(Un)ethical Leadership: How a “business-friendly” State Puts Workers Last—and At Risk

Smirking corporate lobbyist carrying wads of cash from a legislative building

During the pandemic shut-down, I worked remotely for an employer that required the use of my personal computer, phone, and internet for a year and never offered fair compensation for the use of my property. The employer repeatedly violated labor law concerning meals and breaks and wage theft. The employer demanded logging in and setting up work apps at least 15 minutes prior to scheduled start time and return after lunch but did not allow logging out 15 minutes prior to the end of the day. That is wage theft. Work related matters like professional development or soft skills training were required to be done on your lunch break; they were described as “brown bag” lunches. That violates lunch and breaks free from work. Their shared narrative about workers was that people are poor because they are lazy and will do anything to cheat the system. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Blame the people you seek to exploit for trying to cheat you. There is a second narrative that shapes their treatment of workers that I will describe later in this blog.

Even working remotely, a paternalistic environment of distrust and discrimination permeated operations. The top-level managers were male, the majority of task supervisors were male, and the majority of workers were female. All tasks were processed by separate, very small “teams” of employees who were not allowed to communicate with each other. Any such communication was admonished and the workers scolded. If you took what a supervisor thought was too much time to review a messy task you would see a pop-up message asking, “what are you doing?” or “do you need help?” Supervisors, of course, had the freedom to play with their kids, wash laundry, and order DoorDash while overlording a “team” to ensure workers enjoyed no such freedom of movement. Instead of focusing on serving people and getting the process right, supervisors tracked task completion and monitored keyboard activity. Typically, correcting one task created multiple additional tasks because the entire process was broken into multiple individual but interdependent tasks yet no access to the overall situation and feedback about how to improve the process was slapped away as offensive. The more task data the better to justify needing more funding which effectively disincentivizes doing the right thing the first time which would mean processing would be holistic rather than segregated.

To top it off, when the employer and a third-party contractor transferred 10 years of data from an archaic system to a new one, they left the connection open resulting in multiple private parties who had logged on to the website for their own use to download that data into Excel spreadsheets. Eventually, that data was discovered for sale on the Dark Web. It would be reasonable to expect the employer to take responsibility for their negligence and publicly report it so the thousands of people impacted by the theft of their name, address, DOB, SSN, work history, education, and bank account information could immediately lock their credit preventing fraudulent transactions in their name. Yet, that is not what happened. Why did they not disclose this security breach? Who the hell is this employer? 

The employer was the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Unemployment Insurance Division. And rather than serving as a watchdog protecting workers, it serves as a lapdog for businesses. Businesses pay into the unemployment insurance fund, workers do not. Once the money is in the fund CDLE UI treats that money as the State’s asset and believes their mission is to protect the State’s asset by every available means. It generates burdens in the application process supposedly to filter out those who do not truly need the assistance; consider misleading legalese on forms, confusing instructions, automatic denial of benefits, administrative processes limited to their 9 to 5 schedule instead of your availability. These are mechanisms used across our tax-payer funded safety net programs as well. That approach alone calls for an overhaul. But at least one reason we don’t address how we gauge need versus greed is exposed in the labor department’s automatic bias in favor of the businesses. Money and power buys elections and lawmaking.

The monetary relationship between business and the labor department is why the state confidently advertises itself as being “business-friendly.” It is why an employee can quit a job without giving a notice, per at-will employment, but be judged ineligible for unemployment insurance. It is why an employer can treat employees as sub-human, firing them for using sick leave or for needing time off to respond to a family emergency or for daring to walk away from an employer for treating them as less than human. It is why CDLE sets up clawbacks after emergency federal funding ends. These behaviors are rooted in old norms of the Industrial Age that judged workers as lazy and we didn’t have 1099 workers to the extent that we do now. CDLEs paternalism feels like living in the 1950s. Despite its age, it lacks a clear situational awareness of the labor environment. For example, CDLE was gob-smacked to learn there were hundreds of thousands of Coloradans working in non-wage jobs, and many of them working both W2 and 1099 jobs. This should call their jobs data into question at the very least, but that’s for a future post. 

Returning to clawbacks, this was the most disturbing thing about CDLE, in my view. After September 4, 2021, CDLE sent notices to recipients to verify the dates and reasons for each weekly request for benefits they had made before a short deadline expired or they would be required to pay back the benefits. This occurred a year or more after the benefits were requested and went back to the beginning of the pandemic. People had gone back to work, and the media had warned of fraudsters using fake CDLE websites to contact benefit recipients. Nonetheless, no response generated a debt of tens of thousands of dollars per recipient who did not respond, required scheduling a bureaucratic hearing, and if absent from the hearing, sent to collection and or garnished from their wages and tax refunds. CDLE clawed back assistance to workers after the Great Recession that followed the housing bubble fiasco. Have they always done this to workers? This was the moment I began to understand why so many American workers, including Coloradans, are furious with government. A government that does not work for them or protect them from exploitation but serves the hand that feeds it. This explained how so many have been duped by a 1%er to elect him, to attempt an insurrection, to believe that immigrants are the cause of their hardship, and to re-elect him when the other party, the one that previously labeled them “a basket of deplorables,” hedged on issues important to all workers.

Since 2021, Colorado lawmakers created a program to pay unemployment insurance benefits to undocumented W-2 workers and is one of fourteen states that offer health coverage regardless of immigration status, including undocumented. Policies like these are likely fueling current anti-immigration tactics but without showing clear evidence for their actions. While there are a lot of problems with our social safety net programs, not the least of which is accountability in government administration, the reason for their existence is related to labor law. To summarize, CDLEs attitude toward workers exposes who they are and who they serve. CDLE judges. It doesn’t ask questions. It is a machine built to protect businesses. Furthermore, the unemployment insurance fund establishes a symbiotic relationship between business and the state, exclusive of workers. We need to ask questions: Where does the state use the money? Is it retained for future benefits? Is every penny of the fund retained, or just a percentage? CDLEs UI Fund ran dry just 3 months into the pandemic. How is jobs data and unemployment data collected and how is it analyzed?   

At the conclusion of Colorado’s legislative session this year, the governor vetoed a record number of 11 bills meant to set rules protecting Uber and Lift gig-workers, protect workers from wage theft, protect renters from rent-hiking app algorithms, and uncomplicate the process of forming a workers’ union. This record seems to confirm the pursuit of labor laws that favor business and government oversight mechanisms that restrict access to assistance. Ethical leadership matters. Government accountability and transparency is a fair expectation if we will have a government of, by, and for the people. Coloradans deserve better. All working people deserve better. How does your labor department treat workers in your state? It matters. We need answers and accountability.

If you have ever been stalked, you know: Some people are bat-shit crazy and you're on your own to cope with it

Image of a camera with a frowny face in the lens

September 2020, I moved into a new apartment in a nice, quiet neighborhood. I said hello to the female next door and she ignored me, looked the other way. Odd. Some weeks later I saw her again and said hello. This time she glared at me. She seemed hateful for whatever reason so I stopped making the effort to be civil. Anytime I saw her after that I looked past her like she was invisible and looked away when it was impossible to avoid walking past her.

Around spring or summer 2024 I received a piece of mail for her address, misdelivered by the mail carrier. Since I had not sifted through my mail at the box, I noticed I had her vehicle registration renewal notice mixed in with my mail as I walked up the stairs to my apartment. Well shit. I thought I would do the responsible thing despite her horrific attitude and give her mail to her. I knocked on her door. She opened the door and stared blankly at me without a word. I held out the notice and said it had been misdelivered to my mailbox. She snatched it out of my hand before the word ‘mailbox’ left my mouth and slammed the door in my face. I said ‘you’re welcome’ to the door.

February 2025, I noticed a ring camera had been installed on the door of the angry female’s apartment, aimed at my deck. On the rare occasion I went out to clear a path in the snow from my door to the stairs I heard the microphone on her camera engage and some odd noise uttered into the mic. I said out loud, partly to myself, “if you’re testing your mic it works.” It seemed that confirmation ended her curiosity. Until it didn’t.

Throughout the summer 2025, I would go outside to put my umbrella up to block the sun from heating my apartment to 85 degrees by 0700. The angry female repeatedly keyed her mic and made noises at me. I told her camera to get its eyes off me. At other times I said shut the fuck up. And at others I resorted to sign language. You can guess which finger. Why the interest in escalating the harassing and stalking aided by her camera aimed at my deck after her unilateral mic-check during the winter? Her drug addiction, maybe?

