#clarence — Public Fediverse posts

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Superb French restaurants in Hong Kong and a bar for cocktails: sommelier’s top picks

Origi…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Frenchrestaurants #AndrewSun #bars #best #Chouchou #Clarence #francais #france #French #FrenchRestaurants #hongkong #Montenegro #odette #OlivierElzer #QuarryBay #QuraBar #Restaurants #SebastianLorenzi #Singapore #StankoLuksic #Sutomore #TéBo #WanChai
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2560038/superb-french-restaurants-in-hong-kong-and-a-bar-for-cocktails-sommeliers-top-picks/

Superb French restaurants in Hong Kong and a bar for cocktails: sommelier’s top picks https://www.diningandcooking.com/2560038/superb-french-restaurants-in-hong-kong-and-a-bar-for-cocktails-sommeliers-top-picks/ #AndrewSun #bars #best #Chouchou #Clarence #food #francais #france #French #FrenchRestaurants #HongKong #Montenegro #odette #OlivierElzer #QuarryBay #QuraBar #Restaurants #SebastianLorenzi #Singapore #StankoLuksic #Sutomore #TéBo #WanChai

The reindeer are taking a quick break in Clarence-Rockland!

Hold onto your stockings, Clarence-Rockland! Santa is here! 🇨🇦

Near the CN Tower...

Track him live: https://www.noradsanta.org

#SantaTracker #Canada #NoradTracksSanta #Clarence-Rockland

https://www.noradsanta.org

#Clarence Gagnon, Lac de #Charlevoix #art #painting #CanadianArt #QuebecoisArt

2/ #Clarence Thomas argued #SupremeCourt #precedents R not “the gospel” & should be critically reexamined, signaling openness to overturning major longstanding rulings including those on #presidentialpowers, #redistricting, even sex marriage rights while warning against blindly following past decisions w/out regard to legal tradition, sound reasoning. Stare decisis, doctrine of precedent, according to which rules formulated by judges in earlier decisions are 2b similarly applied in later cases

French cuisine ambassador Guillaume Gomez, in Hong Kong for Le French May, on using food to ‘maintain friendships’ and why cooking for presidents wasn’t all that fun https://www.diningandcooking.com/2225103/french-cuisine-ambassador-guillaume-gomez-in-hong-kong-for-le-french-may-on-using-food-to-maintain-friendships-and-why-cooking-for-presidents-wasnt-all-that-fun/ #Clarence #francais #france #French #FrenchCuisine #FrenchFoodInHongKong #FrenchMeals #GuillaumeGomez #meals #OlivierElzer

Amy Klobuchar calls on Supreme Court to hold Trump officials in contempt

Senator Klobuchar warns of US getting ‘closer to a constitutional crisis’
-- as Samuel Alito’s dissent signals deference to Trump

On Sunday Minnesota senator #Amy #Klobuchar warned that the US is “getting closer and closer to a constitutional crisis”, but the courts, growing Republican disquiet at Trump administration policies, and public protest were holding it off.

“I believe as long as these courts hold,
and the constituents hold,
and the congress starts standing up,
our democracy will hold,”

Klobuchar told CNN’s State of the Union, adding
💥“but Donald Trump is trying to pull us down into the sewer of a crisis.”

Klobuchar said the US supreme court should 👉hold Trump administration officials in contempt if they continue to ignore a court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García from El Salvador,
the Maryland resident the government admitted in court it had deported by mistake.

Klobuchar said the court could appoint a 👉special prosecutor, independent of Trump’s Department of Justice,
to uphold the rule of law and charge any officials who are responsible for Ábrego García’s deportation,
or have refused to facilitate his return.

The senator’s comments came hours after supreme court released justice #Samuel #Alito’s #dissenting #opinion on the court’s decision to block the Trump administration from deporting more Venezuelans held in north Texas’s Bluebonnet detention center .

In his dissent, Alito criticized the decision of the seven-member majority,
saying the court had acted “literally in the middle of the night” and without sufficient explanation.

The “unprecedented” relief was “hastily and prematurely granted”, Alito added.

Alito, whose dissent was joined by fellow conservative justice #Clarence #Thomas, said there was “dubious factual support” for granting the request in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union
to block deportations of accused gang members that the administration contends are legal under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The majority did not provide a detailed explanation for the order released early on Saturday,
only that the administration should not to remove Venezuelans held in the “until further order of this court”.

The court has said previously that deportations under the 1798 law can only proceed if those scheduled to be removed are offered a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/20/amy-klobuchar-samuel-alito-trump-immigration?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#Clarence (2013-2018)
Life is just one big adventure for Clarence and his two best friends, Jeff & Sumo.
#TVThemeTunes #TVIntros #TVMastodon 📺 🎬

numb par clarence
https://song.link/fr/i/1765475997
#NowPlaying #Musique #clarence

The federal courts will NOT refer to the Justice Department, allegations that
Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas may have violated ethics laws .
Thomas has agreed to follow updated requirements on reporting trips and gifts,
including clearer guidelines on hospitality from friends,
the U.S. Judicial Conference wrote to Democratic senators who had called for an investigation into undisclosed acceptance of luxury trips.
Thomas has previously said he wasn’t required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for by wealthy benefactors like Republican megadonor Harlan Crow
-- because they are close personal friends.
The court didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The Supreme Court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023 in the face of sustained criticism -- though the new code still lacks a means of enforcement.
It’s unclear whether the law allows the U.S. Judicial Conference to make a criminal referral regarding a Supreme Court justice,
U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad wrote.
He serves as secretary for the conference, which sets policy for the federal court system and is led by Chief Justice John Roberts.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-ethics-clarence-thomas-f9c9fee5554e5859e7f6185698fb4f76

New ethics inquiry details more trips by #Clarence #Thomas paid for by wealthy benefactors

Investigation by Senate Democrats found that Thomas accepted gifts and travel worth more than $4.75m since 1991

Republicans have said the investigation is a way to undermine the conservative majority court,
and all the Republicans on the committee protested against the subpoenas authorized for Crow and others as part of the investigation.

No Republicans signed on to the final report,
and no formal report from them was expected.

Thomas has said that he was not required to disclose the trips that he and his wife, Ginni, took with Crow
because the big donor is a close friend of the family and disclosure of that type of travel was not previously required.

The new ethics code does explicitly require it, and Thomas has since gone back and reported some travel.

Crow has maintained that he has never spoken with his friend about pending matters before the court.

The report traces back to the late justice Antonin Scalia, saying he “established the practice” of accepting undisclosed gifts and hundreds of trips over his decades on the bench.

The late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired justice Stephen Breyer also took subsided trips when they were on the bench but disclosed them on their annual forms, it said.

The investigation found that Thomas has accepted gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors worth more than $4.75m by some estimates since his 1991 confirmation
and failed to disclose much of it.

“The number, value and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” according to the report.

It also detailed a 2008 luxury trip to Alaska taken by Justice Samuel Alito.
He has said he was exempted from disclosing the trip under previous ethical rules.

Alito also declined calls to withdraw from cases involving Donald Trump or the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol
after flags associated with the riot were seen flying at two of Alito’s homes.
Alito has said the flags were raised by this wife.

Thomas has ignored calls to step aside from cases involving Trump, too.
Ginni Thomas supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/ethics-inquiry-supreme-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Leonard Leo, an influential conservative lawyer who advised Donald Trump during his first term forcefully pushed back Friday on talk that one or more conservative Supreme Court justices might retire after Trump again takes office in January.

Leo, who helped the president-elect select three Supreme Court picks during his first term, said in a statement that discussions of Justices #Clarence #Thomas, 76, or #Samuel A. #Alito Jr., 74, stepping down are unseemly.

The comment drew a rebuke from #Mike #Davis, a Trump aide who is advising him on potential judicial picks this time around,
while #Leonard #Leo appears to be keeping his distance.

