Category: NEWS
Off-duty NYPD cop busted for sending ex-girlfriend harassing texts: cops
Officer Josue Torres, 35, was busted Wednesday and accused of sending the texts in violation of an active order of protection that his 38-year-old former gal pal has against him, police said.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/off-duty-nypd-cop-busted-for-sending-ex-girlfriend-harassing-texts/
‘It’s a land grab’: U.S. scrambles to respond ahead of Putin’s annexation claim
Western allies are rushing to come up with plans to respond to the Kremlin’s forced annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine expected to be unveiled Friday, as Vladimir Putin pushes to consolidate dwindling gains in his faltering war.
Putin is slated to deliver a speech Friday announcing the annexation of four Russian-occupied regions, just days after his government held widely condemned referendums orchestrated to produce the results the Kremlin sought.
In Washington, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled legislation Thursday that would cut off military and economic aid to any country that recognizes the “annexed” territories as part of Russia. The legislation would also pressure the Biden administration to punish Russia swiftly, and could be attached to the annual defense policy bill in the coming weeks.
“We are dealing with Hurricane Putin, for the lack of a better word,” Graham told reporters. “He’s trying to rewrite the map of Europe. He’s trying to do by force of arms what he can’t do by process.”
Added Blumenthal: “It is a land grab. It’s a steal. And it is another craven, brazen tactic by Vladimir Putin to test the West’s support for Ukraine and we are having none of it.”
On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters to expect “additional measures” in the days ahead. In the meantime, it didn’t appear that President Joe Biden would order any change in approach to the war — just the same mix of reprimands for Russia and support for Ukraine.
“This also doesn’t change our thinking on the outlook. We’ve always been prepared for the long haul, and the Russians have as well,” a senior administration official told POLITICO.
Some of Biden’s allies on the Hill, though, expressed concern about the impact of Putin’s annexation effort. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Putin’s move “makes it all the more difficult for the Ukrainians to find a way forward.”
“It also should consolidate the condemnation of the world, because everybody knows that at the end of the day, it’s the biggest farce that has happened,” Menendez added.
The move to lay claim to the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine’s south and east was relatively costless for Putin. He played to his domestic base and seemingly added legitimacy to his illegal invasion, regional experts said. Putin knew the sham votes would have little effect on the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they said.
The goal was “to have a similar situation to Crimea,” where Russians seized the peninsula after another sham referendum, said Jeffrey Edmonds, who handled the Russia portfolio in the Obama administration’s National Security Council. “No one agrees with it, but no one is going to do anything about it either. That would give him a revised victory –– or enough of one –– because he would have hobbled Ukraine.”
The question now is whether Russia will change its tactics following the Friday announcement.
One theory is that Putin, aware that his military is struggling mightily against stiff Ukrainian resistance, might use the forced referendums to claim the mission is accomplished and send his troops home, experts said. Few inside and outside the administration think that’s the likeliest option, though, especially since the Ukrainians will keep fighting to reclaim all of their territories even if the Russians want to stop, said Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon and CIA official.
Meanwhile, lawmakers from both parties are keeping up pressure on the Biden administration. Blumenthal and Graham are also pushing legislation to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism — a move that the State Department thus far opposes.
Lawmakers said they are encouraged by Ukraine’s resolve.
“I see no letup whatsoever. None. If anything, strengthened determination,” Blumenthal said. “I think annexation is a ploy that will have no effect on Ukrainian will to fight and it should have no effect on our willingness to support that fight.”
Graham said he sees no possibility of an off-ramp for Russia, particularly as Putin grows more provocative.
“The world is not going to accept this annexation,” Graham said. “The idea of an off-ramp other than him withdrawing completely from Ukraine is becoming less and less.”
The other possibility — the one seen as far more plausible — is that Russia settles in for a long-term fight. “The Russian government and people are now forced to be all in. If [Putin] couldn’t lose before, he certainly can’t lose now,” Edmonds said.
Whatever Putin’s rationale, his forced referendums and looming annexation will be met with stiff resistance from the U.S. and its allies. “We are dead set against it,” one Western diplomat, who asked to speak anonymously before their government could formulate an official response, told POLITICO.
Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö tweeted Thursday that the Russian-orchestrated voting in Ukraine will “not [affect] Ukraine’s borders, they don’t change the map. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory is indivisible and inviolable. Finland will not recognise the results of the illegal referenda or annexations.”
Putin’s latest gambit to scratch out some wins comes as Ukrainian forces claw back territory in the east and south.
