Author: Morgan Smith
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My brief, but memorable, experience seeing JFK
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It’s November 22, 2013 and I’m staring at an odd shaped black and white photograph, a photograph I haven’t looked at in years and wasn’t aware I still had. It’s four feet long and 10 inches high and says, “President John F. Kennedy reviews his guard of honor, the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort. Bragg, NC,…
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There are lessons to be learned from Obamacare
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Whether Obamacare sinks or swims, there are some important lessons to be learned here. First, Management by Walking Around still works. Although this is difficult for a Cabinet Secretary like Kathleen Sebelius to do and much more so for a president, it’s impossible not to sense that they’re disconnected from the actual day-to-day workings of…
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Mike Strang — Legislator, cowboy and friend
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What do you think about that House district I carved out for you?” Mike Strang asked. It was the spring of 1972 and he was in the Aspen hospital, recovering from surgery. Some people plan their futures with meticulous care; others function more on chance encounters. I guess I’m in the latter category. That’s why…
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Likable ‘Johnny Van’ was focused on Colorado
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John Vanderhoof or “Johnny Van” was Governor of Colorado for only one legislative session — 1974 — but he brought to the table some important new ideas. The problem was that although he was to be his party’s candidate for Governor, he had little support from his Republican colleagues in the House where I served.…
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What some see as border security, others see as border hysteria in Mexico
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“Stop with the propaganda, your only making yourself look like a dumbf—k.the whole WORLD has seen multiple videos of drug gangs with machine guns and drugs crossing the border,” writes Karl Snyder on 8-28-13. In a few days Congress will be back in session and the question of immigration reform will be front and center.…
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Don Friedman always told the truth, despite the political consequences
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“Morgan, I want to come out to Adams County and testify for Eldon Cooper,” the man on the phone said. It was someone I’d never met, State Representative Don Friedman, a Republican from Denver. Eldon had moved during the 1972 re-apportionment process, and the Secretary of State had ruled that he no longer met the…
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Frank Traylor, truly ahead of his times
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“This is a very amorphous undisciplined mass,” announced Frank Traylor of the Republican Party on August 22, 1982 in a Cabinet meeting of then-Governor Dick Lamm. Frank was a member of the Cabinet then, but as a Republican, he had previously served four years (1974-78) in the Colorado House of Representatives. In fact, he was…
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Eldon Cooper was a tough, hard driving legislator
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“I just shook hands with a good man,” a patient named George says, pointing to Eldon Cooper. It was May, 2012 and we were at the Colorado State Veteran’s Home in Aurora. Even though Eldon was in a wheelchair then, he would visit once or twice every week, bringing friendship to older veterans, many of…
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Our presidential election elicits impassioned responses from citizens abroad
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“Unemployment brings misery,” says José Luis Galván. He’s a fisherman and we’re at the edge of the Guadalquivir River near the town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in southern Spain. Columbus sailed from here on his third voyage and in 1519 Magellan left Sanlúcar to circle the globe. Now it’s a small town known for seafood…
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As long as there’s a market here in the U.S., the drug war cannot be won
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What do Hector and Yeira Beltrán, Enrique and Bethsaida Cisneros, and Iván and Claudia Vasquez have in common? They are victims of our drug war. They live on the Mexican side of the U.S. border in the pathway of the billions of dollars in drugs that come northward to meet the demand in this country.…