Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Comment Archives: stories: Columns: Last 30 Days
Re: “Putting the 'tea' in trouble”
Yes Siggie, my post was in jest. IRS profiling and discrimination of any kind should never be tolerated.
But while we're at it..."I believe it is the systematic denial of "tax-free" status."
Actually "systematic denial" is somewhat of a misnomer. Of the 97 "conservative" groups whose applications for tax exempt status were delayed by the IRS, zero were actually denied. Of the 3 "liberal" groups whose applications for tax exempt status were delayed during the same time period, all three were denied.
Posted by
bill.guman
on 05/22/2013 at 4:35 PM
Re: “Putting the 'tea' in trouble”
Hillary is conservative?
Posted by
Staci6
on 05/22/2013 at 2:26 PM
Re: “Ballpark: There's a better way”
I oppose a downtown stadium. If successful in terms of attendance and use for activities other than baseball, it will snarl traffic to an even greater degree than the poorly-engineered series of curves on I-25 do now. We just experienced our largest good-weather pile-up of 10-12 cars last week in broad blue-sky daylight. A stadium like that should remain a destination out yonder. We need boosts to the economy of the city and you do that by attracting lots of new businesses, not by relocating one barely-thriving special interest business, national past-time notwithstanding. Stop re-arranging deck chairs, please.
Posted by
Stephen Bowlby
on 05/22/2013 at 1:15 PM
Re: “Putting the 'tea' in trouble”
Good line Bill, but we both know that is not the reason they were singled out. And, I don't believe an "investigation" is the subject. I believe it is the systematic denial of "tax-free" status, if any organization was conservative or spoke out against Obama. I know you posted in jest. Otherwise I would have to ask, are you in favor of discrimination, of any kind?
Posted by
siggie
on 05/22/2013 at 12:36 PM
Re: “Fighting gravity at the Colorado Springs Airport”
Stephen, exactly so.
De-regulation is a dangerous concept for any industry, especially transportation, in which case deregulation was a form of ignorance that failed to grasp sophisticated concepts that such services ARE a form of public utility requiring regulatory oversight to assure all of the public are well served at fair prices and without abuses. We were so much smarter in years past; the modern era of American history is turning out to be a disaster, save for a few of the hustlers on Wall Street who fleece the entire nation.
Though the CAB (and the ICC) were hidebound bureaucracies, that could've been easily fixed with new leadership and a revamp of the rules. Instead, the idiot from Harvard (Alfred Kahn) through out the baby with the bath water. The best aviation industry the world has ever seen was sacrificed on the alter of fare wars.
Low fares pleased the masses but the masses are truly ignorant of what's good for their own best personal and national interests, especially in the longer term. We've destroyed most airlines and eventually will get down to a de facto duopoly where two huge airlines achieve sufficient market dominance to allow monopolistic fare prices, at which time profitability will return to the industry so the survivors can avoid bankruptcy. We're almost there and are now seeing fares a good deal higher. I laugh at whiners, the ones who preach that everything should pay its own full cost, but scream like stuck pigs pay about today's airfares which are finally starting to cover the full cost of the service, plus that sacred free market profit factor.
Vaporous dreams of free market theorists that deregulation would give us an industry full of snazzy new start up airlines that serve even tiny towns with sparkling new planes and voluptuous cabin attendants at convenient times of the day has become an apocalyptic nightmare of what a true free market is really like.
The true bare knuckle, fight for your life, no holds barred, free market reality has arrived: bankruptcies, crashes, wage cuts, service cuts, disappearing pension funds (with taxpayers picking up the tab via the PBGC) and the humiliation of hub/spoke flying patterns that treat people like a package on FEDEX, i.e., y'all get to fly via a hub airport before we'll take you where it is you wanna go....so here's a stale bagel, now shut up, sit down, and buckle up.
The same mental midgets that love doug bruce love deregulation. Idiots.
Posted by
OldCrank
on 05/22/2013 at 12:20 PM
Re: “Ballpark: There's a better way”
What downtown needs are decent places to live both high and low priced and a grocery store. Nine months out of the year a baseball stadium sits empty. I don't see how an empty stadium would make me want to go downtown on a Thursday on February.
Posted by
Philip
on 05/22/2013 at 11:13 AM
Re: “Putting the 'tea' in trouble”
I can't imagine why any group whose acronym stands for "Taxed Enough Already" would be investigated by the IRS.
Posted by
bill.guman
on 05/22/2013 at 11:13 AM
Re: “Fighting gravity at the Colorado Springs Airport”
A rail line will soon be open between Denver and DIA, which will launch a building boom along it's path. When the DC area built its Metro Subway, the transit lines helped greatly to transform the region into an economic powerhouse. Expect jobs to go to Denver metro area, not here.
It'll be the final nail in the coffin for COS Airport AND our city's economic future.
