Mitt Romney’s first television ad: On day one he will approve the Keystone Pipeline, introduce tax cuts and issue an order to end Obamacare.

by WYNTON HALL

Of the 13.3 million Americans who were unemployed in the first quarter of 2012, a staggering 29.5% have been out of work for 52 weeks or more (the official definition of long-term unemployment). As the Pew Charitable Trusts point out, that works out to roughly 3.9 million people, or more than the population of Oregon.
James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute blog has posted a devastating graph depicting the spike in long-term unemployment since President Barack Obama took office.
Since 1967, the previous 1983 high for long-term unemployment rate was less than half what it is today under Barack Obama.
Economists say high long-term unemployment rates are especially dangerous. As time out of work increases, a worker’s skills and knowledge of new technologies grow rusty, making them less attractive to employers and therefore less likely to re-enter the workforce. As Ingrid Schroeder, director of the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative at the Pew Charitable Trusts explains:
“When you look at the overall long-term unemployment rate in early 2008, it was about 9.5 percent. And when you look at where we are today, at 29.5 percent, you expect it to be worse [than where it was at the beginning of the recession], but it’s more than triple where it was at the beginning of the Great Recession.”
The societal implications of long-term unemployment are also unsettling, as high joblessness increases an individual’s willingness to cede personal liberty to an authoritarian leader. A study by Duha Tore Altindag of Auburn University and Naci H. Mocan of Louisiana State University found that “personal joblessness experience translates into negative opinions about the effectiveness of democracy and it increases the desire for a rogue leader.” Liberal Yale University economist Robert Shiller summarized the study this way:
They looked at a survey question inquiring whether “having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Parliament or elections” is a good thing. In the United States, being jobless increases the propensity to agree by about 11 percentage points, to 38 percent from the sample mean of 27 percent, after controlling for other factors like income and education.
In short, the longer a person is out of work and feels hopeless about ever getting a job, the more willing they are to submit to authoritarian leaders.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/11/devastating-graph-reveals-obamas-unemployment-economy

You’ll be able to hear from candidates in a primary election (Adams County Commissioner District 1, Senate District 21, and CU Regent-at-Large) followed by a Q&A session.

Please Bring your checkbook and/or time to volunteer as our candidates need your support to win on November 6th. 

We meet at the Anythink Huron Street Library community room, 9417 Huron St, Thornton, CO, 80260.

View Anythink Huron Street Library in a larger map

Gil Reyes (HANDOUT | )

Adams County Assessor Gil Reyes was charged Friday with criminal misconduct for lowering the property taxes of warehouses owned by his leading campaign contributor.

Reyes faces nine misdemeanor charges of official misconduct, one for each warehouse that benefited from his intervention.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Cumulatively, the maximum penalty on all charges would be nine years and $9,000.

The investigation of Reyes, conducted jointly by the Adams County district attorney’s office, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, began after The Denver Post reported in November 2010 that Reyes had personally slashed the taxable values of warehouses owned by California-based Majestic Realty Co. by $23 million, saving the company more than $800,000 that year alone.

Majestic, its officers and affiliates contributed $14,000 to Reyes’ 2002 and 2006 campaigns. Reyes, a Democrat, was elected without opposition to a third term in 2010.

The criminal charges against him stem from allegations that in June 2005 and February 2007, Reyes told his administrative assistant to lower the appraised values of nine Majestic Realty industrial warehouses in Adams County. Those values had been established by commercial appraisers in Reyes’ office.

Colorado assessors are required to value commercial properties using one of three yardsticks — their construction cost, their market value or their sales income — or some combination of those three measures.

Adams County District Attorney Don Quick said Reyes did not do that when he lowered the appraised values of the Majestic Realty warehouses.

“He didn’t follow the rules and regulations that govern his office,” Quick said. “He just instructed his assistant to put in values that were significantly different from his commercial appraisers’.”

Reyes is scheduled to appear in court June 14. He can continue to serve as county assessor while the case is pending because “he’s innocent until proven otherwise,” Quick said.

The Post also reported that e-mail exchanges between Reyes and Randall Hertel, a Majestic Realty vice president in Colorado, showed the assessor had accepted gifts of Colorado Rockies and Colorado Avalanche tickets from Hertel and met him several times for lunch. Reyes pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor for failing to report those gifts.

The Majestic Realty contributions to Reyes’ campaigns included $1,000 checks from Hertel and from company chairman Edward Roski, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers.

The state Division of Property Taxation launched a separate investigationthat concluded Reyes’ revised values for the Majestic Realty properties were incorrect. It is re-evaluating the appraised value of every warehouse in the county and expects to issue its final report in August.

Reyes could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon, and Hertel did not return calls to his office.

The Adams County commissioners have no control over Reyes’ future as an assessor because he holds an elected office.

But Erik Hansen, a Republican commissioner who called on Reyes to resign last year, reiterated that request Friday.

“He’s lost the public trust, and he should resign,” Hansen said. “I certainly would encourage a recall election too. It’s overdue.”

The charges all accuse Reyes of “failing in his appraisals to determine the actual value” of properties, with “intent to obtain a benefit for any person” by undervaluing the Majestic Realty buildings.

The list of potential witnesses includes current and former employees of the assessor’s office, state Division of Taxation investigators, and Hertel, Majestic Realty’s agent at its Aurora warehouse complex.

Quick said the investigation looked into Majestic Realty contributions to assessors in other states as well as its gifts to Reyes.

“At this point, we’re not filing charges,” he said, “but the investigation continues.”

The criminal investigation of the county assessor is one of several scandals that have plagued Adams County government, prompting the county commissioners to approve a sweeping set of reforms last year.

Five people have been convicted in the Quality Paving case, in which company and public-works employees are accused of conspiring to defraud the county of $1.8 million. And a special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate Commissioner Alice Nichol’s dealings with Quality Paving.

David Olinger: 303-954-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com

Read more:Adams County Assessor Gil Reyes charged with misconduct – The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20603088/adams-county-assessor-charged-misconduct#ixzz1ufD1mV3u
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EVERYONE NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND “HUBRIS”!

 George W. Bush speech after capture of Saddam Hussein:
The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq .
The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the Dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.

 Barack Hussein Obama speech, Sunday, May 1, 2011:
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as I continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan . And finally, last week, I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad , Pakistan .

Hubris ( hu·bris), also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.

AMEN