NoCoPolitics.com

Glenn Reynolds Offers a Political Truism

From his column yesterday:

Remember:  When lefties do it, it's called "community organizing." When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "astroturf."

But some people are noticing the truth.   As Mickey Kaus notes, "If an 'astroturfing' campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn't it ... community organizing?"  Why yes, yes it is.

As someone who's been following the Tea Party campaign since the beginning, it seems to me to be the most genuine outbreak of grassroots popular involvement in my lifetime.

I agree with that last sentence especially.  Read the whole thing.

Using the Troops as an Excuse

We posted over at the Draft Diggs website about Betsy Markey's vote for some new private jets for Congress.

The new luxury jets are "conveniently" padded onto a defense appropriations bill.  The destination for the original jet?  The Africa Command.

This is Not a Reality TV Show

Big Brother comes to life in Britain:

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Post Offices Closing

It's happening right here in Fort Collins:

The U.S. Postal Service is correct to consider the relocation of the Old Town post office in Fort Collins, a necessary step as the agency looks to close a $7 billion gap nationwide.

It's important that the Postal Service continue to have an Old Town station, but a space smaller than the current 26,252-square-foot facility would be adequate and save money. The Postal Service also could sell the adjacent parking lot.

"In view of our continuing struggling financial situation, we're looking to capture any types of efficiencies we can," USPS spokesman Al DeSarro said.

"Efficiencies."  Can I read this as: "We're losing money, even though we're a taxpayer-subsidized quasi-monopoly, so we're going to have to reduce service?"

Hmmm...  This probably wouldn't have any parallels in current policy debates, now does it?

Stossel's take is here:

The postal service, like all government monopolies, is an inefficient sinkhole. Private companies like UPS and Federal Express give much better service. Consumer Reports found that, again and again, the private deliverers get it there faster. 

The private competitors also make a profit doing it, so they don’t ask for taxpayer handouts. They outperform the post office, even though the post office has huge advantages. It pays no federal tax, no state tax, and no parking tickets.  Often they don't even pay rent.  They don't pay to register their vehicles.  Check out a license plate spot on a post office truck -- nothing there. 

The postal service always promises future solvency, but keeps losing your money: $7 billion this year despite a 2-cent rate increase.

Is it a coincidence that the best post office in Fort Collins - by far - is the one that's run by employees of a private company?

And In Other News About Potential 2010 Candidates...

Thumbs up.

Manchester attorney and 1996 GOP gubernatorial nominee Ovide Lamontagne is really amping up his possible campaign for U.S. Senate. James Pindell reported earlier today that Lamontagne will begin appearing at a number of GOP events in the coming days. And now former state Rep. Maureen Mooney has launched a “Friends of Ovide Lamontagne” Facebook group.

Okay, so it's not Northern Colorado politics, but I've got to wish good luck to one of the all-time great guys in politics. 

(Obscure NoCo tie-in: For all of you trivia buffs, it just so happens that Ovide went to law school with this guy.)

Another "Northern Colorado" Blog

Not many people in Northern Colorado have the journalistic resume of Greg Campbell, who has covered conflicts around the world "up-close-and-personal". 

It turns out that Northern Colorado's most prolific writer has a blog. 

It's not really a "Northern Colorado" blog in terms of content - Campbell taps his national and international experience - but we're going to link to it anyway.  (I'm sure Greg will be grateful for the massive traffic surge.)

Greg was the co-founder - and my editor - at FCW.  Here we are (along with Diggs Brown) disposing of obsolete office supplies:

 

Fort Collins Patients First Rally

This photo was taken at the Patients First health care rally early this morning in Fort Collins.

This was a 7:30 AM rally and there were more than 100 people there.  (UPDATED AND CORRECTED, SEE BELOW)

UPDATE: According to Patients First, 350 signed the petition this morning in Fort Collins.

(photos by Lee Cooper)

Cash for Clunkers Again

I guess these guys are just out of luck, then?

Destroying Used Cars

I pointed out this weekend that the "Cash for Clunkers" program is the exact opposite of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra.

Here's John Hood at NRO:

Back in the first term of the Roosevelt administration, its agricultural policies created the absurdity of the federal government paying farmers to destroy their crops even as many Americans were finding it difficult to feed their families. The program was intended to prop up prices and thus benefit farm interests at the expense of consumers — the former being well-represented in Washington, the latter not so much. If you think about the economy in Keynesian terms, such a policy might appear rational. If you think about the economy in practical terms, of course, the policy was idiotic.

...

“Clunkers” don’t play much of a role in the lives of upper- and middle-income Americans, I suppose, but they play a major role in the auto market for low-income Americans. What the federal government is now doing is using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the large-scale destruction of functional cars that would otherwise exchange hands one or more times in the used car market. This will make it harder for poor folks to purchase cars in the future. It’s an income transfer up the income distribution, at the behest of so-called progressives.

And here's Stossel:

Another unintended consequence of the Cash for Clunkers program is that poor people who can’t afford new cars – or expensive used cars -- will be crushed along with all those clunkers. If you can only afford $500 - $1,000 for a car, you’ll find many of these vehicles are now unavailable.  They have been sent to the junk yard thanks to this program.

So here we have a program that destroys the environment and penalizes lower-income families.  Hope and Change! 

New NoCo Blog

Notes from Postmodernity, written by Trevor Sides.