In May of 2009, as President Barack Obama prepared to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, he let something terrible slip--something that could threaten the very fabric of our civilization! He would try and pick a new judge for our highest court that possessed "empathy," or the ability to identify “with people’s hopes and struggles” when making decisions that would intimately affect their lives.

In other words, slightly different than how Justice Clarence Thomas does it, which generally involves applying lessons learned from all-expenses covered, first-class corporate speaking gigs and serial viewing of the wacky antics of Long Dong Silver.

Predictably, right wingers from Senator Orrin Hatch to former Republican National Committee Chair (and lobbyist for every destructive interest in existence) Ed Gillespie were just beside themselves, hissy-fitting at the outrageous notion that someone who actually cares about people might become a sitting justice on the High Court.

It is this degradation of American culture since the Reagan Years--on steroids in our current Citizens United Era as corporations have become people (and were almost granted zygote status in Mississippi!)--that says the only healthy emotions are the ones that highlight one's personal greed and lack of compassion for others. This is the cultural sickness that has been on full display for all its misanthropy this past week.

The most egregious example occurred in University Park, Pennsylvania, with the growing and nausea-inducing scandal engulfing Penn State University. No, our culture didn't create the pedophilia of former Penn State Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Sadly, this has been with us since the dawn of time.

But the greed of a big college football program and the fortune and fame it creates allowed it to go on for years. This certainly played a defining role to decisions made by everyone from an assistant coach who witnessed Sandusky's anally raping a 10-year old in the shower to the lack of action by the university's president to the post-2002 Rick-Perry-memory hole of the sainted (now) former coach Joe Paterno.

All of them spent at least a decade, perhaps closer to 15 years, covering up the behavior of a serial-child rapist. One who used their reputations and facilities to both locate his victims and commit his crimes.

For these men in positions of power, "greed was good," a lesson learned by the lunkheaded Penn State students who chose to "riot" Wednesday evening upon news of Paterno's firing by the Penn State University Board by turning over a car, breaking windows and performing other acts of mass stupidity. For them, being able to party hardy post-victory and continue the cult of Paterno was more important than the lives of potential peers violently victimized by a beast.

The personal responsibility touted by these protectors, and in particular Joe Paterno--rock-ribbed Republican friend of the Bushs and former Pennsylvania Senator turned presidential candidate Rick Santorum--was no match for the avarice their politics and personal-belief system would seem to espouse. The Pennsvlvania right winger, who sponsored the Republican-registered Sandusky for the Congressional Angels in Adoption" award, based on the non-profit he founded to provide care for foster children (see: target them), was still defending Paterno, last we heard.

So in case you're scoring at home, to Santorum being gay is terrible, because homosexuality is just like "pedophilia." But if the person performing or covering up child rape is a friend, pedophilia's a-ok. So does that mean Santorum supports gay rights--as long as the non-straight in question is a friend of his?

This has been a another edition of Deep Thoughts with Rick Santorum.

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Credit: OccupyForAccountability.org

The beauty about the Occupy movement is that what started as a grassroots, spontaneous gathering has spiraled into hundreds and hundreds of protests all over the globe and is now starting fledgling political actions, buoyed by the notion that we not only stand on the moral high ground, but our numbers are powerful.

OccupyforAccountability is an advocacy group inspired by the Occupy protests launching this week. Their first campaign? Calling for a criminal investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (.pdf)

America’s citizens have had it with people in power who violate the law. That includes Clarence Thomas who has used his position as a Supreme Court Justice to flout the law and enrich himself, his wife and their cronies through corrupt backroom deals with billionaires Harlan Crow, and Charles and David Koch.

OccupyforAccountability.org calls out Clarence Thomas as one of the corrupt pillars of our government for doing the bidding of his billionaire paymasters at the expense of the 99 percent.

• Bribery: The Thomases have raked in millions of dollars in gifts and donations, including free travel on yachts and corporate jets owned by Harlan Crow. Virginia received a half million from Crow and then laundered it through her company as salary. The Thomases enjoyed luxury stays at conservative events hosted by Charles and David Koch.
• Corruption: In 1991, Citizens United helped to put Thomas on the Supreme Court by spending at least $100,000 on TV ads attacking Senators Kennedy, Biden and Cranston who were opposing his nomination. But Thomas did not disclose this when the Citizens United vs FEC case was heard by the Court in 2009. He and his wife then used the Citizens United decision to enrich themselves.
• False Statements: For 20 years, Thomas lied on federal financial disclosure forms by stating that his wife did not receive any income from work at places such as the Heritage Foundation, when in fact she received salary of well over a million dollars.

For details on the crimes of Clarence Thomas, read our letter to Jack Smith, Chief of the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice and visit ProtectOurElections.org.

There have been a few Democrats in Congress who have asked for an investigation already. But of course, it's fallen on deaf ears. However, there is power in numbers and we must utilize that power as 99 percent of Americans to demand some accountability.

Perhaps you're familiar with Clarence Thomas, the Long-Dong-Silver-loving US Supreme Court Justice. With a new term recently beginning on The Court, he passed the five-year mark for not only saying nothing of value while hearing cases, but nothing at all.

Yes, you read that correctly--while no US Supreme Court Justice in over two centuries has gone even a single term without speaking from the bench during arguments, Thomas has managed to do it for five in a row.

To quote Stephen Colbert, "the man is a rock...in that he could be replaced by a rock and I'm not sure anyone would notice."

Sadly, it shouldn't really come as much of a surprise that if someone were going to set this record, it would be Justice Thomas. He certainly never even approached being "the most qualified" person in the land to sit on the Supreme Court, as President George H.W. Bush, who nominated him to the High Court, said after offering his name.

I'm quite sure that Bush didn't even believe that himself, unless he was limiting the field of competition to Thomas, then-vice president Dan Quayle, and his namesake offspring. But if he was clearly unworthy then--and he was--he is now about as appropriate a judge as Newt Gingrich is a marriage counselor.

While he doesn't seem to even want to participate in his day job, Thomas certainly does engage in the kind of partisan politicking that is not only unseemly, but sets a terrible precedent in a democracy. And at least in theory, the judiciary is supposed to be impartial, and therefore above politics.

Yet, in only the past few weeks, a number of embarrassing episodes have not only turned this legal tracheotomy into a punch line for late night comics, but have quite honestly raised questions about whether any fully-functioning democracy would allow him to continue rendering judgments so important in deciding not only the law, but values of our society.

First, there was the fact that Thomas, whose wife has earned almost $700,000 for--as far as I can tell--being his wife, finds government disclosure forms so difficult to fill out that he accidentally put $0 where $700,000 was supposed to be under "spousal income."

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You gotta love Colbert's defense of Clarence Thomas. He explains away his ties to the Koch Brothers, not filing Ginny's taxes since there's no box to mark for her 700K income on the tax forms and his vote on the Citizens Untied case.

And not speaking for five straight terms is a noble thing for ol' Clarence.

When the Supreme Court hears arguments next week, it will mark the fifth anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas’s silence during oral argument — unless he chooses to re-enter the give-and-take. We hope he will. This milestone has stirred a wide conversation about his effectiveness as a justice following another about his ethics. They are actually related. How Justice Thomas comports himself on the bench is a matter of ethics and effectiveness, simultaneously. His authority as a justice and the court’s as an institution are at issue...read on

And what about Clarence taking a quick trip to the secret Koch Brothers meeting?Conflict of interest you say? Nope. Just a much deserved reward for doing the Koch Brothers bidding. There's nothing wrong with a Supreme Court judge doing that, now is there?

Clarence Thomas is falling into a deep, deep ethical hole, deeper even than the one he dropped into when he failed to disclose his wife's income for 20 years. As more facts come to light, it's obvious he failed to disclose quite a bit, including the $100,000 Citizens United spent on his behalf in 1991 to support his nomination. That would be an in-kind contribution which should have been disclosed as such.

A Time Magazine article from 1991 has the details:

Washington-area television viewers were startled last week to see three familiar senatorial faces pop up on their screens above the words WHO WILL JUDGE THE JUDGE? The follow-up question -- "How many of these liberal Democrats could themselves pass ethical scrutiny?" -- was hardly necessary, since the faces were those of Edward Kennedy, Joseph Biden and Alan Cranston, all scarred veterans of highly publicized scandals, from Chappaquiddick to plagiarized speeches to the Keating Five.

The ad, produced by two independent right-wing groups, was intended to bolster Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas' confirmation chances by pointing the finger at three liberal Democrats who seemed likely to oppose him. Not coincidentally, the ad was produced by the same people who launched the 1988 Willie Horton spot that branded Michael Dukakis soft on crime but left George Bush open to charges of racism. Anxious not to be associated with such negative campaigning this time around, Bush quickly labeled the attacks on the Senators "counterproductive." Thomas pronounced them "vicious." His chief Senate supporter, Missouri Republican John Danforth, called them "sleazy" and "scurrilous."

Although Bush and chief of staff John Sununu demanded that the ads be pulled, their right-wing sponsors -- L. Brent Bozell III, chairman of the Conservative Victory Committee, and Floyd Brown, chairman of Citizens United -- refused. Calling the campaign a "pre-emptive strike" to counter anticipated anti-Thomas commercials, as well as retaliation for the 1987 spots that helped defeat Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, they vowed to keep running the messages for at least two weeks "until the left agrees to discontinue all its efforts against Judge Thomas." Thus far, that has been a mostly fitful effort at best, but Brown and Bozell appeared to see the flag of revolution rising above it. "Unfortunately," the two men declared in a written statement, "the Administration has no desire to confront the radical left."

So Citizens United pays to produce and air an ad with the stated intention of bullying "the left" into silence over his nomination, and Clarence Thomas fails to disclose that before hearing last year's Citizens United case that corrupted our election process?

Ironically, the case ProtectOurElections is relying on is Caperton v Massey, ruled on by the Supreme Court in 2009. Predictably, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Alito dissented.

Applying Caperton to Citizens United, it is clear that Justice Thomas, after having been supported by an effective advertising campaign that reaped millions in free media time, labored under an actual conflict of interest that denied the FEC due process. Justice Thomas owed his spot on the Court to Citizens United Foundation. That fact undermined his ability to put aside his bias in favor of Citizens United.

Justice Thomas was required to disclose his relationship with Citizens United and sua
sponte recuse himself from the case. Instead, he hid that relationship and cast the
deciding vote in favor of Citizens United. This corrupted the administration of justice
and violated D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 8.4—Misconduct, which states in
pertinent part:

“It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(a) Violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or
induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another;
(c) Engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation;
(d) Engage in conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice; ….”

Seems like Justice Thomas has a really distorted idea of what justice is. Can we impeach him yet?

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Virginia Thomas. You remember her? The wife of Clarence Thomas, head cheerleader at Liberty Central, foam crown and all? The one whose income Justice Thomas "forgot" to disclose? That One.

After leaving her gig with Tea Party front group Liberty Central, Virginia Thomas has moved on to start up her own lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, Inc (catchy name, that). According to that raving liberal site (NOT) The Politico, Ginni Thomas is on to the next venture:

Now, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies.

Thomas already has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an e-mail she sent last week to congressional chiefs of staff, in which she branded herself “a self-appointed, ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement."

Interesting that these very same freshmen aren't admitting to it or had no idea what Politico was talking about when asked if they had met with her.

An interesting thing, though -- Politico had a hard time finding a freshman who has actually met with Ginni Thomas. "This is the spouse of Justice Thomas?" said a seemingly surprised Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ). "No, I've never met her. It's not something I've heard about. And I hang out with a lot of freshman," he said.

I sought info from some high-ranking GOP aides, who also have no idea what this is about. In addition, I have left a message with Ginni Thomas, but I doubt I'll be any more successful than Politico's efforts on that front:

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Thomas said she was having trouble with the signal, telling a POLITICO reporter: "I would be happy to talk with you, but I really can't understand clearly what you're asking, so maybe this is not a good time to talk."

A visit to the website for Thomas' new venture reveals things I never knew about her. Like how she's connected to the "center-right movement." If the Tea Party is "center right", we're all screwed. Just emigrate now. The endorsement page includes glowing reviews from Steve King, Donald Rumsfeld, Morton Blackwell, and the ever-annoying Rick Berman. Yeah. Center right.

Is it just me, or is there something deeply unethical about the spouse of a Supreme Court justice being paid by conservatives to lobby against things like health care reform, and financial regulatory reform, and just about anything that might be called progress? In some ways, this is even more blatant than Liberty Central was. Liberty Central was astroturf advocacy aimed at ordinary people. This is another hack lobbying firm aimed at shaping legislation toward conservatives corporate persons, not citizens. You know, those people Justice Thomas legitimized in the Citizens United decision?

Dave Weigel thinks her situation is a mess. I'm not so sure, but I'd like to think so. He puts it this way:

So you can hire Ginni Thomas to help determine whether a bill will pass constitutional muster if it comes before, you know, her husband. And she's having trouble getting work! It's quite possible that a combination of media blackout and embarrassing gaffes that echo for weeks (the call to Anita Hill) is not a good way to build a consulting shop.

About that drunk-dial late-night telephone call to Anita Hill. It seems to have displeased some conservative donors. Ohhh, can't have that. But no worries. They've already got their bought-and-paid-for justice in place. No need to worry about the spouse, right? Perfectly consistent with the current conservative trend these days to shove women back into their "place".

Perhaps Ginni should spend some time listening to progressive women after playing handmaiden to conservative old men who use women and toss them aside routinely.

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Now why would you think they're laughing at us?

I've looked into this before, and found there was a decision by the court several years ago in which they said they're weren't bound by the same ethics rules as other federal judges. (As I recall, the statement was along the lines of "We're Supreme Court justices, you should assume we wouldn't do anything unethical.") I don't know about you, but I'm immensely reassured:

WASHINGTON…Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed over the course of at least five years to report his wife's income from a conservative think-tank on his financial disclosures, according to the watchdog group Common Cause.

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, was paid $686,589 by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, according to a Common Cause review of IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his financial disclosure forms for those years, choosing instead to check a box titled "none" where "spousal non-investment income" would normally be disclosed.

A Supreme Court spokesperson authorized to speak on behalf of the justices could not immediately be reached for comment late Friday. But Virginia Thomas' employment by the Heritage Foundation was well known at the time.

Virginia Thomas has also been active in the group Liberty Central, an organization she founded for the purpose of restoring the "founding principles" of limited government and individual liberty.

In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as "none." Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Thomas an unknown salary during that year.

Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a law professor at NYU Law School. Thomas's omission -- which could be interpreted as a violation of that law -- could lead to some form of penalty, Gillers said.

"It wasn't a miscalculation, he simply omitted his wife's source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission," said Gillers "It could not have been an oversight."

But Steven Lubet, an expert on judicial ethics at Northwestern University School of Law, said that such an infraction was unlikely to result in a penalty. While unfamiliar with the Thomas complaint, he said that failure to disclose spousal income "is not a crime of any sort, but there is a potential civil penalty" for failing to follow the rules. He added: "I am not aware of a single case of a judge being penalized simply for this."

The Supreme Court is, "the only judicial body in the country that is not governed by a set of judicial ethical rules," Gillers said.

Common Cause makes a great argument that there's a conflict of interest between Scalia and Thomas over the Citizens United ruling because of their past participation in Koch Brothers' Bircheresque political retreats:

When the conservative financier Charles Koch sent out invitations for a political retreat in Palm Springs later this month, he highlighted past appearances at the gathering of “notable leaders” like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.

A leading liberal group is now trying to use that connection to argue that Mr. Scalia and Mr. Thomas should disqualify themselves from hearing campaign finance cases because they may be biased toward Mr. Koch, a billionaire who has been a major player in financing conservative causes.

The group, Common Cause, filed a petition with the Justice Department on Wednesday asking it to investigate potential conflicts by Justices Scalia and Thomas and move for their disqualification from the landmark Citizens United case, in which the court last year lifted a ban on corporate spending on political campaigns. Common Cause also cited the role of Mr. Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, in forming a conservative political group opposed to the Obama administration as grounds for his disqualification.

The petition is a new tack for opponents of the court’s decision in the Citizens United case. Common Cause, by its own acknowledgment, faces a difficult task in getting the justices’ to remove themselves from the case and seeking to have the Citizens United decision itself vacated.

“We’re treading in new territory here for us,” said Arn H. Pearson, Common Cause’s vice president for programs. “But a situation like this raises fundamental questions about public confidence in the Supreme Court.” Officials at Koch Industries, which Mr. Koch leads, did not respond to e-mails and a phone call Wednesday seeking comment on the petition. A spokeswoman at the Supreme Court declined comment...read on

I'll be going to the Common Cause panel discussion and rally against the Koch Brothers Billionaire Caucus next weekend in Palm Springs to represent. Aren't you getting sick and tired of our Democracy being bought and sold to uber-rich megalomaniacs who only care about their free market profits with no concern for the American worker?

The topic of the participation of Scalia and Thomas has come up before. Susie raised these very questions awhile back. Sam Stein wrote about the judges link to this gathering back in 2010.

In October of 2010, The NY Times wrote this: Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead

Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes from the Cato Institute in Washington to the ballot initiative that would suspend California’s landmark law capping greenhouse gases, is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, “develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity.”

The invitation, sent to potential new participants, offers a rare peek at the Koch network of the ultra-wealthy and the politically well-connected, its far-reaching agenda to enlist ordinary Americans to its cause, and its desire for the utmost secrecy.

It's basically a strategy session on how to re-brand their John Birch propaganda to many more millions of Americans that haven't already bought into their fraudulent claims.

The Kochs also seek to cultivate Americans’ growing concern about the growth of government: at the most recent meeting, in Aspen, Colo., in June, some of the wealthiest people in America listened to a presentation on “a vision of how we can retain the moral high ground and make the new case for liberty and smaller government that appeals to all Americans, rich and poor.”

The goals for the twice-yearly meetings, the brochure says, include attracting more investors to the cause, but also building institutions “to identify, educate and mobilize citizens” and “fashioning the message and building the education channels to re-establish widespread belief in the benefits of a free and prosperous society.”

And guess who was a key speaker in their Aspen circle jerk hoedown last year?

The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run on Aspen Mountain, and listened to Glenn Beck of Fox News in a session titled, “Is America on the Road to Serfdom?” (The title refers to a classic of Austrian economic thought that informs libertarian ideology, popularized by Mr. Beck on his show.)The participants included some of the nation’s wealthiest families and biggest names in finance: private equity and hedge fund executives like John Childs, Cliff Asness, Steve Schwarzman and Ken Griffin; Phil Anschutz, the entertainment and media mogul ranked by Forbes as the 34th-richest person in the country; Rich DeVos, the co-founder of Amway; Steve Bechtel of the giant construction firm; and Kenneth Langone of Home Depot.

The Super Elites are gathering their forces to buy themselves another election in 2012. If you know of any billionaires that want to play for the good guys please ask them to email me. crooksandliars@gmail.com

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, has stepped down from Liberty Central, the group dedicated to training Tea Party activists. Too little, too late.

This doesn't surprise me, nor do I think it has much to do with her inappropriate telephone call to Anita Hill. I think you will see many of these groups merge with the more mainstream groups now that the midterms are over.

Washington Post reports:

"She'll take a back seat so that Liberty Central can continue with its mission without any of the distractions," Carroll said. "After discussing it with the board, Mrs. Thomas determined that it was best for the organization."

Carroll declined to elaborate, but a source not authorized to speak publicly about the details said Liberty Central would be merging with the Patrick Henry Center, a Manassas-based conservative organization founded by Gary Aldrich, the former FBI agent who wrote a tell-all book about life inside the Clinton White House.

It served its purpose, and now will be folded back to the larger group. By merging with the Patrick Henry Center, it will also avoid any ongoing conflicts with regard to funding and disclosure. Big surprise there. Mrs. Thomas, I'm sure, will continue her crusade for Tea Party principles and subversion of the independence of the US judiciary.

(image h/t Bluegal)

When Clarence Thomas denies an appeal, it should be a signal that bizarro world isn't quite bizarro enough to legitimize birtherbot Orly Taitz. But no, Justice Alito decided Orly should be given the courtesy of more than a curt dismissal. Not only did he decide that, he did it despite the fact that she didn't even make the right request!

Miami Herald:

A request to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito by "birther" attorney Orly Taitz asking that $20,000 in sanctions against her be reversed was referred on Tuesday to the entire court.

U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land imposed the sanctions last year after he warned her and then gave her a time limit to explain why he shouldn't fine her in the September 2009 case of Capt. Connie Rhodes, who questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency.

Taitz appealed the sanctions to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. That court upheld the sanctions in March, and Taitz sent an application for stay to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on July 8. Thomas denied it a week later.

Taitz then refiled it with Alito on Aug. 4. That request was referred on Tuesday to the entire nine-member court, the Supreme Court's website states.

Got that? Taitz chose the two most conservative teabagging justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. One declined; one accepted, at least to the extent of passing it around to the rest of them.

It's not like we didn't already know Alito was a reactionary hater, but this goes far beyond the pale. Orly Taitz is a half-wit publicity-seeking nutcase who has just been granted a piece of the Supreme Court's attention. I think we can safely assume Alito shares Taitz' agenda to delegitimize the President of the United States.

Oh, and poor Orly is having a problem because she's facing a lien on her property:

On Monday, a lien was filed on all of Taitz’s real property. Taitz said she wouldn’t give the government the satisfaction of taking her property or potentially her law license, adding she would pay the fine.

As of Wednesday, Taitz said on her website that she had raised $1,740 in donations.

Mason theorized that if the entire court dismisses the application for stay, it would be dismissed without consideration if she were to again refile it with another justice.

Mason is a little off on the analysis, in my opinion. Alito could have denied it summarily, too. Assuming he did so, did she expect Kennedy or Roberts to hear it?

It makes me want to go hunt down the standards for impeachment of United States Supreme Court justices. Alito may go down in history as the worst legacy of the Bush administration, even exceeding Iraq and Afghanistan.