Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reportedly unleashed an attack on his critics for his violations of disclosure laws and alleged conflicts of interest. He warned law students that these critics are “undermining” the Court and endangering the country by weakening core institutions. As one of those critics, I am flabbergasted by Thomas’ remarks which show an implied disregard that seems to have now reached open contempt for certain principles of judicial ethics. There is not a hint of concern for his own conduct and how it has undermined the Supreme Court as an institution. For a prior column, click here
This weekend at a Federalist Society event, Thomas insisted that his wife Ginny is being attacked because she believes in the same thing as he does and that they “are focused on defending liberty.” That appears to be his defense for years of filing false disclosure forms that effectively hid hundreds of thousands of dollars of salary from conservative organizations.
When I first read these comments, it seemed that Thomas was just stuck on some Kübler-Ross process on denial and transference. However, it seems much more worrisome. Thomas clearly holds an imperial view of the Court. He has previously objected to those who would presume to criticize those in charge of their institutions. In these remarks, Thomas strikes a perfectly messianic note, warning the students that critics “seem bent on undermining” the Court. He added:
“You all are going to be, unfortunately, the recipients of the fallout from that – that there’s going to be a day when you need these institutions to be credible and to be fully functioning to protect your liberties . . . . And that’s long after I’m gone, and that could be either a short or a long time, but you’re younger, and it’s still going to be a necessity to protect the liberties that you enjoy now in this country.”
Frankly, it is a spin that borders on the delusional. Thomas and some of his colleagues are destroying a long tradition of neutrality of justices by pandering to their ideological base. Thomas magnified this damage by adding years of disclosure violations that withheld information that would have been relevant to his own alleged conflicts of interest. He clearly confuses the justices with the institution itself — treating himself as the personification of the rule of law. Ironically, this is precisely the problem that I have described in the advent of the celebrity justice.
What is even more distressing is that Thomas would choose this forum to address these complaints rather than answer the formal inquiries regarding his disclosure violations.
Source: Politico
Jonathan Turley
James in LA
1, February 28, 2011 at 10:21 am
Here’s the question I want to ask “justice” Thomas: dude, it has been 30 years. In all the decades before and after your confirmation hearing, Anita Hill has demonstrated no reason to lie, no character in her personality that draws a horrid light, and has gone to great lengths not to profit from it since.
30 years.
And someone is still lying about it, a lie that has diminished this angry man, and stolen the honor out of his career. A horrid lie, now festering for 30 years, is an impeachable offense in my book. Everything else he has done as a “justice” proceed from his deliberate disassociation from the truth.
=====================================================
An excellent point and one Thomas should have to answer during every public appearance he makes.
A classic example of transference – Freud would have had a ball analyzing Thomas’s childhood.
Clearly Thomas is only getting in touch with his inner-Stallone, mespo.
I am so saddened by the fact that this is the man who replaced the inestimable Thurgood Marshall…
Clarence Thomas, the Anti-Black
Thomas is often described as a “complicated” personality, but that’s just a euphemism for being a self-loathing ally of the worst sections of the white ruling class.
“October 13, 2007
“Clarence Thomas is a deeply troubled man — a grotesquely twisted, “Down Home”-grown Black personality at war with the demons of his dark-skinned, dirt poor youth. Although Thomas has accumulated many “enemies” — earned and imagined — since his entrance to the white world in the 10th grade in Savannah, Georgia, his core pathology is Black-directed — a trait so obvious it was immediately perceived by a succession of white Republican racists who rocketed him to the U.S. Supreme Court with obscene haste to become a hit-man against his own people.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/64929/?page=1
“He clearly confuses the justices with the institution itself — treating himself as the personification of the rule of law. Ironically, this is precisely the problem that I have described in the advent of the celebrity justice.”
***********************
Beware the man who proclaims, “I am the law.”
AY:
“This Goon needs an ass whipping….a Good One….. But then he might like it and pay for more…”
********************
Due only to your sagacious remarks, I am reconsidering the wisdom of Mussolini’s comment that, “a good beating did not hurt anyone.”
He’s always responded to criticism with paranoid comments. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior—there’s nothing new here. Moreover, he’s always been a rank opportunist–a Black nationalist in college who suddenly became a conservative when it would advance his career.
The more important question is what’s being done by Common Cause or others to address his conflict of interest.
Charles II, 1661
An Act for Safety and Preservation of His Majesties Person and Government against Treasonable and Seditious practices and attempts
And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if any person or persons at any time after the four and twentieth day of June in the yeare of our Lord One thousand six hundred sixty and one during His Ma[jes]tie life shall malitiously and advisedly publish or affirm the King to be an Heretick or a Papist or that he endeavours to introduce Popery or shall maliciously and advisedly by writing printing preaching or other speaking expresse publish utter or declare any Words Sentences or other thing or things to incite or stir up the people to hatred or dislike of the Person of His Majestie or the established Government then every such person and persons being thereof legally convicted shall be disabled to have or enjoye and is hereby disabled and made incapable of having holding enjoying or exercising any place Office or promotion Ecclesiasticall Civill or Military or any other Imployment in Church or State other then that of his Peerage and shall likewise be liable to such further and other punishments as by the Common Laws or Statutes of this Realm may be inflicted in such cases.
Nothing really new is it?
This Goon needs an ass whipping….a Good One….. But then he might like it and pay for more…
“that there’s going to be a day when you need these institutions to be credible and to be fully functioning to protect your liberties”
My, awfully angry and defensive, isn’t he? Well, you know what they say about people who immediately jump on the defensive …
“Justice” Thomas does not see the irony here – it is TODAY that the courts credibility is sorely lacking; it is TODAY that the court only fully functions for the “citizen” corporations.
“Justice” Thomas is an embarrassment to the robe he wears.
What BIL said. Now, to get it onto billboards across the country…
“Justice” Thomas,
To be clear, the only thing undermining the Supreme Court is a barely qualified jurist who acts like a bought off fascist supporting toady like yourself and your buddies, Roberts and Scalia pissing on the Constitution and expecting the American people to believe you when you tell them it’s rain.
Citizens United is proof positive that you don’t respect, let alone understand, the Constitution from the words “We the People” forward.
Screw you and screw your whining.
You want to defend the integrity of SCOTUS?
Resign.
Today.
That would be a step in the right direction, you hack.
He hasn’t spoken on the bench for 5 years. 5 years. I only wish he was a scrupulously silent outside of the courthouse.
“Justice Clarence Thomas’s 5-year silence: By the numbers”
“The conservative Supreme Court justice is making history by staying speechless for so long. Here’s how his silent streak breaks down
POSTED ON FEBRUARY 16, 2011, AT 6:20 PM”
“Justice Clarence Thomas has not spoken during a court argument in five years, though he takes part in the justices’ internal discussions.”
The Supreme Court’s return from its midwinter break next week will mark a legal milestone: It will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas last spoke during a court argument, a record unequalled by any other justice in recent decades. His “epic silence on the bench is just one part of his enigmatic and contradictory persona,” says Adam Liptak in The New York Times. Here, a brief guide, by the numbers, to Justice Thomas’s silent years:
5
Number of years, as of next Tuesday, since Justice Thomas last spoke during a court argument. “While Thomas’s silence on the bench may be regrettable, there’s no question he’s taking a very active part in the justices’ internal debates,” says Damon W. Root in Reason. “And that, after all, is where the court’s decisions are ultimately made.”
40
Number of years since any other justice has gone an entire term, let alone five, without speaking, according to Timothy R. Johnson, a University of Minnesota political science professor
133
Average number of questions per hourlong argument that Supreme Court justices collectively asked from 1988 to 2008. That’s more than two questions per minute. “Thomas isn’t wrong to suggest that the last thing the bench needs is another chatterbox,” says Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. …”
http://theweek.com/article/index/212188/justice-clarence-thomass-5-year-silence-by-the-numbers
No wonder Silent Clarence rarely speaks. Nothing good ever comes from it.
Another point is that the Supreme Court could allow ECF filing but doesn’t. If they had ECF filing, then they could have a public listing of the questions on appeal. The S.C. could also require a summary of defense be filed by ECF to make it easier for them to pick petitions and to weed out the complaints of obstruction of justice from those that are asking for a true legal opinion.
I am on an email list from US Courts and in one of them read that every year the S.C. gets over 9,000 petitions. Personally I applied twice and both times I paid to file and I ended up spending thousands of dollars on printing plus the writing and layout was a huge amount of work. So the question I have is what happened to my petitions?
So if they get over 9,000 petitions per year and each is read by one who then decides whether the others might be interested, then each justice would have to read 1,0000 initial petitions. Then if the first justice recommended 10% of those, each would have a required second reading of 800 petitions. That is before they get to doing anything on the petitions they actually accept. Obviously that does not happen, the justices don’t have time to do that much reading.
So the question I have even before we get to the particular justices, is how and who picks their petitions?
Next, I fully expect Justice Thomas to paint his face blue, grab his sword, mount his horse (not that way you sicko) and address his men. Declaring that any attack upon him is an attack upon freedom and they should therefore die to defend his freedom.
Here’s the question I want to ask “justice” Thomas: dude, it has been 30 years. In all the decades before and after your confirmation hearing, Anita Hill has demonstrated no reason to lie, no character in her personality that draws a horrid light, and has gone to great lengths not to profit from it since.
30 years.
And someone is still lying about it, a lie that has diminished this angry man, and stolen the honor out of his career. A horrid lie, now festering for 30 years, is an impeachable offense in my book. Everything else he has done as a “justice” proceed from his deliberate disassociation from the truth.
“What is the quality of your intent?
Thurgood Marshall”