Hi, everyone.

I'm Kyle Dyer, and welcome to Colorado Inside Out.

On this Friday, December the 6th, let me introduce you to this week's insider panel.

We have Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword, Eric Sondermann, columnist with the Colorado Politics and Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette's Sage Naumann, conservative columnis and commentator and strategist and owner of Anthe Communications, and Adam Burg, senior policy advisor at Foster Graham Law Firm.

All right, everyone.

To kick off this week's discussion and in light of Oxford Dictionary and Dictionary.com coming up with their word of 2024, I'm curious what each of you would think would be the Colorado word of 2024.

Let's start with you.

As of November 5th, it became trumped.

Trump trumped all other coverage, all other events, and the anticipation of what's going to happen for the next four years will continue to be the big story.

Okay.

I'm not sure I can trump that, bu my word of the year is island.

If you look at that election map, Colorado is increasingly a blue island in the sea of a whole lot of red.

All righty, sage.

Mine is mediocre.

Colorado has really fallen down in rankings.

Business friendliness.

Where do we lead?

You know, we're not leading anywhere anymore.

And I think that that is not the Colorado way.

And I think that we've fallen behind where we've been historically mediocre.

Okay.

Mine is purple ish.

so unaffiliated voters have surpassed Democrat and Republicans in recent years.

You look at election results from this year in CD8 or the passage of prop 130 which is, public safety funding.

And I think we're starting to maybe see a little bit of a shift, towards more of a moderate part of the state.

Okay.

So those are good ones I should mention.

Dictionary.com said demure was their word, which broke the internet when TikTok came out.

With that, they saw a 1,200% increas of the usage of the word demure.

And then brain brought was Oxford Dictionaries word.

And that's when we're just getting too caught up.

Reading trivial stuff i certainly not what we do here.

No, no trivial here.

for a news story that broke last weekend, President Biden's pardon of his son, Hunter has remained a topic of conversation all week long.

And our governor, Jared Polis, is one of the first people to make a public statement about this.

Patty.

I was glad to see his statement.

The only possible explanation for what Joe Biden did is he is a father who wants to protect his son, even though his son is a sleazeball who deserved to go to jail.

But as my own father would say two wrongs do not make a right.

And in this case, the fact that we have elected a corrupt ex-presiden to let it continue corruption, who is appointing some of the worst cabinet people imaginable, whose own relatives have done very, very bad things to who is a convicted felon?

All those things do not make what Joe Biden did right.

He wants to protect his kid, but his kid deserved some jail time.

So good for Jared Polis for stepping out.

Whether he did it because he truly believed it was the right thing to say or because he's positioning himself for a later presidential run is a different issue.

Wrong.

As wrong as Patty says two wrongs don't make a right.

The Democrats, yes, they occupy.

Or they used to occupy some moral high ground around these issues.

And with the Biden pardon they just sacrificed all their moral high ground.

And that is the only ground they're going to be able to hold if they want to oppose, a lot of what Trump is doing, if you get down in the mud with Trump, what's the old line about getting in the mu with the big you just get dirty.

The pig loves it.

You don't want to fight this game on Trump's turf.

That's what Biden did.

I'm stunned by the number of Democrats, not the leading Democrats like Paul Bennett, etc.

just run of the mill rank and file Democrats who are trying to justify this.

And I think it's almost a PTSD reaction to the shellacking in the last election, where they're just throwing up their hands and saying, the Republicans do it.

We might as well do it as well.

That is the wrong move I'm honestly surprised that so many others are surprised by it.

It's something that I kind of expected, especially with Biden, you know, withdrawing from the race.

That being said, the moral high ground is lost because, number one, Biden and his team said this wouldn't happen repeatedly is that it wouldn't happen regardless of who was in the race.

Lost the race.

You know, if, if Harris won the race or lost race, it didn't matter.

He was not going to do it.

And then he did it anyways.

look, I understand that Joe Biden has one child left who's had a tough life.

and I'm sure he look at this is, you know, this is my the last thing I can d to try to give him a fresh start in his life during his final years.

but I think tha when you consider the argument that Democrats have to make against Donald Trump over the next four years, to try to, you know, hold him to account, very hard to do with Biden making this move.

And so I think the president's terrible I understand i from a personal point of view, but politically and for the country, I think this is I think I think it's a bad road to go down.

And, Adam.

