Tag: Dangerous Republicans

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.

But who’s going to sue them?

This editorial from the Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023 issue of the Daily Sentinel is reprinted here with permission from the publisher. The original editorial is on the Sentinel’s website here. The added graphics are AnneLandmanBlog’s own embellishments.

By violating Colorado’s 2008 Public Health Act, Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland has captured the Board of Public Health and put herself in a position to push her personal religious views and political whims onto the agency

Mesa County commissioners would like their constituents to believe they are “by the book” policy makers.

But they’re willing to toss the book out the window if it interferes with their fever to micromanage Mesa County Public Health.

The latest twist in the commissioners’ slow, indelicate and legally questionable takeover of the public health board is that commissioners now control the agenda of what is supposed to be an independent body.

Pretty slick. Commissioners did it with the full cooperation of a new health board it installed after the old one resigned en masse when it became clear commissioners intended to revoke their appointments for not acquiescing to the commissioners’ demand to fire MCPH Executive Director Dr. Jeff Kuhr.

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.

Background check: County Attorney Todd Starr

7/5/23 Sentinel article about Mesa County Attorney Todd Starr

7/5/23 Sentinel article about Mesa County Attorney Todd Starr’s fraudulent action to deceive a court Trustee

People in highly-paid, taxpayer-funded jobs who also are in positions to influence Mesa County actions and policies should be background checked, especially when they start doing potentially illegal things like helping the Mesa County Commissioners dismantle of the Board of Public Health for no real reason, and in apparent violation of county policies and state law.

Mesa County Attorney Todd M. Starr certainly meets that criteria. He makes a salary of $190,800/year, not including perks and benefits, and appears to have facilitated illegal acts by the Mesa County Commissioners against the Board of Public Health.

So I decided to background check him.

Commissioner Janet Rowland takes credit for the contributions of fired Public Health Director Jeff Kuhr

A post on Janet Rowland’s “VoteJanetRowland” Facebook page promoting the child care center at the county’s new Clifton Campus community building. Jeff Kuhr was key to making the child care center in Clifton possible, but Rowland never mentioned his contributions. (Janet is the blonde in the hard had in the photos.)

Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland wasted no time in taking credit for the contributions towards improving childcare in Mesa County made by former Public Health Director Jeff Kuhr, whom Rowland recently pushed out through an expensive and vicious months-long campaign over a personnel disagreement.

On July 29, Rowland showed off the new Clifton Community Campus at 3270 D 1/2 Road to Governor Jared Polis, crowing that it was “designed to be a community hub featuring an early childhood education center…” without ever mentioning that Public Health Director Kuhr was the one who initiated the big push to expand child care in the county (pdf) and helped the County get funding to make the childcare center possible.

Violation of state law let Rowland seize control of Mesa County Public Health Department

Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland

Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland succeeded in imposing her political will on the Mesa County Public Health Department yesterday after appointing two final conservative members to the Mesa County Board of Public Health (BOH).

Health Department employees point out Rowland made all the new appointments to the Board of Health without consulting a single person at the Health Department.

“The fact that they keep appointing people to our Board that so clearly do not support the work that we do feels like a spit in the face every time,” one employee said.

Mesa County Commissioners’ new chair of the Public Health Board refuses to say if he believes Covid-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and spare Jews and Chinese people

On of the many Facebook and Instagram posts by Mesa County Board of Public Health chair Stephen D. Daniels, lauding Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vocal anti-vaxxer who has spread lies and conspiracy theories for “the better part of two decades.”

The Mesa County Commissioners’ newly-appointed Chair of the Public Health Board, Stephen D. Daniels, has made it known that he is a strong supporter of anti-vax conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK). In multiple posts on his social media accounts, Daniels urges people to be open to discussion about Kennedy’s views and believe what Kennedy has to say.

But does Daniels support what RFK told a table full of people last week at a press event in Manhattan (video), that the Covid-19 virus is “ethnically targeted” to attack Caucasians and Black people, and to spare Jews and Chinese people?

RFK’s comments were widely reported as being a “Bigoted new Covid conspiracy about Jews and Chinese” (NY Times), as being “deplorable” and “hurtful” (Fox News), as spreading “false claims” about Covid-19 (CBS News) and  being “antisemitic and racist” (ABC News).

Specifically, RFK said in part,

“There is an argument that it [Covid-19] is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Mesa County Commissioners violate County policy to appoint Janet Rowland to Board of Public Health

Last page of the intergovernmental agreement MCA 2012-079, laying out the relationship between Mesa County and the Board of Public Health (BOH). The appointment of Janet Rowland to the BOH was highly controversial at the time Commissioners made it, but the Commissioners skipped holding the required meeting with the BOH about it first.

The relationship between Mesa County and the Health Department is governed by the 2012 “Agreement, MCA 2012-079” (pdf), dated June 25, 2012.

The Agreement discusses financing, budgeting, purchasing and personnel policies, and it lays out the overall relationship between the two agencies.

Item #2 of the Agreement says a county commissioner may be appointed to the Board of Health, but Item #10 says:

“10. Points of controversy hereunder will be addressed by a meeting between the Mesa County Board of Health and the Board of County Commissioners.”

Janet Rowland

Janet Rowland was appointed to the Board of Health on April 25th.

It was a highly controversial appointment at the time.

