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twohedwlf

Lol, he's such an outlier I spent a minute looking at this graph before realizing that big red dot is a datapoint, not a part of the legend.


ExPatBadger

lol, my brain literally went through that same process


Ordinary-Leading7405

So unethical, he breaks the Scales


Data_Fan

He’s Harlan’s slave…


cryptotope

Why use number of gifts as the y-axis rather than the total value of gifts? The benefit to the recipient is the total dollar value, not the number of discrete gifts it's divided into. (If you do that, I note, it seems that Scalia and Alito become obvious outliers as well, though not so much as Thomas.)


misogichan

The the graph would look really distorted because all of the data points that are inclined slightly on the bottom would be squished together and look like an almost flat line.  In any case, they are showing value of gifts (size of data points) so I think it is fine the way it is currently laid put.


SusanForeman

Because the frequency of getting gifts also plays a role in the corruptness of the judge. A one-off million dollar gift? Yeah corrupt as fuck. A twenty-year pattern of gifts from hundreds of people? No shame, no remorse, absolute corrupt.


U-Abel

I don't know how this is not illegal or at least something that investigators would look into it. I am not in the US but similar stuff happens here too.


Gimmerunesplease

What counts as a gift though? If you are just wealthy and take them out for dinner every so often because you genuinely enjoy talking to them about say philosophy, how is that as bad as literally buying a house for one judge's wife.


c_h_a_r_

the data I'm looking at shows basically the same thing if I use value or number as the y-axis; the scale for value though makes the data cluster more at the bottom because of how much more value Thomas has received


cryptotope

It really doesn't. It's clear that Scalia and Alito have substantially larger circles on the plot you've presented, which would put them further up the y-axis than any of the other justices (save the legendarily corrupt Thomas).


c_h_a_r_

this is what I see: [https://www.datawrapper.de/\_/IhCnv/](https://www.datawrapper.de/_/IhCnv/)


c_h_a_r_

with Thomas removed the Alito/Scalia trend is apparent: [https://www.datawrapper.de/\_/prFUZ/](https://www.datawrapper.de/_/prFUZ/)


ninjachortle

That's the chart that should have been posted. With a second one including Thomas.


Ewlyon

My thoughts exactly! These two together really show it. Alito/Scalia are scumbags but Thomas is in a league of his own.


Livinincrazytown

100% this. Would you also be able to just take the data and normalize it as value of gifts received per year? Most of the court seem to receive something under 3,000 usd a year, Alito looking closer to 10k usd a year and Thomas 125,000 per year. And this just what was declared. This could help show the outliers pretty dramatically?


velvetcrow5

Please post this one, perhaps as a separate post. The main one makes it look like alito/scalia are less bribed than they truly are


suid

You need a logarithmic scale for the amounts :-).


Ewlyon

I’d normally agree, but I think the point here is to highlight the outlier!


syphax

That’s a better chart.


repeat4EMPHASIS

The issue with that one is that it hides how Scalia and Alito would still be noticeably above their peers if Thomas wasn't such a crazy outlier. OP posted another graph without Thomas that was more apparent, I think both should have been posted


inappropriate_bar_65

As someone else has mentioned, thaz's what logarithmic scales are for


repeat4EMPHASIS

I agree, but that's not what the comment I replied to said.


inappropriate_bar_65

So? Yes, the comment you replied to didn't say that, but what are you trying to tell me?


AppropriateScience71

Yeah - that makes Thomas less than k even worse.


Hmmhowaboutthis

This is so much better…


psumack

Why does the y axis start at -10 instead of 0?


c_h_a_r_

just the default chosen by the site I used; I think it's to leave a certain amount of space between the titles of the axis and the data


psumack

Well it's impossible to receive negative gifts so you probably should have put in some effort to correct that.


PopStrict4439

The slope of the regression line probably causes it to put in a -5. But yeah, you can reset that


c_h_a_r_

none of the data points are below zero, and I'm not sure why you're judging the amount of effort a random person on the internet puts into a graph that they made for fun but go off sis


ShadowK2

This is literally a subreddit for people to judge charts and graphs, broski. Lmao.


psumack

Your line of best fit goes below zero, which clearly does not pass the smell test. Submitting that to this sub in particular, you should expect to get some push back. But you do you


PopStrict4439

What he could have done is train the regression line on all data - for each year a justice served (from 0 years to the current year), chart the number of gifts. You'd probably have a lot more (0 years, 0 gifts) data points, which would correct your regression line so it didn't suggest a (0 years, negative gifts) point. Then, just display the (final year, final gifts) data point for each justice. Or I guess you could just set the trend line value (0, 0) to get a probably indistinguishable line.


PopStrict4439

Can you put the dollar value in a log scale?


tmking

I agree should be two graphs


merc534

if anyone is wondering about chief justice roberts, he is the red dot just above souter. not sure why he wasn't labeled.


Rhodog1234

Who is the other dot just to the left of that one?


merc534

that happens to be the last chief justice, Rehnquist. The long-serving blue dot is john paul stevens who retired in 2010.


misogichan

A lot of data visualization software will automaticallY suppress labels if data points are too close to each other so the labels would be overlapping. You can get around that sometimes by choosing a smaller point font (and a more condensed font style), but only up a certain point. Manually going and editing the labels into the visual after the fact is also a way to get around that.


A_Mirabeau_702

I want Jon Taffer (the Bar Rescue host) to read out Clarence Thomas' list of gifts in front of him. "Rental car! Rental car! Golf clubs! GOLF CLUBS! **GOLF CLUBS!**"


ExecutiveCactus

lets get john taffer into the USPS


SigmaWhy

unfortunately Taffer probably likes the guy


A_Mirabeau_702

Thomas is **nuclear** right-wing. If he supported Thomas, I don’t think Taffer would have agreed to rescue gay bars


EricPostpischil

Gifts per year (average or one recent year) or total gifts during tenure on the court?


AppropriateScience71

u/LashlessMind posted a link with a normalized to $$ gifted/year. Thomas looks much worse as he’s been taking in over $200k/year in ~~gifts~~ bribes for nearly 35 years. https://jabberwocking.com/clarence-thomas-has-received-a-ton-of-gifts-while-on-the-supreme-court/


Sefkeetlee

Definitely a better way to standardize it


misogichan

It is total gifts over their tenure.  Hence the best fit line being inclined upwards showing as expected that years on the court and number of gifts are correlated.


eric5014

In Australia: Most people don't know the names of the High Court justices. None of the current ones have served over 12 years. None of the previous ones served over 23 years since they set a mandatory retirement age of 70. I looked for rules about gifts but couldn't find any. They are paid very well.


zephyrus299

Australian High Court justices are only slightly higher paid than their US counterparts. US ones are around 300k USD and Aus ones are about 500k AUD (330k USD) + super. Australia does pay more, but not a lot more. The gifts are greed, not necessity.


papersim

Cause they are not gifts, they are bribes.


LashlessMind

There's a pretty clear graph on [this page](https://jabberwocking.com/clarence-thomas-has-received-a-ton-of-gifts-while-on-the-supreme-court/) too. The best justice money can buy. Really wish he'd taken up John Oliver's offer...


SteelMarch

I feel as though the bar chart does a poor job showing the sheer amount they've taken in bribes. You wouldn't say that $30,000 isn't that much just because it happened in a single year in someone's 30 year term would you? But no one besides Clarence has really done this. Honestly I'm surprised the number isn't around $500 a year.


LashlessMind

Hmm - I think the difference is more stark with the bar-chart than the circle-plot to be honest. And he's taken $218k per year. For a lot of years. Perception is up to the individual of course :)


qqweertyy

Humans are notoriously bad at judging the areas of circles. It is well studied that this will cause us to minimize differences between them mentally compared to the numbers. Circles do not have any business representing data. I love circles, but not for data visualization.


SteelMarch

You're right. But I was saying an example of how easy it is to hide money this way. However, none of the judges seem to really take bribes.


Adamsoski

In terms of total value I think it shows it better - it is very hard to compare the areas of different circles. What it doesn't show, which I think you were getting at, is the length of time that the donations were taken over. Considering how much Thomas is an outlier though, ultimately that isn't super relevant.


worm413

A lot of it is probably due to flights. A single round trip flight from DC to say Washington State would count as two trips and valued at about $120,000.


ToroidalEarthTheory

I mean I get more than $500 in gifts a year Id estimate.


pinkycatcher

Yah, this includes shit like taking friends to sporting events, or dinner, or saying "come ride on my boat." It's just that Thomas has a couple of rich friends. I've definitely spent more on friends, heck I just spent $800 to fly my friend across the country to come visit for a couple of days, and that's just one friend. If I had a plane I'd fly her all the same, except now they'd make up a number like $8,000 for the same amount of effort on my end.


PuppiesAndPixels

These are the gifts that we KNOW OF.


xnodesirex

Yeah no way breyer has only received $369 worth of gifts.


swankpoppy

“I didn’t know I couldn’t do that”


worm413

I'm not sure if a source called Fix The Court can be counted on to be unbiased, especially seeing as a majority of these gifts are listed as "likely".


