Category: Generic idiocy

On internet TV show, Steve Bannon pledges less than a cent and a half to Tina Peters’ legal defense fund

Tina on Steve Bannon’s internet TV show “War Room” on Dec. 31, 2021

On December 31, 2021, Steve Bannon lionized Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters on his internet TV show “Bannon’s War Room,” in an interview titled “The Deplorables-Gold Star Mom Tina Peters Who Sounded The Alarm On Election Fraud.”

Bannon let Peters spew the usual string of rants we’re all familiar with by now: how terribly she’s been harassed, how “they’re attacking regular Americans,” how they “fired her elections manager with no due process, nothing” and how they so horribly removed her chief deputy in August on “trumped-up charges.”

A minute and a half into the 7-minute interview, Bannon starts trying to play Tina off with increasingly loud bagpipe music, he lets her mechanically drone one for another minute or so. Tina continues… “They booked my chief deputy on a class 4 felony just for coming to work” and “they had a battering ram in the driveway” that she now admits “they didn’t use.”

Bannon cuts her off roughly 30 seconds later to go for a break.

Another local chiropractor spreads dangerous misinformation about Covid prevention and treatment

Photo: YouTube, 2010

In October, 2021, the U.S. News and World Report revealed chiropractors are a major force stirring up anti-vaccine sentiment and spreading medical misinformation across the country in the pandemic. Often regarded as trusted health professionals, chiropractors who do this pose a potent threat to the public by hawking supplements as alternatives to vaccines, working to help people evade vaccine mandates, recommending unapproved and potentially toxic medication regimens to treat and prevent Covid, and abetting anti-vaccine movements at the local level.

That is certainly happening here in Grand Junction, too.

“Mesa County Concerned Citizen” fraudulently promotes $182 ripoff box of common OTC items as an “early and effective treatment of COVID-19”

Screen-shot from a January 6, 2022 email sent out by Mesa County Concerned Citizen in which the group links to this box of every day drug store items selling online that claims to be an “early and effective treatment for Covid-19.”  The box sells for $160.00 plus $20 shipping and $12.37 tax, for a total of $182.36 — all for about $60 worth of over-the-counter items.

In its January 3, 2022 email blast, the local extreme right wing group “Mesa County Concerned Citizen” included a plug for “The Defense Box,” an item selling online that contains about $60 worth of common over-the counter items like Pepcid, Listerine, Vitamin C and baby aspirin, that costs $182.36, including shipping and tax.

The group says the items are an “early and effective treatment option” for Covid-19.

None of the items in the box are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment, prevention, mitigation or cure of Covid-19.

Redlands chiropractor spreads dangerous medical misinformation amid pandemic

In a video on his business web page under the heading “Covid Treatments,” Grand Junction chiropractor Ronald Engler of the Redlands Chiropractic and Wellness Center administers horse deworming medication to himself and encourages others to do the same to themselves, in violation of FDA guidance on use of the drug.

NOTE: This video has been banned on YouTube previously for posing a serious risk of egregious harm. It was uploaded again here for purposes of criticism in this article. We’ll see if it lasts.

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While some Grand Junction chiropractors are profiting from the pandemic by marketing proprietary dietary supplements that they falsely infer will prevent or treat Covid-19, others are using their credibility as health care providers to openly promote dangerous medical misinformation to the public.

One of these is Ronald W. Engler of the Redlands Chiropractic and Wellness Center.

Local chiropractor Greg Haitz is behind “Stop the Mandate GJ,” hawks unproven supplements for Covid-19

Stop the Mandate GJ’s street address matches that of Greg Haitz’s business, Rimrock Wellness Center

Greg Haitz, owner of Rimrock Wellness Center

Rimrock Wellness Center, a chiropractic office at 12th and Patterson that also sells fat-loss treatments and supplements, has the same street address as “Stop the Mandate GJ,” the group agitating to stop hospitals, nursing homes and doctors’ offices from requiring health workers be vaccinated against Covid-19, the highly communicable, often deadly disease causing the pandemic. At the same time it is encouraging people to remain unvaccinated, Rimrock Wellness Center is also trying to profit off unvaccinated people’s fear of getting Covid-19, as well as their misperceptions of the relative safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.

Haitz fraudulently promotes his own brand of supplement as protective against Covid-19

HD-55 candidate Cindy Ficklin (R) now blames taxpayers and a Daily Sentinel reporter for her getting Covid, and is taking unproven treatments for the disease

Ficklin says she “went underground” to get Ivermectin to treat her Covid-19 infection, and displays the bottle in a Facebook post. There is no evidence Ivermectin cures Covid-19, and the FDA urges people not to use it.

