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December 11, 2009 04:26 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 90 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“What the Democrats in the House and Senate are doing, r-e, health care, is guaranteeing a revolt.”

–Rush Limbaugh

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90 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!”

  1. they really should have no problem passing what the D’s want.

    Then, after we all come to our senses and realize the mistake, the R’s sweep to long lasting majorities.

    Of course, if when we come to our senses we realize they didn’t go far enough, that single payer really does make the most sense,  we’ll move even more left of center.

    1. Said it before and here it is again.  Why the Dems haven’t put this forward 1st is beyond me.  The purported $2,100/year cost would have only cost the average family of 4 $8,400 + their portion of the uninsurable.

      Say back to my comment yesterday: Why does Obamacare levy massive taxes on union healthcare plans.

      http://www.apwu.org/news/webar…

      Calling it “absolutely the wrong way” to pay for healthcare reform, APWU President William Burrus was among leaders of federal and postal unions objecting to the Senate bill’s proposed excise tax on many insurance plans.

      “Imposing an excise tax is not an equitable means of financing healthcare reform,” Burrus said at a press conference. “We need reform now more than ever, but federal and postal employees and other middle-class Americans across the country should not be asked to shoulder the burden of paying for it.”

      Don’t let Michael Bennet “Go Postal” on those who earn good healthcare financing benefits.

        1. Destroying working families healthcare [union or management or self employed] is wrong.

          It is totally illogical to call something “reform” then finance it on the backs of those you’re purporting to help.  Its corrupt!

          This illogical policy is another example of the typical Democratic plan that will destroy America.

          Cap and Trade

          Healthcare

          Card Check

          ARRA-TARP

          When will this Democratic madness cease?

          1. I actually used to read all of your posts, and follow up on the links you post (on those rare occasions.) It’s always been fun to punk out the astroturf you normally post.

            But ‘tad, for all the insane hooting and screeching you’ve posted, just stop with the “Democrats Hate America” shit.  

            1. -The U.S. Constitution is too restrictive and amending it is too much trouble. We support judges who will re-interpret it according to their ideology and political preferences and legislate from the bench.

              – Individual liberty and property rights must be subordinated to the collective welfare. Those who have “too much” must be leveled through high taxes; those who have less are “entitled” to their fair share of the income and wealth of others. From each according to his ability, to each according to her need.

              – Private enterprise is obsessed with profits. Capitalism is synonymous with greed. Without labor unions, workers will be exploited, unjustly paid and unfairly treated. Only government bureaucrats can be trusted to regulate commerce, determine what will be produced, how it will be produced, at what price it will be sold and how heavily it will be taxed.

              – Americans are too materialistic and wasteful of natural resources. Our lifestyle must be scaled back and our wealth more justly distributed to underprivileged nations.

              – Life is fraught with risk. Americans must be protected from their own bad choices through regulations and from depredation with cradle-to- grave social programs.

              – Guns are too dangerous and can be used to commit crimes. Americans cannot be trusted to own them.

              – Patriotism is selfish and destructive. Nationalism is evil and leads to war. U.S. military spending must be cut and American sovereignty sacrificed to the greater good of the world community, as determined by a majority vote in the United Nations.

              Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/opin…

              1. I give a crap about Mike Rosen’s  made-for-talk-radio opinions about my political beliefs. If he needs this drivel to boost his Nielsen ratings before the end of the year, I guess contract negotiations at KOA are gonna go rough for him.

                I also don’t need David Sirota to lay out a Dem vs Repub platform in Westword for public inspection  – and I certainly don’t need the ColoradoPols “Bizzarro World Troll” lecturing me on my patriotism or sacrifices to this country.

                Here’s an update ‘tad – you don’t have a FUCKING CLUE on where I stand on a majority of issues. And on some (Gun Ownership f’r instance) you should know based on what I’ve posted here.

                But you don’t – because you’re too busy posting dumbass opinion columns and Repub Astroturf websites, because you’re too clueless to form you own opinions. Or express them in a cohesive, thoughtful manner.

                Go play on the WoW boards, ‘tad…

              2. Short answer.  Yes you are.  And if your heart really bleeds for hard workers, where is your concern for the millions who work at low paying jobs without insurance provided by employers? For the hard working self employed who can’t keep up with sky-rocketing rates for lousy insurance plans? For hard working people with dreams of starting their own small businesses but who can’t leave a job they hate because they  need to keep coverage for a chronic condition that would get them rejected by private insurance plans?  

                As far as the cost, when  millions of people resort to the ER we all pay for it, which is why, one more time, we already pay more per family for healthcare than the people of any other western industrialized nation.  More. Most. Got it?  

                Nowhere else in the civilized world can a hard working family with expensive insurance go bankrupt because of a tumor. There’s American exceptionalism for you. No other nation that comes anywhere near our level of wealth and power has a healthcare system as barbaric as ours. Period.  

          2. just like cap-and-trade destroyed the EU, carbon taxes have destroyed Japan and Australia and Canada soon also will be destroyed when they cap carbon soon enough.  And just like America was destroyed by all those Neal Deal programs that sound a hell of a lot more socialistic than any of the four policy initiatives you threw up there

    1. And here in Colorado (especially here in Colorado Springs) thousand buy into the BS that Doug Bruce puts out.

      How can sane and responsible people be so far apart?

  3. Did anybody catch this yesterday? I love Karl Rove’s selective journalism here in which he severely downplays Norton’s primary while making it seem that Bennet is in for a HUGE fight in the Dem primary.

    “One of the most interesting Senate races this year will be in Colorado. Democrat Michael Bennet was appointed to fill the seat of Ken Salazar, who left to become Interior secretary. Mr. Bennet has never held elective office before and faces a tough primary challenge from a former state House speaker. Waiting for whoever emerges is the formidable Republican Jane Norton, a popular former lieutenant governor.”

      1. That would be like forgetting who Craig Morton’s backup was when he quarterbacked the Broncos to their first SuperBowl.  

        Craig’s backup was…anyone…Buehler…anyone…

  4. WASHINGTON-A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.

    The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.

    As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not “unreasonable.” The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.

    This had better come out.  Allowing insurance companies to decide what is “reasonable” is the real death panel.

    The only things insurance companies think is reasonable in none all for them and none for you.

    Whenever an insurance company is involved I check to see if my wallet is still there.

    http://www.denverpost.com/ci_1…

  6. The hits just keep getting exposed by The Denver Post.

    The family members who run one of Colorado’s most powerful labor unions are …snip … receive parting gifts paid for with union dues.

    Ernie Duran Jr., … snip …will receive his union vehicle, a Ford F-350 pickup, as a retirement gift.

    Outgoing union secretary-treasurer Stan Kania will drive away in a union-purchased Ford Five Hundred.

    Both gifts were approved by Local 7’s executive board, in what 7th vice president Will Joseph called a long-standing tradition.

    “If every other president got the vehicle on departure, I don’t see changing the trend,” Joseph said.

    Meanwhile thousands of members toilaway forced to pay union dues for things such as  traditional parting gifts.  

    Keeping it real with $55k Ford Trucks as parting gifts.

    Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/busi…

    1. They sure are keeping it real, by discontinuing the practice. Hurray for new leadership, no?


      Cordova, the incoming president, said her first order of business will be instituting anti-nepotism policies for leadership positions and stricter spending controls, including a prohibition on vehicles as gifts.

        1. and she will be good for UFCW.  

          Kicking out the Durans and all of their abuses, lavish salaries, events and gifts at the expense of regular workers shows that they can clean up shop.

          So yes props to Cordova are in order.

  10. By Associated Press

    Tuesday, December 8, 2009

    The community-organizing group ACORN said Monday that an internal investigation had concluded there was no criminal conduct by employees who offered advice on how to hide assets and falsify lending documents.

    ACORN’s chief executive described the report, by former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger, as “part vindication, part constructive criticism and complete road map for the future.”

    You gotta link to this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

    Yet more from biggovernment…

    ACORN is a corrupt and criminal organization, and anyone with open eyes can see this. Yet SEIU’s Andy Stern and left wing puppetmaster John Podesta, of the Soros-funded radical leftist think-tank, the Center for American Progress, chose to architect a whitewashed ‘internal investigation’ by a Democrat Party hack from Massachusetts, and have put immense efforts into launching a two-pronged propaganda  campaign and legal assault against the filmmakers of the ‘pimp and  prostitute’ exposГ© and the story’s publisher. BigGovernment.com  continues to expose ACORN’s illegal activity and has helped to  illuminate how corrupt organizations like ACORN, SEIU and HCAN are coordinating the efforts to shove radical health care reform down an unwilling  majority of Americans throats.

    The report is “a whitewashed ‘internal investigation’ by a Democrat Party hack from Massachusetts,” said conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who is being sued by ACORN along with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the prostitute and her boyfriend in the videos. Breitbart posted the videos on his Web site.

    http://biggovernment.com/autho…

    1. A corrupt community NGO with a paltry budget trying to influence public policy, elections, etc.  Or the world’s most profitable corporation (ExxonMobil) trying to do exactly the same?  I mean, they are both doing essentially the same thing when it boils down to it.  But one has absurdly deep pockets and cost is no object.  So which one scares you more?  Does ACORN trying to influence the process really scare you more than a corp like ExxonMobil trying to influence the process?  If you answer yes, it’s only because you think your politics are more aligned with ExxonMobil’s politics.  And if you think that, well, god help you.

      1. The crack team they assembled to investigate themselves was tight knit.

        I’ll laugh if any one of these government’s attorney actually has an investigation that gets publicity post the ACORN self findings that they’ve decided to clear themselves.

  11. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds Norton beating incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet 46% to 37%, virtually identical to her lead in September. Eight percent (8%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

    But Bennet, named to the Senate by Democratic Governor Bill Ritter after Senator Ken Salazar became secretary of the Interior, has a challenger in his own party, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. Norton beats Romanoff 45% to 34%, little changed from the previous survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided, while seven percent (7%) like another candidate.

    http://www.rasmussenreports.co…

    I encourage you to jump to the link and read more.

          1. Norton will be recalled as the gracious Lt Gov who with Gov Ownens led Colorado through some tough times with great policy leadership that started with the tax paying citizens.

        2. When Romanoff is out of the race the numbers will probably improve. Another good reason for Romanoff to do the for-the-good-of-the-party dance sooner rather than later. Especially if he is at all serious about the importance of hanging on to our Dem Governor.  

            1. Or at least his former philosophy. I distinctly remember Romanoff working very, very hard to make sure that Democratic candidates in tough districts had the field cleared of any potential primary opponents during State House races.

              Then again, that’s the old Andrew. Like the old Andrew that used to take lobbying and PAC contributions to the tune of $75 grand.  

              1. if Ritter had named Hickenlooper to the Senate.  But methinks the Gov. doesn’t like to be overshadowed by his appointees.  Certainly, that hasn’t happened with Bennet.

                1. All I’m saying is that Romanoff is now speaking at events about how important it is to get behind Ritter to make sure our Democratic majority retains a Democratic Governor. How importasnt it is to retain that majority.  This is what he himself is saying.  Does a candidacy based almost entirely on the fact that Ritter made a huge mistake help Ritter?  I don’t see how.  Does draining funds from a united effort for a campaign with such a slim chance help anyone?  I don’t see how.

                  If Romanoff is going to go around speaking about how important it is that we all have to pull together to support Ritter and state legislature Dems then I think he should be willing to do his bit.  The Romanoff campaign is a constant reminder of everything the base doesn’t like about Ritter. If it all ends bitterly I don’t see how that helps turnout for Ritter, Bennet or Dems in general.

                  This is hardly a matter of asking Romanoff to fall on his sword.  He isn’t going to be our Senator in any case. Let’s get real.  It’s a matter of Romanoff listening to what he’s telling everyone else.

                  1. seems very close to my notion of “being disenfranchised by the political bosses again.”

                    As a voter, I’m not bound by any deal in a smoke-filled room where I had no voice.

                    1. But your attitude would make a lot more sense if there were a dime’s worth of difference on policy or position on the left/right scale between the two.  This is hardly akin to Specter vs Sestak, for instance. I could see viewing that one as a matter of strongly held principles.

                      The principle of roots vs smoke filled rooms also doesn’t seem to apply here as  the argument is that it’s not the anointing but the choice of the anointed one that is the issue.  

                      Unclear what high principle it is that you and Romanoff are asking us to go to the wall for here.  All I see is a well funded Democratic Senator already in place, doing good work, getting a nice amount of good press for a freshman, naturally entitled to DSCC and DNC support because that’s what they do, defend Dem seats, vs a challenger who offers no significant alternative based on any of the issues, is way behind in fundraising  with  no particular advantage in support or name recognition.  For me, it’s a no brainer.  

                    2. I’m resisting the bullying tactics of you and others who are trying to deny me any choice in the U.S. Senate race.  But I do agree that your position is a “no brainer.”

                      😉

                    4. Beside choice, in this case between one kind of vanilla centrist and another, what is your pressing reason for a hard fought primary?

                    5. If the Rasmussen today tells us anything it for sure it tells us that CO is not blue and the D nominee has got a hard campaign to run. Harder even to win  

                    7. has never run for office of any kind or had even one minute experience ringing doorbells and soliciting votes might…oh, just might…be a factor in seeking an elected office.  Or are you hoping that he can be appointed in the general election as well?

                      By your logic, if Elmer Fudd and Sean Connery show the same ratings in ADA/NOW then we stick with Elmer because he’s the appointed incumbent?  

                    9. My comment was in response to BC’s question about why anyone would consider replacing an incumbent, even an appointed incumbent, if there were not major ideological differences between them.  Rmember that Jane Norton, like Bennet, has never run for office in her own right.  She was appointed LG candidate by Owens and, while she campaigned well for the ticket, Colorado hasn’t elected lt govs. separate since, if memory serves, Mark Hogan, D, bedeviled John Love, R. Jane can actually benefit from a primary, if it doesn’t get too raw.  Likewise, if Bennet can defeat Romanoff, it will help him learn the art of campaigning, an art he has never practiced.  Yes, Ds (and Rs) need to avoid a primary with no survivors.  And, yes, the fierceness of the blogosphere needs tempered, especially by the candidates themselves.  I worry about people like Sharon Hansen, who seems to hate Bennet more than she likes AR.  Personally, I respect both men, while admittedly tilting to AR.  But there are clean primaries…remember Mike Feeley and Gail Schoettler.  They can be very healthy, especially when the incumbent, as in this case, has never faced the voters in his or her own right.  

                    11. if he winds up the winner of the Dem nomination.  I wanted him to be picked in the first place.  I think the people who lean one way or the other but would be comfortable supporting either are more common than the diehards. Still think it’s already over for Romanoff for 2010 and time to move on. Guess we’ll see soon enough.

                    13. Pretty sure it was Democrat Mark Hogan (under Republican Gov. John Love) like Voyageur recalls. There was a constitutional amendment to change things after that to put governor and lieutenant governor on the same ticket. At some point (maybe after Rogers? that sounds right), the ticket was consolidated — prior to that, lieutenant governors were nominated separately but still elected with governors of the same party.

      1. What will be interesting is when Cillizza blogs about the steller re-elect numbers Ritter has.

        Its really too bad his team has let him down.  I know it more then that, the Senate appointment really hacked off Hickenlooper and Romnoff + the Hispanic Democrats.

    3. “The prosperity of the middle class depends on the good fortune and light taxes of the rich.”  Andrew Mellon, treasury sec for Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

      Notice a pattern here?

      And that when Roosevelt heavily taxed the rich, it was THEN the middle class grew?  And now that the rich are being taxed less, the middle class is shrinking?

      Notice a pattern here?

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