UPDATE: This blog post was corrected on 8-7-2-12. Scott Tipton did not support the personhood measure in 2010, as previously reported here.

———–

Another attempt at passing a personhood amendment, defining zygotes as people, would almost certainly fail if it makes the Colorado ballot next year, given that it’s gone down decisively twice in a row.

So journalists covering the announcement today by personhood backers that they are petitioning  to put the measure on the ballot shouldn’t get bogged down in the old questions of which forms of the Pill this amendment would ban. It’s well-known to Coloradans that common forms of birth control would be banned.

The focus for reporters should be the politics of having a personhood measure on the ballot in 2012, in a swing state like Colorado.

So I attended today’s news conference announcing the personhood petition drive to make sure these issues were raised by reporters, and since they were not, I filled in the journalistic gap.

I asked Kristi Brown, who’s changed her name from Kristi Burton since she sponsored the first personhood amendment with her father in 2008, if she expected to get the same support from major candidates that her measure had gotten previously.

Kristi Brown announces effort to put personhood on 2012 ballot

I mean, you can argue that without a Republican primary, GOP candidates like Mike Coffman and Cory Gardner might not endorse the 2012 measure, given its apparent unpopularity with voters, especially women.

“I haven’t personally talked to [Coffman and Gardner],” Brown told me.

“I know Cory Gardner is very conservative, has really good stands. I talked to him on the 2008 amendment. He was very, very supportive. He was one of our main supporters. So I would guess that he would.”

When she says a main supporter what does she mean?

“Very supportive,” she said. “He would come to events for us. He talked about it.”

Here’s Gardner at one personhood event.

Colorado Right to Life’s website lists Mike Coffman as a supporter of personhood 2010 as well, with the statement: “Incumbent Republican Mike Coffman is on record supporting Personhood and is on record as Pro-Life with no exceptions. However, he does not appear to have co-sponsored the Personhood legislation introduced in Congress. We hope that he would vote to support such legislation if he had the opportunity, as he has pledged.”

I asked Gualberto GarciaJones, who wrote this year’s amendment, which has more expansive and precise language than last year’s, if he thought presidential candidate Mitt Romney would support his amendment this time, given that he’s changed his position over the years. Garcia Jones said Romney is known as a flip flopper and that his group would persevere regardless of the positions of Democratic or Republican politicians. (No major Democrats support the effort, as far as I know, but Michele Bachman, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich back personhood, and it’s endorsed in a plank of the national GOP platform.

Asked if he thought he’d get Gardner on board for personhood this time, former gubernatorial candidate and “Generations Radio” host Kevin Swanson, said, “I think so,” adding that he hopes to get Democrats as well. (In his prepared remarks, Swanson repeated his view that said Dr. Suess summed up the amendment best when he wrote, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”)

“I think it’s real possible we could get some strong Republican support,” but he said he hadn’t been in touch with Tipton or Gardner.

In response to the personhood petition drive, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ President Vicki Cowart said in a statement: “Colorado voters spoke loud and clear in the 2008 and 2010 elections when they voted down the so called “personhood” amendments by a 3-to-1 margin each time. No means no, yet Personhood USA and Personhood Colorado continue to ignore the wishes of Colorado voters. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains will for the third time since 2008, work with our over 90 coalition partners to educate Colorado voters about this initiative which aims to ban abortion in all circumstances.”Historically, Colorado has been a state that votes in favor of trusting women and doctors. At the end of the day, Coloradans trust women to make personal, private decisions about their own body with their doctor, their family, their faith and without interference from the courts or lawyers.”

I may disagree with Rep. Mike Coffman about some things, but he has a lot of guts to call for Pentagon cuts, like he’s been doing, especially since he represents a district near Colorado Springs.

It’s a truism that most politicians who represent communities anywhere near a military facility won’t suggest defense cuts, even if the cuts are unrelated to the military activities in their districts. It’s one for all and all for one, even if a tiny slice of the defense budget could change the world for millions and millions of people.

