Conservatives consolidate majority in CU Student Government election sweep

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 1:01 pm, April 9, 2011

Something must be in the water near Rocky Mountain National Park this year.  In a stunning display of hard work, dedication, and the political tenability of conservatism, conservatives at the University of Colorado at the People’s Republic of Boulder swept almost every seat in the Student Government (CUSG) elections this week – solidly consolidating their [...]

On KOA Radio on Sunday afternoon

by Rossputin | 8:57 am, April 9, 2011

UPDATE: Here are the two podcast hours from my first time on Denver’s 850 KOA radio

Hour 1
Hour 2

I’ll be on the air on 850 KOA in Denver from after the Rockies’ game (roughly 3 PM) until 5 PM on Sunday…before racing over to do my own show on Backbone Radio.

Please listen in and give a call in to the studio if you have a comment or question about anything I’m talking about…on either show!  The KOA studio number is 303 713 8585.  KNUS studio is 303 696 1971.

A Farewell to David Harsanyi Devil’s Advocate Show

by Jon Caldara | 8:02 am, April 9, 2011

Indefinite jury duty

by Rossputin | 6:11 am, April 9, 2011

In response to a story about a judge giving a (potential) juror “indefinite jury duty” for offering racist answers in a juror questionnaire, a reader (pen-)named George has penned a note to that judge:

April 6, 2011

The Hon. Nicholas G. Garaufis
225 Cadman Plaza E
Number 640
New York,  New York 11201

Dear Sir,

It was with great delight that I read of your wise response the female juror who dared express an unenlightened opinion.  The courage it must have taken for you to stand up to that horrible First Amendment, to punish someone for daring to express a view contrary to our new social order.  You sir are the Vanguard of the movement to remake humanity in our perfect image. To control their thoughts we must first punish their words. And you sir are perfectly positioned to do just that – a lifetime appointment with which to force the views of our more perfect order upon the masses for their own betterment.

Yes I am in awe. Your courage in striking a blow against that inconvenient Constitution will chip away at the few defenses the great unwashed have in standing against our utopian ideal.  Your willingness to punish the opinions of that confused, backward woman show the same courage Bill Clinton must have seen when he appointed you: the courage to ignore law, tradition and social mores and to impose the higher discipline of our elite, again for their betterment.  The courage that will see us to our new and brave future, our socialist ideal, our perfecting of the common man.

Please don’t stop here. It is obvious that you are superior to the masses with which you have to deal. You posses the credentials and the experience to push the Progressive ideal into our bright and glorious future free from bad thoughts and ideas (as defined by you and other such superior intellects) in our collectivist paradise.

Additionally, I am certain that fear and reverence for your superior thoughts will generate in Juror 799 a new view of the world and cause her to perform her jury duty service to the highest standard while enlightening the other 11 jurors as to the perils of having independent, unapproved thoughts.

Affectionately yours,

George

George Orwell
London, Oceania
Our Glorious Future

Sen. John Morse – Caught Double-Dipping on Per-Diem?

by T.L. James | 6:52 pm, April 8, 2011

The gist of the story is that Morse may have claimed per-diem while on a fully-paid trip to China, which one might expect is not what Senate per-diem is meant to cover. Further, the paid-for trip itself may have violated Amendment 41 rules, in that the trip was sponsored by an organization which receives most of its funding from for-profit sources.

Supreme Court Campaign Case Pits Colorado Ethics Watch vs. Colorado Education Association

by Ben DeGrow | 5:14 pm, April 8, 2011

This little tidbit I uncovered either shatters the grand Colorado Democracy Alliance (CoDA) conspiracy theory or proves it to be even more convoluted and diabolical than previously imagined. But court documents show two of the Alliance’s core groups — sue-happy Colorado Ethics Watch (CEW) and the Colorado Education Association (CEA), the state’s largest teachers union [...]

Military members receive 1/2 paychecks today – Congress full paychecks

by Mr. Bob | 4:06 pm, April 8, 2011

WRITE YOUR REPRESENTIVES NOWTweet

Big Week for School Choice in Arizona: Education Savings Accounts for Colorado?

by Eddie | 9:45 am, April 8, 2011

Matthew Ladner is right when he says: “This has been quite the week for parental choice in Arizona.” Of course, as my GoBash blogging friend noted, on Monday a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the state’s private school tax credit program — an important precedent. But Ladner’s statement comes from a posting primarily about [...]

Stunning turnaround in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

by Rossputin | 7:29 am, April 8, 2011

Wow! That’s really all I can say as I read the news that a County Clerk in Wisconsin failed to save on her computer, and thus failed to report, 14,315 votes cast in the heavily Republican city of Brookfield.

Those new votes, combined with “typing errors” in two other parts of the County appear to add a net 7,582 to Prosser over Kloppenburg, giving the incumbent non-leftist Justice a lead of about 7,378 votes before other vote total adjustments from around the state.  With a total of votes cast at about 1.494 million, the current margin of Plosser’s lead is now less than 100 votes short of what would be needed to force Kloppenburg to have to pay for a recount, an effort which would cost at least a million dollars and would be, in my view, as good a use of union dues money as anything; after all, it would keep them from being able to spend that money in another election.

If any more errors are found prior to a recount process which add to Prosser’s lead, one could see a situation where there is no longer a free, automatic recount, though if that were going to happen you’d probably expect it to have happened already. So far, the reported changes in vote totals in other counties are small, with a net gain for Kloppenburg based on one news report of about 30 votes over seven counties, nowhere near enough for her to reclaim victory, but putting her slightly more safely inside the margin needed for a free recount.

Please read the entirety of my article at the American Spectator web page:
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/04/08/turnabout-in-wisconsin

Health Care and the Separation of Charity and State

by Brian T. Schwartz | 5:30 am, April 8, 2011

“If a patient needs a $50,000 operation but cannot afford it, he has the right to ask his friends, family, neighbors, or strangers for monetary assistance—& they have the right to offer it (or not). But the patient has no right to take people’s money without their permission; to do so would be to violate their rights.” – Paul Hsieh, M.D.

No media bias here!

by Rossputin | 5:25 am, April 8, 2011

Before going further, let me say that as Denver Post political reporters go, I like Allison Sherry.  I know that certain Republican operatives think she was (very) biased toward Michael Bennet during the recent US Senate campaign, and I don’…

Federal activities allowed in case of a government shutdown

by David Kopel | 11:10 pm, April 7, 2011

(David Kopel) The Constitution declares that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” (Article I, Section 9, Clause 7.) As James Madison explained in Federalist 58, our Constitution is based on the princple that strict controls on spending are necessary to prevent abuses of power. Hence, federal money can only [...]

Leftists Upset Because Xcel is Selling Too Much Renewable Energy

by PerlStalker | 10:45 pm, April 7, 2011

For some strange reason, I felt the need to follow a link to a post on the Colorado Independent. The progressive blog has a story up about the “perverse incentive” Xcel is getting for building out renewable energy.

“It is now well known that [Xcel…

Glass Reflects on CU Gun Debate

by Ari Armstrong | 4:40 pm, April 7, 2011

In this guest article, Bob Glass reviews an April 6 event he attended in Boulder.Venturing into the people’s Republic of Boulder is always part freak show and part sensory overload of political correctness. I got more of my share of both when I attende…

Harsanyi On Devil’s Advocate This Friday Night

by Mike Krause | 4:26 pm, April 7, 2011

David Harsanyi is a true contrarian. While recently made up census data shows a mass migration of sensible people from New York to Colorado and the rest of the Rocky Mountain West, David is leaving the Denver Post, packing up his syndicated columnist kit (bottle of booze and a laptop) and heading to New York [...]

Time to enforce the Tenth Amendment

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 1:05 pm, April 7, 2011

Trust Obama? – Reason MagazineAs explained in the Reason Magazine story linked above, President Obama has not even made a cursory attempt to abide by either the Constitution or the War Powers Act in his decision to bomb Libya.Likewise, neither Obama no…

Denver Post Highlights Growing Trend of Parents Exercising Public School Choice

by Eddie | 11:38 am, April 7, 2011

Update, 4/8: Denise at Colorado Charters offers more specific reasons why so many Denver families are exercising public school choice.
Interesting news today from the Denver Post today under the headline “53 percent of DPS students opt out of assigned campuses.” Colorado has one of the nation’s very best, parent-friendly open enrollment laws — in effect [...]

Hsieh Explores Atlas Shrugged’s Deeper Themes

by Ari Armstrong | 9:46 am, April 7, 2011

Philosopher Diana Hsieh, who recorded a wonderful series of podcasts about Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, discussed some of the novel’s deeper themes April 6 at Liberty On the Rocks, Denver. As her main example Hsieh focused on the psychological destructio…

Ed Feulner, Heritage Foundation President, on “Seng Center” TONIGHT at 6pm!

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 8:00 am, April 7, 2011

Dr. Ed Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation, and Gregory Carlson, architect of conservative CU Student Government takeover, in college radio exclusives Tonight at 6pm 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 one of the most influential conservatives [...]

Paul Ryan’s Budget: A Huge Opportunity to Improve Health Care

by Brian T. Schwartz | 5:30 am, April 7, 2011

Rep. Paul Ryan’s “budget blueprint that tackles the three big health care challenges facing the federal budget — ObamaCare, Medicare and Medicaid – with a strategy of repeal, vouchers and block grants. Done properly, those steps would simultaneously improve health care and help balance the budget within a decade.”

The Denver Metro Young Republicans 5th Annual Legislative Reception !!

by Brett Moore | 12:25 am, April 7, 2011

 You are cordially invited to The Denver Metro Young Republicans 5th Annual Legislative Reception! Meet and Mingle with your elected Republican Leaders and the DMYR Membership! Cocktails and heavy appetizers will be provided. Reserve your spot now by emailing rsvp.dmyr@gmail.com !! Thursday, April 14, 2011, 6:30-9:30 pm Colorado Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) 290 East Speer [...]

JBC Strikes Agreement on Colorado Budget

by PerlStalker | 6:26 pm, April 6, 2011

It’s a week late but the Colorado Joint Budget Committee finally agreed to a budget plan. The final sticking point, which would have allowed school districts and local governments to require PERA employees to pay an additional two percent into their pe…

As Digital Learning Opportunities Expand, Program Quality Should Follow, Too

by Eddie | 4:04 pm, April 6, 2011

Digital learning. It’s a big educational wave of the future… and of the present. The use of online technology in formal learning can take on so many forms that it’s difficult to imagine all the possibilities of what it could look like. As digital learning opportunities began to expand, we want to keep the focus [...]

Individual Mandate is Unconstitutional Amicus Brief

by Jon Caldara | 2:37 pm, April 6, 2011

Our resident legal and constitutional scholar Dave Kopel participated in this incredibly important amicus brief for the 4th circuit court of appeals. The amicus argues that the individual mandate to buy health insurance found in ObamaCare is not constitutional, neither through the commerce clause nor the necessary and proper clause. The brief was filed by [...]

Paul Ryan for President

by Mr. Bob | 9:45 am, April 6, 2011

But first, lets get his plan passed. He has the only plan that actually seems like it might work. Yesterday Beck interviewed him on his plan to save 6Trillion over 10 years. Pray for Paul Ryan, the left is going to pull out every stop to destroy him. …

NM Gov. Susana Martinez attends CO GOP Dinner

by elpresidente | 9:42 am, April 6, 2011

Civil Discourse Double Standard

by Jon Caldara | 8:15 am, April 6, 2011

In the aftermath of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords shooting came the predictable attacks on political speech. Many were contending that it was “violent” political discourse that was a root cause of inciting actual political violence. Now this may be true (though I doubt it), but it also served a political interest to attack emotionally charged [...]

Wisconsin State Supreme Court election update

by Rossputin | 8:02 am, April 6, 2011

UPDATES posted occasionally at the end of this note so check back from time to time!

At 8 AM Mountain Time this morning, according to the current AP tally, incumbent conservative Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser leads union-supported liberal JoAnne Kloppenburg by 835 votes out of almost 1.5  million votes cast, with 26 precincts left to report out of 3630 precincts.

The left has a way of stealing close elections and it would not surprise me to see these last precincts magically turn the tide against the conservative, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Another point worth mentioning: What does it say about the role of the judiciary in America today that the left will work so hard to elect a judge?  Do they believe that once elected the judge will be so beholden to them that she’ll make political rather than law-based decisions?  And is there any good reason, given what we’ve seen in recent years including at the federal Supreme Court, to believe they’re wrong to assume that?  We no longer live under the rule of law, or at least we’re quickly moving in that direction.

UPDATE 8:30 AM Mountain:  With 8 more precincts counted, 18 left to count, Prosser’s lead has dropped to 419 votes.  It’s like watching a movie that you know is going to have a very bad ending.  How many dead people voted in Wisconsin yesterday?

UPDATE: 9:15 AM Mountain: The zombies are voting as predicted.  With 5 precincts left to count, the liberal has taken a roughly 450 vote lead over Prosser. We are watching the theft of an election happening (again) in our nation’s heartland (just as they stole the election in MN for Al Franken several years ago.)

UPDATE: 9:40 AM Mountain: Zombies still in the lead.  3 precincts left, liberal has 240 vote lead.  We’re headed for a recount with the most incredible efforts at cheating by the left that we’ve seen in a while.  The only good news is that the nation will be watching more closely than usual…much more closely considering this is just a judicial retention race.

UPDATE: With all the votes counted, the unions have found enough dead voters and enough “early and often” voters to give the liberal a 204 vote victory in the initial count.  All we know for sure is that there will be a recount.  If I were a betting man, I would bet that the left finds more zombie ballots and Kloppenburg’s lead increases.  The left has mastereed stealing elections and it doesn’t hurt their case that so many people involved in the process are government workers.

UPDATE: Thursday evening: A Waukesha County clerk has announced that she failed to report over 14,000 votes in the heavily Republican area, with the new votes giving incumbent Justice David Prosser a commanding lead of over 7,000 votes in the race.  More to follow on a separate blog note…

Paul Ryan’s day

by Rossputin | 6:18 am, April 6, 2011

I must admit I feel somewhat vindicated personally.  When I wrote my article about “Ryan’s opening pitch” for the American Spectator back in February, I concluded with this:

©onservatives would do well to give Paul Ryan the benefit of the doubt when it comes to budget cuts and not to assume that the first swing of the axe was intended to make the deepest cut.

Comments to the article included:

• “Ryan has already surrendered on the budget.”
• “This is the same Paul Ryan that voted for TARP, NCLB, extending unemployment benefits, the medicare package of $400 Billion?”
• “Pathetic”
• “With regards to the first swing. It stinks.”
• And my favorite: “Ross, you are acting like the battered wife who continues to make excuses for her husband. It’s time to admit that Paul Ryan was always the cheating louse your girlfriends complained he was, and he will never change.”

With his budget proposal on Tuesday, Ryan surpassed the budget-cutting expectations of every significant pundit and politicians I’ve read in recent months.

The Cato Institute who doesn’t take a back seat to anyone on desire for a minimal federal government says “In sum, Paul Ryan has proposed a fiscal reform structure that should win broad political support… Political leaders keep saying that we need an “adult conversation” on federal budget reforms. Republican Ryan has started that conversation, and now it is up to Democrats to put aside their childish rants about “extremism” and offer up their own plan to avert the coming fiscal disaster.”

The Heritage Foundation says that “House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal, for the first time in recent memory, sets our nation on a different and better path.”

And perhaps the best endorsement of all comes from the opposition to Ryan’s plan by the anti-liberty, anti-capitalist, and fundamentally anti-American Center for American Progress which says “Far from a real tax plan, his approach is made up of obfuscation, misdirection, and pure assertion.”

Maybe someone should remind CAP that the Democrats didn’t even offer us that much, totally abandoning their responsibility to craft a budget in the final year of their recent and short-lived majority in the House of Representatives.

Other excellent “known by your enemies” responses include the AARP calling the budget “indefensible” and Chris Van Hollen, the man who presided over the re-election of House Democrats with such resounding success (not!) in November, who said that Ryan “essentially end(s) Medicare as we know it”, as if that’s a bad thing.  Somebody ended Bernie Madoff as we knew him, too.  Don’t hear much complaining about that.

Although the talk for the rest of this week will be about a possible government “shutdown” starting this weekend (I’m hoping there is one), Ryan’s budget is the blockbuster news of the day, the week, the month, and perhaps the year.

Paul Ryan can hold his head high…and I feel just fine about saying “I told you so” to those well-intentioned but aggressively erroneous commenters who said that my faith in Paul Ryan was somewhere between misplaced and stupid.

p.s. I laughed out loud when Barack Obama came into the White House Press briefing room yesterday to say that the current budget discussions couldn’t be dominated by a “my way or the highway” attitude by House Republicans.  Can you say “Obamacare”, Mr. President? Can you say “We won. We write the bills”, Mr. President? Speaking of which, when is the last time anybody saw Nancy Pelosi in public?  I have to say that not seeing her smug, vicious face on a daily basis is the single greatest political change in this nation in quite a few years.

Why States Are Shying Away From ObamaCare’s Health Insurance Exchanges

by Brian T. Schwartz | 5:30 am, April 6, 2011

State legislators who oppose [ObamaCare] might nonetheless be tempted to try building and running the exchanges themselves. But there are a number of reasons why governors in that position might want to sit out the implementation process.

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