"A blistering expose of Clarence Thomas and the conservative regime of corruption that has usurped the Supreme Court -- by a Democratic activist and former Republican political operative. Public confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted to new lows in the last few years -- and for good reason. In the past three decades, six conservative justices have gained a supermajority through questionable means: a dubious intervention in a presidential election, perjury during Senate testimony, and a GOP Senate Leader's unethical blockade of a Supreme Court nomination. Behind this strategic dismantling of our Supreme Court is a vast, well-funded political machine--backed by the extreme right-wing Federalist Society, the notoriously secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei, and GOP megadonors operating from behind closed doors. Armed with an insider's perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican party itself. Stench investigates the ethics scandals that surround Clarence Thomas and his wife, the rightwing activist Ginni Thomas, culling new material from Thomas' accusers, along with original reporting and Brock's first-hand knowledge of the inner workings of the GOP. Stench is a staggering expose, one that only Brock could write--exhaustive in its research and revelatory in its access to the world of what has effectively become the Thomas Court"--

"Collins views American society as being trapped in the so-called prisoner's dilemma. According to this classic piece of game theory, two prisoners whose interests would normally be aligned are put in a situation that compels them to betray their solidarity with each other. As Collins tells it, all of us are prisoners, and if we banded together we could create policies that would lead to a better, happier world. But those leading the Anti-Civil Rights Movement, such as Edward Blum, have repeatedly found ways to split coalitions-to pit marginalized groups against each others-whenever those coalitions have threatened the power of conservative elites to set the political and legal agenda. One of the central tools in the conservative arsenal has been affirmative action, which has had a long history of dividing the Asian American and Black American communities, going back to the anti-busing sentiment among Chinese Americans in San Francisco in the early 1970s. In 2013, the same year he helped gut the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County v. Holder case, Blum created the Students for Fair Admissions and brought a suit against Harvard University for discriminating against Asian Americans-the latest in a long string of prisoner dilemmas designed to undermine social progress. Collins's groundbreaking work is a field guide to the personalities, funding, and dilemmas that characterize the war between the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Civil Rights Movement-between the forces represented, respectively, by Thurgood Marshall and the one who replaced him on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas. Reading this book helps readers better understand the battles that have been fought in the past, but also where the next fight might take place, and what might be necessary in order to win"--

"This authoritative overview of election redistricting at the congressional, state legislative, and local level provides offers an overview of redistricting for students and practitioners. The updated second edition pays special attention to the significant redistricting controversies of the last decade, from the Supreme Court to state courts"--

Blackballed is Darryl Pinckney's meditation on a century and a half of Black participation in U.S. electoral politics. In this combination of memoir, historical narrative, and contemporary political and social analysis, he investigates the struggle for Black voting rights from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement, leading up to the election of Barack Obama as president. Interspersed throughout the historical narrative are Pinckney's own memories of growing up during the Civil Rights Era, his unsure grasp of the events he saw on television or heard discussed, and the reactions of his parents to the social changes that were taking place at the time and later to Obama's election. He concludes with an examination of the current state of electoral politics, the place of Blacks in the Democratic coalition, and the ongoing efforts by Republicans to suppress the Black vote, with particular attention to the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and what it may mean for the political influence of Black voters in future elections. Blackballed also includes 'What Black Means Now, ' an essay on the history of the Black middle class, stereotypes about Blacks and crime, and contemporary debates about 'post-Blackness' and breaking free of essentialist notions of being Black.