http://www.whosaidyousaid.com/2012/01/colo-state-rep-ramirez-rips-pres-obama-on-failure-to-lead/

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents — #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” – Barack Obama, July 3, 2008

CBS News, August 23, 2011:

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch. The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion. It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term…The Gross National Debt now stands at 97.6 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product – the total value of goods and services produced by labor and property in the U.S.

ACTIVE VOTERS PERCENTAGE
American Constitution                                 18      0%
Americans Elect                                               0      0%
Democrat                                                  8,041    30%
Green                                                               29       0%
Libertarian                                                  112      0%
Republican                                             9,704   37%
Unaffiliated                                             8,663    33%
TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTERS      26,567

*This chart was last updated January1, 2012.

Find out more about the state of the race in Colorado: http://bit.ly/A1y1eG

?Mitt Romney will be in Colorado on Feb 6 & 7.

Ron Paul will be in state on Jan. 31. He also has an office in Denver and has been polling in Colorado.

Newt Gingrich & Rick Santorum haven’t set plans to visit Colorado, but most likely will be visiting soon.

“Are you better off today than you were $4 trillion ago?”

— former presidential candidate Rick PerryIt’s the campaign line of the year, and while the author won’t be carrying it into the general election, the eventual nominee will.

The charge is straightforward: President Obama’s reckless spending has dangerously increased the national debt while leaving unemployment high and the economy stagnant. Concurrently, he has vastly increased the scope and reach of government with new entitlements and oppressive regulation, with higher taxes to come (to offset the unprecedented spending).

In 2010, that narrative carried the Republicans to historic electoral success. Through most of 2011, it dominated Washington discourse. The air was filled with debt talk: ceilings, supercommittees, Simpson-Bowles.

What’s the incumbent to do? He admits current conditions are bad. He knows that his major legislative initiatives — Obamacare, the near-trillion-dollar stimulus, (the rejected) cap-and-trade — are unpopular. If you can’t run on stewardship or policy, how do you win reelection?

Create an entirely new narrative. Push an entirely new issue. Change the subject from your record and your ideology, from massive debt and overreaching government, to fairness and inequality. Make the election a referendum on which party really cares about you, which party will stand up to the greedy rich who have pillaged the 99 percent and robbed the middle class of hope.

This charge, too, is straightforward: The Republicans serve as the protectors and enablers of the plutocrats, the exploiters who have profited while America suffers. They put party over nation, fat cat donors over people, political power over everything.

It’s all rather uncomplicated, capturing nicely the Manichaean core of the Occupy movement — blame the rich, then soak them. But the real beauty of this strategy is its adaptability. While its first target was the do-nothing, protect-the-rich Congress, it is perfectly tailored to fit the liabilities of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney — plutocrat, capitalist, 1 percenter.

Obama rolled out this class-war counter-narrative in his Dec. 6 “Teddy Roosevelt” speech and hasn’t governed a day since. Every action, every proposal, every “we can’t wait” circumvention of the Constitution — such as recess appointments when the Senate is not in recess — is designed to fit this reelection narrative.

Hence: Where does Obama ostentatiously introduce the recess-appointed head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? At a rally in swing-state Ohio, a stage prop for the president to declare himself tribune of the little guy, scourge of the big banks and their soulless Republican guardians.

For the first few weeks, the class-envy gambit had some effect, bumping Obama’s numbers slightly. But the story was still lagging, suffering in part from its association with an Occupy rabble that had widely worn out its welcome.

Then came the twist. Then came the most remarkable political surprise since the 2010 midterm: The struggling Democratic class-war narrative is suddenly given life and legitimacy by .?.?. Republicans! Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry make the case that private equity as practiced by Romney’s Bain Capital is nothing more than vulture capitalism looting companies and sucking them dry while casually destroying the lives of workers.

Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO nods approvingly. Michael Moore wonders aloud whether Gingrich has stolen his staff. The assault on Bain/Romney instantly turns Obama’s class-war campaign from partisan attack into universal complaint.

Suddenly Romney’s wealth, practices and taxes take center stage. And why not? If leading Republicans are denouncing rapacious capitalism that enriches the 1 percent while impoverishing everyone else, should this not be the paramount issue in a campaign occurring at a time of economic distress?

Now, economic inequality is an important issue, but the idea that it is the cause of America’s current economic troubles is absurd. Yet, in a stroke, the Republicans have succeeded in turning a Democratic talking point — a last-ditch attempt to salvage reelection by distracting from their record — into a central focus of the nation’s political discourse.

How quickly has the zeitgeist changed? Wednesday, the Republican House reconvened to reject Obama’s planned $1.2 trillion debt-ceiling increase. (Lacking Senate concurrence, the debt ceiling will be raised nonetheless.) Barely noticed. All eyes are on South Carolina and Romney’s taxes.

This is no mainstream media conspiracy. This is the GOP maneuvering itself right onto Obama terrain.

The president is a very smart man. But if he wins in November, that won’t be the reason. It will be luck. He could not have chosen more self-destructive adversaries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-legitimize-obamas-reelection-rhetoric/2012/01/19/gIQA5pB5BQ_story.html

In Perry v. Perez, the Justices rejected a series of election maps redrawn by a lower court in Texas to replace a map created by the Texas legislature to account for population growth and four new Congressional seats. The Supreme Court noted that the lower court had “exceeded its mission” and it sent the maps back to the drawing board.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas is one of nine states required to get preclearance from a federal court or the Justice Department for any changes in election law. While that petition was pending, the maps drawn by lawmakers were challenged on grounds that they diluted minority voting strength. A federal court in San Antonio then drew up interim maps that differed radically from the original set, creating a scenario more favorable to Democrats. 

Then Mr. Holder piled on, arguing that any court-drawn plans are preferable to one that violates Section 5. The only problem is that no court has found that the original Texas maps violated any law.

In its decision yesterday, the Justices said redistricting is “‘primarily the duty and responsibility of the State,’” and that when faced with drawing an interim plan, a court should take its cues from the version done by lawmakers, with whom authority properly lies. That is a resounding and welcome note for federalism, or deference to state prerogatives, and bodes well for a serious hearing on ObamaCare.

“This Court has observed before,” the Justices wrote, that “‘faced with the necessity of drawing district lines by judicial order, a court . . . should be guided by the legislative policies underlying’ a state plan,” as long as those policies don’t violate the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution.

Constitutional challenges to Section 5, including a facial challenge to the law now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, may eventually make their way to the Supreme Court. The Perez decision is notable, however, because even though the constitutionality of the law was not directly presented to the High Court, the Justices took the opportunity to remind litigants that “This Court recently noted the ‘serious constitutional questions’ raised by Section 5′s intrusion on state sovereignty” in 2009′s Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No 1 v. Holder. In other words, watch this space.

The case now returns to the lower court in San Antonio for further proceedings, and the judges there have been instructed to use the original legislative maps as the basis for their redrawing. The result is a big victory for Texas, and a reminder to the Justice Department that federal intrusions into state law may end up causing more political headaches than they solve.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577173030198183616.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h&_nocache=1327169229963&user=welcome&mg=id-wsj

YOUR NEW PRECINCT NUMBER AND

YOUR CAUCUS LOCATION

Go to www.caucus.cologop.org

Follow the step by step instructions.

Voila!!  You’ll find what you need to know.

Once you fill out the form and get your 10 digit precinct number, here’s how you break down the digits. The first digit is your CD-number, the next four is your Colorado State Senate district followed by your Colorado State House district, the next two are your Adams County Commissioner district number, and the last three is your precinct number. If you want to print out your precinct map, go to http://apps.adcogov.org/gis/staticmaps/precinctmaps/precinctmaps.htm   Make sure you attend your precinct caucus on Tuesday, February 7th

_______________________________________________________

Important Caucus Information:

1)  The straw poll for President is just that – a straw poll.

Its results do not bind any delegates to the National Convention.

2)  All assembly fees must be paid at the caucus.

Bring either your checkbook (best) or cash.

Fee for County Delegate $20

Fee for County Alternate $15

(You cannot “run for” Alternate.  You run for Delegate, and

Alternates are decided by the number of votes for Delegate.)

Delegates and Alternates for State and Congressional Assemblies

will be elected at the County Assembly.

However, you must declare your intention to run AT YOUR CAUCUS

and you must pay the (non-reimbursable) fee:

Candidate for State Delegate $20

Candidate for Congressional Delegate $10

If elected, you owe no further fees (even tho the state fee, eg, is $60.)

You can run for State and/or Congressional Delegate if you are

EITHER a County Delegate OR a County Alternate.

You have an equal chance of being elected,

but you must be a County Delegate or Alternate in order to run.

For more clarification, if you’ve not already done so, please take our

online caucus training:  http://react.MDL2.com