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Streetcar Line
Questions for Sotomayor
When what’s left is right.
How does one ask questions of an Untouchable?
A host of Democrats, from U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer to U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, have warned that critics should be very careful about how to talk about or question Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, considering her Latina heritage. Nevertheless, her record is so replete with hugely controversial speeches and rulings, especially involving her strongly and oft-expressed views about the superior judging abilities of Latina women and the extra benefits due to certain ethnicities, that some senators rightly feel a duty to probe those controversies for the public’s benefit.
Fortunately, we already know what sorts of public statements about and questions for Judge Sotomayor, particularly for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, are presumptively valid. And we know that being somewhat repetitive is perfectly acceptable in order to really make the points and leave no room for error. Here are some of those presumptively valid comments:
1) This has no bearing on our view of her as a person. This is how we do it here, because many of us believe the views are more important or just as important or certainly very important… and we have to elicit those views. My worries about Judge Sotomayor’s record are based on statements she made, not based on that of any group…. In a way, unfortunately, her views seem to be an unfortunate stitching together of the worst parts of the most troubling judges we have seen thus far. I would say this, the one nominee she does not seem to resemble is Miguel Estrada….
We respect her candor. Candor is necessary, but not sufficient, at least in my view, in terms of approving a nominee. And I know that, and I have an expectation, that you will answer our questions about those views.
But I will say this, and I would caution my colleagues, it is just not enough to say, “I will follow the law.” Every nominee says that. And then we find when they get to the bench they have many different ways of following the law. And what I worry about, I do not like nominees too far left or too far right, because ideologues tend to want to make law, not do what the Founding Fathers said judges should do, interpret the law.
And in Judge Sotomayor’s case her beliefs are so well known, so deeply held, that it is very hard to believe, very hard to believe that they are not going to deeply influence the way she comes about saying, “I will follow the law,” and that would be true of anybody who had very, very deeply held views.
So a person’s views matter. There is a degree of subjectivity, especially in close cases and controversies on hot-button issues, and it is hard to believe that the incredibly strong ideology of this nominee will not impact how she rules if confirmed.
We will get into much of this when we have an opportunity to question the nominee, but I do want to take a moment to review some of the remarks that seem more disturbing that Judge Sotomayor has made and some of the more worrisome positions she has taken.
For a judge to set aside his or her personal views, the commitment to the rule of law must clearly supersede his or her personal agenda. That is something some can pull off, but not everybody can.
Based on the comments Judge Sotomayor has made on this subject, I have got some real concerns that she cannot, because she feels these views so deeply and so passionately.
I am deeply concerned that any man who comes before you, seeking to vindicate his rights, his constitutional rights as defined by the Supreme Court, will have a tough time finding objectivity with Sonia Sotomayor.
Judge Sotomayor has been one of the staunchest advocates of … efforts to roll back the clock, not just to the 1930s, but even to the 1880s, to an anti-gun decision in that decade.
She is an ardent supporter of an activist Supreme Court agenda…. It appears that only when the judge likes the outcome, she is on the States’ rights side….
She was the driving force behind the Norville case in which a nurse contracted a disability, took time off to deal with her illness, and when she returned found that in [alleged] violation of the ADA she had been demoted. Judge Sotomayor believed the State university hospital where she worked had every right to demote Ms. Norville [on at least two of her three claims]… and managed to convince two fellow judges to agree with her.
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom. Follow him on Twitter @QuinHillyer.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (46) | Leave a comment
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Marc Jeric| 6.5.09 @ 6:53AM
La Sotomayor is a typical product of affirmative action (just like Obama), nurtured by tenured marxists at Princeton and Yale (just like Obama), now ready to legislate from the highest bench. Over the next 30 years we will all have the chance to sniff many more emanations from the penumbras.
stu.b.con| 6.5.09 @ 7:37AM
BAN DAVID MATTHEWS
Ed Wallis| 6.5.09 @ 7:41AM
EXCELLENT "plagiarism", Mr. Hillyer!!!
Would that only a few Senate Republicans have the integrity to make such statements on record in defense of the U.S. Constitution...and against Sotomayor.
NOTE to "David Matthews (6:55am): please RE-read your post in comparison to others, and then tell us all here again JUST WHO is "all bitter and racist and bigoted."
heh.
Robert| 6.5.09 @ 7:50AM
Ms Sotomayor - a member of Hispanic supremacist organization La Raza (The Race) - does not even recognize the USA! How more blatant an American-hating person does this nation need, what with obama as president?
Sotomayor, in referring to the United States Congress simply will n ot use its proper name, referring in her writings to it as The North American Congress.
People...members of the Senate...are you listening?? Do you hear what I hear???
Ryan| 6.5.09 @ 8:40AM
The more I look at her, the more I see a woman who is probably a good lawyer for leftist causes (if there is such a thing) who never should have gotten near the judiciary in the first place.
Anya| 6.5.09 @ 8:42AM
Very interesting and well done post Mr. Hillyer. Sotomayor has revealed her ideology by her own words. I hope the Republicans in the Senate have the courage and conviction to prove she has disqualified herself.
Griff| 6.5.09 @ 8:46AM
All,
Davey is just reading from a script of prepared answers taken from various liberal screeds. (Notice how his replies sometimes don't exactly pertain to the point he's trying to dispute.) He has no original ability to debate and should be ignored. When challenged, he falls back on ad hominem attacks and charges of racism. He's a loser living in a dump in Dunedin and probably doesn't even fully understand the "stock" postings he's passing along. He's a liberal "iPod robot". Ignore him.
Bob Miller| 6.5.09 @ 8:54AM
If we don't get this jurist-with-attitude, we'll get another one with less baggage. Either way, the rule of law is hanging by a thread..
erp| 6.5.09 @ 9:23AM
What does the life or death of the Republican party have to do with the fact that Sonia's a racist who practices identity politics and bases her decisions, not on law, but on whether the defendant is a member of a politically correct group.
Just asking.
Paul| 6.5.09 @ 10:55AM
Hello everyone,
I've never posted here before, mostly because I was not about to get verbal feces flung at me by the jerk who's been so thoroughly nasty these past several months. I wrote an email to the powers that be at TAS, and they have assured me that if this guy or anyone else in the future is totally starting a flame war, then I can write to them ASAP and they will see to it that its dealt with. It looks as if they have been true to their word --notice the lack of puerile rantings, they've been deleted!-- and so I congratulate them on this. Now it looks as if we can actually start commenting on the articles again.
My suggestion is that if this jerk starts up again with the offensive ad hominem verbal assaults that have nothing to do commenting on an article, we all immediately write the powers that be here at TAS.
Free speech should not be the monopoly of loudmouth radicals
Paul
Robert Rosencrans| 6.5.09 @ 11:46AM
You can add Senators Cornyn and Sessions to those who feel you should tread lightly about Sotomayor.
We've hit a new low in America. When you quote someone and discuss the political ramifications, it's called an "attack" by publicly elected officials and the unelected press.
The fact is, Sotomayor has apparently made the statement several times. Let's hear a white guy make the statement once, and the press would make sure he was toast and no politician, should or would support such a statement.
No, to make racist statements with impunity you have to have victim hood as your crown and that becomes your ladder of success as well as your cloak of invulnerability.
It's all part of the collectivist mind set that we must sacrifice for the greater good. It's part of the mindset that you should sacrifice your ambitions because of past discrimination. If you're a white firefighter and follow the rules, why screw you, you're worthless.
If one of those fire fighters looked on Sotomayor as clueless would they too be branded as worthless evil citizens for standing up for their civil rights? Why shouldn't collectivists like Sotomayor come out with the truth and simply tell whites, now it's your turn to sit in the back of the bus. I woulnd't agree with it but I would respect her for telling the truth about what she believes, and that's precisely what she believes.
