RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
Exposé Reveals Ginni Thomas’ Ties to ‘Many Groups Directly Involved in Controversial Cases’ Before the Supreme Court
A bombshell exposé by an award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep look into lobbyist and far right wing activist and conspiracy theorist Ginni Thomas, and the ties she has to people, groups – and money – that have or may have business before the U.S. Supreme Court, on which her conservative husband sits.
“Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer asks point-blank. “Behind closed doors, Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife is working with many groups directly involved in controversial cases before the Court.”
Mayer writes that “Ginni Thomas has declared that America is in existential danger because of the ‘deep state’ and the ‘fascist left,’ which includes ‘transsexual fascists.'”
But that’s just a small piece of her massive reporting.
“Ginni Thomas’s political activism has caused controversy for years. For the most part, it has been dismissed as the harmless action of an independent spouse. But now the Court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases—on abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights,” Mayer reveals.
How bad and how close are these ties? Thomas, unbeknownst to almost anyone, was “an undisclosed paid consultant at the conservative pressure group the Center for Security Policy, when its founder, Frank Gaffney, submitted an amicus brief to the Court supporting Trump’s Muslim travel ban.”
Did Justice Clarence Thomas know? Did the couple discuss the case, or her financial and political ties? No one knows.
And that’s just one example. Mayer notes that Ginni Thomas “has held leadership positions at conservative pressure groups that have either been involved in cases before the [Supreme] Court or have had members engaged in such cases.”
“In 2019, she announced a political project called Crowdsourcers, and said that one of her four partners would be the founder of Project Veritas, James O’Keefe. Project Veritas tries to embarrass progressives by making secret videos of them, and last year petitioned the Court to enjoin Massachusetts from enforcing a state law that bans the surreptitious taping of public officials. Another partner in Crowdsourcers, Ginni Thomas said in her announcement, was Cleta Mitchell, the chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative election-law nonprofit. It, too, has had business before the Court, filing amicus briefs in cases centering on the democratic process. Thomas also currently serves on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars, a group promoting conservative values in academia, which has filed an amicus brief before the Court in a potentially groundbreaking affirmative-action lawsuit against Harvard.”
Should Americans be concerned? Should Justice Thomas? Should Chief Justice John Roberts?
“If Ginni Thomas is intimately involved—financially or ideologically tied to the litigant—that strikes me as slicing the baloney a little thin,” David Luban, a professor of law and philosophy at Georgetown, who specializes in legal ethics, tells Mayer.
Surely Justice Thomas has the ability to separate his work and home life, right?
“Even before” Clarence Thomas’ controversial and contentious confirmation hearing, which included the accusations – labeled “credible” by many – from Anita Hill, “a friend told the Washington Post, the couple was so bonded that ‘the one person [Clarence] really listens to is Virginia.'”
In 2019 then-Congressman Mark Meadows, who because White House Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump and now appears to have been intimately involved in aspects of the January 6 insurrection, told members of a “nonprofit that mobilizes conservative evangelical voters” that “Ginni was talking about how we ‘team up,’ and we actually have teamed up. And I’m going to give you something you won’t hear anywhere else—we worked through the first five days of the impeachment hearings.”
Mayer adds, “Ginni Thomas has her own links to the January 6th insurrection.”
The nearly 7000 word deep dive can be read here.
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The U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms on Friday jointly issued a statement warning they “anticipate” Trump protests across the country. The statement is not time-specific, and it states it has no information on “credible threats,” but some Democratic offices are allowing staffers to work from home Friday and Tuesday.
“The Sergeant at Arms and United States Capitol Police (USCP) anticipate demonstration activity across the country related to the indictment of former President Trump. While law enforcement is not tracking any specific, credible threats against the Capitol or state offices, there is potential for demonstration activity. USCP is working with law enforcement partners, so you may observe a greater law enforcement presence on Capitol Hill,” the statement reads.
“The SAA and USCP are monitoring the potential nationwide impacts to Senate state offices,” it adds.
The House Sergeant at Arms was conspicuously absent from the statement. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has control over that office.
READ MORE: Trump Trial Could Go Well Into the 2024 Election – Or Possibly Even Past It: Former Prosecutor
Additionally, Axios is reporting, “several House Democrats are allowing staffers to work from home as a safety precaution,” noting that “the memory of Trump supporters ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 is still fresh on the mind.”
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) is allowing staff to work from home for safety reasons. She told Axios, “I don’t ever want to see a Jan. 6 again.”
“I’ve been in the Trump hate tunnel, Donald Trump has gone after me, and quite frankly I don’t have security. I don’t have entourages.”
She’s not the only Democrat to raise concerns.
“Much of the language from the former President and his devotees is similar to what inspired Jan. 6th,” U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips said. “I’m concerned about safety for my colleagues and my staff.”
READ MORE: ‘Lighting the Match’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasted for Off the Rails Rant Defending Trump
Meanwhile, House Republicans are issuing full-throated support for Trump and calling for protests.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was called out by name in a six-page letter Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent to Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Friday morning, announced she will be in New York on Tuesday to support Trump when he is arraigned. She has posted several tweets since Trump was indicted.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy issued a statement Thursday seemingly designed to gin up rage and action in the MAGA base.
“Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election. As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump. The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”
Image by Elvert Barnes via Flickr and a CC license
RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
‘Lighting the Match’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasted for Off the Rails Rant Defending Trump
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is being mocked and criticized after issuing an off-the-rails rant defending Donald Trump after the ex-president was indicted late Thursday afternoon.
Trump reportedly will face over 30 charges when he is arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday, two weeks after he claimed would be the day he would be arrested. In that infamous social media post Trump also urged his supporters to “protest!”
Congresswoman Greene, an ultra-MAGA acolyte and far-right extremist, on Friday announced she will travel to New York City to show her support for the indicted ex-president.
“I’m going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!” she tweeted.
Her remarks came barely hours after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent a six-page letter to House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan warning that Congress must not “interfere” with the prosecution of Donald Trump. It accused him and two other top Republicans of “an improper and dangerous usurpation,” “attempted interference with an ongoing state criminal investigation,” and warned them against “unlawful political interference.”
That letter specifically called out Congresswoman Greene for her rhetoric, noting “some committee members have explicitly stated an intent to interfere with the state proceeding.”
“For example, responding to Trump’s statement that he would be arrested, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stated that ‘Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this! We have the power to do it and we also have the power to DEFUND their salaries and departments!’ … and that Republicans who ‘do nothing to stop’ the prosecution ‘will be exposed to the people and will be remembered, scorned, and punished by the base.’”
Clearly his warning had little impact on the far-right Georgia Member of Congress.
In response to Greene’s Friday morning tweet, former U.S. Congressman David Jolly, also a former Republican, appeared to suggest she was encouraging an untoward response.
“Lighting the match,” he tweeted.
Lighting the match. https://t.co/LRSeT3p127
— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) March 31, 2023
NBC News senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake appearing to suggest it was a bad idea, responded by saying, “The situation downtown Tuesday is going to be tense. Narrow streets. Tons of press. Lots of police from different jurisdictions already highly visible.”
Top CBS News reporter Robert Costa responded to Greene’s remarks, noting: “By order, NYPD officers here in lower Manhattan, outside the court, are already in full uniform, bracing for protests next week…”
Condé Nast legal affairs editor Luke Zaleski, also responding to Greene, wrote: “They want to incite violence in NYC.”
“Marge is a confederate soldier not an American public servant,” Zaleski added. “She has taken over Congress and wants to destroy the nation from inside. She admits it. Her public agenda is reinstalling a criminal traitor she’s obstructing justice for and breaking up the United States of America.”
Meanwhile, journalist Helen Kennedy appeared to not take Greene’s remarks – or Greene – seriously.
“Clown hurries to circus,” she tweeted.
Image: L E Mormile/Shutterstock
RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
‘Dystopian Future’: Democrat Calls Out GOP Lawmakers for Voting to Completely Defund Missouri’s 399 Public Libraries
In a blatant act of retribution, Missouri House Republicans this week voted to completely defund the entire state’s public libraries, after librarians filed a lawsuit with the ACLU over a new law that they say violates their First Amendment rights.
Should the bill pass Missouri’s Republican-majority Senate and be signed into law by Missouri’s Trump-endorsed Republican governor, all 399 of the state’s public libraries would receive $0 in state funding, a cut of $4.5 million.
“Often when we tell the public about the things that are getting voted on in here, they think when we tell them what happened just today, that’s got to be partisan rhetoric and hyperbole,” lamented Missouri Democratic state Rep. Peter Merideth (video below), who is also an attorney. “It’s not. These are the things actually passing.”
“They actually took out all state aid from public libraries explicitly because librarians are suing over their First Amendment rights over a book ban,” he continued, rubbing his temples in exasperation.
“I feel like we’re starting to live in a dystopian future from like 1984 or Fahrenheit 411 or whatever – 451 – where we’re talking about book bans from the government, and then the government being mad at librarians as the threat to our kids? And defunding public libraries. That’s the real world here today in Republican-led Missouri.”
VICE News confirms the GOP gutted all library funding in the House bill.
The $0 budget “comes after Republican House Budget Chairman Cody Smith proposed a $4.5 million cut to public libraries’ state aid last week in the initial House Budget Committee hearing, where Smith cited a lawsuit filed against Missouri by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri (ACLU-MO) as the reason for the cut.”
The Associated Press adds that Rep. Smith “has said the state shouldn’t subsidize the lawsuit by giving public libraries money.”
Since last summer Missouri librarians have been faced with charges of up to one year in prison or $2000 in fines “for giving students access to books the state has deemed sexually explicit,” VICE explains. “The Missouri law defined explicit sexual material as images ‘showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse,’ ‘sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse,’ or showing human genitals. The lawsuit claims that school districts have been pulling books from their shelves.”
GOP Rep. Dirk Deaton says Republicans are doing it all for kids.
“It’s been said this is a book ban. This is not that,” Rep. Deaton said. “It is protecting innocent children.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
MO State Rep. Peter Merideth (D) on a just-passed GOP budget defunding libraries: “They actually took out all state aid for public libraries explicitly because librarians are suing over their First Amendment rights … We are starting to live in a dystopian future from 1984.” pic.twitter.com/fej8ywxbCf
— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) March 30, 2023
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