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That didn’t take long

by DougJarvus Green-Ellis

It is really sad the way Obama has politicized recent SCOTUS decisions:

She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court.

In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative “core principles,” she said.

[....]

Experts say Virginia Thomas’ work doesn’t violate ethical rules for judges. But Liberty Central could give rise to conflicts of interest for her husband, they said, as it tests the norms for judicial spouses. The couple have been married since 1987.

Of course, we all know the justices are principled jurists, not political operatives.

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March 14, 2010 4:36 pm Posted in: Good News For Conservatives, We Are All Mayans Now  61 Comments

61 Responses

  1. NobodySpecial - March 14, 2010 | 4:39 pm · Link

    So, is it Hamsher or Kucinich’s fault? That’s the important question.

  2. Napoleon - March 14, 2010 | 4:40 pm · Link

    DougJ, are you trying to wage a high tech lynching against Mrs. Thomas?

  3. Tokyokie - March 14, 2010 | 4:40 pm · Link

    Similarly, her having a position in the Bush transition team had no effect on Clarabelle’s ability to render an impartial judgment in Bush v. Gore.

  4. demo woman - March 14, 2010 | 4:42 pm · Link

    Wahoo and the Citizens United decision allows corporations to support her new group.
    At least she doesn’t have a whitey tape hidden and she must be one of Sarah’s real americans.

  5. burnspbesq - March 14, 2010 | 4:44 pm · Link

    Thomas has, in fact, been pretty consistent in sticking to his principles. The problem is that his principles suck.

  6. Nellcote - March 14, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link

    What do we know about the other SC spouses?

  7. The Dangerman - March 14, 2010 | 4:46 pm · Link

    (In hushed, bird watching tones)

    After months of searching, the rarest of species can be seen here; the African American Tea Partier.

  8. licensed to kill time - March 14, 2010 | 4:47 pm · Link

    “She is intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully,” the bio says.

    WooWoo Alert.

  9. demo woman - March 14, 2010 | 4:48 pm · Link

    @The Dangerman: She’s white and I doubt that Clarence will show up to a rally but maybe I’m wrong.

  10. Lancelot Link - March 14, 2010 | 4:49 pm · Link

    After months of searching, the rarest of species can be seen here; the African American Tea Partier.

    Except she isn’t.

  11. Primigenius - March 14, 2010 | 4:50 pm · Link

    Once upon a time, a man sneaked into a religious celebration at Julius Caesar’s home, which was being officiated by his wife. It was for women only, celebrating rites of the Bona Dea. When people took him to task for the infraction, Caesar divorced her, explaining that “even Caesar’s wife must be above reproach.” It’s nice to know that 2000 years of progress would allow Caesar’s wife to lobby the Senate, or set up her own PAC.

  12. The Dangerman - March 14, 2010 | 4:51 pm · Link

    @demo woman:

    She’s white…

    (In hushed, bird watching tones)

    After closer examination, the elusive African American Tea Partier remains unseen.

    (stomps field glasses into the ground)

  13. Mnemosyne - March 14, 2010 | 4:51 pm · Link

    @The Dangerman:

    IIRC, Mrs. Thomas is white.

    ETA: D’oh! demo woman beat me to it.

  14. Nellcote - March 14, 2010 | 4:51 pm · Link

    I wonder what Jan “Obama’s picking on the SC” Greenberg makes of this development.

  15. madmommy - March 14, 2010 | 4:52 pm · Link

    I’m sure that Justice Thomas will immediately recuse himself if a case involving a teabaging group comes before the SC.

    /s

  16. licensed to kill time - March 14, 2010 | 4:53 pm · Link

    @The Dangerman: I thought your comment was very funny, even if the sighting was flawed.

  17. ed - March 14, 2010 | 4:55 pm · Link

    The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources — including corporations — as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.

    “I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country,” Thomas, who goes by Ginni, said on the panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I have felt called to the front lines with you, with my fellow citizens, to preserve what made America great.”

    I assume she felt called by not only the fellow citizens, but the welcome corporations as well. How grass rootsy!

