How can a “non opinion” from one “unqualified to make an opinion” be the basis to implore an outcome? That just makes no sense.
good evening
sticky zoning laws
Writing them is a lot easier than cleaning them up.
Elbert County Republicans ceded direction of Elbert County zoning law to the Left years ago. Under the Left, master planning – what used to be a guideline for officials – became, effectively, regulatory.
Discretion by elected County Commissioners, who citizens used to go to for reasonable treatment in the face of overwhelming bureaucratic power, has been replaced by heavy-handed zoning laws written by Leftist planners. [Read more…]
keeping score
Elbertonians, look around you. How many people do you know employed by taxpayer funded entities? How many people do you know who administer taxpayer funded entities? [Read more…]
Thomasson and Corrado rebutted
Mr. Thomasson and Mr. Corrado published an open letter to two new members of the Planning Commission today.
It contains a number of errors: [Read more…]
inaudibly faint praise from the Left
The Elbert County Left’s on-line venues continue in silent mourning over Commissioner Schlegel’s announcement that he’ll not seek a second term. The news must have completely overturned their strategy for the next election cycle. [Read more…]
Ezra Levant on professional protestors
politics by any means possible
“[G]uilty as charged!” crowed Jill Duvall in a New-Plains.com article today.
Not exactly. “Guilt” and “charges” relate to prosecutions under a criminal statute. Ms. Duvall conflates criminal law with civil law. For future reference, Ms. Duvall might keep in mind that crimes put an individual at risk, based on evidence found beyond a reasonable doubt, of the loss of their freedom through incarceration.
The Fair Campaign Practices Act allows for sanctions involving civil penalties based on a preponderance of evidence – a much lower standard.
Let’s look at the Judge’s ruling; [Read more…]
Power
The Bishops, Mr. Blotter, Mr. Brown, Mr. Corrado, the Duvalls, Mr. McShay, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomasson, and friends, share an orthodoxy.
A little background is in order for any of the 3000+ daily hitters here who may not know Elbert County, Colorado. The above individuals fuel and publish the counter culture press in Elbert County at New-Plains.com and Prairietimes.com with weekly writings promoting their shared orthodoxy, and trashing any who might contemplate a dissent. [Read more…]
a Colorado weekend
. . .it’s Mitt’s fault now
The Amazing Mittdrake the Magician
To deflect from the Obama train wreck, the Aspen Daily News resurrects the fear of Romney. Surely the threat Romney presented to the mountain Left’s way of life was mitt-i-gated at the polls over a year ago? But so long as Romneycare keeps chunking along up in Massachusetts, and the promised magic of Obamacare keeps failing to materialize out of the One’s hat, the Aspen Left will have to keep reaching.
on a mission from God
P.S. After meeting update.
The Left played nice last night as they ratcheted regulations for minor oil & gas facilities into place. Groundwork is laid for future battles on MOU contents and language designed to precipitate operational conflicts. CDS’s Fenner, EC’s LGD, knows that an “official” MOU walks a zoning line that can be construed as regulatory, and by its expected content, will operationally conflict with state regs. The Left would love nothing better than a good long lawsuit on the question. And of course there is a commissioner on the ballot to be peppered with mudballs. While the playground was orderly last night, I expect their diplomacy won’t last long. [Read more…]
January 1, 2014
Let’s pretend I got in the car this morning, drove the hour to Denver, shopped at one of the dozens of green cross stores doing a brisk over-the-counter business this day, provided identification to prove I was at least 21 years old, bought a quantity of herbal medicine along with some mechanism to smoke it, drove the hour back home, lit up the newly-legal substance, and began to hallucinate about the new year.
It could happen. Well, not likely. But let’s say I could bend time, distance, the snowy weather, and a will to enter an altered mental state this morning with false drugs. What unbounded world might I imagine under the influence of that smoky herb?
The first thing I’d dump out of my paradise would be [Read more…]
the taboo of freedom
From the American Left, the Obama administration, and the Washington bureaucracy, one hears frequent lip service to freedom, but sees little substance about freedom in practice. Too often, a discussion of freedom begins and ends with the Constitution, whence the discussion should only begin. The Constitution establishes the essential foundation for free behavior, but it remains up to us to decide how to use that freedom. [Read more…]
Community and Development Services
“The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey. The resulting tyranny is even more impressive if it can be enforced by a privileged caste or party which is highly zealous in the detection of error. Most of humanity, throughout its history, has dwelt under a form of this stupefying dictatorship, and a large portion of it still does.”
Hitchens
Why don’t Elbert County Republicans show up to fight encroaching totalitarianism from the expansion of impossible to obey zoning law?
All the Democrats show up.
B_Imperial
Merry Christmas
Somehow the magic of Christmas can cut through all the noise in the world. I know the noise will be back in a day or a week, and all the forces that tear at the world will be back doing their worst. But at least for a few hours, how nice to set all that aside.
Aaron Brachfeld
Aaron Brachfeld is no Andrew Breitbart.
Most writers write to find and flesh out their ideas of truth. But for his political adversaries, Brachfeld writes to destroy their meaning, and cut off the potential that an inconvenient truth, for him, could be revealed. [Read more…]
reality and consensus
One can get balled up in Christopher Hitchens’ atheism, for he’s an equal opportunity offender of all the faithful. [Read more…]
Rick Brown on discretion
discretion – A public official’s power or right to act in certain circumstances according to personal judgment and conscience. [Black’s Law Dictionary]
Mr. Brown – the Democrat Party official placed on to the Elbert County Planning Commission by BOCC member Larry Ross, a recent Democrat himself – does not trust the Republican majority on the BOCC to administer the law in the best interest of Elbert County.
Mr. Brown pushes regulations that, in the name of discretion, remove all discretion from the process.
First off, this is an impossible task. Second, if Mr. Brown has his way Elbert County will be saddled with an impossibly tortuous body of regulatory law for oil and gas development that will put a stop to all oil and gas development.
Coincidentally, this has been Mr. Brown’s, and Larry Ross’s, objective all along.
Mr. Brown is on the Planning Commission to push the left’s agenda by any means possible. If he can’t control the wording of the regulatory law, his fallback strategy is to delay the implementation of it. Either one serves the purpose of preventing oil and gas development. Brown is a determinist who intends to dictate the zoning law out of the mistaken belief that law can control human behavior. While law can certainly influence human behavior, law will never control people to the extent the left believes.
It’s a mistake to put legal zealots in Planning Commission seats. All they need is a foot in the door to insinuate anything they desire into the process. That’s what lawyers do – they build cases out of thin air.
Take a step back from the particular points Mr. Brown and company ceaselessly argue. Look at the one-way trend toward their objective of obstructing oil and gas development. For almost 3 years now in Elbert County, their contributions to this nascent oil and gas industry have been about: control, delay, refusal, preemption, denial, suspension, constriction, prevention, etc., all performed in the name of good regulations.
Bullshit.
Are we not supposed to notice that nothing that they suggest actually facilitates this industry?
B_Imperial
Sturm und Drang
HELP WANTED [Read more…]