President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Kamala Harris

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) V. Archuleta

98%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Marshall Dawson

95%

5%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

50%

50%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(D) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank

(D) River Gassen

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) John Fabbricatore

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen

(R) Sergei Matveyuk

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

70%↑

30%

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
April 27, 2012 03:25 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 55 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Look, I’m not a professional at this. I’m not a political scientist. Counting votes, securing votes, that’s not my business. My business is attracting an audience and holding the audience for as long as I can so I can charge confiscatory advertising rates, and that’s not the same thing as getting votes. That being said, I think Obama’s gonna lose in a landslide.”

–Rush Limbaugh, yesterday

Tweet
Share

Comments

55 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!”

  1. 59% View Money-Losing Auto Bailouts As a Failure

    Many Americans view the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler more favorably these days, believing incorrectly that the government made money or broke even on them. But the view grows a lot more negative when the actual price tag is attached.

    Russmussenreports

    2. in 13 years.

      How’s that fit into your “car bailouts were a failure” narrative.  They got 13 billion and repaid 11.5 plus kept thousands of taxpaying citizens working.

      Bin Ladens dead

      General Motors is Alive.

      1. Libby wrote: “viewed as failure” which is true if you dig into the Rasmussen poll.

        You wrote: “Chrysler posted best” which is also true.

        Just because GM and Chrysler survived and are doing OK to well at this point does not mean that the public perceives the bailouts in a positive manner.

        You also have to look at the wording of the question in the Ras poll.

        “Official estimates indicate that the government will lose tens of billions of dollars on the auto bailouts. Knowing that the government lost money on the auto bailouts, would you say that the bailouts were a success or a failure?”

        I would define this as a loaded question.

  2. With whitehouse and other administration staff yet to be included in the administrations own review of government workers hiring hookers, the secret service has widened its internal review of its agents and their activities.

    From politico we have this….

    Any hope that the Secret Service sex scandal in Colombia was an isolated incident appears lost, as the investigation reportedly has widened to include incidents in at least four countries dating back to the Clinton administration.

    The agency is looking into whether agents and White House staffers went to a Moscow night club “known for its sexually charged atmosphere” prior to Clinton’s trip to Russia in 2000, and whether personnel traveling with Clinton in 2009 partied at a strip club in Buenos Aires, Argentina, CBS News reports.

    This comes after yesterday’s news that agents may have visited a strip club in El Salvador before a presidential trip in March 2011. The scandal began earlier this month with allegations that agents had paid for prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, during President Barack Obama’s recent visit there.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s…

    What confuses me is that Democrat bloggers have been silent on this entire affair. On one hand hookers in Columbia and El Salvador are apparently legally plying their trade. They’ve made a personal work choice. On the other hand social norms in America have apparently impacted what Americans can do when visiting other nations — legal or not.

    Following the ACORN underage human sex trafficking scandal that involved children prostituted from El Salvador it now seems more clear why Deomcratics don’t want to go near this investigation.

    The facts on this one are a real MFer for liberal leftists.

    1. What confuses me is that Democrat bloggers have been silent on this entire affair

      What exactly is there to say? Trying to pin this on Obama is lame. This has been going on a long time. Do you suppose that men just started frolicking with hookers in 1992?

      1. Demo bloggers are in a bind though … on one hand these women are making a legal business choice in their respective countries, on the other hand ACORN was cdeeply involved in a child sex slave operation sourced from El Salvador, and finally should government workers be restricted in such a manner.

        Of course this doesn’t even touch the entire issue of securing the President, exposing secure areas and documents to foreign nationals, blackmail, etc…

        At the end of the day there are so many conflicting issues for some bloggers on this one. It’s like Obamacare …. sold as cutting healthcare costs by 25% …. it’s resulted in the average Americans healthcare premium rising 25%.

        1. Obviously on the 2009 Clinton trip (Brazil) there appears to be some hooker dust. I believe this was a Bill Clinton trip as opposed to Secretary Clinton.

    2. We’re too busy trying to clean up after your messes (like the false and potentially libelous “ACORN underage sex trafficking scandal”) to deal with an ongoing (yes, this has happened before) scandal at the Secret Service.

      Oh – per WH spokesman James Carney, the White House has in fact opened an investigation as to whether or not WH staff were involved and has found no indication of wrongdoing.

      1. I bet they wish they had that power over the ARRA oversight too.

        Source your work also Phoenix Rising …. I haven’t been able to verify your assertion on the WH investigation.

        1. you know, use Teh Google on those terms and find the source.

          Here’s one article of many, from Yahoo! news

          To sum up, despite no-one on the WH staff being mentioned either by name or position, the WH undertook an investigation of their advance staff anyway and found no indication that advance staff from the Oval Office were involved in the scandal.

          1. Excuse the drive-by post, but I had little time to post an extensive response; I figured being specific might lead you to the background material, as it was all over the frickin’ news not long after the scandal broke.

        1. is touching, ‘Tad. It’s a good thing you were such a watchdog when government workers in government paid hotel rooms were having their way in Iraq.

  3. Yesterday Purple Strategies released a swing state poll of likely voters in 12 states with an oversample in Colorado. They call four states (Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia) the “crown jewels of both campaigns’ strategies to win….”

    Romney – Obama are tied at 47% with 6% undecided here in Colorado.

    We have a real Colorado horse race here, but Obama’s horse is carrying a lot of penalty weight in voter concerns about his performance, past and future.

    Neither is beloved by Colorado voters. 53% downcheck Obama’s job performance (worse than any other state); 51% see Romney unfavorably, with 14% still undecided (to Obama’s 6% undecided). Romney’s April favorability in all 12 states surveyed is the best it’s been since Purple Strategies began polling on him – so voters are beginning to put the nasty primary in perspective.

    The poll shows Obama’s weaknesses in Colorado:

    54% say today’s jobs are worse than those we lost (23% say better);

    73% say jobs are difficult to find (18% say there are plenty of jobs);

    49% say their kids’ jobs will be worse than their own current jobs (24% say better).

    http://www.coloradopeakpolitic…

    I’d encourage you to go to Peak to read the full story.

      1. But it looks like the rest of your liberal leftist blogger caucus is afraid to chat much about this Colorado polling data on jobs and the economy.

        1. has been talking about little else, ‘Tad. Jobs are hard to find! Stop the presses! People are worried their children might not have the same opportunities! This is news? It’s pretty much what Bennet ran his whole campaign on, and it’s a central topic everywhere. What the liberal leftist blogger caucus points out, though, and you ignore, is that Republicans in Congress have done everything they can to make it harder for Americans to find work and make the next generation’s prospects look dimmer and dimmer. Let’s have that conversation, OK?

  4. Just stopped by to say, good work over here keeping people focused on the important things, like silly politicians.  Meanwhile, we’re gettin’ ‘ir done…

    Colorado is at the cusp of a glorious new-old hydrocarbon future!  Its like a renaissance!  But instead of flourishing art and all that humanities stuff–we’re talking OIL!  So put away those books, and dig out those dungarees and steel toed boots! Its time to be like Michelangelo!  With a bulldozer and some high pressure hosing…

    http://geosurvey.state.co.us/p…

    Niobrara shale oil is an exciting new

    hydrocarbon prospect for Colorado.

    Our resource-rich state, while having

    developed extensive natural gas reserves

    over the past couple of decades, is now

    in the process of ‘rediscovering’ its oil

    in organic-rich shale. The current economics

    of fossil fuels, combined with

    the development of new drilling and

    stimulation technologies, is driving this

    renaissance.

    It’s the safest best thing that could happen to us all.  

    …

    Wyoming concerned over Colo. oil well pollution   …

    Laramie Boomerang – 2 hours ago

    Colorado water quality control manager Scott Klarich said the company has violated … order by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2007.

    Gas drilling concerns escalate

    The Coloradoan – 2 hours ago

    Great Western Oil and Gas Co. is proposing to drill 19 new natural gas wells … protection specialist for the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division.

    Wind shift delays efforts to plug blown oil well in Wyoming

    Billings Gazette – 49 minutes ago

    A wind shift was holding up attempts to plug an oil well that was spewing methane gas after a blowout in east-central Wyoming. Workers with Houston-based …

    What to do about oil drilling falls to Colorado Springs council

    Denver Business Journal (blog) – 59 minutes ago

    A Colorado Springs committee looking into how oil and gas drilling in the city should be regulated has tossed the ball over to the city council, …

  5. Check out the Denver Post for the full story … Hollywood can’t even dream this shit up.

    Son of top Denver attorney apologizes for internship in Arkansas senator’s office sold to Girls Gone Wild founder

    POSTED: В  04/26/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT

    UPDATED: В  04/27/2012 07:34:59 AM MDTBy Felisa Cardona

    The Denver Post

    В The son of a prominent Denver attorney apologized Thursday to U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., for a offering up a summer internship in his office without approval from the senator.

