The Blue Country Gazette is the successor to the Rim Country Gazette, reflecting our evolution to a nationwide political blog for readers who identify as "blue," liberals, progressives, and/or Democrats. Our mission is to provide distinctive coverage of issues during a time of extreme polarization in the U.S. We strive to provide side-stories and back-stories that provide additional insights and perspectives conventional coverage often doesn't include.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: 'The ethics
reporting law that is at the heart of the Clarence Thomas ethics
reporting scandal is a law passed by Congress.' (photo: Shutterstock)
Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse insists legislature has power to make justices follow ethics code but ‘It is not going to be easy’
Martin Pengelly/Guardian UK
30 May 2023
Congress “absolutely” can force ethics reform on
the US supreme court, a senior Democratic senator said, countering
arguments made by Harlan Crow, the Republican mega-donor whose gifts to
the conservative justice Clarence Thomas are the source of scandal, and by John Roberts, the chief justice himself.
“It is not going to be easy,” Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told
NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday. “The
work that we’re doing on ethics in the court ought to be easy. And yet
it’s not. It’s partisan also.
“So I think that the first step is going to be for the judicial
conference, the other judges, to put some constraints around the supreme
court’s behavior and treat the supreme court the way all other federal
judges are treated.”
Supreme court justices are nominally subject to federal ethics laws but in practice govern themselves.
Thomas has said he did not declare gifts from Crow including luxury travel and resort stays, a property purchase involving his mother and school fees for a great-nephew because he was informally advised he did not have to. He has said he will do so in future.
Observers
have said Thomas clearly broke ethics laws. Democrats have called for
Thomas to resign or be impeached, the former unlikely, the latter a
political non-starter.
Crow denies wrongdoing and claims never to have discussed with Thomas politics or business before the court. The Guardian has shown Crow to have had business before the court during his friendship with Thomas.
Crow has also donated to groups linked to Ginni Thomas, the justice’s far-right activist wife who supported Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Whitehouse’s NBC host, Chuck Todd, said: “It’s pretty established
Congress can’t [impose ethics law on the supreme court], right?”
The senator said: “No, it absolutely can.”
Todd said: “Well, it doesn’t mean it’s constitutional.”
Whitehouse said: “Yes, it does. It means it’s constitutional because
the laws that we’re talking about right now are actually laws passed by
Congress. The ethics reporting law that is at the heart of the Clarence
Thomas ethics reporting scandal is a law passed by Congress.”
Todd repeated the argument about separation of powers, between the
legislature (Congress), executive (presidency) and judiciary, which lawyers for Crow and Roberts himself have cited in refusing to cooperate with information requests from the Democratic-run Senate judiciary and finance committees.
Whitehouse, a member of both panels, countered: “Certainly we can do
the administrative side of judicial … I’ll be the first one to concede,
if there’s a case in the judicial branch of government, we in the
Congress have nothing to say about it.
“But in terms of administering how the internal ethics of the
judicial branch are done – heck, the judicial conference which does that
is a creation of Congress.”
The senator also called the Roberts court a “fact-free zone as well as an ethics-free zone”.
Referring to suggestions justices should pledge to observe ethics
laws during the confirmation process, Whitehouse said: “We saw how the
pledges on Roe v Wade went in the confirmation process.”
Roe, the 1973 ruling which guaranteed the right to abortion, was last
year struck down by a 5-4 majority, all three justices appointed by
Donald Trump (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett)
voting in the majority.
In the words of Factcheck.org:
“A close examination of the carefully worded answers by the three Trump
appointees … shows that while each acknowledged at their hearings that
Roe was precedent, and should be afforded the weight that that carries,
none specifically committed to refusing to consider overturning it.”
Whitehouse continued: “You get on to the court, and there you are,
and there’s no process for determining what the facts are. That’s part
of the problem here.
“When Justice Thomas failed to recuse himself from the January 6
investigation that turned up his wife’s communications [with Trump
officials], he made the case that that was OK because he had no idea
that she was involved in insurrection activities.
“That is a question of fact. That’s something that could have, and
should have, been determined by a neutral examination. And so the
problem with the supreme court is that they’re in a fact-free zone as
well as an ethics-free zone.”
Whitehouse has campaigned
against so-called “dark money” in US politics. Asked if he trusted the
federal court system to be fair and impartial, he said: “Usually, I
think the trial courts are very strong.
“I think … we’ve seen honest courtrooms make amazing differences with Dominion v Fox, with the parents at Sandy Hook against the creep who was pretending that their children’s murder wasn’t real, and now with the judgment against Donald Trump.
