Dear Editor,

We are FOR:

• Democratic principles as written in the Constitution (including the right to peaceful protest)

• Eliminating government waste, fraud and abuse

• Strong but humane border policies

• Safe & secure elections

• Access to affordable healthcare

• Quality, unbiased public education

• Common sense gun laws (e.g. background checks on gun purchasers)

• Clean air, water and development of renewable energy sources

• Reproductive rights

• Civil rights and ending oppression

• Equal treatment under the law regardless of race, gender, religion, etc.

• Community Center sustainability

• Community Wildfire Protection Plan

• School lunches and reducing food insecurity

• Professional, accessible and sustainable childcare

• Sheriff’s Office, Timberline Fire and related First Responders

• Road maintenance and improvements

We are AGAINST:

• The President as Czar *

• Selectively ignoring the judicial branch *

• Complicity of the Senate *

• Corruption such as granting government contracts to cronies *

• Firing Inspectors General who perform actual audits (including audits of contracts with cronies) *

• Callously firing government employees

• Canceling agencies, contracts and grants without regard to public health and national security concerns (NOAA, USPS, FAA, FBI, CIA, CISA, HHS, VA, USAID etc.)

• Accessing private citizens’ IRS and Social Security data *

• Reducing taxes for the top 5% and increasing taxes on the bottom 95%

• Claiming to address the national debt while proposing to increase it

• Attempting to force the surrender of Ukraine

• Aligning with Russia and North Korea at the UN *

• Threats to medical care for Veterans and people with limited financial resources

• Nominating incompetent, unqualified talking heads to Cabinet positions

• Purging competent military leadership and replacing them with loyalists *

• Abandoning our closest allies and threatening Canada, Panama and Greenland

• Tariffs on our largest trading partners and allies

• Developing Gaza into a resort and displacing its citizens

• Directing cruel, de-humanizing rhetoric towards certain members of society *

• Extorting the press/media *

• Threats of using the military against citizens *

* Elements of a fascist agenda

Phil Gibbs

Chair, Gilpin County Democratic Party

Black Hawk