Cornel West Arrested

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON — Author, commentator, civil rights activist and Princeton University professor Cornel West has been arrested while protesting on the steps of the Supreme Court about corporate influence in politics.

Ann Wilcox, an attorney and legal adviser to the protesters, says West was among those arrested. West attended the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall before joining the October 2011 Stop the Machine protest in Washington's Freedom Plaza.

West also recently got into a TV spat with presidential candidate Herman Cain, telling Cain to "get off the symbolic crack pipe," according to The Los Angeles Times.

Both of these cretins for corruption were in the minoroty in the Capehart v.Massey Coal case where the CEO of Massey spent $3,000,000 all by himself to elect a republican on the Supreme Court of West Virginia where Massey had just lost a $50,000,000 lawsuit at the first appelate level. This same judge refused to recuse himself on hearing the appeal at the Supreme Court level of West Virginia despite the obvious appearance of conflict of interest. Not a bad investment, 3,000,00 to buy the deciding vote to overturn a $50,000,000 judgement. Even Ted Olson, GWB's attorney in Gore v. Bush wrote an amicus brief demaning recusal and expressing amazement that there was no recusal rule that specified a $ amount REQUIRING judicial recusal.

Here we have at least two Justices, Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia, accepting money and gifts from people with business before the court. Thomas' behavior is especially egregious---his wife has earned as much as a million (and possible two million) dollars from a lobbying group pushing for Court rulings that favor a pro- corporate agenda, and failing to report them as required on his disclosure forms. This is the kind of thing for which normal people would go to jail.

The Supreme Court Justices, being the highest and final arbiter of justice, should be required to go to extreme lengths to preserve their impartiality. Instead, we have Justices that are active members of groups agitating for pro-corporate legal theories like the Federalist Society, and attending and speaking at secret meetings put on by the billionaire Koch brothers.

People like Professor West should be commended for protesting to call attention to this legal travesty that is infecting our highest court.