Category: Cringeworthy

Cringeworthy, Dangerous Republicans, Education, Embarrassing Republicans, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, Public health, Rose Pugliese, Separation of Church and State

Former Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese elected state House Minority Leader

by Anne Landman • January 26, 2024 • 9 Comments

Rose Pugliese supported disastrous former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters in the 2018 election despite the fact that Tina was completely unqualified to be a County Clerk. Tina was running against Bobbie Gross, who was already certified to run state and local elections, was managing the DMV and had more than a decade of experience in the Clerk’s office.

Former two-term Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese, who moved to Colorado Springs in 2020 to run for the state House District 14 seat (and won the seat), has been elected Republican House Minority Leader in the Colorado Legislature. She replaces Rep. Mike Lynch (R), who resigned as Minority Leader on Wednesday, 1/24/24 after it was revealed that he had been arrested in September, 2022 on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) and possessing a firearm while intoxicated. Lynch pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months probation and 150 hours of community service.

What’s all this about a severed head found in a freezer in garage at a house on Pinyon Ave.?

by Anne Landman • January 15, 2024 • 37 Comments

2019 photo of the house at 2988 Pinyon Ave. where the severed head was reportedly found in a freezer in the garage. (Source: Google Street View)

UPDATE 10/11/24: The head and hands found last January in a freezer in the garage of a home in Grand Junction have been identified as those of the teenage daughter of the previous owner of the home. She was identified as Amanda Leariel Overstreet and was estimated to have been 16 years old at the time of her disappearance. Her disappearance was never reported. She was last seen in 2005. The death is being investigated as a homicide.

Source: Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, Victim in Pinyon Ave. homicide identified, 10/11/2024 @ 8:32 a.m.
Source: Colorado Public Radio News, Oct. 11, 2024, 9:37 a.m. Teenager identified as human remains found in freezer near Grand Junction, by Tom Hesse

UPDATE 1/18/24 @ 11:48 a.m.: The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) issued an update today on the case of the severed head. It says, “The autopsy by the Mesa County Coroner’s Office occurred yesterday and has confirmed the human remains found at the address on Pinyon Avenue on January 12, 2024, are a human head and human hands,” and “we have no other definitive answers until further testing can be completed.”

[Note: this story was updated with additional information received on 1/16/24@11:45 a.m. that has been added in blue text, below.]

Multiple people are reporting on social media that a severed head and possibly additional body parts were discovered in a freezer in the garage of the home at 2988 Pinyon Ave. on Friday, January 12. The story has been confirmed by multiple sources and people have been posting photos documenting the incident.

Here’s what is known so far:

Tina Peters remains defiant, now portrays her criminal case as war on Christians

by Anne Landman • December 31, 2023 • 9 Comments

Many defendants who are facing an imminent trial on criminal charges might start showing remorse and contrition, but not former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.

In a rambling 27 minute interview on rumble.com on “The Matthew Dark Show” on December 13, former Mesa county Clerk Tina Peters continues to be defiant, insisting publicly that she did nothing wrong or illegal as Clerk when she copied voting machine hard drives and exposed the information at an election denier conference. She says what she did was required as part of her job, that she’s a whistleblower, what she did was “totally legal” and she’s being persecuted politically just because she’s trying to “tell the truth.”

At 6:09 in the video, she says her legal battles have nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans, and says,

“They’re coming after Christians. They’re coming after our Constitution. And when I say ‘they,’ these are global elitists that want to take down America because they cannot do what they want to do for a one world government until they do that.”

Tina Peters reduced to advertising kitty litter on her internet TV show

by Anne Landman • December 28, 2023 • 28 Comments

Tina Peters, broadcasting her internet TV show, “The Tina Peters Show,” from an RV on Christmas night, 12/25/23

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters spent the evening of Christmas, 2023 hunched over in a RV in the dark broadcasting her internet TV show, “The Tina Peters Show,” over wifi from an undisclosed location. She told viewers that for her, Christmas “is always a little bit quiet because the criminals have taken most of my family.” She interviewed an anti vaxx, anti-mask, election-denier conspiracy theorist-attorney from Oregon, begged viewers to donate money to help fund her personal support and legal expenses, warned viewers against taking vaccines, promoted fake Covid-19 cures and treatments, expressed her hope that “the scales would fall from the eyes” of Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and the judge in her criminal case and both would undergo a Biblical awakening within the next 6 weeks before her criminal trial starts on February 9, see the error of their ways and drop all of the charges against her, since in her own mind she’s done nothing wrong.

Tina complained, “They want to put me in prison for being a whistleblower.”

Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis uses offensive term in public hearing about the county budget

by Anne Landman • December 26, 2023 • 18 Comments

To be fair, Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis (R) probably had no idea what he was saying when he said it, but it was highly offensive.

23 minutes or so into the Commissioners’ meeting on December 12, 2023 to approve the annual budget (video), Commissioner Davis discusses how difficult it is for him to understand the budgeting process and said,

“Mongoloid” is an offensive term used to refer to people with Down Syndrome

“If I didn’t have help sometimes, reading this budget I’d feel like a knuckle-dragging Mongoloid.”

He was apparently unaware that “knuckle-dragging Mongoloid” is a highly offensive term.

For a long time the term “Mongoloid” was a pejorative term used to refer to people affected by Down Syndrome. It is also a racist term used to refer to people of Asian descent.

Republican Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis publicly pulls his support for Rep. Lauren Boebert. Better late than never, Cody, but come on…

by Anne Landman • September 28, 2023 • 11 Comments

Commissioner Cody Davis’ Facebook post from yesterday, saying he can no longer support Lauren Boebert

In a remarkable show of common sense unusual in a Mesa County Republican, County Commissioner Cody Davis yesterday posted on his Facebook page that “I can no longer support Lauren Boebert for Congress, and here’s why. Our voters in Mesa County and along the West Slope deserve leaders and representatives who uphold our values.”

He continued, “How can I criticize Democrats for their moral shortcomings if I’m blind to the shortcomings of my own side?”

Okay, great, Cody. Better late than never to emerge as the most rational member of the Board of Mesa County Commissioners.

But it’s worth noting that Commissioner Davis didn’t yank his support for Boebert last July after she trashed a lapel pin representing a child who was massacred at the Robb Elementary School mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

He didn’t pull his support for her after she lied to her constituents about missing the debt ceiling vote last June.

He didn’t criticize Boebert after she mocked the tragic death of a young woman who was accidentally killed on a movie set by Alec Baldwin with a prop gun that had been loaded with a live round instead of a blank.

Rep. Boebert kicked out of performance of Beetlejuice at Buell Theater in Denver, with her date, who is reportedly from Aspen and a Democrat

by Anne Landman • September 14, 2023 • 11 Comments

Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert (R, CD-3), was ejected from a live performance of the musical Beetlejuice at the Buell Theater in Denver Sunday night after drawing three complaints from other patrons and getting issued a warning by theater security during intermission. She was accused of singing loudly, vaping and taking photos of the performance against theater rules.

Her getting the boot from the theater made national news.

Tina Peters is again begging people to pay for her legal defense “to save America.” She’s also encouraging churches to break federal law and promoting jury nullification, which could help keep her out of prison

by Anne Landman • July 23, 2023 • 5 Comments

Tina Peters on Rumble.com on 7/18/2023, telling lies and begging for money

In a July 18, 2023 video posted on Rumble.com — the online video platform right wing extremists turn to after being banned from YouTube and Facebook — indicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters optimistically starts off a half hour interview by saying “I always have a smile on my face because I know the best is yet to come.” She explains why she just fired her criminal defense attorney, Harvey Steinberg. She told her attorney,

“If you can’t get me off on two misdemeanors, how are you going to fight seven felonies and three misdemeanors?”

Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert trashes pin representing child massacred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde

by Anne Landman • July 20, 2023 • 11 Comments

Advocates for Moms Demand Action, a gun violence prevention group, handed Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) a pin on July 18 honoring 10-year old Maite Rodriguez, one of 19 children massacred in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.

Maite’s body was so mangled by gunfire that she was only identifiable by her favorite pair of green Converse tennis shoes with the heart drawn over the right toe that she was wearing that day. Maite, her fellow students and teachers were killed with an AR-style rifle. (Click here for a demonstration of why AR-15 style rifles are so much more damaging to the body than other types of firearms.)

Boebert promptly walked to a trash can with the pin and flier explaining its significance and tossed it into the can, right in front of the people who had handed it to her.

Newly-appointed Board of Public Health member is anti-vax, anti immigrant, anti-gay extremist

by Anne Landman • July 7, 2023 • 32 Comments

Stephen Daniels, an extremist and anti-vaxxer the Commissioners just appointed to be Chair of the Mesa County Board of Public Health (Photo: Facebook)

A person the Mesa County Commissioners appointed to the Board of Health yesterday, Stephen D. Daniels, is a strong supporter of anti-vax conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK), according to his social media accounts. Posts on the same sources also reveal Daniels is anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-Disney, and a climate change denier who opposes Colorado’s new family and medical leave law, which gives workers paid time off to care for a new baby or a loved one who has a serious health condition.

Presidential candidate RFK, whom Daniels supports, opposes vaccines that prevent dire illnesses in children and adults, like polio, measles and smallpox. In 2017, Scientific American wrote that “For more than a decade, Kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine propaganda completely unconnected to reality,” and if his anti-vax advocacy “leads to even a small decline in vaccine rates across the country, it will result in the waste of untold amounts of money and in all likelihood, the preventable deaths of infants too young to be vaccinated.”

The Commissioners’ glaring double standard: Jeff Kuhr vs. Tina Peters

by Anne Landman • June 13, 2023 • 5 Comments

Daily Sentinel editorial from Thursday, August 26, 2021, questioning why the Commissioners have not demanded Tina Peters resign as County Clerk

Janet Rowland and the County Commissioners have been working hard and spending tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds to try to push Mesa County Public Health Department Director Dr. Jeff Kuhr out of his position, even though District Attorney Dan Rubinstein found insufficient evidence Kuhr had engaged in any financial impropriety and Kuhr had committed no prosecutable offense.

But where were Janet and the County Commissioners during the Tina Peters debacle?

Why didn’t the Commissioners demand Peters resign at any time during her term as Clerk, in light of all her horrific incompetence, the crimes to which she admitted, her blatant ethics violations and her extreme cost to County taxpayers?

Red Alert: Janet Rowland appointed to the Mesa County Board of Public Health

by Anne Landman • April 26, 2023 • 27 Comments

Janet Rowland probably did the most damage to current vaccination efforts through her campaign last year where she denigrated masking and embraced Q-Anon conspiracy theories about Covid-19.

Updated 5/6/23 to reflect support for the REOPEN movement by the violent, seditious hate group The Proud Boys, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, and the homophobic comments Rowland made on a statewide political TV show in 2006.

In a move akin to appointing an arsonist as fire chief, Mesa County Commissioners Cody Davis and Bobbie Daniel appointed Commissioner Janet Rowland to the Mesa County Board of Public Health yesterday, Tuesday, April 25.

Rowland has been an outspoken enemy of public health for years.

She fought Covid-19 precautions before vaccines were available and disseminated disinformation about the virus that was linked to QAnon. Her social media posts promoted the notion that Covid-19 was no more deadly than the flu. She said things on social media about the virus that contradicted public health messages instructing people in how to stay safe and reduce spread of what was then a largely deadly virus.

Lauren Boebert owes Alec Baldwin a very public apology

by Anne Landman • April 24, 2023 • 9 Comments

Lauren Boebert grinning in her vile T-shirt making fun of an accidental shooting death on a movie set

In the days after the tragic October, 2021 accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin while he was rehearsing a scene with a prop gun on the set of his movie, Rust, Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert relentlessly spewed vile, unconscionable jokes about the incident at Baldwin’s expense.

Boebert grinned as she wore a creepy T-shirt joking about the tragedy while out shopping.

501(c)(4) social welfare group circulates information on the Haitzs

by Anne Landman • March 27, 2023 • 23 Comments

The above mailer was recently sent to homes of prospective Grand Junction voters by the Best Slope Leadership Project, a 501 (c) (4) social welfare group based in Grand Junction.

Andrea Haitz and Greg Haitz are a married couple who over the last few years have been seeking more power in Grand Junction. Andrea is currently District 51 School Board President and Greg is trying to get onto Grand Junction City Council in the upcoming election.

New info about “Tammy Bailey” emerges during Tina Peters’ obstruction trial

by Anne Landman • March 3, 2023 • 2 Comments

Cory Anderson (center) helped Tina Peters (L) set up a cell phone under Tina’s alias, “Tammy Bailey,” the person Tina told police was the actual owner of her IPad. The woman on the right is Cory Anderson’s wife, Jacqueline Anderson, who is the former First Vice Chair of the Mesa County Republican Party. (Photo: YouTube)

New information was revealed about “Tammy Bailey” during Tina Peters’ obstruction trial, which just concluded yesterday afternoon.

Tina Peters falsely implies on Joe Oltmann show that the Mesa County D.A. murdered the brothers of two witnesses against her

by Anne Landman • February 4, 2023 • 8 Comments

This article was authored by Erik Maulbetsch and originally appeared 2/2/23 in the Colorado Times Recorder.

Tina Peters’ mugshot from her arrest on 3/9/2022

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters took her conspiracy promotion to a new level this week when she implied that law enforcement murdered two family members of her former staff members in order to compel them to testify against her.

Appearing on Joe Oltmann’s far-right podcast, Peters falsely stated that the brothers of her former deputy Belinda Knisley and staffer Sandra Brown were both killed in separate unsolved hit-and-run accidents prior to the Mesa District Attorney offering them plea deals in exchange for their testimony.

Boebert draws ridicule of western Colorado on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert

by Anne Landman • February 3, 2023 • 8 Comments

Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s joke portraying her district as a redneck hillbilly paradise drew embarrassment to western Colorado nationally on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in Colbert’s monologue on February 2, 2023. The Late Show is broadcast nationally.

Tina Peters is back begging people for money, this time on a Christian crowdfunding website

by Anne Landman • February 1, 2023 • 3 Comments

Tina’s new crowdfunding campaign on GiveSendGo, which has become a favorite fundraising site for far-right extremist groups like QAnon, the Proud Boys and anti-vaccine groups, which have been banned from GoFund Me.

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters is at it again, begging people to send her money while she awaits trials in March on obstruction charges (for recording in a courtroom and kicking a cop) and on multiple felony charges related to her election tampering.

Now Tina is using a free Christian crowdfunding website called GiveSendGo.com, that was originally created with the idea of helping religious people raise money for missions. GiveSendGo’s website says the “reason we started GiveSendGo” was “to share the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding with everyone who comes to our platform.”

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Source: Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, Victim in Pinyon Ave. homicide identified, 10/11/2024 @ 8:32 a.m.

Source: Colorado Public Radio News, Oct. 11, 2024, 9:37 a.m. Teenager identified as human remains found in freezer near Grand Junction, by Tom Hesse

“They’re coming after Christians. They’re coming after our Constitution. And when I say ‘they,’ these are global elitists that want to take down America because they cannot do what they want to do for a one world government until they do that.”

“If I didn’t have help sometimes, reading this budget I’d feel like a knuckle-dragging Mongoloid.”

Okay, great, Cody. Better late than never to emerge as the most rational member of the Board of Mesa County Commissioners.