The liberal media is backsliding into nasty partisan misogyny, again.

First Lady Melania Trump traveled to Texas on Thursday to visit a children’s center housing 55 migrant juveniles who crossed the border illegally, and all she got for her effort was a lousy review on her fashion sense.

Not what she wore to the event, mind you, which we are informed by the media was a pale yellow jacket.

It’s what she wore on the plane that has outraged tongues wagging and the media reflecting on her preferred designers and previous wardrobe choices.

Not only is the jacket outdated from the 2016 collection of a Spanish designer, gasp, but the graffiti writing on the back of the army green jacket read “don’t care, do u?”

If the first lady had pulled up her hair and worn the hood on her head, the jacket she wore on a plane would have read “I really don’t care, do u?”

Oh, the horror of politically correct airplane fashion wear.

It’s almost as bad as when she wore heels on a plane to visit a hurricane cleanup, and stepped off the plane wearing tennis shoes.

Clearly, the first lady, and most women, have different preferences for what they wear for travel on airplanes versus what they wear to a professional event.

Nevertheless, we expect to see equal treatment when U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and a congressional delegation of women travel to the border for their inspection this weekend.

Who is DeGette wearing on the plane? And if it’s last season’s pajama collection by Dolce & Gabbana, we want to know about it, in detail. Because what women wear when they travel is obviously more important to the media than the work they do.

Ever since it was revealed that Jared Polis has been lax on releasing his income taxes, and skipped out entirely on paying taxes for several years, we’ve started to notice a pattern in his campaign platform.

Polis is promising to give voters a lot of free things, only it’s the poor and middle class voters who will actually foot the bill to pay for those free things they may never use, and in fact it will cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

As any democrat will tell you, rich people don’t pay taxes, only the middle class and poor people pay taxes.

And Polis, is rich.

So when Polis promises that if he’s elected governor he will create Medicare for all, and free childcare for all, rational people will ask who is paying for it?

Not Polis. He didn’t even pay taxes from 2001 through 2005.

And what about his 2040 energy plan that will cost a fortune? Not for Polis, he’s rich and can afford it.

We’re not even sure how much money Polis has (see refusal to release income taxes), but some estimates are as high as $200 million.

No wonder he can afford to drop more than $11 million without blinking to buy himself a job that only pays $90,000.

He’s making an investment in the future all right — his financial future.

Numerous excuses are being bandied about as to why Denver had to forfeit its chance to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

The main excuse is the city expected the event to occur in August, and now that the July dates have been announced, it turns out the city is already booked.

God only knows how many hours or days the city spent to submit their 1,000-page bid. It looks like they took everything into account except when the conventions are historically held — before August.

In the entire history of Democratic National Conventions held since 1832, only eight of the events have been held as late as August, once in September.

From the start, Denver had a 86 percent chance of getting the August date wrong.

Denver was completely unprepared for history to repeat itself, and instead booked the city to hold three as-yet secret events for July they say will bring in an expected $45 million boost to the city.

Considering the 2008 Democratic convention brought in an estimated $266 million, this could very well turn out to be the worst economic gamble ever made by the city.

Just admit it, Denver. Your heart was never fully committed to hosting your fellow Democrats in 2020. Most of your voters are still pissed that Bernie Sander was robbed in the last presidential primary.

It must be election season because Democratic Pueblo Clerk and Recorder Bo Ortiz has yet another numbers fail. Ortiz originally reported that 18 percent of Unaffiliated voters were not following directions by sending back two ballots, which invalidates their votes. They only get one ballot just like the rest of us.

Bystanders like 9News’ Kyle Clark found that number to be incredibly high and called it “astonishing” (meanwhile, everyone else on Twitter snickered and said, “well, Pueblo…”).

Today, Ortiz has revised his statement saying that the number will be more like four to eight percent, which is more reasonable. But, damn, Pueblo, the numbers in Denver are like one to four percent. Is this a lack of education on the part of Ortiz or are people in Pueblo really not good at following directions?

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Ortiz has stumbled in his professional duties. Just the first time this election. PeakNation™ will remember the following snafus from the Pueblo Clerk and Recorder’s office over the years:

• The time his office mailed a ballot to a lady who had been dead for over a year
• Failure to lead as President Elect of the Colorado County Clerks Association resulting in voting irregularities and being unprepared for primary elections
• His inability to do simple math or count ballots, going on national TV and exaggerating ballots returned by inactive voters  by almost 200%
• And the night where all eyes were turned on Southern Colorado and Ortiz could neither count ballots nor get his website to run

We joke that Pueblo and Ortiz are incompetent, but it’s kind of not funny anymore.

It doesn’t matter who you are, the news coming from the border is disturbing. It’s a terrible thing when children are separated from parents regardless of the cause or regardless of the fault of the parents. Does this really need to be said?

But Denver City Councilwoman Mary Beth Susman has taken this to new heights (lows?) in comparing this situation to the Holocaust. In doing so, she not only misrepresents the issue, but, more importantly, trivializes the death and torture that the Holocaust brought to millions of Jewish people.

Here’s the exchange with Susman on her Facebook page:

One Jewish woman whose family experienced the Holocaust first-hand had this to say about the comparisons:

“My father z”l was in a forced labor camp where he was starved and beaten daily, and pistol-whipped when he was too weak to work. The work? Dragging boulders up a hill. My grandfather and Uncle Richard were shot to death by Jew-hating Hungarian Nazis. My uncle was a child when he was murdered. My father was on a death march before he was liberated. You know why all this happened? Because they were Jewish.

“That’s not this. That’s not in the same universe as this. Don’t you dare compare this to that.”

We can talk about how challenging this situation is without invoking the Holocaust, which was a totally different thing than what’s happening here. Susman is out of line and owes her Jewish constituents an apology.

 

The Post Independent in Glenwood Springs has bypassed the presumed Democratic frontrunner in the 3rd Congressional District and has instead endorsed lawyer Karl Hanlon for the party primary.

Hanlon grew up on the Wyoming border but now lives in Carbondale and practices law in Glenwood Springs. He also served on the Roaring Fork School Board that includes Glenwood Springs.

So there you have it, local paper endorses local boy for Democratic primary.

The Post Independent passed on fellow Democrat Mitsch Bush, calling her an experienced politician.

They also gave radical socialist Arn Menconi a pat on the back for being a loud voice on social justice issues.

The newspaper is banking on Hanlon’s limited political experience to appeal to 3rd District voters in the general election, who they say, “aren’t as big on political experience and who remain leery of government regulation. When it comes to picking their congressional representative, they’re also inclined to pick someone they can relate to, and who can relate to them.”

The later is very true, and it’s rare that voters in the sprawling 3rd District across the Western Slope can relate to Democrats living in the shadow of Aspen.

We’re not holding our breath that incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton will get the paper’s endorsement in the general election.

The newspaper is not fond of energy production, especially coal and gas, or sharing public lands with anyone except the locals and bears.

In the 2016 election, they endorsed Democrat Gail Schwartz who was defeated by Tipton with 55 percent of the vote. Another five percent went to the Libertarian candidate, and Schwartz lost with 40 percent.

The Colorado Education Association is back to its dishonest m.o. This time, the state’s largest teachers union told its 35,000 members via newsletter that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Johnston received $2 million from Secure Futures Colorado, which sought to reform the Colorado teachers’ pension system.

Calling the attack “completely made up”, 9News’ Kyle Clark set the record straight. Or as much as he could:

We’d like to point out that this is the 1,315th time the teachers union has lied to its members. It’s any wonder why anyone believes anything they say at this point.

We’re not going to vote for Mike Johnston – thanks, buddy, for trying to foist a billion-dollar tax increase on all of Colorado in the epic failure that was proposed Amendment 66 – but the teachers union should be called out for its blatant dishonesty at every opportunity.

Today, the Secretary of State released ballot returns statewide. Honestly, ballot returns in primary races are not that interesting as the contests are between members of the same party, so the number of Democrats vs. Republicans returning ballots doesn’t tell us a whole lot. The one thing it shows is how competitive the primaries are.

For example, if there is a hugely competitive primary in Adams County on the Democratic side, it is likely that the Democratic turnout in Adams will be higher than average. The interesting piece of this reports is the gender breakdown. Whereas gender is more evenly split on the Republican side, female voters are driving turnout on the Democratic side – in general.

Without further ado, here is a breakdown of the ballot returns of a few of the largest counties:

Adams

Democrat: 13,744
Republican: 9,548
Unaffiliated-Rpref: 149
Unaffiliated-Dpref: 241
Total: 30,610

Arapahoe

Democrat: 21,789
Republican: 20,468
Unaffiliated-Rpref: 256
Unaffiliated-Dpref: 498
Total: 54,288

Denver

Democrat: 30,620
Republican: 7,880
Unaffiliated-Rpref: 142
Unaffiliated-Dpref: 590
Total: 49,259

El Paso

Democrat: 14,630
Republican: 31,573
Unaffiliated-Rpref: 509
Unaffiliated-Dpref: 300
Total: 54,890

Jefferson

Democrat: 22,505
Republican: 19,640
Unaffiliated-Rpref: 247
Unaffiliated-Dpref: 408
Total: 53,811

Weld

Democrat: 5,747
Republican: 9,740
Unaffiliated-Rpref: 82
Unaffiliated-Dpref: 81
Total: 19,649

Gov. Hickenlooper is rebelling against his lame-duck status by passing a controversial executive order to adopt California standards for vehicle emissions.

The problem, and there are many, is that Colorado is not California.

We don’t drive little sporty convertibles alongside the ocean, we require four-wheel drive trucks and SUVs to maneuver snowy mountain passes. So, it’s unlikely we can meet that state’s clean air standards.

Hick wants to reduce greenhouse gases by 26 percent in 2025, but measuring that success in terms of how much carbon dioxide is coming from vehicles will be tricky.

About half the planet’s greenhouse effect comes from water vapor, clouds contribute another 25 percent, and the remaining 25 percent comes from carbon dioxide.

Decades ago, vehicles were mandated to switch from carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide to reduce pollution. But we digress.

Carbon dioxide is a benign gas that every living creature emits, so good luck in measuring Colorado’s success. Perhaps Hick can issue another order mandating that everything stop growing or breathing while testing is conducted.

And then there’s just the hypocrisy of the whole thing — using electricity with fossil fuels to power zero emission vehicles.

Like California, we would be on the hook to build hundreds of charging stations for these vehicles no longer paying gas taxes.

And in addition to not paying gas taxes, those vehicle owners will probably want a tax rebate for purchasing their zero-emission, coal-fired car.

This is just one more Hickenlooper clustermuck that an incoming Republican governor will have to fix.

In case you missed the announcement from the Colorado Alliance of Mineral and Royalty Owners, banning oil and gas development or enacting a neverending moratorium on it (looking at you, Boulder) could hurt financially.

The organization found that cities, counties, and even the state of Colorado could be on the hook for billions in order to compensate mineral owners. The study, conducted by Netherland Sewell and Associates, found that the total remaining recoverable oil and gas in the Wattenberg Field, which is composed of parts of Boulder, Weld, Denver, Adams, and Jefferson Counties and more, would be around $179 billion. That means that approximately $26 billion in payments to mineral owners remain.

Ouch.

The folks up in Erie, Boulder, and Longmont had better think very carefully before they ban oil and gas development again. Mineral rights are a real property right, just like your house or any surface land you own. If a government prevents an owner from exercising his or her rights, the owner must be compensated by the government.

That’s a lot of tax dollars collected. We suspect that none of these jurisdictions would have the scratch to make this work. Just a guess.