I just want to say that some people (me, for instance) object to race-based affirmative action but don't object to "legacy" affirmative action (or other preferences received by various people) for the simple reason that it's against the law to discriminate on the basis of race.

Do you understand the difference between Title VII and affirmative action policies, and that the Ricci case had to do with the former?

Also, considering how demonstrably wrong you are in asserting that affirmative action policies are, on the whole, "against the law," you may want to dig a bit deeper for any underlying leanings that may have compelled you to manufacture such an erroneous conclusion and use it to prop up your illusory moral distinction between affirmative action and legacy policies.

When Salon did the article with the Clarence Thomas picture, how come they didn't use a picture with Justice Thomas smiling like the Sotomayor picture on the top of your article?

I know how hard it is to find a picture of him smiling online so here are a few links:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/06/20/Supreme-Court-ruling-favors-older-workers/UPI-64221213998414/

http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/audio-video/

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0eJJde18mF2Aj

http://www.upi.com/enl-win/78b1c76aaa3111b896f11ccaa15c7ce0/

Why don't you stop worrying about the impact on a Sotomayor and worry about whether the decision was right.

"Here we have the conservative wing of the Court declaring illegal the employment decisions of local government officials, who used a political approach -- diversity -- which conservatives dislike on policy grounds." - Glenn Greenwald, exemplifying classic doublespeak

New Haven administered a test, which was intended to provide an objective metric and determine who was qualified for promotion. The test was indepently reviewed and found to be appropriate.

Test results demonstrated that only white and hispanic people were qualified for promotion. New Haven didn't like that fact, so the test was tossed.

Glenn's use of the phrases "political approach", and "diversity", suggesting that this was just another political decision is bs. . . . you really think slapping those phrases onto a race based decision making process, makes that process acceptable? . . . legal?

I hope sotomayor doesn't feel that way. . . . maybe if she had offered an actual opinion in this case, as opposed to a simple judgement, we would know.

It seems pretty clear what the right-wing tactic and goal are:

As with Roe v. Wade, to bring a series of suits designed not to overturn the law, but to make abortion increasingly difficult and eventually all-but impossible to get.

With the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, the right wing is successfully deploying the same tactic: using the SOTUS majority to slow whittle away at those rights for the historically disenfranchised and discriminated against.

Does a Democratic Congress have the time or the will to craft and pass legislation to counter this right-wing SOTUS? Were there WMD's in Iraq?

but it should really be seen for what it is in America--the protector/perpetuator of class heirarchy. The gamut of consumer rights, civil rights, voting rights, environmental rights, . . . that to one degree or another began with LBJ have been systematically gutted by corporate America and the paleoconservatives.

Slate has had pretty good coverage of the factual issues at play in Ricci: http://www.slate.com/id/2221250/entry/2221252/ . . . and for all the trolls around here who think the "New Haven promotion test" was such a good "objective" measure of "leadership" qualifications (in an area of the country where "white nepotism" is the historical standard), you're full of shit. It had zero to do with managerial capacity and everything to do with estoric fire science trivia of very questionable applicability to actual performance requirements of the positions in question (and "oddly enough" only about 20% of their "calls" are fire related--they're mostly "accidents" like everywhere else in the country). And oddly enough Ricci and his buddies don't even care enough about New Haven to live there--they live in the rich predominantly white (97-99% white) suburbs and just commute in for the cushy civil service jobs on the brown taxpayers' dime--how noble.

Here's an easy solution to all of this--civil service laws should require a civil "servant" to live in the community and send his/her children to the public schools in that community as the one condition of accepting a taxpayer "subsidized" salary and benefits package. Keeps the bulk of taxpayer funds in the community and ensures the people who are taking "public service" positions actually have a stake in the community they are "serving".

And while America has done much to erase de jure discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, and gender, we are perfectly content as a culture to look away at all the instances of de fact discrimination, the invidious discrimination that flows from generational poverty, an unjust economic system, and a crumbling public education system (our children and our nation's future).

Justice is an incredibly hollow concept in America unless it's rich man's justice. Once the "tort reform" and "voting rights" assaults are complete we can all settle back into our traditional neofeudal/plantation/neoliberal economic roles--the few members of the property class, the slightly wider belt of bureaucrats/professionals and the rest of the "sharecropper" class paying for the privilege to eke out an existence and birth enough kids to care for parents in old age and replenish the ranks of the military and fast food industries. And then the rich can get back to plundering every last natural resource from this once great land and squeezing every last cent from another man's productive labor.

I'm just waiting for the legislation that taxes the poor while they're alive for their own burials/cremations. I'm sure the rich will find a legal way to turn the deceased poor into the food on which the next generation of poor survives to work for his overlords--like soylent green only browner.

In your world there are no bribes, payoffs, graft, speaking engagements or book deals.

Being a congressman is also a great financial sacrifice - yeah, right.

Look at poor Bill Clinton - being president is the greatest financial sacrifice of all.

We should send them money in the mail. Those poor dear public servants!