10 Things That Terrify Left-Wingers

by Chuck Moe | 3:02 pm, June 25, 2010

With all the left mainstream media and left-wing blogs describing right-wing “tea partiers” as racist, backwards, conspiracy theorists I thought I’d make up my own list of 10 Things That Terrify Left-Wingers. These are the things that keep American Liberals awake at night.

CU Regents Vote To Appeal Gun Ruling

by Meg | 2:50 pm, June 25, 2010

The University of Colorado Board of Regents voted this morning to appeal the court decision that allows concealed weapons on campus.  The vote was 5-4, along party lines except for Tillie Bishop, a Republican who voted with Democrats to appeal. CU president Bruce Benson ignored the numerous statistics presented by Regent Jim Geddes and instead trotted [...]

US Dept of Illegal Alien Labor

by Mr. Bob | 2:18 pm, June 25, 2010

#malkin #tcot #illegals #teapartyPresident Obama’s Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is supposed to represent American workers. What you need to know is that this longtime open-borders sympathizer has always had a rather radical definition of “American.” At …

Americans Look to Big Ideas of Liberty: Resurgence of Ayn Rand

by Ari Armstrong | 11:15 am, June 25, 2010

The following article originally was published June 25 by Grand Junction’s Free Press.Americans look to big ideas of libertyby Linn and Ari ArmstrongWe are pleased to see that Americans are taking big ideas more seriously. After television personality …

AG John Suthers Collects a Ton of Data to Defend Lobato School Finance Case

by Eddie | 10:11 am, June 25, 2010

As the boss Jon Caldara noted yesterday, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers took time this week to talk to my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow about the latest with that school funding lawsuit. Lobato, you’ve heard of it? Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to the 12-minute interview:

A quick [...]

Mary Smith – McChrystal summoned to the principal’s (president’s) office

by Kelly Maher | 9:39 am, June 25, 2010

This week on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox, WhoSaidYouSaid co-founder Mary Smith made the salient analogy of the White House’s public relations “summonings” to a trip to the principal’s office. She’s not so sure, though, that Hannity is going to get the “…

Civil Disobedience

by Al Maurer | 8:00 am, June 25, 2010

Today is my birthday and I thought I was going to take the day off. Nancy Pelosi had other plans. You see, Thursday night she rammed HR 5175, the DISCLOSE Act, through the House by the now familiar 219 – 206 vote. This is a blatantly unconstitutional act that targets the Tea Party movement. As [...]

What’s wrong with Erick Erickson?

by Rossputin | 7:12 am, June 25, 2010

In his latest salvo against Jane Norton at RedState.com, Erick Erickson takes on the worst characteristics of the complaints he levels against the Norton campaign, not least when he describes Josh Penry as Norton’s “angry young campaign manager.”

Erickson’s zeal in supporting Ken Buck strikes me as odd, given his public admission that he believes Jane Norton is a true conservative.

Erickson also mentions a poll which, showing Ken Buck with a 16 point lead, is patently ridiculous.  Nobody who is paying attention in Colorado – including in-the-kn0w Buck supporters – believes such is the case.  And then Erickson somehow fails to mention a newer poll which shows Norton ahead of Buck (by a fairly small margin.)  Yes, it’s a poll that the Norton campaign paid for and, like all polls and especially polls regarding primaries, it deserves skepticism – just as the polls which show Buck leading do.  Buck might be leading; Norton might be leading.  But nobody is leading by 16 points.

Erickson simply parrots the Buck campaign’s weak-kneed criticisms of Jane, that her campaign has become negative (a ridiculous statement, particularly in comparison to the actions and spending of Buck supporters, including his former employer at a construction firm which gets plenty of government stimulus money) or that Jane’s staff are making decisions for her.  I can’t say I sit in their campaign headquarters and see who does what, but I can say from spending time with Jane that she is smart and principled.

As for John McCain, how much more does Norton need to say to get anti-McCain fanatics to realize that trying to paint Norton with that brush is unfair?  (And I say that as someone who wrote and said on the air that I would not vote for McCain because “if he represents winning then we’ve already lost.”)  Norton has said that McCain was/is wrong about essentially every issue where McCain drives conservatives crazy: immigration, campaign finance, cap and trade to name a few.

