by Ashe in America | Sep 19, 2025 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
Let’s go back to the beginning… to January 20, 2017.
“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”
I wasn’t die hard MAGA on that day, but I still get chills when I read or hear that speech. During his first term, President Trump very quickly earned my support for two reasons: (1) He was the first President in my lifetime to do the things he said he was going to do, and (2) he made all the right enemies.
The unprecedented attacks on President Trump, by every previously trusted institution, are not because President Trump is a terrible person or a predator or a super serious threat to democracy.
The attacks on President Trump are because he is giving the power back to the people.
But what does that mean?
Since the explosion of cable news, Americans have been slowly transferring their attention, and outrage, from their local communities to Washington, D.C. It’s been about 30 years, and the results are measurable.
People know their congressman, but they don’t know their state rep. Coinciding with this shift is strengthening of party tribalism — even as party membership has declined — for both parties over a decade in Colorado.
In many ways, party has replaced community. Parties rose as a way to organize and make change based on shared values, but parties today look more like each other than the communities and value systems they claim to represent.
You do not exercise your power by joining a party. You exercise your power by standing on your rights.
I learned this lesson intimately over the past several years fighting leftist lawfare from three leftist NGOs (and their pals in local, state, and federal government).
The claims were voter suppression, intimidation, coercion, and threats under the Voting Rights Act and the KKK Act. They claimed we were sending armed agents to people’s homes to intimidate and interrogate them about their votes. In reality, we simply canvassed the 2020 election, in a 100% volunteer effort, to check the government’s work. The real reason for the lawsuit, based on the evidence and arguments at trial, is that we were “election deniers” daring to exercise our First Amendment rights.
The case went to trial last July, I defended myself, and the judge entered judgement in our favor and awarded us costs. The plaintiffs appealed, and the case is docketed for November in the 10th Circuit. (24-1328)
Your rights are meaningless if you don’t hold the line on them.
There are many other examples of Colorado patriots standing on their rights in Colorado. Tina Peters is in prison for nine years. She was convicted, essentially for lying to public officials about a person who was in her office. The part of the story that you don’t hear is that Peters had the authority to have whomever she wanted in her office — until Secretary Griswold invented emergency rules for COVID.
Dallas Schroeder and Rhonda Braun in Elbert County also took images of voting equipment, and Griswold libeled and slandered the officials and imposed baseless and retaliatory sanctions on the county. No crime has ever been found in Elbert County. And no retractions or clarifications were ever issued by the Secretary.
Then there is Rebecca Lavrens, the praying grandmother of January 6th who prayed inside the capitol, and was dragged into DC court years later. During her sentencing, she was effectively told to deny her faith before the court. Lavrens refused, and she was stripped of her internet access and placed on house arrest.
At this point you might be thinking, “but, Ashe, everyone in your examples had horrible consequences for standing on their rights.”
That’s true.
I’m adapting this column on September 10th. Charlie Kirk was just assassinated. It is, right now to me, profoundly true that standing for American rights and values comes with consequences.
But that’s not just true of our current moment. It’s true of every patriot who has held the line of liberty in the face of tyranny — every patriot since the founding of our nation.
Americans are out of practice on Americanism. Over the past 30 years, our attention and focus have shifted away from our communities, and as we watched the soap opera in the nation’s capitol, murderous despots filled the vacuum.
Along the way, we decided to prioritize comfort over liberty. Our comfort keeps us in fear.
Do you want to be comfortable? Or do you want to be free?
Self governance is our birth right in America — we should never abandon American liberty in the face of fear. Our response should be to get louder.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a tragedy that is shaking the nation. Pray for his beautiful family, and for all the students that witnessed his horrific assassination. They will be forever changed, irreparably scarred by such a hateful, deliberate, and gruesome act of violence.
Then get off your knees and get loud.
This month’s column is adapted from Ashe in America’s remarks to Parker Conservatives on September 3, 2025. You can read the full remarks on asheinamerica.substack.com. Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
by Ashe in America | Aug 22, 2025 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
For three months, Colorado voters breathed a little easier, safe to exhale after the Colorado General Assembly gavelled out on May 7, 2025. It was short lived.
“Today, Governor Jared Polis called the General Assembly back into session to address the significant impacts of H.R. 1 to Colorado’s budget,” an August 6, 2025, press release from the Governor’s office states.
The press release goes on to quote prominent democrats, Planned Parenthood, and other publicly-funded NGO leaders on how the $1.2B “loss of revenue” is devastating for “the state.”
It’s all in the framing.
To quote Representative Ken deGraaf (R-HD22) from an August 7 X post, “Subsidies are not ‘revenue.’ The federal government is not a source of it. Taxpayers are the source of revenue. Jared is just sad that his unsustainable spending spree cannot be sustained. Perhaps the second $5 billion on the train-to-nowhere-fast should pause until we see how California’s works out.”
He is obviously correct. Colorado taxpayers are also federal taxpayers, and the pork-filled-bridge-to-nowhere scam is coming to an end. This is going to be hard for Colorado. Colorado loves its virtue-signally, social change-promising NGOs.
In an article from April 2024 International Rescue Mission titled, “Nonprofits matter — Colorado Nonprofit Sector Supports $62 Billion in Economic Activity,” the nonprofit analyzes Polis’ “Colorado Nonprofit Economic Impact Report,” and how “the nonprofit sector directly employs 182,000 people, supporting an additional 54,000 jobs through business-to-business activity and 26,000 jobs via household spending.”
Wait, what?
“In total, this accounts for 10% of all jobs in Colorado.”
Honestly, the non-profit sector should be the priority for closing the gap. Colorado politicians are unlikely to take that approach — you can rather expect to see new taxes and fees.
Another barrier to solving this particular problem is the cost of new legislation — and the legislators were so busy earlier this year that new laws, and their related costs, are plentiful. Again from Rep deGraaf on X:
“Rubberstampapalooza: Because 700 new bills in 100 days is not enough new legislation for Democrats, they have engaged in the crisis-manufacture so they can pretend to crisis-manage. The sycophants of state want nothing more than for the trough to be open year-round. The timing and scope of the executive order/proclamation undoubtedly comes on the heels of this extra, ordinary session to figure out how to tax/fee you more. This governance-theater will cost the state around $50k per day to go through their choreographed ‘Dance of the Socialists.’”
Just in August, a portfolio of new laws went into effect. Highlights include allowing the government to price fix in an “emergency” (HB25-1010), gun violence education materials (HB25-1270), free tribal access to state parks (HB25-1163), new criminal statutes that protect transit workers (HB25-1290), and a simpler path to abandoning your children (HB25-1185).
Oh, they also created a process (inexplicably) so potential gun owners can voluntarily block themselves from buying a gun (SB25-034). That creates a new registry and list management and all associated costs of implementation — and it’s entirely unnecessary. Just don’t buy a gun if you don’t want one, right?
Republicans in Colorado are critical of the Governor’s special session, with several quoted in a House Republican press release from August 6:
“Families and small businesses across Colorado are being crushed under the weight of government overreach, rising costs, and reckless spending,” said Representative Anthony Hartsook (R-HD44). “Instead of working with us to rein in waste and protect the most vulnerable, the Governor is using this special session to defend a broken system. House Republicans are committed to responsible budgeting that puts Colorado families first.”
House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese piled on, “This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and state resources. The Governor is using a special session to stir fear about the Big Beautiful Bill when the truth is that the Big Beautiful Bill continues to cover the people it was designed to serve: seniors, single mothers, children, and people with disabilities.”
It’s unlikely that Colorado Republicans can do anything other than complain. In the House, they’re outnumbered 43 to 22, and in the Senate 23 to 12. The special session will proceed and the democrat majority will do what it wants.
As a result, Colorado is back to holding its breath, hoping against reason and history that the special session won’t further strip their rights and steal the fruit of their labor.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
by Ashe in America | Jul 24, 2025 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
Attorney General of Colorado Phil Weiser is campaigning to be Governor. His campaign is clear that he sees no lines between his official authority and his political campaigning.
