Reason.tv has a great addendum so to speak to our show with Reason editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie that aired this past week. (side note: this Gillespie show is by far our most popular Devil’s Advocate / Independent Thinking show ever). In this Reason video, they continue the discussion that Nick and I had on my show, where we talk about the points of agreement and points of contention within the conservative and libertarian movements. Should libertarians and conservatives try find common ground and build upon the areas that overlap with each other, or are there just too many substantive differences to forge any meaningful alliance? Nick and I took those questions on as did the Reason guys in their video. Check it out!

Colorado taxpayers now have something to celebrate: the return of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, the nation’s most effective tax-and-spending limits. July 1 marked the end of the Referendum C five-year “time out,” the largest tax increase in Colorado history.

On Tuesday, July 13 at 10:00 AM, a group of state and national organizations, including the Independence Institute, will gather in the third floor pressroom at the Colorado Capitol to highlight what the end of the Ref C “timeout” and the return of the best taxpayer protections in the country means to Colorado working families.

Participants include:
* Jon Caldara, President of the Independence Institute
* Amy Oliver Cooke, founder of Mothers Against Debt and director of the Colorado Transparency Project for the Independence Institute
* John Stephenson, State Government Affairs Manager, National Taxpayers Union
* Colorado State Senator Shawn Mitchell
* Joshua Culling, State Affairs Manager, Americans for Tax Reform
* Marty Nielson, President, Colorado Union of Taxpayers
* Laura Carno from Americans for Prosperity, Colorado.

“We plan to celebrate the return of TABOR, which is great news for Colorado families and bad news for big government spenders,” said Independence Institute President Jon Caldara.

He added, “There is a reason why the tax-and-spenders hate TABOR, it works. It forces lawmakers to do their job, prioritize the budget and live within their means.”

By most accounts, the North Denver Tribune is a good local bi-monthly newspaper doing very localized reporting of news and entertainment in the northwest Denver area, including coverage of the Senate District 34 race.  One problem though, the writers at the Tribune seem to be having a tough time remembering that there is a Republican candidate running for the SD 34 seat.

In the May 20-June 2 edition of the paper, Tribune writer Elisa Cohen has an article about Paula Sandoval giving up her state senate seat (where she was term-limited anyway) after recently winning the District 1 Denver City Council race.  As would be expected in a news article on this topic, Cohen notes that Lucia Guzman was appointed by the Democratic party machine to fill the vacant senate seat, but still has to face voters in November to keep the seat.  Cohen also mentions other current and past contenders for the SD 34 seat, “Joel Judd is also seeking the Senate seat. Jerry Frangas had been seeking the Senate seat but dropped out to pursue the City Council position.” Judd and Frangas are both term-limited Democratic state representatives.

What Cohen left out of the piece is that there is another candidate running for the SD 34 seat: Derec Shuler, a Republican.  This isn’t the first time Shuler has been left out of the North Denver Tribune’s coverage of the SD 34 race.

On Feb. 16, and again on March 2, the Tribune had an online candidate question and answer forum for House Districts 4 and 5, and for Senate District 34.  The three SD 34 Democratic candidates, Jerry Frangas, Joel Judd and Lucia Guzman, were all given the opportunity, in the same forum, to answer questions on the economy, education, and jobs.

Derec Shuler was conspicuously not included in the forum.  According to Shuler, he informed the Tribune editor after the Feb. 16 forum that he was a declared and registered candidate and asked for the questions so he could be part of the next forum, but says he did not hear back until after the second forum on March 2.  He was given the opportunity to respond to the questions separately on March 18.  “I ended up getting my own piece, but it lacked momentum not being included with the others” said Shuler.

Look, no thinking person actually expects newspapers to be completely bias-free, but it is reasonable to expect that they make an effort at inclusive coverage during campaign cycles.  And northwest Denver has leaned heavily Democratic for a long time, so maybe the good folks over at the North Denver Tribune are just having a tough time getting their heads wrapped around the idea of a mythical creature known as a Republican running a solid senate campaign in the district.

Whatever the case, the first omission of Shuler as a candidate might fairly be explained away as an oversight, but a second time could easily be seen as a pattern.  If so, that would be a textbook example of bias through omission, and a poor reflection on the North Denver Tribune.

Reporters, members of the press, they’ve long considered themselves the “Fourth Estate,” meaning they are as essential to a free society as are the other parts of government. And notice how the press won’t say they’re the “4th branch of government” because that might suggest they are not independent of the government.

But look at a reporter’s career track, or career ladder. Once you do, you might conclude that “branch of government” is more appropriate than “estate.”

One thing is clear: For many reporters, the pinnacle of their career will be when they ditch their low-paying journalism job to take a high five-figure or low six-figure government job as a public information officer.

Doubt me? Check out this list of former reporters now on the government payroll:

That’s just a list of current spokespeople who previously held reporting jobs. Go back over the last 10 years, and you’d find the ranks of government equally populated with former reporters.

But it begs the question…if you’re a reporter, say at the Denver Post, are you going to be especially tough on a government agency where you might be applying for a substantially better-paying job in just six months?

PS – I think this list is short on names, so if you could drop us a line and point out some more folks who ought to be on the list, we’d appreciate it.

My web monkey just finished posting Randal’s fantastic presentation called “Mobility vs. Gridlock: Colorado’s Transportation Future” on YouTube in a playlist format. In the presentation, Randal points to the overwhelming evidence that rail transit in general, and FasTracks in particular, is a dead end in solving congestion, safety, and mobility issues. Instead, Randal offers a couple of his own solutions to these pressing problems.

Randal tackles these issues more in-depth in his book, “Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It.”

I alerted the econ nerds out there last week to this Hayek vs. Keynes rap video. Here’s a little something extra to enjoy in between your readings of Friedman and Mises: Resident PhD economist Paul Prentice appeared on the Jim Pfaff Show last October to discuss the moral basis for free market capitalism. You can find the whole program’s audio file here.

Additionally, Paul’s appearance is a good baseline for what our Free People, Free Markets class is all about – the philosophical, moral, and political principles of the free market system. If Paul’s interview piques your interest, please contact Mary by email or phone (303.279.6536) to sign up for our next class.

Adam Schrager from 9News sat down with me the other day to discuss our initiative to opt Colorado out of Obama Care. In addition to answering his questions, I also had the opportunity to answer questions from viewers. Watch the video, courtesy of Channel 9 here.

You might remember that we boiled Canadian Cheryl Baxter’s story down to just a few minutes on YouTube.  Cheryl was one of several Canadians we met up with in Vancouver who got a raw deal from their “public option.”  And by raw deal, I mean waiting years to get a new hip, then finally escaping to the U.S. to receive treatment.  The question still remains: if we go all Canada on our health care system, where will the Canadians escape to?

Reason Magazine came along on our trip and put together this video highlighting Cheryl’s story and some great insight from the Fraser Institute.