Backbone Radio

Audio archives for this show:

Please join Krista Kafer and Matt Dunn, sitting in for Ross Kaminsky, on this week’s edition of Backbone Radio as, on Halloween evening, they discuss the spooky outlook for Democrats around the nation.

In the first hour, our guest will be gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo, with the major question being whether the surge in support for Tom is big enough and early enough.

The rest of the show will have a wide-ranging discussion on the likely results of Tuesday’s election.

One big issue is the question left intentionally unclear in the title of this note: In which legislative bodies at both the state and local level will Democrats still have a majority?  We’re almost certain the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives.  We don’t know about the U.S. Senate and, perhaps even more importantly for us Coloradoans, we don’t have a good guess as to whether Republicans will take back either house of our state legislature.

And don’t forget, although a Dem majority in the House of Representatives will have been unelected, they still have until mid-January before the officially lose their jobs.  It remains to be seen just what damage they will try to do during that time.  Will the many losing Dems respect the will of the voters or will they go on a spiteful rampage through the halls of liberty?

Please join the show by listening to (and calling in to) this week’s Backbone Radio program from 5 PM to 8 PM on 710 AM KNUS in Denver and 1460 AM KZNT in Colorado Springs.

If you’re not in range of the radio waves, you should be able to listen to the show online by clicking HERE.

Again, we hope you’ll actively participate in the conversation by calling the studio at 303 696 1971.

And please listen in to our special election coverage on Tuesday evening when John Andrews and Ross Kaminsky will cover local and nation-wide elections with fast-breaking news and insightful analysis.  (At least we hope you’ll find it insightful!)

Audio archives for this show:

Please join Christopher Sanders, sitting in for Ross Kaminsky, on this week’s edition of Backbone Radio when he’ll be joined by a slew of guests, both candidates and activists, talking about the most important election in many years, coming up in just two weeks (with early voting already well under way.)

Our goal tonight is to speak with as many different candidates as we can in our three hours. We will also be joined by Denver County Republican Chair Ryan Call to discuss how we the people can get involved and make real change and bring Hope and Freedom back to America. Ryan will be with us through the whole show so if you have any questions or comments feel free to call in. Our studio number is (303) 696 1971.

In our first hour, Christopher will be joined by Danny Stroud, candidate for State House District 1, after which candidate for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, Ryan Frazier, will join the conversation. We hope and expect Frazier to defeat Obama-pawn Ed Perlmutter when the votes are counted.

In the second hour, guests will include Steve Bosley, at-large candidate for University of Colorado Regent, a position he holds currently and in which he is a stalwart champion of true diversity – not just diversity of liberals – within our state’s higher education system.

Republican candidate for Secretary of State, Scott Gessler, will also join the show in the second hour.

And finally, in the 7-o’clock hour, Christopher will be joined by Dr. Mike Fallon, in studio to answer your questions about his efforts to unseat Dianne DeGette. Dr. Fallon is fighting a long uphill slog to restore the concept of the citizen legislator to the Colorado 1st but he is up to it.

Please join me by listening to (and calling in to) this week’s Backbone Radio program from 5 PM to 8 PM on 710 AM KNUS in Denver and 1460 AM KZNT in Colorado Springs.

If you’re not in range of the radio waves, you should be able to listen to the show online by clicking HERE.

Again, we hope you’ll actively participate in the conversation by calling the studio at 303 696 1971.

Audio archives for this show:

Please join me on this week’s edition of Backbone Radio when I’ll be joined by guest-host Krista Kafer as we focus on some of the less-discussed parts of Colorado politics.

In our first hour, we’ll be joined by Colorado’s Attorney General, John Suthers, who is running for re-election in this 2010 campaign. While Suthers would seem to be one of the most secure incumbents in high-level state-wide executive offices (not least because the rest are Democrats), it’s nevertheless important for an educated citizenry to understand why a person deserves to hold elected office.

With that in mind, we’re going to cover a range of topics related to the AG’s job, not least being Mr. Suthers’ fight, along with other states’ AGs, against Obamacare. We’ll talk about other major cases Suthers is working on, as well as his take on illegal immigration enforcement within the state.

If you have questions for AG Suthers, please don’t be shy about calling in, or sending me an e-mail or instant message.

In our second and third hours, we’ll be joined by two Libertarian Party candidates for office.

At 6 PM, we’ll talk with Jaimes Brown, Libertarian candidate for Governor of Colorado. We’ll talk about a wide range of policy issues, including Brown’s take on ballot issues 60, 61, and 101, which I expect he supports.

And at 7 PM, we’ll visit with Maclyn Stringer, Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate.

