Public trust

Clarence Thomas evaded filing requirements about his family's income sources.  The filings provide transparency in government to us citizens.  Abe Fortas had outside income too - but prior to the disclosure law, enacted in 1978 - and he was hounded from the Supreme Court even though he recused himself from related cases. 

Who hounded him?  Conservatives who didn't like his liberalism on the Bill of Rights and indigent defendants.

I don't hear them now.

Media dystopia

Big media dysfunction in microcosm...

Dwelling on inconsequentialities such as the little witticisms of a confirmation hearing is no accident. It's how the media avoids taxing its middle-schoolish audience with philosophical conversations about the substance of liberty under law. (Snooze!)

Once CNN is on an inconsequentiality, however, they bring to bear the serious principles of balanced journalism. Lest anyone carp from among the perennial right-wing whiners, CNN offers equal emphasis:

If confirmed, Elena Kagan may or may not turn out to be that intellectual counterweight to conservatives Justice Antonin Scalia or Chief Justice John Roberts.

Except of course that the supposed intellectual depth of conservative ideologues is axiomatic!

CNN can't even omit balance on the mere possession of a sense of humor - can't leave the wingnuts thinking the reporter thinks that being funny is a liberal trait.

To be fair, the members of the court usually labeled liberal - Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, and the retired John Paul Stevens - all display great legal minds but not much sharp-edged humor or the willingness to engage in spirited debate for which Kagan is known. Justice Stephen Breyer is equally smart and he too shares a sense of humor, but that tends to fall on the quirky, self-deprecating side.

On the conservative side, friends of Justice Clarence Thomas - who almost never speaks at arguments - note he has a great wit and a hearty laugh. Colleagues call him the funniest justice you never hear about.

If Robin Williams, referring to the Nazis, asked a German, "Did you ever think maybe you killed all the funny people?", CNN would be obliged to find, yah, haha, a stormtrooper who side-lined in stand-up. You vill laff, and you vill like it!

Meanwhile, they know they have to make excuses for the other empty seat on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas. His tiny contributions bear out the claims of those who opposed his confirmation. He's a reliable right-wing vote, never mind how great his anonymous friends claim he might be. Is that funny-ha-ha or funny-strange? Maybe funny-uh-oh...

When finally, Bob Mears of CNN makes a brief digression into substance, it's to report about a question from Charles Grassley (R-grasping at cornstalks):

Grassley had asked the nominee about a paper she wrote as a college student that took a critical look at how judges decide cases.

"Is it appropriate for judges to mold and steer the law?" Grassley asked.

Questions about an undergraduate term paper! Can high school be far behind? How about kindergarten? "Ms. Kagan, I am reliably informed that at age five you called a prominent conservative classmate a poopy-head. When did you stop being a red-diaper baby?"

Of course, no CNN reporter will ever observe that some of Kagan's friends say that it's total bullshit to datamine 30-year-old papers written by a 20-year-old for reasons to vote against confirmation of a judge. That would be unbalanced!

Our big media, even more full of shit than the people they cover.

Criminalizing ibuprofen

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that ibuprofen is not sufficient motivation for a strip search. Well, duh!

Only Clarence Thomas disagreed. He had the following impeachment-worthy comment:

“Preservation of order, discipline and safety in public schools is simply not the domain of the Constitution.”

The Court didn't rule on the policy that led to the strip search, since that policy was not at issue. But I'm not bound to the case; I can say that zero-tolerance policies such as this are stupid, stupid, stupid. They are tools for overzealous martinets to lord their precious authority over children.

I only regret that the Court immunized the idiots who performed this abusive search.

(By the way, the CNN story on this ruling is completely inadequate. Every time a professional journalist publishes a story like that, he proves that blogs are not the problem.)

A raise for your successor

Personally, I'm not in favor of any measure that would further motivate John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito to continue to render their right-wing decisions from the Supreme Court. My apologies to other, more deserving judges.

One more afterthought: The Federal judiciary is thoroughly contaminated with appointees from the illiberal Federalist Society. If they need higher salaries, they can always get jobs as general counsel at one of the huge corporations that their decisions have always favored.

02138

The Harvard fanzine, 02138, wants me to subscribe: "Finally, a magazine for you and the Harvard sensibility."

I enjoy being flattered, sure, but what I'm really looking for is sincere compliments. The "Harvard sensibility" really nails it, though. From the very beginning, Harvard tells its students how great they are - because they're at Harvard, and Harvard is great.

The complimentary (heh) September/October issue puts Al Gore on the cover as number 1 of the hundred most influential alums. Duhbya they rate number 2, though Al is realistic enough to scoff at 02138 for such foolishness. Heck, they probably couldn't get Duhbya to sit for an interview.

The Harvard 100 shows what motivates the Big H. 'Influence' is just a polite word for power. Fully six Supreme Court Justices attended Harvard Law School. Too bad about Stevens, Thomas, and Alito. They must have attended some inferior diploma mill. (Note to Yalies: joke - but you do have a lot to answer for, including Thomas, among others.)

Another legacy of the Bush family

Clarence Thomas remains narcissistically convinced that a hearing before the Senate is equivalent to dragging a man out of his bed, hooding him, beating him savagely, and hanging his body in a tree. He should try keening for someone else once in a while.

The wingnut loyalty apparatus is working to reward him, as they always do. Most of the copies of this slender screed will be distributed by right-wing organizations. They'll need to prove to the publisher that the $1.5 million advance was worth it. But most copies won't ever be read.

That's irrelevant. The purpose of this is to reward a loyal soldier foisted upon us by George H.W. Bush, who may look good in contrast to his useless son, but who really was a divisive shitheel, too.

One more thing: You'll never get Thomas to admit it, but I'd bet his grandfather never said, "You'll probably end up like your no-good daddy or those other no-good Pinpoint Negroes."