Sonia Sotomayor gets it right in Michigan affirmative action dissent

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent from the high court’s 6-2 decision Tuesday to uphold Michigan’s voter-approved ban on affirmative action for public universities has been variously described as “blistering," “scathing,” and "outraged."

It is passionate, for sure, but it is actually logical and scholarly, and well worth curling up with.

She laments that the court’s role as a bulwark against suppression of the minority has crumbled, and that her colleagues have allowed Michigan voters “to do what our Constitution forbids.”

(Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in his majority opinion, noted that race considerations in college admissions are permissible. He wrote that the case was not about how the debate over racial preferences should be resolved, but rather who may resolve it – in this case, the voters. This seems disingenuous; since when are voters the final word when it comes to protecting the interest of the minority, in this case, a racial minority?)

The power of Sotomayor's dissent comes from her deft and persuasive distillation of what she calls the country’s “long and lamentable” history of racial discrimination.

If you think that these efforts have ended with the election of a black president, you haven’t been keeping up with the news. In many places -- Arizona, Kansas, and Ohio to name three -- outright racism has been replaced with more subtle kinds of discrimination. The Michigan law, as Sotomayor writes, is part of an effort to “make it more difficult for the minority, and the minority alone, to obtain policies designed to foster racial integration.”

READ MORE HERE

High court upholds Mich affirmative action ban

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Michigan’s ban on using race as a factor in college admissions.

The justices said in a 6-2 ruling that Michigan voters had the right to change their state constitution to prohibit public colleges and universities from taking account of race in admissions decisions. The justices said that a lower federal court was wrong to set aside the change as discriminatory.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters chose to eliminate racial preferences because they deemed them unwise.

Kennedy said nothing in the Constitution or the court’s prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results.

“This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it,” Kennedy said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision tramples on the rights of minorities, even though the amendment was adopted democratically. “But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups,” said Sotomayor, who read her dissent aloud in the courtroom Tuesday. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Sotomayor in dissent.

READ MORE HERE

Obama: LBJ's Civil Rights Legacy Reflects 'What The Hell The Presidency Is For'

President Barack Obama honored the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act Thursday, praising former President Lyndon B. Johnson's work to fulfill the promise of American equality.

Speaking at a ceremony in Austin, Texas, Obama said he has "lived out the promise of LBJ's efforts" by serving as the country's first black president.

Obama added that even with the power of the presidency, Johnson's civil rights work showed he never forgot growing up in the face of poverty and racial hatred.

"He believed that their plight was his plight too, that his freedom ultimately was wrapped up in theirs, and that making their lives better was what the hell the presidency was for," Obama said.

Obama also commended Johnson for his ability to push through legislation in Congress, even in the face of opposition from within the Democratic party.

"The story of America is a story of progress, however slow, however incomplete," Obama said.

Suspect in Pennsylvania high school stabbing spree had 'blank look' on his face during attack

The 16-year-old boy charged Wednesday after he allegedly stabbed 21 students during a five-minute rampage at a high school near Pittsburgh had a "blank look" on his face during the attack, a witness said.

"He was just kind of looking like he always does, not smiling, not scowling or frowning," Mia Meixner, 16, said, remembering the suspect as a quiet classmate.

Alex Hribal, 16, a sophomore at Franklin Regional Senior High School, was charged with four counts of attempted homicide,  21 counts of aggravated assault and one count of possessing a prohibited weapon on school property, according to a criminal complaint released by Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck.

"It felt like he hit me with a wet rag because I felt the blood splash on my face"

- Nate Moore

Looking for a motive, Murrysville Police Chief Thomas Seefeld said investigators were checking reports of a threatening phone call between Hribal and another student the night before. He didn't say whether the suspect received or made the call.

The stabbing spree occurred just before class Wednesday. One student said he thought the melee was a fistfight, but said it turned out that Hribal was not punching, but stabbing his victim in the belly.

Meixner said the boy who was tackled by Hribal tried to fight back, then, when his assailant got off him, stood up and lifted his shirt to reveal a midsection covered in blood.READ MORE HERE

House approves Ryan plan to cut budget $5 trillion

The House approved a spending framework Thursday that would shave more than $5 trillion of expected spending, advancing Rep. Paul Ryan’s final budget proposal on a largely party-line vote.

The Wisconsin Republican, whose term as Budget Committee chairman expires later this year, offered a last fiscal framework that included his controversial overhaul of Medicare and other entitlement programs, while also advocating a reduction of top individual tax rates down to 25 percent. Democrats blasted the proposal as a “windfall tax break for millionaires”, as Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) described it, and they vowed to make the 2014 midterm elections a referendum on Ryan’s proposals and its impact on the middle class.

