Freedom Unaffiliated

ByJon Caldara

I get tired of all the double standards.

When The Little Mermaid swims around half naked, singing to her underwater friends, she is “sweet” and “beautiful.” But when I do it, people say I’m “drunk” and “no longer welcome at the aquarium.”

Modern society often makes knowing when you’re acting hypocritically difficult. I mean, burn a body at a crematorium, you’re “doing a good job.” Do it at home you’re “destroying evidence.” It’s just hard to know when people are going to get upset and throw the double-standard flag at you.

So, of course, I’ve got a great deal of sympathy for the Denver City Council and its bizarre inconsistent hypocrisy between cannabis and tobacco.

Denver has more marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks locations. The amount of money they make off cannabis taxes is substantial. And those cannabis products are flavored in the form of gummies, candies, and cookies. These products are proudly peddled in their town.

But, like mandating motorcycle riders wear helmets while outlawing seat belts, the very same council is embarrassed tobacco products, like flavored nicotine products, are legally sold in their fentanyl-fueled, psychedelic mushroom-hazed, Cheech and Chong-themed city.

So, it’s only logical they recently banned flavored, smokeless tobacco products but not flavored cannabis products. Duh, it just makes sense.

Flavored nicotine products are far less harmful than smoking and deliver the nicotine smokers want without the damaging carcinogens of setting stuff on fire and inhaling the smoke. Thus, these products are crucial for folks trying to stop smoking.

The best way to keep people smoking is to ban these products, which is what Denver just did.

Their reasoning? Flavored smokeless nicotine will become children’s gateway to smoking tobacco. But somehow flavored cannabis products like gummies isn’t a gateway to smoking marijuana.

If you don’t understand that simple, flawless logic then you are obviously not smart enough to be a policymaker for an entire city.

According to testimony from last week’s Denver City Council meeting, the tax loss from this ban could be more than $13 million per year.

Good thing Denver is running out of money at the right time.

The economic value is so important to the region the state of Colorado bent over backward to tempt the makers of Zyn, a popular smokeless nicotine product, to locate their massive production factory near Denver. So, why wouldn’t Denver return the favor by outlawing the same product?

I think we can agree there is no more burning issue than smokeless nicotine products. We’ve seen protests and violent rallies around the city and county building of people demanding Denver make it harder to quit smoking. It made the BLM riots look boring; Jan. 6, 2021, look like a quilting party.

Just how much do the people of Denver want flavored nicotine outlawed? At my organization, Independence Institute, we were curious and commissioned a poll of Denver voters. The polling firm surveyed 459 people to find which of a dozen issues facing the city were most important.

Banning nicotine products didn’t make it into the top three. Heck, it didn’t make it into the top 11. In fact, not a single person said it was an issue. Not one.

The most important issues to Denver voters are affordable housing (33.5%), public safety (15.6%), taxes and city spending (14.2%) and illegal immigration (12.9%).

Again, out of the 12 issues offered, flavored nicotine products came in last with a whopping 0.0%. No wonder it’s a council priority.

Let’s see if we have a grasp of the full picture here: flavored nicotine products help people stop smoking by giving them a much, much healthier way to consume nicotine.

We gave sizable tax incentives for Zyn to be manufactured here, beating out other cities and states who were wooing the company.

Sales of this product bring in multiple millions of dollars in tax revenue at a time of budget shortfalls.

No one thinks this is an issue — no one.

So, the Denver City Council banned these flavored products that do help people stop smoking tobacco while not banning flavored marijuana products that don’t help people stop using cannabis.

Denver voters, you elected the smartest people in the world. Next, instead of fixing potholes they are going to outlaw exercise equipment.

By Mike Rosen

It seems the great public divide has no bounds. Several years ago a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 66% of Democrats said stores and businesses should say “Happy Holidays” to avoid offending non-Christians while 67% of Republicans said they should stick with the traditional “Merry Christmas.” Caught in the middle, many big retailers succumbed to political correctness and switched to “Happy Holidays.” This season, quite a few of them (likely inspired by the profit motive) have gone back to “Merry Christmas,” perhaps emboldened by the resurgence of public conservatism as demonstrated by the “silent majority’s” vote for Trump and Republicans in the national election.

As I’ve seen it, Christmas has two dimensions, one religious and one secular, that have overlapped and peacefully coexisted for centuries. Some people celebrate Santa Claus Christmas and some celebrate Jesus Christ Christmas, with most people in this country celebrating both — including most Christians. Devout Christians treat Christmas solemnly, focusing on the birth of Jesus, his teachings, sacrifice, resurrection and legacy.

