…the Court announces that “[t]he objective component of an Eighth Amendment claim is . . . contextual and responsive to contemporary standards of decency.” Ante, at 8 (internal quotation omitted). In the context of claims alleging the excessive use of physical force, the Court then asserts, the serious deprivation requirement is satisfied by no serious deprivation at all.

His words are indeed “right up there for everybody to read.”

Shall I cite him and embarrass you again, Jay?

No that’s not what he concluded. His words are right up there for everybody to read yet people are still getting it wrong.

And “hundreds of years”? That’s a bit overstated. He and the majority both cited the same previous cases in their opinions. However, only Thomas concluded that the absence of severe physical harm is no harm at all.

Thomas wrote plainly that a retaliatory beating by prison guards does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” as defined by hundreds of years of previous Court holdings (aka stare decisis) if the injuries from the beating aren’t severe.

That is most definitly NOT what Thomas was suggesting, any more than a judge who throws out an un-Mirandized confession suggests that Murder is peachy keen.

OK, let’s rewrite Jade’s statement to be a little more precise:

Thomas did not “seem to suggest”, he wrote plainly that a retaliatory beating by prison guards does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” if the injuries from the beating aren’t severe.

This assumes that only lasting physical injury constitutes objective harm. I don’t think we would accept this definition in any other facet of civilized society. The threat of random physical beatings constitutes harm all by itself.

If you don’t agree, we’ll make arrangements to put the question to a carefully controlled test.

In the words of Lt. Ripley, Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?!? That is most definitly NOT what Thomas was suggesting, any more than a judge who throws out an un-Mirandized confession suggests that Murder is peachy keen. In small words even you could understand, Thomas says that while Hudson has many avenues of retribution, the 8th Amendment isn’t one of them. And he bases this ruling on … stare decisis!!!

Well, that just says it all, doesn’t it?

wow. Not believing in stare decisis (when even Scalia won’t go that far) is bad enough.

But forcing your clerks to watch The Fountainhead every year is beyond the pale.

In Hudson v McMillan–Hudson was an inmate at a LA prison. He was shackled, taken to a remote area of the prison and had the crap beaten out of him by several armed guards. Further, Thomas seemed to suggest any sort of beating was fine so long as it it did not incur lasting damage.

WRT Jenkins v Missouri, Thomas did indeed attack Brown v Topeka Bd of Ed by essentially saying separate but equal is good enough.

Well, then, he’s in trouble right outta the gate. When has there ever been “de facto segregation unaccompanies by discriminatory inequalities in educational resources”?

History shows all too well that where segregation exists, those inequalities invariably follow. He might as well be arguing that falling off of a 500 foot cliff won’t kill you, but the sudden stop at the end is a problem.

In keeping with that analogy, Thomas hasn’t left the plantation. He has left his fellow blacks in the fields while he has gone to the manor. And while those other blacks DO try to leave the plantation, Thomas opposes providing them with any assistance, even the assistance that the food and clothes that he himself received, every step of the way.

Since when? You’re a right-wing mouthpiece regurgitating the same ol’ ditto-head talking points.

Thomas would not have gotten into Harvard were it not for the affirmative action quotes that he then turned around and opposes for other black people. Shouldn’t they be a little perturbed by that?

He also votes to overturn more laws than any other justice.

He blames everyone else for his own problems, and regularly claims victimhood while rejecting such arguments from others.

He is a hypocrite and a right-wing tool.

So naturally, he’s your hero.

For a right-winger, and Jay in particular, to accuse someone of ad hominem is laughable. It would be like Dubya accusing someone of not reading newspapers more often.

“Thomas’s duty is not to “work in the interest of his own people” but in the interest of all Americans.”

Which he doesn’t do either. He works in the interest of rich white people, same as all Republicans.

“I would like to see if there is anybody that can actually (on their own) offer up an actual criticism of one of Thomas’s court opinions and justify with that, why he doesn’t deserve to sit on the Supreme Court.”

According to the right-wing attacks on judicial activism, YOU think he doesn’t deserve to sit on the SCOTUS. That is, you would if you actually had ANY principles or any shame whatsoever.

Thomas has voted to overturn more Congressional laws than any other justice. This is what conservatives describe as “activism” as the only other option for the justice is to uphold the law as Constitutional.

But we all know that the “activism” screed is bullshit, and now you’ve confirmed it. “Activism,” like “ad hominem,” “bias” and “anti-American” are simply meaningless codewords for “liberal” and nothing more.

In the 2006 term, Thomas and Fat Tony voted together 88.8% of the time. Ginsburg and Breyer voted together 79% of the time.

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/120/nov06/statistics06.pdf

Damn that liberal…Harvard Law Review!!!

A. This is nonsense. While Thomas doesn’t regularly participate during oral arguments, claiming he only did so once is nonsense.

B. His participation in oral arguments has nothing to do with his skills as a jurist.

Thomas votes with Scalia 91% of the time. That may or may not be unprecedented, but it’s my impression that’s it fairly unusual for lawyers to be in agreement that frequently.

Another ridiculous factoid. Ginsburg and Souter vote with each other 90% of the time. What I am suppose to take from that? Is Souter pulling the strings or Ginsburg?

claiming Brown v Topeka Board of Ed. was wrong because “‘Racial isolation’ itself is not a harm. After all, if separation itself is a harm, and if integration therefore is the only way that blacks can receive a proper education, then there must be something inferior about blacks.” “‘Racial isolation’ itself is not a harm. After all, if separation itself is a harm, and if integration therefore is the only way that blacks can receive a proper education, then there must be something inferior about blacks.”

First of all, Thomas’s comments were not directed specifically at the Brown vs. Board of Ed decision, but rather the way in which the court has handled the issue of segregation post 1954. And ff you’re going to quote it, quote it correctly:

“Mere de facto segregation (unaccompanied by discriminatory inequalities in educational resources) does not constitute a continuing harm after the end of de jure segregation,” he wrote. ” ‘Racial isolation’ itself is not a harm; only state-enforced segregation is. After all, if separation itself is a harm, and if integration therefore is the only way that blacks can receive a proper education, then there must be something inferior about blacks. Under this theory, segregation injures blacks because blacks, when left on their own, cannot achieve. To my way of thinking, that conclusion is the result of a jurisprudence based upon a theory of black inferiority.”

Or how about Hudson v. McMillan, a 1992 case where Thomas–in the minority–argued that beating a shackled inmate is not cruel and unusual punishment.

Sigh. It’s hard to have conversations with people that choose to engage in such pathetic intellectual dishonesty. The case had nothing to do with “shackled inmates.” Thomas merely reasoned that excessive force against an inmate, while criminal and morally wrong, didn’t rise to the constitutional standard of “cruel and unusual.” Here is what he wrote:

In my view, a use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be tortious, it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the Federal Constitution, but it is not “cruel and unusual punishment.” In concluding to the contrary, the Court today goes far beyond our precedents.

Until recent years, the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause was not deemed to apply at all to deprivations that were not inflicted as part of the sentence for a crime. For generations, judges and commentators regarded the Eighth Amendment as applying only to torturous punishments meted out by statutes or sentencing judges, and not generally to any hardship that might befall a prisoner during incarceration…..When we cut the Eighth Amendment loose from its historical moorings and applied it to a broad range of prison deprivations, we found it appropriate to make explicit the limitations….Abusive behavior by prison guards is deplorable conduct that properly evokes outrage and contempt. But that does not mean that it is invariably unconstitutional. The Eighth Amendment is not, and should not be turned into, a National Code of Prison Regulation….

Anybody else? Really. I’m looking for some clear concise arguments. Claiming such attacks on Clarence Thomas are reasonable because he doesn’t dissent from Scalia is pretty fucking lame.