Lawyers From The United States

"Frankly, condoms are a very, very poor protection against ."

"Global warming is a myth."

"It will harm both the wage payer and the wage earner. An excessive increase in the minimum wage will hurt the working poor."

"Further, [President Clinton's] repeated lies to the American people in this matter compound the case against him as they demonstrate his failure to protect the institution of the presidency as the 'inspiring supreme symbol of all that is highest in our American ideals'. Leaders affect the lives of families far beyond their own 'private life.'"

"We think there is a miracle around the corner."

"Women in military, bad idea."

"As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press. A free press ensures the flow of information to the public, and let me say, during a time when the role of government in our lives and in our enterprises seems to grow every day--both at home and abroad--ensuring the vitality of a free and independent press is more important than ever."

"We believe it’s very likely that we will have one or more vaccines for the coronavirus before the end of this year. All that is attributed to president Trump’s leadership."

"Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years. He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. . . . He will be greatly missed."

"Whatever court we are in, whatever we are doing, whether we are in a trial court or an appellate court, at the end of our task some human being is going to be affected. Some human life is going to be changed in some way by what we do, whether we do it as trial judges or whether we do it as appellate judges, as far removed from the trial arena as it is possible to be. And so we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts and our beings to get those rulings right."

""Democracy works "only if the people have faith in those who govern, and that faith is bound to be shattered when high officials and their appointees engage in activities which arouse suspicions of malfeasance and corruption." United States v. Mississippi Valley Generating Co., 364 U. S. 520, 562 (1961)"

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough – as they might do, for example, another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown – some one person will come forward and say, "Give me total power, and I will solve this problem." That is how the Roman republic fell….That is how democracy dies. And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night."

"I think the case is so strong that I can tell you the day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it's going to roll over my dead body."

"My goal was not to raise consciousness, but to raise anger. Ours is a country where anything can be accomplished if enough people get angry... because, in America, we act on our collective anger. If you want proof of how that works, just take a look at how New York State finally closed the hated (and virtually unknown) 'incest exception."

"In his autobiography, former President Bill Clinton credits [Andrew] Vachss with [writing the National Child Protection Act] and notes how important it was to him and wife Hillary. But there's a catch, according to Vachss: 'It's never been funded.'"

"I don't love kids. I hate their predators. It's a burning hatred I feel to this day."

"We don't distinguish between the various forms of child abuse. Emotional abuse ... is pretty much ignored. When someone spends their life being told, 'You're stupid, you're a disgrace, I should have aborted you, you ruined my life,' it scars them in ways that are almost impossible to describe with words. And yet, such a person describing their life would be told, 'Oh, you weren't an incest victim? Oh, you weren't burned with cigarettes? So, how abused were you really?"

"I promise you, there are people in America whose only problem with the Taliban is that they did it for the wrong god. Whether it's incest, rape, terrorism or Nazism, it's all the same thing—accumulating and abusing power."

"When someone asks me, 'Why do you write comics?' I tell them, for the same reason I write editorials, essays, and articles; the same reason I give speeches; the same reason I appear on TV programs, and give interviews. Same message; different forum. There is no universal forum, so the more outreach we can do, the better the chance of forming coalitions."

"Our reasons for critiquing the [child protection] system [are] pointless. To analyze the system and point out what's wrong with it, without the power to alter it, is masturbatory. The whole concept behind analysis is the concept behind consciousness–raising. Which is, if I show you that something is terrible, you will do something about it. That's not reality. Reality is, it's about power. It's not about education, and knowledge is not power."

"The child most at risk [to be accessed by a predatory pedophile] is the child not bonded deeply to anything or anybody. Children who are most deeply bonded with parents, parents who are protective, it's almost like, I don't know if you've seen predatory animals that put a kind of smell on their young to protect them? Okay? I think your 'luck' was much more likely due to your parent[s] than it was to any blind confluence of the planets."

"[C]an you be noble as you practice violence, extortion, blackmail, even mass murder? The struggle to be free from oppression is, in my mind, per se noble. But noble causes attract a wide range of participants, and many would fall far short of nobility."

"I don't believe this country will ever come to grips with child abuse until they make the obvious, simple connection between today's victim and tomorrow's predator. As long as they believe a Ted Bundy or a John Wayne Gacy is a biogenetic mistake as opposed to a beast that was built and a monster that was made, they'll continue to blithely walk around, saying, 'I'm against child abuse.'""

"The biggest threat to children is always inside their houses. The predator with the ski-mask who grabs the kid out of a van, while a real thing, is a tiny percentage of those who prey upon children. Most victimization of children is within the Circle of Trust—not necessarily a parent, but somebody who was let into that circle, who can be a counselor, or a coach, or someone at a day-care center. The biggest danger to children is that they're perceived as property, not human beings."

"If you look at Burke closely, you'll see the prototypical abused child: hypervigilant, distrustful. He's so committed to his family of choice—not his DNA-biological family, which tortured him, or the state which raised him, but the family that he chose—that homicide is a natural consequence of injuring any of that family. He's not a hit man. But he shares the same religion I do, which is revenge."

"It's an extremely profitable thing to be 'concerned' about drugs. You don't just have treatment programs, you have law enforcement programs, you have entire industries that could not function but for drugs. Including the prison industry. I think America has gone psychotic ... there are human beings—even as we speak—dying, in the kind of shrieking, tormenting pain you couldn't inflict on a P.O.W., because America doesn't want them to be drug addicts."

"There's a very specific formula for creating a monster. It starts with chronic, unrelenting abuse. There's got to be societal notification and then passing on. The child eventually believes that what's being done is societally sanctioned. And after a while, empathy – which we have to learn, we're not born with it – cracks and dies. He feels only his own pain. There's your predatory sociopath." That's why Vachss posed for a recent publicity photo cradling his pit bull puppy. "You know what pit bulls are capable of, right?" he asks, referring to the animal's notorious killer reputation. "But they're also capable of being the most wonderful, sweet pets in the world, depending on how you raise them. That's all our children.""

"[A]nybody who has served in combat in any way understands that words are weapons. And I'm in a war. The war hasn't stopped. I've always used the books as a blunt instrument."

"I think that what drives the American public, which is like a huge, lumbering beast, is anger; and the other thing that drives it is self–interest. What I'm trying to do in my books is different from other people writing about child abuse. I'm not trying to engender sympathy so much as to say to the public, 'Today's victim is tomorrow's predator.' The things that you fear have a genesis, and the price of being safe in this world is early intervention. It costs you something to look away, not just in moral terms, but in practical terms."

"My position on pornography is quite simple. You can argue about Penthouse or Playboy or things of that ilk. But child pornography, a picture of a child engaged in a sexual act, is a photograph of a crime and you cannot argue about that. It is, per se, illegal, illicit and immoral. It is unfortunate that my work is taken up by people with whom I am not allied."

"Plenty of states, like Florida, still don't have [law guardians]. What does that tell you? Because with non-attorney guardians there's no attorney-client privilege. There's no ability to cross–examine witnesses, to subpoena evidence, to appeal. Basically you serve completely at the pleasure of the judge. And if you don't please the judge, you're history. What more of a message do kids need?""

"Everything that's in [my] books comes out of what I've seen, or touched, or felt, or smelt, and if I had one wish it would be that the books were fiction."

"Journalism is the one thing that protects us. There's a history of crusading, let–the–chips–fall–where–they–may journalists. But that's given way to 'advocacy journalists,' who have left– or right–wing biases. That doesn't make sense. The only thing a journalist should worship is the truth."

"I believe that many people who were abused as children do themselves—and the entire struggle—a disservice when they refer to themselves as "survivors." A long time ago, I found myself in the middle of a war zone. I was not killed. Hence, I "survived." That was happenstance ... just plain luck, not due to any greatness of character or heroism on my part. But what about those raised in a POW camp called "childhood?" Some of those children not only lived through it, not only refused to imitate the oppressor (evil is a decision, not a destiny), but actually maintained sufficient empathy to care about the protection of other children once they themselves became adults and were "out of danger." To me, such people are our greatest heroes. They represent the hope of our species, living proof that there is nothing bio–genetic about child abuse. I call them transcenders, because "surviving" (i.e., not dying from) child abuse is not the significant thing. It is when chance becomes choice that people distinguish themselves. Two little children are abused. Neither dies. One grows up and becomes a child abuser. The other becomes a child protector. One "passes it on." One "breaks the cycle." Should we call them both by the same name? Not in my book. (And not in my books, either.)"

"The contrast between the Republicans’ laser-focus on creating jobs, allowing workers to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks, and the safety of our communities, and the message of big-government socialism and open borders folks will hear at Netroots Nation from coastal elites like ... Cory Booker ... could not be more stark ... While Senator Cory Booker called the policies that created this windfall for workers “reckless, unjust, and just plain cruel,” Americans everywhere are seeing more money in their paychecks and new opportunity to achieve the American Dream."

"If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself."

"I miss Kamala, I miss Cory. Though, I think Cory will be back!"

"He has done lots of stunts designed to make people aware of poverty, or at least to make people aware of Cory Booker's awareness of poverty."

"I don’t want a Disneyfication of our history. I don’t want to whitewash history. I don’t want to homogenize history. Tell me the wretched truth about America, because that speaks to our greatness."

"You have to learn to be black, and we don’t have time to teach you."

"Cory Booker has dedicated his life to the work of building hope and opportunity in communities where too little of either existed."

"I got a chance to witness firsthand what I think many people in America can relate to, is when you show up in a room qualified, when you show up in a room with extraordinary expertise and credentials, there are a lot of Americans who know that hurt, that you are still going to be treated in a way that does not respect to you fully"

"... many millions of Americans are literally going to be hurt, because when they are sick, they will not be able to afford to go to the doctor. When they go to the Emergency Room, the lines will be 2 times as long. We are in a crisis. We need a president to stand up, and bring us together to help to solve the problems of the American people."

"Unnecessary hardship is being borne by Americans of all backgrounds; our institutions are being recklessly and unconstitutionally attacked and even shattered. In just 71 days, the President has inflicted harm after harm on Americans' safety; financial stability; the foundations of our democracy; and any sense of common decency. These are not normal times in our nation. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent and we all must do more to stand against them. Generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question — where were you?"

"You encouraging me means more to me than you can imagine (After Jimmy Carter hoped Booker run for president)."

"The "power of the people" is greater than the "people in power" ... Change does not come from Washington, it comes to Washington."

"We are a part of this take-down culture where people are trying to twist your words."

"The vicious attack on actor Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching. I'm glad he's safe. To those in Congress who don't feel the urgency to pass our Anti-Lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime– I urge you to pay attention."

"I’m a big believer that if America, if this country hasn’t broken your heart, then you don’t love her enough. Because there’s things that are savagely wrong in this country."

"I’m not here to tell folk just what they should know, I’m here to call on folk to understand that in a moral moment, there is no neutral. In a moral moment, there is no bystanders. You are either complicit in evil, you are either contributing to wrong, or you are fighting against it."