In terms of state-gov't scandals, there's one on the front page of the NYT that I probably shouldn't get into in detail (and that not only do I not know anything juicy about, but that there probably isn't anything specifically juicy about) that I'm enjoying a great deal because (a) schadenfreude and (b) it means that a stupid and annoying policy that makes my life difficult is going to change. Nice to have with my coffee this morning.
The sex-offender registries actually required the people convicted to keep their addresses updated, register when they entered a new state, etc. This sounds like it's just a more-organized database of convictions. It seems like something that could have existed already, if someone was willing to scrape the various courthouse records.
I meant to include this excerpt in the OP:
"You're adding one more punishment without any real showing that it's needed," said Susan Brune, who represents white-collar defendants at Brune & Richard in New York. "Enough already."
Since white-collar cases typically garner outsize media attention, Ms. Brune remarked that "Google is already a pretty effective registry."
MM-HMM.
How does the risk of recidivism compare for white collar criminals vs. sex offenders?
Utah's mix of conservatism and good governance is fascinating. It'd be really interesting so what happened if a Utah governor become president.
1: The wet wipes story?
OK, probably the email one.
From the link:
These criminals are mortgage schemers and inside traders, most likely armed with nothing more than an M.B.A. or a law degree.Nothing more? Welcome to the class war arsenal, man.
Did I mention the guy who pissed me off, committed mortgage fraud, plead guilty, tried to flee, and is now in prison? Cheered me greatly.
4 is such a great set-up, but I can't come up with the punchline.
You could go visit him, then point and laugh.
All those ex-missionaries are presumably very happy to have a way to put their skills to gainful use. (Utah also being the MLM capital of America.)
Also, Utah is doing drug-law reform, and right about this moment in a legislative battle over Medicaid expansion.
9: Yes. His attempt to flee didn't get past applying for a replacement US passport.
Supports my theory that Republicans govern better in safe states than in contested states.
14 is not a theory I've heard previously and I don't think much evidence supports it.
Not better than Democrats. Just better than each other.
14: I offer Kansas for your consideration.
How does that hold up for Texas? Perhaps being safe gives them more freedom to govern better, but often they aren't going to take up the opportunity.
You might be able to talk me into it if 'safe' means 'not a presidential battleground, regardless of which side'. Like, a Republican governor of a blue state: Romney or Pataki, probably isn't going to do anything all that alarming. And possibly in firmly red states, they feel a sense of ownership, so they're not going to do too much damage to the basic functioning of state government? It would make sense, although I don't have a feel for whether or not it's true. And then in battleground states they're trying to break shit so that it can't be fixed if they lose power.
I really don't know if this works, but it seems like enough of a theory that it'd be worth checking.
in battleground states they're trying to break shit so that it can't be fixed if they lose power.
North Carolina represent!
19: Like, a Republican governor of a blue state: Romney or Pataki, probably isn't going to do anything all that alarming.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Yeah, Kansas is safe and a trainwreck.
Basically I feel like, in Texas, on the DL, they do things like restore funding to schools. (Not to pre-recession levels, but somewhat.) My theory is that when tax-payers get fed up in Texas, they (rightly) blame the Republicans in charge, because there's no other narrative available. When they get upset nationally or in Wisconsin, then the right wing noise machine can offer up another narrative.
(Yes, people here are infuriatingly obsessed with low taxes, and there was a recent Muslim hate crime murder in Dallas, and so on. I'm not claiming that everythings utopic.)
a Republican governor of a blue state: Romney or Pataki, probably isn't going to do anything all that alarming.
Scott Walker certainly didn't do anything alarming in Wisconsin, for example.
And possibly in firmly red states, they feel a sense of ownership, so they're not going to do too much damage to the basic functioning of state government?
This is basically my claim, with huge gigantic qualifiers about anything that can be privatized, because that doesn't seem to piss off voters. Just that the conservative wrath of voters is actually at stake, in a way that it's not when the wrath can be directed at Democrats and weeny liberals.
My theory is that when tax-payers get fed up in Texas, they (rightly) blame the Republicans in charge, because there's no other narrative available.
But, in safe state, that generally means voters will get mad and elect different republicans, not that they will decide to vote for democrats. So the republicans do have to worry about their jobs, but the threats are from opposition on the right. Which is not a dynamic that leads regularly or predictably to good governance.
