's take a look at this along the economic spectrum of Labor vs Capital.

Yes, corporations & lobbyists are showering both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices with tangible economic benefits that are far & above an Associate Justice's salary. "Both sides" are doing it. And both sides are wrong to do it. And it needs to stop.

Like I've said before, SCOTUS Justices are Public Servants. They can't serve Capital and We The People at the same time. It appears that they're serving the interests of Capital at The People's expense.

That said, Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY benefits & payments is at a completely different level. He clearly has contempt for The People, and for the financial disclosures & reporting requirements that come with the job. In his view, if a billionaire like Harlan Crow bribes him to make a decision in his favor, well, that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Might makes right, and money buys policy. If you don't like it, you don't have enough money to play this game.

OTOH, we all know that if George Soros had provided the exact same benefits to Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, or Jackson, AND they failed to disclose those payments & benefits, the GOP & conservatives' heads would explode, they would be calling for their impeachment within the hour, and all the conservative media outlets would be driving it home 24/7 until they were removed from the bench -- or until one of the deplorables burned their house down, whichever came first.

---

What utter gibberish - I guess anyone gets a megaphone in a democracy.

You again somehow manage to conflate economic concepts of labor and capital into a discussion about legal ethics. You say corporations and lobbyists are showering Justices on the left and right with benefits, which really has nothing to do with how much labor or capital makes. And you clearly have never been near a law book, as you have constantly demonstrated, yet you seem only to willing to declare what courts and judges should do with broad language abbots public servants, we th e people and other grab bag phrases.

This may seem repetitive, but so is your capital vs labor exaltations. Let's start with history. Justice Thurgood Marshal almost always voted for corporations. The last time I saw a study on the issue, Marshall voted the most times for the corporate party than any other Justice. I'm not sure if anyone has broke his record. The guys that gave corporations rights, particularly against government, were liberals like Brennan.

But econcmic theories, especially as it applies with labor and capital, start with the assumption that individuals are rational and respond to incentives (a highly questionable assumpton), efficiencies are to be favored, productivity should reward labor, capital gets returns dictated by markets or regulated by government in the case of regulated companies, and other concepts that no court ever considers. Wealth inequality, taxation burdens, and all the other concepts we want to throw around are something the legislative branches deals with, as long as it doesn't override basic protections in the Constitution, like taking property without compensation, imposing taxes that are not allowed, etc. Constitutions can be changed by legislatures, but at least in our government and society you can't change these limitations by nine guys in robes.

To focus on decisions impacting business entities, most SCOTUS business cases tend to be decided on things like federalism vs state rights, textualism, that is, how much you focus narrowly on the bare language of a statute, and separation and limitation of powers under the Constitution. None of this has anything thing to do with labor vs capital, and your views, while your own, and subject to debate, are not subject to debate by the Supreme Court. You are simply wrong on the law and how it works. You are simply looking at the wrong branch of government to attain your economic goals. Things like the NLRB, taxes, capital and labor markets which can be regulated by Congress and the executive branch, and the like dictate returns for labor and capital.

Moving beyond the economic gibberish, you say both sides (liberal and conservative Justices) are taking corporate and lobbyist treasury trove and it needs to stop. Why? Thomas is going to vote on cases, however Thomas is going to vote, wether he does real estate transactions with Crow or not. So are Sotamayer and Kagan. No one who knows anything about the law thinks getting book publication rights (like Sotomayor), or going on lavish junkets with Harvard Law School donors like Kagan used to do, is going to change that. But what has been said around ten times that you simply fail to grasp, is none of the lawyers arguing the cases ask for any Justices to step out of the cases. So any conflict that may exist has been waived by the parties. If the parties involved in the case don't give a sheet what exactly is your problem?

You also seem to be focused on Thomas, reflecting your biases. SCOTUS has become more and more business friendly. However, Justices nominated by Democrats can also be business-friendly. Elena Kagan, for instance, is pro-business 56% of the time, placing her higher on the list of those favoring business than Antonin Scalia. (Thomas was 6th of the current Justices by the way). The least business-friendly current justice, Sonia Sotomayor, still manages to rank 17th out of 57 justices over the last 70 years.. She finds in favor of business 48% of the time. The equivalent number for Earl Warren who was thought to preside over a more liberal court was just 25%. Source: Washington University Review of Supreme Court Data Base. Which I might expect you to conclude so more crackpot theories. Part of the problem, as the current Florida Governor might tell you, is business often back liberal causes. The real correlation is the justices can be seen to be following the lead of the government. When the government takes sides in more recent cases, it usually takes the business's side. The Office of the Solicitor General opposed the business just 20% of the time while Roberts was chief justice, which is over both Democratic and GOP administrations, and the Justices way more often than not follow the solicitor general's lead. Source: Washington University. Perhaps this reflects that compared to what corporations and lobbyists spend on Justices is incredibly small to what they spend on legislators and the executive branch. Certainly George Soros banks politicians and political causes, which is his right to do, as a guy who invests massive amounts of ..... capital.

I'm sure references to terms like deplorables gets you stars, but that also suggests you have to resort to biased jargon to make absurdly ignorant comments about matters you know not become persuasive.

