Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 721: Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording live from gloryhole studios in chicago and. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat.

And today is long form day. A phrase my wife never hears. That's about Clarence Thomas today. We're going to be talking about a story from the ProPublica. Clarence Thomas's 38 vacations, the other billionaires who have treated the Supreme Court justice to luxury travel. And this isn't the only story that's come out about the Supreme Court Justices because there was other people.

Alito also had plenty of things going on that he didn't disclose. And, you know, I think we'll get into it as we work our way through it. But my initial impression of all this is that, you is that Thomas was treated like absolute royalty all the time wherever he went

and lived a very lavish lifestyle on these very rich people who had business with the court and who had every opportunity, even if it wasn't their business, to convince him to side with business,

to side with the big billionaire class. Even if you don't, even if you're just not a person who has any court business, and it's hard to believe that a billionaire doesn't have something that's going up against them. But even if you didn't, you're still saying, you know, whatever comes up, if it looks like it's going to hurt me, you're going to vote against it. Yeah, and I want to emphasize your point there because I was thinking the same thing is that,

and I believe this is true without exception. If you are a billionaire, there is no possibility that some court decision does not materially affect your life and your money. It's impossible. You can only be... Just the structure, the economic structure of our country is such that by being a billionaire, that is a definitionally political position for you to be in. You cannot be an apolitical billionaire. It's not possible. And if you are a billionaire, you have business interests, which will be impacted by the court's decisions. So it's not like me and you, right? You and I are such small potatoes that at the end of the day, our assets don't do any work. They don't do the kind of

big functional work that the assets of a billionaire does. So the idea that you can have an apolitical or disinterested billionaire is like, we should all throw that idea away as a fantasy that is impossible for it to be real. That's nonsense. So yeah, like some of these guys had direct business with the court. Some of them said, hey, look, I don't have any cases that are pending with the court and neither do my companies. And it's like, yeah, all right. But like, you still are a billionaire and you are still a billionaire who in every case,

and we'll talk about this, in every case, these billionaires suddenly became friends with Clarence Thomas after he became a Supreme Court justice. These weren't friendships going in. And even if they were, I thought about this while I was reading the article, if you want to be a civil servant at this level, I think you have to be willing to walk away from your powerful friends. I think you have to be willing. Let's say you had a billionaire friend. And you said, I want to be a Supreme Court justice. I'm going to have to walk away

from that relationship until I'm done being a Supreme Court justice. Yeah, I don't think that's unfair. Because you can't pretend an impartiality anymore. Especially because like what we were saying, there's just too many of your, you know, your fingers are too far dug

into the American fabric of our economy when you have that kind of capital. There's nothing you can do to extricate yourself from that. So, no matter what, if you rule for the billionaire class, you ruled for your friend, whether or not you ruled for him in this particular case. It doesn't, you still ruled for him, even if he wasn't before you. You were still helping him, even if he wasn't before you. And the stuff he's getting is lavish, man.

Some of the stuff- So lavish. Some of the stuff he's getting, he's getting an entire jet, an entire 737 sent to him. And now the 737 was retrofit to be like a lounge, his own private jet. Now, when I get on a 737 or a large jet, I'm with 570 of my closest friends, right?

I am as, and we are now, in fact, in some places we'd be married, we're that close, right? You are stuffed into a tiny little place. You have to be as careful as possible to not touch somebody. It's impossible not to. You're spending hours next to people cramped. He gets the entire thing to himself.

In order to get that, in order to have that for him, would have cost him $130,000 for one way. That's not round trip. That's not, oh, I got my fucking, my tickets on fucking kayak to go on my private 737 and I got it for $130,000 round trip. No, he got it for free. It would have cost $130,000 one way. And that's just one

thing he got. I mean, the other thing that really genuinely feels like an absolute bribe is when he got access to a very, very exclusive private golf club that no one gets access to without being invited. Yeah. You can't even like, this isn't like, oh, I got to apply and know somebody and pay a fee. There's no fees. There's no fees. You just get invited to it. He had a standing, an invitation to visit this thing whenever he wanted. Now, this is an absolute just invitation only run by a billionaire. Now, this guy is, I guess, run by a billionaire. Now, this guy has, I guess, sold it or moved on,

and now it costs you $150,000 a year to even get in. Yep. Right? That's a year. That's in one year. That's like buying half a house nowadays. Right, yeah, right. In one year. Yep.

