Having been a teenager in the early ’60s, I have vivid memories of the murders, fire hose attacks and other outrageous indignities heaped upon people simply trying to get the right to vote, drink at a drinking fountain and stay in a hotel. I also well recall President John F. Kennedy’s call to moral reckoning when going on national television to propose the Civil Rights Act.
It is stunningly grotesque that almost all of the progress made as a result of the horrendous sacrifice people made has been undone by privileged elitists like Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, none of whom have known a moment’s degradation. And their and Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act has about as much relation to the Constitution as I do to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Roberts even admitted as much in the Shelby County case when he said the number of Black elected officials in the South rendered the preclearance part of the act as no longer necessary, despite Congress overwhelming reauthorizing it in 2006.
Please, tell us again about “activist” liberal judges. This is solely about creating and preserving a permanent extreme right-wing tyranny over an actual progressive populace. Those conservative justices saw the handwriting on the wall for the 2026 midterms and took out the eraser.
The biggest irony of all is that most of them posture as great Christians. I guess when they die, they think Jesus will thank them for oppressing the most vulnerable among us. Good luck with that.
Joel Ostrow, Deerfield
Ballpark talk
A relatively simple solution exists to the Bears stadium dilemma: Move the White Sox to the parcel known as The 78 or to the adjacent parcel owned by Amtrak and used as a rail yard — then knock down Rate Field and build the domed Bears stadium on that site.
Such an initiative checks all the boxes: the footprint is large enough for the stadium; plenty of parking already exists; a Metra station is just a couple of blocks away and the site is served by the CTA Red Line.
Infrastructure improvements would be minimal, far less than what the Arlington Heights site would require. And no environmental impact study would be needed — a ballpark has been at that location since 1991 and sits directly across from where Comiskey Park stood. This would be a win-win-win: for the Bears, the city and the state’s taxpayers, not to mention the Sox.
Glenn Bischoff, Bartlett
Low bar
How comforting it is to be assured that the leader of the free world has done well on a “cognitive test” that shows he can distinguish between an alligator and a bear!
Sheryl Gallaher, Palos Park
Challenging Vance
Sun-Times reader Wes Dickson recently wrote that JD Vance “will definitely not be the next president.”
To which I might wonder: Who have you got that can beat him?
Bill Hartman, Barrington