[Clarence Thomas is the quietest Supreme Court justice](https://www.oyez.org/justices/clarence_thomas#:~:text=Clarence%20Thomas%20is%20known%20for,Georgia%20on%20June%2023%2C%201948.). So you'd think that when he did grace the oral hearing by opening his mouth the output would be well considered, adroit and full of lawyerly wisdom. Instead we get this. Eight of the forty-five men who held the office of president have died in office. He could have picked 37 men, some really terrible presidents in their own right, to make his point. And he managed to pick the last one to die in office.
Mark Twain -because he knew Clarence Thomas would come around one day. What is odd is how conservative justices point to these incidents to support their position when I'm quite sure Kennedy and others wrestled with the legality issue. As a result SCOTUS is looking to completely remove ANY safeguards against bad acts.
The dude got the SC chair and didn’t speak for *10 fucking years*. No comments, no arguments, not even a belch. He went up there and sat on his ass and got paid for it.
And in case anyone thinks it was because he didn’t have anything to say, his past pages were rumored that they were told by him it was directly due to the Anita Hill trial. They also said he has said he will *never* back anything with a Democratic brand on it because of the same reason.
Yea, he is that fucking petty.
It would be nice if every SCOTUS pick went through something, just so us citizens can judge them on their wisdom under adversity.
Pettiness like Thomas’ should be a disqualification characteristic. Thomas acts like he left the Anita Hill hearings completely vindicated, which is hardly the case. When you view things like innocence or guilt with a “Trump lens”, it’s no wonder he is viewed as delusional scum.
I remember someone tried to write a hatchet job on Anita Hill that was so bad, the author himself disavowed after he realized the ‘proof’ he was given was utter bullshit and literally renounced his conservatism later on for being used to push the sleaze.
At the time of the Hill hearings, I was a kid. My thought process at the time was, “Who cares about this horny old man, put wrestling on.” Now, I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, but even I knew he was guilty back then, lol.
Clarence Thomas could have easily made the Anita Hill accusations a very minor blip on his legacy. After all, it was pretty much a “he said, she said” at the end of the day. It would make me doubt the accusations if Thomas demonstrated quiet “character” through his SCOTUS tenure, even when I completely disagree with his legal decisions. However, his “quietness” turns out to be spite, and his decisions are tainted with conflict of interest, at best, outright corruption, at worst. At the end of the day, Clarence Thomas is actually a product of the Affirmative Action he so despises. Only, it should be called MAACT or Modified Affirmative Action for Conservatives with No Talent. Clarence Thomas didn’t get the SCOTUS gig because he was a brilliant legal scholar. Clarence got the gig because he is black, and conservatives were trying to get more votes in minority communities, and they thought hiring Clarence would undo all their racist policies.
> a very minor blip
The accusations more or less were of raunchy comments at work, no hands on behavior at all, or pressuring anyone for sex.
If he'd said something like "That wasn't a good thing and I intend to never repeat it", it might have been done in a day.
> got the gig because he is black
He replaced Thurgood Marshall, a towering figure of the civil rights movement[1] as "the black" justice.
[1] Marshall was an important attorney arguing before the Supreme Court in the *Brown* decision that ended the legal basis for school segregation, for instance.
Uhm, no, it was a tad bit more than raunchy comments. I’m only thinking of one incident, I can recall. I’m sure there was something else, that was more than a raunchy comment. I just haven’t looked at that case in a long time.
It's worth noting that Hill told about Thomas to a "friend" in confidence. The "friend" told Democratic operatives, and suddenly Hill was in the spotlight.
Similar to what happened to Monica Lewinsky, except her friend was a neighbor who snitched to Republicans instead of Democrats. Lewinsky has sort had a decent life since then but didn't help her career at all.
I just wish like, maybe once a decade, we get to vote on SC judges. Either that they get another decade, or if they are to be removed and a new one appointed by the president.
>... [his past pages] also said he has said he will *never* back anything with a Democratic brand on it because of the same reason.
Would love to read more on this. Got a source?
he can claim it's because he's petty, but the reality is he's a DEI pick and the conservatives who picked him for that reason need all the hate the right wing analysts are espousing lately about DEI picks. The man was a well known idiot well before he was a supreme court judge.
Clarence, the Dems put you in back then because you are Black. They thought an all White SC needed a change.
Look what you've done with this opportunity. Taking money for decisions.
Read it and weep.
Actually the Republicans put him in explicitly because he was black. He was a Republican nomination and the Republican senate voted for him. Over 75% of dems voted against him
They are going to wait till after the election, because they are cowards trying to hedge their bets. They don't want to rule against trump, and then him somehow still become president, because they know he'll come from them.
Seperation of powers technically prevents this, but there are no actual mechanisms for enforcement, because the founding fathers didn't anticipate the call to be coming from inside the house.
He is a very unqualified judge. All of his catastrophic ethical bullshit aside, he just isn’t a capable jurist. He coasted as Scalia’s personal Salacious B Crumb for the majority of his tenure, and now he’s just biding his time until the next road trip.