During this record-setting hot summer, the stench of pot smoke and cigarette smoke coming from the angry female’s apartment had become a regular nuisance and directly harming my health. The smoke was so heavy it permeated the entire south end of the building, lingered in the stairwell and on my deck, and entered my apartment through my window air conditioner and front door. I had raised the issue of smoke getting into my apartment many times with the manager, but he would not address it. Therefore, as of June 27^th, I started dropping complaints to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment citing the violation of the Clean Indoor Air Act. Although the law designated CDPHE responsible for implementation, they declined stating they did not have enforcement authority and told me to contact El Paso County Public Health. At the same time, I filed a complaint on the GoCOS app used by the City to manage public communication which ended up being assigned to CSPD; CSPD also told me to contact EPC Public Health. City Code designates enforcement of smoking regulations to EPC Public Health. I continued filing complaints with CDPHE, per state law, and began reporting the problem to EPC Health as well, per City Code. EPC also claimed they did not have enforcement authority. I filed 12 complaints between the end of June and the end of July with both CDPHE and EPC Public Health. Additionally, I used about 2 bottles of ZEP smoke odor eliminator to clean my air conditioner, twice, and deodorize the air outside my door during her day-long pot smoking sessions that contaminated my property and the air in the stairwell, my deck, and the storage space at the end of my deck.

On July 26^th I filed a maintenance request on AppFolio that manages the property citing the pot smoke coming from her apartment into my apartment. On the 29^th the manager finally took action, sort of. A notice was emailed to all residents clarifying the smoking restrictions overall and for each building. Building 901 was directed to stay 25 feet from any shared entryway and no smoking was allowed in the atrium. Building 855, where I live next to the pot smoker, was directed to not smoke near an open window where your smoke might go into another person’s unit and if smoking on the balcony ensure your smoke is not going toward another unit.

Well, you can guess correctly that the angry female lost her mind and began to harass me as I described above to include her throwing absolute toddler-style tantrums in the form of door slamming and pounding her fists the entire length of the shared wall from my living room to my bedroom. It is now October and she continues with the tirades. That is some bullshit. But I have my own camera now and I have a record of every door slam and fit she throws. I don’t go outside my door without an umbrella or a big hat or shopping bag to block my face. For some reason that really annoys her, too. Whatever.

It seems a waste of time, money, and resources to create state laws that no one will enforce, and local control effectively renders useless. I have encountered the same emphasis on process and lack of accountability in my job administering social safety net programs. Including immigrant status verification. The Social Security Administration can verify status which determines eligibility for assistance programs, each with its own, very different eligibility requirements. However, when they find a fraudulent document, SSN, or ID number it’s not like they’re going to go knock on that door or notify law enforcement. Lack of transparency, providing clear evidence, and failure in leadership have put us where we are. We need to start asking more questions, listen with intention, and ask more questions to understand what is going on. Especially when engaging elected officials and bureaucrats. Don’t believe everything you hear because you think this or that politician has your back. The only safe assumption in this chaos is to assume they don’t. Think critically. Ask questions. Search for the facts instead of repeating the easy political narratives. In the end, without accountability in government we are all living in hell.

Here are the radicals: Do they sound left-wing to you?

With the White House’s dissemination of inflammatory disinformation about an imagined “radical left,” I invite anyone reading this to watch and listen for yourselves the vitriol and hatred of a cult in Woodland Park that has historically supported and hosted TP USA at its so-called conferences. Do they sound like they are to the left of anything? The WH is disseminating dangerous rhetoric, meanwhile this “conference” in Woodland Park is underway yet again. You can find it yourself at truthandliberty dot net. Below you can read my summary and analysis of the 2023 conference. I could not stomach watching any additional conferences, but they are there if you want to indulge.

2023 Truth and Liberty conference at Charis Bible college in Woodland Park Colorado. If I were to give this event an accurate descriptive title it would be “How to Kill a Democracy.”

Summary: The conference ticked all the boxes of cult leadership tactics described in The Cult of Trump by Steven Hassan, PhD, a former Moonie turned writer, scholar, and psychotherapist. The Wommack Truth & Liberty coalition have created their own worldview through which all events are interpreted; established their followers as the in-group opposed to the evil out-groups (democrats, LGBTQ+, etc); requested donations or “offerings” and solicited volunteers for future events/protests; created myths establishing their credibility, especially of family members who died and came back to life through prayer; established multiple campaigns, such as recruiting school board candidates, registering church congregations to vote, etc.; distracted attendees from thinking critically by using rapid-paced speech stringing together every sentence with “and,” using repetitive phrases, and altering historical facts to fit their objective; and they one-up the MAGA chant with one that “re”establishes this country under one religious belief, a theocracy. All efforts, every political and issue campaign, need to focus on responding to the lie that the U.S. was once a theocracy, a Christian Republic.

