The Colorado State Open Thread is designed to highlight items of interest to people who want a taste of the high country — Colorado, IIRC, has the highest average elevation of any of the lower 48 states, and, with the legalization of marijuana so long ago, making Colorado the first state to (by state law) allow the sale of marijuana for recreational purposes, Colorado may have the highest percentage of marijuana, hemp and CBD users in any of the lower 48 as well. Come on in to the diary, no need to worry about no-smoking and no-toking ordinances here, and pull up a keyboard to comment.
That being said, I don’t plan on having any portions of this diary devoted to Reefer Madness. I will leave that to all of you who have survived the various 4-20 celebrations. Last week, I skipped the photo contest of the week so that I could put up a beautiful photo of the fresh snow on the valleys and peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park. As I type this around 2AM on 5/2, more snow is falling and I likely have a similar view (if it wasn’t pitch black outside). I’ll have to see what the morning brings. We’ll start fresh with the image posted above.
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Wolves have made some news here in Colorado over the last several months. A few wolves, maybe even a small pack, made their way down from Wyoming into our state, bred a few pups, and apparently killed at least two cows up in the North Park area. I think they’re still there or out farther west past Steamboat, but people are not sure. Within the last week, however, there was a video posted online by a Sheriff in Park County, far away from the northern border, who claimed that there was a pack of wolves in his county chasing after elk and he was close, but he didn’t win the cigar. www.newsbreak.com/… If you go to the link, you can see the video but it also is clear that an investigation proved that this wasn’t a wolfpack on the prowl. It was a pack of St. Bernards that belonged to a local rancher who sometimes let them run free. Honestly, to me, those don’t look like St. Bernards in the video; they look more to me like a small pack of coyotes, wolves or some other leaner style of dog, but they are seen from a distance and the quality of the image isn’t good enough to tell definitively. If you read the article, you can see where the identification comes from, and I can’t argue with the Dept. of Parks and Wildlife. The Sheriff cried “wolf” and sure stirred up a bit of a kerfluffle.
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A bird of a different feather took wing and flew thousands of miles away from Colorado as part of the Congressional delegation to Kyiv to visit with and show support to President Volodymr Zelenskyy.
Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado, a veteran and a member of the House intelligence and armed services committee, said he came to Ukraine with three areas of focus: “Weapons, weapons and weapons.”
“We have to make sure the Ukrainians have what they need to win. What we have seen in the last two months is their ferocity, their intense pride, their ability to fight and their ability to win if they have the support to do so.”
“The United States of America is in this to win, and we will stand with Ukraine until victory is won,” he added.
I’m actually glad Zelenskyy was able to not post a video or any pictures of the Congressional delegation until after they left. Unlike how the Republican Senators posted live tweets while Zelenskyy was speaking to Congress, jeopardizing Zelenskyy’s specific security request not to. I have no doubts the Republicans including our own Lauren Boebert, she of the “The Speaker has left the chamber” tweet during the riot on 1/6/2020, would have been delighted to try and sacrifice our Speaker yet again.
Speaking of Boebert, while her Colorado colleague was risking his life supporting Democracy and Freedom, Ms. Boebert was submitting a bill to prevent TSA from upgrading their equipment for scanning passengers. Was this to suggest that TSA wouldn’t properly use the upgraded equipment or there was something wrong with it? No. It was because the improvements are to help TSA screeners when dealing with people with an “X” gender designation on their government ID. Apparently, there have been problems which result in a higher number of body searches for those who may have confusing anatomy compared to their outward appearance. The machines can be improved to help in those situations, but Boebert and the rest of the worst of the Republicans prefer to embarrass, harass and otherwise waste time and money just to make LGBTQ+ travelers hate their gender and otherwise be made to feel bad by the meanies in the TSA. No, of course Ms. Boebert will never be subject to that treatment — only “others” will ever be treated poorly.
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Quick note — Ken Buck, Republican party chairman in Colorado, said he expects that there will be legislation submitted for an Impeachment of President Biden when the Republicans retake the House this November. He’s on the Judiciary Committee and while he didn’t say he would vote for Impeachment, because that would be improper to say so now, he did expect that a bill for Impeachment would likely come out of the Judiciary Committee and go before the full House.
In case you were wondering, Ms. Boebert submitted bills last year trying to Impeach Biden for the exit from Afghanistan, a bill to impeach VP Harris for “betrayal of the public trust” and another to express disapproval of Biden for failing to carry out his duties of upholding the Constitution and carrying out the laws as he swore the oath of office to do. She has submitted 30 bills (the link goes to her Congressional website) and zero have been passed by the House.
Well, I could go on. But it’s now 3:30 and I really should get my 3 hours of sleep. Feel free to comment below, including what you think the photograph is of. Don’t forget, I welcome additional photos for upcoming editions. The floor is yours...