Suchergebnisse

"In a richly reported, behind-the-scenes portrait of the Supreme Court and the secret world of its nine justices, veteran national journalist David A. Kaplan shows how the Court, far from being the "least dangerous branch" of government, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, has become in many respects the most dangerous branch, subverting democracy and betraying the Constitution. Never before has the Supreme Court been more central to American politics. A sizable percentage of voters in the most recent presidental election chose a candidate based largely on who they thought Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would nominate to replace the fiery Antonin Scalia. In the face of a dysfunctional and paralyzed Congress, it is the Court, rather than our elected officials, that decides such divisive issues as gerrymandering, abortion, gun rights, voting rights, same sex marriage, immigration, and campaign finance. In a sweeping narrative that examines the personalities and quirks of the Justices, The Most Dangerous Branch shows how, going as far back as Roe v Wade, the Court has re-shaped America's political and social landscape in key cases on the left and the right. As much as the Chief Justice claims to be only calling balls and strikes, in fact the Court has not hesitated to put its collective thumb on the scale of justice to swing the law in the majority's direction. As a result, nine nonelected life-tenured lawyers, trained at but two elite universities (Harvard and Yale) have taken it upon themselves to decide the fate and direction of the nation. Kaplan's book gets at the heart of who these Justices are, and uncovers their personal agendas -- including that of Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's impatient and quietly radical new appointee. And with the retirement of even a single justice, the Court could, under Trump and a filibuster-proof Senate, be transformed into a insurrmountable conservative voting block that will reign even more supreme over America for a generation"--

Last September's Chicago teachers' strike raises critical strategic questions for all progressives and socialists seeking to resist the relentless neoliberal austerity attacks against working people and their communities. For teachers and union activists generally, it was a long-awaited event. In its counterattack, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) organized and mobilized its teacher base, and actively involved parents, students, and non-profit community-based organizations. This article will not attempt decisively to answer the Chicago teachers' strike questions, it will suggest a strategic orientation for future teachers' union struggles that builds upon lessons learned from the Chicago strike -- one that ultimately argues for thoroughgoing class-wide organizing to amass the power necessary to stand up to what is in effect a nationally coordinated campaign on the part of the corporations and the state to undermine public education. In thi article, the point of departure must be an analysis of the strengths and limitations of the Chicago teachers' struggle. Adapted from the source document.

This article outlines South Africa's comparative industrial performance over approximately the last two decades. It then examines the policies effected by the Department of Trade and Industry since 1994 to promote the development of industry. The focus is on the sector-specific supports available to the auto and auto components and the clothing and textiles sectors. The final section locates these sector-specific support measures within a broader discussion of industrial policy. (Dev South Afr/DÜI)

This paper surveys the new government's inheritance with respect to science and technology (S&T). Based on an assessment of that inheritance, the author defines the likely policy objectives of the new government and outlines how goverment will seek to restructure the S&T system to meet the new policy objectives.

This article studies the utility of a general set of diagnostics for assessing conditioning problems in the covariance structure modeling framework. The diagnostics are based on extensions of the condition index and variance decomposition proportions advanced by Belsley and are based on using the covariance matrix of the estimates. A series of simulations with a variety of covariance structure models as well as a real data example show that these diagnostics are useful for gauging the sensitivity of parameter estimates to conditioning problems arising from collinearity in the raw data. The relationship between ill-conditioning and local identification as it pertains to the proposed diagnostics is also discussed. It is suggested that these diagnostics be implemented in existing covariance structure modeling software.