The Omnibus Budget bill that Paul Ryan crammed through Congress last week didn't just harbor a domestic mass surveillance law and a bunch of nonsensical dog-whistles about ACORN and pornography, it was also full of grotesque pork for rich people and pointless government boondoggles.
[Video Link] Here's Boing Boing T-shirt owner Rep. Jared Polis giving a great speech at the Democratic National Convention about respecting diversity.
See also: Happy Mutant Congressman has at least two Boing Boing T-shirts in his wardrobe, Top US drug cop can't tell the difference between marijuana and heroin, "The Internet is For Porn" entered into official SOPA debate record
Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill on Wednesday that gives people protection from having the content of their brainwaves misued.
House Bill 24-1058 expands the existing "Colorado Privacy Act" by including biological and neural data. With advances in technology and the increasing collection and analysis of personal information, the bill recognizes the need for enhanced privacy safeguards. — Read the rest
Following up on Colorado Governor Jared Polis' June 9, 2022 "100 ways" to save you money initiative, a new landmark bipartisan law (House Bill 22-1055) was signed on August 8, 2022. The effective start date is unclear, but Feminine hygiene/period products and diapers will be indefinitely exempt from state sales and use tax on either August 10, 2022 or January 1, 2023. — Read the rest
Gov. Jared Polis is pretty proud of his state, and the quality of their weed is evident.
The State of Colorado is auctioning off personalized license plates with cannabis references. If you live in Colorado and love weed so much you want to announce it to the world, the plates "BONG," "GANJA," "HASH," and "SATIVA" can now be yours. — Read the rest
The highly infectious variant of COVID-19 first reported in the U.K. has now been reported in Colorado, say U.S. health authorities on Tuesday.
From Reuters:
— Read the rest"The effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should," Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware.
Colorado governor Jared Polis (seen here wearing a Boing Boing T-shirt) granted a pardon to the parents who pleaded guilty for staging the infamous "Balloon Boy" hoax of 2009.
From The Guardian:
— Read the restIn granting executive clemency to Richard and Mayumi Heene, Governor Jared Polis said the couple, now 59 and 56, had paid their debt to society for a "spectacle" that wasted law enforcement time and resources.
On Memorial Day weekend, this 8.5-million-pound boulder rolled off a cliff and destroyed part of a highway between Cortez and Telluride, Colorado. Blowing it up to clear the way would cost the state $200,000 so instead Governor Jared Polis turned the bug into a feature. — Read the rest
ISPs want it both ways: they want to be receive billions in indirect public subsidies (access to rights of ways that would cost unimaginable sums to clear) and direct public subsidies (grant money) but still be able to run their businesses without regard to what the public actually wants (a neutral internet, supported by 87% of Americans, in which your ISP sends you the bits you request, as quickly and efficiently as it can).
Denver experienced a "bomb cyclone" snowstorm on Wednesday, with hurricane winds that shut down the runways at Denver International Airport, and parts of the freeway system. CBS news is calling it "the strongest storm in decades." Areas around the city received between 6 and 8 inches of heavy snow. — Read the rest
US Congressman from Colorado Jared Polis, show here wearing a Boing Boing T-shirt, is a champion of his state's right to use weed both recreationally and medicinally. Recently Rep Polis got into with U.S. Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana, who advocates for states' rights unless its for something he disagrees with such as ending marijuana prohibition. — Read the rest
The USA Freedom Act was a very timid curb on surveillance powers, but it was also the first time since the 1970s that Congress limited spies' powers — and it won't be the last.
Senator Ron Wyden [D-OR] and Rep. Jared Polis [D-CO] have introduced legislation in the US Senate and House to fix one of the worst computer laws on the US statute books: section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids breaking digital locks, even for lawful purposes.
US Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado), shown above wearing this Boing Boing T-shirt (which he purchased unbeknownst to us), is the only Happy Mutant on Capitol Hill. He fights for an open and free Internet, a sensible drug policy, LGBT rights, and measures to halt global warming. — Read the rest
Senator Joe Manchin delivered a grandstanding, technologically clueless, facepalm-inducing request to the Treasury Department to ban Bitcoin. In response, Rep Jared Polis (who proudly wears Boing Boing tee-shirts in his spare time, and rocks some snazzy duds on the floor of Congress) wrote a mock-serious request for dollar bills to be removed from circulation, pointing out that practically every objection that Manchin raised over Bitcoin applies equally well to paper money. — Read the rest
One year ago today
Happy Mutant Congressman has at least two Boing Boing T-shirts in his wardrobe: It was great to see US Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) wearing my "Critter" Boing Boing T-shirt.
Five years ago today
Kafka's porn stash goes public: ​​​​​Excavating Kafka, a new book by James Hawes, includes (for the first time) material gleaned from Kafka's hardcore porn stash, booklets that were published by the same publisher who published Kafka's own work. — Read the rest
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) have introduced a landmark technology bill called The Unlocking Technology Act of 2013 [PDF] that reforms the way our devices our regulated. It fixes a glaring hole in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), changing the rules so that you are allowed to remove restrictions and locks from your devices provided that you don't violate other laws (as it stands, removing a lock, even to do something legal, like installing unapproved software on your iPhone or change carriers, is banned by the DMCA). — Read the rest
It was great to see US Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) wearing my "Critter" Boing Boing T-shirt (Cory posted the photo here as an update to his post about Rep. Polis' epic takedown of the laughably disingenuous Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart). — Read the rest
Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart, a Bush appointee, was questioned by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) in a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing. Polis asks Leonhart about the relative harms arising from prescription painkillers, marijuana, heroin, and crystal meth. She is incapable of distinguishing between them, and stonewalls on questions regarding whether some substances are more addictive than others. — Read the rest
