November 30, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The House on Wednesday resoundingly approved legislation to avert a nationwide rail strike by imposing a labor agreement between rail companies and their workers, as lawmakers rushed to shield the economy from the threat of a holiday-season work stoppage and prevent a disruption in shipping across the country. Acting quickly the day after President Biden made a personal appeal at the White House, the House passed a measure that would force the rail companies and employees to abide by a tentative agreement that the Biden administration helped broker earlier this year, which increased pay and set more flexible schedules for workers. The bill passed on a bipartisan vote of 290 to 137. It goes next to the Senate, where leaders in both parties have indicated they would move quickly to avoid a disruption to the nation's rail service."
Adam Klasfeld & Marisa Sarnoff of Law & Crime: "In a rare victory lap for the typically reserved lawyer, Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrated the convictions of five Oath Keepers leaders and members on serious charges, including two leaders on the seditious conspiracy charge.... The press conference, convened the day after the historic verdict, marked the first time Garland directly addressed the resolution of any of the hundreds of Jan. 6-related cases on his expansive docket. He has not held any event like it after any jury trial, bench trial or guilty plea. The Oath Keepers trial, however, marked a uniquely significant event, as the first to accuse participants in the breach of the U.S. Capitol of trying to overthrow the government or block the execution of its laws by force."
** Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "Emboldened House Democrats ushered in a new generation of leaders on Wednesday with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries [N.Y.] elected to be the first Black American to head a major political party in Congress as long-serving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team step aside next year.... It's rare that a party that lost the midterm elections would so easily regroup and stands in stark contrast with the upheaval among Republicans.... The trio led by Jeffries, who will become the Democratic minority leader in the new Congress, includes 59-year-old Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts as the Democratic whip and 43-year-old Rep. Pete Aguilar of California as caucus chairman. The new team of Democratic leaders is expected to slide into the slots held by Pelosi and her top lieutenants -- Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina -- as the 80-something leaders make way for the next generation." The New York Times story is here. ~~~
~~~ Mike Lillis & Mychael Schnell of the Hill: "Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) on Wednesday announced a bid to join the top tiers of Democratic leadership, challenging Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) for the No. 4 spot within the party brass in the next Congress. The move, announced just moments before Democrats were set to vote on their next crop of leaders, came as a surprise. Clyburn had announced earlier in the month that he would cede his third-ranking spot next year, but would seek to remain in the top tiers of leadership at the No. 4 assistant leader position, arguing the South needed representation in the top ranks."
U.K. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "A prominent lady-in-waiting to the late Queen Elizabeth II and godmother to royal heir Prince William resigned from her role in the Buckingham Palace household on Wednesday, and expressed 'profound apologies for the hurt caused,' after she pressed a Black British guest at the palace: 'Where are you really from?' Lady Susan Hussey, 83, had been dubbed 'Number One Head Girl' for the central role she played in the queen's life, and the new King Charles III had recently extended her honorary duties. But a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said that a complaint emerging from a Tuesday reception had been 'investigated immediately,' with the conclusion that 'unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments' had been made. The palace did not name Hussey, but said the royal household member had 'stepped aside from her honorary role with immediate effect.'... Camilla, Queen Consort, has said she wants to modernize the role of lady-in-waiting. She is calling her six attendants 'Queen's Companions,' expecting them to attend fewer events and relieving them of having to help answer letters to the queen." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Judging from the badgering questions asked of Ngozi Fulani, a British activist -- "What part of Africa are you from?" "What Nationality are you?" "Where do you really come from?" "Where do your people come from?" and "When did you first come here?" -- the old girl must have drunk too much.
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Dan Michaelski of the Washington Post: "Two decades ago, Congress preserved the mountain -- called Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE-kwah-may) in Mojave -- and 33,000 acres around it as wilderness. Now the Biden administration is readying a proclamation that could put roughly 450,000 acres -- spanning almost the entire triangle at the bottom of the Nevada map -- off limits to development under the 1906 Antiquities Act. President Biden will commit on Wednesday at the White House Tribal Nations Summit to protecting the area, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision was not yet public. Biden hopes to visit the area soon, the official added."
Annie Karni of the New York Times: "The Senate passed landmark legislation on Tuesday to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages, as a lame-duck Congress mustered a notable moment of bipartisanship.... The 61-to-36 vote ... marked one of the final major legislative achievements for Democrats before Republicans shift the focus in the House to conducting investigations of President Biden's administration and family members. The bill must now win final approval by the House in a vote expected as soon as next week, which would clear it for Mr. Biden, who said he looked forward to signing it alongside the bipartisan coalition that helped shepherd it through the Senate. In a statement, the president said the vote reaffirmed 'a fundamental truth: Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.'"
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress vowed on Tuesday to pass legislation averting a nationwide rail strike, saying they agree with President Biden that a work stoppage just days before Christmas would disrupt shipping and deal a devastating blow to the nation's economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said after a meeting at the White House with Mr. Biden and their Republican counterparts that they would act quickly to move legislation through the chambers." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Michael Sainato of the Guardian: "Railroad workers have expressed dismay at Joe Biden's proposed solution to a looming strike that threatens to derail the US economy, which they say belies his image as the most pro-union president in generations. As a 9 December deadline looms for the long-running labor dispute between the US's largest railway companies and their unions, Biden has called on Congress to intervene and block a strike that could cost the US economy around $2bn a day by some estimates.... On Wednesday Congress is expected to pass legislation that will force a settlement. But union leaders are unhappy that Biden's solution appears to be the imposition of a settlement reached in September that has already been rejected by many for failing to address members' concerns about pay, sick days, staff shortages and time off."
Alan Feuer & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, and one of his subordinates were convicted on Tuesday of seditious conspiracy as a jury found them guilty of seeking to keep ... Donald J. Trump in power through a plot that started after the 2020 election and culminated in the mob attack on the Capitol. But the jury in Federal District Court in Washington found three other defendants in the case not guilty of sedition and acquitted Mr. Rhodes of two separate conspiracy charges. The split verdicts, coming after three days of deliberations, were nonetheless a victory for the Justice Department and the first time in nearly 20 trials related to the Capitol attack that a jury decided that the violence that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, was the product of an organized conspiracy." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The AP's report is here.
Katelyn Polantz & Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN: "Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller testified on Tuesday to a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, as part of the January 6, 2021, investigation, CNN has learned, making him the first known witness to testify since the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations around the former president.... Miller, a former White House speechwriter and senior adviser to Trump, could provide a firsthand account of the former president's preparations for his speech at the Ellipse in Washington on January 6, including how he wanted to inspire his supporters, many of whom went on to attack the Capitol and disrupt Congress."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Anthony M. Ornato, the former Secret Service agent and White House aide at the heart of a dispute over conflicting accounts of ... Donald J. Trump's actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, was interviewed on Tuesday by the House committee investigating the attack.... The committee has sought for weeks to interview Mr. Ornato for a third time as it digs deeper into the activities of the Secret Service around the time of Jan. 6, 2021.... It was not immediately known what Mr. Ornato discussed with the panel. As a deputy White House chief of staff who oversaw the logistics of the president's movements, he is key to a dispute over the events in a presidential S.U.V. that day." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
"Manifestly Without Merit." Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "South Carolina's Supreme Court has ordered former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify to an Atlanta-area grand jury investigating Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election in Georgia. 'We have reviewed the arguments raised by Appellant and find them to be manifestly without merit,' South Carolina's Supreme Court justices wrote." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, on Tuesday disavowed one of the country's most prominent young white supremacists, but declined to criticize ... Donald J. Trump directly for dining with the man last week.... Mr. McCarthy had been silent for days on Mr. Trump's decision to have dinner with Nick Fuentes, the racist Holocaust denier who leads the white nationalist movement America First, and Kanye West, the artist and provocateur who has als made antisemitic comments.... He then falsely claimed that Mr. Trump had condemned Mr. Fuentes 'four times'; the former president has never done so....
"At the Capitol, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, broke his silence on the dinner with a direct rebuke of Mr. Trump, though he did not name the former president.... 'There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy,' Mr. McConnell told reporters, 'and anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.'" Unlike McCarthy, McConnell addressed the matter without being prompted by reporters.
Trump Gets a Babysitter. Jill Colvin of the AP: "In an acknowledgment of the severity of the backlash [over his dinner with Ye & Nick Fuentes] and an effort to prevent a repeat, Trump's campaign is putting new protocols in place to ensure that those who meet with him are approved and fully vetted.... The changes will include expediting a system, borrowed from Trump's White House, in which a senior campaign official will be present with him at all times.... So far, Trump has refused to condemn the views of either visitor, despite growing condemnation from his party, including calls for an apology from his former Vice President Mike Pence. In an interview with Fox News Digital Tuesday, Trump said again that he had 'never heard of' Fuentes." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump's claim that he had never heard of Fuentes would be unbelievable without evidence to the contrary. Trump knows who his fanboys are. And Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times provided evidence in her column published a couple of days ago: "In September, I wrote a piece about a Trump-endorsed congressional candidate named Joe Kent that mentions Fuentes in the first paragraph. Trump scrawled a note of congratulations on the print version and mailed it to Kent, who sent the image out on his email list."
** Carlos Lozada of the New York Times: "... don't buy [Mike Pence's] redemption tale just yet. Pence ... served the president's needs more than those of the nation. In [his memoir] 'So Help Me God,' Pence rarely contradicts the president, even in private, until the days immediately preceding Jan. 6. He rarely attempts to talk Trump out of his worst decisions or positions. He rarely counters Trump's lies with the truth. Most damning, Pence failed to tell the president or the public, without hedging or softening the point, that the Trump-Pence ticket had lost the 2020 election, even after Pence had reached that conclusion himself.... You shouldn't get the glory for pulling democracy back from the brink if you helped carry it up there in the first place. And, so help me God, Pence did just that."
To Let the Punishment Fit the Crime. Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "After sending thousands of admittedly fraudulent robocalls to largely Black communities in Cleveland, Ohio, right-wing operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have been dealt a sentence forcing them to expand the vote rather than suppress it. An Ohio judge ordered them to spend 500 hours registering voters living in low-income neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C. area. 'These two individuals attempted to disrupt the foundation of our democracy,' Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley said in a statement. 'Their sentence of two years of probation and 500 hours of community work service at a voter registration drive is appropriate.'"
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court sent a two-page letter to Democratic lawmakers looking into allegations of a leak by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. or his wife. Words weren't really necessary; a see-no-evil monkey emoji would have aptly summarized the court's response.... [A New York] Times article [which exposed the leak], along with coverage by Politico and Rolling Stone, depicts a disturbing, coordinated effort by conservative activists to insinuate themselves into the lives of sympathetic justices via six-figure donations to the Supreme Court Historical Society and access to vacation spots.... A Supreme Court that took ethics seriously would want to get to the bottom of this smarmy arrangement."
Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post: "Twitter will no longer enforce its policy against coronavirus misinformation, worrying experts who say the move could have serious consequences in the midst of a still-deadly pandemic. The rollback of Twitter's covid-19 misinformation policy is just the latest pivot since Elon Musk took control of the company a month ago.... Since [the early days of the pandemic in 2020], the company had suspended more than 11,000 accounts and removed more than 100,000 pieces of content for violating the policy, according to a report from the company. Several high-profile figures ran afoul of the policy, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whose personal account was suspended in January for violating the policy by casting doubt on the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines. Her account was reinstated last week." ~~~
~~~ Robert Mackey & Micah Lee of the Intercept: Elon Musk "appears to be overseeing a purge of left-wing activists from [Twitter]. Several prominent antifascist organizers and journalists have had their accounts suspended in the past week, after right-wing operatives appealed directly to Musk to ban them and far-right internet trolls flooded Twitter's complaints system with false reports about terms of service violations."
Ronald Blum of the AP: "Christian Pulisic scored while crashing headfirst into the goalkeeper in the 38th minute and the United States advanced to the knockout round of the World Cup with a 1-0 win over Iran on Tuesday in a politically charged rematch of their famous meeting a quarter-century ago." According to reporting on MSNBC, many Iranians -- dissatisfied with their own government -- cheered the U.S. win. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Georgia Senate Race. Andrew Kaczynski & Olivia Alafriz of CNN: "Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, facing renewed and growing questions about his residency in the final week of the runoff campaign, described himself during a campaign speech in January as living in Texas and said he decided to run for Georgia's Senate seat while at his Texas 'home,' according to a CNN KFile review of his campaign speeches. Georgia Democrats have called for an investigation by state officials into Walker's residency after CNN's KFile reported last week that Walker was getting a tax break in Texas intended for a primary residence, possibly running afoul of Texas tax law and some rules for establishing Georgia residency for voting and running for office. 'I live in Texas,' Walker said in January of this year, when speaking to University of Georgia College Republicans." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate in Georgia's Senate runoff, revealed in a financial disclosure statement that his Atlanta residence was being used as a rental property as recently as 2021. Tax and assessment records in Fulton County, Ga., listed Mr. Walker's wife, Julie Blanchard, as the sole owner of the 1.5-acre property in northwest Atlanta, further undermining the candidate's narrative about his Georgia residency.... On a financial disclosure form required by the Senate for incumbents and candidates, Mr. Walker reported in May that the 'Georgia residence' had generated between $15,001 and $50,000 in rental income in 2021 for his spouse.... In an interview posted in September by Rolling Out, a multimedia company, Mr. Walker said that he often stayed at a hotel in Atlanta instead of his residence of 'about 17 years' because of the upkeep involved in maintaining the home."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Wednesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "The European Union proposed establishing a specialized court to investigate and prosecute Russia for war crimes, following renewed calls by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue Moscow for the 'crime of aggression' against Ukraine. 'Russia must pay for its horrific crimes,' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted Wednesday, proposing that the tribunal be backed by the United Nations and work with the International Criminal Court.... Von der Leyen's proposal comes after months of Ukrainian calls for such a court.... NATO ministers will meet for a second day in Bucharest, Romania, after alliance officials condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for targeting vital infrastructure and pledged wide-ranging support for Ukraine, including fuel and generators. On the sidelines of those talks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a U.S. plan to help Ukraine rapidly procure transformers, circuit breakers and other hardware to repair the electrical grid ahead of winter.... Russia resumed strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure overnight, targeting a gas distribution point in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, according to a local official." ~~~
~~~ Lauren Said-Moorhouse, et al., of CNN:"The new Prince and Princess of Wales [-- William & Kate --] touched down in Boston Wednesday.... The couple flew into the city on a commercial flight as controversy erupted back home, after an aide resigned following 'unacceptable and deeply regrettable' remarks to a Black executive visiting Buckingham Palace earlier this week. It's the couple's first visit to the United States since they hit the Big Apple eight years ago."
News Lede
New York Times: "Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai Communist kingpin who was handpicked to lead China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and presided over a decade of meteoric economic growth, died on Wednesday in Shanghai. He was 96."
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Reader Comments (14)
Wednesday morning snicker…or two or three.
Snickers proceed forthwith whenever I read the word “testify” employed with “before the committee, grand jury, etc.” when describing the actions of such as Kellyanne Conway, mike pence, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Lindsey Graham, or any made members of the Trump Crime Family (this includes possible future testifiers like Mark Meadows).
I suppose an initial (millisecond lasting) connotative impression upon reading that word involves “telling the truth” or “bearing witness”. But…hold on…here it comes…
*snicker, snicker, snicker*
Stephen Miller…Steve Bannon…Junior??? Telling the truth???
Hahahahaha.
Of course, being a witness doesn’t necessarily involve truth, per se. there are witnesses and there are “witnesses”. I’m not talking here about the Rashomon sort of witnesses who believe that what they saw was completely true, at least as far as they know, as far as they could see.
There are also what the lit crit people call unreliable narrators, characters who bend or invent facts to help their own story or just don’t see or know what’s true. There are dissembling witnesses, false witnesses, nitpicking witnesses, exaggerators, calumniators, fabulists, prevaricators, equivocators, distorters, outright liars, and perjury proffering pretenders.
So “testify”, even though there’s an oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth involved (and we know how much value Trumpers and traitors place in oaths), doesn’t necessarily mean truth will out. In the case of most of these jamokes, it means truth IS out. Right out.
Thus the snickers.
Question: Why does Kevin McCarthy keep jello in his wallet?
Answer: For purposes of indentification
“Pusillanimous” is the not so secret woid here.
So “My Kevin” criticizes bigot, white supremacist, and virulent antisemite, Nick Fuentes*, but gives the Fat Fascist a pass for inviting him onto one of the most visible political stages in the country.
This is like tut-tutting about that big arson fire down the block but declining to say a word about the arsonist.
Yeah…sure, auto theft is bad but the car thief is a good guy. But hey, it’s good to have standards, core beliefs, some kind of moral bedrock upon which to base important life decisions, amirite?
But what happens when your moral bedrock is a sandbar?
Or jello?
*Just a sidebar…I read some winger-traitor hack last week question whether Fuentes could be considered one of his tribe at all, “I mean, the guy’s name sounds…Spanish. Can’t be one of us!” The irony of one bigot disavowing another because he’s the wrong ethnic group is just too…well, delicious ain’t exactly the right word, but you get what I mean…
Hold on…Herschel (Plastic Police Badge Man) Walker, sez he owns rental property in Atlanta which made him “between $15,000 and $50,000” last year.
So which is it? I mean, that’s kind of a big spread. “Herschel! Nice wheels, man. How much you pay for that car?” “Oh, about $700, um, $25,000. Sumpin like that.”
Is this what we can expect from Senator Walker (Jesus, even writing that gives me lower GI tract convulsions…)?
“Senator, you put in another tax break bill for Republican donors. How much will that cost the country?”
“Oh, let’s see…about $1 million, maybe $85 billion.”
Well that narrows it down.
A pal at the WaPo sent me a copy of the massive Supreme Court investigation into all the leaks about their rulings in favor of rich, connected, religious zealots.
Here’s the complete text:
Sammy din’ do nothin’.
Signed,
John Roberts
P.S. Clarence neither.
Can’t say they’re not thorough.
@Akhilleus: Well, yes. From Fuentes' Wikipage: "According to Fuentes, he is of Mexican descent via his paternal ancestors and is Catholic."
Like many a religious convert, newly-minted white guy Fuentes is the most ardent supporter of his new identity group. How better to prove your bona fides to your new group than to declare the group superior to any other? Pathetic!
This is not to suggest that a Mexican can't be white. Of course there are Mexicans who are genetically Caucasian.
But Fuentes, because of his name, must have felt a need to overcompensate. Besides, he could easily claim many of the other markers of white supremacists: male anti-Black, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-gay; anti-feminist (so many "antis"), so why not slip in the No. 1 identifying factor: so white.
Marie,
Yeah, Fuentes' shtick does smack of protesting too much.
But wouldn't it have been easier for him simply to change his name to Smith?
Of course, then he'd be out of business. In America, outrageous pays.
With so much news to absorb I wouldn't normally spend any time zeroing in on Tucker but this story got my attention. The director behind the scenes here on Fox–-the one who approves Tucker's hateful rhetoric is a gay man and has a husband of long standing. How does one come to terms with this? It's as if I was advocating a ban on meat consumption but my freezer was full of it.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-gay-producer_n_63868220e4b09a86b1b86033
Once again the Republicans get off with a slap on the wrist. Wohl and Burkman get probation for suppressing the vote through fake robocalls. And the prosecutor was happy with this verdict? This is not their first fraud, they created a fake Mueller sexual harassment scandal to smear the probe into the Pretender. And the low income folks of DC are going to be forced to deal with these two losers for 500 hours. Talk about cruel and unusual. Get home from a long day at work to find these assholes ringing your doorbell.
Unintended consequences?
As Musk moves Twitter's oh-so free speech platform increasingly in the direction of the Fascism he and the Pretender like best, won't Twitter cut into the already pathetic audience numbers ofTruth Social followers?
Seems like a war in the making, one of the few I might enjoy.
I doubt that Herschel Walker filled out the form declaring his assets, liabilities, etc. That's what he pays his accountant for. But with respect to the valuation of his wife's Atlanta house, that "$15-50,000" annual income declaration is most probably not a range created by the person filling out the form; such forms ask to check the box for an asset which describes fixed ranges, like "$100-$1,000", "$1,001-$5,000) etc. I would bet your net worth against my change jar that the asset annual income generation form completed by HW's accountant has a range of "$15,000 - $50,000" .
It would be nice if HW could be DQ'd on a technicality, but I would not expect that to happen. If we can't lock up El Puerco for treason, I doubt GA can DQ HW for absentee candidacy.
RAS,
You must be reading my mail. I thought the same thing about those two assholes. It’s like the judge telling two guys who broke into your house to steal your stuff to spend three months doing your yard work. Do you really want to see those creeps hanging around your house every day?
What he should have done was make those traitor slobs parade in front of Black churches for two months, wearing sandwich boards that say “We’re Republicans and we tried to steal your vote”.
Now that the Johnny’s Supremes have cleared up the problem of leaks about rulings in favor of extreme-right decisions aiding religious zealots in their attempt to ram their belief system down our throats (nothing to see, natch), it might be instructive to hear directly from one guy in particular who made it his mission in life to develop a secret campaign to infiltrate the Supreme Court with the goal of getting in with Republican justices. And ferreting out those leaks.
On The Daily, a NY Times podcast, investigative reporter Jodi Kantor interviews former anti-abortion crusader Rev. Rob Schenck about his plan to get rich donors to cozy up to SCOTUS justices like Alito and Thomas and their wives to influence (and get an early idea of) their rulings.
Astounding stuff. The dinners and parties are one thing, but having Alito and his wife for a vacation at your Jackson Hole mansion, that’s another. That smacks of pay-to-play.
Listen for two very important things: the inside game being played by conservatives on the court and their rich, influential pals, and what caused Rev. Schenck to rethink his scorched earth position on abortion.
Also, don’t miss Kantor’s conclusion about how permeable the court has become, how easy it is to slip through walls previously believed to be unbreachable, and how the total lack of ethics rules* and oversight of the workings of the nine most powerful people in the country affect all Americans, every day.
Eye opening.
*Of course rejection of ethical conduct on the court happens on only one side. Guess which one.
Even if the Democrats miraculously passed a code of ethics for the Supreme Court who would actually do the enforcement? The Supremes have shown that they can't be trusted to police themselves, Congress is incapable of holding anyone accountable, and the DOJ is afraid of trolls calling them political. I'm afraid we'd be right back here with SC lawyers saying, nothing to see here.
Here's the link to the Jodi Kastor podcast which Akhilleus mentions above. The link also links to other platforms that carry the podcast.