Legal Commentary

Backroom Deal With Lobbyists? What Deal?

Posted on August 08, 2009
Having come into office promising unprecedented transparency, having bills online for days before signing to give the public a chance to respond, unprecedented distance from lobbyists, etc., the Obama administration, according to a report in the New York Times, made a back-door, secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry to limit its costs in return for its early support of healthcare reform, but did not prevent House and Senate committees from ignoring that deal in their draft legislation, which led Big Pharma to threaten to abandon its support unless the White House reaffirmed its original deal, with the result that ?White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion,? as a result of which ?House and Senate Democrats loudly protested that they would not be bound by any such agreement to remove clauses allowing government negotiation of drug prices under Medicare ? something Democrats have sought for years,? following which ?Several Senate Democrats said Friday that, in a private meeting, White House officials had told them there was no such deal, sowing yet more confusion,? which led the White House to contend for two days that ?the Senate Democrats had misunderstood the White House aide?s comments,? after which ?the White House appeared Friday night to back away,? claiming later Friday that it ?had not intended to confirm that the deal ruled out price negotiations...

Hooligans

Posted on August 08, 2009
Writing in his column in the New York Times, Charles Blow huffed that ?Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt.? Do you think he was referring to Speaker Pelosi?s charge that vociferous Obamacare opponents are a Swastika-wearing mob? To President Obama?s recent command to critics to shut up and get out of his way? ?I don?t want the folks who created the mess [to] do a lot of talking,? Obama said...

How Does This Create Jobs?

Posted on August 07, 2009
Inside Higher Ed reported yesterday that the University of Maine and a GWI, a telecommunications partner, are applying for $32 million of federal stimulus money to expand its high-speed network to 10 sites not now on its system. Great, you think. Maine no doubt needs the expanded network, and building it will put people to work...

Another Amazing Argument!

Posted on August 07, 2009
Day before yesterday I began a discussion of ?An Amazing ?Structural Inequality? Argument by noting that I?ve been writing this blog quite a while now, and one of the effects of that is that I?m rarely surprised any more by extreme or even bizarre arguments in favor of racial preferences, special treatment based on race, etc...

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An Amazing ?Structural Inequality? Argument

Posted on August 06, 2009
I?ve been writing this blog quite a while now, and one of the effects of that is that I?m rarely surprised any more by extreme or even bizarre arguments in favor of racial preferences, special treatment based on race, etc. But I?m about to share with you a justification of criminal behavior, and an official pass given to that behavior, based on an argument of ?structural inequality? (as discussed at length here and here) that had even me gasping in disbelief...

UPDATE!

Posted on August 06, 2009
Does Your Health Care Suffer From Limited English Proficiency? has been UPDATED.

Are Asians Victims Of ?Structural Inequality? Or Just Plain Discrimination?

Posted on August 06, 2009
A reader, ?E,? sent the following, which seems worth posting as is. In the game of elite college admissions with race preferences, Asian Americans pay the highest ?bill? or price by being the only non-preferred group in the schema of race based Affirmative Action used by the politically correct racist admissions committees in their discrimination against Asian American applicants...

Gates Opposes Race-Based Affirmative Action?

Posted on August 05, 2009
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has not returned to his Cambridge house after his fateful encounter with Sgt. Crowley, retreating instead to his house on Martha?s Vineyard. On Sunday he spoke to the Martha?s Vineyard Book Festival, and according to this report in the Vineyard Haven Gazette today he had some interesting things to say...

Unprecedented!

Posted on August 05, 2009
Stuart Taylor demolishes the argument that Sotomayor and her panel?s decision denying the promotions they?d earned to Frank Ricci et. al. was required by Second Circuit and other precedents. He doesn?t merely disagree with the argument, or refute it, or argue with it; he demolishes it.

?Structural Inequality,? ?Barriers? to Equality, and the (Un)teachable Moment

Posted on August 05, 2009
Take a look at this article that just went up on Pajamas Media. I rather like it.

Justifications For Preferential Treatment

Posted on August 04, 2009
Consider the following common justifications for preferential admissions: The students admitted ... were qualified (variant: they can ?do the work.? Only a small number of students were admitted ... (variant #1: ?they only get a little push?; variant #2 ?only if all else was equal?)...

A Taxing Question

Posted on August 03, 2009
2 Obama administration officials can't guarantee middle-class Americans won't see tax hike WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama?s treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul...

Does Your Health Care Suffer From Limited English Proficiency?

Posted on August 02, 2009
A few days ago, noting some of the provisions in one of the pending health care bills I asked, Is Your Health Care Culturally Incompetent?. Now, looking at the 1018 page bill just passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a 31-28 vote, I have one question: Was it written by anthropologists? I ask this because of the bill?s pervasive concern with ?culturally and linguistically appropriate services? (page 91), ?EFFECTIVE CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY APPROPRIATE COMMUNICATION? (page 106), ?DEMONSTRATION TO PROMOTE ACCESS FOR MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES WITH LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY BY PROVIDING REIMBURSEMENT FOR CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY APPROPRIATE SERVICES,? (page 405), concern with ?the effect of delivering culturally and linguistically appropriate services on beneficiary access to care, utilization of services, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of health care delivery, patient satisfaction, and select health outcomes? (page 415), with the ?COORDINATION OF DIVERSITY AND CULTURAL COMPETENCY PROGRAMS? (page 914), with ?CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCY TRAINING FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS? (page 915) Pausing for a moment on this coordination of diversity and cultural competency programs, be reassured that in giving grants to meet this goal, the Secretary shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following: (1) Addressing, or partnering with an entity with experience addressing, the cultural and linguistic competency needs of the population to be served through the grant or contract...

Swain, Again

Posted on August 02, 2009
I have pointed with enthusiasm to the work of Carol Swain several times before, such as here and here. Now it?s time to do so again, for her comments in a long Nashville Tennessean article that interviewed several local worthies (she teaches at Vanderbilt) exploring ?how we arrived at White House ?beer summit...

Gates-Keepers To Racial Preference

Posted on August 02, 2009
Lurita Doan has a thing or two to tell Harvard, and she does it very well in her Los Angeles Times OpEd, ?On Race, Harvard Still Must Learn.? Her father, Lucien Alexis Jr. (Harvard, 1942). Was the only black member of Harvard?s lacrosse team. When he and fellow team members arrived in Annapolis for a match with the Naval Academy in 1941, the Academy demanded that he be removed from the field, ?declaring that no midshipman would take the field with a colored man...

A New Role For Obama

Posted on August 01, 2009
On several different occasions during the past presidential campaign I made the following observation: What a fascinating show future president Obama is putting on! It will be even more fascinating to discover whether he is: a) Jimmy Stewart, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; b) Robert Redford, in The Candidate; c) Peter Sellers (Chauncey Gardner), in Being There; or d) Laurence Harvey, in The Manchurian Candidate...

Hot News! Merit-Based Aid Produces More Bright Students! Too Bad....

Posted on July 31, 2009
Who?d a thunk? Well, those doubters among you, a new study has found that ?the adoption of merit aid by private colleges may achieve something for colleges that care about SAT averages.? Really? Positively? Yes, ?[o]ver all [sic], SAT medians go up after the introduction of merit aid...

New Haven Firemen May Help Extinguish Smoldering University Discrimination

Posted on July 30, 2009
My title is a bad take off on Roger Clegg?s more eloquent Dousing the Fires of Racial Discrimination, in which he argues persuasively that Ricci v. DeStefano poses a substantial threat to standard ?diversity? hiring discrimination practiced by universities...

Surprise! Civil Rights Leader Supports Equal Opportunity?

Posted on July 30, 2009
Inside Higher Ed reports today that a gathering of ?scholars and activists? who met yesterday at the Howard University Law School sang the praises of Google?s ambitions book digitization project. Here at the historically black university, panel members applauded Google?s plan to scan and index 10 million books for the Web...

Henry Louis Gates Jr. And His Dirty Inkwell

Posted on July 28, 2009
Inside Higher Ed summarizes and links to a devastating report on the Inkwell Foundation, created by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in ProPublica (?journalism in the public interest?). Inkwell, ProPublica reports, [a]charity headed by star Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr...

Is Your Health Care Culturally Incompetent?

Posted on July 27, 2009
If so, don?t worry. Help may be on the way. HR3200, the health care reform bill introduced in the House, provides, in two places, for the ?COORDINATION OF DIVERSITY AND CULTURAL COMPETENCY PROGRAMS.? It provides ?CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCY TRAINING FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR2009072400451.html?hpid=topnews

Posted on July 25, 2009
1. Of all the things that reasonable people can say about the confrontation between Sgt. Crowley and Prof. Gates, racial profiling is not one of them. The police responded to a report of a break-in at Prof. Gates? home; no profiling was involved. It?s possible that Sgt...

Wanted: More WIS (Women In Science)

Posted on July 23, 2009
There they go again, falling ass over teakettle into the gender gap in science. WASHINGTON -- The landscape of scientists and engineers is certainly a lot more diverse than it was 20 years ago, but serious gender gaps remain. That was the consensus here at a hearing of the House Committee on Science and Technology?s Subcommittee on Research and Science Education Tuesday...

Sotomayor: 14th Amendment Requires Affirmative Action!

Posted on July 21, 2009
On Saturday Carol Iannone pointed to a revealing exchange between Sen. Kohl (D-Wis) and Judge Sotomayor. From the transcript: SEN. KOHL: .... I'd like to ask you questions about a few issues that have generated much discussion. First, affirmative action...

The Availability Of Funds

Posted on July 21, 2009
I bought my first house way back when Jimmy Carter was president. As I recall interest rates were around 20%, and so I came up with the bright idea of leaving the cash I needed for the down payment in an interest bearing account until the last possible minute...

A Buchanan-Like Dump On Affirmative Action Critics

Posted on July 20, 2009
It?s been several months since I?ve been provoked enough to criticize one of the offerings of the Chronicle of Higher Education?s designated ?diversity? hitter, Penn anthropologist John L. Jackson, Jr. (here, which links here, another example that cites five earlier examples)...

Sotomayor: Judge Or Advocate?

Posted on July 18, 2009
Politico obtained the audio of oral arguments of five cases heard by Judge Sotomayor?s panels on the Second Circuit. These tapes, Politico reports, reveal a blunt judge who talks as much or more than her (often equally combative) colleagues; who makes no bones about interrupting or even, in one case, laughing at lawyers; and who goes to no great length to disguise her quarrel with an argument or her point of view...

Obama: Still Not Black Enough?

Posted on July 18, 2009
Remember way back when there was much discussion about whether Obama was ?black enough,? when that well-known black leader, Ralph Nader, said Obama talks white and ignores black issues? You don?t hear that so much any more, since President Obama continues to embrace race preferences and has elevated identity politics to the Supreme Court...

?Structural Inequalities? And The ?Barriers? To Racial Equality

Posted on July 17, 2009
I have a simple question: How will we know if and when racial equality ever arrives? I believe there are two equally simple but strikingly different answers to this question, answers that lead to different and even conflicting policies. One answer is that racial equality will have arrived when discrimination on the basis of race has disappeared; the other is that racial equality will have arrived when the races are equal or proportional in everything measurable...

The Dark And Poisonous Well Of Identity Politics

Posted on July 16, 2009
Linda Chavez, chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, testifies against Sonia Sonomayor today. Her written testimony is here (click on the View Testimony link); read the whole thing. It begins as follows: My message today is straightforward, Mr...

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