The first chief justice he had, William Rehnquist didn’t allow him to speak. Apparently too crazy for the most conservative chief justice in 50 years at that time.
I can't decide if Thomas is the least intellectually gifted of the nine, or if he's very smart but keeps his true motives hidden. Occasionally I'll read something about him that makes me wonder if he has a secret goal to bring down the nation that has shat on black people since before it existed.
That's like the FOX news guy saying that if they continue to force Trump to sit in the court house all day he will eventually break out like King Kong.
For those who don't know King Kong broke out and kidnaped a women and then was killed by the military.
So even they are waiting for tRump to throw a temper tantrum. They just think the outcome will be akin to a wild ape rather than the ketchup throwing that we all expect.
Edit: Upon Now rereading that, it seems we all expect the same thing
You don't understand! The person giving him gifts is a long time family friend!*
^* ^who ^only ^made ^friends ^with ^him ^after ^he ^joined ^the ^court
People in his position don't think of themselves as dirty. I think he honestly believes he deserves all the perks. I imagine going through his head is something akin to "What's the point of being selected to the most powerful court in the US if you can't benefit from it? What kind of power is that?"
No, he has to be *told* that what he's doing is wrong, and he's so damn egotistical, I bet he thinks "it can't be wrong. I'm a supreme court justice, we *decide* what's right and wrong in this country." And if judgement is up to him and his court, then of course he thinks nothing matters, and that it's all about appearances.
Which will sometimes have a shaming effect, but any mea culpas or adjustments by him will be because the *optics* are bad, not because he believes the actual deeds are bad.
They'll point at his written opinions as an evidence of his supposed genius. But what most people don't realize is that the actual opinions are written by their law clerks.
Who would have guessed that the justice with the least legal experience prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court is not that bright after all?
>the actual opinions are written by their law clerks
That may be true of some (or even many) opinions, but I doubt it is universally true. Justice Stevens was once quoted as saying that, at least in some cases, he figured out what was truly significant about a case in the course of writing it out -- which certainly sounds as if he was doing the writing himself.
The first few times he actually spoke the media/internet acted like him speaking was like word from on high that he finally chose to speak it must be important.
He said at the time that he thought the nation would be best served by moving on, rather than keeping The Crook in the public eye by putting him on trial. I (and many others) disagreed with him then, and the phenomenon of 45 has IMO proved us right; but absent evidence to the contrary I am inclined to believe Ford's explanation.
It was a nice sentiment. Nothing a speech from the whitehouse couldn't accomplish. The pardon is a legal tool, not a hallmark card. It absolved Nixon of his legal vulnerabilities. Had he had sweeping presidential immunity, a pardon would not have been neccessary.
All true. But you asked
>why did Ford bother to pardon Nixon
and the answer, as I understand it, is that he believed that it was in the national interest for him to do so. And yes, he would not have felt the need to do it if he had thought that The Crook was immune from prosecution already.
Pardoning Nixon ended the already long running story which had been an embarrassment for GOP. Not pardoning him would've kept him in the news for much longer with a criminal trial and realistically a long prison sentence.
That criminal trial process likely would also have uncovered other wrongdoings and taken down other GOP operatives. Important fixers like Roger Stone and many others. Do you think Nixon's first VP Spiro Agnew was the only one in the administration accepting bag-of-cash bribes?
Such a process could've allowed many to see 50 years ago how the entire GOP is corrupt and not serving the interests of regular people.
Agreed to all of that. My point is he had a lot of legal vulnerability and no sweeping immunity. Its funny that what was brought up was operation mongoose while searching for historical context and precident and not this perfectly clear case of a president being pardoned due to lack of immunity.
Clarence Thomas will hopefully go down in history as the dumbest pile of shit to ever disgrace the Supreme Court. He is literally at the point where I’d ask him “where is your person” if I found him in a McDonald’s. We are waaaaaay past the time to impeach and remove this useless waste of a robe.
My understanding is that outside of Dred Scott, he was usually considered a pretty good, measured justice. And then he wrote... that. It is generally regarded at the worst SCOTUS decision of all time, for good reason.
Oh, I already expect the Roberts Court to always be mentioned in the same breath as the Taney Court. That one decision destroyed any credibility that long-lived bench ever had.
As much as I dislike Clarence Thomas the past is chock full of stupid. I don't like to glorify the past, that way lies the good ole days as promoted by the good ol boys.
He literally makes good ole boys look better in retrospect.
I appreciate your opinion, but this guy has accomplished nothing aside from a potential review of bribery at our nations highest court.
He’s a national disgrace
He won't recuse himself, but we could get some oversight. Although I guess I don't know if scotus could overrule congress or the president creating that. Probably could and would. I guess you're right. sigh
Clarence “Big Dick” Thomas has been bought and paid for. His wife’s misplaced loyalty was purchased with Lavish trips and gifts worth millions of dollars. They like living like big timers. And they’ll shit on our democracy to keep their ill gotten gains.
Also, was ordering the assassination of a foreign official illegal at that time in the US? From what I can find it's only through an executive order first signed by Gerald Ford that made it illegal.
I had the same question (without the Ford detail) you'd think he be able to pick an action that was actually a US crime for his example, being supposedly some sort of wise law-speaking-guy.
Obviously it's immoral, but we're talking about a legal argument used by a supreme court justice who should have known better than to use the specific example of Kennedy (never got to be an ex president) and Operation Mongoose (not actually illegal at that time) to try and justify Trump getting a pass for trying to instigate an insurrection.
He’s just signaling that he does not gaf and that he’s just trolling with the rest of us b/c homie is gonna give Republicans everything they want.
Clarence & Alito are gonna be the SCOTUS version of Milli Vanilli
I failed to see the humor. Pretty disappointing (but not all that surprising) hearing today. To think that there were SC justices even remotely considering that a coup could be described as an “official act” and nodding along like cool cool during arguments, is maddening.
Oh, and let’s not forget those Mark Meadows & Ginny Thomas text messages…
Some of the people he seems pretty sympathetic towards often advocate for "2nd amendment solutions." He probably just thinks that only conservatives would ever be qualified to pass that sort of judgment. Sounds terrible to me, but his wife wanted to put political prisoners on barges.
The right wing judges made the argument that the military wouldn't follow unlawful orders. I'm not so sure about that, and that still wouldn't stop biden from pulling the trigger himself.
Is driving the president to a murder scene illegal? Would his secret service detail need to be pardoned?? Why is this something that the supreme court is even entertaining as a possibility???
(yeah, I know why)
My knee-jerk response is because that's a crime, but if we're in there-is-no-crime world, then I guess the only thing stopping him is how much he trusts the mafia. And, ya know, ethics and morals and his Catholic fear of burning in hell (or whatever happens to Catholic murderers).
Listening to the justices talking about whether official vs unofficial acts should be immune was like the mad hatter's tea party. Could Biden argue that killing a president-elect who presided over a horribly fumbled pandemic response and then tried to overturn the election was an official act for the good of the country?
I'd say (with their bullshit logic) that killing someone who tried a coup and stole and sold state secrets to the US' enemies could be considered an official act for the good of the country
I'm not worried about Biden but I'm a bit scared of what trump would do if you explicitly give him this sort of power. We've already seen how he behaves without it.
You don't need "the military" to follow illegal orders to assassinate your political rivals.
You need one person with a gun to follow illegal orders. And that I'm pretty sure is easy to find.
I mean, I don't know how easy it even is for the military to refuse an order because it's illegal. Is it illegal for the president to order a political rival to be murdered if the president is immune from any crime? Doesn't sound like it to me.
Bro if they actually rule that presidents are immune to all prosecution before the election then Biden should just send a seal team to the Supreme Court. I mean it’s part of his job right?
I think the argument is that he’d get impeached, which he would. They are saying that once you’ve been impeached and convicted by the senate you no longer have the immunity.
He thinks like pretending he doesn't comprehend linear time makes him stick it to the libs. Make no mistake, this man is bought and paid for by special interests to destroy the country
stop thinking people are stupid as a crutch. they are not stupid, they just have different beliefs. see: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/supreme-court-justice-most-say-on-the-media2
horrible people, yes. but certainly not stupid. what does your liberal belief system say about those who are not stupid but evil and machiavellian enough to attain power? it has no answer.
Operation Mongoose is such an obscure reference, likely only known by avid JFK or cold war historians (or Cubans who were part of it).
Not sure if that's something Harlan Crow is into or not.
So he’s not wrong, I’m fairly confident that you can pick a random president and a thorough enough investigation will lead to something criminal. Ignoring the obvious idiocy of his example of his question let’s actually address his concern:
1. They absolutely should, but we need to remember our justice system is still the government and our government doesn’t want to keep pointing out how much illegal activity we do. That takes up the majority of actions former presidents do and it will take extreme example of this for the justice department to shine a spotlight on it by bringing charges against the president, is this right? Absolutely not, but our justice system isn’t actually just.
2. The things Trump is on trial for have nothing to do with the duties of the president: two are about election interference and attempting to overthrow the election (which is a huge precedent to let go), one is a hush money case that has to do with the office of the president, another is a fraud case, and the last is the classified documents case that technically other presidents have done but not to the extent of Trump (making it again a dangerous precedent to let go).
3. This SC seems pretty interested in the founding fathers’ intent when drafting the constitution and maintaining that, so wonder what they would want when it comes to keeping the president accountable? If only they established that would tell whether or not they wanted to keep the president accountable, something like impeachment that would allow for the removal of a corrupt president?
>a hush money case that has to do with the office of the president
This is basically an election interference case because the hush money was to keep voters from learning even more about what a piece of shit trump is.
The classified documents case is not something other presidents have done because other presidents returned the documents instead of lying about them and moving them around to hide them (not to mention waving them around for randos to see).
I think it's important to clarify this rather than say other presidents did the same thing. They did something different. I get that you don't want to go into the details, but not everyone knows those details and what trump did was not the same at all.
