...one would try to avoid the appearance of impropriety if you were, say, a Supreme Court justice or the vice-president.
Now, they just don't care.
quote:Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows
PATTERSON, La. � Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks.
The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force. According to those who met them at the small airstrip here, the justice and the vice president flew from Washington on Jan. 5 and were accompanied by a second, backup Air Force jet that carried staff and security aides to the vice president.
...and I just LOVED the next paragraph, it's a classic...
quote:Two military Black Hawk helicopters were brought in and hovered nearby as Cheney and Scalia were whisked away in a heavily guarded motorcade to a secluded, private hunting camp owned by an oil industry businessman.
In one paragraph, you have a sitting justice going on a hunting trip with the VP who has a case pending before the Court AND they went to the private hunting camp owned by someone in the oil industry.
Rarely, if ever, does it get any better than that.
quote:The Times previously reported that the two men hunted ducks together while the case was pending, but it wasn't clear then that they had traveled together or that Scalia had accompanied Cheney on Air Force Two.
Several experts in legal ethics questioned whether Scalia should decide the case.
"In my view, this further ratchets it up. If the vice president is the source of generosity, it means Scalia is accepting a gift of some value from a litigant in a case before him," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers.
"It is not just a trip with a litigant. It's a trip at the expense of the litigant. This is an easy case for stepping aside."
Such is the way things go I guess. I should stop complaining about the inbred power structure, be a good little consumer, and let them get on with their job of making money and running the world.
[ February 05, 2004, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Jay, you spelled "ruining" wrong ...
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
Right, sorry.
I should let them get on with their job of "ruining" the world.
Good catch, Snay.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
The Center for American Progress addes this comment...
quote:(On top of this, remember that Cheney's case in front of the Supreme Court deals in part with how much influence the oil industry may have had in the creation of Cheney's Energy bill? The private hunting camp is owned by wealthy oilman "Wallace Carline, the head of Diamond Services Corp., an oil services firm that is on 41 acres of waterfront property in Amelia, La. The company provides oil dredging, pile driving, salvage work, fabrication, pipe-rolling capability and general oilfield construction.")
What good is it to have powerful friends who are president and vice-president if you can't take advantage of them?
Our government...it's a thing of beauty.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"It is not just a trip with a litigant. It's a trip at the expense of the litigant. This is an easy case for stepping aside."
Stepping aside? Stepping down, more like. You don't take a bribe, then, when you get caught, just say "Okay, I was naughty. I won't decide the case.". You get disbarred is what you do.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Scalia has a long history of siding with big business in his court voting so this (unfortunately) comes as no suprise.
The real problem is that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life: we should really change that....but it'd never get past the Supreme Court. Sigh.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Unless an administration were to select a batch of judges not so readily beholden to either party, of course. Yeah, I know, big fucking sigh.
What was the rationale behind lifetime appointments, again? Something about lifting the court above mundane political affairs like, oh, partisanship?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
How can an administration select a "batch" of judges? They have to wait untill a Supreme Court justice retires or croaks...almost never two in the same year....and then here's all the selection processes.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I do seem to remember reading about a couple of the senior Justices, both Republican appointees, who were quite public about their desperation for the next President to be a Republican so, when they retired as they planned to do fairly soon, they could be assured that their seats would be taken by other Republicans. This was before the 2000 election. . .
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I seem to recall a judge whose name escapes me at the moment ... he was appointed by Reagan I think, and had always been very conservative ... stuck him on the bench, turned out to be a flaming liberal.
Lee, similar sentiments have been expressed by both liberal and wrongo judges.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
The real problem is that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life: we should really change that....but it'd never get past the Supreme Court.
Hm. A cursory viewing of the Constituion doesn't seem to preclude term limits for justices. Interesting, I always thought that life terms were in there. I agree, though, we do need to eliminate life terms for ANY job. How 'bout this: nine year terms, staggered so that one is removed and replaced every year. And no possibility for reappointment.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
And who would hear that case????
Politics is a crappy subject....
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Oh, you have no idea; I'm having to sit through two hours of feminism a week. Now, that's crappy. Although I do get to do facism as well, which is slightly better.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
What do you get combining the two of them???
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Hillary Clinton?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"And who would hear that case????"
What case? It would take a constitutional amendment. Which is a purely legislative/executive decision. The courts couldn't really do anything about it.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Apart from make sure an executive gets elected who is certain not to do anything about it. . .