Finally, you still don't get that the 8 other Justices are pretty clear about Thomas not breaking disclosure obligations. But as usual you shot your mouth off: "Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY [your emphasis] benefits & payments is at a completely different level." So take us all through the specific rules set by the Judicial Counsel that Thomas broke by specific transaction. Go ahead, cite the specific rules and why the exemptions claimed by Thomas did not apply. Show us your legal brilliance.

BTW, only on off topic did I learn that if a pay the tuition of my log time friend's nephew's tuition, that I am guilty of tax evasion, no less have taxable income. Fortunately, I don't come to this board for tax advice.

---

1/ Justice Thomas & his wife took in their 6 yr old great nephew to live with them to help this young child, just as his grandparents had taken him in when he was 7 yrs old. Here’s Justice Thomas talking about going to live with his grandparents in 1955.(from Created Equal) pic.twitter.com/Ctjzs1IUvC

— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) May 4, 2023

wifeisafurd said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

---

Justice Brennan and his majority would disagree the tuition payment is even taxable, no less proving additional elements of tax evasion. You may know securities laws, but you're now driving in my lane.

---

You are misunderstanding what I am trying to communicate. I don't think that the tuition payment in and of itself is taxable but rather that this is more evidence of the crazy number of "gifts" being received by Thomas and his family from Crow (as well as others, see Leo).

Would anyone be surprised if Crow took any charitable deductions for the "gifts" bestowed? I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Crow didn't declare any gifts either.

And as we saw with the Leonard Leo payments to Ginni with no documentation, together with all of the sloppiness in Thomas's financial disclosure, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he has undeclared income.

Unit2Sucks said:

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wifeisafurd said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

---

Justice Brennan and his majority would disagree the tuition payment is even taxable, no less proving additional elements of tax evasion. You may know securities laws, but you're now driving in my lane.

---

You are misunderstanding what I am trying to communicate. I don't think that the tuition payment in and of itself is taxable but rather that this is more evidence of the crazy number of "gifts" being received by Thomas and his family from Crow (as well as others, see Leo).

Would anyone be surprised if Crow took any charitable deductions for the "gifts" bestowed? I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Crow didn't declare any gifts either.

And as we saw with the Leonard Leo payments to Ginni with no documentation, together with all of the sloppiness in Thomas's financial disclosure, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he has undeclared income.

---

Did Crow pay gift tax on any of these gifts?

wifeisafurd said:

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wifeisafurd said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

chazzed said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Right, and "reasonable" Republicans such as wifeisafurd are still claiming it is a "both sides" issue. This nicely sums up the radical state of the GOP at this time. Republicans simply can't be bothered to operate in good faith.

---

Correct. That is why finding common ground is a useless approach. The problem will persist until they are defeated soundly at the ballot box a number of times.

---

Well here is some balance for you as Gorsuch and Sotoamayor get attacked for not reporting publication fees. Like most of the complaints onThomas, the reporting is dated and had been reported on years ago.

https://news.yahoo.com/2-supreme-court-justices-failed-161724996.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

I can understand laymen thinking it is one side because of the reporting, but the perks of being on SCOTUS are (1) you get to make a lot of money, go on junkets and have expenses paid for to give speeches and (2) you get to publish a lot and make big bucks. You also (3) tend to have rich friends, (4) be members of nice clubs, (5) be rich from being a successful lawyer, and on and on. Judicial philosophy doesn't matter.

The press is making it worse because they don't understand the disclosure rules (especially on real estate transactions) or who even who makes the rules (if I had a dollar for every article complaining about the justices not following disclosure rules voted by Congress) and they also tend to be from news sources that don't like the conservative majority. The liberal justices, in fact, are right there with the conservative judges on the gravy train, and don't want the rules changed (i.e., that SCOTUS sets the rules for itself by controlling the Judicial Conference). It wasn't just the conservative justices that sent the letter to Chairman Durbin to F/off. It was all the Justices. If you don't understand that so be it, you are summarizing the divisive state of politics these days, and can't be bothered to comment in good faith. You are not going to find anyone who gives a crap a few weeks from now that isn't on the liberal side of the ledger by ignoring that the conduct occurs on both side of the philosophical spectrum, and has for some time now. They just think it is politics as normal.

---

Forget, for a moment, the "philosophical spectrum" of "liberal" vs "conservative." Let's take a look at this along the economic spectrum of Labor vs Capital.

Yes, corporations & lobbyists are showering both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices with tangible economic benefits that are far & above an Associate Justice's salary. "Both sides" are doing it. And both sides are wrong to do it. And it needs to stop.

Like I've said before, SCOTUS Justices are Public Servants. They can't serve Capital and We The People at the same time. It appears that they're serving the interests of Capital at The People's expense.

That said, Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY benefits & payments is at a completely different level. He clearly has contempt for The People, and for the financial disclosures & reporting requirements that come with the job. In his view, if a billionaire like Harlan Crow bribes him to make a decision in his favor, well, that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Might makes right, and money buys policy. If you don't like it, you don't have enough money to play this game.

OTOH, we all know that if George Soros had provided the exact same benefits to Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, or Jackson, AND they failed to disclose those payments & benefits, the GOP & conservatives' heads would explode, they would be calling for their impeachment within the hour, and all the conservative media outlets would be driving it home 24/7 until they were removed from the bench -- or until one of the deplorables burned their house down, whichever came first.

---

What utter gibberish - I guess anyone gets a megaphone in a democracy.

You again somehow manage to conflate economic concepts of labor and capital into a discussion about legal ethics. You say corporations and lobbyists are showering Justices on the left and right with benefits, which really has nothing to do with how much labor or capital makes. And you clearly have never been near a law book, as you have constantly demonstrated, yet you seem only to willing to declare what courts and judges should do with broad language abbots public servants, we th e people and other grab bag phrases.

This may seem repetitive, but so is your capital vs labor exaltations. Let's start with history. Justice Thurgood Marshal almost always voted for corporations. The last time I saw a study on the issue, Marshall voted the most times for the corporate party than any other Justice. I'm not sure if anyone has broke his record. The guys that gave corporations rights, particularly against government, were liberals like Brennan.

But econcmic theories, especially as it applies with labor and capital, start with the assumption that individuals are rational and respond to incentives (a highly questionable assumpton), efficiencies are to be favored, productivity should reward labor, capital gets returns dictated by markets or regulated by government in the case of regulated companies, and other concepts that no court ever considers. Wealth inequality, taxation burdens, and all the other concepts we want to throw around are something the legislative branches deals with, as long as it doesn't override basic protections in the Constitution, like taking property without compensation, imposing taxes that are not allowed, etc. Constitutions can be changed by legislatures, but at least in our government and society you can't change these limitations by nine guys in robes.

To focus on decisions impacting business entities, most SCOTUS business cases tend to be decided on things like federalism vs state rights, textualism, that is, how much you focus narrowly on the bare language of a statute, and separation and limitation of powers under the Constitution. None of this has anything thing to do with labor vs capital, and your views, while your own, and subject to debate, are not subject to debate by the Supreme Court. You are simply wrong on the law and how it works. You are simply looking at the wrong branch of government to attain your economic goals. Things like the NLRB, taxes, capital and labor markets which can be regulated by Congress and the executive branch, and the like dictate returns for labor and capital.

Moving beyond the economic gibberish, you say both sides (liberal and conservative Justices) are taking corporate and lobbyist treasury trove and it needs to stop. Why? Thomas is going to vote on cases, however Thomas is going to vote, wether he does real estate transactions with Crow or not. So are Sotamayer and Kagan. No one who knows anything about the law thinks getting book publication rights (like Sotomayor), or going on lavish junkets with Harvard Law School donors like Kagan used to do, is going to change that. But what has been said around ten times that you simply fail to grasp, is none of the lawyers arguing the cases ask for any Justices to step out of the cases. So any conflict that may exist has been waived by the parties. If the parties involved in the case don't give a sheet what exactly is your problem?

You also seem to be focused on Thomas, reflecting your biases. SCOTUS has become more and more business friendly. However, Justices nominated by Democrats can also be business-friendly. Elena Kagan, for instance, is pro-business 56% of the time, placing her higher on the list of those favoring business than Antonin Scalia. (Thomas was 6th of the current Justices by the way). The least business-friendly current justice, Sonia Sotomayor, still manages to rank 17th out of 57 justices over the last 70 years.. She finds in favor of business 48% of the time. The equivalent number for Earl Warren who was thought to preside over a more liberal court was just 25%. Source: Washington University Review of Supreme Court Data Base. Which I might expect you to conclude so more crackpot theories. Part of the problem, as the current Florida Governor might tell you, is business often back liberal causes. The real correlation is the justices can be seen to be following the lead of the government. When the government takes sides in more recent cases, it usually takes the business's side. The Office of the Solicitor General opposed the business just 20% of the time while Roberts was chief justice, which is over both Democratic and GOP administrations, and the Justices way more often than not follow the solicitor general's lead. Source: Washington University. Perhaps this reflects that compared to what corporations and lobbyists spend on Justices is incredibly small to what they spend on legislators and the executive branch. Certainly George Soros banks politicians and political causes, which is his right to do, as a guy who invests massive amounts of ..... capital.

I'm sure references to terms like deplorables gets you stars, but that also suggests you have to resort to biased jargon to make absurdly ignorant comments about matters you know not become persuasive.

Finally, you still don't get that the 8 other Justices are pretty clear about Thomas not breaking disclosure obligations. But as usual you shot your mouth off: "Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY [your emphasis] benefits & payments is at a completely different level." So take us all through the specific rules set by the Judicial Counsel that Thomas broke by specific transaction. Go ahead, cite the specific rules and why the exemptions claimed by Thomas did not apply. Show us your legal brilliance.

BTW, only on off topic did I learn that if a pay the tuition of my log time friend's nephew's tuition, that I am guilty of tax evasion, no less have taxable income. Fortunately, I don't come to this board for tax advice.

---

---

I'll attempt to summarize:

• Many "liberal" / Democrat-appointed Justices have historically decided in favor of corporations/Capital in the past;
• Both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices are currently receiving favors and financial support from Capital;
• Both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices are going to decide cases however they decide them, regardless of the favors & financial support from Capital;
• Even the "liberal" / Democrat-appointed Justices decide in favor of Capital / business more often than not;
• "...what corporations and lobbyists [Capital] spend on Justices is incredibly small to what they spend on legislators and the executive branch." [Exactly!]
• "...you still don't get that the 8 other Justices are pretty clear about Thomas not breaking disclosure obligations." [YOU still don't get that I do!]