Well, I don't mean to upset e Senator Cornyn and Senator Sessions but many citizens are concerned like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that discrimination in any form should be rejected, and elected members of Congress should be concerned. However, they're more concerned with appearances.
At one time the U.S. Constitution stated clearly that equality was the law. Now people tell you it's a living document while they are pulling the rug out from under you because you don't fit in a state view of victim hood.
The gist of this incident is that white people should just shut up, bend over and take it. Collectivism and racism go hand in hand.
Our political leaders have degenerated into a gang of thugs.
http://freedomkeys.com/ar-racism.htm
When men began to be indoctrinated once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a man has no significance outside his group — the inevitable consequence was that men bbegan to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify — particularly for people of limited intellligence — the least demanding form of "belonging" and of "togetherness" is: race.
It is thus that the theoreticians of collectivism, the "humanitarian" advocates of a "benevolent" absolute state, have led to the rebirth and the new, virulent growth of racism in the 20th century.
Oldefarte| 6.5.09 @ 1:10PM
Well said, Quin! I'm aware of [though mostly ignorant of the specifics] the torturous and barbaric hearing process that Bork [especially], Pryor, Estrada and Thomas had to endure; and [again---as indicated by Quin] I feel that Republicans congressmen should TEMPLATE the Democrats' abhorent conduct of these prior SC hearings. Democrats [as they always do] are playing politics in now stressing/warning that any attempt to infringe upon Sotomayor's Hispanics "rights" and ethnicity will politically backfire on the Republicans. In essence, the Democrats are saying CONFIRM HER NOW, WITH NO QUESTIONS ASKED OR FACE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES, which is BS! They butchered Pryor, Estrada, Powell and Bork; and now, when the shoe is on the other foot, want a free pass. Again, I don't want to see her mean-spiritedly insulted or called names, but I do want to see the Republicans play by the same harsh political rules and tactics as Kennedy, Schumer, Leahy, Finstein,etc have used on Republican/conservative nominees!!!
The End Game| 6.5.09 @ 3:37PM
Preparations for Elimination of The U.S. Constitution and the Imposition of a Fascist Marxist Dictatorship In the United States of America
The following pages provide explicit evidence showing the concerted effort and pre-planning by elements in the U.S. government for the implementation of a Fascist Marxist Dictatorship in the United States of America.
Control of the U.S. Currency
The Federal Reserve Bank Act of 1913 handed the U.S. dollar into the hands of a few unscrupulous men. "Let me issue and control a nation's money, and I care not who writes its laws" Meyer Amchel Rothschild.
Initiation of Wars & Depressions
World War 1 would never have occurred without the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank, the owners of that bank were the primary beneficiaries of the war both funding the war and manufacturing the armaments for the war on both sides. They did the same thing for World War 2, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War etc.
The current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank at least admits the bank was responsible for causing the Great Depression. The Federal Reserve Bank has been responsible for initiating and driving most depressions since.
Control of Airwaves, Notes, Tax & the implementation of Socialism
The Banksters man they brought in after initiating the Great Depression, Franklyn Delaware Roosevelt, instituted the FCC to control airwaves and media, the SEC to control any competing Notes to their bank, the IRS to tax the people so as to pay the bankers interest on the money they make out of nothing and Social Security for placing the State at the head of family.
The Institution of a Police State:
The massive buildup of police and jails and a judiciary that throws people in jail for non-crimes. By 2004 the U.S. already had more people in jail, prison and on probation than all other nations in the world combined.
The Patriot Act
Employing the planned fear uncertainty and doubt caused by their 9/11 "New Pearl Harbor", the administration passed the "non-law" of the Patriot Act which according to these criminals allows them to arrest and detain anyone they want without that person having any right to defend themselves - "Guilty without any right to prove innocence".
The Elimination of The Posse Comitatus Act
Since 1878 the government has been prohibited from using our own Military against our own people. In 2006 the administration passed 'non-laws' to eliminate the Posse Comitatus Act.
The Creation of Concentration Camps in the U.S. & Abroad
Army Regulation 210–35 Civilian Inmate Labor Program: Confirming the government and the Army's plans for U.S. based Concentration Camps;
Military Commissions Act
The enactment of concentration camps in the U.S. and the ability of the President to throw whoever he wants in the camps without question.
The Next 9/11 False Flag
Still to occur: An extreme 'terrorist attack' again initiated secretly by the government is planned to shock the U.S. public into accepting an attempt to steal nuclear weapons by the White House was thwarted by by brave soldiers. The scramble to develops biological weapons by the Bush administration indicates they may be seeking a biological holocaust as for the staging of their next false flag.
"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." — Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II
“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” – President J. Edgar Hoover
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels, Propaganda Minister of Nazi Germany.
The underlying glue tying this communist fascist New World Order together are the owners of the Federal Reserve Bank who funded and implemented the Communist Bolshevik revolution. By placing the State as head of family and making everyone hand everything they own to the State, these banksters own the world. In the U.S. they have used the treasonous and fraudulent Federal Reserve Bank Act to literally make money out of nothing. When you borrow money to buy a home the Rothschild's, Rockefellers', Warburgs, Lazards and other owners of the Federal Reserve Bank make the money you borrow out of nothing and they take a majority ownership of your home.
maxwellnotsosmart| 6.5.09 @ 4:58PM
I thought Justice was suppose to be blind and that judges were not suppose to pick and choose between matters involving: race, gender, income or age range. Or am I wrong?
For example when Ms. Sotomayer ruled against the High School girl who posted comments on her blog saying that her principal was a "douch bag". Well, it's my understanding that the judge ruled that this girls comments were a threat to the school administration so it was OK for the principal to not allow this girl to run for a school office.
This case bugs me because this ruling was not just about free speech but it is also about age discrimination. So does this mean that in the future that anyone's of any age, race, gender or income can no longer post comments in their local newspaper or on a blog? Granted this current administation may seem like a High School to some folks but it's not and this matter touches all our lives.
If confirmed I really do have to wonder just how long it will be before FREE Speech will be regulated by the court and by what standards will Ms. Sotomayer and her colleagues apply in future cases that are similar to this? This is a very slippery slope when justice is no longer blind and what waits for all of us at the bottom of that great big hill may be much more than a snow job.
P.S. Good article by the way.
DaveS| 6.5.09 @ 5:11PM
Sotomayer brought up ethnicity and sex as the issue and more than once. Why can't a senator? Or do we just SHUT UP?
Ken in People's Republic of MD| 6.5.09 @ 5:49PM
Why ban David Matthews? He hasn't even posted on this blog. Are we turning into Democrats that we have to ban someone, albeit an incredibly loony someone, we don't agree with/like/whi drives us crazy?
Let our man Dave post as often as he likes. Every time he opens his mouth it's another reason why Obama will have one term and the last two year's of that term will be with a conservative Congress.
Go ahead, Dave, make my day...post again! I can't wait!
jr| 6.5.09 @ 6:36PM
Hussein's selection once more shows that selecting or electing minorities may not be the best for the rest of us. She and people like Rangel are brilliant examples of people gone bad. And if you think I'm racist you are wrong. Two of my favorite writers/scholars are Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Both have there magnificant heads screwed on with precision. She will be among friends, like the ACLU puppet Ginsburg (thanks to the Bent One Clinton).
Richard Baker| 6.5.09 @ 6:44PM
The reason these nominees are of interest is because judicial legislating began with Marbury v. Madison where Chief Justice John Marshall created, out of thin air, the idea that the Supreme Court had the right of unfettered judicial review. You could look it up. The ultimate origins of the idea that judges say what the Constitution is started there. Read what the Constitution says about the Supreme Court.
Ed| 6.6.09 @ 1:23AM
The rule of law, not of men, is the foundation of our liberty and freedom. Subvert this and we are enslaved.
"If judgments were to be the private opinions of the judge, men would then be slaves to their magistrates; and would live in society without knowing the conditions and obligations which it lays them under" -- Sir William Blackstone, Vol 4 Blackstone, Ch 29, pg 371 (1776 edition).
DaveS| 6.6.09 @ 11:43AM
Dave Baker: you have it almost right insofar as unfettered review. Two things: they only get involved if someone involves them, and the Congress can take any legislation out of the realm of judicial review. What I'd like to see is a challenge to the judicial branch in its 'sole' right to determine if a law is unconstitutional. I do not believe this perogative is a sole judicial branch perogative.
Michael L. Hauschild| 6.7.09 @ 6:34AM
To those who, in whatever guise, wish to regulate free speech: If you do not wish to read what someone says by all means resort to the scroll bar on the right. The time consuming aspect of this venue, is not the site pest, it is sorting through those who normally have legitimate things to say but instead respond in kind and allow themselves to be baited. Please do not permit the discourse to be suppressed, TAS will, as they always seem to do remove from the stream personally derogatory or profane posts. What part of the “Fairness Doctrine” don’t you understand?
john smtihson | 6.7.09 @ 6:09PM
I know there is little room in the Leftist world for the common man, but what the hey, here is my perspective.
My concern as regards Sotomayor is not the "policy making" issue. Libs have done with that phrase as they have with definitions of "porn" or "god" or "marriage" and in so doing think they have successfully neutered the traditional arguments of their seeming value.
I expect a judge to at least listen to my case. I expect one to look to the legal statement of the law as if reading for the first time and without bias. I expect a reverence, as it were, of previous legal opinions. And in the development of a specific judicial decision, I expect the same attachment to the wording of the law as is required of me, as a juror.
As a potential juror, I am asked all sorts of questions in the hope of being of service to one side or the other. That is what we are doing with Sonia Sotomayor. Nothing wrong with that and nothing wrong in taking a particular "side." But there is everything wrong with a decision that does not parallel the actual purpose of the legislature in the development of the particular law just as surely disqualification or misconduct might be the charge against a juror who decides to pursue her own [empathetic] agenda without regard to the “evidence.”
In at least one decision, her concern was not for fairness with regard to those who appealed to her court. Her decision without so much as a hearing was a slap in the face to those who actually worked to accomplish high marks on a test they thought would give them additional opportunity. Instead, their tested accomplishments were deemed meaningless by Sotomayor. I would be interested to know if this very test or one similar to it had been given in the past but without dispute. I would be interested to know whether "minorities" were promoted as a result of their scores on similar and past tests, as well.
If she is going to make decisions that effects my life without any input from me, she will not be my choice for the Supremes. And if we are going to blur the lines drawn between the legislature and the judiciary, one or the other is no longer necessary.
John Smithson
Speaking for the common man
Editor
Midknight Review
anti aging cream | 6.8.09 @ 1:14AM
Dave Baker-you have it almost right inso far as unfettered review.If confirmed I really do have to wonder just how long it will be before FREE Speech will be regulated by the court and by what standards will Ms.Preparations for Elimination of The U.S. Constitution and the Imposition of a Fascist Marxist Dictatorship In the United States of America.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH| 6.8.09 @ 8:07PM
stu.b.con| 6.5.09 @ 7:37AM
BAN DAVID MATTHEWS
Why do you want to Ban David Matthews? I thought you had a Constitution reference to FREEDOM OF SPEECH, or are Americans adopting the POLICIES of North KOREA.
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)| 6.9.09 @ 8:05AM
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Historical Background
By the mid-1850s, sectional conflict over the extension of slavery into the Western territories threatened to tear the nation apart. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 destroyed the tenuous balance struck 34 years before between “free States” and “slave States” in the Missouri Compromise. Under the banner of “popular sovereignty,” pro- and antislavery factions waged violent conflict for control of what came to be known as “bleeding Kansas” before that territory was admitted to the Union. With Congress sharply divided, reflecting the divisions in the nation, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of hearing the case of a fugitive slave suing for his freedom. Intended to be the definitive ruling that would settle the controversy threatening the Union for good, the case instead produced a divisive decision that pushed the nation one step closer toward the precipice of civil war.
John Marshall, in his time the single most influential advocate for strong National Government, had died in 1835. President Andrew Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney (pronounced Tawney). During his tenure as Chief Justice, Taney upheld strong national power, but with some modifications. Taney endorsed what is known as “dual sovereignty,” which implies that State and federal governments are “foreign” to each other; each is sovereign in its own right. By 1857, Taney presided over a Court that had expanded to nine justices and was divided—four Northerners and five Southerners, including Taney, sat on the bench.
Circumstances of the Case
Dred Scott was a Missouri slave. Sold to Army surgeon John Emerson in Saint Louis around 1833, Scott was taken to Illinois, a free State, and on to the free Wisconsin Territory before returning to Missouri. When Emerson died in 1843, Scott sued Emerson's widow for his freedom in the Missouri supreme court, claiming that his residence in the “free soil” of Illinois made him a free man. After defeat in State courts, Scott brought suit in a local federal court. Eleven years after Scott's initial suit, the case came before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Constitutional Issues
Did a slave become free upon entering a free State? Could a slave—or a black person—actually be entitled to sue in federal courts? Was the transportation of slaves subject to federal regulation? Could the Federal Government deny a citizen the right to property (interstate transportation of slaves/property) without due process of law? Could an item of property (a slave) be taken from the owner without just compensation? And finally, was the Missouri Compromise a valid and constitutional action of the National Government? Could Congress prohibit slavery in a territory or delegate that power to a territory's legislature?
Arguments
For Dred Scott: When a person enters a free State or territory, the free status overrides the previous condition of servitude. Since slavery was forbidden in the free States and territories by federal and State laws, Dred Scott became free when he entered Illinois and Wisconsin.
For Sandford: To deprive a person of property (in this case, Dred Scott) without due process or just compensation violated the 5th Amendment, which states that “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Dred Scott was still a slave and no master's property rights could be limited or taken away by a State or federal law.
Decision and Rationale
The Court decided 7-2 in favor of the slave owner. Every justice submitted an individual opinion justifying his position, with Chief Justice Taney's being the most influential.
According to Taney, African Americans, be they slave or free, were not citizens. As a slave, moreover, Scott was property and had no right to bring suit in federal courts. “In regard to the issue of Scott's becoming free when he moved to the free State of Illinois,” Taney wrote, “the laws of the State in which the petitioner was currently resident, namely the slave State of Missouri, should apply.”
Of far more serious consequence, the Court also struck down the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional, because it deprived property owners (slave owners) of the right to take their property anywhere in the United States, thus “depriving them of life, liberty and property under the 5th Amendment.” Any line, or law, that limited the right of slave owners to utilize their property was unconstitutional. Taney then ruled that the Congress could not extend to any territorial governments powers that it did not possess (in this case, the power to limit slavery). By declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, Taney not only destroyed one of the delicate compromises that had kept the union together for nearly four decades but also rejected the principle of popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty, which held that territories could decide whether or not to allow slavery for themselves, had been strongly advocated by Stephen Douglas as the solution to the controversies in the federal territories that dominated the 1850s. This disallowance of popular sovereignty contributed to the national disorder over the spread of slavery.
