Category: Inept Republicans

Get ready for a big increase in the cost of living after Trump takes office

Torch-bearing white supremacists in Charlottesville, Aug. 11, 2017, cited President Trump as the inspiration for their “Unite the Right” rally (Photo: Edu Bayer/The New York Times)

On November 25, Trump said that as soon as he’s inaugurated on January 20, 2025 he will institute a new 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada, plus an additional 10% tariff on goods from China.

So look out. Your cost of living is about to get a huge increase.

Trump is either willfully ignorant about how tariffs work, or is lying to Americans about it by repeatedly asserting that other countries will pay the tariffs, and not Americans.

Economists and tax experts all say that’s completely wrong.

Trump mimes giving a blow job to his microphone at rally in Milwaukee, WI

[Warning: This post about the Republican nominee for U.S. President is unsuitable for children.]

Upset about a problematic microphone at his Friday, Nov. 1 rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump went on an extended rant about microphones that included his miming of giving oral sex to another male while standing behind a podium that bore a sign saying “Trump will fix it.” [The BJ part starts at 3:00 into the 4:05 video]

How to watch Tina Peters’ criminal election tampering trial online


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.

Colorado Republican legislators who oppose all gun safety legislation make the strongest case for why it is needed


Colorado Republican Rep. Don Wilson of Monument accidentally left a loaded Glock 9mm handgun in a restroom at the state Capitol last week.

In an apology on Twitter/X, Wilson claimed he “takes firearm safety very seriously,” which his behavior contradicts.

Wilson is the latest in a string of Colorado Republicans who have mishandled guns in and around the Capitol.

Board of Public Health & county commissioners violated state public health law with their new intergovernmental agreement

Stephen D. Daniels, new Chair of the Mesa County Board of Public Health,  violated Colorado Title 25 by giving control over the health department’s budget to the elected county commissioners. No provision in the state public health law permits that.

When the Mesa County Commissioners had the Board of Health (BOH) sign their new Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), the commissioners, County Attorney Todd Starr and all 7 members of the new BOH all either knowingly or unknowingly violated Colorado Revised Statute Title 25, Article 1, Part 5(k).

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.

Republican Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis publicly pulls his support for Rep. Lauren Boebert. Better late than never, Cody, but come on…

Commissioner Cody Davis’ Facebook post from yesterday, saying he can no longer support Lauren Boebert

In a remarkable show of common sense unusual in a Mesa County Republican, County Commissioner Cody Davis yesterday posted on his Facebook page that “I can no longer support Lauren Boebert for Congress, and here’s why. Our voters in Mesa County and along the West Slope deserve leaders and representatives who uphold our values.”

He continued, “How can I criticize Democrats for their moral shortcomings if I’m blind to the shortcomings of my own side?”

Okay, great, Cody. Better late than never to emerge as the most rational member of the Board of Mesa County Commissioners.

But it’s worth noting that Commissioner Davis didn’t yank his support for Boebert last July after she trashed a lapel pin representing a child who was massacred at the Robb Elementary School mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

He didn’t pull his support for her after she lied to her constituents about missing the debt ceiling vote last June.

He didn’t criticize Boebert after she mocked the tragic death of a young woman who was accidentally killed on a movie set by Alec Baldwin with a prop gun that had been loaded with a live round instead of a blank.

Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland vs. former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters: Lots of similarities

When their behaviors as elected officials are compared, Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland and former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters have more in common than people may realize:

Chart of Janet vs. Tina

Rep. Lauren Boebert misses vote on debt ceiling bill

For all her railing against the debt ceiling bill, Colorado’s 3rd District House Representative Lauren Boebert missed voting on the bill entirely on Wednesday night. The vote passed by an overwhelmingly bipartisan margin of 314-117. The Senate passed the bill this morning by a vote of 63-36. The bill had to pass before Monday to avoid a potentially catastrophic, historic federal government default on paying debts the nation has already incurred.

Boebert had vowed to vote “no” on the bill, saying “Our base didn’t volunteer, door knock and fight so hard to get us the majority for this kind of compromise deal with Joe Biden. Our voters deserve better than this. We work for them. You can count me as a NO on this deal. We can do better.”

Boebert draws ridicule of western Colorado on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s joke portraying her district as a redneck hillbilly paradise drew embarrassment to western Colorado nationally on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in Colbert’s monologue on February 2, 2023. The Late Show is broadcast nationally.

Former G.J. Chamber of Commerce CEO Diane Schwenke to run for G.J. City Council

Longtime Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce President Diane Schwenke

The former longtime CEO of the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce, Diane Schwenke, has announced she will be running for the at-large seat on Grand Junction City Council in 2023.

Yes, THAT Diane Schwenke.

The one who endorsed convicted felony embezzler Steve King for state Senate in 2012.

The one who endorsed Ray Scott as a replacement for convicted felon Steve King. In 2018, Scott double-billed both his legislative and campaign expense accounts for over $1,000 in Uber rides, effectively doubling his personal reimbursements. He was also sued by the ACLU for blocking constituents from his official social media accounts, costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.

The same Diane Schwenke who endorsed Laura Bradford for Colorado House of Representatives in 2012. Bradford was pulled over by Denver police for driving under the influence of alcohol during her first and only term in the House. She quit after that term.

The same Diane Schwenke who endorsed Rose Pugliese for County Commissioner. Pugliese worked to kill the Riverfront Trail System by gutting all funding for it, circulated a petition to force D-51 teachers to stop teaching kids about climate change, and also stumped for the disastrous Tina Peters to be elected County Clerk.

