9/10/25 Blog: Barb Kirkmeyer For Governor Is Official, & About The Drug War

BARK KIRKMEYER WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT GOVERNOR in my view anyway. She announced her candidacy yesterday and she joins me at 2:30 to talk about her priorities if she were to get elected. Barb is super smart, focused on what really matters and has a deep understanding of how our government currently operates. Find out more about Barb by clicking here.

ABOUT THAT DRUG BOAT BOMBING I saw this when it first happened:

And though I am not okay with extrajudicial killing as a regular point of order, I saw this post that gave me pause.

Reeve Swainston is a Marine, former US Attorney and a prosecutor who worked drug cartel cases during his career. Here is an article about one of his cases. He's on at 1:00 to discuss why cartels must be treated like terror organizations and I think he might be right. This happened last night apparently.

What we're doing previously clearly isn't working.

ARE WE HEADED FOR WAR WITH RUSSIA? Big goings on in Poland where they shot down Russian drones that had entered their airspace, as is their right. Poland has also invoked Article 4 of NATOs Treaty which allows them to consult with NATO partners. This is as close to war in my estimation as NATO has been in recent memory. Poland, which borders Ukraine and Russian ally Belarus, is calling out the EU and Europe, saying words are "not enough" and saying that Poland would ask for much greater support from NATO. This is a very, very big deal. We'll have to see what happens next, but Europe is STILL funding Russia's side of the war by buying Russian oil. In 2024, the EU alone spent €21.9 billion on Russian oil and gas—€3.2 billion more than its financial aid to Ukraine, highlighting sustained energy trade despite reductions. But it's not just the EU, the US still imports fertilizer and rare earth minerals from Russia too! In an interconnected economy it's hard to cut all ties like we were able to do in prior wars. Keep and eye on this.

ABOUT THAT RETRACTABLE ROOF FOR THE NEW STADIUM Broncos President Damani Leech gives some details.

No decision has been made on Personal Seat Licenses, or PSLs as they are called. Those are essentially giant up front fees charged to season ticket holders for the privilege of buying season tickets. I will be genuinely shocked if they don't use them though, they do have to pay for the stadium they are about to build. What might the new stadium cost? This story looks at recent builds around the league for an idea.

IS YOUR SAFEWAY SHUTTING DOWN? After the failed merger with Kroger some Albertsons owned Colorado Safeway stores are shutting their doors. Some of these in smaller towns will be devastating to residents. Find out if your fave is closing here. Good thing unions and our Attorney General helped block that merger!

DPS CELEBRATES ITS PARTICIPATION TROPHY Jimmy Sengenberger writes here about Denver Public Schools crowing about their "Green" Accreditation from the state. What does that mean? It means they just moved from having a District Improvement Plan forced on them from the state. That's really it. The score they are celebrating hides a lot of flaws. Read this:

DPS is still just “approaching” standards in academic achievement and postsecondary readiness, the categories parents care most about. High schools only averaged 43.1% for achievement, according to the state’s dashboard — a drop from 56.9% among middle schoolers. The one area that meets expectations is “growth,” and how that metric is calculated appears fuzzy at best.

Of schools with rating changes, 118 stayed the same, while only 18 improved and 26 actually declined, according to the district’s own summary. Even after this supposedly triumphant year, four in ten DPS schools remain stuck in yellow, orange or red status — meaning they’re still on improvement plans or worse.

But let the Superintendent celebrate I guess. He doesn't have much else to celebrate in his mediocre at best district.

ARE NON CITIZENS VOTING IN COLORADO ELECTIONS Our favorite statistics nerd Mike O'Donnell did a deep dive into census and voting records and the answer seems to be a resounding NO. If there are some who do, it is a very small number, which isn't okay, but isn't going to swing an election. You can read the whole column here, but he does make the point that we have a large number of men over 80 and suggests we may want to make sure we don't have dead people in Colorado voting either. Let's leave that to Chicago. I don't love mail in voting, but it doesn't seem to be rife with fraud as of yet. Yet.

SEPTEMBER IS THE DEADLIEST MONTH FOR MOTORCYCLE RIDERS A whopping 33 motorcyclists were killed last September and CDOT is trying to get ahead of it this year by reminding riders to wear helmets and slow the f*ck down, and drivers to pay attention to blind spots. A record 133 people riding motorcyclists were killed in Colorado last year.

ARE WE REHABBING REVOLUTIONARIES NOW? Don't get me wrong, this movie looks really good.

But the premise is this: "When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunites to rescue the daughter of one of their own." Anything with Sean Penn is suspect to me, and I hate that because he's a really good actor but I'm still mad about him propping up Hugo Chavez. We'll see when it comes out if it's an effort to present "revolutionaries" as misguided softballs.

