From Coloradoan editor Bob Moore’s blog:

The first debate among Northern Colorado’s four congressional candidates is coming up Feb. 4, and we’re asking voters to submit some of the questions.

The debate will be from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4, at Windsor High School. The public is welcome to attend but if you can’t make it, the debate will be livestreamed on coloradoan.com and 9News.com.

Is there a question you’d like to see asked in the debate? If so, e-mail it to me at bmoore@coloradoan.com by Tuesday. I’ll forward the questions to Adam Schrager at 9 News, who will be the moderator of the debate.

We have just a couple of guidelines for the questions. Phrase the question so it can be asked of all four candidates, and include your name and hometown in the e-mail. We want to give proper credit to questions submitted by voters.

The four candidates appearing at the debate are Loveland businessman Dean Madere, University of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero, former Fort Collins City Council memberDiggs Brown and state Rep. Cory Gardner.

Also, KFKA will be airing the debate live. 

Not really.  My son plays varsity baseball for the University Bulldogs in arguably the most difficult league — the Patriot League in Northern Colorado.  I am no fan of the Eaton Fightin’ Reds because they win all the time.  They are like the New York Yankees. But I’ll be darned if I am going to let a bunch of yahoos at the state capitol try to destroy legislatively a tradition, a culture, an icon of Northern Colorado. 

Typically, I’d simply laugh off SB 107 “Concerning the Use of American Indian Mascots By Public High Schools.”  But this ridiculous bill is dangerous.  It intends to legislate political correctness by requiring any public high school or charter school that

uses an American Indian mascot to either cease using the American Indian mascot or obtain approval for the continued use of the American Indian mascot or another American Indian mascot from the Colorado commission of Indian affairs…

If a public school doesn’t comply, the state will fine the school district $1000 each month.  The money goes into the state education fund.

The bill’s primary sponsor in the Senate is Suzanne Williams, who claims to be one quarter Comanche. Williams told the Denver Post  that 

she’s concerned with American Indian mascots that are caricatures — ‘with a funny nose or something’ — and wants communities to have a ‘healthy dialogue about their heritage.

What Williams and the other misguided legislators sponsoring this bill (see list below) don’t know is that the Fightin’ Reds mascot, described as “an Indian with a misshapen nose, eagle feather and loincloth” is a symbol of pride and instills fear in the hearts of their opponents.  Yes Eaton is that good.

The legislators sponsoring this legislation should be ashamed of themselves.  First, the state faces much more pressing issues such as how to close a billion dollar budget shortfall.  State Senator Scott Renfroe, a former Eaton School Board member and an Eaton Red himself, explained ”It’s such an overreach in a year when we are faced with budget challenges.”

This bill is a classic example of why legislators should not be granted five bill titles.  It’s a waste of time.  Legislators look ridiculous spending time arguing high school mascots when our state unemployment rate just increased six-tenths of one percent to 7.5 percent. 

Second, legislating morality and political correctness are non-starters and divisive.  Third, the school district mascot is something the Eaton community should decide.  SB 107 abuses local control. 

My suspicion is that this ridiculous piece of legislation at least will pass out of the Senate Education committee, where it has been assigned, because four of the Senate sponsors are members of the committee.

As long as legislators threaten one of our own in Northern Colorado, I will be a Fightin’ Red. Consider joining me or join one of the several other rural Colorado high schools – Yuma, Lamar, Montrose — caught up in Denver’s moral righteousness.

But come baseball season, I hope my Bulldogs rip the Reds to pieces!  Go Bulldogs!

Sponsors of SB 107 and their contact information:

Senator Bob Bacon, 303-866-4841, bob.bacon.senate@state.co.us

Senator Rollie Heath, 303-866-4872, rollie.heath.senate@state.co.us

Senator Nancy Spence, 303-866-4883, nancyspence@qwest.net

Senator Pat Steadman, 303-866-4861, sen.steadman@comcast.net

Senator Abel Tapia, 303-866-4878, abel.tapia.senate@state.co.us

Senator Suzanne Williams, 303-866-3432, suzanne.williams.senate@state.co.us

Representative Mike Merrifield, 303-866-2932, michael.merrifield.house@state.co.us

Representative Su Ryden, 303-866-2942, su.ryden.house@state.co.us

Representative Sue Schafer, 303-866-5522, sue.schafer.house@state.co.us

Representative Judy Solano, 303-866-2918, judy.solano.house@state.co.us

Representative Nancy Todd, 303-866-2919, nancy.todd.house@state.co.us

The good news is that Greeley Evans School District Six has finally learned a lesson about transparency…well, sort of.  Lack of transparency is a major reason why the school district endorsed massive tax increase 3A went down in flames.  In response to the public’s demand for more transparency, the school district placed its check registry online for taxpayers to see.  Each month beginning July 2009 is available in PDF.

The bad news is that the district provides no context for or description of the expenditures.  When I, as a taxpayer, must spend an entire afternoon trying to figure out why the district wrote hundreds and hundreds of checks, that is only partial transparency.  Then I am left to speculate how all these expenditures improve student achievement and graduation rates.

The district appears to have spent a significant amount of money ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands on various educational programs, management and IT consultants including Windsor Management Group, Ashlock Consulting, Alpine Achievement, Edison Learning, Didax, Avid, Raising a Reader, Educational Based Services, Dell Marketing, Sage Management, Greeley Dream Team, Pearson Assessments, Gallup Organizations, and Productive Offices and School Environment — just to name a few.

One check of interest was for $21,134.16 to Corporate Environments.  The company’s Web site (if I found the correct one) says it was founded

to meet the growing demand for state-of-the-art workplace furniture that not only enhances our client’s image, but increases efficiency and healthful productivity.

Exactly how does this help student achievement?

UPDATE:  Corporate Environments turned out to be a company out of Lakewood, CO, a division of Office Liquidators, which provides new and used office furniture.

Also discovered: more than $30,000 of taxpayer dollars to Colorado Association of School Boards, $1800 to the Colorado Eagles, and more than $7200 to various pizza establishments (some of this may be for fundraising but there is no way to tell from the information provided).

I give District 6 credit for taking steps towards providing more information.  Taxpayers should review the check registry, ask questions and demand more transparency.  Check out the Jefferson County School District for a fabulous transparency Web site that seems sincere in its attempt to provide taxpayers with information about how Jeffco spends taxpayer dollars.

I am sending a Colorado Opens Records Act (CORA) request to the school district to explain the reasons for some of these expenditures.  I’ll keep you posted.

Hell No! We Won’t Go…to Obama Care.  Make Colorado a “sanctuary state” for free choice in health care. 

Jon Caldara, my boss at the Independence Institute, is calling for an amendment to the Colorado constitution that would opt our state out of the onerous health insurance mandates being forced upon us by the federal government.   Check out the Colorado Right to Health Care Choice Initiative ballot language.

Concerned citizens are rallying today (Tuesday, January 19) on the west steps of the Colorado state capitol in Denver from noon to 1 pm.   For more information visit Free Our Health Care Rally!

If you cannot attend but want to make your voice heard, visit my friend and fellow transparency activist Natalie Menten’s Web site where she has contact information for both the state house and senate, as well as our congressional delegation.

Just about the time I think pompous members of Congress and other elected officials at the state level have done everything possible to infuriate me, I read something like from the CBS News: “Copenhagen Summit Turned Junket?”  

Fifteen Democrat and six Republican members of Congress, their staff and their families spent hundreds of thousands of our dollars going to Copenhagen, including Colorado’s own Diana DeGette who bragged about her taxpayer-funded, all-expenses-paid “junket” in the Denver Post.  She concluded her second “dispatch” with this observation:

At the time of this writing, the final agreement has not yet been approved. It is almost certain that the final binding deal will not be reached in Copenhagen, but we have every reason to believe that we are moving in the right direction.

Thank goodness they don’t have a “final agreement.” It’s one of the few times, I’ve been thankful that wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars resulted in nothing other than wasted money.

Or I read something like this about our state government: “Go on take a free ride.”  Parole bought more than 60 2009 hybrid sedans in the midst of the “worst recession since the Great Depression.”

Or this: “Road trip to Beaver Run Resort.”  Apparently Colorado spent nearly $300,000 on things like “official functions” and “customer workshops.”

If you really want to get MAD check out the US Debt Clock.

Is anyone really surprised at the anger that launched such movements as Tea Parties and 9.12 Projects or my new group Mothers Against Debt.  Please join MAD.  No dues.  No meetings.  Just a pledge to hold accountable any elected officials who recklessly spend our children’s money pushing them further into debt.  Let me know what you think of the new logo.

Congresswoman Betsy Markey’s pivotal yes vote on the controversial cap and trade legislation may come back to haunt her as she seeks re-election  to represent Colorado’s 4th congressional district.

Within Markey’s district is Weld County, the country’s  eighth largest producing agricultural county in the United States.  Reuters just reported that  Bob Stallman, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation, made the following statement about cap and trade:

American farmers and ranchers ‘must aggressively respond to extremists’ and ‘misguided, activist-driven regulation … The days of their elitist power grabs are over.’

Despite pleas from the global warming alarmist crowd, Stallman warned Americans that cap and trade would destroy farmers, ranchers and those who rely upon them.

Vast amounts of farmland could become carbon-capturing woodlands under cap-and-trade, “eliminating about 130,000 farms and ranches,” said Stallman. One federal analysis says 8 percent of crop and pasture land could be turned into trees by 2050 because trees would be more profitable than crops.

Good luck defending your vote Congresswoman Markey.

I love being right (on many levels)!  Back on June 23, 2009, I discussed Governor Bill Ritter’s “war on Weld County” and posted the following:

Thanks to Governor Ritter and his environmental policies, Weld County is seeing high paying jobs go to other states and its tax base rapidly eroding.  Ritter won Weld County in 2006.  He won’t win it in 2010.

Turns out I was right.  Of course, I did not anticipate that Governor Bill Ritter would not seek re-election and therefore could not win Weld County. 

Let the speculating and handicapping begin.   Wise conservatives will realize Ritter’s exit is not necessary good news for the Republicans.   He would have lost.

My friend and fellow blogger Randy Ketner, a.k.a.  Night Twister, did an extensive (and very good) analysis of Colorado’s political landscape for 2010.   Check it out at RedState.com.  For an analysis of Colorado’s state house and state senate visit my friend Ben DeGrow at Mount Virtus.  Both are must reads!

Governor Bill Ritter spent more than $200,000 on TV, photographs and videos of himself, an Associated Press investigation revealed.   According to AP, “taxpayers paid that amount for photos of the Democratic governor signing bills and attending a lavish production for the state film commission.”

Evan Dreyer, the Governor’s spokesman, says Ritter is simply “meeting increased demand” from social networking sites such as facebook and twitter as well as Web sites that are demanding better quality.  As a result:

Ritter’s official state Web page features 31 pages of photos of the governor, and he invites people to download them as well as videos from his galleries. Some were taken by state employees, while others were paid for by taxpayers. Among them: A video of Ritter at the National Western Stock Show that cost $375, and $200 in taxpayer-paid photos of Ritter signing a job creation bill in May.

Is this expenditure going to bankrupt the state? No, but as my boss at the Independence Institute Jon Caldara said, “this shows an arrogance on Ritter’s part that it’s OK to do self-promotion at taxpayer expense.”