Lauren Boebert doesn’t understand what “wanton killing” is

Everybody is talking about how, while reading a passage from the Bible, Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert mixed up “wanton” and “wonton,” jokingly admitting that she didn’t understand what “wanton killing” was.

Remember that point in the Club 20 debate between Boebert and her opponent Adam Frisch, where Frisch asked Boebert why she didn’t attend the Club 20 Steak Fry, an event to honor the candidates participating in the debates?

Boebert answered Frisch by curtly saying, “Dinners aren’t my thing.”

What  she didn’t want people to know was that she wasn’t at the steak fry that night because she was across the state in Woodland Park, preaching at the Truth and Liberty Coalition’s “From Vision to Victory” conference at Charis Bible College, hosted by faith healer Andrew Wommack.

Red flags indicate Daniel is a Tina Peters-linked choice for Mesa County Commissioner

Left to right: activist Sherronna Bishop, “No-Work-Clerk” Tina Peters and Bobbie Daniel, from a 2018 YouTube video Daniel made to endorse Tina Peters for County Clerk. Daniel said Tina had “a wealth of knowledge” and assured us we’d be “in really good hands ” if Tina became our Clerk and Recorder. We know how that turned out, and Daniel hasn’t yet apologized to Mesa County citizens for her disastrous endorsement.

Republican Mesa County Commissioner candidate Bobbie Daniel is showing all the signs that she’ll be yet another potentially disastrous elected official in the vein of Tina Peters if she gets elected as county commissioner.

There are a number of reasons why. The first is her remarkably poor judgment:

Bobbie Daniel endorsed Tina Peters for Clerk.

Tina Peters has a history of promoting unsubstantiated health claims and multi-level marketing schemes

On an archived copy of her old website, Tina Peters wrote that she was involved in a car accident in 2010 in which she incurred a brain injury. Shortly after that, in 2011, she started promoting products made by Nikken, a multi-level marketing company that manufactures and sells unproven health remedies like health magnets, water and air purifiers, shoe inserts, and supplements with names like “Jade Greenzymes,” by making vague claims that they can improve chronic conditions like neuropathy, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, autism and diabetes.

In October, 2011, Tina started a Twitter account, @BHealthyNow, that she used to promote work-from-home, get-rich-quick schemes, network marketing including Nikken and its products, and on which she made far-out right wing political claims, like that President Obama’s presidency was “illegal” and Obama was “a Muslim.”

Highlights of Wyoming Republican primary debate. Note, this is not a Saturday Night Live episode.


The above is a 2 minute video synopsis of a Republican primary debate among candidates running for Wyoming’s at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, currently held by Liz Cheney. These are actual answers from actual Republicans to questions the moderator posed during a “lightning round.” The debate was broadcast on Wyoming PBS and can be viewed on CSPAN.

This is only one state away.

If you can stomach it, you can watch the full debate here.

The Mesa County GOP needs to apologize for creating, aiding and abetting the Tina Peters debacle

Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney defends Tina Peters at a “Stand for the Constitution” meeting at Appleton Christian Church in Grand Junction in September, 2021. Tina Peters’ wild, egregious election-lie fiasco has embarrassed Mesa County on a national scale. 

It was clear back in 2018 when she was elected that Tina Peters was unqualified to be Mesa County Clerk and Recorder. She had had zero experience in government or in the Clerk’s office, had never worked in public administration or worked on an election in any capacity.

At the time, the qualifications between the two candidates for County Clerk couldn’t have been more stark:

It’s happening! Tina Peters: The Movie

Screen shot of the 2 minute, 15 second movie trailer for “Selection Code,” made by Lara Logan and financed by My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell

Get out the popcorn, Mesa County.

A new “documentary” movie is coming out July 16 that tells the story of embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ efforts to convince people that massive election fraud occurred in Mesa County’s voting machines.

In reality, a recent months-long, thorough investigation into allegations of voting machine problems by Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and his team, the results of which were presented to the Mesa County Commissioners and the public last week, reveal that was not the case. The evidence revealed beyond a doubt that human action by a member of Peters’ own Elections Department staff, who was trying to remedy a frozen computer screen, was at the heart of Peters’ accusations, and the investigation found the County’s vote tabulating machines worked appropriately and counted ballots accurately.

How to register as an Unaffiliated voter so you can vote against awful Republican candidates in the June primary

Lauren Boebert is the extremist candidate running for re-election as House Rep. from CD-3. If you’ve had enough of her, follow the instructions below to vote against her in the primary election on June 28th. Her opponent is former CO State Senator Don Coram, who, while still a Republican, is a far better choice.

While many had hoped redistricting would make Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District more competitive, it ended up doing the opposite. It increased Republicans’ advantage by an additional nine points.

This result is not lost on beleaguered CD-3 voters who, over the last two years, have been deeply embarrassed by extremist Republican elected officials like rabidly-right wing House Rep. Lauren Boebert and election-denier-to-the-point-of-insanity Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, both of whom, in addition to behaving terribly and in some cases denying voters their honest services, have also been exploiting their offices to rake in millions of dollars from like-minded, loony far-right wingers across the country who think they’re terrific.

To combat western Colorado trend of electing obviously unqualified, crass, shallow-thinking, extremist, far right Q-Anon conspiracists who exploit their positions to cash in personally, many CD-3 electors have re-registered as unaffiliated voters so they can vote the Republican ballot in the June primary and have at least some say who will run for office in the November general election. In effect, they are becoming Republicans for the primary election so they can vote for the least obnoxious, offensive Republicans, to try and push the worst of them off the ballot completely before the fall general election.