Corrupt judges on the Supreme Court

When Sandra Day O'Conner retired CNN came out with an article talking about the relatively low salaries of Supreme Court Justices. http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/01/news/newsmakers/salary/ and they claimed:

"But one thing they won't get a chance to do is make a boatload of money in the process."

If only. 

It is true that they should make a really good salary, and they do, but do we really want their salary to be competitive with corporate Americans. The article continues:

"Whoever replaces O'Connor will undoubtedly have one of the finest legal minds in the country. He or she will also have a paycheck of less than $200,000 a year, compared with an average of over $5 million for corporate executives.

You can look up their salary, it's up to 223,000$ now and the articles will still tell you it is fixed, not that much, etc.... But that turns out to not be true. It might have been true for relatively honest people like Sandra Day O'Conner, but it is not necessarily even true about them. So we get the advertizing about our saintly judges (from same article):

'There is a motivational force that is not money," said Paul Hodgson, a compensation specialist at the Portland, Maine based research group the Corporate Library, in explaining why people become civil servants. "If you're a lawyer and you're not motivated by money, that would probably seem like the most important job there is."'

Sure, we are supposed to play the violin for them.

"Hodgson said the compensation discrepancy is especially acute for Supreme Court justices because, unlike many other high-level public employees, their lifetime appointment means they will most likely not return to the lucrative private sector."

But this becomes meaningless if they are able to break judicial ethics rules and receive outside compensation From the Private sector as these rule changes made possible. Paying officials too much makes them vulnerable to ego inflation, but paying them too little or giving them license to make unlimited outside income makes them susceptable to bribery!

Actually the compensation discrepancy is an issue because every time the government fails to pay officers the officers make up any discrepancy (real or perceived) with corruption. No wonder Kennedy ruled in a case that applied to lower courts that:

"That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy"."

But Kennedy and the other Judges exempt themselves from those rules!

Bribery is defined! under title 18 as:

" directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official...or ...give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent— "

And all this to:

"(A) to influence any official act..."

Bribery isn't just piling a heap on goods on a desk. It also takes more subtle forms such as making deals while playing golf. Or simply attending the same functions and paying ones wife! Are we to believe that the Supreme Court can exempt itself from the appearance of corruption?

So the Heritage foundation doesn't employ Clarence Thomas' wife in order to influence Clarence Thomas? When the Supreme Court made it's Massey ruling, which it cited in it's corrupt Citizens United decision, the mere appearance of possible corruption, and not even a smoking gun of evidence of such influence was enough for them to rule that the Judge should have recused itself. So how do we excuse Clarence Thomas? We shouldn't. Open Secrets notes:

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for instance, made headlines last month for failing to disclose years' worth of income his wife had earned -- including more than $686,500 between 2003 and 2007 from the Heritage Foundation."

Heritage Foundation campaigned for Thomas to get on the Supreme Court, and now they reward him, directly, by employing his wife. This isn't just the appearance of corruption. According to Title 18 a case can be made this is the reality. Pay in such a case can be presumed to be indirect gift for the sake of influencing his decision making. Of course with our Supreme Court Justices they were selected, groomed, and rewarded on the basis of such influence over a long period of time. One can say that these corrupt organizations pretty much created them in the first place. So it's no wonder the Supreme Court pretends that just because there is obvious influence and association between organizations like Heritage foundation and the Judges and politicians they create and maintain, and the wealthy individuals who pay Heritage Foundation to promote their personal seditious and corrupt purposes -- that just because there is the appearance of corruption (which is what they were saying in the Citizens United Case) doesn't mean there is the reality. Oh, no Thomas' hiding his wife's income was just an accounting error!

But of course though one can look up the disclosure statements of Supreme Court Justices, one can't know whether they are corrupt or not unless they disclose their income.

Open Secrets reports a relatively modest list of "outside incomes" for the Justices for instance:

Rank	Name	Grand Total	Member Total	Spouse Total	Dependent Total
1	Stephen G. Breyer	$46,812	$46,812	$0	$0
2	Antonin Scalia	$45,655	$45,655	$0	$0
3	Clarence Thomas	$26,955	$26,955	$0	$0
3	Samuel A. Alito	$26,955	$26,955	$0	$0
5	Anthony M. Kennedy	$26,500	$26,500	$0	$0
6	Ruth Bader Ginsburg	$23,000	$23,000	$0	$0
7	Elena Kagan	$15,000	$15,000	$0	$0
7	John G. Roberts	$15,000	$15,000	$0	$0

But do you see Clarence Thomas' spouse reported, no? All of them have net worth in the millions.

