U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 04, 2009 04:33 PM UTC
74 Comments
Nancy Mitchell writing at Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/news/bran…
Will be caused by marketers and MBAs, not people who actually know the business.
I sincerely hope print survives.
you go gertie
Classifieds are the bread and butter of local papers.
Craigslist is killing them.
What’s the Progress Now solution … wait for it, wait for it … its time to tax’em.
You do support a tax on internet purchases, right? We’ll need some privacy invasion for the craigslist thing too.
I just can’t wait to see how many jobs this will save or create!
I would vote for it!
One of the circle jerk fads of business. Remember “Mission Statements?” Wow, that will really get everyone on board and pull the same way. People will always be people and there is no magi bullet.
Down here in the South, Tropicana just got there multi-million dollar marketing rebranding handed to them on pike. As the newspaper said, Tropicana’s New Coke Moment. They came up with new packaging graphics that I guess was supposed to make consumers swoon with desire over other brands.
Consumers screamed so loudly that they are moving back to the old packaging. Folks liked the straw in the orange. And the new packaging required hard reading to see exactly what variant you were picking up.
I hope Tropicana sticks those overly smart MBA’s on that straw, you know, like an impaled cockroach.
The old Rocky would have probably gotten more honest information if they just talked to subscribers a few at a time.
Unless it just so happens to be the late Luis Jiminez’s statue at DIA.
The New York Times article “And Behold a Big Blue Horse? Many in Denver Just Say Neigh” takes a look at the controversy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03…
You want folks to tlak about you unless it is something bad. I say the horse is not bad per se, all the dislike is strictly subjective, it doesn’t go to whether blue is a bad color or horses are bad. Now that even the NY Times is talking about it I say it should stay.
but it’s not about one persons opinion. If DIA has plans to put other less gaudy statues and/or works of art up in the future in the same general area I think it would help balance it out a little.
…or anything close to that.
and then leave for a few hours for meetings, etc. Only to return and find that someone has not understood what I said. I simply said that even if it stinks it is providing some good publicity for Denver. Since Denver, and all of CO depends on tourism for a large part of our economy that can not be ignored.
or whoever chose it should have it placed outside their foyer. I really like some of the apologetic rubbish-thinking witnessed on this blog and around town:
“Gosh, negative attidudes toward the ugly horse are subjective.” [If all the impressions are subjective and negative, then doesn’t the sum of all subjectivities approximate a consensus that the horse should be toppled and the arts commission flogged?]
“Art is meant to shock… that’s what art is. Don’t you get it?” [So, DIA is a platform for “Art Commissioners Gone Wild.” I don’t blame the artist, I blame his enablers. And after riding past the abominable creature, I still don’t get the “blue horse with the creepy red eyes,” as one of my younger passengers called it. And if the purpose is to shock and creep people out, we can do better than this, people!]
“Public art is not meant to be beautiful or make a positive statement.” [Tell that to the Blue Ribbon Citizens Commission who selected the tent roof over the glass and steel structure the architect originally submitted.]
for Josh Penry to jump out from behind the rocks in an effort to hold-up the stagecoach. But just like his previous failed filibuster, the adults, the drivers and shotgun riders just smile and laugh at the kid with the popgun. They simply tie his stick horse to the back of the wagon, pat him on the head, pick him up and give the would be outlaw a ride back to civilization.
It is a nice reminder of why this minority deserves to stay there. Their opposition is a mess. But on the issue…
Anyone know why this is suddenly hot? I thought Ritter already did his budget based on 4% growth and officially doesn’t expect us to get close to 6% for at least 4 years. So, why now?
If we were able to get above the 6, isn’t now the time to invest in transportation? Gas is reasonable, construction workers are now welfare recipients, and these projects only get more expensive. Haven’t the Dems been saying that, too?
The ratchet-down effect of the 6 percent has made less total money available for all projects. The money automatically given to transportation because of the SB-1 transfer is far less than the total money that would have been available in the General Fund during that time had we not had A-B.
I agree that we should prioritize transportation, but I don’t agree that we should automatically give money to them year after year at the expense of other pieces of the GF. It would be the same thing were we to automatically give money to Healthcare or Human Services. We do it with Education now with A-23, but we tried to fix that with 59 this year and didn’t get it passed by the people.
he twists, which explains his condition.