Republican House District 55 candidate Cindy Ficklin is using non-medically approved treatments for Covid-19, including the animal de-worming medication Ivermectin. She also says she is inhaling “silver and Glutathione” with a nebulizer to “prevent conjestion [sic] from hardening in my lungs.”

“Stand for The Constitution” is little more than Constitution theater

Comments under a video Stand for the Constitution posted of the Tina Peters Rally Dec. 1. The group blocks speech they don’t like from their Facebook page, showing they oppose the spirit of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution

“Stand for the Constitution,” (SFTC) a Mesa County group that claims to defend the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the integrity of local elections, has started blocking critics and deleting comments it doesn’t like from its public Facebook page while defending the only person in Mesa County who has ever publicly refused to count hundreds of legitimately-cast ballots: Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.

The First Amendment of the Constitution makes it illegal for government to enact laws restricting freedom of speech and expression. Stand for the Constitution is a private group, not a government entity, so it has every right to block people from its social media pages. But despite claims that it exists to promote freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, SFTC blocks speech they do not want to acknowledge.

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters takes charges of election fraud conspiracy further in new video

Embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters doubled down on her wild, unfounded claims of election fraud in a “Thursday Night Patriot” Zoom call held November 18 that featured both her and Sherronna Bishop, just days after law enforcement executed legal searches on both their homes pursuant to ongoing criminal investigations into Mesa County’s compromised election equipment.

Bishop posted a recording of the hour-plus long Zoom call on her Facebook page. Over 100 attendees joined the call, and the video has had over 5,800 views. The video excerpt above is the roughly four minutes in which Tina Peters spoke.

Tina Peters and Lauren Boebert discussed on Denver 9News show “Next with Kyle Clark” — and not in a good way


Denver news anchor Kyle Clark, host of “Next with Kyle Clark,” voiced strong opinions about Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and western slope House Rep. Lauren Boebert on his November 17 show.

Clark criticized Peters for going on “My Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell’s online TV show and claiming she was “terrorized” while law enforcement searched  her home on November 16th, while the Colorado State Attorney General issued a statement saying no force was used during the search, and in fact Peters remained home making breakfast while the search was ongoing.

Tina Peters scandal gets 9 minute segment on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show


The antics of crazy Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and her loony-tune election conspiracy scandal earned a 9 minute-long segment on MSNBC’s nationally-broadcast cable TV program The Rachel Maddow Show yesterday, November  17, 2021.

The Rachel Maddow Show is the most-watched cable news show in the country.

Maddow discusses Peters’ relationship with Mike Lindell, the “My Pillow Guy,” House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager, the FBI raid of her and others’ homes on 11/16, and more.

Maddow said the story of the Mesa County Clerk, which began as a very small and awkward story, has “metastasized and become very serious” and even “riveting” in how it has unfolded.

Jimmy Kimmel convinces people videos posted by CO House Rep. Lauren Boebert are Saturday Night Live skits

On his late night TV show November 12, Jimmy Kimmel showed passers-by clips of actual videos posted by Colorado Republican House Representative Lauren Boebert, like Boebert’s “Fauci eats puppies alive” video, told them the videos were shown on Saturday Night Live last weekend and asked people if they thought SNL had too mean in lampooning her.

All said they thought SNL had gone too far.

Then Kimmel revealed the truth, that all the videos were actual videos of Boebert.

Mesa County GOP Chair lies to public, saying there was no insurrection and many Capitol invasion leaders were FBI

Kevin McCarney, Chair of the Mesa County Republican Party, writes in a Facebook comment that a Reuters article last August reported that there “was no insurrection” and many leaders of the attack on the Capitol were “actually FBI informants.” The Reuters article contains no such information.


Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney [Photo from video on AmericasMom.net]

Ever wonder how so many Mesa County citizens became SO deluded that now big groups of them like “Stand for the Constitution” and “Mesa County Concerned Citizen” actually believe wacky claims like Vitamin C and Ivermectin cure Covid-19, everyone who disagrees with them is a Communist, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold destroyed election records and Democrats are pedophiles?

A big factor in this mass-delusion of the local electorate is the Mesa County Republican Party, which has developed a reputation for spreading hoaxes and misinformation and omitting key information.

Commissioner Scott McInnis: Upcoming election will cost County $1 million

Election conspiracy theorists are an expensive bunch to lend any credence to, and humoring them is about to cost Mesa County taxpayers dearly.

At the County Commissioners’ meeting yesterday, Monday, October 25, 2021, Commissioner Scott McInnis let it spill how much County Clerk Tina Peters’ election conspiracy antics are going to cost County taxpayers in the upcoming election.

Hold onto your hats.

McInnis says the tab is going to be about $1 million.

Rabid right wing extremist Cindy Ficklin announces she is running for State Representative for HD-55

Update Monday, 10/25/21: “Stand for the Constitution” has pulled the video of Cindy Ficklin declaring her run for the Colorado HD-55 Rep. seat. But and article in the Daily Sentinel also transcribed what Ms. Ficklin said in the video, including her statement that she decided to run for the seat because the school board didn’t pick her to replace Paul Pitton on school board. The Sentinel article is here.

Starting at minute 8:00 in a “Facebook Live” video posted yesterday by “Stand for the Constitution,” local rabid far right wing extremist and realtor Cindy Ficklin announced she is running for State Representative from House District 55, the seat currently held by Janice Rich, who plans on running for state Senate.

Ficklin tells viewers she filed for the seat because the District 51 School Board did not accept her as a finalist to be appointed to the Board.

My Pillow Guy appears with Sherronna Bishop at Garfield County School District RE-2 Board Meeting

Mike Lindell appears alongside election conspiracy theorist/anti-mask activist/Tina Peters defender Sherronna Bishop at a Wednesday, Oct. 13 Garfield County RE-2 School Board meeting held via Zoom

In a bizarre scene, “My Pillow guy” Mike Lindell made a cameo appearance alongside Rifle election conspiracist and Tina Peters defender Sherronna Bishop at a Zoomed Garfield County School District RE-2 Board Meeting on October 13.

Bishop appears about three minutes into the meeting, speaking during the public comment period and accusing School Board members of abusing children by “forcing medical devices on them.” She condemns the Board for how her “kid had to wear a mask to his homecoming dance” and how the students were “interrupted” by an adult at the dance who reminded students how to correctly wear their masks. Bishop accused the school board of “assaulting and abusing” children by having them wear masks for protection at school amid the pandemic.

After a member of the school board warns Bishop she has 30 seconds left to speak, a man wearing a shirt and tie moves into the frame with Bishop. He then bends down to where viewers can see his face, and it was the clear the man is Mike Lindell. One of the school board members can be heard in the background saying “Jesse, turn it off!”

As Bishop ends her comments, Lindell starts weighing in with the District RE-2 School Board, saying “There’s more science than you guys even know of” about masking, and “[inaudible] suicide and addiction…”

The school board then cuts the couple off, and lets a student present know that it is her turn to speak.
Video of the meeting is below:

Court legally bars Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters & Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley from any involvement in the November elections

A District Court Judge today legally barred Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from running elections in the county. Despite her refusal to faithfully carry out the duties of her elected office, displaying an overt political bias in regard to whom she believes should and should not win elections in Mesa County and her bizarre antics promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud, Peters will keep getting her taxpayer-funded salary and can only be removed from office by resigning or through a recall election.

Mesa County District Court Judge Valerie Robison today issued an injunction  officially preventing embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and her hand-picked Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley from having any involvement with the November elections. The ruling officially removed Peters as Designated Election Official and installed former Secretary of State Wayne Williams in that position. It also confirmed Sheila Riener as the Election Supervisor.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought against Peters and Knisley by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. The suit was joined by Mesa County Commissioners Janet Rowland, Cody Davis and Scott McInnis, who were listed in the suit as intervenors.

The Grand Junction Area Chamber’s long track record of harmful candidate endorsements

Longtime Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce President Diane Schwenke

Note: In light of Chamber President Diane Schwenke’s recent announcement that she is finally retiring after 25 years at the Chamber, I am re-posting articles about her disastrous tenure at Chamber in hopes that the Chamber Board will see what a boondoggle she’s been and finally take an entirely new direction when they hire a new president after she leaves. This article was originally posted on 9/28/21.

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Local candidates usually tout their endorsements by the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce, but the Chamber’s long track record of endorsing deeply flawed candidates shows that candidates should run from a Chamber endorsement as fast as they can, or at least politely decline it.

Observation of the Chamber’s endorsements going back a decade reveals that the Chamber does not evaluate candidates based on criteria like experience, background, education, knowledge or qualifications to hold office. Rather, the Chamber only considers a candidate’s political and religious ideology before endorsing them, and nothing more.

This extraordinarily narrow criteria has resulted in a flawed process that has proven detrimental to our community many, many times over.

Cindy Ficklin’s application for Paul Pitton’s seat on D-51 School Board raises alarm

Cindy Ficklin, who is seeking a seat on the District 51 School Board, poses with a hand gun.

Cindy Paschal Ficklin, one of Mesa County’s most far right wing extremist political figures, is applying for Paul Pitton’s District B on the District 51 School Board.

Pitton announced he is resigning from the School Board because of the recent politicization of board meetings by extreme right wing activists, particularly members of “Stand for the Constitution,” the group that has been repeatedly pressuring the Mesa County Commissioners to declare the county a “Constitutional sanctuary,” where federal laws don’t apply.