Five House Democrats led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation of the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, over his acceptance of undeclared gifts from billionaire rightwing donors.
“We write to urge the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into … Clarence Thomas for consistently failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires for nearly two decades in defiance of his duty under federal law,” the Democrats said.
We write to urge the Department of Justice
When the Department of Justice doesn’t do anything, what then?
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I don’t think the Senate has authority over the Court. That’s purely in the purview of the House, which is controlled by the fascist party and so requests and letters are a dead end. It’s gotta be something more aggressive than that.
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Old people are full of heavy metals, forever chemicals, and sometimes prions. No thanks.
we must transfer the lead from their brains to our bodies
senate has the authority to pack the courts, assuming the president cooperates. of course neither branch will consider that in the name of @Civility@hexbear.net
🥰
If only the Democrats had the will to expand the house with a simple majority, back when they had the majority. Given how many people there are in left leaning states and cities, it’s absurd that the current GOP should ever be able to take the house. But, as usual , the only party that isn’t completely fascist seem incapable (or unwilling) to do what it takes to secure any power for the people they supposedly represent. We needed to expand the house and expand the Supreme Court ages ago.
Overthrow them
We will return to Bush era programming and put them officially O N N O T I C E
Merrick Garland’s cowardly ass would probably suppress any attempt to investigate Thomas. He wants back to those cushy FedSoc retreats.
Do an investigation into the entire supreme court.
I don’t care if they are left or right, lib or Con. Investigate them all.
in fact there should be a special government agency dedicated to monitoring and constantly investigating Federal/Supreme court judges in the interests if ethics and impartiality.
And term limits for fuck’s sake.
And also overturn Marbury v Madison
Abandoned liberal democracy.
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God I hope I’m around to see this woman be president.
Look into Mariam Williamson. She’s running on FDRs New Deal and Second Bill of Rights.
Neat! Maybe they’ll set down a commission to create a committee to create a framework for an investigation one of these days
See also @InevitableSwing@hexbear.net’s list of variations on this
Lmao that’s fantastic
Nothing will come of this.
Congress has the power to legislate how the supreme court works.
She could at least be doing a meaningless gesture that gestures towards something that could be useful.
Nothing will come of it. The only guardrail on the Supreme Court is impeachment and the Republican led House will not start impeachment hearings on a Republican Judge.
Want to change that? Here’s what needs to happen in 2024:
A Democratic President
A Democratic majority in the House
At LEAST a 60 vote Democratic majority in the Senate.We had that in 2008. What happened next?
Kennedy died and we lost the 60 votes in the Senate.
Kennedy died several months after Obama took office. What were Democrats doing during this time, aside from bailing out bankers and dronestriking weddings?
Kennedy died in August of 2009, in those 8 months they (and Obama) kind of saved the American economy?
You have to remember, when Obama took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month and the stock market had PLUMMETTED TO $6,500.
They managed to get the Recovery act passed in February, fought by the Republicans every inch of the way:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009
Which enabled the Tea Party movement and set the stage for the losses in 2010.
Followed by the “Cash For Clunkers” act in July to prop up the American auto industry, an industry many Republicans (including Mitt Romney) at the time said we should just let die.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
Then Kennedy died, we lost the 60 vote majority, and Republicans proceeded to use the filibuster more times than all the other Presidential terms combined.
saving the economy by throwing poor homeowners under the bus. smdh why can’t leftists just appreciate how much Obama saved the
bankerseconomyWhich didn’t actually happen, but you do you I guess.
aside from bailing out bankers
Kennedy died in August of 2009, in those 8 months they (and Obama) kind of saved the American economy?
“The economy” meaning rich people’s yacht money?
Which enabled the Tea Party movement and set the stage for the losses in 2010.
You can tell that the Democrats made a massive positive difference in the way that voters threw their asses out of power within two years of Obama’s inauguration, replacing him six years later with a game show host. If that isn’t victory, I don’t know what is!
Can you name a bill the Democrats have passed within the last fifty years that has made a positive difference in your material life as well as the material lives of the people around you? Without doing research?
Why has Biden refused to use the defense production act to pass universal health care? Why hasn’t he packed the courts? Why is it so hard for him to do these things but so easy for him to send tens of billions of dollars to Nazis in Ukraine?
“The Economy” being the 700,000 people a month losing their jobs under Bush.
Jobs:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_losses_caused_by_the_Great_Recession
January 2009 – 818,000 jobs lost
February 2009 – 724,000 jobs lost
March 2009 – 799,000 jobs lost
April 2009 – 692,000 jobs lost
May 2009 – 361,000 jobs lost
June 2009 – 482,000 jobs lost
July 2009 – 339,000 jobs lost
August 2009 – 222,000 jobs lost
September 2009 – 199,000 jobs lost
October 2009 – 202,000 jobs lost[3]
November 2009 - 64,000 jobs created[4]
December 2009 - 109,000 jobs lost[4]Vs Economy:
If the Democrats were actually making things better, why did voters throw them out of congress within two years?
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Can you link me a member of Democrat party leadership saying they’d impeach Thomas?
We aren’t talking about Democratic leadership, we’re talking about AOC.
p.s. “Democrat Party” gives your bias away, it’s the Democratic Party.
no that would be a “no, there isn’t one.” then?
No it’s a “I’m not letting you be a sea lion and hijack the conversation.”
If you have something on point to say, great. If you don’t? Exit’s over there…
Stop being a worm and answer the question
did you not see that he is in charge of internet conversations and is using his legal authority to quash this entire line of inquiry?
our only recourse is to wait for the next election and vote out his Pedantic Liberal Party in favor of a nebulous alternative and hope their platform includes a plank to revisit this issue at a later date.
So if the Democratic party leadership won’t commit to impeachment how is voting for them going to change the status quo of not impeaching judges?
You said if you want to change this, you need this many Democrats. But the Democrats aren’t saying they’re going to change it. And presumably they know more about their intentions than you.
Also you need 2/3 majority to convict. So you might want to revise your numbers.
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p.s. “Democrat Party” gives your bias away, it’s the Democratic Party.
Is the bias that they’re a communist or an anarchist? Because that’s what most people on our instance are. It’s not like we’re hiding it.
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The best I can say about this is that it might grab the attention of people who aren’t yet aware of Thomas’s corruption, because yeah otherwise this isn’t going anywhere.
Performative gestures continue to be performative. The Democratic Party has no real desire to check the power and corruption of the courts.
They do if Gerrymandering and voter suppression makes it so they have no power. They’re fine sharing power, but if they see a possibility of having none, they will fight back
You know, in these hard, and trying time, it is heart warming to see AOC bringing those who demanded the rule of law, but didn’t have any. They have been starving for more rule and more law for so long now.
God bless that woman. May they get so much rule of law that they cups over floweth and they can choke on it. There is so much rule of law in her generosity that it is reported that Chuck Norris gives thanks for her before every meal and self gratification.
As well all should. And Moses said “Fuck yeah, you go girl”, and ye, it was good.
Would anyone who is not rich really care if every government official in the country (including Trump) was thrown in prison?
No more half measures, walter.
Quite the contrary we would be cheering for it
There are good ones doing their jobs. We only hear about the shitty ones, or the more protected ones who can afford to make noise due to being in deeply safe districts. AOC, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, etc are all easy incumbents who won’t lose an election by making big plays that may or may not work out
There are good ones doing their jobs.
I mean, all of them have the same job: stop communism, keep the white supremacist bourgeois gravy train rolling. In that respect, they’re all more or less doing the best they can.
Lol
Lmao even
He should be forced to resign.
Still too light: if we’re dreaming how bout thrown in jail?
I love AOC, but this is just smoke and mirrors. The progressive reps always make a big deal when they know their “inquiries” will go nowhere because they don’t have the votes. It stirs up their base with no repercussions. This is just lip service at this point. Still glad it is being said though.
They’re the only ones saying anything or attempting anything official. They know they can’t remove him without the other chamber, but it is important to have these things on the official record for both the public and for a future session of Congress who could do something with it
It isn’t smoke and mirrors. They are making as big a deal out of it as they can because they don’t have the votes to do more. Calling attention to this criminal behavior is simply the best they can do because they, as you point out, don’t have the votes to do more. And stirring up their base if a good thing if it gets more progressive voters to the polls and gets more progressive representation in government.
Worked for the Republicans when they spent 4 years screaming about Benghazi
Yeah seriously. AOC calls for a lot of things but no one will listen to her. The only thing she accomplishes is pissing off Republicans – which I’m all for – but nothing will get done with just one AOC. We need more people like her in office.
spoiler
Clarence Thomas will only stop being a Supreme Court judge when he’s dead.
