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Campaign Tip-Walking Precincts

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 10:46:41 PM
I thought I would be walking a precinct today. I packed my water, packed my chap stick and put on my blue shirt.  Instead, I got assigned other duties.  Actually, I had a fun day.  I was, as I told someone, shooting fish in a barrel, but that is a story for another day.

Here's the tip:

An old door to door salesman's trick is to be looking at something off to the left or right when the door is answered.  That allows you to turn to face the occupant with a big smile.  That is far more effective than to be smiling, but facing the door as the door is opened, which makes your smile appear pasted on.

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Mr. D. Morris on FOX's H&C

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 10:21:15 PM
Tonight Mr. Morris was talking about the Chafee election and commented that he was with Trent Lott when Jumpin' Jim Jeffords went over the side.  Trent was supposedly quite proud up to that moment that he had eliminated most of the RINO's from the Senate.  Suddenly, he was the minority leader.
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I had to laugh when I attempted to put Mr. Richard Morris' nickname, the name he goes by, in the title and got the following message:  "The title of this post contains the following unacceptable words:  _ _ _ _."  Political correctness run amok!  Sure hope I never have to write about Nixon, Cheny, Durbin and a host of other political figures who also use or used that nickname.

(While I am poking a little good natured fun at townhall.com, I must tell you how impressed I have been at how quickly they jump on problems I have identified to them.  As far as I am concerned, they are writing the book on how to do customer service.)
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Why Republicans Deserve to be in the Minority Part 1

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 9:50:22 AM
No one has learned the lesson that in some states and some districts a conservative can't win and we are better off with a guy who votes with us sometimes than a guy who never votes with us.  Here is Hugh, today:

"Speaking of the judgment of voters, Loopy Lincoln Chafee is on the ballot today in the Rhode Island Republican primary, and hopefully by this time tomorrow night the voters will have served him notice of his retirement.  Vote for Steve Laffey."

Sorta reminds me of John Bell Hood's strategy at the Battle of Franklin.  "This army needs discipline, and the best way to discipline it is to kill it off by sending it against an impregnable position."  Six Confederate generals died, 8 were wounded, 1 was captured,  and Hood's army disintegrated.  But it couldn't be all bad, because he got a major army post named after him.

From Wikipedia:

"In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Battle Cry of Freedom, historian James M. McPherson wrote,

Having proved even to Hood's satisfaction that they could assault breastworks, the Army of Tennessee had shattered itself beyond the possibility of ever doing so again."
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Someone Will Probably Do This Someday

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, September 11, 2006 12:33:15 PM
Blogging creates a unique capability that I expect will one day be seen in electronic versions of text books and reference books.  I am trying to exploit it. 

If it is not obvious, I am trying to create building block posts that are short and easy to read, and to some degree which stand alone.  I also plan to try to spread these building block posts out over weeks or months, knowing that long treatises on the same subject are both boring and unreadable, but that short blurbs hold interest.  At some point, perhaps several points, I will bring these building blocks together as I did in the last post.

Forty years ago, I well remember taking science courses.  At one point, I wanted to be a triple major, Chemistry, Physics, and Math, but my bad study habits and the Vietnam War got in the way.  I found myself racing the draft board to get a degree, any degree, before I got drafted, which is how I ended up with a degree in business.  I beat them by two weeks, by the way.

Science would have been so much easier if the courses were written as I am attempting to write my blog.  Science builds on knowledge blocks.  Why not create electronic texts that link back to those blocks.  The technology permits it, and someone could make a fortune doing it.  Just a thought.
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Oh, yes, I frequently edit, spell check, and create links for my posts after they have been published, so if you are looking at the top most post, and it has been published in the last hour (eastern time zone) it is likely to be a work in progress.  Links go in last, usually.
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Gee! No Suprise There

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, September 11, 2006 11:23:21 AM
It has now been two weeks since I mailed to the state supreme court my offer to volunteer to be a public member on two rule making committees.  While I gave the post reproducing the letter a frivolous, and I hoped attention getting title, "I can get my parole officer to write a recommendation," the offer was serious. 

The state supreme court has, to date, not had the courtesy to reply.  That is not surprising as their history is not one of supporting or enforcing rules and procedures that would protect the public.
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I also haven't heard from the chairperson of the local judicial retention commission, a group I labeled a "social club with a title" in one of my posts.  In another, I examined the appropriateness of their decision to label a certain judge "an asset to the community" and overlook his performance when no judge would extend the same courtesy to a doctor being sued in his court. 
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I am a bit more surprised not to have heard from the Gazette Telegraph.  It doesn't do a lot of good to have a "free press" if it is unwilling to address any of the issues this blog highlights.  It is possible that the "http//" browser bug got in the way, so I will be sending them another email.
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Today, I will be writing letters to Justice Breyer (observing that I have already done exactly what he has suggested and, hopefully, done it in exactly the way he suggested), the President of the Colorado Bar Association, and the President of the ABA (alerting them to my blog in general and specifically to my "Designed to Fail" series.)  I am very likely to suggest they also read "The Baby and the Bath Water."

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An Intelligence Document?

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, September 11, 2006 9:53:51 AM
If you want to read an article that could easily be, and probably is an intelligence document, a detailed history of Al Qaeda, then this is for you.  However, I warn you that it is long and there is a lot in it. 

Here is a scary quote from it:

"It is chilling to read this work and realize how closely recent events seem to be hewing to Al Qaeda’s forecasts. Based on interviews with Zarqawi and Adl, Hussein claims that dragging Iran into conflict with the United States is key to Al Qaeda’s strategy. Expanding the area of conflict in the Middle East will cause the U.S. to overextend its forces. According to Hussein, Al Qaeda believes that Iran expects to be attacked by the U.S., because of its interest in building a nuclear weapon. “Accordingly, Iran is preparing to retaliate for or abort this strike by means of using powerful cards in its hand,” he writes. These tactics include targeting oil installations in the Persian Gulf, which could cut off sixty per cent of the world’s oil supplies, destabilizing Western economies."
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Designed to Fail-Introduction

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, September 11, 2006 1:20:06 AM
This is the first in a series of posts which will examine all aspects of the legal ethics system, whose every facet appears designed by the state supreme court to fail.  Or, rather, designed to protect lawyers and judges at the public's expense.

Each post in the series will be named "Designed to Fail" with a Part number, and be linked together in a manner that hopefully will make them easy to read and locate.  Eventually, I will publish a linked index.

Long ago, someone told me that when writing or speaking, I should tell folks what I am going to tell them, then I should tell them, and finally I should tell them what I told them.

When the bill of rights was promulgated in 1789, the First Amendment gave citizens the right to petition their government and took from congress the power to to limit that right in any way.  A regulatory complaint by a citizen against a doctor, lawyer, judge, undertaker, real estate broker, barber or whatever is nothing more or less than a petition to the government for redress.

The state supreme court has determined that the right to petition without limit is at best an inconvenient right and has, in some ethics cases totally prohibited a litigant from making a complaint, and in others placed rules in effect that force a damaged litigant to make a complaint through his attorney, and only through his attorney.  Of course, attorneys are not inexpensive, and going through an attorney to make a complaint will cost $1500 and up.

While the state supreme court does not allow litigants who are damaged by unethical legal practices to sue the lawyer doing the damage, it does allow lawyers who are the subject of complaints to sue the person making the complaint.  Any attorney who assists in preparing a complaint can also be sued.  Court rules forbid individuals who are represented by an attorney from making a complaint directly without first firing his attorney.  Amazingly, judges who follow their own ethics code and refer an unethical attorney to Attorney Regulation are not immune from lawsuits.

If a litigant persists and is willing to spend the thousands of dollars it is likely to take to make a complaint, Attorney Regulation has a record of accepting "remorse" as a legitimate mitigating factor and frequently administers private censure or public censure as the only penalty.  Attorney Regulation may be the only "paperless" office in all of Colorado government.  Paperless offices have no records, and thus dodge the open records laws.  Attorney Regulation is an "investigative" office without any funds to do any investigations.  (The reader is likely beginning to gather why this series is named "designed to fail.")

We will also be exploring the Commission on Judicial Discipline, the only "secret" commission in state government.  It is so secret, that it makes an effort to keep the fact that it operates secretly a secret.  If you don't believe this, take a look at its web page now and try to ascertain under what authority it was formed and try find any hint that persons who submit complaints may not reveal the fact that they have complained or the final resolution of their complaint.  This page is designed to suck up complaints before they get to the newspapers and ensure that they never become public knowledge.  My view is that the page itself is unethical.

This series will not discuss fixes.  It will have more than 20 "parts."  Part 1
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Justice Stephen Breyer Blesses This Effort

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, September 11, 2006 12:12:14 AM
On the Aaron Harber show this past friday, September 8, 2006, Justice Breyer commented when asked about public participation in government:

"And we have technology today.  The internet can help.  You can write articles.  What do you think Hamilton did?  Hamilton and Madison, when they got angry about something, they wrote an article, and they put it in good form, they tempered their anger, and they put it in a convincing way and they got it published.  That's easier today, I think, than it ever was.  So the basic task of participation is to formulate a view and to convince your friends, and have them convince others. 

Of course, he wasn't speaking of my effort because he doesn't know of it, but he was directly encouraging people to do exactly what I am doing.  I have formulated the view that the legal ethics system is corrupt in the sense that it protects lawyers and judges better than it protects the public, and that it can be reformed.  I have thought long and hard about how to effect those reforms, and now I have to convince my friends, and have my friends convince others.  No small task, but with persistence, possible.
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The Impact of "Campaign Reform"

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Sunday, September 10, 2006 11:37:04 PM
Today's GT announced that in the most recent reporting period, Ritter out raised Beuaprez almost 3:1 and called it a "downward spiral."

Until the Republican's figure out how to repeal or fix the campaign finance laws, this will happen over and over.  Unions have the capability of organizing "small donor committees" that can dump $10,000 per committee into a campaign.  The limit is meaningless because each union can have an unlimited number of commitees, and thus can contribute an unlimited amount of funds.

Further, by dumping all the money in at once, they can create a sunami effect and make it appear that the election is a foregone conclusion.  I haven't seen the reports, but I'd bet that there are a large number of $10,000 donations in that $600,000 that Ritter raised.  If so, the G-T fell for this stunt.

And that is all it is, a stunt.

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It's Only Human Nature

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Sunday, September 10, 2006 1:07:05 AM
I can't imagine that any member of the bar association would care to be compared in his/her conduct to the conduct of UN diplomats, and yet, I think it is fair to do so.

UN Diplomats have full diplomatic immunity.  Their immunity is almost identical to the level of immunity that the state supreme court has granted the legal profession, lawyers, judges, and itself. 

Someone once told me that the legal profession wasn't bad, but that it did admit bad people to the practice of law.  What happens when bad people can operate in an environment free of legal and ethical constraints?  Let's see what Economist Raymond Fisman had to say about it in "Reforming Tony Soprano's Morals."

The last paragraph bears repeating: 

"Moral: Reformers of economic and social institutions must be aware that local values may (the courts and the bar associations will) undermine their efforts. Changing the law is helpful but not by itself sufficient to induce change in a corrupt world. This bleak message resonates with what ordinary people in less developed countries (litigants) would say about reform: Eradicating corruption will be a difficult task indeed."

The strike outs and substitutions are mine.
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A Low Risk Attorney Scam PART 3

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Sunday, September 10, 2006 12:24:58 AM
I admit to slacking off on this series.  Politics is much more fun.  Part 1.  Part 2.
(Part 1 suffers from a townhall black on blue programming bug that has since been fixed)

The premise is of this series is that it is very easy for an attorney to work with his client to stall a lawsuit indefinitely if both are willing to perjure themselves by jointly claiming that the attorney wasn't communicating with his client.  This scam carries almost no risk to either the attorney or the litigant.

There are two ethics rules that might make this scam dangerous to execute if they were enforced.  I dislike long posts, so we will examine them one at a time to see just how seriously the state supreme court takes its responsibility to protect the public:

Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.3  Diligence:
"A lawyer shall act with reasonable tidelike and promptness in representing a client.  A lawyer shall not neglect a legal matter entrusted to that lawyer."

This rule actually enables the Low Risk Scam in several ways:  1)  It is not clear that an opposing litigant even has standing to make a complaint under it, and if this were a scam the litigant coconspirator would never make a complaint.  2)  The state supreme court never requires that an opposing litigant to be made whole by the attorney, and almost never requires an attorney to make his own client whole.  3)  Except in very unusual circumstances, and a two year delay wouldn't qualify as unusual, the standard penalty for violating this rule is either private censure or public censure.

One of the reasons I believe that the state supreme court should be relieved of its ability to make and enforce ethics rules is that it makes no attempt to protect the public.  Its only interest is in protecting judges and lawyers.  This is but one of many examples.
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A Pitch for KBDI

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, September 09, 2006 10:26:54 AM
KBDI is the Denver PBS station.  If you have an interest in Colorado politics, I think it is must-see TV, but ONLY from 8-10pm on Friday nights.  There are some real lefties on then, but also some good conservatives.

Last night at 8, on Colorado Inside Out, one of my favorite far left wing lawyers, Dani Nusum, was in fine feather.  She referred to a christian organization three times as "Taliban-Light."  If you can get past that kind of stuff, and there is too much of it, you will get some good insight on Colorado politics.

Independent Thinking with Jon Caldera of the Independece Institute follows with a 30 minute in depth interview of one or two folks.  It may be the best conservative show on all of PBS, though it doesn't have much competition.

The Aaron Harber Show.  Aaron is hard to characterize politically.  I'd peg him a smidge left of center, but in no way offensively so.  A liberal might well consider him to be very conservative.  Last night, he had an interview with Justice Stephen Breyer which I will touch on in the next post.

Since this is election season, KBDI also hosts candidates for 30 minutes in a free form interview style "debate" hosted by Aaron Harber.
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If You Like Science, or Science Fiction . . .

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, September 09, 2006 9:38:47 AM
If you like science, or science fiction, which has to be based on science to be interesting and believable, then I'd suggest you pick up the latest Astronomy magazine.  It has a number of good articles on planetary system's life zones and galactic life zones.  Life as we know it requires liquid water, so it stands to reason that a planet which is too close to its star, or too far away is not likely to have life.

Likewise, it turns out that galaxies have life zones.  Planetary systems too close to the center of the galaxy will have their orbits perturbed by close star neighbors, or be too frequently bathed in deadly radiation to harbor life.  Stars at the edge of the galaxy lack enough metals (for reasons that have been explained in other issues) to even have rocky planets.

If you have a youngster who has a natural curiosity about science, and you want to encourage that curiosity, I'd suggest both Astronomy and Sky and Telescope subscriptions.  If you want to start with one, Astronomy is my first choice.   The magazines are so well done that I think you will soon find yourself reading them, too.
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Security Clearances

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, September 08, 2006 8:09:37 PM
As readers might guess, I've held a few security clearances in my time, and been through the expensive background checks that preceed the award of those clearances.  I have been told that folks have been denied a clearance for too many traffic tickets as that shows a disregard of authority.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that the Democrats want to install Alcee Hastings, currently a US Representative, but for 10 years a Federal Judge, as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  Alcee didn't resign from his Judgeship.  Rather, he was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for taking a $150,000 bribe and then perjuring himself in court.  In more than 200 years, he is only the sixth Federal Judge to be convicted in a Senate impeachment trial.

Someone needs to ask the Democratic 5th District Congressional nominee, who doubtless has held some decent clearances himself, how comfortable he will be to put a felon in charge of the whole intelligence shebang.  I don't think Alcee's presence on the committee, a nominative position, speaks very well for the respect the Democratic Leadership has for such an important governmental function.

Given the current state of legal ethics, I'd not be surprised to find that Alcee has his law license back.
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http// REQUIRED 2

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, September 08, 2006 4:31:58 PM
If you are passing on my blog address to friends, and I hope you are, tell them to type http//collandp.townhall.com in their browser's address line.  This will be a recurring post due to browser, not townhall quirks.
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