Skip to content
Sign in
Artwork for Freedom Unaffiliated
NewsNews CommentaryEducationPolitics

Freedom Unaffiliated

Independence Institute

Did you know 46% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated? Have you ever wondered why? Hear from the experts at Independence Institute talk about the issues important to Colorado and how to bring some sanity to this increasingly leftist state.

Play
Open in
  • 26 episodes
  • Avg 6 min
  • English

Episodes 26

NewestOldestLongest
All20Unplayed20In progress0Played0
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • S3 · E109
    Yesterday · 5 min

    The bodily integrity case for yes on Colorado’s Prop 135

    Proposition 135 on this fall’s ballot would prohibit sex-change surgery on minors. Call it “gender-affirming surgery” if that makes the amputation sound more compassionate. I’ll admit, I struggled with how to vote. Not because I think children should undergo these surgeries, but because I’m suspicious whenever government barges into a family’s decisions. The question is whether stopping these surgeries is a legitimate function of government. The sovereign individual On emotional issues, like this one, it’s worth asking whether your vote grows out of principle or emotion. If you haven’t figured out your guiding principles, you’re just emoting with a ballot. My overriding principle is every human being is sovereign unto himself — his own nation, his own kingdom. As sovereign, an adult has the right to speak, worship, own property, defend himself, associate with other sovereigns or tell them to get off his lawn. He also owns his own body. That includes the right to tattoo it, pierce it, poison it with gas-station sushi or surgically alter it. Other people may consider those choices foolish or grotesque, but it isn’t their body and not their business. Government’s proper job, with very limited exceptions, is to protect individual liberty, not coerce people for their own good. Which, naturally, brings us to seat belts (yeah, I know, but stay with me). I despise mandatory seat belt laws for adults. There is something inconsistent about screaming “my body, my choice” on one issue and then demanding other people’s bodies be strapped down against their will. If an adult wishes to meet his windshield at 80 mph, that is between him and the laws of physics. Further, as a supporter of Darwinism, I don’t want to keep stupid people in the gene pool longer than need be. Seat belt laws do that (note that the Kardashians were not a thing before seat belt laws. Coincidence?). Kids are different But I strongly support seat belt laws for children. Infants cannot buckle themselves in. Nor do children naturally yearn to be strapped into place. Why be strapped down when you can run around the car hitting your little sister, playing the “I’m not touching you” game while dodging your mother’s hand as she tries to slap you? Parents should decide what risks their children may take. But no one should put children in danger, even if it’s the parents. Leaving a toddler in the trunk of a speeding car is not an unconventional parenting philosophy. It is child endangerment. Our Declaration of Independence asserts government must protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, protect a child’s life until he’s old enough to have the liberty to pursue his happiness, which may include removing healthy body parts. The case for yes That brings us back to Proposition 135. It does not prohibit puberty blockers or hormone treatments. It draws its line at the permanent removal of body tissue. That distinction matters. I run Independence Institute. We’ve spent 40 years fighting for parental rights in education. Parents, not bureaucrats, should decide how their children are taught. Shouldn’t parents also have the final say over their children’s medical care? Almost always, yes. Parents may choose a lousy school. They may feed a child an appalling diet. They may inflict violin lessons, youth soccer and matching family Christmas sweaters. Those decisions can shape a child’s life, but they do not permanently remove healthy body parts. A terrible education can be overcome through work and discipline. A disastrous haircut eventually grows out. Piercings close. Even tattoos can be removed. Amputated tissue does not grow back. Children are not miniature adults. We do not let them sign contracts, buy whiskey, smoke cigarettes or get a tattoo merely because they insist they have given the matter considerable thought. We recognize that adolescence is temporary, judgment is developing and some decisions cannot be recalled once made. An adult possesses bodily autonomy. A child possesses bodily integrity. That difference is the heart of Proposition 135. Parents must have broad authority to raise their children according to their own values. Government is a miserable substitute for a mother or father. But parents don’t have the right to place a child in needless physical danger, be it by not belting them in the car or cutting away organs because a young person may be struggling to understand his or her identity. I’m voting yes on Proposition 135. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver

  • S3 · E108
    September 18 · 7 min

    Colorado Tax Bracket Creep

    On TABOR Talk we discuss how Colorado Legislators are trying to get you to give up your TABOR refunds forever. Will you let them have it?

  • S3 · E107
    September 16 · 6 min

    Amendment 87: How the Broncos play into Colorado’s tax fight

    Do you want the Broncos to win the Super Bowl? Then you’d better hope Amendment 87, which brings back Colorado’s economy-strangling “graduated” income tax, loses at the ballot box this fall. Seriously. Forget Republicans and Democrats. Forget tax policy. This is about Xs and Os, and whether Denver can afford the players who execute them and win a Super Bowl. The Manning effect Every successful business has star employees: rare talents without whom the enterprise simply doesn’t work. Same goes for an NFL franchise. Every business has star employees the whole operation is built around. Sometimes that star is the chief executive. No Henry Ford, no assembly line, no affordable car. No Steve Jobs, no iPhone, foldable or otherwise. No Elon, and Teslas are just golf carts with better marketing. But more often, the star isn’t the person running the place, it’s the person the CEO had the sense to hire. A smart CEO understands paying extraordinary people extraordinary salaries is sometimes the price of success. Competent employees may be plentiful. Franchise-changing talent is not. The chemist in the lab who sees the molecule nobody else does. The closer on the sales team. The reporter whose byline wins the Pulitzer. The performer who actually fills the arena. Any company can hire a receptionist. Few can hire star employees. A smart CEO knows you pay that person absurdly well, because the alternative is watching him walk across the street or across the state border to your competitor. Football works exactly the same way. A head coach’s most consequential decisions aren’t play calls, they’re personnel calls. In 2012, the Broncos handed Peyton Manning roughly $20 million a year to be their star employee (adjusted for inflation, that’s pushing $40 million today). Did it work out? Ask the Lombardi Trophy sitting in the team’s front office. Manning was worth every nickel. The Amendment 87 pay cut But like any CEO, a head coach doesn’t have infinite money. He’s stuck with a salary cap, competing against 31 other teams for the same shrinking pool of ridiculously overpaid talent. Enter Amendment 87, which offers most of us a token tax cut while nearly doubling the rate on those evil, hated rich people we call Denver Broncos. If it passes this fall, every Bronco currently taxed at Colorado’s flat 4.4% starts paying 8.4%. Football players take a lot of hits to the head, but their accountants don’t, and unlike our legislators, accountants (and even concussed football players) can do arithmetic. All else equal, a player has to earn 8.4% more to play in Denver than to play somewhere with no state income tax at all. Any player who plays for the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans, Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans or the Seattle Seahawks gets an instant 8.4% raise compared to playing for Denver under Amendment 87. Run Peyton Manning’s numbers again: at $20 million a year, that 8.4% is $1.68 million a year , $8.4 million over a five-year deal. Double those figures to adjust for inflation, and you’re talking real money even by NFL standards. Sure, plenty of things factor into where a star chemist, programmer, performer or quarterback decides to live and work. But an 8.4% pay cut isn’t a rounding error. It’s the kind of number that ends up circled on a napkin in some agent’s office come free agency. Not that it matters, but it’s not just football teams competing for star talent. Every Colorado business is as well. The relocation incentive If Colorado wants to be a tech magnet for the upcoming quantum revolution, companies will be competing for quantum specialists. I don’t know how many of those you know, I don’t know any. What goes for the quantum tech field and the football field goes for every industry. A company can give those superstar employees an immediate 8.5% pay increase by relocating to a no-income-tax state. That’s why so many companies are relocating out of California, Illinois, New York and now Colorado for places like Florida and Texas. Just ask the well-paid people who used to work at Palantir in Denver. Amendment 87 makes the Denver Broncos’ problem every business’s problem. But let’s keep it to football. The ballot language for Amendment 87 should actually read: “Shall the Denver Broncos have 8.4% less money to spend on player talent than other teams in the NFL?” Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E106
    September 15 · 6 min

    Fundamental Political Differences Between Left and Right

    Ayn Rand recommended a technique for understanding, if not resolving, irreconcilable differences of opinion: “First, check your premises.” It’s pointless to argue with someone when your basic assumptions and goals are unalterably different. In politics these aren’t discussions, they’re unproductive exercises in rhetoric, gamesmanship and grandstanding ,at least on one side. Imagine an argument on economics between Milton Friedman and Bernie Sanders. A profound illustration of this concept was provided by James Burnham in his classic book, “Suicide of the West,” published in 1964. It addressed the fundamental conflict in world view and the order of values between those on the ideological left and right. It’s just as insightful today. Burnham defined four key values: Liberty – National independence, self-government, and sovereignty. Freedom – In the sense of individual liberty. Justice – In the sense of a “social justice” welfare state with where egalitarianism means equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Peace – The absence of large-scale warfare among major powers. He observed that most people believe in all of these values to one extent or another but are often forced to make choices when one value conflicts with another and when prioritizing these values in order of relative importance. For example, would you jeopardize peace to defend liberty? Or override individual freedom to achieve social justice? This is an approximation of Burnham’s forced-ranking as applied to today’s political divide. Right (conservatives) Left (progressives) Liberty Peace Freedom Justice Peace Freedom Justice Liberty Conservatives and progressives Our founders crafted the Constitution and its Bill of Rights with particular attention to limiting government and safeguarding the natural rights of individuals. The conservative order of values reflects a traditional view of human nature and society. It recognizes that the world is often a harsh and competitive place populated by imperfect — and imperfectible — beings and that there are limits to what public or private institutions can do to mitigate this condition. Conservatives believe our constitutional republic and private enterprise economy have produced the greatest measure of political freedom and economic achievement the world has ever known and that it is perpetually threatened by serious adversaries both foreign and domestic. War is a constant of human history and always will be, and peace through military strength is the best deterrent. Today’s progressives have elevated pacifism to a principal value. Their economic vision is a socialist welfare state enroute to a communist utopia, and they share the Marxian delusion that human nature can be changed and perfected. They believe our Constitution is fatally flawed. They’d open our borders and join a world government body (imagine a largely anti-American UN with muscle). They believe disarmament is achievable, and that war can be eliminated. (Woody Allen once humorously prophesied, “The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.) In the 1960s, Burnham noted that leftists are infected with the promise of communism simply because they share so many of its ideals such as peace, egalitarianism, secularism, collectivism, full employment, and free social services. To wishful thinkers, useful idiots, and fellow travelers, the constitution of the Soviet Union sounded better than our own. But it was all a pack of lies and its promises were never delivered. (Correction: They did impose full employment for political dissidents in their forced-labor concentration camps like its Siberian Gulag Archipelago.) The soviets needed border guards to keep their people in. That’s why communist East Berlin built a wall to keep its subjects from escaping to West Berlin. Similar conditions prevail in today’s communist paradises of Cuba, North Korea and China. Socialism and its inevitable destination, communism, have been notorious failures. America and other nations in the free world have mixed-economies based on private enterprise, free-market forces, and personal property rights paired with a cornucopia of welfare-state entitlements that resemble socialism. Progressives defensively claim that Scandinavian societies are models of successful socialism. Not quite. Leaders of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark assert they’re economies are not strictly socialist. True, all have expansive welfare states with high taxes and some state-owned businesses, but they still have mostly private-enterprise economies and personal property rights. That may work for them as nations of relatively small land mass, low populations of only 5 to 10 million people, and a homogenous culture. But it’s not a suitable model for the USA with 350 million people of diverse cultures spread across a vast continent, and geopolitical interests and treaty obligations around the globe as the leader and principal defender of the free world. Compared to America; Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are more like neighborhoods. Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  • S3 · E105
    September 9 · 6 min

    The Perpetual Tax Hike Hidden in Colorado’s Amendment 87

    “Youth is wasted on all the wrong people.” That’s one of my favorite lines from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The older I get, the less it sounds like a joke. Every generation inherits victories it did not win. Young Americans never experienced the Cold War, the draft or stagflation. Double-digit inflation is something grandpa now mentions in one of his rambling monologues about how good we have it. The young don’t remember bracket creep because why would they? They never, ever experienced it. A previous generation defeated it for them. The yearly tax hike Though it sounds like a medical condition, bracket creep was one of government’s most sinister ways of raising taxes without voting to raise taxes. Inflation pushed wages upward — even when purchasing power went down. Because federal tax brackets remained fixed, workers were steadily pushed into higher tax rates without actually becoming any richer. Your paycheck got bigger but so did your grocery, utility, insurance and every other bill. Your standard of living stayed put at best. Washington congratulated you on becoming “richer” and sent a larger tax bill. It was a yearly tax increase. Was. In the early 1980s, Colorado U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong, then on the Senate Finance Committee, led the fight to end it. Federal income tax brackets became indexed to inflation. Now when your income rises with the cost of living, you’re not pushed into a higher tax bracket. Government no longer profits by confusing more dollars with more wealth. Colorado attacked it another way. In 1987, Democratic Gov. Roy Romer signed legislation replacing the state’s graduated income tax with a flat rate and put the state into economic overdrive. This year’s Amendment 87 would put the transmission in reverse. The measure would replace Colorado’s flat income tax with six progressive tax brackets. Its sales pitch is politically irresistible: You get a modest tax cut, and somebody richer pays for it. Under the proposal, if you make less than $100,000 a year you get a tiny tax cut (for now). From $100,000 to $500,000 nothing really changes. But when you make more than that your tax rate skyrockets to almost double. Higher tax brackets await The most dangerous defect is what Amendment 87 leaves out: Its tax brackets are not indexed to inflation. It truly takes you back in time, back when inflation pushed you into higher brackets while your buying power went down. What proponents are counting on is you won’t understand at some point you will be in the “tax them more” brackets. Not that you’ll actually be richer. It’s just what inflation does. Making $25,000 in 1980 is the same as making $100,000 today. Put differently (drumroll, please), SOONER OR LATER EVERYONE IN COLORADO WILL BE PAYING AN 8.4% INCOME TAX. It’s only a matter of when. In the Marvel movies Thanos was “inevitable.” This proposal is Thanos. It is inevitable everyone will be paying the top rate as inflation pushes people’s salaries higher. Fewer and fewer people every year will be in the lower, “tax cut” brackets. Because it’s not indexed to inflation, eventually we will all creep into the higher tax brackets. No legislator must introduce a bill. No governor must sign one. No campaign committee must explain it. Inflation does the dirty work while politicians pose for pictures with schoolchildren. That is bracket creep. We got rid of it federally because Americans learned the lesson the expensive way when inflation ravaged the 1970s. Amendment 87 asks you to forget it. Tax escalator Let me spell it out as clearly as I can: Amendment 87 only temporarily replaces a flat income tax rate with a graduated one. Ultimately, we all creep into the 8.4% tax bracket. And we’ll effectively have a flat tax again. Like Thanos, it is inevitable. Supporters say taxing the wealthy is only fair. Take a moment to consider how not indexing it for inflation makes that argument a lie. If proponents believe their brackets are fair today, in 2026, why are they unwilling to keep those brackets fair tomorrow by indexing those brackets to inflation? They know damn well that over time every Coloradan will be in higher and higher tax brackets. What they claim is fair today must, by their own reasoning, become unfair tomorrow. Colorado once understood that tax systems should not punish people for inflation. Now Amendment 87 invites us to trade that hard-fought inheritance for a tiny check today and an automatic tax escalator tomorrow. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E104
    September 2 · 6 min

    The Myth of the American Oligarchy

    Who’d have believed that Bernie Sanders, a ranting disheveled old man could rise to become the modern-day reincarnation of Vladimir Lenin, with a Brooklyn accent, evangelizing for socialism in the USA and building a legion of useful idiots? (Clue: Bernie and his wife honeymooned in the Soviet Union.) He’s certainly not charismatic. So, he shrewdly recruited AOC as his partner, a weird May-December relationship, for a road show last winter called the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour.” Bernie’s schtick is throwing around a barrage of angry, demagogic, simplistic, exaggerated, inflammatory slogans to rile up gullible malcontents. The slogan for this tour was that America has become an “oligarchy.” Let’s start with the definition of that term. Oligarchy: noun, a form of government in which the ruling power belongs to a small wealthy group that controls the economy and makes laws and political decisions to preserve its own power. Myth of the oligarchy Really? Who are the members of this oligarchy of wizards that possess the superpower to run our government, our military, our foreign policy, and our intricate economy with literally millions of businesses large and small? No such thing exists. This is a contrived fantasy to fuel Bernie’s socialist crusade. Ironically, such an oligarchy is more likely to be found in totalitarian socialist states where opposition political parties are banned and the only names on ballots in their mock elections are members of the official Communist party. Such states control every facet of your life with an iron grip like the former Union of Soviet “Socialist” Republics, Cuba, North Korea, China — or Iran’s theocracy of ayatollahs. The American republic’s system of government with its separation of powers, checks and balances, and its highly competitive free market economy is too complex and independent to be ruled by a small cabal of evil billionaires. If this imaginary oligarchy controls the federal government, why did it bounce back and forth through a procession of presidents with wildly different political agendas from 2000 – 2024: Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump (again)? Or did the “oligarchy” only emerge in 2024 with Trump’s reelection? And what secret power does it have over him, the Republican majority in Congress, and conservative justices on the Supreme Court? How do the oligarchs manipulate state governments with big cities nominally run by Democrats? And what power does it have over rural America that favors Republicans? Bernie used to attack millionaires. Now that he’s one himself, he’s shifted his wrath to billionaires (adjusting for inflation, they were called millionaires in the 19th century). But today’s billionaires can’t be an all-powerful oligarchy because they’re not monolithic and have differing beliefs and political agendas. Elon Musk is a conservative who sides with Donald Trump (they’ve hugged and made up). George Soros funds countless causes on the radical left (so he’s immune to criticism form Bernie and AOC). The Koch brothers are libertarian. A host of billionaires that favor Democrats and lean left includes Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffet, and Laurene Powell Jobs (yeah, the widow of Steve, the guy who created Apple). All these folks can’t be on the same team. By definition, oligarchs are unified. Capitalism benefits all Billionaires have a lot of influence but they don’t have a monopoly on that. So do people with low or no income that are the Democrats’ core voting constituency. Other powerful influencers include labor unions (especially the teacher unions), academia, public education, the press and TV broadcast media (mostly leftist), social media and podcasters. Bernie claims “capitalism in the U.S. benefits only a few.” A “few?” Like what, 3 or four people out of 340 million? Be serious. Americans enjoy the highest standard of living in the world directly derived from our capitalist economy. Those who excel, like successful entrepreneurs and CEOs, professional athletes, inventors, actors and Taylor Swift make a fortune, generously donate to causes and foundations, and pay a lot in taxes. Most Americans are somewhere in the middle, and those on the bottom are supported by countless social welfare programs at the federal, state and local level. Capitalism has certainly benefited Bernie, a man with little marketable talent who somehow became a millionaire. But wait; he’s never had a real job in the capitalist private sector. It’s all been in politics and government office at taxpayer expense derived from our capitalist economy. Bernie claims, “A handful of billionaires have more wealth than they could spend in a thousand years.” If he had any understanding of economics, which he doesn’t, he’d know that most of it is invested. Capital formation is the lifeblood of any economic system. What they spend is none of his business, they earned it.

  • S3 · E102
    August 21 · 6 min

    Cigarette butt lawsuit conveniently ignores Denver’s real big mess

    Mayor Mike Johnston proclaimed, “It is past time Big Tobacco cleaned up the big mess it’s created.” Yep. Denver is suing tobacco companies for the cigarette butts littering the city. Because Denver’s Big Mess couldn’t possibly be the fault of the mayor, the city council or the people actually dropping garbage on the ground. It must be the fault of — let me check the Progressive Wheel of Blame here — Big Tobacco. Ignore the graffiti When you drive through Denver, the first thing you notice is obviously the cigarette-butt epidemic. Not the graffiti. Not the passed-out junkies. Not the ridiculous plastic bollards guarding bike lanes emptier than a city council meeting on fiscal restraint. Not even the shirtless guy wandering down the middle of a four-lane street, screaming obscenities at himself. Nope. Cigarette butts. That’s what has Denverites lying awake at night. Come on, Michael. You know full well Big Tobacco didn’t create any mess at all. Philip Morris executives are not prowling Capitol Hill after midnight, flicking Marlboro filters onto the sidewalk and cackling. Inconsiderate smokers littered. That’s right, Denverites, your constituents did it. Is the progressive mind constitutionally incapable of comprehending personal responsibility? Drunk driver? Sue the automaker and the distillery. Someone stabbed to death? Clearly Big Knife has been buying off politicians. Hateful letter? Institute a three-day cooling-off period before purchasing a pen. Or the current plan, don’t teach kids how to write. Your colorblind co-worker shows up dressed like a 1977 game-show host? Blame JCPenney for enabling his fashion decisions. Denver’s real big mess I deal daily with the litter created by Denverites — particularly Denver’s army of drug-fueled vagrants. Excuse me: “The drug-fueled vagrants currently experiencing un-housed-ness.” I have only one logical response: “No mayor, it is past time Big Government cleaned up the big mess it has created by refusing to enforce our laws.” Every day I pick up the debris left by Denver’s finest fentanyl fans around the headquarters of Independence Institute near the State Capitol. Fast-food wrappers. Liquor bottles in every size from “bad decision” to “lost weekend.” Potato chip bags. Syringes. Condoms. And far too often, human feces. (Usually not mine, if you’re wondering.) Dogs relieve themselves on our grass, but their owners almost always clean it up with plastic bags. Denver’s homeless population also has an endless supply of plastic bags. I know because I pick those up too. But why use one when the sidewalk is calling your name? What I rarely —hardly ever — pick up is a cigarette butt. The other day, beneath our office windows, we cleaned up another pile of abandoned belongings, including a backpack. Inside were a crowbar, a club, pliers, screwdrivers and a tire iron. It was less a backpack than a burglar’s Swiss Army knife. I now eagerly await Denver’s lawsuits against Black+Decker and REI for causing this particular outbreak of litter. Suing cigarette companies for their customers’ bad behavior is a sad, pathetic money grab not worthy of the shoddiest ambulance-chasing lawyer. When virtue signaling rules But it underscores the hypocrisy that is the new leftist evangelical way of virtue signaling — salvation through litigation, endless public displays of anti-capitalist moral purity at taxpayer expense. Where is the lawsuit against McDonald’s for all the wrappers? Or Starbucks for abandoned cups? Or Fireball for those tiny bottles scattered across the city like alcoholic Easter eggs? Well, those companies are not currently fashionable to hate … yet. It’s the lack of simple consistency that blows my mind. We ban shopping bags but not the bags we put our produce in, not to mention the plastic that everything inside the supermarket is wrapped in. Because somehow some plastic is more evil than other plastic. And only our elite can divine. How do their little brains not implode by the roaring contradictions? We outlaw plastic straws to protect sea life, even though a straw discarded in Colorado would have to pull off a prison break from multiple water-treatment systems, navigate half the continent and hitchhike to the Pacific before it could menace a sea turtle. Meanwhile, plastic tampon applicators escape scrutiny, even though cardboard versions exist. We all know why. Tampon applicators are used by women, a protected political constituency. Cigarette smokers are a small, unfashionable minority. So raising the cost of cigarettes by shaking down manufacturers isn’t intolerance. It isn’t bigotry. It’s, um, public health. And now, “public health” means making the law-abiding pay for the behavior of people government won’t hold responsible. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E101
    August 18 · 6 min

    Colorado Democrats, your time is coming

    Hey, Colorado Democrats! All the fun you’ve had watching Republican dysfunction in Colorado for the last 20 years was just a preview of what is about to happen to you. The Colorado Republican Party no longer exists as a competitive institution. Republicans did it to themselves. They built a culture around purity tests, with no curiosity about winning elections. Anyone suggesting an appeal to unaffiliated voters was identified as a Republican in Name Only and bounced from the building. Deep-pocketed conservatives kept funding candidates while neglecting the boring, unsatisfying work of winning future elections: community organizing, door knocking, recruitment and ballot chasing. They wanted crops without planting seeds. The result? Colorado’s political press will document every embarrassment of Victor Marx’s doomed campaign, following his clown car while letting the left’s armored truck drive off with the state. A 29-year-old socialist defeated Rep. Diana DeGette. She defended calls for eliminating Israel and declined to call the Boulder firebombing of pro-Israel demonstrators antisemitic. That deserves more scrutiny than whatever Marx said to his dog between breakfast and Kyle Clark’s deadline. So does the growing socialist faction in our legislature. So does Phil Weiser, a progressive law professor and activist. Nobody makes government simpler than law professors. When Republicans tried putting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, Colorado’s media understood people wielding government power deserved scrutiny. Now Democrats have elevated misgendering to legal discrimination. School employees must use a student’s chosen name regardless of parental approval, while some policies permit social transition without informing parents. Moses entering a classroom is a constitutional crisis, but keeping parents in the dark is mandatory compassion. The coming Democratic Party meltdown? Quite simply, too many factions inside the party are at odds with their own stated goals. Consider the gay-rights community. It became a juggernaut winning marriage equality. But, like the French Revolution, its victory produced a movement out of control. The LGB part of the LGBT team is at odds with the T part because they want fundamentally different things. The LGB part wants to make it easier for gay kids to come out as — now get this — gay. The T faction has built an apparatus to tell gay kids they’re the wrong gender — eerily similar to what anti-gay bigots once told homosexuals. So kids need social transition, puberty blockers, hormones and lopping off healthy body parts. A growing number of gays and lesbians privately fear this system can take children who might become comfortable gay adults and place them on a path of lifelong medicalization. Privately is the operative word. Nothing says “pride” quite like being terrified to say what you believe. The old Christian-right message was that a gay child should become straight. The new Democrat message is a gay child should change bodies. Different pitch. Same refusal to let a gay child simply be gay. Today’s Democrat party is anti-gay. Hey, Colorado Democrats! All the fun you’ve had watching Republican dysfunction in Colorado for the last 20 years was just a preview of what is about to happen to you. The Colorado Republican Party no longer exists as a competitive institution. Republicans did it to themselves. They built a culture around purity tests, with no curiosity about winning elections. Anyone suggesting an appeal to unaffiliated voters was identified as a Republican in Name Only and bounced from the building. Deep-pocketed conservatives kept funding candidates while neglecting the boring, unsatisfying work of winning future elections: community organizing, door knocking, recruitment and ballot chasing. They wanted crops without planting seeds. The result? Colorado’s political press will document every embarrassment of Victor Marx’s doomed campaign, following his clown car while letting the left’s armored truck drive off with the state. A 29-year-old socialist defeated Rep. Diana DeGette. She defended calls for eliminating Israel and declined to call the Boulder firebombing of pro-Israel demonstrators antisemitic. That deserves more scrutiny than whatever Marx said to his dog between breakfast and Kyle Clark’s deadline. So does the growing socialist faction in our legislature. So does Phil Weiser, a progressive law professor and activist. Nobody makes government simpler than law professors. When Republicans tried putting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, Colorado’s media understood people wielding government power deserved scrutiny. Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros speaks after winning the Democratic nomination during a primary election night watch party at The Broadway on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak) Now Democrats have elevated misgendering to legal discrimination. School employees must use a student’s chosen name regardless of parental approval, while some policies permit social transition without informing parents. Moses entering a classroom is a constitutional crisis, but keeping parents in the dark is mandatory compassion. The coming Democratic Party meltdown? Quite simply, too many factions inside the party are at odds with their own stated goals. Consider the gay-rights community. It became a juggernaut winning marriage equality. But, like the French Revolution, its victory produced a movement out of control. The LGB part of the LGBT team is at odds with the T part because they want fundamentally different things. The LGB part wants to make it easier for gay kids to come out as — now get this — gay. The T faction has built an apparatus to tell gay kids they’re the wrong gender — eerily similar to what anti-gay bigots once told homosexuals. So kids need social transition, puberty blockers, hormones and lopping off healthy body parts. A growing number of gays and lesbians privately fear this system can take children who might become comfortable gay adults and place them on a path of lifelong medicalization. Privately is the operative word. Nothing says “pride” quite like being terrified to say what you believe. The old Christian-right message was that a gay child should become straight. The new Democrat message is a gay child should change bodies. Different pitch. Same refusal to let a gay child simply be gay. Today’s Democrat party is anti-gay. The same contradiction is consuming women’s equality, one of the strongest pillars of the old left. It is why the left fought so hard for Title IX, so girls would have an opportunity to play sports. Now that same left must welcome boys onto the girls’ court and into their locker room. Again, it is working against its own stated goals. Today’s Democrat party is anti-female. Environmentalists face a similar split. Colorado is increasing electrical demand through electric vehicles, data centers and forced building electrification while eliminating reliable fossil-fuel generation. Colorado’s war on natural gas is equally backward. More than 2.3 billion people still cook with wood, charcoal, crop waste or dung — you know, the stuff that is the most greenhouse-gas emitting. If Democrats really cared about reducing emissions, they would use American natural gas to help poorer countries replace smoky fires with clean burning stoves. “Transition Colorado to nuclear! Send our natural gas to Africa!” is a bumper sticker you’ll never see on a Boulder Subaru. Today’s Democrat party is anti-clean energy. Fights between Colorado Democrats over these issues along with fights over their anti-business agenda will begin to break out in a way the press cannot ignore. None of this means Colorado Republicans will return to power anytime soon. It means Democrats will experience the ravenous and public factionalism Republicans enjoyed for 20 years. Just watch. Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics. If the goal is reliable, carbon-free electricity, nuclear power is the obvious answer — no emissions and it works when the wind stops and the sun sets.

  • S3 · E100
    August 18 · 6 min

    That was then, this is now; let’s move forward

    Ethical historians condemn the practice, known as “presentism,” of judging historical events, people or cultures, through the lens of today’s moral standards, political beliefs or social norms, rather than understanding them within their own time frame. This is an element of the strategy of the radical left to undermine our pride in America by magnifying our faults and downplaying our virtues and achievements. It’s roots are in higher education where leftist academics dominate faculties and indoctrinate students. It seeps down into public schools controlled by leftist teacher unions, is amplified by the dominant liberal media and echoed in entertainment channels and social media. America is singled out and damned for practicing slavery in our early years, although it was common worldwide for millennia long before the USA was born (and still disgracefully exists in other places). In 1787, after the Revolutionary War when our nation’s founders were crafting the Constitution, the southern colonies would not have joined the union if slavery were abolished. It took 78 years and a Civil War to right that wrong in 1865. The Brits like to brag they outlawed slavery in 1833 before we did. True, but England, founded in 925, took 900 years to get around to that. Long before White Europeans came to these shores, American Indians enslaved other Indians they captured in battle. Blacks in Africa enslaved other Blacks and sold them to slave traders who brought them to America. Ironically, centuries later the descendants of those slaves have the good fortune to live in America rather than in so many suffering countries of Africa today. When America expanded westward, the Indian Wars were predictably won by the more populous and technologically advanced civilization, overwhelming the more primitive one. I’m not celebrating that, just observing the inevitable outcome. War is a constant of human history, with worldwide borders repeatedly changing by right of conquest. No one living today bears any responsibility nor guilt for what has happened in the distant past. The expiration date for “reparations” has long since passed. To borrow a biblical phrase, “let that nation who is without sin cast the first stone.” I’m not suggesting we throw anything down the memory hole to rewrite history and conceal past transgressions. I’m saying we shouldn’t forever obsess on the bad stuff, and that we balance the scales by acknowledging the good stuff. In other words, that was then, this is now; let’s move on. In its criticism of Western civilization in general, the radical left is also obsessed with the sin of “colonization.” This goes back thousands of years practiced by ancient civilizations like the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Persians and Chinese. More recently in the 1500s, modern European colonization surged applying its advanced seagoing technology to intercontinental colonization and ushering in the era of worldwide trade. Some colonial powers were exploitative and brutal; others were better behaved. British rule over India, for example, was initially harsh but later softened to allow the “passive resistance” of Mahatma Ghandi and eventually granting independence. The political roots the Brits left behind led to India ultimately becoming the world’s most populous democracy. Ethical historians condemn the practice, known as “presentism,” of judging historical events, people or cultures, through the lens of today’s moral standards, political beliefs or social norms, rather than understanding them within their own time frame. This is an element of the strategy of the radical left to undermine our pride in America by magnifying our faults and downplaying our virtues and achievements. It’s roots are in higher education where leftist academics dominate faculties and indoctrinate students. It seeps down into public schools controlled by leftist teacher unions, is amplified by the dominant liberal media and echoed in entertainment channels and social media. America is singled out and damned for practicing slavery in our early years, although it was common worldwide for millennia long before the USA was born (and still disgracefully exists in other places). In 1787, after the Revolutionary War when our nation’s founders were crafting the Constitution, the southern colonies would not have joined the union if slavery were abolished. It took 78 years and a Civil War to right that wrong in 1865. The Brits like to brag they outlawed slavery in 1833 before we did. True, but England, founded in 925, took 900 years to get around to that. GETTY IMAGES The Old Slave Mart Museum, building originally used as slave market in South Carolina, Charleston. Long before White Europeans came to these shores, American Indians enslaved other Indians they captured in battle. Blacks in Africa enslaved other Blacks and sold them to slave traders who brought them to America. Ironically, centuries later the descendants of those slaves have the good fortune to live in America rather than in so many suffering countries of Africa today. When America expanded westward, the Indian Wars were predictably won by the more populous and technologically advanced civilization, overwhelming the more primitive one. I’m not celebrating that, just observing the inevitable outcome. War is a constant of human history, with worldwide borders repeatedly changing by right of conquest. No one living today bears any responsibility nor guilt for what has happened in the distant past. The expiration date for “reparations” has long since passed. To borrow a biblical phrase, “let that nation who is without sin cast the first stone.” I’m not suggesting we throw anything down the memory hole to rewrite history and conceal past transgressions. I’m saying we shouldn’t forever obsess on the bad stuff, and that we balance the scales by acknowledging the good stuff. In other words, that was then, this is now; let’s move on. In its criticism of Western civilization in general, the radical left is also obsessed with the sin of “colonization.” This goes back thousands of years practiced by ancient civilizations like the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Persians and Chinese. More recently in the 1500s, modern European colonization surged applying its advanced seagoing technology to intercontinental colonization and ushering in the era of worldwide trade. Some colonial powers were exploitative and brutal; others were better behaved. British rule over India, for example, was initially harsh but later softened to allow the “passive resistance” of Mahatma Ghandi and eventually granting independence. The political roots the Brits left behind led to India ultimately becoming the world’s most populous democracy. America was actually a victim of colonization imposed by the British Empire. But after an admittedly rocky start and a few wars, we ultimately became best friends and allies. This is another case of “that was then, this is now.” Outside of eleven uninhabited small islands sprinkled around the world, America’s colonization is principally our five foreign “territories,” the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, whose people generally like the relationship and aren’t asking for independence. So, what’s the problem? Like any nation America has had its faults. But any fair assessment that weighs our faults against our virtues far favors the virtues. One in particular immediately comes to mind. The overwhelming contribution of American military might and industrial war-fighting capacity that turned the tide in World War II, leading our allies to victory and saving the free world from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. That, alone, neutralizes any and all of our sins. As the victor, not only didn’t America colonize German and Japan, it helped rebuild both of those countries, reform its governments and stationed 300,000 American NATO troops (including me) in Germany during the Cold War to protect that nation and the rest of Europe from the Soviet Union. Isn’t it ironic that Germany and Japan are, today, among our most steadfast friends and allies. Yet another example of that was then, this is now. Mike Rosen is a Denver-based American radio personality and political commentator.

  • S3 · E99
    August 6 · 5 min

    Fauci diary showcases arrogance of Colorado COVID response

    We are finally getting a clearer picture of what happened during COVID. Not because the people who locked us up, masked our faces and forced unproven chemicals into our bodies have suddenly become transparent, but because Anthony Fauci’s COVID-era diary is coming into public view. This long document makes one thing painfully clear: the people who forced us to surrender our lives to their expertise did not have the expertise they claimed. At best, they were guessing. And when their guesses failed, they did not retreat. They didn’t come clean. They doubled down. Arrogance unbridled Our health, our freedoms, our bodies, our economy, our children’s education were all less important than their unchallenged status as the infallible elite. Yes, Fauci’s diary shows his arrogance. Yes, he seems incapable of admitting error. Yes, he was willing to make “majestic leaps” ahead of the evidence while insisting the rest of us follow his orders. But Fauci is merely a symptom of something more dangerous. Government is at its most powerful and dictatorial precisely when it knows the least. An unknown crisis arrives — and crisis always involves the unknown — and politicians panic. Bureaucrats come up with “answers.” They tell us foundational rules — individual liberty, open debate, fiscal restraint, bodily autonomy and just plain sense — must be suspended. Then they spend money they do not have to keep the whole madness alive. And with the media as cheerleader, they scare the hell out of people to make sure nobody asks uncomfortable questions. Colorado piles on Colorado did not merely watch this happen from the sidelines. We did it to ourselves. Gov. Jared Polis and our local governments put you under house arrest. They closed businesses. They restricted worship. They suspended your right to peaceably assemble. They turned neighbors into hall monitors. They treated people trying to earn a living as dangers to society. With the press as their enforcers, they canceled people who refused to mask or take their jab as “murderers,” costing many their livelihoods and personal relationships. Workers were told their jobs were nonessential. You are nonessential! Families were separated as they had to view their loved ones behind glass windows outside nursing homes. Kids were told their smiles, their speech and their ability to see other people were somehow less important than obeying unseen adults in centers of governmental power who did not know what they were doing. And in the cruelest act of all, they robbed children of school. As the Fauci diaries prove, they knew young people were the least at risk of COVID, yet they injured our young the most. “Remote learning” was no learning. It was cruel isolation. For special-needs children like my son who has Down syndrome, it was punishment for a crime they didn’t commit. This crime wasn’t done by Fauci, but by feckless Colorado leaders. These kids who learn through personal contact, social interaction, speech therapy, occupational therapy and the daily structure of being around other human beings were abandoned. That lost time cannot be made back in a government program. This theft compounds over a lifetime. The people who shut down our schools, our world, will say they were following the science. Fauci’s diary ought to make us ask: What science? Whose science? Media enablers Why isn’t the press doing with COVID what they did to Nixon after Watergate, ruthlessly asking what did you know and when did you know it? Because this wasn’t just a mass injustice of government. It was a mass failure of the Fourth Estate. If the nation’s top COVID bureaucrat was privately acknowledging uncertainty, failure and a lack of meaningful evidence, why did Colorado officials act as if disagreement itself was immoral? They also used money we did not have. The Colorado COVID response exploded government spending and pushed more people into government dependence. Medicaid enrollment in Colorado skyrocketed, and now the state faces the bill. The inflation that followed the federal printing of money was not an act of God. The budget crisis coming to Colorado is not a mystery. The next unknown crisis will come. And when it does, politicians will again tell us fear requires obedience. They will again promise safety in exchange for freedom. They will again insist there is no time for debate, evidence or restraint. Colorado must remember what happened when we believed them. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E98
    July 30 · 6 min

    Front Range rail plan takes Colorado taxpayers for a ride

    Colorado wants taxpayers to spend another $4.73 billion on passenger rail. Don’t worry. They have a plan. Which is a little like your brother-in-law announcing he’s launching another exciting restaurant venture after his last three restaurants ended in bankruptcy. Please. Tell me where to send the check. The money train This week the Front Range Passenger Rail District released its “plan” for their choo-choo, laughingly branded “CoCo,” a desire named streetcar stretching from Fort Collins to Pueblo. According to Independence Institute transportation analyst Randall O’Toole, the project will cost at least $4.73 billion. At least. If that number sounds familiar, it should. It’s nearly a billion dollars more than Denver’s Regional Transportation District promised FasTracks would cost. As the former chairman of RTD, I’ve seen firsthand how these numbers are invented for political marketing. Keep the estimate low enough to win the tax increase. Worry about reality later. We were promised FasTracks would relieve congestion, transform transportation, and be completed by 2017 for $3.8 billion. Instead, taxpayers have already spent about $5.5 billion. RTD says it still needs another $1.6 billion to finish what it promised. Congestion is worse. Ridership is down. And Longmont is still waiting for its train. Passenger rail is Colorado’s abusive boyfriend. It lies. It takes your money. It promises it’ll change this time. And somehow, we keep taking it back. So here we are again. The choo-choo undead never stay dead. Like any good horror movie, they just keep coming back. Every failed rail proposal depends on one thing: taxpayer Alzheimer’s. Forget the promises. Forget the cost overruns, the delays, the unfinished projects. Then buy the next glossy brochure. RTD’s original sales tax increase proposal in the 1970s promised 118 miles of rail by 1980, after which the tax would be reduced. Voters approved the tax. Not one inch of rail was built. The tax was never lowered. Then came FasTracks in 2004, complete with another sales tax increase and another set of promises. The ending wasn’t much different. And now it’s time for a train named after a cross-dressing stripper. On stage number one: Give it up for CoCo! Selling the ‘plan’ O’Toole points out something that should embarrass every elected official promoting this proposal. The document isn’t really a plan at all, even though it proudly calls itself A Plan That Works. A real plan asks uncomfortable questions. What if ridership falls short? What if construction costs explode, if changing technology makes the project obsolete, if another transportation investment produces greater benefits? This document asks none of them. Instead, it simply says we’ll spend $332 million in Phase One. Then another $1.7 billion. Then another $2.7 billion. Apparently, recessions never happen. Construction costs never rise. Ridership never disappoints. Politicians never overpromise. Reality simply isn’t modeled. Private businesses don’t operate this way. You open a restaurant and nobody comes, your response isn’t, “Excellent. Let’s immediately open three more locations.” Otherwise, you’d be RTD. One of my favorite CoCo selling points is that people can ride the train to Broncos games. Adorable. CoCo carries roughly 500 passengers. Empower Field holds around 76,000 fans. Congratulations. You’ve solved approximately one bathroom line. Then there are the economic claims. The report insists every taxpayer dollar invested somehow creates five dollars in economic benefit. Awesome! Government planners have discovered a machine that turns one taxpayer dollar into five dollars. They should stop building trains and take over Wall Street. But here’s the question missing from every glossy brochure: What else could Colorado do with $4.7 billion? Economists call it opportunity cost. Opportunity cost According to CDOT’s own 10-year transportation plan, that same amount of money would fund the state’s 23 most expensive transportation projects: Floyd Hill. Vail Pass. Eisenhower Tunnel repairs. Major reconstruction on I-25 north of Denver. Bridge replacements. Colorado Springs improvements. Grand Junction improvements. Twenty-three major transportation projects. Or — one train. If the goal is reducing traffic congestion with nearly $5 billion, it’s difficult to imagine a less effective investment than passenger rail. This isn’t rail versus nothing. It’s rail versus everything else. Colorado isn’t suffering from a shortage of transportation needs. It’s suffering from a shortage of priorities. FasTracks already taught us that rail mega-projects routinely cost more than promised, take longer than promised, and deliver less than promised. Before Colorado asks taxpayers to finance another multibillion-dollar railroad, perhaps government should finish paying for the last one. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E97
    July 30 · 5 min

    Tabor Talk: What Prop NN Really Does

    On TABOR Talk we discuss how Colorado Legislators are trying to get you to give up your TABOR refunds forever. Will you let them have it?

  • S3 · E96
    July 23 · 5 min

    Some birthrights and wrongs about U.S. citizenship

    It was no surprise that the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who were here illegally or were birthright tourists visiting the country on a temporary visa. The latter group is made up of foreigners who game the system by coming here for the sole purpose of birthing a child (or twins) to get the kid(s) U.S. citizenship, then returning home with their anchor baby for future use. While I agree with Trump’s intent, doing this with an executive order clearly overstepped his bounds and was easily nixed by the Supremes. An act of Congress is required which Democrats would certainly have blocked. Nonetheless, by taking the case, it gave SCOTUS, with a 6-3 majority of conservative justices, an opportunity to also make a judgment on the matter of birthright citizenship. This has been a debatable issue with laws and court precedents going back and forth for two centuries. There’s precedent in taking either side. Unfortunately, perhaps with misguided honorable intentions, Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett couldn’t bring themselves to take the decisive option and join their conservative colleagues to resolve the issue and voted with the three leftist, “living-Constitution” justices who favor open borders and have little allegiance to original intent. Roberts and Coney ignored other valid arguments and centered their case on a controversial interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment and a claim that the nation’s founders adopted British common law basing citizenship on the “soil,” jus soli, the place where a child was born. Some founders agreed, some didn’t, but virtually all rejected the British form of government which led to the Revolutionary War. The majority ruling leaned on the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark in which the court asserted U.S. citizenship for a man born to Chinese resident aliens in the U.S. who were lawfully here but not U.S citizens and were subjects of the Emperor of China. So, the Wong ruling shouldn’t pertain to the issue of citizenship for children of illegal aliens. Four of the six conservative justices, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Thomas, dissented. They believe citizenship is based on the “blood,” jus sanguinis, the nationality, roots and creed of a child’s parent, which is the dominant global rule for determining nationality at birth. Clarence Thomas’s 91-page dissent argued that some jurists have historically misapplied the Fourteenth Amendment which was specifically designed to secure equal rights for freed blacks after the Civil War. Thomas declared, “The Court has repurposed the Fourteenth Amendment to protect its own set of preferred rights that the Reconstruction Congress never contemplated and that cannot find support in its text. Today, the Court does so again by recognizing a constitutional right to citizenship for the children of all foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens.” Its “Citizenship Clause” reads: “All persons naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.” As it applies to foreigners that key phrase, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” doesn’t just mean subject to our laws. The framers of the amendment intended that allegiance to the U.S. be exclusive and to no other country. Foreign tourists legally or illegally in the U.S. are subject to our laws but not our political jurisdiction. They owe no allegiance to the U.S. and their children born here should have no automatic right to American citizenship. The same Congress that crafted the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 also passed a civil rights law in 1868 restricting American citizenship to those born here and “not subject to any foreign power.” In that law, Rep. John Bingham of Ohio (who also authored the Fourteenth Amendment) confirmed that “Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” That right was not granted to foreign visitors legally or illegally present in our country. Unlike the millions of foreigners who have entered our country illegally in recent years, unlawfully overstayed their visas, or failed to show up for their mandated asylum hearing, the flood of immigrants who came to these shores during our nation’s founding weren’t here illegally. For today’s foreigners, U.S. citizenship is a privilege that may be earned but is not a right. This latest SCOTUS ruling was wrong again but may not be the last word. In his dissent, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that Congress has the latitude to add new exceptions that respond to modern problems like illegal immigration. We’ll see. Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  • S3 · E95
    July 15 · 5 min

    A Glimpse into Colorado’s Future with Weiser at the Helm

    Why is it that Victor Marx is going to become a superb governor? Because he’s the self-proclaimed world’s fastest at disarming someone holding a gun to his head. Seriously, watch the videos. It’s pretty impressive. How could I not vote for him? Think that’s ridiculous? During negotiations over the Colorado River Compact, things will get heated. A governor who can snatch a pistol away with his bare hands might just save Colorado’s water supply. If Attorney General Phil Weiser could disarm an armed attacker just a little faster, he’d probably get my vote instead. I’m a single-issue voter. You may value other qualifications. You might be looking for a governor who “may” have killed people, or launched missile attacks, or led some 150 successful paramilitary rescues of women and children. Agreed, these are all needed skills to be a successful governor, but snatching guns with your hands is definitely the most important. Sadly, I have to admit there is the slightest possibility Victor Marx won’t become Colorado’s next governor, because of, um, voter fraud. So, after the stolen election what will Colorado look like a year from now? Pretty ugly. Democrats gone wild The national media is focused on the anti-Semitic socialist who won the Democratic primary to replace Diana DeGette. More important to Colorado’s future, though, is what happened in the legislative primaries. Several Democratic lawmakers lost to candidates even further to the left. Even if Democrats don’t gain a single legislative seat this fall, the legislature itself is going to become more progressive. Given the anti-president environment that usually accompanies a midterm election, and the hefty anti-Trump hate in Colorado, don’t be surprised if Democrats expand their legislative seats to a veto-proof majority. We’ll likely have a progressive academic as governor paired with the most left-leaning legislature in Colorado history. And you’ll find yourself casually browsing real estate listings in Texas. The first target will almost certainly be the Labor Peace Act. For nearly 80 years, it has been Colorado’s uneasy compromise between organized labor and employers. It has prevented Colorado from becoming either a Right-to-Work state, as business groups prefer, or a forced-union-dues state, as many unions would like. Twice in the past two years Gov. Jared Polis vetoed legislation that would have dismantled that compromise. Phil Weiser almost certainly signs it. Then comes technology. Several of Polis’ most controversial vetoes involved legislation that many in Colorado’s growing tech sector warned would make the state a hostile place to innovate. One bill restricted companies from using pricing algorithms to recommend prices for products and services. Another prohibited software and data companies from recommending rental rates to landlords. Whether you agree with those policies isn’t really the point. Companies deciding where to invest will increasingly view Colorado as a state eager to regulate first and compete later. If it moves, regulate it Expect more regulation elsewhere as well. Rideshare companies will likely face additional reporting and operational mandates, which usually means higher costs that eventually find their way into your Uber receipt. Social media companies could be required to provide more information to government regulators while facing new restrictions on content moderation. Along with high energy prices and intermittent power, the dream of Colorado being a tech hub will dwindle. Government itself may become even less transparent. Polis vetoed legislation that would have made Colorado’s open-records process slower, more expensive and more opaque. Under a new administration, that bill could easily become law. Gun owners should also brace themselves. During his eight years in office, Polis repeatedly insisted he opposed an outright ban on so-called assault weapons. He signed enough gun-control legislation to make Colorado the most gun-regulated state in the nation, but he drew the line there. No ban on “assault weapons” (guns that function the same as every other gun, but look meaner). Gov. Weiser will gleefully sign the ban. No one has ever confused Jared Polis with Barry Goldwater. But after a year of a Weiser administration working alongside an even more progressive legislature, Colorado working families, business owners and gun owners may discover something they never imagined possible. We’ll miss the days when Polis was governor. By this time next year those of us who have been watching the regulatory elite turn Colorado into the lethargic, unaffordable, overpriced state it is might regret Victor Marx isn’t performing exorcisms in the governor’s mansion. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E94
    July 9 · 6 min

    A declaration of independence from Colorado’s ruling class

    Happy 250th Birthday, America! You look fabulous. As all the cool countries are saying, “250 is the new 230.” The Declaration of Independence wasn’t merely an announcement of war against a tyrant. It was the most revolutionary political document ever written. The Declaration was a landmark in human development, perhaps the landmark of all human history. For the first time government was no longer affirmed sovereign. The individual was. That simple idea changed the world. You rule yourself. Your life belongs to you. Your liberty belongs to you. Your happiness is yours to pursue as you define it. Your property belongs to you. Government exists not to rule over you, but to secure your rights, to protect you from, well, government. The grievances The part of the Declaration rarely quoted during patriotic speeches isn’t the soaring language about liberty. It’s Jefferson’s long list of grievances against King George, the “causes which impel them to the separation.” Those grievances are worth study. Because they’re back. Reading them today, I can’t help wondering what our Founders would think of our government today, Colorado’s in particular. Would they find today’s overlords less oppressive? I doubt it. Jefferson wrote of the king, “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” Colorado lawmakers and governor just dissolved two-thirds of the elected RTD Board of Directors, replacing them with hand-picked lackeys. They dissolved a Representative House. The representatives of the people can be troublesome, might be an obstacle to their plans of statewide trolleys. Best to install yes-men. Swarms of officers Jefferson complained the king had “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” New offices since Polis became guv alone include the Energy and Carbon Management Commission — created just after voters shot down restriction on oil and gas and on a mission to end drilling (as you might notice in your energy bills). There’s also the Behavioral Health Administration, the Department of Early Childhood, the Prescription Drug Affordability Board, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and the Just Transition Office. I could fill the page with new offices. In the last decade alone, the state has added more than 11,500 more employees, growing 21%. Swarms of Officers? Indeed. To “eat out our substance” in the same period the state needed to hire 28% more tax collectors at the Department of Revenue and 25% more form-checkers at the Department of Regulations. You will comply. Consent of the governed Jefferson also listed the top grievance: “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” Really? Do I need to spell this one out? In Colorado, consent is spelled T-A-B-O-R. Today, lawmakers simply rename taxes as “fees” so they can avoid consent. To collect those “fees,” they’ve created bureaucracies with names that sound like they were generated by George Orwell’s artificial intelligence: Clean Screen Authority. Capitol Parking Authority. Statewide Tolling Authority. Statewide Transportation Enterprise, Statewide Bridge and Tunnel Enterprise. Then there’s the Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise to collect hospital bed taxes “fees.” How about the Clean Transit Enterprise? Or the Community Access Enterprise? Lest we forget the Nonattainment Area Pollution Mitigation Enterprise, to tax every delivery you get and raise your gas tax. If it sounds confusing enough, maybe you won’t notice it’s taking your money without permission. By 2023, these fees extract $23 billion a year from Coloradans without voter approval. Since TABOR became law, state government has collected well more than a quarter-trillion dollars outside its voter-approved tax structure. Think about that. Without your consent, government has taken nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in Colorado. For a family of four, that’s almost $170,000. Two-hundred-fifty years ago, taxation without consent like this prompted Americans to dump tea into Boston Harbor and take to arms. Government fatigue Jefferson wrote of the king, “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” Colorado has well more than 5,000 governments and special districts. There is physically no way a citizen could keep up with the legislature, school boards, city councils, county commissions, water districts, transit districts, and the like. Each have their own taxing and regulatory powers to which you must comply. Hell, the wait at the DMV has fatigued us enough. What would Jefferson write for a modern Colorado Declaration of Independence? Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E93
    July 8 · 5 min

    Violent anti-ICE protestors get a Texas-sized comeuppance

    On June 23, 2026, the federal U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas sentenced eight violent protestors convicted of assaulting the Prairieland Detention Center, an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, in an anti-Independence Day attack on July 4, 2025. Their stiff punishments rangedfrom 30 to 70 years in prison for rioting and providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. An exception was made for Benjamin Song, the group’s leader, who got a total of 100 years with an additional conviction piled on for attempted murder. Texas is a Republican red state that isn’t soft on these kinds of criminals. A court in Minnesota, California, Seattle, Oregon, Illinois, New York or other Democrat-controlled blue states might have let them off with community service or even found them not guilty. Don’t be surprised if some left-wing legal organization pays for legal fees to appeal the verdict and the sentencing all the way to SCOTUS. Several other protestors were scheduled to be sentenced on July 1. Prosecutors said the protestors vandalized vehicles, launched fireworks at the ICE facility, wounded an Alvarado police officer with a firearm and shot at unarmed corrections officers. The thugs were identified as a cell of radical ANTIFA left-wing anarchists who claim to be anti-fascist although they resort to standard fascist tactics in their violent protests. A preposterous defense The defense presented by lawyers who represented this bunch was preposterous. As was expected, none of the defendants took to the stand to testify at the trial. Meagan Morris’s attorney, D. Miles Brisette, claimed Meagan went to Alvarado that night expecting a peaceful demonstration and “felt deceived by what unfolded.” Likewise, Zachary Evetts was portrayed by his attorney, Patrick McLain, as a pacifist who also expected a peaceful protest claiming the fireworks were only intended to gain the attention of the (illegal alien) detainees so that they could hear the protestors’ (screamed) words of support. Apparently, this was the collective script of the group’s defense who should be treated like misguided juvies deserving nothing harsher than being grounded for a week or, at worst, sent to a reform school. This innocent-lambs defense is especially incredulous when the perps are ANTIFA thugs who proudly love to bust heads. A department of Homeland Security spokeswoman applauded the stiff sentences as “a win for the rule of law.” Given its customary liberal bias, the spin in an Associated Press story was sympathetic to the protestors, including quotes from Phillip Hayes, the attorney representing the aforementioned Benjamin Song who was found guilty of attempted murder. Hayes described the protestors as just “a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard. It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.” Following the Marxist playbook Really? So, why did they bring guns? Their real intent was clearly to obstruct the DHS and ICE from doing their jobs which is also the intent of violent mobs that interfere with ICE officers all over the country, especially in Minnesota, under the pretense of social justice and compassion for their wonderful neighbors who just happen to be illegally present in the United States. Baloney! The leaders of this movement and its paid-provocateurs by financiers like George Soros is to “resist” the governance of the Trump administration and advance the open borders and progressive Democrat socialist agenda. Civil violence is right out of the Marxist handbook of permanent revolution. The DFW (for Dallas-Fort Worth) Support Committee, providing financial support for the legal defense of the protestors, said the defendants were wrongly being “thrown away for the rest of their lives.” It added, “The egregious sentencing is to send a message to anyone with the same beliefs.” No. These sentences weren’t punishment for the “beliefs” of these criminals. It was for their unlawful “behavior.” And I certainly hope this sends a message discouraging violent criminal action by radical activists and the useful idiots who are duped into following them. The message: “If you commit a crime, you’ll do the time.” I greatly doubt that any of these criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison. It’s more than likely that their stiff sentences will be reduced during the appeals process, especially if they come in front of liberal judges. Failing that, the next Democrat in the White House, maybe President AOC, will commute their terms or, even worse, pardon them and throw in the Presidential Medal of Freedom as a bonus. Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  • S3 · E92
    July 1 · 5 min

    James Michener’s ‘Centennial’ a must-read Colorado story

    If you’ve been reading my columns, you’ve noticed I’m basically illiterate. I blame my dyslexia and public education, but my Olympic-level laziness could be the driving factor. Anyway, I basically can’t read (and, still, I graduated from CU Boulder, so another endorsement of public higher education). So, for me to recommend a book is like a nun recommending sexy lingerie. How can you take it seriously? But how can it not get you thinking? As we celebrate Colorado’s 150th birthday, may I strongly suggest you read, or re-read, James Michener’s classic novel “Centennial,” which arguably presents one of the most accurate portraits of the Colorado character. A Colorado story I understand this is a sizable ask. The book is massive. Now that phonebooks are extinct, parents put “Centennial” on chairs for their little kids to reach the table. I listen to books on tape. So, when I saw this book took 50 hours, I almost went back to my comic book (which we now call “graphic novels,” like that is somehow going to impress women). It’s not that “Centennial” gives an accurate accounting of Colorado’s history, it doesn’t. It’s that it colors a painting of the true Colorado spirit and the bravery of those who built this beautiful, once rugged state. Michener masterfully shows our dry high-plains as a stage for life and death struggles. He describes the personalities that would say goodbye to all they knew to chance a survival in an untamed, savage and mysterious territory. If there was one word that encapsulated his story, it’s the same word that encapsulates what made Colorado the destination state for hundreds of years: risk. To modern generations “risk” is seen as “danger” or synonymous with gambling, a roll of the dice. But that’s not risk. “Risk” is the quest to manifest a goal over calculated odds. Risk is to employ one’s talents and resources to obtain a potentially unreachable outcome. Every entrepreneur understands risk, knowing even when you do everything right, failure is still an easy outcome. Michener’s book captures a Colorado now lost. It’s a Colorado where courageous people risk writing their own biography. To build. To create. To do it their way, or not do it at all. Mitchner’s book became a sensation about the time the nation was celebrating it’s bicentennial. It’s story, the Colorado story, was a proxy for the American story. As we look at 150 years of Colorado statehood, we also get to examine how Colorado has changed since “Centennial” was first published in 1974. Growing up in the 1970s in Colorado, I saw that spirit of risk and self-direction. The state was still drawing oil-and-gas wildcatters, artists of all stripes and even a new tech entrepreneur that dealt in one and zeros, not rocks and cattle. Mountains remain, culture changes Now 50 years later, it’s hard to recognize many of the Colorado qualities Michener celebrated. Colorado no longer beckons people to be left alone. It beckons people who want someone else to manage things. The frontier mentality has given way to the HOA mentality. Risk has become something government promises to protect us from instead of something free people willingly embrace. Every new regulation is sold as safety. Every permit is justified as protection. Every entrepreneurial gamble is treated with suspicion until a bureaucrat approves it. We still have mountains, rivers and those impossible sunsets that make even lifelong Coloradans stop for a moment. The scenery survived. But scenery alone isn’t the magic. The magic was always the people willing to bet everything on themselves — men and women who crossed plains, climbed passes, dug mines, started businesses, built ranches and towns, and accepted failure was the price of having the freedom to try. Michener understood Colorado wasn’t merely a place. It was a state of mind. Reading “Centennial” today feels less like reading historical fiction and more like opening a time capsule from a state that’s slipping away. It reminds us this state wasn’t made extraordinary by government. It was made extraordinary by people. It was made extraordinary by people who demanded to be free enough to fail spectacularly or succeed beyond imagination. As Colorado turns 150, I hope we remember the spirit that created it. Because mountains are forever. A culture isn’t. And once that spirit is gone, no amount of preservation can bring back the Colorado that Michener knew. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

  • S3 · E91
    June 25 · 5 min

    Regular Season Rules Needed for NBA, NHL Playoffs

    The simultaneous NBA and NFL playoffs, known as the second season, can be almost as exhausting and frustrating for the fans as it is for the players. For Avs and Nuggets fans, this year was especially disappointing, even though we knew that 15 of the 16 teams in the playoff bracket are fated to lose their last game. It’s an alleged truism that the NBA and NHL playoffs require a different kind of play than in the regular season. I think that’s a falseism. The leagues don’t change the rules for the playoffs, they change the way refs officiate. Openly changing the rules invites public controversy and requires negotiation with the players’ union on the CBA. I’m biased because the Avs and Nuggets are skill teams more than overly physical and dirty ones. The Avs won the Presidents’ Trophy having the best regular season record in the NHL over 82 games. It’s senseless to make teams play under one set of rules in the first six months of the season and different unwritten ones in the last two. Blowing the whistle The NBA has the bigger problem. Officiating is more difficult than in other sports. Play is so fast and congested in the paint and under the rim that officials routinely make an educated guess as whether a foul was committed and by whom. That’s unavoidable but hedging the rules isn’t. The playoffs should be the highest-quality version of the sport, not one over emphasizing defense creating inconsistent calls by different refs with subjective judgment on “marginal contact.” There used to be the “one arm, bent elbow” rule allowing a defensive player to place one hand with a bent elbow on an offensive player’s back or place one forearm on his back, maintaining contact only as long as the defender isn’t pushing or dislodging the player. Today, you see a defender bear-hugging an offensive player or wrapping himself around Nikola Jokic in a pretzel hold. That’s wrestling not basketball. In the NHL, the unofficial playoff rules overly tolerate interference penalties, cross-checking, and holding. In both leagues, management wants more physicality, fewer whistles and more drama. Teams short on superstars exploit that with brute force, putting a target on the superstars’ backs. Serious injuries contributed to both the Avs and Nuggets eliminations in the playoffs. The skating-wounded included Avs superstars Makar and McKinnon. Their 4-0 loss to Vegas in the third round wasn’t the same team that beat the Kings 4-0 and the Wild 4-1. I’m no pacifist when it comes to rough physical play in the NHL. The fans thrive on that. Fighting is condoned in the rules. For anything short of homicide, you just get two or five minutes in the penalty box. (In other sports you get ejected.) Hit a guy in the head with your stick and you get 2 minutes in the box or a few more if it draws blood. Hockey and football are true contact sports. Basketball isn’t and ought not to be. Compared to the padding and helmets worn by players in the NHL and NFL, NBA players suit up in their underwear. What’s with the spooning? It really annoys me to watch the OKC Thunder Alex Caruso’s defensive malpractice spooning Jamal Murray. He’s virtually in Murray’s shorts. It’s a foul as well as obscene. Or the low-skill Isaia Hartenstein blatantly pulling on Jokic’s jersey while holding his arm in a hammer lock. On offense, SGA habitually initiates contact going to the basket then sharply veering sideways into a defender who’s gets unjustly called for blocking. (SGA learned that move form James Harden.) This is a travesty and everyone knows it. Why does the NBA let them and others get away with this stuff? Most fans don’t like it. The NBA has a flopping penalty but won’t enforce it, leery of the nightly controversy. The NHL, likewise, has an “embellishment” penalty but rarely calls it because its players’ culture disapproves of flopping. One final note. During the playoffs, networks like ESPN and TNT displaced Altitude’s cable coverage of Avs and Nuggets games. I much prefer Altitude’s local broadcasters. The network guys often prattle on ignoring what’s going on in the game. The courtside interviews with players, conducted by a token female commentator, are worthless with stock questions like, ”How are you going to close the gap in the second half.” With stock answers like, “We need to be more aggressive, play better defense, and hit more 3’s.” Then the networks distractingly run the recorded interview on split screen while play has already started at the beginning of a quarter. Ugh! Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.

  • S3 · E92
    June 25 · 5 min

    Sundance Film Festival a crash-course in economics for Boulder

    There are few things more satisfying to watch than socialists getting mugged by reality. The Sundance Film Festival is invading my hometown of Boulder early next year. Sundance drew 85,000 attendees last year in Park City, Utah. Boulder’s hotel room inventory is about 2,900. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when Hollywood’s anti-capitalist elite collide with basic supply and demand, we’re about to find out. When things don’t go as planned, the planner-class doubles down on its religion: more planning. When restrictions, rules, permits and fees don’t produce the desired outcome, more restrictions, rules, permits and fees are needed. Sundance is an event for and by well-heeled, artsy, socialist elites. So, Boulder is perfect. Colorado progressives can role-play a modern-day Gertrude Stein offering finger sandwiches at a salon of the country’s professional virtue signalers. But where will the elite stay? No room at the inn I’m guessing Robert DeNiro’s concern for the downtrodden won’t tempt him to bunk at the homeless shelter. Jane Fonda won’t crash with the Women Studies majors in some CU dorm room. Looking online, I see rooms at the Hotel Boulderado during the film festival list for $10,357 a night, then drop to $279 a night after Sundance. Fortunately, Hollywood’s A-list can always retreat to Boulder’s luxury accommodations: the Comfort Inn at the very edge of town, with a few beds at over $800 a night. Better hurry. George Clooney and entourage are rumored to be eyeing them. This is not a problem if attendees who preach the forced sharing of wealth are willing to share a hotel room with 28 other people (yes, that math is correct). Keep in mind, many hotel rooms have two beds, so that’s fewer than 15 people per bed. You could get that number down even more if lesser celebrities sleep on the floor. The most enjoyable line from a recent Gazette story: “Boulder’s hotels, meanwhile, have committed to making 70% of their room inventory available during the festival at affordable rates, according to Visit Boulder…. The organization is promoting a ‘host with heart’ approach and has published a guide with suggested prices for property owners.” Is there anything more precious than the NPR gentry ignoring reality and arbitrarily “suggesting” prices between private parties? There is something delightfully progressive about believing supply and demand can be defeated with positive thinking and a price guide. ‘Hosts with hearts’ Anyway, the most they suggest the owner of a four-bedroom house rent it for is $15,000 for 11 nights. Making all the homes I found on Airbnb renting for up to $175,000 for 11 nights, well, not exactly “hosts with hearts.” Might surprise you, but you just can’t rent out your home or even a room on sites like Airbnb in leftist cities without government paperwork. You need a stranger’s permission to have people you choose stay in your own damn house. Invite your friend to stay for the week? Perfectly legal. Let him hand you $100 to help cover groceries and utilities? Government paperwork. Have him buy you dinner every night or give you a Picasso? Back to no problem. It’s said the city has issued about 600 short-term rental licenses. Not nearly enough for the Sundance rush. What’s the solution? A new and different permitting scheme, of course. Enter the fresh-and-improved Festival Lodging Rental License for your place, but only when the city authorizes a “Special Festival Event.” To be a “host with a heart,” the city’s privileged must officially sanction the party your guest might attend. In the endless meetings of planners poring over spreadsheets and debating how to accommodate Hollywood, did anyone raise a hand and ask, “Maybe we should just end the rental-license requirements and let people do what they want with their homes?” Mugged by reality The poetry of all this is when Tinseltown’s “capitalism is evil” crowd comes together to fawn all over each other, it will be in a town that’s overflowing in black-market housing. When 85,000 festivalgoers arrive looking for 2,900 hotel rooms and some 1,000 legal home rentals, the market will do what markets always do: find a way. The irony is delicious. A festival filled with people who spend their lives warning us about the evils of capitalism may only function because of an underground economy. Nothing says “capitalism is evil” quite like desperately searching Craigslist for a place to sleep. Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

Showing 1–20 of 26 episodes