Many Republicans, including our own delegation, are none too pleased with President Trump’s comments following his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Given our history with the former communist nation, it’s not surprising for Republicans to be critical of Putin or doubt his word about everything except the weather.

They certainly don’t believe Putin when he says Russia did not try and meddle in our 2016 elections.

Improving relations with Russia is one thing, but it appears Trump went overboard in his foreign diplomacy effort when he said he doesn’t “see any reason why it would be” Russia who did the meddling.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman says Trump shouldn’t have taken Putin’s word at face value, let alone trust Kremlin rhetoric over U.S. intelligence.

“Putin’s Russia isn’t our friend, won’t be an ally and most certainly won’t stop their rogue behavior against our country, our allies and our interests,” Coffman said in a statement.

Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton says there is ample evidence Russia meddled in our elections, and told Trump to hold Russia and Putin responsible.

“Russia has repeatedly violated international law, shown disregard for national sovereignty, engaged in human rights abuses, propped up state sponsors of terror, and fueled global instability,” said Tipton.

Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is sponsoring legislation ordering the State Department to determine whether Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terror.

“I encourage the administration to avoid the mistakes of past administrations in normalizing relations with Russia at zero cost to Putin and his regime. The only ‘reset’ we can have with Russia is when it completely reverses course and begins to act in accordance with civilized norms and international law. Nothing should change as of today – Putin’s Russia is not a friend to the United States.”

Trump is guilty of bad diplomacy, but certainly not treason as some Democrats are screaming.
Ironically, until Trump became president, Democrats were totally enamored with Russia and its communist history.

We think Hell would freeze over before Russia interfered with an American election in order to elect any Republican. It’s more likely they were trying to support like-minded socialist Bernie Sanders over the eventual Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

It’s not surprising that the left-leaning Denverite would pick up on Democratic Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s frequent use of the words “social justice” in his recent speech. It’s frankly probably more surprising that he would use those words given his recent escapades in what some would call social injustice (i.e., sexually harassing his security detail).

What was more noteworthy, however, was Hancock’s commitment to inserting 125 more miles of bike lanes in Denver. From Denverite:

“Hancock announced a plan to accelerate construction of the bike network, adding 125 new miles of bike lanes over the next five years. ‘It’s time our streets learn to share,’ he said.”

So, here is where we feel it necessary to mention that Colorado is not California, except in amount of traffic, possibly. More bike lanes will make traffic worse. It’s not just us saying it. Not to mention, Colorado is a frozen tundra a few months out of the year. So, we install bike lanes and, then, cannot use them for three months? That seems ridiculous.

And, what if you have kids? Are you going to strap your newborn onto your back on the bike ride home? Forget groceries. Forget dry cleaning. Forget hardware store necessities. God forbid you need toilet paper.

We’ve said it a thousand times. Bike lanes are just totally impractical. Just stop with the pandering to the wildly unrealistic in our society.

In case you missed the news on Friday, the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment put the kibosh on fractivsts’ attempts use medical quackery to claim that oil and gas development is harmful to kids.

Here’s the backstory. A mother in Lafayette, Elizabeth Ewaskowitz, had her son’s blood tested for something called “volatile organic compounds” and found her son was in the 85th percentile for benzene. Sounds dire, right?

Not exactly. The CDPHE is asking everyone to take a deep breath. Here is what the CDPHE’s chief toxicologist, Mike Van Dyke, told Denver7 news.

“I think these blood tests are a huge challenge. These blood tests really require really specialized methods. They require really specialized techniques to ensure there’s not contamination. What we’re aware of is really, at the levels we’re talking about … we’re only aware of one laboratory in the country who can analyze consistently at those levels, and that’s the CDC laboratory.”

Reading between the lines here: don’t take your kids to a doctor in a strip mall and expect to have the kind of specialized tests to get an actionable result.

But, hey, fractivists won’t let that get in the way of the narrative they’re trying to spin here.

While Ewaskowitz claims she’s not anti-oil and gas, she also says in the clip, “If it’s not from the fracking, then where?”

The CDPHE rattled off a list of potential places and locations where her son may have come into contact with benzene.

Again, fractivists rarely let science-based facts get in the way of a good narrative.

Net neutrality fans will get a first look Tuesday at U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman’s plan to delay the repeal of certain rules preventing internet providers from offering different speeds and different prices to different customers — based on who can afford what.

On Tuesday of next week I will be unveiling my #NetNeutrality legislation– the ’21st Century Internet Act’…. more to come.

— Rep. Mike Coffman (@RepMikeCoffman) July 13, 2018

Colorado Politics reports Coffman will present his plan during a net neutrality event in Washington, D.C.

We don’t want to get bogged down in technical issues and put you to sleep, but the basic premise is that without net neutrality, not everyone will be equal on the internet when it comes to speed.

Large companies who can afford to pay for faster speeds will get it. The rest of us will have to settle for slower fees at lower rates.

The bill has been anticipated for months. Coffman told Politico in March, “The goal is certainly to preserve the principles of net neutrality but to modernize it by creating a separate title, a new title for broadband.”

Oops, we dumped some techno jargon on you. We’ll just wait and see tomorrow what the whole plan entails, and then translate it into English for you.

Stay tuned.

Colorado Public Radio ventured across the Western Slope recently to push poll interview Mesa County voters on the highly charged issue of children immigration.

Their theme:

“President Trump’s immigration policies — especially the past practice of separating thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border — have divided the country in recent months.”

Looks like Mesa County voters didn’t take the bait, and were clearly able to distinguish between those who immigrate legally, and what happens to those who break the law and enter the country illegally.

“We feel for those kids. We feel for those people. We know they want to come to a better place. But they’ve got to do it the right way,” (Deborah Erbisch) said. “What they are doing is wrong and that they are putting their kids in harm’s way.”

Of course they felt bad for the children who were put in the care of social workers instead of going to jail with their parents to await court hearings.

To the dismay of public radio, Western Slope folks are standing by President Trump’s immigration efforts.

The only Mesa County Republican they could find who was mad at the president is one who no longer even lives there, and didn’t support Trump in the Republican primary.

If the liberal media spent half as much time finding common ground as they do in ferreting out and exploiting differences in policies, we might have already solved many illegal immigration problems and parents would be immigrating legally with their children.

Emboldened after her win against a party primary candidate she later conceded was not even much of a challenge, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette is making a party leadership play to run in the ranks alongside Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.

Ironically, the National Journal reports DeGette might not be much of a challenger, and her own colleagues even doubt she will even follow through on her bid.

It seems the only folks who take DeGette seriously at all are the establishment Democratic voters in the 1st Congressional District who have reelected her for decades.

DeGette isn’t even trying to run a leadership campaign against an actual opponent, she’s just banking on a vacancy in case the world stops spinning and Democrats actually take back control of the House.
According to the National Journal, DeGette is already asking for support if that happens and if Pelosi is voted House Speaker and if Hoyer is voted majority leader.

That leaves a vacancy for the whip position and DeGette wants to be that whip.

DeGette already holds the honorary title of chief deputy whip, and reportedly told the Almanac of American Politics, “If the opportunity arose, I would love to be whip.

“I love to whip!” she continued.

She’s had the opportunity to run for whip before, but then chickened out citing the disruptiveness that an internal leadership struggle might cause for the party establishment.

Sounds like DeGette only wants to be whip if there’s no chance someone will run against her, and in the end all she gets is whipped.

There might be some confusion about who Colorado Rising is. We were confused. Is it an arm of America Rising, the group of political operatives dedicated to doing oppo on left-leaning candidates or a ragtag crew of environmentalists spouting off inaccuracies about the fracking process? The two groups happen to share a name. In this case, it’s the former.

In case you missed the flurry of video ads online from the group yesterday (we can’t seem to escape the online ads) you can view one here. We sat down (virtually) with the group to ask the group’s communications director, Lindsey Singer, a few questions about the new operation.

1) What are you guys doing in Colorful Colorado?

Colorado Rising Action sees that Colorado’s future is at a tipping point. We can either continue to tout an economy and lifestyle that is the envy of the nation, or we will tax and regulate ourselves into becoming mini-California. We will work alongside existing organizations and bring the expertise of America Rising Squared, using tracking, opposition research, and rapid response communications to hold elected officials accountable for their positions.

2) What are the most urgent public policy issues facing Colorado today?

Some of the issues we’re focusing on are energy and the environment, infrastructure, education funding, and opposing government-run health care. We will be closely watching candidates including Jared Polis and Jason Crow and their positions on these issues.

3) Does Colorado Rising plan to be here for the long haul, or is it a short-term project?

We’re planning to have a permanent presence in Colorado. This isn’t about one race or one candidate, it’s about how the policies will affect Coloradans.

4) What’s your favorite Colorado political blooper?

That time in 2014 when Mark Udall doubled down on his proclamation that ISIS didn’t pose an imminent threat and America Rising was there to catch it.

5) Rockies or Broncos?

At Colorado Rising Action we like our Rockies in the summer and our Broncos in the winter, and we’re fans of both year-round!

America Rising has produced some pretty bad-a$$ videos and research in the past, so we’re excited to see what the group will bring to Colorado. Welcome!

The town of Erie must just hate its taxpayers. That’s how we interpret it’s latest political stunt that happened earlier this week, banning fracking from the town until next year. Erie has been part of the oil and gas development fight since the beginning. Currently, Boulder enacted a two-year ban on oil and gas development in mid-May and Erie appears to be following suit.

Unfortunately for Erie’s residents, this new moratorium just opens the city up to potential lawsuits. Previous bans on energy development in locations like Longmont and other jurisdictions were overturned by litigation. Keep in mind, this litigation cost taxpayers thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in the meantime.

Of course, that was before the Colorado Supreme Court set a precedent. Now, enacting a ban on energy development is just reckless.

Then, there is the cost to compensate mineral owners for the government preventing them from developing their property. A recent study published by the Colorado Alliance of Mineral and Royalty Owners, or CAMRO, found that banning oil and gas development could cost cities and counties billions. That would bankrupt local governments. That’s not what radical environmentalists are going for…is it?

Aurora has a winning campaign strategy for persuading voters to give the green light to the city’s practice of issuing traffic fines by using cameras posted at intersections.

They’re not going to tell voters the whole truth — the part where red-light ticketing can be expanded to fine those making illegal turns, speeding, and driving without insurance.

The cameras could also snap pictures of license plates on stolen cars, but other than issuing tickets to the owner of the since-stolen vehicle for traffic violations, we can’t see much good that would do.

If the city puts the issue to voters in the November election, they would only be asked if they want to keep the current red light system. They won’t be bothered about that other stuff, and 9News asked why that is:

“The answer to that question is no because that is going to be totally unrelated to the question. For us to do all of those things with red light cameras would be a major policy change, and that would go through an extended public outreach process,” Now-Mayor Bob LeGare told the station. “Once this is on the ballot, there’ll be some opposition group pointing all of these things out.”

That’s the problem with opposition, they tend to spout off about facts and why they oppose something.

Another year, another attempt by liberals to tax Coloradans to tarnation with Initiative 93, which submitted signatures to get on the ballot . This time, we get in a time machine to 2013, the year that Amendment 66 tanked by a two to one margin. The union proponents behind this measure think that they can fool Coloradans into thinking that the dollars from this initiative will actually reach classrooms so teachers can be paid more (they won’t).

Coloradans were not fools then and we doubt they’ve grown dumber over the years, we suspect they’ve grown smarter. So, when voters said no to a $1 billion tax increase, it’s strange that they’d ok a $1.6 billion tax increase. The Better Schools Coalition turned in 170,000 signatures from each of the state Senate districts, as now mandated, yesterday.

The proposed initiative would raise an additional $1.6 billion by freezing property taxes, which were expected to decrease. The initiative also would increase income taxes on individuals and corporations. The example offered by CBS‘ Shaun Boyd was that if you make $150,000, your taxes would increase by a mere $80, but those who make over $500,000 would see a $42,000 increase. Something doesn’t smell right there. That’s a huge leap.

Nonetheless, this is a really tough ask for voters. The state legislature just gave education the largest funding increase in a decade and the greedy teachers union wants more. Figures.