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‘GoFundMe’: Experts Say Clarence Thomas Being ‘Sponsored by Billionaires’ Is ‘Bribery’

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Legal experts are stunned once again after the latest ProPublica bombshell investigation into U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. That deep-dive into the Justice’s financial history includes the written remarks of a U.S. Congressman and the head of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, focusing on the Thomas’ secret complaint about his salary and his thinly-veiled request – or, “threat” – to that lawmaker for a pay raise. Shortly after his remarks about his salary, Thomas was showered, for years, with big ticket vacations and other major financial benefits from billionaire conservatives who happen to also want a like-minded jurist on the nation’s highest court.

“I intend to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court,” a January, 2000 letter from former U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) to Justice Thomas reads. “As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted. We must have the proper incentives here, too.”

ProPublica senior editor Jesse Eisinger posted the letter to social media as well.

“In early January 2000,” Propublica’s report published Monday begins, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.”

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“After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.”

“Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told [Congressman Stearns]. If lawmakers didn’t act, ‘one or more justices will leave soon’ — maybe in the next year.”

“At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money,” ProPublica reported. It added, “in the years that followed, as ProPublica has reported, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court.”

Professor of law and former Bush White House ethics chief Richard Painter on Monday declared, “Supreme Court justices make $285,400 a year, a large sum of money for a public official. If he needs more he can resign.”

Justice Thomas’ comments to Congressman Stearm “set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill,” reported ProPublica.

“’His importance as a conservative was paramount,’ Stearns said in a recent interview. ‘We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.’”

While ProPublica calls it “an open question” as to “what led so many people to offer Thomas money and other gifts,” some are calling it something else: “bribery.”

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Writer and attorney Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief at the legal news and commentary website Balls & Strikes, writes: “The new Clarence Thomas story in ProPublica is like the stuff of bad Mafia movies. Just sidling up to a Republican congressman like ‘I love taking away civil rights on the Supreme Court, but I suuuuure wish I could get paid more for doing so.'”

Civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, founder and executive director of Zealous, a nonprofit that trains public defenders, called for some cases Justice Thomas decided to be “relitigated” in response to the ProPublica news.

“Clarence Thomas being allowed to remain on the Supreme Court should rightfully destroy the institution. How we can allow any case where he was a deciding vote not to be relitigated? His votes weren’t just bought. He demanded payment for his votes under threats & duress,” wrote Hechinger.

“Clarence Thomas in quid pro quo bribery,” declared international relations professor Nicholas Grossman. “Not that he was going to vote X on a case and interested parties paid him to vote Y. Rather, as many suspected, it’s that they know he’ll vote Y, and have been paying him off to stay on the Court so he doesn’t resign to pursue wealth.”

“Is it ok for supreme court justices who are deeply in debt to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from political activists,” posited attorney Andrew Fleischman.

Award-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, a Syracuse Law lecturer, observed: “Justice Thomas wanted to get rich AND be a Supreme Court Justice. He found a way. He privatized his jurisprudence to the benefit of Harlan Crow & friends, which was neither ethical nor prudent.”

Constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, founder of the nonprofit Free Speech For People, called for Thomas’ impeachment: “Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached. He has abused his power and must be removed from the Supreme Court.”

Attorney Max Kennerly said, “if Thomas was a judge on any court except SCOTUS, this would be a no-brainer. It’s bribery. He and everyone involved, like Harlan Crow, would be indicted. But we’re supposed to pretend it’s okay because it’s SCOTUS.”

NYU professor of law and MSNBC contributor Melissa Murray wrote, “some of Justice Thomas’s colleagues come from similarly modest backgrounds and were also appointed at young ages . . . and they aren’t (to our knowledge) sponsored by billionaires.”

Professor Murray summed it all up as, “Justice Thomas’s GoFundMe campaign.”

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‘None of Us Will Be Spared’: Kennedy Scion Rips RFK Jr. in Call for Resignation

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12 hours ago

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September 5, 2025

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A prominent member of the Kennedy family is demanding the resignation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after the Health and Human Services Secretary made inaccurate and damaging claims in a Senate hearing just one day ago.

Secretary Kennedy, an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, told U.S. senators that he did not know the number of Americans who died from COVID, denied that his policy decisions were reducing access to the COVID vaccine, spread false or misleading claims about overall vaccine safety, and defended the changes at his agency that have led to the resignations of top officials and protests by employees.

Joe Kennedy III is a former U.S. congressman, a former U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland, and the grandson of the late U.S. Senator and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

On Friday, he blasted RFK Jr.

READ MORE: ‘Bananas’: Trump Official Torched for Dismissing Millions of Americans as ‘Nonexistent’

“Robert Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American,” Kennedy wrote in a statement on social media. “A United States Secretary of Health and Human Services is tasked with protecting the public health of our country and its people. At yesterday’s hearing, he chose to do the opposite: to dismiss science, mislead the public, sideline experts and sow confusion.”

“None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting. It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful you are or what state you live in — the heartbreak of watching a loved one fall ill knows no borders.”

“The challenges before us-from disease outbreaks to mental health crises-demand moral clarity, scientific expertise, and leadership rooted in fact. Those values are not present in the Secretary’s office. He must resign.”

RELATED: ‘What You Said Were Lies’: Democrat Shreds RFK Jr. in Fiery Exchange

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Bananas’: Trump Official Torched for Dismissing Millions of Americans as ‘Nonexistent’

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13 hours ago

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September 5, 2025

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A top Trump official is under fire after attempting to downplay the increase in the unemployment rate by declaring all 7 million people as “statistically nonexistent.”

U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer shared with Fox News several inaccurate claims, stating that consumer confidence is up — it’s down — and claiming that real wages are up year over year, almost 4% — when in reality they rose just 1.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not only is consumer confidence down,  it is “far lower than it was for much of 2023 and 2024,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

She also claimed there is a “blue collar boom,” but Friday’s jobs report reveals blue collar jobs are stagnating, according to economics writer Joey Politano:

“US blue-collar job growth has completely stagnated, hitting the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic—manufacturing is currently losing jobs at a rapid pace, and growth in construction/transportation has slowed to a crawl.”

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The Labor Secretary acknowledged her words may seem like rhetoric, but maintained “it’s not, because that’s what we’re seeing on the ground” — a claim contradicted by facts.

She also insisted that unemployment is “holding steady.”

“Statistically, it’s nonexistent,” she said, a remark that received tremendous blowback.

“This is a bananas quote,” declared Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “I get that they are going with ‘nothing to see here please disperse’ but saying 4.3% of the U.S. working population being unemployed is ‘statistically nonexistent’ is a pretty incredible slap in the face from the Secretary of Labor to 7 million people.”

Congressman Beyer also weighed in, writing: “The Trump Administration’s message to 7.4 million unemployed Americans is that ‘statistically’ they are ‘nonexistent.’ A stunningly awful and dishonest thing to say.”

READ MORE: Texas Makes It Easier for Kids to Skip Vaccines After Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades

“You heard that right,” declared U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). “Struggling Americans looking for a job don’t exist according to the Trump Administration. Most anti-worker admin of my lifetime. Despicable.”

“There are over 7 million people looking for a job right now,” noted U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA). “They matter. They don’t cease to exist because of the Trump Administration’s failed policies.”

U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) added, “Unemployment is rising and the country is losing thousands of jobs. Hard working Americans are feeling the effects of Trump’s reckless economic policies and job-killing tariffs. These are numbers we haven’t seen since the pandemic — this is entirely Trump’s doing.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Worst Place Since the Pandemic’: Experts ‘Worried’ Over ‘Ominous’ Jobs Report

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

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Texas Makes It Easier for Kids to Skip Vaccines After Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades

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15 hours ago

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September 5, 2025

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Texas has just moved to make it easier for parents to exempt their children from school vaccination requirements—just weeks after the worst measles outbreak in a generation ended.

762 people contracted measles over the summer. Two unvaccinated children died, and 100 people had to be hospitalized, according to PBS News.

“West Texas was the nation’s measles epicenter for months. The virus started spreading there in close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite communities in Gaines County,” PBS reported. The outbreak was declared over in mid-August.

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This week, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) began allowing parents to download a form to request their children be exempt from any or all required vaccines. Previously, parents had to request the form, which was then mailed to them, according to The Texas Tribune.

Calling this new system “empowering,” Rebecca Hardy, executive director of Texans for Vaccine Choice, said: “The previous mailed, hard-copy process for requesting vaccine exemption affidavits was outdated, costly to taxpayers, raised privacy and tracking concerns, and created unnecessary barriers for families seeking to exercise their rights.”

DSHS also published a form telling parents the benefits and risks of immunization, but the form is not attached to the exemption request form.

Requests for exemption forms have risen dramatically.

“Since 2018, the requests to the Texas Department of State Health Services for a vaccine exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024,” the Tribue reported. “Even before the new form became easier to access, the state received 17,197 requests for a vaccine exemption form in July, 36% higher than the number reported in July 2023.”

READ MORE: ‘Worst Place Since the Pandemic’: Experts ‘Worried’ Over ‘Ominous’ Jobs Report

Texas has more kindergarteners unvaccinated for measles than any other state in the nation, and falls below the 95% immunization rate required to achieve herd immunity.

In what is being called a “public health disaster,” Florida is now in the process of banning all vaccine mandates for children.

It’s not just Texas and Florida.

On Thursday, CNN reported that support for childhood vaccines being mandatory has plunged from 81% in 1991 to just 51% in 2024.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Weak, Weak, Weak’: Trump Economy Getting Worse, Majority of Americans Say

 

Image via Reuters

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