Comments for The Court's Other Diversity Problem »
Posted By Progressive 7 months, 1 week ago in Political NewsMore rare than a lesbian or Latino on the bench: a justice who didn't go to Harvard or Yale. While others speculate on the race and gender of Justice Souter's replacement, Paul Campos explains that the Supreme Court's real diversity problem is career path and class. It wasn't always this way.
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all2funComment removed: Hard Banned15 Replies
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hyperbola7 months, 1 week ago
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Actually, when one looks at the Harvard law faculty, they haven't much credibility left.
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How Alan Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law
As an ultra-Zionist, what he insists is akin to "the law is what I tell you it is! And why can't the World understand that!" While cherry picking, mischaracterizing and misapplying International Law, Professor Dershowitz ignores what every Law School and University teaches on the subject.
Should he spend more time in the Harvard Law School library, and less in TV studios, he would surely learn that an objective application of international legal norms to the conduct of Israel is Gaza would result its leaders being indicted and brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
http://prop-w-a-mtc03.evip.aol.com/story/2009/01/0...-
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hyperbola7 months, 1 week ago
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Anyone who thinks that Dershowitz's "writings" about the mideast and terrorism are anything more than vile zionist apologetics for crimes against humanity is seriously deluded. You should spend some time learning from honest jews.
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The case against Alan Dershowitz by Sabby Sagall
Sabby Sagall has a letter published in today's Guardian supporting the NATFHE Israel boycott motion. I just googled him and not many sites came up but the first one was an article by him critiquing, well demolishing, Alan Dershowitz's oxymoronically titled The Case for Israel:
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2006/05/cas...
Or asking yourself why american zionists like Dershowitz insist on killing jews, christians and moslems in Palestine for an abominable racist ideology. Israelis would do well to denounce Dershowitz loudly.
Israel´s American Apologist for Palestinian Extermination
.... Dershowitz's job is to sell the Israeli program, and he does not shirk from it. Perhaps the nerve we hit in him is one of fear that an estimated 70 million evangelical Christian Zionists, who have been asleep for a half a century, are waking up to the fact that Israel's barbaric slaughter of Palestinian men, women, and children, and the destruction of their homes and villages cannot be condoned. Perhaps he fears they will realize they've been lied to by the very people their Zionist, Scofield Bible told them to trust. What will happen when the first powerful, media Christian leader decides he must come clean before God and confess that he, too, was fooled by Zionists like Dershowitz?....
http://whtt.org/index.php?news=2=2862
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metavirus7 months, 1 week ago
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right on. i happen to be a lawyer who went to a great school that doesn't happen to be among "the elite". it was always something of a running joke among my friends that we could always aspire to certain heights, but never the supreme court (due solely to the rank of our school).
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the elite will always erect a huge barrier around themselves to protect them from the unwashed masses.-
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metavirus7 months, 1 week ago
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Or Chapman (see: Yoo, Professor John).
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Don't get me wrong, there are a LOT of, um, not so great law schools. When last I looked there were nearly 200 accredited law schools. Liberty and Chapman are near the bottom of this barrel.
As the article talked about, there used to be justices from good schools all over the country and they used to have some real world experience. The current state of our fake-status-symbol-obsessed Washington culture has gotten pretty ridiculous. One of the guys I went to law school with was so despondent over not getting into an Ivy League that he quit after the first year because he said his future dreams to serve with The Elite would be impossible. Sad.
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nostalgia7 months, 1 week ago
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Obama:
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"I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation," Obama said. "I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes."
Empathy and outcomes??
Is he looking for a Supreme Court justice or a super-legislator? -
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Poulenc7 months, 1 week ago
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Yeah, you know, there's still false conflict--witness, Obama's ascent--between egalitarian ideals and the fact that the best schools attract (and admit) the smartest people who turn out to be best at the most challenging jobs.
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What you want for supreme court justices is really smart guys 'n' gals.
Ergo....-
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Beau78907 months, 1 week ago
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And "judicial activists" like Scalia who are so impressed with their own grasp of case law that they feel qualified to overrule accepted and common practices in favor of little-known precedents that were likely not well-considered when they were written.
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Progressive7 months, 1 week ago
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Certainly a Supreme Court judge should be able to write and read well, but I wouldn't call that the primary criteria.
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We've seen enough well-written, poorly considered decisions:
http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/1198/The-Worst-...-
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Progressive7 months, 1 week ago
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My understanding is that Stanley Reed is the only one who was not a lawyer, but the argument is not that there should be more justices without law degrees, only that they should not all necessarily have been appellate judges to be considered (like the current court).
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FTA:
The educational backgrounds of the justices were as varied as their careers. They graduated from state law schools all across the country, including Indiana, Alabama, Texas, and California. (Reed never even received a law degree.)
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vader827 months, 1 week ago
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It is ignorent and dangerous to appoint someone to this position on anything other than intellectual merit regarding understanding the constitution. I am certain Obama seeks someone who views the bill of rights as a living document, which it was never intended to be, perhaps that is why he is backing away from qualifications in light of "empathy", or their being female, or latino. It may seem well intentioned, but to select someone because they are from a demographic group is just as wrong as prohibiting them for the same reason.
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rimbaud7 months, 1 week ago
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http://girlinshortshorts.blogspot.com/2009/05/libe...
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"One woman, who is reportedly on the short list, is Kathleen Sullivan, former Dean of Stanford Law School, and certainly one of the most intelligent persons, and brightest constitutional law experts, on the planet. But if you think the president is going to appoint an out lesbian to the High Court, you been bonging too much Obama."
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