Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows (More!!)

[Jacobin]

February 5, 2004
PATTERSON, La. — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks.

The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.





According to those who met them at the small airstrip here, the justice and the vice president flew from Washington on Jan. 5 and were accompanied by a second, backup Air Force jet that carried staff and security aides to the vice president.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ducks5feb05,1,3912983.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
(sorry, its a darn free subscription site)

Apparently, Cheney sprung for Scalia's plane ticket in effect by having his VP jet take the "justice" to the marsh with him.

Heheh. This is getting better all the time. Scumbags

[Kitsune]

1. SCOTUS Justices can be impeached, no?

I seem to recall hearing something about that in my P&G101 course a couple years ago. Probably not for ethics, sadly...not to mention I'd want to hold off on it until B*sh is gone gone gone. ^^;;

[Jacobin]

2. still have to get the republican congress to do it. not likely

[Kitsune]

3. that too >.< *nt*

[Benhurst]

4. One more nail in the coffin of an already discredited court. n/t

[jpak]

5. Impeach 'em both

Breathtaking conflict of interest and abuse of power.

and the GOP sees nothing wrong with any of this...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. Eagerly awaiting the opportunity to watch Scalia do a

leaping pirouette through this ethics concern. He'll pull something out from Federalist Papers 78-83 as his rationale.

http://memory.loc.gov/const/fed/fedpapers.html

[dusty64]

10. He has already

stated that no one could possibly question his impartiality and rehnquist agreed. The extreme court is nothing but a sham, we should all simply refuse to follow their rulings anymore.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. "...and Rehnquist agreed."

Stop! You're killing me!

[dusty64]

12. If only it were a joke, I read this

last week. It truly is unbelievable and I won't elaborate on the things I was thinking when I read it, j. asscrack may be reading.

>>>In response to concerns about a potential conflict of interest, Scalia said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned."


"We do not believe that one standard should apply to judges who are friends of the Clintons, and another standard should apply to judges who are friends of Mr. Cheney," Waxman and Conyers told Rehnquist.


While not directly challenging Scalia's integrity, they said, "We do believe that public trust in the Supreme Court could erode if recusal decisions appear arbitrary."


Rehnquist already rebuffed questions this week from two Democratic senators about disqualification practices. The chief justice wrote Monday in a letter to Sens. Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) of Connecticut, a presidential candidate, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont that any suggestion now that Scalia should recuse himself "is ill considered."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040131/ap_on_go_su_co/scalia_cheney_3

[colonel odis]

7. fat tony can kiss that chief justice gig goodbye n/t

[Poiuyt]

8. Story on CBS

This was also covered on the CBS Evening News. It's nice to know that these stories are finally making the mainstream press.

[maddezmom]

22. on CSPAN this am, too

lots of angry callers

[Pale_Rider]

9. And apparently both were hosted by a ...

... promiment member of the energy industry!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3713582,00.html

Congressional Democrats and newspaper editorials have called for Scalia to step down from the case, which has to do with whether Cheney must reveal who serves on his energy task force. Further complicating the question: The host of the hunting trip is a prominent member of the energy industry.

snip

Several people in the party, including host Wallace Carline and Prejean, declined to discuss the trip into the duck-filled marshland at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. But this was no ordinary hunting trip.

Carline's business: http://www.diamondservicescorp.com/home/

[Fovea]

13. I wonder how future courts will regard

this particular SCOTUS, and how many of its decisions will be vacated?

[peacetalksforall]

14. Proof positive

Cheney and Scalia are arrogant, bold, and confident in their infallibility - they laugh in our face.

[northzax]

15. of course this trip didn't influence Scalia

He was always going to vote for Cheney, what's the big deal?

[modrepub]

16. Dumb

As a public official, I know better than to accept anything from someone I may have to pass judgement on. What an idiot!

[Jacobin]

17. hubris and arrogance, not idiocy

imho

[dusty64]

18. This story sums up

everything wrong with one party rule and can NOT be allowed to die.

[UpInArms]

19. related LATimes editorial

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-scalia6feb06,1,3834503.story
(free registration required)

excerpt:

Such a trip should have been an easy ethical "no-no." It's bad enough that Scalia went hunting with the vice president, who has a case before him. It's worse, as several legal experts have noted, that the trip was at the expense, in effect, of the vice president. Cheney is appealing the order from a lower court judge that he turn over documents from secret meetings he held in 2001 with lobbyists for oil, gas, nuclear and coal industries while formulating national energy policy. Cheney contends that his closed-door meetings did not violate an open-government law.

<snip>

Federal rules instruct a judge to disqualify himself "in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned." Though these ethics rules apply to all federal courts, the Supreme Court does not have a formal policy for ensuring that individual justices follow them. Scalia has bristled at suggestions that he recuse himself or that his longtime friendship with Cheney — and their many past hunting trips — could bias his judgment.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist appears to have the same ethical blind spot, dismissing as "ill considered" the letters he received from four Democratic lawmakers questioning Scalia's continued participation in Cheney's case.

...more...

The Felonious Five should all be impeached and thrown from the bench and be barred from any and all legal courtrooms.

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. If Scalia doesn't recuse himself?

won't we have a constitutional crisis on our hands?

Remember when the SCOTUS selected W, because they wanted to avoid a so called constitutional crisis? Now we are in the midst of an even bigger constitutional crisis and none of them see a problem with this?

[molly]

21. This is blantant arrogant and in-our-faces

this is much-much-much worse than a BJ in the Oval Office!

It was in the hard copy of the News Journal here yesterday in the editorial section. This is front page news and should appear there.

[farmbo]

23. "A Ducking They Did Go" (Three Stooges 1939) Scalia=Moe; Cheney=Curly

The Three Stooges are tricked by some con men into selling memberships to a phony duck hunting club. To the amazement of the con men, they sell all the memberships to the police department. When the bad guys skip town, the stooges are stuck at a duck-less lake with a lodge full of cops and plenty of trouble ahead. Moe and Larry stall the cops with duck decoys while Curly searches for some real ducks. The boys think their troubles are solved when Curly returns with a whole flock, but it turns out the ducks belong to local farmer and the boys leave in a hail of buckshot.
<snip>

Can anyone photoshop some stills from this Stooges' classic and load them up?