Showing posts with label josh penry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label josh penry. Show all posts

Monday, December 31, 2007

Roan Money Being Allocated

The Denver Post is endorsing the Republican plan for setting aside the money from the Roan Plateau gas development for a higher education trust fund.

That's still a lot of money and it's vital to spend it wisely. Part of the cash will, as it should, go to local governments to deal with some of the costs of supporting the energy development. The best plan, so far, for spending the rest of this windfall, as well as some of the $100 million a year or more that eventual production royalties could yield for Colorado for the next 20 or 30 years, was offered by two Western Slope legislators, state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, and Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park.

We suspect that doing this will require a Constitutional amendment, something that should have happened when the Social Security "Trust" Fund was set up on the Federal level. It immediately became a source of funds for decades of Congressional boondoggles. The same thing will happen here if the hinges and hasp on the lock box aren't welded shut.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Nobody Knows About the Loon in the Attic

Today, David Sirota made the "nobody knows about the loon in the attic" argument when writing about a Mike Saccone blog entry.

Notice, his first reaction is the guilt-by-association move, pointing out that the bill Udall is pushing is supported by - gasp! - Dennis Kucinich. He seems to imply that this is some sort of political taboo - even though most people in Colorado have absolutely no idea who Dennis Kucinich is. And, of course, by Saccone's logic, any bill that Udall and Kucinich both voted for is some proof that Udall's politics are exactly Kucinich's politics. What a silly assertion.


It isn't just that they vote for the same bills. They co-sponsor each other's flaky bills. Take the bill that Kucinich wrote to establish a cabinet level Department of Peace, complete with a Peace Academy. Yes, it is wonderful idealism, but we can't afford idealists in Congress during a time when people are willing to fly airplanes into tall buildings or nuclear reactors. We had a lot of fun making fun of the concept.

Like this latest Mark Udall resolution, that bill didn't have all that many co-sponsors, but one of them was the Congressman from Colorado's second district. Even if a lot of Coloradoans don't know the identity of the loon in the attic, it isn't likely that it will remain a state secret in an environment where both candidates have millions of dollars to work with.

Sirota's next argument shows his contempt for those of us who have lived in Colorado more than the six months he has been here. Recall that he is writing about a Grand Junction blog and says about one of the most prominent politicians in that area, and one of the three or four most prominent Republicans in the state senate:

But what I find even more short-sighted is Saccone's obsessive focus on how Udall's resolution supposedly allows people like Josh Penry - again, a person who most Coloradoans have never heard of - to call Udall a "Boulder liberal.

Readers of this blog know that no Republican need call Udall a Boulder liberal. The msm and left wing blogs are doing it for them. Let them quote the scoreboard we keep. That's why we keep it.

Then Sirota says something astounding:

Any objective look at Rocky Mountain politics over the last few years has shown that these charges - whether they are "Boulder liberal!" or "Missoula liberal!" - are failing miserably. They just aren't sticking any more. That's not to say that Democrats shouldn't be wary of the brand, but the concept that these attacks are powerful vote-shifters is absurd.

If Bill Ritter and Ken Salizar had run as the liberals they have turned out to be, it is unlikely that they would have won. They ran wearing "moderate" burkhas and only dropped them after they were elected. One of the reasons we are keeping our scoreboard is to keep everyone honest.

Dennis Kucinich isn't the only loon in the attic, it would seem.

More Wisdom From The West

Mike Saccone of the Grand Junction Sentinel is having a war of words with the lefties. He comments:

So why is criticizing conservative talking head Rush Limbaugh a bad tactic ahead of the 2008 election? … In a nutshell: it does nothing to burnish Udall’s moderate credentials. Indeed, allying oneself with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on a resolution that will have no binding effect is, well, kind of a nonstarter. Sure it’s a principled stance, but it’s nothing more than that.

More importantly, it lets politicos, from Schaffer to state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, stand back and lob the “Boulder liberal” label * at Udall...

Nonetheless, it’s a political stance and an electoral risk [Mark ] Udall did not have to take.


This is the second Saccone essay on the subject. He got beat up by the local liberals and David Sirota on the first one. We like short essays, so we will take on Sirota (the commentator, who according to a gang of four colleague, grabs attention by standing on one foot and spinning. Picture him in a pink tutu with fuzzy yellow bedroom slippers.) in another post.

*Note that we normally kill links embedded in quotes, but the Saccone link was so full of wisdom that we left it in. (Yes, we are laughing as this is being written.)