Thank you for supporting my argument!

It's not just Thomas, and not just the GOP-appointed Justices who are captured by Capital and serve Capital's interests. The Dem-appointed Justices are also captured by Capital, and serve Capital's interests -- but to a lesser degree.

You can argue that favors and financial support from Capital to SCOTUS Justices don't influence their decisions, and that they would make the same decisions without regard for them. But I think you'd also have to agree that the intent of the benefactor -- whether it's Harlan Crow, or a corporation -- is to reward their captured Justice for serving their interests, past, present, and/or future. Otherwise, why would they bother?

And yes, I agree that this brazen, systematic influence of SCOTUS, whether it's reported or not, does NOT break any existing laws or rules. Any imposition of rules or ethical standards would have to come from Congress (according to Article 3 of the Constitution). But Congress is committed to preserving the status quo for Capital.

I agree that the amount of Capital's purchase of influence for SCOTUS pales in comparison to Capital's investment in the capture of the Legislative and Executive branches. That's exactly my point. The only body that can set rules & ethical standards for SCOTUS is Congress. Congress is captured by Capital, & serves the interests of Capital. Therefore, nothing will change. Maybe you don't see this as a problem, but I do.

"...none of the lawyers arguing the cases ask for any Justices to step out of the cases."

First, from a practical standpoint, it's probably not in a client's interest for any party before a court to accuse the Judge of being both corrupt AND biased, and to request another one.

Second, you're also assuming that the losing side in SCOTUS decisions is making their best case in defense of "liberals," or We The People, and that's simply not the case. Take the Citizens United v FEC, for example. The FEC was represented by Deputy Solicitor General Malcom Stewart, against (supposedly) the right-wing Citizens United. He made the argument that the existing precedent, Austin v Michigan Chamber of Commerce, would allow the Government to ban any book or movie that had one sentence in favor of a political candidate! It appears that the Deputy Solicitor General in this case was not representing The People's interests (i.e., against excessive corporate influence in elections), but essentially arguing against the Government's ability to regulate corporate behavior.

If you look at the recent history of Solicitors General, you'll find that most have a background in corporate law, often representing corporations in cases against regulatory agencies. Because "that's where the money is." And the Solicitor General is appointed by the President who, along with their administration, is captured by corporate interests.

Again, just because "everyone does it," and "neither party objected" doesn't mean that the interests of human Citizens are being served.

This just illustrates the extent of the capture of all 3 branches of the U.S. Government by corporate interests, at the expense of small-d democracy.

Note: The reactions of you, President Biden, the SCOTUS Justices, members of Congress, and the MSM to the obvious corruption of Thomas and the corruption of other Justices is, for the most part, either a big "So what?," or silence.

The people who are objecting to the corruption are Voters, who are witnessing the self-destruction of yet another institution of democracy, and seeing that policy is determined by Capital, not by Voters.

cbbass1 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

chazzed said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

NEW BLOCKBUSTER:

Clarence Thomas took in his grand-nephew, “raising him like a son.”

Sent him to expensive private schools.

And the tuition?

Picked up by billionaire Harlan Crow.

It was secret. Until now.@JustinElliott & @js_kaplan got the goods:https://t.co/ow3GaZ8WRL pic.twitter.com/x7M9HQZia3

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) May 4, 2023

Roy Wood Jr. was great….here he’s going after Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow 🤣 #WHCD
pic.twitter.com/AwwUCrKaWj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 30, 2023

---

Right, and "reasonable" Republicans such as wifeisafurd are still claiming it is a "both sides" issue. This nicely sums up the radical state of the GOP at this time. Republicans simply can't be bothered to operate in good faith.

---

Correct. That is why finding common ground is a useless approach. The problem will persist until they are defeated soundly at the ballot box a number of times.

---

Well here is some balance for you as Gorsuch and Sotoamayor get attacked for not reporting publication fees. Like most of the complaints onThomas, the reporting is dated and had been reported on years ago.

https://news.yahoo.com/2-supreme-court-justices-failed-161724996.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

I can understand laymen thinking it is one side because of the reporting, but the perks of being on SCOTUS are (1) you get to make a lot of money, go on junkets and have expenses paid for to give speeches and (2) you get to publish a lot and make big bucks. You also (3) tend to have rich friends, (4) be members of nice clubs, (5) be rich from being a successful lawyer, and on and on. Judicial philosophy doesn't matter.

The press is making it worse because they don't understand the disclosure rules (especially on real estate transactions) or who even who makes the rules (if I had a dollar for every article complaining about the justices not following disclosure rules voted by Congress) and they also tend to be from news sources that don't like the conservative majority. The liberal justices, in fact, are right there with the conservative judges on the gravy train, and don't want the rules changed (i.e., that SCOTUS sets the rules for itself by controlling the Judicial Conference). It wasn't just the conservative justices that sent the letter to Chairman Durbin to F/off. It was all the Justices. If you don't understand that so be it, you are summarizing the divisive state of politics these days, and can't be bothered to comment in good faith. You are not going to find anyone who gives a crap a few weeks from now that isn't on the liberal side of the ledger by ignoring that the conduct occurs on both side of the philosophical spectrum, and has for some time now. They just think it is politics as normal.

---

Forget, for a moment, the "philosophical spectrum" of "liberal" vs "conservative." Let's take a look at this along the economic spectrum of Labor vs Capital.

Yes, corporations & lobbyists are showering both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices with tangible economic benefits that are far & above an Associate Justice's salary. "Both sides" are doing it. And both sides are wrong to do it. And it needs to stop.

Like I've said before, SCOTUS Justices are Public Servants. They can't serve Capital and We The People at the same time. It appears that they're serving the interests of Capital at The People's expense.

That said, Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY benefits & payments is at a completely different level. He clearly has contempt for The People, and for the financial disclosures & reporting requirements that come with the job. In his view, if a billionaire like Harlan Crow bribes him to make a decision in his favor, well, that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Might makes right, and money buys policy. If you don't like it, you don't have enough money to play this game.

OTOH, we all know that if George Soros had provided the exact same benefits to Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, or Jackson, AND they failed to disclose those payments & benefits, the GOP & conservatives' heads would explode, they would be calling for their impeachment within the hour, and all the conservative media outlets would be driving it home 24/7 until they were removed from the bench -- or until one of the deplorables burned their house down, whichever came first.

---

What utter gibberish - I guess anyone gets a megaphone in a democracy.

You again somehow manage to conflate economic concepts of labor and capital into a discussion about legal ethics. You say corporations and lobbyists are showering Justices on the left and right with benefits, which really has nothing to do with how much labor or capital makes. And you clearly have never been near a law book, as you have constantly demonstrated, yet you seem only to willing to declare what courts and judges should do with broad language abbots public servants, we th e people and other grab bag phrases.

This may seem repetitive, but so is your capital vs labor exaltations. Let's start with history. Justice Thurgood Marshal almost always voted for corporations. The last time I saw a study on the issue, Marshall voted the most times for the corporate party than any other Justice. I'm not sure if anyone has broke his record. The guys that gave corporations rights, particularly against government, were liberals like Brennan.

But econcmic theories, especially as it applies with labor and capital, start with the assumption that individuals are rational and respond to incentives (a highly questionable assumpton), efficiencies are to be favored, productivity should reward labor, capital gets returns dictated by markets or regulated by government in the case of regulated companies, and other concepts that no court ever considers. Wealth inequality, taxation burdens, and all the other concepts we want to throw around are something the legislative branches deals with, as long as it doesn't override basic protections in the Constitution, like taking property without compensation, imposing taxes that are not allowed, etc. Constitutions can be changed by legislatures, but at least in our government and society you can't change these limitations by nine guys in robes.

To focus on decisions impacting business entities, most SCOTUS business cases tend to be decided on things like federalism vs state rights, textualism, that is, how much you focus narrowly on the bare language of a statute, and separation and limitation of powers under the Constitution. None of this has anything thing to do with labor vs capital, and your views, while your own, and subject to debate, are not subject to debate by the Supreme Court. You are simply wrong on the law and how it works. You are simply looking at the wrong branch of government to attain your economic goals. Things like the NLRB, taxes, capital and labor markets which can be regulated by Congress and the executive branch, and the like dictate returns for labor and capital.

Moving beyond the economic gibberish, you say both sides (liberal and conservative Justices) are taking corporate and lobbyist treasury trove and it needs to stop. Why? Thomas is going to vote on cases, however Thomas is going to vote, wether he does real estate transactions with Crow or not. So are Sotamayer and Kagan. No one who knows anything about the law thinks getting book publication rights (like Sotomayor), or going on lavish junkets with Harvard Law School donors like Kagan used to do, is going to change that. But what has been said around ten times that you simply fail to grasp, is none of the lawyers arguing the cases ask for any Justices to step out of the cases. So any conflict that may exist has been waived by the parties. If the parties involved in the case don't give a sheet what exactly is your problem?

You also seem to be focused on Thomas, reflecting your biases. SCOTUS has become more and more business friendly. However, Justices nominated by Democrats can also be business-friendly. Elena Kagan, for instance, is pro-business 56% of the time, placing her higher on the list of those favoring business than Antonin Scalia. (Thomas was 6th of the current Justices by the way). The least business-friendly current justice, Sonia Sotomayor, still manages to rank 17th out of 57 justices over the last 70 years.. She finds in favor of business 48% of the time. The equivalent number for Earl Warren who was thought to preside over a more liberal court was just 25%. Source: Washington University Review of Supreme Court Data Base. Which I might expect you to conclude so more crackpot theories. Part of the problem, as the current Florida Governor might tell you, is business often back liberal causes. The real correlation is the justices can be seen to be following the lead of the government. When the government takes sides in more recent cases, it usually takes the business's side. The Office of the Solicitor General opposed the business just 20% of the time while Roberts was chief justice, which is over both Democratic and GOP administrations, and the Justices way more often than not follow the solicitor general's lead. Source: Washington University. Perhaps this reflects that compared to what corporations and lobbyists spend on Justices is incredibly small to what they spend on legislators and the executive branch. Certainly George Soros banks politicians and political causes, which is his right to do, as a guy who invests massive amounts of ..... capital.

