Mitt Romney apparently isn’t making himself available to real journalists in Colorado, in advance of Tuesday’s GOP caucus, but he called into conservative talk-radio shows today, where, predictably, he found a copasetic environment, free of annoying follow-up questions.

That’s unfortunate, because Romney said a few things that deserve a closer look by reporters, if they ever get access to Romney.

On KOA’s Mike Rosen this morning, Romney suggested that he didn’t like the insurance mandate that was included in the Massachusetts health care bill, and he would have vetoed it in favor of offering tax breaks to people with insurance.

Romney told Rosen:

“In one important respect, the incentive to get people to have insurance in our state was associated with a penalty, which is if you don’t have insurance, you have to help pay the cost of your health care in our state. I would’ve rather given a, if you will, a benefit — a tax break — to people who had insurance. So you’d give people a, if you will, a positive, as opposed to a negative. When you do that you accomplish the same objective, which is to get people insured and have people take responsibility for their own health care.”

Romney said, “There were a number of features in the [MA] health care bill I vetoed, and those vetoes were all overridden by a legislature which is 85 percent Democrat.”

Romney has tried to separate himself from the mandate before, though you may not believe it given that it’s central to the Massachusetts policy.

But as this New Yorker article shows, and others have documented, Romney agreed with the policy and sold it.

Romney’s appearance on the Cari and Rob Show, with hosts Rob Douglas and Cari Hermacinski, was similarly pleasant for Romney, with a few questions that were leading toward difficult territory but went nowhere with no follow-up questions asked from two conservative hosts who’ve asked tough questions of Rep. Scott Tipton in the past.

Romney trashed Obama’s entire economic record, literally “everything” Obama has done for the economy, despite this morning’s news that unemployment is heading toward a three-year low.

“I’m delighted that we’re seeing some job growth finally,” Romney told Douglas and Hermacinski. “It’s taken a long, long time. This has been the slowest recovery since Hoover, and one of the reasons it’s been so slow is because this president has frankly done everything wrong when it relates to building an economy. [BigMedia emphasis].

Douglas and Hermacinski might have asked Romney if he supported extending unemployment insurance or cutting the payroll tax, or some itty bitty thing Obama did, but alas, nothing like this flowed from the two hosts.

I hoped Craig Silverman on KHOW would have the courage to ask uncomfortable questions of Romney, like he did of Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck in 2010. But his questions, like should Colorado host the Olympics and does the GOP want pro-choice voters, were easy for Romney. Dan Caplis, Silverman’s co-host, was his usual GOP-mouthpiece self.

So, Romney’s apparent plan of talking to friendly radio hosts in Colorado, and avoiding journalists, paid off this time, though I hold out hope for Silverman and Cari and Rob, if he tries it again.

Ironically enough, Scott Tipton is refusing invitations from Douglas to appear on his show, which is known for its Tea-Party bent, but that didn’t scare off Romney or Sal Pace or Rick Santorum, and others who’ve been on Cari and Rob Show recently.

You wonder where that puts Scott Tipton.

I asked Douglas if he’d tried to land Tipton lately.

We’re very pleased that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Michael Reagan, Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Doug Lamborn, Sal Pace and many others are coming on our program to speak to our audience about the current campaigns and issues that are important to our audience. From the start, our goal has been to provide a venue for Coloradoans and others to have their voices heard and to hear from elected representatives and others who impact public policy.

To that end, we always welcome elected representatives and legitimate candidates on our program.

While we have not extended an invitation to Congressman Tipton recently, he is always welcome on our program and we expect he’ll want to speak with our audience between now and the time when he must stand before the voters in his district. Given Congressman Tipton’s interaction with our audience as both a candidate and as a elected representative over the last several years, we assume he knows he has a standing invitation from our program.

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog

Conservative talk radio is all aflutter about a trial underway in Florida to determine whether President Obama is eligible to appear on the election ballot there.

A Georgia law requires all candidates to prove they’re eligible for office, and this means presidential candidates must prove they’re U.S. citizens.

Such laws, now on the books in a handful of states, are the cutting edge tactic of the dregs of the birther movement, which will not accept that Obama is a U.S. citizen.

The case has a local connection in the name of John Sampson, a former immigration officer who retired in 2008 and also a candidate for Colorado Senate District 25, facing Sen. Mary Hodge.

Sampson told his story to an adoring audience on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado on Friday.

