Tag: Trump Insanity

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Far right wing slate of school board candidates gin up anger and spread misunderstanding to raise funds

by Anne Landman • October 6, 2021 • 7 Comments

“Stand for the Constitution” supports Angela Lema, Andrea Haitz and Will Jones for School Board. They are ginning up hatred against the U.S. Department of Justice to try to raise funds for their campaign. The three are running as a far right wing extremist slate.

The three far-right wing candidates for District 51 School Board backed by the extremist group “Stand for the Constitution” — Angela Lema, Willie Jones and Andrea Haitz — together sent out a fundraising email today, titled “It’s Time to Get Politics Out of the Classroom,” aimed at generating anger towards the U.S. Department of Justice to raise money to help get them onto the school board.

The email’s subject line screams:

“The DOJ is coming after parents!”

At a Christian church, Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney repeatedly calls CO SOS the name of a porn star

by Anne Landman • October 1, 2021 • 19 Comments

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

In a video of a talk at Appleton Christian Church on September 16, 2021, Mesa County Republican Party Chair Kevin McCarney repeatedly calls Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold “Jenna Jameson,” the name of a famous adult film actress known as the “Queen of Porn.”

McCarney spoke at Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters‘ first appearance since she returned to Mesa County after fleeing the state August 10 to speak at an election conspiracy conference in South Dakota organized by My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell. After the conference, Peters went into hiding in unknown locations out of state for about 5 weeks.

Video of the political rally at the church is posted on the website of far right wing activist, conspiracy theorist and “mobile day spa instructor” Sharronna Bishop, who has dubbed herself “America’s Mom.” The rally was organized by the local extremist right wing group “Stand for the Constitution.” That’s the same group that has been pressuring the County Commissioners to declare Mesa County a “Constitutional sanctuary,” where federal and state laws don’t apply.

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters is on a mission from God, says “It just didn’t make sense” that the people who won the last G.J. City Council election actually won

by Anne Landman • September 25, 2021 • 9 Comments

In a new video posted on the website of the “Truth and Liberty Coalition,” Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters alleges that the people who won seats on the Grand Junction City Council in the last election were “falsely elected” and that “people have been put into elected positions that really did not win the election.”

It is unclear exactly when the video was recorded, but estimates are it was within the last three days.

Peters was interviewed by televangelist Andrew Wommack, and appears with Sheronna Bishop, former campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. Several times in the video Peters indicates that God is on her side and is and directing her efforts to prove Mesa County elections are corrupt. She also says that she was “shocked” that certain people won the last Grand Junction City Council election because “It just didn’t make sense … that these people won.” She added that she was also motivated by an unnamed number of citizens who came to her saying “this is impossible” that the candidates who won in the City Council election had actually won.

Secretary of State pursuing ethics complaint against Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters

by Anne Landman • August 30, 2021 • 2 Comments

Trump supporter, election conspiracy theorist and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters is under criminal investigation by three agencies for allegedly compromising voting equipment.

At least one ethics complaint submitted to the State of Colorado about Mesa County’s crazy Clerk Tina Peters is starting to bear fruit.

Luis Lipchak, the Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance Enforcement Manager, determined that a complaint by Mesa County resident Scott Bielfuss (pdf) alleging that Peters violated campaign finance laws has merit and their office has decided to pursue it.

Bielfuss alleged that Peters “flew up to Mr Pillows cybers-symposium on a private plane provided to her and is staying as a guest of the Pillow foundation in clear violation of accepting gift laws. Complainant [Bielfuss] alleges that by engaging in the aforementioned activities, Respondent [Peters] failed to report contributions or expenditures associated with said activities and accepted gifts over allowed amounts.”

Commissioners appoint Wayne Williams, former SOS who contracted with Dominion Voting Systems, to run local elections

by Anne Landman • August 17, 2021 • 4 Comments

Wayne Williams, via Wikipedia, photo By Jeffrey Beall – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72780852

The Board of Mesa County Commissioners (BOCC) held a rushed hearing this evening at which they appointed former Secretary of State Wayne Williams to oversee the 2021 election in Mesa County, taking swift action after Colorado Secretary of State (SOS) Jena Griswold stripped Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ of her ability to carry out elections.

The SOS can’t remove Peters from office because she was elected, but she can stop Peters from carrying out elections.

Griswold appointed current Mesa County Treasurer and former two-term County Clerk Sheila Reiner to oversee elections.

Reiner, a Republican, was term-limited out of the County Clerk’s office in 2018. Peters was elected in 2018 as her replacement. Peters is currently under criminal investigation in which, the SOS’s office says, all evidence shows she allegedly engineered a security breach of the county’s election equipment.

BOCC arm wrestles the Secretary of State for local control

CO Secretary of State Griswold: “All evidence shows” Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters assisted in a security breach; S.O.S. decertifies Mesa County’s voting equipment

by Anne Landman • August 12, 2021 • 8 Comments

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (Photo: State of Colorado)

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold gave a press conference today (video) in which she revealed that last May 25th, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters permitted an unauthorized non-employee of the Elections Department to participate in a highly sensitive annual security inspection of Mesa County’s voting equipment called a Trusted Build. The name of the non-employee entered into the log that day was “Gerald Wood,” and Griswold revealed that Woods’ name was entered into the log by the Mesa County Clerk herself. Griswold noted that the non-employee “swiped in, but did not swipe out.”

“This was a breach,” Griswold said. “He was not an employee and he was not background checked. The Clerk misled the Secretary of State’s office about this information.”

Griswold said,

“To be very clear, Mesa County Clerk and Recorder allowed a security breach and by all evidence at this point, assisted it.”

Grand Junction’s political landscape continues to trend more blue

by Anne Landman • February 6, 2021 • 4 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.

Western Slope Republicans need to apologize and tell the truth

by Anne Landman • January 21, 2021 • 18 Comments

Republican House Rep. Lauren Boebert, CD-3, (Photo:Youtube) — advanced the Big Lie about massive election fraud that led to the insurrection.

Donald Trump repeatedly claimed in the months following the election that he had won the election by a landslide, but it was stolen from him due to massive voter fraud.

It was the most outlandish lie of Trump’s term, maybe the craziest of his life, and it led thousands of his supporters to violently attack the Capitol in an insane attempt to overturn the results of the election on his behalf. We all watched, horrified, as hordes of angry Trump supporters bashed their way through barriers and stormed the Capitol holding their Confederate and “Don’t Tread on Me” yellow Gadsden flags, intent on capturing and killing legislators, journalists and anyone with a political opinion different from their own. The insurrection, based on lies, caused the death of five people, including a police officer.

State Senator Ray Scott refuses to wear mask in Village Inn, lectures waiter not to enforce rule, saying “WE make the laws”

by Anne Landman • December 23, 2020 • 9 Comments

State Senator Ray Scott, who has a track record of being rude to his constituents, getting sued by the ACLU for blocking constituents on social media and getting slapped with a formal ethics complaint, recently displayed his legendary hubris again after he refused to put on a face mask while inside a Village Inn restaurant in Grand Junction.

The story was reported by the Colorado Times Recorder on December 21.

According to the Times Recorder, the waiter approached Scott and told him that he would have to leave if he didn’t wear a mask inside the restaurant, Scott lectured the waiter by saying “Governors make rules, but WE make the law,” and explained the difference between a rule and a law. Scott then told the waiter he was being too “heavy handed” in enforcing the statewide masking rule.

The pitfalls of Mesa County’s “5 Star” Coronavirus protection program

by Anne Landman • December 10, 2020 • 7 Comments

Mesa County’s 5-Star program creates expectations that often aren’t met, and leaves it to patrons to police establishments for compliance, which can then lead to harassment, threats and intimidation against patrons who complain.

Mesa County has been touting it’s “Variance Protection” (“Five Star”) program as the key to keeping businesses open amid the pandemic, and while the goals of the program are laudable, the widespread lack of enforcement, particularly of masking requirements, can unfortunately create a climate of additional threats to patrons, and not just to their health.

