What Weinergate interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) conflict of interest scandal (links archive) **UPDATED**
Lost in the media frenzy over Rep. Anthony Weiner is the fact that at the same time he was Tweeting foolishness to random women, he was also the driving force behind a push to uncover potentially serious conflicts of interest on the nation’s highest court.
We’re probably doomed to endless media hyperventilation and Breitbart agitprop (this guy gets to be on the Today Show? Really??) over Anthony Weiner’s Twitterized member, plus the inevitable parade of random women who never actually met, but exchanged sexy pictures with the Congressmen doing endless, boring interviews and getting paid for it.” And the journalistic community appears fully prepared to welcome Breitbart into the club (which is disturbing in itself.) But the much more important scandal, which Weiner was trying to bring to light, involves Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and his ties to corporate and ideological interests with direct connections to cases that could come before the Court. And while his main concern right now is probably his marriage, and his constituents in New York, what Weiner may really have done is hand Thomas a giant, grey underwear-clad free pass.
From a May 27 story in the Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON — Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) spent his Friday afternoon pestering Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for executing a classic news dump: a release of his financial disclosure filing on the eve of Memorial Day Weekend.
The Congressman spent the day tweeting to his heart’s content, first alerting his 43,000-plus followers to the likelihood that someone on the Court was going to try and bury an embarrassing story while the world’s attention was turned toward the commute and barbecue ahead:
“Friday dump Scotus style? I’m hearing disclosures released today. #ConflictsAbound,” he tweeted.
Shortly thereafter, Weiner let it be known that it was Thomas whose financial disclosure filing he was awaiting. Around 4:30, he had a link to send, showing that Thomas had served on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Horatio Alger Association and had made $10,000 for a speech at University of Minnesota School of Law.
The real conflict, if there was one, was with his wife Ginni, who earned “Salary and benefits” from Liberty Central and Liberty Consulting — prominent Tea Party Groups. The filing also revealed that the two share several financial investments, including 1/3 interest in rental property in Liberty City, Georgia, and a 401k plan. Thomas went on to note that, “two of the Georgia rental properties have been torn down. The only remaining property is an old house in Liberty County.”
TRR has done several stories on what Twitterites are calling ClarenceGate, and what Weiner had called Conflicted Clarence Thomas (he even put up a website.) In fact, on the same day a group of rather nefarious denizens of the hacker and right wing worlds unleashed the pictures that spawned Weinergate, Weiner was Tweeting, and taunting, about the Thomas affair.
This post is meant to catalog everything we know about the Thomas conflict of interest case that Weiner was pushing for an investigation of. What is already in the public record is shocking, to say the least, in that it involves potentially 20 years of violations of disclosure rules by Thomas, whose wife was bringing nearly $800,000 of income into their family home, unbeknownst the public, while conducting very public advocacy on issues that are sure to come before the court, namely, healthcare reform.
I’ll be updating the post throughout the day. If you have additional links that should be included, please pass them on.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47855.html#ixzz1OboFJxte
Additional links, Operation ‘Get Weiner’:
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The problem with Clarencegate is that he is absolutely immune to outside pressure. The scandal was 20 years ago when Joe Biden let him be confirmed.
[...] #CLARENCETHOMAS [...]
[...] #CLARENCETHOMAS Open Thread. That is all. (H/T Yutsano!) [via The Reid Report] [...]
“(this guy gets to be on the Today Show? Really??)”
Are you kidding? Of course he does. He had a free pass onto any TV show in the country when he was wrong and lying about every revelation he ever had. Now that he’s been actually kinda right about something, the countdown to his own CNN show begins.
Funny that most journalists have to achieve a higher standard than “Well, he was right once.”
thank you so much for this. I will be putting it front page on JJP.
[...] Weiner.As usual, the MSM is following the shiny object, while ignoring the REAL STORY BEHIND IT.The Reid Report has done a fantastic job in explaining why this is going on.What Weinergate interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) [...]
[...] What Weinergate interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) conflict of interest scandal (links archiv… [...]
[...] Meanwhile: What Weinergate interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) conflict of interest scandal (links archiv… [...]
[...] While we’re all agape over Weiner sexting, a sitting Supreme Court justice stands accused of not just the appearance of impropriety, but colossal…. [...]
[...] think we can emphasize enough that Anthony Weiner was a particularly fat target for conservatives because of his tough and utterly meritorious campaign about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas‘ conflict of interest and his repeatedly [...]
[...] Ask yourself why Democrats are so obsessed with Anthony Weiner while at the same time they are ignoring the potential 20 years worth of actual serious crimes by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Th…? [...]
You have to wonder who the heroes are for Andrew Breitbart and the Tea Party, who they are paying and the influence peddling allowed to continue on the SCOTUS. Clarence Thomas has been filing taxes for 37 years, he claims he did not know he had to report $ 864,000. Sure.
He has made a mockery of justice and the other judges carry the burden of the same guilt if they do not force him to resign. The Highest Court of the US is beginning to look like the same one Hosni Mubarak had during his dictatorship-he abolish his judicial.
[...] With every passing day that that Democrats ignore Clarence Thomas’s conflict of interest in fa…, the more difficult it becomes for me to view the political landscape as anything but a farce. [...]
[...] This includes the push to uncover conflicts of interest (Clarence Thomas, cough cough) amongst members of the Supreme Court. Weiner’s ego and love of digital photography got in the way of him using some damn common [...]
[...] . . . Ask yourself why Democrats are so obsessed with Anthony Weiner while at the same time they are ignoring the potential 20 years worth of actual serious crimes by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Th…? It turns out that Justice Thomas may have broken 20 years of disclosure rules by not reporting the [...]
[...] What Weinergate Interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) conflict of interest scandal (links ar… [...]
[...] Lucky for Ryan, they don’t investigate “apparent conflicts of interest” in Washington. Just as Clarence Thomas. [...]
[...] What Weinergate interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) conflict of interest scandal (links archiv… [...]
[...] Murphy and Thinkprogress were referring to a New York Times story last week about Thomas’ close ties to the multimillionaire Crow, and his ties to funding a museum in Pinpoint, Georgia, which will inevitably honor Thomas, who was born in the small town. Thomas has already ruled on nearly a dozen cases in which Crow-affiliated groups filed briefs. And Thomas and his wife have further dubious affiliations, to Citizens United, the group whose landmark case opened the floodgates to corporate “investment” in American political candidates, to the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and Liberty Central (founded by Ginny Thomas), all of which could have an interest in the outcome of a potential Supreme Court case regarding healthcare reform, and more. ThinkProgress has compiled the Thomas scandals as a headline on its Justice page, and TRR has compiled related links here. [...]
I’ve been very interested in the fact that a year after Clarence Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court, he extended patent law to include living organisms, now called Genetically Modified Organisms. Monsanto’s GMO’s come with a condition that farmers are not allowed to keep their seed. Corporations can’t own patents on natural seeds, therefore the ‘patent rights’ have given Monsanto monopoly control of our food supply.
Monsanto’s research (that they say proves is safe) is not independently peer reviewed. In Feb2011 a senior government official wrote an open letter to the US Secretary of Agriculture asking for a hold on new GMO crops as a connection between Roundup and birth defects has been confirmed. There is a growing body of evidence questioning the health effects and supposed benefits to society.
Time for the public to take a closer look and start asking questions – we need to revisit that decision.
[...] Thomas fooled no one when he dissembled in 1991. Those who embrace his consistently radical conservative voting record often overlook how he arrived on the high court, and a few supporters and admirers even defend him by diminishing the significance of his persistently questionable behavior. Those who are unhappy with Thomas as a justice, not to mention his aggressive polarization of the court, find that he has simply lived down to his standards as a scoundrel and fabulist. No one is particularly surprised that his behavior as a justice just keeps sinking lower and lower, constantly reaching new bottoms. (For a catalog that samples Thomas’ failings, see The Reid Report.) [...]
Twenty years ago, I watched “ole Clarence” on the tube – and I said to myself: “what a lying sack of s**t.” Turns out I was right. He was drinking heavily at that time…and growing his porn collection too. He was a lying hypocrite then and he is now. Rather than being on the fringe of the religious far right, he’s right in the middle of it – just like his messianic, evangelical, fideistic, fundy freak buddy, Antonin Scalia. They were both bought and paid for by the Koch brothers and do their bidding for the asking. They both attended the “secret” meeting at Rancho Mirage in California and spent four days reveling all the luxury that the brothers Koch could muster for them and scores of other GOP members and the rich and super-rich. I can imagine that Thomas was able to view as many “porn flicks” as he wished and Scalia was able to smoke as many Cuban cigars as he could that were furnished by David and Charles.
If ever two scumbags should be removed from the Supreme Court, it’s those two. Abe Fortes couldn’t make a pimple on their collective ( ! ).
[...] and lower, constantly reaching new bottoms. (For a catalog that samples Thomas’ failings, see The Reid Report.)Many Supreme Court justices enjoy the company of well-off social friends. Few justices have [...]
[...] Americans incarcerated overseas by signing off on the killing of foreign nationals in Texas, or turning American elections over to his corporate friends, our man Clarence Thomas likes to tool around on the yachts of his wealthy friends. Well, now some [...]
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There once was a man named Weiner, Who had a perverted demeaner.
Forced from the hill for acting like Bill, now Congress is one Weiner leaner. author unknown
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We are witnessing the demise of a nation, and along with it, the massacre of an ancient system called being-able-to-grow-your-own-food.
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