Lame Duck Session 2010, Flying Straight

I have followed politics for quite some time and as lame duck congresses go, this one stepped up and got things done like few before.  Among its accomplishments a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.  A 911 health fund law.  Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed.  a food safety bill got passed.  Finally a temporary economic fix to renew tax breaks and unemployment benefits.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

Opponents of DADT are running  out of justification for opposing repeal of this policy.  First we were told we need to wait and follow the lead of our generals.  The head of the joint chiefs has said that congress should repeal DADT.  Then we were told it might be disruptive to the troops and we should wait for the results of a survey.  %70 of our military believes that repealing DADT will have little negative effect or no effect at all on troop readiness and morale.  No word yet on what the next excuse for not repealing DADT will be, but you can bet there will be another one soon enough.

Post Election

It is time for the last phase of any election,  explanations, recriminations, and blame.  We as a nation have been too impatient with Democrats expecting two years to be enough time to fix the damage caused during the previous eight.  Moderates have provided a second chance for republicans to fix the economy.  Apparrently the slogan, this time we won't mess up resonates better than we need more time to clean up the mess the last guy gave us.  Either that or the American Public wants gridlock to maintain the status quo.

Nov 1 Predictions

November 1st, the first Monday of November.  GOTV will be in effect until 7:00 P.M. tomorrow when the polls close.  I will make a few predictions for the election.  First of all, the GOP takes control of the house, but not the Senate.  D-Senator Michael Bennet beats R-Ken Buck in Colorado by less than 2%.  Ken Buck might have been able to win but over the course of the campaign developed a serious case of foot in mouth disease.   Within the last two weeks of the election with early voting in progress.  Ken Buck compared homosexuality to alcoholism and stated that "global warming is a hoax."  Comments like this have forced Buck to play defense. 

Colorado's CD-3 D-John Salazar will beat Scott Tipton by 5%

CD-4 D-Betsy Markey and R-Cory Gardner are coming down to the wire.  Markey and Gardner are fighting to the end.  American Constitution AC-Doug Aden and I-K. Waszkicz could draw conservatives from Cory Gardner.  Too close to call.  A further prediction...if Betsy Markey wins so does Michael Bennet

In the Colorado Gubernatorial race D-Mayor John Hickenlooper defeats AC-Tom Tancredo and R-Dan Maes does not get 10% forceing the Republicans into minority party status.

CD-6 R-Mike Coffman represents what may be the most conservative CD in the country.  D-John Flerage's campaign did not even try to raise money.  His campaign will be a useful survey of likely Democrats when 2012 comes around.

CD-7 D-Incumbent Ed Perlmutter has had to work for it but his campaign will win by 5% minimum

State Treasurer D-Cary Kennedy has had the ability to raise massive amounts of money.  Her opponent R-W.R. Stapleton is banking on people voting for his name.  His grandfather was Benjamin Franklin Stapleton who served five terms as Denver's Mayor.  Kennedy has managed Colorado's money well and will win.

Att. General R-John Suthers will win against Boulder District Attorney D-Stan Garnett.  Garnett may have had a chance but got into the race a little too late.  Suthers by 7%

Incumbent Sec. State D-Bernie Buescher has increased transparency and increased ease of voting.  R-Scott Gessler has little record to run on. Secretary Buescher will win by 10%

Karl Rove is back!

As much as Republicans are fond of accusing Democratic groups of interfering in local elections, they will not object to Karl Rove's American Crossroads or Senator Jim Demint's Americans for Job Security.  American Crossroads all by itself has raised 8 million dollars and has spent roughly one million dollars to defeat Senator Bennet in Colorado.

Moving the community center

     The Reverend Terry Jones of World Outreach Center in Florida who has a congregation of approximately 50 people has agreed to call off his planned burn a Quran day on September 11th because he claims that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has agreed to move the New York Islam community center Park 51.  This news has not been confirmed.  Donald Trump has asked that the community center be built at least 5 blocks away from the community center and seems to have made an offer for the Park 51 property at 25% above price.
     The smart move for Imam Abdul Rauf and the Park 51 developer is to hold firm on staying at their current location.  If it becomes apparrent that proposed mosques and community centers can be blackmailed out of their preferred locations than that will be a recruiting bonanza for terrorists.  This truly would be a message that there is a war on Islam in the United States and that would place American citizens around the world in danger.
    

who should pick the Senate

Ken Buck supports having the state legislature pick U.S. Senators.  Truthfully this is not a revolutionary idea.  Originally in Colorado, Senate seats were voted on by the legislature.  The legislature gave away seats to well behaved  millionaires.  This is why Horace Tabor never became a Senator.  He was rich but he stepped out publicly on his wife.

