Author Archives: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Last month, Colorado Politics, a print and online political news site, published a story about conservatives who submitted signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State to place an anti-tax initiative on the ballot.

The ballot-measure story quoted a leading Colorado conservative activist, Michael Fields, but no information or opinion from Fields’ progressive opponents appeared in the article, which was produced by Colorado Center Square, a “news service” that offers stories for free to “media companies” and is, according to the biography of the board chair of Center Square’s parent organization, “competing with The Associated Press.”

In contrast, back in August of last year, another Center Square story appeared in Colorado Politics about a progressive initiative that made the ballot, and it included detailed arguments by conservatives against the proposal.

The committee opposing the progressive initiative was quoted as stating that the measure, which aimed to establish a family-leave program in Colorado, was “economically risky at any time and especially dangerous when the economy is just beginning to recover.”

The Center Square story noted that the “state’s fiscal note says it could ‘influence hiring decisions made by employers,’ affecting jobs.”

The two ballot-initiative stories were written by Derek Draplin, who came to Center Square after being an associate editor at the Daily Caller, a hard-right media site whose website states, “PATRIOTS, fighting for you.” Other Center Square writers have long worked for right-wing publications, according to The Denver Post.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

No matter what side they’re on in their internal war over whether to dump open primaries, Republicans are telling the world — and each other — how weak they are in Colorado, how much swing voters hate them, how deep blue the state is turning, and how depressed they are about it.

That’s the most amusing collateral damage for Republicans in the lead-up to Saturday’s vote on the open-primary question. And they are inflicting it on themselves.

In a devastating opinion posted today, Republican Mark Hillman expertly outlines the irrefutable math on how much unaffiliated voters, who are essential in winning elections, dislike Republicans nowadays.

“Even in GOP strongholds of Douglas and El Paso counties, unaffiliated voters are breaking hard against Republicans,” wrote Hillman, repeatedly using the phrase “deep hole” to describe the Republicans’ whereabouts in Colorado.

George Bruachler, a former candidate for Colorado Attorney General, was more circumspect about spotlighting his party’s ongoing failures in Colorado, but he did so nonetheless. “The notion that Republicans’ lack of electoral success since 2018 in Colorado is attributable to open primaries and all of the conspiracy theories that flow from them is contrary to facts.”

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Archbishop Samuel Aquila of the Archdiocese of Denver.

In an opinion article published July 2, Denver’s Catholic archbishop wrote that for years he’s been urging Catholic politicians not to take Communion if they hold “immoral political positions,” not just on abortion but “other issues” as well.

“To add another layer to this, many bishops – including myself – have been privately dialoguing with Catholic politicians on abortion and other issues for years, urging them to refrain from Communion if they won’t change their immoral political positions,” wrote Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila on July 2.

The statement came as a surprise given that Aquila and other U.S. bishops are on the verge of demanding that President Biden, who’s Catholic, stop taking Communion due to his pro-choice stand, while ignoring other politicians who may be voting against the Catholic church on other issues, like immigration or poverty concerns.

But Aquila’s article didn’t specify which “immoral political positions,” other than being pro-choice, constitute such grave public sins that they put politicians and others in a “state of not being able to receive Communion.”

Asked to list the political views on “other issues” that Aquila considers Communion dealbreakers, Mark Haas, Director of Public Relations for the Archdiocese of Denver, said the “details on those private conversations remain private.”

Haas explained the holy Communion, also called the Eucharist, is the “true presence of Jesus Christ – body, blood, soul, and divinity,” so taking Communion is an extremely important and serious act for Catholics.

Haas pointed to a quote from Aquila stating that baptized Catholics “are endangering their souls by receiving Communion in a state of grave sin, whatever that grave sin is.”

“And so at the heart of all of this is to restore greater belief in the tremendous gift that is the Holy Sacrifice, and to help all Catholics, including Catholic politicians, align their lives with the fullness of the Gospels, and not just pick and choose which parts they will follow,” wrote Haas.

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(They’re not sending their best – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments after calling for the execution of Democrats, is “tickled” to be speaking to El Paso County, Colorado, Republicans August 6.

“I cannot wait,” Greene told KNUS Randy Corporon last week to promote the event. “…I’m just tickled to be the keynote speaker. I’m excited to meet great patriots. I love going all across the country.”

“My good colleague Lauren Boebert, she’s got some really great people. So I can’t wait to come to Colorado,” said Greene. “We need an army of America First members of Congress.”

Speaking to Corporon over the weekend, El Paso County GOP Chair Vickie Tonkins, who apparently spearheaded the effort to invite Green, said she’s received criticism from fellow Republicans for asking Greene to speak at the fundraising event.

“I get opposition after opposition for the fact that I’ve invited Marjorie Taylor Greene to speak at our Lincoln Day Dinner,” said Tonkins.

