TANNER: Tip of the iceberg

(originally run 11/9/09)

I’ll apologize in advance for regularly framing my references with the humdrum of housewivery – but I feel its something with which we can all readily identify.

I know that we have all, at one time or another, walked into our kitchen, and smelled something…wrong; sniffing and looking this way and that, seeking out the source of the smell with a growing sense of trepidation.

“What if it’s rotting meat,” I’ve wondered…and in the summertime, I’ve also wondered with dread, “What if it’s even worse; what if there are maggots?”

What if, indeed.

The inadvertent opening of a can of worms is always an awful discovery; and the realization that you’ve hit upon the tip of an iceberg is a dark and undeniable dawning.

I smelled something rotten when D#11 closed all of those elementary schools, and like Toucan Sam, I followed my nose. What I found was staggering and unbelievable…and it took me a good long while before I felt certain that the preponderance of the evidence did not weigh in favor of Jan Tanner. But how could I have known, or even suspected, what I found over the weekend?

Though I don’t yet have a complete answer, clues to help connect the dots are at the end of this post.

This is the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theory come to life…just see for yourself; look - come closer…but be careful not to fall in – the water is ice cold.

DPMD, LLC

1965 Dominion Way, Suite 100

Colorado Springs, CO 80918

Listing of individuals causing Statement of Dissolution effective 9/30/09 to be delivered to the Colorado Secretary of State:

H. Mark Tanner, Member
1965 Dominion Way, Suite 100, Colorado Springs, CO 80918

Carl D. Tanner, Member
1965 Dominion Way, Suite 100, Colorado Springs, CO 80918

Anthony S. Mand, Member
1965 Dominion Way, Suite 100, Colorado Springs, CO 80918

Inflated Dough, with Pete Lee as Registered Agent

What this shows is that:

A) My first post on this topic was on September 27; three days later, the Tanners and Tony Mand suddenly and voluntarily dissolved the pizza partnership DPMD, LLC, which was established in 2003.

I figure the DP stands for “Domino’s Pizza”; haven’t figured out yet what the MD stands for.


B) Sanford Lee is Pete Lee, who is running for a seat in Denver; I was shocked to see him listed as the registered agent of Inflated Dough in 1992 – this means his relationship with the Tanners goes way back.

Could this be part of the reason why Jan Tanner and Tom Strand are on the board of directors of the Pikes Peak Restorative Justice Council – which is registered to Lynn Lee, and is essentially Mr. Lee’s baby?

Pete Lee and Jan Tanner had the same campaign manager: Linda Elliott, wife of John Elliott, who was until June 2009 the head of District 11 Procurement and Contracting – the same person who determined that Jan’s relationship with Inflated Dough and Cheezer’s did not pose a conflict of interest.

C) Notice the law firm that organized Jan’s business in 1999 – Holme, Roberts & Owen – that’s right, D#11’s law firm.

This all predates Jan’s involvement on the school board by several years.

What does all of it mean? Where does it all lead?

The rot extends much deeper than I ever imagined…and truly, this is only the very tip of the iceberg.

Please do not hesitate to ask me for specific documentation – I’ve got it all. Readers, any help you can provide in connecting the many dots is much appreciated.

Short cuts

Most politicians only have two faces; what makes Jan Tanner special is that she has so many.  

Like a nerd, I name my janpics

(from left to right:  "Ambiguous Jan", circa 2005; "Funky Winkerbean Jan", circa 2007; "Whereami Jan", circa 2008; "Boogie Jan", circa 2009; "Portrait in Blue", circa 2010; "Jan Tanner Navratilova", circa 2010).

I dunno about you, but I disliked Jan less before her blue contact lenses.

John D. Rockefeller, at left 

State House hopeful Sanford E. "Pete" Lee, right.

...or is it the other way around?

Talk about "dead ringers" -- spooky.

Am I the only one who wonders stuff like...

"What's the 'E.' stand for?"

and 

"How come 'Pete' is in quotations?"

Does it have it anything to do with the fact that whenever I hear "Sanford" I picture a guy named "Fred" who has a son named "Lamont?"

I'm just wonderin'...I do it often...

...like...The Official Party Guest List Checker lost her job because these these two yahoos crashed a party...

...you'd think that The Official Birth Certificate Checker might at least have been demoted...or given a verbal warning, or something.  Most of us can't withdraw $20 from the bank without two forms of I.D.

I guess some things become more lax when you're President...like the Constitution... 

I figure I'm gonna make the most of those "rights" thingiemabobs before they lax their way right out of existence.  

Polarizing figures

AP-GfK Poll: Obama slips, other Dems slide, too

By LIZ SIDOTI, AP National Political Writer – Wed Apr 14, 11:39 pm ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's national standing has slipped to a new low after his victory on the historic health care overhaul, even in the face of growing signs of economic revival, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll.

