I hope you will excuse me for not tending to this garden of political manure.
"In Colorado, some see a proxy for the nation" by Noah Bierman | Globe Staff November 02, 2014
LAKEWOOD, Colo. — President Obama once helped usher in a new era here, turning this purple state into a place Democrats eyed as a stronghold. They won women in droves. Hispanics supported them overwhelmingly, and they easily captured a Senate seat once held by a Republican.
But now, six years after Obama accepted the Democratic nomination in front of a crowd of 80,000 in Denver and then decisively won the state’s nine electoral votes, Democrats are worried that their fortunes have dramatically turned.
Senator Mark Udall, who swept into office with Obama, is facing a tough reelection bid against Representative Cory Gardner, a Republican, in a race that could determine which party controls the US Senate.
The state’s growing Hispanic population and influx of young people have also led both parties to view the state as a political laboratory that could foreshadow the shape of American politics for years to come.
The same tensions that have made the state one of the top battlegrounds in this year’s elections exist in some form throughout the country: the battle over independent female voters, Democrats’ emphasis on reproductive rights, and Republicans’ determination to capitalize on an unpopular president and offer up more broadly appealing candidates for their own party.
“The Democratic playbook will be totally discredited if Cory Gardner wins this election, and that does have repercussions beyond Colorado and beyond 2014,” said Dick Wadhams, a Republican political consultant based here. If Democrats win, despite a strong Republican candidate and a national environment that favors the GOP, it raises the question of whether Colorado has gone blue.
A sign of how quickly things have changed since Obama roared to victory in the state came on Tuesday, when Bill Clinton appeared at a rally with Udall at a suburban hotel ballroom.
The former president used the climax of his speech to highlight Obama’s lame-duck status.
“The Republicans are voting like crazy, early, because they want to pop the president one more time,” he said. “But that’ll be over in two years. Whether you support or oppose the president, he has to leave.”
My first reaction is Thank God, but then I felt that way about the last guy and things turned out worse.
Clinton’s presence here came a week after his wife and presumptive 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, made her second appearance in the state.
Like I said, from bad to worse.
On Wednesday, a potential Republican presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, appeared with Gardner, underscoring the perception among the political class that this race — and this state — is serving as a proxy battlefield for the next campaign for the White House.
At this point, it's beyond worse.
At least either one will help keep all the secrets of the last 50 years buried.
Gardner, after months of trailing narrowly in the polls to Udall, has opened a small but consistent lead. Strikingly, he appears to have narrowed the gap among female voters while continuing to build a lead among men, blunting the advantage Democrats have used here and throughout the country to win the presidency and maintain control of the Senate since 2007.
That accounts for the fear tactics.
Democrats say the race is tight and that their voter outreach program, helped by the state’s growing Hispanic population, will put them over the top.
That's how they intend to sell the narrative of a steal.
**********
Even as voters are polarized, they are united in their disgust with the nasty tenor of this year’s campaigns, which have been fueled by record spending by outside groups.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” said Diane Canepa, a 56-year-old property renovator who was working on her tablet, beneath the colossal chandeliers at Denver’s historic train depot last week. “I dislike both of them now.”
And clear across the country, I fell myself feeling the same way about tomorrow's elections, from top to bottom.
Canepa, an unaffiliated voter, said she had already cast her vote for Udall under the state’s new mail-in ballot system. A Republican, Karen Hamilton-Smith, said her vote for Gardner was directed just as much against Udall....
Mail-in ballots, huh? Yikes!
Nearly $90 million has been spent so far by the two campaigns and outside groups here, second only to the $103 million race in North Carolina, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which estimated last week that a total of $3.7 billion would be spent nationwide, more than ever for a nonpresidential year.
All that money poured into politics with wealth inequality soaring with the destruction of the middle class. That's what the wealthy do with all their money: buy power.
Commercial breaks during the evening news here each feature three or four dueling attack ads, mostly painting Gardner as opposed to issues of concern to women and Udall as antienergy, weak on terrorism, or a do-nothing.
Colorado is one of about 10 states, including New Hampshire, with tossup Senate races. Republicans need six additional seats to win a majority, and most analysts give the GOP an advantage.
