08/30/2015 archive

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour a cup of your favorite morning beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

August 30 is the 242nd day of the year (243rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 123 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1967, Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. He would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education. He was nominated to the court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, the great-grandson of a slave who was born in modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.His original name was Thoroughgood, but he shortened it to Thurgood  in second grade because he disliked spelling it. His father, William Marshall, who was a railroad porter, instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law.

Marshall graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore in 1925 and from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. Afterward, Marshall wanted to apply to his hometown law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, but the dean told him that he would not be accepted because of the school’s segregation policy. Later, as a civil rights litigator, he successfully sued the school for this policy in the case of Murray v. Pearson. As he could not attend the University of Maryland, Marshall sought admission and was accepted at Howard University School of Law.

Marshall received his law degree from the Howard University School of Law in 1933 where he graduated first in his class.

Marshall won his very first U.S. Supreme Court case, Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940), at the age of 32. That same year, he was appointed Chief Counsel for the NAACP. He argued many other cases before the Supreme Court, most of them successfully, including Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950); and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950). His most famous case as a lawyer was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” public education, as established by Plessy v. Ferguson, was not applicable to public education because it could never be truly equal. In total, Marshall won 29 out of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

Marshall served on the Court for the next twenty-four years, compiling a liberal record that included strong support for Constitutional protection of individual rights, especially the rights of criminal suspects against the government. His most frequent ally on the Court (indeed, the pair rarely voted at odds) was Justice William Brennan, who consistently joined him in supporting abortion rights and opposing the death penalty. Brennan and Marshall concluded in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was, in all circumstances, unconstitutional, and never accepted the legitimacy of Gregg v. Georgia, which ruled four years later that the death penalty was constitutional in some circumstances. Thereafter, Brennan or Marshall dissented from every denial of certiorari in a capital case and from every decision upholding a sentence of death.[citation needed] In 1987, Marshall gave a controversial speech on the occasion of the bicentennial celebrations of the Constitution of the United States. Marshall stated,

   

“the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and major social transformations to attain the system of constitutional government and its respect for the freedoms and individual rights, we hold as fundamental today.”

In conclusion Marshall stated

   

“Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.”

He retired from the Supreme Court in 1991, and was reportedly unhappy that it would fall to President George H. W. Bush to name his replacement. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace Marshall.

Marshall died of heart failure at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, at 2:58 p.m. on January 24, 1993 at the age of 84. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His second wife and their two sons survived him

On November 30, 1993, Justice Marshall was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

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Breakfast Tune: Steve Martin plays the banjo on the Gong Show

Published on Aug 7, 2013

what the title sez

Today in History

Published on Aug 29, 2013 Highlights of this day in history: The Civil War’s Second Battle of Bull Run ends; Thurgood Marshall confirmed as first black Supreme Court justice; First black astronaut blasts off; Ty Cobb’s baseball debut; David Letterman moves to CBS. (Aug. 30)

Something to Think about, Breakfast News & Blogs Below

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Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); Republican presidential candidate Gov. Bobby Jindal {R-LA); and Sen. Amy Klobuchar {D-MI).

The panel guests are: ABC News’ Cokie Roberts; Associated Press Chief White House correspondent Julie Pace; ESPN senior writer LZ Granderson; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA).  

Face the Nation: John Dickerson’s guests are: Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA); New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D); American historian Douglas Brinkley; Getty photojournalist Mario Tama; pollster Ann Selzer; and Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi.

His panel guests are: The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg; Washington Post‘s Ed O’Keefe; The New York Times Magazine‘s ; Mark Leibovich, and CBS News Correspondent Julianna Goldman;

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: Then guests on today’s “MTP” are: Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI); Trymaine Lee, MSNBC national correspondent; and author Malcolm Gladwell.

At the roundtable, the gursets are: Matt Bai, Yahoo! News; Helene Cooper, New York Times; Melissa Harris-Perry, Host, MSNBC’s “Melissa-Harris Perry“; Steve Schmidt, Republican strategist.

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: Mr. Tapper has an exclusive interview with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

His panel guests are: Rep. Marsh Blackburn (R-TN); S. E. Cupp, New York Daily News; Dan Pfeiffer, CNN; and Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile.

Bangkok bomb: Thai police charge man ‘linked to Erawan blast’

 

BBC

Police in Bangkok have charged a man in connection with the bomb attack that killed 20 people in the Thai capital nearly two weeks ago.

Officers say the suspect, who was charged with illegal possession of weapons, was involved in the attack.

However, they say he is not the man seen on CCTV footage leaving a bag at the Erawan Shrine before the explosion.

The bomb tore through the crowded shrine on 17 August, injuring more than 100, mostly tourists.

The man, who was described as a 28-year-old foreigner by police, was arrested in Nong Jok on the outskirts of Bangkok on Saturday.