The Colorado Index

What Democrats Claim to Believe

I found this propaganda on the local Democrat party web site.  They get black, I'll take blue.

As Democrats, we believe in

Defending all of the human rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.  They extend this to unlawful combatants who have never set foot in the US but who would kill all of us in a New York minute, given the chance.

A clear separation of Church and State.  That is why they are attacking charities in the legislature this week.  Better the poor not be fed than a nasty old priest touch the food.

Swift and appropriate punishment for criminal behavior.  That's why the state court administrator is being aggressively investigated for obstruction of justice.

Freedom from undue government interference in our private lives and personal decisions.  Care to bet that before long employees will lack the power to avoid paying unions?  That would be an inconvenient personal decision. 

Fiscal responsibility in government. If you can't raise taxes, the responsible thing to do is raise fees, fees, fees.

Equal opportunity for all citizens. Except in the higher echelons of your party where the closest thing to "black" is Bill Clinton, except that he now openly hates blacks because one is challenging his wife.

A quality education that gives all individuals the opportunity to reach their potential.  Parents who disagree with your definition of where and how to get a quality education deserve a special place in hell according to Michael Merrifield.

A quality environment in which to raise our children. Large scale forest fires caused by ignoring the pine bark beetle won't impact that at all.

The value of diversity within the community.  Temper that high minded goal (which it is) with your record that blacks must wait their turn in your party.

Rewarding honest, hard work with a living wage and fair taxation.  This only applies to employees.  Employers have no right to have their hard work rewarded with a living level of profits and fair taxation.

Community support for strong families.  Tax strong families as heavily as they can bear.

Security in our homes, our communities and our nation.  But no guns allowed in our homes or communities and we will do our best to undermine any attempt to improve security unless it means more union jobs.  "The war is lost!" said one of your fearless leaders who only want to lead us to defeat.

A nation that will serve as a model of economic and social justice to the rest of the world.  But we will be careful not to try to pass off our court system and legal ethics as a model of anything but corruption.

January 31, 2008 Sweep

Schaffer v Udall  Cara Degette Claims It's Not News  so it comes as no surprise that Cara Degette would be downplaying the secret memo exposed by Lynn Bartels.

Schaffer v Udall  Don't They Know The Law?  We had to chuckle at this weak comeback to the disclosure that four Colorado millionaires plan to put their foot on the throat of Bob Schaffer

Schaffer v Udall  The 2d CD Blogging Debate  Our friend (who we have never met) at Liberal and Loving It pulled off a coup. He got the three candidates for the 2d CD seat being vacated by Mark Udall to debate on the internet.

Ritter Watch  Indecisive Ritter Leans Toward Raising Vehicle Fees   Fiscal responsibility is certainly not a hallmark of Colorado's current Democratic administration

Rocky Mountain Politics  Florida's big winner: Charlie Christ  So why does the headline say Charlie Crist won. First off, who is he?

The Cauldron  The struggle continues  In case you haven’t been following the Bruce Randolph School saga, Ben DeGrow is here to give you the lowdown

Daily Blogster  Why Iraq is Working  I purposefully did not use the media term "surge" to describe the new movement toward victory in Iraq. That is because this story is about the Iraqi's making a turn, not our soldiers.

Daily Blogster  Gang of 14, Good or Bad?  Much has been said about John McCain's role in the gang of 14 issue.

Mount Virtus  Carroll:  Colorado Judges Rebuff School Funding Lawsuit  In his column today, the Rocky Mountain News‘ Vince Carroll opines about a little-noticed state court decision (the Lobato case) that slapped down those who believe unelected judges should dictate school finance policy:

Mount Virtus  John McCain?  I’m starting today by predicting Sen. John McCain to sweep Super Tuesday and ride free and clear to the GOP presidential nomination. There … a little hex, a little jinx can’t hurt.

Gang of Four  Semifinals   After Florida, we're now officially in the semifinals.  With Giuliani and Edwards dropping out after finishing third - Rudy's best and Edwards's normal, it's McCain vs. Romney, and Clinton vs. Obama.

