If you think the Supreme Court allowed forms of graft are a minor thing, here even the prissy old drab, the NYT on this hand - on that hand admission that it is a real thing.
When Justice Scalia died two weeks ago, he was staying, again for free, at a West Texas hunting lodge owned by a businessman whose company had recently had a matter before the Supreme Court.
Though that trip has brought new attention to the justice’s penchant for travel, it was in addition to the 258 subsidized trips that he took from 2004 to 2014. Justice Scalia went on at least 23 privately funded trips in 2014 alone to places like Hawaii, Ireland and Switzerland, giving speeches, participating in moot court events or teaching classes. A few weeks before his death, he was in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Many of the justices are frequent expenses-paid travelers, a practice that some court scholars say is a minor matter, given that many of the trips involve public talks that help demystify the court. But others argue that the trips could potentially create the appearance of a conflict of interest, particularly when the organizations are known for their conservative or liberal views. Some groups at times use the presence of a Supreme Court justice as a way to pull in members or other paying guests.
There is far more than an appearance of a conflict of interest. No one with a vestigial mind and a sense of morality would not see this for the scandal it is, you've got to be a trained lawyer-liar to pretend you don't, or a "journalist" such as the kind who write that kind of ass cover to keep them on the side of the oligarchs.
The Supreme Court is a corrupt institution and if you take an honest look at not only the history of what they say - generally how that crooked court is talked about - BUT WHAT THE INTERESTS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE COURT AND THOSE WHO ARE CLOSE TO THEM AND THOSE WHO OPENLY BRIBE THEM, that corruption is florid and started at the very beginning of it. The ante-bellum and gilded-era corruption of Congress is frequently gone over - with good reason, but the Supreme Court which was in thick with thieves with that and our new gilded age corruption is almost never looked at in the same hard way. Which, as Sheldon Whitehouse so pithily noted the other day, is "anomalous," that "the highest court has the lowest standards."
You should be aware that the Federalist fascists are going after Whitehouse, I can guarantee you that their media pals are preparing an attack on him in the way they do whenever someone threatens their corrupt clique with too much truth and honesty.
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