This is the last Ref C budget, not great timing to say the least. So maybe this is a good time to compromise (plenty of room for it), we’re going to need those Republicans to pass any referendum. And it has to be passed this year. No way in hell is this going to fly on a ballot with a gubernatorial race. So instead of fucking around with a limit we’ll be lucking to run into again and can be changed legislatively anyway, how about we take a look at the real problem?
All that brings me back to my original question: Why now?
Look, 59 died, I’m not happy about it either. I’ve been spending a lot of time at Sky Ridge, right there in Douglas County. At least once a week since election night I’ve heard someone complain about something 59 would’ve rectified. If they’re talking to me I always ask how they voted. What do you think the answer’s been every fucking time?
Arveschoug-Bird CAN be changed by the Legislature. Fmr. Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky argues just as much here:
http://www.denverpost.com/loca…
I’m gonna go ahead and trust her legal reasoning over Josh Penry’s.
Look, A-B isn’t a spending limit. It determines allocations. We spend EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR the state receives. You can’t call something a spending limit if we can spend ad infinitum. Just because that spending is siphoned into transportation doesn’t mean that spending is at all limited, it means that spending is being directed.
TABOR doesn’t say anything about spending directions.
Why now? Lots of reasons, but most importantly the economic crisis has shown us that we need to better plan for the future. A-B prevents us from recuperating cuts that we make now when the economy actually recovers.
Look, I’m not trying to “play” in any way, we’re trying to fix the damn crisis inherent in our budget. We wouldn’t be forcing a measure at the legislature if it were unconstitutional. That’s why it took Ms. Dubofsky’s letter to convince us it could happen.
Why not now? Why wait until 2010, or 2011, or 2013? Let’s just keep pushing off an answer to the impending crisis.
Hate it when I do that.
Here:
https://www.cu.edu/sg/messages…
The pertinent piece is below
While it was a campaign promise, I’m sure this is one issue that he would like to wait a few months before he addresses it. Probably as part of an overhaul of military pay and benefits, or when he signs the Dwell time bill.
However, VoteVets.org has jumped in with both feet on the issue:
http://ga3.org/campaign/asklte…
As an issue, it’s the dumbest thing that the Military does – this doctrine was a result of Pres Clinton turning into a candy-ass on the subject when he got ambushed on making a stand on it.
I’ve got news for everyone (even Libertard) – there’s GAYS IN THE MILITARY! They’ve been in the American military since Washington crossed the Delaware. Kicking them out for their sexual piccadillos is a waste of manpower, training and resources.
It’s an issue that he will have to deal with, now sooner than he wanted to. In the past few years, it was easy for the intolerant Right-Wing of the Repub party to shout moral outrage on the issue, but here’s another update – we’re neck-deep in two wars, and getting rid of brave men and women who want to server their country for a personal and private issue is not only stupid, it’s treasonous.
Don’t tell Gunny Bob.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
…to deliver on one or more other, easier promises made to the G.L.B.T. community.
Like getting Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to put ENDA on his desk to sign this spring. Or a bill removing some of the more egregious provisions of DOMA.
Also, appointing some openly G.L.B. or T. folks to the bench or to high ranking admin positions. Unfortunately, he missed the opportunity to name the first openly-gay cabinet secretary.
These items would buy him time to “study” the issue of how to lift the ban on gays in the military.
Study, schmudy, Dude.
My EO:
They’re here, they’re queer, shut the fuck up.
I’m all out of sympathy.
Time to join the rest of the western world and the 21st century. Even Israel manages to get along just fine with gays openly serving.
In any case, A real military moral problem people should be concerned about has long been and continues to be good ol’ heterosexual rape. And suicides.
I’m sure our guys and gals in uniform can deal with gays and lesbians as well as their counterparts in the rest of the civilized world manage to do. They probably mostly know without asking and whether people tell or not. No one needs the added stress of a silly charade.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher has introduced a bill in the House to force the issue – and it has 112 co-sponsors. With our San Francisco Values Speaker of the House, this bill is going forward out of committee.
(Provided that she’s not on Nancy’s Hit List.)
It will go thru the House, and the only person who could derail it is…Sen McCain.
On top of that, VoteVets.org is already mobilizing their netizens to support the bill. If you think they’re just a bunch of crazy vets with email accounts, go ask George Allen and Liddy Dole about ’em.
Maybe it is the right time to bring this up – Red Meat Conservatives would not be able to resist jumping on the issue, leaving more important stuff to get done…
but Tauscher is on Pelosi’s hit list. She didn’t support Nancy when she first floated the idea of running for Whip in 01. It shouldn’t necessarily stop her bill, but don’t expect Tauscher to be at the signing ceremony when goes to the President…
My guess is that her bill clears the House. It may pass the Senate provided: (a) Specter and at least one of the women from Maine vote for it, and (b) not a single Dem votes against it.
If Carl Levin is smart, he’ll wheel out all the supporters of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” from 16 years ago who now have second thoughts about the idiotic policy they crafted.
I know Sam Nunn has changed his tune. Has Colin Powell had his Eureka moment yet?
They seriously trained soldiers to pick out gays? That’s so sad it’s hilarious. Which eye blinks first for gays? We paid for that research, I want answers!
http://www.theonion.com/conten…
A quick search on wiki:
Fruit machine” is a jocular term for a device developed in Canada that was supposed to be able to identify homosexual people, or “fruits”. The subjects were made to view pornography, and the device measured the diameter of the pupils of the eyes (pupillary response test), perspiration, and pulse for a supposed erotic response.
The fruit machine was employed in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s during a campaign to eliminate all homosexuals from the civil service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the military. A substantial number of workers did lose their jobs. Although funding for the “fruit machine” project was cut off in the late 1960s, the investigations continued, and the RCMP collected files on over 9,000 suspected homosexuals.[1]
The chair was like one from a dentist’s office. It had a pulley with a camera going towards the pupils. There was a black box in front of it that showed pictures. The pictures ranged from the mundane to sexually explicit photos of men and women. It had previously been determined that the pupils would dilate in relation to the amount of interest in the picture. This was called the pupillary response test.[2]
People were told the machine was to rate stress. After knowledge of its real purpose became widespread, few people volunteered for it
sitting in a dentist’s chair with a big box in front of my eyes, with guys in lab coats standing over me, looking at boobies.
I’m pretty damn good…
but in a weird sense, yes they do. The Evangelical Right has PACKED the military’s Chaplain Corps with intolerant Bible-Thumping Over-Preaching Hate Machines who have nothing better to do than to out the Gays in their units…and other units. And anywhere else they an find this insidious activity….
But my point is, why get someone thru basic training, advanced job training, deploy them in a combat zone, give them awards for bravery and duty, and then kick them out for making out with their partner at Wal-Mart?
http://www.propeller.com/story…
and not toward you. Thanks for the explanation and to everyone else for the laugh and trivia. “Homosexual misconduct” has a place in the Onion thing, they missed out.
..arose before Bill Clinton took office.
but SSG is talking specifically about DADT and Clinton’s “candy ass” in regards to that doctrine. Although you would be correct to point out there have been “candy asses” in the military for a long time too.
…teeHEE and what not
Western Slope citizens are coming — on their own dime — to the Capitol on Friday to show support of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission rules and to testify on the negative impacts on health, water, air and wildlife from sloppy drilling practices. Unfortunately, The Industry will pay workers to attend a special rules hearing and try to intimidate legislators.
The Denver Post editorial today did a good job describing why these regulations need to be approved: http://www.denverpost.com/opin…
Although The Industry’s main whine these days is “we’ll leave the state because of the regs,” they forget to mention that Colorado has one of the lowest severance tax rates in the nation. Also, rigs are moving from all the other Rocky Mt states, as well, because of low commodity prices and the lack of pipelines to better markets.
What has really left the Western Slope are hunters and tourists – who wants to drive 1,000 miles to see a drilling rig in their former happy hunting grounds? And what tourist wants to be shoved off the road by a fracing truck screaming down a scenic highway? There’s no natural beauty in a flaring gas well or smelling methane gas odors.
Energy booms and busts are the nature of the industry and it has nothing to do with state regs — but has everything to do with international trade. Let’s hope legislators can see beyond the O&G lobbyists’ BS and give citizens a chance to mop up after years of unregulated drilling practices.
O&G, despite all their breathless claims, has offered no evidence to even suggest that the (not yet enacted) new rules have had any role in the latest trends in drilling activity.
For example, O&G points to the fact that the number of active rigs has declined by 50% in Colorado compared to their peak in 2008. OK, but let’s look around the country at other major producing states to see how this decline compares (using data available from Baker-Hughes Weekly Rig Count report).
