According to one columnist, Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito's sneering attack on ProPublica for reporting that he accepted an expensive fishing trip paid for by a conservative billionaire with business before the court is just the latest example of Federalist Society-aligned judges who can dish it out but can't take it.
In a column for Salon, Amanda Marcotte cited Alito rushing to the Wall Street Journal to preemptively lash out at the investigative reportage while blithely dismissing questions about being pampered with "a seat on a private jet, valued at $100,000, accommodations at a fancy hotel, $1,000 bottles of wine and 'multicourse meals of Alaskan king crab legs or Kobe filet.'"
As Marcotte recalled, Alito famously heckled President Barrack Obama during one State of the Union address and has no problem expecting "women to stoically undergo forced childbirth as penance for the sin of fornication, but when asked to be a little less greedy, he reacts like he just got framed for murder."
As she sees it, Alito along with fellow Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who angrily flipped out during his confirmation hearing, are encapsulated within a conservative bubble by their Federalist Society handlers where they are led to believe they can do no wrong.
"Beyond just being conservative, what these whiny justices have in common are strong ties to the right-wing Federalist Society and its former head/current board member Leonard Leo," she wrote before adding, "He's also the guy who keeps hooking up justices with billionaires who will shower them with fancy vacations as gifts. Leo is the one who set Alito up to go on this expensive fishing trip with Singer, a man Leo likely knew because both he and Singer are heavily involved in spreading money around to buy the federal courts for far-right interests. He plays a similar role in the friendship of Thomas and his billionaire benefactor, Harlan Crow. They're all so tight, in fact, that the infamous painting of Crow and Thomas together at Crow's lavish estate also features Leo."
The ultimate effect, she suggested, is that they are incapable of accepting the fact that not everyone agrees with them.
"I suspect that's what these billionaire-funded right-wing summer camps are all about: ensconcing the justices in a bubble of validation for their kookiest far-right theories, all to protect their resolve to keep being the worst.," she wrote and then suggested, "Well-heeled puffery makes it much easier to buy your own hype. The side effect, of course, is a dramatically weakened ability to handle criticism. The justices emerge from their cocoon of billionaire adulation only to hear that people in the real world think they suck. They simply cannot handle the dissonance."
Resorting to sarcasm, she added, "They don't suck! Do people who suck get free vacations to Alaska to watch bears from airplanes? Do people who suck get to travel to Indonesia on private superyachts? Do people who suck have fancy people fawning about their brilliance nightly over plates of caviar and crab? Clearly, the problem here isn't your Alitos and Thomases, but those seething peasants who think they get to have an opinion."
"The corruption of the courts would never be anything as crass as a tit-for-tat exchange of fancy vacations for expected court outcomes," Marcotte explained. "Instead, the money goes to creating a series of luxurious experiences for the justices that reinforce their own self-importance. On these vacations, they are no doubt immersed in hours of conversation about how their far-right legal theories are all good and true."
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