Just as ideas aren’t responsible for those who believe them, Jane isn’t responsible for the fact that her sister married a McCain supporter.  I’m sure plenty of good people whom Erick has supported have friends less desirable than Charlie Black…not that I have any reason to think Black is a bad guy despite his occasionally poor taste in politicians.

And while I’m a huge fan of Jim DeMint, I’m a little tired of hearing repeatedly how DeMint has endorsed Ken Buck.  Maybe it’s because the majority of well-known conservative endorsements, including Tom Coburn as well as Colorado conservatives like Bill Armstrong and Mark Hillman, have gone to Norton.

Separately, I simply think that Norton is more electable, probably much more electable, in the general election, an issue I’ve discussed elsewhere while explaining that I would not look at “electability” (which has become quite a bad word in Republican politics for good reason) unless a candidate were sound on principle and policy.  I would not (and did not) support Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey, for example, even though Specter was more “electable” in 2004; I supported Toomey.  But this is not a race like that.  Norton and Buck are both solid conservatives, both smart, and both to my knowledge decent people.  At the end of the day, I want to beat Michael “Who?” Bennet (I don’t think Romanoff can win that primary), and I think Jane has a much better chance of doing so.

I don’t think Ken Buck is a bad guy or a bad candidate.  I think Erick Erickson feels the same way about Jane Norton.  This makes his going all-in to attack her all the more strange and disconcerting.  It’s weird to hear a guy fight so hard against a candidate while hardly ever talking about the actual candidate.  (He’s spending much more time bad-mouthing Josh Penry, who isn’t running for anything, than talking about Norton.) Makes it seem like there’s something else going on here.  Doesn’t Erick have a liberal to try to beat somewhere, rather than getting involved in a fight between two conservatives?  Can you say “Georgia”, Erick?

Dems destroying our republic with remarkable speed

by Rossputin | 6:34 am, June 25, 2010

Last night, the House of Representatives on a 219-206 vote passed the DISCLOSE Act, their latest assault on free speech rights of everyone but unions.  It’s their push-back against the long overdue ruling in Citizens United, a ruling which overturned some of the most egregious provisions of the McCain-Feingold “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act” (BCRA).

The politics of passing the measure were, like most of what the Democrats do lately, at least as interesting as the content:  In order to avoid opposition by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Democrats created a carve-out from the free speech restrictions for a group which more than a million members which has existed for more than a decade and which gets less than 15% of its funding from corporations.  Wouldn’t you know it…the NRA is the only organization which fits the description.  The Dems ended up adding a few more exceptions which covered left-leaning groups like AARP and Sierra Club.

As an NRA member, I can say with certainty that I will not renew my membership when it expires and I encourage all other NRA members to do the same, and to contact the NRA and express your displeasure with their acting like…well, like liberals.

As if the content of the law, including such things as saying the CEO of a corporation much appear in an ad paid for by the corporation, isn’t onerous and unconstutional enough, this two-tier implementation creating second-class citizens in terms of free speech is obviously unconstitutional as well.

However, it’s somewhat unlikely that the Supreme Court will ever hear a test case because this bill is somewhat unlikely to pass the Senate…and if it doesn’t pass the Senate now, it probably never will.

Then, this morning, it is being reported that House and Senate conferees reached agreement on a “financial reform” package.  I haven’t yet seen the details on what they’ve done with some controversial proposed law regarding derivatives trading.  No matter what they do, it will raise the cost of capital in America and hurt companies who use derivatives to hedge various risks.

Even worse than the derivatives stuff is the Consumer Protection Agency which will be created.  It will make loans much more expensive and difficult to get as some government bureaucrat looks over the shoulder of lending institutions saying at the same time that they’d better not “discriminate” in who gets a loan (code for “give money to people who probably won’t pay it back”) while simultaneously presuming lenders to be at fault rather than the borrowers if a loan goes bad.  This thing will be the herpes of the credit market, never ever really going away even if, from time to time, it seems to have been tamed.  Repeal, which will be desired by many, will be extremely difficult politically.  So we’ll be saddled with this extra layer of nanny-state meddling cost-raising government for many years to come.  Oh, and there’s already at least one carve-out in that legislation, too: The “consumer protection” stuff about loans doesn’t apply to car dealers.

Watching these Dems in action is enough to make one sick.  There is no level they won’t stoop to in order to pass their economy- and republic-destroying “transformation” of America.  They don’t seem to realize that Americans know our nation’s relatively modest structural problems don’t call for wholesale changes to everything we hold dear in order to solve them.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics: CNS News butchers tax data analysis

by Rossputin | 5:50 am, June 25, 2010

Imagine a news story which analyzed hurricane damage to the United States, almost all of which happens along coastal areas of the Gulf Coast and Atlantic states from Texas to Florida and slightly north, perhaps to the Carolinas, with far less frequent and far lesser damage as you move even slightly in from the coastline.  Now imagine that story described the data as showing that “Hurricane damage is primarily suffered outside the American northwest”.  Such a conclusion implies both that some people who suffer little or no damage are hurt by hurricanes as well as missing the point entirely that almost all the damage is borne along a relatively narrow swath of land around a fraction of the American coast.  In essence, although the statement is indeed technically correct, it gives the most misleading possible interpretation of the data; indeed it is so misleading that it could only be written by a person with a particular agenda.

And so it is with the CNS News report on a new CBO study about who pays how much federal tax, including income taxes, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, and excise taxes.  The report offers us this remarkable statement: “Middle-class Americans–not the rich or the poor–pay the majority of annual tax revenues taken in by the federal government, according to data released in a new Congressional Budget Office study…Middle-class households that earned between $34,300 and  $141,900 paid 50.5 percent of all federal tax revenues in 2007 (the most recent year analyzed….”
Indeed, I have rarely seen an article so excellently prove Mark Twain’s assertion that “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

The degree of liberal propaganda inherent in the CNS characterization of the tax data, even if technically accurate, is all the more surprising given the author, Terence Jeffrey, a well-known conservative columnist who also writes for Human Events magazine, as I do from time to time.

Although I can only interpolate the CBO data, which isn’t easy on a non-linear sequence without doing some real math, a reasonable eye-ball guess implies that the top 7% of households pay 50% of all federal taxes and something approaching 70% of federal income taxes.

If I might mix metaphors, the CNS News summary of the data is like saying that the majority of murders in Michigan happen in the eastern half of the state, even though more than 80% of them happen (I’m guessing…I haven’t looked it up) in Detroit.
So while it is true that the households earning and adjusted income between $34,300 and $141,900, which represents earning levels from 40% to 95% of all households ranked by household income, a huge percentage pay very little tax.  Those who earn from $34,300 to $50,000 paid only 9.2% of all federal taxes – and represent 20% of households.

To put that in perspective, that particular 20% of American households – 23 million households, which is the quintile covering from 10% below the median household to 10% above the median household, truly the definition of “middle America”, pay less than one third as much in federal taxes as the top 1%: that 1.2 million households pay 28% of all federal taxes.

The next quintile up, representing 23 million households earning from 60% to 80% along the household income scale, from $50,000 to $74,700, pay 16.5% of all federal taxes, a little more than 1/3 as much as paid by the 6 million households in the top 5%.
So, CNS’s description of the data is wildly misleading.  Instead of saying that those earning from 40% to 95% of the income range pay 50% of all federal taxes, he could (and should) have shown how massively punishing of success our tax code is.

Other ways to describe who pays 50% could include (roughly): those earning from 60% to 97%, or those earning from 25% to 99%. But even these would intentionally, as the CNS article does, miss the incredible burden heaped on our highest earners by our “progressive” (which is to say jealous and anti-success) tax system by excluding that top 1% entirely (28% of all federal taxes) and not making it clear that the top 5% pay over 44% of all federal taxes.

And as if all this weren’t enough, this entire analysis is somewhat misleading, making the burden on upper income earners seem relatively less than it is, because it includes payroll (“Social Insurance”) taxes.  Those taxes, which the rich still pay most of, represent (roughly the top 25% paying 50% of those taxes) are indeed the highest taxes that lower income earners pay.

But if you assume that government will find some way to honor its Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid obligations, the poor and relatively poor will get disproportionate gain from these services.  Although we all know that Social Security isn’t really savings or insurance, to the extent that there is a theoretical connection between contributions now and what you get paid later, the payroll taxes paid by lower income earners in particular is something more like forced savings.  For upper income earners, they will likely receive much lower or even negative “rates of return” on these taxes, especially the money going to Medicare and Medicaid.  So these payroll taxes really are taxes to them, whereas they’re something closer to investment for lower earners.  (A very bad investment to be sure, but at least they can expect to receive at least what they contribute, not least because of the politics of Ponzi schemes.)

What should really be looked at, then, is what share of individual Federal Income Tax collections is paid by which income groups. And these punishment of higher earners remains something that would make Karl Marx smile.

The top 1% paid 39.5% of the individual Federal Income Tax in 2007; the top 5% paid 61%.  The “middle class” which CNS for some reason wants to portray as the martyrs in our system, those in the same $34,400 to $141,900 group Mr. Jeffrey described to begin with (40% – 95% on the household adjusted income scale) then drop to 42%, but about 60% of that 42% is paid by the top 27% of that sample.

Of those earning in the 10% on either side of the 50% mark, they pay in total only 4.2% of the federal Individual Income Tax.

And, as socialist as it sounds – because socialist it is – those earning between 20% and 40% on the scale, between $20,500 and $34,300, pay a negative 0.3% of taxes and the lowest quintile, from zero to $20,500 pay a negative 3% tax rate because of transfer payments received from people who really do pay taxes.

Beyond the wildly misleading direction of the CNS article in terms of economics, it’s strange politics as well for a conservative-leaning organization and a conservative-leaning writer.  Mr. Jeffrey must understand that this nation is “soaking the rich” in a way which is unsustainable and yet gives aid and comfort to the Progressive enemy with his ridiculous inferences from the data.  I’d understand if George Soros put out this junk, but I can’t figure out what Terence Jeffrey’s motivation was or whether he just signed his name to something someone else wrote – which I doubt.

If you ever read a report of hurricane damage distribution in the US from CNS News, you might want to check the data, especially if it says that you’re safe in Seattle. Like their analysis of the CBO’s latest “who pays what” tax data, it’s true but could hardly be more misleading.

(In the interest of fairness, in case I’m missing something here, I will try to get word of my note to Mr. Jeffrey and will update this note or post a separate future note with his comments.)

Tolerance: Judge Receives Death Threats for Ruling

by PerlStalker | 11:48 pm, June 24, 2010

The kind, tolerant, non-violent Left displays it’s true colors. Judge Martin Feldman, who recently ruled that Ken Salazar’s drilling moratorium was illegal, is now receiving death threats.

The Left calls Tea Partiers violent. They attack those of us …

Ken Buck’s record as Federal prosecutor looks clean

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 10:30 pm, June 24, 2010

ExPat ExLawyer analyzes Ken Buck’s record as a Federal prosecutor and says she wishes more prosecutors operated as ethically as he did. Nevertheless, Jane Norton, his GOP opponent in the race fro the Republicans’ nomination to the U.S. Senate, and Democrats are trying to pretend that Buck acted unprofessionally. I’m no lawyer and am not quite sure how to evaluate this information, but as a layman, I think a lot of noise is being made about nothing for political purposes.

Which Ken Buck-Jane Norton Poll Is Most Trustworthy? I Say Magellan

by Ben DeGrow | 7:08 pm, June 24, 2010

I’m not the only one who has noticed the apparent desperation from the Jane Norton campaign. Fellow RMA and PPC blogger Don Johnson, frequently criticized for showing favoritism to the former lieutenant governor, now says that a Norton victory would make her “the miracle candidate of the year.” Among other things, Johnson describes a newly [...]

Gun Rights Questions for Norton and Buck

by Ari Armstrong | 6:30 pm, June 24, 2010

By encouraging a Denver Post story blasting Ken Buck conveniently timed just before primary voting, Jane Norton has turned gun laws into a campaign issue. The upshot is that Buck used to work for the U.S. Attorney’s office under Democrat Tom Strickland…

Ken Buck Goes Public on U.S. Atty. Friction with Strickland

by Laura Victoria | 3:49 pm, June 24, 2010

Ken Buck, the leading Republican candidate for Colorado’s U.S. Senate race,  just made files available to the public from his years at the U.S. Attorney’s office documenting his concerns about a weak case former U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland wanted to file against some pawn shop owners.  Buck turned materials on the case (that included private [...]

Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold discusses the Colorado Supreme Court, retention elections, and Chief Justice Mullarkey’s retirement at the Mountain Republican Women’s Club dinner Thursday

by CTBC Director | 3:03 pm, June 24, 2010

Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold discusses the impact of Colorado Supreme Court rulings leading to a massive expansion of government power (at the expense of YOUR constitutional rights) and vastly increased taxation (such as the “Mill Levy Tax Freeze” property tax increase, the “Dirty Dozen” tax increases and of course the Colorado Car Tax (er, “vehicle [...]

