From The Hill, “The revelation this week that Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, attended the pro-Trump ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol has renewed questions about Justice Thomas’s impartiality. Critics say the new detail is just the latest example of Ginni’s political activity posing an ethically troubling overlap with her husband’s judicial position. … But according to Gabe Roth, executive director of the left-leaning court-reform advocacy group Fix The Court, it would be fair to say that ‘a reasonable person might question Justice Thomas’s impartiality’ given what he described as a years-long pattern.”
The Code of Conduct for United States Judges preamble reads: “The Code of Conduct for United States Judges includes the ethical canons that apply to federal judges and provides guidance on their performance of official duties and engagement in a variety of outside activities.” And it goes on to say, “This Code applies to United States circuit judges, district judges, Court of International Trade judges, Court of Federal Claims judges, bankruptcy judges, and magistrate judges. Certain provisions of this Code apply to special masters and commissioners as indicated in the ‘Compliance’ section. The Tax Court, Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces have adopted this Code.” What branch of the judiciary is missing from the list? Anyone? Anyone at all? Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to which branch of the judiciary exempts itself from a delineated set of ethics?
So, this is where we are in America. The highest court in the country, the literal final word on the laws of the land, and they can be as corrupt as they please before, during, and after they render any number of decisions that impact every person in America. I expected nothing less, and people wonder why SCOTUS is losing credibility and why Americans are losing faith in national institutions. Does anyone really believe that the newly minted super-conservative, super-majority SCOTUS will act ethically? The conservatives have already proved themselves unethical, and these are the people who will be re-writing the country’s laws to hurt minorities, not protect them. Fan-f***ing-tastic! I can’t wait for the corruptable and, indeed, already corrupted SCOTUS to start handing down opinions that strip people of their rights — or fails to protect them — as they sit in their ivory tower unbound by any ethical code and entirely accountable to no one, except, as it increasingly appears to be the case, beholden to conservative causes and theocratic dogma. This is what a dying country looks like! Oh, well. No one cares. I live in stupid hell. Welcome to stupid America!