Rank	Name	Minimum Net Worth	Average	Maximum Net Worth
1	Ruth Bader Ginsburg	$5,415,015	$14,265,007	$23,115,000
2	Stephen G. Breyer	$4,760,058	$10,647,529	$16,535,000
3	John G. Roberts	$2,680,039	$4,542,519	$6,405,000
4	Sonia Sotomayor	$1,225,010	$3,477,505	$5,730,000
5	Antonin Scalia	$1,885,023	$3,142,511	$4,400,000
6	Clarence Thomas	$715,014	$1,317,507	$1,920,000
7	Elena Kagan	$600,017	$1,080,008	$1,560,000
8	Samuel A. Alito	$380,006	$740,003	$1,100,000
9	Anthony M. Kennedy	$330,004	$515,002	$700,000

Oh well. So we aren't talking "quid pro quo" corruption are we. We are talking influence cultivated over a period of years; such as Kagan's involvement with Goldman Sachs, or the Gang of Five and the Federalist Society.  Maybe some of the influences are benign. Kennedy gives speeches for the Annenberg and Colonial Williamsburg foundation. But Thomas' relationship to the Heritage foundation is a scandal, and he doesn't ever recuse himself from decisions where his opinions just happen to match theirs.  So the point? Separate and privileged access are the heart of corruption, and denying that is itself corrupt. There are two kinds of corruption, one is legal corruption, and the other is when a process is degraded. In the second sense, the mere appearance of corruption is itself corrupt.

This article is a follow on to an earlier post on "Corruption, Racketeering and the Supreme Court: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-racketeering-and-supreme.html

Related Posts:

A Corrupt Court, Tuesday, June 26, 2012: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/06/corrupt-court.html

A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence October 8, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-corrupt-decision-blind-to-corrupt.html

Corruption, Racketeering and the Supreme Court, Wednesday, October 16, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-racketeering-and-supreme.html

Corrupt judges on the Supreme Court. October 23, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-judges-on-supreme-court.html

Corrupt Court and Undue Influence and access according to Founders, Thursday, March 27, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html

The Expected Corrupt Decision by a corrupt court, Saturday, April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-expected-corrupt-decision-by.html

Is Quid Pro Quo the only kind of corruption that Government can regulate. April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/is-quid-pro-quo-only-kind-of-corruption.html

Undue influence and Dependency Corruption or why the Supreme Court Decision was so corrupt, April 21st, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/undue-influence-and-dependency.html

Managing energy on spying

To: <aclu@aclu-md.org>;
Dear Susan Goering

I've been researching the regime setup for internal spying and have found that the culprit is as much local as national. I'm glad to see the national organization noticed this: https://www.aclu.org/spy-files/more-about-fusion-centers

The relationship between NSA/FBI, Private organizations, and the Fusion Centers that Homeland Security let each Governor setup to pass on the tools that formerly had been exclusively with NSA to FBI, State and local police and private companies sabotages the value of protesting NSA.  Stopping NSA from spying on us won't stop the spying unless we reform the secret organizations that have been spun off including The Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC) which is coordinating spying from the FBI.

Unless we understand how spying has metastasized, reigning in NSA, will just shift the center of domestic spying to the FBI, and worse, or even shift it to private actors including the DSAC and it's Networked members, including Maryland's MCAC.

These organizations include (Related to Maryland):
http://www.gohs.maryland.gov/ii_sharing_accomplishments.html
http://www.mcac.maryland.gov/
National participation from MCAC:
http://www.nfcausa.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/117/MenuGroup/Home+New.htm
Further reading:http://www.zcommunications.org/fusion-centers-and-the-maryland-spying-scandal-by-anthony-newkirk.html

http://www.dsac.gov/Pages/index.aspx
http://www.ise.gov/annual-report/section1.html#section-5

I'd like to participate in protests against NSA but I think it confuses the issue as NSA is the least guilty organization. Moreover, there are legitimate security concerns and so I'm not even sure that prohibition is either possible nor wise. We certainly need changes to how we manage tele-comm information and a lot less use of secrecy laws to prevent whistleblowing and enable misuse of that information.

Christopher H. Holte

Corruption, Racketeering and the Supreme Court

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations And the Supreme Court

Anyone who has studied corruption and racketeering in America will certainly find the reasoning in the Citizens United Case specious at best, and astoundingly corrupt at worst, not for the corporate personhood provisions, but for the corrupt deliberate obtuseness of Justice Kennedies opinion that;

“That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.”

