Triad Conservative

Local Manufacturer Fined by DOJ For Preferentially Hiring American Citizens

The Triad Business News had an item today that seems terribly wrong.

Honda Aircraft in Greensboro has been fined by the Trump DOJ because the manufacturer "discriminated" against job applicants based on their immigration status. Honda Aircraft apparently hired American citizens preferentially over those here on work visas; and that was an unpardonable error under the law.

Apparently, foreign citizens who are authorized to work in the US are protected from "discrimination" by the Immigration and Nationality Act. I expect this encompasses very large numbers of foreign citizens who are here on various types of work visas.

Readers might recall that our own business-first GOP Senator Thom Tillis is enthralled with the idea of increasing the numbers of folks coming to America on work visas. Then the law protects these folks from "discrimination"; and employers cannot preferentially hire American citizens over them. Of course, this holds down the earnings of American citizens and limits their opportunities. And despite a growing economy, we still have large numbers of Americans in the working class and lower middle class who cannot support a family, meet their living expenses and save for the future.

Employers cannot just adopt the attitude of magnanimously hiring non-citizens holding visas. Instead, employers must fear being cited for discrimination if they do not.

It seems that the more we learn the details of our country's immigration policies, the more we understand the system has been rigged against American citizens. And some of us know why things have developed in this direction.

Facing the Lies We Have Been Fed

HT: Fred

Guilford County Schools Facilities Study Does GOP County Commissioners, Taxpayers a Disservice

GOP County Commissioner Hank Henning was very concerned that protracted delays in the release of the Guilford County Schools facilities study produced by a hired consultant were an indication that insiders were somehow tainting the process. And it appears that the final product amply justifies his concerns.

The report was released a couple of days ago; and the big news was that the consultant was recommending approximately $1.5 billion in new bond spending.

Remain mindful that Guilford County taxpayers have only recently recovered from the billion dollar bond issue passed about a decade ago. The school board exercised poor stewardship over those monies; and taxpayers got little "bang for the buck". Republican county commissioners have been climbing out of that hole ever since they gained a majority on the board eight years ago.

One of the most interesting facts about the study is that the consultants admit the county currently has excessive capacity in its school system. However, they advocate closing many schools and building many new schools. Why? They say that the school building locations do not match well where the population of students reside; many of the facilities are in poor condition; and many of the facilities are not "educationally suitable"-- i.e., the buildings do not have the bells and whistles school administrators want.

We must remember that the county commissioners were primarily concerned about two issues when they requested the study. First, they were interested in learning what upgrades would be needed to make the schools safe from active shooter situations, and what these upgrades would cost; and second, they wanted to fix the most glaring shortcomings with regard to school buildings' critical systems-- HVAC, roofing, plumbing, structural integrity, etc. There have been many complaints over these issues over the years, but the school system refuses to maintain the facilities appropriately.

Why? There is an institutional desire for more grandiose buildings with all the bells and whistles. And there is a political desire to pay off those interests-- TREBIC and Melderec -related-- that benefit from real estate transactions and school construction.

What are the critical defects in the report? I reviewed it; and here are the most obvious problems:

1. Despite the delayed release, they do not incorporate changed circumstances associated with tornado-related damage to three schools.
2. The consultants barely mention the changes needed to make facilities more safe and secure. They certainly do not break out this information in detail for each school.
3. I counted approximately 49 school system administrators and employees the consultants acknowledged in the report. It is quite obvious the consultants interviewed many within the system to learn and transmit their wish lists.
4. The report does not identify specifically the defects in critical systems at each school-- again, HVAC, roofing, plumbing, structural integrity, etc.
5. There is an overt bias toward new construction in the report. For instance, the consultants recommend new construction  if renovations would cost more than 60 percent of new construction; or if the school earns an aggregate score less than 50 percent that incorporates a measure of bells and whistles. But the consultants do not identify what renovations are needed at each school to fix critical systems. They do not provide the raw data. The commissioners therefore have no basis for determining the precise nature of the problems at each school; and what is needed to fix the biggest problems. They have no basis for prioritizing needed work to be performed.
6. Moreover, the consultants give almost as much weight to "educational suitability"-- i.e., bells and whistles-- as they do to problems with the physical condition of the facility.
7. The consultants accept uncritically the school system's stated preference for what class size should be at each grade level. Moreover, the consultants imply the class size goals they incorporated to plan facility needs are smaller than the  class sizes that currently prevail. That biases the report toward more construction.
8. The consultants make no effort to identify more economical methods of building new schools.
9. They also are biased toward using a bond issue to pay for the school construction and renovation instead of "pay-as-you-go" or other more innovative methods. The bias is toward borrowing, paying lots of interest expense, and spending.
10. They "generously" suggest the work can be done in four phases; but then proceed to assert that two-thirds of the work--- approximately $962 million-- needs to be done with the very first swipe.

I don't think this report is what the county commissioners wanted, or what they were requesting. I don't think it answers the questions they wanted answered.

The county commissioners therefore ought to reject the study, hire their own consultant, and demand a "do-over" according to their own priorities.

All the Outrage Over the New York/ Virginia Abortion Bills

Over the last week, we have witnessed a virtual avalanche of negative commentary and reporting from conservative media, pundits and Republican politicians regarding the abortion bills in New York and Virginia, respectively.

There should be no doubt whatsoever that these measures were tantamount to infanticide. Inasmuch as every human life has inherent worth and dignity, and is created in God's image, we should be be aflame with righteous anger over what the democratic socialists are doing. 

But unfortunately, none of this is new. 

Abortion jurisprudence, written by the activist judiciary, makes abortion legal through all three trimesters of pregnancy, until childbirth, if there is a theoretical risk to the physical or mental health of the mother. Some of the states have been attempting to chip away at this judicially imposed status quo; but that is otherwise the state of the law as written by the federal courts.

Moreover, the democratic socialist party has been militantly pro-abortion for a period of nearly four decades. In fact, it is so stridently pro-abortion that it doesn't even hesitate to engage in slanderous character assassination against judicial candidates who are deemed likely to be pro-life. But if the socialists are willing to kill babies, hey, what's a little character assassination?

Cuomo is an outright thug; and Northam is an ethically confused southern man. But these archetypes have been quite common in democratic socialist circles for many years also.

There has been much criticism of the New York Catholic cardinal who refuses to excommunicate Cuomo. And he absolutely should. But Catholic bishops in heavily blue states and cities doubtless must be wary of antagonizing the socialists in charge because governmental authorities can exact revenge in various ways. The New York archdiocese subsists in a city with a heavily Jewish power structure.

In any case, the news this past week was that New York and Virginia were attempting to give us more of the same.  And it remains a tragedy.

Laura Leslie Asks Republican to Contrast Female Genital Mutilation with Circumcision

Today, it was reported that Republicans in the North Carolina Senate had introduced legislation to make female genital mutilation illegal in the state of North Carolina. The practice would be categorized as a criminal act-- a felony.

Female genital mutilation is a cultural practice that entails cutting or removal of external female genitalia. It is a cultural practice; but is required in certain branches of Islam. In fact, it can be part of Sharia law; and is, in fact, a barbaric practice.

The immigration of large numbers of Muslims to the United States raises certain issues, because some of them will practice female genital mutilation. Ordinarily, we would expect Americans to be protected from this kind of practice. The legislation proposed by Senate Republicans is therefore extremely appropriate.

Laura Leslie at WRAL reported on this story today. Ms. Leslie years ago used to report for North Carolina's NPR stations; and is a certifiable member of the media/left complex.

What did Ms. Leslie try to do in her story? She asked the bill's sponsor to explain how female genital mutilation is differentiated from male circumcision:

Some supporters of FGM have compared it to male circumcision. Asked about that, Krawiec said they're not similar at all.

It is, of course, patently ridiculous for Leslie to raise this issue. Circumcision has known medical benefits; whereas female genital mutilation has none.

Circumcision has a longstanding basis in Jewish culture. In fact, it dates back to biblical times. Should it be regarded as anti-Semitic to compare a traditional hygienic Jewish practice like circumcision with a barbaric practice that has no medical benefit?

The unstated premise of Leslie's question, of course, is that it is inappropriate to judge foreign cultures by the standards of our own majoritarian culture. That is nonsense because female genital mutilation is an invasive physical assault-- a battery, if you will-- that is not committed in self-defense. Does this mean we must exculpate other criminal assaults?

Aaron Wolf recently addressed this tendency among liberal elites to reflexively pardon certain outrages while reserving their contempt for Christianity:

It is quite unfashionable these days to think, let alone say, that any culture could be judged inferior, for such a judgment requires a standard by which it can be made.  Of course, this innocence of judgment is both hypocritical and duplicitous: Today, Christian cultures and societies, past and present, are routinely subjected to the judgment and condemnation of the liberal elites of the West, who owe their immense cultural wealth and civilization to the dominant influence of centuries of Christianity.

