Photo: Owen Hill Speaks At Saturday’s Roe v. Wade Protest

Sunday's Denver Post included a story about protests that occurred Saturday marking the 41st anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision, which established the right of American women to abortion of unwanted pregnancies. The story goes into some detail about the fact that the battle over abortion in Colorado is ramping up yet again, with a Republican-sponsored bill to ban all abortions introduced in the state legislature, and yet another flavor of the "personhood" abortion ban headed for the statewide ballot this November.

For as much useful background on abortion politics that Christopher Osher's story supplies readers, he focuses almost exclusively on the protest organized Saturday by the Catholic Church–making only the briefest of mentions of another protest, organized by Colorado Right to Life, "at the state Capitol." The problem is, that protest was certainly the event more relevant to the political backstory Osher lays out. Frustratingly, we've not been able to find any coverage of the CRTL protest, not even on the organization's own websites and social media. If anyone has links to coverage of this event, please give us them in comments or email us, and we'll update this post.

What we do know is that hard core anti-abortion group Colorado Right to Life held a protest at the state capitol on Saturday, and that the keynote speaker at this event was none other than Republican U.S. Senate candidate Owen Hill. We know that only due to this photo, sent to us from the event via a passer-by:

With all due respect to Archbishop Samuel Aquila, shouldn't this be part of the story? Our guess is Hill is trying as hard as he can to pump up his pro-life credentials while Ken Buck and Amy Stephens flail away at each other. That said, it may honestly be that Owen Hill's so-far minor Senate candidacy just doesn't rate much coverage.

But somebody tell us what Hill had to say to that horrifying little doll, who is also nowhere to be found in news coverage.

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About That Broncos Game Gun Protest…

Photos emailed to us from yesterday's Gun Rights Across America protest at the state capitol in Denver, which occurred just before yesterday's AFC Championship game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots, would seem to reinforce the idea that the timing of this event was less than ideal.

In response to a brief Denver Post blog post mentioning the rally's difficult timing, the national Gun Rights Across America organization responded indignantly–where are your priorities, Denver?

Dear Denver Post:

Since you feel that football is more important than standing up for our nations rights, we truly hope your Broncos get their asses kicked. [Pols emphasis]

Sincerely,

GRAA

P.S. We're still coming. See y'all in a few hours.

In maximum fairness to the organizers of yesterday's protest, there is one photo on their Facebook page in which we were perhaps able to make out fifty people in attendance. Organizers estimate 200, but there is simply no evidence to support anything near that count. And in a Facebook post today, GRAA-Colorado lashes out at their "supporters" for the poor attendance:

Paleaseee, quit sending me messages about the rally was not advertised enough or that it was not scheduled properly. This has been in the works for almost a year. Im tired of your excuses when we all know your decision was to watch the football game over your gun rights. If it makes feel good about your decision quit whining to us that you did not attend because it was scheduled wrong. I have been attacked for over a week by my so called patriot gun owning brothers on here and id like you to quit whining now. The true patriots were at the rally standing up for their rights. And dont while about your politicians anymore, they were there yesterday also speaking. As far as I Am concerned if you werent sick, at work, etc, i dont want to hear yiur excuses anymore about your gun rights…

Better luck next time, we guess. Also, the Broncos are headed to the Super Bowl.

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Gun Protest Or AFC Championship? Easy Call

A flyer now circulating for a protest to be held on the steps of the Colorado Capitol this Sunday at high noon:

According to Gun Rights Across America's Facebook page, Sunday's rally is set to be attended by a slew of 2014 Republican political candidates, including Sens. Greg Brophy and Owen Hill, Ken Buck, Tom Tancredo, and many others.