The Southern Empire Strikes Back

Punishing present day people for mythical infractions

I lost touch with my Southern side when I realized that most of what they'd tried to teach me was mallarky and myth. Now that I'm older have more appreciation for the value of myth and legend, but less tolerance for it's abuse so I'm even less sympathetic to my Southern Ancestors. But what worries me most are historic mythical grudges. These Grudges can last for millennium and the people who believe in such grudges can get revenge for deeds and infractions that never occurred, or that were very different in actual attributes from the myth they've handed down. In fact such myths can spread from people to their neighbors. In this case a lot of Northerners have come to accept Southern myths and legends and so it's not entirely a regional myth anymore. Thus a lot of what is motivating the Tea Party, even it's northern branches, is Southern Revenge "Revanchism" seeking based on myths about race, class and the civil war. In fact the debt ceiling fight is largely about folks seeking to punish bankers, the North, and that "black man in the white house" for mythical infractions. I'm not a psychologist, but this lunacy has to be fought. Southerners want to Punish Obama for being black, for being President, for the slight of "Lincoln freeing the slaves" and for the fear that the USA is becoming a Brown nation and might one day be ruled by other brown people.

Ironically Southern Republicans are fighting to avenge mythical crimes committed by Northern Republicans.

Setting up a Trap to setup a coup

The basic strategy for the Tea Party folks has been to use the debt ceiling law to setup a legal trap so that Southerners can degrade the reputation of the President on Racist arguments, and maybe setup an impeachment battle. The way they are doing it, is by refusing to authorize spending, which in turn starves the government, makes it impossible for the President to legally do his job. Then as soon as he tries to do his job he'll be caught in a Catch 22 trap. If he finds a way to pay his bills he'll be in violation of the Debt Ceiling law. If he doesn't then he'll be in violation of the 14th amendment and other laws passed by congress making him legally liable for their failure. The 14th amendment says in part:

"4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void."

Unfortunately it doesn't say "congress shall" or "the President sell" thus the 14th amendment sets up a constitutional fight. Congress passed a law requiring the President to keep spending within limits in 2011 [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/3101A], this was known as "sequestration" and the amount in it is less than the amount the Government appropriated, so we've been in a debt crisis since sequestration went into effect.

If the country defaults, the President will be breaking the law, if it doesn't default he will be breaking the law. So in either case we have a constitutional crisis coming.

Impeachment

When Andrew Johnson became President after Lincolns' assassination. The Northern Senators who were abolitionists were in a fight with Johnson, who was a Southern Congressman before he became Vice President. They found excuses to impeach Johnson, that in retrospect were entirely political and had nothing to do with his personal ethics. They succeeded in impeaching Johnson. I think some of the Republicans want to impeach Obama and this is one method for them to get to that.

It looks like it is failing. Thank God if it does. Republicans are talking about "fairness" but it is nowhere to be found in their actions.

Are they doing this unnecessary debt ceiling fight to destroy the USA as a means to get back at the Federal Government, and the Republicans, for mythical deeds from the 1860s? Are they planning to impeach Obama to get even with the impeachment of Andrew Johnson? If so they are subversives and insurrectionists using sedition and treachery to undermine the Federal Government. They are breaking their oath to uphold the constitution and they are breaking the law. I have trouble believing, but it looks like it might be true, that the "Southern Strategy" has allowed Southern revanchists (folks seeking revenge) to take over the Republicans and in that way get back at both the USA and the Party of Lincoln by making both unrecognizable?

The Plot

Rachel Maddow's blog quotes an Op Ed from Ted Cruz from September:

"If Senate Republicans stay strong and hold true to their previous commitments to defund Obamacare, we will force Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a choice: keep the government open, or shut it down in the name of funding a glitch-riddled health care takeover that is killing jobs, wages, and health care benefits all across the nation."

"http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/23/20658242-ted-cruzs-shutdown-scheme-takes-shape"

But that was the advertized plot. In January 2013 (beginning of year) DeMint gave a speach in which he claimed that the USA wouldn't default on anything if we didn't raise the debt ceiling and that we needed the discipline of not raising it.

http://www.myheritage.org/news/video-jim-demint-on-raising-the-debt-ceiling/

Republicans have been trying to impeach Obama since 2008 without ever having a good enough excuse. Fortunately for me the Atlantic Wire lays out the quandary they are setting up.

"Rep. Louie Gohmert, known for his colorfully erroneous perceptions of basically everything in politics, over the weekend suggested that if the government defaults on its debts, it could lead to the impeachment of President Obama. He's sort of got a point — but it may be the case that preventing default would guarantee that Obama commits a high crime or misdemeanor."