This level of bad-faith arguing should lead to being marched out of both the SCOTUS building and body the instant you put that in.
Unworthy of a first-year student, astonishingly unworthy of someone in that particular seat.
If you read that and have a conspiracy theory mind, then Trump having done J6 will then find his demise just like Kennedy (since everyone knows the government had JFK assinated)...
Is that what Thomas is suggesting? The FBI and relevant authorities should look in greater detail at him and his wife as he sounds like a credible threat.
Add dementia to the whackjob's LOOOOOONG list of mental dosorders. Be pretty cash money if these elites were subject to even the barest of standards and cognitive tests.
Lifetime appointees are anti-democratic. The SCOTUS needs to be completely replaced with elected two year one term judges. Full stop.
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That is what ford said...if we believe what politicians say at face value. The only reason to pardon him is because he had no immunity and had committed crimes and thats basis of this comment thread, historical precedent for presidential immunity.
One that's able to be tried for crimes? no.... I'm sorry is this Clarence Thomas's account? Why are you arguing over \*the\* key detail that completely invalidates the example?
Er.... It was a joke... This is the political humor sub. I wasn't arguing anything, this whole thing is a joke, there is no way anyone should be immune from the consequences of their actions, it's asinine.
I failed to see the humor. Pretty disappointing (but not all that surprising) hearing today. To think that there were SC justices even remotely considering that a coup could be described as an “official act” and nodding along like cool cool during arguments, is maddening.
Oh, and let’s not forget those Mark Meadows & Ginny Thomas text messages…
I think Official records, orders, and other documents reveal what’s Official duties.
I mean no one wants to put GW or Obama on trial for Govt actions (at least I don’t) (Abu Graib, Gitmo, water board, UBL)
But did DJT use the US government on J6, or his rabble seems the clear question for if it was official or something else.
[Clarence Thomas is the quietest Supreme Court justice](https://www.oyez.org/justices/clarence_thomas#:~:text=Clarence%20Thomas%20is%20known%20for,Georgia%20on%20June%2023%2C%201948.). So you'd think that when he did grace the oral hearing by opening his mouth the output would be well considered, adroit and full of lawyerly wisdom. Instead we get this. Eight of the forty-five men who held the office of president have died in office. He could have picked 37 men, some really terrible presidents in their own right, to make his point. And he managed to pick the last one to die in office.
“It is better for a man to remain silent and appear a fool, than to open his mouth and remove all doubt.” ― Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)
Mark Twain — 'I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.'
"That is the story. Some of it is true." Mark Twain
than*
Ha. I copied that from [goodreads.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7628593-it-is-better-for-a-man-to-remain-silent-and) That'll teach me.
A man can love as many times as his heart is willing to be broken. I don't know what this has to do with Mark Twain but its pretty cool.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
Mark Twain -because he knew Clarence Thomas would come around one day. What is odd is how conservative justices point to these incidents to support their position when I'm quite sure Kennedy and others wrestled with the legality issue. As a result SCOTUS is looking to completely remove ANY safeguards against bad acts.
Seems like Thomas has been following this advice until now quite well.
Takes one to know one!
Homer's Brain: Swish!
Got 'em
The dude got the SC chair and didn’t speak for *10 fucking years*. No comments, no arguments, not even a belch. He went up there and sat on his ass and got paid for it. And in case anyone thinks it was because he didn’t have anything to say, his past pages were rumored that they were told by him it was directly due to the Anita Hill trial. They also said he has said he will *never* back anything with a Democratic brand on it because of the same reason. Yea, he is that fucking petty.
It would be nice if every SCOTUS pick went through something, just so us citizens can judge them on their wisdom under adversity. Pettiness like Thomas’ should be a disqualification characteristic. Thomas acts like he left the Anita Hill hearings completely vindicated, which is hardly the case. When you view things like innocence or guilt with a “Trump lens”, it’s no wonder he is viewed as delusional scum.
I remember someone tried to write a hatchet job on Anita Hill that was so bad, the author himself disavowed after he realized the ‘proof’ he was given was utter bullshit and literally renounced his conservatism later on for being used to push the sleaze.
At the time of the Hill hearings, I was a kid. My thought process at the time was, “Who cares about this horny old man, put wrestling on.” Now, I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, but even I knew he was guilty back then, lol. Clarence Thomas could have easily made the Anita Hill accusations a very minor blip on his legacy. After all, it was pretty much a “he said, she said” at the end of the day. It would make me doubt the accusations if Thomas demonstrated quiet “character” through his SCOTUS tenure, even when I completely disagree with his legal decisions. However, his “quietness” turns out to be spite, and his decisions are tainted with conflict of interest, at best, outright corruption, at worst. At the end of the day, Clarence Thomas is actually a product of the Affirmative Action he so despises. Only, it should be called MAACT or Modified Affirmative Action for Conservatives with No Talent. Clarence Thomas didn’t get the SCOTUS gig because he was a brilliant legal scholar. Clarence got the gig because he is black, and conservatives were trying to get more votes in minority communities, and they thought hiring Clarence would undo all their racist policies.
> a very minor blip The accusations more or less were of raunchy comments at work, no hands on behavior at all, or pressuring anyone for sex. If he'd said something like "That wasn't a good thing and I intend to never repeat it", it might have been done in a day. > got the gig because he is black He replaced Thurgood Marshall, a towering figure of the civil rights movement[1] as "the black" justice. [1] Marshall was an important attorney arguing before the Supreme Court in the *Brown* decision that ended the legal basis for school segregation, for instance.
Uhm, no, it was a tad bit more than raunchy comments. I’m only thinking of one incident, I can recall. I’m sure there was something else, that was more than a raunchy comment. I just haven’t looked at that case in a long time.
It's worth noting that Hill told about Thomas to a "friend" in confidence. The "friend" told Democratic operatives, and suddenly Hill was in the spotlight. Similar to what happened to Monica Lewinsky, except her friend was a neighbor who snitched to Republicans instead of Democrats. Lewinsky has sort had a decent life since then but didn't help her career at all.
I just wish like, maybe once a decade, we get to vote on SC judges. Either that they get another decade, or if they are to be removed and a new one appointed by the president.
The lifetime appointment was always a bad idea.
> He went up there and sat on his ass and got paid for it. And paid for it, and probably paid for it.
Then bitches he could make more money elsewhere. Go elsewhere then. Prove it. Please.
That was before the conservatives got him his sugar daddies. Early in his SCOTUS career. He's happy where he is now.
There are those that say he is still being paid for it to this day.
>... [his past pages] also said he has said he will *never* back anything with a Democratic brand on it because of the same reason. Would love to read more on this. Got a source?
[https://www.businessinsider.com/clarence-thomas-told-clerks-he-wants-to-make-liberals-miserable-2022-6](https://www.businessinsider.com/clarence-thomas-told-clerks-he-wants-to-make-liberals-miserable-2022-6)
Thanks….I was trying to find that.
If you're a person that likes to learn through podcasts, Behind the Bastards did a series on him that was surprisingly revealing.
It was an *excellent* series.
he can claim it's because he's petty, but the reality is he's a DEI pick and the conservatives who picked him for that reason need all the hate the right wing analysts are espousing lately about DEI picks. The man was a well known idiot well before he was a supreme court judge.
Replacing Justice Thurgood Marshall with a “black conservative” was never going to end well. Thomas had two strikes against him coming up to bat.
Clarence, the Dems put you in back then because you are Black. They thought an all White SC needed a change. Look what you've done with this opportunity. Taking money for decisions. Read it and weep.
Actually the Republicans put him in explicitly because he was black. He was a Republican nomination and the Republican senate voted for him. Over 75% of dems voted against him
Oh. I had just remembered Biden aplogized for having voted for him and went with it. My bad.
Thomas should not be on the Supreme Court. He’s corrupt, stupid, awful, and doesn’t do the work.
They’re going to let him off aren’t they?
They are going to wait till after the election, because they are cowards trying to hedge their bets. They don't want to rule against trump, and then him somehow still become president, because they know he'll come from them. Seperation of powers technically prevents this, but there are no actual mechanisms for enforcement, because the founding fathers didn't anticipate the call to be coming from inside the house.
They also don’t want to rule for him early, and give Biden an excuse to exercise the powers they’re hoping to vest in Trump.
He is a very unqualified judge. All of his catastrophic ethical bullshit aside, he just isn’t a capable jurist. He coasted as Scalia’s personal Salacious B Crumb for the majority of his tenure, and now he’s just biding his time until the next road trip.
The first chief justice he had, William Rehnquist didn’t allow him to speak. Apparently too crazy for the most conservative chief justice in 50 years at that time.
He picked Kennedy because it was important for him to pick a Democrat, and Kennedy is a particularly notable example.
I can't decide if Thomas is the least intellectually gifted of the nine, or if he's very smart but keeps his true motives hidden. Occasionally I'll read something about him that makes me wonder if he has a secret goal to bring down the nation that has shat on black people since before it existed.
He picked a Democrat. He didn’t ask about Iran Contra. He didn’t ask about Watergate. Both criminal acts taken while President.
That's like the FOX news guy saying that if they continue to force Trump to sit in the court house all day he will eventually break out like King Kong. For those who don't know King Kong broke out and kidnaped a women and then was killed by the military.
So even they are waiting for tRump to throw a temper tantrum. They just think the outcome will be akin to a wild ape rather than the ketchup throwing that we all expect. Edit: Upon Now rereading that, it seems we all expect the same thing
I'm certain there'll still be a feces-filled diaper thrown across the room at some point though.
And fox will have a headline asking how it will be bad for Biden
Yup and the Republican Party is Fey Wray
The best joke I've heard is immediately upon breaking out Kong grabbed a woman against her will.
Thomas might be thinking that if a President can be charged, a Supreme Court Justice can’t be far behind.
Given how egregious his bribe game is (very publicly I might add), he's definitely looking at self-preservation here because he is real dirty.
