A fifteen-cent price sticker on a cigar may be the key to understanding Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court Associate Justice with strong views regarding the proper role of government.
Clarence Thomas is an outstanding jurist with a brilliant mind. Unlike many of his activist colleagues on the left, his decisions are actually based on consistent principles and not partisan politics. Justice Thomas adheres to a strict form of originalism and textualism, interpreting the Constitution based on its original public meaning at the time of adoption, rather than as a living, evolving document. His philosophy emphasizes limited government, natural law, and color-blind constitutionalism, aiming to reduce judicial discretion and uphold the "fixed meaning" of the law. The constitution should not be twisted beyond its original meaning. If Congress desires to implement an unconstitutional law, there exists methods to change the constitution.
In contrast, left-wing justices espouse a judicial philosophy that the constitution’s meaning can be reinterpreted and should be twisted to serve whatever leftist aims they have.
There were 38 gifts that he didn’t report originally. After the uproar, he reported some of them. I went online and reviewed the summaries of the few SCOTUS cases involving those billionaire friends, their companies, investments, and causes that he ruled on. None of his decisions deviate from his lifelong judicial philosophy against federal regulation, government intervention, and originalist interpretation. Justice Thomas never supported or wrote a decision that was contradictory to his judicial philosophy. If those gifts were bribes, they were the least necessary bribes in the history of bribes. Why bribe somebody who is gonna decide your way anyway? Not a good business decision. Additionally, all of those identified benefactors are lifelong friends that he continues to spend time with. You would have a case if a billionaire he didn’t know bribed him to side with the liberal justices against his well established judicial philosophy. That has never happened.
Harlan Crow is a "lifelong friend"? They met in the late '90s, when Clarence Thomas was almost 50. As for the rest of it, this is the thinnest argument you could possibly make. You should be embarrassed to have made it.
Ok. You scored a point. 30+ years isn’t life long. You really got me. As for thin argument, it is the only argument, isn’t it? You should be embarrassed to not know that. It’s the central argument that has been discussed (except by people who hate his judicial philosophy. They just say, without any proof, he was bought or “it’s the principle.”) What did he do as his part of the quid pro quos?
If you can’t point to something of value he did for these friends related to his position that they benefitted from and he obviously would not have done, you have no argument and no bribery. Point to a decision he made that doesn’t align with his judicial philosophy. Nobody can. Nobody has said Thomas obviously made a decision that, had he not been bribed, he would not have made. That is why his haters are frustrated. Had he done such, he could have been arrested and charged.
There is a specific federal criminal law that would apply in a clear quid pro quo bribery scenario involving a Supreme Court Justice like Clarence Thomas: 18 U.S.C. § 201 (Bribery of public officials and witnesses). As I noted, while critics have highlighted undisclosed or large gifts from wealthy friends (e.g., Harlan Crow), they have not demonstrated a direct link to altered rulings outside Thomas’s consistent judicial philosophy. Without that corrupt exchange, it doesn’t meet the criminal threshold for bribery (though it has raised serious ethics/disclosure issues under separate rules).
It's not so much that 30 years isn't a long time as that *he only became friends with this highly politically active billionaire AFTER he joined the Supreme Court.* That's not a minor detail -- it's entirely different in character from having a lifelong friendship that pre-dates Crow making his billions and Thomas gaining his Supreme Court seat, and you know it.
I haven't alleged bribery, but as you admit, the ethics issues are very serious. Indeed, as you say, Thomas doesn't need to be bribed to make decisions under his "lifelong judicial philosophy" (lol). The gifts aren't direct bribes -- rather, it's closer to being a made man in the mafia. He's part of the family, and for that he receives compensation... which also ensures that he remains part of the family.
Your mafia made-man thing does not make sense. In order for a man to be made in the mafia, he has to have performed notable services for the family. Thomas has done no such thing for any of his friends that people can reasonably claim is a service.
Thomas making friends after he became a justice and Crowe became wealthy is irrelevant. Every person makes acquaintances and friendships in relation to their jobs. Thomas has met many famous and wealthy people just because he is a justice. As all of them have. He became friends with a few. That is life. From there, did he do anything illegal for those friends? No. He has so many leftists watching his every move that would take any opportunity to have him removed from the bench and ruin his life, I doubt he is arrogant or stupid enough to do it.
You hit the nail on the head. Thomas does not need to be bribed to make the decisions that he would’ve made anyway. That is the issue his haters have to deal with.
He can go on accepting gifts as long as he discloses them and does not rule in a way that is arguably, in a court of law, illegal.
That's cute. You forgot the part where billionaires are buying him RVs and fancy vacations. What part of "originalism" and "textualism" and "consistent principles" is that?
Do you not give gifts to friends or go on vacations with them? None of his friend's gifts influenced his court decisions. None of the friends even had a case before the SCOTUS. If you talk to the people who work in the Supreme court building, they will tell you he is the nicest guy you would ever want to meet.
Oh, well, as long as he's a nice guy who works to make life easier for his oligarch friends at our expense.
And ah yes, who among us hasn't bought and renovated a friend's mother's house? Who among us hasn't taken our friends to Bali, all expenses paid? Totally normal stuff.
