The Denver Post has managed the amazing feat of criticizing Rush Limbaugh for supposedly calling for riots at this summer's Democrat convention in Denver while completely downplaying the role of the very organization calling for recreating 68 and all the problems of Chicago '68 that implies in their article provocatively titled Limbaugh dreams of DNC riot:

Rush Limbaugh says he is not calling for a riot in Denver during the Democratic National Convention — he only "dreams" of it, to the tune of "White Christmas."

The conservative talker discussed the possibility of Mile High unrest in August on his national radio show for a second day in a row Thursday.

"Now, I am not inspiring or inciting riots. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming of riots in Denver," he said mimicking the holiday tune.

The mainstream media seems all too willing to let left-wing labor groups affiliated with the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC) get away with dressing up their blatant efforts to thwart the will of the people. Let every vote be counted and everyone’s opinion be heard, say the left, unless their favorite government-enforced labor union privileges are under attack. Then, all bets are off. *(It has come to our attention via fax, that BISC was issued a cease in desist letter on March 27, for their unauthorized use of Kessler International trademark for the use of "Fraudbusters." )

Take the case of the Denver Post’s April 9 report on a legal challenge brought by the Colorado AFL-CIO alleging ballot fraud and unreported financial dealings on the part of the organizers of a state right-to-work ballot initiative. Incredibly, Mike Cerbo, executive director for the Colorado AFL-CIO defends the suit to the Rocky Mountain News by asking "We want to know who we are dealing with… [a]nd where are they getting their money? ... That's why we have campaign finance laws." And the suit comes right on the heels of the right-to-work group’s recent announcement it has gathered nearly double the signatures necessary to get its petition on the November ballot. But what the Denver media are missing in their reporting of the controversy is that the AFL-CIO and labor ally United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCWU) are part of an ongoing state by state effort to thwart popular conservative and libertarian ballot initiatives by any means necessary.

Planned Parenthood is at it again -- lying about its construction plans. Catholic News Agency reports the Catholic bishops of Colorado (Denver, Pueblo, and Colorado Springs) are calling out the abortion industry giant's tactics:

The bishops write, “In early November, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) broke ground on a new headquarters and clinic in northeast Denver.” They “purchased this property secretly under the guise of Fuller 38 LLC.”

“Planned Parenthood told the Denver Post that PPRM planned to complete the entire project in secrecy to avoid protests and delays that other Planned Parenthood buildings have encountered around the country.”

Back in April, social service spending advocates in Oregon orchestrated the "Food Stamp Challenge," claiming that the average program recipient's benefits of $21 per week were woefully inadequate. Those who took the Food Stamp Challenge attempted to show just how unacceptable this average benefit was by buying $21 worth of food and trying to survive on it for seven days.

The entire premise of the Challenge was bogus from the very beginning, as syndicated columnist Mona Charen and yours truly demonstrated. This table, based on information readily available at the Department of Agriculture, shows what the real benefit levels are, before taking into account any resources (income, etc.) a person or family would be expected to have, based on their actual circumstances, to pay for food themselves (i.e., the average benefit is $21 per person week, AFTER taking those resources into account):

Never's a long time, but, "Never Enough" seems appropriate for the state Democrats and their enablers over at the Denver Post. This morning, the paper's Local & Western Politics Blog runs an uncritical story about the desire of state Democrats to raise taxes again under the title, "Seventeen tax proposals under discussion in Colorado." The two liberal groups quoted, the Bell Policy Center and the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, are not identified as such. Members of Bell campagned with Ref C supporters a couple of years ago. And the CFPI's parent institute, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, describes its mission as: "The Colorado Center on Law and Policy's mission is to promote justice and economic security for all Coloradans, particularly lower income people.

Apparently, the Undocumented-American community is having a tough time of it.  No, really.

A year after state lawmakers passed what they called the toughest illegal-immigration laws in the nation, there is no proof illegal immigrants have been caught taking advantage of taxpayers. Instead, there are abundant stories of citizens eligible for services who can't prove it because they lack the required ID.

