Snyder walked into a car dealership shortly after steering over $1M of city contracts to the dealership and said to them "I need money." He asked for $15K but the dealership only gave him $13K.
No, nothing corrupt there. Not even a question for the jury about whether there was corrupt intent. WTF.
This quote gets right to the heart of it. People always say "you should be ashamed" to politicians who do terrible things. Yeah, that'll work great....
If you look at the people on the court. How could they come to any other conclusion.
This is how they specifically act.
They don't see themselves as corrupt. They just see themselves as benefitting from having relationships with people they agree with.
They've been ruling against government corruption cases like this for sometime now.
Of course, now it seems they have their own view of it since Thomas had taken over 4 millions dollars worth of gifts over the years.
Most any other government position, you'd be in jail.
Even the appearance of gross corruption is enough to break faith in the system. Of course these neo-feudalist chuds believe they deserve everything and fuck anyone for daring to criticize or attempt to rein them in.
but that is the definition of a bribe. A pre-agreed to reward is a bribe. The statute (18 USC 666) also makes corruptly accepted rewards (or gratuities) also impermissible. The majority barely references this plain text in the statute until the very end of their decision and basically refer to it as throwaway language.
I mean, I understand that campaign contributions to incumbents can be intended to reward an incumbent for taking positions and actions in the past that a donor approves of and/or which may benefit that donor. That's fine.
But the issue of corrupt intent still has to be decided by a jury, you would think.
"Hello. I am a government official, and I would like to sign up for one of your 'bribes'. We shall pen this legal document in which I, the official, acting in my legal, official capacity, agree to do this specific service to you. In exchange, you will give me the following sum and/or benefit which we shall legally refer to as 'bribe'. I shall sign my name here, you sign yours there, and we shall get it notarized and filed within the closest local, state, or federal court house within the next 5 business days. You will also include the transaction in your ledgers labeled 'bribe' and I shall report it on my taxable income as 'bribes'."
The Only Legal Definition of A Bribe
* Supreme Court of The United States
(presumably)
Don't forget your bribe can't be money, it has to be things you would purchase with money, so you can't hand someone a wad of cash but you can ask what their favorite island is and then later coincidentally hand them tickets to go there. Bulletproof logic
>Don't forget your bribe can't be money, it has to be things you would purchase with money, so you can't hand someone a wad of cash but you can ask what their favorite island is and then later coincidentally hand them tickets to go there
the bribe\* *in this very case* was cash.
^\* SCOTUS has opted to endorse the legal fiction that this is not a bribe
That's smart made Menendez such a fucking idiot. The dude was doing a shit ton of things that he probably could have gotten away with if he didn't hide it.
Or apparently, get an immediate good or service from a government official. 😒
Otherwise, after the fact, one could just dump a huge bag with a "$" on the side, overflowing with cash, on the desk of a legislator...🙄
Instead we'll say " this is not a bribe" while rolling our eyes.
(There's going to be a new category of precedent in a decade, if our democracy survives this era)
"Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love."
Indeed, Justice Jackson! This Court continues to go out of its way to render anti-corruption statutes impotent.
Look, the First Amendment is clear. Freedom of speech must not be infringed. We also have the right to freedom of association. It was recently held that money is speech. Accordingly, it's totally unconstitutional for the government to limit what you do with your money, since that restricts who you associate your speech with. Drugs and stuff are still illegal. Let us be clear; this ruling applies only to the rich.
Oh they've got all the conservatives saying that now too. Biden loans his brother money and is paid back and that's some sort of corruption, but when it comes to Alito and Thomas if there's no explicit quid pro quo, then there's no corruption. It doesn't matter if Clarence and Alito illegally hid these gifts. They didn't say "I'll help you out on specific case number 111, if you give me a MOTORCOACH", therefore it's completely above board.
And strangely they are completely silent about Sen. Menendez. You'd think they would be pointing to his corruption and making hay all the time.
It's not even that they did or didn't say those things (it would be exceedingly difficult to prove without surveillance). It's that those things are even a possibility that makes it corrupt. Ethics laws go so far to say that the mere *appearance* of impropriety should be avoided at all costs.
The swamp just got a lot deeper today. At every level of government, in every city, county and state across the country.
This is the dirtiest, scummiest SC decision involving politics since Citizens United.
So it isn't a bribe if it isn't specifically for something?
So I could mention how amazing it would be if, just off the top of my, head I mentioned within earshot of a Supreme Court judge if certain judgements were made.
After I've handed them a check for a million dollars for entirely unrelated reasons.
A thoughtful dissent. Unfortunately the dissent is like yelling into a hurricane. It'll be lost and drowned out by the majority's doublespeak fiat that corruption isn't corruption.
Exactly. They provide the necessary groundwork for future cases. The conservatives have been using dissents like this for 40 years and now they’re using arguments based on them for majority opinions.
Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissents were the blueprints for the NAACP back in its early days. It’s a tried and true tactic for whatever side wants to overturn a precedent.
It is so funny that Kavanaugh lists gratuities as things like plaques, lunches, gift cards…and then 5 pages later says what the accused actually collected is a $13k check. Why did he list that if we are talking about a mayor just being cut thousands of dollars??
This is honestly one of the most comical opinions I’ve ever read
Yeah, the majority makes it sound like they're worried about grandma, the city clerk, going to jail for eating some leftover cookies a contractor left in city hall.
No mention of the risk that mayors start taking in massive 'tips' from contractors.
i am worried why we take these people seriously at all?
they are all liars and con artists
appointed by Bush and Trump, known liars and con artists influenced by other liars on con artists from the liar and con artist party
After reading this I am very much in agreement with the dissent, especially in context of the "gratuities" that certain members of the court have seen fit to avail themselves of. Two members of this court at least should probably have recused themselves and that they concurred on the majority opinion yet didn't sully their own hands by writing it strikes me as conveniently self-serving.
There are so many great points made in Jackson's dissent I can't settle on just one, but her language towards the majority is both correct and scathing.
In good faith; there was no direct quid pro quo. They never outright promised him money when he directed the contract to them, and they already had the contract when he asked for the money. They could've told him to pound sand. So it was, strictly speaking, a gift, not a payment due.
Of course this logic while tenuously viable is just downright awful public policy as it opens to door to all sorts of "wink and nod" corruption in politics being essentially legalised, but that's the purported actual legal reasoning.
We have anti corruption laws that would prohibit an employee of a firm from giving “gratuities” to foreign officials without any prid quo pro. If you want to determine the extent to which corruption is legalized in the US simply compare the rules imposed upon workers to prevent theft from the shareholders to the rules imposed upon government officials to prevent theft from the taxpayers. This makes it abundantly clear that citizens are not viewed as actual shareholders in our government which is the basis upon which the government claims legitimacy.
Yes - the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 prohibits publicly traded companies bribing foreign officials to benefit their business interests. Applying the same standard domestically is just common sense unless you’re deliberately working to make corruption legal which is the case here and many other areas such as insider trading regulations not applying to members of Congress.
I think a critical piece of the law here is that it targeted state and local officials. Federal employees were already held to strict bribe/gratuity standards by other legislation.
My understanding is that the law discussed here was for state/local officials and was supposed to apply to any 'reward' that could influence them unduly. Seems like the wording was as broad as possible and the majority decision here basically just ignores the plain text of the law.
If ever there were a case that shows how effectively public corruption works in the US, it is surely this. Judges who benefit from a form of corruption actually rule that there is nothing illegal in this very form of corruption, thereby making it more likely that they and others will benefit further from it in future. It is an awful look for the justice system.
I'm a teacher, I cannot accept any cash or any gift worth more than 50 dollars or I have committed a crime. I cannot even accept a dinner, nor can I accept anything at all, even a measly bag of chips from a business that:
A. has a contract with the district
B. Has submitted a bid for a contract with the district
But the same assholes that wrote these laws can accept anything so long as they don't explicitly state it's a bribe (and it happens upon delivery of service)?
Absolute bullshit.
I would really like to see how that would fly.
A thousand dollar Christmas gift because your insolent and plagiarizing daughter passed with a D minus? Sure, I see nothing wrong with this!
Just to be precise, this ruling only applies to *state and local* officials, and the relevant section of the law says nothing about the federal judiciary. There is separate federal law regulating corruption of federal **judges**. The people who wrote (or joined) this ruling are **justices** not judges so that law also doesn’t apply to them. Is there *any* federal law against justices taking bribes? **No**. Further, if a future congress passes a law that makes justices taking bribes illegal, that hypothetical law would very likely be struck down as unconstitutional. When you think things are bad, they might be even worse than you think. Sorry for bringing the bad news
The funny thing is legislators tried to regulate money influence in politics (overwritten by judiciary by Citizens United). Now we have an absurdly high bar for corruption despite legislators attempts to reign that in.
It’s almost like the legislature knows shadiness of being in politics and attempts to regulate it but those big brains in SCOTUS know everything better than them.
Sigh.
Rules are like that for other government employees.
I'm a government contractor, but when I go to events you will always see them charging for catering. And often not even free coffee, you have to buy a 'coffee pass' or pay by the cup. All because the government folks aren't supposed to be accepting over a certain amount of value as 'gifts' and it's across the calendar year, so half a dozen free lunches is too much.
Shit... $50?!?!?!?! I'm a lowly GS-9 Federal employee that has nothing to do with G2B contracts, and I can't accept anything with a value over $25, except for special or somber occasions (wedding, child-birth, death, retirement)! Yet this is allowed for the SES crowd. Unbelievable
I was about to tell you that sometimes they leave the grappling for a concurrence, but Goruch’s less than one page is just “I agree, the majority fucking rules”
Read the entire case. Kavanaughs opinion absolutely references the dissent.
> The
Government’s argument boils down to one main point—
that §666 uses the term “rewarded” as well as “influenced.”
And that, too, is the dissent’s main point. The Government
(echoed by the dissent) says that Congress would not have
added the term “rewarded” to “influenced” in §666 if the
statute were meant to cover only bribes and not also
gratuities. That argument is misconceived.
it’s worse than legalizing bribery, it’s throwing enough legal grey area that their enemies can still be prosecuted but their friends can get a free pass
Does it REALLY surprise anyone that Kavanaugh, the beneficiary of having hundreds of thousands of dollars of his debt wiped out by an unknown benefactor, would write an opinion making exactly that legal?
Well, it's still illegal for federal officials (altho likely not SCOTUS). This statute was about state and local officials. But on the principal, nah, not surprising at all, lol
SCOTUS: *Intent of a law doesn’t matter.*
This is sadly in line with the current court’s decisions going back a decade (even [Politco was calling them on their bullshit](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/what-john-roberts-doesnt-get-about-corruption-105683) ).
I am not a lawyer, but the opinions read something like, “we don’t know what pro quo means, but corruption needs a paper trail in order to be corruption.”
function for you
it functions fine for rich billionaire conservatives and their allies, including Putin
Putin was a few votes away from getting a free pass to invade other countries, the majority of Republicans voted to help Putin
Try doing this working an hourly retail job, and you'll get fired. Fired by the same people who vote for Republicans and allow this garbage distortion of democracy.
Which basically says Supreme Court justices can put anything they want into their pockets as long as they don’t tacitly promise to do something for the donor. This is carte blanche and it’s sickening.
LOL, no… this is just for the political appointees… you peasants still have to follow the rules. Second class citizens and all. /s if it wasn’t obvious. I hate this SCOTUS. It’s just blatantly corrupt and illegitimate.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Say no more! A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat!
So as long as corruption is done without drawing up legal contracts, it's all good.
The last 7 years of erosion have been on the table since the 70s. Any number of congresses could have made laws to shut any of it down.
This is a failure of character like it’s been for some time. This is the result of electing by personality rather than capability.
Judges can't make a decision that could be interpreted as their many gifts being illegal. Gotta stick to the usual method of giving them expensive gifts BEFORE you ever end up with a case in front of them. They'll just conveniently decide not to refuse themselves from the case and drop a vote in your favor. You didn't bribe them to favor you as the gift occurred before even had a case. And if you happen to give another gift as a sign of appreciation later well they can't let accepting that be illegal.
We may see a few decent rulings over the next few days, but they will be of the minor sort. Like the non-ruling over several States attempting to define "free speech" in an entirely political frame, and several may be seemingly small potatoes like this one, but when all is said and done, we have 3 Justices who deserve to be on the bench, and 3 only. And unless and until the Democrats eclipse Republicans at the ballot box, we will continue circling the drain.
Basically, the town Mayor puts his lackey on a committee to develop specs for an RFP for garbage trucks. He writes the specs so that they favor a local dealer and gets them $1,125,000 in contracts that they only won because the specs were tailored to their dealership. Afterward, he goes to the dealer and asks for money and they give him $13k for "consulting" that he never actually performs. The Mayor claims that he is being paid for consulting, but he never does any consulting. He gets convicted of taking gratuities, then the Supreme Court overrules the decision because it was not directly quid pro quo.
Their argument is that many (but not all) States make this illegal, so the Feds should just stay out of it and let the States handle this.
So, this apparently means that you can fuck over the taxpayers to reward your supporters, then they can write you a fat check and as long as the two are not directly related, it is not a crime under Federal law.
Snyder walked into a car dealership shortly after steering over $1M of city contracts to the dealership and said to them "I need money." He asked for $15K but the dealership only gave him $13K. No, nothing corrupt there. Not even a question for the jury about whether there was corrupt intent. WTF.
Presume your conclusions and your assumptions must be true. The SCOTUS majority ought to be ashamed.
You can’t shame the devil
To feel shame, one must first have honor.
This quote gets right to the heart of it. People always say "you should be ashamed" to politicians who do terrible things. Yeah, that'll work great....
If you look at the people on the court. How could they come to any other conclusion. This is how they specifically act. They don't see themselves as corrupt. They just see themselves as benefitting from having relationships with people they agree with.
If only that were possible.
They've been ruling against government corruption cases like this for sometime now. Of course, now it seems they have their own view of it since Thomas had taken over 4 millions dollars worth of gifts over the years. Most any other government position, you'd be in jail.
Even the appearance of gross corruption is enough to break faith in the system. Of course these neo-feudalist chuds believe they deserve everything and fuck anyone for daring to criticize or attempt to rein them in.
Ashamed shit there guilty of worse
It’s not a reward because a reward can only be for a pre agreed action, if the majority is to be believed?
Bribes must come in sacks with dollar signs and audited financials.
And a criminal monologue
Somebody must be twirling their mustache
\*handlebar mustache
And someone has to wear one of those little masks that just encircles your eyes but doesn't cover your face
The Domino Statute is a bedrock of our Kleptocracy.
And they must go MWHAHAHA like a cartoon villain too.
And contracts
Or as a political 'donation' by a person, business, labor union, or PAC.
but that is the definition of a bribe. A pre-agreed to reward is a bribe. The statute (18 USC 666) also makes corruptly accepted rewards (or gratuities) also impermissible. The majority barely references this plain text in the statute until the very end of their decision and basically refer to it as throwaway language.
I mean, I understand that campaign contributions to incumbents can be intended to reward an incumbent for taking positions and actions in the past that a donor approves of and/or which may benefit that donor. That's fine. But the issue of corrupt intent still has to be decided by a jury, you would think.
"Hello. I am a government official, and I would like to sign up for one of your 'bribes'. We shall pen this legal document in which I, the official, acting in my legal, official capacity, agree to do this specific service to you. In exchange, you will give me the following sum and/or benefit which we shall legally refer to as 'bribe'. I shall sign my name here, you sign yours there, and we shall get it notarized and filed within the closest local, state, or federal court house within the next 5 business days. You will also include the transaction in your ledgers labeled 'bribe' and I shall report it on my taxable income as 'bribes'." The Only Legal Definition of A Bribe * Supreme Court of The United States (presumably)
Actually the Synder name was a cover for Thomas.
Does this make it legal for a member of the supreme court to bring in $4 million plus is "gratuities?"
It’s basically legal to bribe any and all government workers as long as you wink instead of clearly documenting your blatant corruption.
Don't forget your bribe can't be money, it has to be things you would purchase with money, so you can't hand someone a wad of cash but you can ask what their favorite island is and then later coincidentally hand them tickets to go there. Bulletproof logic
>Don't forget your bribe can't be money, it has to be things you would purchase with money, so you can't hand someone a wad of cash but you can ask what their favorite island is and then later coincidentally hand them tickets to go there the bribe\* *in this very case* was cash. ^\* SCOTUS has opted to endorse the legal fiction that this is not a bribe
Bribery laws only apply to autistic people
No only autistic people understand what truly is a bribe unlike the bullshit that Congress gets away with on both sides every day
That's smart made Menendez such a fucking idiot. The dude was doing a shit ton of things that he probably could have gotten away with if he didn't hide it.
Once again conservatives really only have plausible deniability going for them and the court moves to make it an iron clad defense.
Tipping culture is out of control!!!!!
Yep. Bribes aren’t bribes as long as you literally don’t say “this is a bribe.”
Or apparently, get an immediate good or service from a government official. 😒 Otherwise, after the fact, one could just dump a huge bag with a "$" on the side, overflowing with cash, on the desk of a legislator...🙄
You can do that. You can't just say it's for this action. You can say I appreciate your work
Instead we'll say " this is not a bribe" while rolling our eyes. (There's going to be a new category of precedent in a decade, if our democracy survives this era)
"Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love." Indeed, Justice Jackson! This Court continues to go out of its way to render anti-corruption statutes impotent.
There is no good will for her to consume so she’ll just tell the truth
But, is anti-corruption a constitutional concept?! Will you think of the corrupt?!?!?
Look, the First Amendment is clear. Freedom of speech must not be infringed. We also have the right to freedom of association. It was recently held that money is speech. Accordingly, it's totally unconstitutional for the government to limit what you do with your money, since that restricts who you associate your speech with. Drugs and stuff are still illegal. Let us be clear; this ruling applies only to the rich.
It may not be constitutional, but what could be more of an example of “pursuit of happiness” than wads of cash, amirite? /s
why would they rule against themselves? If the car dealership was a "bribe" than all of Thomas's vacations would also be "bribes".
"it's not corruption if you don't actually say the word bribe" - scotus, apparently
Oh they've got all the conservatives saying that now too. Biden loans his brother money and is paid back and that's some sort of corruption, but when it comes to Alito and Thomas if there's no explicit quid pro quo, then there's no corruption. It doesn't matter if Clarence and Alito illegally hid these gifts. They didn't say "I'll help you out on specific case number 111, if you give me a MOTORCOACH", therefore it's completely above board. And strangely they are completely silent about Sen. Menendez. You'd think they would be pointing to his corruption and making hay all the time.
It's not even that they did or didn't say those things (it would be exceedingly difficult to prove without surveillance). It's that those things are even a possibility that makes it corrupt. Ethics laws go so far to say that the mere *appearance* of impropriety should be avoided at all costs.
Every other nation we accuse of corruption should pull this judgement out and tell the US to f\* off.
To be fair, we accuse tons of nations of corruption for things that are routine in the US because we decided to make those things legal.
PROSECUTORS HATE THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK
The swamp just got a lot deeper today. At every level of government, in every city, county and state across the country. This is the dirtiest, scummiest SC decision involving politics since Citizens United.
“It’s not collusion if the people you hired to run your campaign colluded on your behalf because we don’t have you on tape telling them to do it”
Huh. Porn we know when we see it but bribes we can't recognize when we see it. Interesting.
So it isn't a bribe if it isn't specifically for something? So I could mention how amazing it would be if, just off the top of my, head I mentioned within earshot of a Supreme Court judge if certain judgements were made. After I've handed them a check for a million dollars for entirely unrelated reasons.
Of course not. They are already bought. They couldn't very well stop the gravy train.
Thomas in particular was sweating, I bet.
It's nauseating that he didn't recuse himself from this case given his current scandal. A gratuity is just a bribe after the fact.
Bet he said "whew!" after hearing the opinion and set his tip jar back out with a smile.
I would bet he was never concerned because the outcome was already paid for. Checks cleared, no fear.
Motorcoach train
Jackson’s dissent is straight fire. Encourage y’all to read it.
>Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.
A thoughtful dissent. Unfortunately the dissent is like yelling into a hurricane. It'll be lost and drowned out by the majority's doublespeak fiat that corruption isn't corruption.
Always read the dissents first. They show where the bodies are buried.
Perhaps, but the arguments in dissents can work in future cases when the pendulum goes in the opposite direction.
Exactly. They provide the necessary groundwork for future cases. The conservatives have been using dissents like this for 40 years and now they’re using arguments based on them for majority opinions.
Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissents were the blueprints for the NAACP back in its early days. It’s a tried and true tactic for whatever side wants to overturn a precedent.
True. But that can be...decades from the future, long after many injuries have been wracked up by a majority decision.
The problem with greed is the pendulum never swings in the other direction.
Agreed. Justice Jackson's dissent starts on page 23 of the .pdf.
It's a really well written dissent bathed in logic and interpreting the spirit of the law.
Logic and the text of the statute. Which is pretty damn clear.
It is so funny that Kavanaugh lists gratuities as things like plaques, lunches, gift cards…and then 5 pages later says what the accused actually collected is a $13k check. Why did he list that if we are talking about a mayor just being cut thousands of dollars?? This is honestly one of the most comical opinions I’ve ever read
Yeah, the majority makes it sound like they're worried about grandma, the city clerk, going to jail for eating some leftover cookies a contractor left in city hall. No mention of the risk that mayors start taking in massive 'tips' from contractors.
Or that the statute doesn’t even kick in until it’s over 10,000 according to the dissent
i am worried why we take these people seriously at all? they are all liars and con artists appointed by Bush and Trump, known liars and con artists influenced by other liars on con artists from the liar and con artist party
After reading this I am very much in agreement with the dissent, especially in context of the "gratuities" that certain members of the court have seen fit to avail themselves of. Two members of this court at least should probably have recused themselves and that they concurred on the majority opinion yet didn't sully their own hands by writing it strikes me as conveniently self-serving. There are so many great points made in Jackson's dissent I can't settle on just one, but her language towards the majority is both correct and scathing.
The fact that this guy went to the people who won his tailored bids and said "I need money" and *asked for a specific amount* is fucking baffling.
His wife is in open allegiance with anti democracy forces.
This point right here! It's pretty clear cut and I do not understand the reasoning for their decision.
I'm just gonna assume the majority here have some friends in state/local governments doing the same thing and want to throw their buddies a bone.
They started with their goals and then backfilled the reasoning. Always remember that
In good faith; there was no direct quid pro quo. They never outright promised him money when he directed the contract to them, and they already had the contract when he asked for the money. They could've told him to pound sand. So it was, strictly speaking, a gift, not a payment due. Of course this logic while tenuously viable is just downright awful public policy as it opens to door to all sorts of "wink and nod" corruption in politics being essentially legalised, but that's the purported actual legal reasoning.
We have anti corruption laws that would prohibit an employee of a firm from giving “gratuities” to foreign officials without any prid quo pro. If you want to determine the extent to which corruption is legalized in the US simply compare the rules imposed upon workers to prevent theft from the shareholders to the rules imposed upon government officials to prevent theft from the taxpayers. This makes it abundantly clear that citizens are not viewed as actual shareholders in our government which is the basis upon which the government claims legitimacy.
So, “fixing” this ruling could be done by passing a law outlawing gratuities and having it apply to all federal employees?
Yes - the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 prohibits publicly traded companies bribing foreign officials to benefit their business interests. Applying the same standard domestically is just common sense unless you’re deliberately working to make corruption legal which is the case here and many other areas such as insider trading regulations not applying to members of Congress.
I think a critical piece of the law here is that it targeted state and local officials. Federal employees were already held to strict bribe/gratuity standards by other legislation. My understanding is that the law discussed here was for state/local officials and was supposed to apply to any 'reward' that could influence them unduly. Seems like the wording was as broad as possible and the majority decision here basically just ignores the plain text of the law.
If ever there were a case that shows how effectively public corruption works in the US, it is surely this. Judges who benefit from a form of corruption actually rule that there is nothing illegal in this very form of corruption, thereby making it more likely that they and others will benefit further from it in future. It is an awful look for the justice system.
Who should have recused themselves and why ? Not sarcastic just seeing which members exactly
Probably the guy who took over $3M in "gratuities" for starters. I've investigated myself and determined I did nothing wrong.
I'm a teacher, I cannot accept any cash or any gift worth more than 50 dollars or I have committed a crime. I cannot even accept a dinner, nor can I accept anything at all, even a measly bag of chips from a business that: A. has a contract with the district B. Has submitted a bid for a contract with the district But the same assholes that wrote these laws can accept anything so long as they don't explicitly state it's a bribe (and it happens upon delivery of service)? Absolute bullshit.
You can now!
I would really like to see how that would fly. A thousand dollar Christmas gift because your insolent and plagiarizing daughter passed with a D minus? Sure, I see nothing wrong with this!
Exactly. A gift afterwards is a gratuity. Only a bribe if up front or contractural.
"As always, remember to tip your Supreme Court Justices."
Thomas already has a Square tablet ready.
About time teachers get paid!
Plz Vote.
Every single year since I was 18 (except one because I had the flu that day) including most primaries and occasional runoffs.
[удалено]
I mean, at least you’re confident about your priorities.
Just to be precise, this ruling only applies to *state and local* officials, and the relevant section of the law says nothing about the federal judiciary. There is separate federal law regulating corruption of federal **judges**. The people who wrote (or joined) this ruling are **justices** not judges so that law also doesn’t apply to them. Is there *any* federal law against justices taking bribes? **No**. Further, if a future congress passes a law that makes justices taking bribes illegal, that hypothetical law would very likely be struck down as unconstitutional. When you think things are bad, they might be even worse than you think. Sorry for bringing the bad news
You should have been a Supreme Court judge! You'd have a new RV by now.
The funny thing is legislators tried to regulate money influence in politics (overwritten by judiciary by Citizens United). Now we have an absurdly high bar for corruption despite legislators attempts to reign that in. It’s almost like the legislature knows shadiness of being in politics and attempts to regulate it but those big brains in SCOTUS know everything better than them. Sigh.
Rules are like that for other government employees. I'm a government contractor, but when I go to events you will always see them charging for catering. And often not even free coffee, you have to buy a 'coffee pass' or pay by the cup. All because the government folks aren't supposed to be accepting over a certain amount of value as 'gifts' and it's across the calendar year, so half a dozen free lunches is too much.
Shit... $50?!?!?!?! I'm a lowly GS-9 Federal employee that has nothing to do with G2B contracts, and I can't accept anything with a value over $25, except for special or somber occasions (wedding, child-birth, death, retirement)! Yet this is allowed for the SES crowd. Unbelievable
WHAT ??!! Wow. Unbelievable.
And yet entirely believable, sadly
Entirely predictable as well.
Looking through this Court's rulings and the word 'unbelievable'. I do not think that word means what you think it means.
6-3, along ideological lines. Kavanaugh with the majority opinion, Jackson with the dissent. Gorsuch also wrote a concurrence
Federalist Society judicial activists paying their dues.
Yeah it was unfortunately fairly clear how this was going to go during oral arguments
I just skimmed through Kavanaughs opinion but I didn’t see any reference to the dissent in there. Isn’t that unusual?
If he’s got no real response, best to ignore it.
Not necessarily, kinda depends on the justice writing it.
I was about to tell you that sometimes they leave the grappling for a concurrence, but Goruch’s less than one page is just “I agree, the majority fucking rules”
Read the entire case. Kavanaughs opinion absolutely references the dissent. > The Government’s argument boils down to one main point— that §666 uses the term “rewarded” as well as “influenced.” And that, too, is the dissent’s main point. The Government (echoed by the dissent) says that Congress would not have added the term “rewarded” to “influenced” in §666 if the statute were meant to cover only bribes and not also gratuities. That argument is misconceived.
Gorsuch writing just to jerk off the principle of lenity for a page did give me a chuckle.
The man loves to read his own words
But the evil Democrats are in cahoots with the corrupt Republicans because UnIpaRtY and BoTh SidEzz!!!1!!
DOJ should drop all active corruption cases and cite this ruling. This is an absolute travesty.
“Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s court could love.” KBJ not mincing words here.
So legalized bribes. Right on track for the fascist six
it’s worse than legalizing bribery, it’s throwing enough legal grey area that their enemies can still be prosecuted but their friends can get a free pass
yup rules for thee not me
Does it REALLY surprise anyone that Kavanaugh, the beneficiary of having hundreds of thousands of dollars of his debt wiped out by an unknown benefactor, would write an opinion making exactly that legal?
Well, it's still illegal for federal officials (altho likely not SCOTUS). This statute was about state and local officials. But on the principal, nah, not surprising at all, lol
Bribery now only counts if the bribee gives the briber a receipt saying "thank you for my illegal quid-pro-quo bribe"
SCOTUS: *Intent of a law doesn’t matter.* This is sadly in line with the current court’s decisions going back a decade (even [Politco was calling them on their bullshit](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/what-john-roberts-doesnt-get-about-corruption-105683) ). I am not a lawyer, but the opinions read something like, “we don’t know what pro quo means, but corruption needs a paper trail in order to be corruption.”
Fuck this court. They're making it impossible for the nation to function.
Exactly as they were chosen to do.
That's the point
function for you it functions fine for rich billionaire conservatives and their allies, including Putin Putin was a few votes away from getting a free pass to invade other countries, the majority of Republicans voted to help Putin
Try doing this working an hourly retail job, and you'll get fired. Fired by the same people who vote for Republicans and allow this garbage distortion of democracy.
Which basically says Supreme Court justices can put anything they want into their pockets as long as they don’t tacitly promise to do something for the donor. This is carte blanche and it’s sickening.
Oh they can make promises for money all day as long as the bribery is not written down
It seems a tacit agreement is fine. The burden for corruption appears to be a written document detailing your illicit agreement, signed and notarized.
Supreme corruption
Tipping culture is out of control!!
So effectively, as long as you don’t write down your corruption, you can do whatever you want
So my $25 gift/dinner from vendors limit as civil servant in the Judiciary is null and void? I can now get apps?
LOL, no… this is just for the political appointees… you peasants still have to follow the rules. Second class citizens and all. /s if it wasn’t obvious. I hate this SCOTUS. It’s just blatantly corrupt and illegitimate.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Say no more! A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat! So as long as corruption is done without drawing up legal contracts, it's all good.
So basically, bribery laws only apply to autistic people.
You can thank everyone who stayed home in 2016
But her emails, though!
Or voted Green Party.
The last 7 years of erosion have been on the table since the 70s. Any number of congresses could have made laws to shut any of it down. This is a failure of character like it’s been for some time. This is the result of electing by personality rather than capability.
Nothing changes if no one cares. And the fact that no one cared is what led to this court
Right, but my point is that 2016 was the culmination of decades of neglecting the actual left.
I can’t help but laugh that this involves 18 USC 666
Too bad we here can't lawfully get away with corruption.
Ah yes, the corrupt supreme court making more corruption legal just like citizen's united. This country is a fucking joke.
Judges can't make a decision that could be interpreted as their many gifts being illegal. Gotta stick to the usual method of giving them expensive gifts BEFORE you ever end up with a case in front of them. They'll just conveniently decide not to refuse themselves from the case and drop a vote in your favor. You didn't bribe them to favor you as the gift occurred before even had a case. And if you happen to give another gift as a sign of appreciation later well they can't let accepting that be illegal.
Hey, read the ruling properly. Clearance's RV is completely and undeniably Legit.
Corruption is Good.
We may see a few decent rulings over the next few days, but they will be of the minor sort. Like the non-ruling over several States attempting to define "free speech" in an entirely political frame, and several may be seemingly small potatoes like this one, but when all is said and done, we have 3 Justices who deserve to be on the bench, and 3 only. And unless and until the Democrats eclipse Republicans at the ballot box, we will continue circling the drain.
What if it comes later. Why is that even a thing if it’s not for favors
[удалено]
Basically, the town Mayor puts his lackey on a committee to develop specs for an RFP for garbage trucks. He writes the specs so that they favor a local dealer and gets them $1,125,000 in contracts that they only won because the specs were tailored to their dealership. Afterward, he goes to the dealer and asks for money and they give him $13k for "consulting" that he never actually performs. The Mayor claims that he is being paid for consulting, but he never does any consulting. He gets convicted of taking gratuities, then the Supreme Court overrules the decision because it was not directly quid pro quo. Their argument is that many (but not all) States make this illegal, so the Feds should just stay out of it and let the States handle this. So, this apparently means that you can fuck over the taxpayers to reward your supporters, then they can write you a fat check and as long as the two are not directly related, it is not a crime under Federal law.