“No one other than Justices Thomas and Alito knows when or if they will retire, and talking about them like meat that has reached its expiration date is unwise, uninformed, and, frankly, just crass,” Leo said in the statement.

“Justices Thomas and Alito have given their lives to our country and our Constitution, and should be treated with more dignity and respect than they are getting from some pundits.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/08/trump-supreme-court-leonard-leo-mike-davis/

The Maga legal networks that could 💥topple Planned Parenthood 💥and gut women’s healthcare:

In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency,
a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society,
a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system.

As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, #Matthew #Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker.

“We are blessed to have Judge #Edith #Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced.

Jones, a longtime judge on the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
stepped on stage to introduce the evening’s guest, her friend,
the supreme court justice #Clarence #Thomas.
In her introduction, Jones also hailed the four new conservative judges Trump had appointed to join her on the appeals court.

“They’ve raised the bar for the fifth circuit since I got on,” she said. “And that’s thanks to the #Federalist #Society, to Leonard.”

#Leonard #Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd
as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas.

The justice was the featured speaker
but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room
– a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse
and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that,
in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion.

His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system
– one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights
💥and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood,
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women.

It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges
– from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court
– who are also linked to Leo

Three of the people on the stage at the Federalist Society event in Fort Worth in 2018
– Kacsmaryk, Jones and Leo
– have all played key roles in the case.

Though the stakes in this case couldn’t be higher for one of the nation’s oldest healthcare providers,
it is about more than abortion or healthcare.

The lawsuit is a parable about Leo’s power amid a presidential election season
whose outcome will probably determine to what extent Leo will continue to reshape the makeup and ideology of the nation’s courts.

The case was filed in February 2021 by an anti-abortion activist
who had conducted what he described as an
“extensive undercover investigation” of the organization.

He accuses Planned Parenthood of fraud
– claiming that it owes $1.8bn in fines, fees and reimbursements to the Medicaid program.

It’s an amount that could force the 108-year-old nonprofit healthcare provider to shutter clinics across the country.

The lawsuit is titled
"USA v Planned Parenthood"
because it was filed under a federal whistleblower law
that allows citizens to sue on behalf of the US government
over allegations that federal programs have been defrauded.

It is the latest in a series of legal actions that started in 2015
after Texas’s health officials used footage from the activist’s hidden-camera recordings as a basis to expel Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program.

The activist and his allies claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue and endangering pregnant people’s health.

Planned Parenthood repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Investigations in multiple states triggered by the video resulted in no disciplinary action against the healthcare provider.

The US government
– the source of 90% of the Medicaid funds paid to Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas
– disputes that Planned Parenthood owes the federal government money.

Federal officials say in a court filing that they found no evidence that Planned Parenthood had improperly billed for its services
and that they found no reason Planned Parenthood should have been removed from Medicaid.

Experts in healthcare law expected the case to be dismissed quickly.

Yet none of these facts are as important to understanding the significance of this case as knowing where it was filed:
in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas
– home to zero Planned Parenthood clinics.

This wasn’t an accident.

The US district court in Amarillo is under the purview of the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
making it likely that any upward appeals in Planned Parenthood’s case would be heard in the hard-right appeals court,
including by judges appointed by Trump or other conservative stalwarts like Jones.

And by the time the Planned Parenthood case was filed, Kacsmaryk
– that young attorney on stage making introductions at the Federalist Society event in Texas
– had been serving as the federal district court judge for Amarillo for nearly two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/maga-courts-planned-parenthood-case?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Maga legal networks that could 💥topple Planned Parenthood 💥and gut women’s healthcare:

In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency,
a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society,
a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system.

As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, #Matthew #Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker.

“We are blessed to have Judge #Edith #Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced.

Jones, a longtime judge on the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
stepped on stage to introduce the evening’s guest, her friend,
the supreme court justice #Clarence #Thomas.
In her introduction, Jones also hailed the four new conservative judges Trump had appointed to join her on the appeals court.

“They’ve raised the bar for the fifth circuit since I got on,” she said. “And that’s thanks to the #Federalist #Society, to Leonard.”

#Leonard #Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd
as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas.

The justice was the featured speaker
but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room
– a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse
and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that,
in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion.

His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system
– one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights
💥and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood,
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women.

It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges
– from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court
– who are also linked to Leo

Three of the people on the stage at the Federalist Society event in Fort Worth in 2018
– Kacsmaryk, Jones and Leo
– have all played key roles in the case.

Though the stakes in this case couldn’t be higher for one of the nation’s oldest healthcare providers,
it is about more than abortion or healthcare.

The lawsuit is a parable about Leo’s power amid a presidential election season
whose outcome will probably determine to what extent Leo will continue to reshape the makeup and ideology of the nation’s courts.

The case was filed in February 2021 by an anti-abortion activist
who had conducted what he described as an
“extensive undercover investigation” of the organization.

He accuses Planned Parenthood of fraud
– claiming that it owes $1.8bn in fines, fees and reimbursements to the Medicaid program.

It’s an amount that could force the 108-year-old nonprofit healthcare provider to shutter clinics across the country.

The lawsuit is titled
"USA v Planned Parenthood"
because it was filed under a federal whistleblower law
that allows citizens to sue on behalf of the US government
over allegations that federal programs have been defrauded.

It is the latest in a series of legal actions that started in 2015
after Texas’s health officials used footage from the activist’s hidden-camera recordings as a basis to expel Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program.

The activist and his allies claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue and endangering pregnant people’s health.

Planned Parenthood repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Investigations in multiple states triggered by the video resulted in no disciplinary action against the healthcare provider.

The US government
– the source of 90% of the Medicaid funds paid to Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas
– disputes that Planned Parenthood owes the federal government money.

Federal officials say in a court filing that they found no evidence that Planned Parenthood had improperly billed for its services
and that they found no reason Planned Parenthood should have been removed from Medicaid.

Experts in healthcare law expected the case to be dismissed quickly.

Yet none of these facts are as important to understanding the significance of this case as knowing where it was filed:
in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas
– home to zero Planned Parenthood clinics.

This wasn’t an accident.

The US district court in Amarillo is under the purview of the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
making it likely that any upward appeals in Planned Parenthood’s case would be heard in the hard-right appeals court,
including by judges appointed by Trump or other conservative stalwarts like Jones.

And by the time the Planned Parenthood case was filed, Kacsmaryk
– that young attorney on stage making introductions at the Federalist Society event in Texas
– had been serving as the federal district court judge for Amarillo for nearly two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/maga-courts-planned-parenthood-case?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Maga legal networks that could 💥topple Planned Parenthood 💥and gut women’s healthcare:

In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency,
a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society,
a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system.

As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, #Matthew #Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker.

“We are blessed to have Judge #Edith #Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced.

Jones, a longtime judge on the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
stepped on stage to introduce the evening’s guest, her friend,
the supreme court justice #Clarence #Thomas.
In her introduction, Jones also hailed the four new conservative judges Trump had appointed to join her on the appeals court.

“They’ve raised the bar for the fifth circuit since I got on,” she said. “And that’s thanks to the #Federalist #Society, to Leonard.”

#Leonard #Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd
as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas.

The justice was the featured speaker
but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room
– a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse
and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that,
in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion.

His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system
– one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights
💥and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood,
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women.

It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges
– from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court
– who are also linked to Leo

Three of the people on the stage at the Federalist Society event in Fort Worth in 2018
– Kacsmaryk, Jones and Leo
– have all played key roles in the case.

Though the stakes in this case couldn’t be higher for one of the nation’s oldest healthcare providers,
it is about more than abortion or healthcare.

The lawsuit is a parable about Leo’s power amid a presidential election season
whose outcome will probably determine to what extent Leo will continue to reshape the makeup and ideology of the nation’s courts.

The case was filed in February 2021 by an anti-abortion activist
who had conducted what he described as an
“extensive undercover investigation” of the organization.

He accuses Planned Parenthood of fraud
– claiming that it owes $1.8bn in fines, fees and reimbursements to the Medicaid program.

It’s an amount that could force the 108-year-old nonprofit healthcare provider to shutter clinics across the country.

The lawsuit is titled
"USA v Planned Parenthood"
because it was filed under a federal whistleblower law
that allows citizens to sue on behalf of the US government
over allegations that federal programs have been defrauded.

It is the latest in a series of legal actions that started in 2015
after Texas’s health officials used footage from the activist’s hidden-camera recordings as a basis to expel Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program.

The activist and his allies claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue and endangering pregnant people’s health.

Planned Parenthood repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Investigations in multiple states triggered by the video resulted in no disciplinary action against the healthcare provider.

The US government
– the source of 90% of the Medicaid funds paid to Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas
– disputes that Planned Parenthood owes the federal government money.

Federal officials say in a court filing that they found no evidence that Planned Parenthood had improperly billed for its services
and that they found no reason Planned Parenthood should have been removed from Medicaid.

Experts in healthcare law expected the case to be dismissed quickly.

Yet none of these facts are as important to understanding the significance of this case as knowing where it was filed:
in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas
– home to zero Planned Parenthood clinics.

This wasn’t an accident.

The US district court in Amarillo is under the purview of the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
making it likely that any upward appeals in Planned Parenthood’s case would be heard in the hard-right appeals court,
including by judges appointed by Trump or other conservative stalwarts like Jones.

And by the time the Planned Parenthood case was filed, Kacsmaryk
– that young attorney on stage making introductions at the Federalist Society event in Texas
– had been serving as the federal district court judge for Amarillo for nearly two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/maga-courts-planned-parenthood-case?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Maga legal networks that could 💥topple Planned Parenthood 💥and gut women’s healthcare:

In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency,
a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society,
a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system.

As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, #Matthew #Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker.

“We are blessed to have Judge #Edith #Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced.

Jones, a longtime judge on the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
stepped on stage to introduce the evening’s guest, her friend,
the supreme court justice #Clarence #Thomas.
In her introduction, Jones also hailed the four new conservative judges Trump had appointed to join her on the appeals court.

“They’ve raised the bar for the fifth circuit since I got on,” she said. “And that’s thanks to the #Federalist #Society, to Leonard.”

#Leonard #Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd
as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas.

The justice was the featured speaker
but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room
– a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse
and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that,
in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion.

His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system
– one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights
💥and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood,
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women.

It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges
– from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court
– who are also linked to Leo

Three of the people on the stage at the Federalist Society event in Fort Worth in 2018
– Kacsmaryk, Jones and Leo
– have all played key roles in the case.

Though the stakes in this case couldn’t be higher for one of the nation’s oldest healthcare providers,
it is about more than abortion or healthcare.

The lawsuit is a parable about Leo’s power amid a presidential election season
whose outcome will probably determine to what extent Leo will continue to reshape the makeup and ideology of the nation’s courts.

The case was filed in February 2021 by an anti-abortion activist
who had conducted what he described as an
“extensive undercover investigation” of the organization.

He accuses Planned Parenthood of fraud
– claiming that it owes $1.8bn in fines, fees and reimbursements to the Medicaid program.

It’s an amount that could force the 108-year-old nonprofit healthcare provider to shutter clinics across the country.

The lawsuit is titled
"USA v Planned Parenthood"
because it was filed under a federal whistleblower law
that allows citizens to sue on behalf of the US government
over allegations that federal programs have been defrauded.

It is the latest in a series of legal actions that started in 2015
after Texas’s health officials used footage from the activist’s hidden-camera recordings as a basis to expel Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program.

The activist and his allies claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue and endangering pregnant people’s health.

Planned Parenthood repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Investigations in multiple states triggered by the video resulted in no disciplinary action against the healthcare provider.

The US government
– the source of 90% of the Medicaid funds paid to Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas
– disputes that Planned Parenthood owes the federal government money.

Federal officials say in a court filing that they found no evidence that Planned Parenthood had improperly billed for its services
and that they found no reason Planned Parenthood should have been removed from Medicaid.

Experts in healthcare law expected the case to be dismissed quickly.

Yet none of these facts are as important to understanding the significance of this case as knowing where it was filed:
in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas
– home to zero Planned Parenthood clinics.

This wasn’t an accident.

The US district court in Amarillo is under the purview of the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
making it likely that any upward appeals in Planned Parenthood’s case would be heard in the hard-right appeals court,
including by judges appointed by Trump or other conservative stalwarts like Jones.

And by the time the Planned Parenthood case was filed, Kacsmaryk
– that young attorney on stage making introductions at the Federalist Society event in Texas
– had been serving as the federal district court judge for Amarillo for nearly two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/maga-courts-planned-parenthood-case?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Maga legal networks that could 💥topple Planned Parenthood 💥and gut women’s healthcare:

In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency,
a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society,
a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system.

As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, #Matthew #Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker.

“We are blessed to have Judge #Edith #Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced.

Jones, a longtime judge on the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
stepped on stage to introduce the evening’s guest, her friend,
the supreme court justice #Clarence #Thomas.
In her introduction, Jones also hailed the four new conservative judges Trump had appointed to join her on the appeals court.

“They’ve raised the bar for the fifth circuit since I got on,” she said. “And that’s thanks to the #Federalist #Society, to Leonard.”

#Leonard #Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd
as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas.

The justice was the featured speaker
but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room
– a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse
and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that,
in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion.

His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system
– one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights
💥and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood,
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women.

It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges
– from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court
– who are also linked to Leo

Three of the people on the stage at the Federalist Society event in Fort Worth in 2018
– Kacsmaryk, Jones and Leo
– have all played key roles in the case.

Though the stakes in this case couldn’t be higher for one of the nation’s oldest healthcare providers,
it is about more than abortion or healthcare.

The lawsuit is a parable about Leo’s power amid a presidential election season
whose outcome will probably determine to what extent Leo will continue to reshape the makeup and ideology of the nation’s courts.

The case was filed in February 2021 by an anti-abortion activist
who had conducted what he described as an
“extensive undercover investigation” of the organization.

He accuses Planned Parenthood of fraud
– claiming that it owes $1.8bn in fines, fees and reimbursements to the Medicaid program.

It’s an amount that could force the 108-year-old nonprofit healthcare provider to shutter clinics across the country.

The lawsuit is titled
"USA v Planned Parenthood"
because it was filed under a federal whistleblower law
that allows citizens to sue on behalf of the US government
over allegations that federal programs have been defrauded.

It is the latest in a series of legal actions that started in 2015
after Texas’s health officials used footage from the activist’s hidden-camera recordings as a basis to expel Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program.

The activist and his allies claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue and endangering pregnant people’s health.

Planned Parenthood repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Investigations in multiple states triggered by the video resulted in no disciplinary action against the healthcare provider.

The US government
– the source of 90% of the Medicaid funds paid to Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas
– disputes that Planned Parenthood owes the federal government money.

Federal officials say in a court filing that they found no evidence that Planned Parenthood had improperly billed for its services
and that they found no reason Planned Parenthood should have been removed from Medicaid.

Experts in healthcare law expected the case to be dismissed quickly.

Yet none of these facts are as important to understanding the significance of this case as knowing where it was filed:
in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas
– home to zero Planned Parenthood clinics.

This wasn’t an accident.

The US district court in Amarillo is under the purview of the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
making it likely that any upward appeals in Planned Parenthood’s case would be heard in the hard-right appeals court,
including by judges appointed by Trump or other conservative stalwarts like Jones.

