I don't want to abolish the Republican party; I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

Norquist's Islamic Institute was initially financed by a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah.

link

Shaken down any Native Americans lately, Grover?

So Grover shows up with the real piffle. A meaningless comparison of Colorado to the national average.

Okay, Colorado was above average. But in what percentile? How many states outperformed it? Why can't I say that states without TABOR that did better than Colorado outperformed because they didn't have TABOR?

Are you really arguing that TABOR is the only signifigant difference between states and that it explains Colorado's outperformance all by itself? Because, you know, during the time period you're suggesting, a lot of interior, southwestern and sunbelt states did outperform the coasts and the national averages in terms of growth (but that's partly because they started from a low base.)

Oh, one more thing... Colorado has a lot of natural resources. That means energy and commodities. You know, the things that started booming after the 2001 recession. Maybe, just maybe, that had something to do with some of the above average performance?

This is so depressing. I mean here we get a chance to fight Grover Norquist and he just phones it in.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Mr. Norquist, thanks for dropping by! I hope I have time to read your arguments and comment on them carefully, but in any case, I very much respect that you came by here -- what is surely hostile territory -- to engage us.

I've said my piece(peace?).

Here's something nice I can say about Grover: as far as I know, he's not suspected of being a gay-bashing closet case.

P.S. you *are* aware of the Fresh Air interview, I hope...

I'm shocked that a group that, by its own assertion, has been championing TABOR for the last 15 years would decide that it's been a rousing success.

Seriously, Grover, you can't find anyone with an ounce of credibility to back your argument? Gotta go with advocacy groups that've backed TABOR for a decade and a half?

Ellen is 100% correct; those charts are terribly misleading, and Norquist must know that.

Comparing Colorado's growth to the national average -- on any number of measures -- does not address the issue in the least. Comparing Colorado's growth to a theoretical Colorado in which TABOR did not exist, on the other hand, might be quite telling. There is no meaningful control in this comparison.

Or would he perhaps concede that a chart for Michigan, which would look very similar through the 1990s, would prove that high unionization also leads to higher than average employment and income? Norquist Logic (TM) is fun!

Norquist is and has always been a dishonest and lying diatribist. He is not interested in an honest, reasonable argument, because it will reveal the vacuity of his position. Rather, he just wants to play whack-a-mole argumentation. In this method, the arguer devises some totally insanely stupid argument. You spend your efforts to try to refute it, while the arguer goes off and robs another bank. The only way to refute such arguers is to deny their legitimacy, since they are fundamentally dishonest at their core.

A final comment: Why is it that CO residents have rejected TABOR restrictions across the state?

Grover:

When Italia Federici registered your old DC townhouse address as her business address for her fraudulent CREA organization, did she do it with your blessing?

Did you launder money for her?

And just how much of Abramoff's and Ralph Reed's illegal cash did you keep?

I actually linked to the bio on the off chance that there is another Grover Norquist.

Good God, what are you doing here?!

At any rate, we have to take Mr, Norquist at his word, as some have already alluded to in their posts. Taking a propagandists word is like watching the end of a meat grinder for the filet mignon to come out.

Best wishes, Grover.

/c

In the blogosphere every one is an expert, so no one is an expert.

With all due respect, meaning none:
Lies, damned lies and statistics, smug little chipmunk.

Caldera's "Independence Institute" is a welfare organization designed to pay the bills of those whose lack of talent would go unnoticed otherwise.

Jon should quit, return all of the corporate welfare he's received and try to find a real job like the rest of us.

Didn't Grover Norquist used to be a spokesperson for the conservatives?

Well, He has guts. Unless this is a drive-by.

I can't say that his charts make much sense at all, Colorado has gained population, and it isn't clear if that has been accounted for.

If not, this is some kind of joke.

Free Valdron.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

Could Colorado's dramatic population growth be a factor? It ranks third, behind Nevada and just behind Arizona.

Its growth was rather more that twice the national average, 1990-2000, at 30.56% against 13.15%, while its GSP growth was only one point, or 20% higher than the national average.

Since Colorado is showing only 10% above national average for personal income growth, I'd say a reasonable conclusion is that many illegal immigrants are participating in the state economy. The result would be increase in GSP (the largest rise), increase in total jobs reported, and a slight increase in average personal income, with businesses doing better, but the average is weighed down by the trivial immigrant income. Consider, a 31% population increase, but only a 20% GSP increase? And only a 10% personal-income increase?

Correlation is not causation. I am not persuaded that TABOR is solely responsible, or at all, for the numbers. A more likely result is that TABOR is responsible for under-performance since GSP should track population.

I looked at population, above. Colorado grew by 31%, 1990-2000. GSP should match that. Less means recession, n'est-ce pas? 

It had an anvil thrown to it. Then it was castrated.

sPh

Very impressive, leading with a quote from the Independence Institute, purportedly a 'non-partisan, non-ideological think tank,' yet whose continued existence is funded by messers. Coors, Koch and Scaife Mellon, thus adding an ironic twist to their very name.

The Institute has also come out against unions, claiming that non-union workers make more than union workers, which was subsequently debunked in about two seconds.

By the way, Grover, how are your friends Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, David Safavian and Tom DeLay doing lately? What is the status of the Choctaw stuff? Does your budget have a hole that needs filling?

Judge a man by the company he keeps, as they say...

From the Washington Post:

=== Many wonder what it will take to restore social civility to Washington, to get Republicans and Democrats mingling again. Rock-ribbed Republican Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, proffered a solution, telling us that Democrats must accept the finality of their powerlessness. "Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such." Norquist assured us that he meant neutered "psychologically" and his metaphor was "facetious." Of course: Let the healing begin.

It's good to be deleted. Especially with the footnote.

But the essential point remains. Mr. Norquist has celebrated incivility and inflammatory language, he's made partisanship a byword, integrity an easily dispensed with option, and hyperbole a way of life.

Why should he be entitled to anything but the same? If a man spends a good part of his life boasting of his own 'nasty partisanship', who compares estate taxes to the holocaust, who uses drowning children in a bathtub as a metaphor, who muses on the resemblance of democrats to castrated farm animals... what are we to do?

Andrew Golis, a civil and civilized man would have us give Mr. Norquist a sober and serious welcome. He would have us offer Mr. Norquist a reasoned dialogue in those rare moments when Norquist benignly ejaculates his pearls upon those who he so frequently bares his contempt for.

I freely admit that Mr. Golis is a better man than I or Mr. Norquist. Mr. Golis is an asset to us all, and we could do well by turning to his counsel on most occasions.

But sadly, this is not one of those occasions. For while Mr. Golis is a civilized man, Mr. Norquist, by his history, is quite self-evidently not a civilized man.

Now it may be that he was never a civilized man, and is therefore a thug. It may be that he was once a civilized man, but shucked those trappings, and is now a crook. But either way, he is not a civil or civilized man, and by his nature can have only contempt for those trappings we hold so dear.

I confess that I myself was once not a civil or civilized man, and the few shreds of civility I have managed to wrap around myself are hard won and greatly prized. My admiration for those, such as Mr. Golis, to whom these gifts are natural, is quite unbounded.

But trust me, I know how to talk to uncivilized men in a way that Mr. Golis does not.

What compelling reason is there to give Grover Norquist a moment's reflective consideration?

Absolutely none. A reasoned debate with Norquist is simply an invitation to allow a malicious child to pee in a swimming pool. I will not have it.

There is no merit or reward to a conversation with Mr. Norquist, nor any worth in examining his thoughts or ideas. This is not my verdict. These are Mr. Norquist's choices, and he has embraced them with gusto.

It would be doing us all a disservice if we gave his views a moments consideration.

Mr. Norquist uses the language of invective, of hyperbole, of emotional rhetoric, exageration to carry a freight devoid of reason or semantic content.

To say to and of him:

When Grover Norquist speaks, dogs vomit.

Is merely to speak the language of Grover Norquist himself, to speak in a way that he understands and appreciates. To speak the only language that he willingly understands, or can respect. For he will not respect reason or dialogue, except as weaknesses to be attacked.

Mr. Golis has said it is funny, and I thank him for the compliment.

He's also said it's way over the line. To which I reply: "Not at all, it is exactly within the lines that Mr. Norquist has established, and exactly the place where he lives."

Why, I'll half wager he might wish he thought of it himself, and there's a small chance he'll venture to steal it in order to some day apply it to some enemy.