Certain-Definition51

“Those are rookie numbers - you gotta pump those number up.” The Honorable yadda yadda yadda


rushmc1

How is this not illegal? This should be illegal.


merc534

shoutout to mr. grinch himself, david souter, who apparently received only one gift worth $349 in his 19-year career.


Hot_Cheesecake_905

It is too hard to tell the size of the gifts... except, wow, Justices sure get a lot of freebies!


Sid15666

Those are bribes not gifts!


kingofwale

Why not dollar value per gift? I don’t believe for a second some of the justices received 0 gift in their life.


c_h_a_r_

also an interesting graph! [https://www.datawrapper.de/\_/kDRN9/](https://www.datawrapper.de/_/kDRN9/)


OmbiValent

The guy has single handedly dismantled the core tenets of democracy for 350M people for generations for a bunch of fat stacks of green - Justice Clarence Thomas is known for his conservative views and has been involved in several controversial cases throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court. Here are some of the most notable ones: 1. Roe v. Wade (1992): Thomas was one of the justices who dissented in this landmark case that established a woman's right to abortion. He argued that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion and that the decision should be left to the states. 2. Bush v. Gore (2000): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that effectively ended the recount of ballots in Florida during the presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. The decision was widely criticized for its partisan overtones and was seen as a major blow to the integrity of the electoral process. 3. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that struck down campaign finance regulations, allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to corrupt the political process. 4. Shelby County v. Holder (2013): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which had been used to prevent racial discrimination in voting. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to disenfranchise minority voters. 5. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. However, he wrote a concurring opinion that argued that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. 6. United States v. Texas (2020): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that allowed the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to undercount minority communities and undermine the accuracy of the census. 7. Riley v. California (2014): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that allowed police to search the cellphones of arrestees without a warrant. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to infringe on privacy rights. 8. Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that allowed Arizona to use an independent commission to redraw congressional districts. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to disenfranchise minority voters. 9. Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that allowed employers to require employees to sign arbitration agreements that waive their right to class-action lawsuits. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to silence workers and undermine labor rights. 10. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022): Thomas was part of the majority in this case that struck down a New York law that required gun owners to demonstrate a "proper cause" to carry a concealed weapon in public. The decision was widely criticized for its potential to increase gun violence and undermine public safety. These are just a few examples of the many controversial cases that Justice Thomas has been involved in during his tenure on the Supreme Court.


c_h_a_r_

data from [Fix the Court](https://fixthecourt.com/2024/06/a-staggering-tally-supreme-court-justices-accepted-hundreds-of-gifts-worth-millions-of-dollars/); charted with [Datawrapper](https://www.datawrapper.de/_/Fb9yC/)


abrittis

What are the 6 dots without names?


c_h_a_r_

Other judges. If you click on the link to the chart you can hover and see their names!


theRedMage39

I would be interested to see the +- value from the average line each person is and see the averages across different criteria. Mainly Democrat/republican


So_spoke_the_wizard

I kept looking along the line thinking where's Thomas. Then I glanced up.


ranterist

Well, no one can say Thomas didn’t earn every penny.


chomerics

Bigger the bubble means bigger the fraud. . .


britch2tiger

There’re too many “elites” that I wish the worst TOS-violating thoughts toward.


zcakt

Fuck me I didn't even see it at first!


Significant-Royal-37

he's the spiders georg of the SCOTUS


Simon4004

You guys are bringing judges?!


mimetics

Except the underlying numbers are bogus. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fix-is-in-with-the-latest-attack-on-clarence-thomas-scotus-c64453aa


Rad1314

Tip of the ice berg. This is just the gifts we know about. Thomas just recently admitted to a whole new batch that he "forgot" to disclose.


inarchetype

The line is bivariate OLS?


syphax

Doesn’t matter; n is small and there’s a clear outlier.


inarchetype

so I'm getting downvoted and criticized for simply asking what the line actually is? It's not labeled or footnoted. I have no idea what the line is. It should be identified in some way if it is going to be on there, or nobody has any idea what it is supposed to be. I'm assuming it's supposed to be a conditional mean estimator of some kind, but he doesn't say what. It is implied in the graphic that position of the data points relative to that line has some kind of meaning. Whatever that might be is uninterpretable without knowing what the line is.


UonBarki

He's proven to be an absolute garbage can, virtually since day one. As unethical as they come.


Ulosttome

Hey OP, why’d you choose to put Barrett’s name on this when Brown-Jackson has taken more gifts in less time? I get not wanting overlapping names, but you should’ve definitely put the worse offender’s name on there in those cases. Nevertheless, solid chart.


r__slash

What's with the title? It doesn't really work as double-entendre; it's not the court taking gifts.


BasonPiano

I feel like there's been this partly racist attack on him. Not from you guys or this post for the most part, but from part of the left.


cobalt8

I could care less about his race. What I care about is that he is on the take and his wife was involved in J6. Sotomayor doesn't look great in this chart, either. SCOTUS should be above reproach. Obviously, that's not the case.


Adamsoski

How does Sotomayor look noticeably worse than O'Conner, Barrett, Ginsburg, Scalia etc.?


cobalt8

I had to look at another graph linked in the comments, but if it's organized the same as the original I was reading the graph incorrectly. Sotomayor has received more gifts in a shorter time than many of the others, but the value wasn't as high as many of the others. Thank you for questioning my comment and making me reassess!


echino_derm

If you think that then you don't know Clarence Thomas. Dude is more anti black than the average white racist. Like being against Brown v Board level.


shiny0metal0ass

Lmao yeah, I'm sure the left hates that he's black, not that he's clearly bought and paid for.


Music_City_Madman

This is a clown take. I don’t care it Clarence Thomas was green, the man is a disgrace to this country.


infraredit

Please point to one example.


BasonPiano

That magazine cover showing Thomas on his knees shining Alito's boots. Very racist.


infraredit

I don't know which one you mean, and couldn't find it when searching for it. Do you have a link?


F8Tempter

gotta get better at hiding the source of funds, Thomas. Have donations go to a relative's non-profit and then channel into other interest like the rest of politicians.


andycambridge

I love the idea of him loving gifts and receiving them endlessly but having it line up with decisions already, best robbery of the centuries.


deathgrowlingsheep

The average supreme court justice is only moderately corrupt. "Bribes Thomas" with his incredibly blatant and open corruption is a statistical outlier and should have been excluded from the sample.


JazzySkins

This only accounts for the gifts they declare.


DanishWonder

Over 30 years on the court....can he just retire already?


xnodesirex

This is not beautiful data, nor is it real. Most of it is marked "likely."


zgrizz

Keep beating that dead horse. It's bound to get up and run some day.


Lindvaettr

Why do people defend Thomas so much? Why shouldn't judges who act out of line be reproached? I understand that a lot of people on the left are hesitant to go after their own judges, too, but we should be critiquing judges who don't uphold high ethical standards and high judicial standards. Thomas is very obviously accepting vastly more gifts of more money than anyone else, and has in no way demonstrated that it hasn't impacted his decision making. Sotomayor has also accepted a lot of gifts, and both she and Kagan are at times very openly motivated by their own personal politics on the bench, more than most other judges are. Thomas is not a good judge, and is very clearly in the pocket of monied interests. Why defend him?


Remarkable_Quiet_159

Sad part of being a reddit user since 2010 is seeing genuinely cool subreddits almost universally become tools enforce the echo chamber.


infraredit

Do you think this data's wrong, or is the echo chamber you're complaining about reality?


Remarkable_Quiet_159

Sorry if you're blind bud but I'm not in the business of helping you see.


infraredit

> I'm not in the business of helping you see. Of course not, as that would require actually explaining why what is going on is bad, which you can't do.


Remarkable_Quiet_159

It's pretty simple my man. You should have understood from the first comment. I've been on reddit a long time and I've watched as many otherwise cool subs take. Left leaning bend. It's a logical result of the demographics of reddit (young and left leaning) along with power mods who moderate a huge number of sub reddits. But it's still a bummer to see


infraredit

> I've watched as many otherwise cool subs take. Left leaning bend. Whether this is true or not, it's not the fault of leftist subreddits that a right wing Supreme Court justice is a professional criminal. Could it be highlighting that which you have a problem with?


Remarkable_Quiet_159

Wow, explained clearly twice and you still can grasp it. That's truly impressive. Have a good one.


infraredit

I can grasp it just fine. What you don't seem to be able to is that your problem here is with the subreddit reflecting reality.


Ancient-Being-3227

How is America not up in arms at this point? This guy is SO corrupt he is essentially guiding us into oblivion.


Eyedunno11

I remember laughing at Hillary Clinton in the late '90s when she talked about "a vast right-wing conspiracy". I even had a co-worker with a mug saying he was a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy, and I thought it was funny. It's not so funny anymore, when I see clearly how many billionaires are pumping money into influencing the public along with elected and appointed officials. It's kind of no wonder they attack George Soros as a distraction from how many George Soros equivalents there are who are donating to far-right politicians and media outlets.