Archive for July, 2009

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent considerable money and time trying to fix some of the worlds problems. Their work to impact the American education system has reached all the way to Tucson via the San Miguel High School.  San Miguel’s education model is to have students work one day per week and attend school the other 4 days. It’s based off the Cristo Rey model and there are now branches all over the country. Their students private education is subsidised or free of charge.  Below is Gates annual foundation recap letter telling us what he’s learned: 

How many kids don’t get the same chance to achieve their full potential? The number is very large. Every year, 1 million kids drop out of high school. Only 71 percent of kids graduate from high school within four years, and for minorities the numbers are even worse—58 percent for Hispanics and 55 percent for African Americans. If the decline in childhood deaths I mentioned earlier is one of the most positive statistics ever, these are some of the most negative. The federal No Child Left Behind Act isn’t perfect, but it has forced us to look at each school’s results and realize how poorly we are doing overall. It surprises me that more parents are not upset about the education their own kids are receiving.

Nine years ago, the foundation decided to invest in helping to create better high schools, and we have made over $2 billion in grants. The goal was to give schools extra money for a period of time to make changes in the way they were organized (including reducing their size), in how the teachers worked, and in the curriculum. The hope was that after a few years they would operate at the same cost per student as before, but they would have become much more effective.

Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students’ achievement in any significant way. These tended to be the schools that did not take radical steps to change the culture, such as allowing the principal to pick the team of teachers or change the curriculum. We had less success trying to change an existing school than helping to create a new school.

Even so, many schools had higher attendance and graduation rates than their peers. While we were pleased with these improvements, we are trying to raise college-ready graduation rates, and in most cases, we fell short.

But a few of the schools that we funded achieved something amazing. They replaced schools with low expectations and low results with ones that have high expectations and high results. These schools are not selective in whom they admit, and they are overwhelmingly serving kids in poor areas, most of whose parents did not go to college. Almost all of these schools are charter schools that have significantly longer school days than other schools.

I have had a chance to spend time at a number of these schools, including High Tech High in San Diego and the Knowledge Is Power Program, or “KIPP,” in Houston. There is a wonderful new book out about KIPP called Work Hard. Be Nice., by the education reporter Jay Mathews. It’s an inspiring look at how KIPP has accomplished these amazing results and the barriers they faced.

It is invigorating and inspirational to meet with the students and teachers in these schools and hear about their aspirations. They talk about how the schools they were in before did not challenge them and how their new school engages all of their abilities. These schools aim to have all of their kids enter four-year colleges, and many of them achieve that goal with 90 percent to 100 percent of their students. Every visit energizes me to work to get most high schools to be like this.

These successes and failures have underscored the need to aim high and embrace change in America’s schools. Our goal as a nation should be to ensure that 80 percent of our students graduate from high school fully ready to attend college by 2025. This goal will probably be more difficult to achieve than anything else the foundation works on, because change comes so slowly and is so hard to measure. Unlike scientists developing a vaccine, it is hard to test with scientific certainty what works in schools. If one school’s students do better than another school’s, how do you determine the exact cause? But the difficulty of the problem does not make it any less important to solve. And as the successes show, some schools are making real progress.

Based on what the foundation has learned so far, we have refined our strategy. We will continue to invest in replicating the school models that worked the best. Almost all of these schools are charter schools. Many states have limits on charter schools, including giving them less funding than other schools. Educational innovation and overall improvement will go a lot faster if the charter school limits and funding rules are changed.

One of the key things these schools have done is help their teachers be more effective in the classroom. It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one. Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

Whenever I talk to teachers, it is clear that they want to be great, but they need better tools so they can measure their progress and keep improving. So our new strategy focuses on learning why some teachers are so much more effective than others and how best practices can be spread throughout the education system so that the average quality goes up. We will work with some of the best teachers to put their lectures online as a model for other teachers and as a resource for students.

Finally, our foundation has learned that graduating from high school is not enough anymore. To earn enough to raise a family, you need some kind of college degree, whether it’s a certificate or an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree. So last year we started making grants to help more students graduate from college. Our focus will be on helping improve community colleges and reducing the number of kids who start community college but don’t finish.

Where are the Tucson Sidewinders?
 
The City of Reno used TIF financing and worked with private investors to build a $50 million state-of-the-art AAA Ballpark and lured the Sidewinders.  The Reno Aces sold out their opener with 9,167 fans and has averaged 6,601 fans this year (well above their break even point).  The stadium was built in downtown Reno and is part of a redevelopment district that includes retail, dining, and office buildings.
 
 
Here is the way TIF financing should be used:
 
The City of Reno used TIF funds to entice Cabela’s to build a retail facility.  Cabela’s sells hunting, fishing, and camping supplies.  Preliminary data indicate the new store was largely responsible for a year-over-year increase of sales tax revenue of 35% (Dec 2008 vs. Dec 2007); while Rio Nuevo TIF declined 38% during the same period.  TIF funds were used to upgrade infrastructure (not to build the store).  Economic impact of Cabela’s includes:
234 permanent jobs
486 temporary jobs
Estimated 2 million out-of-state visitors
 
Please note that the Tucson City Council would consider Cabela’s a ‘big box’ store and has an ordinance that would discourage this type of facility.
 
 
More about opening weekend – HERE
 
Reno a success dispite the odds against them – HERE
 
Bonding for Cabellas - HERE

From flyers that have been intercepted it appears that the Arizona Democratic Party in conjunction with  the grocery service union may have had a hand in pushing Eddie Basha’s grocery chains into bankruptcy.  Stranger still, Eddie Basha has been a major democratic supporter for years including a run for Governor as a Democrat in 1994.

Basha ran in the Democratic circles and is huge supporter of Hispanic education and donor of over $100 million over thier 75 years in Arizona to community causes. 

No doubt the economic downturn played a role as did heavy expansion fueled by cheap money. Things dried up for Bashas as quick as bankruptcy and foreclosures mounted in far reaching suburbs.

It appears that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been throwing everything they could at Basha’s, AJ’s and Food City since they failed to unionize the chain in 2002. Liberal local blog – Blog For Arizona,  weighed in on big bad Basha’s union busting tactics in 2006.
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A Local Tucson Political Connection?
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Guess who’s recieved a political contribution from the Phoenix union that played a major role in taking down Food City? None other than Tucson’s very own Karin Uhlich. Why would a Tucson council person receive a donation from a Phoenix grocery union local?

Her campaign also received by far the most from political committees: $3,500.

Those contributions included $1,000 from Arizona List, $410 from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and $2,080 from the political action committee for the United Food and Commercial Workers union’s Local 99 in Phoenix.

Here’s the story explaining the the fight between Basha’s and the union:

From The Arizona Republic:

It’s been the most bitter of fights.

And, for Bashas’ Supermarkets Inc., painfully expensive.

The grocer’s battle with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has cost the company millions of dollars in legal fees, damage-control marketing expenses and lost business since the escalation of the conflict in 2006.

On Monday, Bashas’ executives blamed the battle with UFCW Local 99, in addition to Arizona’s ailing economy, frugal shoppers and tight credit, for the company’s filing late Sunday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Union representatives defend their approach. The UFCW represents about 16,000 workers at Arizona Safeway and Fry’s grocery stores. It has spent years recruiting Bashas’ workforce, which has shrunk from 14,000 a few years ago to 10,700 today.

The union lost a bid in 2002 to represent workers at Bashas’ Food City Hispanic markets and tried to organize the whole company in 2006 when Bashas’ changed its health-care plan without consulting the union.

While Bashas’ is a non-union shop, UCFW has its foot in the door at seven union stores, which the company acquired a decade ago from AJ’s Fine Foods stores. Bashas’ refused to negotiate with the union, which sparked the first of dozens of unfair labor practices charges filed by the union.

Phoenix attorney Michael Manning, who represents Bashas’, believes the company may have been able to survive outside of bankruptcy without the union’s aggressive organizing efforts.

“It pushed them over the edge,” he said.

In its bid to represent Bashas’ employees, the UFCW has used boycotts, pickets, tactics designed to scare customers and a raft of federal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and other agencies, Manning said.

Bashas’ countered with a 2007 defamation/racketeering lawsuit against the union that recently amended to include extortion. The suit alleges the union threatened to “destroy” Bashas’ with the same tactics it used on Southwest Supermarkets and MegaFoods, if it didn’t allow the UFCW in to represent its employees.

Southwest and MegaFoods were non-union stores, like Bashas’, that earlier filed for Chapter 11 protection and ultimately went out of business.

“We can’t force union representation on our employees,” Proulx said of the company’s decision not to let the union in. “That’s something they have a right to vote on.

Bashas’ lawsuit alleges the union’s Hungry for Respect Web site has hinted that Bashas’ sells tainted Chinese milk and peanut butter laced with salmonella. The union also used the site to accuse Bashas’ of selling expired baby formula and violating health codes at its stores.

“They have used some of the nastiest tactics I’ve seen in all my years dealing with unions,” said Proulx, who believes the union planted the expired baby formula on its shelves.

The union attacks also have targeted Bashas’ Chairman Eddie Basha.

It has tried to link Basha with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in order to drive customers away from Bashas’ Food City Hispanic markets. Arpaio is known for conducting raids on businesses thought to employ illegal workers.

Cisco Echeverria, who oversees Bashas’ Food City stores, acknowledged the protests and demonstrations have kept customers away.

Union spokesman Corey Owens said the union is still organizing at Bashas’ and will file for an election when it has sufficient support.

Owens said the UFCW denies the allegations that it threatened to destroy Bashas’.

Besides what some describe as scare tactics, the union has filed dozen of charges against Bashas’ with the National Labor Relations Board and a number of complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Proulx called the charges frivolous, but some are advancing through the federal complaints process.

A complaint that Bashas’ discriminated against Hispanic workers by paying them less than Anglo employees is being investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC investigates only cases it believes have merit and has had to sue Bashas’ to get the company to cooperate.

Last year, an NLRB administrative law judge found that Bashas’ engaged in unfair labor practices by closing stores, replacing checkers with U-scan machines and altering health-care terms without telling the union.

A second NLRB case alleges, in more than 70 instances, that Bashas’ illegally tried to block the union’s organization efforts and retaliated against sympathetic employees. The case has been heard by an administrative law judge, but a decision has not been issued. Like the EEOC, the NLRB hears only cases it believes have merit.

Despite its efforts to organize Bashas’, the union has not officially notified the NLRB of its intent to represent Bashas’ or to hold an election.

Proulx believes that’s because the union knows it will lose.

“They just want to be let in without being asked in by the employees,” he said.

Those contributions included $1,000 from Arizona List, $410 from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and $2,080 from the political action committee for the United Food and Commercial Workers union’s Local 99 in Phoenix.

Way to go guys you push hard enough and you can actually take down a third generation businesses that employs thousand and serves Hispanic communities not to mention an important contributor to local non-profits.

Best of luck to Basha’s, AJ’s and Food City. I live near a Food City in Tucson and love their selection of authentic Mexican food ingredients.

A direct reprint from The Tucson Citizen in 2007:

July 16, 2007

Stanton : Bashas’ bashed

Tactics used by United Food and Commercial Workers union against the family-owned business raise far too many questions

United Food and Commercial Workers could almost double its union membership if only Eddie Basha and family would cooperate.

They won’t. So the Bashas are getting bashed.

In its latest assault, UFCW claims 683 cans of outdated infant formula recently were purchased at 55 stores in the chain, which includes Bashas’, Food City and AJ’s Fine Foods.

That’s a lot of cans. Even if it were true, which is dubious at best, expired formula isn’t harmful. And as a mother, I dare say the consumer can check the expiration date.

Besides which, the federal Women, Infants and Children program run through the Arizona Department of Health Services revved up market monitoring in the wake of these claims and has found all its contractors, including Bashas’, to be in compliance.

But maybe you got the flier from the union’s Hungry for Respect group – four pages of emotionally charged, color photographs of sweet infants.

Poor babies. Sucking down old formula all because of Bashas’? We think not.

This campaign against Arizona’s only family-owned grocery chain raises too many questions, even for me.

I was a proud, longtime member of the Denver Newspaper Guild. But my union didn’t indulge in strong-arming or blackmail to get its way.

As for UFCW, consider:

● Arizona’s Local 99 has 16,000 members; Bashas’ has 14,000 “members” – employees whom the company deems members of its family.

The National Labor Relations Board repeatedly has rebuffed UFCW efforts to unionize the chain’s stores.

The NLRB ruled Jan. 18 that the “petitioned-for unit is not an appropriate unit for collective bargaining . . .”

It ruled June 26, 2002, that the “petitioned-for multifacility unit of Food City . . . in Maricopa County is not an appropriate unit for bargaining.”

Bashas’ wouldn’t object to its employees casting secret ballots overseen by a federal mediator.

