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.

Delta (Colorado) County Republican Chair Linda Sorenson apologized today “being insensitive and not thinking of others in the heat of the moment” when she shared a Facebook meme comparing Obama to a Chimp, but she also complained that “the left is only about tolerance when they are demanding that YOU tolerate their latest nutty idea, and if you don’t like it, then you’re automatically a ‘hater,’ a ‘bigot,’ and a ‘racist.’”

“I admit to saying to the blogger that; ‘I don’t care if you’re offended,’ however I do care very much if anyone else was offended,” wrote Sorenson in an apology first reported by the Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning. “Please forgive me for being insensitive and not thinking of others in the heat of the moment.”

The blogger she references is yours truly, and she actually factually told me, “I don’t care if people are offended.” (Listen to the recording here.) She did not say, as she claims in her apology,  “I don’t care if you’re offended.”

Of course, I take Sorenson at her word that she’s sorry she offended others, not just me. But she told me she didn’t care if people were offended, as in all people. She should correct the error, as should any reporters citing her apology,

Here’s the full text of Sorenson’s apology:

It appears that someone I didn’t know tagged me in a Facebook post with a silly comparison to Barack Obama. I confess to ‘liking’ a tired old Facebook meme, and I apologize for my bad judgment.

When confronted on the spot by a liberal blogger, I was busy and didn’t realize the game that was being played—the ‘gotcha’ game. The ‘gotcha’ game is fun only for those who intend to ruin a person’s name, reputation, and position of leadership. For anyone else who has been through the cycle, they can tell you how ridiculous and nasty the game is. From one moment to the next, I’m national news.

The vitriol and hatred that has been directed at me has been nothing short of stunning. But anyone paying attention these days knows that the left is only about tolerance when they are demanding that YOU tolerate their latest nutty idea, and if you don’t like it, then you’re automatically a ‘hater,’ a ‘bigot,’ and a ‘racist.’

I admit to saying to the blogger that; “I don’t care if you’re offended,” however I do care very much if anyone else was offended. Please forgive me for being insensitive and not thinking of others in the heat of the moment.

I believe one of the greatest things about America is that we are to be judged on the content of our character not the color of our skin.

In the wake of a meeting yesterday with Delta Country Republican Chair Linda Sorenson, who shared a Facebook meme comparing Obama to a Chimp, Colorado GOP Chairman Steve House promised racial-sensitivity training for party leaders, but he would not say whether Sorenson will resign, according to a story today by the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby.

Sorenson will “take responsibility” for the Post, House told Ashby, who also reported that House said that [Sorenson’s] backing of [GOP Senate candidate Darryl] Glenn, who is black, shows that Sorenson isn’t a racist, but was being racially insensitive.”

House said the situation has prompted a number of changes he plans to institute, not the least of which is to provide training on the difference between racism and being racially insensitive, adding that there is no room in the GOP for either.

He also said the state party will provide training on how to handle social media, including on how to make things private.

“Saying that you were wrong can come from two bases,” House said. “One is that you were willfully wrong, and the other is that you were ignorant and wrong. In this particular case it’s more ignorance than willful. So when you become racially insensitive, it needs to be used to educate.

“If you label somebody’s who’s a racist who’s not, then all you do is create an environment where you have discontent and more stress,” he said. “Republican or Democrat, decades of racism in this country and racial divide and an inability to educate and move ourselves forward is a real problem that we’ve got to solve. This situation gives us the ability to work with the NAACP and other groups out there and say, ‘All right, we’re not as racially sensitive about some things as you are, so let’s do some education.”

In addition to the Chimp meme, Sorenson shared or liked a handful of posts in the same vein last year. See them here.

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO)  told the Colorado Statesman through a spokesperson Friday that racism has “no place” in the GOP. But he did not call for Sorenson’s resignation. Neither did GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jack Graham, who also condemned the meme.

Delta County Republicans will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. tonight at the Surface Creek Community Church in Austin to discuss the issue–and other alleged lapses by Sorenson.

If you’re wondering how hard it must be for some Republicans to be Republicans, I offer you this excerpt from a March letter from Adams County Republicans to their congressional representatives.

Authored by Adams GOP chair Anil Mathai, the letter thanks Buck, Tipton and Lamborn, while attacking Sen. Cory Gardner and Rep. Mike Coffman for their votes in favor of funding the government via the ominubus spending bill:

Also, the ACRC is deeply disappointed with Senator Gardner and Congressman Coffman in voting for this unconstitutional, growing big government, rejecting our Republican platform bill. Your website has not posted an explanation as to why you abandoned the two most important values we hold dearest: the Constitution of the United States and our conservative Republican platform.

I am charged with the responsibility of growing the membership of our party in a county that has been controlled by Democrats for more than a half a century. So I ask, how is it that I can tell our Republican voters and, secondly, independent voters ‘You can trust our Republican elected officials to represent you.’ Many members of the executive committee, donors, and fellow Republicans are highly concerned your actions and demand that you immediately vote in line with our US constitution and our conservative, limited government, personal responsibility driven Republican platform.

Read the letter here.

Mathai, who is a RNC delegate, seethed at “cowardly, traitors known as Republicans” in October as well, so you wonder how long he’ll put up with it before doing something. But what would that be?

UPDATE:  In rsponse to news that Delta County GOP Chair Linda Sorenson shared a Facebook meme comparing Obama to a Chimpanzee, U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO)  told the Colorado Statesman through a spokesperson that racism has “no place” in the GOP. But he did ot call for Sorenson’s resignation.

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The Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reported today that not only is the NAACP calling for the resignation of Delta County Republican Chair Linda Sorenson but also Republican leaders themselves.

Delta Republican Matt Soper told Ashby that multiple GOP leades have called for Sorenson to resign 1) for sharing a Facebook meme comparing Obama to a Chimpanzee, as well as 2) for apparently endorsing U.S. Senate candidate Darryl Glenn.

State and county rules forbid party office holders, like Sorenson, from endorsing a candidate in a primary election.

Ashby reports that GOP Chair Steve House  does “not believe [Sorenson] should have had that stuff on her Facebook page,”  and House will be meeting with Sorenson and other Delta Country GOP officials on Monday to talk about it.

House said the party is not a racist group, but added that there is a difference between racism and racial insensitivity.

“The Republican Party itself, we’re anti-racism every day of the week,” House said. “But if there are racial insensitivities out there, we need to bring them up, we need to talk about them, we need to make sure everyone is educated about it, and then we need to go forward. Burying our heads in the sand or not talking about it is not going to help anybody. There’s no room for racism in our party.”

The location of the meeting, or whether it is public, was not disclosed.

Still unknown is why Sorenson told me she posted the Chimp meme, but then Delta County vice chairman Vic Ullrey told the Sentinel that the meme was the work of a hacker. It appears Ullrey has not been asked directly about the contradiction.

In addition to the Chimp meme, Sorenson shared or liked a handful of posts in the same vein last year. See them here.

Multiple GOP sources have told me that Sorenson has also angered Republicans by her handling of the Congressional District 3 convention, allegedly bungling the vote counting and triggering complaints about the process, finances, and involvement of elected Republicans.

The Sentinel did not report which Republican party leaders Soper claims have called on Sorenson to resign.

Rep. Scott Tipton has not been quoted in media reports on the racist incident, which occurred in his district, nor has Sen. Cory Gardner, but Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jack Graham denounced the meme.

In the article, Soper indicates that he personally saw Sorenson’s Facebook endorsement of Glenn.

I don’t know of a case where a Republican or Democratic state official has resigned for endorsing a primary candidate, and some Republicans believe House himself signaled oppostion to Trump in speech to a GOP group last year. House denied that he supported the mogul over other candidates.

Then Pueblo County GOP Chair Becky Mizel was apparently not asked to resign after essentially endorsing gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo in 2013.  Back in 2011, in a similar action over party rules, then State GOP Chair Ryan Call suggested that then El Paso GOP Secretary Sarah Arnold should “strongly consider” resigning for criticizing elected Reublicans, in violation of party rules.

The Grand Junction Sentinel is defending its decision to publish a Facebook post, shared by Delta County Republican Chair Linda Sorenson, comparing Obama to a Chimpanzee:

 …we’ve received several letters scolding us, in essence, for not sanitizing the news. While we’re not thrilled for being taken to task, it’s clear that people’s hearts are in the right place. Good people are offended by bigotry. Reporting the story required some sort of description of the offensive meme. A picture is worth a thousand words. Why not let readers see for themselves the unvarnished ugliness at the heart of the controversy?

We’ve received a volume of calls. Some readers demanded an apology. Sadly, one caller thanked us on a misguided assumption that we were in agreement with the deplorable message….

Our feeling is that it’s a disservice to omit something so vile and disgusting because it robs readers of a complete picture of what’s going on in their community. Should the goal of writing about such a controversy be to soften the outrage due?

If you’re outraged, you should be. But anger should be directed at the person who created the meme — not The Sentinel for pointing out that it appeared in the very public Facebook sphere for all the world to see.

Of course the newspaper should include the meme itself in its news story for you to see.

It would be one thing if the racism was posted by a nobody, but it came from the elected chair of the Delta County Republican Party. As such, she has enough of a “public” status to merit being held accountable by the Grand Junction Sentinel. And part of the process of public accountability, for the newspaper, is letting us know, within the broadest bounds of decency, what, exactly, she’s up to.

Delta County (Colorado) GOP chair Linda Sorenson, who’s been the focus of national media attention after sharing a racist Facebook meme comparing Obama to a Chimpanzee, has apparently shared or “liked” material in the same vein in the past, including Facebook posts in support of the confederate flag and another illustrating that the President has committed “hanging offenses” (at right and below).

These posts, which were found by a source on Sorenson’s Facebook page, raise more questions about Delta GOP vice chair Vic Ullrey’s claim, reported by the Grand Junction Sentinel, that hackers posted the Chimp meme on Sorenson’s page, not Sorenson herself.

The additional posts also raise questions about Ullrey’s comment to the Grand Junction Sentinel that Sorenson is “absolutely not” a racist.

Ullrey’s hacker claim is contradicted by the fact that Sorenson, in an interview with me last week (listen here), took responsibility for the Chimp post, telling me she didn’t care if people were offended by it.

The Chimp post was deleted from her Facebook page.

The posts above, along with posts below depicting Obama as a Nazi and questioning his citizenship, apparently appeared on Facebook last year.

Sorenson did not return my call to verify that she shared the posts herself–and to discuss them. Also unknown is why she took responsibility for the Chimp post when I spoke with her last week, but her Republican colleagues later claimed it was the work of a hacker.

Now Sorenson’s entire Facebook page has been taken down, and Sorenson is apparently not talking to any reporters.

In the wake of a Republican U.S. Senate candidate’s denunciation of a racist Facebook meme shared on the personal Facebook page of GOP County Chair Linda Sorenson, Delta County Republicans are saying a hacker is responsible for the post , contradicting Sorenson, who has taken responsibility for it last week.

The Grand Junction Sentinel’s Duffy Hayes reports:

“This whole thing is a hoax. Someone got into the Facebook somehow,” said Vic Ullrey, vice chairman of the committee. “It was hacked and somebody got into it, definitely.”

When asked why Sorenson was the specific target of the alleged hacking — possibly a federal crime, if true — Ullrey said, “I have no idea,” later adding, “Just to damage the Republican Party, no doubt. … Just to make us look bad,”

Sue Whittlesey, DCRCC treasurer, said, “That whole thing is bogus. Somebody hacked Linda Sorenson’s Facebook page, and posted that out there.”

“We believe it has something to do with (conservative-media watchdog) Media Matters. They’ve been harassing her the last few weeks,” Whittlesey said.

Trouble is, Sorenson told me directly, as I blogged last week, that she posted the meme as a joke and that she didn’t care if people found it offensive.

One person who found it offensive was GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jack Graham, who tweeted,”Republicans have legitimate differences with the president but this is absolutely unacceptable.”

As for Sorenson, here’s what she had to say when I callled to confirm that the post, which compared Obama to a chimpanzee, was hers:

I described the chimp post to Sorenson and asked if it was meant to be a joke.