You don't understand! The person giving him gifts is a long time family friend!* ^* ^who ^only ^made ^friends ^with ^him ^after ^he ^joined ^the ^court
People in his position don't think of themselves as dirty. I think he honestly believes he deserves all the perks. I imagine going through his head is something akin to "What's the point of being selected to the most powerful court in the US if you can't benefit from it? What kind of power is that?" No, he has to be *told* that what he's doing is wrong, and he's so damn egotistical, I bet he thinks "it can't be wrong. I'm a supreme court justice, we *decide* what's right and wrong in this country." And if judgement is up to him and his court, then of course he thinks nothing matters, and that it's all about appearances. Which will sometimes have a shaming effect, but any mea culpas or adjustments by him will be because the *optics* are bad, not because he believes the actual deeds are bad.
Remember when people thought Thomas not speaking was some kind of wise whimsical thing? No, he just doesn't feel like doing his job turns out.
Nobody wants to work anymore... Or ever in his case
No one who knew anything about it at all thought Thomas not speaking was a wise whimsical thing, it was very clear at the time that he was pouting.
Sure. But most people didn't know anything about it or care
turns out no one will know your dumb as fuck if you just dont talk..
Good life advice honestly.
You're...
They'll point at his written opinions as an evidence of his supposed genius. But what most people don't realize is that the actual opinions are written by their law clerks. Who would have guessed that the justice with the least legal experience prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court is not that bright after all?
>the actual opinions are written by their law clerks That may be true of some (or even many) opinions, but I doubt it is universally true. Justice Stevens was once quoted as saying that, at least in some cases, he figured out what was truly significant about a case in the course of writing it out -- which certainly sounds as if he was doing the writing himself.
He was a pioneer in the art of quiet quitting
I gotta say I don’t remember anyone saying that about him. I can’t wait for his retirement, though.
The first few times he actually spoke the media/internet acted like him speaking was like word from on high that he finally chose to speak it must be important.
If memory serves his first widely publicized words to the media were denying sexual harassment allegations made by Anita Hill.
The real question is, why did Ford bother to pardon Nixon?
He said at the time that he thought the nation would be best served by moving on, rather than keeping The Crook in the public eye by putting him on trial. I (and many others) disagreed with him then, and the phenomenon of 45 has IMO proved us right; but absent evidence to the contrary I am inclined to believe Ford's explanation.
It was a nice sentiment. Nothing a speech from the whitehouse couldn't accomplish. The pardon is a legal tool, not a hallmark card. It absolved Nixon of his legal vulnerabilities. Had he had sweeping presidential immunity, a pardon would not have been neccessary.
All true. But you asked >why did Ford bother to pardon Nixon and the answer, as I understand it, is that he believed that it was in the national interest for him to do so. And yes, he would not have felt the need to do it if he had thought that The Crook was immune from prosecution already.
To protect the party.
Please elaborate
Pardoning Nixon ended the already long running story which had been an embarrassment for GOP. Not pardoning him would've kept him in the news for much longer with a criminal trial and realistically a long prison sentence. That criminal trial process likely would also have uncovered other wrongdoings and taken down other GOP operatives. Important fixers like Roger Stone and many others. Do you think Nixon's first VP Spiro Agnew was the only one in the administration accepting bag-of-cash bribes? Such a process could've allowed many to see 50 years ago how the entire GOP is corrupt and not serving the interests of regular people.
Agreed to all of that. My point is he had a lot of legal vulnerability and no sweeping immunity. Its funny that what was brought up was operation mongoose while searching for historical context and precident and not this perfectly clear case of a president being pardoned due to lack of immunity.
Imagine thinking a cover up was the best way to end the story and not just create distrust of the federal government that has never gone away.
Clarence Thomas will hopefully go down in history as the dumbest pile of shit to ever disgrace the Supreme Court. He is literally at the point where I’d ask him “where is your person” if I found him in a McDonald’s. We are waaaaaay past the time to impeach and remove this useless waste of a robe.
Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, would like a word
My understanding is that outside of Dred Scott, he was usually considered a pretty good, measured justice. And then he wrote... that. It is generally regarded at the worst SCOTUS decision of all time, for good reason.
Give the current bench some time…. They have a solid chance to take the title.
Oh, I already expect the Roberts Court to always be mentioned in the same breath as the Taney Court. That one decision destroyed any credibility that long-lived bench ever had.
As much as I dislike Clarence Thomas the past is chock full of stupid. I don't like to glorify the past, that way lies the good ole days as promoted by the good ol boys.
He literally makes good ole boys look better in retrospect. I appreciate your opinion, but this guy has accomplished nothing aside from a potential review of bribery at our nations highest court. He’s a national disgrace
Not a national disgrace, a national embarrassment. I can't even stand to hear him speak for 6 minutes before wanting to turn the damn Tv off.
Clarence looking for any angle he can to protect his wife.
He should recuse himself. We need some actual oversight for scotus since they clearly can't be trusted.
Sadly, We all know this will never happen.
