DC Poster’s “Scalia is a Rapist” Mystery

Well…The political season in DC is off to a rather crazy start. Last week we had the moron taking shots at the White House with an AK…

This week it’s another moron taking verbal shots at Scalia, claiming he is a rapist – first picked up by Gawker.

Now, this blogger doesn’t belive Justice Antonin Scalia is a good guy – there is plenty of evidence of bribe taking from conservative causes. But a Herman Cain rapist?

Noooooo… Everybody knows Antonin is a choirboy…

Who Is Putting Up Posters in Washington Calling Antonin Scalia a Rapist?

A crazy person, certainly. A tipster sent us shots of these leaflets, which have been going up “all around D.C. streets in recent days.” In addition to misspelling his first name, the flyers accuse Scalia of date rape, soliciting prostitutes, and pistol-whipping women in hotel rooms. For more information, they recommend that you contact Scalia. He’ll probably just deny it.

“Cash and Carry” Supreme Court Sells America Down the Tubes

The most corrupt court in America, also happens to be it’s highest.  Whether performing judicial fellatio for the Koch Brothers, or a political hand job in the Citizens United case – the 5 conservative justices on the Supreme Court are sold to the highest bidder…

Starting with Tommie Clarence and of course, Antonin Scalia.

My biggest disillusionment with the Obama Administration and crop of Yellowback Democrats is, while they are willing to go after their own – such as Charlie Rangel and “Cash Jefferson”…

There has been an utter refusal to bring Republican miscreants to justice, whether it was the criminal underworld of the previous Bush Administration – or the current legislation for sale Republican Congress… Or the Supreme Court Justices who flaunt both the rules and the Law.

I often work in Third World countries. This sort of corruption is often an endemic problem. and one of the major roadblocks to progress. Conservatives make America as corrupt as one of those Tinpot Dictatorships – each and every day. Indeed, the United States is now 22nd on the World Corruption Index.

The Supreme Court closes the door to justice

Has the Supreme Court lost faith in the American court system? That is a strange question to ask about the justices who sit at the top of the country’s judicial hierarchy. But in case after case in the just-completed term, the court, usually in 5-4 decisions with the conservatives in the majority, denied access to the courts.

Consider just a few of the examples:

• The court ruled that patients who suffer devastating injuries from generic prescription drugs cannot sue the manufacturers for failing to provide adequate warnings even when drug companies making the non-generic versions of the same drugs can be sued on the same basis.

• The court held that standard clauses in consumer contracts calling for arbitration preclude consumers from joining class-action suits even when the effect almost surely would be that no individual lawsuits would be filed because the amount involved was too small.

• The court decided that employees who claim to be victims of sex discrimination cannot sue in class actions when the employer has a policy that prohibits discrimination.

• The court concluded that a man who spent 18 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit could not sue the prosecutors who hid key evidence.

• The court said that taxpayers cannot bring an action in federal court arguing that a state impermissibly established religion by giving tax credits that go almost entirely to religious schools.

• The court held that prisoners convicted in state court cannot obtain a hearing in federal court even when they have new evidence that calls into question their convictions — because of matters such as ineffective defense counsel or failure of prosecutors to turn over evidence — notwithstanding a federal statute that expressly authorizes such hearings.

American Corruption and the Courts

Over there the corrupt wear military uniforms ...

... adorned with spiffy medals...

...Here they wear black robes

Those of you that know me have heard me talking abut working on the Haitian Reconstruction for a year now.  Now I’m not a politician, not a mover and shaker as far as changing the government or solving any of the myriad of political problems, nor do I claim to have a hall pass to see the High and Mighty as they come in, and go out of Haiti on any of their state missions.

But I have met some great people, and gotten to see, if not from the inside, at least close up what it takes to rebuild a failed state. And it isn’t as easy as just taking one guy out and replacing him.

One of the first steps in changing a country is an honest judiciary. If the Judiciary is corrupt – there isn’t ever likely going to be any solution to a country’s woes short of a “stand them up against the wall and shoot them and let God sort it out”  revolution.

Watching, second handed, some decent folks in perhaps the most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere struggle to end corruption and return the rule of law has made me take a hard look at what is, and has been going on in our own Judiciary.

Let’s take as an example an unnamed 3rd world dictatorship. In privatizing the former government owned telephone company the Government decides to take bids. Giant company #1, for whom the Dictator’s son works, wins the “hotly contested” bid to provide cell phone service. Within a month, the “Parliament” passes a law that international donors can make anonymous contributions to any charity they wish in the country, and the government has no right to ask where the money came from. 3 months later, the Dictator’s wife’s Charity, “Beautifying the Palace” receives an anonymous donation of $550,000 from “a major international donor”…

I think most folks would conclude, correctly – that the bribe was paid.

Unfortunately that isn’t an unnamed 3rd World Country – that is right here in the USA. With Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife being the beneficiary of the mysterious largesse of two anonymous donors for her work on conservative causes.

Quite frankly, our Judiciary is as corrupt as any 3rd World nation.  What started as a reasonable cause by conservatives to select conservative judges (which used to be called strict constructional) has turned into a circus of selecting judges for purely adherence to ideological whim – even if that means ignoring the Constitution.

Worse, the rot extends all the way up to the Supreme Court, with two of the justices, Scalia and Thomas serving as nothing but high paid whores to wealthy corporate and conservative interests. And thy are just the tip top of the iceberg.

President Obama said that one of his objectives was to root out corruption in this country. My question is – “How are you going to do that when the folks in charge of judging the guilty are as corrupt as the people you are prosecuting?”

The Battle For The Judiciary

What These Criminals Should Be Wearing at "Club Fed".

Yesterday, White House Counsel Bob Bauer said during an American Constitution Society panel that judicial nominees are caught in a “cold war” of obstructionism. If there is a war over the judiciary, the Constitution and other laws designed to protect ordinary Americans have too often been the casualties. Ever since President Bush turned corporate America’s top Supreme Court litigator into the Chief Justice, the Court has transformed into a wasteland where only the rich and the powerful can receive a fair hearing. In recent years, the Supreme Court stripped thousands of women and older workers of their right to be free from workplace discrimination. It has slammed the courthouse doors on millions of consumers and workers, and has given corporations a free pass to buy elections. Yet, for all his disregard of the law, Chief Justice John Roberts pales in comparison to the many radicals on the lower courts.

VINSONS EVERYWHERE: On Monday, Tea Party Judge Roger Vinson handed down a massively overreaching health care decision which wrote out an entire provision of the Constitution, butchered constitutional history, heavily relied on a brief filed by an anti-gay hate group, and somehow determined that the Boston Tea Party renders the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. While Vinson’s tea partying opinion clearly places him at odds with the Constitution, he is not an extreme outlier. Last year, a Republican judge in DC declared all federal stem cell funding illegal — a position which even George W. Bush rejected. When a volcano of oil erupted in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, conservative judges were much more concerned with protecting the oil industry from regulation than they were with preventing another disaster from occurring. Three sitting U.S. Court of Appeals judges currently serve on the board of an infamous “junkets for judges” organization that treats federal judges to free trips to western resorts if they also attend seminars on how to decide cases in ways that corporations want. DC Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown once compared liberalism to “slavery” and Social Security to a “socialist revolution.” Fifth Circuit Judge Priscilla Owen took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Enron and then wrote a key opinion reducing Enron’s taxes by $15 million when she sat on the Texas Supreme Court. In other words, Judge Vinson does not need to look far to find colleagues who share his twisted vision of the law, and these black-robed tea partiers are all working hard to write their agenda into the law.

Justice For Sale – Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Bribes…

One of the “abilities to rule by the law” of the conservative justices appointed by the Bushes is the wealth their family members suddenly came into when they were appointed to he bench. Need a vote in a critical case? Drop $500k in Virginia Thomas’ PAC. Hire a judges kids for a high paying job…

By all rights, Scalia and Thomas (and Roberts) should be removed from the bench and join the ranks of Orange Jumpsuited criminal politicians.

Clarence Thomas failed to report wife’s income, watchdog says

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife’s income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed.

A Supreme Court spokesperson could not be reached for comment late Friday. But Virginia Thomas’ employment by the Heritage Foundation was well known at the time.

Virginia Thomas also has been active in the group Liberty Central, an organization she founded to restore the “founding principles” of limited government and individual liberty.

In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as “none.” Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.

Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law. Thomas’ omission — which could be interpreted as a violation of that law — could lead to some form of penalty, Gillers said.

Then there is the relationship between Scalia and Thomas and Koch Industries. Koch Industries is the principal funder of the Tea Party, as well as the Federalist Society and a number of other right wing organizations… including millions to the Heritage Foundation which Virginia Thomas “worked” for..

Charles Koch’s invitation to their 2011 secretive retreat, to be held in Palm Springs, Ca., on January 30-31, states that the “action-oriented program brings together top experts and leaders to discuss – and offer solutions to counter – the most critical threats to our free society.” It added that past “meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas,” along with a host conservative leaders and elected officials, like Glenn Beck, Haley Barbour and Jim DeMint.

Campaign finance ruling: Should Supreme Court justices have recused themselves?

Common Cause President Bob Edgar said the group has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to examine whether Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have stepped aside rather than vote in the Citizens United case.

The case, handed down a year ago on Friday (Jan. 21), struck down a portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law that had barred corporate expenditures for political advertisements during campaign season.

Mr. Edgar said the justices were featured speakers at invitation-only retreats sponsored by Koch Industries, a private company whose officials have played an active role supporting Republican candidates and conservative causes.

He also said Justice Thomas may have had an undisclosed financial conflict of interest through his wife’s work as founder and CEO of a conservative advocacy group, Liberty Central. Edgar said the group stood to benefit from the Citizens United decision through easier fundraising and easier political spending. [Ms. Thomas has since stepped down as CEO of the group.]

Let’s not forget two anonymous doners’ largesse when Virginia Thomas formed her PAC “Liberty Central” - suddenly coming into $500,000 from a single un-named donor  before the Citizen’s United case…