Tag: Slot 2

This year will go down for many things, but one connecting string of stories stand out: Face it, if you ask most Coloradans what they remember most about the four-month long legislative session, their response is, sadly, predictable. Douglas Bruce kicked a photographer in the knee. And, as columnist Al Lewis noted, Douglas Bruce kicks like a little girl. That was just the beginning.

On Wednesday morning, President-elect Obama announced that Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar will lead the Department of Interior in the new administration.

Those wacky Beltway types. Even as Sen. Ken Salazar was being introduced as the new secretary of the interior, the pundits were wondering whether his cowboy hat would be too “provocative” for the office. And this amusing, if utterly inaccurate claim from MSNBC anchor David Shuster: "I hear from one of our correspondents that you're not supposed to wear a cowboy hat like that indoors unless you're at a square dance or an indoor livestock auction.”

^{© Copyright 2008 David Fitzsimmons - All Rights Reserved.} Click the image to see the full-size cartoon. Read more about the impending decline of print journalism.

On Friday, Sen. Tom Daschle was in Denver to talk of the paralyzing effects of a failed health care system. Among the realities: “One half of all bankruptcies, one half of all home foreclosures are related to medical costs.” Daschle’s appearance was a reminder of the sharp-tongued Dick Wadhams, who made his name known on the national stage by unseating the former Senate Minority Leader from South Dakota, employing, among other things, nasty name-calling. Sound familiar?

Man on sheep marriage alert! Colorado’s Janet Rowland didn’t get too far with her dread warning about how gay marriage could ultimately result in nephews marrying their aunts or three women getting married. But this way of thinking has made it into the pages of the University of Washington's student newspaper, which this week published a column denouncing gay marriage, and comes complete with an illustration of a man standing next to a sheep. Who knew Rowland, Colorado’s erstwhile candidate for lieutenant governor, was so far ahead of her time?

Despite sweeping electoral victories and dramatic shifts in party registration, Colorado hasn't really shifted allegiance to the ruling Democrats, pollster Floyd Ciruli told a gathering of the state's county commissioners Wednesday. "People are saying, 'Go ahead, we'll give you a year or two.' And then they might pull the franchise if it doesn't work out," Ciruli told a gathering of Colorado Counties, Inc., according to Politics West's John Ingold.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national freethinkers group of atheists, agnostics and skeptics, has erected a billboard in Colorado Springs that delivers the simple, thought-provoking message, “Imagine No Religion.”

The writer and activist Michael Pollan has no interest in becoming Barack Obama's Secretary of Agriculture, thank you very much, even though there are a lot of people who think he'd be perfect for the job.

It's enough to make your head spin. Seems like every time we turn around, someone's proposing another multi-hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out this, shore up that or rebuild something or other. Remember in the distant past of September, when the $700 billion rescue plan shocked everyone from Wall Street to Main Street? That was just the beginning.