Thanks for another great piece. Two ends of the deep rot of our society.
Childish billionaire causally interfering with the lifeblood of so many journalists that depend on the social media giant he privatized together with foreign tyrants infamous for murdering journalists. Seems bad.
Meanwhile, we have absolutely naked corruption exposed in what appears to be unprecedented for our scotus. And like you mention, its more or less expected nowadays, even if the court has not always had our modern values. After all, a similar scotus legalized naked political corruption a decade ago in Citizens United.
Its ugly. But we can’t accept it. Demand better. Corruption is deeply unpopular. This can be a rallying cry for a new generation of leaders to flush out the system. But to do that, we need to not casually accept it. We need to consistently speak up about it, organize against it and get behind candidates who won’t stand for it. Thank you for recognizing the rot. 🍻
Who was the Chief Justice who had special markings (stripes?) sewn on his robe for the Clinton impeachment? as though to say, “I’m the King of this here Supremes Court”? Scalia?
It might be helpful if each of The Nine Nazgul added their corporate sponsorships to their robes, similar to NASCAR cars and drivers. Or to name each SC position with its primary sponsor: the Exxon Chair, the Merck Chair, etc.
And I agree that the sooner we discard any trust in or respect for the tools of capitalism the sooner we begin to create a more democratic country.
Very good. Thank you. I have been grateful for finding Substack and your writing among others. It was by accident and I cannot recreate how it happened--literally I stumbled upon it. It is heartening to read truth filled critiques of our racist system--a system built, from its very beginnings, to generate $ by exploiting human labor and natural resources--like a machine it is. But as I look upon the racist machine that is our society, in spite of wise thinking like yours, I see we are on the verge of everything being for sale (corporatized). K12 education is on the verge. I think that may the last bit left. As I look around the transformation is almost complete (especially now that child-bearing women are being enslaved). I am heartened when I can still hear dissenting voices. And I have been heartened most recently by the young people protesting in TN.
Now that ProPublica has done the heavy lifting, mainstream media is repeating the story of Clarence Thomas and his super-rich friend who treats him and Ginni to vacations worth half a million bucks a pop. The public gasps.
The media has no interest in offending its advertisers and their customers, so this "scandal" lacks the necessary context, in that there seems to be a lot of "gee whiz, I thought I was safe" coming from Thomas, but not much interest in talking about what this really means for America. It means the corruption by the right wing of the Supreme Court is now on full display. Couple that with the news that a federal judge outlawed mifepristone, and my god, why aren't they talking about this, writing about it? We'll get jokes about it on the Daily Show et al.
Congress is a joke. The GQP has hogtied them, and the media isn't talking about how the debt ceiling is a political football. The government has metastatic cancer, and the media won't report on how sick the patient is.
As for Twitter, I haven't used it since the Arab Spring and 2011 when I lived in Cairo. Why did so many people trust their careers to a social media site? Smh
The NYTimes and WAPO both had articles yesterdaybabout mifrepristone and the conflicting court decisions, meaning it will go to SCOTUS. We don't have to think hard to figure how that will go, and menstrating women will be back jn the dark ages, relying on the undeground for relief.
Very difficult to grapple with all this. In my world people choose to be almost completely unaware of all of this, or just stay in their own lane carefully navigating so as not to offend anyone.
I find that I can only discuss these issues with two of my own children ( very lucky).
But they ( the powers that have been put in place) keep changing the game to exhaust everyone with one thing after another: Voting rights, Mass shootings ( while making gun laws more lax), mass incarceration of young men of color, the assault on women’s autonomy, tax cuts for the rich, the assault on education (SB83 in Ohio, for example): the silencing of those who dissent (Tennessee lawmakers removal), attacks on Trans and other LGBTQ people, the demonization or “Wokeness “( whatever that is supposed to mean). I am the the enemy in my State, someone who they think should shut up and sit down. It’s exhausting…
I saw a small video from a woman over in Britain who was grumbling about 'Wokeness' being used as an insult. She was rolling her eyes and saying, "It seems like if you're against anything bad in society, you get called Woke. You're not racist? You're Woke. You ain't homophobic? Ugh, you're Woke!"
Then she looked at the camera and sternly said; "Be Woke, kids. Be wide awake. And when you see it, call it out."
Jared -- spot on as usual. I agree completely that what’s needed is a grassroots movement against corruption in politics, but I worry about how many Americans would find that cause compelling enough to mobilize. People have taken to the streets for gun control, reproductive rights, and the environment, but those are all more tangible issues. Do you think if Trump is indicted on multiple crimes, and his congressional and other cronies along with him, that might be an impetus? I’m an American historian who is appalled at how bad things are, but also well aware of what’s brought us here.
Getting money out of politics and ousting overt corruption would go such a long way towards preventing more damage.
Just the way that lobbying works in the States is astonishing to me- we have very strict laws in Canada about where donations come from and how much is allowed, precisely because of things like this.
Convincing people to take to the streets over it is harder...like you said, it's not a visceral, in-your-face sort of issue. Everyone knows, everyone calls it out, everyone is angry. But it hasn't been enough.
At this point you almost need an old-school labor movement in the streets, which it looks like some parts of the country are angling for. We'll have to see how it plays out...I just hope whatever happens, it remains as peaceful as it can be.
I'm beginning to lose that hope bit by bit, every time I see a new headline. We live in frightening times.
In my brief scroll on Twitter today I ran across a thread by Michael R. Strain (American Enterprise Institute) promoting an article by Jonah Goldberg on The Dispatch with the byline, "With no other frame of reference, young conservatives are starting to think it’s normal to be jerks."
And I found myself just holding my head in my hands for a moment.
Republicans have engaged in bad faith, asshole, "party before country" antics for my entire adult life. These "revelations" about Justice Thomas are just the most recent and evident of decades of open corruption of our institutions.
It's just that we've now lost the fake veneer that made it possible to pretend that they are a political party, with anything like integrity, or an actual interest in governance, as opposed to the reality... wherein they are entirely committed to pursuing power and the ability to bully and control everyone else for it's own sake and there is no moral or logical consistency except to do as they say, but not as they do.
But here we are, where a certain wing of the party is aghast that the mask has slipped and the youngest members of their party don't even pretend to uphold the ruse anymore, now that it seems the playing field is already so corrupted in their favor, that it's okay to be openly an asshole or even an unhinged bigot, knowing gerrymandering will give you a seat whether most voters actually want you or not.
Publicly mourning the loss of the fake pretexts just goes to show how far they are from actually catching the plot as the rest of us contend with it.
Spot on. It’s a struggle to control the mounting feelings of despair, but we must keep shining a light on this pandemic of corruption and greed. I believe there are more good people than bad in this world. They just need to be informed. Getting the information out is the big challenge. Thank you Jared for your efforts and courage.
Thank you for your enlightening article. I am not surprised by your analysis of the system or the court, since my stepmom, June Shagaloff Alexander, said the same things about the court all the time. And being raised in a communist household in the 1940s, I shouldn't have any illusions, but the long period of expanding rights pacified me. I can't afford to subscribe, but I wish I could.
It’s really disheartening to read that Justices have always been corrupt, but for me that just means I want to be ignorant to the truth. Thanks for this and keep it up.
"Make no mistake, the Supreme Court has hardly ever been legitimate. This is a body that has ruled consistently against the dignity of human beings, maintained the atrocious apartheid state, assisted corporations and the wealthy as a matter of course, and trampled democracy at nearly every turn. Thomas is not the first corrupted justice and he sure as hell won’t be the last."
That's why civil disobedience is justified and necessary. I'll not bow to self-appointed fascists who claim authority over me. #eattherich
"There’s a reason to distrust these institutions: they are not worthy of your trust. This corruption is obvious. Undeniable. Disgusting. And enraging. But it is also how this business is done."
Which is why I'm so damn skeptical of everything I read and hear.
Thanks for another great piece. Two ends of the deep rot of our society.
Childish billionaire causally interfering with the lifeblood of so many journalists that depend on the social media giant he privatized together with foreign tyrants infamous for murdering journalists. Seems bad.
Meanwhile, we have absolutely naked corruption exposed in what appears to be unprecedented for our scotus. And like you mention, its more or less expected nowadays, even if the court has not always had our modern values. After all, a similar scotus legalized naked political corruption a decade ago in Citizens United.
Its ugly. But we can’t accept it. Demand better. Corruption is deeply unpopular. This can be a rallying cry for a new generation of leaders to flush out the system. But to do that, we need to not casually accept it. We need to consistently speak up about it, organize against it and get behind candidates who won’t stand for it. Thank you for recognizing the rot. 🍻
Who was the Chief Justice who had special markings (stripes?) sewn on his robe for the Clinton impeachment? as though to say, “I’m the King of this here Supremes Court”? Scalia?
It might be helpful if each of The Nine Nazgul added their corporate sponsorships to their robes, similar to NASCAR cars and drivers. Or to name each SC position with its primary sponsor: the Exxon Chair, the Merck Chair, etc.
And I agree that the sooner we discard any trust in or respect for the tools of capitalism the sooner we begin to create a more democratic country.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
That’s right! I remember now. Resplendent Rhenquist in his Royal Robe. 😃
Very good. Thank you. I have been grateful for finding Substack and your writing among others. It was by accident and I cannot recreate how it happened--literally I stumbled upon it. It is heartening to read truth filled critiques of our racist system--a system built, from its very beginnings, to generate $ by exploiting human labor and natural resources--like a machine it is. But as I look upon the racist machine that is our society, in spite of wise thinking like yours, I see we are on the verge of everything being for sale (corporatized). K12 education is on the verge. I think that may the last bit left. As I look around the transformation is almost complete (especially now that child-bearing women are being enslaved). I am heartened when I can still hear dissenting voices. And I have been heartened most recently by the young people protesting in TN.
Now that ProPublica has done the heavy lifting, mainstream media is repeating the story of Clarence Thomas and his super-rich friend who treats him and Ginni to vacations worth half a million bucks a pop. The public gasps.
The media has no interest in offending its advertisers and their customers, so this "scandal" lacks the necessary context, in that there seems to be a lot of "gee whiz, I thought I was safe" coming from Thomas, but not much interest in talking about what this really means for America. It means the corruption by the right wing of the Supreme Court is now on full display. Couple that with the news that a federal judge outlawed mifepristone, and my god, why aren't they talking about this, writing about it? We'll get jokes about it on the Daily Show et al.
Congress is a joke. The GQP has hogtied them, and the media isn't talking about how the debt ceiling is a political football. The government has metastatic cancer, and the media won't report on how sick the patient is.
As for Twitter, I haven't used it since the Arab Spring and 2011 when I lived in Cairo. Why did so many people trust their careers to a social media site? Smh
The NYTimes and WAPO both had articles yesterdaybabout mifrepristone and the conflicting court decisions, meaning it will go to SCOTUS. We don't have to think hard to figure how that will go, and menstrating women will be back jn the dark ages, relying on the undeground for relief.
Please, don't post your crazy here.
Stay classy.
Very difficult to grapple with all this. In my world people choose to be almost completely unaware of all of this, or just stay in their own lane carefully navigating so as not to offend anyone.
I find that I can only discuss these issues with two of my own children ( very lucky).
But they ( the powers that have been put in place) keep changing the game to exhaust everyone with one thing after another: Voting rights, Mass shootings ( while making gun laws more lax), mass incarceration of young men of color, the assault on women’s autonomy, tax cuts for the rich, the assault on education (SB83 in Ohio, for example): the silencing of those who dissent (Tennessee lawmakers removal), attacks on Trans and other LGBTQ people, the demonization or “Wokeness “( whatever that is supposed to mean). I am the the enemy in my State, someone who they think should shut up and sit down. It’s exhausting…
I saw a small video from a woman over in Britain who was grumbling about 'Wokeness' being used as an insult. She was rolling her eyes and saying, "It seems like if you're against anything bad in society, you get called Woke. You're not racist? You're Woke. You ain't homophobic? Ugh, you're Woke!"
Then she looked at the camera and sternly said; "Be Woke, kids. Be wide awake. And when you see it, call it out."
I think she nailed it.
Jared -- spot on as usual. I agree completely that what’s needed is a grassroots movement against corruption in politics, but I worry about how many Americans would find that cause compelling enough to mobilize. People have taken to the streets for gun control, reproductive rights, and the environment, but those are all more tangible issues. Do you think if Trump is indicted on multiple crimes, and his congressional and other cronies along with him, that might be an impetus? I’m an American historian who is appalled at how bad things are, but also well aware of what’s brought us here.
