Guarino

Justice Has Not Yet Been Done For GPD Officers

With the departure of Mitchell Johnson from the position of city manager, and the acquittal of Scott Sanders, there can be a tendency to assume that everything has been set right with respect to the GPD fiasco.  In fact, however, there are some critical issues that remain for former Chief Wray and for the men who worked for him, all of whom were implicated or stigmatized because of the way the city handled the entire mess.

Remember there are two separate groups.  The first group consists of the former command officers, including David Wray, Randall Brady and Matt Lojko.  The second group includes current officers within the Department-- especially those who used to work in Special Intelligence.  This group includes Sanders and Tom Fox, but also other officers.

I am told that the city of Greensboro still has not agreed to pay the legal expenses for David Wray and Randall Brady.  These expenses have mounted literally for years, and now probably amount collectively to at least many tens of thousands of dollars.  These are not wealthy men-- they were cops.

Matt Lojko had to initiate prolonged legal negotiations with the city in order get the supplemental retirement benefits that were due to him.  His legal costs in connection with this effort were in excess of $17,000; and the city did not agree to assume these legal expenses.

David Wray was forced out two months prior to when he would have been eligible for retirement benefits.  He missed his retirement by a grand total of two months.  This is to be contrasted with the extraordinary efforts the city made to assure the golden parachute Mitchell Johnson would enjoy after the date of his termination.  Wray was shafted by the city, and Johnson was rewarded, even though Johnson was one of the key people who mishandled the whole matter so severely.

And of course, Wray, Brady and Lojko lost regular earnings because of the way they were made to feel pushed out.

Now let's talk about the officers who still work for the city.  Remember that some were demoted.  Any of them who were investigated or suspended had to wait a period of two to three years before they could be considered for a promotion once again.

Scott Sanders and Tom Fox have not had their legal costs assumed by the city.  Again, my guess is that this likely has amounted to many tens of thousands of dollars.

It should be noted that, for the men in each of these these two groups who have been sued, the legal costs continue to mount, because these matters are not concluded.  Simply put, this continues to be a massive injustice for each of these men.  The city still has not made the matter right for them. 

So let us summarize.  There are legal expenses that are not being assumed or reimbursed by the city for at least five of these men, and perhaps more-- and some of these expenses are enormous.   This includes, but is not limited to, current employees Scott Sanders and Tom Fox.

Wray was unfairly deprived of his retirement benefits, even as the City Council made special efforts to assist Mitchell Johnson in this regard.

Wray, Brady and Lojko lost considerable amounts of potential regular earnings they would have received had the city not mishandled the whole mess.  This is also true of some of the officers who remain in the department who might have otherwise been eligible for promotions.

My point is that, even though it may appear that the city has corrected the wrongs associated with the GPD fiasco, in fact that is not the case.  This whole mess has cost-- and will continue to cost-- these fine officers enormous amounts in legal expenses, retirement benefits and lost earnings.

The city is responsible for what has happened to these men; and has an obligation to fix it.  While the appearance is that everything is being made right, assuredly that is not the case.  The city is still not meeting its responsibilities in these matters.

It is time for the city to make these things right.  It is time to correct a massive injustice.

JLF on NC Fiscal Crisis/ Taxes/ Unemployment; Take Back Our State

The John Locke Foundation's fiscal policy analyst, Joe Coletti, looks at the fiscal crisis facing the state of North Carolina and our high unemployment rate, and makes certain conclusions:

"The latest numbers indicate that North Carolina continues to struggle with one of the nation's worst unemployment rates," said Joseph Coletti, JLF Fiscal Policy Analyst. "State government needs to take steps to help boost the prospects for job creation and entrepreneurial investment, not special breaks for select companies and higher taxes for everyone else. Unfortunately, Gov. Beverly Perdue and the N.C. Senate have prescribed more than $1 billion in new taxes over the next two years."

Now the House faces an even larger budget hole than the governor and Senate projected in their budget plans, Coletti added. "Some in the House will use the deteriorating state revenue picture to push for even larger tax increases," he said. "That is precisely the wrong way to address the problem. Declining revenues offer a good opportunity to cut state government spending and leave more money available for the private-sector investment that will get the economy moving."

