Clarence Thomas is still sitting on the Supreme Court, deciding cases, including ones he should probably be recusing from. If he were Justice Kagan, Justice Jackson, or Justice Sotomayor, impeachment proceedings would have already started, following insistent Republican recriminations. And rightly so. Justice should not be for sale, and that means our judges and our justices shouldn’t be either.
The chairman was a little guy from Delaware named Joe Biden. He did take her seriously. But Joe Manchin, excuse me Dennis DeConcini, voted with republicans to not believe her and pass the nomination to the full senate. Before Anita Hill was brought in to testify they had sent it to the full senate without recommendation. Then the committee reconvened after the Hill allegations arose. Thomas' "high-tech lynching of an uppity..." seems to have switched three or four votes. It looked unlikely that he would be confirmed before the Hill accusations. It was not a party line vote, 2 republicans voted against the nomination. Before the second judiciary hearing where Hill appeared, while there had not been an actual vote there were only 7 democrats on record for confirmation. After the hearing ,11 democrats joined 41 (of 43) republicans to confirm. The two republicans who opposed Thomas were Bob Packwood of Oregon, and surpisingly (to me) Jim Jeffords of Vermont.
I think you might be talking about how he had had several accusations against him as well. But he was anti Viet-Nam, pro civil rights (pretty pro), not too good of a supporter of unions, and very pro-business. But despite his
somewhat personal poor performance, along with Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy, a strong supporter of the failed ERA amendment. But Packwood had decided to vote against Thomas' confirmation before the Hill hearings,and I suspect it was his EEOC performance. I am unclear about Jeffords reasons for voting against Thomas. I had forgotten the 2nd republican senator who had voted against confirmation, but I found it in my notes from the hearing (it's probably on wiki, or elsewhere) but I made no notes to indicate why Jeffords voted against the nomination, so probably my surprise, was my memory loss due to insufficient notes. also @ Hale Irwin.
I lived in Oregon at the time of the Packwood uproar, and was physically present when it broke. I knew people involved, and specific circumstances. It was a shock because he had been well thought of personally for many reasons, though not regarded politically in the way Mark Hatfield was. Oregon at the time was solidly bipartison. So very familiar with that dynamic. The situation did not end well.
I came to know Senator Jeffords after I moved to Vermont many years later: he was actually one of my neighbors whom I got to know at our town breakfast hangout. No idea specifically why he voted against Thomas (the topic never came up) but can say Jeffords was a man of high integrity, and he could spot a bullshitter. My guess that was part of it, plus the fact that Thomas was not really very well qualified.
TC, I couldn’t agree more. As I posted close to an hour ago, if memory serves, under the auspices of Judiciary Committee Chair Biden, some of Hill’s witnesses were not permitted to testify. Adding insult to injury, the Senate Democratic majority, then, invoked cloture allowing the nomination to move to the floor for debate and an up or down majority vote, wherein a handful of Democrats voted to confirm Thomas.
If ever there was an argument that there are lessons to be learned from the past, this is one of those times.
'Joe Biden knew Anita Hill was going to be an issue for him. ...as he prepared for his presidential announcement, he reached out to her through an intermediary and arranged a telephone call, hoping to assuage her.
'It did not go how he had hoped.'
'... the Biden camp disclosed the call, saying the former vice president had shared with Ms. Hill “his regret for what she endured” 28 years ago, when, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings in which she accused Clarence Thomas, President George Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment.'
'But Ms. Hill says the call from Mr. Biden left her feeling deeply unsatisfied.
'In a lengthy telephone interview …, she declined to characterize Mr. Biden’s words to her as an apology and said she was not convinced that he has taken full responsibility for his conduct at the hearings — or for the harm he caused other victims of sexual harassment and gender violence.' (NYTimes)
Sorry gifting option is not available. If you are interested, I hope that the following will be helpful. Article: By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Carl Hulse, on April 25, 2019
Fern, Biden was reprehensible for allowing Thomas to pass muster in his committee. It shows how really important decisions are and how those decisions echo down the decades and millennia sometimes. Biden allowed the Devil Himself to enter the “halls of justice”. That Devil is sitting smugly on the bench figuring out what other rights he can rip away from the human race. OMG.
I did not know this. I do know he appointed DeConcini to "represent her" and he mostly attacked her instead of being her advocate. I don't have access to the full transcript but DeConcini and Orrin Hatch did almost all of the questioning. Perhaps Biden had something to do with not allowing the other 2 accussers testify. In the first hearing Biden had questioned Thomas rather severely and accused him of reckless behavior as chairman of EEOC. Nevertheless, I don't recall Biden saying too much to Hill, and admittedly Biden has often had his own issues with sexual harassment and possibly assault, if one believes Tara Reid (I'm not making a judgment, just that some say her story has grown proportionately---which does not make it untrue) and many of Biden's alleged harassments are more current---up to his running for v-p.
I imagine, however, all of the women are not lying, and I imagine all of the men on the committee had committed similar offenses, and I imagine the Anita Hill accusations changed no senate votes. But I do think Clarence Thomas' lynching comment did swing votes to him.
Don't you love the way some people are pinning the Thomas-Hill debacle on Biden? They seem to have forgotten that in the very early '90s the Senate Democrats were still largely a white men's club. This was the crowd that in the coming years, under a Democratic president, went gung-ho for "welfare reform" that would have done justice to Reagan and, by the end of the decade, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that had helped keep banks in line.
Add in white liberal reluctance to oppose a Black nominee -- *any* Black nominee -- and the unexamined sexism that was endemic at the time among affluent white men and it shouldn't be all that hard to understand that Biden was not personally responsible for the outcome.
Susanna, I think that you would find Excerpts From Anita Hill’s Interview With The Times of interest.
By The New York Times
April 26, 2019
'Anita Hill spoke by phone this week with The New York Times, reflecting on the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 that put a spotlight on sexual harassment and treatment of accusers.'
'Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who announced his presidential bid on Thursday, oversaw the hearings as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.'
'Mr. Biden called Ms. Hill a few weeks ago to express regret over what she endured. Ms. Hill discussed that call and her feelings toward Mr. Biden in the interview. Here are excerpts from that conversation, transcribed by The Times and lightly edited for content and clarity.' See link below.
You must have watched a different set of hearings than I did. I didn't see him act in any way that led me to think he was privately "on her side." What I saw there was why I didn't support him twice for president and thought long and hard about Obama naming him for VP.
I don't think he was "privately 'on her side.'" What gave you the idea that I did? My perception is that he was a white male senator acting like most other white male senators.
Sad to say, this is still very much the case today! Look at the dismal US rate of prosecution for sexual crimes, or the amount of women NOT BELIEVED in domestic abuse/ child custody cases. We really shouldn’t be surprised the radicalization of the right and pollution of the courts has robbed women of reproductive rights.
Many of us did take Anita Hill seriously. My mother and I met her at Hunter College shortly after the Hearings. It was heartbreaking, because her honesty was there for anyone to see. Yet, it was also rewarding to see a room filled with New York women who were convinced she spoke the truth.
We were on a family road trip during the hearings. 4 kids ages 3-10 in the back of the car. I caught what I could of the testimony on the car radio (not easy!). Agree completely with your comment about her honesty. Her grace and humility too. The power brokers saw it, and ignored it. So here we are with the worst Supreme Court Justice in history.
Lest we forget, a scum, a war criminal, man who should have been charged with crimes against humanity is the same man that should have never been president and was really appointed by the SCOTUS, who should have never heard Gore v Bush, but they did, and George W. Bush became our worst president until Donald J. Trump. That man, that President George W. Bush nominated Thomas. He should have withdrawn his nomination when Thomas's character came into question, but Bush was too busy kissing the ring of the religious right and ultra-right of his party. Besides all that George W. Bush has the I.Q. of a flea.
I agree with everything you just wrote, except that it was Dubya's Daddy, George HW Bush, that appointed Thomas. Same family, same crap! And W had to pound his fists and get back at those meanies for doing his daddy wrong! Ya' hear, darn it. Or is it durn it? Sorry, thinking with a twang and trying to get it across in typing is not my forte! I will practice.
Marilyn, Aside from subscribers rightly clarifying that George HW Bush nominated Thomas, I would add that Biden, who was Chair of the Judiciary Committee, was also complicit. If memory serves, not all of Hill’s witnesses were permitted to testify. Additionally, I neither understood then or now why Dems invoked cloture allowing the nomination to move to the floor for debate and an up or down majority vote and then, adding insult to injury, a handful of Dems voted to confirm Thomas.
yes. Angela Wright and Rose Jourdain had similar accussations, Wright's perhaps more damning. And yet Thomas was allowed to bring in a bunch of homely women to testify he didn't harass them. Sorry to sound misogynist but I remember thinking the non-accusers extremely unattractive. But it certainly created the opposite effect of the recent trial of Carroll. Also it was meaningless. Someone who does not feel harassed in no way proves you never would harrass someone else, or someone else might take the same comment or action differently. That is always the problem with prosecuting harassment and the need to show a pattern. So Hill was not permitted to have supporting accusers, but Thomas was allowed to have supporting non-accusers, which is absurd. If you rob three 7-11's and don't rob 5 others, does that mean you didn't rob the three, or even one.