Sampson said on the radio that he was retained by a leader of the birther movement, Orly Taitz, whom he met in Lake Charles Illinois in November 2009, to investigate President Obama’s Social Security number, and he determined that Obama’s Social Security number was issued to a Connecticut resident in March of 1977.

Sampson tried hard but can’t find evidence that Obama was a citizen of Connecticut, ever.

“Why is [Obama] utilizing a Social Security number that was issued to somebody who was apparently living in Connecticut at the time it was issued?” Sampson asked on KLZ Friday.

Sampson flew to Georgia to present his evidence at the administrative court hearing, compelled, he says, by a subpoena to do so. He testified in court that there is “credible evidence to warrant further investigation” into Obama’s Social Security number and birth certificate. He also testified that he’d investigate Obama’s passport history.

Sampson was in court when another person who was subpoenaed failed to appear. That would be Obama, whose lawyers contend the President is under no legal obligation to testify. 

As a souvenir for his trip to Georgia, Sampson got his photo in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a step up from the publicity he’s used to getting in the birther underground. He makes an appearance in Jerome Corsi’s Where’s the Birth Certificate, for example, he said on the radio. (See a video of Sampson testifying in Georgia here.)

Asked on Grassroots Radio Colorado why the birth certificate released last year by Obama did not put the matter to rest, Sampson responded by saying another expert at the hearing said birth certificate was fake.

Sampson also said his own research raised “concerns” about the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate, as well as Obama’s Social Security number.

“I’m not prepared to tell you whether he was born in the United States, not born in the United States,” Sampson stated on KLZ. “I’m not what you would consider a birther, per se. This is an issue of constitutionality. This is an issue of whether or not the provisions of the Constitution requiring a natural-born citizen to be President of the United States have been violated or not.”

Hmmmm. I wondered what he meant when he said, “I’m not a birther, per se.” But the radio hosts weren’t thinking along the same lines, and KHOW’s Peter Boyles, who’s sharp as a knife on this issue, and proud of it, wasn’t there to clarify things.

In any case, Sampson explained on the radio that the Georgia hearing continued without Obama. The administrative law judge is scheduled to rule Feb. 5 on whether the sitting President meets Georgia’s citizenship requirements, and at that point, the Georgia Secretary of State will determine if he’s eligible to appear on the ballot–again.

Asked by a caller, who turned out to be yet another conservative talk show host, Jimmy Sengenberger, whether the birth-certificate issue was worth raising, with unemployment and other issues plaguing the country, Sampson pointed out he was hired to investigate the Social Security number and subpoenaed.

Sampson also said: “I am a very firm believer in the Constitution. In June of 1981, I raised my right hand for the first time of many and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And to paraphrase what Lt. Col. Allen West has said, that oath did not come with a statute of limitations or with an expiration date. And that’s the only reason I’m involved in this. I have not and do not have sufficient evidence that would warrant me to make a statement as to whether or not he is eligible or not eligible.”

This satisfied Sengenberger and the Grassroots Radio guys, who told Sampson he was 100 percent behind him.

But would you be satisfied? I thought a birther was someone who doesn’t believe Obama is a citizen. That’s what Sampson is saying when he testifies that he doesn’t know if the President is a citizen. Same thing. A birther.

I mean, the entire birther movement is about not being satisfied with the citizenship documentation provided by Obama. Where’s the birth certificate?

That’s exactly what our own John Sampson is saying.

And when the birth certificate is produced, you have to guess, though we don’t know for sure, that Sampson, like his fellow birthers, will find some other reason not to know for sure if Obama is one of us.

Denver blogger and radio host Ross Kaminsky leaves will leave Backbone Radio, aired on KNUS and KZNT, to host a Sunday KOA show that will “frequently” pre-empted by sports. Jimmy Sengenberger, a fellow conservative who hosted a show at Regis University, is interim Backbone host.

Kaminsky, who once blogged on the Denver Post’s “Gang of Four” website, was careful, in announcing his show, to point out that you won’t find him on KOA every weekend:

“The show will frequently be pre-empted in whole or in part by sports programming,” Kaminsky wrote, “as KOA is the voice of the Colorado Rockies, the Denver Broncos, and the University of Colorado ‘Buffs.’ (I have a feeling that a Broncos game is slightly more profitable for the station than the Ross Kaminsky Show will be, if just barely.)

So, I won’t be on the air (at least not on Sundays) during most of football season, and during much of baseball season the show will either be pre-empted entirely or else will run just an hour or two. (Frankly, as much as I love being on the air, especially on ‘the blowtorch,” this schedule is perfect for me as it will allow me to talk to you – my listeners, readers and friends – for much of the year but also allow me some full weekends to spend with my wife and family.)”

I’ve always thought Jon Caldara was wasting his time, in terms of advancing his political agenda, by spending three hours a day, from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., doing his KOA talk radio show.

You’d think he could find a better way to advance evil for three hours every do, wouldn’t you?

Now Caldara, who’s the President of the libertarian Independence Institute, will have those three hours back, since KOA terminated his radio talk show, in favor of a faceless national feed.

I asked Caldara if he thought the radio show was the best use of his time. (He’s said it didn’t pay much.)

“Talk radio is complimentary to what I do as an activist,” he said. “There’s a synergy.”

I asked for specifics on the synergy, but he couldn’t define it, except to say, “I learn more on talk radio than most things.”

I asked Caldara how big his audience was.

“The average size was about 230-250 pounds,” he said. “There’s a lot of fat asses listening to AM radio. What was great was the coverage, because it blasted around the western United States.”

As such, Caldara’s show amped up the right-wing buzz machine sometimes, and being a talk-show host might have shined up Caldara’s image a bit, making him part of the “media.” Maybe this impresses right-donors, but not sane people. They know blasting radio waves doesn’t win very often, which might be part of the reason the GOP likes to form circular firing squads, as Caldara likes to say.

I don’t mean to trash Caldara as a talk-show host. He was funny and pretty well informed without getting lost in the mud below the weeds. He connected well to his three listeners (four, if I checked in).

Too bad he didn’t have more guests on the radio, because his direct questions can be revealing.

This sounds a bit like I’m writing Caldara’s media obituary, which I’m not. Caldara still has his KBDI show, Devil’s Advocate, which should be interprested as literally “advocating for the devil,” as opposed to taking an opposing view. And Caldara has other media projects too, like Complete Colorado and the Colorado News Agency, that he controls at the Independence Institute.

I asked Caldara if  losing his slot on KOA would hurt him politically?

“I don’t think so,” he told me, “because my radio presence isn’t going to go away.” (He’ll be subbing for Rosen, Boyles, and others, and he’ll have a Sunday evening show on KHOW.  Plus he’s “entertaining offers from Playgirl” and “tweeting in his pants right now.”

Asked for the name of the KHOW show, Caldara replied, “Home Gardening Tips with Jon Caldara.”

Had enough? Maybe so if you hate Cadara’s political agenda, but these days, anytime we lose a local voice it’s bad. It’s a shame KOA dumped Caldara.

Sometimes one media outlet says one thing, another says something else, and you’re left saying, WTF.

That’s what happened last week when we heard different news about whether Rep. Robert Ramirez would back legislation this year reducing college tuition for some children of illegal immigrants. The bill is often referred to as a Colorado version of the Dream Act.

The Associated Press reported Monday that Ramirez might support the bill, as long as no tax money goes to students.  Ramirez was working with Democrats and  even writing amendments to try to pass the bill, according to the AP.

Then, on Thursday, three days later, Channel 8 in Grand Junction, delivered a different picture of Ramirez’s thinking. The “actual bill” would “give the right of a citizen to a noncitizen,” Ramirez was quoted as saying, and he opposes this.

Channel 8 mentioned nothing about Ramirez working on amendments, and the piece left you with the impression that Ramirez would definitely vote against the legislation, as he did last year.

He told Channel 8: “I have not seen the new bill, I just have heard what the changes are but they’re so minimal that I don’t think they’ll make a difference.”

So I called Ramirez to find out if he’d soured on the bill during the week, of if the media got something wrong.

He told me both AP and Channel 8 were accurate. How could that possibly be?

Ramirez says the phrase “in-state tuition” means, by definition, that government funds are included. So that’s why he told reporters only citizens should receive in-state tuition.

Ramirez favors tuition breaks for illegal-immigrant students, he told me, but he doesn’t want to call it “in-state tuition.”

“Charge them the actual expense,” he told me. “You don’t have to charge them the exorbitant out of state expense.”

But no matter how you define “in-state tuition,” illegal-immigrant students won’t get any tax money as part of their tuition reduction, under SB-15, which is this year’s version of the “Colorado Asset” bill. “Previous concepts” of this legislation did not remove all tax dollars from the tuition rate that would be offered to illegal immigrants, according a website promoting the bill. This year’s bill does this.

But Ramirez told me that his decision on whether to support Colorado Asset does not hinge solely on the issue of tax dollars. He said there are “other things,” but he didn’t specify what they are. He says he has not seen the bill yet.

Ramirez’s position on the Colorado Asset bill is under scrutiny not only because he could cast a critical vote on the State House education committee, as he did last year, but also because he’s Latino.

Ramirez says his Latino heritage is irrelevant to how he’ll vote on the legislation. He told me he’s American and doesn’t want to “re-segregate” as a Hispanic.

He drives the point home by joking that he didn’t know he was “Latino” until he “started running for office.”

“Prior to that, I was just Bobby Ramirez,” he said on Art Carlson’s online radio program last May 14.

“All of a sudden, it’s a big deal that I’m Hispanic,” he told me. “But I consider myself an American.”

Perhaps it’s this perception of himself that makes him unconcerned about some racial slurs toward Hispanics.

Asked about a story he told on the radio about being called a “wetback” when he was a child, he said:

“I don’t care if someone calls me [a wetback].  I don’t think it’s appropriate. It’s a slur. But I’m not offended by it. It doesn’t bother me. To me that shows your ignorance.”

Ramirez says he’s “very proud to be Hispanic,” as he told the AP in the article Monday.

Not that he thinks Hispanic culture is perfect. He told Carlson in May that some in Mexico are the “nicest people in the world.” But he also said:

“But god forbid [when you are in Mexico] you talk to somebody from Puerto Rico, because they are just horrible people, and they [Mexicans] won’t have anything to do with them. So they are the most divisive group of people. We still fight each other. It’s amazing.”

“Depending on how much money you make, and what part of Mexico you are from, and your bloodline, [Mexicans] are vile to each other,” he said.

Ramirez, whose father is a Mexican immigrant, told Carlson that illegal immigrants are lazy.

“I don’t blame them for trying to come here,” he said. “What I do blame them for is when they get here, they’ve gotten here illegally and expect everything for free. They don’t want to work for it.”

Still, Ramirez understands why companies want to hire Mexicans at a lower wage, and he wants to help them employ Mexicans to work legally in the U.S. by setting up an employment office in Mexico. Responding to a caller on Carlson’s, Ramirez said:

“Or let’s just open up an employment office on the other side of the border. You know? For any of these companies that want to hire people at the lower wage, they go through this employment company who makes sure all the paperwork is processed correctly in the United States, before somebody comes in here. There’s a lot of things we can do that will make enough little changes than can fix our problems. It’s just that nobody is willing to step up and say it or do it.”

Carlson, a conservative, didn’t respond to Ramirez with the how-dare-you-propose-draining-American-jobs line that you might expect from a conservative. Maybe that’s because Ramirez told Carlson stuff like, “Our laws and lawmakers, and the people of this country, are trying to make it easy for everyone in this country but Americans.”

Still, if I were Carlson, I’d want to know how that sentiment squares with what Ramirez told the New York Times back in October:

“We can’t pretend the Latino vote doesn’t exist. It’s time we became the party of inclusion.”

Asked about this, Ramirez said, “I think some kind of compromise  [on Colorado's Asset legislation] is part of making the GOP the party of inclusion.”

Talk-radio host Michael Brown, of Heck’ve-a-job Brownie fame, felt no need whatsoever to challenge Rep. Mike Coffman Tues. as Coffman explained to Brown that America should have an “active counter-intelligence effort, to make sure that our [military] ranks are not infiltrated by those sympathetic to radical Islam.”

Coffman told Brown, who was filling in for Mike Rosen on KOA, that the United States has “got to do a vetting of people, a counter-intelligence, the same that we did during the Cold War and an acknowledgement that we are at war today with an ideology, and it’s cloaked in a religion called radical Islam.”

“We need that same mentality today, to have that active counter-intelligence effort, to make sure that our ranks are not infiltrated by those sympathetic to radical Islam, like Major Hasan [Fort Hood], like Private First Class Abdo. And I think that is very important. And I think that it would also help Muslim Americans who are serving, because then those soldiers, Marines, and airmen, serving alongside of them would understand that they have been vetted and that they can be trusted,” Coffman told Brown.

I had a inkling that vetting members of the armed forces, based on their religious affiliation, didn’t sound kosher in terms of the U.S. Constitution. Criminal activities I can see, but religious?

So I did what Brownie should have done, and I asked the ACLU of Colorado what it thought:

“Everyone is free to worship in this country as they choose,” Rosemary Harris Lytle, Communications Director of the ACLU of Colorado, emailed me when asked to respond to Coffman’s statement. “We also have the freedom to not choose any religion. Regardless, Article 6 of the Constitution says: ‘No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States’ — and the ACLU of Colorado would argue that this would extend to military personnel. Religious freedom is one of America’s most fundamental liberties, and a central principle upon which our nation was founded. Unfortunately, though, throughout America’s history, almost every religious group has been the target of discrimination at one point or another. Tolerance and fairness have generally prevailed, but only after principled voices have transcended prejudice and hatred. We would hope that Rep. Coffman would hear those principled voices which echo not only fairness but the spirit and letter of the Constitution itself.”

I asked Brownie if he was concerned about the civil liberties of Muslims serving in the military.

“No,” Brownie emailed back. “America is at war with radical Islam and nothing in the Constitution would prohibit this kind of inquiry, any more than inquiries by the FBI, CIA, DoD, DoE, NSA or other departments and agencies through which I had TS/SCI clearances violated my Constitutional rights by making inquiries regarding activities which would have precluded me from receiving those clearances…. all military personnel should be “vetted” similar to those who seek clearances.  If they don’t meet a comparable standard they should not be permitted to serve in the military.  Just as we have physical requirements we can Constitutionally impose counter-intelligence standards which could preclude someone, including a U.S. citizen, from serving in the military.”

Miguel Ali Hasan, the award-winning film maker who ran for State Treasurer in 2010 and has defended Muslims against bigoted attacks, pointed out via email:

“Of the 56 Muslim countries out there, 53 of them have worked as our allies, in sharing intelligence against Al-Qaida and/or arresting terrorists,” Hasan emailed me in response to my query. ” Muslims, especially American Muslims, are our finest ally and weapon within the War On Terror. There are tens of thousands of American Muslims serving in our U.S. Armed Forces today, coupled with the plethora of Muslim countries that are helping us – help which didn’t come as a result of silly ‘affirmations,’ but through trust and cohesion. Congressman Coffman is terribly misguided if he is going to allow the actions of one lunatic (Nadel Hasan) tarnish America’s best weapon within the War On Terror.”

Coffman told Brown that vetting Muslims in the U.S. military would actually help develop trust in the military and help Muslims from becoming “radicalized.”

“And also it would prevent Muslim Americans from becoming radicalized once they are in the military because of the fact that they would be trusted because they have been vetted…. I served in ground combat units in both the United States Army and Marine Corps. And those relationships between the soldiers and Marines on the ground is basically developing an interdependent bond and trust. And if that trust isn’t there, my concern is that, if you have Muslim-American soldiers and Marines, that they are going to be alienated by virtue of the fact that they are not vetted under the current system, and there rises questions about trust. And that could lead to alienation of those soldiers and Marines. And through that there could be an attraction to becoming radicalized.”

I asked Brownie why he didn’t challenge Coffman on this extreme proposal.

“I’m wondering why you call it an “extreme” proposal,” he responded. “It is not extreme, it is practical and reasonable under the circumstances.”

Coffman told Brownie he had nothing against Muslims.

“I am not against Muslim Americans,” Coffman said. “Let me tell you. I served in Iraq with the United States Marine Corps and Muslim Americans served in the military and served with distinction there and were important to our war effort.”

Back in November of last year, Coffman went further, stating on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show that Muslims in the U.S. military “would welcome being vetted so that their fellow soldiers knew, and Marines knew on the ground, that they had no sympathies to radical Islam.” [Listen to the audio here.]

And guess what. Coffman walked away from that radio show, too, unruffled, as if he had said something that was completely in step with the core American value of religious freedom.

Coffman on KOA’s Mike Rosen Show Dec. 13, 2011:

Coffman on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman Show Nov. 24, 2010:

Read (or listen here) how 560-AM KLZ’s Ken Clark said good bye to his listeners, including me, last night:

You know ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a great show. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been very, very interesting. But I cannot stress enough that we need to get involved. We all need to get involved…. We need to become evangelical about this. We are in the fight of our lives. The Democrats, the liberals, the progressives, they lie. They are lying to you. It’s going to get a lot worse. You have got to study the issues. You have got to get involved. There are a ton places to go do that…They cannot win in a battle of ideas, because we always have the right ideas. On a national level, they cannot beat us in a battle of ideas. So they are going to lie. They are going to spend over a billion dollars in the next year, lying to you, making you believe that they are the good guys. They are not. Pure unadulterated evil. They are progressives. They are socialists. They have got to be defeated at all costs. This is Ken Clark, as always, good night, Colorado.

I sent the following email to Clark this morning. I’ll post any reply I get in its entirety.

Dear Ken:

You’ve make a big deal out of Rep. Amy Stephens calling you Tea Party people “anarchists.” I don’t blame you on that. It’s rude.

But now look what you’re doing, basically one upping her, calling people like me lying evil doers. I’m not evil, Ken. Ask my kids (on good days). Ask my friends. Ask people who’ve worked with me, conservatives even. Ask my Republican mother-in-law.

Maybe I’ve done an evil thing or two, but I’m a lot like you insofar as I try to figure out what’s right, and then do stuff, make things happen.

And you know what; I actually admire you for your activism. I’m not lying. I wish more people got involved, even if they join the Tea Party. Apathy is killing your side and mine.

And you can’t blame apathetic people for being apathetic if they stumble on your show and hear you  say you “always have the right ideas.” Are you kidding? I admire your passion, truly. I felt that way too when I was a kid. But please, do you really believe that? I don’t think you do.

You Tea Party people are losing ground because the word leaks out, from Congress down to your show, that you think you’re always right and you think those who disagree with you represent “unadulterated evil.”

How about we have a cup of coffee? I promise I won’t poison you. I’ll buy it, as a tiny sign of my non-evilness. Let me know if you’re up for it.

Jason

You learn lots of little things when you listen to talk radio, and many of them you could do without knowing, like lawyer Dan Caplis’ assessment of Tim Tebow’s football skills.

But other small stuff catches your attention, like the fact that Colorado Attorney General John Suthers wants everyone to have health insurance.

You might think Suthers is the last person in Colorado who wants universal coverage, given that he’s pushing a lawsuit to stop Obamacare.

But that’s what he told KNUS morning host Steve Kelley Nov. 18:

SUTHERS: The founders never envisioned the federal government would be in the healthcare business. The individual mandate requiring every individual to buy insurance is premised, Congress said, on their Commerce Power, their power to regulate commerce among several states. In fact, the Commerce Power has been broadly construed to allow Congress to essentially regulate any economic activity that impacts interstate commerce. But therein lies the rub: this would be the first time in history that Congress will be reaching out to every individual American and saying we are going to punish you for your economic inactivity. For not engaging in commerce because your failure to do so impacts the marketplace by imposing burdens on other people who do buy insurance.

KELLEY: But aren’t they assuming [Obamacare] is for our own good though? Really, the betterment of everyone.

SUTHERS: Well, that’s right and that is kind of the typical liberal response. And that is what I get most. Gee, this is a good thing. And indeed it is. We want everybody to have insurance. [BigMedia emphasis]

So, how do we get everyone covered, like Suthers wants?

Why Steve Kelley didn’t ask him is beyond me, because it’s the most basic follow up question you can think of for anyone who trashes Obamacare in one breath and says they want the 44 million uninsured Americans to have health insurance in the next.

Now back to the little things you learn on talk radio.

Back in February, Suthers told KOA’s Mike Rosen that the states can require citizens to buy health insurance, not the feds:

SUTHERS: The state can exercise any power that the citizens don’t deprive them of in the Constitution. So unless you put a provision in the state constitution saying the state couldn’t force you to buy auto insurance or health insurance…that was one that we just voted on that in November, that’s what that was all about. Then the state can force you to do that.

You might wonder if I was mistakengly quoting Mitt Romney not John Suthers, because he’s been saying Romneycare is well and good for Massachusetts, but Obamacare is sick and bad for America.

And if you’re thinking that Suthers must have been talking to Romney, you might be right, because Suthers backed Romney in 2008 and remains on the Romney train to this day. Suthers didn’t endorse Romneycare, as far as I know, but he seems open to it, and it’s a question Kelley should keep in mind for next time.

Skip this if you’re one of those people who won’t read blog posts about the latest outrageous comments on right-wing talk radio, because they’re just the latest outrageous comments on right-wing talk radio.

But read on if you want a window into what hate looks like, and you want to call it out.

