The weekly newsletter of The Denver Post’s opinion pages.
The big news last week was Democrat Doug Jones’ victory over Republican Roy Moore in the special election to replace Jeff Sessions as U.S. senator in Alabama. While President Donald Trump suggested Moore never had a chance because the deck was stacked against him, a number of opinion columnists suggest Moore’s loss is evidence that Trumpism has its limits and Democrats could do well in next year’s midterm elections. Here are highlights of the week in opinion:
Perspective
First, a summary of what was in our Sunday Perspective section this week:
Balancing the PERA burden: Vincent Carroll, the former Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News editorial page editor, over how to reform Colorado’s public pension fund, which will be a hot topic in next year’s state legislature.
#MeToo movement forces a reckoning: Karen Tumulty, a national political correspondent for The Washington Post, wrote that Republican Roy Moore’s stunning defeat in Alabama marked a for the national movement around the issue of sexual abuse.
The electronic corruption of democracy: Daniel Baer wrote that the Russian intervention in our election and the corruption of the FCC net neutrality comment process underscore that in the digital age.
It’s the gas tax, stupid: Denver Post editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett wrote: Our maddeningly stubborn reliance on a tired old gasoline tax is failing and can’t be fixed; the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Road Usage Charge program .
Oppose the dismal Trump tax plan: In its Sunday editorial, The Denver Post’s editorial board wrote: Colorado’s congressional delegation should the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and demand a better bill, one that doesn’t explode the national debt and deficit at the expense of the middle class.
Letters to the editor: On the letters page, Denver Post readers tackled a number of issues. Here are several of their letters:
A new worst president ever: George F. Will of The Washington Post wrote: By joining Steve Bannon’s buffoonery on Roy Moore’s behalf, the 45th president planted an exclamation point punctuating a year of hitherto unplumbed presidential depths. (Translation: Donald Trump is now the .)
Patty Limerick branches out to TV: Patty Limerick, a monthly Denver Post columnist, wrote about one of the more satisfying aspects of one of her other jobs — being Colorado’s state historian. In that role, she has often appearing as an expert on Rocky Mountain PBS’s “Colorado Experience” series.
Right call on Rep. Lori Saine: Columnist Mario Nicolais defended Colorado state Rep. Lori Saine, who spent a night in jail for bringing a concealed weapon into a secure area at Denver International Airport. Nicolais suggested Saine simply made a mistake, and said against her.
Wrong call on Jerusalem: Jonathan Sciarcon, an associate professor of history and Judaic studies at the University of Denver, wrote that President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel .
Squeezing inmates’ families for cash: Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle for rules that deny prison inmates contact with their families, and charge families exorbitant rates for videoconferencing.
Your kids shouldn’t be viral sensations: Sonny Bunch, executive editor of the Washington Free Beacon, urged parents to stop exploiting their children by turning them into on social media.
Drawn to the News: Here are the editorial cartoons we featured on the back page of Sunday’s Perspective section, on the topic of Doug Jones’ defeat of Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race:
The past week
Here are highlights from last week’s opinion coverage:
Denver Post editorials:
Yes, #YouToo, Mr. President: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., was right to call for an investigation of President Donald Trump, in light of sexual assault and harassment allegations by a number of women, and .
Social pot-use permits too hard to obtain: Denver’s pilot program meant to to allow recreational cannabis use in businesses is off to such a slow start as to be almost nonexistent — only recently has the first such business announced it will open. The city should consider making it .
Stapleton’s PERA plan too extreme: State Treasurer Walker Stapleton’s plan to reform the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association pension plan contains ideas we hope lawmakers adopt, but his approach to curtailing cost-of-living increases .
Op-ed columns:
Trump should be nervous after Roy Moore loss: Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle wrote that Doug Jones’ victory over Roy Moore — because if Trump and Steve Bannon can’t sell their mix of cultural resentment and paranoia in Alabama, they will be hard-pressed to sell it anywhere.
What Alabama election means for Mitch McConnell: Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Bernstein wrote that Republicans are once again paying for nominating an unusually unpopular candidate for the U.S. Senate, and argued that .
Bannon just elected a Democrat in Alabama: Marc A. Thiessen of The Washington Post wrote that Steve Bannon and his alt-right movement have helped accomplish something no one in a quarter-century has been able to do: in the state of Alabama.
Trump is toxic, and other lessons from Alabama: Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote that if Republicans have any survival instinct, they might think seriously about before 2018, and certainly before 2020.
2018 looks like a Democratic wave: Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University, wrote that Doug Jones’ improbable victory was much more than a rejection of Roy Moore. It reflected since the 2016 presidential election.
A defense of the Senate tax plan: Cory Gardner, Colorado’s Republican U.S. senator, wrote that criticism aside, a sober review of the Senate tax bill shows both with respect to deductions.
Anti-fracking activist’s post isn’t libel: Megan Schrader, a Denver Post editorial writer and columnist, explained why a Texas-based oil and gas company is over an erroneous comment on Facebook
Trump is wrong on Jerusalem decision: Weekly Denver Post columnist Krista Kafer argued that President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem .
What Puerto Rico needs right now: Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Broadway’s “Hamilton,” wrote that , and while he and other entertainers are doing all they can to help Puerto Ricans, only Congress and the Trump administration can provide what’s really needed.
Sandy Hook, five years later: Michael Kehoe, who was the Newtown, Conn., police chief when the Sandy Hook school shooting occurred five years ago, wrote that the all-too-quaint, closely knit and pastoral community .
Letters to the editor:
Notable and quotable
“By joining Steve Bannon’s buffoonery on [Roy] Moore’s behalf, the 45th president planted an exclamation point punctuating a year of hitherto unplumbed presidential depths. He completed his remarkably swift — it has taken less than 11 months — rescue of the 17th, Andrew Johnson, from the ignominy of ranking as the nation’s worst president.”
George F. Will, conservative Washington Post columnist
The Sound Off, which is emailed to subscribers every Monday, is a roundup of what we’ve been publishing on the opinion pages over the past week. That includes Denver Post , op-ed by Post columnists like Chuck Plunkett and Megan Schrader as well as nationally syndicated columnists like George F. Will and Catherine Rampell, plus guest commentaries, and editorial .
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