Be sure and tune in to the Independence Institute’s public affairs TV show Devil’s Advocate this Friday night. It’s the usual half-hour of public affairs excellence, but in two segments. First I am joined by Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe (R-Greeley) to discuss his bill to ban red-light cameras in Colorado. Then former Colorado Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon sits down to give his take on the current state of politics in Colorado. That’s Friday, January 27 at 8:30 p.m. on Colorado Public Television 12. Re-broadcast Monday at 1:30 p.m.

Join Liberty on the Rocks and the Independence Institute as we celebrate School Choice Week to promote educational choice and excellence!

We will be showing the 9-part short film series Kids Aren’t Cars, which takes a deeper look into the state of public education in America, and the reasons why we are falling behind the rest of the world. The film highlights examples from Midwestern states and shows the impact organized labor and the assembly-line system has had on educating our children.

Reception starts at 6 pm, with the movie starting at 6:30 pm. The film will be followed by a brief discussion with the Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center’s Ben DeGrow and Pam Benigno.

This event is FREE and open to the public – so please invite family and friends to help us celebrate school choice week!

To learn more about the movie and watch a trailer, check out the Kids Aren’t Cars website: http://www.kidsarentcars.com/trailer.html

Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/260743213990716/

Since my late night radio show on 850 KOA ended last week, I’ve been bombarded with the most heart warming messages from fans on my blog, on my Facebook wall (both of them), via Twitter, on YouTube, in person, and through email. It’s sometimes difficult for me to fully understand the kind of impact my radio show and commentary has had on people over the years, so all this outpouring of love from you guys means a whole lot. I cannot thank you enough for your support.

Getting all this love the past week from so many people from all over the country got me thinking: I wonder what someone on the Left thinks about me leaving nightly radio… hmmmm… and then the phone rang. It was Jason Salzman. He wanted some commentary from me on leaving my nightly radio spot for his blog, The Big Media Blog. We chatted for awhile and in no time, I got to read his latest blog post about me. I’m glad he will miss me. And I’m glad he decided to publish some of the best material I gave him. Thanks for giving us the Left’s perspective Jason.

However, I wonder if most people on the Left believe I was “advancing evil” every night like Jason does.

Whether you think my ideas are evil or not, you can still listen to me spew something on the radio on a weekly basis. I have a new time slot, this time on 630 KHOW. That’s right, you didn’t get rid of me yet! I’ll be on KHOW from 5 to 8pm every Sunday, with appearances on both KOA and KHOW as a fill-in host when needed. Which means now I’ve got a regular gig AND I’ll be coming out of the bullpen in relief. And don’t forget about my Public Television channel 12 show, Devils Advocate!

Thanks again to everyone who left me encouraging messages. It means a lot. For those on Left who thought I’d go away quietly. Sorry. I’m still here.

Put the kids to bed a little earlier tonight to catch my TV show Devils Advocate on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. I’ll be chatting with Independence Institute investigative reporter Todd Shepherd and President/CEO of the Colorado Broadcasters Association Justin Sasso on the decline of local voices in our news media. We’ve lost some great local columnists, talk show hosts, radio hosts, editorial writers, and even cartoonists in the past few years. As someone who enjoys the local perspectives, what can we do to mitigate these changes? Tune in tonight to Colorado Public TV, channel 12 at 8:30, repeated the following Monday at 1:30pm.

Just found some more great news regarding the resistance to Obamacare. According to the Colorado News Agency, the Colorado House passed a resolution yesterday calling for a constitutional convention to repeal Obamacare. Looks like were beating back this health care takeover on all fronts!

Keep it up everyone!

Obamacare is headed to the Supreme Court. Great news! The cherry on top is that The Independence Institute is filing not one, but TWO amicus briefs (amici) on behalf of liberty and against the health care takeover. Constitutional scholars Dave Kopel and Rob Natelson take on the Medicaid mandate in one and the individual mandate in the other. Before I get into the Obamacare briefs, let’s take a step back and understand what this means. Dave Kopel has a rich history of influencing major Supreme Court decisions. For example, both the Heller and McDonald decisions were influenced by Dave’s Second Amendment work. For Dave’s most recently submitted amici, visit his website DaveKopel.com and go to the “In the Courts” section. There’s a half dozen briefs listed there that are just from this past year. To say that Dave is prolific is an injustice. He’s more like Gandalf casting unconstitutional demons out of Mordor Washington, DC.

