Shelby County v. Holder

Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 12/08/2019: Bulletin! The New York Times Reports Pro-Trump News Straight!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

You wouldn’t believe what I am dealing with right now, so I’m not even going to tell you.

Let’s just say that in this case, writing ethics stories is a welcome respite..

1. Let’s give credit to the New York Times. On its front page Saturday, the Times highlighted three large graphs, one showing that “monthly job gains under President Trump have shown strong, consistent increases “even after a decade of economic expansion”; one showing that wage growth has “picked up momentum,” and the other showing that unemployment has dipped below “full employment.”

All of this, plus a record high stock market, are just as candidate Trump promised and predicted.

The Times then says,

“With 11 months to go before the 2020 election, a polarized electorate is dividing itself by which story line it views as more pertinent — the president’s potential abuse of power, or the comfort of a steady paycheck credited to his leadership.”

Gee, let’s see…. “potential abuse of power” that was not an abuse of power at all, or jobs, higher wages, and rock bottom low unemployment. Tough choice. What a dilemma.

Give the Times credit for making it ridiculously clear what a big lie Big Lie #5 (“Everything is Terrible!”) is.

2. But let’s not get carried away! Here’s another Times headline from the same edition: Continue reading →

Gotcha, NPR! Liberal Bigotry About Bigotry Exposed

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
"Wah, my conSTITuants in the great Southan state of Mawntana just don't wanna see any coloreds get away with shootin' owa law enforcement officahs, that's all!"

“Wah, my conSTITuants in the great Southan state of Mawntana just don’t wanna see any coloreds get away with shootin’ owa law enforcement officahs, that’s all!”

One progressive lie I hear and read repeatedly from Democrats and their news media lackeys is that the Supreme Court “gutted” the Votingl Rights Act of 1965 by decreeing that it was unconstitutional for the Justice Department to use decades old data to presume racial bias in legislative measures and policies adopted by Southern states. This was holding in the case of Shelby v. Holder. The Court justly ruled that Congress had to develop current, accurate criteria. Progressives and the Obama Administration screamed and are still screaming, because pretending it was still Jim Crow, Bull Connor and Mississippi burning in the South gave the federal government a way to over-ride legitimate and non-racist laws (like voter ID requirements), based on bias: if it’s a southern state, it must be racist.

Yesterday, National Public Radio inadvertently demonstrated how this bias operates. I have already written about what is wrong with conservative opposition to Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s choice to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division. Essentially, he is being condemned for trying to protect an individual’s civil rights. But the police unions are determined to punish him because that particular individual was a cop killer, and our law enforcement officials don’t think such people have rights. They are wrong, Adegbile was right.

This is not truly a racial issue, but because Adegbile is black, because he worked for the NAACP, because the cop killer is black, because Obama is black and because Democrats have spent the Obama years making everything about race to serve their cynical political needs,  the controversy has been reported as a racial justice issue. It is really a stupidity issue, as I pointed out in my earlier post. It is stupid, ignorant and destructive to treat criminal lawyers as if they support the crimes of their clients.

The police lobby was strong enough, sadly, to defeat Adegbile’s nomination in the Senate, as sufficient Democrats from conservative states decided to cater to ignorance as enthusiastically as their Republican colleagues. Here are the Democratic Senators who voted “nay”:

Chris Coons (Del.)
Bob Casey (Pa.)
Mark Pryor (Ark.)
Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.)
Joe Manchin (W.V.)
Joe Donnelly (Ind.) 
John Walsh (Mont.)

Plus Harry Reid (Nev.), who switched his vote for tactical purposes.

Here is how NPR described them on NPR’s Morning Edition :

“A handful of southern Democrats joined Republicans yesterday to defeat president Obama’s choice to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division.” Continue reading →

And Here’s Why The Supreme Court Majority Was Right In Shelby v. Holder…

/ Jack Marshall / 66 Comments
Ok, if you don't buy the theory that they hurt the public schools, how about this: they're racist!

Ok, if you don’t buy the theory that they hurt the public schools, how about this: they’re racist!

In its much maligned decision in Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court declared that the Justice Department could not interfere with state legislative decisions affecting voting rights based on 60 year old data about racist practices prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Federal government should not be able to over-ride the will of the people and its elected legislatures without a compelling and overwhelming interest, and allowing the large list of states designated as subject to the Act invited abuse of power. What kind of abuse? This kind:

The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to stop the Louisiana from distributing school vouchers to poor black families in any district that remains under a desegregation court order. Over 600 public schools are affected. The argument of Holder’s Justice Department  is just as ridiculous as it reads: it is that “many of those vouchers impeded the desegregation process.” You see, if black children are able to go to better, private schools thanks to the vouchers, the percentage of whites to blacks in failing but desegregated public schools will go up, “impeding” desegregation. Can’t have that! What citizens would want politicized, absurd bureaucrats who reason like this second-guessing their legislature?

As the Washington Post noted in an incredulous editorial it called, pulling no punches, Justice Department bids to trap poor, black children in ineffective schools: Continue reading →

The Progressives’ Attacks On Shelby County v. Holder: Unethical and Ominous

/ Jack Marshall / 67 Comments
How DARE the Supreme Court not defer to Congressional judgment when it knows Congress is incapable of competent decision-making!

How DARE the Supreme Court not defer to Congressional judgment when it knows Congress is incapable of competent decision-making!

After reading more of the hysterical, sneering attacks on the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, I have concluded that I initially neglected to recognize the deep bias and contempt for basic rights that underlie them. The critics have no legitimate arguments to support allowing the current formula set out in the Voting Rights Act to continue, except that they believe trampling on innocent citizens’ rights is acceptable government practice if it makes the civil rights establishment happy, and allows the myth to be perpetuated that Republicans sit up late at night trying to figure out ways of stopping blacks from voting. “It may be unconstitutional, but it works!” is the best of their claims, a pure embrace of that hallmark of corrupted ethics, the ends justify the means. Note that this is also the justification being offered by the Obama Administration for drone strikes, PRISM, and tapping the phones of reporters. This isn’t an argument but a philosophy, and one that is offensive to core American values.

The Times, no longer the premiere news source in the country but certainly the premiere Democratic Party ally masquerading as a news source, clinched it for me. In its scathing editorial condemning the decision, the only arguments it could come up with were… Continue reading →

Shelby County v. Holder: Inflammatory Rhetoric, Biased Reporting, Irresponsible Hyperbole

/ Jack Marshall / 98 Comments

 

The Supreme Court rules that it's not 1965 any more. The Horror....

The Supreme Court rules that it’s not 1965 any more. The Horror….

Sometimes one would think that the left-tilted media and the race-grievance industry is conspiring to divide America. Sometimes, one would be right, and such a time was the disgraceful and misleading reporting of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, followed by apocalyptic and fear-mongering cries of outrage from Democrats, whose characterization of both the decision and its meaning were not just wrong, but dishonest and irresponsible.

The decision did not “gut” the 1965 Voting Rights Act as several news sources stated, nor strike at the “heart” of it, as the New York Times, editorializing in its headline, told readers (quoting Bill and Hillary Clinton), nor  did the Supreme Court “reset” the “voting rights fight,” as USA Today headlined the decision. There is no dispute, or “fight,” over whether minorities should have the right to vote (Really, really unethical headline, USA Today…)  Nor did the ruling “turn back the clock,” as multiple critics claimed. The latter was an especially Orwellian description, given that what the decision really did was insist that a clock that had been stopped for 40 years finally be set to reflect the passage of time. Continue reading →