True Left

Supreme Court casts doubt on obstruction charges against hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters
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The Supreme Court cast doubt Tuesday on the legality of obstruction charges lodged against some 300 rioters arrested for breaking into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
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While the court's three liberals appeared to agree with prosecutors that law can be read broadly, the six conservatives sounded skeptical.

A ruling that limits the obstruction law could also undercut the prosecution of former President Trump. Two of the four criminal charges against him are based on the obstruction law.

Who are these conservative justices bluffing? When it suits their Trumpian agenda, they call themselves "textualists" who decide cases based on the words of the laws. However, while ruling on Trump's disqualification from the ballot in Colorado, why didn't they stick to the text of Section 3 of 14th Amendment that clearly forbids an insurrectionist like Trump from running for office: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same..." These justices are a disgrace for undermining the integrity of SCOTUS. Shame on them!

Can you imagine? If January 6th had been perpetuated by black people? The minions would be singing a different tune.  They truly believe they can do ANYTHING they want because most are white.

This corrupt, conservative majority will do anything to help TheRump and the MAGA insurrectionists. Whether we sit here and allow it to happen is up to us.

Nomination of Neil Gorsuch

In 2016, Leo worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block President Barack Obama's replacement appointee, Merrick Garland. Leo's nonprofit, the Judicial Crisis Network reported that it spent more than $7 million to prevent Garland's confirmation.[12] After Donald Trump's election, The New York Times described Leo as playing a "critical role" in reshaping the judiciary through Trump's Supreme Court nominees, first contacting then appellate-judge Neil Gorsuch about potentially nominating him to the vacancy created by Scalia's death.[13][14] Leo's CRC Advisors coordinated "a months-long media campaign" in support of Gorsuch's nomination, including "opinion essays, contributing 5,000 quotes to news stories, scheduling pundit appearances on television," and television and radio advertisements.[12][4][15] Between 2014 and 2017, Leo-affiliated entities raised over $250 million from donors including Charles Koch and Rebekah Mercer.[16][4][17]

Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

In 2018, Politico reported that Leo had personally lobbied for Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy, raising upward of $15 million in support of his confirmation.[18] The Judicial Crisis Network ran television and radio advertisements supporting Kavanaugh's nomination, and CRC advisors "hype[d] a theory that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation—that when they were both in high school, Kavanaugh pushed her on a bed and tried to remove her clothing—was actually a case of mistaken identity".[18]

Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

In a 2018 interview, when asked about a possible vacancy on the Supreme Court during an election year, Leo stated that "If a vacancy occurs in 2020, the vacancy needs to remain open until a president is elected and inaugurated and can pick. That's my position, period." Leo said he would advise Trump not to act on an election year Supreme Court vacancy, saying he had never asked Trump about the possible scenario, but that it was Leo's opinion that he should not act on a 2020 Supreme Court vacancy, should it arise.[19]

After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Leo was involved in the selection process for Ginsburg's replacement, ultimately resulting in the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett.[20][21]

There is a reason why so many US officials get away with apparent bribery and graft.

As the old saying goes, power tends to corrupt.

According to US mythology, of course, corruption is entirely the business of other, less civilised nations – particularly enemies of the US – that lack the proper commitment to democracy, the rule of law, and all that nice and noble stuff.

Take Clarence Thomas, the US Supreme Court justice whose corrupt exploits have been thoroughly investigated by the New York-based nonprofit ProPublica. One recent ProPublica report notes that, “like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence”.

The report goes on to document said “leisure activities”, which have included at least 38 vacations, 26 private jet flights, eight helicopter flights, and various excursions to luxury resorts, sporting events and so on. Billionaire real estate tycoon Harlan Crow, an enthusiastic collector of Nazi paraphernalia, is but one of the filthy rich right-wing contributors to Thomas’s seemingly eternal “leisure”. Crow has also funded numerous other favours, such as paying for Thomas’s grandnephew to attend an exclusive private boarding school.

In September, ProPublica revealed that Thomas had secretly participated in donor summits for the Koch network, founded by the billionaire Koch brothers and devoted to driving US policy ever more to the right. And what do you know? The Koch strategy includes bringing cases before the very court on which Thomas sits to impact US law.

At the end of the day, though, Thomas’s antics are merely of a piece with US capitalism, which is predicated on maintaining a tyranny of the elite under the guise of democracy. In other words, it’s about as corrupt a system as you can get.

a country where the Supreme Court reverses campaign finance restrictions and political influence is transparently up for sale.

There’s Samuel Alito, another Supreme Court justice who this year was exposed as having also accepted undisclosed gifts from billionaire hedge fund manager and Republican Party mega-donor Paul Singer. After being treated by Singer to a luxury fishing trip in Alaska in 2008, Alito ruled in favour of Singer’s hedge fund in a case before the Supreme Court.

And then there’s Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general acquitted of corruption charges on September 16 in a historic impeachment trial, in which he was accused of bribery, obstruction of justice, abuse of public trust and other misdeeds.

An ally of former US President Donald Trump and an accomplice in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results, Paxton remains under FBI investigation on separate corruption charges and faces trial on allegations of felony securities fraud. After the Texas Senate acquitted the state’s top law enforcement official, Trump took to his social media platform to celebrate with typical eloquence: “The Ken Paxton Victory is sooo BIG. WOW!!!”

And as US officials get away with all manner of bribery scandals and the frenetic injection of right-wing money into politics sustains a brutal plutocracy, the whole scene does indeed reek of decay.