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real-human



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PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MalibuGuru wrote:
coachg wrote:
swchandler wrote:
I have to wonder what isobars thinks about the "protesters" that invaded the Capitol Building on January 6. As I recollect, he didn't feel it was a big deal.


Yes, a perfect example of violence, anarchy & attempted mob rule.

Coachg


My question is, why weren't the most violent of the protesters arrest, and why are trespassers being held without bail or trial for 1 and a half years???


so far what 1 out of ten or is it 1 out of 100 of 1000? of the protesters have been arrested? As we now know their intent was to kill Pelosi, Pence, Schumer, AOC. again over lies and no proof. to overthrow the government with no proof.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ted Lieu ask Senate for clarity: Did Gorsuch, Kavanaugh lie about Roe?


Quote:
WASHINGTON – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., have asked the Senate to clarify whether Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch lied under oath about their stand on abortion during their confirmation hearings.

In a joint letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued Monday, the lawmakers said "multiple" Supreme Court justices "misled the American people during their confirmation hearings about their views on Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood."

The letter accuses "at least" Kavanaugh and Gorsuch of not telling the truth.

The legislators said, "it is impossible to reconcile the sweeping majority opinion in Dobbs with the statements made by Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh during their confirmation hearings."

Ocasio-Cortez and Lieu said they respect the justices' personal beliefs; however, "we cannot have a system where Justices lie about their views in order to get confirmed. That makes a mockery of the confirmation power and of the separation of powers."

Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were among the conservative justices who ruled against upholding Roe in June. The two justices have come under criticism for their decision to the ruling.

During their confirmation hearings, both justices agreed that Roe v. Wade was settled, a legal precedent that should be respected. The letter from Ocasio-Cortez and Lieu highlights their testimony.

Gorsuch said in his 2017 hearing that abortion had been "reaffirmed many times, I can say that."

Kavanaugh said at the time of his hearing that Roe v. Wade is "settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis."

Gorsuch on abortion: Seven takeaways from Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court confirmation hearing

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," in June, Ocasio-Cortez said that lying under oath during hearings is an impeachable matter, and it should be looked into if the justices lied.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins from Maine and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who voted to confirm Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, have said the justices misled them.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/liz-cheney-january-6-panel-will-subpoena-ginni-thomas-if-necessary/ar-AAZUK4z?cvid=96dbb5ddc1ea4a93ab61b88d681952a6&ocid=winp2sv1plus


Liz Cheney: January 6 panel will subpoena Ginni Thomas if necessary


Quote:
he House January 6 committee will subpoena Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, if she will not testify voluntarily about her involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.


“The committee is engaged with her counsel,” Liz Cheney, the panel vice-chair, told CNN’s State of the Union. “We certainly hope that she will agree to come in voluntarily but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”

Thomas corresponded with Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who shaped the congressional side of a push which culminated in the deadly attack on the Capitol.

She also corresponded with Arizona Republicans about attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there.

Her activities have added to pressure on her husband. An arch-conservative on a court tilted firmly right, Clarence Thomas was the only justice to say Trump should not have to release records to the House committee. His wife’s communications with the Trump camp were subsequently revealed.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:22 pm    Post subject: 4,500 Tips About Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Reply with quote

More proof that the FBI is a right wing agency.... ya only 4500 tips Supreme liar Mr. rappy Kav is a sexual deviant liar and the FBI did not investigate. Gee and no front pages in the media and no extensive investigation by the media of a rouge FBI.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/4-500-tips-about-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-were-punted-to-trump-white-house-fbi-director-admits/ar-AA10jWAv?ocid=winp2sv1plus&cvid=ffdac86564a142dd9e442ed9e1b45734


4,500 Tips About Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Were Punted to Trump White House, FBI Director Admits


Quote:

On Thursday, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that the bureau’s 2018 investigation into sexual assault allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was a sham. The FBI had sent all relevant tips (the FBI’s assistant director, Jill Tyson, said there were about 4,500) to Donald Trump’s White House. From there, Trump’s team then decided whom the FBI could interview as part of its sexual misconduct investigation into Kavanaugh before he was confirmed.
According to the transcript:

WHITEHOUSE: As you know, we are entering the fourth year of a frustrating saga [...] regarding the Kavanaugh supplemental background investigation, and I’d like to get that matter wrapped up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from other tips, that they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?

WRAY: ... When it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure the White House had all the information we had, so when the hundreds of calls started coming it, we gathered those up, reviewed them and provided them to the White House—

WHITEHOUSE: Without investigation?

WRAY: We reviewed them and then provided them to the White House.

WHITEHOUSE: You reviewed them for the purposes of separating from tip line traffic but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?

WRAY: Correct.

WHITEHOUSE: Is it also true that in that supplemental BI [background investigation], the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question and even what questions the FBI could ask?

WRAY: So it is true ... as to the who. I am not sure as I sit here whether it is true as to the what questions.

Basically, Trump wanted Kavanaugh confirmed, and he was easily able to make sure that no corroborating evidence surfaced that would bolster Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a party when they were teenagers.

Whitehouse previously said in June, when it was first revealed how many tips the FBI actually received about Kavanaugh from its “tip line,” that it was obvious the investigation into Kavanaugh was fully rigged by Trump. “This long-delayed answer confirms how badly we were spun by Director Wray and the FBI in the Kavanaugh background investigation and hearing,” Whitehouse wrote on Twitter.

“I charged that the ‘tip line’ was really a tip dump, with all the tips going straight into the dumpster without investigation,” he wrote in a separate tweet. “In fact it was a tip dump where all the tips went straight to White House Counsel without investigation. Same difference.”

Now, of course, Kavanaugh has joined a majority opinion to strip women and pregnancy-capable people of their reproductive rights. Congratulations to us, I guess, for being stuck with this justice until he dies or retires.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court-docket-2658159280/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_undefined&cx_artPos=4&cx_experienceId=EXC93HV4HK4I#cxrecs_s


Amy Coney-Barrett to rule on LGBTQ case whose anti-LGBTQ attorneys paid her 5 times for speaking engagements


Quote:
The plaintiff in 303 Creative LLC v Elenis is a Christian website designer represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a 501c3 that donated financially to the Jan. 6, 2021 Trump rally that morphed into a riot. This is ADF’s second go at a Supreme Court in LGBTQ rights case.

They also represented the baker who didn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding.


ADF paid Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett for five speaking engagements since 2011, according to The 19th.

On her business site, the plaintiff says that “God gave me the creative gifts that are expressed through this business, I have always strived… to avoid communicating ideas or messages, or promoting events, products, services, or organizations, that are inconsistent with my religious beliefs.” No LGBTQ person has demanded a pro-gay website from the plaintiff. But apparently, SCOTUS will be asked to decide whether artists–designers, singers, photographers, chefs, bakers—have the right to refuse their interpretive and creative services to a community willing to pay for them.

The ADF has an arm devoted to legal action on behalf of conservative churches and asks congregations online if they would be willing to be plaintiffs in a court case preserving religious freedoms.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2022 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-david-brock-believed-in-clarence-thomas-now-he-wants-him-impeached/ar-AA11UMLA?cvid=4978d4566ea4446483673b5d03f1f771&ocid=winp2sv1plustaskbarhover


Opinion: David Brock Believed In Clarence Thomas. Now He Wants Him Impeached.


Quote:
Twelve years ago, I penned a four-page memo laying out the case for impeaching Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. My memo was forwarded to then-Sen. Hillary Clinton by a mutual friend and became public in 2015, when Clinton’s emails were released after the Russian hacking.

As far as I know, the memo was read and, understandably, set aside. But it’s worth revisiting now that public confidence in the high court,already at record lows, is at issue after the court stripped away the Constitutional right to abortion from tens of millions of American women.

I have a long history studying Clarence Thomas. When law professor and former Thomas employee Anita Hill came forward and testified to the Senate that he had sexually harassed her, I assailed Hill’s credibility and protected Thomas’ reputation in order to please my right-wing tribe in an article and a subsequent book written with the full cooperation of Thomas’ allies. Years later, after Thomas’ own close friends confided to me that they never believed him and that he indeed had a penchant for raunchy pornography ― a key proof point for Hill’s case ― I recanted my reporting, concluded that Thomas was guilty as charged, andpublicly apologized to Hill.

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The hook for my 2010 memo were new interviews, in the New York Times and other outlets, of Lillian McEwen, a romantic partner of Thomas’ during the time Hill worked for him. McEwen had informed the committee that she had relevant information about Thomas, but she was never called to testify. (Then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden allowed the testimony of three other female corroborating witnesses for Hill to be similarly suppressed).

McEwen, a former prosecutor and judge, revealed that “pornography was just part of [Thomas’] personality structure,” and that he “frequented a store in Dupont Circle that catered to his needs.” Further, and more damaging, McEwen stated that Thomas brought talk of sex into the workplace. She said Thomas scouted women he worked with as sexual partners, and in one instance at work, told her he asked about a woman’s bra size. And yet, under questioning from Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy during the hearing, Thomas categorically denied any sexual discussion within the workplace with any woman, including Hill. This was a baldfaced lie.

Like presidents, justices and judges can be impeached on a majority vote of the House of Representatives and convicted by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. To my mind, McEwen’s interviews were smoking-gun evidence that Thomas had perjured himself to win Senate confirmation and therefore should face impeachment, even if the effort failed to remove him from office.

That was then. If Democrats had the fortitude now, they would take up impeachment in light of recent revelations that Thomas’ wife, Ginni, was an active participant in former President Donald Trump’s undemocratic and likely criminal pressure campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election. All too often, Democrats do not know how to fight and will not do what it takes to win. In this case, impeachment is not only the right thing to do, it’s good politics for Democrats in this moment. The coming midterms will be won by motivating and energizing the Democratic base, which rightly despises Clarence Thomas, and swaying Democratic-leaning independent women in the suburbs, who overwhelmingly support the right that the de facto Thomas court just stripped away. The electorate turning out this year is already highly partisan; further polarizing it will only help Democrats.

Thus Democrats should immediately open impeachment hearings on Thomas ― complete with dramatic televised hearings ― and then vote to remove him from office, even if on a party-line vote. The effort will fall short in the Senate, but devastating political points will have been scored, and the Republicans will have been put on defense only weeks before the November ballot. President Biden, whose poll numbers are way underwater with the left flank of the party, should endorse the impeachment drive, signaling to the Democratic base that he regrets having misjudged the politics of the Thomas hearings in 1991. As in 1992, when a backlash against the Thomas-Hill hearings ushered a record number of women into office, Democrats should make 2022 the “year of the woman” again by attempting to correct the grievous mistake of confirming Thomas in the first place.

As a former right-winger turned Democrat, I often ask myself what my former allies would do strategically given a political opportunity. If the shoe were on the other foot, Republicans would not hesitate to impeach a vulnerable figure like Thomas; not only to punish him for past sins, but also to discredit with the public a host of spurious decisions undoubtedly coming down the line in the future from this radical 5-4 MAGA majority.

The facts are there. Recentlysurfaced texts and emails show that Ginni Thomas was in communication with the White House chief of staff and Arizona lawmakers, falsely arguing that the election was stolen and beseeching them to take wrongful actions to reverse it. Ginni Thomas also corresponded with lawyer John Eastman, the architect of the plot to reverse the election. In one communication, she mentioned having spoken to her “friend” about the election, a likely reference to her husband. In another, she wrote, “Make a plan...and save us from the left taking America down.” At the time, Ginni Thomas was serving on the board of a right-wing group called CNP Action, the political advocacy arm of the Council for National Policy, which was urging Republicans to try to keep Trump in power.

In January of this year, after Ginni Thomas had sent her zealous emails, Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter in an 8-1 decision by the court requiring that the National Archives release Trump’s White House records to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Given Ginni Thomas’ active involvement in the events leading up to Jan. 6 ― and especially since the 29-text exchange she had with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks before appear to have been covered by the House document request ― Thomas should have recused himself from the case to avoid the appearance of impropriety. In other words, it looks like he was covering for his wife.

Federal law says judges and justices must recuse in cases where a spouse has “an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome” and where their “impartiality might be reasonably questioned.” In the Archives case,Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe concluded Thomas broke that law.

The issue of Thomas and his failure to recuse with respect to his wife’s political advocacy has been raised before. In 2011, 74 House Democrats said Thomas was required by federal law to recuse himself from any appeals involving the Affordable Care Act, since Ginni Thomas was a highly paid lobbyist working for clients seeking to overturn the law. Thomas ignored the letter, and in a subsequent case joined the minority that would have struck down the law. Thomas also failed to recuse himself from the court’s Muslim travel ban decision in 2018 even though, accordingto the New Yorker, Ginni Thomas was paid $200,000 in 2017 and 2018 by the Center for Security Policy, which submitted an amicus brief supporting the ban.

By the same logic, Thomas, the critical fifth vote to overturn Roe, should have recused himself from the Dobbs case as well. Ginni’s Thomas’ ardent anti-abortion advocacy has been well-documented. Documents unearthed by theNew York Times showed that while she was working with CNP and its affiliates, Ginni Thomas co-moderated a panel called “The Pro-Life Movement on Offense.” Thomas is also a key player in a secretive group called Groundswell, a right-wing coalition dedicated to a “30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation,” according to documents obtained byMother Jones. Groundswell “zeroes in on contentious issues that come before the high court, including voting rights, abortion and gay marriage,” the magazine found. The Eagle Forum, which opposes abortion rights, has honored Ginni Thomas with an award, and Clarence Thomas has twice headlined the group’s annual conference.

Late last week, a new analysis byAdvance Democracy Inc., a non-partisan research group, found that 51% of the parties who filed amicus briefs ― written legal arguments used to lobby justices ― calling for an end to a federal abortion rights have political ties to Ginni Thomas.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in 1991, Thomas said he supported the right to privacy, which undergirds Roe, and that he had no personal biases in approaching the abortion issue. Thomas testified: “I believe the Constitution protects the right to privacy. And I have no reason to prejudge or to predispose to rule one way or the other on abortion, which is a difficult issue.” Given his and his wife’s long-standing ties to the anti-abortion movement, this sworn testimony was disingenuous at best. (Impeaching Thomas is also a useful way of highlighting for the public the fact that Justices Brett Kavanaugh ― who denied under oath credible accusations of sexual assault ―and Amy Comey Barrett similarly misled the committee in their sworn testimony about Roe).

Thomas also ran afoul of the law whenhe failed to disclose $686,000 his wife made at the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007. Instead, he checked boxes indicating Ginni Thomas had no non-investment income in those years.The New Yorker reported that in 2017 and 2018, Thomas again failed to mention payments to his wife from the Center for Security Policy. The Ethics in Government Act requires all high-ranking federal officials to file yearly financial disclosure statements for themselves and their spouses, signed under penalty of perjury, to safeguard against conflicts of interest. It’s hard to believe that Thomas’ multiple disclosure failures were simply unintentional accounting errors. University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos has called the Heritage omissions “criminal.”

Clarence Thomas is an outlaw and a liar. He has not only misled the Senate, but, importantly, the public. Legal scholars have noted that the authority and legitimacy of the judicial branch, which is shielded from the whims of voters, depends on its perceived fairness, impartiality and integrity. On all three counts, Thomas fails the test. He should go.

Chief Justice John Roberts worries about the reputation of the court, but it is not really his court. It is Thomas’ court. Until that reality is recognized, it cannot be properly dealt with. Would it be perceived partisan to impeach Thomas? Of course it would. But there is a higher reason, which is to show that the constitutional rule of law can and will be upheld and the government in all its branches can be remedied.

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-gop-congressman-has-legitimate-concerns-clarence-thomas-was-involved-in-push-to-overturn-the-election/ar-AA12mjj2?cvid=6ae3f337393c4934b20a98a41c253872&ocid=winp2sv1plus

Former GOP congressman has 'legitimate concerns' Clarence Thomas was involved in 'push to overturn the election'


Quote:

Questions surfaced after Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the U.S. Supreme Court to oppose the release of Mark Meadows' texts and information to the Jan. 6 committee. It turned out that in those text messages that the justice didn't want revealed were communications with his wife.

Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), wrote in his new book that he thinks Justice Thomas is far more involved in his wife Ginni Thomas' 2020 election overthrow attempts.

Riggleman, who left the committee in April, included many of the text messages that had previously been released from Ginni Thomas, along with the note that he had a difficult time trying to get the House Select Committee to sound the alarm on her actions.

"Supreme Court spouses are typically low profile. Ginni’s involvement with political groups had already led to questions about whether Clarence would need to recuse himself in cases with a political component," wrote Riggleman. If Clarence had been in the logs, it would be a much bigger deal than all that. When I began to suspect Ginni and Clarence had texted with Meadows, I put together a technical brief outlining how we might be able to cement the identifications."

Related video: Jan. 6 committee members urge Ginni Thomas to testify

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) called him to express concern that telling Americans that such an influential figure had gone full-Q. Cheney was worried it would turn the whole committee into a political sideshow and overshadow all of the other work the committee was doing. The release of Riggleman's book has left the committee members furious over possible leaks after spending a year with so few.

