An Open Letter Denouncing the Attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas

[Camille]

I agree with you but in this case, it isn't a fight worth my energy.

And while we defending Clarence he is continuing to make rulings that threaten black folks and making his votes based on what his dear wife is telling him to do.

And I also know the strategy of those using the fact he has melanin to discredit the description.

This is the shit Candace Owens and Stacy Dash do. Black when convenient

Has any of the blacker than black signatories ever called out Thomas?

I don't think anyone in this thread (well hardly anyone) is defending HIM. White folks shouldn't be calling ANY black person the n word or determining who is a coon. There are a million different insults they can freely choose from with out going down that road. They can be told to watch their mouth and know their place and we can shit on Thomas at the same time.

 

[Gods_Debris]

Being a coon means I don't have to defend you. Clarence ain't been black in a long time. I could give two shits what a white person says about his Ass. He's rich and powerful for life he is in no way in need of my defense.

Fuck him. If he's called a nigga everyday for the rest of his life it would be karmatic

Agreed.. karmic btw

 

[daddyfatsacks9000]

The reason is because his opinion mentioned other cases that had been settled as precedent to perhaps reviewing them...he brought this on himself

Link to article - Link



Could Clarence Thomas’s Dobbs concurrence signal a future attack on LGBTQ rights?
Samuel Alito’s majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade insists LGBTQ rights are safe. Thomas’s disturbing concurrence exposes the incoherence of that claim.

By Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchampzack@vox.com Jun 24, 2022, 2:36pm EDT


In the Supreme Court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito writes that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurrence, suggests otherwise.

Thomas voted with the 6-3 majority that struck down Roe. In a concurring opinion, however, he expressed the view that he would go further — much further — than the majority in thinking through the implications of today’s decision. One passage in particular captured people’s attention:


The key concept is the term “substantive due process,” which refers to the idea that the Constitution protects rights that are neither purely procedural (like rights to fair trial procedures) nor explicitly mentioned in the Constitution (like the freedom of the press). Thomas is arguing that such “unenumerated” rights are basically made up: not just the right to abortion protected in Roe, but also protections for birth control in Griswold v. Connecticut, same-sex sexual relations in Lawrence v. Texas, and same-sex marriage in Obergefell.

This does not mean that these rights are necessarily in danger now. In fact, such future rulings may well be unlikely. Thomas has a long history of unsuccessfully calling for the overruling of longstanding precedent, and Alito’s majority opinion goes out of its way again and again to emphasize that it would not have the implications Thomas wants. Together, these facts suggest that the other conservative justices are wary of going down the road Thomas is paving, and that he would have few votes for enacting his extraordinarily radical vision.


But just because it’s unlikely doesn’t make the possibility any less chilling when spelled out in a Supreme Court concurrence. And Thomas’s concurrence exposes the incoherent logic at the heart of Alito’s ruling — and a fundamental problem with the way the Supreme Court operates.

How Thomas exposed the majority’s incoherence
The basic argument in Alito’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health is that there is no explicit constitutional protection for abortion rights, and that any right not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” in order to qualify for constitutional protection. Abortion, he argues, does not pass this test.

But if abortion fails, it’s hard to see how rights to same-sex marriage and contraception pass. Though Thomas’s reasoning is far more extreme than the majority’s, his concurrence shows that it’s difficult to put a limiting principle on a ruling rolling back these legally interconnected rights. The Court can declare all it wants that this ruling only applies in one case, but it becomes harder to see why once you start following the logic.

It’s not just Thomas who sees that. It’s also an argument that the liberal minority — Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor — make in their joint dissent:


The majority’s response to this argument is that abortion is somehow a unique case: “rights regarding contraception and same-sex relationships are inherently different from the right to abortion because the latter (as we have stressed) uniquely involves what Roe and Casey termed ‘potential life.’” It’s worth noting that this reassurance was in the final opinion, but not in the version that was leaked in May.

But the fact that abortion raises questions about ending lives does not make it any more or less “deeply rooted in our history”: it’s an act of pure legal handwaving, an invention of a standard designed to escape the obvious consequences of Alito’s own logic.

Nor is there any clear reason in the Dobbs treatment of stare decisis, the principle that courts generally ought to adhere to precedent, that would prevent its logic from being applied to these other landmark constitutional cases. Some of the Court’s reasons that Roe was so egregiously bad that it deserved to be overturned — that it, for example, “usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people” — could also apply to Griswold or Obergefell.

Instead of setting up clear standards, it seems that Alito and his colleagues are trying to make the problem exposed by Thomas and the dissenters disappear: to assert that their logic doesn’t apply to what it obviously does.