“All the pushback I receive is from quote-unquote Republicans. And I think it’s a travesty that we have this kind of resistance in our own party,” said Tonkins.

“I’m going to call people out for not supporting the people they should be supporting,” said Tonkins

Greene, who also once said that California fires were caused by space lasers, said it was a gift that she was stripped of her committee assignments, giving her time to focus her energy elsewhere.

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Peter Boyles.

Some of Colorado’s most right-wing talk radio hosts, who regularly promote views that drive Colorado voters away from the Republican Party, are rejoicing over the willingness of Colorado Republican leaders to appear on their shows again — after past GOP leaders rejected interview requests from the toxic radio yappers.

“You know, I got to tell you something,” KNUS morning host Peter Boyles told Aurora City Council candidate Danielle Jurinsky on air earlier this month. “…If I told you I could not get a Republican candidate or an elected official to sit in that chair for ten years, would you believe me? They never came.”

“How sad is that?” said Jurinsky.

“I never got Walker Stapleton; they wouldn’t even return phone calls,” continued Boyles, adding that the “old guys” were really “machine” Republicans. “Cory Gardner, forget about it. I’ll give you a list of people that wouldn’t come near the show.”

But now, Boyles is thrilled to say on air, he can get the leader of the Colorado Republican Party, Kristi Burton Brown to appear on his show any time he calls. Same with the party’s vice-chair and secretary. 

Boyles talks about possibly hosting a series of “lunches” to raise funds for these women.

Republican leaders who want to be hated by most Colorado voters should go yuk it up with Boyles as early and often as possible. He’ll help them lose elections.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman pretending to be homeless.

If only Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman’s proposed ban on camping in Aurora, as well as his week pretending to be homeless for a local news story, could be written off solely as a way to get his face on TV.

But it’s so much worse.

Coffman is brazenly using some of the most vulnerable people in our midst to make himself more powerful – to elect a majority of conservative allies to Aurora’s City Council.

It’s not a secret. Reporters have called him out on it. He explains the political strategy openly on right-wing radio.

Asked by a salivating radio host if he was “going to make it a big election issue, as big as you can,” Coffman replied with a stern, “Oh yeah.”

“Let me tell you, I think that I will have a Council that will pass this after this election, if not in June, by the weight of the pressure that comes down on council members,” Coffman told KHOW’s Ross Kaminsky May 21. “But definitely after November.”

He added that the camping-ban issue will serve as a “referendum,” turning council candidates who oppose it into losers.

You wish you could say Coffman is the actual loser, and leave it there.

But camping bans are politically popular, even in cities like Denver with large majorities of Democratic voters.

So the twisted situation looks like this: Everyone who’s studied homelessness knows a camping ban won’t work. But Coffman’s political strategy of using the ban to flip the Council might actually succeed.

And anything that might help Coffman’s conservative posse win in bluing Aurora is worth a try, the mayor must figure.

9News put this into focus with figures showing that camping bans in the metro area don’t work.

“If this isn’t about something that may immediately become law or ordinance in Aurora, could it possibly just be a red meat campaign issue while city council elections go on there?” asked 9News Anchor Kyle Clark on air May 21. “Yeah,” answered 9News reporter Marshall Zelinger, who compiled the information, pointing out that Council elections are in November.

Great. Ride the camping ban to victory in Aurora’s upcoming city council election.

And trample the people on the streets on your way in. The powerless people struggling with poverty, mental illness, drug addiction, fear, hopelessness.

Coffman wants a camping ban to make life even worse for them and better for him, giving the mayor the power to pass a conservative agenda on issues going way beyond homelessness.

Let’s hope it doesn’t work.

But it’s bad enough to picture Coffman sitting in a room somewhere, with fellow Republican operatives, mapping out a power-grab strategy of using the “Homeless Mike” stunt, the camping ban proposal, and the city council process, all of it ending with November’s election.

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(The weekend being homeless didn’t turn out like you planned – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman pretending to be homeless.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman says you should believe him when it comes to homelessness because he spent a week on the streets last year, as seen in a local TV story.

Coffman said his experience in homeless shelters and in on-the-street encampments made him able to “better understand the issue, and not from what people are telling elected officials, but to actually be there with the individuals experiencing homelessness, to be able to to talk with them, to understand their issues.”

But Coffman didn’t stay in any of the encampments in his hometown of Aurora, only in Denver.

In a bizarre admission on a Denver radio show, Coffman said homelessness is a really complicated issue, and he “can’t speak” to the issues at the encampments in Aurora, only Denver.

“This is really [based on] just seeing encampments in downtown Denver, larger encampments in downtown Denver,” Coffman told KNUS’ Jimmy Sengenberger May 22. “This is not the encampments in Aurora. I didn’t stay in them. I can’t really speak to them.”

