Our deep experience with personhood amendments here in Colorado has taught us that a government that gives legal rights to zygotes (otherwise known as fertilized eggs) would have no choice but to ban some forms of the Pill.

But unfortunately, the New York Times, in an article yesterday, failed to mention that some forms of the Pill would have had to be banned if the personhood amendment passed in Mississippi.

The Times reported:

Mississippi voters said they thought twice about the proposal when they heard that it would not only ban virtually all abortions but also some forms of contraception like I.U.D.’s and morning-after pills, could hamper in-vitro fertilization clinics and could, doctors warned, discourage critical medical care for pregnant women.

Birth control was also at the center of the Personhood debate in Mississippi, and to be fair, the Times’ Erik Eckholm should have added “some forms of the Pill” to the list of items that worried the people of Mississippi.

The New York Times itself reported in Dec. that all hormonal contraceptives, which include the pill, may “make the lining of the uterus less hospitable to a fertilized egg.”

The Denver Post ran a fair news article over the weekend, about GOP charges that Democrats deliberately sought, through the reapportionment process, to thin the ranks of Republican women serving in the Colorado Legislature.

No solid evidence was produced to support the Republican allegation, which was refuted by Democrats.

And no proof was offered for the other GOP allegation in the article, namely that there’s also a “very, very small” segment within the Colorado Republican Party whose “misogynistic attitude” hurts GOP women.

This charge came from Rep. Amy Stephens, according to The Post:

Stephens said she researched the word “misogynistic” — a hatred or distrust of women — earlier this year after the attacks on her started.

“It’s an attitude of ‘We know better. You don’t get it. You wouldn’t understand,’ ” Stephens said.

“As long as you’re mothering the caucus, you’re fine. But by God, raise money, recruit women candidates, train them, no, oh no, oh no. And then have the audacity to win the majority? Then, it’s threatening. Then, it’s ‘How dare you? Now you’re a RINO.’ “

The Post piece quoted former state Sen. Dave Schultheis, of Colorado Springs, who said he was gender-neutral when it came to politicos.

I thought I’d see if another critic of Stephens could shed more light on the origin of the “mysogynistic attitude” mentioned by Stephens.

In response to my email, former Secretary of the El Paso GOP Sarah Anderson wrote:

Mme. Majority Leader Stephens appears to be applying the “misogynist” label to anyone with whom she has a difference of opinion, much as she previous had with the “anarchist” label.  It’s exactly that kind of response that furthers her reputation as a “RINO”… last time I checked, you only pull out the ad hominem attacks when you are losing an argument and have nothing of substance or value left to say.  Frankly, it’s a very Alinskyite tactic, which is antithetical to being a Republican.

Skip this if you’re one of those people who won’t read blog posts about the latest outrageous comments on right-wing talk radio, because they’re just the latest outrageous comments on right-wing talk radio.

But read on if you want a window into what hate looks like, and you want to call it out.

You may remember my post in October about  KENN radio host Sean Jeremy Osborn’s suggestion that the entire population of Iran is like a cancer and should be killed.

Now Osborn is angry at Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. My guess is that Osborne has some underlying issues here, because you’d never think Brazile’s comment about the meaning of vegetables on pizza would set off a explosion of rage from Osborne.

You can speculate for yourself about what’s really bothering Osborn after I explain what happened.

On CNN’s “The Situation Room” Nov. 14, host Wolf Blitzer read to Brazile the following comment by GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, and Blitzer asked Brazile if she had a “problem” with it:

“The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe, the more manly he is…. A manly man don’t want it piled high with vegetables…. He would call that a sissy pizza.”

Brazile’s response to Blitzer:

“Herman Cain clearly has a ‘women’s problem.’ He doesn’t know how to address women. He doesn’t know how to respect women, and now he’s making this comment about, bring on more toppings.”

Osborn played this exchange on his “Painful Truth” radio show and started screaming.

