Tag: Clarence Thomas

The independence of the judiciary means that the Courts should be free from improper influence from outside interests.  What a great idea for having a transparent, fair judicial system.  It’s a concept that has so much promise.  But in practice the present Supreme Court and its members may be driving it off a cliff. Today’s news about Justice Thomas’s wife’s lobbying business may signal its ultimate demise.

The New York Times reports that Justice Thomas’s wife,

who has raised her political profile in the last year through her outspoken conservative activism, is rebranding herself as a lobbyist and self-appointed “ambassador to the Tea Party movement.”

Virginia Thomas, the justice’s wife, said on libertyinc.co, a Web site for her new political consulting business, that she saw herself as an advocate for “liberty-loving citizens” who favored limited government, free enterprise and other core conservative issues. She promised to use her “experience and connections” to help clients raise money and increase their political impact.

Oh spare me.  A Jewish congresswoman gets shot in Arizona.  Various talking heads wonder aloud whether the level of talk of violence in current US politics, particularly on the right, might have contributed to the shooting.  And persistent media hog Sarah P inserts herself in the discussions by saying this gem in a video:

“Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn.”

Oh the irony.  The Jew gets shot; the non-Jew seeks to appropriate the blood libel for her own purposes.  But I’m not spending time discussing the significance of the words blood libel to Jews.  And I’m not raving about how America’s most visible bigot, Pat Buchanan, thinks this is so very  excellent.  No.  The question this latest  kerfuffle raises for me is Sarah P’s persistent pursuit of making everything be about her, and her even more consistent and tiresome efforts to be the primary victim in any story in which her monicker is inserted.

To have a victim you have to have a perpetrator.  And if you have a victim (even if the perpetrator isn’t quite visible or identifiable) you almost always have rescuers, those who want to come to the aid and defense of the seeming victim.  There are probably more rescuers by far than there are victims, because each victim can have thousands of rescuers, thousands of defenders.  So when a politician consistently grabs the victim mantle, she is probably manipulating her audience.  You can bet the ranch on this.  She wants them to rescue her, to defend her, to give her money, to argue in her behalf, to denounce the perceived perpetrators.  But most of all to make donations.  Big donations.

Seen in this context, Sarah P’s speechwriters– nobody believes for a second that Sarah P writes this stuff for herself, do they?– sought again to ring their familiar bell.  The bell that brings in the checks.  This bell has but one note: Sarah P’s victimhood. No matter. They sought to transform a story about the attempted assassination of a Congresswoman into one all about poor Sarah P.  And they again attempted to mobilize all of those very gullible AM radio listeners who have been content repeatedly to stand up for a rescue of Sarah P from the unjust, unwarranted attacks on her egotism and grandstanding by the supposedly liberal press and/or the supposedly liberal D party.

Happy Friday from the Obama Administration:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…

The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Friday to pause enforcement of the military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian service members while that policy faces a legal challenge.

The high court sided against the Log Cabin Republicans, a GOP gay rights group, that had asked that discharges of gay and lesbian members of the armed forces under military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy be suspended.

The Supreme Court of the United States sided with Eric Holder’s Department of Justice and the Obama White House, and against the Log Cabin Republicans, letting the military’s unpopular and discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy stay in place while it is undergoing a legal challenge that is trundling through the Federal appeals process, after Judge Virgina A. Phillips of the Central District of CA ruled that DADT was unconstitutional on September 9, 2010.

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

On October 12th, Judge Phillips issued an injunction to suspend DADT and

(3) Orders Defendants United States of America and the Secretary of Defense immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have commenced under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Act, or pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 654 or its implementing regulations, on or prior to the date of this judgement.

That is where and when the Obama administration could have let the thing die, but, oh no, they have to go on appealing and defending it.  On October 14, the DOJ under Eric Holder appealed with a request for an emergency stay on Judge Phillip’s injunction, and on November 1 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed it, pending appeal to the Supreme Court.

The policy change is currently stuck in the Fiscal Year 2011 Defense spending appropriations bill, and Senator John McCain of Arizona successfully filibustered it on September 21st.  His wife Cindy McCain, and her daughter Meghan, are doing their usual good- cop Republican routine and calling for the policy to end.  His 2008 Vice Presidential running mate is busy planning a book tour and promoting her new reality TV show on her twitter account.  The first stop on the book tour is in …. Phoenix, AZ.    A leaked draft of Gate’s review of DADT has shown that the report says repeal would not be detrimental to the military.

BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl…

Some 70% of troops surveyed said the effects of repealing the ban would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, the paper said, citing a Pentagon report.

According to the newspaper, (the WAPO)  which spoke to people who had read the unreleased 370-page study, the survey results have led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

However, a significant minority opposes serving alongside openly gay troops, with opposition apparently strongest in the Marine Corps.

Currently the Marines have fewer active personnel (14%) than any other branch of the military except for the Coast Guard.

Nicholson’s response from Servicemembers United

“These results confirm what those of us who actually know the modern military, especially the rank and file troops, have said all along. The men and women of America’s armed forces are professionals who are capable of handling this policy change,” said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and a former U.S. Army Human Intelligence Collector who was discharged under the law in 2002. “In light of these findings, as well as the Secretary of Defense’s recent call for Senate action on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ during the lame duck session, there is no longer any excuse for failing to bring the defense authorization bill back up during the first week of the post-election legislative session.”

http://archive.constantcontact…

Since the Democratic Party took the House of Representatives in 2006, there have been over 2,000 discharges of servicemembers under the discriminatory DADT policy.  Since the Clinton administration, there have been over 13,000.  The Democrats now have a short window of time in a lame duck session to accomplish anything,  before they can kiss their supermajorities goodbye.  One of the political fatalities of the last election was Representative Patrick Murphy of PA, who introduced the amendment repealing DADT into the bill.   In an interview, the President asked for assistance from the Log Cabin Republicans to get more Republican votes to get the bill changing the policy through the Senate (before the Nov 2, 2010 election).  Secretary of Defense Robert Gate’s military review report on DADT is “due” out officially now on December 1st.   The lame duck session will begin next week.

Apparently there is an (unspoken)  assumption being made, that if a conservative, Republican dominated Senate passes something the Supreme Court will not rule to over turn the law or declare it unconstitutional later.

Clarence Thomas is clearly in violation of the Constitution, and his right to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States must not be tolerated any longer.  Thomas perjured himself in his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991.  

Perjury is a disqualifying condition for service on the court.

Although his wife, Virginia, re-opened this situation with her demand for an apology from Anita Hill, the fact of sexual harrassment is irrelevant.  The real impeachable offense has nothing to do with his penchant for pornography.  It is perjury, as we saw with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, which is the impeachable offense.

At ‘ciminal law dot free advice dot com’ (a legal site), perjury is defined:

Perjury is the “willful and corrupt taking of a false oath in regard to a material matter in a judicial proceeding.” It is sometimes called “lying under oath;” that is, deliberately telling a lie in a courtroom proceeding after having taken an oath to tell the truth. It is important that the false statement be material to the case at hand-that it could affect the outcome of the case.

Thomas perjured himself…continues below the fold–

No, this is not snark or a joke.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was in the majority opinion of the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case whereby the court ruled that Corporations have the same rights as individual humans to free speech, that limiting money limits free speech, so therefore they can give unlimited money to campaigns,

has a wife named Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, who just started a Tea Party group.

http://www.latimes.com/news/na…

The group is a “non profit” called Liberty Central Inc.

http://libertycentral.org/

Liberty Central.org, where like minded people gather to preserve freedom in America.

She intends to take donations and issue score cards on political candidates.  She used to work for the Heritage Foundation and Dick Armey. (Armey now is chairman of Freedomworks, which is an astroturfing org masterminded by Koch Oil’s David Koch, who also runs Americans for Prosperity.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…  Freedomworks is Tea Party, and harrassed Democrats at August town hall meetings in 2009.

On the endorsements page of Thomas’ new lobbying group, the first gush of lying spin blather goes:

What Others are Saying about Liberty Central…

“Liberty Central, with its focus specifically on training grassroots activists interested in returning the country to its founding principles, is a necessary component of a successful, long-term conservative revolution. With its intent to serve a broad coalition of grassroots organizations, and a long term view of the new conservative revolution, Liberty Central is an organization worthy of every conservative’s support.”

Mark Meckler / Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founders / National Coordinators, Tea Party Patriots

Mark Meckler is a Republican political front guy operative based in the Sacramento Northern CA area, and has done and been paid for Tea Party appearances for Russo Marsh & Rogers/ Move America Forward, the Republican PR firm which does Swiftboating and Smear campaigns, besides being the publicists for Kurdistan in Northern Iraq.  RMR/MAF is also known for their “Thank You Sarah Palin” campaign, their Tea Party anti health care reform Bus Tours featuring the anti Muslim bigot radio jock Mark Williams, and the “You Don’t Speak for Me” campaign featuring their own pit bull in lip gloss, Deborah Johns, “Pentagon Liason,”  who attacks peace activists.  Meckler is also involved in the Million Mormons on Facebook, which is loaded with whacky Glenn Beck devotees who think all government activities are anti Christian conspiracies designed to turn them into communists.  See links in this story

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

One of Meckler’s many Tea Party locations, see how it says “non partisan?” –  no, Republican

http://www.facebook.com/group….

The Tea Party logos on the Liberty Central site matches the one on Mark Meckler’s facebook page.  They claim to be:

misunderstood and mischaracterized by much of the mainstream media. “New citizen activists have been cast as ignorant, intolerant or a radical fringe by many in the media. The facts are now demonstrating that the mainstream media is wrong and ordinary citizens are up against biased elitists who are not seemingly interested in the truth.” said Virginia Thomas, President and CEO of Liberty Central …..  

