YouCut….0.16% of the Budget

by Chuck Moe | 2:53 pm, May 15, 2010

If Republicans expect to convince true fiscal conservatives they are serious about deficit reduction they will have to do a lot better than this pathetic ‘You Cut’ effort.

Wheat Ridge Says ‘No Smoking For You’…Anywhere Outside

by Chuck Moe | 12:16 pm, May 15, 2010

Oh yes, Wheat Ridge will also allow you to smoke on your own private property…with the doors and windows closed…and the lights turned low.

John Berlau: It’s the nationalization, stupid

by Rossputin | 5:52 am, May 15, 2010

Over at BigGovernment.com, CEI’s John Berlau explains a truly frightening provision of Chris Dodd’s “regulatory reform” bill, a provision which gives government authority to shut down any company based on a suspicion that it might pose risk to the financial system.  The potential for political chicanery here is unlimited and Republicans must continue to block this bill until all such powers are removed from it and until regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are included in it…and even that really won’t be enough to turn this legislative equivalent of a burning bag of dog excrement into something worth supporting.

See “Dodd’s Bank Bill: Worse Than ObamaCare. It’s the Nationalization, Stupid!“

No Economic Recovery; Prepare For Inflationary “Meltup”

by Julian Dunraven | 9:53 pm, May 14, 2010

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.Honorable Friends:Your government is lying to you. We are not in economic recovery. We are merely experiencing a cash bubble through printing—inflation—and every day that bubble is in greater danger of bursting. When…

Sarah Palin touts Jane Norton as one of “pink elephants” crowd of GOP women who get things done

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 8:59 pm, May 14, 2010

What’s a “pink elephant”? A Republican woman running for elective office, according to Sarah Palin.
And she listed Colorado Senate candidate Jane Norton as one of the “pink elephants” who will stampede Washington, DC, this fall, according to wsj.com’s Washington Wire.
Was that an endorsement? Pretty close.
h/t The Spot.

I Dare You to Actually Read the Budget

by Julian Dunraven | 7:39 pm, May 14, 2010

By Rich Bratten, Actuary Government Underground I read through some of “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 – 2020″, published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2010, by Doug Elemndorf, Director of the CBO. Fascinating stuff… really… if you’re into horror stories. Given all of the recent talk about sovereign debt, [...]

John McCain to Host D.C. Fundraiser for 7th CD Candidate Lang Sias

by Ben DeGrow | 5:59 pm, May 14, 2010

A lot of hullabaloo has been made of late about U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton’s D.C. fundraisers. Less well known are the plans of 7th Congressional candidate Lang Sias. Four days after the 7th CD Assembly — in which Sias will struggle against the strong grassroots base of support for conservative Ryan Frazier to secure [...]

Are Andrew Romanoff, Michael Bennet so far to the left that they’re out of touch with most voters?

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 5:24 pm, May 14, 2010

Will the hard left’s candidate for the Democrats’ nomination to the U.S. Senate this year, Andrew Romanoff, cost the Democrats’ appointed Senator Michael Bennet his seat in the fall elections?
It’s been looking that way for some time despite Bennet’s very successful fundraising and the Republicans’ less than spectacular fundraising results so far. In today’s wsj.com, columnist Kim Strassel writes that several battles between the hard left and incumbent Democrats and those backed by the party’s establishment are dimming the Democrats’ chances of winning several seats in Colorado and other states. Her impact graphs:
Win or lose, the base’s candidates are pulling the Democratic field left. Colorado’s appointed Sen. Michael Bennet was intending to win re-election by keeping his head down, splitting the difference on tough issues. Then, last September, the grass roots fueled former Colorado House speaker Andrew Romanoff’s entrance into the race, who announced his support for an ObamaCare public option. Not to be outdone in a closed Democratic primary, Mr. Bennet became the Senate’s most vocal public-option supporter.
Unfortunately for both men, the winner will now be on record supporting a position few in Colorado’s general electorate share. In Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter was against the unpopular card check; thanks to Mr. Sestak he’s now for it. Mr. Fisher was ambiguous about the Democratic health bill, until, prodded by Ms. Brunner, he declared “100%” support. These are positions that can’t easily be dialed back.
This lurch toward liberal priorities coincides with polls showing that the electorate— particularly independents—has shifted significantly to the right since Mr. Obama took office. While some Republican primaries are proving bloody, most are turning out candidates largely in tune with today’s public frustration with Washington. 
The Democratic primaries, by contrast, are generating nominees who are embracing, or even going beyond, the president’s unpopular agenda. This is the feud that may have the bigger consequences for this fall’s midterms.

Student-Employee Ratios Show There’s More to Recent Colorado K-12 Layoffs

by Eddie | 5:23 pm, May 14, 2010

A quick Friday tidbit before your weekend, inspired by Mike Antonucci’s post “The Sound of Eyes Opening” and a comparison of the change in Ohio’s student population to the number of teachers at the Flypaper blog….
We hear a lot about Colorado school districts having to lay off teachers and other employees. It’s an unfortunate [...]

The Politically Correct University

by Jon Caldara | 4:55 pm, May 14, 2010

The “Fourth Estate” or Fourth “Branch”

by Jon Caldara | 4:47 pm, May 14, 2010

Reporters, members of the press, they’ve long considered themselves the “Fourth Estate,” meaning they are as essential to a free society as are the other parts of government. And notice how the press won’t say they’re the “4th branch of government” because that might suggest they are not independent of the government.
But look at a [...]

American Thinker

by Al Maurer | 12:24 pm, May 14, 2010

I’ve had American Thinker on the list of Blogs & Pundits since the very beginning of this blog but I have not emphasized it. It is, as the name indicates, a great site for think-pieces. I should read it a lot more often. Today, there’s a really good post named Will the GOP wake up [...]

Why is Americans for Job Security backing Ken Buck and Blanch Lincoln?

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 12:13 pm, May 14, 2010

Why is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spinoff, Americans for Job Security, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into ads supporting Ken Buck, a conservative Colorado Republican, and more than $1 million into ads for Senator Blanche Lincoln, a liberal Arkansas Democrat?
Does the secretive anti-tax and anti-union Virginia-based nonprofit’s support of Lincoln put Buck’s conservatism in to question, as Josh Penry, the campaign manager for Buck’s Republican opponent in the race for the GOP’s senate nomination, Jane Norton, asserts?

Republicans may win big, but voters don’t trust them any more than Democrats

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 10:39 am, May 14, 2010

Republicans appear to be headed for victories in this year’s elections, but voters don’t trust them as much as or any more than the despised Democrats, warns Morton M. Kondracke, a center-left pundit. Impact graphs:
That last number is a mark of how out of step Obama and his party are with the views of the country. According to a late-April Washington Post/ABC poll, by 56 percent to 40 percent, voters prefer a “smaller government” performing “fewer services” to a “larger government” doing more.
 But the poll showed that, by 77 percent to 15 percent, voters believe that Obama favors bigger government.
 Almost all the polls show a public deeply dissatisfied with the status quo, disapproving of most Obama policies and downright contemptuous of the Democratic Congress.

On Immigration, Too Many Conservatives Oppose Liberty

by Ari Armstrong | 9:55 am, May 14, 2010

The following article originally was published May 14, 2010, by Grand Junction’s Free Press.On immigration, too many conservatives oppose libertyby Linn and Ari ArmstrongRemember the good old days when conservatives advocated liberty, free markets, and…

Dan Henninger on the importance of not becoming Europe

by Rossputin | 4:14 am, May 14, 2010

I’m traveling today (and for the next few days, so my blogging will be short and sweet).  For today, please allow me to suggest the following sobering analysis by the WSJ’s Dan Henninger:

The We’re-Not-Europe Party

The bill comes due for a life of fairness at the expense of growth.

By DANIEL HENNINGER

 

One of the constant criticisms of Barack Obama’s first year is that he’s making us “more like Europe.” But that’s hard to define and lacks broad political appeal. Until now.

Any U.S. politician purporting to run the presidency of the United States should be asked why the economic policies he or she is proposing won’t take us where Europe arrived this week.

In an astounding moment, to avoid the failure of little, indulgent, profligate Greece, the European Union this week pledged nearly $1 trillion to inject green blood into Europe’s economic vampires.

For Americans, this has been a two-week cram course in what not to be if you hope to have a vibrant future. What was once an unfocused criticism of Mr. Obama and the Democrats, that they are nudging America toward a European-style social-market economy, came to awful life in the panicked, stricken faces of Europe’s leadership: Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown, Papandreou. They look like that because Europe has just seen the bond-market devil.

The bond market is a good bargain—if you live more or less within your means. The Europeans, however, pushed a good bargain into a Faustian bargain, which the world calls a sovereign debt crisis.

In the German legend, Faust was a scholar who sold his soul to the devil many years hence in return for a life now of intellectual brilliance and physical comfort. In our version of the legend, Europe’s governments told the devil that, more than anything, they wanted a life of social protection and income fairness no matter the cost. Life was good. A fortnight ago, the bond devil arrived and asked for his money.

In the U.S., the Obama White House and the Democrats have decided to wage politics into November by positioning the Republicans as the party of obstruction, which won’t vote for things the nation “needs,” such as ObamaCare. Some Republicans voting against these proposals seem to understand, as do their most ardent supporters, that they are opposing such ideas and policies because the Democrats have pushed far beyond the traditional centrist comfort zone of most Americans. A Democratic Party whose current budget takes U.S. spending from a recent average of about 21% of GDP up to 25% is outside that comfort zone. It’s headed toward the euro zone.

After Europe’s abject humiliation, the chance is at hand for the Republicans to do some useful self-definition. They should make clear to the American people that the GOP is “The We’re Not Europe Party.” Their Democratic opposition could not attempt such a claim because they do not wish to.

The state of Europe can be summed up in one word: stagnation. Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank president who just agreed to monetize the debt that Europeans can’t or won’t pay, noted in a 2006 speech that “over the period from 1996 to 2005, euro area output grew on average 1.3 percentage points less than in the U.S., and the gap appears to be persistent.”

Angus Maddison, the eminent European historian of world economic development who died days before Europe’s debt crisis, wrote in 2001: “The most disturbing aspect of West European performance since 1973 has been the staggering rise in unemployment. In 1994-8 the average level was nearly 11% of the labor force. This is higher than the depressed years of the 1930s.”

Stagnation isn’t death. Economies don’t die. Greece proves that. They slow down. Europe’s low growth rates allow its populations to pretend that real, productive work is being done somewhere by someone. But new jobs are created slowly, if at all. Younger workers lose heart.

Economic stagnation is a kind of purgatory. Once there, it’s not clear how you get out. The economist Douglass North, in his 1993 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, said that one of the vexing problems of his discipline is, “Why do economies once on a path of growth or stagnation tend to persist?” Japan also seems unable to free itself from stagnation.

The antidote to stagnation is economic growth. Not just growth, but strong growth. A 4% growth rate, which Europe will never see again, pays social dividends innumerably greater than 2.5% growth. Which path are we on?

Barack Obama would never say it is his intention to make the U.S. go stagnant by suppressing wealth creation in return for a Faustian deal on social equity. But his health system required an astonishing array of new taxes on growth industries. He is raising taxes on incomes, dividends, capital gains and interest. His energy reform requires massive taxes. His government revels in “keeping a boot on the neck” of a struggling private firm. Wall Street’s business is being criminalized.

Economic stagnation arrives like a slow poison. Look at the floundering United Kingdom, whose failed prime minister, Gordon Brown, said on leaving, “I tried to make the country fairer.” Maybe there’s a more important goal.

A We’re-Not-Europe Party would promise the American people to avoid and oppose any policy that makes us more like them and less like us.

Jupiter has lost a stripe!

by Rossputin | 4:02 am, May 14, 2010

H/T “astronomy geek” Mike R…

Every once in a while an astronomy news story hits which even the “general public” could find interesting…and those of us with a more than passing interest in science could find truly fascinating.

One such story came out earlier this week:

see “Jupiter loses one of its stripes and scientists are stumped as to why“

Health control legislation – impact on small business

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, May 14, 2010

A summary of HR 3590’s impact on small business, from the National Federation of Independent Businesses:

(via the Galen Institute)

I Dare You to Actually Read the Budget

by Rich Bratten | 11:49 pm, May 13, 2010

I read through some of “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 – 2020″, published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2010, by Doug Elemndorf, Director of the CBO.  Fascinating stuff… really… if you’re into horror stories. Given all of the recent talk about sovereign debt, potential downgrades of various countries’ credit [...]

Lang Sias continues to promote ‘defamatory e-mail’ attack on his record; it’s an old dirty trick

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 4:30 pm, May 13, 2010

In an e-mailed fundraising appeal in support of Lang Sias, a GOP candidate for Colorado’s CD-7 nomination, former U.S. Rep. from CD-7, Bob Beauprez, writes:
I would also encourage all of you to visit Lang’s website and read his Navy performance evaluations, which he released several weeks ago in response to a defamatory e-mail attack on his record. You’ll see poignant testimony to Lang’s courage, integrity, leadership and work ethic.
As I’ve pointed out before, it is very strange that Sias is promoting a “defmatory attack” on his record. It’s strange until you know that such a tactic is designed to imply that your leading opponent or his supporter is somehow responsible for that attack. 
In his autobiography, Courage and Consequence, Karl Rove says on page 77 that “Most elections are conducted among too many voters for an Internet smear or ugly flyer or whispered rumor to turn the contest.”
Taking a real or made up annoyomous smear and hyping it to gain attention and sympathy is  an old dirty trick. Most candidates and their campaign managers are too smart to use the ploy. Sias has been playing that card for several weeks, and now he’s sucked Beauprez into using it in a fundraising appeal. Shame on both men!
Meanwhile, conservative fellow blogger and Rocky Mountain Alliance member, Ben DeGrow, has written a long post questioning why Beauprez is supporting Sias. On the Peoples Press Collective version of his piece, a couple of commenters are wondering whether the strongly anti-abortion Beauprez, former Rep. Tom Tancredo and former CD-7 candidate, Jimmy Lakey, have a hidden social issues agenda and are promoting that agenda by backing Sias. Are they more worried about their social issues agenda than about beating incumbent Democrat, Ed Perlmutter. Apparently.
Ryan Frazier, the leading GOP candidate in CD-7, is as strong on the social issues as Sias is, according to DeGrow and others.

America’s Most Wanted Playing Cards

by Chuck Moe | 11:44 am, May 13, 2010

Planning a Texas Hold-Em party or just looking to play some Go-Fish with the kids? Then check out the new playing cards from TeaPartyPlayingCards.com.

Republicans have shot at picking up 4 seats in Colorado state senate

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 10:51 am, May 13, 2010

Ben DeGrow says Colorado Republicans have a better chance than they did at the beginning of the year of picking up the four seats they need to retake the state senate.

Karl Rove: Still too early to call elections, but it’s looking very good for GOP

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 10:31 am, May 13, 2010

Karl Rove analyzes the polls and fundraising by Republicans and Democrats and concludes it’s too early to call the elections, but the outlook is very good for Republicans. Impact graphs:
Democrats can take heart from their party’s cash position. At the end of March, the Democratic National Committee reported $15 million on hand, while the RNC had $11 million, down substantially from the $23 million it had when Mr. Obama took office. The Democratic Congressional campaign had $26 million to House Republicans’ $10 million, while the Senate GOP was keeping things close, with $15 million to Senate Democrats’ $17 million.
Individual Republican candidates fare better in competitive Congressional races. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, GOP Senate candidates have collectively raised $176.3 million, outpacing Democrats’ $133 million. GOP House candidates have raised $240 million to Democrats’ $254 million.
But spending isn’t everything. In 2006, the six GOP Senate incumbents who lost outspent their opponents by a 1.65-to-1 ratio and the 22 defeated GOP House incumbents outspent their opponents 1.53 to 1.

SB 191 Passes: “Landmark Day” Shifting Colorado’s Education Reform Turf

by Eddie | 10:30 am, May 13, 2010

Update: Another Independence Institute friend and legal guru Dave Kopel has put up a thoughtful post about SB 191 over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Check it out.
Angel choirs are singing, Hallelujah! Colorado’s legislative session is O-V-E-R. Finished. Done. The hot-button education issue SB 191 passed on the last day of session. Though amended to water [...]