“Seriously, Donna, you’re going to go there? It’s an advertising-marketing thing designed to reach men. Men like meat on their pizza, you stupid female dog…It doesn’t mean Herman Cain is insensitive to women… It means men like meat on their damn pizza….I am ready to start busting walls in this room. Donna Brazile…you are a magnificently ignorant slut. There, how’s that for disparaging to women, you dumb female dog…you stupid retard.”

There’s more, and you can listen to below. Osborn starts off by saying that the exchange reflects hypocrisy in journalism. hmmm?

You’re thinking, who cares what an apparent right-wing nut says on a small radio station in the four corners area.

I do because, hey, KENN may be small, but it still reaches the good people in multiple cities like Durango and Cortez. It’s also owned by American General Media, which appears to have at least one other station in California.

So Osborn, who hasn’t returned past emails, because, he says I’ll  take his comments out of context, as if this were possible, should explain his behavior to his bosses and the people of these communities. Contact KENN here.

Listen to Osborn here:

Denver talk show host Bob Enyart says Mitt Romney is lying to the GOP base when he says he’s a “pro-family, pro-life” conservative, and Enyart launched a national campaign to spread to spread the word.

Enyart has also been a tireless supporter of Colorado’s “personhood amendments,” which would have codified Enyart’s belief that life begins at conception.

So, now that Romney is on the record saying he “absolutely” believes, like Enyart, that life begins at conception (and Romney would sign a Constitutional Amendment to make it law) has Enyart’s view of Romney changed?

“Romney needs the Republican base and so he is happy to lie to them for their votes,” Enyart emailed me. “But of course, slavery ended here and elsewhere in the world even though many who eventually supported emancipation in reality hated the slaves themselves. Similarly with child killing, the goal is to make open support of abortion unthinkable, regardless of the hardness of one’s heart.”

With the vote on Personhood taking place today in Mississippi, reporters should find some way, somehow to ask Romney what he thinks about Personhood supporters like Enyart, who has national standing on this issue, who say he’s lying. Or, for that matter, what Romney thinks of Democrats who say his support of Personhood makes him unelectable.

Enyart is the only media figure in Colorado who’s been tracking the Mississippi Personhood vote closely.

On a Nov. broadcast, Enyart interviewed his wife, Cheryl Enyart, who’s on the ground in Mississippi, along with Colorado Right to Life Vice President Leslie Hanks, fighting for passage of the Personhood, called Amendment 26, there.

Bob Enyart asked his wife to compare the response she’s getting in Mississippi to the response from Colorado.

“It’s overwhelmingly positive, whereas in Colorado we didn’t get as much positive response,” Cheryl Enyart replied.

In Colorado, her husband joked, “The most common response is migrating birds, whatever that is.”

“Out here, it seems like some doctors really are supporting the amendment, whereas we didn’t receive that kind of support back in Colorado.”

“Of course, there were some in the medical community that were pro-personhood,” Bob said, “but it seems basically a different culture there [in Mississippi]. And we can thank God for that.”

You’d expect campaign workers like Enyart’s wife to be optimistic, but whether Personhood wins or loses in Mississippi, today and tomorrow would both be good days to see more in the media on Romney’s thoughts on personhood.

At a news conference last week that deserved to get more media attention, the Campaign for a Healthy Denver unveiled “Sick Rick,” the mascot for their effort to pass Initiative 300, which would guarantee paid sick days for all Denver workers.

At the same event, the campaign presented workers, identified as food service employees, who told stories about how they’ve been ill, gone to work, and possibly passed on disease to restaurant customers

Sick Rick is a walking, six-foot-tall “germ” designed to highlight the campaign’s view that if Initiative 300 isn’t passed, more restaurant workers will be forced to go to work when sick and spread illnesses to customers. Its motto reportedly is: “We don’t want boogers in our burgers (or phlegm with our fries.)”

Sick Rick, a Walking Germ

“When you hand me a credit card to pay for your nonfat grande latte, I might be making you sick,” said Laura, who identified herself as a Starbucks employee and spoke at the news conference prior to the appearance of Sick Rick.

She told reporters that, for example, she contracted a severe cold around Christmas time last year but went to work anyway because she could not afford to stay home.

