by Mark Smiley | Sep 25, 2017 | Editorials
David Sirota is a well-known nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, author blogger and former Denver radio host. He is a man of the Left and friend of the Democratic Party here in Colorado and nationally. Recently he has begun to do investigative journalism for International Business Times and he has indicated he wants to do so on a non-partisan basis.
His recent work at the Times demonstrates that he is a man of his word. His exposé titled “Democratic Governor Hires Health Care Industry Lobbyist to Push Obamacare Fixes in Congress” rips off the façade off Governor Hickenlooper’s so called bipartisan health care proposal he trotted out with Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Sirota discloses that the governor has had the state pay the law/lobbyist firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck $17,500 a month purported for lobbying Congress, the Interior Department, the Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on “issues related to federal spending and national service programs,” whatever that means. In addition apparently the Brownstein firm was to lobby for the Governor’s proposed bandaids to Obamacare.
$17,500 per month is chump change for the Brownstein firm, but when you have hundreds of these scams it adds up. Especially since the Brownstein firm would have to do no additional work for the taxpayer money handed them by the Colorado governor. The Brownstein firm is already lobbying for dozens of insurance, pharmaceutical and health care interests to prevent a single payer system being adopted as proposed by some Democrats, or a free market system proposed by some Republicans. They love the present Obamacare system they helped devise just with more subsidies and tax incentives for themselves.
Hickenlooper and Kasich have gone on television and across the country to sanctimoniously assert that they had come up with a “bipartisan” solution to our health care woes when in fact they are little more than sellouts to Big Pharma and the health insurance companies. Their plan involves massive increased subsidies to the insurance companies and even large tax credits for them providing health plans to “underserved counties.” In addition it has the individual health care mandates forcing Americans to buy the awful health care plans the insurance companies presently provide for individuals.
The Denver Post breathlessly reported in its sub-headline for the release of the plan that “Hickenlooper and Kasich have been working on the blueprint behind the scenes for weeks.” Hickenlooper has degrees in English and geology while Kasich a degree in political science. Neither has the slightest background in the medical field and would have no idea how to redo the health insurance quagmire. But Big Pharma and the health insurers have lots of ideas on how to stick it to the average American.
Sirota’s article also helps explain the mystery of Lieutenant Governor Donna Lynne. After Joe Garcia resigned the lieutenant governor position to take a real job, Hickenlooper appointed Lynne claiming he did so because he wanted someone who 1) had business experience and 2) had no political aspirations. We know the second stated reason was a lie as Lynne has just declared she is running to be the next governor of Colorado. We know that it was not just any business experience that the governor was looking for, but someone who had extensive contacts with the health insurance and health provider fields, which could be an enormous benefit for him should he run for the U.S. Senate in 2020 or even President. Lynne was the head of Kaiser Permanente, the massive integrated managed care consortium in Colorado and various other states. And surprise surprise, according to Sirota, Lynne was key in drafting the Hickenlooper/Kasich bipartisan plan.
It is no secret that health companies and oil companies in Colorado are terrified of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jared Polis who wants single payer health care and no oil and gas fracking in the state. Notwithstanding the fact that Lynne has absolutely zero political experience or support, she is now running with the strong encouragement of Governor Hickenlooper. Why Lynne? Because with enough money and negative advertising she can soften up Polis for whatever Republican wins the other primary, who will undoubtedly not be for single payer and be for oil and gas fracking.
Which brings us to the Brownstein firm which is known as the “Octopus” since it has its tentacles virtually everywhere. Hickenlooper’s chief of staff is none other than Doug Friednash who was a partner in the Brownstein firm and who, according to Sirota, along with Lynne, strongly supported the $17,500 a month kickback to the Brownstein firm which would be considered illegal in many states but not apparently in Colorado.