Montana: 80% decline since peak in 2008
Texas-Dist 1: 67% decline
Texas-Dist 9: 62% decline
Texas-Dist 8: 56% decline
Texas-Dist 10: 55% decline
Texas-Dist 2, 4 & 7b: 54% decline
(note, TX is big and is divided into 12 inland districts)
New Mexico: 60% decline
California: 53% decline
Colorado: 50% decline
Utah: 48% decline
Texas-Dist 7C: 48% decline
Oklahoma: 45% decline
Texas-Dist 5: 42% decline
Wyoming: 41% decline
US average: 40% decline
Canada average: 40% decline
In other words, it’s the economy, stupid!
.
not on the Western Slope.
Our state leadership ought to be putting together a bid to be the site of the permanent repository for wastes from nuclear power generation plants.
President Obama has decided, for reasons that are not transparent, that it is unacceptable for the state of the Democratic Senate Majority Leader to be forced to become the storage site.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
This is after US taxpayers have already paid over $7 Billion to study and prepare the Yucca Mountain site.
We ought to offer to accept the wastes, if the federal government first pays us a $100 Billion compensation fee.
With that money, everyone in the state would be guaranteed a good-paying job.
We could build enough nuke power plants to make domestic electricity free.
Golly, with that much money, we could even afford to build a couple inefficient solar plants like the one proposed for the Pueblo WMD Storage Depot.
The Army could train on the nuke waste storage site safely, and so wouldn’t need to expand Pinon Canyon.
Does anybody remember the initiative 20 years ago, when Aguilar, near Trinidad, made a similar bid ?
Of course, something like this should be put before the voters to accept or reject.
Rutt, maybe this would be a suitable issue for Bighorn ?
.
n/t
.
n/t
afford to get a summer place at a safe distance.
No need to drive.
.
If I got the cash, I’d build a repository (after buying out my neighbors.)
Spent fuel rods, in a proper repository, emit no more radiation (to the outside) than background radiation. Less than the radon percolating up into your basement, Ralphie.
3 millirems per year hasn’t killed you. Why do you think 3.0005 would kill me ?
.
We have som much radiation in the alluvial soil here that you would not be able to measure it.
With that said, Yucca Mtn is the logical site and most of the work has been done there. They need to use it.
The Dow is up almost 250 points. By some folks’ logic, that means Obama must have done something REALLY great, right? Or do we only point to him when the market is down? It’s so hard remembering repub talking points…
Oh, and it’s like 75* outside too! Thus global warming is absolutely real, just like Al Gore told us. Why else would the temp be 20* above normal? 🙂
Why with today’s rally my $ 61,567.23 total loss has been pared down to a measly $ 58,488.65 !
Its the roaring 2000’s again !
And Lou Dobbs says since it snowed in Vegas this year this whole “global warming” thing is hooey. So there.
Since the Rs have insisted on blaming the latest drops on Obama and since we all know the market goes up as well as down, haven’t they boxed themselves in to having to give Obama credit for inevitable upturns, too? And isn’t rock bottom always followed by an upturn so couldn’t they predict one coming under Obama? I guess they’ll just have to keep repeating Rush Limbaugh talking points and hope nobody notices.
their arguments would have to have been based on some system of logic in the first place !
And nothing the Rs do or say in the era of “Just say no” has anything to do with logic. It’s fun to watch.
if it’s good, they’ll find a way to take credit for it.
Look at Republicans extolling particular pieces of the stimulus after they voted against the package.
Obama’s ratings keep going up, their’s keep going down and polls also show a sensible public is willing to give Obama a pretty long leash as far as time-frame, most expecting that things won’t turn on a dime. It’s finally happened. Rs have lost spin control.
About unionization in the workforce.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/…
The Center for Economic Policy Research gives good analysis on the dangers pro-union workers face on the job. Since 2000, pro-union workers were fired in 26% of all unionization campaigns in the US. This jumps to 30% in 2007, the last year for which data was available.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that corrupt union bosses aren’t the ones doing the firing (Sorry, Libertad). I can’t quite believe I’m the only person here who, despite our disparate views on EFCA or other legislation, believes that workers should be able to voice their support for a union in their workplace without the threat of termination.
That’s obviously not the case in the US right now.
For some reason we see unions in a different light than other countries do. I have no idea why some refuse to accept them as an institution. They are the mark of a civilized society, giving counterbalance to the business interests and looking out for the workers (while the government is usually looking out for their employers.)
Until they recognize that unions aren’t going away, then and only then can there be sufficient housecleaning within unions to get rid of the corruption that exists. Without the mutual respect of both sides, there will continue to be a lopsided advantage for companies who don’t want their employees to organize.
to explain that good companies treat their employees so well they don’t have to unionize?
Back in the seventies I lived in Longmont, with the then new IBM plant on the Diagonal Highway. I recall that from time to time unionization was discussed for some of the workers, but no one could see a good reason to do so.
I don’t know how true that is today. But someone in the company once told me that if a worker had a problem, his supervisor was supposed to fix it. Keep it local, so to speak. They were known for treating the employees well, at all levels.
I hope they still do.
Call it the Hollywood-ization of jobs.
On a factory assembly line employees are relatively fungable. There’s a needed level of skill and if that exists you can do the job. But someone 100 times better does not cause the line to move any faster or produce any more.
But look at Hollywood, there are a ton of skilled directors and yet Steven Spielberg gets paid hunders of times more than someone who has done a TV episode.
A very large number of the new jobs fall into this category. The best programmers are considered 10 times more productive than the worst. But it’s larger than that because the best programmers craft software like Spielberg does a movie while the worst give you Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
What this means is I expect to be paid much better than a less skilled programmer – because with me they succeed. And even if I am paid 2 – 3 times more, I’m still cheaper than hiring 5 programmers instead of me.
Now the unions in Hollywood have figured out how to represent workers in this model. And if those unions lead the charge into the high-tech world, that might succeed. But the old-line unions with the view of workers being fungable – it won’t fly when the person next to me is 5X worse, or 5X better.
You also face the issue that those of us paid because we are very good at work that is highly valued and has this wide skill disparity – we’re paid very well. And we’re treaded very well.
I think this is why unions are in big trouble – these are the types of jobs that are increasing – and they have no idea how to win over those workers.
industries as a proportion of our GDP, and that such industries have employees characterized as having highly individuated value as human capital. You’re also right that we are increasingly a service-sector economy, which is where such jobs are generally found (as well as in upper management of any corporation, from any economic sector). And, while “a large number of new jobs fall into this category,” I am not sure that the number is large enough to represent a significant enough proportion of the workforce to be the reson “why unions are in big trouble.” Our economy not only continues to produce far more low-wage jobs than high-salary jobs, but has been doing so at an accelerating rate for decades. Low-wage service sector jobs (just like low-wage industrial-sector jobs) do involve workers who are highly fungible: One can flip a burger as well as the next, or close enough that significant pay differentials are neither necessary nor desirable.
In my opinion, the trouble with unions in the United States has more to do with a popular ideology of extreme individualism, the belief that liberty means being able to contract individually with your employer and not be “coerced” into collective bargaining arrangements with “corrupt” unions. Of course, the result of this ideology (not devoid of reason, but neither fully informed) is to permit fungible labor to be divided and conquered, as it was before the right to unionization was first legalized and protected, and then legally facilitated.
OK, The trouble with unions is that for a generation, the labor movement has been stagnant. They don’t teach anything about unionism in schools and most people in this country don’t know what being a union member is all baout.
I can promise that there is not a CEO in the whole world who would set foot in their workplace without an iron-clad contract (complete with golden parachute). Ordinary workers in China. have a contract before they go to work making the stuff that we used to make here.
The corporations freak out anytime their power is diluted. That is where you get the “corrupt union” label.
The most important thing a Union contract provides is a voice in the workplace. Funny things like “just cause” and “due process” are unknown to non-unionized workers in this state.
Unions are also largely responsible for leveling the wage gap between genders and people of color, and with a union contact, I don’t have to put up with my boss leering at me or grabbing my butt to get a raise.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big fan of unions (especially my own). I don’t know how I ever got along with one and I will NEVER work in a non-union workplace again.
..or whatever, I had to post this link:
http://wonkette.com/406758/ric…
…is an RN and uses her office as a bully pulpit on health care training and similar issues.
I heard her speak at my daughter’s UT graduation. The introductory C.V. showed that this is one awesome woman. I’d vote for her over her husband any day.