Lawyers From The United States

"When government acknowledges that it is “under God,” it acknowledges that it is not the source of our rights and therefore cannot deny them to us. Our rights come from a source higher than and prior to the government—from the Creator himself. A government that declares this is humbler and safer than one that imagines itself to be the source of all our freedoms."

"I run into these “good Catholics” all the time, for example, who would rather die than cast their lot with the rest of humanity and ask for help with their massive psycho-spiritual wounds around family, love, addictions, finances. “We have Christ,” you can hear them thinking. Well, yes, and Christ works through other people. We have a huge fear of appearing vulnerable or weak, of not having all the answers. That is what Christ and the Gospels are for."

"I have many times sat across from, and told some of my darkest secrets to, gay ex-methheads, convicted felons, functional illiterates, and all sorts of other unpromising folks like myself, to truly great effect. I have become friends with many of these people; they have been deeply loyal and generous friends to me. But I’m not going to kneel before that person. That I want to kneel; that I want, with a humble and contrite heart, to be forgiven, to be made clean, to be born anew; that the Church is built, in a sense, upon that very desire, makes me know that my house is built on solid rock. I continue to fail and fall, but my house is built on solid rock."

"Beau should be the one running for president, not me He was worried I would walk away He is part of me, and so is my surviving son, Hunter, and Ashley"

"This was not a strong case, and a loss at trial was a distinct possibility. In recognition of the weakness of the case, the assigned prosecutor offered a plea and sentence recommendation that guaranteed the defendant would be required to register as a sex offender, participate in court-ordered sex offender rehabilitation therapy and to have no contact with the victim and any other child under the age of 16. A loss at trial would have rendered any of these restrictions impossible."

"Mr. PETTIT. The Senator said that the language of the Declaration of Independence is, that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free and equal." That is a total misrecital of the Declaration. There is no such word in that connection as "free." Mr. Jefferson would himself have known, at the first sight, that there was no color of truth in it. He, himself a slaveholder, surrounded by slaveholders all his life, as far back as he could recollect, and to continue so through his life as far as he could imagine, would have seen that upon its face it would be a direct falsehood. The language does not contain the word free. It is precisely this: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." To that I have taken issue."

"Mr. PETTIT. Will the Senator allow me for a moment? I understand that he points his remarks to me. I said, distinctly and emphatically, in my remarks, and I now repeat, that if Mr. Jefferson had said that all men ought to have been created equal, I would have raised no dispute, but when he said that they were created equal, I said, that instead of that being a self-evident truth, it was a self-evident lie; that there was no truth in it; that the negro in Africa and the free-born American are not created equal; that the serf of Russia, under the Autocrat, is not the equal of his master, however it may have been intended or designed. The language in the Declaration will be recollected: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." If it had said, I repeat, that they ought to have been created equal, I would have made no issue; but it is utterly false that men are, either mentally, morally, physically, or politically, created equal, whatever ought to have been the condition. But blame the Almighty, not me. He created them. It is not for me to quarrel with Him - He created them - but to define the condition only in which He has placed them upon earth. Ignorant would I be were I to declare that He has placed them here all upon a perfect equality. I see one man born a slave and another a master."

"I'm happy to defend my dad. I don't think he needs any defensiveness. Any time the other side -- Karl Rove or folks on the far right -- are going after my father for smiling too much, you know that's a victory. My father spoke clearly to the American people about the facts, and you saw him do that for 90 minutes straight. You know, this isn't, Jake, about how much my father smiled or how many gallons of water that the congressman drank nervously on that stage. It's about talking directly to the American people about very important facts, and what you saw from my father were him articulating the vision that the president and he have to continue to build this middle class, you know, out and take this country forward. And, you know, from -- you know, I was struck by Paul Ryan by a number of fronts, you know, especially the congressman's position on Afghanistan, which I feel -- I feel very strongly about."

"It was believed by many at the time that some of the [moderate] Republican Senators that voted for acquittal [of Andrew Johnson] did so chiefly on account of their antipathy to the man who would succeed to the presidency in the event of the conviction of the [sitting] president. This man was Senator Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, President pro tempore of the Senate who as the law then stood, would have succeeded to the presidency in the event of a vacancy in the office from any cause. Senator Wade was an able man … He was a strong party man. He had no patience with those who claimed to be [Radical] Republicans and yet refused to abide by the decision of the majority of the party organization [as did Grimes, Johnson, Lincoln, Pratt, and Trumbull] … the sort of active and aggressive man that would be likely to make for himself enemies of men in his own organization who were afraid of his great power and influence, and jealous of him as a political rival. That some of his senatorial Republican associates should feel that the best service they could render their country would be to do all in their power to prevent such a man from being elevated to the Presidency … for while they knew he was an able man, they also knew that, according to his convictions of party duty and party obligations, he firmly believed he who served his party best served his country best…that he would have given the country an able administration is concurrent opinion of those who knew him best."

"During the Civil War, one of the nation's leading abolitionists was Republican Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, who would later serve as vice president during President Grant's second term. In December 1861, Mr. Wilson introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the District. The measure met with parliamentary obstacles from the adamantly pro-slavery Democratic Party, whom Republicans in those days referred to as the 'Slave-ocrats'. Most Democrats in Congress having resigned in order to join the Confederate rebellion, Wilson's measure sailed through the Senate. The abolitionist senator responsible for outmaneuvering Democrat opposition was Ben Wade, the Ohio Republican who six years later would have assumed the presidency had the bitterly racist Democratic President, Andrew Johnson, been convicted during his impeachment trial. In the House of Representatives, Democrats delayed passage with a series of stalling tactics. Finally, the majority leader, Thaddeus Stevens, bulldozed over Democrat opposition by calling the House into a committee of the whole. He stopped all other business in the House until Democrats relented and allowed a vote on the bill. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, is best known for his 'forty acres and a mule' proposal. Overall, 99 percent of Republicans in Congress voted to free the slaves in the District of Columbia, and 83 percent of Democrats voted to keep them in chains."

"I do not like slavery. There are very few you can find to resist it more strongly. If that makes me an Abolitionist, I cannot help it. But let me say to my northern Democratic friends, who are Jeffersonian Democrats, who make that their boast on every stump from Maine to Chicago, that no boast could be more glorious, for no one, in my judgment, be more glorious has ever breathed the breath of life, even among that great galaxy of worthies of revolutionary memory. I have always admired him. I have endeavored to imitate him; and now, if I have Abolitionism about me more than is due, I have come very honestly by it, for he taught me. He told me all about it, as he has told those Jefferson Democrats and Abolition men so often."

"Biden & his criminal cronies are not going to sleep well tonight. Well, Biden might because he probably forgot the name Scytl. His co-conspirators know name well. They also know the name Paragon, company which purchased Scytl in 10/20. Every will be revealed."

"I know that God only works for good in the lives of His children. Our responsibility is to search for God's will, find it, and do it to the best of our imperfect ability. The outcome is already decided. And it is always for good. As a matter of faith, I never question outcomes."

"I also believe that in many parts of this country, and certainly in many parts of this globe, that the opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice."

"I believe that, despite the fact that it is so dramatic and so beautiful and so inspiring and so stimulating, we will ultimately not be judged by our technology, we won't be judged by our design, we won't be judged by our intellect and reason. Ultimately, you judge the character of a society, not by how they treat their rich and the powerful and the privileged, but by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated. Because it's in that nexus that we actually begin to understand truly profound things about who we are."

"In the states of the Old South, we execute people -- where you're 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black, 22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white -- in the very states where there are buried in the ground the bodies of people who were lynched."

"I've come to understand and to believe that each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. I believe that for every person on the planet. I think if somebody tells a lie, they're not just a liar. I think if somebody takes something that doesn't belong to them, they're not just a thief. I think even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer."

""The American criminal justice system... treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent," Bryan Stevenson told Democracy Now!"

"We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes."

"It's interesting, this question of the death penalty. In many ways, we've been taught to think that the real question is, do people deserve to die for the crimes they've committed? And that's a very sensible question. But there's another way of thinking about where we are in our identity. The other way of thinking about it is not, do people deserve to die for the crimes they commit, but do we deserve to kill?"

"We have in this country this dynamic where we really don't like to talk about our problems. We don't like to talk about our history. And because of that, we really haven't understood what it's meant to do the things we've done historically. We're constantly running into each other. We're constantly creating tensions and conflicts. We have a hard time talking about race, and I believe it's because we are unwilling to commit ourselves to a process of truth and reconciliation."

"Codifying legislative immunity in this context undermines that principle. Moreover, this immunity provision sends the wrong message to North Dakotans: that legislative disclosure, however minimal or selective, is enough to avoid the legal consequences that any private citizen would face under similar circumstances."

"Disclosure is not absolution."

"Senate Bill 2307 represents a misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship."

"There are obvious privacy concerns for all Americans here and this represents a dramatic new regulatory burden for community banks and credit unions in Wyoming and elsewhere"

"I share the fundamental belief that women and men are equal, but also acknowledge that there are biological differences and circumstances in which these differences need to be recognized. That being said, it was never my intention to make anyone feel un-welcomed or disrespected, and for that, I apologize. I have appreciated hearing from members of the University of Wyoming community on this issue, and I look forward to continuing this dialogue"

"One of our speakers made remarks regarding biological sex that many on campus take issue with. While we respect the right of all to express their views, from students to elected officials, we unequivocally state that UW is an institution that supports and celebrates its diverse communities that collectively make us the wonderful place that we are."

"Do you distrust the American people so much that you need to know when they bought a couch? Or a cow?"

"There’s a lot of things that Congress is really, really bad at doing. But one of things it’s really good at doing is sticking its head in the sand. That’s what Congress has been doing for the last several years on this and it can’t do this anywhere."

"I’m dedicated to taking steps to ensure that men and women of color can feel safe and secure in America as we work towards justice and equality for all. Though our country has made significant strides in ensuring justice for all, recent events have reminded us all of the progress we must continue to work towards."

"States are ready to have the reins of government returned to them. The point of Congress is to uphold the Constitution and represent the states and the people. Today, Washington is more interested in expanding its own power than it is interested in administering the Constitution. I support disruption as a vehicle to return the Constitution to its rightful place as the guiding document for a nation and as a catalyst to empower states. And I support President Donald Trump, our nation’s first elected Disruptor-in-Chief."

"My first 100 days was also marked by upholding promises I made on the campaign trail. I was proud to fight for Second Amendment rights and against misguided gun control bills. I’ve stood up for life, cosponsoring pro-life bills and signing the discharge petition to force a House vote on critical protections for infants born alive after a failed abortion. I’ve also pushed to build the wall and solve the humanitarian and national security crisis on the southern border. The first 100 days went quickly, but I’ll approach the remaining 632 days of my first term with the same enthusiasm. I’ll continue to give North Dakota a strong voice in Congress and fight to make our state the best state in the country."

"It’s been an honor. Time to go home."

"We know that fighting to maintain the liberty our forefathers fought and died to secure is paramount. In Missouri, we have always put the rights of individual citizens above the desires of the government. That means freedom to use your private lands for whatever you see fit. And that is why for generations, Missourians have toiled in their bountiful and beautiful fields in America’s heartland, fed a striving nation westward, and produced crops that remain the envy of the world."

"We shouldn’t be rewarding companies with American tax dollars who use the American capitalist system to achieve billions in profits, but then disown the same history of a country which inherently allowed them to succeed."

"We are the greatest nation on the face of the earth. We are home to the bravest and strongest military who defends freedom around the globe. We respect and honor the rights of the individual versus that of a central government. We believe you should get to wake up each day and decide for yourself what you want to do, not have your decisions dictated to you by the government. Our values, our rights, our freedom and our opportunities are the reason our borders are flooded at this very moment – because millions more wish they could be here, they wish they could be Americans. None of that would have been possible without our history, our story, the American story. I choose not to hide, not to run from that history, but to remember it, to celebrate who we are as Americans today because of where we have been and where we have come."

"I just try to teach what the Catholic Church teaches. I do not seek notoriety or controversy, but it just goes to show how anti-Catholic our secular culture has become and how countercultural being a Christian actually is."

"In view of their gravely immoral action to deprive unborn children legal protection against abortion, it must be said that any Catholic legislator who sponsored, promoted, advocated, or voted for these pro-abortion bills has acted in a seriously sinful manner unfaithful to the 2,000-year-old Christian teaching against abortion and therefore, would place themselves outside of the full communion of the Catholic Church, such persons are not to receive Holy Communion until they have celebrated the sacrament of reconciliation and displayed a public conversion of life."

"Hers was an admirable loss. It is rare that any elected official is willing to sacrifice his or her office over a matter of deeply felt principle. Cheney did it unhesitatingly. She will be remembered fondly by history, and better than other members of her party who have repeated or tolerated lies merely to maintain or gain political power. That said, she has undoubtedly cut herself off from the possibility of having a positive influence on the direction of the Republican Party via electoral politics. If she runs for president, either in a GOP primary or as an independent in a general election, the effort will be nugatory at best, and possibly quite destructive. If Cheney is willing to listen to reason on this question, she will be content to use her prodigious fundraising ability and national platform to continue to make her case against Trump as an advocate. Anything else would be folly."

"It’s difficult to overstate the magnitude of Cheney’s collapse. She went from winning her primary with 73 percent of the vote in 2020, to garnering a mere 29 percent that was heavily dependent on Democratic cross-over votes. Wyoming is particularly Trumpy, but there’s no reason to believe that there’s much appetite for Cheney’s approach elsewhere, either. House Republicans who voted for impeachment have been getting hunted down like members of the “Cowboys” gang targeted in the Earp Vendetta Ride, even if they’ve tried to placate GOP primary voters. Cheney not only voted for impeachment but made herself the emblem of Republican resistance to Trump and helped lead the House January 6 committee, without exercising any procedural or other restraint on the partisan Democrats making up the bulk of the panel. There’s simply no market for this among Republicans. On top of it, Cheney’s alienation from her party is likely to build on itself. Already, she has said that she’d “find it very difficult” to support Ron DeSantis, the leading Republican alternative to Trump. In so doing, she is identifying herself with a fraction of a fraction of the party that is so small it is all but nonexistent."

