Supreme Court: It Ain’t Bribery If You Call It A Tip!

Tipping culture out of control.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

With only Thursday and Friday left in the term to publish opinions (unless they add more days), the Supreme Court of the United States published only two opinions on Wednesday.

One is a real corker, ballsily holding that a bribe to a public official isn’t a bribe if it’s a “gratuity” after the fact. They sure aren’t in a hurry to decide Donald Trump Can Shoot Biden On Fifth Avenue vs. No, or Idaho Emergency Rooms Can Let Pregnant People Who Need Abortions Go Into Organ Failure vs. Emergency Rooms Are For Medical Emergencies, but it’s very important to make sure that contractors can have an easy time tipping any elected officials who steer public contracts their way! 

Making bribery, I mean, gratuities easier, gee, whyever might Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito care about that? The case is Snyder vs. US:

This case involves James Snyder, who is the former mayor of Portage, Indiana. In 2013, while Snyder was mayor, Portage awarded two contracts to a local truck company, Great Lakes Peterbilt, and ultimately purchased five trash trucks from the company for about $1.1 million. In 2014, Peterbilt cut a $13,000 check to Snyder. The FBI and federal prosecutors suspected that the payment was a gratuity for the City’s trash truck contracts. But Snyder said that the payment was for his consulting services as a contractor for Peterbilt. A federal jury ultimately convicted Snyder of accepting an illegal gratuity in violation of §666(a)(1)(B). The District Court sentenced Snyder to 1 year and 9 months in prison. On appeal, Snyder argued that §666 criminalizes only bribes, not gratuities. The Seventh Circuit affirmed Snyder’s conviction. 

But in a 6-3 decision (guess which six, just guess!), beer-lover Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority that it’s only really bribery if someone shows up with a bag of cash with a dollar sign on it and both parties recite at the same time, “this is a bribe.” But a post-dated check, why, that’s just a sparkling gratuity! Wrote he:

“The question in this case is whether §666 also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities—for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos, or the like—that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act. The answer is no.” 

Ketanji Brown Jackson penned a real ass-scorcher of a dissent, which starts on page 23. Pull quotes:

“Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.”

OOF.

And,

“The Court’s reasoning elevates nonexistent federalism concerns over the plain text of this statute and is a quintessential example of the tail wagging the dog.”

Yeah, we ALL know EXACTLY which Milk-Bone-gobbling dogs she happens to mean. But bow wow wow and yippie-yo-yippie-yay, whip open those checkbooks, boys! If you billionaires liked the way your Justices ruled this year, or appreciate how your governor or mayor steered contracts your way, it sure would be nice if you left them an appreciative tip so they can buy extra beer this summer, just saying!

Disgusting.

The court already laid waste to federal bribery rules in 2016 by reversing the federal conviction of former Virginia Gov. Robert “Bob” McDonnell, ridiculously ruling that the $175,000 he got from the CEO of a tobacco-extract company to pay for his extravagant wedding was $175,000 of free speech. What Roberts and Breyer wrote back then sure seems extra interesting, in light of what we now know:

[Chief Justice John] Roberts, for instance, mentioned a hypothetical example of a governor who goes trout fishing with the head of a company seeking tax incentives to relocate to that governor’s state. [Justice Stephen] Breyer offered the example of an expensive bottle of wine bought at a lunch to thank an official for a courtesy.

And Breyer wrote, “For better or for worse, it puts at risk behavior that is common.”

Yeah, it sure was! We came to learn that going on $$$ fishing trips with billionaires and chugging their thousand-dollar bottles of wine is what Samuel Alito calls “a Tuesday.”

The other case the holy untouchable Justices graced us with today was Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General Et Al. vs. Missouri, courtesy of the cuckoo Fifth Circuit. 

During the pandemic, the surgeon general was like, yo Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you got some whacked-out COVID-19 fake news on your platform telling people to eat horse pills and drink bleach and shit. Do you maybe want to do something about it? Enforce some kind of policy, or something? That would be nice! And from 2020-2023, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “alerted the platforms to posts containing false information about voting, as well as pernicious foreign influence campaigns that might spread on their sites. Shortly before the 2020 election, the FBI warned the platforms about the potential for a Russian hack-and-leak operation.” 

Missouri, Louisiana and five social media users were pissed! How dare the federal government suggest to social media companies that they might want to maybe moderate some of the wilder lies circulating on their sites that were killing people and undermining democracy? IT IS A FIRST AMENDMENT CENSORSHIP ENTERPRISE! And in a 6-3 ruling penned by Amy Coathanger Coney Barrett — decided correctly, so we shall use her nonpejorative name in this instance — the Supreme Court found that the states could not show they were harmed by Facebook deciding to restrict some anti-vaxx loon’s rantings, because they fucking weren’t. Alito’s dissent was all THIS IS GOVERNMENT COERCION!! Unlike when you take a Justice on a pricey fishing trip, of course. That’s just giving the government a little massage.

So, what’s the holdup on these other cases? Is Martha-Ann Alito still sewing her SHAME flags telling pregnant women to have fun dying in hospitals in Italian to wave at her neighbors across the lagoon? (Divertitevi a morire, donne incinte!) Is there a backup at the mechanic where Samuel L. Alito gets the oil changed on his Dodge Caravan? Is Clarence Thomas waiting on new custom crocodile seats for his RV? Whatever is going on, the Justices sure are scooping up one Great Dane-sized bag of dog poo to leave flaming on America’s porch at the end of this week, before they put their pedals to the metal and peel off for their luxurious summer homes.

Here’s some biggies still left besides Trump vs. All Y’All Whores:

Fischer v. United States: Was it tampering with an official proceeding when Trump and rioters tried to tamper with an official proceeding?

Harrington v. Purdue Pharma: Should the pill-pushing Sackler family be free from liability and get to keep their dirty billions as part of their bankruptcy settlement?

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Dept. of Commerce: Should government agencies be able to set rules, or nah?

NetChoice v. Paxton (Texas) and Moody v. NetChoice (Florida): Can states restrict social media platforms’ content moderation?

Ohio v. EPA: Seriously, can the EPA set rules, or nah?

Moyle v. U.S.: Does the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act that forces hospitals that get Medicare money to offer “necessary stabilizing treatment” to pregnant women in emergencies violate the rights of the state of Idaho to let them drop dead?

Can’t wait to see what the next two days of decisions bring! Actually, yes, yes, we can.