Will America Devolve Into Government Control

On May 27, 2025, guest host Allen Thomas fills in for Kim Monson to examine government overreach at both state and federal levels with former Colorado State Senator Kevin Lundberg and OpenTheBooks.com investigative journalist Jeremy Portnoy, exploring how citizens can push back against bureaucratic expansion and demand transparency.

Colorado’s Assault on Parental Rights and Religious Liberty

Start listening at 18:38 – Hour 1

Kevin Lundberg, former State Senator and chairman of Protect Kids Colorado, exposes the constitutional threats embedded in House Bill 1312 and similar legislation passed during Colorado’s latest session. The bill threatens parental custody if parents refuse to affirm their child’s gender dysphoria, while also criminalizing the use of legal names for individuals who have adopted different identities.

Lundberg details the organization’s multi-pronged strategy: a federal lawsuit challenging HB 1312’s constitutionality, ballot initiatives to ban child mutilation surgeries and increase penalties for child sex trafficking, and support for the Lee family’s potential Supreme Court case regarding school district transgender policies. The Lee case, documented in Lundberg’s film “Art Club,” could establish whether parents have the right to be informed about their children’s activities in public schools.

The conversation extends to Camp Id-Ra-Ha-Je, a 75-year-old Christian summer camp facing state pressure to comply with transgender accommodation mandates despite operating according to parental and religious values. Lundberg also addresses election integrity concerns in Arapahoe County, where statistical analysis revealed suspiciously uniform voting patterns across Biden voters and Gallagher Amendment ballots.

“This is an issue that cuts through political division, this idea that the state can somehow love your kid more than you.”

Kevin Lundberg, Former Colorado State Senator

Exposing Federal Spending Fraud and the Limits of DOGE

Start listening at 71:35 – Hour 2

Jeremy Portnoy, investigative journalist with OpenTheBooks.com, reveals the organization’s findings on Social Security payments to individuals listed as over 360 years old in federal databases. Despite Freedom of Information requests, the Social Security Administration claims to have no records breaking down payments by age bracket, raising questions about either incompetent record-keeping or deliberate obfuscation.

The numbers paint a stark picture of government waste: $10 billion lost annually to Social Security improper payments, nearly $1 trillion in improper payments across all federal agencies during the Biden administration, and $175 trillion in unfunded entitlement liabilities over the next century. OpenTheBooks files 50,000 to 60,000 open records requests annually, sometimes resorting to lawsuits when agencies stonewall their inquiries.

Portnoy provides a reality check on DOGE’s effectiveness, noting that while 76% of Americans support government efficiency efforts, only about half of the agency’s claimed cuts can be independently verified through public spending data. The Department of Defense and USAID remain particularly opaque, with special rules allowing delayed reporting of their expenditures.

“So over time, that adds up to a ton of money, improper payments across the entire government, with about $1 trillion in the last four years, which is a big chunk of our federal debt all sent away by mistake.”

Jeremy Portnoy, OpenTheBooks.com