Take Clarence Thomas for example.
As with Donald Trump, who was the object of much rationalization here yesterday, Justice Thomas apparently is certain that conservative and Republican integrity don’t have the rigor to make him accountable for a truly staggering series of judicial ethics breaches. He is also apparently correct in this assumption.
Justice Thomas finally acknowledged publicly that he should have reported selling real estate at a suspicious profit to billionaire political donor Harlan Crow in 2014, a transaction disclosed by ProPublica earlier this year. The Crow company bought a string of properties for $133,363 from co-owners Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed. Conservative power-player Crow then owned the house where a Supreme Court Justice’s elderly mother was living—hey, no big deal!—and soon contractors began tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home. Although a federal disclosure law requires SCOTUS Justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000, Thomas never deigned to mention this convenient and inherently suspicious transaction. You know, that “appearance of impropriety” thingy?
Writing in his annual financial disclosure form this week, Thomas said that he “inadvertently failed to realize” that the deal had to be publicly disclosed. Really? Do you believe that? I sure don’t.
In the form Thomas also disclosed enjoying three private jet trips last year paid for by Crow, one more that been already been revealed by Pro Publica. Elliot Berke, Thomas’s attorney, issued a statement yesterday that “after reviewing Justice Thomas’s records, I am confident there has been no willful ethics transgression, and any prior reporting errors were strictly inadvertent.”
Oh! Thomas’s attorney, whom Thomas pays for legal assistance, has objectively and independently concluded that his client’s decision to not report transactions that were legally mandated to be reported was nonetheless innocent, accidental and inadvertent! His client is a Supreme Court Justice, but the mandatory disclosure law’s intent eluded him. Well that settles it then! Nothing to see here!
This scandal has officially crossed the line from embarrassing to disgusting. ProPublica had previously revealed the politically active billionaire Crow’s excessive largesse toward Thomas, including luxury yacht jaunts, private jet flights, the real estate purchase and tuition payments for a child Thomas was assisting. It wasn’t only Crow, either: the investigation revealed that Thomas had benefited from at least 38 lavish vacations and 26 private jet flights from multiple billionaires before the latest shoe dropped.
I know that conservatives love their 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court, but integrity is a core ethical value, a crucial one that is in short supply today. Ethics Alarms held that Thomas should resign when the Crow scandal first reared its ugly head, and the facts have only gotten worse since. People cannot ethically complain about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden skirting the law and depending on special privileges while they willfully give Thomas “the King’s Pass.”
And ProPublica? Sure, it’s a progressive advocacy and activist organization despite its claims of being non-partisan, and sure, it’s out to get Thomas off the Court if it can. That, however, doesn’t change the import of its legitimate disclosures. Attacking the bias of the messenger, which is what the conservative media and pundits are doing as they circle the metaphorical wagons, is itself unethical and self-defeating The message is what counts, and the message is that Clarence Thomas has been a self-aggrandizing, arrogant fool who is undermining the credibility of the Supreme Court when the Court needs it most.
Ethics Alarms 
Maybe after the next election, if it goes the right way, Thomas can quietly retire. That’s the best you can hope for, I think. Otherwise, forget it. Polished ethics won’t keep the court from wacky-left decisions that will affect everyone negatively. The Dems can push Thomas off the court when and if Biden steps down, and not before.
I still stand by the comments I made in the original piece posted here: Justice Thomas should be told – by conservatives, Republicans, and other conservative Justices (if that is allowed) – to resign. If the standard is “don’t give the appearance of impropriety” – which it is – then I have to ask myself this question: if a more liberal Justice were discovered to have committed the same acts as Justice Thomas, would I want him/her to resign? The answer is “yes”, so I must say “yes” to Thomas’ resignation.
Yeah, he will be replaced by a (probably MUCH) more liberal Justice in the era of the Biden Administration, but “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” Justice Thomas has been playing very stupid games. And frankly, a 5-4 majority on the Court is still a majority, albeit a much more tenuous majority.
Think about this a little bit. If Thomas were put under enough pressure by some Republican Presidential candidates to resign, those candidates would have more credibility saying things like, “If I am your next President, I will direct Justice to apply the law equally to those within my party as well as those outside. If SCOTUS Justices are acting improperly, they will be encouraged to resign regardless of ideology. Democrats and Republicans in Congress will be held to the same standards.”
The way it is now?…each side points to the other and says, “You were a hypocrite when , so why should our guy get punished?” This is really destructive behavior and it’s spreading to state and local governments, to say nothing of the public at large.
If Justice Thomas is called upon to resign by conservatives, the other side may not do the right thing when the ball is in their court, but if conservatives don’t, the other side WILL not.
One side has to be the first to do the right thing, regardless of pain or cost.
Bingo. And the perfect response to Michael.
Nah. The court isn’t a 6-3 “conservative” majority. At best it’s a 3-3-3 split (progressive-moderate constitutionalist-originalist constitutionalist), with ALOT of really BONKERS-level progressive laws forcing the 3 mids to do the only reasonably thing – which makes a court *look* 3-6 (progressive-conservative).
No, with a Biden replacement, you get a 4-3-2 split – only a “conservative” majority when BONKERS-level progressive law hits the docket. Run-of-the-mill Progressive law (which does that exist any more?) with garner much less likelihood of a close split in the conservative (constitutional) direction.
It’s way to late for that. No Presidential candidate who did what you are suggesting could get elected.
Maraxus’s ideals are the rules now.
There is no denying it.
You seem to keep forgetting that the rules have changed.
Do you remember Maraxus?
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3857818#p3857818
– Maraxus
Keep in mind that Maraxus was posting to defend the indictment of Rick Perry (which jack had blogged about).
– Maraxus
– Maraxus
– Maraxus
“Maraxus’s” ideals are the rules now. There is no denying it. In hindsight, these ideals became the rules when wella failed to run Michael McCrum out of the legal profession on a rail, after his unethical prosecution of Rick Perry for Abuse of Power®™. And it is plain and clear that the Democratic Party has become the party of Maraxus.
” Give me a good reason why a moral failing, which incidentally has nothing to do with investigating corruption, should automatically disqualify a person from holding office. You assert without cause that this is the case.” Give me your answer to this.
“Ronnie Earle did humanity a favor when he realized that DeLay broke campaign finance laws, and he did us an even greater one when he got DeLay convicted. Whether or not “justice” was actually served against him isn’t so important. The fact that he no longer holds office though? That’s very important.” Give me your answer to this.
“In a state like Texas where the GOP has historically run roughshod over the Dems, they cannot afford to lose powerful positions like this. Considering” give me your answeer to this.
I have quoted Maraxus before, and as far as I can tell, you never addressed his ideals.
Give me your answer why we should not play by Maraxus’s rules, when they are in fact the rules now.
Give me an explanation as to why Michael McCrum was not run out of the legal profession on a rail.
Give me a reason why we should play by old rules that are no longer in force.
Because those aren’t new rules, they are old and discredited, unethical rules. “Might makes right,” “the ends justify the means,” “Do it to them before they do it to you.” All proven disastrous by the lessons of history.
Reminds me of the Arrested Development episode where Tobias and Lindsey are thinking about trying an open marriage and Tobias says (paraphrased) “in my vast experience as a therapist, I’ve seen that open marriages do not work. But maybe it’ll work for us!”
The thing is, Maraxus’s ideals are the rules now.
What is your answer to that?
What is your answer to that?
What is your answer to that?
Of course, we all know Michael McCrum’s answer to those.
We all know that Texas grand jury’s answer to those.
The failure to run McCrum out on a rail from the legal profession is proof that these are the rules now.
As such, the approval of McCrum’s actions and the grand jury’s indictment shows that Rosemary Lehmberg had no duty to resign as Travis Couty D.A. despite what she did.