Category Archives: Kudos

Good work by Justice Stevens

Posted on by | No Comments

who wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in American Needle v. NFL. It was an interesting case, turning on the question of whether the NFL is a single corporate entity or a collection of competing corporations, and one with potentially huge ramifications. Had the Court upheld the NFL’s claim and allowed them to act as a single corporation, it would have been an immense transfer of power to the NFL which probably would have drastically weakened the players’ union; but in denying that claim (as they did, and rightly) there was the potential to significantly weaken the league. Justice Stevens’ ruling, from what I can see, did an excellent job of maintaining the necessary balance, laying a clear legal foundation for the NFL as a collection of competing corporations which must by the very nature of their business act cooperatively and collectively in much of what they do. As Doug Farrar sums it up,

Stevens basically said that the Supreme Court, and any other Court, would test function rather than form and avoid absolute impingement of any collective activity taken on by the teams,. But any act in concert with an eye on the evasion of antitrust law would not be allowed or exempted. In effect, as Berthelsen intimated in his statement, the NFL must operate under the same constraints as almost any other business. It was a sound and reasoned ruling that penalized neither side.

Nice job of threading the needle, that.

Good for Nebraska

Posted on by | 2 Comments

This is good news:

The Nebraska legislature has signed off on a bill that Governor Dave Heineman will sign today that could head to the courts and ultimately weaken further the Roe v.Wade Supreme Court decision that has resulted in 52 million abortions. The bill bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the well-established concept of fetal pain.

By a vote of 44-5, the Nebraska unicameral legislature this morning gave final passage to the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act introduced by Speaker Mike Flood.

One small step toward a more just and compassionate society.

A good call from the President

Posted on by | 10 Comments

I’d meant to post on this yesterday, but didn’t get the chance. The devil is in the details, as always, but the core idea here is right and important:

With former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker at his side, Mr. Obama said he wanted to toughen existing limits on the size of financial firms and force them to choose between the protection of the government’s safety net and the often-lucrative business of trading for their own accounts or owning hedge funds or private-equity funds. . . .

“The key issue is that institutions that are getting a backstop from the taxpayer shouldn’t be able to make a profit off their own investing,” said Austan Goolsbee, a White House economist who staffs the presidential advisory board Mr. Volcker chairs. . . .

Under the Obama proposal, banks that take federally insured deposits or have the right to borrow from the Fed would be prohibited from owning, investing in or sponsoring hedge funds or private-equity firms. “You can choose to engage in proprietary trading, or you can own a bank, but you can’t do both,” an administration official said.

The reason for taking this step was articulated well by National Review‘s Jim Manzi:

Finance professionals, like members of all occupational categories, attempt to build barriers that maintain their own income. One of the techniques used is to shroud what are often pretty basic ideas in pseudo-technical jargon. The reason that it is dysfunctional to have an insured banking system that is free to engage in speculative investing is simple and fundamental. We (i.e., the government, which is to say, ultimately, the taxpayers) provide a guarantee to depositors that when they put their savings in a regulated bank, then the money will be there even if the bank fails, because we believe that the chaos and uncertainty of a banking system operating without this guarantee is too unstable to maintain political viability. But if you let the operators of these banks take the deposits and, in effect, put them on a long-shot bet at the horse track, and then pay themselves a billion dollars in bonuses if the horse comes in, but turn to taxpayers to pay off depositors if the horse doesn’t, guess what is going to happen? Exactly what we saw in 2008 happens.

If you want to have a safe, secure banking system for small depositors, but don’t want to make risky investing illegal (which would be very damaging to the economy), the obvious solution is to not allow any one company to both take guaranteed deposits and also make speculative investments. This was the solution developed and implemented in the New Deal. We need a modernized version of this basic construct, and as far as I can see, this is what President Obama has proposed. . . .

Make no mistake, many banking executives right now are benefiting from taxpayer subsidies. Even if they pay back the TARP money, the government has demonstrated that it will intervene to protect large banks. This can’t be paid back. And this implicit, but very real, guarantee represents an enormous transfer of economic value from taxpayers to any bank executives and investors who are willing to take advantage of it. Unsurprisingly, pretty much all of them are.

Now, as Megan McArdle points out, there’s a lot that we don’t know that will bear very heavily on whether this policy ultimately benefits our country—and even assuming it’s the right thing to do, there will be distinct and significant downsides to it. Nevertheless, the government has to reduce its exposure somehow, and this seems to be the most reasonable way to do it.

The government is recognizing that banks “paying back” the funds they were given is essentially meaningless, because they’ve still got a very, very valuable implied government guarantee. One could argue that they’ve had it since 1991 when the Federal Reserve got the power to loan money to investment banks in extremis. But since last fall, it’s the next best thing to explicit. That means the government needs to take steps to mitigate its own risk.

The way you do that is to decouple the key operation the government insures—the funneling of credit from those with money to those who want to borrow it—from making bets on market outcomes that can go badly wrong. And to ensure that no institution has enough liabilities to take down the system if it fails.

It may not work, as she acknowledges, and it won’t be without significant cost; but we can’t unring the bailout bell, so what else are we going to do?

Credit to the White House

Posted on by | 3 Comments

This was a good and wise and humane decision:

extending temporary amnesty to Haitians who were illegally inside the U.S. before this week’s catastrophic earthquake. Some 30,000 Haitians had been awaiting deportation but will now be allowed to stay in the U.S. and work for another 18 months. . . .

We hope even the most restrictionist voices on the right and in the labor movement will understand the humanitarian imperative. The suffering and chaos since the earthquake should make it obvious that Haiti is no place to return people whose only crime was coming to America to escape the island’s poverty and ill-governance.

For that matter, we don’t mind if they stay here permanently. Haitian immigrants as a group are among America’s most successful, which demonstrates that Haiti’s woes owe more to corruption, disdain for property rights and lack of public safety than to any flaw in its people. Their remittances to Haiti also help to sustain the impoverished population. Haitians received some $1.65 billion from overseas in 2006, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

The President and his advisors have reason to be proud of themselves.

I will give the President credit

Posted on by | No Comments

after responding to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates in something of a knee-jerk fashion—which is understandable, since Dr. Gates, one of the high-profile members of the Harvard faculty, is a friend of his—has now acted quite graciously to defuse the situation and to defend the officer who arrested Dr. Gates, Sgt. Jim Crowley of the Cambridge police. While of course he continues to insist that the arrest was an “overreaction”—something which is easy to say from a distance, since from an outside perspective it’s clear that Dr. Gates didn’t actually intend Sgt. Crowley any harm—he has also unbent far enough to admit that “Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.” While that’s something of an understatement, given the professor’s loud, arrogant and abusive behavior (not surprising from a Harvard prima donna), it’s still a welcome admission. More than that, President Obama called Sgt. Crowley “a good man . . . who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity,” and admitted of his initial reaction,

In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department, or Sergeant Crowley specifically. I could have calibrated those words differently, and I told this to Sergeant Crowley.

As well, President Obama gave the press another reason to feel good about Sgt. Crowley:

By the way, said Obama, at the end of his conversation with Crowley, there was some discussion of Obama, Gates, and Crowley having a beer in the White House. “I don’t know if that’s scheduled yet,” Obama deadpanned, “but we may put that together. But he also did say that he wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn.”

“I informed him,” Obama said, “that . . . I can’t get the press off my lawn,” drawing big laughs from the gathered reporters.

Since he’s now been the cause, in a friendly and familiar way, of a presidential joke, as well as the recipient of an official presidential pat on the back it seems unlikely that Sgt. Crowley should have to worry about any further attacks on his character . . . though he may still want to swing wide of Dr. Gates in future. But this is a guy who could easily have been savaged, given the way things go in this country, and who really didn’t have it coming; kudos to President Obama for his gracious handling of the situation to keep that from happening.

Congratulations to the Spartan Nation

Posted on by | No Comments

I root in all things for my Washington teams—the Seattle teams in the pros, the University of Washington, Gonzaga as well in basketball, and really, I’m usually happy to see Washington State do well, also—and of course for my alma mater, Hope College; but at the college level, I pull for Michigan State, too, since between my own extended family and my wife’s family, I’m related to a large number of Spartans.  I have of course been cheering MSU on in the NCAA tournament this year (and especially since Purdue took out the Huskies, which made me quite unhappy)—I even called them beating Louisville, since I thought they matched up really well with the Cardinals, and I have great faith in Tom Izzo as a coach.  I figured, though, that Izzo would have to be content with his fifth Final Four in twelve years, since I didn’t see them beating Connecticut (in fact, UConn was my pick to win it all); even with the home-court advantage, I figured the UConn front line would be too much for them.  I even expressed that belief to my father-in-law this morning.

I was wrong.  Michigan State 82, Connecticut 73.  Congratulations, Coach Izzo and the Spartans—and good luck against North Carolina Monday night.  They’ll be your third straight #1 seed, which is quite a gauntlet to run . . . but I think you can take ’em.

President Bush is a class act

Posted on by | No Comments

This from Andrew Malcolm, in the Los Angeles Times’ “Top of the Ticket” blog:

Tuesday in Calgary, the 43rd president gave the first of about a dozen paid speeches arranged so far by the Washington Speakers Bureau on his 2009 schedule. And here’s what Bush told about 2,000 business persons about his successor, the 44th president:”There are plenty of critics in the arena. He deserves my silence.”Bush said something else too:”I love my country a lot more than I love politics. I think it is essential that he be helped in office.” . . .Bush also said if the new president wanted his help, “he’s welcome to call me.”

Apparently, Dick Cheney’s not very happy with him, but I think this is both gracious and wise of our most recent ex-president.  Good for him.

Credit to Patty Murray

Posted on by | No Comments

Back when I was still officially a Washington resident, I had and took a couple opportunities to vote against Patty Murray for Senate, and if I had another chance I still wouldn’t vote for her; but I have to give her credit for this one.  As you may have seen (since it’s all over the Web; emphasis mine),

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.But the proposal would be “dead on arrival” if it’s sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said.Murray used that blunt terminology when she told Shinseki that the idea would not be acceptable and would be rejected if formally proposed. Her remarks came during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs about the 2010 budget. . . .Currently, veterans’ private insurance is charged only when they receive health care from the VA for medical issues that are not related to service injuries, like getting the flu.Charging for service-related injuries would violate “a sacred trust,” Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis said. Davis said the move would risk private health care for veterans and their families by potentially maxing out benefits paying for costly war injury treatments.

That’s just disreputable—especially coming from the Secretary for Veterans’ Affairs, the guy who’s supposed to be the advocate for veterans in the administration.  Kudos to Sen. Murray and her colleagues for telling the administration to forget about it.Update:  Jon Stewart absolutely trashed the administration over this (transcript here):
.cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url(‘http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png’) !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;}

These people deserve a medal

Posted on by | No Comments

The emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River is a story which will not be soon forgotten, especially in New York; I suspect many people now know a lot more about bird strikes and the damage they can cause than they ever did before, and there are probably a lot more folks out there who know what FOD means than there were.  (For those of you who don’t, it stands for “foreign object damage.”)  What should be remembered longest, however, is the extraordinary job the captain and first officer of that Airbus A320 did to keep everyone alive.  As the Wall Street Journal summarized the accomplishment,

The pilots of US Airways Flight 1549 achieved one of the rarest and most technically challenging feats in commercial aviation: landing on water without fatalities.Although commercial jetliners are equipped with life vests and inflatable slides, there have been few successful attempts at water landings during the jet age. Indeed, even though pilots go through the motions of learning to ditch a plane in water, the generally held belief is that such landings would almost certainly result in fatalities.

And yet, with their engines disabled by a flock of geese, Capt. Chesley Sullenberger and his FO were able to keep their plane in the air and their speed up long enough to maneuver around the skyscrapers of Manhattan and land safely in the Hudson.  It was a remarkable technical and personal accomplishment, and I’m not kidding:  they deserve a medal.  Congress needs to get on that.

Barack Obama should be proud of himself

Posted on by | 5 Comments

Well, the despicable innuendos that Bristol Palin, Gov. Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, is the real mother of four-month-old Trig Palin have been abruptly decapitated by brute fact: Bristol Palin is in fact five months pregnant. The McCain campaign knew about it and decided to make the matter public in order to silence the baseless rumors.As a pastor, I’ve married a fair number of couples; I’ve only had one who were still virgins when they said “I do.” I wish that wasn’t the reality in our society, but it is—as, I suspect, it has been in most societies, though the sex-drenched nature of ours makes it harder. I believe premarital sex is a sin and an unhelpful behavior, but I also know full well that we are all sinners, and many of us guilty of far worse. In my own ministry, I choose to address that particular sin by moving couples toward marriage and toward spiritual and relational maturity, including a deeper understanding of the meaning of sex and its place in their relationship. If a couple is willing to accept that responsibility, and its consequences, and make the commitment to building a strong marriage, that’s all I ask of them. I could wish that Ms. Palin had not had sex with her boyfriend, as I could wish for many girls around this country; the fact that she had the courage and grace to commit to her unborn child and to that child’s father is admirable, especially in the face of the public scrutiny that that would entail. (To accept the even greater scrutiny that was bound to come with the VP nomination, when she was surely given a veto by her mother, is admirable as well.) To do as she did—yes, she fell short of what she had been taught, as we all do; and then as Christ calls us to do, she got up and, together with her family, responded to it as redemptively as possible. To have done otherwise would have been a far greater sin than any she has in fact committed.All this is a very common drama in homes around this country. We as Christians try to raise our children to do what is best, and I hope none of my daughters will ever find themselves in this position; but they’re sinners just as we’re sinners. Given the power of sexual attraction and the drive of our hormones, we may do our best to teach and encourage them to save sex for marriage, but even with the best of intentions, they may not. If they get pregnant before marriage, we won’t love them any less, though it will be less than what we hope for them; we will stand by them and give them the support and care they need to go forward from that point as God would have them live. I think it’s a sad commentary on this day and age that such a story could produce a headline like “Assessing the Political Impact of Bristol Palin’s Pregnancy”; that such a thing should have a political impact just seems wrong.This is where I give major, major kudos to Barack Obama. I’ve written about him sharply at points, in large part because of my disappointment—I had hoped for a great deal from him, perhaps more than was really realistic of anyone, and especially of someone in politics; but there are moments when I can still see clearly the reasons for my initial hopes. This is one of them.

Barack Obama addressed a gaggle of reporters this afternoon to discuss the latest goings-on with Hurricane Gustav. After brief opening comments on the much-hyped, overly politicized hurricane, reporters were curious about one thing: 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, made public today.“I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics,” the Democrat said forcefully. “It has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a VP. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories,” he continued.The candidate who himself was born to a teenage mom, reminded reporters, “You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and you know teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits.”

Straight on, square up, dead on point, and absolutely right. Sen. Obama truly should feel proud, because he’s struck a blow for the good here, and not least for decency and fairness in our politics; I think there are a lot of folks in this country who don’t understand that this kind of thing is off limits, and that unfortunately places like Democratic Underground and Daily Kos are among them, but the more people listen to him here, the better off we are. (And if anyone could get people to listen on this point, it’s probably him.)Incidentally, I’m also in complete agreement with Sen. Obama on this:

When asked about an “unnamed McCain advisor” accusing the Obama campaign of spreading despicable rumors surrounding Bristol Palin online, Obama interrupted the reporter mid-question. “I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us,” he said directly. “Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I ever thought that it was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that—they’d be fired,” he added.

Based on the way Sen. Obama has run his campaign so far, there’s no plausible reason to doubt his statement. And if there was in fact someone on the McCain campaign staff accusing his campaign of doing this—well, let’s just say that John McCain has fired people for less already this political season, and in that case, he should put boot to butt personally.HT: JustJuls