PPC Contributors on Regis University Radio Tonight at 6pm

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 2:43 pm, November 11, 2010

PPC Contributors Elliot Fladen and Bob Clark joining Host Jimmy Sengenberger on Regis Seng Center Radio Show Tonight at krcx.org ————————— Tonight at 6pm online at krcx.org, host Jimmy Sengenberger of the Regis University Seng Center radio show will be joined by two bloggers and PPC contributors for a topic-toss discussion on the elections, ideological [...]

You Down With the CCJJ? Yeah You Know Me!

by Jon Caldara | 12:51 pm, November 11, 2010

Ever heard of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (or CCJJ)? On this week’s Devil’s Advocate, I am joined by Colorado State Public Defender Doug Wilson and Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, both members of the commission, to check on what issues the commission has taken up this year, and what kind [...]

Colorado and Most Other States Face Plenty of Catching Up in Advanced Math

by Eddie | 12:27 pm, November 11, 2010

Not everyone can be super-smart at math, but a brand new Harvard study (PDF) by Paul Peterson, Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann shows how virtually every state in the USA is not educating enough top-flight math performers. If you look at the 56 nations who take the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 30 do [...]

Zaugg Pitches ‘Ethics 101′

by Ari Armstrong | 9:30 am, November 11, 2010

Colorado author John Zaugg describes his book, Ethics 101: Why Not Be the Best We Could Be?

The first output from Obama’s Fiscal Commission is a pleasant surprise

by Rossputin | 9:12 am, November 11, 2010

[Update: The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell thinks this document is a “center-left” proposal designed to get Republicans to agree to tax increases. See Dan’s take here: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/co-chairmen-of-obamas-fiscal-commission-unveil-real-tax-increases-and-fake-spending-cuts/]

I, along with many other non-leftists, had great concern regarding Barack Obama’s “Deficit Commission” after he named Alan Simpson, former Wyoming Senator and somewhat too much of a compromiser, as the Republican co-chair.

I was also skeptical when they scheduled the Commission’s results to be reported just after the election.

Now that we have the first of that work, the “Co-Chairs Proposal”, written by Simpson and his Democrat counterpart, Erskine Bowles, perhaps I judged somewhat too harshly.

While the proposal won’t make anyone completely happy, it appears to be aimed at curbing the cost of government more than at increasing government revenues, though clearly it aims to do both.

I’m not going to attempt an in-depth analysis of the document at this point, but here are some highlights:

First, the “five basic recommendations” as described in the document itself:

Enact tough discretionary spending caps and provide $200 billion in illustrative domestic and defense savings in 2015.
Pass tax reform that dramatically reduces rates, simplifies the code, broadens the base, and reduces the deficit.
Address the “Doc Fix” not through deficit spending but through savings from payment reforms, cost-sharing, and malpractice reform, and long-term measures to control health care cost growth.
Achieve mandatory savings from farm subsidies, military and civil service retirement.
Ensure Social Security solvency for the next 75 years while reducing poverty among seniors.

A little more detail:

Spending cuts to include rolling discretionary spending for FY2012 back to FY2010 levels and then reducing discretionary spending 1% a year for three years starting in FY 2013. The document gets into much more detail, such as finding savings in the Dept. of Defense through reducing procurement and freezing salaries. Beyond DoD, there is a courageous proposal to freeze other federal government salaries, reduce the number of federal employees by 10% and get rid of a quarter-million contractors.

Tax reform includes serveral proposals of varying aggressiveness, going to three income tax rates, with the highest marginal income tax rate dropping as low as 23% and the corporate tax rate being cut from 35% to 26%. However, this drastic rate cut includes a proposal to eliminate all tax deductions, including the mortgage deduction – the political peril of which I need not explain. Another 3-bracket plan would keep most deductions and set brackets of 15%, 25%, and 35%. Both of these proposals would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. The document leaves wiggle room in a third proposal which calls on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Treasury to come up with some other comprehensive tax reform. Also, the document talks about broadening the tax base, which I would take to mean that more people would pay at least a little bit of tax, a change I would welcome, but the details of which I don’t see in the document. I would also note that eliminating the deduction for charitable contributions will get a lot of push-back from non-profits around the country who are, after all, some of the groups which continue to fight to keep a death/inheritance tax because they think it “encourages” people to give money to charity.

Health care provisions include trying to push for efficiency gains (not the biggest problem in the health care industry) and enacting substantial tort reform. Also, proposal includes increasing co-pay for Medicare and Medigap insurance coverages

“Mandatory Savings” include changing the way cost-of-living increases for benefit programs are calculated. It’s long been argued that current CPI calculations give over-generous increases which, in the aggregate, bear substantial responsibility for the financial disaster that faces Social Security. It also includes reducing farm subsidies. (Can I get a “hallelujah!”?) Other items include modifications to the way federal pensions are funded and calculated to make it harder to game the system by getting a big promotion for one’s last year in government.

Social Security reforms, which the document notes need to be done for their own sake and not just for deficit reduction, will of course be extremely touchy politically, and are designed to have no impact on anyone currently even vaguely close to retirement, such as raising the retirement age by one year in 2050 and another year in 2075. It also appears – though I can’t say I fully understand the language – to propose more means-testing of benefits, something many conservatives have often described as simply turning Social Security into another welfare program rather than the retirement system that many people currently believe it to be. They also propose gradually raising the amount of income subject to payroll tax.

There are many more details in the draft document, but the question is really whether this will even get far enough to be a source of serious debate in Congress. Also, this document is just the product of the two Chairmen. It has not been voted on or passed by the whole Commission. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope it passes the Commission – which is not even close to it actually becoming law, but rather something that Democrats will have a harder time totally abandoning. It’s not a perfect document but it’s much much better than I expected. That said, even if it doesn’t pass, it will still carry some weight as a reference point.

If there’s any especially good news to be had from the release of the draft, it’s that the left’s reaction was fast and furious. As The Hill reported, Nancy Pelosi called the document “simply unacceptable” and Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO and one of the nation’s leading anti-capitalists, and other Democrats also panned the proposal.

Conservatives don’t have everything to like in it either, as it does include raising more revenue than they (I) want. One example is RedState.com Erick Erickson’s reaction.

Briefly putting aside politics, I’d reiterate that this draft document is much better than I expected even if, regardless of my own political views, it’s clear that it has some provisions which will be politically very difficult to pass (such as elimination of all tax deductions, though they also leave other options which leave some deductions in place.) The document takes a serious stab at cutting government while including some revenue-raising ideas which are not simply more “soaking the rich”, a plan which has always failed when tried. It appears to aim for fairness and take on some truly sacred cows.

Back to politics for a moment: The dramatic cuts in government spending are kryptonite to Democrats whose raison d’être is the expansion of government and the power that comes from forcing all the money to pay for that government have to flow through their sticky little fingers. The particularly good news is that opposing every bit of spending cutting (except maybe DoD) will show the truth to many of the few remaining Americans who don’t understand the cancer that the Democrat Party has become. There is a relatively new type of treatment for certain cancers which involves using vascular disrupting agents or other drugs which block blood flow to or within tumors, thus killing them. This is what needs to be done to Congressional Democrats. Without access to the blood flow of the American economy, their beneficiaries such as almost every union as well as trial lawyers, i.e. other forms of societal cancer, will not get enough benefit from the Democrats to justify all the money they contribute to the party. The Deficit Commission’s serious discussion of spending cuts will therefore be treated by Pelosi and Reid the way a cancer cell, if it could talk, would react to one of these cancer-killing drugs.

It remains to be seen how Barack Obama will react, given that the commission is his baby. His gut instinct – and Democrat co-conspirators – will tell him to hate it. But especially if he wants to be re-elected, he can’t simply throw it on the ash-heap of history of ideas to limit government, at least not without a lot of cover.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Thank you Veterans, Freedom is Not Free and You Pay the Price

by Mr. Bob | 8:56 am, November 11, 2010

#freedom #veteransday #tcot #redco #teaparty

Does ObamaCare Reduce Health Care Spending?

by Brian Schwartz | 6:00 am, November 11, 2010

“ObamaCare doesn’t reduce medical costs under even the rosiest of scenarios (that is, projections that take seriously all its creators’ assumptions). What we can be certain of is that this legislation increases the amount of money taxpayers will be forced by law to pay for health insurance to the tune of $420 billion over the next 10 years.”

Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Evidence

by Jon Caldara | 3:09 pm, November 10, 2010

You can usually identify a weak argument by seeing how many orders of magnitude someone must leave “normal” to make their case. For example, if I were to miss work and justify my absence with “my car would not start,” people would most likely give me the benefit of the doubt. The “car wouldn’t start” [...]

Michael Bender Named Chief Justice of Colo. Supreme Court

by Laura Victoria | 2:30 pm, November 10, 2010

Colorado Supreme Court Justice Michael Bender was just voted in by his colleagues as Chief Justice, replacing the retiring Mary Mullarkey. Bender, along with Mullarkey and Justices Nancy Rice and Alex Martinez, were the targets of a no retention effort … Continue reading →

Happy Birthday US Marine Corps

by Mr. Bob | 11:09 am, November 10, 2010

#USMARINES #tcot I salute you. You make us proud to be Americans and we thank you for being on the wall. from “The Chief”

Charter School Myths Still Alive: Time to Go Back to Education Reform Future?

by Eddie | 11:04 am, November 10, 2010

Most of us know about public charter schools: publicly funded and publicly accountable schools with independent boards and waivers from certain state laws and regulations concerning personnel and program. Here in Colorado they’ve been around quite awhile and have become an important part of the education landscape.
Right now, as the Colorado League of Charter [...]

Right turn: the new media in Colorado politics

by Kelly Maher | 10:58 am, November 10, 2010

Join Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15, for a panel discussion about new media in the political realm. Hear from panelists Michael Sandoval, the Battle ’10 Colorado reporter for National Review Online; Kelly Maher of WhoSaidYouSaid.com; and Todd Shepherd of CompleteColorado.com.

2010 Election contest results

by Rossputin | 9:12 am, November 10, 2010

Although not 100% of the votes are counted and there are still 9 House races left to be decided around the nation, I can’t find a scenario in which the winner of the Election Prediction Contest will change.

So, allow me to offer my congratulations to Chris R who won the contest with a total combined error across all 6 categories of just under 27 points, using my assumption of 65 House seats picked up by the GOP. The average total error was 39.25 points with the maximum error being dubiously held at a whopping 55 1/2 points by Bruce T who was far too optimistic about Buck and Frazier even while having one of the few guesses of Tom Tancredo losing by a relatively substantial margin.

Chris R actually didn’t have the best guess in any individual race but has the lowest combined error by more than 2 points over his nearest competitors, Jake, Eric W, and Brian O, the only other three people to have total errors under 30 points. (As a reminder, the error was the absolute error in each race plus the error in total GOP Senate seats picked up plus half the error in the total GOP House seats picked up.)

Honorable mentions for the best guesses in each race go to:

Brian O for the closest guess in the Hickenlooper/Tancredo race (I won’t dignify Dan Maes’ candidacy by even including him in the description). At -8, Brian was only 6 points off, which sounds like a lot until you realize the average error was over 12 points.
Jake for the Buck/Bennet race. Even though Jake guessed Buck would win, his guess of 0.08% margin of victory put him closest to the actual outcome.
Brian O again for the closest guess in the Frazier/Perlmutter race, and again at an error of 6 points, and again with the average error being about 12 points.
Greg B for the lowest error (just over 1%) in the Gardner/Markey race.
At this point, I’m guessing that the GOP will take 65 House seats. If that happens, then Eric W and Ben D would have nailed it. At 64 seats, it would be TJB all alone, and at 63 it would be Kevan M. At 66, four players would tie for best guess (two who guessed 65 and two who guessed 67).
And Charles H. was, somewhat remarkably, the only person to guess the GOP would take 6 Senate seats. When I asked him why he was so pessimistic, he said, with some prescience, “Nevada will be stolen.”

When you think about it, an average combined error of 39 points over 6 contests is astoundingly high, especially with very little variance in the Senate race and the House error divided by two. It wasn’t just the professional pollsters who had huge errors in the Tancredo race. The Buck race was also difficult, but perhaps the most shocking was the margin of victory for Ed Perlmutter, a man whom I simply can’t imagine anyone but a die-hard union member voting for over Ryan Frazier, a guy whom I considered to be a very viable and appealing candidate.

Below is the final table (sorted by total error) with best (lowest) error in each column in green and worst (highest) error in red:

Actual Result:

-13.97

-0.93

-11.00

12.27

	Tanc	Buck	Frazier	Grdnr	GOP House / 2	GOP Sen	TOTAL Error
Chris R	7.47	2.93	9.50	2.52	2.50	2.00	26.93
Jake	11.17	1.01	9.20	3.27	3.50	1.00	29.16
Eric W	7.97	4.93	11.25	2.27	0.00	3.00	29.43
Brian O	5.97	2.93	6.00	5.27	4.50	5.00	29.68
Aaron B	10.97	1.43	7.00	4.77	3.00	3.00	30.18
MF	9.97	2.93	9.00	5.27	2.50	3.00	32.68
Ben D	11.97	4.93	11.50	2.27	0.00	3.00	33.68
Kevan M	9.97	3.93	13.00	4.27	1.00	3.00	35.18
TJB	14.22	3.93	11.30	3.27	0.50	2.00	35.23
Brian W	12.97	2.93	12.00	3.27	1.50	3.00	35.68
Keith D	9.97	2.43	12.00	5.27	5.00	1.00	35.68
C-Rod	10.47	4.93	9.00	7.77	2.00	2.00	36.18
Elliot F	11.47	2.43	11.10	4.77	5.00	2.00	36.78
Dave W	9.47	1.23	12.10	7.57	6.50	1.00	37.88
Yokel	11.97	2.18	12.75	5.27	4.00	2.00	38.18
Charles	14.47	5.43	13.50	3.77	2.50	0.00	39.68
Ben R	11.67	4.73	15.20	3.77	2.50	2.00	39.88
Tim D	14.97	3.68	13.00	5.27	1.00	2.00	39.93
AB	10.97	4.93	14.00	3.73	3.50	3.00	40.14
Ross K	12.82	5.28	14.00	3.27	2.00	3.00	40.38
Greg S	14.47	3.43	15.00	3.27	1.50	3.00	40.68
DCR	11.87	5.73	12.60	5.67	2.00	3.00	40.88
JD	14.47	5.13	15.00	2.77	1.50	2.00	40.88
Rich S	7.97	6.43	12.00	4.27	7.50	3.00	41.18
COLawMan	15.72	7.73	8.60	3.37	3.50	3.00	41.93
Julie M	14.72	4.03	13.75	5.02	1.50	4.00	43.03
Glenn F	14.47	2.93	14.50	5.27	2.00	4.00	43.18
Jeremy I	12.07	5.03	12.50	4.07	7.00	3.00	43.68
Greg B	14.97	7.43	12.00	1.27	6.00	2.00	43.68
KLMP	14.72	8.68	12.25	3.77	1.50	3.00	43.93
Rip	15.17	6.73	12.50	4.27	1.50	4.00	44.18
Rusty S	15.97	4.93	16.00	2.27	2.50	3.00	44.68
Airbus	8.97	2.07	13.00	2.27	16.50	2.00	44.81
Segosouth	15.54	5.13	13.35	5.87	1.00	4.00	44.90
Joe H	10.97	6.93	14.00	6.27	3.00	4.00	45.18
Dave L	15.47	5.93	15.00	1.73	4.50	5.00	47.64
Bruce T	8.87	9.23	18.80	3.07	11.50	4.00	55.48

Min	5.97	1.01	6.00	1.27	0.00	0.00	26.93
Max	15.97	9.23	18.80	7.77	16.50	5.00	55.48
Avg	12.09	4.51	12.36	4.09	3.45	2.76	39.25

Average Guess	-1.88	3.46	1.36	8.47	66.43	8.76
Players	Tancredo	Buck	Frazier	Gardner	GOP House	GOP Senate
Ross K	-1.15	4.35	3	9	69	9
Eric W	-6	4	0.25	10	65	9
Airbus	-5	-3	2	10	98	8
Julie M	0.75	3.1	2.75	7.25	62	10
Kevan M	-4	3	2	8	63	9
Chris R	-6.5	2	-1.5	9.75	60	8
Greg S	0.5	2.5	4	9	62	9
Joe H	-3	6	3	6	71	10
JD	0.5	4.2	4	9.5	68	8
AB	-3	4	3	16	72	9
Glenn F	0.5	2	3.5	7	61	10
COLawMan	1.75	6.8	-2.4	8.9	58	9
Dave L	1.5	5	4	14	74	11
Rip	1.2	5.8	1.5	8	68	10
C-Rod	-3.5	4	-2	4.5	61	8
Bruce T	-5.1	8.3	7.8	9.2	88	10
Yokel	-2	1.25	1.75	7	73	8
Brian W	-1	2	1	9	62	9
Jeremy I	-1.9	4.1	1.5	8.2	79	9
Tim D	1	2.75	2	7	67	8
Dave W	-4.5	0.3	1.1	4.7	52	7
Rich S	-6	5.5	1	8	80	9
Elliot F	-2.5	1.5	0.1	7.5	55	8
Segosouth	1.57	4.2	2.35	6.4	67	10
MF	-4	2	-2	7	60	9
Ben R	-2.3	3.8	4.2	8.5	60	8
KLMP	0.75	7.75	1.25	8.5	68	9
Jake	-2.8	0.08	-1.8	9	58	7
Charles	0.5	4.5	2.5	8.5	70	6
TJB	0.25	3	0.3	9	64	8
Keith D	-4	1.5	1	7	55	7
Aaron B	-3	0.5	-4	7.5	59	9
Ben D	-2	4	0.5	10	65	9
Brian O	-8	2	-5	7	56	11
DCR	-2.1	4.8	1.6	6.6	61	9
Greg B	1	6.5	1	11	77	8
Rusty S	2	4	5	10	70	9

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Mysterious missile launch lights up SoCal sky

by Mr. Bob | 9:00 am, November 10, 2010

LINK***UPDATE a blogger comes up with a plausable explanation for the heretofor unexplained contrail.What the heck?, no what the hell? In the past if we shot a missle we have ALWAYS said so. The military is denying it was us. It is either bad communica…

Dan Mitchell debunks Obamanomics

by Rossputin | 8:21 am, November 10, 2010

The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell adds to his excellent video series with this fundamental explanation of why everything important that Obama’s economists say is wrong.
It’s about 9 minutes long…and well worth your time:
http://…

Don Boudreaux on how government should be pro-business

by Rossputin | 6:47 am, November 10, 2010

I realize that many readers of these pages already get Don Boudreaux’s excellent near-daily e-mails. (And if you don’t but would like to, please let me know and I’ll get you added.) Occasionally, one of Don’s notes is so good that it bears repetition far and wide. He had such a note last Friday…

Editor, The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

To the Editor:

You report that Pres. Obama’s export-promoting trip to Asia is partly “an attempt to ease tensions with America’s chief executives, many of whom spent the recent campaign accusing the White House of being antibusiness” (“Obama Eases Rules on Select Technology Exports,” Nov. 6).

There are two ways for a government to be ‘pro-business.’ The first way is to avoid interfering in capitalist acts among consenting adults – that is, to keep taxes low, regulations few, and subsidies non-existent. This ‘pro-business’ stance promotes widespread prosperity because in reality it isn’t so much pro-business as it is pro-consumer. When this way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing consumers, and ONLY for pleasing consumers.

The second, and very different, way for government to be pro-business is to bestow favors and privileges on politically connected firms. Such favors, such as tariffs and export subsidies, invariably oblige consumers to pay more – either directly in the form of higher prices, or indirectly in the form of higher taxes – for goods and services. This way of being pro-business reduces the nation’s prosperity by relieving businesses of the need to satisfy consumers. When this second way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing politicians. Competition for consumers’ dollars is replaced by competition for political favors.

The fact that more than 200 American business executives are in India with the President is cause to fear that any pro-business policies he might adopt will be of the second, impoverishing sort.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Questions about the “right” to health care

by Brian Schwartz | 6:00 am, November 10, 2010

The alleged “right” to health care lurks behind increasing government involvement in medicine. If there were such a right, asks Stefan Molyneux, “when does a woman in the process of becoming a doctor switch from someone with a right to receive health care to someone with an obligation to provide it?”

Colorado GOP Candidates Who Fell Short But Can See Bright Futures

by Ben DeGrow | 11:46 pm, November 9, 2010

A full week has passed since the Election. We all know the results. For the winners it’s transition time. New members headed off to Congress — at least one pegged with a remarkably bright political future. I’m proud to see a new secretary of state in Colorado, a new state treasurer, not to mention the [...]

Those Darned Ballot Initiatives II

by Joshua Sharf | 11:27 pm, November 9, 2010

A final word on 60, 61, and 101. They violated two basic rules of drawing political lines – 1) create contrasts, and 2) make sure that more people are on your side of that contrast. These were written in such a way that even true fiscal conservatives didn’t believe they could support them. Which meant [...]

Just when you thought MSNBC couldn’t get any more anti-American

by Rossputin | 9:14 am, November 9, 2010

H/T Mike R.

Former CNBC, now MSNBC, talking head Dylan Ratigan actually pretends to have a serious discussion – and agreement – with radical leftist cartoonist (yes, cartoonist) Ted Rall about whether violent revolution might be appropriate for America at this time.

The network of Olbermann, Maddow, Matthews, and now Ratigan has sunk so deep into the mire of anti-American, anti-capitalist lunatic hatred that it’s a miracle they still have enough viewers – even on the left – to stay in business. It should also be noted that MSNBC is owned by General Electric. For this, along with GE’s complicity with the climate alarmism industry, and for doing business with Iran, I continue to encourage readers of these pages to avoid GE products whenever possible.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

An “enthusiastic thumbs up” to retain a trio of incumbent Colorado Supreme Court justices?

by CTBC Director | 9:12 am, November 9, 2010

The most recent edition of the Colorado Statesman uncharacteristically missed the boat entirely in highlighting the election results for the three incumbent Colorado Supreme Court justices on this year’s ballot (possibly allowing the quest for quotable verbiage to overcome accuracy in reporting).
The article (”‘No!’ was on voters’ minds when it came to weighing in on [...]

Election Reflections from the Bailey and Beezley Party

by Ari Armstrong | 8:57 am, November 9, 2010

This edition of Free Colorado News features comments from Republican candidates Stephey Bailey, who lost his congressional race against Jared Polis, and Don Beezley, who won in State House District 33. Various activists also share their thoughts on the…

Don’t play into the climate alarmists’ hands by using their language

by Rossputin | 7:52 am, November 9, 2010

[Update: A different version of these thoughts has been published at the Media Malpractice web page of the National Review Institute: http://nrinstitute.org/mediamalpractice/?p=1116]

Following is a letter I sent to the Washington Times in response to a news article entitled “Chilly wind blows against global climate pact“…

Perhaps the key to the “global warming” aka “climate change” debate is that the alarmists have successfully caused many Americans to believe that carbon dioxide, aka plant food, is pollution. Since the vast majority – perhaps up to 95% – of the so-called “greenhouse effect” comes from naturally occurring water vapor, there very little room for CO₂ to have an important climatic impact. Furthermore, only about 3%-5% of all atmospheric CO₂ is man-made. The vast majority of it is naturally-occurring, such as from volcanoes, rotting vegetation, and the almost amusing flatulence of millions of farm animals. In other words, man-made carbon dioxide probably accounts for less than two tenths of one percent of the entire “greenhouse effect.” Reducing those emissions would likely have a near-zero climate impact while causing tremendous economic damage around the world since CO₂ is so closely tied to economic output and growth.

Therefore, when a newspaper reporter, in discussing carbon dioxide emissions, calls China and India “leading polluters”, she is playing right into the junk-science-based hands of the fundamentally anti-capitalist climate alarmist movement. Carbon is not a pollutant, carbon dioxide is unlikely to be having an important impact on overall climate, with man-made CO₂ likely having an all but immeasurable impact. If a “conservative” newspaper parrots the left’s propaganda, even if unintentionally, there is little hope in returning the climate debate to sanity. Perhaps, when discussing carbon dioxide, instead of calling countries “polluters” we might call them “supporters of plant life.” It’s just as accurate and substantially less misleading.

Ross Kaminsky is a fellow of the Heartland Institute

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

How Bad Was the West, Really?

by Joshua Sharf | 12:32 am, November 9, 2010

Conventional wisdom right now is that the West was excluded from the Republicans’ big gains in the rest of the country. And by a certain standard, that’s true. Not too many people would have guessed that the state legislatures in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan would go Republican, with the latter two also electing Republican governors. [...]

A New Era for Judicial Retention Elections?

by CTBC Director | 11:11 pm, November 8, 2010

Although Clear The Bench Colorado fell short of removing the trio of incumbent Colorado Supreme Court justices on this year’s ballot, the approximately 40% “NO” vote (with some minor fluctuations between individual justices on the ballot and extreme variations in county results) was not only the largest percentage of “NO” votes ever received at the [...]

Olbermann Will Be Back on Tuesday – Indefinite Suspension Lasts Two Days

by Mr. Bob | 12:40 pm, November 8, 2010

#tcot #teaparty #Olbermann #Maddow #BillMarrYou knew it was going to happen, the whole thing seemed fishy. Why did they fire him for doing something like this when other pundits do it all the time?It is my opinion they should however disclose these don…

Local Buzz Growing Around Douglas County School Choice Reform Proposals

by Eddie | 11:29 am, November 8, 2010

Update, 11/9: Douglas County’s choice proposals have been noticed east of the border (the Colorado border, that is). A blogger at Kansas Education notes:

…why are so many private schools religious ones? The answer. As a parent, you’re probably already paying taxes to support a school district to which you can send your child. What’s going [...]

The Tea Party, the "establishment", and political reality

by Rossputin | 7:56 am, November 8, 2010

This note was originally written less than 24 hours after the election; I delayed publication for a week on the advice of a wise friend who suggested that I should not be seen as “kicking Ken when he is down” if that’s not my intention – which it isn’t.

As I write this around noon on Wednesday, the day after the 2010 elections, it looks increasingly likely that Ken Buck has lost the Colorado US Senate race to spineless appointed Senator Michael “Who?” Bennet, a man who has no idea what he believes, who gets permission for his votes, and then to change those votes, a man who almost laughably ran as a fiscal conservative after voting for every nation-bankrupting piece of legislation which our Dear Leader wanted passed.

Just how is it that in a year like this, where almost every swing seat in the nation went to Republicans, Colorado elects a liberal Howdy Doody to represent us in the Senate?

Yes, in part, there was some collateral damage from the Dan Maes and Scott McInnis fiascoes, but Ken Buck seemed to sidestep most of that and although Bennet’s margin of victory was small, I don’t think it was governor’s race fall-out which caused the loss.

And yes, third party candidates siphoned off votes, but if you look at the breakdown the Green candidate did as much damage to Bennet as the Libertarian or other candidates did to Buck, and I don’t see the combination of third parties accounting for Bennet’s net margin of victory. (That said, if Buck was shown to have lost because of the presence of a Libertarian candidate, it would not have broken my heart, especially since the race did not impact a Senate majority.)

But what brought Ken Buck down from what appeared to be a wide lead in early polling to losing by about 1% of the votes cast was a combination of demonization by the left and his own words.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the implosion of Dan Maes and the obvious error of the Tea Party movement in pushing him to victory masked a (much) smaller version of a similar error regarding Buck.

Before Buck’s core supporters start jumping up and down and screaming at me, let me be clear: Early on, I said Buck was a decent candidate and a decent guy – but that he was not the best candidate.

Yet right up to three days ago, when I called Buck a “weak candidate”, a Buck supporter chastised me, saying that “his campaign is grassroots and genuine” – as if that responded to my assertion. After all, plenty of losers had campaigns which were “grassroots and geniune”. And when I explained again that I supported Jane Norton because I thought she and Buck were all but identical on policy (except for Afghanistan, where I preferred Buck), I was (again) called an “establishment windbag.”

There is no doubt that Jane was the “establishment” candidate and, despite these critics’ implication, I generally avoid supporting such politicians, shown not least by my aggressive and public refusal to support John McCain.

But being the favorite of “establishment” players should not be an automatic disqualification from consideration even by enthusiastic lovers of liberty such as the Tea Party movement, just as being an unqualified very-small-businessman with few solid policy positions and fewer clues about politics should not be an automatic “that’s good enough for me.”

I understood then and understand now that people had other problems with Jane, not least her (tepid) support for Referendum C back when her boss was pushing for it. That’s why I took a few hours speaking with her in great detail about Ref C and a wide range of other policy issues before endorsing her with the explicit reasoning that Ken Buck would be much easier for the left to demonize than Jane would be.

Buck’s supporters and Tea Party activists jumped down my throat for this endorsement. Indeed, my position was even contrary to the views of many of my closest friends in the world of Colorado politics and the Colorado political blogosphere. But my intent was simply to call it as I saw it. I had never met Norton or Buck before the primary season and had no bias for or against either of them when starting my analysis. If anything, my anti-McCain bias gave Jane Norton an additional hurdle to cross before getting my support given her close ties to Senator McCain.

Nothing I learned during the primary caused me to back away from my take on the situation that Ken would have a lower chance of winning than Jane would. (Admittedly, I didn’t think Ken would actually lose, just that his chances of losing were substantially higher than Jane’s.)

Allow me to quote from my June 11th public endorsement of Jane Norton:

Many activist Republicans complain bitterly and with good reason about “electability” being used as a factor in choosing a candidate. Electability, for example, is what allowed Arlen Specter to beat Pat Toomey by less than 2% in Pennsylvania’s 2004 GOP Senate primary. Perhaps electability is what gave us John McCain as the GOP candidate for president two years ago.

But Jane Norton is no John McCain nor is she an Arlen Specter. So, since I think that Jane Norton is at least Ken Buck’s equal in terms of understanding the value of liberty, especially political and economic liberty (since no conservative is where I want him to be on liberty in our private lives, such as regarding marijuana legalization), it seems to me that electability then becomes a legitimate concern. And I think Jane Norton is somewhat more likely to beat a Democrat than Ken Buck is.

…I believe that if Norton and her supporters had spent a fraction of the time and cash going after Buck which has been used by Buck’s friends to attack Norton, then Buck wouldn’t be polling nearly this well. And I believe that it will be much more difficult during the general election campaign for Democrats to demonize Jane Norton than to demonize Ken Buck.

As a friend of mine put it shortly after the election results were clear, “I really do believe Jane would have won, though. Less baggage, less rigid social issue positions, high heels, clearer understanding of the principles of liberty, and most importantly a lot more discipline with her mouth. They can say no one would have withstood the incredible onslaught of demo group spending, but a less vulnerable candidate would have attracted less spending.

In retrospect, I think my early analysis of the race remains prescient and accurate. My point is not that I’m a political genius, but that the wonderful enthusiasm of Tea Party and 9/12 group members, especially those rather new to politics, must be tempered with at least several parts-per-million of practical electoral reality. And that such tempering does not make one a sell-out.

Again, the Buck/Norton situation is nothing like the Dan Maes situation. I remain convinced that Maes is a fraud searching for 15 minutes of fame who made more money by campaign “reimbursements” than he’s made in years and that the people who continued to support him in the last several weeks of the election were…well, to be nice, let me just say misguided. Ken Buck is a far superior candidate and person to Dan Maes and I would not do Buck the insult of comparing him in any important way to Maes.

So, my comparison here isn’t between those two men but simply about the reaction of the Tea Party to them versus their opponents.

I understand loathing Scott McInnis. In my meeting with him, he was charming to me in the way that Kaa the python is charming to Mowgli in “The Jungle Book”, trying to hypnotize with soothing words before squeezing (money or political favors out of) you in his coils.

And from starting in a bad position, McInnis only made it worse by trying to blame his plagiarism on an 82-year old research assistant rather than manning-up, taking responsibility, offering a big mea culpa (and refund), and moving on. I don’t know that McInnis could have beaten Hickenlooper, but even a damaged McInnis (maybe not quite as damaged as he eventually became) was probably a better candidate than the real Dan Maes, not the Walter Mitty candidate Maes wanted us to see.

But Tea Partiers were so eager to support anyone who had never held political office before (apparently Buck’s Weld County AG job seemed to pass muster as not seriously political, or something like that) that they attacked McInnis (who deserved attack, though the alternative to him was even worse) and Norton whose primary offense was to have the support of John McCain.

And so they did, beating a pathetic McInnis by a razor-thin margin (an early sign of how weak Maes was despite the fact that Maes operated with little name recognition and little money) and giving Ken Buck the nod over Jane Norton. The Maes/McInnis situation was such remarkable political theater that relatively little thought was given to the meaning of the Buck/Norton race, but I submit that they were roughly similar in nature (other than that Buck was probably not, as Maes was, the beneficiary of financial assistance from Democrats). They both represented Tea Party candidates – though Buck tried to avoid that characterization – triumphing over the evil “establishment”, an amorphous group which Tea Partiers seemed to think of as something like the Empire from the Star Wars movies.

But from even before the moment of his primary victory, it was mostly down hill for Ken Buck.

Whether it was the public disagreement with Tom Tancredo’s picnic remark about Barack Obama being the biggest threat to America or his statement suggesting repeal of the 17th Amendment (direct election of senators) followed by two months of retractions or a similar pattern regarding his views on Social Security, Ken Buck was a man too eager to please everyone.

At least when it came to important questions where there is a legitimate government involvement, he was all too willing to moderate.

However, when it came to social issues where – whether social conservatives like it or not – many voters disagree with Ken outright, many voters want at least a shred of flexibility and common sense even if they basically agree, and a majority of voters think are properly a focus for a time when unemployment is well below 10%, Ken Buck was at his most uncompromising.

Buck advocated an anti-abortion position without exception for cases of rape or incest. Thus, while Buck won 54% of the vote among men, he lost 56% of women voters. Beyond that, he motivated pro-choice organizations to work particularly hard to beat him. I’m not saying Buck should have campaigned as pro-choice, but his ultra-hard-line anti-abortion position was certainly a major factor in his loss.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Buck then said (as I and others have already spent too much time on but which bears repeating here) that being gay (or at least acting gay) is a choice. He added fuel to the fire by inartfully describing how he believed homosexuality is, in a certain way, like alcoholism. Separate from the fact that Buck’s comments on choice of sexual preference (at least to the extent that he means how people are rather than how they act) defies common sense, his statements were political hari kiri.

I say all that fully recognizing that Buck could not have been prepared for David Gregory’s “gotcha” question, but that a much better answer – the answer a more thoughtful candidate would have given – would have been “Let’s talk about issues the voters care about” or “I’d rather not discuss personal views which relate to matters outside the legitimate role of government.”

Again quoting myself from October 18th:

But in a election which gets closer every week, an election which Rasmussen now has as only a 2% edge for Buck, alienating gay Republicans and, more importantly, gay unaffiliated voters, while motivating gay Democrats against him is a substantial political mistake by Buck.

Beyond that, it plays precisely into the theme Michael “Who?” Bennet is using to define Buck: “too extreme for Colorado.” If Buck keeps saying stuff like he said on Sunday, even I might start wondering if it’s true.

So by election week, Ken Buck had painted himself right into the corner where the Bennet campaign was already pushing him.

Why was it that a guy who was so tentative discussing matters of constitutional principle and so easily pushed off even discussing interesting but controversial policy ideas decided to be so forceful with so far-out-of-the-mainstream views on issues which are arguably none of a senator’s business anyway?

At the end of the day, all I can do is sit here, shaking my head, and thinking of the rabid Buck supporters and Norton haters, whisper “I told you so”, while taking no pleasure in the electoral outcome that allows and encourages such thoughts.

Ken Buck is a fine man, even though he is as extreme as Michael Bennet claimed on social issues – and even if not on other issues, perhaps the reverse of what many voters really wanted. Jane Norton is a fine lady who is much more pro-capitalism and pro-Constitution than her detractors claimed. At the end of the day, they’re both conservatives but one would have been a better general election candidate than the other.

In closing (for today, as this line of thinking will be an ongoing topic through the 2012 elections, I expect), I say to my critics that supporting Jane was not selling out and not representative of a fealty to the “establishment”. Rather it was a recognition of the wisdom of William F. Buckley’s rule to vote for the most conservative candidate who is electable. Or rather my twist on it, the most electable candidate who supports the Constitution.

I look back with some pride on my support of Jane (even while recognizing that neither she nor Buck would be my ideal candidate) and my take on the situation, and I hope that the lessons of the massive errors by Republicans, some well-meaning and some not so much, which gave the two biggest races in Colorado to the Democrats in the anti-Democrat tsunami of 2010 will be learned by establishment and grass-roots activists alike. There is no sin in supporting an “establishment” candidate if he or she is a principled pro-liberty person, no inherent evil in having held elective office before, and no inherent benefit in a candidate who has barely even thought about politics (other than an egotistical desire to hold office).

The goal must be good and limited government, not anti-experience pogroms. In that quest, all who desire limited government and liberty must look at races and candidates with clear eyes, clear minds, and the recognition that the best candidate might indeed not be the one you wish were the best candidate.

Buck supporters, I hate to say I told you so, but…

—————–

Looking toward the future, I trust that many Tea Party members who were political novices in 2010 have learned a lot from the movement’s notable successes (Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, and many new House Republicans) and notable failures (Ken Buck, Dan Maes, Sharron Angle) and will put their tremendous and valuable energy to much more consistently positive use in 2012.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Workers, not employers, bear the (full) cost of health benefits

by Brian Schwartz | 7:00 am, November 8, 2010

Many workers believe they pay one part of their health insurance premium, and their employer pays the rest. But that’s not how it works. Really, you pay the full cost of your health benefits.

Carlos Gonzalez, MVP voting, & Ken Buck’s spoilers

by Brian T. Schwartz | 5:00 am, November 8, 2010

Some Buck supporters blame non-leftist candidates for spoiling a Buck victory. Instead, they should blame elected Republicans for supporting our crude voting system that makes spoilers possible.

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