Pentagon spending now accounts for about half of the federal discretionary budget, which is the portion of the budget that’s the focus of most beltway debate.

Current Pentagon spending is $696 billion, with $118 billion going to the Iraq and Afghan wars (our closest “enemy” China, spends about $120 billion, Russia $70 billion, Iran $7 billion).

Contrast this, if you feel like getting really depressed, with federal spending on clean energy development ($4 billion), Head Start ($8 billion), humanitarian foreign aid ($27 billion), and k-12 education ($43 billion). The entire EPA budget is about $10 billion, give or take a few billion.

The lives of millions of starving kids could be saved by spending $10 billion a year on basic health needs. Amory Lovins had written that we could rid ourselves of our dependence on oil in 10 years with a $20 billion per year investment. About $10 billion more would cover poor kids in America who are eligible for Head Start but don’t get it. The list goes on.

Against this backdrop, even the briefest look at the federal budget shows that Pentagon spending, even without the Iran and Aftghan wars, is way out of control.

Up steps Coffman, with the Tea Party mostly looking the other way, and suggests cuts in overseas bases, reductions in the active-duty force, and other idea, some of which have serious value.

He points out:

In early 2004, Osama bin Laden said one of his goals was to “bleed America to the point of bankruptcy.” In some ways, our strategy of counterinsurgency has played into his hands. Our current doctrine is a high-cost nation-building strategy that has worn out our military.

Coffman might derive his inspiration on this issue from the fact that he served in Iraq.

And by the sound of it, you have to think he believes the war wasn’t worth it, and he wants to spend tax dollars differently so America is less likely to repeat the mistake.

In a Post titled, “It’s Alive! Despite GOP Warnings, Ponzi Scheme Meme Is Alive and Well on Capitol Hill,” Talking Points Memo’s Evan McMorris-Santoro reports today that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WIS) has joined Rep. Mike Coffman in saying, on the radio, that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme.

He points out that “GOP superstar” Mitch Daniels told the New York Times that the phrase is not wrong but “too frank.”

McMorris-Santoro links to a Huffington Post piece by Jordan Howard quoting Ryan on the Laura Ingraham show today:

When asked by host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday whether the country’s social insurance program is a Ponzi scheme, Ryan replied, “That is how those schemes work.”

“So if you take a look at the technicality of Ponzi — I would — it’s not a criminal enterprise,” he said, according to a transcript. “But it is a pay-as-you-go system where … earlier investors or, say, taxpayers, get a positive rate of return and the most recent investors — or taxpayers — get a negative rate of return.”

Coffman didn’t explain last week on KNUS why he thinks Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, because KNUS host Steve Kelley failed to ask him about it.

A call to Coffman’s office yesterday for comment was not returned.

On a Denver radio program, “Kelley and Company” Wed., Rep. Mike Coffman called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and aligned himself with Gov. Rick Perry over Mitt Romney and other candidates in the race to be the GOP presidential nominee.

That’s news, if you ask me, especially the Ponzi scheme part, but it has yet to be picked up by other media outlets. I think Social Security is a hot topic, being the third rail of politics and all, but journalists could spice up this angle on the topic by interviewing Ponzi scheme experts, like Bernie Madoff. (Maybe not him, but his ilk.) Do they think Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?

Here’s what Coffman told Steve Kelley, host of “Kelley and Company,” on KNUS-710 AM:

I am obviously going to support whoever the nominee is. But I have to admit to you philosophically I am closer to Perry. Obviously, I hope he gets better on the debate stuff. I think he did good. I think he did better on Social Security. I think obviously it is a Ponzi scheme, but he has to say he is going to fix it. And he did that in the last debate where he didn’t do that in the first debate. Now I think that was positive. [BigMedia emphasis]

Listen to the audio clip here:

The trouble with Coffman’s statement is, obviously, that Social Security isn’t a Ponzi scheme, and Kelley should have called him on this.

My online dictionary defines a Ponzi scheme as an “investment swindle in which supposed profits are paid to early investors from money actually invested by later participants.” Maybe that’s what Social Security sounds like to people who think government shouldn’t collect taxes and devise programs to help people, but if you’re not one of those people, you probably understand that Social Security is no swindle, but actually a successful government-run retirement system based on a funding formula that’s worked, with rational adjustments, for 76 years. It will continue to be a lifeline for many seniors for 25 more years with no changes at all. And with minor tweaks, it can be made to work indefinitely, as the LA Times pointed out Sunday in an editorial titled “Social Security Is No Ponzi Scheme.”

Why does Coffman think Social Security an investment swindle? Kelley should pose this question to Coffman next time he’s on his morning show. But it looks like Coffman is thinking less about Social Security and more about Rick Perry.

Coming before Thursday’s GOP presidential primary debate, Coffman may be illustrating that people (like him) believe in Perry so much that they’ll say that something (Social Security) is obviously something that it’s not (a Ponzi scheme) just to make it look normal for Perry to say it (when it’s not). And to help him connect with his core GOP audience.

Even while Gov. Mitt Romney has attacked Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” comments, he’s  on record supporting the George Bush plan for partial Social Security privatization and has been attacked by Perry for likening the funding mechanisms of the program to “criminal” activity.

This sentiment against Social Security, if not the same phrasing, was echoed by Perry supporters, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who agreed with the arguments Perry was making while stopping short of going the Full  Ponzi.

Further complicating the storyline for Romney are recent polling data showing that Republicans are just as likely to be attracted to Perry’s Ponzi Scheme message as they are to be turned away, and may in fact break his way in the context of a conservative primary electorate.

And just yesterday came reports in Politico that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, once a speculative candidate for president, came very close to the same wording in his upcoming book.

In Colorado Jane Norton did the same during her 2010 primary race against Ken Buck, but no one has resurrected this message at such a level in the presidential race.

In other words, the substance behind Rick Perry’s Ponzi scheme attack is in keeping with a broad range of Republican thinking. The question is whether his supporters will go once more into the Ponzi breach with him.

Coffman decided to do so.

Partial Transcript of KNUS morning radio program, “Kelley and Company,” Wed, Sept. 14, 2011.

KELLEY: Before we let you go, Congressman Coffman, the debate the other night I thought was excellent on CNN. It was a little more refined and a little opportunity to get a back and forth going. Of course Tim Pawlenty has backed Romney. Where do you stand right now, even 14 months out?

COFFMAN: I am obviously going to support whoever the nominee is. But I have to admit to you philosophically I am closer to Perry. Obviously, I hope he gets better on the debate stuff. I think he did good. I think he did better on Social Security. I think obviously it is a Ponzi scheme, but he has to say he is going to fix it. And he did that in the last debate where he didn’t do that in the first debate. Now I think that was positive. [BigMedia emphasis]

KELLEY: I see CNN really trying to blow up the HPV vaccination. The executive order he signed down in Texas. You don’t think that is going to haunt him?

COFFMAN: Not in the general election. I think it is certainly going to cost him some in the Republican primary. That is why I am interested in why CNN is weighing in on the issue. Because it is actually more a moderate position that he quite frankly took. I wouldn’t have done it. But that is probably more sympathetic with the general electorate than it is with a more conservative Republican primary voter.

KELLEY: With that, we thank you and will talk with you down the road, Congressman.

On the Caplis and Silverman show Aug. 19, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) accused the Obama administration of speeding up the citizenship process for illegal immigrants, so they can become U.S. citizens in time for the 2012 election.

Even in today’s world of nonstop political attacks, that’s a serious accusation.

It came as Coffman was discussing Obama’s decision to de-prioritize deportations of illegal immigrants who pose no security threat. This, Coffman said, was just “one piece of the puzzle.”

“There’s another piece of this puzzle,” Coffman continued. “What the Administration is doing, is taking a very aggressive move in the people that have illegal status and moving them through citizenship and waving all the fees and waving anything they can to get the process done in time for 2012. That’s something I would love to see the media focus on.”

