Supremely Bad Judgment

[deminks]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24dowd.html

In the wacky coda to one of the most searing chapters in American history, everyone remained true to form.

(snip)

As The Times’s Jackie Calmes wrote, Mrs. Thomas started her nonprofit in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and additional sums this year that we don’t know about yet. She does not have to disclose the donors, whose money makes possible the compensation she brings into the Thomas household.

There is no way to tell if her donors have cases before the Supreme Court or whether her husband knows their identities. And she never would have to disclose them if her husband had his way.

The 5-to-4 Citizens United decision last January gave corporations, foreign contributors, unions, Big Energy, Big Oil and superrich conservatives a green light to surreptitiously funnel in as much money as they want, whenever they want to elect or unelect candidates. As if that weren’t enough to breed corruption, Thomas was the only justice — in a rare case of detaching his hip from Antonin Scalia’s — to write a separate opinion calling for an end to donor disclosures.

In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court chose the Republican president. In Citizens United, the court may return Republicans to control of Congress. So much for conservatives’ professed disdain of judicial activism. And so much for the public’s long-held trust in the impartiality of the nation’s highest court.

(end snip)

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. Maureen Dowd does herself a disservice

to characterize Anita Hill's current response as "starchy disgust". I don't know why Dowd always has to paint everyone in a perjorative light. I saw Anita Hill's response. She simply asked the reporter to get out of the street so she could drive away. She has been true to herself for twenty years and that's not starchy disgust.

[Doctor_J]

2. I am kind of getting tired of reading all of this shit

It accomplishes nothing. I keep wondering when we're going to do something. The case to impeach Slappy Thomas is now open-and-shut. The Supreme Court building should be stormed and occupied until that slimy piece of shit is gone.

[felix_numinous]

3. This is treasonous

to give international entities so much secret money. They have betrayed the American people, all of us, and this is not a partisan issue!!!