Re: \u201cSenator\u2019s campaign tried to nix challenge<\/a>,\u201d Dec. 10 news story<\/p>\n The article about a former staff member for Sen. John Hickenlooper trying to sabotage potential rivals in the 2026 senatorial primary was disturbing but also not a surprise. The Democratic Party is apparently just as corrupt as the Republican Party.<\/p>\n Sen. Hickenlooper\u2019s record for the past few years has been largely absent. I\u2019m not sure what he\u2019s doing (outside of his recent email push to potential voters), but he certainly hasn\u2019t taken any memorable action to counter any of the daily horrors coming from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n This is why I am an independent voter. Both political parties have lost sight of the people they are supposed to be representing in favor of money \u2014 for themselves and for their wealthy friends. I\u2019m sorry to see the Western Slope ranchers and farmers screwed by Trump tariffs \u2013 but then, that\u2019s who they voted for. It\u2019s a sad state our country is in.<\/p>\n Linda McCone, Paonia<\/em><\/p>\n I had not heard of state Sen. Julie Gonzales until last week. I am now only cursorily familiar with her priorities and qualifications. Yet, I will undoubtedly vote for her in her primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n I am thrilled that we have a candidate willing to take on a prototypical establishment Democrat, notwithstanding the odds and veiled threats. Establishment Democrats have gone AWOL. That is not a new phenomenon. But this past year, the near-silence and ineffectiveness of establishment Democrats have been particularly damaging. We are long overdue for a hard refresh.<\/p>\n Fabrice Georis, Denver<\/em><\/p>\n Re: \u201cDOJ investigating state\u2019s prisons<\/a>,\u201d Dec. 9 news story<\/p>\n The article regarding a DOJ investigation of the Division of Youth Services comes as no surprise, given the long history of abuse within those twelve facilities within the state. There are at least weekly<\/a> reports of horrendous conditions, including excessive force and restraints being used as the only curriculum within the \u201cservices.\u201d<\/p>\n To repeat the statistics, at the Zeb Pike Center, there was a 191% increase<\/a> over the previous six months in the use of restraints. \u00a0The adjectives describing the conditions are often used by Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International \u2014 sexual assault, excessive force, overdoses and malnutrition. \u00a0The definition of insanity is to do what you have always done and expect a different outcome.<\/p>\n When will the Department of Human Services try another way? Targeting funding toward family support, foster care, community services, and trauma-informed care, and away from congregate segregated services, is long overdue. There are other models in Scandinavia and elsewhere that should be replicated here to stop the historical failure and poor use of our tax dollars.<\/p>\n It is difficult to do the right thing the wrong way.<\/p>\n Marcia Tewell, Denver<\/em><\/p>\n Re: \u201cThere are real fixes for Colorado\u2019s budget woes<\/a>,\u201d Dec. 7 commentary<\/p>\n Dave Young reminds us that he taught junior high math. For me, junior high was a long time ago. Please remind me, how does asking 2% of the population to solve a problem faced by 100% of the population seem \u201cfair\u201d? That math just does not add up!<\/p>\n Greg Johnson, Denver<\/em><\/p>\n Dave Young, the Colorado State Treasurer, who wrote the recent article about how to fix Colorado\u2019s budget shortfall, is light on cutting expenses and heavy on taking more money from others. He mentions \u201casking\u201d wealthy Coloradans to pay more, the old \u201cpay their fair share\u201d baloney, as well as increasing severance taxes on Colorado\u2019s oil industry, which is undoubtedly among the most highly regulated and thus costly to operate in the United States.<\/p>\n The wealthy already pay most of Colorado\u2019s state taxes and can easily show their opposition by moving. Check out how that\u2019s working for California and New York. Oil companies, one by one, have had it with Colorado and its oversight by environmentalists running what used to be called the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and as a result, have red-lined Colorado as a state to avoid.<\/p>\n Pretty soon we\u2019ll run out of other people\u2019s money if we continue on this path. I hope Coloradans can wake up to this reality.<\/p>\n Joe Freeman, Englewood<\/em><\/p>\n Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more. <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online<\/a> or check out our guidelines<\/a> for how to submit by email or mail.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Democratic reset can start with ousting Hickenlooper Re: \u201cSenator\u2019s campaign tried to nix challenge,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attorneycalendar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Do the right thing\u2019 and provide real Youth Services<\/h4>\n
Taxing the 2% doesn\u2019t add up<\/h4>\n