It’s quite simple, really. Lawyers work with laws. Sometimes, frequently in fact, they are elected to positions in which they interpret laws, apply them, or write them. Anyone who has spent five minutes looking at the legal environment in that there are incredible, horrifying disparities with respect to the way that white collar and blue collar crimes are adjudicated, and of how the penalties that apply to them are legislated. There are more people of color who are blue collar than white collar. The Republicans have been stacking the nation’s benches with anti-liberty pro-corporations judges for decades, and one is hard pressed to find a friend on the federal bench to the working class, of all colors. So this sucks. Take a look at the numbers in bold in particular:  Read more 

Oh, to be among the high and mighty as they stir from their alpine reaches and stretch forth their protective wings of Truth and Justice upon their little charge milling below like sheep:

“If Congress passes a law telling the people in the bureaucracy that ‘this is what you should do,’ and the president signs it but attaches a statement saying ‘I don’t want you to do it,’ how is that going to affect the motivation of the bureaucracy?” she said.
The task force also includes several prominent legal scholars, such as Harold Koh , dean of Yale Law School and a former official in the Reagan and Clinton administrations; Kathleen Sullivan , former dean of Stanford Law School; Charles Ogletree , a Harvard law professor; and Stephen Saltzburg , a professor at George Washington University Law School.  Read more