Of one side, the side that wants to prevent illegal aliens from taking our tax dollars, "proof" is demanded.  From the other, anecdotal evidence comprising "abundant stories" is sufficient.  Of course, abundance is also in the eye of the reporter.

Those following the histrionics of "The Food Stamp Challenge" (previous NewsBusters posts here, here, and here; previous BizzyBlog posts here, here, and here) know that:

• Most of those engaging in it claim that the average Food Stamp recipient "only has $21 per person per week to buy food."
• The fact is that the program's monthly benefits (often referred to "Allotments"; scroll to the bottom for the monthly benefit table), when converted to weekly, range from $26.81 - $35.67 per person per week, depending on family size:

Give Food Stamp Challenge organizers in Michigan and New Haven, Connecticut some credit.

We'll probably never know whether they figured it out on their own, or perhaps read of other organizers' errors when they were pointed out by syndicated columnist Mona Charen and by yours truly (at NewsBusters here and here; at BizzyBlog here and here). But unlike their comrades in most other cities and states, they have at least framed their Challenge using a correct amount of $35 per person per week ($5 per person per day) based on this table, which was adapted from information available at the USDA's web site (near the bottom at link; the weekly amount is result of dividing by 4.345, the average number of weeks in a month):

Dick Kreck of the Denver Post seems to think there is a good "point" to a suggestion that Christians should be suspected bombers because Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh was supposedly a Christian. In a column about local radio talk show host "Gunny Bob" of KOA, Kreck comments that a radio station detractor has "got a point" when he satirically said that, since McVeigh and Nichols were Christians, all Christians should be placed under surveillance because of the actions of the two bombers. The detractor was responding to talker "Gunny Bob's" idea that all Muslims in the USA should be forced to wear GPS tracking bracelets so the government could keep track of them all.

Sure looks that way. The Denver Post this morning essentially accused Republican candidate for Colorado's 7th District Congressional seat of unethical - or at least hypocritical behavior - for accepting a weekend trip to Panama:

Republican congressional candidate Rick O'Donnell, who has blasted politicians who accept perks, took an expenses-paid trip to Panama with his girlfriend arranged by a TV station doing business with a state agency he headed.

O'Donnell took the trip three weeks before he resigned as the head of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education to campaign for Congress full time.

KCNC-Channel 4 gave him the trip, paid for by the CBS network, after the commission purchased television ads encouraging Latinos to attend college, O'Donnell said. Such perks - called incentive trips in the industry - are commonly used for heavy advertisers.

Our Favorite Imam is at it again, this time with the enabling help of the Denver Post. Asked about the Pope's comments and the worldwide Islamic justification thereof, Kazerooni replied:

Said [Denver Archdiocese Chancellor Fran] Maier: "Holy war is becoming a cult in parts of the Islamic world, and naming that for what it is needs to be done. The pope spoke reasonably and truthfully. The criticism so far is neither."

Kazerooni said Benedict's comments inflamed tensions as the Middle East simmers over Danish cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad and President Bush's comments about "Islamo-fascism." Kazerooni leads an interfaith program based at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral.

In theory, we're all pro-assimilation. And in theory, even the CEA agrees that Latino kids ought to be learning English. So naturally, the same education professionals who brought you "whole language" and the New Math oppose English immersion programs:

A proposal to immerse students who don't speak English into intense English-instruction classes for a year before they return to mainstream classrooms is not educationally sound and could be harmful to students, educators and critics say.

"This (proposed state constitutional) amendment is one-size-fits-all, regardless," said Sheila Shannon, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado.

At issue is the "Education of English Learners" ballot initiative proposed by a Weld County-based committee, English for Colorado. It calls for placing kids learning English into language classes for a year, without lessons in math, science, social studies or other topics.

Warren Buffett, in addition to his admirable philanthropic endeavors, has also been trying to make sure that the Federal Government continues to be the recipient of your largess from beyond the grave:

The world's second-richest man, Warren Buffett, has asked Sen. Ken Salazar to vote against repealing the estate tax.

Buffett sent a letter to Salazar, D-Colo., the senator's spokesman, Drew Nannis, said. The multibillionaire Monday called on Congress not to repeal the tax.

...

Repealing the entire estate tax now would cost the government an estimated $550 billion to $700 billion through 2010. (emphasis added - ed.)

The Post gives no citation for this number, nor does it consider the additional wealth that will be created by businesses that can, well, stay in business after their owners die. And once again, note the assumption that it's the Government's money. If the estate tax comes back, it will be on estates over $1 million. Most estates over that number aren't just cash sitting around under mattresses. They're in businesses that employ people.

The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News continue to ignore the good economic news in the ISM's Regional Reports on Business. The Institute for Supply Management's monthly national survey is one of the most respected and widely-followed economy surveys, covering as it does the expected purchasing and hiring trends, as well as the trailing indicators of price and supplier performance.

In addition to the national survey, the ISM also publishes monthly regional surveys, one of which is based in Denver. For the last two months, the manufacturing survey has been extremely strong. This month, the more violatile non-manufacturing index moved from slightly negative (49.4) to solidly positive at 53.2.

George Will is fond of saying that American politics is played between the 40-yard-lines. Well, according to the Denver Post, Republicans are somewhere in the shadows of their own goalposts:

As the deadlines to get on the ballot near, all but one of eight Republicans vying to replace Joel Hefley in Colorado's 5th Congressional District are running hard to the extreme right - touting views against abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.

Never mind that support for Roe in its current form is now the minority position. Never mind that gay marriage runs behind even Walter Mondale at the polls. And never mind that the stem cell debate is, at this point, about federal funding rather than the research itself. These positions are "extreme."

The Denver Post reports that among Joe Nacchio's other problems, he was the first Qwest CEO to refuse to help the NSA analyze phone records in the pursuit & deconstruction of terrorist networks. Even as,

"This is a case where (Qwest) showed some independence and courage," said Phil Weiser, a University of Colorado law professor who specializes in telecommunications issues.

...

In 2002 he chaired the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, a group of industry executives who advised President Bush. He also chaired the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, an advisory panel on emergency communications networks and homeland security to the Federal Communications Commission.

Ever since Independence Institute researcher and fellow RMA blogger Ben DeGrow discovered that Colorado is 26th in education funding, not 49th, the local media has been, well, less than enthusastic. The Denver Post hasn't reported his findings at all. The Rocky did run an oped piece by Mike Rosen, which included this amusing bit:

Forty-ninth just sounds more dramatic. Union activists in at least nine other states - Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Tennessee, Illinois and Utah - apparently agree. By one survey or another, all claimed to be 49th in 2004 or 2005.

The typical response is that [insert state name here] is thankful for Mississippi. But wait:

But Franks and others argued that the Legislature had to set priorities, and education should be the No. 1 priority. "Is it practical for us to be 49th in education funding?" Franks asked.

The 49th disease is even spreading across the 49th Parallel:

There is not as much money per pupil as before. This occurs at a time when Ontario's funding for education stands 49th in North America.

Gee, with 50 states and 11 provinces, not counting Mexico, you'd at least think they'd have been imaginative enough to make it 60 out of 61. Welcome to the Education Establishment, and the Media Echo Chamber. Where all the unions are strong, the statistics are good-looking, and all the funding is below-average.

The Denver Post editorial staff who attacked the NSA international intercept program yesterday probably think of themselves as bold crusaders for domestic civil rights. Unfortunately for them, they comes across as willfully ill-informed. Again.

President Bush launched a campaign-style offensive this week to defend his secret executive order allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without court warrants, on phone calls and Internet traffic in the United States.

His advisers hope the publicity blitz will impress the public in advance of Bush's State of the Union address next Tuesday and upcoming congressional hearings on whether the president has the authority to order such surveillance.

An Italian film crew claims that the US military indiscriminantly blanketed civilians in Fallujah with the white phosphorus during last year's assault on the city. The Denver Post picks up the Colorado angle on the white phosphorus non-story, and while it impeaches the credibility of the film's star witness, it buries the lead, and leaves most of the background fabrications intact.

