Herman Cain in Denver

by elpresidente | 6:03 am, March 19, 2011

Part 1: Part 2:

Jed Babbin: Weakness of allies is true lesson of Libya

by Rossputin | 5:57 am, March 19, 2011

As usual, Jed Babbin has an insightful point about Libya, and it’s not just that America should leave this project to those whose interests in Libya are much greater. It’s also that our allies have by their own choice weakened their force projection abilities far too much, relying on the US to be the world’s policeman.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/03/17/libyas_lesson_for_americas_allies_109261.html

A Note on ‘No Soliciting’

by Ari Armstrong | 3:31 pm, March 18, 2011

This last fall, as I handed out flyers for Congressional Candidate Stephen Bailey, I wondered whether all the people with “No Soliciting” signs really wanted to avoid getting campaign literature. (I avoided handing out flyers at such places.)A family m…

More Video from the 2011 LPR Retreat

by T.L. James | 12:49 pm, March 18, 2011

Highlights from the 2011 Leadership Program of the Rockies Annual Retreat, featuring Charles Krauthammer, KT McFarland, Brian Wesbury, Daniel Hannan, Ted Cruz, Grover Norquist, Stephen Hayes, and John Gizzi. Thanks to videographer Drew McCullough for his excellent video work at this years event.

ObamaCare Stinks in 1 Minute

by Jon Caldara | 12:27 pm, March 18, 2011

A couple of my former minions created a fantastic little YouTube video that is currently in the running for a $5,000 prize! This contest is being put on by the Independent Women’s Voice organization in order to show the ills of ObamaCare in 1 minute or less. So here is what I’m going to ask [...]

Staff, Parents Discuss Falcon Innovation: Ideas Emerging as Promise Remains Strong

by Eddie | 12:12 pm, March 18, 2011

I began the week by telling you about the series of “Innovation Conventions” going on in Falcon 49 — a school district serving about 15,000 students east of Colorado Springs. (Background: Check out District 49’s innovations page and the links it contains, especially the open letter from the Board, the iVoices podcast interview and the [...]

Free Elmo!

by Ari Armstrong | 11:44 am, March 18, 2011

Today’s Denver Post publishes some thoughtful letters on “public” broadcast funding.While my own letter did not make the mix, I though it worth reproducing here:The Denver Post argues PBS and NPR offer good content that “most Americans” wish to fund wi…

You Mean Licensing Massage Therapists Didn’t Stop Prostitution?

by Ari Armstrong | 11:24 am, March 18, 2011

A few years ago the Colorado legislature imposed massage licensing on the pretext that it would stop “parlor” prostitution. My dad and I wrote about this.You can imagine my surprise, then, upon reading the following Denver Post headline: “Accused madam…

John Morse on Per Diem Abuse

by T.L. James | 11:23 am, March 18, 2011

No, not his own…that of District Attorney John Newsome. Said Senate Majority Leader John Morse himself  in 2008: “It appears to me that they left the meter running and billed the taxpayers accordingly-to the tune of continuing to claim that they were due per diem for Saturday while attending a football game and attending to [...]

Denver Mayoral Candidate Mejia Speaks at Liberty On the Rocks

by Ari Armstrong | 8:42 am, March 18, 2011

Now that former Denver Mayor Federico Peña has endorsed James Mejia for the same job, I thought I’d release video of Mejia from the March 2 Liberty On the Rocks. Participants asked Mejia some tough questions about education, the city’s homeless …

Tyrannical “governments” are not genuine governments

by David Kopel | 12:07 am, March 18, 2011

(David Kopel) Some background sources for the principle in our Declaration of Independence that tyrannical “governments” are merely a large-scale form of organized crime, rather than real governments: In the views of the American Founders: Don B. Kates, The Second Amendment and the Ideology of Self-Protection, 9 CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY 87 (1992) (Founders saw no fundamental distinction between individual [...]

CU-Boulder Student Government cuts fees for first time in history by $1.1 million

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 9:00 pm, March 17, 2011

Earlier tonight the Student Government at the University of Colorado in the Republic of Boulder (what I like to call “Colorado’s Piece of California”) voted to cut student fees for the first time in recent history by just over $1 million.  This follows a surge of essentially Republican control in the last year of the [...]

Democrat Overreacts; Wants to Make Bullying a Federal Offense

by PerlStalker | 7:07 pm, March 17, 2011

Bullying has always been a problem in schools for those who are different. Every year or so there are stories of bullies gone too far or victims who violently and indiscriminately fight back. One of the most dramatic in recent memory was the Columbine …

March Is Not the Best Month for CO Senate Majority Leader John Morse

by Ben DeGrow | 5:41 pm, March 17, 2011

March is a bad month for Colorado Senate Majority Leader John Morse. Last year about this time he went a little ballistic at Amazon.com on a YouTube video he created — trying to blame the company for deciding to terminate its Colorado Affiliates program rather than pay the Democrats’ new tax. Last year’s episode looks [...]

Ecstatic crowds in Libya celebrating imminent use of U.S. military force against Gaddafi

by David Kopel | 5:08 pm, March 17, 2011

(David Kopel) U.N. Security Council Resolution passes 10–0. Live feed from Benghazi on Al Jazeera English. The Resolution authorizes “all necessary measures” except military occupation of Libya. By my reading, the authorization includes destruction of Gaddafi’s anti-aircraft defenses, and of his air force and its mercenary pilots. As President Reagan once said, “We begin bombing in five [...]

Text of U.N. General Assembly draft resolution on Libya

by David Kopel | 3:28 pm, March 17, 2011

(David Kopel) Right here, provided by the Inner City Press, which has long been the best English-language media covering the United Nations. The resolution authorizes member states–acting either through regional organizations or nationally–to “take all necessary measures” to establish a no-fly zone over Libya. It further authorizes the member states to enforce the arms embargo against Libya [...]

Dan Haley and Wayne Laugesen with Your Devils Advocate

by Jon Caldara | 2:14 pm, March 17, 2011

This week’s Devil’s Advocate is must see public affairs TV as I am joined by the editorial page editors of Colorado’s two largest newspapers, Dan Haley from the Denver Post and Wayne Laugesen from the Colorado Springs Gazette, for a conversation about Colorado’s budget woes, current political events, and a check-in on the performance of [...]

As he left DC, John Salazar tossed out money like Mardi Gras candy

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 1:48 pm, March 17, 2011

BlueCarp

Florida, Gov. Rick Scott Close to Raising Bar on Teacher Tenure, Evaluation Reform

by Eddie | 12:28 pm, March 17, 2011

You may have missed it because you were recovering from the New Year’s holiday, but I told you a couple months ago how Florida’s new governor Rick Scott was considering some pretty bold education reforms. The first two points of consideration I listed were:

Following Colorado’s lead by tying a significant portion of teacher evaluations to [...]

Obama administration moving toward military involvement in Libya

by Rossputin | 11:43 am, March 17, 2011

In a remarkably ridiculous statement for a man who has done nothing except charter a boat in response to the crumbling revolution in Libya, President Obama yesterday said that his administration was ” slowly tightening the noose” on dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

There has been no noose, loose or tight, placed on Gaddafi by the US or anybody else. At least not yet.

I’ve written recently about how Obama’s indecisiveness and fecklessness is not harmless. The obviousness of Obama’s indecision has reached a new high today with the US asking the United Nations ” to authorize not just a no-fly zone to aid Libyan rebels but also air strikes against Libyan tanks and heavy artillery,” according to Reuters.

Let’s get this straight.  The rebels held several key cities and an oil port.  Obama (and the rest of the world) did nothing. Now that the rebels have been routed from all but one city, and even that grip appears to be slipping rapidly, our president wants to get involved?

To be clear, I am not arguing that America should have risked blood and treasure earlier in involvement in Libya’s civil war.  It’s not a simple question but I have yet to be convinced that America should get involved in something which will take longer, carry more risk, and cost more than most would think.

What I am arguing is that if America were going to get involved, it should have done so (1) when it had a decent chance of making a difference and (2) in a way which doesn’t require getting “permission” from the UN, an organization which in 2003 elected Libya to chair its Human Rights Council.

By getting involved in a way which minimizes the rebels’, and therefore America’s, chance of victory, Obama is not just making a bad short-term military decision but a long-term error as well. If America gets in now and sides with the rebels just in time for them to be utterly crushed, it will do great damage to America’s military reputation in the region, a reputation which – whether liberals like it or not – is critical to maintaining a semblance of stability in the region.

This means that if America goes in to Libya, especially with anything more than a no-fly zone, we will have to take a much more aggressive, offensive posture against the Gaddafi regime, perhaps even secretly trying to kill him (which we should have done long ago) because the rebels will not be able to win with the more passive (if one can call a no-fly zone passive) US assistance which might have been enough earlier.

It’s not just “Obama-hating conservatives” who are fed up with the president’s waffling.  The Daily is reporting that Hillary Clinton is “looking to the exits” and that she’s “fed up with a president ‘who can’t make his mind up.’”

Sure, it’s partisan fun to point out President Obama’s utter lack of leadership (on everything, not just the current turmoil in Libya.) But it bears repeating that indecision is incompetence when your job is an executive decision maker, and that that incompetence can do, and is likely doing, great harm to the US both at home and abroad.

Colorado Majority Leader John Morse requested 331 days of Per Diem in 2009

by Mr. Bob | 9:29 am, March 17, 2011

If you’ve ever had to travel on business you know about submitting claims for extra pay to help reimburse you for food, expenses and travel. John Morse who was the State Majority leader in 1999 submitted claims for the maximum per diem (99$ per day) fo…

Governors Implementing ObamaCare Are Undermining the Lawsuits

by Brian Schwartz | 5:30 am, March 17, 2011

It would have been better if [Federal Judge] Vinson had stuck to his original order blocking implementation [of ObamaCare]. Yet he made clear that one of the reasons he did not is that many of the states asking him to strike down the law are implementing it anyway.

Libya and Japan: Obama’s “My Pet Goat” Moment

by T.L. James | 8:43 pm, March 16, 2011

Why act like a leader, when you can play golf, pick your NCAA brackets, and take (yet another) fancy vacation? It’s good to have your priorities straight.

Mandatory Spending Exceeds Revenues. Everyone PANIC!

by PerlStalker | 6:32 pm, March 16, 2011

Yes, my friends, we have come to the most dreaded of fiscal realities. Federal mandatory spending is now greater than Federal revenues. I’ll let Monty what that means.

This means that every single dime we spend on anything else — roads, national pa…

What is a green job?

by Michael | 3:33 pm, March 16, 2011

Defining precisely what a so-called green job actually is and how many have been created in Colorado is perhaps the only job as hard as actually creating such emerald-hued employment— and a University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business survey due later this spring attempting to quantify the growth and qualify the nature of the [...]

The failed drug war is just another big government program.

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 3:21 pm, March 16, 2011

BlueCarp

(Re)Calling All Future Mayors

by Jon Caldara | 2:49 pm, March 16, 2011

Attention future mayor of Denver. Take this story from Miami as a wake up call. We voters, tax payers, citizens will not take kindly to tax increases, spending increases, regulatory increases, special interest favors, and broken promises. Remember Gray Davis? Now you can add Carlos Alvarez’s name to that recall list.
You’ve been warned. Don’t mess [...]

Douglas County School Board Enacts Voucher Pilot Program, Makes History

by Eddie | 2:06 pm, March 16, 2011

You may have already heard about last night’s BIG news from Douglas County: The Board of Education voted to adopt (quite possibly) the nation’s very first ever school board-approved private school choice scholarship program. And the vote was unanimous! What took me so long to post this, you say? Trying to recover from last night, [...]

The Long Recall

by Joshua Sharf | 12:00 pm, March 16, 2011

I discovered The Long Recall blog over at the American Interest site a couple of months ago, but only now am I getting around to posting on it.  The folks there have decided to do a real-time, day-by-day blog of the Civil War, on its ongoing 150th Anniversary.  It’s a brilliant idea, and so far, [...]

Vouchers Undermine Liberty

by Ari Armstrong | 11:58 am, March 16, 2011

With Colorado conservatives all atwitter over Douglas County’s adoption of a voucher program (see the Denver Post and 9News), now might be a good time to pause and consider whether vouchers advance liberty or undermine it.Recently Michael LaFerrara has…

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