On this day in 1985, hockey player Alexander Ovechkin was born. Please celebrate responsibly. Let’s Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.
► Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters returned from a long self-imposed exile and resurfaced finally in Grand Junction on Thursday. As The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports:
Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters appeared at an event in Grand Junction on Thursday night, vowing to fight investigations into her office, chastising the Colorado Secretary of State and asking supporters for donations to fund her legal defense.
“I’m so happy to be home. This is where my heart is and this is where we’re going to take back America,” Peters told a crowd gathered at Appleton Christian Church.
The event, which was livestreamed on the Stand For The Constitution Grand Junction Facebook Page, was billed as a “Stand With Tina” rally and featured a handful of speakers. It was Peters’ first public appearance in Grand Junction after an investigation into her office was announced in August….
…In addition to detailing a website where supporters could contribute to her defense fund, standwithtina.org, Peters also explained some of the events that led the clerk to allegedly tamper with county voting machines, prompting an investigation by the Secretary of State’s Office as well as the District Attorney.
Peters said after the 2020 election, she received calls and emails from hundreds of residents who believed the election was illegitimate, and she began investigating those claims on their behalf.
That’s right. Despite being under investigation by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, the Mesa County DA, the Colorado Attorney General, and the FBI, Peters is back in town and soliciting donations to assist her legal defense for a crime she willingly committed.
► As Jason Salzman of The Colorado Times Recorder writes, the ongoing Republican civil war in Colorado could have major implications as soon as this weekend. Colorado Republicans may vote to opt out of Colorado’s open Primary system so that right-wing activists can more easily control who wins the GOP nomination for any particular office. Many more moderate and rational Colorado Republicans are pleading with their base to not commit what many believe would be political suicide. Here’s more on what might happen Saturday from Axios Denver and The Colorado Sun.
► Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is facing calls for his resignation following a report from the Colorado Attorney General’s office outlining significant longstanding racial biases and excessive force allegations surrounding the Aurora Police Department.
Fox 31 News has more on the response to the AG’s report from the Aurora police officers’ union. The Aurora Sentinel, meanwhile, details the problematic staffing troubles facing the APD:
A record number of Aurora police officers have left the department so far this year, surpassing the number of departures in all of 2020 and further straining an increasingly lean agency, according to data presented to Aurora city council members this week.
A total of 96 officers have parted ways with the Aurora Police Department so far in 2021, with another two staffers expected to split by week’s end, Deputy Chief Darin Parker told members of the council’s public safety policy committee Sept. 16…
…The number of exits among APD ranks through the middle of September already dwarfs totals from last year, when 87 officials left Aurora police — a 61% increase over 2019.
► As Westword reports, the CDC thinks that 62 of Colorado’s 64 counties should have mandatory mask requirements.
► In its “Unaffiliated” newsletter, The Colorado Sun examines the decision by Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl to accept voluntary spending limits:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl’s decision to limit her campaign’s spending in order to rake in larger campaign contributions is pretty rare.
In the 2014 or 2018 election cycles no primary candidates for the top four statewide offices accepted such a limit under the state’s voluntary spending limits law…
…Accepting the voluntary spending limits may be a tacit acknowledgement from Ganahl’s campaign that she’s expecting significant outside support.
But such a PAC could easily make up the spending that Ganahl won’t be able to do. Republican outside groups spent $14.5 million in the 2018 Colorado gubernatorial contest, while Democratic groups spent $10.5 million.
► The Washington Post reports on a new climate warning from the United Nations:
The United Nations warned Friday that based on current action plans submitted by 191 countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is on track to warm by more than 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The findings come as President Biden gathered the world’s biggest emitters to the White House Friday to try reach an agreement among some of them to cut methane — a potent greenhouse gas — 30 percent by 2030.
The U.N. report offered good and bad news as it synthesized the latest projected emissions by individual countries, as forecast in their “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDC) reports.
So far, 113 parties to the U.N. climate accord, including the European Union’s collective of 27 countries, have submitted 86 new, updated and often more ambitious projections. Together these nations account for about half of total emissions. If they carry out their current plans, they are on track to produce a 12 percent reduction in heat-trapping gases in 2030 compared to 2010.
Now, here’s the bad news:
But taken as a whole, the 191 nations that are parties to the U.N. climate accord would contribute a 16 percent increase in greenhouse gases in 2030 than 2010.
► Congressperson Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert (R-ifle) seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in places outside of her Congressional district or her Washington D.C. office.
►The Denver Post elaborates on the attire worn by Gov. Jared Polis and First Dude Marlon Reis for their wedding on Wednesday.
► The Colorado Times recorder reports on disturbing new political discourse from a Catholic leader in Colorado:
A Colorado Catholic Church official is urging conservatives to run for local school board elections to fight critical race theory, LGBTQ+ inclusivity, and other issues that he said make schools a “warzone.”
Last month, Deacon Geoff Bennet hosted the Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon on an episode of his podcast, “Respect Life Radio.”
Kilgannon is a Senior Fellow for Education Studies at the Family Research Council (FRC) and former Director of the Office of Faith and Opportunity Initiatives at the Department of Education under former U.S. President Donald Trump
FRC has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for defaming the LGBTQ+ community “based on discredited research and junk science.” FRC describes itself as “a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to articulating and advancing a family-centered philosophy of public life” and a “biblical worldview.”
Bennet is the Vice President of Parish and Community Relations at Catholic Charities of Denver, the philanthropic arm of the Denver Archdiocese. He’s also a prominent anti-abortion advocate who helped lead the campaign to pass Proposition 115, a 2020 ballot initiative that would ban abortions at 22 weeks of pregnancy in Colorado.
► Denver school board member Tay Andersonexpects to be censured by fellow board members today.
► Worth keeping here for another day: 1 out of every 500 residents of the United States have now died from COVID-19.
► As Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times reminds us, there’s no debunking claims of voter fraud because the people who believe in it aren’t interested in facts or logic.
► This week on The Get More Smarter Podcast…just, what a fun podcast (this joke makes more sense if you listen to the first few minutes of the show):
Don’t forget to give Colorado Pols a thumbs up on Facebook and Twitter.
6 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Friday (Sept. 17)”
re: Denver school board member Tay Andersonexpects to be censured by fellow board members today.
Going to be interesting to see how the censure is written — as the majority of the alleged violations “could not be substantiated” because the person making them refused to provide ANY corroboration. So, he’s being censured for online flirting with someone until he found out how old she was, stuff he did before he was a member of the Board, and he”made social media posts that were intimidating toward witnesses.”
No word on any resolution by the Board about the woman who insisted Anderson assaulted 62 teens.
Mary Katherine Brooks Fleming is the worst kind of publicity seeking opportunist; she has a business as a running coach, and another as a speaker/ consultant / expert on sexual assault.
She was on the 2020 Board of Directors of the Blue Bench, which is a legitimate sexual assault victim advocacy organization, and promoted her association with Blue Bench when she testified before the legislature about the supposed “62 victims of Tay Anderson”. She’s no longer on Blue Bench’s BoD- probably because of her grandstanding.
She has a criminal record of public intoxication in several cities.
I’ve looked her record up; anyone willing to drop $10 on one of the background check sites can find the same information. The ILG report, linked below, found her not to be a credible witness ( she is “Reporter 1” in the report).
All the publicity around the accusations against Tay Anderson clearly helped Brooks-Fleming’s name rec for her second business: speaker / consultant on the topic of sexual assault. She harmed not only Tay Anderson, but also the public perception of youth seeking DACA relief; her assertion was that 62 undocumented people and DACA recipients came to her Washington Park home to tell her about these accusations against Anderson.
