more of a host - parasite reciprocity
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Can’t subpoena shit while Feinstein is out sick
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Perhaps you misunderstood Roberts’ question. Roberts already assumes that Durbin will pay for his travel. He simply wants to know if Durbin will submit the payment while Durbin is aboard a private plane:
See?
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I don’t think they can open a real investigation (i.e., subpoena) without a majority and Feinstein is not there. She’s missed every vote. Oops - already posted.
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Upvoted for Minestrone 
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How about Thomas coming along?
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I for one support calling Roberts privately first, for closed-door hearings, so the Senators can get a sense of whether and how he defends Thomas, and whether he might go for imposing some modest ethics reform internally. Thomas’s presence will only turn everyone defensive and prevent any dialogue at all, plus right now the threat of imposing a stricter ethics standard via legislation is entirely empty and everyone knows it. Though I do hope that people cede their questioning time to Whitehouse.
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I saw Sen. Duckworth on MSNBC last week, with the microphone in her face, essentially, soapbox with a nice step for her and cloth covered for comfort and appearances, I think they were discussing abortion, and she just couldn’t say anything effective or strong or to the point. Way too much hemming and hawing and then her time was up.
So when I complain about the Democrats, that’s one of the reasons. They can’t get their message out because they don’t know how to talk effectively, and a lot of it is because they’re too nice and delusional.
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Thomas has overtly and publicly been wallowing in corruption for at least the past 20 years.
It would be surprising to find such laxity was confined to only one Justice
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Scalia wasn’t found dead in his own bed, just saying.
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Hate to break it to you:
Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh incurred tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt buying baseball tickets over the past decade and at times reported liabilities that could have exceeded the value of his cash accounts and investment assets, according to a review of Kavanaugh’s financial disclosures and information provided by the White House.
MotherJones tried to debunk and downplay this as a leftwing conspiracy theory in 2021:
As it turned out, there were rather simple answers to most of those questions. Kavanaugh explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee that much of his credit card debt stemmed from either work on his fixer-upper mansion or buying Nats season and playoff tickets for himself and a handful of dudes who’d been going to the games together for years. They had paid him back in full, the White House said at the time. As for the rest, while he was maddeningly obtuse in admitting it, Kavanaugh seems to have gotten lots of money from his parents.
But after we’ve learned about the ‘advice’ Justices give to each other about what to disclose, I don’t think we can dismiss Kavanaugh’s explanations without further investigation.
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What farce. Just so ridiculous.
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This is LONG overdue. The Article III dude needs to understand the Article I dudes are closest to “We the People” and should, therefore, exercise the power of the Judiciary Act LAW to establish HOW the SCOTUS conducts itself. Specifically, unethical acts need to have consequences. Chief Justice Roberts should be required to report on the SCOTUS ethics in annual report to the House and Senate Judiciary each year, not once every decade.
Further, Chairman Durbin needs to inform Chief Justice Roberts that failure to cease legislating from the bench and committing egregious ethical violations will result on significant curbs on SCOTUS authority, including stripping the SCOTUS of the authority to perform final review of all Appellate Courts cases, except those of original jurisdiction (disputes between the several states). It would be relatively easy for the Congress to transfer this authority to the 1st Appellate Circuit court, where sanity still prevails.
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When they come after the gazpacho you won’t be laughing.
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Me too!
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Money will find a conduit to power as long as one exists.
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bold move /s
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Yes indeed. And on the need to defend other Democrats, they - at times - come up short. Durbin is a perfect example. When Ketanji Brown Jackson was up for nomination to the SC, Durbin let Republicans just mash the poor woman. Durbin squirmed and It was embarrassing.
And when House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters pushed Rep Katie Porter off her committee b/c Waters’ Republican friends on the committee didn’t like the story board ‘antics’ of Porter, who criticized Waters? And more importantly, who replaced Harvard educated Professor Porter, who knows more about financial services than anyone other House member? I don’t know but I do know salesmen like CEO salesman Jamie Diamond smiled.
And I could say, what does 84 year old Rep Waters bring to the table other than being entertaining. Maybe too harsh but w/o Katie Porter there exposing Jamie Diamond’s BS, who defends middle Americans from Corporate America? It’s not Maxine Waters - except for a few Youtube minutes of feigned outrage, which is the easy part.
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Unfortunately, sounds like a (not surprisingly) timid approach by Durbin … hold a brief hearing on the generic issue of a “code of ethics” for the Court, instead of conducting an actual investigation and hearing on Thomas’ specific misconduct.
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What??? Mifepristone???
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