As a practical matter, this might very well work: The Court majority is not bound by any formal rules other than the ones it decides on. It can simply do whatever it wants for whatever reason it wants; if it does not want to extend the logic of its own ruling to similar cases for arbitrary reasons, it can easily do that.

But this should reveal to the rest of us that what Alito and company are doing is not simply following legal principles wherever they lead: They are exercising power, reshaping the law according to their own political beliefs and calculations about potential political backlash.

Ironically, a ruling decrying the Court behaving like a legislature is engaged in much the same enterprise. And this, in turn, raises the question of whether nine unelected judges really should have the power we’ve given them.

Correction, 3 pm: A sentence previously included in this article referred to Clarence Thomas’s dissent instead of concurrence. He voted with the 6-3 majority to overturn Roe.

IDGAF if Clarence Thomas is going around kicking the shit outta LGBT, puppies, trans, white babies, anyone, I WILL NEVER CO-SIGN CACS CALLING ANY BLACK MAN *insert racial slur*. Period. It don't matter if he's a coon to us. We can say that shit. They can't. Just like the "n" word. We can call each other that shit all day. Soon as some white person jumps in, we got immediate beef. Every nigga on this board knows Judge Thomas is a POS. We don't need white folks to tell us what we already know just to get their undercover racist jollies off.

 

[lightbright]

An Open Letter Denouncing the Attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas


"White progressives do not have the moral authority to excommunicate a black man from his race because they disagree with him.


And those – regardless of background – who join in the charade or remain silent are guilty of enabling this abuse.


We, the undersigned, condemn the barrage of racist, vicious, and ugly personal attacks that we are witnessing on Clarence Thomas – a sitting Supreme Court justice. Whether it is calling him a racist slur, an “Uncle Tom” or questioning his “blackness” over his jurisprudence, the disparagement of this man, of his faith and of his character, is abominable.


Regardless of where one stands on Justice Thomas’ personal or legal opinions, he is among the pantheon of black trailblazers throughout American history and is a model of integrity, scholarship, steadfastness, resilience, and commitment to the Constitution of the United States of America. For three decades Justice Thomas has served as a model for our children. He has long been honored and celebrated by black people in this country and his attackers do not speak for the majority of blacks.


He is entirely undeserving of the vitriol directed at him. Character assassination has become too convenient a tool for eviscerating those who dare dissent from the prevailing agenda, especially when it is a black man who is dissenting."




This is not about the content of the court’s decisions or Justice Thomas’ personal views; some of the undersigned agree with his judicial decisions and some do not. We speak out – as black people and Americans – to condemn these attacks and support Justice Thomas, because to remain silent would be to implicitly endorse these poisonous schemes as well as his destruction.


Sincerely,


Glenn Loury
Professor of Economics
Brown University
Providence, RI



Robert Woodson Sr.
Founder and President
The Woodson Center
Washington, DC


Charles Love, Executive Director, Seeking Educational Excellence, New York, NY
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA




W. Barclay Allen, Havre de Grace, MD
Christopher Arps, Co-founder, Move-On-Up.org, St. Louis, MO
Dr. Lisa Babbage, Babbage America, Suwanee, GA
Leon Benjamin, Pastor, Life Harvest Church, Richmond, VA
Claston Bernard , Olympian, Author, Former Congressional Candidate, Gonzales, LA
Shamike Bethea, Fredrick Douglass Foundation of NC, Fayetteville, NC
Harold A. Black, Emeritus Professor University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
Kenneth Blackwell, Chairman, Conservative Action Project, OH
Tony Blount, Member / Coalition of Concerned Freedmen, New York, NY
Jordan R. Bolds ,New York, NY
Robert Bracy, President/Pinnacle Business Management, New York, NY
David Brooks, Former Rich Township IL Republican Committeeman, Indianapolis, IN
Janice Rogers Brown, Gardnerville, NV
John Sibley Butler, Austin, TX
Don Carey, City Councilman, Chesapeake, VA
Tess Chakkalakal, Associate Professor, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
Jeff Charles, Podcaster, Writer, Political Commentator, Jacksonville, FL
Gabrielle Clark, Houston, TX
Adam B. Coleman, Founder of Wrong Speak Publishing, Piscataway, NJ
Melanie Collette, Host, Money Talk with Melanie Cape May Court House, NJ
Ward Connerly, President of the American Civil Rights Institute, Coeur d'Alene, ID
D. Daniels, GA
Kira A. Davis, Deputy Managing Editor, RedState, Ladera Ranch, CA
Rod Dorilás, GOP Candidate, Florida 22nd Congressional District, West Palm Beach, FL
Patricia Rae Easley, Black Excellence Media, Chicago, IL
Larry Elder, President of Elder for America PAC, Los Angeles, CA
Rev. Joe Ellison Jr., City Chaplain Ministries, Richmond, VA
Melvin Everson, Former State Rep, Snellville, GA
Nique Fajors, St. Louis, MO
Yaya J. Fanusie, Chief Strategist, Cryptocurrency AML Strategies, Columbia, MD
George Farrell, Chair of BlakPac,Washington, DC
Chavis Jennings, Highland, IN
Casey Felin, ThatGirlCasey Media, Philadelphia, PA
LaTasha H. Fields, Team Illinois, Chicago, IL
Marie Fischer, JEXIT, Baltimore, MD
Kali Fontanilla, Founder of Exodus Institute, Sarasota, FL
Roland Fryer, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Edwin A. Fynn, Merrillville, IN
Verlon Galloway, Gary, IN
Dr. Derryck Green, Sacramento, CA
Kermit E. Hairston, Stone Mountain, GA
Christopher Harris, Executive Director of Unhyphenated America, Fairfax County, VA
Clarence Henderson, President Frederick Douglass Foundation of N. Carolina, High Point, NC
Ismael Hernandez, Founder/President/Freedom & Virtue Institute, Fort Myers, FL
Curtis Hill, Former Indiana Attorney General, Elkhart, IN
Deidre Hulett, Gary, IN
Daniel Idfresne, 18-Year-Old Political Commentator, New York City, NY
Niger Innis, Chairman, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Las Vegas, NV
Kevin Jackson, Founder/The Kevin Jackson Network, Gilbert, AZ
Nikki Johnson, MD, Cleveland, OH
Leonydus Johnson, Host of Informed Dissent, Oak Hill, OH
Diante Johnson, President, Black Conservative Federation, Arlington, VA
Christopher Jones, Pastor, Atlanta, GA
Seneca Jones, Dallas, TX
Khansa Jones-Muhammad, Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Alveda King, Concerned Citizen, Atlanta, GA
Lisa Kinnemore, Stone Mountain, GA
Garry Kinnemore, Stone Mountain, GA
Matthew P. Kreutz, Frederick Douglass Foundation of New York, Medina, NY
Chaplain Ayesha Kreutz, Frederick Douglass Foundation of New York, Medina, NY
Princess Kuevor, Columbus, OH
Michael Lancaster, Frederick Douglass Foundation, Stone Mountain, GA
Mitchell Lomax, Ellicott City, MD
Pamela Denise Long, Nat'l Coordinator, Coalition of Concerned Freedmen, St. Louis, MO
Barrington D. Martin II, Atlanta, GA
Linda Matthews, Frederick Douglass Foundation Ohio, Cincinnati, OH
Kevin McGary, Co-Founder Every Black Life Matters (EBLM), Dallas, TX
John McWhorter, New York, NY
Shemeka Michelle, Author, Durham, NC
Cashmere Miller, Atlanta, GA
Montrail Miller, FDF, GA
Lucas E. Morel, Professor of Politics, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA
Brian Mullins, Black Community Collaborative, Chicago, IL
Scherie Murray, Director, Unite the Fight PAC, Laurelton, NY
Dr. Lorenzo Neal, New Bethel AME Church, Jackson, MS
Dean Nelson, Frederick Douglass Foundation, Washington, DC
Morris W. O'Kelly, On-air personality, KFI AM640/iHeartRadio, Los Angeles, CA
Tim Parrish, Founder, Right Appeal PAC, Woodbridge, VA
Lonnie Poindexter, LionChasersNetwork.org, Washington, DC
Jon Ponder, Chief Executive Officer, Hope For Prisoners, Las Vegas, NV
Wilfred Reilly, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY
Deon Richmond, Studio City, CA
Donique Rolle, Educator, Orlando, FL
Ian V. Rowe, Senior Visiting Fellow, The Woodson Center, New York, NY
Sheryl R. Sellaway, Founder, Righteous PR Agency, Johns Creek, GA
Erec Smith, Assoc. Professor of Rhetoric/Co-founder Free Black Thought, York, PA
Dr. Felicity Joy Solomon, Shorewood, IL
Delano Squires, Contributor, Blaze Media, Washington, DC
Rebekah Star, New York, NY
Dr. Carol M. Swain, Be the People News, Nashville, TN
David Sypher Jr., Political Strategist, Rahway, NJ
Dr. Linda Lee Tarver, President, Tarver Consulting, Lansing, MI
Greg Thomas, Stratford, CT
Roderick Threats, Black Patriot Media Group, Palm Beach, FL
Jimmy Lee Tillman II, Founder/President, Martin Luther King Republicans, Chicago, IL
Stephanie W. Trussell, Republican Candidate for LTG Illinois, Lisle, IL
Jesse C. Turner, Senior Pastor, The Historic Elm Grove Baptist Church, Pine Bluff, AR
Bettye H. Tyler, Marvellous Works, Inc., Jackson, MS
Helen Tyner, Parents for a Better Englewood, Chicago, IL
Dr. Eric M. Wallace, Freedom's Journal Institute, Flossmoor, IL
Marcus Watkins, Michigan Republican Assembly, Romulus, MI
Curtis Watkins, Uplift & Restore Community Development Corp., Michigan City, IN
Cindy Werner, State Ambassador, Frederick Douglass Foundation-WI, Milwaukee, WI
Devon Westhill, President/General Counsel, Center for Equal Opportunity, Washington, DC
Jason Whitlock, Host of Fearless with Jason Whitlock, Nashville, TN
Christopher Wilson, Indianapolis, IN
Kuna Winding, Chicago, IL
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Aryca Woodson, Communications Consultant, IN
John Wood Jr., Opinion Columnist, USA Today, Los Angeles, CA
Michael E. Wooten, Former Administrator, Federal Procurement Policy, Woodbridge, VA

They should make a movie about this....
"Attack of the Coons"
"Coons Revenge"



.

 

[NightMare Paint]

Y'all are rooting for Clarence the Coon?

It's the same CAC trolls and "free-thinker" dipshits who are as deep as a puddle of hog piss.

 

[BKF]

I don't think anyone in this thread (well hardly anyone) is defending HIM. White folks shouldn't be calling ANY black person the n word or determining who is a coon. There are a million different insults they can freely choose from with out going down that road. They can be told to watch their mouth and know their place and we can shit on Thomas at the same time.

The question though is where have these folks been? Since they are so worried about white folk calling "highly dignified" black folk out of their name? When Trump and other white folk were questioning Obama's blackness and intelligence you heard nothing from these same folk. Btw their open letter isn't just about white folk (which is just a red herring) but black folk calling Thomas a coon.

Elections are on there way and these folks are just dropping this out as part of a voter suppression tactic.

 

[c_commander]

Fuck that letter!!! Fuck Clarence!!! And fuck anybody who likes that piece of shit!!!

 

[c_commander]

....What does the opinion say my friend? I'll wait.

That's the case that weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that called for states with a racist history against black people and some jurisdictions in the state of Michigan to get clearance from the federal government before being allowed to enact changes to their voting laws. In the oral arguments some judges seemed to buy the belief that Obama's election along with the bill getting an unanimous vote the last time that it had come before the Senate as reasons why that particular statute was no longer necessary. Of course their decision in that case has let voter suppression attempts in places like Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina not long after their ruling and further attempts by other states to suppress the black vote.
And for his part Clarence said

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional in addition to Section 4. He wrote that the blatant discrimination against certain voters that Section 5 was intended to prohibit is no longer evident. Without such extraordinary circumstances, Congress cannot constitutionally justify placing the burden of Section 5 on the states in question.

 

[Tito_Jackson]

I don't think anyone in this thread (well hardly anyone) is defending HIM. White folks shouldn't be calling ANY black person the n word or determining who is a coon. There are a million different insults they can freely choose from with out going down that road. They can be told to watch their mouth and know their place and we can shit on Thomas at the same time.

This!!

Most people know my stances on issues. However, I am also very pro-black. Justice Thomas has a responsibility to black folk whether he acknowledges it or not. He has failed in that.

Nonetheless, no CAC has the right to call this brother a monkey, coon, ni$%er, etc. Especially over f'n abortion.

Think about that. White liberals felt so comfortable around black democrats that over abortion that they openly called this man all types of racist tropes.

What many of you do not see is, they are showing you that they have zero respect for black folk. They only tolerate you as long as you march to their beat. They would never call someone they disagreed with a spic, kike, fag, or chink. But calling you a ni$%er is OK.

Here is the mind blowing part, Clarence is one of 5!!!! He wasn't the only the vote. But but.....

 

[Tito_Jackson]

 

[Tito_Jackson]

 

[crossovernegro]

Yup, already answered on the last page.... Not sure why he wanted the info.... if he wanted to debate the (non-existent) merits of it or what.... but he asked and was given the answer.

...and since that decision, the same usual suspects have been doing the kind of shit that Roberts and Ruckus implied was no longer anything to worry about because all that was in the past.

