NASHVILLE — In the weeks leading up to the National Tea Party Convention, Judson Phillips didn’t do much talking to the media. The founder of Tea Party Nation, the chief organizer of the conference alongside his wife Shelley, was buffeted by attacks from Tea Party activists who accused him of staging a costly, “elite” convention, and dirtying the reputation of the movement by paying Sarah Palin $100,000 to speak there. On January 14, Tea Party Nation put out word that only five conservative media outlets would get full access to the convention. On January 30, they issued an email to their internal list pushing back against “baseless accusations and criticism” from angry Tea Party activists.
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Rep. John Murtha dies at 77
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Obama invites GOP leaders to health care talk
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El Paso County’s Utterly Useless Legislators
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Homeowner seminar set on Saturday
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Homeowner seminar set on Saturday
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Greeley Tribune
Homeowner seminar set on Saturday
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Greeley Tribune
Torture Accountability Letter 6 - AG Holder, Aren’t You Angry?
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Monday Open Thread
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Palin assails Obama in speech
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Durango Herald
DENVER– A controversial bill that aims to diversify and open up decision-making at Pinnacol Assurance, the impressively profitable quasi-governmental workers compensation insurance provider, passed out of the House Judicial Committee Friday on a mostly partisan vote. The hearing highlighted the tensions that define Pinnacol, an entity designed to serve the public but also required to act as a business.
DENVER– A packed hearing Thursday for a bill that seeks to address wide differences in cost based on gender in the individual health insurance market in Colorado saw clashes erupt between male and female members of the committee. House Bill 1008, sponsored by Reps Beth McCann, D-Denver, and Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, seeks to distribute and lower those costs for women who don’t have employer or state health plans. The motion ultimately passed out of committee on an 8 to 2 vote.
DENVER– Two Denver Democrats reluctantly diluted the bill they co-sponsored aimed at expanding maternity coverage in Colorado. The move took attendees at the House hearing for the bill Wednesday by surprise. Health insurance lobbyists shuffled their papers and gazed at one another as Reps. Jerry Frangas and Beth McCann explained that they would amend the bill to make it more friendly to the insurance industry in order to make sure it passed through committee and onto the floor of the House.
Colorado Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis’s bold move to pass health reform legislation that would include a public health insurance option has gained significant support in the week since he first began circulating among lawmakers and on the web a letter that he co-authored with Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree outlining the idea. Polis sent the letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today with the signatures of 120 Representatives attached.
The payday loan industry gouges Coloradans like it does Americans across the country, targeting mostly low-income single women, including military spouses. Denver Democratic state Rep. Mark Ferrandino tried and failed to introduce legislation in 2008 that would have curbed the worst of the abuses, where desperate borrowers take loans at hundreds of percent interest and enter a debt cycle they rarely are able to exit. Ferrandino may try it again this year.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck got creamed on the numbers this week. He drew $40,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to GOP frontrunner Jane Norton’s $550,000 haul. Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet pulled in a cool $1.1 million.
“That’s today’s story,” said Buck campaign manager Walt Klein.
In the wake of a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing today on the “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” military policy that forces gay service members to remain closeted, Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall pressed for more urgent action to effect a repeal.
WASHINGTON– As states from New Mexico to Illinois passed payday loan reform laws over the past few years, the movement to curb customer-gouging short-term high-interest loans seemed to be gaining steam and growing teeth. Ohio and Arizona voters even took to the polls to approve rate caps on payday lenders, regardless of threats that the industry would fold if it had to reduce rates from as high as 400 percent to 36 percent or less.
Denver Republican state Rep. Joe Miklosi has introduced legislation that seeks to change the make-up of the governing board of tax-exempt Pinnacol Assurance, the state’s largest workers compensation insurer. The bill seeks to diversify the perspective of the quasi-governmental business to include injured workers and open the board’s proceedings to greater public scrutiny. Miklosi is getting significant pushback from Pinnacol, which is most strongly opposed to the provision in the bill encouraging public comment on board deliberations.
Former GOP presidential candidate and Tea Party activist Alan Keyes and more than 100 members of America’s fastest-growing political movement are heading out on a seven-day float to the U.S. Virgin Islands. They’re calling their adventure a “cruise for liberty.”
Organizer Michael O’Fallon told CNN the cruise is a chance to “talk politics in paradise.”
Rep. Spencer Swalm, R-Centennial, led the charge Thursday defending the rights of men to continue to pay less as a group on the individual health-insurance market in Colorado. Swalm is a member of the Health and Human Services committee that was weighing a bill aimed to ease wide inequalities in the cost of insurance for men and women in Colorado. The bill was sponsored by Reps Beth McCann, D-Denver, and Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge.
“Men are having the toughest time finding work, so this is going to make it even harder for them to pay for insurance,” Swalm said. He later told the Colorado Independent that outside of the legislature, he worked as an insurance broker.
It’s an election year and Colorado political news readers will be reading a lot about taxing and spending– about the big difference between Democratic and Republican ideas about government. Recession realities, however, are mocking those easy distinctions. Yesterday, legislative staff reported that Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and Democratic-dominated legislature will be slashing state aid to K-12 education next school year by a projected $431 million or 7.5 percent of the current school budget. School administrators believe the cuts will get even larger.
The Denver Post today poked straight-faced fun at state Republican lawmakers this morning, mocking a big budget plan GOP legislative leaders unveiled yesterday. The proposed plan of attack in the ongoing battle over a budget that is short billions in revenue is to cut a lot of programs– and they want Democrats to decide what programs to cut.
You can’t give the people behind this plan even a single point for subtlety. You can, however, award lots of points for election-year foolery and comic passing of the buck. The Post story conjures images of Wiley Coyote hauling out one of his ridiculous oversize Road Runner-catching contraptions: We’re for cuts! That is, we’re for you making cuts and us later criticizing the cuts you make!
The Washington Independent’s Dave Wiegel, chronicler of all things Tea Party, is (where else?) in Nashville for the first annual National Tea Party Convention. He reports that attendees are beginning to post videos from the event, including this gem from Tom “The Tank” Tancredo. Why is he there? Because they paid to get him there!
The Wall Street Journal Wednesday painted a bleak picture of Capitol Hill Democrats wandering about without a map on health reform in the wake of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, as if the blow of recognition that an anti-health reform Republican is taking Teddy Kennedy’s seat has dazed the caucus leaders out of all proportion, leaving them foggy on the fact that they’re still sitting atop an enormous majority.
“After focusing intensely on health care for months, Democratic leaders have removed completion of the overhaul from their agenda indefinitely, and even talk of the subject is scarce,” wrote the Journal’s Janet Adamy.
Stepped-up natural gas drilling in northwestern Colorado can ripple-effect Denver politics, where wrangling over new drilling regulations last week took an ugly turn. But the ramifications for the nation’s largest deer and elk herds that roam there are often overlooked.
While humans like Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry – current and former candidates for the Colorado governor’s office – locked horns over a recent reception for the new president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), a new report from the Colorado Wildlife Federation (CWF) points out the perils for the state’s distinct mega-fauna.
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