I spend a lot of time criticizing conservative talk-radio hosts, and some people think I’m beating my head against the keyboard.

Too bad for me. Here I go again.

I can’t accept that KLZ host’s Ken Clark and Jason Worley agree with Sen. Ted Harvey when he says, on the radio, that Rep. Morgan Carroll’s bill requiring hospitals to post a list of services that they do not provide is like “putting yellow stars on the door of religious hospitals.”

Even if you disagree with her bill, proposed legislation like Carroll’s and Nazi Germany have zero in common with one another.

You may think it’s ridiculous that I even write the above paragraph, but that’s what we bloggers have been reduced to, particularly because the legacy media is mostly ignoring the Colorado GOP’s Nazi talk this year.

The Nazis killed people and Carroll’s bill informs them. Carroll’s bill would’ve helped consumers make a purchase. That’s it.

Even if you’re anti-abortion, Carroll’s bill can’t be remotely linked to genocide in any way.

So, if you’re Ken Clark and Jason Worley, how could you possibly listen to this exchange without objecting?

Sen. Kevin Grantham (at 16:30 in the podcast):  “Ken, I kind of wonder if Patrick Malone would have made the same statement, or did even ask the same question to Rep. Carrol when she was running her Senate Bill 93, wondering whether she is going to have a legacy… or she’s worried about her legacy as a bigot for what she’s doing to hospitals and to private religious hospitals.  Doesn’t that make her a bigot as well?” 

Asked to explain, Grantham said that SB 93 would require “religious hospitals to post the services they do not provide,” which would be a requirement targeted specifically at catholic hospitals. This is not correct, since it would apply to all hospitals, but Grantham maintained that the bill was targeted specifically at abortion issues and other life issues.

Later, in a discussion about how the Democrats’ strategy on civil unions will backfire, Harvey said:

Sen. Ted Harvey (at 39:32): I don’t like to repeat the negative and talk about what their talking points are.  And what my talking points are is that this is an attack on religion.  This is [an] attack on the right of conscience, and the ability of people to exercise their faith the way that they believe is best for them. And I think that the people of faith are seeing this for what it is, and it’s a direct attack on them and they are now not sitting on the couch, not sitting in the pews, and just trying to live their lives and take their kids to school, and go to work and do those kinds of things. They are truly scared of what this is we’re talking about. We’re talking about an entire party in the United States that thinks it’s okay to force people of religious faith to do something against their religion. And that’s never happened in the United States before.  You heard Kevin [Grantham] talking about Senate Bill 93 where it forced hospitals to put on their door a yellow star, for all practical purposes.  To say, ‘this is who we are, and we have to tell you who we are.’  Never in American history have we had a major political party say that that’s okay.  And that is what you are seeing right now. And people of faith across the country  are rising up and saying, ‘No, not in our country.’ SB-93 is like putting yellow stars on the door of religious hospitals.

KHOW talk-radio host Peter Boyles spent the morning saying that, despite his apology, Coffman really does believe that Obama, “in hisheart,” is “not an American.”

“The only reason he backpedals is because he got caught,” Boyles told his listeners during the 7 a.m. hour.

“Tragically, or luckily, whatever way it goes, I’ve spent almost five years listening and reading, and there’s more holes in [Obama’s] story than you can drive a truck through. What if Coffman had said, as a U.S. Congressman, we know more about the life of George Washington than we know about Barack Obama. That would have been a bombshell…

If [Coffman] had schooled himself on all the right questions, when Channel 9 came to him and said, hey, we have this recording of you, he could have said, yeah, and plus, let me add to that.”

Boyles continued:

“Coffman writes an apology letter to Channel 9. It’s weenie. Dude, you could have said, by the way, what about that social security number, how about that draft number. … [Coffman] says, ‘I misspoke.’ Come on.”

by Michael Lund

When was the last time a sitting president greeted Denver on the airwaves of a Spanish language radio station?

This was the first question that popped into my head when I saw KBNO Fernando Sergio’s Facebook post that he’d be interviewing President Obama Tuesday morning at 10 am.

Obama spoke to Colorado Hispanics … in English. And what did he say?

Campaigns, political consultants, wonks and analysts use a single word for a community that factors heavily in determining their fates in this upcoming presidential election. Whether it’s “Hispanics”, or “Latinos”, one word is used to identify an extremely diverse community, represented by entire spectrums of social, geographical, professional, cultural, socioeconomic, and generational identities. Hispanics, contrary to what our oversimplified nomenclature might suggest, are not monolithic as a cultural group. So, as an interviewer, which questions do you ask? And as a candidate, how do you connect?

Obama chose the right venue – a locally respected and established radio station, chatting with a familiar and well-known host.

Fernando Sergio’s interview followed the expected talking points, and Barak Obama responded articulately and personably, off-script and on.

Here’s a quick summary of the highlights:

The Economy:

Conservatives will not be disappointed with President Obama starting his response by blaming the previous administration for the mess he inherited, with some prompting by Mr. Sergio. But Fernando pressed Obama for specific examples of policies which improved the economy in his first term. Obama cited saving the auto industry, “doubling down on clean energy”, and creating and saving American jobs by passing the Recovery Act. He gave statistics which demonstrated successes, while reminding the audience of the hard work remaining, and warning of the lingering effects of depressed housing markets, continuing foreclosures and the looming European economic crises.

Healthcare

The President boldly promoted the Affordable Healthcare Act as a needed relief to families, which often lack health insurance despite holding multiple jobs. He highlighted the extended coverage for children (extended to 4 million more immigrant minors, and coverage up to age 26 on parents’ plans). He also cited improvement for seniors, particularly in coverage for prescription medications, and prohibiting insurance companies from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Jobs, Education, and Wall Street reform

Obama warned against returning to policies in the financial industry “where Wall Street Banks get to do whatever they please”. On jobs, Obama noted the need to get construction jobs back on line, “rebuilding our homes, rebuilding our schools”. He noted that in Colorado, we have “some great schools” in substandard buildings, because the growth of the population hasn’t been matched with new school construction. He spoke about his goal for educational opportunity and affordable college for all children.

Immigration reform and drug trade

Fernando Sergio suggested that executive order by the President could resolve the current political stalemate on immigration policy. Obama pointed to his administration’s increasing success in securing the borders and directives to ICE in targeting criminals for arrest and deportation instead of students and hard working families. But he also pointed to the lack of cooperation from Republicans to formulate comprehensive, compassionate, and permanent solutions to U.S. immigration policy, and he criticized Mitt Romney for praising Arizona’s immigration laws as a model for the country. In a lighter moment of the interview, the President commiserated with Fernando Sergio about their personal liabilities should profiling become a keystone of federal immigration reform.

Obama also called for maintaining cooperative efforts with neighboring countries to curtail organized illegal drug trade and violence while respecting their sovereignty, and curtailing the demand for drugs in the U.S. and the transportation of arms over our border.

Support for Small Businesses

President Obama noted that small business growth among Hispanics is three times faster than in the general population, and he recognized the entrepreneurial spirit of the Hispanic community. His policies would bolster financing and training programs for small business owners, increase opportunities for small businesses to bid on government contracts and focusing on minority owned businesses. He said his tax policy has allowed for 17 tax cuts which were favorable to small businesses in his first term.

Connection with the Hispanic Community

Obama distinguished himself from Romney as a candidate who cares about and believes in Latinos. He cited his appointments of Hispanics to cabinet positions in the Labor and Interior Departments, as well has his appointment of a Latino women to the Supreme Court of the United States. He summarized his stances, while reiterating his awareness of the issues which affect Hispanics most.

And of course, to make the connection with Colorado Hispanics all the more personal and real, President Obama predicted that barring injury, Peyton Manning would complement the Broncos’ lineup and bode well for a winning season.

I can think of a couple reasons why Mitt Romney chose to take questions from local TV reporters and KOA radio hosts yesterday, while blowing off all those “print” journalists in Denver.

The most obvious reason is that Romney thinks local TV news is watched by the swing voters he needs to win. This approach would be in line with what he did when he came to Colorado the day before the GOP caucus. Then, his target was Republican caucus goers. So Romney blew off all real-life journalists, TV and print, and took loving questions only from friendly, conservative talk-radio hosts, whose listeners were likely to be heading out to caucuses. So Romney got to talk directly to his target audience.

An alternative explanation for Romney’s local TV tour yesterday is that he was scared pesky print reporters would ask him tough questions while mayhem-and-fluff loving local TV news journalists would have one eye on the incoming rainstorm and therefore be unable and/or uninterested in asking him substantive questions.

If this was Team Romney’s thinking, they got it wrong. Denver’s local TV news didn’t suck up and ask softballs. They asked real questions about real issues in Colorado, including the most obvious question, given the drama in the State Legislature, about his view on civil unions.

