I reported Saturday that Secretary of State Scott Gessler was on the Mike Rosen Show April 8, and he had some harsh things to say about The Denver Post.

Asked by Rosen about The Post’s request to review Gessler’s list of 4,947 people who could possibly have voted illegally in recent years, as well as the 106 people Gessler believes are likely to be actual illegal voters, Gessler said:

“It’s just crazy to publish people’s names. I mean, I can’t even believe The Denver Post even asked for that. I mean, they want to get the names of these people and then start calling them. I don’t know if they want to post them on their website and publish the names as well. If you have someone who’s suspected of being a noncitizen and improperly voting, the last thing you do is immediately publish their name publicly and try to embarrass and humiliate them. I’m not in that type of business. I’m just amazed, and it’s not just The Denver Post, I mean, the Huffington Post as well, and I think there’s another newspaper too, and they wanted names of people so they could start calling them and publishing their names.”

I speculated Saturday that Gessler had apparently assumed The Post planned to publish these names. But maybe that’s what The Post told his office?

I mean, I was pretty sure The Post wouldn’t want to mindlessly embarrass and humiliate people. But I thought I’d check.

So I emailed Nancy Lofholm, the Post reporter who wrote that she asked Gessler’s spokesperson for his lists of names.

She sent me a response from her editor, Chuck Murphy:

“Thanks for the opportunity to respond. At no time did we ever even contemplate simply publishing a list of names. We are interested solely in reporting on whether these individuals are former green card holders who have since become citizens and lawful voters, as immigrant rights advocates surmise, or unlawful voters as Secretary Gessler has implied to both the US Congress and the Colorado General Assembly.

Had Secretary Gessler or his staff ever asked whether we intended to publish all the names with no effort at verification of citizenship status, I would have happily told them no.”

Lofholm wrote:

“We wanted to find proof that there are illegal voters in Colorado – or proof that Gessler’s fears about these voters are unfounded. We thought that next step should be taken given that proposed legislation hinges on numbers that thus far have not been corroborated by looking at individual cases.”

So it turns out, as you probably suspected, that all The Post was trying to do was get the facts are on the table, so lawmakers and the rest of us could make informed decisions about what should be done.

As it is, not even Gessler is willing to say definitively that a single person on his long list voted illegally. If The Post could review Gessler’s lists and dispose of even a tiny bit of the pervasive uncertainty that’s underlying Gessler’s numbers, it would just be doing its job, helping clarify the debate, which you’d think would please Secretary Gessler.

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog

Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s spokesperson, not Gessler himself, spoke to The Denver Post for a story Thursday reporting that Gessler doesn’t need legislative approval to make sure noncitizens aren’t voting in Colorado elections.

But Gessler found time Friday to join Mike Rosen on KOA radio for a friendly chat on his radio show about the article.

Rosen said The Post story read more like a editorial than a news story, though he never proved this, and he asked Gessler about some of the points raised in it.

He started by asking if Gessler was familiar with the studies, referred to in The Post, which show that noncitizens don’t vote illegally in significant numbers, because the penalties (e.g., deportation, 10-year prison term) are so severe that voting isn’t worth it to them.

“You know, I’m not familiar with these studies,” answered Gessler. “I’m sure they dug something up. But I can tell you something. That conclusion is absolutely untrue. In Colorado alone, in the last few years, we had over 150 people who were noncitizens who were registered to vote. Some of them actually voted. And then they withdrew their registration. They voluntarily realized that they had goofed up, and they withdrew their registration. So, I mean, that’s absolutely untrue, that conclusion in this news story.”

Rosen did not ask Gessler why he wasn’t familiar with the studies, given that he’s launched a time-consuming initiative to stop the very problem that the studies claim is not significant.

Neither did Rosen ask Gessler if he’s sure the 150 weren’t citizens by the time they voted, of why Gessler’s not working with county clerks make sure noncitizens are not voting.

Rosen then asked Gessler whether Rep. Charles Gonzales (D-TX) was correct when he told Gessler that Gessler’s claims were unsupported and his case about illegal voting would not hold up under legal scrutiny.

