Radio, July 8: Facts to a candid world

Update after the show: Jed Babbin's book is linked here. His recommended source for Islamic primary documents is the MEMRI website. Also valuable, as a caller pointed out, is the Center for the Study of Political Islam.

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver and now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Up here in Backbone, we think of Independence Day as a season, not just a midweek blip. I've been dwelling all week with that magnificent freedom charter, the Declaration of Independence, starting when we read the whole thing aloud on last week's show. In the Declaration, you see that our founders were thinkers and persuaders, men of reason and logic, as well as men unafraid to fight and force the outcome if necessary. They not only discerned truths from God and nature, they not only based government upon consent -- they also thought globally with "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," and wrote of letting "facts be submitted to a candid world."

Today's new media and conservative grassroots action do the same. We give people credit for good sense and invite them into the public conversation, overriding the effort of liberal elites to monopolize the conversation and silence them. Submitting facts to a candid world has been our mission at Backbone Radio, weekly since 2004. We have faith in awakened citizens to do the rest.

This Sunday I'll talk about conservative new media and their growing impact on issues with one of the men in the forefront, Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events and aithor of the new book, "In the Words of Our Enemies."

** Richard Allen, Reagan's first national security adviser and now a Denver resident, returns to the show with his perspective on Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda plots in Britain, and Fred Thompson's imminent campaign.

** Plus State Sen. Josh Penry (R-Grand Junction) on his political judo that keeps majority Dems off balance, and my exclusive interview with Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad, Pakistan, about conditions for the 2% Christian population there.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Radio, July 1: Running the country

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denverand now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Off went the Senate phone lines, down went the amnesty immigration bill, out went the funding for a "fairness" push against talk radio, right went the Supreme Court, and up went the Spirit of '76. It was a good week's work as June ends and July dawns, bringing once again our great national celebration of liberty and union, Independence Day.

Talk radio is hardly (quoth Trent Lott) "running the country." But we and the blogosphere are today's version of the correspondence committees (Sam Adams), penny press (Ben Franklin), and pamphleteers (Tom Paine) that made the American Revolution possible. No wonder we're in disfavor with the elites; long live dissent.

Imagine if those elites, largely but not entirely Democrats, had the run of Independence Hall in July 1776 with their guilt trips and cloture games. The Declaration might have been stillborn. That's the nightmare explored in my latest Denver Post column, available here Saturday morning.

This Sunday on Backbone Radio, I'll analyze with Joshua Sharf and Matt Dunn the week's big doings in Congress and the Supreme Court. Topics and guests will include...

** How dangerous is our porous border? Todd Bensman of the San Antonio Express-News relates his chilling findings in a recent investigative series.

** How accurate is "Sicko," the new Michael Moore film boosting socialized medicine? Dr. Devon Herrick of the National Center for Policy Analysis gives us a reality check.

** Plus charter school entrepreneur J.C. Huizenga on the future of education, State Rep. Rob Witwer on the clueless teachers' union, and columnist Mike Littwin on the Manzanares tragedy.

Running the country is a big job, and we radio hosts can't do it alone. I'm asking for your help as we venture forth once again from 5-8pm on Sunday, July 1. Please come aboard; a jolly voyage it will be.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Radio, June 24 : Battling the Bulge

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denverand now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The amnesty immigration bill we hoped was dead earlier this month is once more on the brink of Senate passage. The week of June 6, D-Day, brought elation for secure borders advocates. Now there's a powerful counter-offensive, much like the Bulge of late 1944, and we the people must win the battle against the political fixers all over again.

Can we? Will we? Talk radio has been one of the decisive advantages out here in the country so far, and our show will keep doing its part for as long as it takes. Please join us this Sunday.

I'm back from a round of meetings in Washington with leading conservatives in Congress, including presidential candidate Tom Tancredo and anti-amnesty Reps. Lamar Smith, Peter King, Steve King, and John Culberson. Thursday in Denver I was at a Mitt Romney event and later a Newt Gingrich briefing. Quite a week, and on Backbone Radio you'll hear my report on all of it, with guests...