But then the Denver Post's Kurtis Lee took note of a big and kind of obvious problem:

Gun rally is from Noon- 2pm. Kickoff of the #Broncos game is 1pm Sun. #NotAGoodLook #copolitics (2/2)

— Kurtis Lee (@kurtisalee) January 14, 2014

As every Colorado resident not living under a rock knows, the Denver Broncos are in the NFL playoffs, and Sunday at 1PM they'll kick off the AFC championship game at Mile High Stadium against the New England Patriots. Now presumably, of course, this rally was scheduled well in advance of the Broncos making the playoffs–and even if it wasn't, you can't expect these American patriots (note small p) to just stand down while their constitutional rights are being ripped out of their beating chests by godless liberals and paraded before their eyes! With that said, you have to wonder if the organizers of Sunday's rally weren't quietly rooting for the San Diego Chargers last Sunday.

Is it too late to rent a Jumbotron? Otherwise, turnout seems likely to suffer–and not at Mile High.

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Thou Doth Protest Too Much, Bernie Herpin

A joint press release today from Colorado Springs GOP usual suspects Jeff Crank and Laura Carno, the latter being the head of a group that helped fund the recall attempt against Senate President John Morse, announces a complaint against the ad you see above, claiming the ad makes "reckless and false" statements about SD-11 recall successor candidate Bernie Herpin. Excerpt:

Jeff Crank and Laura Carno, with legal analysis in hand, today have asked four Colorado Springs television stations to remove television commercials that contain “false and reckless statements”.  These ads have been produced and paid for by “We Can Do Better”.

The ads in question contain false statements against Republican Candidate for Senate District 11, Bernie Herpin, stating that he supports the Personhood Amendment, when in fact, he does not.

“I’ve fought untruthful ads run by candidates from both political parties for many years now but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such an absolute lie in a political ad.  People have little faith in politicians because of untrue, dishonest ads like this one.  The law is fairly clear that you cannot “knowingly” broadcast a lie,” said Jeff Crank.   “The group that put out this ad knows that there is no evidence that Bernie Herpin supported the Personhood Amendment yet they tied him to another candidate who does.  They lied and they knew they lied.  Under the law, these ads must be taken off the air and I call on John Morse and Angela Giron to have the guts to condemn these untruthful, despicable, exploitative ads.”

Laura Carno said, “This is about integrity in the public square. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, who lie in order to win, should reconsider their careers.  Voters want elected officials who tell the truth, and that includes telling the truth during their campaigns.”

This is an interesting development, but we don't think it was wise to challenge this ad for several reasons. First and foremost, as we discussed earlier this week, Herpin answered a Pikes Peak Citizens for Life candidate questionnaire just this past April, where he proudly claims to be pro-life, and says that we "become persons" at the "single cell" stage of development. As we noted, that's almost exactly the language of the "Personhood" amendments from 2008 and 2010. 2008's Amendment 48 stated that "the terms 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization." In 2010, Amendment 62's language was that "the term 'person' shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." The negative effects of the "Personhood" initiative as described in the ad above are not enumerated in the one-sentence language of the amendments, but would be the net effect of passage.

Secondly, Crank and Carno appear to jettison the other recall successor candidate, SD-3's George Rivera, by claiming this ad "tied" Herpin to "another candidate" who does support the "Personhood" initiatives. Angela Giron's SD-3 is a Democratic stronghold, where support for "Personhood" is likely to hurt even worse than it would in Morse's swing SD-11. But not only are Carno and Crank unconcerned about Rivera, they're actually triangulating off Rivera and his unabashed support for "Personhood" and banning abortion.

In short, you've got a dubious challenge to a claim that, even if it's flawed and we don't think it is, inevitably segues into a conversation about abortion that Bernie Herpin doesn't want to have. Once Herpin is forced to explain these candidate questionnaire responses, Crank and Carno's claim that this ad is "false and reckless" simply breaks down. And to "save" Herpin from an allegation that actually does have basis in fact, El Paso County Republicans are throwing the Pueblo Republican recall candidate under the wheels.

Bottom line: we think they are genuinely worried about this.

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