A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Daily Sentinel, May 30, on Attorney General Eric Holder:
Embattled Attorney General Eric Holder isn’t receiving much media love these days, even from news organizations that have typically been big boosters of the Obama administration.
His latest gaffe certainly deserves media wrath.
Holder sought meetings with the Washington Bureau chiefs of several major news organizations to discuss his deteriorating relationship with the press and how the Justice Department can deal with government leaks without trampling on the First Amendment.
But here’s the kicker: Holder wanted all these discussions about the free press and his department to be off the record, meaning no reporting allowed. Let’s just keep this between us and not let the riffraff public know what we’re discussing.
Let’s not. Most of the media organizations he contacted rebelled at the suggestion. We hope even more will join us and other media voices in calling for Holder’s dismissal.
The notion that government and media officials should discuss the First Amendment and freedom of the press in secrecy is as antithetical to the subject at hand as possible.
We were pleased to learn that many news organizations refused to participate under those terms, including The New York Times, Associated Press, CNN, Fox News and Huffington Post.
All of this transpired, of course, because of recent news that the Justice Department had secretly obtained subpoenas to examine the phone records of several Associated Press reporters and one reporter for Fox News, all in the name of allegedly trying to plug leaks of classified information.
The subpoena for Fox News reporter James Rosen went so far as to include his parents’ phone records and to name Rosen as a possible co-conspirator in a federal espionage case.
Holder has done little to endear himself to the media or Congress in all of this. He denied any personal knowledge of the AP subpoena and told members of Congress that he had never considered prosecuting journalists under the federal Espionage Act. But that statement was contradicted when it was learned he personally signed the subpoena in the Rosen case.
Every news organization, including The Daily Sentinel, occasionally agrees to off-the-record discussions with public officials. In most cases, they are constrained to very limited events related to a few specific topics.
It is extremely rare that news organizations would allow entire meetings about one of the most important features of our Constitution, and the government’s controversial handling of that feature, to be conducted in secret. News entities, after all, have both a public responsibility and a business interest in reporting on such matters to their readers and viewers.
In trying to make up with the media, Holder once again revealed his own—and the Obama administration’s—fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to have a free press and a transparent government.
This week’s ham-handed Holder move is one more reason the president should fire his attorney general.
Editorial:
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The Denver Post, June 1, on the shooting of Ibragim Todashev:
The clouds of conflicting stories surrounding the police killing of a friend of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects need to be cleared, officially and with some dispatch.
While we understand there are ongoing investigations into the shooting of Ibragim Todashev during questioning, authorities should quickly release an explanation—even a brief one—of what led to the May 22 killing of the Chechen man.
In the vacuum, anonymous sources have given different details about the events, and some versions portray the FBI in an unfavorable light.
Authorities were questioning Todashev about a triple homicide in Massachusetts, in which Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was another suspect, when, well, something happened.
Various accounts say he had a knife when he lunged at an agent. Another says he was unarmed. Some reports say he upended a table. In one bizarre account, he was reportedly trying to grab a samurai sword that was in the room. And in another, he is said to have run at an agent with a metal pole before being shot.
Todashev’s father has accused cops of killing his son “execution style.” Abdul-Baki Todashev said his son was shot six times in the torso and once in the back of the head.
“They tortured a man for eight hours with no attorney, no witnesses, nobody. We can only guess what was going on there, until there is an official investigation,” Todashev said.
The incident, and the various accounts of what happened, raise questions of police conduct in the case.
The connection to the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, and potential terrorism ramifications, make this a high-interest case from public interest and law enforcement standpoints.
While he was being questioned, Todashev implicated himself and Tsarnaev in the unsolved murders of three men who were found with their throats slashed, marijuana and cash strewn over their bodies.
The manner of the murders and the date—Sept. 11, 2011—raise questions about whether suspects Todashev and Tsarnaev were engaged in some sort of ideological war against the U.S. and whether they had help.
That makes it all the more crucial to get to the bottom of the Todashev shooting, and quickly.
The FBI has been parsimonious with details, saying little beyond the fact that they are investigating and it may take months. In addition, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is investigating, as are local prosecutors.
And all of that is all well and good. But in the meantime, speculation will percolate about what happened and whether the shooting was justified.
Releasing a cogent, truthful account of the incident could take some of the edge off the conspiracy theories and provide some answers to affected families and the public.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Gazette, June 2, on legalizing marijuana and Fort Carson:
As Pentagon officials mull a decision that could help or harm Colorado Springs, the choice by Colorado voters to legalize pot could prove costly. Public officials must, like never before, work to keep soldiers off drugs.
Looming budget cuts will force the Pentagon to cut Army personnel by 80,000. If all goes well for the Springs, the cuts will cause a realignment of operations that would relocate roughly 3,000 soldiers to Fort Carson. That means our community would benefit from 3,000 additional taxpaying consumers, along with their families, who will boost the local economy.
Another of the Pentagon’s options would result in a loss of 8,000 Fort Carson soldiers, a move that would only depress the housing market and harm other aspects of the economy.
Colorado Springs should roll out the red carpet as an invitation for more of the men and women who make up the world’s best army. City, county and state leaders must show federal officials the benefits of doing more business in Colorado Springs, where community leaders and a majority of taxpayers understand the value of investing in our troops. Make clear the fact Colorado Springs respects the Army, wants more of it and is proud to call itself a military town.
While we’re at it, let’s make one other thing perfectly clear: Colorado Springs is not a bastion of marijuana abuse and has no plan to become such a place. A majority in our community, including nearly all elected officials, desire to control marijuana consumption in unprecedented fashion.
Maj. Gen. Paul LaCamera, commander of Fort Carson and the 4th Infantry Division, has told local officials that legal pot raises serious concerns for the Army. He told Mayor Steve Bach the decision by voters to legalize “goes against good order and discipline.”
We understand and respect his concern. One can intuitively deduce that voters who legalize pot want more of it.
But most Coloradans do not use marijuana and did not vote for more abuse. A great number voted to legalize because they hoped doing so would promote more order and discipline. After a well-funded campaign in favor of legalization, they voted for regulation, taxation and monitoring of sales that had long flourished underground in a black market that made the drug widely available to military and civilian populations.
Regardless of one’s stand on legalization, nearly all should hope it will lead to more order and discipline. Illegal sales are covert and disordered by nature. When successful, these transactions remain undetected, unregulated and unpunished.
A successful legal trade could – key word could – nearly eliminate the underground market, much like undoing prohibition of alcohol choked out most bootleggers. Black markets seldom survive legal competition because few consumers will risk prosecution when given legal options to obtain the same product. Black market prices, even without the burden of taxation, are intrinsically high and noncompetitive because sellers assume costs and risks that are passed on to customers as overhead. The costs of operating illegally can easily surpass reasonable taxes on legal transactions.
If legal sales supplant black market sales, as proponents promised, marijuana transactions will become easier to watch. State authorities have the ability to monitor sales. Instead of trying to detect back alley and basement-dwelling criminals, they will monitor licensed sellers who operate in store fronts in view of cameras.
A legal, taxed and regulated environment gives local politicians the opportunity to create severe penalties for anyone who sells or otherwise provides marijuana to military personnel. Think about liquor stores and bars, which suffer severe consequences when caught selling alcohol to minors or customers who have overimbibed.
Imagine city and county ordinances – even a state law – that forbid selling or providing marijuana to military personnel. Sellers could protect themselves by asking for IDs and requiring customers to sign waivers that declare no employment with any branch of military. Perjurers would face civil and military consequences; sellers who don’t demand waivers would risk penalties if caught selling to military personnel.
Like all laws, a ban on sales to military would not be fully enforceable. It could be more enforceable than efforts to regulate underground sales, as criminals never ask for IDs or waivers and avoid doing business in plain view.
Gen. LaCamera, we hear your concern and share it. Colorado Springs cannot and will not become a place in which soldiers have easy access to pot. We urge all politicians and their constituents to create laws in compliance with the state constitution, whatever they may be, that make marijuana less available to children and military personnel. Let’s not make statements, let’s get results. Let’s destroy the black-market pot trade and empower law enforcement to make our region the hardest place on earth for those who defend our country to obtain marijuana. It’s in the best interest of our community and our nation’s defense.
Editorial:
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The Daily Camera, June 2, on Gov. Hickenlooper and the death penalty in Colorado:
Gov. John Hickenlooper, by all accounts, weighed the decision of whether the state should execute murderer Nathan Dunlap very carefully. His decision to grant him a temporary reprieve surprised almost everyone.
Dunlap will not be executed while Hickenlooper is governor.
We acknowledge that Hickenlooper faced a terrible conundrum. He had to make a decision that would anger so many people, and one that could make him seem callous to the victims’ families. He could make a decision that might make him the last Colorado governor in history responsible for executing someone.
People who favor the death penalty claimed he was overly political, and “chickened” out of the “tough” decision — the one that could have scheduled Dunlap’s execution by the state in August.
In truth he made the most politically brave decision at all: He made a decision that was unpopular with pretty much everyone.
People who want Dunlap to be killed by the state were furious. People who wanted clemency for Dunlap were disappointed. People who want to see the death penalty replaced by life in prison with no chance of parole noted that this just kicks the can down the road. They worry that a changing political environment could capitalize on anger against Hickenlooper, by strengthening the death penalty instead of eliminating it.
But this seems unlikely. Earlier this month, Maryland became the sixth state in six years to abolish the death penalty. Legislators and governors in 18 states now have recognized that the justice system is a human institution, and a very good one, but fallible. It is capricious in nature, and based so much on the geographical location of the crime and the court, which is absurd. It remains popular in America — most say they favor it. But a Gallup poll found that its popularity is waning: About 80 percent favored it in the early 1990s, and about 63 percent do today.
But by crafting the decision the way that he did, Hickenlooper potentially handed the conundrum to a future governor. We do appreciate, though, his statement: “Colorado’s system of capital punishment is imperfect and inherently inequitable. Such a level of punishment really does demand perfection.”
Perfection is impossible in a system rife with racial biases, financial and class inequities, politics, professional ambitions, emotions, religious views, tragedy, and the grief of coping with unimaginable loss. And unimaginable loss in Aurora means something different to the state of Colorado’s justice system than unimaginable loss in Boulder. Life in prison with no chance of parole is the answer.
The governor faced the choice to end someone else’s life and he chose not to, for now. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, no Colorado governor will face that decision.
Editorial:
