Archive for the ‘Elections’ Category
Krauthammer: Free-lunch egalitarianism
April 18th, 2012 | 
Author: |
Krauthammer: Free-lunch egalitarianism
By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post Boulder Daily Camera
Posted:
|
DailyCamera.com
|
Here we go again.
At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama argued that the country’s spiraling debt was largely the result of exploding health care costs. That was true. He then said the cure for these exploding costs would be his health care reform. That was not true.
It was obvious at the time that it could never be true. If government gives health insurance to 33 million uninsured, that costs. Costs a lot. There’s no free lunch.
Now we know. The Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate is that Obamacare will add $1.76 trillion in federal expenditures through 2022. And, as one of the Medicare trustees has just made clear, if you don’t double count the $575 billion set aside for the Medicare trust fund, Obamacare adds to the already crushing national debt.
Three years later, we are back to smoke and mirrors. This time it’s not health care but the Buffett Rule, which would impose a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate on millionaires. Here is how Obama introduced it last September:
“Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a (higher) tax rate than Warren Buffett. … And that basic principle of fairness, if applied to our tax code, could raise enough money” to “stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade. … This is not politics; this is math.”
OK. Let’s do the math. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 
Lineup of GOP ads targeting Colorado is super PAC’ed
|
By Allison Sherry The Denver Post The Denver Post
Posted:
|
DenverPost.com
|
WASHINGTON — The richest and largest Republican super PAC has begun a barrage of radio, TV and social-media ads in Colorado — during what is normally a quiet political season — in an effort to cement messages about health care reform, the economy, the price of gas and taxes.
The group’s target: wandering, undecided voters.
American Crossroads has already spent more than $1.1 million in Colorado and plans an aggressive campaign — both through advocacy on issues and through sharpened attacks on President Barack Obama — in six to 10 swing states between now and November’s election.
Don’t expect talking points on contraception and abortion, though. Read the rest of this entry »
Henninger: Demolishing Paul Ryan
The Left launches on warning against any challenge to its ideological fortress.
-
By DANIEL HENNINGER
With the presidential battle begun, the Obama campaign has revived the Cold War nuclear strategy of launch on warning. At any suggestion that a conservative idea might be threatening its ideological fortress, the American left now launches ICBMs of rhetorical destruction.
So it was after the Supreme Court’s hearings on the Obama Affordable Care Act, which put in jeopardy the federal command to buy health insurance. After the president green-flagged the assault, the Supreme Court’s “legitimacy” was in play. The Roberts Court, wrote one blogger, is “on trial.” Read the rest of this entry »
What Conservative Legal Revolution?
A 5-4 ruling against ObamaCare is the least Republicans should expect given the number of justices they’ve been able to appoint.
By JOHN YOO
This week’s Supreme Court arguments over ObamaCare have left opponents of the law quietly crossing their fingers. Questions from the bench hint that the court’s conservative wing may hold together to strike down the individual mandate, which requires all American adults to purchase health insurance. But this week’s arguments also reveal the risky gamble of placing all hopes of stopping ObamaCare in the courts, and they underscore the pivotal importance of this year’s elections to restoring limited government.
Overturning ObamaCare by a mere 5-4 margin would show the tenuousness of the 40-year conservative campaign to alter the Supreme Court. In the four decades since Richard Nixon first made the Supreme Court a campaign issue, Republicans have controlled the White House for seven presidential terms and Democrats for only four. Yet conservatives and liberals can claim four seats each on the court, with Anthony Kennedy happily floating about in the middle.
Republican presidents nominated justices such as Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and David Souter, who became dependable liberal votes. Democrats have yet to make a similar mistake. Read the rest of this entry »
ObamaCare and the 2012 Election
Whatever the Supreme Court says, how the president handles health policy will deeply affect his chances in November.
By KARL ROVE
This week’s historic Supreme Court hearings on President Obama’s health-care overhaul will have huge political ramifications.
The heart of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the requirement that every American purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy—widely considered the “swing vote” on cases that divide the Supreme Court evenly along ideological lines—raised concerns on Tuesday that this individual mandate “changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in the very fundamental way.” This might mean the president’s signature domestic achievement will be declared unconstitutional. If so, he would face a critical decision.
Mr. Obama could announce he respects the court’s decision and pledge to fashion a bipartisan solution to provide access to affordable health-care insurance for all Americans. This would help his re-election by repositioning him back in the political center, as he was in 2008 when he ran television ads that said “both extremes”—”government-run health care [and] higher taxes”—”are wrong.” Read the rest of this entry »
Speculation about stuffed ballot boxes, old-style political intrigue erupts in Adams County
Adams County Democrats sent two-term Commissioner Alice Nichol packing at the county assembly on Saturday but not before a snag in the ballot count raised tensions that were already running high inside the exhibit hall at the fairgrounds in Brighton.
Delegates delivered a stinging rebuke to Nichol, a former state lawmaker who is the subject of an investigation by the neighboring District Attorney Scott Storey over her involvement in a multimillion-dollar fraudulent billing scandal involving a local paving company, handing her roughly 25 percent of the vote, shy of the 30 percent needed to make the primary ballot.
House District 30 candidate Jenise May and state Sen. Mary Hodge, D-Aurora, visit with Democrats at the Adams County Democratic assembly on march 17 in Brighton.
Instead, Democrats delivered the District 2 nomination to union official Charles “Chaz” Tedesco, who has run on an anti-corruption platform.
In the contest for the open District 1 seat, Eva Henry top-lined for the June primary with 59 percent of the vote, ahead of Ken Ciancio, who garnered 36 percent. Westminster Councilman Mark Kaiser trailed at 5 percent.
State Senate candidate Jessie Ulibarri and House candidate Joe Salazar take in the crowd at the Adams County Democratic assembly on March 17 in Brighton. Both were nominated unopposed to run in the fall election for open seats.
The pair of tight county commissioner races headlined the assembly, which otherwise dispatched its business without much fuss. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Money
Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy’s daughter, has unleashed a firestorm of social controversy by interviewing some welfare recipients who told her on camera that they believe they’re entitled to “Obama money.” That is, welfare checks. A number of those that Ms. Pelosi spotlighted are young men who are not even looking for work. They have plenty of excuses for that. But, bottom line, they want money handed to them, and stuff you if you don’t like it. Also, some of these men have multiple children by multiple “baby mamas.” Again, their posture is “blank you” if you don’t approve.
That attitude appalls many hard-working folks, but truthfully, there have always been layabouts and there always will be. But now, in some circles, it’s almost stylish to be a parasite. Recently, Mitt Romney was confronted by a heckler in Illinois who said, “What about pursuit of happiness? You know what would make me happy? Free birth control!”
Whereupon Romney shot back, “If you’re looking for free stuff… vote for the other guy. That’s what he’s about, okay? That’s not what I’m about.”
And therein lies the theme of the 2012 presidential campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Adams Family shenanigans hit school district; Charges of nepotism hurled at board president, cousin of disgraced commissioner
March 8th, 2012
Adams Family cousins: Do nepotism and shady dealings run in the family?
Here on Tony’s Rants we use the term ‘Adams Family’ (first coined by Complete Colorado) to describe the inbred corruption amongst Adams County’s elected officials. Now we find out that the dirty dealings go beyond just those elected officials with a (D), it also runs in family blood and has infected a local school district.
Norma Frank is President of the Mapleton Public Schools Board of Education. She is also the cousin of Adams County Commissioner Alice Nichol.
Nichol has of course been a constant fixture in the news in recent years for many non-flattering reasons. Her role in the Quality Paving scandal is still under investigation by a special prosecutorand she has also shown a propensity toward nepotism by appointing family members to county boards and landing them jobs in county government.
As it turns out, Nichol and her cousin, Frank, not only have blood in common, they also appear to have a propensity toward nepotism and shady dealings. Read the rest of this entry »
The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care)
This is the inside story of one of the most stunning reversals of political fortune in American history. Four years ago, the GOP dominated politics at every level in Colorado. Republicans held both Senate seats, five of seven congressional seats, the governor’s mansion, the offices of secretary of state and treasurer, and both houses of the state legislature. After the 2008 election, the exact opposite was true: replace the word Republicans with Democrats in the previous sentence, and you have of one the most stunning reversals of political fortune in American history.
This is also the story of how it will happen—indeed, is happening—in other states across the country. In Colorado, progressives believe they have found a blueprint for creating permanent Democratic majorities across the nation. With discipline and focus, they have pioneered a legal architecture designed to take advantage of new campaign finance laws and an emerging breed of progressive donors who are willing to commit unprecedented resources to local races. It’s simple, brilliant, and very effective.
Rob Witwer is a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives and practices law in Denver.
Emmy award–winning journalist Adam Schrager covers politics for KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver. Schrager and his family live in the Denver area. He is the author of The Principled Politician: Governor Ralph Carr and the Fight against Japanese Internment
Spending by super PACs in Colorado is the dominion of Democrats
By Karen E. Crummy
Colorado’s version of liberal super PACs spent nearly 150 times more money than their Republican counterparts in the last election cycle, with most of the money coming from a small circle of unions, wealthy individuals and advocacy organizations, a Denver Post analysis found.
Collaborative and well-coordinated, the groups not only funded television and radio ads, but put large amounts of money — almost $600,000 for one state Senate race — into canvassing neighborhoods, phone calls and direct mailings that often contained withering attacks on GOP opponents.
The results: In a political climate favoring Republicans, Democrats retained control of the state Senate and lost the House by only one seat. They
also won the governor’s mansion three months after unleashing a half-million dollars in ads targeting Scott McInnis, the stronger candidate in the GOP primary, who was pushed out of the race. Read the rest of this entry »
