TGIF Blogcast: Mike Johnston (on mayor's race); Jon Caldara (on gun laws)

Just One Thing: A couple of things about Denver elections

Tattered Cover co-owner and CEO Kwame Spearman drops out of the Denver mayor's race. (Actually, at the time of this writing, he has said he's out but hasn't made it official, and if he doesn't then the votes for him would still count.) I like the guy....very smart even though he went to the same college I did.

I think his name recognition was too low and he took positions which I liked too much for him to succeed with them in a leftist place like Denver. By which I mean, he took particularly aggressive positions against crime and homelessness. Some of the leftists in Denver have said they won't go to Tattered Cover because Kwame was too rational. (Well, they didn't word it quite that way.) I hope this experience doesn't hurt his business. It will be interesting to see if he decides to run for office in the future.

Spearman is endorsing Kelly Brough, who probably represents the center-right at this point. By which I mean there may be only one person to her right, Andy Rougeot, who is the only Republican in the race.

Tattered Cover CEO abandons Denver mayoral campaign | 9news.com

For the mayor's race and for any city council races for a particular district (not "at large"), and assuming that the contests have more than two candidates, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers if nobody gets 50%+1 votes in the first round. This means that a runoff in the mayor's race is exceedingly likely.

For the two at-large seats, all candidates are in one big list and the top two finishers win the two seats, regardless of their percentage of the total. In other words, if there are a dozen candidates and the top two finishers have 19% and 13% and the other ten candidates split the remaining 68%, those top two win the two at-large seats.

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One More Thing: Reparations

On yesterday’s show, I was joined by Howard University Law Professor Justin Hansford who supports reparations, namely large cash payments, debt forgiveness, and other benefits, for black descendants of slaves, to be paid for by everyone else. He argued that taxpayers funding this is not significantly different than spending money to support Ukraine or to fund FEMA recovery efforts after a natural disaster. Of course, national defense, and we can argue about whether helping Ukraine falls into that category, is an explicit function of the national government at and least FEMA is fixing a current problem and not making the victims suddenly wealthy at everyone else’s expense. Professor Hansford is teaching the next generation of black American leaders to support an immoral and divisive policy, and that bodes ill for American race relations.

Justin Hansford | Howard University School of Law

San Francisco reparations idea: $5 million per Black person - ABC News (go.com)

Related...at least this lady actually has a family tie to slavery. I'll leave the rest of the thinking to you.

BBC correspondent quits role weeks after apologising for family’s slave history (msn.com)

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Today's Guests

Among other things, Denver mayoral candidate Mike Johnston has run a high school based in a juvenile prison and served as a state senator. While Mike is well to my left, I do consider him to be smart and honest and, for a politician, a pretty good listener. He recently received the Denver Post's endorsement in the mayor's race.

Mike Johnston for Mayor

Endorsement: Mike Johnston for Denver mayor in 2023 election (denverpost.com)

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Jon Caldara is president of the libertarian Independence Institute. He's one of Colorado's best known supporters of the 2nd Amendment and we're going to talk about a particular attack on the firearms industry being engineered by Democrats in the state legislature.

http://thinkfreedom.org

Caldara: How the gun lawsuits game could backfire on progressives - Complete Colorado - Page Two

Gun Violence Victims' Access To Judicial System | Colorado General Assembly

Related: Son of victim in the mass shooting at Boulder supermarket sues gunmaker

Son of Colorado mass shooting victim sues gun-maker Ruger | AP News

2023.03.10 - Getz Summons.pdf (kdvr.com)

Aggressive anti-gun moves by Dems at the federal level too

Biden's Plan for Expanded Gun Buyer Background Checks Is Legally Dubious (reason.com)

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Other Stuff

I repeat a question from a week or two ago: Are Americans any better than the lazy, entitled French? (I'm sorry if that's unfair to lazy people.)

Macron Government Bypasses France’s National Assembly to Pass Pension Overhaul - WSJ

France pensions: Government forces through reforms, sparking parliamentary fury | CNN

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This has been going on for a while. Glad it's getting attention now. This is what had to happen eventually, though eventually took longer than I thought, given the utterly ridiculous cost of college due to stupid government policy.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-students-are-turning-away-from-college-and-toward-apprenticeships-15f3a05d

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I can't be the only person who thinks this is somewhere between stupid and insane: Balenciaga selling 'dirty' outfit covered in holes for $5K (nypost.com)

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ChatGPT 4.0 is a big improvement, but still (unsurprisingly) has problems

10 Ways GPT-4 Is Impressive but Still Flawed | The Seattle Times

New ChatGPT bot can recommend recipes | Daily Mail Online

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This is the kind of thing that shows that today's Democrats aren't just liberal; they're truly radical. Unfortunately, the current iteration of the Colorado GOP is not a viable alternative in a blue state.

https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2023/03/16/colorado-legislation-abortions-contraception-free

http://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB23-189

Includes abortion procedure or abortion drugs for minors without parental notification.

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For some interesting thoughts about banks and financial markets, scroll down to the heading "The price of easy money..."

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-annual-chairmans-letter

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Science! Mount Everest preserved frozen sneezes for centuries: study (nypost.com)

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Jared won't stop until the Colorado oil and gas industry is dead: Polis targets oil and gas in 'ambitious' nitrogen oxides reduction plan | FOX31 Denver (kdvr.com)

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Somehow this manages to be gross even knowing he didn't actually do it: I put my toilet seat in the dishwasher: 'I never knew people did this' (nypost.com)

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Wow. Colorado Catholic group spent millions to identify priests using gay dating apps | Catholicism | The Guardian

From a Catholic news site: Denver-based Catholic group spent millions to track gay priests, says new report | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org)

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I owe you this from yesterday:

Beware of data abuse:

If you only look at favorable minus unfavorable, the numbers are slightly interesting, especially the large net positive for Jews. But I think the bigger story is the huge number of "I don't know" responses (more than half of responses for most categories) which suggests two things: First, if you don't like a group of people, you're probably at least as likely to say "I don't know" as to admit that, so the "I don't know" category probably hides quite a lot of folks who don't like whatever the group in question is. And second, if a significant majority of people who say they have no opinion really don't have an opinion, then it seems like it was kind of a stupid question to begin with.

Americans Feel More Positive Than Negative About Jews, Mainline Protestants, Catholics | Pew Research Center

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Interesting thoughts from WSJ's Kim Strassel on Silicon Valley Bank and ESG/climate stuff:

Did ESG Help Sink SVB? One entrepreneur says the bank was offering ‘basically subprime business loans.’

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Mystery solved: Mystery of pink wastewater in Idaho Springs solved: 20 gallons of concentrated pink dye is the culprit - CBS Colorado (cbsnews.com)

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Today's Videos

Because I like doing science on Fridays...

The subtitles are kinda annoying but the content is really cool

I can't be the only person who thinks this is insane: Balenciaga selling 'dirty' outfit covered in holes for $5K (nypost.com)


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