I'm sure references to terms like deplorables gets you stars, but that also suggests you have to resort to biased jargon to make absurdly ignorant comments about matters you know not become persuasive.

Finally, you still don't get that the 8 other Justices are pretty clear about Thomas not breaking disclosure obligations. But as usual you shot your mouth off: "Justice Thomas's lack of reporting of SO MANY [your emphasis] benefits & payments is at a completely different level." So take us all through the specific rules set by the Judicial Counsel that Thomas broke by specific transaction. Go ahead, cite the specific rules and why the exemptions claimed by Thomas did not apply. Show us your legal brilliance.

BTW, only on off topic did I learn that if a pay the tuition of my log time friend's nephew's tuition, that I am guilty of tax evasion, no less have taxable income. Fortunately, I don't come to this board for tax advice.

---

---

I'll attempt to summarize:

• Many "liberal" / Democrat-appointed Justices have historically decided in favor of corporations/Capital in the past;
• Both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices are currently receiving favors and financial support from Capital;
• Both "liberal" and "conservative" Justices are going to decide cases however they decide them, regardless of the favors & financial support from Capital;
• Even the "liberal" / Democrat-appointed Justices decide in favor of Capital / business more often than not;
• "...what corporations and lobbyists [Capital] spend on Justices is incredibly small to what they spend on legislators and the executive branch." [Exactly!]
• "...you still don't get that the 8 other Justices are pretty clear about Thomas not breaking disclosure obligations." [YOU still don't get that I do!]

Thank you for supporting my argument!

It's not just Thomas, and not just the GOP-appointed Justices who are captured by Capital and serve Capital's interests. The Dem-appointed Justices are also captured by Capital, and serve Capital's interests -- but to a lesser degree.

You can argue that favors and financial support from Capital to SCOTUS Justices don't influence their decisions, and that they would make the same decisions without regard for them. But I think you'd also have to agree that the intent of the benefactor -- whether it's Harlan Crow, or a corporation -- is to reward their captured Justice for serving their interests, past, present, and/or future. Otherwise, why would they bother?

And yes, I agree that this brazen, systematic influence of SCOTUS, whether it's reported or not, does NOT break any existing laws or rules. Any imposition of rules or ethical standards would have to come from Congress (according to Article 3 of the Constitution). But Congress is committed to preserving the status quo for Capital.

I agree that the amount of Capital's purchase of influence for SCOTUS pales in comparison to Capital's investment in the capture of the Legislative and Executive branches. That's exactly my point. The only body that can set rules & ethical standards for SCOTUS is Congress. Congress is captured by Capital, & serves the interests of Capital. Therefore, nothing will change. Maybe you don't see this as a problem, but I do.

"...none of the lawyers arguing the cases ask for any Justices to step out of the cases."

First, from a practical standpoint, it's probably not in a client's interest for any party before a court to accuse the Judge of being both corrupt AND biased, and to request another one.

Second, you're also assuming that the losing side in SCOTUS decisions is making their best case in defense of "liberals," or We The People, and that's simply not the case. Take the Citizens United v FEC, for example. The FEC was represented by Deputy Solicitor General Malcom Stewart, against (supposedly) the right-wing Citizens United. He made the argument that the existing precedent, Austin v Michigan Chamber of Commerce, would allow the Government to ban any book or movie that had one sentence in favor of a political candidate! It appears that the Deputy Solicitor General in this case was not representing The People's interests (i.e., against excessive corporate influence in elections), but essentially arguing against the Government's ability to regulate corporate behavior.

If you look at the recent history of Solicitors General, you'll find that most have a background in corporate law, often representing corporations in cases against regulatory agencies. Because "that's where the money is." And the Solicitor General is appointed by the President who, along with their administration, is captured by corporate interests.

Again, just because "everyone does it," and "neither party objected" doesn't mean that the interests of human Citizens are being served.

This just illustrates the extent of the capture of all 3 branches of the U.S. Government by corporate interests, at the expense of small-d democracy.

Note: The reactions of you, President Biden, the SCOTUS Justices, members of Congress, and the MSM to the obvious corruption of Thomas and the corruption of other Justices is, for the most part, either a big "So what?," or silence.

The people who are objecting to the corruption are Voters, who are witnessing the self-destruction of yet another institution of democracy, and seeing that policy is determined by Capital, not by Voters.

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Again, the lack of legal understanding is driving this.

US Supreme Court justices recused themselves in roughly 3% of appeals since 2018, with Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan doing so most often, a Bloomberg Law analysis showed. That is a review to have your case hear.
Virtually all of the more than 750 recusals identified in the review of court orders lacked an explanation of why the justices avoided participating. Essentially all recusals involved petitions that were denied review. A small number occurred at the merits stage and off the so-called shadow docket, leaving the nine-member bench shorthanded when deciding those matters. The court hears about 70 cases each term. So (1) the court hardly ever a has recusals on cases it hears and (2) there is no such thing as a replacement Justice, notwithstanding your comment to the contrary (add it to the ever longer list of misstatements on legal matters).

