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March 12, 2007 03:17 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 53 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

70 degrees today. What will you do with yourself?

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53 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  1. I’m going to Breckenridge with my wife and daughter for a few days: Should be perfect skiing weather!

    I flicked on the TV a few minutes ago to get some morning news, and as I surfed by Denver channel 7, I caught the very end of a story in which Haliburton was mentioned, as if there were some new scandal plaguing Cheney. But there’s nothing on CNN’s website about it. Anyone hear anything about that?

    Also (with apologies for discussing national rather than state political happenings), what do you think of Fred Thompson’s first moves toward announcing his candidacy for the GOP nomination, and the possibility of Chuck Hagel ultimately running as an independent?

    1. how Haliburton is moving its HQ from Houston to Dubai.  I would love to see Fred Thompson throw his hat in, he would certainly add some spice to the Republican debates.  Chuck Hagel has barely shown as a blip in Republican polling, I don’t know what he would expect to accomplish as an independant other than a Democratic win, sort of like Ralph Nader did in ’00 but in reverse.

      1. A number of top companies are moving offshore. They are all getting off the dollar standard. What it comes to is that they are watching the same econ reports that say that America is being bankrupted (and  a few have said that we are now bankrupt). Just as Gates and Buffett have moved over to Euros, I think that we will see more jumping ship.

        The same rats that are sinking America are now wanting to leave.

        1. As the “Patriot” Act was being debated – to use the word rather loosely – and amendement was offered that would prevent previously American companies now offshor from getting contracts for security or rebuilding.

          Hooray!

          You know how long that lasted….

          2. A few of the large CIS/MIS contract shops relocated to Jamaica. Then W./Cheney awarded them contracts. A number of them called for security clearance, and yet they still awarded. Sad.

            1. Your taxes and mine pay for products and services to companies that not only have no loyalty to being corporate citizens, but they flaunt it.  It’s sickening. 

      2.   So Halliburton is gonna “cut and run” out of Houston?  I wonder if there’s any chance the company will take its most famous alumni, Cheney, with it when it moves to Dubai…..
          Don’t let the door hit them on the ass on their way out!

        1. step 1) borrow and spend
          step 2) hire your buddies for no bid contracts
          step 3) stifle any attempts at accountability
          step 4) plunge the country into irretrievable debt
          step 5) get out with your millions (billions)

           

            1. Profit at the suffering and expense of others.  That’s the part that is hard to stomach.  Profit from hard work, ingeneuity, passion, etc. is just fine by me.

  3. Is Denver going to have to worry about Election Problems again?  This may be a preview:  read the link and the pulled quote:

    “Stephanie O’Malley, the city’s interim clerk and recorder, said she didn’t know that candidates were failing to report the required information until contacted by the Rocky Mountain News”

    http://www.rockymoun…

    This seems like a simple problem that would be easily handled.

      1. That quote really makes her sound qualified to be Denver’s Clerk and Recorder. NOT! Isn’t she already working in the Election division (or whatever they call it)? Isn’t campaign reporting one of those basic election-type tasks? Shouldn’t she have known this was a problem and wouldn’t it have been so much better if she had been the one raising the alarm?

        Geez!

    2.   I would think not in the May muni election.  Since almost everyone is running unopposed, why would anyone bother to vote. 
        Now come Nov. ’08, you should be afraid…..be very afraid.

      1. could be a problem.  I mean if people don’t know it is all mail this year and throw out their ballots cause they plan to vote at the polls it could be a problem.  Overall though I think you are right slow year low turn out should be OK.

  4. Is anyone going to challenge Musgrave in a Republican primary? Ken Buck has many fans across the State. Who is going to be the Democratic nominee? Another run for Angie? Eidsness? State Senator Schaffer?

  6. I walk to work everyday, and today is the kind of day that makes you fall in love with Colorado.  I can’t believe how nice it is today.  I wish I could work outside.  Too bad it’s too late for me to call in sick.

  7. So I show up today at my volunteer gig at the state capitol and I’m brought up to date.

    Seems that BO – how appropriate – did a segment where he chastised the states that haven’t passed a “Jessica’s Law”.  Said laws mandate minimum punishments for child molesters and such. 

    Our office has started receiving the usually anonymous mail and phone calls because my rep is on the judiciary committee. 

    We’ve learned how well mandatory sentencing worked with drug laws, didn’t we?  Which IIRC, BO is against, he has a libertarian perspective on drugs, I think.

    Aren’t things like “Jessica’s Law” a typical LIBERAL response to an event that conservatives bitch about?  Was it our own Lauren Bacall who said the other day that not every bad event needs a legislative response?  (A position that this liberal agrees with.)

    Isn’t wishing to maintain judicial flexibility a CONSERVATIVE attitude?

    BO is true to form in one area, though.  A typical hypocrite, and we know which party has the full cookie jar on that.

      1. Don’t know nuttin’ about such matters, my post was about the incongruity of BO’s “thinking.”

        I don’t have the time to investigate the fiscal note cuz this isn’t an issue with me.  But $14M is not to be sneezed at.  Wonder where it would go?

        1. That means more jail cells.  As do all mandatory minimum sentences for all crimes.  You want to lock people up, you gotta put them someplace.

          I don’t know if that’s “Jessica’s Law” or not but it’s the bill that jacks up the mandatory minimums for sex crimes against children.  It calls for a 15-year minimum.

      2. Sorry. 

        I have no idea if there is a bill to implement “Jessica’s Law.”

        BO just took aim at every state that doesn’t have one and let loose.

    2. until that last line.  Tsk tsk.

      Jessica’s Law:  I’d like to stick it to pedophiles too, but I hate mandatory minimums.  These laws take judges’ discretion to look at each crime on a case by case basis.  Yes, some pervs are going to get a bigger break than they deserve, but it also keeps judges from sentencing teens to 25 years for having consensual sex with other teens, and other such scenarios. I’ll take my chances with a judge who hears the whole case.

      1. how right wingers don’t like it when the media reports what’s going on. I don’t recall all this bellyaching during the first Gulf War – you know, the one with the clear objective and the victory.

  9. [press release follows:]

    Attorneys for First Amendment Council file motion for injunction

    Attorneys for the First Amendment Council filed a motion for injunction against Amendment 41 in Denver District Court today.

    The motion asks the court to halt implementation of Amendment 41 until a hearing can be held regarding constitutional questions raised by the amendment. Led by nationally known constitutional lawyer Jean Dubofsky and former state lawmaker Doug Friednash, the First Amendment Council is challenging the amendment on First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

    Attorneys for the group filed suit in February seeking a court ruling on whether or not the sweeping amendment to Colorado’s constitution violates citizens’ rights to speech and association. To date, the group has assembled nine plaintiffs, each denied their rights by the amendment. Because the suit addresses core speech and association issues, it encompasses the broad spectrum of individuals and groups hurt by Amendment 41, not only students seeking scholarships.

    The legal challenge mounted by the plaintiffs hinges on two arguments:

    The exceedingly broad groups targeted for regulation by Amendment 41 and its vague prohibitions create a chilling effect on speech, making it a violation of the First Amendment.
    The $50 expenditure limit and the subpoena power of the independent ethics commission created by the amendment limit speech and association, as well as the right to petition government, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

    The First Amendment Council, which is funding the lawsuit, is a registered non-profit corporation in the state of Colorado. The Council is a collection of Colorado-based individuals, non-profits and businesses assembled on behalf of all Coloradans who have had their constitutional rights violated by the broad and unfocused language of Amendment 41. For more information on the suit and the First Amendment Council, visit http://www.firstamen…

    Two more Coloradans join constitutional challenge to Amendment 41

    Two more Coloradans, who have had there constitutional rights denied by the broad reach of Amendment 41 have joined the lawsuit. The two new plaintiffs, Rep. Ann McGihon and lobbyist Danny Williams, will represent constitutional concerns for elected officials and lobbyists who have been impacted by the amendment’s broad reach.

    The pair join seven other individuals and organizations already represented in the lawsuit including Developmental Pathways, a Colorado non-profit serving the developmentally disabled, Ginny Buczek, a former Firestone planning commissioner and mother of three and Sue Rusch, a Colorado voter

  10. Amazing.  Paul threw his hat in the ring many hours ago and still nothing on Drudge – or elsewhere.

    This liberal Dem would consider voting for him, especially if Hillary becomes our candidate. 

    He’s a Constitutional straight shooter, Viet Nam vet (surgeon, so he knows war.) He voted against going to war in Iraq.  Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act, opposes the draft, advocates the abolition of the income tax, urges the re-introduction of the gold standard, and stands against initiatives to strip the U.S. of its sovereignty such as CAFTA and the FTAA.

    Can’t agree with him on all things, but you’ll never have to guess what he really believes.  Even the Republican elite hate him.

    1. He’s a libertarian and the basis of libertarianism is morally bankrupt.

      Lets take one example. Public education increases the wealth of a society many times over. You can see this worldwide in country after country. The core reason for the success of Taiwan and South Korea is the effort they put in to education.

      But libertarians would not fund that. They would drop us back to the Somalia model (or at least Brazil). This works well for just two classes of people:

      First, people who will die in the next 10 – 20 years. They can burn up the principal of our existing educated workforce and benefit from that but keep their share of the money that would be invested in the next generation.

      Second, rich people for whom being better off than their neighbor is more important than how well off they are (call this the Haiti model).

      Libertarianism tries to sell itself as a very American approach but it actually goes against the fundamentals of what American has been from its start.

      – dave

      2. But I think RP is rather pragmatic and not so radical.

        I think of Libertarianism as a philosophy justifying greed.  It’s also fashionable to say one is LIbertarian, I think.

        Hey, I could be very wrong about RP, but from what I’ve seen I’d vote for him over Romney, Guiliano, or any other contender on that side. 

        If nothing else, he could keep them honest during the campaign.  Well, honest-er.

        I think you’ll enjoy this link, “Critiques of LIbertariansim”: http://world.std.com…

  11. Today in a speech delivered at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Vice President Cheney assailed Iraq war critics for pursuing “an anti-war strategy that’s been called slow bleed.” Cheney added, “They’re not supporting the troops, they are undermining them.”

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attacked Cheney’s remarks, saying, “It is a disservice to our military personnel for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to continue to advocate for an open-ended commitment in Iraq, while brushing aside the advice of military leaders and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, all of whom argue that the war in Iraq cannot be resolved militarily but only through diplomatic, economic and political means.”

    The true “slow bleed” strategy is leaving U.S. troops mired in the middle of an Iraqi civil war. There was a time when Cheney recognized that.

    On April 7, 1991, appearing on ABC’s This Week, Cheney said:

    Well, just as it’s important, I think, for a president to know when to commit U.S. forces to combat, it’s also important to know when not to commit U.S. forces to combat. I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire. Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shi’a government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular, along the lines of the Ba’ath Party? Would be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all.

  12. “I see a lot of wishful thinking going on here in Washington right now. I mean when Congress talks about, first of all, setting these these milestones. And, the irony is if the Iraqis successfully meet the milestones, the implication is we stay. If they fail to meet the milestones we leave. That doesn’t make any sense at all. It ought to be the other way around. If they fail, we stay because they need us. If they succeed, we can start to pull out again.”

    1. I have thought about this and I think the milestones do make some sense.  Iraqis’ need to have an incentive to get some things done. If they think we’ll be there forever anyway, what’s the hurry? 

      1. I keep hearing they don’t, so I would think they’d be motivated to get things done to get rid of us.  I thought Koppel’s remarks were interesting though.  He also said,

        “Everyone is concerned about the United States being in the middle of a civil war inside Iraq. But they forget about the fact that if U.S. troops were to pull out of Iraq, that civil war could become a regional war between Sunnis and Shia. And the region, just in case anyone has forgotten, is the Persian Gulf, where we get most of our oil, and, I’ve talked about this before, natural gas. So, the idea of pulling out of there and letting the region, letting the national civil war expand into a regional civil war, something the United States cannot allow to happen.”

        1. Too bad nobody calculated worst case scenario before the US went in.  Koppels remarks make sense except for two points:  “something the United States cannot allow to happen.”…statement presumes that we have the money, manpower and ability to prevent a regional civil war.  There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the US has that ability.  NOTHING. I forget the second point…other than things were better for the US when Iraq was our buffer against Iran…….

          Governments collapse when they do stupid things……we have done an incredibly stupid thing..

          1. but now we are stuck with where we are at.  Koppel’s remarks are compelling.  We can’t un-ring the bell, but we can consider different scenarios now, depending on the choices we make.

            1. Impossible to do since we are not god nor do we possess god-like qualities….i think we should concentrate on not having our army destroyed in the desert….lets get them home as expendiently as possible…

              Let’s not be napolean in Russia or the soviets in Afghanastan …i can’
              t spell the place…

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