One of the reasons it is not is that The Denver Post and the rest of the media in Colorado, with the exception of 710 KNUS radio, will never report on this scandal. Why? Well who is the lawyer for The Denver Post and many other media? None other than the Brownstein firm. The sewer runs deep in Colorado politics but most Coloradans will never find out about it and thus it is unlikely to ever change.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Jul 24, 2017 | Editorials
Denver District Attorney Beth McCann was sworn into office a little more than six months ago, but already appears to have lost the trust of her predecessor Mitch Morrissey, the rank and file of the Denver Police, and much of the public at large.
Her handling of the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) scandal involving Police Chief Robert White and Deputy Chief Matt Murray as well as the inmate killing at the Denver Jail has brought into serious question whether she remains intellectually capable of handling the difficult job as head law enforcement officer in the City and County of Denver. McCann gave interviews to the media in both cases, but the interviews raised even more questions than they answered.
The Denver Police had issued a press release accusing Angiella Arnot of sexual assault (along with a now former Denver Police Officer), but she was never charged. Longtime Denver DA Mitch Morrissey sent a letter to Police Chief White highly critical of Deputy DA Matt Maury’s “rush to judgment” in the arrest of an “innocent woman.” Chief White responded to the DA in a two sentence letter declaring he would “look at the totality of the situation and . . . ensure that the appropriate action is taken.”
When the Denver police union asked for a copy of the letter pursuant to CORA it was told that the police department was “unaware of any … electronic or written exchanges responsive to your request.” It was a lie and White and Maury knew it according to the one honest person in the sordid affair, Mary Dulacki, Department of Safety Records Coordinator.
It was an open and shut case of a criminal violation of CORA by the two highest cops in Denver. McCann had promised the voters during her campaign that she would strongly pursue cases of police misconduct. What she meant, of course, was that she would go after the cop on the beat, but vigorously ignore the most blatant criminal conduct on the part of the top echelon bosses. This has always been the modus operandi of the office of the Denver District Attorney. In the early 1960s 47 Denver police officers were charged as part of a massive burglary ring, but not a single higher up in the police department was brought before the bar of justice even though it was impossible that such a huge criminal enterprise could be going on without the implicit knowledge and consent of members of the top brass.
The blatant CORA criminal violation last year was too much for former DA Mitch Morrissey who said he would have definitely brought charges against Deputy Chief Murray and would have strongly considered charging Chief White. The head of the Denver police union, Nick Rogers, has publicly excoriated McCann indicating that the rank and file were losing all respect for her. McCann made matters worse by going on air with Channel 7’s Tony Kovaleski. She embarrassed herself by endlessly and unsuccessfully trying to hide the fact that her chief deputy had strongly recommended bringing charges.
Following that PR disaster McCann was caught red-handed as part of a scheme to hide the fact that an illegal immigrant, Ricardo Lopez Vera, had killed another inmate in the Denver jail. The Denver Sheriff’s Department had hidden him from ICE as part of the city’s widely acknowledged sanctuary city policy. McCann again compounded her error by doing another media interview this time on the The Craig Silverman Show on 710 KNUS where she was eviscerated by Silverman, a former Denver Chief Deputy DA.
The fact that at age 69 she no longer has the mental acuity she once had was dramatically demonstrated when she used the “f” word on air with Silverman. There are only seven words clearly banned by the FCC for which a radio station can be fined for airing and the “f” word is one of them. After over 40 years in public life, DA McCann is well aware of that limitation, but she is apparently unable to control herself.
Some individuals are mentally sharp well into their 90s while others begin to show serious mental deterioration by their late 60s. Obviously, McCann fits into the latter group.
The sad part is she is just beginning her term as DA. Denver has a woeful habit of endlessly re-electing incumbents no matter their infirmities. It can be expected that McCann, at age 80, will still be the Denver DA at the start of the year 2029. The DA’s office will, of course, be a wreck and utterly rudderless. It is said that people get the government they deserve, but even Denver’s severest critics would say we don’t deserve a District Attorney’s office like the one we now have.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Jun 23, 2017 | Editorials
In Alexandre Dumas’ beloved historical novel The Three Musketeers, a young man named d’Artagnan travels to the capitol and joins the Three Musketeers of the Guard (Athos, Porthos and Aramis). Together they fight off the minions of Cardinal Richelieu, the evil minister to the weak King Louis XIII.
Today in Denver a modern parallel may be occurring. A young man, Jolon Clark, was elected to Denver City Council in 2015. Joining him on the Council were the Three Musketeers of the People — Wayne New, Paul Kashmann and Rafael Espinoza. The Three Musketeers were the only City Councilmembers elected without developer money and thus free to fight the good fight against the developers’ powerful corruption of Denver.
Slowly Clark began to learn of the perfidy of many of the other nine members and their lack of ethics or honesty. The “beefy, bloated and ethically challenged” director of the Orwellian named “Denver Community Planning Development Director” Brad Buchanan makes a perfect evil Cardinal Richelieu to the weak head of state, Mayor Michael Hancock.
The first real battle that Jolon Clark and the Three Musketeers have fought together was against the small lot exemption being used by Buchanan for his real estate developer friends to build micro-housing cells free from any parking requirements. This would have made finding on-street parking in some neighborhoods difficult, if not impossible, during certain times.
The residents fighting this proposal had gone to duplicitous Council President (and mayor-in-waiting) Albus Brooks who pretended to be their friend but intended to destroy their cause with a phony moratorium. In Dumas’ novel Albus Brooks would be the treacherous Richelieu spy Milady de Winter. Brooks had set up a crooked developer controlled “Task Force” whose basic purpose was to basically give developers everything they wanted and the neighborhoods nothing.
Our heroes led by Clark took up the citizens’ cause in the nick of time. Incredibly the city staff headed by Buchanan and the phony Task Force of Brooks called for no parking restrictions on the 3,000 plus small lots across the city. If the City had adopted the same, it would have made on-street parking in neighborhood after neighborhood throughout Denver a nightmare.
This is not by accident. Buchanan and his Planning Department literally want to make parking a nightmare so that all Denver residents, other than the very wealthy, are forced to walk, ride bikes or take public transportation in Denver with a rare Uber trip allowed. The old, the infirm, the crippled are to be sacrificed on the altar of the young and healthy millennials and of course the high density real estate developers who are the true enemy of Denver neighborhoods.
With rapiers drawn, Clark, New, Kashmann and Espinoza went to work. They convinced three other councilmembers to support a compromise whereby the parking requirement exemption would only apply for housing or offices in the first story, or the first two floors if within a quarter mile of a frequent bus line or within one-half mile of a light rail station. Apparently well-connected developers can still go to the City Council for full exemptions provided notice is given to the affected neighborhoods before a vote.
The vote was 7-6 in favor of the Musketeers and Denver neighborhood on-street parking was at least partially saved. With other amendments added, the final vote was 9-2, an abject humiliation for Albus Brooks, his Task Force and Planning Director Brad Buchanan. Only Brooks and developer owned Mary Beth Susman voted against the final version. If neighborhood groups are looking for a test recall case, Brooks and Susman would certainly be the names on the top of the list.
Of course, Denver and its neighborhoods are in continued danger. It can only be hoped that the alliance formed among d’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers continues strong to beat back the endless efforts of Buchanan, the weak Mayor, and the corrupt members of the Denver Council to destroy what makes Denver a great city, its neighborhoods.
As Dumas’s Musketeers would shout: “Un pour tous, tous pour un.!” — “All for one, and one for all!”
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | May 26, 2017 | Editorials
The lead story on the front page of this issue of the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle discloses that the purported “investigative consultant” Charles Johnson who stalked and harassed the Glendale City Clerk and people who were quoted in the Chronicle critical of Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi was, in fact, a top super-secret undercover Special Agent for the FBI. Visit the Chronicle’s website at www.glendalecherrycreek.com and watch the entire Glendale Police Department’s interrogation of Mr. Johnson pretending to be an investigative consultant in violation of Colorado law. God help us if that is the best the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency has to offer.
Of course, it didn’t end there. Special Agent Kimberly Milka then went on to harass anyone who filed a complaint with the police departments of Lakewood or Glendale concerning Johnson’s stalking and harassment. Ms. Milka was clearly engaged in obstruction of justice and witness tampering, but who is going to stop the FBI when it violates citizens’ constitutional rights. The answer is no one.
We now know that Johnson’s and Milka’s criminal activities in Glendale are only the tip of the iceberg of FBI misconduct in this town of a little over 5,000 people. A former top Denver police officer who met several times with Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi believed that Kheirkhahi was trying to get him to solicit a bribe from Mike Dunafon, the mayor of Glendale. The former officer wanted to wear a wire to record Kheirkhahi’s statements and even interviewed with the FBI.
It appears that the FBI in response did nothing with regards to Kheirkhahi and instead instituted a campaign with the purported help of Kheirkhahi to get others to try to bribe Glendale officials including Dunafon.
It is assumed the FBI did so because it believed city officials were susceptible to taking bribes. Ever since Glendale incorporated in 1952, to the vast annoyance of officials in Denver and The Denver Post who after World War II became the official cheerleader of the City and County of Denver, it was rumored that Glendale officials were corrupt especially considering liquor licenses. It was perhaps a case of self-projection, as in Denver at various times to get a liquor license one had to hire the right politically connected lawyers and know the right City Council members while Glendale granted them to virtually anyone who wanted one.
The City and County of Denver did not seem to understand Glendale’s laissez faire and libertarian attitude toward municipal governance. Glendale saw itself as too poor to turn anyone away who wanted to do business in the town. There was, of course, zero reason to bribe anyone in a town that would already give you what you wanted in the first place.
As a result of Denver being closed down and very restrictive as to liquor licenses and Glendale freely issuing them, Glendale became a youth and nightclub Mecca in the 1970s and 1980s with dozens of bars, nightclubs and restaurants along Colorado Boulevard, East Virginia Avenue, Leetsdale Drive and South Cherry Street.
In the 1990s Denver was able to revitalize downtown with the building of Coors Field and now issued liquor licenses to essentially anyone who wanted one in LODO. Conversely Glendale mayors Steve Ward and Joe Rice killed its downtown by trying to close one liquor establishment after another while preventing new ones from being granted.
When Glendale recently decided to try to bring back an eating and entertainment district along Cherry Creek and East Virginia Avenue the old canard that Glendale city government was corrupt was res
urrected by the FBI. It would have been nice if the FBI had bothered to check that the Glendale mayor and his wife are independently wealthy and Glendale city officials are compensated and therefore highly unlikely to accept bribes.
The Glendale Police Department tried to constantly keep highly controversial Denver FBI Public Corruption Section head Jonny Grusing aware of everything it was doing with regards to Charles Johnson and everything else going on in the city. The Glendale Police Department believes that the FBI in turn continually lied to them especially regarding Charles Johnson.
Glendale now does not believe anything that Jonny Grusing has to say. Of course, if a member of the public lies to the FBI you go to jail, while the FBI states it may freely lie to anyone it wants without any repercussions which is what Special Agents Jonny Grusing and Charles Johnson have taken to new levels.
For many regular citizens in Glendale as well as Glendale public officials, the FBI is not in their minds the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency but at least at the local level is composed of people who lie, fabricate, harass, stalk and obstruct justice on a regular basis while seeking public corruption that does not appear to exist in Glendale. Grusing, in turn, has developed the reputation in some Denver metropolitan police departments as being a type of untrustworthy and “dirty cop.”
After the escapades of former FBI Director James Comey at a national level, the reputation of the Denver office feeds the narrative that something is seriously wrong with the FBI. Once that perception seeps in it will be difficult for the many honest and trustworthy local FBI agents to regain the public trust and respect they once had.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Apr 28, 2017 | Editorials
There has perhaps never been as contentious administrative law case as that brought by Matt Arnold’s Campaign Integrity Watchdog against Colorado Pioneer Action for campaign finance
violations. Pioneer Action is run by former Congressman Bob Beauprez best known by the sobriquet “Both Ways Bob” for always trying to appear to support both sides of any political argument.
Beauprez set up Pioneer Action as a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit which raised almost $700,000 in money for political races in 2016. He gave the money to an independent expenditure committee he also set up called Colorado Right Now (CRN) which engaged in an incredibly dirty tricks operation largely against highly conservative Republicans in primaries for the State Legislature. Beauprez backs business friendly moderate Republicans as opposed to what he sees as nasty movement conservatives and Tea Party types.
Beauprez claimed that under Colorado campaign finance law he only needed to report that the Pioneer Action had given the $700,000 to the independent expenditure committee and not who had given Pioneer Action the money in the first place. He claimed it was a perfect “dark money” operation in which no one would ever know who funds him. But Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer found that Pioneer Action was itself a political committee and did have to disclose its donors. He fined Pioneer Action $17,000. Beauprez was lucky as Spencer could have levied the full $770,000 in fines.
But now comes the big question of will Beauprez finally have to disclose his true dark money sources? In a gubernatorial primary against Tom Tancredo in 2014 money was laundered for Beauprez for last-minute attack ads. First, the money was put through the Republicans Governors Association and then through the Republican Attorneys General Association to a Mitt Romney related political association in Colorado. Beauprez successfully avoided having to disclose who was behind that serpentine dark money scheme.
Beauprez has always been an empty suit and tool of more powerful people. Exactly who is pulling his strings has never been discovered, but perhaps now it will. Of course, this is just the beginning of the battle. Spencer’s ruling will be appealed all the way up the line. The $17,000 fine is just chump change for Beauprez’s backers. He has spent into six figures with his attorney Douglas Abbott of the highly expensive big blue-chip law firm Holland & Hart. Abbott and Holland & Hart undoubtedly came up with the dark money scheme in the first place.
In this litigation Matt Arnold has scored an incredible victory against overwhelming odds. It is truly a David versus Goliath matchup. Arnold is not an attorney yet he bested one of the best law firms in the state. Beauprez has millions at his disposal from people who will do anything to prevent from having to come out of the shadows.
There are two likely suspects for the dark money source behind Beauprez — Phil Anschutz or the Koch brothers. In January 2017, Reason Magazine released an out-of-the-blue attack piece against Matt Arnold by Nick Sibilla and John Kerr. Why would a national magazine come out against a highly parochial figure like Matt Arnold? Perhaps it is because Reason Magazine is funded by the Koch brothers. If they were the source behind Beauprez, they would have strong reason to dislike Arnold and want to stop his money inquiry.
At the same time Arnold came under attack from the Colorado Springs Gazette which reclusive Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz is pouring money into as an alternative to The Denver Post. Incredibly, Arnold discovered that the dirt digging for the Pioneer Action/CRN political smear pieces were performed by none other than Dede Laugesen, the wife of the Gazette’s editorial page editor Wayne Laugesen and the newly hired Gazette political blogger Dan Njegomir.
When the Gazette’s editorial page was lambasting Arnold on behalf of Beauprez, and Njegomir was attacking Arnold in the Gazette’s ColoradoPolitics.com they failed to mention they were or had been on the payroll of Beauprez and Pioneer Action. Reporter Megan Schrader in a story in The Denver Post on April 4 said that this lack of disclosure “looks really bad.”
So who owns Bob Beauprez and the Colorado Republican establishment? Is it the Koch Brothers or Phil Anschutz? Of course, it could always be both in tandem.
If there is anyone in Colorado who will find out who the dark money source is, it will be watchdog Matt Arnold. It is not easy to fight alone against some of the richest and most powerful people in the state. Incredibly he seems to not be deterred. We can’t wait to see what he discovers next.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Mar 24, 2017 | Editorials
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