The Ukrainian gains this month came in a lightning counteroffensive around the city of Kharkiv. Their success appeared to surprise even Kyiv, but over the past two weeks, the advances have slowed to a steady grind inflicting heavy losses on Russia. Kyiv’s forces have continued their advance east from the Oskil River. Farther south, Ukrainian forces are also taking territory around the Russian-occupied town of Lyman, pushing into the Donbas near Bakhmut. Russia is making incremental gains around Ukrainian-controlled Bakhmut, but at a heavy cost, a senior military official said.
On the southern front around Kherson, Ukrainian forces are holding the gains they made at the beginning of the month, shelling the enemy in “deliberate and calibrated” operations, the official said. Kherson is the gateway to the strategic port city of Odesa, which is currently controlled by Kyiv.
In retaliation for Ukraine’s gains, Russia is targeting critical civilian infrastructure, shelling dams and power generation stations and leaving millions without power.
The Pentagon assesses that the first of the soldiers called up in Putin’s partial mobilization have arrived on the battlefield “in small numbers.” But officials are skeptical the Russian president will reach his goal of mobilizing 300,000, given his military’s dysfunction, and the increasing social unrest that has accompanied the conscription call-ups over the past week.
The scale of Russia’s mobilization has been matched only twice before: once in 1914 and again in 1941, the senior military official said.
“If you think about the consequences that they kind of feel that they’re in right now and you compare that to World War I and World War II, that certainly says a lot about what the Ukrainians have been able to do to the Russian army,” the official said.
The mobilization indicates the Kremlin still sees a way to prolong the war and perhaps end up with a win or a draw simply through attrition of Ukrainian forces and the weakening of Western resolve if the fight drags on month after bloody month.
“That they ultimately decided to do this suggests that they still think there is an operational play at this level,” said Dara Massicot, a Russian military expert at the RAND Corporation, and former Pentagon official. “They still think that this can save it” for Putin.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/29/putin-russia-annexation-ukraine-00059545
Why did water leave Tampa Bay during Hurricane Ian? What to know about reverse storm surge
Hurricane Ian’s powerful winds appeared to draw water away from the Florida coastline, exposing the floor typically covered by about 12 feet of water.
‘Utter ferocity’: See the devastating scene in a newly liberated Ukrainian town
As Ukrainian forces make further gains in the eastern region of Donetsk, CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reports from a newly-liberated monastery town in the region, where local residents spent seven months underground while Russian forces occupied their homes.
Watch: Drone video shows catastrophic damage in Florida
CNN’s Kate Bolduan describes the catastrophic and devastating destruction left by Hurricane Ian in the Fort Myers area of Florida.
Woman releases ‘hurricane ball’ during Hurricane Ian
Amid the storm’s destruction, one Florida resident played ball.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/woman-releases-hurricane-ball-in-middle-of-hurricane-ian/
Justices shield spouses’ work from potential conflict of interest disclosures
A year after Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the boutique Indiana firm SouthBank Legal opened its first-ever Washington office in Penn Quarter, a move the firm hailed in a 2021 press release as an “important milestone.”
The head of the office, Jesse M. Barrett, is the justice’s husband, whose work is described by the firm as “white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and complex commercial litigation.”
SouthBank Legal — which lists fewer than 20 lawyers — has boasted clients across “virtually every industry”: automobile manufacturers, global banks, media giants, among others. They have included “over 25 Fortune 500 companies and over 15 in the Fortune 100,” according to the firm’s website.
But if anyone wants to find out whether Jesse Barrett’s clients have a direct interest in cases being decided by his wife, they’re out of luck. In the Supreme Court’s notoriously porous ethical disclosure system, Barrett not only withholds her husband’s clients, but redacted the name of SouthBank Legal itself in her most recent disclosure.
Over the past year, Virginia Thomas, known as Ginni, has gotten significant attention for operating a consulting business that reportedly includes conservative activist groups with interest in Supreme Court decisions as clients. Her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, has chosen not to reveal any of his wife’s clients, let alone how much they contributed to the Thomas family coffers, dating back to when her consulting business was founded.
But a POLITICO investigation shows that potential conflicts involving justices’ spouses extend beyond the Thomases. Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife, Jane Roberts, has gotten far less attention. But she is a legal head-hunter at the firm Macrae which represents high-powered attorneys in their efforts to secure positions in wealthy firms, typically for a percentage of the first-year salary she secures for her clients. A single placement of a superstar lawyer can yield $500,000 or more for the firm.
Mark Jungers, a former managing partner at Major, Lindsey & Africa, the firm that employed Jane Roberts as a legal recruiter before she moved to Macrae, told POLITICO the firm hired her hoping it would benefit from her being the chief justice’s wife, in part, because “her network is his network and vice versa.”
