As usual, the MSM is following the shiny object, while ignoring the REAL STORY BEHIND IT.
The Reid Report has done a fantastic job in explaining why this is going on.
What Weinergate interrupted: Clarence Thomas’ (ongoing) conflict of interest scandal (links archive)
Lost in the media frenzy over Rep. Anthony Weiner is the fact that at the same time he was Tweeting foolishness to random women, he was also the driving force behind a push to uncover potentially serious conflicts of interest on the nation’s highest court.
We’re probably doomed to at least another full day of media hyperventilation and Breitbart agitprop (this guy gets to be on the Today Show? Really??) over Anthony Weiner’s Twitterized member, plus the inevitable parade of random women who never actually met, but exchanged sexy pictures with the Congressmen doing endless, boring interviews and getting paid for it.” And the journalistic community appears fully prepared to welcome Breitbart into the club (which is disturbing in itself.) But the much more important scandal, which Weiner was trying to bring to light, involves Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and his ties to corporate and ideological interests with direct connections to cases that could come before the Court. And while his main concern right now is probably his marriage, and his constituents in New York, what Weiner may really have done is hand Thomas a giant, grey underwear-clad free pass.
From a May 27 story in the Huffington Post:
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) spent his Friday afternoon pestering Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for executing a classic news dump: a release of his financial disclosure filing on the eve of Memorial Day Weekend.
The Congressman spent the day tweeting to his heart’s content, first alerting his 43,000-plus followers to the likelihood that someone on the Court was going to try and bury an embarrassing story while the world’s attention was turned toward the commute and barbecue ahead:
“Friday dump Scotus style? I’m hearing disclosures released today. #ConflictsAbound,” he tweeted.
Shortly thereafter, Weiner let it be known that it was Thomas whose financial disclosure filing he was awaiting. Around 4:30, he had a link to send, showing that Thomas had served on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Horatio Alger Association and had made $10,000 for a speech at University of Minnesota School of Law.
The real conflict, if there was one, was with his wife Ginni, who earned “Salary and benefits” from Liberty Central and Liberty Consulting — prominent Tea Party Groups. The filing also revealed that the two share several financial investments, including 1/3 interest in rental property in Liberty City, Georgia, and a 401k plan. Thomas went on to note that, “two of the Georgia rental properties have been torn down. The only remaining property is an old house in Liberty County.”
TRR has done several stories on what Twitterites are calling ClarenceGate, and what Weiner had called Conflicted Clarence Thomas (he even put up a website.) In fact, on the same day a group of rather nefarious denizens of the hacker and right wing worlds unleashed the pictures that spawned Weinergate, Weiner was Tweeting, and taunting, about the Thomas affair.
This post is meant to catalog everything we know about the Thomas conflict of interest case that Weiner was pushing for an investigation of. What is already in the public record is shocking, to say the least, in that it involves potentially 20 years of violations of disclosure rules by Thomas, whose wife was bringing nearly $800,000 of income into their family home, unbeknownst the public, while conducting very public advocacy on issues that are sure to come before the court, namely, healthcare reform.
I’ll be updating the post throughout the day. If you have additional links that should be included, please pass them on.
CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE TO FIND THE TIMELINE AND LIST OF STORIES WRITTEN ABOUT UNCA CLARENCE, AND HIS FINANCIAL NONDISCLOSURES.
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