Tag: Violence

Trump-branded weaponry being promoted in advance of 2024 election

This ad for a “Take America Back” 10-inch Trump knife was displayed alongside a Tina Peters video on Rumble.com, a MAGA extremist video hosting site, on April 28, 2024

MAGA supporters are using Trump-themed weaponry to encourage malice and division and threaten pro-Trump political violence in advance of the 2024 election, a dangerous specter that is threatening the foundations of American democracy and civil society.

How to listen to tomorrow’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing about whether Trump can appear on the ballot in Colorado

Trump promoting his “Official Election Defense Fund.” There was no Official Election Defense Fund.

Tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. Mountain time (10:00 a.m. Eastern) the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, the case about whether Donald Trump is ineligible to hold office, and thus whether he can appear on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot.

The U.S. Supreme Court now lets the public listen to arguments via live audio of its proceedings.

School Board candidate forum cancelled after threat of violence posted on Facebook


A school board candidate forum that was planned for last evening, Monday, October 16, was cancelled abruptly the day of the event after the venue hosting the event, Good Judy’s Bar & Club downtown, received a violent threat on Facebook.

Boebert’s son called 911 over domestic episode prior to her divorce filing


Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s teenage son called 911 on Sunday, December 11, 2022 to report that his father, Jayson Boebert, was “throwing me across the house.” The son sounded hysterical, and was sobbing and breathless at the beginning of the call.

“He just started yelling at me and he started throwing me,” the teen said. He then added that his dad had told him to leave the property and yelled at him to get away.

The teen added, “He just does this to me so much.”

Shortly after that, the teen made a second 911 call in which he essentially recanted his story of abuse. Lauren Boebert can be heard talking in the background of the second call, in which the boy explains that he and his dad were starting to yell and and “he didn’t really get physical with me. It was just like, I was just overwhelmed.”

How to implement Colorado’s Red Flag law in Mesa County

Are you aware of someone who owns firearms and is presenting a danger to themselves or others?

Colorado’s new Red Flag law was passed in 2019 and went into effect in January of 2020.

A Red Flag law is an “if-you-see-something-say-something” law put in place by the Colorado Legislature to give Coloradans a way to alert law enforcement to people who have guns and are posing a threat to themselves or others.

Red Flag laws, also called Extreme Risk Protection Orders or ERPOs, give judges the ability to seize the firearms of people who are posing a danger to themselves or others, to protect public safety.

The law was created to give people a way to try to head off incidents of lethal domestic violence, suicides and mass shootings like those currently proliferating across the U.S. in schools, shopping malls, theaters, grocery stores, universities, in parking lots, at parades, in offices and other places Americans go in the course of their everyday lives. As of May 8, 2023, there have been more mass shootings than there have been days in America, so the threat of mass killings being committed by people who own or possess firearms is very real and happening more frequently now than ever before in our history.

The law was used 73 times in the first 7 months after it was enacted and as of the end of 2022, it has been used more than 350 times.

“Understanding Colorado’s Red Flag Law” talk to be offered May 22 @ 7:00 p.m., Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 536 Ouray

Red Flag Law talk flier

The League of Women Voters and Grand Valley Interfaith network will be co-sponsoring a free talk, “Understanding Colorado’s Red Flag Law,” on Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 536 Ouray Ave. The featured speaker will be Tom Mauser of Colorado Ceasefire, whose son, Daniel Mauser, was murdered in the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999.

Lauren Boebert votes against bill to reauthorize U.S. to combat international human sex trafficking

House Rep. Lauren Boebert (L), with her former campaign manager, Sherronna Bishop.

On July 26, 2022 Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert voted against the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2022 HR 6552, which continues funding the Department of State and Department of Justice to combat human sex trafficking internationally through fiscal year 2026.

The law has been in place since 2020.

The bill sailed through the House on a vote of 401 to 20. The 20 who voted against it were all Republicans and included Ken Buck of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Louis Gohmert (R-TX).

The OTHER out-take everyone is talking about from the last Jan 6 Committee hearing

This clip begins with Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler telling the January 6 Committee about a phone call between Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and then-President Donald Trump, that she overheard during the attack on the Capitol January 6.

