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Tom Tancredo, the always-controversial former Colorado congressman who retired in 2008 and then ran for president on an anti-illegal immigration platform, is being pelted for his statements during the first-ever Tea Party convention, which took place over the weekend in Tennessee.
Tancredo slammed President Barack Obama, as well as fellow Republican John McCain, stating that the former was elected because “we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country,” a reference to a Jim Crow policy that once prevented blacks from being able to vote.
Tancredo seemed less interested, however, in turning the clock back to the days before the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and more interested in taking another shot at immigrants, hinting at one point that Obama’s supporters probably can’t even speak English (via Time).
Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune dubs Tancredo the “Tea Party Crack Pot,” and even some conservatives, like former GOP House majority leader Dick Armey, who now runs Freedom Works, a group aligned with the Tea Party movement, see such rhetoric as counterproductive: “It feeds into the hands of the left and allows [the Tea Party] to be portrayed as people who are angry and accusatory, inflammatory.” (more…)
The Denver metro-area’s vast light-rail dream took a step closer to reality as the Federal Transit Administration announced $304 million in loans to convert Denver Union Station into a regional commuter rail hub.
The FTA’s administrator, Peter Rogoff, says additional millions in grants for two commuter rail corridors—Denver International Airport and Arvada-Wheat Ridge—in President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget should be taken as a clear signal that the region’s rail dreams are on track, notes Kevin Flynn at Inside Lane. Rogoff told a crowd of about 200 people at the Union Station transit platform the money would mean “thousands of jobs” locally.
The grants and loans are expected to spark a new round of development in LoDo, clearing a major obstacle that stood in the way of construction in the surrounding area, private developers claim. But the loan won’t exactly trigger a building spree in the difficult market for commercial projects, reports The Denver Post.
“Everybody knows that eventually Union Station will get developed, but this doesn’t automatically translate into real-estate development,” says Randy Nichols, president of Nichols Partnership. “The market dictates what can get built.” He adds, however, that the loan announcement gets “us over the hump.”
During yesterday’s Super Bowl advertising blitz, one commercial forever changed the game. It waded outside the usual bounds of provocative and fun, into the stuffy worlds of religion, morality, and politics, as Yahoo! Sports writes. Yet Focus on the Family’s ad featuring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow wasn’t the no-holds-barred, anti-abortion screed many expected. Rather, the Colorado Springs evangelical group’s commercial was soft on the themes, pushing them nonetheless.
In the ad, Pam Tebow holds a baby photo of Tim, now 22, saying, “I call him my miracle baby. He almost didn’t make it into this world…. You know, with all our family’s been through, we have to be tough.” The tagline, “Celebrate Family. Celebrate Life,” refers viewers to Focus’ Web site.
NOW president Terry O’Neill rails against the ad: “I think CBS should be ashamed of itself,” she tells The Los Angeles Times. Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker also launches some criticism at the ad, theorizing that “what we’re seeing here is FF backing away from a more aggressive statement in order to get its spots on CBS’ air. The result is classic bad advertising: The personalities on display distract from the message this deeply conservative organization wants to spread.”
Tucker adds that the real controversy is CBS’ decision to reject an ad from the gay dating service Mancrunch.com. “No matter how benignly phrased the Tebow ad is, it’s advertising for a conservative organization, as opposed to the rejected ad, with its presumed liberal politics.”
Colorado’s top Democratic politicians will gather in Washington, D.C., next week for a fundraiser to back the gubernatorial campaign of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, reports Politico. With suggested contributions of $250 to $1,050 a pop, Hickenlooper’s campaign is sure to get a needed jolt.
Hick was coy about his views on the latest hot issue in the state: whether tax exemptions should be eliminated to salvage the state budget. Hickenlooper told yesterday’s 760-AM morning listeners he prefers not to insert himself into other elected lawmakers’ business (listen to the podcast).
Meanwhile, Scott McInnis, a leading Republican candidate for governor, has taken the advice of Denver’s Patti Shyne, an image coach who has worked with dozens of celebrities, by ditching his mustache and John Denver-style glasses, notes The Denver Post.
McInnis recently met with about 40 members of the metro area Tea Party but made it clear that he is a Republican and not a “Tea Party” candidate, as Neil Cavuto labeled him (via Fox 31).
“We called them after the interview and said, ‘Wait a minute, where did you come up with that?’” McInnis told the group.
As Democrats face criticism from business leaders for pushing several bills that would end a variety of tax exemptions to help reap the cash-strapped state millions of dollars in revenue and prevent deeper cuts to areas like education, Republicans are renewing their pleas for more budget slashing.
Colorado, Senate Republicans argue, could forgo the elimination of some $150 million in tax exemptions and credits if lawmakers instead cut state payroll costs by 4.4 percent. The proposal, outlined in the Denver Business Journal, will soon be introduced as a bill, setting the stage for a political battle in which GOP politicians claim they are attempting to save some 15,000 jobs across the state.
At least one leading Senate Democrat is already calling the proposal, which could require the elimination of some government jobs, dead.
Meanwhile, in a column on AlterNet, Denver-based political journalist and commentator David Sirota chides politicians across the state for their desire to cut government to the bone, pointing to Colorado Springs as an example of what happens when tax reductions go too far.
“Inevitably, anti-tax zealots will attempt to obscure what this choice is about—but the choice is now crystal clear. Tax reform or draconian cuts, life or death—the decision is ours,” he writes.
As state Representative Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs pushed the idea of taking severance-tax revenue from the extraction of gold and other precious metals to buy bars of gold for Colorado’s rainy days, a problem with the gold over his head lingered.
The Colorado state Capitol building’s gilded dome “has fallen into serious disrepair,” writes the nonprofit Colorado Preservation Inc., and the state can’t afford the costs—$30 million by some estimates—of fixing it (via the Denver Business Journal).
While such observations of the dome’s damage are certainly not new, the preservation group’s assessment is harsh, making it seem as if safety inspectors could walk in any day now and shutter the dome.
“The cast-iron superstructure is rusting to the point that an architectural inspection team declared that ‘the potential loss of strength as a result of deterioration is a significant hazard to the building and its occupants,’” the group says, citing a 10-pound chunk of iron that crashed from the dome in 2007.
Who’s to blame? Politicians, of course. Last year, the Colorado State Historical Fund approved a $3 million grant to get repairs started, but state lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement to contribute $8 million in matching funds. The group, which issued a list of several other “most endangered places” in 2010, such as Elkhorn Lodge in Estes Park, is now lobbying lawmakers to support repairs to the dome.
The rumble started elsewhere, in places like the technology industry, which hopes to stave off efforts at the Capitol to tax software installations, writes TechRockies. Now, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce is leading a cavalry, calling on its members to “take action” to thwart measures, now in the Senate, that suspend various business tax breaks.
“We understand the need for shared sacrifice to balance the state’s budget. … Nonetheless, we cannot endorse a budget fix that kills the proverbial golden goose,” states an e-mail from the Chamber—the “proverbial goose” being jobs (via the Denver Business Journal). And Democrats, who argue the measures would reap the state millions of dollars in revenue, preventing deeper cuts to items like education, are allegedly to blame.
The Washington Times points out that the battle—over several bills that would eliminate tax exemptions on items such as farm equipment and restaurant napkins—is couched in semantics: “Were those tax increases? It depends on your political bent. To Democrats, the votes merely rid the books of tax breaks and loopholes for big business in order to avoid cuts to public schools and social services.” To Republicans, they’re tax increases.
The bills cleared the House earlier this week, and a handful of Democrats broke ranks, voting against. Nonetheless, House Speaker Terrance Carroll (pictured), a Denver Democrat, tells The Denver Post the measures are about “asking big business to pay their fair share. … It’s only been the GOP and their special-interest cronies who have been complaining because we’re rolling back corporate welfare and special-interest tax loopholes.”
State Representative Steve King, a Grand Junction Republican, is facing an ethics investigation into whether he charged both the state and his campaign for travel expenses totaling $1,025 in April and May (via The Denver Post).
Republican Representative Mark Waller sums up the issue: “It’s a payday loan from the campaign account. He’s a rural legislator who makes $30,000 a year. He had car problems and doesn’t have money to rent a car.”
It was unclear to several on the legislative panel that heard the case yesterday whether borrowing from a campaign, asking the state for reimbursement, and then repaying the campaign poses an ethical problem. But Representative Jim Riesberg, a Greeley Democrat, says being short on funds is no excuse for the odd paperwork.
ColoradoPols is having a field day with the investigation, noting that if King had been forced to go to a payday lender, he “would have had to take out two loans for the maximum of $500 each. That would have cost him $150.” Westword is musing along the same lines: “No word on whether King paid the state any interest.”
The panel has made no decisions but is seeking additional information from King and legislative staffers before moving forward. Another meeting is scheduled for February 12, and a decision is expected by February 18, according to Colorado Ethics Watch, the group that initially called out King for double-dipping.
Medical marijuana is the big story once again at the Capitol, where yet-to-be-introduced legislation could ban any new medical marijuana dispensaries in the state from opening until July 2011, while forcing existing establishments to meet strict regulations (via 7News).
It will be the second major marijuana bill this year sponsored, in part, by Senator Chris Romer, a Denver Democrat, although the legislation’s primary sponsor is Representative Tom Massey (left), a Poncha Springs Republican.
The 45-page bill would also require most dispensaries to register with the state as nonprofits, making them “health centers.” Cities then could decide if they want to ban the centers outright, according to 9News.
Medical marijuana advocates aren’t taking this one lightly. In response, Sensible Colorado is planning to file a statewide ballot initiative “to let voters establish regulations kinder to the medical marijuana industry than those likely to be passed by legislators,” writes Westword.
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld takes a pot shot at climate-change experts, calling them a bunch of “confused bumble-heads.” The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, wants to know why the “bright side of global warming” seems to be glossed over in analysis by the United Nations.
No wonder the American public’s concerns about global warming have decreased sharply since 2008. They think scientists are in total disagreement over the issue of climate change, reports UPI, even though “the scientific evidence is clear that climate change is real, human-caused, and a serious threat to communities across America,” says Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.
If you don’t trust Maibach, perhaps you’ll listen to leaders of Colorado’s $2-billion-a-year winter-sports industry—people like Auden Schendler of the Aspen Skiing Company. He’s among several industry interests worried about the state’s oddball winter weather, including possible shorter winters and rain instead of snow in the spring. His main concern: money.
Colorado’s ski areas don’t begin turning profits until March, and “if you lose March in the ski industry,” he tells the Associated Press, “you go out of business.” (more…)
A Westword headline nails the current debate sweeping the People’s Republic: “Should exposing the areola of a nipple be illegal in Boulder? The ACLU says ‘no.’” But the City Council has voted a definite “maybe” on the subject amid questions from about a half-dozen residents and some council members who wonder whether the ordinance is necessary or discriminatory toward women.
The 6-2 vote comes in the wake of police crackdowns on people who engage in group exhibitionism, such as the Naked Pumpkin Run or anti-oil World Naked Bike Ride. The participants aren’t necessarily viewed as sex offenders, but police could charge them as such.
Though council members Lisa Morzel and Macon Cowles have failed in their votes against moving the proposed ordinance forward, they’ve convinced the council to remove language that would have criminalized the exposure of female nipples, according to Boulder’s Daily Camera, leaving it unclear (from the newspaper report) what, precisely, the law would cover, though public nudity would be an offense.
“I don’t think it really addresses a problem,” Morzel (pictured) says. “I understand the desire to not have the pranksters be sexual offenders, but for me to entertain this, I need it to be non-discriminatory. And I’m not sure why we’re even discussing this.”
For the first time ever, the nation’s top military officer, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to lawmakers that he has no problem with gays or lesbians openly serving in the military.
Moreover, Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law should be repealed because it forces homosexuals to lie about their sexual orientation, going against the grain of the military’s vaunted code of honor and integrity.
“No matter how I look at this issue I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said (via the Boston Globe).
Though Mullen was joined in his effort by Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense, staunch criticism is coming from Republicans on the committee opposing change, including Senator John McCain of Arizona. He raises myriad points, including that that openly gay or lesbian soldiers might impact “unit cohesion.”
But Democrats on the panel, such as Colorado’s Mark Udall, support ending the policy to discharge openly gay and lesbian troops, which dates to the Clinton administration. Udall says his constituents pride themselves on allowing others to live and let live (via the Associated Press).
”You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight,” he says, quoting longtime Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater.
Just weeks ago, the state wouldn’t have been able to step in and take action against the Pipkin Mortuary, where a recent mix-up resulted in the wrong bodies being placed in the wrong caskets, causing further grief to already grieving families. But in January, a measure passed by state lawmakers giving the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, or DORA, some oversight of mortuaries went into effect.
DORA spokesman Chris Lines tells 7News that law has allowed a “cease and desist” order to be issued for Pipkin Mortuary, forcing it to shut down for an investigation next week, after it completes any existing commitments.
“When an investigation is launched, DORA people are onsite, going into the facility, finding out what is going on, tracking down allegations, and giving Mr. Pipkin all due process guaranteed by the statute,” says Lines.
The mortuary’s owner, Mark Pipkin, issued a statement Monday saying the mortuary “cannot begin to fully express our deep regret and sincere apologies to the families of Evelyn Jackson and Imogene Jackson for this most unfortunate incident,” adding that the problem was caused by “human error” (via 9News).
NASA had planned to return people to the moon by 2020, but President Barack Obama has proposed scrapping the program to save money, which means a crew vehicle designed and built by hundreds of employees of Colorado-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems would also be cut, according to The Denver Post.
The Obama administration seeks to kill the Constellation program, which includes the Orion crew exploration vehicle and Ares launch vehicles because they are “over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation.”
The program aimed to create a replacement for the space shuttle that allows astronauts to reach low-earth orbit with a second, more powerful rocket and includes modules for a moon base, reports Christian Science Monitor.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems officials haven’t commented, notes the Denver Business Journal, but the company issued a statement expressing disappointment, pointing out that the four-person Orion capsule has made significant progress in development.
Andrew Romanoff’s U.S. Senate campaign has added a few big guns to its arsenal in its attempt to take down Senator Michael Bennet in a Democratic primary later this year. Among the new recruits is Joe Trippi, the man who ran Howard Dean’s insurgent presidential campaign.
“Bennet got appointed and thinks nobody should run against him. I mean, give me a break,” Trippi tells Politico.
Expect the Romanoff team to repeatedly frame their candidate as an independent Democrat, one who will “challenge the status quo, shake things up in Washington, and make it work for people, not the special interests,” Trippi adds in a campaign news release.
Pat Caddell—who has been involved in six presidential campaigns, starting with George McGovern’s in 1972, and served as a personal adviser to President Jimmy Carter—has also joined the Romanoff team. Caddell has been a writer, producer, and consultant to numerous hit films and TV shows, including The West Wing.
Romanoff (left) has resisted money from political-action committees, while Bennet (right) reports receiving more than $600,000 in such contributions last year—a contrast between the candidates, notes The Colorado Statesman. But The Washington Post characterizes Bennet as a “winner” when it comes to fundraising, ending the year with $3.5 million in the bank.
Meanwhile, Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado GOP, aims to make President Barack Obama’s visit on behalf of Bennet later this month as difficult as possible, harping on Obama’s signing of the stimulus bill, writes Politico.
If you think budget cuts are bad in Denver, look no further than Colorado Springs for solace. After voters recently shot down a measure that would have tripled property taxes and restored $27.6 million to the city’s $212 million general fund, the city is now left slashing services that most Americans take for granted, writes The Denver Post.
More than one third of the city’s streetlights will go dark tonight. Police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. Dozens of police and firefighting positions will go unfilled. People are being encouraged to help mow public lawns—although by July the grass will be dead because of water cutbacks. Buses no longer run on evenings or weekends. City recreation centers, pools, and museums will be shuttered March 31 unless private funding arrives to save the day.
It’s all so depressing that the Colorado Springs Independent has logged a brief in its Misery Loves Company File, noting that at least Tulsa, Oklahoma, is also struggling. There, 124 police officers are losing their jobs after their union refused to take a pay cut. Moreover, another 59 city workers are out of jobs, according to Tulsa World.
Meanwhile, the Colorado Springs Gazette continues to write about the lives of the 300-500 homeless campers, the ones “trashing creeks and public spaces, repelling people who use the urban trail system and Penrose Library, taxing public services, and sparking a City Council discussion on a no-camping ordinance.”
Several appointed Democratic senators, including Michael Bennet, who was selected by Governor Bill Ritter to fill the post of Ken Salazar when he became Interior Secretary, have “clouded, rather than clarified, the party’s electoral prospects in 2010,” writes The Washington Post, which adds that “polling suggests Bennet is in a dead heat with former lieutenant governor Jane Norton,” a Republican contender for his seat.
Several other races involving appointees are in question in other states, helping to explain why President Barack Obama is expected to visit Colorado next month to attend a campaign event for Bennet. The details are still being worked out, according to the Associated Press. Bennet attacks much of the politics surrounding his year in office as “silliness” in a new campaign video soliciting volunteers.
Meanwhile, Bennet’s wife, Susan Daggett, is already on the campaign trail, telling voters her husband will run on a platform of education, green energy, and lowering the national debt. That’s according to the Telluride Daily Planet, which quotes Daggett as saying youngsters are facing unbearable debt and will struggle for educational opportunities.
“Based on the education low-income kids in America receive, they’re not going to get very many opportunities. They’re not going to receive the same opportunities our children get, or our children’s friends get,” she told a group that included Telluride Mayor Stu Fraser and Mountain Village Town Councilman Jonathan Greenspan.
Facing cutbacks from the state Legislature, Colorado State University plans, once again, to raise tuition, according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan, which notes that CSU also hiked tuition last year.
In-state graduate students could pay an extra 15 percent, or $970.20, annually, and out-of-state graduate students could pay an extra five percent, or $905.45 annually, under a proposed plan. Undergraduates could face nine and three percent increases, respectively, for in- and out-of-state students.
“We’re skeptical that we’d want to go above that and skeptical that the Legislature and the governor would let us go above that,” says interim Provost Rick Miranda (left) of the move, which would net CSU about $13 million, a “substantial” portion to be set aside for need-based financial aid for students hit hardest by the tuition increase.
Meanwhile, CSU has released its second annual Financial Accountability Report, which finds that total revenue for the university grew 35.8 percent, to $815.5 million from fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2009. The report points out that CSU ranks 11th among 12 peer institutions in the amount charged for resident undergraduate tuition, with North Carolina State University the lowest, according to the Northern Colorado Business Report.
Headlines across the nation are proclaiming that several American cities may soon have high-speed trains connecting them. “Tampa to Orlando high speed rail closer to reality,” writes Businessweek. “High-speed rail in California getting $2 billion,” declares the Associated Press.
The news spread after President Barack Obama announced $8 billion in spending to develop a nationwide high-speed rail system, an investment that could create jobs, boost the economy, and help reduce pollution.
Projects and planning involving the rail corridors will take place in 31 states, notes Bloomberg News, which reports that each of the intercity corridors, identified by the administration last year, are between 100 and 600 miles long.
Governor Bill Ritter has announced that Colorado will receive a small portion of the funds—$1.4 million—to essentially play catch-up. The funds would create a “sophisticated plan for connecting rail transit systems in Colorado,” according to a press release. In all, two grants have been awarded to the state, one to explore how to connect existing rail and another for a required “State Rail Plan,” writes the Denver Business Journal.
What went down at a recent reception honoring the new Colorado Oil & Gas Association president should quiet anyone who’s been doubting that John Hickenlooper’s campaign for governor is underway.
The event “turned into a political brouhaha” after the mayor of Denver addressed the crowd, writes The Denver Post.
State Senator Josh Penry, who minced no words in casting Hickenlooper as an enemy to the oil-and-gas industry, is “peeved” that the Democrat was allowed to speak in the absence of the leading Republican candidate. Oil & Gas President Tisha Conoly Schuller says Republican contender Scott McInnis was invited to the event, but he had another engagement.
We found McInnis making headlines in Windsor, where he ripped Dems on oil-and-gas issues, quoting “Famous Last Words of a Fool” by country singer George Strait (via The Greeley Tribune). The effort didn’t impact his Big Line ranking at Coloradopols, where Hick (pictured) is on top.
Meanwhile, an unofficial, non-campaign-affiliated, pro-Hick ad is comparing GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams to Nazi mastermind Adolph Hitler. InDenverTimes wonders if the ad is humor or just poor taste. But Westword thinks the spot is “pretty funny,” noting that Wadhams and his clan get “needled for their invention of the lame ‘Hickenritter’ nickname, among plenty of other things.”
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Tom Tancredo, the always-controversial former Colorado congressman who retired in 2008 and then ran for president on an anti-illegal immigration platform, is being pelted for his statements during the first-ever Tea Party convention, which took place over the weekend in Tennessee.
Colorado’s top Democratic politicians will gather in Washington, D.C., next week for a fundraiser to back the gubernatorial campaign of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, reports 
Meanwhile, Scott McInnis, a leading Republican candidate for governor, has taken the advice of Denver’s Patti Shyne, an image coach who has worked with dozens of celebrities, by ditching his mustache and John Denver-style glasses, notes 
As state Representative Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs pushed the idea of taking severance-tax revenue from the extraction of gold and other precious metals to 
The rumble started elsewhere, in places like the technology industry, which hopes to stave off efforts at the Capitol to tax software installations, writes 
State Representative Steve King, a Grand Junction Republican, is facing an ethics investigation into whether he charged both the state and his campaign for travel expenses totaling $1,025 in 
Medical marijuana is the big story once again at the Capitol, where yet-to-be-introduced legislation could ban any new medical marijuana dispensaries in the state from opening until July 2011, while forcing existing establishments to 
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld
A 
For the first time ever, the nation’s top military officer, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to lawmakers that he has no problem with gays or lesbians openly serving in the military.
NASA had planned to return people to the moon by 2020, but President Barack Obama has proposed scrapping the program to save money, which means a crew vehicle designed and built by hundreds of employees of Colorado-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems would also 
Andrew Romanoff’s U.S. Senate campaign has added a few big guns to its arsenal in its attempt to take down Senator Michael Bennet in a Democratic primary later this year. Among the new recruits is Joe Trippi, the man who ran Howard Dean’s insurgent presidential campaign.
Pat Caddell—who has been involved in six presidential campaigns, starting with George McGovern’s in 1972, and served as a personal adviser to President Jimmy Carter—has also joined the Romanoff team. Caddell has been a writer, producer, and consultant to numerous hit films and TV shows, including The West Wing. 
Several appointed Democratic senators, including Michael Bennet, who was selected by Governor Bill Ritter to fill the post of Ken Salazar when he became Interior Secretary, have “clouded, rather than clarified, the party’s electoral prospects 
Facing cutbacks from the state Legislature, Colorado State University plans, once again, to raise 
What went down at a recent reception honoring the new Colorado Oil & Gas Association president should quiet anyone who’s been doubting that John Hickenlooper’s campaign for governor is underway.