Anti-Gun Fanatics know that their efforts to erradicate guns from American society are ultimately doomed to failure when the measures they have undertaken finally reach the Supreme Court. Accordingly, they are determined to unpack the Court by running Justice Thomas from the bench by means of a vicious, vile smear campaign based on false charges and innuendo.
Legal Backgound
Thomas wrote the majority opinion in New York Rifle and Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen, which insulated the Second Amendment from so-called “balancing tests” designed to weasel around and readjust inconvenient legal provisions that are considered outmoded or inexpedient. These “tests” -- which are not “tests” in any scientific way -- are simply a form of rhetorical triangulation through which a law's alleged “social purpose” (given as point “C”) is used to move the law from point “A” to point “B”.
For example, the Sixth Amendment affirms the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, in the flesh. Alas, a certain key witness may have died. Can the prosecution introduce a hearsay statement the witness gave to a neighbour shortly after the incident in question? Not unless a corpse can be cross-examined. But no problem, the requirement can be “balanced” away: The real purpose of the right to cross-examination is to insure the “reliability” of testimony. But that's not the only way to insure “reliability.” The “trustworthiness” of a statement can be ascertained by other means; namely, by judges taking into account various factors and the totality of the circumstances in which the hearsay statement was made. Voilá. No need to cross-examine the corpse. Justices Scalia and Thomas debunked this “test” for what it was, and restored the right of cross-examination to its constitutional prominence.
Liberals have hated Scalia and Thomas ever since. Liberals don't much care about cross-examination; what really exercises them is taking away a “test” that allows them to read rights into and out of the Constitution, au gout. The debate on how to “interpret” law has been going on since the very beginning of the Court and it is interesting to see which justices fall on which side of the issue in any given case. But, as for the present, Liberals hate the fact that Scalia and Thomas opposed reading gay rights into the Constitution and prevented reading gun rights out of it.
Let's be clear about one thing. The majority of gun-control legislation being enacted by liberal bastion states is patently unconstitutional under Bruen and the liberal democrats know it. They don't care; they are throwing down the gauntlet. This was made abundantly -- indeed flagrantly -- clear by Governor Hochul who took to the podium to denounce the Bruen decision and then vowed to re-enact the very same law that the Court had just declared unconstitutional. The only changes Hochul made was to make the “new” law even more flagrantly unconstitutional.
The day the Bruen decision was handed down, Hochul took to the podium to denounce this “shocking absolutely shocking decision” that had “ taken away our rights to have reasonable restrictions” on guns. [Watch]
Hochul was followed by a parade of activists:
Not only was the “revised” legislation cast in the teeth of the Court. Hochul knows it is unconstitutional. Under the “balancing test,” she said, the question was “do the means justify the infringement” And it is precisely that infringement that New York and copy cat legislation in Illinois, California and Washington seeks to effect.
But it cannot be effected so long as Thomas, the hated lynchpin, remains on the Court, and so the Liberals have now raised a new storm of outrage over what they say is Thomas' “corruption.” As is always the case with these sorts of smears, the proof lies in the salaciousness. Pro Publica's hit piece starts off with the allegation:
Apparent? That one word betrays the shabbiness of the work. Ah... but there was not one betrayal but two.
Needless to say, Pro Publica did not bother to mention which law Thomas “apparently” violated. 28 U.S.C. § 455 requires a judge to disqualify himself if he has a financial interest in the case or previously represented a party in the case or had personal knowledge of facts in dispute. That was not within the gist of Pro Publica's allegations.
More to the point was 5 U.S.C § 7353 which prohibits “gifts” to federal employees. Under the act, no person “shall solicit or accept anything of value from a person— whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties.” However, a supervising ethics office “is authorized to issue rules or regulations implementing the provisions of this section and providing for such reasonable exceptions as may be appropriate.”
As regards the Supreme Court, the supervision ethics office is the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Financial Disclosure. That committee previously carved out an exception for personal hospitality extended for a non business purpose. In other words, having dinner at a friend's house, or spending an afternoon on his yacht, or vacationing with him at a dude ranch he owns, is not considered a “gift” under Section 7353.
From that empty point of departure, Pro Publica went on to list all the non gifts Thomas had received from Harlan Crow. Crow, we are told:
Nothing in this crescendo of indecencies shows that Crow or Thomas did anything illegal. Pro Publica admits that “[t]he pair have become genuine friends, according to people who know both men.” What outrages the liberal rag is that two conservatives meet, socialize and talk about stuff. Oh the corruption!!!
In case Pro Publica hasn't heard, the United States is an oligarchy. It is ruled by a numerically small caste of ultra-wealthy individuals and families, who are interconnected by school ties, business ties, political orientation, cultural interests, inter-marriages and inter-divorces. Take any prominent person, go Wiki and follow the links on who their parents were, who their spouses are, whom they clerked for, campaigned for, worked for and were recommended by.... Within clicks you will enter into the vast incestuous network that is the United States' ruling class.
This network divides into sub-networks according to region (East, West, South, Midwest...) and nature of activity (defence, finance, health, environment, law, social causes). But they are all networks nonetheless and this means that they involve people meeting one another, talking to one another, scratching each other's backs and sucking each other off... literally and metaphorically. If this were to stop, the country would cease to function.
What about George Soros or Bill Gates? Do they not meet up with their acolytes and fund their causes? The billionaire Pritzker family has been actively funding trans-gender causes (in tandem with vested medical interests). Governor Pritzker made two half million dollar donations to the successful campaigns of two sitting state Supreme Court justices. Does Pritzker not have business before the court? What does Pro Publica have to say about that? Nothing, because Pro Publica likes Pritzker's political orientation and is offended by Thomas's.
Ruling caste networks are noting unique to the United States. All countries at all times are so ruled, and this caste, by whatever name it may be known, always operates on the basis of unwritten (“secret”) understandings and favours. 18 U.S.C. § 201 outlaws bribery -- the giving or offering of anything of value for the purpose of influencing an official act. This is colloquially known as the quid pro quo statute, and it outlaws the tip of the iceberg.
Section 7353 slides down a little further. It prohibits federal employees from accepting “anything of value” from a person “doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by, the [recipient's] employing entity.” Thus, even if there is no express or even tacitly understood qui pro quo, if you have business before the E.P.A you cannot make a gift to an employee of the E.P.A. On its face, this is a form of strict liability.
However, subdivision (a)(2) goes further. It prohibits gifts from a person “whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties.” On its face, this provision would make it impossible for any Supreme Court justice to accept anything of value from anyone, because the very nature of the Supreme Court is to issue rulings which substantially affect either all of our interests or those of large chunks of people.
Congress was aware of the fact that it had legislated overbroadly and for that very reason Section (b)(1) set up a “supervising ethics office...to issue rules or regulations implementing the provisions of this section and providing for such reasonable exceptions as may be appropriate.” In other words, let some committee figure it out.
Not surprisingly the Judicial Conference on [ ] Financial Disclosure, determined that accepting a trip on a billionaire oil-man's yacht was not a prohibited type of gift. This is known as the “personal hospitality” exception to Section 7353. Judge Thomas states that he asked the committee for its advice ands followed its advice on whether his trips and visits with Crowe were required to be reported.
In March of this year, the Judicial Conference revised its rule so as to disallow the “personal hospitality” exception for anything more than being taken out to dinner or visiting a person's home for “non business” purposes. The Conference explicitly affirmed the “substantially affected” clause of subdivision (a)(2). How, the justices of the Supreme Court will abide this rule, remains to be seen. Perhaps they will all have to follow the example of Justice Van Devanter (loathed by liberals because he struck most the New Deal) who lived alone in a hotel room for the entirety of his tenure on the Court and associated with no one except his Presbyterian church and a childrens charity.
But whatever the case, Justice Thomas did nothing wrong and as for appearances, they were no different than those of any other justice on the Court, none of whom have the decency to follow Van Devanter's monkish example.
What is truly choice in all of this is that Ruth Bader Ginzburg, icon and idol of the left, got her position on the Court of Appeal and then on the Supreme Court only on account of intense “personal hospitality” efforts of her husband, a major donor to the Democratic Party. Not a peep from the left on that.
As for the liberal base of Pro Publica, the FemGuardian and the New York Slime , they will live to rue the vicious and vile smear game they have begun with such feigned outrage and fake tears of piety.
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For example, the Sixth Amendment affirms the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, in the flesh. Alas, a certain key witness may have died. Can the prosecution introduce a hearsay statement the witness gave to a neighbour shortly after the incident in question? Not unless a corpse can be cross-examined. But no problem, the requirement can be “balanced” away: The real purpose of the right to cross-examination is to insure the “reliability” of testimony. But that's not the only way to insure “reliability.” The “trustworthiness” of a statement can be ascertained by other means; namely, by judges taking into account various factors and the totality of the circumstances in which the hearsay statement was made. Voilá. No need to cross-examine the corpse. Justices Scalia and Thomas debunked this “test” for what it was, and restored the right of cross-examination to its constitutional prominence.
