Zoning Wars, Culture Shifts, and the Fight for Colorado’s Budget

On August 18, 2025, Kim Monson opened with a rallying cry to save Et Voila French Bakery on Lookout Mountain from Jefferson County zoning enforcement, then explored the cultural shift away from woke advertising with Dr. Brian Joondeph, debated property rights and election integrity with entrepreneur Susan Kochevar, and previewed Colorado’s special legislative session with Representative Rose Pugliese. Standing Up for Small Business Against Zoning Overreach Start listening at 14:30 – Hour 1 Melissa Ogburn, founder of United Community Leaders of Colorado, described her organization’s mission to unite conservative voices across the state. Founded in October 2022, UCLC brings together Coloradans fighting for life, faith, family, and freedom, offering mutual support so activists do not feel isolated. Ogburn announced the group’s mid-year meeting and awards ceremony set for Saturday, August 23, at the Independence Institute, where community leaders would be recognized for their work defending conservative values. Ogburn emphasized that UCLC provides a critical network for people who feel alone defending traditional values in Colorado, noting the organization is open to anyone willing to use their voice for those principles. “If you have a voice and you’re willing to use it in Colorado, we want to work with you.” Melissa Ogburn, Founder, United Community Leaders of Colorado The Sydney Sweeney Effect and the Death of Woke Advertising Start listening at 29:23 – Hour 1 Brian Joondeph broke down the cultural backlash against woke advertising through the lens of American Eagle’s fall campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. Writing for American Thinker, Joondeph traced how the company’s decision to feature a traditionally beautiful woman in a playful jeans ad triggered predictable outrage from the left, only for Gen Z consumers and social media users to rally behind the campaign. American Eagle’s stock price jumped, and critics found their objections mocked rather than amplified. Joondeph contrasted this with the disastrous Jaguar rebrand and years of companies featuring oversized or non-traditional models under pressure from woke culture. The conversation shifted to Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska and the Russiagate revelations. Joondeph connected three concurrent events: the ongoing declassification of Russiagate documents implicating Comey, Clapper, and Brennan; the National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C.; and the Alaska summit. He argued these were not coincidental but part of a deliberate, leak-free strategy by the Trump administration, a sharp contrast to the first term when unnamed sources routinely fed narratives to sympathetic media outlets. “They can hypothesize all they want, but they’re not being fed information, not allowed to frame the narrative.” Brian Joondeph, Columnist, American Thinker Property Rights Under Siege from Zoning to Eminent Domain Start listening at 71:05 – Hour 2 Susan Kochevar, entrepreneur and owner of the Historic 88 Drive-In Theater, drew from her own 2012 battle with local government to support the Et Voila bakery owners. Kochevar recalled how her city sent the city manager and police chief to demand she rip up her driveway and reroute traffic through the middle of her drive-in theater, threatening to cite her personally and pull her business license. Only after 20,000 people signed a petition and confronted the city did the pressure stop. She urge...