Making Work Count

Work matters to God.

In an era of record ongoing unemployment, good work matters more than ever.

For the believer, its more than just a job. Colossians 3:23 teaches that work is an attitude: "whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

God places work in our life as an opportunity to worship Him. Scripture teaches that God is always working, creating and sustaining His creation.

I believe that work and godliness go hand in hand.

Today, look at the work God has given you- in an office, driving a truck, teaching children, helping the sick, etc. All of its good and its more than just a paycheck and future retirement.

Good work pushes forward the Kingdom of God in powerful, redemptive ways.

Remember who your Boss is!

Trying to Fool the Voters

Here they go again.

Get the full story here.

In 2009, Democratic leaders in the Colorado legislature passed a series of tax hikes, circumventing TABOR by calling them "fees."

Well, they are at it again in 2010.

The latest episode is a push by a group of statist education zealots known as Great Futures Colorado.

This latest evolution centers on placing a referendum on the November ballot that would authorize the legislature to raise your taxes for more public school funding.

Their argument: that Colorado under funds its public education.

The problem with their idea is that its currently illegal to raise taxes without voter approval per TABOR...A little sidebar: if Colorado did not have the TABOR amendment, Democrats would have run our state into greater fiscal deficits than what we currently have.

While the legislature is our body of elected representatives, they are spending our money. And fiscal prudence, ie spending more money that what is available, is not a strength of most legislative bodies.

When it comes to more of my money being taken from me, I want to vote on it.

Democrats Cook Their Goose

The Democratic majority in Congress will be short-lived.

The Democrats broke all of the rules to pass their Obama-care monstrosity. Time will illuminate the deals, corruption and unethical acts the Democrats employed to accomplish their goal.

Obama will likely be a one-term President. Unknowingly, he has lit a match to a lake of fuel.

Some believe that by November, American rage over this fiasco will have dissipatted. Not so. This is an era of new media. No longer can the liberal main stream media fool Americans.

It is our opinion that come November, average over-taxed Americans will vote out those who voted for Obama-care on Black Sunday.

House Of Ill Repute

Soon the United States House of Representatives will vote on a historic national health care bill. A bill that the majority of Americans are clearly opposed to.

Yet, the process continues likely culminating in a weekend vote.

To get to this point, a generation of American politicians have sold, bribed and threatened each other to gain votes.

Perhaps it has been done for the betterment of America, but we believe that power and the control of a large chunk of our economy is the driving goal.

The process has been done poorly with much deception. Its trail head begins in the Oval Office of the White House and treks into the Speaker of the House of Representatives office.

Neither party has a monopoly on bad political behavior. Yet, we have reached an all time low in 2010. These actions are poisoning our nation's soul. Young American eyes are watching this generation of leaders carefully noting how they are exercising their stewardship of the American enterprise.

What they see is America's politics at its worst, a la Chicago style.

President Obama campaigned on hope and change. As far as we can ascertain, there has little transparency but buckets of dirty politics as usual.

Its a House of Ill Repute.

Sadly, they don't care.

Who Was The Real Saint Patrick

You might be surprised....

Check it out here.

Or below:

Who Was the Real St. Patrick?

There are many legends and traditions associated with St. Patrick's Day. Who was the real St. Patrick?

St. Patrick was not actually Irish. He was born around 373 A.D. in the British Isles near the modern city of Dumbarton in Scotland. His real name was Maewyn Succat. He took the name Patrick, or Patricius, meaning "well-born" in Latin, after he became a priest.

During Patrick's boyhood, the Roman Empire was near collapse and too weak to defend its holdings in distant lands. Britain became easy prey for raiders, including those who crossed the Irish sea from the land known as Hibernia or Ireland. When Patrick was sixteen, he was seized by raiders and carried off to Ireland.

Most of what is known about St. Patrick comes from his own Confession, written in his old age. In his Confession he wrote about his capture:

As a youth, nay, almost as a boy not able to speak, I was taken captive... I was like a stone lying in the deep mire; and He that is mighty came and in His mercy lifted me up, and raised me aloft... And therefore I ought to cry out aloud and so also render something to the Lord for His great benefits here and in eternity-- benefits which the mind of men is unable to appraise.

After Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave by an Irish chieftain named Niall, he was sold to another chieftain in northern Ireland. Much of Patrick's time was spent alone on the slopes of Slemish Mountain, tending his master's flocks of sheep. During the long, lonely hours in the fields and hills of Ireland, Patrick found comfort in praying. In his Confession he wrote: ...every day I had to tend sheep, and many times a day I prayed-- the love of God and His fear came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. And my spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night, and this even when I was staying in the woods and on the mountains;...and I felt no harm, and there was no sloth in me--as now I see, because the spirit within me was fervent.

Six years passed slowly by. Then in a dream, Patrick heard a voice saying, "Thy ship is ready for thee." This was God's way, he felt, of telling him to run away.

That night he fled. Assured God was leading him, Patrick plunged through the bogs and scaled the mountains which separated him from the sea. He escaped Ireland by ship, but God would call him back years later. Patrick had escaped his boyhood enslavement in Ireland only to hear the call of God as a man to return. He was being called on, he felt, to convert the Irish to Christianity. In his Confession Patrick wrote:

I saw a man named Victoricus, coming from Ireland with countless letters. He gave me one of them, and I read the opening words which were: The voice of the Irish ... I thought at the same moment I heard their voice: ' We beg you, young man, come and walk among us once more.'

And I was quite broken in heart, and could read no further, and so I woke up. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord gave to them according to their cry. ...they call me most unmistakably with words which I heard but could not understand, except that...He spoke thus: 'He that has laid down His life for thee, it is He that speaketh in thee;' and so I awoke full of joy.

When Patrick began his mission about 430 A.D., Ireland was gripped by paganism. Idolatry prevailed and the Irish knew nothing of Jesus. Patrick decided to go first to the pagan chieftain or king who had enslaved him as a boy. Rather than be put to shame by a former slave, the king set fire to his house and threw himself into the flames.

Patrick then set out for Tara, the seat of the high king of Ireland. When Patrick arrived, Tara was filled with many local kings and druids who were attending the pagan feast of Beltine which coincided with Easter that year. Patrick encamped in the full view of the castle to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.

On the eve of the festival it was the custom, upon penalty of death, that the high king should light the first bonfire before any others in the land. Patrick, however, had kindled a great fire which gleamed through the darkness. Patrick was summoned before the king. The confrontation which followed is as amazing as Elijah's victory over the prophets of Baal.

Patrick stood and called, May God arise and His enemies be scattered. Darkness fell on the camp. Confused guards began to attack one another. The ground shook and the next day, Easter, a broken king knelt before God's servant. This confrontation between Patrick's God and demonic forces marked the beginning of a thirty-year mission to Ireland.

Patrick traveled the roads and forded the rivers of Ireland for 30 years to see men and women "reborn in God" and come to know the Christ he loved so much. Patrick wrote in his Confession: We ought to fish well and diligently, as our Lord exhorts. Hence, we spread our nets so that a great multitude and throng might be caught for God.

By the time of his death, Patrick had baptized tens of thousands and established hundreds of churches throughout Ireland. Danger and hardship remained his constant companions. Twice he was imprisoned, but he was not discouraged. He wrote in his Confession: Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity, but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God Almighty who rules everywhere.

Within a century this once pagan land became predominately Christian, possessing such a vigorous faith that Ireland in turn sent missionaries to Scotland, England, Germany and Belgium.

As an old man, Patrick looked back in awe: Those who never had knowledge of God but worshipped idols...have now become...sons of God.

The old saint died in his beloved Ireland on March 17th, 460 AD. The land that once enslaved him, had now been set free.

It's Caucus Time in Colorado

I am going tonight! That's right, I am a caucus virgin.

I cannot think of a better year to make a rookie appearance. Who knows, I might be elected to do something.

Colorado's Caucus history stretches back to the 1800's. This is Colorado politics at its grassroots. Both major parties will caucus tonight. Any registered voter can participate.

As I understand it, caucuses are party meetings by precinct, district, or county, where registered party members gather to discuss the candidates and to select delegates to the next round of party conventions. Depending on the party rules of a particular state, delegates selected at a caucus might go on to a county or state convention before attending the national convention in the summer.

Wow. I thought I might wind up on a folding chair in stranger's living room. Instead, our precinct is meeting at the local middle school.

Those who show up to caucus are “more likely to be quite active in the political party in other ways,” he says. Caucus-goers also tend to be “people who are more educated, affluent, and stronger partisans,” says Alan I. Abramowitz, political science professor at Emory University.

Count me in.

Clueless in Colorado-Internet Tax Policy Bites Legislature

Our Democratic-led State Legislature is mostly clueless when it comes to tax policy.

Exhibit A today is the newly minted online internet tax signed several weeks ago by Governor Ritter.

What our Democratic friends have stumbled into is the well known "law of unintended consequences."

This law goes like this: actions have consequences. When it comes to taxes and economic growth, too much tax kills growth. When you impose taxes on businesses, they pass the tax (increased costs) along to their consumers or lessen production and cut jobs.

Exhibit B: as a result of this new Colorado internet tax, Amazon.com has dropped its retailing network in Colorado, hurting Coloradans who rely on that company for income.

Our state Democrats who lead our legislature by and large do not understand this concept. It just bit them in their tail feathers.

See this story regarding Amazon retailers in today's Denver Post.

