This Clarence Thomas accepting gifts scenario is another reminder of how the SC needs to be put under the same stringent guidelines and rules that the rest of the federal judiciary are held to. Pronto!
This Clarence Thomas accepting gifts scenario is another reminder of how the SC needs to be put under the same stringent guidelines and rules that the rest of the federal judiciary are held to. Pronto!
Narrative…
*Yawn*
Get informed. Why didn’t your sources tell you this:
CA4C5F35-FE94-4920-B42B-3EC621A820FD.jpeg
He has been complying the entire time. The rules were amended literally this month. Justice Thomas stated he will follow the revised guidelines in the future.
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
kazoolaw (April 8th, 2023)
How dare you insert facts into this discussion?
They would completely ruin his rant........ that is, if he acknowledged them.
But, no worries. The ear plugs will go in and the blinders will go on.
After all, he never lets the facts get in the way of one of his crazed rants!
Prepare to be ignored @dneal; the rant shall live to see another day!
Seriously, he needs to have enough time to make his case that it is ALL Trump's fault.
kazoolaw (April 8th, 2023)
Can we agree he didn't use common sense in accepting the trips? An old manager once told me to never do anything that I would be embarrassed about if it were to show up on the front page of the local newspaper.
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
My point is that the SC should be subject to more stringent ethical and reporting guidelines. If anyone--including Thomas--can do these things and not report them, then the rules need to change. My point was about the rules and what they permit. On more than one issue, people have been asking for clearer and more stringent rules for the conduct of SC judges. I agree with these calls for reform.
Lady Onogaro (April 9th, 2023)
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
Ethics reform "long overdue":
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...e/11624949002/
I don't think an investigation is necessary. I just want stricter and clearer rules. These justices have been targeted for influence through these loopholes for gifts from friends. Time to close that loophole.
Dear god man, the newer and stricter rules just went into effect. You might find different media to broaden your perspective. Your USA Today article claims “calls for reform go unheeded”.
Again, they implemented reform. Justices now have to report. Thomas will report. The rest is partisan propaganda. The fact that the new guidelines were implemented is exactly why AOC and the other idiots are trying to make this an issue.
It is strange that these attacks on black conservatives are never considered racist though…
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
The arrogant justice and his arrogant wife (who rakes in millions from far-right groups to attack our democracy) figured they were bulletproof and divinely ordained.
And targeted by conservative groups to sidle up to with friendly smiles and gain influence on.
Justice Clarence Thomas’s megadonor friend collects Hitler memorabilia – report
Harlan Crow, closely linked to judge, has a signed copy of Mein Kampf and dictator’s paintings
Martin Pengelly
8 Apr 2023
The Republican megadonor whose gifts to the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas have come under the spotlight has a private collection including a garden of statues of dictators, including Mussolini and Stalin; Nazi memorabilia; and paintings including two works by Adolf Hitler, the Washingtonian reported.
“I still can’t get over the collection of Nazi memorabilia,” the Washingtonian quoted an anonymous source as saying, regarding a visit to Harlan Crow’s Texas home. “It would have been helpful to have someone explain the significance of all the items. Without that context, you sort of just gasp when you walk into the room.”
Crow, the source said, also had paintings “done by George W Bush next to a Norman Rockwell next to one by Hitler”. A painting of Thomas and Crow smoking cigars in company including the rightwing activist Leonard Leo was included in an explosive report by ProPublica, detailing Crow’s lavish gifts to Thomas over more than 25 years. ProPublica also described trips on private planes and yachts and stays at lavish resorts.
In a rare statement, Thomas said he had been advised such “personal hospitality” did not have to be declared under federal rules. He added: “I have endeavoured to follow that counsel throughout my tenure and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”
Critics said Thomas had “clearly” broken the law regarding the declaration of gifts. The Washington Post noted Thomas has declared just two since 2004.
Crow denied discussing or seeking to influence the court through his friendship with Thomas and his wife, the far-right activist Ginni Thomas. Critics questioned that, given Crow’s seat on the board of the American Enterprise Institute, a rightwing thinktank which regularly files amicus briefs with the court.
Outraged Democrats promised investigations and, in the case of the New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, threatened to introduce articles of impeachment.
