Dan Savage: 'Thank you, Mrs. Thomas'

There was a whole generation of young Americans out there who had never heard of Anita Hill and didn't know what a fucking creep your husband is. Now they're finding out—thanks to you.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/10/20/thank-you-mrs-thomas

:fistbump:

She's an idiot, just like her husband and the teabaggers she loves so much.

:)

:applause:

the narrowest USSC confirmation vote in the 20th century.

Oooooh, a "what if" question: What if Mrs. Thomas knew exactly what she was doing? What if Mr. Thomas is up to his old tricks again, and this is her revenge?

Nah....

Either way, Anita Hill is (properly) looking really good right now for her handling of the matter.

She's done a favor for an entire generation

What on earth was she thinking? Now all that stuff will be googled, etc., and associated with Thomas' name even more. Sucks for them.

awesome.

:applause:

It has certainly backfired on Mrs Thomas, hasn't it? Her husband must be just thrilled!

Oh, stop teasing me. That's not nice.

One decision which Justice Thomas was on the side of ordinary Americans and the Constitution was Kelo v the City of New London CT. Several of the liberals -including Justice Ginsberg- supported the decision enabling municipalities to collude with private developers and condemn properties for redevelopment, including condos and shopping centers, to fatten municipal coffers. It was a terrible decision. Thomas voted with the dissent. I think he may have written it.

I do not think he is a bad judge. Everybody who knows me knows I lean left. I think Thomas has been demonised beyond anything anybody knows he has done. I watched the hearings with Anita Hill way back then. I really doubted she had been harrassed by Thomas. It was definitely a he said, she said.

Also: you have got to be kidding re the hearings. :thumbsdown:

to testify that they suffered similar harassment. Biden worked out a deal with Republicans that those women, that even though their written testimony would be entered into the record, they would never be called to testify in person.

I don't remember that about the hearings. :(

For days he led the witnesses to believe that they were going to be called and then closed the hearings without letting them testify. He then claimed that the women did not want to testify which each woman has said was patently untrue.

Biden was in favor of Thomas. He was rammed through.

Tough question, since Thomas so rarely writes opinions. He's just a reliable vote tagging along doing whatever Fat Tony Scalia tells him to do.

You cite one case where Thomas may have stumbled across the right side of the question and figure that settles it?

He opposes affirmative action. He supported everything the Bush administration did that came before the court. He's a rank, Christianist neoconservative hack.

And you want to know what he's done that's so bad?

Your opinion of Hill and the hearings is quite different from mine. I watched, too. And concluded that Hill was unshakably credible and Thomas was lying through his teeth. We can put our two opinions on that together and we've still got nothing.

entire history of the USSCt. Thomas never participates in oral argument, never questions, just staysn asleep with his eyes open taking up space on the bench.

Maybe?

maybe?

Not only did it not benefit her in any way shape or form, there was no way it could have benefited her. What I saw in those hearings was a very brave woman who knew what she was up against. She went ahead anyway because she knew what the stakes were, and knowing damn well that it would probably be her that suffered.


It was a he said she said. Yeah it was and she lost, as women often do. So tell me why she lost? There was no evidence besides he said she said so why give this man a seat on the highest court in the land if there was a question? It's not like there were no other qualified judges.

There was very specific testimony about weird harassing behavior, such as:

"Hill's testimony included a wide variety of language that she allegedly was subjected to by Thomas and that she found inappropriate:

He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes....On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess....Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Hill

Gary Trudeau used Doonesbury to depict the following take on it:

"There are only two ways of looking at Thomas and Hill. Either Hill was telling the truth and Clarence Thomas is a garden-variety liar with a smokescreen of righteous indignation, or Thomas was telling the truth, and Anita Hill is a delusional sociopath of such stunning inventiveness that she should be studied and entered into the textbooks. A syndrome should be named in her honor- 'Hill's Complex.'"

http://www.someguywithawebsite.com/blogarchive/week_2004_03_28.html

Just because two people's accounts differ does not mean that they are equally credible or that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. If it did, then the judge would always be siding with whoever claimed there was no wrongdoing. That's why judges and Senators are paid the big bucks - to sort out credibility.

"a delusional sociopath of such stunning inventiveness that she should be studied and entered into the textbooks. A syndrome should be named in her honor- 'Hill's Complex.'"

Nailed it... I was going to mention the detail she went into in her testimony but I figured the Thomas "defender" would come up with the old "it was her script" line...

His dissent on that supported basically unlimited power to detain American citizens. His view of the equal protection clause is baffling. He favors, even more than average for the Roberts Court, the powerful over the powerless (Kelo notwithstanding). He'd ban abortion in a heartbeat if he could, which is consistent with his contempt for the bodily autonomy and basic rights of the individual, as evidenced in his dissent on Lawrence v. Texas.

I mean, you managed to pick the one decision where it could conceivably be argued that Justice Thomas as on the correct side. His entire record is of limiting individual liberties.

I mean correct. That would be a far shorter list.

Because even when the jackass is on the 'right' side of an issue, he generally tends to either get the law wrong, or put a interpretation on it that you would expect a Lyndon Larouchie to make...