They did that five years ago, and UFCW withdrew after it saw the votes. Wonder why.

But Bashas’ won’t accede to the demand to simply give up its staff for union recruitment.

Arizona is a right-to-work state, and employees get to choose.

● UFCW seems quite fond of the “outdated products” complaint.

In California, UFCW wants to sign up Farmer Joe’s. Those markets, like Bashas’, want the NLRB to oversee any election.

In early July, as the Arizona union leveled accusations at Bashas’, the California UFCW claimed Farmer Joe’s was selling outdated groceries.

If both locals are so concerned with expiration dates, you have to wonder why they didn’t check other grocery chains, too.

But this approach isn’t new. Back in the early 1990s, UFCW was citing Food Lion in Virginia and North Carolina with selling outdated baby formula.

● Several Bashas’ workers “feel helpless” because they can’t “speak up in the work force,” said Katy Giglio, UFCW communications coordinator.

Giglio promised last Tuesday to have some of them call me by Friday. None did.

She said she would e-mail me, among other things, documentation on UFCW’s product collection methods, details on church workers said to have helped with that collection, and a letter she said UFCW sent Bashas’, offering at the start to let it inspect the cans of formula and sales receipts.

I got no e-mails.

● If the latter letter exists, it’s curious that UFCW made a big production of inviting Bashas’ to its offices at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday to see the formula cans, UPCs, lot numbers and sales receipts.

Bashas’ officials, upon learning that the union had called a press conference at that time, skipped the media circus and went to photograph the items at 1 p.m. instead, said Kristy Nied, head of Bashas’ communications.

Eddie Basha, whose father and uncle opened the family’s first store in Goodyear in 1932, is incensed that UFCW is impugning his family name and his employees’ integrity.

In Tucson last week, he cited the story of the Little Red Hen, who planted seeds and harvested and ground the wheat but didn’t get offers of help till she’d baked the bread.

After 75 years of building a business, “Now the union looks very avariciously at these 14,000 family members (workers) and what the pot would be if they could sign them up.”

With Bashas’ pay and benefits, including a fully funded pension plan, 401(k) with matching contributions, tuition grants and “member-to-member” program to help Bashas’ employees in need, “We care more than the union does,” he said.

Bashas’ has contributed more than $100 million to community causes, he noted, asking: “What the hell has the union given to this community?”

Bashas’ now is exploring every legal option available.

“I’m going to fight them in the streets; I’m going to fight them in the sewers; I’m going to fight them wherever I have to fight them,” Basha told me.

“They have tenacity, and they think we’re not going to have any fortitude.

“They picked the wrong Marine.”

Semper fi, Eddie.

Billie Stanton may be reached at 573-4664 or bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com.

We knew it was coming. With the Democrats firmly in control of the Executive and both Houses of Congress it’s time to push their agenda. The Dems have been duly elected by the people so why not?

Roll backs of the Bush era tax cuts are inevitable. The ‘tax the rich’ movement is well under way in the federal system and in many states. Maryland increased their tax on the upper class and guess what? They moved! From March 27, 2009 of the WSJ:

Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”

One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.

Look for changes in the capital gains rate and for high earning individual and families. Sort of taking away the incentive if you ask me. From today’s WSJ:

House Democrats are now proving that Mr. Boskin had it right, and before it’s over even he may have underestimated how high taxes will go. In the middle of a recession and with rising unemployment, Democrats have been letting it leak that they want to raise U.S. tax rates higher than they’ve been in nearly 30 years in order to finance government health care.

Every detail isn’t known, but late last week Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel disclosed that his draft bill would impose a “surtax” on individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $280,000 a year. This would hit job creators especially hard because more than six of every 10 who earn that much are small business owners, operators or investors, according to a 2007 Treasury study. That study also found that almost half of the income taxed at this highest rate is small business income from the more than 500,000 sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations whose owners pay the individual rate.

In addition, many more smaller business owners with lower profits would be hit by the Rangel plan’s payroll tax surcharge. That surcharge would apply to all firms with 25 or more workers that don’t offer health insurance to their employees, and it would amount to an astonishing eight percentage point fee above the current 15% payroll levy.

Here’s the ugly income-tax math. First, Mr. Obama has promised to let the lower Bush tax rates expire after 2010. This would raise the top personal income tax rate to 39.6% from 35%, and the next rate to 36% from 33%. The Bush expiration would also phase out various tax deductions and exemptions, bringing the top marginal rate to as high as 41%.