Riggleman persisted in pressing Cheney to tell Americans about the Thomases.

"The committee needed to show the American people that there was an organized, violent effort to reverse the election—and that there were indications it could have been directed by the White House," he wrote. "Thanks to their prominence, Ginni and Clarence would make a lot of headlines, but those headlines might overwhelm the other important work we were doing."

The conversation with Cheney didn't go well, with the two "type A personalities" duking-out their arguments. Riggleman argued that data wasn't political. It wasn't right or wrong.

"I also thought that, given Clarence’s position and Ginni’s prominence in conservative circles, the American public had to know what she had been up to," argued Riggleman. "Some of the messages went beyond simply cheering Meadows on. It was legitimate for me to have concerns as to whether a Supreme Court justice had been involved in the legally questionable push to overturn the election. Was it possible that one of the country’s nine top judges was on board with an authoritarian interpretation of the Constitution? The implications were overwhelming. Cheney found it all improbable. I think she still had more faith in the institutional GOP than I did at that point."

Riggleman's book, The Breach, is on sale now an

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/watch/ginni-thomas-meets-with-jan-6-select-committee-investigators-149567045727

Who asked Ginni Thomas to call legislators in Wisconsin and Arizona?’ legal expert asks



Quote:
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist, has met with Jan. 6 select committee investigators. “Who asked Ginni Thomas to call legislators in Wisconsin and Arizona to get them to basically vote in those fake Trump electors?,” legal expert Nick Akerman asks Joy Reid.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.rawstory.com/what-a-supreme-court-impeachment-from-1805-could-mean-for-clarence-thomas-historian/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_undefined&cx_artPos=1&cx_experienceId=EXC93HV4HK4I#cxrecs_s


What a Supreme Court impeachment from 1805 could mean for Clarence Thomas: historian


Quote:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City has been calling for the impeachment of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, arguing that in light of his wife Ginni Thomas’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, he has no business taking part in cases that are related, in any way, to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. But fellow House Democrats, for the most part, haven’t been receptive to AOC’s recommendation — although they agree that Thomas should recuse himself from any January 6-related cases.


Like presidents, U.S. Supreme Court justices can be impeached in the United States. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have the power to impeach a Supreme Court justice and give members of the U.S. Senate articles of impeachment to be considered in an impeachment trial. But impeaching High Court justices is even more of a rarity in U.S. history than impeaching presidents.

Four U.S. presidents have been targets of articles of impeachment: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — although, in Nixon’s case, there was never a trial in the Senate. Nixon, during the Watergate scandal in August 1974, resigned before the impeachment process got that far. But as presidential historian/author Lindsay M. Chervinsky explains in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on September 2, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice has faced impeachment in the country’s 246-year history: Samuel Chase. And that was back in 1804/1805 when Thomas Jefferson was president.

“On February 4, 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr gaveled into session the impeachment trial of Justice Samuel Chase for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Chervinsky explains. “The stakes were impossibly high. No Supreme Court justice had ever been impeached. Every decision would establish precedent and shape future proceedings — so that the aftermath of the trial lasted far longer than the participants could have possibly imagined, down to the present day. Our ideas about impeachment and its role in the justice system can be directly traced to Chase’s trial, over 200 years ago.”





Chervinsky continues, “Chase certainly made an excellent target. Outside of his family, no one liked him. When George Washington nominated Chase to the High Court in 1796, many Federalists questioned whether he had the temperament to serve as a justice, even though he belonged to their party…. His cantankerous and querulous nature was so extreme that it earned him the nickname ‘Old Bacon Face.’ Bad humor was one thing, but Chase’s behavior on the bench was also highly partisan. He had campaigned openly for John Adams in 1800 and relished handing down extreme sentences to defendants accused of sedition against the Adams Administration.”

In 1804, Chervinsky notes, the U.S. House of Representatives voted, 73-32, to impeach Chase — and in 1805, Chase was “acquitted on every charge” in his Senate trial. Chase remained on the High Court until his death in 1811 at the age of 70.

“All told, the House has impeached 14 federal judges since 1789, and the Senate has removed 8 of them,” Chervinsky observes. “The charges have included waging war on the U.S. government during the Civil War, improper business relationships with litigants, favoritism, tax evasion and criminal conviction, perjury, and solicitation of a bribe. Among the acquitted judges, the articles of impeachment cited charges of favoritism and abuse of power. The Senate has never removed a Supreme Court justice.”

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Chervinsky goes on to explain what this history means for Justice Thomas in 2022.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, that evidence continues to emerge implicating Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, in the efforts by Trump supporters to overturn the 2020 election,” the presidential historian writes. “And let’s further suppose that a case involving some aspect of those efforts or the January 6th insurrection comes before the Supreme Court. Under these circumstances, most judicial ethics experts and reasonable observers would likely agree that Justice Thomas should recuse himself, but he has shown no interest in doing so thus far.”

Chervinsky adds, “He has already been involved in several Supreme Court actions that have in some way touched on the 2020 election. Most strikingly, when the Court in January rejected Trump’s attempt to keep various White House records from being sent to the House January 6th Committee, Thomas was the only justice who disagreed; he would have sided with Trump.”


Chervinsky has two recommendations: (1) “Congress could pass legislation mandating that the code of conduct for federal judges applies to the Supreme Court,” and (2) “Congress can start to treat impeachment as a suitable response to wildly inappropriate, if not outright illegal, behavior.”

“To reconceive of judicial impeachment in this way would force us to revisit the precedents set by Samuel Chase’s impeachment,” Chervinsky writes. “Two years after Chase’s acquittal, Jefferson wrote that the whole debacle was ‘a farce which will not be tried again.’ He was right — so far.”

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 2022 8:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

how do we know a right winger even on the supreme court is lying, well his lips are playing lip service to truth and justice. Right wingers are all liars and the right wing loves their liars.
what a dispicable groupthe right wing supreme court of sexula assulters, liars and immoral criminals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/us/politics/alito-kennedy-abortion.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20221024&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline&regi_id=115919677&segment_id=110936&user_id=f730a3b9531f5b2c781c5ff7996dd05c

Alito Assured Ted Kennedy in 2005 of Respect for Roe v. Wade, Diary Says


Quote:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy looked skeptically at the federal judge. It was Nov. 15, 2005, and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was seeking Senate confirmation for his nomination to the Supreme Court, had just assured Mr. Kennedy in a meeting in his Senate office that he respected the legal precedent of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court decision that legalized abortion.

“I am a believer in precedents,” Judge Alito said, in a recollection the senator recorded and had transcribed in his diary. “People would find I adhere to that.”

In the same conversation, the judge edged further in his assurances on Roe than he did in public. “I recognize there is a right to privacy,” he said, referring to the constitutional foundation of the decision. “I think it’s settled.”

But Mr. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and longtime supporter of abortion rights, remained dubious that November day that he could trust the conservative judge not to overturn the ruling. He brought up a memo that Judge Alito had written as a lawyer in the Reagan administration Justice Department in 1985, which boasted of his opposition to Roe.


Judge Alito assured Mr. Kennedy that he should not put much stock in the memo. He had been seeking a promotion and wrote what he thought his bosses wanted to hear. “I was a younger person,” Judge Alito said. “I’ve matured a lot.”

The answer did not assuage Mr. Kennedy, who went on to vote against Judge Alito’s confirmation. If the judge could configure his beliefs to get that 1985 promotion, Mr. Kennedy asked in a notation in his diary, how might he dissemble to clinch a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court?

Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion this past June in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the momentous Supreme Court decision that put aside 50 years of precedent and overturned Roe. Respect for longstanding precedent “does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority,” he wrote. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

Former aides and friends say that Mr. Kennedy, who died in 2009, would have reacted with the same anger he displayed in a speech two years before his death, when he assailed the performance of judicial nominees who “worked hard to give the impression of moderation” and “assured us that they would not bring an ideological agenda to the bench,” only to “reveal themselves as ideologues” once confirmed.

The 2005 exchange between the two men is based on portions from Mr. Kennedy’s private diary that will be made public for the first time in “Ted Kennedy: A Life,” a book by this writer that will be published by Penguin on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for Justice Alito said he had no comment on the conversation.


The exchange has come to light as Democrats remain enraged about Justice Alito’s opinion, and as many Americans question the legitimacy of the conservative court. In a Gallup poll released last month, 58 percent of Americans said they disapproved of the job the Supreme Court was doing.

In a case similar to Mr. Kennedy’s, Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who supports abortion rights, said she felt betrayed by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who in seeking her support as a court nominee in 2018 persuaded her that he was no threat to Roe. Ms. Collins voted to confirm him. Four years later, he sided with Justice Alito to overturn the ruling.

“I feel misled,” Ms. Collins said in an interview in June. Justice Kavanaugh had told Ms. Collins, according to contemporaneous notes taken by multiple staff members in the 2018 meeting, to “start with my record, my respect for precedent, my belief that it is rooted in the Constitution and my commitment to the rule of law.” He added that “I understand precedent and I understand the importance of overturning it.”

Some longtime court watchers say that nominees like Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Alito are more guilty of selective truth-telling than lying, and that if justices say they believe in precedent, it should not be considered absolute.

“A listener could easily but wrongly infer that Roe would be safe before a Justice Alito, as Alito would certainly know,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University’s School of Law who specializes in legal ethics and reviewed the segments from Mr. Kennedy’s diary. “Alito would also know that a listener would be misled. No serious court watcher can doubt that what Alito said in Dobbs he deeply believed in 2005. And long before then.”

“Ted Kennedy: A Life” covers the liberal senator’s 77 years from birth to death, and the exchange with Justice Alito is in a section on President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court appointments. The diary has a fuller account of the exchange than is in the book, including this segment:

“I believe that there is a right to privacy. I think it’s settled as part of the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment and the Fifth Amendment,” Mr. Kennedy quoted Judge Alito as saying. Mr. Kennedy continued with this recollection of Judge Alito’s words: “So I recognize there is a right to privacy. I’m a believer in precedents. I think on the Roe case that’s about as far as I can go.”

“We’ve got statements that you’ve got these views,” Mr. Kennedy countered, according to the diary.

“Those are personal,” Judge Alito said, by Mr. Kennedy’s account. “But I’ve got constitutional responsibilities and those are going to be the determining views.”

Judge Alito did not seem to go so far in his confirmation hearings two months later, in January 2006. He was pressed then by senators on whether Roe was settled law but would not say. “It is a precedent that has now been on the books for several decades,” he said. “It has been challenged. It has been reaffirmed. But it is an issue that is involved in litigation now at all levels.”

Mr. Kennedy kept a diary from the time he was a child, and often during his years in public office he would speak into a tape recorder while on trips to Vietnam, after meetings with American presidents or in sessions with his fellow senators. Transcriptions were made and stored at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

When Mr. Kennedy needed to refresh his memory, whether for interviews with reporters or historians, or for his own oral history projects, his staff was assigned the job of combing the diaries and preparing briefing material. The diary entries for his meetings with Justice Alito were included in a briefing book prepared for the senator for an oral history session on Supreme Court nominations.

An aide to the senator provided a copy of the briefing book for use in “Ted Kennedy: A Life.” There are no announced plans to open, or publish, the senator’s diaries themselves.

A July 21, 2005, diary entry from the briefing book contains an exchange between Mr. Kennedy and another judicial nominee, John G. Roberts Jr., now the chief justice, who was seeking the senator’s support.

Mr. Kennedy began with a cry from the heart. He told Judge Roberts that American history was an unfolding saga, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the enactment of the civil rights, voting rights and immigration legislation of the 1960s to more recent struggles to secure the rights of women, disabled people and gay Americans. Through it all Mr. Kennedy said the country had progressed in one direction toward freedom and equality.

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“That has to be our continuum,” he told Chief Justice Roberts. Without it, America would be “a lesser country, a lesser land.”

The opposition was always rooted in “hostility and suspicion and, in many cases, bigotry,” Mr. Kennedy said. The man who would be the new chief justice would have to take a side. “This is the real question for you, whether you’re going to be a part of this whole movement for progress, or if there’s going to be a retrenchment.”

The nominee was wary, Mr. Kennedy reported in his diary: “I didn’t feel I was making much progress.”

He took another tack, trying to connect with the nominee over their shared Roman Catholic faith. The judge opened up a bit, saying that his faith was “something more powerful and bigger than myself” and “a guiding hand in terms of my life.”

“I said my philosophy is motived by the Beatitudes and by Matthew 25:40 about the ‘least of these,’” Mr. Kennedy recounted. But that brief connection failed and their talk drifted off to Ireland, where the nominee’s family had a home not far from the senator’s own ancestral fief. (A spokeswoman for the court said Chief Justice Roberts had no comment.)

“He’s bright and smart and compelling,” Mr. Kennedy recalled. But “about where we are” as a country, “he didn’t want to get into that at all. He’s very cautious.”

Mr. Kennedy ended up voting against Chief Justice Roberts, too.

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