Rep. Lauren Boebert Backstory from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
Source: The Denver Post
“When I met her and spent some time with her, I saw that she was a rock solid patriot with guts and grit and charisma,” KNUS host Randy Corporon said.
“She’s unique in her ability to articulate, she’s attractive and she wears that gun on her hip, which sends a message.”
Source: The Denver Post
Soon after the campaign started, the public found out just how far to the right Boebert is. She rallied with members of extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and American Patriots III%.
ABC News recently found that Sherronna Bishop — a former top aide to Boebert who, the campaign said, is no longer on staff — had been openly supportive of the Proud Boys.
Boebert has said she’s not a believer in QAnon, but the month before the primary, she said of the fast-spreading tangle of conspiracy theories, “I hope that this is real. … Because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values.”
Source: The Denver Post
Coloradans should pass on putting this “right-wing lunatic” into Congress
The circus has officially come to Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Entering stage right, and I mean, far right, is Republican nominee Lauren Boebert.
This week I received a fundraising letter from Boebert, which includes a picture of her with a pistol strapped to her side and her arms folded over as if she is running for county sheriff or maybe congressional class clown.
Her letter looks as if it is ripped out of the Trump campaign playbook. It contains all of the dog whistle trigger words like socialism, “left-wing lunatics” and AOC’s Squad, that get far-right Republicans fired up to write checks. Not once does it mention her opponent by name.
Boebert brags about defeating five-term incumbent Congressman Scott Tipton, who she previously criticized for being in bed with the Squad and not being conservative enough.
She attacked Tipton in the primary for failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which currently protects approximately 300,000 people with pre-existing conditions in the district.
Boebert is referring to a House resolution sponsored by U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat who represents Boulder in Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District.
That resolution would allow federal coronavirus relief funds to go to local governments with populations under 500,000 — in other words, every local government in Tipton’s largely rural 3rd Congressional District.
Congressman @ScottRTipton is a great supporter of the #MAGA Agenda! He fights for your #2A rights and the Border Wall. Scott is working hard for Colorado and has my Complete and Total Endorsement!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019
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Colorado voters knew Lauren Boebert had a criminal record and that she obtained a GED when they cast their ballot for her.
It’s not as though any of this is a surprise to those who entrusted her to public office, against our express advice in an editorial endorsing Boebert’s November opponent.
Speaker Pelosi on the need for truth and trust in Congress from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
Source: Colorado Pols
Boebert’s lack of education, obtaining her GED literally months before winning the GOP primary, is perfectly fair to point out–especially in the context of the fundamental lack of understanding Boebert regularly displays about how American government works.
It is not “demeaning” to anyone but Lauren Boebert to suggest that she is not educationally qualified to serve in Congress.
And the only way that would change is if someone else ran for Congress with a similarly profound lack of qualifications.
And then the argument would apply to them too.
That’s not “elitism.” It’s honesty.
As for the “sexualized photos” of Boebert’s that her critics are supposedly “circulating?”
We’ve faced some criticism from readers for using photos of Boebert posing with her guns like the one you can see here.
This is an undated but clearly staged publicity shot for Boebert’s restaurant, and we’ve never seen any indication that Boebert is embarrassed by or regretful of these photos.
There’s not a single such photo of Boebert we’ve seen that does not appear to be intended for public release.
And that means it’s silly to use them in a ploy for sympathy.
Boebert knows exactly what she’s doing, just like everyone who uses these photos does.
They get traffic.
Those images are part of Boebert’s rise as much as any other factor, and to deny that is Pollyannish.
As Boebert’s novel bellicosity was catalyzed from asset to career-threatening liability in an instant during the Capitol insurrection, a defensive reaction to excesses among the blowback she has in general earned by her own actions was inevitable.
But in our desire for civility, a quality defended nowhere more zealously than newspaper editorial boards, it’s a mistake to pull punches that very much need to be landed…
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Source: The Denver Post
The question is whether Rep. Lauren Boebert violated the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone from holding federal office who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Her words in public fall short of calling for insurrection, although her live tweets about the secure location of House members during the attack — “We were locked in the House Chambers” she wrote followed shortly by “The Speaker has been removed from the chambers” — do raise questions.
https://www.postindependent.com/search-results/?q=Lauren+Boebert&range=2020-01-22
Boebert has repeatedly said that was not her intent, pointing out that news outlets also were reporting the location of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
We were unable to find instances of where that occurred, but others’ bad behavior doesn’t excuse her bad behavior or explain the strange tweets.
Other members of the House have said that they were specifically instructed not to share their location in the building.
Looking For Nancy Pelosi from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
“Today is 1776″… “The Speaker has left the chambers.” – @laurenboebert from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
Madame Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now! @laurenboebert of the Capitol from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
the QAnon Shaman from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
Lauren Boebert on QAnon: I hope this is real from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
Source: CNN Call out Trump’s Big Lie
Ten House Republicans voted to impeach the President, acknowledging his role in inciting violence.
But many, citing the President’s speech during his “Save America Rally” moments before the riot began, claimed there was no evidence of incitement and that the President was just doing his patriotic duty by encouraging his supporters to use their voices.
And, as they argued against impeachment, they disingenuously claimed that it was in the interest of healing the country’s divide.
But lost in the debate was the root cause — the big lie and who was telling it — that set off the chain of events leading to the ransacking of the Capitol and the death of five Americans:
The baseless claim that Trump had the election stolen from him by a grand conspiracy led by everyone from the Democrats, George Soros and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, remains the primary source of domestic discord and potential future violence and political chaos.
Colorado Sun: In the political environment nurtured by the Trump administration, seekers of truth — like academics, serious journalists, intelligence-agency personnel and scientists — have been attacked simply because facts unavoidably collide with the alternative reality created in the White House and amplified by cronies in Congress and the propaganda media.
Honoring the truth is a fundamental value of our culture, one of the first virtues taught by our parents, and it is enshrined by Judeo-Christian religions:
“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are His delight.” (Proverbs 12:22).
“All liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8).
How can we combat liars? Start by learning how to tell facts from fiction.
Sounds simple, but crafting conspiracy theories has become an art, in which a few facts are thrown into a concoction of lies and half-truths to create false or misleading narratives which may appear reasonable.
Thank you, Mr. President ❤
Amplification by social media, as well as by corrupt politicians and their propaganda machine, make them widely available…
New Colorado congresswoman Boebert has history of associating with militias
Speaker Pelosi on the insurrectionists: “There is no question that there were members in this body who gave aid and comfort to those, with the idea that they were embracing a lie, a lie perpetrated by the president.”
“There will be prosecution if they aided and abetted an insurrection.”
New Colorado Congresswoman Boebert has history of associating with militias
Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R) bragged about the militia.
And this month, her supporters stormed the Capitol (the Trump Insurrection).
“Today is 1776″… “The Speaker has left the chambers.” – @laurenboebert from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
She’s scrubbed away evidence of those ties.
Source: 9News, January 18, 2021
DENVER — In December 2019, fresh into her campaign to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Lauren Boebert posed for a photo with a group of gun rights advocates in front of the Colorado state Capitol.
Behind her, four men flashed gestures with three fingers, a hand signal associated with the Three Percenters, an extremist militia group.
Lauren Boebert on QAnon: I hope this is real from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
That photo recently resurfaced, with some people falsely claiming it was taken outside the U.S. Capitol before a violent insurrection on Jan. 6. Fact-checkers very quickly dispelled that misinformation.
But the photo represents part of a pattern of Boebert’s interactions and rhetoric surrounding militias and other extremist groups.
This past weekend, a Woodland Park man was arrested for assaulting a police officer during the insurrection. Investigators wrote that Robert Gieswein, 24, had an apparent connection with the Three Percenters group, along with running his own paramilitary group called the Woodland Wild Dogs.