Then add the Rangel Surtax of one percentage point, starting at $280,000 ($350,000 for couples), plus another percentage point at $400,000 ($500,000 for couples), rising to three points on more than $800,000 ($1 million) in 2011. But wait, there’s more. The surcharge could rise by two more percentage points in 2013 if health-care costs are larger than advertised — which is a near-certainty. Add all of this up and the top marginal tax rate would climb to 46%, which hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since the Reagan tax reform of 1986 cut the top rate to 28% from 50%.

States have also been raising their income tax rates, so in California and New York City the top rate would be around 58%. The Tax Foundation reports that at least half of all states would have combined state-federal tax rates of more than 50%.

Mr. Rangel also wants to apply his surcharges to investment income like capital gains. So the combined effect of repealing the Bush tax cuts and the new surcharges would be to raise the tax on stock appreciation by at least 60% — to as high as 24% from 15% today. President Obama has been worrying about a capital squeeze on small businesses, but raising the capital gains tax would only further starve them of funds.

Farley’s at it again. On the Friday roundtable Farley dropped a story about a 16 year old that won’t get a heart lung transfer because of budget cuts.  Given his track record for throwing out sensational stories we’re starting to wonder if these things are even true.

Obama used this technique during his campaign to relate with his audience by talking about ‘Martha from Podunk loosing her job because of a big bad corporation….blah blah blah’.

We did a post a while back about his interview on AZ Illustrated with Representative Frank Antenori. Farley told a story about his daughter and sadness about TUSD teacher cuts. Antenori points out the cuts are due to loss of students by TUSD caused by a myriad of reasons including people switching away from ineffective schools and choosing charter schools and leaving the community for greener pastures.

A few months back, the Star’s Scarpinato called him for embelishing a story on his weekly “Farley Report”:

Well, in Rep. Steve Farley‘s latest “Farley Report” that he emails to constituents and supporters, the Tucson Democrat recalls the incident. But most of the reporters saw one glaring fabrication in his retelling.

“As she told her story, even hardened Capitol reporters were brought to tears,” Farley wrote.

Farley is away in Ireland for a week and has not yet responded to an email asking for details. But no one — including this reporter — remember reporters turning on the waterworks, although Becca’s compelling story clearly did move many of the lawmakers in the room.

Both the “hardened” reporters — and those of us of softy sorts — stayed composed from what we remember.

California and Texas are contrasting states that we have written about many times on this blog. As he below article from The Economist explains, there are 50 laboratories in our country that are experimenting, testing and structuring their states to be the best place to live in the country.

Our founding fathers envisioned a system that promoted state autonomy and freedom forlocal legislators to create their own governments within our US framework. If you didn’t like the way Massachusetts treated you as a business person you could move to greener pastures in New Hampshire.

The ramifications of a states effectiveness is no clearer than the contrast between California and Texas.  Read the column from The Economist HERE:

They paved paradise and put up the parking taxes

Plenty of American states have budget crises; but California’s illustrate two more structural worries about the state. Back in its golden age in the 1950s and 1960s, it offered middle-class people, not just techy high-fliers, a shot at the American dream—complete with superb schools and universities, and an enviable physical infrastructure. These days California’s unemployment rate is running at 11.5%, two points ahead of the national average. In such Californian cities as Fresno, Merced and El Centro, jobless rates are higher than in Detroit. Its roads and schools are crumbling. Every year, over 100,000 more Americans leave the state than enter it.

The second worry has to do with dysfunctional government. No state has quite so many overlapping systems of accountability or such a gerrymandered legislature. Ballot initiatives, the crack cocaine of democracy, have left only around a quarter of its budget within the power of its representative politicians. (One reason budget cuts are inevitable is that voters rejected tax increases in a package of ballot measures in May.) Not that Californian government comes cheap: it has the second-highest top level of state income tax in America (after Hawaii, of all places). Indeed, high taxes, coupled with intrusive regulation of business and greenery taken to silly extremes, have gradually strangled what was once America’s most dynamic state economy. Chief Executive magazine, to take just one example, has ranked California the very worst state to do business in for each of the past four years.

By contrast, Texas was the best state in that poll. It has coped well with the recession, with an unemployment rate two points below the national average and one of the lowest rates of housing repossession. In part this is because Texan banks, hard hit in the last property bust, did not overexpand this time. But as our special report this week explains, Texas also clearly offers a different model, based on small government. It has no state capital-gains or income tax, and a business-friendly and immigrant-tolerant attitude. It is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state—64 compared with California’s 51 and New York’s 56. And as happens to fashionable places, some erstwhile weaknesses now seem strengths (flat, ugly countryside makes it easier for Dallas-Fort Worth to expand than mountain-and-sea-locked LA), while old conservative stereotypes are being questioned: two leading contenders to be Houston’s next mayor are a black man and a white lesbian. Texas also gets on better with Mexico than California does.

Tucson’s new quality of life: murder, burglary, violent crime

Published on Friday, July 10, 2009

Roger Yohem

Think about it: The Tucson City Council’s inability to make tough decisions on big issues actually results in better solutions — by someone else. 

Take Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment. Slow action by the city forced state lawmakers to come up with new controls over the city. It was part of the budget package that Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed but legislators are still hopeful of getting something approved. But the bottom line, is that after all these years, downtown may finally get its much-needed convention hotel.  More HERE.

 Fimbres on Arizona Illustrated – HERE

Great interview from a station up in Phoenix with Republican Rep. Kavangh and Democratic Rep. Sinema. It gives a great recap of the craziness that is the Arizona budget. HERE.

Obama’s victory was more of a ’throw the bums out’ than anything else. Obama’s win was a vote against Bush and the ruling Republican party more than some big embrace of his ideals and plan. 

When the economy tanks presidents and parties loose power. It’s a fact of life, it’s proven, it goes with the job. Voters didn’t give Carter another chance and brought in Reagan. Bush #1 was riding high in the approval ratings and faced no serious challenges in his reelection until an economic dip left him vulnerable to a no name Governor, Bill Clinton.

The two party system causes the pendulum to swing about every 8 to 12 years. As frustrated as we get from time to time, the system works and the US just celebrated its 233rd birthday this weekend. 

Our constitution was written before electricity, cars or just about anything you find in your home today. For them to get it that right is nothing short of amazing. The balance of power between the Courts, Executive and Legislative branches works. Safeguards were put in to ensure no one branch or person got to powerful. Presidents were limited to two term limits (with the exception of FDR, who also expanded the Supreme Court to get around a few Justices that opposed him) with the goal to keep us far away from the ruler for life or monarchy form of government.

Fast forward to 2014, let’s say the Obama administration is actually getting things done, economic prospects are looking good and groups start talking about keeping him around for a third term. Discussions start from within and from the outside of the government about about amending the constitution to keep Big O around.  My guess is that’s not something we would even care to fathom.

Take a look at recent actions in Honduras. Zelaya, a term limited president, pushed to change the constitution to stay in power. Everything culminated last Wednesday when he fired the head of the military and Supreme Court for denying him authority to change the countries constitution to fit his agenda.  When diplomatic discussion broke down the military kicked him out of bed and out of the country. 

This weekend 30 countries (including Obama and Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State) condemned the action as a military lead coup. This is a test for the Obama administration and so far I’m not impressed. Constitutions are in place for a reason. They are extremely hard to amend for a reason. One person or party with too much power is a major problem for a country and the world.

If Honduras holds elections and re-establishes order the world will respect them for remaining a democracy that holds to it’s principals. If military installed leaders remain in power then the world needs to give them the cold shoulder.  Wait and see.

From the NYT:

During a more formal meeting afterward, they discussed Mr. Zelaya’s plans for a referendum that would have laid the groundwork for an assembly to remake the Constitution, a senior administration official said.

But American officials did not believe that Mr. Zelaya’s plans for the referendum were in line with the Constitution, and were worried that it would further inflame tensions with the military and other political factions, administration officials said.

Even so, one administration official said that while the United States thought the referendum was a bad idea, it did not justify a coup.

“On the one instance, we’re talking about conducting a survey, a nonbinding survey; in the other instance, we’re talking about the forcible removal of a president from a country,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity during a teleconference call with reporters.

As the situation in Honduras worsened, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr., along with Hugo Llorens, the American ambassador to Honduras, spoke with Mr. Zelaya, military officials and opposition leaders, administration officials said. Then things reached a boil last Wednesday and Thursday, when Mr. Zelaya fired the leader of the armed forces and the Supreme Court followed up with a declaration that Mr. Zelaya’s planned referendum was illegal.