[Ed Note: I will be discussing this matter with Common Cause president, Bob Edgard, while guest hosting tonight’s Mike Malloy Show. – BF]
Picking up on The BRAD BLOG’s coverage last week, offering new and exclusive details on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ 20 years of financial disclosure crimes, and the specific legal penalties — including jail time — that he ought to be very worried about (if accountability was ever appropriately brought to folks on the Right) Nancy Goldstein at Alternet today quotes me in her new article asking “Why Does Clarence Thomas Get Away With Breaking the Law, As His Wife Shills for Wealthy Right-Wingers?”
I’m quoted at the beginning of her report, as follows…
Journalist Brad Friedman, whose Brad Blog offers a detailed account of the Thomas fiasco, notes that this same set of circumstances would play out completely differently if the shoe were on the other foot. As Friedman told me, “If it were Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg not reporting a million dollars from working for ACORN, the right wing would be all over it and so would the press — until someone from the Department of Justice agreed to prosecute. The right wing, and eventually the media, would say that Ginsburg should have known the rule of law; they’d be all over her for receiving ‘special treatment,’ and she’d be gone in a week.”
Please read the full column here, as the coverage from the mainstream corporate media to date, as we detailed in our own article last week as well, has been remarkably bad, completely misleading, and/or non-existent. So our thanks to Goldstein for picking up the ball, examining the issue closely, and advancing the story as it needs to be, and as the mainstream corporate media ought to be doing (and would be doing, as noted above, if the Justice who had falsified his or her financial reports had been a Democratic appointee.)
On this topic, I’ll be interviewing Common Cause president Bob Edgar tonight as I guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show once again. (I’ll be doing so all week.)
Common Cause deserves great credit for originally breaking the story of Thomas’ improprieties about two long weeks ago, in regard to the hundreds of thousands of dollars received by his wife from Rightwing political special interest groups, and subsequently not reported, year after year, by Thomas on his Financial Disclosure Report filings.
The group is now asking the Dept. of Justice to review whether or not last years horrific Citizens United ruling ought to be vacated in light of direct conflicts of interest, or, at the very least, the clear appearance thereof, by both Justices Thomas and Anton Scalia who privately met with leaders of RW organizations who ended up directly benefiting from that landmark SCOTUS ruling.
Common Cause has created a petition calling on the DoJ to investigate that conflict of interest right here
As well, ProtectOurElections.org [a campaign of VelvetRevolution.us, which, since we actually believe in disclosure, is co-founded by The BRAD BLOG] also has a petition calling for the DoJ to prosecute Thomas for his crimes, right here. They have also created a letter to Congress, which you may sign, asking them to investigate and impeach Thomas as appropriate, right here.
If the media (and therefore, the Dept. of Justice) fail to properly investigate and report on this story, it’s up to the people to make noise to force them to do so.
Egypt’s citizens have done much more, at the risk of death and torture. I suspect you can click a few buttons on your computer to help restore justice to this country, at the very least.
Nice…
I think I might become a judge after all. It would beat grinding granite all day! Who else gets away with busting the law and the lawbreakers alike?
Hey! This is good news!
Or is it? I just can’t tell anymore. Unfortunately I side-read this as “Republicans lost this one out of ignorance. They won’t make that mistake again.” They’ve toned down the xenophobic homophobic class warfare speech since the Tucson shooting…this is the perfect opportunity for the ‘power’ right – the corporate GOP – to ramp up the fear and get those tea-partiers back on the boat.
Check out the latest CELEBRATION IN GREEN BAY WISCONSIN!
Take a look – no one parties like packer fans!
Arbitrary application of the rule of law indicates that there is really no rule and no law.
The US inJustice system is pay for play only…. and apparently JT is a paying customer.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
I wish we could circulate some mis-information that Supreme Court Judge Sotomayor had been getting paid by the ACLU, or MOVEON.org and watch rightwing reactions for a few days.
The VOILA! It would be revealed as a trick, and we could go ahead with the ACTUAL PROSECUTIon of Mr. Thomas, after the wingnuts had demanded Sotomayor’s impeachment.
“A week from Tuesday, when the Supreme Court returns from its midwinter break and hears arguments in two criminal cases, it will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during a court argument.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/us/13thomas.html?hp
Another financial discrepancy for Thomas – unreported gift for 2008 Koch retreat.
Common Cause Asks Court About Thomas Speech
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/us/politics/15thomas.html?src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB