Liberty Central , the brainchild of Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, celebrated its formal launch last week, garnering 45,000 viewers and more than 160,000 page views. Thomas announced those numbers in a "Dear Patriot" email to her supporters on Friday, thanking them for the first week's "fantastic results.".
"You and your fellow citizens are embracing Liberty Central's mission," Thomas wrote. "We will listen, inspire, and activate so that together, we can secure the blessings of liberty."
Billing itself as "America's public square," the site is intended to be a central hub for education, activism, and civic engagement for conservatives, as we reported in February. She said then that her intended audience was broader than the tea party movement, and was aimed at stopping the "over-extended government" policies of the Obama Administration.
A key feature of the site is technology that makes it easy for readers to tell members of Congress what they think about pending legislation. "Close to 1,000 people called Congress to stop the EPA's cap-and-trade style carbon permitting process, to repeal the healthcare bill, to tell Congress not to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, and to help prevent 'stimulus 4,' or HR 4213, which includes more than $100 billion in new spending," Thomas reported on Friday. "In just 3 to 5 minutes a day, you will find opportunities to help return our country to a government that adheres to our core founding principles of limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise and national security."
The site today is urging readers to "stop" cap and trade environmental legislation, and to "stop Congress from overriding" the Pentagon on the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy on gays in the military. Thomas' own letter is more neutral, urging readers to "make sure your senator knows what you think" about cap and trade, and to "take action" on the Don't Ask Don't Tell legislation in which the House of Representatives "voted to seemingly dishonor the military" by speeding up repeal of the policy.
When questions were raised about possible conflicts of interest between her site and her husband's work—such as donations to her 501(c)4 organization by entities with cases before the Court—Thomas indicated that she had checked with the Court's legal office and found no problem. "There have been many other judges who have spouses that are politically active," she said in March.
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