TWISTED LOGIC: Udall Wants to Lessen Drones in Combat, but Ramp Up in CO

Published on May 16, 2013 by

In what is shaping up to be another unprecedented government power grab under President Obama, Democratic Senator Mark Udall has signed on to a letter volunteering Colorado as one of six Federal Aviation Administration testing sites for drones.  As trust in government has been trending near multi-year lows recently, the introduction of these controversial surveillance vehicles is wholly inappropriate for our state at this time.

What is perhaps even more troubling about Udall’s position is that he has been an advocate for actually using fewer of these military platforms in combat, lest we offend the sensibilities of the Afghan people.  From a 2009 Pueblo Chieftain article:

“A major source of anti-American emotion in the region has been rooted in missile strikes by unmanned U.S. drone aircraft, strikes that often kill civilians as well as insurgents.

‘When we get more troops on the ground here, that will give us more reach, so our need for those drones will lessen,’ Udall said.”

The fact that Udall wanted to scale back the use of these highly effective military platforms in Afghanistan is a topic for another day, and his flawed judgement may be somewhat explained by the fact that he has never served a day of his life in uniform.

But for him to express this strange concern for the opinions of Afghan civilians, and then advocate for our state to be an FAA testing ground for the non-military development of these surveillance vehicles on the homeland, is a troubling act of mental gymnastics.

It simply would be nice if our U.S. Senator had the same concern for the sensibilities of his fellow countrymen as he does for those in Afghanistan.

 

QUESTION: Will “Privacy Watchdog” Mark Udall Demand Heads Roll For The IRS Attack On Conservatives?

Published on May 14, 2013 by

The Denver Post‘s liberal blogger Allison Sherry called Senator Mark Udall a “privacy watchdog” in a glowing press release-turned-news story last week. 

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Udall has worked to carve out a reputation on Capitol Hill as the Senate watchdog to the Obama administration on intelligence gathering and privacy issues.

He successfully fought to prohibit the IRS from reading Americans’ e-mails without a warrant. He pushed last year to amend federal law to better protect Americans from having their communications collected. He opposed the reauthorization of the 2011 Patriot Act because it gave the federal government extensive access to private records and the power to wiretap individuals. 

With a Nixonian-scale privacy scandal exploding in the White House’s face, we had to ask (and hope Sherry will too)…will Udall call for heads to roll over the outrageous abuse of power by the IRS?

Or did Udall, like Bennet, push the IRS to engage in the fundamental political privacy violations that a “privacy watchdog” should decry? 

Just asking.

 

SHERRY STILL SHILLS: Udall Laughably Called “Privacy Watchdog”

Published on May 13, 2013 by

The Denver Post‘s Allison Sherry has once again shown her true liberal stripes in her most recent missive about Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Udall.  In the headline, Sherry labels Udall a “privacy watchdog”, and goes on to say the following:

“Sen. Mark Udall has worked to carve out a reputation on Capitol Hill as the Senate watchdog to the Obama administration on intelligence gathering and privacy issues.”

Privacy watchdog?  His record suggests otherwise.  In 2011, as we reported, Udall pulled a very public 180 on privacy issues.  In March 2011, he published a diatribe on Huffington Post talking about how he couldn’t support three tenets of the Patriot Act: roving wiretaps, business record access (aka the “215″ orders)  and so-called “lone wolf” wiretapping.  Sure, sounds good, except that he voted for these three pieces in H.R. 514 just one month before.  The funniest part of the whole thing?  H.R. 514 only dealt with these three issues.

Another angle worth noting is that Udall has actually done very little during his tenure in the U.S. Senate.  As Sherry talks about his “accomplishments” in this arena, she notes he has “fought” for this piece of legislation or “pushed” for that one.  What has Udall actually introduced and gotten passed in the U.S. Senate?

On a more serious note, the entire article is about his support of unmanned aerial drones in the United States.  Unmanned drones in the United States used to fight crime by taking photographs of its citizens is just, well, creepy to a lot of people.  But, not to Udall, who defended his position by saying the following: “We need to integrate unmanned aerial systems into the American psyche in a way that isn’t threatening or scary.”

Unfortunately for Udall, drones are just inherently threatening and scary, and suggesting that they be incorporated into the American psyche likely only will underscore Americans’ wariness of the issue.

 

 

OBAMA’S WAR ON COLORADO WATER RIGHTS: Quick, Somebody Ask Udall, Bennet, and Hickenlooper To Quit Hiding

Published on April 26, 2013 by

There is nothing more mom and apple pie in Colorado than skiing and water. Everyone loves skiing right? Every politicians respects Colorado water law, right?

Wrong.

