Or maybe, just add another justice or five to SCOTUS (of my choosing, obvs)?
Clarence Thomas is useless. We all know it. He hasn’t spoken in Court in five years. Not one question. Not one “Say that again?” Not one “Do you smell that?” Not one “Asphinctersayswhat?”
He just sits there — silent in his black robe — like a non-ambulatory ninja.
Well, as it so happens, he might be is a crook also, too:
When questions were first raised about the retreat last month, a court spokeswoman said Justice Thomas had made a “brief drop-by” at the event in Palm Springs, Calif., in January 2008 and had given a talk.
In his financial disclosure report for that year, however, Justice Thomas reported that the Federalist Society, a prominent conservative legal group, had reimbursed him an undisclosed amount for four days of “transportation, meals and accommodations” over the weekend of the retreat. The event is organized by Charles and David Koch, brothers who have used millions of dollars from the energy conglomerate they run in Wichita, Kan., to finance conservative causes.
Arn Pearson, a vice president at the advocacy group Common Cause, said the two statements appeared at odds. His group sent a letter to the Supreme Court on Monday asking for “further clarification” as to whether the justice spent four days at the retreat for the entire event or was there only briefly.
“I don’t think the explanation they’ve given is credible,” Mr. Pearson said in an interview. He said that if Justice Thomas’s visit was a “four-day, all-expenses paid trip in sunny Palm Springs,” it should have been reported as a gift under federal law.
The Supreme Court had no comment on the issue Monday. Nor did officials at the Federalist Society or at Koch Industries.
Common Cause maintains that Justice Thomas should have disqualified himself from last year’s landmark campaign finance ruling in the Citizens United case, partly because of his ties to the Koch brothers.
He should have recused himself. Full stop.
::crosses fingers for Obama to go straight FDR on everybody’s asses and pack the Court::
It could totally work, y’all. Right? No? Maybe?
Sigh.
[cross-posted here at Balloon Juice]
Justice Thomas reminds me of Dr. Bledsoe from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man :
“…I’ve made my place in [the world], and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.”
“You let the white folk worry about pride and dignity — you learn where you are and get yourself power, influence, contacts with powerful and influential people — then stay in the dark and use it!”
Clarence Thomas needs a Koch block!
heh. nice!
I miss Thurgood Marshall.
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Lady there has always a double standard for rebup then dem , so nothing going happen.
This guys doesn’t say a word and then tacks on the everything Scalia says/writes. Where is the evidence that other than showing up he is doing the job that he gets paid to do?