Lawyers From The United States

"When you need to be loved, you take love wherever you can find it. When you are desperate to be loved, feel love, know love, you seek out what you think love should look like. When you find love, or what you think love is, you will lie, kill, and steal to keep it. But learning about real love comes from within. It cannot be given. It cannot be taken away. It grows from your ability to re-create within yourself, the essence of loving experiences you have had in your life.thumb|Visit of Iyanla Vanzant to HUD (cropped)"

"The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don't want."

"In writing this book, I want everyone in American to know her story as well as they know Eleanor’s or the stories of any of the founding fathers. Mary McLeod Bethune was an incredible woman."

"I’m so fearful. When Ron DeSantis says he doesn’t want white children to feel bad about history, what he’s saying is that he doesn’t care if Black children feel bad. We need to lift our voices. Writing as activism – I think that’s what we’re doing here."

"Arthur MacArthur was the most flamboyantly egotistical man I had ever seen, until I met his son."

"When your feet are numb just twiddle your thumb—sit down, sit down When you want ’em to know they’d better go slow—sit down, sit down"

"When they smile and say, “No raise in pay!”—sit down, sit down When you want the boss to come across—sit down, sit down"

"When the boss won’t talk go and take a walk—sit down, sit down When the boss see that he’ll want a little chat—sit down, sit down"

"Sit down, just keep your seat Sit down and rest your feet Sit down, you got ’em beat Sit down, sit down!"

"When they tie the hands of the union man—sit down, sit down When they give ’em a pact they’ll take them back—sit down, sit down"

"Maurice Sugar, a legendary figure in Detroit labor and civil rights communities, was the son of Lithuanian immigrants who settled in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Born in 1891, Sugar grew up enamored of the lumberjack lore of the north woods and his early learning on labor and class conflict came from their work world experiences and, later, his family’s struggle to make a living in Detroit. Sugar chose to study law at the University of Michigan partly because it had a three year degree program that would be cheaper than paying for four years at school. While there Sugar’s experiences were shored up by socialist politics. His first labor case came in 1916 when the International Typographers Local 18 hired him to represent the local during a strike. His beliefs were put to the test in 1918 when he refused to serve in the military during World War I and served a 10-month jail sentence. After imprisonment, Sugar continued his leftward development and involvement in labor issues. He soon became a legal bulwark of the developing autoworkers’ organizing efforts. Early on Sugar displayed his endearing talent for ­parody songwriting as he worked with unions, unemployed councils and civil rights fighters. During a March 6, 1930 rally of the Detroit Unemployed Council, his “Soup Song” was sung by thousands in Detroit, and indeed, became an anthem across the country for activists."

"The very first Buck Dinner cause was unemployment, both in its financial support and the efforts of the participants. Times being what they were, employment, hunger and workers organizing were high in the hearts of activists during the 1930s. As the labor movement developed Maurice Sugar and younger lawyers such as Ernest Goodman and George Crockett developed the emerging specialties of labor law, workers compensation and civil liberties. These skills were sorely needed. In the 1930s and extending into the 1950s, the Dies Committee (which became the House Un-American Activities Committee) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation intensified their harassment of civil libertarians. These pioneering legal minds also pursued defending African-Americans from unjust, racist charges, and eventually became strong legal supporters of the Civil Rights and peace movements during the 1950s and 1960s. The Buck Dinner distinguished itself by also being a financial supporter of these causes. But back in the late 1930s, the rise of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy were also on the minds of many in the Buck Dinner community. When those countries supported Franco rebels in Spain, several of our own Detroit progressives volunteered to fight on the loyalist side. When 11 Detroiters were arrested and charged with conspiracy to recruit Americans for a foreign army in 1940, the NLG through Sugar and Goodman led the legal team that freed them."

"In the 1920s, the flourishing automobile industry brought prosperity to Detroit, Michigan. With the 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, car sales collapsed, and production plummeted. The depression forced General Motors and other car companies to lay off many of their workers in Detroit. On March 7, 1932, a march of unemployed autoworkers was met with violence when four workers were shot to death by the local police and security guards employed by the Ford Motor Company. The Ford Hunger March, as the demonstration became known, contributed to the creation of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) labor union. Four years later, the UAW staged a strike that began in December 1936. Some 100,000 autoworkers simply sat down on the job and occupied 17 General Motors plants. “Sit Down,” written by attorney Maurice Sugar, became an anthem of the strikers. After f44 days, the strike ended in a victory for UAW, thanks in part to a labor-friendly governor, Frank Murphy, who used the National Guard as a peacekeeping force that assisted negotiations. The UAW gained union recognition from General Motors and a promise the company would not fire or otherwise punish the strikers. Workers also received a wage increase of five cents an hour. Maurice Sugar went on to serve as general counsel of the UAW from 1937 to 1946."

"Joan Biskupic has covered the Supreme Court since 1989. Previously the Supreme Court reporter for The Washington Post, she is the legal affairs correspondent for USA Today, a frequent panelist on PBS's Washington Week, and the author of Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and daughter."

"Supreme Court eras are often identified with their chief justices, as is true of the current period that began with Roberts nearly two decades ago. But the Court can be measured also by presidential influence. Certain presidents, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed eight justices in his twelve years in office, had a disproportionate effect on the Court. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon also stood out for their imprint. The Trump effect, especially in terms of the individuals chosen and the resulting shift in the balance of power, has been incomparable. He is gone from office and they are here for life."

"Around this time, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said of Scalia, "I love him. But sometimes I'd like to strangle him." Justice John Paul Stevens, the eldest member of the bench, added separately, "I think everybody respects Nino's wonderful writing ability and his style and all the rest. But everybody on the Court from time to time has thought he was unwise to take such an extreme position, both in tone and position." Stevens, who expressed fondness for Scalia even when Scalia was his most rhetorically overdramatic, later elaborated, "If he thinks a position is totally indefensible, he'll say so. And sometimes I think his rhetoric is stronger than what is justified or what is actually persuasive. He's got to have the last word. But is it really worth it?""

"The Supreme Court is likely never to go as far as Scalia wants on racial policies. And in an equally explosive area of the law, he will likely never see the overturning of Roe v. Wade- Kennedy would block that. Scalia is also likely to continue on the losing side of gay rights, courtesy of Kennedy. Yet, in upcoming years, Scalia could help bring about more mingling of church and state and less government regulation of campaign financing- again, because of votes by Kennedy and fellow conservatives. Scalia will also certainly continue to nourish his originalist constitutional theory and bring it to wider audiences."

"Win or lose, Scalia remains energized. Justice Breyer has often referred to the "physical energy" and "intellectual rigor" Scalia brings to the task. And Thomas observes, "He puts on his music and gets his computer ready. It's like he's conducting a symphony... with majority opinions, and dissents, too." Scalia might be at the apex of his influence. With conservatives holding the balance of power, and still being among the younger members of the nine, these final years of the first decade of the twenty-first century might offer Scalia his best ever opportunity to prevail. This could be his best shot."

"When in the fall of 2004 Chief Justice William Rehnquist fell ill with thyroid cancer, his condition set off months of conjecture over his potential replacement. Antonin Scalia's name was at the center of the speculation. On the Supreme Court for almost eighteen years, Scalia had become the intellectual leader of legal conservatives. Law students and professors- the like-minded but even many who disagreed with him- devoured his legal opinions. Of the nine sitting justices, he was most often the subject of academic law review articles. He had a celebrity quality that drew standing-room-only crowds to his appearances on college campuses. And he was held up as a model justice by President George W. Bush, who would be the one deciding on a new chief justice if Rehnquist retired. Yet Scalia was also the Court's contrarian. The speculation on Rehnquist's replacement turned on the question: Could a justice whose views of the Constitution harked back two centuries, and who routinely lost the votes of his colleagues become chief justice of the United States? Within the decorous chambers, Scalia was notorious for pushing away other justices at critical points in the decision-making process. In a close case, when he was barely holding on to a majority, he could not resist brash comments that might alienate a key vote. When he was in dissent, he did not go quietly. On critical points of law he declared that his colleagues' opinions "cannot be taken seriously"; were "beyond the absurd"; and should be considered "nothing short of preposterous." In June 2004, a few months before Rehnquist revealed the cancer, the Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded convicts violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Scalia, in dissent, blasted the majority: "Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members.""

"George Marshall may well have sighed at the results of the March 1945 poll- not at his own place but at MacArthur's. Marshall, more than most, knew the whole story of MacArthur's war. It is a mark of Marshall's own greatness that he so deftly managed MacArthur's fiery comet and unselfishly used its brilliance to accomplish the objectives of a global war."

"Whereas Leahy was stern, reserved, and even dour, King was nothing short of bombastic. Throughout his career, King's personality was routinely commented upon- and frequently feared- by his contemporaries and junior officers alike. His seniors usually found it merely annoying, although many- Forrestal was clearly an exception- tended to overlook his grating manner because there was no question that this demanding and strong-willed individual was also highly intelligent and capable of delivering results. King simply had no tolerance for subordinates who failed to carry out his orders to his satisfaction. Considering King's satisfaction was a very high bar, many failed to clear it. "On the job" wrote historian Robert Love in his history of the chiefs of naval operations, "[King] seemed always to be angry or annoyed." But some of that anger or annoyance may well have been a mask that was best breached when one stood up to him or took the initiative in doing what King likely would have done had he been in the other's shoes."

"Ironically, during four years of war, MacArthur may have owed the most to the very people he was certain were out to discredit and disparage him. While never among his fans, Franklin Roosevelt and George Marshall nonetheless consistently supported MacArthur within the framework of their global priorities, from the first efforts to resupply the Philippines to MacArthur's appointment as Allied supreme commander. Even then, where would MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area have been had not Ernie King urged the Joint Chiefs to pour resources into the Pacific and wage a two-front war?"

"Nine hours later, after other Japanese air attacks against northern Luzon were reported, several hundred Mitsubishi bombers and Zero fighters roared over Clark Field outside Manila and destroyed the bulk of American airpower in the Philippines — MacArthur's air force — as it sat on the ground. Even after years of increasingly hostile Japanese intentions and fair evidence that something was building to a head in the Far East, some might be tempted to forgive MacArthur for being the victim of a surprise attack. But how could he still have his airplanes lined up wingtip to wingtip nine hours after being notified of the attack on Pearl Harbor? Two days later, with the Philippine skies largely void of defending planes, another Japanese air attack destroyed the American naval base at Cavite. MacArthur "might have made a better showing at the beaches and passes, and certainly he should have saved his planes on December 8," a newly appointed brigadier general who had long served as the general's aide confided to his diary. "But," wrote Dwight D. Eisenhower, "he's still the hero." The man was clearly fallible, but the legend was not. In the dark days of early 1942, when rallying cries and heroes were in short supply, the legend had to be preserved at all costs. FDR knew it. Leahy appears to have blindly affirmed it. King, Nimitz and Halsey would all come to grips with it in their own ways. But for now, America desperately needed a hero, and Douglas MacArthur was the man of the hour."

"On a raw November day in 1863, the Twenty-Fourth Wisconsin formed beneath Missionary Ridge outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union troops were trying to lift the siege of the town, but Confederate defenders were proving stubborn. Quite suddenly, without orders, Union regiments in the center of the line began to move up the ridge. When their wild advance was over, among the battle flags atop the crest was the standard of the Twenty-Fourth Wisconsin, carried there by its eighteen-year-old "boy colonel," Arthur MacArthur, whose son, Douglas, would spend most of his own military career trying to emulate his father's charge."

"[About unfair methods of competition:] What are the dimentions on which firms are or are not permitted to compete? Should we be having firms competing on who can surveil users the best or who can undercut their workers the most, or do we want to be having companies compete on dimentions or privacy that are actually better serving consumers or workers?"

"I'm proud to be supporting Stacey Abrams for Governor of Georgia. She will make access to universal Pre-K a reality for Georgia’s children, raise the minimum wage, that currently at $5.15 an hour keeps families trapped in poverty, eliminate cash bail, and make sure people can participate in their government by introducing automatic voter registration."

"There is nothing inherent in being a minority that says you can’t have everything you want."

"Part of our leadership is understanding that you can’t change what other people think of you, but you can change how you react to their thinking and how you respond to it."

"We have to give ourselves permission to want more...I think the first and most important foundational piece of advice is dream big. Think about what you want, and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t have it."

"I built a campaign that’s been very different from a lot of campaigns that preceded me. Rather than spending a lot of money trying to convert Republicans into Democrats, I’m spending the bulk of our resources encouraging voters who share our values, Democratic-leaning voters and independent thinkers, so that they know that if they vote, they actually will get a different result. Because what’s really happened is that the unheard and unseen have given up. And I believe that with the right candidate and the right message and the right investment, we can turn them into active voters."

"I want us to understand that those who are on the sidelines, those who find their voices muted or find their voices actually silenced have power. And there is no more profound power in a democracy than the power to vote."

"No matter what your otherness is, it is not an impediment, it is not a detraction, it is a source of power."

"We must remember that we’re in the state where the red clay gives life to generations of dreamers; a state where Martin marched on ballot boxes and challenged a nation’s conscience; a Georgia that gave us the Godfather of Soul, the queen of the Met, and sent a peanut farmer to the Oval Office. That is our Georgia."

"The minute the elections are over, the people who won—who did not share our values—are going to be working hard. We have to be working even harder."

"I’m proud to be part of a pantheon of elected leaders who, from around this country, found their voices and lifted up their communities. What we were able to do in Georgia was build an unprecedented multicultural, multiethnic coalition. We tripled Latino and Asian Pacific Islander participation. We increased youth participation by 139 percent. And we outperformed with African Americans and with white voters to numbers that haven’t been seen in Georgia before. And what that signals is that you can win in America, you can win in the Deep South, by talking to communities and engaging them where they are and treating them with the respect that every community deserves."

"It was an extraordinary night, not just for me and what it symbolized for women and women of color, but what it symbolizes for Georgia and for America. We’re changing the face of leadership in this country. And that means reflecting the very different experiences and lives that folks have, recognizing that that change is a good thing for Georgia and a good thing for America."

"Dorothy Lee Bolden's emphasis on voting rights and equality was also heard loud and clear by another generation of community-minded Black leaders like voting rights activist and politician Stacey Abrams, whose 2018 gubernatorial campaign was strongly supported in Atlanta by the National Domestic Workers Alliance."

"I’m running on very clear progressive values, Democratic values. We talk about educating children from cradle to career. And that’s something that resonated across the state of Georgia. We talk about a diverse and inclusive economy that works for every Georgian, no matter where you live."

"My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, this is how I feel about whiskey: If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it. But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it. This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise."

"With respect to the Democratic National Convention, you know, I think the party is sending a very clear signal about whose votes they are reaching for and whose they aren’t. They have John Kasich, who is a Republican and who has attempted to pass some of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the state of Ohio, in a prime spot, when there was news for a while that suggested that they weren’t even going to allow AOC to speak. Of course, they now have. But they have made gestures like barring The Young Turks, one of the preeminent lefty news organizations, from having a press pass to a digital event. Why you would do that, other than to send a kind of signal to progressives that you’re not interested in their vote, I don’t know. So, it’s a really curious choice. It feels again like it’s 2016, and there is a dynamic being set up where there is a kind of wanton disregard for the values and interests of what is coming up to be the new base, the insurgent left wing of the party, the part of the party that just celebrated the victory of Cori Bush last week and Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones. And it is telling that the only people under the age of 40 — under the age of 50, rather, who are speaking at this event are AOC and Pete Buttigieg."

"It's hard to define "progressive" but it seems to me you shouldn't label yourself as such if you don't think that decent housing and healthcare and food etc are human rights."

"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."

"What you’ve seen in this latest slate of picks is a lot of emphasis on the identity of the individuals picked, a lot of firsts in the group. And even folks with less — or less, shall we say, more attenuated relationships to traditional identity characters have gone as far as to talk about the struggles of their stepfather’s family, right? And I think that’s very intentional, because substantively several of these individuals have real problems, and none of them truly represents a progressive in the mindset of most Americans, especially those who identified with Bernie Sanders. And Neera Tanden is someone, in particular, who was very notorious for being openly antagonistic of Senator Sanders, who, again, represented the largest coalition of progressive voters in this country"

"All of the emphasis on the firsts, of the diversity of this crew, but less emphasis on whether or not these individuals represent the interests of the group that they are assumed to represent because of what they look like, right?"

"If you spend your time saying "it can never happen" while occupying a position to make it more likely to happen, you're part of the problem."

"We are in the middle of the largest protest movement in American history. And it’s a protest movement that’s all about finding nonpunitive, noncarceral solutions to the kinds of economic problems that are plaguing disproportionately Black and Brown communities, but all Americans, especially right now in the middle of this additionally historic global pandemic."

"And so there’s a great deal of frustration that there is this choice not only to nominate a candidate who is known as the author of what is actually called the Joe Biden crime bill, but that he’s gone and also selected a running mate who is known for being the top cop from California, the state that has the second-highest number of incarcerated people in America. And moreover, Kamala Harris is someone who has had these criticisms leveraged at her throughout, very early on, at the start of her campaign, and, to many people in the activist community, has done very little to assuage people’s concerns about her previous stances or to demonstrate the level of growth that we would like to see."

"In a world where student loan debt, especially in the course of the primary, was still being characterized by the overwhelming bulk of Democratic Party candidates as something that was a far-left, inappropriate policy to pursue, and which, even in the context of Joe Biden, is still being framed as something that should be pushed in a very minimalist way — right? — he has the power to cancel all student debt on day one but is talking about canceling a maximum $10,000; Chuck Schumer, some others are pushing for more — I’m not overly optimistic that this policy, which is one of few that Biden has control over, is going to be dealt with in the maximalist way that the crisis compels."

"Joe Biden has articulated very clearly that he is the candidate who promises that nothing will fundamentally change."

"There has been an implication, online at the very least, that the people who have raised concerns about Kamala Harris and her record are not the base, are not Black people, are white leftists. The “Bernie bro” mythology has been raised as a specter again, when the reality is there’s a lot of grassroots frustration with the fact that this, again, unprecedented political movement is basically being ignored, or at very least a nose is being thumbed at what’s going on in the streets right now."