“Who knows if I infected my customers,” she said, explaining that if she passed up her shift, she’d have lost about $65, enough to pay her utility bill for a month or groceries for two weeks.

“This group has been pulling a lot of stunts to distract voters from the fact that the people of Denver who need jobs, city officials, and people who own small business have all said Denver can’t afford Initiative 300,” said George Merritt, spokesman for No on 300.

Though not ignored by any stretch, the First-Amendment rights of the OccupyDener/Wall Street Greed protesters need to get more air time.

Since the tents appeared in Denver, I’d been wondering about the “protesters” I used to see as I rode my bike in front of the White House when I lived in DC 20 years ago. They got to stay there because their 24-hour protest, which included tent-like structures, was protected under the First Amendment.

The ACLU at one point brought their case all the way to the Supreme Court.

The question for them, and for our local protest camp, was, were they “camping,” and in violation of anti-camping laws, or “protesting” 24 hours a day, and protected by the First Amendment?

KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman aired a great interview with attorney David Lane on this topic yesterday.

Here’s part of what Lane told Caplis and Silverman:

Lane: What is the competing interest against [the protest], Dan? Does Denver have some compelling need to use that space? And if the answer is no, then yes, you’re allowed to stay there 24 hours a day, as long as you’re not stopping someone else from exercising a constitutional right. It may be an eye sore. It may be inconvenient, and you may not like to see tents there when you drive by, but really if Denver has no compelling reason not to allow it, then Denver just has to allow it…

If someone is violating the health laws by camping there, if you want to call it camping, then they get a ticket for violating a health law. If theres’s some public disorder occurring there, give them a ticket for public disorder. If there is no public disorder, if there’s no health violation, then Denver has to put up with it under the First Amendment. …

If there’s public urination going on, Dan, give them a ticket for public urination….

Let me ask you, have you ever been to the White House? Have you ever seen the protesters who are permanently ensconsed. I mean, they are always there. They never leave. They have signs that say, I’ve been here for 27 years, 10 months, and 242 days. Yes, you can protest. You can protest 24-7. The issue is, is it really camping or what is it?… They have designated areas. Maybe Denver should designate an area.

There are reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. But who are you bothering? Are you bothering the drug dealers who normally exist in Civic Center Park? Is that the problem, Dan? Are there really people who are using this park at midnight so we have to move these guys out?…

Caplis: What about the governor’s point that you have all these tents together…a fire could sweep through the camp.

Lane: You could come up with excuses like that. That’s just nonsense. You know that’s nonsense. It’s an excuse to get rid of them…

In order to stop free speech, the government has to have a compelling interest in stopping it. If it involves speech, and it’s not simply, gee I don’t have anywhere to go sleep, so I’m going to sleep in the park, then I think the government is going to be hard pressed to stop it. …

Here’s a memory of 9-11 that, it’s pretty safe to say, you won’t be seeing in the media today.

Take a look at this YouTube of Colin Powell on Meet the Press back in 2007.

He said he would close Gitmo “this afternoon” if he could. What’s often forgotten is that he didn’t stop there. He went through and outlined the steps for transferring the detainees to U.S. civilian facilities that Obama tried to do but was blocked by Congress.

To my knowledge, nobody has asked Powell about that specific part of his recommendation or why he never spoke up when politicians started demagoguing the issue. He might have helped close the prison, but true to form, he shied away from a public fight. He’s being included in a bunch of 9-11 stories about Iraq, but they’re not going near Gitmo.

Bill Ritter, as much as people like to forget him, accepted that Colorado maximum security prisons could handle the detainees, and he was pilloried for it. If Bloomberg had that same courage, we’d be holding civilian trials in NYC, Gitmo would probably be closed, and America would be proud and respected for doing the right thing.

Colorado Public Radio’s Colorado Matters aired a great interview yesterday about the impact of 9-11 on Muslim Americans, as part of its thoughtful “Colorado Remembers 9-11” series.