Thomas is the senior conservative on a conservative-dominated court that has issued controversial rulings including Dobbs v Jackson, which last year removed the federal right to abortion. But impeachment and removal is highly unlikely. Supreme court justices effectively govern themselves. Only one has ever been impeached, in 1804, before being acquitted. Republicans hold the House, where impeachment would start.
Still, news of Crow’s far-right memorabilia seemed bound to add to Thomas’s embarrassment – perhaps in part because Thomas has written that arguments for abortion rights spring from theories of eugenics, as espoused by Hitler and the Nazis. When Thomas made that argument, in an opinion in 2019, Philippa Levine, a University of Texas history professor, told the Washington Post the justice was “guilty of a gross misuse of historical facts”.
On Friday, the Washingtonian published pictures of Thomas’s friend’s collection of Nazi artefacts, which includes a signed copy of Hitler’s memoir, Mein Kampf. The magazine also noted how the Florida senator Marco Rubio ran into problems in 2015, over a Crow-hosted fundraiser on the eve of Yom Kippur.
The year before that, the Dallas Morning News reported that Crow became “visibly uncomfortable” with questions about his dictator statues and collectibles of Hitler, whose regime murdered 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. The paper described the statues of dictators as “a historical nod to the facts of man’s inhumanity to man”. Crow also reportedly owns statues of two British prime ministers he counts among his heroes: Winston Churchill – who defeated Hitler – and Margaret Thatcher.
The megadonor and his wife were “such hospitable Texas hosts”, according to the Washingtonian’s source. But, the source added, it was “just strange – they had family photos in one room, then all this world war II stuff in another room, and dictators in the backyard”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other
Last edited by Chip; April 9th, 2023 at 01:24 PM.
This gives a whole new meaning to "Tea Party."
and Thomas in his back pocket.....The megadonor and his wife were “such hospitable Texas hosts”, according to the Washingtonian’s source. But, the source added, it was “just strange – they had family photos in one room, then all this world war II stuff in another room, and dictators in the backyard”.
More dirt on the honorable justice T.
Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm
The misstatements, which began when a family business transferred its holdings to another company, are part of a pattern that has raised questions about how the Supreme Court justice views his obligation to accurately report details about his finances to the public.
Shawn Boburg and Emma Brown
April 16, 2023
Over the last two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial disclosure forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership. But that company — a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives — has not existed since 2006.
That year, the family real estate company was shut down and a separate firm was created, state incorporation records show. The similarly named firm assumed control of the shuttered company’s land leasing business, according to property records. Since that time, however, Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company — between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years — and there is no mention of the newer firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, on the forms.
The previously unreported misstatement might be dismissed as a paperwork error. But it is among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades, a review of those records shows. Together, they have raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public.
Thomas’s disclosure history is in the spotlight after ProPublica revealed this month that a Texas billionaire took him on lavish vacations and also bought from Thomas and his relatives a Georgia home where his mother lives, a transaction that was not disclosed on the forms. Thomas said in a statement that colleagues he did not name told him he did not have to report the vacations and that he has always tried to comply with disclosure guidelines. He has not publicly addressed the property transaction.
In 2011, after the watchdog group Common Cause raised red flags, Thomas updated years of his financial disclosure reports to include employment details for his wife, conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. The justice said at the time that he had not understood the filing instructions. In 2020, he was forced to revise his disclosure forms after a different watchdog group found he had failed to report reimbursements for trips to speak at two law schools.
A judicial ethics expert said the pattern was troubling. “Any presumption in favor of Thomas’s integrity and commitment to comply with the law is gone. His assurances and promises cannot be trusted. Is there more? What’s the whole story? The nation needs to know,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University. Gillers said all three branches of government should investigate Thomas’s compliance or noncompliance with federal ethics law. “The Supreme Court has been the glue that has held the republic together since 1790 with the Civil War the only interruption. We need the public to respect it even when it disagrees with it and to understand why it is important. Generally, the public has,” he said. “But that respect is now in serious jeopardy, and others must do something to stop the free fall.”
Thomas did not respond to emailed questions sent through a court spokeswoman. His wife also did not respond to requests for comment.
