Thomas: Ethics are for poors
Is that a textualist or originalist interpretation of the constitution?
In other words…
Are the Supreme Priests going to go by the strict definition of the words or the way they feel the founding fathers intended the words? Ahh who am I kidding?? They are just playing…
"Who’s line is it anyway?: Supreme Edition
The court where everything’s made up and the constitution don’t matter"
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.
And yet there are 0 consequences for not doing so. What is Congress going to do?
And the chances of it actually leading to removal from SCOTUS hover around zero.
What are the consequences if state or federal government decided not to follow a Supreme Court ruling? It’s up to the Attorney General to enforce the laws of the Justice Department and that position is a presidential appointee.
Congress can also impose a mandate on the executive branch if they got out of hand. The issue is SCotUS is clearly out of hand now, yet congress is doing nothing. The whole “checks and balances” system is idealistic and clearly flawed.
impose a mandate
the law for us poors is “do it or men with guns will put you in a box”. what men with guns does congress have to force the president to do what scotus tell him to?
But how will they get all those free vacations?