And by the time the Planned Parenthood case was filed, Kacsmaryk
– that young attorney on stage making introductions at the Federalist Society event in Texas
– had been serving as the federal district court judge for Amarillo for nearly two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/maga-courts-planned-parenthood-case?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Trump and guns loom large as scandal-hit supreme court gets back to work

The US Supreme Court embarks on its next nine-month term on Monday

with public confidence in the court still reeling
following recent extreme rulings
compounded by the ethically dubious conduct of some justices.

As the new term begins, the dust cloud kicked up by controversial opinions delivered at the end of the last term has barely settled.

In particular, the July decision of the six-to-three rightwing majority to grant Donald Trump substantial #immunity from criminal prosecution for actions he carried out as president astonished even seasoned observers of the country’s top court.

“That ruling was shocking, it was a rip to the constitutional fabric, and it gave vast new power to presidents to break the law,”
Michael Waldman said at a recent webinar by the Brennan Center, the progressive thinktank, of which he is president.

Despite the ructions caused by its actions, the increasingly hard-right court shows no signs of reining itself in.
The first big case of the new term that will be addressed on Tuesday takes the justices back into the vexed area of #gun #controls.
The case, 💥Garland v VanDerStok💥, concerns “#ghost #guns”,
kits that can be assembled at home that are increasingly used to skirt around basic gun regulations
including serial numbers and federal background checks.

➡️The Biden administration imposed restrictions on ghost guns in 2022 that were promptly blocked by a lower court, sending the case to the supreme court for adjudication.

The case has potentially huge implications for gun control.
⚠️A decision that exempts ghost guns from basic regulations would punch a giant loophole in America’s already lax approach to firearms.

As it is, US courts are wrestling with chaos and confusion in the wake of recent supreme court gun rulings.

In his #Bruen judgment, the hard-right justice
🔥 #Clarence #Thomas invented a new rule that any handgun ban must comport with the country’s “history and tradition”
– a phrase which has set federal judges scrambling to try to make sense of it.

The ghost gun case has emerged out of the fifth circuit court of appeals,
which has the distinction of being the #most #rightwing appeals court in the US.
Six out of its 17 active judges were appointed by Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/06/trump-guns-us-supreme-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#Leonard #Leo was born on Long Island in the mid-sixties.
When he was only a toddler, he lost his father — a pastry chef — to cancer.
At the age of five, his mother remarried, and the Leos moved to New Jersey, where he attended Monroe Township High School.
Leo was chosen as the “Most Likely to Succeed”
a distinction he shared with classmate #Sally #Schroeder, his future wife.
In the yearbook, the two were shown sitting next to each other, holding wads of cash and with dollar signs painted on their glasses.
He was so effective at raising money for his senior prom that his classmates nicknamed him the “Moneybags Kid.” 
Throughout his life, he remained steeped in the deep Catholicism of his grandfather, who had emigrated to the United States from Italy as a teenager;
his grandparents attended Mass daily, and encouraged the young Leonard to follow their lead.
After high school, Leo went to Cornell University, studying under a group of conservative academics in the university’s department of government
and with the wider national backdrop of iconoclastic scholars led by Yale University’s #Robert #Bork and the University of Chicago’s #Antonin #Scalia, who were building the case for a novel legal doctrine known as #originalism.
He got a series of internships in Washington, D.C., during the final years of the Reagan administration,
then returned to Cornell to join the law school, where in 1989 he founded the local chapter of a student organization called the #Federalist #Society.
That group had been set up by three conservative-leaning students from Yale, Harvard, and Chicago seven years earlier as a way of challenging what they saw as the dominance of liberal ideology at the country’s law schools. 

After graduating, Leo married Sally, who had been raised as a Protestant but who used to go to Catholic Mass five times every weekend because she played the organ.

She decided to convert not long before her marriage.

The couple moved back to Washington, where Leo clerked for a judge on the court of appeals and became close with another appellate judge who had recently been appointed to the D.C. circuit
— a man from Georgia called #Clarence #Thomas,
who had toyed with becoming a Catholic priest.

Despite being ten years older and from much more humble origins,
Thomas shared Leo’s conservative outlook, and the two soon developed a deep friendship that would endure for many years.

During this period, Leo was asked by the Federalist Society to become its first employee
— although he delayed his start date so that he could help his good friend Thomas through his contentious confirmation process for the Supreme Court.

Despite accusations of sexual harassment hanging over him, Thomas won Senate confirmation by a slim margin.

It would be the first in a series of fights in which Leo would have to put aside the teachings of his Christian faith as he focused on the greater goal of pushing through a conservative revolution of the courts and of society at large.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/opus-dei-leonard-leo-supreme-court-moneybags-kid-1235115538/

A team of Iranian hackers impersonated #Ginni #Thomas,
the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas,
in an effort to extract information from people close to former President Donald Trump, CNN reported.

An indictment unsealed on Friday alleges that the three Iranian men gained access to the email account of a Trump campaign official this summer,
which allowed them to steal debate-preparation material and information on possible vice presidential candidates.

The practice is known as “spear phishing” among hackers.

Among the people whose accounts were compromised were #Roger #Stone, the veteran Republican dirty trickster previously pardoned by Trump before he left office.

Between April and May 2024, email was used as part of a phishing campaign that targeted, among others, a former security adviser to a former president.

Ginni Thomas was one of a number of identities fraudulently used by the hackers to target the Trump campaign.

The others have not been named but the victims detailed by the Justice Department include a series which appear closely linked to Trump,
suggesting that the use of names such as Ginni Thomas was a successful move by the Iranians.

Among those who fell for the phishing scam were a former deputy director of the CIA,
a former ambassador to Israel,
an ex-State Department adviser who appears to have advised the failed Nikki Haley campaign for president,
and a former presidential homeland security adviser.

Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi face charges of identity theft and wire fraud.

The indictment says they were acting on behalf of Iran’s #Islamic #Revolutionary #Guard Corps.

Although Ginni Thomas is not mentioned by name in the indictment, it says that the hackers created a fake email using the identity of a
“spouse of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice.”

In addition to being the wife of a Supreme Court justice, Thomas is a conservative activist.

She made headlines for sending texts to Donald Trump’s then Chief of Staff #Mark #Meadows, on Jan. 6, 2021, urging him to overturn the election
—as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.

One read, “Biden and the Left [are] attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Thomas, a conservative firebrand, claims that she does not influence her husband.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donald-trump-campaign-got-spearfished-by-fake-ginni-thomas

Now do Clarence Thomas.
#Federal #bribery & #corruption #charges #mayor #Adams #should #resign #next #charge #SCOTUS #ClarenceThomas #Clarence #UncleThomas #corrupt #judge #Clearance #accepts #gifts #millionaires #own #SupremeCourt #kangaroo #bought #court #NewYorkCity #NYC #USA #offense #money #donations #matching #campaign #funds #top #cop #thief #steal #public #funding #Brooklyn #borough #president #illegal #contributions https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-charged-bribery-and-campaign-finance-offenses

David Brock on Clarence Thomas and supreme court hijack: ‘The original sin’

#David #Brock once attacked #Anita #Hill,
who accused #Clarence #Thomas of sexual harassment.

♦️His new book slams Thomas♦️

Thirty years ago, David Brock made his name as a reporter with 🔸"The Real Anita Hill",
a book attacking the woman who accused Clarence Thomas,
George HW Bush’s second supreme court nominee,
of sexual harassment.

After tempestuous hearings, Thomas was confirmed.
Brock
– who memorably characterized Hill, a law professor, in sexist terms as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”
– was launched as a rightwing media star.

Thirty years on, Thomas still sits on the court, the longest-serving hardliner on a bench tilted 6-3 to the right by three confirmations under Donald Trump.

But Brock switched sides long ago, disillusioned by rightwing lies.

He apologized for smearing Hill and eventually became a prominent Democratic operative, close to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

He founded watchdogs and Super Pacs and kept on writing books.
He dealt with his political conversion 20 years ago in 🔸"Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative".

