Free Republic

For Specter, politics trumps the Constitution on race. Ramesh Ponnuru noted on "The Corner" Monday that Arlen Specter is bad not just on Roe v. Wade, but on another hot-button judicial issue, namely racial preferences. Ramesh points out that Specter wanted the Bush administration to defend racial preferences in university admissions, which is troubling enough, and when Bush declined to do so before the Supreme Court, Specter threatened to push back. "We are assertive when we think the circumstances warrant it, and I think this issue does," Specter said. "There are things we can do about it in the Senate....

Thomas D. Griffith, a professor of taxation, and Peter Kirsanow, a U.S. commissioner on civil rights, agree that there is a problem of racial disparity between white and black students in schools. What they don't agree on is how to fix the problem. On Wednesday, in front of a crowd of nearly 40 students at the USC Law School, Griffith and Kirsanow debated the issues surrounding the use of affirmative action in schools. The event, sponsored by the USC Federalist Society, aimed at discussing whether the controversial policy affects minority students, said Matthew Parks, president of the USC Law School...

When the campaign to ban race-conscious programs in Michigan faced lawsuits and internal disagreements this spring, most assumed it would implode and fade away. But the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is still active, and its leaders expect to finish its goal in the next month. The group is currently gathering signatures to eliminate the use of race in public education, employment and contracting. It must collect 317,757 signatures by January 2005 to get its issue on the ballot for 2006. MCRI began this January and sought to complete its drive in July to place the proposal on the November ballot....

Following the impressive victory of the Republican Party in the midterm elections of 2002, President Bush’s political policy advisor, Karl Rove, basked in the political limelight. Rove was credited with designing the winning strategy, not only for 2002, but also for the two victorious campaigns of his boss in Texas, and for the Presidential win of 2000. A number of interviews and public appearances followed, and several books. The full titles of two of them speak for themselves: Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains behind the remarkable political Triumph of George W. Bush, by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid, and Carl...

"We did not know how to react in the appropriate fashion. We have showed weakness in the face of danger and the weak get beaten up." Vladimir Putin Former President Bubba seems to have had an emergency cardiac event -- maybe even an infarction. He needed emergency admission and has some clogged cardiac arteries. We wish him well. Stomping all over him politically and resenting the bejabbers out of the kind of politics he practised and represents has nothing whatsoever to do with our concern for his health and his soul. The DimocRATs are, frog-like, swelling up in righteous indignation,...

In their quest to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Alan Keyes and Barack Obama are innovators seeking to topple old political assumptions about race. Illinois has a record as host to such innovation. It was in the pre-Civil War Illinois towns such as Charleston and Galesburg that an ambivalent Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, tried out the relatively novel idea that the black man "was as much entitled" to constitutional rights as the white man. Lincoln lost the race, but his debates with Stephen Douglas set the stage for the war and emancipation. The result...

STEVE EDWARDS, HOST: After more than 6 weeks of résumés, interviews, and help-wanted ads, the Illinois Republican Party now has its Senate candidate. CLIP, ALAN KEYES, CANDIDACY ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH: "The battle is for us, but I have confidence because the victory is for God." STEVE EDWARDS, HOST: Hello, I'm Steve Edwards. Today on Eight Forty-Eight, Alan Keyes joins us in studio to talk about his candidacy and the campaign ahead. [break] EDWARDS: Republican Alan Keyes embarks on his first full day of campaigning for Illinois' open U.S. senate seat today. Yesterday the 54-year old Maryland resident announced he was entering...

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS -- Less than 24 hours after officially entering the U.S. Senate race Republican Alan Keyes hit the ground running on Monday and began laying the groundwork for what is expected to be a whirlwind campaign against Democratic rival Barack Obama. Keyes joined the race ending six difficult weeks for Republicans looking to replace Jack Ryan, who left the race after embarrassing details of his divorce from actress Jeri Ryan was released in court records. A former ambassador to the United Nations and two-time presidential candidate, Keyes entry into the race against Obama marks the first time in the...

JACQUE REID, ANCHOR: History is being made in Illinois as, for the first time ever, two black candidates go head-to-head for the U.S. Senate. The Democratic Party's so-called golden boy, Barack Obama, says he welcomes two-time Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes to the race, which is already heating up. BET's Andre Showell reports. CLIP OF ALAN KEYES: "I was absolutely convinced that SOMEBODY had to run against Barack Obama." ANDRE SHOWELL, REPORTER: Now that Illinois U.S. Senate hopeful has answered the GOP's call, he has just under three months to gain steam in what promises to be an uphill race...

