On Face the Nation, CBS News's chief legal correspondent went after Supreme Court critics as "dangerous." And yet, her court defense was completely lacking in specifics.
I agree 100%. The generalizations are a lot like Scotus’s shadow docket rulings, impossible to have a debate on the merit. I don’t think any serious critic is saying justices are corrupt. But there is definitely unethical behavior. The problem is the majority legal argument is so much weaker than the dissenting opinions. The problem is that the majority does not accept and/or respect the lower court’s fact finding. That is what is placing them in danger of losing acceptance with the public
I guess it hinges on the definition of corrupt. No, it's unlikely any of them are accepting envelopes of cash for favorable rulings. But Thomas demonstrates most cartoonishly of all how these people benefit from the largess of the ultra-rich, ultra-religious and ultra-conservative — and they don't feel like they're doing favors because they see themselves as part of the club.
Fair enough, most of them were born in that club. Thomas had to ascend to it, so it's a bit more clumsy for him. And Alito's just a jackass.
All that said, it's telling that this court in particular has been whittling away at any broad conception of corruption in cases like Snyder v. United States, so that only the most explicit quid pro quo can be considered corrupt under federal law.
They know what they're doing. They just believe that a certain amount of graft is not only acceptable, but encouraged among the political class.
Crawford's emphasis on (her) meaning of corruption as necessarily financial is the epitome of a straw man. It's not even consistent with the plain text of our Constitution or federal law.
Article III emphasizes that all federal "Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices [only] during good Behaviour." Article VI emphasizes that good behavior necessarily means fulfilling their oaths "to support [our] Constitution." Article II even emphasizes that federal judges "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of," not only "Bribery" but also any "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." The House did impeach and the Senate very nearly convicted and removed (and they should have convicted and removed) one of the first SCOTUS justices, Samuel Chase.
A very early Congress showed what kind of conduct was included in the expression "high misdemeanor." Section 1 of the law entitled "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States" (later popularly known as the Sedition Act of 1798) emphasized:
"any persons shall [who] unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and [ ] any person or persons [who], with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not [ ] shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor."
I think I'm a serious critic, and I'd say at least some SCOTUS justices are personally corrupt. They cannot even honestly claim to be "conservative" or "originalist." Many of them are working (via multiple so-called judgments and opinions) to egregiously corrupt the rule of law and undermine our Constitution. The words of Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion in Morrison v. Olson help illustrate my point:
"That is what this suit is about. Power. The allocation of power [ ] in such fashion as to preserve the equilibrium [that the People by] the Constitution sought to establish—so that 'a gradual concentration of [ ] powers' [Federalist No. 51 (J. Madison)] can effectively be resisted. Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf."
"It is the proud boast of our democracy that we have 'a government of laws and not of men.' Many Americans are familiar with that phrase; not many know its derivation. It comes from Part the First, Article XXX, of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 . . . . The Framers of the Federal Constitution similarly viewed the principle of separation of powers as the absolutely central guarantee of a just Government. In No. 47 of The Federalist, Madison wrote that “[n]o political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty.” The Federalist No. 47 [ ]. Without a secure structure of separated powers, our Bill of Rights would be worthless, as are the bills of rights of many nations of the world that have adopted, or even improved upon, the mere words of ours."
Justice Scalia highlighted that in Federalist No. 51 Madison emphasized the following crucial and dispositive truth about our Constitution and how the People chose to vest less power in the Executive and Judicial branches than in the Legislative branch: “it is not [even] possible to give to each department an equal power[. Moreover, i]n republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”
The foundation for the American Revolution (spanning at least 1761 through 1791) was laid by The Glorious Revolution of England in 1688-1689. The English revolution established the English conception of “the rule of law.” John Lock in The Second Treatise of Government paragraphs 132, 134, 136 elucidated a crucial aspect of the English conception of “the rule of law” by explaining that sovereignty was the power to make the law, and the sovereigns were those who wielded the power to make the law.
To the British (and in the states before the Massachusetts Constitution), “the rule of law” really meant a government of men, not of laws. The Glorious Revolution (including the English Bill of Rights of 1689) established the sovereignty the legislature, i.e., of Parliament, not the law. The men in Parliament made the laws, and those men had the absolute, uncontrollable power to change whatever law they wanted whenever and however they wanted.
The men in Parliament and in many early American state legislatures thought like the SCOTUS justices who think that their words and their wants are more important than the plain meaning of the People and the plain text of our Constitution. In many so-called opinions over the past few years (including in Dobbs and regarding Trump and partisan gerrymandering) SCOTUS justices actually lied about our Constitution, blatantly deceived and blatantly violated our Constitution.
Now, SCOTUS justices are going to purport to adjudicate the pretensions of people who think the President should have absolute, uncontrollable power to change whatever executive officer(s) he wants whenever he wants.
The foregoing exercises (by SCOTUS) or claims (by POTUS) of absolute, uncontrollable power were known to be a fatal defect for which a crucial correction was made in America, as James Madison and Justice Scalia emphasized. That correction is precisely what made and makes America great.
The people of the new nation of the United States of America and our Constitution followed the lead of John Adams and the people of the older nation-state of Massachusetts. We created a written constitution, ratified by the sovereign people acting as the supreme legislative body making the supreme law to govern all powers of all public servants.
In a broader sense, the problem is that some Justices simply come across as arrogant. The financial disclosure reports, mandatory under 5 USC §13103(f)(11), (12), have been a frequent flashpoint. Justice Thomas’ occasionally tenuous knowledge of the reporting requirements is an example of how the law — the stuff in the statutes and case reports — can be markedly different from the public’s conception of the law. The information that has to be reported (§13104) isn’t complicated to understand; if someone can interpret the Internal Revenue Code, section 13104 shouldn’t make beads of sweat appear on one’s forehead. But Justice Thomas and the others* act as if the statute is written in Old Norse, and when they’re caught out, the explanations are barely credible. So the public is left thinking that the law is an ass and that the Justices, though caught with their hands in the cookie jar, have thumbed their noses at the law. The Justices, to the public, are just more mind-numbing examples of the culture of grift.
The decisions on the shadow docket this year are yet more examples of judicial arrogance. I’ll simply note that there are plenty of case citations for the proposition that “this Court has frequently noted its reluctance to disturb findings of fact concurred in by two lower courts.” Rogers v. Lodge, 458 US 613, 623 (1982) (citing cases). A blithe disregard for the factual determinations made by the district courts hardly works to inspire confidence in the judicial decision-making process. Americans expect more from the men and women serving on the federal bench.
(Oh, a footnote --) *The foibles of some of the Justices are outlined at 52 Southwestern L. Rev. 308, 314-17 (2023).
Crawford's call for "confidence" in the Court because (she misrepresents) the ruling clique of SCOTUS justices are “conservative” and “consistent” sounds like the specious argument of a common con man.
James Madison (rightly lauded as the Father of the Constitution and the Father of the Bill of Rights) repeatedly emphasized that information and knowledge (not mere confidence in the good faith of our public servants) were essential to good self-government:
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
Crawford's comments and call for confidence are what a farce and a prologue to a tragedy look like.
Information and knowledge (not blind faith in the good faith of our public servants) are essential to "government of the people, by the people, for the people," as President Lincoln famously phrased it at Gettysburg in November 1863.
Lincoln, one of our greatest public servants and greatest constitutional scholars, campaigned to be chosen to take the President's oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" with an interesting and illuminating speech about our Constitution on Constitution Day (September 17) 1859. Lincoln's insights were aimed directly at the SCOTUS justices who had lied to and deceived Americans about our Constitution and our history (and violated our Constitution) in their opinions in Dred Scott v. Sandford:
"The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert that constitution."
"I don’t think any serious critic is saying justices are corrupt."
This may be largely true, but it is a common popular notion. She is not purporting to address casual charges of "Oh they're all corrupt," so maybe she's doing the common misattribution of "what I saw on Twitter" to influential liberals.
Weiss discussion is similar. Serious discussion starts with poor decisionmaking, moves to argue for incompetence, spends some time with long-standing bias, then suggests impropriety by laying a few well-known facts next to each other. But to hear conservative defenders tell it, critics are saying...well, she's in the tank for Trump and nothing else. The defenders say that if everyone just thought of her as a vessel of conservative ideals it would all make perfect sense. It's uncanny.
