Amendment 40 - Judged and Found Lacking

This is another of those amendments that seem better than they are. What could be better for the state than mixing up the Judicial branch every few years, throwing the experienced old farts off the bench in favor of some young firebrand? What could be wrong with being able to get rid of an ineffective judge every few years without all the trouble of impeachment? What would be wrong with the People holding the judges accountable more often?

Two words: Judicial impartiality. Elected judges are beholden to political parties and to campaigning, things I really don't want arbiters of the law doing, particularly in today's ideologically-charged environment. We have a more than adequate system of initially screening judges. The Governor can't just pick someone, a commission has to approve the nominees then after two years the judge has to stand election for retention. They are required to retire at age 72.

This amendment builds in a "loading" of the court every ten years, as the Governor then can appoint a supermajority. There goes that judicial impartiality - the judges are then beholden to the Governor and his ideology. It also eliminates experience, something this lefty approves of. Judges tend to move to the left as they mature on the bench, a nice little trend considering the current makeup of the U. S. Supreme Court. And finally, every two years we have the choice to retain or dismiss a judge or justice. Should we exercise this choice, good. Should we keep a bad judge, it's the people's fault.

Amendment 40 is another bad idea. Vote against it and vote against bad justices, let's not limit ourselves to re-selecting them constantly.

Amendment 39 - School Improvement Republican Style

On the surface, Amendment 39 sounds like a great idea aside from its blatant attempt to write what should be statutory into the Constitution. According to Amendment 39, 65% of all public education funds would be spent on "specific items", code for in the classroom. There is a similar measure called Referendum J that would mandate a similar percentage but would not be constitutional nor would it be the absolute mandate for school districts Amendment 39 is.

If Amendment 39 is such a great idea, why does every teacher I know, including my partner, oppose it? Quite frankly because it would mandate how school spending is spent regardless of the situation with in the district. Amendment 39 includes only the following items in its 65% solution:

Teachers, Classroom Aides and Tutors
Libraries and Librarians
Books and Instructional Material
Classroom Computers
Field Trips, Athletics, Arts and Music

Glad to see they're not going to limit the football team.

This list omits a few key players such as principals, support staff (includes school nurses, food service, guidance counselors and bus drivers), support services such as student testing, college placement, health and medical services, food services and transportation. Also included are the school boards, building construction and maintenance and central administrative functions.

In short, we're supposed to support the schools on 35% of the school budget. The problem is not the need to save in administrative areas, it's the areas that will need to be cut to meet the standard. For example, if a district isn't spending the required amount in the classroom, food service could be cut. That's school breakfasts and lunches. My partner will tell you quickly, you can't teach a hungry child. Transportation, likewise. You can't teach them if you can't get them to school.

This is an ill conceived measure designed to fool people into thinking they're doing something good for schools. It completely denies the fact that administrative costs may be necessary, as may be services such as hot lunches and medical care. It will impact exactly those who need education most, the poor in rich districts and everyone in less rich ones. This one is a definite no but if you do have to vote yes on this, vote yes on Referendum J as well. Better yet, vote no on both and keep schools under local control.

Here a very good link to a draft description of Liberal Values:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com...liberal-values_b_31218.html

I'd challenge a Conservative to come up with something similar.

Amendment 38 - The Ballot Initiative Goes Amok

Again I mention my love-hate relationship with the ballot initiative in Colorado. I love it for its citizen democracy concept - we citizens can actually pass a law. I hate it for the special interests who try to use it to get out their base, to discourage others' bases and to pass crap laws that would never survive the public scrutiny of our elected leaders, idiots that they often are.

Amendment 38 would, on the surface, increase access to the ballot initiative process and make it uniform across the state. Not bad on the surface but its expansion of an already amok process is unpalatable. It also limits the use of exemptions - legislative measures to protect laws from change by ballot initiative - to a hard number, ignoring the fact that there is not a good hard number to assign. It'll stretch ballots, already long with spurious measures, and cost us an election every year. There are positives - it encourages changing statutory law instead of the Constitution but those positives don't offset the negatives of a bill that would allow citizen-democracy to run amok and develop into what Aristotle called the worst form of government, mob rule.

Amendment 38 would best be consigned to the dustbin of bad ideas. Vote against it.

Salazar's Mea Culpa

Today Ken Salazar offered a lame excuse for voting to shred the Constitution and grant Bush powers normally reserved for the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh and his old buddy Castro. Here goes:

http://salazar.senate.gov/news/releases/061006mil.htm

He knew, he said, that it was a bad bill but it was the best we could get at the time to move along detainee trials. Under the circumstances dictated by the law, Ken, what's the point? Just declare them guilty and be done with it. And by the way, do the same with the American citizens that can now disappear from the street into places like Guantanamo. Get the tribunal to declare them enemy combattants under criteria defined by the President or the Secretary of Defense and you're done with it.

Colorado does not need Democrats of Salazar's stripe, either Ken or John. John can be job hunting in two years, Ken in four. Let's work for that.

God bless Amerika!

More Amerikan Justice

A follow up, this from NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6211231

Is this what America is about?

Amerika, 2007

President Bush's law providing cover for torture also would seem to provide cover for instances like this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061006/ap_on_re_us/guantanamo_alleged_abuse

Bush's Amerikan Gulag Authorization Act of 2006 not only provides legal cover for those beating helpless prisoners - the Marines in the story linked above are good examples - it provides for the "disappearing" of Americans. There's a provision of the law that allows Americans taken as enemy combattants to petition for habeas corpus but the hook, the part that gives Bush powers generally reserved for the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh is that once taken, he can convene one of his drumhead "tribunals" have you declared an enemy combattant and then, your right to petition for your freedom is gone.

Then in come the Marines, no longer afraid that smashing you repeatedly into the bars of your cell is a war crime. Not only are they covered, you are never going to see American soil or breathe freely again.

Even more frightening, Bush and Rumsfeld won for themselve the right to set "other criteria" defining you as an enemy combattant. Writing this blog opposing Bush's policies could be construed as providing "material support" to the enemy or Bush or Rummy could just make up new criteria. Then it's off to the Gulag for your Humble Author. Then in come the CIA interrogators.

Torture is not a technique for extracting information. It's a technique for extracting confessions and intimidating opponents. And it's legal now.

And in come the Marines.

God bless Amerika.

An aside from Colorado matters, did anyone notice that Condi had to sneak into Iraq again today? Of course, somewhere in that cavern called a mind she still believes we believe it was a "surprise" visit. In reality, the security situation there is so bad that our officials, Prez included, can't announce their arrivals for fear of shoulder-fired missiles.

Stayin' the course: 22 Americans dead there this week. We aren't even bothering to count the Iraqis. God bless Amerika!

Ballot Initiatives, Love 'Em or Hate 'Em

I got my blue book today although it's printed on unbleached brown paper. That thing is HUGE! It's a good half-inch thick, compressed. It's my intention to go through the initiatives over the next few days from a progressive point of view but first I'd like to talk about the ballot initiative process itself.

I both love and hate the process. It embodies all that is both good and bad about our democracy - citizens can effectively say to their lawmakers "this is what we want" on an issue. On the other hand, special interests can also use the initiative for their own purposes, not always aboveboard as we'll see when we get into the actual initiatives. The grossest abuse of the initiative process is to amend the Constitution, already a monster of a document, to enshrine measures that should have been law in an almost repeal-proof form. Bad law can also be passed through populist sentiment, TABOR is an example of a law that appeared good on the surface but had unintended consequences during the recent economic downturn and required a ballot initiative to fix.

At its best, the ballot initiative is a way to get reluctant lawmakers off the pot. At its worst, it's a populist nightmare. Am I glad we have the ballot initiative? You bet. I'm just glad that few of them tend to pass. And that Coloradans, by and large, are a whole lot brighter than our lawmakers believe we are.

God bless Amerika!

GOPer Implosion Continues

Isn't the election in five weeks? Shouldn't the GOPers (Greedy Old Perverts) be on attack message now, impugning the patriotism of Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Bush's Iraq? Shouldn't Rove be orchestrating Soft on Terror, Stay the Courses, all the talking points that have passed for Presidential leadership the last six years?

Thanks to Mark Foley, it isn't the case. The GOPers are in serious defensive mode thanks to the revelation that Mr. Foley, R, FL, has been sending inappropriate IMs to sixteen year old pages and quite probably has had assignations (read gay sex) with some of them. That we don't yet know. Hastert is flopping around like a dying Snakehead, I fired him, I didn't fire him, I knew nothing about it, it was just overly friendly, every hour a new story. Reynolds and Shimkus are both wounded for not taking action or for being overly supportive of Foley and those who got donations from him are dumping the money as quickly as they can.

Frist, too, contributed to the meltdown. Yesterday he suggested the Taliban should have a place in the Afghan government. Weren't these the guys who supported and sheltered Osama? Weren't they the ones we fought to liberate the country and then, after our distraction in Iraq, allowed to become resurgent? Aren't they the folks killing our allies over there? No matter, Frist thinks they have a place at the table. GOPers don't support Chavez, legally elected by a greater majority than Bush ever enjoyed, or Hamas, they're inconvenient examples of failures of democracy yet Frist can ask the Taliban to be part of the government.

And Bush, engineer of the train wreck that is America in 2006 will be in Colorado tomorrow to raise money for the flailing Bob Beauprez. It must be bad for Bob, he will even be seen with the Shrub. At last count, Ritter was leading by 17%. I'd bet being seen with Bush will drop Beauprez to 20% behind. I just wish there were some way to tie Tancredo to the GOPer sex scandal. We seriously need some new representation out here in Colorado HD6.

Meanwhile, Maf54, Foley's screen name, still lurks on the Internet. NPR reports that the Bush EPA buried a report that said their soot standards will cost 4,000 American lives per year in the name of economic progress and furthering the Rapture. Somewhere in Clear Creek County, bark beetles have killed another tree. God bless Amerika.

Ah, the Greedy Old Perverts

The Mark Foley story, outside of the mainstream media, of course, has been quite amusing in a sick way. Let's see, Hastert is already throwing the "threaten the leaker" card around instead of going after the perpetrators and their enablers (including himself, if truth be known). Foley is still out there on the streets, presumably having learned that IMs aren't secure. The GOP is asking if they can use Foley's money, of all things, for other House races. Talk about giving the other side a line: "Candidate x uses money raised by registered sex offender and child predator Mark Foley..." And finally, there's a bit of an exoneration for Clinton: At least Lewinsky was of the opposite gender, of age of consent and as far as we know wasn't coerced.

The interesting thing is how it will play with some of my more conservative friends with kids. One has said on ocassion that he'd kill anyone who got close to one of his boys. Will he still vote GOP? Or will his values allow him to see through the plot, the the leadership of his party enabled and covered for Foley? They even kept his contact with the pages alive, providing him a steady stream of victims. Will he abandon the Greedy Old Perverts or will he rationalize it.

I'd bet the latter. He's a good guy but he has the same delusions as most of the fanatical GOPers I know, the ones who give our current gang of incompetents their 35% approval rating.

God bless Amerika.