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You don't explicitly lay out how a code of conduct that applies to everyone equally is biased against Conservative justices. Is it because you think conservative media outlets are incapable of doing investigative journalism? That only Conservative justices are likely to violate said code of conduct? That everyone is corrupt, but the public/congress will selectively pressure corrupt Conservative justices?
If it came out that, say, Soros was buying houses and fancy vacations for some of the liberal justices I'd anticipate Fox News, talk radio and the Matt Gaetz' of the world would convulse in a collective orgasm and talk about it nonstop for the next three months. Do you disagree?
The restorative justice of Soros-backed district attorneys has killed people and mainstream media only cares when it turns into a horse race.
I can’t fathom any media outlet running a feature on people that would be alive today but for lax prosecutions.
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I thought I was clear: the only reason anyone cares about a code of ethics is because of politicized reporting smearing conservative justices. Therefore, the code of ethics itself is but a cudgel to be used against said justices.
Yes, this too. I don't think Propublica is worth the paper its printed on, and I don't trust them to tell me anything bad about Democrats, or anything good about Republicans.
Yeah, but it won't come out, because that's not the media landscape that exists in reality. In reality, the Hunter Biden laptop full of incriminating evidence is pre-bunked as a non-story and literally every single major media enterprise gets with the program in lockstep fashion. I wouldn't anticipate Fox News doing much about, since last I've checked they're just as much at war with the Republican base as any Never Trumper has ever been. That's one reason why Tucker is out.
He'd be the only one talking about. Him, us here, maybe /pol/, maybe /r/conspiracy, and other fringes of the internet. No major media would cover it seriously, instead the story would be how Republicans are melting down over racist conspiracy theories.
I don't know what world you're living in where you can model outcomes as you have. There just seems to be so much counterevidence that it feels nostalgic, like you expect Walter Cronkite to walk through the door and gently tell you all the things you need to know.
To be clear, "the media" are, at their core, just a ton of very smart and driven people who also happen to be, mostly, progressive. Nothing stops driven conservatives from reporting on the misdeeds of liberal justices, other than a lack of conservative reporters (as in Trace's earlier post), or a lack of misdeeds.
I think it's entirely possible the liberal justices haven't done anything similarly bad? Thomas's actions are specific things that might or might not have happened. I could see an alternate history where Thomas didn't do what he did. I can see a history where the liberal justices and thomas both did similar things. So I can also see a history where Thomas did that and liberal justices didn't do something similar. Like, Bob Menendez chaired Foreign Relations, and he happened to be a democrat. It totally could've been a Republican who did that, but it wasn't.
(also: Liberal Media didn't seem hesitant to report on Menendez's misdeeds. Obviously supreme court justices are more of a sore spot, but it's a comparison)
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I'm sure you do.
And the only reason we care about the Hatch act is that we might someday use it to coerce conservative congress members to resign. Just look at George Santos! We should probably do away with ethics rules in the House. No doubt the IRS is just going to be used to go after conservatives citizens, so we probably ought to dissolve that. The printing press has just been used as a cudgel against conservatives since the 16th century, and the rule of law has fucked conservatives since Hammurabi so we should probably do away with those as well.
I guess the cops are okay. They probably won't go after conservatives.
What you're being unclear about is any kind of broader position beyond being salty that a conservative justice is catching heat for something that, were the shoe on the other foot, you'd be just as happy to complain about. Are you just against any kind of neutral rules so long as what you think of as a biased media could leverage it against a prominent conservative? Are you specifically against any kind of code of ethics for the Supreme court, and if so, how is that different from any other example of ethics/rules that (at least on paper) apply equally to everyone? Is there some kind of underlying principle, or again, are you just salty that your ox got gored?
You say it wouldn't come out, and then give an example that...everyone knows about. The Hunter Biden laptop story was happily trumpeted through conservative talk radio, breitbart, Fox news, boomer facebook and wherever else conservatives get their news. It was broadly discussed in the NYT and plenty of other mainstream outlets as well.
Fox News, literally the most-watched news channel would cover it. As would conservative talk radio, which is how Trump supporters get their news. Randos in rural Idaho aren't getting the Times delivered to their doorsteps.
Who's that, like, a tiktok influencer?
About that…
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There is no such code of conduct. A leftist justice could have an absolutely egregious conflict of interest, and the New York Times and Washington Post and NPR and CNN would carry water for them. Sure, conservative media would complain, but no one cares what they think anyway.
No, there is a code of conduct. A conservative judge could have an absolutely egregious conflict of interest and fox news, conservative talk radio and boomer facebook would carry water for them.
But nobody cares what the conservative media thinks. That's the essential asymmetry. A conservative judge could be pressured into recusing himself by the NYT/WP/CNN/NPR (directly or indirectly); a leftist judge cannot be pressured by the conservative media.
I think this is pretty transparently untrue, especially if you spend lots of time around retirees. There is a significant population who cares about OANN or Fox or whatever. Some of them are also wealthy, opinionated, and like those college-campus kids in that they have lots of time to spend on politics.
The much-maligned unelected judges are reasonably well insulated from the opinions of these voters. That cuts both ways, though, and I don’t see how conservative media is categorically different from its liberal or centrist counterparts.
It’s also rather hard to prove a negative. Did you have a leftist refusal to recuse in mind?
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Tens of millions of people care what conservative media thinks, and they vote accordingly. A conservative judge couldn't be pressured into recusing themselves by the media.
Too bad the country has hundreds of millions of people, and the ones in Washington DC (even the conservatives, by and large) aren't among those who care what conservative media thinks. Nobody who could put pressure on a Supreme Court justice cares what conservative media thinks. Sotomayor could participate in a case that her daughter was involved in and nobody in DC would blink an eye.
And the NYT have 10 million subscribers out of hundreds of millions of american citizens. Guess conservatives overestimate the impact of the Times as well. I doubt very much that conservatives in DC ignore what Hannity and the rest of them think, given how they stumble over themselves for endorsements. And Clarence Thomas could participate in a case that affects someone who owns his mother's house without any consequence whatsoever.
But they're the right 10 million, and further they influence a lot more than that.
Too bad they couldn't influence the election in 2016, for all their power. Or supreme court shenanigans. Or rampant gerrymandering. Or protect abortion rights. Turns out running the OWG and pulling all the strings in the American government isn't all it's cracked up to be.
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