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What Andy Biggs says about Colorado Republicans
Republican Party leaders in Colorado say they want to get past stop-the-steal rhetoric. They say voters aren’t interested in hearing about the “big lie” that the 2020 election was rigged against former President Donald Trump. They say they want to look ahead and focus on issues like gas prices, crime and education. Then they contradict […]
Climate timidity rules in Colorado
Every climate-enabled fire in Colorado should spark fury at the timidity that inhibits the state from taking serious climate action. Every instance of climate blowback should prompt fierce campaigns of accountability. Every time lives and property are threatened due to human-caused warming in the West, Colorado residents should demand a change in approach or, absent […]
Keep your guns out of the Capitol
The American legislative process depends on the willingness of elected representatives to engage in debate without recourse to force or coercion. Legislative assemblies are battlefields of ideas, not physical power, and they’re established on principles of reason and free expression. That’s why the presence of armed legislators is antithetical to legislating, and lawmakers should keep […]
Election deniers reveal themselves as charlatans
Colorado’s election deniers are absurd, but you can’t accuse them of sloth. It seems they never tire of attacking democracy. While most of their activity only proves their misguidedness, they represent a danger to constitutional order and, indeed, people’s lives, so when the state’s primary election-denial organization unveils its biggest purported achievement, it warrants review. […]
The GOP is the gallows party
“I’ve said we need to build more gallows.” Those words were spoken last month by a Republican state senator from Arizona, Wendy Rogers, at a white nationist rally. The topic was the execution of political enemies. “If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them and use a newly built set of gallows, it’ll […]
Get Colorado out of the crosshairs of Putin’s nukes
Colorado is by design a prime target for a Russian nuclear attack. Residents were reminded of this unpleasant circumstance when Russian President Vladimir Putin alluded to the use of nuclear weapons as part of his invasion of Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the threat of nuclear attack seemed relatively dormant […]
Fear of a Marshall Fire at Rocky Flats is real
The Marshall Fire could have been worse if it had entered Rocky Flats. On the evening of the fire in December, authorities feared this could happen. Federal officials are at pains to convince local community members that the former nuclear weapons plant and Superfund site is effectively cleansed of radioactive contamination, but their account of […]
Jan. 6 videos said to show Colorado election denier Shawn Smith clashing with police
Sedition Hunters, a group that assists law enforcement searching for people who allegedly committed crimes during the Jan. 6 insurrection, on Saturday identified Colorado “election integrity” activist Shawn Smith in videos from the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and named him a “person of interest.” The development follows a Newsline investigation that identified Smith […]
What I learned from watching more than 500 Jan. 6 videos
I recently watched hundreds of videos from the Jan. 6 insurrection. Many of the stark moments from the attack on the U.S. Capitol are well-known — the battle at the west terrace tunnel, the shooting of rioter Ashli Babbitt, the desecration of the Senate chamber. But nothing provides the kind of granular and exhaustive understanding […]
Jan. 6 video shows election-denial activist Shawn Smith in crowd clashing with Capitol police
Shawn Smith, a prominent Colorado Springs-based election-denial activist, appears in a video from the Jan. 6 insurrection among a violent group of rioters engaged in a clash with police outside the U.S. Capitol. Smith does not appear to directly engage with officers in the 39-second video, but he is seen to position himself just behind […]
Could the 14th Amendment block Lauren Boebert from the ballot?
Is Rep. Lauren Boebert eligible to run for reelection this year? According to the 14th Amendment, the answer might be “no.” And, because Boebert herself is unlikely to acknowledge her own potential disqualification, it would be left to other authorities, such as the Colorado secretary of state or voters in the representative’s district, to seek […]
Colorado leaders must guarantee reproductive justice
In July, former three-term Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm died. Roughly a month later, the Texas abortion ban went into effect. The succession of these two events was symbolic of the perilous state of abortion rights in America and the half-century arc they’ve run from liberalization to elimination. Lamm is largely responsible for establishing Colorado as […]