BackboneAmerica

Let’s take a trip back in our time machine to last fall’s election season (I know, we haven’t even managed to get through this one but bear with me) and recall the arguments used to support Referendum C – the state’s largest tax hike ever. One of the prevailing arguments, that prompted former Senator Hank Brown to beg for our votes in a television commercial, was that if we didn’t pass the tax increase it would be devastating to higher education.

And it worked! On November 1, 2005, 52% of the voters passed Ref C hoping that the money would be spent wisely and higher education would be “safe.” If you’re curious as to how part of your tax increase is being spent, don’t miss this article in the Denver Post: “Holistic science studies are nothing to sniff at.”

One of the pictures accompanying the article shows a student blissfully sniffing a bottle of, well, something. In the article you’ll learn that one of Metropolitan State College of Denver’s brand new majors is “integrative therapeutic practices” which teaches students to sniff things like “tangerine oil” and practice Reiki, “which involves channeling energy into someone’s body.” Students will also receive instruction on how to make herbal teas and salves.

That’s your tax dollars at work, folks.

By Dave Petteys (dpetteys@comcast.net)

Mssrs. Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni of Fox News were recently converted to Islam at gunpoint and released by their captors. To conclude “Piece of cake! They could recant tomorrow” may be an oversimplification. The experiences of prisoners of war in Korea (termed “brainwashing” after the war ended), as well as the famous “Stockholm Syndrome”, where captives formed bizarre attachments to their captors, could come into play here. (more…)

Editor’s Note: Hefley had to file for his write-in by 5pm Tuesday, and did not do so, ending the maverick comeback bid, according to an update on the Gazette website. But the outgoing congressman’s spite for his duly nominated GOP successor, quoted in the update, only validates the concerns expressed below.

By Dave Crater (crater@senate9.com)

Today’s Colorado Springs Gazette carries an article outlining why Joel Hefley, with many in the Colorado Springs, Denver, and Washington Republican establishments who are encouraging him on, is considering a write-in bid for Congress against Republican nominee Doug Lamborn.

We should all understand this development with crystal clarity: this behavior by Republican political insiders, and its history in Colorado that has lasted for most of the Bill Owens administration, is why the Colorado GOP lost dazzlingly throughout the state in 2004, losing both houses of the state legislature for the first time in 40 years, a congressional seat, and a Senate seat, and why it is now — in my opinion — headed for dazzling defeat this coming November. (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
and now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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Colorado has done well in electing first-term congressmen who get into the right fights and quickly make their mark as fighting conservatives in Washington DC. Think Tom Tancredo as a defender of our borders, Marilyn Musgrave as a defender of marriage. Will my former state Senate ally, Doug Lamborn, be the next one? (more…)

By Jim Windham (txpilgrim@houston.rr.com)

“The upshot of the changes ahead is that Americans are now, and increasingly will become, less secure than they believe themselves to be. The reason is that we may not recognize many of the threats to our future….They may consist, too, of an unraveling of the fabric of national identity itself…..Democracy may be hollowed out from the inside….The growing sense of power that will accrue to many individuals….could corrupt moral balances and erode moral disciplines…..It could threaten the balance of healthy civic habits that have long sustained democratic communities.”
—Excerpt from the Report of the U. S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, chaired by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart.

I wonder how many Americans took the time to reflect on this report or on these words as they pertain to our future as a community with a shared sense of purpose. Probably not very many, about the same number who have taken time to read and reflect on the Bush Doctrine, the most sweeping transformation of U. S. foreign policy in over fifty years. I think about these points as I watch and listen to the daily grind of “us vs. them” talk shows, partisan bickering and posturing, CIA and other agencies leaking for advantage, and other nonsense emanating from our political leadership class, and I wonder if we really understand what is at stake here. As our reigning dean of Islamic culture, Bernard Lewis, expressed to the Wall Street Journal, “In 1940, we knew who we were, we knew who the enemy was, we knew the dangers and the issues…….It is different today. We don’t know who we are, we don’t know the issues, and we still do not understand the nature of the enemy.” (more…)

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Aug. 20) It’s a long way from the Stockyards Amphitheater in Chicago, summer 1960, to the Cool River Café in Greenwood Village, summer 2006. But Congressman Tom Tancredo’s post-primary Republican breakfast speech the other day reminded me of watching Senator Barry Goldwater tell conservatives at the GOP convention back then to keep faith, his time would come, moments before the delegates nominated Richard Nixon to face John F. Kennedy.

It’s clear to me that Tancredo today, like Goldwater back then, envisions a serious run for President of the United States, but wants to remain above the battle at present because it’s still a long shot. The Arizona senator’s moment did come, four years later. Will the Colorado congressman’s moment come two years from now? Stranger things have happened. (more…)

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
and now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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“Why we are losing the war” is a current lecture topic being promoted by one of my guests this Sunday, Yaron Brook. As an Israeli military veteran, American entrepreneur, and president of the Ayn Rand Institute, Brook certainly doesn’t want us to be losing. But he’s got the backbone to confront audiences with the hard truth that maybe right now we are.

Muhammad Ali Hassan, founder of Muslims for America, returns to the show this week, and we’ll see what hard truths he has to add. This is not the time for sugar-coating, friends.

And politically, right here in Colorado, there’s a battle royal over who will be the next governor. Are Bob Beauprez and the Republicans winning or losing that one? Janet Rowland, Beauprez’s newly announced nominee for lieutenant governor, joins us for an update. (more…)

By Dave Petteys (dpetteys@comcast.net)

Though an unprecedented tragedy of mass murder out of London Heathrow was narrowly averted, we can count on a few things:

** The Moveon.org & Ned Lamonts of the world, unrepentant, will continue to advocate shutting down the surveillance and profiling that were essential in stopping this attack. They will continue their Alice in Wonderland reasoning that fighting terror is what’s causing it. It’s bit like saying pulling weeds out of your garden is what causes weeds to grow in the first place.

** In that most of those arrested were young Muslims of Pakistani origin, the Islamic groups will howl racial profiling and religious persecution.

** The Left wing bloggers and the Arab street will soon conclude it was all a conspiracy by George Bush and Tony Blair to embarrass Islam and scare the British and American people. (more…)

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com)

Oppressive heat and lack of sleep soften the edges of consciousness and blur the colors of memory. I have dreamy impressions of the four days I spent in Turkey this month, bordered on either side by the hard lines of travel. Together with four other Americans – one international expert and his wife, a retired educator; an education expert; and a representative from a higher education council – I arrived in Istanbul after four flights and little sleep. (more…)

By Dave Petteys (dpetteys@comcast.net)

“82 Days in Captivity” will be the 11-part account by journalist Jill Carroll about her ordeal in Baghdad earlier this year, starting Monday in the Denver Post. Ahead of the upcoming series, one wonders:

Doesn’t it seem that Ms. Carroll did her “captors’” bidding with far too much enthusiasm? Whining vociferously in the videos from behind her headscarf and glasses, scripted and on cue, she hardly conveyed the impression of a person in fear for her life.

Her uneventful release and return, her probable book contract, and her prompt entry onto the speaking circuit all heighten my curiosity into the circumstances of the so-called “kidnapping”. I wouldn’t be surprised if her book and speeches stressed the “humanity and legitimate grievances” of her captors, with the ostensible purpose of promoting “tolerance and understanding” of the terrorists: in other words, aiding and abetting our enemies.

This has the strong odor of a setup. Now that the Marines have apparently apprehended some of Ms. Carroll’s captors, it would be interesting to see what really happened. In an era where Reuters doctors photographs of the war to paint Israel in a more unfavorable light, what’s a little staged kidnapping in the process — if the agenda of the left wing press can be furthered?

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver
To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com
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“Cuba libre,” freedom for the long-oppressed islanders, was a slogan in the Caribbean over a century ago. It’s been a mere hope for the past half-century, as communist dictator Fidel Castro has ruled Cuba as one vast prison camp — aided by his brother Raul and the dead, semi-deified Che Guevara, and abetted by much of the mainstream media.

But now at last, with the ailing (perhaps already deceased?) Fidel having relinquished power to Raul, and the Latin American power equation in flux as Venezuela cozies up to Iran, freedom for the Cuban people takes on lively new possibilities.

“Backbone Radio with John Andrews” looks at the possibilities this Sunday. Humberto Fontova of New Orleans, Cuban-born and the author of Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant, returns to the show with an update. Jay Ambrose, columnist of the Rocky Mountain News, tells how his boyhood awe of Castro turned to revulsion. I hope you’ll be listening. (more…)

The case for term limits for judges

(John Andrews in the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 10) Americans’ concern with a court system out of control has simmered for decades, never coming to a boil. The perennial frustration with judges rewriting the laws and the Constitution is like Mark Twain’s comment on the weather–everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. That may be about to change in Colorado, if voters pass judicial term limits this fall.