Rep. McCarthy, a staunch Trump supporter, was desperately trying to get Trump to call off the attack. But after the President refused to listen to McCarthy’s plea or take any action to stop the attack, McCarthy then tried contacting Ivanka Trump, and then Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, and others, asking them to get the president to call off the attack.

The footage the Committee shows before the out-takes of Trump in the Rose Garden was what was happening at the Capitol around the same time McCarthy was on the phone, trying to get Trump to help them.

Hutchinson’s testimony was a blockbuster, but here’s the real “wow” moment from the last hearing of the January 6 Select Committee

On June 28, 2022, former White House Aide Cassidy Hutchinson gave explosive testimony to the January 6 Select Committee: She described how an unhinged President Trump urged a crowd of his supporters — that possessed bear spray, guns, knives and spears — to march to the Capitol. She told how Trump lashed out at his Secret Service agents in the car, how he demanded they take him to the Capitol to be with his supporters, and how he petulantly hurled his lunch plate against a wall. She revealed that her boss, Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, had sought a pardon from the President before leaving the White House.

Everyone’s been talking about her testimony since.

Yet the testimony that drew the most audible gasp from the audience at the June 28 hearing Select Committee wasn’t even from Cassidy Hutchinson.

It was from former three-star General Michael Flynn, who had been Defense Intelligence Agency head, and had served as National Security Advisor under the Trump.

That testimony is in the above video clip, which is under 2 minutes and can also be seen here on YouTube.

The next hearing of the January 6 Committee is Tuesday, July 12 at 8:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time/ 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time and will feature testimony from Trump’s White House attorney Pat Cipollone, who was present with Hutchinson in the White House in the run-up to January 6.

When and where to watch the Jan. 6 Select Committee hearings locally — will keep this page updated

Update July 8, 2022 – The next hearing of the Jan. 6 Select Committee will be on July 12, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, 8:00 a.m. Mountain (local) Time. A summary of what previous hearings have revealed is here.

Update – Wed., June 22, 2022 –The next January 6 Committee hearing will be Thursday, June 23 at 1:00 p.m. local time (3:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). After posting a tipline with its last hearings, the Committee has received additional video footage and is also talking to Ginni Thomas about her cooperation, and because of all the new information, following hearings will be held in July.

Update – Tuesday, Jan. 21- The Jan 6 Select Committee examining the assault on the U.S. Capitol convenes today for its fourth public hearing this month. This session will focus on Trump’s efforts to pressure state officials into falsifying election results to make it appear as though he had won, as part of his broader campaign to cling to office for a second term after he was informed by his White House attorneys, aides and family that he had lost the election. Today’s hearing starts at 11:00 a.m. local time and will be broadcast live on CBS (KREX, Ch. 5) ABC (KJCT Ch. 8) and NBC (KKCO Ch. 11) television stations starting at 11:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight (local) Time, (1:00 p.m. Eastern). You can also watch the hearings live on the website of the PBS News Hour and the Jan. 6 Committee’s YouTube channel.

***WARNING – the hearing may contain video of violence and foul language***

GovTrack.us lists Rep. Boebert as a participant in Jan. 6th insurrection

Lauren Boebert identifies with the extremist right wing groups that carried out the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021

GovTrack.us is a free Congress-tracking website in operation since 2004 that aggregates information on the status of legislation, congressional voting records, and other facts and statistics from official government websites and then uses the latest technology to make the information more easily accessible. GovTrack takes the old legislative-tracking website Thomas, which expired in 2016, further by including biographical information on members of Congress, geographic information on their congressional districts, cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and more.

ROLLING STONE: House Rep. Lauren Boebert participated in multiple planning meetings with organizers of Jan. 6 insurrection

Oct. 24 Rolling Stone article says Boebert participated in planning Jan. 6th events at the U.S. Capitol

According to an exclusive article published in Rolling Stone magazine October 24, 2021, two people who helped plan and organize the violent January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, and who have already spoken to the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection, have named members of Congress involved in planning the attack.

One of them was CD-3 House Representative Lauren Boebert, who represents Colorado’s western slope.

W. slope Republicans promote domestic extremist lies

Post from Janet Rowland’s campaign Facebook page, August 14, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory (pdf) 1/27, warning of a heightened risk of violence by domestic extremist groups across the country who have been emboldened by the insurrection on the Capitol on January 6th.

The Advisory says,

  • “…some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.”

The Advisory says domestic violence extremists (DVEs) are

  • “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and … opposition to immigration…” 

The bulletin further states,

• Threats of violence against critical infrastructure…increased in 2020 with violent extremists citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 for their actions.”

Local elected officials promote this extremist ideology

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

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.

National Park ranger shoots, kills unarmed young Fruita man in Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Gage Lorentz, 26, was killed by National Park Ranger Robert Mitchell during a traffic stop for speeding on a dirt road in Carlsbad Caverns National Park March 21. Gage was unarmed and had no alcohol or drugs in his system at the time he was fatally shot. The family is calling for the arrest and prosecution of the park ranger who murdered him.

Police murdering unarmed citizens in cold blood doesn’t just happen to people from other places.

A National Park Ranger murdered a young Fruita man last March in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, as he was headed home to Fruita from Texas.

The murder was covered locally in March, but has taken on renewed significance after George Floyd’s brutal murder in Minneapolis shined a spotlight on the unchecked police brutality going on all across the nation.

Gage Lorentz was unarmed and had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he was pulled over for going too fast on a dirt road.

Mesa County residents and Mad Dog PAC put up gun control billboard in G.J.

Mesa County residents fed up with the national epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. are teaming up with Mad Dog PAC of Washington, D.C. to run a billboard in Grand Junction aimed at pressuring congressional Republicans to address the national epidemic of gun violence and rampant mass killings happening around the country.

The billboard targets Colorado’s Republican Senator Cory Gardner in particular, who is up for re-election in 2020 and is known for taking no action and offering only prayers, platitudes and condolences after every mass killing that occurs.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives has already passed effective gun control legislation, but Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY), Majority Leader of the Senate, has blocked the bill from coming to a vote to appease the National Rifle Association which works to stop legislation aimed at making Americans safer from gun massacres.

The anti-Cory Gardner/gun control message will be on the billboard on I-70B in front of Sprouts and Rimrock Marketplace, on the board facing west, where it will be visible to drivers coming into Grand Junction. The message will be up for one week starting next Tuesday, August 20, and will stay up longer if donations are received to keep it up longer. If enough funds are received the message will also go up on additional boards around town.

Contact Anne Landman for information on how to donate to the billboard campaign.

 

One good thing Trump has done: Banning bump stocks

Trump banned bump stocks last December by executive action, and the new law is effective NOW.

Watch out, local gun nuts. President Donald Trump is coming for your guns.

Last December, President Trump issued an executive order banning bump stocks (pdf), devices that use the recoil energy generated from each shot of a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firearms’ rate of fire. The new rule amended the definition of “machine gun” to include bump stocks.

The ban went into effect three days ago, on March 26, 2019, exactly 90 days after it was published in the Federal Register.

On March 28, 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court refused an effort by gun nuts to block the ban, so Trump’s new rule is currently in full force, making anyone who owns a bump stock a felon.

Gun laws WORK

Australia’s mandatory gun buyback

On April 28, 1996, a crazed gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 35 people and injured 18 more when he went on a shooting spree at a historic and tourist site in Port Arthur, Tasmania in Australia’s worst gun massacre.

Within four months, the Australian government tightened the country’s gun laws, making the country’s gun restrictions among the strictest in the world.

The new laws banned all fully automatic, semi-automatic, pump-action and self-loading firearms, prohibited private sales, thus limiting who could legally sell or supply weapons, enacted  minimum requirements for licensing of firearms and put in place more secure storage rules for firearms. The new laws also created a mandatory ‘cooling-off’ period of 28 days before a person could granted a gun license, introduced compulsory safety courses and required people applying to purchase firearms to supply a “genuine reason” that they needed to own a firearm, and that reason could not include self-defense.

Predictably, conservatives and gun owners strongly fought the new laws, but the government enacted them anyway. And lest anyone think the gun laws were the work of liberals, Australia’s laws were enacted under then-Prime Minister John Howard, well known as a conservative political figure.