Koch Entertained Justice Thomas At His Private Club

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/03/koch-entertained-justice-thomas-at-his-private-club/

A CounterPunch Special Report

For the past three years the U.S. has been served up a heaping dose of free market creative destruction that is the sine qua non of legions of corporate funded front groups. First Wall Street, then housing, now the nation’s highest court have been brought low by its force. As it turns out, creative destruction is 90 percent corruption and 10 percent creative.

The Citizens United case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010, opened the spigots to unlimited corporate money in elections and put free speech for inanimate, unfeeling corporations on equal footing with free speech for humans with a brain and a heart. But it didn’t pass the smell test from day one; four of the nine Justices on the court said so in a scathing dissent that raised the issue of unprincipled behavior on the part of the 5-judge majority which ruled on issues that were not legally before the court.

The unpleasant aroma of that decision enveloped Justice Clarence Thomas over his all-expenses-paid, four-day luxury trip to the January 2008 Koch brothers confab in the Palm Springs area of California. (According to his 2008 disclosure form and the Supreme Court’s public information office, his expenses for that trip were paid by the Federalist Society, a conservative nonprofit that the Koch foundations have given $1.9 million to, from 1991 through 2009.)

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are controlling shareholders of one of the largest private corporations in the world, Koch Industries. Each brother is worth an estimated $21.5 billion, according to Forbes. The company has a presence in over 60 countries, including interests in oil, refining, pipelines, paper products, chemicals, fertilizer and commodities trading. The Kochs’ semi-annual political fundraising event, which attracts upwards of 250 to 300 people, is so secretive that attendees are told in their instruction packet to keep everything they see and hear confidential, according to a memo leaked to Think Progress.org.

More at the link --

[ensho]

1. kick - criminals of a feather flock together

nt

[tblue]

2. They don't even try to hide it.

Amazing. They just flaunt the abuse like it's their right and like they know there's nothing we can do about it. Pigs.

[Tippy]

3. There ought to be a law....Just wonder what the total cost will come to...

When you buy a Supreme Court Justice...

[truebrit71]

4. It is beyond time that this particular member of the SCrOTUS was impeached...

...can you imagine the outcry if Justice Ginsburg had done this??..not to mention all of his other ethical conflicts...this guy has to go...and he needs to take his fat italian friend with him...

[Wilms]

5. ^