BackboneAmerica

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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Monday will be another day of massive demonstrations and boycotts by illegal aliens and their sympathizers, aimed at legitimizing some of the most widespread lawbreaking our nation has ever seen. But on Sunday evening our show will look at how patriotic Coloradans are pushing back with a petition drive to affirm the rule of law, a movement called Defend Colorado Now (DCN).

This issue transcends ethnicity or party. Dick Lamm, a Democrat and former governor, said at yesterday’s DCN kickoff rally that a country without borders is no country at all. Speaking at the rally as a Republican and former senator, I framed the petition’s goal as “No Taxation without Documentation” — in other words, if you broke the law to come here, don’t look for government subsidies in staying here. (more…)

By Krista Kafer krista555@msn.com

I first engaged in deficit spending in high school. In between paychecks I borrowed money from my parents to buy cloths, cigarettes, diet coke and other “needs.” In college I combined deficit spending via credit cards with creative accounting measures like check floating. These monthly deficits led to thousands in debt. Paying it back, much like say quitting smoking was far more difficult that I expected when I started. I learned that spending more than one makes to pay for things one doesn’t need leads to hard times in the future.

This kind of behavior is somewhat understandable in a 20 year old. What excuse does Congress have? (more…)

By Bill Armstrong wlarmstrong@qwest.net

Editor’s Note: Denver businessman Bill Armstrong, a Republican former member of the US Senate, US House, and Colorado Senate, fired off an email alert from New York to friends at home on Monday afternoon, voicing his concern about last-minute legislation that would further restrict freedom of expression in state campaigns. With Armstrong’s permission, here’s the text of that email.

Update, April 28: Vince Carroll analyzes Republican sponsor’s logic after Democrats kill bill in committee.

Dear John: As I was leaving town yesterday for a week on the road, I read an article in the Sunday Denver Post that made my hair stand on end. HCR06-1010 has been introduced with bipartisan sponsorship in the Colorado House and, if adopted, would have the effect of drastically curtailing the so-called 527s, the independent political committees that have flourished in the aftermath of efforts to reform political campaigns by limiting candidate spending. (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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Boston University Prof. Angelo Codevilla, my colleague at the Claremont Institute and one of its founders, wrote his new book “No Victory, No Peace,” to counter facile optimism in our war against Islamofascism. US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq has been less a real war than a police action, he argues, and victory isn’t appreciably closer as a result.

Codevilla makes a somber analogy between the current Bush presidency and that of Richard Nixon, when sporadic toughness in word and deed served to mask, in his view, a deeper pattern of appeasement and retreat that weakened America and emboldened our enemies. He spells this out in the latest American Spectator (link shows contents page, not full text). (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 April series this week. Andrews sharply took issue with the recent wave of demonstrations by illegal aliens, calling them offensive to all Americans who value the rule of law. Other topics this month include Colorado’s troubled pension system, the University of Colorado, lessons of the RTD strike, and Iran’s nuclear threat.

1. IMMIGRATION REFORM HEATS UP

John: Americans who believe in the rule of law are offended at massive street demonstrations, complete with Mexican flags, by foreigners who broke the law to enter our country. Congress should legislate strict enforcement at the border and in the workplace. Foreigner lawbreakers wishing to stay here should return home and apply to re-enter legally.

Susan: Immigration reform is a federal issue. Political posturing by both parties in this election year has resulted in a congressional stalemate. Until all parties are held accountable – including employers – and until a rational, informed dialogue occurs – we are all swimming against the tide. (more…)

By Krista Kafer krista555@msn.com

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” -Nelson Mandela

When I close my eyes and think of South Africa I see rolling hills of long grass in the bright autumn sun. Umbrella-like acacia trees cast small circles of shade and bright pink cosmo flowers bend in the breeze. Young men drive cattle. Miles away in a game preserve I glimpse lions dozing in the heat of the midday. Three male kudu with dark spiraling horns crest a hill in the distance while a delicate bushbuck darts into the brush. Great marabou storks slowly circle downward to roost for the night. Hippos end their river sojourn to venture onto land.

Night falls and I can trace the Southern Cross, a constellation viewable only in the southern hemisphere. Bats seize insects on the wing. Then I am walking beside the deep cut of the Blyde River Canyon where the sound of waterfalls deafens. Farther into the mountains, a mist veils God’s Window, a view of the world’s third largest canyon. Blue lizards scurry across the rocks.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, I’m back in the bustle of Johannesburg, “Jo-burg” to residents. Downtown from a distance looks like Denver –skyscrapers, shopping malls, and pretty houses with even lovelier gardens. A closer examination reveals the difference – neighborhoods with armed guards, barbwire, electric fences encircling schools and churches. So too, South African friendliness juxtaposes oddly with talk of carjackings and warnings not to go into downtown Jo-burg alone even by day. (more…)

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, April 16) For irony, it’s hard to beat the bumper sticker: “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter.” Some carpenter Jesus was, his hands not pounding the nails but pinned by them, his only remembered woodwork the criminal’s cross he died on. Nor was this sawdust preacher well-born; the Jews have been cruelly marginalized for ages.

Who boasts of their boss anyway? Bossing others is much preferred. Being your own boss is better still. But that’s the Christians for you. They believe life is about serving, not ruling, and the one they follow on the path of service is that rejected rabbi whose death and rising Easter commemorates.

Even the verb on the bumper sticker has a twist. Christians worship Jesus as their king who “is” alive today and seated at God’s right hand, not just a great moral teacher who “was” important long ago. How un-modern of them. How stubborn and strange. (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 celebration of Easter and Passover sharply cuts our political issues down to size. Biblical faith, in the words of C. S. Lewis, holds that the individual is “incomparably more important” than any nation or civilization, “for he is everlasting and [its life], compared with his, is only a moment.”

The timeless impact of God’s intervention in history through Moses and Jesus, commemorated this week, outweighs all such concerns as immigration, taxes, or property rights. Yet the latter still have a claim on us. Render to Caesar and to God, Christ taught. (more…)

High school and middle school teachers of civics, government, history, and social studies, along with honor students from their classes, are invited to take part in a workshop on civic education and the American founding, Saturday, April 29, at the State Capitol in Denver.

The Claremont Institute, in cooperation with Hillsdale College and the El Pomar Foundation, offers this special event at no charge to applicants from public and non-public schools, as well as home-schoolers, while spaces last. See below for details and signup information. (more…)

Re: Declaring a National Emergency

April 11, 2006
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:

As members of the Republican Study Committee of Colorado, a caucus of the Colorado General Assembly, we have been shocked by the blatant, coordinated, and anti-American demonstrations on behalf of illegal aliens throughout the country, including the City of Denver, with little or no serious action on the part of the Federal Government to address the growing negative impact of illegal aliens on the American people, or to protect all states from invasion as required by Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution. (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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Update after Sunday’s show: [Name censored for his protection], a presidential hopeful in his native [African country censored], onetime persecutor of Christians and now a follower of Christ, was one of our best interviews ever. See below for his contact information.
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You had to be there. George Washington University, a few blocks from the White House. Thursday evening, an auditorium full of opinionated college students. Conservative organizer David Horowitz debating radical CU professor Ward Churchill. It was gasoline and matches, figuratively speaking, though civility was well maintained.

To the main question of the debate, “Can and should politics be taken out of the classroom?” Churchill said flatly no. “There is no truth,” he asserted, merely a dominant orthodoxy enforced by power, which results in there being no real democracy in America today. Hence teachers at all levels are not merely allowed but obligated to aggressively question the status quo, Churchill argued.

By this standard, what Jay Bennish said regarding Bush and Hitler was therefore for the classroom, Churchill insisted near the end of the hour-long exchange. His dogmatic Marxist worldview was defiantly (if implicitly) evident throughout. (more…)

By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com

A recent article by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), “The Perils of Economic Ignorance,” warns of approaching danger. If America doesn’t make swift and decisive changes from our federal fiscal follies, Paul contends, bad things lie in wait the next 10-20 years.

His warning is equally applicable to policies at the state level – specifically Colorado’s PERA pension plan. I’ll explode the myth that PERA, Social Security and other defined-benefit pension plans will be available in full for retirees when they hit their golden years. The reasons include the mass retirement of Baby Boomers, and the investment scheme of an Italian immigrant in the 1920s. (more…)

Who’s replied, who hasn’t, listed below

Colorado legislators preparing to vote on bills to close a yawning $13 billion deficit in PERA, the state pension system, owe the public a frank declaration of what financial stake, if any, each state Senator or Representative personally holds in PERA. Out of 100 members in the legislature, 79 have yet to provide such disclosure.

Claremont Institute wrote each member personally on Feb. 21, asking for a yes or no on PERA membership and, if yes, the year of joining and the amount of additional service credits purchased. The list below gives a fully tally of written replies received as of the requested deadline, March 3, along with several oral replies provided since then. (more…)

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, April 2) Devastation Prevarication. That might be, as Dave Barry used to say, a good name for a heavy metal band. But it’s no way to make public policy. Lies are being told in a number of states about Colorado’s allegedly “devastating” experience with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, TABOR, since 1992. Such nonsense needs to stop.

“TABOR was run out of Colorado. Why now bring it to Maine?” So read the headline on a union flyer in Portland when I arrived last month for the TABOR Truth Tour, organized by local activists Mary Adams and Bill Becker. Their successful petition drive, giving Mainers a chance to enact tax limits next fall, has the spending lobby panicked. I brought testimony of how such limits are benefiting Coloradans. (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 consent of the governed in a republic, said Abraham Lincoln, means resolving public issues with ballots rather than bullets. Lacking that, even if actual violence doesn’t break out, the sense of injustice grows, faith in democracy fades, and “government for the people” loses credibility. The ballot is that important! (more…)