    Chad Brownstein, the son of Norman Brownstein of the firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck, wrote he didn’t have a chance to check with Pryor’s office before the internship was posted as an item in a charity auction.

    The person who bid on the internship was Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis and he offered it up as a prize for one of his reality TV contests.

    According to The Washingtonian.com, the prize was for “the winner of his contest and reality TV series, The Search for the Hottest Girl in America.”

    The Washingtonian quoted from the Girls Gone Wild website: “After making a charitable donation during a private auction this past weekend benefiting a Los Angeles-based temple, Francis purchased a once-in-a-lifetime four-week internship on Capitol Hill working for a United States senator and added it to the prize package for this season’s lucky winner.”

    Read more: Son of top Denver attorney apologizes for internship in Arkansas senator’s office sold to Girls Gone Wild founder – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news…

    Read The Denver Post’s Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/term…

    1. Keep it comin’.

      So what you’re saying is that the Senator had nothing to do with it?

      ????????????????????????????

      I”m trying to see the story.

      What is it again?

  6. between the Limbaugh quote and the Libertad posts, I don’t know which is better.  Keep up the good work both of you.  This will surely win the elections in November

        1. If so, congratulations.  That’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to see.  From the angle of the sun, it looks like it was taken from the NY side, south of the GW Bridge, maybe in the Bronx?

          I tuned in to NASA-TV but they were doing a thing on high school kids launching instrumented balloons.

  8. New Mexico Politician Frolicked In Philippines Sex District

    This isn’t the first time Wiener has faced questions over his actions. He was cleared in an investigation last year after a female staffer in the county complained that he sexually harassed her by complimenting her on her looks and making jokes like “Did you know that the (County Commission) now has a Wiener and a Johnson on it?” He acknowledged making the joke but said he didn’t mean for it to be sexual.

    1. “Did you know that the (County Commission) now has a Wiener and a Johnson on it?” He acknowledged making the joke but said he didn’t mean for it to be sexual.

      oh, to be a borscht belt Jackie Mason wannabe stuck in Albuquerque … the indignity.  This dude was born in the Catskills village of Liberty, New York so it’s in his bone(r)s.

      Weiner is comedy gold and that schtick needs to be owned — no reason to backpedal. Too bad there isn’t a Schwanz or a Schlong also on the Commission.  And couple Weiner with Probate Judge Willow Misty Parks and there’s definitely the making for some burlesque.  

    1. I forget — did this have Clint Eastwood & Tommie Lee Jones in it or did this stinker have Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis? Oops, my mistake, this is a whole different beast all its own — kinda like a Newt space wet dream just without moon bases.

      Actually it’s a speculators wet dream and an awesomely huge potential for investment fraud.  Someone just has to land a poor little Sputnik on any decent rock, claim rights with a prospecting deed and then sell the shares.  How many times did something like that happen in Colorado’s mining past?  How many fortunes were promised and lost?

      How about the Microsoft & Google billionaires put out bucks to keep their earthly profits still viable?  How about they help fund solutions for dealing with Near Earth Objects?   Asteroid 2011 AG5 is gonna be a viable threat in just 28 yrs and hell, if they break it up & keep us safe then more power to them if they wanna hoover up the rubble for a little profit. James Cameron is also involved so I’m sure this started out as a screenplay somewhere along the lines.    

    2. My back of the envelope calculation says that rock is worth about $700/ton, refined into iron, nickel, cobalt and platinum.

      For reference, the shuttle could haul 23 tons. Lifetime cost of the shuttle mission was $1.5 billion per flight.

  11. Yesterday SXP posted this:

    It’s a compelling graph. And SXP jumped on the “miscellaneous” part to come to the conclusion that all CEOs are lazy worthless bums who put in 35 hours/week.

    This is counter to what I have seen so I went to the source data to see what industries and to get a breakout of miscellaneous. And what did I find?

    First, this is a survey of 65 CEOs (out of 349 asked) who attended an executive education course at Harvard. So it is not a random sampling.

    Second there is a single grouping for activities that are less than 15 minutes and travel. So a very important 10 minute conversation goes in the same bucket as travel. And there is no differentiation between work travel (going from a meeting at office A to a meeting in office B) and personal travel.

    Third, the words exercise and personal appointments are never used in the study to describe any time. Based on the data displayed in the study, there is nothing in it that says even one minute of that miscellaneous time is spent on anything personal.

    I sent an email to the author of the WSJ article asking her where she pulled that description from. But based on what is in the reported results, it may well be that 20 hours is all work related.

    With that said, I can’t fault SXP taking this at face value as the WSJ is a credible source and it takes a lot of digging to find that the data does not match the graph.

    1. do blog retorts and surfing soft focused russian psuedo-pop/porn video sites fit within “Miscellaneous”?

      I doubt the Meetings and Public Events hours laughably low balled for most CEOs I’ve worked with … but as you found & stated this was an embarassingly low data sampling.  

    2. 35 hours is wildly optimistic. Most normal people don’t get to count lunch as a business expense, so those 5 hours don’t count either. I count maybe 24 hours of real work, and that’s assuming stuff actually gets done at those meetings and the phone calls aren’t personal.

      Most normal people have long commutes that don’t count as work, so that doesn’t count either. “Work travel” vs. “personal travel,” that’s cute that they let you do that.

      The executives I know count all travel as business expenses and all meals as business expenses.

      In the article the author interviews someone who is probably a typical CEO:

      In contrast, Jon Oringer, CEO of New York based stock-photo provider Shutterstock Images LLC, doesn’t seem to lack “alone time.”

      …

      The rest of the time he is usually scoping out his competition on blogs like TechCrunch, monitoring Web traffic and Twitter feeds and working on his own pet projects.

      Ha ha, that’s not work. Work is work, blogging is what you do when you’re taking a break from work.

      1. But I’d like to be a CEO someday, and I hope when I am, you’ll have at least a little respect for mine. Two CEOs I know have very graciously agreed to be my business mentors, and both of them are very hard-working. One of the two didn’t collect a paycheck (private company, so no options either) for most of last year because the company was going through a difficult spell and she chose to pay employees and invest in the business before collecting a dime herself. She makes less as a CEO than she did working for someone else, but her business is growing again and she’s happy,and that’s what matters to her.

        I’m not saying CEOs deserve respect just for being CEOs. I have met some scumbag CEOs. I worked for one who I’m convinced was genuinely a sociopath. But my mentors are amazing people who work very hard. Both wake at 5 AM or before to start work, and I can’t remember the last time either of them took a vacation. They’re not complaining; it’s the lifestyle they chose, and they love it. But they’re not scumbags JUST because they work in leadership positions.

        A bad CEO can do a lot of harm in the world. A good one can help a business succeed, empower its employees, mentor up-and-coming young professionals in their industry, and even (if they’re in the right business) produce a product or service that improves the lives of others.

        1. but I do not respect the position of CEO by itself, and I do not think it’s comparable to real work, the kind that hurts your muscles and exhausts your mind and that you’re not sure you’ll have next month. (And I’m not trying to boost myself here, my job is a lot easier than the jobs of most people, and I get paid more for it.)

          So far we’ve got exactly one study of CEO time, where people actually got to follow around executives and see what they do all day. Most CEOs wouldn’t let you do anything like that which might make them look bad, so it may be a long time before we get any other kind of serious research.

          So you give me a couple anecdotes about good CEOs and a couple anecdotes about bad ones, and none of that changes how I read this data. There are good heiresses and bad heiresses, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect the job of heiress.

          And you tell me a story about a CEO who doesn’t take a big paycheck, but there’s a big difference between not getting a paycheck because you have no economic power and not getting a paycheck because you’re slumming it. I assume she isn’t sleeping in her car.

  12. Hope lots of people attend the women’s rally and march tomorrow, starting at 9:30 AM at Civic Center Park.  I’m thanking my self imposed two comment a day average for keeping me from joining in the same ol’, same ol’ ‘tad feeding.  I so often had such a complete lack of self control about such things in the past.

    As to Rush, he’d better stick with being a clown because he lost any credibility he ever had as someone with real political clout back in 2008 when he failed to stop the McCain nomination or the Obama election. Even fewer of his shrinking grumpy old man demo will be voting this year due to no longer being among the living. I think his average listener is somewhere around 72 now.  Even so, R pols are still scared to death of him.  Sad really.

    Everybody get out for some fresh air and sunshine, OK?  

  13. And the table shook.  Shook.  No ropes, wires, strings.  

    This is what I heard, we all heard:


    Fast forward to today.  Is what happened in my race in 2010 going to play itself out at the national level in 2012?  You silly voters are daring to stand up once again and tell the wealthy power brokers and old guard R’s that we have a man we like and it may not be yours.  Gasp!  Get the IED’s out!  Indeed, I heard the exact same messaging on the Sunday morning news about the presidential candidates that I heard in 2010.  The GOP is concerned about the quality of its candidates and they may have to find another who can actually beat Obama.  Sound familiar?  You silly voters, you just don’t know what is good for you do you?

    My friends, I regret my time is short for writing you these days.  I want to encourage you to keep up the good fight.  Run the good race to the end and do not let those who were, be deceived as they were in 2010.  If you do, our country will continue down this path we are on and it is not a good one.  Vote your principles and stand by your vote.

    Sincerely,

    Dan Maes

    Republican Nominee for Governor, Colorado 2010

    Stay strong Tea Partiers, do not let the ‘establishment’ foist no mittens upon you’re hard-working, hard-worn American hands.  

    Just now, over yonder in Mesa County, the fool-me-twice RINO fake-and-in-name-only ‘Tea Party’ is planning a party, to pretend the regular Gadsen-flag-waving-patriots like Ray Scott Tipton.  They don’t.  Its a bitter brew for ReaganGirl, but she’s doing her part to swallow all Ray Scott Tipton can produce.  

    1. I got 2 remember to visit his Tweets every once in awhile for bit of a giggle.  Damn, Danny really saw the light with this:

      Our Colorado economy needs an ALL ENERGY ECONOMY which will bring back jobs and revenue to the entire state!

      Yeah! F tourism, F military/defense, F high tech or investment companies, F manufacturing or real estate ’cause it’s all about ENERGY! (Danny’s emphasis)

      What a maroon …

  14. Yep. None.


    And it appears that no plan exists on Romney’s campaign website to address various issues affecting the U.S. military – for example, veterans’ health care and unemployment or, as Obama addressed today, servicemembers’ education. The “Issues” page lists 23 separate issues Mitt Romney has apparently chosen to focus on during his presidential campaign and none is “Veterans” or “Military.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/secur…

    Link to the Issues page on Romney’s site is telling – ArapaGOP, can you please find either “Veterans” or “Military” on this page? Or is he going to fire them as well?

    http://www.mittromney.com/issues

    No, wait, Romneybot 1 did float a plan to disassemble the VA and then privatize it, but had to sent in Romneybot 2 to say he never was considering that.

    http://thinkprogress.org/healt…

    Then I get confused…either Romneybot 1 or 2 said he’d increase funding to the Big Govt Healthcare system ….

    http://thinkprogress.org/healt…

    In response to the President’s speech after he signed an Executive Order cracking down on Diploma Mills that take GI Bill money and hand out worthless degrees, either Romneybot 1 or 2 said the way to treat PTSI and TBI was to just give them jobs. Except that when you go to the Romney Website, there’s not even a plan for that.

    President Obama announced today at Ft. Stewart in Georgia that he will sign an executive order to protect veterans, members of the military and their families from deceptive and predatory marketing practices by some for-profit higher educational institutions.

    Mitt Romney’s campaign tried to get out front of the news today by issuing press releases suggesting that the president hasn’t done enough for the nation’s veterans. Campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul said:

       “Under President Obama, all Americans have suffered from one of the worst job markets in recorded history – and our nation’s veterans have been among the hardest hit. With more than twelve percent of our most recent veterans struggling to find work and nearly a million veterans unemployed, it’s clear that we need to do more to grow our economy and ensure that those who fight for America can find a job when they return home.”



    Saul didn’t expand on the “do more” part of her critique. The other press release titled “Mitt Romney Will Give Veterans A Chance to Find Good Jobs” links to a page on the campaign website that makes no mention of any plan for veterans.  

    So, let’s see what the Romney mouthpiece on this fine site have to say….

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

51 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!