The thing that occupies my thoughts the most these days is the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.  My heart cries for the people of Ukraine and frankly I would love the opportunity to spit in Mr. Putin’s face!  However, other things also demand my attention, so for the moment I will turn my mind and my angst in other directions.

Address the real problem, Teddy!

Recently, Senator Ted Cruz made the following statement …

“Across this country, Americans are horrified at skyrocketing crime rates, at skyrocketing homicide rates, at skyrocketing burglary rates, at skyrocketing carjacking rates.”

Hmmm … I guess that I am the anomaly, then, for none of those things ‘horrify’ me.  What does horrify me is the alarming increase of racism, the murder of numerous Blacks by police officers, the very people we are told to entrust with our lives.  I am horrified by the utter disregard for the people of this country by certain politicians, many of them newbies from the last election.  I am genuinely horrified at the attempts in the majority of states to restrict voting rights such that Black people, the elderly, college students, and the poor will find it almost impossible to cast a ballot.  I am also horrified by the refusal of the Supreme Court to uphold voting rights and women’s rights, thus obliterating much of the progress that was made over the last century.  I’m horrified by the Republicans and the conservative media blaming every single thing they don’t like on President Biden, while failing to even note his many successes.  Oh yes, my friends, there are many things that should horrify the people of this nation, but crime … I’m not horrified by the crime so much as the failure to effectively address it, to consider the reasons people commit crimes.

Frankly, I’m more afraid of that “law-abiding” gun nut I see walking into the grocery store, or the pickup truck driving down my street with confederate flags in the back window and Trump stickers on the bumper.  If Mr. Cruz, or any other member of Congress, is so horrified by crime in this nation, then there is one thing they can do that will drop crime rates dramatically and have an almost immediate effect:  PUT STRICT GUN LAWS INTO EFFECT!!!  Take a look at crimes committed over the past year or ten years and you’ll find that most are committed with the use of a common tool – a gun.  If people have naught but a knife, a baseball bat, or their fists to subdue their victims, the crime rate is going to plunge dramatically.  Heck, we could probably reduce most police departments by at least 50%!

But the reality is that Ted Cruz couldn’t care less about crime or about the victims of violent crime … his statement was made for the sole purpose of garnering support, as it’s pretty clear he hopes to be on the ballot for president in 2024.  Perhaps he would do better by staying in Texas when the weather gets cold and the lights go out, rather than running fast as he can for the warm beaches of Cancún.

Justice Thomas should resign!

Since the founding of the nation, no spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice has been as overt a political activist as Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.  Ms. Thomas has a leadership role in the Council for National Policy, a right-wing group with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the ultra-conservative Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association, and the Family Research Council.  Most recently, Ms. Thomas took up the battle cry for Donald Trump’s Big Lie, the fantasy that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2020 presidential election and that Trump was actually the winner.  Not only has no evidence been uncovered to support this Big Lie, but the election has been investigated numerous times in nearly every state and deemed to have been the most fair and honest election in the history of the nation.

Ms. Thomas, however, continues even today to work against the people of this country, to attempt to undermine our will, and pressured Republican lawmakers to challenge the election results and appoint alternate slates of electors.  Had they done so, the election would have been decided by none other than the U.S. Supreme Court, of which Clarence Thomas is one of nine justices.  Can we say, “conflict of interest”?

Because Supreme Court justices do not want to be perceived as partisan, they tend to avoid political events and entanglements, and their spouses often keep low profiles. But Clarence and Virginia Thomas are the exceptions to those norms.  In addition to her position at the Council for National Policy, she founded a group called Groundswell with the support of Steve Bannon, the hard-line nationalist and former Trump adviser. It holds a weekly meeting of influential conservatives, many of whom work directly on issues that have come before the court.

For the three decades Justice Thomas has sat on the Supreme Court, he and his wife have worked in tandem from the bench and the political trenches to take aim at targets like Roe v. Wade and affirmative action. Together they believe that “America is in a vicious battle for its founding principles,” as Ms. Thomas has put it.

I think the time has come for Justice Thomas to turn in his resignation, and failing that, for Justice Thomas to be impeached.  The Constitution states that judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”  I don’t believe that Justice Thomas’ behaviour qualifies as ‘good’, and I do believe that his wife’s fanatical activism is influencing his decisions, interfering with his integrity.