A new study highlighting wide gaps in school discipline between Minnesota’s white and minority students is raising concerns among state human rights leaders.
Some would say that it should be raising concerns among leaders of minority groups whose students are behaving badly, so as to incur discipline.
The report released Friday found students of color were twice as likely to be suspended or expelled as their white peers, despite making up a smaller share of students.
The phrase “students of color” is telling. I will try to track down the report, but are all “students of color” equal when it comes to discipline? For example, are Indian-American students suspended or expelled at the same rate as African-American or Native American students? I doubt it. But: if not, why not?
Native American students were ten times as likely to be disciplined as white students.
This is obviously a bad thing, but unless we know why students are being disciplined, it is impossible to tell where our concerns should lie.
Human Rights Commissioner Kevin Lindsey says the department plans to work with schools “to ensure equal treatment” of students.
But what reason is there to think that students are not already being treated equally? Does Minnesota’s Human Rights Commissioner seriously believe that school administrators are needlessly suspending or expelling well-behaved “students of color” out of some misguided animus? If so, I would gently suggest that he is out of touch with reality.
The department did not include discipline from fights, possession of weapons or drugs in its study.
This laconic final sentence is intriguing, to say the least. Why on Earth would the most serious offenses–fighting or possessing weapons or drugs–be excluded from the study? I suppose because the rates of suspension or expulsion of “students of color” are at least as high, or more likely higher, for these obviously suspendible offenses. In other words, the study was rigged to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion.
As I said, school discipline quotas represent an increasingly important issue. Why? Because they are making school ineffective and even dangerous for a great many normal students. For example, see this eloquent letter by a mother of a student in the Madison, Wisconsin public school system. It concludes:
]]>I can tell you, Principal Boran…that [a] majority of West students DO FEEL that West is not a safe place to go to school…they are all too horribly aware of the stark reality that a CONCERTED UNWILLINGNESS TO CRACK DOWN ON UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIORS — essentially a NON-DISCIPLINE POLICY – is what creates an environment that any concerned parent would find untenable, unacceptable, and frankly, would see as a broken system. The vast majority are therefore at the mercy of the tyranny of the few who DO engage in repeated unacceptable aggressive behaviors – and at the mercy of the school policy that coddles the offenders and brings fear to the hearts of the students who behave properly and just want to learn and make it home each day without “incident.”
I can tell you there are great numbers of TEACHERS as well who feel the same way but who are all but silenced and made to submit to the groupthink that engenders such insanity — for fear of rocking the boat.
Re: My govt. computer intrusions…What would you think if I told you the hard drive of one of my personal computers was secretly switched out w/another while in custody of the Justice Dept. Inspector General– before they gave it back to me? (Tick-tock.) #GettingCloserToAnswers
— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) March 1, 2018
Attkisson is credible, and Obama’s DOJ was corrupt. But does this scenario make sense? I don’t know. There is some interesting back and forth on this in the comments on Attkisson’s tweet.
One way or another, I hope Attkisson is right that her lawyers are getting close to finding out what happened.
]]>Bill is part of a bipartisan slate of nominees for the Commission. It includes Bill Pryor of the Fifth Circuit, whom I consider one of the best federal appellate judges in the country.
It also includes Luis Felipe Restrepo of the Third Circuit, a strong, committed liberal and one-time public defender who was selected for the federal bench by President Obama. The other nominee is Henry Hudson, who serves on the U.S. District Court in Virginia, having been selected by President George W. Bush.
Bill Otis was a career prosecutor for the Department of Justice. He distinguished himself as Chief of the Appellate Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia under both Democrat and Republican administrations. In addition, Bill served as Special Counsel to President George H.W. Bush and as Counselor to the Administrator of Drug Enforcement Administration during the George W. Bush presidency. Currently, he’s an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.
I’ve known Bill for almost 50 years, going back to our first year at Stanford Law School. He’s a brilliant advocate, and as knowledgeable as they come in the area of criminal law and sentencing. His integrity and strength of character are exceptional. And he’s a staunch conservative.
Given his conservatism and the power of his advocacy, it’s not surprising that Bill’s nomination is already under attack by the left. Indeed, the hit pieces began appearing virtually as soon as his nomination was announced.
Here’s an example, brought to us by the left-liberals at NPR. The headline is “Trump Pick For Sentencing Commission Has History Of Racially Charged Remarks.”