Raleigh Republicans Scheming to Expand the Welfare State?

A number of progressive Republicans in the North Carolina House are getting ready to push Medicaid expansion legislation. These include Dr. Greg Murphy; Donny Lambeth, a former hospital administator from Forsyth County; Josh Dobson, a health committee co-chairman; and Donna White, a nurse.

The Republican Party is not functionally opposed to socialism. Forget whatever its platform might say. The party is, after all, the sum total of the work output of its public officials and elected leaders. If they push for or blithely accept incremental expansions of the welfare state, then the party itself inescapably favors socialism. That is why the two-party duopoly represents a progressive consensus.

We saw this during the most recent legislative session when Pre-K education was expanded within the state even though the GOP controlled both houses of the legislature with veto-proof majorities.

The North Carolina House GOP caucus is overall a progressive swamp with relatively few exceptions. That means it might be up to Phil Berger in the North Carolina Senate to prevent the emergence of Medicaid expansion. Fortunately, he was quoted in a recent article, and seemed to be agnostic on the question:

“I’ve said all along I have a hard time reconciling the idea of Medicaid expansion with the fiscal realities of adopting a budget,” Berger said. “I have yet to see a proposal that does not create the kinds of problems with North Carolina’s budget that actually crowds out other spending.”

Legislators made promises to the electorate and have a responsibility to increase spending on education and infrastructure, he said. Berger is wary of proposals that look sound initially but create deficits a few years down the road.

“If I see a proposal that solves those out-year fiscal issues, I certainly am willing to look at it,” he said. “I think our members are willing to look at it. We will see how that debate goes as we go through the session.”

I wish his language was more unequivocally opposed to the concept. But this excerpt gives us some reason to hope, at least, that the legislation will not pass both houses.

It would be nice to see GOP legislators and executive branch officers uniformly oppose the welfare state. But that has not seemed to be happening for many decades.

State Pays Hospital Systems Up To EIGHT Times the Medicare Fee Schedule

Health care organizations, physicians and other health care providers bill and get paid using codes that designate specific services delivered to patients. For each code, the Medicare program specifies an amount that the federal government will pay for that specific service. The Medicare fee schedule is regarded as a benchmark against which other contractual arrangements are compared.

North Carolina has a State Health Plan that insures state employees; many teachers; state university and community college employees; and some local government employees. This insurance arrangement has been the subject of recent controversy because of a plan advanced to change the manner in which it pays the health care industry.

I occasionally hear some things through the grapevine. And I recently heard that the state's hospital systems are receiving absolutely amazing reimbursements from the state's taxpayers for those covered under the State Health Plan. Apparently, payments are sometimes as high as eight times the Medicare fee schedule. Stated another way, that is an 800% increase over the Medicare fee schedule.

Those numbers are absolutely stratospheric.

Hospital systems have justifiable reasons to be paid above the Medicare fee schedule; but the question should be how much. It turns out that much of the largesse these systems receive tends to be directed toward large numbers of highly paid managers and administrators; constantly ongoing building programs; and the purchase of ever-increasing control of the health care marketplace.

It appears there is a problem that needs to be addressed. 

Feel Free to Offend a Liberal

How Carter, Bush I and Clinton Responded to Migrant Arrivals

Chilton Williamson, Chronicles:

Just as the arrival of the Haitian boat people in Guantanamo in 1991 recalled the Mariel boatlift from Cuba in 1980, so “the Caravan” ought to recall both.  The Mariel crisis occurred during the Cold War, so the majority of the Marielitos, in flight from Castro’s brutal dictatorship, could make a plausible claim to be refugees, whatever their economic circumstances (though many of them on their arrival in Florida complained only of food rationing and wilted vegetables on the home island).  Even so, President Carter’s response to the complex situation was complex itself.  Far from rushing to declare 120,000 people legal refugees, he attempted to discriminate among the arrivals and, though all but about 25,000 Cubans were guaranteed permanent refugee status, final settlement was postponed until 1985.  In the case of the Haitians, President Bush ordered the U.S. Coast Guard to return them all to their native country, a policy continued by President Clinton, who further instructed the USCG to intercept boats on the high seas.  All this contrasts starkly with the Democratic and liberal assumption today that the “Caravaners” are—each and every one of them—patently entitled to refugee status with as little scrutiny and delay as possible, and admitted to the country forthwith.