If you read Thomas autobiography, you won't barely even need to read between the lines to realize the truth. Thomas met Kathy Ambush at Holy Cross. She was the first woman he ever even dated and he became totally absorbed in her. He doesn't say a lot about why she left him, but he does admit he began drinking very heavily and was desperately seeking another woman to replace Kathy. This was the time he was at EEOC. Sukari Hardnett said that any reasonably good looking black woman was a target of Thomas at that time and quite a few were working at EEOC. But Thomas began replacing them or they began leaving because his policies at EEOC were basically to undercut EEOC claims. By the time of his
nomination and the Hill hearings Thomas had met Ginni and the EEOC staffers were mostly white. Once again his autobiography claims he became so enamored with Ginni he sobered up and he became uninterested in pursuing other women. The hearings were a farce and in that sense they were stacked totally against Hill and I to this day believe he only got elevated to the court because of the harassment charges, not despite. And he himself admits he believes his 'Lynching of an uppity black man" is what persuaded some democratic senators to switch their vote on the floor vote. Those "alarming" charges of harassment got him the nomination and I hate to say this but Kavanaugh's confirmation was questionable before the college rape allegations were made against him. Just like Trump can arouse laughter a day after being convicted of defaming Carroll by continuing the harassment. I hate to say this but despite the "me too" movement there is still too much harassment and men still ignore the supposed guidelines and some will still say "right on" cause they want to do it too.And that's the fact and probably some men in the senate voted for Kavanaugh cause they might need to deny their own college rape-date past. Or they just don't want to admit any more than Kavanaugh that those frat parties they attended where they forced themselves on women really were forced upon the women. Men will say, oh yes it's bad, but they continue to do it. That's why I think only women should be allowed to make advances (like most species) and make it a crime for men to even touch a woman without her approval. No other way.
The pre-Gingrich Dems were pretty bad admittedly and Biden was a party man then. He’s had 30+ years to grow, watch and learn what happens when a party gets taken over by radicalism. Newt was the front man for the new, more radical republicans. Senators and House members were slowly primaried out just like what’s been going on in states. Hillary’s giant right wing conspiracy swung into high gear and hit overdrive when President Clinton decided he would dally with Monica.
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” goes as much for politics as physics. I watched in horror as the republicans won the 2020 election by a hanging Florida chad and in less than a year, we were in a war that of course, led to Iraq and a 20 year, life changing debacle. All this time when republicans were in charge, they were moving further and further right. Dems, when elected, tried to do good things along with cleaning up messes made by too much war, too much graft, too much big business and way too much money.
So back to your comment about the Joe Biden of the early 90s compared to today, he has lived life in DC all these years. He’s seen the destruction of the old Republican Party; the party that one could sit down with and possibly come to some agreement with in order to guide this country safely. He was one of a 100 in the Senate and 535 or so in the House. We all have to live with our decisions; good, bad and the ugly. But the goal in this life, I believe, is to try to do better and to love our fellows walking their paths with us. I believe President Biden has learned that as well.
Wait a minute---George H.W. Bush appointed Thomas, not George W. Bush, so I'm a little unclear on which pres. you are referring to. Thomas was already on the court, and had been for ten years when Gore v. Bush was decided. But I kind of agree it was not a good decision, but only because scotus should not have interfered in the state vote count until a result was announced, in other words Gore v. Bush tried to stop continuing the recount and it succeeded. But I agree the decision was unneccessary before the vote had been certified by the state and for once I have to accede to state authority to count its own vote and certify its own vote and the federal courts should not be able to interfere and that's why the courts did not support Trump's challenges over 60 times. Gore v. Bush didn't even set a precedent and even basically limits the decision from becoming a precedent---that makes it even worse.
We need to be very careful when we solely blame Bush for the Clarence Thomas debacle. "Three decades ago, in one of most criticized moments of his career, Joe Biden oversaw the all-male committee that heard sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas." This is from an August 2, 2020 article in the Washington Post. While, I am a Democrat who voted for Biden, I am also a woman who saw how badly Biden and the rest of the committee treated Anita Hill.
Good morning from India, Joyce. I hope to livestream Sen. Whitehouse’s hearing. I can’t understand why nothing was done back in 2012. Seems like the behavior of corruption doesn’t stink enough for the SCOTUS. Thank for your wonderful presentation of complex legal issues and practice. I hope BIden will expand the court as soon as he can.
Elizabeth, I write mostly because I agree with the urgency to expand both the high court and the lower federal courts. Still, setting aside the need to re-take the House and add seats to the Senate, I’m concerned enough attention isn’t paid to the fact that Trump (presuming he’s the Republican nominee) merely needs to block Biden from receiving 270 electoral votes, at which point the election of the presidency is decided by the House. Currently, Republicans hold control, I believe, of 5 more state delegations than Democrats, each of which gets 1 vote. While I’ve been studying charts, I’m stunned and dismayed that no organization I’m aware of has informed us of which delegations could be flipped.
My hope is that either Joyce, or someone more informed than I, reads my comment and advises.
Clarence Thomas is the poster child for why there should be term limits for the Supreme Court. A lifetime position with little to no oversight is ripe for abuse. Any other judge would have been impeached by now.
I won't be able to watch Sen. Whitehouse's hearing as I will be at a doctor's appointment. I will wait for the discussion of it later! If you can report on it, that would be great. With the way news breaks these days, another story could take precedence. I long for a slow, monotonous news cycle with the only exciting news breaking to be about our successes and progress.
You can watch it via video, I believe. It was an interesting session. The minority leader was given some time to bloviate at the beginning. I held my nose because I did want to know exactly how this man thinks (came to the conclusion he doesn't: just strings tropes one after the other until he runs out of time). Highly impressed with the witness, who refused to let the die-hard 19th century holdovers trip him up. Also, as always, impressed with the clarity and dignity of Senator Whitehouse.
May 17, 2023·edited May 17, 2023Liked by Joyce Vance
Excellent report about Justice Clarence Thomas, still on the Court and making trouble for the American people.
Thanks to Joyce Vance for preparing and telling us about what's coming up tomorrow, and thanks to Bloomberg News for digging up a revealing story about Justice Thomas, and thanks to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) who has scheduled a hearing tomorrow on “Review of Federal Judicial Ethics Processes at the Judicial Conference of the United States.”
Senior U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf will be the witness. The reporting in Bloomberg was '...that Judge Wolf did not conclude Justice Thomas had violated any rules; rather, he wanted to pursue the process of making information known to the full Conference a decade ago so it could debate the report and act on it if it deemed that course of action appropriate. That never happened, ' (Vance)
Here comes Senator Whitehouse with Judge Mark L. Wolf and his hearing on 'Review of Federal Judicial Ethics Processes at the Judicial Conference of the United States "...STAY TUNED!
Good evening Joyce: I will be very interested to hear what Wolf has to say. A moment that will include popcorn and a hail hail to the Rule of Law. This hearing should get the ball rolling or in any case stir up some good trouble. Yet what do I know? Thank you for the facts and does Whitehouse’s committee have any real ability to cut through this wall of deceit to get down to having any impact on the status quo of SCOTUS in the big scheme of things. You are having quite a week of reporting. Many thanks for your integrity and hard work on this matter. Best regards for a promising day tomorrow.
Good morning Joyce, from overseas where I have chickens living next door. Your posts always amaze me but this post, in particular, is fantastic and for those of us who do not practice law, incredibly helpful and important, so a huge, respectful, THANK YOU! I appreciate that you included a link to Senator Whitehouse's hearing tomorrow. I will certainly be listening. He is a powerhouse, I've been following him for a number of years and look forward to this hearing tomorrow.
I wish all the the fellow justices, together, would exert even the tiniest pressure on Thomas. It’s the only check. It’s a new world and they all need to wake up to that fact and help restore confidence in their branch.
A tribute song to Ruth Bader Ginsberg performed in front of the Connecticut State Supreme Court. I remember others just walking around the building the day or two after she passed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E47u3ZEMxYE
Thank you Joyce for keeping us updated on the weeks events. We can only pray that lady liberty begins to stamp out the sordid ways of Clarence Thomas. Looking forward to your review later today. Peace..
Thank you for making us aware of tomorrows hearing and the background. I also am waiting for your explanation of what transpired.
Personally I think he never should have been on the court . If only they had taken Anita Hill seriously we would never have heard of him again. Hopefully something can be done or at least he may be forced to recuse himself from cases that he should (I know in my dreams)
You forget. He’s already bought and paid for. I wonder how Crowe would treat Thomas were he to recuse himself on certain cases. Not favorably I imagine.
If only we had taken Anita Hill seriously . . .
I sure did.
So did I.
Me, too! And millions more!!
Too bad the chairman of the Judiciary Committee didn't take her seriously...
The chairman was a little guy from Delaware named Joe Biden. He did take her seriously. But Joe Manchin, excuse me Dennis DeConcini, voted with republicans to not believe her and pass the nomination to the full senate. Before Anita Hill was brought in to testify they had sent it to the full senate without recommendation. Then the committee reconvened after the Hill allegations arose. Thomas' "high-tech lynching of an uppity..." seems to have switched three or four votes. It looked unlikely that he would be confirmed before the Hill accusations. It was not a party line vote, 2 republicans voted against the nomination. Before the second judiciary hearing where Hill appeared, while there had not been an actual vote there were only 7 democrats on record for confirmation. After the hearing ,11 democrats joined 41 (of 43) republicans to confirm. The two republicans who opposed Thomas were Bob Packwood of Oregon, and surpisingly (to me) Jim Jeffords of Vermont.
Thanks for the history.
Jeffords was a man of integrity.
