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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Now It Can Be Asked: ‘Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?’

Now It Can Be Asked: ‘Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?’

by Anne Laurie|  January 25, 202211:49 am| 164 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, GOP Death Cult, Republican Venality, Violent Insurrection at the Capitol

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Secretly paid by a Trump backer involved in a case: Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? https://t.co/QzTapSx5I3

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) January 21, 2022

Technically, that would be her Dear Husband, who has no more standing to be on the bench than Fratt Kavanaugh or Amy ‘Black Sheet of Paper’ Coney-Barrett. But you should absolutely make the time to read the whole article, because Mayer (as usual) includes more detail than can be decently excerpted. Ginni seems to be involved in every far-right authoritarian organization with more than a dozen people on the membership roster — the interconnections alone are a whole story:

… Last fall, Justice Clarence Thomas, in an address at Notre Dame, accused the media of spreading the false notion that the Justices are merely politicians in robes. Such criticism, he said, “makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference,” adding, “They think you become like a politician!”

The claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept, especially from Thomas, whose wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, is a vocal right-wing activist. She has declared that America is in existential danger because of the “deep state” and the “fascist left,” which includes “transsexual fascists.” Thomas, a lawyer who runs a small political-lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, has become a prominent member of various hard-line groups. Her political activism has caused controversy for years. For the most part, it has been dismissed as the harmless action of an independent spouse. But now the Court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases—on abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights.

Many Americans first became aware of Ginni Thomas’s activism on January 6, 2021. That morning, before the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C., turned into an assault on the Capitol resulting in the deaths of at least five people, she cheered on the supporters of President Donald Trump who had gathered to overturn Biden’s election. In a Facebook post that went viral, she linked to a news item about the protest, writing, “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” Shortly afterward, she posted about Ronald Reagan’s famous “A Time for Choosing” speech. Her next status update said, “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.” Two days after the insurrection, she added a disclaimer to her feed, noting that she’d written the posts “before violence in US Capitol.” (The posts are no longer public.)

Later that January, the Washington Post revealed that she had also been agitating about Trump’s loss on a private Listserv, Thomas Clerk World, which includes former law clerks of Justice Thomas’s. The online discussion had been contentious. John Eastman, a former Thomas clerk and a key instigator of the lie that Trump actually won in 2020, was on the same side as Ginni Thomas, and he drew rebukes. According to the Post, Thomas eventually apologized to the group for causing internal rancor. Artemus Ward, a political scientist at Northern Illinois University and a co-author of “Sorcerers’ Apprentices,” a history of Supreme Court clerks, believes that the incident confirmed her outsized role. “Virginia Thomas has direct access to Thomas’s clerks,” Ward said. Clarence Thomas is now the Court’s senior member, having served for thirty years, and Ward estimates that there are “something like a hundred and twenty people on that Listserv.” In Ward’s view, they comprise “an élite right-wing commando movement.” Justice Thomas, he says, doesn’t post on the Listserv, but his wife “is advocating for things directly.” Ward added, “It’s unprecedented. I have never seen a Justice’s wife as involved.”…

In recent years, Democrats have been trying to impose stronger ethics standards on the Justices—a response, in part, to what Justice Sonia Sotomayor has described as the “stench” of partisanship on the Court. In 2016, Republicans in Congress, in an unprecedented act, refused to let President Barack Obama fill a vacancy on the Court. Trump subsequently pushed through the appointment of three hard-line conservative Justices. Last summer, Democrats in Congress introduced a bill that would require the Judicial Conference of the United States to create a binding code of conduct for members of the Supreme Court. They also proposed legislation that would require more disclosures about the financial backers behind amicus briefs—arguments submitted by “friends of the court” who are supporting one side in a case.

So far, these proposals haven’t gone anywhere, but Gillers notes that there are extant laws circumscribing the ethical behavior of all federal judges, including the Justices. Arguably, Clarence Thomas has edged unusually close to testing them. All judges, even those on the Court, are required to recuse themselves from any case in which their spouse is “a party to the proceeding” or is “an officer, director, or trustee” of an organization that is a party to a case. Ginni Thomas has not been a named party in any case on the Court’s docket; nor is she litigating in any such case. But she has held leadership positions at conservative pressure groups that have either been involved in cases before the Court or have had members engaged in such cases. In 2019, she announced a political project called Crowdsourcers, and said that one of her four partners would be the founder of Project Veritas, James O’Keefe. Project Veritas tries to embarrass progressives by making secret videos of them, and last year petitioned the Court to enjoin Massachusetts from enforcing a state law that bans the surreptitious taping of public officials. Another partner in Crowdsourcers, Ginni Thomas said in her announcement, was Cleta Mitchell, the chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative election-law nonprofit. It, too, has had business before the Court, filing amicus briefs in cases centering on the democratic process. Thomas also currently serves on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars, a group promoting conservative values in academia, which has filed an amicus brief before the Court in a potentially groundbreaking affirmative-action lawsuit against Harvard. And, though nobody knew it at the time, Ginni Thomas was an undisclosed paid consultant at the conservative pressure group the Center for Security Policy, when its founder, Frank Gaffney, submitted an amicus brief to the Court supporting Trump’s Muslim travel ban…

When Clarence Thomas met Ginni Lamp, in 1986, he was an ambitious Black conservative in charge of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—and she was even more conservative and better connected than he was. Her father ran a firm that developed housing in and around Omaha, and her parents were Party activists who had formed the backbone of Barry Goldwater’s campaign in Nebraska. The writer Kurt Andersen, who grew up across the street from the family, recalls, “Her parents were the roots of the modern, crazy Republican Party. My parents were Goldwater Republicans, but even they thought the Lamp family was nuts.” Ginni graduated from Creighton University, in Omaha, and then attended law school there. Her parents helped get her a job with a local Republican candidate for Congress, and when he won she followed him to Washington. But, after reportedly flunking the bar exam, she fell in with a cultish self-help group, Lifespring, whose members were encouraged to strip naked and mock one another’s body fat. She eventually broke away, and began working for the Chamber of Commerce, opposing “comparable worth” pay for women. She and Thomas began dating, and in 1987 they married. As a woman clashing with the women’s movement, she had found much in common with Thomas, who opposed causes supported by many Black Americans. At Thomas’s extraordinarily contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, in 1991, Anita Hill credibly accused him of having sexually harassed her when she was working at the E.E.O.C. Ginni Thomas later likened the experience to being stuck inside a scalding furnace. Even before then, a friend told the Washington Post, the couple was so bonded that “the one person [Clarence] really listens to is Virginia.”…

The Justice Department has so far charged more than seven hundred people in connection with the insurrection, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the federal government will prosecute people “at any level” who may have instigated the riots—perhaps even Trump. On January 19th, the Supreme Court rejected the former President’s request that it intervene to stop the congressional committee from accessing his records. Justice Thomas was the lone Justice to dissent. (Meadows had filed an amicus brief in support of Trump.) Ginni Thomas, meanwhile, has denounced the very legitimacy of the congressional committee. On December 15th, she and sixty-two other prominent conservatives signed an open letter to Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, demanding that the House Republican Conference excommunicate Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their “egregious” willingness to serve on the committee. The statement was issued by an advocacy group called the Conservative Action Project, of which Ginni Thomas has described herself as an “active” member. The group’s statement excoriated the congressional investigation as a “partisan political persecution” of “private citizens who have done nothing wrong,” and accused the committee of serving “improperly issued subpoenas.”

A current member of the Conservative Action Project told me that Ginni Thomas is part of the group not because of her qualifications but “because she’s married to Clarence.” The member asked to have his name withheld because, he said, Ginni is “volatile” and becomes “edgy” when challenged. He added, “The best word to describe her is ‘tribal.’ You’re either part of her group or you’re the enemy.”…

Another organizer of the January 6th uprising who has been subpoenaed by the congressional committee, Ali Alexander, also has long-standing ties to Ginni Thomas. Like Fletcher, Alexander spoke at a rally in Washington the night before the riot, leading a chant of “Victory or death!” A decade ago, Alexander was a participant in Groundswell, a secretive, invitation-only network that, among other things, coördinated with hard-right congressional aides, journalists, and pressure groups to launch attacks against Obama and against less conservative Republicans. As recently as 2019, Ginni Thomas described herself as the chairman of Groundswell, which, according to documents first published by Mother Jones, sees itself as waging “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation.” As Karoli Kuns, of the media watchdog Crooks and Liars, has noted, several Groundswell members—including Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, the fringe foreign-policy analyst—went on to form the far-right flank of the Trump Administration. (Both Bannon and Gorka were eventually pushed out.) According to Ginni Thomas’s biography in the Council for National Policy’s membership book, she remains active in Groundswell. A former participant told me that Thomas chairs weekly meetings…

Ginni Thomas rarely speaks to mainstream reporters, but she often gives speeches in private forums. The Web site of the watchdog Documented has posted a video of her speaking with striking candor. In October, 2018, she led a panel discussion during a confidential session of the Council for National Policy. At the time, the Senate was caught up in the fight over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who had been accused of sexual assault. “I’m feeling the pain—Clarence is feeling the pain—of going through false charges against a good man,” she said. “I thought it couldn’t get worse than Clarence’s, but it did.” America, she said, “is in a vicious battle for its founding principles,” adding, “The deep state is serious, and it’s resisting President Trump.” She declared twice that her adversaries were trying “to kill people,” and drew applause by saying, “May we all have guns and concealed carry to handle what’s coming!”

