February 4, 2008

I planned to die of old age while writing a newspaper column. I wanted to be sitting in a newsroom amidst a bunch of journalists and keel over dead at my desk.

Life is rarely Plan A. It is rarely even Plan B.

After 32 years in newspapers, I was shown the door of The Denver Post newsroom in June 2007 during a downsizing. Since then, I have written columns co-published on this website and http://ColoradoConfidential.com. This is my last column.

I have taken a job as the communications director of the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and, as such, can no longer publicly offer personal opinions on issues that might hurt the school.

While I’m out of journalism, I plan to use whatever reporting and writing skills I learned to support an institution that helps ease human suffering. It is a charge much different but every bit as critical as contributing to a free press.

My thanks go to everyone who found, read and responded to my online columns the past seven months. My thanks go especially to those who read and reacted to my writing in the newspaper the three decades before that. It was never about agreeing on issues so much as it was caring about them.

The fight for responsible fact-finding and analysis has never been more important than it is in the Internet age. I hope every one, friend or foe, continues to engage in acquiring the information needed to contribute constructively to the civic debate.

I thank those who debated so passionately in the comments section of SpencerSpeaks and wish them luck finding another forum to keep the discussion going. Bringing various voices into a community colloquy represents the real promise of the Internet.

I thank every source who took the time to talk as I tried to base my analysis and opinions on knowledge instead of knee jerks.

Finally, I thank every colleague who inspired me and every editor who hired me - including the one who fired me.

War, health care, human rights, economics, terrorism, religion, science, poverty, pollution and plain old human compassion will provide fodder for future generations of journalists.

As for me, I exit Eden sadly but proudly and hope that my new plan takes me to a place I love just as much.

Copyright 2008 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

February 1, 2008

Arapahoe County Republican Barbara Fruitman wanted to know where to go for her local presidential caucus Feb. 5. So the Centennial woman went where it made sense – to her party’s local website.

The website instructed Fruitman to use a “precinct finder” to figure out where to caucus. Fruitman typed in her address, including the fact that she lived on a “Place,” not a street. “We could not find that address,” the website told her. “Tip: Try typing just the beginni”.

The rest of the message on that line was obliterated by a rail of GOP “Quick Links,” none of which could tell Fruitman where to caucus.

If she typed in just the name of the street she lived on, but not “Place,” she could get a response from the computer. Sadly, it referred her to a precinct number that didn’t exist on the list of precinct and caucus locations listed on the website.

Fruitman is tenacious. She’d prefer to see a single national primary on the same day, since she thinks Iowans and folks from New Hampshire don’t know better than the rest of us who’s presidential material. That said, she plays the hand she’s dealt. She called until she found out where to go to make her presidential preference known. It’s a nine-mile drive.

Frutiman’s experience hints at logistical problems that could haunt the biggest political caucuses in Colorado history.

Officials from both parties insist they have planned for an unprecedented crush of people. Some are even inviting it. Barack Obama’s campaign is on the radio asking registered Democrats to come to the Feb. 5 statewide caucuses that will choose delegates for county assemblies in March. The candidate himself came to Colorado this week, as did former President Bill Clinton, who is the stalking horse for his wife, Hillary.

If appearances by Bill Clinton and Obama, who drew morethan 15,000 to his speech, don’t fill the Democrats’ caucus seats, nothing will.

El Paso County Republicans, meanwhile, are running radio ads and sending direct mail to get people to caucus sites in record numbers.

“That’s one thing we’re doing which we’ve never done,” said El Paso GOP executive director Nathan Fisk. “We’re telling people this is where their voices can be heard. We hope to exceed 7,000 (caucus-goers in the county).”

He may get his wish and then some. Interest in this open presidential election tops most presidential elections in modern memory. Record turnouts in Iowa’s caucuses for both parties and South Carolina’s record turnout for last Saturday’s Democratic primary portend amazing crowds in the 22 states set to express presidential preferences next Tuesday.

In Democratic strongholds such as Denver and Boulder Counties, officials are looking for at least twice as many caucus attendees as they normally see. (more…)

January 31, 2008

The political director for the Democratic National Committee showed up in Colorado in December. He came, said Colorado Democratic chairwoman Pat Waak, to measure progress in his party’s so-called “Western strategy.”

That’s the notion that for the first time in decades, the Democratic presidential nominee has a chance to win electoral votes in four critical Western states — Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona.

Doing so would allow the Democrats more wiggle room to still win the White House even if they lose a large Midwestern state like Ohio, which cost Democratic candidate John Kerry the presidency in 2004.

No party officials want to talk publicly about the prospect of losing Ohio again. But everyone speaks enthusiastically of chances for Democratic success in the West.

DNC political director Dave Boundy came to Colorado “to talk with the governor’s office and the [U.S.] senate campaign [of Democratic Rep. Mark Udall],” Waak said. Boundy “even met with independent funders,” meaning he talked to Al Yates, the contact person for Democratic billionaire Pat Stryker, who has puts millions into state and congressional races in recent years as Democrats took control of the Colorado legislature, the governor’s office, a U.S. Senate seat and the majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Waak said what Boundy heard validated what she has been telling national party officials for months: Colorado is truly in play in the 2008 presidential election and deserves increased financial support from the DNC in the coming months.

A DNC spokesman wouldn’t talk about a “Western strategy.”

“We have a 50-state strategy,” Luis Miranda said, echoing the mantra of Howard Dean. Still, Miranda acknowledged that the “West has tremendous growth potential.” He pointed to a voter registration edge in Nevada, which now has 5,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.

In New Mexico, there were 178,089 more registered Democrats than Republicans as of September 2007. Registered Republicans still outnumber registered Democrats by six-figure margins in Colorado and Arizona, but Democrats are registering new members faster than Republicans in Colorado, according to a study by Colorado Public Radio, and the percentage of independents in both Colorado and Arizona is growing.

Democrats also “increased diversity in the early nominating process” by scheduling the Nevada caucus in January, Miranda explained. “We placed the caucus that early to show that we want the nominee to address issues of the West.” (more…)

January 29, 2008

When he didn’t answer or provided an answer they didn’t like, at first [name blacked out] would slap Mowhoush, and then after a few slaps, it turned into punches. And then from punches, it turned into [name blacked out] using a piece of hose. It’s been described [in] several ways. Some people have described it as a rubber hose, like a garden hose. Some people have said it was foamy, like a Nerf ball. But from the best we can tell, [it was] a piece of black insulation that you’d use to insulate water pipes in a house to keep them from freezing, about 3 feet or a meter long, and he was hitting Mowhoush with that when he provided answers that they didn’t like. And then, you know, everybody else in the room is pretty much back, and this action is going on in one corner. But at some point, somebody outside that group of Mowhoush and [names blacked out] came forward, yelled something at Mowhoush. Mowhoush kicked at that person, and then a scuffle ensued, and then basically it was described as a free-for-all. The room collapsed on Mowhoush. Sergeant [name blacked out], for example, said he took out some frustrations by punching Mowhoush six or seven times. Mr. [name blacked out] said he punched Mowhoush a couple times and probably hit him with the heel of his hand a couple times. And that lasted 1 or 2 minutes. Nobody can really say for sure.

Here’s what can be said for sure: While the CIA and the Bush Administration try to hide their torture policies by destroying a videotape of a brutal interrogation, other proof exists.

The italic description above doesn’t come from a spy novel. It comes from a declassified secret transcript in the investigation of the 2003 death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush obtained under the federal freedom of information law. Three soldiers were eventually charged in Mowhoush’s death, which occurred two days after the events described above and involved slipping a sleeping bag over his head and sitting on his body and smothering him when he didn’t answer questions.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, who did all those things, was found guilty of negligent homicide in 2006. Compared to the beating and abuse that killed Mowhoush, Welshofer’s punishment of 60 days restriction to Fort Carson, Colorado, was a slap on the wrist. But at least Welshofer was tried.

The United States government charged no one for beating Mowhoush with a rubber hose or whipping him with a long thin metal baton called an asp or clubbing him in the chest with a rifle butt. The government charged no one for piling on Mowhoush and indiscriminately punching and kicking him apparently breaking several of his ribs. The government charged no one for lying to Army investigators by saying they were not in the room where Mowhoush was tortured when they actually were.

In fact, although “it was very clear to the doctor (performing the autopsy) that this guy was beaten with several objects,” the worst torturers could not even be questioned, an Army legal officer explained in the transcript that was declassified in 2005, around the time the CIA destroyed the interrogation tape now causing all the concern. Though it has been available, the transcript has never been reported in detail. Nor has anyone been made responsible for what the transcript describes.

