Part Four: The Clarence Thomas Story

Robert is joined by Miles Gray for the final part of our series on Clarence Thomas

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where once
again Miles and I are talking about the well known
fact that I'm a much better basketball player than Lebron James.
So how are we doing? You're not? But I, like
Lebron has never done the the five pointer shots that
I make all the time. Definitely not. That's definitely not.

(00:24):
That's when he did. Is not wetty like yours? No
wetti thank you. That's exactly the slang that I know
what means. It's so funny, how stupid you sounded so funny.
You know what else is funny, Sophie. I was gonna
say something really mean, and then I stopped myself. What well,

(00:46):
you know what I did is I spent time, because
I'm not a mean person like you, reading from the Bible,
you know, the Good Book, which we're all supposed to
do every day. And I found a relevant quote from
the Bible. And I just gonna read this bit of
Mark sixteen because I think from Playboy Magazine August of nine,

(01:07):
that's somebody's Bible. No, I I think we could use
a little bit more religion on this podcast. And uh,
and so I'm gonna this this this verse from the Bible,
save us, Robert cherish ye all the catalytic converters that
that frolic and frock in the streets around you, and
never let them stay in the car with which they

(01:28):
were initially assembled, and instead take for ye all the
precious metals they contain and use them to buy street
drugs under bridges. M that's I mean, let's just bring
it down one more time due Toonomy eight. But remember
the Lord your God, for it is he who gives

(01:50):
you the ability to produce wealth through the theft of
catalytic converters, which he swore to your ancestors. As it
is today. I mean, and this is why the Bible is,
This is why I want to get this ship tadded.
Sometimes it's so powerful. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I can't imagine
anyone disagreeing with that. This is not funny. So is

(02:12):
my religion. Don't don't play with Miles. I think we
might have to get HR involved, because if I remember
the classes that I did not take, the HR takes
a stick. We're not allowed to demean a co workers religion.
Gart you're still gonning emails about that. I have not
checked those emails in months. Sophie. Um So, Miles, we're

(02:35):
back talking about Clarence Thomas. What's a good nickname for
Clarence Thomas? Uh m hmm. I feel like it's some
kind of like a good nickname is some kind of
Marvel super villain that involves like some kind of porn pun. Yeah,
definitely there has to be like something pornographic there which

(02:56):
he would appreciate personally, as someone who uncontrollably talks about
porn grafity to every single person that he has for
more than thirty five seconds. I'm trying to think, is
there any I mean, there's pyro and that could just
be porno, but that's not like very clever. Um, we'll
think about that. I mean, I'll challenge the listeners for
that something good, some good. I was gonna go with

(03:17):
Lex Luthor, but mainly because I think Clarence tom Well
is he bald am? I just imagining that Clarence Thomas
he's got here. Let me let me take a look.
Let me take a look. I think it's halo Yeah
it is haloing. But no, you're right, he has that
like it's like a crown of white hairs too. So
like spiderwebt Um, I don't know, but oh yeah, no,

(03:39):
that's because in the most recent pictures he's like barely
has any left. I guess he's kind of like he's
like Sniegel, you know, and that like Porno has ruined him.
Like I see like the ring of Power, the Ring
of Porno that he's pursuing. And then I just think
how the walls are plastered with Porno. It's like Sniegel
when he has the rings, Like I look forward to
the day and Elijah Wood attempts to throw his his

(04:02):
old playboys into a volcano, but but can't bear to
do it, and then Clarence Thomas tackles them out of
his hands and falls into the mouth of some fires
of Mount Doom. Yeah. Yes, anyway, big on Tolkien today.

(04:23):
Um so yeah, the uh, we're talking a bit about
Clans Thomas, who is as we start this story, about
to be the Republican nominate the latest of like way
too many fucking Supreme they make, They nominate so many
fucking Supreme Court justices in the Reagan Bush ears it
is heartbreaking. Um and yeah. The kind of black conservatism

(04:44):
that Thomas had come to support by the late nineteen
eighties was very formed by both his experiences at Yale
with his racist white liberal colleagues and his experiences with
racists in the Reagan administration. It was a better the
devil you know kind of bargain mixed with an almost
religious belief in the saving power of black men and
the focus on a kind of family values that hinged
around an authoritarian, all powerful father exerting iron control over

(05:08):
his family. That's what like his kind of attitude comes
around as is like you can't you can't understand or
stop racism. It's useless to try. You'll just wind up
making the problem worse. All you can do is empower
black men to have complete control over their families in
order to like protect and direct them. Um, the state
will do nothing but get in the way of black
self reliance, and in Thomas's evolving view, things like affirmative

(05:31):
action only stripped black men of self respect, while integration
broke up strong black communities. The fact that Thomas himself
had repeatedly benefited from affirmative action programs UH does not
seem to have had an impact on his beliefs here,
although he was constantly angry about that. So I don't know.
That's a complicated thing to wrap your head around. I guess, yeah, yeah,

(05:54):
I mean that's again, there's so much that's like confounding
about him, with so much that makes sense, that makes sense, right, Yeah,
like yeah, that that is like a whole thing to
to get your head around. And it is, like I think, rightfully,
So there's nothing unreasonable or hard to understand about being

(06:14):
like angry about the existence of affirmative action because of
like what it implies, right, what it implies about like
the past of the country that you're in. Right, I
don't think it's reasonable to be against those programs, but
I think it's reasonable to be like it's fucked up
that like this is necessary, um, and that it's going
to lead to people treating black people who benefit from

(06:36):
these programs differently as if like they don't deserve to
be there. Like that is uh, like fucked up in
a problem. It doesn't mean that like the solution is
do nothing exactly it's right, which is what he says,
Or you're just going to make the problems of racism worse. Yeah, Well,
it's not like you want to put out a fire, right,
And he's just saying don't fan the flames, and it's like,

(06:56):
no extinguish the fire. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's sucked
up with to have so many firefighters out of this fire.
But yeah, it is. It's bad that the fire got
that bad. But that doesn't mean the solutionists fewer firefighters,
yeah right, or you can fan the flames. Yeah. So,
according to Corey Robin Quote, among the few who have
noticed this, the type of his nomination was the right

(07:19):
wing intellectual Murray Rothbard. Before he died in nine Rothbard
came to a late life vision of a coalition of
libertarians and white nationalists forging alliances with Pat Buchanan and
Ron Paul. Rothbart anticipated the merger of America's two great manias,
racism and capital or in capitalism that are the hallmark
of the Trump regime, black separatism or black nationalism. Rothbard

(07:41):
said of Thomas's philosophy has long struck me as more
far more compatible with human nature, as well as far
more libertarian than the compulsory integration beloved of left liberalism.
A modern updated version of the black nation idea, Rothbart added,
would set the American blacks free, at last, free from
what they see as white racism and what many white
see his parasitism over the white populace through crime or

(08:03):
welfare payments. Independent at long last, liberated from what they
see as the institutionalized legacy of slavery, the blacks would
finally be free to find their own level. So like
Rothbart sucks. Rothbart, by the way, is the reason why
libertarian is a right wing word. Now that's like a
conscious thing that he did is steal it from the
left and is a just a math that makes clear
that's a massive racist talking right like everything about very racist. Yeah,

(08:28):
but also just given their own thing give let him
just do their own thing over there. Man. Also, though
you have to like again this is the thing you
could you always have to say about Rothbart, a very
intelligent man who was good at getting what he wanted,
because like, this is a winning strategy, not with most people,
but like with enough that it's come to dominate a
huge chunk of Republican politics, um and been a significant

(08:52):
part and a couple of presidential elections. So yeah, and
it and it also a great new feeling or vibe
to the idea of like not wanting to help marginalized people,
which is you know, people should just be kind of
like left to do their own thing, is sort of
what I'm saying. Like I'm not trying to say they

(09:13):
deserve that, but what I'm saying is my belief is
that like people should just be free to like sort
that out. Like if it's not working for them, then
like they should work that out. And is that sort
of like this other, you know, form of neglectful racism
that people love. Yep, Um, it's pretty good. It's it's

(09:35):
uh yeah. In June of their good Martial announced his
retirement from the Supreme Court. Tragically. If he'd held on
a little bit longer, his successor might have been someone
who was a little bit more to the left. Uh,
and they would have been appointed by President Clinton. Um.
But at the time June, you gotta remember, Bush looked
like he was gonna win, right like it was, you know,

(09:57):
things were going pretty good. He had he'd had a
he was in the process, I guess of having a
fun little war which we all had a really good
time with. Made everybody feel good about themselves. I Mean,
who didn't have those custom Ninja turtles that were straight
up desert storm propaganda? Man, he should have gotten a
second term just because of the Ninja Turtles strength of yea, yeah,

(10:17):
off the strength of the toys absolutely and the G I.
Joe episodes. We got out of that period of time.
Oh my god, what a what a great time that
was for everyone. This scuds for you. We should have
done another couple of wars like that instead of the
problem wars. Right, Yeah, I know, just suck a country
up a little bit and then like bounce just a

(10:39):
little bit though, you know, just just just fucking around
just for the weekend. Yeah, what if we just bombed
I don't know, what's the capital of Poland, Poland town.
What if we just bombed Poland Town a little bit,
you know, and then we bounced, then we're gone. Right?
Does a little warning make us feel good? Hundred hours
on the ground, right, everybody? Everybody feels like even not? Yeah? Yeah, easy, simple, God?

(11:03):
What you want to bomb Warsaw? Thank you, Sophie Warsaw? Yeah?
Why not? Yeah? Joined the great club of dudes? Who
did I know one thing about that's? That's that's If
I know one thing about history, it's that bombing Warsaw
is always a good guy move. No response to that,

(11:25):
just concerned here folks anyway, stop borking around. Thank you
so thank you for bringing back to Robert. So your
life up if they're good. Marshall had held on a
little bit longer another like year in change, he probably
would have had his success for appointed by President Clinton.
But like, and I'm not saying this to criticize the man, Like,

(11:47):
imagine yourself in his position. You've spent your entire life
fighting for civil rights and doing so very effectively. You
are old and sick and in pain, and you're pretty
fucking sure this Bush guys gonna win reelection, So like,
why continue to just sit there writing out distant pieces
while you're like kind of unable to function at your

(12:08):
prior level, you know, especially I'm not. I'm not, yeah,
especially when that like I'm doing the best I can
with what I have quote like makes your sound like
fucking hod or of like just like just ripping up
your body, and you're like, I'm trying, y'all, I am
desperately trying, but it's just they're ripping my body apart,
like I I can't. I have no no blame for

(12:28):
him in this, like but he does, he does quit.
You know, wait, where are those like white women who
are blaming they're good, Marshal. They're like, actually, if you
really follow this domino effect, it's they're good Marshal fault. Um, yeah,
I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't particularly blame him.
He's in a pretty bad historic position here. It is

(12:50):
kind of tragic knowing like, oh, man, you were about
to get a moderately more progressive person in the White House,
but tragically that didn't not happen. Um. So he he quits,
you know, he does the old Irish goodbye uh and
and bounces and um. Yeah. Now, George H. W. Bush

(13:12):
is going to is one of his last things as president,
get to put another ass in a seat at the
Supreme Court. Um. And you know, at this point they
can't throw another moderate in there. You know, Bush and
Johnson UNU have like kind of edged the far right
as much as they possibly can, and they need to
pick a judge that like the fascist wing of the party.

(13:34):
He's gonna get hard. Yeah, and and that that that
motherfucker is Clarence Thomas. Um. However, the realities of the
selection process mean that they also need to convince Congress
that he has not in fact a threat to abortion.
That is the primary concern when Thomas gets nominated, right, UM,
is that, Oh, this guy's gonna end Roe v. Wade. Right,
that is the primary concern in n UM, this guy's

(13:57):
gonna end Roe v. Wade. Now, so a lot of
Congress people before proving him want to like know whether
or not he's a threat to the right to choose um.
And this is not as simple as it sounds actually
finding out how he would rule on it, because Thomas, again,
as we've kind of walked through this, he has no
history as a trial lawyer. He's never worked as a

(14:19):
judge prior to this. You know, Um, he has absolutely
no history of ruling on or considering cases or being
involved with cases that involve abortion. There's nothing to read
on in his actual past here. And part of that
is because again he's not a fucking judge, So there's
like no way to look at how he's handled past
cases here. He's like, what do you do, sir? How

(14:39):
did how the fund did your name get? Yeah, he's
a political creature, right like, he does not have and
he's he's kind of deliberately avoided being in positions where
there's a whole lot to criticize him on in in
most of these actual like super dicey areas. UM. So
when he undergoes his confirmation hearings, UM, Tom fights hard

(15:00):
to be to avoid being pinned down on the matter
of whether or not he supports the right to choose UM.
He says at one point that he doesn't know how
he's going to rule on abortion right, Like, so, I
don't know. I don't know what I do. I don't
know what I do if that came up, you know,
UM quote, I hadn't read those cases about privacy, and
I hadn't thought much about substantive due process since law school.
I had constitutional law in nineteen seventy two. Row was

(15:23):
decided in nineteen seventy three. So he's literally like, I
just didn't think about it much. And then I've been like, oh, Ship,
that's right. But then like I got out of law
school and like I wasn't really thinking about it. Yeah,
I might think, I might say, not a log I hear,
but I might say that not having thought about a
major civil rights issue ever in your career would be Yeah, maybe,

(15:44):
like you shouldn't be a judge of the on the
Supreme Court if you never thought about this in your life.
That's what's wild too, is like I'm sure there's like
this perfect again because he's this political creature to like
he's benefited from just like patriarchy and that he can
be like a guy who has really he's replacing one
of like the most brilliant Supreme Court justices, the dude

(16:06):
who has never done shit, like yeah, like literally the
fucking goat. This guy who by any standard, has had
an incredible priorate of becoming a Supreme Court justice, has
an incredible legal career still to this day one of
the most influential trial lawyers in the history of like
Western law. And he gets replaced by a guy who
um like had eight eight years as chairman of the

(16:30):
E e e O C and prior to that like briefly
represented Monsanto and then like and then nothing director for
talking about porn for mostly just interrupted colleagues Like what so,
Thomas though um is really good, you know, obviously he
has no real background as the kind of things you

(16:51):
would want to Supreme Court justice to have, but he
has gotten really good at this point at using his
personal background as someone who grew up poor and black
to be fuddle literal liberals and kind of like, you know,
push back on any sort of claims that he might
not be a good fit as a Supreme Court justice. Uh.
He followed this statement, the one I just read about
how he hasn't considered privacy law by claiming, quote, I

(17:13):
was more interested in the race issues. I was more
interested in getting out of law school. I was more
interested in passing the bar exam. My life was consumed
by survival. I couldn't pay my rent, I couldn't repay
my student loans. I had all these other things going
on that you were navigating these worlds that you're navigating.
So that's is like reason for why I didn't consider
I never considered abortion of privacy. I had real things
to worry about, you know. I had as a as

(17:35):
a as a as a poor black kid. I had
liked to actually fight to pay my rent, So I
couldn't think about privacy rights. So the right to choose
perfect perfect, Yeah. Yeah, And that like it shuts down
a lot of the criticisms against him in the Senate. Now,
if you want a tremendously detailed look at how the
confirmation process went or precisely why Thomas was picked all

(17:56):
of that stuff. I really do recommend the book Strange
Justice by Meyer and Abramson Um. I think it is
important to note that Thomas really plays up the aspects
of his background that sound good to liberals when he
is during this confirmation process, because again, he spent years
playing up aspects of his background to appeal to the right,
and now that he's got to like appeal to the center,
at some point he starts like really pushing the parts

(18:17):
of him that do sound good to liberals. When he's
asked what he minors in during college, he's tells the
Senate protest um. And it should be noted that many
many liberals at the time absolutely did not buy what
what Thomas was trying to like get over on them.
His far right views were well documented his history. You know,
we've talked about he gives all these speeches at the

(18:38):
Heritage Foundation that New York Times article I quoted from earlier,
where he's like, that's criticizing him for being friends with
a bunch of apartheid people and participating in like pro apartheid,
like think tank events like that is known at the
time he's being criticized for that at the time um,
and he also has a nasty history of statements about
things like racial intermarriage and women's rights. There was extreme

(19:01):
suspicion at the time that he would be a void
vote against reproductive choice on the Supreme Court, and many
many people did not fall for his act, and so
his confirmation process was contentious and brutal, and some of
the ugliest moments during it came to the during the
testimony of a former female employee who had worked with
him at both the Department of Education and at the
E E O C. And now it's time Miles to

(19:23):
talk about Anita Hill. Yeah, you're not gonna nobody's nobody's
gonna feel good about this. This isn't like a long Yeah.
This this is the road to Anita Hill vill But
you know what, it's the road to First Miles Products

(19:44):
and Services. Oh boy, Yeah, this is you know, this
is a road that you can travel on your car
when you replace your catalytic converter, which, by the way,
we're just gonna take again. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's
why that's winded up right in the pocket, baby, right
in the pocket. You're just at this point stop driving
that Prius, you know what I mean? No, you know,

(20:04):
I can't want to see us, you know what I mean.
That's what I say. Look, man, you can wrap it
in razor blades. I don't care. I got gloves like yeah,
nobody kind of treasures are inside that thing. Jim's the
bloons all for you there inside a catalytic converter. Can
you imagine? That's like it's all started as a myth

(20:27):
from a Pirates type. I'm imagining redoing the opening of
the first Indiana Jones and instead of that like little
head statue, it's like a catalytic converter thing that he's
gotta like saw out somebody. Somebody's parked their two thousand
eight prius inside a Mayan temple and he's just jacking
that thing. Oh yeah, just yar. There be many a

(20:47):
catalytic converters yonder and then you go we there's rhodium
and platinum inside. Yeah. And in the first Pirates of
the Caribbean movie what's his name? The older Pirate, just
like the opening up a chest, Yeah, Jeffrey Rush opening
a chest and just like running catalytic converters falling out
of his hand, washing his hand in it like it's

(21:09):
a cool stream. Exactly. He got the he has the
chain necklace. Elizabeth's got like a catalytic converter necklace, and
it falls into the ocean and that's what wakes up
all of the skelets. And oh, we're the catalytic converter
pirate chest. That's right, baby, here's some ads. Uh, Miles,

(21:39):
we're back, Yeah, we're back. We're talking about both catalytic
converters and Clarence Thomas. Um. Yeah, mostly catalytic converters over
the last minute or so. But you know, I think
we can all agree much more relevant to civil rights
law than than the Supreme Court is the catalytic converter. Look,

(22:00):
I mean, look, we always say liberation through catalytic conversion.
That's that's exactly right, Miles. The Supreme Court takes away
rights at the drop of a hat. You can't trust them,
you can't rely on them. You can always rely on
a catalytic converter to be worth hard cash, you know.
And you saw this, look, folks, and thanks so much
for coming to this Hilton for this talk. But I

(22:21):
gotta say, with the market price right now for metals
like rhodium, like palladium, like platinum, Okay, we call those
the big three in the Catholic converter business. The tree
you has skyrocketed. Okay, so we're talking. I mean, sir,
you can have a new Boston Whaler boat if you
wanted within two months. Okay, just hard ground, all right,

(22:41):
Just don't buy any Prius because we're getting that cat. No,
we are. We are topping that baby out of there. Yeah,
you come in that Prius, then you're gonna see us,
or you probably won't. To be honest, we're a little more,
a little more subtle. Uh So, now it's not to
talk about Anita Hill. This is not as fun as

(23:02):
talking about standard Catholic transition. Yeah, what a what a transition.
So there's a lot of ink has been spilled on
the subject of Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, what he did,
what he didn't do. The gist of it is this
Hill was a young black woman who had grown up
in a poor but comfortable farming family in rural Oklahoma.
Unlike Thomas, she benefited from a strong immediate and extended

(23:25):
family who were were very tightly knit and and very
like close to each other in supportive. She had a
lot of emotional support from her family yes, coddled, yes,
coddled into weakness by having a loving family. She was
more or less a political centrist and politically was extremely
dedicated to her studies. Most people who knew her will

(23:48):
agree that she was a tremendously ambitious young woman. She
got into Yale, she was offered a prestigious job at
a major law firm, and she was eventually recommended for
a job under Clarence Thomas at the Department of ed Ocasion.
So she is a poor working class girl who works very,
very hard, makes good, and gets a prestigious job earlier

(24:09):
in her career working under Clarence Thomas at the d
o E, which is like a big deal for her, um,
would be a big deal for anybody in her situation. UM.
And initially she and Clarence have a good working relationship.
They're very friendly, but with not in in not a
whole lot of time, he graduates to heavy unwanted flirtation

(24:30):
and I'm gonna quote from Strange Justice again. Thomas began
to ask her out socially three to five months after
she began working for him in July nineteen one. According
to Hill, his approach was unusual. Rather than asking her
to join him for a specific date or event, like
a movie or dinner. He expressed his interest as a
casual command, saying, you ought to go out with me sometime.

(24:51):
She turned him down firmly. She recalled, explaining that she
enjoyed her work and believed it ill advised to date
a supervisor. But he would not take no for an
answer and dead she testified, and the following weeks he
continued to ask me out. On several occasions, he pressed
me to justify my reasons for saying no to him.
So that's not that's bad. You ought to go out

(25:13):
what you ought to go out with me? You know,
you ought to go out with me? That's it? Was
he a Jedi? What the fund is that supposed to do? Yeah?
This is? This is then you're looking for and he's
and he's married at this point. Uh no, no he is,

(25:33):
Well when when does he when does he get remarried?
Eight seven? So yeah, this would have been because because
they start working in like eighty one. So yes, he's
this is he's in between wives, I think at this point. Okay,
in between ones. Okay, got you, got you? Got you? Yeah, sorry,
I just wanted to where he's yeah, this starts in
between wives. Um, so yeah, uh that's not great. Uh.

(25:57):
He'll later testified that Thomas never threaten to fire her
if she did not date him or anything like that,
but that he pressured her so much that it was
impossible for her to like do her job. He talked
about sex, constantly calling her into the office to discuss
work matters and then pivoting at once to gratuitous descriptions
of fucking h quote. His conversations were very vivid. He

(26:19):
spoke of 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. He talked about
pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts
involved in various sex acts On various occasions, Thomas told
me graphically of his own sexual prowess, mentioning at one

(26:39):
point that he had measured his penis, which he said
was larger than most. I would say, that's not a
good working environment. That's not like you shouldn't like. That
should probably get you in trouble anywhere, unless you're like,
unless if you are a porn producer. That's probably appropriate
work conversation. I will say that if you are in

(27:01):
the pornographic film industry, then that's probably relevant more or
less normal conversation. Relevant you're describing work in this you're
supposed to be some kind of Yeah, you're the chairman
of the E O C. Or you're you're working at
the Department of Education. Neither of those are places I
would say that that's appropriate conversation. This is like when

(27:26):
you know, like it's so bad too where Yeah, to
any person you're like that, you know, you know, no,
you should know. You wouldn't if you were fucking driving
with a friend on a road trip and they started
having this conversation, like you would probably be like, hey,
this has to stop. Like this is not I don't
want to talk with you about this. Like I'm not again,
very pro porn here, not a prude here, but you know,

(27:49):
like somebody if again, if my boss calls me into
his office and it's like, you know, I was watching
a video of a woman having sex with an animal.
Let me tell you about how the horses penis? Would
I what I saw it doing when it displaced her
belly and like that's like I gotta write these cracked articles. Man,
you gotta give me time. Jesus. Wow wow wow, Miles

(28:14):
no comment. That's that's that's that's uh wow. Miles Gray's
last appearance on podcast Everybody. So this is like bad.
I think it's fair to say bad. Also, describing your
own penis, that's really definitely a clear line you shouldn't
shouldn't do that to your coworkers. Um. Now, when these

(28:39):
allegations came out during the confirmation process, Thomas took an
interesting approach to handling them. Right, So he'll she only
spends like a day being question but like, now this
comes out and it becomes there's this huge media thing
about it. People are making a big deal. But which
they should. I'm not saying they're making a big deal
about it like it's bad too. This is a problem. Um.

(28:59):
Thomas takes an interesting approached responding to it. Now. The
smart play might have been to apologize for making her
feel uncomfortable, right, or to say like, I'm sorry, you
know I was joking. I'm sorry that my jokes made
I'm not saying that's good. I want to be clear here,
I'm not saying that would make it Okay, I'm saying
that might be the smart play, as like a guy
trying to get out of trouble, not at least deny.

(29:22):
You know this is a you know, I have this.
I've spent a lot of time working around a lot
of guys. You know what's uh, you know we we
we we make these jokes all the time. And I
was just making jokes with her, like with any colleague.
And I'm sorry that I it made her feel uncomfortable,
right like that that would be probably what most men
in his position would do. Um, again, that's bad. But
I'm saying that, like that's the that's the normal, right

(29:44):
or societal flow of events typically is like that. He
doesn't do that. Instead, he denies ever speaking to her
about sex at all, and he also denies ever having
similar conversations within the workplace at any point in time. Now,
this is an obvious lie. Virtually every close co worker
and colleague of Clarence Thomas has experiences which they later

(30:08):
told to Press, many under their own names, of him
talking about pornography and making weirdly explicit sex jokes. This
is a constant experience. People who are friends with him
and who worked with him have had over the course
of decades. Multiple women who have worked with Thomas over
the years have recounted identical experiences. Now, I'm not going
to go into tremendous detail about Professor Hill. She later

(30:30):
becomes a professor. Now she's Professor Hill. Um. I'm not
going to go into a tremendous amount of detail about
her allegations, other than to say that they are very
credible and they are backed up by the recollections of
multiple people that she discussed Thomas's behavior with at the time,
and also the experience of like several dozen people who
knew him socially and professionally in the years before he

(30:50):
was nominated to the Supreme Court. What I will do
is recount for you one more anecdote to make a
point of how relentless his inappropriate sexual behavior at truly was.
And here's Mayer and Abrams and Abramson again quote. One
of the oddest of Hill's recollections was that one day,
when she and Thomas were working in his office, he

(31:11):
got up from the table where he had been sitting
with her, went over to his desk to retrieve a
can of Coca cola, and after staring at it demanded
to know who has put pubic hair on my coke?
I didn't have a clue how to interpret that. Hill testified,
I did not know. It was a strange comment for me.
I thought it was inappropriate, but I did not know
what he meant. In the hearings, Thomas sounded equally baffled

(31:33):
and defended by such language. Asked by Senator or in
Hatch if he had ever said such a thing, Thomas replied, No,
absolutely not. Now, Miles, that's horseship, and we know it's
horseshit because Meyer and Abramson, being good reporters, went and
talked to a bunch of his co workers and we're like,
you ever make any comments about like a coke and
a pubic hair to you? And boy, howdy do a

(31:55):
lot of people have the exact same experience Anita Hill did,
This is like a thing for him. Quote so cool, Yeah,
just just let me let me get this through and
then we could talk about it, miles. Quote. Marguerite Donnelly,
a senior trial attorney at the E. E E O C.
Until she went into private practice in nineteen eighty six,
distinctly recalled being told by a co worker in the

(32:17):
early nineteen eighties that Chairman Thomas had said, and I
thought it was in the presence of several people, that
there was a pubic hair on his can of coke.
Donnelly says she told her husband Alan Danoff, who was
an attorney at the e o C until nineteen eighty five,
about the peculiar comment. When interviewed, dan Off confirmed this.
We certainly did hear about it back then, he said.
Thomas's aide Michael Middleton, also said that he heard about

(32:37):
he heard the pubic hair story associated with Thomas before
nineteen eighty five, when he too left the e o C.
I have this vision of Clarence at the e o
C picking up a coke and saying, who put this
pubic hair on my coke? Recalled Middleton, formerly Thomas's principal
deputy at the Department of Education and Associate General Counsel
at the e o C and now a professor at
law at University of Missouri Columbia. Middleton also remembered telling

(32:59):
us why about it at the time During the hearings,
He said, he turned to her and asked if she
remembered the story, and she told him that she did so.
Like that's a lot of people to know about you,
like picking up cokes in the office and being like,
why is there a pube on this coke? Like that's
a lot of people who have had that who are like, oh, yeah,
that's a thing Clarence does. This stupid fucking thing to

(33:20):
also be known for. It's a really stupid thing to
be known for, a really stupid creepy thing to be
known for. Ye, And we're again throughout all these episodes, right,
I'm just like we're putting together this backstory of a
person who now is one of the most as most
of one of the most powerful people on the planet. Yes,
and is can skull fuck the earth people's rights whatever

(33:46):
the funk they want with just because because of their
fucking shitty road here. And also somebody who has also
been afforded like some of the worst parts of like
you know, society, like benefiting from all kinds of ship
that also gives him this like terrible sense of potency

(34:07):
and like righteousness and ship and all of it's coming
together to like you, we're just watching it all play
out now that really is kind of alarm and just
feels like most Yeah anyway, sorry, Yeah, I would say here,
and here's what I would say that it's good. M hmmm. Anyway,

(34:28):
that's the end of the episode. Everything's fine. Look whoms
whoms among us? Right has not? You know, everybody's coworkers
have stories about them. For example, some of us might
have a history of you know, sneaking into people's houses
at night and rubbing various poisonous plants on on children's

(34:51):
clothing in order to make kids stuffer. Right, Like, nobody's perfect.
But yeah, much of jail broken Amazon fire sticks of course,
who hasn't done that? Right? Or offer up you can, honestly,
bro for one fifty you'll get all the channels, you'll
get access to. This won't plex server, it's real already

(35:11):
has Waconda forever on it. And he's not. And here's
the thing about Miles is being very humble. Here's the
thing he's not going to say about these hundred and
fifty dollar firesticks that he's selling. They absolutely will not
steal your data so that people can can can make
PayPal payments on what I'm here. I'm here absolutely and
I just won't happen. I just I'm only here for

(35:32):
the first transaction. I'm going to swipe your data information
because just like Clarence Thomas isn't getting on the Supreme
Court in order to destroy a woman's right to choose.
He's not going to do that. He doesn't even think
about that kind of He didn't even think about it,
never would never think about it. He didn't even know
about it. Um anyway, Clarence Thomas gets confirmed by the

(35:56):
narrowest margins of any Supreme Court justice in history up
to that point. I think, still to this day, maybe
Kavin I'll beat him. I didn't check on that. I
should have. I would have if I wasn't a hack
in a fraud. But he gets confirmed, right, That's all
that matters. It's like the thing that people say about,
like what do you call the doctor who ranked last
in medical class doctor? Like he's still he's on the
fucking Supreme Court. Doesn't matter that it was narrow yeah, yeah. Now.

(36:19):
It is worth noting that when Hill told the Senate
Judiciary Committee about what Thomas had done, Senator Joe Biden
insisted her name not be used and that Thomas not
be told of the allegations, which seriously limited the Senate
Committee's options in terms of actually doing anything about this.
Joe has been accused of kind of acting to hush
it up. Um, weird, Joe. Good thing that guy doesn't

(36:43):
come up later in the story. Anyway, an FBI investigation
was suggested and it was determined that Thomas had done
nothing wrong. So they look into it for like a
couple of days, and they're like, it's fine, he didn't
do anything. Weird, And I guess legally none of this
is really illegal, especially since he helped change the definition
of sexual harassment in the workplace, was right exactly. Yeah, yet,

(37:05):
so that's cool. Uh. Anita Hill gets absolutely savaged by
right wing media. Very few people who have been like
more brutally attacked by the right than her. Um, and yeah,
it's it's it's an early period of time. Although at
this point a majority of Americans when pold say, they
believe her side of the story. I'm calling it that

(37:26):
not because I think there's actually sides to this, but
you know what I mean. Um, she's been vindicated in
addition to the fact that other allegations against Thomas have
come out in the years since, Like, she's been extremely vindicated.
Professor Hill, you know seems to have have have done
her best, and I have nothing but the best wishes
for her anyway. At this point, she has been backed

(37:47):
up repeatedly by allegations made by multiple women and the
recollections of numerous colleagues. Thomas, for his part, has been
the remainder of his life since then, Enraged at liberals
for questioning his honor and damaging his reputation, there are
claims that he promised to make their lives absolute hell
in revenge for what had been done. Whatever the truth,
Thomas lost no time in being the worst judge he

(38:08):
could possibly be. And I'm gonna quote from the New
Yorker here. In the nine case Missouri versus Jenkins, the
Court's conservative majority held that federal courts could not force
Missouri to adopt policies designed to entice suburban white students
to predominantly black urban schools. Thomas joined the majority and
the courts private deliberations about the case. He argued, in
the paraphrase of a profile of Thomas and The New Yorker,

(38:30):
I am the only one at this table who has
attended a segregated school. And the problem with segregation was
not that we didn't have white people in our class.
The problem was that we didn't have equal facilities. We
didn't have heating, we didn't have books, and we had
rickety chairs all my classmates and I wanted was the
choice to attend the mostly black are mostly white school
and to have the same resources in whatever school we choose.
This private sentiment made its way into Thomas's public statement

(38:51):
about the case. His concurrence in Missouri v. Jenkins was
the only opinion. Legal scholar Mark Greber argues that questioned
whether desegregation was a constitutional value. If anything, Thomas believes
that the state should, where it can within the law,
support the separation of the races. Looking back on his
education in an all black environment, Thomas has admitted to
wanting to turn back the clock to a time when

(39:12):
we had our own schools. Much of his jurisprudence is
devoted to undoing the Grand Experiment, which he believes himself
to be a victim of. As he made clear in
nineteen eight six, I have been the guinea pig for
many social experiments on social minorities. To all who would
continue these experiments, I say, please no more. Oh, my god,

(39:33):
when we had our own schools. Wood Oh, He's literally
saying separate but equal is fine? What a fucking backwards?
I mean, yeah, everything's back Yeah, going back in time. Yeah,
what it's charitable description when we had our own schools,
when we had our own schools. Yeah, okay, well that's yeah,

(39:53):
it's good. It's good that he's on the Supreme Court.
But you know what else is good, miles m goods
and services. Yeah, the products and services that support this podcast,
you know, including and a lot of people don't know this,
but we are. We are supported by the segregation industry. Um,
so hop on down, not even funny Sophie, what do

(40:19):
you what do you want? What do you want here?
I have to do so many ad pivots. It's a
bigger picture thing. I guess he's saying, Yeah, what is
it I am talking about? Yes, next is primarily spins
all UP put its profits into supporting a return to
segregation laws, for sure. So if you are we allowed
to make that claim about no, okay, well, doesn't barrage

(40:45):
you with fucking trailers that play even when you don't
ask them too. And so if you make the mistake
of ever clicking on your your your computer and tea,
that Chris has to bleep everything because that's what's happening.
You don't have to bleep a factual statement about a company.
Sophie and I hate what they do with their fucking

(41:08):
auto playing. It's really sucking, annoying. It's horrible. It's the worst.
It's terrible. And that's why the official I Heart Radio
stances pirate shows. I'm sorry, Chris for all the bleeps
you have to put in. Don't believe that part though. Anyway,
here's adds. Oh we're back. You know. I was just

(41:37):
engaging in my hobby, which is taking the profits we
get from the catalytic converters that Miles steals and turning
them into buying large numbers of flash drives, which I
then put torrented copies of the show Stranger Things on,
and I just leave them lying around town in a
variety of places. Um, I don't watch the show. I

(41:57):
haven't ever seen it. Don't don't intend to, just like
to help other people pirate. True, you have ranted to me.
You you and hand or Hannah both have opinions on
this show. Well, okay, I watched season one, but I've
pirated the others and I hand them out to people.
You know why I do that, Sophie, because just one
time I was having a conversation with somebody and was

(42:19):
trying to put on a show that was on and
dreamed at me so loud that I felt momentarily uncomfortable,
and as a result, I am going to war against them.
That's will because earlier you, when I said something you
didn't like, you said you are like Papa. I don't
know what that joke means. I love that joke. Miles, Uh, Robert,

(42:42):
continue with all the borking that needs to be done
with the rest of the script. Yeah, bork out with
your corks out everybody. So yeah, Um, anyway, that's Clarence
Thomas h anti integration, separate, equal pro guy. This piss
is off a lot of people. Rosa Park goes after him. Um,
she says at the time, he has had all the

(43:04):
advantages of affirmative action and he went against it. Um.
If you've piste off Rosa Parks, you're probably bad. Yeah. Yeah,
that would be like what the owner of Little Caesar's
like pay for her house. Yes, I did hear that, Yes,
and Little Caesars because of that. What's fucked up is

(43:26):
that's good marketing. Because and I want to think of
Rosa Parks, I think a little Caesar's and I feel
bad about that, but I like crazy bread. They're crazy
bread is pretty good. But I have to say, like,
if I think about like the things that would make
me feel like a dogshit person, having Rosa Parks talk
shit about me, like, that's hard if you have any
kind of shame, that's that's a hard one to little
because it's not like it's not like Rosa Parks is

(43:47):
doing like a fucking daily fucking live stream, so or
she's gonna have takes on everything. It's like, yo, she
had to come off the bench fucking suit up for
this tape at Yeah. So in The Enigma of Claire,
It's Thomas Corey. Robin makes the case that over the
course of his time in power, Thomas has arrived at
a fairly consistent set of beliefs about the Constitution. His constitution,

(44:09):
the one that he believes in, is not the Constitution
as it presently like exists, or even the one that
he really rules on. But it's actually two separate documents.
There's the Original Constitution, which is the Constitution as it
existed at the founding of the United States. And then
there is the Black Constitution, which is the one that
existed after the Civil War and the Reconstruction amendments that

(44:29):
bought brought black people into the country as on paper
equal citizens quote. Thomas's Black Constitution looks nothing like that
progressive enterprise. Far from making the United States racially egalitarian
and humane, far from creating a multiracial democracy, the Black
Constitution features a society that is violent, racist, and regressive,
a mix of mad max and do the right thing.

(44:50):
The centerpiece of that constitution is the Second Amendment, reinterpreted
via the Fourteenth Amendment as applying not just to the
federal government but also to the states. The individual's right
to bear arms is what Thomas sees as the black
man's main protection against a rampaging white supremacy, the critical
right that the new constitutional order provides. There are no
cooperative institutions of racial equality and democratic mutuality and Thomas's

(45:14):
political vision. There are no union leagues, no Freedman's Bureau,
no interracial politics and parties. There is only the defiant
black man, reliant upon his constitutional right to arm himself
and defend his family against white marauders. For Thomas, the
broaden Second Amendment with a attendant vision of a racialized
society armed to the teeth is the keystone of the
constitutional transformation that emancipation has wrought. Now, that might seem

(45:40):
like a bleak vision of the country to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I find that kind of negative. Um, in a lot
of ways. I find that negative as a guy who's
like pretty supportive of the right to bear arms. Yeah yeah,
I mean it's like maybe it's like mutually assured destruction.
There should be no of all rights other than the

(46:01):
right to shoot each other. Um, that's and that's all
I gotta say about that. It's like, that's not idea.
What people do you live within this? Yeah? Um yeah yeah.
So you know, obviously, Thomas is very popular on the
far right. A former U S attorney under George W. Bush,
who helped write one of Thomas's recent memoirs, called him

(46:21):
the quote greatest living American, which is a title you
can find in a bunch of Fox News and other
right wing articles about him. They love calling him that,
but his support of the Second Amendment isn't, Robin argues,
based on support for the kind of oathkeeper proud boy
style militias popular on the fascist right today. Quote. When
white conservatives think of the white to bear arms, they

(46:43):
imagine sturdy white colonials firing their muskets at redcoats and
then mustering and militias, or modern day whites gardening their
doorways against government tyranny and black criminals. Thomas sees black
slaves arming themselves against their masters, black freedmen defending their
rights against white terrorists, and black men protecting their families
from a residual and regnant white supremacy. Thomas's McDonald opinion

(47:03):
returns repeatedly to scenes of white terror and black revolt.
No other justice in McDonald devoted nearly as much attention
to the violence of the black struggle against slavery and
the violence of the white struggle to restore slavery, and
this is again white. Thomas sees the second to speaking
to an individual right, and why he's also consistently against
bands of categories on categories of weapons like handguns or

(47:24):
assault weapons. This is interesting because it showcases one of
the many ways in which Thomas is kind of inconsistent
in his Second Amendment jurisprudence. In particular, Thomas has shown
a particular willingness to slash through state laws he sees
his violating elements of the Black Constitution. But Thomas is
also a believer in the White Constitution, which he sees
as flawed but possessing valuable characteristics, particularly the tendency to

(47:46):
devolve power back to the states. Robin makes a note
of Thomas's opinion in two thousand fifteens Broomfeld v. Kane
as particularly enlightening. Here the case was about whether prisoners
with intellectual disability should be disqualified from receiving the death penalty.
The murderer in this case, Kevin Broomfeldt, had been abandoned
by his father as a child and eventually murdered a

(48:07):
police officer during a robbery. In his decision, Thomas contrasted
Broomfield's case with the murder victim's son, Warwick Dunn, who
was also abandoned by his father. Dunn's mom was killed
when he was eighteen, and he successfully raised his five
younger brothers and sisters while earning a position in the NFL.
Thomas noted that Dunn quote did not use the absence
of a father figure as a justification for murder. Now

(48:29):
obviously this story is potent father for a lot of
father for a lot of think pieces. But many people
at the time noted that it was kind of weird
for Thomas to spend so much time on it during
his like judgment on the case, because it has nothing
to do with the actual murder itself. Um, and it's
kind of weird for him to use that platform to
randomly contrast to black men when the case is about

(48:49):
whether or not broomfield sentence is just justice. Alito was
so weird it out by this, but that even though
he agreed with Clarence Thomas on the broad strokes, he
wrote a separate dec in order to avoid including this
tangent in his argument because he was like, I don't know, man,
that's kind of fucking weird. What Yeah. Yeah, Even Scully

(49:10):
is like, dude, I'm sorry, I wonder because if Clarence
Thomas again, like you know, like you said, it's chaos
in his mind and then he just suddenly like reflectively,
it just was like, and the difference between these two
black men, yeah, is that one of them? Yeah? Excuse me,
that's not what we're talking about, Clarence. Um, oh yeah, right.

(49:32):
And and Corey Robbins book makes clear that the rest
of Thomas's descent is just as bug quote. For Thomas, however,
it was indeed essential to the legal analysis. At the
heart of his White Constitution is a vision of two
different kinds of black men, one who wills himself to
become a patriarch and another who wastes life his own
and others. In the absence of that patriarch, the liberal

(49:52):
state Thomas believes would protect the second, his White Constitution
would help to produce the first. Done example, notwithstanding the
actively of father is mostly a fantasy figure in Thomas's jurisprudence,
a stern man of no particular racial identity, Thomas's patriarch
once helmed the republic, instructing, chastising, and punishing his children
in the interest of their development as moral beings and

(50:13):
good citizens. In the beginning, Thomas proposes in one opinion,
fathers ruled families with absolute authority. That authority was critical
to the moral health of the nation, for it fostered
children who learned the virtues and values of the republic.
And despite changes in the polity and parenting styles over
the years, Thomas says, people still believe that parents. Thomas
alternatively depicts the authority figure as paternal and parental have

(50:34):
authority over their children. The father is the head of
the household, Thomas writes in another opinion, quoting from an
earlier president, and has the responsibility and the authority for
the discipline, training, and control of his children. That authority
is based on the societal understanding of superior and inferior
in cases about the rights of miners. Thomas freely drops
phrases like the continued subjection to the parental will and

(50:57):
total parental control over children's lives. He's don't like that, yeah, yeah,
and again he's like also like making this like dad
that he thinks he wishes he had to Yeah that
he pretends his grandpa was when he's talking to the right,
but it really was just absent from his life, yes,

(51:19):
And then trying to like then shape a society where
like this dad exists that he like idealizes too. It's
so we're all missing a dictator dad, which is like
this is Thomas didn't invent this concept. In Rome, they
called the head of the house the head of the family,
which was generally like the oldest man, right of like

(51:40):
even if you were a kid, your grandfather would be
this the pattern familius, right, and you had the right
as the father to execute your children at any time.
Like that was like a thing in Roman law during
the Republic. It is like if your dad, you can
kill your kids, like you have that right that that
you have absolutely he talked back to you. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay,

(52:03):
you didn't hear about it being done a whole lot,
but like you have that right. That was considered like
the sacred right of not not a parent but a father. Um.
And like yeah, there's even like in Rome there was
this kind of attitude that like you're not really an
adult as long as your dad is still around. Um.
There was a whole lot of weird ship with fathers there.
But like this goes back to if you look at

(52:23):
fucking German society, there was very much this idea that
the Kaiser is the father of the nation, and likewise
the father should be the dictator of his family, the
the unquestioned regent. Right, the Kaiser is this king that
nobody can can can counter or question, and the father
should be of the family the same thing, And this
is a big part of why the Nazis do so

(52:44):
well in Germany later, right, Like there's a lot of Yeah,
they're all in line with the idea. Yeah. So Thomas
is very much like speaking as part of a tradition
of attitudes towards what the rights of a father should be. Um,
he just has decided that that's the core of what
America and American law ought to be and what the

(53:04):
founders are all sorts of all sorts of good ship,
even though you could also look at the entire birth
of this country is like the history of a child
rebelling from its parent. But whatever, Like, there's no point
in arguing this sort of thing. Um. So, for the
first like twenty years that this guy is on the bench,
there is a tendency among liberal critics to reduce Thomas

(53:25):
to Justice Scalia's shadow. Now, this is due to his
reputation as the silent Justice. Again, he never speaks for years.
He doesn't say a single word during oral arguments. There's
like a ten year period where he never speaks during
oral arguments. Um. And while it's true that he does
rule kind of the same way as Justice Scalia on
about eighty five percent of cases while they're both alive,

(53:45):
this is not really that exceptional or unusual. During the
same period of time, Justice Bryant agreed with Justice Kagan
ninety five percent of the time, which nobody ever like
talks about. Um. The claims that he was somehow copying
Scalia were likely based in racism, and that in fact,
people say the same thing about their good Marshal and
one of the there's a white justice whose name I'm
forgetting that was friends with Marshall. That are like, oh,

(54:05):
Marshall just does the same thing as his friend, you know, Like, really,
these these are I think both of these counts and
his homework, Yeah, based on some racism. Um, The extant
evidence suggests that Thomas really just did truly respect Scalia's
ideas and jurisprudence. Since Scalia's death, Thomas has spoken more
often in court and has repeatedly cited non judicial writings

(54:27):
by his friend in his rulings. I found it right
up in Politico by Professor Richard Primus of some law
schooler another, which makes the case that Thomas now basically
uses Scalia the way that he uses the Founders as
a malleable ideological tool to reinforce whatever point he already
wanted to make quote. Much of the time, Thomas will
surely deploy Scalia in the name of a cause that

(54:48):
Scalia would have endorsed himself. The two of them did
agree on and awful lot, after all, but they were
all also always different in the extent and flexibility of
their originalism and the degree of their skepticism towards federal power,
and in other ways as well. In the future, Scalia
maybe molded to Thomas's own vision, and the longer Thomas serves,
the more the Court's agenda will move beyond issues that
Scalia directly confronted, thus giving Thomas even more freedom, whether

(55:10):
by design or just by doing what comes naturally to him,
to shape perceptions of what Scalia would have done. So
that's interesting. Yeah, now that's yeah, that's It's like, it's
like what puff Daddy does with Biggie. He's like, you know,
it's very puff Daddy and yeah, my homeboy Biggie, you
know he's dead, but you'll respect the idea of the

(55:30):
concept of it. Yeah, I just want to deploy that
from my own purposes. I have often called uh Justice
Scalia the Biggie Smalls of the Supreme Court. Um and
Clarence Thomas is puff daddy, absolutely no doubt, and Sandra
Day O'Connor astop rock not going to explain that one.

(55:52):
Just moving right along. Okay, So I'm not going to
spend any more time laboring on Thomas's jurisprudence or the
cases that he's ruled on. This is one of those
things where like the worst of what he's done and
is doing is actually pretty obvious to most people because
it's happening constantly, So we we all spend enough time
dealing with that. Mostly, I wanted to explain his background,
where he came from, what's going on intellectually, and like

(56:14):
what are his internal justifications for the things that he's
doing when he tears rights away from people and forces
his weird, demented views on the populace, which he will
continue to do until something is done to take that
power away from him. Um. So instead of going more
into just like a list of his rulings on Supreme
Court cases, I think we should close talking about Jenny Thomas.
Oh great, yeah, yeah, yeah, you excited for this, Miles.

(56:38):
I mean, you know, behind every great porn that's right
obsessed Supreme Court justice, I'd love to hear is an
equally obsessed, uh porn obsessed person. But I don't know.
I'm let's take a look please. I mean, all I
know is obviously the latest the reasons he's been popping

(56:58):
in the news. But I definitely and I could I
could know a lot more about Jennie Thomas. You're about
to so. Clarence met Virginia lamp in early nineteen seven.
She was a lawyer from Nebraska, and early on in
their marriage she tended to be described as Clarence's opposite.
Marion Abramson talked about her taking homeless strangers out to
lunch and describe her sweet, naivete um. When they two

(57:22):
first met, she worked for the Chamber of Commerce, where
she was the Reagan administration spokesperson against family leave and
comparable worth aka paying women for equal work equally right.
That's Virginia lamp Is, Like, women shouldn't be getting equal
pay maternity leave if they're going to be good mothers
instead examples for their kids. She's doing the equal pay

(57:45):
equivalent of supporting talking apartheid South Africa as like a
prominent black guy. Yeah, exactly. Um, so she's cool. That's good.
Lamp Is obviously very far right, and at one point
she was close to join a cult, a group that
was basically a cult. And I'm going to quote from
Strange Justice here because this is a fun little side story.
Miles Lamp was, if anything, more conservative than Thomas her father.

(58:10):
Her family, well connected in a well to do had
provided the backbone of gold Water support in Nebraska. Her father,
a developer who had built some of the most exclusive
gate of gated communities outside Omaha, was a party activist,
as was her mother. When Lamp decided to move to Washington,
her parents helped her find her first job there, a
staff position in the Senate Office of Republican of Republican
how Dab of Nebraska. While in the capital, Lamp joined

(58:32):
an assertiveness training group called Life Spring. She became deeply
involved in the group, but was troubled in nineteen eighty
five when during a Life Spring exercise exercise trainees were
forced to take off all but a bikini to the
tune of the stripper. As she described the incident, participants
were pelted with questions about sex and urged to ridicule
fat people's bodies. I had intellectually and emotionally got myself

(58:52):
so wrapped up with this group that I was moving
away from my family and my friends and the people
that I work with. Lamp later admitted my best friend
came to visit me as I was preaching, and I
was preaching at her using this tough attitude they teach you.
Now strange justice was written back in the nineties and
as a result, they don't have a lot of to
tail about Life Spring. Um, it's like a soft cult.
It's one of those assertiveness trainings, like Guru training program

(59:15):
type deals where you like sit around in circles and
like everybody takes turns insulting one person at a time
in order to like funk everybody up together and bond
the group through trauma. It's one of those good things,
one of those good things. But you don't have to
live here. Honestly, I have to say this is one
case where if no one had gotten her out of
the cult, we'd probably be better off. Um, well, it

(59:37):
sounds like she found sounds like she's pretty malleable. That
old brain is pretty malleable. Yeah. In nineteen seventy nine,
a Seattle woman with asthma died after a Life Spring
trainer told her that she didn't need to take her
medicine anymore. Uh. In two with seattle Man's family sued
Lifespring for convincing him that he was both Jesus Christ
and the Devil. So this is a cool group. Um.