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Reader Interactions

164Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    January 25, 2022 at 12:17 pm

    She is a danger to the Court, and to society as a whole.

  2. 2.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 12:18 pm

    I can’t believe Jane Mayer went there.
    So impolite to point out this glaring and obvious spousal conflict! :)
    Nothing will happen – but it’s important to tell the truth. Write it down.

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 25, 2022 at 12:18 pm

    Her activities are shameful. She is shameless.

  4. 4.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 12:19 pm

    Ponder for a moment if this were the spouse of a liberal justice. Every single person in the country would know about it, because conservatives would hammer it every day.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 12:22 pm

    @Kay:

    Ponder for a moment if this were the hairdresser of a spouse of a liberal justice. Every single person in the country would know about it, because conservatives would hammer it every day.

     
    Fixed.

  6. 6.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    January 25, 2022 at 12:23 pm

    That Mayer/New Yorker piece pissed me right the fuck off – as in, it pretended to reveal new information.

    Where was the valiant 4th Estate 15-20 years ago when it was apparent to even an incurious me how involved she was with groups that were regularly begging for retrograde policy shifts from Uncle Clarence and crew? He’s been a corrupt piece of shit from the beginning, and she’s used him openly as her tool.

    Meanwhile, we got “brilliant” reporting from our 24/7 well-paid pundits on huge issues like messaging, tan suits, polls as scoreboards, both sides, Dijon mustard, terrorist fist bumps, overpreparedness, Benghazi, Trump’s empty microphone, etc., etc., etc.

    The only thing I’ll enjoy in the upcoming fascist authoritarian state is when the purveyors of our news get rounded up by fascist paramilitaries, all while they confusedly babble and whimper about how fair they tried to be in their coverage. Hopefully, it’s all on video so I can at least have some chuckles at the expense of Chuck Todd.

  7. 7.

    kindness

    January 25, 2022 at 12:24 pm

    Yea…nothing will come of it no matter what.  I mean sure, Ginni is all in on overthrowing the results of a national election, but at least she didn’t call Ducey a ‘Stupid Son of a Bitch’, which is obviously an impeachable thing.  Right?

  8. 8.

    zhena gogolia

    January 25, 2022 at 12:25 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: To be fair, Mayer was one of the journalists trying to get the Anita Hill story out when it might have made a difference.

  9. 9.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 12:25 pm

    @Baud:

    :)

    I think the new reporting is the financial gain, which newspapers should cover like any other financial conflict. But they won’t. They’ll do an elaborate analysis of “power spouses” or some shit, sprinkled with some free speech flavoring and some tangent on feminism, almost guaranteed.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    @kindness:

    Yea…nothing will come of it no matter what

     
    While probably accurate in this case, I think this attitude is part of the problem. We stop the attack when immediate change looks unlikely. Conservatives, by contrast, keep it up so that their viewpoint seeps into the public consciousness over time.

  11. 11.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 12:33 pm

    @kindness:

    @Baud:

    Agree. Democrats could just say over and over that it’s a huge conflict and bad government. It is.

    She’s a grievance grifter, so she’ll look for personal attacks, but no one has to do that. I mean I guess pointing out their complete lack of ethical behavior and refusal to police themselves in the abscence of any outside rules is “personal” but the public interest in conflicts of interest isn’t personal.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 12:34 pm

    @Kay:

    Judicial ethics is a problem, and one that can be dealt with without raising structural separation concerns.

  13. 13.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    January 25, 2022 at 12:39 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    My take was that the Anita Hill saga (and I believed her, by the way) was small beans compared to the fact that he seemed pedestrian, inadequate and so ordinary, without any kind of genuinely brilliant career, and that his greatest flaws disappeared in the Hill fracas.

  14. 14.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 12:40 pm

    @Baud:

    What I love about conservatives is how they contradict their own basic belief every single day.

    They are the reason we need rules. The best pro regulation argument out there is the behavior of powerful conservatives. Clarence Thomas is a lawyer. He knows this is a conflict and he knows he has a duty whether a rule addresses each situation specifically or not. As far as I’m concerned they’re begging to be tightly regulated. You have to. They won’t police themselves.

  15. 15.

    Scout211

    January 25, 2022 at 12:40 pm

    What a ballon-juice morning! Joss Whedon and Ginni Thomas both featured in front page posts for their abuse of power and stunningly arrogant sense of self-importance and privilege.

    Well done, Anne Laurie and The Thin Black Duke!  I think it could be perfect trifecta if Betty Cracker would add one of her wonderful DeSantis posts. :)

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2022 at 12:41 pm

    The GQP is and remains a threat to the SCOTUS and the country. Mayer is good.

    Relatedly, Popehat says, yet again, it’s probably not Teh RICO.

    More likely this is just a way to say “you can investigate the stuff you specified in the time period you specified, plus any related stuff that led to it or followed it,” so Trump can’t say later the grand jury investigation exceeded its scope. /1 https://t.co/ca2crpaaGe

    — SonOfAHat (@Popehat) January 25, 2022

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 12:44 pm

    @Kay: Their only basic belief is their divine right to rule.

  18. 18.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    January 25, 2022 at 12:44 pm

    And while I’m thinking about it can we get rid of the following societal tropes that the media happily foists upon us:

    1. That children are special snowflakes and society owes greater duties to them in their snowflakeness;

    2. “Hard working (white) people’s political views need to be respected above and before all others;

    3. “Elderly on fixed income feel pain from _____________ policy”;

    4. “But what about the effect in the homeless/poor? ( ignoring all consideration of the needs or concerns of low income workers);

    5. “Suburban moms have a special voice and power when it comes to the needs of their children.”

  19. 19.

    Starboard Tack

    January 25, 2022 at 12:47 pm

    “May we all have guns and concealed carry to handle what’s coming!”

    A fully loaded pump action 12 gauge is a lot more practical and effective if it comes to that. Better range than a hand gun unless you train seriously. Better coverage than an assault rifle. Talking about carrying weapons is performance. Deliberately shooting people effectively isn’t so easy. But it doesn’t matter because the talk is just cover for the corruption and meant to intimidate anyone who would oppose them.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 12:51 pm

    Benjy Sarlin @BenjySarlin
    So I think this is missing the issue. BBB individually is all popular poll-tested vanilla policies. The strategy to PASS it has been a disaster that’s done grievous damage because of Schumer’s decision not to pick a combo of policies Manchinema signaled support on first.

    At some point these people are going to figure out that Manchin and Sinema’s “BBB approach” worked backward from Manchin and Sinema’s single objective, which was protecting the Trump tax cuts.
    Find the number that allows the Trump tax cuts to stay in place while passing something. That’s Manchin and Sinema’s position on BBB. All the rest was noise.

  21. 21.

    Jackie

    January 25, 2022 at 12:52 pm

    The 1/6 Committee will request a friendly chat with her, right?

    Right?

  22. 22.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 12:54 pm

    @Kay:

    I love the fiction that people like Sarlin wouldn’t have blamed Dems for pre-compromising and watering down the bill if Schumer had taken that approach.

  23. 23.

    Scout211

    January 25, 2022 at 1:01 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    1. That children are special snowflakes and society owes greater duties to them in their snowflakeness;

     

    Yes, like those special snowflake Trump “children.”
    Source. 

    Bold added below

    The former president insisted that the House of Representatives committee requested an interview with 40-year-old Ivanka as a means of distracting from what he called President Joe Biden‘s failures.

    “It’s a disgrace, what’s going on,” Trump told the Examiner. “They’re using these things to try and get people’s minds off how incompetently our country is being run. And they don’t care. They’ll go after children.”

  24. 24.

    laura

    January 25, 2022 at 1:02 pm

    Aunt Lydia and the most obviously bitter Supreme Court Justice (yes, bitter than Sam Alito) make for such a fun couple. I wonder who they are at home.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 1:04 pm

    @Baud:

    Agree. If your negotation approach is start high you can’t complain when it ends lower. I personally do not make fake-high demands but a lot of people do. If only it were that easy!

