“Nice guy. Meet ’em everywhere.”

Flashback Friday:

Kevin Ayers, Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes

Dianne Primavera Continues to Rock

I’ve gotten somewhat involved in local Democratic politics since moving to Colorado in 2003.  Over the the past couple of years, though, I’ve found myself sitting in a meeting or an assembly multiple times wondering, “What the fuck is the point?”

But every now and again the old excitement returns. Last night was one of those times.

I was a delegate to the Democratic Colorado House District 33 Assembly.  Pretty much the sole purpose of the Assembly was to nominate incumbent Rep. Dianne Primavera as the party’s official candidate for the state House of Representatives.

It was all pretty perfunctory. Everyone knew way that Dianne wanted to run for reelection. No other Democrat wants the job, AFAIK, and Dianne is extraordinarily good at it. She’s respected on both sides of the aisle and is widely viewed as the James Brown (“hardest working [wo]man”) of the Colorado General Assembly.

The Assembly got under way at 7:30 p.m. and its business took all of about fifteen minutes to complete. We managed to nominate Dianne before she even showed up.

So why wasn’t she on time? What’s the matter, can’t this hoity toity incumbent be bothered with the details of her own reelection?

That’s not it at all, of course. Dianne was late to the Assembly because she was working, as always. The House Judiciary Committee was conducting a hearing on S.B. No. 10-076 (pdf, 3 pages), which Dianne is sponsoring along with Sen. Morgan Carroll. The bill is quite important to Dianne, and she wanted to be there in person to shepherd the bill through what promised to be a rather prickly process.

It worked. When all was said and done the Judiciary Committee voted 7-4 in favor.

And what does the bill do? It designates as an unfair claim settlement practice an insurer paying its employees bonuses, incentives or other compensation for denying or delaying a claim, or for canceling or rescinding an insurance policy. When Dianne arrived and told us why she was late, the room erupted in applause. While clapping my hands I smiled and thought, “This, THIS is the point.”

Anyone who knows our humble little district knows that Dianne is a Democratic incumbent in sea of Republicans. Given the voter registration numbers, the state Republican Party has once again made retaking this seat a priority. So despite Dianne’s exceptional record over the course of two terms, getting reelected will take loads of time, effort and money.

You know what? It’ll be worth it. Dianne Primavera’s extraordinary combination of skill, work ethic and deep concern for actual flesh-and-blood constituents is all too rare. We’re fortunate as all hell to have Dianne Primavera representing us in Denver, and we’ll not give up such high-quality representation without a huge honking fight.

Shrill, Baby, Shrill

Here’s my favorite lunatic Republican conspiracy theory (from the past couple of days, at least). According to conservative icon and morbidly obese OxyContin junkie Rush Limbaugh, the current environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico might just be the work of “environmentalist whackos.” That’s right — maybe, just maybe, said whackos blew up that offshore drilling rig, thereby causing an oil spill that may well end up worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989,  to prevent us from achieving energy independence by making “Drill, Baby, Drill” our actual, literal public policy instead of just an idiotic Republican slogan.

Didn’t Fat Boy say he’d leave the country if “Obamacare” passed?

Fuckin’ Racist Dipshit Law Students: How do They Work?

I tell everyone who’ll listen that, as a general rule, people who graduate law school aren’t all that smart. In my experience (admittedly somewhat dated), law school is geared toward people of average intelligence who don’t mind putting a lot of work into activities that fall largely between drudgery and pain-inducing on the I Don’t Like This Shit continuum.

Seems that analysis applies not only to middling law schools like the one I attended but also to the hoity toity upper crust schools. The analysis also applies to overall enlightenment rather than just intelligence.

The magnificent Aryan warrior princess depicted here is Stephanie Grace, a third-year law student at venerable Harvard Law School.  Ms. Grace managed not only to get into Harvard – an impressive feat all by itself – but to do quite well. The linked article indicates that she’s secured a clerkship with Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Ms. Grace is a prime example of an excellent law student who’s just not  smart or enlightened. Seems she wrote and sent an email to some friends announcing that she just can’t rule out the possibility that black folk are genetically stupider than white folk. She does, however, admit the possibility of being “convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances.” It’s difficult to determine which component of this story is stupider, the old-school Prescott Bush style eugenics or Ms. Grace’s apparent belief  that she could transmit such statements over the internet without anyone forwarding her email to, say, the Harvard chapter of the Black Law Student Association.

In any event, Ms. Grace’s apparent imperviousness to outrage should serve her well in her new endeavor. Judge Kozinski, who has long been famous in law circles for his rulings and legal writings, was outed a couple of years back as a serious devotee of barnyard-themed porn. Videos of boner-sporting donkeys chasing pantsless men through fields would no doubt appear eminently tame to someone like Ms. Grace.