Just How Bad was that New York Times Piece on Supreme Court Justices Teaching at Scalia Law?

This bad:

The documents show how Scalia Law has offered the justices a safe space in a polarized Washington — an academic cocoon filled with friends and former clerks, where their legal views are celebrated, they are given top pay and treated to teaching trips abroad, and their personal needs are anticipated, from lunch orders to, in Justice Gorsuch's case, house hunting.

Hmm, that sounds strange. I read this and was pretty confident that my law school does not, in fact, provide house hunting services to judges.

Not surprisingly, then, it turns out we don't. Forty paragraphs later:

As Judge Gorsuch moved to the top of the list for the court seat, he convened a war room of confidants to lobby for his nomination and help frame a confirmation strategy. Among them was Jamil N. Jaffer, a Scalia Law professor and founder of its new National Security Institute. Mr. Jaffer had clerked for the judge on the appeals court and counted him as a friend and mentor.

After the Supreme Court confirmation, Mr. Jaffer acted as the Gorsuches' unofficial relocation consultant, meeting with a real estate agent and touring at least one equestrian estate in Virginia. "Thanks, Jaffer ????," the justice's wife, Louise Gorsuch, wrote after he sent an aerial video of the property. The justice followed up by asking Mr. Jaffer to arrange a tour for his wife.

I laughed when I got to that. Either the Times reporters are too dumb to distinguish between "Scalia Law, catering to the justices' personal needs, helped Gorsuch with househunting" and "a friend of Gorsuch on the faculty of Scalia Law helped Gorsuch with househunting," or they are outright dishonest. I'm guessing it's a bit of both, but mostly the latter, given that they waited forty paragraphs to elaborate on the original claim.

For more on the story, see Josh Blackman's post from yesterday.

Comments

[SimonP]

You know, I saw this NYT piece, and I didn’t think much of it – not much “there,” there, really – but then I see here the VC’s most prominent, bad-faith polemicists going to great pains to defend their alma mater/current employer, and I have to wonder. “Ha, ha! This unremarkable practice requires a robust defense!” Hm, does it? Why would that be, I wonder?

[Krayt]

Not much going on in the largest paper in the US?

[Sarcastr0]

Not every piece can be a banger.

[Michael P]

How many paragraphs are required for a typical non-“banger” article?

[Sarcastr0]

I’m sure it varies.

Sorry the NYT isn’t as dense with substance as whatever hot take factory you read.

[Randal]

Josh and David both decided that this silly NYT article is the most important thing for them to use their platform to talk about.

That doesn’t bode well for the VC. The place for a few washed-up conservative law professors to air their petty personal grievances? Sad!

[Jerry B.]

“…or they are outright dishonest”

We have a winner!!!

[Sarcastr0]

You have signaled the right amount of hate for the media designated to be hated.

You are such a good conservative!

[ReaderY]

The article overly focused on Scalia Law and may have erred in a particular or two. But the basic idea isthe Justices are getting wined and dined and given easy teaching gigs in exotic locations that are in effect well-paid semi-vacations by law schools competing with each other to attract them. The article suggests this might lead them to favor the people they are getting the gravy train from. This is a reasonable criticism of the Court.

[mulched]

But strangely targeted only at a specific school and justices.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Please, by all means, target other schools and justices! I want them targeted. But stop trying to change the subject.

[mulched]

Media targeting is the subject. Stop trying to change it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The only favor is where they hire their clerks from….

[ChrisC]

The NYT has been lagging a bit in doing smear campaigns on “right wingers”. So the new hot thing of de-legitimizing the Supreme Court is giving them a chance to catch up.

[F.D. Wolf]

Historically, stories about the personal affairs of Supreme Court justices are pretty uncommon. But a couple of weeks or so ago, we started getting barraged with the stories of Justice Thomas and his rich friend. In the last couple of days, we’ve gotten stories about Chief Justice Roberts’ wife’s income and Justice Gorsuch’s real estate transaction. Now this.

They all amount to worthless hit pieces, but this is rather obviously a coordinated campaign against the legitimacy of the Supreme Court (or at least its GOP-appointed members). I don’t recall anything like this in my lifetime.

[Sarcastr0]

Interest in the lives of Justices has actually waxed and waned. Plenty of books and stories over the years of you care to look. Law libraries are especially fertile ground.

A big case being decided or nomination drama often came with renewed interest in the Court.

There is no coordinated campaign.