Retailers merchandise the Santa Claus part of the holiday season in their department stores with Santa surrogates hosting little kids on their laps, replete with elves and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. You generally don’t see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary on display in their stores or in the ads that herald their big Christmas sales. It’s unlikely that Jesus ever said “Merry Christmas” around his birthday or that there were Christmas trees on sale at street corners. And it certainly wasn’t an official government holiday in his time.

Today, Christmas is indisputably a joint event. It’s such a special part of our culture that it’s the only federal holiday with a religious connection that gives people a legal day off from work. (The ACLU hasn’t succeeded in having the holiday banned as unconstitutional — yet.) We have 

federal holidays throughout the year, but the exchange of gifts is unique to Christmas. Excited children high on anticipation don’t have trouble falling asleep on the night before Labor Day or George Washington’s Birthday eve. The birthdays of Buddha, Mohammad, Confucius, or L. Ron Hubbard (note to millennials: he was the inventor of Scientology) are not honored with a holiday. Hanukkah does feature an exchange of gifts but it’s also not a federal holiday. If it were, with Jews only two percent of the population, that would open the floodgates for every religion demanding a federal holiday.

As a precursor to today’s woke Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) movement, in 1996 a guy by the name of Ron Karenga —a violent ex-con and Marxist Black separatist —introduced a distinct Christmas season holiday for African-Americans, “Kwanzaa,” because he thought Christmas was too white. (Perhaps he was unaware that Bing Crosby’s classic seasonal favorite, “White Christmas,” was about snow, not race.) It turned out they’ve never heard of Kwanzaa in Africa or anywhere else. He just made it up and it’s been long since forgotten. The vast majority of American blacks are Christians and celebrate Christmas like everyone else. The same can be said of Latinos. In the spirit of the season, I can even forgive Jose Feliciano for his maddeningly repetitive lyrics in “Feliz Navidad.”

I’m not a Christian but I’ve always loved the Christmas season for its spirit, the secular and religious music, the sights, the aromas, the fellowship, the parties, the gift giving, and its traditional movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” I’m not offended by the commercialization. I like commerce and a market economy caters to the desires of its consumers. Besides, Santa Claus Christmas is mostly for kids (plus employees who get Christmas bonuses).

We’re a nation of 335 million people (not including illegal immigrants who also celebrate Christmas) and most folks are fine with “Merry Christmas.” It’s a free country, so those who prefer “Happy Holidays” can say that. But even Ebenezer Scrooge exclaimed “Merry Christmas” when he woke up from his nightmare on Christmas Day with a new enlightened vision. Wouldn’t it have sounded ridiculous had he meekly said, “Seasons Greetings?” I’m glad “Merry Christmas,” my preference, is back in style. Shout it out! You won’t be arrested — at least for now.

By Jon Caldara

I want to thank the taxpayers of Colorado for my brand-new car. Really, thanks to each and every one of you dupes.

You see, I have never in my 60 years had a brand new, off-the-lot automobile. Instead, I buy used, and I mean really used, cars and drive them until they drop. Out of college I bought a sexy $500 Datsun 210 and sold it eight years later for $950.

My current beater is a 2010 Nissan Altima. I bought it with 95,000 miles for $6,000. It now has over 200,000 miles and still going strong. I drive ugly, old used cars.

Why do I drive these cars? Simply, because I know what women like. While they’ll rarely admit it out loud, when a woman sees a bald man tooling around town in a 15-year-old rusted-out Japanese car she can’t help but think, “Mommy wants me some of that.”

So why buy a new car? It’s more than just my boredom with hot women leaving their phone numbers under my windshield wiper blade. I figure at my age I should stop spending big bucks on chick-magnet hot rods and start living more frugally. And there’s nothing more frugal than getting other people to buy you crap.

And that’s where you came in. Thanks to obscene tax credits, mandates, and regulations from the people you voted into office, I didn’t pay for most of this car.

Well, “car” might be a strong word. It’s more of a golf cart with Bluetooth. It’s a Nissan Leaf.

“Leaf.” They friggin’ named it, “Leaf.” I remember having my man card ripped up to confetti-sized pieces and blown into my face to buy a mini-van when my kids were small. But that made me feel like a lumberjack in contrast to signing the papers on a “Leaf.”

My daughter likes to name our cars, Mary the Mazda, Nancy the Nissan, etc. After seeing me drive in with the testosterone-pumping Leaf her reaction was simply, “Dad, let’s just name it, Summer’s Eve.”

Okay. Agreed it might not have the raw machismo of a ratted-out old Camry, but why look a gift horse in the mouth. The list price on my new, all-electric 2025 Leaf is nearly $32,000. Yet, I paid only $15,000 for it.

I got this new car for 53% off thanks to environmental cronyism. There are not that many decent used cars for that price.

This $17K in welfare went to me, another upper-middle class White guy to put a second car in his two-car garage. I now have a back-up car for short trips. Most all electric cars are second or third cars for White people who could afford another car without the welfare.

And it’s the left that yaps on about systematic racism?

The feds threw $7,500 at my new toy and the state of Colorado chipped in another $2,500. Yes, that would be the same Colorado that hasn’t the money to fix our roads, the very same state whose governor announced plans to cut road funding by $100 million.

Well, that explains $10k of the $17k given to me. Where does the rest come from? Regulations of course.

Car manufacturers’ yearly output can only have so much in tailpipe emissions averaged out over their fleet. Meaning that when they go over, which is always, they only have two options. Either they must build all electric vehicles and give them away at way below cost, thus my car, or they buy the tailpipe emissions credits not used from their competitors.

So, the last $7,000 in welfare you gave me is paid for higher prices you must pay for cars people actually want. You know, cars that can be quickly filled up at a gas pump instead of waiting hours to charge.

Tesla’s biggest profit center is not really sales. It’s selling its pollution credits to its competitors since none of their fleet has any tailpipes. The company is wholly built on tax credits and tailpipe regulations. No electric car could compete in the market without them.

Period.

Of course, my new manly Leaf saves the environment since it has no emissions except, um, it does. Most of Colorado’s electricity is produced by coal and natural gas.

Or as the coal industry should advertise, “Coal, it’s what Teslas eat for dinner.”

Anyway, thanks for my unneeded, coal-powered toy.

By Mike Rosen

Two years ago, I predicted that Joe Biden wouldn’t be on the presidential ballot by November 2024. After Kamala Harris secured the nomination, my rosy scenario was a Trump victory riding a red wave. (It’s true I picked Dewey over Truman in 1948, but I was only three-years-old then.)

Now, all the usual Democrat suspects, the liberal media, and other assorted sore losers are up in arms over President-elect Trump’s announced selections for cabinet posts and other leadership positions in his incoming administration. Really, Rachel Maddow and the crew of lefty wackos at MSNBC are outraged? Isn’t that too bad? Trump’s appropriate response should echo the eloquent words of President Barack Obama when he met with deflated Republican congressional leaders after he took office in 2009: “Elections have consequences, I won.” In Trumpspeak that might include, “go pound sand” or stronger words to that effect. In baseball jargon: “It’s the bottom of the inning, now it’s our turn at bat.”

I like most of his picks so far and love several. His questionable choice for Attorney General of Matt Gaetz (who has since withdrawn), the acrimonious, extremist firebrand who can’t get along with others, might just have been The Donald’s idea of a spiteful “in your face” taunt to anti-Trumpers. There was little chance Gaetz would have been confirmed in the Senate where every Democrat and a good many Republicans were likely to vote against him. This may have been a shrewd Trump strategy to distract the angry mob with a Gaetz lightning rod and throw an easy blackball to the opposition.

When the American electorate delivered the presidency and control of the executive branch to Trump along with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, it was a mandate for dramatic change to restore the Republic and traditional American values. The mission will be aided by a majority of originalist justices on the Supreme Court who regard the Constitution as a restraint on unlimited government and a protection of individual liberty, rather than the Democrat notion that it’s a “living Constitution” that empowers progressive justices to reinterpret the Constitution to mean what they think it should be according to their leftist ideology.

During the campaign Harris promised “to serve all the people.” That’s an unserious cliché often recited by political candidates. Since we only have one president, obviously he or she is the president of all the people. But no president (or any elected public official) can satisfy the conflic

ting desires of “all the people,” simply because all the people don’t agree about everything. In this divisive era I’d rearrange the words of Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz’s famous maxim, “war is a continuation of politics by other means,” to “politics is a continuation of war by other means.”

Dramatic changes in public policy by Trump and Republicans won’t come easily. They’ll face staunch opposition from the liberal media, Democrat politicians, their army of activists, and their radical left-wing core in Congress that’s no longer just a “fringe.” In fact, those 99 members of the so-called House Progressive Caucus (100, including socialist Senator Bernie Sanders) constitute almost half of all House Democrats. Biden and congressional Democrats weaponized the progressive socialist agenda and cultural revolution to its inevitable collapse and have finally been held to account by a majority of voters in this election.

Liz Cheney and other politically impractical “Never Trumpers” who endorsed or voted for Kamala have been shown up for their foolishness and how out of touch they are with the American mainstream. Their preference for another four years of progressive destruction of our country led by a pair of Democrat pretenders in the White House was crazy.