  18. demo woman - March 14, 2010 | 4:56 pm · Link

    @madmommy: but, but, but

    Thomas said she saw no conflict of interest and that she rarely discussed court matters with her husband.

    I guess it depends on the meaning of rarely.

  19. Ginny - You Is My Woman Now - March 14, 2010 | 4:58 pm · Link

    I’m sorry. An African American Republican just ranks up there with Hebrews for Hitler as far as I’m concerned.

  20. serge - March 14, 2010 | 4:58 pm · Link

    You could see this coming…eventually we’ll see Roberts’ beard lobbying for the death penalty for lesbian high school students who wish to attend their prom together.

    But Liberty Central could give rise to conflicts of interest for her husband, they said, as it tests the norms for judicial spouses.

    The five pinheads on the right will never find a conflict for one of theirs. Now, let Justice Stevens’ granddaughter try to set up a consulting business a la Sparrow/Twist Tie/Bristol Palin that teaches young entrepreneurs how to set up lemonade stands, and stand back listen to the howling and gnashing of Fox teeth…

  21. ed - March 14, 2010 | 4:58 pm · Link

    The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources — including corporations — as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.

    “I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country,” Thomas, who goes by Ginni, said on the panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I have felt called to the front lines with you, with my fellow citizens, to preserve what made America great.”

    I’m sure she also has felt called by the welcome corporations, as well as the “fellow citizens” she so adores (i.e., Teh Littles). So grass rootsy!

  22. Svensker - March 14, 2010 | 4:59 pm · Link

    @Tokyokie:

    her having a position in the Bush transition team had no effect on Clarabelle’s ability to render an impartial judgment in Bush v. Gore.

    Srsly? Am I alone here in thinking that seems kinda wrong?

  23. demo woman - March 14, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link

    @Svensker: Not at all.. I don’t remember hearing about her involvement at the time.

  24. Warren Terra - March 14, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link

    In addition to Thomas’s wife being an activist on Wingnut Welfare (she worked for the Bush Transition and for Heritage), Scalia’s son got a political appointment (to Justice, iirc) under Dubya.

  25. KG - March 14, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link

    I highly doubt that Justice Thomas would show up at a Tea Party rally. There is absolutely nothing for him to gain, and pretty much everything for him to lose. If he shows up, and especially if he speaks, he enters the political thicket and could potentially open himself up to issues of impeachment (some judges have been removed for “bringing disrepute to the judicial system” and related charges). There really is no upside.

    For the record, I tend to like Justice Thomas, unlike Scalia, he sticks to his theory of jurisprudence in order to reach a decision. Scalia, on the other hand, tends to base his jurisprudence on which will get him the outcome he wants. Which is funny, because that seems to be the same criticism that many on the right have for Ginsberg and Stevens. I don’t always agree with Justice Thomas’ conclusions based on his jurisprudence, but you can at least understand how he gets there.

    Interesting side note: there is a judicial impeachment pending before the Senate

  26. Svensker - March 14, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link

    @ed:

    “I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country,” Thomas, who goes by Ginni,

    That is just so sweet of her to observe us all from her Olympian heights, innit?

  27. demo woman - March 14, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link

    OT Fingers crossed cuz if WV doesn’t get a number 1 seed, the blog boss is gonna be pissed.

  28. madmommy - March 14, 2010 | 5:03 pm · Link

    @Svensker:

    It’s only wrong if you’re not a Republican.

  29. John W. - March 14, 2010 | 5:04 pm · Link

    Someone should mention Douglas desperately trying to get on a Presidential ticket from the bench.

  30. burnspbesq - March 14, 2010 | 5:06 pm · Link

    Less than five minutes into the selection show, and the Dook hate has already started. Bring it. We revel in it.

  31. Davis X. Machina - March 14, 2010 | 5:09 pm · Link

    You’re not a playa until you have at least one conflict of interest.

    Poor people don’t have enough different interests for any of them to conflict.

  32. Warren Terra - March 14, 2010 | 5:10 pm · Link

    To be sure, Thomas isn’t corrupt; he seems to be a sincere and absolutist zealot – and scarily angry. This privileged man’s book tour interviews showed him just seething with hatreds and resentments.