I thought I’d take Coffman up on his request, since Caplis and Silverman let his salvo fly out the window unchallenged.

If you take two-minutes to glance at the basic guidelines for becoming a U.S. citizen, it’s immediatly clear that illegal immigrants need not apply to be citizens, much less get their immigration fees waived. With rare exceptions, you have to be a legal permanent resident (also known as a holder of a “green-card“), for three-to-five years to meet our country’s citizenship requirements.

So, unless I’m missing something, Coffman’s allegation about about Obama rushing “illegal immigrants” onto the voting rolls has to be a pure falsehood.

I also couldn’t find any proof that Obama is waiving fees to speed up the naturalization process for legal immigrants, in a secret effort to influence the 2012 election.

If Coffman were right about this, Obama’s co-conspirators would be found at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), the branch of the Department of Homeland Security that handles immigration, including fee waivers.

Asked whether her agency was speeding up the processing of citizenship applications in advance of 2012, Angelica M. Alfonso-Royals, Deputy Chief of the USCIS Office of Communications, stated via email:

The suggestion that USCIS has accelerated either the processing of citizenship cases or the processing of fee waiver requests for any reason is without merit. To this point, USCIS, back in 2009, solicited feedback and heard stakeholder concerns regarding a standard and consistent fee waiver policy. This feedback informed the creation of a new fee waiver form in 2010 that provides transparency and consistency, allowing us to better serve financially disadvantaged individuals seeking immigration benefits. That said, each individual case is unique and decided based solely on its merits.

Alfonso-Royals sent me figures showing that her agency, under Obama, has granted more fee waivers for people seeking to be full U.S. citizens than it did under Bush. So far this fiscal year, about 45,000 fees for the citizenship application (the N-400 form) have been waived , 19,000 were waived in FY 2010,  7,000 in FY 2009, 8,000 in FY 2008, and 5.000 in FY 2007.

The USCIS charges fees, which cover 90 percent of the USCIS budget, for lots of other immigration-related applications, not just for the application for naturalization. For example, there’s an application, with a fee, to obtain a green card. Waivers for all types of fees have increased during the Obama Administration (150,000 total waivers in FY 2011, 101,000 in FY 2010, 64,000 in FY 2009, 51,000 in FY 2008, and 35,000 in FY2007, according to the USCIS).

Fees are waived for individuals facing financial hardship and other criteria, including household income of below 150% of the poverty level. (Here’s the fee-waiver form. Prior to 2010, applicants could receive fee waivers, but there was no official fee-waiver application form.)

The increased number of fee waivers does not translate into more people actually becoming U.S. citizens with voting rights. The total number of people who went through the naturalization process has decreased during the Obama Administration (about 676.000 in FY 2010, about 744,000 in FY 2009, about 1,047,000 in FY 2008, 660,000 in FY 2007, and 702,000 in FY 2006), according to USCIS data.

So in the comfort of the Caplis and Silverman Show, Coffman asked the media to spotlight his accusation about the Obama Administration swelling the voter rolls with illegal immigrants. The radio hosts didn’t do it, so I did, and no matter how you look at it, Coffman’s attack looks like misinformation, based on wrong or incomplete facts.

Caplis and Silverman should set their audience straight on this matter–and other reporters should air out this apparent misinformation further.

Here’s the audio clip of Coffman on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman Aug. 19:

On Sunday, State Sen. Greg Brophy said the darndest things about congressional redistricting on Ross Kaminsky’s Backbone Radio, and Kaminsky, who will challenge his conservative guests sometimes, said not a word.

So I emailed this note to Kaminsky:

Hi Ross –

I’m considering a blog post on Brophy’s appearance on your show, where he made some serious accusations, which you did not challenge.

Can you answer the following questions for my blog:

Brophy accused Democrats of paying folks to testify before Brophy’s committee.

