8/14/25 Blog: From Prison To Work, & An Update On The State of Restaurants

HAVE WE KILLED ALL THE RESTAURANTS IN DENVER YET? Of course we haven't, but several longtime spots have closed in the last week, and now minimum wage is going up to 19 and change so I thought we'd check in with the Colorado Restaurant Association's Sonia Riggs for a minute. She joins me at 12:30 for a checkup on how the industry is faring.

SMALL GROUP INSURANCE RATES ARE SKYROCKETING Read that here. And if you've got a small business you want to hear from my guest at 1pm. Travis Bockenstedt is the Chief Experience Officer of Pinnacle Advanced Primary Care and he will tell us about how to provide extremely high quality care for your employees that won't break the bank. Find out more here.

EX CONS NEED WORK As they re enter society and when they don't get it, things don't go well. I've got Mark Smersud, Regional Operations Director of Social Enterprise for the Center for Employment Opportunities. They work to connect people with work and training programs to help them acquire the marketable skills they need to succeed and not re offend. Find out more about the program here.

WHY DO BETTER DENVER EVEN EXISTS So I saw this yesterday and I must comment further.

This is well intentioned but misses the mark so badly. So, so badly. We have a very serious issue in Colorado when it comes to extremely mentally ill people who commit violence being set free because they are so mentally ill. Policy also well intentioned but missing the mark badly. However, not showing the mugshot of someone who has shown himself to be dangerous over and over again when he will be BACK on the streets where he may act violently again is only making things worse. And potentially putting more people at risk. These sorts of editorial decisions are why @DoBetterDNVR exists. People don't want decisions made based on the feelings of a person so mentally addled that he probably has no idea he even has a mugshot. They want information they need to protect themselves and their children. Period.

WHAT A GREAT KENNEDY HONORS LIST President Trump announced the honorees for the Kennedy Center Honors this year and I love this list for it's simplicity.

IF BRINGING BACK MANUFACTURING WAS THE GOAL Trump's tariffs are working. GE, which for decades built a crap ton of appliances in Louisville, Kentucky, has announced they are investing billions in bringing manufacturing of appliances back the United States. Now places like Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee are benefiting bigly. Why now? From CBS News:

Lee Lagomarcino, GE Appliances' vice president of clothes care, told CBS MoneyWatch at the time that high levies on imports from China under Mr. Trump have compelled it to "accelerate the decision-making."

Hmmm. Kind of seems like those tariffs may be working.

NOT A GOOD LOOK FOR THE NUGGETS And this lawsuit is only presenting one side of the alleged wrongdoing, but DAMN. Rocky the Mascot (or more accurately the man who inhabited the suit for three years) is suing the Denver Nuggets. Drake Solomon says he was canned after having a double hip replacement by the Nuggets and the way it's presented it is not a good look. Remember, this is ONE side of the story.

DRINK UP...OR NOT This is super surprising to me and I have to think a good bit of it is because more people are smoking pot and Gen Z never stops looking at their phones. A mere 54% of Americans say they drink alcohol anymore. Why aren't we drinking?

And a record high percentage of U.S. adults, 53%, now say moderate drinking is bad for their health, up from 28% in 2015. The uptick in doubt about alcohol's benefits is largely driven by young adults — the age group that is most likely to believe drinking "one or two drinks a day" can cause health hazards — but older adults are also now increasingly likely to think moderate drinking carries risks.

I am a celebratory or vacation drinker these days because it messes up my sleep so bad, so I get it. If I'm honest the dumbest, most idiotic decisions I've ever made have been under the influence of alcohol and if just one person is not as dumb as I was it's all worth the decline of the alcohol industry overall. They will survive.

POLIS DOES WHAT WE'RE SUING TRUMP OVER I don't think that states have any right to federal dollars. I know that's unpopular because the feds take so much of our money, but just because we've bastardized the system doesn't make it right. So when our Attorney Phil Weiser sued the Trump administration over funds that are being withheld I thought it was dumb. Now we see our Governor Jared Polis doing THE EXACT SAME THING to counties who don't want to comply with housing density and no parking requirements on residential building. And now counties are suing over the same thing. Does this mean Phil Weiser is going to be arguing that the state deserves money even though they aren't doing what the federal government wants them to do while arguing that the state can withhold money from counties that won't do what the state wants them to do? This is going to be interesting.

BIKERS AND HIPPIES ARE COMING TO COLORADO I already told you about the Rainbow Family Gathering happening this week, and now I get to tell you about a huge biker rally in the Steamboat area. The motorcycle club The Pagans, who I literally just watched a true crime show on, will be in town for who knows what so you've been warned.

THOSE CRAFTY JEWS ARE AT IT AGAIN This made me laugh really hard yesterday.

HOWARD STERN MAY BE OVER SOON And talk about a guy who has outlived his usefulness. Howard Stern's show back in the day was mean spirited, racially insensitive and often victimized guests who were already on the edge. One of my first jobs I sometimes had to run his show and there were many times I cringed, but there were also many times I cried with laughter. His evolution into whiny, afraid, reliable left wing hack has been kind of sad to watch from afar. So I don't really care that Sirius XM is looking to dump his incredibly bloated salary when his current five year deal ends. He had a moment but that moment is over.

THREE PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM WEST NILE VIRUS And I am not trying to freak anyone out but this is entirely preventable by just using bug spray when you head out. We only know that one of the people is an otherwise healthy 80 year old but I know more than one person who suffered long term repercussions that have been devastating from this disease.

DENVER'S CLERK AND RECORDER IS CALLING FOUL ON BUDGET CUTS And complaining that his office wasn't include in the Vibrant Denver slush fund the Mayor is asking for. Denver has to cut $250 million out of the budget, so I don't think any government agency should be spared so I'm not sure what Paul Lopez wants here. In the sense that making sure we have safe and fair elections seems to me to be a priority, he's got a fair point. But the money doesn't grow on trees and when you spend hundreds of million welcoming illegal immigrants you've got to make hard choices. I asked Grok to hoover up how much money Denver spent on illegal immigrants in the last four years and this is what it said:

Combining city direct spending with these, the total estimated impact since December 2022 is ~$356 million (or ~$8,000 per arriving migrant), representing about 8% of Denver's $4.4 billion 2025 budget.

This contributed to a $108 million city deficit in 2024 and ongoing budget constraints. Funding sources included federal grants ($23 million total, e.g., from FEMA and HHS), state aid ($5 million), and local reallocations, but the majority came from Denver's general fund and departmental cuts. Note that discrepancies in exact figures across sources (e.g., $79 million vs. $89.9 million for 2024) stem from varying projections vs. actuals and inclusion of transfers; the $79 million cumulative through 2024 is the most consistently cited in recent analyses.

But thankfully we're still seen as welcoming, amiright?

AN ELDERLY MAN LOST EVERYTHING And his neighbors are stepping up to help. An 87 years old Meeker man lost his some and everything in it in the Meeker fire, and now his neighbors are trying to help him rebuild. I love stories like this and if you can donate please do.

NEWS IMPORTANT TO MY DAUGHTER Taylor Swift announced her new cover art and in the meantime is giving a master class in how to hype a new product. She's insanely good at this. Her new album drops October 3rd and I am happy she seems to have brought in some new producers for this record. She was starting to sound exactly the same to me. Don't tell my daughter.

THERE'S A NEW PEANUTS SPECIAL OUT And I need someone's Apple TV log in to watch it. Charles Schulz's son is involved in the project where Charlie Brown and Snoopy go to sleepaway camp and there is a bunch of new music. We'll see if it does his father proud.

DOES TRUMP HAVE THE UPPER HAND WITH PUTIN? This columnist says he does and lays out the case here. This part is really telling:

And in the face of a stubborn Russia, Trump brandished the economic sword. He threatened severe tariffs on Russia’s trading partners if the war did not end within 50 days. Two weeks later, he shortened the deadline to 10 days. The Senate stood ready to pass bipartisan legislation imposing crippling secondary sanctions on purchasers of Russian oil. Last week, he threatened punishing tariffs on India, for instance.

That’s why Putin asked for the meeting.

Trump’s energy policy, NATO solidarity, fighting words, and use of force against a Russian ally (Iran) changed the strategic equation. Typically, the West reacts to Putin. Not now. Trump put him off balance.(emphasis mine) And Russia’s economy isn’t helping. Growth is down. Inflation is up. Oil and gas revenues have plunged 19 percent year-over-year.

Trump upsets the apple cart because he is so unpredictable. He doesn't subscribe to the old playbook of the Cold War and he isn't afraid to leverage US economic power to achieve diplomatic wins. We'll see what actually comes out of today's meeting in Alaska, but anyone who says they know for sure what's coming next is probably lying.

REGRETS OF 90 YEAR OLDS Don't let this be you when you're 90.

A PSYCHIATRIST SUPPORTS TRUMP'S FORCED TREATMENT In this column psychiatrist Sally Satel makes the case for forced treatment and hospitalization. That's what being done by the White House in Washington DC and this column provides useful background on how we got here in the first place as well as the sobering fact that fixing the problem of mentally ill homeless people is going to be expensive and require big investments in institutional settings for people so detached from reality that they can't reasonably care for themselves.

THIS IS NOT WHAT I SAY WHEN I ACCIDENTALLY TURN MY CAMERA ON FACING ME

COLLEGE STUDENTS LIE TO FIT IN And they pretend to be woke so they can get by. How many of them do this? An astounding 88% say they have lied about their views to fit in or be academically successful. The universities have gone from being incubators of new ideas to being the totalitarian prisons of thought. Read more here. This is part of the reason why my daughter wants to go to school in Europe.

THE DC MAYOR IS OKAY WITH TRUMP'S TAKEOVER And I'm not only surprised I'm pleased that Mayor Muriel Bowser recognizes that this is a real chance to clean up the city she runs. She has to realize that if it's successful she will reap the benefits at the polls.

I'M ROOTING FOR THESE TWO CRAZY KIDS This is incredibly sweet and I hope they make it and are happy.

DUSTY SLAY BREAKS DOWN HARD WORKING MAN And he's hilarious about it.