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The Marshall Fire was a force of humans
On the afternoon of the Marshall Fire, after its dreadful scale had started to sink in, Gov. Jared Polis appeared for his first press conference on the disaster. It occurred “with no warning,” he said on Dec. 30. “This fire is frankly a force of nature.” Wrong. The misunderstanding that could permit the Colorado governor […]
Jan. 6 succeeded. Here’s what’s next.
If the point of the Jan. 6 insurrection was to establish that a significant portion of the country is done with democracy, it succeeded. The attack on the U.S. Capitol one year ago by violent supporters of former President Donald Trump — whose lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him was the fuel […]
Eyewitness to Marshall Fire origin recounts scene like a ‘war zone’
A neighbor of a property where a small structure was seen on video engulfed in flames late Thursday morning said he witnessed how those flames appeared to touch off what became the devastating Marshall Fire and that there might also be at least one other ignition source. “I saw everything,” the neighbor, Mike Zoltowski, told […]
Stop posing with guns. It makes you look weak.
It’s not hard to find photos of each one of the three Republicans in Colorado’s congressional delegation posing with guns. The images aren’t just out there on the internet — the members want you to see them. They released them as part of campaigns or policy statements. The discouraging implication is that they assume such […]
A splash of truth about Colorado’s ‘crime wave’
A recent report by two former prosecutors about what they called “The Colorado Crime Wave” purports to chart rising rates of violent and property offenses in Colorado and to establish a connection to criminal justice policies enacted under Democrats. The report received outsized attention, partly because leading into an election year it buttresses a tough-on-crime […]
Threats of violence are at the point of emergency
Last week, a conservative Colorado podcaster said Gov. Jared Polis should be hanged. He was not discreet about the matter. He felt no need to employ suggestive language. He named Polis, called him a traitor, and said he should go to the gallows. Joe Oltmann, the perpetrator of this outrage, in many respects is a […]
Colorado takes its place at the center of election denialism
Coloradans have shown repeatedly at the polls that by big margins they prefer Democrats in government, and Colorado government officials oversee what are widely viewed as “gold standard” elections. But the state since November 2020, when former Republican President Donald Trump engendered the lie that the election was stolen from him, has been especially fertile […]
Closed meetings at well sites foster distrust
For decades, the state commission that keeps watch over Colorado oil and gas operators was at least as much an industry partner as it was a regulator. The law demanded it — a statute directed the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to “foster” industry operations until the General Assembly in 2019 bolstered the commission’s regulatory […]
The Q-ish swamp in the middle of Colorado
Douglas County has long seemed intent on burnishing its reputation as a hotbed of conservative extremism. COVID misinformation? In abundance. Election lies? No shortage. Critical race theory hysteria? Heaps. But this week’s election firmly established the place as a swamp of political filth. A slate of four anti-mask, anti-equity candidates won election — and will […]
Colorado GOP wants to normalize anti-trans hate
There is no more traditional value than love, but it is the one in which conservatives often seem least interested. When it comes to transgender people, for example, they are quick to sideline love for hate. Eli Bremer, GOP frontrunner in Colorado challenging Sen. Michael Bennet in 2022, has made transphobia the centerpiece of his […]
Lauren Boebert, the audition-tape lawmaker
The first person to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, starting with the district’s inception in the 1914 election, was a Democrat from Pueblo named Edward Keating. He was the son of immigrants. He moved to Colorado from a Kansas farm with his widowed mother, and he left school at 14 to contribute to their livelihood. […]
Get rid of religious exemptions for vaccines
Too often the faithful get the wrong idea about the freedom that the First Amendment accords religion, and they take it to mean that their claim to it supersedes other rights — even the right to life. What’s worse, misguided policies of the state encourage this attitude. That’s what’s happening with the COVID-19 vaccine in […]