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.