FTS  Minority Report Highly Critical of Health Commission Findings   At a November meeting, the commission passed a rule requiring any commissioner planning to author a dissenting report to vote against the entire package of recommendations

FTS  Taxasauras 

FTS  Gutting CORA  We understand that after a tough year of PR pain, public officials may not be fond of CORA. But that's no reason to scrap a law that, on balance, provides citizens vital information about the inner workings, budget and priorities of state and local government.

Colorado Senate News  Guv leaves 'em hanging on plans for transportation funding  Senate Republicans were flabbergasted today after Gov. Bill Ritter said he remains unsure how he will fund Colorado's most critical transportation needs--weeks into the 2008 legislative session and almost a year after he set up a panel to study the issue.

Colorado Charter Schools  Senate Education Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing For New CSI Board Members  Tomorrow (Thursday) at 2:30 p.m.,

Colorado Charter Schools  Data, What's the big Deal?  Yesterday's group of about 24 charter school leaders talked about how data can be manipulated and misleading depending on how it's presented and what the data really means

Best Destiny  What Needs to Happen in the Reagan Debate  I'll live blog as much of this debate as I can put up with, though the post may not actually make it up until much later tonight.

Best Destiny  Three Questions I'd Like Asked of John McCain Tonight   But which I am not holding my breath waiting for a "professional journalist" to ask

Backbone America  Obama is no JFK  “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Comment:

El Paso County Caucus Locations

I keep forgetting to post this.  If you are a registered Republican as of December 5th and live in El Paso County, you will want to know the location of your caucus.

A reminder:  If you think you will want to be a delegate or alternate to the County assembly, bring some cash.  In 2006, delegates were asked to kick in $30 each to defray convention costs.  It may be more this year, but we don't know.

Let The Wealthy Pay Their Own Guilt Taxes

I got my property tax bill yesterday.  That and the news that four mega millionaires want to interfere with the Colorado elections made me sufficiently angry that I got up in the middle of the night to write this essay.

One of the problems with having great wealth, especially easily earned or inherited wealth, is that the owner seems to develop a guilt complex.  They want to "do good" but they don't want to give up their own wealth to make that happen.  They can do the maximum good, they reason, by using their wealth to elect politicians who will "do good" with other people's taxes.

Those of us who are not wealthy but who find ourselves bearing the full burden of the guilt complexes of people like Tim Gill, Pat Stryker, Rutt Bridges, and Jared Polis need to find a way to make them pay the bills.

How about a "follow the constitution or else" tax?  These people caused the election of legislators and a governor who want to ignore the constitutional requirement that voters be allowed to vote to raise their taxes.  If contributors objected, they could make their objections known publicly and privately to the people they helped elect.  Not only do they not seem to object, they are preparing to attempt to impact the elections again to elect more politicians who have little respect for the constitution.

We can't touch the legislators, but we can go after the people who put them in office.  Why not a punitive tax on the assets of the 50 richest donors to the campaigns of legislators who subsequently refuse to follow the constitution?  Make the tax large enough to be able to fund property tax refunds for everyone else in the state.

Yes, this might catch a few folks who made donations to politicians with whom they normally disagree in an effort to buy favors, but that shouldn't be happening either. It would be an expensive lesson.

How about an initiative that goes something this:

1.  The people of Colorado make the finding that the Property Tax "Freeze" enacted by the legislature was an unconstitutional violation of TABOR because it was not put to the public for a vote.

2.  The people of Colorado make the finding that the persons most responsible for this violation are those who contributed funds directly to the political campaigns of the legislators who voted for this violation in the face of an adverse opinion of the Colorado Attorney General.