Brophy: “And then you know, to top it all off, they had the same sort of ginned up testimony from some Democrat operatives in Douglas County who went all the way up to Longmont, for crying out loud, to tell us to put Greenwood Village in the 1st Congressional District. Just follow the pieces on that. Well. It makes sense if you’re paying someone to do it but it doesn’t make sense if you’re representing the people of Colorado.”

Did you catch him saying this? If so, why didn’t you ask for his evidence for this?

Also, he asserted that Democrats were trying to draw Mike Coffman out of his seat, but then Brophy said Coffman could probably win in a new Dem District….

[Brophy said:  “And then they take the 6^th and they wrap it around Denver and DIA on the east side, making both of them Democrat districts that Barack Obama won in 2008 and effectively drawing Congressman Mike Coffman out of the seat, whether he lives in it or not. He probably could win it because the guy is a political stud. But they’re trying to draw him out of the seat. It’s an absolute slap in the face to Mike Coffman.”]

How come you didn’t ask Brophy, if the district is so pro-Dem, why he thinks Coffman could still win there?

Overall, even if you agree with Brophy on redistricting, or with any guest on any topic, don’t you think talk radio is more interesting if you ask critical questions, rather than just listen? I mean, you seem to do this some of the time, when you disagree with guests, (like you did here in a good interview with Stephens) but not when you agree with them. Why not ask critical questions even when you agree with guests? Don’t you think that’s a more interesting way to go, for the sake of listeners?

Thanks.

Jason

Kaminsky responded thus:

First, Brophy did NOT assert that Dems paid people to testify. He asserted that they got people to testify who otherwise wouldn’t have and who at least on several occasions didn’t live in the relevant district. That assertion is so believable that it did not bear further questioning, esp. as Brophy seemed to KNOW, not just guess, that the people he was talking about were not from the district being discussed.  I don’t recall him ever using or implying payment for those “astroturf” testimonies. So please don’t put words in his mouth.

Re the 6th, it’s not that it would be “so pro-Dem”, just massively less Republican than it is now. It would be more like the 7th, perhaps slightly more Republican than the 7th.  Still winnable by Coffman but far from the layup that it is now (or that the 1st is for DeGette.) But the other point was the fact that the Dems seem to be drawing a map to exclude from the 6th the town where they expect Coffman will soon be living.  So, again, you are putting words in Brophy’s mouth as far as him saying that the 6th would be “so pro-Dem.”

Jason, while I do take your point about asking more critical questions, you keep suggesting I should have asked questions in response to things that the guests didn’t actually say.  Your first question about Brophy in your note today was plainly based on a misrepresentation of Brophy’s words, and your second question wasn’t much better. And to be clear, it was I, and not Brophy, who brought up the question of the risk to Coffman from the Dems’ plans for the 6th and it was I who brought up the question of Greenwood Village. (At least, that’s how I remember the conversation. I haven’t listened to it again.)

You remind me of a politician who is answering the question he wanted to be asked.  You are responding to comments you wish that those on the right had actually made.  This sort of behavior makes it really difficult to want to cooperate with you on an ongoing basis.  I don’t think you’re actually intending to behave badly, but your political bias is (in my view) causing you to behave badly when it comes to situations like this.

I responded with this:

Ross –

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, Brophy said what you assert he said. But you saw my quote. He’s at the very least implying the people from Longmont were paid to testify.

So the 6^th would be a competitive district. We agree on that. [And so does Brophy.]

As far as cooperating goes, I hope you’ll continue communicating with me, because I try to be fair. I will use your entire comments, so as not to distort them, for example. And if I state something that’s inaccurate or unfair, just shoot me an email and I’ll include your response. What more can I do?

Again, thanks.

Kaminsky replied:

Jason, I simply don’t see that implication in Brophy’s words. In fact, before you mention the word “paid”, the idea that those testifiers had been paid hadn’t even occurred to me.

The 6th would be competitive if the Dems’ map wins, but I don’t think it will, even if this goes to the courts. That said, we have the worst State Supreme Court in the nation, so I wouldn’t put anything by those reprehensible political hacks.

