The Voting Conundrum: News Miner 22

Notes on the Colorado ballot, Peotter the election conspiracist, Ganahl on vaccines, and more.

The Voting Conundrum

As ballots arrive in the mail, a lot of us face some tough choices.

Democrats are leading by such wide margins in the big races that expressing my views probably won’t matter. The Democratic Global Strategy Group shows Polis leading Ganahl 54–33% (!), Bennet leading O’Dea 50–35%, Griswold leading Anderson 46–34%, and Weiser leading Kellner 44–35%. Of course, the polls may be skewed for whatever reason (e.g., Republicans avoiding pollsters). It very much looks like Republicans are about to get absolutely destroyed in Colorado at least in those races. Honestly, I’m okay with that.

Don’t get me wrong: I am very sad that Republicans have not put up better candidates or managed to shut out the Crazy Wing of their party (officially my party).

I think O’Dea would be okay in the Senate, although I worry he would buckle under Trumpist pressure regarding election integrity, if it came to it. I trust Anderson to ably serve as Secretary of State. I don’t trust Ganahl to support election integrity, and generally I don’t think she’d make a very good governor. She’d veto a lot of bad bills, and that ain’t nothing. Weiser obviously politicizes his office for leftist causes, but I think Kellner also would politicize the office, just for other causes. It’s possible the AG’s office could be relevant in an election integrity dispute, and I don’t trust Kellner to display any backbone in that matter. That’s a reason to favor Weiser.

I haven’t seen polling on the House races. Regarding the Seventh, I recently Tweeted:

As much as it pains me I'd like to publicly announce that I will be voting “for” @pettersen4co [Brittany Pettersen] as the strongest possible vote against @AadlandforCO [Erik Aadland]. I trust Pettersen to support election integrity, and I distrust Aadland on that score. That’s the only intended meaning of my vote.

In the Eighth, Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer is running against Yadira Caraveo. I know little about that race.

I also don’t know the odds of Republicans winning a side of the state legislature. I assume that Ganahl’s poor campaign will bog down a lot of town-ticket races. I would really like Republicans to control either the Senate or House, just to check the hard-left’s onslaught of terrible bills. My basic take is to vote for any down-ballot Republican who isn’t crazy, but I haven’t made my list or checked it twice.

I just hope 2024 is not a disaster for the country. It easily could turn out to be, and that scares the hell out of me.

Peotter the Election Conspiracist

I’ve written about the strange platform of Brian Peotter, the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate (see also a quick follow-up).

I’d missed an August article by Erik Maulbetsch mostly about Peotter’s wife, Melody, who is running for state senate as a Republican. The key thing to know about Melody is that she worked (works?) for Mike Lindell and is a conspiracy fantasist about the election. She also publicly promoted an antisemitic book by Gary Allen, one-time spokesperson for the John Birch Society.

Here’s what Maulbetsch writes about Brian:

Peotter’s husband is also an election-denying political candidate. Brian Peotter, the Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. Senate, posts regularly on the far-right social media platform Gab, including several statements promoting the Big Lie. He also posted his support for Gab founder Andrew Torba, who has endorsed his campaign.

Reached for comment, Brian Peotter acknowledged that Gab’s stance permitting any speech that isn’t explicitly illegal creates a platform filled with antisemitism and white nationalism that, he says, he doesn’t agree with, but he countered that “it bothers me that I can’t claim the election was stolen on Twitter.” . . .

Brian Peotter believes the election “was obviously taken from Trump,” at the very least via unconstitutional changes to state laws in swing states like Wisconsin that allowed mail ballots. He says he hasn’t seen evidence that Dominion Voting machines switched votes from Trump to Biden, as alleged by Mike Lindell and his Cause of America team, but says that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Brian Peotter plans on attending Lindell’s upcoming election fraud conspiracy conference, the Moment of Truth Summit, which takes place Aug. 20–21 in Missouri.

I asked Brian via Twitter if he attended the event. He replied, “Absolutely, it was really well done with plenty of patriots. Mike Lyndell is an American hero.”

Brian sent Maulbetsch the following remarks:

I do not believe in any conspiracy about the Jewish people or country controlling the world. I disavow Anti-Semites or other racists who believe any race to be better or worse than another. I believe all life to be precious, each and every life, born or unborn.

Okay, so Peotter only endorses certain conspiracy fantasies and not others. Apparently Colorado’s Republicans and Libertarians are in a contest to see who can nominate the craziest candidates.

In related news, Jason Salzman and Erik Maulbetsch have out an article on all the Colorado Republican election conspiracists.

Ganahl on School Vaccines

Heidi Ganahl issued a media release stating:

Today, the CDC’s independent advisory committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), will vote on whether to recommend updating the childhood immunization schedule to include the COVID vaccine. Regardless of their decision, and the possible recommendation of the CDC, Ganahl wants it made clear that, as governor, she will NOT mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for Colorado schools.

As far as I know, no one with any authority has recommended that Colorado children be required to get a Covid shot as a condition of attending public school. Certainly Polis has not done so. This release is basically Ganahl playing on anti-vax sentiments. To gain attention, she’s pretending that a Covid requirement is a serious possibility, when it is not.

