Month: August 2024

(Colorado Peak Politics)

The Freedom Caucus is looking for a new leader in Congress after U.S. Rep. Bob Good lost his Virginia recount by 370 votes to a Trump-backed candidate.

The firebrand caucus now needs a new chairman — one who presumably won’t piss off every faction within the Republican Party, which Good managed to accomplish, accounting for his loss.

Conservatives touted for possible replacement are Colorado’s U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Harris of Maryland and Andy Ogles of Tennessee.

Good’s loss just confirmed how tired Republicans have grown of politicians within the ranks who champion interparty squabbles that weakens the GOP while emboldening and empowering Democrats.

Even Boebert has demonstrated her frustration with similar tactics being used by Colorado’s GOP chair Dave Williams, whose offenses against his own party have grown too many to recap on one page.

Boebert hasn’t commented publicly on Good’s loss or the direction of the Freedom Caucus, which so far has only led to chaos within U.S. House leadership.

Granted, she’s focused on her own congressional campaign. But the Freedom Caucus election is likely to happen before November.

Stay tuned.

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

(You can listen to this column, read by the author, here.)

Well, the Grand Old Party certainly threw a grand old party in Milwaukee.  The delegates and spectators were revved up and joyous from start to finish.  What could have been a tragic and somber mood — with who knows what outcome — had Trump not miraculously dodged an assassin’s bullet, turned out to be a glorious and thankful celebration for all (if not CNN and MSNBC).  Talk about turning a problem into an opportunity.

There was no suspense, with Trump clearing the field in the primaries.  The voting was a mere formality.  So, this was a coronation.  Our quadrennial presidential conventions, in addition to being a gala gathering and reward for the Party faithful, is four-days of televised campaign speeches to win over the voting public.  In that regard, this convention’s brilliant strategy was executed and choreographed to near perfection.  The message was on-point hitting major failures of Biden and the Democrats, like enabling a massive invasion of illegal immigrants, runaway inflation, endless budget deficits, the decline in real wages for blue collar workers, crime with no punishment, pervasive wars, the radical progressive agenda to fundamentally transform America, and unethical lawfare against Trump.

Yes, this medley was hammered incessantly, but as Willam F. Buckley, Jr. explained, “repetition is the price of mastery,” recognizing that the TV audience includes different viewers over the course of the week.  The convention averaged 17 million daily viewers,

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

Never mind your guns, some Denver City Councilmembers are coming for your gas stations.

The Denver Post reports that, concerned by an alleged “sudden proliferation of gas stations,” Councilmembers Amanda Sawyer and Paul Kashmann, among others, have decided that gas stations – apparently uniquely among Denver’s many retail businesses – are taking too much space away from other priorities such as housing.  In response to this deadly threat to housing density, they are close to proposing a zoning change precluding new gas stations from being built inside a quarter-mile buffer zone around existing stations.

It would also preclude gas stations around light-rail stations.  The reason given is that they’d prefer housing be built there, but I think they just don’t want the competition.

What sudden proliferation?

This isn’t the first time the anti-car central planners have sideswiped the city’s drivers.  The transit-and-density powers that be, having manifestly failed to persuade people to abandon their cars – as they have failed nearly everywhere – have a history of attacking car infrastructure instead.  Back in 2020, Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) took advantage of the pandemic to argue that parking spaces were wasted space where housing could go.

Figure 1: Retail stations currently in use
(Click to enlarge)

How large is this “sudden proliferation?”  According to a council staff report, it amounts to 10 new stations in the city,

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

Democrats are throwing good money after bad by investing $750,000 in Trisha Calvarese, the sacrificial lamb their party nominated to take on U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in the solid conservative 4th Congressional District.

We only have Calvarese’s word for the massive influx of money, as the reporting period hasn’t yet ended.

But it’s likely the reported “32,000 contributions from 24,000 unique donors for an average donation of $23” was funneled through a PAC like ActBlue.

In other words, it came from grassroot Dems outside of Colorado who know nothing about the race but are easily triggered (BOEBERT!) into parting with their money.

In the special election to replace sudden retiree Ken Buck, the winner and now Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez whipped Calvarese by 24 percentage points.

This serves as yet another good example of why Democrats can’t be trusted with money.

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

A federal alert from Homeland Security warns the violent Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, has given the ‘green light’ to attack and open fire on Denver law enforcement officers.

A Homeland Security alert obtained by the New York Post says the intelligence was reported to the feds from law enforcement in Albuquerque citing credible human sourcing.

“The Albuquerque New Mexico Police Department (APD) has released this officer safety bulletin to notify law enforcement of information regarding the Tren De Aragua criminal organization and reports that TDA members in Denver have been given a “green light” to fire on or attack law enforcement,” said the New Mexico alert.

The gang has been linked to human trafficking of immigrant females, contract killings, kidnappings, smuggling and organized retail theft.

It’s unclear whether the warning came before or after neighboring Aurora officers dealt with a massive pop-up party of 4,000 Venezuelans who gathered Sunday as the country’s disappointing presidential elections results were made known.

The Denver Police told The Gazette they are now aware of the warnings, while Aurora officials said they are “aware of criminal activity at properties where there is a high concentration of residents who are Venezuelan migrants.”

More than 10 million people have tried to cross the border during the Biden/Harris administration, including 800,000 Venezuelans.

Denver is one of the major U.S. cities reporting the highest number of migrants from the troubled country that’s ruled by a socialist president.

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

In a flailing attempt to hold onto their power, Colorado GOP officers are wielding Democrat lawfare tactics to shut up the rebel Republicans who want them deposed. State GOP Chairman Dave Williams misrepresented Party rules to a judge to obtain a last-minute temporary restraining order (TRO) scuttling a perfectly legal meeting of the State Central Committee (SCC) planned for July 27 for a vote to oust him as state chair.

Williams’ suit named El Paso County GOP Vice Chair Todd Watkins and Jefferson County GOP Chair Nancy Pallozzi, his critics who organized the meeting and reportedly had over 250 SCC members coming. Watkins and Pallozzi strictly observed the Party bylaws in calling the meeting, yet Williams convinced the judge to declare it illegal. The rebel forces are appealing; a reckoning is coming.

Sparking a rebellion

The revolt against Williams, his Vice-Chair Hope Scheppelfield and Secretary Anna Ferguson has been simmering ever since Williams, without permission from the 25-member Executive Committee, spent $60,000 or more of Party money on costly pre-primary ad mailers promoting himself as a congressional candidate and attacking his main primary opponent, Jeff Crank, in Congressional District 5 – the Colorado Springs area.

Williams knows that whoever wins the primary in the very Republican CD5 will very likely win the general election. Printing the “Paid for by the Colorado Republican Committee” line on his ad mailers gave Williams Republican voter credibility over the other candidates by implying the Party endorsement,

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

DENVER–  Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office on Wednesday announced that a citizen-initiated measure to outlaw the hunting of mountain lions, along with lynx and bobcat, will appear on the statewide ballot as part of Colorado’s November 5, 2024 general election.

A random sampling of the over 187, 000 signatures submitted by proponents projected a validity rate of more than 110 percent of the number required to qualify for the ballot, according to a July 31 media release, thus precluding the work of validating each individual signature.  The current signature requirement for statewide initiatives is 124, 238.

Currently numbered as Initiative 91, the ballot measure purports to ban the practice of “trophy hunting,” which generally means killing an animal for sport and not for consumption or harvest. However, the initiative goes on to broadly define trophy hunting as “intentional killing, wounding, pursuing or entrapping of a mountain lion, bobcat or lynx,” which in practice means a ban on hunting the animals entirely, according to Dan Gates from Coloradans for Responsible wildlife Management, a pro-hunting group that opposes the measure.

“They say they want to curtail trophy hunting, but the definition in the petition says ‘intentional killing,’” Gates previously said. “All of hunting is intentional killing. If they are going to classify that hunting as intentional killing, how can they not be for getting rid of all forms of hunting?”

In Colorado,

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

Gov. Polis’s gray wolf dealer has bailed on Colorado and cancelled their deal to provide 10-15 animals to release on the Western Slope this year.

More than a dozen Indian tribes that make up the Colville Reservation in Washington state canceled the deal because of the impact these wolves might have on fellow tribes in Colorado and surrounding states.

From the letter to Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis, reported by The Gazette:

“It has come to our attention that necessary and meaningful consultation was not completed with the potentially impacted tribes. Out of respect for the sovereignty, cultures, and memberships of Indian Tribes in Colorado and neighboring states, who may be impacted by this project, the Colville Tribes cannot assist with this project at this time.”

The parks and wildlife director pledged to find a new dealer but did not indicate whether the abrupt cancelation will affect the state’s plan to drop even more apex predators on ranchers and rural communities for this year.

The state initially promised not to introduce any wolves with a history of killing livestock, and yet that’s exactly what happened when five wolves from Oregon with depredation issues were released by Polis in December then later killed a cow and a calf.

Just this week, the state confirmed that eight sheep were killed by wolves in Grand County.

Sky-Hi News reports it was the14th wolf depredation incident confirmed in Colorado since reintroduction.

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