But we should only think about this as a corruption. Yeah. This is straight up raw, unadulterated, like uncomplicated corruption. That's what this is. You know, like this is like a level, this is a lifestyle that he is being afforded that vastly outstrips his ability to pay for this himself. This is not like, you know, he has said as much. Yeah.

to pay for this himself. This is not like, you know. He has said as much. Yeah. And he said at one point, he's like, hey, you know, I took on this role because I took it on as a matter of principle

instead of going and getting rich. And then he lives like a rich fucker. So he gets it both ways. He gets to appear to himself, I'm sure. And to other people as a high and mighty man of principle sitting on the highest court right and don't aren't i great here up here on my ivory tower forsaking riches in order to provide to you the american people you know the benefits of hyper literalism that you

know is is crushing nobody benefits by except for like these six guys that I'm fishing with. But yeah, then on the other hand, he doesn't lose anything. He doesn't lose anything because he's got a guy paying for mama's house. He's got a guy paying for his fucking nephew's education.

He's got a guy sending a fucking helicopter sometimes to pick him up and sometimes a 737 and he's going on like ultra luxe fishing trips and he's going to sporting events that are, like,

and then when he goes to sporting events, he doesn't, like, go like you and I go. He's, like, on the field, like, hanging out, like, doing everything but catching the ball. Sure. Like, he's being treated

like a fucking, like, royalty. And I can see, here's the thing, right? Like, I'm okay with him having some modicum of fame because he's he's part of this and if he gets comp tickets once in a while i don't think i would care but like what we're talking about is just an insane amount of comping that is beyond what any normal person would give you without expecting something in return yeah right like Like maybe if you're fucking Nebraska State

or whatever the fucking corn-fed fucking university is going to, if you're that fucking university, maybe it's in your best interest to give the fucking Supreme Court justice fucking court side seats. Maybe it's in your best interest because you could just say, you know, look at who was at our game.

You know, you might be able to, student, rub fucking shoulders with a person here that puts you up, that builds your brand. It makes you look like you have an importance in the world. Maybe it's in their best interest to do that. But like at a certain point, these are fucking, there's a massive amount of just under the table stuff that's happening.

All this like, you know, you can get into these places where there's no publicity for this, right? I'm not, that private golf club, that's not a publicity thing. That's just him getting a fucking thing for nothing. Something that you would want to get something out of. I could see getting these tickets, like I say, like getting a ticket maybe, right? But getting there and then getting wined and dined while you're there. And then having like all this, like staying at luxury hotels and luxury resorts and luxury, like on yachts that cost $60,000 a day to rent or something. Yeah. This isn't like, this isn't even like your upper middle class friends who go on a quote unquote

luxury vacation. Yeah. This is a level of ultra elite fucking crazy rich people. Like, this is like crazy rich Asians level. Like,

this is nuts. This is fucking, this is fucking like what the Kardashians do. Right. Yeah, exactly. And you know,

and I agree with you, but I also want to point out that it is so important that the rules that are in place for federal judges cap the acceptance of gifts to nothing more than about $400. I don't disagree with this. And there's literally no

reason why that shouldn't be the rule for a Supreme Court justice. I don't disagree. And I don't disagree with you about maybe the University of Corn or whatever wants to give Clarence Thomas, but also like, you know, the Supreme Court just ruled recently on affirmative action,

which directly impacts those universities. So there's kind of nowhere he can't go that a case might not wind up in his lap. So we have to just assume that anything that's industry is going to necessarily be a conflict of interest. And I think we also need to assume that a billionaire is industry. Yeah. A billionaire individually is industry. And we should also assume that college is our industry too. Yeah. That's what I, yeah. College is the education industry. Like we should assume,

so like this should be a lonely job. Like we've talked about this before. This should be kind of a shitty, lonely job. That's what this should be. It shouldn't be like getting a ton of shit all the time. You know, and the thing is, is like he doesn't disclose it. That's the real problem, right?

