The Sanchez Report

Supreme Court Overturns Sotomayor In White Firefighters Case

From the Associated Press:

The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

Kennedy's opinion made only passing reference to the work of Sotomayor and the other two judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who upheld a lower court ruling in favor of New Haven.

But the appellate judges have been criticized for producing a cursory opinion that failed to deal with "indisputably complex and far from well-settled" questions, in the words of another appeals court judge, Sotomayor mentor Jose Cabranes.

"This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal," Cabranes said, in a dissent from the full 2nd Circuit's decision not to hear the case.

The Real Cost of Obama Healthcare = $4 Trillion Over Ten Years

The media has widely reported that the cost of President Obama's takeover of healthcare tops $1 trillion over ten years. However, Dr. Stephen T. Parente of the University of Minnesota and the HSI Network testified before Congress this week and pegs the true number at $ 4 Trillion Dollars over a ten year period. This number was derived using a model developed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Consider this, our entire budget for FY 2010 is $3.6 Trillion. Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no way we can afford this left wing socialized takeover of the finest healthcare system the world has ever known.

From The Lid blog:

• Our early assessment of the Senate Finance committee proposal shows a 74% reduction in the uninsured with a 10 year cost  2.7 trillionusing public option plan modeled after the Massachusetts Connector. We also modeled an FEHBP version of the public plan and got a cost of over 1.3 trillion, but with a 30% reduction in the uninsured.

• CBO scored the Kennedy Bill last week at approximately a 30% reduction [of uninsured people]for 1 trillion over ten years. Using the ARCOLA model, we found nearly everyone would be covered if all elements of the Kennedy bill were enacted at a ten year cost of 4 trillion. At this time, we are the only group yet to score the full Kennedy proposal. (If you would like to see the full analysis of this bill including how they got to their budget numbers) 

The full analysis concludes:

The plan lowers the uninsured significantly, to less than 1% of the population, but not without a cost of over four trillion dollars over 10 years. There are no provisions in the legislation to offset this course. Even if the most generous estimate of the employer sponsored tax exclusion ($300 billion per year, including collecting FICA contributions from employers) where used and combined with fraud estimates and block granting all of Medicaid (acute and long term care2), this would be a challenging proposal to finance with budget neutrality. Finally, the public plans will be quite successful in recruiting large numbers of Americans. They will also likely crowd out at 79 million individual
contracts with existing private insurers.

Separately, Parente analyzed the house version of the plan:

• The plan lowers the uninsured significantly, to less than 3% of the population, but not
  without a cost of nearly $3.5 trillion dollars over 10 years. There are no provisions in the legislation to offset this course. Even if the most generous estimate of the employer sponsored tax exclusion ($300 billion per year, including collecting FICA contributions from employers) were used and combined with fraud estimates and block granting all of Medicaid (acute and long term care2), this would be a challenging proposal to finance with budget neutrality. Finally, the public plans will be quite successful in recruiting large numbers of Americans. They will also likely crowd out 64 million individual contracts with existing private insurers.

Obama Job Approval Drops To 58% In Latest Gallup Poll

It looks like the honeymoon is over. The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking has President Obama dropping to a new low of 58% job approval with 33% of Americans disapproving of his job performance. This drop is being driven by a drop in support among Independents and Republicans. The timing couldn't be worse for the President who is struggling to build support for his ambitious takeover of the healthcare system. I've been predicting for weeks that the disconnect between his personal approval numbers and the dwindling support of his policies would catch up and calibrate. From the latest Gallup Daily Tracking Poll:

The latest decline in Obama's approval score, to 58%, results from a drop in approval among political independents as well as among Republicans. Democrats remain as highly supportive of the president as ever.

Obama's approval rating was 60% from June 13-15, at which time 88% of Democrats, 60% of independents, and 25% of Republicans approved of the job he was doing. In the June 16-18 polling, Democrats' approval of him stands at 92% -- up slightly -- whereas approval is down among both independents (by seven points) and Republicans (by four points).

Doctors' Stand Up To Obama And His Healthcare Reform

Something new happened to President Obama during his recent speech at the American Medical Association convention, he was booed. For the first time since becoming President, he faced outright criticism and it came not from the press, but from medical doctors who weren't afraid to express their disapproval of his takeover of the healthcare system.

From Breitbart.com:

Barack Obama isn't used to hearing boos.

For all the young president's popularity, the response he got Monday from doctors at an American Medical Association meeting was a sign his road is only going to get rockier as he tries to sell his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.

The boos erupted when Obama told the doctors in Chicago he wouldn't try to help them win their top legislative priority—limits on jury damages in medical malpractice cases.

But what could they expect? If Obama announced support for malpractice limits, that would set trial lawyers and unions—major supporters of Democratic candidates—on the attack. Not to mention consumer groups.

The Terrorists Will Soon Be Hiring Lawyers

From the Powerline Blog:

Our friend Steve Hayes blows the whistle on a real scandal (as opposed to a faux "scandal" like waterboarding): on orders of the Obama administration, terrorists captured in Afghanistan are now being given Miranda warnings:

[T]he Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. "The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here's the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today -- foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them and they're reading them their rights -- Mirandizing these foreign fighters," says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.

Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy.

Think back to the days after September 11, 2001, and imagine how pretty much anyone would have reacted to the suggestion that terrorists captured overseas should be "arrested" and read their "rights." Those days, obviously, are long gone.

You may wonder what on earth the point is. Evidently, the idea is that we may want to prosecute these terrorists someday in American courts. If you have wondered, like me, why we are talking about criminal prosecutions in the U.S. when a terrorist tries to blow up American soldiers in Afghanistan, it turns out that Congress has passed anti-terrorism statutes that purport to reach overseas, so that someone who commits a terrorist act against an American soldier can, indeed, be brought back to the U.S. and prosecuted.

Of course, if the terrorists are under the jurisdiction of American courts with criminal prosecution as the aim, their rights do not stop with Miranda warnings. On the contrary: among other things, they are entitled to the assistance of counsel. So I suppose we should start shipping planeloads of criminal defense lawyers to Afghanistan to make sure that the terrorists' "rights" are fully protected.

But why would we even consider criminal prosecution for captured terrorists? In what war have we ever brought enemy combatants--legitimate ones, let alone terrorists--back to America to be criminally prosecuted? None, obviously.

All of this is emblematic of the Obama administration's return to a law enforcement model for fighting terrorism--the same model that failed so spectacularly in the years leading up to September 11. The best we can all do, for now, is hope that history does not repeat itself.

Newsweek's Evan Thomas: "Obama Is Sort Of GOD"

This is just another piece of evidence that the so-called "mainstream media" is out of control. When is the media going to put aside their love affair with President Obama and start providing some checks in the system? The American people need their leaders to be held accountable by the media and so far we've had nothing but a slobbering love affair reminiscent of childhood crushes. From Big Hollywood:

The White House Economic Team Forgot About One Thing... Higher Interest Rates

In my May 11th post "Deficits Soar", I predicted that the economy would show some short term positive sings and then interest rates would start to rise and suffocate growth. Well, it's happening sooner than I expected which doesn't bode well for the economy. The problem with the Obama economic team is that it's stacked with academics and politicians who live in the world of theories and now they're running into reality.

From All Business:

The Federal Reserve announced a $1.2 trillion plan three months ago designed to push down mortgage rates and breathe life into the housing market.

But this and other big government spending programs are turning out to have the opposite effect. Rates for mortgages and U.S. Treasury debt are now marching higher as nervous bond investors fret about a resurgence of inflation.

That's the Catch-22 threatening to make an awful housing market potentially worse and keep the economy stuck in a funk. Kick-starting the economy requires higher spending, but rising rates mean fewer Americans will be able to refinance their home loans. And some potential buyers will be shut out of the market by higher monthly payments they won't be able to afford.

To understand how this is all connected, you have to think like a bond trader. Inflation is their enemy because it means the purchasing power of the dollars they receive when bonds eventually are paid off will be diminished. The only question is by how much.

Latest NJ Governor's Poll: Christie (R) 51% leads Corzine (D) 38%

The upcoming New Jersey Governor's race could be the start of a turnaround for the GOP. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll indicates that the the GOP nominee, Chris Christie, leads the incumbent Governor, Jon Corzine by a margin of 51%-38%. You better believe that President Obama will be pouring resources into this race in order to prevent the GOP from establishing momentum leading up to the 2010 midterm elections. Stay tuned!

From the Rasmussen Reports:

Fresh from his primary victory over Steve Lonegan, Republican Chris Christie enjoys a double-digit lead over Democrat Jon Corzine in the New Jersey Governor’s race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows Christie with 51% of the vote while Corzine is supported by 38%. Last month, before the primary, it was Christie with 47% of the vote and Corzine with 38%. The slight increase in support for Christie may reflect a temporary bounce from his primary victory.

GM Is Nationalized, Now What?

The great Larry Kudlow breaks it down like no other on Wall Street.

From Kudlow's Money Politics:

Isn’t it fascinating that stocks rallied over 200 points today, despite Obama’s command-and-control government takeover of General Motors? I think it’s because GM’s old-economy operation is yesterday’s story. The new economy doesn’t need GM. We’re only talking about 25,000 employees left in the car company’s domestic operation. Compare that to the millions of workers at new-economy companies like Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Apple, and on and on.

Obama’s so-called GM rescue is a needless intrusion at huge taxpayer expense, and a political payoff to the union movement that helped elect him. And the central-planning mandate to produce little green cars at a domestic plant almost guarantees that taxpayers will never get their money back. Apparently GM cannot make these little green cars in China or Mexico and then have them shipped back to the U.S. for assembly and sale.

And we do not know the total compensation per hour for UAW workers — both salary and benefits — under the new agreement. That number hasn’t been published. So we can’t compare it to the compensation figures of the foreign transplants in order to measure competitiveness.