There are some individuals who write comments in The Illinois Leader who seem to think that they alone are the only true keepers of the flame of conservative principles. I would not mind that so much if they ever did any real research on what those principles are, and what they mean. Oscar de Priest was the first African American member of Congress to be elected from any northern state in 1928. Almost all other African American members of Congress before then had served southern states during Reconstruction. Oscar de Priest was a Republican from Chicago and a former city...

McClintock is the choice in this race with Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Gray Davis, and to argue otherwise is to force us into a position where we once again have to do battle with one of these extreme liberals pretending to be a Republican. September 19, 2003 ALAN COLMES, HOST: Could General Wesley Clark's entrance into an already crowded field of Democrats prove to be the breaking point for the candidates that are just trying to hold on, and does Clark have the qualifications to be president? Joining us now, former presidential candidate--no stranger to the hustings--Ambassador Alan Keyes. Ambassador, I'm...

Pragmatism or momentum? [John C. Eastman] 9/13/03 With three and a half weeks to go before election day, it remains clear from polling data that Cruz Bustamante, Governor Gray Davis’s lieutenant, has even less support from the electorate than his fellow Democrat facing our first-in-history recall. With good reason. If, as seems to be the case, voters are angered over Davis’s sell-out to special interests at the expense of the fiscal and moral health of the State, they are beginning to realize that Bustamante offers more of the same, maybe worse. His recent acceptance of a massive, legally dubious $2...

"Indeed, it's hard to see how anyone who's ever had any dealings with Mr. Holmes, as we have, would have anything but respect for the man." Familiarity breeds respect from Arkansas Online THE DOG DAYS, they're called, this time of year when the days grow hotter and tempers shorter. It's a good time to sit back, have some iced tea, and think on why some political disputes don't ignite here in Arkansas. Sometimes both parties can even get behind the same nominee for the judiciary. It can happen when the nominee is an Arkansan like James Leon Holmes. He's a...

July 20th On July 9, 2003, Ward Connerly--founder and director of the American Civil Rights Institute and the driving force behind California's abandonment of race-based college admissions--received the following letter from Congressman John D. Dingell of Michigan. Mr. Connerly has asked that Rep. Dingell's letter, which is currently posted at the congressman's website, be given wide publicity, along with Mr. Connerly's response. Since 1993, Mr. Connerly has been a member of the University of California Board of Regents and is credited with ending race-based admissions at UC. He also led California's successful Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) in 1996. His...

Rush Limbaugh gives the golden mike to Ward for a part of the show today! Roger Hedgecock will be the guest host today and Ward will be on at 2 pm (Eastern) to discuss the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

In the Michigan Affirmative Action cases recently decided by the United States Supreme Court, Justice Thomas cited the Declaration of Independence. I quote from his dissent: For the immediate future, however, the majority has placed its imprimatur on a practice that can only weaken the principle of equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Equal Protection Clause. "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."Thomas is right. The Court, led in this case by Justice O'Connor, has betrayed American Principle and Constitutional Law. It has allowed unequal treatment of citizens on the basis of...

Not long ago, I had an unexpected opportunity to explain to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor why I've changed my mind about affirmative action. I had been invited to give a talk about racial preferences for the justices of the Supreme Court of India, who were in Washington on a judicial exchange program. When I arrived at the conference room, I found, to my surprise and alarm, that the assembled Indian justices were accompanied by their hosts, Justices O'Connor and Stephen G. Breyer, who decided at the last moment to come along for the discussion. The thought of presuming to give...

<p>The University of Michigan is hiding behind an obscure legal exception to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act. It is an unseemly position for a public institution of U-M's stature.</p> <p>The university is refusing a FOIA request from an Ann Arbor-based free-lance investigator to turn over the first few years of data used in a report U-M contends proves diversity on campus produces important educational benefits.</p>

The American people have long been of two minds concerning the concept of affirmative action. On the one hand, the broad notion of "outreach" to assure that all people have an equal chance to pursue public and private opportunity enjoys wide support, but the public has long opposed racial preferences in overwhelming numbers. The legal brief recently filed by the Bush administration in the University of Michigan affirmative action case stakes out a middle ground, which should not be surprising given the natural tendency of politicians to attempt to please as many people as possible. However, while the brief may...

The Racial Privacy Initiative (RPI) is one of the best, fairest, wisest, and most far-seeing initiatives that will ever be put before California voters. As a classically liberal, politically independent, lock-and-load centrist, the welfare of the California Republican Party is not one of my prime concerns. But I and every citizen of California have a debt of gratitude to the California Republican Party for the unanimous decision of its convention delegates last weekend to support the RPI. If by standing on high principle and aggressively championing the RPI the Republican Party wins for that initiative as many votes from Democrats...