Chicago, IL
‘(expletive) Clarence Thomas’: Lightfoot refuses to apologize for comments, uses them in fundraising
“Clarence Thomas has confirmed himself over and over – notably in that concurring opinion – that he’s someone who does not care or respect the rights of anybody apart from himself,” the mayor stated after accepting the endorsements of three members of the Illinois congressional delegation.
“And albeit, given what he and his spouse have finished in fomenting the revolt of Jan. 6 is shameful. Frankly, what I would prefer to see him do is step down from the Supreme Courtroom.”
The mayor flatly denied that her vulgar and bombastic rhetoric a couple of sitting Supreme Courtroom justice was harking back to the political bullying she has lengthy condemned by former President Donald Trump.
“I do not suppose it is being a bully. I believe it is talking the reality. This can be a man who does not care about girls’s rights. This can be a man who’s attacking affirmative motion. … There was a latest article I examine him. He actually described himself as a termite. Anyone who’s lurking within the basement consuming away on the basis of different peoples’ homes,” Lightfoot stated.
“Take into consideration that as someone who’s a Supreme Courtroom justice who describes himself as someone who’s actually … laying in wait to destroy different peoples’ properties and foundations. No apologies about what I stated about Clarence Thomas. It is time on this nation that we converse the reality about males in positions of energy who’re undermining our lifestyle. And he, to me, is Exhibit A of that.”
Six mayoral challengers have pounced on Lightfoot for making the obscene reference to Thomas throughout a Satisfaction within the Park occasion final weekend in Grant Park.
“In case you learn Clarence Thomas’ concurrence,” a fired-up Lightfoot shouts from the stage.
Somebody from the viewers yells again on the mayor and Lightfoot says, “Thanks. (expletive) Clarence Thomas.”
By late afternoon Monday, practically 1,000,000 folks had considered the video of the mayor, together with six of the seven mayoral challengers. Some accused the mayor of “inciting folks to mob motion” by making a profane public reference to a sitting Supreme Courtroom justice.
Lightfoot has defiantly refused to again down. On Monday night time, she tweeted a photograph of herself pointing towards an viewers member’s T-shirt bearing the identical profane assertion. The publish learn, “I stated what I stated.”
She used the identical, “I stated what I stated” headline in an e-mail attraction for marketing campaign contributions on Thursday, the ultimate day of fundraising for the second quarter.
She reminded her supporters that Thomas argued in his concurring opinion that the Supreme Courtroom “ought to rethink its previous rulings defending contraception, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.”
“That is why, when somebody within the crowd at an occasion this weekend yelled, ‘(expletive) Clarence Thomas,’ I yelled it proper again. And I meant it,” the mayor wrote.
“Clarence Thomas desires to make girls and members of the LGBTQ+ group second-class residents. His beliefs are a direct assault on my personhood, and I’ll condemn them EVERY CHANCE I GET.”
She added, “I’m the primary overtly homosexual mayor of Chicago. I’m the second girl ever to carry this workplace. What makes me totally different from my predecessors is my power and I’ll NOT stay silent within the face of ultra-conservative, right-wing assaults on my communities.”
The mayor doubled down on her assault on Thomas throughout a information convention on the DuSable Black Historical past Museum and Training Heart referred to as to simply accept endorsements from three sitting members of Congress: Bobby Rush, Danny Davis and Robin Kelly.
In March 2019, the now-retiring Rush warned throughout a marketing campaign rally for then-mayoral challenger Toni Preckwinkle that the “blood of the following younger Black man or Black girl” killed by police can be on the palms of Lightfoot’s supporters if the previous police board president was elected mayor.
Lightfoot was furious. They did not converse for months. The mayor held a grudge towards these elected officers who had been on the rostrum with Rush on the Preckwinkle rally and didn’t instantly denounce his vitriolic and racially incendiary assault.
On June 11, 2020, all was forgiven. That is when Lightfoot joined Rush in holding a rare information convention to accuse greater than a dozen Chicago law enforcement officials of lounging round in Rush’s burglarized marketing campaign workplace in the identical strip mall the place vandals had a discipline day in the course of the first of two devastating rounds of looting.
Seventeen officers and supervisors had been subsequently slapped with suspensions starting from in the future to twenty days for allegedly sleeping on a sofa, popping popcorn and consuming espresso in Rush’s workplace whereas mayhem raged across the metropolis. One other officer received a written reprimand.
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(Source: Solar-Occasions Media Wire – Copyright Chicago Solar-Occasions 2022.)