Trump was elected president, not king. But there’s a new sheriff in town who can do a lot on his own authority, like overriding all of Biden’s executive orders — some of which were brazenly unconstitutional — replacing them with his own (just as Biden did when he took office following Trump). The tidal wave of illegal immigrants will recede as Trump frees the Border Patrol do its job. And he’ll free ICE do its job across the country’s interior to deal with illegal aliens. Striking other Biden orders will reverse programs and overspending that circumvented Congress. Trump will fill thousands of non-Civil Service positions that serve at the pleasure of the president throughout the federal bureaucracy and on boards and commissions. Revoking unnecessary, cumbersome regulations will energize the economy. He’ll appoint U.S. Attorneys and federal judges. He’ll shake up the Pentagon at the highest levels including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appointing senior civilians and promoting generals and admirals who will roll back Biden’s politicization of the military that imposed a DEI culture undermining morale and causing serious shortfalls in retention and recruitment in the ranks.

Nevertheless, much of the dramatic change the public has demanded must come through Congress where the power of the purse resides. In 2025, the Senate will have 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. If Democrat opposition remains unified they’ll dig in their heels and create gridlock to thwart change by blocking vital legislation with filibusters requiring 60 votes to override. But the filibuster isn’t in the Constitution. It’s only a Senate rule that can be eliminated with just a majority vote.

During the campaign, assuming a Democrat electoral sweep, Harris inadvertently gave Republicans a foot in the door when she promised to eliminate the Senate filibuster. Now, Republicans should do just that. I’ve been reluctant to support that in the past but Democrats have made this a political war and I have no doubt they were poised to kill the filibuster had they won the election. Republicans need to beat them to the punch.

By Jon Caldara

Minimum wage laws are tools of systematic hate.

Recently the voters of Colorado removed a constitutional ban on gay marriage by 64% to 36%. Overwhelmingly, the people believe government shouldn’t prohibit consensual relationships.

Years ago, states around the country removed laws prohibiting homosexual activity for the same reason.

Consensual relationships are the cornerstone of a free society. Example, if two women are neighbors, one an accountant and the other a stay-at home mother whose kids are now school-going age, they might wish to have a relationship.

The accountant needs help but can’t afford much. The mother wants to learn accounting and prefers the convenience of not commuting away from her children. Both benefit from working together.

If these two women wish to have sex, get married, buy a home — the government protects their rights.

But if they want to have an employer/ employee relationship that pays less than the minimum wage — the government steps in and proudly prevents such a sick, perverse consensual relationship.

So, in other words, we only really care about protecting people’s consensual relationships when they’re naked.

Colorado’s hateful minimum wage laws are now preventing my son, who has Down syndrome, from having a meaningful and fulfilling life.

By law he cannot have a job unless he’s paid minimum wage. I live in Boulder where there is talk of raising the minimum wage to an unaffordable $25 an hour.

My son, Chance, needs work not to put food on his table. He needs work to continue developing as a human. To build relationships, interact with typical people, work on his struggling communication abilities.

And, as if it matters to anyone in government, he needs to work to bring him purpose and joy.

Preventing him from working is hate. I understand why people hate me. I just don’t understand how anyone could hate this precious soul or people like him.

Chance will be kicked out of the K-12 education system soon and thrown into the abyss of Medicaid, where he could spend his remaining days warehoused or stuck in front of a television.

The law used to be that employers could pay the disabled up to 15% less than minimum wage in Colorado. Recently, lawmakers who wish to halt consensual relationships have made it illegal to pay people with disabilities any less than minimum wage.

I’m sure their intentions were in the right place. But in their constant quest for equity, do they ever think about human happiness and that we are all different and want different things for different reasons? Why do they only give lip service to diversity?

The evil is the minimum wage law to begin with. You cannot make evil equitable.

My son is in an employment training program to “teach” him how to work. He loves it. But — and how can I put this kindly? — like his old man, Chance is not the most productive worker. I joked that if he works for an hour someone must work for two hours to clean up the mess. (Again, a chip off the old block.)

This doesn’t mean he doesn’t add value. He brings joy, magic and happiness wherever he works. It does mean that a cash-strapped business might prefer someone who is more productive if they’re going to be forced to pay $25 an hour.

But for $5 an hour (or, hell, 25 cents an hour), Chance and the happiness he brings fellow workers and customers is a bargain, and the greatest value-add that business has ever seen.

Oh, and if it matters, it’s the best for Chance.

Chance innately understands the dignity that comes with work. His first job training was at McGuckin’s Hardware in Boulder. When he came home, I asked him how work was. I could see him grow two inches taller while he answered.

I asked what his favorite part was about working at “Guckins.” He pointed to his chest and said “vest.” He got to wear the green vest uniform and be part of the team. I asked what he liked most about the vest and he said, “name tag.” I asked what the name tag said, and with pride I’ve never seen he said “Chance!”

I’m indebted to all the businesses that work with Boulder Valley School District’s “Transitions” program to help train kids like Chance. Too bad they’re economically barred from hiring these remarkable people.

By Jon Caldara

Welcome to the Great Un-friending.

One of the telltale signs of a progressive is the constant self-celebration of their tolerance. Progressive communities, like my hometown of Boulder, slap the word “diversity” on every school wall, rec center poster and library. “All are welcome,” don’t ya know.

The woke mob has mandated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trainings that feeds the DEI Industrial Complex. The trans movement created the pronoun police state, where gender dysphoria is not merely tolerated, it will be celebrated. Free speech and proper grammar are relics of a long-gone racist era.

The modern left prides itself on diversity at gunpoint with an obsession about skin color, genitals and what people think their genitals should be but aren’t.

So, what happens when the tyrants of diversity have an opportunity to hold themselves up to their own standards? How do they welcome, oh, say a Donald Trump voter? What an opportunity to prove what they’ve preached and show us how it is done.

My 22-year-old daughter has had about 10% of her Instagram friends unfollow her after she came out of the closet as a Trump voter.

One of my dearest friends, yes, a progressive, has requested anyone who voted for “hate” this election to unfriend him, “You are not my friend.”

Another friend told me when Trump won in 2016 her sister refused to speak to her for months on end. As the scenario repeats itself, my friend is finding it a reprieve.

Am I crazy, or does this wholesale canceling of friends, family and acquaintances based upon who you voted for seem like the complete opposite of what the left preaches? ( You don’t really have to answer that one.)

Where is celebration of our differences and how our diversity makes for a better, stronger and more understanding community?

My favorite meme during the campaign season was a video taken from someone’s Ring doorbell camera. An angry, unhinged woman attacked this person’s Trump yard sign — kicking it, yelling at it, knocking it out of the ground and dropping to her knees to repeatedly stab it with a stick. The caption of the video merely read, “Party of joy.”

Entertainers and artists have led the collective narrative that Trump is a threat to democracy. “Democracy itself is on the ballot,” was the rallying cry. In past generations Hollywood came out to support American democracy. Bob Hope entertained the troops. Directors made stirring movies. Even cartoonists and animators donated their services for the cause.

In this existential fight for democracy, Hollywood righteously came out again.

Oprah charged $1 million for the pattycake interview she gave to Kamala Harris. Beyonce’s endorsement cost a cool $10 million, and she didn’t even have to sing.

What a stark contrast from Frank Sinatra who in 1960 did sing. He worked the campaign trail for John F. Kennedy and put new lyrics to his hit song, “High hopes.” “Jack is on the right track, Cause he’s got high hopes, He’s got high hopes, 1960 is the year for his high hopes.”

I’ve found no evidence that Sinatra got paid for his endorsement.

Saving America from tyranny is now a profit center for Hollywood. If they actually believed our way of life, our very democracy was truly at stake you’d think these national treasures would be campaigning for free. Makes me wonder if a world war to save America did break out if they’d get royalty payments off it.

Could it be that these entertainment elites know our republic is stronger than any one candidate? Could it be that instead of believing what they say, they are playing to their audience out of self-interest?

It is hard to run around screaming, democracy is at stake, when the guy who won the popular vote by millions upon millions is put into office.

As in 2016, I doubt there’ll be serious self-introspection of their role in electing the man they consider to be Hitler. Will Trump haters understand the intolerant world they created is why we elected this man? Will any of them look into the mirror and ask, “did I do this?”

And will they go back to our Facebook posts when Obama and Biden were elected to notice we did not unfriend them.

By Jon Caldara

Yet again the voters of Colorado pummeled Donald Trump at the ballot box. He lost here by an audacious 12%.

I have a question for the majority of Coloradans who didn’t want him as president: How do you feel about Colorado’s 10 Electoral College votes going to President-elect Trump instead of Vice President Kamala Harris?

Voters of our hardcore blue state despise Trump and came out in very large numbers to voice their hatred of the man. And yet, our 10 electoral votes from Colorado will go to…Trump.

So, you with Trump Derangement Syndrome, is this what you wanted?

California might hate him even more than us, but their 54 electoral votes will also be going to elect Trump.

