The U.S. Supreme Court and their BBFFs

Do you have a billionaire sugar daddy? Me neither.

I hear they are nice as pie, whisking lesser mortals like us to exotic places and paying the freight. They’ll even foot the bill for a relative’s tuition, steer business to your wife, and buy and renovate your mother’s house.

Don’t take my word for it, ask Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He and his wife Ginni have been hobnobbing with Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow for decades, luxuriating in his substantial munificence.

Or ask Yosemite Sam Alito, who enjoyed a lavish fishing trip to Alaska courtesy of hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. Gratis, of course. One wouldn’t want to embarrass a billionaire by paying your own way. What good are billionaires if they can’t take influential government officials for a ride now and again?

Singer and Crow have more than a passing interest, both personal and ideological, in how the Supreme Court rules. Yet neither Alito nor Thomas reported these gifts in their annual financial disclosures, as required by federal law. Makes a body wonder what else they’ve neglected to tell us.

These two Supremes each insist it was just good clean fun with a billionaire who befriended them out of the blue, innocent as can be. They may be right. After all, they both went to Yale Law School, where they must have learned a thing or two, like quid pro quo—i.e., one hand washes the other.

So let’s let it slide this time. Meanwhile I have been waiting to get my random call from Warren or Elon or Jeff to ask me to hang with them. I also have gone on the offensive, scouring the internet for a billionaire to call my own. I have made a ton of calls and am just waiting on the callbacks now.

In case you weren’t aware: the United States leads the world in billionaires, 724 by one tally. Ironically enough, the People’s Republic of China comes in second with 495 (Mao must be spinning in his grave). Canada has a mere 63.

I have to tell you, I’m a little surprised that nary a plutocrat has called me back yet. It’s not like it would break the bank for one of these tycoons to take my wife and me on a luxury vacation or three. We’re good people and have the gift of gab; we just don’t have a lot of surplus cash at the moment. Plus, we don’t make anywhere near what Sam and Clarence are pulling down, even though as dutiful taxpayers we are contributing to their salaries.

For the record, Alito and Thomas make $285,400 annually for overturning long-standing legal precedents, and both are reputed to be millionaires —in some estimates, many times over. But heck, we all need a leg up now and again.

But back to those zany billionaires. Have you ever wondered just how astonishingly much a billion dollars is? Here it is numerically stated: $1,000,000,000. It takes a thousand millionaires to equal one billionaire.

And most billionaires, of course, don’t hit the brakes at $1,000,000,000 on the nose. Elon is worth an estimated 190 billion. That’s almost one fifth of the way to a trillion dollars.

Sadly, there are no trillionaires nowadays, but there were in days of yore. Genghis Khan, the Mongol Mogul who ravaged the known world during the 13^th century, was said to be worth upwards of 100 trillion. Augustus Caesar and King Solomon weren’t far behind.

Now those were the days! 

But I still don’t know why Singer and Crow cozied up to Sam and Clarence rather than you or me.

Got to go now, the phone is ringing.

David Holahan is a freelance writer from East Haddam.