The high Court declines to discuss recusals, but has said they are largely left to the individual justices and their staffs. The process includes an initial conflict check in chambers. A rule adopted by the Court in 2019 to make it easier to identify financial or personal conflicts requires attorneys to disclose certain information about their clients. Roberts has said the justices may seek advice from the court's legal office or consult their colleagues when weighing recusal decisions. He also said this on disclosure matters for those wondering who Thomas was talking about when he said he got advice on non-disclosure of gifts by close friend Crow. Justices call recusal a personal decision and have rebuffed suggestions to explain their decisions, which are unreviewable under the high Court's rules. What is clear is that recusals on cases actually heard by the Court most often involve ties to previous work, particularly by former Solicitor Generals of Circuit judges who were elevated. There is a limit to this. For example, Justice Ginsberg who worked for the ACLU heard cases the ACLU was a party or argued, as long as she didn't work on the case and she even found against the ACLU from time to time. Same with former solicit generals who didn't work on the case in question.

Which gets us to the fact lawyers don't ask for recusals on the 80 cases that are eventually heard. The Court went through its internal process and if Justices didn't recuse themselves, the last thing the lawyers want to do is piss off the court by demanding recusals. It simply is never done. That you don't understand this after having been told 11 times now is not my problem. You're simply wrong - lawyers don't request recusals. They waive their client's rights. End of story. Stop complaining, stop making up theories above bad representatives, or whatever pops into your mind.

To go through more BS that you make-up as go along, solicitor generals generally come out of government or academia. Most cases involve constitutional issues and very few attorneys practice constitutional law, and certainly corporate lawyers don't. The SG's almost always clerked for the Supreme Court. Almost everyone of the last 20 acting or permanent solicitor generals were previously an attorney in the Justice Department, the exception being Kagan who was Dean of Harvard Law School.

As for the redundant categorization about capital and labor, the Justices don't really care about labor versus capital. Very few cases involve business versus capital. Most cases are on things like individual rights, interactions between branches of government and the roles of states and the federal government. What you appear to get is that in most cases, the Justices, who almost never were corporate attorneys, tend to follow the view of the government via the solicitor general - who you in an amazing bout of ignorance called a bunch of former corporate lawyers. I'm not aware on one case where the judges ever discussed labor versus capital, and I'm actually a seasoned (read old) lawyer.

There really is no reward in having to continually rebut someone who makes stuff up when he doesn't even know what he doesn't even know. You're not a lawyer, so my advise is stop pretending you know what happens in the legal practice. If you want to have a discussion about finance or capital vs. labor, Diablo awaits to debate your theories on another thread.

dimitrig said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

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Justice Brennan and his majority would disagree the tuition payment is even taxable, no less proving additional elements of tax evasion. You may know securities laws, but you're now driving in my lane.

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You are misunderstanding what I am trying to communicate. I don't think that the tuition payment in and of itself is taxable but rather that this is more evidence of the crazy number of "gifts" being received by Thomas and his family from Crow (as well as others, see Leo).

Would anyone be surprised if Crow took any charitable deductions for the "gifts" bestowed? I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Crow didn't declare any gifts either.

And as we saw with the Leonard Leo payments to Ginni with no documentation, together with all of the sloppiness in Thomas's financial disclosure, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he has undeclared income.

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Did Crow pay gift tax on any of these gifts?

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You sorta missed the point that the gifts were exempt from gift tax. But that is okay, you can always say the broader context of your question was misinterpreted.

Unit2Sucks said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow.

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Justice Brennan and his majority would disagree the tuition payment is even taxable, no less proving additional elements of tax evasion. You may know securities laws, but you're now driving in my lane.

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You are misunderstanding what I am trying to communicate. I don't think that the tuition payment in and of itself is taxable but rather that this is more evidence of the crazy number of "gifts" being received by Thomas and his family from Crow (as well as others, see Leo).

Would anyone be surprised if Crow took any charitable deductions for the "gifts" bestowed? I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Crow didn't declare any gifts either.

And as we saw with the Leonard Leo payments to Ginni with no documentation, together with all of the sloppiness in Thomas's financial disclosure, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he has undeclared income.

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How nice of you to invent facts and law to what was a ridiculous statement.

You're now assuming the tax advisors for a sophisticated billionaire labelled a private tuition payment a personal deduction. Even the articles and the watchdog group that disclose the gift, called it a gift, and their only question is whether Crow filed the appropriate gift tax return, so your speculation that is pretty inventive. And the articles themselves and your comment about declaring gifts on gift tax return are at odds with the tax law because PAYMENTS OF TUITION AND MEDIAL BILLS ARE EXCLUDED FROM GIFT TAX.
What Gifts Are Subject to the Gift Tax? - The Balancethebalancemoney.comhttps://www.thebalancemoney.com what-gifts-are-subje...But it would be a surprise that tuition payment, even for your own child, would be labeled deductible by your accountants, no less one for a third party. But even if a gift tax return was required (annual tax payments exceeded $17K), there is not one chance in hell that a minuscule an amount of Crow estate would lead to a tax evasion charge.

And then there is the Thomas side of the equation. You don't get taxed on gifts you receive. You really don't get taxed on gifts to your grand nephew. And if it there was an income element to paying someone else's tuition, the person who would be taxed probably is the grand nephew (a different result if it Thomas' legal minor child, or is that now an inventive new fact). How you get to tax evasion from there I know not.

You made a rather clear, definitive statement, which I can repeat here if you like. There is no misunderstanding.

The problem with this whole thread and the campaign of using very dated events to try a create a campaign again conservative justices has be a pervasive and continual misstatement of the law. The watchdog group and twitter repeaters have constantly applied Congressional rules inapplicable to SCOTUS for disclosure (the watchdog group takes the position Congress gets to determine the disclosure rules which has never been supported by any legal precedence and therefor they put out misleading statements), failed to appreciate and apply exemptions in the Judicial Codes for inherited property, failed to address exemptions for benefits provided by long term friends and when pointed out, started a squirm quickly to find new facts to try a get around the Judicial Committee rules' exclusions. And then there is the pervasive misstatement of law by partisans, as in your comments about the tax law, added to selective outrage about reported disclosure failures. Like I said before, this is whole SCOTUS thing is going no where fast as people rightfully think it is politics as usual.

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We get it, you are invested in defending these people and you seem determined to assume that every single "gift" to Thomas was done in a vacuum.

I'm making the assumption, which seems rather safe at this point, that we still haven't learned of everything. What we do know is that Thomas and his wife and family (his mother, his grand nephew / child he is the guardian of and raised) have received various support from Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo and perhaps others. You seem to be narrowly reading my statements to construct a narrative that obviously doesn't hang together in order to defend the actors here.

On Thomas' side, I am questioning whether the compensation that Ginni received from Leonard Leo (supposedly for consulting) and other payments like it, were declared as income.

Nowhere have I stated that there would be a personal deduction for paying private school tuition for a billionaire or anyone else, unless of course you considered it a charitable contribution. Would you really be surprised if this was characterized that way?

I don't believe either Thomas or Crow or anyone else will have any tax liabilities for tuition payments made in the 90's. I do believe that the bewildering assortment of "gifts" continues to this day and that we haven't heard the last of this story. I also believe that people who are as deceptive as these people have been, are likely to be doing so on their tax returns as well.

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In the broader context of your last post, that is some major revisionist history.

Here is exactly what you said in total in your preceding post to an article about Crow's payment of tuition:

"We are well beyond the "sloppy disclosure" phase of the Clarence Thomas scandal. Apparently Crow was paying the private school tuition for a grand nephew that Thomas "raised as his son."

Can pretty much guarantee at this point that there is tax evasion going on by one or both of the Thomases and Crow."

That language seems pretty damn narrow. So instead of getting a guarantee of tax evasion explanation about the one item mentioned in your incredibly specific and pointed post, you start talking about a matter Crow was not even involved, which doesn't sound to me like a guarantee when it comes to Crow. Instead, you said that not only was there no tax evasion, but also no tax liability for Crow's payment of tuition, which sorta sounds like a retraction if you read that original post. But then again, pardon me for addressing the sole item that you mentioned in your post. I guess you forgot the footnote incorporating anything you have ever said as part of the discussion on the topic. Instead, I'm defending certain people. Actually, my narrative is you're full of it when you asserted there was tax evasion and by the way you said there was tax evasion. I'm not exactly a Thomas fan, but that is a story for another thread. But tell me, which gift you guarantee is leading to a finding of tax evasion by Crow and the Thomases, since the one item you mentioned doesn't in your own words.

I have talked to three other tax partitioners and every one of them wonders how a former securities lawyer be so reckless with his language. They also wonder how any lawyer that presumably dealt with high net worth individuals would have no understanding how they operate with old friends or those in power. One suggested you need to visit the Hamptons more and see how the Bidens and other pols are entertained, or maybe even travel with the Clintons. Another said watch Glass Onion. Hell my cousin who got married last weekend got a very expensive car from his bud the former MLB star (who is definitely going to Cooperstown). This after years of expensive yachts, shared investments, tours of the world and also sorts of great events paid for by best bud. Can you be that naive to find these things bewildering?

The other thing they found curious is your continuing references to tax liability for gifts. People who get gifts don't pay taxes. People who can afford to spend lavishly have professionals that structure what they give away to avoid taxes or they draft gift tax returns. Which gets to what everyone thought was the really most reckless comment - the one about tax evasion. The value of services or amounts given to the Thomas' are minuscule to the net worth of Crow as to make any suggestion of tax evasion for Crow an absurdity.

So in order to have to prior post ignored, you know raise payments authorized from Leonard Leo from the Heritage Foundation, which he was CEO, to Ms. Thomas' consulting firm as being unreported income. Which Is great, you obviously are privy to all sorts of information the media doesn't have so tell us what income was not reported by her business or by her? What years, how much, what makes that tax evasion, etc.? Come on, you made a guarantee, make good. You would think that the Thomas would have really good tax advisors, that knew how to handle these payments. The Heritage Foundation provided a form 1099. Mrs . Thomas got a WS-2 from her business. That is pretty easy for accountants to figure out. According to the Washington Post reporter, Thomas even reported Ginny had the income, but not the amount, which the reporter noted was in compliance with disclosure requirements.

Payments made to Justice Thomas' wife raise more ethical ...YouTube PBS NewsHour5 minutes, 5 seconds3 days ago

So much for deceptive. This all boils down to your" those people" characterization who whould commit tax evasion, You know those people that you disagree with politically. I mean why stop at tax evasion? Are they not the those the kind of people who would torture puppies?