[David Bernstein]

I guarantee you there is a coordinated campaign. This is very often how the media works these days, they regurgitate stories fed to them by interest groups. It’s not a coincidence that all these stories have come out around the same time.

[Nige]

Why do you guarantee that? None of this would have happened if a small web-based independent news source hadn’t done an expose on Thomas. That sparked further scrutiny, some of it more on-point than others. Prove co-ordintation or withdraw the comment.

‘they regurgitate stories fed to them by interest groups.’

Technically true since most media have been stripped of reporters and journalists to lower costs and maximise share dividends so we actually get way less reportage than we used to combined with a 24 hour news cycle, but that’s how media works in a modern capitalist democracy, apparently. But rewriting PR bumpf and co-ordinating a multi-venue attack on SCOTUS are not the same thing.

[Sarcastr0]

I guarantee you there is a coordinated campaign.

This is absolutely insane to hear from a Conspirator not a commenter/Blackman.

You have no evidence, just additional speculation about how you’re totally being persecuted.

There is an anodyne reason why the Court is in the public’s eye these days, so why reach for the paranoia?

[Theendoftheleft]

‘There is an anodyne reason why the Court is in the public’s eye these days, so why reach for the paranoia?’.

How does that notion exclude the possibility, let alone likelihood, of a ‘coordinated campaign’? You yourself have noted the motive, American retard (but I repeat myself).

Regardless, once your SCOTUS is successfully delegitimized, what will happen to the rule of law in your country? Do you think restoring blue team bullshitters to it will somehow cleanse the institution? How about your Congress? I’m just joking, of course: no one expects you American ‘progressive’ fuckwits to have long-term solutions to anything, let alone the problems you yourselves have helped to generate.

[MaddogEngineer]

You’re correct, of course. This is just an amazing coincidence.

[Sarcastr0]

That the public is interested in the Court after Dobbs, and the media is feeding that interest?

Not a coincidence at all.

[David Bernstein]

And… it’s just a coincidence that a rash of stories come out in the same two-week period, just happening to coincide with the introduction of a bill to regulate the Court? No one who understands how the journalism/pr firm/interest group complex works would believe that. (Which by the way doesn’t mean that the reporters/journalists involved realize that they are part of a “campaign.” Rather, someone spoonfeeds a bunch of journalists various seemingly juicey stories, timed so that a bunch of stories will come out around the same time. And some of the stories, like the Times, may even have been researched independently, but jumped on the existing bandwagon as far as timing goes.)

[Sarcastr0]

LOL that bill is going nowhere.

And you need to provide evidence of these things you are saying; they are not implausible or unprecedented, but that doesn’t mean you can declare they are happening here.

some of the stories, like the Times, may even have been researched independently, but jumped on the existing bandwagon as far as timing goes.
This is you, saying the timing is coincidental.

[David Bernstein]

Not exactly coincidental, but not part of the coordinated campaign. But there is, obviously, a coordinated campaign nevertheless. Or you can just believe that the (strong) original Thomas story was followed in rapid succession by a series of increasingly weak related stories about only conservative justices just by sheer happenstance.

[Magister]

That seems completely believable. One publication gets huge attention, deservedly, for reporting something previously undiscovered [although Clarence Thomas’s vacations were reported by the LA Times long ago, and he responded by not reporting them any more]. Many other publications look for similar things because they want a share of the attention and because the public is rightly curious whether other justices have similar ethical issues.

That very conservative news sources/muckrakers have not been able to retaliate with equivalent stories about liberal justices suggests that there’s not much there.

[Sarcastr0]

you can just believe that the (strong) original Thomas story was followed in rapid succession by a series of increasingly weak related stories about only conservative justices just by sheer happenstance.

This is, in fact, what I believe.

The Thomas story focused interest, and weak stories are quick to report.

Your use of ‘obviously’ and appeal to incredulity are both not proof of any kind of coordination, they prove only that you yourself are convinced. Doesn’t work on other people.

[Randal]

The timing of ProPublica’s The Thomas Crow Affair was suspicious, coming just a month after the ethics guidelines were changed to more clearly cover that exact case. But I feel like it was pretty easy for someone to figure out it was the perfect time to regurgitate that old LA Times story.

So is every opportunistically-timed article grounds for a charge of coordinating a campaign? Coordinated between whom exactly, ProPublica and… the committee that issued the new guidelines? The old LA Times guy?

It seems clear that everything following the original ProPublica article… followed the ProPublica article. It got a ton of national media attention, so naturally, there were follow-ups. Calling a media pile-on a “coordinated campaign” gives them too much credit.

