Lawyers From The United States

"The policeman on the beat or in the patrol car makes more decisions and exercises broader discretion affecting the daily lives of people every day and to a greater extent, in many respects, than a judge will ordinarily exercise in a week."

"History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the commonsense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality."

"In my conception of it, the primary role of the Court is to decide cases. From the decision of cases, of course, some changes develop, but to try to create or substantially change civil or criminal procedure, for example, by judicial decision is the worst possible way to do it. The Supreme Court is simply not equipped to do that job properly."

"No one has ever suggested that tax exemption has converted libraries, art galleries, or hospitals into arms of the state or employees "on the public payroll." There is no genuine nexus between tax exemption and establishment of religion."

"Morals are concerned with what aids or impedes the fulfillment of basic human needs."

"In ancient Israel and Rome the judge had appeared as a stand-in for the divine, and corruption was a blinding of the representative of the divine."

"The core of the concept of a bribe is an inducement improperly influencing the performance of a public function meant to be gratuitously exercised."

"I apologize for the insensitivity of my remarks with respect to the mayor or his family, however I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people."

"I saw the mayor of New York said today, 'We're tough. We can do it.' Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist?"

"We've got only one thing to say: "Klaatu barada nikto.""

"I look forward to the day when I can be Republican again. I'm an Alan Simpson Republican."

"An educated man is thoroughly inoculated against humbug, thinks for himself and tries to give his thoughts, in speech or on paper, some style."

"Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half-empty one are contained in that word."

"So the punchline for George Bush is this, you would have wanted him on your side. He never lost his sense of humor. Humor is the universal solvent against the abrasive elements of life. That’s what humor is. He never hated anyone — he knew what his mother and my mother always knew: hatred corrodes the container it’s carried in."

"I think you know grandchildren now don't write a thank you for the Christmas presents that are walkin' on their pants with their cap on backwards, listenin' to the Enema Man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg and they don't like 'em."

"I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing and working with many openly gay and lesbian Americans, and I have come to realize that "gay" is an artificial category when it comes to measuring a man or woman's on-the-job performance or commitment to shared goals. It says little about the person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge."

"As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review — and overturn — the ban on gay service in the military. I voted for "don't ask, don't tell." But much has changed since 1993. My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under "don't ask, don't tell," including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's "foreign language deficit" and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a "straight" way to translate Arabic? Is there a "gay" Farsi? My God, we'd better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war."

"If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters."

"There is no "slippery slope" toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders."

"Africa north of the Sahara, from a zoological point of view, is now, and has been since early Tertiary times, a part of Europe. This is true both of animals and of the races of man. The Berbers of north Africa to-day are racially identical with the Spaniards and south Italians."

"One of its [the First World War’s] most certain results will be the partial destruction of the aristocratic classes everywhere in northern Europe … This will tend to realize the standardization of type so dear to democratic ideals. If equality cannot be obtained by lengthening and uplifting the stunted of body and of mind, it can be at least realized by the destruction of the exalted of stature and of soul."

"This [the Mediterranean] is the race that gave the world the great civilizations of Egypt, of Crete, of Phoenicia including Carthage, of Etruria and of Mycenaean Greece. It gave us, when mixed and invigorated with Nordic elements, the most splendid of all civilizations, that of ancient Hellas, and the most enduring of political organizations, the Roman State."

"The continuity of physical traits and the limitation of the effects of environment to the individual only are now so thoroughly recognized by scientists that it is at most a question of time when the social consequences which result from such crossings will be generally understood by the public at large. As soon as the true bearing and import of the facts are appreciated by lawmakers, a complete change in our political structure will inevitably occur, and our present reliance on the influences of education will be superseded by a readjustment based on racial values."

"Race feeling may be called prejudice by those whose careers are cramped by it, but it is a natural antipathy which serves to maintain the purity of type. The unfortunate fact that nearly all species of men interbreed freely leaves us no choice in the matter. Either the races must be kept apart by artificial devices of this sort, or else they ultimately amalgamate, and in the offspring the more generalized or lower type prevails."

"The boast of the modern Indian that he is of the same race as his English ruler, is entirely without basis in fact, and the little dark native lives amid the monuments of a departed grandeur, professing the religion and speaking the tongue of his long forgotten Nordic conquerors, without the slightest claim to blood kinship."

"The name "Aryan race" must also be frankly discarded as a term of racial significance. It is today purely linguistic, although there was at one time, of course, an identity between the original Aryan mother tongue and the race that first spoke and developed it. In short there is not now, and there never was either a Caucasian or an Indo-European race, but there was once, thousands of years ago, an Aryan race now long since vanished into dim memories of the past."

"Where the environment is too soft and luxurious and no strife is required for survival, not only are weak strains and individuals allowed to survive and encouraged to breed but the strong types also grow fat mentally and physically."

"Jones may well be more effective outside the administration than within it (I think Beck put it as "dangerous." Semantics.) As Ariana Huffington opined in a post September 7 called "Thank You, Glenn Beck!" (The Huffington Post), Van Jones was undeniably the best person for this job, but the job wasn't best for him. Van Jones is not someone who ought to be stuck behind a desk, calculating tax credits and guarding his opinions from the 24-hour news-culture vultures."

"What got Van Jones fired was they caught him on tape saying that Republicans are assholes. And they call it "news." And Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to."

"Van Jones got fired because he became the Scary Negro of the Week on Fox News, where, let's be honest, they still feel threatened by Harry Belafonte."

"Yoshitani is part of a vibrant activist scene in the San Francisco Bay Area that is ground zero of the green jobs movement most prominently championed by former Obama advisor Van Jones."

"6 ppl hold > wealth than the bottom 50% of America. There's more wealth inequality today than any time since the gilded age. Biden accepted the most billionaire $ in the primary. They're paying him to reject MedicareForAll in a pandemic. Imagine not being mad at billionaires."

"Van Jones explained, "We are in the middle of a very rare convergence. Both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, were stuck on stupid for thirty years, chasing each other off a cliff to put more and more people in prison. The way you way you showed you were a smart politician was you tried to one-up your opponent on how many people you wanted to put behind bars for petty offenses. And so, three strikes and you're out; two strikes and you're out; just, hey, if you're black, you're out-that became politics for both parties. Bill Clinton was a mass incarcerator. Let's not forget that""

"A green economy begins to replace some of the clunking and chugging of ugly machines with the wise effort of beautiful, skilled people. That means more jobs."

"To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people."

"The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism."

"The human family has invaluable friends and irreplaceable allies in the plant and animal worlds. We cannot continue to tug at the web of life without tearing a hole in the very fabric of our earthly existence — and eventually falling through that hole ourselves."

"We need a much deeper understanding of exactly what it is our industrial society, in its present creation, is jeopardizing. We need a more profound perception of what is at stake."

"The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance."

"Look. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are not taking the same exam. I think it bothers people. They're not taking the same exam. He gets to be lawless. She has to be flawless. That's what's unfair. That's what's unfair tonight. They're not taking the same exam. Look, she has policies. She may not articulate them perfectly every time. She may not put the stories in the right places. But she's fighting for actual ideas that will help real people. And he's talking about people's penises. And so, they are not taking the same exam. And that's pissing people off. It's pissing me off."

"Bernie's particular brand of socialism is probably better described as 'grandparent envy.'"

"Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things."

"If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will never be built. The upside is that we don’t have to be perfect to save our communities and restore the Earth. We just have to try hard and be as honest as we can be about the processes we are going through. So I share the mistakes and failures, as well as the successes, because that is the truth of my journey – and of anyone’s journey."

"The end of the occupation. The right of return of the Palestinian people. These are critical dividing lines in human rights. We have to be here. No American would put up with an Israeli-style occupation of their hometown for 53 days let alone 54 years. US tax dollars are funding violence against people of color inside the US borders and outside the US borders."

"Our technological revolution is quickly making degrees irrelevant for many of even the top jobs. Bill Gates didn’t graduate from college. Tumblr founder David Karp dropped out of high school. So did blip.tv founder Mike Hudack. Dropping out of the standard school curriculum is not a dead end if it leads you toward a trade where you can earn a living and be proud of your achievements."

"There’s a serious danger that the college education bubble may burst. As more and more people get college degrees, which inevitably have to become easier to get in order to increase the amount of graduates beyond its realistic levels, the market will eventually figure out that the degree doesn’t mean what it used to. It will become less useful as a heuristic for intelligence and achievement. And college graduates will find themselves with an asset—a degree—whose value is dropping while their debt remains high."

"In a way, your law school becomes part of your extended family. I say this because once you graduate with your Juris Doctor degree you are essentially married to that particular institution. No matter what your experience or opinion of the place, your alma mater is a name you cannot escape. The individuals that attend law school with you will be your life-long partners as you progress from a common starting point. Understanding the basic principles of professional networking, and utilizing the knowledge while on your law school campus, will reap a lifetime of rewards and provide you with many genuinely enhancing relationships."

"I am honored to be at the forefront of our battle to ensure that all children have a happy and healthy opportunity at life."

"I often thought this country might end up being a great country for my grandkids. Now I believe it can be a great one for my kids."

"There was obviously some people that didn't want me there. On the other hand, many more obviously did."