SCOTUS Justice Thomas' wife is having a tea party.

Justice's wife launches 'tea party' group

She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court.

In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative "core principles," she said.

The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources -- including corporations -- as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.

"I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country," Thomas, who goes by Ginni, said on the panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "I have felt called to the front lines with you, with my fellow citizens, to preserve what made America great."

Does the world need another Tea Party group? There are already a bunch of them, aren't there? Do conservatives really need to build yet another echo chamber to practice their yodeling in? If she approves of the movement, surely her old associate, Dick Armey, wouldn't mind having her help him with the Freedom Works thing he's been doing. It just comes off as redundant.

Although it's puzzling to me--I thought these Tea Party groups were supposed to be grassroots, but they seem to have an awful lot of insider-y people organizing them. Also, if they are supposed to be about the concerns of regular people--why do they need a bunch of corporate cash? Doesn't that seem like certain "special interests" might hijack the message? Those are just the kinds of questions I turn around in my busy little brain.

Anyway, in typical liberal fashion, I think it's really neat that she's formed this group which will take corporate donations, right after the somewhat controversial Citizens United decision. I'm not sure one thing necessarily has to do with the other. When Mrs. Thomas informed her spouse she was thinking of having a tea party, he probably thought she was just having the girls over for some Earl Grey and cucumber sandwiches.

Final, slightly snarky word from the story that I simply must repeat:

She is intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully," the bio says.

Wow. (Although I'm intrigued by Beck, too, you know. And how to get mildew stains off my shower curtain....)