Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumJust my two cents on the Clarence Thomas hearings
I was traveling through the south and listening to the hearings on NPR. Bush Pere knew exactly what he was doing when he appointed an African American arch conservative juror to replace an African American liberal juror. He knew he could split the Democratic party and African Americans and turn them against each other and themselves.. He even came out on the White House lawn to tout polls that showed African Americans favored Thomas' appointment. Look it up. Of course with the benefit of hindsight all progressives, regardless of color, see his appointment as a colossal mistake.
In retrospect it would have been better for the Judiciary Committee to have let Hill's corroborating witnesses testify. What we can not allow is for Donald Trump to appoint Clarence Thomas' replacement.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
cannabis_flower
(3,765 posts)The outcome was exactly what Bush Sr. wanted.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
sarabelle
(453 posts)It was a time when he would have been raked over the coal for seeming to deny another black man one of the most esteemed position in civil service. Many blacks supported Thomas, I wasn't one of them but I understand the sentiments on both sides.
Same with the Crime bill (which Bernie also signed). Many blacks in inner city and poor neighborhood wanted something to be done to protect their neighborhoods, their children, their elderly who were being victimized by drug runners and other hoodlums in the streets. The Bill had already been vetoed by Clinton twice. Activists were able to get quite a few important measures added to the Bill. And the Congress was ready to override Clinton's next veto and threatened to pass a Bill without the measures many had fought for so Clinton signed the Bill. Like so many other ill-bills, many hoped to be able to make amendments to remove measures that blacks felt were harmful to them. But elections have consequences...and here we are. Scandals side-track a lot of legislation.
Context is everything! We must fight for the here and now and not allow the past to do anything to thwart our best intentions now. We are still stronger together. Get the right "Bill signer" in place and hold his or her feet to the fire.
Look how this has worked for the GOP. Trump had no other original idea except to ban Muslims. The tax bill was waiting for signature, a SCOTUS appointments had been stolen from Obama and was waiting and a second SCOTUS nominee was sitting on the Heritage Foundation desk. Trump has been their "signer-in-chief."l Most everything else his administration has either fought him on or just ignored his orders.
Don't fall for the stuff that doesn't really matter again, like "her e-mails" "her speeches to Wall Street" "support for her husband's crime bill." It's all about where we are now and who can best win to save the nation.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
LongtimeAZDem
(4,494 posts)questions on some of them. The longer Biden kept it going, the more it looked like a partisan prosecution of an African American. He brought it to a close, and voted against Thomas.
I'm glad he reached out to Hill to express sympathy for what she went through, but I have never believed that he owed her a personal apology.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)African Americans to make the case against Joe Biden. Black women love love love love love love love love love Joe Biden. He was Obama's wingman which means he has earned our trust. I respect every candidate but my heart and vote belongs to, as my older says, Uncle Joe and Auntie Dr. Jill.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
LongtimeAZDem
(4,494 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
UniteFightBack
(8,231 posts)there and fast and she does not talk politics much but she said she is just so disgusted she had to bring it up.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)of experts with impeccable ethics and credentials.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
mcar
(42,373 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
BlueFlorida
(1,532 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Skya Rhen
(2,701 posts)our longstanding support for him. Rest assured about that!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
watoos
(7,142 posts)I watched the hearings and I believed Anita Hill, she was a good witness. Clarence Thomas was a lying piece of shit. He doesn't get as much notice on the SC because he doesn't do oral arguments, but he is as far right as it gets. His wife was a big Tea Party organizer, she is still involved.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
yaesu
(8,020 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
oldsoftie
(12,601 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
oldsoftie
(12,601 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
BlueMTexpat
(15,373 posts)The thing was that the ABA did not consider Thomas to be "well qualified" for the US Supreme Court. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/28/us/bar-association-splits-on-fitness-of-thomas-for-the-supreme-court.html
The NAACP also opposed the nomination of Thomas. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41067770?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
When one considers the lion of civil rights, Thurgood Marshall, that Thomas was named to replace, his appointment was literally a slap in the face of the AA community.
Considering the ABA ruling, the NAACP opposition, and the patently ridiculous appointment of Thomas to Marshall's post (as callous a selection by Bush I as that of the idiot Dan Quayle as Veep), Biden should have been treading a LOT more carefully and paying a lot more attention. The fact that he didn't - and that he literally "dissed" Anita Hill - STILL rankles with me. As it does with her. And I, like the Guardian, do not understand why he still has not given her a real apology. This same article also mentions other troubling characteristics of Biden's role in the Senate, which some seem to have airbrushed from their consciousness. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/26/anita-hill-apology-joe-biden
Several of those injustices have been perpetrated by Biden himself, or exacerbated by his career in the Senate, in which he worked steadily to push the Democratic party to the right, championed the 1994 crime bill that needlessly and sadistically accelerated mass incarceration, and cultivated a chummy, shoulder-clapping consensus with Republicans.
Among those injustices were the 1991 confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, now one of the most fiercely conservative justices on the supreme court. As chair of the Senate judiciary committee, Biden led the hearings into accusations of gross sexual harassment by Thomas that had been unearthed from Anita Hill, a lawyer who had once been Thomas employee at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Under Bidens leadership, the committee subjected Hill to a humiliating public ordeal in which she was belittled, condescended to, smeared and disbelieved.
It was a spectacle of cruelty in which Biden and his all-male committee colleagues confirmed the dark suspicions of many American woman, on live TV: that men could harass and humiliate them with impunity. Hill was harangued in the press, which concocted a bizarre and evidence-free theory, encouraged by Republicans, that she had invented her accusations against Thomas because she was sexually obsessed with him. Biden and his cohort confirmed Thomas anyway.
The Kavanaugh spectacle that we witnessed more recently where another strong and beautiful woman was publicly disrespected and hounded and still literally has to fear for her life STILL did not seem to make a meaningful impression on Joe.
So we who remember and are also still unhappy about the terrible misogyny that Hillary underwent in 2016 and that which other women candidates are undergoing RIGHT NOW will continue to rank Biden WAY down in our preferences.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
DURHAM D
(32,611 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
loves_da_dems
(67 posts)Why is it so hard to believe the women, they never lie about such things. So now we have a sexual harasser and a serial rapist on the SC. Why can't we impeach Thomas, and Kavanaugh?
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
BlueMTexpat
(15,373 posts)thing to do. It is certainly impossible considering the current composition of the Senate.
Here is one overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_investigations_of_United_States_federal_judges
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
loves_da_dems
(67 posts)Why is the Senate involved?
No mention of the Senate in the link? Sorry, I guess I just don't get it.
Usually, misbehavior is brought to the attention of a legislator, who may call upon the House Judiciary Committee to investigate. After a review of the Committee's findings, the Committee acts as a sheriff or prosecutor and may bring charges against the individual. In which case, the entire House takes on the roll of jury and votes as to his guilt or innocence of "high crimes and misdemeanors". If found guilty by a majority vote of the legislature, the individual is removed from office. That does not make him guilty of a crime, he merely loses his job. The individual may or may not then stand trial in a civil court as well, before a jury of his peers. Often the two procedures occur together. In the civil trial he may be punished with fines and/or incarceration.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)I searched and found "Senate" mentioned 57 times in that wiki link. Welcome to DU, loves_da_dems.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
BlueMTexpat
(15,373 posts)in the US House of Representatives.
But the actual trial is held in the Senate. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment#Process
In theory at least, as President of the Senate, the Vice President of the United States could preside over their own impeachment, although legal theories suggest that allowing a defendant to be the judge in their own case would be a blatant conflict of interest. If the Vice President did not preside over an impeachment (of anyone besides the President), the duties would fall to the President pro tempore of the Senate.
To convict an accused, "the concurrence of two thirds of the members present" is required. Conviction removes the defendant from office. Following conviction, the Senate may vote to further punish the individual by barring him or her from holding future federal office, elected or appointed. Conviction by the Senate does not bar criminal prosecution. Even after an accused has left office, it is possible to disqualify the person from future office or from certain emoluments of his prior office (such as a pension). If there is no charge for which a two-thirds majority of the senators present vote "guilty", the defendant is acquitted and no punishment is imposed.
Can you actually believe that the current GOP Senate, especially with Pence as presiding officer, would vote to impeach ANY Republican?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
loves_da_dems
(67 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
shanny
(6,709 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
robbedvoter
(28,290 posts)but from the other party. As long as Thomas is there, the issue is painfully relevant.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kahuna7
(2,531 posts)They can't be controlled then. They can't be controlled now. And we're talking Snarlin' Arlen, Hatch and Grassely who were all totally vicious towards Hill and would have been equally if not more vicious towards her witnesses. Nothing but more outlandish abuse would have occurred.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Skya Rhen
(2,701 posts)He was the only one that spoke to her decently - which is very important when it comes to humanity.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
honest.abe
(8,685 posts)The poll, taken Sunday night, shows that a majority of Americans remain skeptical of the accusations made against Judge Thomas by his former aide, Anita F. Hill. More than half of those surveyed said they believed that the account of sexual harassment offered by Ms. Hill, now a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, was "probably not true." The poll was taken after the Sunday afternoon testimony of four witnesses who said Professor Hill had spoken to them about her experiences with Judge Thomas.
Asked whose account they believed more, twice as many of those who were polled said Judge Thomas's as said Professor Hill's. There was little difference in response between men and women, or between blacks and whites. But Republicans were more inclined to believe Judge Thomas than were Democrats. An Embarrassing Spectacle
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/15/us/the-thomas-nomination-most-in-national-survey-say-judge-is-the-more-believable.html
This must have made Biden's situation even more difficult. I think its very unfair to bash him now for what happened back then. Clearly it was a complicated messy situation.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden