On this Memorial Day, I trust you’ve had some time with your families and I know that you have remembered all of our troops currently serving, our Veterans and those that have sacrificed to keep us free in this greatest country on earth. I’ve enjoyed my weekend with Linda in Northern Michigan. We watched Taking Chance last night – a hard film to watch but appropriate for Memorial Day weekend.

There are many many displays of patriotism and flags flying everywhere here in what some refer to as flyover country. If it is flyover country, they better not fly too low lest they get tangled in all the stars and stripes. It is great to see indeed. Enjoy your families and friends and I’ll see you soon so we can continue our quest to preserve our freedoms.

Erich

P.S. – I’ve included a link to Red Skelton’s presentation on the Pledge of Allegiance, which I’ve shared before but is well worth repeating, HERE.

and

One from 2008 – Gene Simmons and Kiss’s Tribute – really, HERE.

I was thinking about what to write for our 4th of July celebration, mulling over why we Declared our Independence. Things that sound eerily familiar drove the founders to take this most dangerous step. Such as, taxation without representation, oppressive rules, interference in commerce. I happened to be cleaning up the driveway on Thursday when Sharon Ryan stopped and we started discussing the sorry state of our country and how the people in power today are marching us headlong to socialism and spending us into 2 or 3 generations of servitude. Sharon then told me a story of an experience she had when she and her husband witnessed a very serious accident at Rocky Mountain Airport. Her story is an allegory about what is happening to our country. I suggested she write it up. She did and here it is – THANK YOU SHARON.

Headed for the Fence

I had an interesting experience the other day. My husband and I just happened to be among the 8 or 10 spectators present at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport when that P2-Neptune air tanker angled off the end of the taxiway and crashed through a chain link fence, coming to rest with its nose in the ground on the far side of 120th Avenue. The event was pretty spectacular, even making national news, but most intriguing to me are the thoughts I’ve had since then regarding the nature of danger and the mechanics of how our minds take its measure; insights that perhaps help explain why people perceive danger so differently, even that of the political kind.

After noting that tankers were flying fire fighting missions between the airport and Rocky Mountain National Park, my husband and I drove out to observe the activity. We were watching a tanker move off the tarmac and down the taxiway with a fresh load of fire retardant when one of the spectators looked to the western sky and said something about catching part of a radio transmission indicating a possible emergency involving the tanker coming in. At about this time we noticed that the newly loaded plane had ceased moving entirely, and we became aware of the faint sound of sirens coming from that direction. We continued to watch the incoming plane as it passed overhead, flew to the far end of the strip, and turned to come in for a landing. When its wheels hit the runway I saw a billow of smoke or dust or tire debris – I wasn’t sure what. Turning off the runway, it continued down the taxiway at a good clip and my curiosity began to turn toward concern. I wondered if it might go straight off the end of the pavement, but aware of my lack of experience piloting a plane, I continued to keep my reservations at bay. Suddenly it angled off onto the grassy median separating the taxiway from the tarmac area. This was definitely something I had never seen before and again I thought something might be wrong, but my explanation at this point became, “Well, maybe the pilot’s just taking a shortcut to the area where the fire retardant is loaded and he’ll change course once he’s on the tarmac.” It was only when the plane was halfway across the tarmac, had not slowed down, had not turned, and contact with the fence was inevitable, that the situation became unequivocally incongruent for me. I could then banish from my mind all alternative explanations for what I was witnessing and finally conclude that something was truly wrong.

I have considered at what earlier points along the way others may have reached the same conclusion. I asked my husband when he knew for certain something was amiss. His longtime interest in aviation, coupled with his experience piloting small aircraft gave him an edge – the plane crossing onto the median was the conclusive piece of evidence for him. Obviously the pilot and copilot knew there was a problem well before that, reportedly a loss of hydraulic fluid, as did the control tower dispatchers, privy to communication with the pilot, but at what point did they each know the extent of the danger, that the plane was going to crash through the fence and that anything was game beyond that? The firefighters, too, had warning of trouble, and the pilot of the waiting aircraft had contact with the tower, but when did those who load the retardant know for certain? What did they clue into? And me – why did it take so long for me to put the pieces together? And what finally, for my mind, made the conclusive piece of evidence conclusive? Besides a suspension of belief attributable to the rarity of this kind of event, I have no experience piloting planes, virtually no experience seeing them in trouble, virtually no experience assessing clues relative to their status, and certainly these factors contributed to my slow response. But I also have an inherent, abstract faith in “pilots”, similar to what I have in “doctors” or “good people”; I simply assume they know what they are doing, have their situation under control, and direct reasonable actions toward reasonable outcomes. It is this faith, especially, which kept my interpretation in check, which kept me from tumbling to the seriousness of the situation. I gave the pilot the benefit of every doubt – I invested him with authority, competence. I recognized trouble only when my own critical mass of incongruity was reached, and it was reached only when I was certain the plane was going through the fence. At that moment I recognized the event as a crisis; at that moment the event became spectacular.

Perhaps you can see where I am going with this relative to the political danger that many of us perceive our country to be in today. Many of us feel we have seen enough to conclude that, unless we change course, the plane will crash through the fence. We see, for example, the relentless centralization of power and the concurrent curtailing of individual and economic freedoms. We are aghast at the copious amounts of money being spent and with no glimmer of restraint in sight. We perceive the antagonism directed toward big business and the ongoing denial of the value big business provides to our society. We see disdain for individual empowerment, the bedrock endowment of this nation. We see the inability of our current leaders to objectively evaluate reality and deal with it effectively. We see our prosperity being squandered.

We see these signs and more and can only wonder what additional evidence others can possibly need to likewise see that the plane is headed for the fence. But, like me watching events unfold at the airport, they simply don’t sense the danger yet. They do not attribute significance to the above concerns. They have faith in the pilot. They believe he must know what he is doing and that his actions must be directed toward desirable, attainable outcomes. They have not yet been faced with their unequivocal incongruity. Spectacular simply hasn’t happened yet.

Sharon Ryan
Broomfield, CO
July 3, 2010

Kick-Off the Opening of the Adams Broomfield Victory Office!!
2200 E. 104th Suite 116, Thornton, CO 80229 (Same location as 2008)

This Saturday, July 10th, we will be kicking off the election year with our 1st PHONE BANK of the cycle!
It will be from 10am-1pm: I will provide beverages!
We hope that you can all make it and show the state, and the NATION, what Adams Broomfield is all about!
If you cannot make it Saturday, please sign up for another shift in the upcoming weeks:
Tues. 10-1pm, 5-8pm
Wed. 10-1pm, 5-8pm
Thurs. 10-1pm, 5-8pm
Sat. 10-1pm, 1-3pm

For questions, please call Anna Fitzer at (720) 318-7084, anna@cologop.org.

-We are still in need of some supplies for the office: If any of you know someone willing to donate the following please contact us:
Refrigerator
2 medium sized desks
Med-Large Whiteboards
Coffee Pot
Snacks for Volunteers

July 15th
Broomfield High School Auditorium
Evening. (Roughly 6-9 but exact details to be determined)
Free
Open to the public
 
Loose tentative agenda:
6:30-7 meet and greet
7-8; Candidates speak for 5-7 minutes
8pm- Senate Forum begins
8:45-9- Meet and greet
 
We will invite all media and all candidates should put it on their website calendars. Please publicize this everywhere. This should be a very exciting and well attended event.!! The auditorium seats 600. We hope to have it near capacity. This is 3 weeks before one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.
 
 

Click in the Title – takes you to the Events PAGE.

May 22, 2010.

Pictures on FLICKR:
State GOP Central Committee Meeting 21 May 2010 HERE.
HD33 Assembly 21 May 2010 HERE.
CD2 Assembly 21 May 2010 HERE.
BBQ 21 May 2010 HERE.

The Main Event – Our 2010 Assembly HERE.

The last two days were the most fun I’ve had in a long time. And, we sure had some great results. How ’bout Ken Buck, JJ, and Dan Maes? The roof came off the Budweiser Event Center today. I’ll bet the papers will be very interesting tomorrow and given that I saw Lynn Bartels there, I expect some fair coverage. Don Beezley will be on the primary ballot for HD33; Stephen Bailey and Bob Brancato for CD2. One thing is for sure, it ain’t the same old Republican party and the new folks that have joined us have shown that hard work pays off. I knew all of you newbies would be great for our party — THANKS so much for your leadership!

Results – (over 3500 ballots cast):

U.S. SENATE
Robert Greenheck: 2%
Cleve Tidwell: 15%
Steve Barton: 1%
Ken Buck: 77%
(Jane Norton and Tom Wiens are petitioning onto the ballot.)

Candidates need to get 30 percent of the delegate vote to get on the primary ballot outright. If they get between 10 and 30 percent, they can petition on to the ballot.

Thank you so much to all the Delegates and Alternates that stepped forward and did the work to make it all happen and to our County Officers and helpers. We only had 3 delegate no-shows today and were able to promote alternates to vote 42 of our 43 allocated ballots (one person had to leave for an emergency after the cutoff time).

Let’s get some rest and then launch the next phase to our big WIN in November. We are off to the races.

Erich

A great time was had by all who attended our annual Lincoln Dinner on Saturday night April 24th. We heard from our Master of Ceremonies, Mike Holler, author if “The Constitution Made Easy”, Jon Caldara, who gave an emotional speech about this countries’ wonderful healthcare system, Stephen Green, Editor of PJTV, who told us to redouble our efforts to save the country and Tom Tancredo who talked about guns and our freedom. It was a great venue with a very nice and comfortable setting at the Omni Interlocken Resort Hotel. Thanks to all who turned out to support our party. Your donations to our party are important, especially this year, to ensure we win and stop the move away from Constitutional governance. And, a special thanks to Joan Griep who put together a great event.

UPDATE 5/6 – I received Ryan Springers photos this afternoon and they are now added to Rick’s photos – see Flickr HERE.

Erich Feigel, Chairman

We’ll have an “Open Mike” meeting on Thursday July 8th at our normal monthly meeting. All those that want to tell the group what you’ve been doing, what works, doesn’t work, suggestions etc. can have the microphone. We’ll leave plenty of time for crosstalk so come and share your experiences from the path.

Sill Terhar Motors at 7pm on July 8th. All registered Republicans welcome.

Update: 7/9/2010 – Great night, lots of good ideas and even more came to me today. Will compile and get ‘em out. Thanks to all that came and participated.

Erich

The Tea Party at the Capitol today was well attended. My estimate is 2500-3000 there and nice day at that. Broomfield was very visible with Francesca working the program, Shawn Mitchell giving his usual rousing speech and Jason Worley giving a great speech as well. I ran into many from Broomfield including Joanie, Tom, Mark, Steve Bosley (who was due to speak as I had to leave) and others. Of course, John Caldera fired up the crowd and we listened to some great singing from the Capitol steps.It was a good, well behaved crowd with lots of entertaining signs. If there were infiltrators I didn’t notice them (I had my arrow sign that said “Infiltrator” but I didn’t use it) — we were having too much fun soaking up the event and feeling like we are all of one mind about taking our country back. A good day and a perfect day for a motorcycle ride.

Thank you to all Broomfielders that helped put on this event.

Erich

Our next Central Committee meeting will be held on May 13th at 7:00pm.

We resume our normal schedule after arriving on the other side of the Caucus and Assembly and Lincoln Dinner. Remember to park outside the gates at Sill TerHar so you don’t get trapped inside the gates at 8pm when they are locked.

At this session, we will distribute the Credentials for the upcoming State Assembly on the 22nd. You MUST have the credentialed badge and a photo ID to gain entry to the Budweiser Center on Saturday. I will cover the schedules for both days at this meeting. Also, the State GOP is looking for volunteers to help with bag stuffing and other tasks. Call Cary Chan at the State GOP HQ at 303 758 3333 if you want to help (you get to watch the proceedings as well). Don’t forget the BBQ on Friday at 5pm on the 21st — see www.cologop.org for details and to sign-up on-line.

See EVENTS PAGE to review all events. Also, see our calendar on this website.