“So honest courtrooms are really important to cut through to the
truth. When you get to the supreme court, if it’s an interest in which
the big rightwing billionaires are concerned, [it’s] very hard to count
on getting a fair shot.”
Asked if he was saying donors like Crow dictated how justices voted, Whitehouse said: “That would be what the evidence suggests.
“I think the statistics are pretty stunning at how often the judges
who came out of the Federalist Society” – a conservative group which works to shape federal nominations – “do what they’re told by the amicus groups that come in on behalf of the right wing.”
The Supreme Court's First Corruption Couple, and wouldn't you just know they're Republicans.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas want to stay on the Harlan Crow and Leonard
Leo gravy trains (among others), and Crow’s lawyers are essentially
claiming Thomas has every right to continue to act like a corrupt
third-world autocrat who’s accountable to nobody, not even the voters
and citizens of the United States or — more importantly — the very
Congress that created the Supreme Court in the first place.
Senator Dick Durbin is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, which has both oversight of and writes laws relating to the
federal court systems of the United States. Using powers given him by
the Constitution, Durbin has asked Crow to account for the “gifts” he
has showered on Thomas and his family over the past quarter-century.
In defying Durbin’s request, Crow (speaking through his lawyers) has
asserted that Congress doesn’t have the power to regulate or sustain
oversight of the Court or its justices — or people or companies that
appear to be bribing or otherwise attempting to influence those
justices.
He’s wrong.
It was Congress, in fact, which created the Supreme Court in the first place.
Article III of the Constitution defines the federal judiciary.
(Article I defines and empowers Congress, the first among equals;
Article II defines and empowers the presidency and executive branch, the
second among equals.)
“The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one
supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time
to time ordain and establish.”
On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth of the 13
states to ratify the Constitution, bringing the United States of America
as we know it today into existence. (The Constitution was finally
ratified by all the states on May 29, 1790, when Rhode Island was the
last to approve the document.)
Congress technically came into being on that day in 1788, although
nobody had yet been elected; the Continental Congress thus set elections
for the first Congress and the first President during the roughly
4-week period from Monday, December 15, 1788, to Saturday, January 10,
1789, with the new government officially beginning with the swearing in
of the President on March 4, 1789.
Once the new Congress and President Washington were sworn in and
established in power, Congress then had to create the Court system of
the United States, per the opening sentence of Article III of the
Constitution quoted above.
They did this by passing the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was debated
through the early fall of that year and passed on September 24, 1789.
Congress, thus, literally created the Supreme Court (and the
appeals and district court systems) out of thin air that day with the
power the Constitution gave them, and then set rules for the Court’s
operation, as the Constitution stipulates.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the supreme court
of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate
justices, any four of whom shall be a quorum, and shall hold annually
at the seat of government two sessions, the one commencing the first
Monday of February, and the other the first Monday of August.
“That the associate justices shall have precedence according to the date of their commissions, or when the commissions of two or more of them bear date on the same day, according to their respective ages.”
The Constitution further gives Congress oversight and control
of the Supreme Court and its functions, as Alexander Hamilton described
at length in Federalist 78, which I’ve quoted here at length. And here and here.
Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution lays out the power
and obligation of Congress to regulate the Supreme Court (including
funding it, determining where and under what circumstances it meets,
defining justices’ pay, stipulating the number of justices, etc.) and to
limit what issues the Supreme Court may rule on.
“[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to
Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the
Congress shall make.”
So, now comes billionaire Harlan Crow, who appears to have spent the
past quarter-century purchasing the loyalty and votes of Clarence Thomas
with lavish vacations, Frederick Douglass’ bible, buying and renovating
Thomas’ mother’s home and letting her live there rent-free, sending the
child Clarence and Ginny were raising as their own to a high-end
boarding school, etc.
When Durbin reached out to Crow, attempting to determine the
extent of this apparent influence-buying scheme, Crow’s lawyers
essentially told him to go screw himself.
Completely ignoring both the obligation of Congress to
“regulate” the Court and the checks-and-balances which that oversight
and regulation requires, Crow’s lawyers’ letter to Durbin says:
“After careful consideration, we do not believe the Committee has the
authority to investigate Mr. Crow's personal friendship with Justice
Clarence Thomas. Most importantly, Congress does not have the
constitutional power to impose ethics rules and standards on the Supreme
Court. Doing so would exceed Congress's Article I authority and violate
basic separation of powers principles. That precludes the Committee
from pursuing an investigation in support of such legislation.”