Now, with🔸 "Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America",
he has returned to what he calls “the original sin” of the modern supreme court:
“Thomas’s perjury to get on the court”
and his allegedly untruthful answers to questions about his treatment of Hill and other women.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/david-brock-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-stench-book?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Samuel Alito accepted concert tickets from conservative German aristocrat

#Samuel #Alito, the US supreme court justice, accepted $900 concert tickets from a Catholic German aristocrat known for her unabashed conservative views and ties to rightwing activists, his latest financial disclosure form reveals.

#Princess #Gloria #von #Thurn #und #Taxis reportedly gifted the tickets to Alito and his wife to allow them to attend the Regensburg castle festival,
an annual summer music extravaganza hosted at her 500-room castle in Bavaria.

The princess, a descendant of princes of the Holy Roman empire, is noted for ties with #Steve #Bannon, a key supporter and former aide of #Donald #Trump, and connections to figures in the Catholic hierarchy opposed to Pope Francis.

Her donation to Alito is set out in the justice’s annual financial disclosure report, which he filed late after requesting an extension.

The declaration follows a series of controversies over the ethics of supreme court justices amid revelations that some, including Alito himself and Justice #Clarence #Thomas, have accepted gifts from wealthy benefactors without disclosing on mandatory forms.

Alito has been at the centre of reports that he accepted a private jet free travel gift for a luxury salmon fishing trip from a conservative billionaire who had cases pending before the supreme court.

He previously met von Thurn und Taxis along with fellow justice #Brett #Kavanaugh when she visited the supreme court in 2019 along with #Cardinal #Gerhard #Ludwig #Müller, who was dismissed from his position as head of the Catholic’s church’s doctrinal body by Pope Francis, and #Brian #Brown, a leading anti-LGBTQ+ activist.

Von Thurn und Taxis’s palatial castle in Regensburg – the venue for the concert attended by Alito and his wife – has been mooted by Bannon as a potential venue for a 🔸European network of finishing schools for rightwing conservatives.
After her reinvention as a conservative Catholic activist, she drew criticism in 2001 after saying on a television talkshow that the high rate of Aids in Africa was due, not to a lack of safe sex, but because
“the Blacks like to copulate a lot”.
She later tried to amend her remarks, saying Africans had a lot of sex due to the continent’s hot climate.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/09/samuel-alito-supreme-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Someone has tracked “…All The Ethics Scandals Involving The Supreme Court Justice Amid New Harlan Crow Trips”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/08/05/clarence-thomas-here-are-all-the-ethics-scandals-involving-the-supreme-court-justice-amid-new-harlan-crow-trips/

#SCotUS #Thomas #Clarence

Since that October post, we found Thomas had still failed to list items, which lead to two Congressfolk asking for a special counsel (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clarence-thomas-special-counsel-senate-democrats-merrick-garland/) and another filing Articles of Impeachment (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/aoc-files-articles-impeachment-supreme-court-justices-clarence-thomas-rcna161121).

Nothing happened.

Today we find Thomas had more gifts he again failed to disclose:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/us/politics/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-jet.html

Meanwhile, Gorsuch busily warning (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/04/gorsuch-biden-supreme-court-proposals-00172574) against, well, any fixes I guess?

Ugh.

#SCotUS #Thomas #Clarence

HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf

HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf

HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf

HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf


Judge #Aileen M. #Cannon’s stunning dismissal this week of the most serious charges faced by Donald Trump put her on shaky legal ground, according to experts,

who say she is🔸 on track to be reversed on appeal
🔸 and could even be removed from the case
— an extraordinary, but not unheard of step.

Because of the political calendar, however, any legal repercussions could be short-lived.

Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified national security records and obstruction of government efforts to retrieve the material
🔸may not matter if the former president and current Republican nominee is elected in November.

If he gets back to the White House, Trump could pressure his Justice Department to close the case.

He could also promote Cannon to the very appeals court that will soon examine her decision to toss the case.

Cannon’s finding that special counsel #Jack #Smith was improperly appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump
conflicts with numerous past court decisions and the nation’s long history
— during both Democratic and Republican administrations
— of allowing #independent #prosecutors to handle high-profile instances of alleged wrongdoing.


⭐️Smith has filed notice of his plans to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit,
which reviews decisions from the Florida district where Cannon,
a relatively inexperienced judge appointed by Trump in 2020, sits.

⭐️The court has already rebuked her twice for her handling of other aspects of the classified documents case,
sending what Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar described as a message that her decisions had been “way out of line.”

The question now, Amar said, is
💥how quickly and dramatically the appeals court acts on the latest ruling, 💥
which dismissed the entire indictment for Trump and his two co-defendants.

“They may not want to stick their head in a #buzz #saw if they can just let the case take its slow, deliberative course,” he said.

In her 93-page decision, Cannon said there is no specific statute authorizing the attorney general to appoint a special counsel.

She also said the Constitution requires someone with Smith’s authority to be confirmed by the Senate.

The judge acknowledged the tradition of special-attorney-like figures in moments of political scandal involving high-level government officials,
from #Watergate to #Iran-#contra to Russia’s attempts to #interfere in the 2016 election.

But Cannon said the practice of appointing such independent prosecutors has been inconsistent and based on a “spotty historical backdrop.”

Smith, she wrote, is “a private citizen exercising the full power of a United States Attorney, and with very little oversight or supervision.”

Conservative legal groups have long questioned the constitutionality of special counsel appointments.

Cannon repeatedly cited Justice #Clarence #Thomas, who raised the issue in a solo opinion this month as part of the Supreme Court’s decision granting Trump broad immunity from prosecution for official acts.

That Supreme Court case focused on Smith’s separate election interference prosecution of Trump in D.C.

She also embraced the arguments in a law review article by #Gary #Lawson of Boston University School of Law and #Steven G. #Calabresi, a Northwestern law professor and 🔸a co-founder of the Federalist Society, with which Cannon is affiliated.

Other legal experts, however, have joined former Justice Department officials and Smith’s legal team in saying
her ruling ignores the history of special counsel appointments and flouts Supreme Court precedent.

Most notably, the high court in 1974 unanimously required President Richard M. #Nixon to hand over recordings to a special prosecutor as part of the #Watergate investigation.

In that opinion, the justices endorsed the office, citing several statutes under which the attorney general had
“delegated the authority to represent the United States in these particular matters to a Special Prosecutor with unique authority and tenure.”

While lower-court judges are bound to follow the Supreme Court’s lead,
🔸Cannon took the unusual step of finding she was not required to abide by that aspect of the high court’s opinion in U.S. v. Nixon,
🔸saying the case did not directly address the validity of the office of special counsel.

Michael J. Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who teaches about constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress, said
Cannon cannot just brush aside a unanimous high court ruling.

“For a trial judge to ignore it is judicial malpractice,” he said, describing her most recent decision as
part of a “pattern of bias that leads her to endorse wacky or unfounded arguments,
and that’s a problem if you’re a judge.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/20/cannon-trump-florida-appeal-special-counsel/

Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamie Raskin
are introducing a new piece of legislation aimed at 🔸putting a cap on the number and value of gifts U.S. Supreme Court justices can receive.🔸

The "High Court Gift Ban Act", unveiled Tuesday, would prohibit justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 at a time, or more than $100 total per year.
The bill would also put an $18,000 cap on gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated.

Justice #Clarence #Thomas has been under intense scrutiny after an investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee found that he failed to include luxury vacations paid for by Republican megadonor #Harlan #Crow on his financial disclosure forms.

Thomas has been subject to several other complaints, including that he never paid back a loan on his R.V. and that he cavorted with the #Koch brothers while ruling on cases they’d brought to the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month, a report from a judicial watchdog found that Supreme Court justices had received close to a total of
⭐️$3 million in gifts⭐️ over the last 20 years
—with 🌟more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Thomas. 🌟
Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years.
Justice #Samuel #Alito has similarly come under fire for accepting lavish gifts from Republican billionaires, including over-the-top, all-expenses-paid vacations.

