When Do Impeachment Proceedings Get Underway For Clarence Thomas?

Yesterday we took a look at how Senate Republicans have been bucking President Obama's judicial nominees for purely partisan obstructionism, even though every single one of his nominations has been backed with both home-state senators, including, obviously, Republicans. After being slapped around in a way no president has ever been before, Obama will start taking a harder line now and see if that wakes Miss McConnell and his obstructionist assholes up.

President Barack Obama is beginning to take a tougher line with Republican senators who object to his choice of federal judges.

In an apparent first for Obama, this week he announced a new nominee over the objections of the two senators from the nominee’s state. The nomination, of prosecutor Arvo Mikkanen for a judgeship in Oklahoma, is unusual because Obama has been careful to take recommendations from home-state senators, including Republicans, or at least to clear nominees with them.

The nomination came one day after White House Counsel Robert Bauer, in a speech about judicial nominees, expressed frustration with delays in the Senate confirmation process.

Mikkanen has been nominated for U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, where he’s been an assistant U.S. attorney since 1994. He previously served as a tribal court judge, according to his biography as president of the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association.

If confirmed, Mikkanen would be the only American Indian serving as an active federal district judge and the third in U.S. history, according to Federal Judicial Center records.

The choice does not have the support of Oklahoma’s two U.S. senators or its lone Democratic congressman. “I believe he is unacceptable for the position and another example of how politics in Washington neglect to take into account what is best for the people of Oklahoma,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a news release. Coburn did not elaborate on what he meant by “politics in Washington,” and a spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment today.

Coburn added in his statement that he is “deeply disappointed in the White House’s lack of consultation with me on this nomination. I hope we can work together in the future to find a nominee for this seat whom I can support.”

A spokesman for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Inhofe is inclined to oppose the nominee because White House officials did not follow the usual process of consulting the congressional delegation. “We haven’t met with Mr. Mikkanen. We don’t know much about his background or his judicial philosophy,” the spokesman, Jared Young, said today.

Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), the only Democrat from the state in Congress, called the nomination a “misstep,” according to the Tulsa World.

Meanwhile there's a one-eyed maiden aunt screaming her head off in the attic and everyone is making believe nothing is happening... nothing at all. Clarence Thomas needs to be in a courtroom, all right-- but as a defendant, not a judge. Michael Tomasky, writing for a British paper, is willing to talk about it. But here... easier to tell the Egyptians, Jordanian and Yemenis how to govern themselves. With us as a role model, it's kind of tough though. For example... that one-eyed aunt. The L.A. Times reported, with a straight face:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed.

In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as "none." Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.

Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law. Thomas' omission-- which could be interpreted as a violation of that law-- could lead to some form of penalty, Gillers said.

"It wasn't a miscalculation; he simply omitted his wife's source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission," Gillers said. "It could not have been an oversight."

Legal precedent seems to clearly indicate that Clarence Thomas should be working out a plea-deal around now. But that's not about to happen-- not with a polarized ruling elite willing to put the country's best interests behind their own career ambitions.

Obviously, Thomas is not going to be indicted over this. But how could a man-- a member of the Supreme Court!-- just openly lie on such a form? Lie? Yes, rather obviously. Let's put it this way. If you or I were filling out a form, and we came to a question about our spouse's income, and we knew very well that our spouse had income, we would check the appropriate income category. And here is one of the nine leading legal people in the United States. On what conceivable honest basis could he have thought his wife, who got up every morning and went to work every day at one of Washington's most richly endowed think tanks, had no income? For six years?

I wish we had a satirist, a Balzac, chronicling this age. It is beyond believability.