Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife continued to lobby against health care In 2011, per new financial forms

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You all remember Virginia Thomas, right? She’s the founder of a tea party group-turned-lobbyist who bragged about all the influence she had (who also left a rather strange voice mail for Anita Hill, or as I like to call it, drunk dialing).

Awhile back it was Anthony Weiner who said it best:

The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife’s financial stake in the overturn of healthcare reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has “experience and connections” and appeals to clients who want a particular decision – they want to overturn health care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas’s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of healthcare reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern. [My post about that here]

You know the old saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”? Here we go again. Via U.S. News:

Now, just days after healthcare law was upheld (with Clarence Thomas dissenting), new financial forms show that Thomas’s wife, Ginni, continued to rake in a profit from opposing healthcare reforms in 2011—even after she previously came under fire for doing so.

According to Thomas’s 2011 financial disclosure report form, filed on May 15 and obtained Friday by Whispers, Ginni Thomas made up to $15,000 working for political lobbying firm Liberty Consulting. The firm lobbied actively against the healthcare law, according to liberal news magazine Mother Jones.

Why is it again that Justice Kagan had to recuse herself from the challenge to Arizona’s immigration law, and very loud, very public demands were made for her to recuse herself again, but Thomas gets a pass?

There is a clear conflict of interest with the Thomases whose ethics are beyond questionable at this point. But you know the other old saying, “It’s OK If You’re A Republican.”

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  • http://twitter.com/StCyrlyMe2 Reda StCyr

     No doubt your a Republican who would scream to the high heavens if that were Mr & Mrs Obama
    Don’t even respond!!

  • http://twitter.com/StCyrlyMe2 Reda StCyr

    I get sick just looking at Mr & Mrs Thomas!!

  • Fox

    So, a Supreme Court justice and his wife actively lobbying against a case said Justice oversaw in which the two have a direct financial stake in its overturn is, according to you… *not* a conflict of interest? Exactly how did you manage to drop out of elementary school?
    Sure, Virginia Thomas can have all the *opinions* she wants. There’s no denying that, but her freedom of speech ends where her attempts to buy her husband’s decision begins. The fact that she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the explicit purpose of buying the influence of a federal judge’s decision on the Supreme Court is nothing less than bribery. Mobsters went to prison for doing what Mrs. Thomas did.

  • Fox

    Knowing Justice Thomas’ direct financial stake in the fate of healthcare reform continued as long as it has, coupled with his refusal to recuse himself from the case and vote against healthcare reform because of that financial stake, this situation has evolved from a mere conflict of interest to a full-fledged execution of impropriety.

  • Jim S

    I love how the right wing has started describing themselves as middle of the road and describing the middle of the road as far left liberals. It isn’t what Thomas’ wife says it’s what she makes a living doing that creates a direct conflict of interest.

  • Wildcat66buick

    nothing…I mean nothing moderate about YOU.

  • http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

    No Cindy, anyone who has a wife who brags about her influence, whose husband comes in with a bias, should recuse himself in some cases.

    And anyone who is a keynote speaker or guest at right wing fundraisers, who make rulings that benefit those people, should be impeached.

  • CindyH

    I love this comment: So, according to liberals, anyone who is married, or has a partner should not be  appointed to the Supreme Court, lest they may be influenced by their point of view…. utter non-sense. Judge Thomas’ wife can do and say what she likes: thank you first ammendment. Ms. Kagan clearly should have recused herself from the Obamacare hearings; she is obviously bias toward the successful implementation of this legislation. Her impartiality is more than reasonably in question.  Yet another sickening Far Left Liberal Double Standard that the rest of us moderate minded middle of the road people have to be subjected.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/QQX722UKOND56Y7IQCODTVQDLI Lenny Kohm

    Probably because impeachment proceedings begin in the U.S. House of Representatives, and that body is controlled by the wrong wing.

  • BlueberryT

    Clarence Thomas has discredited the reputation of the Supreme Court; this goes far beyond legal or philosophical differences.  His behavior is in flagrant violation of any conflict of interest statute anywhere.  But the SCOTUS is left to police its own behavior, meaning that the only legal recourse is impeachment.  

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DW7LHDQQLRH5RQG2AGEXP35QGM Mr. B

    Why is it again that Justice Kagan had to recuse herself from the challenge to Arizona’s immigration law, and very loud, very public demands were made for her to recuse herself again, but Thomas gets a pass?

    Same reason Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself in Cheney v. US District Court for DC, despite the fact he had gone on a hunting trip with Cheney and even traveled on Air Force Two — which is, as you say:

    IOKIYAR

  • TJColatrella

    Why isn’t Thomas being Impeached for all these previous lies and this blatant Corruption.. ?