The Daily Parker

Justice Clarence Thomas (R) began his lifetime tenure to the United States Supreme Court with the help of some old men who knew their behavior towards their subordinates would get them in trouble if they held Thomas accountable for his deplorable behavior towards Anita Hill. Since confirmation, Thomas has become more like himself, as the saying goes. In 1991 he was an arrogant, contemptuous middle-aged man who assumed anyone criticizing him or his behavior had a mental deficiency. Ah, but how much he's grown in those 32 years, right?

Ah, ha ha, ha. Between his extremist views on just about everything, to his intellectually dishonest theory of jurisprudence, to his flatly lying about his wife's corruption, we can add new charges of eye-popping sleaze more befitting a Chicago alderman than a Justice of the United States:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday he had been advised “by colleagues and others in the judiciary” that luxury trips financed by a close billionaire friend and conservative activist should be considered personal hospitality that did not have to be disclosed.

Thomas’s statement came more than 24 hours after a ProPublica report revealed that he had accepted luxury trips around the globe for more than two decades, including travel on a superyacht and private jet, from Harlan Crow, a Dallas business executive and influential donor to causes related to the law and judiciary.

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” Thomas said in the statement. “Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

The arrogance and disdain for even minimal application for the rules that everyone else has to follow boggles the mind.

Alexandra Petri wasted no time laughing right in his face, particularly at his ridiculous assertion that "I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that:"

Well, that describes me. I am not above anyone, except in the slight technical sense that I do control what rights you get to have. But you need not worry: I understand you and I am not contemptuously pandering to you: I genuinely think that you drive to Walmart for the delight of it! The simple joy of moving the carts around and putting them back, stopping at the little stop sign, and yelling indistinctly at your children not to run in front of other people’s cars! A classic American vacation!

I prefer to be where the rest of you — the rest of us! — love to be, which I assume from how much time you seem to spend there must be the parking lot of Walmart. Or an RV park! Yes, that is all I wish. The simple life.

So, you see, I could not possibly disclose any of these things, for they were not blessings but curses. These are the weights I must bear in my position. If someone with the power I wield were not meant to accept these heavy burdens, surely we as a court would have adopted a formal ethics code. But there is no need: It is understood that I take no pleasure in any of this. The American people need not worry. The yachts were suffering enough.

Uh huh. Vanity Fair's Eric Lutz isn't laughing:

Lest we forget, Thomas has already shown, time and again, exactly what he thinks of those ethical obligations. After all, this is the justice who refused to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election, despite his wife supporting—and encouraging—Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn that year’s election results. But the lifestyle that Thomas' friendship with Crow has afforded him shine an even more glaring light on his indifference to the principles of judicial integrity and independence—and underscore the need for real accountability on the nation’s high court, a lack of which has called the court's legitimacy into question.

The Supreme Court's conservatives have steadfastly resisted such calls, lamenting the public's deteriorating trust while refusing to do anything to earn it. “All of our opinions are open to criticism,” Chief Justice John Roberts said last year, amid public outcry over its disastrous Dobbs decision—an activist ruling if there ever was one. “But simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the court.”

Roberts, of course, was arguing with a straw man. Public trust hasn’t cratered because people “disagree” with one opinion. It has plummeted because its right-wing majority—strong-armed into existence by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans—has abandoned the pretense that it is much more than the enforcement arm of the GOP. The conservatives have run roughshod over precedent; reverse-engineered their legal rationales for seemingly ideological decisions; and, in the case of Dobbs’ author Samuel Alito, openly mocked critics.

I remind everyone that Congress has the power to set term limits on the Supreme Court. (The Constitution provides lifetime appointments to the Federal courts, but not to any specific court.) We need 67 votes in the Senate to toss Thomas on his ear, as the Senate failed to do when they had the chance in October 1991. But we only need 50 votes in the Senate and 217 in the House to retire his ass tomorrow.

I spent all day updating my real job's software to .NET 7, and to predominantly asynchronous operation throughout. Now I have four stubbornly failing unit tests that lead me to suspect I got something wrong in the async timing somewhere. It's four out of 507, so most of today's work went fine.

Meanwhile, the following stories have backed up:

• The Economist wonders what our friends should think of the XPOTUS's dog and pony show.
• Alex Shephard worries that television and cable news just don't have the skill to cover the 2024 election, after seeing their "dumb, desperate" coverage of the XPOTUS's indictment.
• Justice Clarence Thomas (R) has rich Republican friends who took him and his ethically-challenged wife on luxury vacations, but never disclosed them as required by law, adding to his legendary status as poster child for term limits.
• Paul Krugman can't figure out why Republican voters keep electing people who want them dead.
• Illinois had a cool, wet start to spring, but we're about to have a heat wave, with temperatures predicted to hit 11°C (20°F) above normal next week.

Finally, a very rich person is very annoyed after his or her private jet got stuck in the mud at Aspen's airport. It seems the guy sent to pull it out of the mud maybe needed another lesson on how planes work, because he managed to snap the nose gear right off the $3.5 million airplane. Oopsi. (There's video!)

I thought that the two most important races near my house would take days to resolve because so many people voted by mail, but it turns out, people I like won both.

First, in Chicago, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson defeated Republican former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas for mayor:

“Chicago, tonight is just the beginning,” Johnson said as he kicked off a emphatic victory speech, which aimed to strike a conciliatory and upbeat tone after a polarizing campaign against former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas to lead the nation’s third-largest city.

Johnson, a 47-year-old longtime Chicago Teachers Union leader, announced his candidacy for mayor in October by the Jenner Academy school building, where he started his career in education at the mostly Black elementary school that had served children who lived in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex next door.

The affable but gutsy Johnson first won public office in 2018 when he defeated Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, who earned the ire of organized labor by voting against Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s so-called pop tax. There, Johnson largely heeded Preckwinkle’s direction while passing some legislation of his own that focused on criminal justice. None of that work earned him substantial name recognition among Chicagoans during the early months of the race.

Tuesday, with roughly 99% of the city’s precincts reporting, Johnson was ahead with 51% of the unofficial vote to 49% for Vallas, who came close as ever but failed to shake off his history of never winning elected office.

Literally, the teacher beat the school administrator. Beautiful. I voted for Johnson in the February 28th primary election, and I'm happy to go 2-for-2 this cycle.

Just north of us, Milwaukee County judge Janet Protasiewicz beat former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly for the open seat on the same Court:

Protasiewicz, 60, defeated conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, who has now mounted two unsuccessful bids for a full term on the court. Kelly, 58, was appointed by Republican former Gov. Walker in 2016 to fill a seat vacated by a retirement, but was defeated by Jill Karofsky, the liberal candidate, in 2020.

Protasiewicz’s victory could be the start of a period of political upheaval in Wisconsin. In the weeks and months after she is sworn in, a flurry of lawsuits about highly contentious topics could be filed and work their way before the new liberal majority. That includes potential challenges to Wisconsin’s voting maps, the state law (Act 10) limiting the influence of public-sector labor unions and the decision outlawing unstaffed absentee ballot drop boxes.

A lawsuit already filed in Dane County challenging the enforcement of Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban is also expected to work its way before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. While Protasiewicz has said she hasn’t reviewed the case, she campaigned as an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, and her presence on the court makes the lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers — both Democrats — more likely to succeed.

Kelly had the backing of several prominent anti-abortion groups, but said those endorsements were based on his judicial philosophy, not any commitment to rule a particular way.

Kelly said a lot of things like that during the campaign: "Oh, sure, never mind all the stuff I've written off the bench; I pinky-promise to remain totally impartial if you elect me. And the first thing I'll do is totally impartially criminalize women's health decisions."

Kelly also threw a tantrum in his concession speech, no doubt comforting the independent voters who might sympathize with some of his views but think he's another entitled, arrogant, old White guy who has never gotten elected to anything.

Imagine if we elected the US Supreme Court? Maybe not. But limiting them to a single 18-year term would reduce the pressure on the country, I think.

Stuff read while waiting for code to compile:

• Alex Shephard rolls his eyes at the Republican Party's unhinged response to the XPOTUS's indictment.
• California's Tulare Lake used to be the largest freshwater body west of the Mississippi, until agriculture drained it. Thanks to record rainfall, it has returned.
• Stanford Law 3L Tess Winston writes that 10% of her class generates 95% of the noise, but the 1L and 2L classes are worse.
• The head of Chicago-area concert promoter Jam Productions testified to the US Senate last week that the Ticketmaster monopoly has driven Jam's revenues down 80% since 2010.
• As the head of state of the first group of colonies to forcibly separate from the British Empire, President Biden will continue the American Presidency's tradition of not attending British coronations.
• UK blogger Alex Murrell bemoans the sameness of everything.

Finally, Chicago Tribune food critic Louisa Chu says I should take a 45-minute drive down to Bridgeview to try some Halal fried chicken—just, maybe, after Ramadan ends.

I mentioned Thursday that the Disney Corp. appears to have beaten Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' (R) plan to penalize them for taking a pro-queer stance. Our side are laughing out loud at how incompetent the DeSantis Administration had to be to let this happen, given it took Disney 10 months of public hearings to neuter the incoming board. But as Josh Marshall points, DeSantis never cared about the win; he only cared about the spectacle:

Florida has particularly robust public notice laws. So this was all done in plain sight. Obviously local governing board meetings don’t get carried live on Fox and CNN. But this has been a big effort by the DeSantis administration. And well … they’re the state government. So “who follows local government board meetings!” really isn’t an excuse that cuts it for them. They just weren’t paying attention. Didn’t sweat the details.

There’s at least a pale analog here to conservative governance in general. When you don’t really care about governing or actually despise government you tend not to sweat the details and inner workings of how it functions. I would think this might be a bit of an exception. But maybe not.

The state government can go to court and try to get this undone. The state law experts interviewed in this Miami Herald article say Disney has by far the stronger case. But the deeper problem is that the kinds of state legal precedents you’d set to undo this would have the effect of weakening the security of a lot of property and contractual rights, especially in real estate. And you know who cares a ton about property and contractual rights in real estate? Right, rich people.

It’s quite unlikely that even Ron DeSantis will give a crap about [litigating this] in a year or two, let alone some other future governor who may not agree with the original decision and if they did agree will certainly have better things to do with their time than creating bad legal precedent by litigating the long tail of DeSantis’s strutting nonsense from all the way back in 2021.

The Republican Party has become a farcical doppelgänger of itself. They have no policies of their own except to take power so they can rob people blind. It's all performance art and deep corruption. I look forward to the day when most voters understand that, so we can get a proper opposition party and get on with the business of governing.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office reported last night that a New York grand jury has returned an indictment of former president Trump, the first time this has happened in the 234-year history of the office. Reports this morning say the grand jury charged him with over 30 counts of business crimes, but at the moment, no one outside the jury room and a handful of lawyers knows what the indictment contains. The XPOTUS will travel to New York for his formal arrest, booking, and arraignment on Tuesday, at which point the DA's office will unseal the indictment.

Naturally, the Republican Party has started the outrage machine, glossing over the crimes the grand jury agreed the XPOTUS needs to face trial for, calling it "political." But as author John Scalzi points out, it's only political because the Republican Party has abrogated its responsibilities to the nation:

[It's political] in the sense that one political party is willing to hold Trump accountable for his actions, and one political party absolutely is not. In the perfect world that yet still managed to have Trump, as he is, elected to the office of president, people of good will and a strong sense of justice in both parties would be pursuing criminal indictments of the man, as there are manifestly so many things he could be indicted for. I understand the modern GOP is long past that moment of clarity, however, and continues to purge from its ranks anyone who might suggest such things are possible. So, again, here we are. This is political because the Republican party wants you to think this is political. They have worked long and hard to make it so, and will continue to do so.

For a bit more perspective, the Times' Marc Fisher reminds us that the XPOTUS has evaded criminal liability for half a century already:

Already, Trump’s statements about the Daniels case have followed a pattern he set as far back as 1973, when federal prosecutors accused Trump and his father, Fred, a prominent New York City apartment developer, of turning away Black people who wanted to rent from them. In that case, Trump first denied the allegation, then said he didn’t know his actions were illegal, and then, through his lawyer, accused the government of conducting a bogus “Gestapo-like investigation.”

Trump’s attitude toward law, lawyers and the notion of legal jeopardy closely tracks his approach to business, politics and personal relationships: He has said that he believes in instinct and gut over expertise and rules, that any publicity is good publicity, and that most Americans admire successful people even when — or especially when — they skirt the rules.

The Atlantic's Quinta Jurecic calls the indictment "astonishing and frightening:"

The hush-money case isn’t entirely separate from those ugly aspects of Trump’s presence on the political stage: It did, after all, involve an effort to meddle in the process of an election, in this instance by denying the public the full scope of available information about the man it would soon elect to high office. But even so, the interference itself does seem a little less urgent—and less weighty—than his involvement in fomenting an insurrection.

There’s something very, well, Trumpy about this: He has a way of making everything sordid. Instead of a dramatic discussion about the meaning of accountability for a president who sought to overthrow the will of the voters to stay in power, we’re arguing about the dirty mechanics of hush-money payments to an adult-film star.

The situation might be merely crass if not for the shadow of violence hanging over it. After announcing that he expected to be indicted on March 21, Trump promised “death and destruction” in a post on his bespoke social-media site, Truth Social. Now he’s busy raging about the indictment as “AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE” and “weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent.” The ongoing investigations into Trump’s potential responsibility for the insurrection are a reminder of just how serious this rhetoric can get.

It seems clear that about 30% of the country will back this guy no matter what they learn about him. But I think the other 70% want to see accountability. As the XPOTUS goes through the criminal-justice system for the first of what may be several times in his remaining years on the planet, I hope he gets some.

Once again, I have too much to read:

• After Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R) tried to end Disney's control over the municipal area around Disneyworld, the outgoing board added a series of restrictive covenants completely neutering DeSantis' hand-picked replacements, including a rule-against-perpetuities clause tying the covenants to the last living descendant of King Charles III.
• Robert Wright observed ChatGPT expressing cognitive empathy.
• An anonymous source provided a German reporter with 5,000 pages of documents from NTC Vulkan, a Russian disinformation and espionage group, showing the extent of the Russian government's involvement in disrupting Western political systems.
• "No way to prevent this," says only nation where this regularly happens, because it has a Supreme Court that wants it to happen.
• The Chicago and Illinois Departments of Transportation have gotten closer to redesigning the Oak Street curve.
• Pamela Smart, the inspiration for the 1995 dark comedy To Die For, lost her final appeal for parole for hiring her teenage lover to kill her husband in 1990.

Finally, it was 20 years ago tonight that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley had city workers vandalize Meigs Field so that he could sell the land to his pals. The Tribune has a photo history.

At my day job, I go into our downtown office at least once a week, which turns out to be about once a week longer than almost everyone else. I like the change of scene, and Cassie gets to spend those days at day camp, so it's a win for everyone.

The 90%-or-so remote work that people have elected also means we have tons of empty offices while our multi-year leases run their courses. So, after waiting almost a year for the furniture upgrade that never came, the office manager today said "just go take the office next door to yours." Cool. Better furniture, a (very slightly) different view, and...that's about it.

While I move my stuff 4 meters to the west, you can read these:

• Someone at the Chicago Park District really doesn't want the local press to know why Taste of Chicago doesn't appear on the Grant Park schedule this summer.
• If having all your data erased by ransomware doesn't scare you enough, Bruce Schneier gives us an even better reason not to stick random USB devices into your laptop.
• Dana Milbank watches with a box of popcorn as the XPOTUS once again pwns the Republican Party by making things up and watching them fall in line.
• The Commune of Paris has won an administrative decision declaring "dark" grocery stores warehouses, allowing the city to get them out of residential areas.

Finally, in keeping with me schlepping my books and laptop next door, Salesforce and Meta have put 22,000 m² of downtown Chicago office space on the secondary market, terrifying commercial real estate owners everywhere.

The Apollo Chorus annual fundraiser/cabaret is on April 1st, and tickets are still available. If you can't make it, you can still donate.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:

• From February, Tommy Craggs writes in New Republic that Lyndon LaRouche's zombie ideas still walk the land.
• The New York Times has collection of photos from Northern California of the atmospheric river they're getting right now.
• Annie Lowrey thinks "you should be outraged" about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. But Molly White points out that the SVB collapse has very little to do with recent Bitcoin price swings, regardless of what the crypto-bros want you to believe.

And finally, screenings of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, the new slasher pic featuring Winnie and Piglet as serial killers, will not be shown in Hong Kong and Macau, because Chinese dictator Xi Jinping thinks it's a jab at him. Seriously.

As reported in The Economist this week, US Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) composed a haiku to encapsulate the sum total of his understanding of how education works in the US:

All this woke, uh, Trans-
Gender athletes, CRT
Uh, 1619

(I edited slightly for meter.)

I mean, you have to admire how well this illustrates the intellectual firepower that Tuberville brings to the Senate, and how far Representatives Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) have yet to go to approach his level.