Month: May 2009

Scott Horton debates Stu Taylor – two of the finest minds on both sides of this debate:

Ryan Avent frets:

The NYT is touting this as the now-central line of criticism. Tom Goldstein has actually looked at the record. It seems as if the critics should try another tack:

Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals. 

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions.  Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous.  (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.)  Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge.  In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case.  So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.

In sum, in an eleven-year career on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has participated in roughly 100 panel decisions involving questions of race and has disagreed with her colleagues in those cases (a fair measure of whether she is an outlier) a total of 4 times.  Only one case (Gant) in that entire eleven years actually involved the question whether race discrimination may have occurred.  (In another case (Pappas) she dissented to favor a white bigot.)  She participated in two other panels rejecting district court rulings agreeing with race-based jury-selection claims.

Given that record, it seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decisionmaking.

Absurd would be the word. I don't doubt she's a liberal on these issues – guess who won the election – but I see no smoking racial gun here. Even a toy one.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty.)

I try to avoid the subject by and large in my private life, when dealing with friendship. But a Yahoo research project created a Facebook app, Friend Sense, to solve two empirical paradoxes:

(Hat tip: The Monkey Cage)

Bradford, England, 9 am

A reader writes:

A while back I emailed:

I have no doubt that Obama and most in his administration are thoroughly appalled at the images, but they can see nothing other than trouble if they are released now. In fact, these photos must be so horrific, given the context of who we know authorized the acts depicted therein, that releasing them now would risk unleashing multiple hydra out of this pandora's box.

And now Horton confirms it. And Cheney, Bush and The Torture Boys are rushing as fast as they can to erect a wall between them and the Abu Ghraib photos, though ultimately it too shall crumble. In the meantime, these photos will find a weak point in the media dam and burst forth, to the embarrassment and dismay of the non-disclosure brigade. If I were to wager a guess, I'd say they will come out on the eve of Obama's speech in Egypt. How's that for a backdrop, eh?

Gibbs' knock on British newspapers was full of stereotyping and generalizations. He gave himself enough wiggle room. They're all trying to hold off the flood until after the Egypt speech and subsequent positive developments in the Middle East give Obama enough chips that he can cash some of them in to wash off the disgrace. And notice Whitman's denial quote in the Horton article:

“None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article.”

Any denial full of "nones", "nots" and "thats" needs to be consumed with adequate amounts of salt. And it sounds like another famous denial:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

It would be karmic justice indeed if the reputations of Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld are shredded beyond repair once the sexual content of the Abu Ghraib photos finally causes the chain-of-command communications out into the light of day and truth. As with all our past and famous miscreants, you're ultimately undone by sex or taxes.

Ecocomics, a new blog, combines comics and economics. A taste:

(hat tip: Yglesias)

A.L. isn't so sure about the Boies/Olson lawsuit:

They're taking a very big risk. Some have even suggested that this lawsuit is a cynical ploy to have this issue litigated at the federal level before the time is right. I don't think that's the case. I think Boies and Olson are sincere in their beliefs and want to win. I do think, however, that they are knowingly taking a big risk because they want to be the lawyers whose names are forever attached to the landmark opinion creating marriage equality. They want to be the Thurgood Marshalls of this particular civil rights issue, even though they are latecomers to the cause. In other words, they are grandstanding.

My best guess is that they're gambling that we are nearing a tipping point on gay marriage and they want to be the first lawyers to get their case all the way to the Supreme Court. They're gambling that by the time that happens, the political environment will be ripe for a Loving v. Virginia type of decision. I don't know if that's true. I've written here before that I think we'll see such a decision within ten years. But within 2 to 4? I don't know.

A reader writes:

I laughed out loud here in France when I saw the title of your posting, 'Young Cons', because here in French "con" means an idiot or an asshole. I quickly realized that was not what you intended, then I watched the video and saw these white guys trying to rap about their (mostly white) issues…and I realized the title was perfectly apt.

Today on the Dish we heard from Horton that the rape torture photos are legit, debated torture with Andy McCarthy, showed how Cheney lied about Abu Ghraib, and learned that at least one terrorist caved to cookies.

Republican leaders started to cool their rhetoric over Sotomayor while Ta-Nehisi went after Newt and racial misconceptions. Netanyahu appeared rattled over pressure from Washington and Indyk voiced tough love over Israel. Chait spelled out the irrational stance of gay marriage opponents, while we learned that Wikipedia has banned Scientologists, Brit journos drink too much, and the Anti-Christ is gay.

In the wonderful world of YouTube, we saw white Republican rappers, half-naked boarders, and a lesson in personal grooming.