I watched the McLaughlin group over the weekend and they said it would be a gain of +7, and they follow it a lot more closely than do I.
The party leads in races for three Democratic-held seats — South Dakota, West Virginia, and Montana — according to polls. And seven of the 10 tossup states are currently held by Democrats, who face the burden of differentiating themselves from a president with an approval rating of just over 40 percent. (Republicans are expected to easily hold on to their majority in the US House.)
Actually, the House is expected to increase, and this vote -- like the one in 2006 against Bush -- is a repudiation of another failed presidency.
Gardner, a 40-year-old with an enthusiastic grin, is seen as a national model for a party that has undermined its chances in recent elections with candidates who have appeared dour or made ill-advised comments.
Gardner, a fairly consistent conservative in the House who emphasizes fiscal discipline, has used inclusive language to talk about immigration and an expanded energy policy that would increase domestic production and promote efficiency.
“Gardner is quite possibly the best Senate candidate in the country, and he’s a formidable foe,” said Kristin Lynch, Udall’s press secretary, who quickly added that Gardner’s strength is his ability to “tell outrageous lies” that mask his ranking in a 2012 National Journal survey as the 10th most conservative member of the House.
I bet he doesn't match the AmeriKan media.
Republicans nationally have focused on finding better candidates, putting more money behind mainstream politicians during primaries to avoid Tea Party insurgents who have often self-destructed in general elections.
The choice of terminology tells you all you need to know. The reporter has internalized the war values, and the slander lets you know there are certain people the agenda-pu$hing paper doesn't like. that's why you should vote for them.
That’s made Gardner — and most other Republicans running for the US Senate this year — much harder targets. There have been no repeats of Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican Senate candidate in 2012 who claimed that women were unlikely to become pregnant from “legitimate rape.”
Democrats have nonetheless tried to make reproductive rights a focus, pointing to Gardner’s support for a federal measure that would define life at conception and to his prior support for a similar state measure.
(Blog editor just snorts)
But even some supporters have grown weary of that attack line, which earned Udall the nickname “Senator Uterus” from detractors.
“They’ve blown that way out of proportion,” said Alice Godec, a retiree and unaffiliated voter from Golden, as she stopped by a suburban Target, surrounded by chain stores and dry mountain ranges, to buy a pumpkin last week. She said she would vote for Udall, though she was hardly cheerful about it.
It's because they can't really talk about the two important issues of economic $y$tem and empire. Thus we get divisive diversion at every political turn.
“He just doesn’t do a lot,” she said.
Udall, a 64-year-old avid mountain climber who served a decade in the House before winning his Senate seat, has been an outspoken critic of government surveillance and is an environmental advocate.
I think his brother met with an "accident," and the opposition of surveillance is enough to lose you the seat.
His father was Morris “Mo” Udall, a liberal standard-bearer who represented Arizona in the House for 30 years and once ran for president. His cousin Tom Udall is a New Mexico senator.
I remember Mo.
Strategists on both sides say Colorado’s turn to the left has been exaggerated, even if Democrats hold a decadelong winning streak in Senate and governor’s races.
Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper is also in danger of losing his seat this year, despite an economic recovery that is outpacing the nation.
Then there is likely no recovery (except for the 1%).
Hickenlooper and other Democrats have been hurt, in part, by backlash over gun control measures that prompted a recall of two Democratic state senators last year.
And immigration.
The presence of Bush — who previously recorded a Spanish-language television ad for Gardner — underscored the notion expressed by both parties that the state will be up for grabs in 2016.
That is so far away right now.
At a rally held amid sawdust and empty stables on the county fair grounds in Castle Rock, Bush delivered an optimistic speech. Gardner took the stage amid fist pumps and loud music.
“Colorado has the opportunity to be the tip of the spear, the vanguard of a movement,” Gardner said.
Democrats are hoping the state’s growing Hispanic population, which helped Obama in 2008 and 2012, will instead give them the edge, both this year and in future elections.
That's what is behind the opening of the borders and bussing of illegals all over the country. Future voters.
Hispanics make up a fifth of the state’s population and about 14 percent of eligible voters. By 2040, they are expected to make up a third of the state’s population. Obama won an estimated 75 percent of Colorado’s Latino vote.
“That will be the determining factor,” said Federico Peña, a former mayor of Denver, a two-time Cabinet secretary under Clinton, and a Democrat. “Cory Gardner will not get more than 20 percent of the Latino vote. For him to win, he needs 35 percent.”
Even as he boasts, Pena calls the race a tossup.
“They’ve been very good at what they’re doing,” Peña said of the Republicans.
--more--"
Did you see the poll numbers in there?
"GOP seems to have edge, even amid uncertainties" by Jonathan Martin | New York Times November 02, 2014
WASHINGTON — Republicans entered the final weekend before the midterm elections clearly holding the better hand to control the Senate and poised to add to their House majority. But a decidedly sour electorate and a sizable number of undecided voters have added a measure of suspense.
Only if the elections are stolen from them, and we deserve to be sour!
The final drama surrounded the Senate, which has been a Democratic bulwark for President Obama since his party lost its House majority in 2010. Republicans have to gain six seats to take the majority in the Senate, and officials in both parties believe there is a path for them to win at least that many.
Yet the races for a number of seats remained close last week, polls showed, prompting Republicans to pour additional money into get-out-the-vote efforts in Alaska, Georgia and Iowa. Democrats were doing the same in Colorado, where they were concerned because groups that tend to favor Republicans voted early in large numbers, and in Iowa.
While an air of mystery remained over no fewer than nine Senate races, the only question surrounding the House was how many seats Republicans would add.
See what I mean when I say it's all a $how? Mystery, drama, suspense. Nothing of substance, but....
If they gain a dozen seats, it would give them an advantage not seen since 1948, and potentially consign the Democrats to minority status until congressional redistricting in the 2020s.
In a sign of a worsening climate, Democratic officials shifted money to incumbents in once-safe districts around Santa Barbara, Calif., and Las Vegas.
If so they should get hammered tomorrow night. This is what happens when the working people's peace party is simply another corporate faction of the war party.
And over the weekend, they put more money toward television ads in districts held by Democrats in Iowa and Minnesota, including that of longtime Representative Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota. Though there are fewer competitive House seats than in past elections because of gerrymandering, party strategists were still airing ads in 40 districts.
“It’s a grim environment,” said US Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Israel was spending the weekend pleading with members of his caucus to contribute to their imperiled colleagues to minimize losses.
Somehow, Israel and AmeriKan politics seem to go together.
Just two years after he won a second term by a commanding margin, Obama has kept his distance from the most pivotal congressional races. On Saturday, he was to address a heavily African-American crowd in Detroit to bolster the state’s Democratic nominee for governor.
This as the poor blacks of Detroit just had their water shut off again!!
Did Obummer turn it back on, or did he turn it all to wine?
But Republicans conceded that voters were hardly embracing them.
“It’s not as though people have all a sudden fallen in love with Republicans,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the chamber’s number two Republican. “It’s just a loss of confidence in the administration. It’s national security, personal security, and job security. People are on edge. And that’s not good if you’re the party in power.”
You may hate it, but he's right. It's what I have been saying for weeks. Just being there helps Republicans.
Other Republicans were similarly restrained, given the large number of undecided voters in key Senate races, growing questions about the reliability of polling, and respect for Democrats’ ability to turn out voters.
What? The RIGGING has ALREADY BEEN DONE, huh?
Democrats said they hoped the uncertainty would resolve in their favor.
That delusional because it doesn't. I know there is the old saying that the devil-you-know, and it has proven true time and again in AmeriKan politics (exhibit A: Obama), but uncertainty in politics goes to challengers.
--more--"
Looks like Colorado has concerns other than politics:
"Girls’ jihadi quest stirs Muslim communities’ fear" by Sadie Gurman | Associated Press October 30, 2014
AURORA, Colo. — The strange journey of three suburban Denver girls who authorities say tried to join Islamic State militants in Syria has many in their close-knit east African community worried about whether their own children will be the next to be lured to terrorism.
OMG!
The girls’ voyage has mystified many in the United States, and has been even more troubling among Aurora’s Somali and Sudanese immigrants, thousands of whom fled civil war and forged new lives in the Denver suburbs, where refugees easily find jobs driving cabs or working in the meat industry.
Huh. War refugees taking jobs away from American citizens, just like immigrants. Sure looks like a New World Order to me.
