In an apparent violation of the law of matter and energy conservation, my car's fuel gauge appears to be be indicating that I have more gas in the tank the further I drive. Then again, maybe it is a case of elves who appear when I'm not looking and fill up the tank.
I figure if we siphon off my gas tank every couple of days, we could shut down an oil well or two.
Then again, it could be that the folks at Midas on Colorado Boulevard at Alameda in Denver who worked on the fuel system on my car more than once in the last year could of damages the fuel gauge while they were working on it.
But, really, which seems more likely? Incompetence at a nationally branded car repair facility, or elves refilling my tank?
Surely, it must be the elves.
The practical issue is whether I go back and try to get the company that previously screwed up to acknowledge it made mistakes and should repair the new problem free of charge, which they are unlikely to do and might lead to more mistakes, or do I simply call it a sunk cost and go to a different shop?
13 October 2014
09 October 2014
2014 U.S. Senate Election Forecast
The U.S. Senate currently has 53 Democrats, 2 Independents who are aligned mostly with Democrats, and 45 Republicans. Since one-third of Senators face election every two years, there are 36 states with U.S. Senate elections this year in the November 2014 election.
The FiveThirtyEight Blog Prediction:
* There are three U.S. Senate seats currently held by Democrats that the Democrats are almost sure to lose this year:
Montana
West Virginia
South Dakota.
There are no U.S. Senate seats held by Republicans that Republicans are almost sure to lose.
* There are seven U.S. Senate races in seats in competitive races that are currently held by Democrats that could flip to become Republican in the November 2014 election with FiveThirtyEight Blog handicapping:
Louisiana (R+5)
Alaska (R+3)
Arkansas (R+3)
Iowa (R+2)
Colorado (R+1)
North Carolina (D+3)
New Hampshire (D+4)
If all of these races go as predicted by FiveThirtyEight, the Republicans would pick up five more of these seats.
* There are three U.S. Senate races in seats in competitive races that are currently held by Republicans that could flip to become Democratic or Democratic-leaning independent in the November 2014 election with FiveThirtyEight Blog handicapping:
Kansas (I+2)
Georgia (R+2)
Kentucky (R+3)
If all of these races go as predicted by FiveThirtyEight, the Republicans would lose one of these seats.
* In all other races, a candidate of the incumbent party has at least a seven point lead in the polls.
* Thus, if every race goes as the poll analysis by FiveThirtyEight predicts, the Republicans will gain seven seats and have a 52 seat majority in the U.S. Senate.
Analysis:
Since Vice President Biden, a Democrat, breaks ties in the U.S. Senate, if there the Republicans hold 50 seats, then the Democrats will have a majority and organize the chamber.
The most likely ways for this to happen are for Colorado to re-elect Senator Udall, and for the Democrats to also win either Iowa or Georgia.
The FiveThirtyEight analysis actually gives Cory Gardner a mere 0.7% lead in the polling, and that analysis includes a September 13, 2014 Quinnipiac poll showing Gardner with an eight point lead (which it gives a fairly high weight) that is so far out of line in all of the Colorado races that it is simply not credible.
Historical trends in Colorado, which are also a factor in the FiveThirtyEight analysis, also do not reflect changes in Colorado law between 2012 and 2014 that make it easier to vote, a change that favors Democrats in the state. These changes are also probably not reflected in the models used by the polling firms in their sampling.
If Udall holds onto his seat in Colorado, then a win by a Democrat in either Iowa (where FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 35% chance in race leaning Republican by two points), or Georgia (where FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 28% chance in a race leaning Republican by two points), would produce a 50-50 split and Democratic control, while both would give the Democrats a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate.
Put another way, a 2 percentage point shift in national public opinion in favor of Democrats during October would give them a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate.
What Trends Are Driving Turnover?
Most of the Senate seats which will be filled by a Senator of a different party than the incumbent in this election cycle reflect an ongoing process of realignment, with liberal leaning areas electing Democrats and conservative areas electing Republicans, a trend that has been gradually running its course for more than four decades now. Some political historians mark Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful Presidential election as the start of the trend.
Many of the states that Democrats are most likely to lose in this year's U.S. Senate races are decidedly conservative "Red States" in which conservative Democratic incumbents with political roots in an era where not all Democrats were liberals and not all Republicans were conservative. Montana, South Dakota, Louisiana, Alaska, and Arkansas all fit this mold.
West Virginia is a bit more of a complicated case. Its Appalachian cultural orientation suggests that it should favor the socially conservative stances of the Red States. But, West Virginia is also a state that was formed to side with the North so as not to leave the Union to join the Confederacy along with the rest of Virginia pulling its political identity away from a political party dominated by formerly Confederate States. Closely related is the fact that West Virginia is overwhelmingly white with few recent immigrants of any kind, because the counties that formed it did not have a history as a participant in the slave trade and its economy hasn't been vibrant enough to attract many economic migrants for a long time. This has deprived the hot button anti-minority and anti-immigrant driven political stances of the Republican Party of much salience in West Virginia.
And, as a not very affluent state that is best known for its legions of blue collar unionized mine workers, the pro-union stances of a Democratic party that tends to favor the little guy over the affluent on economic issues have been appealing.
But, as opposition to gay rights driven by anxiety over the health of the family in communities with lots of men in blue collar jobs that have seen decades of stagnating or declining incomes and increased job insecurity has eclipsed racial politics in the political debate and that is something that can resonate in West Virginia. West Virginia's unions have gotten weaker as its coal mining industry has struggled with competition from places like Wyoming in the West, reducing Democratic party support, and the sense that increased Democratic party support for environmental measures driven by the Democratic party's increasingly urban political base has left the Democratic party vulnerable in a rural state that is highly economically dependent upon an environmentally disruptive industry. Finally, while the Republican party is still the party of the rich, relative to the Democratic Party, the social class divide between the political parties has grown less pronounced in favor of an emphasis on the cultural divide between the two political parties.
As a result of a shift in the policy issues that really define the Republican and Democratic parties respectively, West Virginia has found more and more in common with other Red States and less and less in common with the rest of the Democratic Party base, so eventually realignment caught up with it as well.
At the other end of the political spectrum, New Hampshire, a libertarian leaning New England state which was one of the last outposts of the dying breed of socially moderate New England Republicans. Also, a growing share of New Hampshire voters live in bedroom communities of people who work in the Boston metropolitan area and thus, have an identity more urban than a cursory look at the state's own urban centers would suggest.
Three of the states in play in this election, indeed, three states which will in all probability decide which party controls the U.S. Senate this year, Iowa, Colorado, and North Carolina are in play for the ordinary reason that states or Congressional districts are competitive. Iowa and Colorado and North Carolina are purple states where the Democratic Party and Republican Party are very evenly matched this time around.
Colorado was historically a Red State, but has been migrating to the left as urban centers like Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins, and left leaning resort towns built around ski resorts in the mountains with high population densities and many migrants from the West Coast and Northeast have moved to the state. Meanwhile, rural Colorado areas with farm economies have gradually atrophied as farming has become more mechanized and more efficient and simply less economically relevant relative to the economic activity in the state's urban areas.
Iowa has historically been a Midwestern blue state, but has gradually been pulling to the right as its rural farming identity has become a less good fit to an urban oriented political party. But, Eastern Iowa is more urban than most people realized, its college towns have become economic drivers just as they have in Colorado, and its farm communities like farm communities everywhere have thinned out, buffering Iowa from the wholesale rightward pitch seen in Kansas and Nebraska.
North Carolina is also a state whose political leanings are shifting together with its economy, allowing a Democrat to gain a small lead over a Republican challenger in a historically Red State in the South. In a nutshell, North Carolina has leveraged its university system into a secondary center of the tech industry which has grown to become a leading part of the state's identity and economy, while traditional industries, like tobacco farming and processing, have withered in the face of nationwide efforts to reduce tobacco consumption. The growing tech industry has brought educated, culturally non-Southern, urban oriented people to the state and facilitated their ability to organize and to have the cash needed to become a political force. And thus, the one time Red State, like Virginia, to the North which has experienced a similar transformation driven by metropolitan Washington D.C. suburbs in Northern Virginia and the economic hub of the University of Virginia, has started to become more of a purple state.
Finally, there is one clearly Red state that will probably not elect a Republican to office. In Kansas, the Democrats strategically withdrew their own Democratic Party candidate in order to back a moderate independent who was also challenging the conservative Republican candidate in the race. The independent is now favored to win, because the Republican as one would expect from someone who is the product of a partisan primary, is further from the state's political center than an independent who wasn't vetted by a parade of Republican party litmus tests, and isn't burdened by the unpopular brand in the state of a Democratic President and a Democratic legislative caucus. If the independent wins, there will be three independents in the Senate, all of whom are more comfortable aligning themselves with the comparatively moderate and big tent Democratic party, than the rigidly conservative Republican Party, at least while the Democratic party can stay in the majority with their support.
The bottom line bad new for Democrats is that many of their losses have been writing on the wall for years and will probably not be reserved in the foreseeable future. The bottom line good news, however, is that Democrats are better equipped to bring purple states and independent Senators into their coalition than Republicans, and as a result, are still capable of holding a majority even in the U.S. Senate where their advantage in populous urban areas does not necessarily translate automatically into political power.
Another important point is that most "purple states" are in the process of shifting their political identity, rather than in a state of equilibrium. They are either moving from being Red States to Blue States, or are moving from being Blue States to being Red States.
Fortunately for Democrats, the transition from Blue States to Red States, primarily in the South and the Great Plains, has pretty much run its course already. But now, historically Red States with strong urban economies are starting to trend back to being Blue again. This, in the balance of power within the U.S. Senate, is the demographic trend that is just starting to shift state political identities in the Democrats directions that may continue to play out that way for many years to come. Eventually, this may be enough to turn the entire Southeastern seaboard Blue again.
The FiveThirtyEight Blog Prediction:
* There are three U.S. Senate seats currently held by Democrats that the Democrats are almost sure to lose this year:
Montana
West Virginia
South Dakota.
There are no U.S. Senate seats held by Republicans that Republicans are almost sure to lose.
* There are seven U.S. Senate races in seats in competitive races that are currently held by Democrats that could flip to become Republican in the November 2014 election with FiveThirtyEight Blog handicapping:
Louisiana (R+5)
Alaska (R+3)
Arkansas (R+3)
Iowa (R+2)
Colorado (R+1)
North Carolina (D+3)
New Hampshire (D+4)
If all of these races go as predicted by FiveThirtyEight, the Republicans would pick up five more of these seats.
* There are three U.S. Senate races in seats in competitive races that are currently held by Republicans that could flip to become Democratic or Democratic-leaning independent in the November 2014 election with FiveThirtyEight Blog handicapping:
Kansas (I+2)
Georgia (R+2)
Kentucky (R+3)
If all of these races go as predicted by FiveThirtyEight, the Republicans would lose one of these seats.
* In all other races, a candidate of the incumbent party has at least a seven point lead in the polls.
* Thus, if every race goes as the poll analysis by FiveThirtyEight predicts, the Republicans will gain seven seats and have a 52 seat majority in the U.S. Senate.
Analysis:
Since Vice President Biden, a Democrat, breaks ties in the U.S. Senate, if there the Republicans hold 50 seats, then the Democrats will have a majority and organize the chamber.
The most likely ways for this to happen are for Colorado to re-elect Senator Udall, and for the Democrats to also win either Iowa or Georgia.
The FiveThirtyEight analysis actually gives Cory Gardner a mere 0.7% lead in the polling, and that analysis includes a September 13, 2014 Quinnipiac poll showing Gardner with an eight point lead (which it gives a fairly high weight) that is so far out of line in all of the Colorado races that it is simply not credible.
Historical trends in Colorado, which are also a factor in the FiveThirtyEight analysis, also do not reflect changes in Colorado law between 2012 and 2014 that make it easier to vote, a change that favors Democrats in the state. These changes are also probably not reflected in the models used by the polling firms in their sampling.
If Udall holds onto his seat in Colorado, then a win by a Democrat in either Iowa (where FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 35% chance in race leaning Republican by two points), or Georgia (where FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 28% chance in a race leaning Republican by two points), would produce a 50-50 split and Democratic control, while both would give the Democrats a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate.
Put another way, a 2 percentage point shift in national public opinion in favor of Democrats during October would give them a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate.
What Trends Are Driving Turnover?
Most of the Senate seats which will be filled by a Senator of a different party than the incumbent in this election cycle reflect an ongoing process of realignment, with liberal leaning areas electing Democrats and conservative areas electing Republicans, a trend that has been gradually running its course for more than four decades now. Some political historians mark Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful Presidential election as the start of the trend.
Many of the states that Democrats are most likely to lose in this year's U.S. Senate races are decidedly conservative "Red States" in which conservative Democratic incumbents with political roots in an era where not all Democrats were liberals and not all Republicans were conservative. Montana, South Dakota, Louisiana, Alaska, and Arkansas all fit this mold.
West Virginia is a bit more of a complicated case. Its Appalachian cultural orientation suggests that it should favor the socially conservative stances of the Red States. But, West Virginia is also a state that was formed to side with the North so as not to leave the Union to join the Confederacy along with the rest of Virginia pulling its political identity away from a political party dominated by formerly Confederate States. Closely related is the fact that West Virginia is overwhelmingly white with few recent immigrants of any kind, because the counties that formed it did not have a history as a participant in the slave trade and its economy hasn't been vibrant enough to attract many economic migrants for a long time. This has deprived the hot button anti-minority and anti-immigrant driven political stances of the Republican Party of much salience in West Virginia.
And, as a not very affluent state that is best known for its legions of blue collar unionized mine workers, the pro-union stances of a Democratic party that tends to favor the little guy over the affluent on economic issues have been appealing.
But, as opposition to gay rights driven by anxiety over the health of the family in communities with lots of men in blue collar jobs that have seen decades of stagnating or declining incomes and increased job insecurity has eclipsed racial politics in the political debate and that is something that can resonate in West Virginia. West Virginia's unions have gotten weaker as its coal mining industry has struggled with competition from places like Wyoming in the West, reducing Democratic party support, and the sense that increased Democratic party support for environmental measures driven by the Democratic party's increasingly urban political base has left the Democratic party vulnerable in a rural state that is highly economically dependent upon an environmentally disruptive industry. Finally, while the Republican party is still the party of the rich, relative to the Democratic Party, the social class divide between the political parties has grown less pronounced in favor of an emphasis on the cultural divide between the two political parties.
As a result of a shift in the policy issues that really define the Republican and Democratic parties respectively, West Virginia has found more and more in common with other Red States and less and less in common with the rest of the Democratic Party base, so eventually realignment caught up with it as well.
At the other end of the political spectrum, New Hampshire, a libertarian leaning New England state which was one of the last outposts of the dying breed of socially moderate New England Republicans. Also, a growing share of New Hampshire voters live in bedroom communities of people who work in the Boston metropolitan area and thus, have an identity more urban than a cursory look at the state's own urban centers would suggest.
Three of the states in play in this election, indeed, three states which will in all probability decide which party controls the U.S. Senate this year, Iowa, Colorado, and North Carolina are in play for the ordinary reason that states or Congressional districts are competitive. Iowa and Colorado and North Carolina are purple states where the Democratic Party and Republican Party are very evenly matched this time around.
Colorado was historically a Red State, but has been migrating to the left as urban centers like Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins, and left leaning resort towns built around ski resorts in the mountains with high population densities and many migrants from the West Coast and Northeast have moved to the state. Meanwhile, rural Colorado areas with farm economies have gradually atrophied as farming has become more mechanized and more efficient and simply less economically relevant relative to the economic activity in the state's urban areas.
Iowa has historically been a Midwestern blue state, but has gradually been pulling to the right as its rural farming identity has become a less good fit to an urban oriented political party. But, Eastern Iowa is more urban than most people realized, its college towns have become economic drivers just as they have in Colorado, and its farm communities like farm communities everywhere have thinned out, buffering Iowa from the wholesale rightward pitch seen in Kansas and Nebraska.
North Carolina is also a state whose political leanings are shifting together with its economy, allowing a Democrat to gain a small lead over a Republican challenger in a historically Red State in the South. In a nutshell, North Carolina has leveraged its university system into a secondary center of the tech industry which has grown to become a leading part of the state's identity and economy, while traditional industries, like tobacco farming and processing, have withered in the face of nationwide efforts to reduce tobacco consumption. The growing tech industry has brought educated, culturally non-Southern, urban oriented people to the state and facilitated their ability to organize and to have the cash needed to become a political force. And thus, the one time Red State, like Virginia, to the North which has experienced a similar transformation driven by metropolitan Washington D.C. suburbs in Northern Virginia and the economic hub of the University of Virginia, has started to become more of a purple state.
Finally, there is one clearly Red state that will probably not elect a Republican to office. In Kansas, the Democrats strategically withdrew their own Democratic Party candidate in order to back a moderate independent who was also challenging the conservative Republican candidate in the race. The independent is now favored to win, because the Republican as one would expect from someone who is the product of a partisan primary, is further from the state's political center than an independent who wasn't vetted by a parade of Republican party litmus tests, and isn't burdened by the unpopular brand in the state of a Democratic President and a Democratic legislative caucus. If the independent wins, there will be three independents in the Senate, all of whom are more comfortable aligning themselves with the comparatively moderate and big tent Democratic party, than the rigidly conservative Republican Party, at least while the Democratic party can stay in the majority with their support.
The bottom line bad new for Democrats is that many of their losses have been writing on the wall for years and will probably not be reserved in the foreseeable future. The bottom line good news, however, is that Democrats are better equipped to bring purple states and independent Senators into their coalition than Republicans, and as a result, are still capable of holding a majority even in the U.S. Senate where their advantage in populous urban areas does not necessarily translate automatically into political power.
Another important point is that most "purple states" are in the process of shifting their political identity, rather than in a state of equilibrium. They are either moving from being Red States to Blue States, or are moving from being Blue States to being Red States.
Fortunately for Democrats, the transition from Blue States to Red States, primarily in the South and the Great Plains, has pretty much run its course already. But now, historically Red States with strong urban economies are starting to trend back to being Blue again. This, in the balance of power within the U.S. Senate, is the demographic trend that is just starting to shift state political identities in the Democrats directions that may continue to play out that way for many years to come. Eventually, this may be enough to turn the entire Southeastern seaboard Blue again.
08 October 2014
Coffee Lovers Born Not Made?
At least six genes that govern propensity to drink coffee and how your body processes coffee have been identified.
06 October 2014
Wake Up People! Vote For Democrats In Colorado.
There are three big candidate races in the 2014 election in Colorado, for which ballots will hit mailboxes in less than two weeks.
In the Governor's office, incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper, a popular centerist former Mayor of Denver, faces Republican Bob Beauprez, a Tea Party Republican who thinks that IUDs are murder and doesn't believe in climate change.
In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Mark Udall faces Republican Congressman Cory Gardner. He has spent most of his career favoring an extreme "personhood" amendment that would put U.S. law on a par with the extreme anti-abortion stance of El Salvador as a matter of constitutional law, but recently made an about face to support over the counter status for birth control pills on the theory that if it can't be banned, that employer provided health insurance and tax breaks for medical expenses shouldn't support it.
In the highly competitive 6th Congressional District, incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Coffman faces Democrat Andrew Romanoff, former speaker of the state house of representatives who served at that time from a Washington Park district.
Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman are the local embodiment of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives that has shut down the government, played games with our national credit rating by threatening to default on the national debt, shut down immigration reforms essential to improving our economy simply to deny President Obama a legislative success, and in general, have stood in the way of any positive change through legislative channels in our nation's capital for the last four years.
I have met both John Hickenlooper and Andrew Romanoff personally, and they are the two most extraordinary people in Colorado politics today bar none. These are people who can walk into a room where a compromise, let alone positive progress, seems impossible, and produce a deal that everyone would have assumed was impossible. Each man is exceedingly intelligent, extraordinary civil across partisan lines, a good judge of character, and has a strong commitment to doing what is right. Both are moderate Democrats, who nonetheless generally do the right thing and when they do recognize conservative political impulses do so in a moderate way.
Mark Udall is a reliable Democrat supporter, who has gone to bat for priorities that matter to Coloradoans, although in a legislative environment of split political control, he hasn't always gotten major initiatives of his own passed.
Colorado's U.S. Senate seat is the closest race in the nation according to poll analyst FiveThirtyEight, and our Governor's race and 6th Congressional District race, according to other poll analysts are likewise among the closest in the country.
Right now, Democrats hold just 52 seats in the Senate, while Republicans hold a slim majority in the House. If Democrats lose control of the Senate, we will have deadlock on federal judicial appointments for the next two years, and national policies will tilt sharply towards Republican priorities:
* Making it harder to vote.
* Doing everything in their power to block women's rights and gay rights.
* Reducing federal spending that benefits the poor and the unemployed.
* Ending the guarantees of the Social Security and Medicare system.
* Enlarging the ranks of the uninsured.
* Crush all unions.
* Reducing the remedies of those injured through negligence or fraud.
* Encouraging the teaching of bad science and fake history in our schools.
* Reducing funding for education.
* Reducing taxes on the rich and big corporations.
* Making it harder to immigrate to the United States or claim asylum here.
* Saying no to reforms of a broken criminal justice system.
* Making it easier to gain access to guns with no purpose other than to commit crimes.
* Gutting protections for the environment.
* Undermining the freedom of religion's establishment clause.
* Gutting campaign finance regulations.
* Letting our roads and bridges crumble.
* Shutting down funding for public transit.
* Allowing our economy to be gridlocked with excessive intellectual property protections.
* Punishing efforts to decriminalize marijuana.
* Increasing spending on wasteful military programs.
* Stopping U.S. efforts to hold war criminals accountable.
There are down ticket races as well.
A Democrat committed to improving access to the ballot box wants to replace our current notoriously corrupt Republican Secretary of State.
A Democrat who believes in the public employee retirement system wants to improve on the state's lackluster 1.4% return on investment during the incumbent's tenure.
A Democrat who believes in protecting civil rights, consumer rights, and a balanced approach to the criminal justice system, wants to replace the outgoing Republican attorney general, and his anointed successor who's signature point has been opposition to gay rights until that position was made futile by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling denying further review for U.S. Court of Appeals rulings invalidating gay marriage bans.
Democrats very narrowly control the state house and the state senate right now. Republican candidates, including one from a safe Republican district in Colorado Springs who the County Republican Chairman says reflects the value of the Republican party in the state, thinks that we live in a world where everything from homosexuality to the Federal Communications Commission's policies are a result of demon possession, and tried to exorcise the "demon" from a lesbian woman while he was a Navy Chaplin.
If you want gridlock and want to give power to people like him and like the extremists who have taken control of the Jefferson County School Board, vote for Republicans in the state house and state senate races. If not, vote for Democrats who have been working for positive change in this state.
Keep in mind too, that in Colorado, neither Democrats nor Republicans can pass new taxes or increase state spending (even due to increased revenues from existing taxes) above an amount accounting for inflation and population, without a vote of the people. Democrats in state office couldn't raise your taxes even if they wanted to do so.
Colorado Democrats are overwhelmingly moderates relative to their party as a whole. Colorado Republicans are overwhelmingly extremist Tea Party advocates who bear the intellectual legacy of the John Birch Society and the KKK that was once powerful in Colorado. The "County Club Republicans" of the 1950s have been driven out of the Republican temple in favor of people who see it as the party of conservative, Evangelical Christian white men with Southern roots and Confederate values.
A Democratic President backed by a U.S. Senate controlled by Democrats and legislation passed by Democrats in the first two years of the Obama administration, have allowed our economy to recover from years of corporate excess, inequality and Wall Street fraud. A Democratic Governor together with a Democratic party controlled Colorado General Assembly, has brought the state prosperity, tolerance and justice that has made it an attractive place to live nationally.
People of the State of Colorado. Wake up! We are in a swing state, and if we want to preserve our prosperity and desirable way of life, we need to defeat Republicans who want government to fail and care more about preserving outdated and hateful prejudices than our economic and moral progress.
In 2014, no state in the union is more purple than Colorado. This is the nation's swing state once again and your vote matters very deeply to the future of our country.
In the Governor's office, incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper, a popular centerist former Mayor of Denver, faces Republican Bob Beauprez, a Tea Party Republican who thinks that IUDs are murder and doesn't believe in climate change.
In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Mark Udall faces Republican Congressman Cory Gardner. He has spent most of his career favoring an extreme "personhood" amendment that would put U.S. law on a par with the extreme anti-abortion stance of El Salvador as a matter of constitutional law, but recently made an about face to support over the counter status for birth control pills on the theory that if it can't be banned, that employer provided health insurance and tax breaks for medical expenses shouldn't support it.
In the highly competitive 6th Congressional District, incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Coffman faces Democrat Andrew Romanoff, former speaker of the state house of representatives who served at that time from a Washington Park district.
Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman are the local embodiment of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives that has shut down the government, played games with our national credit rating by threatening to default on the national debt, shut down immigration reforms essential to improving our economy simply to deny President Obama a legislative success, and in general, have stood in the way of any positive change through legislative channels in our nation's capital for the last four years.
I have met both John Hickenlooper and Andrew Romanoff personally, and they are the two most extraordinary people in Colorado politics today bar none. These are people who can walk into a room where a compromise, let alone positive progress, seems impossible, and produce a deal that everyone would have assumed was impossible. Each man is exceedingly intelligent, extraordinary civil across partisan lines, a good judge of character, and has a strong commitment to doing what is right. Both are moderate Democrats, who nonetheless generally do the right thing and when they do recognize conservative political impulses do so in a moderate way.
Mark Udall is a reliable Democrat supporter, who has gone to bat for priorities that matter to Coloradoans, although in a legislative environment of split political control, he hasn't always gotten major initiatives of his own passed.
Colorado's U.S. Senate seat is the closest race in the nation according to poll analyst FiveThirtyEight, and our Governor's race and 6th Congressional District race, according to other poll analysts are likewise among the closest in the country.
Right now, Democrats hold just 52 seats in the Senate, while Republicans hold a slim majority in the House. If Democrats lose control of the Senate, we will have deadlock on federal judicial appointments for the next two years, and national policies will tilt sharply towards Republican priorities:
* Making it harder to vote.
* Doing everything in their power to block women's rights and gay rights.
* Reducing federal spending that benefits the poor and the unemployed.
* Ending the guarantees of the Social Security and Medicare system.
* Enlarging the ranks of the uninsured.
* Crush all unions.
* Reducing the remedies of those injured through negligence or fraud.
* Encouraging the teaching of bad science and fake history in our schools.
* Reducing funding for education.
* Reducing taxes on the rich and big corporations.
* Making it harder to immigrate to the United States or claim asylum here.
* Saying no to reforms of a broken criminal justice system.
* Making it easier to gain access to guns with no purpose other than to commit crimes.
* Gutting protections for the environment.
* Undermining the freedom of religion's establishment clause.
* Gutting campaign finance regulations.
* Letting our roads and bridges crumble.
* Shutting down funding for public transit.
* Allowing our economy to be gridlocked with excessive intellectual property protections.
* Punishing efforts to decriminalize marijuana.
* Increasing spending on wasteful military programs.
* Stopping U.S. efforts to hold war criminals accountable.
There are down ticket races as well.
A Democrat committed to improving access to the ballot box wants to replace our current notoriously corrupt Republican Secretary of State.
A Democrat who believes in the public employee retirement system wants to improve on the state's lackluster 1.4% return on investment during the incumbent's tenure.
A Democrat who believes in protecting civil rights, consumer rights, and a balanced approach to the criminal justice system, wants to replace the outgoing Republican attorney general, and his anointed successor who's signature point has been opposition to gay rights until that position was made futile by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling denying further review for U.S. Court of Appeals rulings invalidating gay marriage bans.
Democrats very narrowly control the state house and the state senate right now. Republican candidates, including one from a safe Republican district in Colorado Springs who the County Republican Chairman says reflects the value of the Republican party in the state, thinks that we live in a world where everything from homosexuality to the Federal Communications Commission's policies are a result of demon possession, and tried to exorcise the "demon" from a lesbian woman while he was a Navy Chaplin.
If you want gridlock and want to give power to people like him and like the extremists who have taken control of the Jefferson County School Board, vote for Republicans in the state house and state senate races. If not, vote for Democrats who have been working for positive change in this state.
Keep in mind too, that in Colorado, neither Democrats nor Republicans can pass new taxes or increase state spending (even due to increased revenues from existing taxes) above an amount accounting for inflation and population, without a vote of the people. Democrats in state office couldn't raise your taxes even if they wanted to do so.
Colorado Democrats are overwhelmingly moderates relative to their party as a whole. Colorado Republicans are overwhelmingly extremist Tea Party advocates who bear the intellectual legacy of the John Birch Society and the KKK that was once powerful in Colorado. The "County Club Republicans" of the 1950s have been driven out of the Republican temple in favor of people who see it as the party of conservative, Evangelical Christian white men with Southern roots and Confederate values.
A Democratic President backed by a U.S. Senate controlled by Democrats and legislation passed by Democrats in the first two years of the Obama administration, have allowed our economy to recover from years of corporate excess, inequality and Wall Street fraud. A Democratic Governor together with a Democratic party controlled Colorado General Assembly, has brought the state prosperity, tolerance and justice that has made it an attractive place to live nationally.
People of the State of Colorado. Wake up! We are in a swing state, and if we want to preserve our prosperity and desirable way of life, we need to defeat Republicans who want government to fail and care more about preserving outdated and hateful prejudices than our economic and moral progress.
In 2014, no state in the union is more purple than Colorado. This is the nation's swing state once again and your vote matters very deeply to the future of our country.
At Least We Don't Live In New York
There are many problems with the criminal justice system in Colorado and our juvenile justice system, in particular, has flaws.
But, in Colorado, almost without exception we do not subject our sixteen year old juveniles arrested (arguably without probable cause) on suspicion of robbery to 33 months of pre-trial incarceration (including 800 days in solitary confinement) only to have the charges dismissed in a prison like Riker's Island where violent pre-trial assaults by guards and fellow inmates are commonplace.
This pretty much takes the joint efforts of bad cops, bad jail guards, bad prosecutors, bad defense attorneys, and bad judges. It also takes the indifference of a poor family that in all of that time can't make a $3,000 bond payment (which would probably have required only $300 in cash plus a car as security) to get him out of jail pending trial. I seriously doubt that a family that was really committed couldn't come up with those resources for three straight years. [Update: It turns out that bail was revoked in full due to his indictment for a felony which constituted a probation violation after about two and a half months by a grand jury. After that, bail was no longer available.]
The case also raises the serious question of whether it is really appropriate to use adult speedy trial standard for juveniles for who have shorter time horizons. As his attorneys' explained:
But, in Colorado, almost without exception we do not subject our sixteen year old juveniles arrested (arguably without probable cause) on suspicion of robbery to 33 months of pre-trial incarceration (including 800 days in solitary confinement) only to have the charges dismissed in a prison like Riker's Island where violent pre-trial assaults by guards and fellow inmates are commonplace.
This pretty much takes the joint efforts of bad cops, bad jail guards, bad prosecutors, bad defense attorneys, and bad judges. It also takes the indifference of a poor family that in all of that time can't make a $3,000 bond payment (which would probably have required only $300 in cash plus a car as security) to get him out of jail pending trial. I seriously doubt that a family that was really committed couldn't come up with those resources for three straight years. [Update: It turns out that bail was revoked in full due to his indictment for a felony which constituted a probation violation after about two and a half months by a grand jury. After that, bail was no longer available.]
The case also raises the serious question of whether it is really appropriate to use adult speedy trial standard for juveniles for who have shorter time horizons. As his attorneys' explained:
Kalief was deprived of his right to a fair and speedy trial, his education, and, I would even argue, his entire adolescence. If you took a sixteen-year-old kid and locked him in a room for twenty-three hours, your son or daughter, you’d be arrested for endangering the welfare of a child.It isn't unreasonable to conclude that pre-trial incarceration for an adolescent is more burdensome than it is for an adult.
Out With A Whimper [Updated October 7 and 8, 2014]
By denying certiorari from U.S. Court of Appeals cases striking down same sex marriage bans in Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana and Wisconsin, the U.S. has effectively legalized same sex marriage in those states and also in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, which have rulings striking down the ban at the trial court level and are in circuits that have rulings to that effect which are binding precedents. By including these states, same sex marriage is now allowed in 30 U.S. states, up from 19 U.S. states before today.
And, the rulings may tip the balance in the 6th (which is home to four states, none of which has legalized same sex marriage) and 9th Circuits (home to nine states, four of which have legalized same sex marriage) where rulings striking down same sex marriage bans are pending, adding more states to the total. The 9th Circuit was widely expected to allow same sex marriage in any case. But, the 6th Circuit has seemed to be leaning towards refusing to strike down the same sex marriage ban, something that might change now.
[Update October 7: The 9th Circuit has made its precedent invalidating same sex marriage bans in cases out of Nevada and Idaho. This brings the total number of states that allow gay marriage or are in circuits invalidating same sex marriage bans to 35 plus D.C., out 51.]
[Update October 8: Every state in the 6th Circuit which awaits a fully briefed and argued ruling with a known swing vote judge (Judge Sutton), and outside the 6th Circuit Florida and Texas, as well as many other states, have trial court rulings striking down same sex marriage which are stayed pending circuit court rulings. A 9th ruling in Idaho is stayed pending an application to the U.S. Supreme Court for review, but the 9th Circuit ruling is not stayed in Nevada.]
Colorado's attorney general has relented and agreed to end to stay of a state court ruling striking down the same sex marriage ban in Colorado.
In principle, the U.S. Supreme Court could take up a case in the future and rule otherwise, invalidating rulings striking down same sex marriage based upon federal law in all fifty states. But, given the multiple circuit court ruling on the topic which it has declined to review, this seemed unlikely.
The 5th and 11th Circuits have no states where same sex marriage is currently allowed and no circuit court rulings on the subject. The 8th Circuit has two state where same sex marriage is allowed, but not circuit court rulings on the subject.
Notably, this ruling defuses what had been a key issue in the state attorney general's race in Colorado.
And, the rulings may tip the balance in the 6th (which is home to four states, none of which has legalized same sex marriage) and 9th Circuits (home to nine states, four of which have legalized same sex marriage) where rulings striking down same sex marriage bans are pending, adding more states to the total. The 9th Circuit was widely expected to allow same sex marriage in any case. But, the 6th Circuit has seemed to be leaning towards refusing to strike down the same sex marriage ban, something that might change now.
[Update October 7: The 9th Circuit has made its precedent invalidating same sex marriage bans in cases out of Nevada and Idaho. This brings the total number of states that allow gay marriage or are in circuits invalidating same sex marriage bans to 35 plus D.C., out 51.]
[Update October 8: Every state in the 6th Circuit which awaits a fully briefed and argued ruling with a known swing vote judge (Judge Sutton), and outside the 6th Circuit Florida and Texas, as well as many other states, have trial court rulings striking down same sex marriage which are stayed pending circuit court rulings. A 9th ruling in Idaho is stayed pending an application to the U.S. Supreme Court for review, but the 9th Circuit ruling is not stayed in Nevada.]
Colorado's attorney general has relented and agreed to end to stay of a state court ruling striking down the same sex marriage ban in Colorado.
In principle, the U.S. Supreme Court could take up a case in the future and rule otherwise, invalidating rulings striking down same sex marriage based upon federal law in all fifty states. But, given the multiple circuit court ruling on the topic which it has declined to review, this seemed unlikely.
The 5th and 11th Circuits have no states where same sex marriage is currently allowed and no circuit court rulings on the subject. The 8th Circuit has two state where same sex marriage is allowed, but not circuit court rulings on the subject.
Notably, this ruling defuses what had been a key issue in the state attorney general's race in Colorado.
01 October 2014
Shorter Pettis: Chinese Economy Still Doomed
China's economy has been experiencing very high rates of GDP growth for a long time.
Sooner or later what goes up must come down and produce a huge economic downtown of a magnitude rivaling the Great Depression in intensity. I'm on record predicting that this will happen sometime from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2023, and more likely than not, at the early end of that time frame.
The situation is actually more dire than it seems using official statistics.
Chinese banks have lots of bad debt outstanding that hasn't been written off, artificially inflating GDP by a big amount. But, since the real economic cost of the debt service exceeds the value of the investments that were produced with the money borrowed, there is a real economic loss. Somebody in the Chinese economy, probably Chinese households, is going to bear the real economic effect of these losses that already exist sooner or later. Probably sooner.
I'm still hopeful that my prediction that this downturn will not commence for at least another three months will hold. But, I continue to be convinced that China is on the brink of an economic crisis which will have a profound global impact (although mostly less severe abroad than it is domestically for the Chinese).
Sooner or later what goes up must come down and produce a huge economic downtown of a magnitude rivaling the Great Depression in intensity. I'm on record predicting that this will happen sometime from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2023, and more likely than not, at the early end of that time frame.
The situation is actually more dire than it seems using official statistics.
Chinese banks have lots of bad debt outstanding that hasn't been written off, artificially inflating GDP by a big amount. But, since the real economic cost of the debt service exceeds the value of the investments that were produced with the money borrowed, there is a real economic loss. Somebody in the Chinese economy, probably Chinese households, is going to bear the real economic effect of these losses that already exist sooner or later. Probably sooner.
I'm still hopeful that my prediction that this downturn will not commence for at least another three months will hold. But, I continue to be convinced that China is on the brink of an economic crisis which will have a profound global impact (although mostly less severe abroad than it is domestically for the Chinese).
The Geography Of Bad Consumer Debt
The problem of people who don't or can't pay their consumer debts is ubiquitous.
About 94% of all census tracts in the United States (which average about 4,000 people each), have someone living there with a credit report indicating that they are 30 days or more overdue on one of their currently outstanding non-mortgage consumer debts (i.e. they have "bad debts"). And, 99.99% of census tracts have someone living there who has had a debt referred to collections in the last seven years for a non-mortgage consumer debt (i.e. they have "been referred to collections").
The two groups, unsurprisingly, overlap. About 79% of people with bad debts have been referred to collections at some point in the past seven years. About 11% of people with credit reports don't have any debts (like a mortgage or credit card debts or a car loan or a student loan) of a type that would ordinarily be reported to a credit reporting agency, but have had some other debt (like an unpaid utility bill or medical bill) that has been reported to collections, causing a file to be established with a credit reporting agency.
Geographic Trends
But, there is wide regional variation within the United States in the amount of bad debt outstanding and of the percentage of people that have been referred to collections.
The Geography Bad Debt
In the 1% of census tracts with the highest percentage of people with bad debts, 40% of which are in Texas or Louisiana, 15% or more of people with credit reports have bad debt (about 0.05% have more than 25%).
In the 1% of census tracts with the highest percentage of people who have been referred to collections, 75% of people with credit reports have been referred to collections. Most of those census tracts are in the South or Appalachia.
The amounts of unpaid debts in these cases is usually quite modest.
The average amount of money that a person with bad debt must pay to be brought current is $2,258 (the median amount is $651).
The average amount of a debt referred to collections is $5,178 (the median amount is $1,349) and shows only modest regional variation, with the Southern states that have the highest rates of debts referred to collections tending to have small amounts owed.
Why?
Not Household Income
Variation in household income is only weakly correlated with bad debt rates, accounting for only 9% of the observed variation in the percentage of people with bad debt and only about 1% of the variation in the amount of bad debt owed by people who have bad debts.
The quite modest median dollar amounts of the bad debts and debts referred to collection relative to household income, and the only modest correlations between bad debt rates and household income, suggest that economic stress is not the predominant source of the regional differences in bad debt rates. Average difference of a few hundred dollars in consumer debt financed debt spending, or personal consumption spending of people with consumer debt, would make a very large difference in the percentage of people with bad debt in any given place, since the median amount of bad debt is so modest.
Race Is A Minor Factor
At first blush, race looks like it could be a significant fact, and it probably has a statistically significant correlation. The South, which has the most bad debt, also has a much larger African-American population than the rest of the United States. But, upon closer examination, race appears to be a fairly modest issue.
While many places with high rates of bad debt and debt referred to collections have large African-American populations. Others, like West Virginia, Texas and Nevada do not have particularly large African American populations. Many of the states with very low and very high rates of bad debt have very small Hispanic populations. And, states at any given band of rates of bad debt and debts referred to collection have wide variations in the size of their Hispanic and their combined black and Hispanic populations.
This impressions is reinforced when looking at more targeted metropolitan area statistics. Many poor, depressed Rust Belt cities with large African-American populations have relatively modest bad debt rates and rates of debts referred to collection, compared to more prosperous metropolitan areas in the South with similar demographics. If rate (or unemployment rates which are strongly correlated with race) were driving the disparities, one would expect these places to have similar rates of bad debt, instead of quite different rates.
Instead, Detroit, which is overwhelmingly African-American, has considerably low rates of cases referred to collection than, for example, Houston or Dallas.
The Housing Bubble Looks Unlikely As A Factor
Nevada and Florida, which were among the states hardest hit by the housing bubble collapse, has a very high rate of debts referred to collection. But, California, which was also severely hit by it, does not. And, Texas, which was largely spared, also does not.
Other Possible Causes
There are at least two other kinds possible causes look more plausible.
* State Level Legal Differences That Vary By Region
One possible source for the regional variation has legal sources.
Many states with high rates of bad debts and debts referred to collections also have generous laws protecting property from being collected by creditors, while regions with low rates of bad debts and debt referred to collections. Texas and Florida, for example, have generous homestead exemptions that protect virtually all real estate equity from the claims of consumer debt creditors.
Also, while average household income isn't strongly correlated with bad debt, the federal bankruptcy protection means test for obtaining a Chapter 7 liquidation in bankruptcy without a payment plan is much more strict in many of the states with high rates of bad debt.
For example, states with high rates of bad debt also typically regulate consumer finance and debt collection less aggressively, have much more regressive state and local tax systems, have less generous social safety net programs, and impose more civil disabilities on people with criminal records. All of these policy differences could translate into more bad debt.
* Regional Housing Prices
States with high average levels of mortgage debt have lower average levels of non-mortgage consumer debt, and visa versa. And, this may be one of several relevant factors.
High levels of consumer debt may in places with high bad debt levels may arise because people make more debt financed consumer purchases because they have more money left over after paying their housing expenses. People who have less consumer debt are less likely to have bad debt. And, in some places, debt financed consumer spending is less common because everyone had less non-housing money to spend on consumer goods. For example, people in New York City tend to spend far less on debt financed automobile purchases and far more on rent than people in Texas.
The problem with this explanation, however, is that it fails to explain low rates of bad debt in the Midwest and Plains states where housing is often dirt cheap relative to household incomes.
* Culture May Drive Regional Differences
Many of the areas with high rates of bad debts and debts referred to collection are also places immersed in Southern culture and Evangelical religious beliefs. This is a culture that emphasizes that people sin and are forgiven, and emphasize God's providence in times when there seems to be no hope, while their Protestant peers in the North tend to place more emphasis culturally, on thrift and on not sinning in the first place and less on forgiveness. A common translation of the Lord's Prayer in much of the North refers not to people "who trespass" and "trespasses" but to "debtors" and "debts."
It is entirely possible that social norms about the importance of paying one's debts are simply stronger in the North than in the South, and indeed, that differences in the relevant laws between these regions reflect these different attitudes. The relatively homogeneous trend across the Southern cultural area, and the fact that some Northern States with generous exemptions from creditors (like Minnesota) still have low rates of bad debt, tend to favor this explanation. The stark disparity between neighboring Nevada and Utah, despite the fact that the state's neighbor each other and actually have quite similar laws on many relevant topics, similarly favor a explanation for the geography of bad debt based upon regional cultural differences.
The Legal Process
The courts of limited jurisdiction where these claims are adjudicated have massive case loads, have loose procedural rules with little pretrial structure, receive little political attention, go largely unnoticed by the media, and adjudicate the vast majority of claims by default or by settlement.
Notably, in collections cases, getting a money judgment from a court is often of only minor relevance to collection success, as finding a source of payment is often the real issue. And, often, there are rights to repossess property or a security deposit, pursue an insurance claim, harm a person's credit rating, or to refuse to do further business with a consumer (a particularly powerful option in the case of a monopoly like a utility company) that provide remedies for creditors beyond those that a money judgment from a court can offer, In contrast, it is impossible to get divorced or to conclude a criminal prosecution, for example, without court involvement.
In limited jurisdiction court collection cases, creditors are usually represented by collection agency lawyers who mass produce cases, while debtors are almost always unrepresented since the cost of a lawyer and unlikely prospects of reducing their obligations by paying their own lawyer plus the fees to which a collections lawyer is legally entitled if a collections lawsuit drives up the collection's lawyers' fees when contested, rarely justifies the amount of money judgment reduced through litigation in these cases. Politically, this means that creditors through their attorneys' have a core of full time professional advocates who may seek political action, while consumer debtors have no similar core of professionals protecting their interests in the courts or in the legislature.
Then again, limited jurisdiction courts offer justice that consumer debtors can afford, are often much more affordable than options like consumer arbitration, and are more management for pro se parties (i.e. people without lawyers) to navigate than general jurisdiction courts that handle bigger disputes.
And, for someone who rents and doesn't have much property subject to creditor's claims other than their wages, the worse case scenario in a court of limited jurisdiction, compared to the outcome that would happen if a lawyer negotiated the claims and litigated, is often not that much different (something that is very much not the case when large debts, often of a business nature, are litigated in general jurisdiction courts and huge concessions can often be secured). Typically, in large dollar debt collections, the biggest concern is about a loss of asset value due to a fire sale of assets in the collection process, something that is far less of a concern when wage and bank account garnishments are the primary remedies.
Relief from various enforcement approaches is often handled by negotiation rather than as a matter of legal right that a court outside of a federal court bankruptcy system can confer, in any case.
Also, often the problem faced by a consumer debtor is an inability to pay a debt, rather than a material dispute over whether most of it is owed. In those cases, the end run of bankruptcy court, where consumers are often represented efficiently and inexpensively by lawyers who mass produce consumer bankruptcy cases with heavy paralegal involvement provide a more efficient solution than litigation of individual claims on the merits of the debt in limited jurisdiction courts.
Political Considerations
Partisan considerations aside, policies impacting bad debt and debt collection have broad impact. Nationally, 35% of people with credit reports have been referred to collections within the last seven years. Bad debt is also an important issue for almost every business and financial institution involved in extending consumer credit. Of course, people with a stake in businesses collecting their debts tend to be reliable voters who can donate some money to political campaigns. They also have an ongoing stake in the issue as repeat players in this legal arena and the wherewithal to do something about it politically, something that stressed consumer debts rarely have available to them.
Only about 3% of people resort to payday loans or pawn loans in a given year, and only a modest share of people who are referred to collections go bankrupt. So, policies regulating the collections process and consumer finance outside of bankruptcy have wide impact.
It is also not too surprising that pro-debtor legislation like the bankruptcy code and fair debt collection practices act, tends to be federal, since voter turnout in federal elections is higher, while pro-creditor legislation tends to be enacted at the state level where voter turnout is lower.
On the other hand, the number of consumer debtors who have experienced the collections process first hand as debtors vastly outnumbers the number who have experienced it from a creditor's perspective. And, while consumer debts in the collections process tend to be working class or middle middle class, about 20% of the adult population, mostly those with too few assets and too little income to get credit, don't participate in the consumer finance economy at all. So, consumer debtors with bad debt are not the most politically vulnerable people in the electorate either.
While the Republican party espouses a pro-business orientation, bad debt, and the need to refer debts to collections, is clearly not something that businesses like to experience. Consumers obviously, don't like to struggle with their debts either.
States with higher than average rates of bad debt and referrals of debts to collections, are overwhelmingly Red States. States where bad debt is less common strongly tend to be blue states. On the other hand, it isn't clear that politicians of either party really understand which policies most strongly influence this process or what kind of influence those policies have. For example, for the most part, exemption from creditor laws are static with little legislative action from either party away from status quo positions set often many decades in the past.
Of course, if bad debt and referral to collections rates are more a product of cultural norms than legal rules, then maybe legislative action is irrelevant.
Sources
All statistics in this post not otherwise sourced come from a July 29, 2014 study by the Urban Institute of the TransUnion credit reporting database (TransUnion is one of the three dominant credit reporting agencies in the United States).
About 94% of all census tracts in the United States (which average about 4,000 people each), have someone living there with a credit report indicating that they are 30 days or more overdue on one of their currently outstanding non-mortgage consumer debts (i.e. they have "bad debts"). And, 99.99% of census tracts have someone living there who has had a debt referred to collections in the last seven years for a non-mortgage consumer debt (i.e. they have "been referred to collections").
The two groups, unsurprisingly, overlap. About 79% of people with bad debts have been referred to collections at some point in the past seven years. About 11% of people with credit reports don't have any debts (like a mortgage or credit card debts or a car loan or a student loan) of a type that would ordinarily be reported to a credit reporting agency, but have had some other debt (like an unpaid utility bill or medical bill) that has been reported to collections, causing a file to be established with a credit reporting agency.
Geographic Trends
But, there is wide regional variation within the United States in the amount of bad debt outstanding and of the percentage of people that have been referred to collections.
The Geography Bad Debt
In the 1% of census tracts with the highest percentage of people with bad debts, 40% of which are in Texas or Louisiana, 15% or more of people with credit reports have bad debt (about 0.05% have more than 25%).
Across the 50 states and Washington, DC, three states have less than 4 percent of the credit file population with debt past due: Utah, Washington, and New Jersey. Three states have more than 7 percent of their credit file population with debt past due: Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.The Geography of Debts Referred To Collections
Across the largest 100 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), Salt Lake City, Utah, has the lowest fraction of people with debt past due reported at 3.2 percent (appendix table A.2), followed by San Jose, California, and Seattle, Washington, at 3.5 percent. Some Texas and Louisiana MSAs are at the other end of the spectrum. In McAllen, Texas, 10.1 percent of people with credit files have debt past due reported; in El Paso, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and New Orleans, Louisiana, approximately 9 percent of people with credit files have debt past due reported.
In the 1% of census tracts with the highest percentage of people who have been referred to collections, 75% of people with credit reports have been referred to collections. Most of those census tracts are in the South or Appalachia.
Nevada . . . tops the list . . . 47 percent of people with a credit file have reported debt in collections. The District of Columbia and an additional 12 states (11 in the South) are over the 40 percent mark: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia.How Much Is At Stake?
At the low end are three Midwestern states— Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota—which have a substantially lower, yet still considerable, 20 percent of people with reported debt in collections.
The amounts of unpaid debts in these cases is usually quite modest.
The average amount of money that a person with bad debt must pay to be brought current is $2,258 (the median amount is $651).
The average amount of a debt referred to collections is $5,178 (the median amount is $1,349) and shows only modest regional variation, with the Southern states that have the highest rates of debts referred to collections tending to have small amounts owed.
Why?
Not Household Income
Variation in household income is only weakly correlated with bad debt rates, accounting for only 9% of the observed variation in the percentage of people with bad debt and only about 1% of the variation in the amount of bad debt owed by people who have bad debts.
The quite modest median dollar amounts of the bad debts and debts referred to collection relative to household income, and the only modest correlations between bad debt rates and household income, suggest that economic stress is not the predominant source of the regional differences in bad debt rates. Average difference of a few hundred dollars in consumer debt financed debt spending, or personal consumption spending of people with consumer debt, would make a very large difference in the percentage of people with bad debt in any given place, since the median amount of bad debt is so modest.
Race Is A Minor Factor
At first blush, race looks like it could be a significant fact, and it probably has a statistically significant correlation. The South, which has the most bad debt, also has a much larger African-American population than the rest of the United States. But, upon closer examination, race appears to be a fairly modest issue.
While many places with high rates of bad debt and debt referred to collections have large African-American populations. Others, like West Virginia, Texas and Nevada do not have particularly large African American populations. Many of the states with very low and very high rates of bad debt have very small Hispanic populations. And, states at any given band of rates of bad debt and debts referred to collection have wide variations in the size of their Hispanic and their combined black and Hispanic populations.
This impressions is reinforced when looking at more targeted metropolitan area statistics. Many poor, depressed Rust Belt cities with large African-American populations have relatively modest bad debt rates and rates of debts referred to collection, compared to more prosperous metropolitan areas in the South with similar demographics. If rate (or unemployment rates which are strongly correlated with race) were driving the disparities, one would expect these places to have similar rates of bad debt, instead of quite different rates.
Instead, Detroit, which is overwhelmingly African-American, has considerably low rates of cases referred to collection than, for example, Houston or Dallas.
The Housing Bubble Looks Unlikely As A Factor
Nevada and Florida, which were among the states hardest hit by the housing bubble collapse, has a very high rate of debts referred to collection. But, California, which was also severely hit by it, does not. And, Texas, which was largely spared, also does not.
Other Possible Causes
There are at least two other kinds possible causes look more plausible.
* State Level Legal Differences That Vary By Region
One possible source for the regional variation has legal sources.
Many states with high rates of bad debts and debts referred to collections also have generous laws protecting property from being collected by creditors, while regions with low rates of bad debts and debt referred to collections. Texas and Florida, for example, have generous homestead exemptions that protect virtually all real estate equity from the claims of consumer debt creditors.
Also, while average household income isn't strongly correlated with bad debt, the federal bankruptcy protection means test for obtaining a Chapter 7 liquidation in bankruptcy without a payment plan is much more strict in many of the states with high rates of bad debt.
For example, states with high rates of bad debt also typically regulate consumer finance and debt collection less aggressively, have much more regressive state and local tax systems, have less generous social safety net programs, and impose more civil disabilities on people with criminal records. All of these policy differences could translate into more bad debt.
* Regional Housing Prices
States with high average levels of mortgage debt have lower average levels of non-mortgage consumer debt, and visa versa. And, this may be one of several relevant factors.
High levels of consumer debt may in places with high bad debt levels may arise because people make more debt financed consumer purchases because they have more money left over after paying their housing expenses. People who have less consumer debt are less likely to have bad debt. And, in some places, debt financed consumer spending is less common because everyone had less non-housing money to spend on consumer goods. For example, people in New York City tend to spend far less on debt financed automobile purchases and far more on rent than people in Texas.
The problem with this explanation, however, is that it fails to explain low rates of bad debt in the Midwest and Plains states where housing is often dirt cheap relative to household incomes.
* Culture May Drive Regional Differences
Many of the areas with high rates of bad debts and debts referred to collection are also places immersed in Southern culture and Evangelical religious beliefs. This is a culture that emphasizes that people sin and are forgiven, and emphasize God's providence in times when there seems to be no hope, while their Protestant peers in the North tend to place more emphasis culturally, on thrift and on not sinning in the first place and less on forgiveness. A common translation of the Lord's Prayer in much of the North refers not to people "who trespass" and "trespasses" but to "debtors" and "debts."
It is entirely possible that social norms about the importance of paying one's debts are simply stronger in the North than in the South, and indeed, that differences in the relevant laws between these regions reflect these different attitudes. The relatively homogeneous trend across the Southern cultural area, and the fact that some Northern States with generous exemptions from creditors (like Minnesota) still have low rates of bad debt, tend to favor this explanation. The stark disparity between neighboring Nevada and Utah, despite the fact that the state's neighbor each other and actually have quite similar laws on many relevant topics, similarly favor a explanation for the geography of bad debt based upon regional cultural differences.
The Legal Process
The courts of limited jurisdiction where these claims are adjudicated have massive case loads, have loose procedural rules with little pretrial structure, receive little political attention, go largely unnoticed by the media, and adjudicate the vast majority of claims by default or by settlement.
Notably, in collections cases, getting a money judgment from a court is often of only minor relevance to collection success, as finding a source of payment is often the real issue. And, often, there are rights to repossess property or a security deposit, pursue an insurance claim, harm a person's credit rating, or to refuse to do further business with a consumer (a particularly powerful option in the case of a monopoly like a utility company) that provide remedies for creditors beyond those that a money judgment from a court can offer, In contrast, it is impossible to get divorced or to conclude a criminal prosecution, for example, without court involvement.
In limited jurisdiction court collection cases, creditors are usually represented by collection agency lawyers who mass produce cases, while debtors are almost always unrepresented since the cost of a lawyer and unlikely prospects of reducing their obligations by paying their own lawyer plus the fees to which a collections lawyer is legally entitled if a collections lawsuit drives up the collection's lawyers' fees when contested, rarely justifies the amount of money judgment reduced through litigation in these cases. Politically, this means that creditors through their attorneys' have a core of full time professional advocates who may seek political action, while consumer debtors have no similar core of professionals protecting their interests in the courts or in the legislature.
Then again, limited jurisdiction courts offer justice that consumer debtors can afford, are often much more affordable than options like consumer arbitration, and are more management for pro se parties (i.e. people without lawyers) to navigate than general jurisdiction courts that handle bigger disputes.
And, for someone who rents and doesn't have much property subject to creditor's claims other than their wages, the worse case scenario in a court of limited jurisdiction, compared to the outcome that would happen if a lawyer negotiated the claims and litigated, is often not that much different (something that is very much not the case when large debts, often of a business nature, are litigated in general jurisdiction courts and huge concessions can often be secured). Typically, in large dollar debt collections, the biggest concern is about a loss of asset value due to a fire sale of assets in the collection process, something that is far less of a concern when wage and bank account garnishments are the primary remedies.
Relief from various enforcement approaches is often handled by negotiation rather than as a matter of legal right that a court outside of a federal court bankruptcy system can confer, in any case.
Also, often the problem faced by a consumer debtor is an inability to pay a debt, rather than a material dispute over whether most of it is owed. In those cases, the end run of bankruptcy court, where consumers are often represented efficiently and inexpensively by lawyers who mass produce consumer bankruptcy cases with heavy paralegal involvement provide a more efficient solution than litigation of individual claims on the merits of the debt in limited jurisdiction courts.
Political Considerations
Partisan considerations aside, policies impacting bad debt and debt collection have broad impact. Nationally, 35% of people with credit reports have been referred to collections within the last seven years. Bad debt is also an important issue for almost every business and financial institution involved in extending consumer credit. Of course, people with a stake in businesses collecting their debts tend to be reliable voters who can donate some money to political campaigns. They also have an ongoing stake in the issue as repeat players in this legal arena and the wherewithal to do something about it politically, something that stressed consumer debts rarely have available to them.
Only about 3% of people resort to payday loans or pawn loans in a given year, and only a modest share of people who are referred to collections go bankrupt. So, policies regulating the collections process and consumer finance outside of bankruptcy have wide impact.
It is also not too surprising that pro-debtor legislation like the bankruptcy code and fair debt collection practices act, tends to be federal, since voter turnout in federal elections is higher, while pro-creditor legislation tends to be enacted at the state level where voter turnout is lower.
On the other hand, the number of consumer debtors who have experienced the collections process first hand as debtors vastly outnumbers the number who have experienced it from a creditor's perspective. And, while consumer debts in the collections process tend to be working class or middle middle class, about 20% of the adult population, mostly those with too few assets and too little income to get credit, don't participate in the consumer finance economy at all. So, consumer debtors with bad debt are not the most politically vulnerable people in the electorate either.
While the Republican party espouses a pro-business orientation, bad debt, and the need to refer debts to collections, is clearly not something that businesses like to experience. Consumers obviously, don't like to struggle with their debts either.
States with higher than average rates of bad debt and referrals of debts to collections, are overwhelmingly Red States. States where bad debt is less common strongly tend to be blue states. On the other hand, it isn't clear that politicians of either party really understand which policies most strongly influence this process or what kind of influence those policies have. For example, for the most part, exemption from creditor laws are static with little legislative action from either party away from status quo positions set often many decades in the past.
Of course, if bad debt and referral to collections rates are more a product of cultural norms than legal rules, then maybe legislative action is irrelevant.
Sources
All statistics in this post not otherwise sourced come from a July 29, 2014 study by the Urban Institute of the TransUnion credit reporting database (TransUnion is one of the three dominant credit reporting agencies in the United States).
29 September 2014
War Between JeffCo School Board And District Continues
A sickout closed some Jefferson County high schools on Monday, following mass walkouts by students every day in the previous week and a sick out the week before that. The protests are driven by a partisan and ideological effort of a three person Republican slate of the Jefferson County school board to overhaul the district.
SCOTUS Cuts Short Early Voting In Ohio
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, had cut the early voting period in Ohio from five weeks to four, overruling an order of a District Court judge affirmed by a three judge panel of the 6th Circuit. The reasoning behind the decision was not announced.
The ruling, made upon partisan lines in the U.S. Supreme Court, hurts democratic party efforts to get out the vote.
The preliminary ruling applied to a one week period, and this denial of preliminary injunction effectively moots much of the case of those challenging Ohio's election administration decisions.
The ruling, made upon partisan lines in the U.S. Supreme Court, hurts democratic party efforts to get out the vote.
The preliminary ruling applied to a one week period, and this denial of preliminary injunction effectively moots much of the case of those challenging Ohio's election administration decisions.
Belgium's Priorities
While other countries fret about clean water, failing bridges, high speed rail, or developing comprehensive cell phone and Wi-Fi access, the Belgians have other infrastructure priorities. They are busy inventing and installing an underground beer pipeline.
Thailand, not to be outdone by a fellow monarchy, have invented, at public expense, a robot that can evaluate the authenticity of restaurant offerings of supposedly Thai food.
Thailand, not to be outdone by a fellow monarchy, have invented, at public expense, a robot that can evaluate the authenticity of restaurant offerings of supposedly Thai food.
A How To Guide For Bad Academic Writing
Steven Pinker, who writes both academic prose and trade non-fiction, offers up a field guide on what distinguishes bad academic writing.
Meanwhile Bryan A. Garner, the undisputed guru of modern legal writing style, has his own ten tips of good legal writing. His top ten:
1) Be sure you understand the client's problem.
2) Don't rely exclusively on computer research.
3) Never turn in a preliminary version of a work in progress.
4) Summarize your conclusions up front.
5) Make your summary understandable to outsiders.
6) Don't be too tentative in your conclusions, but don't be too cocksure, either.
7) Strike the right professional tone: natural but not chatty.
8) Master the approved citation form.
9) Cut every unnecessary sentence; then go back through and cut every unnecessary word.
10) Proofread one more time than you think necessary.
Meanwhile Bryan A. Garner, the undisputed guru of modern legal writing style, has his own ten tips of good legal writing. His top ten:
1) Be sure you understand the client's problem.
2) Don't rely exclusively on computer research.
3) Never turn in a preliminary version of a work in progress.
4) Summarize your conclusions up front.
5) Make your summary understandable to outsiders.
6) Don't be too tentative in your conclusions, but don't be too cocksure, either.
7) Strike the right professional tone: natural but not chatty.
8) Master the approved citation form.
9) Cut every unnecessary sentence; then go back through and cut every unnecessary word.
10) Proofread one more time than you think necessary.
Douthat on the Decline of Cults
Cults seem far less relevant these days than they did a generation ago. Why?
Conservative NY Times columnist Douthat explores possibilities from the decline of creativity, to the implausibility in our modern society that any important knowledge is secret.
Conservative NY Times columnist Douthat explores possibilities from the decline of creativity, to the implausibility in our modern society that any important knowledge is secret.
26 September 2014
Colorado's 2014 Judicial Retention Elections
Once appointed, state judges in Colorado must face periodic retention elections held in general November elections in even numbered years, one after two years in office and again at intervals that vary from court to court. Voters can vote to retain or not retain a judge. If there are fewer "not retain" votes than "retain" votes, the judge stays in office for another term, Most voters always vote to retain, and a minority of voters don't vote at all on these issues, or always vote not to retain.
For those voters who make their decisions on a case by case basis, there is a commission on judicial performance that recommends that a judge be retained, recommends that a judge not be retained, or makes no recommendation. There is a separate volunteer committee for each judicial district in the state and another for appellate judges.
More than 98% of judges are recommended for retention and are almost always retained by the voters. About half of those judges not affirmatively recommended for retention, usually only a few each year, are not retained by voters. When a judge is not retained, a vacancy is created. A different commission advertises the position and vets applicants. Three finalists are selected. Usually, the Governor makes the final pick, but in the case of Denver county court judges, the final choice is made by Denver's mayor since Denver county court judges are simultaneously Denver's municipal court.
This year, 160 judges end their terms and would normally face retention elections. Of them, 14 can't run because they have reached mandatory retirement act. Two more judges, upon learning that they would not be recommended for retention, voluntarily stepped down from office effective at the end of their current terms.
Four county court judges have not been recommended affirmatively for retention. These are judges of the state's limited jurisdiction courts that handles misdemeanor cases, most evictions, most temporary restraining orders, most name changes and most civil cases where less than $15,000 is not in dispute and title to real estate is not at issue.
Three of the judges not receiving an affirmative recommendation to retain, one in Boulder (Karolyn Moore), one in Pueblo (Valerie Haynes) and one in the City and County of Denver (Dianne Briscoe), are rookie judges facing their first retention election. A fourth, in Grand County which is home to WinterEstes Park (Ben McClelland), is an experienced county court judge [Ed. 10-29-14 corrected claim that Estes Park, which is actually in adjacent Larimer County, is in Grand County, which is home to Winter Park and Granby per comments; my apologies for the error]. In Boulder, Pueblo and Grand Counties, the recommendation to "not retain" was unanimous." In Denver, where the judge agreed to enter into a supervised improvement plan, the commission was split and there was no recommendation made to retain or not to retain. For what it is worth, all three of the rookie judges failing to secure retention recommendations are women.
The commission noted with regard to Judge McClelland, in Grand County, that:
But, ultimately each case must be judged individually on its own merits. Extensive source data for evaluating those hard calls is available at the Commissions on Judicial Performance website.
For those voters who make their decisions on a case by case basis, there is a commission on judicial performance that recommends that a judge be retained, recommends that a judge not be retained, or makes no recommendation. There is a separate volunteer committee for each judicial district in the state and another for appellate judges.
More than 98% of judges are recommended for retention and are almost always retained by the voters. About half of those judges not affirmatively recommended for retention, usually only a few each year, are not retained by voters. When a judge is not retained, a vacancy is created. A different commission advertises the position and vets applicants. Three finalists are selected. Usually, the Governor makes the final pick, but in the case of Denver county court judges, the final choice is made by Denver's mayor since Denver county court judges are simultaneously Denver's municipal court.
This year, 160 judges end their terms and would normally face retention elections. Of them, 14 can't run because they have reached mandatory retirement act. Two more judges, upon learning that they would not be recommended for retention, voluntarily stepped down from office effective at the end of their current terms.
Four county court judges have not been recommended affirmatively for retention. These are judges of the state's limited jurisdiction courts that handles misdemeanor cases, most evictions, most temporary restraining orders, most name changes and most civil cases where less than $15,000 is not in dispute and title to real estate is not at issue.
Three of the judges not receiving an affirmative recommendation to retain, one in Boulder (Karolyn Moore), one in Pueblo (Valerie Haynes) and one in the City and County of Denver (Dianne Briscoe), are rookie judges facing their first retention election. A fourth, in Grand County which is home to Winter
The commission noted with regard to Judge McClelland, in Grand County, that:
Survey results and observation by Commissioners regarding Judge McClelland were mixed. To the positive, it was generally regarded that Judge McClelland is consistent in his rulings, works to learn the law, gives the parties a fair chance to present their cases, and is accommodating when it comes to scheduling. He moves his docket forward, is efficient in court, and is a hard worker. His oral communications in court are clear and direct and he maintains control over his courtroom.
To the negative, commenters, including some Commissioners, described Judge McClelland as arrogant, defensive, impatient, and lacking appropriate judicial demeanor. His lectures from the bench tend to be grandiose, offensive, and off-putting. It was commented that Judge McClelland has a tendency, or at least the appearance, to rule based on his personal bias or opinion. These characteristics do not meet required judicial criteria of communication and judicial temperament. Among surveyed attorneys, Judge McClelland’s “retain” recommendation of 56% was significantly under the state average for all County Court judges (78%) and his “do not retain” recommendation of 32% was likewise higher than the state average (13%). Among non-attorneys, his “retain” recommendation of 78% was lower than the average (86%) and his “do not retain” recommendation of 14% was higher (8%). Although Judge McClelland received an average grade of 3.0 in the surveys, that score is below the 3.43 average combined grade for all county court judges standing for retention in 2014.For Judge Moore, in Boulder County, a former deputy district attorney, the commission noted that:
Judge Moore’s survey results raised many concerns for the Commission. Among attorneys surveyed about retention, 45% recommended to retain, 40% not to retain, and 15% made no recommendation. Among non-attorneys, 90% recommended to retain, 5% not to retain, and 4% made no recommendation. When compared to all county judges by non-attorneys (including jurors), she received a slightly higher recommendation for retention (90% versus 86%) and was rated slightly higher than judges overall on a number of measures such as demeanor in court. She also received many positive comments from the non-attorneys particularly regarding demeanor and communication skills.
On the other hand, she was seen as being biased toward the prosecution and harsh in her sentencing in comparison to other county judges. Judge Moore’s survey ratings by attorneys were very different from the non-attorneys. In all five categories, including all 17 subcategories, attorneys gave Judge Moore lower ratings when compared with all county judges. The categories include case management, application and knowledge of law, communications, demeanor, and diligence. Her overall score among attorneys was much lower than the average for all county judges – 2.51 compared to 3.29. Judge Moore was seen as being very biased in favor of the prosecution by 46% of the attorneys while on average all county judges were so rated by only 10% of attorneys. She was also perceived as being somewhat biased in favor of the prosecution by a higher percentage – 33% compared to 25%. The surveys provided similarly negative results for Judge Moore regarding a recommendation for retention. The same sampling methodology was used to survey attorneys and non-attorneys for all nine judges standing for retention. Judge Moore’s survey results were substantially more concerning than any of the other judges reviewed by this commission. Although she received positive comments from some attorneys, there were many explicit comments detailing concerns attorneys had with Judge Moore. The Commission is not convinced that Judge Moore fully understands the extent of her shortcomings as a judicial officer.
Judge Karolyn Moore’s Response: I’m honored to serve the people of Boulder County. As a new judge, I’m focused on improving my judicial skills and initiated an improvement plan with my chief judge. Among the attorneys surveyed regarding my performance 93 criminal defense attorneys and 19 civil attorneys responded. I value their comments, however the surveys were not sent to prosecuting attorneys and other important voices were not heard, leading to imbalanced results.For Judge Haynes, in Pueblo County, the commission noted that:
Judge Haynes is polite to jurors, is perceived by the public as fair, and generally imposes consistent sentences.
Judge Haynes does regularly reject plea agreements that the attorneys have worked out, and does so without providing support for her decision. This has contributed to a very heavy jury trial schedule, averaging almost one trial per week. Judge Haynes imposes requirements upon the attorneys practicing in front of her that have no basis in rule or law, and she renders inconsistent rulings on legal objections. The commission heard complaints that there are issues with efficiencies in the courtroom, including not starting her docket in a timely manner. Judge Haynes is not willing to work with others in order to resolve issues and has created a hostile environment in her courtroom. Proper mentoring of attorneys is noticeably lacking. The most significant criticism evidenced throughout this process was Judge Haynes’ lack of judicial temperament. She is described as rude, curt, having little compassion, and inappropriately raising her voice at those who appear in her courtroom. These concerns were evident in her May 2013 evaluation survey results, and no improvement is shown in the current survey. Judge Haynes acknowledges the results of both surveys and has only made recent attempts to improve her communication skills, which she believes are the root of the problem. The Commission believes that Judge Haynes fails to fully understand and acknowledge her contribution to the negative survey results and comments, which leaves little reason to expect improvements to occur.Judge Briscoe, in the City and County of Denver was described by the commission as follows:
Judge Briscoe’s first two years as a judge were in the juvenile division, for which there are no survey results. Judge Briscoe had prior experience in juvenile law and believes that experience helped her perform well in the juvenile division. However, in her current assignment, in each area of case management, application and knowledge of the law, communications, demeanor and diligence, Judge Briscoe received scores from attorneys significantly below the average of scores for all other county court judges standing for retention. Her scores from non-attorneys in most areas were consistent with the average scores received for other county court judges.
While the survey sample from lawyers was small (20 respondents), courtroom observations by members of the Commission and review of her oral rulings confirmed many of the concerns raised by the survey results. While Judge Briscoe displayed appropriate judicial demeanor and was patient and respectful to those appearing in her court, the Commission has significant concerns about Judge Briscoe’s application and knowledge of the law. Especially concerning was her apparent lack of familiarity or understanding of relevant law and rules even though she had been in her current assignment in the municipal criminal division for over 15 months at the time of her interview. In her interview, Judge Briscoe acknowledged her deficiencies in application and knowledge of the law. Judge Briscoe’s apparent lack of preparation on some matters and the difficulty she experienced in making sure some defendants without lawyers adequately understood the proceedings also concerned the Commission.My general attitude towards judicial retention election is not to be lenient. Very few judges are not recommended for retention at all, and their stand out status deserves attention. The relevant issue is not whether they did something wrong, but whether there are better than even odds that a replacement would be better. Given that the consequence for the judge is merely the need to find a new job for someone with a professional degree and considerable professional success, but that the broad discretion a judge has may impact thousands of cases, I generally argue that when in doubt, one should not retain.
But, ultimately each case must be judged individually on its own merits. Extensive source data for evaluating those hard calls is available at the Commissions on Judicial Performance website.
25 September 2014
Jefferson County School Board Catastrophically Failing
In Jefferson County, Colorado, a first ring suburb of Denver that is home to the second largest school district in the state, a slate of three conservative Republicans with a strong partisan agenda took control of the Jefferson County School Board in the November 2013 election.
Their efforts to impose a conservative agenda on the district have met immense resistance. There have been school board process disputes. The Superintendent resigned early and was replaced in a manner that didn't follow the usual channels. The teachers union and its non-union member allies who are teachers offered up a unanimous vote of no confidence in the principal. An informally coordinated teacher "sick out" by 50 teachers at two schools forced those two high schools to close. Now, the district is in a fourth consecutive day of walk outs by hundreds of students at four different high schools that is only gaining momentum.
The most recent revolts revolve around a proposal by the conservatives to change the curriculum of AP History. The board proposal would require teachers to teach material presenting the "positive aspects" of "U.S. heritage" that promote citizenship, patriotism, the essential and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights," while not encouraging or condoning "civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law."
Apparently, topics such as the Revolutionary War, labor strife, woman's suffrage, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, the Progressive movement, Vietnam War protests, Nixon's resignation, the Great Depression and the New Deal are all now inappropriate to teach in Jefferson County classrooms.
The blatant partisan effort to manipulate history in a course that already has a nationally mandated curriculum hasn't gone over well with students or teachers.
The Jefferson County partisan takeover with disastrous results follows a similar move a few years earlier in exurban Douglas County, which has also led to strife and has dramatically reduced the quality of the school district there.
In both communities, historically, strong schools had been a major draw to bring affluent families to the respective school districts, but the partisan Republican takeovers of the institutions have left these areas as undesirable places for affluent families to move if they care about their children's educations.
The Denver Post and JeffCo Pols have extensive coverage of these developments. The Colorado Independent discusses developments with links to national coverage. A critical point:
Will the JeffCo school board sour critical independent voters in Jefferson County on the entire Republican county ticket in a county critical to GOP efforts to regain control of the state house?
Their efforts to impose a conservative agenda on the district have met immense resistance. There have been school board process disputes. The Superintendent resigned early and was replaced in a manner that didn't follow the usual channels. The teachers union and its non-union member allies who are teachers offered up a unanimous vote of no confidence in the principal. An informally coordinated teacher "sick out" by 50 teachers at two schools forced those two high schools to close. Now, the district is in a fourth consecutive day of walk outs by hundreds of students at four different high schools that is only gaining momentum.
The most recent revolts revolve around a proposal by the conservatives to change the curriculum of AP History. The board proposal would require teachers to teach material presenting the "positive aspects" of "U.S. heritage" that promote citizenship, patriotism, the essential and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights," while not encouraging or condoning "civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law."
Apparently, topics such as the Revolutionary War, labor strife, woman's suffrage, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, the Progressive movement, Vietnam War protests, Nixon's resignation, the Great Depression and the New Deal are all now inappropriate to teach in Jefferson County classrooms.
The blatant partisan effort to manipulate history in a course that already has a nationally mandated curriculum hasn't gone over well with students or teachers.
The Jefferson County partisan takeover with disastrous results follows a similar move a few years earlier in exurban Douglas County, which has also led to strife and has dramatically reduced the quality of the school district there.
In both communities, historically, strong schools had been a major draw to bring affluent families to the respective school districts, but the partisan Republican takeovers of the institutions have left these areas as undesirable places for affluent families to move if they care about their children's educations.
The Denver Post and JeffCo Pols have extensive coverage of these developments. The Colorado Independent discusses developments with links to national coverage. A critical point:
Will the JeffCo school board sour critical independent voters in Jefferson County on the entire Republican county ticket in a county critical to GOP efforts to regain control of the state house?
Does Deporting Immigrants Reduce Crime?
Deporting immigrants who are arrested for crimes, surprisingly, has no discernible impact on the crime rate. This is according to a study comparing a large data base of county level, monthly deportation of arrestee statistics (mandated by the Secure Communities Act) to crime rates in those countries.
Does immigration enforcement actually reduce crime? Surprisingly, little evidence exists either way — despite the fact that deporting noncitizens who commit crimes has been a central feature of American immigration law since the early twentieth century. We capitalize on a natural policy experiment to address the question and, in the process, provide the first empirical analysis of the most important deportation initiative to be rolled out in decades. The policy initiative we study is “Secure Communities,” a program designed to enable the federal government to check the immigration status of every person arrested for a crime by local police. Before this program, the government checked the immigration status of only a small fraction of arrestees. Since its launch, the program has led to over a quarter of a million detentions. We exploit the slow rollout of the program across more than 3,000 U.S. counties to obtain differences-in-differences estimates of the impact of Secure Communities on local crime rates. We also use rich data on the number of immigrants detained under the program in each county and month — data obtained from the federal government through extensive FOIA requests — to estimate the elasticity of crime with respect to incapacitated immigrants. Our results show that Secure Communities led to no meaningful reductions in the FBI index crime rate. Nor has it reduced rates of violent crime — homicide, rape, robbery, or aggravated assault. This evidence shows that the program has not served its central objective of making communities safer.Why this has had no impact when it is perfectly logical that it should, is a mystery.
24 September 2014
Imagine Harry Potter Rewritten As Christian Fiction
Actually, you don't have to, because a fundamentalist Christian mom who doesn't want her kids to be influenced by witchcraft has done it for us (the source for that article with more excerpts is here).
It is even more horrible than the usual Christian fiction offerings in a particularly unsettling and almost vomit inducing kind of way.
It is even more horrible than the usual Christian fiction offerings in a particularly unsettling and almost vomit inducing kind of way.
What Is The End Game In The War Against ISIS?
The Status Quo in the Fertile Crescent
ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, aka ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) has transformed the political reality of the Fertile Crescent.
In Iraq, all of the inhabited territory to the north of Baghdad that is not controlled by the Kurdish regional government that had de facto control of Kurdish Iraq even before the Iraq War and has its own military forces, despite its official subordination to the Iraqi government, is controlled by ISIS. These areas have long been majority Sunni Arab, the ethnic group that controlled the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and a close ally of the Baathist regime of Syria which was controlled by crypto-Shiite Alawites. But, in the U.S. led Iraq War the Baathist regime in Iraq was deposed and replaced with an elected government dominated by Iraq's majority Shi'ites, mostly from the Southeast, and favorably inclined towards Shi'ite controlled Iran, although Kurdish and Sunni participation was maintained, at least for show. Also, during the Iraq War and subsequent U.S. led occupation of Iraq, ethic violence broke out and led to the massive increase in ethnic segregation in the country. Sunnis fled the majority Shiite Southeast and Shiite neighborhoods in the capitol mostly heading to the Sunni majority north that resisted U.S. led occupation most fiercely; Shiites and Kurds fled to Sunni majority regions in the North, to regions where their ethnic groups held majorities. Smaller minorities hunkered down in their local communities when they could.
ISIS have forcibly displaced or killed many of the people who were not Sunni Arabs who remained, particularly smaller ethnic communities in the north, and have tried, with only slight success, to take cities and oil refineries in Kurdish areas.
ISIS controls most of the inhabited territory of Syria to the east of its coastal mountain range outside greater Damascus, and most of the Tigress and Euphrates river valley to the north of Baghdad, as well as some towns in Iraq's largely uninhabited empty quarter in Southwest Iraq.
The remainder of Syria's territory is controlled by the Baathist, one party dictatorship that controlled the country for decades. But, when people marched in the streets to demand political reforms in the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia producing regime change there, and spread to Libya and Egypt where it also produced regime change, the Syrian protests gave rise to a civil war.
Early in the Syrian civil war, the U.S. refrained from intervening with air power as it had in Libya, in part, because it didn't want to cross Russia (which is now preoccupied in its military and political efforts to reclaim the Ukrainian province of Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine), and in part, because it feared that the Islamist rebels opposed to the Baathist regime would triumph in the civil war (as ISIS now has in Eastern Syria).
After Syria bombed its people indiscriminately with aircraft and used chemical weapons on its own people, earlier in this civil war, the U.S. and its Western allies have ceased to recognize this regime of war criminals as legitimate and have more or less openly backed some of the rebel factions that oppose it in an ongoing Syrian civil war that has resulted in immense numbers of deaths and serious injuries, and many more refugees.
This Syrian Baathist regime has largely ruled Lebanon as a tributary state for most of that time period, and southern Lebanon has also been a base for Hezbollah fighters launching missile attacks against the Golan Heights and other areas in northern Israel, without formal Lebanese support, but Lebanon has not vigorously suppressed Hezbollah fighters either.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are effectively Palestinian colonies, with local self-government with U.N. humanitarian support that intermittently backs armed attacks on Israel and the abolition of the Israeli state. But, Israeli forces are militarily superior, have instituted tight border controls to shut down Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel proper, has embargoed the Palestinian region from international travel and trade, and has when push comes to shove, militarily and legally supported illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank that threaten to demographically and economically overcome the Palestinian population there and make the West Bank an area that is in substance Israeli and Jewish.
Israel mounted a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip this summer to reassert military control over the region, to close tunnels under the border between Gaza and Israel, and to bring to a halt a campaign of rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.
Recent Events
Campaigns of ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, genocidal mass murders and rapes of civilians, taunts at the U.S. and U.K. by the high profile beheading of several of their citizens, and the kidnapping of many Turkish citizens with the threat that they will be killed if Turkey intervenes, has made the ISIS regime intolerable.
So, the U.S. has intervened with air strikes against ISIS in both Iraq (with the Iraqi regime's permission) and in Syria (without consulting the Baathist regime). The U.S. seeks to support non-ISIS Syrian rebels, Kurdish militias and Iraqi military forces on the ground against ISIS.
The U.S. claims that it has also discovered an anti-Western terrorist organization gaining power in the liminal area near Aleppo that is between areas controlled by ISIS and the areas controlled by the Baathist Syrian regime, which it has bombed.
What Is The End Game?
It is certainly within the realm of possibility, even probability, that the U.S. and its allies will be able to destroy the ISIS regime in Syria and Iraq. But, it remains far from obvious that once that goal is achieved, that Iraq and Syria should be put back together again.
The Kurdish regional government in Iraq doesn't need or want to be under the Iraqi government's rule, and does so only because international politics make it expedient at the moment, and because the central government has granted it de facto near total autonomy.
A triumphant U.S. coalition in Syria will be loath to hand over a Syrian majority that was oppressed by the Syrian Baathist regime and rose up against it with U.S. support to a reconstituted Syrian government, particularly because the Baathist regime is showing no signs that it will be successfully removed from power.
The Sunni Arabs of northern Iraq gave into the ISIS regime's rise to power because they feel marginalized by the dysfunctional new Iraqi central government that is openly Shi'ite and allied with Iraq's historically Iranian nemesis, rather than just because they fear the ruthless tactics that ISIS has employed to cow people into submission. They will not be eager to reinstate the central Iraqi region of control and their sense of identity with ethnic compatriots in Eastern Syria has been heightened by the ISIS regime in a manner that goes beyond the particular kind of Islamic State that ISIS has sought to impose.
Creating a new more moderate democratic state with more respect for human rights and international expectations for the conduct of a sovereign in the territory now controlled by ISIS may be a more viable end game than trying to restore the pre-ISIS boundaries of Iraq and Syria, which neither government was able to maintain control of on their own.
Or, perhaps, this territory ought to become a protectorate of, or annexed to, some better behaved Sunni Arab state in the region, such as Jordan, rather than letting Islamist leaning majorities reinstate ISIS via the ballot box. The coalition against ISIS shouldn't be above rewarding states in the region like Jordan's constitutional monarchy (with a balance between elected and hereditary power similar to England ca. 1700 CE), that best exemplifies their vision for a future Near East, while punishing those, like the incompetent, dysfunctional and demagogue run Southeastern Iraq dominated rump regime, or the war criminal led Syrian Baathist dictatorship.
It is hard to see that rule of ISIS as a Saudi Arabian protectorate would be any great improvement over ISIS. We should not deceive ourselves into thinking that merely because we can buy cooperation from Saudi Arabia with weapons, oil purchases and the like, and because Saudi Arabia can maintain control of its own territory, that it medieval regime can ever really be a true ally that shares our vision of the future for the region. Saudi Arabian elites were behind 9-11, funded the Taliban in Afghanistan, and drive Islamic terrorism worldwide, despite the efforts of the absolute monarchy there to distance itself from them.
Turkey is another possible protectorate ruler for the region, and is even closer geographically and has more resources to do so, as well as being a full fledged Republic and more moderate than any other predominantly Muslim country in the region. But, its long standing conflict with Kurdish insurgents in its own country, and apparent lack of interest in intervening militarily on the ground in ISIS territory, casts doubt on its suitability in this role.
Quite frankly, Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, and Egyptian annexation of the Gaza Stripe, as a means of resolving the "Palestinian problem", also makes sense.
Perhaps, in a reversal of roles, rump Syria could be turned over, either via annexation, or as a protectorate, to Lebanon, which has historically been multi-ethnic and has greater affinity and similarity to rump Syria than any other state in the region.
Perhaps we should strive towards a future Near East in which:
(1) Syria is removed from the map,
(2) Palestine ceases to have a political identity of its own,
(3) the Syrian coast and greater Damascus are annexed by Lebanon,
(4) Jordan annexes the West Bank, ISIS controlled territory and Sunni regions in Southwest Iraq,
(5) Egypt annexes the Gaza Strip,
(6) the Kurdistan regional government is granted sovereignty as a Kurdish state, and
(7) rump Iraq is reconstituted as a predominantly Shi'ite state of Sumer rather than a multiethnic Iraq.
These redrawn boundaries in the Middle East, might be more governable than those that existed prior to the ISIS crisis, where political regimes that have behaved well would be rewarded and where those who have behaved badly would be permanently ended.
Egypt would be better a restraining local militants in the Gaza Strip than Israel or the local authority in Gaza, and would provide Gazans with long overdue access to the outside world. Jordan would similarly be better at restraining local militants in the West Bank and provide them with long overdue access to the outside world, a role that they already fulfill to some extent.
Jordan would be more capable of securing some sort of meaningful acceptance of their legitimacy than a Shiite dominated, incompetent civilian regime in Baghdad, or actively hostile regime in Damascus, while preventing the emergence of an Islamic State, in ISIS territory and Southwest Iraq, and maintaining so level of tolerance for ethnic minorities. Its king can rule with clarity, while its emerging genuine parliament can provide a path for transition to a more democratic regime for a people not yet socialized enough to be ready for full fledged democracy.
A civilian government for Shiite Southeastern Sumer would be more humanly possible to run without the need to maintain a fragile Shiite-Sunni-Kurdish-minority ethnicity coalition, and with less territory to control and few people actively opposed to the regime and taking up arms against it.
Lebanon's regime provides a better model for how coastal Syria ought to be governed than the Syrian Baathist regime.
The Kurds have long had their house in order and the existence of a Kurdish state might encourage relocation of Kurds elsewhere to it rather than trying to fight local insurgencies. Running the Kurdish state would also be easier without Iraqi central government concerns to consider.
ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, aka ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) has transformed the political reality of the Fertile Crescent.
In Iraq, all of the inhabited territory to the north of Baghdad that is not controlled by the Kurdish regional government that had de facto control of Kurdish Iraq even before the Iraq War and has its own military forces, despite its official subordination to the Iraqi government, is controlled by ISIS. These areas have long been majority Sunni Arab, the ethnic group that controlled the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and a close ally of the Baathist regime of Syria which was controlled by crypto-Shiite Alawites. But, in the U.S. led Iraq War the Baathist regime in Iraq was deposed and replaced with an elected government dominated by Iraq's majority Shi'ites, mostly from the Southeast, and favorably inclined towards Shi'ite controlled Iran, although Kurdish and Sunni participation was maintained, at least for show. Also, during the Iraq War and subsequent U.S. led occupation of Iraq, ethic violence broke out and led to the massive increase in ethnic segregation in the country. Sunnis fled the majority Shiite Southeast and Shiite neighborhoods in the capitol mostly heading to the Sunni majority north that resisted U.S. led occupation most fiercely; Shiites and Kurds fled to Sunni majority regions in the North, to regions where their ethnic groups held majorities. Smaller minorities hunkered down in their local communities when they could.
ISIS have forcibly displaced or killed many of the people who were not Sunni Arabs who remained, particularly smaller ethnic communities in the north, and have tried, with only slight success, to take cities and oil refineries in Kurdish areas.
ISIS controls most of the inhabited territory of Syria to the east of its coastal mountain range outside greater Damascus, and most of the Tigress and Euphrates river valley to the north of Baghdad, as well as some towns in Iraq's largely uninhabited empty quarter in Southwest Iraq.
The remainder of Syria's territory is controlled by the Baathist, one party dictatorship that controlled the country for decades. But, when people marched in the streets to demand political reforms in the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia producing regime change there, and spread to Libya and Egypt where it also produced regime change, the Syrian protests gave rise to a civil war.
Early in the Syrian civil war, the U.S. refrained from intervening with air power as it had in Libya, in part, because it didn't want to cross Russia (which is now preoccupied in its military and political efforts to reclaim the Ukrainian province of Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine), and in part, because it feared that the Islamist rebels opposed to the Baathist regime would triumph in the civil war (as ISIS now has in Eastern Syria).
After Syria bombed its people indiscriminately with aircraft and used chemical weapons on its own people, earlier in this civil war, the U.S. and its Western allies have ceased to recognize this regime of war criminals as legitimate and have more or less openly backed some of the rebel factions that oppose it in an ongoing Syrian civil war that has resulted in immense numbers of deaths and serious injuries, and many more refugees.
This Syrian Baathist regime has largely ruled Lebanon as a tributary state for most of that time period, and southern Lebanon has also been a base for Hezbollah fighters launching missile attacks against the Golan Heights and other areas in northern Israel, without formal Lebanese support, but Lebanon has not vigorously suppressed Hezbollah fighters either.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are effectively Palestinian colonies, with local self-government with U.N. humanitarian support that intermittently backs armed attacks on Israel and the abolition of the Israeli state. But, Israeli forces are militarily superior, have instituted tight border controls to shut down Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel proper, has embargoed the Palestinian region from international travel and trade, and has when push comes to shove, militarily and legally supported illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank that threaten to demographically and economically overcome the Palestinian population there and make the West Bank an area that is in substance Israeli and Jewish.
Israel mounted a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip this summer to reassert military control over the region, to close tunnels under the border between Gaza and Israel, and to bring to a halt a campaign of rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.
Recent Events
Campaigns of ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, genocidal mass murders and rapes of civilians, taunts at the U.S. and U.K. by the high profile beheading of several of their citizens, and the kidnapping of many Turkish citizens with the threat that they will be killed if Turkey intervenes, has made the ISIS regime intolerable.
So, the U.S. has intervened with air strikes against ISIS in both Iraq (with the Iraqi regime's permission) and in Syria (without consulting the Baathist regime). The U.S. seeks to support non-ISIS Syrian rebels, Kurdish militias and Iraqi military forces on the ground against ISIS.
The U.S. claims that it has also discovered an anti-Western terrorist organization gaining power in the liminal area near Aleppo that is between areas controlled by ISIS and the areas controlled by the Baathist Syrian regime, which it has bombed.
What Is The End Game?
It is certainly within the realm of possibility, even probability, that the U.S. and its allies will be able to destroy the ISIS regime in Syria and Iraq. But, it remains far from obvious that once that goal is achieved, that Iraq and Syria should be put back together again.
The Kurdish regional government in Iraq doesn't need or want to be under the Iraqi government's rule, and does so only because international politics make it expedient at the moment, and because the central government has granted it de facto near total autonomy.
A triumphant U.S. coalition in Syria will be loath to hand over a Syrian majority that was oppressed by the Syrian Baathist regime and rose up against it with U.S. support to a reconstituted Syrian government, particularly because the Baathist regime is showing no signs that it will be successfully removed from power.
The Sunni Arabs of northern Iraq gave into the ISIS regime's rise to power because they feel marginalized by the dysfunctional new Iraqi central government that is openly Shi'ite and allied with Iraq's historically Iranian nemesis, rather than just because they fear the ruthless tactics that ISIS has employed to cow people into submission. They will not be eager to reinstate the central Iraqi region of control and their sense of identity with ethnic compatriots in Eastern Syria has been heightened by the ISIS regime in a manner that goes beyond the particular kind of Islamic State that ISIS has sought to impose.
Creating a new more moderate democratic state with more respect for human rights and international expectations for the conduct of a sovereign in the territory now controlled by ISIS may be a more viable end game than trying to restore the pre-ISIS boundaries of Iraq and Syria, which neither government was able to maintain control of on their own.
Or, perhaps, this territory ought to become a protectorate of, or annexed to, some better behaved Sunni Arab state in the region, such as Jordan, rather than letting Islamist leaning majorities reinstate ISIS via the ballot box. The coalition against ISIS shouldn't be above rewarding states in the region like Jordan's constitutional monarchy (with a balance between elected and hereditary power similar to England ca. 1700 CE), that best exemplifies their vision for a future Near East, while punishing those, like the incompetent, dysfunctional and demagogue run Southeastern Iraq dominated rump regime, or the war criminal led Syrian Baathist dictatorship.
It is hard to see that rule of ISIS as a Saudi Arabian protectorate would be any great improvement over ISIS. We should not deceive ourselves into thinking that merely because we can buy cooperation from Saudi Arabia with weapons, oil purchases and the like, and because Saudi Arabia can maintain control of its own territory, that it medieval regime can ever really be a true ally that shares our vision of the future for the region. Saudi Arabian elites were behind 9-11, funded the Taliban in Afghanistan, and drive Islamic terrorism worldwide, despite the efforts of the absolute monarchy there to distance itself from them.
Turkey is another possible protectorate ruler for the region, and is even closer geographically and has more resources to do so, as well as being a full fledged Republic and more moderate than any other predominantly Muslim country in the region. But, its long standing conflict with Kurdish insurgents in its own country, and apparent lack of interest in intervening militarily on the ground in ISIS territory, casts doubt on its suitability in this role.
Quite frankly, Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, and Egyptian annexation of the Gaza Stripe, as a means of resolving the "Palestinian problem", also makes sense.
Perhaps, in a reversal of roles, rump Syria could be turned over, either via annexation, or as a protectorate, to Lebanon, which has historically been multi-ethnic and has greater affinity and similarity to rump Syria than any other state in the region.
Perhaps we should strive towards a future Near East in which:
(1) Syria is removed from the map,
(2) Palestine ceases to have a political identity of its own,
(3) the Syrian coast and greater Damascus are annexed by Lebanon,
(4) Jordan annexes the West Bank, ISIS controlled territory and Sunni regions in Southwest Iraq,
(5) Egypt annexes the Gaza Strip,
(6) the Kurdistan regional government is granted sovereignty as a Kurdish state, and
(7) rump Iraq is reconstituted as a predominantly Shi'ite state of Sumer rather than a multiethnic Iraq.
These redrawn boundaries in the Middle East, might be more governable than those that existed prior to the ISIS crisis, where political regimes that have behaved well would be rewarded and where those who have behaved badly would be permanently ended.
Egypt would be better a restraining local militants in the Gaza Strip than Israel or the local authority in Gaza, and would provide Gazans with long overdue access to the outside world. Jordan would similarly be better at restraining local militants in the West Bank and provide them with long overdue access to the outside world, a role that they already fulfill to some extent.
Jordan would be more capable of securing some sort of meaningful acceptance of their legitimacy than a Shiite dominated, incompetent civilian regime in Baghdad, or actively hostile regime in Damascus, while preventing the emergence of an Islamic State, in ISIS territory and Southwest Iraq, and maintaining so level of tolerance for ethnic minorities. Its king can rule with clarity, while its emerging genuine parliament can provide a path for transition to a more democratic regime for a people not yet socialized enough to be ready for full fledged democracy.
A civilian government for Shiite Southeastern Sumer would be more humanly possible to run without the need to maintain a fragile Shiite-Sunni-Kurdish-minority ethnicity coalition, and with less territory to control and few people actively opposed to the regime and taking up arms against it.
Lebanon's regime provides a better model for how coastal Syria ought to be governed than the Syrian Baathist regime.
The Kurds have long had their house in order and the existence of a Kurdish state might encourage relocation of Kurds elsewhere to it rather than trying to fight local insurgencies. Running the Kurdish state would also be easier without Iraqi central government concerns to consider.
23 September 2014
Different States, Different Crimes
Colorado, unlike Virginia, does not have a crime of "abduction with intent to defile", which is simply called "kidnapping" out here in the American West. Perhaps in Virginia, there are other purposes for which you may lawfully abduct someone. Is a suspect arrested on that charge eligible for release if it turns out that robbery was his motive instead?
22 September 2014
Vote No On Colorado Ballot Issue 104
Colorado Ballot Issue 104 is an initiated state statute summarized as follows in the official ballot title:
There are many matters that are subject to open meeting laws, but personnel matters are virtually never subject to them. The same open meeting rules would not be applied to negotiations of senior administrator's contracts.
The measure is sponsored by the conservative Independence Institute and is an effort to engage in public sector union busting, pure and simple.
The measure was the last to appear on the Colorado ballot this year because it had just barely enough signatures to qualify to appear on the ballot.
Shall there be a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes requiring any meeting of a board of education, or any meeting between any representative of a school district and any representative of employees, at which a collective bargaining agreement is discussed to be open to the public?In other words, this is a measure designed to make it harder for unions for teachers and other school employees to secure union contracts for their members.
There are many matters that are subject to open meeting laws, but personnel matters are virtually never subject to them. The same open meeting rules would not be applied to negotiations of senior administrator's contracts.
The measure is sponsored by the conservative Independence Institute and is an effort to engage in public sector union busting, pure and simple.
The measure was the last to appear on the Colorado ballot this year because it had just barely enough signatures to qualify to appear on the ballot.
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