It's like, like I don't know how much trouble he would even be in if he would have just said he did it. That's the real problem, right? It's like, I don't know how much trouble he would even be in if he would have just said he did it. If he had just said out loud that he did it, because Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in this article, they say she took a trip to Israel and somewhere else, maybe Palestine or something else. I don't know, another place. It was Israel and something else, maybe Greece or something, on another person who took her there yeah and then but she disclosed it same thing with with briar did something right and and but they disclosed it he didn't disclose it alito didn't disclose it they had to go fucking hunt this down there's like a gumshoe out there

with like a fucking a trip leon and he's got a he's and he's got a, he's, and he's got a fucking flip over pad and he's writing shit down and he's calling people on the phone and he's digging through records or she's digging through records and they're finding this stuff. Yeah. And you know, it does require us to consider why do we keep secrets? We only keep secrets when we know that we are doing something

that someone will disapprove of. Otherwise, we don't keep secrets. Look, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Breyer, they took a gift, they disclosed the gift, right? If they took the gift and didn't disclose the gift, it's because they think that that gift was wrong. That's why we hide things. We hide things because either we believe it's wrong or because we believe that people around us will believe that it's wrong. That's why we hide things. We hide things because either we believe it's wrong or because

we believe that people around us will believe that it's wrong. So maybe we don't have a moral compunction, but we're worried others will. Maybe we do have a moral compunction and we're worried other people will, or we're just worried that other people give us grief about something. So we're trying to hide. My point being, there's no reason to keep a secret that isn't kind of nefarious. Yeah. And so when you are taking these gifts that are valued six figures plus, and these are enormous gifts that are far outside your station in life, far outside. And Cecil, I would be more inclined to forgive this if Clarence Thomas were like generationally wealthy. Yeah. Right. So if these gifts did not mean anything.

So like if I get this gift, if somebody takes me on a six figure trip, that's the trip of a lifetime. That is a trip. That's going to blow my mind. I have no ability to experience that. I'm going to ruin you for vacation period. I would come back home and just kill myself because everything else would taste like sawdust. It's so amazing.

Right? Six, I mean, gosh. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. I can't imagine. But if I'm generationally wealthy, I've done that forever and ever and ever.

It doesn't mean anything. It's the backdrop of a life. Right? So, but that's not Clarence Thomas' world, man. Clarence Thomas is not generationally wealthy.

So, this will have an impact. This will feel fucking great. It will be fucking tantalizing. This would be so exciting. And I don't think any of us should believe that anyone as just a human being is immune to the excitement and is immune to like being like winined and dined and told how great you are and like, you know,

oh, we didn't talk about any cases while we were doing it. We just talked about this, that, and the other thing. Yeah, but like,

now I fucking love you. Yeah. And am I going to hurt someone I love? No, of course not. Am I going to hurt the business of someone I love?

Of course not. You're going to, and everything that they care about, you care about. Right. I care about it all. Yeah. And, you know, I was thinking about this. I was thinking about, you care about. Right. I care about it all. Yeah. And, you know, I was thinking about this.

I was thinking about, you know, trying to put it in perspective of my life. And I've been on some good vacations in my life. Yeah. And every time I want to go on a vacation, and this is particular, like, so I'll give an example of the COVID vacation that got canceled. Yeah. I saved up for that vacation for a year and a half. So a year and a half, I went without. I did without on certain things.

I was like, you know what? I'm going on a big vacation. I don't want to get this whatever it is, little thing I was going to do for myself, whether it was coffee or it was big. You know, maybe I wanted to get a gaming system or a new something. I was like, you know what?