    But it’s about the tax cuts. I think Biden knows it- he called Sinema out on it specifically.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 1:09 pm

    @Baud:

    Have you seen this? They all inexplicably settled on a theory where Schumer is afraid of a primary challenge by AOC and that’s why he can’t pass BBB.

    Like- let’s ignore every single obvious cause and come up with this…. zebra.

  27. 27.

    West of the Rockies

    January 25, 2022 at 1:09 pm

    The Thomas duo seem like such joyless, angry, judgmental A-holes.  I can’t imagine their home life features lots of laughter and pleasure.

  28. 28.

    Starboard Tack

    January 25, 2022 at 1:11 pm

    @West of the Rockies: Maybe when they’re drowning kittens

    ETA: Too much?

  29. 29.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 1:11 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    They make a big show out of doing Real America things like travel in a camper, which is amusing since Ginni is absolutely raking in big bucks with her consulting. Maybe socking it away for the revolution. When Antifa seizes the radio stations.

  30. 30.

    satby

    January 25, 2022 at 1:21 pm

    @Kay: A Thor Motor Coach Tuscany 45AT Class A Diesel Motorhome* costs $429,660, not your average American budget. My friends got a customized class B van two years ago and it cost $200k. And both get shitty mpg. It’s not a cheap vacation by any means.

    edit* I only know by the description they have a class A 40 foot motor coach, not what brand.

  31. 31.

    cmorenc

    January 25, 2022 at 1:27 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    It’s not just that Thomas was such an egregiously under-qualified, undeserving nominee for a SCOTUS seat – the particular retiring justice he replaced was Thurgood Marshall, one the key figured in the civil rights movement working to end segregation and key member of the legal team who argued brown v board of education.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 1:31 pm

    @satby:

    Wow. That is a lot. So they could be super high end Real Americans.

  33. 33.

    satby

    January 25, 2022 at 1:33 pm

    @Kay: yep.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 1:33 pm

    @Kay:

    I hadn’t seen that, but I try to stay off the dark web.

  35. 35.

    MisterDancer

    January 25, 2022 at 1:35 pm

    @cmorenc: I do not know why Justice Thomas is the way he is, and I don’t care to speculate.

    I do care to note that he was really (in my estimation) the vanguard for those Black folx who chose to secure a sinecure from Conservatives. Much like the Black folx who claimed to be Confederate vets for money/fame, I think Thomas opened up the waves of toxic Black folx who’ll sell their families down the river, somewhat literally, to get more money in their pockets.

    Or, in some ways worse, those who actually believe that Conservative business, like my cousin.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 1:35 pm

    @satby:

    A Thor Motor Coach Tuscany 45AT Class A Diesel Motorhome* costs $429,660

     
    I blame Biden’s inflation.

  37. 37.

    Chief Oshkosh

    January 25, 2022 at 1:38 pm

    @satby: Uh, try $627,150. I don’t think you can get a Thor Tuscany 45 for $429,660. Maybe if you skimped on the paint and gold toilet…

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 25, 2022 at 1:38 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    1. That children are special snowflakes and society owes greater duties to them in their snowflakeness;

    Society does owe greater duties to children, not because of some natalist duty to propagate the race, but because they are human beings who are both less physically/mentally capable of defending themselves and possess fewer legal rights and powers than adults. I do see a duty of care there. One of the big problems with libertarian “every person an island” positions is that they often ignore the existence of children completely. Or, they try to treat children as adults in an exceedingly creepy manner on the basis of some anecdotes about child geniuses.

    The problem is, the defense of children is also an effective emotive cover for all manner of bullshit. It is definitely NOT true that parents always know better about how to protect their kids. Often the kids need to be protected FROM the parents.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    January 25, 2022 at 1:40 pm

    @Baud: The snark web is even worse.

  40. 40.

    prostratedragon

    January 25, 2022 at 1:43 pm

    @cmorenc:  Justice Marshall delicately pointed out that it was not important that his successor be black,  only that they be good.  That was sure all the hint I needed.

  41. 41.

    CaseyL

    January 25, 2022 at 1:45 pm

    You can spend upward of $1.5 million for a luxury Class A motorhome.  They really are luxurious, which is of very little interest to me: I don’t need marble tile floors, f’rex.  But they also generally have dishwashers (most other motorhomes and 5th wheels, etc., don’t) – and that’s a luxury item I would go for.

    Ginni Thomas has been a saboteur/traitor for decades.  Her husband was named to SCOTUS precisely as revenge for Thurgood Marshall, and for the purpose of undoing his work.  The project to undermine the Court has been going on a very long time.  Trump just hastened/finished the project.

    I don’t know what will happen if SCOTUS continues to make rulings that are unsupported by anything remotely resembling stare decisis, or even consistent legal reasoning.  It’s a case of what will be worse: a SCOTUS whose rulings are ignored, thus destroying it as a co-equal branch of government, or a SCOTUS that makes dingbat rulings which are obeyed in order to preserve it as a co-equal branch of government.  I think the forces currently hollowing out the country would be happy either way.

  42. 42.

    Anonymous At Work

    January 25, 2022 at 1:49 pm

    Good news: John Eastman hit a judge that got more than a little pissed at Eastman’s attempt to plead both Attorney-Client privilege AND Fifth Amendment without a “privilege log” (aka showing which emails were covered in order to review them in detail by a judge or separate group of lawyers).  Blanket Fifth and blanket Attorney-Client is a good way to lose both.

  43. 43.

    MisterForkbeard

    January 25, 2022 at 1:51 pm

    @Kay: I’m not even sure Manchin and Sinema HAD a point. Manchin was literally never able to say what he wanted passed and what he didn’t. He just cherrypicked individual things and haggled over it for months and then just… picked up another thing.

    Sinema’s the same way. There’s no indication of anything she actually WANTS other than to keep Democrats from changing things.

    How do Democrats fix that? They can’t. Not unless they actually negotiate openly and honestly, and they just… won’t.

  44. 44.

    sdhays

    January 25, 2022 at 1:54 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: You’re forgetting the “government employee discount”.

  45. 45.

    The Thin Black Duke

    January 25, 2022 at 1:56 pm

    @cmorenc: I’m sure that’s why they specifically chose Thomas. He might as well be wearing a “House Negro” sign around his neck.

  46. 46.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 25, 2022 at 1:58 pm

    It’s not like the SCOTUS retains a shred of credibility

  47. 47.

    Hoodie

    January 25, 2022 at 2:02 pm

    @Kay: There’s only so much you can do in terms of regulation, e.g., you’re not going to impeach Thomas or other justices for conflicts of interest.  I wonder if the better approach is to just acknowledge the Court is inherently political, but in a different way than Congress because of different procedural constraints on the Court (e.g., the way they receive cases, limits on their calendar, etc.)  Then just pack the shit out of it.   I don’t know if this issue has ever been litigated, but I wondered at the time whether Obama could have tested McConnell’s refusal to even consider Merrick Garland and just seated him based on a claim that the Senate’s failure to advise in reasonable time constituted implicit consent to putting Garland on the Court.  Unfortunately, they’ve created a pernicious precedent that this sort of bad faith is acceptable, and it’s extended to stuff like administrative positions and really kneecaps the federal government.   Make them vote no if they want to block a nomination.

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2022 at 2:03 pm

    Action, meet Consequence. Consequence, please proceed.

    January 25, 2022 at 1:12 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    A 31-year-old man in need of a heart transplant has been bumped from the transplant list at Brigham and Women’s Hospital because he won’t get vaccinated against Covid-19, CBS Boston reports.

    Said Dr. Arthur Caplan: “The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, Covid could kill you. The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving.”

  49. 49.

    fancycwabs

    January 25, 2022 at 2:04 pm

    You mean to suggest that there might be a conflict of interest in the husband of someone who provided material support for a coup attempt against the United States Government ruling on cases about that coup attempt, and might, say, be the lone dissent in a case where the records of someone else involved in that coup attempt were being subpoenaed by a congressional investigation into that selfsame coup attempt?

    How dare you.

  50. 50.

    Starboard Tack

    January 25, 2022 at 2:04 pm

    @trollhattan: His father is kicking up about his son’s freedumb.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:04 pm

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Because they don’t care what’s in it. It just has to come in under Trump’s tax cuts. The tax cuts are worth billions and billions. They’re extraordinarily valuable to the people and entities who benefit from them. It’s mind boggling amounts of money. Passing infrastructure first meant “coming in under the Trump tax cuts” had to be lower for BBB, and like magic it went from 1.8 to “something higher than zero”. That number is the number keeping the Trump tax cut determines.