Coloradans have long favored the principle that rotation in office can help curb the abuse of power. The state, along with Oklahoma, led the nation in 1990 by imposing term limits on the legislative and executive branches of state government; citizen initiatives later extended the limits to most local officials and to our congressional delegation–though the latter was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judicial term limits have not met a great deal of legislative success. Provisions instituting them for judges were part of an omnibus judicial reform that I was unable to get past a Republican state Senate in 1999 and 2004. Impeachment proceedings against a constitution-flouting judge also failed in a Republican House in 2004. And a proposal for recall of judges was killed by the Democratic Senate last year.

But this year, reformers have gathered petitions with about 108,000 signatures, and recently set up a November 2006 vote on “10 years and out” for justices of the Colorado Supreme Court and judges of the Court of Appeals. The ballot initiative will almost certainly be certified in the coming days. [Note: It was certified on August 10, going to the ballot as Amendment 40.] (more…)

(Press Release from Limit the Judges: Yes on 40) Carol Chambers, District Attorney for the 18th Judicial District, today announced her support for Amendment 40, the term limits initiative for 10 years’ maximum service on the Colorado Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

Chambers, a Republican, spoke at a State Capitol press conference. She was elected in 2004 as chief prosecutor for the district including Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert, and Lincoln Counties. She noted that district attorneys are themselves subject to a term limit of eight years.

At the same press conference, Michael Laden of Conifer announced that he and other attorneys are helping organize a group supporting passage of Amendment 40, to be known as Lawyers for Limits. He said the Colorado Bar Association’s opposition to the measure was determined without member input and does not speak for all lawyers. (more…)

By Dave Petteys (dpetteys@comcast.net)

A recent article in the London Times discusses how British schools will now no longer teach right from wrong. Initially, teaching moral values was considered the province of the family. But in an age of latch-key kids and two-earner households, schools have assumed the role. They teach secular moral relativism and moral equivalency as THE only philosophy of life that has merit, ridiculing traditional Christian values.

Recently, two American soldiers were kidnapped and beheaded without a peep from the media. The rhetorical question: “Where was the outrage, considering the fuss at Abu Ghraib?” The answer is more than the media’s agenda to undermine the Administration’s efforts in the Middle East. It also has to do with this moral relativist vacuum.

There is a massive assault on Western Civilization by Islam. The news is greeted with a yawn and a “whatever!” The last two generations of Americans have been taught by the Left that our unique gift of liberty and prosperity is to be taken for granted and that it is no better than any other society. Barbarous depredations by Islamists are greeted with moral equivalency: “well, we did the same thing to them 500 years ago, so you can’t blame them!” The current greatest virtue is “tolerance and understanding”, not exactly an overriding principle that inspires people to give their lives. Images of violence make little impression on a generation weaned on violent video games. One can always go “Game Over” and exit to the refrigerator.

On one side, we have the Islamists who would give the world the choice “convert or die!” On the other side are free men of faith that will fight! The secularists are caught in an unsustainable middle, not really understanding the problem, mistakenly believing they can opt out.

(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Aug. 6) Thought police on patrol: it’s not a pretty sight. To me it’s un-American. And when the insult to freedom is compounded by injury to opportunity, because leaders won’t face facts, it’s downright tragic.

Sadly, that’s where things stand right now in the kangaroo court case of The Status Quo vs. Richard Lamm. The former Democratic governor is guilty of “hate” and “racial profiling” according to Sen. Ken Salazar and ex-Sen. Gary Hart. He’s condemned by black legislator Terrance Carroll for “demonizing” and by Hispanic clergy leader Butch Montoya for “extremism.”

Republican state chairman Bob Martinez charges Dick Lamm with making “bigoted remarks… inciting fear and suspicion and distrust.” Bruce DeBoskey of the Anti-Defamation League says Lamm’s comments will “lead to greater prejudice.” “Hard-core racist,” says Latino activist Veronica Barela. Offensive to Dr. King’s memory, adds black pastor Paul Burleson. Slaps America in the face, summarizes Sen. Salazar. (more…)