Crooked Media - What A Day: Reap what you Crow

The Supreme Court officially has corruption coming out of its ears. 
 

• The latest ProPublica investigation found that Supreme Court Justice (do we even have to say it) Clarence Thomas has even more to answer for. For many years, Thomas and his wife Ginni raised his grandnephew Mark Martin, whom they’d assumed legal custody for when Martin was six years old. In 2008, Justice Thomas decided to send Martin, who was then a teenager, to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in northern Georgia, where tuition was $6,000 a month. I’m sure you see where this is going.
   

• Did Thomas foot the bill himself? Reader, would it shock you to learn that no, he did not? A bank statement from the school shows that Mark Martin’s tuition was paid for by the company owned by, once again, billionaire GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow. Martin went to Hidden Lake for one year in between stints at another boarding school, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, where according to a school administrator, Crow was paying Martin’s tuition as well. The precise total Crow paid for Martin’s education is yet to be determined, but if he paid for all four years at the two boarding schools, that would be over $150,000. Okay then!
   

• ProPublica sent Crow a number of questions related to this story, and his office responded with a statement that does not deny or contradict any of the damning facts presented. “Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth,” the statement reads. (Do you know any at-risk children who aren’t being raised by a Supreme Court justice who got free private-school tuition from Harlan Crow? No? Huh, weird…) This, on top of millions of dollars in other gifts Crow gave to Thomas, is, as they say, not a good look.

If any other government official had acted identically to Justice Clarence Thomas, they would face immediate termination, possibly criminal investigation. So, will he? No, of course not. Because Republicans love corruption when their guys do it, and Democrats are too scared of confrontation to stand up to them.
 

• So, is anyone going to DO SOMETHING? Well, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin would typically be the guy to do it, but he says someone else should do something. Following this ProPublica report, Durbin said this: “I hope that Chief Justice Roberts reads this story this morning and understands something has to be done.” (Sen. Durbin, with all due respect, are you fucking serious?) Roberts will, of course, absolutely not be doing anything to discipline his friend, other than maybe encourage him not to resign.

• Durbin also passed the buck to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who remains absent and continues to offer no return date, allowing Republicans to obstruct the Judiciary Committee. Shouldn’t he, then, call on her to resign so Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) can fill the vacancy with someone who will actually show up to do their job? Yes. But he isn’t doing that, either. But he is still honoring Republican blue slips, effectively allowing them to veto Biden’s judicial nominees. Add it all up and dozens of Biden’s nominees are languishing, as the Senate’s precious calendar shrinks. The Congressional Black Caucus quietly met with Durbin last week to lobby for him to do away with the indefensible blue-slip practice, but he’s not budging. 
   

Wow! Pretty infuriating stuff! Especially in light of the thousands of hours of hard work organizers had to do so Democrats could keep the Senate in 2022. Members of Congress have to remember that they work for us, they were elected to represent the people, not to warm seats and honor antidemocratic, arcane traditions. For no particular reason, I feel inclined to remind you that Durbin’s Capitol office phone number is 202-224-2152, so do with that what you will.

Over the past few federal election cycles, the Democratic Party has lost considerable ground Latino voters, many of whom have begun voting Republican. Disgraced former president Donald Trump saw his support from Latino voters increase by a stunning eight percentage points between the 2016 and 2020 elections, particularly in Florida and Texas. Those glaring numbers, compounded by the creation of a new right-wing Spanish-language media network called Americano, has many Democratic strategists rightly concerned. The Biden 2024 campaign is thus hoping to learn from the mistakes it made in 2020. The DNC developed a better ground game during the 2022 midterm election season to reach Latino voters, and Biden’s insistence that the 2024 election will be about “freedom” seems particularly well-suited to more conservative Mexican-American and Cuban-American communities in Florida and Texas. White House Senior Advisor Julie Chavez Rodriguez will chair Biden’s 2024 campaign, and have a major say in determining how the team allocates resources. The Democratic Party has a chance to regain lost trust with many marginalized groups in 2024, and it looks like they’re finally putting their money where their mouth is.

Four members of the far-right Proud Boys, including their former leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted of seditious conspiracy today.

The White House had hoped that the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and other major business associations would line up behind them as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republicans take our country to the brink of default. They haven't. (Note to Biden: Rallying the country against right-wing sabotage is your job, not the Chamber of Commerce’s…)

North Carolina is one of the few southern states where abortion remains legal and accessible. State House Republicans there just passed a 12-week abortion ban. 

Federal prosecutors investigating disgraced former president Trump’s “mishandling” of classified documents have obtained the confidential cooperation of a former Mar-A-Lago employee. This is gonna be good. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams criticized Comptroller Brad Lander for calling the murder of Jordan Neely an act of “vigilantism,” saying his remarks were “irresponsible” so Lander provided a link to the dictionary definition. 

The Department of Labor announced that two 10-year-old children were found working at a Louisville, KY, McDonald’s, sometimes until 2 a.m. Thanks, Republicans!

A jury ruled that singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran did not copy Marvin Gaye’s classic “Let’s Get It On,” in the song “Thinking Out Loud.” The heirs to the fortune of songwriter Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the song with Gaye in 1973, had only “proof” that Sheeran performed…a mashup of the two songs once on tour. The case is a huge loss for greedy grandchildren of deceased talented songwriters everywhere. 

Attorneys general in New York and California announced on Thursday that they’re launching an investigation into allegations of workplace discrimination at the National Football League, citing lawsuits filed by current and former employees that describe gender, race, and age-based bias, sexual harassment, and an overall hostile work environment.

This weekend, the United Kingdom will hold an eye-poppingly expensive coronation for King Charles and his weird little sausage fingers. But the coronation might be the least interesting thing happening on the island. Voting opened in local elections on Thursday in the first major test at the ballot box for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his scandal-ridden Conservative Party. The U.K. is also the only major European country unable to shake double-digit inflation, and austerity policies from years of conservative governments that have brought the country’s National Health System to the brink of collapse. On top of that, the cost of cucumbers is through the damn roof. This election is one of the last major opportunities for the Labour Party to test whether it can actually turn its 15-point lead in the polls into real gains ahead of next year’s national elections. Eight-thousand seats across 230 councils in England are up for grabs. This is also the first election at which British voters will be required to show photo ID to cast their ballots, an intentional move by the Conservative government to disenfranchise young people and minorities, who disproportionately vote Labour (sound familiar?). Labour Leader Keir Starmer has focused his messaging on contrasting Sunak’s unimaginable wealth to the lives of average struggling Britons, the corruption of his government, and the disastrous consequences of austerity measures while Sunak and his pals use tax dollars “as a casino chip.” Starmer has been something of an ineffectual leader himself, but the economic chaos sowed by years of Conservative politicians might finally be enough to push Labour over the top despite his weaknesses. 

Looking for more insider knowledge on U.K. politics? Well, babe, you’re in luck! Today, Crooked Media launched the first episode of Pod Save the UK, a brand-new show where every week, our U.K.-based hosts, comedian Nish Kumar and journalist Coco Khan, will welcome politicians, experts, and their famous friends to unpack the latest news, look for solutions, and inspire action. Listen to new episodes of Pod Save The UK each Thursday wherever you pod.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has (correctly) called for a $17 federal minimum wage. 

Drew Barrymore has pulled out of hosting the MTV Movie Awards in support of the Writers Strike. 

In the absence of Dick Durbin’s backbone, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has pledged to use his position as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee to investigate Harlan Crow’s “gifts” to Justice Clarence Thomas. 

New York has become the first state in the country to ban natural gas and other fossil fuels in most new buildings.