Category: Dangerous Republicans

What does “freedom” really mean to Rep. Lauren Boebert?

Lauren Boebert

The following letter is reprinted with permission from The Daily Sentinel. It appeared on their editorial page on 9/6/2022:

There are a several billboards around town that have a photo of Representative Boebert highlighting the word FREEDOM.  Exactly what does she mean?  Does she mean President Roosevelt’s four freedoms – – freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear?  Does she mean that we are free to worship or not worship as we see fit, without the government using our tax dollars to support a church or forcing us to believe a specific religious doctrine?  Does she mean that we are free to speak in the public square without threats of violence?  Does she want Americans to earn a living wage? Does she want her fellow citizens to be able to afford healthcare, housing, clean water, and healthy food?  Does she believe that medications should be affordable, and that Big Pharma should not gouge diabetics for insulin?  Finally, does she believe school kids should not live in fear of a mass murderer entering their school?

Tina Peters on Lindell TV: “They tried to frame me with ballot stuffing [in 2019],” “Why aren’t they arresting the REAL felons: Jena Griswold, the A.G., Rubinstein, Judge Barrett, the Commissioners?”

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters gave an unhinged interview September 1 on LindellTV.com in which she claimed she is still a candidate even though she lost her primary election for Secretary of State by a wide margin over two months ago, and lost a second time by the same margin in a recount that cost over a quarter of a million dollars raised through donations from people who continue to believe her wild and completely unproven claims of election fraud.

Peters claims she hasn’t broken any laws and says that letting someone into the secure area of the Elections Department to make copies of voting machine hard drives was not a security breach because “I can have anybody I want in there.”

Tina Peters: Judge and D.A. are “very, very evil,” and “don’t follow the same God that we do”

In a talk in El Paso County on August 29 to an audience of election-deniers, indicted Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters quoted the Bible, called her legal troubles “a spiritual battle” and praised her multi-millionaire benefactor, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, saying,

“Lindell has paid for many of our legal challenges, you know, and their end goal for me, and I’m just going to be really frank and really serious for a minute, is to put me in prison.” 

Peters added,

“That is what they want. … I’ve got such an — I can’t even think of a word beyond ‘egregious”– judge, [and] when my chief deputy just made a deal, he was just sorry that she didn’t have to serve prison time.

They’re coming after me, and you know, Mike Lindell and the Legal Offense Fund, you know, these attorneys are not cheap, you know, they have they put a lot of hours [in] ….

D-51 School Board members attend seminar in how to fight equity and inclusion policies

“Stand for the Constitution,” the right wing extremist Mesa County group that endorsed and defended Tina Peters, also endorsed and promoted Angela Lema, Andrea Haitz and Will Jones for School Board. All three candidates ran as a far right wing extremist slate. Now two of them are getting training in how to battle policies that aim to help all children feel welcome and accepted at D-51 schools.

The Colorado Times Recorder is reporting that D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz and D-51 Board Member Angela Lema attended a seminar at a Grand Junction hotel on August 26 called “Save Our Schools,” put on by Heritage Action for America, an affiliate of the right wing Heritage Foundation. The seminar taught people how to fight equity and inclusion policies in schools and provided resources to help them.

What are equity and inclusion policies, anyway?

Report: Mesa County D.A. ready to try Tina Peters, asks U.S. Attorney General to explore federal charges against her

Kyle Clark of 9News in Denver is reporting via Twitter tonight that Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser have finished their joint investigation into Tina Peters’ election-tampering scandal, and that Rubinstein has asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office to explore bringing federal charges against her.

Knisely flips, agrees to testify against Tina Peters and others

Tina Peters (L), and Belinda Knisely (R)

In a major development in the case against indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former Deputy County Clerk Belinda Knisley reached a plea deal in which she flipped on Peters, plead guilty to reduced charges and agreed to testify against Peters in court, according to reports today in the Daily Sentinel, the Colorado Sun, Colorado Public Radio, Denver 9News and other news outlets.

Felony charges dropped, no prison time

Knisely had faced three counts of attempting to influence a public servant (class 4 felonies), one count of conspiracy to attempt to influence a public servant (a class 5 felony), and two misdemeanor charges of violation of duty and failing to comply with the Secretary of State. Before the deal, Knisley faced up to 21 years in prison and $2 million in fines.

Audio of 911 calls about Rep. Lauren Boebert’s family harassing neighbors

Five Garfield County Sheriff’s responded to multiple 911 calls on August 4 from neighbors of Lauren and Jayson Boebert about children harassing  a residential neighborhood in Silt by driving ATVs up and down a residential street at high speeds of around 50 MPH. Two callers reported the children driving the ATVs were the kids of Jayson and Lauren Boebert. The first told the 911 operator that he stopped one of the children going 50 MPH in a RZR off-road vehicle and asked him to slow down. The child said “fuck off” to the neighbor, went home and got his dad, Jayson. Jayson Boebert then returned in charcoal-gray Ford F150 truck with the child in the passenger seat and started threatening “everybody in the neighborhood,” according the caller. Jayson drove over a caller’s mailbox, destroying it, while the caller was on the phone with the 911 operator. The caller reported Jayson was “dumb as a post,” “looking to fight with everyone in the neighborhood” and was “so irrational.” “When 911 operator asked if there were any weapons, the caller responded that the whole family has guns.