Roberts lists his wife’s company on his ethics form, but not which lawyers and law firms hire her as a recruiter — even though her clients include firms that have done Supreme Court work, according to multiple people with knowledge of the arrangements with those firms.
The POLITICO investigation found that some spouses of other Supreme Court justices have also had careers of their own, but none currently appear to have the potential to intersect as closely with the court’s work as Barrett, Thomas and Roberts. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch reported no non-investment income from their spouses in 2021. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are not married. Brett Kavanaugh’s wife Ashley Estes Kavanaugh — a former George W. Bush White House aide — reported a salary from her position as town manager of Chevy Chase Village Section 5.
This week, the court is formally welcoming a new justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. Her husband, Patrick Graves Jackson, currently serves as chief of the general surgery division at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
But Jackson noted in a disclosure form filed earlier this year, while serving as a lower-court judge, that she had previously left out “self-employed consulting income that my spouse periodically receives from consulting on medical malpractice cases.”
Like in the cases of Thomas, Barrett and Roberts, the names of his clients were not included in the filing.
Special interests court the justices
As an independent branch of government, the Supreme Court has long been determined to set its own path on ethics, with each justice left to make their own determination on when to recuse themselves from cases with no enforcement mechanism to hold them accountable.
Since 1979, the justices have produced annual disclosure forms that mimic those filed by their judicial underlings. The justices say the filings comply with federal ethics laws, but some sources of potential conflicts — such as expensive dining and use of vacation homes — are often kept off the lists.
But now, as the Supreme Court prepares to begin a new term after a tumultuous summer in which Roe v. Wade was upended, the longstanding gaps in its ethical disclosures are being cast in a harsher light amid revelations of outsiders using perks and money to attempt to influence the justices.
Former religious right leader Rob Schenck has said the organization he led for more than 20 years, Faith and Action, engaged in an elaborate scheme to play on the justices’ financial insecurities by recruiting wealthy couples to “wine and dine” the court’s conservative members. The couples were chosen for their support for a religious right political agenda, and coached in advance in ways to make the justices feel more secure in their support of a faith-based legal agenda.
Schenck said the overtures to some of the justices in the first two decades of this century included not only highly expensive meals and club visits but invitations for the justices to use plush vacation properties — none of which appear to have been reported on their disclosure forms, according to a POLITICO review.
The refusal to provide spousal information is also salient because justices have often noted that their salaries — $274,200 for associate justices and $286,700 for the chief in 2022 — don’t compare to those of elite attorneys who can make millions in private practice. That means that some of the justices who are married receive a disproportionate share of their family income from their spouses.
POLITICO emailed a set of questions to Jesse Barrett. He did not respond. Instead, a response to that query came from a spokesperson for the Supreme Court, who said: “Justice Barrett complies with the Ethics in Government Act in filing financial disclosure reports.”
A spokesperson for Macrae declined to comment on the firm and Jane Roberts’ behalf.
In response to broader questions about the justices’ spousal disclosures, the court spokesperson also cited the federal law governing judicial recusals and pointed to a nearly three-decadeold statement in which justices with spouses or other close relatives in the legal profession rejected the notion of recusal from a case simply because such a relative works in a firm involved in the litigation.
“We do not think it would serve the public interest to go beyond the requirements of the statute, and to recuse ourselves, out of an excess of caution, whenever a relative is a partner in the firm before us or acted as a lawyer at an earlier stage,” the seven justices who adopted the policy declared. “Even one unnecessary recusal impairs the functioning of the court.”
Given the financial stakes involved — and the interests that law firms, corporations and activist groups have in influencing the outcome of court decisions — many ethical observers believe that the court is ignoring potential conflicts at its own peril.
One of the nation’s leading experts in legal ethics, New York University Law Professor Stephen Gillers, said the gaps in disclosure about the clients of justices’ spouses fuel public doubt.
“We don’t know who that is and we don’t know the amounts of money,” Gillers said. “That’s a legitimate concern.”
“Since a justice who owns 10 shares of stock in a party has to recuse even though the effect would be negligible on their finances, if that’s true, why should a justice’s spouse not have to reveal a very large payment from a client that could substantially improve a justice’s quality of life?” he asked.
Leveraging Roberts family connections
The vast majority of the attention on income among Supreme Court spouses has centered on Ginni Thomas, who founded her own consulting firm known as Liberty Consulting. Although her clients are now shielded from the her husband’s financial disclosure reports, Thomas has reportedly worked with the Center for Security Policy — a think tank accused of Islamophobia — and entities tied to conservative activist Leonard Leo. Ginni Thomas also recently reached an agreement to testify before the Jan. 6 select committee, meeting with the panel on Thursday.
Even less is known about Jane Roberts’ clients. She is a graduate of Brown University and Georgetown University Law Center, and married her husband in 1996. From 1987 until 2007, she worked at the law firm now known as Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, where she advanced to the rank of partner.
In 2007, two years after her husband became chief justice, she joined the firm of Major, Lindsey & Africa, as a legal recruiter, and since 2019 has worked at Macrae.
Jungers said the firm’s efforts to attract the wife of the chief justice were originally kept to only a small number of the firm’s employees. There was a sense that Jane Roberts would be a big get for the firm — somebody who knows everyone in this town, with one of the most prestigious networks in Washington.
“We hoped that that’s what we were doing,” he said, also emphasizing that good recruiters have a level of skill beyond just their networks. However, he noted that she was “a good lawyer” at a “decent law firm.” Her husband was an “extraordinary lawyer at a very, very good law firm” who became the most important person in the Washington legal scene.
“We recruited her to help our firm with the recruitment of in-house lawyers,” he said. “I think some of us realized that there was a better place for her, which was to be recruiting partners for law firms because that’s both where she was, where her husband was, and then she knew lots of very important people in the legal landscape in Washington, D.C., and it was sort of a waste not to really use that.”
When Jane Roberts began her role at the firm, Jungers trained and mentored her. They started a role-playing exercise to practice phone calls with potential clients: She was the recruiter and Jungers was the potential client.
Jungers sat in Jane Roberts’ chair, and she sat in the guest chair. Behind Jane Roberts in her office, he recalled, there was a bookshelf with photographs of her and her husband with world leaders — he recalled seeing the Pope and Queen Elizabeth II among them.
Jungers said Jane Roberts soon proved to be highly effective at her job, and he noted that nearly everyone in the legal world would take her phone calls. The high-profile couple’s social scene is filled with “fairly closed circle” events of Washington, D.C., lawyers who mingle over exclusive events like wine drinking groups, book clubs or poker games, Jungers noted.
“As opposed to even some couples where he’ll have a network and she’ll have a network, it’s not really like that,” Jungers said, while also expressing his great admiration for Jane Roberts.
Jane Roberts’ clients include lawyers or law firms sometimes with active Supreme Court practices, at least some of which were more likely to work with her because of her status as the chief justice’s spouse, three people close to law firms told POLITICO. They include the British-American firm of Hogan Lovells, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement. Hogan Lovells did not provide a comment.
Jane Roberts has also represented top government officials at federal agencies with direct interests in court business, said Stephen Nelson, another D.C.-area hiring consultant who said he and Roberts had referred candidates to one another in the past.
“I think because of her background in law firms, she already had a strong reputation and network, but being married to the … chief justice of the United States Supreme Court … certainly doesn’t hurt,” said Nelson.
One consultant who worked with a firm with a Supreme Court practice said that the firm explicitly decided to work with Roberts because of her marriage to the chief justice.
“It’s known that her access to people is heavily influenced by her last name,” said the consultant, who was granted anonymity under the condition that the firm for which the person consulted not be named. “It’s no secret within the industry.”
Holes in disclosures
When SouthBank Legal opened a new Washington office headed by Jesse Barrett in 2021, the firm hailed the expansion in a press release as a demonstration of the firm’s “national capabilities.”
“A physical presence in Washington helps us solidify our national service footprint,” said Jesse Barrett, managing partner of the firm’s D.C. office, in the press release. “It is an exciting step, and our clients will benefit from our expanded ability to handle matters nationwide.”
Earlier this year, Barrett acknowledged the tension between her and her husband’s work. In an interview at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Fred Ryan, former POLITICO chief executive officer and current publisher of The Washington Post, questioned Barrett on the challenges of balancing the couple’s careers. Barrett maintained that they were careful to avoid conflicts but argued that society’s expectations must change.
“But you know, I think we’re living in a time when we have a lot of couples who are both, are working, and so I think that the court and, you know, society has to adjust to expect that,” Barrett said.
When asked about whether there should be court guidelines for working spouses, Barrett facetiously pushed back against the idea.
“I don’t think most of the spouses would be very happy about those guidelines,” she quipped. “Certainly when I try to give my husband guidelines about what to do and not to do in the house even that doesn’t go over very well.”