Janet Rowland convinces newly-installed Public Health Board members to put Director Jeff Kuhr on paid leave

Janet Rowland at the Board of Public Health meeting June 5

Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland succeeded in convincing the three new temporary members of the Board of Public Health (BOPH)  to vote to put Mesa County Health Department Director Jeff Kuhr on paid leave.

Rowland has been working to push Kuhr out of his job for months.

The stunning part of the BOPH meeting was who was there to support Kuhr.

The audience was packed with prominent longtime local Republican political figures, including former Mesa County Commissioner Kathy Hall, former Chamber of Commerce President Diane Schwenke, former CMU President Tim Foster (now Kuhr’s attorney in this matter) and Doug and Jamie Simons, owners of Enstrom Candies. Former County Commissioner Jim Spehar was there, as well as the owners of the Winery and Crossroads Fitness. All spoke in support of Kuhr and urged the BOPH to keep him in his job. Many said how Kuhr has done an exceptional job as head of the Health Department, how grateful they are to him and that these attacks on him amount to some kind of personal vendetta. Many of those who spoke were previously long time supporters of Janet Rowland.

One attendee remarked after the meeting that,

“Every business leader or former community leader that walked out of that room said that Janet has lost her mind.”

County teeing up new Public Health Board members to fire Dr. Jeff Kuhr as longtime Director of Mesa County Public Health Dept., despite being told there is “insufficient evidence” of wrongdoing

Jeff Kuhr won plaudits for helping Mesa County get through the Covid-19 pandemic.

If Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland gets her way, the new, temporary members recently intstalled on the Mesa County Board of Public Health (BOPH) will do the Commissioners’ bidding and fire longtime Mesa County Health Department Director Dr. Jeff Kuhr, even though there is insufficient evidence of any financial wrongdoing by Kuhr and even though a large majority of the local public thinks the county commissioners are engaging in a blatant overreach of their authority.

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.

Tina Peters falsely implies on Joe Oltmann show that the Mesa County D.A. murdered the brothers of two witnesses against her

This article was authored by Erik Maulbetsch and originally appeared 2/2/23 in the Colorado Times Recorder.

Tina Peters’ mugshot from her arrest on 3/9/2022

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters took her conspiracy promotion to a new level this week when she implied that law enforcement murdered two family members of her former staff members in order to compel them to testify against her.

Appearing on Joe Oltmann’s far-right podcast, Peters falsely stated that the brothers of her former deputy Belinda Knisley and staffer Sandra Brown were both killed in separate unsolved hit-and-run accidents prior to the Mesa District Attorney offering them plea deals in exchange for their testimony.

All Tina’s court appearances, all in one place – 12/2022 edition

Tina Peters’ Mesa County Court docket as of December 7, 2022

Curious when Tina Peters’ next court hearing is, and what it’s about?

Above is her court docket as of 12/7/2022, with the court dates, type of hearing, and case numbers. Descriptions of each case number are added for clarity. Her docket is subject to change at any time, and it often does. Her docket information can be accessed by going to the Mesa County Court Docket Search page and entering Tina’s first and last names.

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?”

Anti-transgender, racist hate mail sent to 92 year old School District 51 retiree; Local Republican political leaders may be contributing to undercurrent of hatred in Mesa County

“Citizens District 51 Defund Vote” sent hate mail postmarked Oct. 11, 2022 to a 92 year old School District 51 retiree in Grand Junction

My 92 year old neighbor, who worked for School District 51 over forty years ago, received this hate mail yesterday, with the following computer-printed in screaming all-caps, racist, anti-transgender hate letter glued to the back of the picture with the child at the chalkboard:

My neighbor is pretty tough, but the line that said “OL’ BITCH” really saddened her.

In addition to showing that racism and homophobia in Grand Junction are alive and thriving, this rude correspondence raises several questions:

— How did the sender get the address of this person?

Mesa County Commissioners give Republican commissioner candidate Bobbie Daniel a huge advantage using taxpayer-funded resources

Election denier Bobbie Daniel (R), Republican running for County Commissioner, with her friend Tina Peters in 2018, before Tina was elected Clerk and was indicted on multiple felonies related to election tampering.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022, in its opinion section the Daily Sentinel endorsed Republican election denier Bobbie Daniel for County Commissioner, saying she was “prepared to step in ready to work on day one.” But the Sentinel failed to ask the big question of how it happened that Daniel had become so prepped for the position.

It happened because Daniel has been groomed for months, maybe years, for the job by sitting Republican Mesa County commissioners, who have been using taxpayer-funded resources and taxpayer-funded County time to make sure Daniel gets a huge leg-up over her opponent in the race.

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.”

Tina Peters: Judge and D.A. are “very, very evil,” and “don’t follow the same God that we do”

In a talk in El Paso County on August 29 to an audience of election-deniers, indicted Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters quoted the Bible, called her legal troubles “a spiritual battle” and praised her multi-millionaire benefactor, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, saying,

“Lindell has paid for many of our legal challenges, you know, and their end goal for me, and I’m just going to be really frank and really serious for a minute, is to put me in prison.” 

Peters added,

“That is what they want. … I’ve got such an — I can’t even think of a word beyond ‘egregious”– judge, [and] when my chief deputy just made a deal, he was just sorry that she didn’t have to serve prison time.

They’re coming after me, and you know, Mike Lindell and the Legal Offense Fund, you know, these attorneys are not cheap, you know, they have they put a lot of hours [in] ….