Kyle Clark commented:

It’s rare for GOP candidates in swing state Colorado to amplify Fox News/conservative Facebook messaging day after day, but the Ganahl campaign is giving it a try this year.

Clark pointed to a Washington Post article that quotes Tucker Carlson: “The CDC is about to add the Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vax mandatory for kids to attend school.” But Carlson’s claim is bullshit. The Post reports, “The CDC cannot mandate that schoolchildren receive vaccines, a decision left up to states and jurisdictions, the agency and multiple public health officials said.”

The CDC, pointing to an external document, Tweeted:

Thursday, CDC's independent advisory committee (ACIP) will vote on an updated childhood immunization schedule. States establish vaccine requirements for school children, not ACIP or CDC.

The organization in fact “approved adding COVID-19 vaccines to the agency’s recommended immunization schedules for both children and adults” Reuters reports.

The Colorado Department of Health states:

Colorado law (Board of Health rule 6 CCR 1009-2) requires all students attending Colorado schools and licensed child cares to be vaccinated against certain diseases, unless an exemption is filed. The minimum number and spacing of doses is set forth in the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedules. Meeting the initial vaccine requirements does not excuse a student from meeting additional requirements. In addition to the vaccines required for school entry, there are several vaccines recommended by the ACIP that provide protection against other diseases. These include Meningococcal, Hepatitis A, Rotavirus, Human papillomavirus and Influenza.

Obviously, then, there is some relationship between the ACIP and state requirements but not a direct reliance.

The health rule in question lists eleven specific vaccines that children must get to attend school, unless their parents file for an exemption.

There simply is no serious push for mandating Covid vaccines. As with the “furries” issue, Ganahl keeps trying to get attention through fearmongering rather than by running a serious campaign. As Ganahl keeps demonstrating, there is no inoculation against incompetence.

Meanwhile, people concerned with the safety of the vaccines could try reading commentary from serious people rather than by bloviating fools.

Quick Takes

Kellner: Unsurprisingly, the Republican candidate for attorney general, John Kellner, also wants to “keep an eye on” the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons. I criticized AG Phil Weiser for threatening to interfere.

Weiser: I find it extraordinary that attorney generals from around the country, including Weiser, schmooze it up with corporate sponsors.

Conservatism: Jeff Hunt Tweeted, “Dr. Yoram Hazony called CCU students to live a conservative life. Reject liberal lifestyle. Get married, have children, honor your mother and father, transmit traditions and values between generations. This is what our students learn at CCU. We are DIFFERENT.” I replied, “I’d like to congratulate @jaredpolis [Governor Jared Polis] for living the traditional conservative lifestyle according to Jeff Hunt.”

Westminster PD: Westminster police made a hair-raising arrest October 19. The incident started with an attempted stop of someone on a motorcycle. “Citizens had reported the person driving was possibly involved with several burglaries of businesses in that area.” The driver drove off, crashed, and ran off. “The officer responded to the crash and located a hand gun and knife lying near the motorcycle.” “The registered owner had outstanding felony warrants for burglary, theft, weapons possession by a previous offender.” After issuing multiple warnings, the police unleashed a dog. Given the circumstances reported, this use of force seems well-justified (although I wonder if they could have tried harder not to send the dog).

A Tragic Crime: Two young perpetrators (ages 15 and 16) brought a gun into someone’s yard to try to steal his marijuana. The man told them to leave; one of the perpetrators opened fire; the home owner returned fire, killing one intruder and injuring the other. The DA ruled the shootings (by the homeowner) were self-defense, obviously the correct decision. Armed robbery is a very serious matter. It is a damn shame that one of these kids threw their life away over something so stupid.

Polis: Rob Natelson points out that Polis is no libertarian. This follows my paper, “The Tax and Regulate Reality Behind Governor Polis’s Libertarian Image.”

Prescriptions: Jason Crow says it’s “great news” that Congress now allows people to buy hearing aids without a prescription. He doesn’t mention that Congress is responsible for the interference in the first place. We still have to deal with the Congressionally mandated bureaucracy for far too many drugs and health items.

Auto Theft: Quoting Lisa Pasko of the University of Denver, Luke Zarzecki persuasively argues that some auto thefts are the result of people looking to use a car for temporary shelter and a place to do drugs. But Zarzecki oversells his case. A lot of auto thefts are just crimes for cash.

Bear Wrestling: A Wyoming wrestler wrestled a bear to save his friend.

Facebook: Ganahl “claims Facebook is censoring her ads. Facebook says the Ganahl campaign failed to attach a simple disclaimer and offered the campaign tech support to fix it,” Kyle Clark reports.

Martin: Erik Maulbetsch reports: “Rep. Stephanie Luck's policy director Carolyn Martin, who is also @CHEC_homeschool’s [Christian Home Educators of Colorado] govt relations dir, has another title: Politics & Policy Leader of Joe Oltmann’s extremist conspiracy group @FEC_United.” This is really bad. The last thing homeschoolers need is to be linked even indirectly to Oltmann’s group.

Police: A now-former Denver police officer “is accused of pulling his girlfriend's hair and then pointing a gun at friends while intoxicated,” Jeremy Jojola relates.