Colorado Senate Race is all about the money

Ken Buck the tea party candidate may face a severe handicap if his campaign cannot raise money all by itself.  He owes his primary victory in large part to a 527 group that ran ads on his behalf.  There does come a time when you have to do things for yourself.  Michael Bennet after his primary has approximately one and a half million dollars to spend.  Senator Bennet also has the advantage of top fundraisers Steve Farber and Norm Brrownstein working upon his behalf.  Money will flow to this Senate race on a massive scale both locally and nationally.

Primary Night

Colorado August 10th the primary is over!  In the U.S. Senate races Michael Bennet won in his race against Andrew Romannoff in the Democratic Primary.  Ken Buck beat Jane  Norton running as the underdog in the Republican Senate PrimaryIn the Governor Race, John Hickenlooper faced no primary for the Democrats.  After a near dead heat that ran well into the night, Dan Maes beat Scott McInnis in the Republican primary.


 

NY Times DPS Financing

I was very disappointed upon reading Gretchen Morgenson's misleading article about the transaction used by Michael Bennet to finance the DPS pension fund. Ms. Morgenson should have known that this would be a hot button issue in the Democratic primary and that her source Jeane Kaplan is a supporter of Andrew Romanoff who maxed out her contributions for his campaign. She also should have mentioned that other school board members who are not Romanoff supporters have not publicly stated that they did not have all the facts. Two more relevant facts that she could have mentioned are that Andrew Romanoff sponsored the legislation that made this deal possible and that DPS board meetings have become little more Senate debates. Ms. Morgenson allowed herself to be used as a source for a negative campaign ad.  Her article was just plain lazy and some basic background research could have provided her with the facts I mentioned above.  

A Charmed Race

Hickenlooper could not lose the race for Governor if he tried.  John Hickenlooper has had a charmed race so far.  Early in the race when Bill Ritter decided not to run.  John Hickenlooper announced his canidacy and faced no challenger for a primary.

Scott Mcinnis had his plagiarism scandal.  McCinnis accepted $300,000 to plagiarize someone's work and then blamed his 82 year old researcher.  Dan Maes accepted a $17,000 fine for campaign finance violations.  Dan Maes also has decided to expose Hickenlooper's nefarious Bicycle United Nations plot.  Also Tom Tancredo has jumped into this race for the American Constitution Party.  No word yet on whether these three candidates will vote for John Hickenlooper.  They have all been so generous thus far there is no reasone to stop when it comes to their votes.

The Bicycle Conspiracy

Dan Maes has uncovered a United Nations plot. Apparrently Mayor Hickenlooper's B-Cycle bike sharing program is a plot by the UN to deny us our rights, and take away our cars. Another aspect of this conspiracy is encouraging businesses to have showers at work so that employees can take showers after cycling to work. Dan Maes said there is a lot more of this conspiracy to be uncovered. Does anyone else sense a spy thriller here?

Some possible titles might be A Spy on Two Wheels, Final Flight for Cervelo, or perhaps Specialized Man.

Tancredo For Governor

Tom Tancredo issued an ultimatum last week. Scott McCinnis and Dan Maes must announce that they will drop out of the race if they are polling behind John Hickenlooper after the primary August 10th or Tancredo will run for governor as the candidate for the American Constitution Party.

Can the Democrats be that lucky? Tancredo will split the party base, but moderate Republicans and the Independents would sooner vote for John Hickenlooper than for Tom Tancredo. In Colorado Independents are the keys to the kingdom in a statewide race.

Scott McCinnis will have to drop out at some point and maybe Dan Maes as well. When the Republican votes are counted August 11th a vacancy committee must be convened to pick a replacement candidate. No word yet on this will be.

Is there a war on terror

It is time to stop pretending that we are fighting a war against terror. We have always opposed terror and we should continue to do so. George W. Bush and his cronies told us we were fighting a war on terror. They realized that if we were fighting a war against terror, we could label someone a terrorist and violate our own laws, the laws of other countries, and International Treaties that we had signed and most people would be okay with it because we were at war.

We had interrogators in secret prisons committing war crimes. Yes waterboarding is a war crime. It became a war crime when the United States tried two japanese officers for war crimes because they engaged in water boarding. We set the legal precedent and we need to live with it. By the way the punishment was a minimum of fifteen years in a hard labor camp.

Who will be Mayor

While James Majia is the only official candidate in the 2011 Denver Mayor's race the Denver Democrats have a wide field of potential candidates. When John Hickenlooper decided to run for Governor that left the race open with no candidates with a clear edge over any of the others.

State Representative Chris Romer and Former State Senator Penfield Tate are considering a run. This early in the game the potential list of candidates includes almost the entire City Council of Denver. Charlie Brown and Marcia Johnson could both mount serious challenges. More on this race as it develops.

Majia For Mayo

Longtime Denver Resident James Majia has filed papers to run for mayor of Denver in 2011. James has long worked for the City of Denver in one job or another. Most recently James has been administering funds associated with Denver's Preschool and Kindergarten initiative.

Does Doug Bruce hold himself above the law?

Douglas Bruce famous for being the author of TABOR (Taxpayers Bill Of Rights) has been subpoened to testify in a campaign finance case. He may have been involved in authoring, consulting and financing three issues that could appear on this years ballot. They are Proposition 101, and Ammendments 60 and 61. Proposition 101 would eliminate taxes on rental cars and car leases, limits title charges to $10 per year and sets the state tax rate at 4.5%. Ammendment 60 would cut mill levies. Ammendment 61 would require voter approval to borrow and require repayment within 10 years. Doug Bruce would swear that he has nothing to do with any of these if he bothered to respond to one of the 29 subpoenas compelling him to testify. No word yet on whether he will be cited with contempt of court charges.

The politics of tipping

Conservatives tend to believe in individual individual responsibility. They tend to think that all should be left to themselves to prosper or not. Democrats believe in a social contract. We believe that we have a shared responsibility to care for our fellow man. The Democratic philosophy is one that lends itself towards tipping.

Tipping is like karma it comes back to you and you are rewarded in kind. If you get a reputation for being a bad tipper you will get bad service and vice versa.

Tea Party in the Deep South

Rand Paul the Republican from Kentucky was nominated by the Republicans in the race for U.S. Senate. The Tea Party contingent was overjoyed for a solid day. Then Rand Paul opened his mouth. On national television Rand Paul defended a restaurant owners right to serve or refuse to serve an individual based on the color of their skin, or their religion.

Then after shoving one foot down his throat on the issue of Civil Rights the topic turned to the BP Deepwater Horizon Rig gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Rand Paul said that the Obama Administration is being to hard on BP because "accidents happen." When I spill coffee on my rug that is an accident. When millions, even billions of gallons of raw crude goes gushing into the Gulf endangering the economy of five states for at least one year that is an extreme F*ck Up.

Perhaps what Mark Twain said was true "Better to be thought of as stupid than to open your mouth and prove people correct.

Pro-Abstinence Philandering

Republican Congressman Mark Souder of Indiana is in the news. The eight term congressman is an evangelical Christian and outspoken proponent of premarital abstinence. He even saw fit to make a pro-abstinence video with a female staffer. He was also sleeping around on his wife with this same staffer.

Personally, It does not trouble me if politicians of either gender have multiple affairs. Just don't be a hypocrite and preach about family values and fidelity. Especially, don't choose as your mistress your co-star in the Christian family values premarital abstinence video. Aside from ending your political career, it usually means you don't appear in the sequel.

Mcinnis on Water!

Gubernatorial Candidate Scott McInnis got paid $150,000, to write a series of articles on Colorado Water by the Hasan Family Foundation. No expert on Colorado water has heard of such a series of articles. This is not a subject that you can research, write, and publish in a stealth manner. Entire volumes have been written about Colorado Water. Did Scott McInnis earn his money or is this series of articles on a to do list somewhere?

Primaries

Arlen Specter is out in Pennsylvania. The Dems have nominated Joe Sestak. Mark Critz replaces John Murtha. The Republicans nominated a Tea Party backed candidate. Anti incumbent swing is in effect. Senator Bob Bennett Republican of Utah is out.

Here in Colorado we will soon be graced with the presence of Sarah Palin. She is expected to endorse Jane Norton at the Republican State Convention. Ken Buck is not amused. As for me I don't think Sarah Palin should provide this endorsement at their convention. Jane Norton's campaign is skipping the process.

Truly though Sarah Palin scares me, I thought that I had seen and heard it all. Then I saw Sarah Palin joke about shooting Bambi's Mother while talking to the NRA.

Wanting to be homeless

Colorado Springs Mayor Rivera has said that some foreclosure victims want to be homeless. This establishes some serious conservative credentials. Ronald Reagan himself who the Republicans think of as a step below Jesus Christ, once said homelessness is a matter of choice. How is it the traditional Christian family values party manages to say such unchristian things.

Arizona keeps taking hits

Arizona's brand new immigration law, has brought financial wrath upon itself. The Denver Public Schools has cancelled all business trips to Arizona. Los Angeles has pulled 8 million dollars worth of contracts and fifty million worth of investments from Arizona. Also the RNC has chosen Tampa over Phoenix for their 2012 convention. This decision has nothing to do with the the immigration law really. And we all know that you can never win the Presidency by holding a convention in the Rocky Mountain West. Oh wait didn't the Dems just do that.

The truth is the RNC holding a convention in Florida is like preaching to the choir. The West is up for grabs on a regular basis. What the Republicans are accomplishing by snubbing Arizona and going to Florida is proving to Hispanics in Florida that they really do deserve their votes.

Don't Ask Don't Tell...Dont Wait

Those opposed to to revoking make a series of arguements, none of them very good.

We are frequently told that it would be bad for troop morale and that we need to be sensetive to the feelings of the troops. Both of these arguements were made when the issue of alllowing black soldiers came to the fore.

If your morale is so easily damaged you have no place fighting in a war zone anyway. The old saying good players adjust comes into play here. Soldiers are old enough to carry guns they will deal with it.

As for being sensitive to what the troops want, if they wanted people to be sensitive to their feelings and respectful of their beliefs and ideoligies they should not have joined the military. The military is not a democracy. It is a top down organization with ranks where people are given orders and the President of the United States is also the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces.

As for the final arguement that a gay soldier might see a straight soldier naked. So what? Do people really think that gays only joined the military after Don't Ask Don't Tell? Do we think that Gays and straights have not seen each other naked. The fact that anyone can make this arguement with a straight face simply proves they are a biggot.

Let me close with a quote from that great conservative icon Barry Goldwater "It doesn't matter if they are straight, it matters if they can shoot straight."

Apply Early

Josh Penry says that he will be the Chief of Staff for Governor Scott McCinnis. Apparrently this is a reward for dropping out of the race. This is just me but before announcing that he has the job, he should wait until he knows which candidate will be hiring. I really don't think John Hickenlooper will hire him even for a volunteer position. The election is still four months away and Hickenlooper is running strong

I did not know that!

Jane Norton finally realized that Democrats use trackers at Republican events. She has worked in politics how long and she had not figured this out. This is especially unusual because Republicans play this game too. It is a very old and effective game.

We really can stop the oil!

BP thinks they have a new idea to stop the oil leak. Apparrently they may be able to stop it up with either rubber or cement. This idea has two possible outcomes. It could be successful, or it could cause a complete blowout as opposed to the leak we have now. I don't know how desperate you have to be to consider a fix that may prove so disastrous, but so far that have tried their robot submersibles, their dome got clogged with natural gas crystals. Meanwhile Louisiana is talking about dredging the Mississippi to build barrier islands, as if dredging will have no negative impacts on the river.
Fishing, shrimping, and oyster collection is probably dead for at least two years. Honestly, the Gulf Coast is just lucky it does not get a Hurricane while the oil slick continues to grow. Maybe we should all buy stock in dawn hand soap. They will be selling a lot of product to wash the oil from the wildlife down on the coast.

Happy Mothers Day

I think that even if we may disagree on other issues, we should all take the time to wish a Happy Mother's Day to our mothers and mothers everywhere. So atleast for today let us thank mom for putting up with all the grief we caused her over the years. So to my mom, I wish you a happyMother's Day.

Miles to go

Currently, training for a bike ride, 62 miles long to be exact. I am a little familiar with course. I have done the race before. A lot of up and down and around Robin Hood's Barn besides. Today for training purposes I cycled fifty-eight miles up to Red Rocks Park. Overcame some monster uphills on this ride. However, when comparing myself to anyone who did not work out today, I feel a supreme sense of virtuousness and perhaps just a tad superior as well. The race is the first weekend of June. More on my riding later!

Foriegn Policy and Terrorism

In the aftermath of the attempted bombing of Times Square there are two very important lessons to be learned. The would be bomber said that the reason he was motivated to try to set off a bomb is because the U.S. is killing civilians in Pakistan with our unmanned Predator drones. We need to accept that our foriegn policy may in fact manufacture terrorists.

A second lesson to be learned is that we can give people Miranda Rights and still gather useful information. Faisal Shahzad is a United States Citizen and when arrested as the law dictates he was read his Miranda Rights. He has been cooperative and has provided useful information related to terrorist cells. Because this information was obtained lawfully it will be admissable in court as evidence.

Scamming the troops!

Nothing says I support the troops like scamming a veteran out of large sums of money. A few years ago Seargent Don Malarkey and a few others loaned $20,000 to the Oregon Republican Party. Why is the Republican Party borrowing large sums of money from individuals like this? This is what large donor committees are for. Apparrently the Republican Party cannot afford to pay back this loan to Seargent Marlarkey who is also waiting to undergo open heart surgery. To their credit the Oregon Republican Party is accepting donations from supporters to pay off this loan. Can they just cut a check and be done with it? They don't have $20,000 lying around really?

And They say Police Don't Profile

Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois was arrested at an immigration protest. Personally, I think it is fabulous that he was arrested. It just goes to show that police are arresting dark skinned people and that some of them are citizens with high ranking respected jobs. Put it another way, although all those Mexicans may look alike, not all of them are illegals picking crops, scrubbing toilets, and mopping floors. Does anybody really believe a Congressman Joe Smith with alabaster skin would have been arrested?