It seems, however, that little can be done to rein in the court’s high-ranking members over mounting concerns about their ethics.
Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez wrote to Chief Justice #John #Roberts late last week, seeking answers on
what he planned to do about Thomas, as well as Alito, whose recent flag scandal has also called into question whether he has conflicts of interest in cases before the court.
Roberts has not yet responded.
♦️“The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land but has the lowest ethical standards, which means pay-to-play billionaires, right-wing dark money groups and carbon-emitting special interests have freedom to purchase the best justice money can buy,” ♦️said Raskin in a statement Tuesday.

Ocasio-Cortez called their bill “a commonsense solution to address the deeply troubling and unethical influence dark money is having on our nation’s highest judicial body.”

“This is not about politics
—it’s about safeguarding the strength and integrity of our democracy,” she said.
It’s unlikely, though, that such a bill would pass in a brutally indifferent Republican-led House.

https://newrepublic.com/post/183099/aoc-raskin-rein-alito-thomas-gifts

https://raskin.house.gov/press-releases?id=243B1819-3D3A-4D6F-B104-C2B5513545F1

@skykiss

Mark Paoletta: Flacking for the Thomases

#Mark #Paoletta is one of the most aggressive defenders of U.S. Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas

He has assailed Senators and reporters who raise concerns about the serious ethical issues raised by the actions of Thomas and his wife, Ginni. 

When Paoletta worked in the George H.W. Bush administration he worked on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

#Leonard #Leo also worked on that confirmation battle. 

In 1991, Anita Hill testified under oath that Thomas had engaged in gross sexual overtures toward her when she worked with him in the Reagan administration.

Thomas denied her claims, and his GOP allies attacked her character. 

Since then, Paoletta has repeatedly defended Thomas, and since at least 2016 he has been part of the PR effort to buttress Thomas.   

In 2022, for example, the Federalist, a far right-wing blog site funded by #Dick #Uihlein, published a piece by Mark Paoletta attacking an investigation by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker about #Ginni Thomas’ close ties to right-wing groups, including some that file briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The Federalist’s piece resulted in a correction of how it tried to defend the Thomases with a comparison that effectively mischaracterized the recusal practices of another federal judge and her spouse. 

Paoletta has penned other pieces defending Thomas in that blog, such as
💥calling Anita Hill a liar.💥

This past July the Washington Post revealedthat Leo steered at least $1.8M into a PR and online astroturf campaign to attack a 2016 HBO film about the Clarence Thomas’ nomination.

Paoletta was the face of the campaign and, it turns out, was paid $300,000 by Leo’s Judicial Education Project, according to other disclosures. 

When asked by the Post, Paoletta confirmed, “my good friend Leonard Leo’s group provided funding for this work,” including the Thomas film.

Paoletta also represented Ginni Thomas before the January 6th committee after the Washington Post reported that she repeatedly texted Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to stop the Electoral College votes from being counted after the 2020 election and urged numerous state legislators to overturn Biden’s election too. 

Paoletta also provided a statement to the Washington Post on Ginni’s behalf, after it was revealed that her group,
🌟“Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty,” 🌟received $600,000 in anonymous contributions funneled through ♦️Capital Research Center♦️ (CRC) to engage in culture war battles.

Around the time of this contribution, CRC signed onto a brief petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case on emission regulations.

In 2021, during the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation Paoletta was also listed as the contact, along with Judicial Crisis Network’s (JCN) #Carrie #Severino, on a memoir about Thomas.

JCN spent $1.5 million on an ad buy ostensibly about KBJ but that was mostly a promo of a vanity biopic about Thomas.

The ad buy was tied to Leo’s for-profit PR firm CRC Advisors.

That ad campaign touting Thomas came as news was breaking about Ginni’s role in repeatedly texting Meadows to try to stop Americans’ votes for Biden from being counted.   

That JCN ad led True North to examine all the funders of that video where Thomas claimed to love hanging out in his RV at Walmart more than going to the beach,
and one of those funders was the long-time benefactors of the Thomases’ luxury lifestyle: #Harlan #Crow.

That painting,
which was called just five guys discussing the law by the artist,
includes Paoletta with Crow, Leonard Leo, Clarence Thomas, and another litigator, #Bo #Rutledge.

Paoletta is the one sitting between Leo and Thomas.

Ansev Demirhan, a researcher with True North, is the one who found that painting that has now been seen around the world.

https://truenorthresearch.org/2023/11/who-is-mark-paoletta-he-is-one-of-the-biggest-defenders-of-clarence-and-ginni-thomas-in-the-scandals-their-actions-have-created/

This is my "Stop the SCOTUS" profile picture. He AND Clarence need to be impeached & removed. If Democrats win House & Senate & do NOT expand the court, we will lose our ability to regulate pollution in this country, contraceptives/ abortion pills will not just be federally banned but outlawed nationally, marriage equality will disappear, & more.
#impeach & #remove #thomas & #alito #SCOTUS = #captured #court #billionaires' #dandies #trips #Jan6 #ginni #clarence #recreational #vehicle #tax #free

@DrJackBrown #Clarence & #Ginni may be the most corrupt & dangerous couple in America. Which is really saying something when #Javanka still walk the land.

Leonard Leo’s ambitions extend beyond the courts.

Organizations within his network have reportedly funded at least 40 groups advising Project 2025, per NBC News. 

Leo is also linked to
💥Project 2025 💥co-author #Roger #Severino
—VP of 💥Domestic Policy at Heritage💥
—who served as the Director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Trump.

Severino began his career at the💥 “Becket Fund for Religious Liberty” 💥where Leo sits on the board of directors.

Severino is one half of a “Catholic Right” power couple.
The other half is Leonard Leo protégé Carrie Severino, who previously clerked for Becket and #Clarence #Thomas.  

It was Roger Severino who wrote the section of Project 2025 outlining a ⭐️plan to withdraw the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill ⭐️(mifepristone),
which is also under attack in a case pending before the Supreme Court.

If the religious right fails to convince the Supreme Court, Project 2025 is their “Plan B” (pun intended). 

Leo and his network are also linked to #Kevin #Roberts,
a rabidly partisan fundamentalist Catholic activist,
who has served as president of Heritage since 2021. 

In 2020, Roberts had been featured on the Resources page of “WhereYouAre,” which calls itself a “collaboration of people in touch with … centers of Opus Dei in Texas.”

#Opus #Dei is a “small but powerful”  group “within the Catholic Church” whose members “abide by strict conservative teachings''
and “believe they are called to serve God” not only in their personal lives, but also in their professions, per the Australian Broadcasing Center.

Many of Opus Deis’ members keep their membership a secret. 

Leo reportedly belongs to Opus Dei. 

Leo also sits on the 💥Napa Legal Institute’s 💥board of directors,
a faith based organization whose chairman of the board is #Timothy #Busch,
one of Leo’s closest allies.

Bush co-founded Napa Legal’s sister organization, the 💥Napa Institute💥, whose annual conference in July 2022 included Kevin Roberts as a speaker. Leo is a Napa Institute donor. 

In December that year, Busch announced that the Napa Institute would open an office near the U.S. Capitol within the headquarters of the 💥Eternal World Television Network  💥(EWTN),
a global Catholic-themed television and radio network. 

The month before, Kevin Roberts had been interviewed during an EWTN broadcast where he called himself an abortion “purist”
and said that he wanted “not a single abortion happening in this country.”

Roberts reconnected with Leo’s network in 2023 when he spoke during⭐️ “A Duty to God and Country,” ⭐️
an event organized by the 💥Catholic Information Center 💥(CIC) and Napa Institute.

