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| Youtube/Library of Congress |
The smearing of the inconvenient justice continues.
ProPublica often practices what you might call Potemkin journalism — dressing up non-stories with neutral-sounding reporting verbiage and lots of graphs and pictures that seem important at first glance, but in actuality tell us very little.
One of the best examples of the practice can be found in today’s smearing of Clarence Thomas, a hobbyhorse of leftists since 1991. In it we learn that the Supreme Court justice has a super-rich friend. And that super-rich friend, GOP donor Harlan Crow, invites Thomas on “luxury” vacations from time to time at his “private resort,” “sprawling ranch,” “all-male retreat,” and on his “superyacht.” As all the adjectives strongly suggest, all of it is very upscale. Most of the luxury vacations that happen “virtually every year,” it seems, have Clarence and Ginni Thomas spending “about a week” during the summer as guests at one of Crow’s resorts in the Adirondacks.
Here is a little taste of the pretend journalism:
There’s evidence Thomas has taken even more trips on the superyacht. Crow often gave his guests custom polo shirts commemorating their vacations, according to staff. ProPublica found photographs of Thomas wearing at least two of those shirts. In one, he wears a blue polo shirt embroidered with the Michaela Rose’s logo and the words “March 2007” and “Greek Islands.”
There are, indeed, lots of incriminating pictures in the piece — even a shot of a signed book! — because people who do furtive, illegal, corrupt stuff always wear commemorative custom-made polo shirts of their trips and then take lots of snapshots. Evidence, indeed.
The internet has “exploded” with comments from the usual suspects mischaracterizing the trips as bribes, though everything reported by ProPublica is completely legal and unrelated to Thomas’ work on the court. Well, perhaps I should say all this is very related to his work on the court, just not in the way ProPublica insinuates.
Thomas’ venial sin is not caring what the media or elites think of him. His mortal sins are practicing and believing in originalism and bucking the racial stereotypes of the left. That’s the only reason The Washington Post keeps publishing deep dives into Ginni Thomas’ completely legal political activism. --->READ MORE HERE
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| AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File |
Justice Clarence Thomas is defending his more than 25-year relationship with a GOP megadonor by saying he is one of his “dearest friends” and that the court signed off on their families’ vacations together.
Justice Thomas has been under fire since ProPublica published an article on Thursday raising ethics concerns about him and his wife, Virginia Thomas, traveling with real estate developer Harlan Crow on his yacht and private jet over the years.
“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than a quarter century we have known them,” Justice Thomas said in a statement released on Friday by the Supreme Court.
He said he received guidance that his travel and socializing were not problematic.
“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” Justice Thomas said.
“I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.” --->READ MORE HEREFollow link below to a related story:
Justice Clarence Thomas defends ‘family trips’ with GOP donor
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