Let’s sing it together:  Hey Big Spender!  I doubt Bob Fosse ever dreamed of this version of his famous Broadway number.  Face the State has done it again with a hysterical (and brutally honest) assessment of how Colorado will fare under Barack Obama’s massive spending package.  Beware:  this cartoon depiction of Governor Bill Ritter is not easy on the eyes!

Despite all Obama’s attention to and courting of Colorado, the state ended up 49th in stimulus aid and tax relief according to the Rocky Mountain News.

How does my local paper respond? With all the strength of a wet newspaper.  It is “disappointed.” But it goes on to say, referring to the pessimism that hangs over the economy,  ”that’s not what we need. We need to believe, to hope, to dream and to see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Well I’ll admit it.  I’m pessimistic.  I don’t see a “light at the end of the tunnel.” I see nothing but economic stagnation, and I’m mad as hell!   Time to attend a tea party!

As some who loves the American Revolution (I admit to romanticizing), I like the image of our Founding Fathers gathering in smoke filled taverns, drinking a pint of ale as they engage in an intellectual revolution before the first shot was fired.  In fact John Adams said “the Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.”

I’m no fan of ale.  My drink of choice is a great vodka over ice with a lime.  However, I do enjoy sitting in a bar listening to people who are tired of the ever increasing size and scope of government and are motivated to change it. That’s Liberty on the Rocks.  Now Northern Colorado has it’s own chapter thanks to Randy Ketner, a.k.a. Nighttwister.  

The other night we had so many people that we spilled out of the room Randy reserved at Maya Cove.   Among the attendees:  Andrew Boucher, who is running for Fort Collins City Council in District 5. Election day is April 4. Check out his Facebook page.  Larry Carillo, chair of the Larimer County Republicans.  And new Northern Colorado blogger Blaine Gallup, author of the Right Candor.

Also on Randy’s blog, you’ll find a Northern Colorado blog roll.  This is a resource to find out what is happening with liberty and freedom specific our part of the state.  I’ve also included all these same blogs on my blog roll as well. 

Together we can bring back personal and economic freedom. Liberty lives in Northern Colorado.

No it’s not a new libertarian drink but it is a fairly new organization that will have it’s inaugrual Fort Collins Chapter meeting on Wednesday, February 25 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Maya Cove.  I love how Liberty on the Rocks describes itself:

Liberty on the Rocks: A splendid mix of grass roots activism, libations, and good conversation. We are a group of citizens who endeavor to limit the reach of government into our personal lives, to ensure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Join us for a meeting of the minds to discuss ways we can further our cause of liberty.

Join me and other freedom fighters for liberty and libations this Wednesday night.  Also, tune in tomorrow (Tuesday) to hear Liberty on the Rocks president Amanda Teresi discuss how she got it all started.

Here’s to Liberty!

Try some fact checking before publishing. 

I don’t care what the Greeley Tribune says on its editorial page.  The editorial board has a First Amendment right to voice its opinion.   Most of the time I disagree with them, but really who cares?  Well, I care when the editorial gets its facts so very wrong.

Today (Sunday, Feb 22) the Tribune published an editorial taking Weld County DA Ken Buck and my husband Weld County Sheriff John Cooke (both Repubicans) to task for T-shirts that brag about being sued by the ACLU.  The front of the T-shirt reads “The ACLU Sued My District Attorney and Sheriff,” and the back: “Weld County Standing Up For Americans.”

According to the editorial, the Tribune is “ just a tad concerned that the Weld District Attorney’s Office is being a little too flippant — and perhaps a little too political — in its battle against the American Civil Liberties Union related to prosecution of identity theft suspects.”  That’s fine.  As I’ve said the Tribune has a right to its opinion.

The problem is when the Tribune tried to defend the ACLU.  The editorial attempted to make the point that the ACLU defends the rights of all Americans — conservative and liberal.  It mentioned the ACLU’s defense of Rush Limbaugh’s privacy concerning his medical records.  The editorial should have stopped there but unfortunately it went on to insult conservative Christians by claiming that anti-gay bigot Fred Phelps is “the nation’s worst example of the sins of the Christian right.” The editorial said:

Here’s another interesting example: The ACLU once defended Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, which is often cited as the nation’s worst example of the sins of the Christian right. Westboro travels across the country picketing in front of funerals for soldiers killed in the Iraq war, using the funerals as a soapbox to express its hatred of gays and lesbians. Church members came to Greeley in 2005 for the funeral of Tyler MacKenzie, a Greeley native who had died in the Iraq war.

A little fact checking would have shown that Phelps is not politically allied with the Christian right that predominantly votes Republican. According to a well cited Wikipedia entry, Phelps has publicly criticized two conservative Christian icons Ronald Reagan and Rev. Jerry Falwell.  Furthermore, Phelps supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democrat primary for president and served as one of his delegates to the 1988 Democrat National Convention. Gore later fell out of favor with Phelps because of the Vice President’s support for gay rights.

In addition Phelps ran for the Democrat nomination for governor in Kansas in 1990, 1994 and 1998, losing all three times.  He also ran for the Democrat nomination for US senate in 1992.  He lost that as well.

My guess is that the Tribune assumed that Phelps was some sort of right wing nut job because of his anti-gay agenda, which underscores the Tribune’s own bias.  As a conservative Christian who knows plenty of other conservative Christians, I can’t think of any that advocates in favor of Phelps’ position.   The Tribune’s assumption was lazy, wrong and insulting. I’m going to assume that I and other conservative Christians won’t be seeing an apology any time soon, but I’m hoping my assumption is wrong. 

To be honest, I’m not really all that offended, but once in a while it’s fun to take a page from the left’s handbook and feign being offended.  However, it takes way too much energy to keep up the anger pretense.

Big thanks 1310 KFKA News Director Troy Coverdale for his research into this issue.

According to the Rocky Mountain News, State Representative Don Marostica “has gone rogue and will attempt to do away with a decades-old spending limit without any support from his party.”  

As if lifting the 6 percent spending limit isn’t bad enough, Marosita doesn’t even think voters should have a say in it.  Today, Marositca and Democrat Senator John Morse of Colorado Springs will introduce legislation “to remove the 6 percent general-fund spending limit, known as Arveschoug-Bird, that has been in place since 1991.”

Republican party leadership says that if Marostica goes forward, he does so at his own peril.  According to the Rocky, Marostica fired back “that legislative leaders are being influenced by ‘has- beens’ and ‘losers’ within the party and that he is going ahead with his efforts.”

Apparently when Marostica used the terms “losers” and “has-beens” he was referring to my boss Independence Institute President Jon Caldara and my friend and former state treasurer Mark Hillman.  

It’s my opinion that Marositca is off the reservation and has been for a while.  I was working with him on transparency.  At the end of December things began to change.  After the Governor gave Marostica credit for transparency, Marsotica pulled the legislation without telling the bill’s co-sponsor Senator Mike Kopp.

According to my sources, when newly appointed State Rep BJ Nikkel decided to bring back the legislation, Marostica threatened her politically, including to “severely embarrass” her both on the floor of the state house and in Northern Colorado.  Notice that Marostica was one of only a handful of republican state representatives that did not support Nikkel’s bi-partisan legislation.  Perhaps pride is more important than respect for taxpayers.

Marostica may want to be governor, but the best line I heard came from a prominent republican “Marostica is the only one who doesn’t know he could never win a primary.”

According to estimates, some 500-750 average folks who are fed up with government spending steroids that puts our children and grandchildren into crushing debt showed up on the west steps of the Capitol to make their voices heard!  Glad my children and I were among them!

After the rally, I waited in line to pass through security so I could go inside.  This is the conversation I overheard:

Former State Senator Ken Gordon: “Why are all these people here?”

Unidentified woman in line, laughingly responds: “They didn’t find the stimulus bill very stimulating.  They were protesting.”

Gordon, very seriously states: “But there are so many of them!”

It’s difficult for some on the left to grasp that average working people are angry about the fact that with the mere stroke of a pen President Barack Obama and his Democrat colleagues just put every single American family into debt by more than $30,000 each.  It’s unacceptable, and those of us who showed up at the Capitol won’t take it anymore.

Despite the inevitablity of the “stimulus” package, the crowd was energized, especially my kids who had a civics lesson about patriotic dissent.   It takes an event of historic proportion to get conservatives to protest.  They have to take time off work or shut down their own small businesses.  I guess the largest expansion of government in US history is jus the kind of event to draw more than 500 conservative protestors.   This is only the beginning.  Shoving this massive generational theft down the throats of taxpayers, did the one thing no Republican has been able to do — unite the limited government movement. 

Visit two Web sites for photos:

Slapstick Politics and Free Colorado

Check out this public service announcement from my friends at Liberty on the Rocks.  It’s short, not sweet and makes a powerful point.

I love this quote from Sam Adams (and featured on the Liberty on the Rocks Web site): 

“It does not take a majority to prevail…but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Many of you ask me, “what can we do to halt the march toward socialism?” Here’s my answer, become an active member of organizations like the Independence Institute and Liberty on the Rocks.

Join pro-liberty forces Tuesday at noon on the west steps of the state Capitol.  Lots of liberty loving VIPs (that means you!) will be on hand to make their voices heard on the pork-u-lus package!  Notable names include nationally renowned columnist, blogger and activist Michelle Malkin, Independence Institute President Jon Caldara, Congressman Mike Coffman, former Congressman Bob Beauprez, Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry and many more. 

Join your friends as they sign 4 foot checks made out to the federal government in the amount of $30,000 (because that is what the average family will have to fork over).  For more information visit the Independence Institute Web site.

I said on my show today that I published a blog post about Congressman Polis’s Wall Street Journal opinion piece on the auto bailout but I never did because that is when my Web site was out of commission.  I did read the entire piece on my show the day it was published!  And I said that I wished Congressman Polis were my representative because of his embrace of free market solutions to what is a private sector problem.

I do thank the Congressman for being on my show today and look forward to future conversations.  Whether we agree or disagree, it’s about the dialogue!