The answer is ….. Yes!

Rep. Mike Coffman said that too big a deal was made of his line about Obama is not an American “in his heart.” But reporters were right not to think so.

Here’s another case of over-the-top extremism that deserves to be picked up by the press, because it’s fundamentally disrespectful.

On KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show Friday, Rep. Cory Gardner leveled this attack on Obama:

Gardner: This is a president who is doing everything he can to make this nation no longer abide to the rule of law.

Oliver: Wow. What does that do to the rule of law?

Gardner: It weakens it tremendously.

Listen to Gardner on KFKA 10-4-13

I guess Gardner would advise me not to let people like Obama hang out with my teenage son? Unless I want anarchists hanging around the house?

Admittedly, it’s hard to know sometimes when the extremism threshold has been passed. But reasonable reporters should agree that this is an example.

Yesterday, Fox 31 Denver reported that GOP Chairman Ryan Call doesn’t support the latest recall effort against Democratic Senator Evie Hudak, saying the recall could “undermine” Republican efforts to win elections next year.

But Fox 31 didn’t report who is backing the Hudak recall effort. That would be Dudley Brown, Director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, according to the RMGO website as well as Laura Waters and Mike McAlpine, who are apparently leading the petition-gathering effort.

On Peter Boyles’ KNUS morning show today, Waters and McAlpine thanked Brown for his in-kind support. They also said they did not vote for Ryan Call when he ran for GOP State Chair:

Laura Waters: I want to say a big shout out to Dudley Brown and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

Boyles: Oh, he’s our guy. We love Dudley.

Waters: Those guys have come alongside us. They are helping us by mobilizing their members and getting the message out that we need volunteers. And we could not be more thankful to Dudley and his group…

Mike McAlpine: I gotta echo what Laura says. Nobody is as tall as man who stands on principle, and that’s Dudley Brown. He is a rock star….

Boyles: By the way, who voted for Ryan Call to become the head of the GOP?

McAlpine: I’m looking around the room, no one is raising their hand, Peter.

Boyles: And what about you [to Waters]? Nobody’s hand is up.

McAlpine: [laughing]

Boyles: How did this guy get this gig?

Listen here: Waters and McAlpine on KNUS 710 AM Peter Boyles Oct 08 2013

 

KLZ radio’s afternoon drive show, Grassroots Radio Colorado, deserves to be recognized as a regular news breaker. That is, for the five of us who are already following next year’s election.

The show broke news again in an Aug. 27 interview with U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, when Buck said he’s “absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story.”

Buck reiterated the point later in the interview:

Buck: “I’m not going to vote in any way to allow a[n] increase in the debt ceiling.”

Listen to Ken Buck say he’s “absolutely” against raising the debt limit

Strangely enough, Buck used a question about the budget bill to state his position on the debt ceiling, but it’s hard to believe that Buck confused the debt ceiling with the continuing-resolution budget bill.

In any case, all of Colorado’s congressional candidates should be answering questions from real reporters about the debt limit, as we approach next week’s Oct. 17 deadline for the U.S. to extend it or begin defaulting on our country’s debts.

With the stakes so high (stock market gyrations, U.S. credit-rating downgrade, economic slowdown), it’s a topic all congressional candidates and Members of Congress should address publicly.

Last month, Buck told KNUS radio’s Jimmy Sengenberger that it’s “legitimate” for the U.S. House to shut down the government to stop Obamacare.

Partial transcript of Ken Buck’s interview on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado Sept. 27.

Ken Clark: [talking about Ted Cruz and his 21 hour speech on Senate floor] it wasn’t technically a filibuster.   And then you had the vote on cloture today, okay?  Where do you stand?

Buck: Where do I stand?  I am absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story.  This country has too much debt.  It has too much spending.  We have taxed our people enough.  We have not – we have overspent, not overtaxed.  So, we need to get back to – actually, here’s a concept for both of you.  You ready for this?  You sitting down?  Thank you, very much.  How about let’s pass a budget in the United States Senate.  Would that be a  —

Clark:  What if – what if — ?

Buck: [facetiously]  Okay, we lost somebody!  We’ve got a fainter, over here!

Clark:  What’s a budget?