I'm not going to do that. I'm putting it away for this vacation. And I saved enough money to have a vacation that I was going to do a 21-day vacation in Europe. And I was like, I've got it. I saved up enough money. It took me a year and a half to do that. This vacation that he's going on is like,

I could have spent that in maybe 40 minutes in the place that he went. Maybe 40 minutes. I could have spent the entirety of all the money I was going to spend in 21 days with airfare, with all the things that I was going to see, with staying at hotels, with all of that. I could have maybe spent a half an hour plus in one of the restaurants he was going to visit. Yeah, for real. That's how intense this stuff is. I want to read some of this stuff just so people can understand what he's getting.

So, you know, at least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas. Now that's not like a lake, guys. That's around the Bahamas. Now, that's not like a lake, guys. That's around the Bahamas. They do cruises that are like two or three days around the Bahamas that you have to pay for. Like, this is not a close,

like, I'm just going to bounce for a day. I'm just going to go on a quick fishing trip on the ocean or something. And this isn't a boat with a sleeper cabin. No, this is a yacht with staff. This is a yacht, 26. This is a yacht. 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter,

a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox, two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica, and one standing invitation to an uber expensive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast. That's the things that he's gotten. Yeah.

And these are all from gifts from people he's met after he's become an influential Supreme Court justice. Yeah. Notice, motherfucker, that nobody was knocking on your door looking to be your super duper bestie. Yeah. You know, here's the thing. Do you know a billionaire?

I don't even know a millionaire. I don't know a billionaire. Yeah. You know, here's the thing. Do you know a billionaire? I don't even know a millionaire. I don't know a billionaire. Yeah. I don't know any billionaires. I don't know a millionaire. I know one millionaire. Okay. Yeah.

I know a millionaire. Yeah. I don't know any, I don't think. I don't know any billionaires. I do know yours, but it's like, it's like Kevin Bacon. Right. Yeah. Like I know him because I met him twice with you.

Like I don't know him. Right. Right. Yeah. It's a set. Because I met him twice with you. Like, I don't know him. Right. Yeah.

So, like, I know one guy who's a millionaire. And, like, he feels extravagantly wealthy to me. Like, extravagantly wealthy. And he is absolutely dropping the bucket to a billionaire. Oh, yeah. Nothing. It's a nothing. So, there's a reason I don't know any billionaires.

Clarence Thomas wouldn't know any fucking billionaires if he wasn't a Supreme Court justice. So even trying to pretend that, wow, you know, yeah, we just, you know, I just happened to make fun. Just head off of this guy. You wouldn't have fucking met a billionaire if they didn't want something from you. We both love the Nebraska corn goblins. Right, exactly.

We're both corn goblin fans. Go corn goblins. Yeah, exactly. We're both corn goblin fans. Go corn goblins. Yeah. Like whatever your corn sounds are. I want a Nebraska corn goblin dude shirt so bad. That would be the best. Nebraska with Clarence Thomas' face. That's the little goblin face.

That's what I want. There's some, I mean, and there's so much more in here that is just, and you know, like like the other thing too, Alito, we talked about it on the show, but like Alito got an absolutely extravagant vacation to Alaska with Clarence Thomas, I think.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So, you know, these are extravagant vacations that they're not disclosing, that they're not telling someone about, that they're trying to hide from other people. And I am so glad that this reporting happened. It's such good reporting. I'm so glad that it happened because even if it doesn't change his behavior, and we're going to talk in a bit about maybe it might have, but even if it doesn't change his behavior, at least

it makes him think twice before doing it again. Because I think like somebody's got to call it out and we've got to always keep calling it out over and over. And whenever there's a negative, whenever this happens, you got to call it out. You can't just be like, well, that's just how it is and just throw it away and just be like, who gives a shit? We've got to to call it out. You can't not, you can't just be like, well, that's just how it is and just throw it away and just be like, who gives a shit? We've got to constantly call this out because if they think that they can get away with it for a second, they will try. Yeah. And look, the reporting here is, and ProPublica went through great pains to describe just how much work they did to verify all this stuff. They talked to everybody. They're like,

they're talking to flight attendants on these flights. Let me read real quick. So to track Thomas's relationships and travel, ProPublica examined flight data, emails from airport and university officials, security detail records, tax court filings,

meeting minutes, and a trove of photographs from personal albums, including cards that Thomas's wife Ginny sent to friends. In addition, reporters interviewed more than 100 eyewitnesses and other sources, jet and helicopter pilots, flight attendants, airport workers, yacht crew members, security guards, photographers, waitresses, caterers, chefs, drivers, river rafting guides, and C-suite executives. Yeah, that's intense, intense reporting. This isn't like I got a hunch. This isn't like I saw. And there's photos. If you read this article, there are photos of Clarence Thomas and Jenny Thomas like doing their thing.

They're like posting their fucking like social media postcard type shit where they're like, yeah, here I am with the fucking corn goblins, gobble gobble or whatever. Here's the Nebraska football team. There's them sitting on the end zone or in the sideline. And it said the Skulls took four lucky couples to the Nebraska football game for the season. And this is Ginny Thomas had this. This is Ginny Thomas's photo. And she's the one who wrote the caption.

Yep, in her card or whatever. Yeah, in her card. You know, again, it's him posing. There's another picture of him posing basically at the owner's suite or whatever, at the biggest suite you can at the game. I mean, this is him saying he's doing it. And then they show like the places that he's staying.

These are, I mean, these are the most beautiful places on earth. There's this ranch in Wyoming where he was staying. This is the Skulls Ranch. It is gorgeous. Like literally picturesque, gorgeous, beautiful. You should see the mountain in the background. It's like,

it's like you're in fucking glacier national park. Like it's fucking gorgeous. And then they like the other thing that I want to say, like talking about deep sea fishing in the Caribbean that I want to zoom in on this. I don't know if I can, but I just want to show what this yacht they were on. This,

this yacht guys is so big and I'm not exact. This yacht has boats that dock to the yacht and you take a smaller boat off the yacht to go fishing. This yacht is like four stories tall and the inside is enormous. This is bigger. I've been on cruise ships. That's bigger than my cruise ship room.

Yeah, oh, I'm sure. Like way bigger than a cruise ship room. It's like a fucking giant king-sized bed in there. It's like luxurious, beautiful places that he's been. And these are not cheap. This is not, I'm trying to think of like, you know, the biggest gift I ever got. And it's never anything like this.

Like normal people don't get this. Even rich people, even your friend, who you think is like really wealthy. This would be a lot of money for him this would be a lifetime for him exactly exactly and like there's no way this doesn't buy influence this buys influence that's the whole point that's why they're doing it clarence you're getting like what i want to tell him is like you're getting used, stupid. If you think, and I don't know that it's reasonable to believe that he really thinks that this isn't bribery and corruption and quid pro quo. But if he doesn't, hey, motherfucker, you're stupid.

This is the reason that all of a sudden these people care a shit that you're alive. Nobody cared that you were alive. None of these billionaires were your buddy. They didn't know you beforehand. They didn't give a shit. They didn't care about you. You had the influence to do something for them. Do you think that these fucking exclusively white

billionaires are out making fucking friends with just random people of color because they're attorneys and they seem like, hey, I bet they like the corn goblins too. Yeah. No, they are friends with your short, stupid ass because you're the goddamn Supreme Court justice. That's the only reason. That's it. That's it. And if that's the only reason, then that's inherently corrupt. The only other people that ever come into their orbit are rich people. Right. That's it. Those are the only people that come into their orbit. You know, like, like you don't get to,

you don't get to see them if you're a normal person. You don't get to be around them if you're a normal person. The only people that ever get to see them are people they want to manipulate or really rich people. Those are the only people who get to see them. That's it. And I want to talk to like, it's not just about the money. Cause there's a part two. Oh, yeah. So Thomas met this billionaire at a formal gala in Washington, D.C. in 1992, when they were both inducted into an association, the Horatio Alger Association. Oh, read the thing about Horatio Alger. I've got it. So Henry Kissinger and Maya Angelou were among the honorees that year. The organization named after a 19th century novelist

who popularized rags to riches folklore gives millions in college scholarships each year. And it also brings together some of the country's wealthiest self-made business tycoons for opulent events. In real life, Elgar was a minister on Cape Cod who resigned from his parish after he was credibly accused of molesting boys.

Oh, fuck. Yeah, so did you just say he was a pastor? I don't know. Anyway, but here's the part. Belonging to the association had its privileges. As part of the board meetings, the Thomases went on a lavish trip to Jamaica where they were hosted by a wealthy donor

who owned a luxury hotel atop a former sugar plantation, Johnny Cash performed. Jesus fucking Christ. You get a private fucking concert with Johnny Cash. Like, these aren't just, these aren't monetized.

I can't put a value on that, right? I can't look at these things. There's some things you could put value on. Like, they did put a value on that trip in that big ass jet, right? I can't, I can't look at these things. There's some things you could put value on. Like they did put a value on that trip in that big ass jet, right? They could say that guy rented out once it was 130 grand, you know, whatever, or when he wasn't in it, it was 130 grand a trip or whatever. And so they could add that up. But like, what is the cost of some of these perks that they get? There's no cost. It's like an unlimited amount of money in order for some normal person to get in there. Right? Like think about having, if you were like an amazing Johnny

Cash fan, like somebody who loved him forever, think about what kind of experience that would be to have a private close concert with Johnny Cash. That would be, you would fucking mortgage your home for something like that. It's crazy. It's, it's, it's, it's literally priceless. Yeah. Well, and that's exactly right because I don't mean to interrupt you, but like those are experiences that you and I don't even have the access to buy. Even if I mortgaged my house,

I wouldn't even know who to call. Yeah, you can't get that ticket. Like that ticket's not available to you. Right, it's not even that I don't have the money. Yeah. I don't. But it's even if I came into the money tomorrow, I don't have the influence.

You can't get there. Right. The same thing with that private golf course. That ticket's not open to you. Right. In fact, they talk about how Donald Trump pressured these guys to see if he could get an invite. And they said, go fuck yourself.

Yep. So like the previous president of the United States, now he probably was a previous president when he asked to be in there. I think it's gone up for auction or sold or whatever before then. But at a certain point, he's asking to try to get in and he's not worthy of getting in. Right. Right. They're like, no, get the fuck out of here. There's like 130 people who have access to this and you ain't one of them. You ain't one of them.

Yep. That's how, I mean, it's literally priceless. I'm saying it's $130,000 a year or whatever it was, $150,000 a year after the fact. But before the fact, it was literally priceless. I'm saying it's $130,000 a year or whatever it was, $150,000 a year after the fact. But before the fact, it was literally priceless, impossible to get to, impossible to get in. It's like how they were trying to sell the Fyre Festival to people. Yeah, exactly. Right. Ultra exclusive. It's ultra exclusive. No one's been here. There's like pigs on the island that were raised by hand by fucking Pablo Escobar. And they're trying to sell you this like ultra exclusive thing

that you could only hope to get. And this is a lifestyle that people live every day. But it's not for you. It's not for me. It's for people who can do things for them and for the ultra wealthy. And that's it.

That's it. There's no other people in there. Yeah. Like, we should never assume that this does not buy corruption. Why else would anyone do this? There's no reason. There's no reason. Yeah. And the thing is, like, Clarence Thomas knows this

and we know it too because up until like today, Clarence Thomas has never recused himself from shit. Yeah. But now, but now in the, in the, they were going to decide to take up the Eastman thing. And Justice Thomas recused himself. He stepped away from the decision making on whether or not they were going to call that Eastman case back up. And he said, no, I'm not. He said no.

So he finally recused himself, but like only after all this intense ethics, scrutiny and pressure. Is it working or not? And I think you got to say this sort of thing is great because it's working. It's showing that to me, that's cause and effect. Because Thomas sure as fuck didn't do any of that stuff when that stuff came to him before.

That's exactly right. When he had the opportunity, exactly right. He has always had the opportunity to do better. And he has been openly like asked to recuse himself in moments of pretty clear conflict of interest. Right. And he's not done it. He's not done it. And he's not done it for the same reason that he was never afraid to lie and obfuscate the truth, because there is no enforcement mechanism on the Supreme Court. And structurally, there could be, right? We could just say that there is a panel of federal judges. I was going to ask you about this. There's no reason why you can't decide that, yes, the Supreme Court decides cases above the level of the appeals court, but the appeals court has ethics jurisdiction over the members of the Supreme Court.

