Legal Commentary

UPDATE!

Posted on December 20, 2009
Medicaid Mandate: Funded ... Then Un-Funded has been Updated, three times.

?Diversity,? Once Removed

Posted on December 20, 2009
A city councilman and some organizations in New York City ?are pushing for legislation that they believe will expand diversity in the Fire Department?s employment pool.? The legislation would allow any candidate applying to become a New York City firefighter who has a high school diploma or GED from a city high school or testing center to receive an additional eight-point credit on the firefighter exam...

Give Ben The Boot!

Posted on December 20, 2009
?The bad news is that Senator Ben Nelson is not up for reelection until 2012,? Roger Kimball laments. I hope that Ben enjoys his final two years in the Senate. OK, that?s not quite right. Since it was Ben Nelson of Nebraska that finally got Harry Reid his desperately needed 60th vote for socialized medicine, I hope 1) that the next two year are unpleasant for Sen...

Medicaid Mandate: Funded ... Then Un-Funded

Posted on December 19, 2009
One of the many objections to the Democrats? health reform is that it would impose a large unfunded mandate on the states by adding substantial numbers of individuals to Medicaid. For example, three days ago the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Chairman of its Appropriations Committee wrote a letter to the state?s two senators noting that the Senate bill ?would dramatically boost state Medicaid expenses by expanding the number of people eligible...

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Surreal Words: Reid ?An Abortion-Rights Opponent? And Burris a Believer In ?Mere Fundamentals?

Posted on December 19, 2009
I have written several times about the attempts of some Democratic politicians, usually but not always liberal Catholics, to force the square peg of their ?personal? opposition to abortion into the round and bottomless hole of their public opposition to measures that would restrict it...

EXTRA! EXTRA! Obama Does Something Right!

Posted on December 18, 2009
Maybe there is a Santa Claus after all. The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release December 17, 2009 President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 12/17/09 WASHINGTON ? Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation: Sharon L...

From Starving To Force-Feeding The Beast

Posted on December 18, 2009
For a generation or more many conservatives have hoped (and even believed) that one of the most beneficial effects of tax cuts (and for many, their main purpose) is to reduce or at least restrain the size of government. ?Starving the beast? is a fiscal-political strategy of some American conservatives to use budget deficits via tax cuts to force future reductions in the size of government...

False Choice In WSJ/NBC Poll

Posted on December 17, 2009
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning: The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News brings bad news for Democrats when it comes to passing a health care bill. For the first time in our polling, more Americans said they?d rather stick with the status quo on health care than pass the Democrats? bill...

And Now Even Stem Cells ...

Posted on December 17, 2009
... lack ?diversity.? A research team from the University of Michigan analyzed 47 embryonic stem cell lines and found that most were derived from donors of northern and western European ancestry. None of the lines were from people of recent African ancestry, from Pacific Islanders, or from populations indigenous to the Americas, the researchers said...

More Republican Scare Tatics & Dirty Tricks

Posted on December 17, 2009
President Obama is fond of blaming the unpopularity of his health care reform on Republican ?scare tactics? (at least when he?s not asserting that failure to do his bidding will lead to national bankruptcy), and now a special election in Kentucky has revealed just how low Republican candidates are prepared to stoop...

Proposed Health Care Reform Discrimination

Posted on December 17, 2009
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has sent a letter to a bunch of Senators pointing out and protesting a series of ?racially discriminatory provisions? in the Senate Health Care bill. (HatTip to Roger Clegg) It?s an excellent letter, definitely worth reading.

Tenure Discrimination

Posted on December 17, 2009
In an excellent essay Roger Clegg discusses the question of discrimination in tenure decisions, here. He notes that in the absence of ?direct evidence of discriminatory intent ... , such as racist or sexist comments,? plaintiffs in such cases have a hard roe row to hoe (my trite metaphor, not his)...

The Democrats And Competition (Or Not)

Posted on December 16, 2009
Democrats claim to love the public option because the competition it would provide would keep the otherwise dishonest insurance companies honest. As President Obama said in Green Bay last June, ?if the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down...

?Gender Matters? (But For What?)

Posted on December 16, 2009
Inside Higher Ed assures us today that ?Gender Matters.? Does having a woman in the top job (or the No. 2 slot) make a difference? When it comes to faculty hiring, the answer appears to be Yes. And having a critical mass of women on boards of trustees also makes a difference...

Scary Tactics

Posted on December 16, 2009
President Obama frequently blames the unpopularity of his health care reform on the ?scare tactics? of his meany critics. For example (but it is only one of many), ABC News posted a transcript of an interview on Nightline, noting that one point that ?The president blows it [reform unpopularity] off and blames his critics and their ?scare tactics...

What Do Believers In Global Warming, Supporters Of Obamacare, And The New York Times Have In Common?

Posted on December 15, 2009
Overweening arrogance. Given the heavy and increasing opposition to Obamacare, Byron York asks in the Washington Examiner, ?why are Democrats dead-set on hurting themselves?? ?Because,? he asks ?a Democratic strategist? who for understandable reasons wants to remain anonymous, they think they know what?s best for the public,? the strategist said...

Does Sexual Equality Require Preferential Treatment?

Posted on December 14, 2009
Great question, if I do say so myself.

When Obama Speaks...

Posted on December 13, 2009
Today in the Washington Post David Broder waxes (or perhaps wanes) eloquent about the insight into the mind of Obama that can be gleaned by paying close, careful attention to the words of Obama. One of the things that sets Barack Obama apart from most politicians is how much can be learned from listening to his speeches...

A Hundred Billion Here, A Hundred Billion There...

Posted on December 12, 2009
The New York Times reported today that the Democrats ?hit a rough patch Friday in their push for sweeping health care legislation? when ?a top Medicare official? declared that their proposal would raise, not lower, health care costs. The Medicare official ...

Minorities Are Not Always Diverse

Posted on December 11, 2009
In a generally interesting article pointing out that Obama?s popularity has declined among all groups except nonwhites, Ron Brownstein writes: [Obama?s] familiar strength is his standing among racial minorities. In the 2008 race, Obama won four-fifths of nonwhite voters...

Student Protest

Posted on December 11, 2009
Students, and others, have been protesting loudly about California budget cuts in education. One of the more far-reaching protests was at San Francisco State, as Inside Higher Ed reports: The protests have been described as largely being about the major program cuts and tuition increases at the California State University System, but a list of demands on the protesters Web site also called for the end to wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Gaza; a shift in university control from administrators to students, faculty members and staff; the shutdown of prisons; and the establishment of a single payer health-care system...

Do Democrats Really Believe Most Americans Want To Embarrass Obama?

Posted on December 11, 2009
Last night Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D, RI) asserted on the Senate floor that opposition to the Democrats? health care reform ?is about creating a political defeat for the president of the United States,? that it has ?nothing to do with health care, entirely about creating a defeat for this new president...

Something Doesn?t Add Up

Posted on December 09, 2009
CNN, December 9: Math scores show improvement at schools in large U.S. cities Washington (CNN) -- Public school students in major metropolitan areas are showing improvement on test scores in mathematics compared with scores from previous years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Department of Education...

Dr. Jessie!

Posted on December 09, 2009
I have mentioned my daughter, Jessie, more than a few times, and those of you who have been visiting here for a while will recall (and others will learn now) that she skipped high school, graduated from Bryn Mawr at 17, and is now early in her sixth year of graduate work in applied physics at Caltech...

The BBC On Guns: "But ... But...."

Posted on December 07, 2009
From the BBC?s Switzerland and the gun (HatTip to InstaPundit): Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture ? but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.... But despite the wide ownership and availability of guns, violent crime is extremely rare...

Abortion And Health Care, But ...

Posted on December 07, 2009
Is liberal opposition to the successful Stupak amendment in the House, and its equivalent being offered by Sen. Nelson in the Senate, blatantly hypocritical, or am I missing something? (Or, I suppose, both....) Here is a summary of current anti-abortion law (the Hyde Amendment), the original House health reform bill, the current Senate Finance Committee health reform bill, and House bill as passed with the Stupak amendment...

UPDATES!

Posted on December 07, 2009
This post and this post were UPDATED today.

Surprising Rasmussen Poll!

Posted on December 07, 2009
In a three-party race, the Democrats come in first, with 36% of the vote! But the other two candidates are ?the Tea Party candidate,? with 23%, and the Republican, with 18%.

The New York Times On Hiring Discrimination ... Again

Posted on December 06, 2009
Five days ago the New York Times published a front page article on the job hunt travails of black college graduates, an article I criticized here. Now, here they go again: today?s ?Whitening? the Résumé adds little or nothing to what was published last week...

Joseph Califano Solves The Church-State Problem ... Again

Posted on December 06, 2009
Over five years ago Joseph Califano, former just about everything, modestly explained in the pages of the Washington Post ?How I Squared Church and State,? by which he meant how he had resolved the long-standing problem of how liberal politicians should deal with conservative church doctrine...

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