In November 2018, Gieswein posted a photo of himself and three other men posing outside Boebert’s Shooters Grill in Rifle, seen in a screenshot obtained by a Daily Beast reporter before Gieswein’s account was deleted following the federal charges.
All four of the men are flashing the same hand signal, and Gieswien appears in the photo holding a rifle.
The staff at Shooters Grill open carry firearms, a move encouraged by Boebert, a fervent supporter of gun rights.
RELATED: Woodland Park man turns himself in, faces charges in connection with insurrection at US Capitol
Three Percenters refer often to the American Revolution comparing modern day government to the tyrannical British government.
They advocate for resistance to federal government policy they deem unconstitutional.
Several Three Percenters have been arrested for roles in the capitol insurrection.
On her Twitter feed, Boebert often uses rhetoric friendly to the cause.
In May, after armed militias stormed the Michigan state Capitol, Boebert tweeted calling the state’s Democratic governor an “outright tyrant” who shouldn’t be in power.
Whitmer should not be in power. She’s become an outright tyrant.— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) May 15, 2020
A month later, Boebert tweeted the phrase “I am the militia.”
I am the militia. #2A #WeThePeople— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) June 14, 2020
And on Jan. 6, the day violent rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Boebert tweeted “Today is 1776,” a phase overheard as some rioters entered the building.
Today is 1776.— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 6, 2021
The congresswoman has since condemned the violence inside the Capitol that day.
“Everyone in a leadership role has to watch their words and counter some of the false narratives out there, but also to make sure that they’re not associating with or accidentally even condoning these ideas,” said Rachel Nielsen, executive director of the Colorado Resilience Collaborative, a prevention and intervention effort at the University of Denver aimed at countering violent extremism.
After questions surfaced about Boebert’s posed photo with Three Percenters from 2019, the congresswoman deleted it.
“It’s not enough to just not associate with the people,” Nielsen said. “I really think we need people who are willing to say that these things are inaccurate and even the core beliefs are inaccurate.”
9NEWS asked to interview Boebert about these associations with militia groups, but her office hadn’t responded to that request Monday evening.
RELATED: Lawsuit filed over Rep. Lauren Boebert’s blocking constituent on Twitter
RELATED: Report: Rep. Lauren Boebert’s comms director quits after just days on the job
Rep Sherrill describes how her military training taught her to look for things that were out of place from profesorbaker on Vimeo.
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Insight into Boebert’s effectiveness
Opinion Opinion | May 18, 2020
This week we were given some tremendous insight into the effectiveness of Lauren Boebert if she were to become our 3rd CD congresswoman.
Instead of showing us her abilities to work directly with Gov. Polis to achieve a real solution for all restaurateurs in Garfield County, we were given a front row seat to how inept she really is.
Lauren, in typical fashion, chose the path of ignorant and self-serving defiance.
On full display was her inability to work within government to actually solve a problem.
Certainly she will be applauded by her cronies for standing up to the “man,” but in a way that showed complete and total disregard for commissioners and the safety and well-being of her neighbors.
So while the bully girl ranting, the sexy poses for the camera and a toy gun on her hip help get press for her latest political stunt, Lauren’s “Fem Fatale” attitude coupled with her complete void of leadership skill will never accomplish anything benefiting us in Washington, D.C.
Another Odd Day in the Republican Qaucus
10 by: Colorado Pols January 21, 2021 at 2:39 PM MST
UPDATE #2: This would seem to confirm that Rep. Boebert is indeed strolling around on the House floor with a handgun.
If Members of Congress won’t take a stand for our Constitutional rights in DC, you can bet they won’t take a stand back at home either. https://t.co/PRmVNrSEDP
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 21, 2021
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UPDATE: For the full sensory experience, we recommend reading this post while listening to this music in the background.
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There has been much discussion lately about the fate of the QAnon conspiracy true believers and whether or not their lunacy can survive the reality of a post-Trump world.
Some QAnon leaders are even advocating that maybe it’s time to “go back to our lives as best as we are able.”
But if you are judging QAnon’s staying power based on the actions of its adherents in elected office — most notably Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado’s own Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert — you’ll be interested to know that crazy isn’t taking the day off following the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
First, here’s Rep. Greene declaring with no attempt at explanation that she has filed Articles of Impeachment to rid the country of President Biden:
I just filed Articles of Impeachment on President @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/mcwEEkKiHL
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) January 21, 2021
Rep. Greene was recently locked out of her Twitter account because of her commitment to spewing falsehoods, so perhaps her lack of detail on filing “Articles of Impeachment” is her way of not spreading more misinformation via her social media accounts.
It could also be that Rep. Greene can’t actually articulate a reason for wanting to impeach someone who is only now spending his first full day in the White House.
We’re going to go with “C: Both” as our answer for now.
Lest she be upstaged by her fellow QAnon believer, Boebert made her own stand for freedumb this afternoon:
House Republican Lauren Boebert now sets off the metal detector and refuses to comply with US Capitol Police, waking into the chamber. USCP not making a big deal but $5,000 fine comes out of member’s pay.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 21, 2021
Boebert was not alone in perpetuating this stunt.
Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs — whose own brothers recently called on him to resign and who tried to get former President Trump to pardon him for inciting insurrection –also refused to stop for Capitol Police officers at a security checkpoint. Take that, communists!
Members of Congress earn a salary of $174,000 per year; some quick math tells us that Boebert can continue this stunt roughly every day until she runs out of money sometime in September.
In a not-unrelated story, Boebert is using her Facebook page to plead for donations for herself her campaign account, which she has already been using as her own personal slush fund.
WWG1WGA, or whatever.
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Wadhams: Tipton ignored the thunder in Colorado’s 3rd District then lightning struck
Source: The Denver Post
By Dick Wadhams | Guest CommentaryPUBLISHED: July 8, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. | UPDATED: July 8, 2020 at 8:12 a.m.
While the Democratic race for the U.S. Senate dominated our recent primary, a thunderstorm was roiling in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District and, indeed, lightning struck on election night.
Congressman Scott Tipton, a respected-conservative-10-year-incumbent Republican who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, was defeated by a young businesswoman and gun rights activist from Rifle, Lauren Boebert, in one of the biggest political upsets in decades.
The last time an incumbent member of Congress from Colorado was unseated in a primary election was in 1972. Legendary Democratic Congressman Wayne Aspinall of Palisade, who was first elected in 1948 and known for funding western water projects as the powerful chairman of the House Interior Committee, was defeated by a college professor and environmental activist, Alan Merson, who went on to lose in November.
That election came on the heels of an earlier primary upset in 1970 when the 20-year Democratic incumbent, Congressman Byron Rogers of Denver, was defeated by anti-Vietnam war activist Craig Barnes who went on to lose to District Attorney Mike McKevitt, the last Republican to represent the 1st Congressional District.
Those two primary upsets reflected the political turmoil of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when the Vietnam War and later the Watergate scandal turned American politics upside down, including here in Colorado.
Fifty years later, both parties are again seeing ideologically driven primary challenges to long term incumbents and Colorado has now joined the trend.
Boebert vaulted into the public arena by driving 250 miles to Denver with a gun strapped on her hip to publicly confront Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke who had proclaimed “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” in a desperate last-ditch move to revive his failing candidacy. Boebert declared “Hell no, you’re not.”
Shortly thereafter Boebert declared her Republican candidacy for Congress at her restaurant and bar in Rifle, Shooters Grill, where she and her servers wear guns on their hips.
She aggressively sought out interviews on conservative radio shows while traveling the district talking to local media. Seldom has a first-time candidate become as media savvy in such a short period of time as Boebert did.
The coronavirus pandemic forced small businesses like Shooters Grill to shut down. Citing her employees’ livelihoods, she defiantly reopened resulting in a showdown with the Garfield County Health Department where she was again forced to close.
Suddenly, she was the voice of frustrated small business owners and their loyal employees who watched the heavy hand of government cripple or even destroy their life endeavors.
The statewide primary for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate became so heated after former Gov. John Hickenlooper was found by the Colorado Ethics Commission in late May to have violated state ethics laws that the 3rd District Republican primary was under the radar just when Boebert’s campaign was picking up steam.
Tipton had several hundred thousand dollars in the bank but his campaign chose to air very little media and to send very little mail.
Nor did they aggressively use social media to promote his candidacy in the primary. The campaign essentially ceded the field to Boebert who clearly inspired a much higher Republican turnout than in 2018 that benefited her.
In fact, it was the only district in the state where the Republican primary turnout exceeded the Democrats.
The 3rd Congressional District is a sprawling stretch of land from Walden to Craig to Cortez to Pueblo encompassing 29 counties.
Since congressional redistricting in 1981, the 3rd District has largely had the same geographical configuration consisting of most of the Western Slope, the San Luis Valley, and Pueblo County.
Tipton unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Congressman John Salazar in 2006 but he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Colorado House of Representatives in 2007 setting the stage for a rematch in 2010.
Bolstered by the Tea Party wave, Tipton aggressively attacked Salazar’s votes for the Obama economic stimulus bill and Obamacare and he unseated Salazar.
That same year, state Rep. Cory Gardner unseated Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Betsy Markey in the Fourth Congressional District which was the first time since 1964 two incumbent members of Congress were defeated for re-election in the same year.
Boebert will now face former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, a sociologist from Steamboat Springs, who lost to Tipton two years ago.
Mitsch Bush will attempt to campaign as a moderate even though her legislative record is on the left.
She not only supports gun control; she supports the main tenets of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All promoted by Democratic Socialists such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Only two Democrats have won the seat over the past 35 years.
State Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Ignacio unseated Republican Congressman Mike Strang of Carbondale in 1986.
Congressman Campbell was elected to the Senate in 1992 as a Democrat but switched parties to Republican in 1995.
After Republican Congressman Scott McInnis did not seek reelection, Democratic state Rep. John Salazar, a farmer from Conejos County, won the open seat in 2004 while his brother, Attorney General Ken Salazar, was being elected to the U.S. Senate that same year.
Mitsch Bush is certainly not in the same tradition of the two Democrats who have held the seat, Campbell and Salazar, who by any measure were not from the party’s left wing.
Donald Trump carried the 3rd District in 2016 by a 52-40 margin over Hillary Clinton, and he specifically carried heavily Democratic Pueblo as well.
Boebert has two challenges going into the general election:
First, she quite skillfully campaigned on broad national themes for change as the candidate truly in the mold of President Trump despite his endorsement of Tipton.
Boebert must now diligently address issues specific to the rural, natural-resource-dominated district such as public lands, mining, oil and gas production, water rights, agriculture, rural economic development and others.
Scott Tipton and his congressional predecessors were dogged advocates for the district and Boebert will have to go beyond the Trump themes and address these issues which will put her in stark contrast to Mitsch Bush.
Second, Washington, D.C. leftist groups are already unfairly and inaccurately painting her as a right-wing extremist; she must not be pulled into discussions of conspiracy theories such as QAnon.
Finally, a note about Congressman Scott Tipton as he exits the political stage in 2020.
Tipton was one of the youngest delegates to the 1976 Republican National Convention, the last time a national convention’s outcome was in doubt. He voted for former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California over President Gerald Ford who had ascended to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned.
By doing so, the young Tipton put himself in the forefront of a major shake-up and revival of the Republican Party in the aftermath of Watergate. Ford narrowly won the nomination but it set the stage for Reagan’s run in 1980, his overwhelming defeat of President Jimmy Carter, and his very successful and consequential presidency.
Forty-four years later, Tipton would be defeated by another young conservative leader. Politics is nothing if not dynamic, ever-changing, and, yes, ironic.
Dick Wadhams is a Republican political consultant and a former Colorado Republican state chairman.
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