Freedom Unaffiliated

Written and read by Mike Rosen

A special election will be held in November for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. In a recent candidates debate, one of the contenders, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, called for raising California’s minimum wage to $50.00 an hour, arguing that low income workers need that much to just get by given the cost of living in that state. $50 an hour computes to $104,000 a year. (U.S. median personal income is currently just over $50,000.)

Lee is a radical activist who represents Oakland and Berkeley, a district where whites are a distinct minority at 32%. She’s held that seat for 25 years, reelected in 2022 with 90% of the vote. Her voting record is at the extreme left of progressive House Democrats.

Her proposal is preposterous and unfeasible, as anyone with the slightest grasp of economics would understand. She’s oblivious to that, nor would she be concerned given her ideology and political agenda. But this column isn’t about the minimum wage. I’m just offering this as a classic example of a much bigger problem: the mentality of elected officials like Rep. Lee and her ilk and the damage they’re doing to our nation.

It’s most obvious in cities and states wholly controlled by Democrats, like Denver and Colorado. In both the state legislature and Denver City Council every single Democrat seems duty bound to sponsor yet another statute, ordinance, or regulation that will expand government, solve every problem – no matter how insignificant – and deliver the promise of joy and social(ist) justice. And money is no object. Of course, all of these won’t become law (although far too many do) because the sky is not the limit. Ultimately, however, fiscal insolvency is the limit.

This is mostly theatrical virtue signaling giving all these politicians something to brag about; a public display of compassion and concern, practicality aside.

This scam is greatly to the disadvantage of conservative Republicans constrained by reality. They could never – nor would they want to – outbid progressive Democrats in an auction for unachievable utopian outcomes that lead to economic ruin, especially in places where voters are hooked on unsustainable government handouts. Which is precisely why Democrats are in power here.

At the national level, the problem is far worse, even critical. I’m not exaggerating when I say the U.S. government is on a trajectory to fiscal insolvency. The federal budget has run a deficit every year since 2002. Our gross national debt is $34 trillion, 130% of our economy. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will exceed 200% by 2053. What the government calls “payments to individuals” is 2/3 of all federal spending. Most of that is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, compounded by a cornucopia of so-called “entitlements.” This is the primary force driving our perpetual deficits and, consequently, interest on the national debt which is approaching 13% of the budget, exceeding defense spending.

Soaking the rich won’t balance the books. The top 1% of taxpayers already pays 43% of all federal income taxes (the bottom 50% pays only 3%). The U.S Treasury estimates the combined unfunded obligations of the Social Security and Medicare programs alone will total $80 trillion over the next 75 years. Their so-called “trust funds” are just bookkeeping entries. They don’t hold piles of cash or stocks, just IOUs from the Treasury. To pay deficiencies the government will have to raise taxes or borrow more money. All of the government’s gold in Fort Knox is relative chicken feed with a market value of only $275 billion. That’s a measly $275 billion not TRILLION.

No one knows exactly what a U.S. default on its national debt will look like, but would surely lead to an international depression. Most Republicans recognize the necessity of heading off this catastrophe. But even discussing this problem is a political minefield. Back in 2012, when Republican Congressman Paul Ryan dared to suggest Social Security reforms, a progressive attack group ran a TV ad showing a likeness of Ryan pushing a grandma in a wheelchair off a cliff.

Democrats pretend this crisis doesn’t exist, damning Republicans who even hint at reforms. Radical lefties like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Barbara Lee go even further promising to expand these programs. No Republican is considering “slashing” or “eliminating” Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. But unless we trim, or least contain their growth and put a limit on entitlement programs the U.S. will go broke.

There’s no easy answer to this crisis, but there is a first step for rational Americans: For Heaven’s sake stop voting for Democrats! Young people, especially, take note. It’s your future.

Costs of labor, energy make it hard for Colorado eateries to stay afloat.

The bad policy chickens are coming home to roost.

At least you can eat chickens.

We are seeing the first domino tumble in the economic ruin that will hit all of Colorado in a few short years. Small businesses, like locally owned restaurants, are shuddering.

I don’t know if you remember dining out in Colorado before it became unaffordable, but I’m old enough to remember it, and if memory serves, it was awesome. I can’t wait to tell my grand kids about it someday.

A family shouldn’t have to get a Small Business Administration loan just to eat out. But even with the outrageous price hikes on Colorado menus, restaurant owners still can’t pay the bills. Recently three well-known Denver restaurants were forced to close.

The owner of Three Saints Revival blamed, “The staggeringly low office buildings’ occupancy ... combined with economic and other forces, had made it impossible to stay in business.”

The owners of Ana’s Norwegian Bakeri on the 16th Street Mall criticized “slow pedestrian traffic” for their downfall.

Funny how increased violence, litter and homelessness discourages customers from frequenting crime-infested streets.

And the owner of the boarded-up Avelina on 17th Street was blunt: “The minimum-wage increases have been unbearable.”

He gave a flawless economics lesson about the real-life impacts of price controls. “These policies only end up with the population all experiencing a lower quality of life. No one has figured out that the only winner in the raise-the-minimum-wage game is the government. They make more — minimum-wage earners make more — but then are faced with everything becoming more expensive. They don’t get ahead. Only the (government) gets a raise. I think it’s silly that wealthy libs don’t get that.”

Now his workers are making no wage at all. Mission accomplished.

About a complaint he got regarding a canceled reservation, the now-broke owner said, “We paid to keep the place open for the last two years — we are now closed for good. So, no, we aren’t booked. We lost our asses and are now done. All you idiots running this town can do is raise the minimum wage running small business owners out of business. Cry me a river about your dinner reservations.”

Denver’s minimum wage is an eye-popping $18.29 an hour (less for tipped employees). A few years ago the state legislature and Gov. Jared Polis, citing “local control,” allowed localities to increase their minimum wages but, of course, not decrease it. It’s just a one-way ratchet to bankruptcy. But it sure does feel good.

Beyond the minimum wage, small businesses need to pay a new payroll tax of nearly 1%, split between employer and employee, for the new FAMLI leave act. And it forces even more costs on employers to train and hire temporary workers to fill in.

Now they can stay on leave permanently, without pay.

No person risks all they have on a small business to spend their limited time and resources on government mandates and paperwork. They need to be building their business instead.

Restaurants, especially Colorado restaurants, are the first to take it on the chin.

While the nation’s inflation rate is 3.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Colorado’s inflation rate for eating out is more than double at 6.7%. 

What drives cost at restaurants beyond labor? Energy is a big one. While Colorado’s war on energy is hitting us all in the pocketbook, restaurant owners get it worse with industrial appliances, gas stoves, walk-in refrigerators and the like.

While nationally the cost of “energy services” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics has dropped by 2% in the last year, it’s gone up more than 10% in Colorado. And that cost is shown in everything we buy here, including your next hamburger.

Read this again! Nationally, energy services are down 2%, but they’re up 10.3% in a state with some of the country’s greatest reserves of coal and natural gas. This is a policy-driven, Colorado-specific hyperinflation.

And it’s just starting.

I’ve mentioned before a great Colorado rebound is nearing. Fiscal sanity must return to Colorado, mind you, I think it’s still six to 10 years away. And it will only happen after more economic devastation — caused by the left’s control of all political levers — rips through Colorado. 

But it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets a little better.

Biden plays lead role in Colorado’s sanctuary state woes

By Mike Rosen

A recent commentary by Denver Gazette editor Vince Bzdek raised an intriguing question: “Is migrant crisis fed’s fault, or Colorado’s?” I’d say this isn’t an either-or-question. This unprecedented magnitude of illegal alien entries into the U.S., encouraged and allowed by President Biden and openly accommodated by Colorado, Denver, and other Democrat-controlled sanctuary cities, is indisputably the fault of all of the above along with the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been squandered to accommodate it.

This catastrophe was triggered and has been accelerating from the very beginning of the Biden presidency while the president and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, have pooh-poohed it, preposterously claiming, “our border is secure!” Only now, in the first stage of his reelection campaign with polls showing massive disapproval of his performance on immigration policy and border security has the word “crisis” finally passed Biden’s lips. And even then, absurdly blaming it on Donald Trump.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always gets the bill. When the feds funnel billions of dollars to subsidize sanctuary cities for the care and welfare of millions of illegal aliens, the cost will ultimately be passed on to federal taxpayers, including folks who don’t live in those sanctuary cities. They shouldn’t be forced to bail out the sanctuary cities whose elected “social justice” warriors brought this on themselves by sanctimoniously rolling out the welcome mat to begin with. Of course, that was before the deluge. Suddenly, they don’t want any more. Real justice would be best served by having the politicians who created this mess and the people who elected them open their own homes to all those who crossed our border illegally. Fat chance.

Bzdek wasn’t actually opposing subsidies for sanctuary cities in his commentary. The thrust of which was that Colorado hasn’t milked the federal cow as well as border states like Texas. Especially the city of El Paso, thanks to its Congresswoman Veronica Escobar. He said with envy, she’s “been able to grease the skids for federal reimbursements” and wonders why Colorado’s congressional delegation hasn’t. Perhaps because Escobar has more clout as a leader of the radical left-wing House Progressive Caucus that dominates the Democrats’ legislative agenda with 102 members out of the party’s 213. Oh, and she also represents a congressional district that’s 82% Latino.