It’s just little kids playing swarm-ball, I mean soccer. No one would call that a coordinated campaign.

[Nige]

One story breaks, then other venues cover that story and similar ones. Gasp! Conspiracy!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No one who understands how the journalism/pr firm/interest group complex works would believe that.

What would you know about that?

I worked as a reporter and editor at major, mainstream newspapers for years. I have represented the newsgatherers at newspapers and television stations for decades. My sense is that your understanding of the genesis of this recent round of Supreme Court stories, much like your understanding of how The New York Times, would fit comfortably in a thimble.

Quit whining and go back to conspicuously avoiding the issue of the rampant bigotry — which starts at the top — that animates the white, male blog to which you contribute.

Or consider addressing a substantive issue: Would you object were a Democratic Virginia state government to do to your law school what Florida Republicans are trying to do to Florida schools?

[Theendoftheleft]

A mainstream American newspaper reporter too, you say, not just a rep for them? Did your international colleagues see you as a cheap American shill and regime propagandist then too?

Do you think that makes you an epistemic authority, or does it instead serve as a valid ground for everyone else in the world to deem you to be a pathological liar, a regime stooge, and a moron? Thanks nevertheless for helping to discredit your country’s mainstream media; no one in the rest of world, across the political spectrum, and including us in Western countries, really trusts it anymore.

And stop whining about bigotry, AIDS. You’ve clearly established yourself as one.

[MaddogEngineer]

That all these stories are coming out now, just because of Dobbs obviously. No partisan agenda driven underlying, just journalists doing journalism.

Because special interests never feed journalist story ideas, and journalist never follow up on such suggestions because of sympathy to the issue. That’s the exclusive province of Fox News.

Dobbs is uniquely unique. Because there was never any interest in the Court after Obamacare (NFIB v Sebelius) or gay marriage (Windsor and Obergefell) decisions. Those were non-controversial because they were correctly decided.

[Sarcastr0]

So I provide an anodyne explanation, and you just say no, and proceed to argue against a series of strawmen.

[Theendoftheleft]

Thanks for demonstrating that you don’t even understand what a strawman argument is.

Why do you troll here incessantly? Do you get malicious glee in writing superficial comments that only make you look like a petulant moron, Yankee Doodle? Is it because you’re too much of a coward to actually confront people with different political views out in the real world? Is it because you know your country is doomed, that, globally, your political values are finished, and that you’re powerless to do anything about it?

[MaddogEngineer]

What strawmen?

You’re the one offering a straw man argument. You suggest that Dobbs invites scrutiny of the Court, in some way uniquely so.

Yet you fail to articulate why that would be, or make any connection with these alleged ethics violations with that decision. I offered you several others, which I presume you dismiss because they go against your thesis of some generic interest.

Because the truth here is not just general interest, but partisan interest, in the Dobbs decision. In that sense, perhaps it mimics the hatred toward the chief that Citizens United spawned.

What’s particularly odd about Dobbs is that no one could seriously suggest that external forces influenced the Dobbs majority to reach its decision. Which is what the outrage Thomas’ rich friend or the chief’s wife’s profiting supposedly imply, undue influence or bias.

Does anyone really believe the Dobbs majority needed to be bribed to vote as they did? I guess what we’re dealing here is much more primal: they are just bad, corrupt people, that’s what explains their actions.

[Sarcastr0]

What strawmen?

“Strawman 1: Because special interests never feed journalist story ideas, and journalist never follow up on such suggestions because of sympathy to the issue” – I never said that

“Strawman 2: That’s the exclusive province of Fox News” – I never said that.

“Strawman 3: Dobbs is uniquely unique.” Never said that, in fact I said the opposite.

“Because there was never any interest in the Court after Obamacare (NFIB v Sebelius) or gay marriage (Windsor and Obergefell) decisions.” This I didn’t say, but I do believe. You gotta go to Bush v. Gore to get to Dobbs level.

Strawman 4: “Those were non-controversial because they were correctly decided.” – I never said that.

[Sarcastr0]

Because the truth here is not just general interest, but partisan interest, in the Dobbs decision. In that sense, perhaps it mimics the hatred toward the chief that Citizens United spawned.

CU is a great example of partisan interest.

Dobbs is not. Check out red state legislators – they are sure interested!

Does anyone really believe the Dobbs majority needed to be bribed to vote as they did?
Who is saying that?

