News bits: The Supreme Court vs ethics; Etc.

The Supreme Court's war against ethics is playing out well for the generals running the show at the court. Slate writes:

It Took Alito Barely a Month to Violate the Supreme Court’s New Ethics Rules

On April 25, Chief Justice John Roberts sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices. Roberts forwarded along the “statement” in lieu of testifying before the committee, and obviously hoped it would quell growing congressional concern over the Supreme Court’s growing ethics scandals. The document identified various recusal and disclosure practices, claiming that “all of the current Members of the Supreme Court subscribe” to these suggested rules.

It took Justice Samuel Alito barely a month to violate them.

In the court’s orders list on Tuesday, Alito noted his recusal from BG Gulf Coast and Phillips 66 v. Sabine-Neches Navigation District—a case about two energy companies shirking their obligation to help fund improvement of a waterway that they use for shipping. (The court declined to take up the case, leaving in place a lower court decision against the companies.) But the justice did not explain his reason for recusing, one of Roberts’ promised “practices.” To obtain that information, you must dig through his financial disclosures, which reveal that he holds up to $50,000 of stock in Phillips 66, one of the parties. Alito is one of two sitting justices who still holds individual stocks (as opposed to conflict-free assets like mutual funds). The only other sitting justice who maintains investments in individual stock is Roberts himself.

For years, Alito has periodically recused from cases involving energy companies without explaining why. This spring, however, that practice was supposed to change. Roberts’ ethics “statement” explained that justices “may provide a summary explanation of a recusal decision” with a citation to the relevant provision of the Judicial Code of Conduct. (That code is binding on lower court judges but voluntary for the justices.) The “statement” offered this example: “Justice X took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition. See Code of Conduct, Canon 3C(1)(c) (financial interest).”

In Philips 66, it appears that Alito should have cited his “financial interest” in a party to explain his “recusal decision.” (In other words, he should have been “Justice X.”) This could have been a textbook example of the new rule in action; indeed, it was literally the example that the court offered the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead, Alito refused to adhere to this new procedure.   

As Leah Litman pointed out on the Strict Scrutiny podcast, though, Kagan was never the problem: She has long complied voluntarily with the Judicial Code of Conduct, so much so that she once turned away a gift of free bagels and lox from high school friends. The real question was whether any justices at the center of the ethics maelstrom would follow through on the promises of the court’s “statement.” It seems the answer is no.

Which is, of course, the entire problem with the unenforceable ethics guidelines that the chief justice offered up to the Senate Judiciary Committee in place of an actual code. The “statement” declares at the outset that it contains “foundational ethics principles and practices”; you might assume that if an ethics principle is “foundational,” then every justice should feel compelled to follow it. Yet the guidelines use voluntary language throughout, hedging at every turn to avoid committing the justices to any explicit mandate.

So, there aren't any new rules. A “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” is just paper with words and signatures on it. The Supreme Court's paper is intended to deceive and deflect from the fact that ethics are meaningless and can be ignored with impunity.

Q: Is it reasonable to think that in view of the Supreme Court's explicit refusal to adopt any code of ethics that at least some of the justices are corrupt criminals?

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Various sources report that the House voted to accept the McCarthy-Biden debt deal. Now it's on to the US Senate.

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From the Pounding Square Pegs Into Round Holes Files: The NYT writes: 

Talk of Racism Proves Thorny for G.O.P. Candidates of Color

As candidates like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley bolster their biographies with stories of discrimination, they have often denied the existence of systemic racism in America while describing situations that sound just like it

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Nikki Haley, who are both seeking the Republican nomination for president, have often spoken of discrimination and alienation they have experienced in the past

But in bolstering their own bootstrap biographies with stories of discrimination, they have put forth views about race that at times appear at odds with their view of the country — often denying the existence of a system of racism in America while describing situations that sound just like it.

“I’m living proof that America is the land of opportunity and not a land of oppression,” Mr. Scott says in a new campaign advertisement running in Iowa, though he has spoken of his grandfather’s forced illiteracy and his own experiences being pulled over by the police seven times in one year “for driving a new car.”

See, it fit perfectly!

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Military inflation: 60 Minutes reported: Us taxpayers are getting gouged, ripped off and royally screwed. Those valiant American weapons suppliers are stealing from us. Neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party shows serious interest in protecting the taxpayer. After all, weapons makers are just hard working people (human beings) who have rights to make "campaign contributions" to powerful politicians. This is just another example of brass knuckles capitalism operating on a corrupt American pay-to-play political system.