You have probably heard of Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, and oft-quoted [liberal] expert on politics. I recently saw a piece he wrote about changing the electoral system and will quote him here not for his political expertise, but for his thought process as a liberal:

More than two centuries later, despite the many storms that have engulfed presidential elections, the Twelfth Amendment still marks the most significant change to the Electoral College in all of American history--a fact that alone suggests that some rethinking may be in order.

In other words, we should change the Constitution not because it is creating unforeseen problems, or because it has demonstrably failed. No - regardless of the Constitution's merits, we should change it for the sole reason that it's old.

I'm not taking a position on the issue tackled in his article here. Regardless of one's position on that issue, it should be considered asinine to reject the Constitution simply for its age. But I suppose it's no wonder the [liberal] media loves to quote him.

According to a Rasmussen poll, 63% of voters agree with the Supreme Court's ruling on the landmark gun case D.C. v. Heller. Only 25% don't. Half of those are burglars.

A man who shot and killed two burglars crawling out of his neighbor's home has been cleared in court. I haven't been following this case and I don't know its details, but obviously to me, if the burglars got down on their knees and put their hands up, you don't shoot them. But according to him, they were still threatening him, which, if that is the case, makes him a hero. I bet you no one's gonna burglarize any homes in that neighborhood anytime soon.

You may have read this piece a couple of months ago in the Wall Street Journal detailing how the American Bar Association has pressured the George Mason University School of Law to accept more minorities at lower standards, even threatening to revoke the school's accreditation.

Well, GMU Law had no other choice but to begin to comply, and the results, as we see in other affirmative action programs, were not so hot. My friend Andy Guess over at Inside Higher Ed wrote a very good (yet sad!) article about what happened to GMU Law upon being forced to accept less than qualified minorities. Excerpt (emphasis mine):

The “mismatch” theory, as it’s been called, posits that some African-American students have struggled and at times dropped out of highly competitive law schools even though they might have thrived at lower-ranked or less rigorous institutions, and gone on to pass the bar exam. The article concluded that without affirmative action, black students would be better “matched” with institutions that meet their qualifications, and that disparities in failure rates would disappear.

Now, an organization that opposes race-conscious admissions policies asserts that it has found data from one particular institution illustrating the sort of dynamic the study would predict. According to data obtained through a public records request, from 2003 to 2005 some 45 percent of African-American students at George Mason University School of Law, outside of Washington, had grade-point averages below 2.15, defined as “academic failure.” For the rest of the student body, however, the figure was 4 percent.

Insane, isn't it?

Gail Herot, author of the WSJ piece I linked above, adds in her blog:

The pity is that, as Richard Sander's research suggests, some of these who failed at GMU might have succeeded at less competitive schools and had a greater chance of ultimately passing the bar.  Because somebody at the ABA thought that it was more important for George Mason's student body to look like America, a number of students have now wasted a year of their lives and saddled themselves with debt with little or no chance of ever practicing law.

A pity indeed.

Congratulations to all those of us who love and cherish the Second Amendment! Yesterday, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Second Amendment does indeed protect individuals' right to own guns.

I would like to congratulate everyone who worked so hard on both this case and this cause, particularly the fine people at my law school, the George Mason University School of Law, who helped like no other legal academics and students ever would.

I haven't yet had the time to read Scalia's decision in is entirety, but I found this amusing piece in a news article:

Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

Glen Edward Chapman was sentenced to death for two murders in 1992. It now appears that evidence exonerating him was covered up, making him a free man. Here's what he said:

"I’m tired, but not angry. I see no need for it. ... You can't go back and give somebody 15 or 16 years back. I did my crying the first couple of years I was there”

You gotta have tremendous respect for this guy.