[MaddogEngineer]

Your new strawman, Sarcastr0, are the things you label strawmen as if I was suggesting you said any of them. Of course I did not.

I’m surprised someone with your name doesn’t recognize sarcasm. Each of my points you helpfully regurgitate are reasons why Bernstein has a valid argument, contra any refutation. Sympathetic journalists do coordinate on a hot ideological topic, as the JournoList kerfuffle circa 2009 demonstrates is possible.

You did, however, suggest this wasn’t surprising given that Dobbs caused greater public scrutiny of the Court. I, and others, are asking why on this particular case, and not others of similar controversy or import? If it’s so obvious/matter of fact. Is abortion a greater flashpoint than gay marriage was? Both seem to cross that level of interest threshold.

I have no objection to scrutinizing any public official or institution. (cc: Hunter Biden) The problem here is that none of these issues turn out to be what they are reported as such, essentially out of context. For example, implying a duty to report transactions/assets that was not required at the time. That makes it sounds partisan/political, not neutral watchdogging.

[MaddogEngineer]

Flooding the zone all of a sudden with all these ethics charges to justify a subsequent investigation–that’s right out of the 2016-2017 Russia collusion playbook.

[Theendoftheleft]

To Sarcastr0:

That was beautiful! Thank you for fleshing out, with evidence, your lack of understanding of the concept of a strawman argument by providing spurious examples. You fool. 🙂

[Sarcastr0]

I think Dobbs is a larger change than any of the other high-profile cases you cite.

You are also not fooling anyone coming in and protesting ‘oh, those bad arguments I sarcastically made? Those weren’t in relation to your comment I was replying to, why would you think that?!’

You created, and knocked down, some strawmen.

Moving on to boostrap this conspiracy theory with a past conspiracy theory of yours is just funny, though.

[Theendoftheleft]

I understand full well that they weren’t made in comments directed to me, but to Maddog. That doesn’t make you any less of a fool for providing spurious examples. (And nor did I produce any — not that I need to defend myself from a lying American buffoon like yourself.)

Why do you troll here all the time, Sarcastr0? What do you want?

[Nige]

Outrage over M&Ms is the exclusive province of Fox News.

[CommentMonkey]

I think you’re mistaking the lack of direct evidence (e.g., a leaked email saying “let’s release a series of misleading attacks to erode the institutional legitimacy of the Court”) with a lack of any evidence. There is circumstantial evidence that all these stories didn’t organically bubble to the surface at the same time. Among the data points: many of the practices criticized are long-standing and thus not “newsworthy”; many (most?) of the stories are riddled with inaccuracies and half-truths, always erring on the side of painting the Court in a negative light; and whenever a particular inaccuracy is exposed, there are always quick follow-ups blaming the Court itself of creating ambiguity by not having specific enough ethical standards. Moreover, the timing suggests coordination. There was a concerted media effort last term to bully the Court into preserving Roe, or some of it. Only after that effort failed did the current wave of ethics-related attacks begin.

I’m with you on the advisability, as a general matter, of not ascribing to some elaborate conspiracy what can be explained by other means. Conspiracy theories are usually wrong. But I don’t think it is fair to say there is “no evidence” of a coordinated political effort here.

[Sarcastr0]

There is circumstantial evidence that all these stories didn’t organically bubble to the surface at the same time.

Among the data points: many of the practices criticized are long-standing and thus not “newsworthy” Even assuming your subjective understanding of what is long-standing, and what is newsworthy, the public has become more interested in the integrity of the Court after previous stories about that broke.

many (most?) of the stories are riddled with inaccuracies and half-truths, always erring on the side of painting the Court in a negative light The journalists are afflicting the comfortable?! That’s not really some smoking gun for coordination.

whenever a particular inaccuracy is exposed, there are always quick follow-ups blaming the Court itself of creating ambiguity by not having specific enough ethical standards This is not evidence of some kind of conspiracy, it is evidence you have a narrative you like and are sad when it’s disagreed with.

Moreover, the timing suggests coordination. Or, as I’ve said 4 times now, this is the wages of Dobbs putting more of a spotlight on the Court.

You don’t like these stories, but that’s not evidence that anything is coordinated. There remains no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, of any kind of coordinated push or influence groups being particularly involved.

While I think you’re wrong, I thank you for your thoughtful tone; we can disagree but keep the light/heat ratio good!

[mulched]

The White Knight name isn’t taken now. Maybe that would be a better fit for you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I think you’re mistaking the lack of direct evidence (e.g., a leaked email saying “let’s release a series of misleading attacks to erode the institutional legitimacy of the Court”) with a lack of any evidence. There is circumstantial evidence that all these stories didn’t organically bubble to the surface at the same time.

Apply that standard to the Supreme Court-Heritage-Republican-Federalist stale ideology-industrial complex and it’s time for severe housecleaning at the Supreme Court.

[MaddogEngineer]

Why? Because Roe was a super-duper precedent?

Even defenders of the “right to chose” acknowledged it was legal garbage. But the ends justify the means obviously.

[Voize]

If agenda-driven sources feeding leads to news organizations with receptive markets who pursue the leads is what is meant by coordination, then certainly that happens in every news cycle. A common response isn’t a conspiracy, Rudy Giuliani’s Hunter laptop story was followed by several conservative outlets but that isn’t evidence they were meeting in a war-room in Delaware to map out a campaign.

[Theendoftheleft]

Why not organize a campaign against the American media for doing this?

It’s the same thing in your unis, your media, your socials, etc. The attackers have nothing to fear as there’s no price for their abuses.

Affix one and make it steep.

[Voize]

Thank heaven you’re only suggesting an organized campaign, not a coordinated one.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do your damnedest, clingers.

Until replacement.

[Theendoftheleft]

Replacement by whom? The Chinese? The Muslims? The religious Catholics you import by the millions? Other religious groups with superior evolutionary memes who don’t and won’t believe any of your garbage values and who won’t tolerate YOU at all once they become the dominant group(s) globally? Any which way you slice that sort of replacement model, AT BEST, you’re going back into the closet, AIDS.

Otherwise, you’re talking about millions of locals, who have hundreds of millions of guns, and who now hear parochial imbeciles like yourself publicly advocating for their replacement. So, ‘their damnest’ will be your damnation, AIDS. Think you can deepthroat the barrel of an AR-15?

[Voize]

Coordination requires a coordinator. So … Soros?

[David Nieporent]

This is not “the lives of justices.” We’re not seeing biographies of them. We’re seeing a strategic campaign to bring up a specific type of claim, no matter how far-fetched and tenuous, against specific justices.

And yes, that is indeed how journalism typically works; reporters don’t sit around poring through dusty old records (or even shiny new databases) trying to find some nugget of interest that they can build a story around. People bring stories like this to them. Often litigators, sometimes activist groups or think tanks, whatever. (By stories like this, I mean stories purporting to show institutional malfeasance of any sort, not stories about SCOTUS specifically.)

[Sarcastr0]

We’re seeing a strategic campaign to bring up a specific type of claim

Or it’s just the Thomas thing gave rise to other similar issues.

IIRC I heard a similar ‘strategic campaign’ after Bush v. Gore. And al so after Scalia had that hunting trip, there were a bunch of stories akin to that right after.
But I was young, maybe I don’t remember.

People bring stories like this to them. Often litigators, sometimes activist groups or think tanks, whatever.
What you are describing here still does not establish a coordinated campaign, unless you establish that the stories are being coordinated.

And no, a cluster of weak stories akin to one big story is not a sign of coordination, it is a sign of just following the scoop.

[David Bernstein]

Right. And to clarify, I’m not suggesting that the reporters who wrote these stories coordinated with each other. Rather, there is some interest group (I have a good idea which one) that coordinated the research and fed it to the relevant reporters around the same time, giving each of them his or her own “scoop.”

[David Nieporent]

In particular, note that the Roberts-is-a-legal-recruiter-and-therefore-shockingly-got-paid-to-do-legal-recruiting “scandal” is a ten year old claim that someone just fed to the media now.

[Sarcastr0]

I’ll spot you that one, but one doesn’t get you there. Plus, I suspect Blackman.

[Sarcastr0]

I’m still not sure you have evidence of even that.

It’s not as implausible as I took your initial claim, but weak stories following a scoop are not enough to show that it’s coordinated.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Rather, there is some interest group (I have a good idea which one)

Prof. Bernstein has a good idea . . . Justice Alito has a pretty good idea . . . but neither has enough character or courage to move past weak partisan sniping at unnamed entities.

[Randal]

The timing was dictated by the interest in the original ProPublica article.

Maybe there are interest groups serving as sources / leads. They’ve probably been hawking this garbage for years. Suddenly, there’s a market for it.

That doesn’t amount to a coordinated campaign. That’s just following the appetites of the audience.

… the Roberts-is-a-legal-recruiter-and-therefore-shockingly-got-paid-to-do-legal-recruiting “scandal” is a ten year old claim that someone just fed to the media now.

This is a great example. This is a story that’s been sitting on the shelf for 10 years, and suddenly it’s relevant. That’s not “someone just fed to the media now.” That’s “after 10 years of trying to feed it to the media, there was finally a reason for the media to run with it.”

[Darth Buckeye]

This is all setting a foundation for (a) impeachment of conservatives on the court so that Biden can replace them with liberals and/or (b) packing the court with additional justices to be picked by Biden.

[Sarcastr0]

And then the camps and the hunting of conservatives for murdering purposes, like Brett and BCD prophecy!

Y’all are out there with your predictions.

[Nige]

This would sound plausible if Biden and the Democrats showed the slightest inclination to do either. I suspect Supreme Court Justices will have to start murdering each other on camera before they figure it’s time something oughta be done.

[Nige]

(Actually it wouldn’t sound plausible since reform is the perfectly logical and rational response to this, but no sign of that, either.)

[Darth Buckeye]

Liberal justices also benefit from this practice. In 1997, the Virgin Islands Bar Association flew Ruth Bader Ginsburg down to the USVI to give a speech. In 2017, the VIBA flew Sonia Sotomayor down to give a speech.

[Longtobefree]

” . . . or they are outright dishonest”

Well, it is the NYT, so that was a no brainer.

[dwb68]

New York Times 2023 will end up undoing New York Times V sullivan, Getting themselves sued for defamation

[hobie]

If that happened and it ended up in the SC, wouldn’t the justices targeted in the piece have to recuse? Otherwise their decision would look like payback

[gVOR08]

It’s perfectly normal for rich people to spend a lot of money buying influence with powerful people. Nothing to see here, little people. Move along.

[MoreCurious]

Professor Bernstein’s post, and Blackman’s post yesterday, are simply distractions from the real issue. Why in the hell can’t these justices maintain a standard of living based on the more than $250,000 a year that they earn? Why rely on others to enhance their lifestyles? Why do they think they’re entitled to special treatment from rich people and law schools? Most of us learn early on that we can spend only what we manage to earn — there are no free handouts.

[David Nieporent]

In fact, many of us get sent to conferences or the like by our employers. It has nothing to do with “entitlement” or inability to maintain a standard of living. (Guess what: they rarely hold such conferences in Utica, New York; they hold them in places that people want to travel to, in order to entice people to come.) There’s nothing scandalous about that.

[jb]

Let’s rephrase your question:

Why do Supreme Court justices make a fraction of what a BigLaw partner or the General Counsel of a large company makes?

I think this is largely the result of the increasing inequality in overall income distribution. It looks like in 1969, a Supreme Court justice made ~$60K, which turns out to be very similar to that for the average law firm partner in DC or New York. In the intervening decades, though, the Supreme Court salary has increased by ~5x whereas BigLaw compensation has increased by more like 20x. Executive compensation trends have taken a similar pattern–increasing much more quickly than for even well-paid government employees.

So it’s not surprising that some of the best and most powerful lawyers in the country would seek ways to make them feel like they’re in the same lifestyle as people they perceive as their peers.

[MoreCurious]

Just so we’re clear: Are you saying that paid vacations and trips on yachts and private jets are okay because the justices could make more money by resigning and going to work for big law firms and corporations?

[jb]

No, I’m answering your question about standard of living.

[MoreCurious]

To me, at least, it’s a simple concept. Don’t spend more than you make. If you want to live a life that includes yachts, private jets, and free vacations, don’t take a government job. It troubles me to see these people living millionaire lifestyles yet making decisions about issues like guns, the environment, and abortion that affect us ordinary people. P.S. And if anyone still believes that Clarence and Ginni spend nights in their RV in Walmart parking lots might want to be wary of anyone offering a good deal on a bridge between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

[Bob from Ohio]

“Why do Supreme Court justices make a fraction of what a BigLaw partner or the General Counsel of a large company makes?”

Because they are government employees. The get generous pensions, no possibility of losing their jobs involuntarily, plenty of time off, no deadlines, slavish treatment by lawyers.

They don’t need more taxpayer money.

[jb]

I’m very confused by Professor Bernstein’s objection here. Maybe he needs to go back to re-do high school sentence diagramming?

All of the words after the em dash in the first quote from the Times are characteristics of the “safe space” that the school is providing; the school itself doesn’t need to perform all of the activities for that to be true, and the later paragraphs he quote provide evidence of it happening.