Green Doomsday Cultists

by Ari Armstrong | 4:03 pm, May 20, 2011

So the world is going to end tomorrow. Perhaps when it doesn’t the religious doomsday cultists will finally shut the hell up, at least for a little while.I have to wonder, though, whether the doomsday scenarios of the environmentalists make much more s…

C Where They Spend Your Money

by Jon Caldara | 3:46 pm, May 20, 2011

This past legislative session was pretty ugly for citizens. And especially ugly for energy ratepayers. But one of the few silver linings to emerge was a bill that could serve as a beacon of transparency for years to come. The bill is HB 1002 sponsored by Rep. BJ Nikkel and Sen. Mike Kopp. Rep. Nikkel [...]

Bibi Takes POTUS to School

by Mr. Bob | 2:10 pm, May 20, 2011

#israel #palestine***UPDATE- Bibi should take GW to school too, cause he apparently said the same thing! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1575285/George-Bush-predicts-deal-on-Palestinian-state.htmlTweet

What’s Left Unsaid in CTQ Report on Implementing Colorado SB 191

by Eddie | 12:17 pm, May 20, 2011

A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts about Colorado’s implementation of the educator effectiveness law (SB 191) — including a video from Step Up Colorado — that prompted a lengthy and thoughtful comment from an area teacher who is part of the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ)’s New Millennium Initiative (NMI).
Then someone else [...]

CDOT transparency

by Amy Oliver | 7:20 am, May 20, 2011

Believe it or not, there are bills that both respect taxpayers and enjoy enormous bi-partisan support. HB 11-1002 is a great example from the 2011 legislative session. State Rep BJ Nikkel worked with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and drafted legislation to “develop and maintain a publicly accessible, searchable, online database of its revenue [...]

The Speech

by Joshua Sharf | 7:06 am, May 20, 2011

There have been and will be a lot of pixels spilled over Obama’s Middle East Address yesterday at the State Department.  Still, in all the discussion of whether or not the speech marked a change in US policy towards Israel (it did), I think it amounts to Obama going in and kicking over a sand [...]

New documents raise major questions about Kagan

by Rossputin | 6:40 am, May 20, 2011

H/T Jed Babbin

Based on documents received in reponse to a Freedom of Information Act request, the watchdog group Judicial Watch offers evidence that Elena Kagan’s involvement in preparing a legal defense of Obamacare should require her to recuse herself from any Supreme Court hearing of a relevant case.

The information also suggests that Kagan may have lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

More here:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2011/may/documents-raise-questions-about-supreme-court-justice-kagan-s-role-obamacare-defense-s

Source documents here:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/files/documents/2011/mrc-kagan-docs.pdf

And here, the Office of the Solicitor General’s response to a similar FOIA request from CNS News and the Media Research Center, including their admitting that they first told CNS News that they (Terence Jeffrey in particular) could not get the information:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/files/documents/2011/mrc-kagan-vaughn-declaration-docs.pdf

CNS News has been digging deeper for the last few weeks, including here:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/did-kagan-tell-deputy-she-assigned-healt

It would be interesting if Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) or Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) sink their teeth into this to use the power of a House or Senate subpoena to get the information necessary to see if Kagan (or others) lied to the Senate to get confirmed to the  Supreme Court, or whether enough information can be made public to essentially force her to recuse herself from any  Supreme Court hearing related to Obamacare.

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC honors the national debt

by Brian T. Schwartz | 10:57 pm, May 19, 2011

[video] Rachel Maddow describes how great projects like the national debt are accomplished. She feels the individual alone is not capable of accomplishing a 14 trillion dollar debt. Government is the only way to accomplish such a large task.

Colorado SB 11-213: Parents should value children’s health more than sweets & booze

by Brian T. Schwartz | 10:40 pm, May 19, 2011

If the state must compel taxpayers to fund CHP+, Senate Bill 213 would increase enrollment fees so eligible parents can more sensibly weigh the costs of their kids’ health care against the costs of booze, tobacco, sweets and movies.

Rachel Maddow Touts National Debt?

by Ben DeGrow | 10:30 pm, May 19, 2011

I don’t watch cable news, and I definitely don’t watch MSNBC. But I found this creative 30-second video of Rachel Maddow sends a pretty powerful message about the debt crisis our nation currently faces… take a moment and watch:

Five-year tax hike in Colo. could set stage for more

by Kelly Maher | 9:46 pm, May 19, 2011

Colorado state Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder. announced Monday (in front of fourth-graders whose parents did not give permission that they be used in a press event) that he was moving forward with his initiative to raise taxes for five years. Over the course of this process, Heath has looked at three tax increase proposals: one [...]

The FASTER Way to Ignore TABOR

by Jon Caldara | 3:46 pm, May 19, 2011

Tune in to Devil’s Advocate this Friday night as I am joined by Rich Sokol of Legacy Capital Group and Tom Ryan of Analyst Strategy Group for an examination of how the 2009 FASTER legislation has allowed Colorado to issue $300 million of new debt without bothering to ask permission from Colorado voters as required [...]

D-11 Makes Open Negotiations Progress; Jeffco Board President Defends Secrecy

by Eddie | 12:50 pm, May 19, 2011

Finally, some good news on open union negotiations! The Colorado Springs Gazette reports on the latest developments from School District 11:

The board voted unanimously on a resolution detailing changes to the Master Agreement, including opening all steps of negotiations dealing with financial articles and at least some portions of other negotiations. Additional sessions could be [...]

Political Development Versus Economic Development

by Ari Armstrong | 11:53 am, May 19, 2011

Political “economic development” harms the economy by diverting resources from more-valued to less-valued uses. Sure, it’s easy for politicians to point to the fancy shops and such resulting from politicized development, but, as Bastiat and Hazlitt war…

House Paint, Stock Shows, and Shopping Malls

by Vande Krol | 10:52 am, May 19, 2011

Backyard Bail-Outs? Sometime soon my house will need a paint job (I mention this at risk of an onslaught of painting companies soliciting my business).  If I don’t repaint, my house will likely lose value.  If I neglect it long enough,…

Hillyer shreds Gingrich

by Rossputin | 9:34 am, May 19, 2011

It takes a certain skill to utterly destroy someone in a paragraph. The American Spectator’s Quin Hillyer has demonstrated that he has such skill in his piece about Newt Gingrich today.

I note in particular this paragraph, one which I think would have had H.L. Mencken nodding with approval and which reminds me, as the occasional piece of writing does, that writing is indeed an art:

Gingrich is a man with all the self-discipline of golfer John Daly, combined with the verbal incontinence of a Tourette’s sufferer except without the actual medical malady as a valid excuse. He’s a man who can’t keep his mouth shut, his pants zipped, his ego in check, or his tempter restrained. He’s as steady as a mechanical bull, as brilliant as a fallen star, as able to keep perspective as Dadaist art.

Jump in, Mitch!

by Rossputin | 6:05 am, May 19, 2011

Look, Mitch Daniels isn’t perfect. But he’s more than good enough. He’s more socially conservative than I am (not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to getting elected) and he’s not exactly a bundle of charisma. But his accomplishments as Indiana’s governor are solid and his stint as the head of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget is a critical résumé booster during these times of economic turmoil.

His opponents already smack of desperation, bringing up a rather strange marital situation – his wife left him, he raised their kids, then she returned and they remarried – which if anything makes Daniels look like a great father rather than a bad husband. They’re also trying to tar Daniels with the out-of-control spending during the Bush years. However, Daniels was (1) not a member of Congress, (2) only there for the first two years of Bush’s presidency, not the time of the most out-of-control spending, and (3) called “the Blade” by President Bush for his consistent push to cut budgets.

Daniels has been willing to make unpopular decisions, believing – and being proven correct more often than not – that the people would eventually come around to appreciate his government-shrinking efforts. One place where Daniels does have some political risk was his remarkable underestimation of the cost of the war in Iraq, though it’s hard to see that as a deal-breaker in this year of various flawed candidates.

Please read the rest of my article for the American Spectator here:
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/19/mitch-over-mitt

Why Cato’s Michael Cannon has boycotted PolitiFact:

by Brian T. Schwartz | 5:30 am, May 19, 2011

Why PolitiFact’s claims are not always factual.

A Tale of Two Trains

by Joshua Sharf | 10:59 pm, May 18, 2011

Funny thing about trains.  They work well for people over short distances when the densities are high enough, but are terrible over long, wide-open spaces.  They work well for freight over long distances, but lose those efficiencies over short distances. In the first instance, Amtrak, with record ridership, is losing more money than ever.  The [...]

Don’t Buy the Media Buildup of John Huntsman

by PerlStalker | 9:03 pm, May 18, 2011

Podcaster extraordinaire Jimmie Bise has an interesting blog post looking at the media coverage of potential Presidential candidate John Huntsman. Pay close attention to the tactics the media is using here.

Now, if you had read that, you might think…

Justice Kagan, You Got Some Splainin’ To Do

by Joshua Sharf | 6:22 pm, May 18, 2011

As we know, Elena Kagan was the Obama Administration’s Solicitor General at the time that Obamacare was being drafted, and its legal defenses were being constructed.  As a result, some Republicans have called on Justice Kagan to recuse herself from cases involving Obamacare when they come before the Court.   Now this, from the Daily [...]

Can we trust the media?

by Amy Oliver | 3:22 pm, May 18, 2011

When it comes to transparency and a free society, the fourth estate is vital. So what does it mean when the news media becomes the story? Consider these gems: Liberal billionaire George Soros has spent more than $48 million funding media properties, including the infrastructure of news – journalism schools, investigative journalism and even industry [...]

Eina Kleina Social Security Analysis

by Ari Armstrong | 12:29 pm, May 18, 2011

Ezra Klein is very smart. Unfortunately, sometimes he allows his factual research to limit his worldview to the status quo; he becomes a conservative in the worst sense of that term. Consider his recent article on Social Security.Klein argues, “Over th…

Less Sweets, More Health Care

by Jon Caldara | 11:41 am, May 18, 2011

SB 213 passed all the necessary hurdles and is now awaiting the governor’s signature. Our Health Care Policy blogger Brian Schwartz reminds us with this Health Policy Solutions op-ed why this bill is important in the fight for controlling health care costs borne by both the recipients of health care services and we taxpayers. What [...]

Please Ask First Before Using Students as Props for a Statewide Tax Hike

by Eddie | 11:05 am, May 18, 2011

Perhaps you saw this week’s news that Colorado state senator Rollie Heath and several advocacy groups are “pushing ahead” with a proposal that would take more from wage-earners, investors and consumers all over the state to finance K-12 and higher education:

The plan would raise state personal and corporate income tax rates to 5 percent from [...]

The Constitution: Does the Necessary and Proper Clause Grant “Broad Authority” to Congress? Actually, None at All

by Rob Natelson | 10:54 am, May 18, 2011

Probably no part of the Constitution has been so misunderstood as the Necessary and Proper Clause, which is located at Article I, Section 8, Clause 18. The Necessary and Proper Clause has been called both an “elastic clause” and a “sweeping clause,” and many have claimed it grants vast power to Congress. For [...]

Liberal gas price hypocrisy

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

H/T Mike Floodstrand

While I’ve explained a few times why the charge of hypocrisy is generally ineffective against liberals – the short version being that since they don’t run on the basis of principles, you can’t chastise them for violating principles – that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun or interesting to point out their hypocrisy when you can find it.

And with certain issues, it actually has a chance at making a difference – namely issues that hit Americans square in the wallet.

Thus, the Don Smith Show’s exposé on liberal hypocrisy about gasoline prices is fun, interesting, and potentially politically useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKdScVerrBU

Penn and Teller explain vaccinations

by Rossputin | 5:54 am, May 18, 2011

H/T Michael Brown

I’ve written in the past (here, here) about idiot Boulder liberals believing anything negative they read about risks of vaccinating children because those liberals are so willing to believe anything negative about any large profitable corporation, at least any corporation that provides anything that people actually need.

Libertarians Penn (Gilette) and Teller (?) offer perhaps the last (and R-rated) word on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo

Insurance company fined for selling illegal policies in Massachusetts

by Brian T. Schwartz | 5:30 am, May 18, 2011

From Healthcare Finance News, April 26 2011: According to the [Massachusetts] AG’s complaint, U.S. Life sold health insurance policies in Massachusetts that were not authorized for sale and did not cover health services required by Massachusetts law. The mandated services at issue included mental health, maternity healthcare, infertility care, pap test screening, mammography and preventive [...]

Colorado Revenues Are Up But …

by PerlStalker | 10:45 pm, May 17, 2011

Colorado’s tax revenues are up but …

“Obviously, it is encouraging,” said Henry Sobanet, budget director for Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper. “The challenge with all this is we haven’t seen the job growth that you would expect to see with this (…

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