FOOTBALL (NOT WHAT YOU THINK)

 The Texans play the Chiefs Thursday night to open up the strangest football season ever. 17,000 morons fans will be allowed to attend the game in KC. It should be a good one.

(KC 42-Titans 27- take the over).  

But our post is not about that.  Check below for the link to the Miami Dolphins video blistering the NFL on fake concerns about race. It's powerful stuff. 

Presented for your consideration: Judge Francis is a political football. 

We have been indirectly critical of her appointment.  Judge Francis  is a nice woman and by all appearances a fine judge. She appears to be bright, committed, and hard working. But those are hardly the singular qualifications to serve on our state's highest court. 

So let us just put it in play: Judge Francis was selected because she is a woman of color from the Caribbean and her pick represents diversity.  (now you can ***gasp*** in horror).

Query: Pick your favourite Supreme Court Justice: Scalia; Burger; Douglas; Frankfurter; O'Connor or Marshall (first woman, first African American). Would you have preferred the president select someone less qualified in the name of diversity? 

Let us ask another question. You are dying from a burst appendix. Do you pick your surgeon based on diversity or skill? 

Governor No Mask has played the race card. He and his supporters have called upon the plaintiffs in the lawsuit (who are African American) to drop the suit because Judge Francis is black and that is their goal- the appointment of a black Justice. 

So Judge Francis, who wants to serve for all the rights reasons- she is committed to serving the people of Florida and (in the words of Janet Reno) to do her "level best" in discharging her duties as a Justice on our highest court- is nothing more than a political football- being kicked too and fro by politicians from both parties. 

"Rumpole grow up" some of you are saying. "Get your head out of your...(whatever)"- all court appointments are political. 

Yeah, but that doesn't mean it is right. As an advocate for litigants, we want the best judges, not the most diverse. We have seen white male judges fully understand the dilemma and discrimination (if not blatant racism)  our clients of color have faced  - be it in jury selection, or being targeted for being stopped for driving while black. We have seen judges who are minorities turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the same argument.  Woe be the lawyer who thinks a minority judge or juror will give their client special attention just because the client is of the same minority group. 

It is a difficult position to be placed in. Lifetime appointment to the job of a lifetime- but to get it you have allow yourself to be a political football. 

We have some direct experience in this- working a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away on the nomination of Judge Bork to the Supreme Court. The politics of that  failed nomination to the Supreme Court left Bork beaten and disillusioned.  Obama's last nomination for the Supreme Court- Judge Merrick Garland,  never made it to the senate for a hearing, and by all accounts Judge Garland has taken right back up on the DC Court of Appeals doing what he does best. And of course Justice Kavanagh is this generations Justice Thomas- indelibly stained with a partisan fight over his appointment. 

The concern for Judge Francis, for those who know her, like her and admire her should be this- neither side cares what happens to her. Whether her career is advanced or ruined in this fight is of almost no concern to those on either side. 

Caveat Nominee. 

SPEAKING OF RACE

Your Miami Dolphins have recorded and released a video blistering the NFL for failed promises and fake concerns over race. To protest this, the Fins will remain in the locker room this weekend while the NFL plays Lift Every Voice and the National Anthem. 

The Video is here

From the Video:

Lift Every Voice And Sing’ is just a way to save face So if my dad was a soldier, but the cops killed my brother, do I stand for one anthem and then kneel for the other? This attempt to unify only creates more divide. So we will skip the song and dance, and as a team we will stay inside. … It’s not a black-white thing or a left-right thing. Let’s clean the whole bird and stop arguing about which wing.”

Powerful powerful stuff. A great critique and we applaud them for calling the NFL out for their band-aid approach to serious social problems. 

SURVIVOR POOL- STILL TIME TO PLAY BUT THE THURSDAY NIGHT GAME IS CLOSED 

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week one by HR on Scribd