The Colorado Observer‘s DC correspondent, Mark Stricherz reports:

WASHINGTON — A Colorado House Republican accused the federal government of using a little-known directive to wrest water rights away from Western states and private-property owners.

Rep. Scott Tipton of Cortez said U.S. Interior Department officials have seized on a 2012 order called the National Blueways Initiative to usurp private water rights. “I’m concerned about federal overreach of the Blueways program,” Tipton said at a hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources Thursday.

His comment came during an exchange with a municipal water district official from a Western state who testified before the Water subcommittee. “Could a New Jersey resident who has used a raft on a Colorado river be considered a stakeholder under the law? It’s a little vague,” Tipton said.

“As I read it, yes,” said Russell Boardman, supervisor of the Shoshone Conservation District in Frannie, Wyoming. 

…Rep. Grace Napolitano, an influential California Democrat on the Natural Resources panel, said she did not know the specifics of the Blueways program and expressed sympathy for critics, but trusts Salazar’s intentions for the initiative. “He’s a farmer, so he knows a lot about agriculture. He protects the land,” she said in an interview after the hearing.

…Tipton said he spoke with Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, about the Blueways order, but did not get a commitment from them to support legislation on the issue. A Udall spokesman did not return comment.

In 2008, remember that Senator Barry Obama used Western water issues as a parochial issue to wedge his opponent John McCain in Colorado.

DENVER – The water compact that Colorado and other upper basin states have with California and Arizona should be renegotiated, U.S. Sen. John McCain said Thursday.

…”Senator McCain’s position on opening up the Colorado River Compact is absolutely wrong and would only happen over my dead body,” [Senator Ken] Salazar said. “It’s an anathema to the fundamental principles of Colorado’s water rights and our compacts.”

In an interesting twist, the same Ken Salazar who was trotted out to attack McCain is the one who instituted the program as Obama’s Interior Secretary which threatens Western water rights.

When a candidate against Mark Udall emerges…yes ColoradoPols, there will be an opponent…water may well be part of the case against Mark Udall. 

While Obama declared a war on the state’s water rights and ski areas, Udall did nothing.

 

HICK HUNG OUT TO DRY: U.S. Senate Democrats Shoot Down Gun Control Package

Published on April 17, 2013 by

Gun rights supporters flooded Senator Angela Giron’s town hall. Today, Bennet & Udall voted to avoid a similar fate.

The Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate shot down two gun control bills today, offering a sharp reminder to Governor Hickenlooper and Colorado’s State Senate Democrats of how far out on a limb they went on gun control.

The assault-weapons ban went down 60-40, with even Senators Bennet and Udall voting against it.

Reports The Colorado Observer‘s Mark Stricherz:

WASHINGTON — Four months after hinting they would support a ban on semi-automatic weapons, Colorado’s two Democratic senators voted no on a legislative proposal designed to do just that.

“(I)t went too far because it would also have banned certain hunting rifles and even some shotguns,” Sen. Mark Udall said in a press release. “If this bill had been more carefully crafted to only ban weapons designed for the battlefields and keep them out of the hands of the criminals and the mentally ill, I would have supported it.”

(Read more here)

After watching the political thrashing Democrats took at the Colorado Capitol for their own poorly crafted legislation, most especially on the magazine ban, Colorado’s U.S. Senators appear to have heard the public, backing themselves away from the issue.

The so-called “Toomey-Manchin” registration/background check bill also failed, garnering significant bipartisan opposition.

Can Colorado political observers remember any issue at the Legislature that generated as much ground-level heat as the gun issue has this session?

If a state-level fight got that hot, can you really blame national Democrats for staying out of the kitchen?

 

BOTH WAYS BENNET: Junior Senator Tries To Have His Enviro Love & Energy Jobs Too

Published on March 28, 2013 by

Enviro protesters outside Bennet’s office (tweeted by Clean Water Action)

Junior U.S. Senator Michael Bennet is now backtracking off his pro-Keystone Pipeline vote cast last week that embarrassed his more senior Democratic Colorado counterpart in the Senate, Mark Udall.

After casting a vote that virtually everyone saw as an endorsement of the job-creating energy venture, which is opposed by most environmental organizations, Bennet is now trying to have it both ways — voting for jobs and not pissing off his environmental allies. 

Reports The Hill:

A trio of Senate Democrats are insisting that their vote for a Keystone XL pipeline amendment last week was not an endorsement of the project. 

Backers of the oil sands pipeline scored a major win Friday when 17 Democrats joined Republicans in a 62-37 vote in favor of Sen. John Hoeven’s (R-N.D.) amendment.

The amendment’s sponsors said it was a strong show of support for Keystone. But at least three senators who cast surprise “yes” votes — and angered environmentalists — have a different view of the amendment.

…Another Democratic backer of the amendment, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), joined Carper and Coons in declining to cast the vote as an outright endorsement of Keystone. 

“Senator Bennet believes the Keystone pipeline should go through the proper process and be judged on its merits,” said Bennet spokesman Adam Bozzi.

But sponsors and many backers of the amendment made very clear that they saw the amendment as an outright referendum on whether Keystone should be approved by the Obama administration.

Environmentalists certainly saw it that way, and are vowing to take action against the three senators.

“Our supporters in Delaware, Florida, Colorado and elsewhere will be bird-dogging their Senators or visiting their offices to make their disappointment known and encouraging them to change their position. These Senators have clearly underestimated how strongly their constituents feel about this issue,” said Jamie Henn of the climate advocacy group 350.org earlier this week. 

Activists protested outside Bennet’s Denver office on Tuesday.

Bennet’s vote was highly embarrassing to Udall, as it drove Udall’s image leftwards, with Bennet on the side of jobs and bipartisanship and Udall left out in the cold with the hardcore environmentalists.

Well, it turns out environmentalists didn’t much appreciate the cold shoulder and “bird-dog” Senator Bennet they did, protesting his office and attacking him on social media:

Which is it, Senator Bennet? Mark Udall and the enviros, or the 17 Democrats who joined Republicans in voting in favor of the Keystone Pipeline and the 20,000 jobs associated with it?

Votes have consequences, and even Allison Sherry picked up on this one.

 

JUST THE BEGINNING: Emboldened Bloomberg Fronts $12M Ad Buy

Published on March 26, 2013 by

If gun enthusiasts thought Colorado was the end of the gun grab by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, they were wrong.  The nanny statist has targeted several Democrat and Republican Senators in an effort to sway their stance on upcoming federal gun legislation, including universal background checks.

Bloomberg’s ads, which were quickly ridiculed for not abiding by gun safety rules, began yesterday and are targeting the following Democrats: Sens. Mark Pryor (AR), Joe Donnelly (IN), Mary Landrieu (LA), Kay Hagan (NC) and Heidi Heitkamp (ND).  The Republican Senators he’s targeting include: Sens. Jeff Flake (AZ), Saxby Chambliss (GA), Johnny Isakson (GA), Dan Coats (IN), Chuck Grassley (IA), Susan Collins (ME), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Dean Heller (NV), Rob Portman (OH) and Pat Toomey (PA).

Democratic Sen. Pryor rebuked Bloomberg’s interference in his legislating, according to Talking Points Memo:

“In the afternoon, Pryor responded with a sharp retort to Bloomberg. ‘I don’t take gun advice from the Mayor of New York City,’ he said. ‘I listen to Arkansans.’”

While none of the targeted Senators are from Colorado (likely because Democratic Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet already have come out in favor of the now-dead assault weapons ban), a quick scan of the organization’s web site uncovered that 13 local mayors are part of the organization.  Here is the list from the organization’s web site:

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BENNET VS UDALL, ROUND 2: Vote On Keystone Pipeline Pushes Udall Image Further Left

Published on March 25, 2013 by

Based on Senator Michael Bennet’s behavior these last few months you could be forgiven for thinking it was he who is up for re-election in 2014, and not his Democratic colleague Mark Udall.

Generally ahead of a re-election campaign politicians make a concerted effort to look more centrist. While Udall has tried that with one-trick pony shows like his bipartisan seating plan for the State of the Union, Bennet’s votes on key issues are overshadowing Udall’s shallow efforts, pushing Udall further to the left just when he needs to tack right.

The latest split between the Colorado delegation in the U.S. Senate came last Friday when Senator Bennet voted in favor of the Keystone pipeline, while Senator Udall sided with his wife’s environmentalist organization — which pays more into the Udall family bank account than his Senate gig — and opposed the pipeline.

Reports The Denver Post‘s Allison Sherry:

WASHINGTON — The normally cohesive Democratic team of Colorado senators split votes late Friday in a non-binding measure endorsing construction of the Keystone pipeline. 

Sen. Michael Bennet supported the amendment and Sen. Mark Udall voted against it. The U.S. Senate approved the measure 62-37, all 45 Republicans and 17 Democrats voted yes.

A recent state Department report, which had no major objections to the project, stated that the proposed pipeline would cross three states and run 875 miles. This is a change from the original plan, which would have traipsed 1,384 miles through five states.

…This is the second time this year that Bennet, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has struck out against the majority of his party.