Republicans who cling to Trump go down with the ship

by Anne Landman • November 17, 2020 • 5 Comments

pic.twitter.com/DBCSWajLFp

— Neighborhood Hope Dealer (@hopegriffin) November 3, 2020

Many western slope Republicans are denying reality and continuing to cling to Trump. He is exploiting his disappointed supporters by convincing them he still has some vanishingly small chance of getting re-elected while at the same time urging them to donate to an “election defense fund” — a slush fund that will ultimately line the pockets of Trump and his family.

Trump has zero chance of getting re-elected. It’s over.

Contrary to popular belief in Mesa County, the outcome of the election is NOT in dispute at any level.

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 USPS sorting facility on Patterson

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.”

Steve Bannon arrested for diverting donations from “Build the Wall” nonprofit to personal expenses, lavish lifestyle

by Anne Landman • August 20, 2020 • 4 Comments

Time magazine cover photo of Bannon, February, 2017

Western Colorado’s many Trump supporters won’t like today’s news that even more Trump associates are joining the universe of criminality surrounding President Donald Trump:

Former Trump campaign chair and White House adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested along with three others on charges they duped Trump’s supporters into believing they were contributing to building Trump’s border wall, when in reality Bannon and his colleagues diverted donations to fund their personal expenses and lavish lifestyles.

Bannon was arrested with veteran Brian Kolfage and political strategists Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea. The four operated a crowdfunding site called “We the People Build the Wall” that later became the nonprofit “Build the Wall.”

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.

Why the Republican candidate for 3rd Congressional District, Lauren Boebert, is batsh*t crazy

by Anne Landman • July 6, 2020 • 4 Comments

In May, 2020, Lauren Boebert, the Republican candidate for House Representative in the 3rd Congressional District (our district), was a guest on an online right wing political talk show called “Steel Truth” hosted by Ann Vandersteel.

We can now add Lauren Boebert to the ever-growing list of QAnon supporters who are running for Congress. https://t.co/VJbFGkYKLx pic.twitter.com/m1bklAfikp

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 18, 2020

Republicans’ lies are turning deadly

by Anne Landman • April 25, 2020 • 4 Comments

House Rep. Scott Tipton, State Senator Ray Scott and Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese all were recently outed in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel for spreading false information on social media that was put out by Colorado Counties, Inc.

The false story went like this: Governor Jared Polis was intentionally withholding federal funds intended for local governments under the Coronavirus relief bill approved by Congress last month, and he was going to use those badly-needed funds to balance the state’s budget instead, forsaking people in rural Colorado who desperately needed the funds.

They didn’t read the bill

In truth, the bill Congress approved designated relief funds only to state and local governments that serve populations of over 500,000 people.

The CARES Act states:

“A unit of local government eligible for receipt of direct payment includes a county, municipality, town, township, village, parish, borough, or other unit of general government below the State level with a population that exceeds 500,000.”

“Exceeds 500,000” means eligible units of government must serve a population OVER 500,000.

In our most desperate time of need, America has a completely self-obsessed idiot for a president. Thanks, Republicans.

by Anne Landman • April 6, 2020 • 6 Comments

Above this post is a tweet that the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, actually posted this morning at 9:34 a.m. east coast time.

President Trump posted this tweet as thousands of Americans across the country are dying from a deadly Coronavirus pandemic with no end in sight. He posted this amid anguished cries from the governors of all 50 states and territories that their hospitals are lacking enough basic necessities, like beds, ventilators, medication and personal protective equipment, to treat the onslaught of Coronavirus victims arriving at their doors. Trump posted this shortly after a makeshift intensive care ward was constructed in New York’s Central Park to accommodate the huge number of sick people pouring into hospitals. Trump posted this as the pandemic has almost completely disabled not just America’s economy, but the world economy.

Trump posted this on a morning when America’s national news headlines read:

Pentagon asked to provide 85 refrigerated trucks, 100K body bags for coronavirus response, ABC News

Temporary Burials Possible for COVID-19 Victims, But NYC Park Trenches Plan Denied, NBC 4 New York

“Hospitals Run Low on Supplies as the U.S. Death Toll Nears 10,000,” New York Times

“At war with no ammo: Doctors say shortage of protective gear is dire,” New York Times

U.S. death toll surpasses 10,000, CBS News