The Con Man welcomes the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboarding Club back to the program, then explains why the conventional wisdom that said Democrats would be damanged by the primaries was so completely wrong.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Tuesday June 10,2008.
Add comment June 11th, 2008
The Con Man gets a visit from Lt. Colonel Dick Merrit and Seaman Dan Glidden, two retired veterans who stand for all that's good about those who have served the country. Also: a bit of a rant of flag lapel pins and taking back the lapel flag pin--and the flags--from those who desecrate it with faux patriotism.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Memorial Day May 28, 2008.
1 comment May 26th, 2008
Click here for the complete "Con Games With Michael Conniff" for Wednesday April 9, 2008.
Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR) co-founder Mike McGarry is in fine form, followed by someone from the other side of the spectru, Tom Ziemann, Western Slope director of Catholic Charities.
Also: the Con Man is joined by Dr. Pamela Zuker, who talks about the wonders of the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork.
In the final half-hour, Michael Conniff returns to the implications of what he calls "The Permanent War" in Iraq.
Add comment April 9th, 2008
In the midst of one of the panels here at the Aspen Environment Forum, a wizened professor from the University of Alaska took the microphone proffered for questions from the environmental cognoscenti and said that a bear had just been shot and killed at Fort Yukon, Alaska, 250 miles from the shore. He said to his knowledge no bear had ever before been killed that far inland in that part of Alaska.
If I were making this up, I would say there was an audible murmur or perhaps even an angry hum as the choir in Aspen, brought together by the Aspen Institute and National Geographic magazine, ingested the significance of this single environmental tragedy. Not so: there were no murmurs, no guttural evidence of existential angst anywhere to be seen or heard in the audience at the Aspen Environment Forum.
The choir absorbed the news—one more damning fact about climate change—and continued on with the session. Were they oblivious to the news? Not at all…but they did know there was not a damn thing they could do about it. The bear was out of the barn.
And there, in a microcosm, is the graying of the macro world of environmental activism. In the panel “How Much Time to Act on Climate Change?” the conclusion was (a) there is no time; (b) no one has really figured out what to do about it; and (c) about 40 percent of people in the United States—the tipping point of the populace—is dazed and confused about the issue at best.
Continue Reading 4 comments March 30th, 2008
How's immigration working out for you fellow Americans? Got a goober in your back pocket? Like what you see in Mexi-fornia? How about Mexi-zona? What can you say about Mexi-Texas? How about that 1965 Immigration Reform Act that added 100 million people in four decades? How about the next 100 million immigrants added by 2040?
Continue Reading 2 comments February 8th, 2008
During World War II there were few men at home, and men were needed for farm labor. So the United States imported Mexicans. They were just south of the border, and it seemed very practical. So they legally contracted Mexicans to do a certain job at a certain ranch for a guaranteed wage, and these legal laborers came to be known as "braceros", arms, and between 1941 and 1944 fifty-five thousand were imported. Then after the war, having a taste of this good cheap labor, the farmers and ranchers of the southwest U.S sent lobbyist to Washington to say they needed this cheap labor. There were no Americans willing to do this back-breaking stoop labor. And so a few Mexican-Americans, Okies, Arkies and Philipinos, who had done this farm labor before the war, were forgotten and the importation of braceros was extended for a few more years, and it became a big business. Huge! One hundred thousand were imported that first year so by 1954 more than four hundred thousand were being imported yearly, and god only knows how many wetbacks, illegal braceros, came across the border a la brava .
At the time it was the dream of every young peasant man in Mexico to come north and make his fortune, and in Mexico many farms were forgotten, as the strong young men came north. Legal or illegal did not matter. Hell, the American Dollar was the god of the earth....
Continue Reading Add comment January 30th, 2008
A listener writes the Con Man:
One of the ruses employed by in-the-know illegals (and they are as a group surprisingly "in the know") is to claim a large number of dependents because this increases the net size of their weekly paycheck. This works well for them insamuch as they often have no intent whatsoever to ever file an income tax return because it is their plan to have moved on to another employer, and another, and each and every time they arrange to have the least amount of money deducted from their checks....after all when tax time comes, they don't care that their single status would require that they make up the less than appropriately withheld difference...they won't be filing or paying taxes anyway. In other words, the only shot that the government gets at their income is through the deductions that come in for each pay period, and this little maneuver has side stepped that access to those taxes rightfully due from the illegal.
Continue Reading 1 comment January 30th, 2008
This letter on immigration arrived in the Con Man's mailbox:
Illegal Immigration in particular of people from countries south of the border is partly due to corporate-run U.S government foreign policy. Foreign investment in these countries is ultimately driven by cheap labor. This type of foreign investment is great for Latin American elites who profit huge from leasing and selling of properties and dozens of other business deals they regularly manage to secure, yet while the macro economy of these countries booms the cost of living increases and the poor/uneducated have less access to a decent living wage, education and medical healthcare. And in many cases the only ways to overcome poverty for people under these circumstances are often through criminal activities or risking everything coming up north illegally to work honestly (as ironic as that sounds), the latter benefits the U.S in many ways, for example production, illegal immigrants have the need to work and are in constant fear of deportation, so they work as much as they can with out complaining, also billions of unclaimed taxes go to the federal government every year, and once here and working immigrants are one of the largest consumer groups (stable sales-tax revenues can attest to that). And for instance in Mexico the families of these immigrants depend on U.S wages with which they then are able to consume many of the U.S imported products that circulate in the Mexican market (Mexico is the second importer of U.S goods).These are just small examples of how this wink-wink situation works and why illegal immigrants are not being deported in masses like the hard-liners would want.
Continue Reading Add comment January 23rd, 2008
I have listened to your show since you went on during the afternoon hours a few years ago. I have always enjoyed your show because you engage your guests and your audience about the compelling events and issues of our time. I think you are great at your job because I and many other people look forward each morning to the topic you choose and your position regarding it. What caught my attention about your show in the beginning was how interesting it was to hear people debating politics on the radio. The second thing that struck me about your show was how fiercely intelligent you are and how formidable you are to debate. On the day that you decided to use the Eagle Valley name I gained an additional type of respect for you. That is, you actually lived up to the catch phrase of your show "With liberty and justice for all". You listened to the arguments of the callers and made a logical decision to use the correct name for a geographic area in your listening audience.
Continue Reading 2 comments January 23rd, 2008
I was sniffing around the internet for local news when I came upon this story about a new contraption that’s supposed to keep you safe in the event you find yourself being overtaken by an avalanche. In a week that has brought us two fatalities on separate occasions in the East Vail chutes, and a GSPI feature about some hair-raising backcountry travel by one group of intrepid locals, I learn of a device that takes charge of an avalanche critical moments before a beacon has a chance to be useful: the Avalance Airbag System.
Continue Reading Add comment January 13th, 2008
