Colorado Succession, Are They High?

Not since the Civil war has a state osmosed into two states, but there are some folks in the rural north east of Colorado who are rejecting the kush smoking, non-gun touting ways on the big city Denver elites that are running the state. No, seriously, their are people in Colorado that will have the option to direct their chunk of the state to secede and form a new state.

An actual store in Denver

Weld County, Colorado commissioners this Tuesday announced a plan to publish a series of editorials in support of the 51st state initiative, an initiative directed at exploring the possibility of several Colorado counties breaking ties with the state and forming a new state of North Colorado. They presently have plans to release the series before early voting begins and Weld County residents voice whether they wish to secede from Colorado. The commissioners of the county leading the charge for seceding from Colorado and forming North Colorado have begun a campaign of editorials about their cause. The Weld County Commission will post arguments for breaking away -- in this case, on their government website. The first installment includes statements like "For too long we have endured the arrogance and, yes, elitism of the state legislature and the Governor’s Office. They mock us, they refuse to listen and they dismiss our concerns."

The initial publication from the county commissioners appears to lack and truly substantive arguments, but appears to simply brace us for following articles that will flesh out their case and concerns in the coming weeks. There are some articles throughout the website, though not directly tied to the succession story, that cite more specific points where voiced concerns from the county fall on death ears at the state level that have had negative impacts on the rural area of Weld County, such as the following specific examples;

 In 2009, the Colorado Water Board Commission made changes of the Flood Plain rule, taking it from a 100-year rule to a 500-year rule. While these rules have little impact on Front Range communities, they have a huge impact on rural Colorado. For example, this rule will force smaller communities in the rural sections of the state to endure huge expenses in the future when faced with the need to upgrade their water treatment plants; an egregious example of no oversight, no justification and no fiscal impact review. In my opinion, this rule change results in a large taking of private property rights with no benefit, in most cases, to the general public 

-and-

What many farmers and ranchers deem as the straw that broke the camel’s back, Senate Bill 252, 
signed into law this summer, increased the mandate that rural electric utility companies produce a percentage of their energy by renewable resources from 10% to 20% – an idea so ‘good’ the urban areas served by city-owned utilities and private corporations exempted themselves from the increase.

I have to do a double take, these are some serious grievenses but surely secession is an extreme reaction, even if these do span over the period of years. IF a new state would be created on the border of Nebraska, many questions would have to be answered. Would money be owed to Colorado 'Prime' by the new state for infrastructure investment? What would the initial constitution look like? What college football conference would they be a demographic for? And, of course, where can I toke up?

I jest, but I'm very interested in what this process looks like and if they are even allowed to 'proceed' should a majority of North Coloradians vote in favor of succession this fall.

Rocky Mountain High

Colorado has finally sighed recreational use of marijuana into law, let the jokes at their expense begin!

Colorado residents are going to be taxed heavily under current marijuana legislation. Once the measure takes effect the state is expected to be solvent within 45 minutes.

Colorado Marijuana farmers are worried that radiation from Japan could affect their crops. More likely, they're just being paranoid for some reason.

Thousands of Colorado residents took to the polls today in support of legalizing marijuana. Unfortunately, the election was seven months ago.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's appeared on television Tuesday night to remind citizens that pot smoking was still illegal under federal law "so don't break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.", (This one is not a joke, this actually happened.)

After the law in enacted, experts believe there will be a 2 hour window of zero crimes committed in the state of Colorado, immediately followed by a massive food shortage.

FDA officials in Colorado had concerns about how long marijuana can be stored before before it begins to go bad, residents reassured the officials that they will never need to find out.

The University of Colorado football team has set a record of number of times their Quarterback has gotten blitzed, the season doesn't start for three months.

The first ads for recreational marijuana use have started to air on television in Colorado. The ads are quite expensive. It costs a lot of money to buy 30 seconds or air time during 'Spongebob Squarepants'

In Colorado, the country's first marijuana cafe opened up, which not only sells marijuana, but also has a restaurant where customers can order food. In a related story, the recession is over!

Colorado is considering opening up sales of marijuana to non-residents, with the provision of changing the state slogan to 'Come for the legal marijuana, stay because you forgot to leave.'

Other considerations for state motto's;
Colorado: Making bank by smoking dank.
In Colorado, life is what you bake of it.
Sorry for our state's bluntness, that's just how we roll.
Haters bring drama, Colorado bring ganja
Help keep Colorado mellow, it's a joint effort!

Colorado goes to Romney

But probably not the way you thinking...

Last week an aggressive Mitt Romney, on a stage at the University of Denver, became the source of an outpouring of good news for the challenger, and upsetting news for the incumbent. As it turns out, this is not the first time this election that some bad news has come out of the Centennial State for the President.

Back in August, A presidential election prediction model developed by two University of Colorado professors points to a big win for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney in November.This model, the only of its kind to use more than one state-level economic indicator, has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1980.

Bicker/Berry Model

It not only predicts Romney winning the electoral college, but by a 320-218 margin and winning 52.9 percent of the popular vote when only the two major parties’ candidates are considered. This s accomplished by having Romney win every state currently considered by pollsters to be a swing state, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire and North Carolina. Leaving Nevada and Iowa as the only swing states still going to Obama.

“What is striking about our state-level economic indicator forecast is the expectation that Obama will lose almost all of the states currently considered as swing states, including North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida,” said Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder.

Bickers and Berry, the professors that built this model, cautioned that their model used economic data from June, 2012. They intend to update their calculations when new data become available in September.

Well, October is here and the September data is available. Now, an updated version of their study has come to the same conclusion — but it intensifies the numbers behind a predicted Romney win.

Since the debate last week, polls have shown a statistically dead-heat race (Obama is currently at 48.2 percent, with Romney capturing 47.3 percent of likely voters in the most recent Real Clear Politics average), an updated election model shows an even larger gap between the Electoral College votes that Romney and Obama are projected to win. According to Bickers and Berry, Mitt Romney is now projected to take 330 of the 558 votes, according to their model, while Obama is expected to capture only 208 of them.

Is it time to announce a winner this election? Absolutely not! Obviously the polling is still unfavorable, though much closer. And with three debates remaining and a lower, though questionable, unemployment rate, the case is being made that this election could go any which direction. And to make a nod to the elephant in the room, this election will not follow so many of the rules created by previous rules, and I think the reason is pretty obvious. I'll take a lot of flack for saying this, but I must. Romney may not be able to defeat Obama because of the fact that Romney is a Mormon. </sarcasm>