Category: Ethics

Activism, Authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, Cronyism, Dangerous Republicans, Democracy, Democracy under threat, Democrats, Destruction of the federal government, Equal rights, Ethics, Ethnic/Minority, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom under threat, Human rights, Local concerns, Oligarchy, Public health, Racism, Republican incompetence, Republicans violating laws, Trump Insanity

The April 5 Hands Off! demonstration is ON in Grand Junction!

by Anne Landman • March 29, 2025 • 31 Comments

On Saturday, April 5, 2025, from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., Mesa County Democrats, Indivisible Grand Junction, Western Colorado Alliance, Mesa County Action Coalition, and others will host a Hands Off! protest on the lawn of the Historic Lowell School Building at 7th and Grand! The event coincides with nationwide action that day “to stand up against those who believe they can take whatever they want — our democracy, our future, our rights.”

The event will protest the drastic, illegal measures the Trump/Musk regime is taking against our federal government offices and services, the unprecedented attacks on our civil rights and seizure of millions of Americans’ personal information, like social security numbers and banking information, and the damage Trump and Musk are doing to vital sources of scientific research, as well as their attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts, the rights of transgender Americans, immigrant rights and so much more.

ALERT: Hurd pulls last minute switcheroo on when & how to participate in his promised Tuesday, 3/11/25 telephonic town hall meeting on

by Anne Landman • March 11, 2025 • 6 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

CD-3 House Representative Jeff Hurd (R) has made VERY last minute changes to the time and way to participate in his promised telephonic town hall meeting scheduled for TODAY.

Previously constituents were told they had to call a number and give the person who answered their telephone number, and that THEY would get a call from Hurd at 6:00 p.m. today, at the established time the meeting was to begin, 6:00 p.m.

That’s all changed.

NOW, constituents are being told THEY must call a different phone number, (833) 380-0417 and the meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m.

29 Road interchange project still alive despite being resoundingly defeated at the ballot box in Nov., ’24 election

by Anne Landman • March 9, 2025 • 7 Comments

Screenshot of March 5 meeting at which City Council discussed moving forward with the 29 Road interchange project, even though it was resoundingly voted down at the ballot box just 4 months ago

Even though voters turned down the proposal to build a new interchange on I-70 at 29 Road in the November 5, 2024 election by a margin of 56.44% to 43.36%, a discussion of how to push forward with the project was on City Council’s agenda at their March 5, 2025 regular meeting. The proposal on last fall’s ballot asked voters to approve the City and County taking on $80 million in debt to fund the project, with a payback cost of $173,438,202.

At the time, the City’s finance manager told City council members at a workshop that the debt the from the project would “decimate city capital, basically.”

The City and County combined have already invested over $2 million in trying to make the project happen, and the City is now considering what to do with $800,000 remaining under a current design contract for the project.

Below are notes about the project from Council’s 3/5 regular meeting. Boldfaced emphasis was included by a person who lives on the 29 Road corridor and is following the project closely.

DOGE cancels leases on four federal agencies in Grand Junction

by Anne Landman • March 5, 2025 • 27 Comments

Local TV news stations KJCT and KKCO are reporting that Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is terminating the leases of four federal Agencies in Grand Junction:

Fact-checking convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser and President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress on 3/4/25

by Anne Landman • March 5, 2025 • 5 Comments

Donald Trump flat-out lied to Congress and Americans last night in his talk to Congress and the country. Here are some of the lies, fact-checked immediately after the speech by political commentator Rachel Maddow.

Here is more vetting of Trump’s lies by the New York Times.

Here is more fact-checking of Trump’s lies by CBS News.

More checking of Trump’s lies by ABC News/Politifact.

The Guardian: “Trump’s talk was littered with false claims he’s been corrected on but continued to repeat.”

U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to review Tina Peters’ conviction

by Anne Landman • March 4, 2025 • 5 Comments

Tina Peters’ mugshot for her arrest on 3/9/2022. She was sentenced to 9 years incarceration on charges related to election tampering and is currently trying to get Trump to help her get out of prison. He can’t pardon her because she was convicted on state, and not federal charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), now a tool that convicted felon, sexual abuser and President Trump wields to help his friends and punish his enemies, has agreed to review former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ 2024 criminal conviction which led to her incarceration. The DOJ will be looking for “political bias” in her case.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy publicly bullied and berated over his war time clothing at White House visit

by Anne Landman • March 3, 2025 • 17 Comments

At a shameful White House meeting last week between convicted felon/adjudicated sexual abuser President Trump and his #2, JD Vance, Trump and Vance bullied and yelled at Ukrainian President Zelensky in a televised display of anger and resentment toward the leader of a democratic country that’s been invaded by Russia. Beyond this, as bad as the made-for-Russia meeting already was, Brian Glenn, White House correspondent for the right-wing cable channel Real America’s Voice, chimed in and berated Zelenskyy over his war time clothing, to the delight of Trump’s cabinet. You can see the harassment of Zelenskyy over his war time attire playing out in the clip above.

Trump’s illegal, unappointed “co-president,” billionaire Elon Musk, dominates a cabinet meeting at the White House on 2/26/25 wearing a baseball cap and T-shirt. No one publicly criticized his attire.

Brian Glenn, who attacked Zelesnkyy over his clothes, is the boyfriend of right-wing firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, and one of the hand-picked reporters the White House has chosen under its new policy of choosing the press pool reporters who will cover them favorably and excluding reporters they think won’t cover them favorably — a classic authoritarian move to assure a positive spin on all news coverage of the regime.

Rep. Jeff Hurd uses anti-semitic trope to dismiss constituents at the town hall meetings he refuses to attend

by Anne Landman • February 28, 2025 • 14 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

When CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd (R) was running for office, he was open to talking to all sorts of western Colorado residents when he wanted their votes. Now that he’s in office, though, Hurd can’t be bothered with meeting hundreds of voters clamoring to talk to him about the lawless destruction of the federal government now happening under convicted felon and sexual abuser President Trump and his co-president Elon Musk. Instead, Hurd dismissed multiple town halls and hundreds of constituents and their concerns by suggesting they are mere Soros-funded theater.

In a February 27, 2025 interview with Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner, Warner asked Hurd about the 2/22 town hall meeting in Grand Junction attended by more than 400 worried constituents, that Hurd blew off. Here’s the part of the interview about it, and what Rep. Hurd said:

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd votes in favor of massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food) benefits

by Anne Landman • February 27, 2025 • 5 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

Colorado CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd voted for a budget resolution that, if approved in the Senate, will leave Congress no other choice than to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from programs the neediest Americans depend on, including Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food assistance benefits), housing assistance and energy programs.

Under multi-billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, Washington Post pulls full page ads critical of Musk

by Anne Landman • February 23, 2025 • 9 Comments

One of two full page ads the Washington Post cancelled at the last minute with no explanation. The ads were funded jointly by Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

At the last minute, the Washington Post (WaPo) pulled two full page ads funded by the nonprofits Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that called for Elon Musk’s ouster from government. The ads were “wrap around ads” set to cover the entire front and back pages of the paper. The groups also bought a large ad inside the paper, but pulled that ad after being informed their wrap-around ads were being cancelled. The ads met all of the criteria the paper had established for publication. WaPo offered the groups no explanation for the last minute cancellation. The ads were supposed to appear in the Washington, D.C. edition that gets delivered to the White House.

The Washington Post is owned by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the third richest human being on Earth, who has been increasingly kowtowing to Donald Trump.

Trump, governing as an authoritarian, publicly portrays himself as king, dictator

by Anne Landman • February 21, 2025 • 20 Comments

Actual Trump TwitterX post from Feb. 19, 2025

Instead of signing legislation passed by Congress — the normal way policies are made in U.S. — Trump has been continuously circumventing Congress’s power by writing a slew of executive orders, signing at least 70 of them as of February 20. Trump has essentially been governing not as the president of a representative democracy, but as an authoritarian.

What Trump wants goes, and no one else’s opinion matters or gets any consideration.

Even more worrisome, in the last week Trump openly likened himself to a dictator and a king.

The post above is from an official White House social media account, not from a parody or Trump’s personal account. It’s on an official government account for the White House, an official document. It refers to Trump’s interference with a new congestion toll policy instituted by New York City to reduce extreme traffic congestion in the busiest part of Manhattan, and it’s one of Trump’s unprecedented efforts to inject his interference into local issues.

Multiple Republican senators break from Trump’s views on Putin, Ukraine War

by Anne Landman • February 20, 2025 • 10 Comments

In a seismic shift against Trump’s favorable views of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s overt lie that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “a dictator,” GOP Senators Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) and John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) publicly spoke out against Trump’s views.

Senator Wicker, the Ranking Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a reporter that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a criminal who is not to be trusted in peace negotiations about Russia’s war on Ukraine.

When asked about the way the U.S. conducted peace negotiations with Russia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and specifically how the U.S. excluded Ukraine and America’s NATO allies from the talks, Senator Wicker said Ukrainians should “definitely” be at the table in any peace negotiations, and European interests should be “considered and carefully weighed.”

When Sen. Wicker was asked if Putin can be trusted in peace negotiations, Wicker answered,

“No. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.”

Trump lies on the world stage, saying Ukraine started the war with Russia

by Anne Landman • February 19, 2025 • 12 Comments

In an incredible statement the equivalent of blaming a rape victim for being raped, Trump blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Ukraine itself during talks with Russia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.

Ukrainian authorities were upset over not being included in Tuesday’s talks in Riyadh, but Trump dismissed the country’s concerns, saying Ukraine had “had three years to end the war,” before blaming the start of the conflict on Kyiv.

“You should have never started it,” Trump said, echoing a Kremlin talking point. The Kremlin has previously accused Ukraine of starting the war against Russia.

It is an undisputed fact that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked on February 24, 2022, after seizing the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014.

Trump administration working to change or eliminate boundaries of national monuments to allow increased mining & drilling

by Anne Landman • February 9, 2025 • 6 Comments

Colorado National Monument (Photo: National Park Service)

The Trump administration has started reviewing the boundaries of protected public lands with the intent of increasing mining for minerals and drilling for fossil fuels, actions that could drastically change existing national monuments, a category that includes the Colorado National Monument.

Trump’s newly-appointed Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, issued a 7-page directive (pdf) on February 3, 2025 to implement Trump’s January 20 Executive Order #14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” which has a goal of boosting mineral mining and fossil fuel exploration and production on all federal lands. Burgum’s directive orders federal officials to consider redrawing the boundaries of federally-protected areas that were set aside by past presidents to protect their unique landscapes and cultural resources.

Previous conservation policies are now gone

Burgum’s directive tells federal land managers to “suspend, revise, or rescind” previous conservation policies that include bans on oil, mining, and gas drilling in sensitive locations on public lands. Burgum gave officials at federal agencies until February 18 to submit plans on ways to comply with his order, which includes taking “actions to review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands” to facilitate more fossil fuel production and mining for minerals.

National parks and monuments are considered “withdrawn,” or protected, from extractive industrial activities like mining and drilling.

Conservation groups are worried that changes in the borders of national monuments will shrink or eliminate them in favor of increased mining and drilling for fossil fuels.

Crime, Dangerous Republicans, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom under threat, Law and Order under threat, Oligarchy, Trump Insanity

A convicted felon now in charge of the country, Trump is moving quickly to end law enforcement as we know it

by Anne Landman • February 2, 2025 • 4 Comments

Letter sent to federal law enforcement officials who worked on the criminal cases against convicted felon and now U.S. President Donald Trump. The two federal cases against him were for his attempts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election and for hoarding classified and top secret government documents and refusing to return them to the federal government. The letter notifies federal law enforcement employees they are being fired because their investigations did not please Trump.

The following analysis of Trump’s ongoing mass purge of federal law enforcement officials was taken from Rachel Maddow’s show 1/31/25 show, starting at 17:12 into the show (video). I transcribed her presentation and then lightly edited the text to make it clearer as a written, rather than a spoken piece. I also included links to further information. I chose to highlight Maddow’s presentation because it is perhaps the fullest, clearest and most concise explanation of the current state of affairs ongoing on under Trump that has been broadcast so far. (Note: Italicized, bolded and capitalized emphasis are mine.):

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Trump is punishing law enforcement officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who pursued violent January 6 criminals to gain revenge on law enforcement personnel who participated in a previous investigation that is now over. The point of Trump’s actions is to permanently, irrevocably change law enforcement in the United States so FBI and prosecutors will no longer pursue criminal investigations and cases against suspects if the suspected criminals are associated with Trump and his supporters.

Trump is trying to get rid of American law enforcement as we know it.

They are trying to get rid of the very idea of an independent “justice-is-blind” system that makes America who we are. It is hard to see how this can be corrected or undone.

A reminder of the dangers of putting wealthy business leaders in charge of government

by Anne Landman • January 25, 2025 • 9 Comments

Photo: FBI

For those of you who think big business leaders are automatically qualified to run government or head it’s important agencies, here is a picture of the Enron Code of Ethics, signed by the Company’s former Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay. The foreword in the Code states that Enron “enjoys a reputation for fairness and honesty… but no matter [what]… Enron’s reputation… depends on its people, on you and me.”

Remember Enron?

People’s March unites locals who oppose oligarchy, loss of rights & right wing extremism

by Anne Landman • January 19, 2025 • 13 Comments

The People’s March on Saturday, January 18, provided a chance for a large group of Mesa County’s growing number of liberal residents to get together, enjoy camaraderie, speeches, free hot coffee, chai and cookies provided by Octopus Coffee. People were bundled up as the temperature was just below freezing.

The crowd numbered around 300 people.

On Wednesday, January 15, President Biden gave a farewell address to the public in which he warned Americans of a coming “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” Biden said,

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

Meta’s Abandonment of Fact-Checking Empowers a President Who Traffics in Lies

by Anne Landman • January 17, 2025 • 9 Comments

Republished from The Contrarian with permission from the author, Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and author of the New York Times bestseller Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. As a legal analyst, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, Just Security, Slate, and National Public Radio, and she has been quoted in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Politico, and other publications.

As false information about wildfires in Los Angeles rages online, Mark Zuckerberg is fanning the flames of disinformation.

Last week, the Meta CEO announced that the company would stop fact-checking posts on its social media sites. Meta will move to a community notes model, similar to that used by the X platform, relying on users to flag false claims rather than using professional fact-checkers, such as PolitiFact. While conceding that more “bad stuff” will appear on Meta’s platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Threads — Zuckerberg said the change was necessary to prevent “too much censorship.”

Disinformation now identified as the greatest global threat

At a time when the World Economic Forum identifies disinformation as the greatest global threat, Zuckerberg is burning down the defense system of a social media company with 3.5 billion users worldwide. What could possibly motivate a move that will certainly lead to more chaos and upheaval in society?

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