Ok, back on track. The first brief on how the Medicaid mandate is unconstitutional was filed earlier this week (PDF here). I won’t get into the details because, well, I’m not what you call a “reader,” but I was able to get through Rob Natelson’s summary on his blog. The gist of the argument is quite simple: the Feds are big bullies. If the country were a playground, they’d be going around giving all the state’s wedgies and stealing their milk money. But it’s actually worse than that. Rob makes the case that it’s not only bullying, but also hostage taking. In other words, a bully with a taste for kidnapping. Double bad. Built into the Medicaid mandate in Obamacare are requirements that the states expand their Medicaid programs… OR ELSE. The “or else” part is the threat of withholding federal Medicaid funding. Hence, a large sliver of each state’s budget held hostage. As Rob puts it,

Since federal Medicaid funds are a huge portion of all states’ budgets, the effect is to subordinate state fiscal policy to the whim of federal officials. This is clearly unconstitutional.

Stay tuned for details and PDF of the other amicus. It will focus on the unconstitutionality of the individual health insurance mandate. Word is, Rob and Dave work their magic on the Commerce Power and the Necessary and Proper Clause. I also hear that they plan to sit down for an iVoices.org podcast with my main minion Justin Longo on both briefs. I’ll post the brief and the podcast here when they come out.

Until then, say NO to bullying.

On behalf of the Independence Institute, Rob Natelson and I wrote an amicus brief on the Medicaid mandate currently before the Supreme Court. (The ACA requirement that states must drastically expand Medicaid eligibility, or lose all their federal matching funds for Medicaid.) Here’s the Summary of Argument:

By imposing the Medicaid mandates in the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), Congress exceeded the scope of its enumerated powers. If allowed to stand, those mandates could be the death-knell for the Constitution’s finely calibrated system of federalism. The states truly would be little more than agencies for Congress to “commandeer” at will.

The Founders created and the People ratified a Constitution protecting the States’ role as limited “sovereigns.” As this Court has ruled repeatedly, the states’ sovereign “independence” entitles them to make decisions within their sphere based on their own policy judgments, free of federal coercion. As explained below, this rule and the closely-related principle of federal non-coercion is of particular constitutional importance in financing health and social services.

In sustaining the Medicaid mandates, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overlooked both Founding-Era constitutional principle and modern Supreme Court doctrine. It also overlooked aspects of the Medicaid mandates that particularly aggravate their coercive qualities. Insofar as the ACA authorizes withdrawal of all Medicaid funds from States that choose not to submit to the Medicaid mandates, that statute slashes at the heart of American federalism. It is unconstitutional and void.

Intelligent comments are welcome, although experience suggests that there will also be plenty of comments from twits who have not read the brief, yet proclaim their absolute certainty about supposedly fatal errors in its legal reasoning. Rob’s summary of brief is available on his blog.

UCCS Professor Joshua Dunn can’t help himself. He can’t believe the audacity of Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport’s decision in the epic saga we know as the Lobato case. He’s been sounding the alarm on this ruling ever since it came down last month. If you haven’t heard Professor Dunn’s argument yet, here are a couple great resources. First, you can listen to our iVoices.org podcast featuring Professor Dunn and our Education Policy analyst Ben DeGrow. They hit the airwaves shortly after Judge Rappaport’s ruling came down. Additionally, Joshua wrote an op-ed for us that hit the Colorado Springs Gazette’s opinion pages last night. In both venues, Professor Dunn argues that Judge Rappaport disregarded the totality of our state constitution when deciding the Lobato case. Instead, she chose just the sections that suited her worldview and threw out all the inconvenient stuff. Joshua says her decision was entirely political, not constitutional.

AG John Suthers sat in front of the Joint Budget Committee yesterday to discuss the Lobato case and its potential time frame. He indicated that he believed it could be a full year before we’ve reached any resolution. That seems hardly adequate considering we’re dealing with a large chunk of the state’s budget. How can we plan for the future when Lobato threatens to eat away a majority of our general fund?