Indeed he was. His vote doesn't surprise me. But Packwood's does, given his own history.
I think you might be talking about how he had had several accusations against him as well. But he was anti Viet-Nam, pro civil rights (pretty pro), not too good of a supporter of unions, and very pro-business. But despite his
somewhat personal poor performance, along with Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy, a strong supporter of the failed ERA amendment. But Packwood had decided to vote against Thomas' confirmation before the Hill hearings,and I suspect it was his EEOC performance. I am unclear about Jeffords reasons for voting against Thomas. I had forgotten the 2nd republican senator who had voted against confirmation, but I found it in my notes from the hearing (it's probably on wiki, or elsewhere) but I made no notes to indicate why Jeffords voted against the nomination, so probably my surprise, was my memory loss due to insufficient notes. also @ Hale Irwin.
I lived in Oregon at the time of the Packwood uproar, and was physically present when it broke. I knew people involved, and specific circumstances. It was a shock because he had been well thought of personally for many reasons, though not regarded politically in the way Mark Hatfield was. Oregon at the time was solidly bipartison. So very familiar with that dynamic. The situation did not end well.
I came to know Senator Jeffords after I moved to Vermont many years later: he was actually one of my neighbors whom I got to know at our town breakfast hangout. No idea specifically why he voted against Thomas (the topic never came up) but can say Jeffords was a man of high integrity, and he could spot a bullshitter. My guess that was part of it, plus the fact that Thomas was not really very well qualified.
Liberal guilt. clearance played that well.
TC, I couldn’t agree more. As I posted close to an hour ago, if memory serves, under the auspices of Judiciary Committee Chair Biden, some of Hill’s witnesses were not permitted to testify. Adding insult to injury, the Senate Democratic majority, then, invoked cloture allowing the nomination to move to the floor for debate and an up or down majority vote, wherein a handful of Democrats voted to confirm Thomas.
If ever there was an argument that there are lessons to be learned from the past, this is one of those times.
'Joe Biden knew Anita Hill was going to be an issue for him. ...as he prepared for his presidential announcement, he reached out to her through an intermediary and arranged a telephone call, hoping to assuage her.
'It did not go how he had hoped.'
'... the Biden camp disclosed the call, saying the former vice president had shared with Ms. Hill “his regret for what she endured” 28 years ago, when, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings in which she accused Clarence Thomas, President George Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment.'
'But Ms. Hill says the call from Mr. Biden left her feeling deeply unsatisfied.
'In a lengthy telephone interview …, she declined to characterize Mr. Biden’s words to her as an apology and said she was not convinced that he has taken full responsibility for his conduct at the hearings — or for the harm he caused other victims of sexual harassment and gender violence.' (NYTimes)
Sorry gifting option is not available. If you are interested, I hope that the following will be helpful. Article: By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Carl Hulse, on April 25, 2019
Fern, Biden was reprehensible for allowing Thomas to pass muster in his committee. It shows how really important decisions are and how those decisions echo down the decades and millennia sometimes. Biden allowed the Devil Himself to enter the “halls of justice”. That Devil is sitting smugly on the bench figuring out what other rights he can rip away from the human race. OMG.
Especially Women's rights, damn him.
I did not know this. I do know he appointed DeConcini to "represent her" and he mostly attacked her instead of being her advocate. I don't have access to the full transcript but DeConcini and Orrin Hatch did almost all of the questioning. Perhaps Biden had something to do with not allowing the other 2 accussers testify. In the first hearing Biden had questioned Thomas rather severely and accused him of reckless behavior as chairman of EEOC. Nevertheless, I don't recall Biden saying too much to Hill, and admittedly Biden has often had his own issues with sexual harassment and possibly assault, if one believes Tara Reid (I'm not making a judgment, just that some say her story has grown proportionately---which does not make it untrue) and many of Biden's alleged harassments are more current---up to his running for v-p.
I imagine, however, all of the women are not lying, and I imagine all of the men on the committee had committed similar offenses, and I imagine the Anita Hill accusations changed no senate votes. But I do think Clarence Thomas' lynching comment did swing votes to him.
I had no idea.
Don't you love the way some people are pinning the Thomas-Hill debacle on Biden? They seem to have forgotten that in the very early '90s the Senate Democrats were still largely a white men's club. This was the crowd that in the coming years, under a Democratic president, went gung-ho for "welfare reform" that would have done justice to Reagan and, by the end of the decade, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that had helped keep banks in line.
Add in white liberal reluctance to oppose a Black nominee -- *any* Black nominee -- and the unexamined sexism that was endemic at the time among affluent white men and it shouldn't be all that hard to understand that Biden was not personally responsible for the outcome.
Susanna, I think that you would find Excerpts From Anita Hill’s Interview With The Times of interest.
By The New York Times
April 26, 2019
'Anita Hill spoke by phone this week with The New York Times, reflecting on the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 that put a spotlight on sexual harassment and treatment of accusers.'
'Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who announced his presidential bid on Thursday, oversaw the hearings as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.'
'Mr. Biden called Ms. Hill a few weeks ago to express regret over what she endured. Ms. Hill discussed that call and her feelings toward Mr. Biden in the interview. Here are excerpts from that conversation, transcribed by The Times and lightly edited for content and clarity.' See link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/politics/clarence-thomas-anita-hill-joe-biden.html
I apologize for not having a gifted link but believe the link above will work if you subscribe to the paper.
I've heard Anita Hill speak of the hearings more than once. Are you under the impression that I thought Biden was secretly on Hill's side at the time?
You must have watched a different set of hearings than I did. I didn't see him act in any way that led me to think he was privately "on her side." What I saw there was why I didn't support him twice for president and thought long and hard about Obama naming him for VP.
I don't think he was "privately 'on her side.'" What gave you the idea that I did? My perception is that he was a white male senator acting like most other white male senators.
He did however pick a woman to be VP
You reap what you sew!
sow. sorry, couldn't resist. mental image of ripping something I had sewn... my accent sometimes takes me to odd places.
I thought about sew and sow but guessed wrong!😊
And I couldn't resist teasing you about it!
So, I am Ok with that
I think I said the same thing a while back. Those are two of the saddest words, “If only”. Two others are, “What if”.
Many of us did! The male-dominated senate committee, including Senator Biden, did not!
Sad to say, this is still very much the case today! Look at the dismal US rate of prosecution for sexual crimes, or the amount of women NOT BELIEVED in domestic abuse/ child custody cases. We really shouldn’t be surprised the radicalization of the right and pollution of the courts has robbed women of reproductive rights.
Many of us did take Anita Hill seriously. My mother and I met her at Hunter College shortly after the Hearings. It was heartbreaking, because her honesty was there for anyone to see. Yet, it was also rewarding to see a room filled with New York women who were convinced she spoke the truth.
We were on a family road trip during the hearings. 4 kids ages 3-10 in the back of the car. I caught what I could of the testimony on the car radio (not easy!). Agree completely with your comment about her honesty. Her grace and humility too. The power brokers saw it, and ignored it. So here we are with the worst Supreme Court Justice in history.
I did!
Well I certainly did!!!
Did Chairman Joe Biden????
Lest we forget, a scum, a war criminal, man who should have been charged with crimes against humanity is the same man that should have never been president and was really appointed by the SCOTUS, who should have never heard Gore v Bush, but they did, and George W. Bush became our worst president until Donald J. Trump. That man, that President George W. Bush nominated Thomas. He should have withdrawn his nomination when Thomas's character came into question, but Bush was too busy kissing the ring of the religious right and ultra-right of his party. Besides all that George W. Bush has the I.Q. of a flea.
I agree with everything you just wrote, except that it was Dubya's Daddy, George HW Bush, that appointed Thomas. Same family, same crap! And W had to pound his fists and get back at those meanies for doing his daddy wrong! Ya' hear, darn it. Or is it durn it? Sorry, thinking with a twang and trying to get it across in typing is not my forte! I will practice.
I really like the way you talk, KJ
I'm from the south. It's "durn...."
One small correction, George H W Bush nominated Thomas for the bench.
Marilyn, Aside from subscribers rightly clarifying that George HW Bush nominated Thomas, I would add that Biden, who was Chair of the Judiciary Committee, was also complicit. If memory serves, not all of Hill’s witnesses were permitted to testify. Additionally, I neither understood then or now why Dems invoked cloture allowing the nomination to move to the floor for debate and an up or down majority vote and then, adding insult to injury, a handful of Dems voted to confirm Thomas.
yes. Angela Wright and Rose Jourdain had similar accussations, Wright's perhaps more damning. And yet Thomas was allowed to bring in a bunch of homely women to testify he didn't harass them. Sorry to sound misogynist but I remember thinking the non-accusers extremely unattractive. But it certainly created the opposite effect of the recent trial of Carroll. Also it was meaningless. Someone who does not feel harassed in no way proves you never would harrass someone else, or someone else might take the same comment or action differently. That is always the problem with prosecuting harassment and the need to show a pattern. So Hill was not permitted to have supporting accusers, but Thomas was allowed to have supporting non-accusers, which is absurd. If you rob three 7-11's and don't rob 5 others, does that mean you didn't rob the three, or even one.
If you read Thomas autobiography, you won't barely even need to read between the lines to realize the truth. Thomas met Kathy Ambush at Holy Cross. She was the first woman he ever even dated and he became totally absorbed in her. He doesn't say a lot about why she left him, but he does admit he began drinking very heavily and was desperately seeking another woman to replace Kathy. This was the time he was at EEOC. Sukari Hardnett said that any reasonably good looking black woman was a target of Thomas at that time and quite a few were working at EEOC. But Thomas began replacing them or they began leaving because his policies at EEOC were basically to undercut EEOC claims. By the time of his
nomination and the Hill hearings Thomas had met Ginni and the EEOC staffers were mostly white. Once again his autobiography claims he became so enamored with Ginni he sobered up and he became uninterested in pursuing other women. The hearings were a farce and in that sense they were stacked totally against Hill and I to this day believe he only got elevated to the court because of the harassment charges, not despite. And he himself admits he believes his 'Lynching of an uppity black man" is what persuaded some democratic senators to switch their vote on the floor vote. Those "alarming" charges of harassment got him the nomination and I hate to say this but Kavanaugh's confirmation was questionable before the college rape allegations were made against him. Just like Trump can arouse laughter a day after being convicted of defaming Carroll by continuing the harassment. I hate to say this but despite the "me too" movement there is still too much harassment and men still ignore the supposed guidelines and some will still say "right on" cause they want to do it too.And that's the fact and probably some men in the senate voted for Kavanaugh cause they might need to deny their own college rape-date past. Or they just don't want to admit any more than Kavanaugh that those frat parties they attended where they forced themselves on women really were forced upon the women. Men will say, oh yes it's bad, but they continue to do it. That's why I think only women should be allowed to make advances (like most species) and make it a crime for men to even touch a woman without her approval. No other way.
You hit the nail on the head.
The pre-Gingrich Dems were pretty bad admittedly and Biden was a party man then. He’s had 30+ years to grow, watch and learn what happens when a party gets taken over by radicalism. Newt was the front man for the new, more radical republicans. Senators and House members were slowly primaried out just like what’s been going on in states. Hillary’s giant right wing conspiracy swung into high gear and hit overdrive when President Clinton decided he would dally with Monica.
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” goes as much for politics as physics. I watched in horror as the republicans won the 2020 election by a hanging Florida chad and in less than a year, we were in a war that of course, led to Iraq and a 20 year, life changing debacle. All this time when republicans were in charge, they were moving further and further right. Dems, when elected, tried to do good things along with cleaning up messes made by too much war, too much graft, too much big business and way too much money.
So back to your comment about the Joe Biden of the early 90s compared to today, he has lived life in DC all these years. He’s seen the destruction of the old Republican Party; the party that one could sit down with and possibly come to some agreement with in order to guide this country safely. He was one of a 100 in the Senate and 535 or so in the House. We all have to live with our decisions; good, bad and the ugly. But the goal in this life, I believe, is to try to do better and to love our fellows walking their paths with us. I believe President Biden has learned that as well.
No. G.W. Bush did not nominate Thomas. His father, G.H.W. Bush did the deed.
George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas, not his son.
Wait a minute---George H.W. Bush appointed Thomas, not George W. Bush, so I'm a little unclear on which pres. you are referring to. Thomas was already on the court, and had been for ten years when Gore v. Bush was decided. But I kind of agree it was not a good decision, but only because scotus should not have interfered in the state vote count until a result was announced, in other words Gore v. Bush tried to stop continuing the recount and it succeeded. But I agree the decision was unneccessary before the vote had been certified by the state and for once I have to accede to state authority to count its own vote and certify its own vote and the federal courts should not be able to interfere and that's why the courts did not support Trump's challenges over 60 times. Gore v. Bush didn't even set a precedent and even basically limits the decision from becoming a precedent---that makes it even worse.
We need to be very careful when we solely blame Bush for the Clarence Thomas debacle. "Three decades ago, in one of most criticized moments of his career, Joe Biden oversaw the all-male committee that heard sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas." This is from an August 2, 2020 article in the Washington Post. While, I am a Democrat who voted for Biden, I am also a woman who saw how badly Biden and the rest of the committee treated Anita Hill.
Please! Let's not say unkind things about fleas!!
Good morning from India, Joyce. I hope to livestream Sen. Whitehouse’s hearing. I can’t understand why nothing was done back in 2012. Seems like the behavior of corruption doesn’t stink enough for the SCOTUS. Thank for your wonderful presentation of complex legal issues and practice. I hope BIden will expand the court as soon as he can.
Elizabeth, I write mostly because I agree with the urgency to expand both the high court and the lower federal courts. Still, setting aside the need to re-take the House and add seats to the Senate, I’m concerned enough attention isn’t paid to the fact that Trump (presuming he’s the Republican nominee) merely needs to block Biden from receiving 270 electoral votes, at which point the election of the presidency is decided by the House. Currently, Republicans hold control, I believe, of 5 more state delegations than Democrats, each of which gets 1 vote. While I’ve been studying charts, I’m stunned and dismayed that no organization I’m aware of has informed us of which delegations could be flipped.
My hope is that either Joyce, or someone more informed than I, reads my comment and advises.
Let us pray that all the Neo-Nazis are removed from the House before the Election.
I'm afraid it will take more than prayers to accomplish that.
An exorcism?
Clarence Thomas is the poster child for why there should be term limits for the Supreme Court. A lifetime position with little to no oversight is ripe for abuse. Any other judge would have been impeached by now.
I won't be able to watch Sen. Whitehouse's hearing as I will be at a doctor's appointment. I will wait for the discussion of it later! If you can report on it, that would be great. With the way news breaks these days, another story could take precedence. I long for a slow, monotonous news cycle with the only exciting news breaking to be about our successes and progress.
You can watch it via video, I believe. It was an interesting session. The minority leader was given some time to bloviate at the beginning. I held my nose because I did want to know exactly how this man thinks (came to the conclusion he doesn't: just strings tropes one after the other until he runs out of time). Highly impressed with the witness, who refused to let the die-hard 19th century holdovers trip him up. Also, as always, impressed with the clarity and dignity of Senator Whitehouse.
Excellent report about Justice Clarence Thomas, still on the Court and making trouble for the American people.
Thanks to Joyce Vance for preparing and telling us about what's coming up tomorrow, and thanks to Bloomberg News for digging up a revealing story about Justice Thomas, and thanks to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) who has scheduled a hearing tomorrow on “Review of Federal Judicial Ethics Processes at the Judicial Conference of the United States.”
Senior U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf will be the witness. The reporting in Bloomberg was '...that Judge Wolf did not conclude Justice Thomas had violated any rules; rather, he wanted to pursue the process of making information known to the full Conference a decade ago so it could debate the report and act on it if it deemed that course of action appropriate. That never happened, ' (Vance)
Here comes Senator Whitehouse with Judge Mark L. Wolf and his hearing on 'Review of Federal Judicial Ethics Processes at the Judicial Conference of the United States "...STAY TUNED!
One of our best Senators. I too, will be waiting to see what happens.
Good evening Joyce: I will be very interested to hear what Wolf has to say. A moment that will include popcorn and a hail hail to the Rule of Law. This hearing should get the ball rolling or in any case stir up some good trouble. Yet what do I know? Thank you for the facts and does Whitehouse’s committee have any real ability to cut through this wall of deceit to get down to having any impact on the status quo of SCOTUS in the big scheme of things. You are having quite a week of reporting. Many thanks for your integrity and hard work on this matter. Best regards for a promising day tomorrow.
Well that’s certainly eye-opening. Like you I too will be watching Sen. Whitehouse’s hearing.
Good morning Joyce, from overseas where I have chickens living next door. Your posts always amaze me but this post, in particular, is fantastic and for those of us who do not practice law, incredibly helpful and important, so a huge, respectful, THANK YOU! I appreciate that you included a link to Senator Whitehouse's hearing tomorrow. I will certainly be listening. He is a powerhouse, I've been following him for a number of years and look forward to this hearing tomorrow.
Just pretty much incredible that a Justice couldn’t be held accountable as a Federal Judge ...
For the sake of country any Republican should recognize that.
Slow crumble of a system
But we can fight this
Thomas is George H.W. Bush's continuing finger in America's eye from beyond the grave.
I wish all the the fellow justices, together, would exert even the tiniest pressure on Thomas. It’s the only check. It’s a new world and they all need to wake up to that fact and help restore confidence in their branch.
A tribute song to Ruth Bader Ginsberg performed in front of the Connecticut State Supreme Court. I remember others just walking around the building the day or two after she passed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E47u3ZEMxYE
Amy Comey Barrett will sit for the next 40 years in the RBG memorial seat in the US Supreme Court. And who can we thank for that?
We can thank a giant of the court who confused her own claim to fame with the needs of the people she had fought for all her life.
Obama once invited her for lunch at the White House and the message while allegedly unspoken was implied.
Yeah, unfortunately RBG was human, like the rest of us.
Democracy is messy. Often we vote for poor leadership.
My rule of thumb. If you have to make an excuse for your behavior. Likely not a good move.
Thank you Joyce for keeping us updated on the weeks events. We can only pray that lady liberty begins to stamp out the sordid ways of Clarence Thomas. Looking forward to your review later today. Peace..
Thank you for making us aware of tomorrows hearing and the background. I also am waiting for your explanation of what transpired.
Personally I think he never should have been on the court . If only they had taken Anita Hill seriously we would never have heard of him again. Hopefully something can be done or at least he may be forced to recuse himself from cases that he should (I know in my dreams)
You forget. He’s already bought and paid for. I wonder how Crowe would treat Thomas were he to recuse himself on certain cases. Not favorably I imagine.