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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All of us at 710 KNUS invite you out to a Friday night radio party on July 28, today, when syndicated host Hugh Hewitt appears live in Denver. It’s at the Radisson Southeast, Parker & 225, doors open at 6pm and everyone is welcome. Your smile is your ticket.

This kicks off our 710 Townhall speaker series, with another good one coming up next month. Hugh Hewitt’s warmup act on Friday will be none other than Bob Beauprez, Republican candidate for governor. Be there if you can.

Hugh and Bob agree with me, I’ll bet, that Israel’s current battle is no mere border incident but part of a struggle for the survival of liberty (and yes, the survival of America itself), on a global scale that some are calling World War Three. The determination of Islamic fascism to destroy us is just that serious, I’m convinced.

“Backbone Radio with John Andrews,” coming up Sunday night the 30th, will dig further into this vital question. Dr. Neil Dobro, chairman of Americans Against Terrorism and a leader in Colorado’s Jewish community, joins me in studio with the latest from his sources over in the Middle East. I hope you’ll be listening.

There’s so much more to cover, our three hours on the air hardly scratch the surface. My other guests this week include… (more…)

Updated 8/10, primary results now final. Victory on 8/8 came to most of the candidates I favored. Legislative, only McNaught and Holloway went down. Paschall and Kopel lost their county treasurer bids, the latter by an excruciating 36 votes out of 24,000 cast; a recount is pending there. Dyer won easily for Arapahoe commissioner – with my vote, as it turned out.

“Right wing flies high,” said the Rocky afterward. But now comes the hard part: electing Beauprez as governor and taking back a GOP legislature. To achieve that, we need more of the class shown by Candy Figa in her HD-38 loss to Matt Dunn, and less of the coyness manifest in Betty Ann Habig’s refusal to congratulate HD-37 winner Spencer Swalm.

Many of us in Colorado are already casting our ballots in the August 8 primary election. Donna and I will do the “vote at your kitchen table” thing this week.

I’m glad our state has genuine party primaries where one must be registered in the party to participate. Michigan and some other states have this odd open primary system allowing Republican nominating contests to be hijacked with frivolous votes from Dems and unaffiliateds, or vice versa. Ugh. My thoughts on why parties are good for American politics are here.

Anyway, what with my 30-plus years in the local GOP and my several campaigns (mixed win-loss record), neighbors sometimes ask how I voted. So here’s the rundown. (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 Mideast in flames as violent passions seek Israel’s extinction. Political battle lines drawn here over laws and elections. And the pen still mightier than the sword in shaping history, even in this era of rockets and nukes.

“Backbone Radio with John Andrews” will range across all those topics in our July 23 show, Sunday evening on 710 KNUS in Denver. America without apologies, America with steel in her spine, is our beat. Your ear and mind are our marketplace. Don’t miss this show!

** We’ll look deeper into the roots and aims of Islamic fascism and jihad. Nonie Darwish, daughter of a jihadi martyr in Gaza and now the head of Arabs for Israel, will be my guest. So will Joel Rosenberg, best-selling author and former aide to Prime Minister Netanyahu. (more…)

Note: This open letter to the people of Michigan, submitted to the Lansing State Journal today, answers a recent article there from the Devastation Prevarication propagandists I last did battle with in Maine – John Andrews

As a taxpayer advocate who was born in Michigan and held office in Colorado, I want my native state to have the kind of thriving economy that my adopted state has. The news that your state may pass SOS, the Stop OverSpending amendment, delights me even more than seeing the Tigers in first place.

The SOS plan to slow the runaway growth of government can help restore healthy growth to Michigan’s hurting economy. It worked for us in the Rockies; why not for you in the Great Lakes State as well? This onetime Allegan County guy objects to the distortion of our Colorado success story that was foisted on Lansing readers last month by big-government cheerleader Carol Hedges ( “Michigan, don’t make mistake Colorado did,” June 25). (more…)

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com)

It was a tough week for women and children. The US Senate passed Colorado Representative Diana DeGette’s bill to provide taxpayer funds for the killing of unborn children to harvest their tissues. Michael Schiavo, who starved his mentally impaired wife to death, came to town to campaign for Angie Paccione in her election bid against Representative Marilyn Musgrave. He has formed a Duty-to-Die PAC to fund candidates who support euthanasia. On the other side of the world, terrorists murdered over a hundred train passengers in India. In Iraq, the killing of civilians has hit an all time high. (more…)

The age-old doctrine that “man is the measure of all things” takes contemporary form in the Humanist Manifesto, as neat a one-page summation as you will find anywhere of the belief that people are perfectible, the future is bright, and God is unnecessary.

“Analysis by critical intelligence” is the touchstone of knowledge, according to the humanist worldview. Yet by this very standard, the manifesto itself proves to be groaning with questionable assumptions and assertions. Among them, listed in less than an hour the other day, as fast as I could type, were the following: (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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Hours after we finished our last show, the Colorado legislature finished its special session on immigration. The result fell far short of three cheers — but since the state will now be a little less welcoming for illegal aliens, the verdict from Backbone is one cheer maybe.

Bottom line, majority Democrats helped themselves politically a lot more than they helped law-abiding citizens concerned about this Mexican invasion. They gave Gov. Owens some of what he wanted — but did nothing on proof of citizenship for voting, or on preventing Supreme Court mischief with future ballot issues, the low blow that started this summer brawl. (more…)

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, July 16) “We have no king but Caesar.” It was an odd thing for the elders of Jerusalem, royal David’s city, to tell the governor from Rome. But politically this was the safe answer, so Pilate proceeded to execute the freedom-talking seditionist in question, one Jesus of Nazareth.

Independence Day set me on a historical odyssey from the ancient emperors to the modern idea of liberation. After a detour through the dictionary and the calendar, this column resulted. The theme is political birthdays. The destination is America in 2076. Come on along. (more…)

Editor’s Note: We invited Backbone bloggers to reflect on the ever-greater influence of the Humanist Manifesto, one of the strongest statements of the modern liberal or progressive worldview. Here is the first volley in the resulting dialogue.

By Dave Crater (crater@wilberforcecenter.org)

Last month, the first woman in the history of the Episcopal Church was elected to the post of Presiding Bishop. For the next nine years, she will serve as the primate, or highest ranking bishop, in the Episcopal Church, representing Anglicans in the United States to the global Anglican Church and to the rest of the world.

Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori, who three years ago supported the consecration of practicing homosexual Eugene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire – the first openly homosexual bishop in Episcopal history – in her inaugural sermon as Presiding Bishop observed the following about the crucifixion of Jesus:

“That bloody cross brings new life into this world. Colossians calls Jesus the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead. That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained labor of the cross bears new life. Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are His children.”

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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 July series this week. Andrews gave a barely passing grade to the recent legislative session on immigration. Other topics this month include the Denver mayor’s tax fetish, the narrowing field for governor, North Korean missiles, and Mexico’s new president.

1. SPECIAL SESSION LACKED BANG

Susan: Coloradans paid $75,000 for a special session that was more whimper than bang. Immigration is a federal issue – State government departments can’t even itemize what they’re spending. The session was a circus – all about posturing and politics. The legislature turned a tough human and economic problem into stupid soundbites.

John: Democrats controlling the legislature did the least they could to make illegal aliens less welcome in Colorado. Their weak bills reflected the softness of Salazar, not the toughness of Tancredo. Still the special session was not in vain. Immigration lawbreakers are less welcome here as a result. Secure borders are one step closer. (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
————————————————————————How does Congressman Tom Tancredo, whom the Wall Street Journal grudgingly calls today’s “real Speaker of the House,” see the current situation on immigration reform in Congress and at home in Colorado?

How do the Democratic and Republican leaders in our Colorado Senate see the legislative special session now underway on that same hot issue?

“Backbone Radio with John Andrews” brings you the answers this Sunday as we welcome “Speaker” Tancredo, along with state senators Ken Gordon (D) and Andy McElhany (R) back to the program. Mike partners Krista Kafer and Joshua Sharf will join me for those interviews. I hope you will too. (more…)

‘May you live in interesting times.’ – A Chinese blessing or curse

By Brian Ochsner (baochsner@aol.com)

I’ve taken a good look and carefully analyzed American and international economic trends, and have a vision of what I think will happen in America’s economic future. What you’ll read in the next few minutes may be very different from past ‘normal’ financial and economic conditions. As an American, this may be a huge paradigm shift and a different type of ‘normal’ you’ll have to adjust to in the future. That’s why I’ve coined this post “The New Normal.”

Here are several financial and economic trends that I see over the next decade or two, and what you may need to prepare for them: (more…)

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com)

Should Nazi scientists have experimented on Jews, Gypsies and other concentration camp prisoners they knew were going to be put to death anyway? Would they not be putting them to a good use that might help others?

The very question fills me with revulsion.

It is with the same disgust and sorrow that I read in the Rocky Mountain News that Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette’s bill to fund embryonic stem cell research is moving forward in the US Senate. The bill, which passed the US House of Representatives last year in a 238-194 vote, will permit federal tax dollars to be used to kill human embryos to extract their stem cells. (more…)

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, July 7) Three days without cell phones or email, TV or the Web. Three days without talk radio, iPods, or even this newspaper. That was how nine of us spent the final weekend of June, floating the Skagit River in Washington State. Was it great? You know the answer.

Being off the grid of hurry and worry helped us renew a more elemental, timeless connection with each other and with life. We unplugged from the hectic and plugged into the soul-grid instead. What a trip, in every sense of the word. (more…)

Note: The case discussed here is an agenda item for Colorado’s legislative special session that began today.

By Dave Crater
crater@wilberforcecenter.org

Yet the court’s decision has Colorado liberals licking their chops at such a serendipitous discovery of further support for one of their favorite myths: that marriage is dangerous for women. At the same time, many Colorado conservatives, knowing marriage is the safest social arrangement for any woman outside of a home with her two married, biological parents, but also very much concerned with the modern epidemic of premature sexual activity, are having trouble connecting the dots.
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