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The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

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Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#61

Post by mikeyouse »

phpisthebest wrote: post #59
mikeyouse wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those departments are executive branch departments, their leadership can be fired by the President and can be appointed with a simple majority in the Senate - hence how we've had 7 FDA commissioners since 2017 - not remotely comparable to the US Supreme Court.

Can they? For practical purposes they can but it is about as doable as impeachment of a sitting justice, it is more of a power that exists on paper but can not actually be utilized due to politics and traditions. >>7 FDA commissioners since 2017 hmmm... were they fired or did they take very high paying Big Pharma Jobs further enriching themselves from the corrupt deep state?

What are you talking about? Department heads resign or are fired constantly. In any case, most have set terms and leave when their term is up -- they are absolutely nothing like the Supreme Court.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#62

Post by addicted »

ImJamal wrote: post #52
archildress wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly equivalent to "all news networks are biased", overlooking the "but not to equivalent degrees."

Frankly you are making a massive assumption. We don't know how deep this behavior goes with the other justices. In 2018, Ginsburg had more trips paid for by others than any other justice for example. Since 2004, Bryer had more trips than any other justice. The fact that people are only calling out one person seems very telling to me. This problem is far deeper than one guy or one side. https://www.opensecrets.org/new…

Frankly those are trips that were disclosed and Thomas’s trips weren’t. That’s one of the biggest problems with what Thomas did (and shows that he knew what he did wouldn’t pass muster).

Of course, that’s assuming you’re not one of the people who believes that he truly thought a trip on a private plane does not need to be disclosed because the seat would have otherwise been taken by someone else so it wasn’t actually a benefit.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#63

Post by salamandersss »

mikeyouse wrote: post #38
salamandersss wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Ruth Ginsburg was another corrupt one, taking lavish trips funded by Israeli billionaires. But whoops, I wasn't supposed to mention the ones people here may like.

Do you think maybe there should be a distinction between trips reported on annual disclosure statements and those taken privately and without being reported?

Yes there should be distinctions if level of corruption. For instance stealing candy from a baby and putting an ad in the paper saying you've done it is probably less bad than stealing candy when nobody sees it. And no I don't think this is the same as stealing candy, since some fucking pedant is gonna make that comment.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#64

Post by willcipriano »

mikeyouse wrote: post #60
willcipriano wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example of this accountability you ensure me exists: https://www.businessinsider.com/fda-chief-approved-oxycontin... Guy is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the addiction of millions. He wasn't elected and he wont be punished.

Seems odd to call the leadership of the FDA "an unelected permanent government" and then linking to a commissioner's job after they resigned from the FDA. Even more ironically for this particular discussion - the legality of this pretty open corruption is specifically due to decisions made by the Supreme Court, who have gutted all of the bribery, official corruption, and campaign finance laws we used to have.

Summary provided to aid in reading:

> Curtis Wright, once a director at the US Food and Drug Administration who oversaw evaluation for pain medication, got a position with a first-year compensation package of $400,000 at Purdue Pharma a year after he led the approval of OxyContin

> Wright had confessed in a sworn deposition that he "might" have written the portion of the FDA package insert that said OxyContin was "believed to reduce the abuse liability of the drug."

> OxyContin was the "most prescribed brand name narcotic medication" for treating moderate to severe pain by 2001, according to a report by the US Government Accountability Office. Deaths from prescription opioid overdose quadrupled between 1999 to 2019, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 247,000 deaths from prescription opioid overdose over the last two decades.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#65

Post by phpisthebest »

mikeyouse wrote: post #61
phpisthebest wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they? For practical purposes they can but it is about as doable as impeachment of a sitting justice, it is more of a power that exists on paper but can not actually be utilized due to politics and traditions. >>7 FDA commissioners since 2017 hmmm... were they fired or did they take very high paying Big Pharma Jobs further enriching themselves from the corrupt deep state?

What are you talking about? Department heads resign or are fired constantly. In any case, most have set terms and leave when their term is up -- they are absolutely nothing like the Supreme Court.

The political appointee's that go in and out with every political administration and are political figure heads

Or the actual Dept Heads, the ones that actually do the regulation and enforcement, the ones that have been there for decades and work for every administration

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#66

Post by alphazard »

The founders clearly didn't envision the court becoming as politicized as it is now. They basically hand-waved away the problem of how to interpret laws. If the laws were written in some kind of unambiguous formal system, then there wouldn't be a need for a court. But no such system exists, so we have this read-time political power corresponding to the write-time political power of the Legislative branch.

It's pretty clear the founders wanted some magic box to tell everyone how the laws applied in a given situation, and designed the rest of the system around that. They attempted to create that with the Judicial branch. It's clear from the lack of term limits that they thought the Justices would be apolitical. However, there is no mechanism forcing the justices to interpret the laws in the simplest, most literal way. Instead we have increasingly stretched interpretations used to affect political change sans representative legislature.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#67

Post by salamandersss »

mikeyouse wrote: post #34
willcipriano wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same is true of most of government. From the FDA to the ATF practical life altering choices are increasingly made by a unelected permanent government unfettered by things like accountability.

Those departments are executive branch departments, their leadership can be fired by the President and can be appointed with a simple majority in the Senate - hence how we've had 7 FDA commissioners since 2017 - not remotely comparable to the US Supreme Court.

I try to reconcile this with the fact DEAs judge 30 years ago ruled pot should be rescheduled and here we are 30 years later and only now has the president gotten to attempt to get the executive underlings to act as they themselves ruled after their judges review.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#68

Post by phpisthebest »

seanw444 wrote: post #46
mettamage wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did the Supreme Court come into being? How has it been able to fly under the radar like this as being undemocratic?

It's a council of 9 justices who vote on final decisions. They are appointed by politicians who the people vote for. This is intentional, for the same reason that the Senate wasn't meant to be directly voted for by normal citizens either: normal citizens usually don't have the political involvement necessary to make educated decisions about who to appoint the position. In theory, at least. It's a balance between poli…

>> for the same reason that the Senate wasn't meant to be directly voted for by normal citizens either: normal citizens usually don't have the political involvement necessary to make educated decisions

I am going to take slight issue with this, The reason the Senate was appointed as not because "normal citizens usually don't have the political involvement necessary to make educated decisions" it was because we are a Union of States. ie the United States. The states are suppose to have some level of sovereignty from the Federal Government, Previous to the Civil War most citizens were loyal to their State first, then the country.

Post Civil War the federal government started to rewrite the relationship, however the Senate was to be the States representative in the Federal Government, thus why there are 2 for every State. The House Represented the people, thus why it is apportioned by population.

A Senator was not meant to be the citizens voice in the Federal government, but was meant be the Voice of the State Government from which they were appointed.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#69

Post by moate »

golergka wrote: post #15
apozem wrote: post #10

This is a fine gesture, but it does not solve the fundamental problem that Supreme Court justices are an unelected super-government with lifetime appointments and zero accountability . The whole institution is absurd and undemocratic and, as Clarence Thomas has proved [0], ripe with opportunities for corruption. A non-binding code of ethics doesn't change that. [0]: https://www.propublica.org/series/supreme-court-sco…

> unelected super-government with lifetime appointments and zero accountability And what's the problem? That's exactly the point of this system — a part of government that is still _appointed by elected representatives_, but is not populist.

Because everyone wants neutral fair referees when their laws/rights are being interpreted but that’s an impossibility because humans aren’t neutral.

The fact that there are problems with an alternative set up (oh no, unstable populism!) doesn’t mean the current paradigm is itself flawless.

The parts of government that exist to slow things are always “very important to stability/safety/growth of the nation” but a lot of us just see them as the artifacts the rich and powerful put in place to ensure they and their friends and family stay rich and powerful for as long as possible.

Move fast and break things, especially governments.

Re: The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

#70

Post by gnicholas »

addicted wrote: post #62
ImJamal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly you are making a massive assumption. We don't know how deep this behavior goes with the other justices. In 2018, Ginsburg had more trips paid for by others than any other justice for example. Since 2004, Bryer had more trips than any other justice. The fact that people are only calling out one person seems very telling to me. This problem is far deeper than one guy or one side. https://www.opensecrets.org/new…

Frankly those are trips that were disclosed and Thomas’s trips weren’t. That’s one of the biggest problems with what Thomas did (and shows that he knew what he did wouldn’t pass muster). Of course, that’s assuming you’re not one of the people who believes that he truly thought a trip on a private plane does not need to be disclosed because the seat would have otherwise been taken by someone else so it wasn’t actually…

I think you're confusing Thomas and Alito.

https://www.axios.com/2023/06/21/alito-propublica-alaska-fis...

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