This is a cult and they know what they’re doing. When session speakers, for example Faridi and Porter, delivered loaded language about stolen elections and racist tropes about Muslims, I noted their lack of conviction or belief in what they were saying in contrast with their smirks and smiles as the crowd of around 40 attendees clapped and cheered. Watch a portion of a session and look at the speaker’s eyes, their body language; they are toying with people, manipulating them. Did you ever watch The Manchurian Candidate? This conference is the real-life version.

I noticed a lot of mirroring, Hassan’s word, but pundits use the term “flagging.” Mirroring or flagging is when the speaker accuses the other side of doing something the speaker is actually doing. For example, Connelly talked about the holocaust implicitly equating Nazis to democrats; he stated that lying to people and creating fear was the key to Nazis killing 11 million people and democrats did the same through covid quarantines. It’s actually Wommack et al. lying and creating fear, their objective is to restore the country to what they claim is its original single-religion and religion-based education, to establish a theocracy. The establishment of a theocracy would of course dismantle democracy and result in violence and death of far more than 11 million people.

Throughout the sessions, the cult uses mirroring to delegitimize election processes, education, and other foundational elements of our democracy. However, I sense they are one component of a larger strategy under the old Tea Party apparatus to defund the federal government, specifically the departments overseeing education, healthcare, energy, and environment as promised by several republican presidential candidates in recent history. The Convention of States Action is led by Mark Meckler, the founder of the Tea Party movement. COSAs intent is to establish republican control of the necessary two-thirds of the states per Article V of the Constitution to call a convention and enact their agenda to defund the federal government, specifically the departments responsible for education, healthcare, energy, and environment. COSA, the Freedom Caucus/Tea Party and Truth & Liberty converge on defunding the department of education. This is not to say that cult members are not also engaged in defunding other departments, consider climate change deniers, they likely are, but taking the larger view exposes the broad base of overlapping interests in taking down our democracy. Christian nationalism is driving the anti-government agenda that is rooted in the Southern states going back to the Civil War. It’s not a coincidence that most of the Truth & Liberty speakers are residents of the deep south.

Returning to our lane on education, it is imperative to understand that higher education is being used to disseminate disinformation which has a ripple effect on local school districts and other campaigns. There are at least two disinformation spreaders at UCCS, one funded by Koch and the other by Turning Point USA. Koch funded a “research” center at UCCS, headed by faculty of the Political Science Department, in appreciation for inviting and sponsoring Trump’s campaign rallies on UCCS campus in 2016. Koch’s influence is called The Center for the Study of Government and the Individual and is supported by several of Koch’s extremist factions. The first incident that peaked my awareness of Koch’s access to our campus was the dissemination of The Epoch Times to all UCCS email users after 2016. Fast-forward to January 6, 2021, that disinformation rag, Epoch Times, was in the pockets of thousands of insurrectionists. For a few months immediately after the insurrection, I assisted Insurrection Hunters with the identification of symbols, military patches, documents, vendors, and organized groups among the participants. I flagged some papers sticking out of the back pocket of a “cowboy” with a gun tucked into his waistband. Another Hunter identified the papers as The Epoch Times that had been circulated at a rally that morning. The “cowboy” I had worked to identify was later arrested for stabbing someone to death in a park sometime after he returned home—drug deal gone sideways. The feds made a deal with him for information about 1/6. He’s free. I have moved on, but many continue to identify insurrectionists and their work has contributed to the arrest and conviction of hundreds of Americans who have been brainwashed. Until the leaders are processed by the justice system, the public, and our democracy that depends on a well-informed public, teeters on the brink.

In addition to the Koch bros on our campus, a Wommack collaborator Turning Point USA has established a student group at UCCS. I have observed clapboards on campus advertising bible study groups and prayer groups, but I do not recall the name of the student group that organized it. More likely, Turning Point USA at UCCS would recruit protest participants for the upcoming Kingdom to Capitol marches as well as local protests, school district actions, and to serve as poll watchers. Note the word choice, ‘kingdom’; it suggests dominion over the state, aligned with their theocracy over democracy objective.    

The Wommack cult made it very clear that this is a war, they have declared it. Therefore, I am using their war framework to analyze their plan of action. Below, I have outlined the order of battle (OOB) starting with the strategic level, moving on to the operational level including organizations and leaders, and finally, the tactical level detailing their methods as described by the operational leaders during the conference. I categorized and color-coded the major campaigns: Red denotes congregation voter registration drives, legal action, and policy writing; Orange indicates all direct actions opposing public education; Gold represents anti-abortion actions and dovetails with education on anti-LGBTQ, anti-CRT, etc.; Blue signifies protests/counter-protests and disruption. The campaigns directly involved in the attack on education include a cross-collaboration between the National School Board Coalition/Ted Mische, Christian Home Educators of Colorado/Carolyn Martin, Family Policy Alliance/Autumn Leva, Nehemia Institute, and Faith Wins/Chad Connelly.

    

Truth & Liberty Objective: To control communities through the church, ultimately (re)establishing a theocracy.

OOB:

Unit	Task	Leader
Faith Wins	Register church congregations to vote, targeting all “early states”	Chad Connelly
First Liberty	File religious liberty lawsuits to roll back previous Supreme Court decisions on religious displays in public spaces/government buildings, and schools	Unk (attorneys)
Wallbuilders	Draft “pro-family” legislation & review education standards for legislators & lobbyists	David Barton
Pacific Justice	School board policy templates, in 31 states	unk
National School Board Coalition	School board candidates, propaganda about sexualizing kids	Ted Mische
Christian Home Educators of Colorado	Homeschooling, bible-based education, parental rights, propaganda about original theocracy	Carolyn Martin
Family Policy Alliance	Defund public education, religious liberty lawsuits	Autumn Leva
The Life Network	Anti-abortion actions	Rich Bennet
Turning Point USA Faith	Protests	Lance Williams
American Pastor Project	Train pastors to organize churches	Lucas Miles

 

 

Strategies:

·       Elect leaders with a “biblical worldview”—congress, state legislatures, school boards, etc.

·       Defund public education, replace it with home-schooling and bible-based education

·       Engage government/teachers/school board in lengthy, expensive court processes

·       Disorient the public with disinformation and protests across all operations and campaigns

Operations:

·       Christian voter registration drives in churches--Chad Connelly, Faith Wins

·       File lawsuits demanding religious liberty—First Liberty

·       Lobby legislators and monitor education legislation in all 50 states—David Barton, Wallbuilders’ ProFamily Legislative Network; Pacific Justice; First Liberty

·       Recruit, train, and vet school board candidates—Ted Mische, National School Board Coalition

·       Privatize education--Carolyn Martin, Christian Home Educators of Colorado; Autumn Leva, Family Policy Alliance attorney; Nehemiah Institute

·       Close all abortion service provider locations—Pueblo pastor Quinn Fryberg; Rich Bennet, The Life Network

·       Kingdom to the Capitol marches--Lance Williams, Turning Point USA Faith and Shawn Foit; Book bans, school board action--John Amanchukwu

·       Provide resources and networking for pastors to organize churches--American Pastor Project, Lucas Miles   

Tactics:

·       Collaborate with pastors in churches to register their congregations to vote, prioritize all of the early states

·       Use poll watchers to target voter turnout and challenge validity of every ballot cast in real time, but charm election staff with offers to help and to pray for them so they collaborate willingly

·       Harass school boards with fear messaging (“they’re coming for your kids” “they’re coming for your churches”), book bans, and oppose sex education

·       Lobby for parental rights, pathway to homeschooling and defunding public education

·       Collaborate with a legislator to challenge education standards that do not comply with “biblical worldview”

·       Spread gospel in Muslim nations

·       Broadcast alternative facts about a time when America had common values and a common faith

·       Recruit school board candidates through face-to-face interaction in the community, churches, and both political parties

·       Frame unwilling candidates as “imperfect people” but with righteous intent

·       Recruit through propaganda about RFID chips in student IDs so predators can track your kids, lies about kids being taught to make illicit drugs in chemistry class and satanic temples teaching in school classrooms

·       Establish homeschooling as an alternative to public schools, pathway to privatizing public education

·       Repeat message that America was established on one religion, taught in the home, the school, and the church

·       Advocate for parental rights as opposed to public education, religious liberty as opposed to secular/inclusive education, and home schooling as opposed to public education

·       Organize anti-abortion protests, file lawsuits against abortion providers, force closure of women’s health clinics that provide abortions

·       Promote ideation that life begins at inception

·       Advocate for Heartbeat legislation across the country in collaboration with Janet Porter the election denier

·       Train pastors to respond to social issues using Charis as a model to gaslight authorities, meaning government and police, with prayers for their souls instead of protesting their order-following behavior

·       Oppose globalism and one-world doctrines with sovereign nation doctrine, specifically the sovereignty of the U.S. and of Israel    

 

Summary of The Propaganda Team (platforms range from Fox News to Truth & Liberty radio and their followers’ blogs and podcasts):

Lucas Miles, American Pastor Project—pastor at Influence Church, and propagandist for epic times church and church boys podcast

Alex McFarland—propagandist Truth and Liberty radio

David Barton, Wallbuilders—propagandist on early American colonies and bible-based education

Jeff Anderson—Cong. Lamborn’s Senior Adviser for Community Outreach, pro-Israel propagandist and political insider

Elizabeth Muren—propagandist and screenwriter on banning abortion

Janet Porter—legislative activist/organizer for abortion ban, election-denier

Mohamad Faridi, Destination USA—propagandist for one-world Christian religion, anti-Islam

Richard Harris—propagandist in chief of Truth and Liberty radio

My Conclusion

None of this is about a radical right concerned about crime. It is an attack on democracy. What are your thoughts? More importantly, what are you doing about it beyond street protests or pre-emptively complying? We have an election coming up. Consider making a plan to get voters to the polls in person, in case that turns out to be our only option.  

Renters Deserve Safe Homes—Our City Can Make That Happen

We have been in a housing crisis for some time. While much of the conversation focuses on building new units, we’re quietly losing the most affordable housing we already have: existing rental homes that are falling into disrepair. As a policy researcher and a renter, I see this disconnect every day—between what our community needs and what our housing system delivers.

That’s why it’s time for our city to adopt a rental housing licensing program with habitability inspections. This is not a radical idea. It’s a practical, proven policy that protects tenants, ensures safe homes, and prevents neglect before it turns into displacement.

Here’s how it works: landlords register their rental units with the city, and those units are subject to periodic habitability inspections. If a home isn’t up to basic health and safety standards—mold, broken heaters, faulty wiring—the city can require repairs before the next tenant moves in. It’s simple, effective, and fair.

Right now, responsible landlords who maintain their properties are playing by the rules. But those who ignore basic maintenance face little to no consequences—and renters pay the price. Licensing and inspections level the playing field and promote fairness across the board.

This policy is already working in cities across the country. In Minneapolis, housing inspections led to major drops in severe violations. In Sacramento, over 70% of inspected units needed repairs, and those repairs got done. The results speak for themselves.

But this is more than just policy. It’s about dignity. Renters are often treated as invisible in local politics, even though we make up a significant portion of the population. We are workers, voters, parents, and neighbors. We deserve the same baseline protections as homeowners.

Safe housing shouldn’t be a privilege. It should be a standard.

This licensing program is how we get there.

#Housingcrisis

#housingcrisis

#housing-justice

Colorado’s Housing Data Dupe

I have accumulated several research projects as a doctoral student in Educational Leadership, Research, & Policy. The common thread in all of my projects is the erosion of public services using neoliberal economic theory starting with education in the 1970s, continuing through the social safety net including housing stability since the early 1990s. All of these efforts converge on the use of biased data, opaque quantitative methodologies, and outright lies.

As a strategic thinker and lifelong learner, I do not focus on any single topic of interest. I embrace the complexity of being human and acknowledge the systemic nature of our institutions. I am a humanist and a progressive--a real progressive, as in Bernie Sanders progressive, not a neoliberal/Libertarian democrat who hijacks the word progressive and weaves it into their disinformation campaign. I am a first-generation college student, hence the overkill of pursuing a PhD. I am a Cold War veteran, a renter, and a social justice advocate, aka. pain in the ass. The aka moniker is born of an epic story I’ll have to share with you someday. That struggle marked the beginning of my fight for renter’s rights.

Predictably, I do not fit into the neoliberal/Libertarian framework at my institution, UCCS. Yes, I live in Colorado Springs where the presumption is that of a deep red political majority, but I saw who we really are in 2016 when I ran the caucus location in Fountain, CO. I know Progressives are the real majority. Sadly, that brief opportunity when progressives ran the local El Paso County Democratic party died on the vine due to poor planning and lack of organization. I think they failed to see that we are at war. War is not a time for cooperation and goodwill. It’s a fight. If you fail to fight, you lose.

The first project I want to share involves Colorado state government agencies, real estate and apartment associations, and a real estate professor at DU colluding to produce BIASED housing vacancy rate data with the outcome of raising housing prices and increasing profits. I found this discrepancy during my investigation of housing financialization in Colorado Springs. I was looking for evidence concerning supply and demand and other narratives driving the priority to build luxury apartments. What I found was a much bigger story, a big data dupe. As you can see in the table below, there is a sharp contrast between what the DU professor produced for the study’s supporters, Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) and Colorado Housing Finance Authority (CHFA), and what is transparently and reliably produced by the U.S. Census.

Housing Vacancy Rate Data: Comparing DOLA/CHFA & Census

QUARTER	DOLA*	CHFA	CENSUS
2/2018	5.9%	-	2.4%
4/2018	5.6%	-	3.1%
2/2019	4.9%	-	3.9%
4/2019	5.2%	-	4.4%
2/2020	4.9%	-	2.6%
1/2022	-	4.8%	3.4%
2/2022	-	4.7%	4.0%
3/2022	-	5.1%	5.0%
4/2022	-	5.5%	3.9%
1/2023	-	6.2%	3.8%
2/2023	-	6.2%	5.0%
3/2023	-	6.0%	5.4%
4/2023	-	6.3%	5.8%

*DOLA ended funding for the housing vacancy surveys during the pandemic, 2/2020 was their

final report. After COVID CHFA was awarded the survey contract.

 

Yikes, right? There’s a big difference between the state and the Census. So, what does it mean? Well, the vacancy rate tells you how tight the market is, the lower the percentage the tighter the market. The tighter the market the higher the rent because scarcity favors the landlords while tenants compete for housing. When vacancy rates are higher, we see the reverse. Renters can shop around and be more selective because landlords compete for renters with lower rents, extra amenities, or other perks. In short, the vacancy rate tracks with whether rents are increasing or decreasing.

Notice the U.S. Census data consistently shows a tight market, far more so when DOLA contracted the survey reports and through 1/2023 under CHFAs contract. The tight market reported by the Census is consistent with the ever-rising rents we have experienced throughout Colorado. The loose market indicated by DOLA/CHFA suggests housing is plentiful which influences decisions about the need to build more housing. The data matters therefore it is critical that the right people are asked the right questions in the right way to result in data that is trustworthy. Yes, trustworthiness is the whole point.

DOLA and CHFA have funded third-parties to produce data that is not trustworthy. Who the potential pool of survey participants is matters. Who the survey participants are matters. Whether they respond for one or several different properties matters. What questions are asked and how they are asked matters. The data matters because it determines what gets built, where, and when and that also influences the amount we pay in rent.

The difference between the Census and the state’s data demonstrates the control of the apartment associations and the realtors’ associations over our state housing policy and their ability to manipulate their version of data to benefit themselves and their stakeholders. The Census does not have a dog in the fight. Their process is publicly disclosed and fully explained, including how they select survey participants and what they ask them, who’s included who’s not and why. DOLA and CHFA are not transparent, and their reports hint that they only survey their members. That’s a problem because not all rental properties pay the dues to be part of the insiders club. How many rental properties are there and how many of those are responding to the survey? Well, that’s confidential, apparently. But not so confidential that apartment association and realtor’s lobbyists don’t use their untrustworthy reports to block housing legislation designed to keep us housed.

While those that profit from the hellscape they created sell us an oversimplified version of supply and demand and something about the need for market equilibrium, we are increasingly priced out of a home.

#Housing #Housingdata #Housingcrisis

Capitulation as performative courage in higher education

The Associated Press published a story about my university this past weekend highlighting its many acts of anticipatory obedience and school administrators’ shock that it wasn’t enough to prevent the loss of federal funding. Beyond that, I’m afraid the point of the story escapes me. What is my campus telling us without saying it? Is this a whispered warning to similarly small campuses that capitulation does not protect you from attack? Is it a mea culpa for not demonstrating moral leadership to its students, staff, and community? It is interesting that this story was not picked up by local news outlets; it was only reported by national media AP and ABC News. So, who is the intended audience and what is the message?

I disagree with the writer’s characterization of my campus as apolitical. Education is a foundational institution of democracy and has been under attack since the Reagan Administration. My campus is a prime target of nationally funded local organizations that support the agenda to destroy all democratic institutions clearly laid out in Project 2025. But this project isn’t new. The narrative undermining education, including my campus, has been drip fed for years by the Koch Foundation and Christian Nationalist organizations.   

Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, is a key funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate bill mill, and the State Policy Network (SPN), a network and service organization for the "state-based free market think tank movement," and its stated mission is "to provide strategic assistance to independent research organizations devoted to discovering and developing market-oriented solutions to state and local public policy issues.”

Koch Foundation contributions to CU began in 2009 with $23,000 for “educational programs.”  Contributions expanded to include the CU Foundation and the Board of Regents. Contributions to UCCS specifically began in 2013 with a mere $5,000 but hit the six-figure range for the first time in 2016. Then Political Science Department Chair Dunn invited Trump to hold political rallies on UCCS campus twice likely betting on energizing the extremists within a 60-40 gerrymandered red congressional district consisting of the second largest city in Colorado and five military installations. Cat litter queen and QAnon follower Heidi Ganahl was elected to the CU Board of Regents. This was my first year as a grad student in public administration.

By 2017, Koch contributions to CU Boulder and UCCS grew into millions of dollars. I noticed the loss of Local Government courses in my degree program “due to lack of interest.” I guess my interest was irrelevant. The Koch Foundation contributed $1.49 million to CU to establish a right-wing research center. In 2019, the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual, led by Dunn, set to work reinterpreting the version of the founding documents, civics education, and economics that fit the world according to Koch and the rest of the 1%. Their original mission statement thanks to the Wayback Machine: “The Center for the Study of Government and the Individual (CSGI) exists to explore the constitutional, economic, political, and social foundations of a free, flourishing, and prosperous society, and to provide a vehicle for the candid discussion of the proper relationship between government and individuals. Our vision is a citizenry that is equipped for the challenges of self-government ahead of us.” Ominous then, confirmed by the present danger. Thankfully, I managed to graduate in the nick of time in 2018. Finding zero opportunities with local nonprofits I went back for a PhD as COVID got underway.  

In January 2021, following the attempted coup in D.C. my campus inbox started receiving the Koch Bros disinformation rag The Epoch Times indicating their contributions bought access to data and contact lists. I flagged 36 emails between January 18th to March 2nd as spam and reported them to campus IT. I also blocked the emails so I don’t know how long the disinformation was allowed to spread or if it’s ongoing.

I got in trouble in one of my courses for calling out the fact that Reagan’s education department manufactured the education crisis. I was admonished and given a poor grade. Oh well. I think it’s relevant that Dunn taught stats in my program before leading the Koch funded Center. It seems he left a stain. Anyway, I’ll say it again here, Reagan began defunding education and justified it with disinformation (lies) about student learning and teacher qualifications, most of it economic class-based and race-based. Furthermore, Reagan’s campaign gained power alongside what was then called the Christian Right, now Christian Nationalism. Obama shifted control over education to the states in 2015 further opening the door for the extremists. What happens in K-12 doesn’t stay in K-12, it impacts access to higher education.

The alliances that started with Reagan remain active today. Not only are the Koch Bros all over the campus with their anti-democracy reprogramming, but the Christian Nationalists have been very active on campus, too. The center of it seems to be coming from or at least supported by the Woodland Park cult at Charis Bible College. It hosts an annual Truth and Liberty Coalition conference including a weird cross of televangelism and war planning presented by organizations including Turning Point USA whose agenda is to organize protests at the state and national capitol, attack libraries and schools with book bans, and take over school boards. Seriously, you can’t walk from the UCCS library to the parking garage without bumping into a sandwich board announcing a bible study meeting sponsored by Turning Point, or from the library to the student union and not have some fake-friendly middle-aged balding white dude trying to hand you a bible. I know there had been complaints in the past year over dogma-motivated bullying. It’s not a secret on campus that the campus is a target. What is my campus telling us without telling us? Am I facing another nick of time deadline saddled with huge student loan debt and no prospects? Or is it worse? Is Christian Nationalism waiting in the wings to “save” education?

I’ll end with this thought. I never expected to go to college, but I had been told it was the only way out of a life of poverty. Without financial aid I would not have had the opportunity to find my path. Universities are for students to figure out what inspires them, what kind of creativity appeals to them, what life are they meant to lead, and then follow it. How dare anyone limit access to finding your path to the few whose heritage owns the wealth to provide it. The future laid out by the 1% and Christian Nationalism recalls the worst of our past and they are just getting started. If capitulation is all I can expect from my university, I’m scared.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-transgender-diversity-universities-colorado-15388cd568fdd80ce8e70ca321446539