CBS4 reporter Shaun Boyd introduced her piece by saying, “As you can see, Romney seemed a bit flustered by the questions viewers posted on our Facebook page, trying to steer the conversation back to topics he was comfortable with.”

I would say Romney was less flustered and more irritated with Boyd’s news judgment after she posed questions about civil unions (answer: no), college-tuition reductions for undocumented high school graduates (no), and medical marijuana (no).

Sounding like Colorado GOP chair Ryan Call who recently said birth-control issues were “small issues,” Romney told Boyd:

Romney: “Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about?

Boyd: This is a significant issue in Colorado.

Romney: The economy. The economy. The economy. Jobs. The need to put people back to work. The challenges of Iran. We have enormous issues that we face, but you want to talk about, go ahead.”

Boyd picked up where she had left off, telling Romney matter-of-factly, “Marijuana.”

And Romney said, “I oppose the legalization of marijuana….”

Boyd, along with her counterparts at Fox 31, 9News, and 7News, all asked Romney serious questions, perhaps the kind he wasn’t expecting from local TV reporters.

I’m hoping the tough questioning continues through the election season because it’s informative and it makes interesting television, as opposed to happy-talk questions like, “Hey, how’s your dog.”

But I guess in Romney’s case, that would be considered a hardball query as well.

I have to preface this blog post by telling you I’m a critic of the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC. I don’t like the legislation that the outfit promotes (for example, discouraging registered voters from voting, encouraging people to fire guns at innocent people).

I also don’t like the way ALEC teams up in secret with conservative legislators and big corporations to draft anti-consumer laws.

I signed a petition as a hopeless gesture to get giant businesses to abandon ALEC, and I was floored when Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, MacDonald’s, and Proctor & Gamble dropped their sponsorship of ALEC in recent weeks, after it came to light that ALEC pushed legislation that may have led to the Trayvon Martin shooting.

My problems with ALEC may sound innocent enough to you, even pathetic given the power of big corporations, but to ALEC co-director Jonathan Williams, my views of ALEC and my actions against ALEC make me a Marxist. On Denver’s KLZ radio April 26, he said:

“You know,” Williams told KLZ, “at the end of the day though, companies should realize that capitalists are the folks who buy their products. The Marxists that are coming after us and coming after them are the folks who want to see them gone anyways.”

I had no idea I was a Marxist. I spent a lot of time studying Marxism in college, hoping I could be a Marxist someday, but I never could bring myself to agreeing with it.

But did Grassroots Radio Colorado hosts Ken Clark and Jason Worley object at all to Williams’ accusation? Nope.

Maybe that’s because you hear the Marxist card thrown around so much these days on conservative talk radio that it’s become standard fare?

Just this morning, KOA’s Mike Rosen pointed out on Facebook that President Obama’s new campaign slogan “forward” has “very well-established links to Marxism and Socialism.”

Forward? I thought it had roots in the old hippie slogan, “Never go straight. Go Forward.”

So, with Obama, I’m in good company as a not-yet-self-actualized Marxist.

Still, I consider myself fringe, but Williams doesn’t see the Marxists behind the anti-ALEC campaign as a rag-tag group. He didn’t mention Obama as being in the Marxist fold, but Williams sees real, serious power in the hands of American Marxists these days as they go after ALEC:

“There is a very coordinated intimidation campaign against some of our corporate sponsors and against many of our legislators across the country by folks who disagree with free-enterprise policy,” ALEC’s Williams told KLZ. “And they try to use extortionist techniques to intimidate the corporate members from getting involved.  It’s been a really sad state of affairs that we’ve been seeing over the last few weeks and some of the companies crumbling under these intimidation tactics.”

 Extortion? Intimidation?

I wish the KLZ talk-show hosts had delved into those bad things more. I thought the backlash against ALEC was an anomalous case study of successful citizen activism, with organizations like the Center for Media and Democracy creating an informative website, ALEC Exposed, and state groups like ProgressNow pushing out information about local legislative ties with ALEC.

And what about Williams saying ALEC’s corporate sponsors were “crumbling?”

I almost started to feel sorry for him, for his disappointment, but then I remembered I’m a Marxist, and I realized the weakening of ALEC, with corporations crumbling,  is the first step toward the proletarian revolution I’ve been waiting for since college.

Listen here to ALEC’s Jonathan Williams say that critics of ALEC are “Marxists”

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog

In what probably won’t be a trend, but should be, a southern Colorado radio station plans to replace an extreme right-wing talk show with a program offering a balance of progressive and conservative views.

KENN talk-show host Sean Jeremy Osborn left his show, the Painful Truth, to write a book, Osborne announced during his last show on April 6.

Osborn’s show was broadcast throughout the four-corners area, reaching Durango, Cortez, and elsewhere in Colorado.

I’ve listened to most talk-radio shows in Colorado, and I can tell you that, no matter where you sit on the ideological spectrum, Osborn’s show, with its stream of insults, inane sound effects, and dead silence, and Osborn’s son as side kick, was the worst.

I tried to avoid the Painful Truth, but I wrote about Osborn twice, once when he announced that all Iranians should be killed and another time when he called a Democratic strategist a “stupid female dog,” an “ignorant slut,” a “stupid retard” and more.

I was kind of hoping Osborn got fired, because he deserved it, but it turns out he left on his own.

“He went off to pursue book writing; he wasn’t fired,” said General Manager Bill Kruger of the KENN 1390, which broadcasts from Farmington, New Mexico.

“I’d like to have a local show that has both the Democratic as well as the Republican viewpoints, more balanced,” said Kruger when asked about his plans for the morning time slot, which is temporarily featuring Glenn Beck.  “I want a show that allows people to think and comment whether they have an issue with Democrats or Republicans.”

He said such a show would appeal to “more of the listening audience.”

Osborn had announced previously on his show that if he ever won the lottery, he’d quit. And he said during his final broadcast that he basically won the lottery because he got a big contract to write a book titled, “Brain Disconnect Disorder.”

If you look at Denver media, you find way more partisan support for Republicans than Democrats.

I’m not talking about “conservative” media figures versus “progressive” ones. I’m talking about media types who urge people to vote Republican.

Here is my list of Denver media figures who are partisan Republicans:

Freeland Denver  Post columnists John Andrews and Mike Rosen (also on KOA); Michael Brown, KOA; Ross Kaminsky, KOA; Jon Caldara, KHOW; Dan Caplis, KHOW; Steve Kelley, KNUS; Jimmy Sengenberger, KNUS.

As for partisan Democrats in the Denver media, I can’t think of any. Can you?

AM 760′s David Sirota, who no longer appears regularly in The Post, is a leftist, but he trashes Democrats repeatedly, even saying last year he didn’t “give a shit” about who’s elected president this year. KHOW’s Craig Silverman, who will argue with GOP-talking-head Caplis on KHOW, wanted to attend GOP caucus meetings because of his love for Mitt Romney.

In my tally of partisan Republican media figures, I’m not even counting Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll, who predictably sides with Republicans.

Carroll doesn’t say, outright, to vote Republican or that he favors Republicans, though he routinely attacks Democrats and their initiatives.

Similarly, left-leaning Post freelance columnists Ed Quillen and Susan Barnes-Gelt don’t tell us to vote Democratic or to support Dems. Same with Littwin, when he was at The Post.

In contrast, Post freelance columnists John Andrews and Mike Rosen don’t hide their partisan support for Republicans.

Andrews’ column can look like it’s a memo to the GOP faithful, as it did in the Post in October:

“I have no foresight about how the race will go, other than to implore my fellow Republicans against overconfidence in the face of President Obama’s potent incumbency and billion-dollar war chest.”

Rosen, is unabashed partisan Republican, whose partisan support for the Republican party is boring. In a February Post column endorsing Romney, Rosen described himself “as a philosophical, principled, right-leaning, Reagan Republican.”

He wrote:

“I see trillions of dollars’ worth of difference between Republican supply-siders who want to balance the budget within our tax capacity, and left-wing Keynesians, like Paul Krugman, who boast trillion-dollar deficits are an economic stimulus, and want to double up. There are stark differences when it comes to energy, labor unions, social policy, education and, most important, limited government. Democrats are inherent statists.”

I asked Wesword’s Latest Word blogger Michael Roberts, who writes about media issues frequently, if he could think of a local media figure who’s a partisan Democrat.

“You certainly have a few not-entirely conservative voices,” he told me, citing AM 760′s David Sirota. But he describes Sirota as “not a guy who says you must go out and vote for the Democrats.”

“If there’s an example out there, the equivalent of a Jon Caldara or something, I can’t think of it right now.”

Neither could right-leaning media-type Kelly Maher.

Reached by phone, the always-quotable John Andrews told me his Denver Post column was established when Andrews went to then Post Publisher Dean Singleton in 2004 and told him that The Post’s commentary page lacked partisan Republicans.

Andrews said:

“I went to Dean Singleton and said, I see Gail Schoettler has  a column in the newspaper. Wouldn’t it be fair if I had a similar platform? But I haven’t seen anything from Schoettler in a long time.”

So now the opposite is true, I told Andrews. Partisan Democrats are needed at the Post for basic fairness.

“If your thesis is that there is an asymmetry, I would say there probably is,” Andrews said. “It’s partly a result of Democrats having decided that they are not going to be as out there saying their party is good. That partly accounts for the fact that you get a lot of liberal voices, but they are not saying, I’m a Democrat and proud of it.”

Andrews says this is a strategy by Democrats, like former legislator Ken Gordon, to get more Democrats elected, by pretending political parties are a bad thing and “it’s all about good government.” But political parties enhance civil society, Andrews said.

In any case, whatever the reason, there’s obviously a partisan commentator gap out there in the Denver media. You’d like to think the radio station executives in town would look to the greater good and create at least one itsy bitsy slot for a partisan local Dem, but this won’t happen.

The Post is another matter. Its commentary page shouldn’t favor partisan Republican over partisan Democratic columnists. More on The Post in a future blog post.

Planned Parenthood activists shouldn’t have a problem with GOP donor Foster Friess’ joke about how the cost of birth control could be dramatically reduced if only women would put aspirin between their legs.

That’s what KFKA talk-show host Devon Lentz, who’s an executive board member of the Larimer County Republican Party, told listeners Monday.

Can you guess why?

Because putting aspirin between your legs, if you’re a woman, is a form of “abstinence, which is still a form of birth control,” Lentz told her Colorado AM listeners.

So why were the Planned Parenthood activists, protesting the appearance of Friess as the keynote speaker at a Larimer County Republican fundraiser Friday, so upset, Lentz wondered?

“Their shirts said something about how everybody should be allowed to have birth control, be allowed access to birth control,” Lentz said on the radio. “Foster’s joke about how in his time women held an aspirin between their knees I’m pretty sure still goes to abstinence, which is still a form of birth control. And he was being funny. It was funny. These guys can’t laugh. These women were outraged he could make such a statement. They didn’t even know what they were standing out there doing.”

Lentz told listeners she “sent somebody out there to go talk to [the protesters],” and they didn’t really know “what [Friess'] statement was, let alone what it meant.”

Given that the protesters had symbolic aspirin between their legs, you have to wonder what basis the undercover GOP scout had for thinking the protesters were clueless about their own protest.

Now I’m a man, but I have to think it’s really hard for an adult woman to be clutching fake aspirin between her legs and not understand the point.

Especially after Foster Friess got all that attention for saying contraception need not be so expensive because, in his day, “The gals put [Bayer Aspirin] between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Friess, who’s now supporting Mitt Romney, later apologized.

So I called up Lentz, who organized the Friess event, and co-host Tom Lucero, who was the Master of Ceremonies, to find out why they didn’t dispense with the stealth reconnaissance of the Planned Parenthood folks, and simply have them on their show to find out what they know about birth control, and GOP proposals to ban some forms of it, and what they don’t.

Lucero, who’s a former chair of the Larimer Country GOP, told me he was “not the guy who went out and interview [the protesters].”

“I took Devon’s comments to mean they didn’t know who Foster Friess was,” Lucero told me. “We would probably need to get further clarification.”

Asked if he’d have the activists on his show to discuss the issue, Lucero said: “Absolutely, if they’re interested in coming on the show and talking about it, we’re willing to take anyone as guests.” He offered to schedule a specific time in advance.

I’d love to hear Lentz tell the women from Planned Parenthood to lighten up, because, as she said on the air, if the activists take Friess’ aspirin joke seriously, he’s just promoting abstinence as a “form birth control.”

Lentz is right, of course.

And in Freiss’ day, that’s all the “gals” had access to, a fact that would lead to a useful discussion on the radio about why the Planned Parenthood protest was important and why Lentz is the one who doesn’t get it, given that Republican leaders, like the one Friess gave big money to, would ban common forms of birth control, even if abstinence isn’t on the chopping block.

Even if you weren’t paying attention, you probably remember back in 2010 when GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes spoke up against then Mayor John Hickenlooper’s bicycle programs, which, along with other policies,  was “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”

“These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor,” Maes was quoted as saying in The Denver Post, which broke the story.  “These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”

“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes said.

This prompted the progressive blog ColoradoPols to comment:

“Oh, Dan Maes! We don’t know where you came from, and we’re still amazed at how you got here, but we can’t deny that you are one amusing fellow. Even if you don’t mean to be.”

We know that one of the places Dan Maes came from was the Colorado tea party and its allies on conservative talk radio.

Now, however, the tea-party radio show “Grassroots Radio Colorado” has a specific policy to refer to Maes as the “Mr. Irrelevent” or the one “who shall not be named.”

Still, it’s clear that the themes of Maes’ once energetic campaign still live in tea party circles, incuding the U.N. paranoia stuff.

The other day, Rich Bratten with right-leaning Principles of Liberty Colorado gave listeners of KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado a legislative update, specifically addressing Senate Bill 130, which would create the Office for Child and Youth Development in the Department of Human Services in Colorado.

The bill, which would simply consolidate various government functions, is the culmination of several years of work, going back to Gov. Kofi Bill Ritter’s administration.

A Colorado Springs church called this bill a “United Nations conspiracy,” which Bratten wouldn’t do.

“I don’t think this was a U.N. conspiracy…,” he said on the radio March 30.

But the funny part is, he went on, without objection from the radio-show hosts, to say that the Office of Child and Youth Development would lead to a  socialist takeover of America, possibly leadin’ to a U.N. power grab.

“However,” Bratten said, “[the Office of Child and Youth Development] is very consistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child of the UN, if you’ve done any research on that.  You’re listeners might be more familiar with the UN Small Arms Treaty….

HOST:  Yeah, they’re very familiar with that one ….

BRATTEN:  Right, which would put constraints upon if we  .…   You know, of course, Clinton adpopted the UN… that treaty, but it hasn’t been ratified by the senate.  Obama says he would like to get it ratified by the senate.  If we were bound to that treaty, we would  basically be giving up our second amendment rights.  And you guys are very familiar with Agenda 21?

HOST:  Very! We spent half the day on it yesterday.

BRATTEN:  This Convention on the Rights of the Child is kind of a similar animal.  And so, is it a UN conspiracy?  No, of course not!  However, is it that inex-OR-orable slide that we’ve been seeing our federal government make towards European Socialist Democracy type of government?  And, you know, the answer is yes — honestly, it is.  So, I’m thrilled to see Speaker Mc Nulty assign this quickly to that committee, and I hope that it gets a quick hearing.

Who knew how much of a threat the U.N. is? I’ve been depressed that it was in decline, but I guess I was wrong.

In any case, no one thought Maes was a lone ranger in Colorado’s battle against the United Nations, but his view, or permutations of it, is alive and well on talk radio, even if the name Maes has been banished.

“There may or may not be a joke tonight about birth control,” said Tom Lucero, the master of ceremonies at tonight’s Larimer County GOP fundraiser featuring keynote speaker Foster Friess, who was embroiled in a national controversy after he joked that contraception need not be so expensive because, back in the old days, “The gals put [Bayer Aspirin] between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”

Lucero made the comment on KFKA radio’s AM Colorado (at the 36:45 in hour 2), which he hosts weekday mornings.

“I thought it was funny, frankly,” said Lucero, “when he made the joke about birth control in his day and age, and birth control back then was Aspirin. We are going to have a good time tonight.”

Organizers told me last month they had no plans to disinvite keynote speaker Foster Friess, who apologized for the Aspirin joke.

Here’s what I reported on my blog last month:

Asked if the flap around Friess had given him second thoughts about inviting Friess to their fundraiser, Larimer County GOP  Chair Michael Fassi said,  “We’re going to move ahead with Foster Friess.”

Former CU Regent Tom Lucero, who’s the master of ceremonies for the event, told me that Friess’ joke didn’t give him second thoughts about his own involvement in the dinner.

“I think that Foster handled it appropriately,” said Lucero, who’s served as Chair of the Larimer County GOP. “He was  trying for a joke, and it fell flat. It wasn’t the appropriate forum for that particular joke, and we moved on.”

On the radio this morning, Lucero said, “My friend Foster Friess graciously accepted the invitation to come to Colorado.”

Lucero called Friess “an amazing man” who started with nothing and eventually sold his business for $400 million.