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August 03, 2009 06:26 PM UTC

Penry Westword's "Schmuck of the Week"

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Joining primary opponent Scott McInnis in receipt of Westword’s ignominious ‘prize,’ Kiernan Maletsky writes:

This week’s shmuck is state Senate minority leader Josh Penry of Grand Junction. He’s also gunning for Bill Ritter’s Governor job, and the short version of the past few weeks’ convoluted saga of schmuckitude is that Penry cares a lot more about his political future than his constituents. (Which makes him exactly like every other politician, which makes every other politician a shmuck. Which means we’re probably right about this one).

It’s tough to decide where to begin, really. Early July — when the Feds started looking at a disposal cell south of Grand Junction as a storage facility for thousands of tons of mercury — seems a good a time as any. It seems pretty clear that to store mercury in the cell would blatantly abuse the intent of the facility, which was to store uranium mill tailings from the city’s past. The facility was approved on condition that it not be used to store hazardous materials. Like mercury.

Citizens of Grand Junction were understandably miffed at the government’s proposal, but the city’s elected officials in Denver were oddly silent. Protest came from the Capitol, eventually, from Penry and Ritter and everyone else. But Penry seems less interested in keeping mercury out of his city than finding ways to attack Ritter, even though they’re both fighting for the exact same thing.

Comments

12 thoughts on “Penry Westword’s “Schmuck of the Week”

  1. …but its ok for the Guv to issue a press release and adjoining campaign fundraising effort on the backs of the Western Slope?

    Next time a mother kills her child will the Guv join with a non profit children’s campaign to denounce the murder, then issue PR with an associated campaign fundraising effort?

  2. An interesting analysis.  Ritter and his allies thought they could take this issue and use it to beat up Penry — and McInnis.  The only problem is that Penry beat them at their own twisted game.  Not only did he contact the DOE BEFORE Ritter did, he successfully pointed out that this issue came to pass on the watch of the chosen one (yes, the one with his arm around Ritter on the picture above).  Ritter’s game failed and Penry continues to run circles around Ritter and that other chump with the mustache (you know…the one who stands by the statements of a Penry supporter).  

    Wouldn’t it be nice to have a governor who’s not afraid to pick up the phone and chew some ass in Washington?  What we have now is an accidental governor who isn’t sure who he reports to.  Is it Pelosi or is it Gill & Stryker?  Poor conflicted soul.  

    1. Then why did he decide to go to Greeley for a fundraiser instead of attending the DOE meeting in his own district?

      If Penry can’t weigh in, in person, as a State Senator, then what makes you think he’d be any more attentive as Governor? As to the letter you bring up, Senator Penry wrote to Secretary Chu and asked why they couldn’t simply store the mercury in Tennessee. If he’d taken the time to research the issue, then he’d have found out that the reason the mercury is being moved is because Sen. Alexander (R-TN) recently wrote legislation making it illegal to store the poison in his home state.

      Is that what Penry would have done if he was Governor? Would “Gov.” Penry pick up the phone to “chew some ass in Washington” and proceed to make a complete fool of himself by not knowing enough about the issue at hand? If that’s the kind of “leadership” we can expect out of Crown Prince Penry, then I’ll take the status quo thank you very much.

      1. (DOE staffer with hands over receiver)

        ” yeah, some retard from Colorado thinking we can still store it in Tennessee, I don’t know “

    1. Okay, which one of you went in Penry’s Wiki profile and changed it today?  His birth year was listed as “1976-1977” earlier.  Josh must have called someone to get it changed to just “1976”.  Who says this blog doesn’t have influence?

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