"It [i.e., Trump's "bear hug" posting about Alito on Truth Social] was a marvelous distillation of the corrupt conservative-supermajority Supreme Court that Trump helped to create and which he sees as his ultimate salvation against the four – count ’em, FOUR – ongoing criminal prosecutions he faces."
In a letter to #Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-IL, & Sen Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, Roberts said he "must respectfully decline your request for a meeting," citing concerns about maintaining judicial independence.
Would it be too frustrating to ask undergrads to find a particular news story that I know for a fact does not exist? The reason I ask is because there is a professional field that references this non-existent story because a respected figure in the field claims to have caused it to be.
After the student struggle to find the story, the discussion would be about ethics and research.
@rwg@commodon from a learning sciences pov I would advise thinking very carefully about whether you would be violating students' trust and whether this is an inclusive experience. Even with repair afterwards, so many students particularly underserved students experience a lot of shame and low trust in classrooms. I think being actively misled by an instructor would have been something I would've been really angry about as a student even when I got the overall point.
"Tens of millions of Americans reasonably doubt that Alito can fairly discharge his duties. Alito is gaslighting the American people—a technique he learned from Trump. Having been caught in his lie he is doubling down on the lie—while pretending to be aggrieved that Americans doubt his veracity.
This debacle is a stain on the Court and an indictment of Justice Robert’s leadership."
“Justice Alito has no problem telling American women they lack the right to make decisions about their own bodies and health. But apparently, he can’t tell his wife to take down a flag that calls the integrity of his decisions on the Supreme Court into question. He doesn’t care. He has life tenure and there are no repercussions binding ethics rules he must obey.”
"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has formally refused to recuse from any and all cases involving indicted ex-president Donald Trump or the January 6, 2021 attack on the seat of the American government and American democracy itself."
Constitutional law scholar and professor of law Eric Segal responds:
“To be clear, if we found a love letter written to Donald Trump from Sam Alito saying, ‘Can’t wait till you’re back in office,’ Alito still would not recuse. He has no moral compass at all.”
Though not serving as Trump’s attorney when he appeared as a witness today in Trump’s trial for criminally falsifying business records, Robert Costello is a lawyer, bound by New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct. Costello repeatedly showed his ethical unfitness, violating the most basic principles that inform the entire code. I’ve screenshot the very first paragraph of the entire code, highlighting the most pertinent phrases. 1/ #LawFedi#Ethics#LegalEthics
Costello, who clearly seeks to curry Trump’s favor, behaved like any lawyer embedded in organized crime: rather than uphold the quality of justice, he used his knowledge of the law to subvert justice and undermine the legal system. 3/
#Journalists — your publications are missing one of the biggest stories of what will become American history: how a former President, running for another term, is using the first criminal trial of anybody who has the held the office, to further his own quest to dismantle U.S. constitutional democracy. 4/4
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas formally disclosed two trips he took with Republican donor Harlan Crow in 2019, one to Bali and one to Monte Rio, California. The annual disclosure form noted that the trips were “inadvertently omitted at the time of filing” in 2019. The only other justice to report receiving gifts in new filing was Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was gifted four concert tickets from singer Beyoncé in 2023, valued at $3,711. Read more from CBS News.
Fix the Court adds up the numbers of gifts received by US Supreme Court justices and finds the tally "staggering," especially in the case of Clarence Thomas:
"Per the analysis prepared by Fix the Court, Justice Thomas has received gifts valued at more than $4 million during his tenure on the Court."
"Justice Clarence Thomas has received some 47% of all known gifts given to Supreme Court in the modern era, likely totaling well over $5.87 million: Report"