All created equal?

Slated on Backbone Radio, August 12 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

I am so high on America I could have flown home from California without the plane. All week I took part in the 2007 Lincoln Fellows seminar out at the Claremont Institute. What a privilege to be at the table with some of the country's most promising young conservatives, listening to such scholars as Charles Kesler, Thomas G. West, and Edward Erler discuss the timeless principles of the American Founding. Here's more about the Lincoln Fellows.

Thanks to legislators Nancy Spence and Cory Gardner, along with former Lincoln Fellow Matt Dunn, for hosting Backbone Radio last week in my absence. Word has it none of the three found themselves at a loss for words. I'm happy to be rejoining you at the microphone for this Sunday's show.

But here's the rub. If it is in fact self-evidently true that all men are created equal, endowed with rights to life and liberty, entitled to conduct government by their consent, why do our nation and world so imperfectly reflect those truths at present?

How can Americans consent to -- put up with -- misgovernment on a scale that would shock the Founders? Why the laws in so many countries discriminating by race, caste, or religion in a mockery of equality? Why such apathy in the Western democracies toward Islamic theocracy with its bloody global ambitions?

** Our show welcomes Pierre Rehov, the French director of "Suicide Killers," and Frank Gaffney, originator of the PBS-banned series "Islam vs. Islamists."

** Ward Connerly of the American Civil Rights Institute returns with an update on his push for a color-blind constitution. From India comes Joseph D'Souza, advocate for that country's quarter-billion Untouchables, the Dalit people.

** And investigative reporter Rowan Scarborough joins us to share the grim findings of his book about CIA obstruction of US national security.

What a tribute to conservative talk radio that the left is begging for on-air quotas to push its less persuasive views. And what a kick for us at Backbone Radio to provide your weekend conservative update every Sunday. Tune in, please!

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GOP TANTRUMS, ROUND FOUR... Just when it appeared Colorado Republicans might halt their diaper wars and grow up, the bitterness breaks out again. Bob Schaffer is the consensus nominee for US Senate next year, so far so good, but now the sore losers of last year's 5th CD primary want another shot at Congressman Doug Lamborn, a Reaganite if there ever was one. Why? After an ugly Senate primary in 2004, Ref C in 2005, and an ugly fight over the Guv nomination in 2006, we don't need a fourth straight intraparty bloodletting. Fighting Dems is what it's all about, gang. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

CU better after Churchill?

Slated on Backbone Radio, August 5 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

Ward Churchill is terminated at last from the CU faculty, and justly so. Even if takes litigation all the way to the Roberts Court to finally repossess his Indian-beaded academic gown, the radical prof is as good as gone. But how much difference will his departure from Boulder really make? How deep does the rot go at our university? How many other Churchills are subverting campuses across the land?

I look at those questions in my latest Denver Post column, "Radicals Still Plentiful at CU," available here Saturday morning. Backbone Radio will look at them, and take your calls, this Sunday when State Sen. Nancy Spence and State Rep. Cory Gardner cover the show for me. Don't miss the fun.

** Nancy Spence holds what used to be my Senate seat, and she's one of the leading education reform advocates in this or any state. Cory Gardner is a son of rural Colorado, former congressional staffer, and a pit bull for conservative issues in the legislature. Matt Dunn joins them on air.

** They will discuss CU and Churchill with Dr. Stephen Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars in Princeton NJ, and with Rocky columnist Mike Littwin, who has called Wild Ward a rock star. (Had to be the haircut.)

** Hot legislative issues from last spring (and next) will get a review when the hosts welcome Peter Huidekoper, an expert on the charter school option so unloved by teacher unions, and Bill Lindsay, chairman of the 208 Health Care Commission that's now studying some controversial reforms.

** Plus Cory's constituent David Kramer, a man who wants to lend your car an ear -- he makes corn into ethanol for America's highways in Sterling, Colorado.

What a compliment to conservative talk radio that the left is begging for on-air quotas to push its less persuasive views. And what a privilege for us at Backbone Radio to provide your weekend conservative update every Sunday. Tune in, please!

