A Couple Of Examples Of Real Systemic Racism in the U.S.

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  • There has been a lot of talk recently about “systemic racism” in the United States.

  • At first, I was skeptical of the term, particularly because those who throw the term around rarely name an example of specific conduct by anyone that intentionally disadvantages blacks. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that there actually are quite a number of instances of major societal institutions engaging in systemic conduct that is clearly known to differentially disadvantage blacks.

  • In every case I can think of, the conduct that systemically disadvantages blacks is a sacred cow of the left promoted for the benefit of some other progressive interest group.

  • For today, I’ll discuss two of the most clear-cut examples.

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The Difference That A "Packed" Supreme Court Would Make

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  • The impending confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court promises to bring us a Court with a 6-3 “conservative” majority. As a result, Democrats could be facing decades in the Supreme Court wilderness.

  • Even if Biden wins the election for President, the only member of the Court likely to retire in the next few years is Justice Breyer, who recently turned 82; but since Breyer is one of the Court’s “liberals,” Biden’s replacing of Breyer would not change the Court’s ideological balance. The next oldest Justice is Clarence Thomas, currently 72, which is youthful by today’s Supreme Court standards.

  • But there’s another possibility. Congress could potentially increase the number of Justices, giving Biden as President the ability theoretically to add four, or six, or even more Justices in an attempt to cement a permanent Democratic majority.

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Covid-19 Is An Opportunity To Disrupt Education

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  • Despite overwhelming evidence that opening schools for in-person education is both safe and beneficial for children, teachers unions across the U.S. continue to try to hold families hostage in pursuit of political gains.

  • As the unions overplay their hands, there is a great opportunity for market disruption of the dysfunctional union-controlled status quo. . . .

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Teachers Unions Will Sacrifice Their Students For Their Politics

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The following is a guest post written by my daughter Jane Menton:

  • Last week, United Teachers Los Angeles, the second largest teachers’ union in the U.S., announced that its members will not participate in reopening schools in the fall unless their conditions are met. The conditions are then listed in a lengthy report.

  • LA schools superintendent Austin Beutner promptly followed on July 13 with a decision not to reopen, which he described as “painful,” but “we have to keep health and safety first.”

  • Health? Safety? Both the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics have released their own research stating that the health and safety of the students would be best served by reopening the schools. . . .

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Surely Minneapolis, Of All Places, Must Have Cured Racism By Now

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  • Progressives and Democrats are the people who never tire of accusing their political adversaries of racism, or maybe even of “white supremacism.” Elect us, the message is, and we will do away with these evils for good.

  • If that proposition were valid, then clearly Minneapolis would be in the forefront of those places that have long since done away with racism. Among bastions of woke progressivism in this country, it is almost impossible to top Minneapolis.

  • The place is currently run from top to bottom and at all levels of government by representatives of the far left wing of the Democratic Party; and that has been true for as far back as human memory stretches. Consider: . . .

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Now You Tell Us -- "Curbs On Unions Likely To Starve Activist Groups"

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"Curbs On Unions Likely To Starve Activist Groups" -- that's the lead headline (top right of page A1) in today's print edition of the New York Times.  In the online edition, it's "Supreme Court Labor Decision Wasn't Just a Loss for Unions."  The gist of the article is that this right-wing Supreme Court is now going after our friends to de-fund them.  To Pravda, that seems to be a big problem.  To me, it seems like there's a rather gigantic scandal going on here that has nothing to do with what Pravda thinks is the scandal.  

The Times's article discusses the effects of the Supreme Court's decision last week in the case called Janus v. AFSCME.  That's the case that invalidated so-called "fair share" payments, which are the payments that many state and local governments have required their employees to make to labor unions, even if a given employee declines to join the union.  Henceforth, under the majority opinion in Janus by Justice Alito, if a government employee does not want to join a labor union, he does not have to pay the union anything as a condition of keeping his job.

OK, but how exactly is this going to "starve activist groups"?  After all, prior to this decision, didn't non-members of the union already have the right to decline to contribute to the union's political activities, and to limit their payments to the portion of union dues that supports collective bargaining activities? 

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