The truth is that neither the Marielitos nor the Haitian boat people provide a precedent for the Caravaners, who are part of a force carefully organized and orchestrated by activists (some of whom are apparently of international provenance) to demonstrate to the United States—and to the world—that the Western nations are incapable of resisting aggressive international migration (i.e., invasion) from the Third World and that, indeed, they will be better off not trying to do so.  And as the Caravan is unprecedented, so is its effect on the body of American (and international) asylum law, whose framers never anticipated such a situation as it presents.  It is necessary that President Trump should declare a national emergency and his administration’s attorneys be instructed to discover some constitutional pretext to suspend current asylum law until a legal substitute adequate to the challenge can be developed.

Is Bill Roper the Right Man to Lead the UNC System?

An article yesterday hinted at the possibility that the UNC Board of Governors and the system's interim president, Bill Roper, are courting each other, and sizing each other up to determine if Roper will receive a long-term appointment to lead the system.

Check out the following: 

During a post-meeting press conference, Roper wouldn’t comment on whether he is open to taking the position full time.

“Some members of the board have had told me they think I’m doing a pretty good job and we’ll just see how that goes.”

Roper is not a minor figure. Years ago, he led the Health Care Financing Administration, the federal agency that used to run Medicare and Medicaid. These are huge programs. In addition, he also led the federal Centers for Disease Control. 

Most recently, he was CEO of the UNC Healthcare system.

We have to presume that he is a competent administrator. But the question is whether he is determined to meet the challenges raised by all the flaming cultural Marxism-- and all the institutionalized political and cultural biases-- within the UNC system. And one excerpt from the above article suggests he is not up to these challenges. Here was his statement about the Silent Sam controversy:

“Although I was not supportive of the way the monument was taken down in August, my personal position is [that] we should not be putting the monument back on McCorkle Place.”

Roper, who now must name an interim chancellor to the job in Chapel Hill, says he is up to the job.

“This is not my first rodeo,” he said.

Great leaders must chart strategic direction, and deal with “external factors that can affect it.”

The role of interim president also requires “Management 101,” he said.

“It is to empower and give resources to the people doing the real work and then get out of the way and let them do their job.”

“I’ve been privileged to lead many large public institutions,” he said. “And when leaders have flexibility — the kind that private sector CEOs take for granted — they excel. With this Board’s blessing, I’m asking our elected officials to empower this System to rise to that level. I hope they will trust this Board and its President to be held accountable, but do so with the flexibility to lead effectively.”

The above statements raises the question as to whether Roper would merely turn out to be Margaret Spellings II. Is he going to be yet another weak, ineffectual Republican, prone to surrender on the deepest cultural questions?

His leadership of UNC Healthcare is a major issue. Remain mindful that this is a huge hospital system that has gobbled up numerous hospitals and physician practices around the state. And the UNC healthcare system is owned by the state of North Carolina.

Of course, this arrangement completely inverts the proper relationship that should exist between citizens and the state. Citizens should not be dependent upon the state for the delivery of their medical care; and the state ought not be delivering it. Moreover, the state ought not be placing itself in competition with private entities statewide that are delivering healthcare.

But Roper thought this entire framework was quite acceptable; and in fact, he aggressively grew the system even though it was the wrong thing to do. That means he is a statist.

Another good article by Jay Schalin at the Martin Center reveals what is at stake for the UNC system, and what it needs:

Much of the country is catching onto the seriousness of the cultural transformation being conducted on college campuses. Whatever one’s feelings about Silent Sam the statue as a symbol of racial division, there is the deeper question of Silent Sam the cultural metaphor. His demolition represented not just the physical act of pulling down a particular artwork, but the symbolic act of tearing down the rule of law and due process, tearing down respect for our own history and culture, and tearing down our spiritual contract with both past and future generations. Silent Sam, like him or not, now represents a free, orderly, stable society; the mob represents, not justice, but chaos or tyranny.

It’s time to get UNC leadership that shows respect for all the people, not just for the angry, noisy ones who want to tear everything down... Campus controversies will be unavoidable in the near future; it’s time to select leadership who can handle them on a higher plane than yielding to the mob.

As the UNC Board of Governors and Bill Roper romance each other in anticipation of a possible future appointment, the board needs to seriously question whether this man is going to be willing to wage the battles that need to be fought. The above statements he has made, and his professional background, seem to suggest otherwise.