  33. Davis X. Machina - March 14, 2010 | 5:14 pm · Link

    To be sure, Thomas isn’t corrupt;

    It would be better if he were corrupt—then you only have to out-bid his present owners.

    A zealot can’t be bought.

  34. Bill E Pilgrim - March 14, 2010 | 5:14 pm · Link

    Yes it’s so troubling that the conservative justices have to suffer the lack of decorum that they were complaining about just this week, it’s enough to make your wife miss a stitch in her teabagger protest costume.

  35. Shalimar - March 14, 2010 | 5:18 pm · Link

    Conflicts of interest? Didn’t Scalia go hunting with Cheney while the court was deciding a case involving Cheney? Republicans don’t recuse themselves even when they get caught taking money from someone involved with a case, so I don’t see what conflict there could possibly be.

    Thomas said she saw no conflict of interest and that she rarely discussed court matters with her husband.

    Her husband is renowned for his complete silence from the bench, so this doesn’t seem surprising.

  36. Jay C - March 14, 2010 | 5:20 pm · Link

    Thomas said she saw no conflict of interest and that she rarely discussed court matters with her husband.

    So Clarence talks about his work at home about as much as he does with his colleagues, huh? At least he’s consistent…

  37. JenJen - March 14, 2010 | 5:26 pm · Link

    I remember during CPAC that she addressed the group, and I immediately recognized her as Ginny Thomas. Thought it was bizarre that she called herself “a concerned woman from Lincoln, Nebraska” and never once eluded to the fact that she’s not only a SCOTUS spouse, but has been a conservative political operative for most of her career.

  38. Alan - March 14, 2010 | 5:27 pm · Link

    How long will it be before she shows up on Rush Limbaugh’s show peddling how horrific the national debt and deficit spending is but raising taxes is unconscionable?

    If some here don’t know, Rush is pals with her husband.

  39. arguingwithsignposts - March 14, 2010 | 5:29 pm · Link

    @JenJen:

    Thought it was bizarre that she called herself “a concerned woman from Lincoln, Nebraska” and never once eluded to the fact that she’s not only a SCOTUS spouse, but has been a conservative political operative for most of her career.

    For conservatives, such behavior is not bizarre, but expected, sadly. I expect her wearing her Minnie Pearl hat to the next teabagger gathering.

  40. wasabi gasp - March 14, 2010 | 5:31 pm · Link

    If you can’t get corporate funding funneled to your grassroots organization by the spouse of a supreme court justice then what’s the point of blowing lunch money on a magic marker to draw a swastika on a protest sign.

  41. David - March 14, 2010 | 5:32 pm · Link

    Is this like an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy Ricardo would promise “the girls” that Ricky would perform at their Ladies Club charity function?

  42. me - March 14, 2010 | 5:39 pm · Link

    Of course, we all know the justices wingnuts like are principled jurists, not political operatives.

    Fixed.

  43. Dannie22 - March 14, 2010 | 5:47 pm · Link

    @ Alan.

    I think Thomas performed the ceremony between Rush and his third wife.

  44. Warren Terra - March 14, 2010 | 5:50 pm · Link

    @Dannie22:
    Given how many such ceremonies there have been and his reputed drug use, do you suppose Rush remembers?

  45. mslarry - March 14, 2010 | 6:04 pm · Link

    @ Warren Terra

    To be sure, Thomas isn’t corrupt; he seems to be a sincere and absolutist zealot – and scarily angry. This privileged man’s book tour interviews showed him just seething with hatreds and resentments.

    if by sincere and absolutist zealot, you mean “self-hating” black man, then “yes” I agree 100%.

  46. leo - March 14, 2010 | 6:08 pm · Link

    What’s the big deal? When Michelle Obama joined the Green Party we didn’t hear a word.

    Opps, oh sorry.

  47. MikeBoyScout - March 14, 2010 | 6:19 pm · Link

    No doubt, Chief Justice Roberts will decry the injection of such political pep rallies into the inter sanctum of SCOTUS spheres.

