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No, of actual corrupt behavior. Plenty of us would get fired from our jobs for less. Much of what’s happened would get lower justices disciplined, because there are ethics rules with teeth for them.

Do you read Alito’s rebuttal you linked as an actual rebuttal of the events? It reads as a “yeah, sure, but it’s fine, trust me” to me.






>> Plenty of us would get fired from our jobs for less.

No we wouldn’t. The contention that “plenty of us” would be fired for going on a fishing trip is farcical on its face and even more laughable when you consider how much is given away in the private sector for “business development” or “marketing” reasons.

We get it. You don’t like the conservative justices. There’s no reason to start making ridiculous statements that make you look like an ideological chicken little. While you’re all over this thread hating on Alito and Thomas, I don’t see you saying much about Kagan and Breyer. Why is that?


> No we wouldn’t. The contention that “plenty of us” would be fired for going on a fishing trip is farcical on its face

If someone did business with our company and I was in any way connected with decisions regarding that, and it turned out they’d spent tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on gifts for me, yeah, I would, even if there was no straight line between the gifts and them later getting what they want, and even if I said I didn’t know, because I should have known. And there are industries with far more scrutiny and stricter rules than the one I’m in. Millions of employees are in the same boat.

These aren’t branded bic pens or a box of doughnuts. C’mon. What’s farcical is pretending this isn’t naked corruption that would get smacked down despite any protestations of “lol it’s fine, trust me” or “oh sorry I didn’t know” from the perpetrators in any other context.

> While you’re all over this thread hating on Alito and Thomas, I don’t see you saying much about Kagan and Breyer. Why is that?

Because the topic has been Alito, and because the known gifts the two you name have received in the last 20 years are under $20,000 combined while Alito’s alone is 10x their combined total(!) and Thomas has received gifts amounting to at least $4m(!!!) in the same time frame. There are two outliers and they both happen to be Republicans, who also have both failed to report really large gifts, not just “whoops I forgot about that $50 lunch”

Let’s absolutely audit the shit out of all of them, I’m entirely on board. Let’s get an investigation right up in these too-powerful-to-touch folks’ finances and see what we find for all of them. Definitely would love to see that. Several of the sub-six-figure gift totals seem too high, too. Drag them all before Congress, subpoena their bank records, by all means, and to all of them, sure.

But what we know now is that two are exceptionally-bad even by lax Supreme Court standards. Maybe more are, too, and I’d say what we know already is enough that they should all have their lives turned upside down to see how far this goes.


>> If someone did business with our company and I was in any way connected with decisions regarding that, and it turned out they’d spent tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on gifts for me, yeah, I would, even if there was no straight line between the gifts and them later getting what they want, and even if I said I didn’t know, because I should have known. And there are industries with far more scrutiny and stricter rules than the one I’m in. Millions of employees are in the same boat.

Nahhh.

>> Because the topic has been Alito

You elsewhere in this comment section: “I'll be upset with liberal justices, too, if evidence turns up that any of them are being bribed on a grand scale by billionaires.”

Your partisanship is showing.


> Nahhh

Y—yes, though? I’m dead certain I’d be out the door over that. It’s a pretty common set of policies and that wouldn’t be considered a grey area, or even in sight of a grey area. I’d need serious company-politics pull to have any hope. Have you worked for large companies? Small ones may not emphasize this as much (the ones I’ve been at didn’t)

> You elsewhere in this comment section: “I'll be upset with liberal justices, too, if evidence turns up that any of them are being bribed on a grand scale by billionaires.”

Yes. Got something you want to bring up? Not sure if the relevance of your quoting me there to any of the rest of this, but if you’re trying to broach that topic, absolutely, show me the reporting.

> Your partisanship is showing.

I’m beginning to think this isn’t exactly a good faith discussion, though.




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