Wade Norris

It seems that Mike Coffman of Colorado is doing his best to hand his congressional seat over to the Blue column, but for those not familiar with Mr. Coffman, he is not just a birther caught with a live microphone.

Mike Coffman was Colorado's former Secretary of State...

Last year in Denver, Colo., there was snow on the ground through the end of April and warm temperatures were not really felt until mid May.

Since the end of February this year, Colorado has only had two days that I can count where there were wintry conditions, and that...

We now have a real fight on our hands for the 2012 campaign.

Do not underestimate Rick Santorum.

IMHO he has all the boxes checked for a viable Republican candidate -- let's look.
Not Mitt Romney: Check.
Conservative: Check.
From a potential swing state: Check.
...

The president is proving once again that he is much better than his predecessor George Bush as a president -- when it comes to getting to more oil in pristine environments and silencing critics and whistleblowers.

From the Guardian:

... the government scientist who first...

Colorado Sec. of State Scott Gessler has already embroiled himself in controversy when he tried to remain employed with his former partisan Republican elections law firm even as he was sworn in as secretary of state.

Now, Gessler has decided to unilaterally overturn the state constitution, specifically amendment 27,...

Denver's mayoral race is coming down to the wire with four potential candidates still in the mix -- Michael Hancock, Doug Linkhart, James Mejia, and Chris Romer.

This race shines a spotlight on the direction of our political process. Does one become elected to higher office through public service or...

Education 'reformer' Michelle Rhee, the much-touted darling of Arne Duncan and unfortunately our President, is now being investigated for falsifying test records of her students to improve her resume.

Rhee responded to the investigation by saying

""It isn't surprising," Rhee said in a statement Monday, "that the...

Across our Nation, parents and educators are fighting against top down plans implemented by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, such as 'Race to the Top,' and sudden school closings and teacher layoffs.

Now, a line in the sand is being drawn on this issue in Denver, Colorado, as a recall effort has been mounted against School Board Member Nate Easley - specifically over his conflict of interest in employment and neglecting to listen and meet with concerned parents of Northeast Denver.

This recall will pit parents who are grassroots organizers against the 'reforms' that close schools from the administration and its Secretary of Education.

This recall does not just threaten one Denver Public School Board member, but goes much higher up - even the President has been brought in for political cover. (No one from the school he mentions was in the audience for the SOTU - every other honoree was in attendance, almost like a last minute addition).

The postive press Bennet and Boasberg got from that SOTU shout-out may have looked good from afar, but it could not hide the fact that in the same week, the ballots were certified to recall Nate Easley, a clear sign that Denver parents are not happy with the way the Schools are being run.

First, why recall Nate Easley? At the time Nate Easley was running for the school board, the board was a 4-3 majority in favor of Superintendent Boasberg's continued plans for shutting down schools, just as his predecessor, (Senator) Michael Bennet had done with Manual High School. Parents had heard that Boasberg was now going to bring a vote to shut down Montbello High School.

Public outcry over this was heated, with parents crying out 'NO' to the idea, as you can see here.

Nate Easley failed to keep his campaign pledge to meet and listen to the parents, specifically on the potential Montbello closure. (hattip to Christopher Scott)

Easley missed multiple meetings with groups of community members, which is never a good policy for an elected official. Community members also point out that Easley has failed to notice meetings where school board members have discussed public business and made policy decisions, which has just fueled the fire of distrust between Easley and those he represents. Parents cite a general lack of accountability with Easley, who, they say, does not respond to emails or phone calls.

Far NE Denver resident Donna Moore, told me, "That's what Easley was elected to do - meet with us and represent us on the school board. He can't be bothered to do that, so he's got to go."

It also appears that Easley has a major conflict of interest with his duty as a School Board Member.

Easley works as the Deputy Director of the Denver Scholarship Foundation, an organization intimately associated with the Denver school system. ...superintendent Tom Boasberg has an active leadership role on the foundation... Boasberg ...could exert tremendous professional pressure on Easley, who needs a paying job to feed his family.

On the other hand, as Board president, Easley is directly responsible for Boasberg's employment status at DPS. He oversees the preparation of Boasberg's professional evaluation. He has significant influence in Boasberg's compensation package. In theory, Boasberg should think of himself as reporting directly to Easley as long as Easley is Board of Education president.

If Easley is recalled, the board's minority will become the majority, and investigations that have been blocked for years will begin, setting off a chain of events. Consider this: In the Spring of 2008, current US Senator Michael Bennet was Superintendent Bennet. He and his assistant Tom Boasberg persuaded the Denver Public School Board to invest the School's Budget into a derivative wwap with JP Morgan.

Flash forward two years later, and Michael Bennet is now Senator Bennet, involved in the Democratic Primary with Andrew Romanoff.

Three out of seven DPS school board members are asking lots of questions about the soundness of the derivative swap, so much so that even the New York Times did an investigation into the swap.

All through the primary, the three dissenting board members -- Arturo Jimenez, Andrea Merida, and Jeanne Kaplan -- were brushed aside by the majority board members and by Superintendent Boasberg. Boasberg referred to their inquiry as being 'politically motivated' by supporters of Bennet's primary opponent.

The facts do not support this. Official emails from board member Jeanne Kaplan show she had been asking questions of Michael Bennet and Tom Boasberg as far back as the fall of 2008, before Obama was elected or Ken Salazar was picked to be Secretary of the Interior and before Bennet became a Senator.

The official email trail can be found here at Square State.
For example:

From: (Jeanne Kaplan)

Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:11 AM
To: Boasberg, Tom; Pena, Theresa's External;
Cc: Bennet, Michael
Subject: Re: DPSRS-PERA merger memo

Tom - I can't open the attachment, but is it still relevant? What is happening with the merger, since the papers indicates it is off? Also, can we get an update on our bond situation, please? Have we lost a lot of money? If so, how much? Are there ways to stop the bleeding? When will programs/salaries/ etc. be affected?

Thanks.

Jeannie

-----Original Message-----
From: Boasberg, Tom
To: Jeannie Kaplan-
Cc: Pena, Theresa's Bennet, Michael
Sent: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:04 pm
Subject: RE: DPSRS-PERA merger memo

Thanks. think the attachment is of limited relevance at this point. I think that we are going to try to spend some time at our board meeting this month talking about all these topics so we will have a chance to discuss in some detail .

Thanks.

Best,
Tom

You can see in this exchange that Kaplan uses the term 'bleeding' in reference to the losses caused by the derivative swap, long before Obama was inaugurated or Bennet was picked as a Senator, and a year and a half before he was involved in a primary race. Clearly this was without political motivation. As Bennet's spokesperson, Boasberg politely dismissed inquiries at first, but later Boasberg dismissed budget accounting requests as politically motivated through the Primary, and is still blocking them today.

The three dissenting board members have not stopped demanding information, long after Bennet won the primary and his re-election. And they have not stopped fighting against the unpopular school closures, but with little success, as they are in the minority. And the parents have stayed involved as well. They don't like these reforms on a gut level, knowing deep down something is wrong with closing a school and then having charter schools re-open that don't take non-English speakers or special needs students, and that require you to get in a lottery to make it into the school if you are a 'normal' student.

And those deep down suspicions are now being proven by studies on these 'reform' efforts. Teacherken has an excellent expose of how these reforms - specifically Arne Duncan's turnaround program in Chicago, have been proven to be failures - and now that 'reform' is being implemented in 'Race to the Top' nationally: "How the Billionaire Boys Club is running and ruining Education."

The parents have fought and fought and have even formed a grassroots group - DeFENCE (Democrats for Excellent Neighborhood School Education) to fight these 'reforms,' conflicts of interests and overall lack of transparency.

This group is all volunteer and all grassroot funded, with very little money, but lots of gumption.

If their recall effort of Nate Easley is successful, then the board will flip back to a 4-3 majority for the dissenting viewpoint.

This issue will be a big decision for voters in upcoming elections. Candidates in the upcoming Denver mayoral race will have to decide where they stand on this issue. Since all the candidates are Democrats, the question is this: Will candidates listen to the local parents who vote in the mayoral race - or to those aligned with Arne Duncan?

And inquiries into the losses of the DPS derivative swap will have ongoing and potentially damaging results to certain members of the school board who have blocked inquiries, and certainly for the current Superintendent Boasberg and most likely for the former Superintendent, Senator Michael Bennet.

In a turn of events, the heavy handedness of these board members and past and present Superintendents may unravel so publicly that it will serve as a bulwark against heavy handed politicians who run roughshod over the will of the parents of students in these schools. And that may serve as a sign to parents and educators that they can successfully stand against the Secretary of Education and others forcing 'reforms' that are hurting students. If they are successful, maybe all the funding of these corporate and business gimmicks will be shelved in favor of funding something that educators and parents have been demanding for years - lower student to teacher ratio - something simple and proven to work.

Time will...

An interesting thing is going on in the states where Republican Governors are being sworn in to replace their Democratic predecessors.

From Meteor Blades on DKos:

Governor-elect Scott Walker of Wisconsin doesn't want to build the high-speed rail line from Madison to Milwaukee that the federal government has granted...

Nothing personal against Senator Biden, but the Sarah Palin-teabag type of GOP is here to stay. Whomever the 2012 GOP ticket consists of, its probably a safe bet that one of the spots will be a mama grizzly -- a.k.a. Palin or Haley. Having Hillary in the Vice President slot...

Colorado has a decision to make this year for the State Treasurer's race. Do we stay with the current Treasurer, Cary Kennedy, OR do we elect political newcomer Walker Stapleton?

Let's take a look at the two candidates.

Cary Kennedy has a track record of helping the State of Colorado...

In case you hadn't noticed, there is a Senate primary in Colorado pitting a Conservadem,Michael Bennet, against a people powered candidate, Andrew Romanoff, who has taken the Obama pledge to take no PAC money. (Conservadem is not my label, Rachel Maddow gave Senator Bennet that name...

Volunteers for Andrew Romanoff are busting their behinds day in and day out and Mr. Romanoff himself is crisscrossing the state connecting with voters and making his case for their vote.

What's Bennet up to? From the latest edition of the New Yorker:

Michael Bennet, a freshman...

Recently in the Colorado Democratic Primary, Senator Michael Bennet accused former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff of voting to "privatize Social Security."

Upon further review of the record, it seems that Senator Bennet is taking a page from the Karl Rove playbook. Rove was infamous for attacking a rival's strength and...

The 2010 Colorado Democratic Senate Primary signifies two different directions in education in our country -- between a business person's view of education vs. an educator's view of education.

Our choices include Michael Bennet and challenger Andrew Romanoff. Michael Bennet is the incumbent appointed Senator who was also appointed...

Crossposted at Square State and PRAER.org

There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more.

It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort...

This past week, the headlines reported that the White House tried to limit the Colorado Primary via a list of possible administration positions to Senate Primary candidate Andrew Romanoff. This type of insider politics does not rise to the level of a violation of the law, but it...

As we all now know, a second alleged job 'dangle' was made by the White House to a potential Senate Primary candidate - this time it was Andrew Romanoff to prevent his primary challenge to Appointed Senator Michael Bennet.

Republicans like Darrel Issa (who it now seems is...

Now that you have delivered victories for Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and most likely a win for Bill Halter in Arkansas, you, the netroots, need to know about the next important primary candidate.

Just like the race between Lincoln and Halter, this is a choice between a corporate powered candidate...

This week on Huffington Post's Denver page, Michael Bennet posted an article, "Close the Revolving Door," which talks about his efforts to reform the lobbyist ways of Washington.

It would seem the readers from Colorado did not take comfort in the Senator's words in light of his recent votes.