Crooked Media - What A Day: As the Crow lies

The Clarence Thomas story just keeps getting weirder. 
 

• In the day since ProPublica published its investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his decades-long history of accepting gifts from billionaire Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow (who has direct business interests in front of the Supreme Court!), more details have emerged, and both Justice Thomas and his GOP defenders have essentially responded with a shrug. 
   

• The Los Angeles Times first reported on Thomas accepting expensive gifts and private plane trips from Crow all the way back in 2004, including a Bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass valued at $19,000 and a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln, as well as, a bronze statue of Thomas’s eighth grade teacher, which…okay… So it appears that after the Los Angeles Times report 20 years ago, Thomas kept accepting the gifts, but just stopped disclosing them. Cool!
   

• Despite the fact that there is no official “code of ethics” for Supreme Court Justices for some fucking reason, federal law requires the disclosure of most gifts accepted by public servants. Rides on private jets are kind of a Law School 101 example of in-kind income that should be disclosed.

Despite promises from the Senate Judiciary Committee to “act” (in whatever form that takes) Republicans in the House have no plans to address the issue, and conservative media pundits are scrambling to minimize it as much as possible. 
 

• Justice Thomas issued a statement today saying, "Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.” Essentially: “I asked my buddies and they said rules don’t apply to us.” This explanation is particularly laughable because it boils down to “You expect me, one of the nine most powerful rules guys in the country, to know the rules?” It’s also infuriating, because even if Crow didn’t have business before the Court at the time Thomas asked, he has had plenty since.

• Thomas noted that the guidelines for reporting “personal hospitality” have been recently changed and added, “...it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.” But it seems apparent that Thomas likely broke the old rules as well—“personal hospitality” can only cover so many sins. In fact, personal hospitality as it relates to federal employees plainly excludes transportation. Regardless of whether or not Thomas and Crow are “good friends,” Thomas repeatedly used Crow’s private jet so he would not have to fly commercial, something that carries a direct monetary value well above the $415 threshold requiring disclosure. In the past twenty years, Thomas has only reported two gifts. Two. 

The rogue right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has sparked many long-overdue conversations, and exposed the inherent insanity of the nine justices being accountable to no code of ethics apart from what is essentially a loose honor system. We also still don’t know how Brett Kavanaugh’s substantial debt magically vanished in 2018 just as he was about to be nominated to the Court. If Chief Justice John Roberts is worried about the eroding “public trust” in and “legitimacy” of the court, he should start by looking in the mirror.

Nothing says “bad judicial decision” like issuing it late on a Friday before a holiday weekend. The corrupt, Trump-appointed Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has released his long-awaited ruling that invalidates the FDA’s approval of mifepristone—the so-called “abortion pill”—which had been in place for 23 years. Twenty! Three! Years! On the one hand, this is very bad; on the other hand, the libs may have outsmarted him, in which case, access to mifepristone might never be interrupted. We’ll get to that in a second, but for now, the Biden administration will likely appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the case could easily travel all the way to the Supreme Court, but it’s a road paved with other reactionary judges. Medication abortion is the most commonly-used method to terminate pregnancy in the United States, and anti-abortion groups and Republican lawmakers have been trying to extinguish it ever since the Dobbs decision was handed down last June. The Texas lawsuit claims that the FDA did not have the power to approve the drug because it “ignored” potentially harmful “side-effects”. Medical and scientific consensus has found time and again that medication abortion is safe and effective, but no matter! The “Alliance Defending Freedom” has a problem with it, so it’s gotta go! 

None of the anti-abortion plaintiffs could show direct harm from the FDA’s 2001 approval, so it seems like Judge Kacsmaryk went for a “no evidence, just my own terrible vibes” approach to this case. This is the first time a court has ordered the FDA to remove a medication from the market despite opposition from the agency and the drug’s manufacturer. Now, here’s the good news: A Washington state judge also just issued an emergency injunction prohibiting the FDA from pulling its mifepristone approval. Perhaps in anticipation of right-wing mischief, a group of Democratic state attorneys general sued the FDA, challenging its mifepristone regulations, which complicate access to the drug even in states where abortion is legal. The second ruling, which could salvage access to mifepristone, serves to preserve the status quo while the judge assesses whether the federal government must make access to mifepristone easier. So who the fuck knows. Hahaha okay I’m gonna go have a rage stroke have a good weekend.

A federal appeals court panel upheld obstruction charges used against hundreds of January 6 defendants, which a Trump-appointed judge had previously tossed. 

Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise visit to Nashville to meet with the “Tennessee Three” after state Republicans expelled Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones from the legislature over their gun-control protests. 

President Biden released a statement condemning Tennessee Republicans for expelling their colleagues and reaffirmed his call for Congress to pass an assault weapons ban.

Disgraced former president Donald Trump test-drove the idea of appointing unhinged far-right islamophobic bigot Laura Loomer to his campaign then rapidly abandoned the idea after Marjorie Taylor Greene of all people insisted Loomer was too nuts to be part of MAGA. Too bad, we think she would have fit right in. 

State Senators in North Dakota voted to increase their own meal reimbursements just days after rejecting a bill to provide free lunches to low-income K-12 students. “We must protect children!” Republicans strike again!

A pair of Israeli sisters were killed on Friday in a gunfire attack on their car in the occupied West Bank according to Israeli authorities. 

A majority of the Nashville Metropolitan Council signaled that it will vote to reinstate Justin Jones as early as Monday after Republicans expelled him from the state legislature for protesting for new gun laws on the assembly floor.

Like every sector of American health care, the long-term care system is deeply flawed and showed major strain under the weight of the pandemic. That strain will be exacerbated even further as 73 million baby boomers become more likely to need such care. About 4.4 million Americans rely on Medicaid to cover long-term care expenses, and the program’s patchiness  puts low-income people who need this kind of care in an especially vulnerable position. Federal law protects Medicaid beneficiaries in nursing homes from eviction, but not residents of assisted-living facilities. Increasingly, such facilities are rejecting Medicaid enrollees and evicting them if they’re already situated. In Wisconsin, the Washington Post discovered that at least 50 Medicaid beneficiaries had been evicted from assisted-living facilities. Facilities contend that the decision is financial, because Medicaid reimbursement is lower than full private pay rates, but many residents who spent their life savings on these facilities with the understanding that they would be able to stay once they became so financially depleted they would be Medicaid-eligible are being thrown out in the cold, and have few viable alternatives. The assisted-living industry blames evictions on insufficient Medicaid funding, while residents and their family members blame the profit-hungry industry. Who says the two are mutually exclusive?

Crooked Media’s Vote Save America organization raised over $125,000 for the Tennessee Democratic Party in less than 24 hours. Let’s get the Justins back in office and MORE!

New jobs numbers show the lowest unemployment rate for Black Americans on record. Now if only we could do something about those pesky criminally-low wages!
 

Speaking of jobs, the labor market has remained resilient as the economy added 236,000 new jobs in March.

In the next two years, the IRS plans to hire 20,000 new employees and deploy new technology, spending the $80 billion in new funds it received to create a functioning federal tax agency, can you imagine?? (P.S. spare some to audit Clarence Thomas pls, thx.)