Yesterday, we received a link to a web page put up by the Colorado Senate Majority Office. Titled "Worst Regards," it's a list of hateful and threatening emails that Colorado Democratic legislators have received during the debate over gun safety legislation at the state capitol. These are apparently not the emails that resulted in felony charges being filed against two people, but a large number of other such messages that, for whatever reason, did not rise to the level of investigation and charges.
I am going to stick a knife up your c*** and tear your heart out through there.
Safe to say, though, these aren't for the faint of heart, and reader discretion is advised. It's useful to remember that the legislators who received this hate mail didn't have a choice but to receive it. At best, it's another "unintended consequence" of the irrational and frequently untruthful campaign against Democrats over the gun safety bills that were signed into law last month–at least we hope it was not intended.
The Senate Democrats made a small mistake in the original release of these threat emails, however. As originally released, the full names and email addresses of the senders were "concealed" by rendering them on the site as black text on a black background. They were evidently notified that this was insufficient to conceal the identities of the senders, as the text could be read simply by highlighting it in any web browser. After a short period of downtime, a new version of the site appeared with all such personally identifying information changed to "xxxxx."
But not before we went to the "File" menu of our browser and clicked "Save Page."
If you would like to read the original, unredacted version of this website, complete with the names and emails of individuals who have sent hateful, bigoted, and threatening messages to Colorado Democrats, please click here. Perhaps you have a message of your own to send them.
To be clear, you can't hold the Senate Majority responsible for our disclosure of these messages. They removed any personally identifying information in due diligence as soon as they became aware that their good faith, if perhaps a bit amateurish attempt to conceal the identities of these despicable senders of vile and threatening hate mails was not successful.
We are we publishing them? Because we are tired of legislators getting messages like these. We are tired of the double standard that subjects Democrats, in particular Democratic women, to minute fact-checking while Republican legislators tell wholesale lies with impunity. We increasingly blame our local media for the unfair and selectively low-information environment that has brought lowlifes like the people who wrote these emails out of the woodwork. And if the press won't do their jobs, we will do what we can to stop this.
Should any of our readers discover they know someone who sent one of these vile emails, we simply hope that you will have a talk with them. Everyone–legislators, media, community leaders and influentials, right down to every ordinary thinking member of the public–should be able to agree that such behavior has no place in our politics.
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Reince's $10 million expenditure for outreach might not cover it.
Some pretty vile expressions there.
Reince ought to spend that $10 million outreaching to his shrinking base, telling them to STFU…
Lovely state we live in, isn't it?
I don't have a problem with the Senate Dems publishing the email addresses, names or any other personally identifiable information that is included in those emails. They're a matter of public record the minute they showed up in a senator's inbox.
If the senders can't stand the heat, too bad. I just hope that their employers and relatives are perfectly happy with how they behave.
Agree. These cowards should be exposed. I simply don't understand why the one starting with "'I'm going to stick a knife…" doesn't rise to the level of investigation. The coward who sent that deserves to be exposed, charged and, if the person's employer has any decency, fired.
And, incidentally, where are similarly vile e-mails from Dems addressed to R lawmakers opposed to the gun control measure? Or do those e-mails overwhelmingly seek to pursuade with fact based arguments in favor of the measures rather than with vile insulst and sinster threats?
I suppose a thorough search by our resident rightie Johnnie-did-it-too apologists might manage to come up with something but I'd be willing to bet the number of vile Dem generated e-mails to gun control opposing lawmakers wouldn't come anywhere near the number of the disgusting rightie to Dem e-mails. I bet the number of Dem generated e-mails featuring the "c" word wouldn't come anywhere close. I bet the number threatening violence wouldn't come anywhere close.
If Rs want to spend a million to dispel the myths they encouraged while tolerating this kind of support, never saying anything stronger than that they don't approve but understand the "passion'", let them get it from one of their PACs and do it themselves. Plenty of good people feel passionate about issues without descending to the level of subhuman monsters.
+12 squared
Good for you, Pols. Thanks for shining a light on these cockroaches…our legislators cannot live in a cocoon of protection, fearing for their lives. Being approachable is a key part of their job description..
Isn't the intention of our obscene and well-armed friends to commit sedition? The Alien and Sedition Act was enacted when we were threatened with war by the French. We are now threatened with war from within. In a twisted sort of way, these angry people bear more resemblance to the wild-eyed jihadists they claim to hate.
As the Heart of America rose up in the New Deal, the War on Poverty, Civil rights, Womens' Rights, Workers' Rights, Environmental Law, and so many other expressions of the peoples' will to be a community and help one another, the well-monied, "Industri-litical", influence machine (think..Dick Armey, Koch Bros., ad nauseum)has been working overtime to get back all the money and keep it.
It is the cretins like Mt. Rushbo, Hannity, Beck, and our own resident propagandists, who incite the people on that recording, who deserve the most bitter reprisal. It is people with this disdain for the Constitution that give their audiences such emotional Hives. It's almost like they are money-sucking vampires…they can't seem to see their own reflection…even in in the most brightly lit mirror.
You're absolutely right, Duke. So's Bluecat, Awen, everybody that posted on this thread. And I agree, yeah, the knuckleheads that fired off the emails are definitely the pond scum of society, but the shitbags that fired them up are every bit as vile, maybe worse.
