Democratic Mantra Implodes
It seems to me that the Alito nomination has done in the two main refrains of the recent Democratic mantra: 1) That the Republican nominees are “out of the mainstream”; and 2) That the “nuclear option” — barring filibusters of judicial nominees — was horrible because it would have violated longstanding Senatorial tradition and procedures. […]
Housing Discrimination?
Not long ago I wrote (“Driving While Undocumented”) about whether recent law enforcement initiatives, such as limiting the number of unrelated persons who can live in one residence, were discriminatory against immigrants. According to two stories today in USA Today (this one, on the front page, and that one), Overcrowded housing is emerging as a […]
Are Republicans More Racist Than Democrats?
Some social scientists seem to think so. See a report on their work that tends to agree with their conclusion here. I sent the link to a social scientist I respect and asked, among other things, whether some of the differences between Republicans and Democrats reported might not be explained equally well by concluding that […]
What Happened To The “Angry White Man”?
Noam Scheiber makes an interesting observation on the New Republic blog: Some commentators, like David Brooks, have mistakenly grafted the political milieu of the ’70s and early ’80s onto contemporary politics. They argue that Democrats are losing elections because they’re losing the blue-collar voters Alito grew up with in Trenton. But, as my colleague Frank […]
Ending Discrimination: Grinding Progress, Massive Resistance
The Chronicle of Higher Education has just published a long article reporting the increasingly successful ground war the Center for Equal Opportunity, the American Civil Rights Institute, and others are waging against college programs that discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex. The colleges, of course, who are fighting tenaciously for every inch […]
Dick Durbin: Selectively Blind
I was struck by what was surely an unintentional, though revealing, slip by Sen. Dick Durbin yesterday in the following passage in his extensive remarks denouncing Judge Alito. [Note: the preceding link probably won’t work, as the Library of Congress does not retain search results. To find Sen. Durbin’s remarks, go to the Congressional Record […]
Harassment Happy?
Most of you have probably seen references over the past few days to a survey conducted by the American Association of University Women purporting to find that a substantial majority of college students report being the victims of sexual harassment. A Google search a few minutes ago, for example, turned up 138 references. The findings […]
Fifth Circuit Reverses Itself, Bars Discrimination
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in the past approved employment discrimination under a “rational basis” standard, has now reversed itself and, applying “strict scrutiny, has sided with applicants to the Shreveport fire department who claim they were discriminated against because they are white. (HatTip to Mychal Massie) The city has maintained that the […]
Redistricting Follies
“The story of the controversial Texas 2003 redistricting plan is filled with high-jinks and low comedy,” Edward Blum, Roger Clegg, and Abigail Thernstrom remind us in National Review Online. The issue is now before the Supreme Court. If you don’t recall this “high-jinks and low comedy,” you could refresh your memory by looking here, here, […]
Alito’s “Responses”: Maybe Not A Day Late, But More Than A Dollar Short
Howard Bashman has made available the supplemental answers that Judge Alito submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to written questions, all of which are from committee Democrats. (Note that his is a quite large pdf file.) One or two of these answers are quite disappointing, almost as depressing as the questions. A couple […]
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