They go on to cite the Supreme Court’s 1803 Marbury v Madison
decision, in which the Court gave itself the power to essentially
regulate Congress and the White House (by overturning laws passed by
Congress and signed by the President), a power which is found nowhere in
the Constitution:
“The Committee’s Letter to Mr. Crow states that the Committees
request is part of its ‘ongoing effort to craft legislation
strengthening the ethical rules and standards that apply to the Justices
of the Supreme Court.’ But Congress lacks the authority to enact such
Legislation. As you know, Congress may act only pursuant to its
enumerated powers. See Marbury v. Madison. 5 U.S.
137. 176 (1803). … None of those enumerated powers includes the
authority to regulate the internal affairs and operations of the Supreme
Court, a coequal branch of government.”
Setting aside the obvious fact that Harlan Crow isn’t a member
of the Supreme Court and therefore — even if his lawyers’ assertions
were accurate — can’t claim separation-of-powers immunity from
congressional inquiries, this brings us full circle to the Marbury decision they’re citing.
Thomas Jefferson was president in 1803 when that case was
decided, and he flipped out when the Court ruled it could run roughshod
over Congress and the President.
The author of the Declaration of Independence and instigator
of the Bill of Rights bluntly expressed his concern to his old friend
Judge Spencer Roane, the son-in-law of Patrick Henry and a justice of
the Virginia Supreme Court:
“If this opinion be sound,” Jefferson wrote, “then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se
[a suicide pact]. For intending to establish three departments,
coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one
another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone,
the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to
that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of the nation….
President Jefferson continued in full fury:
“The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the
hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form
they please. …
“My construction of the Constitution is very different from that you
quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others,
and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the
Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where
it is to act ultimately and without appeal….
“A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone is a good
thing; but independent of the will of the nation is a solecism [a
blunder], at least in a republican government.”
The blowback from Jefferson and the newspapers of that time
against the Supreme Court claiming they had the power and right to
strike down or rewrite laws was so severe that they didn’t meaningfully
touch that third-rail of constitutional interpretation again until 1856,
long after everybody on the Marshall Court was dead.
That was the fateful year when Chief Justice Roger Taney
thought he’d “solve the slavery problem in America once and for all”
with his Dred Scott decision, striking down and modifying numerous US laws by ruling that Black people were “property” across the entire United States, slave state or free state.
President Abraham Lincoln refused to enforce the decision, saying, essentially,
“That was terrible for poor Mister Scott and he’s going to have to go
back to slavery, but I’m not going to apply this to any other people in
America” (my words, not his). Many historians argue that this overreach
by the Court in Dred Scott, based in their claimed interpretation of the Constitution and the Marbury decision, led us straight to the Civil War.
Thus, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that the Court started
tearing down or rewriting laws in really great numbers; today it’s
almost all that they do. And now they’re telling Congress — through
Harlan Crow’s lawyers and Chief Justice Roberts’ refusal a few weeks ago
to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee — to take a long walk
off a short pier.
“We can regulate you,” the Supreme Court is essentially saying, “by declaring your laws unconstitutional and striking them down, but you may not even think about regulating us.”
That doesn’t even remotely resemble “co-equal branches” or
“checks and balances,” much less the explicit requirement of the
Constitution for Congress to “regulate” the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has been acting like they were the unelected kings and queens of America on and off for two centuries.
Every time they walk up to the edge and are then slapped down by a sitting president — like with Marbury in 1803, Worcester v Georgia(the “Trail of Tears” case) in 1832, Dred Scott
in 1856, or when President Roosevelt backed them down in 1937 just as
they were about to declare Social Security and most of the New Deal
unconstitutional — they’ve backed down at the last minute.
This time, though, it appears that the Roberts Court is
prepared to go to the mat, asserting their power over and above both
Congress and the President, be it in refusing congressional oversight;
their secretive, unsigned, and unexplained “shadow docket” rulings; or
in their flagrant violations of explicit ethics laws Congress has
previously passed that include the Supreme Court in their purview.
Thomas wants to continue the free goodies gravy train; Gorsuch wants
to cut land deals on the side; Alito wants to take lavish and well-paid
“speaking” trips to Europe; Kavanaugh wants to keep his sources of money
secret; Roberts wants his wife to continue to take millions from law
firms with business before the Court; and Barrett wants to continue to
refuse to recuse herself (as she did when on lower courts) in cases
involving her father’s oil company employer.
This Court is out of control, and if Durbin, Schumer, and
Biden don’t get together and do something about it now, there may not be
another chance.
As I noted here on April 25th, it’s time for Congress and the President to follow the Constitution — rather than the bizarre Marbury decision — and regulate the Supreme Court and its obstreperous, defiant rightwing justices.
If they fail, America could end up being almost completely ruled by
six unelected rightwing cranks answerable to nobody except the
billionaires who shower gifts on them.
A Miami-Dade County, Florida, K-8 school has banned three books
and one poem from its elementary school. Here is the Miami Herald’s
report:
“In March, Daily Salinas, a parent of two students at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, challenged The ABCs of Black History, Cuban Kids, Countries in the News Cuba, the poem The Hills We Climb, which was recited by poet Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of President Joe Biden, and Love to Langston for
what she said included references of critical race theory, “indirect
hate messages,” gender ideology and indoctrination, according to records
obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project and shared with the
Miami Herald.
The paper goes on to say:
"In an interview with the Herald on Monday, Salinas said she
“is not for eliminating or censoring any books.” Instead, she wants
materials to be appropriate and for students “to know the truth” about
Cuba, she said in Spanish.
Words fail. Salinas is a champion of doublethink. How does she
rationalize her belief in intellectual freedom with her need for the
school to get rid of books she does not like? Further, if her passion is
that schools teach Cuban history according to her opinion, what the
hell do The ABCs of Black History and Amanda Gorman’s Biden Inaugural poem The Hills We Climb have to do with it?
Despite Salinas being the only parent to complain, the school
obliged her by banning four of her five suggestions. A school review
committee determined one book, Countries in the News Cuba, was “balanced and age-appropriate in its wording and presentation” and therefore spared it the ax.
The ABCs of Black History, which the review board did admit was appropriate for ages five and up, was not. It was joined in banishment by Cuban Kids, Love to Langston, and The Hills We Climb.
I do not know Salinas. So I will give her the benefit of the
doubt and assume she is well-intentioned. So let us ask, how does one
person’s opinion set policy for a school? Thank Ron DeSantis and his
autarchic cabal of censorious censors.
The school authorities should probably get some blame. They did
not offer any reason for their purge. But it has to be tough being a
teacher/school administrator in a state where the authorities are
Nazi-like in expressing racial purity in their book-burning passion.
I do not know any of the books. But Gorman’s poem was heard by the 33.8 million Americans who watched Biden's inauguration. Here is the text
in full. Because the school failed to cite any offensive passages, and
the school district said it had no clue about anything, I have to guess
what the offending words were. Maybe this passage:
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black
girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of
becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
Too uppity?
Maybe this one:
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a
country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and
free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the
next generation, become the future.
Is Gorman’s reference to the fact that the past was not golden,
too much for sensitive conservative souls? Was her promise that she
will not be interrupted by intimidation, too evocative of BLM?
The next passage sounds like Make America Great Again — except
that reconciliation sounds like diverse people coming together — and
diversity is an expletive to some.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
Then Gorman lets the cat out of the bag and actually says ‘diverse.’ And that is a no-no.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our
country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and
beautiful.
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
I do not usually swear (much), But when I read this story, my
first thought was, “Florida is even more fucking insane than
advertised." Sadly, I suspect that is how fascism has often been greeted
in its early days.
Amanda Gorman reading her poem 'The Hills We Climb' at President Biden's Inauguration.
Telling kids to stick their heads in a pot of honey in case a
rampaging murderer with an AR-15 shows up at their school is sadly not
the worst idea conservatives have ever had. That said, the competition
is pretty fierce. These are the same folks who popularized the Laffer curve, decided it would be a barrel of laughs to play the blackout challenge with the world economy, and think an unrepentant insurrectionist who’s roughly 93% evil and 7% Funyuns belongs back in the Oval Office.
Instead of, I dunno, passing gun laws that might make it marginally
more difficult to storm into an elementary school and go full Putin on
their arses, Texas is now handing out Winnie-the-Pooh books that show
kids what to do in the event of an active-shooting situation. Which
should be perfectly acceptable to most Republican parents so long as
Eeyore doesn’t suddenly come out as gay while sobbing in the cloakroom.
Because, you know, it goes without saying that Republicans prefer a
clinically depressed Eeyore to one who’s allowed to live his truth.
Texas schoolchildren as young as four years old are being given
Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon books, teaching them to “run, hide, fight” if a
gunman enters their building.
Parents and teachers in the Dallas area have expressed alarm and
concern that the Stay Safe book, produced by a law enforcement
consulting firm in Houston, has been sent home in the backpacks of
children in pre-kindergarten and elementary classes.
The book features the honey-loving bear created by AA Milne and
illustrator EH Shepard instructing kids about how to react to a mass
shooting. It is not an official production, Winnie-the-Pooh has beenin the public domainsince1 January 2022.
Oh, that’s right! Did you know anyone can release a Pooh book now? He’s in the public domain! That’s how this gem got green-lit:
Yup, that’s a serial killer Pooh out for revenge against his
childhood pal Christopher Robin, who abandoned him in the wilderness
after reaching puberty and discovering that porn is cheaper and more
widely available than Top Ramen now. And if you think that’s bad,
imagine what atrocities Puff the Magic Dragon is capable of. Jackie
Paper better watch his back.
Anyway, the point is: Just because you can write your own
Winnie-the-Pooh adventures now, that doesn’t mean you should. (And, yes,
Tigger turned out to be a horrible anti-drug spokesman, especially
after it came out that he smokes more meth than the meth-smoking half of
Kansas. Back to the drawing board.)
The book’s subtitle is, “If there is a danger, let Winnie-the-Pooh
and his Crew show you what to do: Run Hide Fight.” Uh huh. And yet Texas teenagers can’t read Toni Morrison because her books might disturb and confuse them.
One of the book’s pages includes this life-affirming and
not-at-all-disturbing sentence: “If it is safe to get away, we should
RUN like Rabbit instead of stay … If danger is near, do not fear, HIDE
like Pooh does until the police appear.” And the “hide” page includes a
picture of Pooh sticking his head in a pot of honey. Which makes one
wonder if the SWAT team that responded to last year’s Uvalde, Texas, school shooting (good guys with lots of guns!) read this book, too.
Following the section on sticking your head inside a dark, sticky orifice instead of facing reality (wow, the Texas Legislature also read it!), distinguished Hundred Acre Wood denizens Kanga and Roo, who should have stayed the fuck in Australia,
are shown wearing boxing gloves underneath the caption, “If danger
finds us, don’t stay, run away. If we can’t get away, we have to FIGHT
with all our might.”
According to The Guardian, the book was distributed to kids in
Dallas-area schools on Monday “without discussion or comment either with
teachers or the families who received it.”
One Dallas grade school teacher who preferred to remain anonymous
told the newspaper, “I found it extremely disturbing, and was very
uncomfortable with the whole contents of the book.”
The teacher also noted the irony of handing out a book like this
while Texas seizes on every available opportunity to relax its gun
laws. “The fact that people think it’s a better idea to put out this
book to a child rather than actually take any actions to stop shootings
from happening in our schools, that really bothers me. It makes me feel
so angry, so disappointed,” the teacher said. “It’s a year since Uvalde,
and nothing has been done other than this book. That is putting it on
the kids.”
“Winnie the Pooh is now teaching Texas kids about active
shooters because the elected officials do not have the courage to keep
our kids safe and pass common sense gun safety laws”.
Well, at least Pooh isn’t woke! Maybe the next Pooh adventure will
show him hiding from the gay mafia. They’re everywhere these days, you
know.
House
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) joins fellow House Democrats,
some who are military veterans, for a news conference to highlight the
potential negative affects a federal default could have on veterans.
The nation could be thrown into default on June 1 if Congress
doesn’t act to raise the debt ceiling, or if President Joe Biden fails
to act unilaterally. Despite the tight deadline, despite there being no
indication that anyone has put pen to paper to write the legislation
that gets us out of this mess, and despite the fact that the most
vulnerable people are panicking about how they’ll survive the
coming month, Speaker Kevin McCarthy let Republicans leave Washington
on Thursday. They’re off officially until June 5 for Memorial Day,
which the rest of the nation will celebrate in just one day, on May 29.
They were told to be ready to come back on a day’s notice, so there’s
that.
Dozens of Democrats stuck around after their colleagues split—88 of them in fact,
possibly a House record. They used the “one-minute” portion of the
House floor time to remind their colleagues of their obligation to the
American people—including the veterans they are supposedly honoring with
this long recess—and to the Constitution.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries got a standing ovation
for his remarks, saying, “We never threatened to default on our debt.”
They worked with the Trump administration to avoid default three times,
he said, “notwithstanding the fact that in our country’s 247-year
history, 25% of the nation’s debt was racked up under the four years of
the Trump administration.”
“But yet here we are a few days from America being unable to
pay our bills because you made a political calculation that you will be
successful in 2024 if you crash the economy,” Jeffries continued.
“That’s wrong. That’s cruel. That’s un-American.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi focused on what Republicans are doing to veterans
on this holiday. “This weekend this nation will solemnly observe
Memorial Day to honor our fallen heroes and their families,” Pelosi
said. “Instead of this honoring of our veterans, shamefully the
Republicans across the aisle will spend the weekend working to impose
suffering on our valiant veterans.” She said that “Republicans have
forced Americans down a treacherous path” of either accepting their
“extreme proposal, which would eliminate 30 million health visits for
our veterans and slash revenues at the Veterans Administration,” or
“trigger a catastrophic default, which would force our nation to stiff
veterans on the benefits they have earned.”