  52. 52.

    MisterForkbeard

    January 25, 2022 at 2:07 pm

    @Kay: What was insane is that Manchin was even publicly on board with 1.5T total. He was publicly on board with so many things only to back out on them. He made assurances he didn’t keep and without explanation.

    The Tax Cuts are a reason I hadn’t considered, but it boggles my fucking mind that he won’t just say what he wants and what he wants to keep. It’s like negotiating with jello.

  53. 53.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2022 at 2:11 pm

    @Starboard Tack: 
    I’ll bet. Certainly, Good Old Dad couldn’t be bothered to convince his failing-health child to do protective things for himself during a pandemic. That would be just wrong. Plus it’s free and thus, suspect.

  54. 54.

    Mike in NC

    January 25, 2022 at 2:14 pm

    “Liberty Consulting”, huh? The far right really likes to abuse our language.

  55. 55.

    Jager

    January 25, 2022 at 2:14 pm

    @satby:

    We used to share a 16 foot Airstream, we stayed at Wine Country RV Park in Paso Robles, CA, so we could meet friends for dinner and a gallery tour. The overnight fee was 70 bucks for a 16 footer, a couple across from us had a 41 foot Class A, $140 a night, and you can’t get those big hulks into a National Park or most state campgrounds. A very expensive way to travel.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:16 pm

    @Hoodie:

    I don’t really blame Obama. You deal with the conditions you have at the time. He couldn’t operate at all if he was predicting the future of the Republican Party. There’s extraordinary institutional resistance to the idea that they are radicals. A real refusal to accept it. One more try, one more cycle, one more red line they “won’t cross” and then do cross. There didn’t used to be a discussion over whether Democrats were permitted to fill a SCOTUS vacancy in a D Presidential term. Now there is and no one knows if it will be allowed. Obama didn’t see it but no one else did either.

  57. 57.

    The Thin Black Duke

    January 25, 2022 at 2:18 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: As other people have theorized, what Manchin and Sinema want to do is sabotage Biden’s presidency so that morons can vote to give the GOP back the House, Senate and the Oval Office. Those traitors are bought and paid for.

  58. 58.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 25, 2022 at 2:19 pm

    @cmorenc:It’s not just that Thomas was such an egregiously under-qualified, undeserving nominee for a SCOTUS seat –

    Say what you will about Clarence Thomas, he was probably still in law school when Harold Carswell inspired one of the most deservedly immortal quotes in American politics:

    Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.

    Senator Roman Hruska, R-NE.

    Up there in my mind with “Chicago ain’t ready for reform!”

    And I’ll always feel a little sorry for Harriet Miers, who as I recall didn’t seek national ridicule, she had ridicule thrust upon her by a mediocrity occupying the Oval Office.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:19 pm

    @MisterForkbeard:

    He doesn’t accept the Democrats number because the Democrats number includes rescinding some or all of the tax cuts. His number is lower because his projected revenue is lower- includes the tax cuts.

  60. 60.

    lowtechcyclist

    January 25, 2022 at 2:19 pm

    @Kay: Have you seen this? They all inexplicably settled on a theory where Schumer is afraid of a primary challenge by AOC and that’s why he can’t pass BBB.

    ‘They all’? Yglesias and who else was that dumb?

  61. 61.

    debbie

    January 25, 2022 at 2:22 pm

    What’s the first step in the process to remove him and his wife from these positions of influence?

  62. 62.

    RaflW

    January 25, 2022 at 2:25 pm

    I had not known that John Eastman clerked for Thomas. The web is somewhat wide, yet also quite tight and insular. To the larger point, only the most willful (oh, hi, beltway press!) can still look at the current Supreme Court and not see it as a political body.

    TBF, the Court has been a political body at other times. It ain’t new. The intensity of the naked politicization seems at least generationally unprecedented. But a court with the power to interpret our Constitution is of course political. That’s why the fight over seating justices is so intense.

    That Dems have had the combo platter of misfortunate timings, egregious thefts (Merrick says hi) and the Scotus in effect picking it’s own H.R. department (via a Brooks Bros. ‘riot’) at one time, yeah it’s political. Thomas, Breyer, Roberts and others can all STFU about it being perceived wrongly. I’m gonna trust my lying eyes here.

  63. 63.

    The Moar You Know

    January 25, 2022 at 2:28 pm

    It’s not just that Thomas was such an egregiously under-qualified, undeserving nominee for a SCOTUS seat – the particular retiring justice he replaced was Thurgood Marshall, one the key figured in the civil rights movement working to end segregation and key member of the legal team who argued brown v board of education.

    @cmorenc: Reagan knew how to tell everyone to fuck themselves while leaving them zero room to call him out on it.  Master of that game.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 2:30 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Thomas was Bush I.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:31 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    The covening conventional wisdom is to blame progressives. I think that underestimates the rest of the Democratic Congress. They’ll accept 1.5 – what will be very difficult for them to accept -probably impossible-  is keeping the Trump tax cuts, because it’s not their ideological position and it’s unfair and obscene. If there were a legitimate policy sticking point we would know it by now- means testing, whatever. It’s the tax cuts, which is what Manchin and Sinema can’t say.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    January 25, 2022 at 2:31 pm

    @cmorenc: 
    Clarence Thomas replacing Thurgood Marshall is a great example of the Republican attitude toward affirmative action. They wanted to avoid replacing a Black judge with a White one, so they promoted someone who wasn’t really qualified because he was ideologically correct and the right race. They think that’s how affirmative action always happens, and they’re naturally unhappy with it.

  67. 67.

    Hoodie

    January 25, 2022 at 2:32 pm

    @Kay: I agree that it’s not Obama’s fault (at least alone), but maybe Biden could take a lesson from it when and if we can retain control of the Senate without relying on tools like Manchin and Sinema.  Packing the Court is far more legitimate than what McConnell has done.

  68. 68.

    Betty

    January 25, 2022 at 2:33 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Similar thing happened with Kavanaugh. The uproar over the sex-related allegations meant the public didn’t hear about his lying in his previous appointment hearings or how he behaved as part of the Starr witch hunt or how a Bush appointee went through his archives to hide a lot of stuff. It was reported but overlooked.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:36 pm

    @Hoodie:

    I’m fine with packing the court, but the people who wouldn’t carve out an exception to a senate rule to pass the Voting Rights Act are not going to pack the court. IMO, we’re stuck with them.

  70. 70.

    Hoodie

    January 25, 2022 at 2:38 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: IIRC, that was  Biden’s main problem with Thomas.  While Hill’s accusations were no doubt legitimate and Biden did not handle them well, Biden may have thought they were a distraction (perhaps because difficult to prove in that setting) from the real problems with Thomas’ background and credentials.   The focus on Kavanaugh’s sexual assault did tend to crowd out real questions about his honesty and financial propriety.

  71. 71.

    RaflW

    January 25, 2022 at 2:39 pm

    It does seem like corruption, from Congressional stock trading to high judicial conflicts of interest would be a strong organizing point for Dems in ’22 and ’24. There’s plenty of malfeasance right out in the open to rail against.

    And it would tie in well with reminding people regularly what an absolute self-dealing POS the previous Preznit was. I never really understood why Dems didn’t feature plumbers and other small biz contractors that TFG stiffed (frequently! for a lot of money!) in their campaign ads in 2016. It seemed like a rich vein of discreditation for the swindling bastard.

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    January 25, 2022 at 2:39 pm

    @Kay: No doubt, which is why that can only happen if you don’t have to rely on their votes.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:42 pm

    @Hoodie:

    I do think the Roberts court becomes a better and better political issue for Democrats as the far Right justices burn through everything in their path. I think you could see Democratic voters apathy on courts reverse, hard. I think it’s already started. Abortion and voting rights are established rights that people had for decades, adult lifetimes, and no longer do. That’s a very different thing than “not making progress”. It’s a lurch backwards. They’ll respond.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 25, 2022 at 2:44 pm

    @Kay: and a lot of Senators who were willing to carve out a voting-rights exception– Angus King, Tom Carper and Chris Coons just for starters, and I’d bet on Mark Kelly, Jon Tester, Maggie Hassan and probably Dianne Feinstein– would probably be against court-packing.

    Getting on one of the many hobby-horses in my stable: Democrats/Liberals/The Left need to resist the urge to start everything at the top. Court reform, not “Expand the Court”, is a cause that needs to start from the bottom up

  75. 75.

    RaflW

    January 25, 2022 at 2:48 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: The question that I fear conservatives will answer with guns (in the hands of what they’ll call government, I mean) is “What happens when a substantial portion of the country no longer treats the courts as legitimate?”