Buck: We got –.  No kidding!  What’s a budget?  And Mark Udall –

Clark:  I’ve never heard of it.

Buck: Mark Udall and Barak Obama have not passed a budget in a house of the United States Congress that they control now, for six years.  How on Earth is that possible?

Co-host Jason Worley:  But they’re pretty good at voting against Obama, which makes you laugh –

Clark:  But, wait a minute!  I thought it was all done by Continuing Resolution.

Buck: Yeah.  And that’s the problem.  All we do is this ‘stop and start’ kind of nonsense, and we need to actually plan on how we’re going to reduce this deficit over the next ten years, and have a plan in place.  And that’s what I would focus on.

Clark:  All right.  Very good.  So, how would you have voted on the cloture pay?

Buck: Well, I’m not going to vote in any way to allow a[n] increase in the debt ceiling.

Listen to Ken Buck say he’s “absolutely” against raising the debt limit.

Toward the end of the Creative Revolution Theater Company’s inspired production of Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio, Barry Champlain, who’s the talk-show-host character in the play, tells his radio audience, “You’re like little children under the blanket, afraid of the bogeyman, but you can’t live without him.”

It’s a great line, among many in the play now showing in Thornton, and it’s a big reason why people listen to conservative talk radio. They’re scared, and they feed on their own paranoia.

Talk radio is also a place where people find a community of like-minded voices who validate each other’s beliefs, whereas in the real world, off the airwaves, in the mainstream media, they often fall into the lunatic-fringe category.

Bogosian’s play, based partly on the life and murder of Denver talk-radio host Alan Berg, depicts a talk-radio world, different from today’s, where calls are more personal and raw, and the talk-show host mostly berates callers.

“Are you as ugly as you sound?” Champlain asks a caller at one point during the play. Later he tells another caller, “Yes, the world is a terrible place…everything is screwed up, and you like it that way.”

Today, talk radio is mostly right-wing Republican not nihilistic or truth-telling, and certainly not liberal, like Berg was, if you heard him in Denver in the 1980s.

Talk-radio hosts will still beat up on callers or at least disagree with them, but they seem more desperate to please them, to legitimize their craziness, and hope they call back, to keep their audience from shrinking further. And to try to build political power for the Republican right.

So the talk-radio world you see in Bogosian’s Talk Radio, free from right-wing Republican talking points, is actually more interesting, even if it’s a bit dated, than what you hear on the radio now.

The play’s simple plot, like the 1988 movie with the same name, centers on Champlain’s response to callers during a single night’s show, as he gets more wasted, drinking whiskey and snorting cocaine.

Partisan politics doesn’t come up at all, as Champlain abuses everyone from a woman who likes “I love Lucy” to a man upset about dog poop in his neighborhood. Champlain dismisses on a black man who says he likes Jews and bigot who says he hates them.

I don’t know a lot about theater, but I can tell you that Champlain is performed with such complete and thorough passion and believability by actor Michael Occhuizzo that you’re left thinking he needs to get a job on a Denver talk-radio station as soon as possible.

I’m half serious, because talk radio, if done right, is much like a form of theater or reality entertainment–if it doesn’t get dragged down by the formula of faux politics and ginned-up paranoia that radio-station corporations seem to want today.

The best talk-radio hosts are artists/actors/entertainers themselves, as well as intellectuals, like Berg, driven to the talk medium as their form of expression.

As Champlain tells his audience in his last drunken lines of the play, before he leaves and ostensibly gets gunned down in the parking lot:  “You’re pathetic… I guess we’re stuck with one another.”

Do your best to catch one of the play’s last performances this Thurs., Fri., and Sat. at 7 p.m. It’s staged in a former retail space in the North Valley Tech Center in Thornton, an eerie, mostly vacant place that conjures up the strange world of talk radio, in Berg’s time and today.

I like it when conservative talk radio hits on this question: What’s the winning formula for a GOP candidate in Colorado?

On KLZ’s Grassroots Radio last Friday, gubernatorial candidate Greg Brophy talked about why he’ll triumph next year, and it made for provocative radio.

“Number one,” Brophy told Worley, “you’ve got to be able to hold the base together. I can do that. I’ve never let anybody down on the Second Amendment, life, or taxes. So, I can hold the base together just fine.” Listen to Brophy on KLZ radio.