When you're a Supreme Court justice who has a documented history of complaining about money problems and you're now receiving valuable gifts from a wealthy benefactor... I think it's very clear what "expensive" is, and that it includes renovated houses and RVs and lavish trips.
The decision of what is expensive doesn’t belong to the recipient. That belongs to the giver. It is his decision to weigh the value against his wealth. I would consider an RV an expensive gift (to receive or give), but Musk probably wouldn’t.
For a man who may seek to pose as principled, we now know he has been on the take for years though we still don't know the extent of it. I think he is a disgrace.
This story reminds me or JD Vance's explanation as to why he's anti-govt., from Hillbilly Eulogy. Both blame govt policy for victimizing those they intend to help. In vance's case, it was welfare that sucked the ambition out of people and they became prey to the opioid peddlers. I find both Thomas and Vance's positions as real head starchers
For Thomas, the effort by progressives to--in their naiveté--reverse the societal impact of a century of slavery and a century of racial discrimination by implementing affirmative action, had the unintended consequences of creating a different form of discrimination. OK, I can buy that. What I don't fathom is blaming so strongly "progressives" trying to correct an injustice, and then embrace a status quo that clearly has discriminatory qualities. To suggest, as Thomas and other conservatives do, that we've made so much progress in the last 50 years to become a color-blind society after 200 years of slavery and Jim Crow (ie, systemic racism), has been proven to be wrong. As after every "progressive" policy that SCOTUS overturned--the 2012 watering own of Civil Rights Act, banning racial affirmative action or this month's Civil Rights decision) states and schools immediately changed policies that created barriers of discrimination and denial of minority rights. So SCOTUS has proven we are not a color-blind society.
Without progressivism, Clarence Thomas’ ancestors would still be slaves. And he would never have had the opportunity to get an education, much less attend Yale.
Progressivism didn’t free the slaves. Progressivism didn’t start until about 25 years after the Civil War ended. Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive champion, could hardly have been more racist. If Wilson had been alive when slavery was abolished, he would have been on the wrong side. The slaves were freed by the time Wilson became president but he was not hostile to Jim Crow. He did what he could to keep Thomas’ ancestors from advancing.
Clarence Thomas is an outstanding jurist with a brilliant mind. Unlike many of his activist colleagues on the left, his decisions are actually based on consistent principles and not partisan politics. Justice Thomas adheres to a strict form of originalism and textualism, interpreting the Constitution based on its original public meaning at the time of adoption, rather than as a living, evolving document. His philosophy emphasizes limited government, natural law, and color-blind constitutionalism, aiming to reduce judicial discretion and uphold the "fixed meaning" of the law. The constitution should not be twisted beyond its original meaning. If Congress desires to implement an unconstitutional law, there exists methods to change the constitution.
In contrast, left-wing justices espouse a judicial philosophy that the constitution’s meaning can be reinterpreted and should be twisted to serve whatever leftist aims they have.
There were 38 gifts that he didn’t report originally. After the uproar, he reported some of them. I went online and reviewed the summaries of the few SCOTUS cases involving those billionaire friends, their companies, investments, and causes that he ruled on. None of his decisions deviate from his lifelong judicial philosophy against federal regulation, government intervention, and originalist interpretation. Justice Thomas never supported or wrote a decision that was contradictory to his judicial philosophy. If those gifts were bribes, they were the least necessary bribes in the history of bribes. Why bribe somebody who is gonna decide your way anyway? Not a good business decision. Additionally, all of those identified benefactors are lifelong friends that he continues to spend time with. You would have a case if a billionaire he didn’t know bribed him to side with the liberal justices against his well established judicial philosophy. That has never happened.
Harlan Crow is a "lifelong friend"? They met in the late '90s, when Clarence Thomas was almost 50. As for the rest of it, this is the thinnest argument you could possibly make. You should be embarrassed to have made it.
Ok. You scored a point. 30+ years isn’t life long. You really got me. As for thin argument, it is the only argument, isn’t it? You should be embarrassed to not know that. It’s the central argument that has been discussed (except by people who hate his judicial philosophy. They just say, without any proof, he was bought or “it’s the principle.”) What did he do as his part of the quid pro quos?
If you can’t point to something of value he did for these friends related to his position that they benefitted from and he obviously would not have done, you have no argument and no bribery. Point to a decision he made that doesn’t align with his judicial philosophy. Nobody can. Nobody has said Thomas obviously made a decision that, had he not been bribed, he would not have made. That is why his haters are frustrated. Had he done such, he could have been arrested and charged.
There is a specific federal criminal law that would apply in a clear quid pro quo bribery scenario involving a Supreme Court Justice like Clarence Thomas: 18 U.S.C. § 201 (Bribery of public officials and witnesses). As I noted, while critics have highlighted undisclosed or large gifts from wealthy friends (e.g., Harlan Crow), they have not demonstrated a direct link to altered rulings outside Thomas’s consistent judicial philosophy. Without that corrupt exchange, it doesn’t meet the criminal threshold for bribery (though it has raised serious ethics/disclosure issues under separate rules).
It's not so much that 30 years isn't a long time as that *he only became friends with this highly politically active billionaire AFTER he joined the Supreme Court.* That's not a minor detail -- it's entirely different in character from having a lifelong friendship that pre-dates Crow making his billions and Thomas gaining his Supreme Court seat, and you know it.
I haven't alleged bribery, but as you admit, the ethics issues are very serious. Indeed, as you say, Thomas doesn't need to be bribed to make decisions under his "lifelong judicial philosophy" (lol). The gifts aren't direct bribes -- rather, it's closer to being a made man in the mafia. He's part of the family, and for that he receives compensation... which also ensures that he remains part of the family.
Your mafia made-man thing does not make sense. In order for a man to be made in the mafia, he has to have performed notable services for the family. Thomas has done no such thing for any of his friends that people can reasonably claim is a service.
Thomas making friends after he became a justice and Crowe became wealthy is irrelevant. Every person makes acquaintances and friendships in relation to their jobs. Thomas has met many famous and wealthy people just because he is a justice. As all of them have. He became friends with a few. That is life. From there, did he do anything illegal for those friends? No. He has so many leftists watching his every move that would take any opportunity to have him removed from the bench and ruin his life, I doubt he is arrogant or stupid enough to do it.
You hit the nail on the head. Thomas does not need to be bribed to make the decisions that he would’ve made anyway. That is the issue his haters have to deal with.
He can go on accepting gifts as long as he discloses them and does not rule in a way that is arguably, in a court of law, illegal.
That's cute. You forgot the part where billionaires are buying him RVs and fancy vacations. What part of "originalism" and "textualism" and "consistent principles" is that?
Do you not give gifts to friends or go on vacations with them? None of his friend's gifts influenced his court decisions. None of the friends even had a case before the SCOTUS. If you talk to the people who work in the Supreme court building, they will tell you he is the nicest guy you would ever want to meet.
Oh, well, as long as he's a nice guy who works to make life easier for his oligarch friends at our expense.
And ah yes, who among us hasn't bought and renovated a friend's mother's house? Who among us hasn't taken our friends to Bali, all expenses paid? Totally normal stuff.
I have both been given and received expensive gifts from friends. Obviously, a person’s wealth informs decisions about what “expensive” is.
When you're a Supreme Court justice who has a documented history of complaining about money problems and you're now receiving valuable gifts from a wealthy benefactor... I think it's very clear what "expensive" is, and that it includes renovated houses and RVs and lavish trips.
The decision of what is expensive doesn’t belong to the recipient. That belongs to the giver. It is his decision to weigh the value against his wealth. I would consider an RV an expensive gift (to receive or give), but Musk probably wouldn’t.
Unfortunately his bitterness has consumed his life and his judgement damaged our country.
It’s a sad testament to achieve so much under such a difficult early life.
For a man who may seek to pose as principled, we now know he has been on the take for years though we still don't know the extent of it. I think he is a disgrace.
He’s an embarrassment, plain and simple. And the 15 cent sticker is 14 cents overpriced.
Clarence Thomas would find the Emancipation Proclamation unconstitutional
This story reminds me or JD Vance's explanation as to why he's anti-govt., from Hillbilly Eulogy. Both blame govt policy for victimizing those they intend to help. In vance's case, it was welfare that sucked the ambition out of people and they became prey to the opioid peddlers. I find both Thomas and Vance's positions as real head starchers
For Thomas, the effort by progressives to--in their naiveté--reverse the societal impact of a century of slavery and a century of racial discrimination by implementing affirmative action, had the unintended consequences of creating a different form of discrimination. OK, I can buy that. What I don't fathom is blaming so strongly "progressives" trying to correct an injustice, and then embrace a status quo that clearly has discriminatory qualities. To suggest, as Thomas and other conservatives do, that we've made so much progress in the last 50 years to become a color-blind society after 200 years of slavery and Jim Crow (ie, systemic racism), has been proven to be wrong. As after every "progressive" policy that SCOTUS overturned--the 2012 watering own of Civil Rights Act, banning racial affirmative action or this month's Civil Rights decision) states and schools immediately changed policies that created barriers of discrimination and denial of minority rights. So SCOTUS has proven we are not a color-blind society.
Without progressivism, Clarence Thomas’ ancestors would still be slaves. And he would never have had the opportunity to get an education, much less attend Yale.
Progressivism didn’t free the slaves. Progressivism didn’t start until about 25 years after the Civil War ended. Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive champion, could hardly have been more racist. If Wilson had been alive when slavery was abolished, he would have been on the wrong side. The slaves were freed by the time Wilson became president but he was not hostile to Jim Crow. He did what he could to keep Thomas’ ancestors from advancing.
Thank you for adding to my knowledge of Justice Thomas. He is a man of principle; a man of the Constitution.
CLARENCE THOMAS WALKED
THROUGH EVERY OPEN DOOR CREATED FOR HIM BECAUSE OF HIS RACE THEN SHUT THEM ALL BEHIND HIM SO NO ONE ELSE CAN GET THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES HE DID.