The Dred Scott decision unleashed a storm of protest against the Court and the administration of President Buchanan, which supported the decision. The justices' plans to make a definitive ruling that would settle the controversy over slavery backfired as Republicans charged that a “Slave Power” conspiracy extended into the highest reaches of government. Violent struggles continued in the Kansas and Nebraska territories, where “free soil” and proslavery guerilla bands terrorized each other. A major landmark on the road to the Civil War, the Dred Scott decision was overturned with the adoption of the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution in 1865 and 1868. These amendments ended slavery and established firmly the citizenship of all persons, regardless of race, creed, or previous condition of servitude. As for Dred Scott, two months after the Supreme Court's decision, Emerson's widow sold Scott and his family to the Blow family, who freed them in May of 1857.
Source: ©2005 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights
A man who stood up| 6.9.09 @ 8:21AM
Dred Scott: remembering you after 150 years, may you rest in peace on this day of your death, your case in the Supreme Court was truly unjusticed!
- MFPS
Progress is a good thing, but better still to remember the past and learn from it.
Good Luck| 6.9.09 @ 9:29AM
---------------------------------------------------------------The lady knows something about the past and the present HISTORY of a RACIST AMERICA.-----------------
In 1950's America, the equality of man envisioned by the Declaration of Independence was far from a reality. People of color — blacks, Hispanics, Asians — were discriminated against in many ways, both overt and covert. The 1950's were a turbulent time in America, when racial barriers began to come down due to Supreme Court decisions, like Brown v. Board of Education; and due to an increase in the activism of blacks, fighting for equal rights.
Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, was a driving force in the push for racial equality in the 1950's and the 1960's. In 1963, King and his staff focused on Birmingham, Alabama. They marched and protested non-violently, raising the ire of local officials who sicced water cannon and police dogs on the marchers, whose ranks included teenagers and children. The bad publicity and break-down of business forced the white leaders of Birmingham to concede to some anti-segregation demands.
Thrust into the national spotlight in Birmingham, where he was arrested and jailed, King helped organize a massive march on Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963. His partners in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom included other religious leaders, labor leaders, and black organizers. The assembled masses marched down the Washington Mall from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, heard songs from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and heard speeches by actor Charlton Heston, NAACP president Roy Wilkins, and future U.S. Representative from Georgia John Lewis.
King's appearance was the last of the event; the closing speech was carried live on major television networks. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King evoked the name of Lincoln in his "I Have a Dream" speech, which is credited with mobilizing supporters of desegregation and prompted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Aaron| 6.18.09 @ 1:20PM
I don't understand your use of the Norville case as suggesting that she is pro-affirmative action in any way. Her decision to reject the claims (of a 58-year old black woman) of age and race discrimination in the workplace would seem to point in the exact opposite direction of pro-affirmative action. Unless you say she is being biased by the fact that the person ultimately hired for the job she sought was a younger latino male. However, if she was an ultra-liberal, pro-affirmative action, kind of judge, why would she have not affirmed Mrs. Norville's claims of racial discrimination in regards to the white employees that were not fired or demoted? Your argument makes absolutely no sense at all.
Poptropica | 4.8.10 @ 9:07PM
First, kids create a character. After selecting whether to play as a boy or a girl Poptropica , they are assigned a name. Each character's appearance is randomly generated to start with; kids have the option to change almost all of their avatar's physical attributes, such as facial features and clothing. This character can be saved, via a password system, for use in future game-play sessions.
Then, kids enter Poptropica , a virtual world dotted with individual islands. Each island has its own theme, and its own adventure for players to complete. For example, "Time-Tangled Island" is a time-traveling adventure in which players must return objects and characters to their historically accurate periods, while "Spy Island" is a comical thriller with lots of futuristic gadgets. Each has a distinct storyline that is not related to those of the other islands.
Besides the single-player adventure, each island features common rooms, in which poptropica players can play standalone games against other people. These are primarily short, simple, reflex-based games, such as a skydiving competition in which the first person to touch the ground safely wins, or a basketball shooting competition in which the hoop is rising and falling. Players are given a star ranking based on their win-loss record.
vouchercodes | 1.6.11 @ 8:55AM
When Obama is president, we can do better.