When I wrote the post immediately below this one, I included Hillary because she has started telling a big lie.  I knew it, but hadn't gone looking for the proof.  This morning the proof dropped in my lap in the form of a New York Daily News article titled "Hillary's big lie grows."

So Clinton's camp sees her pro-war vote as heavy baggage. She has never denounced it or said it was wrong, but, at times, has done something worse. She has lied about the reasons for it.

Sunday in Davenport, Iowa, was one of those times. Asked about her vote by a man in front of a mostly adoring rally, Clinton trotted out the whopper. She said she was misled by President Bush about the resolution. "He said at the time he was going to the United Nations to put inspectors back into Iraq, to figure out whether they still had any WMD," she said, adding, "He took the authority that others and I gave him and he misused it." . . .

It's a clever argument, but it's not true. It's not even within spinning distance of being true.

The problem with today's legal profession is that it would like to have people believe that its members have a high standard of integrity and yet it allows its most prominent members to practice their profession at very low levels of honesty and integrity.

You be the judge.  The rule appears below.  Is Hillary following it?

8.4 Misconduct.

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

        (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

Dennis Byrne of Real Clear Politics has an essay "Dems should dump ethically challenged Harry Reid."  I have a totally different take on the situation that applies to both Hillary and Reid:  Legal ethics rule 8.4 Misconduct says in part:

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

        (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

If someone wanted to file an ethics complaint on either one of these two lawyers, they would be justified.  Of course, the case would go nowhere, which would embarrass both the politicians and the legal system.

This summer, as  I was making phone calls for Bob Beauprez, I happened to call an independent in Parker, Colorado who was upset at his Republican neighbors. It seems that they were driving around with Ritter bumper stickers.  When he asked them why, they told him that they believed that Bill Ritter would protect their gun rights better than Beauprez!

A month or two later, I walked a precinct in Arapahoe county, about ten miles from Parker.  There I met a Republican who was supporting Ritter because he thought Ritter would impose gun control on Colorado.  I wrote about this when the blog was only a few weeks old.

I knew they couldn't both be right, and yet Ritter's campaign had them both convinced that the other was wrong.

Now, newly elected Colorado Springs Democratic State Senator John Morse has proposed SB 34 to end the reciprocity of certain gun permits. 

I note that Morse doesn't want Coloradoans to vote on the issue and so he has evoked the Safety Clause.  That is a show of real confidence.

I also note that he had no co-sponsors in the House.

No one has said so, but my prediction is that Ritter will sign this bill after it passes through the House and Senate on a party line vote.  I wonder when he will be building his gun ranges.

The Denver Post had a story on it called "Bill closing gun-permit loophole gets early OK"

What can happen if I lie in an affidavit?  That was the subject of a google search that brought someone to my blog tonight.  Gives you real confidence in our legal system, doesn't it? 

If Cleveland Ohio, which is where the search originated, is much like Colorado, the answer is probably not all that much.  That is commentary, not advice.

It appears that the Denver Post is in a contest with the Rocky Mountain News to see who can write the least well reasoned editorial.

The issue is House Bill 1011 to as the Post explains it, it is:

attempt to expand the current "Make My Day" law to cover people who feel threatened while in their cars and businesses.

In back to back paragraphs, the Post wrote:

Current law places the onus on home occupants to prove they were in fear of their lives. Gardner's bill places the burden on police and prosecutors to prove they weren't. That's preposterous.

Colorado's current intruder law says that "any occupant of a dwelling is justified in using any degree of physical force, including deadly physical force" against an intruder if they reasonably believe "that such other person might use any physical force, no matter how slight, against any occupant." 

These two paragraphs are so obviously contradictory as to make one wonder if the editorial board needs an editor.  Sloppy writing!

It turns out that the first paragraph the Post wrote is completely and totally bogus.  The current law is as the second paragraph states, and that wording does place the burden on police and prosecutors to prove that the occupant had no fear that even minor force would be used.  It might even be difficult for a prosecutor to prosecute an occupant who used deadly force against an intruder who was still in the house, though retreating, as a retreating intruder can once again reverse course.