The leading constitutional scholar in Congress, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, reminded Republicans
that the Constitution says “the validity of the public debt shall not
be questioned. We have made a commitment to every Social Security
recipient in America, to the Medicare and Medicaid recipients, to the
veteran, to the bondholders of the United States, that we would pay
their debts as we are fiscally, morally, politically, and
constitutionally required to do.” But Donald Trump “issued the order” to
default and that’s what the Republicans are doing. “I want to introduce
the MAGA Republicans who have split today but who increased the debt
ceiling three times under Donald Trump, who gave us a quarter of all the
debt of the United States between George Washington and Joe Biden.”
Raskin continued, “I want to introduce them to the Constitution of the
United States, the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, showed up to share some facts before
being silenced by the Republican presiding over the chamber, who
literally turned off Beatty’s mic as she was finishing her remarks.
“Madam Speaker, fact. Republicans went home,” Beatty said. “Fact, their
side of the chamber is empty. Fact, they do not want to negotiate and
they are holding our economy hostage to a ransom note of partisan
demands. Fact, they are taking Medicaid away from millions, firing
teachers, removing children from child care, and ripping food assistance
away from our families.”
Illinois Rep. Sean Casten was short and to the point:
McCarthy is a hypocrite. “I come to praise the July 2019 version of
Speaker McCarthy,” he said. “Where are those brave, principled souls
now? The answer, Madam Speaker, as you know, not here.”
New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Republicans
who “decided to skip town” after “running up a bill” that they are now
refusing to pay. “And not only that, but they are accusing Democrats,
saying we spend too much. For anyone that wants to entertain that
thought, I ask you to think about the last time a person has said in
this country that the government does too much for them. That their
Social Security check was too high. That teachers are paid too much.”
That’s a lot of stuff for Republicans to think about while they
go to their Memorial Day parades and picnics, and was eloquently about
the men and women who have sacrificed everything for this country. Not
that they actually will think about it, but it’s not from a lack of trying on the Democrats’ behalf.
AOC blasts Republicans who “decided to skip town” after “running up a bill” that they are now
refusing to pay.
Discarded used clothing in Chile. Up to 500,000
tonnes of synthetic fibers from textiles are released into the world's
oceans every year. (photo: Martin Bernetti/AFP)
Michael J. Coren/The Washington Post
23 May 23
For one month, I set out to buy everything I needed used and online. A wooden train set for my son? EBay. Salad tongs? Mercari. Fishing rod? Goodwill. Running shoes? Amazon Warehouse. Replacing a torn wet-suit glove? I’m still looking for that one.
Across the internet, I discovered a bustling secondary market ready
to fulfill nearly all my shopping needs with something someone else had
once owned. These were not tattered castoffs or bargain-bin specials.
The online “recommerce” ecosystem was full of premium, quality goods at a
price and, at times, convenience, rivaling Amazon’s shopping cart.
A growing number of shoppers like me are discovering the
possibilities, and savings, of buying old stuff. In the past year,
roughly half of Americans have bought used clothing, according to GlobalData, a market research firm, a figure expected to rise. Big brands from H&M to Patagonia are collecting and reselling their used and returned goods.
This massive shift, powered by changing attitudes and advances in
computer vision and artificial intelligence, is redirecting billions of
dollars worth of used goods back into the marketplace. In the process,
“used” has shed much of its stigma.
We’re headed for a world where buying used may become nearly as easy
as buying new for many goods, and maybe even preferred. If we do it
right, we can slash the monumental environmental impact of all the stuff we buy.
Grab a cart.
The rise of stuff
Americans have never bought so many new things. U.S. retailers churn out a record $5 trillion
in new goods each year, according to the National Retail Federation. At
the same time, the surge in e-commerce is flooding the market with
unsold inventory, returns and secondhand items. Whereas only about 8
percent of goods bought in a store are returned, more than 20 percent of items bought online are sent back. For clothing, that number can soar as high as 40 percent.
That has left a mountain of stuff that needs to go somewhere. Until
recently, that mostly meant donation bins, landfills and thrift stores.
But changing attitudes mean more people, especially members of Gen Z,
are embracing used items, and technology is radically reducing the
processing costs.
Craigslist and eBay were once the biggest games in town. Today,
dozens of companies are competing to resell goods online targeting
products including clothing, furniture and electronics. Shoppers
attracted to lower prices, unique finds and sustainability have been
happy to splurge.
In 2021, they spent about $178 billion
on returned and reused items, according to recommerce firm thredUP and
GlobalData. Apparel has seen resale growth double in the past five years
as big brands embrace the trend.
“This is the natural reaction to the crazy growth in e-commerce,”
says Zac Rogers, a supply chain researcher at Colorado State University,
noting that living an “all-recommerce life” has gotten easier.
How it works
A complex supply chain called reverse logistics powered by computer
vision and AI has emerged to handle the tsunami of used goods.
Take Goodwill. Before now, it sorted through billions of pounds
of used goods by hand, deciding what to sell, toss or ship overseas.
Only about half of the load deemed “suitable for retail” made it onto
shelves, according to the company. Less than 1 percent of Goodwill
donations were listed online via eBay or its own sites.
Machines are now doing more of the work. Several Goodwill sites use technology from the start-up Hammoq
to deploy cameras and AI that automate the sorting and listing of
secondhand goods. In places like West Palm Beach and Miami, workers feed
clothing into machines that photograph it, set the price and post it
online. Hammoq says it can process a piece of clothing every seven
seconds.
If scaled up, that’s potentially transformative. Using technology
like this, Goodwill has launched a new site, Goodwill Finds, to process
and sell thousands of items from across the country, emulating the
experience of shopping at Amazon. The site has sold nearly 200,000 items
since launching in October, and it plans to reach nearly 1 million by
the end of this year. “I’d say in most categories, 99 percent of what’s
available out there new, you can find something comparable used now,”
said Matt Kaness, a former e-commerce executive at Walmart now running
Goodwill Finds.
Hammoq CEO and co-founder Sid Lunawat foresees the technology making
Goodwill and other resellers efficient enough to profitably sell items
for as little as $1. Eventually, a version of it may make its way into
your phone. An app will photograph an object, recognize it, price it,
post it online and dispatch someone to pick it up once it has sold.
“If you could just take a photo of a product, and it would sell
itself, that’s what we want to do,” says Lunawat, even if he admits that
big advances in processing and shipping costs must happen to make that a
reality.
How you buy used now
For my used-goods shopping spree, I started where most internet users do: Google. By using the “used items” tab on Google Shopping,
you can search multiple sites simultaneously. Google scans many of the
largest retailer sites including eBay, Etsy, Mercari, Poshmark and
Amazon, as well as physical chains like Play It Again Sports. It won’t
find every option online, but it’s the easiest way to start.
Here’s what you need to know as you navigate the online marketplace for used goods:
Many used items are virtually new
Alongside thousands of individuals hawking used items, brands from
Adidas to Nike are using the sites as a storefront to resell returned
items. These may only have been tried on, and still have their tags.
That’s especially true on massive sites like eBay, Mercari and Etsy.
These primarily peer-to-peer marketplaces offer the widest selection.
EBay alone has more than 1 billion listings — with deep inventories of
even the most obscure items.
Try these places if you want more vetting.
Big centralized marketplaces such as Goodwill, Amazon Warehouse and Amazon Renewed
are clearinghouses for used, returned and refurbished items. Amazon, in
particular, has set up branded “pre-owned” stores. The selection is not
as vast, but the consistency and quality is often higher since items
are vetted and managed by retailers.
Search in your category, especially clothes
New companies are specializing in furniture, electronics, baby gear
and, above all, clothing. If you’re looking for something a cut above
the rest, these might be your best bet. Resellers like Poshmark, Depop (now owned by Etsy) and thredUP curate vast virtual inventories at every price point, including storefronts by the brands themselves. Platforms like thredUP host more than 100 resale shops managed by brands from mall-rat favorite Hot Topic to H&M, while other retailers are opening their own resale outlets like REI and Patagonia Worn Wear.
Buy from your neighbors.
Garage sales have gone online thanks to companies like OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and Nextdoor. Buy Nothing
groups let you give, and receive, free of charge. Because there’s no
shipping and less competition, these are often the best deals, even if
you have to wait awhile. One trick: Search for what you want, bookmark
it in your browser and check back — I usually find what I want within a
few days, often at a deep discount.
Again, lines are blurring. As shipping options, new items and
financing have crept onto the platforms, they’re becoming more like
their national counterparts.
Is the used online market ready for prime time?
So where did the online resale experience fall short for me? Quality
varied. My preferred styles weren’t always available. Returns and
shipping weren’t as seamless as Amazon. For low-cost items, it was
sometimes cheaper to buy new than pay to ship even discounted used
items.
But overall, I found buying new offered fewer advantages over buying used in many categories.
As a result of my one-month experiment, my shopping habits have
started to change. Instead of buying new as the default, I’m searching
first for used. If I do buy new, I often buy a higher-quality item since
I know I’ll either keep it for as long as possible or sell it when I’m
done.
Sandra Goldmark of Columbia University’s Climate School is already fully living in this resale world. The author of the book “Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet,” says almost everything she buys was once owned by someone else (shoes, underwear and socks are the exceptions).
In the not-too-distant future, she thinks, we should be able to walk
into a Target, Walmart or a local small business to see a comparable
display of new and used stuff, as well as a good repair service. “Why
are we ever buying anything new in this day and age?” she says. “It’s so
easy now, especially with this incredible glut of new goods coming into
the pipeline, just to turn up the volume on used goods and turn down
the volume on new.”
Goldmark says ownership should be something less permanent. We can
have fewer, better things in our lives. Once they’re no longer needed,
we let them go to the next owner. Consumption becomes something
circular.
Riffing off author Michael Pollan’s famous formulation for food (Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.), she has redefined her own relationship with things: “Have good stuff (not too much), mostly reclaimed.”
Harlan Crow has refused to cooperate with
Senate Democrats’ investigation into his financial ties with supreme
court justice Clarence Thomas. (photo: Bloomberg)
Martin Pengelly/Guardian UK
24 May 23
Rightwing billionaire declines request to provide list of gifts given to the supreme court justice
Lawyers for Harlan Crow, the rightwing billionaire
whose friendship with and gifts to the conservative supreme court
justice Clarence Thomas are the focus of swirling scandal, have rejected Senate Democrats’ request for answers about the relationship.
In a letter first reported by Bloomberg News
on Tuesday, lawyers for Crow rejected a request from Dick Durbin, the
Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, for a list
of gifts to Thomas.
Durbin’s committee, the letter said, had not “identified a valid
legislative purpose for its investigation and is not authorised to
conduct an ethics investigation of a supreme court justice”.
Democrats on the committee, the lawyers said, were “targeting Justice Thomas for special and unwarranted opprobrium”.
Durbin told Bloomberg: “Harlan Crow believes the secrecy of his
lavish gifts to Justice Thomas is more important than the reputation of
the highest court of law in this land. He is wrong.”
Supreme court justices are covered by federal judiciary ethics rules but in practice govern themselves.
John Roberts, the chief justice, has declined to cooperate with attempts to investigate Thomas and Crow.
Thomas’s relationship with the Republican mega-donor, and his failure
to declare many gifts, has long been known. But last month, the
non-profit news site ProPublica released a series of bombshell reports.
It said Thomas took and failed to declare gifts including luxury travel and stays at properties owned by Crow; that Crow bought property from Thomas, in which Thomas’s mother now lives rent-free; and that Crow paid for private schooling for Thomas’s great-nephew, who the justice has said he raised “as a son”.
Thomas said he did not declare gifts from Crow because he had been advised he did not have to, but would do so in future.
Crow said he never discussed politics or business before the court with Thomas or his wife, the far-right activist Ginni Thomas.
Outlets including the Guardian showed Crow to have had business before the court during his friendship with Thomas.
On Tuesday, Crow did not immediately comment to Bloomberg.
In an interview published by the Atlantic on Monday, he gave a tour of his collection of sculptures of dictators but declined to answer detailed questions about Thomas.
“It would be absurd to me to talk to Justice Thomas about supreme
court cases, because that’s not my world,” Crow said, adding: “We talk
about life. We’re two guys who are the same age and grew up in the same
era. We share a love of Motown.”
Crow has already rebuffed the Senate finance committee, which also
sought a list of gifts. Earlier this month, the chair of that panel, the
Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, indicated he could seek to compel
cooperation.
“The bottom line is that nobody can expect to get away with waving
off finance committee oversight, no matter how wealthy or well-connected
they may be,” Wyden said.
The judiciary committee could also issue a subpoena, a tool it could
not use as the Thomas scandal first billowed into public, given the
absence of Dianne Feinstein, a California senator kept away from
Washington by ill health. Feinstein has now returned to work, restoring
Democrats’ working majority.
Any battle with Crow will be played for high stakes. In their letter to Durbin,
the billionaire’s lawyers claimed Congress itself “does not have the
constitutional power to impose ethics rules and standards on the supreme
court. Doing so would … violate basic separation of powers principles”.
Coke Can Clarence and the Really Big Little Lady: Clearly they are enjoying a joke on all of us, on America, and on Justice For All.
