HAVE THE PARTIES GONE TOO EXTREME? The answer is "yes" according to a new YouGov poll that is broken down here at The Liberal Patriot and some of the takeaways are really interesting. First off, remember the only poll that really matters is on election day. Second, this blog post talks about how the brands of the two parties are perceived as "too extreme" by a lot of voters. You can imagine that the Democrats think the Republicans are too extreme and vice versa, but check the Independents in this poll. They say the Democrat Party has moved too far left on social and economic issues far more than they say Republicans have moved to the extremes, with 36% saying yes to economic issues and 43% on social issues. That compares to 18% as viewing the Republicans as too extreme on economic issues and 25% saying they are too extreme on social issues. The economic issues isn't surprising but the social issues was to me. If you only knew what the media was telling you, you'd think the GOP would have been dinged more on social issues because of abortion, but apparently the Dems have taken the lead with their view that natal men can beat women in sports all day every day. We'll did into more of this today.
YOU SHOULD SUPPORT CITIZENS FOR A SAFE CLEAN DENVER It's a truly grassroots, bipartisan organization that is demanding the city they love be cleaned up and restored to its former glory of a safe, clean city. I've got Craig Arfsten on today to talk about how noted author of the excellent book SanFransicko Michael Shellenberger gave them an endorsement recently. Find out more and support their cause here. I just donated $50 and I don't even live in Denver.
IS THE MAYOR REALLY GOING TO MAKE ENCAMPMENTS MORE COMFORTABLE? That's what I'm reading here but I'll have a chance to ask Craig about the plans to bring in porta potties and showers to drug encampments in Denver.
THE GHOST OF RWR REARS ITS HEAD IN DOUGLAS COUNTY For those of you who don't live in Douglas County let me tell you why I think Douglas County wants to add another layer of bureaucracy surrounding water. There was a plan to pump water from the San Luis Valley that was backed by wealthy and well connected politicos. They want the county to cough up millions so they can try to figure out a way to do this, while I think they just want to take the millions knowing that this would be an engineering boondoggle that would lead to endless years of litigation. It got voted down when too many people were talking about it, and now two members of the county commission are trying to create a county water commission to work on future water plans even though every water provider in the county already has such plans in place and doesn't see the need to create such a commission. That's the summary of this article and I'm bringing it up so this ghost will shuffle back off into the shadows or maybe even die completely.
DEM PLAN TO MAKE SURE BABIES DIE HITS A SNAG If a woman uses an abortion pill and then changes her mind, there is possibly a way to stop the chemically induced abortion. Democrats in Colorado tried to make the administering of huge doses of progesterone between the first and second abortion pill a violation of professional standards because they want to make sure every baby dies I guess. The professional standards board that actually sets such standards has declined to go along so far. They have refused to call such care substandard though they did require "fully informed consent" which every procedure should have. Democrats are disappointed that women may be allowed to change their minds about ending the life of their children.
AN UPDATE FROM CASA BONITA MANAGEMENT I got this email last week after talking about some of the complaints from Casa Bonita staff and thought I'd just share it with you.
· One-of-a-kind establishment. Casa Bonita has always been a place for families to enjoy both dining and entertainment in a unique environment. We have worked hard to maintain what has made Casa Bonita special while at the same time improving the experience for both customers and staff.
· Opening well, not fast. We have been intentional about opening gradually in order to refine the many complex aspects of the Casa Bonita experience – entertainment, food prep, security, dive and puppet shows, live music, bar service, cleaning, technology, animatronics, etc. While we understand this may be frustrating for some fans and staff, we have been transparent about the intention and reasons behind the pacing. We do not want to make promises to customers or staff that we cannot fulfill.
· Key accomplishments. Just since the beginning of June, with our limited schedule, we have doubled our service from 1,148 customers a week to over 2,300 last week, and we are expecting to expand to over 2,600 next week. While this is still a long way from the around 20,000 customers a week we hope to serve, it is a major achievement, as all of our staff have now been given the opportunity to work sufficient hours to have full-time benefits. Similarly, we have hired over 130 employees since May, well on our way to the over 350 staff we expect to need to serve that many guests.
· Non-traditional customer experience. One of the more significant updates to Casa Bonita is to allow guests to pre-pay for their experiences, order at a ticketing window, and carry their entrees to their tables. This has been instrumental in providing high quality food and eliminating the long wait times customers faced when coming to Casa Bonita in the past. As such, while our servers manage serving drinks, chips and salsa, and sopaipillas that are included in the ticketed price, only specialty desserts, alcohol, and additional a la carte food purchases are added to the bill customers receive at the restaurant.
· Guests weren’t tipping. As a result of our unique customer experience, we found during our soft openings that guests were leaving tips that were much lower than we expected, resulting in much lower total compensation for our staff. Accordingly, in an effort to ensure fair compensation for our staff, we increased the hourly wage for all of our service staff. As we continue to develop the Casa Bonita experience, we remain focused on providing our staff with a fair compensation and benefits package.
· Pooled tips. To be clear, Casa Bonita initially developed a policy for a tip pool in which all non-managerial service staff working on a given shift participated in tips received in that pool. With the unanticipated shortfalls in customer tipping during the soft openings, all staff were experiencing lower income than expected. That is why we moved to substantially enhanced hourly rates.
· Open-door policy. From the start we established open meetings and dialogue options with employees. Staff members are encouraged to share concerns directly with management and have multiple venues to express opinions, both individually and collectively.
· Continuing evolution. We intend to continue to experiment with changes, alterations, and improvements as dictated by our evolving business and the lessons we learn. One thing that’s certain is that Casa Bonita will keep evolving to continue providing a great place to work and the best guest experience for generations to come.
We are delighted by what the Casa Bonita team has accomplished so far, and we remain enthusiastic about what the future holds.
They say there will be no further comment. So there you have it. It does explain why they went away from tipping but the lack of timeline on when more people can go is frustrating.
DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT GETS CAUGHT IN A LIE Denver Public Schools finally released the tapes of the "executive session" which clearly should have been a public meeting after being ordered to do so by a judge. In the tapes, Superintendent Alex Marrero, who was just given a raise because he's Hispanic, says that if he didn't let School Resource Officers back into schools, the Mayor had said that he would so via executive order, something the Mayor flatly denied on my show. Here is more on what happened in the illegal executive session.
DON'T HATE THE SWIFTIES, HATERS This is a great column about the super sourpusses who wanted to crap all over the excitement around the two sold out Taylor Swift shows recently. This is a good taste of what the author is talking about:
Don’t get me wrong. Free speech rocks, and you are free to not get Swift’s appeal and keep right on walking. But my patience wears thin for those who stop and drop personal attacks onto the person herself.
One man called Swift a satanist. Another, a liar. Another, a “hoochie.” Others called her mainstream trash, fanatical, unattractive, dangerous and other words I’m surprised got past Facebook’s algorithm.
One man said “Swift is art on the level that McDonalds is food.” Another called Swift’s music “cotton candy for the brain.” (Meow!!)
All this contempt and downright misogyny … and for what? A hypocritical politician? A rapist? A pedophile?
No … for Taylor frigging Swift.
I got those comments too on my social posts about the show and I often wonder what happened to those people that they can't just scroll on by and keep their vitriol to themselves. These people are always out there to crap all over everything. I don't get it.
THIS COLUMN ON WOMEN COMPETING AGAINST MEN IS JUST STUPID In it the columnist seems to maintain that IF ONLY women had the superior coaching and training that men had they'd be able to beat the pants off those fellas in no time. She says people like me who talk about the underlying physiological differences in bone structure and muscle mass are the real problem and if we just stopped talking about it women would excel. She also uses examples of women like Danica Patrick and Annika Sorenstam, who competed against men, as examples, though Sorenstam failed to make the cut when in the men's tourney she played in and Patrick won a single race against men in her entire adult career. This is just absurd. She needs to watch the below podcast before spouting off.
THIS IS A GREAT PODCAST YOU SHOULD WATCH It's by a couple of guys who delve into controversial topics and give voice to those who don't tow the company line.
DO THE CRIME, DO THE TIME There will hopefully be a ballot initiative for us to vote on this year that would require violent criminals to serve a majority of their sentences before being released. The initiative is being run by Michael Fields with Advance Colorado and you can read about it here.
WE HAVE THE MOST HOMELESS OUTSIDE OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY And though the numbers are much smaller than LA or NYC, we are about to do the SAME THINGS they have done over the years with no results. Read this for more.
ISRAEL IS A MESS RIGHT NOW As Benjamin Netanyahu and a far right coalition seem to be setting the country up for a dictatorship with no checks on their power at all. Israel doesn't have a trilateral system like we do, they have have the Knesset, where the Prime Minister is chosen and an independent judiciary which is the only check on power for the people. Now Netanyahu is trying to neuter the power of the judiciary in such a way there would be NO checks on power at all. Many say Israel is on the verge of a civil war. Read more here.
FORMER HUNTER BIDEN BUSINESS PARTNER WILL TESTIFY JOE IS A LIAR Devon Archer is a known former business partner of Hunter Biden. Joe Biden has said repeatedly that he NEVER spoke to Hunter about his business dealings (which we all know is a total lie but whatever). Now Devon Archer is getting ready to testify that Hunter put Joe on the phone DOZENS of times with potential business and current business partners. Read about it here from Miranda Devine, but don't expect the networks to cover this.
TWITTER IS REBRANDING TO X AND I HAVE QUESTIONS So now that Twitter is rebranding to X.com does mean instead of tweeting we will be x-ing? Real question. You can see more below.
WHY YOU SHOULD BE SKEPTICAL OF SALAD BARS Although this disgusting and selfish man is obviously at a grocery store. Watch below or click here.
DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH AFTER EATING OR DRINKING THESE THINGS Watch below or click here.
IF YOU'RE HEADED TO EUROPE, YOU'RE GONNA NEED A VISA SOON But not in the traditional sense of the old school visas, which were a pain to get, but in the form of an online visa application that should be very quick to secure. It all starts in 2024 and you can read about it here.
THIS GUY BUILT A REAL LIFE VENOM SUIT And I have to say this is pretty badass. Watch below or click here.
THE SMALLEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD Welcome to Sealand. Watch below or click here.
FIFTEEN COOKING HACKS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW Not gonna lie, I knew all of these but I've been cooking for a really long time. Watch below or click here.
WE'RE ONE STEP CLOSER TO IRONMAN I want one.
COLORADO DOESN'T HAVE JUST FOUR SIDES Watch this for more.
I HAVE GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS
INEXPENSIVE BUT LIFE CHANGING HOME UPGRADES Some of these are a great idea! Read them here.