Clarence Thomas (1 Viewer)

[enfuego]

Any chance he was drinking Diet Coke?

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Thinks for himself?

Definitely. He's probably the most independent thinker on the court right now.

The man doesn't ask questions during oral arguments, rather he sits there like a lump on the wall and then writes dissents that come out of left field and oftentimes have no bearing on the case.

Do you have an example in mind?

Liberals disagree with Scalia and Salito on their understanding of the Constitution but at least those two present arguments that are rationally based however misguided.

I really disagree with this. I often find Scalia's opinions to be inconsistent and full of special pleading. I find Thomas's opinions to be principled and rational and lucid. (I was going to say articulate instead of lucid, but didn't want the Joe Biden baggage.)

 

[NCCommish]

I don't think he should have been a Supreme Court justice. ***And it should be remembered I am not the only one. Most judges that go up for the SC are rated as well qualified by the ABA. Thomas' rating was split between qualified and not qualified.

I think the ABA's ranking was more a reflection of Thomas's lack of experience, not that he lacked "chops," whatever that means.

You have never heard that term? I guess you could insert experience instead. His record as a jurist pre-SC is see through thin. When your ABA rating is split and you can't even get an unqualified qualified you probably don't belong there.

 

[NCCommish]

Thinks for himself?

Definitely. He's probably the most independent thinker on the court right now.

The man doesn't ask questions during oral arguments, rather he sits there like a lump on the wall and then writes dissents that come out of left field and oftentimes have no bearing on the case.

Do you have an example in mind?

Liberals disagree with Scalia and Salito on their understanding of the Constitution but at least those two present arguments that are rationally based however misguided.

I really disagree with this. I often find Scalia's opinions to be inconsistent and full of special pleading. I find Thomas's opinions to be principled and rational and lucid. (I was going to say articulate instead of lucid, but didn't want the Joe Biden baggage.)

Yeah got to be careful there.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Thomas rarely, if ever, asks questions during hearings.

Neither would I.

And his dissents are not up to the standard we see from any of the other judges on the court.

IMO, Thomas writes by far the best dissents on the court. His dissent in Gonzales v. Raich was perfect.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

I don't think he should have been a Supreme Court justice. ***And it should be remembered I am not the only one. Most judges that go up for the SC are rated as well qualified by the ABA. Thomas' rating was split between qualified and not qualified.

I think the ABA's ranking was more a reflection of Thomas's lack of experience, not that he lacked "chops," whatever that means.

You have never heard that term? I guess you could insert experience instead. His record as a jurist pre-SC is see through thin. When your ABA rating is split and you can't even get an unqualified qualified you probably don't belong there.

I tend to agree that he was not the most qualified person to receive the nomination at the time. But the guy has been on the Supreme Court for like 16 years now. We can evaluate him on what he's done on the Court.

 

[falconeyed]

Thinks for himself? The man doesn't ask questions during oral arguments, rather he sits there like a lump on the wall and then writes dissents that come out of left field and oftentimes have no bearing on the case. Someone should check him to make sure that he doesn't have a head wound. Liberals disagree with Scalia and Salito on their understanding of the Constitution but at least those two present arguments that are rationally based however misguided. Thomas is so delusional that he wouldn't know a rational argument if it jumped up and bit him on the ###.And what's with the Anita Hill nonsense? He was accused, by the victim, of sexually assaulting her and there was no investigation or inquiry in to the issue. I'll buy you argument tho but I doubt you were saying the same thing about Bill Clinton and Paula Jones nonsense.

You can do roll eyes all you want but there is nothing there that isn't common knowledge. Thomas rarely, if ever, asks questions during hearings. And his dissents are not up to the standard we see from any of the other judges on the court. And they are sometimes a bit out of left field. He will go down in the courts history as one of the least significant judges to ever sit the Supreme bench.

Have you guys ever heard him comment on the reason he doesn't ask questions on oral argument? It's not because he's a fool or something. Like most judges, he decides a case based on the moving papers and opposition and that most of his colleagues like to "hear themselves talk." I would be careful to not mistake silence for idiocy.

 

[NCCommish]

One last time for the cheap seats. I am not calling him an Uncle Tom, a house slave, an idiot or stupid. He just doesn't impress me in the least. The lawyers here seem to like him. And the lawyers that like him are guys whose opinion I respect. I usually agree with them but I am just not feeling it on this issue.

 

[fightingchick]

Sad how he is hated by the black community for being a conservative.

They don't hate him for being a conservative -- they hate him for denouncing the very programs that helped him get to where he is today.

It appears to me that he denounces AA programs because he thinks that they do not help blacks. He says that his Yale degree was not helpful to him to because it was never worth as much as a white man's Yale degree. He says his degree was tainted, because the assumption is that his acceptance to Yale was based on his race - not his proven record of academic success to date. His success since then has certainly been helped because of his color - but only because the substance of his argument is more powerful becuase of his color (ie, a black man that rejects AA programs). Who better to lead the fight for all black men to overcome the soft bigotry of AA? What better a position for a man to fight this injustice perpetrated on so many blacks?

 

[the rover]

statistics don't necessarily agree with the premise that Thomas is nothing but a follower:

2006 Term: Percent in Majority in 5-4 DecisionsJustice 	PercentageKennedy 	 100%Alito 				  71%Roberts 	   67%Scalia 				58%Thomas 			 58%Breyer 			  46%Souter 			  38%Ginsberg 	 33%Stevens 	 29%

If this is for the whole time he has been on the court then yeah he wasn't in the majority because the righties lost more than a few 5-4 decision over those years.Find out what percentage he voted with the conservatives. Bet it's higher than 58%BTW I find it very interesting that Scalia and Thomas have the exact same percentage in the majority here. I wonder what that says.

it's for 2006.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Good article on Justice Thomas here: "Just, Wise, and Constitutional": Justice Thomas’s Legacy in Law and Politics.