What's the frequency, Colorado?

[Watser?]

They use them to breed...

[Stephen Maturin]

Let the good times roll!

It's late October in Lolorado, a general election is just around the corner, and we all know what that means -- Denver teevee stations debunking outright lies from Faux News regarding the content of Colorado election law:

[Lying sack of shit and entrails Megyn Kelly] described [a 2013 amendment to Colorado's election code] as a "first of its kind election law: a set of rules that literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to 'collectors' in what appears to be an effort to do away with traditional polling places."

While traditional polling places are a thing of the past (in-person voters can go to Voter Service Centers instead of traditional precinct polling places) because of the law, the claim that it allows for home-printed ballots is simply false.

. . .

There is one category of Colorado voters who can [print ballots at home]: those serving in the military.

Why does Megyn Kelly hate The Troops (pbuh)?

In other news, though, wormy little cat turd fearless crusader for justice James O'Keefe has conclusively proven rampant liberal election fraud here in Colorado.

[Stephen Maturin]

In a race that everyone in the know considers too close to call, incumbent wingnut shithead Congressman Mike Coffman and Democrat challenger Andrew Romanoff are having the first ever all-Spanish language congressional debate in Lolorado history on Thursday. Romanoff has long been fluent in Spanish, and Coffman has apparently been busting his ass to learn the language over the past couple of years. Kinda makes me regret never having learned Spanish, since now I won't be able to hear Coffman insult the lazy, welfare-addled browns in their native tongue.

In other news, Republican Walker Stapleton (a/k/a Rutherford P. Higginbotham III) is running for reelection as state treasurer. Recently Stapleton has been fending off accusations that he's averaged about 11 days per month on the job during his tenure. Stapleton's trundled out the big guns in his latest teevee add, using the signature hand gestures of another famous doughy white guy -- Dealin' Doug, lolorado's favorite dirtbag used car dealer.

show spoiler

[Stephen Maturin]

Well now, that was a steaming, noisy, exceptionally malodorous dump of an election.

No incumbent U.S. Senator from Lolorado had lost a reelection bid since 1978 -- until last night. Incumbent Democrat Mark Udall ran what was arguably the worst reelection campaign in U.S. Senate history, and as a result got his ass handed to him. Our new senator will be Cory Gardner, a teabilly true believer and genuine right-wing crazy.

In the governor's race, incumbent Dem John Hickenlooper barely survived against Republican challenger Both Ways Bob Beauprez. Hickenlooper has done a very poor job as governor, but he's better that Beauprez. I guess. Possibly. In some ways.

(I tried really hard but couldn't make myself vote for Hickenlooper. I voted for the Green Party candidate instead, which will likely end up being good practice for the next presidential election.)

No one knows yet who controls the state legislature. Dems began the night with an 18-17 lead in the state senate and a 37-28 lead in the house. Republicans did better than generally anticipated, and could end up controlling both houses. There's lots of possible scenarios, but at the moment the smart money is on Republicans having a one-vote majority in the senate and Dems having a one-vote majority in the house.

The down-ticket statewide races were a bloodbath. Republicans won every goddamn office. Particularly disappointing was the fact that Joe Neguse -- clearly the most capable person running in any statewide race -- lost the Secretary of State race to some flobbery incompetent whose only apparent qualifications are sharing a name with a mass murderer, ability to gibber incoherently about election fraud, and doughy whiteness. Srsly wtf.

The Lolorado U.S. House of Representatives delegation began the night at 4-3 Republican and stayed that way. All the incumbents won, and rape apologist teabilly Ken Buck easily held onto the safe Republican seat that Gardner gave up to run for the Senate.

On the plus side, Eggmendment 4.0 went down hard. The margin of defeat was significant (65%-35%) but lower than before, so the personhood assholes will no doubt be back again come 2016.

Dianne Primavera, the only state rep I've ever been affirmatively proud of, won reelection. Thus, we will not have this star-spangled knucklehead representing us in the state house. The shitstorm of fraudulent wingnut attack ads may have backfired. This'll be Dianne's final two years thanks to term limits. I'll be sorry as hell to see her leave office, but happy that she doesn't have to put up with the serial defamation anymore.

[Dingfod]

Thanks for that. I don't even want to explain Oklahoma's election results. I don't even want to think about them.

