The thrill of victory

Well our hard work paid off in David Cicilline's primary election victory yesterday. Yet, even though he is now the designated Democratic heir to Patrick Kennedy's seat in Rhode Island's first Congressional district, he still must face a Republican opponent with limitless money. Having been in politics for a while, Mayor Cicilline will be vulnerable to "anti-establishment" attacks. That these attacks are funded by billionaires won't be noticed by everyone. Nonetheless, I have great confidence that David Cicilline will prevail, and I look forward to seeing him do good things in Congress. I should also acknowledge the valiant efforts of the David Segal campaign in this race. Segal is a true progressive, who will certainly gain higher office eventually, if he continues to work hard in Rhode Island's State House. Hopefully his supporters (and those of Anthony Gemma and Bill Lynch) will see the importance of rallying behind David Cicilline in November!

The sad truth is 4.5 to 4 is all it takes

Today's Supreme Court Decision (entire text here) was the strongest evidence possible that this nation is in very real danger of rolling backwards into the swampy valley of old inequities, just as some of us had hoped we might make sufficient forward progress to reach drier elevations. Justice Kennedy seems to recognize as much in explaining why he can't concur entirely in the plurality's opinion.



"parts of the opinion by The Chief Justice imply an all-too-unyielding insistence that race cannot be a factor in instances when, in my view, it may be taken into account. The plurality opinion is too dismissive of the legitimate interest government has in ensuring all people have equal opportunity regardless of their race. The plurality’s postulate that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” ante, at 40–41, is not sufficient to decide these cases. Fifty years of experience since Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) , should teach us that the problem before us defies so easy a solution. School districts can seek to reach Brown’s objective of equal educational opportunity. The plurality opinion is at least open to the interpretation that the Constitution requires school districts to ignore the problem of de facto resegregation in schooling. I cannot endorse that conclusion. To the extent the plurality opinion suggests the Constitution mandates that state and local school authorities must accept the status quo of racial isolation in schools, it is, in my view, profoundly mistaken."



We desperately need new leadership in this country, capable not only of undoing the damage done to our republic by the Cheney -Bush administration, but of setting us back on a course of further progress towards a better society.