{"id":2003279,"date":"2023-08-17T03:01:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T07:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/if-propublicas-looking-for-a-corrupt-sellout-it-should-pivot-from-clarence-thomas-to-the-mirror\/"},"modified":"2023-08-17T03:08:08","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T07:08:08","slug":"if-propublicas-looking-for-a-corrupt-sellout-it-should-pivot-from-clarence-thomas-to-the-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/if-propublicas-looking-for-a-corrupt-sellout-it-should-pivot-from-clarence-thomas-to-the-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"ProPublica should shift focus from Clarence Thomas to self-reflection if seeking a corrupt sellout."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fif-propublicas-looking-for-a-corrupt-sellout-it-should-pivot-from-clarence-thomas-to-the-mirror%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2003279&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<h2>Unveiling the Luxurious Life of Clarence Thomas<\/h2>\n<p>On Thursday, ProPublica published an already much-discussed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">story<\/a>, \u201cThe Other Billionaires Who Helped Clarence Thomas Live a Luxe Life\u201d \u2014 one of a handful of articles since April putting details of Justice Thomas\u2019 life outside\u200d the court under scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>This series, along\u200b with recent\u2062 pieces in The New\u200b York Times, is a social portrait of Thomas where the \u200doptics are more suggestive than the facts: pictures of yachts and planes and private resorts, anecdotes of\u200c glamorous vacations, pictures of Thomas smoking cigars with wealthy friends. Still, these optics have liberated Thomas\u2019 detractors to say things they may have fantasized about before\u2062 but only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UWxmBubsStA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rarely<\/a> said: <a href=\"https:\/\/thewestsidegazette.com\/justice-thomas-a-21st-century-uncle-tom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">that<\/a> Thomas\u2019 \u201cunethical behavior\u201d\u200b makes him a \u201c21st century Uncle Tom,\u201d that Thomas is the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/07\/17\/minnesota-ag-compares-clarence-thomas-to-contented-slave-from-django-unchained\/\">equivalent<\/a> of a \u201chouse\u2063 slave,\u201d \u2063and that Thomas is such a sellout to power and wealth\u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/sdvoice.info\/justice-thomas-an-insult-to-uncle-tom\/\">that<\/a> any comparison is \u201can \u2063Insult to [even] Uncle Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Are the Optics Misleading?<\/h3>\n<p>In\u2063 Washington, Sens. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2023\/05\/07\/dick-durbin-clarence-thomas-scandals-supreme-court\/70192395007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dick Durbin<\/a>, \u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/congress\/sen-ron-wyden-asks-harlan-crow-list-clarence-thomas-gifts-rcna81229\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ron Wyden<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/clarence-thomas-doj-investigation_n_64396149e4b0ac40918adac6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sheldon\u200c Whitehouse\u2019s<\/a> public statements have \u2062implied Thomas is corrupt. But what if the optics are misleading? What if the\u2063 driving force behind\u2063 these allegations, ProPublica, is the real sellout to power? Both ProPublica\u2019s history and inconsistencies surrounding its attacks on Thomas suggest an unsettling answer to those questions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>ProPublica owes its existence to the Sandler Foundation, funded by Herb and Marion Sandler, \u2062who owed their fortune to subprime mortgage investments through their \u2062firm Golden West Financial Corp., and whom The Los Angeles Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-herbert-sandler-dies-20190606-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">described<\/a> as being in \u201cthe vanguard of untraditional home lending.\u201d That\u2019s because the firm \u2062offered a \u201cPick-a-Pay\u200d adjustable-rate mortgage \u200d\u2026 which allowed borrowers to \u2063make artificially low monthly payments, increasing the principal they\u2064 owed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Off this innovation, \u201cthe Sandlers became fixtures on the\u200c lists of\u200c the highest-paid CEOs in the US,\u201d but when the\u2062 Sandlers sold Golden West to Wachovia Bank for a reported $25 billion, its $120 billion adjustable-rate home-loan portfolio was so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/business\/court-fight-for-ailing-wachovia-escalates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">riddled<\/a> \u200cwith toxic assets that it forced Wachovia to try an \u200caborted \u2062merger with Citigroup. Eventually, Wachovia <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-citigroup-wellsfargo-idUSTRE6AI47120101120#:~:text=NEW%2520YORK%2520%2528Reuters%2529%2520-%2520Wells%2520Fargo%2520%2526%2520Co,closing%2520another%2520chapter%2520in%2520the%2520receding%2520financial%2520crisis.\">merged<\/a> \u200cwith Wells Fargo to limit its financial liability, positioning it\u200c to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/61-of-americans-paid-no-income-tax-in-2020-report\/\" title=\"61% Of Americans Paid No Income Tax In 2020: Report\">receive government funds<\/a>\u2062 in the 2008 bailout.<\/p>\n<p>The fallout from this disaster wasn\u2019t \u2064absorbed equally. Herb Sandler, who said the assets\u2019 toxicity \u2063was \u201can isolated case here and there,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/content.time.com\/time\/specials\/packages\/article\/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877343,00.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">walked away<\/a> with $2.3 billion\u2063 in 2006 and founded\u200c ProPublica \u2063as part of his left-leaning investments, declaring that he \u201ccan\u2019t stand\u2064 the powerful taking advantage of those with less power.\u201d Elite-educated journalists cut adrift by the rise\u200c of the internet benefited from Sandler\u2019s commitment since Sandler employed them \u2063at ProPublica.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>The Impact on Black\u2063 Homebuyers<\/h3>\n<p>Meanwhile, the real reversal \u200cof\u200b fortune was felt by the mostly black \u2064homebuyers who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nber.org\/system\/files\/working_papers\/w25198\/w25198.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lost<\/a> about a third of their wealth between 2007 and\u2062 2010 and 35 percent of whose households <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2011\/07\/SDT-Wealth-Report_7-26-11_FINAL.pdf\">had<\/a> zero or negative net worth by 2009. This fallout was \u2063the\u200b latest \u200bin a series of \u2062blows to black Americans abetted by people \u200clike Sandler \u2064and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/newsletters\/not-shutting-up\/2019-09-19-not-shutting-up-whose-support-should-a-journalism-nonprofit-reject\">fellow<em> <\/em><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/newsletters\/not-shutting-up\/2019-09-19-not-shutting-up-whose-support-should-a-journalism-nonprofit-reject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ProPublica<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/newsletters\/not-shutting-up\/2019-09-19-not-shutting-up-whose-support-should-a-journalism-nonprofit-reject\">  donor<\/a> George Soros, the hedge funder whose Open\u200d Societies Foundation,\u200b founded \u2064in 1993, supported the \u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/reporters-fail-to-ask-psaki-or-biden-about-one-of-the-biggest-news-stories-in-the-u-s\/\" title=\"Reporters Fail To Ask Psaki Or Biden About One Of The Biggest News Stories In The U.S.\">open-borders policies<\/a> that outsourced jobs from the black community \u2014\u200c and made Soros rich. Blue-collar decline hit black men exactly as they were ready to enter the workforce\u200c on equal terms, powering neighborhood decay and crime in the cities, and mortgage lenders helped black families escape to the suburbs \u2014 and straight into a\u2063 housing disaster.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As it happens,\u2064 fighting back against \u2064exactly this kind of dependency and manipulation is\u200d a key part of Thomas\u2019 judicial philosophy. In his view,\u200b forged through his experiences as a black man \u2062among the institutional elite, America\u2019s\u2064 largest institutions try to make people, especially those on its lower rungs, dependent, and representative democracy offers a \u2062way to fight back.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas isn\u2019t the first or only person to have this \u2063view, but as even Thomas\u2019 more perceptive\u200d detractors \u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/09\/23\/books\/review-enigma-clarence-thomas-corey-robin.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">partly acknowledge<\/a>, he\u2019s the \u2064only Supreme Court justice who\u2064 holds it so clearly. His originalism can be read, in part, as an extension of it: giving power back \u2064to the American people and taking it away from insider institutionalists, whether admissions deans who want to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/22pdf\/20-1199_hgdj.pdf\">categorize<\/a> people by amorphous racial considerations or \u2062government-backed conglomerates, which he rules are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/05\/11\/politics\/supreme-court-pork-california-regulations\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">subject<\/a> to the will of the people through state\u2063 legislatures. In\u200c this read of Thomas\u2019 career, he\u2019s the one pushing <em>against<\/em> the centralizing corruption abetted by the Sandlers \u2014 \u2064the same corruption that funds ProPublica.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Coordinated Attacks?<\/h3>\n<p>But this isn\u2019t the\u200d preferred story about Thomas or the Sandlers in established media such as The New York Times, which in 2020 \u2064reported that the Sandlers\u2019 daughter Susan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/09\/14\/us\/politics\/Susan-Sandler-donation-racial-justice.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a> a gift of $200 million through the same foundation that funds ProPublica to fund \u201cracial equity\u201d projects \u2014 \u2064and failed to mention the source of\u200d the Sandlers\u2019 wealth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Nor is it the preferred story at ProPublica, \u2064which, \u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/propublica-takes-millions-from-secret-donors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as with other requested disclosures<\/a>, isn\u2019t forthcoming about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/herb-sandler-the-man-who-made-propublica-possible\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the ambiguous history\u2063 of its funders<\/a>. \u2063Instead, ProPublica has put its commitment to \u201cracial equity\u201d front and center, not just with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/topics\/racial-justice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stories<\/a> \u200cbut with \u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/leadership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">personnel<\/a> committed to the cause, including a board of directors and advisers who have benefited from the same institutions \u2062that helped make the Sandlers rich. A look at\u200c their CVs not \u200conly suggests these peoples\u2019 collective institutional heft and\u2064 mutual connections. It also suggests that ProPublica\u2019s attacks on \u2064Thomas might be \u2064more coordinated than\u200d they\u2019re\u2063 being portrayed.<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, Danielle\u2062 Allen, a Harvard professor and \u2063leftist political theorist previously on the <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/nonprofits\/organizations\/142007220\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">board<\/a> of ProPublica, was a co-leader of a\u2063 prominent group \u2063of academics hosted by Harlan Crow at his estate, and this group raised objections to the Nazi memorabilia they\u200d saw\u200d among his collection, objections\u2063 which the group leaders discussed with members and\u2063 conveyed to\u2064 Crow. Crow is famously a collector\u2064 of art and historical \u200bartifacts related to famous tyrants, dictators, and\u200c communist revolutionaries, in remembrance\u200b of communism\u2019s\u2064 victims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis\u200b is my era. I was\u2062 born in 1949,\u201d Crow said\u2063 in an <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.li\/63vDN#selection-691.98-691.113\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Atlantic<\/a> interview discussing his famous Garden of Evil. \u201cCommunism was the great threat to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Mother Jones <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2023\/04\/harlan-crow-nazi-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">story<\/a> \u200b about Allen\u2019s visit to Crow\u2019s collection, \u200cwhich \u2063ran four days after ProPublica\u2019s first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">story<\/a> about Crow, does not disclose her link to\u200d ProPublica. \u200cAnd the ProPublica \u200cstories about Crow don\u2019t disclose Allen\u2019s group\u2019s interactions with him.\u200d Interestingly, though Allen\u2019s\u2062 group members said they were surprised by the memorabilia, Crow\u2019s Nazi collection was <a href=\"https:\/\/news.artnet.com\/art-world\/hitler-art-collector-marco-rubio-fundraiser-334817\">already<\/a> in the news, accessible to anyone looking to vet a potential host.<\/p>\n<p>Crow\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/06\/19\/us\/politics\/19thomas.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> \u2064 connection to Thomas was also already well-known<\/a> thanks to a\u2062 2011 New York Times piece published when Jill Abramson, on ProPublica\u2019s Board of Advisers, was the Times\u2019 executive editor. (Before she became executive editor, Abramson worked in \u2062other positions at the Times, where a colleague was ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg, whose name surfaced in connection \u2064to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2000\/1004\/p11s2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">demonstrably flawed \u2063Times\u2019 stories<\/a>.) And the Washingtonian piece, which re-broke news\u2063 of Crow\u2019s Nazi collection after the first ProPublica piece on Crow, ran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonian.com\/2023\/04\/07\/clarence-thomass-billionaire-benefactor-collects-hitler-artifacts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">only one day<\/a> after the ProPublica piece.<\/p>\n<p>These facts at the \u2062very least suggest a question: \u2064did ProPublica\u2019s \u200d\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-investigation-origins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">research<\/a> in some obscure corners of the \u2063internet,\u201d \u2064which led it to Crow in the first place, happen off a suggestion by \u200dsomeone close to the organization? After all, anyone who knew of Nazi regalia at Crow\u2019s home and his\u200c connection to Thomas could have taken \u200dfrom the\u200c encounter the idea \u200cthat this\u200c man, \u2064closely connected to Thomas, was vulnerable to criticism and could \u2063make the justice vulnerable, too. They \u2064could have seen, in the words of New Republic editor and Washington insider Michael Tomasky, the \u200bchance to \u201cdestroy Clarence Thomas\u2019s Reputation\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/171754\/democrats-need-destroy-clarence-thomas-reputation\">and<\/a> \u201cmake him a metaphor for every insidious thing the far right has done to this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But questions like these won\u2019t be asked because, unlike \u2062Clarence\u200b Thomas, \u200dthese operators are part of institutions immune from real scrutiny. Meantime, a high-tech lynching against \u2064an establishment dissident is happening \u2063again, but it\u2019s more high-tech than before, and it\u2019s not confined to the Senate chamber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Justice Clarence Thomas, shedding light on his opulent lifestyle beyond the courtroom. ProPublica&#8217;s latest article, &#8220;The Other Billionaires Who Helped Clarence Thomas Live a Luxe Life,&#8221; joins a collection of scrutinizing pieces since April. These works, including those from The New York Times, offer a comprehensive social profile of Justice Thomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2269,"featured_media":2003280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2003279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}