Tag: Politics

Activism, Democracy, Grand Junction City Council, politics

Learn more about the candidates running for Grand Junction City Council at this online event tomorrow @ 6:00 p.m.

by Anne Landman • February 23, 2021 • 0 Comments

Are you wondering who wants to call the shots on City Council? Are there candidates for City Council that draw red flags?

If you have an internet connection, you can attend this free online event to find out more about the candidates for Grand Junction City Counci. It’s tomorrow at 6:00 p.m.

The event is sponsored by the Western Colorado Alliance of Mesa County, the Western Colorado Latino Chamber of Commerce, Cleantech Business Coalition, and other community organizations.

The link to sign up and get the Zoom link for the forum is here.

The election is April 6, 2021. There are also measures on the ballot to approve the sale of retail marijuana, and if it is approved, to tax those sales. The city’s portal for more information on the election is here.

Get involved, tune in, determine who the over-the-top extremist candidates are (because this is Grand Junction, and you know some of them are), and who the reasonable candidates are who deserve to serve on the next City Council.

Activism, Conservatives, Crazy Republicans, Dangerous Republicans, Deplorables, Elections, Embarrassing Republicans, Ethics, Extremism, Fake patriotism, Hate, Janet Rowland, Lauren Boebert, Propaganda, Ray Scott, Republican lies, Tina Peters, Weird Grand Junction Stuff, Weird western slope stuff

G.J. furniture repair business disses Biden supporters on its web page because “they are okay with stealing elections” and “killing babies”

by Anne Landman • February 9, 2021 • 7 Comments

Bruce Bertram, who owns The Chair Doctor, a Grand Junction furniture repair service, says on his website that he offers a lifetime warranty, he’s “open Sunday through Friday, about 9a to 6p. Closed Saturday. Phone 970-243-2929 for appointment,” and adds “Biden supporters not welcome.”

Bertram

When you click the link to find out more, you get the following rant:

Answer 19: Are Biden supporters really not welcome at your business?

Yes. Since Biden supporters are not supporters of the Constitution, we don’t support them. They want to censor anyone that disagrees with them so we censor them. They are okay with stealing elections, like killing babies, defend Burn Loot and Murder riots while lying about legitimate protests at the Capitol, promote communism/socialism/globalism, are trying to destroy our country, and are generally hateful, ignorant people (obviously, if you are a Biden supporter).

Grand Junction’s political landscape continues to trend more blue

by Anne Landman • February 6, 2021 • 2 Comments

A New York Times’ map of 2020 election results across the country shows more of our area trending blue than ever before.

A November, 2018 analysis of Mesa County’s political landscape found that based on the race for Governor, Mesa County was no longer a “hard-core red” county, and that our area was starting to trend bluer, towards Democrats. At that time, Grand Junction’s older downtown area had turned solidly blue, but was still surrounded by a sea of red, with few to no area races being competitive.

Getting bluer

An analysis of the 2020 election results shows the trend towards area voters leaning Democratic continuing, and accelerating.

Group files ethics complaint against Rep. Boebert’s exorbitant campaign mileage reimbursements

by Anne Landman • February 5, 2021 • 1 Comment

Lauren Boebert shown n December, 2019, carrying the same flag carried by many of the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021

The government watchdog group Accountable.us has filed a complaint (pdf) with the Office of Congressional Ethics requesting an investigation into House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s exorbitant mileage reimbursements in 2020. Boebert claimed to have driven 36,868 miles in 2020, enough to circumnavigate the globe almost one and a half times, even though there were several months in which there were no posted public campaign events.

By contrast, her predecessor, former District 3 Congress member Scott Tipton, reimbursed himself a total of $12,255 from his campaign coffers for travel over the entire decade he held the office.

CMU President Tim Foster retiring at the end of June, 2021

by Anne Landman • January 27, 2021 • 0 Comments

Tim Foster, President of Colorado Mesa University

Colorado Mesa University President Tim Foster announced his retirement in a mass email sent to the “CMU Community” on January 27. Foster wrote that he is leaving “to spend more time with my family and open a new chapter in my life.”

68 Elected officials in Colorado House District 3 sign letter to House leadership condemning Boebert’s actions

by Anne Landman • January 16, 2021 • 6 Comments

CD3 House Rep. Lauren Boebert is under scrutiny for her association with right wing groups that supported the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021

68 elected officials from cities and counties across Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District have sent a letter (pdf) January 12 to House leaders condemning CD-3 Rep. Lauren Boebert and asking them to open an investigation into Boebert’s actions leading up to, and on the day of the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6.

The letter was sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and was signed by elected officials from the counties of Routt, Pueblo, Eagle, Lake, Gunnison, Pitkin, Saguache, Ouray, La Plata, Hinsdale, San Miguel, and San Juan and from the cities of Durango, Bayfield, Crested Butte, Gunnison, Eagle, Lake City, Ophir, Mountain Village, Leadville, Ridgway, Telluride, Glenwood Springs, Avon and Aspen.

Abe Herman to announce run for Grand Junction City Council on 1/7

by Anne Landman • January 5, 2021 • 4 Comments

Abe Herman

Abe Herman will announce the launch of his campaign for the Grand Junction City Council District E seat on Thursday, January 7th at 12:15 p.m. in front of Grand Junction City Hall at 250 N. 5th Street.

Abe is a local small business owner and Colorado native who has made his mark across the Grand Valley, helping fund programs to get local youth outdoors, teaching veterans with disabilities to rock climb, working to get homeless youth back on their feet, and bringing other young leaders into our city’s vital long-term planning conversations. He has been endorsed by two sitting council members, Chuck McDaniel and Rick Taggart, who will be present at the campaign launch on Thursday.

Women: post signs at home to celebrate the 2021 inauguration from now until January 20, 2021

by Anne Landman • December 30, 2020 • 15 Comments

Amid the pandemic, the Mesa County Democratic Party Womens’ Group is expanding on the annual Womens’ March by asking people to display posters and signs in their front yards and windows from now until January 20th, 2021 celebrating the return of the country to American ideals with the inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris.

Throughout his time in office, Trump has made life more difficult for all Americans, but especially for women, in innumerable ways, through cuts to child care assistance, stalling federal action on paid family and medical leave, making student debt harder to pay off, cutting nutrition assistance, increasing bullying, racism and anxiety in the country, slashing health care benefits, tearing families apart, putting kids in cages, weakening protections against gender-based violence and much more.

Boebert reimburses herself over $30k for mileage in 2020 — enough to circumnavigate the globe 1.5 times

by Anne Landman • December 26, 2020 • 36 Comments

Colorado Pols examined District 3 Congresswoman-elect Lauren Boebert’s campaign expenditures and discovered Ms. Boebert reimbursed herself a total of $30,177 in mileage expense from her campaign donations in 2020. She reimbursed herself about $22,000 of that in one lump on 11/11/2020.

For the sake of comparison, Colorado Pols compared Boebert’s mileage reimbursements with those of outgoing CD-3 Congressman Scott Tipton’s claimed mileage expenses over the entire time he served in Congress, and found Tipton reimbursed himself a total of $12,255 from his campaign — over the entire last TEN YEARS he held the office.

Commissioners publicly urge Mesa County residents to wear masks

by Anne Landman • November 13, 2020 • 4 Comments

The unchecked community spread of Coronavirus, high number of hospitalizations and rising deaths from Covid-19 in the county has led the Mesa County Commissioners to finally issue a press release Nov. 13 urging all Mesa County residents to wear masks whenever they patronize local businesses, avoid close contact with others and avoid indoor gatherings. The release is headlined “Commissioners encourage community members to wear a mask.”

The Commissioners are now putting their support behind an all-out effort to raise awareness of the public health emergency the virus is causing in our community, get people to take the situation seriously, keep local businesses afloat and help our area avoid more mandatory closures.

Mesa County Commissioners John Justman, Rose Pugliese and Scott McInnis all urge Mesa County residents to wear masks at all times when patronizing local businesses.

Here is the Commissioners’ statement:

Beware electing a developer as County Commissioner. Here’s why:

by Anne Landman • October 17, 2020 • 5 Comments

Republican Mesa County Commissioner candidate is shown trespassing on the Grand Valley Canal banks in his latest ad.

Cody Davis is running for Mesa County Commissioner in District 1. His website doesn’t say it, but Cody is a partner with his brother in Chronos Builders, a company that develops land and builds houses and subdivisions, and as such there couldn’t be a worse choice to hold this particular office.

The fact that he is a land developer and home builder is precisely what makes him not just an inappropriate person, but potentially a dangerous person to sit on the Mesa County Board of Commissioners.

Why?

Just how BAD of a candidate is Lauren Boebert for 3rd Congressional District House Representative?

by Anne Landman • October 15, 2020 • 8 Comments

Lauren Boebert, Republican candidate for CD-3, is such a far right extremist that she said she hopes “QAnon is real” (Youtube)

Lauren Boebert such a terrible Republican candidate for CD-3 that the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce has refused to endorse her.

You have to understand how the Grand Junction Area Chamber works in order to fully grasp how momentous this non-endorsement is.

Even the Tea Party Chamber doesn’t like Boebert.

Under Diane Schwenke, its president of the last 30 years, the G.J. Area Chamber in 2012 became a politically far right wing tea-party group that portrays itself as a champion of small business, while they actually put their political effort into lobbying for the big businesses that pony up their highest membership fees of $7,000/year.

This makes for some weird actions by the Chamber.

The Chamber has endorsed criminals for city council, they’ve endorsed people who can’t write a coherent sentence for school board, and they even endorsed a dental hygienist for Drainage Board who’d lived here 2 years, moved here from San Diego and couldn’t tell a drainage ditch from an irrigation ditch over a candidate who’d served on Palisade Town Council for 8 years, been mayor pro-tem, sat on the 5-2-1 Drainage Authority Board, sat on the Colorado Municipal League’s Executive Board for 6 years, had attended seminars on wastewater management and subscribed to periodicals about drainage just for fun. Why? Because the lady from San Diego opposed a fee the drainage district sought to fund much-needed updating of the valley’s troubled, outdated drainage system.

Better Know a District: The CO House District 54 race, Soper vs. Slaven-Emond

by Anne Landman • October 12, 2020 • 1 Comment

Where is Colorado House District 54?

Colorado House District 54 is all the dark pink area in this map. It includes Clifton, Fruitvale, DeBeque, the towns of Mesa, Collbran, Fruita, Loma, Mack, Glade Park, Palisade, Whitewater, Gateway, the western side of Delta County and the central part of the town of Delta proper. It’s the “doughnut” around state House District 55.

Republican Matt Soper at the GOP rally in Delta on Saturday, May 16, 2020, where he told numerous lies to the crowd.

The race for Colorado House District 54 is between the incumbent, Matt Soper (R) and AliceMarie Slaven-Emond (D), both of Delta. You can read articles in this blog about Matt Soper at this link.

Matt Soper (R-incumbent)

Soper won the House Representative D-54 office in 2018 under contentious conditions. Published articles reveal that Soper lied to the Secretary of State about where he lived in 2018, listing the address of a rental house his mother owns as his own residence in order to meet the residency requirement to qualify to hold the House District 54 seat. In truth, an unrelated family had lived in the house for years, and after one of the occupants swore in a legal affidavit that Matt Soper did not live in the house with him and his family, Soper had his mother evict the family from the home as retribution for telling the truth publicly about how Soper did not live there.

Scott McInnis tells write-in candidate Bob Prescott to get out of the commissioner race because he’s “not on the team”

by Anne Landman • October 9, 2020 • 1 Comment

Mesa County Commissioner and OGRE leader, Scott McInnis

Click to hear the radio ad write-in candidate Bob Prescott made in response to Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis’ repeated bullying (now playing on Moose Country radio stations):

The leader of Mesa County’s Old Guard Republican Establishment (OGREs), Scott McInnis, has told write-in commissioner candidate Bob Prescott to his face, twice now, that he needs to get out of the race, because “You’re not on the team,” and “You need to just go away” because “you’ve already lost.”

Prescott reports McInnis dissed him this way most recently at a Mesa County Republican Party luncheon held at Warehouse 2565 where around 30 people were in attendance.

Why is McInnis so rude to Prescott?

Anti-Trump sentiment emerging in Grand Junction

by Anne Landman • September 7, 2020 • 23 Comments

Truck seen on I-70B in Grand Junction September 6, 2020

Note: Comments are back! Thanks for your patience during the fix.– Anne

The body politic in Mesa County used to be in lockstep with the Republican Party, but no more. An increasing number of area residents are proudly displaying signage opposing Trump, and for good reason.

It’s becoming extremely difficult for anyone, even Republicans, to continue supporting the President, especially after the past week.

Anti-Trump garden flag seen in northwest Grand Junction

On September 3, Trump urged North Carolina voters to commit felonies en masse by trying to vote twice.

On September 4, the Trump Administration ordered an end to programs aimed at promoting racial sensitivity among government workers (pdf), calling them “un-American propaganda.”

Trump administration dismantling Grand Junction’s Postal Service ahead of election

by Anne Landman • August 25, 2020 • 2 Comments

Dumpster at the postal sorting annex on Patterson with a flats sorting machine in it.

Yesterday morning I went to the U.S. Postal Service sorting annex on Patterson to drop off a postage-paid package. As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a red dumpster by the loading docks. When I went inside to drop the package off for scanning, I jokingly asked the clerk if that was their high-speed sorter outside in the dumpster, referring to reports that the mail is being hobbled before the election as Trump pushes baseless arguments against mail-in voting.

The clerk said “No, that’s our flats sorting machine. We had just gotten it. It took 2 months to set it up and they were just about to do a test run when the Postmaster General ordered us to take it out. Now we’re sorting flats by hand. We really could have used it. No wonder they say we’re losing money when they throw out expensive machines like that.” **

The Los Angeles Times reported August 20th that the slowdown in the mail has left postal warehouses in Los Angeles full of rotting packages of meat, fruit and dead animals, drawing gnats, flies, rats and mice. One California postal customer who saw the mess said it was “like Armageddon.”

Tim Foster endorses anti-science candidate with a track record of plagiarism for Mesa County Commissioner

by Anne Landman • August 23, 2020 • 5 Comments

“Principled”? Tim Foster’s endorsement of anti-science, documented plagiarist Janet Rowland for Mesa County Commissioner. (Screen shot taken from Janet Rowland’s Facebook page on 8/19/20.)

Tim Foster wants to make one thing clear: he is endorsing Janet Rowland for Mesa County Commissioner not in his capacity as longtime President of Colorado Mesa University (CMU), but strictly as an individual.

Well, Okay.

While he certainly has the right as a private citizen to endorse Rowland, doing so nevertheless makes Mesa County residents scratch their heads and wonder why Foster, who everyone knows heads a local university with a Nursing Program, Graduate Nursing Programs and a Physician Assistant program, would endorse an anti-science candidate who actively promotes Q-Anon-based anti-mask disinformation on her social media.

It seems incongruous. Rowland’s posts directly conflict with guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for controlling the pandemic. All this is going on while CMU is making a monumental effort at a tremendous expense to get students and staff to comply with strict on-campus masking and physical distancing rules to minimize the potential public health threat posed by CMU’s opening the school year with in-person learning amid the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.

How Trump’s sabotage of the Post Office is playing out locally

by Anne Landman • August 18, 2020 • 1 Comment

Trump mega-donor and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

In May of 2020, President Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, a Trump mega-donor with no postal experience as Postmaster General of the United States.

After taking office in June, Mr. DeJoy immediately started making changes to the Postal Service that resulted in delayed delivery of mail across the country. His actions included removal of 23 top postal executives, removing high-speed mail sorting machines from post offices around the country and prohibiting employees from logging overtime to deliver mail.

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