Getting money out of politics and ousting overt corruption would go such a long way towards preventing more damage.
Just the way that lobbying works in the States is astonishing to me- we have very strict laws in Canada about where donations come from and how much is allowed, precisely because of things like this.
Convincing people to take to the streets over it is harder...like you said, it's not a visceral, in-your-face sort of issue. Everyone knows, everyone calls it out, everyone is angry. But it hasn't been enough.
At this point you almost need an old-school labor movement in the streets, which it looks like some parts of the country are angling for. We'll have to see how it plays out...I just hope whatever happens, it remains as peaceful as it can be.
I'm beginning to lose that hope bit by bit, every time I see a new headline. We live in frightening times.
In my brief scroll on Twitter today I ran across a thread by Michael R. Strain (American Enterprise Institute) promoting an article by Jonah Goldberg on The Dispatch with the byline, "With no other frame of reference, young conservatives are starting to think it’s normal to be jerks."
And I found myself just holding my head in my hands for a moment.
Republicans have engaged in bad faith, asshole, "party before country" antics for my entire adult life. These "revelations" about Justice Thomas are just the most recent and evident of decades of open corruption of our institutions.
It's just that we've now lost the fake veneer that made it possible to pretend that they are a political party, with anything like integrity, or an actual interest in governance, as opposed to the reality... wherein they are entirely committed to pursuing power and the ability to bully and control everyone else for it's own sake and there is no moral or logical consistency except to do as they say, but not as they do.
But here we are, where a certain wing of the party is aghast that the mask has slipped and the youngest members of their party don't even pretend to uphold the ruse anymore, now that it seems the playing field is already so corrupted in their favor, that it's okay to be openly an asshole or even an unhinged bigot, knowing gerrymandering will give you a seat whether most voters actually want you or not.
Publicly mourning the loss of the fake pretexts just goes to show how far they are from actually catching the plot as the rest of us contend with it.
Spot on. It’s a struggle to control the mounting feelings of despair, but we must keep shining a light on this pandemic of corruption and greed. I believe there are more good people than bad in this world. They just need to be informed. Getting the information out is the big challenge. Thank you Jared for your efforts and courage.
Thank you for your enlightening article. I am not surprised by your analysis of the system or the court, since my stepmom, June Shagaloff Alexander, said the same things about the court all the time. And being raised in a communist household in the 1940s, I shouldn't have any illusions, but the long period of expanding rights pacified me. I can't afford to subscribe, but I wish I could.
Great piece. Also, just wanna mention (maybe give it a thought), I shared this link/article on Spoutible w/no problem. Thanks for what you do!!
https://spoutible.com/thread/4437150
It’s really disheartening to read that Justices have always been corrupt, but for me that just means I want to be ignorant to the truth. Thanks for this and keep it up.
"Make no mistake, the Supreme Court has hardly ever been legitimate. This is a body that has ruled consistently against the dignity of human beings, maintained the atrocious apartheid state, assisted corporations and the wealthy as a matter of course, and trampled democracy at nearly every turn. Thomas is not the first corrupted justice and he sure as hell won’t be the last."
That's why civil disobedience is justified and necessary. I'll not bow to self-appointed fascists who claim authority over me. #eattherich
This has always been clear:
TRUMP IS NOT THE CAUSE, TRUMP IS THE CONSEQUENCE.
MAGA is just the match that lit the dry brush.
Those of us on the Left have long detected that the game is rigged.
You make an excellent point. Decorum keeps it all running. Decorum provides the barest fig leaf for the tricks and chicanery in high places.
Always enjoy your writing, J Y Sexton. Long time fan from Twitter.
Hey, moron. Hit the showers. You stink.
You can share this on Twitter and circumvent the substack warning via a url redirect/shortener. Here's a link I shared tinyurl.com/394mjmhk
"There’s a reason to distrust these institutions: they are not worthy of your trust. This corruption is obvious. Undeniable. Disgusting. And enraging. But it is also how this business is done."
Which is why I'm so damn skeptical of everything I read and hear.
Thanks for this. I called for his resignation a year ago. Time now for his impeachment: https://nickcoccoma.substack.com/p/clarence-thomas-resign