Our condolences to the family of C. Boyden Gray on his passing. He was a friend to the conservative legal movement and a defender of the rule of law. Ambassador Boyden Gray spoke at the RNLA National Policy Conference often, most recently in 2021. But we remember him best as the 2008 recipient of the Hon. Edwin Meese III Award and for giving the keynote address at our 2008 National Policy Conference. (Pictured below with fellow Meese Award winner Dick Wiley.)

"Lefty legal commentator" Mark Stern has attacked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yet again. This time, he has misconstrued a picture of Justice Thomas with former U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker as proof of Justice Thomas' alleged "interest in politics." Mark Paoletta explains:

In April, Justice Thomas hosted a reception at the Supreme Court for recent inductees into the Horatio Alger Association. This organization has awarded $235 million in scholarships to more than 35,000 at-risk students. Herschel Walker was one of many inductees this year, so he attended the event too. 

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina ("the UNC case") and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College ("the Harvard case"), which, together, are expected to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that the use of affirmative action policies in college admissions is unconstitutional.

Happening now: about 100 people, mostly Asian, are gathered in front of the Supreme Court to rally against affirmative action, one day before hearings begin in the Harvard/UNC cases. They are holding signs like: “I am Asian American, I have a dream too” pic.twitter.com/J6f4FKzian

— Amy Qin (@amyyqin) October 30, 2022

In what many believe to be the most momentous term in decades, the Supreme Court delivered a multitude of wins for originalism. This term's historic decisions should come with a great sense of pride for Justice Clarence Thomas. After years of fighting an uphill battle, Justice Thomas finally has enough support from other Justices on the Court to be in the majority. 

On his Birthday today, Justice Clarence wrote the decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, which clarified that the Second Amendment applies to all Americans.  As Professor Johnathan Turley wrote:

In what will likely prove one of the most important decisions in his illustrious career as a conservative jurist, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 6-3 majority opinion that brought greater clarity to this and future challenges under the Second Amendment. . . .

Thomas rejected the two-part analysis used by lower courts and held that the presumption must be in favor of the individual right to possess a handgun in public like other rights in the Bill of Rights. The Court held “consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Accordingly, “because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.”

Senator Orrin Hatch passed away Saturday.  He was a true leader and a great friend to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He spoke to RNLA more than any other elected politician and was very close to one of our founders, Betty Southard Murphy. As the left tries to lionize him for being some bipartisan figure from a bygone age, we should remember what a strong Republican Senator Hatch always was. As his former staffer, Tom Jipping, stated: Senator Hatch was “a real compassionate conservative.”  

But that compassion should not be mistaken for weakness. The Wall Street Journal had it right when it editorialized:  

The press is eulogizing former Senator Orrin Hatch for his civility and bipartisan deal-making with Democrat Ted Kennedy. He certainly was a gracious man who represented a more civil era in politics. But we’ll remember the longest-serving Republican Senator, who died Saturday at age 88, for the moments he bucked Beltway convention and took unfair abuse for it.

The first was his stalwart defense of Clarence Thomas against the accusations by Anita Hill in 1991. Ms. Hill’s claims have achieved totemic status on the political left. But they arrived only at the last minute, midwifed by Democratic operatives, and lacked substantiation. On the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch subjected the claims to proper scrutiny. He helped confirm Justice Thomas, who has been a credit to the High Court and country.

Although much of the world was focused on Ukraine, Republicans “won” some points with independent voters during the confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.  According to polling after the hearing, independent and conservatives voter are less likely to support a vote for Judge Brown Jackson.  Other liberals are mad at Democrats for the handling of the hearing, for not playing the race card enough.  So Democrats and liberals went back to their tried and true attacks on black conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.  However, this attack was extreme even for them.  They are calling for Justice Thomas to recuse himself or even resign because of texts his wife, Ginni Thomas, sent.  As RNLA Chair Harmeet Dhillon stated:

“Ginni Thomas is a private citizen who is entitled to her own opinions independent of her husband,” Harmeet Dhillon, chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association, told the DCNF. “To impart to a spouse his wife’s private conversations as a recusal factor is both unprecedented and grossly sexist.”

“Ms. Thomas is neither a litigant, nor a lawyer, nor even a material witness, to any case presently before the court, nor is she likely to be, despite how hard the left is straining to make this sexist trope into an issue,” Dhillon continued.

The Left's latest attack on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has gone too far... again. This time, they are joining forces with the media to question the integrity of Justice Thomas because of his wife's involvement in political activities. Mark Paoletta writes for Newsweek:

The legacy corporate media has launched an unprecedented smear campaign against Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, falsely claiming that Justice Thomas is violating ethics laws in light of his wife's political activities. Some have even advocated impeaching Justice Thomas for failing to recuse. They are, in effect, demanding a new standard for recusal that has no place in the law or in past practice.

The media just attempted to smear Justice Thomas again, but as is often the case, they came off as bluntly racist instead. In an article written about Rep. Jim Clyburn's influence on President Joe Biden's pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, reporters Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Marianna Sotomayor wrote (emphasis added):

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), a friend and ally of Clyburn's for over 30 years, said even Clyburn's critics respect his political instincts and his connection with a valuable but often disappointed subset of Democratic voters.

"Nobody that I'm aware of feels that opposing Clyburn's nomination would be the wise thing to do," he said. "If you know that a person has been vetted by Jim Clyburn, you know that person won't go to the court and end up being a Clarence Thomas," referring to the Black justice whose rulings often resemble the thinking of White conservatives.

When Justice Clarence Thomas was going through the confirmation process, Democrats orchestrated false allegations that Thomas had harassed a former employee, Anita Hill, in an effort to derail his nomination to the Supreme Court. The character assassination was led by none other than then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden. The remarkable thing is that Biden did not even believe Hill, but he chose to use her testimony anyways. Mark Paoletta, who worked on Justice Thomas' confirmation, recalled one specific instance where then-Senator Biden pressured Hill to change her testimony to fit the Democrats' attacks on Justice Thomas:

Hill, who had been discussing in detail alleged conversations with Thomas and others that happened many years earlier, told Specter she could not remember any such conversations. According to Specter: