Author Archives: Amy Farr Robertson

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About Amy Farr Robertson

Civil Rights Lawyer. Dog Lover. Smartass.

“Tear Down That Flag…”

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Bree Newsome, a courageous, badass, and very athletic civil rights hero climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina statehouse and took down the symbol of treason to our country and oppression of so many of our fellow Americans.

While she was clinging to the pole with the flag in hand, Newsome shouted: ‘You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. 

‘I come against you in the name of God.

‘This flag comes down today.’

As she calmly descended the pole and lowered the flag into the waiting arms of police, Newsome said ‘the Lord is my light and my salvation’ and announced she was prepared to be arrested.

She is my hero.

She deserves the same respect as others who took down symbols of oppression and/or treason, for example the courageous Hungarians who toppled the statue of Lenin,

Image: Black and white photo of men gathered around the head and chest of an enormous statue of Lenin lying prone on the ground.

People gather around a fallen statue of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in front of the National Theater in Budapest, Hungary, in this Oct. 24, 1956 file photo. (AP Photo/Arpad Hazafi, file)

the jubilant people of Baghdad who pulled down the statue of Saddam,

Image: Wide angle shot of Baghdad square as the statue of Saddam is pulled down.

Photo credit: CNN

the jubilant Germans who “tore down that wall,”

Image: black & white photo of a man with a pick ax swung back over his shoulder, about to bring it down on a graffiti-filled wall.

Photo courtesy of the ITAR-TASS News Agency, via gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/after/fall.php

and even the patriots who tore down the statue of George III.

Image: painting of men and women in 18th century clothing pulling down a statue of George III on horseback.

Manhattan Patriots tearing down statue of King George III. By William Wallcut, 1854. Image from http://danielhutchinson.squarespace.com/hi334

We didn’t put the statues of George III or Saddam back up, but they did put the Confederate flag back up — just in time for the pro-treason flag rally later in the morning. 

Thank God for Bree Newsome, for Jim Obergefell, and for so many others who see something that needs to be done and go do it.

 

 

“Lost Opportunity”

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Chief justice decries decision that does not ‘celebrate Constitution’ | TheHill.

“Indeed, however heartened proponents of same-sex marriage might be on this day, it is worth acknowledging what they have lost, and lost forever: the opportunity to win the true acceptance that comes from persuading their fellow citizens of the justice of their cause,” Chief Justice Roberts said in his dissent.

Wow – just think of all the opportunities we fans of civil rights have lost!

  • Lawrence v. Texas denied gays and lesbians the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizens that it was OK for them to have sex in the privacy of their own homes.  Dang – that would have been both fun and enlightening!
  • Romer v. Evans denied gays and lesbians the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizens to let them have the right to persuade their fellow citizens.
  • Brown v. Board denied African-Americans the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizen that they were fellow citizens.
  • Olmstead v. L.C. denied people with disabilities the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizens that they should be allowed to live in the community.
  • City of Cleburne denied people with disabilities the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizens that the Constitution protected them in the first place.
  • New York Times Co. v. Sullivan denied the press the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizens of their freedom of speech.
  • Estelle v. Gamble denied prisoners the opportunity to persuade their fellow citizens that they were entitled to some small modicum of medical care.

And so on.  You get the idea.

Dear Chief Justice Roberts:*  “RIGHTS” —

Image: Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride with the caption

********

*  Wow. That scans just like “Dread Pirate Roberts.”

[Updated: edited for grammar.  #wordnerd]

Love wins.

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No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Obergefell v. Hodges, No. 14-556, 2015 WL 2473451, at *23 (U.S. June 26, 2015).

Chief Justice Roberts quietly burns Scalia in the Obamacare decision – The Washington Post

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Chief Justice Roberts quietly burns Scalia in the Obamacare decision – The Washington Post.

From the WaPo article:

The main question in the case is about the subsidies used to buy health insurance by people who otherwise can’t afford it. Roberts and Scalia disagree on whether Congress meant for the subsidies to be available through the federally run insurance marketplace set up under the law, as the Obama administration argued, or if Congress wanted to give subsidies only to people who bought insurance through an exchange operated by a state government, as the law’s opponents claimed.

Roberts agreed with the administration. He wrote that it was “implausible” for Congress to set up a system in which people who used the federal marketplace wouldn’t be able to get financial help buying insurance. Scalia disagreed. But, back in 2012, he had written that without subsidies, “the exchanges would not operate as Congress intended.”

And then there was this, from yesterday’s decision affirming the validity of the disparate impact theory of fair housing decision.  The majority opinion by Justice Kennedy explains that the Court had previously held similar language in Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to support that theory.  Regarding the ADEA decision, Justice Kennedy wrote:

In a separate opinion, Justice SCALIA found the ADEA’s text ambiguous and thus deferred under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulation interpreting the ADEA to impose disparate-impact liability, see 544 U.S., at 243–247 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

Texas Dep’t of Hous. & Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., No. 13-1371, 2015 WL 2473449, at *8 (U.S. June 25, 2015).  In other words, in 1984, Scalia believed that the language of the ADEA was ambiguous on the question of disparate impact and deferred to the regulations, something he refused to do with respect to the Fair Housing Act yesterday.

And this was just gratuitous, as I’m confident there are approximately 10,000 statutory construction treatises Kennedy could have quoted from:

Against this background understanding in the legal and regulatory system, Congress’ decision in 1988 to amend the FHA while still adhering to the operative language in §§ 804(a) and 805(a) is convincing support for the conclusion that Congress accepted and ratified the unanimous holdings of the Courts of Appeals finding disparate-impact liability. “If a word or phrase has been … given a uniform interpretation by inferior courts …, a later version of that act perpetuating the wording is presumed to carry forward that interpretation.” A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 322 (2012).

Id. at *11.

Such weird unpredictability from someone who believes the meaning of the constitution was fixed in 1787.

[Updated to add the second Inclusive Communities quote.]

Leaf carnage

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We had a major hailstorm — along with a tornado warning that actually had us sheltering with the dogs in the approximately 10 square feet of the house not adjacent to a window — that left some significant leaf carnage in the back yard.

Image: concrete patio and pergola covered with wet, green leaves.

Image: picnic table and chairs covered with wet, green leaves.

Still some hail in the lawn three hours later.

Image: mulched area half-covered with small hailstones.

Denver in the summer!

Image: photo of women's feet with purple toenails in flip flops standing on green grass covered with hailstones.

Why People Hate Lawyers: CLE on “Making Your Client Judgment-Proof”

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Making Your Client Judgment-Proof CLE – Telephonic Seminar – Final Call for Savings – The Rossdale Group, LLC – A National Leader in Attorney Education.

this program will teach you everything you need to know about protecting your assets from plaintiffs and creditors. We’ll cover specific planning strategies and solutions, including planning with business entities, and domestic and foreign trusts, gifting and sale techniques. Specific emphasis will be placed on making clients appear judgment proof (i.e., no visible assets). Our distinguished seminar faculty will cover specific approaches and solutions, including the most effective tactics, best practices, and the cutting-edge strategies to best advantage your client.

You’ll learn various ways, from the very simply to the very sophisticated, to protect and hide specific assets common to all clients: houses, bank and brokerage accounts, rental real estate, businesses and professional practices and retirement plans. Course materials will serve as a treatise on asset protection as well as an exhaustive reference source for many of your planning needs and will outline and diagram the discussed planning techniques and structures. The nationally recognized instructors will share many real life case histories and anecdotes that will readily illustrate the effectiveness of various structures. Register today to learn the most effective strategies and latest law in asset protection with the titans.

Not The Onion.  I swear.

 

The Confederate flag was where???

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Virginia’s McAuliffe plans to phase out Confederate flag license plate – The Washington Post.

Easily the most depressing thing about the move to remove the Confederate flag is learning all of the places that — 150 years after we defeated these racist traitors — continued to display or sell this racist, traitorous symbol.  WTF, Virginia?  You had this on your license plates?  Even Texas went to the Supreme Court to resist putting the flag on their plates FFS.  Wal-Mart?  Amazon?  Sears?  Etsy??  WTF?

WTF eBay:

We have decided to prohibit Confederate flags and many items containing this image because we believe it has become a contemporary symbol of divisiveness and racism,” eBay said in a statement.

Contemporary?  CONTEMPORARY?  It’s been a symbol of divisiveness, racism, and TREASON for over 150 years.  You had to wait for nine people to be slaughtered in a place of worship AND for popular opinion to tip the economic scales AND THEN you remove the flag?

*head explodes*

Freedom’s Engines

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On May 26, I was driving from Colorado Springs back to Denver and noticed, as I neared the Air Force Academy, fighter jets flying in formation over my car.  After contemplating the pros and cons of trying to photograph them through the sunroof as I drove up I-25, I pulled into a restaurant parking lot to take photos and found that many other people had done the same.

Image: people congregate on a concrete patio area facing the mountains while two young girls draw in chalk on the concrete and a young boy strides toward them.

Turns out the Thunderbirds were practicing for an airshow. I had my camera and kit lens and managed to get a couple of OK shots. Memo to self:  if you’re going to drive around Colorado, bring the good lenses.

Image: six fighter jets flying in tight formation with contrails. Image: 6 fighter jets flying in close formation. Image: 4 fighter jets flying in formation seen from below with clouds as the background.

Image: zoomed in photo of underside of fighter jet.

It was breathtaking!  Back when I was a biglaw associate, our firm represented GE in some litigation or another, and a partner I worked with had a big poster of fighter jets on her wall, captioned “Freedom’s Engines.”  My first reaction was that that was sort of cloying — the aerospace engineering equivalent of a big-eye puppy photo — but when I thought more about it I thought, as I did last week watching these amazing pilots of these amazing machines do mind-blowing, stomach-churning maneuvers, I’m really glad these folks are on our side, protecting us.

Vocabulary Win

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My opposing counsel called me a snake.  Which was fine, because it permitted me to use the phrase “herpetological invective” in my reply email.  #nerdsrule

Update with this thought:  I might just need to revise my ADA Defense Counsel Bingo card to include “complete snake.”  (Yes, I’m not just a partial snake, folks, I’m a complete snake, which is much more effective for slithering purposes.)

ADA Defense Counsel Bingo

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A hilarious Graduation Bingo card has been making the rounds of Facebook, with squares like “ethnic name is awkwardly pronounced” and “someone in your line of sight is wearing Canucks gear.”  Evidently, the graduation was in Vancouver.

This inspired me to compose ADA Defense Counsel Bingo.  (MS Word version here.)MS Word Version at https://thoughtsnax.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/opposing-counsel-bingo.docx  Some of these are more common than others; all of these are real.