A Disgrace
Clarence Thomas should have never been allowed to serve on the Supreme Court. Let’s be real about why he was picked. Thurgood Marshall announced he was retiring from the court and being that he was the first (and only) Black man to serve as a justice, George Bush (the drug pusher, not the cokehead) needed to pick a Black man to replace him. But not just any Black man. They needed to find one that was as conservative as they were. Forget that Thomas had only served as a judge for barely more than a year — he was Black and conservative so he got the gig.
And then came Anita Hill who accused Thomas of sexual harassment. At two separate jobs, when Thomas was Hill’s superior, he made sexual and romantic overtures to her which did not stop when she asked him to. He talked about how good he was in bed and how big he was down there. He even, allegedly, put pubic hair on her can of Coke. Oh, and he also liked to discuss sex scenes in movies, including rape.
This was all decades before #MeToo and believing all women. Anita Hill had half a dozen witnesses to back up her claims but they were never called to testify. Why? Well, it was all part of a deal that current President Joe Biden struck with his Republican friends. Hill had taken and passed a polygraph test (Thomas refused to take one, hmmm wonder why?) And, of course, since this was 1991, Hill was painted as a scorned lover deadset on revenge, making up claims to smear a good man.
Watching the opening clips from the video posted above, it is jarring and gross to see a cadre of white (the Senate was overwhelmingly white at the time, still is) men congratulating themselves for what can most charitably be described as a miscarriage of justice. Were there no other Black men available who could have taken Thomas’s place? It seems not.
This case, for lack of a better word, has always been described as a “classic he-said/she-said”. But that’s not really the truth, is it? There were witnesses who wanted to testify under oath about what they’d seen. Hill passed a polygraph while Thomas wisely avoided taking one. It was only because of the misogynistic attitudes prevalent at the time that Thomas was confirmed. It really is a stain on our country’s legacy.
Roughly four years before Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the court he married a woman named Virginia Lamp. Her career speaks for itself. After bouncing around from one college to another, she finally earned a Bachelor’s degree and later a JD from Creighton University. She worked for Congressman Hal Daub and the US Chamber of Commerce. One of the lowlights of her early career was unsuccessfully advocating AGAINST the Family and Medical Leave Act. You know, the thing that makes it so employers can’t fire sick people or women who just gave birth. Cool lady! In 2000, she began working for the Heritage Foundation, a “think tank” (if ever there were too generous a term for it) that produced such winners as Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, Jeff Sessions, and Mike Pence.
Virginia, or Ginni as she liked to be called, mostly remained in the background. It was from the shadows that she could wield the most power. In 2010, she left a voicemail on Anita Hill’s work phone demanding an apology from Hill for what she’d done to her husband’s reputation. She was also instrumental in choosing a number of the people who served in the Trump administration. And that’s where our story picks up today.
It was already clear where Ginni Thomas stood when it came to the January 6th insurrection and the people who participated in it. Heck, it was clear where she stood in terms of far-out political thinking. You need not look any further than what is already publicly known about her. Have a look at these gems:
Yikes. Now, you might be saying “what harm is there in a woman sharing stuff on Facebook. My aunt sent me the same things” and maybe you haven’t been paying attention to what’s happened over the past 5 years or so. It is the spreading of this kind of misinformation that led to a Trump presidency in the first place and also what caused people to try and overthrow the election. So… kind of a big deal if you ask me. Ginni, who looks like a rejected cast member of the film Get Out, is firmly in Camp MAGA.
Want to know something interesting? THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME GINNI HAS BEEN CAUGHT UP IN A CULT! No, no, my friends. Back in the 80s, she was part of a group called Lifespring. An innocuous-sounding name right? Well, it was anything but. From Ginni’s own telling of it, they were basically a cult that sought to control people through emotional and mental abuse. Here’s one of their creepy-ass commercials from the 80s.
Sheesh. They make the Heaven’s Gate people seem normal. I suppose if you’re susceptible to one kind of cult and bullshit indoctrination you’re susceptible to all of them. It’s no wonder how she got caught up spreading Q-Anon bullshit online and fully embraced the fascism of Donald Trump and the MAGA-ites. Doesn’t seem like a very bright lady.
This is the part where I speak to those of you who are saying “well, just because she believes one thing, doesn’t mean her husband does” and you know what, you’re right. We don’t really know what Clarence Thomas believes because he rarely engages with cases or speaks publically about them. He went MORE THAN A DECADE without ever asking a question during trials. Maybe he just never asked his wife what crazy things she believed.
None of this excuses Clarence Thomas remaining on the bench. If anything were to be a disqualifying factor in serving on the highest court in the land, having your wife not only be a support of the insurrectionists but also working behind the scenes to overturn a free and fair election should be one. We needn’t look any further than to Ginni’s own words to show the clear conflict of interest here.
Behind the scenes, Ginni was privately lobbying White House officials to push the issue to the Supreme Court where her husband just happen to serve. Hmmm. I wonder if she had any inside information about what might happen. I doubt VERY much she would encourage such actions if she wasn’t positive it would give her the desired outcome. Is there concrete proof that she collaborated with her husband to overthrow an election? No, there’s no smoking gun. But since we’re all thinking animals with brains I think the inference is clear. Ginni wanted the case to come before the court so her husband could help her cause of overturning the election results.
Need more proof? OK, I’ve got you. When the issue of whether or not the committee investigating the insurrection should be given documents from the Trump presidency went before SCOTUS, there was only ONE justice who voted against releasing them. Want to guess who? Yep!
Geez, I wonder if he knew what might have been in there that the Trumpers were trying to hide? To believe such a thing is ludicrous and if you do, let me know. I have some prime land in Florida to sell you.
If we cannot count on SCOTUS justices to recuse themselves from cases where their family members might be exposed then I am not sure we have a system of government that works anymore. There MUST be a consequence for this. Justice Thomas should have made his conflict of interest clear and not heard the case. This kind of thing (were it to happen in a district or state court) would be grounds for disbarment. How can we say that SCOTUS is a noble institution when we have people like Clarence Thomas presiding over cases?
There are two solutions that I can see. I am willing to hear others. The first would be the simplest but most politically painful. Justice Thomas should step down or retire from the bench. This would allow Biden to appoint another judge and hopefully bring a little more balance to the court. The other solution would be the most difficult to do, namely, appoint several ADDITIONAL justices so his vote is basically canceled out in every case. I can only imagine the outrage from the GOP if that were to happen.
Speaking of hypotheticals, can you imagine the endless crying and whining from conservatives if the shoe were on the other foot? Republicans might like to act as if this were no big deal but if Judge Jackson’s husband were secretly lobbying the White House Chief of Staff to, I dunno, legalize BLM rioting (which is about the closest thing I can envision) I doubt they would be so silent. If you thought her confirmation hearings were a racist circus, just imagine what would happen.
Consider this for a moment: the wife of a sitting SCOTUS justice was actively advocating that the current president and his family be tried by the military and executed in Guantanamo Bay!! That’s insane!! How can we let this stand?
We have a choice to make as a nation. We can either allow this kind of crap to rot us from the inside out or we can take a stand and use every power we have available to us to turn this shit around. I fear I already know which one we will choose.
And it’s a disgrace.