(04-12-2023 01:02 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  Where are you getting two decades? I thought her salaried time at the Heritage Foundation was shorter than that (not that it matters).

The article I read suggested that he'd been doing this for 20 years.

Quote:Do you think that CT does his own taxes?

No. He probably doesn't do his own 'disclosure' documents either.

Quote:Also... I'm not clear after all this if the disclosures were (meant to be) made on his federal tax returns or if there is some separate forms for the judiciary that have nothing to do with income taxes. Do you guys know?

I've only mentioned taxes because they are a similar place where the government would ask you to disclose something... and the form may not easily fit the reality.

Other than that, I don't know that taxes have anything to do with anything. Someone suggested I think that he may 'file seperately' and so whomever filled out his disclosure may have been relying on that in terms of what needed to be reported, but that is pure speculation. My fiance and I are uncertain ourselves about getting married for the same reasons. It wouldn't really change our relationship OR the 'burden' we might place on 'the system', but it could easily change our finances.

Quote:IDK. Unless it was simply an oversight it seems that he lied about his wife's income. It is such an obvious/straightforward question it would be hard to mess it up... basically "What was your spouse's income last year?"

One would assume that CT doesn't do his own taxes and I can't imagine a CPA would make such an crazy error without being told to do so. I doubt CT would have told his accountant to lie about the income which makes me think that maybe the disclosure form is separate from his federal tax filing?

Of course it is seperate... but why wouldn't he similarly have someone else fill out THIS form? I suspect his accountant would be the one to keep track of gifts etc... You don't seriously think he is going to personally look up the value of a gift from a friend so he can report it, do you?

Quote:It seems that one reason for us being at odds here is that I'm thinking of the swamp as simply "murky ethical situations that politicans seem to always find themselves pushing the envelope on" and the definition that you are using is different although just as valid.

I agree 100%, up until the 'just as valid'.... and this is my entire point...

We've had discussions about Systemic Racism... well, this is Systemic corruption. The system itself... where members of COngress are only subject to the laws that they write for themselves... and expertly crafted loopholes that make it SOUND like you're 'cleaning up the system' when what you're really doing is providing cover for those who can exploit it.

This most recent amendment (March 2023) is a perfect example. It does nothing to address the $20,000 bible or the lavish vacation. All it means is that Thomas (and anyone else in government) has to fly commercial to Indonesia. That's like $2,000 out of perhaps a $50,000 'gift'. If you want to avoid this sort of thing then you do what most companies do... then the answer is to require disclosure of ALL gifts, perhaps beyond 'family'.

Why do you think that didn't happen in the aftermath of Watergate, or in March 2023? It seems to me that this change was made ALL BUT SPECIFICALLY to cast shade upon Thomas... but that is as far as Congress would let them take it.

Quote:

Quote:As to the other... Is that what happened?? Or is that just the story you hear/the one 'they' want you to repeat until it becomes the truth??

That's what the NYT made it sound like.

So the latter. Precisely my point. Thank you

Quote:[quote]
I don't think it's a good look for Supreme Court justices to be involved with any of this, TBH. Do you really not have ANY concerns about this type of behavior?

Of course it does... but Thomas is just the 'target of the month'. I don't blame a football player for making a hard, legal hit on someone that injures them. I don't blame a wealthy person for taking every deduction the law allows, regardless of how it might look to anyone else. If you want to eliminate hits like that or those deductions, change the rules. Why won't they change the rules?? Because the ones who would do that would be subject to those changes as well, and they don't want it to apply to them. That's one possibility. The OTHER possibility is that they benefit from the rules they wrote themselves, AND they can get more power out of the accusation than they ever would out of prosecuting offenders.

Just for the record, that's ALL members of Congress. It's the SWAMP. It just so happens that right now the swamp leans HARD left (in large part because of so much of the media acting as an arm of the left). GOP members don't want to fix it either... because they use it to gain power as well.

Quote:I'm dismissing her calls for impeachment because they are ridiculous. I didn't feel the need to address the impeachment stuff beyond stating (in what I thought was obvious) that she is a partisan whackjob. For you to deduce that I must therefore support the calls for impeachment was ridiculous.

And attacking him? I said that this sort of relationship is ethically problematic. I didn't call for his ouster. I didn't call of universal condemnation. I said that, to me... this is not a great look. Attack? Hardly.

Well, you're just not going to understand what I'm saying.

Thomas' 'look' could be ignored because you admit there is no 'there' there (at least not yet). You chose not to. You chose to call it out. As aggressively as she? Absolutely not... but she's a rankiung member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform whose mission statement is as follows:

Our mission statement is to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies. We provide a check and balance on the role and power of Washington - and a voice to the people it serves.

She would be a KEY PLAYER in changing these laws if that is what she wanted to do.... and is not some random house member.

Quote:I don't remember you pushing back when GoodOwl says that Lad and I hate black people and revel in the murder of black babies. He's said that multiple times here. During abortion conversations in which you have been an active participant. By choosing to ignore his statement you support his statement. You may have not INTENDED to support it... but that is the impact nonetheless.

Is this cool?

GoodOwl isn't a ranking member of the Committee on Race Relations.... and I don't see any of the other factors present in your 'what it'.

Ignoring an inconsequential statement that has no weight is not the issue. If you ignored OO's comment on here it would mean nothing. It's the ignoring of what seems to be a clear attempt to intimidate a sitting justice by someone in a position to put the power of government behind it for ethical questions... while you're agreeing that 'opinions' aside, no laws seem to have been broken that would justify the call from a ranking member of Congress.

I really don't care that much about your apparent sensitivity over meaningless differences... and the truth is that you don't either. In this situation, I find your treatment of AOC relative to what she did... vs your treatment of Thomas relative to what he did to be telling. In the context of a 4 page diatribe about what standards you think a justice should be held to, apparently you don't care if a congresswoman ignores her oath of office and the purpose of her committee assignment in favor of partisan politics on the same issue. The nation be damned... all hail Justice Democrats.