onfocus

The arrangement reveals that Leo, a longtime Federalist Society leader and friend of the Thomases, has functioned not only as an ideological ally of Clarence Thomas’s but also has worked to provide financial remuneration to his family. And it shows Leo arranging for the money to be drawn from a nonprofit that soon would have an interest before the court.

Corrupt court. We’re just going to keep doing these until someone does something I guess?

“The most reasonable interpretation of the statute is that this was a gift to Thomas and thus had to be reported. It’s common sense,” said Kathleen Clark, an ethics law expert at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s all to the financial benefit of Clarence Thomas.”

Corrupt court. This level of corruption is unacceptable. They’re not royalty, this is a democracy. We need accountability.

If we want more people to enjoy what we believe are the benefits of something like Mastodon, it’s on us to make it delicious and convenient and multi-textured and fun instead of trying to shame people into eating their soysage and unsalted soup.

Classic case of built-by-engineers-for-engineers that is difficult to escape. I love Mastodon but as a decentralization enthusiast and developer I am also the target market. I hope the new onboarding process and features on the way like improved search will help.

New documents reveal Jane Roberts made $10.3 million from elite firms, raising questions about the Supreme Court justices' conflicts of interest.

Corrupt court. No wonder Chief Justice Roberts hasn’t done a damn thing to reign in ethics violations.

The nation is not “barreling toward default,” nor is it “careening,” or even “drifting” there. It is being pushed there by Republicans.

The media has had since at least 2016 to figure out how to cover irrational politics and they haven’t. They still imagine a world where Republicans want a functioning government—they don’t. Default is a win for them and stories should reflect that.

Nine days after he was confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, the then-circuit court judge got one: The chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s biggest law firms with a robust practice before the high court. Gorsuch owned the property with two other individuals.

Corrupt court. It's amazing that these ethics disclosure forms are so confusing to supreme court justices. I thought they were our best legal minds. Also amazing, the purchaser "...has been involved in at least 22 cases before or presented to the court, according to a POLITICO review of the court’s docket." WTAF?

Gun policies, I argue, are downstream from culture, so it’s not surprising that the regions with the worst gun problems are the least supportive of restricting access to firearms. A 2011 Pew Research Center survey asked Americans what was more important, protecting gun ownership or controlling it. The Yankee states of New England went for gun control by a margin of 61 to 36, while those in the poll’s “southeast central” region — the Deep South states of Alabama and Mississippi and the Appalachian states of Tennessee and Kentucky — supported gun rights by exactly the same margin.

Interesting look at the roots of regional attitudes about guns from the author of American Nations about the different groups that settled America and their differing beliefs.

All of the legal documents were pretty clear that Bed Bath was raising money by selling stock to retail investors, that it was handing that money directly to its creditors, that the money probably wouldn’t be enough, that Bed Bath was probably going bankrupt, and that when it did the stock that it had just sold to those retail investors would be worthless. And things have worked out exactly as promised. No one can be surprised!

Job creators!

This unbroken stream of Musk blarney and BS should be enough to deter the press from automatically reporting the tycoon’s publicity hounding. But as with Donald Trump, the press seems unable to resist splashing coverage on Musk’s unnewsworthy high jinks, even though the stories have now become as common as dog-bites-man.

They're easy stories to write that people love to read. I'm not sure how people can break out of that feedback loop. I know I have no trouble hearing about the antics and I'm not even on the SS Twitanic anymore.

Powered by returning companies, RAGA revenues in 2022 jumped 68%, reaching $21.6 million. The group used some of its funds to boost midterm candidates who pushed the lies that Trump won in 2020 and that the voting system is rife with fraud.

Corporations will not provide the accountability democracy needs to survive. See also: Dominion settlement with Fox which is good for Dominion but bad for democracy. We need a public system of accountability. Maybe we could call it a Justice Department if we had one.

Crow has never personally come before the supreme court, and denies ever trying to influence Thomas on any legal or political issue. But he has served on the boards of at least three conservative groups that have lobbied the supreme court through amicus briefs.

Corrupt court. As more connections are revealed it becomes more ridiculous that there’s no accountability. Is it really a scandal if no one changes their behavior and there aren’t any consequences?