Deep Servile POS DE Media Thought
In view of the fact that Mike Castle wants to be a Senator, you’d think that someone in the DE media might think to ask him how he would vote on the Sotomayor nomination.
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.
Delaware media can’t even be bothered to ask Castle about bills he already voted for.
I’m about to call Allan Loudell out on this. He acts like a regular old school journalist, but when it comes to treating Castle with kid gloves he is no better than Celia or the News Journal.
In Castle’s world, and Carper’s too, a reporter asking them “Why did you vote this way on this bill?” is equally offensive as Jason calling them a douchebag. Either way they will not return your phone calls.
The Hill has asked the question of actual GOP Senate candidates:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/gop-hopefuls-dont-disclose-how-theyd-vote-on-sotomayor-2009-07-14.html
If asked about Sotomayor, Castle would talk for ten minutes and say nothing. That’s what he does. That is who he is. But he should still be asked. His non-response is a response.
I’m still waiting for someone to ask Castle why he is out and about supporting Recovery projects that he voted against.
Another thing WDEL could do is actually report on the Ricci case via the question at law that was under consideration, rather than taking the wingnut view that this was some kind of vindication of angry white guys. I just heard a summary of their report on this segueing into a bit by Tom Ross who clearly doesn’t get that the decision was, either. But they are still pushing that angry white guy thing, though, and trying to make your case that Judge Sotomayor isn’t qualified because she probably won’t privilege the angry white man contingent isn’t exactly going to help grow your party.
Cassandra — here’s my take on Ricci.
If the situation had been reversed, and all promotions were going to minorities, would the city have refused to make those proportions? If you can, with a straight face, make the argument that New Haven would have behaved precisely the same as it did (and New Haven admits in its briefs that it would not have done so), then the district court and Sotomayor were right and SCOTUS was wrong. On the other hand, if you concede that race was the controlling factor here, then you have a clear 14th Amendment problem.
And for those who argue that SCOTUS changed the standard — welcome to the world of the evolving constitution!
The thing that the city was trying to avoid was a lawsuit. And was clearly within their rights to toss out the test. This was the question at hand — not whether or or not race was important.
So now all municipalities and other entities that use testing to help justify promotions are rethinking that stance — taking a hard look at whether other types of tests, a portfolio of work or a practicum approach.
Actually, that isn’t the case. They had to show that the test had an impermissible disparate impact based upon race — something they could not do here, given the lengths they went to to devise a process that was race neutral.
And besides, the Fourteenth Amendment does apply to EVERYONE, not just minorities. A government body refusing to promote folks because of their race is simply unacceptable — doesn’t matter what the race is.
And as for all the other municipalities and entities looking at other ways to justify promotions — sounds good t me, if they can come up with something better that doesn’t include race as a factor.
Cass: He’ll go back to Texas if you stop responding. Ask him why he doesn’t go to law school since he’s so interested.
Yes, I know. Stop feeding the trolls. It can be so satisfying, though, to make sure these fools know how wrong they really are. Besides, RWR probably could only get into Regent Law School. Since he couldn’t begin to ell you the particulars of a case he is arguing for — he can just apply a litmus test.
Actually, I’ve got a master’s in political science from a major midwestern university — focus on Con Law. I was admitted to law school, but instead chose to attend the Catholic seminary that fall. When I left the seminary (celibacy ain’t all it’s cracked up to be), I went into teaching instead — and have taught on the high school and college level for the last 15 years.
As for Regent University, I would never get in — you couldn’t get me to sign on to their statement of faith or code of conduct.
As for my ability to speak to the issues in the Ricci case, here’s a brief analysis of the problem with the city’s actions and, consequently, Sotomayor’s decision.
* * * * *
The problem with the city’s position is that they did set their standards in advance — spent huge amounts of money to develop a racially neutral test, established racially balanced interview teams to rate the candidates, and implemented the system. When the results came in and the rankings were released, it was the case that the top finishers were white and Hispanic. Rather than abide by the results of their own race-neutral selection process, they gave into the grievance-mongers who threatened lawsuits and electoral retaliation if the results were not set aside. The mayor threatened the members of the civil service board with retaliation if they certified the promotion list.
The result? The city set aside the list — by its own admission in the documents it filed with the various courts — based upon the race and ethnicity of the successful candidates.
Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds to me like a clear violation of the 14h Amendment.
And I’m curious, how you would respond if the reverse had been the case — whites had failed while minorities had been successful and the city had set aside the results because too many blacks were getting promoted. Would you defend such a move by New Haven? Or would you rightly condemn such a move as unAmerican?
Chief Justice Roberts got it right in an earlier term — the way to stop racial discrimination is to quit discriminating based upon race. And that is doubly true when we are dealing with discrimination by government — for every American has a right to expect fair and equal treatment from government, regardless of race.