“Just over six months ago, we launched my campaign to serve as Colorado’s next Governor,” the Team Phil X account posted on X in early July. “Since then, you’ve all stepped up in incredible ways. Thank you. This graphic captures some amazing highlights of the last six months.”
Notice the top right square. “Filed 26 lawsuits and 14 amicus briefs to protect Colorado.”
First, that is a lot of legal actions. It’s lawyers and paralegals and experts and billable hours for both the state and federal government. It’s resources that could be used to fight crime, clean up Colorado streets, fix the homeless crisis, or help the women and children that politicians are always claiming to help.
But it’s not because, second, and more importantly, the lawsuits are predominantly (state) tax-payer funded temper tantrums demanding that (federal) taxpayers continue to fund the agenda they rejected in the last presidential election.
Colorado taxpayers have the grand fortune of funding both sides — the claims and the responses — of the 40(!) legal actions Phil has taken against the Federal government. We’re not even six months into the Trump Administration, and we’re funding 40 of Phil’s fever dreams.
And it’s all part of his campaign.
Is the campaign reporting the value it’s deriving at the hands of taxpayers? How many hours do law-abiding Coloradans have to work to fund just one of AG Weiser’s self-serving, campaign-related lawsuits?
Phil Weiser presents himself as a public servant rooted in justice, law, and innovation — fighting the good fight against the bad orange man to save some population of women or children or otherwise marginalized people. But his rise through the legal and political establishment reveals strategic political calculus.
Who is Phil Weiser?
A first-generation American and child of Holocaust survivors, Weiser earned his B.A. with high honors from Swarthmore College in 1990 and his J.D. with high honors (Order of the Coif) from NYU School of Law in 1994 — before embedding himself in the corridors of federal bureaucracy under both the Clinton and Obama administrations. In Colorado, he leveraged his legal reputation to become Dean of CU Law and eventually Attorney General in 2018.
His career reflects a typical trajectory of an establishment Democrat: technocratic, consensus-driven, and scandalous.
Weiser’s tenure has been dogged by ethical concerns and a pattern of insider politics. The most glaring example is his leadership of the Attorney General Alliance (AGA), a group that regularly hosts luxury conferences — like the infamous 2021 Maui summit — underwritten by corporations such as Meta, Pfizer, and Juul. These are the very companies his office is investigating or suing.
His fundraiser at the Maui resort is an obvious conflict of interest, yet Weiser has dismissed the criticism as partisan noise. He did that again with Jena Griswold.
In April 2025, Secretary of State Jena Griswold faced a campaign finance complaint for allegedly failing to file required financial disclosures tied to early campaign activity — specifically the purchase of a domain for a presumed run for governor. Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office, responsible for investigating the complaint, decided not to pursue charges. Totally coincidentally, Griswold is not running for Governor — Weiser is. Griswold is running for Attorney General — Weiser’s current seat. Those role changes shook out in the wake of the complaint dismissal.
Weiser for Governor?
Weiser’s fundraiser at the Maui resort sparked a formal campaign finance complaint, alleging unreported in-kind contributions, and cozy relationships with regulated entities. His decision to dismiss the complaint against Jena Griswold reveals a broader pattern of selective legalism — a strong focus on the rule of law that aligns and often serves his political interests. His current campaign messaging touting official (political) lawsuits as campaign accomplishments reinforces the pattern. Weiser is quite comfortable operating in the gray, seeming to blur the lines of justice with those of his own self-interest.
Time and again, Weiser has shown a willingness to apply legal scrutiny aggressively when it bolsters his progressive credentials — such as in high-profile lawsuits against the Trump administration — while showing restraint when allies are involved.
Regardless of his campaign messaging, Weiser is not a neutral legal steward, but an experienced and shrewd operator — weaponizing his power to serve selective, strategic ends. He is the last person who should be given more power.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica
by Ashe in America | Jun 20, 2025 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
Is The Resistance Going The Distance
In 2020, the world was in Lockdown. We all remember navigating new normals, but what faded from the collective mind is the impact that season had on our capital city.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Denver’s economy was booming. The city was widely considered a regional economic powerhouse, one of the strongest and most dynamic economies in the US, with steady growth, low unemployment, and a diversified industrial base.
After Covid, housing and other costs of living, which were already an issue before the lockdowns, became a crisis for many residents. Between December 2019 to December 2024, consumer prices (all items, including food and energy) rose nearly 46%, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unsheltered homelessness increased 200+%, according to data from the Common Sense Institute. Homicides increased 35% and violent crime was up 30% by 2023, according to data from the FBI.
Before the pandemic, light rail cars were packed at rush hour and restaurants on 16th Street had hour plus wait times. Then in 2020, Denver was in lockdown. And the city fell.
The trains often run empty now, as the laptop class became accustomed to working from home. That impacts the city’s transit and parking revenues, the restaurants and retail shops, the bars and nightlife.
Licensed restaurant establishments decreased 22% between 2019 and 2024, according to data from the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses. More than 200 Colorado businesses closed in 2024 alone, and 82% of them were in Denver, as reported by Axios.
Perhaps few remember the violence, the property damage, the historic buildings vandalized, the sweeping encampments in Civic Center Park. The economic impact of lockdowns, while devastating, pales in comparison to the social and cultural impacts.
I’ve often theorized that the people don’t remember because they weren’t there. Out of sight out of mind for the insufferable white collars attending zoom meetings on their Pelotons.
But perhaps they do remember, and that’s why they rarely, if ever, enter the capital city anymore. It’s dangerous and expensive, and your odds of getting accosted are prohibitively high.
On June 10, there was a notable anti-ICE protest reported on 18th and Stout and in the area around the justice center. Conservative radio host Jeff Hunt was accosted and filed a police report about the incident.
On June 14, Colorado expected “No Kings” protests in every city and most towns around the state. In Denver, June 14th kicked off with an early morning shooting near 10th and Broadway. Vibrant.
For the June 14th event, the Denver Police Department put out an official protest edition of expectations on X. I personally read this as a peacekeepers’ plea for safe passage through the city (for which they’re charged with keeping the peace). If this is the posture of the police, what can the people expect?
It isn’t any wonder that so many commuters and tourists no longer go to Denver. It’s also obvious why Colorado is a national story nearly every week.
A possible sequel to the Summer of Love is simmering under the surface of political resistance and disputes on immigration, foreign policy, and gender ideology. Peaceful protests on these issues are welcomed and protected. Human-targeted violence, arson, and property damage are not.
While many suggest that Colorado has a right to resist all federal policy implementation, remember that:
“Colorado is expected to receive $13.4 billion from the federal government in fiscal year 2025-26 — about 30% of the state’s $40 billion annual budget… Hundreds of millions more go to Denver and surrounding localities for law enforcement and other government programs… In 2024, Denver Health, the city’s safety net hospital, received $89 million in federal grant funding,” according to Axios.
Compare those federal investments to the metrics cited above. If the feds are providing hundreds of millions for law enforcement, and that law enforcement defies federal law — for example, refusing to enforce immigration law — a thinking person would expect the funding to stop.
Any funding not being used for its allocated purpose should stop. It’s fraud, and it’s being perpetrated on all taxpaying Americans, not just those in Colorado.
The DOJ knows this. It’s why their investigations seem to be escalating. Waste, fraud, and abuses of power infringe upon Americans’ guarantee of a Republican form of government, a representative democracy.
Trump knows this, too. The president’s agenda can broadly be summarized as uprooting and exposing systemic corruption. “Today’s ceremony has very special meaning… we are taking power from Washington DC and giving it back to you, The People,” President Trump said in his 2017 inaugural address.
In all their opposition to the President, the Colorado Executive’s probable corruption and abuses, along with that of their public-private minions, are sharply in focus. They doth protest too much and, after their unhinged pursuit of eliminating their political opposition in 2024, the power dynamics of this conflict have shifted.
In other words, if you come for the king, you best not miss.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
by Ashe in America | May 16, 2025 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
In Colorado, our launch of the golden age feels different than the stories we’re told about the rest of the country. While friends in Florida and Idaho, Virginia and North Dakota, are celebrating deregulation and a return to normalcy, here in the Centennial state, the battle for basic liberty rages on.
The first session of the 75th Colorado General Assembly was the most radical in recent memory — and that’s saying something. Priorities of the Democrat majority included disarming law abiding residents, ending the bill of rights for taxpayers, and protecting the degeneracy of minor attracted persons by destroying parental rights.
They moved the needle on all these priorities and, in the process, woke up sleeping gun owners, taxpayers, and parents in the process. Lawsuits are underway on all fronts. I anticipate an even more contentious second session, but I welcome the break until January.
You can never fully exhale while they’re gaveled in.
Over in the Executive Branch, former Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Perry Beall resigned from the Department of State, telling clerks after the fact that he was “going back to being a lawyer.”
Beall has made no announcement yet as to where he’s going, and it’s rumored he may return to the Attorney General’s office. State leadership is preparing for a multi-front war with the federal government, and Beall was outside counsel for CDoS as part of the AG’s office before becoming Deputy Secretary of State in 2021.
The record of roles, responsibilities, and actions in CDoS imply that the department is actually run by the Deputy — for example, Jena Griswold can’t answer basic questions about election systems and voter roll maintenance without talking points and a friendly interviewer — so, who is running CDoS now?
Former Perkins Coie attorney Andrew Kline was named to replace Beall, and he started immediately. According to elections officials familiar with the transition, his first order of business was to build relationships with county clerks and establish a cadence for communication. (Talking points inbound.)
This is the backdrop inside Colorado as the Trump Department of Justice goes on offense.
Recently sworn in DOJ Civil Rights AAG Harmeet Dhillon hinted at federal action against HB25-1312, the bill to remove children from non-mutilitating parents, in a post on X:
“…see a long line of SCOTUS precedent holding that parents, not the state, control the upbringing of children. Don’t get too attached to your child mutilation project. It won’t stand.”
As I write this, the bill awaits the governor’s signature.
The DOJ also continues their investigation into the weaponization of government against Tina Peters in Colorado — an investigation that, if done properly, will lead back to August 2021 and indictments on high crimes and misdemeanors for, at minimum, abuse of power.
Earlier this month, President Trump posted on Truth Social to Free Tina Peters, in a post criticizing the (undeniable) abuses of power under Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for Governor.
The President’s post renewed calls from Colorado and national grassroots activists for Governor Jared Polis to pardon Peters or commute her sentence, but it also added new voices to the campaign to free Tina Peters.
Representative Lauren Boebert (CO-04) sent a strongly worded letter to FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate violations of Peters’ civil rights in March, and announced it on X on May 6, 2025, after the President’s Truth Social post. This was a surprising development.
On July 12, 2022, an embattled Tina Peters spoke to a national sheriffs association meeting in Nevada, during which she announced that Representative Boebert was present at a dinner meeting with Peters and her alleged coconspirators the same day the images were taken.
If true, then Boebert was a material witness to the facts of the alleged conspiracy and potentially in a position to dispute the assertions of the state and federal prosecutors. Boebert was not mentioned or present at Peters’ trial.
At a minimum, Boebert could have supported Tina publicly, in the press and on the hill. But Boebert was silent.
The CD4 representative has two official X accounts, and searching both of them shows that Lauren Boebert’s first mention of Tina Peters, in the digital public square, was May 6, 2025.
Reminder that, in 2021-22 when Peters story took place, Lauren Boebert represented CD3 and was Peters’ congresswoman.
I wonder how Tina Peters feels about her level of representation. I bet she thinks about it from inside her cell where she is doing nine years following a show trial. If only there had been more witnesses to support the factual arguments at trial.
Boebert’s newfound interest in Peters’ crucible is also a signal of change. I hope Director Patel takes Boebert up on the investigatory angle she proposed.
It’s a new world at the precipice of a golden age. But, here in Colorado, those in power are fighting hard to preserve their power and status quo incentives.
They’re fighting against change. Regardless of party, they’re fighting against change.
Imagine what’s possible. Now realize what stands in our way. The only way out is through.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
