Clarence Thomas' Wife Embraces The Nuttiest Climate Science Denier

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, does weekly video conversations with some of the most extreme voices in conservative politics for the website The Daily Caller. I wouldn't even describe her guests as Republicans - most are from the extreme conservative fringe, well outside the party mainstream. And they're not interviews - the website describes them as "sit downs" and Thomas doesn't hide her full political support ("What can people do who believe in what you are saying?").

One of Thomas' most recent fawning videos was with infamous science denier Lord Christopher Monckton. Revealingly, Monckton doesn't just deny climate science - he denies President Obama was born in the United States. Monckton has also called American climate activists "Hitler Youth." He had to be admonished to stop falsely claiming to be a member of Britain's House of Lords. And if all that wasn't enough, Monckton believes people with HIV should be quarantined.

It's telling how Thomas introduces the session. "The left despises Lord Christopher Monckton," she writes. No need to start with scientific credentials or the public good - right to bare-knuckled politics. While Thomas is clearly trying to ingratiate Monckton with her audience that despises the left, the statement simply isn't true. I love Lord Monckton! He's my favorite climate science denier! What better face of the movement of wealthy polluters trying to protect their reign over our land, air & water than this upper-class twit?

But Thomas's ridiculous source for climate propaganda comes into more serious question when you consider that Justice Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito are the final two holdouts on the Supreme Court still refusing to accept climate science or carbon regulations under the Clean Air Act. This puts Justice Thomas to the far right, beyond even Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia. If Lord Monckton's considered a credible climate voice, it's no wonder the Thomases are so misinformed.

Here you might be asking, but shouldn't a Supreme Court justice's spouse be allowed his or her own career? Unfortunately, Ginni and Clarence have repeatedly proven an inability to separate their personal & professional lives:

• Justice Thomas refused to recuse himself from Bush v. Gore in 2000 even though Ginni was working at the conservative Heritage Foundation gathering resumes for appointments in a possible Bush administration
• Common Cause revealed Justice Thomas failed to disclose nearly $700,000 of Ginni's Heritage Foundation income on Supreme Court reporting forms, prompting House Democrats to call for an investigation
• After quitting Heritage, Ginni formed her own consulting firm, "So you can hire Ginni Thomas to help determine whether a bill will pass constitutional muster if it comes before, you know, her husband," as Slate's Dave Weigel put it

Can you imagine what Glenn Beck would've done to the Thomases if they were liberal? He'd have needed a second chalkboard to diagram all that.

Above and beyond climate change, I was blown away Thomas asking Lord Monckton, "How are today’s politicians transferring real legislative power away from the consent of the governed as laid out by our founders?" If the Founding Fathers heard someone asking a hereditarily-titled British aristocrat for advice on how to run America's government, they'd urge that person to take the next loyalist boat back to George III's kingdom.

Tea Partying with a Climate Denier Birther British Lord

It's unbelievable, isn't it? A movement named after the Tea Party rebellion against the British aristocracy has joined forces with a British aristocrat.

Lord Christopher Monckton, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, spoke at a Freedomworks Tea Party event on Thursday in DC. But as David Weigel reports, he wasn't exactly on message, first making a birther "joke," then confirming he's a birther:

"I have no idea where he was born," said Monckton, who was working the crowd and signing autographs. "What I do find strange is that the public records of his Hawaiian birth have been sealed, and can not be obtained by the public. His lawyers have spent a lot of money trying to seal the records of his public life. All of those records should be open to the public, as they always were for previous presidents."

I pointed out to Monckton that the state of Hawaii released Obama's certification of live birth nearly two years and ago, and that the persistent challenges to his citizenship have inspired some members of the military to refuse to serve under Obama. "The effective classification of all of these documents of his early life is surely contrary to the spirit of freedom and openness in the Democratic west," said Monckton. "It's bound to raise questions in some peoples' minds. However! I have no idea where he's born, but it made a nice joke."

Monckton has made a career out of denying climate science, going so far as to call American youth climate activists "Hitler Youth." At the event, Monckton also reiterated his stance that all people with HIV should be quarantined.

Republicans try to paint birthers as being on the fringe of conservatism. But when a birther-spouting, global warming-denying, HIV-quarantiner is invited to speak at an event organized by Freedomworks, chaired by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the lines between the GOP & the Crazy get increasingly blurry.

Cross-posted from BlueVirginia.us; photo via Flickr's Matthew McDermott; story via Grist

Is Wikipedia Being Overrun by Conservative Trolls?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has an entire "Criminal Record" section, with two separate subsections, for the heinous crimes of ... possessing less than gram of heroin 27 years ago and protesting military operations in Puerto Rico.

Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, repeatedly called American climate activists "Hitler Youth" ... but any reference to the incidents has been scrubbed from his Wikipedia page.

Is Wikipedia developing a conservative slant?