Clarence Thomas is catching hell on social media for his erratic extremism. And rightfully so. The Supreme Court Justice expressed a desire to revisit several rulings that could change America as we know it. More inside…
America is starting to feel the ramifications of voting Donald Trump into office in 2016.
As you recall, Trump nominated three justices during his single term presidency, including Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, promising to appoint justices who “would stand up for the original meaning of the Constitution” and “honestly and faithfully interpret the law as written.”
Now, those justices are carrying out the plans of right-wing conservatives. The three Trump-appointed justices voted in favor of overturning the landmark 1973 ruling of Roe vs. Wade, which protected a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion. The vote was 5-4 in favor of overturning Roe.
With that victory under their belt, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wants to wreak MORE havoc on America.
The conservative justice – who is the second African American to serve on the court & the current court’s longest-serving justic – recently expressed his willingness to revisit AND undo a 1964 ruling (New York Times v. Sullivan) that makes it difficult to sue media outlets for defamation and libel.
FLASHBACK: In 1991, Joe Biden wondered out loud if Clarence Thomas was playing the long game on abortion pic.twitter.com/BCWAEHRAjG
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 27, 2022
Last week, he issued a dissenting opinion after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Christian nonprofit group that sued the Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-leaning watchdog, after it labeled the Christian organization a hate group.
The NY Post reports:
Coral Ridge Ministries Media filed suit against the SPLC, a left-leaning watchdog, after it labeled the Christian organization a hate group.
The lawsuit sought to upend the precedent established by New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 court case which set a high bar for public officials to sue for defamation.
“I would grant certiorari in this case to revisit the ‘actual malice’ standard,” Thomas wrote in his dissent. “This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’”
Thomas wrote: “SPLC’s ‘hate group’ designation lumped Coral Ridge’s Christian ministry with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis. It placed Coral Ridge on an interactive, online ‘Hate Map’ and caused Coral Ridge concrete financial injury by excluding it from the AmazonSmile donation program. Nonetheless, unable to satisfy the ‘almost impossible’ actual-malice standard this Court has imposed, Coral Ridge could not hold SPLC to account for what it maintains is a blatant falsehood.”
The Supreme Court decided Sullivan in 1964, after a federal district court in Alabama found that a civil rights organization’s ad in the New York Times had damaged the reputation of an Alabama sheriff who was identified by implication in the ad.
You can read his full dissent here.
One of Trump’s appointed justices – Neil Gorsuch – agrees with Thomas that New York Times v. Sullivan should be revisited.
Democrats warned that the Supreme Court would seek to undo other constitutional rights if it overturned Roe v. Wade and that’s exactly what’s happening. American rights like school segregation, gay marriage and birth control/contraception are now in danger of being overturned!
Thomas wrote that the justices “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell” — referring to three cases having to do with Americans’ fundamental privacy, due process and equal protection rights. You can read more here.
Justice Clarence Thomas today said he wants to overturn Griswold (right to use contraceptives), Lawrence (right to engage in private consensual sex), and Obergefell (right to same-sex marriage), but he never mentioned Loving (right to interracial marriage).
I wonder why? pic.twitter.com/CqH8mg8kyU
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 24, 2022
Folks have been letting Clarence HAVE IT online, specifically pointing out if Loving vs. Virginia was overturned. Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman named Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. Loving vs. Virginia protects the right to interracial marriage.
Strange that Clarence Thomas didn’t mention the Loving decision. You know, the one that made it ok for him to marry his white insurrectionist wife.
— @ (@SundaeDivine) June 24, 2022
Hollywood veteran Samuel L. Jackson also reacted to Thomas’ comments, tweeting:
How’s Uncle Clarence feeling about Overturning Loving v Virginia??!!
— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) June 25, 2022
”How’s Uncle Clarence feeling about Overturning Loving v Virginia??!!”
”The View” co-host Whoppi Goldberg delivered a scathing warning to Clarence during Monday’s episode, telling him he “better HOPE they don’t come for you, Clarence, and say you should not be married to your wife, who happens to be white.”
Watch the clip below:
“I appreciate everybody’s religion, but I do not subscribe to your religion. I don’t ask you to subscribe to mine.”@WhoopiGoldberg on the overturning of Roe v. Wade: https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/QTsc60yHDU
— The View (@TheView) June 27, 2022
Former First Lady & Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on “CBS Mornings” with Gayle King to talk about her experiences with Clarence Thomas. Needless to say, they weren’t good.
Hillary Clinton says Clarence Thomas has been “a person of resentment, grievance, anger” his whole life, since law school when she knew him.
“A person of resentment, grievance, anger.” Again, nothing is more fascinating (or flexible) than the rules of liberal discourse. https://t.co/u73RyqVAko
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 28, 2022
A petition organized by MoveOn, a pubic policy advocacy group, is calling for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and it has passed 300,000 signatures. There’s no mention of Roe vs. Wade, however, it focuses on how he and his wife were involved in the January 6th Capitol insurrection.
BREAKING: Rep. Ilhan Omar calls for a full impeachment investigation into Justice Clarence Thomas’s role in the Jan. 6th Trump coup attempt as well as into Gorsuch, Alito, Barett, and Kavanaugh for lying under oath during their confirmation hearings. RT IF YOU STAND WITH ILHAN!
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) June 27, 2022
The petition reads “It has become clear that his wife—longtime conservative activist Ginni Thomas—was actively urging the White House to overturn election results both leading up to January 6 and after the deadly insurrection.”
“And it’s only the latest in a long history of conflicts of interest in the service of a right-wing agenda and mixing his powerful role with his conservative political activism. He has shown he cannot be an impartial justice and is more concerned with covering up his wife’s coup attempts than the health of the Supreme Court. He must resign—or Congress must immediately investigate and impeach.”
You can read more and sign the petition here.
Thoughts?
EXTRAS:
1. Three people have been killed and at least 50 injured when an Amtrak train derailed in Missouri after hitting dump truck. STORY
Photo: AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe/Susan L. Angstadt/Shutterstock