By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
THE RESTLESS ARE MOBILIZING: Tonight, from 7 to 9, Progressive Outreach Colorado will meet at
Dora’s Mexican Restaurant, 2406 S. Parker Road, urging people to come “meet/network with other progressives furious about proposed state budget cuts in education and youth mental health.” It’s not a protest, but it’s a prelude: The Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, plans Wisconsin solidarity actions in a number of U.S. cities, including Denver. Ours is noon Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Northern Colorado Tea Party group plans a counter rally, same time, same general location. “Please be aware, the SEIU will have a permit for the actual grounds. Be respectful of this,” the tea party group advises. “If you are on the grounds, do not be disruptive or they can have you removed. We will be meeting on the sidewalk on the west side of the Capitol – where we will express our First Amendment rights and cannot be asked to leave.” One commentator, Kelly Wiedemer of Examiner.com, referencing the rallies, trots out the Tunisia and Egypt examples showing that poor and middle-class people “have power.”
ALL THIS WEEK’S RALLY EVENTS posted here.
SPEAKING OF THE BUDGET, JBC meets 1:30 p.m. today with OSPB to talk about last week’s budget submission.
TIM HOOVER HAS NICE OVERVIEW of education cuts nationwide.
INFIGHTING PLAGUES med-pot groups.
SEN. FOSTER APPARENTLY HASN’T MESSED with this year’s sex-offender treatment bill.
SOME NATUROPATHS HOPE 12th time will be the charm.
TODAY’S CALENDARS. House. Senate.
SUBSCRIBERS: Your Virtual Bill Box is here. Your Personal Calendar is here.
LAST YEAR’S SODA TAX brings in $12M a year.
IS DOUGLAS COUNTY CENTER OF GRAVITY for Colorado’s GOP?
NOTHING ON TODAY’S SOCIAL CALENDAR: The truly social are still skiing at Beaver Creek.
NOTHING ON HICKENLOOPER’S PUBLIC SKED until 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
WILDLIFE DIVISION SPENDING $300K in bid to sell $2M of new elk-hunting licenses.
TAKE ED QUILLEN’S PRESIDENT DAY QUIZ here.
FORT LYON CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, set to close under Hick budget proposal, is “unexpectedly beautiful,” Post scribe Griego writes.
HE SAID IT: “All of us have much more of our freedoms at stake than we think with the closing of the school of journalism at the University of Colorado.” — Jim Martin, former CU regent.
HE SAID IT: “I pray to God Almighty that in this land of the free, we will retain our freedom to each practice our own particular art.” — Bharat Vaidya, an ayurvedic practitioner with a home-based naturopath practice in Superior.
SHE SAID IT: “When we come to the Capitol and we bring our members to the Capitol, we come in suits.” — Kristen Thomson, lobbyist, Medical Marijuana Industry Group.
HE SAID IT: “It’s bad all over. You have a handful of states like Wyoming — well, really, only Wyoming — that is doing OK. They’re not increasing their budget, but at least they’re not making cuts.” — Mike Griffith, senior policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based organization that advises states on education policy.
HE SAID IT: “If he wore a dress that would be bigger news.” — Poster known only as “Nick P,” on Denver Post story about Hick trying out tieless look.
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