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

What they know that's not so

Slated on Backbone Radio, July 29 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

The liberals' problem, said Reagan, is not that they're ignorant. It's just that so many of the things they think they know, aren't so. Libs are sure, for example, that mankind is destroying the climate (see our quickie test below), biofuels beat petroleum, citizens shouldn't own guns, and Ward Churchill is a martyr to free speech.

Backbone Radio this Sunday will zero in on those certitudes of the left -- and refute them all. We'll take your calls and emails too, and you'll come away with plenty of intellectual ammo for the week ahead. Don't miss this show, as we welcome new premium sponsor American Furniture Warehouse.

** Joshua Sharf, Matt Dunn, and I will talk global warming with Colorado environmental researcher Philip Baldwin. Click here for a 10-question test on global warming that may surprise you.

** We'll also continue the popular discussion of two weeks ago about ethanol facts and myths.

** Dr. Richard Bishirjian, political scientist and president of Yorktown University, will speak to the larger meaning of Churchill's fraudulent and seditious academic career at CU.

** Prof. John R. Lott, author of the statistically conclusive "More Guns, Less Crime," looks at the lessons of Virginia Tech and this month's State Capitol shooting. And we'll check on his latest book, the delightfully titled "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-baked Ideas Don't."

What a compliment to conservative talk radio that the left is begging for on-air quotas to push its less persuasive views. And what a privilege for us at Backbone Radio to provide your weekend conservative update every Sunday. Tune in, please!

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Protect us by Thy might

Slated on Backbone Radio, July 22 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

"Protect us by Thy might, great God our King," says that old patriotic hymn so seldom sung these days. It should be the daily prayer of all Americans, accompanied by daily alertness to the many threats against our country and by active defense against them.

Moving to Denver from DC in the 1970s, I noticed a lot of indifference to world affairs, despite Colorado's strong military tradition. Today with our coasts and borders seeming much closer, Backbone Radio is here to help you stay informed and involved.

** Sunday I'll talk with Rowan Scarborough, author of "Sabotage: America's Enemies inside the CIA" -- timely as the latest national intelligence estimate paints al Queda as stronger than ever -- and with Major Eric Egland, Iraq veteran and author of "Troops Need You, America: How to Help Them Win."

** Ambassador Joseph Wu, Taiwan's top diplomat in the US, also joins me by phone from Washington. And Jerome Corsi, author of books on nuclear Iran and Kerry's war service, reports on the quiet momentum toward forming a North American Union.

** State Senator Chris Romer (D-Denver) also checks in after last week's postponed date... we'll hear his market-based common sense about roads and schools... but Speaker Andrew Romanoff isn't yet rebooked after we missed him on the 15th... seems my warning about his anti-TABOR plan displeased Mr. Speaker.

What a compliment to conservative talk radio that the left is begging for on-air quotas to push its less persuasive views. And what a privilege for us at Backbone Radio to provide your weekend conservative update every Sunday. Tune in, please!

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Recruiting for Element R

Upcoming on Backbone Radio, July 15 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

America needs a new political force, I argue in my newest Denver Post column. Not another political party, but a responsibility movement to challenge both parties. Absent responsibility, neither the liberal concern with equality nor the conservative devotion to freedom can arrive at a good society. Watch how this insight illumines every topic on our show this Sunday.

** Michael Harvey, US AID Deputy Director in Baghdad and a Coloradan, reports on the battle against global jihad.

** Congressman John Culberson (R-Texas) joins me to talk about what's next in the battle for secure borders.

** Ward Connerly of the American Civil Rights Institute and author-columnist Joseph C. Phillips discuss the momentous turn toward color-blind education in last month's Supreme Court cases.

** And Speaker Andrew Romanoff faces my skepticism about his plan for a Democrat-led cleanup (read: demolition) of the taxpayer protections and fiscal guardrails in Colorado's constitution.

What a compliment to conservative talk radio that the left is begging for on-air quotas to push its less persuasive views. Element R says baloney to that. And what a privilege for us at Backbone Radio to provide your weekend conservative update every Sunday. Tune in, please!

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS