U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
April 09, 2007 03:28 PM UTC
26 Comments
Whatever happened to the Clyfford Stull (sic) Museum?
The Mayor was going to raise money to build a museum for some artist no one ever heard of. Is the museum going to be built?
This is from Saturday’s Rocky. She goes after Hick for high profile campaign kick-offs (i.e. Still museum, one city one boook, etc.) and then walking away from the effort.
http://www.rockymoun…
http://www.clyffords…
http://www.clyffords…
I’m semi-curious about — if not overwhelmed by — his work.
Where is everybody? Vacation still? I need your jobs! 🙂
Walter F. Murphy is a legendary expert on constitutional theory and the Court. Yesterday at the Balkanization blog, Mark Graber published a letter from Murphy in which he explains his experience finding himself on the Terrorist Watch List.
(snip)
Let’s pick up Murphy’s description of what happened …
“When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years.”
“I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. “That’ll do it,” the man said. “
“After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: “I must warn you, they’re going to ransack your luggage.” On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was “lost.” Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this “loss” could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I’m a tad skeptical.”
h/t TPM
I have to admit though, as compelling as that letter is, I’d like to know if there is a way to verify its authenticity.
Having said that, even what was already well-documented knowledge about the no-fly-list is disturbing enough. People with a common (or uncommon) name that happens to be shared by a *suspected* terrorist are banned from flying, and have no easy remedies to the problem. Use of photo identification in the no-fly-list, mysteriously, eludes our grasp. And, of course, all of the serious security threats are EXCLUDED from the list and allowed to fly unmonitored in order to avoid tipping them off! The list itself is well known to be a gesture intended to give the appearance of increased security serving only to decrease civil liberties: It’s not even a trade-off, just a straight loss.
terrorists are going to board under their real name, right? There really does need to be a common sense way of documenting threats universially.
as played out domestically is not unlike the “war on drugs”.
Each are equally ineffective but are designed to give the impression that ‘we are doing something.’
When it was determined that cigarettes were hazardous to your health, cigarette manufacturers were required to put ‘warning labels’ on packages of cigarettes. Everyone could then pat themselves on the back and say: “we have done something about the health risks associated with smoking.”
Do you know anyone who quit or didn’t start smoking because of the warning label?
I didn’t think so.
The reality is this is all a joke to give the impression that, “we are doing something” while what is being done has little or no effect on addressing the problem.
So for every little old lady with a 4 oz bottle of shampoo or some other ‘dangerous’ substance that is pulled aside by TSA and the ‘dangerous’ substance confiscated – not because it is dangerous but because it in a container larger than 3 oz -how many real terrorists are plotting something that has nothing to do with bringing aboard an airliner 3 oz of shampoo.
As long as the ‘myth’ of security is preserved, we won’t have to worry about the next terrorist attack on something we are not looking at. Then when it happens the gov’t can say:
well, we were watching those shampoo bottles, and I am sure we stopped many ‘breck” terrorists from blowing up an airplane with 3.5 oz of tnt.
The war on terror is much more important than the war on drugs. The war on terror is an immediate threat that does need to be dealt with. While some ways of dealing with it may be “feel good” measures, others are not and we should not let up. I think it will take trial and error, but we do need to get to the point where most of our measures are legitimate as opposed to feel good measures.
We need to spend more on investigative and collaborative efforts with appropriate units all over the world. It’s police work, not war, just like Gore said.
We need to be able to check 100% of all containers coming into this country, but when it was suggested that the richest 5% of Americans forego their tax cut to fund that, the Republican congress rejected it.
We need to be able to track aliens not of the extraterrestrial kind.
Etc. etc. But the airlines thing is a joke. You wanna see security? Fly into or out of Israel. Extremely slow and intrusive and I wouldn’t mind that at all. At least it’s real security. Not one plane has dropped out of the sky since 1948.
I am just saying, lets deal with it in a realistic way rather than posturing or using it for political posturing.
I will venture that most of what is done ‘publically’ is done for public consumption and has no real impact on preventing serious attacks on US citizens either at home or abroad.
Yes, the terrorist threat has much more immediate and serious implications for Americans, but the fact is, the same BS ‘weapons’ are equally meaningless in the war on drugs or the war on terror.
Someones pocket gets lined, some gov’t official proclaims that we are ‘doing something’
and nothing changes except dollars from the gov’t (taxpayer) get transferred to some corporation/vendor.
The result:
Halliburton in Iraq
You name the vendor/contractor in the war on drugs.
The result?
Drugs are more prevelant and more people are behind bars with no dimunation of the drug problem;
and
Iraq is more dangerous, less free, and more anti-American than it was 4 years ago.
Same for Afghanistan.
Tell me we are safer than we were.
Three thousands deaths is a horrible tragedy, anytime, anywhere. But I can (or could, if I researched it) name any of several dozen ridiculous sounding causes of death that result in a higher fatality rate than terrorism is ever likely to. No one is turning the threat of choking on olive pits into the driving force of national policy; our national psyche is not held in the vice-grip of collective fear of being trampled by a horse.
Of course there are differences, and of course we should take reasonable measures to protect innocent people from violent death. But the degree to which this has become our national obsession is unhealthy and disproportionate to reality. Someone mentioned Israel: Israelies are adamant about maintaining high levels of security without making it a major topic of daily national conversation. We can learn many lessons from them.
The combination of how our minds evolved and the existence of mass media has created a prevalent disfunction in collective psyches: Our minds are honed to pay special attention to dramatic or unusual events, because in the wild such events are of immediate urgency. So whenever we hear about a dramatic or unusual event (which is often, thanks to mass media), it captures a disproportionate amount of our attention, while mundane events of greater consequence go unnoticed.
I remember back in the 80’s there were three terrorist bombings in Europe within the span of a month or two: One in Rome, one in Paris, and one in Berlin. Numerous people canceled their vacations to Europe as a result. I strongly suspect that increased traffic fatalities due to increased traffic on American interstates resulting from changed travel plans far exceeded any threat from terrorist bombings by traveling to Europe. A plane full of New Yorkers traveling to London (New York in the 80’s suffering far, far higher rates of violent death than London) interviewed by a national news program spoke boldly of how they would not be intimidated. Of course, they were traveling to a far safer environment than the one they were leaving, the possibility of terrorism notwithstanding!
It’s amazing, and indeed has always amazed me, how relatively little the United States has been victimized by terrorism (especially within our borders), and how ridiculous were all of the official expressions of surprise by 9-11. Anyone paying any attention to the world had to know that something like 9-11 (or far worse) was going to happen, and was going to happen sooner rather than later! Sen. Sam Nunn had been shouting it from the rooftops for years, for one thing. The constant threat of terrorism will probably be a fact of life for a long time to come, and it is indeed a issue of policing rather than a war. We need to get used to the realities of the world we live in, and keep its various factors in perspective.
The threat of a nuclear or biological terrorist attack deserves the utmost attention, because no amount of olive pits can ever equal the devastation that might be caused, even beyond the horrendous number of deaths potentially involved. That threat deserves greater vigilance than we are currently giving it.
but now I’m scared of olive pits.
I traveled to Mexico ten days after 9-11. I figured it was the safest time to travel and I was right. The airport was filled with M-16 totin’ Army guys. (and gals)
Lauren, my take is that an airport without the need for guns is the safest airport.
I think that, fortunately, the terrorists made a huge mistake in strategy: They “should have” (from their perspective) followed up 9-11 with a flurry of small attacks that could not possibly be prevented. Schools, malls, any place where people were gathered together. I’m extremely glad that they didn’t grasp the subtleties of their own tactics enough to figure that out. Now, it would not have a comparable effect.
Welcome back!
I thought about that too. I frankly can’t figure out why they haven’t tried numerous explosions and suicide bombers in the US. Bush’s strategies must be working. (Whoa there Sir, watch your blood pressure!)
The most important element in terrorist strategy is surprise. In a democracy, it would be very important to evaluate what preventive measures are working….and what are not….but, that very investigation could reveal government techniques which the terrorists would like to know…….so democracy is always vulnerable in the short run…..so far..always strong in the long run….
I am not up to giving Bush credit for no attacks….
The kinds of attacks I’m talking about would have been impossible to prevent without having armed guards literally everywhere, immediately. I wasn’t in the country at the time, but I presume that not every school, shopping mall, and crowded intersection were protected by highly trained paramilitaries, so the “failure” to exploit the shock of 9-11 can’t be attributed to any successful policy at home, but rather only to a tactical error on the part of the terrorists. In fact, such “soft targets” are still abundant, and almost impossible to miss, if they were indeed targeted, though the value (for the terrorists) of targeting them has almost entirely disappeared (we have long since passed from shock to resolve).
However, as much as I detest the Bush administration, I have to concede your general point. If blame for failures goes to the top, then credit for successes must as well. And the apparent absence of any successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9-11 would seem to indicate that someone deserves some credit. Therefore, on Bush’s score card, it would be inconsistent not to give him credit for that success.
Having said that, I think that, at best, he has made a Faustian bargain, and that, if the prevention of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil is indeed due to Bush administration policies, it was a success bought too dearly, for we have taken the platoons of people in the world who dreamed of our destruction prior to 9-11 and turned them into battalions. In other words, whatever Bush did or didn’t do to successfully avert terrorist activity at home, the sum total of his efforts has made us less safe in the long run, and facing a proliferation of international problems amplified rather than contained. I have little doubt that future generations will look back on the Bush administration as having made a negative contribution to the progress of world peace and prosperity.
Guess I’ll give them to the dog….
….the lists are maintained by the airlines, not the TSA. It’s all a big joke. No, I’ll go further, it’s an intentional process of getting people to follow orders, not exercise their civil rights, and be afraid, very afraid.
I really hope that when the Dems take the WH back in 2008 that they tackle this ineffective abomination.
Lawrd Gawd, Billy Bob, but when wingnuts self-destruct, they really do it most thoroughly. They’re in the midst of wedging themselves to death, and considering how shamefully they’ve used wedge issues in the past and present, I am enjoying this immensely.
Consider this point made by both Garance Franke-Ruta and Atrios about recent comments of Grover Norquist that the GOP’s base – meaning their primary voters – are going to be against anyone who isn’t lockstep behind Bush no matter what, and that the real issue for the GOP base isn’t Iraq, it’s Bush: Bush could decide to leave Iraq tomorrow and the wingnuts would turn on a dime with him. To use Norquist’s exact words:
The base isn’t interested in Iraq. The base is for Bush. If Bush said tomorrow, we’re leaving in two months, there would be no revolt.
Hey, Republican primary voters! Grover Norquist just called you a bunch of sheep! Have some more Kool-Aid with your grass clippings.
This is why, as Atrios says, it’s useless for McCain to TIG-weld himself to Bush’s Iraq war policy: Because as Grover notes, it’s not about Iraq, it about Bush. And since McCain’s career is built on his “straight talk” fakery wherein he pretends to distance himself from Bush except where it really counts, McCain is toast with the wingnuts.
But here’s the problem: In order to have a chance in the general election next year, Republican candidates for office, from president on down to dogcatcher, must start putting as much daylight, real or fake, between themselves and Bush as they possibly can. Yet the wingnuts won’t countenance this: Even if they know that it’s fake, even if they know it’s just being done to fool the rest of America.
I’ve long thought that it’s going to take more than just a good election cycle or two to cure America of the ills inflicted upon it by the authoritarian-minded wingnuts. It’s going to take a true sea-change, and the complete and utter destruction and repudiation of the Republican Party brand. We found out with Watergate and Iran-Contra that if you let them escape justice, they will come back even worse than before, having learned nothing in the interim; a look at Bush’s advisors and Cabinet members shows that. What a pleasure it is to find out that, despite the constant fluffing and support they get from the GOP/Media Complex, they are hell-bent on making it so that no sane American will want to have anything to do with them, ever again.
h/t the lake
waiting….
Was that detailed enough 🙂
Your mother wears combat boots.
That is not even funny anymore. A lot of mothers do wear combat boots…and maternity fatigues…what is this country coming to?