In the case of Jesse Barrett, even the name of his firm is unavailable on his wife’s most recent disclosure statement. Information about spouses’ employment is required on the forms, but justices may ask to redact it for certain reasons. Despite Barrett’s profile appearing prominently on the front of his firm’s website — and its touting of his employment in a press release — the name SouthBank Legal was redacted on Justice Barrett’s public financial disclosure filing for 2021.
The terms that would allow a justice to redact some information appear to be somewhat broad. A memo authored by a financial disclosure adviser to judges offers a rationale to request the exclusion of broad categories of information on the grounds of safety.
The concern is based on increasing threats against the judiciary, culminating in such high-profile events as the killing of a federal judge’s son in New Jersey by a man who had once appeared before her in court, and the arrest of an alleged attempted assassin outside the Washington, D.C.-area home of Justice Kavanaugh in June.
The memo — issued by the director of legal services at a firm that helps judiciary members fill out their forms — explains that judges may ask to redact their position at a homeowners’ association, travel reimbursements, a teaching arrangement or an agreement with a law firm, as it could “indicate your presence in an unsecured location” or “present a security concern.” Even a club membership or a lake cottage could require redactions for security concerns, said the memo, which POLITICO obtained from Fix the Court and independently confirmed its authenticity.
A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined to comment on the memo, but said only a small fraction — fewer than 4 percent — of reports filed with the office last year sought redactions.
Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, underscored the balance between privacy and regulation; however, he noted that the justices are not the average person.
“It’s a rule of reason that says judges must be willing to accept restrictions on their behavior and that the ordinary citizen would find burdensome,” he said. “I think that probably applies to justices’ spouses and families as well.”
Like the reporting policies the court observes, the requirements for justices to recuse themselves from matters are also limited. A court spokesperson, asked about Jesse Barrett’s work, pointed to the Code of Conduct for judges and a federal statute that says a judge or justice should disqualify himself when the jurist’s spouse has a financial stake in a proceeding before the court.
The spokesperson also said Barrett adopted a policy a group of justices issued in 1993 calling for recusal when a “relative’s compensation could be substantially affected by the outcome here,” including cases where a relative is a law firm partner that receives a share of its profits.
However, under the standard accepted by Barrett, a justice need not recuse if the law firm commits to permanently excluding income from Supreme Court litigation from that spouse’s partnership shares.
An email to Jane Roberts also brought a reply from a court spokesperson who said that as the chief justice’s wife developed her recruiting practice she drew guidance from a 2009 Judicial Conference ethics panel opinion that says: “As a general proposition, the fact that the spouse or the spouse’s business has a business relationship with an entity that appears in an unrelated proceeding before the judge usually does not require the judge’s recusal.”
There’s some movement on Capitol Hill to change Supreme Court ethics rules, though it has found only modest traction.
When Congress passed ethics legislation in 2012, it expanded disclosures for stock trading by members of the House and Senate, their staffs and some executive branch employees. However, judges and justices were omitted from the more timely reporting required by the STOCK Act.
It took a decade, but in April of this year Congress enacted a bill sponsored by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) ending that exemption. President Joe Biden signed the bill in May and the requirement for judges and justices to report stock trades more promptly kicked in last month.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has introduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which would require the Supreme Court to, among other provisions, establish recusal requirements — including cases that involve the income of a justice’s spouse — and certain required disclosures.
In a statement to POLITICO, Whitehouse noted that disclosure requirements for the justices lag behind other senior government officials. His bill aims to address the “weak ethics and transparency rules before the court’s reputation is damaged beyond repair,” he added.
“The ethical rot at the court continues to spread, and public faith in the court erodes along with it,” Whitehouse said. “The questions about financial conflicts of interest are one area of concern among many. There’s also the flood of dark-money influence bearing down on the court, from the nameless donors behind judicial selection to the orchestrated flotillas of anonymous amici curiae lobbying the justices to the spate of partisan decisions handing wins to corporations and big donor interests.”
A call for stricter Supreme Court ethics rules
Until recently, concerns about potential conflicts of interest tended to focus on appearances alone, but recent revelations suggest that certain interest groups have actively sought to influence the justices with expensive dining and entertainment, playing on their financial insecurities.
Schenck, a minister who headed Faith and Action from 1995 to 2018, cited Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito as targets of religious right overtures, along with the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Schenck said he would recruit wealthy couples to wine and dine the justices, with a goal of tacitly urging them to be more comfortable expressing their religious beliefs.
“We would rehearse lines like, ‘We believe you are here for a time like this,’” Schenck told POLITICO, referring to the Old Testament Book of Esther in which the Hebrew woman born with the name Hadassah becomes queen of Persia and succeeds in preventing a genocide of her people.
The effort openly sought to exploit the justices’ willingness to accept free meals and entertainment from supporters — and not to report all such private hospitality on their disclosures.
Even beyond Schenck’s allegations, Scalia was a frequent beneficiary of free travel from people with interests before the Supreme Court. In 2016, he died while on an exclusive hunting trip at Cibolo Creek Ranch, where he was the guest of John Poindexter, a financial services mogul who owned a company which had a case before the Supreme Court just the previous year.
The ranch is a famed destination for celebrities and European royalty, where guests hunt birds and big game.
Scalia had made the journey to Marfa, Texas, in a private plane with C. Allen Foster, a Washington attorney whose past clients included Republican interests and the Iraq War contractor Blackwater.
Scalia’s duck-hunting trip to southern Louisiana with former Vice President Dick Cheney, at a time when the Supreme Court was considering a case involving Cheney’s energy task force, was also chronicled in the media — but “,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://pfds.opensecrets.org/N99999921_2004.pdf”,”_id”:”00000183-8ad5-db7a-a593-bfdd33a70000″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000183-8ad5-db7a-a593-bfdd33a70001″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>did not ultimately appear on Scalia’s disclosure forms.
Scalia refused to recuse himself in the case, rallying to the defense of “social intercourse” in Washington and savaging what he termed “so-called investigative journalists.”
“While the political branches can perhaps survive the constant baseless allegations of impropriety that have become the staple of Washington reportage, this court cannot,” the late justice wrote. “The people must have confidence in the integrity of the justices, and that cannot exist in a system that assumes them to be corruptible by the slightest friendship or favor, and in an atmosphere where the press will be eager to find foot-faults.”
Efforts to pressure Supreme Court justices to adopt more stringent ethics rules have often turned on the question of whether the court, at the summit of an independent branch of government, must follow the dictates of Congress, another co-equal branch.
In 2007, following a round of public criticism about judges’ attendance at retreats hosted by nonprofit advocacy groups, the Judicial Conference created a policy requiring more prompt and detailed disclosure about such events and their sponsors. However, the justices were omitted from the rule and don’t post such disclosures even when attending or speaking at the same events.
In a 2011 report, Roberts noted that the high court has never addressed whether Congress has the power to impose financial reporting requirements on the justices. Still, he noted, the justices comply. He said the same was true of Congress’ mandate for certain recusals.
In more recent years, Roberts has expressed concerns about lapses in the federal courts’ ethics practices undermining confidence in the judiciary. In his most recent annual report on the state of the federal judicial system, he lamented the findings of a Wall Street Journal investigation that identified nearly 700 instances over the span of nine years where federal judges ruled on cases in which they or their families had some financial interest.
“Let me be crystal clear: the Judiciary takes this matter seriously,” Roberts wrote. “We are duty-bound to strive for 100 percent compliance because public trust is essential, not incidental, to our function. Individually, judges must be scrupulously attentive to both the letter and spirit of our rules, as most are. Collectively, our ethics training programs need to be more rigorous.”
Despite those concerns, the Judicial Conference has pushed in recent years for more legal authority to keep personal details about federal judges and their family members out of the public domain, citing security concerns, threats and acts of violence.
For more than two years, the judiciary has pressed Congress to grant special protections to a wide swath of information about judges and justices and their family members, including primary and vacation homes, details on their vehicles, their spouses’ employment and other affiliations. Some of the proposals drew criticism for intruding on free-speech rights protected by the First Amendment.
The federal Judicial Conference has backed pending legislation that would allow judges to force government agencies and social media sites to take down certain categories of information deemed to pose a security risk. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has twice blocked a floor vote on the bill by insisting that federal lawmakers get the same protection.
Some courtwatchers say the disclosure and ethics policies have already done about as much as is feasible to ferret out conflicts.
“It seems like it’s impossible in the real world for there not to be some outside factors affecting the justices,” said Curt Levey of the conservative Committee for Justice. “We probably just have to live with that and trust. We’re already putting a lot of faith in the justices. There’s this semi-fiction that whatever their ideological political or other differences they put that aside. I guess we have to kind of trust them to not be influenced by who someone is working for or what cause they’re working for.”
However, with the increasing power of the court, the “American people deserve to know” the clients of Supreme Court Justice’s spouses, said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix The Court, an advocacy group calling for stricter ethics reform for federal courts.
“To be a federal government institution that the people have trust in — ethics is a major part of it and accounting for conflicts of interest is a major part of it,” Roth said. “If the Supreme Court — the Supreme Court — can’t account for their conflicts of interest, we’re in a bad place.”
He added: “It’s important for the public to know that the justices’ spouses not only have jobs but have jobs that oftentimes directly intersect with the work of the Supreme Court, and currently there’s no real good way to delineate that …
“And it almost seems that the current system is designed in a way where it’s easy to hide those connections, and that doesn’t impart trust in the institution as a whole.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/29/justices-spouses-conflict-of-interest-disclosures-00059549
Buccaneers announce Sunday night game vs. Chiefs will remain in Tampa
Sunday night’s Week 4 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers will remain in Tampa in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
This Looks A Lot Like the Dot-Com Bust With One Big Difference – Inflation
This Looks A Lot Like the Dot-Com Bust With One Big Difference – Inflation
This is starting to look a lot like the popping of the dot-com bubble with one big difference — inflation.
Beginning in mid-June, we saw a significant bear market rally in stocks. But the recent declines have wiped out those gains and more. For instance, the Dow jumped 14% during the 2-month rally. By the close on Friday, Sept. 23, it was once again down 20% from its all-time high. That same day, the NASDAQ closed just 2% off its June low after a 23% rally.
As WolfStreet points out, the collapse of this bear market rally was predicated on the fantasy of a Federal Reserve pivot.
The bear-market rally happened because markets – meaning folks and algos playing in them – had this fabulous reaction to the Fed’s aggressive rate-hike scenario: They began fantasizing about a Fed “pivot” and about rate cuts and some even about QE all over again. Asset prices began to jump and yields began to fall.”
WolfStreet points out that this bear market rally is reminiscent of the dot-com era. During a similar two-month rally from May 27 through July 17, 2000, the NASDAQ jumped by 33% without ever getting back to its old high. Ultimately, the NASDAQ collapsed by 78%.
That bear-market rally in the summer of 2000 suckered a lot of people back into the market, thinking that stocks would be going to the moon again, and they got crushed.”
The difference between then and now is we have a CPI over 8%.
The Fed has inflated an everything bubble. Since 2008, the central bank has pumped over $8 trillion into the economy. It got away with this inflation for a long time because most of that money wasn’t getting to consumers. Instead, we saw asset prices spike – particularly the stock market and real estate.
The Fed tried to normalize rates in 2018 and the air started coming out of those bubbles. It had already pivoted back to rate cuts and QE long before COVID. In a sense, the pandemic saved the Fed’s bacon. It gave the central bank an excuse to pump trillions of dollars in new liquidity into the economy and reinflate the bubbles. But the extent of the quantitative easing and the fact that the government handed out trillions to consumers changed the dynamics. Suddenly, the inflation started showing up in the CPI.
The Fed denied it for months, calling inflation “transitory.” But once it became impossible to deny, it launched its inflation fight. Predictably, the markets tanked until they decided the Fed was about finished tightening. Now, reality has set in again and we’re back to the bear market.
WolfStreet sums it up.
These artificially inflated markets cannot even maintain their level amid rate hikes and QT. Even little-bitty rate hikes, just four in a year, and small amounts of QT caused markets to tank, just like interest rate repression and QE had caused them to soar. It was becoming clear to everyone: QT was having the opposite effect of QE.”
The question remains: what will the Fed do. Will it hold the course? Or will it do what it has done in the past — pivot back to inflationary, loose monetary policy to rescue the economy, as it did after the dot-com bust (setting up the 2008 financial crisis).
WolfStreet argues that there will be no Fed pivot. He thinks the central bankers will be willing to tank the economy to get inflation back to 2%, just as Jerome Powell promises.
There have been lots of people who said that the Fed will keep doing QT “until something breaks.” Last time it did QT until the repo market broke. That was when the banks stopped lending to the repo market, which then blew out, which cause the Fed to bail it out in September 2019.
“But this time, the biggest thing that the Fed is in charge of has already broken: price stability. Inflation is the worst it has been in 40 years. And the Fed is tightening in order to fix this huge thing that has broken – to bring this inflation back under control and down to 2% (as per core PCE). This could be a long and tough slog. And other things that might break along the way are by comparison just minor inconveniences.”
This is where I part ways with WolfStreet’s analysis. I think the things that break will be far more and “minor inconveniences.”
Just consider the impact on the national debt. When you run the numbers, it becomes clear the US government can’t operate in a high interest rate environment. And the US government isn’t alone under a big pile of debt. Corporations are overleveraged and consumer debt is at record levels.
So far, the Fed has stayed resolute to follow through with its inflation fight. Peter Schiff said the Fed still thinks it can do the impossible, and it will ultimately pivot. But not until it can no longer deny the impacts of its tighter monetary policy.
I think when Powell is really confronted with how ugly this is going to be, then we’re finally going to get that pivot. But this is a giant game of chicken, and I think Powell is going to keep up this pretense as long as he possibly can.”
The mainstream has conceded a recession looms, although most people say it will be short and shallow. But as Peter Schiff said, the bust needs to be proportional to the boom.
We’ve never had a boom this big. We’ve never had interest rates this low for this long. We’ve never had an economy more screwed up than the one we have right now. We’ve never had bigger asset bubbles, bigger debt bubbles, more misallocations of capital and resources. So, we have more mistakes that we need to fix now than ever before. So, how are we going to do that with a short shallow recession? We’re not. It’s going to be a massive recession. And again, the Fed has no stomach for that, and that’s why the Fed is going to pivot.”
Alan Greenspan was able to engineer a recovery after the dot-com bust with some rate cuts. Ben Bernanke was able to engineer a recovery after 2008 with rate cuts and QE. (And by recovery, I mean reinflate the bubbles.) But they didn’t have to contend with 8.3% CPI. Jerome Powell does. And that changes everything.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/29/2022 – 13:45
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/looks-lot-dot-com-bust-one-big-difference-inflation
Most Americans Support Biden’s Student Loan Handout — Until They Realize It Raises Taxes: Poll
Most Americans Support Biden’s Student Loan Handout — Until They Realize It Raises Taxes: Poll
Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A majority of Americans would oppose President Joe Biden’s plan to “forgive” billions of dollars of federal student loan debt if it led to higher taxes, according to a recent poll.
The survey (pdf), conducted by British data company YouGov on behalf of the libertarian Cato Institute, found that 64 percent of American adults said they are in favor of the federal government “forgiving” up to $10,000 in federal student loans for people earning less than $150,000 a year, or less than $300,000 per year for married couples.
“However, support for cancelling federal student loan debt plummets when Americans consider its trade-offs,” the Cato Institute said.
When asked whether they would support the same plan if it “raised your taxes,” 64 percent of respondents said they would oppose the move, according to the results.
Meanwhile, 68 percent of respondents said they would oppose the student loan bailout if it would “primarily benefit higher income people.” Seventy-six percent would oppose the plan if it would cause universities to raise their tuition and fees, while 71 percent would oppose it if that means more employers would require college degrees even when they are not necessary for the job.
“These data show that Americans don’t like the costs that many experts believe are associated with federal student loan forgiveness,” said Cato’s Director of Polling Emily Ekins.
The poll also shows some differences between Democrats and Republicans in their response to the trade-offs. “Without considering trade‐offs, Democrats strongly support (88 percent) federal student debt cancellation, as do a majority (58 percent) of independents,” a summary of the finding reads. “However, Republicans oppose about 2 to 1, with 63 percent opposed.”
“A majority (56 percent) of Democrats would continue to support student debt cancellation even if it raised taxes,” it continued. “But Democrats turn against forgiving $10,000 in student debt per borrower if doing so meant colleges would raise their prices (67 percent) or if it led to credential inflation (64 percent).”
The poll was conducted online between Aug. 17 and Aug. 23 among 2,227 American adults, with an error margin of plus/minus 2.39 percentage points.
Plan Faces Legal Challenge
Under the plan unveiled Aug. 25 by U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, individual borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year or families earning less than $250,000 will be eligible for up to $10,000 in debt cancellation, while Pell Grant recipients who meet those income standards will be eligible for relief of up to $20,000. Pell Grants are typically awarded to students from low-income households to help them cover their college expenses.
In a memo released the day before the announcement, Cardona said the plan is justified under what’s known as the HEROES Act, a 2003 higher education law created as a response to the Iraq War.
Specifically, the law states that the education secretary may “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provisions” relating to federal student financial aid for those serving in the military during a war, those living or working in an area affected by a disaster, or those who “suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
According to Cardona, the federal government has declared the COVID‐19 pandemic a national emergency that encompasses the entire country, which means that his government can invoke the HEROES Act to provide relief for every borrower living in the United States.
Two lawsuits have so far been filed to block the plan. Both of them argue that Cardona’s justification is flawed.
The U.S. Education Department has failed to prove that “the broad class of 43 million borrowers ‘suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency’ with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic,” reads the complaint filed Sept. 12 by Daniel Laschober, who ran in the Republican primary for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat in 2016.
“[The HEROES Act] states the Secretary of Education is not required to exercise the waiver or modification authority on a case-by-case basis; however, the amount of student loan forgiveness per person or per household as determined by [the Education Department] is arbitrary and capricious,” it added.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/29/2022 – 13:05