As noted, Leo sits on CIC’s board of directors. 

Meanwhile, Project 2025 (Heritage) Director #Paul #Dans belongs to the New York chapter of the 💥Federalist Society, 💥which is co-chaired by Leo at the national level,
while #Steve #Bannon, Project 2025’s unofficial media partner, has served with Leo on the board of directors of 💥Reclaim New York 💥(founded by #Rebekah #Mercer). 

Bannon, you may recall, has closely aligned himself with proponents of the so-called “rad trad” (radical traditional) Catholicism movement
and specifically said that he wants to destroy the administrative state,
an express goal of Project 2025.

As observed by Media Matters, Bannon has repeatedly used his War Room perch to normalize Project 2025’s radical agenda. 

https://crownewsletter.substack.com/p/christian-right-observer-weekly-volume-fd1

“Fetal personhood” activists struggle to maintain the fiction they are neutral on birth control

When asked about their intentions to restrict or protect access to birth control, Republican lawmakers and leaders of the anti-abortion movement will typically point out the fact that there’s no bill currently under consideration explicitly aimed at banning #contraception.

As journalist Jessica Valenti noted in her "Abortion, Every Day" newsletter, the president of Ohio Right to Life mocked a state Democrat who warned of the risk to birth control by saying,
“she can’t cite a piece of legislation that bans contraception … it’s fear-mongering.”

Susan B. Anthony #Pro-#Life #America’s website calls it a “MYTH” that Republicans want to stop people from getting birth control.

“FACT: No state anywhere has banned birth control,” it says.

And yet taking one big swing to restrict access has never been the strategy of the anti-contraception playbook.

Rather, activists either maintain neutrality on birth control or say nothing while actively working to conflate abortion with birth control and pass laws that redefine life as beginning at conception.

As journalist Christina Cauterucci pointed out at Slate, the anti-abortion group #Americans #United #for #Life claims on its website that it takes “no stance on the underlying issue of contraceptive use,”
but elsewhere it insists that people who use emergency contraception
“take the lives of their unborn children.”

When Mother Jones reporter Kiera Butler attended the annual conference of the anti-abortion group #Heartbeat #International in 2022, she found restriction of birth control to be a major theme, with several sessions dedicated to the topic.

The push to redefine the start of #personhood as the point of #conception holds real implications for fertility treatments and the wide range of available birth control methods.

Many lawmakers in states with such “fetal personhood” laws on the books have not fully grappled with the practical consequences of how enforcing those laws in the post-Roe era might work.

In the near future, most Republicans will likely continue to dismiss the idea that there’s any threat to birth control at all, and leaders of anti-abortion organizations will surely do their best to change the subject.

But ♦️pay attention to how fights over expanding access to birth control
— including nonhormonal methods like condoms
— play out.

♦️Pay attention to proposals to gut funding for #TitleX, a federal program that provides birth control to millions of low-income people in the United States.

♦️Pay attention to efforts in Congress to restrict access to contraception in foreign aid spending bills.

♦️And pay attention to how courts and lawmakers aim to expand the definition of abortion.

(4/4)

https://www.vox.com/24087411/anti-abortion-roe-dobbs-birth-control-contraception-ivf

#Human #Life #International #IUDs #Students #for #Life #Marjorie #Taylor #Greene #PlanB #Lauren #Boebert #Matt #Rosendale #Pulse #Life #Advocates #Tea #Party #Catholic #Church #Hobby #Lobby #Roe #Marsha #Blackburn #Mike #Braun #Griswold #Roe #Dobbs #Clarence #Thomas #Blake #Masters #Birth #control #Pregnancy #implantation #implantation #conception #birth #IVF #Alabama #disgusting #Joseph #Scheidler #Randall #Terry

In rationalizing the idea that 😨birth control can somehow abort a pregnancy before a pregnancy begins😨, activists make a number of claims.

#Human #Life #International, a global Catholic group, maintains that anything that prevents implantation is an abortion-inducing agent.

#IUDs, they insist, cause “early abortions.”

#Students #for #Life of America likewise claims all forms of hormonal birth control, including IUDs and the Pill, are abortifacients.

Georgia Republican Rep. #Marjorie #Taylor #Greene went so far as to proclaim that #PlanB emergency contraception “kills a baby in the womb once a woman is already pregnant” even though studies have shown the drug interferes with ovulation but does not inhibit implantation.

Greene isn’t the only Republican lawmaker blurring the lines.

Colorado Rep. #Lauren #Boebert tried to block funds for “abortifacient contraceptive drugs,” while Montana Rep. #Matt #Rosendale tried adding emergency contraception to a bill barring use of the federal funding for abortion.

In 2022, in perhaps one of the most glaring examples, Missouri Republicans pushed unsuccessfully to restrict public funding for IUDs and emergency contraception, with one of the state senators who led it proclaiming that “life begins at conception,” and “anything that destroys that life is abortion, it’s not birth control.”

Just this past week in Iowa, House Republicans attempted to amend a bipartisan bill to legalize over-the-counter birth control by adding new language that would require pharmacists to provide misleading and inaccurate information implying contraceptives are dangerous and a form of abortion.

#Pulse #Life #Advocates, an Iowa group opposing the contraception bill, claims on its website that birth control “kills babies.”

Many of these objections will sound familiar to anyone who followed the fight around the Affordable Care Act 15 years ago.

The political groundwork was laid in 2010 when the #Tea #Party movement came into power and fought alongside the #Catholic #Church against requirements that employer health insurance plans cover birth control.

And in 2014, the retail chain #Hobby #Lobby won its case before the US Supreme Court in which it argued it shouldn’t have to provide employees with IUDs or emergency contraception since its ownership viewed such things as abortion.

(3/n)

https://www.vox.com/24087411/anti-abortion-roe-dobbs-birth-control-contraception-ivf

#Roe #Marsha #Blackburn #Mike #Braun #Griswold #Roe #Dobbs #Clarence #Thomas #Blake #Masters #Birth #control #Pregnancy #implantation #implantation #conception #birth #IVF #Alabama #disgusting #Joseph #Scheidler #Randall #Terry

The political playbook for attacking birth control shares some similarities with the playbook for attacking abortion
— a slow and steady chipping away of rights and access.

Both efforts rely on measures like slashing funding for low-income patients, enacting parental consent laws to restrict minors’ use, and empowering ideologically supportive lawmakers and judges who push friendly legal frameworks.

But the major difference between pushing to restrict abortion access and pushing to restrict birth control is that leaders are typically much quieter about their goals for the latter, aware that open discussion will prompt fierce backlash.

They typically try to paint those who suggest they’d take aim at contraception as alarmists and conspiracists.

When Democrats in Congress introduced a bill to codify access to birth control following the overturn of #Roe, for example, they were met with emphatic performances of exasperation.

“This bill is completely unnecessary. In no way, shape, or form is access to contraception limited or at risk of being limited,” declared Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack during debate on the House floor.

“The liberal majority is clearly trying to stoke fears and mislead the American people.”

Still, a growing number of Republican lawmakers
— including Sens. #Marsha #Blackburn and #Mike #Braun
— have recently declared that ♦️Griswold v. Connecticut♦️, the 1965 Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to birth control, was wrongly decided.

#Griswold relies on the same legal right to privacy that underpinned #Roe, and in his concurring #Dobbs v. Jackson opinion in 2022, Justice #Clarence #Thomas encouraged the Supreme Court to “reconsider” Griswold and other privacy-related decisions.

Former Arizona Senate candidate #Blake #Masters went so far as to pledge to “vote only for federal judges who understand that Roe and Griswold” should be overturned.

Leaders more than occasionally reveal their underlying beliefs.

Recent statements, as well as recent actions from reproductive rights opponents, have sent clear reminders about how some influential activists really think about contraception:
that it’s just another form of abortion.

Activists aim to blur the line between birth control and abortion

Anti-abortion leaders tend to take advantage of one basic fact about the American people:
There is great confusion about how pregnancy works, how abortion pills end it, and how birth control and emergency contraception (such as Plan B) prevent it.

For example, one recent poll found that a stunning 73 percent of Americans think emergency contraception can end a pregnancy.

But among most medical experts, including those at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
— there is no confusion.

#Birth #control, including emergency contraception, prevents ovulation (when an egg is released) and fertilization (when egg and sperm meet).

#Pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg attaches to the lining of the uterine wall, a process called #implantation.

Many fertilized eggs never implant.

Yet for a highly motivated wing of the anti-abortion movement, pregnancy starts not at #implantation but at #conception,

and human personhood begins then too, not at #birth.

👉These “fetal personhood” activists want to endow fetuses, embryos, and fertilized eggs with full rights and legal protections and thus frame any effort to prevent implantation
— be it through discarding embryos from IVF or taking a daily birth control pill
— as a form of killing unborn children.

It’s a stretch of scientific consensus, but certain Christian activists have long clung to this idea and have slowly been codifying it in state law through bills that claim "human life begins at conception".

More than a third of states currently have such laws on the books.

To blur the line between abortion and contraception, many of these activists call birth control methods “abortifacients”
— agents that induce abortion.

♦️But this is misleading because there’s no pregnancy to abort. ♦️

Real abortifacients are the medications that end pregnancies, namely misoprostol and mifepristone.

(2/n)

#IVF #Alabama #disgusting #Joseph #Scheidler #Randall #Terry

https://www.vox.com/24087411/anti-abortion-roe-dobbs-birth-control-contraception-ivf

The case of Clarence Thomas’s new clerk taints the entire judiciary

Justice #Clarence #Thomas has hired #Crystal #Clanton to be one of his law clerks, the most elite assignment a young law school graduate can secure.

The shock is this:
In 2015, when Clanton was 20
and working for a conservative group allied with the justice’s wife, #Ginni Thomas,
Clanton apparently sent racist texts to a fellow employee:

“I HATE BLACK PEOPLE,”
one text read.
“Like f--- them all … I hate blacks. End of story.”
(In Clanton’s text, the expletive was spelled out.)

It is impossible to overstate the prestige that attaches to a Supreme Court clerkship.

The job is a golden ticket awarded to just 36 each year
— about 1 in 1,000 law graduates, the best of the best.

Major law firms lure Supreme Court clerks with signing bonuses of a half-million dollars.

Clanton, who graduated from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in 2022, will be the third high court clerk from that institution since 2021.


The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer unearthed Clanton’s texts in 2017, in an article about 🔹 Turning Point USA🔹, the conservative youth organization run by #Charlie #Kirk.

Notably, 🔸Clanton, the group’s field director🔸, didn’t deny writing the texts.

“I have no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager,” she wrote in an email to Mayer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/24/crystal-clanton-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-clerk-texts/

In #today's Denver Post: Clarence Thomas must recuse himself before Feb 8 oral arguments begin w Supreme Court. Ginni's for-profit political consulting firm will benefit from another Tr^mp term, she helped orchestrate the "Stop the Steal" rally, & pressured lawmakers to overturn a free & fair election.
#last #two #paragraphs #feel the #burn #Clarence #Thomas #plans to #overturn #Colorado #supreme #court & #legitimize #trump on the #ballot #SCOTUS is a #bought #court https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/30/clarence-thomas-recuse-himself-colorado-trump-case-ballot-14th-amendment/

In #today's Denver Post: Clarence Thomas must recuse himself before Feb 8 oral arguments begin w Supreme Court. Ginni's for-profit political consulting firm will benefit from another Tr^mp term, she helped orchestrate the "Stop the Steal" rally, & pressured lawmakers to overturn a free & fair election.
#last #two #paragraphs #feel the #burn #Clarence #Thomas #plans to #overturn #Colorado #supreme #court & #legitimize #trump on the #ballot #SCOTUS is a #bought #court https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/30/clarence-thomas-recuse-himself-colorado-trump-case-ballot-14th-amendment/

In #today's Denver Post: Clarence Thomas must recuse himself before Feb 8 oral arguments begin w Supreme Court. Ginni's for-profit political consulting firm will benefit from another Tr^mp term, she helped orchestrate the "Stop the Steal" rally, & pressured lawmakers to overturn a free & fair election.
#last #two #paragraphs #feel the #burn #Clarence #Thomas #plans to #overturn #Colorado #supreme #court & #legitimize #trump on the #ballot #SCOTUS is a #bought #court https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/30/clarence-thomas-recuse-himself-colorado-trump-case-ballot-14th-amendment/

In #today's Denver Post: Clarence Thomas must recuse himself before Feb 8 oral arguments begin w Supreme Court. Ginni's for-profit political consulting firm will benefit from another Tr^mp term, she helped orchestrate the "Stop the Steal" rally, & pressured lawmakers to overturn a free & fair election.
#last #two #paragraphs #feel the #burn #Clarence #Thomas #plans to #overturn #Colorado #supreme #court & #legitimize #trump on the #ballot #SCOTUS is a #bought #court https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/30/clarence-thomas-recuse-himself-colorado-trump-case-ballot-14th-amendment/

In #today's Denver Post: Clarence Thomas must recuse himself before Feb 8 oral arguments begin w Supreme Court. Ginni's for-profit political consulting firm will benefit from another Tr^mp term, she helped orchestrate the "Stop the Steal" rally, & pressured lawmakers to overturn a free & fair election.
#last #two #paragraphs #feel the #burn #Clarence #Thomas #plans to #overturn #Colorado #supreme #court & #legitimize #trump on the #ballot #SCOTUS is a #bought #court https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/30/clarence-thomas-recuse-himself-colorado-trump-case-ballot-14th-amendment/

Democratic lawmakers revived their calls for Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas to resign from his position Thursday after a new ProPublica report revealed he had taken more #unreported #luxury #vacations funded by billionaires than was previously known.

“Justice Thomas has brought shame upon himself and the United States Supreme Court with his acceptance of massive, repeated and undisclosed gifts,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “No government official, elected or unelected, could ethically or legally accept gifts of that scale. He should resign immediately.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/10/propublica-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-00110654

ProPublica found that since he was appointed to the court in 1991, Thomas has received gifts from benefactors including at least 38 destination vacations, 34 flights by private jet or helicopter, a dozen VIP passes to sporting events including in a skybox, stays at resorts in Florida and Jamaica and a standing invitation to high-end golf club.

EULOGE TREMBLAY's HOUSE

Built in 1911 for the great humanist and art enthusiast Dr. Bulge Tremblay (1878-1946). For many years this house was, for the famous Canadian artist #Clarence-#Alphonse #Gagnon (1881-1942), his favourite retreat place.
During the "1920's", Gagnon's friends and other great names from the Canadian painting world were invited to this house, among them, #Alexander #Young #Jackson (1882-1974), #Albert #Henry #Robinson (1881-1956), and #Frederick #William #Hutchison (1871-1953).

The artistic mission of this house came again to life in 1978 when painter Bruno Côte (1940)
made this house his home and creative milieu.
Since 1985, Dr. Euloge Tremblays house has received within its walls two art galleries promoting the Canadian cultural inheritance, la galerie Jules Harvey (1985-1988) and la galerie Art & Style, both successfully managed by Raphaël Shano (1988-1999) and by the actual owners, Lyse Lanctôt and Gilles Charest.

"If you are a Justice, you have to disclose this kind of stuff. If that bothers you—if you are so committed to living a private life beyond the reach of disclosure—you can go be a urologist or something."

#conservative #corruption is a thing to behold as it comes down from the supposed #moral mountaintop of #christian #nationalism

#hypocrite #pharisee #scotus #clarence #thomas

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/harlan-crow-school-payments-insult-injury.html