She said, “Sure it is, Jesus.”

I said,”Yeah. Can you understand how people would be offended by it? Or do you care if people are offended by it?”

She replied, “I really don’t care if people are offended by it.

I said, “Right.”

She continued, “Un-friend me. Stop looking at me on Facebook.”

Then she hung up on me.

Listen here, as recorded on Wednesday, May 25, 2016.

Sorenson didn’t return a call from Duffy, who sought “to explain the discrepancy” between Sorenson’s conversation with me and the claims by her Delta County Republican colleagues who said her personal site was hacked.

It’s a basic part of a reporter’s job to respond publicly to criticism. Yet, many don’t do it

So, in case you missed it last week, it was good to hear Denver7’s Marshall Zelinger responding to hostile questioning from KNUS 710-AM’s Dan Caplis.

Caplis was upset with Zelinger’s reports on the forged ballot-access signatures of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser. Caplis accused Zelinger of doing the work of Democrats generally and pulling a “punk-ass move” by seeking a mid-afternoon interview with Keyser at Keyser’s home, after Keyser and his campaign didn’t respond to numerous requests for interviews. Zelinger responded directly to Caplis’ accusations. Here’s the audio.

UPDATE: Colorado GOP Executive Director Shana Banberger responds: “Mrs. Porter has explicitly declared herself to be a member of the media and has been acting in that capacity for more than a year. After consulting state party and RNC rules we determined that should Mrs. Porter wish to attend the convention as a reporter she is required to be credentialed as press by the RNC.”  Porter had told House that she wanted to attend the convetion “so I can support our delegation and offer email updates on the presidential nominee, platform items, proposed rules changes, etc.” Asked via twitter if he plans to do “any radio work or blogging or tweeting from the RNC in Clevelend, KVOR radio host Jeff Crank, who’s a guest of a Colorado delegate, replied, “No. I am just going as the father of a delegate.” See more details here.

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Colorado Republican Party Chair Steve House has booted Republican activist and blogger Kathryn Porter from the group of Colorado Republicans who are going to the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveleand July 18 because House thinks her blogging poses a “risk” to the Colorado delegation.

Porter, whose work appears on the Politichicks blog and was among the first to report details on efforts to oust House as GOP chair, was slated to attend the RNC as a guest of delegate Mike McAlpine, Porter said, under rules which allow each delegate to take a guest.

But in an email to Porter, House wrote it’s his “job to protect the delegation” and Porter’s “actions as a media representative in the past year and especially the past month and a half clearly represent risk to this delegation that we do not need to take at this critical convention in Cleveland.”

House, who did not immediately return an email seeking comment, apparently sees Porter’s reporting as being in a risky class by itself, because conservative talk-radio host and GOP activist Jeff Crank is also attending the RNC as a guest of a Colorado delegate. Aspen Times journalist Melanie Sturm is a delegate, as are talk-radio hosts Jimmy Sengenberger and Randy Corporon.

In 2012, The Colorado Statesman had reporters embedded with the Republican delegation. But today, every member of the delegation could be reporting on anything at any time.

The real risk is a chairman who behaves like a dictator, usurping authority that does not belong to him….

As an elected member of the Colorado GOP State Central Committee, I voted for Steve House. I have been critical of House, but at times I have also defended him.

I will defend the GOP when they are right, but I will not hesitate to call out my party when they are wrong. Integrity matters. Because of this, our chairman is using me as an example in order to silence others who dare speak up.

I will not be intimidated. I will not be silenced. I will not be marginalized.

I will be in Cleveland.

Among Porter’s Politichicks blogging is a piece, picked up by Drudge, which included a quote from Steve House in which he appeared to oppose Donald Trump. Another piece by Porter contained an interview with a woman who claimed to have had an affair with House.

On KNUS 710-AM this morning, host Dan Caplis called Porter’s work “great reporting” and Porter’s “banishment” an “awful moment for the Colorado Republican Party.” Caplis said House’s message is, “You criticize me and you will be banished.”

“On a moral level, it really is slandering you,” Caplis told Porter, adding that “the Truth makes [House] look bad.”