The vote on Ryan’s budget, which followed the rejection of several other proposals, including Van Hollen’s, was 219 Republicans for the measure and 193 Democrats opposing it. Twelve Republicans voted against the Ryan measure, most of those believing that it was not conservative enough.

The debate was even more symbolic than most budget debates, as Ryan and his Senate Budget Committee counterpart, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), reached a two-year budget framework in December that is serving as the baseline for doling out federal funds in 2014 and 2015. Senate Democrats have announced they will not even hold the usual annual budget debate because of the Ryan-Murray agreement.

Ryan still put forward an austere proposal that built largely on his previous three proposals, calling his plan “a question of  trust” in the closing moments of the debate. “We trust the American people,” he said.

READ MORE HERE

Hobby Lobby Invests In Abortion Pill Manufacturers

The owners of Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned craft supply chain, were so offended by the idea of having to include emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices in their health insurance plans that they sued the Obama administration and took the case all the way up to the Supreme Court. But Mother Jones reported on Tuesday that the company's retirement plan has invested millions of dollars in the manufacturers of emergency contraception and drugs used to induce abortions.

Hobby Lobby's 401(k) employee retirement plan holds $73 million in mutual funds that invest in multiple pharmaceutical companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and abortion-inducing medications.

The companies Hobby Lobby invests in include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes the Plan B morning-after pill and ParaGard, a copper IUD, as well as Pfizer, the maker of the abortion-inducing drugs Cytotec and Prostin E2. Hobby Lobby's mutual funds also invest in two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in their health care policies.

Hobby Lobby's attorneys argue that the provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires most employers to cover contraception in their health plans infringes on the company's right to exercise religious freedom because the company's owners believe that emergency contraception and IUDs are actually forms of abortion. Medical studies have debunked this claim.

Mother Jones reported that all nine of the mutual funds Hobby Lobby's retirement plan holds include investments that clash with the owners' religious beliefs about abortion.

School District Holds First Official Integrated Prom (And Yes, You Are Reading This In 2014

A Georgia school district is just holding its first racially integrated prom.

This past weekend, Wilcox County High School in Rochelle sponsored a prom for both black in white students. In the past the school has not sponsored proms, but instead allowed parents to sponsor segregated, invitation-only events.

Last year, a group of students organized a prom for students of all colors, although the school did not officially hold the event. The students raised money for the event via social media.

“Love really has no color, and I want everybody to know that if you stand up for something you believe in only positive things can come from it,” Mareshia Rucker, a 2013 prom organizer told WMAZ-TV said at the time.

While the school has certainly taken a step forward by holding the integrated prom, some students do not feel that everyone at the school has been supportive of the event.

"I'm absolutely sure that there are teachers that are still in the system right now that are at my school and they still don't want an integrated prom," Rucker told The Indy Channel over the weekend.

Wilcox County High School was first integrated during the 1970s, per The New York Times.

A representative for the school could not be reached for comment.

Supreme Court strikes down limits on federal campaign donations

A split Supreme Court Wednesday struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual may spend on political candidates as a violation of free speech rights, a decision sure to increase the role of money in political campaigns. 

The 5 to 4 decision sparked a sharp dissent from liberal justices, who said the decision reflects a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court’s conservatives showed in Citizens United v. FEC , which allowed corporate spending on elections.

Supreme Court ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC

“If Citizens United opened a door,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in reading his dissent from the bench, “today’s decision we fear will open a floodgate.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the opinion striking down the aggregate limits of what an individual may contribute to candidates and political committees.

The decision did not affect the limit an individual may contribute to a specific candidate, currently $2,600.

But Roberts said an individual should be able to contribute that much to as many candidates as he chooses, which was not allowed by the donation cap.

“An aggregate limit on how many candidates and committees an individual may support through contributions is not a modest restaint at all,” Roberts wrote. “The government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse.”

With Roberts as chief justice, the Supreme Court has never upheld federal campaign finance laws from challenge, a series of decisions that culminated in Citizens United. That has proved to be a ruling deeply unpopular according to polls, and Roberts seemed to acknowledge that in his ruling.

“Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects,” Roberts wrote. “If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades — despite the profound offense such spectacles cause — it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition.”

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined Roberts. Justice Clarence Thomas provided the crucial fifth vote for overturning the limits, but said the others should have gone further to strike all contribution limits.

Breyer was joined in dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The aggregate totals that the court struck down in the case — McCutcheon v. FEC --imposed a $48,600 limit on contributions to candidates during a two-year election cycle, plus $74,600 total on giving to political parties and committees.

READ MORE HERE