Freedom Unaffiliated

The political weaponization of phobias Written and read by Mike Rosen The clinical definition of “phobia” is a psychiatric disorder related to “an irrational, excessive, and persistent fear of some particular thing or situation.” Examples are Acrophobia: a fear of heights, Claustrophobia: fear of confined spaces, Octophobia: fear of the figure 8, Cyberphobia: fear of computers, Ablutophobia:...

Among all protections throughout human existence for political minorities, none greater was ever created before the First Amendment. For the better part of my life, it was classic liberals and the political left who fought for the right of dissent, guaranteeing government shall not abridge speech. It was the cultural warriors of my childhood through school, media and Hollywood who drilled into us...

The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has called for a vote on funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. He has done so at sizable professional risk. His isolationist Republicans might remove him from his leadership position for it. By the time you read this column, you’ll likely know how those votes went. As I write this, I have no idea. But I do know there’s one...

Legislature is showing ‘deep contempt for the voters.’ By Jon Caldara Every conversation about the Colorado state Legislature should begin with this preface: “And these are the people who say Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. …”  The Legislature is moving forward with a bill to rip away direct elections of the Regional Transportation District Board, with the largest population of any loc...

New bill taxes booze at the wholesale level so taxes are hidden. By Jon Caldara State Sens. Kevin Priola and Chris Hansen are doing their very best impersonation of Carrie A. Nation, the early 1900s prohibitionist who attacked liquor establishments with a hatchet in one hand and a Bible in the other. But “Mother Nation” just beat up drinkers. She didn’t steal their money and give it to opium users...

The left’s assault on American patriotism By Mike Rosen The conventional definition of patriotism is love for and loyalty to one’s country. A 2023 survey published in the Wall Street Journal found that only 38% of respondents thought patriotism was very important to them, down sharply from 70% when that question was first asked in 1998.While 59% of seniors 65 and older feel that way today, only 23...

Senate Bill 129 and The Case for Donor Privacy By Jon Caldara Let’s set the stage with a question: Should Donald Trump become the dictator the left fears, do you want him to know who’s giving to organizations that criticize him? There are reasons people don’t want others to know with whom they associate and the groups they support. On Nov. 27, 2015, Robert Lewis Dear Jr. went to the Planned Parent...

Give Chance a chance to produce, build, create and belong. By Jon Caldara Last Thursday was World Down Syndrome Day. You know, one of those well-intended “awareness” days where we’re supposed to learn about some sad cause or affliction. I usually roll my eyes at these kinds of days because there’s a million of them and I have important shows to binge on Netflix. But my son, Chance, has Down syndro...

Gun legislation fosters systemic racism By Jon Caldara Any regular reader of this column knows its recurring theme of the immorality of political majorities abusing political minorities. But now, the Colorado Legislature is stepping it up to openly target racial minorities. They are taking action to keep Black and Brown people from owning firearms, you know, like Whites. The legislature is making...

Colorado ‘deep fake’ bill a solution in search of a problem By Mike Rosen As usual, unlimited-government Democrats in our state legislature are  concocting yet another law  to protect us from an imagined threat. Now, it’s fear of Artificial Intelligence posing a threat to “free and fair elections” via fraudulent deepfake images or videos depicting “an individual appearing to say or do so...

Indulge me as I quote a few old dead White guys. Yes, of course, we hate them because somehow, they victimized all of us. But, you know, that whole thing about a squirrel occasionally finding a nut… Who would have guessed Nobel prized economist Milt Friedman was so right when he said there is no such thing as a free lunch. Quite literally. With Prop FF in 2022 Coloradans voted to tax rich people t...

People in Colorado should be allowed to smoke if they want to. Authored and ready by Jon Caldara Sharing a joint before sex is a legally protected right in Colorado. Sharing a cigarette afterward is a perversion so repulsive the Colorado state Legislature is going to stamp it out. I’m so glad we hired the repressive preacher from the movie “Footloose” to play the role of our lawmakers. I quote dir...