[Stephen Maturin]

It's the Friday after a Tuesday election and even now we don't know who controls the state legislature. The outgoing Speaker of the House says that Dems won 33 seats, which would give them a 33-32 edge. The Secretary of State's office has the House at 31-29 Dem with five seats still undetermined.

The Senate is currently at 17-17. In the last remaining race, the Republican holds an 850+ vote lead, with 5,000 ballots left to count in Adams County.

Wait, what? Why are there still 5,000 uncounted ballots? WTF is wrong with Adams County? The short answer to the last question is, "A lot." In most places corruption and kleptocracy are behaviors/institutional practices. In Adams County, Lolorado they're ways of life.

But the present vote counting issue stems not from the usual garden variety corruption but from the fact that Adams County Surveyor is a shitty job. The position pays all of $5K per year, and even though it's an elected "office," the lucky winner doesn't actually get a physical office of his or her own. No one wanted the job this time around, or at least not enough to jump through the necessary hoops to get on the ballot. Thus, the issue is being determined via write-in votes, and tallying write-ins is an excruciatingly slow process. A panel of bipartisan election judges must scrutinize each ballot to ascertain the intent of the voter and, I suppose, go through the motions of verifying whether there's actually an I.P. Frehley or Amanda Hugginkis living in the county.

So it may be another day or two before we know who won that thirty-fifth senate seat. In addition, military and overseas ballots still need to be counted in a number of places, and that could easily change the outcome of the closer races.

-------------------

Here's a lulzy and pleasant bit of political news from our congressional district. When they redrew the boundaries after 2010, our district got significantly redder. However, the district was so overwhelmingly blue to start with that the redistricting didn't create any real likelihood of a Republican winning.

Our U.S. Rep. is Jared Polis, who made metric fucktons of money as an internet entrepreneur year ago, sold his businesses at a huge profit and got involved in politics. Dude's not perfect, but all in all he serves our interests very well.

And he'll do just about anything to help a fellow Democrat. One of the best political times I ever had happened a few years back. A few of us had gathered on a street corner in Juggalonia to wave signs in support of our state rep's reelection campaign. Polis, who was in the midst of a reelection campaign himself, showed up out of nowhere and spent the whole hour with us, standing on the corner in what looked to be a $2,000 suit waiving a sign as a bitterly cold wind hammered us. The conversation was grand, but my favorite part was seeing the "Hey, is that ..." looks on the faces of people in cars driving by.

In 2012, Polis' Republican opponent was a bona fide right wing Jesus freak loon named Kevin Lundberg. Polis won the election with 55.7% of the vote district-wide. Lundberg got 38.6%, with the rest of the votes going to a Green and a lolbert.

The nice thing about having giant piles of "fuck you" money (so I'm told) is that you can say or do p. much as you please. Polis has spent much of the past two years royally pissing off the oil and gas industry. His Republican opponent this time around was George Leing, a far saner, more reasonable and better-by-any-objective-measure candidate than Lundberg. Leing received a veritable ocean of industry money to finance his campaign.

Not only did Polis win reelection (no surprise there) but he got a higher percentage of the vote (56.47%) than he got in 2012. Looks like Polis has that job as long as he wants it.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

The nice thing about having giant piles of "fuck you" money (so I'm told) is that you can say or do p. much as you please.

Even THIS.

[Dingfod]

It's not like it's the Senate.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Even THIS.

[lisarea]

Boulder and six other municipalities also voted to exempt themselves from the statewide prohibition on municipal broadband.

[Dingfod]

17,000 Colorado Springs voters actually voted on purpose for Navy Chaplain Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt to be elected to the State House, a guy who thinks gay people need to be exorcised, the Affordable Care Act causes cancer, and President Obama is possessed by a demon. Even the Colorado GOP is distancing itself from this religious nutbag.

We're going to need a bigger insane asylum.

Despite all that, "Dr. Chaps" isn't a whole lot worse than who Oklahoma just elected to the United States Senate, and a whole lot less to cause harm the entire nation. The new one, James Lankford, thinks we can pray away the nations deficit. Why stop there, Senator, pray the whole national debt away. Works for me. The old one, Senator James "Redface Redneck" Inhofe, thinks climate change is a hoax, and is about to head the Senate committee that oversees the environment.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Senator James "Redface Redneck" Inhofe, thinks climate change is a hoax, and is about to head the Senate committee that oversees the environment.

That's what scares me. Talk about appointing the very worst person possible to a job!

[Dingfod]

Someone at the White House better stock up on ink for the veto pen.

[Ensign Steve]

What's with the shoes, Casa Bonita? Go home, you're drunk.

image.jpg

So do you guys sell recreational weed in the airport or what?

In conclusion, I think the DEN southwest gate before a flight to SJC may be the one place on earth where my fuzzy purple socks and Birkenstocks aren't even an abomination.

[Stephen Maturin]

The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma, who are dildos, want to file a lawsuit against Lolorado in the Supreme Court of the United States. The dildos in question are upset about our state's marijuana laws as well as the fact that Colorado isn't doing anything to ensure that our filthy demon weed doesn't cross state lines and befoul the pristine environs of utopias like Nebraska and Oklahoma. The dildos want SCOTUS to declare that Colorado's pots laws are preempted by federal law and can't be enforced.

Lawsuits in which states sue other states can be filed directly in the Supreme Court, but only with the Court's permission. A copy of the motion for leave to sue and proposed complaint are available here.

Both of the dildos are Republican, so we can safely assume that the litigation is economically motivated. Since we're talking about Oklahoma and Nebraska, it seems likely that the goal is protecting in-state meth markets from that free-flowing fountain of Lolorado weed.

Our AG sez:

“Because neighboring states have expressed concern about Colorado-grown marijuana coming into their states, we are not entirely surprised by this action. However, it appears the plaintiffs’ primary grievance stems from non-enforcement of federal laws regarding marijuana, as opposed to choices made by the voters of Colorado. We believe this suit is without merit and we will vigorously defend against it in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

But that's the outgoing AG. No word yet on how recently elected wingnut Cynthia Coffman views the lawsuit, but during the campaign she said that she'd defend state law.

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Incumbent Democrat Mark Udall ran what was arguably the worst reelection campaign in U.S. Senate history, and as a result got his ass handed to him.

The margin was between 5 and 6% throughout election night, which is a veritable blowout by contemporary hotly-contested U.S. Senate race standards. However, when all the votes were counted, the final margin was less than 2%. Thus, it may very well be that the most spectacularly dumbfuck newspaper political endorsement of 2014 was outcome-determinative. Thanks a pantload, Denver Post!

[Sock Puppet]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

The dildos want SCOTUS to declare that Colorado's pots laws are preempted by federal law and can't be enforced.

I tend to follow legal arguments fairly well most of the time, even when I think they're shit. But I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that decriminalization can or can't be "enforced." What the fuck is there to enforce?

[Ensign Steve]

Seriously. If their gripe is that the federal law isn't being enforced, shouldn't they be suing the fed?

[Stephen Maturin]

Sock, you're having trouble wrapping your head around that shit because you possess a well-functioning human brain and are not a grandstanding wingnut fuckpuddle.

Federal law trumps state law by operation of the Supremacy Clause. There's no dispute about that. You can make a decent argument that the federal Controlled Substances Act and Colorado state law are not in conflict, but the preemption claim in this case has a lot of meat on its bones and can't be blown off as frivolous.

But let's suppose Nebraska and Oklahoma prevail on their preemption claim. Okay, fine. So what? It's not as if Colorado would magically become obliged to start enforcing federal drug law. As lawprof Jonathan Adler puts it:

Accept for the argument that Colorado’s legalization of marijuana understate law imposes costs on Nebraska and Oklahoma that are tantamount to an interstate nuisance. Now think about what happens if the plaintiff states are successful. If Colorado’s laws regulating marijuana are preempted, marijuana will remain legal in Colorado — federal law cannot force Colorado to implement federal preferences on marijuana policy — and Colorado law enforcement will still have no obligation to enforce federal law. So marijuana sale, use, and possession would become less regulated and subject to less control in Colorado. This will make it more difficult for federal officials to police interstate trafficking, and the nuisance about which Oklahoma and Nebraska are complaining would likely get worse.

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

What the fuck is there to enforce?

You've just drafted Colorado's motion to dismiss. The taxpayers of this fine state thank you!

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

... grandstanding wingnut fuckpuddle.

[Dingfod]

Oklahoma and Nebraska (for some reason Kansas got left out of this one) are just jealous of the tax revenues rolling in from legal marijuana sales.

Don't sewers, er... suers, er... I mean don't plaintiffs have to prove damages, such as an increase in marijuana arrests and provenance of the source of the marijuana? I'm betting they've got nothing, zero, zilch, nada in the way of evidence. Gut feelings are not evidence, no matter what Michele Bachmann says.

[Dingfod]

Colorado to Oklahoma and Nebraska: Mind your own beeswax.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Oklahoma and Nebraska (for some reason Kansas got left out of this one) are just jealous of the tax revenues rolling in from legal marijuana sales.

Don't sewers, er... suers, er... I mean don't plaintiffs have to prove damages, such as an increase in marijuana arrests and provenance of the source of the marijuana? I'm betting they've got nothing, zero, zilch, nada in the way of evidence. Gut feelings are not evidence, no matter what Michele Bachmann says.

Conveniently timed, some Tulsa area folks were busted hauling 85 pounds of high quality marijuana suspected of being from Colorado.


Edit: I'm sure some are already making hay out this (pun intended), as if this is evidence of how Colorado legalization is leading mass quantities of the whacky weed being brought into Oklahoma and Nebraska. It's not, 85 pounds of reefer isn't legal there either. There is no way these wannabe drug kingpins went from store to store in Colorado and bought it 1/4 ounce at a time.

[Dingfod]

One Oklahoma lawmaker, Mike Ritze (R-Broken Arrow) thinks the lawsuit is a bad idea, violates the 10th Amendment, and violates Colorado's right to govern themselves. Other lawsuits which sought to force the federal government to enforce federal lawsuits have failed, e.g. Arizona's suit over illegal immigration. And, Oklahoma and Nebraska are not suing the federal government, they're suing another state for not enforcing federal law.

[BrotherMan]

Dear pea and Matlock Esq.

Please be kind to your new CDOT - or whatever the agency's name is - head guy. He was p cool for us.

[Stephen Maturin]

Who would have ever guessed that turning the Colorado State Senate over to the Republicans would result in efforts to give dangerous, unhinged crackpottery the force and effect of law?

Eighteen of our thirty-five state senators are Republicans, and it seems that a disturbingly high percentage of them are anti-vaxxers. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, anti-vaxxers don't really have much to do here in lolorado. Kindergartners in this state already have the lowest immunization rates in the U.S. We have immunization "requirements" for entry into public schools, but parents and guardians can get around the "requirements" by simply signing an exemption form declaring that the parent or guardian "has a personal belief that is opposed to immunizations." The belief doesn't even need to be religious in nature. Thus, any Jay Cutler/Jenny McCarthyesque dumbass who believes that vaccinating his child against measles will give the little snot miner autism can opt out of the immunization "requirement" and still send the kid to public school.

But that isn't enough for some. Check out Senate Bill 15-077, the disturbingly titled "Parents' Bill of Rights." Among its many odious provisions is a requirement that school boards formulate policies for telling parents that they can exempt their young 'uns from immunization. (Naturally, it also prohibits health care providers from performing "surgical procedures" [i.e., abortions] on, or providing "prescription drugs" [i.e., many forms of birth control] to, minors without parental consent.) So it's not enough that parents can opt out of the state's vaccination requirements with the stroke of a pen; we also need compelled speech informing parents of their opt-out powers.

S.B. 15-077 passed the state senate on a party line vote on February 17. It's now in the House, where Dems hold a one-vote majority.

Under current Colorado law, naturopathic "doctors" aren't allowed to treat children under two years of age. House Bill 15-1075 would remove the blanket prohibition and allow naturopaths to treat children under two subject to certain requirements, one of which is that the naturopath provide the child's parents with the CDC's most current recommended vaccination schedule.

H.B. 15-1075 passed the house easily and appeared headed toward the same result in the senate. Then, at the eleventh hour, ghastly wingnut Sen. Tim Neville -- the principal sponsor of the "Parents' Bill of Rights" -- proposed an amendment to remove the requirement that naturopaths provide vaccine schedule information. The amendment failed when three Republican senators jumped ship and voted against it, but a whopping 15 out of 18 Republican senators voted in favor of killing H.B. 15-1075's vaccine information requirement.

Christ. It's like having a house of your state legislature controlled by peacegirl. Next up: mandatory perfectly cooked spaghetti and meatballs every Monday night.