El Paso is a border city that’s become a way station for foreign migrants. That includes those who illegally sneak across our border as well as those ushered across under Biden’s outrageous misapplication and abuse of “parole.” That’s a quasi-legal immigration status that’s customarily granted by the federal government to a relatively small number of refugees and other foreign nationals, but nowhere near the many millions Biden has extended it to. Ironically, El Paso’s alien intruders want out of that city for fear of deportation. Which is why they head for sanctuary cities like Denver that provide free housing, food, clothing, medical care, public education, and also shields them from federal immigration law enforcement.

Which brings us to the so-called “bipartisan” Senate bill that failed on February 7 with all but a handful of Democrats voting for it and all but a handful of Republicans voting against it. That’s hardly bipartisanship. With Biden’s public approval rating on immigration tanking, his handlers were desperate to change the campaign narrative. Their scheme was to contrive a bill so deficient on border security they knew House Republicans would never accept it. After which they’d claim Republicans stonewalled this solution to the crisis (which was all Biden’s doing) with the liberal media echoing the new narrative. And that’s just what happened, with Biden blaming it on Trump, to boot.

At Biden’s insistence, the 370-page, $94 billion so-called Senate Border Bill (with less than $20 billion for the border) was bundled together with aid to Israel and Ukraine getting the bulk of the money — two unrelated issues. With progressive Democrats opposed to Israel and right-wing Republicans opposed to Ukraine, the bill was guaranteed to fail. When it did, Democrats and media liberals absurdly claimed the failed Senate bill wasn’t “perfect” but was a “compromise” that gave Republicans most of what they wanted.

Nonsense. In April, House Republicans had passed HR-2, the Secure the Border Act, listing their demands, including a 900-mile border wall. The failed Senate bill included no border wall and rejected many other key Republican security and immigration reform measures. Instead, Senate Democrats authorized 5,000 illegal crossings a day! That’s no compromise. Why allow any? And they threw in $1.4 billion for private organizations that aid illegal aliens. If they’re truly private, they should fund it themselves.

If Republicans approved the Senate bill, Biden claimed he’d “shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.” That’s laughable. He didn’t need this bill to do that. He already has that power if he’d simply exercise it and let the border patrol do its job, as Trump did. Republicans would have been crazy to accept that deal or trust Biden and the Democrats to enforce border security. Their vision of “comprehensive” immigration reform is a very porous border and expedited citizenship for countless illegal aliens who will return the favor by electing Democrats forever.

Colorado’s left-captured Legislature is busying itself with crazy bills

By Jon Caldara

While Colorado’s governmental core functions are going unattended, as witnessed by crime, traffic and crumbling roads, the Legislature is busying itself with the most critical work of all — coming up with wing-bat crazy bills to promote the trans agenda by disempowering parents, crushing needed industries and torturing puppies.

By far, my favorite is House Bill 1039. In its original version it empowers any kid in school to choose his own name “to reflect that individual’s gender identity.” The school must use the new name he, she or “they” chose in all their record keeping, teaching, activities — even the yearbook.

Mind you, at 18 years old any young adult can legally change their name to whatever they like. But why wait to go against your parents’ wishes when the state can enable you to anger them right now, today.

The same logic would allow 8-yearolds get tattoos without parental consent.

The problem is there are plenty of kids who have my sense of humor. I would have loved to force my teachers to call me by any name I desired.

School will turn into a Saturday Night Live skit.

Let me offer some name suggestions, with apologies to Bart Simpson, for the middle school crowd who will understand the sophistication:

I.M.A. Wiener, Homer Sexual, Oliver Klozoff, Seymour Butz, Al Coholic, Tess T. Culls, Hugh Jass, Mike Rotch, Jacques Strap, Amanda Huginkiss, I.P. Freely, Ollie Tabooger, Lee Key Bum, Ivana Tinkle, Maya Buttreeks, Eura Snotball, Ahmed Adoudi, Maya Normousbutt, Drew P. Wiener, Yuri Nator, Moe Ron, Ben Dover, Fannie Licker or Moe Lester.

Parents should encourage their kids to change their first name to “Doctor” or “President.” Little girls can finally name themselves “Princess.” And, of course, the smart-aleck in class will change his name so that under his yearbook photo it will read “School Shooter.”

Next on the giggle list is House Bill 1114. It requires that before an animal shelter euthanizes any pet, they must call every other known animal shelter to see if that shelter is stupid enough to take the thing.

So, a shelter in, say, Limon has 500 pet rats no one wants to adopt. Before they put the vermin down, they must call every single shelter in the entire state and see if they would like to take them first. And if this shelter in Durango says yes, are they really gonna drive to Limon to get them?

“Excuse me, we have this very elderly rattlesnake we need to put down. Do you want to take it so when you realize it needs to be put down, you’ll be required to call every single shelter in the state like we’re doing right now? Sure, we’d rather be tending to our needy animals, but some busy-body lawmakers thought this is how we should spend our time.”

The unintended consequence is pet shelters will be much more hesitant to accept animals. Why take in animals if the risk is you’re gonna be spending all your energy trying to pawn them off on another shelter?

As usual with this type of feel-good-but-poorly-thought-through legislation, it will harm more animals as they are turned away from shelters in the first place.

And why do people give away their beloved pet? Often it’s because they can no longer afford to keep it. So, one of the great things you can do to save animals is to make sure their human beings don’t lose their jobs or that rising costs don’t eat away their paychecks.

To help with that is Senate Bill 159, which ends all oil and gas development in Colorado by 2030. This bill will destroy the largest industry in Colorado, the one that accounts for some 11% of the state’s GDP.

So, not only will the thousands of people who depend on the industry for employment lose their jobs, but working families will pay more and more for the natural gas that heats their homes and the fuel that runs their cars.

Fortunately, parents who can’t afford to feed their kids, even though they don’t know what those very kids’ names are at school, will still be able to put dinner on the table. When the shelter won’t take their dog, they can serve him for dinner.

By Mike Rosen

It’s been said that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” In other words, greater knowledge is better. A perfect example is a survey of students undertaken by Ron Hassner, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Prof. Hassner designed a poll for a diverse sampling of 250 college students across the U.S. ascertaining their support for the chant, “from the river to the sea,” echoed by those who sympathize with Palestinians and condemn Israel. Initially, 86% said they supported the chant, (33% enthusiastically, 53% to a lesser extent). The students were then asked to give the names of this river and sea. Only 47% correctly answered: the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. Besides “duh,” the many ignorant guesses from these future leaders of America included: the Nile, Euphrates, Caribbean, the Dead Sea (actually a lake), and the Atlantic Ocean.

One well-intentioned student said he “definitely” supported the chant because he believed that “Palestinians and Israelis should live in two separate countries, side by side.” After being shown on a map that a separate Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea would leave no room for Israel, the student reversed his support for the chant from “definitely” to “probably not.” Of 80 students who were shown this map, 75% similarly changed their viewpoint. Presumably, the 25% who saw the map and didn’t change their opinion want to have the state of Israel eliminated, or Jews as well.

It is encouraging that most of these students were open-minded enough to reconsider the issue when presented with a better understanding. Of all the students polled, fully two-thirds dropped their support of the “from the river to the sea” chant after learning some basic facts. On the other hand, it’s extremely disturbing to see how easily and effectively these college students could be misled or brainwashed by biased educators, the liberal mass media and, especially, the open sewer of falsehood and hate on social media.

Hamas uses the Palestinians as pawns in its greater goal of exterminating all Jews worldwide. Some Palestinians would like to be rid of Hamas and its perpetual war on the Jews and would be willing to coexist with Israel in a two-state solution, although many Palestinians, perhaps most, are committed to Hamas’s cause. It’s no wonder, when generations of Palestinian children have been indoctrinated from early childhood by their parents and in school to hate Jews.

But it’s not just anti-Semitism at play in the demonization of Israel by leftist American college students and faculty who prefer socialism (and Marxism) to capitalism, and who enthusiastically embrace the left’s contrived narrative of “oppressors vs. the oppressed” in all facets of life, from foreign policy to race to economics to culture. This narrative is basically a rework of Karl Marx’s vision of class warfare between capitalist exploiters versus oppressed workers of the “proletariat.” Today’s progressive Marxists have replaced the oppressed proletariat in this class war with an ever-expanding “intersectional rainbow of marginalized” victims who are oppressed by our conventional society, thus entitling the oppressed to subsidies, special treatment or even reparations. They lump this together in an ideological stew with “social justice“ and “identity politics” that judges people by their membership in a group rather than by their individual qualities or faults. This final product rejects individual responsibility, penalizes success, rejects meritocracy, rewards mediocrity, and expands dependency on ever-growing progressive government.

There’s always an activist remnant of idealistic left-wing college students seeking a political “cause.” But passion at the expense of reason and knowledge leads to irrational extremism. They’ve crowned Palestinians in Gaza as the oppressed and branded Israelis as the oppressors. Israel, a loyal American ally, is a rare democracy in the Middle East and embraces two million Arab citizens, some of whom serve in the Israeli Parliament. Hamas is the oppressor; it no longer allows free elections and intentionally exposes Gaza civilians to Israeli counterattacks by stationing its leaders and armories in dense population zones and next to hospitals so that it can leverage their casualties as an international propaganda tool against Israel.

The hypocritical selectivity of Israel-hating college students in selecting “oppressors” is blatant. The world’s most undemocratic, totalitarian dictatorships and oppressors of their own people are the communist regimes of China, North Korea, and Cuba. Where’s their outrage at them? There is none, in keeping with the long-standing code of Marxist ideologues that “there are no enemies on the left.”

Also, above criticism from this crowd is Iran —the principal financier of Middle East terrorism —and other agents of Islamist havoc like Hezbollah, al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban. Instead, these student protestors and their faculty influencers would rather denigrate the United States and our history in an incomparably far different age. As if, for example, slavery was something unique to America when it was omnipresent in this world from the dawn of history. Ultimately, Britain and the U.S. led the world in abolishing it. Revisionist critics on the radical left, obsessed with our past faults, unfairly and sanctimoniously view our history through a modern lens in comparison to an age and culture that were far different and incomparable. Compounding their distortion, they deceitfully downplay the overwhelming magnitude of America’s virtues and achievements.

The people making the most noise about former President Donald Trump being a threat to democracy are working to take away democracy right here in Colorado.

It would be comical if it weren’t so ugly.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) has a 15-member, directly elected, nonpartisan board of directors. I was elected to that board and served as chairman many years ago. I had to answer directly to my constituents, many unhappy with me. And, boy, could they always get a hold of me. Or at least get into tomato-throwing range of me.

Sadly, the usual suspects in the Colorado Legislature don’t trust voters and despise this type of directly elected accountability. They would much rather have a centrally controlled, prearranged board of directors to do their bidding without all that pesky interference from those constituents who pay for it all.

Keep in mind, less than 6% of RTD’s revenue comes from the fares riders pay. A gobsmacking 94% of their revenue comes from you the taxpayer, in one form or another.

These legislators are pushing a bill to silence taxpayers and local communities. Voters would no longer elect RTD board members.

Their dream is called “new urbanism.” Basically, they want to force people to live and commute in the manner they prescribe; make driving unbearable, force people out of their cars by gunpoint, and make them live in pack-n-stack housing served by the government-owned transit monopoly. 

Maybe this is great policy (actually, it’s horrific policy and hurts poor people more than anyone else, but let’s just go with it). To rip away the right to vote from more than 3 million people just to have a compliant board of hand-picked social engineers is an affront to democracy.

And if I’ve been reading all the recent news correctly, we, um, well, we don’t like that kind of thing. You know what’s more disenfranchising than to require people to have a photo ID to vote? Maybe taking away their right to vote entirely.

You see, though only about 4% of people commute here on transit, 100% of the money comes from us.

Just like your city, county and school district, RTD is a government of its own. In fact, it’s one of the largest in the state. It has the power to tax, raise fees, go into debt and condemn property for its own uses.

This current proposal forces RTD to be run not by citizens, like every other government in the state, but by complete bureaucratic insiders and social engineers.

They include a position for the head of the Colorado Department of Transportation, and positions for people from DRCOG, that mysterious pseudo-government of planners responsible for our transportation debacle, and, get this one, an “expert in either transportation planning, development or electrification.”

Ah, yes — the expert elites know what’s best, certainly better than those rabble at the ballot box.

RTD was created to provide mobility for transit-dependent people, the folks who cannot afford or, for some reason, cannot drive a car.

RTD is no longer there to help poor people, mostly brown and black, with their physical mobility. Instead, the system has been perverted so this 94% subsidy goes to people who already have cars but don’t want to pay for parking when they go to work or a Rockies game.

Show me a man whose mobility is limited to how far his legs can take him, and I will show you a man in despair.

Show me a man whose mobility is limited to how far public transit in Colorado can take him, and I will show you a man who will forever be on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. These transit-dependent people do not need another free bus pass. They need a car. They need the power to vote.

These are the people who will be disenfranchised should direct elections be killed by the Democratic Socialists in the Legislature, despite the token requirement the governor appoint a person to represent disadvantaged populations, as if disadvantaged populations speak with one allotted voice.

Maybe Jim Crow does live.

This bill is just another in a long line of laws and regulations to centralize power away from localities and into an all-powerful state government.

Local control is becoming a thing of the past in Colorado — along with your right to vote.

by Jon Caldara

Have you ever played, “If I were king”?

If I were king ... I would outlaw the designated hitter rule in Major League Baseball.

If I were king ... I would require all oatmeal-raisin cookies be made with hunter-safety orange food dye. How many times have you walked across the room for what seemed a mouthwatering chocolate chip cookie only to find after a bite it’s a dirty, disgusting, evil oatmeal-raisin?

If I were king ... I would make driving slowly in the passing lane punishable by death.

If I were king ... I would require all news reporters to list who they voted for president on their byline.

If I were king ... every home would be required to have a firearm and 1,000 rounds of ammunition. PBS would air nothing but reruns of the original “Star Trek.” All neckties would be burned, and on Tuesdays everyone would wear their underwear on the outside of their clothes.

You can play this game ad nauseam. But the sad reality is you’re not king.

Well, you’re not king unless you’re part of the progressive jihad at the state Capitol. They’re mastering this game of making Coloradans bend to their virtue-signaling idiosyncrasies. I mean, do you miss your plastic shopping bags yet?

Forget registering guns, if state Rep. Regina English were king, all hamsters would be registered with the state.

You cannot make this crap up. 

House Bill 1163 creates a statewide pet registry requiring the licensing of all livestock and pets, right down to a kid’s goldfish. The cost to register the pet would be $8.50. But if your dog or cat is not sterilized, it jumps up to $16.

So, a boy who buys two male mice, for far less than the tax to register them, finds out one is female as it just had a litter of 10 little mice babies. He’ll have to break his piggy bank for 85 bucks to keep them. At this point, Dad feeds the baby mice to the cat, bringing the rural practice of “shoot, shovel and shut up” into urban apartments.

This type of “if I were king” legislation has all the fingerprints of our first gentleman, Jared Polis’ animal-crazed hubby Marlon Reis. After the disaster that was Prop HH, the legislature is creating a property tax on your guinea pig.

The end goal of this is not to get your hamster to wear a dog collar. But it’s yet another attack on Colorado’s livestock industry and a way to create a sin tax for buying pets.

If state Sen. Chris Hansen were king, he’d indoctrinate children into his climate alarmism by giving those who can parrot back his dogma of environmental extremism an extra special gold-star on their diploma.

Under Senate Bill 14, when kids are taught to believe what he believes, they get a “Seal of Environmental Literacy” endorsement on their diploma.

Mind you, he is pushing this in the state where reading scores have plummeted so far you can’t call the diploma itself a “Seal of Reading Literacy.”

When I’m king, I’ll add the “Seal of Economic Literacy.” Those poor little kids’ heads will explode as one side of their brain is taught to save the earth, all energy must come from bunny flatulence, while the other side of their brain will do the simple math showing we will go bankrupt without making a dent in climate change as China continues to belch out coal-fire power plants daily.

If state Sen. Sonja Jaquez was king, she’d mercifully still allow Coloradans to keep their concealed weapons permits, but just not allow them to carry guns where they need them.

Her bill expands the definition of “sensitive area” to include the places where mass shootings occur, like schools, churches, synagogues and mosques, even when such establishments are private.

Forty-one Colorado school districts have trained conceal-carrying armed staff to protect our children. Mass shootings in churches like the New Life Church in Colorado Springs were stopped by concealed carry holders.

In her kingdom, these children and worshippers are not worth protecting.

There was a saying about gay marriage. If you’re a man and don’t like gay marriage, don’t marry a dude.

If you don’t like concealed carry, don’t carry a gun.

Mel Brooks said it all: “it’s good to be the king.”

I must have hit that age. Nostalgia keeps overtaking me.

I remember a Colorado that had thriving, competitive newspapers in every city, along with equally thriving local radio to keep them in check.

There was a time when local radio was big.

Colorado, and the Front Range in particular, had some of the most competitive radio wars in the country due to more stations than similarly sized metro areas.

The Federal Communications Commission allocated radio frequencies very miserly, so one station’s broadcast wouldn’t bleed into another’s. And since the Front Range market was so far away from other big urban markets, we had more radio real estate available.

Hard to have local talk radio in New York City without it spilling all over New Jersey. Not the problem here.

And Colorado stations wove their way into our community. You spent time with those local guys on radio. Love ’em or hate ’em, you might spend hours a day with them.

Recently we just lost one of the greatest as the voice of the University of Colorado Buffaloes and the Denver Broncos, Larry Zimmer, passed away.

I remember as a kid my old man turning down the sound on the TV set during the Bronco games and turning on “85 KOA,” along with most Bronco fans, to listen to Bob Martin and Larry Zimmer call the game. There were no better in the business.

Bronco fans brought portable radios into Mile High Stadium to hear their analysis as they watched live.

When the Broncos had their first magic Super Bowl season in 1976, Bob and Larry provided the soundtrack for the state.

Radio had a special bond with Coloradans then, especially talk radio.

Talk radio was a powerhouse of communication and the virtual town square where Colorado-centric politics and issues were hammered out. And unlike modern anonymous social media hate speech, you knew who was saying what.

We were fortunate to have Mike Rosen as our conservative talk radio host for decades. At one point every metro area was required, it seemed by law, to have at least one conservative host, and most were Rush Limbaugh wannabes yelling insults into a microphone.

Rosen by contrast was (and still is via a keyboard for these pages) a calm man of reason with a penchant for argumentation. He was devastating.

Argumentation and logic are no longer taught in schools which is one of the reasons no one can have a conversation about politics anymore without being called either racist or stupid.

Mike’s airwaves counterbalance was Pete Boyles who also took on local politics in a much more emotional yet ferocious way. For decades these two masters of talk would take on Denver’s political powers to be, including the mainstream media.

And most importantly they conquered local and state issues. Elections and ballot issues were often won or lost by their influence, because there were large audiences then.

Here’s what makes talk radio so powerful: it is immediate and spontaneous at its very core, the very opposite of a newspaper or the centrally planned National Public Radio.

If you disagree with something on NPR, you can write them a letter and maybe, if the people you are criticizing allow it, an edited version of your argument might be read on air.

By contrast when a talk-show host says something stupid any truck driver with a cellphone can challenge him immediately. That caller has access to the exact same airwaves as the host, and in real time. Without being edited he gets as much wattage behind his voice.

Could you imagine what Colorado Public Radio might be with that kind of format? They’d never risk the loss of control.

Alas that was then, and this is now. Talk radio is not quite dead, but it’s aging fast.

Radio stations today are mostly owned by hedge funds. To squeeze money, local voices take a back seat to syndicated shows that care nothing for Colorado issues.

And with podcasts and so many other choices for audio entertainment, folks are hesitant to put up with 15 minutes of ads an hour. Quite simply, Coloradans no longer really tune in to talk radio.

There is still quality talk radio in Denver, but the golden age is over. And with it goes the accountability and citizen power over local issues when we need it most.

The former head of the leftist ProgressNow Colorado, who is married to a U.S. congresswoman living in Jefferson County, has donated to the election campaigns of all three of the current Jefferson County commissioners.

So, what a coincidence those same Jefferson County commissioners, all Democrats, are now going to pay him $180,000 to help dupe taxpayers out of TABOR refunds.

As reported by the news site CompleteColorado.com (a project of Independence Institute, which I run), 7th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen’s husband, Ian Silverii, has just inked a spectacular deal from Jefferson County. His firm “won” a $340,000 contract, of which he personally gets $180,000.

The job? To strategize how to con those pesky, greedy little constituents of theirs to finally give up their TABOR refunds — forever.

Twice before, those hateful voters turned down the opportunity to do the right thing and forfeit their hard-earned money — the bastards.

Let’s for the moment put aside the ethical issue of a government using your taxpayer dollars to campaign to get more of your taxpayer dollars. Let’s also put aside the ethical question of cronyism in government contracting.

Let’s instead chat about how brilliant Jefferson County voters were to twice turn down this “De-Brucing,” the slang term for TABOR overrides, and why they will again.

When you get your property tax bills next month, you’ll wish all the districts you’re paying to didn’t De-Bruce, like Jefferson County.

Jefferson County’s elected elite is feeling left out of the party. Most all other districts, about 90% of them, in fact, have permanently De-Bruced. This allows them to keep the massive, massive, massive, massive windfall they’re about to get in their property tax hauls.

With property values going up some 50% to 75%, combined with repeal of the Gallagher Amendment (which used to basically lower property tax rates when property values went up), property taxes are going through the stratosphere.

Unlike most other big counties, Jefferson County will be forced to return that excess revenue, just like how the state must return its surplus tax revenue, you know, that $700 “Colorado Cash Back” check you got.

By not voting to De-Bruce, Jefferson County taxpayers saved themselves the full brunt of the property tax avalanche about to run them over. At least a portion of their property taxes will be coming back to them as refunds.

When TABOR was passed, it clearly said citizens of any district can vote to allow that district to keep excess revenue, above the rate of population growth and inflation, for up to four years. At that point, the district would have to ask the voters again if they still wanted to give up their tax refunds.

Sadly, the Colorado Supreme Court, which despises TABOR and rarely misses a chance to weaken it, ruled “four years” shall be treated as “forever,” I guess because they kind of sound the same.

Districts like Jefferson County will continue to ask for a TABOR override like a nagging 3-year-old demanding a cookie, because, if the voters say yes once, they never have to ask again.

So, play a “what-if” game with me. Now that Gallagher is gone as property taxes are skyrocketing, what if the four-year limit for TABOR overrides was still in effect?

That would mean all the districts, big and small, that next year will be awash in our money due to the property tax windfall would not be able to keep that money for more than four years. At that point voters would have a shot of reclaiming some of their money

Simply put, the devastation of repealing Gallagher would be greatly softened because every four years districts would have to give back the cash or ask their citizens if they could keep the booty.

It’s not peoples’ fault their property value goes up. It’s not as if they made more income. It’s not like the cost of governmental services have gone up more than inflation and population.

Property tax is legalized ransom. You want to keep your house? Pay us. In mafia terms it is call protection money.

Let’s bring back the four-year De-Brucing limit and let voters choose to get some of their ransom money back.

By: Jon Caldara

Never since the passage of our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1992 have I been more optimistic about the possibility of Coloradans winning back the lost personal and economic freedoms stolen by the government leviathan.

And no, I have not been ingesting the state’s newly deregulated psychedelic mushrooms.

I make this observation after taking an inventory of the political condition of our state, as I have worked in Colorado politics for well more than three decades.

As I wrote in my last column, the Colorado GOP is a lost cause for the next several years. This is a painful but necessary process, like an addict going through the hell of withdrawal, to realign candidates to the new political truths of the state.

Though difficult to swallow, conservatives will need to come to terms with electoral reality.

Colorado is a pro-choice, if not downright pro-abortion, state. Saving the unborn will have to come from the demand side, changing the hearts of pregnant women, not the supply side of banning the procedure.

Colorado is a pro-cannabis state. That genie isn’t going back in its bottle. Colorado is a pro-LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) state. Colorado is an environmentalist state. Colorado will never vote for former President Donald Trump.

These are difficult realities for some. And though not permanent–nothing in politics is–they will not change precipitously.

But in her bones Colorado is not pro-tax, pro-regulation, pro-crime or pro-woke. The leftist regime in power is severely out of touch with voters. And it’s harder to blame conservative boogey monsters for the ills of the state when they haven’t been in power in decades.

Coloradans will want economically conservative, yet socially accepting candidates. Over time, and after more painful election cycles, like 2024 will be, new Republicanish candidates, perhaps unaffiliated, will figure this out.

It will be easier for Republicans to dump their social, moralistic and Trumpy baggage than it will be for progressives to dump their economically devastating, command-and-control mission.

Colorado’s economy will be the driver for the “Colorado Rebound” in years to come.

The worst way to lose is slowly, giving time for people to acclimate to the decline. California is the example of this. The economic policies that plague California started in the 1960s and grew slowly and increasingly after.

Now, about 60 years later, the devastating impacts are crippling California: an effective income tax of 14% for the state’s most productive; energy prices and brown-outs spiraling out of control; and talk of a wealth tax are some of the reasons for the grand California exodus.

California is dying of a slow-moving, metastasizing economic cancer caused by governmental overreach. And even now, most voters there don’t realize the patient is terminal. The cancer has grown gradually over generations, making it opaque. Colorado faces a similar fate, but what took California six decades is happening in one decade here. It’s not just great-grandparents here saying, “I remember when …” Young people will remember an economically vibrant, safe and clean Colorado.

The economic destruction being caused by the progressive establishment will soon begin to be felt in earnest, though it will still take many years to feel its full force. Policies take a long time to achieve the full brunt of consequences.

Denver’s minimum wage of $18.29; the first year of the state’s Family Medical Leave and Insurance program’s payouts; costly unreachable energy mandates; the regulatory murders of the oil and gas, ranching, farming and mining industries — these are just a few of the reasons Colorado will economically leapfrog California into an economic wasteland, losing quickly.

We are witnessing how Colorado is becoming repellent to investment. For several decades, Colorado was the “go-to” place for people fleeing California, New York and Illinois, making our population explode.

That Colorado rush is over. People are still fleeing those failed big-government states, but according to the demographics, they’re not moving to Colorado nearly as much. We’re basically treading water population-wise.

When Colorado isn’t the place people want to come, you know things are going bad. And, fortunately, going bad fast. In the future (six to 10 years) voters will be desperate for palatable economic conservatives to undo the harm inflicted by progressives.

The question is whether conservative donors are willing to fund the long, boring work to make winning possible, but that’s a topic for another column.