"If she ran in a primary, she’d be firmly in the Larry Hogan lane, which might constitute about 5 percent of the Republican electorate total. It’s quite possible that those voters are themselves so disaffected from the GOP that Cheney wouldn’t be denying them to any other non-Republican candidate. But if that’s wrong, or if she got some traction, she’d only be taking voters from some other, more viable, alternative to Trump. She might not even make it on the debate stage with Trump, if the party writes rules to exclude her. What possibly would make such a run worth the risk of, at least at the margins, making it more likely that Trump wins the nomination again? An independent run wouldn’t make any more sense. Again, her share of the vote would likely be tiny. In 2020, Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgenson got 1.18 percent of the vote. Even if Cheney could get more, the chances are that she’d be a place for Republicans repulsed by Trump to park their votes rather than go all the way to Biden. This means, just as with a prospective primary run, she’d be helping Trump at the margins. Captain Ahab may have made a few mistakes in judgment in his stewardship of the Pequod, but at least he never allowed himself to affirmatively assist his great adversary, the White Whale. One thing that’s been remarkable about Cheney’s performance the past couple of years is how apparently clear-eyed she’s been about what it means for her future in the House of Representatives, namely that she wouldn’t have one. In contrast, a presidential run of any sort would be giving in to delusion. If Lincoln was dogged, he was never fanciful. Cheney should realize that she’s taken a path that, whatever its other advantages, doesn’t end in electoral vindication."

"I have not had an opportunity to even see or hear what she had to say because I’ve been kind of focused on what’s going on here. It doesn’t surprise me that she would revert to those same old talking points, because that’s really in large part what got her defeated. … She’s not focusing on Wyoming. She’s not focusing on our issues. She’s still focusing on an obsession about President Trump. And the citizens of Wyoming, the voters of Wyoming sent a very loud message tonight. We have spoken. And that is not what we are interested in in terms of our lone congressional representative."

"I don't believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates' names, particularly in swing states," Cheney said. "As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. And because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris."

"We can reject Donald Trump’s cruelty and misogyny"

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

"Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick, is trying to prolong her father's in Afghanistan. [...] Colorado's freshman Democratic Rep. Jason Crow teamed up with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney to advance legislation that would make it more difficult for any president to draw down troop deployments in Afghanistan. I live in the same media market as Crow's district. I can tell you that his 2018 campaign was focused on gun control. It was not a campaign promising voters that he would go to Washington to make common cause with Liz Cheney, and help her efforts to glorify and fortify her daddy's policy of endless war. But that’s exactly what his bill does. [...] Cheney initiatives that may seem superficially reasonable when calmly uttered by a Cheney usually have an insane ulterior motive. In this case, that truism applies: The Crow-Cheney legislation may sound like it includes reasonable requests, but they are designed to make the Afghanistan deployment permanent. In practice, nobody can predict with 100 percent certainty what will ensue once a nineteen-year ends. What we can know is that it's a bad idea to continue a policy that isn't working — and there’s plenty of evidence that it isn’t."

"America has meant so much to so many because we are the best hope of freedom on earth. Last week in Laramie, a gentleman came up to me with tears in his eyes. "I'm not an American," he said, "But my children are. I grew up in Brazil. I know how fragile freedom is, and we must not lose it here." A few days ago, here in Jackson, a woman told me that her grandparents had survived Auschwitz. They found refuge in America. She said she was afraid that she had nowhere to go if freedom died here. Ladies and gentlemen, freedom must not and will not die here."

"We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6, that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office. This is a fight for all of us together. I'm a conservative Republican. I believe deeply in the principles and the ideals on which my party was founded. I love its history. And I love what our party has stood for. But I love my country more. So, I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together — Republicans, Democrats and independents — against those who would destroy our republic. They are angry and they are determined, but they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our Constitution and committed to the cause of freedom. There is no greater power on this earth. And with God's help, we will prevail."

"In May of 1864, after years of war and a string of reluctant Union generals, Ulysses S. Grant met General Lee's forces at the Battle of the Wilderness. In two days of heavy fighting, the Union suffered over 17,000 casualties. At the end of that battle, General Grant faced a choice. Most assumed he would do what previous Union generals had done and retreat. On the evening of May 7, Grant began to move. As the fires of the battle still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column. He rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road. And there, as the men of his army watched and waited, instead of turning north back towards Washington and safety, Grant turns his horse south toward Richmond and the heart of Lee's army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory. Lincoln and Grant and all who fought in our nation's tragic Civil War, including my own great-great-grandfathers, saved our Union. Their courage saved freedom. And if we listen closely, they are speaking to us down the generations. We must not idly squander what so many have fought and died for."

"One of the things we see happening is a sort of sleepwalking into a dictatorship in the United States."