Between clownish evangelicals, the idiotic TABOR, and our moron in Congress, our city is a joke to most of the country; a laughing stock of a city in a job-poor nation. Except for economic bottom fishers with low-wage jobs for a dumbed-down tea-party population, no reputable firm will consider moving here.
Posted by
OldCrank
on 05/22/2013 at 10:07 AM
Re: “Fighting gravity at the Colorado Springs Airport”
Airline deregulation, signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1978, began the impact on dozens if not hundreds of small regional airports that culminates in what we see today at COS airport. The act removed government over fares, routes, and market entry of new airlines from commercial aviation and phased out the Civil Aviation Bureau's regulation powers. The CAB had created a bottleneck of bureaucracy that stood in the way of innovation and service. Deregulation created a free-market environment for air service which delighted all, well, free-marketers and their airlines, increasing competition but eventually eroding service to less-profitable routes and cities. Like ours. Precisely because we did not deregulate phone service and other utilities in the same manor, considering them to be essential life services, people living in rural areas have access to those services. In the case of air service, free-market capitalists got what they wanted, the airlines got what they wanted, and the flying public gets what's left. In our case: bupkis. Coffee and newspapers from the mayor do not constitute the needed economic incentives to both sides of air commerce. They constitute amateur hour.
Posted by
Stephen Bowlby
on 05/22/2013 at 10:01 AM
Re: “Ballpark: There's a better way”
"The interstate is like right there."
Truly sad to see. Not only has the all pervasive and decidedly juvenile inappropriate use of the word "like" defiled our dialogue, it seems to now have reared its ugly head in the printed word.
Hey Tony, can you try just a little harder.
Posted by
siggie
on 05/22/2013 at 9:23 AM
Re: “Putting the 'tea' in trouble”
Ranger Dick: I know, as the fair-minded (cough) person that you are, you will join me in condemning the IRS for the criminal practice of discriminating against one group in favor of another.
You do realize there will be a conservative senate and president again (very likely in 2014 and 2016 respectively). Isn't it likely that liberals would like to be treated fairly when the shoe is on the other foot?
Posted by
siggie
on 05/22/2013 at 8:35 AM
Re: “Going hungry in Houston”
Here's an idea Jimmy. Why don't you and your bleeding heart adopt all the homeless in the Springs. You don't need to take them in, but simply follow behind them and pick up all the trash they heedlessly toss around. Or, better yet, pick up all the feces deposited daily along the trail system. Or are you just talk?
Posted by
siggie
on 05/22/2013 at 6:50 AM
Re: “Ballpark: There's a better way”
See, if stupid was painful, this guy would be dead. They cannot manage money to begin with. There is NO parking there, nor will there be. The interstate is like right there. Oh what joy to be at a complete stop on an interstate ramp. This is part of the boys club wanna be's. What this article does not cover is the kick back he will be getting.
Posted by
Tony Wendt
on 05/22/2013 at 4:51 AM
Re: “Homelessness solution: Welcome to Bachville”
Gosh K, Stacy doesn't need any help. Did you miss the point? How obtuse.
Posted by
siggie
on 05/21/2013 at 3:33 PM
Re: “Homelessness solution: Welcome to Bachville”
siggie, how much is Stacy paying for your defense? Stacy, get a refund!
Posted by
Mr. K--
on 05/21/2013 at 3:09 PM
Re: “Homelessness solution: Welcome to Bachville”
Stacy, it is downright democratic of you to take the word of the homeless over media pundits. Did you also take the word of the 99%-ers when they were camped out downtown?
Posted by
Mr. K--
on 05/21/2013 at 3:07 PM
Re: “Homelessness solution: Welcome to Bachville”
The contemptuous K strikes again (or tries to). You have been spanked by every conservative you endeavor to edify. It will take little effort from Stacy to hand you your hat.
Posted by
siggie
on 05/21/2013 at 2:03 PM
Re: “Homelessness solution: Welcome to Bachville”
"Bachvilles?!?!?!?!?!" I congratulate you, Stacy. You employed just the right number of question marks and exclamation points to drive home your point. Had you added or subtracted even one of those punctuation marks, the argument would not have been nearly so convincing!
One minor detail: the article referred to a single Bachville, not many Bachvilles, because it was not meant to refer to any homeless encampments around town. It was a satirical comment on how the mayor sees the entire city of Colorado Springs.
Posted by
Mr. K--
on 05/21/2013 at 1:15 PM
Re: “A spin around Fort Carson”
you expect army PAO to tell the truth? LOL
Posted by
apathetic
on 05/20/2013 at 2:40 PM
Re: “Putting the 'tea' in trouble”
You all reali8ze the only groups denied in Cenncinnati were all progressive groups. All three of them? The horror of actually having to back up your social welfare bonfides must be really rought for some.