The Supreme Court: Clarence & Ginni Thomas Jet Set Edition

[goofy]

Not that this is at all a surprise, but good on WaPo for doing the legwork to investigate this I guess:

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1707484849966039514

non-paywall link

In its petition asking the high court to hear the Colorado case, ADF cited favorable decisions it had won in those three cases. Winning meant its clients were free to express their beliefs about marriage through their work “without fear of government punishment,” ADF said in a statement after one ruling.

But an examination by The Washington Post of court filings, company records and other materials found that two of the three vendors cited in ADF’s September 2021 petition had stopped working on weddings, and the other did not photograph any weddings for two years. Three additional vendors represented by ADF in similar lawsuits elsewhere also abandoned or sharply cut back their work on weddings after they sued local authorities for the right to reject same-sex couples, The Post found.

ADF also had a hand in formally establishing companies for some of its clients, The Post found. Lawyers associated with the legal group signed incorporation paperwork and helped to draft company policies that were later used as a basis for the wedding lawsuits. ADF promoted some of its lawsuits with videos and images of plaintiffs photographing women in bridal gowns at what The Post found were staged events featuring ADF employees.

In May 2016, ADF sued the city of Phoenix on behalf of two artists who made invitations and stationery under the studio name Brush & Nib. The artists had formed their company a year earlier, having met through their church. After Phoenix won in lower courts, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed those decisions in September 2019 and ruled in favor of the artists. The case was one of the three ADF cited in its Supreme Court petition.

But Brush & Nib appears to have stopped doing business not long after its court victory. Even before the win, one of the artists co-founded a conservative polling and PR firm, a firm that has since worked for ADF and several prominent Arizona Republican politicians. The other artist moved about 100 miles away from Phoenix and formed a cleaning company in August 2021, records show.

Their studio’s social media accounts, where they posted new work, have been closed or not updated since the victory. For more than a year, the studio’s website address has displayed advertising for an Indonesian gambling company. The artists, Joanna De La Cruz and Breanna Koski, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Fake cases with fake clients, and that’s all good for this SCOTUS.

[goofy]

In-depth article about today’s oral argument in a case where conservatives are trying to kill the CFPB, arguing its funding structure is unconstitutional. The argument rests on pretty weak ground and it sounds like even conservative justices are skeptical:

Justice Jackson questions basis for congressional spending powers case

[TrueNorth]

Chris Hayes had a segment with Senator Warren last night on this. Apparently the entire structure underpinning the financial system is unconstitutional if you take plaintiff’s argument at face value.

[SensiblePerson]

Thomas at it again. Got his feefees hurt because people are saying mean things about his corruption…

Clarence Thomas Renews Call for Reconsideration of Landmark Libel Ruling

Magic link

Here’s him flogging that originalist nonsense again:

Justice Thomas wrote that the decision had no basis in the Constitution as it was understood by the people who drafted and ratified it. He added, quoting an earlier opinion, that it “comes at a heavy cost, allowing media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’”

Justice Thomas has been the subject of a series of news reports raising questions about whether he had violated ethics rules. The reports said he had failed to disclose gifts and trips from Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire who has donated to conservative causes.

Also another instance of him laying out a roadmap for the right-wing legal world to bring him a case that will enable him to do what he wants.

Justice Thomas’s latest opinion came in a case brought by [ notorious piece of shit ] Don Blankenship, a former coal company executive and Senate candidate in West Virginia. He sued several news organizations for calling him a felon after he was convicted of conspiracy, a misdemeanor, in connection with the aftermath of a mine explosion.
[ … ]
The Supreme Court rejected Mr. Blankenship’s request that it review that decision, without giving reasons. Justice Thomas concurred, saying the case was a poor vehicle for deciding the fate of Sullivan because West Virginia law also required Mr. Blankenship to prove actual malice to prevail.

“In an appropriate case, however,” Justice Thomas wrote, “we should reconsider New York Times and our other decisions displacing state defamation law.”

[goofy]

@goofy

Jay Willis is the only good legal journalist

Federal Judges Shouldn’t Be Polite to Unserious Hacks

In a 2-1 decision on Monday, a three-judge Fifth Circuit panel upheld a lower court’s stay of Murphy’s execution while his lawyers challenged evidence used to sentence him to death. The lone dissenter was Jerry Smith, whom President Ronald Reagan elevated to the country’s most conservative federal appeals court in 1987. “The majority opinion is grave error,” Smith wrote, excoriating his colleagues for buying “a vapid last-minute attempt to stay an execution that should have occurred decades ago.”

All of this sounded like standard-issue Reagan appointee bloodlust, but what followed was not. “In the interest of time, instead of penning a long dissent pointing to the panel majority and district court’s myriad mistakes, I attach the Fifth Circuit panel opinion that should have been issued,” Smith wrote. Sure enough, he then included what looks like a real majority opinion that purports to vacate the stay and allow Texas to move ahead with Murphy’s execution. At 18 pages, Smith’s fake majority opinion is more than three times longer than the actual majority opinion, and explains in painstaking detail on behalf of a nonexistent unanimous panel why Jedidiah Murphy should have been dead already.

I cannot stress enough how deranged this is: a life-tenured federal judge so incensed about what amounted to a 24-hour stay of execution that he decided to uncork a fake majority opinion to complain about it.

There should be consequences for pulling stuff like this, even if those consequences are limited to social opprobrium; in just about any other setting, at least a few of Smith’s hundreds of colleagues would correctly call this out as an offensive stunt by an unserious crank desperate for attention. Instead, Texas got its wish, Jedidiah Murphy is dead, and Jerry Smith’s chambers are about to be inundated with fawning cover letters and mediocre writing samples from edgelord law students vying for an Alito clerkship.

Many pundits and academics on the right maintain that some daylight exists between the conservative legal movement and the Republican Party’s full-on embrace of Donald Trump: Politicians may say and do boorish, uncouth things, sure, but judges—respectable people who do law, not politics—would never stoop to such unseemly depths. As Smith demonstrates, this is naive wishcasting at best. Republican judges understand that right now, the surest path to praise, prominence, and promotion within the conservative legal movement is to find creative new ways to own the libs. When a game doesn’t have real rules, the players who are most willing to ignore them are generally going to come out on top.

[Krayz]

Just got re-vaxx’d. Didn’t even ask for my vaccine card this time. I’ve got shitty fevers every time I’ve gotten it so hopefully this time is better. Got it with the Flu vaccine so probably not.

[SensiblePerson]

[Krayz]

Poasting is hard man

[BriansHat]

That vaccine has you posting in the wrong threads already!

[goofy]

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/14/supreme-court-arguments-justices-interrupting

Most justices in the study were more likely to interrupt women; the discrepancy was especially pronounced among conservative-leaning justices.

[goofy]

Putting the upcoming case about whether the government can deprive wife beaters of their god-given second amendment rights into context:

Domestic Violence Homicides Climb As Supreme Court Weighs Bombshell Case

I think Rahimi (the defendant, who won at the psycho Fifth Circuit) loses 7-2 so Roberts can triumphantly play the role of “reasonable moderate” to a fawning media, even though it’s batshit this case got here at all

[McTrollson]

Sandra Day, WTF are you doing.

[Jman220]

If Rahimi wins, this hellhole is about to get even more dangerous for basically everyone.

[riverman]

Forgiven debt is taxable income. This is criminal tax fraud. Fucking LOL LAW every time.

https://x.com/nickbaumann/status/1717255737636770100?s=46&t=XGja5BtSraUljl_WWUrIUg

[McTrollson]

WTF is the point of a Senate probe if the Senate won’t do anything if they find something?

[riverman]

Part of me finds it hilarious he’s basically just a dumb fucking redneck. Like Harlan Crow and company had to be annoyed that the bribes were in the form of dumb fucking hunting trips and RV loan forgiveness.

[SensiblePerson]

Came here to post this but ponied, obviously.

I’ll go ahead and post the direct NYT and “magic” links for those who don’t want to give Elon clicks.

Justice Thomas’s R.V. Loan Was Forgiven, Senate Inquiry Finds

Magic link

[Surf]

As an aside, RVs gotta be like the dumbest shit around right? Like imagine the baller vacations you could have for 250k over course of 15 years vs being stuck in that thing

[riverman]

I think people like Clarence Thomas do the RV thing because they are so devoid of taste and curiosity it feels more comfortable to them than objectively awesome travel.

[Danspartan]

If you live in it or practically do so for several weeks a year it may make sense. Go spend a week in all the national parks etc.

Otherwise it’s just gross.