Once again, the White House trying to demand a deal, not solve a problem

by Mary Smith | 1:00 pm, June 24, 2010

We’ve underestimated the White House once again. WhoSaidYouSaid eagerly awaited their response to the claim by U.S. Sen Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. that President Obama told him in a private Oval Office meeting that, “‘The problem is…if we secure the border, th…

Petitioning on the Ballot in Teller County

by Al Maurer | 12:20 pm, June 24, 2010

I wrote on June 12 about petitioning on to the ballot statewide. Candidates who did so had rejection rates of over 40% which seems quite high. After all, the only requirement to sign such a petition is that the signer be a registered voter of the party in question and living in the appropriate jurisdiction. [...]

The AG on That Other Lawsuit

by Jon Caldara | 12:11 pm, June 24, 2010

Attorney General John Suthers is a very busy man, so we appreciate his taking time out to do a podcast with our Education Policy Center. Ben DeGrow was the lucky one who delivered an informative podcast with the AG about the ongoing Lobato v. State K-12 education funding case.
In this case, the [...]

Scott McInnis ducks the press, bloggers, Dan Maes, reality

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 12:02 pm, June 24, 2010

Scott McInnis will have a very difficult time winning the governor’s race in Colorado. 
He is showing that he is not prepared to be governor. That’s because in Colorado the job of the governor is mostly to provide leadership. Providing leadership involves talking to the press, communicating effectively and keeping your foot out of your mouth.
It also requires integrity, which McInnis has a big problem with.
McInnis avoids the press and makes excuses that look like blatant white lies. The press and bloggers like me report our disturbing encounters with McInnis, and this makes him look bad to everyone who is paying attention. Sooner or later, the word gets out. McInnis is so insecure and dishonest that one wonders what kind of governor he would be. It is not a pretty picture.
I want a Republican to be governor, but I don’t want a dishonest, incompetent and insecure governor who can’t and won’t deal with the media and public. He got away with blowing off the Hasan Family Foundation and he thinks he can blow off Colorado voters.
That won’t happen.
It looks like McInnis is handing the governor’s mansion to John Hickenlooper, an Obama Demcrat who should be easy to beat in the fall. 
What a sad mess.

D.C. Vouchers Bring Better Results for Students, Shouldn’t Be Killed

by Eddie | 10:21 am, June 24, 2010

A little earlier this week the U.S. Department of Education released the research results from the final evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). What did it say? Basically, an admission that the very small program hasn’t had any tremendous impacts — oh yeah, except for this one:
The Program significantly improved students’ chances of [...]

McChrystal

by Rossputin | 5:27 am, June 24, 2010

I’m traveling today so I’m going to keep this short:

McChrystal was right to offer his resignation and Obama was right to accept it.

Any other decision would not only have looked weak in terms of domestic politics but also within the military, regardless of how popular General Stanley McChrystal was or wasn’t within his own theater of command.

Let’s be clear about something, however: almost none of the truly offensive comments (at least offensive to those whom they were about) in the Rolling Stone article were actually made by McChrystal.  But the number and tone of comments made by his subordinates are, like it or not, clearly his responsibility.

While Obama’s words about civilian control of the military are laughable given how little he cares about restraining government power elsewhere, he was right to say that this sort of public divisiveness coming from a senior military commander and his direct subordinates is unacceptable.

As for choosing David Petraeus to replace McChrystal, it’s an understandible but still interesting choice.  Petraeus couldn’t say no when the commander-in-chief calls on him to serve the country, but the job is technically a demotion; Petraeus was, after all, McChrystal’s boss until today.  It will be interesting to see whether Obama tries to have Petraeus continue to hold the top job at Centcom as well as running the Afghan theater or whether he promotes someone else into Centcom, possibly making Petraeus’ demotion effectively permanent or at least much more difficult to undo.

There’s a lot of risk for everyone here.  Afghanistan is now Obama’s war much more than the economy is, in the public’s view, Obama’s economy.  If he fails in Afghanistan, history will not treat him kindly even if somehow he were to stop his disastrous domestic agenda.  There’s a lot of risk to Petraeus who now has almost mythical status as the guy who turned around the Iraq War (despite the way the Democrats, including Obama, trashed him in 2006 and 2007.)  If he can salvage some sort of “victory” in Afghanistan, something which needs to be defined before it can even be attempted, there’s a decent chance Petraeus could be president within a decade.  If he fails, he and Obama fall hard.

Perhaps the only person whose risk has been diminished is Stanley McChrystal, who can no longer be blamed for what seems to be an increasingly likely failure or at least lack of success. However, one might say that he’s already risked and lost a hell of a lot so maybe his risk is lower simply because he now has much less left to lose.

At the end of the day, Obama’s firing of McChrystal was the right move, indeed the only realistic move.  And, as much as I hate to see it, it actually gave Obama the chance to look reasonably resolute and reasonably presidential for a few moments during these weeks or months of Gulf oil crisis and ineptitude.  I do think that any bump in Obama’s poll numbers because of his at-least-adequate performance today will be short lived; McChrystal is gone so the foil is gone, Afghanistan is still a mess, and the Gulf of Mexico is even messier. In both Afghanistan and the Gulf, Obama has a combination of questionable leadership (by himself, primarily, but also by some senior staff) and bad luck weighing on the public’s view of his competence and it’s very hard to see either of those problems being resolved very quickly though I sure hope the Gulf oil flow is stemmed and stopped ahead of schedule and that effective clean-up methods are found.  Whatever political damage is being done to Barack Obama is nice, but it’s absolutely not worth this price.

Midweek update – Citizens respond to Denver Post guest commentary defending Colorado Supreme Court incumbents

by CTBC Director | 11:45 pm, June 23, 2010

Recently, defenders of the judicial status quo weighed in with a guest commentary in the Denver Post promoting the retention of judicial incumbents generally (and defending Chief Justice Mullarkey specifically).  The piece (written by a career politician) called “Criticism of retiring Judge (sic) Mullarkey unfair” and attempted to characterize any critique or assessment of judicial [...]

Dear Mayor Hickenlooper, why so shy?

by Kelly Maher | 5:17 pm, June 23, 2010

We’d love to show you what Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper said about his jobs plan for Colorado. Oh wait, we can’t. His campaign wouldn’t let us videotape his announcement in Commerce City this morning.http://www.youtube.com/watch…

Every move Jane Norton makes looks desperate

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 3:08 pm, June 23, 2010

Jane Norton appears to be losing to Ken Buck in their race for the GOP’s nomination to the U.S. Senate.
And she obviously has known that for some time, because every move she’s made over the last month has looked desperate.
Even before Louisville, CO-based Magellan Data Mapping Strategies released a poll showing Buck was leading Norton by 10 points, she was running TV commercials that promised the impossible—the repeal of ObamaCare and victory in Afghanistan. Then she put up the ugliest home page I’ve seen in a long time promoting her promise to win in Afghanistan. Her campaign needs an editor.
Now, after having her campaign manager, Josh Penry, scoff at the Magellan poll, which has been more than confirmed by a SurveyUSA poll for the Denver Post and Channel 9, Norton has released an unbelievable poll of 400 Coloradans that shows she’s leading Buck by six points, give or take about five points.
Why is Norton in trouble? She seems to be using poll results to fine tune her message. Karl Rove says candidates who hold up their fingers and follow the latest polls instead of talking about what they want to do and about their values lose. That seems to be Norton’s problem. While she’s as smart and conservative as Buck, she’s coming across to voters as less committed and more shallow than he is. She’s being out campaigned, and she’s losing the personality contest—so far.
If Norton wins the primary, she’ll be the miracle candidate of the year. Norton may be the candidate of the GOP establishment, but Buck obviously is the candidate of the conservative establishment.
LINKS:
Poll: Buck, Bennet lead in U.S. Senate primary races. By Michael Booth.
Why is Ken Buck leading Jane Norton by 10 points? The Business Word, 6.11.2010.
Jane Norton for Colorado.
Buck for Colorado.

Another Victory in Court!

by Mike Krause | 2:41 pm, June 23, 2010

Independence Institute president Jon Caldara’s efforts to put his “Right To Health Care Choice” citizens amendment on Colorado’s November ballot got a boost this week from the Colorado Supreme Court, which heard a challenge to the initiative’s title.  From Law Week Colorado:
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that proposed initiative 45, which would prohibit state [...]

Advice to Tea Parties

by Al Maurer | 11:55 am, June 23, 2010

Things are getting tough. In the last week the Northern Colorado Tea Party was criticized for inviting then dis-inviting Representative Steve King from Iowa to speak at their “Remember November” event. Some remarks he made  just a few days before made him too hot a property from them and for the campaign of Republican Cory [...]

Education Jobs Bailout Makes Even Less Sense In Light of the Big Picture

by Eddie | 11:43 am, June 23, 2010

It’s a remarkable thing — or maybe it just says that much about Congress — that our representatives in D.C. are still considering the bad policy known as the $23 billion education jobs bailout. Maybe some members of Congress are searching desperately for a way to justify more profligate spending in the face of an [...]

Shoot it, Slam it and Smoke it with Nick Gillespie and the Independence Institute

by Mike Krause | 10:41 am, June 23, 2010

The Independence Institute will be sponsoring its eighth annual Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) Sporting Clay Shoot on Saturday, July 17, at the Kiowa Creek Sporting Club in Bennett, Colo. Click Here for a Map of the Area.
This is the most fun, most politically incorrect event of the year, where attendees of all skill levels [...]

Wednesday morning market note: hard to be bullish here

by Rossputin | 8:24 am, June 23, 2010

The stock market opened the day Wednesday (6/23/10) essentially flat but was hit fairly hard soon after the opening by news of a 33% plunge in new home sales for the month of May, far worse than the 19% drop which had been expected due to the end of government home-buying tax credits.  While I wouldn’t read too much into new home statistics – they represent a much smaller part of residential real estate than do existing homes – existing home numbers show only modest improvement in recent months and were down in May.  The only bright spot is a very small (just under 3%) increase in median price from a year ago, but that feels quite fragile to me.

Following on two ugly days, yesterday particularly so, I would not be surprised to see the market fall below 10,000 on the Dow and retest a key S&P 500 support level around 1040 – and probably fail there.  (I’m not suggesting it’s going to happen today or even in the next week, but I think it will happen within a few weeks.)

I agree with those who say there is another leg down coming in the market, in housing, and in the economy, due primarily three factors, roughly in this order of importance:

1. The coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts
2. The tax hikes included in the ObamaCare legislation, particularly increases in the capital gains tax which I think will be particularly damaging to the stock market in Q3 and early Q4 this year
3. Regulatory uncertainty about whether ObamaCare can or will be defunded and then repealed
4. Regulatory uncertainty about cap-and-trade
5. Uncertainty about energy costs due to Obama’s moratorium and the broadly anti-energy position it signifies, even separate from cap-and-trade
6. Longer-term fear of huge deficits leading to even higher taxes
7. Broad concern that a Democrat government increasingly viewed as hyper-partisan and, worse, fundamentally incompetent will make other as-yet not widely discussed terrible policy decisions, and
8. A strengthening US Dollar

I think our best case for the next year is a roughly flat-line economy. It’s hard to imagine any surprises to the positive and easy, especially in such a fragile situation, to imagine negative surprises.

In general, my take is that most asset classes are overpriced, including stocks, government bonds, and commodities.  If I’m right, some coming market action could leave almost no place to hide (although it’s unlikely that bonds will do badly ad the same time that everything else does badly – I think bonds will hold up for a little while while other stuff falls, and then bonds will fall later.)

One trading note: Whenever I am having a hard time forumlating an opinion about what the market is likely to do in the short term, I ask myself “what would probably surprise the most people?”  So, if the market looks ugly and you hear everyone on TV saying it’s definitely going lower, look for a rip-your-face-off short-covering rally, squeezing out shorts and getting panicky money managers who are sitting on cash to jump back in, before heading lower again.

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• Judge Rules Americans Can Be Forced to Testify Against Themselves

  In order to protect our rights, our security must be protected. In order to protect our security, our rights must be invaded. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

• World Economic Forum in Switzerland: Global Elites Celebrating Hypocrisy
• SCOTUS decision on warrantless GPS surveillance produces an expected friend of privacy
• You didn’t want your Fifth Amendment rights, anyway, did you?
• Keynesian Economists Finally Catch Up and Agree: China to Have Hard Landing
• The Beauty of Private Property—from China?
• Regime Uncertainty, Regulatory Surge, and Unemployment Numbers