Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is acknowledging that he took three trips last year aboard a private plane owned by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
It’s the first time in years that Thomas has reported receiving hospitality from Crow. In a report made public Thursday, the 75-year-old justice said he was complying with new guidelines from the federal judiciary for reporting travel.
The filing comes amid a heightened focus on ethics at the high court that stems from a series of reports revealing that Thomas has for years received undisclosed expensive gifts, including international travel, from Crow, a wealthy businessman and benefactor of conservative causes. Crow also purchased the house in Georgia where Thomas’s mother continues to live and paid for two years of private school tuition for a child raised by Thomas and his wife, Ginni.
This prompted me to go look up the whole “Long Dong Silver” nonsense again, and I noted a few interesting things…
Thomas was nominated by George HW Bush. The Senate was controlled by Democrats at the time, though. Rather than sit on the nomination and be petulant about it, though, this Judiciary Committee held hearings, like they were supposed to. Those hearings were where we all found out about the public hairs on his coke can.
The Judiciary Committee voted on whether to recommend the nomination to the Senate, and that vote failed. The the committee held a vote on whether to send the nomination to the Senate with no recommendation, and that passed. Thomas ended up being confirmed in the Senate by a very slim majority. Even after that disaster of a hearing, and the vote of “No Confidence” by the committee, a bunch of Democrats decided that Thomas should get their approval anyway.
So, compare the actions of this Judiciary Committee to what Lindsay Graham did to Merrick Garland, where they didn’t even have the hearing.
Who was that committee chairman in 1991, anyway? None other than Dark Brandon! (Only he had not taken that form then, and was known simply as that guy who liked Amtrak, and was too gaffe-prone to ever be President.)
Whereas I didn’t feel the need to look at a wiki, because I watched it in teal time. Biden was chair and didn’t do anything other than what he was supposed to do per Senate procedure. However, in retrospect he could have tried to control Arlen Spector, an old school prosecutor, who tore Anita Hill and testimony apart. Thomas went on the stand and let go with “high tech lynching” and the dye was cast. Hillary Clinton later convinced Spector to become a Democrat, and since Republicans didn’t want to run him, he did.
Is teal time the opposite of rose tinted glasses?