(59:58):
So Lamp does get out of Lifespring uh sadly. And
one of the first things that she finds after leaving
this cult is Clarence Thomas, who she meets at an
a d element about civil rights. So that's good from
the cult. Right to Clarence. Uh. He gives her a
right home, and in pretty short order, the two we're boning,
or I'm assuming they're boning. There at least a romantic item.

(01:00:19):
One has to assume the boning follows. Uh. Lamp introduced
Thomas to a church, Truro Episcopal, where she went. It
was a popular popular place for arch conservative Reagan Nights
and profoundly anti abortion. The rector compared abortion to Holocaust
on a regular basis. Over the following decades, Clarence and
Jenny would have a life that often wove inappropriately between

(01:00:41):
his duties as a Supreme Court justice and her career.
Is a weirdo Republican operative From a write up by
MSN quote. While at Heritage the Heritage Foundation in two thousands,
Jenny Thomas gathered resumes for a possible George George W.
Bush administration, but Clarence Thomas rebuffed all calls for him
to recuse from the Bush v. Gore case decided that
the election. Thomas cast the deciding vote in the five

(01:01:02):
four ruling that made Bush president. In two thousand eleven,
seventy four House Democrats vote wrote to Clarence Thomas asking
him to recuse from any cases involving the Affordable Care
Act because of his wife's work for Heritage, which opposed
the law. He declined and voted against upholding the law
in two thousand twelve. She's working with the nascent Bush
administration before Bush v. Gore has decided. She's trying to

(01:01:22):
overturn Obamacare. She's trying to overturn the election, said Gay Roth,
executive director of Fixed the Court, which advocates for a
more open and accountable federal judici judiciary. It's a real
Forest Gump type existence that none of the other previous
hundred odd Supreme Court spouses have lived. So that's good.
It's good that Jesus that he didn't refuse himself from

(01:01:43):
Bush v Gore Good that she's like a consistent hardcore
political activist, and that that doesn't mean he has to
recuse himself from anything that would absolutely screened if the
same thing is happening on the left. Yeah right, yeah,
Oh you want text messages from January six? I don't know,
you know, if my wife is anything whatever you get,
yes said, it makes so much so, I mean, just

(01:02:05):
to be flipping for a moment that someone who's coming
from like a verbal abuse cult, like goes on a
date with creepyl. Yeah, this guy is so cool. He's
actually the best, the nicest person I've ever met. He's
much better than the last cult that I was in, um,

(01:02:27):
which I don't know. Some people will argue that she's
the one who's kind of leading him around. I don't know.
I'm sure they both are shitty people who found each
other and who's desired to hurt the world. Come on,
a black man just funk up the world on his own, exactly.
I think, you know, it's just a case of true
love between people who want to make the world worse.
You don't need to take agency away from either of them,
you know, whatever, whatever is going on. There is just

(01:02:52):
it's unbelievably horrible. Um, but you know, anyway, Jenny Thomas
is now in the news because she was kind of
order directly involved in a violent attempt to overthrew the government,
overthrow the government and institute a dictatorship. In the days
leading up to January six, she sent twenty one messages
to Mark Meadows urging him to overturn the results. Help
this great president stand firm, Mark, she wrote in one

(01:03:14):
of them. In response to November twenty four text from
Meadows that he was intent on fighting for Trump's victory,
Jenny Thomas replied, thank you needed that this plus a
conversation with my best friend just now. I will try
to keep holding on America is worth it now. The
emails don't make clear who the best friend Jenny Thomas
was referring to, although she has repeatedly called Clarence Thomas
her best friend because he's her husband. Uh yeah, that's good. Um.

(01:03:37):
That said, she denies all this publicly. In an interview
with The Washington Free Beacon, a right wing news site,
she said Clarence doesn't discuss his work with me, and
I don't involve him in my work. I'm sure that's true.
There's more more will be coming out, probably has dropped
by the time this comes out. There's like more on
her and jan six. This is all and maybe she'll
get she might get charged. Like that's not impossible at
this stage, given where we are. I don't think it's likely. Um,

(01:04:01):
but you know people are talking about it. I don't
think anything's ever gonna happen to Clarence Thomas other than
he will continue to get his way, uh and have
some of the real weird conversations with people. Yep. So
how do you feel, Miles? Um? Pretty weird? Um, But

(01:04:24):
you know, just I just gotta keep on keeping on. Yeah,
as we say. You know, Miles, what this reminds me of,
this conversation between you and I, m is a little
a little thing that Jesus Christ said to his disciples

(01:04:45):
when he was preaching preaching on that mountain, Miles, m h.
And he said to them, you know, the world is
full of the minions of Satan, but you know what
will protect you from the minions of Satan is the
precious metals held in a catalytic converter. Thank you so much,
Get one of them, Get them all. Catch them absolutely,

(01:05:05):
got to catch them all. Jesus Christ said that, Marko,
that's right. But the worries of this life, the deceitfulness
of wealth, and the desires for other things come and
choke the world, making it unfruitful without catalytic converters. Okay,
the word of him, Thanks be to him. Yep, oh,

(01:05:27):
that's so sick. You get the Jesus fish. But like
with catalytic converters, right, that's right. Who ah, you love
me so had to pivot away from the darkness for
fucking judicial Yes, yeah, what else are you gonna do?
So anyway, that's uh, that's Clarence Thomas sick. Thanks uh

(01:05:53):
for making me feel a lot better about this. Actually,
that's how I feel. I feel a lot better about
this because you got to know what you're up again, absolutely,
and he he is aware of the effect that, you know,
the Dobbs decision has on you know, adult film performers, right.
You know that is interesting because I wonder if he's like,

(01:06:13):
maybe because his wife's super religious, she's like, I don't know,
maybe there's something weird going on there are his ability
to watch porn. Now, I don't know, I don't know,
no fucking way, no fucking way. Maybe that's his his thing.
He just wants a strong woman to tell him he's
not allowed to watch porn and hit him every time
he tries to. Maybe that's what gets him off. We
don't know. With a rolled up newspaper, Yeah, in a

(01:06:35):
bowl full of corn flakes, all right, right, who knows? Yeah, anyway,
you got any plug doubles miles. Yeah, just you know,
check out your local mutual aid organization. Check out your
local mutual aid organization. Check out Clarence Thomas in the
next Supreme Court ruling that will read up you know,

(01:06:59):
as you are yourself. Then uh yeah, at Miles of
Gray wherever they have at symbols. That's right. I have
a book. It's called After the Revolution. You can find
it anywhere you want to. You can find it on Amazon,
you can find it on the A K Press website.
You can find links there to a bunch of local
indie book dealers where you can buy it. So go

(01:07:19):
to Google a K Press After the Revolution, or get
it literally anywhere else. Yeah, um oh yeah. Also Daily
Batcase check out, that's the Daily Past. That's the one.
Check that up. Check it out. Also boost It Damn.
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool zone Media.

(01:07:40):
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