Newswire: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn-in as first Black woman on U.S. Supreme Court

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn-in by Chief Justice John Roberts,
her husband Richard Jackson is holding Bibles

Last Thursday, June 30, 2022, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson officially joined the U.S. Supreme Court, marking a historic first for an African American woman.
After receiving the required two oaths – Chief Justice John Roberts administered the constitutional oath, and outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer, provided the judicial oath – Jackson joined a court in turmoil.
Protests have erupted with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, and other controversial decisions by the high court, including expanded gun rights at a time where the nation has witnessed nearly a deadly mass shooting each day.
Judge Jackson’s ascent to the bench still provides hope, she remarked.
“It took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Jackson asserted earlier.
“It is an honor of a lifetime to have this chance to join the court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level, and to do my part to carry out shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward, into the future.”
The court’s new term begins in September and Jackson immediately will help decide momentous opinions like the federal government’s jurisdiction over wetlands; an Alabama voter suppression law, and affirmative action cases that challenge admission policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard.
Jackson has stated she’ll recuse herself from the Harvard case because she served on the school’s board of overseers.

Newswire: Justice Clarence Thomas and the conservative Supreme Court have fanned the flames of racism in America

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

Justice Clarence Thomas

The Supreme Court not only abolished abortion rights in America with its June 24, 2022, decision but also ended any semblance of racial tolerance in the United States.
Former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again cry proved an easy to read between-the-lines moniker, but even that was seen as nothing more than the typical dog whistle – until now.
 After the high court’s ruling, the MAGA crowd has become more emboldened.
“President Trump, on behalf of all the Maga patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court [June 24],” Illinois Republican Mary Miller told a cheering crowd during a rally as she stood next to the former president.
Running for reelection in the 15th congressional district, Miller received an invite from Trump to speak. Her camp attempted to deflect from her racist comment, stating that she misspoke and intended to say, “right to life.”
Responding to a tweet by the nation’s first African American president, Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn compared the decision to reverse Roe v. Wade to segregation.
“Now do Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education,” Cornyn tweeted at Obama following the 44th president writing that the court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, “it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues – attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”
Cornyn thundered what many in the GOP and the high court’s conservative majority have always whispered: a desire to overturn Brown v. Board of Education and resurrect the 1800s doctrine of “separate but equal” to re-establish racial segregation laws that inherently imply that Black people are inferior.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a day before abolishing Roe.
Thomas and fellow conservatives had struck down a New York law that restricted gun ownership. “Because any substantive due process decision is demonstrably erroneous … we have a duty to correct the error established in those precedents,” said Thomas.
The justice has gained the turncoat nickname, Uncle Thomas, from African Americans and others.
In the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case, the court voted 7-2 to strike down a law restricting married couples’ access to birth control.
The majority stated that such statutes are impermissible because they violate the right to privacy for citizens.
The cases of Lawrence and Obergefell respectively made same-sex activity and marriages legal.
Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in that landmark case, called Thomas out in a nationally televised interview.
He noted that Thomas specifically named same-sex and contraceptive rights, in his opinion, omitting interracial marriage. If the court overturned that law, Thomas’ marriage to Ginni, who is white, would face peril.
“He omitted Loving v. Virginia because it affects him personally,” Obergefell stated.
Striking a severe nerve, Thomas went a step further when voting to strike down New York’s gun law, even after more than 277 mass shootings have occurred in 2022.
The Black justice invoked the disgusting Dred Scott decision, where then-chief justice Roger Taney cautioned that African Americans would have the right to carry firearms in public if the court recognized them as U.S. citizens.
“Even Chief Justice Taney recognized that public carry was a component of the right to keep and bear arms – a right free Blacks were often denied in antebellum America,” Thomas dared to assert.
Justice Stephen Breyer noted the “serious dangers and consequences of gun violence” against the Second Amendment.
Thomas wasn’t done, however. He compared abortion statistics to soldiers killed during the Civil War. “I join the opinion of the court because it correctly holds that there is no constitutional right to abortion,” Thomas wrote.
“Abortion is not deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition. It’s not implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” he said.
Attorney Daniel Goldman, the former lead counsel for the House Impeachment Committee who is running for Congress in New York’s 10th district, blasted Thomas.
“When you read Clarence Thomas’s concurrence, where he calls into question many other rights based on the fundamental right to privacy, remember that he testified unequivocally in his confirmation hearings that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution,” Goldman tweeted.

Shelia Daniels is a candidate for County Commission District 1

Please allow me to humbly introduce myself as a candidate for Greene County Commissioner District 1. I am a native of Greene County and am actively involved in the community by serving individuals, families, and outreach programs through mentorship, parental engagement, and community awareness. As your commissioner, I will serve with respect, honesty, and fairness.
I am asking you, the citizens of District 1, for your vote on May 24, 2022. My message to each of you is “Mission Possible” “It’s Time To Go To Work.”

Tennyson Smith seeks re-election as County Commissioner, District 2

To the Citizens of Greene County and Voters of District 2:
When I took the oath of an elected official years ago,  I pledged to do my best to help improve Greene County and  District 2. Today, I am pleased to say, I have done my best to uphold that pledge. Each decision and vote was made with you, the citizens and voters of District 2, in mind. I am seeking re-election as Greene County Commissioner of District 2 in the May 24, 2022 Primary Election.
-I am dedicated to the task that is before me
– I am available to you whenever you need me.
– I operate an Open -Door Policy; no appointment is needed to see me.
– I will continue to return each of your calls and check on and resolve all concerns and problems to the best to my ability.
– I am here to serve you.
-I will try to the best of my ability to be fair, firm, effective and respectable at all times.
Voters of District 2, we have come a long way and made many improvements in our county; yet there is much work to be done. Please go to the poll and vote in the Primary Election of May 24, 2022 and re-elect Tennyson Smith as Greene County Commissioner District 2.