Since I live in Tea Party ground zero, which is older, very wealthy Republicans manipulating anti tax populist anger combined with LDS Ron Paulian Libertarians who pretend we have no government as they collect on Medicare or work for the government, and I have witnessed Tea Party activity, let me tell you that the MSM is being too soft on them.  The MSM likes to pretend they are grassroots nutters, when they interview the hapless front guys,  when they are really Oil, Defense Contractor, Tobacco and Pharma Money, and Republicans with just another angle working.  But they endeavor to bring out the worst of human emotions, fear, selfishness, racism, and greed.

You know what “grassroots is?”  It’s not Koch Oil and others, spending millions donating to a 501(c)(4) anonymously, fronting anti tax protestors to kill health care reform, keeping the mid east mercenary drone wars going, and stopping any energy policies that would cut carbon emissions and lesson the use of petrochemicals.  Add in this political “non profit” being run by a wife of a Supreme Court Justice, and we have the Supreme Court BUYING OUR ELECTIONS OUTRIGHT for the highest bidder of their services.

Jenny Beth Martin likes to make up stories about her self being just a plain, aw shucks sort of grassroots type of girl, and neglects that part on her resume where she worked for Republicans or that her failed business owes the IRS a half million dollars.   http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…

Can you say Republican neocon war “grifters?’  Sure you can.

Can you say “conflict of interest ? for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?”  

per a law professor

“There is opportunity for mischief if a company with a case before the court, or which it wants the court to accept, makes a substantial contribution to Liberty Central in the interim,” he said.

Justice Thomas would be required to be aware of such contributions, Gillers said, adding that he believes Thomas should then disclose those facts and allow parties in the case to argue for recusal.

But it would be up to Justice Thomas to decide whether to recuse himself. He could not be reached for comment.  

http://www.latimes.com/news/na…

The LA Times story says Ginni Thomas is “intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully.”

Here’s another endorsement of  Ginni Thomas’ LibertyCentral.org

Leaders committed to smaller government, fiscal prudence, and a strong national defense will be returning to Washington D.C., and I am confident that Ginni Thomas will be part of the reason it will happen.”

Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense  

Neglects to say it was Sec of Defense under George W. Bush, the Rumsfeld who went to war with the Army he had instead of the Army he should have planned for a peaceful Iraq occupation, which he totally effed up, who quit on the day after the Nov 2006 election. Amen.

2 more endorsements for Ginni’s little Tea Party fundraising for political campaigns:

Morton C. Blackwell, President, The Leadership Institute  http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind…   The “Leadership Institute”  does weekend workshops and pronounces its “graduates” as having journalism degrees  (think James Guckert, the male hooker and fake reporter for Talon News (Bobby Eberle) who pitched softball questions at WH press briefings under Rove and Bush )  Blackwell is a co founder of the Moral Majority.   Think also, the dreadful Barton kid and ex Minuteman who did the “wore his uniform to a war protest with a hanging effigy” and other ads for Russo Marsh Rogers/MAF and Tom McClintock. (Barton has been paid by Russo Marsh Rogers/MAF PACs)

Edwin J. Feulner, President, The Heritage Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…  Right wing think tank full of  Reaganites and supply sided trickle down economics.  Heritage had gotten money from Joseph Coors, Olin foundation, Scaife, DeVos, (think Amway, Prop 8 and Blackwater, that family) and Bradley foundations, in 2007 they got 48.7 million dollars per wikipedia.  Edwin Feulner was connected to the Abramoff scandal thru his co founding Belle Haven Consultants, which took Malaysian oil money and laundered it thru a non profit run by Tom Delay’s friends, and ended up bribing Republicans in the Bush administration with it.  http://www.calitics.com/diary/…    http://www.dailykos.com/commen…  (How Jack Abramoff started lobbying for Malaysia only a few days after 9/11/2001, and how ex Rep. John Doolittle was involved )

The LA Times says “although Liberty Central is a non partisan group…..  ”

Non partisan ?  

CUT THE NONSENSE, LAT !  Have you every heard of politcal blogs, or teh google?   The Tea Party is 100% Republican.   What part of Supreme Court Palace Coup did you just miss ?

Clarence Thomas should be impeached and removed from the Supreme Court.  

Clarence Thomas may not have spoken in oral arguments at the Supreme Court in more than four years, but this morning Linda Greenhouse writes in the New York Times about Thomas’s consistent, twice repeated argument that the Eighth Amendment does not proscribe “harsh treatment”, including beatings of prisoners.  You read that correctly.  Prison beatings, according to Justice Thomas, aren’t forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. And presumably, neither are stress positions, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture.  And as if that position were not repulsive enough, Thomas apparently wants it to be adopted by the new majority of the Supreme Court.

In the middle of Justice Scalia’s dissent in Troy Davis’s case, a dissent that Clarence Thomas joined in, we have this remarkable, astonishing, shocking sentence:

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

I cannot believe that they wrote this in a Supeme Court opinion.  And I’m not alone in thinking I would never, never, never see something like this in a published opinion.