You may remember my post in October about  KENN radio host Sean Jeremy Osborn’s suggestion that the entire population of Iran is like a cancer and should be killed.

Now Osborn is angry at Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. My guess is that Osborne has some underlying issues here, because you’d never think Brazile’s comment about the meaning of vegetables on pizza would set off a explosion of rage from Osborne.

You can speculate for yourself about what’s really bothering Osborn after I explain what happened.

On CNN’s “The Situation Room” Nov. 14, host Wolf Blitzer read to Brazile the following comment by GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, and Blitzer asked Brazile if she had a “problem” with it:

“The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe, the more manly he is…. A manly man don’t want it piled high with vegetables…. He would call that a sissy pizza.”

Brazile’s response to Blitzer:

“Herman Cain clearly has a ‘women’s problem.’ He doesn’t know how to address women. He doesn’t know how to respect women, and now he’s making this comment about, bring on more toppings.”

Osborn played this exchange on his “Painful Truth” radio show and started screaming.

“Seriously, Donna, you’re going to go there? It’s an advertising-marketing thing designed to reach men. Men like meat on their pizza, you stupid female dog…It doesn’t mean Herman Cain is insensitive to women… It means men like meat on their damn pizza….I am ready to start busting walls in this room. Donna Brazile…you are a magnificently ignorant slut. There, how’s that for disparaging to women, you dumb female dog…you stupid retard.”

There’s more, and you can listen to below. Osborn starts off by saying that the exchange reflects hypocrisy in journalism. hmmm?

You’re thinking, who cares what an apparent right-wing nut says on a small radio station in the four corners area.

I do because, hey, KENN may be small, but it still reaches the good people in multiple cities like Durango and Cortez. It’s also owned by American General Media, which appears to have at least one other station in California.

So Osborn, who hasn’t returned past emails, because, he says I’ll  take his comments out of context, as if this were possible, should explain his behavior to his bosses and the people of these communities. Contact KENN here.

Listen to Osborn here:

My search for an explanation from Scott Gessler about why he’s been telling the media there’s actual “fraud” in Colorado elections bore a bite of fruit last night, when I asked him about his allegations.

I respect Gessler for answering my question, even though a crowd of people was waiting in line to speak with him after his lecture at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute.

I identified myself as a “liberal blogger,” and he hesitated but still responded.

I asked him about his statement, on a radio show in September, that there was actual fraud among mail ballots returned by inactive voters in Denver.

He said he was “not quite sure” he made this statement about the last election. He didn’t. He was referring to the 2009 municipal election, but the same question applies: Was there actual fraud, like he said?

In the radio interview, Gessler said there was a “pretty high incidence of fraud” in Denver’s 2009 election among ballots returned by inactive voters. Listen to Gessler’s Sept. 30 radio statement here.

Regarding 2009, Gessler told me last night:

Gessler: I think if you look at Denver, though, you’ll see in 2009, for a large number of folks, the signatures didn’t match. I think that’s an indicium of fraud, right there, when the signatures don’t match.

Jason: It’s an indication of fraud, but you wouldn’t say that it’s fraud, would you?

Gessler: I said it’s an indicium of fraud. It very well may be. It’s not been fully investigated, to my knowledge.

After Gessler alleged fraud in Denver elections in September, Denver’s Clerk and Recorder denied the accusation, and the head of the Secretary of State’s election division later testified that he was not aware of any fraud relating to ballots mailed to inactive voters.

No talk show host or reporter that I know of asked Gessler what actual factual fraud he was talking about, so I tried to fill in the gap and ask his office, but I got no comment. Until last night.

Last week, Gessler made another vague statement to a reporter in Pueblo that some mail-in ballots are fraudulent. And during his election campaign in 2010, Gessler implied illegal behavior on the part of Denver election officials.

I’d liked to have asked Gessler more questions about his allegations, but he didn’t want to discuss it further, as you can see from the transcript of my interview here.

The biggest question in my mind is, but why in the world would a Secretary of State, who’s gotta respect America’s democratic ideals even more than the rest of us, play fast and loose with the F word?

I’m sorry if this sounds all high-minded, but does Gessler understand the damage he’s potentially doing by making people think their election system, upon which we base our imperfect but respectable system of self government, is rotting around the edges, sprinkled with fraud, if not laced with it?

I can’t think of a more serious accusation a Secretary of State could make, and I’m hoping to talk more with him about why he does this, with nothing but speculation to back him up.