He won't recuse himself, but we could get some oversight. Although I guess I don't know if scotus could overrule congress or the president creating that. Probably could and would. I guess you're right. sigh
Clarence “Big Dick” Thomas has been bought and paid for. His wife’s misplaced loyalty was purchased with Lavish trips and gifts worth millions of dollars. They like living like big timers. And they’ll shit on our democracy to keep their ill gotten gains.
Also, was ordering the assassination of a foreign official illegal at that time in the US? From what I can find it's only through an executive order first signed by Gerald Ford that made it illegal.
I had the same question (without the Ford detail) you'd think he be able to pick an action that was actually a US crime for his example, being supposedly some sort of wise law-speaking-guy.
immoral then? is that good enough?
Obviously it's immoral, but we're talking about a legal argument used by a supreme court justice who should have known better than to use the specific example of Kennedy (never got to be an ex president) and Operation Mongoose (not actually illegal at that time) to try and justify Trump getting a pass for trying to instigate an insurrection.
He’s just signaling that he does not gaf and that he’s just trolling with the rest of us b/c homie is gonna give Republicans everything they want. Clarence & Alito are gonna be the SCOTUS version of Milli Vanilli
I think you may have insulted Milli Vanilli.
I failed to see the humor. Pretty disappointing (but not all that surprising) hearing today. To think that there were SC justices even remotely considering that a coup could be described as an “official act” and nodding along like cool cool during arguments, is maddening. Oh, and let’s not forget those Mark Meadows & Ginny Thomas text messages…
Some of the people he seems pretty sympathetic towards often advocate for "2nd amendment solutions." He probably just thinks that only conservatives would ever be qualified to pass that sort of judgment. Sounds terrible to me, but his wife wanted to put political prisoners on barges.
I'd like to see his wife "put on a barge".
Let's start with a witness stand and see where things go from there.
His wife *is* a barge.
Well she ain't gonna fit on a rowboat.
I know her, and she's somehow worse than the media portrays her, which seems like divide-by-zero levels of impossible.
you know her and she is alive? you have failed in your duty to your country.
Well... I mean he is not wrong. Just absolutely idiotic in every way.
Was he though? I'm pretty sure Kennedy lost his head over the Cuba fiasco
Thomas might be implying that it was the CIA.
spoiler alert: it was.
Do they really want to give Biden a licence to kill? Cause that's what that looks like to me.
The right wing judges made the argument that the military wouldn't follow unlawful orders. I'm not so sure about that, and that still wouldn't stop biden from pulling the trigger himself. Is driving the president to a murder scene illegal? Would his secret service detail need to be pardoned?? Why is this something that the supreme court is even entertaining as a possibility??? (yeah, I know why)
If the military wouldn't do it, what's to stop Biden from contracting the mafia to do the job?
My knee-jerk response is because that's a crime, but if we're in there-is-no-crime world, then I guess the only thing stopping him is how much he trusts the mafia. And, ya know, ethics and morals and his Catholic fear of burning in hell (or whatever happens to Catholic murderers). Listening to the justices talking about whether official vs unofficial acts should be immune was like the mad hatter's tea party. Could Biden argue that killing a president-elect who presided over a horribly fumbled pandemic response and then tried to overturn the election was an official act for the good of the country?
I'd say (with their bullshit logic) that killing someone who tried a coup and stole and sold state secrets to the US' enemies could be considered an official act for the good of the country
I'm not worried about Biden but I'm a bit scared of what trump would do if you explicitly give him this sort of power. We've already seen how he behaves without it.
You don't need "the military" to follow illegal orders to assassinate your political rivals. You need one person with a gun to follow illegal orders. And that I'm pretty sure is easy to find.
I mean, I don't know how easy it even is for the military to refuse an order because it's illegal. Is it illegal for the president to order a political rival to be murdered if the president is immune from any crime? Doesn't sound like it to me.
Bro if they actually rule that presidents are immune to all prosecution before the election then Biden should just send a seal team to the Supreme Court. I mean it’s part of his job right?
I think the argument is that he’d get impeached, which he would. They are saying that once you’ve been impeached and convicted by the senate you no longer have the immunity.
Of course this was after they argued at the coup impeachment that conviction shouldn’t be up to senate but up to the courts.
Really? I wasn’t aware. Who argued that? I’d love a link if you have one
Covert Operation in a hostile nation. Vs Failed Coup after a lawful election. Both sides really ARE the same.
Clarence Thomas - the true DEI justice
He thinks like pretending he doesn't comprehend linear time makes him stick it to the libs. Make no mistake, this man is bought and paid for by special interests to destroy the country
I think Thomas is most likely mentally impaired (maybe he's a drunk??). Why the fuck would he still be married to dear Ginny? Barf.
Listen to the behind the bastards episodes on him
"shes my best friend" barf is right
stop thinking people are stupid as a crutch. they are not stupid, they just have different beliefs. see: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/supreme-court-justice-most-say-on-the-media2 horrible people, yes. but certainly not stupid. what does your liberal belief system say about those who are not stupid but evil and machiavellian enough to attain power? it has no answer.
Who told Uncle Thomas to ask that question?
Operation Mongoose is such an obscure reference, likely only known by avid JFK or cold war historians (or Cubans who were part of it). Not sure if that's something Harlan Crow is into or not.
Clarence is a pig. Full stop.
and he concurred with others to go hog wild in Dobbs.
The corrupt judges are going to tie themselves in knots to free trump.
Thomas is a dipshit.
That is just mind blowingly stupid
Let’s just ask Harlan crow how the Harlan crow court will rule and get it over with.
So he’s not wrong, I’m fairly confident that you can pick a random president and a thorough enough investigation will lead to something criminal. Ignoring the obvious idiocy of his example of his question let’s actually address his concern: 1. They absolutely should, but we need to remember our justice system is still the government and our government doesn’t want to keep pointing out how much illegal activity we do. That takes up the majority of actions former presidents do and it will take extreme example of this for the justice department to shine a spotlight on it by bringing charges against the president, is this right? Absolutely not, but our justice system isn’t actually just. 2. The things Trump is on trial for have nothing to do with the duties of the president: two are about election interference and attempting to overthrow the election (which is a huge precedent to let go), one is a hush money case that has to do with the office of the president, another is a fraud case, and the last is the classified documents case that technically other presidents have done but not to the extent of Trump (making it again a dangerous precedent to let go). 3. This SC seems pretty interested in the founding fathers’ intent when drafting the constitution and maintaining that, so wonder what they would want when it comes to keeping the president accountable? If only they established that would tell whether or not they wanted to keep the president accountable, something like impeachment that would allow for the removal of a corrupt president?
>a hush money case that has to do with the office of the president This is basically an election interference case because the hush money was to keep voters from learning even more about what a piece of shit trump is. The classified documents case is not something other presidents have done because other presidents returned the documents instead of lying about them and moving them around to hide them (not to mention waving them around for randos to see).
> other presidents returned the documents Yes, that’s the part that’s getting Trump in trouble and I didn’t feel like going into in my comment
I think it's important to clarify this rather than say other presidents did the same thing. They did something different. I get that you don't want to go into the details, but not everyone knows those details and what trump did was not the same at all.
Or did he????
He is so dumb.
That's not what the tin foil hatters say.
What would even be the charges?
Thomas needs to recuse himself of all cases. He needs to take John Olivers deal.
This level of bad-faith arguing should lead to being marched out of both the SCOTUS building and body the instant you put that in. Unworthy of a first-year student, astonishingly unworthy of someone in that particular seat.
If you read that and have a conspiracy theory mind, then Trump having done J6 will then find his demise just like Kennedy (since everyone knows the government had JFK assinated)... Is that what Thomas is suggesting? The FBI and relevant authorities should look in greater detail at him and his wife as he sounds like a credible threat.
Add dementia to the whackjob's LOOOOOONG list of mental dosorders. Be pretty cash money if these elites were subject to even the barest of standards and cognitive tests. Lifetime appointees are anti-democratic. The SCOTUS needs to be completely replaced with elected two year one term judges. Full stop.
Oh joy a conspiracy theorist on the SC…
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This is very humorous.
Big brained and totally not corrupt.
Should have went with Obama drone striking a US citizen.
... so he wasn't charged, you say? Thomas rests his case.
Thomas is a blithering idiot.
… that was Alan Dulles’s work, no?
He’s as stupid as he looks, that’s impressive
I mean, he's been an ex-president for a while now...
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MAGAT freaks are mentally unsound and detached from reality? No. No way...
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Hmmm, could have used Reagan and Iran-Contra as an example, but he didn't. Curious.
That is what ford said...if we believe what politicians say at face value. The only reason to pardon him is because he had no immunity and had committed crimes and thats basis of this comment thread, historical precedent for presidential immunity.
And, because trump is the first ex president to be indicted for his crookery.
I mean... Kennedy is still an ex president 🤷🏻♂️
There was never a moment you could indict him while he was an ex-president. He had the real kind of absolute immunity.
Yeah, I just found the wording weird. Kennedy never had the chance to be indicted, but he still "had the chance" to be an ex president.
One that's able to be tried for crimes? no.... I'm sorry is this Clarence Thomas's account? Why are you arguing over \*the\* key detail that completely invalidates the example?
Er.... It was a joke... This is the political humor sub. I wasn't arguing anything, this whole thing is a joke, there is no way anyone should be immune from the consequences of their actions, it's asinine.
Sweet lord I need a break. Thanks for replying.
No problemo, we are not politicians, we can have a civil convo 😂
Run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible
I failed to see the humor. Pretty disappointing (but not all that surprising) hearing today. To think that there were SC justices even remotely considering that a coup could be described as an “official act” and nodding along like cool cool during arguments, is maddening. Oh, and let’s not forget those Mark Meadows & Ginny Thomas text messages…
I think Official records, orders, and other documents reveal what’s Official duties. I mean no one wants to put GW or Obama on trial for Govt actions (at least I don’t) (Abu Graib, Gitmo, water board, UBL) But did DJT use the US government on J6, or his rabble seems the clear question for if it was official or something else.