Liberals have hated Scalia and Thomas ever since. Liberals don't much care about cross-examination; what really exercises them is taking away a “test” that allows them to read rights into and out of the Constitution, au gout. The debate on how to “interpret” law has been going on since the very beginning of the Court and it is interesting to see which justices fall on which side of the issue in any given case. But, as for the present, Liberals hate the fact that Scalia and Thomas opposed reading gay rights into the Constitution and prevented reading gun rights out of it.
Let's be clear about one thing. The majority of gun-control legislation being enacted by liberal bastion states is patently unconstitutional under Bruen and the liberal democrats know it. They don't care; they are throwing down the gauntlet. This was made abundantly -- indeed flagrantly -- clear by Governor Hochul who took to the podium to denounce the Bruen decision and then vowed to re-enact the very same law that the Court had just declared unconstitutional. The only changes Hochul made was to make the “new” law even more flagrantly unconstitutional.
The day the Bruen decision was handed down, Hochul took to the podium to denounce this “shocking absolutely shocking decision” that had “ taken away our rights to have reasonable restrictions” on guns. [Watch]
Hochul was followed by a parade of activists:
“With this action, New York has sent a message to the rest of the country that we will not stand idly by and let the Supreme Court reverse years of sensible gun regulations." (Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.)
What the Supreme Court didn’t take into account when they ruled on Bruen is that New Yorkers are tough, and this fight is far from over, (Mom's for Action)
“If NRA leaders thought New Yorkers would roll over when the Supreme Court recklessly struck down a portion of a hundred-year-old gun safety law, they don’t know New Yorkers very well,” (Everytown for Gun Safety)
Our elected leaders in New York have accomplished a remarkable feat today — fixing, in just a few days, a problem the Court has created with their dangerous decision-making, (Mom's for Action)
“The Bruen decision made by extremist, unelected judges was wrong and dangerous, and now our grassroots army is working with our elected officials to make it right. (Mom's for Action.)
Not only was the “revised” legislation cast in the teeth of the Court. Hochul knows it is unconstitutional. Under the “balancing test,” she said, the question was “do the means justify the infringement” And it is precisely that infringement that New York and copy cat legislation in Illinois, California and Washington seeks to effect.
The Smear
But it cannot be effected so long as Thomas, the hated lynchpin, remains on the Court, and so the Liberals have now raised a new storm of outrage over what they say is Thomas' “corruption.” As is always the case with these sorts of smears, the proof lies in the salaciousness. Pro Publica's hit piece starts off with the allegation:
“For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman [Harlan Crow] without disclosing them. ... The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Apparent? That one word betrays the shabbiness of the work. Ah... but there was not one betrayal but two.
"[Thomas'] failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said."
Needless to say, Pro Publica did not bother to mention which law Thomas “apparently” violated. 28 U.S.C. § 455 requires a judge to disqualify himself if he has a financial interest in the case or previously represented a party in the case or had personal knowledge of facts in dispute. That was not within the gist of Pro Publica's allegations.
More to the point was 5 U.S.C § 7353 which prohibits “gifts” to federal employees. Under the act, no person “shall solicit or accept anything of value from a person— whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties.” However, a supervising ethics office “is authorized to issue rules or regulations implementing the provisions of this section and providing for such reasonable exceptions as may be appropriate.”
As regards the Supreme Court, the supervision ethics office is the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Financial Disclosure. That committee previously carved out an exception for personal hospitality extended for a non business purpose. In other words, having dinner at a friend's house, or spending an afternoon on his yacht, or vacationing with him at a dude ranch he owns, is not considered a “gift” under Section 7353.
From that empty point of departure, Pro Publica went on to list all the non gifts Thomas had received from Harlan Crow. Crow, we are told:
is an influential figure in pro-business conservative politics, [!]Thomas
was an early patron of the powerful anti-tax group Club for Growth and has been on the board of AEI for over 25 years. [!]
sits on the board of the Hoover Institution, another conservative think tank. [!]
has donated to the Federalist Society and given millions of dollars to groups dedicated to tort reform and conservative jurisprudence. AEI and the Hoover Institution publish scholarship advancing conservative legal theories [!]
boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. If he had hired a private jet it would have cost $500,000.00 [!]And this proves, what exactly?
Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks. [!]
gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, [!]
and so on...]
Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nothing in this crescendo of indecencies shows that Crow or Thomas did anything illegal. Pro Publica admits that “[t]he pair have become genuine friends, according to people who know both men.” What outrages the liberal rag is that two conservatives meet, socialize and talk about stuff. Oh the corruption!!!
Oh the Bullshit
In case Pro Publica hasn't heard, the United States is an oligarchy. It is ruled by a numerically small caste of ultra-wealthy individuals and families, who are interconnected by school ties, business ties, political orientation, cultural interests, inter-marriages and inter-divorces. Take any prominent person, go Wiki and follow the links on who their parents were, who their spouses are, whom they clerked for, campaigned for, worked for and were recommended by.... Within clicks you will enter into the vast incestuous network that is the United States' ruling class.
This network divides into sub-networks according to region (East, West, South, Midwest...) and nature of activity (defence, finance, health, environment, law, social causes). But they are all networks nonetheless and this means that they involve people meeting one another, talking to one another, scratching each other's backs and sucking each other off... literally and metaphorically. If this were to stop, the country would cease to function.
What about George Soros or Bill Gates? Do they not meet up with their acolytes and fund their causes? The billionaire Pritzker family has been actively funding trans-gender causes (in tandem with vested medical interests). Governor Pritzker made two half million dollar donations to the successful campaigns of two sitting state Supreme Court justices. Does Pritzker not have business before the court? What does Pro Publica have to say about that? Nothing, because Pro Publica likes Pritzker's political orientation and is offended by Thomas's.
Bribe versus Gift
Ruling caste networks are noting unique to the United States. All countries at all times are so ruled, and this caste, by whatever name it may be known, always operates on the basis of unwritten (“secret”) understandings and favours. 18 U.S.C. § 201 outlaws bribery -- the giving or offering of anything of value for the purpose of influencing an official act. This is colloquially known as the quid pro quo statute, and it outlaws the tip of the iceberg.
Section 7353 slides down a little further. It prohibits federal employees from accepting “anything of value” from a person “doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by, the [recipient's] employing entity.” Thus, even if there is no express or even tacitly understood qui pro quo, if you have business before the E.P.A you cannot make a gift to an employee of the E.P.A. On its face, this is a form of strict liability.
However, subdivision (a)(2) goes further. It prohibits gifts from a person “whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties.” On its face, this provision would make it impossible for any Supreme Court justice to accept anything of value from anyone, because the very nature of the Supreme Court is to issue rulings which substantially affect either all of our interests or those of large chunks of people.
Congress was aware of the fact that it had legislated overbroadly and for that very reason Section (b)(1) set up a “supervising ethics office...to issue rules or regulations implementing the provisions of this section and providing for such reasonable exceptions as may be appropriate.” In other words, let some committee figure it out.
Not surprisingly the Judicial Conference on [ ] Financial Disclosure, determined that accepting a trip on a billionaire oil-man's yacht was not a prohibited type of gift. This is known as the “personal hospitality” exception to Section 7353. Judge Thomas states that he asked the committee for its advice ands followed its advice on whether his trips and visits with Crowe were required to be reported.
In March of this year, the Judicial Conference revised its rule so as to disallow the “personal hospitality” exception for anything more than being taken out to dinner or visiting a person's home for “non business” purposes. The Conference explicitly affirmed the “substantially affected” clause of subdivision (a)(2). How, the justices of the Supreme Court will abide this rule, remains to be seen. Perhaps they will all have to follow the example of Justice Van Devanter (loathed by liberals because he struck most the New Deal) who lived alone in a hotel room for the entirety of his tenure on the Court and associated with no one except his Presbyterian church and a childrens charity.
But whatever the case, Justice Thomas did nothing wrong and as for appearances, they were no different than those of any other justice on the Court, none of whom have the decency to follow Van Devanter's monkish example.
What is truly choice in all of this is that Ruth Bader Ginzburg, icon and idol of the left, got her position on the Court of Appeal and then on the Supreme Court only on account of intense “personal hospitality” efforts of her husband, a major donor to the Democratic Party. Not a peep from the left on that.
As for the liberal base of Pro Publica, the FemGuardian and the New York Slime , they will live to rue the vicious and vile smear game they have begun with such feigned outrage and fake tears of piety.
©
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