Kent Lambert

It was a remarkable win, little-known Massachusetts Republican state legislator Scott Brown taking Teddy Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat. But does it really now have to be invoked for every mad losing cause in politics? Today’s Brown-referencing cause? A motion made by South Carolina Representative Mike Pitt to replace U.S. currency with gold and silver coins. [...]

The state legislative session opens tomorrow. The Colorado budget is in the red. Revenues are in the tank. Legislators will have to make brutal cuts on top of the brutal cuts made last year. Also: It’s an election year and the silly season has been well underway for months. The anti-tax Tea Party movement is [...]

There is thoughtful skepticism and then there is today’s Republican Study Committee release mocking the EPA’s finding that greenhouse emissions threaten human health. Reading this peacock of a press release, you would think that battling measures meant to combat climate change was the only way to create jobs? Wait, is it?

State Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, attempted to clear up the Twitter controversy he ignited by likening the President to one of the September 11 terrorist hijackers. Schultheis took to a friendly venue, Peter Boyles’ talk-radio show, where the soon-to-retire senior-citizen right-wing Schultheis came off as more in tune with contemporary life than the host. [...]

What does it look like when the arch-conservatives come to town? They’re swarming places like Watertown in upstate New York, where semi-qualified Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman is running for Congress and drawing national media attention along with the all-stars of the wingnut right, who are determined to rid the party of so-called RINOs– [...]

Dug up fresh, daily.
THE POLITICS OF NO, NEW AND IMPROVED: House minority leader Mike May wants to bring change to the state’s Joint Budget Committee. The way he sees it, the state needs a budget rescue, no doubt about it, and that begins with some real fresh thinking. For May, the path to a solution [...]

GOP reaction to Colorado’s new FASTER car registration fees has taken a new and refreshing turn. There have been officials who oppose the fees and are horrified by them and express that horror and opposition by Twittering that the fee is really a tax and that “Gov Ritter hates your car” and by encouraging [...]

The spring’s tea party chants are being updated to oppose the state’s new car fees. The expression is important for the emotion and general impressionistic anti-government feelings it conveys. It doesn’t have to make any sense. “Governor Ritter hates my car!” “We won’t pay taxes or fees!” “Down with the nanny state!” “Especially if the [...]

Amid one of the slowest news weeks of the year, here’s our tribute to some of the automotive news around Colorado that caught our attention:
• Colorado drivers sure love their Ford pickup trucks. That’s according to an exhaustive analysis performed by Channel 7’s news team, who examined all 5,086,672 car registrations in the state (as [...]

Jacko. Farrah. Farrah. Jacko. The ’70s and the ’80s, RIP. Oh, and by the way, here’s our daily roundup of some of the rest of today’s news.

• Denver is the best place in the country to buy a home, according to a Forbes study reported by The Denver Business Journal. It all comes down to Denver’s strong “fundamentals,” the report says, citing an increase in prices paid per square foot this year and less of a drop in transactions than other cities over the last year. “Denver scores very well in terms of being able to bring people into a stable housing market,” an economist said, pointing to great “growth potential.” Cities following Denver on the list: Phoenix, Boston, San Diego and Los Angeles. Detroit was in the worst shape of 25 cities analyzed. Read the whole Forbes report here.