Goodness knows why a conservative would want to defend a body of work including Trump v US by saying "It's just conservatism." I'd think it would reflect poorly.
Josh Marshall is a serious critic of the court and he has been using the term "corrupt" for years now. Not in the narrow sense of bribery, but in the broader and older sense of decay or a departure from health to sickness.
I think the word is appropriate, because the court is no longer primarily focused on upholding the rule of law. Another term I think is appropriate is "fraudulent", as in falsely claiming to be one thing but in reality being quite something else.
Two other serious critics of the court, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern (check out the latest Amicus) don't use the term "corrupt" to my recollection, but I doubt they would argue that the older sense of the word applies. They argue the Robert's court is no longer doing law, it is entrenching power for political allies. That is the most profound corruption imaginable. Venal quid pro pro cash payoffs would be less harmful.
Thomas has made it pretty clear that he did not especially like growing up poor and that he was happy to accept the largesse of strangers-now-“friends and that he wants to keep the gravy train rolling. That’s in addition to his deep neurosis about being Black and the undeniable effect it had on his career and his resulting “philosophy.”
Ah yes, because the court that gave us Citizens United, SpeechNow, Dobbs, overturned 30 years of precedent by killing Chevron, and is genuflecting to the conservative legal theories that have been built over the last 50 years *explicitly* to accomplish all of this following Row v Wade is totally underreported on and poorly understood. Absolute clown take.
It's really giving "we must honor and respect the office of the presidency" vibes, after the turd show this year has been.
Keep up the great work, we need real journalists like you now more than ever before!
Doesn’t sound at all “conservative” to me. Sounds like right wing radicals. We should stop calling this conservative because but isn’t. They seek radical change not conservatism.
Definition of terms is essential in a propagandized environment and those who would argue for the imposition of fascism seem disinclined to define their terms because they know they'd be then held to their own words instead of being enabled to continue gaslighting the public with endless variations on "We never said that"
Yet another example of blaming the victims -- the American people -- for the crimes of the high-born and wealthy. If there is a threat to the rule of law, IT sits in the Oval Office when he's not down in his lair at Mar-A-Lago cutting deals for himself. Before that, Mitch McConnell decided to betray longstanding American presidential values and forbade outgoing President Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice to fill the sudden vacancy left by Justice Scalia's death; Trump was able to appoint Neil Gorsuch. Later, McConnell smirked and winked when he suggested that he'd allow President Trump to appoint a conservative if a "sitting member happened to die," knowing full well that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on her deathbed. So, we got Amy Coney Barrett in the fall during a hotly contested presidential election in which Trump was trailing the vote. While not illegal, it certainly was corrupt in spirit and in practice, totally intended to throw the court toward arch-conservative values. We have Justice Thomas and wife openly taking bribes. Might we see Jan Crawford's comments about all that? And, what else is lurking under the court robes? One wonders that Crawford isn't ashamed that she's protecting the Court when it has dirt and probably, by now, blood on its hands. But of course, she now works for oligarchs who love what Trump is doing, as it increases their power, and her colleague Bari Weiss is on her usual hunt to align herself with the powerful no matter how filthy they are. I guess Crawford's outrage must go somewhere other than the mirror. Hell yes! We want to hang onto our rule of law. But it does seem that that stinking pig has left its pen. What is Jan Crawford doing to get that back, what are all journalists doing? Cowering and pointing fingers at people who are telling the truth.
I watched that episode Sunday. After Crawford's bit, I told myself everyone is running scared at CBS News, presumably due to Bari Weiss' behavior. Get in line is the message from the executive floor at CBS, because no one can dismiss the High Court's favorable decisions for Trump on the Shadow Docket, overruling Appeal Courts decisions with little explanation.
If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck. The scotus 6 are in their seats because monied interests with ultra conservative if not ultra right wing philosophies have seen fit to annoint them as their hand picked representatives. This has been the plan since Roberts was a strong opponent of voting rights under Reagan and the plan was launched by Pres HW Bush with the Thomas appointment, Harlan Crowes ‘buddy’. This court is the culmination of over 40 years of ultra-conservative effort, it does not represent the law as it constantly employs ‘shadow docket’ decisions that would probably not stand up to scrutiny if there were deliberative court sessions. The laughable hypocrisy of the six defending ‘stare decicis’ during their confirmation hearings should subject them to congressional scrutiny as to their honesty and worthiness of their court appointments. This court is already being compared to the Taney court and its Dredd Scot decision. Not a great comparison, Period!
Indeed it is amazing to watch which people will have integrity and which will willingly climb into the tank for money. Crawford may keep her job but she loses credibility.
In addition to the infuriating accusations towards those criticizing the court and its lack of ethical guardrails: "This court is functional." Technically, sure. "It is consistent." ?!?!?! Thank you for your coverage.
Jan Crawford, now, demonstrates that she is a part of the corruption. Lobbing generalized assaults and defending a Court that denigrates the lower courts and refuses to explain its rulings (other Brett Kavanaugh's absurd concurring opinion in the CA immigration case and attempted "walk-back" in the IL case ) reflects poorly on her as an unbiased journalist. So much for her credibility.
Crawford has no credibility and is absolutely parroting rightwing bullshit all thoroughly approved by her filthy rich, fascist new owners. Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch have all been showered with "gifts," various trips, lucrative real estate transactions, and much more particularly in Thomas' case. There have also been issues with certain justices failure to recuse in sensitive cases such as Alito's failure to recuse in 2020 election cases, as well as trump's immunity case. And not just Alito. Thomas' corruption has been thoroughly exposed. As well as Ginni Thomas's involvement in the January 6 insurrection, all completely covered up. There's been so much corruption with this court that the stench has even seeped into occasional mainstream reporting. Instead of upholding the constitution they have been destroying it. The most glaring treasonous, corrupt act of all was the scotus six giving criminal trump substantial presidential immunity on July 1, 2024. And they have been rubber stamping the lawless trump and his destruction of Congress and institutional norms ever since he was reinstalled as potus. Unfortunately, the CBS that once existed is now dead.
A-f**king-men. What a load of pearl-clutching bullshit completely unbecoming of someone allegedly responsible for reporting on the Supreme Court - or any court, for that matter.
Crawford did impressive work at the Chicago Tribune and her early years at CBS and PBS. Something happened - before the Ellison takeover. As you pointed out, this week’s comments are sad - as legal commentary, as well as for their lack of specifics.
One extremely effective (some might say only) way to defend against perceptions of corruption is to have an effective and rigorous anti-corruption ruleset that is transparent and fairly enforced.
It’s a profoundly silly suggestion that Faith in the Law comes from a “narrative” created by court observers, and not demonstrated history of equitable and corruption-free application of the law.
The public doesn’t believe in the rule of law because journalists say the law is good and justices are fair. The public believes in the rule of law because it has a long history of prosecuting crimes commItted by the weak and the powerful alike (kind of, but still).
Any system run by unaccountable God-kings who refuse to abide by even a toothless set of ethics rules and increasingly make world-changing decisions with no explanation, all while engaging in a project to upend American life will lose the faith of those they rule over.
We are all told, and generally believe, that we need a justice system to enforce laws because the threat of punishment is the only way we can deter people from committing crimes. The same people who enforce the laws we are told we need then say that THEY do not need such rules because Trust Them. It stinks and everyone can smell it.
This new loyalty of CBS to both Trump and SCOTUS — have they forgotten how Fix’s loyalty was repaid? Insults, threats and a 3/4 billion dollar settlement.
Well, what other defense can be available, for a court majority that so often and so consistently ignores fact, law, precedent, reality, plain justice, and the compelling dictates of reason?
To enforce pre-conceived bias, there can only be strings of words, plain nonsense — irrational, free of fact, wholly arbitrary.
I agree 100%. The generalizations are a lot like Scotus’s shadow docket rulings, impossible to have a debate on the merit. I don’t think any serious critic is saying justices are corrupt. But there is definitely unethical behavior. The problem is the majority legal argument is so much weaker than the dissenting opinions. The problem is that the majority does not accept and/or respect the lower court’s fact finding. That is what is placing them in danger of losing acceptance with the public
I guess it hinges on the definition of corrupt. No, it's unlikely any of them are accepting envelopes of cash for favorable rulings. But Thomas demonstrates most cartoonishly of all how these people benefit from the largess of the ultra-rich, ultra-religious and ultra-conservative — and they don't feel like they're doing favors because they see themselves as part of the club.
Fair enough, most of them were born in that club. Thomas had to ascend to it, so it's a bit more clumsy for him. And Alito's just a jackass.
All that said, it's telling that this court in particular has been whittling away at any broad conception of corruption in cases like Snyder v. United States, so that only the most explicit quid pro quo can be considered corrupt under federal law.
They know what they're doing. They just believe that a certain amount of graft is not only acceptable, but encouraged among the political class.
Crawford's emphasis on (her) meaning of corruption as necessarily financial is the epitome of a straw man. It's not even consistent with the plain text of our Constitution or federal law.
Article III emphasizes that all federal "Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices [only] during good Behaviour." Article VI emphasizes that good behavior necessarily means fulfilling their oaths "to support [our] Constitution." Article II even emphasizes that federal judges "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of," not only "Bribery" but also any "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." The House did impeach and the Senate very nearly convicted and removed (and they should have convicted and removed) one of the first SCOTUS justices, Samuel Chase.
A very early Congress showed what kind of conduct was included in the expression "high misdemeanor." Section 1 of the law entitled "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States" (later popularly known as the Sedition Act of 1798) emphasized:
"any persons shall [who] unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and [ ] any person or persons [who], with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not [ ] shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor."
The word corruption is broader than bribery. Corruption of the flesh. Corruption of intent. Corrupt computer file. A corrupt version of the text.
Another apt word many would object to is "fraudulent".
I think I'm a serious critic, and I'd say at least some SCOTUS justices are personally corrupt. They cannot even honestly claim to be "conservative" or "originalist." Many of them are working (via multiple so-called judgments and opinions) to egregiously corrupt the rule of law and undermine our Constitution. The words of Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion in Morrison v. Olson help illustrate my point:
"That is what this suit is about. Power. The allocation of power [ ] in such fashion as to preserve the equilibrium [that the People by] the Constitution sought to establish—so that 'a gradual concentration of [ ] powers' [Federalist No. 51 (J. Madison)] can effectively be resisted. Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf."
"It is the proud boast of our democracy that we have 'a government of laws and not of men.' Many Americans are familiar with that phrase; not many know its derivation. It comes from Part the First, Article XXX, of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 . . . . The Framers of the Federal Constitution similarly viewed the principle of separation of powers as the absolutely central guarantee of a just Government. In No. 47 of The Federalist, Madison wrote that “[n]o political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty.” The Federalist No. 47 [ ]. Without a secure structure of separated powers, our Bill of Rights would be worthless, as are the bills of rights of many nations of the world that have adopted, or even improved upon, the mere words of ours."
Justice Scalia highlighted that in Federalist No. 51 Madison emphasized the following crucial and dispositive truth about our Constitution and how the People chose to vest less power in the Executive and Judicial branches than in the Legislative branch: “it is not [even] possible to give to each department an equal power[. Moreover, i]n republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”
The foundation for the American Revolution (spanning at least 1761 through 1791) was laid by The Glorious Revolution of England in 1688-1689. The English revolution established the English conception of “the rule of law.” John Lock in The Second Treatise of Government paragraphs 132, 134, 136 elucidated a crucial aspect of the English conception of “the rule of law” by explaining that sovereignty was the power to make the law, and the sovereigns were those who wielded the power to make the law.
To the British (and in the states before the Massachusetts Constitution), “the rule of law” really meant a government of men, not of laws. The Glorious Revolution (including the English Bill of Rights of 1689) established the sovereignty the legislature, i.e., of Parliament, not the law. The men in Parliament made the laws, and those men had the absolute, uncontrollable power to change whatever law they wanted whenever and however they wanted.
The men in Parliament and in many early American state legislatures thought like the SCOTUS justices who think that their words and their wants are more important than the plain meaning of the People and the plain text of our Constitution. In many so-called opinions over the past few years (including in Dobbs and regarding Trump and partisan gerrymandering) SCOTUS justices actually lied about our Constitution, blatantly deceived and blatantly violated our Constitution.
Now, SCOTUS justices are going to purport to adjudicate the pretensions of people who think the President should have absolute, uncontrollable power to change whatever executive officer(s) he wants whenever he wants.
The foregoing exercises (by SCOTUS) or claims (by POTUS) of absolute, uncontrollable power were known to be a fatal defect for which a crucial correction was made in America, as James Madison and Justice Scalia emphasized. That correction is precisely what made and makes America great.
The people of the new nation of the United States of America and our Constitution followed the lead of John Adams and the people of the older nation-state of Massachusetts. We created a written constitution, ratified by the sovereign people acting as the supreme legislative body making the supreme law to govern all powers of all public servants.
In a broader sense, the problem is that some Justices simply come across as arrogant. The financial disclosure reports, mandatory under 5 USC §13103(f)(11), (12), have been a frequent flashpoint. Justice Thomas’ occasionally tenuous knowledge of the reporting requirements is an example of how the law — the stuff in the statutes and case reports — can be markedly different from the public’s conception of the law. The information that has to be reported (§13104) isn’t complicated to understand; if someone can interpret the Internal Revenue Code, section 13104 shouldn’t make beads of sweat appear on one’s forehead. But Justice Thomas and the others* act as if the statute is written in Old Norse, and when they’re caught out, the explanations are barely credible. So the public is left thinking that the law is an ass and that the Justices, though caught with their hands in the cookie jar, have thumbed their noses at the law. The Justices, to the public, are just more mind-numbing examples of the culture of grift.
The decisions on the shadow docket this year are yet more examples of judicial arrogance. I’ll simply note that there are plenty of case citations for the proposition that “this Court has frequently noted its reluctance to disturb findings of fact concurred in by two lower courts.” Rogers v. Lodge, 458 US 613, 623 (1982) (citing cases). A blithe disregard for the factual determinations made by the district courts hardly works to inspire confidence in the judicial decision-making process. Americans expect more from the men and women serving on the federal bench.
(Oh, a footnote --) *The foibles of some of the Justices are outlined at 52 Southwestern L. Rev. 308, 314-17 (2023).
Crawford's call for "confidence" in the Court because (she misrepresents) the ruling clique of SCOTUS justices are “conservative” and “consistent” sounds like the specious argument of a common con man.
James Madison (rightly lauded as the Father of the Constitution and the Father of the Bill of Rights) repeatedly emphasized that information and knowledge (not mere confidence in the good faith of our public servants) were essential to good self-government:
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
Crawford's comments and call for confidence are what a farce and a prologue to a tragedy look like.
Information and knowledge (not blind faith in the good faith of our public servants) are essential to "government of the people, by the people, for the people," as President Lincoln famously phrased it at Gettysburg in November 1863.
Lincoln, one of our greatest public servants and greatest constitutional scholars, campaigned to be chosen to take the President's oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" with an interesting and illuminating speech about our Constitution on Constitution Day (September 17) 1859. Lincoln's insights were aimed directly at the SCOTUS justices who had lied to and deceived Americans about our Constitution and our history (and violated our Constitution) in their opinions in Dred Scott v. Sandford:
"The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert that constitution."
"I don’t think any serious critic is saying justices are corrupt."
This may be largely true, but it is a common popular notion. She is not purporting to address casual charges of "Oh they're all corrupt," so maybe she's doing the common misattribution of "what I saw on Twitter" to influential liberals.
Weiss discussion is similar. Serious discussion starts with poor decisionmaking, moves to argue for incompetence, spends some time with long-standing bias, then suggests impropriety by laying a few well-known facts next to each other. But to hear conservative defenders tell it, critics are saying...well, she's in the tank for Trump and nothing else. The defenders say that if everyone just thought of her as a vessel of conservative ideals it would all make perfect sense. It's uncanny.
Goodness knows why a conservative would want to defend a body of work including Trump v US by saying "It's just conservatism." I'd think it would reflect poorly.
Josh Marshall is a serious critic of the court and he has been using the term "corrupt" for years now. Not in the narrow sense of bribery, but in the broader and older sense of decay or a departure from health to sickness.
(gift link)
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-latest-defenses-of-scotuss-corruption-only-make-the-case-against-it/sharetoken/c3a6691a-57dd-42b8-841d-9ecf84b55e52
I think the word is appropriate, because the court is no longer primarily focused on upholding the rule of law. Another term I think is appropriate is "fraudulent", as in falsely claiming to be one thing but in reality being quite something else.