  48. mistersnrub - March 14, 2010 | 6:19 pm · Link

    @KG:

    This. Thomas, while I disagree with him on nearly everything, is very consistent in his reasoning and views on constitutional matters. His jurisprudence is much more palatable than Scalia’s. Scalia is a total sophist and oftentimes brazen with his intellectual dishonesty (Heller, etc.).

  49. pablo - March 14, 2010 | 6:27 pm · Link

    I raise a can of Coke to the Thomas family!

  50. DougJ - March 14, 2010 | 6:57 pm · Link

    @pablo:

    Ha!

  51. ed - March 14, 2010 | 7:08 pm · Link

    @38 wasabi gasp:

    If you can’t get corporate funding funneled to your grassroots organization by the spouse of a supreme court justice then what’s the point of blowing lunch money on a magic marker to draw a swastika on a protest sign.

    That’s a big bowl of Win.

  52. Honus - March 14, 2010 | 7:44 pm · Link

    @demo woman:
    “Thomas said she saw no conflict of interest and that she rarely discussed court matters with her husband.”

    Lack of discussion of current events must run in the family. If you recall, Clarence testified at his confirmation hearing the he (unlike every other law student of that era in the United States) had never had a conversation about Roe v. Wade.

  53. Ash Can - March 14, 2010 | 8:00 pm · Link

    This story made my head hurt. I’d never seen a picture of Clarence Thomas’s wife before, so when I saw the photo accompanying the news story, I felt like I’d been hit by a brick—Ginny Thomas was one of my pals in undergrad. She was always a Republican when I knew her, but she was never a wingnut, let alone one who’s this far out there. To see what she’s become makes me heartsick.

    What she’s doing is legal, to be sure, but it stinks to high heaven and makes her husband look even worse than he already does. On top of it, she comes right out and says that she intends to take advantage of the Citizens United decision to rake in donations to her group and back political candidates.

    A Supreme Court spouse who’s a power broker for wingnut Republicans. Gee, what could possibly go wrong? Ginny, I’m embarrassed to tears for you.

  54. Cacti - March 14, 2010 | 8:06 pm · Link

    @burnspbesq:

    Thomas has, in fact, been pretty consistent in sticking to his principles.

    And his principles are…

    Whatever Scalia says they are.

  55. jake the snake - March 14, 2010 | 8:46 pm · Link

    @Davis ex Machina
    This.

    I have thought for a long time that a True Believer is more dangerous than a grifter. A grifter is not going to do anything to endanger their con.

  56. Ella in NM - March 14, 2010 | 9:14 pm · Link

    If we just changed the tax code so that only organizations involved in humanitarian, social service, environmental and truly religious work could call themselves “non-profit” we could subsequently payoff the damn deficit with the tax revenue we’d see.

    And get rid of asshats like this beotch, Liz Cheney, and all the other con-artists spewing their crap.

  57. ominira - March 14, 2010 | 10:09 pm · Link

    @pablo: LOL!

  58. kay - March 14, 2010 | 10:23 pm · Link

    I think it looks a little hinky because of Citizens.

    She’s already whining that she’s being treated unfairly because she’s a conservative, though, so we can be assured there will be no scrutiny of anything she does, lest we upset her.

  59. AxelFoley - March 14, 2010 | 10:24 pm · Link

    @pablo:

    I raise a can of Coke to the Thomas family!

    spits out drink (not Coke)

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  60. mcmillan - March 14, 2010 | 10:49 pm · Link

    @Cacti:

    People thinking along these lines, might want to look at some of Ed Brayton’s commentary about the topic. I don’t have time to search through the archives too much, but this post and some of the ensuing discussion seems to bring up a lot of the points I’ve remembered reading about the subject.

  61. abo gato - March 15, 2010 | 6:22 am · Link

    So, she says they don’t discuss court cases at home…...how conveeeeeeniant…....since the Citizen’s United case came down, like January 21 or so and she formed her “non profit” group in January???

    Sure, no discussions at all at that household.

    What arrogant assholes.

    Oh, yeah, they are republicans, I guess that IS redundant.


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