4/20 Blog: Former Colorado GOP Chair Brita Horn Joins, Plus, No Weed Jokes

BRITA HORN TRIED I know she did, but the job of Chairperson of the Colorado Republican party, rife with factions determined to burn it all down as long as they "win", is like wrangling a hornets nest and and an angry ferret at the same time. What a horrible gig. Brita stepped down after relentless attacks, sabotage by the outgoing administration and a lack of funds that borders on devastating. She joins me at 1 to talk about it.

ABOUT BLACK BELT STATUS I spent this past weekend digging into claims made by Victor Marx. One of the ones I found the most curious is his claim that he is a "7th degree black belt in Cajun Karate Keichu-do a mixture of Karate / Jui-jitsu/ boxing" and it is a martial arts style created by Victor's late father Karl Marx. I tried to find out how one moves from belt to belt and couldn't find anything, and since that is a mystery, I thought we'd do some digging into more traditional forms of martial arts to see how it compares to jiu jitsu in terms of becoming a black belt. Today I've got an actual black belt in jiu jitsu Seth Rodenbaugh on at 2:30 to talk martial arts for a minute. He also happens to be half of the broadcast team with Of the Day Rob for From the Ashes podcast, which is a veteran focused show, and you can find their Facebook page here and their podcast here. Seth is also the owner of Obsidian Martial Arts in Parker, which you can find here, and a longtime blackbelt under Robert Drysdale.

WHY IS 420 STILL CELEBRATED LIKE IT'S D DAY? Well, D Day for potheads who want to hang out downtown and toke one up in what used to be an act of defiance but is not no more than performative. When do we just have legal pot without the yearly meeting of a bunch of people in tie dyed shirts? Can we be done with that? Oh, and GET OFF MY LAWN.

DENVER BUYS THE PAVILIONS TO TEAR IT DOWN? That is the recommendation by a group that was paid 100k to make suggestions. Not sure if this is the same group who charged 100k to change the name of the 16th Street Mall to 16th Street. I kid, that is a totally different group who got 100k to state the obvious. The setup of the Pavilions is dated and this team is recommending they tear it down and build a Bryant Park in Denver. Now, if you haven't been to Bryant Park in NYC it really is lovely.

I'm not sure how much it's going to cost to transplant older trees downtown but I'm sure it will on by a few million more than they expect. They are talking about not tearing down the movie theater and a few other buildings. You can read more here. What seems to be lacking in this plan is the escape the Downtown Development Agency said would happen in the first two years.

THE CASE FOR REFORMING PROSTITUTION LAWS This is a really good column on the sort of reforms I can get behind, whereas I find myself very word about creating new victims with a full legalization. This column makes the case to decriminalizing the SELLING of sex, but leaving the laws making buying sex intact. This protects women who are selling their bodies to survive while still continuing the disincentivize the purchase of them. There are no great answers on this, but we must protect women from predators who want to profit by selling someone else into sex work. From the column:

I have talked to many women who sell their bodies across continents, in different cultures to understand how they survive, how they live with themselves after the noises of their nights have passed. One thing is common among all of them: they have little self-esteem and are uniformly despised by society. Many are either killed by their johns, their pimps or they commit suicide – killing themselves by different means. 

The women I interviewed were usually in hotel bars in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Kampala and elsewhere, women who, though of different culture from American girls and women of the night, had the same existential angst. Their disembodied and forced laughter was marked by their unsmiling eyes; reflection of their incredible pain and sorrow. As I hand them some money for a meal and wish them well, they invariably have looked at me suspiciously, uncertain of my sanity. Every man owes women who lack means of survival a hand up. 

It's hard to argue with any of this.

THE LEGISLATURE GOT CAUGHT LYING And Jon Caldara writes about it as only he can. They tried to steal our TABOR refunds forever via ANOTHER ballot initiative but they tried to lie about what it does. Bastards. Read it here.

THE DEMOCRAT CIVIL WAR UNDER THE DOME Is heating up a bit, although things are far more civilized than they are in the GOP. Read here how competing factions of left Democrats versus DSA Democrats are fighting over transparency because of a lobbyist filled retreat.

WHY WE WAKE UP AT 3AM This is a very interesting article you should read if you wake up every night at the same time. It's not particularly helpful but at least it explains why it's happening.

VICTOR MARX GOUGED HIS OWN MINISTRY WHEN HE SOLD HIS HOUSE TO IT This is an interesting Facebook post:

I'd sure love to ask him about it.

SEVEN MYTHS ABOUT THE IRAN WAR If you have reservations about the Iran war please read this. It explains so much that puts the whole thing in perspective.

WE TOOK AN IRANIAN SHIP And what is a blockade without some ship taking? See how it all played out here.

THE DEMOCRATIC RUSH TO SHUT DOWN PRISONS HAS COME HOME TO ROOST And now we're scrambling to find beds for people who have committed various crimes as well a parole officers to manage those who get out on parole. It's amazing what years of policies of being soft on crime can do. After rushing to close down private prisons instead of working to fix them, we now have a significant overcrowding issue exacerbated by a new amendment that requires violent people to serve at least 85% of their sentence. Read it here, but this was entirely foreseeable.

BELL TO BELL PHONE BANS ARE BEING RECOMMENDED And I think this is a great idea. That is what is being recommended by a group in Denver Public Schools tasked with coming up with the new cell phone policy required by State law. And they didn't just do this willy-nilly, they looked at real data about student success and decided the phones must go. Read it here.

VOTERS ARE NOT HAPPY WITH DEMS IN COLORADO, BUT... Don't expect the hot mess of the Republican party to be able to capitalize. Read the latest from Dick Wadhams here.

THE THREE KINGS OF DOUGCO ARE WASTING MORE MONEY TRYING TO HIDE And if there is a different conclusion to be had over their decision to spend more of MY taxpayer dollars fighting to hide what they do behind closed doors I'm all ears. These three clowns are about to make me vote for bigger government as soon as I can.

THE ROCKIES WIN TWO AGAINST THE DODGERS! What seemed unthinkable for the last four years happened. Read about it here, but these are not the same Rockies, I'm telling you.

THE NEWEST MANDY & DEB TALK TAXES AND BIRTHRATE And you should watch it.

IS THE AMERICAN DREAM DONE? This is a depressing story on how many people think the American Dream is dead. It's time for some real talk about our lives here in the US. Read it here, but then let's talk about what that American dream really is.

HOW DOES THE IDF RESPOND TO RELIGIOUSLY OFFENSIVE ACTS? With concern, that's how. An Israeli soldier was photographed smashing a statue of Jesus. You know what happened next? This.

COLORADO DEMS WANT TO SHRINK MINIMUM LOT SIZES And after living in Florida where zero lot line builds are common (you can reach out your window and touch your neighbors house for real) I'm not opposed to this honestly. But people need to know what this is, which is small home with no yard on top of another small home with no yard. It's city living at it's best. Read more here.

DO AIRLINES HAVE DRESS CODES? The answer is yes, but they are enforced in wildly different ways. This article points out that dress codes are more often used against women, which is true. But that's because some women go the airport with their boobs and vajayjays hanging out. Don't @ me, I've seen it and so have you. You can find out here what your airline expects of you.

A COUPLE OF MINUTES OF THE RIGHT KIND OF EXERCISE HAS A BIG IMPACT And as we age it's even more important to make sure our heart rates are getting up high enough, at least for a couple of minutes a day. You heard me right, TWO MINUTES of VIGOROUS exercise has a huge impact. Read it here.

MONOCULTURE IS DEAD AND THAT'S SAD Back when there were only a handful of channels we all watched the same things and they provided a sort of web of culture that we were all part of. Now, with the rise of the internet and YouTube we definitely have more choices narrowly tailored to our interests. Because of that, we no longer have a shared culture. This is really unfortunate. Although I do think sports can bring us together, the injection of politics there has made that more difficult. Read more here.

THIS TRACKS Because if you can't fix your own problems you're probably more likely to want big government to fix them for you.

SLEEPY BEARS ARE WAKING UP EARLY AND HUNGRY So expect more bear encounters. I'd get some bear spray if you're headed into the woods just to be safe.

THE FAA IS TARGETING GAMERS And this is a really good strategy.

THIS MADE ME LAUGH WAY TOO HARD Someone on Costco is making fun of the grind culture.

TRUMP APPROVES PSYCHEDELICS FOR FAST TRACKING In the hopes we can do something about the horrible suicide rates seen in the veteran community.

VOLLEYBALL AND PICKLEBALL HAD A BABY And I might want to try this.

THIS GUY IS TOO DEDICATED TO THE DAD JOKE

CONGRESS USED OUR MONEY TO PAY OFF SEXUAL HARASSMENT ACCUSERS And the least thing that should happen is we get to know WHO paid off WHOM and what the charges were, don't you think?

NEW JERSEY REAL ESTATE IS GETTING SNATCHED UP BY NEW YORKERS

OLD PERSON THINGS YOU'VE STARTED SAYING yes, you're getting old. Watch below or click here.