    We’re well into a decades-long slow-rolling crisis of institutional decay. Bush v Gore was one of the early, glaring signposts. Over 21 years ago. I naïvely thought the Obama election and re-election meant the slouch towards chaos was checked.

    Boy howdy here we are.

  76. 76.

    Hoodie

    January 25, 2022 at 2:51 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Por que no los dos?  Court expansion could be included in a menu of reforms, e.g., this country is too big to be ruled by nine people who serve lifetime terms.  Not enough turnover. Alternatively, send them back to the circuits after 10 years on the SC.

  77. 77.

    RaflW

    January 25, 2022 at 2:54 pm

    @Kay: Can the Court delay their decision on abortion past Nov  8, 2022? Not something I know in enough detail about them.

    Because I’ve seen some indications that it would be in their interest to not rile up the much greater than 50% of Americans who are at least in some measure pro choice. My hope is they’re forced to tip their hand before the elex.

    And Dems really need to get over any remaining squeamishness about the topic. Confront it. Head on. The actual policy position can be nuanced. But decades of “safe, legal and rare” was a messaging disaster.

  78. 78.

    Wapiti

    January 25, 2022 at 2:57 pm

    Chief Justice Roberts spoke out at the end of December, with some statement about how the Judiciary as a branch can police itself. How much did he know about Mayer’s upcoming article?

  79. 79.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 2:59 pm

    @RaflW:

    There’s almost no continuing coverage of it outside outlets like the Texas Tribune, which shows you just where women’s health falls on the spectrum. Not important at all.

    If anyone pays attention to it is going to have to be Democrats, because media isn’t interested.

    I do think Democrats would find a receptive audience. The polling on overturning Roe is terrible for conservatives. Really bad. It would be kind of cool in a way- since there’s little or no media coverage they would own the whole area. There’s nothing out there. It’s wide open for a pro-rights position.

  80. 80.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 2:59 pm

    You know what really sucks? Republicans are so good at winning the news cycle, there’s never time for their greatest hits to be reviewed.

    Hey! Let’s talk the war in Iraq; America was deliberately fed misinformation by a sitting President. (No, *before* the guy who looks like a rodent with a skin condition is fucking the only human being to ever be confused with a 5’10” asshole

    (Yes, under 6′. Go ahead: say he wears ridiculously huge shoe lifts to own the libs. He’d rather not let people know he’s short, even if the cost is having to take bitty mincing old lady steps down a ramp, then swing his arms far faster than his legs are moving, because he knows the rubes will believe he “ran” down to the bottom of the ramp. I don’t understand how the Republican Party which is big time into mocking people can hide behind this ridiculous tinhorn.)

    Where was I? Right: Bush lied, and people died. And don’t say it was acceptable to tell the American people that British intelligence believed something we knew to be false (yellowcake from Niger), without mentioning both pieces of knowledge:
    British intelligence believed something
    But, we knew it’s bullshit. W himself lied like a cheap rug.

    But at least he was a good war president, not *just* torturing prisoners, but running an extraordinarily expensive war. Hey, didja hear that his administration prioritized Republicans for helping to rebuild Iraq. Alas, the Republican Party was already  all “LIBRALS COMING TO KILL YOU OR DESTROY YOUR COUNTRY OR NOT REALLY ENJOY NASCAR OR DRINK LATTES – DAMN IT’S HARD TO KEEP UP!

    So to no one’s surprise, the post invasion was an utter disaster.

    Ah, but many years later, W would DISPLAY LEADERSHIP. See, the military was seeing great results with their new tactics, and that was a perfect time to send a few extra troops over to show that W IS A GREAT WAR PRESIDENT, BECAUSE NOT ONLY WAS HIS VICTORY FAR TOO LATE AND TRILLIONS OVER BUDGET, HE KNEW HOW TO GAIN GOOD PRESS BY DECLARING A SURGE!

    The Iraq war led directly to the formation of ISIS, which, of course, Republicans blame Obama for, because the status of forces agreement expired during his term. I don’t think they’ve figured out how to blame Obama for actually *launching* the Iraq war, but you know they’re trying!

    And hey, remember the trash talk before the invasion? “HAH, LIBRULZ, YOU IS PRO-SADDAM N PRO-TORTURE CUZ SADDAM TORTURES, AND YOU ARE DUMB ENOUGH TO THINK BUSH’S PLAN IS STUPID!” Irony died screaming “ENHANCED INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES!”

    Remember the Dixie Chicks saying they’re ashamed that the President started a war that was unjust, and shared their homestate? Remember how strong, and confident W was when he said “Folks, we have free speech in this country. It does nothing bad to me to hear that a fine country musical group disagrees with me.”

    BWAHAHAHAHA! I never thought I’d get all that out.

    Oh, right – UNJUST war? Remember the ninnies who insisted the Iraq invasion and conquest was a “just” war?

    Under “just war” precepts, you can go to war if there’s no other way to obtain certain objectives. So, see, if you were invading to find WMDs, and Saddam just capitulated to inspections – remember, that’s what we wanted to get out of those sanctions! – well, an invasion and conquest would be unjust.

    Seriously: what kind of nincompoop claims justification from a moral theory when the conditions can be seen, obviously and trivially, not to apply? Oh, but you can’t call that out. Really, both sides are just as bad, W invaded Iraq, but look at how all those Democrats sowed disunity by calling it a wrong, and stupid, decision!

    Good times. Never forget we’re in a long fight.

  81. 81.

    WereBear

    January 25, 2022 at 3:00 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: He doesn’t have REASONS. Those are for the little people.

    He wants money and somehow, he’s earning it.

  82. 82.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    January 25, 2022 at 3:01 pm

    @Hoodie:

    Reminder – Epstein had a nefarious plot well beyond finding sexually pliable 15-18 year olds – he collected info and favors on very wealthy and powerful men (and probably a few women) via a far reaching blackmail plot.

    Everybody kinda forgot about it.

  83. 83.

    The Dangerman

    January 25, 2022 at 3:06 pm

    Yes. Next.

    ETA: I’m in a pissy pithy mood.

  84. 84.

    Dopey-o

    January 25, 2022 at 3:07 pm

    @The Thin Black Duke: I’m sure that’s why they specifically chose Thomas. He might as well be wearing a “House Negro” sign around his neck.

    in my sick mind, i saw GHW Bush in the Oval Office, going over a list of SCOTUS nominees, and he turned to the room and said “If they want a ******,  I’ve got a doozy. Clarence Thomas! That’ll fsck ‘em good!”

  85. 85.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:09 pm

    @Kay:

    I expect a million media stories about Biden the Catholic’s heresy on abortion after Roe is overturned.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:12 pm

    @RaflW:

     But decades of “safe, legal and rare” was a messaging disaster.

    Under what measure?  Roe would have been overturned in the early 90s if people hadn’t acted to save it.  What was a disaster is “Wall Street speeches messaging.”

  87. 87.

    Miss Bee

    January 25, 2022 at 3:12 pm

    Anybody visit Pin Point, just south of Savannah, GA?  It’s a  coastal Gullah-Geechee community where Thomas grew up, and the beauty (and poverty) of the place just amplifies the cognitive dissonance about the Thomas appointment.  I can’t get it out of my mind.  From Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas, from Pin Point to the Supreme Court.

  88. 88.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 3:14 pm

    “Mr Turtle, how many pandemic deaths does it take to get Republicans to start caring?”

    “I’ve never made it without biting! Ask Mr Owl.”

    “Mr Owl, how many pandemic deaths does it take to get Republicans to start caring?”

    “Let’s find out. One. Twohoo, three (loud crunch, as 6 zeros line up behind the number 3).

    “Three. Million.”

  89. 89.

    JWR

    January 25, 2022 at 3:15 pm

    O/T, but boy, this anti-mask Kaaron crap has got to stop. Glad local TV news aired the video, because this guy was aiming his ire at children.

    Man Goes on Profanity-Laced Anti-Mask Rant Near La Crescenta Middle School

    In the past, conspiracy theorists were relatively passive, but today, you never know when they’re gonna go off the rails and maybe do something  even worse.

  90. 90.

    Wapiti

    January 25, 2022 at 3:15 pm

    @Baud: and yet, those upstanding Bishops and Cardinals in that morally upright church have never threatened to withhold communion from antivaxxers who are getting people killed.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:17 pm

    @Wapiti:

    A couple of right wing Bishops have threatened withholding communion, but I don’t know if any has, and the Pope has said no dice.

  92. 92.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    January 25, 2022 at 3:18 pm

    @Baud:

    He is right. “Safe, legal, rare” was a mistake. “Choice” was a mistake, too.

    It should always have been about “many decisions are so private that neither government nor the churches that seek to invoke government power can interfere.”