Thomas’s income from the firm he describes as “Ginger, Ltd., Partnership” on the financial disclosure forms has grown substantially over the last decade, though the precise amounts are unknown because the forms require only that ranges be reported. In total, he has reported receiving between $270,000 to $750,000 from the firm since 2006, describing it as “rent.” Thomas’s salary as a justice this year is $285,000.
The company’s roots trace back to two lakeside neighborhoods developed decades ago by Ginni Thomas’s late parents in a community in Douglas County, just outside of Omaha. Ginger Limited Partnership was created in 1982 to sell and lease real estate, state incorporation records show, and its partners were Ginni Thomas, her parents and her three siblings. The firm owned and leased out residential lots in two developments, Ginger Woods and Ginger Cove, collecting rent annually from each occupied plot of land, according to copies of lease agreements on file with the county.
When he was nominated to a federal appeals court in 1990, Thomas listed the firm in a financial statement as one of his wife’s assets — worth $15,000 at the time. The firm was dissolved in March 2006. Around the same time, Ginger Holdings, LLC was created in Nebraska, according to state records, which list the same business address as the shuttered company and name Joanne K. Elliott, the sister of Ginni Thomas, as manager.
The same month, the leases for more than 200 residential lots in Ginger Woods and Ginger Cove were transferred from Ginger Limited Partnership to Ginger Holdings, LLC, property records in Douglas County show.
Reached by phone, Elliott referred questions about the two companies to Ginni Thomas. “You could call her and she could answer anything that she wants you to know,” Elliott said before hanging up. Ginni Thomas is not named in state incorporation records related to Ginger Holdings, LLC.
In his most recent disclosure, in 2021, Thomas estimated that his family’s interest in Ginger Limited Partnership, the defunct firm, was worth between $250,000 and $500,000. He reported receiving an income from it between $50,000 and $100,000 that year.
On Friday, congressional Democrats with oversight of federal courts cited Thomas’s “apparent pattern of noncompliance with disclosure requirements” in calling on the Judicial Conference — the policymaking body for the federal courts — to refer him to the attorney general for an investigation into whether he violated federal ethics laws.
In addition to the recent revelations about Thomas’s financial relationship with Harlan Crow, the Texas billionaire, they cited a period in the 2000s in which Thomas failed to disclose his wife’s employment as required by law until the omission was reported by the watchdog group Common Cause. Ginni Thomas earned more than $686,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation from 2003 until 2007, according to the nonprofit’s tax forms. Clarence Thomas checked a box labeled “none” for his wife’s income during that period. He had done the same in 2008 and 2009 when she worked for conservative Hillsdale College.
Thomas acknowledged the error when he amended those filings in 2011. He wrote that the information had been “inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” In some years before those omissions, however, Thomas had correctly reported his wife’s employment.
Thomas failed to report the sale of the three Georgia properties to Crow in 2014, and he also continued to report that he owned a share of those properties as late as 2015, his disclosure forms show. In addition, beginning in 2010, his disclosures described the properties as being located in Liberty County, Ga., even though they were actually located in Chatham County.
Thomas also did not report reimbursement for transportation, meals and lodging while teaching at the universities of Kansas and Georgia in 2018. After the omission was flagged by the nonprofit Fix the Court, Thomas amended his filing for that year. He also amended his 2017 filing, on which he had left off similar reimbursements while teaching at Creighton Law School, his wife’s alma mater.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...f-d56bc0707225
Blue-anon kooks can't stand that they let that one slip the noose - while they call the other party racists.
Wasn't there some news about a Chinese bank releasing a certain families' transactions?
But let's worry about $133k from a guy with more money than he knows what to do with, who wants to turn Thomas' birthplace into a future museum. Wouldn't that be honoring black achievement - ahem - if he weren't conservative, of course. Damned racists.
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
724Seney (April 16th, 2023)
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
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An observation. Real estate transactions are among the most favored tactics for money laundering. Russian criminals and oligarchs have bought luxury properties in London and NYC (from Trump, among others) as a means to render their dirty money declarable assets. I wonder whether these dodgy dealings by Thomas are a way of laundering bribes, hush money, etc. from the right-wing oligarchs who are his biggest fans.
How do you know, “right wing oligarchs are his biggest fans”?
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