Oliver made the proposal on Sunday’s episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, saying the supreme court justice had 30 days to accept or it would expire.
The British-born comedian’s offer came after a steady drumbeat of media investigations in the previous several months established that Thomas failed to disclose that political benefactors bought him lavish vacation travel and real estate for his mother. Thomas also failed to disclose – as required – that he allowed school fees for a family member to be paid off and had been provided a loan to buy a luxury motor coach, all after openly complaining about the need to raise supreme court justices’ salaries.
As a result, Thomas’s impartiality came into question after he sided with the contentious ruling that eliminated the federal abortion rights once provided by the Roe v Wade case.
He also recently listened to arguments over whether Donald Trump can be removed from states’ ballots in the presidential election after the former president’s supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – staged the January 6 attack at the US Capitol in Washington DC. Thomas resisted pressure to recuse himself from such matters, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, is a conservative political activist who has endorsed false claims from Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen from him.
You speak as if this isn’t already happening. Rich corporations hire former US reps and regulators to be “lobbyists” for huge paychecks, but they aren’t really asked to do anything–the real job happens before the big paycheck while the rep is still in office greasing the wheels, knowing retirement will be easy street.
Meanwhile scoundrels at every level are being loud public fuckheads so they can make a big name and sell books, or merch. They’re getting paid too.
And these aren’t even the real monsters. The real monsters are the ones who aren’t doing it for money but for more political power.
Honestly, we should be so lucky as to have a way to buy the political fortunes of these pieces of shit before they have any political influence.