BackboneAmerica

By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com

Colorado’s state employee pension plan, PERA, is in big trouble, according to this recent story — and in need of serious repair, as prescribed in this story today.

The analysts’ weather report, in brief, finds that over-optimistic estimates of investment returns, sharp increases in benefits, and a stock market downturn converged to create the “perfect financial storm.” To understand why PERA is almost set up to fail, you need to go back about 25 years. (more…)

By Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@JessicaCorry.com)

I get excited to see my cousin’s emails when they pop up in my inbox. Robert, a West Point graduate and a Captain in the U.S. Army, writes to me often from Iraq. Despite the heat, the homesickness, and the dust storms that have defined his time there, each correspondence confirms that his sense of humor remains intact. More importantly, each email confirms that he is safe and still passionate for life.

He’s taught me a lot about this war we’re in. In his emails, he jokes that he’s got carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of 24-hour internet access. He reports that he’s finished his master’s thesis while stationed in Iraq. He tells me there are icicles dangling from the air-conditioning unit outside his room (yes, he has his own room and yes, it has air conditioning).

Maybe it’s not so bad over there, I think.

But then he reminds me. (more…)

By Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@JessicaCorry.com)

Rocky Mountain News editor Vince Carroll hits the nail on the head in his Tuesday analysis of the liberal push to have a national “conversation on poverty” in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

He writes: “until Katrina, we are supposed to believe only media commentators, academics and Democratic politicians thought or cared about poverty, because—well, because they’re just a lot more compassionate and thoughtful than everyone else.”

(more…)

By Jeremy Schupbach jshoebox@mac.com

A federal judge in San Francisco, where else, ruled today that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional! Citing the precedent set by the 9th Circuit Court, Judge Karlton found that being required to say “under God” created a coercive environment that violated the children’s rights.

Judge Karlton did not mention in his decision whether or not having to recite the multiplication tables in math class created a coercive environment that voilated the kids’ right to remain ignorant.

By John Andrews john@backboneamerica.net

On Sept. 10, the Wilberforce Center in Colorado Springs hosted its second annual conference on statesmanship, conservatism, and Western civilization, and I was one of the speakers. The center is named for William Wilberforce, 1759-1833, leader of the battle to abolish the British slave trade and elevate his country’s moral tone. His use of “launchers,” thought-stirring tactics with an audience, is noted by biographers. Here are four that I used at the conference. (more…)

By John Andrews

Bob Ewegen of the Denver Post, that paper’s designated hitter to read me out of the human race in order to pass Referendum C & D, had a breathless expose last Saturday, “revealing” that I favor ending government involvement in education. Those quote marks signify that this story is ancient news, having been fully aired my first year in the Senate, 1999. But it’s quite true: I had signed, several years previously, and I remain to this day a signer of, the Proclamation for the Separation of School and State. Here’s why… (more…)

By Krista Kafer krista555@msn.com

William Rehnquist, who served on the Supreme Court for 33 years, and as Chief Justice for the past 19 years, was laid to rest this week. The Chief Justice will long be remembered by reformers for his support of parental choice in education. Ultimately millions of children will learn and thrive at good schools because Rehnquist understood the Constitution and importance of freedom in education. (more…)

“I tremble for my country,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, referring to the evil within — human slavery apathetically tolerated in the midst of a free republic.

This week, on the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our homeland, I tremble at the apathy of many Americans toward the evil without — Islamofascists who hate our free republic — enemies bent on killing millions of us and enslaving the rest. (more…)

By Krista Kafer krista555@msn.com

Monday’s Rocky Mountain News reported that libraries around the nation, including those in Colorado, are stocking the shelves with Spanish books, magazines, and multimedia. The paper reported last month that the Denver Public Library system intends to make several branches officially bilingual complete with bilingual staff and books and services in Spanish. Me gusta el español. Es utíl. So what’s the problem? (more…)

By Jeremy Schupbach jshoebox@mac.com

Amid all the news of civil disorder in New Orleans, here’s a Washington Post article on how not to establish civil order. Terrorists have claimed control over the Iraqi town of Qaim, and enforced strict Islamic law. According to the article “insurgents” are enforcing strict Islamic law in the town. They are executing young women for being “prostitutes,” lashing men accused of drinking alcohol, burning beauty parlors and stores that sold CDs and executing government officials. (more…)

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Sept. 4) Labor Day is a liberal observance, initiated in 1882 by the labor movement. Labor Day 2005 finds that movement in decline. The AFL-CIO is breaking up, and union membership is an ever-smaller percentage of the work force, while middle-class affluence continues to rise. Does this mean Americans are becoming more conservative?

British journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge devoted a book to that question and gave a tentative yes (“The Right Nation,” 2004). I won’t retrace their lengthy analysis. Instead let’s take this Labor Day – with its mingling of summer leisure, fall politics, back to school, and struggles over sharing the wealth – for a look at the uses and limits of those timeworn terms, “liberal” and “conservative.” (more…)

Since Backbone Radio is programmed well in advance, our Sept.4 show didn’t initially reckon with the New Orleans disaster after Katrina, or the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist yesterday. But today’s show will make time for those big stories, along with the other topics outlined in my radio email earlier.

Here’s what the email said: Just as con is the opposite of pro, said Will Rogers, it often seems Congress is the opposite of progress. Is it possible to have both? We’ll find out next week, when Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Frist call the unruly U.S. House and Senate back into session after the summer recess.

Confirmation hearings will begin on President Bush’s nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. A vote is promised on permanent elimination of the death tax. Debates on the war against Islamofascism will intensify, as 9/11 is observed and members pass along what they heard at home during recess. (more…)

By Brad Jones brad@jones.name

Whenever crisis strikes America, as on the Gulf Coast this week, I am reminded of how brilliant our Founding Fathers were. We don’t pay enough homage to their theory of governing that has been so broadly emulated around the world – one that has kept us safe and unified in the toughest of times here at home. (more…)

Backbone America distributed the following news release Thursday afternoon under the headline, “Republican county chairs shun Ref C; party leaders negative or neutral in 60 of 64 counties.”

Referendum C & D, the tax and borrowing proposal on Colorado’s November ballot, is getting a frigid reception from Republican county chairmen across the state, according to a survey taken last month.

When GOP chairmen in all 64 counties were invited to endorse passage of C & D, only four of them did so. The other 60 came in negative or neutral. Backbone America Citizens Alliance, a conservative group headed by former Senate President John Andrews, conducted the survey August 8-31. (more…)