Written and read by Mike Rosen A special election will be held in November for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. In a recent candidates debate, one of the contenders, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, called for raising California’s minimum wage to $50.00 an hour, arguing that low income workers need that much to just get by given the cost of living in that state.&nbs...

Costs of labor, energy make it hard for Colorado eateries to stay afloat. The bad policy chickens are coming home to roost. At least you can eat chickens. We are seeing the first domino tumble in the economic ruin that will hit all of Colorado in a few short years. Small businesses, like locally owned restaurants, are shuddering. I don’t know if you remember dining out in Colorado before it became...

Colorado’s left-captured Legislature is busying itself with crazy bills By Jon Caldara While Colorado’s governmental core functions are going unattended, as witnessed by crime, traffic and crumbling roads, the Legislature is busying itself with the most critical work of all — coming up with wing-bat crazy bills to promote the trans agenda by disempowering parents, crushing needed industries and to...

Biden plays lead role in Colorado’s sanctuary state woes By Mike Rosen A recent commentary by Denver Gazette editor Vince Bzdek raised an intriguing question: “Is migrant crisis fed’s fault, or Colorado’s?” I’d say this isn’t an either-or-question. This unprecedented magnitude of illegal alien entries into the U.S., encouraged and allowed by President Biden and openly accommoda...

Radicalized college students clueless from the river to the sea By Mike Rosen It’s been said that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” In other words, greater knowledge is better. A perfect example is a survey of students undertaken by Ron Hassner, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Prof. Hassner designed a poll for a diverse sampling of 250...

The people making the most noise about former President Donald Trump being a threat to democracy are working to take away democracy right here in Colorado. It would be comical if it weren’t so ugly. The Regional Transportation District (RTD) has a 15-member, directly elected, nonpartisan board of directors. I was elected to that board and served as chairman many years ago. I had to answer directly...

Good to be King of Colorado by Jon Caldara Have you ever played, “If I were king”? If I were king ... I would outlaw the designated hitter rule in Major League Baseball. If I were king ... I would require all oatmeal-raisin cookies be made with hunter-safety orange food dye. How many times have you walked across the room for what seemed a mouthwatering chocolate chip cookie only to find after a bi...

I must have hit that age. Nostalgia keeps overtaking me.   I remember a Colorado that had thriving, competitive newspapers in every city, along with equally thriving local radio to keep them in check.   There was a time when local radio was big.   Colorado, and the Front Range in particular, had some of the most competitive radio wars in the country due to more stations than similar...

The former head of the leftist ProgressNow Colorado, who is married to a U.S. congresswoman living in Jefferson County, has donated to the election campaigns of all three of the current Jefferson County commissioners.   So, what a coincidence those same Jefferson County commissioners, all Democrats, are now going to pay him $180,000 to help dupe taxpayers out of TABOR refunds.   As repor...

The Colorado GOP’s master plan to keep losing By: Jon Caldara Politics is the art of addition, not subtraction. The job of electing someone is all about getting people who aren’t all that crazy for you to vote for you. Proving to voters you despise them oddly doesn’t win them over. Just like government cannot tax a people into prosperity, a political party cannot divide and alienate its way to vic...

Stage is set for the ‘Colorado Rebound’ By: Jon Caldara Never since the passage of our  Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights  in 1992 have I been more optimistic about the possibility of Coloradans winning back the lost personal and economic freedoms stolen by the government leviathan. And no, I have not been ingesting the state’s newly deregulated psychedelic mushrooms. I make this observation aft...

Why Coloradans hate the plastic shopping bag ban It’s not the banning of plastic bags that pisses us off. It’s the intolerance and abuse of power behind it.   Soon plastic shopping bags will be forbidden in Colorado. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not the worst inconvenience or even most expensive headache our state government has thrown at us.   I mean, just bring a reusable bag to...

Greed of Colorado’s elected elite stops local tax relief. While the world is consumed with the latest bit of activism from the Colorado Supreme Court regarding Donald Trump, the media oxygen has been squeezed away from another important ruling, one that’s going to hit property owners.  The Colorado State Board of Equalization has decided counties cannot provide property tax relief by lowering...