Sahar Babak, who was a student at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, recalls how teachers, who were worried about angry students, suggested that she leave school on the day of the crime, even though she was upset and crying about the tragedy, like other kids. She took their advice and went home that day.

In the interview, CSU sociologist Lori Peek describes her conversations with 140 Muslim Americans about their lives after the 9-11. She’s just published a book about her research, titled Behind the Backlash, Muslim Americans after 9-11. 

Peek explained that one Muslim man had his car scratched, and he didn’t know if it was a hate crime or not. But his parents were so concerned, they wanted him to shave off his beard. Peek says this type of uncertainty is a hiden “burden” that a community under scrutiny deals with.

“Clearly the most violent acts of hate have tapered off,” Peek told Ryan Warner. “Using FBI hate crime data, there was a clear and dramatic spike in the first three months after 9-11. There was a 1600 percent increase in hate crime. And in the years since 9-11, those numbers have dropped off, even though they are three to five times higher than the pre-9-11 levels.”

But, citing data that made me sad as someone who endures the anti-Muslim bigotry on talk radio, she points out that national surveys show that Americans’ perception of Muslims has gotten worse since 9-11.

Listen to the interview here.

The Chairman of the El Paso County GOP Eli Bremer appearted on Grassroots Radio Colorado Tuesday to disucss various issues roiling El Paso Republicans.

For those of you who’ve been following the story of the El Paso GOP, nothing has changed much there, but El Paso GOP Secretary Sarah Anderson is hoping that an upcoming mediation session among her, Bremer, State GOP Chair Ryan Call, and others will resolve the issues.

A chunk of Tuesday’s segment with Bremer was dedicated to discussing the definition of a “country club Republican.”

Here’s a partial transcript below. You may think as a progressive, I’m just trotting this out with amusement. Yes, there’s some of that, but having voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, I understand why people fight the party establishment, and no one would dispute that Democrats have their own “limousine liberals.” So I think you’ll find this discussion thought provoking no matter where you sit on the political spectrum. And it made for a great radio segment.

The day after this discussion occurred, on the same radio show, Anderson said Bremer himself was a country club Republican.

Bremer: We had a caller [on another radio show] who mentioned country club Republican. And this has been something that, to a certain extent, I’ve scratched my head over for a while and questioned what is it that people are attacking. So there was part of that, but I kind of wanted to get to the root of, who are we attacking as a country club Republican, and so I raised the question, somewhat in jest, would Dagny Taggart, in some people’s minds, be considered a country club Republican.

Now I actually went on to Wikipedia afterwards and looked this up, because it was the best definition, or the only definition I could find, and it said, a country club Republican is an expression emplyed, usually pejoratively, to describe certain members of the United States Republican Party. Some of the characteristics attributed to a country club Republicans are a higher than average income or wealth, a lack of sympathy with the lower income citizens, and liberal views on abortion, gay rights, and other social issues. They are also said to put less emphasis and value on religion and have attended more prestigious colleges than most other Repbublican Party members.

And so I was trying to open up the debate of, what does this actually mean? Are we turning on ourselves in a way we shouldn’t be. And who is it that we are opposed to with these folks? More to open up a debate than anything else.

Jason Worley, Grassroots Radio host (KLZ 560-AM): Then, let me ask you. Is that what you think is a country club Republican, Wikipedia’s definition, because I have my own.

Bremer: This is what I wanted to bring out in the discussion is, what does it actually mean? Because, by that definition, which is the one most people would look to first. When you Google something, that’s what you do in this day and age. By that definition, Dagny Taggart would be a country club Republican. But I don’t think that’s how a log of people are using it. But I do think there is so much confusion out there that we in the conservative and Liberty movements could potentially  run the risk of running into class warfare as opposed to saying, you know what we want, whether you are a high earner, a medium earner, or a low earner, we want government to get the heck off our backs and get out of our way.

Worley: …If you honestly just think the government to get out of our way, I’m kind of surprised at some of the people who come out of El Paso County. But let me just say, a country club Republican is someone who votes Democrat most of the time because they’ve made their money. They are all for the kind of corporate welfare or government schemes…You know what, they don’t care if they have to pay slightly higher taxes. Thatt’s not a big deal to them. What they care about is they have their position, and pretty much to hell with everybody else.

