As I sit down to write my twice-weekly columns, I am usually full to bursting with ideas on a story that has appeared in Colorado Politics, a story upon which I feel the need to pontificate and, well, often bluster.

Today is not one of those days.

Instead, I find that there are several CP stories that I want to comment on, as well as a national news story that my kindly editors allow me to occasionally slip in, as long as I mostly talk about Colorado stuff.

Like Russell Wilson — I know lots of people, including me, are very excited about Wilson taking over, and I’m so glad we dodged a bullet on Aaron Rogers, whose vaccine attitude and approach to honesty leave a great deal to be desired. Wilson looks like a solid citizen, and wow, it is going to be great.

Which, of course, brings me to a major story on CNN (see how I slipped that by my editors?) (Ed: not so much…) that tells us about a group of solid and distinguished conservatives that have issued a 72-page report, rebutting each and every one of the previous president’s lies about the 2020 election. These renowned conservatives examined more than 60 court cases where Trump lost based on his fraud claims (often with Trump-appointed judges) and the six key battleground states that Trump lost, and conclude with complete certainty that the election was not stolen, there was no major fraud, and Joe Biden won. I find this very interesting because I have oft posited that, as was the case with Nixon in 1974, more and more Republicans will peel away from Team Trump. This report will give even more of them cover to return to reality.

One person who likely will stick with Trump is Colorado’s own Lauren Boebert, who appeared in a CP story for a seemingly non-political reason, the loss of the lease on her Rifle restaurant. Now, I have been clear here before that I find her politics reprehensible and that she herself is utterly unqualified to hold office. I’m guessing that most of us would not select, say, a high school dropout with a GED to perform surgery on you, or pull a tooth, but she has been empowered by the voters in western Colorado to help draft laws and such. Terrible.

But, and I must say this is a rare thing for me, I just might need to stick up for Boebert on one thing — the loss of the lease. The CP story reports that she lost her lease for reasons that are at best “murky,” and that she was shocked when her landlord refused to renew. The story reports that the landlord felt a “moral imperative” to stop Boebert’s business. Now, if you own a building, you can rent it to whomever you wish, but you don’t get to discriminate against a possible lessee for reasons like race, gender and such. Though I find her politics abhorrent, if she was refused a lease on the basis of her political beliefs, I might just have a problem with that. OK, I’m done defending Boebert.

But while we are still out in the glory that is western Colorado let’s also take a peek at another CP story about the goings-on in Mesa County. You likely know the tale regarding Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, and her crazy claims regarding voter fraud. You may also recall that she has been criminally charged with 10 criminal counts regarding her own alleged election tampering. She was released on bond, in part because she was running for Colorado Secretary of State, and it’s tough to campaign when you are in jail. But one condition of her bail was that she’s not to travel out of state without permission once the GOP primary was over. Peters either didn’t read her own court documents or chose to blow them off, and she ventured out of state. A Mesa County judge was not amused, and an arrest warrant has been issued for her. This is yet another example, in my view, of the Trumpian mindset that laws apply to other people and not to the “select” folks who still believe the big lie. Turns out, breaking the law has consequences, even if you are a clerk and recorder in Mesa County.

Oh, and it turns out that Peters is also contesting her loss in the GOP primary. She claims, as reported in another CP story, that since she got 61% of the delegate vote at the state GOP assembly (which means little, if your opponents are focusing on petitioning on the ballot) and because she claims she won lots of straw polls, in a very Trumpian way, she asserts that she cannot have lost, because, you know, that stuff!

If you are at all savvy in the ways our political parties select their nominees, you know that Peters’ claims are stunningly naïve and shallow. But what really got her in hot water was that this new demand for a recount came in the form of a document that she got notarized. So far, so good. But the notary she used was in Clark County, Nevada. Yup, a person with a legal order not to travel out of state documented her own violation of that order in a letter sent to the state Secretary of State from out of state. Brilliant move.

Perhaps next Tuesday I’ll again find only a single CP article upon which to churn out my own brand of political commentary, but until then, please do check out the CP stories noted above.

We live in interesting times.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.