There are three matters I intended to include in Part I, but somehow failed:

1. Thomas’s wife, the hard right activist Ginni, is more of a toxic influence on Clarence that I had thought or hoped. It still doesn’t justify the Justice being accused of a conflict: as a society we simply cannot embrace the idea that husbands are responsible for the activities of their wives or vice-versa. However, Ginni’s fingerprints seem all over this mess.

2. To be clear: assuming Thomas was legally obligated to report the benefits of the vacations that did not meet the statuary exceptions for hospitality, that would not be legitimate reason to remove him. Far more serious, and in my view why he should resign, is whom he took the vacations with, as well as who paid for them. Those details are what raise the appearance of impropriety, and it is that, not the technical failure to report, that makes his conduct unforgivable in a Supreme Court Justice.

3. When the next Gallup poll regarding public trust in institutions and professions rolls around this winter, and SCOTUS, once the branch of the government held in the highest regard by the public, again sinks, Thomas will be a major reason. And if I am polled, I will vote with the disillusioned.

Now on to the rationalizations. Not only have I been dismayed at how many pundits, conservative commentators an Ethics Alarms readers have rushed to defend Justice Thomas when there really is no defense for his conduct, but it is also disturbing that none of these have produced an argument that isn’t transparently contrived. The following rationalizations on the Ethics Alarms list seem to encompass the entire thrust of the “Thomas shouldn’t resign” briefs. How depressing. Here they are, with some brief comments:

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That’s a photo from the popular Canadian TV series “Slasher: Ripper,” which just began its 5th season. The actor is Gabriel Darku who, as you can see, is a black performer, but for some reason is playing a rising Toronto police detective in an integrated police department in the late 19th Century. There were no rising black police detectives in the late 19th Century, and certainly not with that hair-style. Even more remarkable is another character in the series, a black, female surgeon and medical examiner.

Of course, the race issue never comes up in conversation: race doesn’t exist, apparently. The show, like so many others, is set in a universe where racial bias, caste systems and discrimination doesn’t exist. I’m only picking on “Slasher: Ripper” because I happened upon it last night (the show also has a “non-binary” female in male garb character whom everyone treats as no different from anyone else). There are a lot of period shows that engage in this fantasy. Another is Netflix’s “Enola Holmes.”

Let me say without hesitation: I don’t care. I know this is all part of the effort to make more acting opportunities for minority actors (and fewer for white actors) in pursuit of fairness, diversity, and inclusion, yada yada. OK: as always, my position as a a critic, director and ethicist is that as long as such non-traditional casting works, and doesn’t diminish the entertainment value or become a distraction to most audience members, go crazy, man! I don’t find Darku so extraordinary an actor that his ahistorical casting seems justifiable in artistic terms—I find him rather wooden and boring—but that’s just me. However…

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There is no way to get around this, to rationalize it or to look the other way. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice on the court and the cornerstone of the current 6-3 conservative majority, must resign from the Court now. Today. There may be a route to impeaching him, but it is dubious and unlikely to succeed in removal.

I had just returned yesterday from giving a presentation to non-profit lawyers on professionalism, lawyers’ duty to do more than just avoid violating the ethics rules, but to comport themselves in a manner that bolsters the public’s trust in the profession. Judges at all levels have the same obligation. When I finally returned to my office and had the time and inclination to catch up on ethics developments, I encountered the news that Justice Thomas not only had breached that obligation in a stunning and unforgivable manner, but has been doings so for more than 20 years.

ProPublica, whose mission is “To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing,” revealed that its investigation into Thomas’s longtime friendship with billionaire conservative donor Harlan Crow had revealed that he and his wife Ginni (a conservative activist) have taken yearly luxury vacations paid for by Crowe as the mogul’s guests. Thomas has also failed to report them.

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Having just rejected a hard-left Democratic mayor whose leadership and policies left the city of Chicago in the midst of crises in its schools and on the streets, the besieged city’s voters took stock, thought hard, and elected a new mayor who promises more of the same. Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer, squeaked out a victory over Paul Vallas, a former Chicago Public Schools CEO. This indicates mass incompetence and ignorance by the city’s electorate, as well as apathy and a flat learning curve.

Let’s begin with the fact that Johnson, who advocates raising taxes (on “the rich,” of course) didn’t deliver on many of his own financial obligations. He finally had to pay up once he was elected, because Chicago has a law blocking deadbeats from taking office. Before that, however, he owed $3,357 in water and sewer bills as well as$1,044 in unpaid traffic tickets dating back to 2014 and 2015. Johnson’s campaign’s official rationalization for this was essentially the ever-popular “Everybody does it”:

“Like many working and middle class Chicagoans, the Johnson household has received various fines and fees from the City of Chicago over the years. These fines and fees are on a previously established payment plan and are on schedule to be fully resolved before Brandon Johnson takes office as our next mayor.”

But the mayor of the city is not like other citizens. He (or she) is supposed to be an exemplary citizen, and one who can lead by example. Johnson, obviously, can’t. The new Mayor-Elect also defaulted on a Capital One credit card debt of more than $3,600 in 2016. Chicago, meanwhile, is in the midst of its own fiscal problems. Choosing a guy with Johnson’s cavalier attitude toward financial obligations is pure incompetence.

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