It's interesting because I don't kno that it totally sets a precedent in certain ways.

So the use of the presidential pardon is goes back to the Constitution.

George Washington used presidential pardons, during the Whiskey Rebellion at one point, and even the idea of pardoning family.

So Bill Clinton granted a pardon to his half brother, Roger Clinton, who bee convicted of cocaine possession.

So there is a history of the use of pardons throughout every presidency since the founding of the country.

that said, and having that context, I think you look at the arguments Democrats have made over the past year, the part who they shaped themselves into as being the the moral high ground, being the party who, didn't do these things and didn't use any sort of abuses of power.

And I think there is a real reckoning that has to come.

and what this means for the Trump administration will certainly see over the next four years.

Okay.

All right.

Well, Colorado communitie are now in full on holiday mode, but there are a lot of people amongst us who are not merry and the Denver progra that set out to help more people with behavioral, mental healt and substance recovery programs is now dealing with a lot of attention for allegedly misusing millions of taxpayer dollars.

caring for Denve is the name of the organization.

It's a nonprofit.

They came to be when voters approved a modest sale tax here in Denver back in 2019.

And the idea was to help peopl who might not be able to afford care.

Or and they also wante to create care in communities.

So it was very accessible to people.

Eric, let's start with you on this.

Well, first off, kudos to Colorado Public Radio and particularly to reporter Ben Marcus, who broke this story over the last few days.

It was a very solid, well-researched story.

It pains me in that I know a number of people on the board of caring for Denver, as well as the executive director, and I regard them to be quality people.

But something is a muck here.

the purpose of this program, of course, is necessary, and of course, is admirable, but we don't invest in purposes or good intentions.

We invest in specific programs and specific outcomes.

and this seems to be raising a lot of questions.

And I think one of those questions has to be to this whole model of having a nonprofit that contracts with the city, and that is the exclusive recipient of, of very substantial tax dollars, 170 million tax dollars.

And since when, this nonprofit was formed and approved by the voters.

Leslie Herrod is the board chair.

and maybe there should b some accountability on her part.

And where this is the nonprofit, there were some 200 groups that would receive money from the nonprofit.

I think we all recognize tha when it comes to mental health, addiction, homelessness, there's going to have to be a level of experimentation and trying new things.

but you don't have the systems in place for accountability.

You don't have anyone checking what the results are.

And so unless you have a reporter who's actually asking those questions saying, where's the money going?

What are the results from these programs?

Who's running them?

Do they have any kind of credentials in mental health services or anything like that?

Then you'r just not going to hear about it.

And that happens time and time and again with government programs.

Unfortunately when it comes to these services, when it comes to mental health, people's lives are on the line.

You can't just sit there and throw money at the issue and walk away.

You have to have accountability.

You have to go back and see what worked and what didn't.

we can't sit here and just just chuck money at these problems and say, oh, we're fixing it, we're fixing it, we're fixing it.

We're spending tens of thousands of dollars on, you know, every homeless individual in Denver as well.

We're not getting the results that we want to see.

Maybe it's because we're not actually going back to review what's worked and what hasn't.

Instead, we're just we're happy.

Just saying we tossed a certain dollar amount at the issue.

I don't think that's the way to go about doing it.

And again, at the heart of this are people's lives, right?

Right.

Adam.

Yeah.

so statistically speaking, almost 600 people died in drug related cases last year in Denver.

the suicide rate in the city rose his second highest level in two decades last year, and it's the highest in the metro area.

So this is a serious issue.

And it's also a personal issue for me.

so I have been in recovery for a couple of years.

I know how how difficult it is to get sober.

I know how important it i that we fund these programs, but accountability, making sure these dollars are going to the appropriate use, going to effective programs that that work.

And I agree, there's a there's a place for innovation and we should allow for that.

but we have to have better checks and balances in these systems because again, this comes down to people who are struggling.

and I would encourage anyone who is struggling, in the holiday or in any other circumstance to, to reach out to someone, because you do matter and there's lots of people who care about you.

Thank you.

Patty.

Great news by Ben Marcus and CPR.

But the fact is, you shouldn't need to have the media watchdog programs because they should be run correctly in the first place.

And shame on this group fo not really maintaining a little.

If you look at some of the errors, you can see there should have been a lot more control over who was getting the grants and what they were doing.

