My regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will recall my regular indignation at the hypocrisy of a certain political party, about which I’ve written many times. And so, as I sat down to write this dispatch, I first thought I might write about a recent Colorado Politics story involving yet another shocking, yet not entirely surprising, bit of news about Colorado’s most junior member of congress, Lauren Boebert. It seems she clean forgot to mention (as she is required by law to do) the nearly $1 million that her hubby got in payments from an energy firm over a two-year period, which included her run for the House. Now, having run for Congress myself back in 2008, I am very familiar with the big stack of documents you get sent to fill out about your income, tax payments, debts, and such. I admit, as I had only just retired from the Air Force after a bit over 25 years of active duty, it didn’t take me long to fill out the forms, as I had never become wealthy while on the government payroll.  I didn’t have a million dollars I forgot about.

Boebert seems to have, well, overlooked the huge payments her family received from an industry critical to her congressional district. Go figure. I know, I know, lots of us have forgotten about getting a million here, a million there, so maybe I should move on. But hypocrisy noted.

I next thought I’d write about the very convenient amnesia that seems to be endemic in the Republican Party when it comes to the recent troubles in Afghanistan. These folks seem to also suffer from short term memory loss, as they don’t remember when a certain former president sent his own secretary of state to meet with Taliban leaders to sign an agreement to end US involvement in that war. They somehow don’t recall that Trump freed the guy who is now the so-called new president of Afghanistan, along with freeing about 5,000 other Taliban fighters. Heck, Trump even bragged about the deal and how it would tie the hands of his successor and force the US withdrawal to continue regardless. But I’m not going to write about any of that…

Instead, I want to write about noxious weeds.

I won’t claim to be unbiased when it comes to a recent Colorado Politics story about my old boss, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. I worked for him for four years, doing vet and military casework primarily, and I have enormous respect for a guy who gets elected and then keeps his nose to the grindstone without first checking to see if there was a TV camera pointed at said grindstone. We in Colorado have had quite a few such elected officials, frankly from both sides of the aisle, who work hard rather than strut around (cough…Ted Cruz…cough). We had great governors in the Bills (Ritter and Owens) as well as the current guy who is doing great. Senator Gardner was a workhorse (when he wasn’t getting too close to Trump) as was Udall, and Bennet is perhaps the best example we’ve seen so far.

I thought of my old boss when I read the story wherein Bennet, was actually out in the rural counties of our great state, as he often is. He met with business leaders, outdoor folks, local government officials, ranchers, and more to talk about his Outdoor Restoration Act legislation. Bennet is pushing hard for this package that would get billions of much needed dollars to the folks that need them and who face a number of rural challenges, not the least of which is wildfire. 

While the west coast fires are getting much of the national media’s attention, we have our own fires here in Colorado that are very significant. And it goes beyond fires merely cutting off access for people wanting to camp and hike, although that certainly happens. More importantly, the local officials note that fires also cut off access to key sources of drinking water. Fire-ravaged areas also have little left to hold back rainwater when it falls. The resulting silt and other runoff issues further complicate the water issue. And you get the growth of noxious weeds after fire and soil stabilization efforts that cost even more money to deal with.  Heck, Bennet learned from the supervisor of the Medicine Bow Routt National Forest and Thunder Basin Grasslands that the Forest Service had, over the last five years, spent $190 million on wildfires alone, which is more than ten times his “regular” budget. 

These are massive, yet unsexy, problems that not too many elected officials want to spend much time on. We are lucky to have Bennet, because he is one of those few guys who really like to deep dive into the policy issues and implications of government action (and inaction). Senator Tom Cotton, for example, got a bunch of national news TV time recently when he attacked President Biden for the situation in Afghanistan, but only after invoking the national GOP’s credo of apathy, anger, and amnesia. Bennet did not appear on TV to discuss funding for noxious weed control efforts. But I posit that in the long run, Colorado is much better off for having a workhorse, or rather, a set of workhorses. You won’t see them on TV much, but they will get things done.