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, 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,
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. 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, 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 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 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 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
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, 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 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, 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
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
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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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, 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
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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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
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 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, 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
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,
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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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, 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
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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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. 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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
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 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. 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, 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, 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 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.
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, 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. 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 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 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 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
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, 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 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
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
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, 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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,
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 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 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 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
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, 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 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 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 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 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,
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 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, 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
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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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, 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
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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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. 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
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. Steal more cats. There it is. Uh, we did it, We did it. Everybody