That sounds like Brophy’s formula for winning the GOP primary. Maybe that’s why it was number one on his list, but Worley didn’t ask if Brophy thought he could “hold the base together” better than the other GOP candidates.

What about the strengths of the other Republicans in the GOP field: immigration and winnability (Tancredo), election fraud (Gessler).

Can Brophy win over the GOP base on those issues? Does it matter? What’s the priority?

And from the GOP base’s perspective, for the primary, it’s not just a matter of whether Brophy has really “never let anyone down” on guns, life, and taxes, but whether Tancredo has? Or Gessler? Or Kopp?

After talking about how to hold together the GOP base, Brophy described what you have to think would be his general-election approach:

Brophy: “But then you also have to be able to reach that middle of the road voter in the metro area, and I can do that too, based on my experience and the fact that I’m a farmer, and not your typical Republican – more like your typical Coloradan. I’m an avid cyclist – everybody knows that.”

I’m not sure everyone knows Brophy is a cyclist, but here’s a suggestion Worley might toss at him to boost his cycler profile: Brophy could take a page from Hick and make political ads showing Brophy riding around Denver’s bicycle trails, pedaling past Tancredo, Kopp, and Gessler, panting on their bikes as Brophy zips by, maybe with a pink gun in the water holder on his bike.

Proving again why he’s become the face of political journalism on local TV in Colorado, Fox 31 Denver’s Eli Stokols has produced, with Thomas Hendrick, a week-long series, called “Prescription for Change,” that beautifully illuminates the myths, pitfalls and benefits of Obamacare–as well as the details of how the new health care law affects you.

I can’t guarantee it, but I’ll give you my kids’ cat if you can find better local TV news coverage of Obamacare anywhere in the country.

Find the series, along with other Obamacare coverage, on Fox31 Denver’s website here.

Many local TV news reporters would love to be given the opportunity to actually practice journalism like Fox 31 allows Stokols to do.

But the management at most TV stations around the country wouldn’t dare touch this type of in-depth, informative reporting on a policy issue like Obamacare, because they think it’s boring on the tube. Stokols proves them wrong again in this series, and, thank you, Fox 31 managers and Stokols for doing it.

Scandals, investigations, and consumer reports, yes, you see that on local TV. And that’s good. But beat coverage of politics and policy issues? Fox 31 Denver continues to air coverage that you rarely see on TV.

Tin foil hats are the hot fashion at conservative talk-radio stations this week, with hosts, like KNUS’ Peter Boyles, saying Monday he thinks the United Nations Small Arms Treaty, signed Wednesday by the United States, might really be aimed at bringing on world government. (Listen to Boyles say Small Arms Treaty and IPCC might lead to world government.)

If a really smart guy like Boyles chooses to spread lies about the Treaty, which is about saving innocent lives, mostly in Africa, how can you expect other talk-show hosts down in Colorado Springs to correct callers and guests when they air paranoia and falsehoods about the Treaty, even if the guest is State Senator-elect Bernie Herpin, who just defeated John  Morse in a recall election?

Herpin was a guest on Colorado Springs’ KVOR radio Sat. morning, with Herpin taking questions from callers (Listen here):

Caller: “And basically I think that’s part of the ultimate goal to use [the Small Arms Treaty] to disarm American citizens across the board.  And I think that’s why Obama is supporting the Morse / Giron gun control the way he did.”

The KVOR guest-host Tom Antkow didn’t correct the caller. Instead, the conversation degraded further, and he and Herpin eventually agreed that the Treaty is part of a plan, supported by President Obama, for the United Nations to control America.

Herpin: The United Nations wants to restrict or control the sale of small arms throughout the world, and including the United States.  Hopefully, our Senate will not ratify – our U.S. Senate will not ratify that treaty.

Here’s where host Antkow and Herpin agree that the Small Arms Treaty is part of the New World Order, favored by Obama, under which, as Antkow put it, “they want to control the United States through the United Nations.”

HOST:  It’s that New World Order, you know.

HERPIN:  [chuckles]

HOST TOM:  And they want to control the United States through the United Nations—

HERPIN:  Yep.

HOST:  — and I think Obama is a big proponent of that.  He wants to get the United Nations –

HERPIN:  Right.

HOST:  — to kind of control everything, so. Listen to Ankow and Herpin trash Small Arms Treaty on KVOR 9-28-13

Is it too much to ask book-loving Boyles or gun-loving Antkow to inform someone like Herpin, before he enters the Colorado Senate, about what the Small Arms Treaty would actually do.

Here’s the gist of it, as reported by the New York Times Wed.:

The treaty, which took seven years to negotiate, is considered by rights advocates to be a landmark document that would for the first time impose moral standards on the enormous cross-border trade in conventional arms that fuel conflicts around the world, most notably in Africa.

It is devised to thwart sales to users who would break humanitarian law, foment genocide or war crimes, engage in terrorism, or kill women and children. Although the treaty has no enforcement power, its disclosure provisions could embarrass and shame violators…

The National Rifle Association and other American gun-rights advocacy groups still object to the treaty, contending it infringes on the Second Amendment. They have vowed that it would never be ratified by the Senate, even though language in the final draft specifies that nothing in the treaty could infringe on any nation’s constitutional rights. [BigMedia emphasis]

Even someone who can fold a tin foil hat can understand that the treaty isn’t about confiscating guns, right?

I just hope Herpin remembered to take off his hat when he signed off from his KVOR interview Saturday, and he’s not still wearing it when he’s sworn in as a new State Senator tomorrow.

Or maybe Boyles and Antkow will be present at Herpin’s swearing-in ceremony, and they can all wear their tin-foil hats together.

Transcript of conversation between KVOR guest host Tom Antkow and State Sen. Bernie Herpin on KVOR radio Sat., Sept. 28. Listen to Ankow and Herpin trash Small Arms Treaty on KVOR 9-28-13.

HOST:  All right.  We are going to take a call from Don.  Don, you want to talk about guns also.  So gosh, guns are always popular. CALLER DON:  Yeah, yeah, I do want to kind of supplement on what Ron was saying, and I mean, you know,  why Morse and Giron did what they did.  I’m going to say, this is not just a local or a national agenda, it’s really actually an international agenda.  Because I don’t know what Bernie Herpin can do about it, but I’m going to make him aware that John Kerry signed the UN treaty– HERPIN:  Yes, I know that. CALLER DON:  And I think, that’s kind of, you know, under the radar.  And basically I think that’s part of the ultimate goal to use that to disarm American citizens across the board.  And I think that’s why Obama is supporting the Morse / Giron gun control the way he did. HOST:  All right.  Briefly, Bernie, tell people about the United Nations resolution, I think—or bill that Kerry got involved in.  Thanks for the call. HERPIN @16:45:  Thanks.  Yeah, that’s – the United Nations wants to restrict or control the sale of small arms throughout the world, and including the United States.  Hopefully, our Senate will not ratify – our U.S. Senate will not ratify that treaty. HOST:  It’s that New World Order, you know. HERPIN:  [chuckles] HOST TOM:  And they want to control the United States through the United Nations— HERPIN:  Yep. HOST:  — and I think Obama is a big proponent of that.  He wants to get the United Nations – HERPIN:  Right. HOST:  — to kind of control everything, so.

Activists led by Personhood USA yesterday submitted over 50,000 more signatures than the 86,000 required to make the 2014 election ballot, making it likely voters will cast ballots next year on a measure that would add “unborn human beings” to the definition of a “person” and “child” in Colorado’s criminal code.

Backers and opponents of the measure disagree on whether it would affect abortion rights, but the fact is that supporters of the amendment, including its designated representative and a spokesperson for Colorado Right to Life, have referred to it as “personhood.”

So this means it’s likely that political candidates will face questions next year about their views on the personhood concept, under which all abortion would be banned, even for rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

In 2010, the last time a personhood amendment was on the Colorado ballot, all Republican candidates for Governor and Senate supported the measure.

This year, most top-line Republican candidates are on record supporting personhood (See below), while no Democrat has done so publicly. The Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus has sought comments from this year’s crop of candidates, but he’s faced some resistance.

Coverage of the yesterday’s signature submission, including informative pieces by CBS4’s Shaun Boyd and the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic, didn’t provided a tally of personhood support among top candidates. So I will supply it below:

Governor

State Sen. Greg Brophy endorsed personhood in 2008 telling 7News at the time, “Clearly it’’s always the right time to take the stand for the sanctity of life.” Colorado Right to Life writes on its blog that Brophy “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler is apparently not on record on personhood.

Former lawmaker Mike Kopp “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions,” according to the Colorado Right to Life blog.

Former Rep. Tancredo supports personhood.

U.S. Senate

Sen. Randy Baumgardner is “100% pro-life with no exceptions” and “supports personhood,” according to the 2012 Colorado Right to Life blog.

Weld Country DA Ken Buck withdrew his support for the personhood amendment in 2010, but stood behind is position against abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

Sen. Owen Hill is “pro-life” and “supports personhood” according to CRTL in 2012.

U.S. House

Rep. Mike Coffman is listed by CRTL as a personhood supporter, and he has been held up by Personhood USA as a model personhood-supporting candidate. He’s against abortion for rape and incest.

Rep. Cory Gardner supports personhood.

Rep. Doug Lamborn supports personhood.

Rep. Scott Tipton is not on record as a personhood supporter.

Reporters covering a press conference last Monday featuring GOP activists from Pueblo should have mentioned, at least as an aside, that the activists said GOP Chair Ryan Call’s own law firm was hired to do the GOP’s legal-defense work related to the Pueblo recall election.

Speaking to reporters, Pueblo Freedom and Rights founder Victor Head, and Tim Knight of Pueblo’s Basic Freedom Defense Fund, said they weren’t sure if the Colorado State GOP was paying their legal-defense bills for the recall campaign, but they told reporters that Call’s firm was doing legal-defense work for the GOP’s Pueblo recall campaign.

Reporter: Was some of that legal-defense money earmarked from Ryan Call’s own law firm?

Knight (@1430): Yes. As a matter of fact, that bill we’re discussing, if he did pay us, he’s paying his own law firm and he gets his own billable hours.

Watch the press conference here:

Last week I reported the media omission that Sarah Arnold, former El Paso Republican Party Secretary, accused state GOP Chair Ryan Call of using his own law firm for all the legal business of the State Republican Party.

Unfortunately, Call didn’t return my request for a comment, but the fact is that Call’s firm, Hale Westfall, was doing a lot of the Republican Party’s legal work before Call was elected chair.

Now that Call is in charge of the State Party, the continued use of Call’s law firm could present internal ethics issues for the Republican Party, just as corporate officers can run into ethics problems for directing corporate work to their personal business enterprises. But there’s no public ethics issue involved in the State GOP’s ongoing business relationship with Hale Westfall.

Here’s a partial transcript of last Monday’s press conference featuring comments by Head and Knight:

Reporter @12:50: How much did the [State GOP] actually give you all, in terms of the legal fees, for the District Court case?

Knight: That question remains to be seen. There was a bill that someone else had offered to pay. We’re not sure of this. We’ve been asking for weeks. It appears that the State GOP may have paid that bill in an attempt to buy into the recall, saying, ‘We did help. We paid your legal bill.’ But they know, and we know, that someone else had agreed to pay that legal bill.

Reporter: How much was it?

Knight: Just short of $40,000. That was not the whole legal bill but part of it.

Reporter: How much is unsettled right now?

Head: I reached out to the law firm this morning to ask what the standing of our bill was, and they can’t tell us.

Knight: They had to get permission from people to tell us.

Head: So we’re almost in the dark. There are lots of entities that have stepped forward know to help us to buy their way into our success. And it’s welcomed, I guess. Our bills will get paid. But that is not what was promised. That is not what happened when we were about to close. When we were short. We have a legal challenge, and we don’t have the money to pay it. The recalls are going to go down, unless someone comes forward and helps. A bunch of promises happened. Nothing came through. We did it with 10, 20 callers at a time.

Knight: Selling personal stuff to pay for it.

Head: So as of this moment, as of this morning, I have no idea. Our law firm will not give as an account of who was paid what.

Reporter: Was some of that legal-defense money earmarked from Ryan Call’s own law firm?

Knight (@1430): Yes. As a matter of fact, that bill we’re discussing, if he did pay us, he’s paying his own law firm and he gets his own billable hours.