Further, the Post leaves out the fact that the current Make My Day law prevents the intruder or his survivors from filing a civil suit if deadly force is used against them.  This protection is important when one realizes that there are a lot of unethical lawyers who would quickly recruit the intruder for a lawsuit.

I'm guessing that most businessmen who contemplate using force to protect themselves and their businesses might like the same protection against lawsuits.

The Post conveniently leaves out the fact that a Colorado businessman who recently used force to protect his business from an intruder has been criminally charged.  I wonder if the editorial board thought that might destroy its whole argument.  I do.

While there are good arguments against extending it to vehicles, the Post's suggestion that it be completely junked for that reason is bad logic and a disservice to the public.

It is telling that Colorado sheriffs support the bill, and the DA's are taking no position.

As always, this essay contains no legal advice.

Something fundamental happened in 2000 that may impact the Republican party in Colorado for decades to come, and I'm not sure that many people have thought the situation through.

Before the 2000 election, the Republicans controlled almost all of the redistricting machinery, both houses of  the legislature, and the Governorship.  It did not, however, control the State Supreme Court, and that court was very willing to play partisan politics.  All it needed was for the Democrats to take over one house of the legislature.  If that happened, and if Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey was willing to appoint nothing but Democrats to do redistricting, the Democrats would control legislative redistricting.

Further, the Democrats in the State Senate could refuse to negotiate on congressional redistricting so that a Democratic Judge could usurp the function that the state Constitution clearly reserved to the legislative branch. 

All of those things happened, and it came to pass that the Democrats, with the active assistance of their allies in the courts, stole the redistricting machinery and fundamentally changed the Republican Party in Colorado.

Republicans may not realize it yet, but their party has been changed.  Until it regains control of the redistricting process, something that probably cannot happen until 2020 at the earliest, it has choices to make. It must choose between being the very conservative party it has been in the past, or a more inclusive party that is willing to tolerate Republican legislators who are not hard line pro-life, and pro-vouchers. 

If it chooses to be a very conservative party, it can expect that it will never again regain control of the legislature, and it will never again have control of the Redistricting process.  There simply are not enough voters in these newly created districts that embrace hard core conservative values, even if there is an abundance of hard core conservatives in neighboring districts.

Take Colorado Springs.  As a whole, it is about as conservative as any city in the nation.  Until 2000, it only occasionally sent a single Democrat to the legislature.  Once the Democrats got control of the redistricting process, they were able to carve both a safe Democratic house district and a Senate district that has now gone Democratic.  It is possible that they created a second House district with the possibility of going Democratic.

For two elections in a row, the Republicans have nominated reliably conservative candidates to run in the "safe" Democratic house district, and for two elections in a row, the Democrat has won handily.  If Republicans are to ever control the redistricting machinery again, they have to win these kinds of districts, and to win that particular district, they need to nominate a candidate who closely matches the district in political philosophy.

Not only must Republicans win the district with a more liberal Republican than some might like, conservatives must tolerate and even welcome the reelection of that Republican until such time as a Republican majority can create a more balanced district through redistricting.  If conservatives try to push him out through a primary, they are likely to find that they get a Democratic replacement again.

It remains to be seen if enough party discipline can be established to allow this to happen.  If Republicans can't develop discipline, we can expect Colorado to have a Democratic Legislature as far as the eye can see.

I know this essay will raise hackles in some circles.  Even so, I don't think there is an alternative strategy.  It is ironic that in trying to push Colorado to the right by getting rid of a few "troublesome" (to some) Republican legislators, the "values voters" faction of the party is going to have to tolerate years of a more liberal party if they are to use redistricting to get back close to where they were. 

Anyone who has a better idea, or even a different idea, is welcome to post it and I will bring it forward for discussion.

