"Ricci v. DeStafano" and Judge Sotomayor

What would you do? In 2003, the City of New Haven, Connecticut, paid a reputable firm, specializing in racially neutral promotional civil service exams, $100,000.00 to develop such an exam for New Haven’s fire department. The exam consisted of a written section and an oral section, the oral section being the racial modifier. New Haven then administered the exams. There were 7 vacancies requiring the Captain’s Exam, and 8 vacancies requiring the Lieutenant’s exam. When the exam results were announced, much to the dismay of the city fathers those qualifying for promotion for the 15 vacancies included only two Hispanics and no blacks.

New Haven was faced with a dilemma. The city charter required that the positions be filled according to exam rankings. But it also was dealing with possible violations of federal law and feared a federal action against the city if it hired those who were the most qualified. The Civil Service Board then decided they way to address the problem was to determine promotions by using scores from only 9 of the 25 exam sections, those 9 being the sections where there were the least difference in scores between the racial classes.

Those fire fighters who scored the highest on the overall test, including a white dyslexic firefighter who used extraordinary efforts to pass the exam, sued the city in Federal District Court to certify the results of the entire exam citing violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause…reverse discrimination.

The district court ruled in favor of the City. It reasoned that the motives of the Civil Service Board fell outside of the “because of” rule necessary to maintain a reverse discrimination lawsuit. This is a common law rule which states that the discrimination must be made “because of” solely racial preferences. The lower court ruled that the decision of the Civil Service Board was motivated by efforts to comply with Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and avoid further litigation by minorities, not because it preferred blacks and Hispanics to whites.

The case was then appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and heard by 3 justices, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s current Supreme Court nominee. It wrote: “…because the Board, in refusing to validate the exams, was simply trying to fulfill its obligations under Title VII when confronted with test results that had a disproportionate racial impact, its actions were protected.” The fire fighters then asked the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the appeal en banc (with all justices hearing the appeal) and were denied.

The case has now been appealed to the United States Supreme Court, where oral arguments were heard this past April, with a ruling expected by the end of June. Several of the vacant positions are now filled by black and Hispanic candidates on a “temporary basis.” These folks finished the racially neutral exam at a level below the cut. Would you want to be a fire fighter in a life threatening situation under their command? If your house was burning down and your child was trapped, would you want these folks calling the shots?

You see, the road to hell is always paved with good intentions. Empathy for the minorities that finished at the bottom of the test scale ends in a perverse result where fellow employees and the general public, who may be in harm’s way, get the mediocre rather than best looking out for each other and for us in potentially deadly situations. This isn't a racial issue. It is a public safety issue.

Obama at Notre Dame...Just Words

I wish I could say that it was with mixed emotions that I watched Barack Obama speak at Notre Dame. It wasn’t. I was repulsed…for many reasons. He is a gifted orator. He has a silver tongue. It is difficult to argue with his premise that we need to set aside our differences and look for common ground. In normal circumstance I would not have a problem with that, except in some instances there is no common ground. How he defines common ground is questionable. Don’t listen to what he says. Look at what he does. It is clear that common ground to him is you agree with him, and he may allow you to express your opinion as to what you believe, if you don’t express it too much while he does exactly what he wants.

Barack Obama is the most liberal president this country has ever had. His support was rooted in radical left wing organizations like Acorn, Code Pink, and Move On.org. These organizations are the most intolerant people the nation has ever produced. They consistently disrupt any speaker who disagrees with them, including the disruption of any event or speaker on college campuses which may disagree with their political view. The disruptions at schools like Columbia University included throwing projectiles at the podium, rushing the stage, and shouting the speaker down with profanity. All of this, of course, is done with the tacit blessing of the various universities’ administrations and faculty. The tolerance afforded Barack Obama at Notre Dame would not have been available to George Bush at schools like Columbia or any of the University of California campuses. Indeed, he never would have been extended an invitation.

Barack Obama is about as pro-choice as you can get. He has taken radical positions on late term abortions while in the Illinois legislature and in the US Senate. His campaign was based on a unyielding pro-choice political position. He has expanded the use of Federal funds for abortion. He has appointed Kathleen Sebelius, a vehement pro-choicer and an active supporter of late term abortions, as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Where is the common ground?

I was in law school when Roe v. Wade became law. I supported the decision. I have come to regret that support. The older I got, the more I came to believe in the complete sanctity of life. I oppose abortion. I oppose the death penalty. There is no justification for either. The tipping point came when I saw news stories about doctors performing late term/partial birth abortions on babies that could survive outside of the mother’s womb. And it was being done under the protection of the government. This is murder no matter how you attempt to justify it. These are disgusting procedures. Barack Obama supports them. He voted to allow them.

Since Roe v. Wade there have been 40 million abortions in the United States. In the District of Columbia, one half of all pregnancies end in abortion. That is abortion as birth control. That is appalling. Is human life that cheap? Is a human life not worth the cost of a condom? Where is the benefit from all of the sex education classes in the public schools? What have we as a people degenerated into in the name of easy, unprotected sex? Where is human responsibility? How many lives are we willing to sacrifice because people can’t control themselves?

What really gets me is that many of the same people, who support late term/partial birth abortions, including Barack Obama, speak of the immorality and horror of water boarding. Excuse me? There is no moral equivalency here. Throwing some water on the face of terrorists who behead people, treat women like cattle, and kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people in terrorist activities is not immoral. Killing babies 8 ½ months into a pregnancy defines immorality. Both Obama and Notre Dame should be ashamed. Their hypocrisy is stunning.

The moral high ground belongs to those who opposed to this travesty. I will listen to Barack Obama when his actions match his words. Until then, they are just words.

Health Care Reform: Why We Need It!!! What Will Work!!!!

I will be the first to admit that there are problems with America’s health care system. Notwithstanding, it is the best in the world. Canadians flock to the United States to get health care not available in Canada. The leaders of foreign countries, good and bad, come to the United States for health care. Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, would take an entire floor at the Ritz Carlton in Arlington, Virginia, when in town for treatment. I saw the scary Dude personally when staying there a number of years ago. And the client list at The Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic reads like a Who’s Who of the world’s elite from political leaders to celebrities to the generally well to do.

85% of Americans are covered by health insurance. 70% say they are happy with their health care plan. That is a pretty good satisfaction rate. The government bandies about the 45 million uninsured Americans figure. Approximately 10 – 15 million of those are illegal immigrants or foreigners here on visas. Another 10 million are those 30 and under who see no need for insurance and refuse to buy in favor of a big screen TV. That leaves a more realistic figure of 10 – 20 million who legitimately cannot get access to health insurance.

That is not an insignificant amount, but is certainly more manageable. At the top of the list of that group are the fifty-somethings that have lost their jobs and cannot afford or have been shut out of health care coverage because of age related health issues and pre-existing conditions. Second on the list are the working poor, who are employed at minimum or near minimum wages with no access to insurance through their employer. Both of these groups are increasing in number. Then there are those with permanent disabilities which prevent them from working and supporting their families. The cost of insurance to these folks, if available, is astronomical.

Then there is the “Wards of the State” class. These are folks who the government has pushed into permanent poverty through cradle to grave welfare programs, with no incentives or skills or life chances to get out of an admittedly deplorable existence. Many of these folks are the result of Great Society programs instituted with the best of intentions, but with disastrous end results.

Finally, our corporations are at a competitive disadvantage with foreign corporations as the United States is the only country that uses private business as the primary delivery system for health care coverage, a residual from the post WWII era when the only country in the world making anything was us, and the good times rolled. Now we don’t make so much!! On the other hand, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, which also puts us at a competitive disadvantage. I don’t see the Obama administration addressing that.

Obama is proposing a relatively straight forward program to address the issue. If you can’t get insurance through your employer, or on your own, you can purchase a plan being offered by the government at a reasonable cost, or heavily subsidized if you can’t afford it. Obama has promised the best of both worlds. If you have it, you can keep what you got. If you don’t, come to Uncle Sam who will provide it for you.

The problem is that if the government starts to compete with private insurers, it will drive the private insurers out of business. Obama is not hesitant to force the issue by threatening throw out tax deductibility of employer based health care plans to the employer, and make it taxable income to those who are receiving the benefit. What do you think is going to happen? The employer will end the benefit to employees, and the employees will then flock to the government plan. The end result will be that sooner rather than later, the last man standing will be the government insurance plan…translate, a single payer plan completely run by the government.

Over this past week, the Obama Administration did a dog and pony show with representatives from industry, labor, health care insurers and medical providers, who supposedly pledged to reduce the rate of increase in health care costs by a trillion dollars or so. We’ll see.

One thing I know for sure, the Canadian system doesn’t work, and by law it prevented side-by-side private systems. The Canadian Supreme Court recently attacked the system as people were dying waiting a year for rationed medical tests like MRI’s. The court said the government must allow for private insurance and private doctors. Private doctors? Heretofore under the Canadian system, doctors were criminally liable if they practiced outside of the Canadian government system. This was a centerpiece for Hillary Care that the government attempted to force down our throats back in the early 1990’s.

All that being said, my experience with my sick mother and father and Medicare was pretty good, which shows the government can do something that is not totally screwed up. I would hate to see the government ruin a good thing for the 85% of Americans that do have health care. Tom Daschle, who sits on Obama’s health care advisory board, makes it clear that we all have to accept less health care, especially the elderly who should come to terms with their illnesses and mortality. He also states that there is too much innovation in health care treatment. New breakthroughs only drive up costs.

Quick! Where do I sign up for that? In The Friday Morning Rant, I propose a system that should be workable, and keep the integrity of our current health care. Give it a read.

The Gathering Storm - Part 4: Foreign Policy; The Biggest Cloud of All

Foreign policy is, and will be, President Obama’s Achilles heel. It will ultimately destroy his presidency. Political Science 101 teaches that everything is perception. Truth to our adversaries is what is perceived. For all the fawning of foreign governments over Barack Obama during the election, our foreign adversaries and allies are quietly shaking their heads in amazement at his naiveté and weakness. That spells trouble for us.

Start with his mea culpa tour of foreign capitals last month. For all his dissing of America, his criticism of our so called misdeeds, he has not garnered one more dollar, not one more troop, not one more allied consensus to the dire problems facing the world today. As always, foreign governments leave defending the world to us when they are not actually trying to cut us off at the knees.

While Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons, Obama is parsing words with “terrorism” vs. “man-made disasters.” While North Korea is shooting off missiles, Obama’s Homeland Security chief is worrying about right wing political groups recruiting big, bad veterans for violent purposes. While the Taliban moves to within sixty miles of Islamabad, Obama is trying to figure out where in the United States to move the prisoners in Guantanamo. And while Obama begins the slow escalation of the war in Afghanistan, he is neutering the CIA while threatening banana republic political trials against his predecessor’s administration because we supposedly tortured the people who killed 4000 Americans on 9/11. Is this guy serious?

Ronald Reagan brought the Soviet Union to its knees by brute force, or the perceived use of brute force. He was living proof of the peace through strength doctrine. His bold move to build the “Star Wars” nuclear defense shield overwhelmed the Soviets. They were technologically and financially unable to compete. Reagan hoodwinked them into believing we had the technology. We didn’t. And it didn’t hurt that he rebuilt our defenses after the gutting of the military by Jimmy Carter. The military didn’t even have spare helicopter parts to go after our embassy hostages in Tehran.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Carter redux is happening right before our eyes. Moral leadership as the primary tool of foreign policy does not work in an immoral world. It only makes us vulnerable. Unless Barack Obama is willing to go the distance without the liberal political shackles he has put on this country, the war effort in Afghanistan will be a debacle that will make Vietnam look like a walk in the park. The enemy are roaches, and the only way to defeat them will be to annihilate them using whatever means are necessary…massive bombing, ignoring borders, and torture if necessary. If the world believes we will do those things, only then will be able to excercise the type of moral leadership President Obama wishes to employ. The world didn't like President Bush, but they respected him. It's a good thing if you allow those who oppose you to believe you are a little nuts.

