Colorado

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News/Politics 11-14-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The fight for control of the GOP continues.

From Politico  “A takeover is not instigated by a small minority of outsiders but, rather, by  a majority of the shareholders. The transition of power turns “hostile” when the  entrenched management regime strikes back, more concerned with preserving its  own power than advancing a vision to produce something of value.

Sound familiar?

There is a hostile takeover happening within the Republican Party. The senior  management of the GOP has failed its key shareholders, abandoning the founding  vision of individual freedom, equal opportunity, fiscal responsibility and  constitutionally limited government. What’s worse, those passing through the  revolving door of rent seekers like things just the way they are.

That’s why reform efforts by the new generation of principled Republican  legislators like Sens. Lee, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky are met  with vitriol and media attacks designed to isolate and discredit.”

And the media is all too willing to attack the conservatives, and does it’s part by trumpeting another RINO (Christie) who will lose to Hillary, just like the last 2 as well. 🙄

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2. This one? Well let’s be honest. Who didn’t see this coming? 🙄

From TheDenverPost  “Dillon, who is now a school resource officer with the Mesa County Sheriff’s  Department, said he is seeing more and younger kids bringing marijuana to  schools, in sometimes-surprising quantities.

“When we have middle school kids show up with a half an ounce, that is  shocking to me,” Dillon said.

The same phenomenon is being reported around Colorado after the  2010  regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries  and  the 2012 vote  to legalize  recreational marijuana.”

“”We have seen a sharp rise in drug-related disciplinary actions which,  anecdotally, from credible sources, is being attributed to the changing social  norms surrounding marijuana,” said Janelle Krueger. Krueger is the  program  manager for  Expelled and At-Risk Student Services for the Colorado Department  of Education and also a longtime  adviser to the Colorado Association of School  Resource Officers.”

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3. Next up, the numbers are in, and yes, they’re bad.

From NationalJournal  “The Health and Human Services Department said 106,185 people have successfully applied for and chosen private insurance through the health care law’s new marketplaces. That total is only about 20 percent of the administration’s initial enrollment target for October, the first month in which consumers were able to sign up for coverage.”

“HealthCare.gov has performed even worse than expected. Fewer than 27,000 people selected a plan through the website, compared with roughly 79,000 who picked a plan through the 15 state-based insurance exchanges. Unofficial estimates leaked earlier this week suggested the federal website had done slightly better.”

And there were 400,000 approved for Medicaid, so they’re not paying customers.

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4. This is one of the problems with lying. You have to keep lying to cover it up.

From NationalReview  “The cancellations will affect only a small number of people, those who buy individual policies.

In making this claim, the president focuses on the individual market, which he accurately notes covers about 5 percent of Americans. Still, that is about 14 to 15 million people. So far, as of mid November, roughly 4.8 million individual insurance plans have been canceled, with most estimates suggesting that as many as 10 million will eventually lose their current coverage.”

“But the same conditions that are causing the cancellation of individual policies will eventually result in the cancellation of millions of employment-based policies as well. The only reason that hasn’t happened yet is that the employer mandate was postponed for a year, so employer plans don’t yet have to be ACA-compliant. But they will. Even the Congressional Budget Office estimates that as many as 20 million workers will lose their current employer-sponsored plans. Combine that with those losing individual plans, and more than 30 million Americans cannot keep their current insurance.

It could be far more. As Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute points out, some 51 percent of the employer-based insurance market will lose grandfathered status and need to make changes to comply with Obamacare provisions. That could mean that, in total, as many as 93 million will lose their insurance. That’s not exactly “a few.””

That shoe should be dropping around elections next year.

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5. So how bad is it? This bad….

Democrats have actually become camera shy. 🙂

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6. And this one doesn’t shock me much. Democrats want to pass a bill to override many states new, more restrictive, abortion laws. We know how much these same politicians rely on abortion blood money to fund their campaigns. So of course they’d defend their “Precious” like good little Sméagol’s.

From PJMedia  “Democratic lawmakers will announce this afternoon a bill to override state abortion laws that have placed restrictions on the services.

The Women’s Health Protection Act “would protect a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion by preempting restrictive regulations and laws—such as those in place in states including Texas and Wisconsin—intended to curtail reproductive health services for women,” according to Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) office.

Blumenthal will be joined at an afternoon press conference by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.),  Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) and Lois Frankel (D-Fla.).

Also at the announcement of the bill will be leader of NARAL, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights.”

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News/Politics 9-14-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

First up, Colorado.

From Denver/CBSLocal  “Officials in Boulder are urging people to stay away from Boulder Creek, which is still running at dangerously high levels on Friday.

The flooding has destroyed several residences in Boulder County, officials said Friday morning. They don’t have a specific number of homes that have been destroyed yet, and it’s not clear so far where the worst damage is in the county.”

““We are asking people to avoid driving in Boulder, avoid being in areas where water is rising or where creeks are crossing intersections or streets. If you should happen to fall in those waters it would be very difficult to get out and in some cases you might not be able to get out,” Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner said. “We are asking people not to come to Boulder unless absolutely necessary because if you get here you might not be able to get out.”

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Next, sure they are, but they’ll screw it up.

From Politico  “Republicans are now leading Democrats on handling several key issues,  according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll.

The poll, released Friday, shows more Americans think that the  Republicans are doing a better job on the economy, foreign policy and reducing  the federal deficit.

The GOP has an edge of 7 percentage points over the Democrats on the issue of  foreign policy. This is up from 2006, when the GOP was behind by 9 percentage  points.”

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This has to be killing Emanuel.

From TheDailyCaller  “Gun owners in Chicago no longer have to register firearms with local  authorities, the New York Times reports.

Chicago’s City Council reluctantly voted Wednesday to end the decades old  registration policy in the wake of the new law allowing Illinois residents the  right to carry concealed weapons in public. The modification follows the United  States Court of Appeals for the 7th District December ruling that stated Illinois’s ban  on public concealed carry was unconstitutional. So far, the Democratic-majority  Legislature has struggled to balance the perceived needs of the people with the  court ruling.”

“Despite this seemingly revolutionary change, Chicago is far from encouraging gun  ownership. The Council strengthened other gun regulations, even as it struck down  the registration law.”

Sure, because their methods and ideas on gun control have worked so well up until now. 🙄

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Strange that they would only do this for certain Pastors. OK, not really.

Also from TheDailyCaller  “Attorney General  Eric Holder and IRS officials advised black ministers on how to engage in  political activity during the 2012 election without violating their tax-exempt  status.

Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior  official in the scandal-plagued agency’s exempt organizations division,  participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the  Conference of National Black  Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).  Holder spoke at the event.

“We’re going to, first of all, equip them with the information they need to  know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would  violate their 501(c)(3) status with the IRS,” said then-CBC chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver,  a Democrat from Missouri. “In fact, we’re going to have the IRS administrator  there. We’re going to have Attorney General Eric Holder there…the ACLU.”

They used these churches to push Obama and his agenda. The IRS targets the Tea Party, yet enables this. Sad.

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The Senate is up to more nonsense. And the best part is they want our totally non-partisan DoJ to decide who gets journalistic protections and who doesn’t. Freedom of the Press, for officially approved Press anyway. I bet the recent change to anti-propaganda laws is related.

From Breitbart  “Who would decide who fell within these guidelines? A “judge of the United States” can “exercise discretion to avail the persons of the protections of this Act.” But in the first instance, the DOJ would have the discretion to determine whether a person is a “journalist” for purposes of the law. Instead of focusing on acts of journalism, the law would identify people by employment status.

 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that it should not matter to citizen journalists if new protections extended to a special class of journalists created by the government, since the First Amendment does not grant any right to protect sources in the first place. “When we’re discussing the issue of adding a privilege, the issue of taking away someone’s First Amendment rights just isn’t engaged….All we’re doing is adding privilege to existing First Amendment rights, so there is, logically, zero First Amendment threat out of this,” said Whitehouse, ignoring the fact that a massive institutional advantage would be handed to approved government outlets, thereby perverting the entire system of a free press.

 Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) launched into the proposed bill, which he said could “have the effect of excluding certain persons from enjoying the added First Amendment protections the bill would provide.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) agreed, stating, “Essentially as I understand this amendment, it protects what I would characterize as the ‘corporate media.’…But it leaves out citizen bloggers….I don’t think any protection should treat citizen bloggers who are meeting the underlying test of being primarily engaged in gathering news to report it I don’t think they should be excluded because they don’t happen to work for a media corporation.”

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And last for today, this one. 🙂

From TheCompetitiveEnterpriseInstitute  “Today, teachers in Kenosha, Wis., voted to decertify their union, the Kenosha Education Association, by a margin of nearly two to one. Only 37 percent of the teachers opted to retain the union in an election made possible by the labor reforms enacted under Gov. Scott Walker (R). The result goes to show that when workers have a choice on whether to join a union instead of being forced into one by law, they often choose to vote down the union.”

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