The city auditor alone can't do it.

The board should be doing it the managers should be doing it.

And I think we're going to see I mean, this was out of the goodness of their hearts.

Denver voters approved it in 2019 because Denver likes to support people who need help.

So mental health this year they voted for Denver Health because they want to support people who need help.

But people are going to be much more skeptical in the future if they think their money is not going to help.

And we saw that in the vote for two hour this year, which is people didn't know where the money was going, so they didn't vote for it.

And it's going to be much tougher the next time the city wants tax money.

You may be right.

Okay.

On Wednesday this week a Denver City Council committee approved a measure to ban the sales of most flavored tobacco and nicotine products within the city limits, despite huge objections from the retailers that sell those products and the tobacco industry as well.

So now the full council is set to consider this plan, which supporters say will ultimately protect children.

So much.

So I'm a little bit biased because I vape flavored products.

And so, for me, this has been something that I paid attention to for many years because these bands have been obviously proposed at the state level.

Other cities and states have adopted them elsewhere.

I really think it's ridiculous.

In a state where we pride ourselves on personal liberty that we say, oh, no, no, this is the one product we can't have on the shelves because the kids, the kids might use it.

Well, the kids might also drink flavored alcohol.

We're not sitting here talking about banning that.

But that being said, so far, it seems like every study that's come out has shown that it is most certainly healthier than smoking traditional cigarets.

I think the UK College of Physicians said it was 95% healthier than smoking traditional cigarets.

Again that doesn't mean it's healthy.

That doesn't mean kids should use it.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't combat it, but it does ask the question for those, adults who are trying to get off of of you know, traditional nicotine delivery devices.

why are we taking that choice away from them?

Why are we driving this to a black market?

We saw, you know, a few years ago people were going to hospitals with terrible, you know, issues with their lungs.

Every single one of those cases were black market vaping products that were being sold.

Driving this to the black market is not going to improve people's health.

And at the end of the day, I think that it's taking liberties away from people who want to make decisions for themselves.

I don't think that's right.

And there are over 500 retailers within Denver that sell these products.

Adam.

Yeah, it's, it's a business and not a small business necessarily, in the city or the state.

as we know that we have seen other jurisdictions tackle this issue and try and take it on Denver before several years ago, tried to take this on, and then Mayor Michael Hancock chose to veto that bill.

with this bill it passed 6 to 1 our committee with Councilman Flynn, the only no vote suggesting, not enough information, too many unanswered questions for this to go to the full body for a vote in the next couple of weeks.

I'm split on something like this.

I recognize the data is complex.

the appeal sure of flavor products to children, but there's lots of flavored products that we don't regulate or totally prohibit.

and I think there is a level of personal choice that needs to be considered.

All of this said, I would not be shocked if in, early next year, Denver has a ban on this on these products.

Patti.

The fact is, if it passes, we won't be driving people to the black market.

We'll be driving them to Aurora or Lakewood or whoever doesn't have a ban on the products.

And that's one of the arguments that's come up.

And you can use that same argument.

People might go to a different city to buy something because our sales tax is higher, because we're paying for mental health and programs that aren't doing any good.

So we're seeing a hug amount of money now coming out from big tobacco from other groups, and we're going to see an ugly fight.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time there's a council vote, which will be the 16th, probably now that it made it out of committee, we could see it swing the other way.

But my guess is it will pass.

And Johnston, unlike Hancock, will not veto it.

Okay All right Eric, your thoughts?

I think my assessment i the same as Patty's and Adams.

This is likely to become the law in the city and county of Denver.

I think the votes will stay there.

Maybe they'll peel off a vote or two, but there will be a majority on council to vote in favor of this.

And there will be, Mike, Mike Johnston, mayo Mike Johnston signature on it.

So I think this is coming in terms of the wisdom or equities of it.

Yes.

I'm somewhat attracted to Sage's more libertarian argument about it.

the libertaria philosophical argument gets me the astroturf organization that the tobacco industry has formed called Smoke Free Choice.

leaves me wanting a little bit.

It's, you know, I know we should all be shocked tha that industry is playing here, and this astroturf in Oregon is, some phony organization.

But that's the way, the game is played.

the equities are a little more mixed.

yes.

There will be a black market.

Yes.

The suburbs will benefit here.

This is coming to Denver.

Okay.

All right We'll see in a couple of weeks.

