Tag Archives: freedom

The Supreme Court is Considering the Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering

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The case stems from a Wisconsin state districting case

where a three-judge lower court last year invalidated a redistricting plan enacted by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature in 2011.

That court insisted that, following the 2010 census, the Republican State legislature redrew its legislative districts to favor Republicans and disfavor Democrats.

Election results since then have shown the redistricting had its intended effect, with the GOP winning a larger majority in the state assembly, even as the statewide tally of votes was nearly even between Republicans and Democrats, the lower court said.

This smacks entirely too much of disparate impact sewage.  The ruling would be legitimately reversed on that ground alone.  That one party won a collection of close-run elections proves nothing.  Close-run means no more than that the two parties were evenly matched.  Apparently, an even election is too partisan, not favoring Democrats sufficiently, to suit the court.

The Supremes and lower courts have long held, though, that

gerrymandering that discriminates against minority voters [is] unconstitutional….

There aren’t any minority voters, only American citizen voters, though. Not any more.  As a Chief Justice John Roberts said only a few years ago in Parents Involved in Community Schools v Seattle School District No.1, the way to end discrimination is to stop discriminating.  Mandating districts explicitly to benefit minorities is exactly that cynical discrimination.

Woodrow Wilson once said about segregation that blacks should be grateful for the protection it affords them.  Is that really what today’s Progressive-Liberals, including the Liberal Justices on the Supreme Court, want?  We should return to that despicable era of racial racist discrimination?

Regardless of any of the foregoing, the question is easily enough settled, if there’s enough collective courage to do so.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: draw equal-sized district squares, regardless of demographics, deviating from the square shape only at State borders and only along the side that is the border.

Foolish

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The Justice Department is clashing with career site Glassdoor Inc over the company’s refusal to identify users who posted anonymous employee reviews of a veterans health-care company under federal investigation.

That’s been fought over in civil courts, but this is a first for a potentially criminal matter.  The Federal government is the one making the demand this time because the Feds want witnesses for a grand jury investigation into Glassdoor.

Whatever the parameters of any possible criminal case involved here, there are some questions that need careful consideration.  Leave aside 1st Amendment questions regarding a right, especially but not necessarily limited to political discourse, to discourse anonymously.

Forcing a potential witness to come forward and testify in open court seems counterproductive.  How credible, indeed, how objectively accurate, would a witness be who’s forced to testify?  Might such a witness say what his government forcer wants him to say?  Might such a witness’ memory become faulty?  Might such a witness’ testimony, however well he tries for accuracy, be slanted by…fear of consequences, frustration at being forced, other factors, factors that wouldn’t be present with voluntary testimony?

How would a court tell whether impacts from these factors are large or small in a particular case?  How would a court even recognize the presence of these factors?  Given presence, how would a court control for that presence?

Leaks, Again

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on leaks about ongoing investigations:

Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories any stories attributed to anonymous “officials,” particularly when they do not identify the country—let alone the branch or agency of government—with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated.

Indeed.  And here’s Peter Carr, a Robert Mueller spokesman, assuring us that Mueller’s special counsel operation

has undertaken stringent controls to prohibit unauthorized disclosures that deal severely with any member who engages in this conduct.

Then, I have to ask, why is Mueller still allowing these leaks to occur?  Why hasn’t he hailed his leakers into court, civil or criminal?

This Must Be Rejected

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Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló is coming to the mainland to stump for statehood for the territory on the basis of the just completed referendum on matter.  The referendum had only a 23% turnout after heavy boycotting by several other interests; the last referendum had a 78% turnout.  That tiny turnout, though, voted strongly for statehood rather than the status quo or independence, the alternatives on the ballot.

Rosselló’s effort should be strongly rejected.

There can be no question of Puerto Rican statehood until the territory has demonstrated stability in a responsible spending and taxing régime that also excludes outlandish debt.  This demonstration would require at the least first finishing the territory’s current bankruptcy proceedings and its recovery of its economy to a stable low debt and low taxation condition—a stability that can only be demonstrated across a generation or two.

We have enough States already with out of control spending, taxing, and debt—beginning with California, Illinois, and New York, but not ending there—and that are risks to the national weal without adding another profligate and irresponsible state government to the mess.

Despite boycotts by opposition parties that depressed voter turnout, Puerto Rican voters delivered “a clear rejection of the current colonial status and a path forward through statehood,” Governor Ricardo Rosselló said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Never mind the questionable validity of the referendum from the boycott.  Take the referendum’s outcome as a rejection of “colonial,” of territorial, status, at least; it certainly has seemed that or nearly so across the several referenda.  Another way to end that status is to become an independent, sovereign nation.

Of what are the Puerto Rican elites so afraid about independence?  Oh, wait—those elites wouldn’t have such ready access to OPM to support their virtue signaling and the spending on pseudo-welfare that supports it.

Censorship

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The Chinese Communist Party’s powerful disciplinary wing is taking aim at the country’s internet censors for not pushing a party-line agenda, saying they were “irresolute” in implementing the policies of President Xi Jinping and “not trying hard enough to ensure political security.”

Read: political purity.

…authorities now want people to become absorbed by politics as defined by the party.

“If you let people get too sucked into entertainment, no one will care about what the leaders are saying. If you don’t do this [crackdown], no one will watch the ‘Network News,'” he said, referring to the staid evening news program of the official state broadcaster, China Central Television.

This is the People’s Republic of China’s version of “freedom” and of “free” speech.  The PRC’s presence on the world stage needs to be watched with a careful and jaundiced eye, given how the government so disrespects its own people.

“You clap when they ban entertainment. What will you do when they ban you from clapping?” one user asked on Weibo.

Indeed.