The survey shows the political terrain growing rockier for Obama and congressional Democrats heading into midterm elections, boosting Republican hopes for a return to power this fall.

Just 49 percent of people now approve of the job Obama's doing overall, and less than that — 44 percent — like the way he's handled health care and the economy. Last September, Obama hit a low of 50 percent in job approval before ticking a bit higher. His high-water mark as president was 67 percent in February of last year, just after he took office.

The news is worse for other Democrats. For the first time this year, about as many Americans approve of congressional Republicans as Democrats — 38 percent to 41 percent — and neither has an edge when it comes to the party voters want controlling Congress. Democrats also have lost their advantage on the economy; people now trust both parties equally on that, another first in 2010.

Roughly half want to fire their own congressman.

Adding to Democratic woes, people have grown increasingly opposed to the health care overhaul in the weeks since it became law; 50 percent now oppose it, the most negative measure all year. People also have a dim view of the economy though employers have begun to add jobs, including 162,000 in March. Just as many people rated the economy poor this month — 76 percent — as did last July.

And it could get worse for Democrats: One-third of those surveyed consider themselves tea party supporters, and three-quarters of those people are overwhelmingly Republicans or right-leaning independents. That means they are more likely to vote with the GOP in this fall's midterms, when energized base voters will be crucial amid the typical low turnout of a non-presidential election year.

With the electorate angry, Republicans enthusiastic and Democrats seemingly less so, Obama's party increasingly fears it could lose control of the House, if not the Senate, in his first midterms. The GOP, conversely, is emboldened as voters warm to its opposition to much of the president's agenda.

On the minds of Democrats and Republicans alike: the Democratic bloodletting in 1994, when the GOP seized control of Congress two years after Bill Clinton was elected president. But the less-dispiriting news for Democrats is that it's only April — a long way to November in politics.

Still, persuading change-minded voters to keep the status quo will be no easy task given that most people call details of the health care overhaul murky and that the unemployment rate is unlikely to fall below 9 percent by November.

The key for Obama and his party: firing up moribund Democratic voters while appealing to independents who are splitting their support after back-to-back national elections in which they tilted heavily toward Democrats and caused the power shift.

None of that will be easy.

Just listen to independent voters who typically decide elections.

"He's moving the country into a socialized country," Jim Fall, 73, of Wrightwood, Calif., said of the president. He worries that Obama is too "radical left wing" and that government has grown too big, saying: "He is constantly in our lives more and more and more and more."

Fall was just as down on the Democratic-controlled Congress: "They're horrible. I think all they do is talk," he said, adding that Republicans acted no differently when they had power: "Just spend and spend and spend."

In Spokane, Wash., Angela Hardin, 43, was just as disapproving.

"I don't like what's going on," the small business owner said. "He is just making a huge mess out of everything. ... He's all over the map. It's like, 'Slow down! Breathe! Think!'"

As for Democrats in Congress, she said: "I'm not happy with them." Republicans, she said, may be better. But she's really ambivalent toward any of them: "It's just beyond me how they can sit up there with all of their college degrees and fight like they were in middle school."

The new poll findings also show:

• Equal percentages of Democrats — 87 percent — approve of Obama's job performance as Republicans — 88 percent — disapprove. Independents are about split, 50 percent disapprove to 47 percent approve. And, when it comes to Congress, 91 percent of Republicans, 65 percent of independents and even 51 percent of Democrats disapprove.

• The tea party coalition remains fuzzy to most people; only 16 percent say they know a great deal or a lot about this political phenomenon born a year ago.

Obama remains a polarizing figure, as does Congress.

"He's trying to do what he said we was going to do," said David Jeter of Los Angeles, 51, who votes Democratic and co-owns a lighting business. Jeter credits Congress with passing health care but wonders: "Now what will they do? ... I watch Congress with bated breath, but I don't expect that anything is going to radically alter my life."

A New York Times/CBS News poll released Thursday found that an overwhelming majority of tea party supporters believe Obama doesn't share the values of most Americans or understand the problems of people like them.

The poll found that people who identify themselves as tea party backers — nearly one in five Americans — are wealthier and better educated than the general public and tend to be white, male, married and older than 45. They tend to be Republican, but more conservative than Republicans in general, the poll found. They tend to see Obama as "very liberal" and are "angry" rather than merely dissatisfied with Washington.

Though former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin draws raucous cheers at tea party rallies, a plurality of tea party supporters see her as unqualified to be president, according to the poll.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted April 7-12, 2010 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide on both landline and cellular telephones. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

The Times/CBS News poll was conducted April 5-12. Its margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

___

Associated Press Polling Director Trevor Tompson, AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP Writers Alan Fram, Ann Sanner and Natasha Metzler contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

AP-GfK Poll: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com