Space Command exit shows economic cost of political games in Colorado

By Capt. Seth Keshel | Commentary, Captain K’s Corner, Substack

$1 billion in economic value is moving to Northern Alabama, and there is plenty more monetary damage to dish out if Colorado wants to keep political prisoners behind bars.

Economic impacts can slice like double-edged swords. Everyone who voted for President Trump last year did so knowing tariffs could cause short-term pain to some of his own voters while simultaneously strengthening an America-first economic outlook. Likewise, one state getting richer in an industry’s move across state lines means another state is getting poorer, impacting not only employees, but those engaging in peripheral business or adjacent industries. We’ve seen this over and over in the culture war with gun and ammo dealers relocating from blue to red states, or manufacturing companies doing the same.

Yesterday, President Trump announced a final decision on the fate of Space Command, which he created in 2019 to oversee military space operations. After years of deliberation, it will be moving from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville Alabama. From Fox News:

This will result in more than 30,000 Alabama jobs,” Trump said. “And probably much more than that, and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. … Most importantly, this decision will help America defend and dominate the high frontier, as they call it.

So, Colorado Captain K’s Corner readers, please don’t take what I’m writing as tap dancing on anyone’s graves. If you’re impacted by this decision, my aim here isn’t to jab at you or pour salt in anyone’s wounds. My goals in this newsletter are to push out actionable truth and provide accuracy amid nonstop lies perpetuated by the media establishment. As I read the news of Space Command’s move to Alabama, it sounded like there could be some politics involved. After all, consider the disparity in these results last November:

Then, I got to thinking, “I wonder if this is about Tina Peters.” Remember, I wrote a piece about the best way to help Tina earlier this year because one of the most common questions I get from my readers, who lean heavily into election integrity efforts, pertains to what, if anything, the administration is doing to break her free from a nine-plus year prison sentence passed down by an activist judge at the behest of Jena Griswold, the grotesque and Soviet-level corrupt Colorado Secretary of State.

The main issue with Peters’ sentence is that it isn’t for federal crimes. She is at the mercy of the state, which has been overrun by California Democrats and a smattering of environmentalists from everywhere since the turn of the century. There is no presidential action or pardon that can set Peters loose – only pressure on the rotten leadership group of the once-great Rocky Mountain State:

My recommendation is to continue to post online, tagging President Trump and all his DOJ leadership across all platforms, about this matter so it becomes a viral online issue, and for all concerned to contact the office of Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, at (303) 866-2471. While he likely has no internal inclination or conviction to pardon Peters, he may find it politically expedient to appeal to mercy and moderation since he is rumored to aspire to the Presidency as soon as 2028.

So, back to the present. The Space Command contributes roughly $1 billion to the economy of Colorado Springs, and therefore Colorado, annually. Biden was lobbied to keep Space Command in Colorado despite a competing recommendation to send it to Huntsville and reportedly made his decision to keep it there due to operational reasons – in that it would take too long to stand up operations in Alabama when things were already fully functional in Colorado. Colorado has roughly 60,000 federal jobs statewide, and is heavy on defense and the National Parks Service. I have no inside knowledge or suggestive evidence that the Trump 47 administration hit the “Alabama” button on Space Command to reward political loyalties or to make a pressure play on Tina Peters’ behalf, but it sure does sound like the impact will be felt by Polis, Griswold, and company.

Perhaps what we are seeing here should be taken at face value. Maybe the move is truthfully happening because Huntsville also hosts the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command and the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA). I am absolutely certain President Trump has plenty of people in his ear, like Mike Lindell, who make Peters’ plight a constant topic of discussion. What are the best ways, since economics doesn’t care about ideology, that the federal government under Trump can amplify pressure on Colorado? After all, Trump said he would ramp up pressure on the state to do what is right regarding Peters. Here are some of the best ways I think he can do that:

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I. Go After the Election Corruption

Probably what Tina would want first in the chamber, anyway. In May, the DOJ went after Griswold and told her to produce all 2024 election records and any remaining 2020 files (which are certainly destroyed). The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition weighed in in June:

Last month, the DOJ sent a letter asking Griswold’s office to turn over “all records” related to the 2024 election and to preserve any remaining records from 2020. Colorado is only required to preserve records of federal elections for 22 months, including voter registrations, ballots and voting equipment records.

The DOJ has accused multiple states of improperly vetting voters or maintaining the voter rolls, but Colorado appears to be the first state to get such a sweeping request for information. The letter to Griswold’s office says the DOJ received a complaint about Colorado’s records retention.

The DOJ could position any federal audits of Colorado’s record keeping, election administration, or use of federal funds as related to Peters, and as such, justifying the investigation(s) by default. This would force the state, which would be forced to burn funds and legal resources, into a defensive posture and create the risk of testimony revealing corruption that is not yet known. Additionally, Griswold has created enough of a mess and cause for voter distrust by posting voting machine passwords online, opening up a serious security infrastructure threat that can’t go unaddressed.

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II. Regulation of Key Industry

Colorado is a major energy producer, which puts energy sector workers at odds with the Denver-area electorate, which couldn’t care less if it puts the red counties of Colorado permanently into unemployment. Regulating the energy industry must be done delicately so as to not harm rural Colorado and the supporters of the administration’s policies.

Something concerns me about the people of Metro Denver – their respiratory health. Any time you have so much of a population, like two-thirds of the state, packed into one metro area, the last thing you need is carbon emissions creating a hazard. That is why, in the name of environmental well-being and public health, Arapahoe and Adams Counties in the Denver-Julesburg Basin should be subject to stringent permitting and EPA requirements.

The outlying energy producing counties, such as those on the state’s Western Slope, Eastern Colorado, and just north of Denver in Weld County, are much less densely populated and should continue doing business as usual. With Adams and Arapahoe Counties contributing north of 20% of state GDP, economic impact in those blue counties will be blamed on Polis and potentially help reverse course in two mainstay Denver-area counties that helped turn Colorado into the Democrat-run state it is today.

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III. No More Santa Claus

I mentioned earlier that Colorado has over 60,000 federal jobs. Where you find jobs, you’ll also find plenty of federal funds. Colorado receives $17 billion a year in federal funding, which it blows on its ever-expanding concrete jungle in and out of Denver, plus standard big-city items like housing, transportation, and propaganda education for the future collectivists it seeks to mint in grade school.

Examples exist from the Civil Rights Era in which the federal government threatened states over unjust or unlawful behavior, typically with much more unpleasant things than losing funding. I’ve written extensively about the corruption of the 2020 U.S. Census, which managed to push Colorado up enough for another electoral vote, but shaft states like Arizona or Georgia enough to keep them steady, or Arkansas enough to prevent it from receiving substantial funding to upgrade its infrastructure. I think it is time for the Trump 47 Administration to up the ante over Tina Peters and force Colorado to sharpen its pencil if it wants to keep political prisoners.

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