Colorado: Fbi

(Photo/Rep. Ed Perlmutter)

Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter denied any wrongdoing in securing an earmark for defense consultancy IHS, Inc., a client of disintegrating lobby firm PMA, which is under investigation by the FBI.

(Photo/Rep. Ed Perlmutter)

Perlmutter spokesperson Leslie Oliver asked The Colorado Independent to run a correction as she described the line Perlmutter draws when it comes to the business that mixes earmarks and campaign donations. “We took no campaign money from IHS,” Oliver said. “But yes, we received campaign contributions from PMA’s political action committee.”

IHS won an extra million dollars thanks to Perlmutter and the other members of the Colorado delegation who voted for the IHS earmark, including Wayne Allard, Ken Salazar and Tom Tancredo.

Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn. (Photo/lamborn.house.gov)

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) has issued a statement insisting campaign contributions have nothing to do with appropriations requests, despite mounting evidence that the lobbying firm PMA secured lucrative government contracts for its clients by orchestrating a series of campaign donations to lawmakers, including Lamborn.

Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn. (Photo/lamborn.house.gov)

As the Colorado Independent reported Monday, Lamborn is not the only member of the Colorado delegation to be touched by the scandal. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Sen. Mark Udall and retired Rep. Tom Tancredo also worked to win contract money for PMA clients and also received campaign contributions either from the companies that benefited or from PMA.

To date, Colorado’s two Democratic senators, Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., appear to be cutting similar paths on the economic stimulus package, voting together 100 percent of the time on every amendment to the legislation.

Here are two of amendments the two voted against:

—> Amendment No. 179, which would have trimmed back billions of dollars of spending from the bill, including $400 million for a FBI facility, $1 billion for the Census Bureau, $500 million for climate change research at NASA and $125 million for the District of Columbia’s sewer system; and,

—> Amendment No. 238, which would have ensured that stimulus funds are not used to expand the scope of the federal government.

What do you think?

*Bennet photo from The Rocky Mountain News.

A pilot study to evaluate hate speech on conservative talk radio found an astounding 334 instances of anti-Hispanic bias uttered in a sample of brief 40-minute segments from three national syndicated shows, including one widely broadcast in Colorado. A Hispanic media organization is now calling for the Federal Communications Commission to probe whether there is a connection between odious radio yakking and hate crimes.

The Hate Speech on Commercial Talk Radio study (PDF) by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center dished up some very concerning news, especially in light of a 2008 FBI report that anti-Hispanic hate crimes are on the rise among all offenses motivated by ethnicity/national-origin — from 529 offenses (or 42.