Colorado State women's volleyball team played in its first NCAA tournament game since 2019 today.

But how the team got that spo in the tournament, has brought some national attention, over this last week.

aside from the great teamwork and the talent of the Rams, we should mention that of course, CSU won last week in the Mountain West Conference, beating San Jose State, which has a, transgender athlete on the team.

And that team has seen lawsuits and boycotts with some teams refusing to play them Let's talk about this.

this transgender right have been a big topic this week, of course, before the Suprem Court to regarding health care.

I'll start with you, Adam.

It has.

Yeah.

So the court this week on Wednesday heard initial arguments about a case stemming out of Tennessee that deals with prohibiting gender affirming care for minors.

so top of mind at the highes level of our federal government and sort of a close relation to these larger issues around transgender rights.

the decision is not expecte for several months, but it will have massive implications for around 25 states who have laws on the books related to similar issues.

I think there is hope from these sort of progressive Biden camp that the court will follow a similar ruling they had four years ago in the Amy Stephens case, which dealt with sort of, discrimination in the workplace based on sex.

But this was more of a, actual workplace case, not talking about sort of minor care, based on their oral arguments.

I don't know that the conservative justices are going to be swayed to follow a similar path.

And given sort of the tide nationally of politics, that's somethin I think we should watch closely.

But certainly this, this CSU and what's come about, has made it top of mind for a lot of people here in the state as well.

Patty in fact there was there was a law case filed by the teams to try to get a decision that San Jose could not play and or this athlete could not play, and it went down right before that match.

Great work by CSU.

They won on their own merits.

You know there are three members of that team who also have been kneeling, taking the knee during the national anthem.

And the coac is really supporting her players and saying they're grown ups who have got a right to be heard.

And so great work by them.

But this issue is going to keep going.

If you saw in the electio at the last second, really $37 million went into Republican ads pushing the trans issue, and it's going to be a big Trump.

It's going to be a big flashpoint next year, no matter what the Supreme Court decides.

It doesn't strike me as that hard to say.

Trans people deserve dignity.

They deserve deserve respect.

They deserve compassion when that is called for, they deserve equal rights.

But not yet.

Then to take it to the extreme of saying that we should have biological men, people who were male at the time of puberty and have that bone structure participating in women's sports, or that minors.

In many cases, young kids should be subject to irreversible medical treatment, the irreversible being the key operative word there.

And whether you would agre with my middle ground approach or have your own middle ground approach, this is one that's crying out for some common sense, as opposed to just waving the placard and running to your corner and taking an extreme position on one side or the other.

those at the at the top of the political food chain tend to take the extreme positions because this is it's a big fundraiser.

it's a big motivator for their bases.

and at the end of the day, I think that, you know, when it comes to, you know for example, like, minor care, I think there is a conversation to be had.

I think that's the most critical part, is that this is a conversation tha needs to occur in our country, not a yelling match, not a, you know oh, well, you're you're a bigot.

And then, oh, you're just trying to, you know, harm children.

No, this is a conversation we need to have.

And I think one of the problems is that most people in Congress, most of what you're seeing on TV, are not interested in having a conversation that are interested in fundraising.

They're interested in rallying their base.

and that's not how you reach a consensus.

That's not how you find that middle ground where I think most Americans probably said.

All right.

Well thank you for the conversation and not bringing too much emotion to it because it is a tough conversation.

let's go down the line no and talk about some of the highs and lows of this week.

We'll start on the low point with Patty so we can end on a good note.

Patty, if you loved the construction work on the 16th Street Mall, you will really lov what's going on on East Colfax.

It's already a nightmare, and I worry so much about all those small businesses along Colfax, some of the most eccentric cool effects places in town and how they are going to survive and how people are going to take Colfax to get downtown when that's just beginning to come back, really, really worries me.

I saw one restaurant yesterday.

You couldn't even get in the parking lot because construction car were all around the parking lot.

We need to help save these businesses.

So, so true.

my negative comment is going to go to a number of Colorado state senators, in this case, all Democrats.

We hav Chris Hansen has been discussed around this table, resigning knowing, running for reelection, even though during the campaign, he knew full well he was going to take a new high powered job in Durango.

We have Janet Buckner.

Those circumstances, I think, are a little better and more understandable, but still resigning.

So we're going to have two new senators not elected by voter appointed by vacancy committees.

And now we have a Jesse Paul report in the Colorado Sun about, Senator Sonia Jaquez Lewis out of Boulder, who is being prohibited by her fellow Democrats from having a state appointed or state pai aid because of her mistreatment of her own aides in past sessions.

maybe she ought to go to a sensitivity class or, how to be an employer class.

Okay.

All right.

So, you know, in the last few days, we had a traumatic incident happen in New York City where the CEO of United Health Care was gunned down in broad daylight.

and that in of itself is a low light, but watching some of the responses to it online, and it' not everyone on the left, it's probably not even, you know, probably a very small minority of them, but they're loud, that have been cheering it, saying that he deserved it.

Or this is what happens when, you know, these kind of companies rip people off.

the only thing I really have t add to the conversation is that when he realized he was going to meet his en in those moments, which he did, because unfortunately, he turned to see his shooter.

he did not think about how muc money was in his bank account.

He thought about his children.

And we know no one knew thi guy's name before he was shot.

And at least the vast majority of Americans, we don't know if he was trying to change the culture in his company.

If he was one of the good guys working from the inside.

we need to have more empathy.

We solve our problems with ballots, not bullets.

And people championing that.

it's shameful.

And it's.

We've seen it from both sides.

But I think right now we're seeing it from a lot on the far left, and it's tragic.

Well-said.

Thanks.

So I don't know if anyone was watching college football this weekend.

but there were like, every game you turned on, there was a fight.

so we had Michigan, Ohio State that Braska didn't shake.

I was han you had Alabama and Auburn, USC for state taking, frustration with flag plants at their stadium and then Arizona, Arizona State.

it's not good for the game.

there's not really a great solution.

I think you now have, all the different sort of groups looking at, you know, the NCAA and others what the punishments are.

Do you have kids potentially sit out in bowl games because of this?

but I think it's something that that needs to be addresse as a fan and an avid Cuba fan, it's disappointing to see these things happening in college stadiums like this.

Totally is.

Yes.

All right.

Something good.

A fond farewell to Mr. Beer, Dick Crack, long tim columnist for the Denver Post.

We're losing so many of the people who brought this city together with their words.

So a sad salute to him.

I just want to give a shout out.

to Jared Polis and Michael Bennet and Jason Crow, with their respect, with respect to their statements about the Biden pardon.

But whether it's the three of them or counterparts on the Republican side, any politician who exerts any degree of political independence from their party, who speaks out contrary to sort of the orthodox of their party in this polarized time, we're living in this tribal time.

They are under fire from their own rank for even putting their head up in the tiniest way, whether it's those people on the Democratic side or the Liz Cheneys at all on the Republican side, we need more of them, and we need them to be more courageous.

And all the incentives thes days are in the other direction.

Okay.

So the, Chris Kindle market, hopefully I pronounce it correctly, is back in Denver, Civic Center Park going until the 23rd.

my wife, son and I hope to go in the next few days, but, we haven't been before, but we are very excited about we've heard great things about it, but if folks have not got a chance to, it's supposedly it's really fun.

Can't wait to go So fun.

I've already been once.

So this was actually a wake up to politic from Gabe Fleisher article today that I thought was interesting, which he talks about the, Jared autocracy of America and sort of this older age politician era is actually coming to an end.

and he sort of points to this younger Trump administration cabinet who he seems to be picking sort of younge Democratic leadership coming in.

And even on the Republican side, whether or not I think it's too early to say whether or not this is a good thing.

I do think it is a notable thing in this sense that we are in a changing landscape, potentially federally, not just the next four years, but the next 20 years.

so it's going to be interesting times.

And I'm sure we'll have plenty to discuss as, as things progress.

we will.

All right.

My high is great.

Mike Nelson, who signed off the air at channel seven this week after 48 years of broadcasting the weather, most of that here in Denver.

Mike is so dedicated to the science of weather and has been so committed to informing our state and having some fun in the process.

his tornado dances that he's performed at countless schools over the years is legendary, but personally, I will never forget my break dancing.

Specifically doing the backspin on the dance floor at a nine New Christmas party back in the 90s.

Thank you Mike for your service, for your style.

Enjoy sleeping in during the next snowstorm.

If you can.

Thanks to our panel for joining us this week.

Thanks to you for being engaged and watching with us or listening to our podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer, I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

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