The U.S. Supreme Court legalized corruption last month
80 2016-07-11 by Balthanos
All credit to /u/mynskib
Copypasta of original comment:
The Supreme Court on Monday made it harder to prosecute public officials for corruption, unanimously overturning the conviction of Bob McDonnell, a former governor of Virginia.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, narrowed the definition of what sort of conduct can serve as the basis of a corruption prosecution. He said only formal and concrete government actions counted — filing a lawsuit, say, or making an administrative determination. Routine political courtesies like arranging meetings or urging underlings to consider a matter, he added, generally do not, even when the people seeking those favors give the public officials gifts or money.
That still leaves prosecutors plenty of room to pursue classic bribery and kickbacks. But there was widespread agreement among prosecutors and defense lawyers on Monday that the decision would make it harder for the government to prove corruption.
Mr. McDonnell, a Republican who served from 2010 to 2014, was charged with using his office to help Jonnie R. Williams Sr., who had provided the McDonnells with luxury products, loans and vacations worth more than $175,000 when Mr. McDonnell was governor.
Mr. McDonnell arranged meetings for and attended events with his benefactor. A jury found that Mr. McDonnell’s actions amounted to corruption, and a federal appeals court upheld the conviction.
In their briefs to the Supreme Court, Mr. McDonnell’s lawyers relied on the Citizens United decision in 2010, in which the Supreme Court said that “ingratiation and access” were “not corruption.” That year, the court ruled in favor of a former Enron executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, saying that a federal anticorruption law governing “honest services” applied only to bribes and kickbacks.
Mr. McDonnell’s successor, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who is facing a federal investigation involving campaign donations from a Chinese donor, issued a benign statement saying Mr. McDonnell and his family had “remained in my thoughts and prayers,”
The Court ruled that corporations spending unlimited amount of money in the political system is "free speech" and not corruption. Two billionaires gave $500 000 to justice clarence thomas before a judgement. Another Supreme Court Justice went to private clubs and luxury hotels paid by the same billionaires.
In my country, that's enough for the supreme court justices and the billionaires to be prosecuted. In America, it's considered perfectly normal. American elites are really lucky that ordinary american workers tend to have a blind respect toward their Supreme Court.
8 comments
5 ItsAJackOff 2016-07-11
We noticed.
Things like this may be obscured, downplayed, altogether forgotten by most. But the signs are on the wall, the constitution doesn't mean a fucking thing to our government anymore. Our rights have been converted to privilege under the nose of a lazy, naive citizenry.
3 UcDat 2016-07-11
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is a traitor to the USA and should be tried as such along with overturning this and every other criminal actions the courts have taken for the oligarchy.
3 backtothedust 2016-07-11
Yeah...well, that'll never happen. :-/
0 _Raptor_ 2016-07-11
Just the usual big exclamations in these posts.
2 llama_queen_ 2016-07-11
If you aren't shitting bricks over this, I don't know what will make you see that our government is currupt. They are not for the people, and there is no "Justice for all".
2 Hectat777 2016-07-11
The Supreme Court has been a corrupt, and justices corrupt, for a long time. It didn't begin with John Roberts. You can't expect this corrupt court to prevent corruption in the rest of government.
2 you_cant_banme 2016-07-11
And this month. And two months ago. And the month before that. And the month before that. And the... so on.
1 banthetruth 2016-07-11
nothing will be done by anyone.