Bremer: Well, I think that’s a valid critique. I don’t think it’s the most common colloquial definition that the average person would know. Because the average person would go Google it, and see what’s out there. And, again, I’d agree with you on that. Republicans who are out there pushing for bigger government are bad Republicans. I’m totally with you on that. But one of the concerns I have, is are we looking at people like the Dagny Taggarts and saying if you are out there and you run a big business, and you’re successful, and you’re putting hundreds of thousands of people to work, you must be somehow bad. I don’t agree with that. I think the people who are out there leading industry and providing goods and services. They are good people. So long as they are in agreement with us that want less governmentr and they want the freedom to do what they want with their business.

Worley: That I would agree with…but when you talk about big-government Republicans, it seems to me that we’ve got some of those coming out of El Paso County in the form of Rep. Amy Stephens putting SB 200 down our throat. …

Bremer: The less confusing term would then be big-government Republicans, as opposed to country club Republicans. Because what my concern is, is that it’s fair game, and one of the best things that’s come out of the Liberty Movement and Tea Party, is to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire and say, you all should be for smaller and more efficient government. But what I’ve seen ocassionally, and what I don’t want to see this converted into, is class warfare, saying if you’re a country-club Republican, you have a lot of money, you drive a nice car, you live in a nice house, somehow you’re a bad person because of this.

Worley: Eli, I can guarantee you that nobody in the Liberty movement or Tea Party is making that argument…. We have a problem with Romneys of the world…

Bremer: If you guys got Internet, I just pulled it up on my Blackberry, Google country club Repbublican and one of the first hits you are going to get is an accusation that Rand Paul is a country club Republican, which, again, the term is not being used in the same way, and you can see the damage that can be done by a term being misunderstood. Look no further than Congressman Lamborn and I think he would tell you how destructive that can be at times. My point was to bring up the discussion of what we stand for. And I think we stand for less government. We stand for people going out and being entrepreneurs, creating jobs, creating goods and services that don’t exist and doing it without the help of the government. And if you Google country club Republican, which I think most people would do, that’s the definition you’re going to find of a country club Republican. So i think it’s important maybe to change the lingo or to make sure people get it because the average person who hears it thinks if you belong to a country club, or if you’re a fiscal conservative, and that’s your point for being in the Republican Party, you’re somehow a bad Republican.

Worley: And let me be very clear why the term country club Republican has been used by the Liberty Movement. It is because the old school Republicans who don’t want new players in the field, like the anarchists, out there…You have a Representative, Larry Liston. I stood within 10 feet of Larry Liston and heard him put down as losers who shouldn’t take part in the Party, and I am paraphrasing. Now that’s a Republican? That’s a Republican at an Independence Institute event? Seriously Eli…I’m getting worked up here because this is a straw man..

Bremer: I would agree with you. I think the whole idea of a country club Republican is a bit of a straw man. And that’s my concern. I am totally with you, big government Republicans are bad folks to have out there.

Worley: Then why are we going after people who attack big-government Republicanism within the El Paso Country Republican Party?

Bremer: We’re not. The short answer is, we’re not. The long answer is, I view, and many others view, that the party’s job, and  that I as the head of the Party, and that the party establishment, should not be out there as an unaccountable arbiter of ideology. You know, dictatorships seem like a great idea when you first set them up. If you set up Mother Theresa as a dictator, 30 years later you’re going to come back and people are getting their heads cut off. …

Egged on by radio-host Amy Oliver, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) revealed Friday that he favors plans that “would basically turn the Department of Transportation back to the states.”

Oliver, who hosts the “Amy Oliver Show” on KFKA 1310-AM in Greeley, told Gardner that Colorado should keep most of its federal gasoline tax, so “we don’t have to beg or anything like that.”

The sentiment apparently struck a nerve in Gardner, who ran with Oliver’s suggestion:

“Well, I think there are some great ideas that would basically turn the Department of Transportation back to the states, because why do we have this system that says, hey, we’re going to just have you collect money, and we’re going to scrape some off the top. I mean, it makes no sense to have this middleman treated the way it is.”

You’d expect Oliver, who works at the right-leaning Independence Institute, to favor dismantling the Department of Transportation.

But when a U.S. Congressman like Gardner jumps on board, you’d think even Oliver would recognize that she owes it to you, me, and her audience to extract more details from him. Instead, she went, as planned, to a commercial break, Gardner disappeared, and the topic was dropped.

So, what would turning over the Department of Transportation to the states mean?

I asked former Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena for a reaction to Gardner’s notion.

“At first blush it may seem to be an attractive idea to let the states control their own funding, but the reality is that there is a real need to have a national highway system that supports our economy and contributes to our national security,” Pena said, adding that a national entity is needed to provide oversight so that transportation systems from coast to coast run smoothly and support economic development.

“I guess one could say every state should fund its own airports, but we could not have built Denver International Airport without $500 million from FAA,” Pena said. [The FAA is part of the Dept. of Transportation.]

DIA was not built just to benefit Colorado, Pena said, but to help the nation’s airports run more smoothly. Backups at Denver’s old airport, Stapleton, were causing inefficiencies and backups at airports nationwide, Pena pointed out, and it was clear DIA would remedy these problems.

“There was a national need to build DIA,” Pena told me.

The Department of Transportation has played this role, identifying and addressing national transportation needs, including those of less populated regions, since its inception, Pena argued. This role extends beyond airports and highways to ensuring that pipelines and other transportation systems are efficient and meet national safety standards. (Here’s a summary of the Department of Transportation’s responsibilities.)

“I don’t think he’s [Rep. Gardner] done his homework or analyzed his position very closely, because it [dismantling DOT] would have terrible consequences for national security and for our economy,” said Pena, who also served as Secretary of Energy.

On the radio, Gardner didn’t seem to care about national concerns:

“But if you look at the broader picture of transportation in general, Colorado gets less than a dollar for every dollar of tax dollars it sends in for the package of highway systems. So we are a net loser when it comes to sending a dollar in and getting less than a dollar back.”

Neither Gardner’s Office nor Amy Oliver returned calls for comment.

Listen to Gardner’s views on the Department of Transportation 12 minutes into the Aug. 5 podcast here. A partial transcript follows:

Oliver: I want to ask you about this. It really gets to the philosophy of what the proper function of government should be. Why on Earth should someone from Mississippi, why should federal tax money from any other state, Mississippi, Main, Missouri, Ohio, anybody, have to pay for a runway here in northern Colorado?

Gardner: Well, it really goes to the heart of what’s happening now in the bigger discussion on whether or not we should be trying to do all things for all people. I mean, certain people in the aviation industry do pay user fees to land. They do pay av tax on their aviation fuel. And that comes back to the airport and helps fund projects like the runway extension. But if you look at the broader picture of transportation in general, Colorado gets less than a dollar for every dollar of tax dollars it sends in for the package of highway systems. So we are a net loser when it comes to sending a dollar in and getting less than a dollar back.

Oliver: Well, we actually get less than that because they have their overhead that they have to do.

Gardner: You’re right. The middleman. They just kind cut it off. There’s states like Wyoming that get more money. Alaska gets more money. So the question is, how does this continue and how can we continue it when people are struggling to make ends meat as it is, and we have a government that’s far beyond its means.

Oliver: Let me ask you something, and this might be getting back a little bit to your state capital days. Couldn’t we do something with our federal gasoline tax and just say, hey listen, you guys, what is the federal gasoline tax, I think it’s 18 cents a gallon, we’ll give you two cents. Let us just keep the rest. That way we don’t have to beg or anything like that. We just keep it here in Colorado.

Gardner: Well, I think there are some great ideas that would basically turn the Department of Transportation back to the states, because why do we have this system that says, hey, we’re going to just have you collect money, and we’re going to scrape some off the top. I mean, it makes no sense to have this middleman treated the way it is.

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog.