Today’s links Linkdump Minkchump: A thoroughly assorted Saturday. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Linkdump Minkchump (permalink) It’s linkdump time! Saturday has arrived and I once again find myself with a zillion tabs’ worth of things that I couldn’t squeeze into this week’s newsletters. This is lucky linkdump number 13 – here’s the previous dozen installments: https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/ Let’s ease into it with some whimsy: a Death Metal cover of JohnCage’s 4’33” from Dead Territory. Warning, once you hear them perform this banger, it’ll be stuck in your head all day, especially in those quiet moments of reflection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGEG4JiOqew Those guys go hard. You know who else goes hard? Billionaires. Especially when they’re bribing judges. The Clarence Thomas/Samuel Alito bribery scandal prompted the Supremes to proffer an entirely ornamental and toothless code of conduct: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/17/red-team-black-robes/#security-theater It takes a lot of work to create an accountability mechanism that’s worse than the system that other federal judges answer to. The Judicial Conference oversees the rest of the federal bench, and it’s far too flimsy to qualify as a paper tiger – maybe a toilet-paper kitten? https://www.propublica.org/article/judicial-conference-scotus-federal-judges-ethics-rules Here’s how weak the ethics code for non-SCOTUS federal judges is: 100 members of the US federal judiciary enjoyed 251 luxury junkets paid for by two billionaire-controlled dark money orgs: https://www.levernews.com/billionaires-are-bankrolling-judges-luxury-travel/ The Antonin Scalia Law School (“the finest in legal education”) funneled money from its wealthy backers to judges on 152 occasions, paying for…Pluralistic: Linkdump Minkchump (16 Dec 2023)