Justice is the thing with fetters

a-a-and The Vanquisher has launched his 2024 Tour

Exactly. John Roberts refused to speak to Congress because he can’t defend the indefensible. From Dahlia Lithwick & Mark Stern in Slate:

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Put aside for a moment Politico’s new report that Justice Neil Gorsuch failed to disclose that he’d sold his valuable Colorado property to a prominent lawyer with multiple cases before the court only nine days after he was confirmed, or Bloomberg’s new revelations that Harlan Crow, Justice Clarence Thomas’ GOP-megadonor billionaire friend, also had business before the court, yet his lavish gifts to Thomas were not disclosed because the justice said Crow had no business before the court. Note also that Gorsuch’s failure to disclose has been defended on the grounds that the justice was not friends with the purchaser of his land, whereas Thomas’ failure to disclose Crow’s gifts has been defended on the grounds that the justice was close friends with him. Which “friend” rule wins? Who can possibly know.

The justices themselves are wholly responsible for this high-octane ethics quagmire, which now drags into its fourth week. Any sane institution that relies wholly on public approval, when faced with multiple irrefutable reports of distortions and deception, would respond with a plan to do better. It speaks volumes that the Imperial Court’s response is a promise to simply continue to do the same. Why? Because it thinks the other branches won’t do anything about it. As Ian Millhiser noted in Vox this week, the Constitution makes it extraordinarily difficult to remove a justice, or diminish the court’s power. The reason it is set up this way, believe it or not, is because the framers thought the judiciary would rise above the partisan fray. In practice, however, the Supreme Court has proven remarkably easy for one political party to capture. Its members are selected through a flagrantly political process. It is formed by political imperatives. And yet the court pretends—and demands we all pretend—that it’s magically purified of politics as soon as its justices are seated.

In reality, it’s just a monarchy tricked out as the least dangerous branch, with black robes instead of bejeweled crowns. Indeed, the implicit argument that justices are somehow entitled to live like kings is part of the current ethics problem. For their part, the justices insist that it must ever be thus, not realizing that the only question that matters is whether that willful blindness can be imposed upon the country by fiat. Chief Justice Roberts appears to believe it can.

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As the article notes, several bills in Congress will try to tame the political judges that think they’re royals.

That any judge could take gifts like Clarence Thomas has and think it’s an ethically sound and defensible practice suggests a bit of decline in his reasoning capacities. It’s never been proven a good practice to give appointments for life because, in some, such decline is inevitable and it has been seen before in this august assembly of self-inflatables. That last is not directed at all justices, just the few who exceed the standards of ‘keeping it real.’

Of course I’m saddened by the loss of the multi-talented artist and social justice ambassador that Harry Belafonte was. Felt the same way I did in the days when Pete Seeger died. And when Johnny Cash died. And Mary Travers. And Marvin Gaye.

From Day-O to Beetlejuice to We Are the World, Mr. Belafonte gave us music, acting, an unrelenting tongue against bigotry and for a universal justice of human rights for each. Reminded us that starving children anywhere was not permissible and millions more have been better fed because of whatever spirit filled his heart that let him rejoice in his roots in the Harlem Renaissance years and his island upbringing. His compassion and intellect were fierce. May they all live on in the human annals.

I hope you do, too.

Here, have some Harry.

See Joe run.

On the Anti-Malarkey Party ticket. He’s embraced his inner Brandon like nobody’s seen before. I think I like the guy for 2024 because he dealt with all the death and chaos pretty well. And I like his new swag.

Owning political foes by beating their meme-swords into lawnchairs.

And some humor for your Thursday.

Let this be the day to give yourself some extra self-care, too, as you’re always doing for others. Give it up for you!