A Denver Post article yesterday heralded the decision by Americans for Prosperity (AFP) to spend an undisclosed amount of money attacking Morgan Carroll, the Democrat challenging Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora), as a “big boost” for Coffman.

But not necessarily.

As ColoradoPols has pointed out, AFP’s right-wing agenda doesn’t square with the moderate image Coffman promotes of himself. Coffman is trying to run away from his right-wing record, but AFP is widely known as right-wing, and it’s funded by the poster children of the right, the Koch brothers.

The Post quoted Carroll’s campaign manager making this point.

“It’s no surprise that the far right Koch Brothers are desperate to prop up Mike Coffman’s struggling reelection campaign,” said Jennifer Donovan, Carroll’s campaign manager, in a statement. “After all, they share the goal of shilling for the wealthiest and most well connected while turning their backs on the middle-class.”

So AFP’s involvement in the race could backfire and actually help Carroll bring down Coffman, exposing Coffman as the right winger that he is.

It turns out that Coffman scored 100 percent last month on AFP’s scorecard, with a lifetime score of 96 percent.

On its scorecard, AFP trumpets votes of Coffman that are discordant not only with Coffman’s swing district but his carefully cultivated image as a moderate.

Check out those votes here.

So we’ll see how things work out for Coffman and AFP.

Linda Sorenson took the advice of Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee and resigned last week as chair of the Delta County Republican Party.

Sorenson has been embattled since she shared a Facebook meme, first reported on this very blog, comparing Obama to a Chimpanzee.

Asked about the meme in May, Sorenson told me it was a joke and that she didn’t care if “people are offended by it.” Later, Delta Republican Party officials told the Grand Junction Sentinel that Sorenson’s Facebook page had “definitely” been hacked.

All this led to calls for Sorenson’s resignation last month by the local chapter of the NAACP and the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance.

State Party Chair Steve House, along with Vice Chair Derrick Wilburn, said racism has no place in the Colorado Republican Party and promised racial sensitivity training. But they never publicly called for Sorenson’s resignation.

Rep. Scott Tipton made similar comments after the meme surfaced and again after Sorenson resigned, telling the Colorado Statesman through a spokesperson Thursday that he “condemns any comments, social media posts or statements that have any racist connotations.”

As the Sorenson issue percolated, Tipton and other Republicans did not respond to Facebook posts by the Otero Country GOP chair, one of which referred to the “black population” as “hatred filled beings.”

It looked like Sorenson would remain in her position until a committee of Delta County Republicans apparently investigated the incident, at the suggestion of Sheriff McKee, and issued a report June 30. The Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning reported Thursday:

Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee at a closed-door meeting attended by Colorado GOP chairman Steve House earlier in June proposed that the county party establish a committee tasked with investigating the incident, saying he had been hearing from local Republicans “concerned about our reputation,” according to an account in the Delta County Independent.

The local party’s accountability committee had until the end of the month to complete its investigation and deliver a report…

Before he met with Sorenson and other local Republicans on June 6, House told The Statesman he expected the meeting — held while House was on a tour to meet with state Republicans — would “yield a resolution on the future of the Republican Party leadership in Delta County.”

A state party spokesman emphasized that House didn’t intend to ask Sorenson to resign, but House added, “To be clear, we do not support any action that is racially insensitive by any member of the Colorado Republican Party.”

Sorenson submitted a terse resignation letter, obtained from a source:

June 30, 2016

Delta County Republican Central Committee

After meeting with the Accountability Committee this evening, Sheriff McKee recommended I resign.

I resign my position of Delta County Chairman as of 7:45 PM, June 30, 2016.

Respectfully;

Linda Sorenson

Left out of much of the coverage of Darryl Glenn’s victory Tuesday is the fact that he’s a full-throttle supporter of a personhood abortion ban, according to Colorado Right to Life.

Glenn’s support of personhood apparently stems from his deep religious beliefs, which he spotlights frequently on the campaign trail.

For example, as I reference in a Rewire post today on the implications of Glenn’s personhood stance, Glenn discussed the importance of religion to him and his campaign in an April 11 interview on Colorado Springs radio about his speech at the Republican state convention:

RANDALL:  You were the one who brought it all.  And yours – if they were going to listen to one speech, including Ted Cruz – no offense—yours was the one to listen to.  There’s a lot of passion in you.  Where does the passion come from?

GLENN:Well, that wasn’t me.  That was the Holy Spirit coming through, just speaking the truth.

RANDALL:  Seriously!?

GLENN:  Absolutely.  This campaign has always been about honoring and serving God and stepping up and doing the right thing.

RANDALL:  Then I got to tell you what:  It’s a powerful thing.  I’ve always been baffled at how the Holy Spirit works. […]  but if you are the conduit, and that is what is coming out of you, then it is a powerful, powerful thing!

Based on this, it would be interesting to know what Glenn thinks of the separation between church and state, but it’s clear that he takes his religious beliefs seriously.

Colorado State Rep. JoAnn Windholz, who called Planned Parenthood officials the “real culprits” in last year’s clinic massacre in Colorado Springs, took to Facebook yesterday to condemn the Supreme Court’s decision affirming a women’s right to choose.

“The liberal leaning US Supreme Court once again protected the made up right of abortion,” Windholz wrote on Facebook, adding that that it “isn’t enough that the child is killed, now the mother is in danger as well.”

“So who cares about women more?” she asks in the post.

In fact, the Supreme Court based its decision on the fact that the Texas abortion restrictions, which, among other things, required that abortion clinics be equipped like complete surgical units, were not medically necessary.

Windholz: Who could find fault with a law that improves health and safety standards in order to protect women inside abortion clinics? You would think that the pro-abortion side would want to have additional safety measures in place for women. That is not the case. The liberal leaning US Supreme Court once again protected the made up right of abortion in a 5-3 decision (against 2013 Texas law) to not make it a necessary for abortion doctors to have admitting privilege at a local hospital. Why – because it would mean something went seriously wrong with an abortion. It isn’t enough that the child is killed, now the mother is in danger as well. So who cares about women more?

The court found that real intent of the Texas legislature was, in fact, to unconstitutionally limit a women’s right to an abortion by requiring clinic doctors to have, for example, admitting privileges, when the health benefit of such privileges is minimal.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer  wrote in the majority opinion, “Nationwide, childbirth is 14 times more likely than abortion to result in death… but Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in the patient’s own home.”

It’s unclear what Windholz means when she wrote, “So who cares about women more?”

And Windholz did not immediately return a call seeking an explanation.

But it appears Windholz does not believe that people or even Supreme Court Justices care about women if they support a women’s right to choose.

Shortly after the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs last year, Windholz wrote on Facebook, as first reported by The Colorado Independent:

Windholz: Violence is never the answer, but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves. Violence begets violence. So Planned Parenthood: YOU STOP THE VIOLENCE INSIDE YOUR WALLS.”

Derrick Wilburn, founder of Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives, will deliver a keynote address Saturday at the annual Lincoln Day dinner of the Delta County Republican Party, whose leader, Linda Sorenson, found herself in the national spotlight this month for sharing a Facebook Post comparing Obama to a chimpanzee.

After Sorenson’s promotion of the racist meme came to light, the local NAACP and Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance (GMDMA) called for her resignation,

But while state GOP leaders, like Rep. Scott Tipton, denounced racism in general, they did not join in asking Sorenson to go. After meeting with Sorenson, GOP State Chair Steve House promised racial sensitivity training.

Wilburn, who’s African American and also the vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party, told me his keynote address to Delta Republicans was planned long ago, and he will not push for Sorenson’s resignation. He pointed me to his June 8 Facebook post addressing Sorenson’s situation:

Wilburn: Typical procedure in these situations is to fire the person or request they resign, let the dust settle & smoke clear and then, having added another body to the scrap heap, move on. And what have we really accomplished?

Is Ms. Sorenson “a racist?” I don’t know her but I tend to doubt it. But can a person who is not a racist be guilty of saying or doing something racially insensitive or offensive? Absolutely.

This time rather than demanding a head, how about we say, “This has been going on for too long, let’s use this as an opportunity to teach, edify, grow.”
We can get her canned, everyone’s happy, we move on. But then what’s really changed? What have we affected? Then the next time someone does something similar get rid of them too. As concerned as I am with what happened last week, I’m more concerned with next. And the one after that, and after that… How do we affect those??

Outside of the understandable hurt and justifiable anger -which I do feel, I don’t like the President’s POLICIES but he nor any black man should EVER be compared to a chimp-perhaps we have an opportunity here. We can send one (who may be deserving) to the gallows, or we can use this as an opportunity for advancement. I vote for the latter.

Wilburn’s post promises more information “very soon” about what he’s going to do, but his Facebook page states that he’s talked with the GMDMA and Denver Urban League officials about it.

As for his presentation Saturday in Delta County, at Zack’s BBQ in Hotchkiss, Wilburn does not plan to make the Chimp-meme issue a “focal point” of the presentation, but he does plan to “communicate to the people in Delta County that there are very real disconnects in America, and you have to learn to be sensitive to those,” Wilburn said.

“If you do something that is insensitive or offensive, you have to own it,” Wilburn told me. “You can’t just sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t exist and hope it goes away.”

Wilburn’s approach may be greeted with  hostility from some Delta Republicans themselves Saturday night.

Here’s what one Delta Republican, Tom Huerkamp, had to say in a letter-to-the-editor of the Delta County Independent:

As a 76-year-old lifelong registered Republican and fiscal conservative, I am totally mortified to think that Linda Sorenson is speaking for me. I, too, am very unhappy with our current U.S. administration. However, she not only needs to step down, our elected county officials need to publicly and collectively disavow what has taken place. Furthermore, those members of the Central Committee who will not vote to replace Linda also need to step down and make room for a more responsible representation of our party.

Another letter writer, Delores Wilson, opined:

The fact that Linda Sorenson is “stunned” at the vitriol and hatred directed at her for posting a racist meme on Facebook points to her obvious need to educate herself on the history of civil rights in America. Her suggestion that she is somehow the victim in this incident would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetically sad. The fact that she resorted to using Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous quote in defense of herself is appalling under the circumstances.

While Ms. Sorenson may call racist imagery “silly” it is anything but “silly.” Imagery has the power to promote fear, prejudice, discrimination and hate. There is a long history in this country of blacks being depicted in art, advertising, greeting cards, sheet music, cartoons, etc., with extremely grotesque exaggerated features. Printed material depicting them as intellectually inferior, lazy, ugly, etc., was the accepted norm. Depicting a black person as a primate is nothing new; it is a part of historical imagery suggesting that they are less than human. It is an insidious form of racism that perpetuates more racism. When such material is accepted as the norm it bolsters the lie that the viewer is superior to the caricature they are viewing. Unless, of course, the viewer is black and then it bolsters feelings of humiliation, denigration, shame and more.

Also in the Delta County Independent Bruce Hovde, Chairman of Delta County Commissioners wrote:

Rhetoric that concerns the elected officials of Delta County is the stereotyping of our county as “racist.” The people of Delta County, the elected officials, and the Republicans as a whole are by no means racist. It is not who we are, nor how we conduct business.

We’ll see what comes of Wilburn’s speech on Saturday at Zach’s BBQ.

Otero County Republican chair Judy Rydberg Reyher says there’s no intended racism in her Facebook posts that appear to make sweeping unfavorable comments about African Americans, including, among other things, that African Americans are “hatred-filled beings” who are kept full of  “hate and resentment” by people like author Toni Morrison.

In one of the ten posts (see below and right), Reyher shared a National Review article last April about Toni Morrison:

Reyher’s comment: “And this woman is supposed to be respected around the country. This is exactly why the black population for the most part have not been able to move forward. They have people like her keeping them full of hate and resentment. And if any black person is successful and/or moves away from their hate, he/she is vilified and destroyed if possible. This picture is looking into the eyes of what might be one of the worst problems the black population must get past. Pass this on because these riots are showing the true ‘color’ of these hatred filled beings.” [BigMedia emphasis]

Asked whether she thinks African Americans are hatred-filled beings, Reyher said, “Some are. Some whites are hatred-filled beings. Some Muslims are hate-filled beings. Some Hispanics are hate-filled beings.  No one should be blanketed.”

Reyher said: “There’s a lot of white people that have that same, I don’t know what you’d call it, victimhood embedded into them. ‘It’s not my fault I’m this way. It’s because a teacher was mean to me or they didn’t like me when I was in school.’ And I get really tired of it. And with blacks, it’s become an industry keeping them stirred up, keeping them angry.

“I meant that as a slam on any color group that plays the victim card.”

Another Facebook meme shared by Reyher last June shows an African American family living in poverty and states, “Poor people have been voting Democrat for FIFTY YEARS and they’re STILL poor.”

Reyher wrote: “Yet these same people refuse to believe it is the Democrats keeping them in this cycle of poverty!!!!! We tell them, they just won’t listen.”

One Facebook commenter wrote, “So sad but true….could it be a comfort zone? Hope not.”

Reyher replied, “I am afraid it is just that.”

Another commenter wrote that Reyher’s post is “too racist for me.”

“This is NOT racist. It is the truth and goes for every single person who believes in the Democrat Party and what they are.”

Asked about the post, Reyher said:

Reyher: “I believe that to the core. If I offended somebody, I hope to hell I offended them to the point where they say, ‘Maybe so,’ because they have to be offended into reality somehow.”

But she doesn’t see this as a specific problem of African Americans.

“I don’t think there is a single race that can be singled out,” she told me.

Reyher: “Nothing has been more destructive to the human population and human ambition than the war on poverty, because what it does is it makes those people think—In New Orleans, when they had the darn hurricane, instead of them helping themselves, they waited. Some of them sat. A year later, they took a film crew around, and some of them still had the same debris in their yard, and they were waiting for somebody to help them, because some Democrat told them they would. It has nothing to do with race. This victimhood has nothing to do with race. Look at the women who feel like victims, and there’s nothing they can do. The victim card is easy to play. It’s hard to win with a victim card.”

Reyher told me she no longer agrees with a Facebook post she shared indicating that Obama favors African Americans.

“I don’t know that he dislikes whites any more than anybody else,” she said.

Asked about a post depicting Obama as a “Muslim brother,” Reyher said she does not think Obama is a Christian but is not sure he’s Muslim.

In another post, Reyher calls Michelle Obama “evil personified” and “one of the biggest racists ever to live.”

“This ‘woe is me’ drives me nuts,” she said.

Last month, Delta County GOP Chair Linda Sorenson told me she didn’t care if people were offended by her shared Facebook post depicting Obama as a chimpanzee. Later, she apologized if her post offended people.

If you like summer election mysteries, you’ll enjoy pondering why personal injury attorney Frank Azar gave $50,000 to a committee backing Denver District Attorney candidate Michael Carrigan. And why would Azar run the money through a Texas entity?

The Colorado Independent’s Marrianne Goodland first reported the donation last month, but Azar, whose ads are a well-known blight on TV, wouldn’t tell Goodland why he made the donation.

This week, Azar’s money was behind an ugly mailer attacking Carrigan’s Democratic primary opponent, former State Rep. Beth McCann.

See the Carrigan mailer attacking Beth McCann here.

In response to the mailer, McCann wrote in an email to supporters, “This mailer is the perfect example of why we need to get dark money and Super PACs out of our democratic elections. The public has no way of knowing why Mr. Azar contributed $50,000 to elect my opponent.”

Beth McCann for Denver District Attorney campaign manager Daniel Aschkinasi added in a statement, “We have all become too familiar with this circus of dark money trying to influence important political races.  This group has one purpose, and that is to smear the record of a dedicated public servant. At a time when our nation looks to solve gun violence issues, we have an opportunity to elect the woman who stood up to the NRA and passed universal background checks three years ago.”

Goodland reported May 19:

Donors [to Fair Public Advocate, an independent expenditure committee] include Denver personal injury attorney Michael Sawaya, with $5,000. Another $1,000 came from attorney Norm Brownstein of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Schreck, one of Denver’s best-known and most politically-connected law firms.

The biggest donation, $50,000, came in February from a Texas holding company, FDJR Holdings, Inc. of Houston.

According to the Texas Secretary of State, FDJR Holdings is one of a group of holding companies owned by Azar and/or his wife, Jeanette Renfro Azar.

Carrigan gave Goodland no explanation for the Azar donation, except to say that individuals and groups who “agree with my platform” are free to donate, but he will not be “beholden” to them. And he attacked McCann’s donations, even though she has no comparable donation to a group backing her.

Good journalism frequently starts with a good question. In this case it is this: Why is big bad personal injury attorney Azar spending 50K to back Carrigan? What is he hoping to get out of Denver’s next district attorney?

After the Paris shooting last year, former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo posted a Facebook image with the words “Celebrating Diversity…one massacre at a time…Coming soon to a concert hall near you.”

Tancredo posted the meme below on Facebook late last night. It’s similar, with the same “Celebrating-Diversity” headline and concluding with, “Coming soon to your community.”

Listed on the image are: “Orlando. Brussles. San Bernardino. Paris.”

Conservative operative Laura Carno is out with a new book with the ridiculous title of, “Government Ruins Nearly Everything.”

But the subtitle should keep you from burning the book: “Reclaiming Social Issues from Uncivil Servants.”

If you ignore the “uncivil” part, you can look inside the 138-page volume and appreciate some of the ways that Carno tries to apply her free-market mindset to the issues of marriage, guns, abortion, and education.

She picked issues where her free-market, anti-government analysis might challenge conservatives (marriage, abortion) and progressives (guns, education), which is interesting. But I’d have to recommend that you skip to the chapter on abortion, because it seemed the freshest.

Carno comes up with a new term to describe herself, and I’m hoping when Carno sneezes at conservative gatherings, it infects the conservative world. She calls herself a “pro-life realist.”

As such, she supports Roe!

She opposes excessive government regulations of abortion, like mandatory ultrasounds prior to having one.

“A person can be pro-life and believe the government can’t reduce abortions,” Carno, who founded I Am Created Equal and is possibly best known for her pro-gun advocacy, writes, pointing to data showing that making abortion illegal results in more abortions.

“Where abortions are illegal, more abortions occur,” she writes in her straight-forward and easy-to-understand prose.

Pro-choice activists would say government policy can definitely reduce abortions.

See, for example, Colorado’s Family Planning Initiative, which was run by civil servants and is credited with lowering abortions among teens by as much as half. Now it’s funded by the state, as well as run by it.

Carno offers alternatives to banning abortion or using government to make it more difficult. These include misguided efforts like the Save the Storks program, which push ultrasounds to pregnant women, along with alleged counseling. But to Carno’s point–this is a private effort. And Carno doesn’t advocate deception among the crisis pregnancy centers she favors. Unfortunately, many of these outfits have been shown by NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado to be manipulative and predatory.

Carno suggests pro-life groups do more for foster-care and support adoption programs, not just of infants. Carno wants government out, of course, but we’ll take it.

She wants better education about contraception and access to birth control, including the pill and new methods.

I like Carno’s plea for empathy among people who are pro-life. It’s an attitude that both progressives and conservatives can learn from–and can move us to solutions across the issue spectrum.

Here’s what Carno has to say (page 65-6):

An increasing number of Americans don’t want abortions to be illegal, even though they consider themselves to be pro-life. Why? Could it be that Americans are concerned about others who might be in a much more difficult situation?.. Pro-life realists…can easily imagine a woman in a dire financial situation who has an unplanned pregnancy. They fear she could be living out of her car if she experiences just one more financial setback. 

The empathy is real, and informs their preferences, even though they are pro-life. Among even those who are not generally political, this is a common reason for pro-life people to want to want abortion kept legal.

Progressives can come up with lots of ways to critique this, even condemn it, but, hey, let’s acknowledge our mutual empathy and see where it takes us.

Delta County Republican Chair Linda Sorenson is under fire for sharing a Facebook post comparing Obama to a Chimp, as well as other posts in the same racist vein, including one in support of the Confederate flag.

She issued an apology for her insensitivity today, and the Colorado Republican Party Chair has promised sensitivity training for GOP leaders.

The Facebook posts below, obtained by a source and apparently shared by Sorenson over the past year or so, show varying degrees of bigotry toward Muslims.

Sorenson is not returning my calls, so I could not verify with absolute certainty that these posts were shared by her, nor could I get a comment from her.