Clarence Thomas Poll

[The Blood]

1 hour ago, Imperator Taco Cat said:

28th amendment: No Federal, State, or local government may restrict the right of men to kill each other.

Just as the Founding Fathers intended.

[MrPotatoTed]

On 5/8/2023 at 4:36 PM, Pringles said:

Any Court of Law should not be subject to public opinion or inappropriate outside pressure. If that was the case what if it was popular to murder people?

See: Second Amendment

[MrPotatoTed]

For number 4, all of Trump's appointees (and half the court overall) are in their 50's.  I see no reason to handicap ourselves by putting 70-year-old Garland or even 60-something year old Sally Yates on the court.  Give us someone in their 50's, so we've got a good 20+ years before we have to worry about it again.

For number 5, nobody who cares about this case had a positive view of President Bush to begin with.

[Edouard]

The alignment of questions is notable, and shows how much political custom in the US has progressively switched since the 60s and 90s from caring about the ethic of what the Supreme Court judge did, to what the Supreme Court judge thinks and if I agree with his political views.

Namely - If this Judge thinks like me, he can do what he wants.

It's the sign of the social growth of the politization of the judiciary in the United States (but not only the US) which makes that nowadays the political alignment of judges is more important for a lot of people than any consideration about their ethic.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Edouard

[Hestia]

16 minutes ago, Edouard said:

I don't want to roast anyone on this forum, but the alignment of questions is notable, and shows how much political custom in the US has progressively switched since the 60s and 90s from caring about the ethic of what the Supreme Court judge did, to what the Supreme Court judge thinks and if I agree with his political views.

Namely - If this Judge thinks like me, he can do what he wants.

It's the sign of the social growth of the politization of the judiciary in the United States (but not only the US) which makes that nowadays the political alignment of judges is more important for a lot of people than any consideration about their ethic.

I think that is a point that could be brought up, but to me, and I think a lot of other people, what Thomas has done - both vis a vis the election, the actions of his wife, and these ethics breaches are considerably different from what the other judges - conservative and liberal alike - have done. There will be partisans that stick up for their side no matter what. I won't name names here because really it isn't important, but it happens - again, liberal and conservative will do so. Then you have some like Pringles and others (both on the forum and in the general public) who do believe that these are ethics breaches of some sort from their own side. I would hazard a guess this would be very similar to a liberal judge that this happened to, just in reverse. Do you believe that what he's done is not a breach of ethics? 

Abe Fortas was forced to resign in 1969 under pressure from Nixon. He accepted about $20k, roughly equal to half his salary. He later repaid that (I believe before it surfaced) and he still resigned. From the Philadelphia Inquirer, 

Quote

While $20,000 was a lot of money in 1969, that figure is dwarfed by the apparently seven-figure spending spree by a right-wing Texas billionaire, Harlan Crow, around the friendship he struck up with sitting Justice Clarence Thomas in the early 2000s. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Crow spent on private jet travel, yacht outings, and luxury accommodations from the Adirondacks to Indonesia for Thomas and his wife, Ginni, Crow bought from Thomas and fixed up the Georgia home where his mother still lives, and even paid the private school tuition for a relative Thomas was raising as guardian. Such dealings might be legal under the court’s murky ethical standards, but Thomas was required by law to disclose them. He did not.

Therefore, I don't think we are in a *completely* different situation on this than in the past. Other circumstances with the Supreme Court - namely trust, etc. - yes, we are. But this is fairly standard. 

[Edouard]

Thank you for sharing your opinion Hestia !

It is not only this but the way judges in a lot of countries are considered as political agents more and more.

In the US Senate it is showed by the way senators are more and more divided over appointing Supreme Court nominees, and how in the end this polarization produces judicial instability like the overturn of Roe v Wade.

Of course I am not only pointing one party here, the last years also showed a partisan race for appointing federal judges in the US senate.

[Pringles]

1 hour ago, Hestia said:

Abe Fortas was forced to resign in 1969 under pressure from Nixon.

If the 1968 RP made it this far, I, as the GOP Mod Chief Justice Roberts would pressure Thomas to resign. Just as Rehnquist did Fortas. 😈😈😈 (in RP of course) 

[Hestia]

14 minutes ago, Pringles said:

Just as Rehnquist did Fortas. 😈😈😈 (in RP of course) 

I am legally obligated to say this was not based 

[MrPotatoTed]

3 hours ago, Edouard said:

The alignment of questions is notable, and shows how much political custom in the US has progressively switched since the 60s and 90s from caring about the ethic of what the Supreme Court judge did, to what the Supreme Court judge thinks and if I agree with his political views.

Namely - If this Judge thinks like me, he can do what he wants.

It's the sign of the social growth of the politization of the judiciary in the United States (but not only the US) which makes that nowadays the political alignment of judges is more important for a lot of people than any consideration about their ethic.

It’s an interesting point.  I know personally that I once was 100% sure Al Franken would be President one day, and I was fully on board with that.  But when his scandal leaked, I was among the people who immediately called for his resignation — not just because what he did wasn’t okay, but also because if we protected him we could never call Trump out for all of his sexual assaults.  If we’re going to claim the moral high ground, we have to hold ourselves to that same standard.

[pilight]

On 5/8/2023 at 5:06 PM, Pringles said:

Most court decisions are actually pretty near-unanimous, all things considered. It's these landmark cases that get the most attention. 

 

The Supreme Court is far less politicized than the media makes it out to be. The reality is we've got eight of the best legal minds in the country plus Sam Alito making decisions on contentious issues based on the law. Media loves to make SCOTUS rulings (a vast majority of which are near unanimous rulings on legalese) seem like partisan dogfights when they’re not. That sort of lack of perspective is what causes people to think the court is far more partisan that it actually is

[vcczar]

2 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

It’s an interesting point.  I know personally that I once was 100% sure Al Franken would be President one day, and I was fully on board with that.  But when his scandal leaked, I was among the people who immediately called for his resignation — not just because what he did wasn’t okay, but also because if we protected him we could never call Trump out for all of his sexual assaults.  If we’re going to claim the moral high ground, we have to hold ourselves to that same standard.

Al Franken was my frontrunner for 2016 before the scandal. I was for the resignation too but regretted it as soon as Trump was the GOP nominee. 

[pilight]

I said all along that Franken shouldn't resign.  Absent a conviction, it's for the voters to decide whether they want someone to hold office.

[ShortKing]

I think Franken would have been well within his rights to stick it out, the same way Northam served out the rest of his term even after his blackface scandal (given that it was a unique situation given how the line of succession in Virginia back then was besieged by scandal) but it was prudent for him to step down when he did.