Tina Peters is lying to audience after audience about her divorce: “They took away my husband…these people are criminals.”

Tina Peters repeatedly tells a sad story in interviews and at conferences that she would have been married to her husband for 36 years by now if only Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and the FBI hadn’t gone into a Grand Junction nursing home and forced her husband Tom, who she says has “advanced dementia,” to sign divorce papers dissolving their marriage. She tells this story sometimes angrily, and sometimes tearfully, dabbing at her eyes, sniffling and sounding like she’s about to cry. She says the story is evidence of a coordinated plot being carried out against her by a cabal of high-level Democrats who are intentionally harassing her and trying to silence her because of what she’s supposedly revealed about election fraud here in Mesa County. Tina’s “cabal” consists of D.A. Rubinstein, his “criminal” investigators, the FBI, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, wealthy financier George Soros and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Republicans waking up to the reality of Tina Peters’ and Sherronna Bishop’s lying, attention-seeking and predatory behavior

Matt Crane, Executive Director of the CO County Clerks Association called Tina Peters “a liar and a predator” who is “coming after their money.” (Photo: Election Official Legal Defense Network)

It’s been a rough few days for indicted Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.

First her $255,000+ recount showed again that she lost her race for secretary of state by the same 14% margin she lost by in the original election tally.

Then Mesa County Republican Party Chair Kevin McCarney — one of her longest, staunchest defenders — finally realized Tina is completely off the rails and publicly called on her to resign from her office.

McCarney told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Tina is acting “like a petulant child crying about not getting her way,” and said she’s “dragging down the party.” He said it takes a lot to get on his bad side, but Tina managed to do it.

Tina Peters’ next big drama to keep the grift going

Tina Peters press release finding fault with the El Paso County recount

Get ready. The next Tina Peters drama is already happening.

Tina is trying hard to set the scene for a hand recount by claiming there is tremendous fault in the El Paso County recount effort, which has barely just begun.

Tina issued a press release yesterday saying the El Paso County Logic and Accuracy test (a precursor to the recount) was an “absolute disaster.”

The OTHER out-take everyone is talking about from the last Jan 6 Committee hearing

This clip begins with Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler telling the January 6 Committee about a phone call between Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and then-President Donald Trump, that she overheard during the attack on the Capitol January 6.

Rep. McCarthy, a staunch Trump supporter, was desperately trying to get Trump to call off the attack. But after the President refused to listen to McCarthy’s plea or take any action to stop the attack, McCarthy then tried contacting Ivanka Trump, and then Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, and others, asking them to get the president to call off the attack.

The footage the Committee shows before the out-takes of Trump in the Rose Garden was what was happening at the Capitol around the same time McCarthy was on the phone, trying to get Trump to help them.

The moment everyone is talking about from the last Jan 6 Select Committee hearing

Above are out-takes of Donald Trump recording a video message to the public on the evening of January 7th, 2021, under pressure from his White House aides, advisors, lawyers, his family members and right wing media figures who were telling him he was at risk of being removed from office using the 25th Amendment or impeachment. Below is sample of that communication to the White House from Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity:

Text from Sean Hannity to White House Communications Director Kayleigh McEnany on the evening of Jan. 7, 2021, saying Trump needed to stop his “stolen election talk.” Hannity explained that threats to removeTrump from office through the 25th Amendment or impeachment “are real.”

The playing of these out-takes was arguably the most-talked about moment from the last hearing of the House Jan 6 Select Committee on July 21, 2022.

Even by January 7, 2021, when Congress was on the brink of certifying the results of the November, 2020 general election, Trump was still unable to say the election was over, despite losing the electoral college to Joe Biden by a count of 306 to 232, exactly the same margin by which he had won  against Hillary Clinton in 2016 — a margin he had previously called “a landslide.”

 

 

In new video, Tina Peters assails Judge Matthew Barrett, who oversees her criminal case, calling him “malicious,” “partisan” and saying his “goal is to incarcerate an innocent woman.”


In her latest unhinged Facebook video made around 9:30 p.m. last night (Thursday, July 21) after turning herself in at the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department Tina Peters calls Mesa County Court Judge Matthew Barrett, the judge in her criminal case, “partisan” and “malicious,” and says “his goal is to incarcerate an innocent woman.” She accuses him of “legislating from the bench.”

Barrett was the judge who kept her out of jail last week after her unauthorized trip to speak in Las Vegas on July 12. She had traveled to Nevada without Court permission, and the judge had also issued a “no travel” order for her the same day. In spite of this, the judge was lenient with her and gave her the benefit of the doubt that it could have been her attorney’s fault for not informing her of the no-travel order.

Boebert votes against bill to protect Americans’ right to contraceptives

House Rep. Lauren Boebert

Republican Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert may tell you she stands for freedom, but she is actually working to undermine your freedom.

A recent case in point: on July 21, 2022, Boebert voted against House Bill 8373, the “Right to Contraception Act.”

After the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June and Clarence Thomas threatened to reconsider other privacy issues including the right to contraception, Democrat Kathy Manning of North Carolina introduced the Right to Contraception Act, to “protect a person’s ability to access contraceptives and to engage in contraception, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.”

Who doesn’t want to be assured they will have the personal freedom to learn about, access and use contraceptives as they see fit?

Lauren Boebert and 194 other House Republicans, that’s who. Only eight House Republicans who voted for the bill.

You can read the full text of the Right to Contraception Act here.

So Boebert had a chance to protect a crucial freedom, and voted against it.

Fortunately, House Democrats advanced the bill to the Senate.

If you love freedom, it’s crucial to vote Democratic up and down the next ballot, since we now have a Christian activist Supreme Court that is taking action to restrict Americans’ rights in accordance with their own personal religious beliefs.

But if you want to be assured removal of more of your personal rights and freedoms, vote Republican.

 

Video shows Republican Mesa County Commissioner candidate Bobbie Daniel endorsing Tina Peters for Clerk in 2018

A 2018 Facebook video shows 2022 Republican Mesa County Commissioner candidate Bobbie Daniel endorsing Tina Peters for Mesa County Clerk, assuring viewers that Tina has a “wealth of knowledge” and “we’re in really good hands if you’re our Clerk and Recorder.”

Daniel appears in the video with far right-wing activist Sherronna Bishop, whose home was searched by the FBI last November in connection with Tina Peters’ election tampering scandal. Bishop has been implicated in the scandal as well.  She and her husband recently sold their home in Garfield County, fled to Texas and are keeping their whereabouts a secret.

It turned out electing Tina Peters as County Clerk was the biggest, most expensive and most embarrassing mistake Mesa County voters have ever made.

Tina Peters fails to meet deadline to pay for recount

Tina Peters waves around a letter to the Colorado Secretary of State at the July 12 Las Vegas conference she attended, demanding a recount of her race in the primary. She failed to meet the deadline last Friday to pay over $236,000 for a state-wide recount. She lost by over 88,000 votes or a margin of over 14% between her and the winner.

For all the bluster Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters made over demanding a recount in her June 28 primary loss, she failed to get the necessary funds in to the Secretary of State by the deadline last Friday to commence the recount, so it won’t happen.

For the state pay for a recount, the difference between the leading candidate’s total votes and the next highest candidate’s total votes must be less than or equal to one-half of one percent (0.5%). Peters lost to her opponent, Pam Anderson, by 88,000 votes, a margin of more than 14% between her and the front runner.

At a speech she gave at a conference of election-denier sheriffs in Las Vegas on July 12 (video), Peters waved around a notarized letter (pdf) to the Colorado Secretary of State that she told the crowd she was sending to demand a recount, claiming without any evidence that she lost because of “extensive malfeasance” in the June 28 primary. She failed to mention ore recognize how her being indicted on 7 felonies related to election tampering might have affected the vote.

There was no fraud or malfeasance in the June 28 primary, and Peters’ loss has been accepted as legitimate.

Sherronna Bishop increasingly implicated in Tina Peters’ election-tampering conspiracy

Sherronna Bishop in January, 2022

Every arrest in connection with the Tina Peters case reveals deeper involvement in the election tampering scandal by “America’s Mom,” Sherronna Bishop.

On July 13, The Colorado Sun published a 15-page arrest affidavit (pdf) for former Mesa County Election Manager Sandra Brown.

Brown was fired from the Elections Department in November, 2021 and was arrested on July 13, 2022 in connection with Peters’ voting equipment tampering scandal. The arrest affidavit for Brown concluded that there was probable cause to charge her with conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and attempt to influence a public servant.

But the affidavit also reveals that Sherronna Bishop, who was never an employee of the Clerk’s office, attended a key meeting of selected Elections Department staff where the plot was being formed, and that she was even the one who spurred the initial discussion of the plot.

Peters gets off again, but here is some interesting info that emerged at her Friday, 7/15/22 arrest warrant hearing

D.A. Dan Rubinstein and Investigator Michael Struwe give their presentation to the County Commissioners about their findings of no election tampering found in the local 2020 and 2021 elections

The latest effort by District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and the people of Mesa County to hold Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters accountable for her actions fell flat on Friday, 7/15, as the judge gave Tina the benefit of the doubt yet again and quashed a warrant issued for her arrest after she left the state without permission to attend a conference of election-denier sheriffs in Las Vegas July 12.

Judge Matthew D. Barrett was incredulous at claims made by Tina’s highly-paid Denver attorney, Harvey Steinberg, that he didn’t know about or inform Tina of a no-travel order the Court had issued on July 11. Barrett said the idea that neither Steinberg nor her other two defense attorneys knew about the order, and that all three of them had failed to tell Tina about it, was “incredible,” “unfathomable” and “remarkable.” Despite this, the judge still gave Tina the benefit of the doubt and quashed her arrest warrant.