Mount Virtus

Colorado Democrats … arrogant? Can’t exactly say I’m shocked. But the brazenness of using taxpayer dollars for a Democrats-only team-building retreat only heightens my desire to make Brandon Shaffer’s term as state senate president as short as possible.

The least we can hope for (and work for) is divided government. Republicans should have their sights set on the governor’s mansion and one of the two house of the state legislature in 2010.

In the meantime, Mr. DNA at Rocky Mountain Right has some good advice:

I hope every reader of this blog will join me in calling their leadership office and telling them that I am not going to stand for this kind of pork.

Are you looking for a good summertime fiction read? A fresh story in the fantasy/action genre that is simultaneously fast-paced and in-depth? Then I urge you to buy a copy of The Way of Shadows, the first in the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks.

I love to read, but the fantasy/action genre — nor fiction in general — is typically not my cup of tea. Then again seldom do I know the author personally, as in this case. Brent and I went to Hillsdale College together, are fellow Sinfonians.

Having that sort of a personal connection with the author made it easy to pick up the book. But once I did, the crisp and colorful storytelling, the unpredictable plot, and the compelling characters were what kept the pages and chapters quickly turning. (more…)

I (Ryan, not Ben) haven’t had too much time to write up political thoughts recently, but here are a couple musings:

Nutshell argument against the “public option” being touted by President Obama in the area of health care reform:

As Hugh Hewitt and Congressman John Campbell were explaining as I drove home from work on Friday, if the “public option” is cheaper to corporate and government employers (though not to taxpayers), then employers will largely switch over to it.  At this point, the government will be paying for health care, money will run out, and care will be denied.  (But smile – you will still be insured, along with all the others who can’t get care!)

Our Congressmen and Senators must not enact this “public option.”  With political risks increasing on every side, will Colorado Dems listen to common sense, or walk off the cliff (financially and politically) with fellow party members?

Government Of, For and By the People:

I have been reading Scotland: The Story of a Nation, by Magnus Magnuson.  It is amazing how violent times have been under monarchical government.  Of the first three King James (they reigned in the 1400s), the first and last were killed maliciously and the second accidentally.  There were bloody, treacherous power struggles among the nobles for dominance, influence, and the physical captivity of the young kings as they grew up.

We are blessed to be living in a land of the people, by the people, and for the people — where the peaceful transfer of power is expected as a matter of course.

Cronyism (think pork barrel spending and government larger than its proper scope), unfair elections, loss of an objective moral compass (biblical), and the slow growth of government power over the people (as in health care) are some of the greatest current long-term risks to continued enjoyment of the blessings we now have.

Remember all the pomp and circumstance of four months ago when President Barack Obama flew out here to Denver to sign the “stimulus” bill? The legislation that had to be rushed through? The legislation that was supposed to prevent “irreversible decline” in our economy?

While anyone with decent sense knew the “stimulus” was long-term poison, I can’t say I anticipated how badly it would flounder even in the short-term. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Hans Bader put together a well-documented Open Market blog post noting that public opinion clearly favors canceling the $787 billion spending spree.

How many of them have watched this unforgettable video?

A few days ago, Mr. Bob posted up the now well-circulated graphic showing how doing nothing would have been better for our nation’s employment situation than the so-called “stimulus”. Yet the Obama administration and fellow Democrat leaders steering the ship of state are convinced the problem is that government isn’t spending the money quickly enough.

God save us. Stand strong, sons of liberty. Get off the sidelines, and get involved.

So some of y’all must be thinkin’ … Whatever happened to that thar’ swine flu thing? Apparently, the World Health Organization is set to issue an alert for a “level 6 pandemic” — the first such designation in 40 years.

Before you start stampeding through the streets in panic, take note:

The declaration of a global epidemic was expected Thursday as WHO officials huddled in an emergency session in Geneva in the wake of 141 swine flu deaths worldwide, including 12 in New York City….

If WHO moves from level 5 to level 6 on its pandemic alert scale, it would be the first flu pandemic declared since the Hong Kong flu killed an estimated 1 million people in 1968.

On Wednesday, WHO reported 27,737 cases worldwide, most of them mild and requiring no treatment.

Are you scratching your head, too? How can a mostly mild H1N1 strain that affects about one-fortieth the number who were killed by the Hong Kong flu evoke the same designation and any meaningful comparison between the two? (more…)

Update: It’s also worth noting that EFCA supporters have engaged in a full-fledged campaign of deception. Someone should ask Senator Michael Bennet if he’s buying it.

We know the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (aka card-check):

• Deprives workers of a secret ballot in workplace elections, exposing them to intimidation
• Imposes costly government bureaucratic intervention in private workplace negotiations
• Threatens to cost our fragile national economy and hard-working Americans of many thousands of jobs

Now, thanks to a new report released by the Workforce Fairness Institute, we see more clearly and concretely the real beneficiaries of this three-headed monster legislation: (more…)

Update, 6/11, 10:30 AM: Impressively, HR 1207 now has 208 Congressional co-sponsors. But only two from Colorado: Republican Doug Lamborn and Democrat Ed Perlmutter. Open government is an important non-partisan issue.

I recently brought readers’ attention to the need to persuade Republican Congressman Mike Coffman to sign on in support of transparency for the nation’s Federal Reserve bank. It’s good to see Face The State join the cause and raise the stakes by urging members of Colorado’s delegation across the political spectrum to back HR 1207.

Tune in tonight at 8:30 PM local Mountain time for the 30th edition of Rocky Mountain Alliance Blog Talk Radio. Our (re)scheduled guest is Evergreen businessman Dan Maes to talk about his grassroots campaign for Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010. If all goes as planned, another guest should be in the works as well.

If you miss the live show, you can go back and download the podcast, or just use the handy widget on my sidebar to listen directly from Mount Virtus.

I asked before if Bill Ritter called the bluff of Big Labor with his veto of Senate Bill 180. If we’re to judge by last Friday’s union-organized rally, then Ritter made a mistake. To see what I mean, take a step over to Face The State’s slideshow, and see signs like “Why does Ritter hate fire fighters?” and “Ritter lied to my dad” (or just Senator Lois Tochtrop’s angry expression).

Of course, Ritter didn’t make a mistake from the standpoint of choosing good policy over bad policy. But he has made four mistakes surrounding this issue:

1. Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. Backroom campaign promises can come back to burn you. As observed at ColoradoPols and demonstrated by the little girl’s “Ritter lied to my dad” sign, Colorado’s Democrat chief executive apparently promised something like SB 180 (and probably even stronger) to the fire fighters union to win their support. Whoops.
2. If you intend to veto a bill, tell your party to kill it earlier. With Democrats in charge in both the state house and state senate, Ritter could have conveyed that he didn’t want to be forced into make a very public and politically damaging decision on SB 180.
3. Don’t keep harping on the veto to the media. From today’s Denver Post: “The bulk of Ritter’s end-of-session news conference revolved around his vetoes of the labor bills.” (H/T Rocky Mountain Right)
4. When you get called on your mistakes, don’t get caught astroturfing to save your hide. Again, Rocky Mountain Right made a great catch here. A minor offense compared to the first three, to be sure, but it keeps the fires stoked (no pun intended) in the blogosphere and gives the story more traction than it otherwise would have.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to sit back, prop my feet up, and enjoy the show. Will there be more mistakes to come?

Last night I watched again the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. It’s hard to put such moving sacrifice into perspective, on this the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion to begin the liberation of Europe. But I leave you with portions of two relevant addresses — one contemporaneous and one retrospective. First, from General Dwight D. Eisenhower on the eve of invasion:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Then there was Ronald Reagan’s tribute to the “boys of Pointe du Hoc” delivered exactly 25 years ago: (more…)

Update, 9:30 AM: AFL-CIO press release in response to Ritter’s SB 180 veto pasted below the fold. Also, Amy Oliver notes that several legislators from northern Colorado went against the will of the people in voting for SB 180 — having benefited from thousands in labor campaign contributions.

Yesterday I gave Governor Bill Ritter kudos for the veto of SB 180. Today’s Denver Post follow-up by Lynn Bartels is headlined with the statement that Rep. Edward Casso and organized labor interests see the decision as a “tipping point”.

It could be my imagination, but I got the impression from reading the story that Ritter essentially is saying something like this to the unions:

So yeah, I have this penchant of making a wide spectrum of different groups really mad at me. But you guys are labor, and I’m a Democrat. Where are you going to go? I had a better chance of creating an open enemy in the Chambers of Commerce and the Municipal League, so I decided to keep them happy. Go ahead. Deal with it for now. I may try to find a way to make it up to you later. But if not, what will you do about it? Seriously?

In other words, Bill Ritter’s decision to veto SB 180 was good policy, but promoting good policy may not have been his primary motivation. But is it a dare? How far will he go before Big Labor takes him up on it?

Honestly, though, it’s hard to figure out. Was Bill Ritter really indecisive about this issue enough to wait to the last minute to make his intentions known? Was he waiting for something to change his mind? Why string along the labor unions?

From the standpoint of good politics it doesn’t make sense, even if the final outcome prevented bad policy. (more…)

It’s not often I laud Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, but he is to be commended today for choosing good public policy over political pressures by vetoing Senate Bill 180 — the firefighter collective bargaining legislation.

While Ritter’s official statement put the matter more diplomatically than I have, he didn’t buy the phony argument about firefighter safety:

Third, the debate on this bill raised important issues about firefighter safety, but there are better ways to address these issues than mandatory collective bargaining in certain communities. We must address firefighter safety at the state level. Doing so ensures that all areas of Colorado can benefit. Under this bill, however, the safety issues would only be addressed in the jurisdictions required to engage in collective bargaining, which would unfairly limit the scope of the needed reforms to protect firefighter safety. I have heard from Colorado fire chiefs who have urged me to veto this bill since it would not create a statewide standard for firefighter safety.

Unfortunately for Democrats, this decision is only likely to escalate intra-party warfare. The question of the hour is how long it will take for the Big Labor LIAR to open fire against the incumbent governor. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem too likely that Bill Ritter will gain much politically (except sparing the wrath of the Colorado Municipal League) from today’s veto announcement.

Today’s Denver Post news story on Governor Bill Ritter’s signing of Senate Bill 228 offers the generous headline: “Colorado’s fiscal knot loosens”.

I’ve taken the liberty to complete the thought with my own sub-headline: “Noose nearly large enough to fit around taxpayers’ necks”.

The article is correct insofar as it points out that the impact of this bill in repealing limits on the growth of discretionary government spending likely won’t be felt for a couple years. But that provides little solace, especially when you listen to the righteous confusion coming from the Democratic cast of characters behind this anti-taxpayer legislation. (more…)

Update, 6/4: Thanks to a comment left by Politically Correct Death author Francis Beckwith, I refer you to his newer and more relevant book Defending Life. I’ll have to check it out myself very soon.

Update, 9:30 PM: My final thought (for now) on the matter, from Doug Wilson: “The question is whether you would be willing to reduce a society to anarchy for the sake of saving that kid, when you (should) know that the anarchy you introduce is going to be responsible for the deaths of far more children than you managed to save.” And for further edification, I will commend the thoughts of Dr. Albert Mohler as being squarely right on the matter.

Thanks to one of the more thoughtful liberals I know, David Thielen, a link to this morning’s post about Dr. George Tiller and Private William Long was added in a ColoradoPols diary. Here are some of the more colorful comments it generated, along with my replies. (more…)

No two events are perfectly parallel, but seldom are two such similar and terrible stories juxtaposed for our edification. Within 24 hours and within 500 miles from each other, two notable murders occurred — both evil acts perpetrated in public by two different men, but both for apparent ideological reasons, both sudden and horribly unexpected events for the families and loved ones of the victims, both suspects quickly brought into custody.

That’s where the parallels end. What’s most informative is some of the prominent responses to the two incidents: (more…)