Two other serious critics of the court, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern (check out the latest Amicus) don't use the term "corrupt" to my recollection, but I doubt they would argue that the older sense of the word applies. They argue the Robert's court is no longer doing law, it is entrenching power for political allies. That is the most profound corruption imaginable. Venal quid pro pro cash payoffs would be less harmful.
And you don’t see that as corruption?🤷♀️
Two words -
"Kavanaugh stop"
And he wrote "Racial profiling is fine" in a concurrence
All he had to do was say nothing
And he couldn't bring himself to forbear
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZPwRSqMsqvQ?si=mq55CGCAV7ngwNwr
Thomas has made it pretty clear that he did not especially like growing up poor and that he was happy to accept the largesse of strangers-now-“friends and that he wants to keep the gravy train rolling. That’s in addition to his deep neurosis about being Black and the undeniable effect it had on his career and his resulting “philosophy.”
Ah yes, because the court that gave us Citizens United, SpeechNow, Dobbs, overturned 30 years of precedent by killing Chevron, and is genuflecting to the conservative legal theories that have been built over the last 50 years *explicitly* to accomplish all of this following Row v Wade is totally underreported on and poorly understood. Absolute clown take.
It's really giving "we must honor and respect the office of the presidency" vibes, after the turd show this year has been.
Keep up the great work, we need real journalists like you now more than ever before!
Doesn’t sound at all “conservative” to me. Sounds like right wing radicals. We should stop calling this conservative because but isn’t. They seek radical change not conservatism.
This ^^^
Definition of terms is essential in a propagandized environment and those who would argue for the imposition of fascism seem disinclined to define their terms because they know they'd be then held to their own words instead of being enabled to continue gaslighting the public with endless variations on "We never said that"
Yeah, I agree it looks to me like she’s trying to keep her job. . . by not doing her job.
CBS doesn’t want reporters any more, they want propagandists, and it looks like they found one.
This is not new for her. She’s been sus for years. Now a little less cryptic.
Still important to note the environment that's empowering her boldness
https://youtu.be/f-LZsY18yXo?si=hoQ6dVMbitrWsF0C
Yet another example of blaming the victims -- the American people -- for the crimes of the high-born and wealthy. If there is a threat to the rule of law, IT sits in the Oval Office when he's not down in his lair at Mar-A-Lago cutting deals for himself. Before that, Mitch McConnell decided to betray longstanding American presidential values and forbade outgoing President Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice to fill the sudden vacancy left by Justice Scalia's death; Trump was able to appoint Neil Gorsuch. Later, McConnell smirked and winked when he suggested that he'd allow President Trump to appoint a conservative if a "sitting member happened to die," knowing full well that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on her deathbed. So, we got Amy Coney Barrett in the fall during a hotly contested presidential election in which Trump was trailing the vote. While not illegal, it certainly was corrupt in spirit and in practice, totally intended to throw the court toward arch-conservative values. We have Justice Thomas and wife openly taking bribes. Might we see Jan Crawford's comments about all that? And, what else is lurking under the court robes? One wonders that Crawford isn't ashamed that she's protecting the Court when it has dirt and probably, by now, blood on its hands. But of course, she now works for oligarchs who love what Trump is doing, as it increases their power, and her colleague Bari Weiss is on her usual hunt to align herself with the powerful no matter how filthy they are. I guess Crawford's outrage must go somewhere other than the mirror. Hell yes! We want to hang onto our rule of law. But it does seem that that stinking pig has left its pen. What is Jan Crawford doing to get that back, what are all journalists doing? Cowering and pointing fingers at people who are telling the truth.
I watched that episode Sunday. After Crawford's bit, I told myself everyone is running scared at CBS News, presumably due to Bari Weiss' behavior. Get in line is the message from the executive floor at CBS, because no one can dismiss the High Court's favorable decisions for Trump on the Shadow Docket, overruling Appeal Courts decisions with little explanation.
Looks like scared to lose their job and comfortable middle class life style. What else could explain the lying and deceit
"What else could explain the lying and deceit"
Racism
https://www.lawdork.com/p/jan-crawfords-attack-on-scotus-corruption/comment/193280428
If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck. The scotus 6 are in their seats because monied interests with ultra conservative if not ultra right wing philosophies have seen fit to annoint them as their hand picked representatives. This has been the plan since Roberts was a strong opponent of voting rights under Reagan and the plan was launched by Pres HW Bush with the Thomas appointment, Harlan Crowes ‘buddy’. This court is the culmination of over 40 years of ultra-conservative effort, it does not represent the law as it constantly employs ‘shadow docket’ decisions that would probably not stand up to scrutiny if there were deliberative court sessions. The laughable hypocrisy of the six defending ‘stare decicis’ during their confirmation hearings should subject them to congressional scrutiny as to their honesty and worthiness of their court appointments. This court is already being compared to the Taney court and its Dredd Scot decision. Not a great comparison, Period!
Option 1: Speaking truth to power
Option 2: sycophancy
Indeed it is amazing to watch which people will have integrity and which will willingly climb into the tank for money. Crawford may keep her job but she loses credibility.
In addition to the infuriating accusations towards those criticizing the court and its lack of ethical guardrails: "This court is functional." Technically, sure. "It is consistent." ?!?!?! Thank you for your coverage.
Jan Crawford, now, demonstrates that she is a part of the corruption. Lobbing generalized assaults and defending a Court that denigrates the lower courts and refuses to explain its rulings (other Brett Kavanaugh's absurd concurring opinion in the CA immigration case and attempted "walk-back" in the IL case ) reflects poorly on her as an unbiased journalist. So much for her credibility.
Crawford has no credibility and is absolutely parroting rightwing bullshit all thoroughly approved by her filthy rich, fascist new owners. Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch have all been showered with "gifts," various trips, lucrative real estate transactions, and much more particularly in Thomas' case. There have also been issues with certain justices failure to recuse in sensitive cases such as Alito's failure to recuse in 2020 election cases, as well as trump's immunity case. And not just Alito. Thomas' corruption has been thoroughly exposed. As well as Ginni Thomas's involvement in the January 6 insurrection, all completely covered up. There's been so much corruption with this court that the stench has even seeped into occasional mainstream reporting. Instead of upholding the constitution they have been destroying it. The most glaring treasonous, corrupt act of all was the scotus six giving criminal trump substantial presidential immunity on July 1, 2024. And they have been rubber stamping the lawless trump and his destruction of Congress and institutional norms ever since he was reinstalled as potus. Unfortunately, the CBS that once existed is now dead.
A-f**king-men. What a load of pearl-clutching bullshit completely unbecoming of someone allegedly responsible for reporting on the Supreme Court - or any court, for that matter.
Crawford did impressive work at the Chicago Tribune and her early years at CBS and PBS. Something happened - before the Ellison takeover. As you pointed out, this week’s comments are sad - as legal commentary, as well as for their lack of specifics.
One extremely effective (some might say only) way to defend against perceptions of corruption is to have an effective and rigorous anti-corruption ruleset that is transparent and fairly enforced.
It’s a profoundly silly suggestion that Faith in the Law comes from a “narrative” created by court observers, and not demonstrated history of equitable and corruption-free application of the law.
The public doesn’t believe in the rule of law because journalists say the law is good and justices are fair. The public believes in the rule of law because it has a long history of prosecuting crimes commItted by the weak and the powerful alike (kind of, but still).
Any system run by unaccountable God-kings who refuse to abide by even a toothless set of ethics rules and increasingly make world-changing decisions with no explanation, all while engaging in a project to upend American life will lose the faith of those they rule over.
We are all told, and generally believe, that we need a justice system to enforce laws because the threat of punishment is the only way we can deter people from committing crimes. The same people who enforce the laws we are told we need then say that THEY do not need such rules because Trust Them. It stinks and everyone can smell it.
This new loyalty of CBS to both Trump and SCOTUS — have they forgotten how Fix’s loyalty was repaid? Insults, threats and a 3/4 billion dollar settlement.
Well, what other defense can be available, for a court majority that so often and so consistently ignores fact, law, precedent, reality, plain justice, and the compelling dictates of reason?
To enforce pre-conceived bias, there can only be strings of words, plain nonsense — irrational, free of fact, wholly arbitrary.
"If you have to insist that you're the king, you're not the king."