The Flag, the Border, and the Fight for Colorado’s Classrooms

On June 12, 2026, ahead of Flag Day, the Kim Monson Show looked at the American flag as a symbol of the freedom it represents and at several of the places that freedom is being tested. Retired Air Force Colonel Bill Rutledge explained the history and protocol of the flag, retired Border Patrol agent Chris Harris made the case for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, parent advocate Molly Lamar detailed a budget and accountability crisis at Cherry Creek Schools, and Spartan Defense co-owner Teddy Collins discussed Second Amendment rights and his run for the statehouse.

Budget Gaps and Federal Scrutiny at Cherry Creek

Start listening at 18:18 – Hour 1

Molly Lamar, a local parent who has become an outspoken advocate for accountability in the Cherry Creek School District, described a school system in financial and legal trouble. She said the district is staring down a $23 million deficit only two years after voters approved a $950 million bond, and that it laid off 159 frontline staff, including 51 special education positions, to close the gap. At the same time, she said, the district has written six-figure payouts for administrators who left while under investigation.

Lamar said federal civil rights investigators are examining the district’s Voices of Color committee and a training that directs teachers to apply discipline based on a student’s culture. She told Kim Monson that fewer than half of Cherry Creek students read, write, or do math at grade level, and she urged parents and taxpayers to demand a full accounting before the district seeks another bond in 2028. Her next chance to press the board comes at its August 10 meeting, as it searches for a new superintendent.

“We need an absolute top to bottom clean out of the administrative gatekeepers.”

Molly Lamar, Cherry Creek parent advocate

A Border Veteran on Sovereignty and Enforcement

Start listening at 32:40 – Hour 1

Chris Harris, a retired Border Patrol agent who worked the San Diego sector and once served as a director of political affairs for the Border Patrol union, argued that enforcing immigration law was a bipartisan position not many years ago. He said every sovereign nation has the right to decide who enters and for how long, comparing the country to a home whose owner may welcome guests and ask them to leave when they cause harm. By Border Patrol metrics, he said, more than 30 million people are in the country illegally, with 10 to 12 million arriving under the previous administration.

Harris pointed to a Sacramento case in which a man in the country illegally, released from jail without notice to ICE because of sanctuary laws, later killed his three daughters and a church chaperone before taking his own life. He warned that when newcomers do not assimilate, the country risks the kind of balkanization that broke apart Yugoslavia after Tito. He also said some 2018 caravans were funded by George Soros’s network and by Venezuelan, Cuban, and Russian intelligence.

“Every sovereign nation in the world has the right to have their own borders and decide who comes in and for how long.”

Chris Harris, Retired Border Patrol Agent

Second Amendment Rights and a Run for the Statehouse

Start listening at 63:28 – Hour 2

Teddy Collins, co-owner of the family-owned Spartan Defense gun store in Colorado Springs, told Kim Monson he is running for the state senate because Colorado has become one of the most heavily regulated and least business-friendly states in the country. He cited more than 205,000 regulations and the loss of more than 12,000 high-paying jobs in a year, including the departures of Palantir and RE/MAX, and said conservatives are six seats away from a state Senate majority.

Collins urged listeners to exercise their Second Amendment rights ahead of new Colorado gun laws taking effect in August, which he said will require buyers of semi-automatic firearms to complete a two-day class and be fingerprinted and licensed through their county sheriff. He also announced a Colorado State Shooting Association lawsuit against the state’s latest firearms restrictions, with a press conference set for the Centennial Gun Club.

“There is no country where you have more opportunities than the United States of America.”

Teddy Collins, Spartan Defense

Flag Day and the Protocol of Old Glory

Start listening at 75:29 – Hour 2

Colonel Bill Rutledge, a 97-year-old retired Air Force officer, marked Flag Day by calling the American flag the world’s foremost symbol of freedom. He walked Kim Monson through the protocol many Americans no longer learn: the flag is never dipped to any person or crown, all movement halts when the national anthem plays, spectators should stand as it passes, and a worn flag is retired by burning rather than thrown away. An inverted flag, he added, is a signal of grave distress.

Earlier in the hour, Kim Monson had read a widely shared tradition holding that the flag is folded 13 times when it is retired, with each fold assigned its own meaning, from life and eternal life to tributes to mothers and fathers. Rutledge, who has folded flags in ceremonies, called that a romanticized account: in practice, he said, a flag is folded only six to eight times before it forms its final triangle, with the blue field of stars left showing on top. He also recounted the Iwo Jima flag raising and the dangerous duty of the battlefield flag bearer, and he closed on John Paul Jones’s reply when a British captain demanded his surrender: “I have not yet begun to fight.”

“I think that the American flag throughout the world is the best representative of freedom.”

Colonel Bill Rutledge, U.S. Air Force (Retired)