That's the case that weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that called for states with a racist history against black people and some jurisdictions in the state of Michigan to get clearance from the federal government before being allowed to enact changes to their voting laws. In the oral arguments some judges seemed to buy the belief that Obama's election along with the bill getting an unanimous vote the last time that it had come before the Senate as reasons why that particular statute was no longer necessary. Of course their decision in that case has let voter suppression attempts in places like Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina not long after their ruling and further attempts by other states to suppress the black vote.
And for his part Clarence said

 

[Soul On Ice]

This!!

Most people know my stances on issues. However, I am also very pro-black. Justice Thomas has a responsibility to black folk whether he acknowledges it or not. He has failed in that.

Nonetheless, no CAC has the right to call this brother a monkey, coon, ni$%er, etc. Especially over f'n abortion.

Think about that. White liberals felt so comfortable around black democrats that over abortion that they openly called this man all types of racist tropes.

What many of you do not see is, they are showing you that they have zero respect for black folk. They only tolerate you as long as you march to their beat. They would never call someone they disagreed with a spic, kike, fag, or chink. But calling you a ni$%er is OK.

Here is the mind blowing part, Clarence is one of 5!!!! He wasn't the only the vote. But but.....

@shaddyvillethug was right..
Tito do be killing yawl

 

[The Plutonian]

Judge be snapping like a mf. He batshit crazy too but I can respect the man.

 

[xfactor]

nBGOL pro-whites took a group photo.

 

[xfactor]

 

[daddyfatsacks9000]

What many of you do not see is, they are showing you that they have zero respect for black folk. They only tolerate you as long as you march to their beat. They would never call someone they disagreed with a spic, kike, fag, or chink. But calling you a ni$%er is OK.

Here is the mind blowing part, Clarence is one of 5!!!! He wasn't the only the vote. But but.....

Why is it so difficult for folks to understand two things to be true at the same time. CT is a coon. HOWEVER, white folks get zero passes when it comes to throwing that hard "er" especially in political spaces and on social media. One doesn't negate the other. I old y'all weeks ago in the Roe v Wade thread. That nigga is about to be the boogieman. Niggas told me my Twitter and Google was broke. It don't matter what side of the issue you're on, I saw it coming.

 

[dbluesun]

fuck him.his bitch.and everyone on that list

 

[^SpiderMan^]

Clarence Thomas is a coon but I don’t let CACs call him that in my presence.

 

[SPECTRE1]

These violent attacks are nothing new for a having a certain viewpoint in the U.S., I have been talking about attacks against politicians for years for simply being married to an astronaut, blasting her in the head. This attack based on racial delusion was covered up, instead of being exposed.

This used to not be the case in the U.S. and in other countries. When they issued Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court did not need this level of security.

When you was a loser back in the day, you accepted it with dignity, now you are trying to make everybody suffer with you. You did not cling on to your victim, trying to block them from leaving to a better country that is not lawless with surveillance and assassination attempts.

 

[Big Tex]

Alabama local GOP politician called a Black colleague the N-word, prompting calls to resign

Tarrant city councilman Tommy Bryant called a Black colleague a "house [n-word]," arguing he was only repeating what the mayor, a Black man, had said.

www.businessinsider.com

Michigan GOP official refuses calls to resign while continuing to publicly use n-word

A Republican official in Leelanau County, Mich., is rejecting calls for his resignation after he used the n-word at a public meeting and is also refusing to stop using the racist language. Lee…

thehill.com

GOP Official Who Called for 'Lynching' of Lloyd Austin Refuses to Resign

"If it is a civil war they want, they will get it...," David Dietrich wrote. "Perhaps the best way to pull us back from the brink is a good public lynching."

www.newsweek.com

GOP House candidate slammed ‘dumb and hungry’ Black people

The question isn't why Carl Paladino has a record of racist rhetoric. Rather, the question is why Republican leaders don't seem to care.

www.msnbc.com

GOP hopeful not sorry for posts depicting Obamas as monkeys

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky Republican state House candidate is refusing to apologize for several Facebook posts depicting President Obama and the first lady as monkeys, but the state GOP chairman has condemned the posts and issued his own apology for them.

apnews.com

GOP Kentucky state legislative candidate posts racist Obama images | CNN Politics

A Republican candidate for Kentucky's state legislature posted racist images of President Barack Obama and his family -- and defended those images by saying "Facebook's entertaining."

www.cnn.com

5 Times Republicans Called Michelle Obama A Primate

In the latest incident, Pamela Ramsey Taylor, the director of a nonprofit group in West Virginia described the first lady as an “ape in heels.”

