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There are now two ads out attacking Mark Udall. One is a radio ad from someone called American Future Fund. The other is a tv ad from Coloradans for Economic Growth. Sounds pretty good right? Here's the video. Let's go through this bit by bit.
Of course first they start off with taxes and taxes, oh my. "Udall voted for higher taxes 50 times. Really? How'd did you add up that number? I emailed the Udall campaign to ask about this line. It took them a while, but they got back to me saying that Udall has voted to lower taxes a whole bunch more. They'll even list the roll call votes for you. Nice research guys.
Next there's something about raising taxes a whole bunch. What the hell are they talking about?
While Bob voted for massive tax cuts for the already obscenely profitable oil industry? Hey, you notice those are the oil companies that want to drill up our coasts like a bunch of milkshakes, when they already a whole vat of milkshake in the basement, still untouched. This guy later became an oil executive. Schaffer ran an oil company just as the gas prices started to sky rocket. Brother, please!
So, don't talk to me about taxes. Every proposed tax increase still doesn't restore the Bush tax cuts. And as always, there the Trillions being spend in Iraq each year that could pay for an awful lot of health care and educational programs.
Later they squeal, "Udall stood with extremist groups.
Yet, the Rocky said, "Udall may be the most moderate-leaning Democrat to represent the 2nd District in a generation." [11/2/00] There are a few others in the Post and Camera. Sorry, get your own Lexis account.
...
Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all.
In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we're honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny...
And it just keeps getting better. Make sure you watch the whole thing.
Good ol' Jon Caldara embarrassed himself in the paper today.
He's floating an idea to kill the FasTrack program via a vote sometime in the future.
The Rocky brings us the stupid. On RTD currently being over-budget:
"If you say you're going to do something and then you don't do it, I believe that's a legal contract and that should be actionable," Caldara said. "That's something we're going to explore."
Steel isn't the only commodity being ravaged by inflation. Here's the price of copper over the past 5 years:
Looks like a 400% increase in 5 years to me.
And I don't have tell you that the price of oil has gone up over 300% since 2002, the year FasTracks was passed.
This explains exactly why FasTracks is over budget. RTD is at the mercy of things beyond it's control. Of course FasTracks had inflation adjustments figured in to the cost of the project over 15 years, but no one--and I mean no one--guessed that we'd see 100% increases year-over-year in commodities.
And since Caldara hasn't noticed, I'll point him to this article from the Rocky on April 30, 2008:
If it seems a little crowded on that bus and your getting a bit familiar with the light rail rider crammed in next to you, it's because RTD ridership is up 13 percent over last year...
A total of 97.8 million riders used RTD over 12 months, a record number and up from 87.6 million for the same period a year earlier. Light rail averaged nearly 68,000 riders per weekday in February, 8.7 percent higher than a year earlier, while bus service carried 5.4 million riders, an increase of nearly 15 percent.
Also notice Caldara offers no other transit solution, even though 2.6 Million more people will be moving to the Front Range in the next 32 years.
I've said it before, if RTD needs more money, I bet the can get it. Don't cut back on the plan, ask for some more cash. With $4/gallon, seems to me a Mass Transit measure would have no problem passing.
And what I wanted give to be able to take a train to DIA.
There's Congresswoman Degette, working for the people. This was an editorial on Degette's proposed food safety bill in the NY Times:
One Very Scary Jalapeño
Federal health officials have finally found a jalapeño tainted with the rare form of salmonella that has poisoned more than 1,200 people in this country since April. The contaminated pepper was grown in Mexico and repacked by a small Texas distributor. The company has pulled its supplies from the marketplace, and the Food and Drug Administration is advising people to eat only jalapeños and serranos that have been safely cooked.
...
A bill proposed by Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, is a good start. It would require the F.D.A. and the Department of Agriculture, which monitors food safety, to establish a working system to trace food products accurately and quickly. At least 1,200 people in America and the country's tomato growers can testify that the present system needs work.
It's all over the blogosphere, but here's a link to the Daily Kos write up of it:
There is one more John McCain gaffe that the media missed from the now famous CBS interview with Katie Couric.
This is the same interview in which McCain claimed the surge led to the Anbar Awakening, which is demonstrably false. But watch below for another gaffe when McCain says Iraq was the first major conflict after 9/11.
Was Afghanistan not major enough for him? It almost reminds you of when Don Rumsfeld was not impressed with invading Afghanistan because it did not provide a rich enough target environment. He needed something more major.
In all likelihood, this was a simple mental mistake for McCain, among a litany of others recently. But it does go toward state of mind. They never saw Afghanistan as a priority
Let's all watch as the McMedia covers up for this would-be President who can't get anything right. It must have been one helluva BBQ.
Edward "Eddie" Davidson, a notorious e-mail spammer who was sentenced to jail time in April, has escaped from a federal prison camp in Florence, Colorado.
Davidson (right), also known as the "Spam King, made a run for it when his wife visited him last Sunday and is now officially listed in "escape" status, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was last seen in Lakewood, CO.
The Bush administration has drafted new rules in their attempt to keep us dependent on oil, while transferring more Colorado lands and resources into the hands of their largest donors. The Bush plan accelerates oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, rather than investing in alternative fuels. Still many years away from even potential results, the plan is being sold as an emergency short term response to current energy prices.
Environmental groups that oppose oil-shale development said the 235- page BLM document with preliminary rules is unnecessary. In it, the BLM states that "currently, there is no oil-shale industry and the oil-shale extractive technology is still in its rudimentary stages."
"The only benefit that could come from this would be for those seeking partisan political gain in trying to give the impression that ... this oil-shale industry has a role to play in impacting high energy prices," said Chase Huntley, policy adviser with the Wilderness Society.
The administration is blocked from taking further action by a Congressional moritorium that expires on Oct. 1st. Sen. Ken Salazar, the author of the original ban, seeks to extend the current rules until 2009.
Sen. Salazar:
"Before we move ahead with commercial leasing, we need to know what impact oil shale will have on Western water supplies, whether the technology will work on a commercial scale, where we would get the power for the projects, and what effect it would have on our land and wildlife."
Rep Madden is currently attending the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Labor Caucus. There she spoke on a panel about renewable energy while propping up our stumbling economy.
I spoke with Rep Madden on the phone yesterday just after her session. The combination of renewable energy and the economy is best talked about in terms of green jobs she said. There have been too many occasions where companies have come to Colorado but had to import skilled workers as they couldn't find specific ones here. That has to change said Madden.
We're already making progress with a change of political will across the country on renewable energy and global warming. Madden has helped pass several bills which encourage renewable energy development.
The conference was also an opportunity to share and exchange ideas with legislators from other states. One idea developed from the conference was a bill that allow the Governor's energy office to set up programs in our colleges and universities to give students the very skills needed in this new industry. We want Coloradans in those jobs to help our economy. Another idea centered around small cheap electric cars. Currently when these vehicles don't have airbags they must be limited to 25mph like a golf cart. Madden described how this is not something that's marketable to many people. She wants to search for a way to change the requirements and also perhaps improve the safety of these vehicles so their top speed limiter can be removed. These cars, currently costing under $10k could be useful city cars when they can keep up with traffic.
Madden also pointed to Xcel's plan to install smart electric meters throughout the city of Boulder, ideas such as solar powered parking meters that could conceivable be free parking and charging stations for electric and plug-in-hybrid cars.
When McCain confuses Sunni and Shiite I can give him the benefit of the doubt. When he says Iraq shares a border with Afghanistan there's still some of me thinking it was just an honest slip of the tongue.
But his latest failed attempt at recalling actual events leaves little room to think he is a man without the capabilities of digesting what in the world has happened and is happening in the world, let alone Iraq.
Sadly, this isn't the shame here. That honor goes to Katie Couric's CBS Evening News covering it up, editing the interview to remove McCain's complete and utter lack of understanding.
(Great to see the Bell on SquareState. Let's talk policy. - promoted by Aaron Silverstein)
By Wade Buchanan
President
The Bell Policy Center
The Bell Policy Center, which has focused a great deal of attention on understanding and explaining the effects of TABOR, is making SAFE, the Savings Account for Education, a top priority this year.
We believe SAFE (Initiative 126), the brainchild of outgoing House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, is the critical next step in restoring fiscal sanity to Colorado. The measure will help make permanent the gains the state made when it passed Referendum C in 2005, and it will help untangle some of the knots we have tied in our state constitution over the years.
After a late start, the SAFE campaign is rapidly gaining speed. Supporters are raising money and gathering petition signatures, and the campaign has retained RBI Strategy and Research to prepare for the general election.
We are convinced this is the right year for this measure. By all accounts, a record number of voters will turn out this November, including larger-than-usual numbers from groups we think stand to benefit most from improved investments in education and other important state services.
Here, Obama still leads among unaffiliated voters, but not as much as in June. Dems and Republicans are both supporting their party's candidate at nearly 90%.
At Netroots Nation this year the second annual PubQuiz took place. The idea - form a team and answer politial minutiae. AdamB from Daily Kos is the host. Our team, Shock and Awesome, was ready for the challenge. But we soon were "shocked" to discover we weren't as "awesome" as we thought.
On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is "[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "
Michael (Weiner) Savage said that, but last night Bill O'Reilly again called "the kos" uh, it's DailyKos, (or the great orange satan, thank you very much) as a site that's like the Nazis or the Klan as if a repeat of his show the day after yearlykos last year. I fully expect Gunny Bob's show to tonight be a repeat too, parroting O'falafel.
If you want to help fight back, there's contact info after the fold.
Douglas Bruce's Web site featured an impressive list of endorsements for his legislative primary race, including U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, Secretary of State Mike Coffman and Republican National Committeeman Mark Hillman.
There was just one problem: None of them actually had given the Colorado Springs Republican representative their backing for the contest.
...
When asked about the wording, Bruce said it had been changed by an overzealous webmaster and that he had no intention to deceive. Within 10 minutes, the heading over the list of endorsers read: "Elected officials and others who have supported or praised Douglas Bruce during his years of his public service."
I wonder if Doug Bruce has a "time horizon" for getting rid of the guy.
Someone's past support in another race, in another time, in another context doesn't mean much. Just ask former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan about the accolades he received from President Bush the day he retired. You think they'll be sitting in a rocker on a porch discussing days gone by anytime soon?
At a press conference this morning, Jim Hudson (the guy who questioned McCain at a recent "townhall" meeting in Denver), the Colorado Veterans Alliance, and Hal Bidlack spoke out against John McCain's horrible record of saying one thing and doing another when it comes to supporting veterans. The press conference included a litany of grievances including John McCain not even bothering to show up for the senate vote on the modernized GI Bill. That and many other reasons were given why these vets in Colorado are also behind Barack Obama.
State Rep. Douglas Bruce was cleared of a sexual harassment complaint from a woman working at the state capitol earlier this year.
...
Bruce received a letter on Friday from Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff dismissing the complaint, which came in the closing days of the legislative session.
But it seems the Gods would prefer Bruce's name to remain in the media.
...(Colorado Springs) has declared the fourplex owned by Douglas Bruce a dilapidated building.
The city will start billing Bruce, a former El Paso County commissioner who was appointed to a state House seat last year, $500 per quarter for inspection fees. It's the latest in a string of city actions against Bruce's ill-kept properties.
"I never thought I would hear myself saying this," Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. "... While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."
What's that's horrible sound piercing my consciousness? Oh, that's the alarm. Ouch, damn you mondays.
What's going on in your world? I have a ton of photos to edit. Shot almost 2GB. There are a very few good ones in there. The Pelosi, Gore, Gina Cooper laughing photo was requested to get printed in at least 8x10 and ask Pelosi and Gore to sign it. It was a great moment captured on film, okay, flash memory. So many ideas were generated this weekend, that I hope we can attempt just some of them.
The first is a SquareState Progressive Platform Caucus that SquareState will set up to do live in person in Denver, but also online through the site so anyone with a computer in Colorado can attend and share in the conversations. We have a tentative date of Sunday August 3rd. This is based off the Obama campaign's Platform meetings, so we'll be asking local Obama volunteers to join us in these conversations on health care, education, water, energy, the environment, economy, immigration, etc. If you'd like to lead one of these discussions on one of the listed or another topic that day, let me know in the comments or by email (click my blogname). More info on all of this coming soon.
