When Corrupt Justices Define Official Corruption
If the six rightwing dogmatists who now literally rule the U.S. Supreme Court wonder why 70 percent of the American people consider them somewhere between politically corrupt and grotesque, they might reread their Kafkaesque decision in June that perverted the meaning of bribery.
Appropriately enough, the case—Snyder v. United States—involved garbage trucks. A small-town mayor had funneled a million-dollar contract for new garbage trucks to a local seller, which then made a $13,000 payoff to the mayor. Obvious graft. But no, the six Supremes decreed that the payoff was not illegal, because it was given to the mayor after the garbage truck contract was issued. Taking money before it would be a bribe, they babbled, but money given afterward is an innocent “gratuity”—like tipping a waiter for good service.
The Court’s distortion of kindergarten-level ethics was written by Brett Kavanaugh, infamous for his own frat-boy moral contortions. In his formal opinion, Kavanaugh rhetorically asked if such after-the-fact kickbacks should be considered bribes. “The answer,” he proclaimed, “is no.”
Of course, as any reasonable person would tell the black-robed fabricator, the obvious answer is, “Hell, yes!”
Kavanaugh even tried to trivialize such official bribery, calling it no more sinister than parents sending a gift basket to thank their child’s teacher for a job well done. Hello, Mr. Clueless, this was a $13,000 gift basket! The truck dealer was obviously rewarding the mayor for handing out a million taxpayer dollars to it!
This is Jim Hightower saying . . . of course, these six Supremes are not merely defending small potato malfeasance by local officials—they’re creating a legalistic loophole for the Court’s own members to keep taking millions of dollars in “gratuities” from corporate interests seeking judicial favors. It’s a case of corrupt Justices voting to legalize their own corruption.
Corporate Executives Should Have to Feel the Summer Heat
As a lifelong Texan, I’m used to hot summers. But what the hell? Ninety-nine degrees in June?
Last year, we had eighty days of 100-degree temperatures or hotter, and we’re looking at ninety days this year. I can’t moan in self-pity, though, for the globally warming furnace is now searing the whole country, even in northern climes, where people are used to having days in August when they need “summer sweaters.”
As we crank up our air conditioners, though, let’s pause for a moment to consider that fifty million workers in our communities are exposed throughout the day to the full intensity of the sun’s power. They are roofers and landscapers, warehouse workers and farm laborers, street pavers and letter carriers. These have always been hot jobs, but now they’re deadly: Heat kills more Americans today than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined.
So surely there are basic workplace rules assuring that these exposed people get water, shade breaks, and other protections? No. And when such humanitarian codes are proposed, industry bosses coldly reject them.
After several Texas cities began enacting worker protections, for example, corporate lobbyists rushed to their hireling, Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who obediently snuck a state preemption into law, banning local officials from setting their own heat standards. That year—2023—a record 450 people died of heat exposure in Texas, but Abbott just snarled that his preemption “increases economic liberty.”
Mercifully, President Joe Biden is pushing national heat rules. Of course, industry lobbyists are out to kill his antikilling reforms, calling them “unreasonably complicated.” Really? Providing water and shade is too perplexing for our corporate geniuses? Why don’t we put them on roofing jobs in August and let them think about it?