The Reality Of Impeaching Corrupt Right Wing Fanatic Sam Alito Starts With Flipping Congress Blue

Samuel Chase, a founding father from Maryland, was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1796 by George Washington. His confirmation by the Senate took less than a day. He served from February 1796 until he died in 1811. In between he became the only Supreme Court judge to ever be impeached by the House. He was a Federalist impeached by the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans for showing political bias in several of his cases. He was acquitted by the Senate.

No Supreme Court justice has been impeached since, although there were several who sure deserved to be, like Chief Judge Roger Taney, a racist psychopath who authored the horrific Dred Scott decision, writing “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” He was nominated by another racist, Andrew Jackson, and served from 1836 until he died, widely hated, in 1864. He was a Confederate sympathizer who stayed on as Chief Judge to harass Lincoln’s prosecution of the war. If he wasn’t impeached, would anyone else ever be?

Well… there was James Clark McReynolds, who was nominated in 1914 by Woodrow Wilson and served until he retired, deaf, in 1941. He was an overt and vicious racist and anti-Semite who did everything he could to oppose FDR’s programs. In his 27 years on the bench, he wrote 157 dissents, 93 of which were against the New Deal. He was detested by everyone who knew him, even people who agreed with his anti-New Deal politics. Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote that he found him to be “selfish to the last degree… fuller of prejudice than any man I have ever known… one who delights in making others uncomfortable. He has no sense of duty... really seems to have less of a loyal spirit to the Court than anybody.” He was well known for his bigotry and he said he would not accept “Jews, drinkers, blacks or women” as law clerks. He refused to speak to Justice Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish member of the Court, and would leave the conference room when Brandeis, his obvious intellectual superior, spoke. He refused to sign any opinions authored by Brandeis. And when Herbert Hoover was considering appointing Benjamin Cardozo to the Court— which he did— McReynolds urged the White House not to “afflict the Court with another Jew.” He never said a single word to Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter got the same treatment from McReynolds.

“Impeachment,” wrote Erica Payne yesterday, “should be a last resort, to be used when all other methods for holding a public figure accountable have failed. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has effectively declared he has no obligation to be impartial; he has accepted lavish gifts from billionaires seeking to buy his vote on cases before the Court; he has openly and unapologetically sided with insurrectionists; and Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to meet with leadership in the Senate to discuss judicial ethics.”

President and co-founder of Patriotic millionaires, Payne says that “If Alito will not recuse himself, and the Chief Justice will not implement a binding code of ethics, Congress must impeach Justice Alito. It was recently revealed that after the unprecedented January 6th attack on our nation’s Capitol, an upside-down American flag— the internationally recognized symbol for distress— was flown outside of Justice Alito’s Virginia home. Flying the American flag in this manner was, of course, a prominent symbol of the insurrectionists. Then we learned that Justice Alito had an ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag flying outside his New Jersey home last summer. This flag was co-opted as a symbol of Christian nationalism.”

She reminded her readers that “As a consequence of these revelations, Justice Alito was pressured to recuse himself from cases related to the attack on the Capitol. But Justice Alito refused, despite the Supreme Court’s new, non-binding, Code of Ethics, which states: ‘A Justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the Justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’ It gets worse. When the revelations came to light, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked to meet with the Chief Justice to discuss judicial ethics. The Chief Justice refused, citing bogus concerns about the ‘separation of powers.’ Fundamentally, neither Chief Justice Roberts nor Justice Alito believe they are responsible to the American people. Democracy will not survive if the Supreme Court can so flagrantly sell itself to billionaires and signal its support for insurrectionists while refusing to even meet with members of Congress. Congress must act before it’s too late.”

She recommended that her readers watch this video made by Robert Reichand then write to their members of Congress urging impeachment:

To reiterate, this isn’t Alito’s first time making dubious ethical decisions. In 2008, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer flew Justice Alito on his private jet -- at a cost of $100,000 one way -- to a remote part of Alaska, where the two stayed at a luxury fishing lodge that cost $1,000 per night. That’s fishy to begin with, especially because Alito failed to disclose the trip.

But wait, there’s more. Since 2008, Singer’s hedge fund has had 10 cases before the Supreme Court and Justice Alito never recused himself from any of them. For example, in 2014, Justice Alito sided with the majority in a case involving Singer’s hedge fund and the country of Argentina -- the result led to the hedge fund receiving a $2.4 billion payout.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Justice Alito stated that he had no reason to recuse himself from cases involving Paul Singer’s hedge fund because he has only conversed with Mr. Singer on a “handful of occasions”— including during the $100,000+ trip to Alaska on Mr. Singer’s private jet. And as for that flight, Justice Alito’s defense is, had he not taken the seat on the private plane, it would have otherwise been vacant.

This “defense” is an insult to the American people and our democracy. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and its nine unelected members have lifetime appointments. If they refuse to conduct themselves in a fair and impartial manner, then Congress has a duty to hold them accountable.

Early in 2015, a decade after Alito was sworn in I wrote that with the retirements of Tim Johnson (D-SC) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and the defeats of Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) this year, only 3 Democrats remain in the Senate who were among the 19 Dems who voted with the GOP on January 30, 2006 to cut off debate and, in effect, allow Alito to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. The remaining Alito-Democrats still voting in the Senate today: Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Bill Nelson (D-FL). It's worth noting that both Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were two of 25 Democrats who voted against ending the debate. In other words, both were serious about not confirming the calamity the Democrats well knew was looming for the country in the form of Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito. Even conservative Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Evan Bayh voted against cloture.

A man with virtually no ethical standards of decency, Alito is the ultimate hack judge for the corporatocracy and for conservative— or even reactionary— Establishment power. He is not, nor has he ever been, a man to question authority or, worse, authoritarianism. The only Republican to vote against Alito was Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, who stated flatly that “I am a pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-Bill of Rights Republican, and I will be voting against this nomination.” In announcing their opposition to confirmation, the American Civil Liberties Union, which had only opposed two Supreme Court nominees in its entire history, was prescient. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero justified the decision by saying that “At a time when our president has claimed unprecedented authority to spy on Americans and jail terrorism suspects indefinitely, America needs a Supreme Court justice who will uphold our precious civil liberties. Unfortunately, Judge Alito's record shows a willingness to support government actions that abridge individual freedoms.”

No Democrat who voted to allow Alito to be confirmed didn't know what they were agreeing to. A pig for sure, but a pig in a poke he wasn't. Predictably, Alito has been on the wrong side of every Supreme Court decision— no exceptions— since ascending to the Court, from Citizens United, Hobby Lobby and Hamdan v Rumsfeld, to McCutcheon and Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire. Needless to say, he had also been in the minority that tried to throw out the Affordable Care Act by circumventing the Constitution. Alito has clearly always going to be the most grubbily partisan member of the Court— with an agenda to turn back the clock on working families overall and especially on women. He has been the best friend of the Chamber of Commerce on the Court, even worse than Scalia.