The Denver Post’s recent reporting on the expanding mountain pine beetle outbreak in Front Range ponderosa pines correctly describes it as an “exponentially growing threat" (archive.li/CwgUs). Impacted acreage jumped 148 percent to more than 5,500 acres in 2025, with projections of further sharp increases. But let's not act as if this is a surprise. Colorado's ponderosa pine die-off is a 30-year failure, not a sudden surprise, and @GovofCO belated response to the crisis, in the final months of two 4-year terms, is little more than an empty and symbolic butt-covering move. Jared's creation of a ponderosa pine task force comes decades too late -- and only after the die-off began being noticed by his neighbors in Boulder. This is not an unforeseen emergency. It is the latest chapter of a slow-moving, well-documented train wreck that foresters, entomologists, and annual Colorado State Forest Service reports have been describing since the 1990s. Yet large-scale preventive work lagged. Wilderness designations intentionally limited mechanical thinning and new access across millions of acres of higher-elevation forest. Public opposition and green group obstructionism slowed forest restoration projects elsewhere. The eco-left's beloved "roadless rule" added another layer of constraint, by generally prohibited new road construction and timber cutting in inventoried "roadless" areas. Colorado developed its own state-specific Colorado Roadless Rule in 2012, covering about 4.2 million acres of National Forest land, which would be managed as de facto wilderness areas, where forest restoration work is all but prohibited That rule -- which Polis and other Dems applauded -- remains in force even as a federal proposal to rescind the national rule advances elsewhere. It continues to restrict tree cutting and road building except under narrow exceptions. The rule did not create the forest density problem, but it narrowed the tools available to address it on millions of acres for more than two decades. These last months in office will be a resume-polishing period for @GovofCO Jared Polis, when he scrambles to tidy-up the messes he leaves behind . . . and to show a belated interest in problems, like Colorado's forest health crisis, he let fester. He has had more than seven years to do something meaningful about this obvious crisis. Let the record show that he failed on that account -- and failed miserably. Turning things around out in Colorado's forests won't be possible without a better working relationship with the administration in Washington. And that's where current state leadership also failed, by putting petty partisan point-scoring above diplomacy, maturity, and statesmanship. We have a President in the @WhiteHouse who would act boldly to confront Colorado's forest health crisis if he had a governor here he could partner with. But Trump has encountered nothing but resistance, hostility, and ridicule from this Governor and this Attorney General, @pweiser, making such a partnership impossible. It's just another opportunity that Colorado has lost, and another penalty we must pay, due to Jared and Phil's childishly knee-jerk opposition to everything Trump. Let's hope the next governor can bury the hatchet and forge a more constructive relationship with an administration that controls more than 24 million acres (or about 36.2%) of Colorado. We need leaders who will do what's best for ALL Coloradans, and not just pander to the venomous Trump-bashers. #copolitics #coleg @forestservice

The @denverpost just spent 1,200 words trying to solve an alleged mystery I can solve in just 3 words. The question? How did Colorado lose its competitive edge? Why is the state in such steep decline? The Post wastes 1,200 words diplomatically dancing around one elephant in the room -- an elephant named Jared Polis archive.md/ks1ix But I can solve the mystery of Colorado's business climate decline in just three words: One. Party. Rule. The piece wrings its hands over job losses, plunging business rankings, and fleeing startups, while performing Olympic-level gymnastics to avoid naming the obvious culprit: one-party Democratic rule, complete with a billionaire “business wiz” governor who’s been at the helm for eight long years. Instead of confronting reality, the Post treats us to the usual ritual: quotes from concerned business leaders, vague nods to “headwinds,” and glowing coverage of Gov. Jared Polis bravely announcing . . . another task force and listening tour (as if we don't know what's really gone wrong in Colorado). Because nothing says “decisive leadership” like waiting until the final months of your term -- after the state shed 6,200 payroll jobs in just 18 months, ranked 12th-worst nationally in total job losses and 14th-worst in percentage terms, and watched its startup ecosystem suffer the largest numeric decline in the country -- to finally ask businesses what’s wrong. The numbers paint a brutal picture: Colorado has tumbled to 25th in CNBC’s “America’s Top States for Business” (from perennial top-10 darling, including #1 in 2011), dragged down by a pathetic 49th in cost of living, 38th in cost of doing business, and 32nd in infrastructure. The ALEC “Rich States, Poor States” index has it at a dismal 29th, a sharp fall from recent years and a far cry from its second-place ranking in 2008. Companies are bolting for greener pastures, talent recruitment has become a nightmare amid sky-high housing costs, and even the departure of big names like Palantir barely scratches the surface of the quiet erosion in entrepreneurial energy. Yet the Post frames this as some mysterious fog that rolled in, rather than the predictable result of years of accumulating mandates, regulatory piling-on, and a political culture that vilifies the private sector, decries the profit motive, and treats business as an ATM for funding pet "progressive" priorities. The Post does note, almost in passing, that Colorado has shifted from purple to solidly blue since 2011. But heaven forbid they connect the dots. Polis, the polished entrepreneur-turned-governor, gets portrayed as the thoughtful reformer riding to the rescue, not the architect of (or willing participant in) the very policy environment -- workplace mandates, housing strangulation, infrastructure neglect, a business-bashing legislature -- that made the state less competitive. Eight years of solid Democratic majorities in the legislature, a steady barrage of "progressive" meddling, and a general attitude that innovative companies should just be grateful to locate in this beautiful people’s republic -- and the Post acts shocked, shocked, that the state is now hanging out “under the bleachers” with the also-rans. The elephant isn’t just in the room -- it’s been trampling the state’s business climate for nearly a decade, passing bills, ballooning budgets, and appointing rogue regulators to runaway commissions, while the media politely averts its gaze. Colorado didn’t suddenly become expensive, regulated, and complacent by accident. It chose this path, repeatedly, at the ballot box and in the State House. The Post’s greatest contribution here is providing cover: acknowledge the decline just enough to seem serious, then pivot to process theater and hope readers forget who’s been in charge. #copolitics #coleg @GovofCO