This extraordinary profile of Clarence and Ginni Thomasโhe a Supreme Court justice, she among other things an avid supporter of the January 6 insurrectionโis a masterclass in everything from mustering archival material to writing the hell out of a story:
There is a certain rapport that cannot be manufactured. โThey go on morning runs,โ reports a 1991 piece in the Washingtonย Post.ย โThey take after-dinner walks. Neighbors say you can see them in the evening talking, walking up the hill. Hand in hand.โ Thirty years later, Virginia Thomas, pining for the overthrow of the federal government in texts to the presidentโs chief of staff, refers, heartwarmingly, to Clarence Thomas as โmy best friend.โ (โThatโs what I call him, and he is my best friend,โ she later told theย House Select Committee to Investigateย theย January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.) In the cramped corridors of a roving RV, they summer together. They take, together, lavish trips funded by an activist billionaire and fail, together, to report the gift. Bonnie and Clyde were performing intimacy; every line crossed was its own profession of love. Refusing to recuse oneself and then objecting, alone among nine justices, to the revelation of potentially incriminating documents regarding a coup in which a spouse is implicated is many things, and one of those things isย romantic.
โEvery year it gets better,โ Ginni told a gathering of Turning Point USAโoriented youths in 2016. โHe put me on a pedestal in a way I didnโt know was possible.โ Clarence had recently gifted her a Pandora charm bracelet. โIt has like everything I love,โ she said, โall these love things and knots and ropes and things about our faith and things about our home and things about the country. But my favorite is thereโs a little pixie, like Iโm kind of a pixie to him, kind of a troublemaker.โ
A pixie. A troublemaker. It is impossible, once you fully imagine this bracelet bestowed upon the former Virginia Lamp on the 28th anniversary of her marriage to Clarence Thomas, this pixie-and-presumably-American-flag-bedecked trinket, to see it as anything but crucial to understanding the current chaotic state of the American project. Here is a piece of jewelry in which symbols for love and battle are literally intertwined. Here is a story about the way legitimate racial grievance and determined white ignorance can reinforce one another, tending toward an extremism capable, in this case, of discrediting an entire branch of government. No one can unlock the mysteries of the human heart, but the external record is clear: Clarence and Ginni Thomas have, for decades, sustained the happiest marriage in the American Republic, gleeful in the face of condemnation, thrilling to the revelry of wanton corruption, untroubled by the burdens of biological children or adherence to legal statute. Here is how they do it.
Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments to decide whether Section 230 immunity shields online platforms from liabilities when relying on algorithms to make targeted recommendations. Many Section 230 defenders feared that the court might be eager to chip away at the statuteโs protections, terrified that in the worst-case scenario, the Supreme Court could doom the Internet as we know it. However, it became clear that justices had grown increasingly concerned about the potential large-scale economic impact of making any decision that could lead to a crash of the digital economy or an avalanche of lawsuits over targeted recommendations.
The case before the court, Gonzalez v. Google, asks specifically whether Google should be held liable for allegedly violating federal law that prohibits aiding and abetting a terrorist organization by making targeted recommendations that promoted ISIS videos to YouTube users. If the court decides that Section 230 immunity does not apply, that single decision could impact how all online platforms recommend and organize content, Google and many others have argued.
โCongress was clear that Section 230 protects the ability of online services to organize content,โ Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google's general counsel, told Ars in a statement. โEroding these protections would fundamentally change how the Internet works, making it less open, less safe, and less helpful.โ