Try a few, you'll see what I mean.

and was disgusted when he was confirmed.

Anita Hill was and still remains one of my heroes for speaking out bravely before a tide of males who patronized her and minimized the harm that comes from sexual harrassment in the workplace.

IMO you are one the wrong side of history on this one...but don't let that stop you...

He may be a bigger creep than Scalia.
And Anita Hill was a credit to herself and all women for sticking up for herself in the face of an all male star chamber.
They tried to demonize her and failed.

:rofl:

We certainly can't be talking about the same Clarence Thomas - on the "side of ordinary Americans," my foot - one case over an entire SCOTUS career of pandering and slavishly echoing whatever Scalia says or does. Bush v Gore was travesty enough.

What on earth did Anita Hill have to gain other than lots of bad press and vilification from the RW? She is one heck of a class act and a courageous woman who was badly let down by Joe Biden. Joe still has a lot to answer for on that one.

Besides - what disgusted me even more than the sexual harassment allegations (anyone remember the pubic hair on the Coke can remark?) was that Thomas was even nominated at all. Talk about a slam to the memory of the great Thurgood Marshall - to nominate in his place someone like Thomas - who had benefited from the programs that Thurgood had put his life on the line and fought for and then had tried to dismantle them as fast as he could! He's a typical Republican hypocrite but he's definitely not among the brighter ones.

The can of worms you ordered is ready for pick-up.

(just like he does the court he serves on).

I am starting to thin that Ginny Thomas was pissed at her hubby and intentionally wanted to embarrass him. She heard about the forthcoming book written by some who dated her hubby and that it confirms the Anita Hill story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907062.html
"
In her Senate testimony, Hill said that Thomas would make sexual comments to her at work, including references to scenes in hard-core pornographic films. Thomas angrily denied the allegations, memorably saying they amounted to a "high-tech lynching."

But Lillian McEwen, a former Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer who said she dated Clarence Thomas from 1979 through the mid-1980s, told The Washington Post in an interview that Hill's long-ago description of Thomas's behavior resonated with her.

"The Clarence I know was certainly capable not only of doing the things that Anita Hill said he did, but it would be totally consistent with the way he lived his personal life then," said McEwen, who is writing her own memoir but has never before publicly discussed her relationship with Clarence Thomas.

McEwen also told the Post she was not surprised that Virginia Thomas would leave Hill a message, even after all these years.
"

Whether she's willing to admit that to herself is another thing.

:hi:

:thumbsup:

KnR

Thomas is a disgrace!

My first post to DU ever. Just had to jump in and recommend.

Good first post...........

A whole new generation starts the pubic-hair-on-the-Coke and the Long Dong Silver jokes up again. Just when you thought it was safe.


On a more serious note, I remember that case did manage to open a lot of eyes about sexual harrassment and stalking and some of the things women have to put up with as a matter of course in professional settings, and how unacceptable it is. I hope that awareness rises again. Seems it's always been three steps forward, two steps back.

And he just plain tells it like it is. You GO.

admitted that those who dissed Anita Hill lied. That works for me.

and have no idea there was credible evidence that he sexually harassed Anita Hill. Conservatives seem to have forgotten the adage, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.

and DONG-GATE!

America will never recover, much less prosper, as long as right-wing buttholes like the Thomases are allowed to run everything and to do whatever the hell they want. This is like watching a once-great nation "accidentally" commit suicide right in front of our eyes. We're circling the drain, folks. If we can't overcome these awful conservatives somehow, this country is well and truly doomed.

Mrs. Thomas has some serious issues along with her husband

Not one redeeming value in Clarance Thomas...A stupid man....a Fascist Theocratic bastard who seeks to overturn ever law meant to secure rights of the individual over Christianity or Wall Street....and a Sexual Predator who uses his position to demean women working for him.

What exactly did Anita Hill do with your husband.
Methinks Clarence no longer has lead in his pencil and Virginia ran out of batteries (nod, wink, elbow to the ribs).

Where is the list you fraud??????

:fistbump:

remember - the repugs consider the thomas hearing to be their bellus causi and have used it to justify everything from clinton impeachment to govt shutdown to obama hitler mustaches. this is a dog whistle to their base! they're banking on a dispirited liberal base and ignorant, impatient independent voters - all they care about right now is their base.

than fiction!

in their faces. From what I understand, this 'news' was to hit a week earlier when there was discussion of ginny's ties to conservative groups....BUT, Anita Hill sat on it for a week.

clarence is one sick, perverted, Opus Dei.

Is that a proper descriptor?

It's good that many people are learning that sexual harassment was a generally accepted practice that primarily working (and other) women had to learn to suffer and avoid.

Before the 1990s.

And, thank you, Clarence, for being part of George the Elder's legacy. History will always have you two associated.

...then put the same Black, right-wing, judicial lightweight in the chair vacated by the civil rights legend and accomplished Justice Thurgood Marshall.

to change the subject FAST. I saw a couple yesterday and they looked dumbfounded...

rolling their meaningless balls of shit over our lives; crushing anything that is good in the world. It is time to flush them down the toilet, no matter what herculean task that will require.

:kick: