BackboneAmerica

Will we act or not?
By Former Governor Dick Lamm

Introduction by John Andrews: Defend Colorado Now, the ballot issue campaign to end non-emergency, non-federally-mandated taxpaid services to illegal aliens, of which I’m co-chairman, today held a Capitol press conference to release an economic impact study on this growing problem. Click here to join the campaign. And click here to see the full study, with the shocking total price tag for our state given on pages 2 and 8. Dick Lamm, honorary campaign chairman, commented as follows:

Last November, Colorado engaged in a contentious debate over Referenda C & D seeking the authority for the state government to keep some of the funds scheduled to be returned to the taxpayer under the TABOR Amendment. At the same time, without debate and with little discussion by the media or the political leaders, illegal immigration in Colorado was costing Colorado taxpayers two or three times the amount so bitterly fought over last November.

Now for the first time, Donald Rice sets forth in one study the most authoritative collection of estimates of the costs to Colorado taxpayers and workers of illegal immigration. Using only the most authentic of sources, Rice found that illegal immigration will cost Colorado over $1 billion in 2006 and promises to do so in growing amounts, next year and the year after, ad infinitum. (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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Howdy from Portland, Maine, where I’m spreading the tax-limitation message that you can either have robust economic growth or unrestrained government growth — but not both. Maine citizens are on the ballot with their own Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (rainy day fund in, ratchet out), and they asked me to bring the truth about how good TABOR has been for Colorado. I’ll do the same next week in Topeka, Kansas.

In between those trips, I’ll “see” you on the radio Sunday evening. “Backbone Radio with John Andrews” this weekend proudly welcomes USMC Major, and State Treasurer-on-leave, Mike Coffman home from his war service in Iraq — Fallujah no less. Our conversation in studio is one I’m excited about. Please join us — listen in and call in. (more…)

The “Head On” debate between former state Sen. John Andrews (R) and former Denver councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt (D), seen daily on Colorado Public Television since 1997, began its March series this week. Andrews mused on his party’s low standing in the national polls, but noted that November is still a long way off. Other topics this month include legislative ethics, the UAE port deal, classroom propaganda, and architect Daniel Libeskind.

1. REPUBLICAN WOES

John: Many Americans have had it with Republican leadership in Washington. Only one in three voters thinks Bush and Congress are doing a good job. Conservatives are disgusted with runaway spending. Swing voters doubt the President’s commitment to victory against Islamofascism. Unless my party shapes up, Democrats will clean up come November. (more…)

Grassroots politics starts here. Do your part!

By John Andrews

If you’re a registered Republican voter, Tuesday, March 21, at 7pm is your chance to have a voice in choosing GOP candidates for the 2006 elections, and in straw polls on key issues. The precinct caucuses are the basic grassroots level of self-government in our Republic — and you’re invited.

Beauprez vs. Holtzman for Governor, Eid or Steinhauer or Davidson or Wachtel for CU Regent, as well as important local races, are at stake in the road from caucuses to county and district assemblies to the state assembly. Precinct decisions on the 21st are where it all starts.

In the Arapahoe County neighborhoods of Hunter’s Hill and Walnut Hills, Precincts 241, 242, 243, and 244, we will hold a single joint caucus at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, 8545 E. Dry Creek Road. Please join us!

For Prec. 241-244, click this email address andrewsjk@aol.com to confirm your attendance or request further details. If you live elsewhere, click www.cologop.org to find the location of your own precinct caucus. Do your part on March 21 — it only takes an hour — and our system of representative government and democratic institutions is depending on you.

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Mar. 19) It was March 10, the day Jay Bennish was cleared to take his left-liberal agenda back to class at Overland High. Alan Colmes, the left-liberal counterpart to conservative Sean Hannity on Fox News, was declaiming upon Bennish’s rights as a teacher in a “government school.” Right then I knew that this hot controversy, despite its tepid ending, had accomplished something.

They are in fact government schools, these institutions we euphemistically call “public education.” When even liberals admit it, clarity is a step closer. The bad news is that Cherry Creek authorities wimped out, providing citizens no guarantee that Bennish will stop peddling Harry Belafonte propaganda disguised as geography. The good news is that some long-ignored questions are now before us. (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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Self-deception is not a pretty thing. The White House talking big on border security, for example, or Cherry Creek Schools pretending they stood up to Jay Bennish. And historically, Imperial Rome cloaked itself in republican forms long after abandoning the reality.

So likewise the American Republic, now well into its third century, needs a frequent look in the mirror to check our constitutional fidelity. It’s under constant threat. “Backbone Radio with John Andrews” will hold up the mirror with several of our guests this Sunday. (more…)

By Krista Kafer krista555@msn.com

Jay Bennish returned to Cherry Creek’s Overland High School after a week of paid administrative leave. For readers who have been on Mars this month and missed the big story, a summary is below. But first, a pop quiz — what have we learned? These three things at least:

1) The indoctrination of students at Overland is complete. Students turned on their own instead of questioning the words of their teacher.

2) The First Amendment is widely misunderstood to mean that one can say anything any time without consequences. .

3) Students are being taught lies at public expense. (more…)

John Andrews, former Senate President and now a fellow of the Claremont Institute, today called on Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald and Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff to encourage full disclosure of all 100 legislators’ PERA membership status — followed by divestiture into a non-PERA pension plan — as an assurance for arm’s-length handling of PERA reform bills awaiting Senate action soon.

Steps must be taken to assure the public there will be no self-dealing on proposals to shore up the deficit-ridden state pension system “at this time of ethics charges and shaken public confidence,” Andrews said in a letter to Fitz-Gerald and Romanoff (see full text of letter below). (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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The recent Academy Awards, like much of Hollywood’s output, peddling such falsehoods as the greater threat of the CIA and oil companies in contrast with Islamofascism (“Syriana”) or the greater threat of anti-communism in contrast with Stalin and Mao (“Good Night and Good Luck”), position the movie industry as an adversary to the America most of us live in and love. (more…)

By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com

The now-abandoned deal turning over management of six major American ports to Dubai Ports World and the United Arab Emirates became a radioactive issue for President Bush. The administration’s handling of this issue was clumsy at best. However, even had they been “PR perfect” on the Dubai ports deal, I still think it was destined to collapse.

While the thing didn’t make sense to me at first, after connecting the dots with some other events in the Middle East I got a clearer picture. The opening of a new Iranian oil exchange, combined with a vulnerable US dollar, suggests why President Bush was so committed this deal. (more…)

By Dave Crater crater@wilberforcecenter.org

Editor’s Note: March 1 has been observed as Adam Smith Day here in Backbone Colorado USA each year since the early 1990s, at the instigation of John Andrews and the Independence Institute’s Dave Kopel. Dave Crater evidently approves.

How delightful to learn that Andrews and Kopel have set up an Ebenezer stone (explanation to follow) with their annual tribute to Scottish, Western, and economics great Adam Smith. I suspect this March 1 observance is not merely a public reminder to Colorado of the roots of American economic order and the giant who put those roots in the ground. I suspect it also has Ebenezer value to them as a personal reminder of many years laboring together in the American West for what prior generations liked to call, and what a few Coloradans are still fond of calling, the Permanent Things. (more…)

By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com

The leftist rantings and ravings from Overland HS teacher Jay Bennish were not only “off the hook” with their bias and idiocy – he was probably off his medications when the audiotape was made. This only reinforces my steadfast belief about public education, that’s it’s more about indoctrination than true education of young minds.

Slapstick Politics and Michelle Malkin say the same thing. Public Ed doesn’t just need minor reform, tinkering around the edges, or more parent participation (which would be good in any school). It is an outdated, mediocre monopoly that needs to be abolished. It should be tossed on the scrap heap of bad ideas along with Communism, socialism, and slavery. I’m just getting warmed up – here are several more reasons why. (more…)

Not to mention Bennish’s geography class

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Mar. 5) It’s here: Ward Churchill, the book. The CU ethnic studies professor, notorious for his anti-Americanism and under investigation for alleged plagiarism, has now occasioned a 400-page reference work by David Horowitz, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.

Churchill made news last year when his assertion that victims of the World Trade Center attack had it coming led to protests by students in New York, one of whom had lost his father on September 11. Fourteen months of defiance by the professor and impotence by university authorities have since ensued.

Horowitz’s book isn’t actually about Churchill. Rather it cites him as “an emblem of what’s wrong with universities,” then goes on to profile a hundred other tenured radicals of the same ilk. Taken together, the author says, the bios reveal four troubling patterns in America’s higher education faculties today. (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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“Entering the State Capitol each day while serving there, I remembered we as legislators weren’t the owners of power but merely its trustees.” So I wrote in a recent Denver Post column. It’s easy to forget that, let me tell you. Thus recent headlines are full of lapses by the trustees of power in public office and public classrooms. We’ll talk about them this Sunday on “Backbone Radio with John Andrews,” 5-8pm on 710 KNUS in Denver or 710knus.com wherever you are. (more…)