There have been four – count ‘em, FOUR – Republican Supreme Court Justices implicated in various scandals over the past few weeks.
- Clarence Thomas has been accepting lavish and undisclosed vacations from a GOP megadonor who collects Hitler memorabilia, and who also purchased Thomas’ boyhood home for his collection, while letting Thomas’ mom stay there for free.
- Neil Gorsuch kept it a secret that the buyer of a 40-acre property he co-owned was the CEO of a law firm with business before the Court.
- John Roberts hid the fact that his wife made well over $10 million for their family in a head-hunting business that she built to take advantage of the connections available to her as the wife of the Chief Justice of the United States.
- Brett Kavanaugh’s cover story for a sexual assault that he almost certainly committed while at Yale fell apart a little more, as it was revealed that the person who Republicans falsely accused of that incident was not even in college at the time. This is a fact that Donald Trump’s FBI didn’t even bother to find out prior to Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation vote.
These are four of the most powerful people in America, and they sit at the head of a broader American judicial system that is highly corrupt, and not currently worthy of the respect it once commanded.
Judicial reform is desperately needed, but not actually an option given the Republican stranglehold over checks and balances in this country. The only tool available to the rest of us is scorn.