Washington Post Levels Another “Racist,” “Baseless” Attack on Clarence Thomas!

Longtime Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo paid the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice in secret—but if you’re to believe the right’s defense of it, this is all part of a giant, racist conspiracy cooked up by the left.

The Washington Post has reported that Leo—leader of the bold campaign to obstruct now Attorney General Merrick Garland from the Supreme Court—helped manage an everyday business agreement between Ginni Thomas and Kellyanne Conway.

Leo arranged for Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work that she had done in 2012. Leo made sure her name was left off the billing paperwork and made fake invoices instead, which apparently is a problem for some reason.

Between June 2011 and June 2012, Leo directed Conway’s polling company (cleverly named the Polling Company) to charge his nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, and use the money to pay Ginni—but he asked Conway to please not mention her in the paperwork.

In one January 2012 instance, Leo told Conway he wanted her to “give” Thomas “another $25K,” emphasizing that there should be “no mention of Ginni, of course,” in any of the paperwork.

In total, the payments amounted to some $80,000 within the timeframe. But what’s $80k among friends, really?

Also, never mind that the payments to Ginni came right before her husband voted favorably in a 5–4 majority to roll back voting rights, which is exactly what Leo wanted.

In December 2012, after the stream of payments the Judicial Education Project made to Ginni, the nonprofit submitted an amicus brief in Shelby County v. Holder. The case was challenging the Voting Rights Act. Thomas voted with the slim majority that struck down a key formula in the law that determined which jurisdictions were subject to federal clearance based on their histories of voter discrimination. Thomas’s concurring opinion aligned with arguments advanced by the Judicial Education Project.

After the ruling, hundreds of polling places closed, many in predominantly African American communities, while jurisdictions freed from preclearance standards had massively increased voter registration purges.

This is now one of many disqualifying revelations about the Supreme Court Justice; but according to some on the right, any concern about the litany of ethical violations is really just a racist attack against Thomas.

Reporting from ProPublica has similarly revealed what amounts to a warm relationship between Thomas and megabillionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow. The Nazi memorabilia–collecting billionaire has generously paid for the private school tuition of a family member Thomas was raising “as a son.” Crow has also extended gifts to the Supreme Court justice, like luxurious island-hopping excursions on superyachts, and even closed a simple, low-key deal in which he bought Thomas family property and proceeded to upgrade it while Thomas’s mother still lived in it. Thomas’s “son” had joined in on many of the family fun adventures with Crow too.

Apparently though, the problem is that the racist and sanctimonious liberal media can’t fathom the idea that a Supreme Court justice (one of the nine most powerful people in our country) can also have close relationships with some of the most financially successful individuals in society, who just coincidentally are arguing cases before the court. And if they can’t do that, when will the left come after you, next?

The conviction of four Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy blows up a major right-wing campaign to downplay the January 6 attack.

Members of the right, particularly on Fox News, have long tried to whitewash the January 6 riot. Many claimed that it couldn’t have been an insurrection because no one had been charged with seditious conspiracy. That, of course, is not true.

“Oh, it was an insurrection,” Tucker Carlson said on his show just a few months after the attack. “So how many of the participants have been charged with insurrecting, with sedition, with treason? Zero.” The talking point was common on Fox News—but also in right-wing circles more generally.

Well, on Thursday, four members of the far-right Proud Boys, including leader Henry Tarrio, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, as well as conspiracy to obstruct Congress and obstruction of Congress. A fifth group member was also found guilty of obstruction of Congress but not the other charges. The Proud boys are a far-right, neofascist group known for promoting chauvinist views. Former President Donald Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the September 2020 presidential debate, which prosecutors argued the extremist group took as a call to action.

There have now been a total of 14 convictions on seditious conspiracy over January 6, including that of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of another extremist group the Oath Keepers.

Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that her absence from the Senate is not slowing down the workings of the chamber. Don’t fall for it.

Feinstein hasn’t been in the Senate for more than eight weeks due to complications from shingles. Her last vote was in mid-February. Since then, her absence has put many key votes, including judicial confirmations, on hold. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would grant her request to let another Democratic senator temporarily serve in her place on the Judiciary Committee, but Republicans quickly poured cold water on that idea.

In a statement, Feinstein pushed back on the idea that her absence is causing issues. “The Senate continues to swiftly confirm highly qualified individuals to the federal judiciary, including seven more judicial nominees who were confirmed this week. There has been no slowdown,” she said.

“I’m confident that when I return to the Senate, we will be able to move the remaining qualified nominees out of committee quickly and to the Senate floor for a vote,” she said, while refusing to specify when she would actually return.

Although Feinstein may say that her absence isn’t a problem, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite what she said, there is still a backlog of judicial nominees who need to be confirmed—something that is becoming ever more crucial as more human rights battles play out in courts across the country. Just last week, Senate Republicans were able to pass a resolution nullifying an Environmental Protection Agency rule that seeks to reduce toxic air pollution from heavy-duty vehicles.

Feinstein announced in February that she would not run for reelection. She has had a long and storied career, but it has been sullied in recent years by reports that she is no longer mentally capable of serving. Calls for her to step down have begun to grow louder, as her congressional colleagues urge her to put the country first.

Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the highest court in the United States by a narrow margin of 52–48, after fending off numerous sexual harassment allegations. Since then, perhaps buoyed by his success in evading accountability, he and his wife have only grown more brazen in flouting ethical standards and disrespecting whatever integrity the Supreme Court could symbolize.

Reporting from ProPublica has revealed an extraordinarily troubling relationship between Thomas and megabillionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow. The Nazi memorabilia–collecting billionaire footed the bill for the private school tuition of a family member Thomas was raising “as a son.” Crow has also lavished the Supreme Court justice with luxurious island-hopping excursions on superyachts and even closed a secret deal in which he bought Thomas family property and proceeded to upgrade it while Thomas’s mother still lived in it. Thomas’s “son” had joined in on many of the exotic family adventures with Crow too.

All these revelations follow other scandals, like that Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, texted with then–White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to strategize how best to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

None of this includes numerous other ethically questionable notches on Thomas’s belt. For instance, in the early years of the Trump presidency, Ginni Thomas was paid $200,000 by a far-right group supporting the Muslim Ban.

Months later, Thomas joined the 5–4 majority that upheld the ban.

With that in mind, here is the not-long-enough list of Democrats honorable enough to call for Clarence Thomas’s impeachment or resignation.

House

• Alma Adams
• Don Beyer
• Cori Bush
• Chuy Garcia
• Hank Johnson
• Ro Khanna
• Summer Lee
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• Ilhan Omar
  
• Bill Pascrell Jr.
• Nydia Velázquez

Senate

• Richard Blumenthal
• Ed Markey

The North Carolina legislature has passed a nightmare 12-week abortion ban, a move that was made possible thanks to a former Democratic representative switching parties and that will destroy abortion access in the South.

The bill passed the Republican-controlled Senate by a vote of 29–20 Thursday, along party lines. It was rushed through the House close to midnight the night before, again along party lines. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has vowed to veto the measure, but the GOP has a veto-proof majority since Representative Tricia Cotham switched her party affiliation to Republican a month ago.* While she previously billed herself as pro-abortion, she spoke in favor of the abortion ban during the debate Thursday.

When the final vote was announced, following five grueling hours of debate, protesters who had packed the gallery broke into chants of “Abortion rights now!” and “Shame!” Security cleared them out.

The measure technically bans abortion after 12 weeks, but in reality, the window could be much shorter. People would also only be allowed to get a medication abortion until 10 weeks of pregnancy, and to get one, they would have to go to three separate, in-person appointments that are 72 hours apart.

Abortions are allowed up to 24 weeks if the fetus has a “life-limiting anomaly,” but the anomaly must be “uniformly diagnosable” even though such defects are rarely so clear-cut. Doctors also have to tell patients that such anomalies do result in live births with “unpredictable and variable lengths of life,” meaning they will have to try to convince patients to carry the pregnancy to term if there’s a chance the baby will live—even if only for a few moments.

The bill mandates that the legislature would have to appoint a rules commission to overhaul abortion clinic regulations by October. New rules could potentially force clinics to undergo costly (and unnecessary) changes, temporarily or even permanently shutting them down if they are unable to comply. It would also require health care providers to care for infants “born alive”—which health experts agree rarely occurs and could negatively impact post-birth care—and could restrict access to abortion based on a patient’s reason for wanting one.

“This bill … tells girls and women that our bodies do not belong to us. It tells men the same thing,” said Democratic Senator Lisa Grafstein. “Our democracy doesn’t belong to women any more than our bodies do.”

Republicans rushed the bill through the state legislature. Rather than introduce a fresh bill, they gutted an unrelated measure on child safety and then inserted 46 pages of abortion restrictions. They unveiled the text Wednesday night, giving lawmakers less than 11 hours to read it before it went to committee hearing. Instead of going through a traditional (lengthy) committee process, Republicans added the bill as a conference report, allowing them to go right to a vote.

“Why can’t this bill, if you think it’s so great, stand up to normal scrutiny?” asked Democratic Senator Natasha Marcus. “Are you afraid the public will see what you’re doing?”

North Carolina currently allows abortion up to 21 weeks, which has made it a haven for the procedure in the southern U.S. The combination of this bill and the hugely unpopular six-week ban recently signed in Florida will decimate access to abortion in the South.

* This article originally misstated Tricia Cotham’s title.