Using Drugs For Religious Purposes Is Bogus

Trevor Douglas, 25, told a court that he uses marijuana as a religious sacrament.

You can read the rest of his comments here.

Give me a break.

Recently, Mr. Douglas was arrested by a Colorado State trooper during a routine traffic stop. During the stop, the officer smelled pot and Mr. Douglas got the cuff.

The court got this one right. Using pot for personal use does not meet the definition of religious practice. Thus, under the law, Mr. Douglas' marijuana use is not protected by First Amendment rights.

Instead, it is simply drug use and its illegal in Colorado.

Let Voter's Decide-Judicial Fiat Strikes Washington DC

Once gain, homosexual activists have used the court to accomplish by judicial fiat what they could not do by the ballot box.

On Tuesday, homosexual marriage became legal in the District of Columbia.

In December, Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, signed legislation authorizing the city to issue same sex wedding licenses. This decision was supported by the Washington DC Superior Court. When this decision was appealed, the US Supreme Court turned a deaf ear to it.

Along with DC there are now five states which allow same sex marriage.

The common ground in these states: the voters have never approved of it.

In fact, whenever voters have been permitted to exercise their right to vote on the issue, it fails.

In Colorado, voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as an act between a man and a woman in 2006. The vote was 58-42 percent.

Our prediction: DC homosexual couples will have their day for a while, but if and when a vote comes, it will be overturned.

A Tax Increase Is A Tax Increase-Thank Goodness for TABOR

Former State Senator Mark Hillman succinctly opined in his latest on why taxes increases are truely tax increases..

Make sense? Believe it or not some Coloradans don't see it that way.

Here is Hillman's article in the Denver Post:

The anti-taxpayer majority on the Colorado Supreme Court soon will have another chance to stand the constitution on its head, thanks to a remarkably unambiguous ruling by the Colorado Court of Appeals.

In an opinion written by Judge Sean Connelly, a three-judge panel ruled that the Colorado Department of Revenue cannot increase the severance tax rate applied to coal mining without a public vote.

Adopted in 1977, the severance tax is paid by companies that extract minerals, oil or gas from the ground and is calculated by multiplying the quantity extracted by a statutory rate that accounted for changes in the Producer Price Index. Originally, the tax rate for coal was set at 36 cents per ton and had increased to 54 cents by 1992.

When Colorado voters adopted the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR), the Department of Revenue concluded that it was precluded from further increases unless it obtained voter approval.

In 2006, a state audit suggested that the Department could increase the rate and that it was obligated to do so under state law. An advisory opinion from the attorney general's office concurred, citing a 1995 Supreme Court case that concluded voter approval was not necessary for statutes that existed prior to TABOR. Accordingly, the department increased the coal tax to 76 cents per ton.

Once the rate increase was imposed, the Colorado Mining Association and several of its members filed suit, claiming that when TABOR passed, such tax rate increases were barred. After all, TABOR is a constitutional amendment, therefore superior to any statute, and specifically requires voter approval for "any . . . tax rate increase."

Denver District Court Judge Larry Naves sided with state government.

Ironically, Judge Naves didn't hang his hat on the pre-existing statute argument, but ruled instead that increasing the tax rate from 54 cents to 76 cents was not a tax rate increase.

Fortunately, the Court of Appeals, in a refreshingly brief seven-page opinion, ruled that a tax rate increase was precisely what it appeared to be and found that "TABOR precludes increasing the coal severance tax rate without voter approval."

The opinion, written by Connelly, a 2008 appointment by Gov. Bill Ritter, offers a wonderfully succinct conclusion:

"(1) TABOR prohibits increasing tax rates without voter approval.

"(2) Applying the statutory formula increased the coal severance tax rate without voter approval.

"(3) Therefore, TABOR was violated."

Such a simple approach, Connelly wrote, "is appropriate because we must look to the intent of the voter as (TABOR) is an initiated constitutional provision."

The court "must consider how the typical voter would interpret 'tax (rate) increase,' " he continued.

Such fidelity to the law and to the voters is sure to rile the high court, which just one year ago ruled in 45 tortuous pages that the state legislature could change the way school districts calculate property taxes, thereby increasing tax revenues by $117 million in just the first year, without seeking voter approval as required by TABOR.

In that Orwellian decision, Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey wrote:

• "(L)egislation requiring local districts to provide a share of jointly funded programs does not amount to the imposition or levy of a tax on those districts by the state." Translation: requiring a school board to raise taxes is not a tax increase.

• The state constitution should "be interpreted as a whole with effect given to every term contained therein." But within just a few pages, she dismissed TABOR's provision requiring voter approval of a "tax policy change directly causing a net revenue gain to any district" as an "undefined catch-all phrase" that "cannot be applied" if it has only a "de minimus impact." She later argues that "any district" doesn't mean any district.

