The inauguration of President Donald Trump, a Coloradan for the highest court in the land, a crackdown on illegal immigration and the rise of the #MeToo movement all helped make 2017 quite a wild ride. Here are excerpts from editorials discussing some of the biggest stories of the year.
Call the pink hats silly if you like, but we stand proudly with the men and women across the world who will don fuchsia headgear and march Saturday for the basic reproductive rights that empower women.
We stand with women everywhere who, on average, as the Guttmacher Institute calculates, “will spend close to three years pregnant, postpartum or attempting to be pregnant, and about three decades — more than three-quarters of her reproductive life — trying to avoid an unintended pregnancy.”
Even for women who have financial means, family planning is still — in 2017 — difficult to navigate. …
The Women’s March in Washington, D.C., and the one in Denver are about more than this single issue, but one force driving women to the streets in protest is the simple idea that women’s health care should be covered by insurance, readily available, and not subject to the whims of politics.
(Jan. 20)
The United States of America deserves to have a president who tells the truth.
The fact that we feel compelled to make this observation, so early in the new presidency of Donald Trump, suggests that the country is in for a long and miserable four years. Trump and his spokesman, Sean Spicer, need to start telling the truth.
Trump’s gut reliance on making claims that were demonstrably untrue worked fabulously for him on the campaign trail. He eviscerated opponents and knocked back investigative news stories with disturbing frequency and success. His doing so was one of the many reasons we could not and did not support his campaign. …
But now Trump, as president, has doubled down on his insistence that he lost the popular vote because as many as 5 million people living in the country illegally cast votes. All 50 states have certified their elections without reporting such fraud. To be the president of all people, and to give what must have been lip service to the idea that patriotism has no room for prejudice, as he did in his inaugural promise, means putting aside these divisive myths. …
The president of the United States needs to demand of himself and of his staff that comments presented to the American people can be trusted and supported by legitimate — and not “alternative” — facts.
(Jan. 26)
A Coloradan on the highest court
Happily add us to those excited to see Colorado native Neil Gorsuch nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Among those President Donald Trump considered for the post, we held out special hope for Gorsuch. We hope his nomination is secured, even as Democrats circle the wagons of opposition to block him.
Recently in these pages we argued for a Gorsuch nomination. A federal judge in Denver, and a fourth-generation Coloradan, Gorsuch is a brilliant legal mind and talented writer whom observers praise for his ability to apply the law fairly and consistently. While we disagreed with his ruling in the Hobby Lobby contraception case upheld by the high court, we appreciate his desire to strictly interpret the Constitution based on the intent of our nation’s founders, even when those rulings might contradict his personal beliefs.
(Feb. 2)
Sanctuary yes, and justice, too
In Denver this week, a woman in the country illegally took a principled stand. Facing the near-certain prospect of deportation, Jeanette Vizguerra gathered her American-born children: daughters Zury and Luna, aged 6 and 12, respectively, and 10-year-old son, Roberto. She considered her nightmarish options. Should she take her children back to Mexico, a land they do not know? Should she leave them in their home in Denver with family and friends? Should she try to disappear with them into the shadows?
An enterprising sort, the 45-year-old, a well-respected advocate for the immigrant community, made a different choice, one meant to force us to think about our broken immigration system — and what justice actually means in cases like this one.
Vizguerra took sanctuary in a church, one of the few places federal agents aren’t likely to go to deport her. And she went public. …
(Feb. 17)
Time to grow up, Denver’s 4/20
Organizers, and too many participants, of Denver’s 4/20 cannabis celebration last week made a mess of things in more ways than one. As the eyes of the world, and of the Trump administration, potentially focused on our fair city, the high-holiday bacchanal got out of hand.
Impatient revelers crashed fences, broke reasonable rules about public consumption and once again went out of their way to personify as many negative stereotypes about marijuana as they could manage.
The list of regrettable and gross misdeeds includes leaving Civic Center — Denver’s front lawn — something of a trash heap for workers, residents and visitors to consider as thanks for our awfully open-minded legal-cannabis system.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is right to be angry about the “disrespectful state” in which revelers left the park.
“Our parks and public spaces are held in the public trust,” the mayor said in a press conference inside Civic Center. “When you leave our parks trashed, you violate the public trust.”
(April 26)
Budget deal too sweet to pass up
Colorado lawmakers came into the 2017 General Assembly with a lemon of a car, needing massive repairs, and if Senate Bill 267 passes, the coming years will drive a little smoother. The fundamental problem is that we have one of the strongest economies in the nation, and yet arbitrary caps on spending, formulas limiting property taxes and mandatory increases in education spending squeezed other priorities, making next year’s budget feel like recessionary budgeting.
Republicans and Democrats have spent the last 116 days negotiating a deal to avoid a nearly half-billion dollar cut in state and federal aid to hospitals for care to low-income patients. The compromise required hardliner fiscal conservatives to admit the state needs more money than it is currently allowed to spend — effectively giving the budget room to grow by $350 million in coming years. Democrats left $200 million in potential spending growth on the table, prioritized transportation funding over even more K-12 funding, and agreed to some minor increases in co-pays for certain Medicaid patients. …
Here’s what we like in the bill: $1.88 billion over 20 years for transportation without increasing taxes; at least $30 million more every year for schools (next year dedicated to rural schools); $120 million for upkeep of state owned buildings; and an end to the problem of increased health-care costs leading to an unfair requirement that triggers taxpayer refunds.
(May 6)
Renewed call for a special prosecutor
President Donald Trump did the nation, himself and his credibility no favors in firing FBI Director James Comey. Itap hard to buy the presidentap explanation for Comey’s removal, which strikes us more as a naked effort to sabotage the ongoing investigation into Trump’s campaign’s dealings with Russia.
Yes, the presidentap angst with Comey goes back a ways. Comey’s July 2016 exoneration of Hillary Clinton for her wrongheaded email arrangement angered the blustery billionaire. But claiming that Comey’s handling of that investigation was reason enough to fire him collides full on with the fact Trump praised the FBI director for his “guts” in reopening the investigation shortly before Election Day. And little wonder, as Comey’s actions likely played a role in Trump’s stunning victory.
Had Trump wished to sack Comey over the Clinton emails, he should have done so in his first days on the job, when such a move could have been reasonably accepted without harming the reputation of his office. His waiting until this week, after so many high-profile stories about the Russia investigation, cannot avoid the perception of political interference in a critical law enforcement investigation.
(May 11)
A reminder that we are still one nation, indivisible
We join Americans across the nation who are praying for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, U.S. Capitol Police officers David Bailey and Crystal Griner, congressional staffer Zach Barth, and lobbyist Matt Mika.
What a miracle it would be if there were no fatalities in the senseless attack Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Va., that targeted Republican members of Congress as they were practicing for an annual congressional baseball game against Democrats. …
Violence and radicalization know no political party, religion, race or gender. Letap not point fingers in times like these and instead unite in opposition to evil and intolerance in support of the democratic process.
Our wonderful system of government has subjugated violence, and for all the messy flaws of democracy, our diplomatic and peaceful governance is one absolute good that none can question, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. The suspected shooter could not have been more wrong in his angry Facebook posts. No single president, or politician, or party will destroy democracy, and certainly even in trying times historic and present, no one has come close.
Our system of governance, and its worthy servants like Scalise and the other victims of Wednesday’s shooting, will endure not only political turmoil but also the misguided violence that sprouts up along the fringes of our government, often driven more by mental illness than organized political philosophy.
We cannot live in fear of those outliers. As of Wednesday afternoon, Republicans and Democrats still planned to hold their annual baseball game, and they should be commended for their bravery.
(June 15)
Supreme Court should rule: Let them have cake
The Lakewood baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2012 is not the victim in a case that this week was accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court for consideration.
Charlie Craig and David Mullins were planning for the happiest day of their lives when, unbeknownst to them, they walked into a bakery owned by a person harboring such prejudice against same-sex couples he refused to bake them a cake. They are the victims who suffered the real harm of discrimination, not the other way around.
We hope the U.S. Supreme Court — including its newest justice, Neil Gorsuch — can weigh the facts in this case to find that a cake shop that sells wedding cakes must sell those cakes to everyone. To do otherwise would be to weaken public accommodation and employment laws across the nation that protect people daily from the possible discriminatory practices of the owners of businesses, renters of apartments, sellers of homes, and employers.
(June 28)
With Congress and the White House in Republican control, the years-long GOP promise to undo Obamacare appears to have gasped its last breath. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made that clear Monday night, after a total of four Republican senators said they could not support the latest rewrite. …
We cheer the white flag, and wish our own Sen. Cory Gardner had joined the holdouts in his party, as we urged him to do last month. Throughout this process, it has been clear that despite their years of complaining about Obamacare — and pledging from the campaign trail, as Trump did, to derail it — there never was a viable plan. Worse, Republicans proved themselves to be breathtakingly hypocritical in the process, blaming Democrats for rushing through the bill when in fact the vanquished party, on the whole, worked on the plan more transparently.
But we also share some of the majority leader’s regret. What McConnell was trying to push through wasn’t the right course for the millions of Americans who would have lost coverage and for states worried about how cuts to Medicaid were going to harm the least powerful of citizens. But McConnell and Company were right to try to do something to fix problems in President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, for ڴڴǰ岹isn’t an appellation that quite fits.
(July 19)
With Charlottesville, Trump’s failed leadership
Perhaps we shouldn’t have expected better from a businessman who campaigned on racial animus against Latinos and Muslims, who questioned our first black presidentap birthright to run for the office, who hired a top adviser whose online publication is a darling of the alt-right, who seemed amused that his message energized white supremacists, who suggested that protesters at his rallies should be roughed up, and who even promised to cover the legal fees of supporters who took action.
But we should expect better from the president of the United States than what the hopelessly immature Donald Trump delivered following Saturday’s deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. While always quick to speak up when crossed or cornered, President Trump kept too quiet this weekend, speaking only briefly on the matter, and equivocating to cast blame on violence coming from “many sides.” Yes, his press office on Sunday, in an unsigned email to reporters, did loop in condemnation for white supremacists. But who can trust that Trump’s press officers speak for him? He undercuts them constantly.
It wasn’t until Monday that Trump finally declared that “racism is evil,” saying, “those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to what we hold dear as Americans.”
Great words and a good try. But they came after a morning in which Trump swiftly lashed out at a black CEO who resigned his place on a manufacturing council in protest of the presidentap depressing weekend response.
Actions speak volumes, and Trump’s were much too little and Monday’s condemnation grossly too late.
(August 15)
Taylor Swift’s righteous fight
Taylor Swift is doing the right thing and not the easy thing in fighting a lawsuit filed against her by former Boulder radio talk show host David Mueller.
Not that the international superstar and emblem of female empowerment needs our support. But as the trial date approaches, we hope she stands by her resolve to publicly fight a man accused of groping her. The why behind what she is doing is terribly important.
Itap important that her young female fans know it is unacceptable for men to grab women without permission — and that such assault comes with repercussions in our society. …
Imagine. If itap this difficult for a superstar to stand up and fight against a man accused of groping her, how difficult must it be for a woman to accuse her boss of assault or sexual harassment? People wonder why it took so long for the sexual harassment occurring at Fox News to come to light. Bill O’Reilly settled lawsuits with five women who accused the Fox News host of sexual harassment. Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief, also was accused of sexually harassing three women.
And then there’s Donald Trump. Despite a flood of accusers following the “Access Hollywood” video capturing his bad behavior, he denied everything and won the presidency.
Why, it is always asked, didn’t the women come forward sooner? Because it is embarrassing and public and the woman is vilified even when she’s the victim.
(July 30)
President Donald Trump has done the right thing for the hundreds of thousands of America’s undocumented youth who willingly came out of the shadows to receive Obama-era deportation protections. Now itap critical that Congress follow suit.
Trump pledged early in his tenure as president not to revoke the temporary deferred deportation or legal work status these childhood arrivals obtained under President Barack Obama’s executive order beginning in 2012. Trump has stayed true to that promise. His administration has issued new or renewed 200,000 deferred action applications since he has been in office.
But Trump is about to be put in a political squeeze by 10 Republican attorneys general who are threatening to file suit challenging the constitutionality of Obama’s order — unless Trump revokes the order by Sept. 5. Such a legal challenge would have to be defended by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who would be an unlikely champion for the cause.
Now Congress has the urgent opportunity to follow the presidentap lead and do the right thing by almost 750,000 Dreamers — named after the DREAM Act — who are in limbo as they wait to see whether they will be punished for willingly giving the federal government their information in exchange for a chance to pursue the American dream.