www.yahoo.com

GOP official apologizes for Obama chimp email

A California Republican official who sent out an e-mail picturing President Barack Obama's face on the body of a baby chimpanzee issued an apology late Monday.

www.nbcnews.com

A donor to Florida's Republican gubernatorial candidate called Obama the N-word

A conservative activist and donor to Rep. Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican nominee for governor, called President Barack Obama a "F---- MUSLIM N----" in a recent Tweet, and has made other offensive comments online.

www.businessinsider.com

Virginia Governor Calls for GOP Official to Resign After Racist Tirade

Republican Party of Hampton, Virginia electoral board chair David Dietrich used the N-word to describe Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[shaddyvillethug]

Lmaooooooooooo ^^

 

[hardawayz16]

White folks shouldn't be calling ANY black person the n word or determining who is a coon.

It's really this simple.

 

[Dr. Truth]

Lmbaooo so the cacs of BGOL trying to take the heat off their coon leader and divert to some trash liberals and make it all about them. Meanwhile ignoring straight up racist saturation of the Republikkklan party while obsessing over some powerless cacs tweeting racist shit about Thomas while Republikkklans have actual racists making laws in power and not a peep from Tito Cacson, Hardacacz , Peterlongcoon or the rest of those idiot faggots

 

[BKF]

Conservatives’ Coming War on the Warren Court

Conservatives’ Coming War on the Warren Court

Led by Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court's originalists are taking aim at the landmark precedents set by liberal justices decades ago.

newrepublic.com

2019

"Two years after Clarence Thomas’s bruising confirmation hearing in 1991, The New York Times reported that the Supreme Court justice told two of his law clerks that he planned to serve until 2034. That would give him a record tenure of 43 years on the nation’s highest tribunal. But superlatives were not the reason for his goal. “The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years,” he reportedly told them, “and I’m going to make their lives miserable for 43 years.”

Since joining the court, Thomas has often called for his colleagues to revisit major precedents that he believes are at odds with the Constitution’s meaning. Many of those decisions sprang from the era between 1954 to 1969 when the court’s liberal wing, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, reshaped American society like no other Supreme Court before or since. Thomas’s quest has often been a lonely one, thanks to the moderation of conservative justices like Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. But a series of recent dissents from Thomas and his most conservative colleagues shows how he may yet win.

The Warren Court amounted to a third American revolution of sorts, after the original and the Reconstruction era. Its decisions on the allocation of power in American political life helped transform the United States into a liberal democracy. The justices swept away the legal architecture of American racial apartheid—most famously in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in schools, and Loving v. Virginia, which overturned laws against interracial marriage—and upheld federal civil-rights legislation. It broke the rural stranglehold on state legislatures by mandating the one man, one vote principle for legislative districts. Americans accused of crimes gained a bevy of new rights: to an attorney even if they couldn’t afford it, to toss out illegally obtained evidence, to receive any exculpatory evidence obtained by police. First Amendment protections for newspapers and protesters grew stronger, and reproductive rights gained constitutional recognition for the first time in Griswold v. Connecticut.

It was a halcyon era for American liberals, but not everyone was thrilled. The Warren Court’s landmark decisions spurred a backlash on the political right. Social conservatives railed against the court’s rulings against prayer in public schools and legalized access to contraception. Southern whites rebelled against desegregation orders, at times prompting the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision by force. Libertarians denounced the vast expansion of federal power at the perceived cost to individual liberty. From this medley of opposition grew the intellectual foundations of the modern Republican Party.

In a way, the legal war against the Warren Court has been underway for decades too. The court, after shifting rightward in the 1970s and 1980s, frequently narrowed major precedents from that era. Conservative legal scholars rallied around originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation that claims allegiance to the original meaning of the nation’s founding charter. Originalists, most prominently Justice Antonin Scalia until his death in 2016, tend to be highly critical of landmark Warren Court rulings for stepping beyond what they think the Constitution allows. With originalism’s rising influence on the high court, the war may reach new heights.


Last month, the Supreme Court rejected a request to hear McKee v. Cosby, a First Amendment case involving disgraced comedian Bill Cosby. Katherine McKee, who publicly accused Cosby of rape in 2014, sued him for defamation after he and his legal team allegedly leaked a letter that disparaged her truthfulness and character. The lower courts dismissed her case, ruling that her allegations against Cosby had made her a “limited-purpose public figure.” Defamation law generally treats public figures like Donald Trump differently than an ordinary private citizen, but also recognizes that private citizens can sometimes become a quasi-public figure when they take part in a matter of public controversy.

