30 July 2009

Activist Judges? An Accusation Rooted in Racism!

During the recent Sotomayor hearings we were treated to a lot of posturing from the axis of inanity; Senators Cornyn (TX), Sessions (AL), Coburn (OK), & Graham (SC) regarding the evils, ills, and dangers to the continued existence of the whole of Western Civilization from so-called "activist judges".

It is important for us to take note that each of these fools is what can only be characterized as white-southern-middle-aged-white-male. Now, some of that fits me too, but, I assure you, my mama didn't raise the sort of fool that these good old boys' mamas did.

Here's what they mean, and what exposes their racist roots, when they bitch and warp like snot-nosed five-year-olds about activist judges:

Smith v. Allwright (1944) The Supreme Court extends the Fifteenth Amendment voting rights protections to African Americans barred from Texas' all-white primary elections.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) Unanimously, the Supreme Court overturns fifty years of precedent and rules that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that had been used to protect segregation in public schools in fact prohibits segregated schools.

Heart of Atlanta v. United States (1964) Here the Supremes ruled that an Atlanta motel is involved in interstate commerce and therefore subject to the Commerce Clause in Article 1 of the Constitution. This allowed African Americans to sleep in in an all-white establishment from which they had been barred since reconstruction.

Katzenbach v. McClung (1964) Ollie's Barbecue in Birmingham, Alabama would not serve or seat African Americans in the dining room instead shoving their orders out through the kitchen door. Again the Commerce Clause, because Ollie's had an annual income of $70,000, was successfully invoked and Ollie's had to begin seating and serving African Americans in the main dining room.

OK, now I understand, I think. An activist judge is one that strikes down a Jim Crow law regardless how long it's been in effect or depth and breadth of the precedents surrounding it.

Wouldn't it be nice if just once the corporate main stream media would call these SOBs on their racist crap instead of leaving it to bloggers like me? Just once, please.

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