Tea Party radio hosts Ken Clark and Jason Worley agreed Friday that Colorado House Minority Leader Mark Waller is a “jellyfish.”

As you can see below, Clark and Worley, who host KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado, identified Waller as a jellyfish without explaining the taxonomic features that led them to their conclusion.

So it’s an easy call for a media critic like me to suggest that they have a zoologist or two on their show to substantiate their claim.

Here’s their on-air conversation, which started with a discussion about the possibility that Rep. Brian DelGrosso or Rep. Libby Szabo might replace Waller.

JW: Here we go again, man! There’s a saying in football: If you have two quarterbacks, you have a problem because you have no quarterbacks. In the statehouse –

KC: Oh, god!

JW: It seems that we, on the Republican side, might be having two quarterbacks.

KC: You know, it’s interesting, because right now we’ve got a –

JW: Jellyfish.

KC: Well, yeah, I guess “jellyfish” is a good way to put it. The House minority leader is weak at best. He tried to pressure the Republican caucus to vote for the long bill, was horribly unsuccessful in doing that, because we actually have some Republicans in the House of Representatives in the state of Colorado who have principles. They stick to their principles. They are very, very strong. So, he didn’t do very good. But the whole idea behind that was — Oh, I don’t know, he wanted to run for Attorney General. And yes, Mark Waller, I’m speaking specifically of you. So he figured that if he cut a deal with Ferrandino, Ferrandino wouldn’t fight him on the AG run, and blah blah blah. Well, it looks like he is going to be stepping down. And so that means we have a leadership void that has been there for, what, a year now?

JW: [laughter] Well, at least for six months.

KC: Well, since the session started, anyway. So who knows what’s going to happen?

Michael “Heck’ve-A-Job” Brownie took to the airwaves Monday to slam Sen. Michael Bennet for promoting the immigration bill that Congress is currently considering.

On his KHOW show, Brown called the bill a “bologna bill” and said he’s “so tired of the BS” from Bennet and others, like Bennet’s statement in an email, quoted by Brownie, that the bill is “our best chance in a generation to fix our broken immigration system.”

Bennet “doesn’t give a rat’s ass about immigration,” Brown said, adding that the bill does “nothing to secure the borders” and “Boston ought to be telling them to secure the borders first, and do everything else later.”

Brownie overlooks the fact that, guess what, the bill stipulates that no one goes down the pathway to citizenship until the border is demonstrably secured, as Sen. Marco Rubio tried to explain to Brownie in an interview with Brownie Thursday.

Rubio told Brownie that the bill “creates a program whereby if the [Department of Homeland Security] doesn’t achieve 90% apprehension rate..then control goes to border state governors to finish the job.”

“I guess it’s my experience within the Department of Homeland Security,” Brownie said on air Monday, “I simply do not trust the system to work.”

Great. He doesn’t trust the system to work. So what’s his alternative?

“I don’t have all the answers,” he said Monday. “…it’s going to take some sort of radical action.”

OK. So when the Brownies of the world come up with their solution, even if it’s some sort of radical action, they should tell us about it. Meanwhile, we can assume they favor doing nothing.

Here’s an audio recording of a panel at the National Conference on Media Reform, poorly moderated by yours truly, but, more importantly, addressing how journalists in Colorado are creating innovative journalism projects.

The participants were Laura Frank, Sam Fuqua, Ann Imse, Kurtis Lee, and Tony Shawcross. Click here to listen.

Personhood activists are gathering Thursday night in Highlands Ranch to launch their petition drive to put a so-called fetal homicide measure on the 2014 election ballot.

The initiative would protect “unborn human beings” under the Colorado criminal code, thus allowing for the prosecution of those who commit crimes against “unborn human beings.”

The phrase “unborn human beings” is not defined, leaving open the possibility that all stages of human development, from zygote (fertilized egg) through the end of pregnancy, could be considered by courts as “people” and receive legal protections under Colorado law.

This approach, which mirrors a bill introduced by GOP Rep. Janak Joshi in the Colorado Legislature this year, has been criticized by abortion-rights advocates as a back-door abortion ban, because it could give a fetus legal status and open the door for criminal charges against doctors who provide abortions. Others have claimed it could even justify the murder of abortion providers.

State House Democrats killed Joshi’s bill in January, on a party-line vote, and later the House lawmakers passed a bill that would make it a crime to recklessly terminate a pregnancy (e.g., if a drunk driver hits a pregnant women.) Colorado law already states that intentionally doing so is a crime but not unintentionally.

The Democrats’ bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Foote and Rep. Clair Levy, specifically does not “confer personhood, or any rights associated with that status, on a human being at any time prior to live birth.” (For more details see Melanie Asmar’s Jan. 30 Westword piece on the topic.)

The key provision of the proposed constitutional amendment reads:

In the interest of the protection of pregnant mothers and their unborn children from criminal offenses and negligent and wrongful acts, the words “person” and “child” in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado Wrongful Death Act must include unborn human beings.

At the launch of its petition drive Thursday, Personhood activists will hear from Heather Survoik, who was hit by a car when eight-months pregnant, resulting in the death of her baby, which she had already named “Brady.” Hence, Personhood activists are referring to their petition drive as the “Brady project,” or the Brady amendment, according to Personhood USA spokesman Gualberto Garcia Jones.

“Brady and all unborn children should be considered persons,” Garcia Jones, who’s one of the Amendment’s two sponsors, told me, adding that the courts have specifically asked for clarification of the terms defined in his measure, which is titled, “Definition of Person and Child.”

Asked if he thought his proposed amendment would be more successful than personhood measures defeated in 2008 and 2010, Garcia Jones said:

“The prior amendments were more abstract. This is more specific. The opposition will have a harder time saying that this is an effort to criminalize women. We’re talking about protecting unborn children and their mothers who have no recourse for death of their babies.”

The initiative’s language was not challenged and has been approved by the Title Board.

Garcia Jones is hoping that a personhood measure, giving legal rights to zygotes (fertilized eggs) and banning all abortion, will also appear on the 2014 election ballot in Colorado.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office determined last year that personhood activists hadn’t collected enough signatures to make the 2012 ballot.

Garcia Jones said his organization is “probably going to go to federal court” to seek more time to collect signatures and make the ballot.

If they succeed, personhood backers will have two measures on next year’s ballot.

Both initiatives look the same to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains spokeswoman Monica McCafferty. They both aim to ban abortion in Colorado, she said.

If you’ve been tracking the fall of journalism in America you might sit down and cry when you read this statistic, from a recent Pew Report, that about two thirds of the American public has heard little or nothing about the news industry’s financial troubles.

Fighting to save journalism from dying in the shadows, and promoting quality alternatives, is Free Press, a national organization that advocates for public media, universal access, diverse media ownership, and other communications essentials of democracy.

And fortunately for us, Free Press is holding its 6th National Conference on Media Reform here in Denver April 5- 7 at the Sheraton Downtown.

I’ve attended past NCMR conferences, which attract thousands of progressive activists trying to create new media projects, criticize dying ones, brainstorm new ideas, fund start-ups, and much more.

You won’t find a better venue for networking with people concerned “media reform,” in the broadest sense of the term. It’s your chance to find out what’s going on in the progressive media world across the country and talk directly with the folks doing the work.

For me, the presentations are the side show of the NCMR conference, but if you like panels and speeches, there’s 80 sessions described here on the NCMR website, including panels on the “Lobby Game: How to Advocate for Media Change;” “What’s Next for Internet Policy;” “The Media’s Influence on the Immigration Debate;” “Labor Unions: MIA in the Media;” “Creative Grassroots Funding for Journalists and Media Makers,” “Reinventing Media in Colorado” [disclosure: I'm moderating that one]; “Your Video Doesn’t Have to Suck;” and “F*ck It, We’ll Do It Live: A Workshop on Livestreaming for Citizen Journalists and Community Media Outlets.”

Presenters include Former White House Technology Advisor Susan Crawford; Author Dan Gillmor; Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!; Anna Holmes of Jezebel.com; President of Common Cause Bob Edgar; Robin Marty of RH Reality Check; Craig Aaron, Director of Free Press; Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps; Author Bob McChesney; Rashad Robinson of ColorOfChange; Andrea Quijada of the Media Literacy Project; The Nation’s John Nichols; and Author Joseph Torres, and many, many more.

