Vaccine Science Standards, Colorado River Crisis, and the TABOR Gut Punch

On the Wednesday, March 11, 2026 broadcast, Kim Monson examines SB26-135, a ballot referral targeting Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, with scientist James Lyons-Weiler on vaccine evidentiary standards, rancher Trent Loos on the Colorado River water crisis and meatpacking monopoly, and citizen activist Mike Rawluk on local government transparency in Lakewood and Golden.

Local Government Transparency and the Up-Zoning Fight

Start listening at 17:36 – Hour 1

Mike Rawluk reports on the Lakewood Citizens Alliance referendum, where residents face an April 7 vote to repeal blanket up-zoning that threatens established neighborhoods. The Ralston Valley Coalition has joined the effort, canvassing door-to-door to explain that a “yes” vote restores original zoning protections. Rawluk warns that many residents remain unaware of changes happening at the local level until a multifamily development replaces a horse property next door.

Rawluk also exposes a troubling public-private partnership in Golden, where a proposed mixed-use development near the Lookout Mountain Youth Services campus raises serious safety and infrastructure concerns. The site has only one private access road that traverses a golf course and sits near a floodplain, making compliance with the International Fire Code’s requirement for two access points nearly impossible for a project exceeding 200 dwelling units. The facility’s history of escapes, riots, and safety incidents since 2014 raises questions about housing families adjacent to a juvenile detention center.

“And then all of a sudden, you might have a two to three acre property next to you that turns into a multifamily when you thought it was just going to remain as a horse property or some other form of ag.”

Mike Rawluk, Citizen Activist

The Evidentiary Standard Battle Over Vaccine Science

Start listening at 35:22 – Hour 1

James Lyons-Weiler, founder of IPAK-EDU (the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge), dismantles Steve Grossman’s MedPage Today article that framed the FDA vaccine debate as a political fairy tale. Lyons-Weiler argues the real fight is scientific: the pharmaceutical industry wants to prove vaccine efficacy through antibody response alone, while proper evidentiary standards demand data on transmission prevention, hospitalization prevention, and death prevention.

The FDA, through Vinay Prasad, held Moderna to these standards for its COVID vaccine, demanding real efficacy data for patients over 65 rather than accepting antibody measurements as a proxy. Moderna initially threatened to leave the U.S. market before eventually complying. Lyons-Weiler also announces IPAK-EDU’s new Detox America program, a nine-module grassroots training initiative to teach citizens how to address environmental toxins at the local level, from school boards to city halls to water companies.

Under the Make America Healthy Again campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has secured commitments from 53 medical schools across 31 states to mandate at least 40 hours of nutrition education beginning in fall 2026.

“Policy should derive from science, not the other way around.”

James Lyons-Weiler, Scientist and Founder of IPAK-EDU

Colorado River Crisis, AI Data Centers, and the Meatpacking Monopoly

Start listening at 72:44 – Hour 2

Trent Loos, sixth-generation rancher from Nebraska, sounds the alarm on the Colorado River Basin’s historically low snowpack, hovering around 50%, with the basin at 31% below total water capacity. Seventy percent of Colorado River water irrigates food production, yet critics target cattle operations first. Meanwhile, 40% of the nation’s AI data center computing occurs in the Colorado River Basin, concentrated around Phoenix and Las Vegas, consuming enormous quantities of water and energy in a region that has struggled with scarcity for over a century.

Loos reveals that North Dakota has plans to place AI data centers every six miles, and the Colorado River Basin already hosts 24 hyperscale data centers, each the size of five football fields with zero long-term local employees. The infrastructure supporting these centers enables surveillance systems, facial recognition, biometric tracking, and license plate readers.

Shifting to the meatpacking industry, Loos warns that a potential JBS worker strike at the Greeley, Colorado plant next Monday would remove another 6,000 head of cattle from the daily harvest, compounding January’s loss of 6,000 head when Tyson shuttered plants in Nebraska and Texas. Small regional processors operate at full capacity with wait times stretching to April 2027, leaving ranchers with nowhere to process their animals.

“We love convenience, and the cost of convenience is never evaluated by us individually.”

Trent Loos, Sixth-Generation Rancher