You could just decide that that was structurally true. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that. There's no reason why there shouldn't be somebody there to pay attention to them, to pay attention to them and to be the auditors, to look at what they do, to scrutinize their actions, to scrutinize who they're with. You're a public person. We should know. When you go to visit the president, they write that shit down in a log. I don't feel like that's any different than a Supreme Court justice. They hold a ton of power. So you know what? If late at night,

someone's knocking on Alito's door and they're going to have a conversation, I want to know about that. Yeah, we have a right to. If it's his mom, okay. But if it's not his mom, if it's some guy who gave him a fucking Alaska vacation where they both caught muskies all weekend,

I want to fucking know about it. Yeah, man. Because like the problem is that the system we have in place now relies on the fourth estate. And the fourth estate is doing a great job. But it used to be,

I think there's a big breakdown because it used to be that the fourth estate, the press, would come in and expose something like Watergate or expose something like

the Clarence Thomas corruption scandal that's going on right now. And then step two would be that the powers that be would act on it. Something happens. We're just not doing the step two piece. What we're doing instead is like the fourth estate's doing their job.

They are. The press is doing their job. They're finding these points of corruption. You know, like the case with Stormy Daniels, that was found by journalists. You know, like we are finding these points of corruption, but we are failing governmentally to hold ourselves accountable to our own ethics, to our own standards. We aren't booting people out when they show revenge porn on the floor of Congress. We aren't doing the things we're supposed to be doing. And so everything is kind of devolved into this like game of chicken.

And Clarence Thomas is just playing a game of chicken. Like, whatever, man. I took all these vacations. So what? I wonder if seeing Trump getting indicted changed his mind about how he was going to handle this. Because at a certain point, people might try to impeach him for something like this. Yeah, that's true. Especially if things start going the other way. And he can at least point to this and say, hey, you know what?

I didn't think I was having any issues, but you know what? Somebody brought it to my attention and I changed my mind and I did. And I think that I'm an ethical person because I did this. You know what I mean? And so maybe that's going to change.

But I don't know. I hope, I really wish that there was somebody there to just pay attention and just always monitor these people. Because here's the thing, man. If you're not going to do the job right, give me my fucking $200,000 back. Right.

That's my money. Fuck you in your face. That's not your money. You work for me, man. If you're not going to do it right and you're going to be out here fucking trying to get as much as you can out of people.

We don't let people in our government, if there's scandals all the time when people like kickbacks and stuff and they get kicked out. I know. They get thrown out of government.

This happens, guys, this happens weekly in Chicago. Like weekly in Chicago, somebody's paying a trucking union something or they're getting money from something else

or they're paying for this or they're doing this and there are always some sort of kickbacks and somebody's losing their job because of it. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because we have all of these rules around campaign finance. Yeah. And those are, and they're weak as fuck, but we still have them.

We still have them. You know, like we've gotten around with PACs and all that. So I get that. But like, we still have them because we recognize that this is corruption, that this is just straight-up corruption. I just can't understand why we're just not holding anyone's feet to the fire on this. Will we impeach him?

I don't know. At what point does this become criminal? At what point can we say, all right, you know what? Maybe also, and I'm curious what you think about this idea, maybe we need to have different rules for ultra high net worth individuals.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe we should. Yeah, take away part of their money. Yeah, that's what we should do. What's that? Yeah, we should take your fucking money. Take part of their money away. No, totally agree with that.

The moment you get to $999 million, you don't get any more money. That's it. That's it. No more money. Take part of their money away. No, totally agree with that. The moment you get to $999 million, you don't get any more money. That's it. That's it. No more money. That's it. There's like every bit you win, we give you a little Lexicon,

a little trophy, a Lexon trophy. There you go. You can put on your, I won capitalism. We'll give that to you. And you could, and every year,

if you keep getting money, you could keep getting those trophies. You could have one for each year. You could have one for each year. You could have one for each year how much you won capitalism each year. You get the big capitalism award. You don't get any more. But I do think that, and maybe it's not even a billion, maybe it's much lower, but maybe we need to recategorize people, like for real, as some new thing.

Sure. categorize people like for real as some new thing sure once you reach a certain ultra high net worth you just don't get to act in the world the same way regular people there's a wealth registry yeah so just like if you're like a sex offender you got to register and there and there's a wealth registry and like if you're a sex offender you can't come within a thousand yards of a school in this case you can't come within a thousand yards of a school, right? In this case, you can't come within a thousand yards of a politician. I'm serious. Yeah. No, I'm not kidding either. Maybe like if you want to be that rich, you actually can't donate to campaigns.

Yeah. Like you can be, so your choice is be that rich or be influential, but you can't be both. Yeah. Maybe we need to say you're allowed to be rich in this fucking capitalist hellscape. But if you're going to be rich, you're not allowed to be influential. We present ways in which to... But how do you get that passed? I mean, it's an oligarchy.

You don't. Because it's a stupid fucking thing to say because we're a garbage country that won't... We're obviously an oligarchy. So it's fucking whatever. You're never going to get it fucking passed because they're the ones who are pulling the string. They're fucking taking fucking Thomas

out to the Olive Garden every night. It's literally the worst suggestion I've ever had. It's the Olive Garden, except for they pour molten gold down your throat. We're such good friends that when you're here, you're family. He's been giving us the unlimited breadstick for a long time. Let me tell you. Jesus. Yeah.

Fucking never-ending salad bowl with this guy. We have to toss his salad all the time. That's the problem. Shameful secret. I like the Olive Garden. Do you? I haven't been there in a decade. I love their breadsticks.

Yeah. I love their salad. I don't remember. And like some of their pasta is perfectly fine. Is it like, I don't know. It's $12.99 pasta. I don't go.

And I'll eat it. I don't know it. I'll eat it. Yeah. I'll eat it. Like, yes. Does that taste like $12.99 pasta? Yes, it does. Sure does. But you know what? I

ate four fucking heads of iceberg lettuce. I've eaten more breadsticks than, like, the waiter is tired. The waiter is like, I am not tossing another salad. There's no way I'm cutting up another salad. And I'm just spreading cheeks and ready to go.

They can't even lift their arms up anymore. They're like, they went to one CrossFit workout and they can't even lift their arms up. They're just like, they got like ribbed bolo or whatever that is

from tossing, from tossing salads all day. They got blood in their muscles or whatever. Did you ever see, there's like a little like reel or TikTok or some stupid shit

where like somebody's like they go to the olive garden if you go to the olive garden they have this like cheese wheel grind oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and the guy's like i'm not gonna tell him to stop the whole time because they say tell me when to stop and they've got this huge thing of cheese in there and the guys and he's got like a bowl of soup or something right jesus christ and he's like okay he keeps going and he just sits there quietly and the waiter just keeps doing it and doing it

and it lasts like minutes because it takes a long time. That's intense. And he's like, do you still want more cheese? And he's sounding like kind of incredulous. The guy's like,

yeah, some more cheese would be good. He's like very casual about it. And this thing of cheese, Cecil, is like piling up and piling up and piling up. That guy's fucking arm

is hurting. And then the guy catches on to what's happening and he's laughing while he's doing it. He just winds the whole, shreds the whole entire block of cheese. And he's like, yeah, that's good. It's falling off the table. It is. It's all crazy everywhere.

Yeah, it's great. All right. That's going. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We are going to be back on Monday, but remember, we will not be doing a live stream next Thursday, but we will be back with a patron show the following Thursday.

So if you want to be a patron on a per episode basis, you go to patreon.com slash dissonancepod or dissonancepod.com and you can become a patron on a per episode basis. The patrons at $2 level got Tom to read the previous ProPublica article to him.

And they can have that every month. So, so go check it out. Patreon is a place to be. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We'll catch you next week. But we're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics.

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