Maybe "Industriolitical" would work better…
That guy named David (last name starts with D: if that's his real last name, there are only three persons with that last name in the U.S., and none in Colorado) needs some serious anger management therapy. Very disturbing.
https://pipl.com/search/?q=david+dou&l=&sloc=&in=5
way more than 3
These guys, and I apologize for my gender, really ought to start a charm school or write the forward to the new edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People
What a terrible shame if their e-mail addresses were to get out. I would just hate to see these folks get treated to the same amount of hate as the elected officials they sent their messages to. So please don't send any hate filled messages to these accounts or sign them up for any newsletters that might help change their hearts. Also, lets hope that Spammers don't get these addresses and do anything with them. Remember these people were just expressing their constitutial right to be complete douchebags and we should respect that.
jamiem@newulmtel.net
john.krats@gmail.com
cofarrar@comcast.net
topgun97365@yahoo.com
ihatethis420@gmail.com
elkwithabow@hotmail.com
bsramek@prolynx.com
gekkohorse@yahoo.com
lfergus@tcworks.net
creedtac@hotmail.com
todd.stetz@yahoo.com
bccarr7@att.net
hlads66@msn.com
clydedenver@live.com
chadasap@yahoo.com
ncresen@frontiernet.net
john.krats@gmail.com
jamiem@newulmtel.net
david.dou90@gmail.com
rvguytoo@yahoo.com
marymiller55@me.com
drw907@yahoo.com
frsperformance@gmail.com
snomad700@yahoo.com
rmniichel@yahoo.com
timothyfradenburg@yahoo.com
lobo@fewpb.net
dxsmopuim@msn.com
dacass@live.com
Knowbody56@aol.com
david.dou90@gmail.com
@ Windsor. What kind of confidence level do you have re these emails? I will email them, each and every one, if you can share a bit about how you obtained them.
After I email them I'll post my email here but I don't want to be accusatory without confidence
I suspect that most of these are "throw aways".
I'm surprised more of these aren't obvious throwaway addresses– newulmtel and fewpb are both small ISPs based out of state. Yourfirstname@smallMinnesotainternetprovider.net isn't the height of anonymous online intimidation. Not that I would expect somebody sending actionable threats to legislators to really think their actions through, but these seem like the type of folks to at least think about the possibility of retaliation via black helicopter.
perhaps. 3 are on Windsor's list twice so they sent more than one
This would be my email:
Your email account was recently used to send crude, vile emails to a lady representing us in the CO state senate. Perhaps the neighbor hacked your wifi to access your email, perhaps someone else in your household inappropriately used your account. Nonetheless the following is required:
Send an email apologizing for the previous email(s), copy me with your email so I will know you have carried this out
Sell all your belongings. Donate the proceeds to the CO Democratic Party
Notify me of your employer's name and your address so I may warn them of your activities
Move to Texas or North Dakota
In the meantime please do not carry out any violence against your family. Get some help
OK.. So rightie apologists don't work weekends. Surely we'll be hearing from you on Monday. Let me guess. It will be some version of …. we don't approve the language but you have to understand how you freedom hating libruls have driven passionate freedom lovers to use it and besides, Diana Degette is a moron.
Hey, I think I just saved our usual rightie apologists a lot of trouble. Does that mean I'm going to get a check?
On the other hand…
Large email provideres (like msn) have policies that might get these folks TOS'd if someone complains…
They are prohibited from using the service to send threatening or intimaidating emails.
It's Monday and still crickets from the usual apologists. What gives? Can't you all think of a way to claim that a threat to use a knife to remove a woman's heart vaginally featuring the apparently ever popular rightie preferred slur, the "c" word, is really the fault of freedom hating liberals pushing poor passionate liberty lovers over the edge without sounding like horrible human beings?
Even you folks can see that Degette's dumb remark and subsequent even dumber non-apology apology, being stupid rather than utterly vile, aren't sufficient to use in the usual look over there, Johnny did it too response?
Official spin dispenser empty?
An iota of shame?
OK. That last one does seem ridiculously unlikely.
What…you been drinking already?… this early?
Just a wild idea.
Interesting that nearly all of these are to Hudak. Why does the right insist on targeting her this way? She's term-limited, for crying out loud. Are they just upset at losing "rising star" Lang Sias (who never lived up to his hype in the first place) to Hudak?
Also interesting: These aren't exactly her constituents. I traced one to Massachusetts and one to Cheyenne, Wyoming. (The latter is a Chiefs fan, so his opinion is invalid regardless.) Another, from Conway, Arkansas, is an interesting case — she wrote from her work email, from which she also sent a letter to her local energy utility pleading with them to have some compassion for struggling families in raising their rates during the hot summer months, when air conditioning is needed by the elderly and ill.
Who or what is provoking these out-of-state activists–at least one of whom seems to be a generally kind and loving person–to such venom? They didn't get Senator Hudak's gmail address from divine inspiration, and I doubt out of state voters sit around Googling Colorado legislators' email addresses for shits and giggles. I place the blame for these nasty emails squarely on the in-state individuals and organizations who traffic in email blasts inviting non-constituents to send angry emails to individual legislators.
@PCG Good to see you return
And making astute observations.
Agreed. Good post. Keep digging…
And it would be a great step if we could not only name the group or groups who are instigating this, but also the R legislators who back them, or at the very least, benefit from them.