SquareState - Greg Brophy

Will the Birthers Ever Stop?

Jason Salzman — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:11:06 GMT

You'd think KHOW's Peter Boyles, who's probably the leading birther talk-show host in America, would at least stop and say 'thank you' when a State Senator tips his hat to Boyles' relentless efforts to expose President Obama's Social Security number as blonging to another man.

Boyles had his chance Tuesday, when State Sen. Greg Brophy told Boyles on air that media corporations "shut down" the debate about Obama's Social Security number because such a debate might be "toooo disruptive" and because the media companies to make less money.

Boyles @17:10: I don't know if you've seen this, Come and Take It. It's a wonderful video by this guy coming up Steve Vaus. He's won some Grammy's and he's done this video. They can't get anybody to let him buy time, including the company I work for, won't let him buy time. So we put him up. We put him on the air... It's interesting, as he's pointed out, the big media corps, they are as afraid of the President, or in bed with these guys because they are looking for bailouts, so they don't want any problems. But the same stations that would not take Vaus' ad will take ads from the people with Gabby Giffords. Does that make any sense to you as an elected official?
Brophy: Of course it doesn't. But I guess, on the one hand, they just want what's good for business. They're not ideological. That's why they shut down all that talk about, that you worked so hard on, the President's Social Security number. Exact same thing. Let's not talk about the stuff that might be toooo disruptive because, 'we all got to make some money here.'

If I'm Boyles, and I hear this from Brophy, I'm thinking, "Ah ha! I've got a fellow birther on the phone. And he's a State Senator! I should ask some questions and test the depth of his birtherness."

But Boyles, who ranks as Colorado's number one birther, according to Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard, let it slide by, without asking Brophy if he thinks the origin of Obama's SS number is a legitimate issue that truly deserves more media scrutiny.

So I did Boyles' work for him and asked the amiable Brophy whether he thought Obama's Social Security number is fake.

"Call Boyles and ask him," he responded. "He did extensive work on it."
Questioned further, Brophy wrote: "Peter makes a great case, and I have not heard a rebuttal. Do you have a good one."

I referred Brophy to Snopes and media fact checkers.

Brophy and Sonnenberg Piss On The Poor #coleg

Fong — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 02:19:26 GMT

Drugs for the rich! Taxes for the poor!

The idea of charging the poor to take drug tests before they can get services they've already paid for is completely irresponsible and sadistic.

Greg Brophy and Jerry Sonnenberg are the House and Senate sponsors of bill 12-1046 that would require applicants for the Colorado Works Program's temporary assistance to pay for and pass a drug test in order to receive benefits they've already invested in with their own tax dollars.

If the bill passes, which it won't, and they know it, should applicants fail the test, they become ineligible for assistance for 1-3 years. The exception would be ineligibility for 6 months after purchasing and completing rehab and counseling... which of course applicants can't afford. Should the applicant have an eligible dependent child, the state is charged with locating a "protective payee to receive the assistance for the child" who also must pay for and pass their own urine analysis. I'm sure Greg Brophy and Jerry Sonnenberg will do an excellent job of finding adults to take kids' money and appropriately administer it.

And here we thought Republicans were for "smaller government." Why does everything they do have to be such a giant, sick joke?
Can you imagine putting tax dollars into a service, only to be denied access to it by a (hypocritical) purity test thought up by some podunk freaks? OH WAIT, that sounds remarkably like the banking fiasco, fueled by the Republican zombie mantra of deregulation.

That Republicans can still be elected demonstrates how people are fooling themselves about what is correct and consistent.

See, when you create bills that deny poor people access to services, you're barely masking your hatred for them. But Brophy and Sonnenberg have always known that this bill will never pass and if it did, it is unconstitutional, morans. But this didn't stop them from wasting government resources in the legislature for both drafting and discussing it. Creating bogus bills to fail but which cater to the inbred podunk racist base wastes tax dollars. This bill unequivocally proves that Brophy, Sonnenberg, and any other second-string Gollum who votes for this has a precious bloodlust for starving and torturing the needy-- which their policies help create, of course.

If these nitwits had a tiny shred of courage left in their pasty bodies, Brophy and Sonnenberg would be up-front and grow a spine. Instead of wasting government resources to draft bills like this, just come out and say "we, The Supreme Saltine Republicans of Colorado, declare our desire for the poor to dig a big hole, pay for a few rounds (we'll loan out the guns), and pay the wage of the Level 1 Freedom Administrator who pulls the trigger so we can finally be rid of your pestilence." This way they'd at least get one point for honesty.

And then they'd go get high.

My tax cuts versus your sick kids

Jason Salzman — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:23:00 GMT

I love politicians who have guts to talk about their "messaging" in public. Everyone knows it chews up huge amounts of behind-the-scenes time (and money), but the insider debate about messages doesn't spill out much.

