{"id":4053,"date":"2011-02-10T08:32:12","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T16:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4053"},"modified":"2011-02-10T08:32:12","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T16:32:12","slug":"action-alert-muzzle-clarence-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/action-alert-muzzle-clarence-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Alert: Muzzle Clarence Thomas!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clarence Thomas is one of the four biggest reasons that no Republican can be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice for the next twenty years, at least.  Forty would be better.  Never again would be best.  In Clarence Thomas Must Resign!<\/a>, I covered Clarence Thomas\u2019 conflicts of interest on most progressive issues, given that his family derives a significant portion of their income through Virginia Thomas\u2019 employment fighting progressive causes.  I also covered his ethical dishonesty by his failure to disclose his wife\u2019s income in that regard.  He \u201cforgot\u201d, he says.  Bull!  Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has taken up the cause.  He and 73 other members of Congress are demanding that Thomas recuse himself from the health care case sure to be before the Court.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"teabag-thomas\"Seventy-four Members of Congress have signed a letter calling for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself<\/strong> from cases involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because of his family’s financial ties to groups dedicated to lobbying against it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

"The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law," the letter, written by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), said. "From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife’s financial stake in the overturn of healthcare reform is blurred<\/strong>."<\/p>\n

Thomas faced questions this week about his judicial impartiality after his wife, Virginia, launched the lobby group Liberty Consulting.<\/p>\n

Critics say Virginia Thomas’ activities at Liberty Consulting could easily create a conflict of interest for her husband whenever he rules on a case affecting one of his wife’s clients<\/strong>. And they argue Virginia Thomas’ political involvement is yet another sign of the "politicization" of the nation’s highest court<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

"Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has ‘experience and connections’ and appeals to clients who want a particular decision<\/strong> – they want to overturn health care reform," the letter continued. "Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas\u2019s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of healthcare reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern<\/strong>."<\/p>\n

According to the government watchdog group Common Cause, Justice Thomas failed to report income that his wife earned from her work at two conservative think tanks, the Heritage Foundation and Liberty Central. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires Supreme Court justices to disclose their spouse’s income<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Raw Story<\/a>><\/p>\n

Ed Shultz adds detail and interviews Anthony Weiner.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

The conflict of interest could not be more clear.  To add your voice click Conflicted Clarence Thomas<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarence Thomas is one of the four biggest reasons that no Republican can be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice for the next twenty years, at least.  Forty would be better.  Never again would be best.  In Clarence Thomas Must Resign!, I covered Clarence Thomas\u2019 conflicts of interest on most progressive issues, given that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}