TEXAS BANS SHARIAH LAW Shariah law is incompatible with our system of freedom. It's full of restrictions on basic liberties and now Texas has stepped up to ban the practice entirely. Why? Because a local imam was harassing Muslim business owners demanding they stop selling anything Islam deemed "haram" products forbidden by Islamic law. Now if an Muslim shop owner chooses not to sell pork, that is entirely his or her choice. But being forced to do so under laws that have no force here is where Texas just drew the line. I'm wondering how this will stand up to a free speech or free religion challenge? This is on the heels of Dearborn, Michigan announcing its cops could wear an "optional" patch that has Arabic writing on it. This is how it begins, people. We do not allow Christian preachers to dictate how businesses run, and we should not allow Imams to dictate how business is run.

DO YOU WANT AN AI PODCASTER? You're about to get a whole bunch as Inception Point AI goes all in on AI and is planning on "flooding the zone" with AI generated podcasts with AI hosts. Why pay people like me when AI can just regurgitate something someone else said? And the cost difference is STAGGERING. Read this:

The company is able to produce each episode for $1 or less, depending on length and complexity, and attach programmatic advertising to it. This generally means that if about 20 people listen to that episode, the company made a profit on that episode, without factoring in overhead. 

Inception Point AI already has more than 5,000 shows across its Quiet Please Podcast Network and produces more than 3,000 episodes a week. Collectively, the network has seen 10 million downloads since September 2023. It takes about an hour to create an episode, from coming up with the idea to getting it out in the world. 

The company produces different levels of podcasts. The lowest level involves weather reports for various geographic areas or simple biographies and higher levels involving subject-area podcasts hosted by one of about 50 AI personalities they’ve created, including food expert Claire Delish, gardener and nature expert Nigel Thistledown and Oly Bennet, who covers off-beat sports.

This is very bad news for aspiring podcasters. Very bad for people like me, indeed.

MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES INCREASE DEMENTIA CHANCES This is very disturbing, as some of these are diagnosed lifelong conditions. Read it here.

QATAR IS AT A NEW CROSSROADS This column is SO GOOD. It explains how Qatar has been playing both sides against the middle for a long time by hosting Islamic terror leaders and a huge American military base at the same time. Israel's strikes on Hamas leadership shattered that equilibrium and it's likely that Qatar is going to have to choose sides from here on out. It's a great column, read the whole thing here if you subscribe to The Free Press.

THE CHARLOTTE TRAIN KILLER SPEAKS And he spoke to his sister and recordings show he is clearly detached from reality. He's detached from the killing itself. I know people think this is fake, but schizophrenia is a very powerful reality for those suffering with it.

THE JOBS REVISION REVISES BIDEN'S HISTORY And this column from CNN (!) breaks down just HOW bad the jobs numbers really were during the Biden admin and how that gives Trump a bit more cover when it comes to how his policies have affected the ACTUAL job market since taking office. Read it here, but it seems maybe Trump was entirely justified in firing the head of the BLS.

THIS SEEMS EXTREME TO AVOID PAYING TAXES A cruise ship passenger who had a string of good luck in the ship's casino thought he had a foolproof way to avoid paying taxes on his filthy lucre: he jumped off the cruise ship in port. Two passing jet skiers picked him up and as you can imagine, he's going to be paying more than taxes now.

IF YOU'VE DREAMED OF BEING TELEPATHIC MIT is trying to make that happen with wearable tech that can read your mind. Yes, this is super cool for people with speech disorders, but the Evil Genius in me already sees it replacing Wonder Woman's stupid rope (still the worst super power in the history of super powers) as a way to find out what people are REALLY thinking. You can read more here.

THE BIG BANG HAS BIG GAPS And you guys, I've been asking these same questions since I learned about the Big Bang Theory in high school! Just kidding, this is a very heady article but it does show that the widely accepted theory is not nearly as bullet proof as we both thought.

I NEVER GET TO SEE THE GOOD FLASH MOBS This is so cool!

CAN I SEE YOUR PHYSICAL LICENSE? Yes, digital id can work, but you must have a hard copy of your driver's license with you. Watch below or click here.

END ZONE, YOU'RE UP I love this so much. Watch below or click here.

In the zone view:

PRETTY USELESS LIFE HACKS I am wondering why this video is even a thing, but here we are? Watch below if you want, or click here but I can't recommend it.

THE BUTTERFLY PAVILION IS SPREADING ITS WINGS and signing on with Westminster to remain in the city and do some renovations. They will be expanding their footprint, as they were going to do with a move to Broomfield, but changing economics stopped that move. Now more butterflies and other invertebrates will have new digs in the near future.

WELD COUNTY SHERIFF STEVE REAMS IS RUNNING FOR COUNTY COMMISSIONER He's term limited so he's looking for a new role and he's set his sights on county commission.

A VIDEO OF SELF CLEANING TOILETS This is what I was talking about to Arod.