For those perceptive enough to notice, I am simply stealing a page from the Democratic 2006 Congressional race strategy.  They found candidates who fit the districts they were running in, and enough won to change the composition and control of Congress.

I've noticed that if I keep a Rocky Mountain News editorial or news article, my computer becomes very sluggish.  In fact, if I have two or three Rocky articles open, I can bring my system almost to a dead halt.

This morning, I tried to figure out what they were doing.  Animation!  They seem to believe that if I open one of their articles, they have the right to take over my bandwidth with animations on the left, right and top of my screen. 

I have a cable modem, so I think I have reasonable bandwith.  It is hard to believe that the Rocky thinks it is good business to gobble it up.  I don't!

It is usually easy to be critical of Rocky Mountain News editorials because they are often not well thought out.  My very favorite was their first (there were two) endorsement of then candidate Bill Ritter.  They admitted that they didn't know much about what kind of governor Ritter would make, or what his policies would be, but they were endorsing him anyway.  Wasn't that special?

Today, Vincent Carroll provides a well reasoned editorial against Ritter's decision to sign the so called Labor Peace Act because it, by itself, won't send the state into an economic tailspin.  He goes on to say:

So that's the standard, is it? We should worry about legislation only if it threatens to send the state into an economic tailspin.

If so, why worry about legislation at all? A single bill is almost never so dangerous that it threatens prosperity by itself. Economies stagnate from a hundred blows, delivered over time and with a hundred different excuses. This bill - which makes it easier to create "all union" agreements - is just one of those smacks.

The governor could just as easily say he doesn't believe the economic prospects of this state rest on any single proposal affecting workers comp, liability, taxes, the cost of energy, or any other area influencing private-sector investment and risk-taking. But each is still important in its own right, and the cumulative effect of such changes can be crippling.

This conversion, if it is a conversion, comes about six months too late.

It appears that the Colorado Democrats who control the legislature want Colorado to move its caucuses up to early February in the hope that they can impact Presidential candidate selection.  The Denver Post article contains the following quote which makes a lot of sense:

Dick Wadhams, a political strategist who is running to be state GOP chair starting in March, said he didn't object to an earlier caucus but wasn't sure it was going to make much of a difference. History indicates that candidates get the most momentum and media coverage from the first few contests.

"I don't think it changes the fact that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina really determine the races," Wadhams said.

It would be nice if the Democrats had thought the Republicans might want input into this decision.  I guess we are a one party state, now.

Yesterday, the Rocky Mountain News opined on Andy McElhany's bill to reduce the cost of copying in the state.  It has been a while, but I reported that the local Courts are charging $1 per page plus $20 an hour for copying services.  That cost makes documents which should be public, private.

Senate Bill 45, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver, is designed to bring down the cost of public access to a more reasonable level.

Good Job, Senator!  This solves a real problem that is solvable in the current hostile legislative environment. 

This weekend, the first "mass" anti-war demonstrations fizzled out.  Despite the Rocky Mountain News report that "tens of thousands" demonstrated, the actual number was about one tenth of what organizers had hoped.

At the end of the demonstration, demonstrators applied graffiti to the west steps of the capitol building.  The Capitol Police took no action to stop or arrest them.  It turns out that they were under orders (presumably from Democratic legislators) not to interfere.

Senator Wayne Allard wants to know why, and has sent a letter asking for an explanation.

Care to bet he never gets an answer?

It is fun to watch the editorial policy of the Denver Post.  If it finds a Republican on whom it can throw dirt, it goes out of its way to label him/her a Republican.  On the other hand, if it must praise a Republican, somehow the party label gets left off.

This Fall, before the election, DA Carol Chambers was the victim of what had all of the earmarks of a show trial to impact the election.  The Post went out of its way in article after article to attach a party label to her.  Just two months later, it finds it necessary to praise her for prosecuting a road rage driver for murder.  Nowhere in the editorial is the word Republican to be found.

