"The polite norms around the Supreme Court have been obliterated. This should be apparent to everyone; every one of these shadow docket rulings where the majority semi-anonymously grants a would-be dictator more power to overthrow the Constitution only reinforces the fact that the high court’s age of respectability is over."
"In an interview at Catholic University last week, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said what he’s clearly been thinking for the past 30 years: Supreme Court precedents don’t matter, and he’s making things up as he goes along to fulfill his own political agenda.:
by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski
Sept. 22, 2023, 5 a.m. EDT
Excerpt: "Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.
" 'In the 15 years since, the Koch network has left a deep imprint on American society. Its advocacy is credited with helping stamp out Republican Party support for combating #ClimateChange, once an issue that drew bipartisan concern. The “full weight of the network” was thrown behind passing the 2017 #TrumpTaxCut, securing a windfall for the Kochs and their donors. And the upcoming Supreme Court term could bring the network a victory it has pursued for years: overturning a major legal precedent known as #Chevron.
"While most Americans aren’t familiar with the 1984 case Chevron v. #NRDC, it’s one of the Supreme Court’s most-cited decisions. Legal scholars sometimes mention it in the same breath as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. In essence, Chevron is about government agencies’ ability to issue regulations. After a law is enacted, it’s generally up to agencies across the government to make detailed rules putting it into effect. The Chevron decision said courts should be hesitant to second-guess the agencies’ determinations. In the years that followed, judges cited Chevron in upholding rules that protect endangered species, speed up the approval process for new cellphone towers and grant benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung.
"The Koch network has challenged Chevron in the courts and its lobbyists have pushed Congress to pass a law nullifying the decision. It has also provided millions of dollars in grants to law professors making the case to overturn it.
"The network’s position has become increasingly popular in recent years. Once broadly supported by academics and judges on the right, Chevron is now anathema to many in the conservative legal movement. And there’s no more prominent convert than Thomas.
"In 2005, Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case that expanded Chevron’s protections for government agencies. Ten years later, he was openly questioning the doctrine. Then in 2020, Thomas renounced his own earlier decision, writing that he’d determined the doctrine is unconstitutional after all — a rare reversal for a justice with a reputation for being unmovable in his views.
"By last year, Koch network strategists sensed that victory could be at hand. During an internal briefing for network staff, Jorge Lima, a senior vice president at Americans for Prosperity, said the Supreme Court seemed primed to radically change its approach to the issue. The network was trying to find cases that could bring about major changes in the law, according to a video of the meeting obtained by the watchdog group Documented. “We’re doubling down on this strategy,” Lima told the crowd.
"Several months later, the Supreme Court announced it would take up a case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which Koch network staff attorneys represent the plaintiffs. If Thomas and his colleagues side with them this coming term, Chevron will be overturned once and for all."
"Like many Supreme Court cases in recent years, the key to reading Cannon’s opinion is to refuse to engage with it as a piece of serious legal analysis.
Instead, it should be read as what it is: an expression of pure power, the kind that knows there’s no consequence for its misuse. That’s why Cannon can breezily dispose of decades of precedent about special counsel appointments: Who’s going to stop her?"
#AileenCannon dismissed the #indictment on the grounds that #SpecialCounsel#JackSmith was improperly appointed.
Cannon’s ruling is a remarkable win for Trump, whose lawyers have thrown longshot argument after longshot argument to dismiss the case. Other courts have rejected similar arguments to the one that he made in Florida about Smith’s unlawful appointment.
#ClarenceThomas argued that the #SpecialCounsel’s office needs to be established by #Congress & confirmed by the #Senate. He said he tacked on his concurring opinion to the #immunity ruling to “highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure.”
“If there is no #law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution. A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a fmr President.”
#Senate#Judiciary Committee uncovers 3 additional undisclosed trips that Justice #ClarenceThomas took as a gift from #HarlanCrow. These were not included even in Thomas' revised financial disclosure.
Info was obtained via the cmte's subpoena authorization for Crow.
The #SCOTUS justice flew to Montana & other destinations on the #billionaire#GOP#megadonor’s dime. Crow’s lawyer revealed these flights to the Senate #Judiciary Committee, whose ongoing investigation was sparked by #ProPublica’s reporting.
A cartoon labeled The Supremely Unethical Court showing Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Behind Thomas is his wife, wearing the horned headdress of the QAnon Shaman and texting away. Behind Alito is his wife, raising an upside down American flag on a flagpole.
Why the hell we decided Judges appointed by Trump can protect Trump from stealing secret US documents, ignoring recusal is nonsense. #election2024 #2024Election