Related: Ban visits Somalia, hails security gains
Still fighting famine though.
Al-CIA-Bob Run Out of Somalia
Can't remember the last time I saw anything about Sudan.
But while the girls’ parents were working to give them a better life, being a Muslim teenager is not easy in an American high school, said Ahmed Odowaay, a community advocate who works with youth. It is easy to feel like an outsider, even as a US citizen.
It's not just school; it's the whole Zionist-controlled and promoted culture and pre$$.
Even his 10-year-old daughter gets taunts of terrorist when she wears her hijab in school, he said.
‘‘This community is outcast. They feel like they don’t belong here. They’re frustrated,’’ Odowaay said from his seat at Barwaaqo, a restaurant hidden in one of Aurora’s low-slung strip malls, where other men dined on goat and spaghetti, a favorite east African dish. ‘‘I’m worried their frustrations will lead them in the wrong direction.’’
Like the Jews in 1930s-40s Germany, right?
Young people in communities like this across the country are vulnerable to extremists in Syria and elsewhere who reach out to them online, promising the glory of battle, the honor becoming a wife, or just acceptance. Odowaay said it is easy for young Muslims to encounter recruiters while trolling Facebook. He said it happened to him.
Ah, yes, the terrorists among us.
Family and friends saw the three — two Somali sisters age 17 and 15 and their 16-year-old Sudanese friend — as typical Muslim teenagers who like the mall and movies, not fundamentalists.
Oh, God, this rank propaganda is starting to stink.
It was not until they missed class that the 16-year-old’s father realized they had been talking online to militants, who convinced them to steal cash from their parents, buy plane tickets, and head to Syria with their US passports. Authorities said one of the girls did most of the planning and encouraged the others to follow.
Alarm spread quickly as friends and relatives realized the girls were gone, and saw signs of their plans on their Twitter accounts.
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
This is ALL CRAP!
‘‘She asked her friends to pray for her . . . and at that time, I just knew that something really bad was going to happen,’’ said the father of a 16-year-old, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is concerned for the girls’ safety.
He called the FBI and his representative for help, and agents stopped them at the airport in Frankfurt.
The girls probably will not be charged with a crime and are safe now, but the father said he is troubled by lingering questions about their intentions, who recruited them online, and how they were so easily able to board a plane and head overseas. His daughter seemed to not have a clear idea of what she would be doing if she had made it there.
Do I even need to type it?
This is STAGED and SCRIPTED FICTION, folks! It is likely it NEVER HAPPENED and is being served for public consumption.
I mean, the story is RIDICULOUS and they think we are buying it? Or is it just get that plate of steaming swirl out there no matter what?
‘‘They just want to do something, and they do it,’’ he said.
At the girls’ high school, the possibility that students might be lured to terror was not something they had considered, said Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for the Cherry Creek School District. That has changed, and FBI officials spent the past week doing outreach, looking for friends who could have had similar intentions. Teachers encouraged students to come forward with concerns or if they see something suspicious.
Oh, it was all excuse for a tyrannical exercise that will acclimate the kids even more.
‘‘This was not a problem we were aware of,’’ said Halimo Hashi, who owns an African fashion boutique. ‘‘If we knew, maybe we could have spoken to the right people.’’
Hafedh Ferjani of the Colorado Muslim Council said he is arranging meetings with Denver FBI officials and youth in the community, as they held several years ago after concerns arose that young men were returning to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabab.
‘‘If we learn what happened from the girls, we can avoid someone else doing that,’’ he said.
As the community comes to grips with the dangers, things have changed for the girls’ families, too. The sisters’ father does not grasp the severity of the situation, said Rashid Sadiq, who leads the Somali Organization of Colorado and met the girls’ father more than a decade ago.
As the 16-year-old’s father tries to repair his family, he has advice for those worried their children might be led astray.
‘‘I just ask any parent to look for what their kids are doing online,’’ said the father.
Now let the drone missiles and airstrikes fly!
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Btw, folks, Aurora was where the false flag Batman theater shooting was, and Colorado is known as a hotbed for government mind control all the way back to Columbine (do your research, readers).
NEXT DAY UPDATE: 2 siblings also arrested in Islamic State case