It leaves the impression that undocumented people are timid and afraid to talk with the mandatory-reporting adults in schools, with whom they would be in daily contact: the teachers, counselors, nurses, and administrators who would have had no choice but to inform authorities of the accusations, along with victim’s identities.
I think that Brooks-Flemings’ publicity stunt also harms actual victims of sexual violence – by making such a preposterous accusation, she undermines the hard-won culture-war ground of believing women survivors speaking about their assaults.
There is no evidence, after almost 6 months of investigation, that any sexual assaults on students happened at Anderson’s hands. There is no evidence that 62 undocumented survivors came to Brooks-Fleming with anonymous accusations.
DPS hired an investigation firm, ILG, which interviewed Tay Anderson, who has always denied all charges. But it’s hard to actually investigate when there are no victims and no evidence.Gazette’s shameful yellow-journalism “reporting” notwithstanding, there has never been any evidence backing Brooks-Flemings’ lies.
Here is ILG’s report. The findings, on page 20 of the 96 page document, substantiate that Tay Anderson was a typical 18 – 20 year old knucklehead that tried awkwardly to come on to females of his own age, whether or not his advances were welcomed.
That happened when he was neither a DPS employee, nor a School Board member.
All other accusations were found “unsubstantiated” in the report.
Not that hard to understand, and nothing to do with “wokeness”./ The right wing has made accusing Anderson into a cause celebre; Boebert and half the GOP politicians in Colorado have tweeted about it.
Hence, when ginned- up conspiracists come to DPS School Board meetings complaining about mask mandates or Critical Race Theory, they are just as likely to yell about the supposed “rapist” on the DPS board. Anderson, a noted proponent of equity in education, was a convenient target.
My theory is that, by pushing Anderson to resign under an (undeserved) cloud of suspicion, they could have created another vacancy on the Board that a conspiracist could run for.
So censuring Anderson for his long-ago dating behavior at least gives the board some cover from the RWNJ zealots. It’s still shameful.
No doubt even the Boebert dupes won’t pass up a free meal at some leftist’s expense, kw. But the Banzai charge came from the left. The censure vote was 6-1 (only Anderson voting no) and endorsed by such non-Qs as the once sensible Denver Post. Even the only Black woman on the board ganged up on him.
Like the recent disgrace at the U of Wisconsin, once one of these woke feeding frenzies starts, the left stops caring about facts and the RWNJs never did.
Anderson went too far in comparing himself to the murdered Emmett Till, though. He’s more of a Colorado Dreyfus Lite.
It was, however, never a case of 62 women lying. It was apparently one woman lying about 62 nonexistent complaints.
So, who does he see to get his reputation back?
Not the slumgullion Denver Post, that’s for damn sure.
I too have not been closely following this story but it does seem incongruous that he should be censured for something he did not do.
And as for the allegation(s) against him, weren't we told during the Kavanaugh hearings that anytime a person alleges sexual harassment or sexual assault, they need to be heard believed?
September 17, 2021 11:07 AM UTC
6 Comments
re: Denver school board member Tay Anderson expects to be censured by fellow board members today.
Going to be interesting to see how the censure is written — as the majority of the alleged violations “could not be substantiated” because the person making them refused to provide ANY corroboration. So, he’s being censured for online flirting with someone until he found out how old she was, stuff he did before he was a member of the Board, and he”made social media posts that were intimidating toward witnesses.”
No word on any resolution by the Board about the woman who insisted Anderson assaulted 62 teens.
Mary Katherine Brooks Fleming is the worst kind of publicity seeking opportunist; she has a business as a running coach, and another as a speaker/ consultant / expert on sexual assault.
She was on the 2020 Board of Directors of the Blue Bench, which is a legitimate sexual assault victim advocacy organization, and promoted her association with Blue Bench when she testified before the legislature about the supposed “62 victims of Tay Anderson”. She’s no longer on Blue Bench’s BoD- probably because of her grandstanding.
She has a criminal record of public intoxication in several cities.
I’ve looked her record up; anyone willing to drop $10 on one of the background check sites can find the same information. The ILG report, linked below, found her not to be a credible witness ( she is “Reporter 1” in the report).
All the publicity around the accusations against Tay Anderson clearly helped Brooks-Fleming’s name rec for her second business: speaker / consultant on the topic of sexual assault. She harmed not only Tay Anderson, but also the public perception of youth seeking DACA relief; her assertion was that 62 undocumented people and DACA recipients came to her Washington Park home to tell her about these accusations against Anderson.
It leaves the impression that undocumented people are timid and afraid to talk with the mandatory-reporting adults in schools, with whom they would be in daily contact: the teachers, counselors, nurses, and administrators who would have had no choice but to inform authorities of the accusations, along with victim’s identities.
I think that Brooks-Flemings’ publicity stunt also harms actual victims of sexual violence – by making such a preposterous accusation, she undermines the hard-won culture-war ground of believing women survivors speaking about their assaults.
There is no evidence, after almost 6 months of investigation, that any sexual assaults on students happened at Anderson’s hands. There is no evidence that 62 undocumented survivors came to Brooks-Fleming with anonymous accusations.
DPS hired an investigation firm, ILG, which interviewed Tay Anderson, who has always denied all charges. But it’s hard to actually investigate when there are no victims and no evidence.Gazette’s shameful yellow-journalism “reporting” notwithstanding, there has never been any evidence backing Brooks-Flemings’ lies.
Here is ILG’s report. The findings, on page 20 of the 96 page document, substantiate that Tay Anderson was a typical 18 – 20 year old knucklehead that tried awkwardly to come on to females of his own age, whether or not his advances were welcomed.
That happened when he was neither a DPS employee, nor a School Board member.
All other accusations were found “unsubstantiated” in the report.
Help me out. I admittedly have not followed this closely but the sequence seems to be:
1. A 23-year old Black School Board member is accused of assaulting 62 girls and women.
2. An expensive and exhaustive investigation establishes that the actual number of victims was, ahem, zero.
Nada. Zilcheroney.
None!
3. Accused man is censured anyway.
What? It cost so much to build that gallows that it would have been a shame not to have hanged the suspect anyway?
I will never get this woke thing.
Not that hard to understand, and nothing to do with “wokeness”./ The right wing has made accusing Anderson into a cause celebre; Boebert and half the GOP politicians in Colorado have tweeted about it.
Hence, when ginned- up conspiracists come to DPS School Board meetings complaining about mask mandates or Critical Race Theory, they are just as likely to yell about the supposed “rapist” on the DPS board. Anderson, a noted proponent of equity in education, was a convenient target.
My theory is that, by pushing Anderson to resign under an (undeserved) cloud of suspicion, they could have created another vacancy on the Board that a conspiracist could run for.
So censuring Anderson for his long-ago dating behavior at least gives the board some cover from the RWNJ zealots. It’s still shameful.
No doubt even the Boebert dupes won’t pass up a free meal at some leftist’s expense, kw. But the Banzai charge came from the left. The censure vote was 6-1 (only Anderson voting no) and endorsed by such non-Qs as the once sensible Denver Post. Even the only Black woman on the board ganged up on him.
Like the recent disgrace at the U of Wisconsin, once one of these woke feeding frenzies starts, the left stops caring about facts and the RWNJs never did.
Anderson went too far in comparing himself to the murdered Emmett Till, though. He’s more of a Colorado Dreyfus Lite.
It was, however, never a case of 62 women lying. It was apparently one woman lying about 62 nonexistent complaints.
So, who does he see to get his reputation back?
Not the slumgullion Denver Post, that’s for damn sure.
I too have not been closely following this story but it does seem incongruous that he should be censured for something he did not do.
And as for the allegation(s) against him, weren't we told during the Kavanaugh hearings that anytime a person alleges sexual harassment or sexual assault, they need to be
heardbelieved?