Right, they'll elect other Republicans. I'm not claiming that this produces the most functional state system. Merely that they're not trying to scorch the earth because they will actually have the scorched earth attributed to them.
Merely that they're not trying to scorch the earth because they will actually have the scorched earth attributed to them.
The problem with your theory is that, in both red and blue states, a significant number of republicans, politicians and voters alike, have become convinced that scorching the earth is a positive outcome. They're not (generally) doing it by accident or out of incompetence, they're doing it because they believe it will ultimately lead to better outcomes (at least along the limited axes that they care about). And republican voters agree.
(Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean when you talk about scorching the earth.)
Maybe it would help if you gave an example of a destructive policy that Republicans have enacted in a swing state that you think could not have passed in a safe Republican state. Because I'm not thinking of any.
So, when a white collar criminal moves to a neighborhood, does he have to knock on all the doors to let everyone know that its not safe to invest in synthetic mortgage-backed securities with them?
I mean, it's a giant oversimplification. Scott walker is killing unions, and they've always been dead in Texas so there's nothing to kill, etc. And yes there is a bill being proposed right now that would cap the amount of taxes that a city is allowed to raise. (what the actual fuck.) There's a lot of mess here.
Here's a revised theory: the Republican one-up-man-ship-of-crazy is slower when there's less media attention. So sometimes Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz up the ante in order to garner attention, but other places that are ticking along without so much spotlight are marginally more functional.
Maybe it would help if you gave an example of a destructive policy that Republicans have enacted in a swing state that you think could not have passed in a safe Republican state.
Massive, massive budget cuts to schools were quietly returned here.
This article is a few months old, but doesn't really seem to support that. Is there more recent news?
The lowest SAT scores in more than two decades. School funding that ranks Texas among the bottom five states.
And oversized classes in nearly 1,300 elementary schools last year to save money.
It would seem that Texas schools might be due for a sizable funding boost when the Legislature convenes in January, particularly after a state judge ruled last summer that Texas was severely underfunding its education system. But local school officials aren't counting on much relief....
In fact, lawmakers have talked more about cutting taxes -- including school property taxes -- than providing a funding boost for schools. Lawmakers have already offered several tax reduction bills.
Yeah, I think heebs is just flat wrong on this. "Wrath" is increasing all over on the right, and has been nationalized by Limbaugh etc.
Maybe the necessary combination is (a) safe Republican and (b) 80%+ non-Hispanic white.
Scott walker is killing unions, and they've always been dead in Texas so there's nothing to kill, etc.
If your point is just that Republicans can't gleefully burn as much shit down in safe states because, thanks to decades of Republican control, there's not nearly as much stuff to burn, then I would agree. But I wouldn't count that as evidence that Republicans "govern better" in safe states.
Yeah, there is more recent news. But it's not like a home run or anything. But I think they returned a lot of the funding cuts. I'll see if I can find it.
Maybe my theory is unravelling!
It would be nice if the phrase "Scorched-Earth Republicans" came into common parlance.
Anyone able to comment on governance in Wyoming, Idaho, or the Dakotas?
Maybe - but I suspect people would just take it to mean they were really badass or something.
44 Did you see that article running around on FB about why kids from Idaho don't go to college? Basically all you need to know about the culture.
http://www.inlander.com/spokane/why-idaho-kids-dont-go-to-college/Content?oid=2421728
Last news story I heard from Wyoming was a legislator got thrown out of a committee hearing for saying offensive anti-gay shit during consideration of an anti-discrimination bill. And the rejection of Cheney's dynastic ambitions has to count in their favor.
I think the governance here has nothing to do with it being a safe state but is due to very specific influences and demographics. There's aspects of the Mormon influence that temper the crazy you find in other heavily Republican states. There's long history of actual communal action in the church. I also think we dodge some of the insularity of other states due to the mission thing. Loads of your conservatives here spent two years living in a third world country, speaking the language, etc. And fiscal responsibility isn't something to give lip service to, it's taken very seriously. I think it leads to the budget being overly tight in areas but you won't see a Kansas style meltdown here. There's a lot of pride in the states finances being secure and well managed. The homogeneity is a huge factor. Problems aren't something to be shrugged off as only affecting the ghetto, it's much more likely to be viewed as something that affects you and your own. The black population is almost non existent. The big minority group here is hispanics, and they aren't viewed in the same way. The natives of the Americas in the Book of Mormon are a chosen people to be brought in the fold. The mormons send tons of missionaries down to those countries and they number the converts in the millions. When they do General Conference here (the big mormon religious gathering) there's a whole section just for hispanics and they've been doing an in state broadcast of it in spanish for like ten years now.
46/47: That's been sitting in my queue for long enough that I can't get mad that you posted it. I didn't have much to say about it.
Generally I'm picturing the cast of Big Love and also nienie whenever anyone mentions Utah.
50 I was going to ask if you had an opinion about it. How different is Texas, really?
51: Lame. There's much better things to picture here. My youngest sister moved up here two weeks ago to a house maybe four miles from us. She snapped this pic with her phone from her front yard while we were moving her in.
I think very, very different.
Texas is weirdly hard for me to get a handle on, because so many contradictions seem to be simultaneously true. (And I mean actual, unresolvable contradictions - like I don't know which source to trust and which to be suspicious of.)
My confusion, for example, goes like: our schools are very good, when you account for poverty, but good lord is there a lot of poverty, but OTOH there is also a lot of wealth and natural resources, and central Texas is the fastest growing region in the country, so why is it still so poor? Etc.
The valley is so incredibly poor, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio surprisingly mixed in their politics (ie they have coherent progressive movements), Austin is Austin, and it's hard to know how much of the state is rural, and how much of the state is sprawl of the big cities that doesn't get counted in the big cities when you read something like "All the big cities voted for Obama". The crazy fundies get so much news press, and everyone pussy-foots around them, but it's not like Baptists are a majority. According to this, whites are 70% and Latinos/Hispanic make up 38%, but non-Hispanic whites are 44%. So it's complicated. It's hard for me to form a single coherent picture of this place.
Apparently only 27% of Texans have a bachelor's degree, putting us 40th in the nation. So you'd think we'd feel similar to Idaho, and surely the Valley does. But not the big cities, necessarily.
53: What, Nienie and the Henricksons can't make the scenery look stunning?
55: Ha, my sister and I live in the city Big Love is supposedly set in.
Tangentially on topic to the current state of the thread—this is the best map ever.
But that's one of those "when you throw out everything the states have in common, what's the slightly disproportionate answer left?"
57: That is indeed great. What the hell, North Dakota? I'm pretty sure that's not the musical key you're wondering about.
While agreeing with 58 that it's surely a silly and mostly meaningless map, what exactly does North Dakota's result mean? I'm confused about what people are allegedly trying to search for.
It is pretty good, though. I don't understand Louisiana at all.
Maybe the necessary combination is (a) safe Republican and (b) 80%+ non-Hispanic white.
Like Kansas!
58: Sure, it's just another one of those instances of fucking around with Google for fun, but it's interesting. I'm not surprised about CO's result post-legalization, and given that the searches were done February 25th, I'm not surprised that the cost of a cord of wood is of interest in VT. I assume Nebraska's result is university-driven.
61 -- "succession" in Louisiana means "probate" to the rest of us.
Googling myself, it seems that 'a minor' refers to a ticket for underage drinking. Utterly understandable.
Kentucky's result is pretty hilarious, given, well, this blog.
Utah is not all that well-governed, but some of the elements of Mormon culture tamp down some of the crazies. Mostly I think it's the homogeneity -- harder to explain away a problem (though they try for evil Ogden!)
Anyhow, this is a good move, really. Utah is a hotbed of financial fraud just due to the amount of ties people have through church, and the fact that if someone has a temple recommend they're thought to be trustworthy, which means they're not always scrutinized as much as they should be. Wake Up Now, featured on TAL? Provo.
The mormons send tons of missionaries down to those countries and they number the converts in the millions.
Yes, but....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Multi-level_marketing_companies_based_in_Utah
this is an great article
i m living in NY today n i see things a lot here
Heebie, why did you link to Nienie? You sent me down the Mormon mommy blog rabbit hole. Her blog was a (uniquely American?) mix of product shilling and religious proselytizing.
Oh no, don't fall into the Mormon mommyblog trap! You'll never escape!
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