WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH MISSING GOP MONEY? Two members of the Colorado GOP leadership are joining me today to push back against claims made by current GOP leader that there is a big old chunk of missing money. Hope Scheppelman and Tom Bjorklund are part of the old board and they say the $140,000 of missing money was gone when they got the keys and they told new leadership about it. I've got them both today at 2:30 to discuss what happened and when. I'm having them on in an effort to quickly get this figured out in the hopes that we can move forward with good ideas and candidates instead of fighting and lawsuits.
GREEN ENERGY IS EXPENSIVE AND UNRELIABLE ENERGY And Amy Oliver Cooke writes about it here for Complete Colorado. This is my favorite part:
Environmentalists appealed to consumers by saying wind and solar would save ratepayers money. From the outset, Governor Polis refused to provide a detailed cost analysis of his plan while rejecting Independence Institute’s 2017 projection that the transition could cost $45 billion. Polis insisted the Institute’s estimates were inflated and modeled a plan that wasn’t even his. Yet, Polis never offered an alternative figure, saying, instead, he knows it will be less.
Fast forward to 2024. The Colorado Energy Office’s (CEO) Ascend Analytics report offered an acknowledgment and a sobering warning: Polis’s wind, solar, and battery-only system would require 69,000 megawatts of new capacity by 2040 and still “barely meet reliability targets.” At $61 billion, it’s also the most expensive scenario studied. That figure doesn’t even include the billions of dollars needed for transmission costs. The total system cost will be far greater.
Once again, the Institute did the math. The total system cost for Polis’ plan, including storage, necessary overbuild, backup, property taxes, and utility profits, new wind and solar costs $280–$319 per megawatt-hour, compared to $32 for existing coal and $40 for gas. Wind and solar costs aren’t just expensive—they’re economically destabilizing.
Amy is on the show to discuss at 1pm, but you really should watch her great show with Jake Fogelman called Power Gab here.
ROCKIES FIRE BUD BLACK And though Bud Black is an incredibly nice man something needed to change. Will this make a difference? I don't know. I simply don't know if we have the talent on this team to do anything. They play flat, there is no hustle, it honestly looks like they've already given up for the season. The new manager is from within the franchise (of course) so what will change? Here's hoping this provides some sort of spark to remind these guys they are professional baseball players hired to do a job every single day they are on the field. Right now it seems they've forgotten that. You can read here comments like this from the Rockies front office:
“I think there comes a point where you have to change the leadership of the group,” Schmidt said. “I think a different voice here and we’re at that point where we needed to do that.”
You think? Jack Corrigan joins us at 12:30
THIS AS ATTENDANCE IS FLAGGING As an avid viewer of Rockies games (I know, I'm a glutton for punishment) I can tell you the announced crowds are a fantasy. This article says crowds below 20,000 are becoming more common, which is accurate. And when the crowds are large you can almost bet that most of the crowd is there for the opposing team. I'd love to know how concession sales are going. That would be a far better indicator of actual people at the games than the announced numbers.
ABOUT THOSE CHINESE TARIFFS If you believe, as I believe that tariffs being levied by Trump are merely a tool to bring everyone else to the table this is not surprising. After a weekend of intense negotiation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent we got news of a 90 day pause on the sky high tariffs Trump levied on China. For the next 90 days, where negotiations will continue, the tariffs have been dropped much lower. From Mediaite:
The truce peels back some of the harshest duties imposed under President Donald Trump’s April tariff hike, which sent U.S. levies on Chinese goods soaring to 125%. China hit back with countermeasures and restricted key mineral exports, rattling global supply chains. Under the new agreement, Chinese tariffs drop to 10%, while U.S. tariffs fall to 30% — though the 20% fentanyl-related tariff remains untouched.
This sent global markets soaring, and we'll see if this is beginning of the end of tariffs of any real consequence.
AND NOW TRUMP IS DOING DRUG PRICES My first reaction to Trump announcing price fixing on prescription drugs was to slap my hand against my forehead in frustration. Republicans don't do price controls! They are bad and lead to shortages! We all know this and the Wall Street Journal Editorializes about it here! But then I remembered who I'm talking about and had to take a beat. Is this the end game? The reality is we've been subsidizing prescription drugs for the rest of the planet for YEARS. We pay SO MUCH MORE than people around the world it's insane. Is this just a move to let drug companies know we're tired of doing that? Or is this actually price controls? I've learned to hold my fire on this stuff until the full picture comes out but to be clear, price controls NEVER work the way they say they will. That being said, Big Pharma, it's your move. I find this bit interesting:
For example, USC experts said the policy “can’t undo the basic economics of the global drug marketplace,” where 70% of pharmaceutical profits worldwide come from the U.S.
“Facing a choice between deep cuts in their U.S. pricing or the loss of weakly profitable overseas markets, we can expect many firms to pull out from overseas markets at their earliest opportunity,” experts said in a report in April.
That will leave Americans paying the same amount for medications, drugmakers with lower profits and future generations of patients with less innovation, they said.
“In sum, everyone loses,” the experts said.
But will they though? Or will they look to rebalance pricing more fairly to maintain worldwide market share? We'll see because like everything Trump does, this will set a chain of events in motion for sure.
NO, TRUMP DOESN'T NEED A PLANE FROM QATAR Qatar is not a good friend. They fund all sorts of terrorism and are not to be trusted. And I don't give a rat's behind if the Trump team found a way to make a "gift" of this magnitude legal, which would be regifted to the Trump Presidential library after his term, legal, it's a bad, bad look and should never have been considered in the first place. I find this absolutely horrifying to be honest. How easy it is to buy a President. I can't wait for some of you to tell me this is no big deal. I'm not sure why the Presidential Library would want it, as a 747 is one of the most expensive aircraft to fly in. Is this perhaps designed to get Boeing moving on a new Air Force One which was already supposed to be done by now? I sure hope so.
HOMELESS ADVOCATES SAY HOUSING FIRST IS BETTER THAN WORK FIRST And they've got some nerve saying that work first doesn't work when Step Denver has been proving that is does for decades while the Homeless Industrial Complex has been spending money like crazy and only seeing homelessness rise. This part made me laugh out loud:
Colorado Coalition for the Homeless officials countered that an increase in homelessness in one city is not a result of housing-first policies, but rather a result of housing costs. A survey of 26 studies from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed housing-first is more effective, the press release added.
From a total participant pool of over 17,000, the survey showed that housing-first programs decreased homelessness by 88% and improved housing stability by 41% compared to treatment-first programs.
They still think this is a housing issue. And WHERE in this great nation has homelessness decreased by 88%? Please point out that city. I'd love to visit I'm sure it's lovely. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless spends over $100 MILLION every year and homelessness keeps going up. Clearly their way is not working. Clearly they are trying to protect their income streams by shutting down alternatives. We'll get to see if their right in real time when the Aurora campus opens up.
MARRERO CAUGHT IN A LIE AGAIN The DPS Superintendent loves to play fast and loose with the truth and he did it again with school closures. He asked for an extension before "deciding" what schools to close that happened to fall right AFTER the election where Denver Public Schools asked for another huge bond. He said he needed the official October count to make the decision but then he and his team used a September count anyway. Funny how that works. Of course the Board says there is nothing to see here, please move along.
I'D RATHER THE EARTH FRY THAN GIVE UP HOT SPRINGS This never occurred to me but I'm going to lead the charge to save our hot springs! How are they under threat? Green geniuses want to siphon off the water to use for geothermal heating. This could mean that recreational hot springs could dry up and take all that glorious soaking with them. I am a repeat customer for our hot springs, they are one of my favorite things to do in Colorado. This is what happens when you let people who believe we can get carbon emissions to zero in fifteen years be in charge.
WHO WENT TO THE FARMER'S MARKET THIS WEEKEND? I am happy to report that my annual plant purchases were less costly than last year, but I'm wondering what the local farmer's market pricing looked like. I didn't go yesterday as I was busy planting my deck so how are things? This story says vendors are not too worried about tariffs as they are producing things here. Some of the farmers are worried about labor though.
HAMAS IS RELEASING THE AMERICAN HOSTAGE As they are obviously trying to suck up the United States and President Trump. Hamas came straight to the US and cut out Israel but I don't care because Edan Alexander is coming home.
TED TRIMPA CALLS OUT THE DEMS IN COLORADO As only he can. This is a great episode of The Devil's Advocate you should listen to.
EVEN THE ROCKIES KNEW THE 21-0 LOSS WAS SUPER BAD And maybe we should have whoever is running the X account to run the team.
BABY MONTY PYTHON IS THE BEST I have no clue who is doing this but I hope they don't stop.
TRUMP HAS BAD INTEL ON TINA PETERS And Jimmy Sengenberger reminds us here that she was not politically persecuted, she was found guilty by a jury of her peers after a trial.
CORPORATE BOSSES HAVE HAD ENOUGH WHINING And the tide has turned as the tightening economy means bosses have more leverage than workers again. Check out these snippets from corporate bosses via the Wall Street Journal:
“Work-life balance is your problem,” Emma Grede, co-founder of the shapewear company Skims and chief executive of clothing label Good American, said this month. After recently cutting more than a 1,000 jobs, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said remaining corporate staff needed to step it up and “own whether or not this place grows.” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, in a profanity-laced internal meeting, told employees lamenting a return-to-work mandate that he didn’t care.
“I’ve had it with this kind of stuff,” he said. “I’ve been working seven days a week since Covid, and I come in, and—where is everybody else?”
Boy howdy is Gen Alpha in for a shock. They have never worked in an "everyone is replaceable" space before. Now they will find out that no one cares about their mental health days.
D49 IN THE SPRINGS BANS BOYS FROM GIRL'S SPORTS But I'm not sure what this will actually mean as it's pretty unenforceable as written and I'm sure the state will have something to say about it as they have demonstrated no concern for girls as of late.
THE DEION EFFECT HURT SHEDEUR And this makes perfect sense to me as teams did not want the baggage and likely constant criticism from Shedeur Sanders famous father. You can read more here.
TRAVIS HUNTER WAS BACK AT CU TO PICK SOMETHING UP And good for this kid. Watch below or click here. Hunter finished with a 4.0 GPA, was an anthropology major and a two-time first-team academic All-American. What an impressive young man.
WE'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER, BRONCOS At least for the rookie class.
POPE LEO IS A BASEBALL GUY Watch below or click here.
JACK AND JERRY REACT TO THE BUD BLACK FIRING
DUDE Watch below or click here.