** John O'Sullivan of National Review on the immigration battle (John's also an expert on the North American Union, don't miss that)...

** Author and columnist Walid Phares, a fearless Arab critic of radical Islam...

** And on the local scene, Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown reporting on his conservative stand against the Recreate '68 demonstrators, along with former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton who now heads the Denver Police Foundation.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Radio, June 17: Fatherless nation?

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denverand now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Father's Day 2007 fills me with gratitude for my dad, John K. Andrews (1920-1998). All that he taught by precept and example to me, my brother and sisters; the protection and provision he gave us; his long devoted partnership with our mother; and his manly faith in the God of the Bible -- this heritage from "Cap," as thousands of kids at summer camp called him, gives me wealth beyond gold and much to live up to.

How tragic and troubling that America in this new century sees almost half its children born to single mothers, with no dad at all to help them grow up. The fatherless kids in some minority groups are now closer to two-thirds. And the problem is worse when effects of the divorce epidemic are factored in.

We also see in politics, education, media, and even in the church, a spreading culture of selfishness, shallowness, emotionalism, irresponsibility, impulsiveness and impatience that denies the masculine principle essential for the survival of any society, no less than any family.

If the United States becomes materially and spiritually a fatherless nation, we will soon cease to be a nation at all. This we cannot permit. This we must resist and counteract with our whole being. At least that's how it looks to us this summer from up here in Backbone Colorado USA, and that's the focus of our Father's Day radio show on June 17.

** Jim Pfaff of the Colorado Family Institute and black conservative Joseph C. Phillips, Denver's man in Hollywood, join me to talk about why dads are indispensable and what policies that calls for.

** Paul Williams, author of several books on the jihad threat to our homeland, brings his cold realism about the Islamist design to "orphan" America as we have known it.

** Plus Colorado free-market health policy expert Brian Schwartz and Houston attorney Shawn Raymond, co-author of the vision for a US Public Service Academy to complement our military service academies.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Radio, June 10: We spoke!

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denverand now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- President Bush is powerful. Kennedy and Reid and the Senate Democrats are powerful. Arizona Republican senators McCain and Kyl are powerful. RNC chairman and Florida senator Mel Martinez is powerful. But you know what? We the people are more powerful.

We spoke these past three weeks, and our message of no amnesty for illegal aliens, no sellout of law-abiding Americans to coddle foreign lawbreakers, prevailed decisively in Thursday night's US Senate vote to all but kill the Bush-Kennedy-McCain immigration bill.

How powerful are we the people? Our uproar brought a bipartisan 50-45 defeat of this awful bill, which had been deemed a sure thing only days ago. Supporters fell 15 votes short of the 60 they needed to end debate and move for passage. We pulled Sen. Jon Kyl himself, an author of the deal, over to our side, at least tactically for now. We peeled away freshman Dems like Webb (VA), Tester (MT), and McCaskill (MO) from supporting Teddy.

Here's the roll call, and it makes interesting reading. Only seven GOP senators stuck with the out-of-touch White House on this showdown. Joining McCain and Martinez in supporting amnesty were Chuck Hagel, Arlen Specter, Dick Lugar, George Voinovich, and Lindsay Graham. Few surprises there. Gregg of New Hampshire, warned by Tom Tancredo on Tuesday for his earlier support of the bill, voted nay on Thursday.

** On Backbone Radio this Sunday we'll analyze the big victory, and look at what's next, with conservative columnists Al Knight of the Denver Post and Jay Ambrose of the Rocky Mountain News.

** Congressman Doug Lamborn, freshman Republican from Colorado Springs, will check in for a look at immigration, Iraq, the Army land dispute, and his push for missile defense -- an issue that heated up between Bush and Putin this week.

** Plus Anne Neal of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni on national repercussions of the CU-Ward Churchill mess, and Karl Altau on the newly opened Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS