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Jesse Jackson Jr Sentenced

    Jesse Jackson Jr plucked tissue after tissue from a box on the lectern as he wiped away tears while addressing the court at his sentencing yesterday.

    Jackson's wife Sandra was also sentenced for her part in the theft of $750,000. in campaign funds.

    Judge Amy B. Jackson sentenced Jesse to 30 months, and Sandra got 12. They'll be allowed to serve their prison terms consecutively so that their children have a parent at home.

The End of the Civil Rights Era?

Notables of the civil rights movement sat in the audience as the Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments in a major challenge to the Voting Rights Act, Shelby County v. Holder. 
From 1965 when President Johnson signed it into law to the election of the first African-American president, the Voting Rights Act has been the most important and successful civil rights law ever passed. So successful that a slim majority of the Court seem to think that its most important part, Section 5, is so outdated it's no longer constitutional.

Justice Scalia,below, to Solicitor General Verrilli on why the were no votes against the 2006 reauthorization in the Senate, "I think that's attributable to a phenomenon that has been called the perpetuation of racial entitlements."

Bob Barnes has WaPo story here.

 

I Am Guilty, Your Honor

A sad day yesterday as a tearful Jesse Jackson Jr. pleaded guilty in a courtroom filled with friends and family, including his father, Jesse Jackson Sr.

The Judge who accepted Jackson's plea, Robert L. Wilkins, had, while a student at Harvard Law, supported the presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson Sr., and offered to recuse himself. Neither side thought that necessary.

Shown above, Jackson is at the lectern flanked by his lawyers. Supporters and family are in the background, while government prosecutors sit in the right foreground.

Jackson's wife, and former Chicago alderman, Sandi Jackson also entered a plea for hiding income. She is shown here with her lawyer, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Dan Webb.

She too wept ...

Chicago Sun-Times story here.