Category: Democracy under threat

Restore the Balance is bringing Cassidy Hutchinson to Grand Junction

The promotional poster for Cassidy Hutchinson’s appearance in Grand Junction. RTB will have more details on this event as the time draws closer.

Cassidy Hutchinson is a former White House aide who served as assistant to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the Trump administration.

Hutchinson testified at the June 28, 2022 public hearings of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, providing testimony on President Donald Trump’s conduct and that of his senior aides and political allies before and during the January 6 United States Capitol attack. As a Trump administration member and direct eye witness to the events that unfolded that day, Hutchinson’s testimony received significant national attention, with several media outlets calling it “compelling” and “explosive.”

Hutchinson had to flee Washington, D.C. for her safety after testifying to the January 6 Committee. She says she is still a Republican but will not be supporting Donald Trump’s bid for the White House in 2024 after what she witnessed.

Hutchinson’s memoir Enough was published in September 2023.

Mark your calendars to attend the appearance of this extraordinarily brave young woman.

Mesa County GOP official decries her party’s continued support of Tina Peters and Donald Trump

Mesa County Republican Party Secretary Terry Porter stood up to Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, saying his support of Tina Peters and Donald Trump is making  “too many of us ashamed of being a Republican in Colorado right now.”

Mesa County Republicans may be starting to see the harm they are doing to their party and America by continuing to support Tina Peters, Donald Trump and others like them.

On February 2, shortly before Tina Peters’ criminal trial was about to start, Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams sent a mass email out to Colorado Republicans telling them to “Keep Tina Peters in your prayers while she fights the establishment and our corrupt judicial system in her upcoming trial which will begin on February 9th in Mesa County.” He called the criminal charges against Peters “retaliation, persecution, and prosecution for preserving our election records and exposing the fraud inside the machines.”

That email drew quick pushback from Republicans across the state, including former Secretaries of State and current and former Republican county clerks. It also drew a sharp rebuke from Mesa County Republican Party Secretary Terry Porter.

Porter quickly emailed Williams back and included Colorado GOP Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman and Secretary Anna Ferguson in the thread, saying:

Tina Peters’ final effort to delay her criminal trial fails; trial to be livestreamed on WesternSlopeNow.com

Tina Peters in her final show on Rumble.com on January 29, 2024 (Screenshot: Rumble.com)

In a three page order issued Monday, February 5, (pdf) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit denied Tina Peters’ motion for an injunction to halt her upcoming criminal trial, set to start at 9:00 a.m. this Friday, February 9 in the Mesa County Justice Center, Courtroom 9. 

Tina’s trial will be live-streamed by KREX-TV on their website, WesternSlopeNow.com.

In the most recent episode of her internet TV show, The Tina Peters Show, on Rumble.com, Tina continues to say she won her 2022 Republican primary election against Pam Anderson for Secretary of State, but “lost” the race due to election tampering. Anderson got 43.1% of the vote and Tina got 28.9%. A recount, paid for by donations to Tina, confirmed her loss by over 14%.

Tina also tells her followers that the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel “has run over 700 front page, above-the-fold articles lying about me” adding, “Whatever happened to good media, where you could write them and get a retraction, get an apology?” She continues to say without proof that “there’s illegal software in voting machines and they are connected to the internet.,” and  the candidates who won the April 6, 2021 G.J. city election “couldn’t possibly have won.”

Signature-gathering effort for ballot initiative to guarantee abortion rights in CO kicks off 1/23 in Grand Junction

States where abortion rights may be on the ballot in 2024 (Chart: Washington Post)

The effort to get Amendment 89, a constitutional amendment to protect the right to an abortion from government interference in Colorado, onto the November ballot will kick off on Tuesday, January 23 at an event in Grand Junction from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at The Mesa Theater, 538 Main St, Grand Junction, CO 81501. Currently abortion is protected in Colorado, but only by a statutory law enacted in 2022 called the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which confers only weak protection that could easily be changed by a vote of Republicans trying to further restrict women’s rights.

Amendment 89 will assure that all Coloradans, regardless of occupation or source of health insurance, have access to reproductive healthcare. Currently, teachers, firefighters, other state and local public employees and people enrolled in state health insurance plans lack insurance coverage (pdf) for abortion care, an inequity that

Republicans are passing laws to restrict womens freedom in the U.S., leading to the need for states to pass constitutional amendments to guarantee women keep those hard-won rights.

Amendment 89 aims to address. As a constitutional amendment, Amendment 89 will also be a stronger buffer against future attempts by politicians in Colorado to limit abortion access in our state.

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

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 sues to overturn her $15,400 campaign finance violation fine

Tina Peters in a November 2, 2023 video posted on YouTube

Tina Peters filed a lawsuit (pdf) November 8 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to overturn the $15,400 campaign finance violation fine an administrative law judge levied against her on October 4, 2023, claiming the fine is “unfair” and that it has “irreparably injured” her.

The Court fined her for soliciting donations to run for re-election as Mesa County Clerk in 2021-2022 without having first filed the necessary paperwork with the state that requires she report the money she raised and spent on her campaign. The fine pertained to Tina’s campaign for County Clerk that she dropped out of in 2022 to run for Colorado Secretary of State instead. Tina lost the primary election for that seat to her Republican competitor by 14 percentage points, but she is telling people in interviews that she won that election.

Tina Peters has filed to run for Colorado Secretary of State in 2026, but may be using it to defray her personal expenses of being a professional election denier


In the above interview posted on Rumble.com on 9/18/23 for the Clay Clark ReAwaken America tour, Tina Peters lies and tells viewers she won the 2020 election for Colorado Secretary of State.  “The Reawaken America tour is a series of controversial far-right conferences held across the United States featuring prominent QAnon influencers, anti-vaxx activists, election fraud conspiracy theorists, Christian pastors, political candidates and elected officials,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
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Indicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters has filed to run for Secretary of State in Colorado in 2026, and as of July 23, 2023 had almost $305,000 in the bank for her campaign, according to Colorado Tracer, the online campaign finance reporting system.

Tina has not publicly stated she has an active campaign for Colorado Secretary of State in 2026, but that has not stopped her from listing campaign expenses for it.

But filing to run for SOS in 2026 looks more like it may be a tactic Tina is using to defray her personal costs of being a darling of the election denier cult while she awaits her criminal trial next February.

Defiant, Tina Peters is making a living denigrating the justice system, telling lies, selling bogus Covid supplements and boosting other liars and lunatics

Tina Peters hosts four “doctors” on the Sept. 4, 2023 episode of her online show, “The Tina Peters Show” on Rumble.com The guest on the lower right, Bryan Ardis, told viewers that Covid19 was intentionally created as a biological weapon, that “spike proteins were created from venomous creatures all over the world, including snake venom, starfish and cone snail venoms,” that “they’ve been planning the pandemic for 72 years” and “they have engineered on purpose, the destruction of almost every aspect of our lives.”

Prior to being Mesa County Clerk, Tina Peters was a charlatan who made a living promoting work-from-home, get-rich quick schemes and selling unproven health remedies like magnets, shoe inserts and dietary supplements, telling people they would improve conditions like neuropathy, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, autism and diabetes. As she awaits her February, 9, 2024 trial on criminal charges, she is falling back on this tactic, turbo-boosting her cons by capitalizing on her new-found fame as a national figure in the election denier business.

This time, however, her new-found charlatanism is far more dangerous and corrosive to American society.

Fox Network hosts privately ridiculed Trump’s election fraud lie while continuing to pump the lie out to viewers


Mesa County’s many, many supporters of Donald Trump (pdf) must be super-bummed this week to find out Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has acknowledged that Fox News anchors Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and others knowingly lied to them by repeating Donald Trump’s fraudulent statements that the 2020 general election was “rigged” and he actually won.

Murdoch acknowledged under oath in a deposition in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Network, that Fox News hosts knowingly lied to viewers by endorsing false election fraud claims while at the same time they were privately ridiculing such claims. Murdoch further admitted he should have ordered Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who were lying to the public about the election, off the air, but didn’t.

Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall attends State of the Union speech with an insurrection supporter

CMU President John Marshall poses, smiling, with Lauren Boebert, who helped spread lies about the election and supported the January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Twitter

Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall attended President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C. on February 7 at the invitation of far right wing extremist House Rep. Lauren Boebert, who spread lies about the 2020 election and supported the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Kremlin state TV praises House Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) for refusing to stand and applaud Ukrainian President Zelenskyy

Tucker Carlson and Lauren Boebert praised by Russian state TV

Western Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert has a new fan — the Kremlin in Russia.

Tina Peters still lying on the only media outlet still remotely interested in her

Excerpt of an interview with Tina Peters from a 1 hour, 8 minute show.

With her flame rapidly burning out, Tina Peters continues to seek what little spotlight she can still garner, and on November 21 she gave an extended interview on the little-known “Patriots with Grit” show on Rumble.com, a Donald Trump-backed video streaming platform that has become a haven for far right wing content creators.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, now more televangelist than House Representative, is working to turn politics into a holy war


First 5 minutes of a 55 minute talk Lauren Boebert gave on September 9, where she was introduced as a Member of Congress

At a September 9, 2022 speech at the Truth and Liberty Coalition conference in Woodland Park — the same appearance where she confused the word “wanton” as in “wanton killing” with the word for the Chinese dumpling, the announcer introduced Lauren Boebert in her official capacity as a Member of Congress. But during her talk, Boebert talked less about policy and government and acted and spoke exactly like a televangelist preacher, strutting back and forth across the stage, invoking the apocalypse with lines like “we are in the last of the last days.” She urged her audience to “rise up and take our place in Christ and influence this nation as we were called to do,” adding, “you get to have a role in the second coming of Jesus! How cool is that?”

Next Jan. 6 Committee hearing is this Wednesday., Sept. 28 @ 1:00 p.m. Eastern, 11:00 a.m. Mountain (local) Time –UPDATE 9/27@10p.m.: The 9/28 hearing was just cancelled due to Hurricane Ian. It will be rescheduled for a later date.

The topic of this hearing, the Committee’s 9th, has not been provided, but the Committee is expected to reveal additional unseen footage of the attack on the U.S. Capitol and more key witness testimony.

The hearing will be broadcast on the Select Committee’s website, the three major television broadcast networks, and many cable channels like CNN, CSPAN, and MSNBC.

FOX News channel has not been showing the Committee’s hearings, in an apparent attempt to keep their viewers from learning about their content.

Trump makes the crazy claim that he can declassify documents “even by thinking about it.” Republican Mesa County commissioner candidate Bobbie Daniel continues to support Trump.

Republican commissioner candidate Bobbie Daniel speaking at a Trump rally in Grand Junction on 10/18/2016. She remains a Trump supporter despite his insurrection, his crazy claims about being able to declassify documents with his mind, his alleged theft of highly sensitive, top secret government documents, his ripping off of charities, fleecing his supporters for money, and many other alleged crimes.

In a TV interview this week with Fox News host Sean Hannity, former president Donald Trump claimed he can declassify any top secret government document he wants at will, “even by thinking about it.”

It is, of course a completely loony claim, and most Americans can recognize it as such.

Trump was referring to the hundreds of classified and top-secret, government documents he had hidden in his Florida home, that the FBI seized on August 8 while executing a duly authorized search warrant aimed at retrieving them. Unauthorized possession of government documents is a crime.

Bobbie Daniel recently retweeted this photo claiming Biden is not the legitimate U.S. President. Daniel remains a strong Trump supporter despite his attempted coup against the U.S. government on January 6, 2021, and his continuous lies about elections aimed at undermining American democracy

On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump willfully encouraged insurrection, incited violence against the United States and lied to the American public by claiming the November, 2020 election was “rigged.”

He’s been able to convince many Mesa County citizens to believe this lie. Among them are Bobbie Daniel’s friend, crazy Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who now stands accused of committing serious election tampering crimes while trying to prove Trumps false claims about elections are true.

FBI siezes Mike Lindell’s phone in connection with Tina Peters’ election tampering case; search warrant says Sherronna Bishop is a co-conspirator/subject of investigation

Screen shot of Lindell (L) complaining on FrankSpeech.com TV about the search warrant the FBI executed for his phone, looking for information on the Tina Peters election tampering co-conspirators

Mike Lindell complained on his internet TV channel September 13 (video, 6 min.) that the FBI surrounded and blockaded his car as he was coming out of a Hardee’s drive-through in Mankato, Minnesota and handed him a search warrant for his phone. An article in the September 14 issue of the New York Times says the phone was seized in connection with the Tina Peters election tampering scandal.

Celebrity election denier/pro surfer Conan James Hayes (Photo: BeachGrit/Twitter)

The search warrant names Tina Peters, Conan James Hayes, Belinda Knisley, Sandra Brown, Sherronna Bishop, Michael Lindell, and/or Douglas Frank as co-conspirators and subjects in the case.

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.”

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.