Part Three: The Clarence Thomas Story

Robert is joined again by Miles Gray for part three of our four part series on Clarence Thomas. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Uh, this is Behind the Bastards. It's a podcast about Miles. Miles,
how do you? How do you plan to make all
of your many crimes? Right? Look, I start by my
manager said, and my publicist supposed said, go on this podcast.
So thanks so much for having me, Um, And of course,

(00:27):
of course always happen to have a work, you know exactly,
And I think and the first thing what I'm trying
to do is sort of challenge what our conventional definition
of what a war crime is, Um, And I think
that's my task today as a guest on your podcast.
Thanks so much for happening. Well, that's fascinating. You know.
I read about your your your rebranding of war crimes
and that very wife's column, and I just thought, very brave,

(00:50):
very brave Barry. Actually it's Bari, So my best friend.
He refuses to learn her name. That's a nice way
you should have. Yeah, respect for one of the America's
greatest journalists since Yeah. Absolutely, she's the Glenn Greenwald of
Glenn Greenwald's Um. This is the podcast about bad People.

(01:12):
Tell you all about him, Miles. It's part three of
our of our series Thomas, How you doing? How you doing?
We took a little breaky for us. Yeah, good, it
was good to have the break. I kept telling everybody
I was doing this, and I was like, the first
two episodes just fucking spooked me out because it's not like,

(01:35):
look what this guy did. It would just be like,
look at the incubator where this thing just grew from.
And that was the most horrifying ship of all the
things we've talked about. This this is again I feel
like you always I will do yourself with even more
uncomfortable that. That was the original goal when we came
up with this podcast. You know, I have been lurking

(01:56):
outside of your house for a while and I emailed
Sophie saying I would like to really make Miles uncomfortable
about twice either over like a five year period. UM,
and that's turned into a very successful part. You know
how we know he's lying. He would never put that
in an email. You're right, email exactly. UM. So I

(02:18):
guess we should probably get back to the tale of
Mr Clarence Thomas. Now, when we left off with um
with our old friend, he had gotten a job working
as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and the Department
of Education, now number one this is a job in
the Reagan administration. So if you are the Assistant Secretary
for Civil Rights for the d o E and the

(02:39):
Reagan administration, your job is not to help ensure that
civil rights laws are abided by in schools. Your job
is to make sure that nothing is done to protect
civil rights laws in the Department of Education, because the
Reagan administration fundamentally did not believe it should exist. And
in fact, Reagan had campaigned talking about how there shouldn't

(03:00):
be an Apartment of Education. So that said it was
one of those Like everyone including Clarence, was aware that
he got the job because since the Reagan administration was
going to get up to so much fuckory, they wanted
to have a black dude somewhere near the civil rights
position in the Department of Education to like make it
look like they were less racist than they were. Yes, exactly,

(03:22):
and this is exactly the kind of job to his credit,
I mean credit may not may may not be righting
to say, but like Thomas had never wanted jobs like this,
right Like in the past, he had always been like, well, no,
I want to do energy. I want to do like
um oil and gas, environmental stuff. I want to do
something that like people will not be like, oh, that's
the job he's got because he's the black lawyer, right.
He wanted to like to push away from work like

(03:44):
that because I'm Darth Vader, right, yeah, I would, just
because I'm a bad person. I don't want anyone to
think that it's because of But this is a job
that he is getting because he's like a black Republican, right,
which is what he said he didn't want, But it's
also the kind of thing he can't turn down. This
this is a presidential appointment, which is like a bread deal.
And also, like he himself in the last couple of that,

(04:06):
I think the episode previous you were saying, like he
saw it was clear to him the opportunity that present
that was in front of him by being a black conservative.
Like so in that sense, it's almost like, well, you know,
you know how why you're going to flourish because you're
taking advantage of all of that. But at the same time,
but then we're like, but I don't want to be
diversity Darth Vader higher, yeah, um, and it's it gets

(04:27):
more uncomfortable. So it's uncomfortable for him despite the fact
that this is a thing he can't pass up. It's
uncomfortable for him. For that reason and because a lot
of basically all of his coworkers in the Reagan administration
are like the most racist people you can imagine, um,
because it's the Reagan administration. He regularly described his co
workers to friends as bigots. Mayor and abramson Wright. In

(04:50):
the book Strange Justice Quote. Aryl H. Bell, who was
Secretary of Education at the time, recalled in his memoirs
being shocked at the sick humor and racist cliches voice
by some reagularppointees, who, for instance, referred to Martin Luther
King Jr. As Martin Lucifer Coon Um, called Arabs sand inwards,
and described Title four, which prohibits sexual or Title nine,

(05:14):
which prohibits sexual discrimination, as the lesbian's Bill of rights.
Like not just like you know, guys being like crossing
like the street or something when they see a black dude,
guys like dropping hard slurs, the hard ours. Yeah, they're going,
they're they're letting the clan hood hang all out. And
I like, and so Mr Clarence Thomas is like, man,

(05:35):
He's like, I couldn't even couldn't even regale them with
my porn recaps because talk to them about pornography there.
So actually I think he probably can't. He was like,
could you imagine or what's that conversation like where some
dudes like, yeah, man, you know the fucking Malcolm X
and Martin lu. I'm glad they got there's you know
what I mean, because we don't want to, you know what,
the darkies to get any ideas. And Martin and Clarence

(05:56):
Thomas is like, so I was watching this video of
three women and cheerleading outfits and you're like, this is
a conversation and from health waiting room. So the Reagan
administration models, I think if you were to like have
a hidden audio recorder in there, it would like any
given hour of conversation in Reagan's West Wing would be

(06:17):
too explicit for us to run on Spotify, right. We
we would get in legal trouble. The FCC would be like,
we don't even have jurisdiction here, like we're hopping in
you gotta stop this, and we do historically we do
not a lot. So my god, but if Thomas was
uncomfortable at all working alongside you know, not just open racists,

(06:40):
but like outrageously bigoted people. He was happy working adjacent
to a man who made a fortune as the mouthpiece
of literal apartheid South Africa. And I'm gonna quote again
from the New York Times here quote in nineteen seventy
seven to seventy eight, when Mr Parker, this is the
guy we talked about last time, right when Clarence Thomas's
UH mentors first served as a South African agent, he

(07:01):
organized the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, which issued
the quarterly Lincoln Review. The Institute and Review have consistently
attacked the African National Congress, sanctions against South Africa, and
the United States civil rights movements, leadership and ideas. Mr
Parker and Clarence Thomas served on the Reagan Bush Transition
team for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of which Mr
Thomas became Commissioner in June nineteen two. Since nineteen eighty one,

(07:23):
Mr Thomas has been listed as an editorial advisory board
member of Mr Parker's Lincoln Review. Mr Keys has been
a contributing editor. Registration file links under the heading political
Propaganda show International Public Affairs Consultants held a reception for
as South African Clients Ambassador. In nineteen eight seven, when
Pretoria was vigorously fighting sanctions, Mr Thomas, then the e

(07:44):
e o C chairman, was listed as in attendance. So
you know, getting getting money and and getting like uh
feedd at fancy dinners and stuff that are funded by
the fucking South African apartheid government as part of their
plan to build US support for continuous Yeah, he's a

(08:07):
human rights violation, food washing campaign, party washing campaign. Come
by check out the junket. Be pretty fun. So while
Thomas's career flourished, though his personal life and I know
this is going to really hurt you to hear, because
he was doing so well wasn't shambles. So his first
wife leaves him because again she's she's a very traditional

(08:28):
like person in terms of her view of like men
and women and like wants to be kind of the
homemaker mom wife. But also she's a very very committed Democrat,
and when he starts going a hard right, she looks
at what's he's putting up with in the Reagan administration
and it's like, no, this is not okay, this is

(08:49):
not like a thing that I want to So she
like she fucking bounces um because she yeah, she it's
funny how like kind of she was such like a
lib where she's like, my whole vibe was to marry
this like other liberal black man. But now that you're
becoming a conservative black man, this is this is not
good for my brand either. But I'm sure at the
same time, you don't want to see someone you marry

(09:10):
suddenly be so like apparently opportunities about how they modify
their being. And she's marrying a guy. I'm sure he
was saying the same things to her that he said
to his grandpa, who was like, I want to get
be a lawyer so that I can get into civil
rights so I can help the government. And like, you know,
he'd worked in a Republican administration before, but it had
been a liberal republican um and now Thomas is like, no,

(09:33):
I want to help the chief google of the far right,
like destroy the civil rights gains of the civil rights movement.
She's like, no, I don't want to be involved with you. Um.
He has custody of the kid, which is which is uh,
you know, on his part breaking a cycle. So I
guess there's that um that said whether or not he's

(09:54):
a good parent is um something that's going to depend
on your own personal opinions on parenting. Friends say Thomas
was so enraged at his ex wife um and in
part by the fact that whenever she had the kid,
he accused her of coddling him um and of encouraging
a learning disability. So he's that kind of dad where
he's like by being like this kid clearly as a

(10:15):
learning disability, and like you're coddling him and you're not
being hard enough on him and making him work for
it and all that kind of you know, um, it
works on animals. Yeah, I want work again, given his
grandpa hard to see him not being exactly right, and
also like for you to be raised by such like
a fucking cold you know, like shadowy figure of a grandpa,

(10:40):
have no like emotional or support or affection, and then
like you merely just see like a mother and like
child relationship, like you're coddling the kid. Gotta slap him more,
gotta make him work without gloves. Honestly, you should see
what you do. Like I said, you put a two
pound dumbbells in in front of a shopping cart. You
put him in the seat, and you put it down

(11:01):
a steep hill and just see how he ends up.
A crash test, just a crash test. That's what you do. Yeah, yeah, myles,
I'm raising a kid right now. The kid doesn't know it,
neither do the kids parents. But every day I sneak
in and I put a lot of what do you
call it poison oak inside, you know, his clothes for
the next day. And what's that teaching the kid is
that life is like a series of blisters, and you

(11:24):
just got to work through the blisters. You know. Little
lessons like that really make them stronger. And some say
it's it's waste, it's wasted because the child is so
young and not able to process the experience. But what
you're saying is you said, start him early, start him early, right.
The only thing they will grow up knowing is the
feeling of constantly being exposed to poison ivy and that
will make them strong and reject fast fashion. That's what

(11:45):
I tell their parents and the letters that I send
anonymously anyway, So uh. Once he gets split up with
his wife, Clarence Thomas engages in the normal divorce guy things.
He gets super into physical fitness right starts getting jacked
you know, all revenge body. Yeah, he gets the revenge body.
And of course he throws himself into his work, which,
given the fact that he'd always been a career guy,

(12:07):
means he gets like way way more into his job.
And of course, you know you can't just work out
and work right, Like, that's not it. I know you
and I Miles are both just incredibly swoll dudes. Um,
I mean, but you know you need something else, absolutely absolutely. Look,
I mean they were saying the SEC is coming after

(12:27):
me because of these gains. Yeah, just because our pecks
are literally large enough to host a t ceremony on like,
doesn't mean that we don't do other things. I mean
I could, and I'll do it from time to time,
but yeah, every now and then. And and Clarence Thomas.
In addition to stacking gains and working, you know, he's
got he's got his his favorite hobby, which is pornography,

(12:49):
which he gets even more disastrously obsessed with. In the
summer of nineteen eighty two, shortly after he moves into
his first bachelor pad, he makes friends with a coworker
named K Savage, which is a pretty cool name. It's
K with an e um they were both joggers, and
one day he agreed to take her shopping for running shoes.
So like their work buddies and like they'll go running

(13:09):
from time to time, and like she's like, my fucking
my shoes or ship. Well, let's go out this week
and we'll get some shoes. We'll go in to run.
It'll be fun. So she picks him up from his apartment.
He doesn't have a car at this point. He uses
like a work vehicle to get to and from the office.
He gets like chauffeurd and stuff. Um, so she has
to come pick him up from his apartment to go shopping.
And that's where this subsequent scene, which is related in

(13:30):
strange justice comes in. And I'm gonna read you a
quote Miles strap In for this one, buddy. So interior
shoe store. No no, no, this is when she comes
to his house. So this is her first time. Ok. Yeah,
this is her first time seeing Clarence in his bachelor pad.
Interior Clarences bachelor pad. Oh god. Yes. He had only

(13:52):
recently set up housekeeping and the place, as she recalled,
was still under furnished. There was little more than a
mattress on the floor and a stereo, but one of
her feature made a lasting impression on Savage. Thomas had
compiled and placed on the floor, and this is her
her speaking now, a huge, compulsively organized stack of Playboy magazines,
five years worth of them, organized by month and year.

(14:13):
The walls of the apartment were also memorably covered. There
was only one main room, but all of its walls,
as well as the walls of the little galley, kitchen,
and even the bathroom door, were papered with center folds
of large breasted nude women. Savage recalled staring awkwardly about her.
The display seemed so out of character with everything else
she knew about Thomas. He was a fanatic about discipline

(14:34):
and a daily churchgoer. He was serious about his career
and honest to the point of indiscretion about his ambitious
plans for the future. Thomas had told her, as he
had told others, that he planned to replace their good
Marshal on his retirement from the Supreme Court. But his
evident enthusiasm for pornography suggested to Savage that Thomas had
a private side that was very different from his public persona.
To her, the contrast seemed if she later put it

(14:55):
a little crazy dude. His dude has wallpapered his empty
ass apartment in porn center faults. Which if that is
your like, if that's your thing, fine, but number one,
you don't ever let anyone else see that apartment, Like
you sure don't invite your female co worker over. And

(15:15):
but you know he thought that would maybe in his mind.
He's like, and that's one. Maybe Ka's cool. That's my
way of just being completely inappropriate to invite. And also like,
you know, like when in films when there's like a
character that is a bunch of ship on their walls,
you know, it's usually some conspiracy theory ship. So just

(15:36):
because I have some pictures of the child that I'm
raising distantly on the wall Viles doesn't make me crazy. Yeah,
And also like it's weird that you seem to have
like a design of the house and cad like if
you're making a whatever, that's another show. But I think
when you see that in TV and film usually it's like,
this is what the inside of this character's head is like, right,

(15:56):
is what you see just plastered on the walls. And
then to be like clear Tom is existing at a
steady hum of just porno blasting inside of his skull. Yeah,
that's that's that's exactly. It's a perfect reflection of what
his thoughts are. And it's nothing but pornography bouncing around
in there, right, because like none of the legal decisions
makes sense. It's like it's fucking it's fucking wild man um.

(16:23):
And it's also like I'm sure there is because we're
going to talk about Nita Hill later. Uh he obviously,
I think there is like a voyeurs. I think he
gets off on like put women that he works with
in uncomfortable situations visa v. Pornography. And maybe part of
how he protects himself is by also talking to porn
to all of his coworkers, or maybe he's kind of

(16:44):
into doing it to everybody, right, But like this goes
beyond Look again, nothing wrong with porn. I know a
lot of people who like porn. I don't know anyone
who does this, right, Like, nobody does this, no, And
this is clearly like like to your point, like that,
this is how he just eviolates people. And that's that's
the way of doing it, is to be like surprise porn,

(17:04):
don't care what you think is appropriate or not. Like
I'm this is this? Is it welcome? This is talking
about it? Or you're surrounded by it? Yeah, if you're
gonna be around Clarence Thomas, you can't get away from
the porn, now, K question like all I can think
of now, Yeah, we'll talk about Jenny a little bit.
There's not going to be as many answers as you're

(17:25):
hoping for. No, No, I can I can only imagine.
But yeah, sorry, but so so Kay sees this nightmare apartment, which,
by the way, folks, the correct thing to do when
you step into your colleagues apartment and see that is
to leave if you have. If you have a gun,
pull it and keep it on them until you're safely
clear of the apartment, because that person is probably going
to murder you. Um, but no, Clarence Thomas tells her.

(17:49):
She like, so, she's obviously your k in the situation.
You have to be gentle about how you question Clarence
about this because this is clearly an unhinged person. And
she she does question him a lee and he's like, well,
porn is my only vice and since I don't drink
or run around like this is fine, right, Like I'm
not I'm not going out sleeping with people. I'm not

(18:09):
going out and partying. All I do is enjoy my porn.
What's the problem? Um? And he also told her that
his magazines were all he had that was worth taking
from his ruined marriage, which he has joint custody of
the kid. Like, so that's a little messed up. Um wow. Yeah,

(18:30):
Now maybe he was telling the truth about like not
drinking and partying. That might be true. There are people
who were with him at the time who claims no,
he was also lying about that. One of them is
his former girlfriend Lillian mckewen. Um. She says that he
was not honest about the whole not drinking thing. In ninete,
she went on the Larry King Show um and said

(18:53):
that when the two had dated in the early nineteen eighties,
he was quote a raving alcoholic and that when he
quit drinking he turned into a quote angry, obsessive man
who bullied his son and I'm gonna quote from CNN here.
When he gave up alcohol, she said, he became angry,
short tempered, a sexual, and obsessive with ambition and what
she called weird things such as long runs in the

(19:13):
dark before Dawn Mickwen did back up the allegations of
his weird porn thing, calling it quote something that was
very important to him and something that he talked about.
So that's weird. That's that's that's that's some stuff about
about Clarence Thomas that I bet you didn't want to know. Definitely,
you know everything in moderation, but not for Clarence. And

(19:35):
it's hard to take someone seriously who's like, yeah, I
don't that's my only vice. No, Actually, you have a
lot of other vices you have. But right, that's that's
that's very interesting, very interesting. Yeah, and again behavior obviously
in terms of like what you should take with a

(19:55):
grain of salt. She is like going on the Larry
King Live Show and talking on my TV about this,
so you know, maybe maybe she's not entirely coming at
this from an honest point of view. I don't know whatever,
or she's like, well, who else can I tell about
this maniac who might become a Supreme Court justice? I
don't know what you do if you're in her situation
and you have that experience. What she's saying doesn't sound

(20:17):
separate from the person that many many co workers have
talked about. At the very least, there are many inconsistent
descriptions of this. Yes, in May of nineteen eight one,
Clarence Thomas was nominated by the Senate to take the
position as chairman of the e e o C, his
old stomping grounds. He was confirmed a few months later,
and he held that position from nineteen eighty two to

(20:38):
nineteen ninety. So this is the primary thing he does
in his entire career prior to becoming a Supreme Court justice.
This is the longest stretch of employment in a single
job that he has in his career prior to like
getting on the court. Um. So, while this is happening,
while while he is being the chairman of the e
o C, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, thing of a jigger,

(21:00):
Well that's going on. A doddering old man named Ronald
Reagan decided it was time to nominate a new justice
to the Supreme Court. Due to Reagan's eight years of
executive domination and the fact that it looked like George H. W.
Bush was about to basically be Reagan term number three.
Progressives and liberals alike, we're worried that the Supreme Court
was about to take a hard right turn. Can you
imagine how scary and it would be? Miles, Um, So

(21:24):
people were concerned. Uh. In July of ven, Reagan announced
that his nominee was going to be Circuit Court judge
Robert Bork. Now does that name mean anything to you? Miles? Okay,
so you have heard of Robert Bork? You're you're aware
of some of the sisters. Okay, good, good, good? That name.
I don't think. I don't know how many other folks
that that's like a thing that's familiar to if you
grew up right wing, his name was kind of a

(21:47):
rallying cry for like generations of right wing media hob goblins. Was,
in short description, a dogshit judge. He had argued that
political speech was the only kind of speech protected by
the First amend It. He ruled in favor of a
company who had forced their employees to undergo sterilization to
keep their jobs. He had opposed the Civil Rights Act

(22:07):
in nineteen sixty four for so long and with such
vehemence that it's fair to assume he just hated certain
colors of people. At one point, he argued in favor
of a poll tax because it was quote very small.
So Robert Bourke pretty bad judge, Yeah yeah, pretty yeah yeah.
And and he even became shorthand for Oh yes, we

(22:29):
are talking about the shorthand. But you know we're talking
about first miles, products, services, all that good stuff. Yes, Miles,
you love products, don't you, m And do you happen
to like services? Oh? My god? Oh yeah, that's the
ship that That's what gets my nipples hard. Is a
good old fashioned service, A couple of products with it anyway,

(22:54):
service lord, get your nipples hard with these ads. Uh,
we're bad. Hi, everybody, how's it going. So we've got
Robert Bork dogshit Judge Ronald Reagan nominates this man to

(23:16):
be a Supreme Court justice, and Senator Ted Kennedy, uh
the number two Ted k and this podcast takes to
the Senate floor to warn that putting Burke on the
Supreme Court would mean an into row versus weight and
a return to segregated lunch counters. He said that if
Burke were appointed, quote, the doors of the federal courts
would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens

(23:36):
for whom the judiciary is and is often the only
protector of the individual rights that are at the heart
of our democracy now. In addition to being a howling fascist,
Bork was a pretty well respected law guy in log
eye circles, because log i circles are mostly made up
of assholes. He had taught it Yale. His students had

(23:56):
included Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Anita Hill
and Jerry Brown. Um. Many on the right were very
much fans of his Circuit court rulings, which included Droninberg Vzek,
where he and Justice Scalia. This is before Scalia was
on the Supreme Court. Either had ruled that there was
no right to privacy that protected the right to have
homosexual sex. During a case over prayer in school, in

(24:18):
reference to a Jewish person who was forced to engage
in Christian prayer, Robert Bourke said, so what, I'm sure
he got over it. He's like, yeah, bad judge. I
would say, not my kind of judge. You know who,
My kind of judges That judge from the who framed
Roger Rabbit. That's a good judge. I support. Now. I look, Miles.

(24:40):
For years and years I've been saying that the primary
crisis we as a society have is the expansion of Tunetown,
and I I agree we have to get rid of
those tunes. Miles. Oh, absolutely, we've got to turin their asses.
The thing is the people, The I guess, if you
want to call them, people that live in Tunetown are
sitting on such a bed of resources that they are
on able to use properly. And that's right, properly because

(25:03):
they're so I don't want to say on advance, they're
so primitive, right, and I think they're better Thank you
for saying, yeah, I think they're better off being relocated.
I agree as properly. Yeah, yeah, exactly tons of desert. Anyway,
this is a distermination of cartoons podcast Um who supports

(25:26):
what's his name? I forget the name of the judge
in that movie. It's played by Doc Brown. Um. Yeah,
you all know. So the nineteen eighties of the first decade,
also the decade in which we get who framed Roger Rabbit?
If I'm not mistaken, um, are the first decade in
which Supreme Court hearings uh like aur a thing Baron
von Rotten, judge Doom, there you go, thank you. So

(25:47):
we don't really have like public hearings for Supreme Court
justices prior to the eighties, UM, and in fact, prior
to the eighties, it had been pretty uncommon for Supreme
Court nominees to like go before the Senate and answer
questions at all. Um. Bork is the first nominee ever
to get a televised Senate hearing, which doesn't make things
better because maybe it's bad to do stuff like this.

(26:11):
Maybe it inherently turns it into like a media circus
that that like puts it to the worst impulses of everybody,
but whatever, um. So, the first America's first experience like
watching a Supreme Court like nomination hearing, uh is seeing
Ted Kennedy like go after Robert Bork while he's up

(26:31):
in front of the Senate UM. And by October. You
know the thing, The good thing about this is by
October a majority of Americans opposed borks nomination, so he
actually he comes in probably having the job locked down,
and the fact that this is all televised means that
most people are like, oh, this guy's a fucking maniac.
So I guess you could say then that part that

(26:52):
the televised Supreme Court hearings we're a good thing. He
gets rejected on October twenty three, by a vote of
fifty eight to forty two. But here's where the problem
comes in. The right cries foul, which they do whenever
anything happens, even when they get their way, because it
consistently works for them. Now, in their minds, Bork had
been unfairly pilloried, subject to the political equivalent of a

(27:14):
mob beating um. There are comparisons to a lynch mob, which,
by the way, Robert Bourke probably thinks is fine um
because he's that guy. Uh. And But whatever the fact case,
the sense of grievance over Bork's nomination gets burned deep
into the conservative soul um and it is it is
still smoldering a few years later in nineteen when a

(27:37):
woman named Florence Kennedy tells a National Organization of Women
conference that when it comes to Clarence Thomas, who is
the next Supreme Court nominee, quote, we're going to bork him.
We're going to kill him politically for this little creep.
Where did he come from? So that is how borking
becomes a thing that people talk about. Also, love the
troll job that we got out of that because he

(27:58):
was like no one has privacy rights. And then they're like,
here's your video rental history, and they're like, because no
one has privacy rights right, And then there then we
get like the Video Privacy Act out of that too.
He's just the gift that keeps on giving. He is,
he is. We've gotten everything, Thank you, Clarence. So since then,
according to box quote. In January two thousand one, The

(28:20):
New York Times even featured a chart of quote likely
bor keys and their probable score on the Borkometer, referring
to political nominees for high level positions within the Bush administration.
John Ashcroft, for instance, received nine borks. Now you might
note that John Ashcroft did not get borked. Most of
these guys don't. It's it's just like a term that

(28:41):
gets us, probably because bork is fun. It is fun
to say, fun to type bork. I get it. Like,
if you're you're a New York Times columnists, most of
your job is going to be pretty pretty dull, and
you get to use the word bork. You know why not?
You know what I just realized, there's I'm pretty sure
in four year old virgin that's what Steve Carell's says
when he's playing the poker game and he's trying like

(29:02):
lying about being a virgin. They're like you are you
a versions like no, I've born plenty of women. And
Seth Rogan's like, you've borked just like this one line
and yeah, maybe in a minute that I'm like, I
always just thought of it. I'm like, wow, are you
getting is Steve Currel showing is like forty year old
like eighties brain credit there? Okay, so he's appreciate he's

(29:22):
thinking about has that movie aged? Is that is that one?
Is that one still good? Or is that one? Feel
great about? Flawless flawless flawless flaws That's that's good just
like other classic films. Uh, you don't need to talk
about Jim Carrey's ubra. So Borking is now viewed as
a widely used practice among both Republicans and Democrats, although

(29:45):
it generally means attempting to bring down a high level
candidate with quote personal attacks on something seemingly irrelevant to
their jobs, even though that's not what anyone did to
Bork because the attacks were extremely relevant to the fact
that he was basically a fascist, like food have been
more relevant to the guy Bork was these attacks. Um.
But for example, Bill Clinton's first choice for Attorney General,

(30:08):
Zoe Baird, was borked in ninety three when news came
out that she had hired an undocumented immigrant as nanny
for her children. Uh, and her nomination gets withdrawn, Which
is I guess a borking if you're talking about it
being irrelevant, um, because I don't know. I don't think
that has a lot to do with it unless she's
like super anti undocumented immigration, in which case than it

(30:31):
is relevant. But I don't think she was so. But again,
it's also like, hold on, like, how many of your
businesses are doing the same thing? Well, nobody wants to
answer that question, Miles, Yes, exactly. Don't worry about it.
It's don't do as I do, just as I say. So.
The largest political consequence of the borking of Robert Bork
was that the the Reagan administration UH massively let down

(30:55):
the right wing of the Republican Party right because Bork.
They fucking love Bork. Like, the fucking wing nuts are
all about this guy and he doesn't get in and
they feel like Reagan didn't fight enough for him, right,
They feel like the rhinos let them down and didn't
push this guy. So Reagan does get another justice in it.
I forget exactly which fucking one it is, but they're

(31:16):
not a lunatic um. And so the right wing gets
very angry about that and this, yeah, I think it
was Kennedy um. And so conservatives start to feel like, well,
we're owed a right wing justice. We didn't get what
we are owed, and that, my man, is where Clarence
Thomas comes again, say too, or the make good for

(31:40):
Bork is Clarence Thomas. Yeah. We feel like we deserve
a guy who hates civil rights and wants to turn
the clock back a hundred years, and we wanted this
like howling white nationalist, but instead we'll take Clarence Thomas. Yeah,
and now you got Neil Bork and Bork Cavanaugh, Amy

(32:02):
Can Bork and Pork Barrett and I don't know, I
don't know. I think if I made a joke about
borking them, it would probably wind up getting us on
some lists. Sophie, Yeah, Hi, Hi, how you doing getting
on some lists? And the sick nightclubs excellent? So we
should probably talk a little bit now about the man
Clarence Thomas replaced on the Supreme Court with the borking.

(32:26):
That's it. You got it out of your system. I did, Sophie,
thank you. I got it out of here. I made
a lot of actionable threats in my basement before coming
up here. So we're we're fine, okay, cool, cool, cool,
and yeah, and now we're moving on to somebody that's
really awesome or yeah. Third Good Marshall was pretty pretty based, actually, Sophie,

(32:46):
pretty dope. Also of what you said earlier, Robert, when
you're talking, you threatened Scotus and he said, I'm coming
for all of you. Call me Ernest bork nine. That's right,
that's right, that's right. I did say that. Miles, Um,
I gotta go, man. Hilarious. Third Good Marshal number one,

(33:08):
probably the best name of judge has ever had. That's
a judge name. Like if you're like a third grade
teacher and a kid comes into your class named third
Good Marshal, you're like, well, that motherfucker's gonna become a judge, right,
Like that's basically like what you're not. You don't get
to be. You don't get to be Third Good Marshal
and be like, I don't know um like a like
a like a like a chemistry teacher, or like a

(33:31):
like a even you couldn't be like a nurse Third
Good Marshal, Like if I win with the hospital and
I I came across a nurse named third Good Marshall.
Get the funk out of here. You're supposed to be
a judge going get good into a courtroom. Well night,
you're selling me n f T S No, Ma, get
your ass in some robes. That ship's a judge's name.

(33:51):
Um so pretty cool guy, they're Good Marshall. The year
after Clarence Thomas starts public school, Marshall is the lawyer
who wins Brown versus the Board of Edgucation, which is
one of the most consequential cases in legal history anywhere
in the world. H Marshal the great grandson of an
enslaved person himself. Whence goes through the public education system,

(34:11):
Unlike Thomas, he spends his entire education in segregated school,
so he actually like goes lives in entirely under segregation
as like a person who's being educated as a kid.
He gets his law degree in nineteen thirty three from
Howard University, and he becomes a litigator for the Double
A CP. In Brown, his most famous case, he argued r. E.

(34:32):
Segregation that quote, this court should make it clear that
it is not what our Constitution stands for. He was
a believer in the Constitution as a living document, one
that could be used to push for greater equality and
liberty for all. As a lawyer for the Double a CP,
Marshall won several landmark Supreme Court cases. In Smith v.
All Right, he helped overturn long standing rules that made

(34:54):
it illegal for black people to vote in party primary
elections in certain states that used to be legal for
parties like there the party and like whatever state to
be like no, no no, no, we don't. You guys don't
get to vote in the primaries. Only white people can
vote in the primaries. Um. In Shelley v. Kramer, he
forced the Court to rule against laws that restricted non
white people from purchasing homes and specific neighborhoods, And in

(35:15):
Sweat the Painter, he got the Court to rule that
universities could not reject applicants based on race, all of
which is like pretty cool ship, um, and also like
it's just wild to like these aren't complex illegal arguments
he's like, yeah, how about like we don't do this
ship And they're like this seems racist as fun, And
everybody says, wow, you are the first person to say

(35:37):
that in the United States Council. What is your argument
that this is racist trash? Uh? Okay, we're very pro
racist trash. So and see that's the fucking problem. Yeah, okay,
we can't be doing that anymore. Oh, interesting, fascinating argument.
No one has made this before Their Good Marshall. Perhaps

(35:58):
perhaps we are all all human he is. You might
look at Third Good Marshall as the guy that Clarence
Thomas told his grandfather he wanted to be um in
addition to just being like one of the coolest guys
to ever be associated with US government in any capacity,
Like just a pretty pretty dope dude, all things considered. Yeah,

(36:22):
like if like yeah, people in American politics were like wrestlers,
Like the felt that their Good Marshall would run into
the arena with yeah, oh yeah, Third Good Marshall's the
guy who like racism is like doing his doing his
little patter on stage for the audience, and then Third
Good Marshall comes in and hits him with a yeah,
my god, exactly, that's exactly what happens. Yeah. Um, so

(36:48):
it's probably worth noting that two of the three cases
that we just talked about arose from lawsuits in the
state of Texas. Um. I do feel like that's worth acknowledging. Okay,
bring Texas right back in. Yeah, never far when we're
talking about racism. Uh. If this had been the total
of Marshall's career, he would go down in history as
one of the most influential legal minds ever. But all

(37:09):
of that was just a prelude. On August thirtieth, nineteen
sixty seven, the Senate confirmed him as the first black
Supreme Court justice in a sixty nine to eleven floor vote.
I want to quote now from a write up by
then double a CP on Marshall's quarter century on the Court. Quote.
Marshall fought for affirmative action for minorities, held strong against
the death penalty, and supported a woman's right to choose

(37:29):
if an apportion was appropriate for her. The civil rights
lawyer turned Supreme Court justice made made a significant impact
on American society and culture. His mission was equal justice
for all. Marshall used the power of the courts to
fight racism and discrimination, tear down Jim Crow segregation, change
the status quo, and make life better for the most
vulnerable in our nation. So you know, real fucking cool guy,

(37:51):
pretty cool guys getting all that ship done. Okay. You
know who else is a cool guy? Miles? The products
and services that support this podcast, they also want to
change the status quo in your wallet, and I heard
Third Good Marshal would have used all of them. That's right,
That's right, every product we have on this by the

(38:12):
ghost of their good Marshal depositing that casually and honestly,
I feel like Third Good Marshall probably would use that website.
So I don't know, oh yeah, And you know what
he wouldn't use is any products sponsored by the pod
Save America people, none of those just behind the bastards products. Absolutely.
He said that to me at a seance. Yeah, that's

(38:34):
he that's you You start doing is making murder rate.
It's they're good, Marshal, and it's in a quote says
I funk with cool Zone, not crooked. That's right, that's right,
fuck them, that's what they're good. Marshal would probably say,
so if you're we allowed to do that? Okay, Well,
we did it, so oh we're back and we're talking.

(39:00):
Think about what products they're good? Marshal would love. You
know what I think, Miles, I think they're good. Marshal
would enjoy the convenience of Amazon Prime. You know, hearsay,
but yeah, you know what I hear third good. Marshal's
perfect morning is to take his bird scooter down to

(39:21):
Starbucks Big Break, high five all of the very happy
workers they're uh and who don't need to unionize, no,
not at all, and to remind them how good they
have it because of his work, and to stay elastic.
They're good. Then throw the hot coffee in the face
of the Amazon Prime delivery person who's too late and

(39:43):
slow with the elastic re usable bandages that he needs
for his dog's injured foot. That's right, that's right. And
you know what else I think they're good. Marshal would
have liked is Netflix. And I want to quote now
from from a Supreme Court ruling in nineteen seventy two,
a majority opinion authored by Marshall quote, I fucking love
it when I turn on an app and the immediately

(40:05):
start screaming at me, just loudly playing a trailer that
I didn't ask to play. That is my favorite thing
as their good Marshal Supreme Court Justice. Wow, wow powerful.
I love to hear that. Yeah. And also and then
he also said, and also this is I'm surprised you
glossed over the second part of that quote, which is, I,
for one, would never share my password unless it's for

(40:29):
in my home one password, one use per account. If
Netflix efford becomes a thing in the future, is what
I think. As they're good, Marshal, Supreme Court Justice, the
greatest regret, for greatest regret as a Supreme Court justice
was not actually reeling in the rampant criminals. That's right,

(40:49):
that's right he saw so. Um. Yeah, as American men
in positions of power go, Marshal is pretty much your
best case scenario, right, just just about the best legacy
any any man with power has in in modern US history.
But by the later half of the Reagan administration, he

(41:09):
is an old man. Uh, he is not in very
good health. He has a bunch of fucking health problems,
as most old people do. Um. The Court hadn't taken
a distinct right word tilt in the last years that
he served, and Marshall found himself constantly writing minority dissents
while the Reagan administration started to claw back some of
the gains of the civil rights era. Um At a

(41:30):
press conference, he was asked how he wanted to be remembered,
and Marshall replied as someone who that he wanted to
be remembered as someone who quote did what he could
with what he had, which is a very sad that. Yeah,
that's that breaks my heart. You don't want that to
be what the brown versus the Board of Education guy
sees his legacy in the Reagan as the Reagan years

(41:51):
come to because that's the excuse Joe Biden is using
right now. Yeah it is. Come on, man, I'm doing
what I can what I got. Fucking third, good Marshall
sitimately did everything he reasonably away. He's like, fuck man,
they really, they're they're packing this motherfucker in with these
weird Yeah. Now, Clarence Thomas, for his part, seems to

(42:12):
have hated their good Marshall. In the Enigma of Clarence Thomas,
Cory Robin writes, quote Thomas had dismissed Marshall's liberal views
as exasperating and incomprehensible. His rendition of the Constitution as
a race baiting vision that alienates all Americans, and Pitt's
blacks against the Founders, which how do you not. Yeah, yeah,

(42:34):
black people against the Founders. Yeah, they were most most
of them were pretty racists. So yes, I guess I
guess they should be. Yeah, that's fine. I guess that
they should be. I guess the Founders pitted themselves against
black people by owning them. No, no, no, they are
much more passive in enslaving people. That's a passive activity. Yeah,
it's it's fine. So yeah, that's pretty bad, right, That's

(42:58):
that's not good. That's not good, I would say so.
In Marshall's last year's Ronald Reagan appointed four Supreme Court
Justices Sandrad O'Connor, William Reynquist, Anton and Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy.
And look, I don't like a lot of those folks,
but I have to say all of those really good
judge names. Honestly, oh yeah, oh my god, what an

(43:18):
incredible judge name. And Anthony Kennedy awesome judge name. Just
really none of them are third good Marshall level judge names.
But those are all solid judge tony kay. Yeah, boy,
not just a drug dealer out of rave. Yeah, Sandra
de O'Connor to three, you gotta have three, you know,
that's what really that really drives at home, I mean

(43:39):
John Connor, Yeah, exactly, feeling like terminator, which is interesting.
Take it to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I believe his fake name
in True Lives was Harry rank Wist. Well, see that's miles.
We're through the looking glass here. Yeah, sorry, folks, I
did mushrooms this weekend. A lot of memories are coming
to the top. So, despite how right way Scalia would

(44:00):
turn out to be, this selection of judges and these
are like over the course of the Reagan administration really
pisses off American religious conservatives because all of those people
are not right wing gooules. Right, they're kind of mostly
more centrists and stuff in their actual rulings and and
often stuff. Yeah, with the exception of Scalia, most of
them kind of move more towards the center in time, um,

(44:22):
which really pisses off the far right. So again with
this and with Robert Borke, they see themselves as having
been betrayed repeatedly by an admitts. Reagan came to power
on the back of the religious right. He was supposed
to be their guy, and they're like, he didn't give
us everything we wanted. So when Reagan leaves office and
George H. W. Bush becomes president, um, he gets a

(44:42):
Supreme Court nomination, and instead of picking a guy the
right wing fucking loves, he picks a dude named Thomas Suitor,
who is center right. Um, and this is again not enough.
And and in fact, the right wing sees this is
like the worst sin imaginable. Um, and this is a
real problem. But because again you have to get this
guy confirmed. And at this point they're like pretty piste off,

(45:05):
Bush's chief of staff, Johnson Unu, manages to get the
religious right in line behind Suitor by promising that hey,
fucking third good Marshal is not going to be around
that much longer. When he quits, we will replace him
with the worst piece of ship you can imagine. Like,
I fucking promise this time, we have your back. Let's
give me one more shot, man, give us one more

(45:25):
shot where we will get a fucking ghouler. There. I
swear I got, I got a real, real shitty, hefty
bag full of crap, just bacon in the sun filling
up with gas that I got for you. You're gonna
love this guy, speaking of nominative determinal determinism, Johnson Unu.

(45:46):
That is the name of a piece of ship whose
entire job is to like whip fascists in behind, like
backing corporate tax breaks. Like, my god, that's the guy.
That's the name you give that get Johnson Unu. Are
you kidding me? Anyways, it's it's not wrong, it's not.
Through the Reagan years and into the early Bush administration,
Clarence Thomas, while he's doing his ship at the e

(46:07):
o C worked relentlessly to burnish his street credit with
the far right. This meant he had to do a
lot of explaining away his past civil rights activism, which
he accomplished definitely by pivoting to complaining about how bad
the Civil rights era had been for black people. And
I'm gonna quote now from the New York that's pretty good, right,
that's pretty good. Oh my god, it's so disingenuous. In

(46:30):
his memoir, Thomas notes that part of the appeal of
black nationalism was tied to his sense. In the wake
of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert F.
Kennedy that no one was going to take care of
me or any other black person in America. Eventually, this
notion extended to the left. I marched, I protested, I
asked the government to help black people, Thomas told The
Washington Post in nineteen eighty I did all those things,

(46:50):
but it hasn't worked. The whole repertoire of black politics,
from mainstream activism to black power radicalism and beyond, now
seemed pointless. By the eighties, Thomas, a member of the
ray An administration, believe that state action could do nothing
for African Americans. Problems of racial inequality cannot be solved
by law, even civil rights laws, he told an audience
at Clark College, historically black school in Atlanta in the

(47:12):
nineteen eighties. In a nineteen eighties seven speech to the
Heritage Foundation, Thomas stated his belief that principled conservatism should
quote make it clear to blacks that conservatives are not
hostile to them, but instead that conservative views are the
only real way to support black success. He repeatedly stated
his belief that if you could get the whole racial

(47:32):
issue out of the left right paradigm, most black people
would see that they were really conservative. I mean there's
some truth to elements of that. There are there is
some truth. That's part of why it's worked. Yes, yeah,
uh the amount of work this guy, my god, yeah,
and should he's saying that's rooted in truth. Yeah, man,

(47:54):
a lot of I wouldn't call it the left, but
the most liberals don't really want to do any more
than you, Like race and civil rights is like a
fucking whipping boy issue to hurt the right. Like absolutely,
there there are a lot of false friends among the
left in terms of civil rights advocacy. Yeah. The yeah,
the for like liberals, it's more like being like a

(48:16):
whiny guy being like, well, I mean you really should
be with us if you really think about it, like
without being like, but I'm not going to do any
of the work. You're not gonna do any move towards
liberation for you. But if you think about it like
you can do with them, it's like there's again, there's
these elements of truth. And then he's like, and so
that's why I'm just like lining up behind the racists, right,

(48:39):
And I think that's what makes it okay. Well, yeah,
it makes it also so like insidious too. Like you
you just find that little shred where you can say
that's the truth and like and that's how I justify
the absolute ushering in of the hell world. Yeah, absolutely,
speaking of the hell world. Most of the claims that
Thomas made about the origins of his own conservatives were

(49:00):
rooted in absolute, bold faced lies about his background. And
I'm gonna quote again from Strange Justice. According to Sam Williams,
Thomas's lack of gratitude for what his grandfather and the
civil rights movement had done for him formed the beginning
of an estrangement that became so irreparable. The two were
barely on speaking terms at the time of Anderson's death
in the spring of nineteen eighty three. What made his
grandfather's bitterness particularly sharp was the sense that Thomas had

(49:23):
betrayed him, according to Williams, who said that early on,
Thomas used to tell his grandfather he was going to
be a civil rights lawyer and come back here and
help his people. Instead, Thomas just helped Thomas he saw
that the money and career opportunities were on the other side.
His grandfather was so disappointed he hardly spoke of Thomas
in the later years. Yet, in his public speeches, including
his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Thomas spoke often about how

(49:46):
much he loved and admired his grandfather. It is likely
that his sense of gratitude grew in the years after
his grandfather's death. He did, after all, keep a photo
of his grandfather on his desk at the E O C.
But both Sam Williams and W. W. Law also charged
tom Us with distorting the truth about his upbringing for
political effect. In an interview, Law said, I don't like
talking about this because Thomas is local and that makes

(50:07):
it very hard. He didn't shut his eyes, and then
an agitated voice added, Thomas just said those things to
make him seem black. But all along he's been making
choices to benefit Thomas and no one else. Yeah. That
sounds about right, Mr lizard brain. Yeah, and just like, okay,
I don't like the time to actually express like love
and admiration for my grandfather is publicly in books, even

(50:29):
though we're not really talking, because I think the fact
that my grandfather was a hardass and mean will sell
with conservatives, even though he was a committed civil rights activist.
For all of his flaws, like I am going to
paint him as like the the platonic ideal of a
right wing dad because he was a dick. Uh God,

(50:50):
he's so opportunistic and you just see like whenever there's
an opportunity to you know, create or add more weight
to the myth about him, like he's going to do
that anything. Yeah. But you know what, Miles, I don't know.
I don't know what, Miles. You know. What I do
know is that it's time for you to give your
plug doubles. M Well, uh, I don't know. You know,

(51:14):
just steal some catalytic converters to be Yeah, yeah, Jack
a fucking catalytic converter. Yeah, I think, Oh that's what
I want to plug. I got a new I have
a new uh. It's a new shirt that I made.
It's designed for people who steal catalytic converters because that
has a rigid back plate with whe so you're just

(51:35):
immediately you see something, get on your back, slide under
clip it. You're out hop in their homies civic and
you're off. Baby. Uh. They're called cat shirts. Check them
out at cat shirts, dot me out. That's how I
throw the authorities off. But it's for stealing catalytic converters. Yeah,
you know that that website exists absolutely, dot me out.

(51:59):
I think it's only fair here to quote their good
Marshall once more, who said in a in a nineteen
seventy seven ruling quote, I dream of the day in
which a man is able to steal a catalytic converter
in less than nineties seconds, even if the car has
skid plates protecting it. Wow. There it is again ahead
of his time, ahead of his time, and your products

(52:22):
ahead of the rest of the market. Yeah. Um, so
follow us at cat hurts me oo on all over
and if you're interested in me the creator of the
product that, check me out at miles of Ground, Twitter
and Instagram. And remember, listen to me on my other show,
Daily Night Guys before we talking about all kinds of
tips for stealen those cats converts. And remember, folks, every
car that is capable of driving is a policy failure.

(52:44):
Steal more cats. There it is. Uh, we did it,
We did it. Everybody