• That the legislature's decision to increase property tax revenues was not a tax increase but a "reflection," a "recognition," an "implementation," a "stabilization" and a "clear statutory direction."

When the state Supreme Court gets hold of the severance tax case, rest assured that Mullarkey and her anti-taxpayer majority will explain again that "up is down," "round is square," "more is less" and that the plain language of the constitution doesn't really mean what it so obviously says.
Mark Hillman is a wheat farmer in Burlington and a former state senator. Contact him at www.markhillman.com.

Marijuana Use and Kids

Most Coloradans know that our state is embroiled in a medical marijuana disaster.

In 2008, Colorado voters approved the legalization of marijuana possession for medicinal use. What they didn't bargain for was the disaster it has become.

Last week, the issue came to a head at the Colorado State Legislature.

Speaking before a state senate commmittee, a young recovering heroin addict spoke how marijuana use in young people increased their likiehood of future drug use.

Bingo.

As I have written here before, for nearly 5 years I directed the downtown Denver Rescue Mission. Most of the addicts we saw that came through our doors began their drug addictions smoking pot.

In today's Denver Post article on this issue "many members of the law enforcement community, the growth of the state's medical-marijuana industry is a plague that threatens to increase marijuana use of all kinds among teens and young adults — with disastrous results for the state.

"The revenue generated from the marijuana industry," state Attorney General John Suthers wrote to lawmakers in a letter opposing a bill to regulate dispensaries, "will not cover the societal costs we will all incur."

Medicinal marijuana use should be repealed by voters in 2012.

Losing Jobs In Colorado

The Democratic majority in the Colorado legislature does not get it when it comes to jobs creation.

In the energy sector, Colorado had a booming coal and natural gas industry. There is still plenty of the stuff left. Why are we not expanding and encouraging companies to explore? Good jobs will follow.

Governor Ritter's election ushered in an era of job killing measures for Colorado's existing energy economy. Instead, our state has tried to grab the elusive tail of renewable energies.

We are seeking millions of dollars into largely unproven "alternative" energy sector. Don't get me wrong, I would be for wind, solar, etc if there was a real market for these energies. There is not at this time. I still need petroleum for my car, natural gas for my home heater and electricity from coal-powered plants.

Alternative energy options are too expensive right now.

Below is an excellent summation of the illusion of renewable energy.

Why increasing the Renewable Portfolio Standard is bad for Colorado

Senate Republicans stood up for jobs, the environment and consumers in one fell swoop by opposing a Democrat proposal that mandates utilities rely more heavily on taxpayer subsidized energy sources.

“This proposal may as well be called Colorado’s own ‘cap and tax’ bill because it is going to strangle our state’s economy and our pocketbooks,” said Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs. “Economic growth does not come from political mandates; it comes from increases in productivity.”

House Bill 1001 would mandate large utilities to get 30 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, mainly wind and solar. The Democrat controlled Senate approved the measure on a party-line vote, defeating nearly a dozen GOP amendments. The GOP warned that raising the Renewable Portfolio Standard would kill jobs, increase pollution and hike up energy bills.

As the state is forced to rely on renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, Republicans say thousands of jobs in the traditional energy sector will be put at risk. “Proponents of these mandates ignore the potentially thousands of good paying jobs in coal mines and gas fields that, as ‘disfavored technologies’, will be destroyed by the restrictions imposed by government,” Cadman said.

Republicans also railed against the bill for a provision requiring solar installation employees obtain labor union certification. “With unemployment hitting record numbers, it is astounding that Democrats would want to lock out a significant number of Coloradans from these positions,” said Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction. “The union carve out in this proposal is reminiscent of the sweetheart deal Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson secured for his state in the national healthcare bill.”

Consumers also have cause for concern. “As utilities struggle to keep up with the mandate, their added costs are going to inevitably be passed along to consumers,” said Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley.

Renfroe offered an amendment to HB 1001 that would have exempted households with income at or below the federal poverty level from higher energy bills incurred by the renewable energy mandates. Democrats defeated the proposal. “This vote against poor, at-risk families just proves that Democrats are bent on implementing their radical agenda, despite the strain it will put on the budgets of some of our most vulnerable populations,” Renfroe said.

Teachers Save the Day? Maybe...

Our forefathers and foremothers could not have imagined a time when children would be shot at their local school.

Today's Denver Post trumpets the heroic role of teachers during the shooting incident at Deer Creek Middle School earlier this week.

Thank you. Without a doubt, Dr. "B", math teacher David Benke's actions saved the lives of other children.

I would add in one other factor: prayer and God's protection. Ultimately, good trumped evil in this one.

Our forefathers and foremothers would have thanked God too and not just the training of local teachers.

Obama's New Health Care Proposal

More of the same?

Does the President not see news that most American believe health care reform is a low priority right now?

Okay, give him credit for his persistence. Here we go again.

Here are the details.
What do you think?

A Sensible Roadmap for America's Future

Last Sunday, syndicated columnist George Will penned an op-ed which evaluated Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America.

You need to read this.

Most Americans are against the tide of red ink/out of control government spending in Washington, acts which threaten America's survival as a robust world power.We're all smart enough to know that you cannot spend your way out of debt. Its been tried and its failed.

Congressman Ryan's map offers cures for America's most pressing problems by focusing on economic vitality, diminished public debt and health and retirement security.

Sounds good to me.

Compared to what we are hearing both the Colorado State Legislature, the US Congress and the White House, this plan is a breath of fresh air for both our nation and state.

Democrats Roll Back Colorado Tax Exemptions

The Massachusetts Miracle message has not resonated yet with Colorado's Democratic state leaders.

The message: less government spending, lower taxes and reduced deficits.

On Monday, Democrat-led state house of representives rolled back a bucket full of tax breaks for Colorado businesses.

I guess denial is a form of bliss.

According to the Speaker of the House, Terrance Carroll (D-Denver), "We're asking big business to pay their fair share so that we don't have to keep balancing the budget on the backs of teachers, police officers and firefighters, senior citizens and the neediest who depend on our safety net," said House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver. "It's only been the GOP and their special-interest cronies who have been complaining because we're rolling back corporate welfare and special-interest tax loopholes

Here is the reality check for Representative Carroll and his Democratic cronies- reduce tax exemptions for businesses and those that can leave the state will. These companies will not pay more taxes. Rumor has it that Utah is eagerly courting Colorado businesses.

Reality check number two is that businesses hit by these exemption roll backs will cut production, reduce jobs and pass increased tax costs to the consumer.

Again, liberal ideology does not translate into effective governance. Perhaps, we need a Massachusetts Miracle here in Colorado.

To read more, visit the Denver Post article here.

Previewing Obama's State of the Union

On Wednesday, President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address to Congress.

Most commentators, despite their political affiliations and pedigrees will agree that President Obama has had a rough first year.

There have been other American presidents who have had hard first years too and were able to turn their presidencies around- Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt are a couple that come to mind.

Mr. Obama has been handicapped by governing inexperience and a leftist ideology which has hamstrung his ability to deliver his election promises so far. That bill with the American voters is coming due quickly (see Massachusetts).

Here is a link to what many liberal Americans are saying right now about the direction the President needs to go. The full text is here:

A lot of commentators on the left think the three-year spending freeze President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union speech is a mistake of historic proportions.

The plan is intended to save $250 billion over 10 years and would affect 17 percent of the federal budget, according to administration officials. Military and homeland security spending, international aid and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare would not be affected.

Obama's decision shows "he'll govern like a hybrid of John McCain and Herbert Hoover for the rest of his term to curry favor with the deficit maniacs," said Firedoglake's David Dayen.

The Moderate Voice's Kathy Kattenburg is another blogger who invoked the 31st president, who failed to pull the nation out of the Great Depression. In a post titled Herbert Hoover Returns to the White House, she raised these questions: "Why is he planning to announce a Republican-style spending freeze in a deep recession? Does he truly imagine Republicans in Congress will support his initiatives now? Why isn't he solving problems and helping people instead of running scared from his own oft-stated beliefs?"

Others are comparing the move to President Franklin Roosevelt cutting back on government spending in 1937. "The results were catastrophic. The economy tanked. And so did the fortunes of the Democratic Party. Predictably, Republicans won 79 seats in the 1938 midterms," Jed Lewison warned on Daily Kos.

"Instead of delivering his State of the Union address this week, Barack Obama may as well hold up a big sign that says, 'I want Democrats to lose Congress,'" a post by desmoinesdem on the MyDD blog complained.

"Perhaps the worst thing about this is how it cedes the ideological ground to the Republicans," added Jonathan Zasloff on The Reality-Based Community.

Some liberal critics of a freeze on domestic discretionary spending are using Obama's own words against him. They point out that in presidential debates with McCain, who called for an across-the-board spending freeze, Obama likened the idea to "using a hatchet when you need a scalpel."

Obama's freeze wouldn't be as wide-ranging as the one McCain pushed. It's more like an overall spending cap, so funding for certain programs considered wasteful -- farm subsidies are often mentioned -- could be slashed while spending for health care and education gets increased. But Congress would have to agree on where to cut and, as The Washington Post's Ezra Klein pointed out, even wasteful programs have powerful supporters on Capitol Hill.

"It's a lot easier for Congress to change the mix than reject the overall freeze. But a freeze is very hard to do right, particularly in tough economic times. Doing it wrong would be a catastrophe," Klein cautioned.

If there's too much wiggle room in Obama's freeze, Daily Kos' Lewison wrote in an update after learning details of the proposal, it could end up "looking like a major political gimmick."

The president will speak to the nation Wednesday night -- just a week after Republican Scott Brown's upset victory in the Massachusetts Senate race doomed Obama's Democratic super majority in the Senate. Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum wonders whether Obama is pivoting from health care reform to fiscal restraint too fast -- making the spending freeze proposal look like "a panicky and transparent attempt to recover from the Massachusetts tsunami."

Failing to Teach Our Kids

In today's Denver Post, head Post opinator Dan Haley hits the nail on the head.

See the article here.

At issue is the botched state attempt to land millions of federal dollars for public education. At play was nearly 400 million dollars for Colorado, which was a slice (big one) from a huge federal pie/grant of funding designed to improve public education.

The problem is that the state failed to include in its application a key piece: "improving the K-12 teacher tenure process by tying teacher evaluations to student achievement."

Simply, Colorado Democrats in the state legislature blinked in challenging the Colorado Teachers Association (CTA). The CTA has historically been one of the main funders of Democratic political activity in Colorado. They would have fired many bullets at this idea and vehemently opposed any linkage between teacher tenure and student achievement.

So, in our opinion, Governor Ritter and his Democratic legislative allies made a political calculation that they were better off keeping the CTA happy and the political donations coming than improving our kids classroom experiences.

Our kids will be the one to suffer.

Tiger Woods, Brit Hume and Christianity

Last week, former Fox News Anchor now senior news analyst Brit Hume stood Washington, DC on its ear when he made one of the most politically incorrect comments of the year: that Jesus Christ was the only solution to Tiger Woods immense personal problems.

The atheists, pc purveyors and every other anti-Christian group howled.

Speaking on the Fox News Sunday program, Hume candidly and accurately offered his solution for the problems besetting arguably the greatest golfer ever. Woods needed to put down his alleged Buddhist beliefs and embrace the forgiveness offered by Christianity. As an American, Brit Hume had that right. And personally, I agree with him.

In Matthew 10:22, Jesus taught that the world would hate those who followed him. In post-Christian and politically correct 21st century America, there's is plenty of anti-Christian animus. No one should be surprised. The anti-dote? More witness of Jesus Christ.

The Senior Washington correspondent for Politics Daily has come to Hume's defense and I find his remarks refreshing. While I don't agree completely with his conclusions, I find his comments accurate enough to be quoted here.

Here's the link and the entire text below.

Thirty years ago, as she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa told the story of a group of American professors who'd come to see her doing the Lord's work in Calcutta. Before taking their leave, they asked for a bit of wisdom to take home with them. "Smile," she replied, "for the smile is the beginning of love."

Mother Teresa's contention was that the first duty of a person who believes in Christ is to show others that you are happy -- that Christianity is working for you. This is the initial step in bearing witness to faith. A second is to enunciate that faith aloud. This would seem to be a requirement of those who follow Jesus; after all, he instructed his followers to give their testimony "to the ends of the Earth."
But the secular world can be as resistant to hearing the "good news" of the gospel as it was in Jesus' time, and few places in modern America are more secular than a big-city newsroom. Just ask Brit Hume, who had the temerity to offer a brief affirmation of his own faith this week -- and was promptly pilloried for it, especially in the media.

In case you missed it, Hume was on a panel of pundits talking about Tiger Woods' troubles. Noting that the great golfer once publicly identified himself with Buddhism, the faith of his mother, Brit Hume said: "I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"

It was a pretty mild pitch, as these things go, but only if God-talk is familiar to you. It was clearly quite jarring to many of Hume's colleagues. In a typical reaction, Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal Constitution asserted that "faith is a private matter between that person and God, and is not a matter to be judged by some pompous TV anchor." In case Hume was misunderstood, Bookman subsequently called him "rude and crass" and guilty of "bad manners." MSNBC anchor David Shuster maintained that Hume had somehow "denigrated" and "diminished" Christianity. Even knowledgeable religion writers were nonplussed by Hume. USA Today religion writer Cathy Grossman asserted on her blog that the Fox commentator was "talking trash."
Others used the occasion for ad-hominem attacks on Fox News, Hume, and conservative Christians. (A few of these bon mots were clever: My friend E.J. Dionne passed along a quip making the rounds that Fox's new mantra should be: "We report, you convert.") But good natured ribbing seemed the exception. Many of Hume's critics tended to be mean, misinformed, and all-too-willing to engage in the very intolerance they were decrying.

Leading the charge was the Huffington Post, which makes sense in today's environment because it's even more partisan than Fox News -- and on the other side of the political spectrum. But an ideological point of view seems an inadequate excuse for the kind of invective on display at HuffPo. In one post, Hume was blasted for being "sanctimonious" and "distasteful" and "inflammatory." This much was true: HuffPo was certainly inflamed."Beware the Brit Humes in Your Office," blared the headline from another Huffington Post blogger. This one, penned by business columnist Eve Tahmincioglu, included the following passage: "The fact that a journalist -- and I use that term loosely as it pertains to Hume -- would go on a national news show and put down another high-profile individual's faith should tell all of us that religious bigotry, and bigotry as a whole, is a growing problem in this country."

The most steamed scribe may have been Tom Shales, the prominent television writer at The Washington Post. Shales complained in his column that Hume's comparative riff "sounded a little like one of those Verizon vs. AT&T commercials -- our brand is better than your brand -- except that Hume was comparing two of the world's great religions, not a couple of greedy communications conglomerates.""Further," Shales added, "is it really his job to run around trying to drum up new business? He doesn't really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?" Shales went on this way at some length, gratuitously (and inaccurately) insulting Calvin Coolidge along the way. Hume's "madness" and "off-the-cuff, off-the-wall" comments were, Shales insisted, destined to be "one of the most ridiculous" public statements of the year."First off, apologize," Shales instructed Hume. "You gotta."

Hume most definitely did not apologize. In fact, he was booked again on Fox News, this time as a guest, telling Bill O'Reilly that "if you speak the name Jesus Christ – and I don't mean to make a pun here – but all hell breaks loose." For those of us who knew Brit Hume before his conversion to Christianity, this droll observation was vintage Brit. It didn't do much for his critics, however. Jon Stewart, who prides himself on his sense of irony, mocked Hume for playing the victim, apparently not realizing that in his sneering segment Stewart confirmed what Hume was saying, which is that you could prescribe almost anything for Tiger Woods without making yourself the target – anything but a spiritual solution.
Certainly no one pushed back when commentators on nearly every network offered up the junk science diagnosis of "sex addiction" for Tiger Woods. You just couldn't tell Tiger to get his ass in church. Lisa Miller, writing in Newsweek, put it this way: "I'm not at all sure why the liberal left is always so shocked that evangelical Christians want other people to become Christians."But even Hume's rare defenders, such as Miller, couldn't countenance his overt comparison of Christianity to Buddhism. This is obviously politically incorrect, and it probably ought to be. I get that. In an era of worldwide sectarian violence, much of it propagated by religious fanatics who shriek "God is great," before killing themselves along with innocent strangers, the emphasis ought to be on ecumenism, not sectarianism.
That said, it's obvious that Hume has no particular animus for Buddhism; he was mainly using it as a rhetorical launching pad. Still, Woods is not known to closely follow any spiritual system, and practicing Buddhists didn't appreciate being used as a foil in Hume's brief sermon. But a funny thing happened when journos called prominent scholars of Buddhism for comment: They tended to confirm Hume's underlying point about the Eastern faith.

Stephen Prothero, a Boston University professor on Buddhism, told Tamara Lush of the Associated Press: "You have the law of karma, so no matter what Woods says or does, he is going to have to pay for whatever wrongs he's done. There's no accountant in the sky wiping sins off your balance sheet, like there is in Christianity." Added James William Coleman, a professor of Buddhist studies at Cal Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. "If you do what [Tiger Woods] has done, it comes back and hurts you."

In other words, although Hume may have been inartful, he was not necessarily inaccurate: Redemption is a concept flowing out of the Judeo-Christian tradition rather than Eastern thought, although, again I concede that truth is not always a defense to insensitivity. (And, as my esteemed colleague David Gibson noted, polling suggests that American Buddhists are less likely to step out on their spouses than Protestants. So one alternate lesson would be that Tiger Woods ought to embrace his mother's Eastern religion more faithfully.)

Hume's own faith journey.
I first met Brit Hume in the early 1990s when I covered the Clinton White House for The Baltimore Sun and Brit was the senior correspondent for ABC News. He was already an established presence in Washington journalism with an impressive resume, a hefty salary, and the diffident presence of a man confident in his own abilities. He'd sit in the front row in the White House briefing room or on the press plane doing crossword puzzles, seeming not to take the anxieties of the day too much to heart. He was known for a laconic sense of humor that could be earthy at times. One example comes to mind. The 1996 train trip to Chicago for Bill Clinton's second nominating convention was interrupted by the sex scandal of a Clinton campaign adviser named Dick Morris. Hume regaled his colleagues with an imagined scene in which Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who stayed at the Jefferson Hotel -- where Dick Morris had some of his liaisons -- called the front desk to complain that "the couple with the dog is making noise again." (It was an in-joke, obscure even then, that exaggerated on some of the claims made by Mr. Morris' hired escort).

