Category: Democracy under threat

Conservatives, Democracy under threat, Ethics, Lauren Boebert

Trump admits he lost the 2020 election, causing supporters to turn on him

by Anne Landman • September 10, 2024 • 6 Comments

Mesa County’s die-hard, Trump-loving Republicans probably won’t want to hear this, but Donald Trump admitted in a September 3, 2024 interview with Lex Fridman that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden “by a whisker.” The full interview of Trump is 1 hour and 4 minutes long. The admission that he lost the 2020 election starts at 10:41 in the interview.

And this is not the only time Trump has admitted this, either.

During a visit to the southern border in Arizona last August, he acknowledged that he lost the election, saying he “came up a little short.”

Trump’s admissions come after years in which he relentlessly lied to his supporters by claiming he was robbed of victory in the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud, a claim that he’s never proven. Despite this, millions of Americans believed him.

Peters says she’ll appeal her conviction, says the prosecution “excluded exculpatory evidence”

by Anne Landman • August 13, 2024 • 13 Comments

Tina on Bannon’s War Room the morning after a Mesa County jury convicted her of 4 felonies and 3 misdemeanor counts related to her election tampering case.

In a 15-minute video posted on Bannon’s War Room on Rumble.com at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, August 13, 2024 — the day after a jury found her guilty on four felony and three misdemeanor counts in her criminal election machine tampering case in Mesa County Court — Tina Peters is claiming the prosecution in her case “excluded exculpatory evidence” and says her lawyers are filing an appeal of her conviction. She says “Withholding exculpatory evidence is a crime.”

Tina says that “Dominion, the Secretary of State, AG Merrick Garland, 71 countries have been influenced by faulty election machines” and “that’s why they they have to come after an almost 70 year-old clerk in a small town called Mesa County.” She says “I was prevented from a defense” and “there is info that will exonerate me,” although she says at 14:19 in the video that the information she cites that she says will exonerate her is in Patrick Byrne’s federal case in Washington, D.C., and she adds that “I haven’t seen any of it, but I’m assured that it’s there.”

The verdict is in in Tina Peters’ criminal trial

by Anne Landman • August 12, 2024 • 22 Comments

Tina Peters at her trial in Mesa County

Following are the findings of the jury returned at 5:20 p.m. this afternoon in the criminal case of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters:

Count 1 – Attempt to influence a public servant – Jesse Romero (employee of the Colorado Secretary of State’s office) – GUILTY
Count 2 – Attempt to influence a public servant – David Underwood (employee of the Colorado Secretary of State’s office) – GUILTY
Count 3 – Conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, April 23-May 18, 2021 – NOT GUILTY
Count 4 – Attempt to influence a public servant – Danny Casias (employee of the Colorado Secretary of State’s office) – GUILTY
Count 5 – Criminal impersonation May 23-27, 2021 – NOT GUILTY
Count 6 – Conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation – May 23-27, 2021 – GUILTY
Count 7 – Identity theft – NOT GUILTY
Count 8 – First degree official misconduct – guilty on all options on interrogatories
Count 9 – Violation of Duty – GUILTY
Count 10 – Failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State’s office – GUILTY with all interrogatories proven beyond a reasonable doubt

Peters’ sentencing is scheduled for October 3, 2024, at 9:00 a.m.

Bad behavior, Belinda Knisley, Conspiracy theories, Corruption, Crime, Democracy under threat, Election deniers, Embarrassing Republicans, Extremism, Fake patriotism, Republican lies, Trump Insanity, Weird Grand Junction Stuff

Take-aways from Tina’s trial

by Anne Landman • August 10, 2024 • 21 Comments

Tina on Bannon’s War Room the morning after a Mesa County jury convicted her of 4 felonies and 3 misdemeanor counts related to her election tampering case.

Tina Peters’ criminal trial finally played out this past week, three years after she was accused of engaging in multiple felonies as Mesa County Clerk. The trial is being live-streamed by KREX, and you can watch it whenever Court is in session. The link to watch it is here, but if you haven’t tuned in yet, you’ve missed most of it. The prosecution and defense rested their cases Friday, August 9. Monday will bring closing arguments and jury instructions before the jury is sent to deliberate Tina’s fate. The judge said he thought the remaining phases of trial would likely be completed by noon on Monday, August 12.

Lots of information was presented at the trial, much of which the public hasn’t known about before, and most of it quite damning to Tina. Here are some of the biggest take-aways from the trial this week:

How to watch Tina Peters’ criminal election tampering trial online

by Anne Landman • August 1, 2024 • 9 Comments

KREX TV will be streaming the entire criminal trial of former Mesa County Clerk-turned-election denier Tina Peters whenever court is in session. You can view it on their website at this link, or live on YouTube at this link. Both links have a Chromecast icon, allowing you to cast live video to your TV if you have a Chromecast device.

The right wing’s Project 2025, to be implemented in a 2nd Trump presidency, will impose Christian nationalism, restrict reproductive & LGBTQ+ rights, dismantle the FBI & DOJ and move America towards a more authoritarian regime

by Anne Landman • July 8, 2024 • 9 Comments

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the entire country, as Trump supporters have created comprehensive plan to curtail American freedoms, impose Christian ideals on all citizens and end human and civil rights as we’ve known them in America if Trump re-takes the presidency in the November general election.

Tina Peters is working to pack the courtroom during her trial, urging her supporters to bring kids into the courtroom & organizing marches around town in support of herself

by Anne Landman • June 14, 2024 • 8 Comments

Banner from Tina’s new web page, “Free Tina Peters”

Tina Peters has a new website, FreeTina.com, that she’s not just using to continue to solicit donations for her legal defense, but also to organize what she hopes will be a massive show of support before and during her criminal trial, scheduled for July 29 – August 12 at the Mesa County Justice Center.

Tina faces a mix of 10 felony and misdemeanor charges, including three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State. She could be sentenced to prison if convicted.

Tina is using the website to recruit people around the country to lead “Virtual Daily Prayer” sessions for her and she is organizing “in-person Jericho walks” around Grand Junction. She posts a call-in phone number where people can “dial in to listen or add a prayer.”

New billboard coming June 1

by Anne Landman • April 12, 2024 • 16 Comments

Thanks to a collaboration between MadDogPAC.com and Mesa County citizens who understand the danger that Republicans and Trump pose to freedom and American democracy in the November general election, as of June 1 the above billboard will be up on Highway 340 in Grand Junction, visible to people driving west onto the Redlands over the Broadway bridge, and it will be lit up all night. It will be there for two months and could appear elsewhere around the valley after the initial two months if enough people donate to make it happen.

Restore the Balance is bringing Cassidy Hutchinson to Grand Junction

by Anne Landman • March 16, 2024 • 17 Comments

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.”

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

by Anne Landman • February 11, 2024 • 9 Comments

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 9^th 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

by Anne Landman • February 6, 2024 • 10 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • January 8, 2024 • 5 Comments

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

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

by Anne Landman • November 9, 2023 • 5 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • October 1, 2023 • 4 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • September 8, 2023 • 8 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • February 28, 2023 • 10 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • February 11, 2023 • 10 Comments

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.

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