As always – and as a “small-l” libertarian and former Libertarian Party member – I’m most interested in the potential intersection of libertarian beliefs with conservative beliefs, and in the potential appeal of the Libertarian Party to both Republicans and Democrats as well as the potential appeal of libertarian-leaning Republicans to the broader electorate.

My view is that a plurality, and perhaps a majority, of Americans are libertarians even if they don’t know it. They (we) basically want government to leave us alone.

Another topic which I expect to discuss with Brown and Stringer is alternative voting systems, such as Approval Voting. You can (and should) read a bit more about approval voting at some of the following links. It’s an interesting system, with fairly strong pluses and minuses. Generally, the pluses seem to outweigh the minuses for smaller political parties (like the Libertarians), but perhaps not for the current major parties.

For more info:
http://www.approvalvoting.com/ (a site in support of Approval Voting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting (Wikipedia entry on Approval Voting, includes some discussion of praise and criticism of it)
http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=1920 (Web page of a group which supports a different alternative voting method)

Please join me by listening to (and calling in to) this week’s Backbone Radio program from 5 PM to 8 PM on 710 AM KNUS in Denver and 1460 AM KZNT in Colorado Springs.

If you’re not in range of the radio waves, you should be able to listen to the show online by clicking HERE.

I hope you’ll actively participate in the conversation with me: Call the studio at 303 696 1971, e-mail me at rossputin(at)rossputin.com, or instant message from my site at http://rossputin.com or through AOL Instant messenger to screen name Rossputin.

Audio archives for this show:

Christoper Sanders guest-hosts for Ross Kaminsky while Ross travels for his birthday.

Guests include Republican candidates for Congress Stephen Bailey, Ryan Frazier, and Dr. Mike Fallon

Audio archives for this show:

Please join me on this week’s edition of Backbone Radio when I’ll be joined by my frequent guest-host, Christopher Sanders, as we cover issues as local and as foreign as you’ll find on talk radio.

Americans’ perceptions of China are varied and extreme, ranging from envy to fear to grudging respect to reverence. It’s not based on China’s military power, as is often the case among powerful global competitors, but rather based on a view of massive economic might just beginning to be unleashed.

But is China’s economy a miracle or a mirage?

In our first hour, after discussing news of the week, we’ll be joined by Guy Sorman, Manhattan Institute scholar, and author, among other things, of an article and a book entitled “Empire of Lies“, in which Sorman explains why he believes “the twenty-first century will not belong to China.”

Sorman isn’t shy about his view, as one can gather early on in the article linked above:

But China’s success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, fortunate to be working for an expanding global market, increasingly enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining 1 billion, however, remain among the poorest and most exploited people in the world, lacking even minimal rights and public services. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. China’s economic “miracle” is rotting from within.

We’ll discuss whether China’s economic growth is sustainable, whether any economic statistics coming from the Communist government can be believed, and what ramifications might be if China’s economic growth slows substantially. The ripples around the world could turn into political and financial tidal waves if all didn’t go well.

Switching gears – and many thousands of miles – we return home to Colorado politics with a debate on the contentious ballot issues of Amendment 60, Amendment 61, and Proposition 101, all of which are presented to voters as ways to control our state government’s spending and debt, but all of which are widely opposed by an unusual group of allies ranging from unions and liberal think tanks to chambers of commerce and many conservative Republican state legislators. The group responsible for the measures, CO Tax Reform, is headed up by Natalie Menten who will join the show during our second hour to debate Republican State Senator Greg Brophy, a co-sponsor of a letter from an organization called Don’t Hurt Colorado which is opposing the measures.

[UPDATE: Ms. Menten did not appear on the show as scheduled and did not return phone calls or e-mails asking her why.]

Ballotpedia entries for these three controversial items can be found at these links, if you’d like to dig deeper into the issues. Of course, both web sites linked just above also have their own take on the merits (or demerits) of the measures.

Amendment 60 (Property Taxes)
Amendment 61 (State and Local Debt Limitations)
Proposition 101 (Motor Vehicle, Income, and Telecom Taxes)

It should be a spirited debate, not least because it’s between two conservatives who support limited goverment and low taxes.

In the show’s third hour, we’ll cover a range of topics including recent poll results in some of the major Colorado elections coming up in just one short month – though I’m sure it will seem like a very l ong month for those of us who pay too much attention to politics.

Please join me by listening to (and calling in to) this week’s Backbone Radio program from 5 PM to 8 PM on 710 AM KNUS in Denver and 1460 AM KZNT in Colorado Springs.

If you’re not in range of the radio waves, you should be able to listen to the show online by clicking HERE.

I hope you’ll actively participate in the conversation with me: Call the studio at 303 696 1971, e-mail me at rossputin(at)rossputin.com, or instant message from my site at http://rossputin.com or through AOL Instant messenger to screen name Rossputin.