When it does, reporters should be all over it, not to play "gotcha," but to help real people (none of whom read this blog) understand how different communications "frames" illuminate competing worldviews about government and values.

For example, on KLZ's Grassroots Radio Colorado Feb. 17, the hosts and Colorado Rep. Robert Ramirez got into an honest discussion about how the GOP should talk about poor people and budget cuts.

Ramirez started off by saying, "The Democrats have a benefit. Everything they say makes somebody feel good about something in their life. When we say, 'we got to quit spending so much, we can't take any more money to pay for those poor kids,' it doesn't sound as good."

He has a point. This makes the GOP sound like they aren't very concerned about the poor.

Ramirez went on: "We have to say something more like, we need to spend the money responsibly to be able to help people the most, and not just waste dollars in places they aren't helping anyone."

So the frame here is that government is the bad guy. It's wasting money in useless dark places, some of which may sound like they're helping kids, but they're really not.

Ramirez continued:

But when somebody says, you're trying to kill children, you have to say, that's an interesting comment. Honestly, we have to spend the money the best way to help the most people. So it doesn't matter what they say, we have to, one, stay on message, and we have to keep the message in a positive arena, not negative against the other side. And that's the key, positive towards our message versus negative against them. Negative doesn't work.

Here, Ramirez presents a progressive counter "frame" that the GOP is "trying to kill children" by cutting government, whose programs (like generous children's health insurance) save lives and should not be axed if you care about giving impoverished kids in the world's richest nation the basic opportunity to succeed in life. (Okay, that's a dramatic rendition of this frame, but I'm just making a point.)
Actually, I don't know any progressives who think Ramirez or other conservatives want to kill our children. But progressives point to studies showing that if conservatives succeed at, for example, charging more for state-run health insurance, more kids could certainly get sick, and, yes, possibly die. (Colorado Sen. Greg Brophy, among others, acknowledges the risk to kids.)

So you see how the two frames of "good government" versus "bad government" play out in Ramirez's statements on the radio.

Underlying these competing frames about government is, of course, the debate about taxes.

And so it was fitting that, at the end of his Grassroots Radio Colorado interview, Ramirez turned the topic to taxes.

Ramirez, who's indicated his opposition to the extension of unemployment benefits and who's supported Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan in the past, argued that everyone should pay the same percentage of their income in taxes:

"You know what," Ramirez said on the air, "it doesn't matter if it's 1o percent, 50 percent, 30 percent, 60, the moral part is, everyone should pay the same percent. If you are making $100 per week, you should pay 10 percent. If you are making a million dollars a week, you should pay 10 percent.

I don't know how this translates in the real world into anything but a massive tax cut, and as such, major slashes in government spending for the poor.

If he stayed on message, and didn't talk about taking money away from poor children, Ramirez would probably say he's cutting waste, creating a responsible, smaller government, and helping people most through tax cuts.

And a progressive might say Ramirez is undermining what we all want, to work together through government to give poor children and families basic opportunity and a fair shot at success, and we can raise taxes a little bit to do it, on people who can afford it.

Reporters should look for chances, like Ramirez's radio appearance, to illustrate these competing worldviews underlying political "messaging."

Partial Transcript of Feb. 17 Interview with Rep. Robert Ramirez on Grassroots Radio Colorado on KLZ 560 AM, weekdays, 5 - 7 p.m.

Ramirez: Romney, much like many Republicans, allows someone else to dictate what his message will be, kind of like a senatorial candidate we had last year....

Host: Republicans don't know how to message. They're messaging sucks. In your mind, what can we do to change that?

Ramirez: You know, it's not just message. The Democrats have a benefit. Everything they say makes somebody feel good about something in their life.

Host: Yeah. I suppose that's true.

Ramirez: When we say, we got to quit spending so much, we can't take any more money to pay for those poor kids, it doesn't sound as good. So we have our message--

Host: Like Rollie Heath's message--

Ramirez: Yeah. We have to say something more like, we need to spend the money responsibly to be able to help people the most, and not just waste dollars in places they aren't helping anyone. But when somebody says, you're trying to kill children, you have to say, that's an interestingt comment. Honestly, we have to spend the money the best way to help the most people. So it doesn't matter what they say, we have to, one, stay on message, and we have to keep the message in a positive arena, not negative against the other side. And that's the key, positive towards our message versus negative against them. Negative doesn't work.

Host: ...Morally, how much should someone pay in taxes?...If you are a successful contributing member of the economic class, a business owner, something like that, you're at 30, 40, 50 percent. At what point is it immoral?

Ramirez: You know what, it doesn't matter if it's 1o percent, 50 percent, 30 percent, 60, the moral part is, everyone should pay the same percent. If you are making $100 per week, you should pay 10 percent. If you are making a million dollars a week, you should pay 10 percent.

Host: I agree. I could not agree more, actually.

Ramirez: I don't know an actual percentage, but you understand what I'm saying. It should be a percentage based on everyone. That encourages people to make more money and create more jobs.