Senate tax chief says billionaire Crow ‘stonewalling’ over perks for Clarence Thomas
Wyden has previously said he would “explore using other tools at the committee’s disposal” should Crow not cooperate with the request. @politico https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/09/harlan-crow-clarence-thomas-gifts-00095967 #HarlanCrow #ClarenceThomas #scotus
Yeah stonewalling, here the idea that private matters should be private, and the legislature branch should not violate judicial independence at the same time as they want to engage in political grandstanding over private matters.
Really the guy just called out congresspeople for going off the rails.
There are so many reasons that is a stupid thing to say.
Bought a Supreme Court Justice? As if that makes any sense at all, one of many justices, with the checks and balances in place already to make sure that no justice can be bought and impact the rest of the legal system? Not to mention the role of the judicial branch in the US system of government?
No. That doesn't make any sense at all. It is idiotic to even suggest such a thing, and I'm not mincing words here because, seriously, that is an idiotic thing to say.
That conspiracy theory makes no sense considering the design of the US government, and anybody who believes such a thing does not know how the US government functions.
And I'm just sad for you that you would buy into such a idiotic theory.
@volkris @politico he bought his mothers house & the houses nearby - Harlan Crow spent millions to buy the Thomases. Thomas needs to resign. — there are no checks and balances. The justices police themselves. And they aren’t. Vacations. We need to know what else bought for them. Harlan Crow owns Clarence Thomas—he bought himself Supreme Court decisions. It was worth it to him. Paid off handsomely.
I mean you can say there are no checks and balances until your face goes blue, but it cannot change the fact that there are checks and balances.
You are spouting conspiracy theories here. And it does no good.
Because this is a rush to judgment based on a factually screwy narrative put out by an organization with a history of sensationalized reporting that gets debunked farther down the line.
That's hardly a good basis on which to threaten judicial independence.
I honestly don't care what Thomas did in his personal life. I only care about what he did in the job that he was hired to do, and there's amazingly little actual criticism of his work in office.
This isn't a legislator. He doesn't get to just vote yes or no, subject to bribery. His opinions are published and only count to the extent that they are logically coherent and factually correct.
So yeah, not only do I think these accusations are generally false, but it wouldn't even matter if they were true, because that's not the role Thomas plays in the US system of government.
@volkris @politico Clarence Thomas’s decisions have been benefiting wealthy donors like Harlan Crow — for decades https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/analysis/clarence-thomass-decisions-have-been-benefiting-wealthy-donors-like-harlan-crow-for-decades/
So?
Correct decisions benefit a lot of people, and that has absolutely nothing to do with their correctness.
It's such a stretch to try to say that simply because this guy indirectly benefited, therefore let's ignore all of the checks and balances and protections and systems of governance surrounding the place of the Supreme Court in the US system of government, and just draw the sensationalized, politically spun drama into the center of it all.
It's really naive.
Fun fact: Supreme Court opinions are posted publicly!
We are all free to read them, and I encourage everybody to read them.
The main work product of the court is entirely transparent.
Why? It's the opinion that matters, not the hairstyle worn during the hearing.
The logic laid out to all of us in the opinion they release is the only thing that matters in the work of the Supreme Court. That's what lower courts would be bound to as they apply the logic to the other cases before them.
It doesn't matter one bit what the justices look like as they are hearing the presentations from council.
They don't hide behind mystery. They put the opinions out on their website and hand copies to the press as soon as they are handed down.
They're not hiding what they look like. What they look like just doesn't matter, so why accept the downsides of cameras, turning the argument into a performance, turning it into the circus that is a congressional hearing, when it just doesn't matter one bit what it looks like?
They aren't legislators; they operate completely different in the US system of government.
It just makes no sense to call for cameras in the Supreme Court. That urge seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how the Court--and the federal government in general--functions.
@volkris that’s a specious argument—
Cameras in the Supreme Court. Yes.
Well again, why?
Just saying we film other things is not a very compelling reason to do it.
@volkris cameras need to be in the court.