(Aug. 10)
President Donald Trump once again acted horribly and unbelievably this weekend on matters of race. The same businessman who sought to exclude people of color from family’s properties, the same candidate who launched his primary challenge by demonizing Mexicans and Muslims, the same president who still doesn’t understand why he was wrong to equivocate after the deadly mayhem in Charlottesville, Va., decided Saturday in Alabama to argue profanely that black players who take a knee during the anthem should be fired.
Whatap more, Trump sullied the office of the presidency of the United States in calling for fans to boycott teams that allow players to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech, one of our most sacred values. Suggesting that players are being disrespectful to those who have served our country and died for it, misses the point of why our country is worth defending.
Yet this is a president whose actions scream out that he doesn’t wish to serve all Americans. By seeking to divide the NFL’s fans, owners and management from its players, Trump showed a frightening desire to divide the nation further.
Shame on Donald Trump for trying. High praise for the NFL for rejecting the attempt. …
Theirs has been a peaceful protest. Kneeling maintains a respectful salute. Kneeling also makes an argument for prayerful reflection on legitimately troubling problems.
Honoring the flag is a wonderful tribute. Honoring what it stands for even more so. What greater reverence for our country exists than exercising free speech to respectfully call for equal rights for all Americans?
(Sept. 26)
What our gun laws say about us
In the modern list of mass shootings on American soil, a disturbingly familiar pattern has emerged: military-style semiautomatic weapons with large magazines purchased, borrowed or stolen in the days and months leading up to the attacks.
Who doesn’t wish James Holmes had been stopped from purchasing four guns in the 60 days prior to his attack, including the semiautomatic Smith & Wesson M&P 15, a civilian version of the U.S. military’s fully automatic M-16, that he coupled with a 100-round magazine?
Who doesn’t regret the murderous efficiency of the weapons used by Stephen Paddock last Sunday as he killed 58 human beings and injured hundreds more who were simply trying to enjoy a concert in Las Vegas?
Yet on the question of gun limits, our nation remains hopelessly divided. …
Gun laws shouldn’t be seen as mere limits. Rather, they make a statement about what it is we consider acceptable as a people. We should view them as a guiding star to think about the technology as new innovations come on line. Our laws reveal much about us. Limits shouldn’t suggest that we are fearful and weak. They cry out that we are strong enough to know better.
(Oct. 8)
President Donald Trump took his fevered debasement of the presidency to new lows Tuesday, attacking a U.S. senator on Twitter by suggesting she “would do anything” for campaign cash.
The president said in his post: “Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump.”
Trump made his claim after several of the women who have accused him of sexual assault in the past held a press conference on Monday to demand accountability, and Gillibrand called on him to resign. …
We find ourselves in surreal territory. The Denver Post editorial board has called on state lawmakers accused of sexual harassment to step down. We’ve railed against the slow progress elected officials at the state and national level are making to deal with harassment. Yet we blink when it comes to calling for Trump’s resignation, for he won his election after multiple claims of harassment were thoroughly reported and published, and then capped by Trump’s own bragging about grabbing women’s genitals captured in the infamous “Access Hollywood” video.
With so many asking the question, Trump should realize his good fortune and keep his silence. Instead, his disgusting tweet Tuesday comes after he stood by and defended Alabama’s Roy Moore, credibly accused of sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl and other abuses. It comes after Trump falsely claimed he never met the women who came forward on Monday. It comes after he has reportedly been telling those around him that he now believes the “Access Hollywood” video was faked — even though he apologized for the remarks on the campaign trail. …
The president ought to get out of the way of this important movement, as he has no credibility here.
(Dec. 13)
Oh, the irony of Republicans in Congress passing a massive federal tax cut that would actually provide Colorado with a boon in state tax revenue, and only a year after state GOP lawmakers shot down a proposal to ask voters for a dedicated revenue stream to fund the $9 billion backlog of transportation needs.
The state’s top economists estimate the federal changes in tax code that are sitting on President Donald Trump’s desk would actually increase income tax revenue in Colorado by an estimated $196 million to $340 million a year beginning in fiscal year 2018-19.
That means the newly passed tax bill would generate more money than the sales tax boost proposed by a bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers earlier this year to fund transportation needs. Republicans in the state Senate refused to send that tax increase to voters. But this new revenue would come without that difficult hurdle. Thanks, Congress!
(Dec. 22)
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