As an aside, one of my great hopes for this administration, Hillary Clinton, has turned out to be a bust. She is the Un-secretary of State. Unless she is doing something behind the scenes on anything, it’s like she is non-existent. She is ineffective. And that, my friends, is scary.

The biggest storm cloud in the gathering storm is the dangers that are lurking out in this big, bad world. The press can ignore them, or sugar coat them, to make their golden boy look good. But this is dangerous stuff. If Obama doesn’t come into the real world quickly, it will be his downfall. I only hope he doesn’t take the rest of us with him when he falls.

The First 100 Days

My grade for Obama’s first 100 days? C-. Let’s start with the good stuff.

1) Personal Appeal: A strong “A+.” Obama is charmer with a relaxed, easy style and smile that is appealing. He is likeable, and he uses it to his best advantage. Michelle has a surprised me by taking a more traditional first lady type of role, picking issues that represent her interests and being non-controversial in her approach to her difficult role. She reminds much more of Laura Bush or Jackie Kennedy than Hillary Clinton or Rosalyn Carter. Warning: too much of a good thing can be bad. He needs to back off a bit with continual speeches and news conferences.

2) Saving the Banks: A reluctant “A-.” I don’t agree with his over aggressively approach to government bank ownership and bullying CEO’s out of their jobs. On the other hand, after straying from the original purpose of TARP funds, he got on track by back stopping the so-called “toxic” assets with government purchases and guarantees, and modifying the “mark to market” rule allowing banks to begin the process of recapitalization. I think it will be the single biggest success of his presidency. Warning: Nationalization of banks will ultimately be harmful to the country and will come back to bite him in the rear. Divest ownership interests as soon as possible.

3) Stimulus Package: A well earned “D.” His rhetoric called for immediate spending on shovel ready projects. What we got was a standard liberal tax and spend bill filled with earmarks, not well thought ideological claptrap, and waste spelled with a capital WASTE. China, on the other hand, did what Obama said he was going to do, and is reaping the rewards right now. Any recovery to our economy will be rooted in China’s growth…not ours. What he did was increase government jobs, which by definition sap up wealth rather than create wealth. He will pay the price.

4) Budget Bill: F…F….F. His overall economic policy penalizes small business and corporations, where job growth is created, while increasing the national debt by ten fold. Our economy cannot tolerate the strain. The result will be rapidly increasing inflation and interest rates. I thought it would start in about a year. No way Jose!!! Have you been watching the cost of food go up in the grocery stores recently? The future is now. Interest rates on the 10 year bond are rising already because the government is having difficulty with its bond auctions. This isn’t what the Federal Reserve wants. At the end of the day, there will be no money left for business to borrow. Jimmy Carter stagflation anyone?

5) Foreign Policy: The big “D.” Jimmy Carter thought he could make nice with the world and all those rogue governments would fall into line behind him. He got his ass kicked. Same thing will happen to Obama. Undermining the CIA and FBI with de-classification of memos to appease his ultra-left wing supporters is not helpful. Neither are potential banana republic political show-trials questioning policy decisions of a former president after the worst foreign attack on American soil. An Afghan war spilling over into Pakistan will be a disaster. This will cost him the presidency in 4 years.

6) Collapsing Auto Industry: Another big “D.” I am not sure doing something was any better than doing nothing. Obama says he doesn’t want to run car companies, but his ideology will push him into trying. Does Ford really want to compete with the United States government in selling cars? Not to worry. By the time the Obama gets done designing cars to satisfy the environmental whackos in his political circle, the government will be declaring bankruptcy on itself. This will be fun to watch.

I give him an A+ for providing me with a cornucopia of stuff about which I can write. There are some times when it is just plain fun to be a conservative Republican. This is one of those times. I only hope we don’t lose the country in the process.