John Oliver offers to pay Clarence Thomas $1m a year if he resigns from supreme court
John Oliver offers to pay Clarence Thomas $1m a year if he resigns from supreme court
The late-night talkshow host John Oliver has offered to pay Clarence Thomas $1m annually – as well as give him a $2m tour bus – if the Republican judge resigns from the US supreme court. Oliver made the proposal on Sunday’s episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, saying the supreme court justice ...
The late-night talkshow host John Oliver has offered to pay Clarence Thomas $1m annually – as well as give him a $2m tour bus – if the Republican judge resigns from the US supreme court.
Oliver made the proposal on Sunday’s episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, saying the supreme court justice had 30 days to accept or it would expire.
The British-born, progressive comedian’s offer came after a steady drumbeat of media investigations in the previous several months established that Thomas failed to disclose that political benefactors bought him lavish vacation travel and real estate for his mother. Thomas also failed to disclose – as required – that he allowed school fees for a family member to be paid off and had been provided a loan to buy a luxury motor coach, all after openly complaining about the need to raise supreme court justices’ salaries.
As a result, Thomas’s impartiality came into question after he sided with the contentious ruling that eliminated the federal abortion rights once provided by the Roe v Wade case.
He also recently listened to arguments over whether Donald Trump can be removed from states’ ballots in the presidential election after the former president’s supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – staged the January 6 attack at the US Capitol in Washington DC. Thomas resisted pressure to recuse himself from matters pertaining to the Capitol attack, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, is a conservative political activist who has endorsed false claims from Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen from him – which in turn fueled January 6.
Oliver alluded to all of those circumstances as he extended his lucrative offer to Thomas, saying: “Lot on your plate right now, from stripping away women’s rights to hearing January 6 cases … and you deserve a break, you know, away from the meanness of Washington. So you can be surrounded by the regular folks whose lives you made demonstrably worse for decades.”
The host suggested that Thomas could upgrade his “favorite mode of travel” by signing a contract requiring him to step down from the supreme court in exchange for $1m annually from Oliver along with the tour bus, which is outfitted with a king-sized bed, a fireplace and four televisions.
Oliver joked that Thomas possibly feared that making such a trade might attract negative judgment from one of his top benefactors: the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, who was reported to have maintained a private collection of Nazi memorabilia that included a pair of paintings by Adolf Hitler.
But Oliver said: “That’s the beauty of friendship, Clarence. If they’re real friends, they’ll love you no matter what your job is. So I guess this might be the perfect way to find out who your real friends actually are.
“So that’s the offer – $1m a year, Clarence. And a brand new condo on wheels. And all you have to do … is sign the contract and get the fuck off the supreme court,” Oliver remarked. “The clock starts now – 30 days, Clarence. Let’s do this!”
The yearly salary for supreme court justices – whose appointments are for life – is $298,500.
Neither Thomas nor the supreme court immediately commented publicly on Oliver’s offer. Oliver acknowledged he could end up going on “standup tours … for years” to be able to afford paying Thomas’s retirement if the justice accepts the proposal.
The arch-conservative is the longest-serving member of a supreme court dominated 6-3 by rightwingers. Thomas has been there since his 1991 confirmation, which was marked by testimony from Anita Hill, who accused him of sexual harassment while he supervised her in two separate jobs, at the US Department of Education and at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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I don’t know, I can see the value in paying them more, give the gravity of what they deal with….
Otherwise they might be open to bribery 😝
IDK, I can see the value in seizing the means of production and creating a anarcho-syndicalist commune, in which the economic system based on the exchange of commodities, such as money or goods, is abolished in favor of a fair and universal welfare through equal division of labor and thus the resulting production.
So TLDR: You want to pay the judges even more, creating an even greater divide between the judges and the people which lives their rulings affect, I want torches, pitchforks and guillotines.
By now I realize that I will never be able to travel to the US anyway, so I might as well just go all in...
Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
He also receives gifts worth literally millions of dollars per year. We're talking super yacht cruises, travelling via private jets, drinking $1000 bottles of wine. And he claims all those gifts don't affect his impartiality in any way, even when he's ruling over cases that directly affect his billionaire "friends".
Unfortunately pennies for any comparable positions in the private sector. These people could be owners/partners at law firms easily exceeding half a million plus a year.
It's almost as if money shouldn't be the only motivating factor to accepting this kind of position...
He won't take it. Taking the offer would basically confirm everything bad that's been said about him. It would also be admitting publicly that he will do literally anything for the right bribe. Thomas only likes to admit that behind closes doors.
True, we all know he won't take it, especially considering that his benefactors would gladly match it for him to stay in his seat.
But it was a solid end to an episode outlining how scummy he is with his bribes. The episode wouldn't get as much traction as it would be seen as barely more than another call-out.
And in the one-in-a-milliom chance that he accepts, we still win.
Yes but the effect of taking the deal is that it won't matter for him anymore, because he will have retired and can hide away like the traitor he is.
Oliver makes the point that Thomas really does agree with the views of his billionaire owners, since he held those views even before he became a supreme court justice.
So he'll stay with the job where he can accept bribes while harming society as much as possible, rather than get paid and not get to do that.
I still don't think his ego will allow him to admit that John Oliver is right about him though.
Why would he take a cut in pay?
It feels really good having Jon Stewart and John Oliver to look forward to every week.
Just looked and seems like Mehdi Hasan found a new home at The Guardian.
Is Mehdi Hasan same similar humour? Or you thinking Hasan Minhaj who’s Patriot Act show was Jon and John vibes.
I don't think so. My respect for Mehdi went down when he said he believes that Mohammed went to heaven on a flying horse.
Definitely not a comedian or satirist but a hard-hitting interviewer up there with Jon when Jon gets serious. I've watched his stuff since his days on Up Front on Al-Jazeera before he went to MSNBC and was repeatedly impressed.
How did someone like Clarence come to be? Was he bullied or something, or just a massive self serving ghoul from birth?
Behind the Bastards has some episodes on him. It's been a while so I don't fully recall, but my memory of it was that he was always kinda gross and misogynist, and he was also self serving in hus choices. Those choices didn't always make him the right wing shitbag that he is now, since he originally was part of the Black Panthers.
After some time working for black Civil rights, he saw more money on the republican side and also saw hypocrisy on the democratic side. He said something to the effect of 'They're all racists, but at least Republicans are racist to your face/honest about it'(hey that sounds familiar...)
Again I remember money being a big part of it, so I've chalked him up to just being a selfish asshole who fought for causes once that would help himself and that made him look like he was on the right side of history once.
Good, now let's watch this supposedly corrupt bribe taking devoid of integrity man turn down a million dollars a year for every reason in the book other than his legacy and integrity which he does not have or so I've heard.
I think that's the whole point. He knows Thomas won't take the money. It's not about the money.
Oliver is just using the money as bait, so when Thomas says "I'm not taking the money because my job is about being just and whatever.", he can fire back by pointing out everything that was discussed in the video.
Best case scenario, Thomas takes the money and retires, then Biden appoints a Democratic-leaning judge to fill the spot and bring more balance to the Supreme Court.
Worse (and most probable) case, Thomas ignores the offer for as long as possible. Pretends like it never happened. Then when someone eventually asks about it, he can play dumb or list whatever bullshit high-horse reasoning he wants, which Oliver can then point out the obvious hypocrisy and that's that.
Best case is that he does a Scalia/RBG - or better yet, a Slough/Wood/Daronco/Vance/Roll/Feuerstein then gets replaced by a progressive after the Republicans pull their transparent bullshit then lose the election and a material amount of public support.
I'm being facetious. It doesn't matter whether he takes it or not, people claiming he has no integrity will not see refusal as a sign of integrity. So the whole circus surrounding this offer is nothing more than a circle jerk sham. It's a show for the congregation, like speaking in tongues.
He wouldn't do it because he wants to stay in power to harm liberals
Too close to the election. Republicans will just block a Biden nomination until after the election, in the hopes of another Trump nominee.
Thats literal bribery
Oliver himself during the episode exclaims his shock that such a stunt was legal, but indeed it is. Bribing Supreme Court Justices is, in effect, legal.
It's closer to a job offer. Resigning would be a personal rather than an official act.
Bribery requires that the incentive is to illicit an action that is an official duty of the held office. Resignation is not an official duty. It is legally, under federal law, not a bribe.
And here is the law. At a glance, yeah, there was no bribe. It was not corrupt, it was not asking for an official action, and even if it were an official action, it was not an illegal action. https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-18-crimes-and-criminal-procedure/18-usc-sect-201/
Not bribery if you're no longer a judge
Why would you post an old story?
Mon Feb 19 2024.
At 10 am.
You think this hasn't already been posted on every news comm here?