3.  The people of Colorado direct the legislature and the Governor to lay a tax upon the property of the fifty wealthiest individuals who made contributions, either directly or indirectly through 527's, to the campaigns of the legislators who voted for this unconstitutional tax.  The proceeds of this tax are to be sufficiently large that it funds a refund with interest to every taxpayer who was unconstitutionally taxed.  The proceeds may only be used for the costs of administering this tax and refunds.  This tax shall remain in force until the property tax "freeze" is repealed and all taxpayers, save those fifty, are made whole.

4.  Campaign contributors, whatever their net worth, are placed on notice that they have a special duty to vette the candidates to whom they intend to contribute to ensure that they intend to follow the constitution.

Just the act of putting something like this on the ballot would make wealthy contributors and legislators more responsible and responsive to the Colorado Constitution.  Some would claim that this would have a "chilling effect" on contributions, but it would be the same folks who gave us campaign finance reform.  How delicious.

January 30, 2008 Sweep

Schaffer v Udall  Holy Cow! Mark Udall Supports Nuclear Power   In a stunning about face, Mark Udall finally faced reality when he said in response to the State of the Union:

Schaffer v Udall  Exposed: Left-Wing Billionaires' Plans to Smear Schaffer Early  Not that this news is terribly surprising, but the Rocky Mountain News reports today that the Colorado Democrats' Left-wing billionaire power bosses are planning to spend a hefty amount attacking U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer and other Republicans:

Schaffer v Udall    Big Blue Lie Machine Revs Up  Those prognosticators in other states who have predicted an easy Mark Udall victory rather than a close race might be right after all.

Ritter Watch  Ritter Merits Bipartisan Rebuke for Harmful Over-Regulation Proposal  The Associated Press reports today - via the Aspen Times - from the State Capitol that Gov. Bill Ritter has received a stern bipartisan rebuke for trying to over-regulate the energy industry, in effect harming the bottom line of many Colorado families:

The Cauldron  Fool me once...shame on you   I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been lied to endlessly about this TABOR “timeout.”

Slapstick Politics  Focus The Nation Climate Change Teach-In Coming To CU Boulder  How do you spell hypocrisy? Nice to see you enforcing your own prohibition, "Bud".

Slapstick Politics  Blogs For Borders Video Blogburst 012908 

Gang of Four  It killed them to stand  Washington emergency rooms were swarmed tonight with Democratic congressmen and senators experiencing acute joint pain from unwillingly giving repeated standing ovations during President Bush's State of the Union address.

FTS  Clean-energy education bill "hijacked" by union-aligned democrats   A Republican lawmaker is asking that his name be removed from legislation after he says it was "hijacked" by union interests in a committee hearing Thursday.

Dick Wadhams' Blog  Left Wing Billionaire "Foot on Throat" Agenda Exposed   Today’s front page of the Rocky Mountain News exposes a coordinated character assassination campaign by left wing billionaires against Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave and the eventual Republican nominee for President

Best Destiny  Florida Post-Mortem   Which probably leaves me a lot of free time in the Fall. I didn't work for Bob Dole in '96, I don't really see me working for Bob Dole 2.0.

Comment: 

Lamborn Official Announcement

As is our practice, we publish announcements we receive from the 5th CD candidates.  We do not attend these events.

Please Join Congressman Doug Lamborn at His Official
Announcement and Kick-Off Rally to seek re-election for
United States Congress

Monday - February 4, 2008
6:00 p.m.
This event will be held at
Giuseppe's Old Depot Restaurant
10 S. Sierra Madre St.
Colorado Springs, Co.

Light Beverages and Hors d'oeuvres
Bring family & friends
RSVP Robin at (719)238-9077 or email:

Did Mark Udall Spit On Soldiers?

It is no secret that Mark Udall grew up in an anti-war environment and in an anti-war family. He has admitted being convicted of some sort of marijuana [ pot ] related offense, although he is quite vague about what happened, other than that his car was confiscated. Cars aren't usually confiscated unless large amounts of drugs are involved and drug dealing is suspected.

In Congress Mark Udall supported the formation of a Department of Peace and the establishment of a Peace Academy until he decided that continued support would be unwise if he were to run for the US Senate.

It would be interesting to see just how anti-war Mark Udall was in his youth. Did he participate in rallies? Did he spit on soldiers or call them baby-killers which was quite common at the time? Our guess is that his conduct will become an election issue, at least in passing?

In the course of looking up something on Wikipedia, we discovered that there is a whole Wikipedia anti-war series. Included in that series is an article on the anti-war movement in the American Revolution, aka, the Tories.

Anti war people like Mark Udall and his friends often have at least a little streak of Anti-Americanism mixed in with their anti-war venom. Sometimes the streak is quite big. Don't believe it? Read this from Wikipedia:

The British had been forced out of Boston in March 1776 but they returned later that year in August to convincingly defeat the rebel army at Long island and in doing so, rescued New York City and it's vicinity, where they remained until 1783. From time to time they also liberated other cities such as Philadelphia (1777), Savannah (1778–83) and Charleston (1780–82), together with various slices of countryside. However, 90% of the population lived outside the cities. The result was that the wishes of the rebel government dominated 80–90% of the population. The British pulled out their governors from where the rebels were controlling by martial law. But civilian government was re-established in coastal Georgia 1779–82, although the rebels still controlled some of the upstate. Elsewhere, the British were only able to maintain normality where they had sufficient army presence and Royal Navy activity.

Mark Udall will be pointing at people like Caroline Bninski to claim that he isn't really anti war and anti American. Those are the convenient politics of today. How anti-American was the young Mark Udall? Did he spit on soldiers as a young man? How anti-American is the version of 2008? Time will tell.

Copyright Notice

We had to put up a copyright notice on this blog.  There is an intellectual leech running around taking entire posts and publishing them on his site as though they were his own product.  He is too lazy to follow the links, so he just kills them.

He seems to have an affinity to Roe subjects and Colorado politics.  He is going to find himself getting sued because he is playing around with people who will and ought to sue him-the newspapers.  He finds an article he likes, copies it in its entirety, and doesn't credit the source.

We picked an article that he posted last night and did a Google search on it.  It was originally a Gazette article somewhat pro life related.  A different pro life site had picked it up and copied it in its entirety, leaving the Gazette credits intact (That is infringement, too).  Then this leech grabbed it and stripped the ID from it and published it as his own.

The reason we are hot under the collar is that the leech ripped off the parody we wrote on Mark Udall's pot stop, and stripped out the link that made it clear to everyone but our Neanderthal (that is his comment at the bottom) that it was a parody.

It appears that he is copying posts in the hope that he can get enough hits to get advertising.  True theft.  If memory serves, the penalty for copyright violation is triple damages plus attorneys fees, so he is on a journey that could become quite expensive.

January 29, 2008 Sweep

Schaffer v Udall John Kerry Endorses Mark Udall On Daily Kos  So we are adding John Kerry to the list of Udall endorsements--the type of ultra-liberal, Washington-insider, establishment endorsement that "moderates" like Mark Udall can ill-afford.

Schaffer v Udall  Will Voters Remember At The Polls?   Take food prices. They are going up sharply. The Boulder Camera reports on food price inflation without identifying Mark Udall, Bill Ritter, or the Sierra Club as in any way responsible:

Schaffer v Udall  Fund Raiser 

Rossputin  Jasper Rand Kaminsky   Ross had stopped writing about Colorado, so we stopped covering him, but this is definitely a Colorado event.  Gratz.  Can he count yet?

The Cauldron  Join Us...For Cool Aid  We are hosting a free night of environmental hysteria on Monday, February 11th beginning at 5:30 p.m. with a reception followed by our program at 6.

Daily Blogster  Troop Reductions on Track  says Patraeus  As this blog has been saying for several years, the plan to turn Iraq into a free state has been working, but of course as we know now, when Patraeus took over as the General things got much better quicker.

Daily Blogster  Jared Polis Defaces Flag to Make Political Point  It is all pretty silly but Polis's disregard for the colors only shows his complete ignorance of how Americans who serve (and millions who didn't) feel about the National Ensign.

Mark Hillman  Congress Fools With Light Bulbs   What is it about Washington, D.C., that turns the brains of otherwise intelligent people into mashed potatoes?

Mount Virtus  Where is the Common Sense Energy Agenda?   This country really needs to ask and answer the serious questions that will lead to a commonsense energy policy, rather than to prostrate itself to the Eco-High Priest Algore.

Gang of Four  Clinton vs. McCain  Paul Mirengoff at Powerline claims to have a hard time imagining how the Clintons would be able to smear John McCain, given his war record and status as a near national icon.  Here's how

Colorado Senate News  Dems deny bid in Senate to account for--maybe repay--Ritter property-tax hike  An annual budget resolution usually regarded as a formality among lawmakers became a potent reminder today that the state faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over a sweeping property-tax hike--and could wind up having to pay back the money.

Colorado Senate News Dem bill tilts toward trial lawyers--again--GOP charges  Democrat legislation that Capitol quipsters are calling the “Leave No Trial Lawyer Behind” bill passed a Senate committee today—setting the stage for what critics charge is yet another legislative session that places the interests of lawyers above business.

FTS  Court Makes Dem Activist Pay For Frivolous Lawsuit   There was only one problem – at the time Fink filed his complaint, the fund had not made any communications, and no electioneering communications. And, as the court concluded, Fink knew it.

FTS  Things Could Always Be Worse.” 

FTS  This just in... "Bitch Slap" Not Offensive! 

Colorado Charter Schools  Leadership Prep Lawsuit Settled   An El Paso County judge ruled that the charter of Leadership Preparatory was not revoked for racial reasons

Best Destiny  Florida Prediction  By the way, third place or below means near death and very limited play from here on out.

Best Destiny  Bartels Comes Back   What's partially amazing about this whole thing is that Bartels even bothers to tell this story. Normally, the "professional journalists" would have just sat on this story until the day after the election

Comment:  We're almost certain that a prediction based on the Florida military vote will not hold up for any number of reasons, but we have been wrong before.  There simply aren't enough of them to swing an election even if they did vote as a block.  They tend not to move their registration around, so the percentage of Florida voters who are military and overseas shouldn't be much higher than the percentage in any other state unless Florida recruiters are more successful than recruiters in other states.  For those few who do move their registration, Florida doesn't have any significant military presence, except as retirees.  It has no large (or even small) army, marine, or naval bases.  Not to worry. 

Falcon Survey

We borrowed this from Ben DeGrow's blog and are republishing it at the request of a mutual friend:  We are fairly confident that Ben won't mind.

He titled it Help Falcon Find A Parent Friendly, Visionary Education Leader

Looking for a quick way to make your voice heard on the importance of public education reform? Falcon School District 49 is a fast-growing district in El Paso County, a district where more creative choices and options could help make a big difference for families.

As its board searches for a new superintendent, Falcon is conducting a survey of what characteristics their new leader should have. There’s a few reasons why you should take the few minutes to participate, answer as many questions as you can, and let them know why non-traditional experience and outside-the-box visionary thinking is to be preferred to traditional establishment credentials that offer less chance to bring real reform:

1. If you live in Falcon 49, you will be most directly affected - both as one who pays a substantial share of the school tax and whose children and neighbors’ children are likely to attend the schools under the superintendent’s leadership.

2. If you live near Falcon 49, you have a right under Colorado open enrollment law to cross district lines and send your kids to any Falcon school that has room. A visionary superintendent may work with the board to create more parent-friendly education options.

3. If you live elsewhere in Colorado, a portion of your state taxes funds Falcon 49 schools. You have an interest in which direction the new superintendent takes the district.

4. Regardless where you live, you may someday be the employer, manager, or co-worker of a Falcon 49 graduate, and you want to ensure the best opportunities available by ensuring good, strong leadership with a parent-friendly, visionary superintendent.

What are you waiting for? Please take the survey!