Thursday, April 20, 2023

Reproductive rights (don't interest John Stauber)

Cracked minded John Stauber is on another one of his benders where he attacks everyone because of real -- or just imagined -- links to George Soros.


That includes, today, Amy Goodman.


Confused?  Are we as drunk and high as John Stauber?  I'm not.  I remember John being on Amy's show many times.  I also remember him doing events with Amy to raise funds for his work.


Is that what this is all about?  Others found ways to money but John Stauber couldn't so now he just Tweets over and over about all of his envy?


He's freaking out over this segment of DEMOCRACY NOW!



From the transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court pushed back their decision on the abortion pill mifepristone until Friday, keeping the country’s most popular abortion method available for at least another day as the court reviews a ruling earlier this month which banned the drug. The Center for Reproductive Rights said the court, quote, “should have issued a stay … but instead, the Court continues to delay any action. In the meantime, abortion providers and their patients across the country have been living in chaos, unclear if they’ll still be able to prescribe and access this critical medication,” unquote.

The Justice Department and drugmaker Danco Laboratories warned the court if it does not step in, the supply of the medication could end almost immediately. They say one version of the medication would be considered misbranded, and the generic version would be rendered unapproved. This week, the maker of the generic version of mifespristone sued the FDA in a bid to keep the drug on the market, no matter what the court rules.

The original April 7th ruling in the fast-moving case was by the Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a longtime abortion opponent and activist. The Supreme Court’s orders on Wednesday were issued by Justice Samuel Alito, who also wrote the decision in the Dobbs ruling last year that ended the constitutional right to abortion, overturned Roe v. Wade.

For more on all of this and the fight to keep abortion legal and accessible, we’re joined by two guests. In Wichita, Kansas, Julie Burkhart is with us. She’s president of Wellspring Health Access and co-owner of Hope Clinic. She worked for eight years with the abortion provider Dr. George Tiller before he was assassinated in church in 2009. Last May, her clinic, which was set to open in just weeks, was firebombed by an anti-abortion arsonist. Her recent piece for Salon is headlined “I own the only abortion clinic in Wyoming: Post-Roe America is a tragedy, and an opportunity.”

We’re also joined by Michele Goodwin, visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She hosts the Ms. magazine podcast On the Issues with Michele Goodwin and is the author of Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood. Last year, she wrote a guest essay for The New York Times headlined “I Was Raped by My Father. An Abortion Saved My Life.”

We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! Michele Goodwin, let’s begin with you. Start off with what this temporary stay — well, the first one was temporary, until this past Wednesday, and now until Friday. What does this stay mean?

MICHELE GOODWIN: Well, this stay could mean that the court is still deliberating. It could mean that there are justices that are drafting dissenting opinions, concurring opinions. We don’t know.

But it means something more, which is that mifespristone is still available. It is still available under the conditions that were set by the FDA prior to Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s opinion. That is the judge in Amarillo, Texas, that decided that mifespristone should be removed from the marketplace, basically siding with the petitioners, who claim that the drug was rushed to the market and that it was unsafe.

It’s worth noting, Amy, as you’ve discussed before, that this is a drug that was under review for 54 months when it was put on the marketplace in 2000. To put that in comparison with other FDA-approved drugs in that same period, they were reviewed for about 15 months. And then, secondly, the claims that it is an unsafe drug really is quite unfounded. When the FDA did approve mifespristone to be in the marketplace, it had already been used in Europe for decades. And we know, through decades of research since 2020 — or, since 2000, excuse me, when it was placed in the marketplace, that it is a drug that has lower morbidities than Tylenol, than Viagra, than penicillin.

So, we don’t know what the Supreme Court will do on Friday, but one more point with this is that there are over 200 drug manufacturers that have signed a letter expressing their deep concern about the ruling that came out of Amarillo, Texas, because it could affect more than just mifespristone and drugs related to reproductive health. It could be virtually any drug that is petitioned to be removed from the U.S. marketplace.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Michele Goodwin, talk about Samuel Alito and his role. I mean, this came under his jurisdiction, but Justice Alito is well known as the man who is the author of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. So, what it means that he was the original person who extended the stay and now has done it again?

MICHELE GOODWIN: Well, it’s hard to read the tea leaves with that, but you make an excellent point, which is that Justice Alito authored the decision in Dobbs, that June 24th, 2022, decision, just less than a year ago, that overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Planned Parenthood v. Casey was a 1992 decision, and Roe v. Wade, 1973, so we’re talking about decades of precedent then rendered virtually meaningless through the Dobbs decision.

You know, it’s worth noting that the Dobbs decision was a case that came out of the state of Mississippi, where there had only been one abortion clinic, and in that state, if you’re a Black woman, you’re 118 times more likely to die by carrying a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion.

But Justice Alito’s opinions in this domain must also be linked to the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision, which is one that challenged the mandate through the Affordable Care Act that contraceptives would be available. And Justice Alito authored that decision, too, which basically meant that employers who claim some religious objection to contraception could deny that to their female employees.

So we see a trajectory of cases with Justice Alito that side against reproductive health rights and justice, but we don’t know exactly what the court will do in this particular case, particularly given that drug manufacturers have spoken out.

And one last point is that in the Dobbs decision, the court said that these matters would be returned to the states, that the laboratories of democracy are in this states, and that if people want access to abortion, then that’s the place in which these issues should be settled. By Judge Kacsmaryk’s order, that basically flies in the face of the Dobbs decision, meaning that if his order were allowed to stand in states like California, Illinois, New York, mifespristone would no longer be available for this use, therefore making hash of what the Supreme Court issued just last year.

AMY GOODMAN: Michele Goodwin, what do you think of congressmembers like AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying that the Biden administration should simply ignore this ruling? What are the grounds for this?

MICHELE GOODWIN: Well, you know, right now — she’s not alone. There are also doctors that are articulating just how distressing this happens to be. So, if we set the ground a bit more, which I think is really important, the United States is the deadliest place in all of the industrialized world to be pregnant. It’s alarming. And I know for many Americans, that is shocking. But we rank somewhere around 55th in the world in terms of maternal safety. That is, it’s far safer to be pregnant and to have a child with dignity in countries that have been recently war-torn. In the United States, the Supreme Court conceded in 2016 in a case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, that a woman is 14 times more likely in the United States to die by carrying a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion.

So, what does this then mean for doctors, not just AOC? For doctors in states across the country now that have banned abortion, they face, such as in Texas, 99 years’ incarceration, $100,000 in fines, losing their medical license to practice, if in fact they are found to have tried to save a woman’s life at a point before she was very, very close to death. And this is relating to a lawsuit that is right now in the state of Texas brought by five women who were not necessarily pro-choice — in fact, some articulated anti-abortion views — but it turned out that they would need abortions to save their lives. And in times that were most critical, with sepsis setting in, with one woman gestating twins, but one of the twins dying, and that causing health effects for her and also the other fetus — in those instances, doctors in Texas felt that they were handcuffed, that they could not respond to the urgent needs of their patients. And so, what we hear from doctors, what we hear from AOC, is that something must be done now. This is a time that is much like Jim Crow. It is a new Jane Crow in the United States, where there are free states and there are those where people no longer have access to bodily autonomy.



"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, April 20, 2023.  The US Congress hears about Iraq (kind of), while prisons are overcrowded in Iraq the Iraqi government shuts down . . . displacement camps, Crooked Clarence and his sugar daddy Harlan Crow have a special day of celebration, and much more.

Iraq was actually discussed in the US Senate yesterday.  It was a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand chairs the Subcommittee, Senator Joni Ernst is the Ranking Member.  Dr Sean Kirkpatrick was the witness appearing before the Subcommittee. Kirkpatrick is the Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.  The what?

From Kirkpatrick's opening statement:

We are grateful for sustained congressional engagement on this issue, which paved the way for DoD’s establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in July of last year. Though AARO is still a young office, the spotlight on UAP [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] in recent months underscores the importance of its work and the need for UAP to be taken seriously as a matter of national security. All leadership that I’ve had the pleasure of working with, whether DoD, IC, DOE, Civil, Scientific or Industrial, view Congress as a critical partner in this endeavor. AARO has accomplished much in the 9 months since it was established. The AARO team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas: operations, scientific research, integrated analysis, and strategic communications. In the nine months since AARO’s establishment, we have taken important steps to improve UAP data collection, standardize the Department’s UAP internal reporting requirements, and implement a framework for rigorous scientific and intelligence analysis, resolving cases in a systematic and prioritized manner. Meanwhile, consistent with legislative direction, AARO is also carefully reviewing and researching the U.S. Government’s UAP-related historical record. AARO is leading a focused effort to better characterize, understand, and attribute UAP, with priority given to UAP reports by DoD and IC personnel in or near areas of national security importance. DoD fully appreciates the eagerness from many quarters, including here in Congress and in the American public, to quickly resolve every UAP encountered across the globe, from the distant past through today. It is important to note, however, that AARO is the culmination of decades of DoD, Intelligence Community, and congressionally-directed efforts to successfully resolve UAP encountered first and foremost by U.S. military personnel, specifically Navy and Air Force pilots. The law establishing AARO is ambitious, and it will take time to realize the full mission. We cannot answer decades of questions about UAP all at once, but we must begin somewhere.  


Here's a segment of the open section of the hearing.




In other news, AP notes, "The United Nations on Wednesday expressed concern over Iraqi authorities’ rapid closure this week of a displaced persons camp housing more than 300 families allegedly linked to the militant Islamic State group."  How rapid?  Those in the camp were told on Monday that they'd be evicted in two days.   The United Nations issued the following statement:

Baghdad, 19 April 2023 – The Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq calls on the Government of Iraq to ensure the safety and well-being of the 342 families who had to depart from the Jeddah 5 IDP camp in Ninewa Governorate following its closure.

The humanitarian community is concerned by the impact of the closure of the camp on 18 April by the Government of Iraq, without adequate notification and preparation for the IDPs and the receiving communities. The United Nations in Iraq will continue to work in close coordination with the Iraqi authorities, to ensure the sustainable reintegration of those 1,566 former camp residents, with almost two thirds are children.[i]

The United Nations reiterates its longstanding principles that call for the voluntary, informed, safe and dignified return of all IDPs. The UN also urges the relevant authorities to ensure IDPs are able to return to their homes or places of habitual residence, integrate locally or relocate voluntarily to another part of the country in a safe and dignified manner.

The UN stands ready to provide further assistance to those former camp residents and is working with the Government of Iraq to find durable solutions for all the remaining IDPs in and out of camps.

 

For further information, please contact:

Zainab Salih, Communications Officer, zainab.salih@un.org

 

While they can shut down camps that people need to survive, the Iraqi government is fine with overcrowding . . . in prisons.  IRAQI NEWS reports:

The Iraqi Ministry of Justice announced on Saturday that the overcrowding rate in government prisons reached 300 percent.

The spokesperson of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, Kamel Amin, said that the number of prisoners reached 60,000, while the capacity of prisons does not exceed 25.000, Al-Rafidain TV reported.  

Amin also indicated that it is difficult to control this big number of prisoners.

Iraqi War Crimes Documentation Center (IWDC) revealed that Iraqi authorities detained tens of thousands of people in inhumane conditions, and placed them in overcrowded and unsanitary cells for several years, out of revenge and sectarian motives, according to a report issued by the center.


Moving over to the topic of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his sugar daddy Harlan Crow, today is a very special day for the pair, April 20th.  Do they celebrate the birth of Hitler with a dry hump?  


There's a lot to cover when you try to examine Crooked Clarence's corruption.  At SLATE, Virginia Canter, Norman L. Eisen, and Richard W. Painter provide a walk through:

Controversy has exploded over Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial entanglements with Harlan Crow, a billionaire and major GOP donor, including his private plane and yacht travel and real estate transactions. Having administered the Ethics in Government Act in the White House as ethics counsels for presidents of both parties, we believe that Thomas was required to report his financial dealings with Crow. He failed to do so. That is why we have joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking the U.S. Department of Justice and the chief justice of the Supreme Court to open investigations into whether, as it appears, Thomas violated the law.

First we learned that Thomas did not disclose years of gifts of luxury travel that he received from Crow in his annual financial disclosure reports—despite apparently being required to do so by the act. It requires judges and justices to file an annual financial disclosure report. The law provides that disclosures must include the “identity of the source, a brief description, and the value of all gifts,” and the Judiciary Conference Filing Instructions say that all gifts over $415 must be disclosed. Similar information is required for gifts of travel reimbursement under the act.

Then it emerged that Thomas failed to make yet another required disclosure—the $133,363 sale by the justice and his family to Crow of three properties in Savannah, Georgia. The law requires justices to report “a brief description, the date, and category of value of any purchase, sale or exchange which exceeds $1,000 … in real property.” This required Thomas to disclose the transaction in his report. He did not.

The law’s exemptions to reporting requirements do not apply here. Let’s start with the real estate transaction. A carve-out in the Ethics in Government Act exempts Thomas from having to report sale of “property used solely as a personal residence of the reporting individual or the individual’s spouse.” While Thomas’ mother has lived in one of the properties sold to Crow, Thomas and his wife did not. Moreover, nobody lived in the other two properties that Crow bought; they were empty lots, not “a personal residence.”

As for the travel, the relevant exemptions do not apply either. The so-called “personal hospitality” exemption says “any food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual need not be reported.” The act defines “personal hospitality” as “hospitality extended for a nonbusiness purpose by an individual, not a corporation or organization, at the personal residence of that individual or the individual’s family or on property or facilities owned by that individual or the individual’s family.”

But this does not include plane or yacht travel. It never did, and everyone knows that. In the White House, we told everyone that they had to report flights paid for by close personal friends.

Our reading of the exemption was recently confirmed on March 14 when the Judicial Conference clarified the contours of the “personal hospitality” exception in its filing instructions. These instructions explain the longstanding statutory language and state: “The personal hospitality gift reporting exemption applies only to food, lodging, or entertainment” and “the reporting exemption does not include … gifts other than food, lodging or entertainment, such as transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation.”

But that just reinforces what was already clear: As other ethics scholars and practitioners have also noted, there was never material ambiguity about Crow’s gifts to Thomas or the justice’s responsibility to report them. Yacht and air travel are not “food, lodging, or entertainment,” and disclosure has always been required by the act.

Thomas’ previous 1997 reporting of other private plane travel suggests that he understood this. That earlier travel was reported publicly in 2004, creating criticism. Then he stopped reporting. That pattern calls into question his defense of his failure to report; the notion that he was advised that he didn’t need to disclose the travel strains credulity.


Crooked Clarence gets exposed at a time when the public's trust in the Supreme Court is already at a historic low.  He's disgraced himself and the Court.  Atlanta's FOX 5 notes US House Rep Hank Johnson's response to Crooked Clarence's scandal:

In response to the reports, Rep. Hank Johnson said that he was "deeply disappointed and angered" by the allegations that "Justice Thomas has been using his position as a Supreme Court Justice, to live like an out of control billionaire baller, on a $263K per year salary, lining his pockets and traveling in luxury-Elon Musk style, all the while falsifying his disclosure forms to keep his opulent lifestyle a secret from the American public – a public that deserves his honest services."

Johnson called the justice "brazenly corrupted" at a press conference Wednesday.

"To protect what little is left of public trust and respect for the United States Supreme Court, Justice Thomas must resign immediately. It's not enough to amend and try to hide your corruption. It's too late for that," the Georgia congressman said.





AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! For more on the calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to step down or be impeached in light of the recent revelations, we’re going to look at a historical reference, when, “54 Years Ago, a Supreme Court Justice Was Forced to Quit for Behavior Arguably Less Egregious Than Thomas’s.” That’s the headline of an op-ed in The New York Times by Adam Cohen, lawyer, journalist, former member of The New York Times editorial board, author of Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America.

Adam, you write that Justice Abe Fortas’s departure from the court in 1969 is both a blueprint for how lawmakers could respond today and a benchmark of how far we have fallen. Can you lay out this history?

ADAM COHEN: Sure. It is really the most on-point parallel we have historically. And one thing that’s important to note is that what Abe Fortas did is, in many ways, much less bad than what Clarence Thomas did. The amount of money was much smaller. He took $20,000. And as you mentioned, and as Justin mentioned, you know, Clarence Thomas, the amount of island hopping and free plane rides over a 20-year period is staggering, probably well into the millions. So the dollar amount was different, but also Fortas gave the money back, which is something that Clarence Thomas has not done. So, we have a much smaller scandal in many ways.

