Tag: Clarence Thomas

Biden Didn’t Disclose Allegedly Free Vacations, yet Pushes for Supreme Court Reform Following Gifts

Just the News
Joe Biden

President Joe Biden has allegedly taken multiple free vacations at the homes of billionaire donors and wealthy businessmen without disclosing them over the years, yet has called for Supreme Court reform after justices have taken trips without reporting them.

As Supreme Court justices have been outed by left-leaning media for not disclosing gifts from friends, Democrats and Biden have called for reforms to the high court, including calling for a code of ethics. At the same time, Biden has also not reported allegedly free vacations that he has received from his wealthy friends, which has now led to a complaint filed with the Department of Justice.

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Commentary: With Chevron Dead, It’s Time to Challenge the Feres Doctrine

RealClearWire
Supreme Court

Last month the Supreme Court ended the 40-year precedent known as the Chevron Doctrine. When the Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling was handed down in 1984 there was nil understanding that it would enable the burgeoning 20th Century administrative state to dig its foundation down to societal bedrock. This legal precedent tied the hands of lower courts over the next 40 years, forcing them to defer to administrative agencies on how to interpret the law in areas that congress did not offer crystal clarity.

Chevron opened the door for succeeding precedents like the 2005 ruling in the National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services case, which enabled governmental agencies to “override judicial constructions of ambiguous federal laws by promulgating their own conflicting, yet authoritative, interpretations.” In 2020, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the Brand X opinion, lamented the ruling, rightly noting that it further ensconced judicial doctrine to the point of “administrative absolutism.” In essence, Chevron, and subsequent precedent under its umbrella, allowed presidential administrations to legislate around congress through cabinet agency directors.

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Commentary: Supreme Court’s Immunity Decision Has Democrats in Hysterics, Again

RealClearWire
Trump and Supreme Court

Reasonable constitutional scholars and jurists could quibble about the details and impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in Trump v. United States, but the hysteria coming from the left, including President Joe Biden and dissenting Justices Sonya Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown-Jackson, is beyond rational discourse. An inability to control emotions and anger has become commonplace for progressives who don’t get their way.

Writing for a 6-3 majority, split on ideological lines, Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion laid out a three tiered approach to presidential immunity premised on the Constitution’s vesting of the complete executive power in one individual, giving him duties and power of “unrivaled gravity and breadth” and making that individual a full and equal branch of the United States government, alongside the Congress and courts. Roberts observed that the president’s constitutional powers are often “conclusive and preclusive” and those powers may not be subject to review by Congress or the courts.

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Commentary: Supreme Court Overturns DOJ’s Use of Key January 6 Felony Court

Julie Kelly
January Six

In a devastating but well-deserved blow to the Department of Justice’s criminal prosecution of January 6 protesters, the U.S. Supreme Court today overturned the DOJ’s use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2), the most prevalent felony in J6 cases.

The statute, commonly referred to as “obstruction of an official proceeding,” has been applied in roughly 350 J6 cases; it also represents two of four counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s J6-related criminal indictment of Donald Trump in Washington.

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Supreme Court to Weigh Major Case on Abortion Pill Approval

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The Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it is taking on a case regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the chemical abortion pill mifepristone.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations filed a lawsuit against the FDA in November 2022, claiming that the FDA had ignored safety protocols to approve the abortion pill mifepristone. The Supreme Court said this week that it would hear the case, one of the first major abortion cases taken up by the court since overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022, according to an order list.

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Liberal ‘Dark Money’ Groups Gave Millions to SCOTUS Watchdogs Targeting Alito, Thomas, Docs Show

Just the News

Nonprofit organizations managed by the liberal “dark money” consulting firm Arabella Advisors gave millions of dollars to “nonpartisan” Supreme Court watchdogs, new documents show, after a campaign was launched earlier this year targeting conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito for not fully disclosing their finances.

Former Clinton appointee Eric Kessler founded Arabella Advisors in 2005, and its subsidiaries include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Hopewell Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Windward Fund and the North Fund. 

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Supreme Court Releases Code of Conduct

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The U.S. Supreme Court released its own “Code of Conduct” on Monday evening to “set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.”

The Code of Conduct comes after intense pressure from liberal activist groups for the justices to implement an ethics code. Those activists particularly have taken aim at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, accusing him of violating the court’s ethics rules.

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Justice Clarence Thomas to Hear Gun Rights Lawsuit from New York

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will hear a lawsuit that has been filed by pro-Second Amendment groups in New York, challenging the state’s strict laws on the concealed carrying of firearms.

As reported by Just The News, Justice Thomas has arranged for a conference with the entire court that will take place on October 6th, during which he will consider a challenge to the New York Concealed Carry Improvement Act’s provision on background checks for purchases of ammunition. The law went into effect just several weeks ago.

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Clarence Thomas’ Financial Disclosures Debunk Left-Wing Attacks

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After months of repeated attacks against Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, over alleged financial wrongdoings, the court’s longest-serving justice finally disclosed his finances this week, debunking many of the claims against him.

As Breitbart reports, the official guidance for financial disclosures from federal judges was changed back in March, with Thomas’ revelations this week following those new guidelines. The senior justice disclosed additional details concerning hospitality and gifts he had received in previous years.

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Commentary: The Left’s Relentless, Unjustified Assaults on the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy

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In recent years, the Supreme Court has been the target of a relentless and strategic campaign aimed at undermining its credibility and impartiality.

Left-wing publications such as ProPublica, Slate, and The Guardian have led an orchestrated assault against the high court’s Republican-appointed justices, and their message has been amplified by Senate Democrats.

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Commentary: SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision Ignores Elephant in the Room

Admin
U.S. Supreme Court

Growing up in the Jim Crow South, my parents grew up dreaming of a world where they didn’t have to use “colored-only” restrooms, sit in the back of the bus, attend segregated schools, and could sit in restaurants together with other Americans – regardless of their race, creed, or nationality.

They dreamed of equality for all. Yet, almost 70 years after the Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal,” the recent decision to strike down affirmative action makes it clear that many black progressives like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – who benefited from the Brown v. Board of Education decision – still view the issues of race and equality through rose-colored glasses.

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Commentary: The Vicious Media Attack Against Clarence Thomas

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Character assassination by innuendo is one of the slimiest forms of journalistic malpractice. The current target for character assassination is Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Launched by a story in ProPublica earlier this month, multiple media outlets are now trying to outdo each other in besmirching Thomas’s character for obvious ideological and partisan reasons.

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Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson Would Vote for ‘Unnecessary’ Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Susan Berry, PhD

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Thursday he would vote in favor of a bill that would enshrine same-sex marriage into federal law, even though he believes the legislation is “unnecessary.”

In a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Johnson said about the legislation Democrats have titled the Respect for Marriage Act, “Prior to the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, I supported civil unions.”

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Far-Left Group Doxxes Six Supreme Court Justices

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A group of far-left extremists published a list of addresses that they claimed belong to the six conservative Supreme Court justices, declaring their plans to target the homes and terrorize the justices over their apparent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Daily Caller reports that the group, “Ruth Sent Us,” published alleged home addresses for Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The move came after the Monday leak of a draft opinion written by Alito that appears to completely overturn Roe, as well as the 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which would eliminate the nationwide legalization of abortion and return the matter back to the individual states to decide.

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Commentary: GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces

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Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows

Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”

The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.

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Supreme Court Rules Against Navy SEALs, Allows DOD to Restrict Deployment Based on Vax Status

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The Supreme Court on Friday blocked a lower court’s ruling that prevented the Navy from making deployment decisions for Navy SEALs based on their COVID-19 vaccination status.

The ruling clears the way for the Navy to keep SEALs from deployment if they aren’t vaccinated. The SEALs had sued challenging the Navy’s COVID-19 policies after being denied religious exemptions.

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Commentary: Another Leftist Smear Attempt Falls Flat

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No matter what political party you align with, we can all agree that 2022 is going to be a blockbuster term for the Supreme Court. Cases regarding abortion, gun control, and affirmative action are all poised to be decided this year. 

In the past the Left has used the Court to impose its radical ideology on American society because it couldn’t use the electoral process to do it. Now they fear the Court is no longer hospitable to these efforts.

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Commentary: Chief Justice of the Court of Natural Law

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Justice Clarence Thomas

Recently, the Heritage Foundation and the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University honored Justice Clarence Thomas on the 30th anniversary of his joining the Supreme Court. A day of panels featuring former Thomas clerks and prominent legal scholars commented on his legacy and future. The justice responded that evening. 

Yet even a full day of often enlightening panels and speeches, doubtless to be supplemented in the years to come by law review issues, articles, and books, misses the crucial fact about Thomas’ jurisprudence that has made him the indispensable justice: his overarching focus on natural law. 

In America natural law comes to sight in the principle of equality, which continues to confuse both conservatives and liberals. With the Democrats’ embrace of “equity,” they have cast aside equality as a principle. Conservatives have never been comfortable with equality to begin with, as Harry Jaffa consistently pointed out in his work. Equality does not mean socialism but rather government by consent, and all the institutions that follow from the preservation of this fundamental element of justice. The clearest expositor of this principle, as Thomas explains, has been Abraham Lincoln, when he attacked the evil of slavery. 

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Georgia Democrat Prefers to Honor Confederate Soldiers Instead of Clarence Thomas

Chris Butler

One member of the Georgia General Assembly wants a statue of Clarence Thomas on the state capitol grounds, but one Democrat vigorously opposes the idea and the way she stated her opposition left some people shocked.

Georgia State Representative Donna McLeod (D-Lawrenceville) stated those remarks when she spoke to The Atlanta Journal Constitution late last week.

“I’d rather them keep a Confederate monument than a statue of [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas,” McLeod reportedly told the paper.

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States, Not Congress, Could Pose the Biggest Threat to Tech Companies

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Despite calls for increased regulation of the tech industry, Congress has yet to pass any major legislation, leaving it up to the states to take action curbing tech companies’ power and influence.

Meanwhile, state legislatures have introduced and enacted legislation on data privacy, antitrust, and content moderation, while state attorneys general have issued a number of legal challenges alleging anticompetitive business practices.

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Commentary: Running Out of Choices on Tech Monopolies

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It is not often that a concurring opinion of the Supreme Court calls for in-depth comment, but Justice Thomas’ opinion, in Joseph R. Biden Hr., President of the United States, et al v. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, et al., is an exception.

The case arises out of the suit by Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University against former president Donald Trump. Knight sued Donald Trump on First Amendment grounds for blocking Knight from accessing the comment thread of Trump’s Twitter feed.

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Ohio State Prof Says Clarence Thomas Not ‘Authentically Black’

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At a symposium hosted by Texas A&M University at Commerce, titled, “What the Truth Sounds Like,” Professor Donna Ford argued that one of the significant problems in education is White females. She also noted that diversity of “skin color” is not enough, considering that she wouldn’t want “Clarence Thomas teaching my damn kids.”

“There is a monopoly on education, where White females being about 85 percent of the teaching force, and then you know pretty much the same thing with white administrators. So White females I’m speaking to you, and I’m saying you’ve got to get your sh- stuff together,” said Ford during her lecture.

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Justices Rule LGBT People Protected from Job Discrimination

The Associated Press

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court.

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

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Crom Carmichael Reflects on Joe Biden’s History of Poor Decision Making, Connections to China, and Tara Reade

Julie Carr
Democrat Joe Biden

During the second hour of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, all-star panelis Crom Carmichael advocated that it was important to get the economy back open and take care of America’s economic wellness. Later in the segment, he reviewed Joe Biden’s stance on China and many of his detestable wrongdoings and current allegations of sexual assault by staffer Tara Reade in 1993.

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Commentary: Justice Clarence Thomas Is the Moral Center of the Supreme Court

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by George Rasley   Is it possible to construct a lasting and healthy society upon a legal foundation that not only protects but encourages infanticide, a deep and profoundly immoral act? We do not believe it is, and the door opened by Roe v. Wade has led American society into a darkness that can only end in the eugenic and racist nightmare of the Nazi Third Reich and other cultures that have allowed humans to be culled like livestock or killed when they become inconvenient. The battle lines in this great moral debate were set out in stark terms by Justices Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the Supreme Court’s recent holding in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. As the writers for The Economist explained, Box concerns Indiana’s HEA 1337, which Mike Pence, now the vice-president, signed into law in 2016 when he was governor of the state. In a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last year, two of the law’s provisions were deemed unconstitutional: a requirement that fetal remains from abortions be buried or cremated; and a bar on abortions motivated solely by the fetus’s race, sex or diagnosed disability such as Down syndrome.…

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Biden Plays the White Misogynistic Man Apology Card

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by Whitney Tipton   Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday he regretted the way he treated Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden acknowledged his role in the hearings, as his behavior has come under scrutiny while he positions himself to enter the presidential race, according to the New York Times. The remarks were made during the “Biden Courage Awards Ceremony” in New York. In his emotional appeal, Biden said that Hill’s testimony was courageous. “She was abused through the hearing. She was taken advantage of. Her reputation was attacked,” he said. “We knew a lot less about the extent of harassment back then. It was over 30 years ago.” As Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Biden believed he helped foster a tone that was “hostile and insulting.” “I wish I could have done something … But I also realized there was a real and perceived problem the committee faced. We were a bunch of white guys hearing this testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.” “To this day, I regret I couldn’t come up with a way to get her the kind of hearing she deserved given the courage she showed by…

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Journalist Groups Alarmed by Justice Thomas’ Call to Reconsider Free Press Ruling

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by Kevin Daley   Professional journalism groups reacted with alarm after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas urged the high court Tuesday to reconsider a landmark freedom of the press decision called New York Times v. Sullivan. The Sullivan ruling generally shields reporters and news platforms from libel or defamation lawsuits, provided they were acting in good faith. Though journalists believe that protection is essential, Thomas said the high court was wrong to usurp the role of states in regulating libel. “[Sullivan] and the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law,” Thomas’s opinion reads. “We should not continue to reflexively apply this policy-driven approach to the Constitution,” Thomas added. “Instead, we should carefully examine the original meaning of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” BakerHostetler’s Mark Bailen, who serves as outside counsel to the Society of Professional Journalists, found the timing of Thomas’s opinion unwelcome, given President Donald Trump’s adversarial relationship with the press. “It certainly strikes a nerve for journalists and news organizations at a time when some in government have called the press ‘the enemy of the people,’” Bailen told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s against this backdrop that you now have a Supreme Court…

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