Then Kaminsky added this thought in a final email, ending our exchange for today:

To be clear, Jason, the Dems presented several maps. Their most aggressive map would do just what Brophy said, and could make the 6th a Dem-leaning district. Some of their less aggressive maps, while still disgustingly partisan pieces of work, would leave the 6th more competitive or slightly GOP-leaning, as I understand them. That said, I am not an expert on this stuff.

A March 28 Denver Post article offered a misleading tidbit that I should have pointed out earlier.

I’m not referring to the headline of the Post article, which was bad enough. It read “Markey a Polarizing Force in the 4^th Congressional District.” The article wasn’t about whether Markey was “polarizing.” It was about her vote on health care, so a headline related to health care would have been more meaningful.

But more serious is something the story left out.

Discussing the responses to Markey’s vote for the federal health-care bill, The Post reported:

Fred Vierra of Cherry Hills Village lives outside the 4^th Congressional District but sent Republican congressional candidate Cory Gardner [who’s opposing Markey] a $1,000 donation.

“You can thank Betsy Markey’s health care vote for this check,” he wrote last week in a note to the campaign.

From reading this, you could easily think Vierra’s $1,000 donation is money Gardner wouldn’t have gotten if Markey had opposed the health care bill.

But you need to spend five minutes on the Federal Election Commission website to discover that Vierra is a well-known Colorado GOP donor, who regularly gives to candidates outside of his district of residence and outside of our state.

In fact, Vierra gave $2,000 to Marilyn Musgrave in 2005 and again in 2006. Before the health care bill was twinkle in Obama’s eye, Vierra gave $1,000 or more to Sam Brownback of Kansas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Thune of South Dakota, former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, former Montana Senator Conrad Burns, and others, all Republicans. He gave $55,000 to John McCain in 2008. In Colorado, in addition to Musgrave, he’s given big money to Republicans Wayne Allard, Mike Coffman, Rick O’Donnell, Jane Norton, Bob Schaffer, Tom Tancredo, and others. The list goes on and on. It’s pretty amazing, really. Type “Fred Vierra” on this page of the FEC website.

Especially because The Post included the contextual detail that Vierra “lives outside” of Markey’s Distrct, The Post should have informed us of Vierra’s status as a national Republican donor living in Colorado.

A phrase like “Vierra, who gave over $400,000 to Republican candidates across the country since 1998-” would have done the trick. Or even something like, “Vierra, a well-known Republican donor in Colorado -.”

Of course, it’s possible that Vierra wouldn’t have coughed up $1,000 for Gardner if Markey had opposed the health care bill.

But still, Vierra’s history of donating should have been mentioned, to give us a full picture of what’s going on here…-and to let us decide what to make of it.

Not only us, but news media as well. Here’s what I mean:

After The Post ran the article with the anecdote about Vierra’s $1,000 check, a Post reader, Ann Westmeyer, sent Gardner a clipping of The Post’s article, a $25 check , and a note that read, “Again, you can thank Betsy Markey’s healthcare vote for this check,” according to story on The Post’s political blog, The Spot.

Westmeyer’s note stated that she also lived “outside the district,” according to The Post, which unfortunately quoted its own story about Vierra’s $1,000 check, again omitting the information that Vierra is a major Republican donor statewide and nationally.

And guess what happened next? This two-part story, about Vierra’s check and The Post’s article that another donation to Gardner, was picked up by the Washington Post today in an article headlined “In Colorado, health-care debate reverberates in congressional race.”

The Washington Post recounted The Denver Post’s story, reporting:

After the health-care bill passed, a voter from outside the district sent the Republican’s [Gardner’s] campaign a contribution with a note: “Please thank Betsy Markey for this check.” When The Denver Post wrote about it, another voter sent a copy of the article along with a donation to Gardner’s campaign with a note: “Again, you can thank Betsy Markey’s health-care vote for this check.”

That’s how the news media feed on themselves to build a narrative (Angry voters donating to unseat a congresswoman.). Unfortunately, in this case, a piece of the foundation of the narrative is partially rotten, lacking critical context.