As KDVR FOX 31’s Lanie Lee Cook reports, yesterday Gov. Jared Polis issued a disaster declaration covering four counties hit by severe storms on Wednesday:
Gov. Jared Polis issued the verbal declaration for Lincoln, Elbert, El Paso and Washington counties. Severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings were in effect into Thursday night as weather systems moved across the state.
Thursday brought a second consecutive day of severe weather, adding to weeks of rain that have affected property all over the Front Range…
Shortly before Gov. Polis issued this declaration for the specific areas impacted by Wednesday’s severe weather late yesterday afternoon, a tornado passed directly through the southern Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch doing a considerable amount of fresh damage. The disaster declaration issued for Lincoln, Elbert, El Paso and Washington counties came after the damage in these areas was able to be assessed, a process that obviously takes a little bit of time. But local Republicans led by former Colorado GOP chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown saw what they thought was an opening, and jumped head-first into completely baseless allegations of political favoritism:
The accusation that conservative Douglas County was somehow being slighted by Gov. Jared Polis in a time of need quickly spread among area Republican elected officials:
Again, the disaster declaration issued yesterday was related to storm damage on Wednesday, and it’s necessary to assess the damage from yesterday’s tornado before the incident receives a disaster declaration of its own. As for the sinister allegation that Polis is playing politics with disaster relief, 9NEWS’ Kyle Clark had the conclusion you’ve probably already reached:
As far as faux outage goes, this example isn’t particularly sophisticated, but it might have the intended effect if people don’t know the covered counties are *more* conservative than DougCo and the disaster declaration was for the previous day’s damage. https://t.co/14yeHUuzS4
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) June 23, 2023
If Polis was out to make conservative counties suffer, obviously El Paso County would top the list! In fact any of the counties subject to yesterday’s disaster declaration would be. Fortunately for everyone, Ron DeSantis-style retaliation is not how Gov. Polis does business. The latest word is that pending the assessment of damage from the Highlands Ranch tornado, a disaster declaration may be issued for Douglas County as well. State emergency management officials actually tried to intervene with Kristi Burton Brown on Twitter last night, patiently explaining how the disaster relief process is…well, a process.
They needn’t have bothered, KBB didn’t want to hear it:
In the end, what we have here is Colorado emergency management officials including the governor doing the essential work of governing, versus ankle-biters who have nothing to offer but falsehoods and presumptions of bad faith. There’s no “working across the aisle” with endlessly quarrelsome people whose only goal is to turn every interaction into a wildly acrimonious face-off for political points.
Especially, as in this case, when they don’t know how anything works.
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Huh … could have SWORN that KBB said she had a different calling:
She’s not admitted in Colorado, only in California and the federal courts here. So if she’s going to litigate TABOR cases in Colorado, she probably should get herself admitted here. Though I suspect she isn’t doing any real legal work on TABOR, as there are actual Colorado-licensed attorneys who are much better qualified than her to litigate such cases.
What’s really interesting is that the right wing itself is making an end run around TABOR, by shifting property tax rate-setting authority to county commissioners. A new law signed by Polis, 23-108, gives commissioners that authority if they vote to have it.
Teller County and another Colorado county are doing that.
I asked Negev if he sees this as a conservative win in the culture wars: ( Which schools get funded? Which districts get fire relief? Which types of housing get tax breaks?) . But Negev has been unusually silent on this.
We’ll probably have to wait for comment from Negev until a left or moderate Board of Commissioners obtains that tax-rate setting authority. Then I think we’ll see outrage as never before: “How dare they infringe our rights!” “Soros Stooges!” Antifa Overreach!” etc.
It's not as conservative as it once was, Krissy. Ask State Representative Bob Marshall (D-Douglas County).
There's the problem, right there, LB. DougCo isn't conservative enough. He was rewarding those counties to prove he was not playing favorites among the right-wingers.
What a tell. They accuse Polis of retaliating in an emergency situation because, of course, it would the first thing they would do. Maybe, just maybe, this is why they aren’t in power in Colorado???
And ironically, he is giving state assistance to Elbert and Lincoln Counties which make Douglas County look like San Francisco.
This, after signing the first farmer right to repair legislation in the country in April, which helps a ton of Colorado farmers in a very meaningful way. But it's a war on rural Colorado, or something.
Having said that, who is really seeking to unite and who is seeking to divide? Hmmm…
I wonder if they know it was Brianna Titone who carried that bill? I imagine it'll chap their hides to find themselves indebted to (gasp!) a transwoman. Aren't they all evil predators?
It's like they think our Governor's name is Ron DeSantis.
They view everything through the mantra of their Dear Leader: What's in it for me?
I have been thinking about this. Perhaps the rapid demise of the Colorado GQP has something to do with a growing disenchantment among Colorado voters with lying liars and the phony politics they are trying to sell.
Maybe Colorado voters are slightly more aware of the mendacity inherent in Republican politics, than are the electorates of, say, Alabama or South Carolina.
She's a Republican; facts don't matter only stirring up the two minute hate.
Shouldn’t she be wasting her time doing something else? Like another fertilized egg amendment ballot initiative?
That's in the works, isn't it?
Or maybe KBB can go back to heading up the militia group.
Well, she is making Dave Williams appear partially sane, by comparison.
Hmmm.
Isn't disaster relief redistribution of wealth? Shouldn't they "pick themselves up by their bootstraps"?
Have conservatives turned soft?
Their veneer of toughness has become a lot thinner.
You can see the decay just below the surface.
Bootstraps are for brown people.
The origin of the term was to portray an impossible situation. Nobody could pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It was considered a dumb idea back then. Perhaps the term could be rephrased to say that "They should be able to grift like Trump until they had enough money to rebuild without that dastardly government getting in the way."
I like the metaphor of “lifting a manhole cover with your head” ( while standing on the ladder in the manhole. As someone who actually worked in manholes as a cable splicer for Mountain Bell, I can feel that metaphor in my muscles.)
It was used as a metaphor to explain how hard envisioning a new society, new reality, alternative viewpoint was for early feminists, or really for any progressive people trying to create and live by a new paradigm.
Her quasi smile looks like she is in a semi-permanent state of constipation. Is it a grimace or relief?