The reason why, testified the Army legal officer, is because “the beatings (of Mowhoush) appeared to come from other government agencies that we didn’t have access to investigate.”

(more…)

January 23, 2008

First the Sudan and now Iran.

The road to stripping public pensions of immoral investments will require significant detours. Colorado has taken two. On Tuesday, the state’s retirement program announced a moratorium on new investments in companies doing significant amounts of business in the Iranian energy industry. This follows legislation last year that decreed divestiture of Sudanese-related investments.

The question of whether the flood gates of divestiture have opened is itself an open question. Colorado’s move puts it among the leaders of a nascent national movement to strip all public pensions of Iran-related investments.

However, until the concept of fiduciary responsibility changes, buying stocks and bonds that generate enough return to fund the retirement checks of former state employees begins and ends with an amoral commitment to making money.

Meredith Williams, who directs the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association known as PERA, acknowledged as much after the hoopla of a press conference in the governor’s office announcing the agreement on Iran.

“PERA employees are part of a trust,” Williams explained. “By law, they have a fiduciary responsibility to do what is in the best interest of (retired) employees.”

That means that for all the talk of punishing Iran financially for its contributions to terrorism and the distribution of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used to take American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, the law may not allow PERA to dump some of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock in companies doing business in Iran.

“That’s possible,” Williams agreed in an impromptu press conference in the halls of the Capitol.

The legislature set the legal standard for automatic divestiture at genocide. There is no genocide in Iran - at least none that has been reported and confirmed as is the case in the Sudan. The upshot is that Colorado’s retirees could be living partly on blood money for years to come. (more…)

January 21, 2008

I was wrong.

Colorado Rep. Doug Bruce’s apparent inability to utter those three words after kicking a newspaper photographer could cost him most of his influence in the General Assembly.

Bruce’s fellow Republicans are annoyed with Bruce’s behavior. They are as annoyed as the El Paso County representative was with a newspaper photographer who took Bruce’s picture during a public prayer on the House floor a week ago today.

Bruce kicked the photographer and now the legislature will return the favor.

The GOP members of a House panel investigating Bruce’s assault were his stiffest critics during a three-hour fact-finding hearing Friday afternoon.

The panel recommended censure and a demand of apology from Bruce, the fiscally conservative author of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Bruce was appointed to the House to fill out the term of Bill Cadman, who went to the state Senate.

Now, because of his own arrogance, the newly seated representative can expect to be little more than a punch line in bad jokes, even within his own party.

At Friday’s hearing, Bruce droned on about a “Triple Play” media conspiracy forged by the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Denver’s Channel 4 TV to provoke and record an embarrassing action by him.

Bruce made a big deal about the lack of force he had applied with his foot to the knee of the Rocky photographer kneeling in front of him.

“The force might cause a football to fall off a tee,” Bruce wanted his brethren to understand. “This wasn’t a field goal kick.”

Bruce hoped to demonstrate, but wasn’t allowed to since sane people of any political persuasion understood it doesn’t make a difference.

(more…)

January 18, 2008

There will be no specific maternity leave policy in Denver Public Schools, because there doesn’t need to be, administrators and school board members said this week.

What there soon will be are newly clarified regulations about long-term absences for all students who miss school for health-related reasons.

The volatile issue of how to handle students who have babies in a school division with one of the state’s highest teen pregnancy rates arose during a December hearing. There, one pregnant student claimed girls in her condition needed more support. The student and a couple of counselors claimed that DPS policies could force new teen mothers back to class before they are physically or emotionally ready.

School board member Kevin Patterson called the conversation “off the wall.”

“If a kid has surgery, there’s always a health plan that can make accommodation,” he said. “To say the new mom has to come back the day after delivery does not make sense.”

And it isn’t happening, school officials insist.

“The assumptions were not correct,” school system spokesman Alex Sanchez said of the student and counselor claims.

Still, the policy needs adjustment, admitted school board chairwoman Theresa Pena.

What it won’t get is a controversial title that radio talk show hosts, critics of public education and political challengers of DPS’ elected school board can feast on.

“We are not going to have a maternity leave policy,” Pena stressed. “What need to be changed are regulations. Different schools were handling things differently, not just for young mothers, but any long-term absence. It needs to be addressed.”

(more…)

January 17, 2008

The Navajo Indians call it “yellow death.” But like so much of what happens in Colorado, the question of uranium mining may boil down to the state’s most precious and rare resource - drinking water.

The battle brewing in Weld County, where a Canadian company plans to ask for permission to mine uranium by year’s end, will certainly be about water quality.

That became clear Wednesday with the introduction of two bills into the General Assembly. The bills address what sponsors, scientists and doctors say is the potential pollution of a new technique to draw uranium ore from beneath the earth all over Colorado.

By session’s end, some members of the legislature hope to raise the bar high enough to avoid past environmental disasters caused by mining. Those disasters turned into perpetual clean-ups costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Almost all involved poisoning water supplies with toxic chemicals.

One new law seeks to insure that mining companies can restore water supplies to their pre-mined status before the companies begin ore extraction. This before-the-fact proof is necessary, critics of uranium mining claimed in a Capitol briefing Wednesday.

However, said Jeffrey Parsons, a senior attorney with the Western Mining Action Project, definitive evidence may be impossible to offer for the new uranium mining technology that would be employed in Weld and other Colorado counties.

Not so, claimed a spokeswoman for Powertech, the company that plans to mine uranium in Weld a short drive from Fort Collins and amidst small towns such as Nunn.

Haley McKean of Peter Webb Public Relations said Powertech will be able to show the statutorily-required five sites where the mining technique called in-situ leaching has not substantially changed water quality in the long run.

In-situ leaching injects chemicals into the earth that draw uranium into the water. The uranium is then extracted from the water and the water re-injected into the ground.

Test wells in Weld County have only been operating for three months, McKean said. So another year of data must be gathered there before Powertech can ask local, state and federal regulators for permits to begin mining.

Still, the company has said it expects to get those permits and could be extracting ore by 2010.

But the Colorado Mining Association claimed that one of the newly proposed laws “would ban many technologies essential to modern mining operations without enhancing environmental protections.”

Better safe than sorry, replied Dr. Cory Carroll of the Colorado Medical Society. (more…)

January 15, 2008

The Colorado constitution is a self-defeating mess.

So some of the most critical government work performed in the state in 2008 will not be done by the General Assembly. Rather, it will be done by the committee asked to deal with the state’s constitutional crisis.

That’s right, crisis.

More than health care reform, more than funding for transportation or higher education, the competing mandates of Colorado’s amendment-packed constitution portend disaster.

In many ways, the Select Committee on Constitutional Reform appointed by state Senate President Peter Groff wields more power than the entire legislature.

The six people on the committee must come up with suggestions that will affect the state for decades after the fights over affordable health care, reliable roads and quality colleges end.

“The most serious constitutional issues facing the state involve conflicting provisions within the constitution; the unintended consequences of constitutional amendments; and policy matters that are, for all intents and purposes, permanently frozen in the constitution,” Jim Griesemer, the chairman of a recent constitutional study at the University of Denver, wrote.

DU’s 2007 Colorado Constitutional Panel made sweeping recommendations for constitutional reform that will be among the options the committee on constitutional reform considers.

Among the DU panel’s most important recommendations were calls to make it easier to have citizen statutory initiatives placed on the ballot, while forcing constitutional amendments to face more pre-vote scrutiny. The panel’s reasoning was simple: Statutes can be tweaked to adjust for changing times. Amendments cannot. (more…)

January 14, 2008

The Republican advantage in registered voters in Colorado is disintegrating, according to numbers compiled by Colorado Public Radio. The trend seems to favor moderate Democrats in statewide races and could affect the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Numbers assembled by Dan Meyers, the editor of KCFR’s Public Insight Network and a producer and host of the show Colorado Matters, reveal that between December 2003 and December 2007, the margin of registered Republicans over registered Democrats shrank by 57,430. In the same period, the margin of registered Republicans over registered unaffiliated voters shrank by a whopping 123,375.

Republicans still enjoy a lead over Democratic and unaffiliated voters, Meyers said. But the GOP is currently registering new voters at a much slower rate than either of its rivals.

In the last four months of 2007, said Meyers, “Democrats are adding new voters at almost twice the rate of Republicans. And unaffiliateds are adding new voters at almost three times the rate of Republicans.” (more…)