Colorado Republican Party Chair Steve House wrote on Facebook this week that the “media” worked with Democrats to “set up” former Miss Universe Alicia Machado to go after Trump.

House: I’ve gotten a lot of text messages, emails and direct comments about Donald Trump taking on the former Miss universe. She was of course set up in my mind by the Democratic party and the media to go after Trump to potentially distract him, if you will.

When are Republicans going to stop blaming the media for their self-inflicted wounds? I mean, shortly after the debate, Trump called Machado “disgusting” and accused her of having a “sex tape,” whatever that means. Was Trump’s late-night outburst set up by the media as well?

(FYI, KNUS host Craig Silverman claimed to have watched the forementioned sex tape, which does not exist.)

It’s true that Machado was a Clinton media surrogate before Clinton brought her up in a debate. And it looked as if Clinton communications folks had told some journalists that the Machado info was coming.

But of course a campaign is going to leak info to reporters, cooperating with them if you will, but House’s post implies journalists were willfully working with reporters to distract Trump, as if they wouldn’t have done the same to Hillary. That’s not supportable.

If Republicans are blaming the media now, you can only imagine what they’ll be saying after Election Day. You recall how Gardner blamed the media for the 2012 GOP election loss:

Gardner: “When the American people were watching the news with their family at the dinner table, they saw a media that is gung-ho for the President. So not only were we running an election against the President of the United States, we were running an election against TV stations around the country and inside people’s living rooms.

Who knows what the GOP will say this year?

State Sen. Laura Woods (R-Arvada/Westminster) has, in part, focused her political career on trying to stop women from having access to an abortion, even if they were raped. Or even for a teen who was raped by her father.

Woods’ unabashed goal is to eliminate a woman’s right to choose, no matter what the circumstances that led to the pregnancy.

As part of her anti-abortion crusade, Woods wants to eliminate all government funding for Planned Parenthood, the women’s health organization that mostly provides basic family planning and health-care services, but also offers abortion services.

By law, Planned Parenthood cannot spend the money it gets from the federal government on abortions.

Instead, Planned Parenthood uses the tax money to provide low income Medicaid patients with basics like HIV and STD tests, birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and such. None of the money goes for abortion.

So, to translate the political rhetoric into reality as we see it in Woods district, what would de-funding Planned Parenthood mean for Arvada?

If Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Arvada were to lose its government funding, as Woods wants, then about 1,000 low-income patients, covered by Medicaid and another federal health program, who rely on the clinic for cancer screenings, STD tests, women’s health care, and other basics, would have to be turned away, according to Whitney Phillips, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.

“At Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains we believe that people should be able to get the care they need regardless of their zip code,” said Whitney Phillips in an e-mail. “Without access to Planned Parenthood in the Arvada community, nearly 1000 low-income residents would be forced to seek the care they need elsewhere. People come to PPRM for high-quality, non-judgmental, confidential care that patients may not be able to receive otherwise. Planned Parenthood serves a vital role in these communities and may be the first and only place patients can go for the care they need.”

Would these patients be able to get care elsewhere?

No one’s studied the full impact in Colorado if Planned Parenthood lost federal funding, leaving some 80,000 low-income people statewide in need of a new clinic.

In Texas, defunding Planned Parenthood would result in, among other things, a 27 percent increase in births among women who use injectable contraception, according to one study.

In Arvada, health-care providers would likely be able to absorb Planned Parenthood’s patients, according to Marc Williams, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

But it’s not guaranteed. And patients might, at a minimum, have to go to the wider Jefferson County area to get care, Williams wrote me, which spotlights one of a handful of hardships that Arvada residents might face if Woods had her way, and Planned Parenthood were de-funded.

Because low-income people rely on public transportation, the location of a clinic, while theoretically not an insurmountable barrier to access, may in reality determine whether a patient gets health care at all.

Waiting lists or delays at other clinics are also an unknown.

Possibly more serious, especially from the perspective of women seeking birth-control or family-planning services, is the preferences of patients served currently by Planned Parenthood.

Some women seek out Planned Parenthood, specifically, because the organization prides itself on respecting women’s privacy and being sensitive to the medical as well as social needs of patients.

Maybe Woods, who isn’t returning my calls, has an alternative for these women, and other patients, who’d be turned away if Woods succeeded in defunding Planned Parenthood.

If so, she hasn’t talked about it. Her priority appears to be on attacking Planned Parenthood first and worrying about its patients later, if at all.

With control of Colorado’s state senate likely riding on the outcome of Woods’ senate district 19 race against Democrat Rachel Zenzinger, reporters who have access to Woods should find out if she’s thought through the ramifications of her plan to defund Planned Parenthood.

We all know politics is fertile ground for jokes and insults. That’s what we do, like it or not.

It’s hard to say what jokes or insults are appropriate for a political candidate to make, especially now that we’ve experienced Trump. Voters ultimately decide.

But it’s clear that Colorado Republican state house candidate Raymond Garcia has crossed a line by sharing and commenting on the Facebook meme below, which I obtained from a source.

Just because Garcia, who’s challenging State Rep. Susan Lontine in House District 1, has been called out previously for extreme Facebook posts does not mean he should be ignored by reporters. Hence this blog post.

This time, Garcia’s comment on Facebook is, “OMG, this is perfect!!!”

Last month, State Sen. Laura Woods (R-Arvada/Westminster) called Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson and his running mate “gun grabbers,” prompting Johnson’s spokesman to say there was no truth in the comment.

Now Woods has taken to the radio agreeing that her Democratic challenger, Rachel Zenzinger, is a gun grabber as well, even though there’s no truth in this accusation either. (Listen here at 17:45.)

None of the gun safety measures backed by Zenzinger would result in a single gun being taken from a law-abiding citizen. Zenzinger supports criminal background checks prior to gun purchases, while still backing the right of citizens to carry concealed weapons.

Woods, on the other hand, emphasizes her belief that all people should be allowed to openly carry a gun in public, without concealing it and without obtaining a permit.

Woods even opposes requiring background checks for people purchasing guns at gun shows.

The Arvada Republican also opposes a Colorado law limiting the number of bullets a person can load into a gun at one time. Woods wants a gun to be allowed to hold, for example, 100 bullets if the shooter wanted.

KNUS host Chuck Bonniwell should correct the gun-grabber misinformation aired on his Sept. 17 show, not only to clean up his mess from the airwaves, but especially because the Woods-Zenzinger race is so important to the entire state of Colorado.

Woods, who’s a strong Trump backer, won the Jefferson County seat by 650 votes over Zenzinger during the GOP wave year of 2014. If Woods loses, Democrats would likely take over the state senate, giving them control of Colorado government.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s string of attacks against U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman raise questions again about what underlying principles motivate Coffman, who’s a Republican from Aurora.

Tancredo now says he doesn’t know if Coffman has “any real set of principles” at all.

But reporters haven’t really explored the question, about how Coffman can go from being, for example, opposed to all abortion, even for rape, to being okay with some abortions. Or from embracing Tancredo as a “hero” to apparently ignoring Tancredo’s criticism of him. Or from saying the Dream Act is a “nightmare” to allegedly supporting it.

It’s time for reporters to help us understand the set of principles that allow Coffman to act this way.

To illustrate the point, I offer this video.

If you’re paying attention to politics in Colorado, you know that few people have any clue about the most important political contest in the state: the state senate race in Arvada/Westminster, where Republican Laura Woods is battling Democrat Rachel Zenzinger.

But the importance of the race apparently isn’t a good enough news hook for many reporters to give it the coverage it deserves, which is a lot.

So Fox 31 Denver’s Joe St. George gets our collective thanks for assembling a TV story about, as he labeled it, the state senate race in Arvada that could be “the most important race you’re not watching.” That was his hook! How great is that?

“At first glance this race doesn’t look very important,” says St. George in his piece, showing Woods and Zenzinger knocking on doors. “…the most important race you likely haven’t talked about….if Zenzinger wins this re-match, Dems may be in complete control [of state government]….

“While this race dominates the headlines,” narrates St. George, flashing images of Clinton and Trump. “This one in Arvada may end up impacting your life more come next year.”

Political insiders know this, yet coverage of the state’s most important race remains spotty (unless you get behind the paywall of the Colorado Statesman–or read the Colorado Independent), so few people know about it, much less where the candidates stand on the issues. St. George provided a bit of this info on the KDVR Fox 31 Denver website, listing, among others, these comparisons of the two candidates.

St. George reported:

In terms of the issues:

Abortion
Woods: Pro-life
Zenzinger: Pro-choice

Gun control
Woods: Against
Zenzinger: Supports common sense measures

Minimum wage increase
Woods: Against
Zenzinger: Supports

(For background, Woods is against all abortion, even for rape and incest, and, on guns, she’s against all criminal background checks prior to gun purchases.)

As we get closer to the election, more reporters will almost certainly inform voters just how important this race is. Good to see St. George leading the way.

“Good for Mike Coffman.” That’s the first line of an August Denver Post editorial, and, as it turns out, an excellent summation of the The Post editorial page’s singular stance toward Coffman over many years.

I just finished reviewing five years of Post editorials mentioning Coffman, and, of the 43 editorials citing the Aurora Republican Congressman during that period, including two endorsements, he’s been criticized only four times, while being praised in 34 editorials. The newspaper has lauded him mostly on issues related to the Veterans Administation but also on immigration, Selective Service, Afghanistan, marijuana, the federal budget, and more.

Yet, during these five years, Coffman has run seriously afoul with the broad positions/principles taken by The Post: on Planned Parenthood (Coffman voted twice to defund just last year, after putting the organization’s logo in a campaign ad the previous year.) and on immigration (Coffman opposed a 2013 bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill, and he reiterated his opposition to birthright citizenship, even stating so in an interview with a Post editorial writer.).

In 2013, Coffman threatened to shut down the government instead of raising the debt ceiling. Nothing from The Post. And nothing from The Post when Coffman belittled global-warming science in 2013.

The Post was silent in 2012 when Coffman said Obama was not an American “in his heart,” and Coffman strangely told 9News’ Kyle Clark five times:  “I stand by my statement that I misspoke, and I apologize.”

Coffman’s positions over many years have been at odds with stances The Post has taken. But the newspaper has been mostly silent.

To be fair, a more cursory analysis shows that The Post doesn’t criticize U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet much either, and he was also endorsed by The Post.

The difference? Bennet’s policy positions, on the issues mentioned above and others, align very closely with The Post’s, while Coffman’s do not.

You can’t blame Post editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett for much of this, since he took over the job exactly three months ago, but I called him anyway for his take on whether the newspaper deliberately refrains from criticizing Coffman, even when his positions clash with the newspaper’s editorial views.

“I think this is an election year stunt, not a genuine analysis,” he told me, arguing that there was no news hook for my blog post and I was not focusing on The Post’s treatment of other elected officials. “You’re picking Mike Coffman, when Morgan Carroll is struggling. Why is that? It looks like you’re trying to aid Morgan more than you are legitimately trying to critique an institution.”

I explained to Plunkett that as a progressive media critic, I look for instances where news outlets tilt rightward. That’s my bias, and with the election coming up, now is a valid time to analyze The Post’s editorial-page approach to Coffman, which I found inexplicable.

“As a journalist, I think trying to analyze a newspaper’s position over time is very tricky, especially if you only look at one particular angle,” Plunkett told me. “There are all kinds of things that go into thinking about an editorial or an endorsement or what have you.”

“You’re right,” Plunkett acknowledged, “when a newspaper endorses someone, that same board is going to be, understandably, more protective of that person.”

“But one the things I like about our business is, we don’t make friends and we don’t make promises,” he said. “And if someone crosses us, or crosses what we believe is a reasonable line, we call them on it.”

I told Plunkett that he was making my point exactly, that The Post should have been more critical of Coffman over these five years, even if the newspaper endorsed him.

“That’s where you’ve got me in a rough spot, because I wasn’t on the board over the past five years,” Plunkett responded. “I had absolutely zero influence on those pieces.”

I told Plunkett that I understood, and would make it clear I wasn’t blaming him for The Post’s love affair with Mike Coffman. Why would I blame Plunkett? In fact, the pattern even goes back further than the tenure of former editorial page editor Vincent Carroll.

I’m hoping this changes. It’s bad editorial writing. The Post is missing an opportunity to influence Coffman and advance the issues the newspaper cares about.

Why act as a PR mouthpiece for a Congressman, ignoring his faults and blunders, even if you’ve endorsed him? That’s my point.

Local journalist Corey Hutchins reports in his “Colorado Local News and Media” newsletter (subscribe here) on the recent upsurge in ongoing shifts among Colorado political reporters:

“…Denver Post political reporter Joey Bunch announced he was leaving to join The Gazette in Colorado Springs, which is beefing up its statewide political profile. But then, Gazette political reporter Megan Schrader announced she was leaving The Gazette to join The Denver Post’s editorial board. This comes after Jim Trotter’s recent move from Rocky Mountain PBS to The Gazette, and Woody Paige also leaving The Denver Post for the Colorado Springs paper.

If that wasn’t enough, The Colorado Statesman, a POLITICO-like subscription-based trade journal, effectively laid off its editorial department— just 50 days out from the election. I’m told the paper slashed half its budget. Some of the writers will still write, but on a freelance basis, and they’ll focus more on the weekly print paper than on the website, which was frequently updated. Also on the cutting room floor in Colorado: four people at BizWest Media’s Fort Collins and Boulder offices got laid off and the publication will shift to a monthly print schedule.

Whew, head spinning? Let this stop you. Former Denver Post journalist Tina Griego has returned to Colorado after four years on the East Coast, and is now an editor at The Colorado Independent. Check out her first essay about the new, gentrified, displaced Denver she found upon her return.”

No one in their right mind likes Republican Larry Mizel’s “secret” ownership of the Statesman, but cutting veteran news reporters there is obviously bad and sad.

Usually bad journalism news has no silver lining, but this time the good news is Schader’s and Trotter’s moves and Griego’s return. Also, Post Editor Lee Ann Colaciappo informs me that the newspaper is advertising for a political writer and hopes to fill Bunch’s position soon. So let’s be thankful for that.

CORRECTION: An early version of this post incorrectly stated that The Post’s staff of political writers would be shrinking further due to Bunch’s departure. 

Last year’s recall of Jefferson County school board member Julie Williams is widely considered a huge factor in this year’s Arvada/Westminster state senate race that will likely determine whether Republicans retain control of the state senate.

Jefferson Country voters threw out Tea Party conservatives on their school board, with special ire directed at Williams, who was denounced by both sides. Even Dave Kopel, a researcher at the conservative Independence Institute, said Williams had a lot of “foolish” ideas.

The Jeffco vote was overwhelming, with 60 percent favoring the recall, and analysts believe the voters’ anger may carry over to Jeffco candidates aligned with Williams.

Williams has ties to Republican State Senator Laura Woods, who’s defending the Arvada/Westminster Senate District 19 seat against Democratic challenger Rachel Zenzinger.

State Sen. Tim Neville is Williams’ brother-in-law, and Neville is connected to Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which heavily backed Woods’ upset victory in 2014. Woods backed Neville’s failed U.S. Senate bide earlier this year. And Woods and Neville have overlapping connections to other Republican operatives.

Williams makes no secret of her support for Woods, and Woods, who doesn’t return my calls, has apparently accepted Williams’ backing, which makes sense since Woods and Williams align in their support for Trump and guns, among other links.

Here’s Williams’ Sept. 17 Facebook post, obtained from a source, endorsing Woods:

Julie Williams

September 17 at 9:35am ·

Whether you vote top down or bottom up… Vote!
Vote DONALD TRUMP for President
Vote George Athanasopoulos for US Congress
Vote Laura Laura J Woods for State Senator
Vote Susan Kochevar for State Representative
Please tell your friends & neighbors to get out and vote!

Colorado State Sen. Randy Baumgardner has apparently removed a video, which he’d shared on his Facebook page, showing a man frantically firing weapons (apparently a sawed-off shotgun and fully automatic rifles and pistols) that are shady or, at worst, illegal under federal and state laws).

Banned high capacity magaizes are also shown in the video, which you can see here.

Baumgardner is glorifying some of the weapons and magazines used in the two worst gun massacres in Colorado history.

Maybe this occurred to him, because Baumgardner apparently removed the video, called a “Case of Mayhem,” sometime after he shared it over the weekend.

A call to Baumbgardner’s office confirming that he shared the video and seeking his reason for posting it, and an explanation for why it was taken down, was not immediately returned.

The Moffat County Republican, whose Twitter handle is CapitalCowboy, is part of GOP State Senate leadership.

Correction: a previous version mischaracterized ownership of some regulated guns as legal only using loopholes.