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Congress Must Pass Supreme Court Ethics Code After Latest Thomas Corruption Revelations
Stand Up America’s Managing Director of Policy and Political Affairs, Brett Edkins, issued the following statement after a Democratic Senator revealed that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose additional private jet flights funded by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow:
“The Supreme Court should be the gold standard for judicial ethics, yet billionaires like Harlan Crow are buying the loyalty of justices one private jet flight at a time.
“Our nation’s highest court has become a political plaything for the ultra-wealthy and well-connected. Congress must step up as a co-equal branch of government and tackle the corruption plaguing the Court. It’s time for our leaders to restore integrity and transparency to the Supreme Court by passing a binding code of ethics and term limits.”
Last year, a poll by Stand Up America, End Citizens United, and Alliance for Justice Action Campaign found 78% of voters want Congress to take action to impose a binding code of ethics and create greater accountability for the U.S. Supreme Court justices. Earlier this year, Stand Up America conducted a poll that found that an overwhelming majority of voters want Congress to take action to reform the Supreme Court, including by passing 18-year term limits for current and future justices.
Stand Up America community members have driven over 900,000 constituent calls and emails to Congress in support of Supreme Court reform legislation, including term limits for current and future justices and a binding code of ethics. In June, Stand Up America launched its Supreme Court Voter campaign, a seven-figure digital campaign aimed at educating and mobilizing voters around the stakes of the Supreme Court for this election.
Stand Up America is a progressive advocacy organization with over two million community members across the country. Focused on grassroots advocacy to strengthen our democracy and oppose Trump's corrupt agenda, Stand Up America has driven over 600,000 phone calls to Congress and mobilized tens of thousands of protestors across the country.
LATEST NEWS
UK, Other Nations Sanction Ben-Gvir and Smotrich for 'Inciting Violence' Against Palestinians in West Bank
"Today's measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza," said the foreign ministers of five western countries.
Jun 10, 2025
The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom on Tuesday announced sanctions and "other measures" targeting two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for "inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank."
In a joint statement, the countries accused Ben-Gvir and Smotrich of being complicit in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
"Settler violence is incited by extremist rhetoric which calls for Palestinians to be driven from their homes, encourages violence and human rights abuses and fundamentally rejects the two-state solution. Settler violence has led to the deaths of Palestinian civilians and the displacement of whole communities," according to the statement. "Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights."
Within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, Ben-Gvir is the national security minister and Smotrich is finance minister.
The two are now subject to an asset freeze and travel ban, the U.K. government said.
Last year, the outlet Al Jazeera put the number of settlers, Israeli citizens who live on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, at over 700,000.
Also last year, the United Nation's International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that Israeli settlements "and the regime associated with them" were established and continue to be maintained in violation of international law.
A U.N. report from last month found that Israeli settler violence is on the rise and has reached its highest rate in at least 20 years.
The statement from the foreign ministers indicates the sanctions are applied to Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in a personal capacity and that the announced measures "do not deviate from our unwavering support for Israel's security."
"Today's measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza. We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid," according to the statement. "We will continue to work with the Israeli government and a range of partners. We will strive to ensure an immediate cease-fire, the release now of the remaining hostages and for the unhindered flow of humanitarian aid including food."
The move comes after some escalation of pressure on Israel by the U.K. and some other western countries.
"The U.K. has finally sanctioned Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Good. Now sanction the entire Israeli government and military officials. Genocide, war crimes, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, and land theft aren’t just the agenda of two extremists—they're official state policy," wrote Zarah Sultana, a lawmaker in Britain's Labour Party, on Bluesky on Tuesday.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the move by the western nations "unacceptable," according to multiple outlets.
Ben-Gvir posted a statement on X on Tuesday that said: "While the European colonial countries fantasize that we Jews are still their subjects, the streets of their famous cities are being taken over by radical Islam. But their campaign of appeasement for the Hamas terrorists will not save them. When they finally wake up, it will be too late!"
Smotrich also responded defiantly to news of the sanctions on Tuesday.
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Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in 'Any Jurisdiction in the Country'
"The standoff on the streets of Los Angeles," warned critics, "shows how truly eager Trump and his administration are to turn America's vast warmaking powers inward on the president's domestic foes."
Jun 10, 2025
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told members of Congress on Tuesday that he believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement "has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country."
Given that Hegseth and President Donald Trump have cast the National Guard and U.S. Marine deployments to Los Angeles as an effort to protect ICE personnel as they carry out the administration's mass deportation campaign, the Pentagon chief's testimony to lawmakers represented a justification for troop mobilizations to any part of the nation where protests against ICE are deemed a potential threat.
Watch Hegseth's comments:
HEGSETH: The challenge is our department under the previous administration squandered---
DeLAURO: Please! I want your plan! What is your plan for the future? We have zip! Nada! pic.twitter.com/OjxGgPfrBx
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 10, 2025
Hegseth's remarks came amid growing concerns that the Trump administration's aggressive response to ongoing protests in Los Angeles is just the start of a broader deployment of U.S. troops to crush dissent wherever it arises. The troop deployments to Los Angeles, authorized for at least 60 days, are expected to cost roughly $134 million, a top Pentagon official told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The language of the memorandum Trump signed on Saturday gives Hegseth broad latitude to "employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is suing Trump and Hegseth over the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles, pointed out in a social media post on Monday that the president's memorandum "doesn't just apply to CA."
"It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing," Newsom observed.
Trump himself openly suggested he could deploy U.S. military personnel across the country, telling reporters on Sunday that "we're gonna have troops everywhere."
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Monday that "we must recognize, and recognize quickly, that Los Angeles is only the beginning."
"In a matter of months, weeks, or even days, some contrived crisis may reach our cities. And then we'll find the armed forces on our soil, with their guns trained on our people," said Clarke. "That's always been his goal—to ensure every American knows the fear our immigrant neighbors now feel. As he threatens to arrest a sitting governor and readies to brutalize protestors to feel like the strongman he never will be, we all must understand that Trump established a dangerous new precedent today. Time is running out to prepare for exactly what that means."
Rolling Stone's Asawin Suebsaeng, Andrew Perez, and Ryan Bort wrote Tuesday that "Trump has wanted his own personal police state, with himself sitting at the top as its undisputed boss, since his first administration."
"The standoff on the streets of Los Angeles, which escalated late last week after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) started shooting pepper balls at protesters, shows how truly eager Trump and his administration are to turn America's vast warmaking powers inward on the president's domestic foes and critics," they added.
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Israel's Destruction of Gaza Education, Cultural Sites Part of Campaign to 'Obliterate Palestinian Life': UN Expert
"Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural, and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come," said the chair of an independent UN commission.
Jun 10, 2025
A report released Tuesday by an independent United Nations commission says that Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 2023 have effectively obliterated the enclave's education system and have caused damage to more than half of all religious and cultural sites there.
The report states that Israeli security forces killed civilians sheltering in schools, and in doing so "committed the crime against humanity of extermination."
A statement from the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel cast Israel's attacks on education, religious, and cultural sites as amounting to "war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination." The commission's report focuses on Gaza but also probed attacks of these types on sites in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in Israel.
"We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza," said Navi Pillay, chair of the commission. "Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural, and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination."
In October 2023, Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing over 1,000 people and taking roughly 250 hostages—prompting Israel to carry out a fierce military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Multiple human rights groups have said Israel is guilty of committing genocide or "acts of genocide."
Over 54,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Israel's campaign began, according to local health officials.
According to the report, Israeli security forces have caused damage to over 70% of the educational buildings in Gaza and Israeli attacks have made conditions for education largely impossible. Over 658,000 Gazan students have had no schooling for a year and a half.
The commission also identified several incidents where Israeli forces burned or demolished schools, "many of which were empty at the time," and the committee says it concluded "such conduct was deliberate and unnecessary and constitutes a violation of the principles of necessity, distinction, precaution, and proportionality under international humanitarian law."
The commission found that Israeli security personnel directed airstrikes against "scores" of educational buildings, and even though civilians were inside those buildings during some of the attacks, Israel did not give them any warning or sufficient advance warning of the strikes, according to the report.
The report states that the commission found "significant evidence" that Israeli security forces used educational facilities as military bases or staging areas for military activity. The commission found one episode in which Hamas' military wing used a school for military aims.
After probing incidents where education facilities were targeted and the attack resulted in civilian casualties, the commission accused Israeli security forces of committing war crimes such as "directing attacks on civilians," and others.
When it comes to attacks on cultural and religious sites, those attacks have "a cascading effect and deeply affects intangible cultural elements, such as religious and cultural practices, memories, and history."
In four out of 10 incidents investigated by the commission related to attacks on cultural and religious sites in Gaza, Israeli security forces said they had "targeted a military objective located within the site" but did not give the commission evidence they could examine to verify that claim, according to the report.
The commission says that Israeli security forces were aware or should have been aware of the location and significance of these sites in Gaza and should have planned their operations with the aim of making sure they were not harmed. "The commission found in relation to all cultural sites investigated that Israeli security forces failed to take special care to avoid damage and protect those sites and their contents," the report states.
In this realm, too, the commission accuses Israeli security forces of several war crimes, such as "intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion and historic monuments" and "destroying the enemy's property without justification that necessitates such destruction."
The report will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council on June 17, 2025.
A previous report from the same body accused Israel of "systematically" using reproductive, sexual, and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians since October 7, 2023.
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