And what was striking is the bipartisan response that there was in 1969. Fortas ended up resigning from the court, not because Republicans were out to get him — and he was a liberal Democrat — but because Walter Mondale, who was in the Senate, demanded that he resign. One of his biggest supporters in the Senate, Senator Tydings from Maryland, demanded that he resign. He was afraid that he would be impeached by a Democratic Congress. And what’s really striking also is that this is in a time when there was a Republican president, Nixon. So, Democrats were doing this even though they knew that they might, quote, “lose the seat,” a liberal being replaced by a conservative. But these Democrats were so concerned about the integrity of the court, and they kept saying, “What matters is that the public have faith in the court.”

We’re not seeing that at all today. Where are Republicans who are coming out in favor of Thomas stepping down or Thomas doing anything, really, because of the integrity of the court? We don’t have that kind of bipartisanship anymore.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you also talk, Adam, about how the media have responded to this case? Fox News has filled the void by locating, quote, “an expert” to declare that the story about Justice Thomas is politics, plain and simple.

ADAM COHEN: That’s exactly right, yes. The media has — right. The conservative media have defended Clarence Thomas. As you said, they found an expert, who doesn’t seem like much of an expert, to say that it’s not a big deal.

But also, you know, just where are the voices of Chief Justice Roberts, for example? Right? I mean, we saw last year, when there were — when there were leaks of that abortion ruling a year ago, the chief justice immediately launched an investigation: “We have to get to the bottom of this, what’s going on in the court.” Why is he not saying that now? Why is it a much bigger deal that there were leaks of an abortion ruling, which conservatives were upset about, compared to Clarence Thomas apparently ignoring ethics rules for years? Where is the chief justice in this? We’re not hearing from him at all.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And why has the Supreme Court been able to get by for so long with essentially no ethics requirements?

ADAM COHEN: That’s exactly it. It’s the least accountable part of government we have. There is a judicial code of ethics that’s quite — I wouldn’t say strong, but it’s a reasonable code. But it doesn’t apply to the Supreme Court. It applies to lower court judges. Why does it not apply to the Supreme Court? Why do we not have, as I said, investigations internally? Even the liberal justices could be talking out now. If they think that Clarence Thomas is breaking the law, I think they have a duty to say something. So, there’s really no one holding them accountable.






AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We look now at the growing calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to step down or be impeached. A second damning ProPublica report on his relationship with Republican megadonor Harlan Crow has revealed that in 2014 Thomas and his family sold a house and two vacant lots in Savannah, Georgia, to Crow for around $130,000 but never disclosed the sale, which appears to be a violation of the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. CNN reports Thomas’s mother lives in the home owned by Crow rent-free, but she’s reportedly responsible for paying the property taxes and insurance.

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported Thomas has for years claimed rental income from a Nebraska real estate firm that shut down in 2006. It’s also been reported previously that in 2009 Crow gave half a million dollars to a conservative lobbying group founded by Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas.

CNN reports Justice Clarence Thomas now intends to amend his financial disclosures in light of ProPublica’s other recent bombshell investigation detailing unreported luxury trips Harlan Crow lavished on Thomas over two decades, in apparent violation of a law requiring justices and other federal officials to disclose most gifts. Thomas frequently vacationed at Crow’s resort in the Adirondacks of New York, where a painting on the walls depicts Clarence Thomas sitting with four other men, including Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society. Thomas never reported any of the free trips as gifts.

In addition to being a major benefactor for Thomas and the GOP, Crow is also an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia. He’s got a signed copy of Mein Kampf — that’s right, signed by Hitler — paintings by Hitler, Nazi medallions, swastika-embossed linens, and a garden filled with statues of 20th century dictators.

For more, we’re joined by Justin Elliott once again, reporter for ProPublica, their new follow-up report headlined “Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.”

Justin, welcome back to Democracy Now! I mean, your initial report has unleashed an avalanche of reporting and investigations and calls for Clarence Thomas to be impeached or to step down. He says he’s going to amend his disclosure forms. Can you talk about the latest findings?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Yeah. You know, for our first story, both Thomas and Harlan Crow put out statements about the luxury travel, saying, “We’re very close friends. These were family trips.” They both used the word “hospitality.”

