Ideology drives Supreme Court First Amendment decisons

This new study by respected researchers suggests that Supreme Court Justices tend to support the First Amendment more when the speaker's views are consistent with the Justice's ideological leanings. The study suggests that the Court's conservatives are more guilty than the liberals.  Like many court watchers, these researchers and this blogger contend that a Justice's ideology (irrespective of whether the Justice leans left or right) drives their decisions in "hot button" cases more often than the facts, precedents, etc.  I would be nice to have a few more "Justices" on the Court and a few less ideologues of any stripe.

Media lack committment to newsworthiness

One thing that continually amazes me about the national media (from whom we have some right to expect ethical and professional behavior) is how we are bombarded, on the national level, with items that are not newsworthy.  Both the left- (ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, HLN) and right-leaning  (FOX) are guilty.  As many have noted, entertainment and news have become dangerously intertwined.  That's one of the reasons why we have so much soap opera crap passing for news.  Another reason is ideological bias.  Anything that is consistent with that ideology and makes the opposition and those who have been demonized (e.g. George Zimmerman, NRA) look bad, will be published/broadcast no matter how much it lacks in newsworthiness.  Further, the media and much of the public seem to be obsessed with celebrities.  Is it really newsworthy what Barbara Streisand, Oprah Winfrey or Ted Nugent thinks about some issue? (See "newsworthiness,"  "News propaganda" and "News values" on Wikipedia)  A recent example brings this home.  Is it nationally newsworthy that George Zimmerman may be having marital problems? Given how the left has demonized Zimmerman, we are probably in for a lot more of this crap about Zimmerman. When are the American people going to realize that the media is dumbing them down and manipulating them through propaganda.  When are the American people going to demand real news presented in a balanced fashion?   When are people going to start thinking for themselves rather than just parroting their favorite ideologically corrupted news source?

More evidence of the importance of ideology on the Supreme Court

IMHO it is naive to believe that most of the people on the Supreme Court are trying to be impartial judges. Most, IMHO, are ideologues. More evidence re this on selection of law clerks. LINK

Ideology & Criminal Justice/Criminology

One of the generally taboo topics in the social sciences, including criminology and criminal justice is the impact of ideology on the field, research, textbooks, etc. The journal "Quarterly Journal of Ideology" LINK is a hidden gem that touches on topics that the main journals will, for a variety of reasons, will not touch. This linked article, IMHO, hits the nail on the head. It is titled "Ideology: Criminology's Achilles Heel." The Introduction is dynamite, although the research study suffers from a small non-random sample. LINK