“Well, that’s just silly,” Gessler told Rosen. “I would suggest that people go up there and look at the exchange between myself and Congressman Gonzales. And he said, you can’t prosecute someone on this evidence. And I said, of course not. That’s not why we’re doing this. I’m not looking to prosecute people. This is an investigative tool. We’re looking to administratively make sure that our voting roles are clean. I mean, I started off as a prosecutor. And I think at the end of the day Gonzales looked a little bit silly with his questioning.”

Rosen told Gessler that The Post reported that Gessler does not need legislative approval to investigate whether noncitizens are voting.

“Well, that’s really sort of interesting,” said Gessler. The backdrop behind that, I went into The Denver Post editorial board, and they sort of beat me up during the interview, and they said, why don’t you just do this already, and I explained the legal framework.  And their editorial the next day was, this was a power grab by Gessler. First they suspected I should just do it. Then they called it a power grab. And now they are reporting, as a matter of fact, that I have the tools to do it. So, I guess I should take that article and go forward and do whatever I want.”

Gessler implies here that he does not, in fact, have the power to identify noncitizens on the voter rolls, as The Post claims he does.

To his credit, Rosen followed up with a direct question: “Do you think you have the tools to do it?”

“You know, it’s ambiguous,” said Gessler. “We may, but there’s couple areas here. You have the civil rights aspect of it. You’ve got the privacy of information. And in part, that’s why we have not done anything right now, because we get this information from the Department of Motor Vehicles, and we really have to keep that stuff private. There’s a lot of rules governing that, too. And then, of course, you have the controversy of reaching out to people and asking for more evidence and placing them in a suspended status or if you have clear evidence that they are not citizens, removing them from the roles. So there’s a legal thicket here, and we’re working our way through it. My thumb in the air, not thumb in the air, but our initial analysis is pretty ambiguous. And so I think there’s a pathway where we can do that [BigMedia emphasis], but I’d much rather have legislative authority and just clear things up and go forward and do it.”

So, it took a while, but Gessler confirmed the thesis of The Post’s piece.

Rosen asked Gessler about The Post’s assertion that Gessler would not provide the names of the 4,947 people who, according to Gessler, may have voted illegally.

“It’s just crazy to publish people’s names,” said Gessler, apparently without knowing whether The Post actually planned on publishing them. “I mean, I can’t even believe The Denver Post even asked for that. I mean, they want to get the names of these people and then start calling them. I don’t know if they want to post them on their website and publish the names as well. If you have someone who’s suspected of being a noncitizen and improperly voting, the last thing you do is immediately publish their name publicly and try to embarrass and humiliate them. I’m not in that type of business. I’m just amazed, and it’s not just The Denver Post, I mean, the Huffington Post as well, and I think there’s another newspaper too, and they wanted names of people so they could start calling them and publishing their names.”

Rosen went on to day that “the game that The Denver Post is playing here is the Joe McCarthy card…This is what The Post is trying to do to you: ‘Gessler claims 4,947 people voted illegally. I want their names. We want to know who they are.’”

Rosen made a mistake here, smearing The Post really, because The Post never made this claim. It accurately reported Gessler’s statement that 4,947 legal immigrants may have voted illegally.

Overall, as you can see, Rosen was off his game with Gessler on his show Friday.

Normally, Rosen’s show is much better than many conservative shows, and even Friday, Rosen, who’s smart and sometimes reasonable (even if he’s at times a gratuitous bully) asked a few decent questions.

But the Mike Rosen Show did not deserve to be named “Best Talk Radio Show” for 2011 by Westword. That honor should have gone to the Caplis and Silverman show, which arguably played a role in changing the course of Colorado history last year.

Ross Kaminky’s “Backbone Radio” may have a silly name, but the show is often a good place to find conservatives airing out their differences in an intelligent fashion.

Kaminsky has guests with different views, mostly nuances of conservative opinion, but still. And Kamninsky himself, though usually falling in line with the GOP establishment, isn’t always predictable. And he’ll ask his guests uncomfortable questions.

For example, on his show Sunday, he interviewed Rep. Amy Stephens about SB 200, the insurance-exchange bill that now appears to be dead. He had a Tea Party activist on as well, in a different segment, to give his conservative audience red meat of various cuts.

But at the end of his interview with Stephens, Kaminsky decided to ask Stephens about the civil unions bill, which Republicans in a State House Committee killed in a party-line vote last week.

Stephens repeated her standard line on civil unions, which is that the issue should go to the ballot.

But then Kaminsky said to Stephens:

“I do think in the long run, I think this issue is going to end up hurting Republicans. I mean, not you and not where you live, but when we need to get independent voters, and we keep spending so much time on what looks like, you know, gay bashing, I think it’s bad news.”

Stephens essentially agreed with Kaminsky that issue will hurt Republicans.

“Oh, I hear you. I hear you. Right. And if you look at SB 200, the actual opposite could be said too, right. Will it hurt you in a conservative district where TPs [vote in larger numbers] and be great in Arapahoe or whatever.  These are the things you and I talk about. Is it good policy bad politics? I’m up there to try to craft something good, and work hard at it, and come up with solutions. You’re the same way. I mean, you’re a solution-oriented person. The politics are rough.”

This is the kind of honest debate that you can find on Kaminsky’s show sometimes.

Last week, state Sen. Greg Brophy (R-Wray) got on conservative radio and said parents of poor kids 1) use air conditioning, 2) smoke cigarettes, and 3) play Lotto, and 4) therefore they should pay more for their children’s state-subsidized medical care.

KOA’s Mike Rosen didn’t press Brophy on whether he thinks kids in poverty won’t get medical treatment under his proposal. So I called asked Brophy to find out.

I told him, let’s assume you’re right, that some number of people in poverty could come up with more money for their kids’ medical care.

But is Brophy willing to risk that some parents, not all of them, won’t pay the extra dough, and some number of our poorest kids will go untreated, get sick, and who knows what else will happen to them?

“I try to tell the truth and then tell you how I feel about it,” he tells me, emphasizing that he believes people “respond to incentives.”

“And I think they will make better choices with their health care, which means, yes, they won’t go quite as often. They won’t go to the emergency room for a runny nose as often. They will make much better choices with regard to that terribly expensive visit [to the ER].”

I had just spent an evening in the ER because brother, who has health insurance, thought he was having a heart attack (but didn’t). It was 3 a.m. and I was thinking, could this be more expensive? So Brophy’s point made some visceral sense. On the other hand, what if my brother actually had a heart attack? And what if he was a kid in poverty, and his parents decided not to take him because the co-payment was too high for them, even it’s an amount Brophy thinks they should be able to afford?

So I asked Brophy, what if a child from a poor family doesn’t get treated?

“That is terrible by the way, and everybody knows that,” he replied. “And I hope that doesn’t happen.”

I believed Brophy, but still, what if it happens?

“I trust that most of them would,” he said. “And I guarantee you that the people who are making their kids suffer for that, are making them suffer in all kinds other ways too.”

“I guess if they are so bad that they refuse to take care of their kids,” he said, “we do have solutions for that, too, that aren’t pleasant.  But it’s in the best interest of the children. That’s foster care. If they are as bad as you’re suggesting, that they just won’t take care of their kids.”

“I know we can’t continue to keep spending as much money as we’re spending on Medicaid, because no one has it.”

Setting aside the question of whether the world’s richest nation doesn’t have the money to pay for health insurance for its poorest kids, I did a bit of research and found that Colorado has Medicaid copayments of about $20 for ER visits, and small copayments (around $2-$6) for sick visits. There are variable annual enrollment fees for SCHIP, the federal children’s health insurance program, of about $35 for more than two kids. Some states charge more. Alabama charges $100. There are also variable co-pays capped at 5 % of income.

Here’s Brophy’s “back-of-the-envelope” calculation: “The average kid on Medicaid or SCHIP costs the state a little over 2,000 bucks per year.  Let’s get from them a $15 or $20 co-pay, which is a third or so of the cost of going to the doctor, and a little co-pay on medicine perhaps, again all as reasonable as you can make it, with participation fee from the SCHIP folks. Back of the envelope, $300 million is savings per year. And it puts us on the path toward sustainability with these programs. ”

But broadly speaking, does charging these kinds of co-payments (some of which may not be allowed under federal law) put kids at risk?

“It can be an absolute barrier for some parents,” said Adela Flores-Brennan of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, citing a study showing that a new $6 – $20 premium lowered the Oregon’s Medicaid rolls by nearly half.

“So that becomes cost-shifting, not cost savings,” Flores-Brennan said, “because we’re covering them in other ways. It also deters the preventative care that keeps people out of the emergency room and going to the doctor and seeking appropriate care.”

Over at the Independence Institute, Linda Gorman told me, “We don’t have good studies that show that kids don’t get good treatment just because they don’t have coverage. Don’t you dare portray us as saying we don’t want kids to have medical care. The question is, what’s the best way to do that?”

But should we be experimenting with cost savings on our country’s poorest children, when, at best, the debate is about conflicting studies and cost-shifting versus cost-savings, with even Sen. Brophy talking about a potential expansion of social services and foster care.

Why put kids at risk?

“There is a risk,” said Gorman. “But how much should we spend? Should we spend 10,000 per kid? I’m willing to have a discussion about the risk.”

Ok, sure, but I can think of a lot of other discussions that should happen first.

It’s been pointed out numerous times of late that those good protesters who dumped tea into Boston Harbor in 1773 weren’t against taxation. They wanted representation! Taxes, maybe, but let our elected leaders be the ones taxing us, please.

Fast forward about 238 years to Rep. Cheri Gerou Feb. 11, talking about taxes on KVNF community radio in Paonia.

Host Sally Kane asked Gerou about how Colorado will deal with its budget shortfall in the future, and whether tax increases could be “part of the picture.”

“It’s not my job,” answered Gerou, who sits on the Joint Budget Committee. “Tabor does not allow the Legislature to present tax increases. And it’s not my job.”

Not her job? That’s what the Boston Tea Party was all about, not to mention the American Revolution and the Egyptian one, etc.

Kane didn’t ask Gerou about the connection between taxation and representation, but she did present Gerou with a series of thoughtful questions illuminating the dual-track that reporting on the budget story should take.

First Kane asked about the current budget crisis and then about long-term solutions.

Asked about the future, Gerou said, “Way forward for me is to get through this budget cycle.”

Gerou added: “Nothing that they [the Fiscal Policy Institute] are talking about has anything to do with this budget cycle. We are required to cut the budget based on what the revenue forecasts are. We’re looking at a $1.2 billion deficit, and we have to do that. So, any other conversation about any other process is outside of the realm of what I have to deal with right now.”

Kane didn’t let Gerou, a Republican from Evergreen, deflect questions about tax increases with a simple, tax increases won’t solve our budget our problem now anyway.

Kane told Gerou: “I recognize that the current budget is on your plate at the moment, but there is a sense of where can we head beyond the short term, and that’s what I am trying to get at-.That was the point of my question, to find out what you personally can see ahead.”

“What I can see ahead is business is starting to recover,” Gerou said. “And what I can see ahead is companies are growing. And that’s the best thing because, quite honestly, business is what funds government. And I’m very heartened by the fact that the economy is going to improve and that we’re coming out of the recession, and that when the economy improves, revenue improves and government has more funding. So, that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Kane let Gerou go, but earlier in the same interview, Gerou told Kane that the next Legislature will be looking at a $700 million shortfall:

“If you look forward to the year after next, we’re looking at a $700 million shortfall for K through 12, to backfill K through 12,” Gerou said. “So, when we’re looking at all these budget deficits, it has to do with the amount of revenue that’s coming into the state.”

So how does this square with Gerou’s proposed “what-I-see-ahead-is-companies-growing” solution to the budget crisis? And her “when-the-economy-improves,-revenue-improves-and-government-has more-funding” vision that she’s “looking forward to.”

Colorado State Sen. Greg Brophy had a long cozy chat with KOA’s Mike Rosen today.

Agreement flowed everywhere, even on the issue of dealing with the budget deficit by potentially taking health care away from Colorado kids in poverty.

Brophy told Rosen that co-pays and premiums will likely be required for kids who now get free care in Colorado.

Rosen asked if this meant poor kids would go untreated.

Brophy didn’t answer the question, and instead said:

Well, that’s what the opponents of charging people will say, but I think when you look at it what we’re doing as a matter of public policy is we are allowing people who have their kids on Medicaid to spend their money on other things. For instance, the average Medicaid recipient is four times more likely to smoke than the average Coloradoan. So we’re paying for their kids’ health care, and they’re buying cigarettes instead. And I think if you look at the statistics, you’ll see that they are also much more likely to play the lottery. So instead of paying for their kids’ health care, they are playing in the lottery and buying cigarettes. Oh, and by the way, most of them have air conditioning. So instead of paying for their kids’ health care, they are paying for their air conditioning bills, and it goes on and on and on. I think they should put a little bit of skin in the game.

I thought I could see Rosen nodding, but then I realized I was listening to him on the radio, and I couldn’t see him.

So, all I know for sure was that Rosen was silent, and didn’t ask for evidence that children would, in fact, not get treated if Colorado began charging their parents.

He didn’t question Brophy’s sources or assumptions.

Perhaps a more inquisitive questioner will take up the mantle.

At 18:00 minutes during hour 3

Brophy: We have grown the number of people getting free health care in Colorado. We’re up to 550,000 kids on Medicaid or SCHIP in Colorado, and they pay effectively nothing for their health care. And I don’t think that’s right. Everybody should have a little skin in this game, and I think what we’re going to end up doing, then, is seeking real copays and maybe even a little bit of a premium payment out of people who are on Medicaid or SCHIP.

Rosen: …Does that mean that poor kids are going to go untreated?

Brophy: Well, that’s what the opponents of charging people will say, but I think when you look at it what we’re doing as a matter of public policy is we are allowing people who have their kids on Medicaid to spend their money on other things. For instance, the average Medicaid recipient is four times more likely to smoke than the average Coloradoan. So we’re paying for their kids’ health care, and they’re buying cigarettes instead. And I think if you look at the statistics, you’ll see that they are also much more likely to play the lottery. So instead of paying for their kids’ health care, they are playing in the lottery and buying cigarettes. Oh, and by the way, most of them have air conditioning. So instead of paying for their kids’ health care, they are paying for their air conditioning bills, and it goes on and on and on. I think they should put a little bit of skin in the game.

Today’s Denver Post reported that Attorney General John Suthers didn’t have much to say about the Obama Administration’s decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.

But Suthers discussed Obama’s decision for about 15 minutes on KOA’s Mike Rosen show this morning.

He told Rosen he doesn’t want Colorado to be forced to recognize gay marriages, performed in states like Massachusetts. This, he said, might require our state to give Colorado’s marriage benefits to gay married couples who move here from states like Mass. Suthers said on the radio:

“We’re going to defend Colorado’s right to say, this is what we think marriage is, and we would not like to have to recognize marriages in other states because that flows for Colorado benefits too, Mike. We’re not just talking about federal benefits. There are statuses of being married that have advantages in Colorado law too.”

Rosen failed to ask Suthers what Colorado marriage benefits he didn’t want same-sex married people to have.

So I asked Suthers’ Communications Director, Mike Saccone, which Colorado marriage benefits Suthers was referring to:

“What he was thinking of was the joint filing of taxes,” Saccone told me. “To the extent there are other benefits that mention marriage, Amendment 43 [which bans gay marriage in Colorado] could affect them too.”

Denver Post columnist Mike Rosen told his editor yesterday that he will continue to use his writing from old columns in new ones.

In an email to Post Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley, which Rosen forwarded to me, Rosen wrote: “As for using the same wording, if I’ve perfected the explanation, there’s no need to paraphrase it. This is fresh information to new readers.”

Trouble is, Rosen’s writing from his days as a freelance columnist at the Rocky Mountain News may not be his to give away. (Yesterday, Michael Robersts in Westword and ColoradoPols revealed that portions of a 2008 column by Rosen published in the Rocky Mountain News were used verbatim in a 2010 Denver Post column by Rosen.)

I was a freelance columnist for Scripps, which owned the Rocky, just like Rosen was, until Scripps viciously killed the newspaper.

My 2004 Scripps contract stated:

“Contributor grants to the Company and any other company, including Scripps Howard News Service, under common control with the Company the exclusive right to publish or broadcast the materials in any media form in Colorado and a non-exclusive right to publish or broadcast the Materials in any media form in any other part of the world.”

Maybe Rosen had a different contract, but I doubt it.

So, as I see it, and maybe I’m wrong, he’s providing The Post with material that’s not his to give away, if his use of his own writing goes beyond “fair use” guidelines.

I asked Westword editor Patricia Calhoun, who’s seen a feelance-writing contract or two, if the “exclusive rights” language could mean that Rosen doesn’t own his old Rocky Columns.

“I had to call [Westword uber blogger] Michael Robertrs and tell him not to bust me,” she said. “I certainly plagiarize myself all the damn time.”

But she agreed with me that Rosen’s contractual language with Scripps might technically preclude him from being allowed to plagiarize himself. It depends on the language in the contract and who owns the Scripps archives, Calhoun said.

In an email to bloggers today, Haley addresssed the Rosen issue:  “We expect all columns published in our section to be original work and I recently told Mike this. While it’s true that you can’t plagiarize yourself, and it’s easy to simply lift paragraphs from your previous work as a way to provide background or supporting information, I expect writers to let readers know when they’re doing that.”

But to clear up the legal issues, even if plagiarism in the usual sense isn’t involved, Rosen needs to produce his contract with Scripps that shows he’s on sound legal footing.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike KHOW’s Peter Boyles, but you’ve got to admire the guts he has to smack down, however mindlessly, journalists who work for the same company he works for, Clear Channel.

KOA radio, which is one of the last radio stations in Denver that operates a news department with real reporters covering the events of the day, has an office on the same floor as Boyles’ KHOW and other Denver radio stations owned by Clear Channel.

This morning during the 5 a.m. hour, Boyles referred to news reporters at fellow Clear Channel stations in Denver, including KOA, as “alleged newspeople” because they don’t provide enough coverage of the birther folks, led by, ahh, Boyles, who believe Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

Boyles said:

They won’t because, number one, political correctness, number two, they don’t want to be in the lead on this story. There’s a great fear factor amongst these people…I’m telling you, this is such a hot-button issue that, like I say, I work on a floor full of alleged newspeople. They don’t talk about this. I’ve been in debates, sitting there, and they go, it’s not an issue…I can give you the reasons why it is an issue. They can’t give you any reasons why it is not an issue. I think the reason is, I’ve been on this story three years, these guys have never even looked at it.

You rarely see media types in town attacking others who work at the same company. At The Denver Post, for example, you don’t find too many columnists criticizing reporters in The Post’s newsroom. Ditto at 9Newsk. The Post’s Susanne Green waited until she resigned to open fire on The Denver Post, and she did it in the Huffington Post.

I’d like The Post to criticize itself or other MediaNews newspapers more often, but you don’t see it much.

Of course, Boyles’ sweeping and snotty comment about KOA news reporters, calling them “alleged newspeople,” is lousy media criticism, because he’s basically condemning them as professionals simply because he disagrees about their coverage of one issue. So Boyles would be better to drop the insults. His equally nonsensical attacks against The Post, which are part of his staple routine, should also be dropped.

But he gets credit for not being scared to level his criticism at co-workers so close to him, in fact, across the hall.

A month ago, on KNUS Backbone radio, State Sen. Greg Brophy said that when it comes to health care legislation, it’s “almost committing political suicide to vote against any of these touchy-feely mandates.”

He was referring to a bill that directed Colorado insurance companies to provide coverage for maternity care, for having babies. That’s about as touchy feely as it gets, in a good and bad way.

Brophy, a Republican from Wray, went on to call it “gutter politics” when Democrats bring up mean GOP votes against maternity care during the election cycle.

Does Brophy think his steely votes, against the  touchiest and feeliest stuff, should be off the table come election time?

We don’t know what Brophy thinks, because host Ross Kaminsky didn’t get into it, though Kaminsky’s show isn’t one of those I-love-the-tea-party-and-the-tea-party-loves-me affairs, like you find on other radio stations. Unlike the core Tea Party nuts (not my term), Kaminsky isn’t a social conservative.

But we know from the radio show, that Brophy thinks health-care politics is “really ugly,” not because of the financial influence of insurance companies, for example, but because of the compassion people feel toward people with infant babies or breast cancer.

If only that really were the ugly part of the health care debate, right?

But not all of Brophy’s allies in his battle against touchy-feely health-care mandates are as plain spoken as Brophy.

A new effort to repeal Colorado’s law requiring insurance companies to offer maternity care was launched recently. It’s going by the decidedly un-touchy-feely name of, “Repeal 10-1021.”

And if that isn’t un-touchy-feely enough for you, its tag line is, “The health care bill that will make you sick.” (Don’t tell that to pregnant women, especially poor ones.)

Nothing about political suicide or touchy-feeliness anywhere on the new site, though a tweet says State Sen. Mark Scheffel is “on board.” Lots of talk about “choice” and “cost.”

I guess the politics of health care are so ugly that you have to listen to conservative talk radio to get the full story.