Thomas: Ethics are for poors
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Thomas: fuck you I got mine
And the blacks /s
And yet there are 0 consequences for not doing so. What is Congress going to do?
In sane times there was impeachment. But we are not living in those sane times.
Congress is legally allowed to impeach any SCOTUS justice they want.
And the chances of it actually leading to removal from SCOTUS hover around zero.
Blame Congress for that. It's their fault for never actually using their abilities.
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Correction Democratic Senators call for ethics code, Republican Senators say the branches should not monitor each other.
Important distinction
Seriously. Why are they getting handouts when they can legally get rich on insider trading, like normal Congress members? (/s in case you think I’m serious)
Why not do both?
One is legal and other isn’t.
They're both effectively legal when none of our elected lawmakers will hold them accountable.
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A guillotine should be fine, behead a couple corrupt judges and the rest should fall in line quickly enough.
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Wait, what?!? In the US, Supreme Court judges have no code of ethics?!?! If I'm not mistaken, here in Canada all judges are bound by a code of ethics: https://cjc-ccm.ca/sites/default/files/documents/2021/CJC_20-301_Ethical-Principles_Bilingual%20FINAL.pdf
Pretty sure it's the same in Australia. Our judges are also appointed by their legal peers who are also held to a pretty strict code of ethics. Breaches of these codes can result in being stripped of your right to practice law. These features combined limit this nonsense of partisan judges tthat the US seems to be afflicted with.
all the other judges have a code of ethic. scotus insists that it has a code of ethics too, but that it has to keep that code secret or people with business before the court will try to abuse that code of ethics in order to force unfavorable justices to recuse themselves. scotus also tells us that taking money, favors and gifts from people who have business before the court does not violate the secret code of ethics that they have. how a code of ethics that doesn't cover bribery differs from a code of ethics that doesn't exist at all has been left as an exercise to the reader.
It's absolute insanity that members of the highest court in the land don't have to abide by such pesky rules as "codes of ethics" or even have to worry about the appearance of impropriety. I'm guessing it's another of those things where the Founding Fathers assumed that selfless politicians, working tirelessly in service of their countrymen, would come together for the good of the nation to impeach SOC judges if there was ever even a hint of something wrong happening.
Meanwhile, in reality it's just this BS club of unelected judges that get to basically make their own policy without any oversight. I get that somebody somewhere has to be a deciding factor on how some of these cases play out, but given the weight and responsibility that comes with the position, they really should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.
because when you get right down to it anything they did would be themselves doing it and thus subject to themselves NOT doing it. so the founding documents cut to the chase -- impeach the fuckers if they need it.
(of course, as you hint, they didn't appropriately plan for party capture)
Supreme Court says, "fuck you, make me. But not right now, I'm off to my buddy's yacht."
Holy pot kettle black Batman
It's so exhausting when ethics are considered a partisan issue and the ones against ethics and oversight will not shut up accusing others of unethical behavior. Also, the 'ethics codes' congressmen and senators are supposed to abide by aren't enforced in anything like a rigorous or consistent way.
At the very least, congressmen, senators, and justices ought to be held to standards higher than the standards they're responsible for holding others to. Unfortunately, holding them to those higher standards is a sort of power that would be instantly abused the moment anyone with an agenda and crap ethics has it, another 'who will watch the watchmen?' conundrum
This shit is why we can't have nice things apparently
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dissolve the court. arrest gorsuch, thomas, alito and kavanaugh. investigate everyone else and if they even so much as took a breath mint from someone who had business before the court, arrest them too. "but what about the liberal justices?" yes, them too. arrest the corrupt. it's not an extreme position.
But how will they get all those free vacations?
They will just speech millions of dollars to their spouses
Real talk:
What would be the actual consequences here? Because as far as I can tell, ethics bodies over the other branches are about as worthless as the bioethics division at Umbrella Labs.
I doubt the Senate has any code of ethics anyway.
The other branches have ethics codes?
Actually, yes.
As does the federal judiciary. Alito was a federal judge and while serving as such he knew damn well that any gift over about $20 had to be both turned down, and also reported.
That's the rules that federal judges live under, the same rules that most of the executive branch lives under.
Senators and Representatives have looser rules, but they do have them... And Thomas and Alito have been instrumental in loosening those rules.
Ted Cruz and the conservatives on the court actually made outright bribery legal if the bribed jumps through the right hoops. See FCC v Ted Cruz for more info.
As a former school bus driver I can assure you that if you don't have consequences, you don't have rules.
For everyone except supreme court justices and sitting senators, there are actual consequences for accepting gifts in excess of $20. And sitting senators used to have consequences as well. Until republicans decided that the rules didn't apply to them, so they got rid of the rules.
The aggravating thing is, without rules in place, you cannot punish someone for breaking the rules. Not unless you like mob justice, with is never actually just, and never stops until the bloodlust is fully slaked.
Ya but it doesn't seem there's a whole lot of punishment for violating them.
my first thought too lol. you wouldnt think so based on the levels of corruption in government
I'd like to see them held to an actual standard instead of what we let the other two branches get away with.
"lol"
- Thomas
Guess it's time for the ol' heave-ho of an antiquated system.
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