Ginni Thomas texts spark ethical storm about husband's supreme court role

[crickets]

14. Agreed. "There is a lack of moral authority on the supreme court right now..."

I find the 'right now' part of this quote from Pengelly's tweet most telling. Lack of moral authority existed the moment Clarence Thomas was confirmed in spite of Anita Hill's credible testimony. Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation was a blatant doubling down. There has been no SCOTUS moral authority for decades.

Do You Believe Her Now?
It’s time to reexamine the evidence that Clarence Thomas lied to get onto the Supreme Court — and to talk seriously about impeachment.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/02/the-case-for-impeaching-clarence-thomas.html
February 19, 2018

But it’s well worth inspecting, in part as a case study, in how women’s voices were silenced at the time by both Republicans and Democrats and as an illustration of what’s changed — and hasn’t — in the past 27 years (or even the last year). After all, it’s difficult to imagine Democrats, not to mention the media, being so tentative about such claims against a nominated justice today. It’s also worth looking closely at, because, as Smith’s account and my reporting since indicates, Thomas’s inappropriate behavior — talking about porn in the office, commenting on the bodies of the women he worked with — was more wide-ranging than was apparent during the sensational Senate hearings, with their strange Coke-can details.

But, most of all, because Thomas, as a crucial vote on the Supreme Court, holds incredible power over women’s rights, workplace, reproductive, and otherwise. His worldview, with its consistent objectification of women, is the one that’s shaping the contours of what’s possible for women in America today, more than that of just about any man alive, save for his fellow justices.

And given the evidence that’s come out in the years since, it’s also time to raise the possibility of impeachment. Not because he watched porn on his own time, of course. Not because he talked about it with a female colleague — although our understanding of the real workplace harm that kind of sexual harassment does to women has evolved dramatically in the years since, thanks in no small part to those very hearings. Nor is it even because he routinely violated the norms of good workplace behavior, in a way that seemed especially at odds with the elevated office he was seeking. It’s because of the lies he told, repeatedly and under oath, saying he had never talked to Hill about porn or to other women who worked with him about risqué subject matter.

*eyeroll* at the tentative Dems and media comment. In the face of Moscow Mitch's Senate, neither Democratic nor media reaction mattered when Kavanaugh came along to lie just as unconvincingly.

The number of women who still refuse to speak up or are actively working to undercut women fighting against sexual harassment - then and now - is depressing. It's true that Biden could have done more during the Clarence Thomas hearings, but in the "gentleman's agreement" milieu of the day, he did not. He has since apologized to Hill, though it's too little, too late at this point.

Above and beyond the issues of sexual discrimination is this: During the hearings, Thomas "huddled with GOP congressmen to brainstorm what damaging information he could unearth" on Anita Hill, and then he LIED to the Senate Judiciary Committee. A nominee to the highest court of the land LIED UNDER OATH, openly and without remorse.

Clarence Thomas is untrustworthy and unfit for his position. His motivation for any and every vote he has ever cast as a Justice is now suspect. No comment he has made about keeping his SC duties separate from his wife's activities can be taken seriously.

gratuitous, my reply to you was going to be a short "well said! doubt we'll get an impeachment, though" but then I ran across this article and just couldn't do it. I have come around.

Clarence Thomas never should have been seated on the SCOTUS, and he should be impeached. Regardless of whether anyone thinks it's possible to unseat him or not, the attempt must be made, for the very same reasons two impeachments were brought against tfg. The stakes are too high. The response is necessary.