We subsequently learned, then reported, that there was actually a direct business deal, a real estate deal, between the two men, so actual money flowing from Harlan Crow to Clarence Thomas. What we found is that around a decade ago, Crow bought a house and two vacant lots that were owned by Clarence Thomas and some of his relatives down in Savannah, Georgia. You know, as you mentioned, the house that Crow bought is actually the house where Thomas’s elderly mother was living, and apparently still lives, which puts Crow in the extremely unusual position of being the landlord to the mother of a sitting Supreme Court justice, although it’s actually not clear if “landlord” is the right term here, because CNN has reported that Crow is not charging her rent. So, there’s all kinds of exceedingly unusual financial entanglements between this billionaire political donor and the Supreme Court justice.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Justin, what about this claim that they’ve been longtime friends? What were you able to find out about how Thomas and Harlan Crow first met and how their friendship developed?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Yeah, you know, so I think they actually are friends, but it turns out that, at least according to Crow, they met back in the mid-1990s. This was after Thomas was on the court. They weren’t like college roommates or something like that. They actually, apparently, met at a conservative political conference, and Crow gave an interview to The Dallas Morning News a couple days ago in which he says that they actually first met when Crow offered Thomas, it turns out, a private jet ride on Crow’s jet from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, and apparently they hit it off on the jet. So that’s what we know about how it started.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, from the start, then, Thomas was accepting, in essence, undisclosed gifts from Crow.

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Yeah. I mean, you know, I have personally never been on a private jet, but I’ve learned a lot about them and, you know, these things. I mean, Crow’s current jet, it’s a particularly nice private jet. It’s a Global 5000 Bombardier. If you were to charter one of these on the open market, you’d be paying $15,000 per hour, per flight hour. So, yes, these are extraordinarily expensive flights. And it’s obviously not exactly a normal situation to offer somebody you just met a private jet ride. But again, I mean, Clarence Thomas was a Supreme Court justice at the time, so I think that probably goes a long way to explaining why this happened.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas’s wife, the connection here and the financial connections with Harlan Crow — I mean, the getting more than a half a million dollars, her lobbying group?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: That’s right. So, I think one of the other really intriguing financial connections here between Crow and the Thomas family is related to Ginni Thomas. So, it actually came out around a dozen years ago that Ginni Thomas was running a small tea party group, nonprofit political organization. And it came out that none other than Harlan Crow was pretty much the sole funder of that group, that was paying Ginni Thomas’s salary, which I believe was on the order of $200,000 a year. So, essentially, through this kind of pass-through organization, Crow’s money was ending up, you know, in the pocket of the Thomas household.

Following that reporting, around a dozen years ago, there was sort of another round of — a previous round of questions about this, but — and we don’t really know what has happened since then, partly, actually, thanks to the Supreme Court. As you know, the whole regime of disclosure of political spending and giving to groups has really fallen apart, and there’s anonymous dark money flowing all over the place, so it makes it very difficult as a reporter to figure out where money is flowing and from who. But, you know, we’re still reporting on all this.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Justice Thomas has claimed that Crow has no business before the Supreme Court. But for those who do not know — of our audience who do not know Crow, who is he, and what would be his interest in being able to have this friendship with Thomas?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: So, Crow is a real estate billionaire who was born into a very successful Dallas real estate family. And it is true that Crow has not had — he’s not been a litigant in a case at the Supreme Court. It turns out the Supreme Court doesn’t actually take that many cases every year, so there’s very few people and companies that actually have a case at the court. But the court regularly takes up matters that affect the real estate industry, that the real estate trade groups that Harlan Crow helps fund is involved in some of those cases, filing briefs and that kind of thing.

But I think the larger issue is that Crow has a whole set of ideological interests related to the court. He’s a funder of a number of groups that specifically push conservative legal theories, groups like the Federalist Society. He’s on the board of a number of think tanks, like the American Enterprise Institute, that do a range of — work on a range of issues, but, among them, issues related to the Supreme Court advancing conservative legal theories. So, it raises the question — and we don’t really know the answer at this point — of whether Crow and sort of his other friends, who he’s bringing on some of these trips with Justice Thomas, are having any influence on the justice. And, you know, even shifting a Supreme Court justice’s thinking a little bit on an issue, if that ended up in an opinion, I mean, it could have just enormous consequences for basically all of us.



The issues is not going away. There is probably more scandal to come.  Crooked Clarence doesn't care.  He doesn't care about the Court and he doesn't care about the American people.  He's in it for him.  His greedy hands are going to grab all he can until he dies or gets removed from the Court.










The following sites updated: