Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, August 11, 2023

Flouting Thomas

 If it's Friday, we must have another revelation that Clarence Thomas has taken more undisclosed gifts from billionaires. There is, I suppose, a narrow question of whether laws were technically broken, since there are few laws that bind the Supreme Court. The question of whether or not this is corrupt seems open and shut, especially because Thomas refused to disclose these multitude of gifts. Of course, the proper remedy for corruption is impeachment and removal from office.

Now, enter the clickbait merchants. They will petulantly whine and pound the table about how Thomas needs to resign or be impeached. Ok, sure. But he's not. He's not going to resign; the House won't impeach them and even if Democrats had a majority to do so, he would be acquitted by a plurality of Senators. 

What, exactly, is the purpose of calling for things that are obviously not going to happen? How does that do anything but gull the naïve into condemning Democrats for not "doing something". You want to know why Dobbs happened? Because a bunch of people were led to believe that there was no substantive difference between someone with decades of experience in public service but bad email practices with a career criminal, failed businessman and reality TV star. 

Luckily, Democrats are coming home to Biden, so as long as we can tamp down the third party ratfucking, we should be fine. Still, Thomas isn't leaving the court alive.

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