So will the Trump-phobic states of New York (28 electoral votes), Illinois (19), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Maine (4), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Connecticut (7), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), Oregon (8), Washington (12) and the District of Columbia (3).

Relax never-Trumpers, what I’ve described above is a Twilight Zone version of America. But be very certain, it is the version of America our Democrat-controlled legislature and Gov. Jared Polis have signed us up for.

They committed Colorado to the multi-state National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact which will force our presidential electors to vote not as Coloradans demand, but as voters in other states dictate. Under NPV, Colorado has little power.

Beyond the Electoral College, Trump also is winning, as of writing this, the “national popular vote” by about 5 million votes.

Those who supported the idea of the national popular vote must now imagine their self-made dystopian future where their own presidential electors are forced to vote for the maniacal, misogynistic, fascist, democracy-destroying, tyrant-loving Donald Trump.

It’s worth keeping in mind there is actually no such thing as the “national popular vote.” There is no federal Secretary or Clerk who officially controls, tallies and audits all the state elections.

We have an itch to know the popular vote in the same way we like to know how many yards Broncos quarterback Bo Nix threw for in the last game, even though it has squat-all to do with which team won the game. It’s academic at best, but mostly it’s a curiosity.

This National Popular Vote Compact will to go into effect when enough states have signed on that collectively they have 270 electoral votes. Right now, they have 18 states with 209 votes and are working to dupe other states to join in.

The backers of NPV are almost exclusively urban progressives. Makes sense — it gives power mostly to high-density cities which, I’m sure purely coincidentally, are very progressive.

NPV activists are part of the win-at-all-costs coalition and have conveniently forgotten their high school civics lesson that we are not a country run by a federal government. Rather, we are 50 semi-sovereign states who send representatives to the federal government to work for us.

The only state in the 18-state compact that didn’t vote for Harris was Wisconsin. Conclusion — basically only progressive states, like blue Colorado, like the NPV idea.

Popular vote supporters might not have realized, until now, their invention could be a godsend for dangerous populists. After this presidential election and the accompanying panic — tears, trips to therapists and life coaches, belly-button staring contests and scapegoating — Donald Trump’s popular vote victory is the turd in their national popular vote punch bowl.

NPV fanatics, who almost uniformly hate Trump, may begin to realize their scheme would empower the very monsters they despise.

If their compact was in effect this year, the Trump-loathing states that have signed on would be forced to give their collective 197 electoral votes to Trump. Kamala would be left with only 30 sad, lonely votes. Sweet Poetry.

Remember, the people of Colorado never voted for the national popular vote. Our progressive legislature passed it. Our progressive governor signed it into law. A scattered and under-funded citizens referendum did fail to repeal it. But voters were never asked to pass it in the first place.

I wonder if an election to put Colorado in the NPV Compact were held today if most Coloradans would vote to have their electoral votes go to Trump. They wouldn’t.

Maybe our progressive Colorado legislature should think about pulling our very blue state out of the now very-red National Popular Vote Compact.

By Mike Rosen

For all the attention it gets, you’d think ending “homelessness” was the primary purpose of Denver government. The term is an all-inclusive generalization. It includes those who’ve had a sudden setback, are recently out of work, are down on their luck, temporarily having a tough time making ends meet, or even a college grad who’s out of work and has moved back in with her parents. Only a small fraction of the homeless are street people (the “unsheltered” in politically correct lingo) but they’re a major part of the problem. As a compassionate society we do what we can for them. Unfortunately, most reject treatment and rehabilitation. They say they just want their freedom.

But we can’t ignore the damage they cause for the 700,000 other residents of Denver and the 3 million who live in the metro area, especially downtown. To put it bluntly, bums, vagrants, beggars, squatters and drug addicts camping out in public and private property, parks, and sidewalks infringe on the welfare of the people who make this city thrive, and they make Denver a less desirable place for tourists and folks who live in the metro suburbs to visit, dine out, recreate, and work.

In other words it’s bad for business. A recent study by Colorado’s Common Sense Institute finds that the combination of crime, homelessness, and high office vacancy rates in downtown Denver has caused it to lag behind other downtowns around the country in economic recovery after the pandemic. Locally, the DTC, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins are doing much better.

To borrow a title from Charles Dickens, the comparison of Aurora’s handling of street people and Denver’s provides an instructive “Tale of Two Cities.” The approach of Denver’s government —with its radical leftist dominated city council and rookie liberal Democrat Mayor Mike Johnston —is steeped in its philosophy of “social justice.” They call it “housing first” without conditions or mandatory substance abuse rehab programs.

Aurora’s Republican Mayor Mike Coffman and his conservative city council majority have taken a more practical approach to homelessness. They call it “work first,” designed to elevate people to self-reliance with conditions for treatment, rehab and job training to qualify for free housing.

Denver is spending hundreds of millions on “affordable housing” and actually becoming a landlord, taking ownership of apartment houses. This can lead to even more homeless people flocking to Colorado to cash in on the goodies. Similar programs in Chicago and NYC led to the dreaded ”projects,” low-income ghettos with dilapidated buildings, crime and drugs. To finance its benevolence, Denver is on a tax-increasing binge.

A progressive activist group that advocates for street people, the Housekeys Action Network, has protested police enforcement of the camping ban and of trespassing laws. But their demands are entirely self-interested and they don’t give a damn about the overall welfare of Denver residents.

There’s an economic truism: what you tax you get less of and what you subsidize and encourage you get more of. In this case, Denver will get fewer business enterprises, fewer jobs, fewer ambitious taxpayers, fewer outsiders paying sales taxes, and even fewer self-reliant residents than it has now. Instead, it’ll get many more people dependent on government handouts. Overtaxed and over regulated people vote with their feet, as seen by the exodus of productive citizens from California, New York and Illinois en route to limited-government states like Texas and Florida. Denver’s priorities are self-destructive. A city in economic decline is even less able to serve those in need.

Denver city council members afflicted with climate change paranoia and hell bent on “urban density” have bragged about making driving an aggravating ordeal for motorists. They succeeded. Big mistake. Those stupid bike lanes that steal auto lanes —especially on Broadway and 15th Street — clog traffic, are a mortal danger to cyclists, are under-utilized, and will never be a significant mode of public transportation. Let’s get rid of them. Also, return speed limits to what they used to be. Twenty mph on city streets and 30 mph on four-lane divided roads are too slow.

As for Democrats who control state government, their delusional goals and timetables for carbon reduction and electrification are unattainable, unaffordable, and undesirable. Oil, gas, and coal will be essential for the foreseeable future. Wind and solar will always be minor players. And nothing Colorado does will have a significant impact on the planet’s climate.

By Jon Caldara

Many conservatives in Colorado have a visceral distaste for Kyle Clark, the 9News anchor who effortlessly slides between reporter and editorialist. And I can understand their frustration.

Like most in the news media, Clark sees the world along the oppressed-versus-oppressor spectrum, which naturally lends itself to progressive story selections and opinions. As an aside, I dream of the day when news stations have a sizable minority of reporters who see the world along the liberty-versus-coercion spectrum. Trust in media could be restored (I’m glad the Gazette is a leader in this restoration).

But it is not Kyle Clark’s world view that really angers conservatives, after all, Clark’s viewpoint is shared nearly unanimously among those in his industry. Conservatives are pissed Clark has a massive audience who trust him and follows his lead. He is, arguably, the most effective political opinion leader in the state. And that’s a maddening thing if you’re a conservative or libertarian.

But Kyle Clark’s megaphone on occasion blasts out something limited-government advocates, me included, can’t help but be impressed with. Case in point was when he threw the BS flag on Gov. Jared Polis regarding lying about Proposition HH. When Clark said, “Governor, you’re smart, but that doesn’t mean we’re dumb,” it opened the floodgates for an open public examining of HH, which then failed by 20 points.

This week, Kyle Clark might have ended Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s quest to become Colorado’s next governor before it could even officially start by asking her one lethal question: “Given your office’s repeated errors that have damaged confidence in our elections, which you say is paramount, will you resign?”

In case you hadn’t heard, Secretary of State Griswold’s incompetence was on display yet again when her office mistakenly released secret voting system passwords for nearly every county across Colorado. Not only was this information available for months right on the SOS’s official website, but it was also reported she planned to hide this from the public.

Clark mercilessly held Griswold to her own standards, reminding her of her statement condemning the Mesa County Clerk for her leaked voting passcodes, of her notifying voters who had already voted to get out to vote, and of her mailing voter registration material to 30,000 non-citizens.

But it was the question about resigning that changed Jena’s political trajectory.

The reaction on Griswold’s face when he asked it was priceless. Her eyes expressed befuddlement and the sadness only betrayal can bring, as if she was saying “Kyle! How could you do this to me. I, I thought you were one of us.”

For conservatives who have been skewered by Kyle Clark, it was sweet satisfaction. I could hear them all collectively think, “Yeah Jena, that’s what it feels like. 

This was Kyle Clark’s Sister Souljah moment (If you don’t know what that means, go ask your parents).

This was also a wrapped gift to AG Phil Weiser. In fact, it might be the largest contribution to his almost certain gubernatorial campaign, because it puts an anvil around Jena’s neck. She is his most likely primary opponent.

By the way, AG stands for Aspiring Governor.

Just like saying of Polis about Prop HH, “We’re not dumb,” opened the door to real scrutiny of the sly tax hike, Kyle’s “will you resign?” now makes it a fair question for any opponent, reporter, or citizen to ask. And they will ask until Griswold drops out of the race for governor or loses.

Like the recent report exposing Denver’s fire chief and his top deputies abusing comp-pay time to pocket tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay and benefits, this Griswold hot potato has the aroma of an inside whistleblower.

And, as a sign of encouragement, this whole episode could signal the news media is ready to report on the biggest story not told in Colorado politics: the growing civil war inside the Democratic party ranks.

Given their proclivities, Colorado’s reporters have instead focused on the delightful dysfunction of the state GOP. One could hardly blame them, it’s such an easy target. But it is reporting on the completely irrelevant. The super minority and shrinking GOP is a non-factor in government.

Kyle Clark may have signaled it’s OK to investigate and report on those in power in Colorado — even if they are progressives.

By Jon Caldara

Tired of all the traffic? Tough. The central planners in charge command it only get worse at an exponential rate.

The reason our roads suck is money that could fix and expand them goes to transit which relatively no one uses. U.S. Census data shows only 4% of Denver’s commuting population uses transit.

Remember that number — 4%.

Yet, in the Denver metro area, almost all “transportation” dollars go to transit. The Regional Transportation District’s (RTD) failed FasTracks scam spent more than $7 billion at a time when all the highway needs statewide were around $9 billion. We could have fulfilled nearly all of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) wish list for the entire state with what we spent on one choo-choo train boondoggle.

Next time you’re stuck in traffic, don’t get angry at the car in front of you. Get angry at the rarely used railroad tracks next to you. That’s where your road money went.

Central planners are wed to the three-century-old technology of trains for one simple reason: empire building. No one can compete with them on tracks no one else can use. Monopoly never goes out of style.

RTD just released a study on its stillborn train line from Longmont to Denver, promised since 2004. Their conclusion? It cannot be done unless voters are conned into more taxes, likely in the form of the “Front Range Train” system.

This means taxpayers would have to pay three times to fulfill RTD’s single promise of train tracks.

Most of us still remember RTD’s 2004 pledge of FasTracks being completed by 2017, and at half the current price. They don’t want us to remember that. This traumatic memory of theft will be the major obstacle in their quest to soak us for a Front Range rail system from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

So, expect a flurry of lip service about making the Longmont-Denver line a reality soon. How soon? Real soon, trust us, just approve this tax for a statewide system.

And what will Longmont get? Nothing close to what they were promised. According to RTD’s recent report, the best they can do would be to send three little one-way trains down to Denver in the morning and the same three back to Longmont in the evening carrying a mere one-tenth of what they promised in 2004.

You notice I said this would be the third promise to build out a system. Like Holocaust deniers, RTD and their cronies pretend the 1971 tax increase that committed to build 128 miles of rail by 1980 never existed. And bless the media for keeping it hidden.

Yes, you are still paying for that 1971 promise, a half-cent-a-dollar sales tax (which was to be cut in half in 1980 but wasn’t) and later increased to six-tenths of a cent. Add to that the 2004 Fastracks increase to a full penny per dollar, and you get one of the well-funded transit agencies in the nation.

But it’s even worse. Much worse. To “cut greenhouse gas emissions,” Colorado’s Department of Transportation is planning to suck even more money out of your roads to shower on transit people mostly don’t ride.

In an August 2021 rulemaking memo, CDOT says, “it is estimated that between a quarter and a third of resources will need to be shifted towards transportation projects that have air quality mitigation benefits — as well as other societal co-benefits — in order to achieve the targets set in the rule.”

CDOT plans to siphon 28% of the state’s road funding to multi-modal transport (read choo-choo trains and bike paths) by 2031.

So, the goal is to have a third of our road money stolen for transit that carries, at most, 4% of commuters. This isn’t bad policy. This is mobility malfeasance.

Of course, if we really cared about air quality, we would work on getting cars moving since stop-and-go traffic produces the most air pollution.

May I suggest a different guiding principle altogether. Every marginal transportation dollar must go to the project that reduces auto traffic the most. That’s it. Judge every dollar spent on how much it cuts car traffic.

If using 200-year-old train technology or a bike path reduces traffic more than new toll lanes or general-purpose lanes, then go for it. If not, stop robbing us for unicorn projects and stop robbing our time in traffic jams.