In the wee hours of New Year’s Day, Bennet was among only eight senators who voted against the deal to avert the fiscal cliff.

We wonder how pissed Udall’s staff was at Bennet for yet another vote that embarrasses Udall. After all, isn’t Bennet, as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) supposed to be focused on helping incumbents up for re-election like Udall?

While no high profile challenger has yet emerged to take on Udall, any vote that exposes Udall for the left wing, environmentalist he is can’t be seen as helpful.

Udall’s vote also begs the question — who does Udall represent? The people of Colorado, who support the pipeline and the thousands of jobs it would create, or special interests like the organization run by his wife and Al Gore — the Climate Reality Project (CRaP)?

 

EARLY ADOPTERS BEWARE: Proposed Assault Weapons Ban Dies Unceremonious Death in US Senate

Published on March 20, 2013 by

As Colorado Democrats charge ahead with enacting some of the most ridiculous stringent gun control policies in the county, Democrats in the U.S. Senate are reigning in their far left legislators.  Today, Democrat Governor John Hickenlooper is set to sign the gun control bills that (barely) passed through the Democrat-controlled Colorado House and Senate, but just yesterday U.S. Senate Democrats axed an assault weapons ban introduced by California Senator Dianne Feinstein.  Her version of the ban would have outlawed 157 different types of guns or magazines.  Politico reported on the decision that may have been made for political reasons.  According to Politico:

“Reid’s decision highlights the tightrope walked by the majority leader in governing the gun control issue. Trapped between the White House and rank-and-file Democrats who support broad gun control legislation following the shootings last December in Newtown, Conn., Reid must also be mindful of red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2014 who favor gun rights.”

It would appear that the Senators perhaps have more sense than their local counterparts.  Or, perhaps, it’s simply the curse of Democrat Rep. Ed Perlmutter, whose support is destined to sink any bill.  From his letter of support for the assault weapons ban:

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UDALL ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Going with the Flow

Published on March 14, 2013 by

It’s typical for someone in a new job to take a few months to acclimate to new expectations and operations.  In the case of Colorado’s Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Udall, it’s taken at least five years, with some questioning whether he’s accomplished anything in Washington, D.C. at all.  His recent fundraising letter certainly doesn’t offer an impressive list of accomplishments.  From his letter:

We successfully fought to extend the Wind Protection Tax Credit, creating jobs all over Colorado and decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.

Immigration reform is on the move in Washington, and we passed the ASSET bill at the state level, which lowers college tuition for young immigrants who know no other home that the United States.

We worked to reauthorize the Farm Bill in the U.S. Senate – and have fought to encourage the House of Representatives to do the same – in order to support farmers who are facing one of the worst droughts our state has ever seen.

Last but certainly not least, after years of hard work we were finally able to pass the Violence Against Women Act, which provides resources and support to victims of domestic violence and increases security on college campuses.

First, let’s talk about wind energy.  Vestas, the heavily-subsidized wind energy manufacturer, has been a vast boondoggle for U.S. and Colorado’s tax payers.  Vestas actually laid people off in Colorado, so it’s unclear that jobs were created, and if jobs were created, that they were in Colorado.  Additionally, wind energy is simply unsustainable, as an industry.  For every 64 cents our government subsidizes natural gas and petroleum power, wind energy is subsidized at a rate nearly 1000 times that – $56.  See chart.

Moving on.  Colorado’s ASSET bill was helpful for “young immigrants” to be sure, but as a U.S. Senator, Udall probably can’t claim that as an achievement.  Perhaps Udall has forgotten that he hasn’t served in the Colorado House of Representatives since 1998.  And, even then, for just one term.  But, congratulations on your hard work to pass ASSET?  We guess?

Additionally, promises of federal immigration reform have been lingering for as long as we can remember, so the fact that it’s “on the move” in Washington rings somewhat hollow.

The last two items are simply reauthorizing the Farm Bill as well as the Violence Against Women Act.  Both help their respective constituencies, but the Farm Bill has been around for some time and the Violence Against Women Act has been around since 1994.  So, it’s tough to call casting two votes (admittedly with tweaks – neither of which were Udall’s tweaks, of course) “accomplishments”.  Further, the Farm Bill hasn’t even passed yet.

Perhaps Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call summed it up the best:

“Coloradans voted for Sen. Udall because they believed he would be an advocate on their behalf.  Unfortunately for the people of Colorado, Sen. Udall is either unconcerned with their struggles, or is just incapable of being an effective senator.  Either way, we cannot afford another six years of Sen. Udall.”

Then again, Udall always can look to his bipartisan seating chart as an example of an achievement; although, we highly doubt that’s why Coloradans sent him to Washington, D.C.

 
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