The primary example NPR cites as a “racially charged remark” by Bill is this statement:
It is precisely because race and criminality have no causative relationship that our side cannot be cowed when the other side starts bellowing about racial disparities in imprisonment, and then claiming they are caused by racism.
(Emphasis added)
Bill went on to explain that the disparities are the result of social factors.
Bill, then, was saying that race does not cause crime or disparities in committing crime. This is the opposite of what a racist would say.
NPR realizes this. That’s why it frames its attack on Bill in terms of “racially charged remarks,” not racially biased ones. NPR is resorting to weasel words in an attempt to make Bill look like a racist without directly calling him that.
This approach has become a staple of the modern left. Its targets extend far beyond Bill Otis.
Republicans must not be cowed (to use Bill’s word). The Republican Senate should confirm Bill, along with the rest of the bipartisan slate presented by President Trump.
]]>Epstein makes the sensible case that decorum and bearing in a president are important—that we don’t just live by policy alone. The one important thing missing from Epstein’s argument is that Trump was only possible in 2016 because of the decay of our culture that liberalism has excused for 50 years, when liberalism hasn’t in fact caused the ruin of public propriety on purpose. It was only 30 years ago that an extra-marital affair scuttled Gary Hart’s presidential candidacy overnight. But with liberals mounting the barricades on behalf of Bill Clinton, coming up with the specious “one-grope rule,” and arguing openly that “character doesn’t matter” and that we should focus on policy results only, they have no standing now to complain that Trump is crude or “boorish,” as Epstein calls him. Trump wouldn’t have been possible without the cultural degradation and political correctness of contemporary liberalism. He is, as I’ve been saying from the beginning, the president liberals deserve.
I’m willing to give Trump a pass on his gun control comments of the last 10 days, partly because they have a mischievous effect on liberals, and probably help him politically to a small extent. But his announcement yesterday of tariffs on steel and aluminum constitute his largest mistake so far. For someone who has so often tied his success to the stock market, the market’s selloff ought to be a strong signal that the specter of trade retaliation by our trading partners is not promising.
Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised, if a bear market arrives (the market is definitely overvalued by most conventional measures), to see Trump turn on Wall Street. One of my favorite Reagan moments from 1981 was when a reporter, noting the stock market in steep decline ahead of the deep recession of 1981-82, suggested to Reagan that Wall Street wasn’t enthusiastic about his tax cuts. Reagan replied, “I have never found Wall Street a source of good economic advice.” Boom! A good example of Reagan’s populist side that you can easily see Trump embracing.
I’m hoping that this is just a bluff, designed to get Canada and Mexico to sit up at the NAFTA renegotiations currently under way. I’ve seen press accounts that Canada is dragging its feet on everything. And as Canada is one of the leading steel exporters to the United States (Justin Trudeau: “What—we make steel? How come no one told me?”), maybe Trump is trying to get their attention.
]]>A brand new article out from political scientists at Stanford and UCLA in the journal Political Behavior casts new doubt on the conventional wisdom:
Reexamining the Effect of Racial Propositions on Latinos’ Partisanship in California
Iris Hui, David O. Sears
Abstract
Many seasoned politicians and scholars have attributed the loss in support for the Republican Party in California to its push for three racially divisive propositions in the mid- 1990s, especially the anti-immigrant Proposition 187. Their costs are said to involve the partisan realignment of Latinos against the Republicans. Using three separate data sources, we find no evidence of a “tipping point” or abrupt realignment among Latino registered voters who made up the electorate. Latinos’ partisanship within California did not change significantly; it did not change much when compared to nearby states; nor did voter registration change materially. The loss of support for Republicans occurred primarily among unregistered Latino voters whom historically had never been strong supporters. Our findings question the conventional wisdom about the powerful political effects of the propositions, and reaffirm the long standing conclusion in the literature that realignment due to a “critical election” is rare.
Unfortunately the complete article is behind a robust (and expensive!) paywall that I’ve been unable to pierce even with my academic foothold. However, in searching around for additional commentary or alternative access for this article, I came across this very interesting abstract from a 2006 edition of International Migration:
Max Nieman, Martin Johnson, Shawn Bowler
Abstract
Given the prevailing levels of elite partisan contentiousness over immigration issues, we expect to see mass attitudes towards immigration replicate this polarization. We explore the partisan implications of this issue by examining popular attitudes towards immigrants in California, where attitudes towards immigration and immigrants have formed central themes in a series of highly charged political campaigns and elite discourse on the issue is polarized. Yet even in California we find that many different kinds of voters share a surprisingly similar set of concerns about the flow of immigrants into the nation. We are particularly interested in whether Democrats and Republicans view the public policy consequences of immigration in similar or different ways. We find that Republicans more likely indicate they think immigration will have harmful effects on social and policy outcomes in the United States, but Democrats tend to share similar concerns. One consequence of this pattern is that the US Republican Party – at least the party in California – may be able to use the immigration issue as a wedge to attract support from people who tend to support Democratic candidates, often thought friendlier to immigrants.
Funny how Trump almost alone was the one to figure this out. Though I doubt International Migration is a journal often found on his reading pile.
]]>"Being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The post Der Spiegel: About those hundreds of Russian casualties in Syria … appeared first on Hot Air.
]]>This certainly seemed like big news at the time. Three weeks ago, Western news agencies reported that American forces had killed a large number of Russian troops in Syria, with estimates ranging “dozens” (Reuters and the NYT) to 200 or more (Bloomberg). The Putin regime emphasized that they had no uniformed troops in the area but that the Assad regime had a significant number of Russian contractors in the area. The news created tensions in Russia, with critics accusing Vladimir Putin of covering up losses.
But just how large were those losses? According to Der Spiegel’s Christoph Reuter, the actual number may be nine. And those may have been merely collateral damage:
It all happened at night, and the situation became extremely complicated when the fighters from Tabiya entered the fray. A staffer at the only major hospital in Deir ez-Zor would later say that around a dozen Russian bodies were delivered. An employee at the airport, meanwhile, later witnessed the delivery of the bodies in two Toyota pickup trucks to a waiting Russian transport aircraft that then flew to Qamishli, an airport near the Syrian border in the north.
In the days that followed, the identities of the Russians killed would be revealed — first of six and ultimately nine. Eight had been verified by the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian investigative platform, and another was released by the radio station Echo Moscow. All were employees of the private mercenary company Evro Polis, which is often referred to by the nom du guerre of its head: “Wagner.”
At the same time, however, a completely different version of events has gained traction — disseminated at first by Russian nationalists like Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, and then by others associated with the Wagner unit. According to those accounts, many more Russians had been killed in the battle — 100, 200, 300 or as many as 600. An entire unit, it was said, had been wiped out and the Kremlin wanted to cover it up. Recordings of alleged fighters even popped up apparently confirming these horrendous losses.
It was a version that sounded so plausible that even Western news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg picked it up. The fact that the government in Moscow at first didn’t want to confirm any deaths and then spoke of five “Russian citizens” killed and later, nebulously, of “dozens of injured,” some of whom had died, only seemed to make the version of events seem more credible. It has generally been the case, after all, that when something in the Syrian war is denied by the Kremlin, or when the Russians admit to it bit by bit, then it is probably accurate. Besides, Russian losses in Syria are constantly played down.
According to Reuter, the conflict may have happened precisely because the Russians weren’t involved. At the time, US officials seem puzzled about how that many Russians could have gotten killed on the American side of the Euphrates in that area, which had been established as a deconfliction line between the US and Russia. Defense Secretary James Mattis chalked it up to a lack of Russian control over Russian contractors:
U.S. military officials said the coalition was in contact with Russia before, during and after Wednesday’s attack and had alerted Russia to the presence of SDF forces in that area…
He called the attack a “perplexing situation,” adding that he could not give “any explanation for why” the pro-government forces would attack a well-established SDF headquarters…
When pressed on why the U.S. considered the communication a success when it did not prevent the pro-government force attack, Mattis told reporters on Thursday, “You can’t ask Russia to deconflict something they don’t control.”
“The fact that somebody chose to attack us, and the Russians are saying, ‘’It’s not us,’ and we are firing on them to stop the artillery fire, that, to me, is not a failure of the deconfliction line,” Mattis explained.
However, Reuter explains that the forces that attempted three attacks across the Euphrates were comprised of Syrian tribal forces and Iranian-controlled militia forces, not Russian contractors. Their first attempt barely got started before American forces started firing warning shots across the river, causing them to withdraw. That produced no casualties, but a later crossing succeeded farther north. As those forces approached the SDF base in the US zone on the eastern side of the Euphrates, American special forces opened fire in earnest, including artillery and tank fire. When a third penetration came from the village of Tabiya to the south, Reuter reports, US forces “struck back with their entire destructive arsenal,” resulting in most of the casualties. Hostilities continued for another day or so until the tribal and Iranian-backed forces stopped trying to come across the river.
Reuter’s account is corroborated by other reporting, which indicates that the nine dead Russians just had the unfortunate luck of getting stuck in the firing zone:
Ahmad Ramadan, the journalist who founded the Euphrates Post and has since emigrated to Turkey, comes from Tabiya. One of his contacts fights for the al-Baqir militia and took the video at the site of the bombings. “If it had been a Russian attack, with many Russian dead, we would have reported about it,” he said. “But it wasn’t. The Russians in Tabiya just had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
It’s possible that this could be propaganda too, purposed to alleviate criticism of Vladimir Putin, but it seems less likely than the other way around. US-Russian deconfliction efforts have generally allowed both sides to avoid these kinds of mistakes, and the Russians would have known better than to fight straight up against the entrenched American and SDF forces. Neither side has anything to gain from a shooting war with each other anyway. However, it would certainly be in the interest of Iran to attack American forces and potentially drive a bigger wedge between the US and Russia, and the same goes for Bashar al-Assad, both of whom want to drive the US out of Syria and the region.
Some have wondered why there hasn’t been more focus on this incident, but Der Spiegel’s report appears to show the reason. Perhaps the actual number of Russians killed in this action will eventually be higher than nine, but it seems unlikely that it’d be 200 or more. The total Reuter gives for KIA in the action is around 250, split relatively evenly between Syrian army soldiers, Iraqis, Afghans, and Iranian-backed militia fighters. The Russians transported their dead back home and have not had much comment since, presumably because there wasn’t much to say.
The post Der Spiegel: About those hundreds of Russian casualties in Syria … appeared first on Hot Air.
]]>The post Tom Perez on DCCC Attacking Dem Candidate in Texas: ‘I Wouldn’t Have Done It’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
]]>Perez made the comment during an interview on CSPAN's "Newsmaker" with USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page and Washington Post correspondent James Hohmann. The interview will air Sunday at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The interviewers asked Perez about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's move last Thursday to publish opposition research on its website against Laura Moser, a progressive Democrat who is running to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. John Culberson in Texas' seventh district near Houston.
"I wouldn't have done it," Perez said of the DCCC's decision to target Moser, according to a tweet from Page.
DNC chair @TomPerez faults the @DCCC for its opposition hit on @lcmoser in TX primary. "I wouldn’t have done it," he told @jameshohmann & me on @CSPAN Newsmaker.
— Susan Page (@SusanPage) March 2, 2018
The DCCC called Moser a "Washington insider" and criticized her for speaking negatively about Texas. Several Democrats, liberal journalists, and progressive activists quickly castigated the DCCC for its attacks on Moser.
Moser, a Houston journalist and the creator of a text-messaging tool instrumental in channeling progressive anger into activism against President Donald Trump, is running against six other Democrats in the March 6 primary to unseat Culberson.
Moser appeared to take a shot at both the DCCC and the DNC on Friday in a new web video asking her supporters to reject "the system where Washington party bosses tell us who to choose."
Perez claimed that he would not have followed the same strategy as the DCCC, although he has a history of sparking intra-party conflicts. Last April, he demanded ideological purity on abortion rights among Democratic candidates.
"Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health," Perez said at the time. "That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state."
"At a time when women's rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country," Perez added, "we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice."
Over the past year, Democratic leaders have debated whether their party should support pro-life candidates in certain races or make one's stance on abortion a firm red line, creating a tense intra-party divide.
The post Tom Perez on DCCC Attacking Dem Candidate in Texas: ‘I Wouldn’t Have Done It’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
]]>The post The Washington Free Beacon Podcast: Right and Righter Episode 4 appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
]]>Topics include Trump's trade wars, his shifting stances on gun control, the departure of Hope Hicks from the Trump White House, Ben Carson's $31,000 office furniture, the future of the "Sex and the City" franchise, KFC versus Popeye's chicken, taxidermy, and yoga pants, God's gift to mankind.
You can listen below or download the MP3 file, but, again, the best way to listen is to subscribe via iTunes (and leave us a 5-star review while you're there).
The post The Washington Free Beacon Podcast: Right and Righter Episode 4 appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
]]>Crumbs.
The post Wilbur Ross: Trump’s steel tariffs should only cost you a few hundred extra dollars on a new car appeared first on Hot Air.
]]>I thought we just got through a big fight with Democrats over what should and shouldn’t count as “crumbs” in a tax context. Pelosi’s been running around insisting that an extra $1,000 in taxpayers’ pockets from the GOP tax cuts means nothing in the grand scheme of things, which is easy for a millionaire many times over like her to say. For a middle- or working-class family, a thousand bucks will help pay for new clothes for the kids, a much-needed car or home repair, a month’s worth of groceries, or any number of other necessities. Paul Ryan went so far as to tout one woman’s quote to the AP that her very modest $50 tax cut under the Republican bill would at least pay for her Costco membership this year. Every crumb counts when you’re not rich, Nancy.
So here’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, an honest-to-goodness billionaire, defending Trump’s dopey steel tariffs — a tax that’ll hit those same middle- and working-class taxpayers the hardest — with a Republican version of the “crumbs” argument. He starts with cans of soup and soda, noting that the tariffs should produce a price hike of less than one cent. But as we move on up to cars, the math gets shakier. Using Ross’s own figures here, a $35,000 car will now cost $175 more just for the steel involved. That’s nearly 20 percent of the hypothetical $1,000 tax cut most taxpayers will see; per Scott Lincicome, assuming 17 million cars sold this year, you’re talking about $3 billion sucked out of the economy in new taxes. And cars are just one (admittedly very expensive) item. A penny on a can of soda or soup means nothing, but when you’re buying those items every week along with myriad other goods that incorporate steel and aluminum, it adds up. You would think, if the White House is going to send someone out to sneer that new, wholly needless taxes on everyday items are “no big deal,” they could at least find someone who, unlike Ross, isn’t worth 10 figures.
But if it’s necessary for national security, we have no choice, right? That’s Trump’s justification for the new tariffs: Under the 1962 trade law, the president can slap taxes on imports if the economy has been weakened by them to the point that national security is threatened. Makes sense, writes Irwin Stelzer, except for the fact that (a) the economy’s stronger right now than it’s been in years and (b) the Secretary of Defense, whose entire job is to worry about national security, lobbied Trump *not* to impose broad tariffs for fear that it would wreck U.S. alliances. And as for sticking it to China:
China is the world’s dominant steel producer, but experts said the impact of Trump’s decision to slap 25 percent tariffs on steel imports, and 10 percent on aluminum, won’t have a big impact on China since it only accounts for 2 percent of U.S. imports. The government in Beijing is not about to start a trade war over the tariffs, they added.
“What an extremely stupid move,” said Li Xinchuang, vice secretary general of the China Iron and Steel Association. “A desperate attempt by Trump to pander to his voters, which I think in fact runs counter to his ‘America First’ pledge. The U.S. is now setting a very, very bad example.”
It’s Canada and Brazil, two U.S. allies, who’ll be hit hardest by the new tariffs if in fact they’re globally applied rather than targeted at adversaries. In fact, the foreign power that’s rattling its economic saber at Washington this morning isn’t China. It’s the EU. Great job all around here — on the geopolitics, the messaging, and the kitchen-table bottom line.
Exit question: Another industry that’ll be hit hard by steel and aluminum tariffs is, uh, brewing. Lucky for Trump that his voters don’t much like cars or beer, though, right?
The post Wilbur Ross: Trump’s steel tariffs should only cost you a few hundred extra dollars on a new car appeared first on Hot Air.
]]>"How about a shirt with the text of the Second Amendment?"
The post Justice Alito highlights the cultural double-standard that benefits progressives appeared first on Hot Air.
]]>Over at the Acton Institute blog, Joe Carter published a post yesterday based on arguments before the Supreme Court which took place earlier this week. As Carter explains, the case before the Court involved the wearing of allegedly politicized clothing at a polling place:
The case of Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky concerns a Minnesota statute that broadly bans all political apparel at the polling place. When Andrew Cilek went to vote in 2010, he wore a shirt bearing the image of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and a button that read “Please I.D. Me.” The poll worker asked him to remove the shirt and button because it supposedly violated the state law.
Cilek filed a lawsuit opposing the regulation as an infringement on his First Amendment right to political expression. He also noted that the standard for what is acceptable is arbitrary and the enforcement itself could be politicized since the polling workers are chosen by local political parties.
Justice Alito decided to highlight just how arbitrary the standard was during oral arguments by asking attorney Daniel Rogan, who was defending the statute for the state of Minnesota, to classify whether a series of other images would be allowable or forbidden under the law. You’ll quickly notice a pattern forming. Every progressive political symbol is deemed allowable while every conservative symbol is deemed forbidden:
JUSTICE ALITO: How about a shirt with a rainbow flag? Would that be permitted?
MR. ROGAN: A shirt with a rainbow flag? No, it would — yes, it would be — it would be permitted unless there was — unless there was an issue on the ballot that — that related somehow to — to gay rights.
JUSTICE ALITO: How about a shirt that says “Parkland Strong”?
MR. ROGAN: No, that would — that would be — that would be allowed. I think - I think, Your Honor -
JUSTICE ALITO: Even though gun control would very likely be an issue?
MR. ROGAN: To the extent -
JUSTICE ALITO: I bet some candidate would raise an issue about gun control.
MR. ROGAN: Your Honor, the — the - the line that we’re drawing is one that is - is related to electoral choices in a -
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, what’s the answer to this question? You’re a polling official. You’re the reasonable person. Would that be allowed or would it not be allowed?
MR. ROGAN: The — the Parkland?
JUSTICE ALITO: Yeah.
MR. ROGAN: I — I think — I think today that I — that would be — if — if that was in Minnesota, and it was “Parkland Strong,” I — I would say that that would be allowed in, that there’s not -
JUSTICE ALITO: Okay. How about an NRA shirt?
MR. ROGAN: An NRA shirt? Today, in Minnesota, no, it would not, Your Honor. I think that that’s a clear indication — and I think what you’re getting at, Your Honor -
JUSTICE ALITO: How about a shirt with the text of the Second Amendment?
MR. ROGAN: Your Honor, I — I — I think that that could be viewed as political, that that — that would be — that would be -
JUSTICE ALITO: How about the First Amendment?
(Laughter.)
MR. ROGAN: No, Your Honor, I don’t - I don’t think the First Amendment. And, Your Honor, I -
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: No — no what, that it would be covered or wouldn’t be allowed?
MR. ROGAN: It would be allowed.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: It would be?
MR. ROGAN: It would be. And — and I think the — I understand the — the idea, and I’ve — I’ve — there are obviously a lot of examples that — that have been bandied about here –
JUSTICE ALITO: Yeah, well, this is the problem. How about a Colin Kaepernick jersey?
MR. ROGAN: No, Your Honor, I don’t think that that would be under — under our statute. And I think -
JUSTICE ALITO: How about “All Lives Matter”?
MR. ROGAN: That could be, Your Honor, that could be — that could be perceived as political. And I — I think obviously, Your Honor, there — there are some hard calls and
there are always going to be hard calls. And that — that doesn’t mean that the line that we’ve drawn is — is unconstitutional or even unreasonable.
JUSTICE ALITO: How about an “I Miss Bill” shirt?
(Laughter.)
MR. ROGAN: I’m sorry, Your Honor? I didn’t –
JUSTICE ALITO: “I Miss Bill,” or to make it bipartisan, a “Reagan/Bush ’84” shirt?
MR. ROGAN: Yes, Your Honor, I believe that that’s political.
So to sum all of this up, the rainbow flag, “Parkland strong,” a Colin Kaepernick jersey, and the text of the First Amendment are all non-political and therefore could be worn at a polling place under this law. Meanwhile, an NRA shirt, “All Lives Matter,” and the text of the Second Amendment would be forbidden as being too partisan.
The standard of what constitutes political commentary offered by Daniel Rogan is so slanted here you have to wonder if he has a side gig at CNN. Only the references to presidents who left office years ago seem to be treated in a truly bipartisan way.
Rogan, with a little help from Justice Alito, has just demonstrated that what is judged partisan often means in practice ‘anything conservatives might say.’ Meanwhile, equally partisan slogans and images from the left get a pass as just part of the culture. It’s this double-standard—the unexamined assumptions about what is and is not partisan— that helps the left leverage its cultural power over conservatives.
The post Justice Alito highlights the cultural double-standard that benefits progressives appeared first on Hot Air.
]]>