But Coffman is running to any microphone that will take him, saying the people in homeless encampments are largely there by choice and Aurora needs a camping ban to solve the problem. (Never mind that such bans are known to fail.)

RELATED: The Absurdity and Heartlessness of Coffman’s Camping Ban Is Seen in His Admission that Homeless People Will Simply Move Around Aurora.

So why in the world did Aurora Mayor Coffman decide to pretend to be homeless in Denver, not Aurora?

“Mayor Hancock had reached out to me and said, ‘Let’s work together on dealing with this housing issue.’ And so fine, of course, I didn’t tell him I was doing this. So I wanted to understand Denver and Aurora,” Coffman told Sengenberger.

But why not venture up to Aurora as well, if he wanted to understand both, given that he’s now left saying he can’t speak to what’s going on in Aurora?

Coffman doesn’t return my calls, so I’m forced to speculate here.

Perhaps he felt the Aurora encampments were more dangerous?

Maybe he was advised that they wouldn’t confirm his ideological view that homelessness is a choice and the encampments are full of drug addicts and others who don’t want to go to shelters or to change their lives.

Or how about this. We know Coffman’s week-long undercover foray as a homeless veteran was essentially a PR stunt, which he conducted with a local CBS TV reporter tracking him for a story headlined “Homeless Mike.”

CBS4’s studios at 10th and Lincoln are just blocks from the Denver encampments Coffman joined, where people brought so much good food it was bad for “weight control,” he says.

The CBS4 camera operators would have had to drive 20 minutes or more to get to Aurora–and that’s an eternity in the local TV news business, especially if there’d been a storm on the horizon.

Okay, maybe it’s far-fetched to conclude that Coffman decided against sleeping on the streets of Aurora so that he could be near a Denver TV station.

But that such a disgraceful explanation is possible at all speaks to the fact that Coffman’s proposed camping ban — and his Homeless Mike escapade — have so little to do with helping homeless people and so much to do with P.R. for Coffman himself. 

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Mayor Mike Coffman (R-Aurora).

On a KNUS radio show Saturday, host Jimmy Sengenberger aired a report by 9News Anchor Kyle Clark about Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman’s proposed camping ban.

“It’s tough to find anyone who would call Denver’s homeless camping ban a success outside of the people who are paid to convince you of that,” said Clark in the clip from his May 20 Next show, which also included figures from 9News reporter Marshall Zelinger showing that camping bans in the metro area (Denver, Boulder, Centennial, Parker) have pretty much been a failure.

“Yet, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is introducing a similar camping ban for his city tonight,” continued Clark. “His conclusion, after a week of pretending to be homeless for a TV news story, was that homelessness is a choice.”

Coffman was a guest on the radio show, and after hearing the 9News clip, Coffman responded with:

“I wish Kyle Clark would do the same thing [pretending to be homeless],” Coffman told Sengenberger. “But I doubt that will ever happen. It would probably mess up his hair. But I think doing that was an extraordinary experience.”

In the ensuing radio discussion, Coffman addressed Clark’s assertion that the camping ban in Denver has been a failure.

Coffman first acknowledged that the homeless encampments are much worse in Denver than in Aurora.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Mayor Mike Coffman (R-Aurora).

Right-wing radio host Dan Caplis got to the heart of the matter last week when he asked Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman what happens if homeless people ignore Coffman’s proposed camping ban and don’t relocate to Coffman’s “designated area.”

“Where does that end,” asked Caplis on his KHOW show May 19.

After a brief pause Coffman replied, “Well, that’s problematic because, you know–you know–what they’ll do is displace and go somewhere else in the city, and we’ll have to clean up that area.”

What a brilliant way for Aurora to spend its tax money!

“Clean up that area” and then “Clean up that area” and then “Clean up that area” and so on and so on and so on.

Yet, Coffman belittles “so-called homeless advocates” for asking about the cost of the camping ban and for saying it’s not the solution.

On the radio, Coffman flat-out dismisses experts who say homeless people need housing first. It doesn’t matter that there’s study after study backing this up.

And homeless people, whose backgrounds and needs vary widely, also need a web of other support to stabilize and get off the streets.

As the interview continues, it becomes clear that it’s not just the encampments that bother Coffman but the homeless people themselves.

He wants to deny them services and hope they are “going to discover” that “Aurora, Colorado, is not the best place for them to be,” said Coffman on air, without citing evidence.

“They will find,” Coffman said, broke into a laugh, and restarted his sentence.

“They will find another community that will greet them with open arms and says, ‘Hey, listen, we’ll provide all these services, and we’ll require nothing of you. And you can, you know, live off the taxpayers.'”

Talking to Caplis, Coffman sounds like the right-wing congressman he’s still best known for being. The one who wanted to stop low-income women from getting cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood in Aurora. The one who called Obamacare “very radical.” The one who endorsed Tom Tancredo for governor of Colorado.

The one you’d expect not to care much about people in Aurora who are homeless.

Coffman is clearly unconcerned about a cooperative Denver Metro solution to homelessness, but he’s working with Bandimere Speedway, well-known for its conservative alliances, to address another front range problem.

“I’ll be working with Bandimere Speedway to come up with a plan that would involve all cities in the metro area” to attract “street racing enthusiasts to race their vehicles at Bandimere Speedway instead of city streets,” wrote Coffman in a recent Facebook post.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

I’ve come around to agreeing, at least some of the time, with conservatives who tell me I shouldn’t get so upset about their endless jokes about immigrants, police murders, racism, and other stuff like that.

But the problem I have with deciding whether to write about bigoted or hateful humor is, how do we know the jokester doesn’t believe the shit things they’re joking about?

So my approach to determining the news value of an inappropriate joke is, first, to look at who’s saying it. Is it a nobody who should be ignored?

Second, I reach out to the offensive entity and ask, do you believe the things you’re allegedly joking about?

Today, for example, I received via email a meme posted–with great approval–as a joke on Facebook by the Jefferson County Republican Party.

This is the official organization representing Republicans in Jeffco.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

“The Left is attempting to cancel an important voice for liberty — The Epoch Times newspaper,” wrote Colorado Congressman Ken Buck in a fundraising email today, spotlighting Buck’s claim that The Epoch Times had its U.S. House Gallery press credentials revoked.

Investigations by NBC, the New York Times and the Atlantic paint a picture of the newspaper as a hotbed of partisanship and pro-Trump misinformation, including promotion of QAnon and election fraud conspiracies.

In an interview posted on his Shootin’ Straight podcast yesterday, Buck asked Dr. Dana Cheng, one of the founders of The Epoch Times, if she thought there are “forces in the United States that are trying to limit” her newspaper’s “access to information or “de-legitimize The Epoch Times” as a press outlet.

“Yes,” Cheng replied, “They are left media, like the New York Times, and the Atlantic, and NBC. They put a lot of effort to write hit piece to discredit us. And it is such a surprise. We thought that this is a free country and people respect each other’s speech. And people respect each other’s right to do media and respect different voices. But obviously, they are trying to suppress our voice. It’s agenda-driven.”

“My friends saying, ‘We thought that China is going to become America. But instead, America is going to becoming China,'” continued Cheng, whose Falon-Gong movement newspaper is on an anti-communist crusade. China has persecuted Falon Gong members.

Last year’s Times’ investigation described how The Epoch Times evolved to become a “partisan powerhouse” that’s “created a global-scale misinformation machine that has repeatedly pushed fringe narratives into the mainstream.”

Cheng complained to Buck about recent “hit pieces” with “a lot of lies” that have been directed at The Epoch Times.

“And they don’t care to check with us or they don’t care to find out whether it’s true or not,” she told Buck “It is clearly agenda-driven. And this is such a surprise. For us, we fled communists. And we thought, ‘This is a free country and we can enjoy the freedom of speech, freedom of press. And we can provide a voice, that people can choose.”

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Scott Gessler.

Scott Gessler, a candidate to lead the Colorado Republican Party, recently bragged about how media savvy he is, claiming credit for getting Colorado Public Radio to run a story critical of a top Colorado Democrat.

But last week, he made a media-relations mistake widely regarded as amateur: After conducting an interview with ultra-conservative blogger Holly Casan, he asked that she keep the recording of his comments under wraps.

“So I am going to ask you one thing, and I should have demanded this at the beginning,” Gessler told Casan, according to a recording posted on Casan’s website. “So I know you’ve recorded me. I’m going to ask you not to make the recording public.”

Gessler’s comments came at the end of his interview with Casan, directly after she had complimented Gessler on his “candor.”

“Listen, Scott, thank you for your candor, and you really clarified a lot of things for me and my readers,” Casan tells Gessler in the recorded segment posted on her website. “I think it was super helpful to hear it from you in long form, so that, you know, we were able to air out the details in long form. And I just think that’s really valuable. And I really appreciate you taking the time.”

Casan agreed to Gessler’s request but nonetheless published a transcript of her Gessler interview with a little bit of audio on her website, which is called “The Real Scott Gessler.”

Gessler is a former Colorado Secretary of State and former candidate for governor with tons of media experience. He even indicated in his Casan interview that you normally lay out the rules for an interview, if any, before it takes place, not after.

So Gessler’s unusual request to can the audio recording led his critics to speculate that he was so concerned about what he’d said during his recorded conversation with Casan that he wanted it buried.

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