The lower courts’ finding makes it much harder for McKee to win a defamation claim against Cosby under the Supreme Court’s current precedents. In 1964, the Warren Court ruled that the First Amendment blocks defamation claims by public figures unless they can prove the speaker acted with “actual malice,” which the justices defined as “reckless disregard” for the truth. The case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, arose during the civil-rights era when Southern officials regularly tried to squelch unfavorable newspaper coverage with egregious libel claims.

Thomas, writing only for himself, said the court had correctly declined to intervene in the case. He then went on to suggest that the landmark libel precedent should be overturned. “[Sullivan] and the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law,” Thomas wrote, adding that the court should not continue to “reflexively apply” it going forward. “Instead, we should carefully examine the original meaning of the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” he continued. “If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we.”

A world without Sullivan would be a daunting one for American journalists. The actual-malice standard gives broad legal protections to Americans when they go public about the misdeeds of the rich and powerful. I noted last December that in countries with lower thresholds for defamation claims like Australia, the wealthy and powerful can wield the legal system as a cudgel against those who try to expose their wrongdoing. Without Sullivan, the states would be able to set their own legal standards for defamation claims, a prospect that President Trump would likely relish.

In February, Thomas also took aim at Americans’ access to legal counsel under the Sixth Amendment. The case, Garza v. Idaho, involved an accused man who asked the Idaho courts to intervene after his lawyer refuse to file an appeal on his behalf. The lawyer declined because Gilberto Garza had waived his right to appeal during a plea bargain. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices said that the lawyer should have filed the appeal when his client requested it, even though the appeal itself was likely doomed. Thomas, joined by Alito and Gorsuch, wrote in dissent that Garza had waived his right to the appellate process itself during the plea bargain, so his lawyer had acted correctly by not filing anything. Then Thomas went even further.

Gideon v. Wainwright, the 1963 ruling that guarantees criminal defendants a lawyer even if they can’t afford it, may be one of the court’s most consequential rulings of the past half-century. It effectively forced states and the federal government to create the public-defender system to provide attorneys for defendants who could not afford one themselves. In a section joined only by Gorsuch, Thomas suggested that Gideon and the rest of the court’s ineffective-counsel rulings since the 1960s should be reconsidered. Instead of reading the Sixth Amendment as guaranteeing legal counsel in all criminal matters, he said the Constitution’s drafters only wanted to bar the government from forbidding a defendant from hiring a lawyer at all.

“It is beyond our constitutionally prescribed role to make these policy choices ourselves,” he wrote. “Even if we adhere to this line of precedents, our dubious authority in this area should give us pause before we extend these precedents further.” With public-defender systems already chronically underfunded, reversing Gideon could prompt some states to shutter them altogether.

Though Thomas had shared this view before, this was the first time another justice had publicly signed on to them. In other areas, however, the court’s conservative wing may be moving closer to his position. The justices heard oral arguments last week in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, a thorny religious-freedom case that centers on a four-story concrete Latin cross in the middle of a Maryland highway. Erected as a World War I memorial in 1925, the cross is owned and maintained by the state government. A group of local plaintiffs say that arrangement violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which generally forbids Congress and the states from privileging one faith over another.

In the 1971 case Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court set down a strict test for determining when the government’s involvement in religious matters violates the Constitution. That test is often criticized by conservative legal scholars; the Supreme Court has also drifted away from it in the decades since it was handed down. As I noted last week, the plaintiffs proposed scrapping Lemon and adopting a test that could give the government far more leeway when entangling itself with religion. The justices seemed unwilling to go quite that far in oral arguments last week. But the Establishment Clause’s status quo also seemed rocky. “Is it time for this court to thank Lemon for its services and send it on its way?” Gorsuch asked during oral arguments. Thomas, as is his usual practice, did not speak or ask questions.

It’s worth noting that Thomas and Gorsuch won’t exactly be leading a counterrevolution right away. Justice Samuel Alito joined only one of Thomas’s dissents—in Garza, the Sixth Amendment case—and explicitly refused to join the portion disavowing the 1960s precedents under fire. But he’s made clear his views on the Warren era. In 1985, in a job application to the Reagan Justice Department, Alito wrote that his interest in constitutional law as a college student was “motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause, and reapportionment.” He seems to be a likely third vote in any majority opinion that chips away at a Warren-era precedent.

Chief Justice John Roberts has sided with the court’s four liberals more frequently than usual this term, perhaps hoping to shore up the court’s public legitimacy after the corrosive effects of Brett Kavanaugh’s partisan confirmation battle last fall. Kavanaugh himself has yet to make his impact fully felt on the court. In 2017, he delivered a glowing lecture on the jurisprudence of William Rehnquist, Roberts’s predecessor as chief justice. Many legal scholars, Kavanaugh said, “do not know about [Rehnquist’s] role in turning the Supreme Court away from its 1960s Warren Court approach, where the Court in some cases had seemed to be simply enshrining its policy views into the Constitution, or so the critics charged.” Whether Kavanaugh will count himself among those critics remains to be seen.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation also underscored how conservatives enjoy an actuarial advantage when it comes to the Supreme Court. Thomas, the dean of the court’s conservatives, turned 70 years old last summer. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, his liberal counterpart, is 85 and Justice Stephen Breyer is 80. If Democrats capture both the White House and the Senate next year, they may be able to maintain the court’s current ideological balance. If Trump wins re-election, however, it’s likely that the nation’s highest court will drift even further to the right. Some of these landmark precedents may yet survive the Roberts Court’s scrutiny in the short term. But time is on the originalists’ side."

 

[Tito_Jackson]

Lmbaooo so the cacs of BGOL trying to take the heat off their coon leader and divert to some trash liberals and make it all about them. Meanwhile ignoring straight up racist saturation of the Republikkklan party while obsessing over some powerless cacs tweeting racist shit about Thomas while Republikkklans have actual racists making laws in power and not a peep from Tito Cacson, Hardacacz , Peterlongcoon or the rest of those idiot faggots

Please enlighten us about these racist laws. We are eager to hear about them.

 

[daddyfatsacks9000]

Lmbaooo so the cacs of BGOL trying to take the heat off their coon leader and divert to some trash liberals and make it all about them. Meanwhile ignoring straight up racist saturation of the Republikkklan party while obsessing over some powerless cacs tweeting racist shit about Thomas while Republikkklans have actual racists making laws in power and not a peep from Tito Cacson, Hardacacz , Peterlongcoon or the rest of those idiot faggots

You's a miserable bitch ain't you? When's the last time you bathed or got some sun lil guy?

 

[hardawayz16]

.....

 

[Dr. Truth]

Please enlighten us about these racist laws. We are eager to hear about them.

For you and your stupid ass cac lemmings that giggle and smiley face your faggot ass sweater vest coon posts.

Here’s What You Need To Know About A Texas Bill That Aims To Ban Critical Race Theory – Houston Public Media

Texas voting law builds on long legacy of racism from GOP leaders

For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party backed Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The two parties switched.

theconversation.com

 

[SPECTRE1]

People are getting a glimpse of what I have been dealing with for years in the U.S. that has been covered up.


I guess sounding the alarm helped them beef of security, already knowing this would happen. I have been dealing with racial delusion/cannibalism mainly.

There are other white justices involved in this decision, I don't understand why they tried to put him on the face of this issue. Same way with Obamacare, there are many white liberal progressive politicians involved in crafting the legislation.

 

[Ninja05]

And never co-sign a white person calling a black man a coon.

This is a red herring. Black folks have been calling him a coon on our own for years. Dude lacks integrity (evidenced by his non-recusal in a case directly impacting his wife) and has been on the wrong side of cases negatively impacting our people.

No co-signing needed. It was already written and signed by Us.

 

[Dr. Truth]

For you and your stupid ass cac lemmings that giggle and smiley face your faggot ass sweater vest coon posts.

Here’s What You Need To Know About A Texas Bill That Aims To Ban Critical Race Theory – Houston Public Media

Texas voting law builds on long legacy of racism from GOP leaders

For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party backed Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The two parties switched.

theconversation.com

Hey coons y’all gone silent

 

[sinistercane]

Fuck that letter and fuck that coon

 

[Ninja05]

Hey coons y’all gone silent

Doesn’t really impact them. They “know” Republicans are racists, but at least “it’s explicit.”

Somehow. This leads back to liberal white folks, etc… more importantly, it doesn’t look like we are getting any closer to reparations but things are getting very “tangible.”

 

[xfactor]

People are getting a glimpse of what I have been dealing with for years in the U.S. that has been covered up.


I guess sounding the alarm helped them beef of security, already knowing this would happen. I have been dealing with racial delusion/cannibalism mainly.

There are other white justices involved in this decision, I don't understand why they tried to put him on the face of this issue. Same way with Obamacare, there are many white liberal progressive politicians involved in crafting the legislation.

They sit back and laugh at how easy people are manipulated. They use the media to program and spell cast and the sheep fall for it every time. The sheep are so easily influenced, some are even triggered into action, not even caring if it is criminal.