We know.
Nothing will happen.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
169 points (100.0% liked)
Politics
10176 readers
69 users here now
In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
If the public reacts defeated, nothing will happen. If there is public outrage, there is a political cost and change might actually happen.
You are the public, your defeatism is self fulfilling.
So please try another comment, this one (even though you don't want it to) supports abuse of power.
The belief that politics reacts to public outrage is also a mechanism of control by the system, when in reality it only offers up sacrificial, insignificant lambs like Santos, always keeping the actual power players safe.
If the outage we see over police killings hasn't shifted our central government one iota (and it hasn't; even Biden has been calling for MORE police than pre-George Floyd, nevermind Republicans), what do you think this is going to do?
Politics changes when politicians die and are replaced by ones who believe something else.
That's what the people in power want us to think because it ferments fear which populist/fascist leaders take advantage of to claim their own power.
Real, lasting change is incremental change powered by passionate and peaceful people
I don't know. Tax authorities can be relentless when someone get caught committing shameless tax fraud.
There might not be enforceable penalty for ethics violation at the supreme court. But there definitely are penalties for tax fraud. Obligatory Al Capone reference.
Who enforces them though? The Supreme Court has shown that it doesn't believe in conflicts of interest or recusing from cases, and all he needs to do is contest the rulings until they land on his desk.
That's a defeatist attitude. Challenging this up to the supreme court would draw even more attention to the case, which Thomas may not want. Even if he did, there's no telling what the court would decide. To my knowledge he hasn't been charged yet, that would be a good first step.
Woah there chief! Lemme tell everyone a little story...
Back when I was on Reddit, I followed any and all Trump news (and especially Jan 6 investigation news) on an unhealthily regular basis. These kinds of Eeyore comments were extremely common and usually voted up to pepper through the top ⅓ of all the 'best' comments. It got so bad that some subreddits explicitly banned them, though it didn't really end the practice.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine. All the disparaging comments ceased immediately. The frequency absolutely fell off a cliff, because all those comments were being served up to us by Russian bots. Russia wants nothing more than to further destabilize the US as well as any other democratic institution.
I'm not saying this comment right here is a Russian bot, but it's definitely doing a Russian bot's job by trying to undermine any confidence we might have in the concepts of justice or democracy.
Just to check, you meant to put this in a comment saying Clarence Thomas is dead to rights guilty as sin for a wide range of corruption alegations.... but nothing will ever be done about it.
Right?
Fuck Israel. Support Ukraine. Lock up Trump and Gulianni. Bury DuPont. Expel Florida and Texas from the union... I could go on...
The bottom line is that at least 3 of our sitting Supreme Court justices are rat bastard pieces of corrupt shit. Like Congress. And like the White House.
A dolla won't make em holla. A million will though, and the entire federal government of the United States is holla-ing.
Can't expect a corrupt fuck federal official to nail a correct fuck federal official's ass to the wall.
Punchline: the fed is fucked. I hate it. Fuck you for calling me a Russian bot.
Some people are above the law.
Must be part of Napoleon and Snowball's "more equal" clique
By my read, this is the core of the articles argument:
But if these billionaires’ largesse was designed to retain the conservative judge on the country’s highest court, the donations might fall outside of the definition of tax-free gifts, which according to the Supreme Court must stem from “detached and disinterested generosity.” If the benefits showered on Thomas were designed to elicit court actions or job decisions, they could be considered taxable income, whether or not there is definitive proof of quid pro quo on Thomas’s part.
The IRS comes in to save democracy in the US? I did not have that on my bingo card.