Coletti's alternative Back to Basics budget offers several ideas that could help point the House in the right direction, he said. "We propose 15 policy changes that could help the state save money, from enacting a Taxpayer Protection Amendment to lifting the state's charter school cap to reforming the state's health-care management scheme."

Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity is planning a Take Back Our State rally on Wednesday, June 3 at the Halifax Mall in Raleigh.  It should be an interesting event because Joe the Plumber will be featured. 

The need for this rally is fairly obvious.  When the JLF has to make arguments such as those excerpted above-- against the prevailing grain-- something is terribly wrong.

Break

Starting tomorrow, I will be taking a break from writing new posts here.  Will resume the early part of next week.

Sotomayor Video

Below is found the video in which Sotomayor reveals the true nature of her judicial philosophy.  Republicans need to highlight how she thinks, because that attribute is central to whether she can be an effective judge who does not overstep her proper role.  Already, the mainstream media is attempting to intimidate Senate Republicans, suggesting there will be an Hispanic backlash if they do not allow her to be confirmed:

Obama Nominates a Judicial Activist to the Supreme Court

Barack Obama today nominated a judicial activist to the Supreme Court.

The nominee is also an identity politics nomination-- both an Hispanic and a woman.

What is a judicial activist?  To remind my readers, it is a judge who rules in a manner that ignores the text, structure and logic of the Constitution.  It is a judge who does not adequately consider the original meaning of the Constitution's text as it was initially written.

Sonia Sotomayor certainly fits the bill.

Consider the evidence:

1. A now-famous video demonstrates that she, in wink-nod fashion before a left-leaning audience, approves of the premise that the federal appeals courts set policy.

2. Way back in October, before the election, Ed Whelan anticipated that Sotomayor might be Obama's pick.  He points out a highly inappropriate ruling by Sotomayor on the Ricci v. Destefano case regarding reverse discrimination.

3. He also found that the Supreme Court reversed or disagreed with her legal or constitutional reasoning on a significant number of cases.

4. He found a law review article in which she expounded that a Latina judge hopefully would arrive at a better conclusion that a white male judge, and expresses the following highly problematic sentiments:

Judge [Miriam] Cedarbaum [of the federal District Court in New York] ... believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.

5. Jeffrey Rosen writes the following about those that have observed her performance:

Nearly all of them acknowledged that Sotomayor is a presumptive front-runner, but nearly none of them raved about her. They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative. The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench," as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue." (During one argument, an elderly judicial colleague is said to have leaned over and said, "Will you please stop talking and let them talk?"...

Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees. It's customary, for example, for Second Circuit judges to circulate their draft opinions to invite a robust exchange of views. Sotomayor, several former clerks complained, rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn't distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty editing suggestions—fixing typos and the like—rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.

Republicans do not have the votes numerically to defeat this nomination.  I do not know what procedural devices they have at their disposal. 

I previously have felt that the Senate should give the President broad discretion with respect to Supreme Court nominees, and that filibusters should not be undertaken.  However, one has to make a basic determination as to whether the nominee can judge in an unbiased manner, consistent with the oath they must take and with the rule of law.

Judicial nominees of Republican presidents have been obstructed by Democrats for years, dating way back to the Bork nomination.  Republicans responded by approving Bill Clinton's Supreme Court nominations overwhelmingly.  One can only wonder when the Republicans will ultimately pay back the Democrats' behavior in kind.

One item to consider is that Barack Obama voted against the confirmation of both John Roberts and Samuel Alito.  The Democrats have a vested, venal interest in using the judicial system to protect Roe vs. Wade-- and as Sotomayor suggests, the phenomenon of the courts setting policy.

A "Constructive Dialogue" on Life Issues in North Carolina

Check this out.

A North Carolina university town is highlighted in a national journal.  It seems an English instructor had the occasion to observe a sharp variance in the reaction to two discrete, local events.  The first was a scene in a play presented at a local theater that was demonstrably obscene.  The second was an effort by a campus group called Students for Life to post some edgy placards at various locations.

The reaction to the two incidents was fairly predictable.

The English instructor, Micah Mattis, observes the following:

The avant-garde theater at Chapel Hill... no longer attacks the sensibilities of the students, but rather provides them with the sort of work they want to see in the first place—work that does not challenge their moral paradigm, but confirms it—because the moral paradigm implicit in the avant-garde has now become the moral paradigm of much of the middle class. This, of course, is done in the guise of carrying on the tradition of the avant-garde. What is really avant-garde today, in the original, combative sense of the term, is to stand for life, for beauty, and for truth. Nothing shocks us more.

And Mattis comments on those who claim to want a "constructive dialogue" on life issues.  These  comments are particularly timely, because President Obama recently sounded the same theme during his Notre Dame speech:

While I think that a “constructive dialogue” is important, it is unfortunately the case that, where abortion and related issues are concerned, such dialogues are rare.

The reason is that the people who most often call for a “constructive dialogue” want nothing of the sort. For them, the first step in such a dialogue is for both sides to admit that the issue at hand is a matter of personal opinion rather than of basic human rights. Imagine someone calling for a “constructive dialogue” on the issue of murder, rape, or genocide, and the connotative meaning of the term becomes all too apparent. Too often it is a smokescreen for sophistry rather than a call for the pursuit of truth. Hence, the placards.

Julius Fulmore's Latest Lawsuit

The News and Record reports that Julius Fulmore of the Greensboro Police Department has a new lawsuit.

I had spoken with someone who observed at least part of  Scott Sanders' trial a couple of months ago.  This person indicated to me that Fulmore's testimony did not come off particularly well during that trial.

Perhaps the city should allow this particular officer to assume the witness stand, and see what he has got.  It may not be particularly wise for the city to settle with this gentleman. 

Negligence in North Carolina

Local attorney Sam Spagnola posts on a bill before the North Carolina state legislature that would change how negligence would be treated in personal injury lawsuits in our state:

If the negligence statutes change, you can expect a whole lot of happy personal injury lawyers.

It seems likely that this bill, if Sam is correct, would make it even more difficult to recruit new employers to the state, and for businesses to prosper here.  But the Democratic majority in Raleigh might be unsympathetic to such considerations, because of its support among the state's trial lawyers.

More Politicization of Police Departments

The News and Record prominently featured an op-ed piece yesterday written by Gwen Hunnicutt, a professsor of sociology at UNCG.  She was rebutting a previous column by Charles Davenport that called into question the application of de facto quotas for hiring into police departments through "diversity" policies.

It is clear that Professor Hunnicutt is a full-fledged adherent of the diversity ideology.  She seems particularly interested in demonstrating that police department hiring standards are biased against women, but also against minorities.  She cites statistics that demonstrate lesser representation of these two groups in police departments compared with their respective share of the population.  The obvious implication, according to Hunnicutt, is that systematic discrimination is taking place.

She talks a lot about police departments allegedly not hiring enough women.   She fails to mention, however, that a practice takes place in various settings across the country called "gender norming".  This is a policy through which female applicants are subjected to lesser physical requirements than male applicants.  The unstated premise is that physical requirements are inherently discriminatory, and that easing the requirements is needed to get more women hired.  I do not know whether our regional police departments use gender norming.

In any case, the crux of the matter is found in Hunnicutt's text:

(T)he low representation of female police officers is also connected to recruitment, hiring practices and biased testing. Police hiring practices and physical tests have historically worked to disqualify women.

Is it really necessary to be able to bench press your own body weight to be a good police officer? Or has that standard been used to ensure a male-dominated institutional design?

Police departments vary widely in recruiting, testing and hiring practices, and these institutions have made tremendous progress since the 1970s. Yet it is important to critically examine public institutions, while also praising those earnest efforts to make our institutions reflect and serve our society.

It seems to me that we should want police officers to be in superior physical condition.  We should want them to have considerable upper body strength.  That would enable them to apprehend and subdue suspects more consistently without having to use lethal force.

Think about one of the other incessant complaints the political left has had about police-- the inappropriate use of weapons such as guns or tasers in the course of dealing with suspects.  Many times, when a weapon is used, the police officer is dragged through the mud and the presumption is made that his (or her) actions were excessive.

But if the police officer does not possess sufficient speed and strength and agility to capture and subdue a suspect, then the use of weapons will be more necessary.  In addition, the police officer's colleagues are placed at increased risk.

I have little doubt that some women are extremely capable of being effective police officers.  But I think it would be a huge mistake to succumb to the demands of folks on the left, like Professor Hunnicutt, who seek to advance a putative egalitarian ethic even at the expense of diminishing police effectiveness.

If there was anything we should have learned in the course of the GPD fiasco, it is that we make a huge mistake when we politicize police departments.

The Two Dates that Preordained the Future of Health Care, and the Progressive Response

Dr. William Waters III recently self-published a book called Two Days That Ruined Your Health Care.  He refers to two events over the last century that dramatically transformed American medicine-- ultimately for the worse.

These two events were as follows:

1. On October 2, 1942, the United States Senate passed the Stabilization Act.  It was designed to enable employers to offers sweeteners to a work force shrunk by World War II.  The new law provided that businesses could deduct employees' health insurance premiums.  But it did not allow employees to deduct the premiums if they obtained the insurance on their own.

2. On April 10, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Mills Bill, HR 6675, which authorized the creation of Medicare.

The combined impacts of these two events, in the long run, were dramatic.  But one of these impacts undeniably was health care inflation.  Health care consumers would thereafter be insulated from the cost of health care, so care could be accessed without regard to expense.  Providers could set and raise prices without the disciplines imposed by a competitive free market.   Services could be accessed without regard to the amount of benefit derived from the service.  And the tort system amplified these phenomena by encouraging providers to generate more charges.

These two events eventually funded the creation and maintenance of a "medical-industrial complex", through which lavish facilities and expensive technologies are routinely offered to health care consumers.  We have recently seen in our region numerous examples of proposed new facilities costing in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars-- much of which are funded by Medicare and employer-sponsored insurance:

Moses Cone Health System’s big project is one of many in North Carolina that will cost more than $150 million, according to the N.C. Division of Health Service Regulation.

•  Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem has received approval for a $152 million project that includes the addition of five floors onto the Comprehensive Cancer Center.
•  Duke University Health System has received approval for a $261 million project to renovate and expand its cancer center.
•  UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill have applied for state approval to build a $227 million satellite hospital campus.

It is interesting that these proposals are celebrated by the News and Record, which in the past has repeatedly highlighted the problems with health care inflation.  There seems to be little insight that it was inflationary economic forces in the health care sector, unleashed by government, that permitted these projects to be proposed; and there also seems to be little insight that these types of projects themselves tend to be inherently inflationary.

But this is consistent with the larger societal ethic which, on the one hand, seeks to access lavish health care services and facilities, without individuals and families having to, on the other hand, pay for them.  That is the current state of our politics.  It is the essence of the position taken by Obama, the congressional Democrats and the mainstream media.  Give me health care, but don't make me pay.

The problem, of course, is that this particular status quo is precisely what created the problems we have had.  We have experienced serious health care inflation for decades because people have been insulated from the cost of health care services by third party payment and first dollar coverage. 

So what do Obama and the Democrats want?   More insulation from the cost of care, more third party payment and more first dollar coverage.  They want more third-party funding of the "medical industrial complex".  They want to continue to enshrine institutions like employer-sponsored health insurance and Medicare.

Let's remember the unofficial definition of insanity: doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting a different outcome.  That is the substance of the health care reform Obama and the Democrats want to force on us.

MLK Jr., Obama, and the Right to Life

From Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...

I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"...

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

I do not presume to know whether MLK Jr. was pro-life.  But I know he has a niece who has taken a highly public pro-life stand.

Nonetheless, one cannot read the passages excerpted above without recognizing that his words apply to the issue of legal abortion on demand.  The implicit message of the law created by the Supreme Court is that unborn human life does not possess worth or human dignity, and does not merit protection-- if the mother does not want the child.  The message is that it is acceptable to take one human life to suit the convenience of another.

It is difficult to square such a reality with MLK Jr.'s words above regarding unjust laws.  President Obama was unbothered by such sentiments when he recently delivered his Notre Dame graduation speech.

And this coming week, he may be announcing his Supreme Court nomination.  Many of us will be watching.  Here is what David Freddoso observed about a recent poll:

Conway’s survey asked Americans whether they agreed that “abortions should be allowed at any time during a woman’s pregnancy, and for any reason” — which is, essentially, Obama’s position. Only 7 percent of respondents supported it.

Obama during his speech spoke of the need to find "common ground", but that is not what he wants.  He does not want to transcend partisanship or ideology.  He simply wants his side to prevail on this issue; and he has very strongly held beliefs.

Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas School of Law, asks Obama some important questions in reaction to the content of Obama's Notre Dame speech.  Obama has said that abortion is a tragic choice that is never undertaken lightly:

Will you, Mr. President, publicly state that it is your wish that women not have abortions, whenever humanly possible? Will you state that you think that the “choice” you wish to preserve should be exercised in favor of preserving the developing life of the unborn child? Will you lead in this way? Will you urge, and support through policy, adoption instead of abortion?...

Will you propose this specifically for the African-American community, in a special way? Will you commit to working to reduce the incidence of abortion among African- Americans?...Are you serious about reducing black abortions?...

Will you join me, and others, in supporting a ban on abortion had for reasons of sex-selection of a born child? Sadly, many seek abortion not because they do not want a child, but because they do not want a girl. This is horrible, would you not agree? Mr. President, if you are serious about seeking common ground, would you not agree that our nation should ban the abortion choice when used for such an awful, human-gender-based reason?...

Mr. President, if we cannot agree today (as you noted in your speech), can we agree that abortion is a tragedy to be avoided and that we should commit as a nation to eliminating it in the future? Mr. President, would you support a constitutional amendment to ban abortion as of the year 2050, and urge us to reach the point where, technologically and morally, it is possible to support “reproductive choice” without that meaning abortion of a living, breathing, growing human fetus?...

Mr. President, if you are serious in seeking common ground, will you commit to naming no one to the Supreme Court based on a pro-abortion or pro-Roe litmus test, or who has previously committed himself or herself to such a position?

Over at The Public Discourse, Jon Shields exposes the inconsistency between Obama's desire, stated at Notre Dame, to "work through our differences" on this issue, and his position against democratic deliberation on the topic:

Given the strong passions the abortion issue stirs, Obama called on all of us to reflect on how we might “work through” our differences. We should do so, Obama intoned, by “open[ing] up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do.” Obama, in other words, attempted to cultivate an open-minded and deliberative debate on an issue in which reasonable citizens of good will disagree with one another.

Yet elsewhere Obama has indicated that he is actually strongly opposed to democratic deliberation on abortion. During the third presidential debate, Obama declared before a national audience: 

"I think that the Constitution has a right to privacy in it that shouldn’t be subject to state referendum, any more than our First Amendment rights are subject to state referendum, any more than many of the other rights that we have should be subject to popular vote."

In this account, the right to abortion is similar to the right of assembly—it is an uncontestable right that should never be subject to democratic debate and disagreement. This raises the question of how abortion can be an uncontestable right and an issue we should collectively “work through” with open hearts and minds...

As conservative defenders of a status quo that is largely insulated from democratic pressures, pro-choice activists simply have little incentive to engage those who disagree with them. Roe has therefore undermined a deliberative debate on the moral question that most deeply divides Americans.

President Obama simply can’t have it both ways. Either abortion access is an uncontestable right that “shouldn’t be subject to state referendum” or it is a contestable right we should collectively “work though” in popular and representative institutions.

It is, of course, understandable that Obama wants to please his pro-choice base and appeal to pro-life citizens. But given the gravity of the issue, Obama nonetheless owes all of us a philosophically coherent argument.

Finally, Rick Moran clarifies some of Obama's words for us.  His objective, after all, is not to reduce the number of abortions... it is to reduce the need for abortions.   Get it?

In any case, it is extremely ironic that our first black President is defending a legal framework initiated by Roe vs. Wade that violates the concept of justice elucidated by Martin Luther King, Jr.; and that permits unborn African-American lives to be taken disproportionately.  

I have stated before that one cannot listen to what Obama says.  One must watch what he does.