  93. 93.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:21 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    How does one assess what messaging would have worked best in the 50 years that abortion would have been legal?

  94. 94.

    WereBear

    January 25, 2022 at 3:24 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That sex cult in Albany NY started with the cult leader collecting compromising information from the giddy victim, who was still in the golden glow phase.

  95. 95.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    January 25, 2022 at 3:26 pm

    @JWR:

    I’ve seen some vids. The dude is fixing to catch some hands.

  96. 96.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 3:29 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I’ll chime in with how the messaging wasn’t a bad choice, because any messaging would have been treated with utter hate and contempt by the people who lost their right to discriminate, *and* get federal funding, because Jesus.

    When an opponent has chosen to weaponize Christianity, and start screaming about untold millions of MURDERED ITTY BITTY BAYYYBIEEES, when they literally didn’t give a damn about abortion a few years before, they’re not going to stop and say “oooh, catchy messaging.”

  97. 97.

    JoyceH

    January 25, 2022 at 3:29 pm

    @JWR:  Argh – masks!  You know what? Something struck me today. Glenn Youngkin? He’s running for president.

    Reasoning? Virginia Gov is term limited to one term. So most of the people who run for the office are aiming for Gov on the way to somewhere else.  Often it’s Senate, and Tim Kaine’s term is up in ’24. But if he had his eye on Kaine’s Senate seat, he’d be governing as he ran, as a Sensible Moderate – you know, the agenda and persona that can actually win an election in Virginia. Instead, ten days into his term, he’s gone full on MAGA, reveling in sticking his thumb in the eye of the county school boards, many of which are suing him. So yeah… he’s running for President.

    You heard it here first…

  98. 98.

    satby

    January 25, 2022 at 3:30 pm

    @JWR: Yeah, TBogg (I think it was) tweeted about that yesterday, the online hunt was on to ID the guy because he was verbally assaulting kids.

  99. 99.

    Old School

    January 25, 2022 at 3:33 pm

    @Baud:

    A couple of right wing Bishops have threatened withholding communion, but I don’t know if any has, and the Pope has said no dice.

    Joe Biden has been denied communion.

    New Mexico State Senator Joe Cervantes was denied communion.

  100. 100.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:41 pm

    @Old School:

    Thanks.  Didn’t hear about those.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    January 25, 2022 at 3:41 pm

    @JoyceH: I heard it last November, on Election Day. When I left my polling place I chatted briefly with the Republican lady manning a table 50 feet outside the door. I took some literature, and she gave me a pamphlet with a plastic membership card for the Youngkin Election Security Task Force. “It will be a good souvenir,” she told me, “for when he becomes Governor. Or maybe even President.” She seemed a little star-struck by the man.

  102. 102.

    JWR

    January 25, 2022 at 3:48 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
    @JoyceH:
    @satby:

    Evidently, the police are on to this guy for similar attacks, or as the article puts it, “similar outbursts”, in Glendale. And it would’ve been nice if the cops had taken an incident report.

    Outburst my arse, That was child abuse.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 3:49 pm

    @Baud:

    Do you? They used to have a double standard for Democrats and religion but after Trump I think it become too ludicrous even for them.

  104. 104.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:50 pm

    @Kay:

    Maybe not literally a million.

  105. 105.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 3:50 pm

    @Baud: I’m not even sure how that reasoning works. If I saw the current doctrine, it says, basically:
    If you have two equally good candidates, but one’s pro-choice, you must vote for the other – you can’t support a person who is pro-choice unless there’s some other factor to override it.

    Okay, but what about when the candidates aren’t equally good? A Catholic should judge them as a person. They might decide “anti-death penalty, anti-pointless-war, really tries to prevent abortion, through birth control, which, face it, is really pretty good for a non-Catholic – and the other guy is the opposite, except pro-life. And you know, I think Candidate Pro Birth Control will prevent more abortions than Candidate Pro Life.”

    So, Biden is supporting something sinful, but is an overall good man who Catholics can support (but, you know, pray, yaddada).

    I don’t see how someone could say a fellow sinner should be denied communion when said fellow sinner is someone Catholics can wholeheartedly support except-for-the.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 3:52 pm

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    ?‍♂️

    I’m not Catholic.

  107. 107.

    Sure Lurkalot

    January 25, 2022 at 3:54 pm

    @CaseyL:

    It’s a case of what will be worse: a SCOTUS whose rulings are ignored, thus destroying it as a co-equal branch of government

    There’s a current example of the gist of a ruling being ignored…how big tech and big finance are imposing vaccine and testing requirements all on their own. I asked my finance guy this morning why firms such as his aren’t more vocal in their pursuit of sensible public health guidance to keep their workforce and customers safe and we just laughed and laughed.

  108. 108.

    MisterDancer

    January 25, 2022 at 3:55 pm

    @LongHairedWeirdo: When an opponent has chosen to weaponize Christianity, and start screaming about untold millions of MURDERED ITTY BITTY BAYYYBIEEES, when they literally didn’t give a damn about abortion a few years before, they’re not going to stop and say “oooh, catchy messaging.”

    Damn straight.

    These are the intellectual and relational dependents of people who spent millions writing “Biblical”, “Scientific,” and “Cultural” rationales to enslave millions for an economy that helped only a few become super-rich. And then regurgitated said arguments to implement an Authoritarian regime that only helped a few more, than before.

    It’s not just that Patriarchal White Supremacy, with all its attendant ills, is a Hell of a drug. It’s that so many of us think that we can break the addiction because a few people can be moved off it, by words. We miss that those words are oftentimes the last straw in what’s usually been years of people doing draining as hell emotional labor to get that person off the crap.

    I blame, in part, the media focus for years on “sound bites” and similar crap. The few times it did move polling and voters, I wonder if it was because of what was said…or how it was covered?

    That’s not to say better messaging can’t help. But I think it’s a marginal effort, as opposed to motivating our team + getting boots on the ground to engage people in grassroots efforts,  who are truly willing to listen.

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    January 25, 2022 at 3:58 pm

    @LongHairedWeirdo: Pro-choice messaging can’t have hurt that badly if support for Roe polls at 62%. The messaging that jeopardized reproductive rights was, “Gore is no better than Bush,” and “Clinton the Neoliberal is worse than Trump.”

  110. 110.

    Kay

    January 25, 2022 at 4:03 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Broadly (and I would keep it broad) I would use “bodily autonomy”. Even Barrett knows that’s the vulnerability – she’s afraid of it as an argument, so much so that she tried to preempt in oral argument.

    I don’t care what anti abortion people say- it’s an absolute state take over of a woman’s body for X period of time. They can discount that, minimize it, wave it away, whatever. That’s what it is. They’re putting a person second to the pregnancy. The woman as a person with bodily autonomy disappears if this is against her will and it will be against their will. The only women affected are women who would have terminated the pregnancy. There’s nothing even remotely like it in US law. The closest situation would be a forced organ donation to benefit another.

  111. 111.

    Sure Lurkalot

    January 25, 2022 at 4:03 pm

    @Kay:

    He doesn’t accept the Democrats number because the Democrats number includes rescinding some or all of the tax cuts.

    Which simply underscores what a disingenuous sack of shit Manchin is, because his last (but not likely final) whining was about the deficit. Which was muchly embiggened by Trump’s (and Bush’s) tax cuts.

  112. 112.

    Sure Lurkalot

    January 25, 2022 at 4:10 pm

    @RaflW: Unfortunately, I’m of the opinion that no dirt is being dug wrt Manchin and Sinema because Congress is where a lot of people have made bank. No, “not everyone” who goes into public service is on the take but it does seem enriching.

    I think it’s the citizenry that needs to shine a bright light.

  113. 113.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 25, 2022 at 4:12 pm

    @Another Scott:

    LOL, he’s already on to “TechnicallyAHat,” a jab at his white whale, Michael Avenatti.

  114. 114.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 25, 2022 at 4:15 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Also:

    Me: Sees a public figure make a comment about RICO and drafts a careful 4-tweet thread analyzing and reacting to it.

    Everybody: OMG KEN DID U SEE THIS WHEN WILL YOU RESPOND?!

    — TechnicallyAHat (@Popehat) January 25, 2022

  115. 115.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 4:17 pm

    @Geminid: Good point. I get wrapped up in “stop blaming X for Republicans hating on Dems/liberals/pro-choice; they were going to do that *anyway*” but, yeah, isn’t that a lulu?

    Trying to make us think our success is actually a failure… you’d have to be a massive liar to do something like that. Or a Republican, because they never lied except all the times they did but it’s important to look forward, not backward, unless it’s a Democrat in trouble.

    And a low cunning,,. I think you’re on to something!

  116. 116.

    geg6

    January 25, 2022 at 4:20 pm

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Neither he or Sinema want anything in particular other than lots and lots and lots and lots of attention and tv face time.  That’s it.  This is why they can’t be pinned down.  They don’t want to say it out loud.

  117. 117.

    JoyceH

    January 25, 2022 at 4:20 pm

    @Geminid: Yikes! VA needs to push back now and hard! Because Youngkin is the kind who could actually win – suburban moms, “he just seems so nice!”  Remember Reagan and how it was said of him that he “didn’t mean the meanness of his policies” – and yet somehow the meanness happened anyway.

  118. 118.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 25, 2022 at 4:21 pm

    @Baud:

    There’s the dark Web and then there’s the dim Web.

  119. 119.

    Sure Lurkalot

    January 25, 2022 at 4:22 pm

    @JWR:

    Man Goes on Profanity-Laced Anti-Mask Rant Near La Crescenta Middle School

    The man who filmed the incident, also verbally attacked had this to say:

    Ned, who shared the video on NextDoor, hopes the angry man calms down. “I respect his freedom for not wanting to wear a mask, I can see that point,” he said. “But these kids have a freedom to wear a mask, if they think it protects them.”

    “Respect his freedom”? “If they think it protects them”? Methinks Ned is at the top of the slippery slope himself.

  120. 120.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 4:22 pm

    @CaseyL: I don’t know what will happen if SCOTUS continues to make rulings that are unsupported by anything remotely resembling stare decisis, or even consistent legal reasoning.

    Oh, don’t forget they injected themselves into foreign policy, something that would demand impeachment (NB: of the judge!) if a Republican was President.

  121. 121.

    eclare

    January 25, 2022 at 4:23 pm

    @geg6:   Totally agree, all for attention.

  122. 122.

    geg6

    January 25, 2022 at 4:24 pm

    @RaflW:

    I don’t know about other states, but I can tell you that such commercials ran incessantly in PA in 2016.

  123. 123.

    Soprano2

    January 25, 2022 at 4:28 pm

    @Kay: I read an article in WaPo today where they quote someone who really hates Jaypal – they blame Klain for the problems with BBB because he talked to her too much, and gave progressives too much of what they wanted! It’s an anonymous source, of course, ‘someone in the House’. It’s cowardly, how they stab each other in the back anonymously like that.

  124. 124.

    germy

    January 25, 2022 at 4:36 pm

    Now It Can Be Asked: ‘Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court United States of America?’

  125. 125.

    Soprano2

    January 25, 2022 at 4:37 pm

    @Geminid: Yep, Al Gore being boring and Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches and e-mail server management were seen by other liberals as the most important issues of those elections, not the Supreme Court or anything that was actually important. Oh, and the “unlikable” crap too. Even in 2000 people were talking about the courts, but most people just shrugged it off as not a big deal because traditions.

  126. 126.

    JWR

    January 25, 2022 at 4:37 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Methinks Ned is at the top of the slippery slope himself.

    I think a lot of people think that way. Confused, at the very least. But then that’s always been the goal, hasn’t it? Keeping people confused about masks, and frightened of  vaccines.

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    January 25, 2022 at 4:38 pm

    @JoyceH: Virginia Senate Majority Leader L. Louise Lucas and other Democrats are pushing back hard. If you haven’t checked it out already, you might enjoy Senator Lucas’ Twitter feed @SenLouiseLucas.

    The real pushback will be when we stomp the Republicans in next year’s state elections. The Republican House of Delegates majority is going to pass some really toxic bills, and Democrats are going stuff those bills down their throats in November, 2023.

  128. 128.

    Soprano2

    January 25, 2022 at 4:39 pm

    @Kay: In some states they jail pregnant women who are found to have drunk alcohol or used illegal drugs. But yeah, they can’t reconcile the conflict of whose rights should predominate – the full adult person or the fetus. Because they want to control women’s sex lives, they choose the fetus to be more important.

  129. 129.

    Soprano2

    January 25, 2022 at 4:41 pm

    @LongHairedWeirdo: And next year evidently they’re going to try to decide what Waters of the United States actually are, which is something that no one has been able to agree on as long as I’ve been in the sewer industry. I’m afraid of what their definition is going to be and how much pollution it’s going to allow. Experts can’t agree on this, but 9 judges on the Supreme Court are going to figure it out.

  130. 130.

    RaflW

    January 25, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    @Baud: The “rare” part bought the frame that abortion is icky. It is shame-based.
    To this day it is is brave for a woman to come forward and just say, ‘yes I had an abortion. It was medical care I needed.’ It re-enforces the rightwing morality frame that made it easier to chip away at access across decades.

  131. 131.

    Geminid

    January 25, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    @Soprano2: The people tearing Clinton down in 2016 had Russian help through social media. It worked, too.

  132. 132.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    @Soprano2:

    Sounds like they want to take down Jaypal because she showed some real leadership.

  133. 133.

    Baud

    January 25, 2022 at 4:45 pm

    @RaflW:

    I never read it that way.  But whatever. No one has used that slogan for a long time.  I don’t know why people are hung up about it in the face of the present danger.

  134. 134.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2022 at 4:46 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot: @JWR:

    It’s the second-hand smoke argument reworked for a new century. Only the consequences can be much faster and deadlier.

  135. 135.

    MisterForkbeard

    January 25, 2022 at 4:58 pm

    Severely OT, but I’ve got an Uncle who went into the ICU for non-covid related issues and it looks bad. And due to Covid, his wife can’t get in and he’ll be at severe risk for Covid if he makes it through all this. Fuck this unmasked, unvaccinated fuckers, and fuck the Supreme Court for overturning law and precedent on vaccination.

    This court is a political arm of the Republicans and I don’t honestly think people will stand for it.

  136. 136.

    Miss Bianca

    January 25, 2022 at 4:59 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: Aw, man. I am sorry to hear that.

  137. 137.

    Steeplejack

    January 25, 2022 at 5:00 pm

    @Kay:

    The tax cuts are worth billions and billions. They’re extraordinarily valuable to the people and entities who benefit from them. It’s mind boggling amounts of money.

    Guess this is a good place to drop this:

    Also, per RAND research, from the mid ’70s through 2018, the top 1% has redistributed $50 TRILLION in wealth from the bottom 90% of Americans as the American oligarchy has completely captured Congress and literally written their own preferred tax policy.
    https://t.co/UY9cdIjjVr

    — Blake Brown (@Upgradez) January 20, 2022

  138. 138.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2022 at 5:05 pm

    Well shit, sorry folks (rest of America).

    After a decade as Sacramento Sheriff, Scott Jones announced Monday he will run for California’s new 3rd Congressional District. This is the second time Jones, a Republican, has set his sights on a seat in Congress. In 2016 he challenged incumbent Democratic Rep. Ami Bera for control of his Elk Grove-centered district, losing by a margin of less than 3%. Now, Jones is gearing up for another run, this time, in the the newly-drawn 3rd district, which includes all of Placer County, as well as parts of Sacramento, Nevada, El Dorado, Plumas, Sierra, and Yuba County.

    “I will fight for law and order in America, stand up against the ‘Defund the Police’ movement, and secure our border,” Jones said in a tweet. “It’s time to put the safety of America and Americans first again.” District 3 is currently represented by Democratic Rep. John Garamendi. But because of redistricting, Garamendi will run in the newly-drawn District 8, which now includes the Solano-North Contra Costa region. Much of the region making up the new District 3 is currently represented by Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican, who recently opted to run in the new 5th Congressional District, which captures parts of Modesto and Fresno along with the western Sierra Nevada.

    McClintock’s decision not to run in the new District 3 leaves the Republican-leaning region wide open for a newcomer. Unlike 2016, Jones won’t have to face an incumbent, but he will face another Republican with regional name recognition and a track record of challenging Democrats in Sacramento.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article257667733.html#storylink=cpy

    Dude’s a corrupt sheriff and very early and proud Trumper. Ugh.

  139. 139.

    gvg

    January 25, 2022 at 5:06 pm

    @RaflW: Abortion is not risk free. Neither is childbirth, and childbirth has more danger, but contraception is safer still.  Abortion should be rare because it is an unnecessary health hazard which also means that probably contraception was made too hard to obtain. So yes, abortion should be rare if we were running things right and that is nothing to do with ickiness. I know it does imply something is wrong with abortion if we don’t aggressively follow up to a repetitive degree WHY abortion should be rare. Oh and by the way, women can have sex if they want to and none of your business.

  140. 140.

    Citizen Alan

    January 25, 2022 at 5:14 pm

    @cmorenc:  That’s why I despise Amy Barret so much.  She is basically just Clarence Thomas in a dress. When Thurgood Marshall had to step down, the republicans scoured the country to find a black judge who was willing to support white supremacy.  And when RBG died, they did the same thing to find a woman who fully supports the patriarchy.

  141. 141.

    JWR

    January 25, 2022 at 5:15 pm

    @Soprano2:

    But yeah, they can’t reconcile the conflict of whose rights should predominate – the full adult person or the fetus.

    I’m sure a lot some of you have read The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to Roe v Wade, and it’s quite clear that the decision was about as balanced as it could possibly be. But now, the Supremes are going to reconsider or otherwise “fix” that decision? God, how did we get here?!

    (Yeah, I know how we got here. I just wish we were someplace else.)

  142. 142.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2022 at 5:16 pm

    @gvg:

    Have not once in decades of trying convinced an anti-abortionist that they should put at least 50% of their energies into making contraception safe and widely available, thereby eliminating the need for a good fraction of abortions. Not once.

  143. 143.

    surfk9

    January 25, 2022 at 5:17 pm

    @trollhattan: ​
     There’s been a lot of talk about Jim Palmer giving up his assmbly seat and running for Sheriff.

  144. 144.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    January 25, 2022 at 5:23 pm

    @Soprano2: And that’s just *IT*. They keep rushing forward, regardless of how many failures and corpses they leave in their wake! They just refused to allow limits on church gatherings, other than the highest limit for local business. You think that’s pro-religion? What if Covid evolves into something so deadly, even the Republicans will care about the threat to the American people, but be “meh” over the threat to Democrats. It could rip through Christian gatherings, and who knows? Bodies could start piling up so fast the MFers would think it was the Rapture.

    (And whose to say it’s not the rapture, played out in slow motion? I won’t quash their dreams have being brought to a God whose only son told them to be nice to one another, and might want to explain ‘nice’ a bit better.)

  145. 145.

    dnfree

    January 25, 2022 at 5:23 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I remember GHW saying that Thomas was not just the most qualified African-American candidate for the court, he was the most qualified candidate period.  It was breathtakingly false.

  146. 146.

    Soprano2

    January 25, 2022 at 5:24 pm

    @Baud: They were characterized as ” centrist”.

  147. 147.

    zhena gogolia

    January 25, 2022 at 5:26 pm

    @Citizen Alan: Yes.

  148. 148.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2022 at 5:30 pm

    @JWR: It was 7:2, also too.   Of course, that rarely comes up when the RWNJs rail against it.

    Grrr…,
    Scott.

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    January 25, 2022 at 5:46 pm

    @Soprano2: Sounds like one malcontent. The real complaint might be that Jayapal was listening to Klain. I remember that at one point during that long wrangle, it was reported that Biden was urging Jayapal to hang tough on delinking the Infrastructure and BBB bills. Later, when Biden and Pelosi decided it was better to drop the linkage, Jayapal delivered 88 members of the Progressive Caucus for the Infrastructure bill. And unlike a couple Progressive Caucus members I can think of, I never heard Jayapal badmouth the Infrastructure bill on it’s merits.

    So, it sounds like one sorehead is helping a reporter toss another apple of discord into the Democratic caucus. Hopefully the other 220 Democratic Representatives are smart enough not to fight over it, although I expect their partisans will.

    Anyway, the point of failure in the whole process was in the Senate. And Manchin lied to Jayapal as well as Biden.

  150. 150.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2022 at 5:51 pm

    @satby:

    Just for completeness – WTOP has an AP hagiography (from 2020):

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has never been afraid to turn right when his colleagues turn left, or in any direction really as long as there’s a place to plug in his 40-foot (12-meter) refitted tour bus at the end of the day.

    Thomas is the only justice with a second home on wheels. And while it’s unclear how he’s using it during the court’s break, he still might be the envy of his colleagues during this pandemic-limited summer.

    Justices have canceled trips to the Czech Republic and Ireland, as well as the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest because of the coronavirus outbreak. RV travel, meanwhile, seems to fit with the national mood — a country cooped up and needing to get away but leery of being too close to strangers.

    […]

    The 72-year-old Thomas has the KOA discount card and a bunch of others for older Americans, he said in a conversation with businessman and philanthropist David Rubinstein at the Supreme Court in 2019. “The senior citizens have looked out for themselves. You get every possible discount you could get,” he said.

    He was in his early 50s when he and his wife, Ginni, got the RV bug. They’ve had their vehicle since 1999 — technically a motorcoach and not an RV, Thomas told Yale alumni in 2014. They regularly spend their summers on the road, making it to nearly two dozen states in 2018, he said last year.

    […]

    Comments here indicate that it’s a 1992 Prevost Marathon whatever that is. Maybe $100,000 these days?

    Sheesh, that’s ridiculous for just 2 people. :-/

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  151. 151.

    JWR

    January 25, 2022 at 6:02 pm

    @Another Scott: Yep. Close to a majority.

  152. 152.

    laura

    January 25, 2022 at 6:04 pm

    @trollhattan: Don’t forget that he’s also a giant shite-bag who is so very, very racist and who’s been making bank on using our county lockups to detain immigrants for ICE and BP. He ignores the law, is accountable to no one, sets an example for why Sheriffs should not ever be constitutional officers and he’s as gross a pig fucker as ever there was. If Jim Cooper ran against him, he’d likely have his ass handed to him.

    I said what I said.

  153. 153.

    JWR

    January 25, 2022 at 6:18 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Maybe $100,000 these days?

    Yikes! That’s not a motor home, that’s a friggin’ city bus!

    Kinda like Joe Manchin’s “Houseboat”.

  154. 154.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2022 at 6:43 pm

    @JWR: That seems to be an XL version – I assume that theirs is just as fancy, but shorter – 40ft.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  155. 155.

    WaterGirl

    January 25, 2022 at 6:54 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: So sorry about your family.  That is scary, frustrating and anxiety-producing.  Vent here as much as you want.

  156. 156.

    satby

    January 25, 2022 at 7:07 pm

    @Another Scott: That one for sale has almost 200k miles on it and is now 30 years old, so the price is a steep discount. But the article you read is the same one I did, just not as far down… Because ick, Clarence Thomas.

    Edit: but in 1998 or whenever it probably was around $250k or so, to account for the current price.

  157. 157.

    tybee

    January 25, 2022 at 8:23 pm

    @Miss Bee:

     

    Anybody visit Pin Point, just south of Savannah, GA?

    been there a few times. the museum has, supposedly, been improved greatly. it’s on our list of places to visit assuming the plague calms down.

  158. 158.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2022 at 9:17 pm

    @JWR: I know that area really well, what a tool.

  159. 159.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @JWR: Portions of the Crescenta Valley are in Glendale(Montrose and parts of La Crescenta).

  160. 160.

    J R in WV

    January 25, 2022 at 9:30 pm

    @Old School:

    Joe Biden has been denied communion.

    New Mexico State Senator Joe Cervantes was denied communion.

    Denied communion by a leadership that protects pederast rapist members of the priesthood. That kidnapped children born out of wedlock and put them to work.

    While Pope Frank seems like a person with a good heart, the organization he leads is despicable through and through. Gathering riches and using it to live high on the hog  with limos rather than helping the poor.

  161. 161.

    LiminalOwl

    January 25, 2022 at 11:26 pm

    @Kay: Did you see the NYT piece, I think it was Sunday? An anti-abortion “feminist” arguing that legal abortion harms women. With all the fake reasoning one would expect. (I know this thread is probably dead already, but just in case…)

  162. 162.

    Sister Golden Bear

    January 26, 2022 at 1:20 am

    @Chief Oshkosh: I know someone who decided to do the van life thing, so I decided to take a look out of curiosity.

    Theirs’ was a measly $72,000 — at which point I decided that amount of money could pay for a helluva lot of nights at nice hotels.

    Though I may rent a camper van for a couple this summer, since there’s a part of the Sierras that’s remote enough there’s no nearby hotels/motels, and it’s too off the grid for my EV. I did plenty of backpacking when I was young, but these days I’d rather not sleep on the ground. Plus as a woman alone, I’d rather sleep in something more defensible than a tent.

  163. 163.

    sab

    January 26, 2022 at 6:48 am

    Entitled white person here. I really hope we cool our jets on attacking Ginni Thomas. She has been horrible for years. Conflicts of interest for years. We only just noticed?

    There are other equally horrible justices. if we go after Thomases so late we might lose the Black vote. I am white, but it seems really late to be concerned with his and his wife’s behavior.

  164. 164.

    sab

    January 26, 2022 at 7:02 am

    @sab: Decades, not years they have been horrible. Too late to notice. Let’s pick on the newbies, who are bad and possibly worse. Nail them, because we are liberals and let POC bad behavior slide (which, quite frankly we have done.) Thomases have been horrible since forever.

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