Freedom Unaffiliated

‘Trust but verify’ on privately financed Broncos stadium By Jon Caldara Only about a month and a half ago I  predicted the Denver Broncos  will use the subtle threat of leaving Colorado to get taxpayers to build them a new stadium. In other words, I predicted history will repeat itself. Football stadiums are on a rotating 25-year life cycle with taxpayers buying these playpens so the ult...

Teacher unions driving the bus on public school failure By Mike Rosen In a recent Colorado Politics column, Eric Sonderman  described the chronically  underperforming American public education system as “nothing short of a national scandal,’’ deserving of the disparaging moniker “Edugate.” Quite an indictment coming from an erstwhile Democrat. As a conservative Republican, I heartil...

The case for armed, trained staff in Colorado schools By Jon Caldara Enough. Damn it, enough! Enough virtue signaling instead of preventing school shootings. Enough of elected school boards denying reality. It is time for all of Colorado’s 178 school districts to join the 50 that currently have volunteer, trained, concealed armed staff to stop a shooter the moment he begins — because when seconds...

Zohran Mamdani and the ‘democratic socialist’ grift By Mike Rosen Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old who won the Democrat primary (endorsed by fellow socialists Bernie Sanders and AOC) is now the party’s wholly unqualified candidate for mayor of New York City. He’s a Muslim antisemite and Israel hater. In college, he co-founded the school’s chapter of the pro-Hamas “Students for Justice in...

Threats to transgender gun rights unjustly discriminate By Jon Caldara The 23-year-old shooter of Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis was born male. He identified as a woman and legally changed his name before he killed two and injured 18. The shooter of the Nashville Covenant School in March 2023 was born female. She identified as a man and killed six. So was the shooter at a Rite Aid in...

Short skirt, high boots expose Dem hypocrisy under gold dome By Jon Caldara Fashion sense? Oh, I got it. After all, 98% of my wardrobe was proudly purchased at Costco. And the ladies dig a man who’s dripping in Kirkland-labeled couture. They sense the money, the power. Another man who knows fashion is former state Rep. Ryan Armagost. On a private Signal chat, this Republican fashionista took a pic...

Flock cameras help cops, Denver Dems prefer criminals By Mike Rosen A criminal repeat-offender steals a car in Englewood, which is later identified by police at the Castle Rock Outlets using drone technology. Three police officers drive through the parking lot and blockade the perpetrator as he gets into the driver’s seat of the stolen car. The perp then rams through the three police veh...

Consolidation of radio a cautionary tale for local TV news By Jon Caldara Colorado conservatives have dreamt of the day they could kick 9News anchor, and the Imelda Marcos of sport coats, Kyle Clark to the curb. Their day may be coming. And I must admit, there’s a certain satisfaction imagining Kyle selling his wardrobe at a garage sale. But conservatives will find a national conglomerate owning h...

Gov. Jared Polis loves artificial intelligence to death By Jon Caldara Disclosure: Gov. Jared Polis wrote much of this column. The epitaph on Jared Polis’ gubernatorial gravestone will simply read, “He knew better, but would not stand up to his own party.” For seven years, our hyperprogressive legislature has sent him one industry-killing bill after another. And he kept signing them, even when he...

Colorado driving pedal to the metal toward an energy cliff By Jon Caldara You know when Wile E. Coyote runs off that cliff and he hangs in the air, magically suspended for a while until he realizes what’s about to occur? Only then does he plummet. Well, Colorado energy regulators are the coyote just before he sees there’s nothing below him. When Colorado’s energy system falters, and your bills sky...

As legislature cries poverty, remember these taxes. By Jon Caldara There are three ways you get taxed. The first way seems transparent — direct taxation and fees. Money’s taken out of your paycheck, you see that. You write a check for property taxes, pay sales tax on a cup of coffee. These “transparent” taxes can still be opaque. Renters don’t realize they’re paying property tax in their rent chec...

A Broncos bargain: No new stadium until Denver is safe & clean By Jon Caldara Really? We’re talking about a new Denver Broncos stadium already? Well, before saying yes, let’s make it contingent on fixing the city first. Voters approved the current Broncos stadium in 1998. The structure was ugly to begin with and built to be scraped to the ground as soon as bond dealers could con us to buy anot...

Book review: How Democratic leadership became dangerous By Mike Rosen The leadership of the Democratic party has changed. It once included rational people who worked alongside Republicans to try to improve people’s lives. Despite having different views on specific topics, they were tails to the Republicans’ heads on an all-American coin. Today’s Democratic leaders are not just frust...

Medicaid: A La-Z-Boy for the able-bodied to receive health care for near nothing By Jon Caldara My son is severely disabled with Down syndrome. Since just turning 21, he is no longer eligible for K-12 educational services from our school district. Like many Colorado graduates today, he cannot read, write or consistently count to five. But on the bright side, I will continue to pay taxes to the sch...

Legislators from both sides of the aisle fleeing the gold dome By Jon Caldara I remember asking a Denver cop how the morale was among his peers. His answer, “Well, let me put it this way. Yesterday, I arrested a guy for stealing four cars. Two hours later, I arrested the very same guy for stealing a car again.” Criminals who are issued the equivalent of a parking ticket and kicked out of jail in m...

Making ballpark-priced lemonade out of the Rockies’ losing season By Jon Caldara When a city’s major league sports team wins a world championship, celebrations get out of hand. Fans get intoxicated, they vomit and urinate on sidewalks, throw trash everywhere, light stuff on fire, break windows, get into brawls with police and more. In other words, they turn their city into what Denver already look...

Army’s 250th birthday parade outshines left’s angry mobs By Mike Rosen On June 14, a trio of events intersected. It was the birthday of the United States Army, but far more than a typical birthday it was the 250th. It was also Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of the flag of the United States by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1775. And, coincidentally, it was al...

Jena Griswold’s dangerous double-standard on privacy By Jon Caldara Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold is responsible for running the state’s TRACER system. This is the public database where campaigns must file their contribution and expenditure disclosures. If you wanna see who’s funding a candidate, that’s where you go. But if you went there last week, you would have seen it was “down f...

Colorado’s anti-Trump protests borrow from the fascist playbook By Jon Caldara I got to know Jeff Hunt in his many years running the socially conservative Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. He now co-hosts the morning talk radio show on 710 KNUS. He is a social conservative Christian; I’m a libertarian conservative. In other words, he’s wrong about a lot of stuff, but you know,...

Left-leaning public media would survive without tax subsidies By Mike Rosen President Trump’s  recent executive order  to cut off the federal subsidy for NPR and PBS generated a storm of outrage from the left. Predictably, the usual suspects staged demonstrations and NPR, PBS and Democrats  have counterattacked  with lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s or...

Multiculturalism movement mixes bowl of identity politics salad By Mike Rosen The multiculturalism movement is a cancer disguised as a cure. It claims that learning more about minorities would elevate them and improve national harmony, and opening our borders to people from other countries will enrich us as they combine their cultures with ours. Our public schools enthusiastically embraced th...

An unaffiliated future: The case for opening Colorado’s primaries By Jon Caldara This column is targeted to one reader: the iconoclast businessman and politico Kent Thiry. Many believe Colorado’s best days are behind her, and understandably so as Colorado turns into a dictatorial progressive experiment of exponentially escalating regulation, spiraling property taxes and fees, and forced social eng...

Trump disruptors protest democracy not going their way By Mike Rosen Civil disobedience is a constant of history. Like the Boston Tea Party, a violent symbolic demonstration against British tyranny in 1773 that preceded the American Revolutionary War. An unelected English king appointed English governors who ruled with an iron hand in the colonies. There was taxation without representati...

Veto-worthy bills put Polis in a progressive-pleasing bind By Jon Caldara There are only three jobs worth having in Colorado. The first is fortunately mine. Any person who can make a living by indulging his passion is beyond blessed. I somehow have provided for my family by fighting for personal and economic freedom in Colorado. Running Independence Institute, Colorado’s machine to promote liberty...

The lowdown on making the Trump tax rate reductions permanent By Mike Rosen President Trump’s most significant first-term accomplishment was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). It reduced tax rates across all income levels and doubled the standard deduction to $12,000 for single filers ($24,000 for married filing jointly). Consequently millions of lower- and middle-income Americans no longer pa...