What does an independent judiciary mean? "The tide is turning on DEI, Colorado should welcome it." Read the fine print on that Leaf lease.
What does an independent judiciary mean?
"What does it [an independent judiciary] mean to you as an American. It means when you're unpopular, you can get a fair hearing under the law and under the Constitution. If you're in the majority, you don't need judges and juries to hear you and protect your rights, you're popular. It's there for the moments when the spotlight's on you, when the government's coming after you."
The quote above comes from the Fox YouTube snippet linked below.
I'm going to skip the context of what Justice Gorsuch is responding to here (you can watch the video below and follow up on all you'd like) and stick to the words above.
These words were not any truer than they are if you are a conservative in Colorado: if you value your Second Amendment Rights, if you disagree about abortion (or, hell, even want to put reasonable, centrist restrictions on it), if you believe that Colorado should be following the State and Federal Constitution and Federal law.
You are Gorsuch's "unpopular". You are not the ones who fall in line with the progressive Democrats from mostly the big Front Range Metroplexes and thus are in need of independent judiciary.** You are among those who depend on a judiciary to protect your rights and guarantee the bill of rights fulfills its purpose of protecting you against the tyranny of the majority.
Even if you are right now in the majority, I hope you can agree with me on the following: being in the majority is (on longer or shorter timescales and in different locations) not a permanent condition. You should be supporting an independent judiciary too because sooner or later, it will be your turn.
**Would that we had this at the state level, especially above about the appellate level where they are rubberstamps for Democrat policy.
"The tide is turning on DEI, Colorado should welcome it."
That's the last line of the Gazette editorial op ed linked first below, and I agree strongly with those words.
But let's go up a paragraph. Quoting from the penultimate lines:
"While it’s hard to hold out hope Colorado’s current legislative leadership will take heed, we’ll renew our call on Gov. Jared Polis — an outside-the-box thinker — to sidestep the Legislature with an executive order dismantling DEI offices and programs in state government. He should use his bully pulpit to call on the state’s higher ed governing bodies to do the same."
Hard to hold out hope is right, but unlike the Gazette's board, I include Polis in the crowd I hold out no hope for. I include him in the crowd orienting so much of Colorado toward DEI.
I'm not sure what the board here means by outside-the-box thinker with regard to Polis, but from everything I've seen, he's an in-the-box thinker who's managed to make people like Gazette editorial boards think he's outside.**
Call all you want, but don't forget about the old saying about wishing in one hand and pooping in the other (so as to note which fills first).
https://denvergazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-pushing-back-at-creeping-dei/article_0e19084d-90f1-503f-8b65-39560cf88e8f.html
**As evidence here, I point you to the Colorado WINS government employee contract linked second starting on p 11, and the 17.3 initial full time equivalent employee Statewide Equity Office created by a bill he signed (linked third).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lvkm04vAyAnbCWvvwB_AQYK-vGrspm08/view
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1397
Make like a (Nissan) Leaf and blow.
I wonder if CPR's Sam Brasch ever got told by his folks to make sure and read the fine print. There's lots of stuff hiding down there that's important.
He did a recent article on a fantastical deal, one that blew up nationally, on Nissan's Leaf EV. Per the article linked below, a combination of incentives and dealer deals let you lease one for $19 a month.
The deal has apparently proved quite popular (quoting):
"The EV lease deal went viral online after a YouTube channel featured the special in early July, kicking off a wave of coverage on auto blogs and TikTok accounts. 184 customers have since taken advantage of the offer even though the qualifying model only boasts a relatively low 149-mile range and an outdated fast-charging plug. Another 117 are waiting for more cars to arrive at the lot."
Let's put aside the wisdom of making life decisions based on TikTok.
Let's also give Mr. Brasch some rare credit for including the detail about the low range of this car. If you look at screenshot 1, I included a map and county listing for a 75 mile radius centered on Denver. Remember, too, that 150 miles round trip is an upper bound, in winter you'd be lucky to get anywhere near that.
No, let's just focus in on something trend setters and CPR reporters aren't paying attention to: the mechanics of a car lease.
Screenshot 2 is from Tynan's Nissan's page, pulled and taken at about the same time as the CPR article was posted. Lots of attention on the low low price. $19 a month? 68 cents a day? For a car?!
Let's zoom in on the fine print, however. That's screenshot 3. I underlined some important details. Look not at the price, but at the upfront fees. Now look over at the miles per year you get. 10K miles per year?
Sounds like a lot. Until you look at a daily average: 27 miles per day on average (unless you want to pay the overage fee of 25 cents per mile which adds up to real money, real quick). That makes the 75 mile one way trip sound extravagant!
Leases are like that. Hybrid, combustion, EV, they have mileage restrictions and those restrictions are one way (fees are another) that dealers get to such a low monthly payment.
I guess I figured this was common knowledge. I would have thought it at least would be something a journalist would figure important to educate readers about (based on the rule I learned as a first-year teacher: never assume prior knowledge).
Still, any detail about the lease terms are left out by Mr. Brasch. He seems to prefer to spend the bulk of the remainder of the article, the part after hyping this incredible deal, to how wonderfully thoughtful Colorado has been about incentivizing EV's.
In the absence of reporters doing it while writing their Democrat press releases (oops, "articles") however, you have to take the responsibility to read the fine print yourself and understand just exactly what you're getting, to understand just how it is that this magic comes about.