In the same issue, the Post reports on the indictment of former Jefferson County treasurer Mark Paschall.  A reader doesn't have to read far into the article to discover that Paschall is a Republican.

The Denver Post is reporting in a catchall editorial that Marilyn Musgrave will run for her seat in 2008, Tom Tancredo probably won't, and Bob Schaffer hasn't made up his mind about the 2008 Senate race.

There were two interesting quotes in the editorial by Dan Haley of the Denver Post Editorial Board:

Liberal bloggers, and even Republicans, have suggested that the National Republican Congressional Committee and others have threatened to pull funding if Musgrave runs in 2008. She's drawn the ire of Democrats like Tim Gill and Pat Stryker over her anti-gay marriage bill, and they've spared no expense trying to oust her.

Note that the Denver Post editorial board consults "Liberal bloggers" for their information on national Republican strategy.  Meanwhile, conservative papers like the Gazette and the Wall Street Journal deny the blogosphere exists.  Is it any wonder that Republicans are so far behind in the blog wars?

I have heard that Tim Gill alone put $2 million into the effort to beat Musgrave.

Lots of Coloradans could do a good job as a senator, Schaffer said, but only a handful can "demonstrate their suitability to serve" in the Senate.

If this is code by Bob Schaffer for another attempt by the Schaffer wing of the party to split (from) the party as it did with Coors and Beauprez, and it appears to be, I hope Dick Wadhams will have a heart to heart and soon.  We have to disarm the circular firing squad, and language, even coded language like this only ensures that it will follow us to the next election.

The Denver Post is speculating on the Democrats most likely to run for the Colorado Second Congressional District.  The two I am most interested in are State Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald and Jarad Polis.

In its article, the Denver Post has provided a very useful comment:

"I don't expect any real Republican threat," said Bob Loevy, a political science professor at Colorado College. "The next person in the seat will probably be the winner of the (Democratic) primary and likely the most liberal of those who run."

If you think about it, this is a comment (or a reworded version) that should go into the Wikipedia entries of Polis (who doesn't have an entry yet), Fitz-Gerald, and Udall.  The Post and others will be trying to label Udall as a "moderate," and yet this quote says that winners of CO2 primaries are likely the most liberal of those who run.

I would like to see three different readers of this blog tackle this project, one for each of the three folks.  Don't forget to cite the Post article, rather than this blog as the source.

There are two reasons I am recruiting others to do this.  The first is that I want other Republicans to become Wikipedia savvy, and the second is that I would prefer that different authors be seen as making the entries.

The article also mentions two other Democrats in passing:  House Majority Leader Alice Madden and Will Shafroth, head of the Colorado Conservation Trust, each said they are mulling a potential run.

I wanted to bookmark this article for discussion tomorrow.  The world is becoming a scary place.

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference Tuesday, former minister Natan Sharansky explained the significance of statement's like Livingstone's for Israel's national security. Sharansky warned that today international opinion is more sympathetic to the view that Israel should be destroyed than European opinion in 1939 was to Germany's exhortations that the Jewish people should be expunged from Europe. As a result of the Arab-Islamic-Leftist campaign to demonize Israel that has been going on systematically for more than six years, today throughout the world there is a large and growing sense that wiping Israel off the face of the earth wouldn't be particularly objectionable.

We have home grown leftists, sometimes called Democrats.  Jimmy Carter just wrote a book comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa. 

Powerline reports that Former US presidential nominee John Kerry voiced full support for the Islamic Republic's right to use civilian nuclear technology on the basis of the rules and regulations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

I have just one question for John Kerry.  Are centrifuge farms used for peaceful nuclear power or weapons production?  If you don't know, resign from the US Senate now.  If you know and you are still advocating Iranian "civilian" nuclear technology, you are a total idiot. 

Perhaps you will be willing to go pitch a tent at the ground zero of the first "civilian" nuke that goes off here or in Israel.  That is what an ethical idiot would do.