The US Supreme Court

[Tero]

In a dissenting opinion, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the "current border crisis is not a COVID crisis. And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort."

https://www.kios.org/2022-12-30/arizona ... rder-chaos

[Joe]

Round up the usual suspects.

Supreme Court says it hasn’t identified who leaked draft abortion opinion

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that an internal investigation had failed to identify the person who leaked a draft of the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had established a constitutional right to abortion.

In a 20-page report, the court’s marshal, Gail A. Curley, who oversaw the inquiry, said that investigators had conducted 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom had denied being the source of the leak. But several employees acknowledged that they had told their spouses or partners about the draft opinion and the vote count in violation of the court’s confidentiality rules, the report said.

The investigation did not determine whether any of those discussions led to a copy of the draft opinion becoming public. Investigators also found no forensic evidence of who may have leaked the opinion in examining the court’s “computer devices, networks, printers and available call and text logs,” the report said.

I wonder if they talked to this guy. Justice Alito denies allegation of a leak in 2014 case about access to birth control

[rasetsu]

"I don't know why it would be Russia."

[Joe]

Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought Martha-Ann looks a little sketchy.

[Svartalf]

Who?

[Joe]

Alito's wife. :-)

[Brian Peacock]

The power behind the phone.

[Tero]

A wonderful opportunity for the court to rule that the EPA is unconstitutional.
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2023/02/ ... andowners/

[L'Emmerdeur]

While they're at it, should probably take a look at the FDA. They've been impeding profits for over a century.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Well, it's a good thing the US Supreme Court justices are not burdened with an actual code of ethics. Just think of the headaches for people like Justice Thomas.

'For Decades Clarence Thomas Has Accepted Luxury Vacations from a GOP Megadonor Without Disclosing Them'

In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

Thomas did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

[Svartalf]

Good thing for him that the only way I can think of to make him account for his miseddeds implis use of lead or other toxic substances.

[L'Emmerdeur]

I think the immortal words of one flatulent pudendum will suffice: 'nothing illegal'

[Tero]

Cut off his salary. DOJ pays judges.

[macdoc]

Polonium perhaps?

[Brian Peacock]

Politicians, judges, and other public servants accept these gifts from on high purely to maintain 'business confidence'. I'm sure it's a massive chore for them to have to go and waste time on a private yacht or in an exclusive Tuscan villa, to spend a week on Murdoch's private island, or to attend a baseball game with Elon and then pop up to the penthouse suite and sniff cocaine out of a high-class escort's bum cheeks. But they do because they have a duty to make sure that billionaires feel like they have friends in government. I thank them heartily for taking those bullets on all our behalves.