More: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/10/obamas-options-avoid-default-impeached-if-you-do-impeached-if-you-dont/70524/

The Ayes Have it Over the nays

The Ayes Have it Over the nays

The eyes have it over the neighs,
better to say "aye" than be a horses Nay
Better to say yes and come out and play
Than hide in a cellar on a rainy day.

Oh the Ayes have it over the Nays,
We are each Eye's, Each I's,
Who open our eyes one day.
And we should hold each other's hands today.
Because that is the way to tomorrow;
and also the way out of sorrow.

 Christopher H. Holte

A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence

CU was Bad

The Citizens United Case was an incredibly corrupt decision. At first I laid the source of the corruption to it's reservation of the "right of personhood" to corporations, but the reality is simpler.

We are talking about what our founders considered to be bribery!

MCCutcheon is Worse!

On September 30, 2013, in an article by Richard L. Hasen in today's Slate titled "The Next Citizens United?" [http://tinyurl.com/NextCitizensUnited] writing about the upcoming "McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission," which is likely to overthrow most controls over influence pedaling and bribery, Hasen quotes Justice Kennedy's opinion in Citizens Unitd (CU), writing for the majority and saying:

“there is only scant evidence that independent expenditures even ingratiate. … Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption.”

Ingratiation and Access ARE OFTEN Corruption

The New York Times further quoted him with this nonsense:

“The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”

But undue influence and access start with ingratiation, favors, and promises. As the political revolving door demonstrates, sometimes the "quid" isn't simultaneous with the "pro-quo!

Both at the time and in retrospect, those comments sound absurd. Especially after CU got cited in the dismissal of 100 years of evidence that outside expenditures, and their impact on political behavior, in fact generate ingratiation, access, and flagrant corruption. & that that was the reason Montana passed strict corporate expenditure laws in the first place! The corrupt majority know this in their personal lives, but pretend to not notice in real life.

"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/politics/04bar.html?_r=0"

CU sure caused a lot of people I know to lose faith in our democracy. The decision itself was corrupt.

Preferential Access and Undue Influence

The problem is not mere access, it is "preferential access". And the problem is not "influence" it is undue influence, preferential influence, "private, separate advantage" [Locke,199] and these amount to tyranny.

The New York times article also notes how the CU case contradicted their own earlier decision, noting how in 2003, in McConnell v. F.E.C., the Supreme Court said there was

“no meaningful distinction between the national party committees and the public officials who control them.”

Large contributions to parties:

“are likely to create actual or apparent indebtedness on the part of federal officeholders,”

the court said, and

“are likely to buy donors preferential access to federal officeholders.”

The appearance of corruption is often an indicator of the reality of corruption, and we have judges all over the country being convicted for taking bribes from private companies running jails or other influential people. Often folks they do business with while playing Golf on the Links or getting a rubdown in a country club. Fact is that ingratiation and access, especially private separate access, are at the heart of corruption in the USA, and since the Supreme Court made it's Citizens United, the level of perceived and actual corruption we are witnessing nationwide has gone up exponentially.

Gutting the Definition of Corruption

So the real problem with Citizens United is that Kennedy gutted the definition of corruption. Heather K. Gerken in the Prospect published an article immediately after the decision [http://prospect.org/article/real-problem-citizens-united]:

“For many years, the Court had gradually expanded the corruption rationale to extend beyond quid pro quo corruption (donor dollars for legislative votes). It had licensed Congress to regulate even when the threat was simply that large donors had better access to politicians or that politicians had become "too compliant with the[ir] wishes." Indeed, at times the Court went so far as to say that even the mere appearance of "undue influence" or the public's "cynical assumption that large donors call the tune" was enough to justify regulation. "Ingratiation and access," in other words, were corruption as far as the Court was concerned. Justice Kennedy didn't say that the Court was overruling these cases. But that's just what it did.”

The problem with "quid pro quo" corruption is that most corruption occurs on the Golf Links or in the locker-room in a country club. You know "locker-room talk."

"If the Court rigidly insists that Congress can regulate only to prevent quid-pro-corruption, narrowly defined, then Citizens United has implications that extend well beyond what corporations can do. Justice Kennedy's own opinion even hints at the possibility, as he notes that the evidence supporting the "soft money" limits – which apply across the board -- rests on evidence about the connection between money and political access. While Justice Kennedy backed off from saying anything definitive, we may find that it was the Court's discussion of corruption, not corporations, that matters most in the long run."

If the Supreme Court applies this rule to the McCutcheon case, which it probably will, then we'll be further down the road to shameless corruption under the protection of the first amendment as "free speech."

Fact is that money buys access which leads to influence which leads to collusion and is corruption. Corrupt court illustrates this at work, when they make decisions that legalize corruption while drawing outside income from teaching, speech making, and become blind to the reality that "access = influence". Judges used to avoid even the appearance of Corruption. Thanks to being exempt from Judicial ethic rules all other judges are supposed to live by some of the court justices on the Supreme Court now display openly their corrupt associations. This is destroying peoples faith and trust in the government and is enabling flagrantly corrupt politicians to get elected by flagrantly venal wealthy individuals. When Justice Scalia hunted with Dick Cheney and then selected his choice to be President, that is corruption. When folks graduate from universities, become lawyers work for a corrupt official, and then take a job at a company as a reward for corrupt decisions as a regulator, and then gets appointed to offices as a result of corrupt decisions in private practice, that is known as the "revolving door" and there is never a Quid Pro Quo that one can identify -- but it is incredibly corrupting. There doesn't have to be direct quid pro quo to run a corrupt enterprise, and US Penal Law represents "influence" as criminal when it is coerced. It's also criminal when it's not -- but thanks to the Supreme Court only morally.

Kennedy's decision was either morally blind, or morally corrupt –or both!

The Swiss define corruption this way:

"Corruption means any abuse of a position of trust in order to gain an undue advantage. This involves the conduct of both sides: that of the person who abuses his position of trust as well as that of the person who seeks to gain an undue advantage by this abuse."

And "private, separate advantage" was the core part of John Locke's definition of tyranny, so corruption, oppression, usurpation and tyranny are always connected. And the Swiss (SECO) go on:

"Corruption can occur in relation to officials as well as between private persons. It is particularly prevalent in certain kinds of transactions (for example, when awarding public contracts), in certain economic sectors (for example, in extractive industries), and in certain countries. Corrupt practices can range from small favours in anticipation of a future advantage to the payment of large sums of money to senior members of governments."

http://www.seco.admin.ch/themen/00645/00657/00659/01387/index.html?lang=en

By those definitions "undue influence" is at the heart of corruption. Kennedy's decision was not just incorrect, it itself was corrupt, because it gives advantage to corruptors and the corrupt by forcing the government to a narrow and hard to prove definition of corruption.

Published: 10/18/2013

Related Posts in series:

A Corrupt Court

The Expected Corrupt Decision by a corrupt court

Seven Reasons Issa Cut Cumming's Mike

Corruption Racketeering and the Supreme Court

Corrupt Court and Undue Influence

Further reading:

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.36.htm

Original date: 10/8/2013

Campaign Reform that might pass Supreme Court

I believe that some of the justices on the Supreme Court are corrupt, but there are things we can do to improve our campaign finance laws that will be difficult for them to overturn on "first amendment" and "corporate personhood" grounds without showing just what scoundrels the majority of the Supreme Court are. These modest proposals all draw on past laws and commons sense:

Define certain kinds of donations as de-facto evidence of bribery:

Any donations from a person or other organization doing business with the Federal Government, or an officer of an organization doing business with the Government shall be deemed as an effort to influence the Federal Government favorably to their business and such gifts, donations or loans shall be deemed as evidence of quid pro quo for bribery, or extortion (if given to an opponent), even if there is no direct link between the Federal Contractor and the recipient, or the person or business doesn't get the business or the gifts are returned and the debts paid unless the recipient discloses such gifts, loans or donations and recuses him or herself from any decision involving that business.

All donations, gifts, loans, or other contributions from any person whatsoever shall be disclosed at the time they are received. Failure to disclose such gifts, loans, donations or other contributions by persons or organizations doing business with the Federal Government by elected officials, or their immediate families, at the time they are received shall be deemed as evidence of intent to violate the law and of bribery.

* Note, the only reason for not making this a blanket restriction is the courts are currently corrupt.

Any legislator or other officer of the Government who receives money, gifts, or other emoluments, from anyone doing business with the Federal Government shall recuse him or herself from all legislative votes or decisions related to any matters related to that business or the officer or legislator shall be presumed to have been influenced by a bribe and shall be subject to US bribery laws.

All persons making any kind of donation, gift or loan to any politician or person running for office or re-election, shall disclose those donations to the IRS and these donations shall be listed publicly if they are over $2000.00 individually or $10,000.00 total in 2012 dollars.

Any person having information about campaign irregularities, bribery, influence pedaling, or other violations of the law shall be protected from retaliation, firing, or being targeted for prosecution by those who he has accused and if there is a conviction or a plea the person shall receive a 10% bounty on the amount of money value of the fine or of the amount of money saved to the taxpayer.

* Note: This is a variation of the Lincoln Law.