Some Denver-based presenters are The Denver Post’s Kurtis Lee; Laura Frank of Denver’s I-News Network; Anne Imse of Colorado Public News; Author David Sirota; and Open Media Foundation’s Tony Showcross.

Register for the conference ($195 general and $125 for students) here.

See you there.

The right-wing of the conservative movement, such as it is, is gathering in Washington DC this week for their annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Broadcasting live from the event, KNUS’ Steve Kelley asked Greg Keller, Executive Director of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, “who’s the biggest draw” among the speakers, which include everyone from Colorado’s Rep. Cory Gardner (at 2:30 EST today), Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan to Ann Coulter, Dana Loesch, Donald Trump, and many others.

None of the speakers are apparently very popular to the folks at Media Matters for America, but Keller says actual real-life attendees like Sarah Palin best:

Keller: “Sarah Palin has forged a unique and long-standing relationship with our attendees here. They really get fired up to hear her. That room will be absolutely packed when she comes and speaks.”

One Republican who was not invited was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. And Kelley gets credit for putting the question directly to Keller.

Kelley: “And the question everyone wants to know. The dis on Chris Christy. Is it a dis? You’re the guy.”

Keller: “It’s certainly not a dis. Gov. Christy is certainly a good governor. He’s a popular governor in what is a pretty difficult state for Republicans. That said, this is not the Republican political action conference. This is the conservative political action conference. And as our Chairman Al Cardenas has said, you know, the people who get main state speaking spts at CPAC tend to be people who have had all-star years froma conservative perspective. And we just didn’t think that was necessarily the case when it came to Gov. Christy. He’s spoken here in the past. I’m sure we’ll have him again in the future. Just not this year.”

Kelley promised his audience this morning to ask his CPAC guests where the GOP is heading on fiscal and social issues. Tune to KNUS 710 AM tomorrow to hear part two of his CPAC broadcast.

Reporting on town a hall meeting in Aurora on Sunday, The Denver Post’s Nic Turiciano did a nice job focusing on what’s emerged as the central issue in the immigration debate: whether to grant a path to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

Turiciano reported that Rep. Jared Polis supports a path to citizenship, with or without beefed up border security, Sen. Michael Bennet said he wants border security and a “real pathway,” and Rep. Mike Coffman said he supports offering citizenship path to children brought to the U.S. illegally, but is still mulling over what to do about the adults.

After voting as recently as 2010 against citizenship for the so-called dreamers, who are children brought to America illegally by their parents, Coffman has now proposed legislation that would grant citizenship to them after they complete basic training for U.S. military duty (not for going to college).

If all the eligible undocumented young people took Coffman up on his proposal, he’d be looking at 1.4 million new recruits, potentially swamping the U.S. military, which currently has about 1.5 million active-duty personnel. So, how does Coffman’s proposal work, logistically?

But even if Coffman comes up with viable path to citizenship, and let’s hope it’s a highway, for undocumented young people, he’s still got to deal with the 9.5 million adults whose citizenship fate he’s mulling over.

Right now, Coffman is ready to give these 9.5 million people legal status, which essentially means he’s giving them the right to taxation without representation. (So you’d hope, that the Tea Party would be dumping their mini-Constitutions all over Coffman’s door matt.)

That’s the next layer of reporting that’s needed on the immigration beat. What does America look like with an underclass of 9.5 million?

It’s not apartheid, to be sure, or Jim Crow. It’s not straight-up slavery or indentured servitude. It’s kind of like the relationship between South Africa and the country of Lesotho post-apartheid, when the Lesotho miners would go to South Africa to live and work. But the closest model might, ironically enough, be the colonists, though it’s an imperfect fit.

In any case, what does a guy like Coffman have in mind? How would it work? What rights and responsibilities of citizenship would be granted? And what rights (voting?) and responsibilities (military service? taxes?) would be denied?

The picture of millions of “legal” immigrants with no voting rights gets ugly, doesn’t it, when you start thinking about it in the context of those pesky American values, like democracy.

Or maybe not? Maybe this is what American opportunity looks like to Coffman (and Tipton, Gardner, and Lamborn, all of whom oppose the path to citizenship). Maybe legal status is good enough.

If so, fair enough. But let’s hear about their vision of what America looks like with an entire class of pseudo-citizens who are fundamentally unequal to the rest of “us.”

Colorado Springs Gazette Editor Joe Hight told me this morning that he received “no pressure” from CO Springs government officials to fire or re-assign former City Hall reporter Daniel Chacon.

The Colorado Springs Independent reported Friday that Hight had not responded directly to its question about whether officials connected to CO Springs Mayor Steve Bach pressured the Gazette to remove Chacon from the City Hall beat.

The Independent cited a Facebook post by former mayoral candidate Buddy Gilmore, raising concerns about the unproven allegation that pressure from Bach’s office was applied. (This apparently led to the formation of the “Free Daniel Chacon” Facebook page.)

“There was no pressure,” Hight told me. “This is the transition of a reporter from one beat to another. Does City Hall express concern? That’s part of what you’d expect.”

But he said there was no pressure from Bach’s office to fire or re-assign Chacon.

Gazette State Capitol reporter John Schroyer was also assigned a new beat, the Independent reported. Hight told the Independent.

“It’s perfectly reasonable for newsrooms to realign reporters and their beats, especially those who have been on ones for periods of time,” Hight writes. “It is even more reasonable considering our focus on expanding our news and information products and services. We are a growing organization and need to make moves and transitions, similar to the newsroom management realignment we announced last week, as well as bring in new people to meet those needs. John and Daniel are experienced journalists who will be assets in their new positions and provide talent to important newsroom endeavors.”

Publications like the Gazette obviously get pressure from all quarters, and it’s no surprise that Bach’s office could have been angry over Chacon’s reporting.

But if a public official demanded the firing or reassignment of a reporter, and did so on the record, a newspaper should definitely report it.

Hight did the right thing by talking about the matter to me and the Independent. There was a day when an editor might have refused to discuss it.

A call to Colorado Springs government offices was not immediately returned.

In November, Philip Anschutz’s Clarity Media Group purchased The Gazette from a California-based newspaper chain.

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog.

Last week, I reported that KVOR talk-show host Jeff Crank told his audience it was “disgusting” that NBC showed gay men ushering in the New Year with a big kiss.

I tweeted him to find out if he thinks a televised heterosexual kiss would be equally disgusting.

Crank, who ran against Republican Doug Lamborn for a Colorado Springs congressional seat, didn’t answer my question, but he invited me on his show Sat. to discuss the topic in more detail.

On the show, Crank scolded me for not including enough context in my blog post about his comment. He found a lot of the New Year’s antics on CNN and NBC disgusting, he said, including a crotch kiss between CNN co-anchors and partial nudity.

It’s true, Crank did mention these things, in addition to the gay kiss, previously, and he told me that part of what he found “disgusting” was this other stuff.

“You focused on just one thing and made it sound like I was bashing people because of this kiss,” he told me.

Ok, but still, I asked Crank, does he think it’s “disgusting” for gay men to kiss on TV? He said:

“It’s the whole social set up that the media tries to use…to push a social agenda. I find that disgusting. I find it dispiriting, wrong, terrible that on the one night of the year, when most kids are up at midnight.. if there were two hertersexuals kissing there, most American families wouldn’t have to explain that moment to their children who were watching. And I just think it’s wrong that we continue to have that forced upon us so that we have to talk to our kids about it. And I just wonder why people don’t respect that there are some people who don’t want to have to describe that to our children, and that’s why it isn’t on the cartoon channel during the day.”

The norms of society have passed Crank by somehow, because he doesn’t see his view as discriminatory.

If Crank hasn’t already talked about gay relationships with his children, given the prominence of gay relationships in pop culture and in mass society, then New Year’s Eve is a good time for him to do so. God forbid folks explain love to their kids. It might ease their own fear, or even save their lives, if they’re gay or not.

I wouldn’t put a gay kiss in the same category as a crotch kiss, like Crank does. But I appreciated Crank having me on the show to talk about it, to air it out.

Listen to the interview here: Jeff Crank interviews me Jan. 19 on KVOR

By Michael Lund

When it comes to Ryan Call, Ken Clark and Jason Worley are not impressed.

In the past week on Grassroots Radio Colorado (airing weekdays from 5 to 7 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM), show hosts Worley and Clark have been heard to call for current GOP State Party Chairperson Call to own up to his responsibility for the devastating November election losses “like a man”, and step down from his leadership position.

Last Friday on Grassroots, Arapahoe County Tea Party Chair Randy Corporon was filling in as guest host, as he often does.  Worley and Clark were on a “top secret” special assignment.  The guests that day, freshman State Representative Justin Everett (HD-22) and John Ransom from Townhall.com/Finance pleaded with Corporon to throw his hat into the race for the GOP Chairmanship.  Their enthusiastic request was modestly evaded.

And then yesterday, Mark Baisley, Douglas County GOP Chair, appeared on Grassroots to announce his candidacy for the position.

Ryan Call probably isn’t too worried.

He has endorsements from approximately half of the current County GOP Committees that will eventually vote to decide who leads the state party, as well as support from GOP notables such as AG John Suthers, and Rep. Cory Gardner.

Call’s ascendency two years ago came in a firestorm of name calling and finger pointing around previous Chairman Dick Wadhams, who withdrew his candidacy for reelection after the debacle that was The McInnis-Maes-Tancredo Show and Ken Buck’s losing challenge to Democrat Michael Bennet’s senate seat.

Stating his frustration with trying to herd the un-herdable cats of Colorado’s GOP, Wadhams said in a recent Lynn Bartels blog post for the Denver newspaper’s political blog, The Spot (January 13, 2013)

“[…]  he was “tired of the nuts who have no grasp of what the state party’s role is.”

In the same column, Bartels quoted Wadhams pointing to fundraising as another piece of the fallout from his decision to withdraw:

 “When I went back to major donors they said, ‘Since you’re not running we’re going to hold off. We’re not going to give to a state party run by an idiot.’ Ryan is who they wanted to have win and so after he won fundraising picked back up,” Wadhams said.

The “idiot” refered to in Wadham’s quote is most likely Senator Ted Harvey, who was challenging Call at the time with support from liberty and grassroots groups in the GOP.  Could the same divisive scenario be setting up for this spring’s GOP Chair election?  Well, Baisley is no Ted Harvey, although they appear pretty similar on paper.

Worley and Clark were happy to give Baisley a soapbox to announce his candidacy, as they have with other successful GOP candidates.  But they didn’t hold back with their criticism of Call, who they said runs a party that’s not all too inviting to liberty groups’ participation.  Worley points out that he and Call went to high school together, but they still butt heads.

Callers to Grassroots Radio last Friday echoed some of Wadhams’ concerns from 2011, namely the danger of splitting a minority Party whose wounds continue to weep along ideological fractures, and the proven abilities of a candidate to deliver in the Chairmanship’s two biggest responsibilities:  winning elections and fundraising.

Baisley addressed both concerns.

He asserted his longstanding friendship with Ryan Call and said they have always worked well together.  He’s offering to unite the all who believe in limited government with his “model of respect,”  where everyone is invited to share their talents in defeating the Dems – apparently to include  “nuts” and “idiots.”

As proof of his capabilities, Baisley cited his success in organizing over 3,000 Douglas County volunteers, activitating a localized ground game for getting out the vote, and the notable coup of electing seven conservatives to the Douglas County School Board which eventually tossed the American Federation of Teachers union from the district.

As far as fundraising, Baisley reduced its importance as secondary to the ground game, but noted his successes, just the same.  On the finance committee during Bruce Benson’s tenure ten years ago as leader of the Colorado GOP, he helped raise more than $10 million for the Party.  In Douglas County this election cycle, enough funds were generated to cover all GOTV costs, max out a contribution to Mike Coffman’s congressional campaign, while filling in gaps in other legislative races, he said.

Addressing Ryan Call’s claim of early support from the counties, Worley and Clark enthusiastically point out that new leadership in the counties committees could undermine some of those initial endorsements.

Then  Baisley said he had heard from some county leaders, who said if they’d known Baisley was running for the Chair, they would never have endorsed Call.   They promised Baisley they wouldn’t be seen campaigning actively for Call.

It all sounds very encouraging for Baisley, if you can believe Grassroots Radio.

But can he herd cats?