Kagan Humor

by Rossputin | 9:56 am, May 13, 2010

From Jim Hughes at HumanEvents.com:

I have to say that even when he was affiliated with the Clintons, Dick Morris would never stoop so low as to support (or father) a true socialist…

Who is Elena Kagan’s hero? One guess…

by Mary Smith | 8:16 am, May 13, 2010

What makes Barack Obama, Barack Obama? Elena Kagan, the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court, knew long ago that he wasn’t just a community organizer but “a hero.” There were the “rock star qualities that he has, the eloquence, the magnetism, the g…

How many Colorado candidates are running Karl Rove’s type of campaigns?

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 7:27 am, May 13, 2010

How many Colorado Republican candidates are running “Rovian” campaigns this year? How many Democrats are?
Although President Barack Obama obviously adopted many of Karl Rove’s tactics and expanded on his advanced use of voter data bases and internet technology to wage a winning campaign in 2008, only a few Colorado candidates seem to executing the Rovian campaign strategies.
In his autobiography, Courage and Consequence, My life as a Conservative in the Fight, Rove devotes a chapter to explaining the Rovian strategy. He uses a three or four other chapters to give his version of what happen in various campaigns that he ran, including President George W. Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns and his campaigns for president in 2000 and 2004 and his campaigns for Republicans in the off-year Congressional elections of 2002 and 2006. Rove also attempts to knock down what he calls “the Rove myth” or legend and to settle scores with political and media critics. And he admits to several important political mistakes and misjudgments. Nobody’s perfect. The rest of the book is devoted to putting Rove’s very positive spin on Bush’s foreign and domestic policy decisions, which most readers will take with various sizes of grains of salt.
For candidates, their strategists and their supporters, the chapter “What is a Rovian Campaign” is the most interesting and worth the price of the book. Rove says there are eight “hallmarks” to a Rovian campaign, and the first four are critical.

“A campaign must be first centered on big ideas that reflect the candidate’s philosophy and views and that are perceived by voters as important and relevant.”
A campaign must be “persistent in pursuing this strong, persuasive theme in a way that resonates with what voters know.
Use historical data to figure out a candidate’s opportunities to find more votes—precinct by precinct and county by county.
Publicly available data should be put into sophisticated models that can help identify potential supporters and match them with issues in ways that will get them to turn out for an election.
Criticize opponents in focused attacks on substantial, not trivial issues and openly with facts that can be backed up, preferably with the opponent’s own words as shown on You Tube.
Every campaign needs a strategic plan and the discipline and bias for action to execute it.
Make broad use of “volunteer-friendly” technology.
Resources count: knowledge and information for the candidate, volunteers who will help get out the vote and money.

Rove puts his hallmarks in context throughout the book. He’s a good story teller and writer. And, as mentioned above, he’s very loyal to the Bushes and his other clients. What Rove doesn’t cover very well is how Bush raised record amounts for his campaigns. Nor does he discuss in great detail how 527 and other outside groups affected his campaigns. 

Chatting with Tom Wiens: Colorado Republican Candidate for U.S. Senate

by Julian Dunraven | 7:08 am, May 13, 2010

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.Honorable Friends:Thanks to profligate spending policies, bailouts, stimulus packages, and unprecedented extensions of Federal power, I have a good deal of confidence that Democrats will suffer many defeats in the upcomi…

The Politically Correct University

by Jon Caldara | 6:55 am, May 13, 2010

A higher education marks an important chapter in one’s life, but what happens when this chapter is being distorted by a demonstrable lack of intellectual diversity and debate? Author Robert Maranto joins me to discuss a number of the problems, the scope, and reforms for higher education that are in his new book The [...]

Colorado 2010 State Senate Showdown: GOP Challengers Gain Momentum

by Ben DeGrow | 6:44 am, May 13, 2010

It’s been a long time since I offered up rankings of the Colorado state senate races most likely to switch party hands this fall. Now that the latest voter registration numbers are available, campaign finance reports are in and the legislature is out of session, it’s time to take a fresh look.
Just for review, there [...]

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