Here's the big news. The "witness," Jeff Englehart, can only claim to know that 1) white phosphorus was used in the attack, and 2) someone inside the city got caught in it:

Englehart said Thursday that some of his statements were taken out of context. He maintained that he believes white phosphorus killed civilians, though he never saw anyone burned by it while in Fallujah.

Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused quite a stir by violating every international agreement in existence when calling - at a government-sponsored conference - to "wipe Israel off the face of the map." (The Indispensible MEMRI has the full text of the President-Kidnapper's remarks here.)

The MSM continues peddle several myths about Iran. Essentially, they argue that Iran isn't all that dangerous because it doesn't mean what it says, couldn't do what it says even if it meant it, and anyway, its problem is with Israel, not with Jews in general.

Turns out that apparently nobody in the MSM has bothered to check out the website for the conference, despite the URL's prominent place on a banner behind Ahmadinejad while he was speaking.

For the Denver Post, First Amendment protections apparently are "loopholes" to be examined. In an article about free speech campaign finance restrictions, the Post focuses on conservative groups' efforts, while biasing the article in favor of such restrictions in general. (This isn't the first site to notice the - oddity - of the state Democrats becoming concerned about the new campaign finance laws just as the Republicans begin to figure them out. Apparently the game is to keep the rules moving just fast enough to stay ahead of your opponents in understanding them, while retaining the moral high ground of "reform.") The Post has not always been so solicitous of public opinion, especially when it comes to illegal immigration and gay marriage.

Even if government lawyers or state legislators come up with ways to better regulate the flow of money...

No, no assumptions here. In an article about "loopholes," "better regulate" means closing those "loopholes," or further restricting speech.

...it won't be in time to impact the 2006 elections. The contests include an open governor's race and an open seat in the 7th Congressional District, 65 state House races and 17 Senate seats. Republicans could regain a majority in the Senate by taking back just one seat.

How, exactly, is this last more relevant than the Democrats gaining a majority of the state's Congressional delegation through tha open 7th District seat? Or the effect of any number of other electoral outcomes? Apparently, the main issue is the tenuous nature of Democratic control of the State Senate.

In 2002, Colorado voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 27, which overhauled campaign- finance disclosure rules in an effort to get big money out of politics. The measure limited campaign contributions, encouraged candidates to curb their spending and banned corporate and union contributions to candidates and parties. The unintended effect, say some political observers, has been to encourage interest groups to exploit gray areas in the law and invoke broad constitutional protections such as free speech to continue the activities voters sought to regulate.

Imagine that! People using First Amendment guarantees to safeguard their free political speech.

For instance, the Independence Institute has been accused of running political ads couched as educational material. Critics say the Golden-based think tank should disclose donors who have supported its radio ads about Referendums C and D. The institute says it is merely educating the public.

Apparently, they missed this proclamation by a 501(c)3 in favor of Referenda C and D. This decision has been defended on the grounds that it's a referendum, not a candidate being supported, a distinction that apparently escaped the notice of the Post when writing about the Institute. In fact, the main abuse of system was by Democrats in the 2004 State legislative campaigns:

Colorado Democrats used the loophole last year, a maneuver largely credited with giving Democrats control of both legislative chambers.

That's the extent of the article's mention of 2004. The fact that not all of these activities were exactly, uh, legal seems to have evaded Mesdames Caldwell and Crummy. In fact, the article devotes 78 words to Democratic and union groups, and 328 words to offenses - real or imagined - by conservative or Republican groups.

Cross-Posted at View From a Height.

Loopholes grow in election law

Jim Hughes of the Denver Post covers the local activists on both sides of the Robert nomination this morning. Sort of.

Of 18 paragraphs, three discuss the pro-Roberts Judicial Confirmation Network, four equate the two sides, and seven discuss NARAL and other left-wing opponents of a sane judiciary. (Four paragraphs are neutral, not mentioning the activists directly.)

While the Post is silent on the conservatives' desiderata, the coverage of the lefties includes the following:

NARAL "action teams" will be watching the hearings from Colorado, ready to cry foul if they don't like what they see, executive director Meg Froelich said.

"Let's not have a coronation with Roberts," she said. "Let's have a real, genuine process."