My point is that Brit Hume didn't take himself too seriously. Once, because the men's rooms in the White House briefing room were occupied and Brit was preparing for a broadcast, I saw him putting on makeup by using the glass reflection on a vending machine. He looked back at me and shrugged, and said with a grin, "Helluva way for a grown man to make a living, isn't it?"

But he always took our craft seriously, which the writers on the beat appreciated especially because Brit had started in print journalism, first at a newspaper in Hartford and then briefly for United Press International before landing at the Baltimore Evening Sun. At a Washington seminar, he met Ralph Nader, who talked him into probing corruption at the United Mine Workers. It was a fortuitous pairing: Hume's work on the UMW culminated in a well-received book, an assignment to write a piece for The Atlantic Monthly, and a job offer with legendary muckraking columnist Jack Anderson.

Eventually, Hume landed with ABC. A solid reporter, he'd initially had trouble learning the ropes of looking natural in front of the camera. By the time I knew him, he'd mastered it, first on Capitol Hill and then at the White House. In 1991, he'd won an Emmy for his coverage of the Persian Gulf War and American Journalism Review twice named him in the "best in the business" at covering the presidential beat. In other words, nobody ever questioned Hume's journalistic chops -- until he went to Fox News.

I didn't know his politics, although I knew he'd had friction with ABC anchorman Peter Jennings. (Much later, Hume told Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, that he pushed back on an assignment about how the first President Bush "isn't doing anything" by countering "Has it ever occurred to you that this guy's a Republican and Republicans don't believe that government is the solution to all the country's problems?")

In the next administration, Hume chafed under what he thought was a blind spot on the part of the ABC brass, Jennings included, when it came to the flaws of Bill and Hillary Clinton and he eventually jumped to Fox. Interestingly, although he had once lost his temper at Hume in a Rose Garden press conference, President Clinton made a point of saying he thought Hume's coverage was, well, fair and balanced. This happened on Dec. 13, 1996 at Hume's farewell White House news conference for ABC News when Clinton surprised us all by suddenly saying, "Brit, let me say before you leave, I know this is your last White House press conference ... but over the last several years, I think all of us think you have done an extraordinary, professional job under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, and we will miss you. And we wish you well, and congratulations on your new position."

Fourteen months later, however, tragedy struck Brit Hume and his family. On Feb. 22, 1998 his son and namesake, Alexander Britton Hume Jr., committed suicide. Sandy Hume, as he was known, was 28 years old, an up-and-comer in Washington journalism. He'd been drinking heavily one night, was arrested by the U.S. Park Police for driving under the influence, had tried to strangle himself in his cell, and then, inexplicably released by authorities, had gone home and shot himself.
Such a horror is not something you ever get over. But you have to go on, and Brit Hume was able to do so, by his own account, because of the people who reached out to him in God's name. Nearly 1,000 sympathy cards arrived, from strangers as well as friends.

"I read them all," Hume told Christianity Today. "My mailbox would be stuffed with them night after night. I'd weep over some of them. Some of them were prayer cards, some of them would tell me a tree had been planted somewhere. I felt that I was seeing the face of God. I felt people's support and love. To me it was a miracle. I've been trying to face up to the implications of believing in Christ and believing in God ever since."

It only stands to reason, then, that out of this crucible, Brit Hume would want to share that miracle with others who are hurting -- with Tiger Woods, for example. And so, channeling Mother Teresa and not Tom Shales, Hume's first duty is to smile, as painful as that must be some days. His second duty, as he sees it, is to share the reason he's able to smile. So why would anyone begrudge him that?
Well, one reason is excess partisanship. If you're a hater, all you need to see are the words "Fox News" or "Brit Hume" then you are against whatever he's for. I don't get that kind of thinking, and don't have much to say to those who engage in it -- but that isn't the only factor that made some people uncomfortable about Hume's homily. Like Sandy Hume, I'm a second-generation journalist, and old-school besides. There's a phrase we used to recite, a mantra, if I may mix my religious references, and it is very simple: "No cheering in the press box."

A Christian must bear witness to the very ends of the Earth, the Book of Acts tells us. A reporter ought to keep his opinions (and his religious beliefs) to himself. Two noble creeds that are occasionally at odds. Brit Hume came down on one side the other day, and seemed comfortable doing it. I submit that his critics would have more credibility if they toned down their own press box cheering – and their booing as well.

Denver Has More Pot Dispensaries Than Starbucks

No kidding here.

What a badge of honor. Denver is now known by those who advocate and use pot as the cannabis heaven of America.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuane Laws, Denver has 390 pot dispensaries which have filed for tax status from city and county of Denver.

Statewide, Colorado has only 208 Starbuck coffee shops.

Compare that to Los Angeles, with four million residents, which has one dispensary for every 4,065 residents. Denver’s population is a mere 598,707, but has one dispensary for every 1,535 residents

How about a cannabis latte to go?