Today, I asked a progressive woman what her New Year’s resolution is. She just looked at me with disdain and said, “F@#$ you!”

So, um, I’m pretty excited for 2025.

I hope you're 2025 is off to a great start. It will be a challenging political year for Colorado. Fortunately, it’s the kind of thing we are built for. 

We will especially be looking forward to the legislature’s crying about the “budget shortfall” that was completely avoidable had they honored the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. After years of multiplying special interest tax breaks and siphoning money away from core governmental functions for pet projects, a shortfall is a surprise to no one.

So, every time you hear them complain that they don't have enough of your money just ask them which of their new special interest tax breaks they will rescind. They’ll try to steer the conversation to raising taxes, yet again. We won't let them.

My New Year's revolution is to stop using autocorrect.

Colorado's Attorney General, Phil Weiser, has announced he's running for Governor. 

A taxpayer asked him what his greatest quality is. He answered, “My honesty.” The taxpayer said he didn’t think it was his greatest quality. Phil responded, “I don't give a f@#$ what you think.” (That's two F-bombs in two bad jokes. So much for my resolution to swear less.)

A lawyer, a socialist and a gubernatorial candidate walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey Phil.”

My suspicion is Phil Weiser won't be the only candidate for Governor for long.

People are still talking about my somewhat heated conversation with Kyle Clark of 9news. He listened to my oft spoken complaint of media bias in story selection. If you haven’t listened to his response, you really need to check it out.

In my latest column below, I tried to explain how people like me feel so, well, hated by the news media. It’s no surprise to me the mainstream news is distrusted more than Congress. They say they believe in diversity, if so, I have one single little suggestion for them: Prove it. 

In Complete Colorado, Joshua Sharf lays out how Colorado is gerrymandered.

Ari Armstrong shares his political hopes for the New Year.

The lovely Whitney Navarro declares nostalgia doesn’t like polish in her review of the revamped Casa Bonita.

Airing tonight on PBS channel 12 at 8:30 P.M.: Ed Warner is an environmentalist, conservationist and philanthropist who has served on many nonprofit boards, including one that kicked him off because he said something someone found offensive. It's hard to believe not-for-profit organizations would rather turn down large contributions rather than respect someone's right to free speech. You really need to hear this incredible story.

On YouTube:

Speaking of the media, the growth of citizen journalism and opinion is changing the face of politics. Joe Rogan’s conversation with Donald Trump is a perfect example of one guy becoming more impactful than progressive TV networks.

Colorado’s one-man reporting outlet is the Colorado Accountability Project by our CompleteColorado.com columnist and activist Cory Gaines. This one man is doing the work Colorado media used to do. He and I chat about how one activist (like you) matters.

Colorado's decarbonization goals, along with regulations on gas and oil producers have cost the state some money. You may be surprised to find out how much. PowerGab hosts Jake Fogleman and Amy Cooke have a discussion with Liberty Energy's Ryan Zorn to analyze the costs.

Progressive press needs a dose of ideological diversity

By Jon Caldara

I am told over and over that the greatest quality reporters can have is curiosity.

Then why aren’t journalists even slightly curious about why they lost their credibility from their customers?

In 1976, 72% of Americans had a “great deal of trust and confidence in the mass media” to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” according to that year’s Gallup survey. By 2024 that number plummeted to 31%.

Congrats honored members of the press. You’re trusted less than Congress.

Likewise in 1976 a scant 4% of Americans’ trust in the media was “none at all.” Today that number has ballooned to 36%, a nine-fold increase. And those who’s trust and confidence in the media is “none at all” or “not very much,” make up 69% of all Americans.

Hey media, nearly 70% of us don’t trust you! How do you have no curiosity about that?! It seems most journalists have a violent avoidance of the issue altogether.

Do journalists even see they stoke the treacherous polarization that’s exploded like an epidemic? In 1976, 63% of Republicans trusted the media. Today that number is 12%. Come on people, 12%?

Even Independents are on the same trajectory, in 1976 74% trusted the media, today only 27% do. Half of all Colorado voters are now unaffiliated. If reporters are curious about all their industry layoffs, those people used to be customers.

I don’t trust the media because it oozes disdain for me. The message they send me is clear – the way you see the world is simply so perverse, we make no effort to even hire people like you.

Like most conservatives and libertarians, I am unwelcome from mainstream media. I used to listen to Colorado Public Radio daily, but their pure scorn for those like me is palpable. What comes out of my cars speakers screams, “your values don’t exist here.” I stopped listening.

The message of their tax-supported broadcasts is not as much “we hate you” as it is “we don’t recognize you exist.”

Oh, it’s not personal. I know a lot of CPR folks and they are good, well-meaning people. But I see the world on a spectrum of liberty-versus-coercion. It’s pretty clear that folks there see the world on a spectrum of oppressed-versus-oppressor. There is a governmental answer to every challenge.

This world view is ubiquitous in mass media. It shows in story selection.

Journalists love to claim their professionalism scrubs bias out of a story. Even if true, the stories they choose demonstrate their lack of ideological diversity.

As I have for decades, I continue to suggest a simple exercise to get an indication of newsroom culture. No one’s taken me up.

Coloradans voted about 54% for Biden and 43% for Trump. If newsroom staff was representative of the population they serve, they would vote roughly in the same proportion. So, have a secret ballot in the newsroom to see where news reporters land in comparison to their customers.

I suggested this to the head of CPR news after Trump won the first time. He was aghast and looked at me like I just suggested videotaping his employees making babies.

I was told from three different CPR reporters separately that no one in the newsroom voted for Trump. That’s a bit different than the 46% of Coloradans who did in 2016 and still pay taxes to support public radio.

It’s more telling that when I wrote about CPR’s voting habits, instead of starting a conversation of how to bring some ideological balance to the newsroom, reporters were told to stop talking about who they voted for.

I sat down with Kyle Clark of 9News recently for my show Devil’s Advocate. Love him or hate him he is smart, articulate, takes pride in his work, and is the most influential commentator in the state.

When I asked him how many people in his shop voted for Trump, he too seemed aghast. We don’t talk about such things, he informed me. Why the hell not?

They can proudly tell us the racial and gender ratios of their employees. Might they suspect what their ideological ratio is and simply don’t want to see it proven?

Just as nationally the Democratic party is introspective about their failure, newsrooms should get curious about themselves, and for the same reason.