The Democrats and the Republicans continue to bang heads and the President keeps trying to get in his licks whenever he can but that’s all to be expected. What isn’t to be expected, what runs counter to all our beliefs and expectations are the subjective rulings that have come out of the Supreme Court of late.
There have always been ethical lapses and lapses in objectivity by the court but in the last few years they have become something of a tsunami. The presence of Roberts and Scalia, boosted by the sycophantic behavior of Clarence Thomas has made the court a rubber stamp for any kind of right wing lawsuit.
Because of the way supreme court justices are picked and passed on, this situation would be understandable, almost tolerable if it weren’t, in this case, the result of a massive miscarriage of justice and if the sitting justice involved had not, by his aberrant behavior and dismissal of any obligation to an ethical code of conduct, already disgraced the court on which he is sitting.
I am speaking, of course, about Clarence Thomas, who most objective observers believe lied his way onto the court during his confirmation hearings by denying Anita Hill’s charges of sexual harassment and has since disgraced the court by his aberrant and unethical behavior.
This unethical behavior is evidenced in only one of many cases by his “friendship” with one Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate baron and big time conservative benefactor. Besides many personal gifts which would recues an ethical judge from sitting on any case involving Crow, he has also donated $175,000 to finance a library that will be dedicated to Thomas. If that wasn’t enough he has provided at least $2.8 million for a crab and oyster cannery operating under Thomas’ supervision. No ethical judge would ever accept any of this largess and continue to sit on the bench.
Then there’s the matter of Thomas wife, Ginni. Ginni is not only a fanatic Tea Party activist; she is also a highly paid lobbyist earning $700,000 for her work on behalf of the Tea Party. Then Harlan Crow laid out $500,000 to start Liberty Central, which lobbies against healthcare, an issue, which will eventually come before the Supreme Court.
When 74 Democratic Senators asked Thomas to recues himself from any ruling on the new health care law which, partly because of his wife’s efforts will eventually appear before the court, he refused. Old Clarence doesn’t seem to see any conflict of interest just because his wife earns a living on one side of the argument. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe they actually hate each other. I mean how could she really feel about a lowlife scumbag who goes around groping the help?
So what is to be done about this boil on the ass of the American justice system? If he were on a lower court his behavior would be grounds for dismissal, of any case he sat on. Unfortunately there is no higher court and one of the strengths and obvious weaknesses of our system is that Supreme Curt justices are appointed for life and therefore are supposed to be above outside influence.
Of course that concept presupposes that the appointed judge has displayed, unlike Thomas, some sense of morality and ethics. Thomas’ only attribute, at the time of his appointment was a singular ability to get his nose uncomfortably close to the hindquarters of various conservative leaders. His appointment can only be considered as a failure by all non-conservatives to adequately do their due diligence.
So what can be done about this horrendous situation? Well, not much. I can only recall one sitting justice, Abe Fortas, who was forced off the court and although I seem to remember that it had something to do with the same kind of ethical dilemma, I frankly, haven’t done enough research to understand how it actually played out. What I have been able to find out is that the solution to the Fortas case may have been as unethical as Mr. Fortas himself.
Maybe there is someone out there who has a solution to this situation and if you have it, we need it. The current situation on the court is intolerable